“Well, I don’t,” Chris said. Merton was far enough southeast that anything he knew about the Amish came from movies, which translated to not much. “What is it?”
“An Amish custom,” Nathan said. “It means ‘running around.’ The Amish are different in a lot of ways, and especially when it comes to baptism. Children aren’t baptized into the church at birth. It’s a lifestyle they have to choose with their eyes open, and the Amish believe that only adults, who’ve experienced the world, can do that. So at sixteen, they let the kids run free to do anything they want. The theory might be sound, but it’s a terrible idea.”
“How come?”
“Because they don’t know anything. None of those kids has the faintest idea of what’s beyond their settlements, in the English world, and when they get cut loose like that, with no one to guide them, they run wild.” One corner of Nathan’s mouth tugged down in a wry grimace. “I met . . . quite a few girls. That was something we boys took advantage of, because no girls we knew would go as far as those Amish girls. All those kids partied hard. Looking back, it’s not something I’m real proud of.”
“Okay, I think I get it.” Chris felt his own skin heat with embarrassment. The last thing he wanted was to hear a guy his grandfather’s age reminiscing about all those great hookups from the good old days. “But what’s that got to do with this?”
“Maybe nothing,” Nathan said. “In the end, most Amish kids run around for a couple years before choosing to follow Amish ways. They get themselves baptized and that’s the end of it. But there are always kids who don’t want to come back or do and then leave, which takes a thousand times more guts.”
“Guts?”
“Yeah,” Lena put in. “If they leave after they’re baptized, then they’re shunned.”
“Shunned.” A small ding of recognition. “You mean, like the Ban?”
“I mean, almost exactly that,” Nathan said. “It’s called meidung. Basically, it’s the Amish version of tough love. People will still talk to them, but that’s about it. They can’t take communion, participate in the community, any of that. The idea is to get them to repent and change their minds. I don’t remember how long a person’s got before it becomes permanent.”
“Permanent? As in, no going back?”
“As in excommunication. If that happens, it’s like you’re a shadow, or dead. These poor kids got nothing: no education, no family, no resources, nowhere to go.” Nathan paused. “But it would be natural for them to stick together and try to help each other.”
“Like an underground railroad.” The slow dawn of an idea glimmered in his mind. Chris could feel his brain grinding through the implications, making connections. “Is that what I’m looking for?”
“Well.” Nathan paused. “Jess thinks you found it. A piece, anyway.”
“I don’t get it,” Lena said.
“A breakaway community. A settlement of kids made up of those who chose to leave. But they’d need help, maybe even someone who knew what they were going through because he or she had been excommunicated . . .” Chris’s voice trailed away as another idea bubbled from whatever stew his mind had been brewing these last few weeks. He looked back at Nathan. “They’d need help.”
“You said that,” Lena said.
“Jess,” Chris said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Jess had to be one of them.” He looked back at Nathan. “That’s right, isn’t it? She’s Amish, or she used to be.” He saw the hesitation cross Nathan’s features and added, “Come on. The only way she could know about them in so much detail, enough to give you a name, would be if she’d lived there.”
Nathan gave a slow, almost reluctant nod. “That’s the theory.”
“Theory?” Lena asked. “Why would this even be a secret? So what if she was Amish and then shunned or excommunicated or whatever? Who in Rule would even care?”
“Well, if their leader’s the Reverend’s brother,” Nathan said, “they just might.”
71
“Brother?” Chris echoed in surprise. “My grandfather’s brother? I thought he was dead.”
“He is,” Nathan said.
“But you just said—”
“Wait, I get it. It’s not dead-dead, Chris. It’s dead, as in excommunicated,” Lena put in. She’d pushed herself all the way to a sit. Her skin was milky-white, and the circles around her huge eyes were a dusky purple. “To the Amish, it’s the same thing.”
“But his last name is Hunter, not Yeager,” Chris protested.
“You’re a Yeager,” Lena said.
“Only half,” Chris said. “My dad wasn’t from Rule at all.”
“Once you’ve left the Amish, you’ve crossed into the English world,” Nathan said. “Yeager is German for ‘hunter.’”
Chris let that sink in for a moment. If his grandfather’s brother had provided a refuge for shunned or banned Amish kids, then that meant Rule had to be some kind of crazy breakaway community, too. It would explain some of their customs, how cult-like the village was. But which split came first, Rule from Oren, or Hunter’s group from Oren? Or even Rule. “Do Amish have, like, I don’t know, a council? Some group of guys who run things?”
“All I ever heard of was the bishop,” Lena offered, and then she pulled in a gasp. “Wow. Wait a minute, that’s not right. The way the Amish did it was like this committee.” She held out a thumb. “There was a bishop,” she said, and then counted the rest off on her fingers: “Also three ministers, and . . . a deacon.”
“Five guys,” Chris said. “Just like Rule.”
“Not like Rule.” Nathan wagged his head. “As far as I know, a bishop never makes the laws. Any big issues have to be put to a vote in the community. Rule was never run that way. What they had instead was a sixth chair, which was supposed to represent everybody else. Go take a look at the Council chamber sometime. You’ll see. It doesn’t look balanced.”
Now that he thought about it, Chris remembered that, way back, Alex had once pointed out the same thing—a sixth chair, set by itself, behind the others: Six chairs, but only five men, Chris. It’s like there’s someone missing. And the missing man was Rule itself?
Something else Alex had mentioned also floated out of memory. His grandfather was very fond of Biblical brother stories: Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau. But his favorite was Isaac and Ishmael, and what had he once said about the world outside Rule? The followers of Satan have become as beasts; they bear the Mark of Cain and the Curse of Ishmael. But if Isaac was his grandfather’s brother, then which brother was really the beast?
“What’s Jess’s connection to Hunter?” Chris asked. “Why does she think he can help us, or even will? It’s got to be more than just him giving sanctuary to a bunch of kids.”
“I honestly don’t know, Chris,” Nathan said. “This is what me and Doc have been able to piece together, and it’s still mostly guessing. But you find him, and then I think we got a shot at putting what’s gone wrong with Rule to rights.”
“And if he’s dead?”
“Then I don’t know,” Nathan said. “We just got to hope that he’s not.”
“What do you think?” Chris asked a few moments later. Nathan had ducked out, ostensibly to check the horses, but Chris knew the old man was giving them space to talk things over. Not, Chris thought, that this would change much. He couldn’t see any way out of the box but to continue on toward Oren.
“I think it’s still pretty crazy. Oh, man . . .” Lena unzipped then reluctantly peeled back the flap of her sleeping bag with a grimace. “It’s so cold my teeth hurt whenever I breathe.”
He watched her make her slow, careful way out of the bag. “How are you feeling?”
“Bad.” She paused. “I’m sorry I’m slowing you down.”
“That’s okay. Weller was right. We had to put down some serious distance east before hooking back. It would have been the same either way.”
“Maybe.” She stuffed the bag into its carry sack and cinched down the drawstring without looking up. “Do you ever wonder what’s going on in Rule? Like if they’ve found Peter yet?”
“I don’t think about Rule much at all, not as a place where I belong anymore. I think about what it’s doing, what it’s done. But Peter? Sure.” Chris snapped his pack shut. The sound was loud in the cold, like the crack of an icicle. “Whether it was his idea to feed the Changed, or the Council’s . . . it doesn’t matter. He should’ve fought it, and he didn’t.”
“So, if he is alive . . .” She fell silent a moment, then continued, “If he’s alive, and you do decide to fight Rule, would you fight him?”
“I guess I’d have to.” Turning aside, he unzipped the tent flap. “I don’t know. I just hope I don’t. To tell you the truth, Lena . . . I hope he’s already dead. Then it won’t have to be a choice.”
“But what if he isn’t?”
“Then I hope I could talk to him.”
“What if he won’t listen? You know how Peter gets.”
Yes, he did. Cold pillowed against his face. The air was so dry he felt his eyeballs pucker. He could almost make himself believe that he was past rage and sorrow for his friend even as the pang in his chest gave the lie. God, why is this up to me? I can’t kill Peter; I’d rather blow my own brains out first. I’m not even sure I can fight Rule. “Is there a reason you care?” He didn’t look around. “Maybe . . . something I should know?”
“Maybe. Yeah. I . . .” Her tone was flat and dull. “It . . . it only happened twice. Sarah doesn’t know, but . . . yeah. I think . . . I think so.”