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  MOUNT HOPE by Sarah Price

  Published by Realms

  Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group

  600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, Florida 32746

  www.charismahouse.com

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission.

  Copyright © 2016 by Sarah Price

  All rights reserved

  Design Director: Justin Evans

  Visit the author’s website at sarahpriceauthor.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Names: Price, Sarah, 1969- author.

  Title: Mount Hope / by Sarah Price.

  Description: Lake Mary, Florida : Realms, 2016.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016031864| ISBN 9781629987569 (trade paper) | ISBN

  9781629987576 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Amish--Fiction. | Christian fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3616.R5275 M69 2016 | DDC

  813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031864

  Contents

  A Note About Vocabulary

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Other Books by Sarah Price

  About Sarah Price

  A Note About Vocabulary

  THE AMISH SPEAK Pennsylvania Dutch (also called Amish German or Amish Dutch). This is a verbal language with variations in spelling among communities throughout the United States. In some regions, a grandfather is grossdaadi, while in other regions he is known as grossdawdi.

  In addition, words such as mayhaps, the use of the word then at the end of sentences, and, my favorite, for sure and certain, are not necessarily from the Pennsylvania Dutch language/dialect but are unique to the Amish.

  The use of these words comes from my own experience living among the Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

  Prologue

  NOT ONCE IN her ten short years did Fanny ever think of any place but Colorado as home. She loved waking up in the mornings and seeing the white-capped Sangre de Cristo Mountains from the small window in the room she shared with her sister. Often, she awoke early, just so that she could stare out the window and watch the sky change from dark blue to gray to a steely white as the sun rose and cast shadows on the mountain. She would lie in her bunk, her face turned to the window, and wonder what, if anything, lived on top of the mountain. One day, she thought, I will climb to the top of that mountain.

  It was a ten-year-old’s dream.

  Since the time when the Amish community first settled just outside of Westcliffe, Colorado, more than thirty new families had left their homes in Indiana, Ohio, and even Pennsylvania to join their community. Most of them were young couples with small kinner who moved west for the promise of land with limited exposure to the outside world. Fanny Price’s parents had been among them just eight years prior.

  Her parents had moved there for very different reasons. Fanny’s father chased his dream of purchasing a larger farm than what he could afford in Pennsylvania. Fanny’s mother followed because she was his wife.

  With the help of the g’may he built a small, three-bedroom log cabin on an inexpensive tract of thirty-two acres in the San Luis Valley at the base of those beautiful mountains. Everyone admired the view, remarking on how the snow at the top of the mountain range contrasted sharply with the beautiful, lush evergreen trees at its base, trickling into the green valley where Fanny’s parents had settled. Yet, as far as Fanny knew, despite the majestic beauty of those mountains, not one member of their church district had ever built farther than the tree line.

  From the other room Fanny heard her father starting to move around. Clearly it was time for morning chores. With a sigh Fanny shut her eyes and waited until she heard the creak of her parents’ bedroom door and her father’s footsteps heading to the kitchen. She knew that, if she waited three minutes (not two and not four), she would hear her mother’s footsteps next. While the baby was still nursing, her father got up earlier to fetch his own coffee. It would be ready by the time Maem joined him in the kitchen.

  Usually Fanny waited until she heard her older bruder, William, stirring from the boys’ room before she slipped down from her top bunk and, in the cold of the morning, shivered out of her nightgown in order to dress for the day. She didn’t like going into the kitchen unless William was already there. His presence felt like an added layer of protection to Fanny, especially in the days following the birth of baby Ruth.

  “You up, then?”

  Fanny lifted her head, her long brown hair tousled and covering her face. She pushed it back and looked at the door. To her surprise, it wasn’t Maem; it was William. “Ja. Are you?”

  He gave her a silly look. “No, goose! I’m just standing here talking to you in my sleep!”

  She giggled and slid out from under the quilt, careful not to wake her younger sister Susan, who shared the bunk with her.

  “You best hurry,” he said. “I heard Maem and Daed talking about Pennsylvania again.”

  Fanny stopped herself from dropping to the floor. Her heart began to beat rapidly. “Oh, help,” she whispered. She felt frozen in place and not just from the chilly autumn air.

  “Hurry,” he whispered one more time before following his own advice and scurrying back to his own bedroom to change.

  For two months Fanny and William had watched their parents whispering about something. They did not know what it was, but they sensed that it involved them, since more often than not, Maem and Daed would glance in the direction of their two oldest children when they whispered. Several times William heard them talking about their other family back in Lancaster County and would pinch Fanny to stop fidgeting so that she wouldn’t distract him from eavesdropping.

  In the barn they would speculate what their parents were talking about and they could come up with only one thing: the family was going to move back to Pennsylvania and give up on the whole idea of farming in Colorado. The past eight years had not been kind to the Prices. The other Amish families who lived in the valley began to relocate farther south of the town. As they moved out, more Englischers moved in, wanting the comfort of land without the sacrifice of being too far from the town proper.

  Despite his fruitless attempts at farming in the dry, arid soil, Daed refused to follow the others who began to leave. He loved the house that he had built and knew that, one day, his crops would finally prosper. That day had yet to arrive.

  “What else could it be?” William had asked her just last week, abnegation in his voice as they mucked the small dairy shed.

>   The higher altitude of Westcliffe had made it next to impossible to maintain a large dairy herd. The paddock grass was not rich enough to sustain the number of cows that their father needed in order to make enough money to sustain the family. And the season for growing hay was too short to supply enough forage for the winters. Little by little, the herd had begun to shrink, with one cow after another sold or butchered until there were only ten cows left. And then it came: the drought.

  Fanny responded with a sneeze, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

  “You sick again?” William asked, forgetting about Pennsylvania for the moment. “You need a better jacket, Fanny Price! Winter isn’t even here yet! You’ll catch your death from it, that’s for sure and certain!”

  But Fanny ignored him, knowing only too well that she would not get a new jacket that winter. She didn’t complain about it to her parents, knowing that they both had enough on their mind trying to figure out how to feed and clothe their six children. Susan was born soon after they moved to Colorado, then the twins, Jerome and Peter, arrived three years later. While Daed struggled to make ends meet, Maem raised five small children largely on her own. By the time baby Ruth arrived, the sixth (and hopefully final addition to the family), a hard tension seemed to linger over the Price farm and its household.

  Clearly decisions had to be made and the logical one—the only one, in fact—was for the family to cut their losses, sell the three-bedroom log house and barn, and return to Gordonville. At least they had some of Daed’s family living there who could help them restart.

  Neither William nor Fanny thought there was any shame in that. They were both rather excited about the prospect.

  The Amish community in Westcliffe was so spread out that they usually didn’t see another Amish person for days, even weeks. Maem homeschooled them since the schoolhouse was too far away for daily journeys, and they missed most church services since they had only one buggy. Often Fanny and her mother took turns missing it so that the others could attend.

  Yes, Lancaster County seemed like the answer to everyone’s prayers.

  So when William and Fanny slipped into the kitchen, quietly joining their parents at the kitchen table where two cups of hot chocolate waited for them, their parents’ announcement came as quite a surprise.

  “Fanny girl, you need to pack up your things,” her father said, staring at her over the top of his mug, the steam from the hot coffee creating a foggy barrier between them.

  Confused, Fanny blinked, her brown eyes looking first at her father, then at her mother. If she first thought that she had misunderstood Daed, when she saw that her mother was avoiding meeting her questioning gaze, Fanny knew she had not. “Me?” she said in a frightened voice. “Just me?”

  Daed looked at Maem. She stared down at the floor, the dark circles under her eyes giving her a tired, haggard look.

  William spoke up, breaking the silence between their parents and asking the one question that lingered in the air. “You mean all of us, Daed, ain’t so? We are all to pack.”

  “Nee.” Daed’s response was curt and emotionless. Now he too no longer looked at his oldest daughter. “Just Fanny.” Fanny’s hands began to shake and she spilled hot chocolate on the table. Normally her mother would snap at her, but this time she merely pushed a dirty dishcloth in Fanny’s direction.

  “Where’s Fanny going, Daed?” William had always pushed the limits with their father, and for a second Fanny feared that William’s sharp tone might land him behind the woodpile having a man-to-man “talk” with Daed and his belt.

  But not this time.

  “Ohio.”

  Once again, Fanny thought she did not hear her father properly. Ohio?

  “Ohio?” William cried out. “What’s in Ohio? Our family’s in Pennsylvania!”

  Maem took a deep breath and, without raising her head, looked at her son. “William!” she cautioned.

  It surprised Fanny that her father did not reprimand William’s insolence. Questioning their parents was simply not something that the children did. But her father looked tired, the dark circles under his eyes speaking of many sleepless nights. Surely this decision had not come easily to either of her parents.

  “Your maem has family in Ohio,” Daed explained. “Fanny’s going to move in with Maem’s schwester for a while.”

  Fanny glanced at William, the color drained from her cheeks. They had never met Maem’s sister in Ohio. She would have preferred returning to Pennsylvania instead. At least she knew more about her father’s family, even if she didn’t remember them from before the family moved.

  “My schwester Naomi is married to the bishop,” Maem contributed. “His children are grown and she has none of her own. And she lives on a small property next to my other schwester, Martha.” For the first time Maem forced a small smile at Fanny. “Your Aendi Martha has two dochders just about your age, Fanny. And two older stepsons from her husband’s first marriage.”

  “Why am I being sent there?” Fanny asked, her eyes still large and frightened as she tried to understand what exactly was happening.

  “You’ll help them with their basket-making business,” Daed explained.

  “Baskets?” Fanny asked, more out of disbelief than as an actual question.

  “They could use your help.”

  Fanny wasn’t so certain that this was true. She knew nothing about these two sisters in Ohio and their basket-making business. In fact, on the rare occasions her mother received a letter, Fanny had just assumed they lived in Pennsylvania. And, even more disturbing to Fanny, she knew nothing about basket making. How helpful could she truly be to this family? Fanny suspected that she was being sent away so that her parents could provide for her other siblings.

  William shook his head. “You can’t send Fanny without the rest of us!”

  Maem’s hand fluttered to the back of her neck. Fanny stared at her, silently begging her mother to say something—anything!—that would indicate that this whole discussion was a mistake. But as she looked at her mother, she saw how tired she looked. While she had only just turned thirty-two, she looked almost fifty years old. Her hair was already thinning and turning gray at the roots that were just visible beneath her stiff white prayer kapp.

  “Please, William,” she said in a soft, pleading voice. “This is hard enough as it is.”

  “I . . . I don’t want to leave,” Fanny whispered, her dark eyes wide and frightened. “Don’t send me away.”

  “You both know we are struggling,” Maem replied, once again averting her eyes. “Just can’t make do out here no more.”

  “But I thought we would all move back to Lancaster!” William cried.

  “We would if we could,” Maem said. “But we’ve too much money invested in this place. Fanny’s going to return and help out the aendis. My older schwester, Naomi, offered to take her in. That will help us all and be better for Fanny anyway.”

  While neither Fanny nor William had ever met this Naomi, they had certainly listened to Maem read the sporadic letters written to her by her oldest sister. Her husband had been selected by lot to become a preacher, and within two years, he was elected the bishop of his church district. It was clear that Naomi saw this as a sign of divine appointment rather than selection by lot. Often the letters spoke disparagingly of the situation that her younger sister had fallen into when the Prices moved to Colorado. It wasn’t surprising to Fanny that Naomi had poked her nose into the family business once again. That seemed to be what this Naomi person did best.

  As for Maem’s other sister, Martha, her letters were even more infrequent and consisted of nothing more than a list of recent activities: gardening, washing, quilting, and prayers for health for the Prices. On the few occasions that Maem read them out loud, it sounded as if the letter could have been written to a complete stranger rather than her very own sister. That made it even more surprising whenever Maem commented about how Naomi and Martha were as inseparable as two peas in a pod. Their personalities seeme
d as opposite as fire and ice: the former fiery hot and the latter emotionlessly placid. Fanny could never imagine that she’d ever have that type of friendship with baby Ruth, who was ten years her junior, or especially with her sister Susan, who was only two years younger.

  But neither Ruth nor Susan were forefront in her mind. Instead, Fanny sat before her parents, trying to register the fact that she had just learned she was being sent away from the only home she had ever really known.

  William scooted his chair close to his schwester’s and put his arm protectively around Fanny’s shoulders. “I won’t let you send our Fanny away!”

  Finally their father had enough. He slammed his hand, open palmed, onto the top of the table and exclaimed, “Quiet, William!” Then, his eyes narrowing as he scowled in the direction of his son, he added, “’Sides, your turn will come next week.”

  William’s arm stiffened and Fanny squeezed his knee under the table.

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Daed?”

  Daed remained emotionless. “William, you’re going to have to go to your onkle Aaron’s in Lancaster County.”

  At this announcement William jumped to his feet, accidentally knocking down the ladder-back chair on which he had sat.

  “Sit down!” Daed commanded, his voice booming, which made Fanny shrink farther into her seat. “You’ll be learning the carpenter trade from my bruder Aaron and returning here to help me when you turn sixteen.”

  At their father’s words, equally as surprising as what he had said earlier about her being sent to Ohio, Fanny felt William’s arm drop from her shoulders. He slid his hand under the table and sought out hers. When he found it, he squeezed her fingers so tight that she thought they might turn blue.

  “When shall I return, Maem?” she asked, somehow finding the courage to speak up.

  But her mother did not answer her. The baby began to cry from the cradle at the foot of their bed in the master bedroom and she jumped up, hurrying to fetch Ruth. Her father merely gave her a look and advised her to pack, and pack quickly, for the driver would be arriving within the hour and it would be best for the younger siblings if she were gone before they awoke.