“We could just drop in and see,” Mary Anne said finally.

“I’ve heard he wants to move, so even though he hasn’t listed the farm, we can check.”

The farmhouse was large and dilapidated. It had been white. Now the paint was peeling and the shutters were falling off. It was two-story, undistinguished, blocky. The barn to the right side and back a hundred yards or so was in much worse shape. It had housed no animals for some time, apparently. A rusted tractor sat lopsidedly in a field of weeds and mud.

A tall, spare man came out of the screeching screen door. He didn’t have his teeth in, and he was leaning heavily on a cane. But he was shaven and his overalls were clean.

“Good morning, Mr. Flocken!” Mary Anne said. “This lady is in the market for a farm, and she wanted to know if she could take a look at yours.”

Joseph Flocken didn’t speak for a long moment. He looked at me suspiciously.

I looked straight back at him, trying hard to keep my face guileless.

“I represent the Workers for the Lord,” I said, making it up on the spot. “We want to buy a farm in this area that needs work, a secluded farm that we can renovate. When the work is done, we’ll use the dormitories we build as shelter for our members.”

“Why this farm?” he said, speaking for the first time.

Mary Anne looked at me. Why indeed?

“Not only does it meet the criteria my church lays down for me,” I said staunchly, praying for forgiveness, “but God guided me here.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mary Anne looking over the mess of mud and weeds dubiously. Perhaps she was thinking God apparently had it in for me.

“Well, then, look around,” Joseph Flocken said abruptly. “Then come on in and look at the house.”

There wasn’t much to look at outside, so we murmured together about acreage and rights-of-way and wells, and then went inside.

Martin’s childhood home.

I gave Flocken some credit for trying to keep the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, and his bedroom clean.