Amish Fairy Tales 4-Book Boxed Set Bundle: Amish Fairy Tales (A Lancaster County Christmas) series, #5

By Rachel Stoltzfus

GET ALL FOUR BOOKS IN ONE BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION!

Set in a whimsical Lancaster County of fantastic possibility grounded in strong Christian values, join sisters Ella, Zelda and Gerta as they struggle to find themselves and their places in a world fraught with peril where nothing is as it seems.

>> Amish Cinderella #1-2: Will sixteen-year-old Ella have the strength to fight for her future with Samuel in the face of treachery, violence, and a shocking tragedy that threatens everything she's ever wanted?

>> Amish Sleeping Beauty: When orphaned teen Zelda's beloved aunt is stricken by a mysterious illness, will Zelda find a way to save the ones she loves? Or is she truly cursed?

>>> Amish Snow White: When Amish teen, Gerta is reunited with her beloved sisters, will she have the strength to step out from her uncle's shadow and forge her own path before it's too late?

IF YOU LOVE AMISH CHRISTIAN FICTION, GRAB ALL 4 BOOKS IN THIS ONE BEAUTIFUL COLLECTION TODAY!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Global Grafx Press
• Release date: Dec 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502205179

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STOP!

AUTHOR’S NOTE

AMISH CINDERELLA #1

Chapter One

Chapter Two

AMISH CINDERELLA #2

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

AMISH SLEEPING BEAUTY

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

AMISH SNOW WHITE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

A Special Thank You Gift for You

Read More!

AUTHOR’S NOTE

DEAREST READER,

I have always been enamored of how literature allows us to step into new worlds and see things through different eyes. As a child, my grandmother gave me a book of colorfully illustrated Bible stories that I read from cover to cover. In addition, I immersed myself in fanciful literature including Grimm’s original fairy tales (in English) and C.S. Lewis’s masterpiece, The Chronicles of Narnia.

While my recent fiction has been of a solidly realist bent, I wanted to do something a bit different for the holidays. I happened on a very interesting article from Robert Treskillard on Holy Worlds: A Community of Christ Centered Creativity where he asks, "How can a fantasy story be Christian?"

After pointing out that a story cannot be Christian because the word Christian simply means a follower of Christ (as it was first used in Antioch in the 1st century,) Mr. Treskillard goes on to discuss the perils that many of us face in defining Christian fiction purely in terms of a market.

Implicitly, this begs the question: as Christian writers, is our goal simply to preach to our own choirs, or are we meant to have a greater ministry?

In response to this question, Mr. Treskillard offers a challenge:

I want you to raise the standard.  To stop thinking of Christian in terms of marketing, but instead think of it in terms of Christ’s glory. I would like us to think of Christian fantasy to mean Christ glorifying fantasy.

In other words, maybe we need to start thinking intentionally, authentically, boldly, and delightedly about glorifying Christ—and therefore God—through our fantasy novels.

As I’ve had this idea of mixing the real and fantastic together in an Amish story since Ruth wrote her Amish Christmas Carol last year, I decided this would be my year!

I hope you enjoy these Amish Fairy Tale stories. They are set in a world similar (though at points a bit different) from our own. I’ve done my best to integrate aspects of Amish culture with traditional fairy tales in a way that I hope is whimsical and at the same time, brings glory and honor to our Lord.

I hope I am, in some small way, able to meet Mr. Treskillard’s challenge through these Amish Fairy Tales. And I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.

All the Best,

Rachel

AMISH CINDERELLA #1

Chapter One

THE MOP’S SOAKED STRANDS pushed the bubbling water across the floorboards in front of the potbellied stove.  As always, I was careful not to let too much water seep into the wood. 

I shuddered to recall what had happened the last time, when Uncle Barnabas nearly cracked the mop handle over the back of my head.  I had crouched down low, huddled in the corner of the room, hands over my head, quivering and crying and waiting for the blow to come—body tense, nerves tight.

But the Lord had stayed his hand, sparing me a life-threatening wallop.  Still, I knew the wrath that was so easily provoked could come crashing down again, at any moment.  I lived in fear of that horrible hand falling down on me again, as if out of nowhere, at my slightest misstep. 

I wrung out the mop by hand, filthy water pouring over my clenching fists as I tried to squeeze it dry before dipping it back into that grey bilge.  It made the job twice as difficult, and made it take twice as long, but Uncle Barnabas wouldn’t give me a second bucket for clean water, no matter how much I asked.  And that wasn’t often, since his answer was always the same, no matter the question.

No!

I’d heard it for years, from him and from my cousins, Hildegarde and Providence.  It was as if they liked to say it.  No, not as if; they did like to say it; to me, at least.

They didn’t like me, and they didn’t want me in their home.  And I knew why. It was no mystery to be sorted and resolved, no great inner turmoil that had to be rooted out and brought to light. But there wasn’t a thing I could do about it either.

You call this clean? Hildegarde said, as she and Providence stepped into the kitchen.  Daed’ll have at you with a whippin’ stick if he sees this mess.

I just started, I said.  It’ll be done soon enough.

Of course it will, Hildegarde said.  You’re such a good worker, Ella, it’s as if you were born for this very work.  How wonderful God was to bless you with these remarkable gifts.

Hildegarde, taller and more angular, looked down at her sister to share a chuckle.  Shorter and quite a bit chubbier, Providence giggled along, nodding in amused agreement. 

She said to me, Poor Hildy’s work as an apprentice midwife merely helps bring new lives safely into the world.  Why, what value has that to anyone?

Hildegarde nodded, adding, And Providence’s quilts merely bring warmth and coziness to Englischers and Amish alike, across the country.  It’s a pitiable thing, really.

Surely the only warmth or coziness either of you has ever created, I thought to myself.  But I said nothing, of course, not wishing to offend them.  Not only would that demean me, but it could only excite their later fury.

And the angrier they were, the harder I wound up working.

Hildegarde added: But you—dear, sweet Ella—you had been blessed with the greatest gifts of all: to bring a sheen to our floors, and our plates, and wash basin ...

They broke out in a spasm of devilish laughter, leaning against one another to keep from falling over in sheer delight.

Hildegarde quotes Revelation 3:17: Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

And of course, I knew they were wrong.  I had been blessed with many gifts, only one of which was the ability to withstand such cruelty.  I had been blessed with faith, which kept me aloft of their pettiness.  I had been blessed with patience, and inner calm.

And I could whittle!  My collection of tiny woodland creatures was my only possession—besides my Bible and my clothing—and they kept me company in lonely and trying times such as these.  Even my rare moments of leisure, when I could sit back and whittle a palm-sized bear or deer or wolf, were made more special when I could indulge my own artistic expression.

But, as with so much else in my life, I was denied this pleasure as much as possible.  They didn’t want me to whittle, because it was part of who I was; a special part.

They didn’t want me to be special.  They didn’t want me to be who I was.

You know, Providence said, my Hugh is taking me to the hayride this Sunday, after services.  I hope you’ll have my laundry all done by then?

Oh, I’m sure she will, Hildegarde answered her, as if I wasn’t even in the room, much less kneeling before them wringing the mop.  You know what a good little worker she is.  Why, in all the ten years she’s been here, she’s never left her chores undone.

And there were always more chores to do.

Well, that’s hardly surprising, Providence said.  Poor thing hasn’t got much else to do.  No man to court her, no friends to speak of, other than her wooden petting zoo.  I suppose it’s God’s will that she be isolated... preserved for her special task of mopping up our grime and scrubbing our linens.

He was truly great, Hildegarde said, barely suppressing a chortle.  Let’s not waste any more time here, sister. We’ve got to deliver your new quilt to the marketplace for tomorrow’s auction.

Thank you again, dear sister, for your assistance.

We’re family, Providence, Hildegarde said, glaring at me even as she answered Providence.  I’ll always be there for you.  She kept glaring at me, her true meaning clear:  But I’ll never be there for you, Ella, because we’re not really family, and we never will be.

But of course, we were really family. However much I might wish it otherwise.

They stepped out of the kitchen, leaving me on my knees, water soaking into my plain cotton dress.

Lord, I prayed, I know you have some reason for my suffering, some great plan that I am serving even in my ignorance.  I know you have some reason for taking my parents away from me, and at such an early age; I know you anticipate some worth to come from my misery.  So I’ll keep toiling, in faith that you’ll deliver me from this ceaseless labor, this endless humiliation.

And what of my sisters, Lord?  Do they still live?  Do they suffer, as I do?  Do they pray, as I do, and think of me as I think so often of them?  Is it in your plan to ever reunite us, Lord, or is our separation also a part of your Greater Good? 

And, as usual, no answer came.

It’s okay, Lord. I know you are hearing me, even if you do not answer.  I know you love me, even if I live in a world without love, a life of struggling to remember what love even feels like.  But I know You know, Lord, and that You’ll share it all with me in Your own due time: My redemption, my liberation, but by Your mighty Hand, Lord.

I thought about my Biblical heroes, as I so often do, to give me guidance, so that I could learn from their example what my uncle and cousins would not teach me; how to be a better person, how to rise above, how to find God in the midst of evil.  If my so-called family taught anything by their example, it was the work of evil alone.

But I knew that this was their part to play in God’s great plan.  I knew there could be no good without evil, no reward without suffering, no vindication without trial.  And life as a slave to my uncle and cousins had been my portion of suffering—my trial.  So I knew I must thank God for providing these things, that I might rise above them and find my happiness.

Still, as the years went on and the suffering continued, the happiness nowhere in sight, I had to admit it was getting harder and harder to be grateful.

In the living room, the front door opened and closed, Uncle Barnabas’ heavy work boots thunking against the floorboards.  It was only seconds before my cousins’ excited footsteps came rattling down the stairs.  Daed, Daed! they called to him, shrieking in the voices of little girls, even though the twins were almost seventeen years old, just over a year older than me.

My angels, Uncle Barnabas said, his voice echoing in the next room. I was just climbing up off my knees to resume mopping the kitchen floor, while the Krantz family had yet another of their daily happy reunions. 

There seems to be so much happiness among them, I thought to myself, not nearly for the first time.

I couldn’t follow their conversation, due both their muffled voices, and my own disinterest.  I just kept my head low, my eyes fixed on the kitchen floor, pushing that mop, the soapy water bubbling around the thick coils at the mop’s head.

What, still? Uncle Barnabas said, louder, before adding, Ella, present yourself, girl!

I felt a cold knot tighten in my belly.  I stood for a moment, hoping he might change his mind and prefer the joy of his daughters’ company to another session of abusing me.  But when he repeated, Ella!, I knew I was not to be so lucky.

I put the mop into the bucket, leaned the handle against the kitchen table, and walked out into the living room.

There, Uncle Barnabas awaited me, one of his daughters under each arm.  He was much taller than they, than all of us; his broad frame was still powerful, even as it grew broader with time.  His face was tanned from years in the field, his hands rough with years of toil.  He grimaced at me, his black hair tussled from his afternoon’s labors in the barn.

Yes, Uncle?

My girls tell me you haven’t finished with the kitchen floor.

I was just tending to it when they came in.  It won’t be long in finishing, Uncle, I promise.

Uncle Barnabas sneered at me.  Promises?  What do you know of promises, curse that you are?

The girls tried to hide their chuckles, but they didn’t try very hard.  Uncle Barnabas stepped away from them, crossing past me wordlessly, slowly, and stepping into the kitchen.  He disappeared behind the wall, his heavy feet clacking.  My cousins looked at me with their demonic grins, shoulders rising as if to hide their wicked glee.

Slow and low, my Uncle called me into the kitchen. 

I felt a lump in my throat. My arms and legs went numb.  My mouth went dry.  But I knew I didn’t have a choice, so one foot regretfully stretched out in front of me, the other foot doing its own part in the ghastly business of carrying me back into the kitchen to face my oppressor.

I entered to find him standing in the center of the room, holding the mop in one hand. 

I could only stand there, waiting for him to decide how vigorously he wanted to punish me.

Not finished even by half, he finally said, in a voice not at all unreasonable.

It won’t take me long too —

Then he roared out, "Not by half, you lazy whelp!" 

I was doing my best —

He grabbed the broom handle with the other hand and brought the wooden shaft down against his upraised knee.  The handle shattered with a sickening crack that I felt shoot up my spine.  My body recoiled from pure instinct, prepared for what would happen next.

Your best?  Really getting into the crevices you were, I suppose. Working to make it as clean as could be?  You lying little guttersnipe! 

When I saw him raising the upper portion of the broken handle, my own hands bolted up to protect my head on head on each side.  I cowered, ducking down as he made good on the promise of the last beating.

This time, I was not spared.

The pine handle cracked against my upper left arm, sending pain shooting through my body all at once.  I turn and the second blow found the back of my ribcage.  More agony, bursting in my heart, my lungs, my kidney instantly throbbing.  My knees bent, my body tipped forward and I collapsed in a heap.  The third blow hit me on the other side of my body, just above the hip.  With little muscle and no bone to protect me there, the vibration of the broom handle struck pulses through me; my stomach turning, my fingers quivering, a wet sob tumbling out of my mouth. 

My eyes were clamped shut, but when I heard the broom handle clack violently against the floorboards near my head, I knew he’d relinquished his weapon, and that the beating might, mercifully, have ended. 

I opened my eyes to see the discarded length of mop handle, as I suspected, rolling idly. 

That was when I felt the gush of water hit me from behind.  The warm, soapy muck was grayish brown with collected filth, sticking to my hair, my clothes, drenching me to the bone.  But my body was still quivering from the pain: three points of contact, that throbbed with increasing anguish.

And even that was as nothing compared to my inner anguish, my dwindling hope that I had any future at all to look forward to, beyond this life of bondage and servitude and abuse that I had been sentenced to endure.

The water spilled out at all sides as Uncle Barnabas threw the bucket at me too.  It bounced off my lower back, the rim of the hard, round base banging into my hip. 

Now get to work, you sewer rat! 

Uncle Barnabas threw the remaining portion of mop, the soaking head and a foot’s length of splintered, broken base.  It hit me in the back of the head, cold and heavy with water.  It pushed another sob out of me as it fell to the floor, strands clinging to my cheek. 

All the better to really get into those crevices, eh?  Now stop your crying and start your scrubbing, or I’ll really give you something to cry about!

He stomped out of the room, my cousins watching from the doorway.  They followed him, leaving me alone, surrounded by filth, kneeling in a pool of my own degradation. 

My body hurt.  Just reaching for the disembodied mop’s head sent bolts of stinging pain through me. 

My fingers wrapped around the splintered nub of a handle, and I pushed the soaked head across the floor. My ribs felt as if they were separating with every stretch.  I almost vomited from the pain. But I knew how much longer that would have me on my knees, cleaning, so I fought the urge and kept scrubbing. It was what I had been doing for ten years now, and I knew I might be doing it for the rest of my life.

AS MUCH AS BEING AROUND my uncle and cousins brought me seemingly senseless and unending misery, when they were away I felt a fleeting sense of release, of relief, of renewal. 

The house was always quiet without them, the echo of my little footsteps the only sounds beyond the beating of my own heart. 

What robbed these quiet hours of their nourishment, their nurturing solace, was that I always knew they wouldn’t last.  They’ll be back soon, I could always hear myself thinking. Don’t get too comfortable, and don’t make any mistakes!

And there were other times—precisely once a year—when their absence made me even more miserable than their presence.  It happened at this time of year, too, the turning of the season; Sally Krantz’s birthday.

This year, she would have been forty-two years old.

And, as they’d done every year on her birthday, Uncle Barnabas took Hildegarde and Providence across town, and into the valley, where the founders' cemetery cradles the earthly remains of their lost matriarch.

I’d never been allowed to go, and this year was the same. 

It always surprised me that this laid me so low, since their company was such an awful and exhausting experience. But there was much more to it than that, and every year I was forced to face these things: my own lesser aspects.  Because I knew that, if I was saddened by what this day brought, that could only be my fault, and none of their own.

What bothered me most—and it pained me to admit it—was that they were going to visit their mamm’s grave, and I personally could not visit my own mamm in her resting place beside my daed, back in Bethlehem Township.

I had to admit that—although I knew God would be ashamed for me—I couldn’t help but feel jealous of the Krantzes: jealous that they could go and spend time with their loved one, and I could not.  It only made me feel all the more isolated, all the more removed from the place I belonged—my real home.

And it reminded me how unlikely it was that I’d ever be able to go back, ever see that little wooden tombstone with her name carved into it, before the rains and the winds ground it into dust, as the Earth does us all.

And it was the finality of that which saddened me, too, of Sally’s death as much as my own mamm’s.  For we live so briefly, but we’re dead for so terribly great a time; an eternity.  It hardly seemed fair.

Fair, I thought to myself.  I don’t even knew what that means. 

Surely, life has taken much from me. But I know it has just as much to offer—maybe even more!  God will decide how to mete out the rewards and the trials, no casual equation of earning and getting.  If there is anything like fairness, it can only be found in God’s supreme judgement.

At least, that had always been my experience.

But what bothered me on this day had nothing to do with fairness.  It didn’t even have much to do with Sally, whom I never actually met.  And it went beyond being sorrowful for my own remove from my family, my loved ones.

What saddened me most about seeing my uncle and cousins setting off together on this sad anniversary was that they were setting off together, as a family.  To visit my parents’ graves would be one thing. But to have a family—a true and real family, the way the Krantzes do... that would be a prize worthy of my envy.

Why do they get to enjoy such comfort, such a blessing as family? I asked the Lord in my weaker moments.  What did we do to sacrifice that love and that comfort?  How is it that, after all these years of such cruelty and malevolence, they’re rewarded with family, and after my years of sacrifice I’m continuously punished with loneliness, toil and heartbreak?

The Lord hadn’t yet seen fit to give me an answer. But I’d had ten straight opportunities to ask, and I had a dread feeling that I’d have many, many more.

AFTER PUSHING THROUGH my chores and preparing a meal of oven-fried chicken, green bean casserole, corn biscuits and gravy, salad, potato soup and double-chocolate fudge cake, I retired early to my bedroom, just off the kitchen. 

It was the one place where I could get some peace, some quiet, some solace. I was almost surprised that they’d afforded me this luxury—allowed me a room of my own—since they knew that it brought me some small amount of pleasure.  They seemed to detest that. 

But they detested me even more, and if having my own room meant that I was removed from their sight as much as they were from mine, then my happiness seemed to be a small enough price for them to pay for their relief.

When I was alone, I tried not to think about them.  But that wasn’t always so easy to do, especially when a beating was so fresh in my mind and in my muscle memory: skin only now beginning to swell and discolor, muscles finally starting to cramp and recoil and tighten, blood struggling to push through my crushed and constricted veins.

And when running to escape visions of my uncle and cousins, my memory tended to run straight into the arms of my parents.  But this brought me even more pain, not long after the initial relief of recalling their loving faces, their warm smiles, their embraces that always pulled me and my sisters in so tight, so strong.

Because my memory always went back to the tragedies: to the flash flood that swept both my parents away, to the sad faces of our neighbors and friends as they scrambled to find shelter for us, to relocate us.  I knew they must have thought it was a good idea to send me and my sisters to be with family, even though that meant separating us.  I knew they all assumed Uncle Barnabas would be a fair and decent guardian. 

But they also well knew that Barnabas’ life had already been visited by death, that of his own beloved wife Sally, my cousin’s mother.  And with two girls of his own to raise, Barnabas would only be able to handle one more.  My sisters were sent to live with Uncles on our father’s side; Barnabas was my sister’s brother.

And he had hated her.

I didn’t know why, but I knew he never let me speak of her in the house.  He even reprimanded his beloved daughters if they should mention her. 

I thought for a long time that it was his love for her as a sister that plagued him, that his sorrow for her loss cast a shadow over his feelings for me. Surely, I always reasoned, I must be a painful reminder of what he’s lost.  He must see a resemblance in me, the face of his dear sister, whom he must knew he will never see again.

I always felt badly for him that my presence brought him such melancholy—so much that it expressed itself in such a violent and hurtful way.  But as I grew older, and came to understand more and more the Word and the Will of God, it became clearer to me. 

Just as Uncle Barnabas and my cousins had been sent to be my trial, to provide my suffering, surely I’d been sent to Uncle Barnabas to be his own private trial: to force him to face his own losses and his own nagging sorrows.  And, it seemed to me: if that is God’s will, then so be it.  If I can forgive my uncle and cousins for the hurtful part they must play on my own road to salvation, I can surely forgive myself for being placed here in the same role for my anguished uncle.

So it became easier for me to forgive than to hate. And I felt God’s love when I forgave them, and that made it easier still.

But as the days lapsed into months and years, the pain increased, the humiliation continued, and my forgiveness became harder and harder to muster. 

Now, as I lay on my bed, curled up on my side, my face red and burning with the salt from my tears, I searched for understanding. I yearned for the empathy I found so readily in my childhood.

Now, my only solace was the quiet of my bedroom, the protection of my isolation, and the company of my whittled, wooden toys.  They were lined up on the ledge of my window, each small enough to fit in my own hand; a bear, a deer, a wolf, a giraffe, a horse, a cow, an elephant with its trunk pointing down and another with its trunk raised.

I imagined them coming to life, stepping up to me and offering me love and companionship.  I pictured the little elephants stroking my arm with their trunks, the bear nuzzling my wrist. 

I remembered creating each and every one of them: The wolf last year after harvest, when the others were dating and celebrating the year’s blessings; the elephants over the winter the year before, when a freak snowstorm locked us in the house for over a week.

I knew they only let me whittle for the same reason they let me have my own room: it got me out of their way, for however brief a time, when I wasn’t cleaning up around or behind or under them.  And this way, Uncle Barnabas would always have a way of punishing me, of hurting me even beyond the insults and the beatings.  He gave me whittling so he could always have something to take away from me.

I’d discovered whittling when I