The Blessed (17 page)

No, it was the plethora of Shaker rules that piled on Lacey like thick woolen blankets until she could barely breathe. That was what she wanted to throw off. She’d been prepared for some of the rules. The “no men except as brothers” one. Everybody knew the Shakers had that rule. She didn’t know as how she believed on that with the way the Bible read, but she was more than ready to go along with it. Thinking on the preacher as a brother was better than thinking on him as a husband. She wasn’t so willing to go along with how they spirited Rachel away from her and then refused to let her so much as see the child. Sister Drayma claimed such a visit would be a hindrance to Rachel being able to settle in to the Shaker way of living.

Lacey argued against that, but Sister Drayma turned a deaf ear, simply saying, “When you chose to come into our community, you chose to abide by the rules that have served us well for many years.”

Lacey wanted to tell the Shaker woman she didn’t choose any of it, but then there she was. Right in the middle of the Shakers. So that meant a choice had been made. To keep from thinking on the sorrow of that choice, she said, “How many years?”

They were walking back to the Gathering Family House after a day of working in the washhouse. Lacey had done most of the work, with Sister Drayma directing her every move. As if she didn’t know already how to scrub clothes. That was something she’d been doing since she was big enough to reach into a tub of water. Of course, back then or at the preacher’s house either, she didn’t have the washing machines the Shakers had invented nor the water piped into the house. That should have made it all easier, but here hundreds of Shaker people were dirtying up clothes. A scrub board with only one pair of britches and a shirt and dress or two to scrub down sounded easier than all those Shaker clothes, no matter if water did pour out of a pipe instead of being packed into the house in a bucket. Lacey was wishing for the bucket and her rain barrel back home.

“It is good to know our history.” Sister Drayma gave Lacey an approving look as though just asking the question meant she was starting to believe in their ways. “Mother Ann came to America before the Revolution and began sharing the truth of the Believers’ way.”

“Here? She was here in Harmony Hill?”

“Nay. She has only been here in spirit to deliver us messages of love. Our beloved mother was never in the frontier states. It was not until some years after her death that the Ministry sent the first Shaker brothers here to the west. The eastern communities heard of the great revival workings at Cane Ridge and felt Mother Ann leading them to come plow the fertile spiritual fields here. The village was established here in 1805.”

“Forty years ago.”

“Yea, we have prospered much in those forty years. So many converts. So much building. When we do as Mother Ann directs and give our hands to work and our hearts to God, good things happen. Every day.” Sister Drayma’s face took on that strange shine Lacey had come to expect when she talked about their worship. “Many marvelous things are happening now during this time of Mother’s work.”

“What things?”

“Signs and wonders that come to us from the spirit world.”

“What sort of signs and wonders?” Lacey eyed Sister Drayma a little uneasily. She wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to see the woman go into a shaking frenzy, even though she hadn’t seen so much as a tremble from any of the Shakers so far.

In spite of what Lacey had heard about their shaking dances, everything in the village seemed strictly ordered as the Shaker people went about their business with solemn intent. Even the business of eating was solemn with a rule of silence reigning over the tables and the only noise the clanking of forks on plates. Prayers were silent too. Numerous and far from spontaneous, as each Believer knelt upon rising in the morning and prior to retiring at night as well as before and after every meal. A lot of praying opportunities, and Lacey had plenty to talk to the Lord about, but often as not her mind couldn’t settle down to pray before everybody was standing up and going about the next ordered thing.

Now Sister Drayma’s voice sounded oddly high-pitched as she answered Lacey. “Songs and dances. Wondrous drawings. Spirit dreams and directives. Angels coming to dance among us.” The woman looked toward the sky and threw her hands up as though indicating angels gathering around them that very instant. Then as suddenly as the glow had come upon her, it was gone as she narrowed her eyes on Lacey once again. “If you choose to surrender your spirit to the truth and stop holding back your belief, perhaps you will witness these wonders. But it is plain to see that you resist our way.”

“It seems too much to understand and believe in such a short time,” Lacey answered honestly.

“Nay, not for someone with a contrite spirit. Something you appear to lack. A person who seeks to understand would confess the sin in her life and vow to do better on the morrow. You must admit the wrongs you harbor in your heart.” Sister Drayma turned her sternest look on Lacey. “As Brother Elwood has done.”

“Has he?” Lacey had seen the preacher at the practice sessions and on the men’s side of the dining room. She had wondered if he was chafing against the rules being set for him instead of being the one to explain the rules to his church people. But it appeared that was not the case.

“We are told he is progressing in his understanding. He is learning the simple way to true peace. A way you should consider, for it is a gift to be simple.”

“Simple. How do you make things simple when nothing seems that way?”

“But it is simple, my sister. As simple as shrugging off the ways of the world and embracing the rules that keep life simple.”

“You mean like which foot to step up on the stairs first?”

“Yea. Always step with the right foot first. Such disciplined obedience keeps you in union with your brothers and sisters.”

And makes you a sheep
, Lacey wanted to say, but she bit back the words. Not that being a sheep was wrong. The Lord spoke of his sheep knowing his voice. Perhaps Sister Drayma was right. Perhaps she was resistant to the spirit. There was no doubt she was nursing a contrary spirit here in this Shaker village, the same as she had clung to a contrary spirit as the preacher’s lawful wife. She could fess up to her contrariness when next Sister Drayma asked her to number her sins. But confessing sin didn’t necessarily mean she had turned from it. She could imagine nothing but contrary feelings as long as they kept Rachel from her.

That didn’t mean she had to be contrary in every small thing. So when she came to the steps into the Gathering Family House, she lifted the proper foot up on the first stone step. She could at least set her mind to abide by the common rules, even if some of them didn’t seem to matter the first bit. What in the world difference could it make to the good Lord above which knee hit the floor first when she knelt down to pray or whether or not she was holding a handkerchief in her hand when she dropped to her knees? But she could do those things as Sister Drayma instructed. And save her contrariness for the big things.

She could listen with a meek spirit to Sister Drayma harping on obedience and contrite spirits and the telling of how to do every little thing, even if it did make Lacey’s head spin with rules and regulations. But she would never be able to keep her heart from aching for some sight of Rachel.

On the first Saturday after they came to the village, Lacey was in the garden planting beans when she heard the children’s voices. Sister Drayma wasn’t beside her. She was too old for garden work, she said before she left Lacey at the garden to work through the day. The six sisters worked in teams as one dropped the seeds a hand’s width apart and the other covered the seed with dirt and tamped it down with her hoe.

It was good to be in the sunshine and away from the suds and dirty clothes and a relief to not have Sister Drayma’s preaching words in her ears for a few hours. The sisters in the garden plot talked only of the work and how hot the sun was on their bonnets and what might be on the table at evening time. Lacey kept her silence, for Sister Drayma had warned her idle chatter was not allowed and that, although she wasn’t with Lacey, other eyes would be watching.

And then Lacey heard the children passing by the garden. She stopped dropping the bean seeds in the row and stood up to peer across the way at the little girls following after a sister like ducklings trailing their mother duck. She spotted Rachel almost immediately walking in the line with her head bent and her shoulders rounded. A picture of sadness. Lacey took a step toward the edge of the garden, but a hand on her arm stopped her.

“You can’t go to her, Sister Lacey.” The sister’s voice was barely loud enough for Lacey to hear.

“Why?” Lacey looked around at the sister. It wasn’t Sister Nina, who had been following her with the hoe and covering the seeds. This sister had stepped over from another row. Sister Aurelia. A woman about the same age as Lacey with wisps of black hair escaping her cap and eyes as blue as Rachel’s.

“It is not allowed.” She spoke the words as if they explained everything. And perhaps they did. Follow the rules. Do this. Don’t do that. Stop living life and become a sheep.

“But she needs me.” Lacey looked back at the line of children who were disappearing from sight. It was all she could do to stand still and not run after them. How in the world had she ended up in such a place?

“She has others now.”

Sister Aurelia reached for the hoe Sister Nina held. The sister gave it over without a word and stepped across to the next row to begin dropping the beans in Sister Aurelia’s place. The other sisters began their planting dance again. Lacey wanted to throw her cloth bag of beans down on the ground and let the seeds fall where they may, but instead she leaned over and placed a seed in the row and then another.

Sister Aurelia covered it over and tamped down the dirt with her shoe. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet that Lacey had to strain to hear the words. “They tell me you have the sin of marriage to Elwood Palmer to overcome.”

Lacey looked up at her, but the sister kept her eyes on her hoe as she covered the next bean. “Who tells you?” Lacey asked.

“Such things are common knowledge.” Without raising her head, she glanced to the side. The other pairs of sisters had moved ahead and were not close. Even so, she didn’t look directly at Lacey as she said, “Keep dropping the bean seeds so that Sister Ruth won’t have cause to separate us.”

Lacey did as she said, dropping a handful of beans one by one in the row before she said, “I do have that sin to overcome.” Lacey thought she might not have spoken truer words for weeks.

Sister Aurelia said, “When did his wife die?”

“Last November.”

“He didn’t grieve long.”

Lacey looked up at Sister Aurelia, but the woman’s face was void of expression. “No.”

“Nay. It is good to learn to say our yea and nay. It demonstrates unity of spirit,” Sister Aurelia said. She covered several seeds and tamped them down before she spoke again. “And yet he seemed devoted to her.”

Lacey stared at the Shaker woman. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her before, but then she could have known Miss Mona before Lacey came to Ebenezer. And the preacher led meetings at different churches in the area. “So you knew Miss Mona and the preacher?”

“Yea, I knew the preacher.”

Lacey dropped more seeds in the row. Sister Aurelia covered them over as they planted the rest of the row without more words. But Lacey felt no comfort in the silence.

Finally as they started up a new row, Lacey said, “I shouldn’t have married him.”

“Yea, some sins are harder to overcome than others.”

17

Isaac watched for the new sister. He didn’t know why exactly. Maybe because of how she’d run her fingers over the books around her when he’d told her that she wouldn’t be able to keep them once at the Shaker Village. Like they were old friends she was about to lose.

He understood the sorrow in that touch. He did miss opening a new book and the promise of the words it held. The only books Brother Verne allowed him to read were Shaker books. He had read the story of Mother Ann coming to America and of her visions of a perfect life apart from the world. He read the Shaker books of rules and the reasons for them. A Believer must avoid anything that might tempt him back to the worldly ways of selfish living and greed. Books of songs were plentiful, but reading the choruses tended to make Isaac’s eyelids droop.

No books of adventure or derring-do were allowed. Except for the Bible where Isaac found stories of man’s struggle with sin in his quest for God. He read about Jacob’s flight from his brother Esau, and David fighting the giant. And then there were Joseph’s harrowing adventures after his dreams so raised the ire of his brothers that they sold him into slavery, where he went from slave to prisoner to keeper of the kingdom’s stores. The Lord’s plan with man’s detours.

Isaac could see no plan of the Lord’s that had him in the Shaker village. No reason for him to be there other than hiding from the law. Brother Asa had assured Isaac that even that was no longer necessary. After his last trip to Louisville for more building materials for the West Family’s barn, Asa had cheerfully reported to Isaac that he was not a wanted man with leaflets carrying his description spread about the town. The man who had been stabbed on the riverfront had lived to point out his actual attacker. Isaac could return to the world. He could go wherever he wanted to begin his life again. As long as he stayed away from the judge’s town, he had little reason to worry about ending up in prison for a crime he didn’t do, the way Joseph in the Bible story had.

Yet he stayed at the Shaker village even though it meant enduring Brother Verne’s sour humor and harping sermons during the day and being tormented by dreams at night that, unlike Joseph in the Bible, he had no idea how to interpret. His Ella dreams were often foggy and just beyond his recall, but he would wake from them with a beating heart and a terrible weight of guilt. He was the reason she was dead.

You killed her.
The judge’s accusing words rang in his head until Isaac wanted to bang his fists against his ears to block out the sound. Often in those dark moments on his narrow Shaker cot, Isaac recalled the pull of the water as he’d stood on the docks back in the spring and wondered if the Lord had favored him or cursed him with Brother Asa’s hand on his arm.

Then to keep the darkness from overwhelming him, he’d turn his mind to other things. The tasks of the day behind him. The new novitiates that had appeared on the Shakers’ doorsteps. He’d think of the new sister with her brown eyes like his, though his were dark and hers seemed to have captured a flicker of sunlight. And he would wonder how she was adjusting to Shaker living.

She was not Ella. She was nothing like Ella. Except for the sadness that hovered over her now when he spotted her in the dining room or along the walkways. Perhaps she had loved her home as much as Ella had. But he couldn’t believe she had loved the old man who had claimed her for a wife in the world. Brother Elwood.

He slept in the same retiring room as Isaac. A long frame of a man who knelt by his bed and prayed so long in the morning upon rising that his Shaker guide had to touch him on the shoulder to stop the prayers so that their work could be accomplished. The man’s prayers were just as extended at night, and most of the brothers in the room were long asleep before the man began snoring.

Toward the end of May, he and Brother Elwood shared the same duty of planting a late crop of corn. It was the first time they had worked together.

Isaac was rolling a wheeled device the Shakers had invented to make seed planting go faster. Following behind it a man only had to press the dirt down over the seed with his foot and the planting was done. But there was need for more seed often as the workers moved down the long rows. Brother Elwood had been assigned the duty of carrying the seed. The heat of the sun and weight of the sack reddened his face until it looked as if his cheeks might spurt blood. Isaac offered to exchange tasks with him, but the man refused.

“Nay, Elder Homer assigned this task to me. I will do it.” He had to stop to gather his breath.

“They allow adjustments when one is unable to carry out the duties. Brother Verne has been given other duties today due to his ailing back.”

“I am not ailing. I am able,” Brother Elwood said shortly. He set the sack of corn down on the dirt with a thump. “Fill your seeding wheel.”

Isaac didn’t hurry as he filled the chambers on the wheel. He told himself he was being kind to his brother and giving him an extra moment of rest, but in truth he was curious about the man. And about his wife. Isaac looked to the side to see if any of the other brothers were near enough to hear before he asked, “How come you to join with the Shakers, Brother Elwood?”

“I have always been one to search for the truth.” He did not look at Isaac, but kept his eyes on the sack of corn. “And what of you, Brother Isaac? Is that not why you came among these people as well? In search of the true way.”

“Nay,” Isaac said. “I admit to being in need of food and shelter when Brother Asa came across me, and my feet fit well under the Shakers’ table.”

Brother Elwood leveled a disgusted look at Isaac. “Such words sound sinful to my ears.”

It was easy to imagine him in the pulpit calling down judgment on his wayward church members and just as hard to think of him and the young sister lying together. Isaac pushed that image from his mind and tried to move back to safer ground. A common ground that would take the fire from the man’s eyes. “I ask your forgiveness and will confess my wrong words to Brother Verne.”

“Confession brings no forgiveness to an unrepentant heart.”

“I feel great sorrow for my sins, but you are right that I have yet to find forgiveness.” Isaac looked straight at the older man. “Nor do I ever expect to find such. How about you? Have you never done anything that burned a hole in your heart like an ember of fire settled there that no amount of sorrow can extinguish?”

“Nay,” the man said almost before Isaac got all the words out. “Nay,” he repeated even louder.

Fire shot out of the man’s eyes, but Isaac didn’t back away from it. “Not even with the young sister?”

Brother Elwood clenched his fists as his face twisted in anger. “Nay. She is the one who brought the sin down. Not I. I was about the Lord’s work.”

“And now you gave that up, your calling to the Lord’s work, to come here.” Isaac didn’t know why he was tormenting the man with his words. It was like someone else had taken over his tongue. A chill moved through him. The Shakers claimed something the same happened to them in meeting when they spoke as if departed saints were controlling their mouths. Or angels. That was not happening to him. He wouldn’t let that happen to him. He was just there because his feet fit under their laden table.

“I know you.” Brother Elwood’s eyes narrowed and his voice became icy. “You were the brother at my house who knew no discipline. The one Brother Verne speaks of as having a wayward spirit that works to bring disharmony among us. It is a fearsome thing to allow the devil to control your tongue.”

“And what of you?” Isaac thought to clamp his mouth shut and go back to turning the wheel to plant the corn, but the words kept pushing out into the air. “You condemn Sister Lacey and not yourself?”

“Sister Lacey?” A puzzled frown flashed across Brother Elwood’s face. “I have never done anything to Lacey. She has known only kindness under my roof.”

“Brothers!” Sebastian, the brother in charge of their planting, walked up the row toward Isaac and Brother Elwood with fast, determined steps that made deep indentions in the soft ground. His forehead wrinkled in a worried frown as he spoke. “Such exchanges are not allowed, my brothers. Surely you have been told that such is not our way. Nor is the anger I note on your faces allowed among us as brothers. You must love your brother and have only good intentions one for another. We seek the gifts of peace and harmony in all we do. Both of you must beg the other’s forgiveness.”

It was a matter of a few words to restore the peace and harmony Brother Sebastian sought. At least the words satisfied Brother Sebastian and brought calm back to his face. The same could not be said for Brother Elwood, who continued to scowl every time he got close to Isaac the rest of the day. A scowl that found a twin on Brother Verne’s face the next morning when he caught up with Isaac as he was carrying the slops down from the sleeping rooms.

“Brother Isaac.”

Isaac knew as soon as he heard the man speak his name, he was in trouble, and the thought that a morning could actually get worse for a man carrying out slop buckets made a smile edge out on his lips. A smile that surprised him. It made him remember his father saying that when a man hit bottom, there was nothing for him to do but laugh at where he was while he tried to find a handhold to start the climb back up. He imagined telling his father that it was hard to start climbing with slop buckets in both hands and that made a laugh bubble up inside him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt such an urge to laugh. To just sit down on the bottom step of the stairs and laugh until tears came to his eyes. Maybe before his father died. Certainly before Ella had.

With the thought of Ella, the familiar sadness welled up inside him, but it didn’t completely push aside the desire to laugh. Perhaps he was losing his mind. Laughing when nothing was funny. But then in his haste to catch up with Isaac, Brother Verne tripped on the stairs and had to grab the railing to keep from tumbling into Isaac and his slops. The man ended up on his backside on the steps. That was funny. Isaac coughed to disguise the hiccup of a laugh he couldn’t swallow and turned away to keep the man from seeing him smile. It was a good feeling to smile.

Brother Verne didn’t share in the good feeling. “Surely you do not laugh at the sight of your brother’s stumble.”

“Nay.” Isaac bit his lip to hide any trace of the smile that still wanted to curl up his lips. He set the slops down and offered his hand to Brother Verne to help him up.

Verne ignored his outstretched hand as he grabbed the railing to pull himself up to his feet. “Adding falsehood to your amusement at my misfortune only doubles your sin.” He brushed off his britches and straightened his suspenders.

“Forgive my lacks.” Isaac didn’t feel the need for forgiveness, but he had no problem saying the expected words.

The brother frowned at him. “Your lacks in proper behavior seem to increase daily.”

“I will attempt to do better in the day ahead of us.”

“It takes more than words, Brother Isaac. It takes a proper spirit of contrition, and that appears to be your biggest lack.”

Every thought of laughter flew from Isaac’s mind. “Nay, that is not true. I carry much contrition in my heart.”

“So you say. Again only words. Actions are what prove the words.”

Isaac didn’t say anything more. Instead he bent his head and turned to pick up the slops to continue his morning’s duties. The breakfast bell would ring soon and the chores needed to be finished by then.

“Wait, I am not through with you.” Brother Verne stayed on the steps.

Isaac turned back to him. Suddenly he was very weary. Too weary to speak.

While the Shaker man was not quite as tall as Isaac, now standing on the step enabled him to look down at Isaac. “It has come to my ears that you disrupted the harmony of the work in the cornfields yesterday.” Brother Verne’s face was dark with disapproval, but at the same time a glimmer of pleasure at catching Isaac in such wrong sparked in the man’s eyes.

“I had plans to make confession of my transgressions this evening.”

“Some confessions should not wait the scheduled hour.”

“It appears they did not since Brother Sebastian reported my error to you already.”

“Nay. It is Brother Elwood who spoke to me this day. He says you have sinful curiosity about his wife from the world.”

“Sister Lacey?” Isaac set the slop buckets down again. “Why would he say that?”

“Perhaps because it is true.” Brother Verne narrowed his eyes on Isaac.

“Nay.”

Brother Verne paid no attention to his denial. “Do you deny you have noted our new sister’s beauty?” He rushed on without waiting for Isaac to answer. “Any eye that is not blind can note that, but it is the beauty of the spirit that matters here in our village. Not beauty of the face. Purity is what we need. A man can’t give up his salvation because of the temptation of a pretty face. A man must carry his cross.”

He paused to gather his breath, but Isaac stayed silent as he studied Brother Verne’s face. The man’s words carried too much passion. It was almost as if he was trying to convince someone besides Isaac. But no one else was on the steps. No one else in the hallway. Just Brother Verne preaching from the steps and Isaac listening.