Snowbirds Read online

  Snowbirds

  Crissa-Jean Chappell

  [Merit Press]

  F+W Media

  Copyright © 2017 by Crissa-Jean Chappell.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

  Published by

  Merit Press

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

  www.meritpressbooks.com

  ISBN 10: 1-5072-0069-2

  ISBN 13: 978-1-5072-0069-8

  eISBN 10: 1-5072-0070-6

  eISBN 13: 978-1-5072-0070-4

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and F+W Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

  Cover design by Sylvia McArdle.

  Cover images © Getty Images/Noel Baebler; Tom Merton; mariusFM77; Talshiar.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  chapter one: pinecraft

  chapter two: rumspringa

  chapter three: floating

  chapter four: water tower park

  chapter five: sunrise

  chapter six: low tide

  chapter seven: keeping secrets

  chapter eight: head in the clouds

  chapter nine: words and pictures

  chapter ten: ghosts

  chapter eleven: pearls

  chapter twelve: deep water

  chapter thirteen: princesses

  chapter fourteen: rotten fruit

  chapter fifteen: breaking the rules

  chapter sixteen: dents and scratches

  chapter seventeen: ashes

  chapter eighteen: chain of stitches

  chapter nineteen: quilts

  chapter twenty: blackwoods

  chapter twenty-one: luck

  chapter twenty-two: fish bones

  chapter twenty-three: from away

  chapter twenty-four: tides and currents

  chapter twenty-five: mittens

  chapter twenty-six: snowflakes

  chapter twenty-seven: old ways

  chapter twenty-eight: thin ice

  chapter twenty-nine: hearts like flint

  chapter thirty: over the mountain

  chapter thirty-one: snowbirds

  for the Rumspringa girls

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my agent, Wendy Schmalz, for believing in this book. I’m grateful to my editors, Jacquelyn Mitchard and Stephanie Kasheta, and everyone at Merit Press. Big hugs to Mom and Dad, the Chappell and Erskine families, Jonathan, who spotted the lantern in the sky, Team 305, and Harlan, my rock. Shout-out to Suzanne Reeves, May-Lin Svantesen, Kelli Hicks, Jackie Dolamore, and Joyce Sweeney. You were there from the start. Thanks so much for your encouragement along the way. I’m especially grateful for the Anabaptist communities in Pinecraft, Florida, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who patiently answered my questions, and most of all, the snowbirds on Bahia Vista. I will never forget your generosity and kindness.

  chapter one

  pinecraft

  All the trees have been chopped down. Me and my best friend, Alice, used to play hide-and-seek in this empty lot. Now it’s just a field of stumps. I listen for night birds—whippoorwills and owls—but hear none. Only the rumble of traffic, growing closer, then farther away, keeping time like a pulse.

  Alice is waiting for me by the chainlink fence on Friday night.

  The first thing I notice is her hair.

  “What do you think, Lucy?” She strokes the loose curls below her neck.

  I touch my own hair, which is pinned under a prayer cap and damp with sweat. I’ve never even trimmed the ends.

  “It’s going to take forever to grow long again,” I tell her.

  “Good,” she says, kneeling in the dirt and unzipping her backpack. She dumps out a pile of skinny jeans and a tank top studded with rhinestones. We’re not supposed to wear store-bought clothes. The faded blue denim is softer than anything I’ve ever worn.

  “But now you can’t get baptized.”

  “I don’t care,” she says, lifting up her skirt and tugging herself into the jeans. “I’d rather be shunned than join the church.”

  I shiver. “Don’t say that.”

  If Alice were shunned, we’d never see each other again. And that’s not the worst part. She wouldn’t go to heaven when she died.

  There’s only one place left to go.

  “So what are you going to do?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath. “Me and Tobias are driving to the bus station tonight after the party.”

  “You’re running away?”

  When Alice told me to meet in our hiding spot, I knew she was in trouble. I figured she got in another fight with her mom. I had no idea it was this bad. Ever since I can remember, Alice has been talking about running away from the Old Order.

  I didn’t think she’d actually try.

  Headlights trickle across the empty lot. A truck pulls up and two boys get out. They start walking toward us through the tall grass. One of them waves his flashlight at Alice. He’s wearing a T-shirt crisscrossed with bones, as if he’s turned himself inside out.

  “Took you long enough,” she says, running up to him. So this is Tobias, the boy Alice mentioned in her letters. She kisses him so hard, I have to look away.

  “Who’s that?” he snaps, and I know he’s talking about me. “Thought I told you not to bring anybody.”

  Alice grabs my hand. “This is my best friend, Lucy.”

  “Whatever,” Tobias says. “You got the money?”

  Alice digs inside her backpack. She takes out a roll of crumpled bills in a plastic bag. More money than I’ve ever seen.

  “Been saving up all summer,” she says, waving it in his face.

  The other boy whistles.

  “I wouldn’t go showing that off.”

  He’s taller than Alice’s boyfriend. Stronger in a lean muscle kind of way. When I hear him talking real slow, I figured he’s Old Order Amish too. But he’s zipped into a hoodie with flames curling down the sleeves.

  “This is Faron. He’s driving,” says Tobias. “So where is this party anyway?”

  “On the beach,” says Faron, jingling his keys.

  I can’t leave Alice alone with these Rumspringa boys. They’re already walking to the truck.

  Alice slings her backpack over her shoulder. “You’re coming with me, right?”

  I open my mouth, ready to say no.

  Instead, I follow behind.

  chapter two

  rumspringa

  When I was little, me and Alice used to look for shells on Lido Key before dawn. We’d grab our buckets and flashlights and comb the Sarasota beaches in our long dresses and bonnets. Sometimes a man jogged past and stared. Catching a glimpse of us was like digging up a secret. I’d cover my face, just like Dad taught me.

  After our buckets were full, we dumped out the sand dollars. I showed Alice how to crack the shells. Inside were five tiny “doves.” We soaked them in a bowl of bleach until they turned pure white.

  I keep the doves in a mason jar on my dresser. It’s the f
irst thing I see when I wake up. Same as it’s always been. Nothing ever changes in Pinecraft. Every morning, it’s the same routine. Chores and more chores.

  Today I better work fast.

  That’s because the snowbirds are coming.

  On Friday, I rise with the sun. The quicker I get my chores done, the sooner I’ll be with Alice. This afternoon, the buses will pull up near Big Olaf’s ice cream shack like they do every year. The Old Order Amish will flood Bahia Vista Street in a tide of bonnets and straw hats. I’ll search for Alice’s smiling face in the crowd.

  “Lucy, I’ve got so much to tell you!”

  That’s for sure.

  Alice could talk a pelican out of a fish. At least, that’s how Dad puts it. He says we couldn’t be more different. Me, with my long fingers that darken to the color of pinewood floors in the sun. Alice, tiny and fair-skinned, her pale eyes always hunting for shade.

  “Different as summertime and winter, you two,” Dad likes to say, though it’s never winter in Florida.

  In the corner of my bedroom, a row of plain cotton dresses—sky blue and seashell pink—droop inside the mahogany wardrobe Dad built for me. Alice says I’m lucky. In my church, I’m allowed to wear pastels, while she’s stuck with muddy brown. Maybe she’s right, but lately, I’m tired of putting on the same clothes day after day.

  If I don’t head for the kitchen, Dad will yell at me. Fried eggs and toast is the most I can do. Mama used to bake all kinds of sweets. Pecan twists studded with chocolate chips. Cinnamon rolls curled tight as sailors’ knots. Best you ever tasted, Dad says.

  I never got a chance to find out.

  Mama got sick after I was born. Sometimes I wonder if it was my fault. I try to picture her in Heaven with the Lord, but it feels so unfair, the fact that she’s gone. I know it’s selfish, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking it.

  My dad built all the furniture in the house. The ladder-back rocking chair. The “bench table” (flip it upside down and you’ve got a place to sit). The wooden star nailed to the wall. It’s supposed to hang on a barn door, but there aren’t any barns in Pinecraft.

  After breakfast, he leaves his coffee mug in the sink like I’m his maid. Would it hurt if he washed his own dishes once in a while?

  “You heading over to meet Alice?” he asks, scratching his beard.

  I nod. “The buses are coming this afternoon.”

  “Well, you need to finish up here first,” he says, waving at the laundry basket near the sink. The damp pile of rumpled jeans is stacked so high, it’s overflowing. Guess I should’ve taken care of that earlier.

  We’re Mennonite, not Old Order. Still, my dad refuses to buy a clothes dryer to go with the washer. He calls it a “worldly indulgence.” In other words, something we don’t need. I’ll have to string his wrinkled pants in the broiling sun, a clothespin wedged between my teeth. Dad’s got a big list of “worldly” things, like TVs and electric toothbrushes. Still, he keeps a radio in his workshop. It plays gospel music all day long.

  I grab the sponge and start scrubbing.

  “Lucy,” he adds, turning to leave. “Don’t forget.”

  I glance up from the sink. “What’s that?”

  “Our little visitor,” he says, staring at the floor.

  At first, I think he’s talking about Alice. Then I notice the stain by the door, swirled like the folds inside a conch shell.

  Our little visitor.

  Yesterday I forgot to lock the back door. No big deal in Pinecraft. Everybody leaves their porch screens wide open. Windows, too. But when I wasn’t looking, a raccoon snuck inside the house and “let loose.” Must’ve been real hungry, if he was prowling around in the daylight, poor thing.

  “I won’t forget,” I tell Dad, reaching for the dish towel. I move so fast, the cup slips through my fingers and smashes on the floor.

  Dad pushes back his straw hat and sighs. “Lucy, your head’s always in the clouds.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  No matter how I try, I’ll never be perfect enough for him.

  He traces the raccoon stain with the edge of his boot, as if he could erase it, just by wishing. “Might take a little more elbow grease than Murphy’s Oil,” he tells me. “Our visitor schmutzed it up.”

  No kidding, Dad.

  He picks up the broken cup and throws it in the trash. “Get a move on before the day’s gone. Then you can go meet Alice. Not till then, you hear?”

  “Yeah, I heard,” I mutter under my breath.

  Maybe I can’t cook worth a fig. But give me a bucket of nails and a hammer. My hands are bumpy with calluses, the fingernails worn down to nubs. Last summer I built a plank-style table all by myself. Too bad we had to sell it in Dad’s shop. That table sure beats any pie I ever tried to bake.

  I grab the coffeepot and scatter a handful of damp grounds over the raccoon stain. That way, the pinewood can soak up the color. All it takes is a dishtowel and a good scrub. Soon the floor’s almost new.

  As I scrub, my gaze drifts around the kitchen. Nothing’s changed, as long as I’ve been breathing. Our place is like most in Pinecraft—a plain, ranch-style house with a screened-in porch. The orange grove shading the backyard has been there forever. Dad planted the littlest tree when I was born. The branches are twisty and snarled like an old man’s knuckles, the fruit bruised with canker.

  “That tree’s not much to look at,” Dad will say, shaking his head.

  That’s why it’s my favorite.

  When I’m finally done with raccoons and coffee stains, I carry the laundry basket outside into the sun. The backyard is thick with heat and the breeze smells like thunderstorms. I’m already sweating in my long dress. Better get moving fast. I kick the screen door open and step onto the porch, where Mama’s needlework hangs on a nail:

  LOVE MEANS EVERYTHING

  The corners are stitched with tiny pink roses. I stare at the delicate cursive, so tight and perfect. Sewing’s just another talent I don’t have.

  “One more thing,” Dad calls across the yard.

  I drop the basket on the porch.

  It’s always one more thing with Dad.

  “Need help with the McCullers’ gazebo,” he says, heading for the workshop. “The frame could use a little sanding.”

  My heart sinks. “Can I go meet Alice first?”

  “You know the rules, Smidge,” he says.

  Dad could totally finish by himself, but “many hands make light work.” At the end of summer, he’s always trying to keep up with new orders, building gazebos for rich people in Sarasota.

  “Okay,” I tell him. Hopefully, it won’t take too long. I watch him disappear under the mossy oaks, humming a gospel tune I know by heart.

  Guess I should be thankful. Sometimes we go months without a paycheck. Then it’s macaroni for supper every night. Yeah, I love Dad’s mac and cheese, but it starts tasting like glue after a couple nights in a row.

  I walk over to the clothesline. My bike’s leaning against the porch. The crate tied above the back wheel is crammed with hibiscus blossoms. For a second, I think about sneaking off to pick more flowers. All I want to do is escape.

  As I pin Dad’s wrinkled shirts to the line, a flock of jade-green birds swoops across the sky, cackling like I’m the joke. Quaker parrots. They’re from somewhere far away. Nobody knows how they got here. Still, I often catch a glimpse of them flicking through the branches, with their sharp eyes and bright beaks.

  I wave at the parrots, half expecting them to wave back. I’m so busy looking up, I knock over the laundry basket, spilling Dad’s clean shirts in the mud-soaked grass. Of course, he’s hanging outside the workshop, keeping an eye on me the whole time.

  “Head in the clouds,” he says.

  • • •

  I’m racing through Pinecraft Park on my rusty old ten-speed. Hope I’m not too late. I don’t want to miss the buses when they pull up to Bahia Vista Street. Alice will be there, waiting for me at Big Olaf’s ice cream shac
k. That’s where everybody goes to meet their Old Order friends from up north—friends they haven’t seen since last year.

  On Sundays, the picnic tables near the canal are crowded with Amish-Mennonites in pastel dresses. We spend the whole day eating after church. Dad says I need to learn how to bake something to share with everybody. But I’m much better at eating shoofly pie than baking it.

  “You can smell scorched soup from a mile away,” Dad always says. And I know he means us. Dad, who loved Mama so much, he didn’t get married again. And me, the girl who builds gazebos like a man. Never bakes any sweets for the summer bazaar. Rides her bike a little too fast. Falls asleep in church while everybody else is singing.

  Last weekend, I didn’t have anything to sell at the bazaar. So I whittled a bird from a piece of driftwood with Dad’s pocketknife. Later, I heard Mallory Keller say it was “ungodly” for a girl to carve animals out of wood. Who cares? A knife’s good for more than scoring pie crust.

  Mallory and her friends are playing volleyball in a patch of sand near the picnic tables. When I zip past, they turn their heads away. I’m no good at volleyball, either. Dad really wants me to learn to play, but I’d rather be on the beach catching hermit crabs and digging up sand dollars.

  Dad says I need more friends. In other words, girls who aren’t Old Order. But nobody’s half as much fun as Alice.

  I stand on the bike pedals, my skirt flapping in the breeze, and zip toward Bahia Vista Street. Big Olaf’s ice cream is packed. Girls with their pale dresses circling the parking lot on skates. Boys in suspenders, clattering back and forth on Razor scooters. Entire families on three-wheeled bicycles. All waiting, just like me.

  A little girl races ahead in her bare feet. I sort of admire her determination. She’s dragging one of those Amish rag dolls, the kind without a face. I used to have a doll like that, but it scared me so bad, I never wanted to play with it. What are you supposed to do with a faceless doll anyway?

  “Always hold Mommy and Daddy’s hand,” a man shouts, running after her.

  I laugh. The girl doesn’t even look back. No stopping her now.