The Blessed (32 page)

And don’t you never come here again.

“They’re saying we’re the devil.” The preacher’s voice was flat with no feeling.

“Pay them no mind,” Lacey said as she squared her shoulders and kept walking.

She was as glad to be rid of them as they were to be rid of her. She wouldn’t let their words bother her. Didn’t she have enough things to grieve over already with thinking about being a proper wife to the preacher and never laying eyes on Isaac again? God’s love. That’s what she needed to dwell on. But she let her eyes stray over to where Isaac had been standing. He was gone.

She told herself that was good. It kept her from sinning in her heart, but she couldn’t stop the wave of disappointment that surged through her. Still, she wouldn’t let her eyes search through the brothers looking for him. It was pointless. He had been nothing but a dream of what might have been. Very few dreams came true. If she knew anything, she knew that.

But then he was standing directly by the path they were walking. Demanding her eyes meet his. He touched her arm. “You don’t have to go with him. Don’t go.”

Those words echoed in her memory. The very words he’d spoken to her at the house before they’d come to the Shaker village.
Don’t go.
But she had no way of listening to those words now any more than she had then.

“But I must. I am his wife.”

Isaac held on to her arm another second. “I did love my wife very much.”

“I know you did.” She blinked her eyes to keep back the tears that wanted to spill out and smiled at him with lips that trembled.

He smiled back before he turned loose of her arm to let them pass. She would carry the treasure of that smile away with her in her heart.

The preacher didn’t look up at Isaac or her while they talked. He kept his head down and muttered a word now and again that Lacey couldn’t quite make out. She thought he might be quoting Scripture and hoped the words would calm his spirit.

It wasn’t even noon yet. They could go find Rachel and walk away from this place. Back to Ebenezer. Even if the church had already found a new preacher, the people would help her. Help them both. And in time with prayer and the care of a dutiful wife, Preacher Palmer might find that balance he had lost here with these people. Or perhaps he had been drifting along in a sea of misery ever since Miss Mona passed on. They had been wrong to try to form a family without her.

What was it Sister Drayma had told her the Shakers believed about families? That the stress of worldly family relationships, husband and wife, parent and child, was the reason for much sin. Lacey had argued with Sister Drayma that God had planned for families from the Garden of Eden on.

“Yea, Sister Lacey,” the woman had told her. “But that was only after Adam and Eve invited sin into the world. We as believers in the true way shut all reason for sin from our lives and seek our heaven on earth. We need no family but the family of God where all are brothers and sisters. And for that we are blessed.”

Now Lacey wanted to run back down among the sisters and find Sister Drayma to tell her that she too was blessed. Blessed in her imperfection. Forgiven. Loved.

They were almost to the outer edge of the clearing when there was a sudden stir behind them. No cries of woe followed Aurelia as she ran after them, but there were many cries of concern that Aurelia might be tainted with their sin.

She stepped directly in front of them. Lacey had thought she might be running after her to share parting words, but she didn’t even look at Lacey. Her eyes were on the preacher. “She may say she forgives you, Elwood Palmer, but only because the angels have not revealed to her the sin that torments you. She is too pure of heart to think on it. The angels have purified my heart too, but know that I have not forgiven you. I will never forgive you.”

A tremble ran through the preacher’s body. Lacey tightened her arm around his waist and stared at Aurelia. “Stop it, Aurelia. He has done no wrong to you.”

Aurelia turned to look at Lacey. Her eyes so like Rachel’s were wide and had an unnatural shine. “Are you sure of that, Sister Lacey? Ask him. He knows. Or ask the angels. If you dare. Angel tongues can speak nothing but truth.”

Then Lacey knew without asking. She didn’t know why she was surprised. She’d always known the preacher was a man like any other. A man who could fall into temptation. And obviously had. With Aurelia. Her arm stiffened around his waist.

Beside her, he looked up at the heavens and cried out, “Mine iniquities have taken hold of me. My sin cannot be hidden.”

“Your sin was never hidden. Mona knew. I told her before I came here.” Aurelia threw the words at him like stones.

“She forgave me. She told me she forgave me.”

“But I do not.” Aurelia suddenly spun away in a circle, her arms flinging wildly about. “Nor does the angel Esmolenda.” She began singing sounds that had no meaning.

O saniskan niskana, haw, haw, haw,

Fannickana niskana, haw, haw, haw.

Hearing the strange words spilling out of Aurelia was eerie enough, but then the Shakers around them picked up the song and began singing with her like they were singing a well-known hymn.

While the words sounded like so much nonsense to Lacey, the preacher’s face grew even more horrified as he clapped his hands over his ears. “Strike me down, Lord. End my misery.” He jerked away from Lacey and took off running.

She might have caught him if she hadn’t hesitated. And then when she did start after him, Aurelia moved deliberately in front of her. Her face was strange, unworldly. “You cannot help him. Only angels can help him now.”

“Then send your angels to help him, Aurelia.”

“Aurelia has no power over us. She is only our mouth and feet. Our God has the power.”

“The Lord is merciful. He will forgive.” Lacey pushed past her, lifted up her skirts and ran after the preacher. She looked back over her shoulder. “Please help me.”

Isaac ran after her and then Brother Forrest and a couple of other brothers broke from the lines of Shakers to follow Lacey. They were not without compassion. Behind her the Shakers started singing again. Aurelia’s voice rang out loudest of all.

Come down Shaker life. Come down holy.

Come let us all unite to chase away Old Ugly.

Preacher Palmer ran as if Aurelia’s angels were chasing him. Lacey called out to him, but he gave no sign of hearing her and kept running.

32

When Isaac came around the Gathering Family House out onto the road that ran through the village, Brother Elwood was nowhere in sight. Isaac stopped and tried to catch his breath as he looked around. He’d run ahead of Lacey as fast as he could, but the man, old as he was, had been faster.

“He’s gone,” Isaac said when Lacey caught up with him.

Her cheeks were flushed from running and she was breathing hard. She didn’t look at him but searched the road in front of them. “He has to be here somewhere.”

“The Centre Family House,” Brother Forrest said between panting breaths when he paused beside them.

They took off up the street, but when they got to the big stone house, both the men’s and women’s doors were locked. “Because all are away for Feast Day,” Brother Forrest said. He looked around. “Think of another place of height. The pitiable man has seemed obsessed with high places.”

“Maybe he stopped at the barn below the Gathering Family House. It has a loft,” Isaac suggested.

They were turning to go back toward the barns when Lacey spotted the hat below an open window. Brother Forrest went over to pick it up.

“Yea, it looks to be his.” He looked up at the window a few feet over his head. “The window would not be in easy reach, but today he seems to have the strength of angels.”

“I’ve heard enough talk of angels this day,” Lacey said. “Lift me up and I’ll go after him.”

“Nay,” Brother Forrest said. “Not you, Sister Lacey. Come, Brother Isaac. You are stronger and better suited for the task of helping our brother.”

Brother Forrest and one of the other brothers laced their hands together to give Isaac a boost up to the window. Once inside he ran past the neatly made beds and hurried out into the hall and the stairway. Out of habit he ran to the brothers’ stairs and climbed them two steps at a time all the way up to the attic. The air trapped under the roof was hot, but light spilled down from the cupola onto the rough roof beams. Still the preacher was nowhere in sight. Maybe he hadn’t come this way at all. Maybe the hat had just blown over to land under the window.

Isaac climbed the steep stairs into the cupola. There was a door. A door that wasn’t completely closed. Isaac stepped out on the roof that was thankfully flat in the middle with a low railing around it before it sloped steeply to the edge. Tall chimneys jutted up from each corner of the roof. A place for watching, Brother Verne had told him. Isaac could see both ends of the village and many of the back pathways. But he had no time to spy out the village. Brother Elwood was up on the railing beside one of the chimneys searching for handholds on the chimney brick to climb higher.

“Stay away!” Brother Elwood shouted when he saw him. He turned loose of the chimney with one of his hands and held it out toward Isaac to keep him back.

Isaac stopped a few feet away from him. “The roof is high, Brother Elwood. It would be best if you hold on as you climb down.”

Brother Elwood looked down toward the ground below him. “I have no fear of falling. Not from this rooftop. A fall from grace is more to fear. ‘Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’”

Isaac took slow steps closer to him. “The elders have said you must come down. They will pray with you.”

“You’re lying. The elders have nothing but scorn for me. They think I’m of the devil.” Brother Elwood got a strange look on his face. “Perhaps I am.”

“Nay, Brother. You are a man of God.” Isaac edged a little closer. He was almost close enough to reach out and grab him.

“I was once a man of God. But no more. I was brought low by lust.” He looked away from Isaac up toward the sky. “That is why I must seek a new balance. A new beginning.”

“Lacey is waiting down on the ground for you to help you find that new beginning.” Isaac knew at once from the man’s face that he’d said the wrong thing.

“Lacey.” Brother Elwood glanced down at the ground as his face changed from frantic to determined. “So many sins.”

“Come down, Brother.” Isaac kept his voice low and calm as he stepped up beside the man and reached for his hand.

“But the spirits say I must find balance.”

“Balance can be found in less precarious places.”

“The spirits led me here. I cannot let them think I am fearful.” He let out a noise that might have been a laugh as he wildly threw up his hands. He wobbled on the railing before he began falling away from Isaac.

Isaac grabbed for him and caught the man’s arm. The force of the man’s fall pulled Isaac so hard against the railing that it cracked and gave way. They both fell down on the roof and began sliding toward the edge. Isaac grabbed with his other hand for something to stop them but found nothing to grasp as the shingles scrubbed the palm of his hand. He threw out his leg and caught his foot on the broken railing to halt their slide.

Brother Elwood stared up at Isaac. “Let me go.”

“No.” Isaac met the man’s eyes. The fall seemed to have pulled him back to sanity.

“If you don’t, we’ll both die, but you may be able to climb back up if you turn me loose,” the man said quietly.

He could. He didn’t have to keep risking his life to help the man. The thought surfaced in his mind and settled there. The man’s arm was already slipping through Isaac’s hand. All Isaac had to do was relax his hold the barest bit and the man would slide on down the roof away from him and over the edge. Then Lacey would be free. Her screams were rising up to him. Screams for him. He’d seen the look in her eyes. He knew she cared for him. They could have the new beginning.

It seemed like an eternity passed as he stared down at the man before he tightened his grip on the man’s arm. “Grab hold of my arm with your other hand, Brother Elwood. Help is coming.”

“The Lord helps the weak and the weary.”

For a second, Isaac thought Brother Elwood was reaching toward his arm. “That’s right. Just grab hold. We can hang on until help comes.” The railing popped ominously behind them and gave a few inches, but it held.

“‘Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction.’ My sins have caused too much destruction already.” He turned his eyes away from Isaac’s face. “May the Lord have mercy on my soul.”

He gave a sudden twist of his arm to break free of Isaac’s hold. Isaac grabbed for him with his other hand, but he couldn’t reach him. The man smiled up at him as he slid over the edge of the roof with no attempt to catch himself. Isaac heard the man’s body hit the ground. A sickening thud. And down below Lacey stopped screaming.

Brother Forrest drove them back to the Ebenezer church. The preacher’s broken body lay in the bed of the wagon wrapped in a Shaker blanket. It was decided by everyone to be the best way.

Preacher Palmer hadn’t been a true Shaker Believer. And there were those among the elders and eldresses who thought he had intended to fall from the roof, that it wasn’t an accident brought about by his tormented mind. Such was a sin that could not be confessed and forgiven, so there was no way he could be laid in the sacred ground of the Shaker cemetery. As they spoke of what must be done, Lacey heard little sympathy in their voices. They had more sorrow in their voices when they talked of how their Feast Day had been spoiled.

Lacey had stood on the fringes and listened until she could bear no more. Wasn’t it enough that the poor man lay battered and dead? And that his own wife had watched him sliding down the rooftop with more fear for the man trying to save him than for her husband?

Isaac had come down from the roof after Brother Forrest and one of the other brothers had climbed through the window and run up the stairs to pull him back to safety. They had led him away without letting him talk to her, but she had seen his eyes. As battered as the poor preacher’s body.

And so she had gone right up to Eldress Frieda and told her what was going to happen. “I will take him back to Ebenezer where he can be buried beside his beloved wife.”

“I thought you were his wife,” Eldress Frieda said.

“Second wife, but never truly.”

“And then what of you, Sister Lacey? Will you return to us to continue your journey to true salvation?”

“No.”

“I thought not, but I mourn your return to the pits of sin.” She appeared to be truly sorry as she looked at Lacey. “You showed promise of great gifts.”

“I didn’t ever see the first angel.”

“My sister, there are many gifts of the spirit. The gift our mother honors most is the gift to be simple.”

“The gift to be simple.” Lacey repeated her words as she reached out and touched the woman’s arm. “Do you think that’s something like ‘blessed are the meek’?”

The eldress tilted her head a little to the side as she considered Lacey’s question. “The meek. Perhaps. Or the pure in heart for they know what things are to be treasured.”

“Then that’s what I’ll carry away from here. The knowledge of what gifts to treasure in my heart. But I can never walk the Shaker way.”

“Your words sadden me, but we make none stay against their will. I will send someone to fetch your daughter.”

“Send Sister Aurelia.” Lacey looked past the eldress to where Aurelia was surrounded by a bevy of sisters. Her face was pale and distraught.

“Nay, Sister Lacey,” the eldress said as she looked over her shoulder at the sisters. “You can see for yourself her distress. She did not mean for this to happen. To ask her to go get Sister Rachel would be unkind.”

“But necessary. She visited Rachel in the night and tried to turn her affections from me with stories that the angels say I don’t want her anymore.”

“Are you sure that you do?” Eldress Frieda studied Lacey’s face. “After all, Sister Rachel is not your natural daughter, and if she has turned from you, then perhaps it would be best to leave the young sister with us. We have much to offer a child here. Much more than a lone woman going out into the world. If you truly love her, you will want what’s best for her.”

Lacey bit back the angry words that wanted to spill out and instead pulled in a slow breath. The simple gift of meekness, she reminded herself. The eldress wasn’t intending to be heartless. She believed what she was saying. “Let me talk to Sister Aurelia and then I will let Rachel choose.” Her heart went cold as her words echoed in her ears. How could she have said that? What if Rachel chose to stay?

“Very well. I will tell Sister Aurelia to come speak to you, but you must not torment her.”

You mean the way she tormented the poor preacher.
The words were in her head, but again she held them back as her eyes went to the man’s body lying broken on the ground. Someone had mercifully spread a cover over him. A cover spotted now with drying blood.

The circle of sisters around Aurelia parted to allow Eldress Frieda to speak to her. Aurelia shook her head twice, but the eldress kept talking until Aurelia sent an agonized look toward Lacey and bowed her head in submission. She hesitantly walked toward Lacey, but stopped halfway. Lacey went to her. The other sisters didn’t follow Aurelia, but they had their ears cocked their way to listen.

“I didn’t think he would do this, Lacey. I didn’t.”

“What did you think, Aurelia?”

“He wouldn’t help me. He said I was the one who had sinned and brought temptation to him. Me. Like none of it had to do with him.” She looked at Lacey with beseeching eyes. “My father called me a Jezebel and made me get up out of my birthing bed and take the baby away. He hoped we would both die. He told me that.”

“What of your mother?” Lacey hardened her heart. She didn’t want to feel pity for her.

“She died when I was young. The same as your own. Elwood came to our church over in the next county to do a revival. My father has ever been cruel to me and Elwood was so kind, so thoughtful. He made me promises. Promises he later denied. I had no choice but to lay that precious child in a box on his porch. My tears fell on her tiny forehead while I asked the angels to watch over her.”

Lacey shut her eyes for a moment and couldn’t keep from imagining Aurelia’s pain. “Then what did you do?”