The Visionist: A Novel (29 page)

She expected Elder Sister Agnes to keep her eyes on her work, inscrutable as ever. But instead, the eldress jerked her head up and stared, then laid her basket to rest. She seemed afraid to move lest it distract her from choosing the proper words.

“You must know what you are doing,” Elder Sister Agnes said, her impatience barely contained once she decided, finally, to address Polly. “Do you not realize that there is
someone
in this place who sees you for what you are?”

Polly drew a sharp breath. Was this the moment when everything would come tumbling down? She was surprised to find relief in the thought. Ever since the believers had placed her on a pedestal, a part of her had yearned to be exposed. And ever since she had set the farm afire—how could she have believed for one moment that it had been an accident?—that same part wished for the law to find her and get it over with. She knew what the consequences would be. She would be taken away from the only place she’d ever felt happiness. She would be forced to admit to her crime, exchanging The City of Hope for a jail cell—or worse, the noose. Even so, if she were revealed as nothing more than a farm girl with a past as foul as a rat’s tail is long, she might finally find peace.

She stared hard at the eldress. Could it be that she had aged in the short time since Polly had known her? Her face seemed etched with deeper lines, her skin stretched tighter across her cheekbones. She could not be much older than Mama, and for the first time, Polly noticed how similarly broken they were by the toil of their difficult lives, toil that brought the years on fast for women the world over. Perhaps because Polly knew that she had little left to lose, her heart was suddenly full of sympathy for Elder Sister Agnes. After all, she sought only the truth. If Polly gave it to her, would her confession remove from the eldress’s shoulders the burden of protecting the believers’ faith?

The believers. Polly could imagine their faces if only they knew. She could hear the swelling of their angry voices. To bear the message that they had been duped—Elder Sister Agnes would never want to be the one to do that. To tell them that they had placed their faith in a fraud—this was not a fate Polly would wish on anyone. She bowed her head and continued her work, unable to think of an adequate answer to the eldress’s accusation.

“You have surely read or heard of something like this Vision before?” Elder Sister Agnes said. “I ask with great seriousness, have you not encountered this burning tree before?”

“I…I used to see a great tree in my old life, an oak,” Polly stammered. “I imagined its leaves to be red. I imagined standing beneath them and raising my arms until they shimmered and shook. There were thousands of leaves, whispering, trembling over me and I felt full. It never caught fire, though. It never bit my hand with burns. It never frightened me. It was where I needed to go. Can you understand?” She stopped speaking. An image of flames filled her mind, and though she closed her eyes, she could not help seeing the burning figure tumbling from the blaze of the farmhouse.

Elder Sister Agnes rose from her chair and walked slowly to a tall cupboard built into the wall and fastened shut. She paused before opening it and taking out a brown leather-bound book, which she clutched to her chest as she turned and walked back towards Polly.

“You have heard tell of the
Book of Secrets
?” she asked. “That is its common name. It is a sacred text to any believer who knows of it—the story of Mother Ann’s life and beliefs as remembered by those who knew her. When I was a younger sister, we read it freely so that we might learn from her greatness. But it was decided, after some years, that should the book find its way into the hands of the World’s people, its tales of purity and redemption might be misread. Out of fear that the book might cloud our mission, every copy in existence was collected and guarded by the elders of the communities. No one in The City of Hope has seen this book for many a year. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Polly answered faintly. “I have only heard believers whisper its name. I do not know what it says.”

The eldress paused before speaking again. “Well, you shall now be allowed to see why your most recent Vision has startled me so.” Sighing, she turned the printed pages, edged brown with age, until she found the passage she was searching for. She looked up sharply and pushed the open book at Polly.

“Read,” she ordered.

Polly looked up from her recitation. “I don’t…”

“You don’t understand?” asked Elder Sister Agnes briskly. “Nor, I must say, do I. There is something about the way that you came to us that keeps troubling me. It was hardly unusual, at least on its surface. I myself was a refugee from the World’s cruelty, though that’s of little consequence here. There was a fire, that much you—and the investigator, of course—have told me.”

Polly’s hands slipped again as she tried to bend the wooden strips to fit the basket form. What else had the investigator said? She tensed in her chair.

“You are hiding something from me,” Elder Sister Agnes continued. “I warned you, when you arrived and impressed the believers so deeply with your first Vision, that their faith in you carried with it responsibility. Now that I have watched you embrace their trust so fully, I wonder how great your past sins would have to be to justify my crushing of their adoration. Perhaps it would be simpler if I just gave up my doubts and joined them?”

Polly felt the color drain from her face.
Confess, confess, confess.
Those were the only words she could hear inside her head. But she shook off the temptation to speak. If she could hold on for just a bit longer, perhaps she could devise a better plan.

“We have been a comfort to you, Sister Polly, have we not?”

The question was so simple, it stunned Polly. “Yes, of…of course,” she stammered.

“And to your brother as well?”

Polly thought back on how clearly he had shown his hatred of her. Still, she could not help admitting that yes, he too had benefitted from his time with the believers.

The elder sister smiled. “I think Benjamin is a true Shaker. You, however, do not appear to be as taken with our ways. Would you say that I have described the situation correctly?”

“I would say that Ben is a child, Eldress,” Polly answered, more quickly than she intended. She knew that she had to mind her every word. “By that, I mean that it is difficult to determine one’s faith at so young an age.”

“Ah, but I cannot agree. Your own dear Sister Charity became a devout believer when she was younger by far than Benjamin.”

“Yes, but—begging your pardon, Eldress—she was as good as born here, with no one else but you and the believers to love and feed and teach her. Ben has a real family. A mother and a sister…”

“Yes,” the eldress said, pushing hard at a particularly thick shaving, one that refused to fall into the weave. “Once, he had a flesh family like the one you describe, though I am struck by the person you choose to leave out. A father.”

“No,” Polly said, feeling dizzy as she answered. “I mean, yes, a father. It was unintentional…that I left him unnamed.”

Elder Sister Agnes was quiet a moment. Polly’s hands hurt, the air inside the room felt warm and close, she did not know if she could hold up much longer before spilling the whole truth.

“I am curious about the circumstances surrounding Benjamin’s birth,” she said, her manner strangely coy all of a sudden. Polly felt unnerved by the agility with which she seemed to flit from subject to subject. “He was fully your brother, yes?”

“
Is
fully my brother, Eldress,” she answered. “Yes.”

“Is he recognized as such?”

Polly stared at her. “You would have to ask my mother about that. I imagine that he would have been treated like any child who comes into this world.”

“Surely,” the eldress continued, “there was a doctor present. You would have remembered that. Did he not ask your mother and father to sign your brother’s name into some sort of record?”

“I remember no such person,” Polly answered, though she was lying. “Many a baby is born without the aid of a doctor. I’m sure you’ve delivered your share even here.” Polly lost herself in memory. What had his name been? He had helped Mama, hadn’t he? And then later, when Ben had almost drowned, he’d come again.

She looked up and saw that the eldress’s face was dark with anger. Polly had known that births taking place within the settlement were not something Elder Sister Agnes would wish to discuss, but she did not want to go on talking about the day Ben was born. And anyway, Polly had heard stories. Whether they arrived in The City of Hope already with child or found themselves in that position after some time here—desire will out in the coldest of climes—at least a few young girls had come to the eldress in search of aid. Polly might have done so herself had her circumstances not been so complicated.

“Do you take me for a midwife, Sister?” Elder Sister Agnes asked, her blue eyes glinting.

“I…I meant nothing of the sort,” Polly answered. “Only that you are respected and possess knowledge when it comes to healing that no one else—not even Sister Charity—can claim. Why wouldn’t any sister who found herself in trouble seek you out? To birth her baby, if it was not conceived in…” Polly was treading on slippery ground, but she forged ahead. “And if she showed genuine contrition, she would know that you have the capacity to forgive and teach the moral path through compassion, as you are so often called upon to do concerning matters of a different sort.”

Elder Sister Agnes rose from her chair and walked to the window. “You show an impressive knowledge of such things for one esteemed by so many for her purity. I believe that you are quite a different sort of girl than the Visionist you are thought to be. I have suspected it from the first. But tell me, Sister Polly, how badly do you want to leave us?”

Polly felt the floor drop from beneath her feet. “I…I don’t understand why you would think such a thing. I…”

The eldress held up her hand. “Hush, child. Hear me through. You are ill, that is no secret. ’Tis true, you may be suffering from some sort of ague, but I know that there are many things that sicken both body and soul. Secrets, for example.” She turned to face Polly, but Polly stared at her feet waiting to hear what Elder Sister Agnes would say next.

“I have an idea—one that might serve everyone, even those who know nothing of the real truth. Even
myself,
who knows only that there is more to know. You say that your mother is the only person who could tell me what I seek to understand about Benjamin’s birth. If I could speak to her, then I could see my way to helping you leave with her. You met the fire inspector, Mister Simon Pryor. Indeed I believe he caused you some alarm. He has asked to meet with you privately, you know.” She paused, the better to gauge Polly’s reaction. “I have, against all of our rules, accepted—on the condition that he bring your mother to me.”

Polly’s mind raced. She could leave without having to run. But what awaited her outside The City of Hope? How she wished she could be free. She longed to see Mama again. She would be allowed to slip away from this place without a fuss. By some miracle, would she be able to persuade the inspector to let her disappear? Perhaps then she could begin anew. Such a dream was barely conceivable. She looked the eldress in the eye.

“I will meet with the inspector,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “And I will leave quietly with him and my mother.”

Elder Sister Agnes could not hide her satisfaction. She brushed her hands briskly down her skirt. “You will doubtless be missed,” she said, “but the actions of the Divine are impossible for mere mortals to comprehend, and every believer here in The City of Hope understands that. Just as you appeared out of nowhere, you will vanish. There is a certain Heavenly symmetry to it all, is there not?”

Polly nodded. The eldress had laid out her plan with such calm, it was as though she had been thinking it over for weeks. But there was one more detail to discuss. “Ben,” she said. “He would have to leave with us.”

“Ah,” said Elder Sister Agnes. “There you are mistaken. When I said that Benjamin was a true Shaker, I did not speak idly. Look,” she said, turning to her writing desk and taking a sheet of paper from one of the drawers. “It is true, we do not normally invite so young a believer to commit himself to us fully, but he is…a simple soul. And a gifted one. We saw fit to make an exception, and he has quite happily joined us in law as well as spirit. You see? He made the mark of an
X
beside his name in our Covenant just yesterday.”

Polly stared at the paper, then looked up.

“But he is a child,” she said fiercely. “He knows only that he has been fed and kept warm and not had to live in fear.” She stopped, afraid that she had revealed more about their other life than was prudent. “He has been shown kindness at the expense of the love of his own mother. He understands nothing of covenants. He could not even write his own name! You wonder if he exists in the eyes of the world? How can you claim that such a mark as this means that he exists as a ‘true Shaker’?” She had run out of words. Was life nothing but loss upon loss? “You cannot have my brother,” she said firmly. “I will leave if that is what you want. But you will not take him from his own mother, from me. He
will
leave with us.”

The eldress’s voice was soft. “I do not believe that he will, do you? Am I alone in noticing how he behaves when he sees you? Do you think that I was not informed as to what happened when you tried to speak to him?” She paused to let her words sink in.

Sounds began to fill Polly’s head. Of children singing so loudly, she had to raise her hands to her ears to block them out. It was a song she’d heard coming from the schoolhouse one day during her first weeks, and it had haunted her since.