Jesse took Miriam’s hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We wanted to tell you this for a long time, but didn’t think you were ready. Jael, you’re…”
“Don’t tell me that I’m adopted!” she burst out, a crease of worry between her brows. “Because I’ve seen pictures of Mom when she was young and I look just like her.”
“You’re definitely our daughter, honey.” Miriam sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “No doubt.”
“Then what could you possibly tell me that I’m not ready for?”
“Remember the Bible story about Jael and Sisera?” she asked, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her daughter’s face.
“Of course. I’ve probably heard it a thousand times. Definitely a weird bedtime story for a small child. And a really weird person to name your daughter after, by the way.” She rolled her eyes in that condescending teenage manner they had begun to expect in the past year or so.
“She wasn’t weird. She was strong and brave. A woman you should be proud to be named for,” Jesse said. “Jael wasn’t just a character in a bedtime story. She lived and breathed and fought evil–every day of her life. She was chosen. As you are.”
Jael opened her mouth to respond, then closed it and shook her head.
“It’s true,” Miriam confirmed. “You are her descendant. You have been chosen. It’s been written in the Book of the Shunned.”
Jael jumped up from the bench and strode to the other end of the deck. She stared out at the desert, gripping the cedar rail with both hands.
“You can’t run away from this. It’s who you are. What you’ve been trained for. Why we live this way–apart from others.”
Jael’s shoulders began to shake as she stood at the rail and they thought she was silently crying, until she turned around and burst out laughing.
They looked at each other and then back at their daughter. She was obviously having some kind of breakdown.
“Okay, I’m confused,” she said finally, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “So I’m really not an Amish freak? I’m actually the descendant of a woman from the Bible who pounded a tent peg through the brain of a vicious general when he fell asleep in her home.” She grinned. “What have I been chosen to do exactly? Put up tents?”
“You definitely inherited your father’s sense of humor,” Miriam stated dryly.
“You guys are killing me. What could be so bad that you have to make up all this crazy stuff instead of telling me the truth?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, kiddo, but you are an Amish freak, as well as the chosen one.” Jesse’s tone had hardened. He was no longer in the mood to break it to her gently. He rubbed a hand wearily over his face and pointed at the bench swing. “Sit.”
Jael plopped back down, her mouth still turned up at the corners as though waiting for the punch line. She pulled her legs up and rested her chin on her knees.
“Jael was of the Kenite people, the descendants of Zipporah, Moses’ wife.”
“Are you talking about Moses, the guy that parted the Red Sea and all that?”
He nodded but wouldn’t be swayed from his course. “Descendants of the Kenite people give birth to a chosen daughter every third generation. She is an only child, conceived on a night of unusual circumstance, with six toes upon her right foot.”
She looked down at her feet and grinned. “I’m pretty sure somebody did a miscount.”
“It’s true, honey,” Miriam nodded. “Your feet were printed when you were born–to show to the counsel–and then I had the doctor remove the extra piggy.”
Jael put her hands up as though stopping traffic. “Wait a minute! I was born with a sixth toe and you never told me? And who the heck are the counsel?”
“The counsel no longer exists,” Jesse explained. “They were all killed shortly after you were born. And we didn’t feel the need to tell you that you once had a sixth toe. After all, we had it removed for your protection so no one would guess who you really were before you had time to train and grow up.”
“And it was gross,” Miriam said with a slight shiver.
“As for the unusual circumstances…” he began, then trailed off and looked to Miriam to finish the thought.
“We left home during Rumspringa to experience the outside world and decide whether we truly wanted to live as Amish. Your father and I were in love and wanted only to be together. Our friends were running wild, drinking and partying all hours of the day and night. They were like pigs let loose in a huge mud puddle during the heat of a summer afternoon. It was horrible. I was ready to go home, be baptized and swear to the faith, but when we arrived at my parent’s house, no one was around. We heard voices in the barn. It was very dark outside but there was a full moon. We moved to the West wall and peeked through the hole left there one autumn by a wayward deer hunter with bad aim.” She paused, memories crashing through with aching force. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed deep. “My brother Jacob, two years older than I, was kneeling before the Bishop and chanting. My parents were lying on the dirt floor of the barn, their faces pale even in the dim light of the lanterns. We could tell that they were dead. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. Thank God for that, or we would have soon met our maker as well.”
“They were murdered?” Jael asked, eyes wide with shock.
“They were sacrificed by the Order.”
“Whose order?”
“Not that kind of order.” Jesse shook his head, exasperation showing in every line of his face. “The Order is a group of monsters that have taken over the Loon Lake Amish community in Minnesota. The place where your mother and I grew up.”
“As well as other Amish communities across the country,” Miriam added.
Jael’s blue eyes narrowed in thought. “When you say monsters…” she began tentatively.
“I mean monsters,” he said. They were matter-of-fact words that begged to be denied.
Eyes wide, she sent a hopeful glance toward her mother.
“Vampires.”
Jael put her legs down and leaned forward, her hands gripping the edge of the bench seat. “So, all those stories you told me…those monsters we pretended to fight…those stakes I planted in straw bales and stuffed bad guys…were actually getting me ready to fight real vampires?”
Jesse nodded. “Amish Bloodsuckers. The worst kind.”