Free The Outside by Laura Bickle Page B

brown eyes.
    With a sigh, he came to his knees. When a horse does so, it’s a sign of exhaustion and surrender. I had rarely seen one do so outside of foaling or illness.
    Horace laid his nose on my knee. I stroked his broad forehead, watched the raven bob and weave among the spiky grass to find the last bits of hickory nut.
    The sun was warm on my face. I closed my eyes, relishing this small moment of solitude and peace.
    I just listened to the thin breeze in the branches. I wondered how God’s creatures interpreted all that had happened—was happening—to them. I thought of all the cats and dogs in houses in the city. And I began to miss my dogs. Back home, I bred golden retrievers. Sunny had just given birth to puppies. I hoped that my little sister was caring for them as I’d showed her.
    I missed my family. I missed my mother, with her gentle work-callused hands, and my father, with his calmness and equanimity. I missed Sarah. I missed sleeping in my own bed, and eating hot mashed potatoes. I missed clean clothes and fresh water and the sense of ordinariness that my old routine brought. I didn’t appreciate it enough then.
    But now, now that I had been shunned and cast out into the Outside world . . . now I knew an inkling of the value of such things. Even though they had been spoiled when I left by the incursion of the vampires and the stranglehold of denial the Elders were beginning to exert on the community, I missed what had once been.
    And I wondered if it would survive, ever to be again.
    ***
    When I dreamed, I knew that I was dreaming.
    I dreamed of blue sky with the tatters of white clouds, of sun on my face. I dreamed that I was in my backyard, doing laundry with my mother and sister. I was scrubbing clothes in a basin with a washboard and lye soap. I handed a dress to Sarah, who rinsed the garment and handed it off to my mother. It was my favorite dress—a dark blue the color of gathering night. My mother wrung the dress dry and fastened it to the clothesline with wooden pins. She was a future version of myself, with the same straight, light brown hair, gray eyes clear and smiling. The apples of her cheeks glowed with contentment. She and Sarah were singing as we worked.
    My mother commented, “
Ja
, we should make you a new dress before winter.”
    Sarah clapped her hands. She was just learning to sew. “Can I help?”
    â€œOf course you can!” I told her. I was perfectly capable of making my own dresses, but it went so much faster with my mother’s help. And Sarah took the cutting so very seriously that her eyes crossed.
    I glanced around the familiar yard. My dogs, Copper and Sunny, were stretched out in the grass. Sunny was nursing her greedy little puppies. Copper was halfheartedly chasing a chicken. He’d chase but never kill.
    I could smell supper cooking through the back screen door, and my mouth watered. There would be savory ham and sweet potatoes and my mother’s delicious pumpkin pie with fresh butter and cider.
    After supper, we’d read from the
Ausbund
, the Amish prayer book. We might play checkers in the light of the oil lamps until it was time to go to bed. We’d sleep under quilts my mother and I had made, warm and secure in the knowledge that tomorrow would be the same as today, which was the same as yesterday.
    My father was walking down the dirt road. I could see his smile above his beard, and I waved. He smiled and waved back. He was carrying a bushel basket of squash. Beside him walked Elijah, who grinned at me over the heavy basket of vegetables he carried. He waved at me and said something I couldn’t hear.
    Then, I heard a raven’s hoarse caw.
    I peered through the swirling laundry: the dresses and aprons, the bonnets, my father’s britches and shirts. The sheets flapped in the breeze, and it made my skin crawl. It reminded me of something . . . something ghostly . . .
    A