The Gifted

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Cost?” Tristan peered up from his eggs at Sister Lettie. “I did not mean to cause trouble for her.”

  “You did not. She found the trouble on her own. That is true with every person, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. As much as we try to shift the blame to another as Adam and Eve did, the choice always ends up to be our own. We can give in to our sinful nature or walk a purer path and overcome the temptation strewn in our way.”

  Tristan stared at his food with a sudden lack of appetite. “What will be done to her?”

  “You needn’t look so worried, my brother. We do not mistreat our brothers and sisters. She will merely be encouraged with loving attention to pay closer mind to the rules.”

  “How?” He couldn’t imagine what punishments these people might use. Would she be locked away to give her time to consider her wrongs? Or set to some unpleasant chore to castigate her straying feet?

  “She will be watched. That is all. Until such a time as she can earn back the trust of her brethren and sisters. Obedience to the rules is necessary as you will find if you stay among us.”

  “Watched? That doesn’t sound too bad,” he said with some relief.

  In the shadows the day before, Jessamine had told him someone was always watching. So her situation wouldn’t be that much different now. Come morning, he’d be gone. She could go back to her life, and he would go back to his. That was as it had to be, but he couldn’t help wishing the bell on top of the house had held off ringing for another moment when they had stood in the shadows together. A kiss would have been a sweet memory to carry away with him.

  Perhaps it was better that it hadn’t happened. Better that he could only imagine her lips yielding to his. To even speak to him was sin here in her world. To even think of her was impossible in his world. His future was tied to Laura Cleveland. He had no future with a beautiful Shaker girl.

  “It is not allowed to let good food go to waste.” Sister Lettie’s words brought him away from his thoughts. “Your strength will return much faster if you feed your body.”

  “I will never be able to repay your kindness.” He finished off the eggs and biscuit on his plate.

  “Kindness levies no fees. Believers are to do all the good they can to everyone they meet. You were in need of help. We were able to give aid to you out of the blessings the Eternal Father has given us. Our Mother Ann passed down the sure truth that we must ever depend on the giver of every good gift.” She took his plate but continued to watch him. “It is our duty to use whatever gifts we’re given to be of service.”

  “Your gift of healing?”

  “Yea. And my gift to listen without judgment. Not all can do that.” Her eyes probed his. “What of you, my brother? Have you ever thought to use your gifts for the good of your brethren and the Lord?”

  “I have no such gifts.” Tristan looked away from her. A tutor once told him he had a gift for drawing, but his father was uncomfortable with the idea of an artist son. Even one who liked most to draw buildings or outlandish inventions. His father sent the man on his way and threw out the sketching pens. Days later, Tristan had a new tutor and his first gun with orders to learn to shoot. He’d become an expert marksman. His father said he was gifted with steady hands and a good eye.

  When he looked up, Sister Lettie was still watching him, so he added, “Nothing the Lord would want to use at any rate.” There was no gift in killing.

  “How very wrong you are. All are given abilities and gifts. To use one’s hands in work is a gift to be treasured, and who among us can’t do some kind of work? As long as it is honest labor, then the Lord is honored by the performance of such. No labor is more to be admired than another, for God is in all our work.”

  She set the plate aside and came back to run her hands up and down his fractured arm. “Brother Benjamin says you are ready for a new wrapping. We can talk of work while I do that necessary task.” She scooted the small table he’d just been eating from closer to Tristan and positioned his arm on it before she took a small pair of scissors from her pocket. After she snipped through the ties, she began to unwrap the bandages on his arm, with great care. She looked up at him for a moment as she said, “I would think a man of your age would have done some work.”

  “Only schoolwork before the army. Training for war does not seem a proper gift to offer to the Lord.”

  “We can agree to that.” Sister Lettie turned her attention back to removing the bandages from his arm. “We as Believers do not hold with war except the war against sin. Our testimony is for peace now and always. No Christian can use carnal weapons or fight. We oppose wars of households and wars of nations.”

  Tristan frowned a little as he thought about her words. “But what if someone comes into your village to do you harm or to steal from you? How do you defend yourselves?”

  “We depend on God and Mother Ann to defend us. It is not our way to resort to violence.” She kept her eyes on the bandages she was removing as she explained. “If something is taken from us, then we will pray for the person who had such pressing need for it that he would break one of God’s commandments to take it. When we finish our prayers, we go to work to replace it.”

  “But what if they threaten to physically harm you? A man should be able to defend himself against injury.” Tristan couldn’t imagine anyone thinking differently.

  “Yea, that is the thinking of the world. And some of our brothers on their trading trips have been set upon by thieves intent on harm at times.”

  “As I was in the woods.” Tristan grimaced as the sister lifted his arm, not so much because of the pain but because of the way the bone grated inside his arm. An unnatural, unpleasant sound that attacked his wholeness.

  Sister Lettie glanced up at him. “Do you need one of the doctor’s draughts?”

  “No, that might make me sleepy. I wouldn’t want to sleep through your time of worship.”

  “Are you a churchgoer in the world?” she asked as she turned back to her work.

  “I was before I went to the war. That changed everything.”

  “It may have changed you, but the Eternal Father and his truths never change.” Her voice held no hint of doubt, nor did her eyes when she looked up at him.

  “You say that, but other men of God preach different messages.” He hesitated, but Sister Lettie never seemed upset by anything he said. So he went on. “You Shaker people here have a different belief than any I’ve ever heard before.”

  “Yea. The truth shown to our Mother Ann through many visions and dreams.” Her words were as sure as her hands as she positioned her scissors between Tristan’s skin and the bandage to make another snip.

  “But other preachers say they have been shown the truth as well through the Word of God and prayer.”

  “So they do. That is why we each must pick up whatever cross we’re given and follow with faith. Each must decide his or her own way.”

  Sister Lettie pulled the last of the bandage away from his skin and carefully lowered his arm to the table before feeling along the bone. He did his best not to flinch.

  As she gently washed his arm that was black with bruises, she said, “It is good to see how the young can begin to heal so quickly. You will be as strong as ever in a few weeks, but now let us be sure to keep your arm straight. A crooked arm can be a burden.”

  “The bone feels like it’s moving.”

  “Yea, you will need to keep it immobile for several more weeks, but the wrappings I will put on today will make it easier for you to move around and care for yourself.” She stood up and began mixing a whitish powder into some water in the basin. She looked over her shoulder. “Perhaps even join in the exercise of our songs. We will trust you to abide by the rules and not accost any of the sisters. Not even those you think are in need of your gratitude.”

  “Do you dance, Sister Lettie?”

  “I have danced and whirled.” She raised one hand up and did a half turn before she picked up the bowl and a roll of bandage strips
to come back to the table. “But now I am old and must be content to watch most of the exercises. I can still stomp out the devil and labor the sweeping song to rid my life of sin.”

  “I can’t imagine you having sin.”

  “All sin, my brother. All.” She pushed some of the cloth strips down into the thick mixture in the bowl. When they were soaked, she lifted them out and deftly began wrapping the cloth pieces around his arm. “Our choice is whether to confess that sin and begin to strive toward the goal of a purer life. One where the gifts we have been given, those that do honor to the Eternal Father, rise within us and spill out to the good of our brethren and sisters.” She pointed toward him. “And you do have useful gifts. The simple gifts are the best. Those of dedicated labor and love. I look at you and I see potential.”

  “Potential for what?” he asked.

  “Ah, that is what you must discover. With prayer and meditation. I see your confusion. The way you hide the truth not only from me but from yourself. But you must know that nothing can be hidden from the Lord.”

  “The Lord is the one who seems hidden to me.” Tristan saw no reason not to be truthful.

  “Nay, my brother. The Lord does not hide from us. He is ever there. Now and forever.” She stared at him a long moment before she went on. “Nay, he is not the one hiding.” She laid thin strips of wood on each side of his arm and wrapped more of the cloth soaked in her potion around his arm to hold the splints in place.

  He thought to tell her that she had not seen the things that he had seen. That she hadn’t heard the sick and dying crying out for mercy and finding none. But then what did he know of what she had seen? It was certain she was seeing him too clearly. Much too clearly. But after this day, he wouldn’t be hiding any longer. At least not from what must be done.

  11

  Jessamine didn’t know what she had expected. She had not only willfully disobeyed the rules, she had done so in the very center of the village directly across from the meetinghouse. While the meetinghouse was generally empty except on Sundays, the rooms above it were not. Those chosen to the Ministry, two elders and two eldresses, lived there in seclusion in order to fairly perform their duty to watch and judge, to steer the village with rules and directives.

  When the Believers went forth to exercise their worship, it was the Ministry’s eyes peering through the specially made peek holes on the stairway walls to be sure no wrong actions took place. But they did not only watch on Sundays. They watched every day from their windows or gave the duty to others to watch from appointed places.

  Jessamine knew their names. Elder Horace and Elder James. Eldress Sue and Eldress Joanna. She had seen them on occasion walking back and forth between the meetinghouse and the Ministry’s workshop behind it. Quiet shadows with heads bent studying the ground. Prayerful always, according to Sister Sophrena.

  But surely prayerfulness did not necessarily keep one from looking upward at clouds skipping across a blue sky or to the explosion of blooms in the orchard nearby. Nature patiently offered her gifts. It seemed wrong to refuse those gifts by not noticing. It seemed doubly wrong to ignore such beauty while being ever watchful for some evidence of sinful actions.

  She had known they would be watching. Not the Ministry perhaps, but someone. Someone was always watching. And she had never intended to keep her lapse of proper behavior completely secret from Sister Sophrena. Part of it for a certainty. Jessamine saw not the least need in admitting her desire to kiss the man from the world as they stood in the shadows. Such knowledge would only distress Sister Sophrena, who would perhaps think she should shoulder some of the blame for Jessamine’s shameful disregard of the rules. She would fear she hadn’t taught Jessamine well enough.

  That wouldn’t be true. It wasn’t the lack of knowledge of what was and what wasn’t allowed that tripped Jessamine up, but simply her desire to know and experience those things she wondered about. Things of the world like the touch of the man’s finger on her cheek. At least she hadn’t lied about that to Sister Sophrena, even if her answer had brought the look Jessamine so dreaded into the sister’s eyes. Not anger. Sister Sophrena never got angry with her. Sometimes Jessamine thought she might like it better if Sister Sophrena did yell at her or even strike her. That would be easier than the look of disappointment. A mingling of sadness and concern over Jessamine’s unrepentant spirit.

  Jessamine always did her best to look remorseful and to say repentant words. She was always sorry to fall short of Sister Sophrena’s mark. But she never truly regretted the curiosity that generally led her into wrongdoing. Nor did she sincerely regret the minutes she’d spent in the shadows with the man from the world. If she was honest with herself, she had to admit what she truly regretted was jerking away before he touched his lips to hers.

  The night before, she had whirled in and out among the apple trees until she was too dizzy to stand. Then she had embraced one of the trees with the bark digging into her arms while her head stopped spinning, but her thoughts had continued to spin with her wondering about the kiss that almost was. She kissed the back of her hand. She picked up a smooth stone and kissed its cool surface. She even thought of running on to the barns to find a horse to kiss. At least that would be something living and breathing.

  But she had tamped down on her foolishness and made her way back to the Gathering House. She adjusted her cap before she eased open the door into her sleeping room and slipped quietly inside as though just returning from a necessary trip to the privy. It was the time of reflection and rest before the evening meeting in the upper room where they would practice the proper steps of their laboring dances for the next day’s worship.

  Several of the sisters were so deep in reflection they didn’t even look up when she stepped into the room, although Jessamine could feel the rush of outdoor air that came with her. Sister Abigail flashed a grin at her as though she knew what caused the flush on Jessamine’s cheeks before she covered her mouth with her hand and looked down at the book she was holding. Even from across the room, Jessamine could see that it was a book of Mother Ann’s precepts. She herself had been set to studying the very same book often enough by Sister Sophrena after some lapse in behavior.

  Sister Annie stood up and patted down the broad white collar over her bosom. Jessamine quickly smoothed down her own collar but that did nothing to forestall Sister Edna’s annoyance. A piece of tree bark fell from the folds of Jessamine’s collar. She deftly caught it before it hit the floor and dropped it into her apron pocket.

  Sister Edna swooped across the room toward her like a hawk diving down to sink its talons into a rabbit that had strayed too far from cover. “Are you hiding something, Sister Jessamine?” she demanded.

  “Nay,” Jessamine answered, while thinking she was indeed hiding a great deal. A great deal that she would never wish to reveal to Sister Edna. The sister in front of her had little patience for wayward thinking.

  Sister Edna held out her hand, palm up, toward Jessamine. “If you’ve brought something sinful into our sleeping rooms, it is my duty to know what it is.” When Jessamine hesitated, the woman went on. “It is more than obvious that you have been straying from the proper path. You missed the evening meal and now you come sneaking in with your collar askew and smudged with black. Whatever have you been doing?”

  “Forgive me, Sister Edna.” Jessamine hung her head down in an effort to appease the woman. “I did not come promptly enough when the bell rang to signal the meal. I regret my tardiness.”

  “That hardly explains the black on your collar.”

  The room was very quiet as the other sisters waited to see what story Jessamine would concoct to explain her absence. She had been told—out of Sister Edna’s hearing—that her excuses were often very entertaining. She thought her sisters might truly have been very entertained if she told about the man of the world touching her cheek. The thought of it was entertaining to her own senses, but she hardly dared tell Sister Edna that much of the truth.

  �
��Nay, you are right. As you know, I was in the rose gardens throughout the day. I must have soiled my hands and then my collar as I straightened it.”

  “I worked in the same rose gardens. I managed not to soil my apron and collar. Besides, I have yet to see any black roses in our gardens.” She thrust her hand, palm up, toward Jessamine. “Let me see what you hid in your pocket.”

  “It is but a piece of bark.” Jessamine pulled the bark from her pocket and placed it in Sister Edna’s hand. “When I missed the evening meal, I thought it would cause no harm if I took a walk through the apple orchard. The sight of the apples swelling on the branches lifts my spirits with the seen evidence of the good Lord blessing our family with abundant fruit. The thought of such blessing made my feet itch until I felt the need to whirl among the trees.”

  “Perhaps you were dancing with angels,” one of the young sisters spoke up. Sister Wileena was always hoping to see angels.

  Sister Edna turned to glare at her as if the poor girl shared in Jessamine’s guilt. “The angels have stopped coming down to dance with us. You have been told that many times, Sister Wileena.”

  Sister Wileena looked down at her hands. “Yea, Sister Edna. But why? When I first came among the Believers three years ago, there was much talk of angels speaking through chosen instruments and bringing messages from the other side. Why have they stopped coming?”

  “The Era of Manifestations is past. The leaders at New Lebanon have told us as much. We must now tend to the duties handed down to us from the Ministry and worship with appropriate discipline and commitment.” Sister Edna turned her eyes back to Jessamine. “Discipline that some of our sisters struggle to practice.”

  “Yea, Sister Edna,” Jessamine said. “I will go wash my hands and put on a clean collar before our gathering time.”

  “A clean spirit might be more to be desired. You should pray for such and not keep entertaining wrong thoughts that might lead you into sin.”

  Sister Abigail stood up and stepped closer to Sister Edna to peer at the bark in the woman’s hand. “Oh my, look at that! Sister Jessamine has brought us in a worm.”