Forbidden Read online

  Copyright © 2012 by Leanna Ellis

  Cover and internal design © 2012 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Studio Gearbox

  Cover images © Willard/iStockphoto.com; evokephoto/iStockphoto.com

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ellis, Leanna.

  Plain fear : forbidden : a novel / Leanna Ellis.

  p. cm.

  1. Amish—Fiction. 2. Widows—Fiction. 3. Pregnant women—Fiction. 4. Life change events—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3605.L4677P565 2012

  813’.6—dc23

  2012016292

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To those who feel lost and need to be found, I hope you find hope within the pages of this book.

  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

  to proclaim freedom for the captives

  and release from darkness for the prisoners,

  to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor

  and the day of vengeance of our God,

  to comfort all who mourn,

  and provide for those who grieve in Zion—

  to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,

  the oil of joy instead of mourning,

  and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

  They will be called oaks of righteousness,

  a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

  Isaiah 61:1–3

  Prologue

  Akiva ran toward the light.

  Its glow in the moonless night blazed a path before him, beckoning him, drawing him toward it with the force of gravity. Icy rain stabbed his face, melting under a torrent of scorching tears.

  Save him. Save him. Save him! Her words chased after Akiva like vile hounds ready to rip apart his flesh.

  He focused on the beam and ran straight toward it as hard as he could, until his world glowed an angry red. The pain pulsed and throbbed, consuming him. Arms pumping, legs stretching, muscles straining, he prayed it would sear him, burning up every thought, every emotion, every memory, until he was no more. Then he wouldn’t have to remember her. Hannah. Nor her plea to save him—Levi.

  Once Hannah had given Akiva hope, promise, love. Now he spat her name out like a bitter root.

  But he could not banish the memory of the lie smoldering in the depths of her eyes. He could have accepted her hatred, even her anger. He’d expected it, even planned for it. But her deceit? Her disdain? Her disgust? It corroded his thoughts and distorted his love for her into a boiling, fuming explosion.

  What did she know of love? Her beliefs, emotions, desires were simplistic. Levi! Of all people, his own brother. Akiva had offered her eternity, and she wanted to live an insipid life in Promise with Levi. Her betrayal scalded him.

  He pushed himself, running full out, as fast as he had that day when he was eight years old. He’d hidden in a copse of trees beyond the woodworking shop, gasping for air, fear grinding into him. Rules were fixtures in their household, and if he broke one, then Pop made sure not to “spare the rod.” Pop had been searching for him, and he’d brought along a switch. The running and hiding had done no good though—after buckling beneath the shiver of cold and gnawing of hunger, both switch and boy were eventually broken.

  Now, Akiva felt the same bite of winter but a growling hunger of a different sort.

  The light before him intensified until it separated into two distinct orbs racing toward him. A screeching sound ripped through the night, and suddenly he barreled into a metal object.

  The impact rattled his bones, but he stood straight as a concrete pillar, unwavering, fortified with his anger. Bracing his hands on the warm, wet metal, he glared through the windshield. He could see two
sets of wide, startled eyes staring back at him.

  He slammed his hands again on the car’s hood. The metal trembled, and the concussion of vibrations shot up his arms. Inside the car, the woman cried out. Akiva thought it more of a surprised sound than fear. But the fear would come.

  For two years, Akiva had hoped a piece of himself—Jacob’s humanity—still existed inside him. He had believed once it was a positive thing, a trait to which he could cling, and nurture. A piece that separated him from the others like him.

  But he was wrong. The ragged shred of compassion was a weakness. A weakness that left him vulnerable. The tiny slivers of emotion sliced through him. All hope and purpose poured out of him, pooling around him, until there was nothing left. Words, once a comfort, scattered in his mind, and he grasped at them as if they could save him.

  “‘Farewell!’”

  His voice shattered like broken shards of glass. He shook his head and stared up at the gray clouds and tried again: “‘A long farewell—.’”

  He collapsed forward over the hood of the car. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to remember the words, the poet, even the sentiment. But he was empty—empty of words, empty of feelings. Empty of everything he ever was or ever wanted to be.

  Sleet turned to snow and spattered his face and back, slowly reviving him. Were the snowflakes his prayers falling back to earth, unheard, unanswered? Ancient words chilled his soul and sputtered out of him: “‘And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again.’”

  “Hey!” the man inside the car called. “You okay? What’s wrong with you?”

  The coldness inside Akiva solidified, and he looked up, stared ahead of him at the dirt and sludge on the windshield, at the bits of snow and sleet, the tiny flakes glistening. The woman fumbled with a cell phone, the pale glow reflecting fear and uncertainty in her eyes. The man peered at him over the rim of the steering wheel.

  Akiva pounded the hood again. “Get out!”

  The woman screamed. This time, fear saturated the shrill cry.

  The horn blared, and the man waved his arm over the steering wheel. “Get out of the way, or I’ll run you over.”

  Akiva tapped his forefinger on the hood—tap, tap, tap—then he gave a caustic laugh. “‘Once upon a midnight dreary…’” His forehead pinched as he fumbled the words. “‘Dreary…forgotten lore…’”

  Snowflakes speckled his face, and he laughed again, felt a spark, a flame deep within. “‘I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door; Only this, and nothing more…bleak December…dying ember…ghost upon the floor…”’”

  His gaze penetrated the windshield again, and the fear trapped inside the car renewed his strength, charged him like a bolt of electricity. Once more he tapped the hood as if he was tapping on a windowpane. “Tap, tap, tapping…”

  The car jerked as the driver shifted into drive. The wheels inched forward then lurched to a stop again. Akiva grabbed the door and ripped the metal section off its hinges. He tossed it aside as if it weighed nothing, the door clattering and clanging against the asphalt.

  “What are you doing?” the driver yelled, pulling back away from the opening, cowering and blocking the woman at the same time. His hands were shaking, his mouth opening and closing. “You want money? That it?”

  But Akiva simply smiled.

  He paid no attention to the cries, screams, or wails. He tore into flesh, ripping and severing. His interest wasn’t in gorging himself. He didn’t bother tasting or savoring but simply destroyed, until he was covered in the sticky warmth of their blood.

  Heaving and gasping, he glared down at the bodies. No satisfaction, which usually followed a kill, came, no fulfillment.

  Silence hummed about him. He lifted his chin, staring out at the bleak night with its heavy clouds and softly falling snow. The fire inside hardened the last bits of emotion into glassy shards, and he felt shame and disgust at the memory of Hannah’s eyes. The awareness. The understanding. The shock and horror of who he was, what he had become. Despair collapsed upon him, suffocating him with the inescapable and unchangeable truth.

  Then the words of the illusive poem finally came to him, and he spoke:

  “‘And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming;

  And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws the shadow on the floor;

  And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

  Shall be lifted—nevermore!’”

  Chapter One

  Six Months Later

  It was blood red. Rachel held the ripe strawberry just above the stem, and with a slight twist, broke it off. The plump fruit plopped into her hand and rolled over, the leaf tickling her palm. Such a delicacy, heart shaped and so easily bruised—the fragile strawberry needed protection, just as her baby nestled deep inside of her did.

  She touched her rounded belly, where Josef’s baby squirmed inside her. A sudden bulge of its elbow or knee pushed outward, and she gently rubbed it back into place. She gave a wistful smile. “Easy, little one.”

  Rachel.

  The whisper of her name sent a chill through her. She turned and looked behind her. Only Mae was in the field with her, and she knelt two rows away. “Yes?”

  Mae glanced up from tending Timothy, her one-year-old son. “What is it?”

  Rachel tilted her head. “Didn’t you call me?”

  “No.” Mae plopped a strawberry in her own basket. “No, I—”

  “Bah!” Timothy called out, his voice tilting upward at the end in that timeless way of a baby playing with language. He pointed his chubby finger at the dirt.

  “Bug,” his mother corrected. As he reached for the crawling insect, Mae scrambled up from her sitting position and batted her son’s hand away. “No, no. No eat the bug, Timothy.”

  The toddler sputtered a cry, and Mae scooped him up, snuggling him against her hip, and distracted him by pointing out a butterfly that flitted from a green stem to land on a tiny white flower.

  Rachel’s heart faltered, and her smile vanished beneath a sudden cloud of despair. Josef would never know moments like this with their baby. Her dear husband was buried in the nearby cemetery, six feet underground, six months gone. He would never teach his son how to plow a field or harvest corn or smile at his daughter’s first attempts at sewing or making blueberry muffins. He’d never sit their baby upon his knee or hold it close or pray over its soft, downy head.

  During their six weeks of marital bliss, Rachel had lain by his side at night, feeling his breath at her temple and his heart near her own. They had whispered their hopes and dreams of a large family, of the seasons pieced together into a quilt of years. But none of it would unfold. And it was her fault.

  Guilt seared her heart. Closing her eyes, squeezing them tight, she tried to push the feelings back inside, even while a tear rolled down her cheek. She whispered the same prayer she did each day, “Oh, Lord, forgive me…forgive me. And may Josef forgive me too. Help me guide and guard his baby.”

  Her hand smoothed over her distended belly. If her mother and father had their way, Rachel would marry again, and another man would raise Josef’s child as his own. But to Rachel, their baby was Josef’s only legacy. No matter who came into their lives, her heart and baby would belong to Josef.

  Carefully, she placed another strawberry in the basket with the growing mound of others. As a child, she’d always loved harvest season, especially June, when berries ripened and she could taste the sweet burst of flavor on her tongue. Now, the warm dirt cushioned her knees, and the sweet, tender fragrance of sweet peas, daisies, and roses growing nearby scented the morning air. Hope bloomed around her, and yet she couldn’t quite believe she’d ever pull out all the weeds from her past.

  “Rachel,” Mae called, “I’m going to take Timothy back to the house. He needs an awful g
ood nap.” The little boy rubbed at his eyes.

  Rachel nodded and plucked another strawberry.

  Mae took a step toward the house then hesitated. “You will be all right?”

  Again, Rachel nodded, keeping her gaze downward and avoiding Mae’s puckered brow. In moments like this, Rachel wondered if everyone was whispering behind her back, expressing their concern, and plotting to keep someone near her…just in case.

  Then Timothy cried out again, and Mae turned back to him. They headed toward the small house, which was attached to the back of the larger one, where her husband Ernest’s parents still lived with their brood of boys: Ezra, Eliam, Ezekiel, Ethan, and Eli, who was the youngest at age fourteen.

  Rachel had only recently begun working for the Troyer family. They had a fruit-and-vegetable stand on Slow Gait Road, where they sold buckets of strawberries, sugar snap peas, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, and new potatoes to locals, neighbors, and the tourists who came each summer to stare wide-eyed at their plain ways. After Josef’s death, Rachel had moved back home to live with Mamm and Dat again, and soon began to seek work. Her parents had advised against working so soon after Josef’s death and before the baby’s birth, but she needed to feel as if she was accomplishing something, contributing to the family, and avoiding the concerned gazes that followed her everywhere.

  The simple task of picking the strawberries, though, was too simple, for it gave Rachel far too much time to ponder her loss and her baby’s future. Thankfully, the Troyer family was large enough that someone was always nearby plowing fields, plucking weeds, hoeing the garden, hammering a fence post, or simply feeding livestock and providing plenty of distractions. Mae often brought Timothy out to the fields, and the energetic and fearless toddler kept both Mae and Rachel busy chasing after him.

  But now, Rachel was alone. She glanced around at the empty fields of their Pennsylvania Amish countryside, around to the deserted barnyard. A bedsheet snapped on the clothesline. A bee buzzed near her ear. It was too quiet, too still.

  She should have appreciated the peaceful tranquility, since she was so rarely left alone these days. At home, her little sister, Katie, chattered away, as if filling the silence with words might plug the aching hole in Rachel’s heart. Or Mamm kept her busy with chores and quilting bees and bake sales. At night, Dat gave detailed descriptions of his day and all the chores accomplished, and avoided what Rachel did or how she felt or if she wrestled in the night with dark dreams or cried herself to sleep. Always someone stayed by her side. Katie slept in the same room. Conversations revolved around the day-to-day, minute-to-minute details, and not the past, not the pain, not the giant hole Josef’s death had left.