“Go child,” Mrs. Cheng urged. “Go find them and tell them sad news. But come back and see Mrs. Cheng.”
“I will.” Rebekah stumbled out of her chair.
“Not later, Rebekah,” she said urgently. “Today. In little while.”
“May I take my wedding dress, to show my brother?”
Mrs. Cheng nodded and plucked up the dress. She had it expertly folded and stowed in Rebekah’s quilting bag in an instant. “No show Joseph until the big day.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Cheng. For everything.” Rebekah pushed herself out of the chair and hobbled across the floor. Humbly, she accepted her bag. “I will see you soon, Mrs. Cheng. In a little while.”
Without giving the paper a second look, she hobbled out the door and into the mid-morning sun.
Chapter Fifteen
New York City
“Where are those boys,” Rebekah muttered. She shielded her eyes from the sun, but it didn’t do much good. The sun glinted off the water and made an equally bright, if not brighter, reflection. To make it feasible to shield her eyes, she would need two hands, one to shield the top, one to shield the bottom. She stifled a quiet laugh. My, wouldn’t that look funny. To walk about with one hand over your eyes, and one hand under.
She turned her back to the ocean, which helped a bit in scanning the dockside road for Joseph and Peter. There, down at the far end of the street, a black felt hat came into view. She raised one arm and waved over her head, the black-hatted figure did the same.
Joseph!
A bright smile pushed her lips wide. Though the brief agony over missing Katie hurt almost tangibly, the knowledge that they would be safely bound back for Indiana by nightfall lit something inside of her with an excited glow. Like the sun rising through the rain, after a night of black thunderstorms.
She would be home.
With Thomas and her mother.
She could stop and check on her father in the English clinic.
Now, with a finished, uniquely Rebekah dress, she could marry without fear.
She and Joseph would be married in less than a month.
Katie made her choice, and though she was positive God had shown her that Katie would be coming home with them, perhaps her revelation meant Katie would come home after the trip around the world, with exciting stories. Still, something inside of her felt that she and her brother would end up together, in the end. After all, Peter was Katie’s love, whether she wanted to admit it or not. And not even the entire world could break the bonds of true love.
Excited, Rebekah started gimping along toward Joseph, who was still waving at her. A niggling thought forced its way into the back of her mind, almost as a rogue afterthought she didn’t want to think.
We Amish leave it better than we found it.
She’s said those very words so many times this trip.
“Are you truly leaving it better than you found it, here? In New York City?” Rebekah asked herself in whisper speak. She didn’t have to answer that question, it would be silly to do so. Not because she was talking to herself again, but because of the stark severity of the glaring answer, almost as glaring as the sea staring back at her from the mid-morning sun.
No.
No, none of you are leaving this bitter place better than you found it.
Rebekah stopped and scratched her knee. Something itched. When she pulled back her fingers, they were bloody.
“Oh drat. I should have asked Mrs. Cheng for a bandage of some sort. Seems my walking has aggravated my injury.”
Before she could stand up, somebody grabbed her. Hard, and from behind. One hand over her mouth and another across her middle, blocking her arms and completely immobilized her.
“Help!” Her word was muffled by a bony, foul-smelling hand. He jerked her head hard. The muscle in her neck that Joseph had cured with his massaging on the train knotted again with a sharp stab. A whimper escaped her lips and her bag fumbled from her hands. Whoever grabbed her kicked it hard.
My dress, it will be wrinkled.
A frightened thought pushed the tamer of the two out of the way. Thinking of your dress? Think of your life!
“Don’t cry out,” her attacker rasped into her ear. He pinched her nose shut and tightened his grip across her middle as he pulled her backward between the tar-paper shacks and out of the view of anyone—even Joseph or Peter—on the docks.
***
The world was hazy and sounds were meeting her ears, but she didn’t know if they were real or imagined.
“Let her go,” one demanded.
“Or else,” shouted another.
Let me go! Rebekah fought back as hard as she could.
A disembodied voice shouted from somewhere. “Better hope I don’t catch you!”
Sounds swirled in her mind, real, imagined, or both, and Rebekah’s neck ached with a stabbing, catching, righteous ache. She wasn’t entirely sure that whoever grabbed her hadn’t broken it. Then, the world, already fuzzy, started to go black. Something jolted her from behind, and the man finally released her. Air burned into her lungs, but he wasn’t done with her yet. Whoever had grabbed her pushed her, hard, and sent her flying into the side of one of the ramshackle tar-paper shacks. With her arms guarding her head, one hand ripped clean through the tar paper, right into the little dockside house.
The pounding of footsteps, hitting the earth hard and fast, met her ears, but she didn’t dare look up. She couldn’t, even if she wanted to. Instead, she kept her head down and covered as she gulped cool air into her burning lungs.
