The Innocent (18 page)

“Oh Ambrose, if I only knew where you were.” She whispered the words into the dark air over her bed. “I loved you so much.”

Once again, just as in the garden, she realized she’d spoken of her love for Ambrose as in the past. Her heart could no longer keep him alive in her mind. He had been gone too long. Missing. What a dreadful word. Not alive. Not dead. Missing.

Just as Sister Berdine had done earlier, Carlyn pulled the cover up over her head. While she was not frightened by the
thunder and lightning outside, she did want to hide from the storms in her heart. At last, she slept.

In the midnight hours, the Centre House bell began to clang. Again and again. Rousing them with warning in the sound.

16

Sister Alice was first out of bed to push up the window to see why the bell was ringing. “Fire!” she shouted as smoke swept in on the wind.

“What burns?” Sister Edna demanded from her bed on the other side of the room.

“The barn.”

Carlyn and several other sisters squeezed in around Sister Alice to peer out the window with her. Flames leaped up through the roof of the barn behind their house. The barn visible from the garden where they’d been working.

“Why won’t those of the world stop tormenting us?” Sister Edna said.

“You think someone set the fire on purpose?” Carlyn turned to Sister Edna.

“Yea.” Sister Edna was on her feet now.

“Why? Couldn’t it have been the storm?”

“It is not time for questions, Sister Carlyn. It is time for action, but be assured this is not the first barn torched by
those of the world who envy the peace we have here.” Sister Edna reached for her dress. “Now stop gawking out the window and get dressed. We will be needed to fight the fire.”

“That fire is past fighting.” Sister Alice leaned back out the window as though pulled by the sight of the flames. She had been a Shaker longer than any of the others in the room besides Sister Edna. “The seeds we’ve been harvesting weren’t stored in that barn, were they?”

The sisters who’d worked alongside Carlyn and Sister Berdine in the garden groaned at the thought.

“Think not about seeds, Sisters.” Sister Edna said. “Think more of stopping the fire before it spreads.”

“Our house won’t burn, will it?” Sister Marie, the youngest sister in their sleeping room, sounded ready to cry.

“Nay, the brothers will put out the fire.” Sister Alice put a comforting hand on the girl’s cheek. “With our help.”

The bell ceased tolling, but there was no silence. The night was filled with the crackle of flames and shouts as Shakers spilled out of the houses. Carlyn pulled her dress over her head. The panicked whinnies of a horse sent a chill through her.

“Are horses stabled in that barn?” she asked no one in particular.

“Yea,” Sister Alice answered. “In my time here, I have often seen Brother Henry taking them in and out of the barn.”

“Brother Henry?” Carlyn paused in tying her apron around her waist. That name. The Shaker brother who’d been arguing with Curt Whitlow on the pathways earlier that day. When she looked up, Sister Edna was staring across the room at her.

Sister Alice spoke first. “Brother Henry is very devoted to
his horses. He will be sorrowful if all of them do not escape the fire.”

“There is much to be sorrowful about,” Sister Edna spoke up. “The devil is loose amongst us tonight.” Her eyes bored into Carlyn before she turned to lead them outside.

The devil. The words echoed in Carlyn’s thoughts along with Curt’s laugh. But Sister Edna hadn’t heard Brother Henry accuse Curt of being the devil. And when she remembered what Brother Henry said, he was repeating someone else’s words and not his own. None of this could have anything to do with her. It couldn’t. Not the fire. Not Curt’s harsh words to Brother Henry. It was nothing more than happenstance that she had overheard them.

A hot wind full of ash and smoke met them on the pathway. Sister Marie began whimpering again and even a stern word from Sister Edna couldn’t stop her. Sister Berdine put her arm around the young sister and whispered something that helped Sister Marie swallow her tears and keep following after Sister Edna. She wasn’t the only one bothered by the fire. Many of the faces looked fearful as they formed a bucket brigade.

Sister Alice was right. There was no saving the barn. A few brethren led some horses away from the fire. One of them reared up and pawed the air when an unearthly scream came from within the barn. More horses must be inside.

Carlyn’s stomach turned over. A young Shaker brother ran toward the barn, but older, wiser men held him back. It would be suicide to go into those flames. Finally the animal’s screams stopped and Carlyn was glad even though she knew what that meant.

They passed bucket after bucket of water forward to douse
the flames. It was no longer raining, but it was impossible to know if the clouds were gone. Smoke billowed up into the sky and dropped down around the workers. Carlyn stood in line with the other sisters and tried to think of nothing except taking hold of each bucket of water and passing it to the next person in line, over and over. The back of her dress was wet with sweat and her skirt soaked from water splashing from the buckets. But she couldn’t keep her eyes away from the flames dancing greedily as they ate the barn.

Then as the fire began to die back, they stopped passing the buckets of water and Sister Edna gathered her charges around her like a mother hen seeing to her chicks. “There are men from the world among us.”

“You mean those you think set the fire?” Carlyn asked.

“Perhaps.” Sister Edna looked grim. “That is hard to know without a witness to see. But our neighbors have been attracted by the flames and come to gloat.”

“They may have come to help.”

“We need no help from the likes of them.” Sister Edna turned her eyes from the fire to Carlyn. “You are too soon from the world. You carry the smell of it on you yet, even as we will carry the smell of smoke back to our houses. It is not a pleasant odor.”

“I have nothing to do with the fire.” Carlyn looked from Sister Edna to where the flames seemed content now to slowly devour the remaining wood in the barn. Black smoke settled around them and Carlyn lifted her apron up over her nose to filter the air.

Sister Edna seemed unbothered. “How long have you been among us, Sister?”

“Two weeks.”

“And in that time, we have had strangers in our midst causing unrest, and now this.” Sister Edna looked back at the barn.

Carlyn was speechless. Sister Edna was determined to find fault with her. No words were going to change that on this night while the fire licked up the remains of the barn. If only Carlyn could go back to their room, fall down on her bed, and pull the cover over her head again. Shut it all away.

But there would be no more rest this night. Dawn was spreading a gray light across the village, revealing the buildings beyond the reach of the fire’s glow. Daylight made it easier to see those watching the fire and to pick out the ones who did not belong in the Shaker village.

“Do you see him here?” Sister Edna swept her arm out toward the men nearer the fire.

“Who?” Carlyn asked, although she knew the person the sister meant.

“The man you saw speaking to Brother Henry yesterday.” Sister Edna’s eyes came back to Carlyn.

Carlyn started to say he wouldn’t be here, but then she hadn’t thought he would be there yesterday either. She looked at the men, but none carried Curt’s girth. “Nay, I do not see him.”

“Nor do I see Brother Henry,” Sister Edna said. “That is odd. As Sister Alice said, our brother does treasure his horses.”

“Perhaps he is with those horses,” Sister Berdine said.

“That is my worry.” Sister Edna’s frown grew darker. “Stay here and pray while I find out.”

They were silent until Sister Edna was several steps away,
but then several sisters spoke at once. Sister Berdine held up her hand to stop them as she kept her voice low. “We’d best whisper to avoid trouble. Sister Edna’s ears are sharp.”

“Yea,” Sister Alice agreed as she stepped closer to Sister Berdine. “But she can’t think Brother Henry is . . .” She stopped as though unable to finish the thought.

“In there?” Sister Marie’s eyes widened as she looked toward what was left of the barn.

“Nay, she cannot know that,” Sister Berdine said. “It is more likely as I said—that he is with the horses they rescued from the fire.”

“But they didn’t rescue all of them,” one of the other sisters said. “I’ve never heard anything like that sound. That horse.”

Carlyn shuddered as they all fell silent.

“We should pray as Sister Edna said.” Sister Alice reached for the hands of the sisters nearest her.

They joined hands then and bent their heads in silent prayer. Carlyn held Sister Berdine’s and Sister Hallie’s hands and bent her head like them, but she couldn’t still the questions in her mind enough to pray.

Was Sister Edna right? Could Curt Whitlow be the reason for their trouble? And could that be because of her?

After Sister Alice signaled the end of their prayer time with a quiet amen, Carlyn moved away from the others to look around again. She wasn’t sure she would be able to pick out Brother Henry among the Shaker men. The brothers looked so alike with their hats on. He’d been slim and not as tall as Curt, but that was a description that fit many men.

“Who was Sister Edna talking about?” Sister Berdine stepped up beside Carlyn. “A man from the world?”

“The man I owed on my house was in the village yesterday
talking to Brother Henry.” She had no reason to keep that secret. “I happened up on them when I was coming back to the garden and heard them arguing.”

“Do you think that has anything to do with this?” Sister Berdine gestured toward the barn.

“Nay. That man would not be sneaking around in the night setting fires.” Carlyn was sure of that. However, he might slip around and try to do other things just as wrong. Carlyn pulled in her breath. She had no reason to worry about him. Not here surrounded by sisters. “Sister Edna must be wrong. It surely was a lightning strike.”

Sister Alice stepped up behind them in time to hear Carlyn. “Sister Edna may be wrong about many things.” The sister took a quick look around as though worried what ears might be listening. “But she is rarely wrong about troubles. She has her eye out for such. At one time, she was a watcher for the Ministry to catch those doing wrong. But now she merely watches to know.”

“To know what?” Carlyn asked.

“I’m not sure, but I would not want to be on the wrong side of Sister Edna,” Sister Alice said.

“Is there a right side?” Sister Berdine asked.

“It does not seem so for our Sister Carlyn.” Sister Alice smiled a little as she reached over to squeeze Carlyn’s hand. “But we do not all think like Sister Edna. I and the others in our sleeping room are glad you have come among us. We know you could have nothing to do with this. No matter the fate of poor Brother Henry.”

Sister Alice’s and Sister Berdine’s eyes drifted back to the fire, but Carlyn looked through all the men standing around instead. Curt Whitlow was not there. At least not in the open
where he could be seen, but then he hadn’t been in the open when she’d seen him with Brother Henry.

Sister Edna appeared to be searching for someone too. Perhaps Brother Henry. She did stop to talk to one of the brothers, but it wasn’t Brother Henry. Instead it was Elder Derron, who had questioned Carlyn about the business of her house. Whatever Sister Edna said seemed to upset the elder since he stalked away from her. Sister Edna followed after him for a few steps before she stopped and put her hands on her hips. She did not look pleased.

A rooster crowed and the hens began coming out of their roosting house. Carlyn watched them ruffling their feathers and flapping their wings as they left sleep behind. This was just another day for them, with bugs to eat and eggs to lay. The fire meant nothing to them. That’s the way she should be. Never mind Sister Edna’s frowns and suspicions. While the fire was a sorrowful loss, it had absolutely nothing to do with Carlyn being at the Shaker village. Absolutely nothing.

Some of the Shakers began moving away from the fire. Breakfast had to be cooked. The animals fed. The beds made and the floors swept. There would be extra laundry with their soiled dresses and aprons too. It was going to be a long day for those working in the washhouse.

“Maybe we should go back to our room to clean up for the morning chores,” Sister Berdine suggested. “Sister Edna appears to have forgotten us.”

“But she told us to wait here.” Sister Marie’s voice trembled. Poor girl was frightened of everything.

“And when she comes back, she may very well fuss because we did not go begin our duties for the day,” Carlyn said.

“True enough, Sister.” Sister Alice smiled a little. “We can always say it was Sister Carlyn’s idea.”

“You can. Then she will be upset that you followed the lead of one so recently of the world.”

“True again.” Sister Alice sighed. “We will all need to consider our confessions for speaking about our sister while she was too far from us to hear. She will be distressed that we allowed our tongues to tempt us into trouble.”