The Blessed

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “They found me and they would have found you too if you hadn’t tried to find your way by yourself.”

  “She found the cow instead,” Isaac spoke up. “And a good thing too. Else I might not have gotten to her in time to help her deliver the calf while it was still alive.”

  Aurelia looked at Isaac. “Do you call that luck, Brother Isaac?”

  “Nay, not luck, Sister. Providence. The Lord’s providence. And a calf to show for it.” Isaac pointed to the calf with evident pride.

  “Is the calf a heifer?” Aurelia looked toward the calf for the first time. It was still suckling and the mother looked oblivious to them watching her.

  “Not a heifer,” Isaac said.

  “Then the poor animal’s fate will be to end up on your plate in time,” Aurelia said as her lips turned down. “Its hide will become shoes on our feet.”

  “For the good of the Society,” Isaac said.

  “Yea, the Lord’s providential care. We do our duties and we labor our worship and we eat and sleep and the Lord sends down his love. It doesn’t matter if there are prayers that go unanswered. Days that are naught but clouds. Miracles that fade away at sunrise.”

  “Are you all right, Sister Aurelia?” Lacey had never heard her sound so bitter.

  “I’m right as rain. How could I not be all right after dancing with the angels?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t sound like yourself.”

  “Then perhaps it is not me. Perhaps an angel lingers inside me. Perhaps several angels. They guided me back to you, you know. The angels are very interested in you, Sister Lacey.”

  “Why?”

  “Some questions are to be asked, but they have no answers.”

  “You’re talking in riddles today, Sister Aurelia.”

  “Riddles are not the Shaker way. Come, Sister, we must return to our duties and let Brother Isaac continue his.”

  “As you say, Sister Aurelia.” But Lacey hesitated as she looked back at the calf and then at Isaac whose smile had disappeared. “Will you take the cow to the barn?”

  “I’ll wait awhile, and then encourage her back through the trees toward the barn.”

  “Perhaps we should stay to help you drive her.” Lacey was reluctant to leave the little calf. And Isaac.

  “Sister Lacey.” Aurelia’s voice was sharp as she turned away from the cow and calf and took a few steps before she stopped to say, “Sin lies in wait to overtake us.”

  “Surely not with your angels all around to protect you. To keep us from dashing our feet on a stone.”

  “They do look on me with favor, but they might not feel so kindly toward you right now since you spurned their dances.” Aurelia held her hand out to Lacey. “Come. It is not good for sisters to be at odds. We must seek peace between us. Our brother can tend to the cow or such a duty would not have been assigned to him.”

  Lacey hesitated there between Aurelia and Isaac. She knew which way her feet wanted to move, but it was perhaps true that sin was lying in wait for her in that direction.

  “She’s right,” Isaac told her. “I can see to the cow. But when you get back to the village, it would be good of you to get one of the brethren to let Brother Asa know all is well.”

  “All is well.” Lacey echoed his words. If only that were true.

  His eyes softened on her. “Thank you for holding the rope, Lacey. I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

  She took one last look at the calf. It had stopped nursing and was staring toward her with big moist eyes. She still wanted to smile when she looked at it standing there by its mother. A gift of life. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. She didn’t know why the Beatitude came to mind, but it made it easier for her to turn away and follow Aurelia into the trees away from the place she wanted to stay.

  “Do you know your way back?” she asked Aurelia when she caught up with her.

  “Of course I do. The path is clear.” Aurelia pointed ahead of them. “Don’t you see it?”

  “Nay, but I will trust that you do.”

  “It could be that you trust too easily, my sister,” Aurelia said.

  Lacey didn’t know what to say to that, so she stayed silent as she followed along behind Aurelia. A silence that Aurelia seemed to embrace as they made their way through the trees.

  It wasn’t until they stepped out of the woods into the pasture field that Aurelia spoke again. She stopped then and looked straight at Lacey. “The angels seem to be throwing you and Brother Isaac together.”

  “I can’t see what the angels have to do with me getting lost in the woods and stumbling across him today. I thought they wanted me to follow you.”

  “Perhaps they did. Perhaps they didn’t.”

  Lacey had had enough of Aurelia’s riddle talk. “Look, Sister Aurelia, I don’t know what’s going on with you today, but I know what I’ve done and what I haven’t done. I helped Brother Isaac get that calf born. I didn’t do anything wrong. I got lost. That’s all.”

  “And then found,” Aurelia said. “You say you did nothing wrong, Sister Lacey, but I saw your face as he swung you around. You had no wish for that to end. And I heard him call your name. Lacey. Not Sister Lacey. He does not see you as a sister.”

  “Even if any of that’s true, and I’m not saying it is, but even if it is, it doesn’t matter. I am married to Preach—Brother Elwood.”

  “Your marriage vows mean nothing here.” Aurelia stared hard at Lacey. “If they ever meant anything.”

  Lacey dropped her eyes to the ground. Blessed are the meek. She let the words whisper through her mind. “I will confess my sins to Sister Drayma,” she said without looking up.

  They stood there for a long minute as the silence built around them before Aurelia said, “Nay, I don’t think that would be wise.”

  Surprised, Lacey looked up at her. “But I thought I was to confess all wrongs.”

  “You say you’ve done no wrong, and if you truly believe that, then sometimes it is best to keep a few things secret. Sister Drayma might not understand the innocence of your meeting the brother in the woods and refuse to allow you to go to the spiritual feast Saturday. Plus your confession might cause trouble for our brother.”

  Lacey didn’t care about the Shakers’ spiritual feast, but she didn’t want to be trouble for Isaac. “I wouldn’t want that to happen.”

  “Nor would the angels. Not if they are the reason behind this.” The hint of a smile played around Aurelia’s lips and then was gone. “The angels have many secrets.”

  “That they tell you?”

  “Perhaps they speak them through me. But if they did, they would no longer be secrets, would they?” She reached out and wrapped her fingers around Lacey’s upper arm so tightly that it hurt. “Trust me, and when the time is right, I will share the secrets I know with you. And I will keep your secrets.”

  Just as suddenly as she’d grabbed Lacey, she let her go and then turned to start across the pasture. “We’ve missed the noon meal, but if we hurry we might be able to pick a basket of berries and keep Sister Drayma from frowning too much. Especially if I tell her about dancing with the angels. That is not secret. I’ll say you danced too.”

  “That would be a lie.” Lacey rubbed her arm. Keeping her meeting with Isaac a secret didn’t bother Lacey, but telling a lie did.

  “If I don’t say who you danced with, it won’t be exactly a lie.” She smiled over her shoulder at Lacey. “Now will it?”

  “Bending the truth is a kind of lie,” Lacey said as she hurried to keep up with Aurelia.

  “True enough,” Aurelia agreed. “But didn’t you tell me that you used to make up stories for your little girl? What are stories but many lies strung together?”

  “Stories are just stories. For fun. Not lies.”

  “So you say, but do I say the same?”

  Lacey let out a sigh. “You are a mystery today, Sister Aurelia, with your secrets and your riddles.”

  “Indeed.
That is a truth we can agree on. We both have our mysterious secrets.” Aurelia laughed so loudly that the cows on the other side of the field raised their heads to stare toward them.

  Once they were across the field and back in the village, Aurelia stopped on the pathway to adjust her cap and collar. She gave Lacey the once-over. “You’d best fix your cap too, Sister. A Shaker sister’s hair must be hidden. We would not want to break any rules.”

  For a minute Lacey thought Aurelia might be joking, but her face was serious with all signs of her earlier laughter gone. “We’ve done nothing but break rules all day,” Lacey said, even as she obediently stuffed her hair up under her cap.

  “But now we will not.”

  Lacey gave up trying to figure out Aurelia and just followed after her toward the strawberry patch. Aurelia stopped the first brother they met and gave him Isaac’s message as though they had simply happened upon him with the cow and calf in the course of performing some assigned duty in the woods instead of being out chasing angels. Lacey was beginning to doubt the sister’s sanity. And her own.

  The next minute she was doubting her eyesight as well when she spotted the man leaning up against a fencepost alongside the road. Not a Shaker brother, but then the main road went straight through the village. It wasn’t uncommon to see men not in Shaker dress taking a moment’s rest beside the road at times. But she wasn’t expecting to see this man.

  “Reuben. Is that really you?” She ran ahead of Aurelia in her hurry to speak to him.

  29

  At the sound of her voice, he pushed away from the post and stepped out on the path in front of her. “I’ve been watching for you, Miss Lacey, but I don’t know that I’d a known you with that bonnet on.”

  He looked so much like home she wanted to hug him, but with the now serious Aurelia behind her watching and other eyes peering down on them from who knew what spying spots, she held herself back. But she didn’t hold back her smile. “It’s so good to see you, but what are you doing here? Not thinking on becoming a Shaker like the preacher, are you?”

  “Oh, no, Miss Lacey.” He stepped back and held his broad hands palm out toward her, as though to keep the very idea of that away from him. “I couldn’t leave the church. Who’d take care of things?”

  “I don’t know, Reuben. Nobody as good as you. That’s for sure.” Lacey reached out to touch his arm softly, and the unsettled look her words had brought to his face went away. But he didn’t smile.

  “You told me I could come find you here if I needed to.” His face grew even more somber.

  Lacey’s heart sank as she remembered why she’d told him that. “Somebody died.”

  A tear slid out of the corner of Reuben’s left eye and down his cheek. “I couldn’t ask Miss Sadie Rose like you told me. It’s little Jimmy. He was trying to ride this horse he shouldn’t a been riding and fell off. Hit his head and never came to. Died last Friday.”

  “Not Jimmy.” Lacey shut her eyes and the little boy’s face popped up before her. So full of mischief and life. He couldn’t be dead.

  “That’s what Miss Sadie Rose keeps saying too. She’s taking it hard. He was her baby, you know.”

  “I know.” Lacey pulled in a deep breath and swallowed down her tears as she pushed open her eyes and looked at Reuben again. “You need me to write out his name?”

  “They’re gonna get a stone and I want to be ready to do my part soon as they do.” He reached into his pocket. “I brung the paper and a pencil for you. They said his real name was James. That’s what Miss Sadie Rose will want. His real name. James Crutcher. And the numbers of his years. 1838 to 1844. And whatever else you think is good.”

  “‘Beloved son of Sadie and Harold Crutcher.’ Is that too many letters?” Lacey asked.

  “I can work on it however long it takes. As long as you make the letters nice and clear. Wouldn’t want to chisel in a wrong line.”

  Lacey took the paper and glanced around for something to lay it on to write out what Reuben needed. Aurelia was hanging back on the path with her face turned away from Reuben as though she feared a mere look at a man from the world would propel her into sin.

  “This is Reuben,” Lacey told Aurelia. “From the Ebenezer church. He won’t do you any harm.”

  “No, ma’am.” Reuben peered past Lacey toward Aurelia. “My mam taught me not to bother any of the ladies. At church or anywheres else.”

  Aurelia kept her eyes on the pathway. “That is good. The same is taught here,” she said very softly.

  Lacey had never heard Aurelia sound so timid. But then today Aurelia might be anything. So Lacey just skipped right to the matter at hand. “I don’t know how much you heard, but Reuben chisels out the names on the gravestones back at the church, but he has to have something to go by. Brother Elwood’s first wife used to do it for him, and then I did it when she died. So I told him he could come here if he needed help with his lettering.”

  “She knows how to make the letters the way I need them like Miss Mona did,” Reuben said. “Most people don’t, you know.”

  “So somebody died?” Aurelia still didn’t look up.

  Perhaps it was a Shaker rule that Lacey had yet to be told that a sister had to keep her eyes downcast when around a man of the world, but it was odd talking to the top of Aurelia’s cap.

  “Yea, it’s very sad. A little boy in the church a couple years older than Rachel.” Lacey remembered with a pang of guilt her irritation at Jimmy for telling Rachel she didn’t belong with Lacey. And now his life was gone. Poor Sadie Rose. Lacey’s sorrow over Rachel’s anger at her seemed trivial in contrast. At least Rachel was alive and well. Perhaps not happy, but breathing.

  “Six then?”

  “Six. Rachel is four.”

  “Yea, that I know. So young,” Aurelia murmured.

  “We just need a flat place so Miss Lacey can make the letters nice and clear.” Reuben pointed toward the meetinghouse down the road ahead of them. “We could go in there and lay the paper on the floor.”

  “Nay, not in there,” Aurelia said, her voice stronger.

  When Reuben looked puzzled, Lacey explained. “That’s the Shaker meetinghouse.”

  “You mean like a church?” When Lacey nodded, he went on. “Well, I wouldn’t care for somebody laying a paper down on the floor or the pews at Ebenezer Church and writing out letters. Maybe you need to come back there, Miss Lacey.”

  “It’s a long walk, Reuben. I see you rode your horse.” Lacey nodded toward the animal tied not far from where they stood.

  “You could ride with me.”

  “But both Rachel and I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave Rachel here alone.”

  “She’s hardly alone among us, Sister Lacey. But this gets us nowhere. There are many other hard surfaces.” Aurelia raised her eyes off the ground to point toward the Centre Family House across from the meetinghouse. “You can use those steps.”

  Reuben didn’t look where she pointed but instead stooped over a bit for a better look at Aurelia. “I thought I knew you.”

  “Nay, you don’t know me.” Aurelia turned her face away from Reuben’s eyes.

  Reuben stepped off the path onto the grass to keep peering at her. “I know faces. My mam always told me I was good at knowing faces. The bonnet fooled me for a minute the same as with Miss Lacey, but I’ve seen you. You’re that girl.” Reuben looked back at Lacey. “The one I told you about, Miss Lacey. The one that—”

  “Nay, I do not know you.” Aurelia cut off Reuben’s words as she stepped up close to him to stare directly into his face. Her voice was cold and sure. “Nor do you know me. It is wrong for you to say so.”

  Reuben backed away from her, a puzzled frown on his face. “But . . .” he started, when a sister walking past the Centre Family House let out a shriek. All three of them whirled around to look toward her.

  “Oh, merciful heavens, Sister Abby must have seen a snake.” Aurelia sounded irritated.

  “Where?” Reuben started toward
the shrieking woman, more than ready to spring to the rescue. “I’m not a scared of snakes. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Wait, Reuben. You don’t need to.” Lacey grabbed for his arm to stop him, but he was already gone.

  Who knew what the Shaker rules were about snakes, but she was pretty sure they wouldn’t look favorably on a man from the world running to the rescue of a screaming Shaker sister. When Reuben gave no sign of hearing her, she hurried after him to keep him from causing trouble. She glanced back over her shoulder at Aurelia, who stayed rooted to the pathway with her hands on her hips. She appeared to be every bit as reluctant to follow Lacey running after Reuben as Lacey had been earlier to chase after Aurelia going to meet her angels.

  But it wasn’t a snake. Instead the sister held one hand flat against her chest and with the other pointed toward the rooftop where one of the brothers was climbing up on the low railing around the middle flat part of the roof.

  “What’s he doing?” the sister said breathlessly.

  The house was three stories high with a chimney on each corner and a windowed cupola in the middle of the roof for the watchers. But this brother wasn’t a watcher. He was looking up at the sky and not down at them as he held on to one of the chimneys and wobbled back and forth on the railing.

  “Is that the preacher?” Reuben squinted his eyes and stared up at the man.

  “The preacher? What preacher?” Sister Abby said. She turned to look at Reuben, then gave another little shriek and stepped back when she saw his worldly clothes.

  Reuben didn’t act like he noticed as he kept looking up. “That is him, isn’t it, Miss Lacey? Sure as we’re standing here in this spot.”

  Lacey felt sick as she stared up at the man. His face was turned away from her, but Reuben was right. It was the preacher. “The man’s lost hold of his senses since he came here,” she said.

  She didn’t know what to do. If she called out to him, that might startle him and make him fall. If she didn’t call out to him and he fell, then she’d always wonder if she should have yelled some words to him that might pull him back to sanity.