Amish Snow White: Amish Fairy Tales (A Lancaster County Christmas) series, #4

By Rachel Stoltzfus

MUST READ FOR LOVERS OF AMISH FICTION AND CHRISTIAN FANTASY!

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?

Set in a whimsical Lancaster County of fantastic possibility grounded in strong Christian values, orphaned teen Gerta has always been her uncle Horace's lucky charm, bringing good crops, good health, and a talent for quilting that is nothing short of remarkable. But things are difficult for the entire family as her uncle suffers from the sin of pride, which is causing turmoil between him and his oldest son Paul. And things really go downhill when Gerta is reunited with her sisters, and Gerta makes plans to leave Horace's house. How far will Horace go to keep Gerta under his thumb, and will Gerta have the strength to forge her own path with her beloved sisters before it's too late?

Find out in Book 4 of the Amish Fairy Tales series by Rachel Stoltzfus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Global Grafx Press
• Release date: Dec 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502289896

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STOP!

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Chapter ONE

Chapter TWO

Chapter THREE

Chapter FOUR

Chapter FIVE

Chapter SIX

Chapter SEVEN

EPILOGUE

A Special Thank You Gift for You

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

Chapter ONE

Must we have this discussion every year?  Horrace Dorf dug his fork into his breakfast casserole, the cheese stretching, a chunk of sausage falling back to the plate.  Did I not forbid the subject?

Barbara looked up from her plate, but not at her agitated husband. Rather, her gaze went to her youngest son, Karl. 

If she had said anything to him at all, it would have been to tell Karl to know his place and keep quiet.  But, knowing her own place, she was not about to disrespect her husband by disciplining the boy in front of him.

I was the one she disciplined. So of course I always did what I could to keep that from happening.  And I had to say, after ten years, I was getting pretty good at it.

Silence returned to the table: only the tinkling of utensils against plates, chewing and swallowing and drinking from tall glasses of cold milk. 

Silence was my greatest tool in the fight to survive where God had put me.  And it worried Karl more and more.

You know what day this is, Daed, Karl said. Can’t you see how she gets this time of year?

I sat, quietly chewing my eggs and sausage, bland in my mouth.

She’s always like that, Paul said. He downed the rest of his milk in a single swallow.  Ten years, hasn’t said a word.  What are we supposed to do about it now?

The child needs our protection, Horrace said, his voice loud and stern.  The Lord entrusted us with her care, and we shall not fail.  It is well that you should love your cousin, Karl.  Being the same age, you’ve grown up as close as a brother and sister.  I am not angry that you should be concerned for her.

His voice had grown low and even again, but for some reason that always made me feel even more worried.  When he was showing his anger, at least I knew how angry he was.  When he didn’t show it, I could only wonder at how vast and volcanic it might be.

And it could, indeed, be like the biggest volcano in history.

But when the volcano smiled—as he did now at his youngest son, speaking words of care, almost of gentleness—it just sounded... wrong.

I know what is best for her, Horrace added. He turned his attention back to his plate.  Out the window, the sun was starting to peek out over the distant Appalachian Mountains.  Time to go to work, Horrace said.

We could contact the others, Karl said. The other members of the Dorf family froze in their seats. 

Her sisters, Karl added, quite innocently. All other eyes drifted nervously toward Horrace at the end of the table.

After a long, charged silence, Horrace said: Who do you think we’re meant to protect her from?

Karl asked, What? Two teenage girls?  If they’ve even survived?  He turned quickly to me.  Sorry, Gerta, but —

‘Tisn’t the sisters that worry me, Horrace said, but those who raise them.  I know the minds and hearts of my so-called family: the Krantzes, the Matthews. They’ll be too beset with their own burdens to want any of ours.  They’d only want her for ... for obvious reasons.

I knew what they were talking about. Everybody at the table knew.

But Karl stubbornly pressed on. If they’ve each been as blessed as we have, why should they need more?

Horrace stood up swiftly from the table, muttering, S’time to go to work, before stepping out of the kitchen. 

With a vicious glare at Karl, Paul stood, pulled the napkin from his collar, and stood up to leave as well. He said nothing, but he shook his head, which was condemnation enough.

Karl turned to me.  Sorry, Gerta, was all he could say, before standing up to follow his daed and older brother out into the fields.

Best get to cleanin’ up, Barbara said, and that was all the instruction I needed before nodding and standing to help clear the table and then clean the dishes.

But the question lingered in my memory, as it often did. 

The reason Horrace Dorf was so eager to keep me around was that the family considered me blessed.

Not just a blessing in the usual sense, you understand, but blessed by a kind of favor from God.  I’d survived that buggy accident that killed my parents ten years before, when I was just four years old.  When I was found on the banks of the muddy highway after that flash flood, the Dorfs—and others—were convinced that I’d been touched by the grace of God.

And after I’d arrived, it was no secret among the members of the Dorf family that good things started happening.  A bad run of harvests on the Dorf farm had turned around: Soil that had been producing meager returns was suddenly pushing up huge carrots and potatoes. The trees started dripping with plums and apples.

And Barbara had been ill when I arrived, but one year afterward, the Englischer doctor said her tumor had entirely disappeared.

So the Dorfs kept me, and kept me out of sight.  I was too valuable to risk getting hurt. And they didn’t want anybody else to lay a claim to me.  They’d let me go to school when I was younger, of course. But even that had ended. 

And I’d never said a word in all the time I was at school, so nobody had thought I got very much out of it.

For now it was just easier overall to keep me around the house.  I worked at the chores, of course, but they didn’t work me overly hard. I’d also discovered another gift: quilting.  They said it was in my Amish blood, and they might have be right.  And, with full understanding that saying so would bring humility into conflict with my inner sense of honesty: I was truly gifted at quilting.  I was fast, and I fell almost into a kind of trance while working, the way I imagined musicians did.  I felt as if I wasn't quilting at all; rather that God was quilting through me.  Sometimes I’d sit alone with my materials and my sewing kit, and hours would pass by without my even noticing.  And I’d look down to see a wondrous patchwork quilt coming to life in my lap.

These were big sellers for the Dorf family—another reason they wanted me around.  And it was another thing about me that... let’s be honest... was beginning to frighten them a little bit. 

They were already convinced I had some spiritual connection that they, and most people, didn’t have.  And I had this extraordinary gift to produce quilts, even alone and being a child—quilting bees