Amish Barn Murders
Chapter 1.
It was slow at the market and Thea Hersh had only sold six cheeses, rather than the twenty she would have sold by this time on a normal day. It seemed as though people had vanished all of a sudden.
“Slow day.”
On hearing a deep voice next to her, Thea looked to her side at the young Englisch man who ran the stall next to her. Her father had warned her not to speak to any of the stall holders who weren’t Amish, but she couldn’t be rude. She smiled at the relatively new stall holder she’d only spoken to a handful of times in the past weeks.
He continued, “I haven’t seen this place so quiet since I’ve been here.”
“I know what you mean,” Thea replied. “And I came here this morning hoping to make a tidy sum today, but it seems I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
He took a step toward her. “Did you want the money for something special?”
Thea looked at the young man. Her father’s warning about keeping separate from the Englischers rang in her ears, but she was only talking to him. Many in her community had to speak to the Englischers during the course of their business. Thea’s gaze turned up to the sky. “I need to get my bike fixed.”
“What’s wrong with it?” He took two more steps until he was standing in front of her and offered his hand. “I’m Austin, by the way.”
She shook his hand and looked into his kind brown eyes. “I’m Thea.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve heard your father speak to you.”
“You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“Yes. We had a stall on the roadside, but we’re hoping to sell more here with all of the people going by on foot. So, what’s wrong with your bike?”
“I think the wheel is twisted. Well, it’s looked that way for some time, but I was still able to ride it, but now I can’t. Now I have to walk everywhere.”
“Can’t your boyfriend fix it for you?”
Thea smiled and felt her cheeks flush. “I don’t have one.”
“What about your father?”
“I daren’t ask him to do one more thing. He’s so tired when he gets home at night.”
“I could fix it for you.”
“You could? Are you sure?”
Austin smiled, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m pretty handy with things like that. I’ve fixed my own bikes and my brothers’ bikes. Bring it in with you tomorrow and I’ll take a look at it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you so much, Austin.” Thea stepped sideways and her cheese display tilted, beginning to topple over.
Austin lunged forward and grabbed the stack of cheeses before they fell on the ground.
“Good catch. Thank you.”
Austin had the cheeses balanced against his midsection, and Thea leaned forward to take them from him. When they were standing close together with only the cheeses in between them, Thea’s friend, Thomas, appeared. The pair jumped apart causing the cheeses to fall on the ground.
Thomas glared at Austin and then looked at Thea. “What’s going on here?”
“See what you’ve done, Thomas?” Thea bit her lip. She was always accused of speaking first and thinking later.
Thomas, being taller than most men, looked down at Austin. “Stay away from Thea.”
“He’s got a stall here and he was just helping me.”
“Look after your own stall,” Thomas said to Austin.
“Thanks for your concern, but I believe I didn’t catch your name,” Austin said.
Glaring at Thomas for his uncalled for rudeness, Thea said, “Austin, this is Thomas. Thomas, this is Austin. My father will be here soon, Thomas.” Thea knew Thomas and her father did not get along very well; she wasn’t sure why. All Thea knew was that something had once happened between Thomas and Grace, one of her older sisters, before Grace had gotten married.
Thomas crossed his arms in front of his chest. “That’s good; I’ll wait for him. Shall I tell him what I saw between you two?”
Austin walked a few steps back to his stall, ignoring Thomas' comments.
“Nothing was going on. The cheese fell, Austin caught it and I was taking it back from him. There was nothing happening at all,” Thea insisted.
“Is that right, Queen Bee? That’s what you must be to have all that honey. Did you have your worker bees make it for you?” Thomas walked over to Austin and deliberately knocked into his display of honey and the jars toppled over and landed on the table.
Austin hurried to steady the bottles. He caught all but one that toppled out of his hands and smashed on the ground. That got the attention of other stall holders and some customers. Everyone looked over at the two boys while Thea looked on in horror.
“You’d better go home and collect more honey from your bees, Queen Bee.”
Austin stepped up to Thomas and looked up into his face. “I killed the last person who called me ‘Queen Bee.’”
Thomas laughed and stepped away.
Thea rushed over to stand between the two men. “Thomas, look what you’ve done.” She pointed to the ground and the broken jar of honey.
Thomas shouted, “He threatened me and you heard him.”
“Leave him be. Why are you here anyway?” Thea demanded.
“I’m picking up a couple of things. I didn’t come here to have my life threatened.”
Thea looked over at Austin who was doing his best to pick up the broken glass and sticky honey. When she turned back to Thomas, she said, “Well, if you don’t want anything, please go.”
Thomas looked over his shoulder at Austin, sniggered and walked away.
Thea grabbed a box of tissues that she had behind her stall, leaned down and helped Austin wipe the honey from the ground. “Sorry about that, Austin. He can be unreasonable at times.”
“I thought Amish people were peace-loving and all that.”
“They are, they mostly are, except for him. I don’t know what gets into him sometimes. He’s been funny since he got back from his rumspringa.”
“Have you thought that maybe it’s jealousy?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Thea looked at Austin and saw a little smile on his face, but he kept quiet.
Six o’clock rolled around and the stall holders packed up, as the market was now closed. Even though Thea hadn’t sold very much that day, she had enjoyed Austin’s company after Thomas had left.
Thea’s father, Levi, showed up a little earlier than usual. “Go to the buggy now, Thea, I’ll finish packing up.”
“It’s okay, Dat, I can do it. You wait for me; I’ll be out soon.” It was usual for her father to wait for her in the buggy and she normally wheeled the leftover goods out to him when she was ready.
Levi looked over at Austin and from the way he stared at him Thea knew that Thomas had spoken to her father about the altercation earlier that day. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Dat. Thomas was here making trouble.”
Turning around to look at his daughter, Levi ordered, “Go to the buggy, Thea, and wait for me there.”
Thea drew her eyebrows together, looked at her father, and then glanced back at Austin. She walked away not daring to say goodbye to her new friend. Instead of going directly to the buggy, Thea watched from a distance hoping her father wouldn’t have words with Austin. She was right to be concerned; she saw and heard her father speaking with the young man. Austin was visibly shaken, and nodded as her father spoke. Her father was not yelling, but was speaking loud enough to attract the attention of the other workers who stopped to see what the commotion was.
Thea heard her father say, “Stay away from my daughter! I don’t want to see or hear that you’ve talked to her again.”
Austin nodded.
Then her father said, “I heard what happened and I won’t have my daughter put in the middle of an argument.”
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The cheese toppled over and I was helping her.”
“Save your stories. I don’t want you to speak to her again.”
“I have the stall next to hers. I’ll most likely see her tomorrow.”
A baker nearby heard the ruckus and stepped up. “What’s going on, Levi?”
“This young man has been disrespectful to Thea.”
The baker looked at the young man and then looked at Levi. “I’m sure it won’t happen again.”
“It won’t happen again,” Austin said with an emphatic nod, as he appeared to be growing more frustrated.
As Levi finished packing the cheeses, he turned around and caught sight of Thea. He narrowed his eyes and pointed outside to where the buggy was. Thea obeyed immediately and as she walked out to the buggy, she hoped the situation would calm down. She’d never heard her father raise his voice before, neither had she heard him say things of that nature to anyone. It made her wonder what Thomas could’ve possibly said to her father that made him so cross.
