Healing Faith Read Free Page A

staying with
Elder Jonah and his family?" he asked, never taking my hand.
Instead he moved his hands to grip the suspenders over his chest,
as if fighting some temptation to touch me.
    I blushed and put my hand down, assuming I must have
violated some strict Amish custom in my handshake. I took a step
back hesitantly, to put more space between us. I was already warm
in all the layers of clothes I had to wear and his nearness didn't
seem to help the heat. I still felt the ghost warmth of his solid
chest against my face, a tingling sort of feeling everywhere I had
made contact with him.
    He was broad across the shoulders like I would expect
a farmer to be, but his height made him look a little lanky, as if
he had grown too fast and his trim body was still catching up. He
couldn’t have been too much older than me, perhaps twenty. The sun
had aged him like the surfers and sailors at home so it was
difficult to guess. He had a roughness about him that told me he
worked a hard life, but that was where the roughness stopped. His
eyes held a kindness I wasn’t used to in a man. He was not as
imposing in stature as Sean, but still he was a man and I knew well
enough what men could do. Even with this man’s gentle smile and the
way he had held me, he was a stranger to me.
    "Katherine!"
    The forceful voice startled me, and I jumped again,
this time forward towards Nathan, who awkwardly grasped me by the
waist to steady me again. I was sure I had stepped on him, because
he lurched away abruptly, his hands pressing me against the wall
before retreating a step. He shook his head as if to clear it,
darting his glance down the hallway towards the voice before he
turned and rushed out of the back door without another word.
    I watched his strong back as he left in the waning
light, his cream shirt stained with sweat and his neck long and
almost elegant under the black hat he pulled down over his hair. He
glanced back once, a troubled frown on his face before he turned
around again and quickened his pace up the hill and through the
field away from the house to disappear behind the hill.
    "Katherine, are you dressed? It is supper. Come! The
family is waiting," the voice said again from down the hall.
    I turned from the strange man and made my way down
the hall, into a lantern lit dining room. At the head of the table
sat Jonah, watching me with a kind smile as he waved me in. Around
the table sat a few other people I had not yet met. To one side of
me sat a small, frail looking girl with dark wispy hair peeking out
of her head cover. She was possibly my age, maybe a little older,
but she was shorter than even me, stunted somehow. Her large dark
brown eyes took me in openly, and her smile was very welcoming.
    In stark contrast to her was the tall red-haired girl
across from her, who barely glanced my way before looking back
towards the window and the darkening sky beyond. Next to her sat
another girl, a child with pale blonde hair that was bound in
braids that wrapped around her little head. She looked up at me
with the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen with open curiosity as
I slowly moved to sit beside the dark-haired girl.
    "Family, please welcome to our home Katherine Hill.
She is visiting us from the outside. Please assist her in blending
in to our ways while she is here," he said warmly, glancing to his
right and his left at his daughters.
    The dark haired girl beside me turned and smiled
warmly as I sat beside her.
    "I am Emma. I am happy to have you as a sister while
you are here, Katherine," she whispered, beaming.
    "Oh, you can call me Kate," I corrected, only to
close my mouth when Jonah cleared his throat.
    It was not aggressive or accusatory like my father
would do, merely commanding in an intense sort of way. It still
frightened me a bit, unsure of this man’s temperament.
    "We shall abide by your God-given name as your
parents thus named you. We will go by Katherine, even if it be an
English name," he explained.
    I nodded and