Free No Use Dying Over Spilled Milk by Tamar Myers

sheriff,” I said needlessly.
    The sharp sound of Stayrook sucking in his breath startled me. “Ach, no!”
    I was incensed, but not surprised. “Stayrook Gerber, the sheriff has to be told if there was a threat. And this is not just an Amish thing anymore. Murder is a capital crime, a crime against the state. You can’t sit on evidence out of religious conviction.”
    Stayrook turned and faced the window. Since it had fogged, I knew it wasn’t because something outside had suddenly caught his eye. “Magdalena, the Bible says that God will seek his own judgment in his own time. It is arrogant and sinful for a man to interfere with God’s plan.”
    “Ha!” I could no longer restrain myself. “So now what are you going to do? All start working for Mr. Hem again? He could be a murderer, you know, or doesn’t that bother you? I suppose you see him as part of God’s plan as well.”
    The Stayrook Gerber who turned from the window and faced me again was a different man. The big brawny gravedigger had somehow shrunk considerably and was now a scarecrow propped up on the seat. “We are going to sell our farms and move.”
    The owl hooted mournfully.
    “What?” I spoke loud enough for the owl to hear me, and he obliged me with an answering hoot. I ignored him. “You are all going to sell and move? To where?”
    Stayrook answered in a voice that matched his diminished size. “To Indiana. La Grange County. Most of us have kin there anyway—”
    “So what? So do I, but you don’t see me living there, and believe me, I’ve had my life threatened a time or two. What does the bishop think of this?”
    Stayrook’s voice dropped. “The bishop thinks that Levi and Yost may have been possessed. He thinks that if our people move to Indiana, they can leave behind the forces of evil.”
    “And you?”
    He shrugged. “Have you come across evil before, Magdalena?”
    “Have I ever! But I didn’t move.”
    “It is God’s will for us.”
    “Says who?”
    “The elders. They are all in agreement with the bishop. That is how we know it is God’s will. Part of his plan for us.”
    I observed a rare moment of silence. I bit my tongue and counted to ten. Twice. The counting, I mean, not the biting. “Well,” I said calmly, “maybe I am part of God’s plan as well. In fact, you may henceforth refer to me as Phase One.”
    “Ach du lieber,” Stayrook moaned. “As if we don’t have enough problems right now. Just who do you think you are, Magdalena Yoder?”
    “Whoooo?” the owl echoed.
    It was time to turn around and drop Stayrook off at the Yoder farm. If my instincts were right, life was going to be complicated enough without my having to dodge rumors that I was having an affair with Stayrook Gerber. In the words of Susannah, I “peeled out of there and burned rubber” all the way back.
    It wasn’t yet nine o’clock when I got back to the Troyer farm, but they were already home and in bed. I felt deliciously guilty as I slowly opened and then closed the front door behind me and crept up the creaky wooden stairs. If that had been Mama’s house, she would have been out of bed and swinging a rolling pin seconds after the first creak. The pin, by the way, would have been meant for my backside, not a burglar.
    Either the Troyers were all asleep or else they were totally uninterested in disciplining me, because no one intercepted me, smelled my breath, or checked my seams. For one intense moment I allowed myself to envy the Troyer boys and the relative freedom they would experience when they hit their teen years. Then I remembered the sardine omelettes. Mama might have been strict, but she was a first-rate cook. Love can come and go, after all, but a stomach is forever.
    I was dreaming that Aaron and I were trying to ice-skate on Miller’s Pond, in our bare feet, when Susannah crawled into bed and stuck her icy feet against mine. It took me a minute or two to become fully awake.
    “Susannah Yoder Entwhistle!” I