Lancaster Amish Secrets: The Lancaster Amish Juggler Series, #1

By Rebecca Price

When a young woman’s love brings to light a terrible secret, will the truth destroy her family or save it?

Hannah and Abram Schroeder are forever relegated to play second fiddle to their older, cherished sister Rebecca. Abram escapes through learning to juggle, while Hannah’s peace comes only through baking her special pies, which she and her brother sell at the local market. But when Hannah finds love and starts courting against her parents’ wishes, a terrible secret is brought to light, setting her on a collision course that will change all of their lives forever…

Find out in Book 1 of the Lancaster Amish Juggler series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Global Grafx Press
• Release date: Dec 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502288516

Book preview

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CHAPTER ONE

THE TRIP FROM INDIANA is brutal and long, and the prickly summer heat only makes things worse.  By the time our two carriages roll into Lancaster County, I feel like I’ve been sitting in that little wooden box for six weeks.  My bum is sore, my legs are stiff, and my spine feels pinched.  But something about that cluster of farms, silos, shops, and streets over the ridge, fills me with a sense of welcome, of possibility.

Of relief.

Abram looks too, from his spot next to me.  His body sags in his seat, the awkward, early growth not showing as he slumps tiredly.  The trip’s been hard for me, but, at fourteen, seven years my junior, I know it must have seemed a lot worse to him.

Ahead of us, Daed, Mamm, and our older sister Rebecca, ride in our other carriage. 

I’m surprised they didn’t send her along by flying carpet, I think to myself, not wanting to say it.  Abram and I already lack a certain closeness with our older sister and parents, and I don’t want to foster that in Abram’s mind or heart.  But as we lag behind them in the older carriage, it’s hard not to feel like we’re in a perfect picture of our entire lives, trailing behind the rest of the family like second-class citizens, left to take up the rear.

But if it’s been difficult for me and Abram, it’s also served to bring us closer together.  We have a closeness with each other that we don’t have with them.  If they can’t be there for us, at least we can always be there for each other.

We roll up to what is to be our new home.  Daed’s uncle, Ezekiel, who went by Zeek, had lived here for years, until his recent death. Pulling up past the weeds and overgrown grass, it’s easy to believe the stories of his final years, as a recluse in failing health.

We get out of the carriages, Daed helping Rebecca out of the carriage, but leaving Mamm to climb out on her own.  Abram and I are to see to the bags, as Daed opens up the house. 

It’s dark and very musty, the smell of loneliness and isolation filling the big rooms.  Amish houses always have big rooms, so the community will have a place to gather, but it’s hard to imagine anyone, much less an entire community, visiting this sad, lonesome place.

Without a word, Mamm begins opening the shutters, while Daed steps across the room, back toward the entrance.  I’ll see to the barn, he says, and barely that.

Daed is not a man of many words.

Rebecca follows Mamm into one of the bedrooms, the one no doubt meant to be hers.  We hadn’t shared a bedroom since she turned eighteen, when our parents began looking for a suitable husband for her.

My eyes are pulled to the far corners of the house, still echoing with the lingering misery of our family’s sadness.  I’d heard things about granduncle Zeek, about a violent sadness after his wife Nora died.  He’d cut himself off from the rest of the family, wouldn’t return any letters, or go to any family gathering.

And I know he was not alone in that sadness.  Sometimes, I feel the wisps of it myself: touching me gently on the back of the neck, worming its sorrowful way into my heart, aging it beyond its years.  I see it in Abram’s face, young as he is, and in Mamm’s, and Rebecca’s, and Daed’s.

Especially Daed’s.  It’s a vague, echoing emptiness that no words can cling to, that no apology or solace can ease or relieve.  It hangs over the house, even within it, like a cloud, following each of our family members wherever we go, whatever we strive toward.

No, I tell myself.  I won’t live under that family curse, that hereditary misery.  I won’t, and neither will Abram, if I have anything to say about it.

But right now, I don’t have much to say about anything.  I can sense the emptiness of my granduncle’s last years: the solitary shuffling