“Me, too.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the dogs and wondering what was going on. The temperature continued to drop—not enough that they could see their breath in the air, but enough to make them both uncomfortable. When Esther reached for her tea, hoping that it would warm her up, she noticed that the flames were dancing atop the candles, as if blown by a slight breeze.
“Did you see that?”
“The candles?” Now Myrtle was whispering, too.
“Yes. I reckon you must have left a door or window open.”
“No,” Esther insisted, “they’re all closed. I closed them as soon as the cats came in for the evening.”
Outside, the frenzied howls suddenly stopped as if someone had flicked a switch.
***
Levi Stoltzfus was asleep when the power went out. He lay on his back, legs straight, arms folded across his stomach, snoring softly. He dreamed of a girl in a cornfield. Her light, melodic laughter drifted to him as she danced through the rustling, upright rows, always staying two steps ahead of him. He wanted to catch her. Wanted to hold her to him, out here in the middle of the field where nobody could see them. He wanted to smell her scent and feel her skin. He wanted to run his hands through the long, blonde hair she kept hidden beneath the mesh-knit bun on her head.
She danced out of sight again, and Levi called her name. Her laughter came to him once more, borne on the summer breeze. The cornstalks swayed around him. Grinning, Levi continued the chase.
But when he finally caught up with her, he saw that something else had found her first. She lay on the ground, eyes open but unseeing, legs splayed, dress torn, skin the color of cream, and there was blood. So much blood. Too much . . .
Levi’s eyes snapped open just as the electricity died. He did not scream or shout. In fact, he made no sound at all. But the girl’s name was on his lips and her memory left him shaken and drenched in sweat.
He sat up, semi-alert, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Until the dream, his rest had been a good one, but not nearly long enough. He’d been on the road all day, riding along eight hours’ worth of West Virginia back roads. (There was no way he could take the buggy onto a major highway or Interstate.) He was sore and tired. More importantly, his horse, Dee, had also been sore and tired. Levi had been grateful when he came across the bed- and-breakfast in Brinkley Springs, and he was certain that Dee had been grateful, too.
He became aware that there were dogs howling outside. Yawning, Levi glanced around the unfamiliar room and tried to get his bearings in the dark. Mrs. Laudry, who had insisted that he call her Esther, had pointed out the digital alarm clock on the nightstand when she’d shown him the room earlier. When he looked for it now, he saw that it was dead. There had been a light on out in the hallway. He remembered the soft glow creeping under his door before he’d gone to sleep. Now, the light was extinguished.
Downstairs, he heard the murmur of voices. Both were female. After a moment, he recognized one as Mrs. Laudry. He assumed the other must be her friend Mrs. Danbury. He decided that it would be better not to let them know he was awake. Levi had no doubt that Mrs. Danbury would jump at the chance to pepper him with questions about his supposed faith. Like most, she’d automatically assumed that he was Amish, even after he’d denied it. Levi had always found such assumptions mildly irritating. He’d tried explaining to people over and over again that he was no longer Amish, but after all this time, they still insisted on referring to him as such. They never understood that he simply preferred the long beard of his former people and enjoyed adhering still to their plain dress code—black pants and shoes, a white button-down shirt, suspenders and a black dress coat, topped off with a wide-brimmed straw hat. Why should his mode of dress and method of transport matter to people? Why should they find it so odd? He drove a horse and buggy because it was more economical than a gas-guzzling SUV. And because Dee was one of his closest constant companions (along with his faithful dog, Crowley, who was back home).
Yes, he had been Amish at one time, but that was long ago. Levi didn’t like to dwell on it. In truth, his excommunication from the church and his professed faith still chafed at Levi’s pride, even after all this time. When he was cast out, it had cost him everything—his love, his friends, his community. Still, he’d had no choice. He did what the Lord expected of him, using the talents the Lord had given him. If the church didn’t see that, then so be it. He just wished it didn’t hurt so bad.
He’d tried to fit in among the “civilian world” (as he often thought of it), but soon discovered that he was an outsider there, as well. Away from the Amish, he was nothing more than a curiosity. An oddity. He was pointed at and discussed behind his back. He didn’t fit in among the English (the term his fellow Amish used to describe people not of their faith). Levi didn’t like being an outsider. He didn’t like being alone. But like everything else in life, it was God’s will, and Levi’s cross to bare. Sometimes, the weight grew so heavy . . .
He was no longer Amish. Now, he was something else, and it was that something else that he didn’t need Myrtle Danbury discovering. She’d introduced herself as an author, and the foyer of Mrs. Laudry’s bed-and-breakfast had featured several of the woman’s books on display—slim, cheaply produced trade paperbacks with garish lettering on the covers. A quick glance had told Levi everything he needed to know. The subjects ranged from healing crystals to channeling ancient Lemurian deities. Mrs. Danbury was a New Ager, the bane of Levi’s existence. Nothing annoyed Levi more than New Age amateur mystics, except for maybe Evangelical Christians. In his experience, the majority of both were hypocrites and con artists, wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing, preying on those who refused to think for themselves and discern God’s truths from mankind’s lies. In Levi’s opinion, that was the problem with religion in general. The Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, Satanists, pagans, Hindus, Cthulhu cultists, Scientologists and every other religious group or cult, no matter how big or how small, thought that their way was the right way. In reality, none of them had it completely right, for it was not meant for them to know all of the universe’s secrets. They fought each other, killed each other, committed atrocities against each other, all in the name of their particular god or gods, without any understanding of just how wrong—how completely off base—they really were.
New Agers were the worst. At times in life’s journey, when the Lord gave him a task to complete, Levi had needed the assistance of other occultists and magicians, those not given to practicing the same disciplines that he followed. Levi had always seen this as a necessary evil. The old adage, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” quite often applied. But no matter how dire the situation or its consequences, he had never sought help from the crystal-worshipping, herbal-supplementing, Atlantean-spirit-channeling crowd. And deep down inside, Levi knew that even if he had, they wouldn’t have welcomed him. Even the New Agers would have turned their backs on him.
In the end, Levi always walked his road alone, even among the splintered ranks of occultism’s lunatic fringe. He was a stranger to everyone but himself . . . and God.
Outside, the howling increased, disturbing his maudlin ruminations. Their cries grew more frenzied. Levi wondered what was going on. He reached out to the nightstand and fumbled for his cell phone, which he’d plugged in to charge before he went to sleep. Like everything else in his life, the cell phone was often a point of confusion among those who assumed he was still Amish. He wondered what they expected him to use instead. A carrier pigeon? Two paper cups tied together with string? Telepathy? Actually, he had used telepathy a handful of times in his life. He tried to avoid it as much as possible, however, because he didn’t like the nosebleeds that came with it.
All at once, the dogs stopped howling. Somehow, the silence seemed worse than the noise had been.
Levi flipped open the cell phone and was surprised to see that it was dead. If there had just been no service, he could have understood. His service had been spotty for the last three days, ever since entering the mountains. But there was no power whatsoever—no backlight, no time, not even a tone when he experimentally pushed the buttons. He wondered if a power surge could have done it, and glanced at the electrical outlet in the wall. He could barely make it out in the gloom, but from what he could tell, there was no cause for alarm. The outlet wasn’t smoking or sparking.
Levi slid out of bed and shivered as his bare feet hit the floor. Was it his imagination, or had it grown noticeably colder in the room? Gooseflesh prickled his arms and the back of his neck. He stood up, walked quickly to the small, plain dresser and opened the top drawer. He quickly pulled on his clothes and shoes. He patted the pocket over his left breast and felt a reassuring bulge where his dog-eared and battered copy of
