SummerHill Secrets, Volume 1 (29 page)

“This man, this Joseph Lapp—your relative—is the same shunned man Grossdawdy has been telling us about for many years. He has set Joseph Lapp up as an example of wickedness for as long as I can remember.”

“Because of the shunning?” I said softly.

She nodded. “And because my own brother Levi is every bit as headstrong as Joseph Lapp was.” She glanced around as if it was something she shouldn’t be saying.

I rushed over and sat beside Rachel, gazing at the letter, then at her. “Your grandfather has heard stories about Joseph Lapp?” I whispered. “Wow. This is heavy.”

Rachel frowned. “Heavy?”

“Surprising,” I restated my words.

“Surprising to you, but shameful to me.”

“For you, Rachel? How?”

She nodded, solemnly. “This man”—and here she tapped the letter—“was one of
my
ancestors, too.”

“So
that’s
the connection between us,” I said. “I always wondered how we were distant cousins.” I glanced at my watch, then at the letters. “Will you read the rest to me sometime?”

“Jah, sometime.”

“Thank you, Rachel.” I paused, studying my friend. “I never meant to upset you.”

“I’ll be fine.” But her eyes looked sad.

“I better get going. I’ve heard enough to get started on my school project. You’ve been a big help.” I stood up to leave, eager to start working with Chelsea.

Rachel handed the letters back to me. “Just ask if you need more help,” she volunteered, following me down the front porch steps.

“I hope your schnitz pies turn out extra good,” I said, trying to get her mind off the sorrowful thoughts. “Please tell Curly John that Skip and I said hi. I’m sure he’ll make a very good father.”

She broke into a smile. “I will, Merry. And may God go with you.”

I waved before leaving, feeling sorry about stirring up sad feelings in my friend. And yet I wondered about Rachel’s emotional reaction to the letter. Why had this story been told so often in the Zook household? Was it really because of Levi?

I flew through the pasture, over the white picket fence, and into the willow grove. Out of breath, I stopped for a moment in the dense, thick part—Faithie’s and my old secret place, now where Rachel and I often shared secrets.

Right then, standing in the middle of the trees with summer green sheltering me and sunlight twinkling around me, I remembered Levi Zook’s words.
I wish ya were Amish, Merry. It would make things easier.

Knowing that Levi had heard the story of his rebellious ancestor at the knee of his grandfather since childhood, I wondered exactly what he meant.

That’s when the realization hit me. Hit me between the eyes as I stood in the wispy willows on the dividing line between the Zooks’ Amish farm and my own home. I, Merry Hanson, might very well have been Amish had it not been for Joseph Lapp!

Chelsea Davis was waiting for me in her backyard when I arrived.

I’d gone around the house and through the brick archway when no one answered the front door. There, amidst elaborate flower beds arranged in lovely designs, I found her sitting on a padded lawn chair under the shade of a patio umbrella. She was wearing her favorite shorts outfit from last summer.

Chelsea was sketching her family tree on a long, vertical piece of art paper, her hair pulled back in a single, thick braid.

I cleared my throat, and she looked up, somewhat surprised. “Nobody came to the front door,” I said, explaining my unannounced appearance. “I thought it was okay to come around.”

She stretched and smiled. “Is it one-thirty already?”

I nodded. “Actually, I’m a little late.”

“Better late than never.” She laughed. “Pull up a chair.”

“Thanks.” I pulled out the lawn chair next to her, away from the glass patio table. Taking my time, I spread out the background information on several relatives, including Joseph Lapp.

“Hey, no fair. Looks like you’re half done with your project,” she teased.

“How far are you?”

She held up her family tree, clearly sketched with long lines drawn straight and neat under each set of branches. “I’m not sure how far back I can go…or want to go,” she said, glancing over her shoulder toward the house.

“How come?”

Chelsea’s mind seemed to wander. “Well, from what my mom says, there’ve been some really weird types floating around in the branches of our family tree.”

I smiled. “Really? Couldn’t be any weirder than anyone else’s family.”

“Oh yeah?” She crossed her legs beneath her and leaned forward. “I told you I’d rather go bungee jumping over sharks.”

I nodded, not believing her. “So, what could be so weird?”

“You won’t freak out if I tell you?” she asked, looking serious.

“Why should I? It’s
your
family.”

“I take it that’s a promise,” she said without cracking a smile.

“Sure, whatever.”

Holding up her sketch, Chelsea pointed to a double branch three lines above her own name. “Right here.” She pointed. “This is my great-aunt Essie Peterson.”

“Really? You’re related to
her
?”

Chelsea’s green eyes widened in horror. “You mean you know about her?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” I said.

She scrunched up her face, looking deflated. “But Essie was so strange.”

I wondered if Chelsea’s great-aunt was the reason why my friend fought off all my comments about God.

“Check this out.” She reached for her spiral notebook lying on the glass table across from me. “Essie was my grandfather’s sister on my dad’s side. She had healing meetings where sick people came from all over. People said she had some kind of power, I guess.”

“From God, right?”

“Well, from something.” Chelsea laughed. “She’d go without eating, sometimes for several days before her so-called healing meetings. My dad said the way he heard it, Essie was tuned in and turned on—like a charge of electricity.”

“And people got well, right?”

She nodded, pushing a stray wisp of hair back over her ear. “That’s the weirdest part, I guess. People showed up sick and went away just fine.” She paused, that faraway look returning. “How do you figure?”

I saw my opportunity, and with a silent prayer for wisdom, I forged ahead. “Remember the martyrs we were talking about yesterday? Well, the same God who softened the last terror-filled minutes of their lives…that same God gave His Son power to heal people.

And right before Jesus went back to heaven, He told His disciples that they’d do even greater things than He had. I know it sounds truly amazing, but it’s all in the Bible.”

“Well, forget it, then. I don’t believe all that nonsense.” She went back to her sketching.

Why does she always do that?
I thought. I couldn’t get a grasp of this recurring problem. It seemed as though Chelsea allowed herself to get only so close to the Gospel and then
bam!
—she’d cut herself off from it.

Disappointed, I refused to be sucked in to her little game. On again. Off again. I could only hope that every talk we had about God really was leading Chelsea slowly but surely to Him. Because as frustrating as she was, the grandniece of the late Essie Peterson was a precious soul in God’s eyes.

We moved on to other topics, but the idea that she’d have to divulge her connection to this woman of God in front of the entire social studies class really seemed to bug her.

When I asked her about it, Chelsea was firm, not embarrassed.

“People like me shouldn’t have relatives like Essie Peterson.”

“Really?” I decided to tone things down, hoping to open the door again.

She exhaled loudly. “You’d think that somewhere in my genetic makeup there oughta be someone like me…somewhere way back there.” She waved her hand. “You know, someone who thought all this God business was for the birds.”

I thought of referring to the scriptures I knew about God’s care for even the smallest sparrow, but didn’t. “Do your parents believe in God?” I asked.

She blew air through her mouth in disgust. “I wish I
knew
what my parents believed these days.”

I didn’t want to touch that remark, so I kept listening, looking at her.

“Mom’s into some bizarre stuff,” she said. “I don’t think she even knows for sure what it is. Her assortment of crystals seems to be growing by the hour. She even has a mood ring, whatever that is.”

Sounded like the occult to me. “What about your dad?” I asked in a hushed voice.

“Oh, he reads all these books on past lives and wonders what he’ll come back as next. None of it makes any sense.” She reached up, stretching, her fingers almost touching the edge of the patio umbrella.

“You’re right, it doesn’t.”

“Hey, good. You’re not going to preach.” She looked so confident perched there on her lawn chair.

I wanted to tell her that what her parents were getting into was dangerous. Instead, I said, “No preaching, Chelsea, but I won’t stop caring about you.”

For a moment, I thought I saw her eyes glisten, but she looked away, and not wanting to stare, so did I.

After breakfast Sunday morning, I looked in my dresser mirror, watching my shoulder-length hair flip from side to side as I tried to air dry it a little before using the blower.

Staring at my eyes, I wondered about Joseph Lapp. Was he brown-eyed, too?

I smiled into the mirror. Did he ever wish for the ability to take pictures, long before digital cameras?

Glancing at my wall gallery, I focused on the tall picture of a lone willow tree. Did Great-Great-Grandfather Joseph ever contemplate his life out among the trees and beside the river the way I often did?

It wasn’t fun being left in the dark about someone so fascinating. Or as Rachel had said, a scoundrel. But was Joseph Lapp a wicked man, really?

The silence started to bug me, or I should say, the
questions
I was asking myself without any hope of answers bugged me. I turned on the blow dryer to fill the silence.

Lily White jumped off the bed and darted over to me. “You wanna go to Sunday school, huh?” I leaned down and picked her up with my free hand, nuzzling her against my damp hair, letting the blower tickle her white coat. She arched her back and let out a long hiss, so I put her down. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with Lissa and Jon today at church,” I told her, even though she seemed more interested in sulking under my bed. “They’ll probably be sitting together, you know.”

I braced myself against that discouraging thought.

“Merry?” Mom poked her head in the door.

I shut off the blower.

“I heard you talking.” She glanced around.

“Oh, I was just having a chat with Lily White. She’s not very interested, as you can see.”

Mom inched her way into the room. “Is everything all right?”

“Why shouldn’t it be?”

She shook her head. “Well, I don’t know. I just haven’t heard you sound so depressed like this.”

“Like what?” I demanded. “What did you hear?”

She stood beside me, looking in the mirror at the two of us. “There was a time when you could tell me anything, remember?”

She slipped her arm around my waist.

I was silent.

“I miss those days.” She gave me a little squeeze.

Frustrated and upset that she’d probably overheard me mention Lissa and Jon, I felt my muscles stiffen against her. “Do you think Dad could tell me more about Joseph Lapp sometime today?”

Mom stepped back out of the mirror’s reflection. “Why don’t you ask him?” Her face clouded.

I hadn’t responded to her plea for intimacy, and she was hurt. I’d turned the tables and requested an audience with my dad instead of her.

“Well, we’d better get moving.” She turned to leave. “You know how your father is on Sundays.”

Dad was a stickler for promptness, especially Sundays. He was a fanatic about leaving the house on time. I chafed under the time pressure, and to speed things up, I turned my hair dryer on the highest setting. The strong heat would make my hair frizzy, but it was better than a tongue-lashing from Dad.

I can’t begin to recount the happenings of my time at church. Here it was already May 14, close to the end of the school year, and every girl in the youth class was sitting with a guy.

Honestly, I felt like an alien from another planet. It wasn’t so much embarrassing as it was ridiculous. Why did everyone wait until the end of the school year to pair off?

I scanned the room. As I’d predicted, Lissa and Jon sat together across the room. I purposely chose a place where I wouldn’t see them every time I looked at Mrs. Simms, our super-cool teacher.

Repeat performance for church an hour later. It seemed that Lissa had abandoned her mother to sit with Jon in the Klein family pew. Jon’s older sister Nikki had her eyes on Skip, however, as I slid into the pew next to him several rows back.

I had no idea what Nikki Klein saw in my cat-queasy brother. Skip was good-looking enough, I guess—for a brother, anyway. He was tall with golden-brown hair and hazel eyes that sparkled sometimes. But if Nikki
really
knew him—the way I did—she’d probably run the other way. Fast!