Page 26 of The Hidden One

The girl is red-haired with a smattering of freckles on cheeks blushed pink from the heat. Not quite pretty, but she’ll grow into it. She’s wearing a light blue dress. White kapp. A smear of stain on her chin. Knees chafed from kneeling and covered with sawdust.

“This is Effie,” Dorothy tells me. “Fifteen years old already.”

“Almost sixteen.” She’s got a chipped front tooth, but it suits her. Hazel eyes. I amend my earlier assessment that she’s yet to grow into her prettiness.

I offer my hand. “Stain looks good.”

Grinning, she gives my hand a hearty shake. “Junior said you spoke Deitsch. Are you Amish?”

“Now you just mind your manners,” Dorothy says.

“I was,” I tell the girl. “I think maybe I broke too many rules.”

“Oh.” Her laugh is a musical sound that reminds me of simpler times, when such things didn’t need to be stifled.

Dorothy turns to the little boy. “I think you met Junior.”

The boy in question holds his ground a few feet away. He’s got a sweaty face. Sawdust on his cheeks. Lingering purple stains around his mouth. Hat cocked back. Red hair sticking to his forehead. He looks as if he’s thinking about bolting again.

I approach the boy and extend my hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Junior.”

The boy backs up a step, eyes darting left and right.

“Junior don’t talk much,” Effie proclaims. “He’s only eleven but he’s good with the drill. Knows how to measure, too. Got an eye for color.”

I back off, motion toward the cabinet he’d been working on. “Is that hardware stainless steel?” I ask, knowing fully it’s not.

He looks at the cabinet and the flight response seems to wane. Still, he doesn’t like being the center of attention. “B-b-brushed nickel,” he says.

“He stutters when he’s nervous,” Effie announces.

“Or when you pay him too much attention.”

At the sound of the deep male voice, I look over my shoulder to see the older boy approach. He is, indeed, the spitting image of Jonas when he was a teen. Dark hair and eyes. A surly demeanor that’s as charming as it is off-putting. And a direct stare that speaks of attitude and self-assurance.

He comes up behind his younger brother, sets his hands on the boy’s shoulders, and eases him toward me. “She’s not going to bite you,” he says in Deitsch.

“And this is Reuben,” Dorothy tells me. “Our oldest.”

We shake hands and for an instant, I can’t look away. It’s as if I’ve been swept back in time and I’m seeing the Jonas I knew twenty years ago.

“Just turned seventeen,” Dorothy says with a shake of her head. “Already works like a man.”

“Seventeen going on ten,” Effie whispers.

Grinning, Reuben tosses his shop rag at her. “Who asked you?”

The girl bats the rag aside, then smiles at her mamm. “Acted like he was twenty at the singing Sunday. Especially when Miriam Miller came around.”

Reuben falls back into surly mode, bends to pick the shop rag off the floor, but not before I catch the rise of color in his cheeks.

The girl turns her attention back to me, tilts her head. “What brings you to Belleville?”

Since Dorothy hasn’t explained to them the situation with their father, I keep it vague. “I’m here to help your parents with a couple of things.”

Reuben’s eyes flick from me to his mamm. “Does it have something to do with Datt being in jail?”

Dorothy puts her hand over her mouth, her eyes darting to her other children. “Reuben.”