About Brother Linus Eckhoff, she could write little, except that he didn’t deserve to be killed. He had never shown any inclination to violate his beliefs, had seemed happy and at peace in North Homage. If he had been the man in Mrs. Dunmore’s room—and she could not believe he was—then why was he killed? All Rose could write under his name was: Did he witness Mrs. Dunmore’s murder, and was he killed to silence him? It was the only conclusion that made sense.
She shook her head sadly when she reached Wilhelm’s name. He had been so irresponsible, and now it had come back to punish him. He had abandoned his wife and child, not to become a Believer, but to roam the world. He had served as a soldier, something no Believer would have done. But his real foolishness was in hiding his past. Had he been more open, he might have felt full forgiveness. If he’d been concerned for the welfare of his child, the community would have encouraged him to locate her, make sure she was cared for. Still, despite his wish to hide, he had told his elder and eldress everything. He had been able to bend his pride. Blackmail was not a real danger. For a devout Believer, a pacifist who valued all life, to murder his own child and then one of his spiritual Children—such an act would require a powerful motive, which just wasn’t there, as far as Rose could see. Under Wilhelm’s name, she wrote: In the absence of new information, he cannot be the culprit. She did, however, ask one question. What brought Wilhelm to us?
Finally, Rose had listed the “ghost” of Sister Sarina Hastings. Somehow she—or it—was connected with the opening of the Shaker Hostel and with its guests. Rose had been treating the ghost’s appearance as a nuisance. Now she intended to discover everything about it she could. She listed several questions.Was there really a Sarina Hastings here in North Homage? In any of the other Shaker villages? Is the “ghost” plump or pregnant—or disguised as either? Has the ghost disappeared since Mrs. Dunmore’s death?
Rose rubbed her eyes and stretched. With her thoughts neatly organized on paper, her mind had finally slowed down. She saw her direction more clearly. Sleep sounded delicious. She forced herself to wash her face and brush her teeth; exhaustion was no excuse for slovenliness.
“Rose. Rose, please wake up. This is our chance.” Gennie’s urgent whisper interrupted Rose in the middle of a lovely dream about—well, now she couldn’t remember anything except that it had been delightful. She groaned and tried to pull the bedclothes over her head.
“Oh, I know you’re tired, but truly, Rose, this is important.”
“It had better be.” Rose opened her eyes a fraction of an inch. She could barely see Gennie, the room was so dark. “What time is it?”
“Three o’clock,” Gennie said. “Yes, I know, it’s the middle of the night.” She reached over to Rose’s bedside table and turned on the lamp.
Rose moaned and flipped her pillow over her head to block the light. She was awake, whether she wanted to be or not. She heard the muffled sound of a chair scraping next to her bed, followed by an exaggerated sigh.
“I’m only here,” Gennie said, “because you always fuss so much about how I go out on my own and put myself in danger, but if you’d rather sleep while I investigate by myself, well, that’s just fine with me.”
Rose peeked out from under her pillow. “That wasn’t fair.”
“And this is really important.”
Rose sat up, hugging her blanket around her. “All right, what’s so important?”
“Remember you asked me to find out from Mairin if she’d seen the ghost in the past few days—you know, since Mrs. Dunmore’s death? Well, I had a long talk with her, and she insisted she hadn’t seen a thing. First she said she’d stayed in her room, but then she admitted she’d looked but hadn’t seen any lights or the ghost.”
“This couldn’t wait until morning?”
“There’s more,” Gennie said. Her whisper was breathy with excitement. “It was just last evening that I talked with Mairin, in her room after supper. I made her promise on her honor that if she looked out and saw a light again, she wouldn’t go outdoors without coming to get me. Nora was stern with her and insisted she keep her promise, so I sort of believed her.”
“You told Mairin to walk alone to the hostel at night to get you?”
“Oh. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. No, I decided to spend the night camped out on the third floor of the Children’s Dwelling House. Mairin’s little kitten, Angel, is so darling, I stayed in her room. To be honest, I could see more of the village from the dwelling house than from my room in the hostel, which faces south. I wanted to keep a closer eye on Mairin, too.”
“I gather Mairin or you saw something?” Lack of sleep had turned Rose irritable, and she couldn’t muster the strength to pray for patience.
“Yes! Mairin kept her promise. She came knocking on my door a little while ago. I’m afraid I’d fallen asleep. Anyway, she told me she’d seen a light in the Meetinghouse. She was really excited, thought maybe her guardian angel had gone there to dance and worship. We went to another room to look out, and the light was still on. It was upstairs—you know, in those rooms the elders and eldresses once used for . . . oh, I don’t remember, offices or something.”
Rose was now fully awake. She threw off her blanket and pulled a loose work dress over her nightgown. “Let’s go,” she said. She didn’t bother to tell Gennie to stay back; it would be pointless. Gennie was already holding the door open for her. Besides, Gennie had proven she could be resourceful in a touchy situation.
“You see?” Gennie whispered. “It’s sort of faint, but it’s up there.” Clouds hid the moon and stars, so the light in the upper Meetinghouse stood out more than it might have in a brighter night. Gennie and Rose stood at the southwest corner of the South Family Dwelling House, watching the Meetinghouse next door.
“That light is moving,” Rose said. “I think it must be a flashlight. Didn’t the ghost always turn on the building lights? I don’t see any movement in the window, either. Maybe this is something else. Those rooms haven’t been used in some time. Why would anyone be up there?”
The room went dark. “Look!” Gennie pointed to the room next to it, where the wavering light had reappeared.
“There she is! There’s the ghost. Come on, over here.” The shout came from a voice Gennie recognized—Betty, the ghost hunter. She and a group of seven or eight other folks from the world came trampling through the grass from the north. They hadn’t seen Rose and Gennie, who jumped back out of sight behind the back of the South Family Dwelling House. The visitors gathered on the Meetinghouse lawn and watched. At once, the window filled with light. A hooded figure with its arms raised in the air twirled across the window without stopping. Several seconds passed, and the figure twirled back the opposite direction. The room went dark.
“Well, that sure ain’t worth waitin’ for,” Betty said.
“Maybe she went ’round to the other side,” someone else said. The group took off at a run to circle the Meetinghouse.
When the last stranger had disappeared, Rose said, “Come on, we’re going in. I’ve had all I can take from this . . . whatever it is.”
They took a cautious peek around the corner and found that no one was watching the front of the Meetinghouse, so they were able to slip in one of the doors. They stood quietly in the large meeting room where for decades the North Homage Shakers had sung and danced in Sabbathday worship. Rose was glad for the absence of moonlight; they’d be less visible to outsiders who might peer in the large windows lining the walls. To their right was a cast-iron stove beside a closed door, which led to small offices and a staircase.
“Follow me,” Rose whispered. “Keep as quiet as you can. If she’s here, I want to surprise her.” Rose knew the Meetinghouse, its creaks and corners, the way Gennie knew the Herb House. She led the way up the narrow staircase to the top floor. They paused at the landing and listened. Gennie’s young ears had picked up a sound, and she gestured for Rose to follow her down the hall toward two small offices that once had been u
sed by elders and eldresses. The rooms had been empty—and uncleaned—for years. Both doors were ajar and no light shone out.
The hallway had one small window at the end, so it got little natural light. Rose and Gennie tiptoed, sliding along the wall for guidance. They were within about twenty feet of the offices, when something large and dark swooshed through the far doorway, barely moving the door itself. Rose and Gennie flattened themselves against the wall. The whole second story needed a good cleaning and airing. The walls smelled musty; humid summers and lack of air circulation had caused some mildewing.
For a moment, the figure looked up at the ceiling, then down the hallway, apparently missing the two women in deep shadow. It moved to the hallway window and looked out. Rose wished for just a moment of moonlight to clarify the silhouette, but it remained nothing more than a dark clump. A slight ridge around the shoulders and the shape of the head told her the figure was wearing a Dorothy cloak, so it must indeed be Sarina Hastings, whoever she or he really might be. She was tall, probably agile, perhaps strong—especially if she was a he—but Rose believed she and Gennie between them could subdue her, if they could catch her off guard. Rose grasped Gennie’s hand to get her attention.
If ever Rose needed proof that dirt chased away good spirits, this was it. Gennie sneezed.
Without even a split second of hesitation, the figure whirled around and ran past them, toward the staircase. She had disappeared down the stairs before Rose or Gennie had managed to budge. Gennie took off first, but Rose grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the observation room, which had a window overlooking the large meeting room below. Elders and eldresses sometimes used the room to watch over worship services. Perhaps in other villages, observers tried to catch private, forbidden looks between a brother and a sister, but Agatha and Rose had used the room to keep an eye on the visitors from the world. It provided an almost complete view of the worship space below.
“We’ll never catch up,” Rose said. “I want to watch as she leaves the Meetinghouse. Maybe we can learn something.”
They reached the observation window just as the figure emerged from the stairwell into the meeting room. She seemed to know exactly where to go. Upstairs she had looked out a west-facing window—perhaps she had noticed that the area was free of ghost watchers. She ran to a window next to the west doorway and looked out, taking no more than two seconds. Watching her movements, Rose saw impressive speed and agility. The ghost demonstrated superb awareness of her surroundings and quick reflexes. In another two seconds, she was out the door. Rose and Gennie rushed back into the hallway and to the west window.
“There she is—over there behind the South Family Dwelling House,” Gennie said.
Despite the moonless sky, Rose was able to identify the running figure. The long, dark cloak flew out behind her. It looked like she was heading toward the Shaker Hostel, but she disappeared before Rose could be sure.
“Shall we chase her?” Gennie asked. “I could go back right now to the hostel and search everywhere. I’d bet anything one of the guests has been playacting—that was no ghost that ran past us. A ghost wouldn’t even have to run, it could just dematerialize, right?”
“Right,” Rose said. “Let’s go.”
They searched the hostel inside and out as best they could without alerting the sleeping guests, but they found no sign of anyone, substantial or otherwise. Rose had run out of strength. “I can still get about two hours of sleep,” she said, “and I intend to do so. I’d advise you to do the same.”
Before falling into bed, however, Rose pulled out her notes and found the section on Sarina Hastings. She had the answers to a couple of her questions. Nay, the ghost had not disappeared after Mina Dunmore’s death. Rather, she seemed to be keeping a low profile. And the ghost looked neither plump nor pregnant. It was still possible that Mrs. Dunmore had masqueraded as a ghost, the plump one several folks had reported sighting. But the one Rose had seen tonight . . . She—or possibly he—was quick, light-footed, and bent on some purpose of his or her own that might have nothing to do with embarrassing North Homage.
Rose pulled her dress off and, for the first time in her life as a covenanted Shaker, left it in a heap on the floor. Her last conscious thought was that she really was getting too old for all this.
Eighteen
“I HAVE SUCH JUICY TIDBITS FOR YOU, ROSE. I COULDN’T wait for you to call me back.” Terrence Smythe, Episcopal priest though he was, delighted in a good story. He’d never been a grim sobersides. For that reason, Rose had always enjoyed him, and Wilhelm had made his time with them as miserable as possible.
She’d been feeling tired and confused after the adventure of the previous evening, and she had settled in the new library after breakfast to think. The bright morning sunlight spilling in the dwelling house windows helped buoy her spirits. When she heard Terrence’s excitement, her hopes soared.
“You’ve found out something about Horace von Oswald?” Rose asked. She grabbed some paper and a pen from the library desk and pulled a chair over to the phone.
“Have I ever. As it turns out, I didn’t know him because he lived here during the year I spent with you all in North Homage. By the time I returned, he was gone, but the bad memories lingered.” Terrence chortled, a sound Rose remembered with fondness. She could picture his hollow-cheeked face with its long, white beard, so impressive in the pulpit, where no one could see the glint of humor in his blue eyes.
“I spent breakfast and lunch yesterday at the Chickadee Diner here in town, asking all and sundry if they’d ever heard of Horace von Oswald. I got quite an earful. Seems he was quickly and universally disliked. He had a sharp tongue and a habit of asking personal questions. The folks around here are friendly, but not that friendly.
“Anyway, he wangled a job on the Birdhill Bystander, our local rag, as a reporter, which made the situation worse. I made a point of talking to the old editor of the Bystander—Fred Strauss, finally retired last year at seventy-nine, but his mind’s still sharp as ever. He said Horace von Oswald was a damn good reporter—his words, not mine—but he had a chip on his shoulder a mile wide. Fred, as you know, was another damn good reporter—my words, I’m afraid—so he decided to do some digging, as only reporters can do. I didn’t ask how he did it, but somehow he found out that Horace was from Massachusetts. A small town somewhere near Pittsfield, I believe.”
Rose’s heart picked up speed. “And near the Hancock Shaker Village?”
“Precisely.”
“Was he ever a Shaker or a novitiate?”
“That isn’t clear. He’d left his little Massachusetts town as a young man, just after the turn of the century, and he was in his late forties when he lived here, so the trail was pretty cold by the time Fred got interested. Fred said he called the Hancock Shakers, but they didn’t recognize the name. Then he called an old newspaper buddy in Pittsfield, who said that Horace had moved to Pittsfield as a young man. He’d been handsome in those days, quite the dapper man about town. Bright, too, with a rosy future. He got himself engaged and enrolled in Harvard. Then everything fell apart. Harvard changed its ivy-draped mind, for reasons no one ever knew—or no one would tell. His fiancée chose a public setting to throw the ring in his face. And then Horace disappeared.”
Rose had been scribbling notes on her lap as fast as she could. “Do you know the girl’s name? Did Fred have any suspicions about why Harvard refused him?”
“I’m sorry, Rose. That’s all I could get.” Rose heard genuine regret in Terrence’s voice. “Shall I keep digging? I do have a sermon to prepare, but this has been great fun.”
“Don’t neglect your own work,” Rose said. “I can take it from here. This information is helpful indeed.”
“Any time.”
Rose spread all her notes on the library desk and bent over them, resting her chin on her palms. Now she could answer a couple of her questions about Horace von Oswald. He’d worked as a newspaper reporter. He was from the area near the Han
cock Shaker Village, which meant he almost certainly had knowledge of them, if not contact. She added another question:Does he resent the Shakers because of something having to do with the break-up of his engagement? She still couldn’t explain his handwritten Shaker stories, but it was possible he’d been copying them from newspapers and meant to use them to hurt the Shakers somehow. Maybe he hadn’t yet figured out of what use they might be. She also wondered why he hadn’t given a more recent phone number. She suspected he didn’t want Andrew to call and find out what he’d been doing the last couple of years.
She moved down her list to Daisy Prescott. Finding out more about her might prove almost impossible. From what Rose had observed of her, direct questioning likely wouldn’t work. Daisy kept her private life a secret. She seemed to be hiding something, but what? If she wasn’t exactly what she presented herself to be, then she had perfected her role. She wouldn’t make a mistake, not unless Rose could surprise her, catch her off guard. To do that, Rose would need some knowledge Daisy wouldn’t expect her to have. How to get it, that was the question.
Rose paced the full perimeter of the room, thinking. She wound up back at the phone. She picked up the receiver and rang the Shaker Hostel. Beatrice answered and grudgingly promised to find Gennie.
“Rose, shouldn’t you still be sleeping?” Gennie sounded more cheerful and alert than she had any right to be.
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