The Hallowed Ones

* * *

The Elders crowded into our kitchen, listening as Ginger recounted her story.

I noted that Ginger kept her story closely aligned with the truth. She clasped her hands in front of her on the table, telling them earnestly how it was God’s providence that she had found the car charger buried in the junk under her seat. I corroborated her story, feeling guilty for throwing her to the wolves, but not wanting any of the attention to fall on me or my wanderings Outside.

“I don’t know what to believe,” she whispered. “Dan says that there are monsters out there. Vampires.”

The Elders traded glances.

“And you said that he told you that people on holy ground are safe?” the Bishop asked her again.

“Yes,” Ginger said. “As long as the evil doesn’t find a way in.”

I looked down at my shoes.

The Bishop nodded. He and the other Elders stepped outside to confer privately.

I stared through the kitchen window. I could see a smoke plume at the horizon where the cows were burning, like some offering to one of Alex’s old gods.

Alex. My jaw tightened at the thought of him, and my palms began to sweat.

My father leaned against the table, rubbing his brow. My mother went to him, touched his sleeve. “Was it bad?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes.”

Her gaze rested on Ginger. “Do you believe her?” Her fingers tightened on his sleeve.

My father frowned. “I will believe what the Elders tell us to believe.”

The Elders returned to the kitchen, their heavy footsteps creaking the floorboards. The Bishop stared long and hard at Ginger before he spoke: “There will be no more discussion of vampires. Or the Outside. Is this clear?”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“You will surrender your cell phone, and it will be destroyed.”

Ginger gasped. She blurted: “But that’s the last lifeline I have to my husband, my children . . .”

The Bishop was unmoved. “It is a link to Outside. If you want to stay, it must be destroyed. Otherwise”—the Bishop shrugged and looked out the window—“you are welcome to leave.”

Ginger squeezed her eyes shut, and tears dripped down her pale face. They tapped on the tabletop for a long minute before she finally agreed: “Okay.”

“Go get it.”

Ginger pushed away from the table, went upstairs to collect it. I could hear her footsteps on the wood above me, and my heart ached for her. This seemed such an unnecessary cruelty.

I opened my mouth, but my father shook his head. There was no undoing this.

Ginger slowly descended the stairs with her phone in her hands. She placed it before her on the table.

The Bishop nodded to one of the other Elders. He swept it to the floor and stomped on it. I could hear the crunch and shatter of plastic parts as the pieces skittered across the floor.

I put my arm around Ginger as she sobbed. The Bishop opened the back door to the throng of Plain men and women who had gathered in our backyard. They knew that something had happened, and I could hear the thickness of the rumors buzzing through them. I saw the Hexenmeister at the fringes, leaning on his cane. Elijah stared hard at the kitchen door, Ruth and Herr Miller flanking him. I looked away. The Elders would tell them all what was happening. I could feel the weight of guilt already being removed from me. One less secret to keep.

The Elders stepped down to the yard, the Bishop at the center.

“Brothers and sisters,” the Bishop began. “Thank you for your concern. But there is no need to panic. God is with us. We have nothing to fear.”

“But there is an Outsider among us,” Elijah grumbled loudly. I shot him a murderous look. “An Outsider who speaks of vampires.”

The crowd murmured.

The Bishop lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “We should offer our sympathies to the woman. The stress of the last week’s events has caused her mind to become unhinged. She imagines fearsome things, things that are not real.”

I gasped, stared at Ginger beside me at the table. Her face crumpled.

“She deserves our sympathy and our charity and our prayers that she should be restored to sound mind in accordance with God’s will.”

Another man shouted from the back. “What about the cattle?”

The Bishop shook his head. “Wolves. They have become bold. I entreat those of you with animals to keep them in the barns at night, to keep them safe.”

My hands balled into fists. The Bishop was lying to them. I moved forward, but Ginger grabbed my wrist.

“Don’t,” she hissed. “Better that they think I’m crazy than both of us dead.”

“But . . . we’re all in danger!” I whispered back.

She grasped my hand and squeezed it. Hard. “No. Be quiet.”

I bristled. All my life, people had been telling me to be quiet. To obey. And it had never gotten me anywhere.

I took a deep breath and stepped forward to face the crowd.

The Hexenmeister hobbled forward with his cane before I could speak. He faced the Elders. “The Darkness is coming.”

The Bishop glared at him. “There is no Darkness, except for the poisonous thoughts of Outside.”

The Hexenmeister pointed at the smoke plume in the distant field. “The Darkness is here. Someone has let it in.”

“We are safe. God has chosen us . . .” the Bishop began.

The Hexenmeister had the temerity to interrupt him. “God has chosen those who will not listen to die.”

He turned around and stumped away from the gathering. The crowd parted to let him, leaving the Bishop to fume impotently on our back step.

Chapter Sixteen

Nachtesse was brutally silent that night.

My mother and father did not speak, and Ginger sat at the table, staring at her chicken casserole. We were out of butter and ate our biscuits plain. Sarah, oblivious, filled the void with chatter until she realized that no one was responding. She settled down to push her casserole around with her fork, quiet like the rest of us.

After we ate, my father retired to his favorite chair by the fire to read the Bible to Sarah. Ginger slipped upstairs to go to bed. I wished that I could have done something to soothe her, but I could not have predicted today’s events. I only know that I felt pity for her.

I helped my mother with the dishes, washing and rinsing while she dried. We worked mechanically until she spoke.

“I know it’s difficult, liewe,” she said.

I stared down at the dish that I scrubbed. I doubted that she understood any part of what I was going through.

She kept going. “I was jealous, once, of a girl your father used to know. She was a nurse.”

I looked sidelong at her. Hard to imagine my father casting an eye at anyone other than my mother. “Oh?”

“Yes. Her name was Mindy. She was much more intelligent than I was. Better spoken.” She rubbed at a spot I’d missed with a striped dishtowel. “She was prettier, too.”

I crinkled my forehead. Mindy wasn’t a traditional Amish biblical name. “How did he meet her?”