Secrets in the Grave (Serenity's Plain Secrets Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

powers aren’t as strong as Jonas’, but she’s healed before.”
    “Are you serious? You don’t really believe in all that charlatan nonsense.”
    “I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” Daniel said, smacking his hand on the wheel. “When I was around eight years old, I was riding double with my friend Lester Lapp—Mervin’s father—on a newly broke colt. I didn’t realize the maple tree we’d stopped beneath had a hornet’s nest in it. When we heard the buzzing, it was too late. The stings on my neck and arms weren’t nearly as bad as when that colt went into a bucking fit. We fell off and Lester hit the tree. Ma heard our screams and came running from the house. I was already up and had dragged Lester away from the tree and the bees, but he wasn’t moving. Blood was mixed in with his blond hair.” Daniel took a deep breath and shook the memory loose before he continued. “I’ll never forget how I held my breath while Ma laid her hands on Lester. She was murmuring that he was still with us—that he hadn’t left his body yet. Then she began praying. They weren’t ordinary words coming from her mouth, not entirely German or English. It was a language that I’d never heard before. Her eyes glazed over and her words turned into a constant stream of strange mumblings. The wind picked up around us andI began moving my own mouth, praying to God not to take my best friend away.
    “A moment later, Ma fell over and I moved around Lester’s prone body to reach her. She was asleep. That’s when Lester opened his eyes and asked what happened. Ma slept a lot the rest of the week. She wouldn’t talk about the incident in front of us kids.”
    My heart was racing by the time he stopped talking, but I didn’t want to believe. “In hindsight, don’t you think that maybe Lester was simply unconscious from the fall and he woke up naturally?”
    “What about Ma?” Daniel asked.
    “Maybe some kind of induced hysteria, I don’t know. It’s easier to believe that she lost her mind for a moment than she actually used supernatural powers to heal Lester.”
    “There are things in this world that can’t be explained. I know what I saw and what I felt. It was real,” Daniel said with sureness before he turned onto the winding gravel driveway that led up a hill to a blue farmhouse with a wraparound porch. Most Amish homes were white. Seeing the different color set the immediate tone that these weren’t ordinary Amish people.
    “All that aside, if Jonas is supposed to have healing powers, why would he use those gifts to harm people?”
    “That’s what we’re going to have to figure out. Healers don’t always just use their own bodily forces to cure people. Oftentimes, it’s their knowledge of herbs and different plants that give them the ability to make teas, oils, tinctures and poultices that do the healing. This kind of knowledge is passed down from generation to generation and is more powerful than even the
laying of the hands
, sometimes.
    I absorbed his words as he parked the Jeep and turned off the engine. When he looked at me, he was frowning.
    “Be careful with Jonas. Even if you don’t believe that he has powers, he is crafty. Keep your guard up the entire time you’re around him, and for heaven’s sake, don’t—”
    “Drink or eat anything,” I cut him off, smirking.
    “I’m not kidding,” Daniel said with a sterner voice.
    I couldn’t resist. I leaned in and kissed his lips. At first they were stubbornly unresponsive, but when my tongue tried to push them apart, they loosened and opened hungrily. This part of our relationship was more than okay. It was his pestering about other things that gave me fits.
    A thought occurred and I pulled back. He groaned, but released me.
    “If Jonas Peachey is so scary, then how does he get any business?”
    Daniel chuckled as if I were either stupid or naïve. I bristled.
    “He may be a strange man, but he has a gift. If your child were sick, wouldn’t