Copyright
© 2012 by Laura Bickle
CHAPTER 1
After the end of the Outside
world, the Plain folk survived.
At the time, I didn’t
know that the end of Outside had happened. None of us really did. We knew that
something was wrong, of course. That knowledge trickled in slowly, like a leak
in a roof. The signs accumulated, and then there was no denying the dark stain
spreading over the pale ceiling of our world.
My first inkling was on a day in
late September under a cloudless blue sky. The ravens had begun picking at the
corn that was drying in the fields, black specks in the gold. I leaned on the
wooden fence post, watching the birds scratch and listening to them caw to one
another in their inscrutable hoarse language. The wire fence was pierced here
by a wooden gate, to move farm equipment and cattle. This was a remote part of
our little settlement of Plain people, but it made a good place to get away
from chores and parents.
Beside me, Elijah had picked up a
rock to scare the birds away.
“Don’t throw that,” I said,
automatically. “It’s mean.”
Elijah looked at the stone,
shrugged, put it down. He was a year older than me, but he would do anything I
asked. Tall and lanky and sunburned from working outdoors, he cut a handsome
figure: dark hair and hazel eyes that crinkled when he smiled. I wasn’t sure
what I thought about that yet. We had grown up together. But things were
changing. We both could feel it.
He leaned against the fence
beside me, staring out at the field. I knew what he was looking at, the same
thing I was . . . at what lay beyond the field. At the black ribbon of road
just beyond the corn that carried the English to and from their business
Outside. They drove their shiny cars down the two-lane highway, intent on going
home or to work or school. At this distance, we could barely make out the
drivers. Sometimes men or women drove boxy sedans in pressed suits and blouses.
Often they would be couples with children strapped into harnesses in the back
seat. Other times the drivers would be people around our age, talking on their
phones or chatting with friends in the passenger seat. We were too far away to
see their expressions. But during the summer, with the windows down, we could
sometimes hear snippets of their laughter.
Since the time we were children,
Elijah and I had made up stories about the people in the cars. We imagined that
they were driving to the movies or going to parties. Once, we spied a sleek
black limousine and fancied that it contained men in tuxedos and women in
evening dresses. Maybe a group going to prom. It was as far away from our
everyday world as we could envision.
“Someday that’s going to be us
out there,” Elijah said, gesturing with his chin toward the road.
“Soon. Three more weeks.” I’d
been daydreaming about Outside for so long. And it was almost time for Rumspringa. Literally, it meant “running
around.” It was the time for young Amish men and women to go beyond the gate
and taste the Outside world. After years of begging and pleading, my parents
had finally relented and let me go Outside this year, on two conditions: that I
wait until the harvest was completed, and that Elijah go with me. We wouldn’t
be formally living together, of course. I intended to room with one of the
girls I’d grown up with, Hannah Bachman. And one of Elijah’s friends, Sam
Vergler, would go too. Sam and Hannah had been courting since Hannah had turned
sixteen. We’d have a girls’ apartment and a boys’ apartment. Proper. But for
all practical intents, Elijah and I would be going on Rumspringa together.
Thanks so much for having me over today, Jeanz! It's much appreciated. :-)
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