The Gifted

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Besides, in spite of what Sister Edna told her, Jessamine couldn’t see how made-up stories were that much different from the spirit drawings and songs given to others among the Believers. Such were much celebrated during the Era of Manifestations. Jessamine had witnessed the elder sisters surrounding a young sister’s bed as they waited in the glow of lamplight ready to write down the words the child uttered while asleep and then singing those words at next meeting.

  To Jessamine, a story seemed to be just as much a gift of the spirit rather than a sin she might need to confess. Her granny had never thought it wrong and she had been every bit as much of a believing woman as Sister Sophrena, praying with Jessamine every night and telling her wonderful stories from the Bible.

  But while Jessamine didn’t think of her stories as sins, that didn’t mean she didn’t recognize other times when she did willfully sin. She could tell herself she was doing no wrong to take a bit of a detour toward the Gathering Family House at the end of the day to see if she could spot the stranger in Brother Benjamin’s garden. She could even think of stepping off the path into the garden to pull out a weed from among the doctor’s medicinal plants. How could there be sin in ridding the garden of a weed? But she could almost hear Sister Sophrena telling her to be more attentive to the weeds wanting to sprout in her heart.

  Whether letting her feet carry her past the doctor’s garden and not keeping her eyes on the path in front of her was sinful or not, she knew without a doubt that wishing for some glimpse of the stranger was a breach of her promise to Sister Sophrena. And she knew just as surely that the man stepping out of the shadows and taking hold of her arm was exactly what she had hoped would happen.

  9

  The girl pulled in a quick breath and her eyes flew open wide when Tristan stepped in front of her. He hurried out words of apology. “Forgive me. It wasn’t my intent to startle you, Jessamine.”

  She didn’t speak. Instead she seemed poised to turn and run away, so he put his hand lightly on her arm to keep her beside him for a moment. That was all he wanted. A moment. He smiled at her as he went on. “That is your name, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t talk to you,” the girl said.

  “I promise to do you no harm.” She was every bit as beautiful as he remembered, with eyes even bluer than his memory of them. But perhaps her worry was darkening them. “Are you afraid of me?”

  “It’s against the rules.”

  “You talked to me in the woods,” he said.

  “That was different. You were in need then. And we were away from . . .” She hesitated.

  “Away from the rules?”

  “Nay, the rules should always be with us, but in the trees, there was no one to see.”

  He took his eyes off her face to glance around. Where moments ago the paths had been busy, now they were empty. Summoned by the bell, the Shakers had all gone into the houses. “There’s no one about now.”

  “Someone is always watching.”

  “You mean your God?” He looked back at her. Her chin was lifted, but she wasn’t casting her eyes about. Instead she was standing very still like a deer in the forest that had hopes, however vain, that it had not been seen by the hunter it feared was in the woods.

  “Nay. The Lord is ever with us,” she said quietly. “There is no way to escape his eyes. Nor that of the watchers.” At last she took a quick look over her shoulder.

  “Are you afraid of them?”

  Her eyes flew back to his. “My brothers and sisters? Oh, nay. They love me. Even when I do wrong.” She turned her eyes to the ground as color rose in her cheeks.

  He thought he detected a tremble in her arm. He tightened his hand on her as a strange feeling pushed through him. He wanted to protect her and bring a smile to her lips instead of a tremble. “Then I must be what you fear, but I assure you that you have no reason to be afraid. You can trust my promise to do you no harm.”

  “Nor do I fear you,” she said softly before she looked up. “My granny used to tell me that our greatest fears always come from within. And that the only way to conquer such feelings is to look honestly and without pretense at them.”

  Her face changed, lost any hint of fearfulness, and instead took on a look of determination that impossibly deepened the blue of her eyes even more. If a man wasn’t careful to keep his wits about him, he could be swallowed whole by those eyes. She pulled her arm free from his hand only to take hold of his sleeve to tug him off the path and into the deepening shadows next to the stone house.

  He gave her no resistance. He was quite willing to stand there through the dark of the night if she wanted him to. He told himself he owed her at least that much after she’d obviously risked her reputation by bringing him here to her village for help, but he was glad of the daylight. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a lovelier girl even with her bonnet covering all but a few strands of blonde hair and with no ruffles or flounces on her dress to enhance her looks. As different from Laura as day from night.

  Once in the shadows, she dropped her hand away from his sleeve but kept looking straight at him. A smile trickled out on her face. “I’m glad you are recovering from your injuries. Have you remembered your name?”

  “Yes,” he said, then hesitated. While it hadn’t bothered him all that much to lie to the Shaker doctor, he found it hard to do the same to this girl. But he had no other choice. The lie already told could not easily be taken back now. “Philip.”

  “Philip.”

  She tried out his name and he could not keep from wishing it was his real name falling from her lips instead of the lie. But he continued with the farce. “Philip Rose.”

  “It’s good the memory of who you are has returned, Philip. It is a sorrowful thing to not know who you are.”

  Her smile faded away, but she was just as beautiful, smiling or not. Tristan decided it was more than the shape of her features and the blue eyes, lovely as they were. It was the light from within those eyes and the innocence radiating from her face. He wanted to ask how old she was, but bit back the question. It wasn’t proper to ask a lady her age once she was no longer a child, and even though this girl might have the innocence of a child, she was every bit a woman.

  “Now if I could just figure out some other things.” Tristan touched the bandage on his head. “I don’t remember anything about being in the woods before you and your sensible sister found me. Is she all right now?”

  “Yea, Sister Annie will always be all right. She is prone to follow the rules and live the perfect life.”

  “Unlike you?” He raised his eyebrows a bit.

  “I have many lapses in proper behavior to confess.”

  “Like this? Talking to me?”

  “Yea.” Again the color rose in her face, but this time she didn’t look away from him.

  “Sister Lettie has told me that the men and women are forever separate here.”

  “Yea. Mother Ann deemed it right and the Ministry has established rules to follow her edicts.”

  “Where is she? This Mother Ann. Is she the one you think might be watching?”

  “Nay. She has stepped across the divide into the next realm, but she often sends back messages.” He must have looked puzzled because she went on. “Spirit messages and gifts of love straight from heaven.”

  “Gifts of love,” he repeated after her. “I could use one of those.”

  “As can we all,” she said. “Although right now Sister Sophrena who tries to guide me along the proper Believer’s path would be more apt to wish a gift of obedience down on me. She will be very grieved with me when I tell her that I stepped into the shadows to speak to you.” Her smile disappeared.

  “So why did you?”

  “I don’t know.” A frown chased across her face before she pushed out a little breath of air. “Nay, now I’m adding untruth to my list of sins. I do know. I have great curiosity about the world that lies outside our village, but that too is a sin that causes me to forget the rules. Nay, not forget, bu
t to ignore. That is much worse than forgetting.”

  “You look the picture of innocence to me. A beautiful picture of innocence.” Without thinking about what he was doing, Tristan stepped closer to her. “And you smell of roses.”

  “I suppose when one is in a rose garden all day, it is only natural to carry away the sweet scent.”

  “You were in a rose garden all day?”

  “Picking the petals for our rosewater.” She sniffed her fingers and then held her hand up to his nose. “Next week I may smell of lye soap from the washhouse or perhaps onions from the gardens.”

  She laughed, her worries of a moment ago apparently forgotten. The sound wound around him like a silken thread that he didn’t want to break.

  When she started to pull her hand away, he caught it and sniffed her fingers once more. “On you those might be as fragrant as roses.” Her hand in his was small but sturdy, her nails cut bluntly across and scratches from the roses marking her fingers.

  “Oh my,” she whispered, but she didn’t try to pull her hand from his. “Sister Sophrena was right.”

  “About what?” He looked straight into her blue eyes.

  “About how wondering about worldly things can be like stepping into the middle of a whirlwind. It can make your head spin.”

  “What worldly thing are you wondering about that has your head spinning?” He turned loose of her hand and brushed his fingers against her cheek. Her skin was enticingly soft.

  Her eyes opened wide at his touch, but she didn’t step away. She moistened her lips before she answered, “It is too sinful to speak aloud.”

  “Are you wondering about how it would feel to be kissed?” He let his finger stray down to her lips. His own lips tingled with the desire to pull her close and drop his mouth down to hers. He could almost taste the rose sweetness of her.

  “I know nothing of kissing.” Her words were a bare whisper of breath as she stared up at him.

  “But you want to know.”

  She made no answer, but she didn’t move away. He let his hand drift down to her shoulder and was pulling her closer to him when the bell on top of the house began to toll. As though awakening from a trance, she pulled in a sharp breath and jerked away from him.

  “Nay,” she said softly, and then a little harsher. “Nay.”

  She whirled away from him and ran out of the garden.

  “Wait.” He took a step after her, but when she didn’t look back at him, he stopped. Even if his legs weren’t still trembling and weak, he couldn’t chase her down the pathway. Not in this village where she was not even allowed to speak to him. Instead he watched until she was out of sight before stepping back into the shadows to lean against the stone wall of the building. The stone was cool against his back as he stared at the empty pathway and hated the clang of the bell that had sent her flying away from him. Then again, perhaps none of this was really happening. Perhaps he was still in the woods and dreaming this strange village with the beautiful sister. If so, he wasn’t sure he wanted to wake up.

  As Jessamine hurried along the pathway toward the Gathering Family House, she felt eyes staring down at her from every high window in the Centre Family House and the meetinghouse too. How could she have acted so wantonly? Actually pulling the man into the shadows to talk to him. And then a mere breath away from tiptoeing up to offer her lips to his.

  She touched her lips with her fingers. His fingertip tracing her bottom lip had felt so different and had set off feelings inside her she’d never known or imagined. He was right. She had been wondering about kissing. Thinking sinful thoughts of his lips touching hers. Imagining how that would feel. Even now her lips felt strangely bereft as though missing something needful. The kiss of a prince.

  He’s no prince. Sister Annie’s prudent warning ran through her mind. Words Jessamine knew were true. He wasn’t a prince. He was an ordinary man named Philip Rose who would ride away from their village and never be seen again. Jessamine pressed her knuckles hard against her lips to stop the tingling desire that lingered there. It was good the bell had rung to save her from her own folly. Wasn’t that what Sister Sophrena was always telling her? That her reckless lack of self-control was what kept getting her into trouble.

  And now it had made her miss her supper. Late to the eating room was not acceptable. Plus, she would be missed. She would have a great deal of explaining to do even if eyes hadn’t noted her sin of standing in the shadows with the man from the world. But it wasn’t the missed meal she was regretting. Not if she was honest with herself. It was the missed kiss.

  What was it her granny had told her? That it did little good to tiptoe through a creek. That a body might as well step on into the water and get a firm footing, since on tiptoes or not, a body’s feet were going to be wet. Maybe it was the same with sin. Sister Sophrena was going to tell her that she’d fallen into sin by giving in to the temptation to pass by the doctor’s garden. She’d stepped in a little deeper when she hadn’t run away from the man. If she was going to do so much tiptoeing in sin, she might as well have plunged in with both feet. Grabbed the kiss while she could. Satisfied her curiosity.

  But there was a difference between stepping through a creek on firm footing and falling down in the water on purpose and wallowing in it. Even her granny hadn’t suggested that. At least not unless it was on a hot summer day when it was unlikely to do her health any damage. Who knew what sort of damage offering up her lips to a man from the world out of naught but curiosity would do?

  In her granny’s stories, the kiss always came right before the happily-ever-after ending. A kiss to seal the bonds of love. Her father had surely kissed her mother before she died. Vowing love forevermore through eternity. A prince who loved a girl could vow no less.

  Jessamine could imagine such love without effort. She could feel it in the breeze that showered down apple blossoms in the spring, hear it in the birds’ songs outside her sleeping room window, and see it in the velvet depths of a rose. It lifted her heart, made her feet feel like dancing.

  Sister Sophrena would tell her that wasn’t romantic love. That such was God’s love, the love he showered down on those who obeyed his commands. The selfish love celebrated by those of the world wasn’t deemed worthy by committed Believers. The love that swelled a Shaker believer’s heart was a purer love. A virtuous love.

  And yet, the Bible spoke of the love a man had for a woman. Jacob worked fourteen years for the love of Rachel. Even the Christ had spoken of a man leaving his parents and cleaving to his wife. A holy union, or so it had seemed when her granny had read aloud the words of her Bible to Jessamine. And told her about the prince who loved her mother.

  If only her granny had lived long enough to tell Jessamine the rest of the story. Then maybe she would understand about love. She wouldn’t have the terrible curiosity that billowed out inside her and made her want to know about such forbidden things. She could settle into her life as a Shaker sister and work with her hands and live the life of purity Sister Sophrena promised would bring her happiness.

  Then maybe she wouldn’t wonder what she might have felt if the bell hadn’t rung and she had let the man from the world touch her lips with his. She moistened her lips and shut her eyes there on the walkway in front of the Gathering House. Her imagination took wing and heat flooded her cheeks at her wayward thoughts. She could not possibly climb the steps and go into the house. Sister Sophrena would want to know why Jessamine had not been in her place at the eating table, and she had no words to tell her yet. So instead she walked on past the Gathering House toward the barns.

  When she saw the apple orchard, she veered off the path and, without thought, picked up her skirts and began to run. She loved the orchard. Among the trees, she was her granny’s sweet Jessamine again, a blossom of the woman she would someday be with no limits on the things she could imagine.

  How could one stop imagining? Why would anyone even want to stop imagining? Who put imagination inside a person if not the Lord?r />
  One of the Shaker sayings came to Jessamine’s mind. Man is a harp with a thousand strings. Touch the spiritual chord of his heart, and lo, with what inspiration he sings!

  Spiritual chord, Jessamine reminded herself. Not the harp strings of the world. Not the desires for worldly kisses and ways. She should stomp out the temptation of the devil and tamp down her imagination. That would be what Sister Sophrena would tell her.

  But she didn’t feel like stomping. Not at all. Instead she began whirling through the trees. Her feet felt almost as if they were floating above the ground. She’d seen many sisters whirl the same in meeting and claim they were dancing with angels. But Jessamine saw no angels whirling with her. She saw only the man from the world and felt his fingertip tracing her lips. She didn’t know what there was about him that so enchanted her, but she could not deny the enchantment. She did not want to deny the enchantment.

  Journal Entry

  Harmony Hill Village

  Entered on this 16th day of June in the year 1849

  by Sister Sophrena Prescott

  Whatever will we do with Sister Jessamine? She has given in to the temptation of sinful desires yet again. To make matters worse, she delayed confessing the lapses in right behavior to me until after I heard the reports from Eldress Frieda who was alerted by the Ministry. The eldress was much grieved by the reports as am I. We are both very fond of our young sister, but there are behavior mores we must abide by if we are to live peaceably in our community one with another without sin.

  It is thoughts of the man of the world that are leading Sister Jessamine off the proper paths of love and obedience. With heavy heart, I listened to her halting confession. She knew not that I had already heard of her wrongs, although it is certainly likely she suspected as much. She is aware there are those who watch to be sure proper behavior is maintained on the pathways around the village. Such is a necessary duty if temptations of the flesh are to be avoided.