His ruddy, full face was possessed of warmth and joviality—something Polly hardly saw in the somber expressions of the other elders and eldresses. Doubtless they worshipped as steadfastly as did Elder Brother Caleb, but he alone expressed the joy of his faith so openly. It was as though he viewed his place in The City of Hope with gratitude to Mother, not merely by adhering strictly to her rules but by taking genuine delight in following them. He lives his beliefs, Polly thought, as enthusiastically as his lives his life. Had she ever lived hers with anything but survival in mind?
“You are kind to concern yourself with my well-being,” Polly said, finally daring to meet his regard. “But you needn’t worry. I assure you that the honor I feel is outweighed only by my wish to deserve the gift that has been ascribed to me. I am full to the brim with gratitude, Elder Caleb. There is no room for anything else.”
She could not help shivering at the lie she spoke. For there was certainly room in her heart for the pain she felt whenever she remembered that—in spite of all they had given her—the believers had taken Ben. And there was room in her heart to resent Mama’s leaving. Why had she again tasked Polly with watching over her brother when others were determined to steal him away? At nine years old, she had been too young to realize the full extent of her father’s hatefulness, for he had yet to seek her out in the night. That he was a bully and a drunk who beat her mother? Yes. That he was capable of grabbing Ben when Polly’s back was turned and trying to drown him? No. Here, what else could Polly do except hope for a glimpse of her brother, wondering always what she could do to take him back—and when she could do it.
“You have given us all great strength, Sister,” Elder Caleb said kindly, watching her as her mind churned. “And for that I thank you. I only hope that you have drawn similar blessings from us.”
“To a one, Elder Caleb,” she answered, “the believers have shown great patience and made me feel most welcome.”
He nodded. But had she detected a flicker of skepticism in his regard—just a twitch of the eye, a glance that lasted half a beat too long? Polly thought back to her meeting with Elder Sister Agnes weeks before. Did she still disdain Polly? Elder Caleb took his meals with her in the elders’ dining room every day and the eldress was no actress. What effect might the constancy of her suspicion have had upon him?
They stood silently in the darkness at the center of divergent paths.
“Well,” Elder Caleb said, clasping his hands together, his voice breaking through her somber thoughts. “I have delayed you long enough, Sister. My apologies to Elder Sister Agnes and the others if I have made you late for Meeting.”
Polly bent into a stiff curtsy as he bowed good night and they turned from each other, walking in opposite directions. What was happening to her? She had been fairly warned of the burden that would accompany the believers’ unwavering faith—Elder Sister Agnes had seen to that. Why hadn’t she had the courage to confess everything when she’d had the chance? Instead, ever fearful that she would be thrown back into a world full of danger and uncertainty, she had chosen to live with the burden of having lied. I am building a house of cards, she thought. What will it bring down with it when it falls?
Morning brought her face-to-face with yet another visiting minister, another sober man who asked the same sober questions as had every sober minister before him. Could you hear Her speaking to you? Did She direct your movements? How, precisely, did She enter your soul? Like all the others, he was dressed in the backward style of a Shaker brother, his hair cut straight across his brow such that it sat like a lid atop his head. As she did throughout each inquisition, Polly sat bolt upright in her chair, which faced his but had been placed a respectable distance away. Elder Sister Agnes watched and listened from her seat in the corner of the room. It was like being a field mouse who knows he’s been marked by a circling hawk.
She could hardly keep her mind on her answers, so deeply was she lost to guessing at her eldress’s thoughts. Surely Elder Sister Agnes saw the same changes in the settlement as did Charity. Had they not pleased her? Polly shifted in her seat and gazed at her inquisitor. As she spoke of angels and the messages they brought and what it felt like to be transported away from all fear, she could not help wondering why they did not gather round her now.
Describing her past visions—without ever mentioning the horrors that had occasioned them—she could sometimes believe that she had reached another world. Indeed, Polly’s status as a Visionist had even allowed her to put off the sacred rite of confession, but that could not go on forever. Elder Sister Agnes would demand it eventually, especially now that it was so widely known that The City of Hope had finally found its vessel. That she was a poor farm girl and a novitiate had caused stir enough. That she had yet to submit to mortification? Not even Elder Sister Agnes would be able to keep secret such an irregularity for much longer.
When she could push her fears away, Polly found moments of happiness. She and Charity were often together during the day. And by night, alone in their room with the door shut against the rest of the world, they fell under the spell of the red book. Though at first she had barely been able to look at it, Charity had slowly let her timidity fall away. How her voice had trembled the first time she asked Polly to read. “Just a sentence or two,” she’d said, eyes cast down. And now, though she steadfastly refused to touch it, she did not allow a single night to pass without demanding more of the story.
“Where will Mister Wolcott take us this time?” Charity would inquire, nestling under her covers, eager as any child caught up in the spell of a good yarn.
And to be sure, they traveled far and wide with the writer. He told of ships beset by pirates; of tropical ports full of women who wore little but a cloth wound about their waists; of songs sung by drunkards in foul-smelling taverns; of beautiful court ladies dressed in sumptuous silk gowns and glittering jewels, their hair piled high above cheeks and lips reddened with berry juice. The world he described was riotous and exotic, full of forbidden lands so different from The City of Hope that it was as if a brightly colored parrot had landed amidst an affliction of starlings.
“It is as though he is describing a dream,” Charity mused. “Can there possibly be such places, such people who do exactly as they please?” She looked at Polly, her expression suddenly one of concern. “Surely, he will write of their punishment soon. Will he not?”
Polly liked reading. Indeed, the changes it had brought about in her friend’s attitude surprised and delighted her. The stories seemed to embolden Charity, make her forget her markings, fill her with the sense of freedom that comes from allowing one’s mind to wander. The rules, the constant threat of judgment, the work meant to purify their souls—all of it melted away under the hot sun of the Orient. In distant kingdoms, each could find escape. These were among the loveliest times they shared, for the sisters were truly alone in their togetherness.
And yet. While slipping the little red book back under her mattress, Polly thought of how she used to read to Ben, how his eyes grew wide with wonder at the smallest detail in a picture book. The memory of his face made her want to weep, and in such moments, it was as if the little red book were beckoning. Come with me, it seemed to say. Find your Ben and come with me. Listening to its imagined whispers, Polly recognized the familiar allure of running away.
They had lived in The City of Hope for what seemed a second lifetime, during which her brother had become like a phantom to her. She saw him in Meeting, but other than staring at her in terror when she’d had her Vision that first Sabbath Day, he refused to meet her gaze. Sometimes the pain of his absence was so acute, heavy-heartedness would engulf her and she felt nothing but gloom as she looked at the believers, stamping out their sins, singing their salvation.
In the dining hall—another chance to see him—the believers would stand behind their low-backed chairs, awaiting the sign from their Elder Brother and Sister to sit and begin eating. She did not care about the food. She was searching for Ben.
In the earliest days, she hunted in vain. Ben was held away from meals that first week, fed alone on account of his sorrowing. Charity said that she had heard he could not be quieted except when given an elixir made from cicely, garden coltsfoot, honey, and Madeira wine. He was held to drink it by Brother Andrew, she said, who was kind and well versed in sympathizing with the sorrows of young new believers, and it had brought Ben peace.
The story angered Polly. Should she not have been the one at Ben’s side? She had always been good at calming his fears, even when plagued by her own. Away from him, she could do nothing.
Short and tall, slim and stout—her only chance of spotting her brother was to peer through a forest of women wearing long dresses in dark browns and blues with loose-fitting neckerchiefs fastened over their chests.
“It’s to hide your womanliness,” Sister Charity had said to Polly on the day she had first attempted to tie her own. My womanliness? she remembered thinking. I am nothing but ribs and skin.
But then again, Polly had been taught a thousand strange lessons each day. To cut her food into squares and never on the diagonal, for such was the slant of the Devil. To keep separate the bounty that lay on her plate, never mixing it into a hash, a habit so commonly practiced by the World’s people. To eat well, finishing all that had been placed before her and then to “Shaker” her plate by sopping up the leftover juices with the last of her bread. To waste nothing. To leave her plate clean in order that she aid the sisters whose task it was to wash up after meals. To sit still and tall. To refrain from even looking at the brethren.
Before each meal, the sisters and brethren marched into the dining room in parallel lines without so much as a glance sideways. She had often passed Ben so close that she could smell the barn where the brethren had worked since rising at the four-thirty bell. The warm, sweet perfume of the cows as the men moved by reminded her of home. Mama. Polly could not think about Mama anymore. Not since she’d abandoned them. And Ben. What labor could the brethren have asked of so thin and frail a child? She wanted to call out to him, signal that he was in her presence once more and that everything would be as it was, only better. But she could not make a sound and heard nothing in her head except for the thud of dutiful footfalls as the believers filed into the dining hall, each keeping to their side of an invisible partition and turning to sit at opposite ends of the room.
They dance here almost as they do in Meeting, Polly thought, though with none of the same abandon. It amazed her—how many lines the believers could find to follow in this rigid world.
Ben never looked at her, his stare fixed in front of him as he walked in step with the brethren, each following the solemn procession with their right foot stamping just the slightest bit louder than their left. Out of the corner of her eye, she would watch him sit when directed while Brother Andrew helped cut his meat and pour his drink. Her brother barely gave his plate a glance before stabbing at his potatoes with his fork and lifting them to his mouth. What faint traces remained of the boy she remembered! On the table in front of her, platters brimmed with food. They appeared, as if by magic, in a corner cupboard with shelves that moved silently up from the kitchen when one of the sisters pulled hard on a rope that hung close by the wall. No one spoke. They were, she thought, a silent congregation of eaters.
Polly knew she had to finish her food, but there were so many times when she found that she could not. Her stomach heaved and her breathing became shallow and quick. She was becoming sick with longing and she wished that she could feel the spirits close about her, poised to take her from the pain. But they would not come.
“You appear ill, Sister,” Elder Sister Agnes said to her one day. She had stepped into Polly’s line of vision as if to break the numbing spell. “Did something you ate not agree with you?” She appeared impossibly tall as she stood and awaited her answer.
“No,” Polly said. “I became dizzy is all. I don’t know—”
“Are you well enough,” she interrupted, “to come to my chambers after you have finished your morning chores? I believe it is my turn to speak again to the Visionist, now that so many others have had their fill.”
Polly could not find her voice fast enough.
“The answer is a simple one,” Elder Sister Agnes said.
“Yes,” Polly replied. “I will come.” And with a curt nod, the eldress was gone. Will this be the day I confess? Polly wondered. Perhaps this was her opportunity to banish Elder Sister Agnes’s doubts. She had worked and worshipped with great vigor, after all. She had become a good Shaker, hadn’t she? Might that be enough?
Simon Pryor
AS I QUESTIONED the inhabitants of Ashland, I should not have been surprised to find such willful apathy. Though for more than a decade they had turned a blind eye to the Kimball family’s misfortunes, they were happy to dole out condemnation as though it justified their lack of sympathy. There was not a bar owner for miles around who didn’t angrily shake a tally in my face and declare Silas Kimball a thief, a drunkard, and a man who boasted openly of his cruelty at home. Benjamin Briggs’s accidental death was lamented, but as for May, she had been a girl of loose morals who sowed the seeds of her own misery when she married so feral a specimen. Polly, the unfortunate fruit of this unholy union, was ignored by all save a schoolteacher and her students, the children she had helped to learn how to read and do their sums. One does, on occasion, come across people who renew—if briefly—one’s faith in humanity.
In fact, it was the teacher who told me where I might find the man who would know more about the Kimballs than anyone else, for he had tended to their animals and was the only person Silas never ran off the place. He went by the name of Peeles, she said. Mister William Peeles.
That is how I found myself in a saloon at the far end of Ashland. Not a genteel spot, I’ll say that. Dark, smoky, full of customers of the rabbling sort—the place scarcely spoke to my more refined sensibilities. Still, as there was liquor and a penny cigar to be had, it was as good a place as any to approach the man I hoped would further my inquiry.
I was glad that the wear of a dusty ride coated me in a patina of collegial scruffiness. It allowed me to slip less conspicuously from my comfortable chair by the fire into a world far grittier and unpredictable. The men who watered here bore little good feeling towards townsfolk like myself. They worked hard in forge and field and found those whose professions did not leave calluses, burns, stooped backs, missing fingers, the reek of sweat, and the dirt of real labor to be an untrustworthy lot indeed. I cannot say that I much blamed them.
My companions spoke loudly and loosely, doubtless a result of the alcoholic bilge they drank in such copious amounts. Ever since the temperance preachers had begun their self-righteous invasions, whiskey had become increasingly difficult to come by. Wherever the amber fluid flowed freely, one felt the urge to suck it down as might a man who fears he will never drink again.
I approached the bar. “Is there a gentleman by the name of Peeles here tonight?” I asked the saloonkeeper.
“Who wants to know?” he answered with suspicion, wariness being a requisite trait in all taverners. He weighed my request as he gave his clouded whiskey glasses a cursory wipe before putting them back on the counter.
“I was told I might find him here,” I said. “Wanted a word concerning the Kimball family.”
“Got an eye on the land already, do you?” he asked with barely concealed disdain. “You mill folk don’t know much shame, do you?”
“I’m no mill agent,” I assured him. “Just an inspector looking to find anyone who might have survived.”
He went back to his cleaning. “Peeles’ll come,” he said after a brief silence. “For all I know he’s already down there. You’ll recognize him—he’ll be the last to leave once it’s over and done with.”
He nodded to an open hatch in the floor at the back of the room. It seemed to be swallowing the tavern regulars in great numbers, and though it took me a moment to jostle through the crowd, I t
oo eventually found my way down into a pit surrounded on three sides with rough-cut boards for seating. I closed my eyes against the heat and fug. A fight was about to begin and the placing of bets was well under way.
I regard such amusements with loathing, but this was not the first time I had found myself crawling into the cramped bowels of one drinking establishment or another and waiting for the games to begin. It was neither a fistfight nor a wrestling match between men that attracted the crowd. Not a bit of it. The drinkers were in high spirits because some enterprising fellow had bagged himself a woodchuck and found someone equally opportunistic and cruel to put up a dog. The custom is as straightforward as they come: The man in the pit holds a writhing grain sack containing the wild contender—anything larger than a common cat, with teeth and claws will do—while another stands a few feet away jiggling a piece of raw meat before a cur that has been near-starved for days. As harmless as a chuck may appear, a large male is serious business when cornered. His opponent? The unfortunate creature chosen to fight an animal more formidable than a bag full of rats is usually a veteran of particularly churlish disposition, a dog no man would be sorry to lose.
True to form, the cur across the pit from me was old and battle-scarred—an underdog, as it were, against such a powerful adversary. Oh, that the worn-out mutt might simply be left in peace, I thought. The cruelty and brutishness of men is, on occasion, more than I can bear to witness.
So why did I stay? The work, always the work. I am used to depravity of one sort or another—indeed I have been well trained—and it is often in such a Hades that one finds men brim-full of useful information, especially once the fight has ended and the victory rounds have commenced. The well-lubricated winners are primed for indiscretion born of elation, while the losers—having spent their last crumpled notes to numb their disappointment—don’t much care what they say. I am served in either circumstance. Temperance be damned—I bless the power of alcohol to transform.
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