The Blessed

by Ann H. Gabhart

  All at once one of the sisters let out a shriek. Lacey jumped clear up off her bench, but nobody else seemed the least bit worried as they started singing words that no ear could understand. Except maybe this Mother Ann they kept talking about. That made sense, Lacey supposed. She’d been able to understand Rachel’s baby chatter a long time before any of the churchwomen could. Mothers had that gift. If only she could be using it.

  Lacey bent her head and tried to pray that the Lord would help her reclaim Rachel, but no prayer words would come in her head with all the Shaker noise banging against her ears. These people were making her jumpy as a dog trying to corner a snapping turtle.

  If she was feeling out of place, she couldn’t imagine how Preacher Palmer, or rather Brother Elwood, would be feeling so far removed from the solemn services at Ebenezer Church. There he was the only one who ever did any stomping or shouting, and that only when he was warning of damnation for wrong living. She looked across the floor to where a few men were sitting out the dances the same as she was. The preacher wasn’t among them.

  It took a minute to find him with all the people on the floor whirling and twirling and stomping and carrying on in a frenzy of spirit catching. She blinked her eyes twice, not sure she was seeing right, but there he was. Standing right out on the floor shaking like a willow tree in the wind. Somehow seeing that, seeing the preacher under operations, as Sister Aurelia called it, brought a tremble to Lacey. But not with the Shaker spirit. She might not have ever loved the preacher, but she had trusted him to know the truth of the Bible. Miss Mona had trusted his “thus saith the Lord” preaching. And now he was out there shaking and throwing all that aside. So what was she to believe as she sat in the middle of the madness that had overtaken the staid Shakers? And the preacher too.

  She thought things couldn’t get any crazier, but that was before Aurelia whirled out to the middle of the room and began talking in a voice that sounded twice too loud for her. The Shakers around her ceased their whirling as silence fell like a thick blanket on every one of the worshiping Shakers except Aurelia.

  “I am the angel Esmolenda sent by Holy Mother Wisdom to condemn those among you who have done wrong. Wrongs that you have not confessed. It is a fearful thing to reach for the spirit with an unclean soul.” Aurelia kept her eyes on the ceiling and her hands straight up in the air. She moaned slightly as she swayed back and forth a few times and then went as stiff as a towel frozen in the winter wind on a clothesline. Even her eyes seemed fixed open. The only thing that moved was her lips. “A perilous sin. There are those among us who know.”

  Several Shakers dropped to their knees at her words and began to mutter prayers. Aurelia’s face and body stayed stiff, as though more words might break her apart. Here and there some of the Shakers watched Aurelia with a wary look on their faces, and Lacey decided this wasn’t the first time they’d seen her deliver a message from her angels. Lacey wondered if it was always of doom. An uneasy feeling settled in her stomach as she began to think it might not be all that good a thing to have a friend who was on such close terms with angels.

  The thought had no more than tripped through Lacey’s head when Aurelia lost her stiffness like mist disappearing in the sun and began whirling straight toward Lacey. If there’d been any place to run, Lacey would have been out and gone before Aurelia could touch her, but instead she sat like she didn’t have good sense and let Aurelia grab her hand and pull her to her feet.

  “Fear not, my sister. Whirl your fears away and shake free of the worldly sins that shackle you in unbelief. Speak of the sins you’ve witnessed.”

  Lacey tried to jerk her hand free, but Aurelia’s grip was too tight. “Don’t resist the spirit,” Aurelia hissed toward her. “The truth will be revealed through visions and song.”

  Lacey’s heart pounded and her mouth went dry as Aurelia tugged her toward the center of the floor. Lacey hated having every eye in the place plastered on her, but Aurelia appeared to be reveling in it. Or the angel—whatever her name was—who was supposed to be speaking through her. Lacey was feeling some doubts on that. Why would an angel come down out of heaven to grab her hand, to make like she, Lacey Bishop, had a message for these strange Shaker people when the good Lord above would know of a certainty that she didn’t have the first word to say? She tried to ignore all the Shaker staring eyes and pinned her own eyes on Aurelia to try to figure out what she was up to.

  Aurelia yanked her closer so hard that it came near to jerking Lacey’s shoulder out of its socket. “Speak, I say. Do not hide sins with your silence.”

  “Let me go, Sister Aurelia,” Lacey said in a fierce whisper. She didn’t want to accuse her of faking the angel act in front of the assembly, but at the same time she had no desire to be part of Aurelia’s show.

  “Aurelia is not here. I am Esmolenda, angel of truth and power.”

  Aurelia tightened her grip until Lacey’s knuckles were mashed together, even though she had stopped trying to pull her hand free. Aurelia did look strange. Like she was in some kind of trance. What if she really had been taken over by an angel? One that had special powers. The whole bunch of the Shakers appeared mesmerized by her. Lacey wasn’t above trying to use that.

  “If that’s true, let me see Rachel,” Lacey demanded. “Show me where my daughter is.”

  Aurelia glared at Lacey as though she spoke blasphemy that couldn’t be forgiven. “You have no daughter.”

  19

  Isaac never knew what to expect at meeting when the staid and solemn Believers seemed to transform themselves into children playing a game of worship with no rules. They sang and danced. They whirled and jabbered. They hopped and skipped and entertained strange imaginings. But when Sister Aurelia grabbed the new sister’s hand and pulled her out on the floor, it seemed different. No longer innocent and harmless. Or loving.

  Everything about meeting was supposed to be loving. Love for the brothers and love for the sisters. Love from the spirits and the Lord. Love from Mother Ann. All love. While Isaac hadn’t exactly embraced their idea of love, he had no argument against it. He was content to roll along with their ways, pretending to sweep away sin, keeping his hands busy and his stomach fed.

  He didn’t deserve more than that. He didn’t deserve that much. Not with Ella in the grave. But then his eyes would catch on the new sister again. It wasn’t just that she was pretty. She was that. Even with the sisters’ cap covering her brown hair that had fallen so softly around her shoulders back at her house. But it was more the sensing of her contrary spirit there among the Shakers. A contrary spirit that matched his own, even if he was dancing and working and acting the Shaker role. The contrary spirit that had her covering her ears and smiling down at him while Brother Verne was berating him. A contrary spirit that had him wanting to smile, even while holding the two odorous slops full to near overflowing.

  So when Sister Aurelia grabbed hold of the new sister and pulled her out on the meetinghouse floor, he tried to catch the young woman’s eye with the same kind of contrary smile, but she was staring at Sister Aurelia with a look near panic.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Sister Aurelia under operations. She often whirled away from the other dancers and began the angel talk. But Isaac had yet to be convinced that she or any of the Shaker Believers claiming visitations had really been taken over by spirits from the beyond.

  Because he lacked faith, Brother Verne told him. As if that was some kind of revelation. Isaac sometimes thought it would be nice to have faith, to believe love could fall down out of heaven in balls pitched by angels, but then he’d remember Ella burning with the fever and calling for her mother. He’d remember how his love hadn’t been enough.

  Sister Aurelia wouldn’t let the new sister go. Sister Lacey. The name fit her. Lacey. He kept his eyes on her, but she didn’t look toward him. Instead she had stopped trying to get away and stood with her head bowed as Sister Aurelia shouted in her angel voice and demanded Lacey name some sins.

&nbs
p; The Shakers were big on speaking sins. Elder Homer was always urging them to think hard to recall the slightest wrongs in order to cleanse their consciences and their hearts when Isaac and the five other novitiates met to confess their sins each week. Isaac had taken to making up a few lapses just to satisfy the elder’s need to hear wrongs. He wondered if the other brothers did the same, but doubted it. They didn’t appear to have his contrary spirit. The wrong spirit would be what Brother Verne would tell him he needed to confess. And the way he wanted to walk out onto the floor and rescue the new sister from Sister Aurelia’s hold. That would lose his place at the Shaker table in a heartbeat. Doing battle with an angel spirit for a sister. A sister who, even if she wasn’t a Shaker, was married. To the old preacher.

  Isaac looked over at Brother Elwood. He’d seen the man shaking earlier. More of a Believer already than Isaac would ever be. Ready to shake all that was carnal away from him. But he looked stricken now as he stared out at the two sisters. His face was pale and his mouth dropped open a little as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. Then with small wary steps he eased back behind two other brothers and bent his head to stare down at the floor. He appeared to want nothing to do with the scene playing out in front of him.

  Isaac was surprised when Lacey spoke up. He didn’t know why, since it fit in with her contrary spirit to challenge this angel that was rebuking her. He wasn’t surprised that she asked about her daughter. He’d seen the love she had for the child that day they’d packed them up and moved them to the village. A pure love that made him think of his own mother’s tears the day he’d gone to live with the McElroys after his father’s death. Change and sorrow so often came into a person’s life hand in hand. The strong survived, his mother had told him that day as she blinked away her tears. And those who put their trust in the Lord.

  She’d boxed his jaws when he told her the Lord hadn’t proved too trustworthy so far. Then she had held him against her so tightly that he thought she might never turn him loose. “Oh my son, don’t lose your faith. It was man’s folly and the explosion that took your father. Not the Lord’s design.”

  “What is the Lord’s design?” He remembered leaning back from her and watching her face in hopes she would tell him something he could carry away with him. Some bit of faith that would see him through, the way it was seeing her through. And Marian too. His sister had not shed the first tear when she left for her new home with the Shakers the day before.

  “That we put our hand in his and trust him to show us a way. It’s as simple as that.”

  He had carried his mother’s words away with him, but Isaac hadn’t found it simple at all. He still didn’t find it simple. Perhaps the Shakers were right when they sang their song about it being a gift to be simple. To step out in simple faith instead of trying to shoulder and push against the world to make his way. That was why he was there in the meetinghouse. Not because he was reaching for faith, but because he was tired of pushing against the world. He was hiding every bit as much as Brother Elwood, who was ducking down behind the other brothers across the floor from Isaac.

  “You have no daughter.” Sister Aurelia shouted the words at Lacey and then raked her eyes across the Shakers watching her. Her voice took on a strange timbre as she began to whirl, yanking the new sister with her. “The sin is not yours, but another’s.”

  Without thought, Isaac stepped forward to rescue the new sister from the grip of Sister Aurelia’s vision. It was one thing to chase after a gift of the spirit with fervor that threatened one’s own life and limb, but it couldn’t be right to drag an unwilling sister along with her. A brother’s hand caught him to keep him back. Sister Aurelia began whirling even faster, nearly pulling Lacey off her feet before suddenly letting go of the new sister’s hand and dropping like a stone. Lacey spun across the floor like a top turned loose and would have fallen into the benches if Isaac hadn’t jerked away from the hand restraining him and stepped forward to break her fall.

  She knocked against him with more force than he expected, and he stumbled back with his arms still around her. He couldn’t catch himself and ended on the floor with the girl on top of him, her face inches from his. Her eyes widened in surprise. He thought his staring back at her must surely be just as wide. She was soft in his arms like Ella, but at the same time nothing like her. Female but not helpless as she caught her breath and pushed back from him. For one crazy moment he tightened his arms around her. Two bright spots of red lit up her cheeks as she looked down at him and did not fight to free herself.

  An audible gasp went through the Shakers and then hands were grabbing at them both. A brother shouted out, “Woe, woe.” Across the room a sister began singing.

  Come, holy angels, quickly come.

  And bring your purifying fire;

  Consume our lusts in every home,

  And root out every foul desire.

  Some voices picked up the cry of woe while others sang the song.

  He had the strangest urge to laugh at the commotion their fall was causing as he reluctantly dropped his hands away from her. Two sisters snatched her off him and jerked her to her feet before they began hitting at her dress to brush away his sinful touch. They glowered at him, as though he had assaulted the new sister instead of merely breaking her fall. It was plain to see they would have been better pleased to see their sister bash her head into the benches than end up crashing into him.

  He shook off the brothers’ hands grabbing at him and ignored their frowns as he got to his feet. He had done no wrong. He would have done the same for any of the sisters who might have been falling. Even old Sister Phoebe, whose face looked like a wrinkled prune. Of course his arms might not have impulsively tightened around Sister Phoebe. He let his eyes slide back over to Lacey as she endured without protest the fervor of the sisters who even yet were beating at her skirt like they expected snakes to fall out of her petticoat.

  As though she’d been waiting for him to look her way, she met his eyes, but only for the barest second. But in that second he caught the smile buried there. She stepped back from the beating hands of the sisters and said quite calmly, “What about Sister Aurelia? Shouldn’t you see to her?”

  Sister Aurelia was stretched out in the middle of the floor as stiff as the plank seat of one of the benches. She hadn’t fallen that way. She’d collapsed in a heap of skirts, but now she lay like a tree felled with her skirts laid out as straight as her arms by her side. The angel must have arranged her so before the heavenly creature departed for heaven. Again Isaac had to twist his mouth to keep from letting a smile touch his lips. For a man who had almost forgotten how to smile, he seemed to be having to hide a pile of them. Maybe he had been taken over by a spirit himself. A mischief-making spirit who had him wanting to throw up his hands and laugh in the face of the woes and scowls, in spite of the fact that would cause him much trouble.

  Brother Verne was staring holes through him. Angry holes. And even Brother Asa was giving him a quizzical eye. But it was Elder Homer he would have to answer to. Mischievious spirit and all. And what of Ella? Had the mere touch of another woman thrown aside his sorrow?

  His thought of smiling vanished as his guilt settled back around his shoulders like a well-worn cloak. Perhaps the condemning looks were right. He was nothing but sin. He was almost glad when the singers switched to a new song.

  Come, let us all unite to purge out this filthy, fleshy, carnal sense.

  And labor for the power of God to mortify and stain our pride.

  We’ll raise our glittering swords and fight. And war the flesh with all our might.

  All carnalities we now will break and in the power of God we’ll shake.

  Some sisters dragged Sister Aurelia out of the way as the Shakers took their places on the floor again, shaking and stomping to chase away the temptation of the devil that had come into the meeting. Lacey went over to kneel by Aurelia. Brother Elwood, his face still pale, stared at the two sisters a moment before his arms began
quivering. Brother Asa took hold of Isaac’s sleeve and pulled him out on the floor.

  So he shook as they expected, but he felt nothing. To him it seemed nonsense, but it had ever been so. Faith eluded him.

  Then as he reached his hands up in the air and pretended to shake the carnality out of his body, he turned and looked directly at the new sister again. She was watching him. No smile lurked on her face or in her eyes now. Instead she looked sorrowful. Perhaps she was thinking of the daughter they had taken from her, but her eyes were on him. Probing him. Wondering and denying at the same time. Doubting his dance.

  He had no answers for her. He had no answers for anyone. Not even himself. Especially not for himself.

  She bent her head then in an attitude of prayer, and it was his turn to wonder about her. Perhaps faith did not elude her as it did him. And he suddenly wanted to stop his farce of shaking and pretending to seek the Shaker way to go kneel beside her. He wanted to let her take his hand and pray for him.

  20

  By the time Lacey left the meetinghouse, she was of the mind that the whole bunch of the Shakers had been into some cider gone hard. She thought back to when Miss Mona had claimed witnessing the Shakers’ worship had scared Sadie Rose. Lacey hadn’t understood then how a church service could scare a person, but she was beginning to now.

  Not that she had exactly been frightened by the Shakers’ carrying on. At least not until Aurelia had grabbed her. It wasn’t right to stand in judgment of other Believers and how they acted. A person could find that truth often enough in the Good Book. Certainly she couldn’t cast the first stone at anyone after the wrongs she’d done. But then again, she’d never stomped and screamed and acted like a complete heathen inside the walls of a church.