Called to Order Read Online Free

and took heart in the playful exchange the two shared. She was starting to come around, but Adam still noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the paleness of her skin. She was still not sleeping or feeding as much as she should be. The last time she lost a babe it had taken a little over a year for her to regain her normal vigor and beauty. This time she had miscarried early, only in the fourth month of her gestation. Adam hoped the shortened period during which she carried the babe would decrease her length of recuperation.
    Although he only had three siblings, his mother had been pregnant eight times. And being that he and Cain were twins, she only experienced three successful births. It wasn’t her age. Although Abilene was seventy-eight, she looked no more than twenty-five. Her body was, like all of their kind, at the peak of its health. Yet, for some reason, after she had given birth to Grace, twenty-one years ago, she had ceased to create new life, something their ancestors had been known to do well into a millennia.
    Adam did not miss the sudden down casting of his mother’s eyes as his father, Jonas, entered the room. All merriment was silenced as he joined the family and they offered a silent prayer of thanks for their meal.
    Marriage among The Order was a private arrangement. Even the children of a married couple were not privy to the personal decrees agreed upon between a mother and father. There was English law, which rarely interfered with the Amish, thus providing a veil between their species and humankind, then there were the laws of their faith and the laws of each Amish order, and lastly there was family law, the rules by which a husband and wife chose to govern their home and honor their marital duties. All laws were widely understood by even the youths of The Order, except for those privately established between a man and a wife. The Order saw mating as a gray area, a varying experience that each newly mated couple should navigate for themselves so long as they were not breaking any higher laws.
    Adam did not understand what it was that had his mother so withdrawn around his father as of late. Perhaps it was shame in having miscarried again, but Adam saw that as an act of nature, one she could not have altered. He knew some men among The Order were known to discipline their wives, but he had never seen his father raise a hand in anger in all of his thirty-seven years on this earth. Perhaps they were merely having a lover’s quarrel and things would mend on their own. Either way, he hoped things would mend soon. As things stood now, he had no desire to approach his surly father with more complicated news.
    He, Cain, and Gracie ate in silence while their parents drank from pewter goblets filled with warm crimson liquid. It seemed his mother was not the only one lacking an appetite these days. His food tasted like sawdust on his tongue, lacking any distinguishing flavor, warmth, or texture. It was getting worse, the dizziness, the dreams, the sensitivity to the sun. He would have to come clean soon.
    Before he could swallow his dry mouthful of whatever flavorless morsel he was chewing, Gracie gasped. All eyes shot to her direction. She sat, mouth open, fork suspended midway to her mouth, her large eyes staring back at him. He realized too late that he was not guarding his thoughts. All eyes followed Gracie’s gaze and settled uncomfortably on him. Adam tried to offer a subtle shake of his head, silently asking Gracie to suppress her surprise, but it was too late.
    “Adam? Is everything all right?”
    Adam turned to his father, wincing at the concern in his eyes. He glanced back at Grace, who quickly gave an apologetic shake of her head and returned her attention to her supper, no longer seeming to have an appetite but still mimicking the proper motions.
    Telepathy was a collective sense most humans did not possess, however their species did on varying levels. For the most part, all members of The