Leora
Act normal! Act normal! Just act normal!
I pasted on a cheery smile as I approached our Wolfennite pack’s simple white clapboard church. If I acted normal, as if nothing unusual had happened this morning, no one would suspect anything …
I slowed, all the false bravado leaking out of me. Martha, Susan, and Anne stood outside the church’s wooden doors, gathered in a huddle. The village’s biggest gossips.
The telling of tales was strictly prohibited in the SAV pack’s Discipline.
Right up there with well-known biggies like dressing in immodest ways, using electricity in the home, and driving cars.
But, these three she-wolves never concerned themselves with the village Discipline.
Especially when there were no males around to see them.
And they were quite obviously gossiping right underneath the church’s steeple.
Did they …? Did they know what I did this morning?
Dread pooled in my stomach, along with a fervent urge to reach into the right pocket of my black dress. I longed to touch the creased edges of the letter I’d memorized by heart. But no …
I re-gripped both hands around the Schnitz pie I’d made for the after-service meal.
They didn’t know about the letter from my sister, I assured myself. Or the one I’d written her back—the one I’d asked the postmaster’s soon-to-be-wife to deliver for me this morning. Before she learned of the rule about helpmates not being allowed to send outgoing mail.
How could they know? I'd only made the request a couple of hours ago. And Joanna assured me she would send it off before the helpmate’s weekly Wednesday service.
You are good. Everything is going well. Nothing is out of order. I reassured myself in Wolfennite German as I climbed the wooden steps of our little church. You must act normal.
Easier said than done. The three gossiping she-wolves’ conversation came to an abrupt stop as soon as I started up the stairs. And the usual feelings of not fitting in here swept through me.
Martha, Anne, and Susan were also helpmates, but not like me.
All three of the she-wolves watching me climb the stairs had been born and raised in SAV. And though Susan and Anne also had dark brown hair and freckles the same as I did, neither of them looked like me.
Susan’s and Anne’s dark brown hair was smooth and straight, while mine was a riot of curls. I barely managed to contain it in the double crown braid I wore beneath my prayer covering.
The skin under their freckles was pink and ruddy in the crisp late fall air, while mine was coppery brown.
It also didn’t help that I had what Joshua called “an ungodly baking habit.” Thanks to years of eating my feelings, my body had become heavy and rounded with curves over the past decade.
Yet another physical aspect that made me stand out in the thin helpmate crowd.
All the other helpmates had pretty much the same backstory—even the ones who hadn’t grown up in SAV.
Their parents' ancestors had been exiled from human Amish and Mennonite farming communities. I was the only one with a Ghanaian father who’d gotten himself bitten by a werewolf while attending university in Canada.
Many SAV she-wolves never met a person who looked like me until Joshua brought me to live there twelve years ago.
I'd been considered a “good idea” for the remote and close-to-inbred pack back then. But two years after my arrival, The Tara Incident happened. And Joshua’s younger brother, Jacob, left the pack in shame.
Years of me failing to go into heat followed that familial crime. Then, Dorie's turning out to be toothless made it official.
I was pretty much a pariah now. And the other helpmates often avoided me. As if misfortune were catching.
Which was why I was so surprised when Martha greeted me with a bright smile. “Oh, there you are, Leora! Did you not bring Dorie with you today?”
So, they didn’t know. Relief flooded through me as I answered, “No, I’m afraid she was feeling poorly this morning …”
About being stared at and treated like a freak by your children at church, I silently added to myself.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Martha said. She actually sounded sincere.
Another shock, considering that she was the mother of Dorie’s former best friend, Ruthie.
That friendship ended after Ruthie decided to start bullying Dorie for being toothless.
And Dorie decided to respond to that sudden turn by punching Ruthie straight in her mouth.
Yet another thing my daughter had in common with her aunt.
Tara had gotten chastised often for her displays of “physical anger” at the St. Ailbe village school, where we’d been the only two brown children until my eight year’s younger little sister, Naomi, joined us there.
Anyway, accusations of being unhinged and violent followed Dorie's decision to hit her former friend—mostly lobbied by Martha. And I’d decided to oversee Dorie’s education myself after that.
So why was Martha acting disappointed about Dorie’s absence at the helpmate’s service?
“We wanted to ask her if she knew Rebecca was going to have a girl,” Susan said, clearing up my confusion.
So that was what they’d been gossiping about. A strange mixture of relief and annoyance filled up my chest.
Yes, I’d made Dorie stop announcing the genders of unborn babies out loud years ago. Memories lasted a long time in communities like ours, though. And there wasn't much to do during the season between harvest and planting but pray, gossip, and judge.
The three helpmates leaned forward in eager anticipation of my answer.
And, I once again fought the urge to finger the folded-up letter in my pocket as if I could siphon strength from it.
The Tara I remembered never hesitated to speak her mind.
She would have burned down the school if her special needs child was being bullied.
Not just quietly withdrawn her. When we were both teens, Tara looked up every single curse word in the dictionary.
And I didn’t doubt she would have used every one of them on these gossipy she-wolves.
I just clamped my lips and looked down at my plate of brownies, pretending I didn’t see their expectant looks.
But they didn’t need me to keep on gossiping.
“Did you see how Rebecca swanned around last Wednesday?” Martha asked when I didn’t respond. “She actually said goodbye to everyone as if she didn’t expect to ever see us again at the helpmates' service!”
“I’m standing right here until the service starts,” Anne, the shortest of the three insisted. “I want to see her face when she shows up with her baby she-wolf.”
“If she shows up,” Susan countered. “She might be too embarrassed to show her face today.”
Either that or she had a baby only a couple of days ago, I thought but didn’t dare to say out loud.
“Yea, all you be subject one to another and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble!” Anne quoted a verse from the apostle Peter in an ironically superior tone. “She bragged. Therefore, she deserves no grace from us!”
I suppressed a spike of rage. We were all in a miserable position here. But helpmates could be crabs in a boiling pot, pulling one another down when any of us tried to get out.
How would the daughters of these “godly” she-wolves treat Dorie when she came of age for wolf-mating in five years?
Would Joshua and the rest of SAV’s Executive Board even deign to let a toothless girl be matched?
I didn't want a wolf-mating for her. But what would they decide to do to my daughter if they decided she was of no use to them?
I couldn’t bear to find out. That was why I’d risked everything to write my sister that letter.
And that was why I couldn’t respond to the other helpmate’s callous behavior—why I had to keep my mouth shut. Act normal. Act normal. Act normal.
“I should get inside to help Joshua set up for today’s service,” I told them in my most demure tone.
“Yes, yes, go help your Benefactor,” Martha said with a dismissive wave of her hand. I was back to pariah status now that I’d proven to be of no use to her.
Relieved, I started to go around them.
“Speaking of missing she-wolves, where is the postmaster’s new helpmate?” Susan asked, stopping me dead in my tracks. “She’s been here bright and early for every helpmate’s service since her arrival.”
“Maybe she did something wrong,” Anne suggested, eagerly picking up the new subject. “That would explain why Pastor Joshua sent his grandfather to lead today’s service—is something wrong, Leora? You look like you've tasted some bad butter!”
Yes, I did, and I couldn’t reschool my face. There was no more acting normal. Joshua wasn’t here, and neither was the postmaster’s helpmate.
Despite a restless night of sleep, I’d gotten up early and made a dried apple pie this morning. Schnitz pie was a somewhat complicated recipe. But I'd needed it to appear as if I’d done nothing outside the Wednesday morning usual when Joshua emerged from his bedroom.
I dropped the Schnitz pie without a second thought. The plate I put it on shattered on the ground as I turned to rush down the steps.
Joshua knew. I no longer doubted that. And even worse, Dorie—Dorie, my toothless daughter, was alone at the house. His words from the night before rang in my ears.
“Maybe reprimands are no longer enough. Maybe I should start extending your punishments to that toothless she-wolf you love so much.”
I’d begged him not to hurt her. I cried and promised to do better. While mentally writing the return letter, I knew I had to send my sister in my head. Because I’d do anything—anything to protect my daughter.
But anything hadn’t been enough.
Joshua knew. And that letter I’d tried to send most definitely wouldn’t be reaching my sister.
“Leora! Leora! Where are you going?” the other helpmates called after me when I took off running toward our farmhouse.
I didn’t answer them.
I had to get to Dorie. I had to get to Dorie before Joshua did!