“Do you have those foundations?” Carlyn asked.
“I did.” She quickly changed her words. “I do.” She stared down at the book. “I have kept the rules.”
For a minute Carlyn thought Sister Edna was going to read more of those rules to point out Carlyn’s wrongs, but instead she stared at the pages without speaking. Finally Carlyn said, “But others have not.”
Sister Edna looked up. “You have not.” Her voice regained its stern timbre.
“Yea, I have not.” Carlyn knew what was expected. To bow her head and be repentant. At times she’d done that, but now an argument rose within her. “Rules do not open the gates of heaven, and following every rule in your book or anyone’s book does not allow you through those gates. Faith in the Lord is what is needed.”
“You dare to preach to me of faith?” Sister Edna’s eyes flared open. “I am the one leading you. Not you leading me.”
“Nay, I am not a preacher.” She cringed at the thought of being like her father, but then in her quiet way, her mother had opened up the Scripture to Carlyn better than all her father’s sermons. “You Shakers speak of the gift of being simple and yet you’ve written books of rules.”
“To ensure we live a simple life with unity of spirit.”
She told herself to bend her head and pretend to accept Sister Edna’s rules. But words bubbled up inside her and she couldn’t keep them in. “Is it not better to allow love to rule our spirits? The love of God and the love of one’s neighbor.”
“We have such love. Surely even you can see that such love is plentiful within our Society. Brotherly love. Sisterly love.”
Again she told herself to be silent. Again the words would not be denied. “Do you have that love for me, Sister Edna?”
The sister’s eyes snapped with anger and Carlyn thought the other woman was going to lie. Then a shadow passed over her face and she looked sad. “The truth is always better and necessary. You are not yet fully a Believer sister. Novitiates must earn their place in our Society.”
“And love? Must we earn love when the Lord showers it down on us so freely, deserved or not?” Carlyn leaned toward Sister Edna, willing her to listen with an open mind.
Instead the woman put her fingertips on her forehead as though Carlyn’s words pained her. “There is much you do not understand about the Shaker way.”
“Yea, there is much I do not understand about many things.”
Carlyn looked down at her hands then and gave in to the older sister. But in some deep, abiding way her words of argument with Sister Edna put her own heart at ease. Whatever happened, she could lean on the Lord. Just as Ambrose, while he still lived, had helped her feel the love of God, now from the grave he was showing her that love was everlasting. It didn’t matter if she stepped up on the stairway with the proper foot or neglected to hang out the last load of wash on the clothesline. Such things had naught to do with the love of God. That was available to her no matter where she was.
She ran her thumb over the back of her hand. Would that be here? Would she turn from a confused novitiate to a resigned Shaker sister living by their rules not because she thought them necessary but for the more practical reasons of obtaining food and shelter? Or dare she hope another way would open? That she might once more have her own home and perhaps find love different than that only for sisters and brothers? The kind of love she’d known with Ambrose and that he had released her to find again.
The thought of the sheriff’s hand brushing her shoulder came to mind. Her cheeks warmed. She shouldn’t even be thinking about Sheriff Brodie with her husband’s last letter in her pocket. But Ambrose wanted her to reach for joy in her life. A joy she no longer believed she could find among the Shakers.
She had no doubt Sister Edna was glaring at her bent head, but the sister remained silent. Light-headed from her daylong fast, Carlyn wanted nothing more than to be out of this room, away from Sister Edna. She searched for words to appease the woman. “Whatever the fitting punishment, I will accept it and work harder in the days ahead to be a proper Shaker.”
“Empty words can come from beneath any bonnet.” Sister Edna shut the book with a snap and let her fingertips dance up and down on the book’s cover. “Truth is what is necessary when one makes confession of one’s wrongs.”
“The truth will out.” Carlyn repeated Sister Edna’s words from that morning.
Sister Edna sniffed in a deep breath and touched her nose with her handkerchief. “Revelation of the truth is not in our hands, but Mother Ann will light our path and show us what we need to know. I fear you do not want to walk the Shaker way, Sister Carlyn.”
“I am here.”
“But will you stay?”
“The Lord gives us one day at a time. Tomorrow has not come. Who could have said on the Monday past the things that would happen before the week’s end? The fire and the loss of Brother Henry. Nor would I have ever expected a letter from a woman I never met to put to rest the unknowns about my husband’s fate in the war. We cannot know what tomorrow holds.”
“The future is not fearful when one clearly sees the path Mother Ann has laid out for us.”
Carlyn raised her head to look at Sister Edna. “Yet you seemed greatly concerned about facing the day when we awoke this morning.”
The sister flinched back from her words. “I have confessed my lack of faith in the proper way to Eldress Lilith. I trust now that Mother Ann will continue to bless our community and those of the world won’t be back to torment us.”
Carlyn looked down again. “I will add my prayers to yours that there will be no more troubles here in the village.”
“The responsible parties have not been apprehended.” Sister Edna’s voice sounded a warning. “And may never be. Those of the world care little about what happens here in our village.”
“Sheriff Brodie will search for answers.”
“The answers he seeks will do little more than keep our Society in a state of upset. It would be best if he did not return with his questions.” She narrowed her eyes on Carlyn. “For all concerned.”
“Do you fear the answers he might find?”
“Nay.” Sister Edna answered too quickly. “I have no reason to fear any truth. Things will turn out as they should. On Sunday, we will exercise a song to return peace to our Society.” Sister Edna eyed Carlyn. “Perhaps you will be ready to labor the dances with us on that day.”
“I fear my feet are too clumsy and I might miss a step.” Carlyn had learned a few of the simpler dances in the practice times, but she still could not imagine taking part in dancing as worship in their Meeting House. Some of the dances on the Sabbath were ordered marches. Others seemed nothing but frenzied whirling. A few had the Shakers acting like children at play. None of what the Shakers called exercises had seemed any sort of worship to Carlyn, but at the same time, she did not doubt many of those who did dance felt a spirit of worship. Even Sister Edna’s demeanor changed during the worship times. Her frowns disappeared to be replaced by a joyful quietude.
The woman exhibited none of that serenity now. Only the weariness that Carlyn had noted earlier. A weariness Carlyn shared.
“The proper spirit can make your feet float above the floor. Mother Ann will gift you with such feelings if you stop clinging to your worldly beliefs.”
“Yea.” Carlyn had no more energy for argument. “What would you have me do to make up for my lapses?”
“We do not dole out punishments here, but be warned. A person reaps what she sows. If you engage in wrong behavior, there will be sorrowful results.”
“I am already sorrowful.”
“But does your heart sorrow for the right reasons, Sister Carlyn, or because of your yearning for things of the world?”
“I will pray for right reasons.” Carlyn avoided a direct answer. All she wanted was for their conversation to be ended. With the room seeming to close in on her, she fought the urge to gasp for air and dared stand even though Sister Edna had not
indicated their time was finished. “I am very thirsty. May I get a drink of water?”
“Go.” Sister Edna gave a wave of dismissal. “Make sure you put on a clean apron and cap before you come to practice. Good spirits will not abide where there is dirt. You must sweep all the filth of wrong thoughts from your heart to be a proper Believer.”
Sister Edna followed Carlyn out of the room and hurried up the sisters’ stairway. She would not want to be late to the practice time. Her life had long been ordered by the Shaker rules. Carlyn stood in the empty hall a moment. She could hear the others gathering in the room over her head. Could she become one of them?
The sound of singing drifted down the stairs to her. She couldn’t quite make out the words, but the tune was lively, the voices strong, each sounding the same note to make even their voices stay in perfect union. Was it wrong to pretend to be in union with them when all she felt was disharmony?
Perhaps it was time to find a way to Texas to beg her father for shelter. But even though it would be good to see her mother, dread at the thought of living under her father’s roof again was like a heavy cloak weighing down her shoulders as she went down to the kitchen. She would wait. She had the promise of the pension. Elder Derron would eagerly seek the money to add to the Shaker coffers, but she could demand it be given to her instead. A few weeks would not be unbearable.
What was it Sister Edna had quoted the Shakers’ Mother Ann saying about happiness? That it wasn’t totally dependent on circumstances in life, but instead the foundation for it must rise from within. She had started building that foundation with Ambrose and now it was gone, blown away by the war.
The smell of ash drifted in through a window left open to cool the kitchen. The fire proved that fearsome things could happen anywhere, even in this village where the people claimed to desire peace above all. Sister Edna might wish for naught but goodness here, but Carlyn had felt safer alone in her house with Asher by her side and her gun over her door. Here, she was without defense.
Have you forgotten the armor of God? Her mother’s voice whispered through her mind. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: praying always. Her mother’s answer for every problem, the Word of God and prayer.
Carlyn got a drink from the pipe that brought water to the kitchen. The sound of the Shakers singing was not as loud here, but enough of the tune drifted down that she recognized it as one she knew.
Softly she sang the words. “Come dance and sing around the ring. Live in love and union. Sing with life, live with life. Sing with life and power.”
She did the steps she’d practiced with the song, and there alone in the kitchen, she moved back and forth and twirled. It felt good to shake free of her grief and worries. Then the singing above her changed and the ceiling vibrated as the Shakers pounded their feet on the floor to chase away the devil.
Such a people of contradictions. Quiet and staid, serious-minded with peaceful calm except during their worship when they stomped and whirled. Spiritual joy in motion. Would that it was so easy to chase away the devil with stomps and shouts. But the lingering odor of the destroyed barn wafting in on the evening air proved it was not so easy to eliminate the threat of evil and make happiness shower down like flowers from heaven.
My last prayer will be for your happiness. Carlyn touched the letter in her pocket as Ambrose’s words echoed in her thoughts.
Then even though her stomach growled in complaint of its emptiness, she didn’t pilfer in the cabinets for bread, but went back up the stairs to join her voice and feet in the practice. Sister Edna noted her entrance in the room with a look of disapproval that made Carlyn remember she’d neglected to fetch a clean apron and cap.
27
“Carlyn.”
The sound of her name pulled at her, but Carlyn fought waking. She did not want to surrender her hard won slumber. With her stomach growling from hunger and her thoughts swamped with sorrow, she had almost given up on sleep after the retiring bell rang. Finally by repeating the Lord’s Prayer over and over, she’d drifted off only to have someone demand she awaken what seemed like moments later.
“Sister Carlyn, wake up!” The voice was right in her ear, soft but insistent.
Carlyn gasped and a hand clamped over her mouth.
“Shh.” Sister Berdine eased the pressure of her hand. “You’ll awaken a certain sister.”
Carlyn pushed away Sister Berdine’s hand. “What are you doing?”
Sister Berdine’s voice was so low Carlyn had to strain to hear her. “Exploring the pleasures of the world.” The girl sighed. “Our Payton found that courage and I have decided he looks fine. His eyes are a crushing blue.”
Carlyn sat up, sleep forgotten. She dared a look toward Sister Edna’s bed. Enough moonlight drifted through the window to let Carlyn see the woman’s shape under her blanket. Steady snores indicated she was sleeping soundly.
Carlyn turned back to Sister Berdine. “Are you running away?”
“Nay, not away.” Sister Berdine’s teeth shone in her smile. “Running to.”
Sister Edna shifted a little in her bed and Sister Berdine held her finger to her lips as she stood and motioned Carlyn to follow her. When Carlyn hesitated, Sister Berdine leaned close to her ear again. “Please. I have more to tell you and I fear waking a certain sister.”
Carlyn stood up. How could she refuse this sister, her friend? Sister Berdine pushed Carlyn’s pillow around and bunched the cover over it so that it looked as if someone might still by lying there. Sister Berdine’s bed showed the same lumps.
They tiptoed past Sister Edna’s bed. It wasn’t until they were through the door and out in the hallway that Carlyn realized Sister Berdine carried not only her own shoes but Carlyn’s as well, along with a dress draped over her arm.
“I’m not going with you,” Carlyn said.
“Shh.” Sister Berdine handed Carlyn the dress. “Slip this on over your nightgown. It’s safer to talk outside.” She looked around. “If anywhere in this place is safe for recalcitrant novitiates such as us.” She flashed another smile at Carlyn.
The house was silent except for the muted snores coming from behind the closed doors around them. In the deep of the night, the hallway was much darker than the sleeping room, with only the windows at the stair landings allowing in the spare moonlight. Carlyn pulled the dress over her head. It was better to do what Sister Berdine said than to chance waking the whole house.
Sister Berdine thrust the shoes at her but shook her head when Carlyn bent to put them on. She led the way down the steps to the kitchen and stopped by the open window.
“What’s wrong with the door?” Carlyn whispered.
“Locked. But windows are as good as doors when a person is determined.” She dropped her shoes out the window and then crawled through it herself. “There’s a barrel to step on.”
“You sound experienced in escape.”
“Yea. It’s time for freedom.” She let go of the window and dropped down on the barrel and then to the ground. She grinned up at Carlyn. “Your turn.”
“I’ll never get back in.”
“If one short as I can do it, then you surely can. Quit seeing obstacles and see opportunities.”
“The opportunity for trouble,” Carlyn muttered as she eased through the window. “Sister Edna will never forgive this.” At the same time there was something exhilarating about sliding out the window and touching her feet to the barrel top, then the grass.
Sister Berdine was lacing up her shoes. “Best put your shoes on.”
“I told you I’m not running away, although I won’t have to after this. Sister Edna will escort me to the edge of the village herself.” Carlyn stuck her feet down in her shoes.
“Nay, they’re a forgiving lot. And I told you. I’m not running away. I’m running to.” Sister Berdine stood up and clasped her hands under her chin with a happy sigh. “I have ever wanted a home of my own with children running about,
and though I am a bit long in the tooth, I am not too old for babies. My mother had me when she was five years older than I am now. That’s Payton’s age.”
“Are you sure about this? You barely know this man.”
“Yea. But there are times when a person should run through the doors the Lord opens for her. This is such a time for me. Payton is a good man. He came to the Shakers when he was sixteen, over twenty years ago, and never until he saw me across the Meeting House did he feel the temptation to return to the world.”
“Where is he?”
“By the corncrib. The shadows are deep there. He is sure about our leaving, but he worries some brother he has long known will see him and try to stop us.”
“Then why are you here, taking that chance?”
“I couldn’t leave without telling you goodbye, Sister Carlyn. While we may not have been cut out to be Shaker sisters, we are sisters of the spirit. When the day comes that you realize you cannot live among the Shakers, and I daresay it will, you can stay with us until your sheriff finds courage as my Payton did. That should not take long. He looked a courageous man. He will waste little time asking you to be his wife when he finds out you are truly a widow.” She reached over and squeezed Carlyn’s hand with a show of sympathy.
“It’s not proper for me to even be thinking about such things.” Carlyn pulled her hand free, ashamed of how the thought found welcome in her mind.
“You are wrong, my sister. You have long been grieving your husband and were faithful without fault to the love you shared. Now it is time to find a new life as I am doing. I have been praying for both of us and the Lord is good to answer our prayers.” She was smiling again. “Be happy for me, Carlyn.”
“I am.” Carlyn gave her a hug. “But why did I have to follow you outside? You could have told me this in the kitchen and I might have avoided the trouble I will surely be in now.”
“You are already in trouble thinking you can live the Shaker life, but fear not. You will be able to sneak back into the sleeping room without that certain sister awakening. She sleeps like the dead. And it will only be my bed empty in the morning.”
The Innocent Page 22
