Amish Home: False Worship - Book 4: Amish Faith (False Worship) Series, #4

By Rachel Stoltzfus

NEW RELEASE FROM AMAZON BESTSELLING SERIES -- MUST READ FOR AMISH ROMANCE LOVERS!

Pursued by the imposters who tried to murder her in Westington, Bethany Zook stands at a terrible crossroads. With God's help, will Beth find the strength to stand up to those who would silence her forever?

I remember it all now.

They killed Daed and wanted to kill me.

I’m Bethany Zook.

And I was murdered.

Pursued by the imposters who tried to murder her in Westington, Bethany Zook stands at a terrible crossroads. If Beth keeps running, she can save herself, but if she wants justice for herself and her father, she must make a terrifying return into the heart of darkness with an unlikely ally and an even more unlikely chance at love. With God's help, will Beth find the strength to stand up to those who would silence her forever?

Find out in Book 4 of Rachel Stolzfus's False Worship Series.

If You Love Amish Fiction, Scroll up and Grab a Copy Today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Global Grafx Press
• Release date: Feb 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507051238

Book preview

False Worship – Book 4

By

Rachel Stoltzfus

This is Book 4 of the False Worship series. If you enjoy this book, please look over the other Christian books from Global Grafx Press, and other great books from Rachel Stoltzfus.

Published by Global Grafx Press, LLC. © 2014

The Pennsylvania Dutch used in this manuscript is taken from the Revised Pennsylvania German Dictionary: English to Pennsylvania Dutch (1991) by C. Richard Beam, Brookshire Publications, Inc. Lancaster, PA 17603

The Bible quotations used in this manuscript are either taken from the King James Bible or the English Standard Bible.

Copyright © 2014 by Rachel Stoltzfus

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK 4

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

AMISH CINDERELLA #1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BOOK 4

CHAPTER ONE

I am flying.  I’m weightless, so high above the Earth that it feels as though I’m not moving at all.  Although I know that I am, and moving fast too, forward; the wind blasting me in the face like it’s trying to push me backward. 

But it hasn’t got a chance.

I’m too strong, too powerful, too strongly rooted in my natural place in the order of things.  I cut through the atmosphere without even trying.  I stretch my arms out to my sides and feel the bracing air around me, lifting me up, holding me aloft.

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, I recall from Isaiah 40:31.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

I know I’m free of the Earth’s grip on me, that terrible terrestrial grip that holds all living things bound to it.  Even birds cannot escape the planet’s tyranny.  But I am no bird, for as Luke 12:7 reminds me, But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

So I fly untethered, unafraid.

The Earth is far below me now, farther than before, it seems to me.  The greens of the forests and patchwork-quilt of the farmlands are surreal and beautiful under a thin layer of cloud.

Let’s take another swoop down there, I think to myself, so casual in my mastery of the skies.  I imagine buzzing over the tops of the tallest eastern red cedars, punching through fluffy white clouds, only to be lost in their gray silence before bursting out the other side.  I imagine swooping low, looping up in a wide arc, perhaps to dip down again at my leisure.

Why not?  I’m free, I’m finally and truly free; as free as a bird.

Even more free.

So I turn to let my body sink into a quick and smooth decent, to gather enough speed for a mighty swing back up.

But I can’t.

I roll at this lofty, airy plateau, but I do not descend.  Slightly troubled, I point my head down and try again, but I know I’m not moving downward.  I can feel the wind still pushing ahead of me, and not from underneath me, as it should be doing.

No, I think to myself.  Something’s wrong, something’s terribly wrong.

I try again, but I only wind up doing an awkward circle in the sky, a clumsy summersault.  Now my heart beats a bit faster, the air thinner in my lungs, wind pushing against me from the sides as I try to fly downward toward the Earth.  But there’s an invisible force pushing up against me, resisting my attempts to revisit my former home.  And no matter how much strength I exert, no matter how cleverly I try to twist my body and aim myself in that direction, I am powerless.

I think to speed ahead, perhaps gather enough momentum that I can cut downward, using more force than whatever it is that wants to refuse me.  But I cannot fly forward now either.  I am inert, floating, unable to move forward or down, as though I were simply treading water, barely able to keep my head above the surface.

But there is no surface.  There is no under, nor any over.  There is simply sky all around me, and I’m stuck in it.  I flap my arms and kick my feet, but now I’m just hovering miles above the Earth.  I look down and the landscape seems even further away, more blurred, the ocean coming into view.  I look around, noticing that the sky above me is getting darker, clouds seeming to sink past me.

Sink past me? I think to myself.  No, that can’t be right.

Then I feel the air, no gusting against my back.  I notice a strand of my hair, having wriggled free of my bonnet; and it quivers in a straight line, pointing down my cheek and past my chin.

Down toward the ground.

I flail, arms and legs passive and pointless as my body rolls slowly, clouds shooting past me even faster now.

I realize that I’m falling, just as though I were falling to the ground.  But I’m not.  I’m falling up, into the sky.

I can’t go back now, I realize.  I’m not welcome there anymore, if I ever was.  There’s no place for me there now, if indeed there ever was a place for me.  It’s not my home anymore.

It never was.

My heart jumps a bit, panic settling in as I fall faster.  The Earth below me swirls with cloud current, the darkness of space reaching up around it.  It’s incredibly cold now, the air much too thin to breathe.  I struggle to pull some life-giving oxygen out of the thin gasses around me, but my body aches and my blood tingles in my veins.

I fall faster, struggling to breath, freezing cold as the darkness of space envelops me and the Earth slips away from below.

Why are you frightened? a voice says to me in the cavern of my own heart, you know where you’re going, and you know Who awaits you.  Rejoice!

And I want to, for I do know where I am going and Who awaits me.  I close my eyes and open my heart and let myself abandon the doubt and fear that have plagued me throughout my short life.

That’s all over now, I tell myself.

But it’s not over.  The fear and doubt remain, getting even worse as the pressure of space presses against my chest, my head, squeezing me tighter.

I just keep falling, up into the vacuum of space.

I’m not delivered into the hands of the Lord, nor to the loving arms of my Mamm and Daed and little sister.

I just keep falling.

Then the pressure becomes too much.  I can feel the bones of my skull bending as my ribs collapse, puncturing my useless lungs.  I can hear my skull start to crack as it implodes, my body still tumbling out into the inky blackness of space.  With a hideous crunch, my skull caves in, all my senses are reduced to a low hum, a dim light, then they are switched off completely, leaving my body to drift in space for eternity, forever without a home.

***

My eyes shoot open, light pouring in, burning.  My head jerks from side to side, my skin is coated with a clammy film, hair clinging to the sides of my face.  My heart is racing, lungs raw, hands trembling.

I have the natural inclination to rise, but my body is shod with pain, every muscle aching, nearly locked with a kind of pain I’ve never known.  I can’t tell what hurts more, my throbbing head or my spasm-frozen spine, the muscles along the backs of my legs, the mangled tendons of both arms.  But their combined effort freezes my attempt to sit up and I must ease back slowly, painfully, even these few inches.  The bed creaks under me, old metal rusted by years of hard living.

I look around and recognize nothing.  The place smells of damp, of rot, of oaky tobacco smoke.  My eyes strain to focus on the shack around me, a single large room subdivided into separate rooms by flimsy, pressboard walls.

One corner is the kitchen, with a pig-iron wood stove and metal tub for washing. 

And there’s a woman, staring solemnly at me.  My focus blurs and strains to refocus again, this time finding her face with greater effort, but still not recognizing her even as she walks slowly toward me.  She wipes her hands on her filthy, threadbare dress.

You okay, honey? she asks, low and steady and gentle, careful not to startle me. 

I don’t answer.

Two younger people enter from the single door,, looking at me with surprise, their freckled faces identical under their flaming red hair.  I have to use all my strength of reason to convince myself that they’re not a single creature with two heads.

She finally awake? one says.  But the other grimaces at him.  The three slowly approach the bed, an awkward silence overtaking us all.

What happened? I have to ask myself, and I’m instantly frustrated by my lack of a response.  What happened? I think again, but the question only swirls around