Sister Edna shrieked and slung her hand, sending the bark flying across the room to bounce off the wall and hit on her bed. “Get that off my bed. At once.”
Sister Abigail’s smile was wide as she turned away, but Jessamine didn’t dare let her lips show any amusement as she snatched the bark off the bed. If there had ever been a worm on it, there was none now. She ran her hand over the bedcover and found nothing. Nor was there anything on the floor or any evidence of it meeting its demise smashed against the wall. Without doubt, Abigail had lied to upset Sister Edna. A very successful lie.
“Are you sure there was a worm, Sister Abigail?” Jessamine asked as she lifted the cover to shake it a bit.
“Oh yea.” Abigail took a step back as though worried the worm was too near her, but Jessamine saw the girl’s mischief as she goaded the older sister. “A very plump one with strange hairy horns and many legs.”
Sister Edna shrieked again and lifted up her skirts to show her sturdy shoes. A couple of the sisters giggled and Jessamine bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling. Then she sighed. She had not the least trouble imagining the worm right along with Abigail, but how could she convince Sister Edna the worm was in her hand on the way back outside? She would be worm searching all night or perhaps be appointed to stand beside Sister Edna’s bed at ready to catch the creature when it crawled out of hiding.
The bell sounded, summoning them to the upper room for the time of practice, and gave Jessamine an escape.
She looked over at Sister Edna tiptoeing backward toward the door with her skirts still hiked. “With your permission, Sister Edna, I will get the broom and sweep every inch of the floor in order to find the worm and carry it out of our house. That way we can all sleep easier this night.”
“I can stay and help her since I saw it so well,” Abigail spoke up. “With its many legs.”
Again a couple of the sisters tittered behind their hands as they began to line up at the door. It was evident everybody but Sister Edna was aware the worm was a figment of Sister Abigail’s imagination. Something even Sister Edna must have been beginning to suspect as her eyes narrowed on Abigail.
“Nay, Sister Abigail. You are in need of practice to learn the songs for our meeting. Sister Jessamine will find the creature after your apt description.” Sister Edna dropped her skirts and led the way out of the room.
Abigail reluctantly followed after her with a glance back at Jessamine. When Sister Annie passed Jessamine, she gave her shoulder a sympathetic touch. Jessamine tried to look sorry to be missing the practice, but in truth, she was not. She was glad not to have to do the marches up and back and sing the same verses over and over again until the very words seemed to be pounded into her head. Why the leaders favored songs with so few words or songs with no recognizable words at all, simply repetitions of sounds with no meanings, was a mystery to her.
Jessamine loved words and could see no reason not to use them with abandon to tell about the love of God and the blessings a Believer could know by living the simple life. But when she said as much to Sister Sophrena once, the sister had gently reminded her that it was the simple life she was forgetting. A Believer was to ever strive to seek the gift to be simple in all things, even in song.
But things weren’t always so simple. Even an imaginary worm. Or an imagined kiss. Or knowing what to believe. Or even who she was. If only she could ask her granny. Her granny knew the answers to at least some of her questions. But those answers were lost to Jessamine forever. Sister Sophrena told her not to worry about what she could not know, but to accept what she did know. That the Lord loved her and her sisters loved her and the simple life was best.
But was it? That was always the question that tickled the back of Jessamine’s mind. How could she be sure of that? She knew so little of the world and she had so many questions. Questions she could have asked her granny but that would surely upset Sister Sophrena and could never even be voiced in the hearing of a sister like Sister Edna.
With great care, Jessamine swept the floor and under the beds and every corner as she had promised Sister Edna. There was no worm, but the more she swept, the more real the worm became to her. A worm that would someday fly. How could a worm whose very belly dragged against the ground or was anchored to a tree trunk every minute of its life imagine someday flying?
Jessamine held out her hand as if the worm was crawling upon it. She could almost feel it moving across her skin, each inch forward a laborious journey. But someday that would change. Someday it would float through the air so changed that unless one witnessed the change, it would never be believed. Perhaps she was that way too. Inching along in one life and not able to imagine what might happen if she shed her Shaker cap and apron and stepped out into the world. Could she fly? Did she want to fly?
With her empty hand held out, she walked to the window and gently nudged the pretend worm from her hand to the windowsill. There, in her imagination, it transformed into a beautiful black and gold butterfly to lift off into the air to continue its life journey. She knew it would not happen that quickly. She knew that a real worm would have to spend time in a cocoon before it had wings and that not all butterflies were so colorful. She’d worked with the silkworms. She’d seen the cocoons. She knew, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t imagine.
She leaned out the window and breathed in deeply. The sun had set, but its light was lingering as though reluctant to surrender the day. When she leaned to the left, she could see the rose garden with new buds lifting up to spread open with the sunshine on the morrow. Her eyes drifted from the roses to the center of the village.
The oak and maple trees didn’t hide the white stone of the Centre Family House, but the doctor’s garden was out of sight on the far side of the house. It didn’t matter. Philip wouldn’t still be outside. That didn’t mean she couldn’t pull his face up in her memory. She put her hand on her cheek where his finger had traced a line down to her lips.
Above her, she heard the shuffling sounds of her sisters and brothers practicing the dances. Back and forth. In and out. She knew the steps so well she could do them in her sleep. Then the music of the voices drifted down through the open windows to her. She heard Sister Annie, who always sang with great spirit even in the practices while Jessamine generally tried to hide her voice under the other voices. Joining in but not standing out.
Again she was glad for Sister Abigail’s invisible worm that let her escape the singing practice and gave her mind time to take flight. To remember her moments with Philip in the garden. To think on the imagined kiss that had sent her into such a spinning turmoil among the apple trees. She couldn’t believe her turmoil would have been any greater if the kiss had actually happened. Then at least her wondering would have been satisfied and she would have only had to feel shame.
Shame she had quite readily admitted to Sister Sophrena the next day. But it was too late for easy escape then. Sister Sophrena looked sorrowful when she came to her Sunday morning before they marched out to the meetinghouse, but the decision had been handed down. Jessamine could no longer be trusted to keep her promises of penitence. She would not be allowed a moment alone to stray from the proper paths of behavior. Sister Edna would be ever with her to be sure she did not surrender to willful temptations.
“Forever?” Jessamine asked.
“Nay, my sister.” Sister Sophrena had lightly touched Jessamine’s arm. “Not forever. Only until you have shown you can control your impetuous spirit that has at times led you dangerously near pits of sinful destruction. You knew you should not seek out the man of the world and yet you did so. Willfully, with no regard for the rules of behavior that serve us so well here in our village.”
“But Sister Edna does not even like me.” Jessamine could not keep back her words. “Each day will be a trial for both of us.”
Sister Sophrena breathed out a sigh so soft Jessamine only heard it because of the profound silence that had fallen over them in the sleeping room. All the other siste
rs were in the hallway ready to march out to the meetinghouse. “And what of you? Do you not love Sister Edna as you should?”
Jessamine looked down at the floor. While she did not want to tell Sister Sophrena a lie, it was also wrong to admit to having ill feelings toward a sister. After a moment she said, “Her thoughts and mine are very different.”
“But she does know the rules well and faithfully abides by them. The Ministry feels she will be a good example for you during this time when you must willingly conform your thoughts and actions to those acceptable for a Believer. Even though you are yet too young to sign the Covenant of Belief, you have been with us many years, Sister Jessamine.”
“I have.” Jessamine’s throat felt tight as she remembered imagining the worm turning into a butterfly the night before. But she could not fly away from the Shaker village. She had nowhere to fly. And no desire to leave her family. The very thought of not being near Sister Sophrena made her almost unable to swallow.
Sister Sophrena’s voice was gentle as she put her hand on Jessamine’s shoulder. “Are you having doubts that this pathway is where your feet belong?”
“Nay.” She blinked to keep back tears. “I have nowhere else to go.”
“There are always different paths. Few are who can walk the narrow pathway.”
Jessamine looked up at her and was surprised to see tears threatening to spill out of Sister Sophrena’s eyes the same as they were her own. “The pathway to heaven?”
“The very one.”
“Is there only one way, Sister?”
“Yea, my child. The way of love. You must give your heart to God and your hands to work.” Sister Sophrena reached out to squeeze Jessamine’s hand. “A way you have chosen. Do not give up on loving the Lord and your brothers and sisters now. Cling to that love with all your might.”
“I will,” Jessamine whispered as she slipped to her knees beside the bed. “But can’t I be watched by you?”
“Nay.” Sister Sophrena tightened her hand around Jessamine’s for a moment before she turned loose. “The elders and eldresses of the Ministry have appointed that task to Sister Edna. It is my hope and prayer you will profit from her guidance. And that you will make right decisions when temptations beset you.”
“Yea.” Jessamine bent her head in submission. What choice did she have? For whether she wished for butterfly wings or not, she had none. She could not even imagine flying away from this place. This was her home. These were her family.
Her granny’s words whispered through her mind. Someday your prince will come. The man of the world’s face flashed in her mind as her face tingled where he had touched her. But Sister Annie was right. He wasn’t a prince. And even if he was, he would be riding away from the village. Or if he did stay, then he would be a brother. A forbidden prince.
“Good.” Sister Sophrena stood and reached down to pull Jessamine up off her knees to stand beside her. She studied Jessamine’s face a moment without smiling. “Sister Edna waits outside the door to walk beside you to meeting. Trust me, my sister. Everything will be the same. You will labor the songs and rejoice in the spirit and soon will earn back the trust of the Ministry if that is what you wish to do.”
“Yea, I do so wish.”
“We shall see in the days ahead. We shall see. The devil has a way of throwing stumbling blocks in our paths at times.”
“I will stomp out his temptations.” Jessamine spoke the words with vehemence.
“Perhaps you will, my little sister. And I will be ready to stomp them down with you.” She gave Jessamine’s arm a gentle squeeze. Outside the sisters and brothers began to sing the gathering song. “But come, we must hurry and not be late for meeting. There we can exercise our labors of love and welcome the spirit that will fill us with joy.”
Jessamine followed her out of the room where Sister Edna waited, her face stern and unsmiling as she stepped up beside Jessamine. She would do her best to allow no joy to sneak past her to lighten Jessamine’s punishment. But then did not joy rise from the spirit inside? Perhaps Jessamine was in a cocoon now—a dark time of stillness. But the wings would grow. Sister Edna could not block that joy. She could not stop Jessamine’s spirit from singing or her imagination from soaring.
12
The Shakers marching into their church house looked much the same in their like clothing. The women wore blue dresses with the broad white collars lapping over their bosoms and caps covering their hair. The men had on brown or black breeches and coats. They swept off their hats as they came through the door and hung them on the pegs around the room. Tristan could have stood up and fallen into line with the men and appeared to be one with them in his borrowed Shaker clothes.
The people of the world sitting on the benches along the wall probably thought he was one of them. He’d felt their curious eyes on him when they were allowed to file in and fill the benches around the wall, but Tristan kept his head down almost as though in prayer. Another reason they might think he was one of them.
Brother Benjamin had escorted him across the road to the white frame building more than an hour ago. To get him settled before the worship hour, he’d said. The meetinghouse had little of the look of a church. No steeples or bell towers. The bell was on top of the stone house they’d come from.
Tristan had been surprised to see so many carriages and buggies sitting along the road as though pausing in their journey through the village. Some people still sat in the buggies while others had climbed down to gather in groups to talk the way Tristan had often seen church members do at his own church in Atlanta. But these men and women weren’t dressed as the Shakers he’d seen.
“Are they members who don’t live in your village?” Tristan asked Brother Benjamin as he gestured toward the waiting people.
“Nay. They come from the world to watch us labor our songs.”
Tristan looked back at the people gathering in the road. More buggies were coming and some men on horseback. “Sister Lettie told me people came, but so many?”
Brother Benjamin smiled. “Yea, when the weather is good as it is today with the sun blessing us, we have a good number of visitors from the world. Our worship exercises seem to be a Sunday amusement to them. Some make it a holiday outing and come to rest in our shade with their baskets of food. It is not a bad thing if we bring a time of peace and contemplation into the lives of those burdened by the worries of the world.”
“Sister Lettie said your leaders hope those who watch might decide to join you.”
“My sister surely also told you that very few actually do make that decision. But it is a good thing to offer salvation to all who will come.” Brother Benjamin settled his eyes on Tristan. “You, Brother Philip, would do well to consider our way.”
Tristan met his look and spoke with honesty. “Your way seems very odd to me, Brother Benjamin.”
The brother didn’t seem to mind Tristan’s plain words. “As it does to many. That is why they gather to watch. But we do not mind those who come with curious minds. We are happy to welcome such thinkers into our family, for it is those with minds forever searching for better ways to work who bring the most benefit to our community.” He paused at the bottom of the steps into the meetinghouse. “I sense that kind of curious mind in you, Brother Philip. A mind that wonders and seeks. Such is a gift.”
“Sister Lettie told me about how your leader, Mother Ann, talked about gifts. That is the right name, isn’t it? Mother Ann.” When the doctor inclined his head in agreement, Tristan went on. “But Sister Lettie also says this Mother Ann treasured the gift to be simple over all others. That doesn’t sound like somebody with curiosity but someone who follows.”
Brother Benjamin laughed softly. “See, your curious mind is stirring up questions already. Yea, Mother Ann did prize the gift to be simple. As do all true Believers. Those of the world have never taken the time to seek a core of inner peace and therefore don’t realize how the gifts of simple thinking, obedience, brotherly love can make a
mind unfurl like a flower in the sunshine. An open mind is a mind free to see and feel God and his purpose for one’s life. And then he supplies the gifts that we need. Those are the gifts our curious minds seek.”
The doctor turned away from Tristan and led the way up the four steps and through the east door. The men’s door. The inside of the building held no more clues that this was a place of worship than did the outside. The whole building was one big open space where thankfully the windows on each side were raised to allow the early morning air to cool the room. No pulpit was anywhere in sight. No pews either, unless the narrow backless benches lined up on opposite ends of the room counted as pews. More benches flush against the walls circled the room.
Tristan’s and the doctor’s footsteps echoed on the wooden floor as they walked across the empty room.
“Where is everyone?” Tristan didn’t intend to whisper, but his voice came out hushed.
“We will gather after the bell signals time for worship,” Brother Benjamin said. “I thought it best to find you a place before the strangers from the world begin jostling for seats on our visitor benches. Sometimes the benches overflow. Then those from the world must listen and watch from the outside. They have no problem hearing. We have been told that when the air is right, the sound of our songs carries to the town miles away.”
“Miles?” Tristan couldn’t hide his skepticism. He’d heard a lot of hymns sung, some with enthusiasm, but never any that he thought could be heard much past the churchyard.
“So we’re told.” Brother Benjamin smiled. “I cannot speak of the truth of it since I am here making the music instead of there listening to it, but I have no reason to doubt the word of those who say they’ve heard the sound of our songs. It could be the spirit gathers up our notes to carry them on the wind.” Brother Benjamin put his hand to his mouth and then threw out his arm as though flinging his words into the air.
The Gifted Page 13
