Chapter 1.
I couldn’t remember when I had last been so excited. I had closed on the new house I had bought from my twin sister, Rebecca, and her husband. They were Amish and I was not, but after my husband divorced me to marry a much younger woman, I had lived in the apartment over Rebecca’s cupcake store with two elderly ladies, Eleanor and Matilda, and their cat, Mr. Crumbles.
Now Matilda, Eleanor, and Mr. Crumbles were moving into my new house with me, and I couldn’t be happier. I was smiling widely to myself when Rebecca burst through the door of her store. “Sorry I’m late, Jane.”
I looked at my watch. “You’re not late. The shop doesn’t close for another three hours.”
Rebecca made a clicking sound with her tongue. “Of course I’m late. This is your first day in your new house, and I wanted you to have time off to enjoy it. It’s just that I promised to help Mrs. Graber, and it took longer than I thought it would.”
I waved her concerns away. “I work for you, Rebecca. I’m not going to shirk my duties just because I’ve bought a house. Besides, Eleanor and Matilda went to the house this morning. They said they’d get it ready for me.” A small tingle of apprehension ran up my spine.
“Did you have many customers?”
I shook my head. “A steady stream, but I wasn’t overwhelmed.”
Rebecca pointed to the door. “Off you go!” Her tone was firm.
“But, but,” I sputtered, but Rebecca would hear none of it.
She put her hands on her hips. “I insist!”
I didn’t need telling twice. “Denki, Rebecca.” I hurried out of the door and strode to my car. This was the first house I had ever owned—well, the first house I had owned all by myself, no cheating husband involved.
What’s more, I wouldn’t be lonely, not with Eleanor and Matilda. The house was far bigger than the apartment we had shared above the cupcake store, so I wouldn’t be in for any surprises living with them. I hoped not anyway. Mr. Crumbles—he was another matter. That cat was full of surprises.
I brought the car to a stop and jumped out, smiling once more as I looked at my house. It was all white with a big porch and stood on the adjoining land to my sister and her husband’s farm. They had been only too happy to sell it to me when their renters had given notice. That had coincided nicely with the arrival of money owed to me from my former marriage. The house was in good condition and solidly built, and what’s more, it had electricity unlike other Amish-owned houses in the area. I was glad Englischers had rented it for years.
I looked over at the herb garden and the vegetable garden, and then all but skipped up the porch steps. I flung open the front door and gasped.
Eleanor and Matilda had decorated the house. It wasn’t at all my style. I stood there with my mouth open, wondering where they had gotten all the furniture. Over to one side was a leather Chesterfield couch, but instead of being in the typical Chesterfield colors of brown or black, this one sported the brightest floral pattern I had ever seen. I almost needed sunglasses to look at it. Opposite it was a huge wooden table with a slab of marble on the top.
A huge chandelier hung from the ceiling. It looked antique. I was certain it hadn’t been there before. Bright purple curtains hung from the windows opposite me. I wondered whether Eleanor and Matilda were both color-blind. That was when I turned around and saw what was on the far wall.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Swords and daggers and guns covered the wall, collectively forming some bizarre type of decoration. They hadn’t been in the apartment—not as far as I knew—and I wondered where they had been hiding them.
Matilda walked into the room. She let out a scream when she saw me. “Eleanor, she’s here!” she yelled. To me, she said, “You’re early.” Her tone was accusatory.
I rubbed my temples. “Yes, I know you wanted to surprise me, but…” My voice trailed away.
“Well, you have surprised us,” Matilda said.
It was then I noticed she was covered in soapsuds. I heard a sound like someone being strangled. “Is there somebody else here?” I asked her.
Matilda looked aghast. “Somebody else here? Have you taken leave of your senses, Jane?”
“Very probably,” I admitted. I hurried over to her, but she barred the doorway. After some jostling with elbows, I managed to push past her. The noise was coming from the main bathroom.
I flung open the bathroom door to see Eleanor sitting in the bath with a goat.
I thought perhaps I was having a nightmare, a rather bad nightmare. Surely, this couldn’t be happening. “Eleanor, why are you in the bath with a goat?”
“I didn’t do it deliberately,” she said rather crossly. “I was giving the goat a bath. She resisted, and I fell in.”
The goat let out another mournful sound.
I took a deep breath. “Why on earth are you shampooing that goat? And isn’t it one of those wild goats?”
“Gigi was a wild goat, but we are training her, aren’t we, Matilda?”
Matilda nodded enthusiastically. “She’s the tamest of the wild goats.”
Some time ago, Matilda and Eleanor had rescued fifteen wild goats for a petting zoo at a fundraising event and had subsequently boarded them on my sister’s farm. The wild goats had caused no end of trouble, and my sister and her husband were thrilled when I said the goats could live with me. After all, the house came with several acres.
“Why are you washing the goat, anyway? And more to the point, why are you washing a goat in my bathtub?”
“Where else would we wash her?” Eleanor frowned so hard, her eyebrows met and formed a unibrow. “Don’t worry, we didn’t use your shampoo and conditioner. We bought some specially.” She pointed to the bottle at the foot of the bath.
I tiptoed across the soaked bathroom floor and picked it up. The label proudly announced, ‘Premium Shampoo for Goats.’ I was shocked. “They actually make shampoo for goats? Who in their right mind shampoos goats?”
Eleanor appeared quite offended. “We entered Gigi in the goat show.”
Well, now I had heard everything! I folded my arms over my chest. “You can’t put that goat in a show! Goats need pedigrees and everything like that. People breed them carefully for years. You can’t put any old goat in a goat show.”
“They introduced a new class this year,” Matilda said from behind me.
I turned around halfway so I could keep an eye on both her and the goat. I didn’t want any more surprises.
She pushed on. “The class is called Any Other Variety. They did it to allow anybody to enter any type of goat, because the goat society was trying to get the general public interested in showing goats.”
Eleanor nodded, causing bits of soapsuds to fly from her hair. “And what a good idea it is too. Matilda, could you hand me that blue rinse?”
Matilda handed Eleanor a bottle of blue liquid, and she wasted no time pouring it over the goat. I expected the goat to object, but now she seemed to be enjoying the attention.
At that point, I was very pleased that the house had an en-suite bathroom and that the goat was being washed in the main bathroom. “About all the furniture,” I began.
Matilda interrupted me. “We had it in storage for so many years and now it can see the light of day. Isn’t it wonderful!”
“That’s one word for it,” I said. “And what about all the guns on the wall?”
“They don’t work,” Matilda said cheerfully. “They’re only for show. But don’t worry. The katanas and daggers can certainly be used as weapons. They make a lovely and useful display too, don’t they?”
I clutched my head with both hands. I was beginning to regret buying the house and wanted to go back to the apartment. I staggered out of the bathroom and headed for the kitchen. I needed to make myself a nice cup of hot meadow tea. I had been raised Amish and left the community after my rumspringa. Some of the Amish ways had stuck with me, such as considering hot meadow tea to be soothing.
I found Mr. Crumbles sitting under the kitchen table. “I think I should get under there with you.”
Matilda walked into the kitchen. “Jane, you’re worrying about nothing.” She shook her head and frowned. “It must be the excitement of seeing how beautifully we decorated your house, and the shock of owning your own home and all these lovely acres filled with our goats. And don’t worry about us taking the goat to the show. It’s only a goat show. What could go wrong?”
