Beauty for Ashes Page 0,70
own parents, who had shown her and Henry nothing but kindness. She’d been blessed, had taken the blessing for granted. Her heart broke for Deborah. How could a father show such cruelty to his own child? How could Deborah bear the memory of it? “You don’t have to tell me any more.”
“I want to.” Deborah patted her hand. “The week before my seventeenth birthday, Daddy left early for town and told me not to forget to bring the cows in from the pasture. The day was stifling hot, so after I finished cleaning up the house I got some cool water from the spring and sat for a while on the front porch just listening to the cicadas. Andrew Porter, the boy who lived on the next farm over, came riding up the road and stopped for a drink of water. I told him it was almost my birthday. He laughed and said a girl turning seventeen ought to have a present. He took me into town to get a hair ribbon.”
She smiled. “Up to that time it was the only present I’d ever received. After Andy dropped me back home, I got Mama’s mirror down and pinned the ribbon in my hair one way and then another.”
Deborah paused, a pained look in her eyes. Carrie stole a glance at the minister’s wife. Had she stopped for breath . . . or to gather the courage to remember what had happened next?
“The next thing I knew it was dark and Daddy was back. Too late I remembered about the cows. I ran out the back door to the pasture, but he caught me by the hair and dragged me into the barn. He stripped me to my chemise and beat me until I fainted. When I came to, I was covered in my own blood and chained to the anvil he used for making horseshoes.”
Carrie stared, horrified. “Oh, Deborah. I had no idea. You must have felt terrified, and terribly alone.”
“Terrified, yes. I knew Daddy meant to leave me there until I died. By then death would have been welcome. But I didn’t feel alone. Not for a single minute. Because I knew our Lord could see me. He knew where I was and the trouble I was in, and that was when I learned the beauty of surrender. For two days I lay there in my own blood and waste and waited for him. I was ready if he wanted me. But if not, if there was still work on earth he wanted me to do, I was ready to do that too.”
Carrie sat transfixed by the power of Deborah’s story and the breathtaking certainty of her friend’s faith. “How did you escape?”
“Andrew came by looking for me and noticed that my daddy was all scratched up. He figured Daddy had been after me again, so he looked for me until he found me. Eventually my bruises and cuts healed, but my broken foot never mended properly, and my arm was so damaged from being chained up . . .”
She looked past Carrie’s shoulder to the yard beyond. “That was when I met Daniel. He and his wife, Cordelia, had a little church in the hills above Cool Hollow. I couldn’t go back home, so they took me in and took care of me. I stayed with them until Cordelia died. Later Daniel and I married. We’ve been together since.”
Shaken to her core, Carrie only nodded. “I admire your certainty. But I don’t see how—”
“It isn’t complicated at all, once you make up your mind to surrender your all to him. Despite my infirmities, I’m happier now than I’ve ever been.” Punctuating the end of her story with a brief nod, Deborah rose. “It’s getting late. I should be going.”
“Thank you for visiting Mary.”
Deborah smiled. “It was you I hoped to see. Will you be at church on Sunday?”
TWENTY-TWO
“See how he’s pinning his ears back?” Griff grinned down at Carrie and gestured to Majestic. “That tells me he’s heard me, but he’s decided to ignore me. That won’t do. Even a small infraction must be corrected. Otherwise, he’ll get to thinking he’s the one in charge.”
Carrie perched on the fence and listened, fascinated, as Griff explained the finer points of horse training. Part experience and part intuition, Griff’s ability to communicate with Majestic seemed nothing short of magical. She watched the way he moved to reassure the horse, tugging gently on Majestic’s bridle until the horse lowered his head