The Wishing Star

by Marian Wells

  Jenny jumped to her feet but the boards tilted, dumping her. She scrambled, scratching and clawing her way up the ruined floor. Now sobbing with terror, she discovered she was surrounded by boards that had a will of their own. They slanted and dumped her, pricked and stabbed. Some boards bound her feet and others slapped her face. In the deep darkness only silence answered her cries.

  When she was nearly voiceless from screaming, she heard a sound. Rats. Rustles, scratching, a noise that must be gnawing; she gave one last feeble scream of terror.

  A voice answered her. The schoolhouse door creaked outward and a dark shadow filled the doorway. Jenny flew toward it. Warm flesh, a beard and musty wool were against her face. It was a strange beard, but at least it wasn’t rats.

  “What happened?” The voice was strangely melodious, strangely familiar. He led her away from the building while she gasped out her story.

  In the dim lantern light she could see the beard, the black cloak, and a shiny disk. The last time she had seen that disk it had been circling and glowing in the light of a lantern beside the diggings. She studied the man’s face. “Are you Walters the Magician?”

  “Of course. Who else would I be?” The remembered melody of his voice returned to her. Forgetting her terror and exhaustion, Jenny wanted only to hear him reading those singing words out of his book again.

  Chapter 11

  Did her encounter with Walters the Magician radically change Jenny, or was it the final disappointment of her friends’ betrayal? Whatever the answer, Halloween night irreparably separated Jenny from her schoolmates. She felt the division strongly. Jenny stood alone, the one against the many.

  Fortunately for Jenny, the Smith youngsters returned to school. They were immediately pushed to her side of the chasm. Now Jenny had friends, just as she also had a label she didn’t understand.

  She continued to skirt the hills going to and from school, lonely now in her solitary walk. As autumn passed, she began to experience the deepening calm of the trees—or so she thought it.

  One afternoon as she stood beneath a fir tree, watching the wind lash its top branches, she felt as if her mind were unfurling and becoming one with the surging forces of nature. The sensation of sharpened awareness left her feeling as if she were mentally standing on tiptoe.

  The silence surrounded her, sharpened and real. What was happening? Was this sensation rising only from the wellspring of loneliness in her life?

  Waiting, wondering if it was all just chance, she reached out, wanting to touch that appealing sense of aliveness. She sat motionless, unmindful of the cold, searching for words that would link her with that sensation of mystery. Finally a scrap of rhyme popped into her mind.

  “Luna, every woman’s friend,

  To me thy goodness condescend,

  Let this night in visions see

  Emblems of my destiny.”

  Jenny had started reading the green book again, and lately a strangeness surrounded her reading. She had been reaching out to the unknown and now the unknown was reaching out to her.

  The penetrating cold through Jenny’s thin shawl brought her back to reality. Shivering, she hurried down the path toward the farm. She thought of Lucy Harris nodding by the fire in the evening, while Jenny carried the green book downstairs to read. Although Lucy had made clear to Jenny her feelings about the book with the golden lady on the front, she had never forbidden Jenny to read it. For the first time since she had discovered Pa’s strange book and been captivated by it, Jenny felt completely free of the fear of punishment.

  As Jenny passed the wind-lashed firs each day, her thoughts always seemed to circle back to the book as if drawn into focus by the forest.

  The forest attracted more than Jenny’s thoughts. One evening, a sudden impulse sent her scurrying from the familiar path into the trees. Once she entered the shadowed depths, a new quietness surrounded her. She wandered deeper into the woods, and her mind wandered as well. Without willing it, pictures from the book leaped into her thoughts—some intriguing, some frightening. Immediately her mind was filled with alarm, as if a thousand warning bells hammered in her soul.

  Shivering with fear, Jenny turned and ran back to the path, back to daylight and away from the eerie calmness. Did she fancy she heard her name called as she left the forest? She ran the rest of the way home. Not until she stood panting on the stoop outside Harris’s kitchen did she dare to admit, “If I didn’t believe in spooks before, I’m beginnin’ to now.”

  The next time Jenny passed along the path, while the wind moaned and the trees lashed, she found herself hesitating, reaching out, wanting to know. Again, quickly before she could debate, she turned off the path and the lashing trees for the calm forest.

  The mysterious stillness had begun to encircle her with a reality that tightened her throat and made her heart pound, when just ahead of her she saw a dark-clad figure moving slowly through the woods, poking at drifts of leaves with a long stick.

  With relief Jenny ran toward the figure. “Hello there!” she called.

  The woman turned and waited for her. “Are you lost?” she called. As she hurried toward the woman, Jenny studied her face, trying to identify the stranger. Surprisingly, the dark-cloaked woman was young and beautiful. In the shadows her face seemed a pale oval, but her eyes were large and dark. Her dark hair was swept back from her brow, and the widow’s peak made her face heart-shaped.

  Jenny was still studying the woman, wishing she could be just like her, slowly Jenny said, “I don’t reckon I know you. I’m Jenny Timmons, the Harris’s hired girl.”

  The woman nodded as if she knew. “You’re very young to be working for your living.” Without warning, tears stung Jenny’s eyes. She rubbed at them, wondering why she was feeling the kindness so keenly. “Your parents have left you here. Do you miss them greatly?” Jenny shook her head, wondering how to answer such a question.

  Slowly they walked together through the woods. Jenny responded to the gentle, probing questions as she still tried to identify the woman. Her face seemed familiar, but Jenny couldn’t make her fit anywhere.

  Suddenly the woman stopped. She pointed, saying, “There’s Martin Harris’s cornfield; you can cut through here.”

  “Oh my!” Jenny exclaimed. “We’ve circled the whole farm. I didn’t mean for you to take me home.” The woman was smiling, stepping backward down the trail. Jenny watched her curiously. “What’s your name?”

  She hesitated. “You may call me Adela.”

  “That’s pretty. It sounds like bells.” Now shy, Jenny dropped her head and scuffed her toe in the pine needles, wondering when she had ever before chattered on like this to a perfect stranger. She raised her head to speak, but the woman was gone.

  Several times during the winter months, Jenny saw Adela when she ventured into the forest on her way home from school. Always she seemed to be poking, prodding with her stick, always alone. Jenny never felt free to ask about her activities nor to learn more about her.

  One evening as Jenny left the forest after an encounter with the woman, she mused aloud, “Methinks, Adela the bella, you’re as mysterious as—as a sylph.” Her tongue slid over the unfamiliar word. Hadn’t that word been in the book? She began to wonder why Adela made her think of the book. And more and more she realized that she didn’t know the mysterious woman at all.

  Finally, shyly, she described Adela to Lucy Harris and found her description as vaporous as her understanding of the woman. Lucy looked at her in confusion and Jenny ended her questions with a shrug.

  So for a time, and for reasons Jenny couldn’t explain, she avoided the forest path and the mysterious encounters.

  As the winter waned, Mrs. Harris became an enthusiastic housekeeper, waging war against winter’s accumulated dirt. She also took up the task of making a young lady out of Jenny, much to the distress of both.

  As often as she dared, Jenny dallied in the afternoons instead of hurrying homeward. Still hesitant to go back into the forest, sh
e frequently followed the Smith children home. Jenny enjoyed the chatter and laughter, the teasing and playful pranks. Aware of her loneliness, she was irresistibly drawn to the large family, despite Lucy Harris’s disapproval.

  Often the young schoolmaster, Oliver Cowdery, walked with them. In the past Jenny had found him morose and withdrawn, but on these walks he regaled the group with exciting stories of Vermont. Along with the stories he had to tell, he would demonstrate the art of using the rod.

  The rod, delicately balanced on Oliver’s fingers, would tilt as Oliver walked slowly down the path. “There!” he exclaimed. “That’s signifying water’s to be found here.”

  He was unabashed when Jenny exclaimed, “Who wants to dig a well in the middle of the woods?”

  One afternoon in April Jenny followed the Smiths and their youthful schoolmaster home. It had been a beautiful day, full of the joy of spring and the excitement of a school term drawing to a close. But they met gloom as they stepped into the cabin crowded with people and piles of household belongings.

  Lucy was talking rapidly, darting about the cabin gathering up bedding. Hyrum sat at the table watching his mother. His expression silenced the chattering brood.

  Mrs. Smith clattered a load of kettles onto the middle of the table and turned to survey the silent group. “Well, ’tis the worst,” she advised them. “We’ve lost the place. Get your things together; we’re goin’ home with Hyrum.” The outcry began, but her raised hand cut through. “No fussin’. Don’t give them the satisfaction of knowin’. ’Sides, we’ll be back as soon as Joe starts a-sellin’ the gold Bible and makin’ a heap of money.” She turned to Cowdery. “I ’spect the best you could do is go to Harmony and be helpin’ with the translatin’ to hurry things along a speck.”

  When Jenny carried the news home, Lucy Harris paused in her housecleaning long enough to think. She finally spoke, as if she were pulling out the thoughts like yarn from her knitting. “That’ll mean Martin will be back soon.” She eyed Jenny and sighed, “What’s goin’ to become of us all?”

  “What are you meaning?” Jenny asked slowly.

  “I expect more turmoil.” She paused, then spoke briskly. “First things first,” she instructed. She stepped down from the chair she was standing on and dusted her hands together. “Before I get the cleanin’ done, there’s something more important.”

  “What?” Jenny asked, mystified, as she looked at the litter of dishes and pans Lucy Harris had pulled from the shelf.

  “I’m goin’ to take the team and go into Palmyra and see the preacher at the church.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “First off, I’m goin’ to do something I promised I’d do long ago. I’m goin’ to set up your baptism.”

  “What baptism?”

  “Jenny”—Lucy leaned her face close to Jenny’s—“we’ve talked before about the truth, remember? That real power, spiritual power, has the truth as its source. That truth—the only truth—is in Jesus, in His death and resurrection.”

  Jenny nodded, “But—”

  “I know you’ve seen and heard—and read—a lot about other kinds of power. Even my husband Martin has shown you the other. And I let you go on and read your pa’s book even though I didn’t like it, and I let you run off to the Smiths and hear that Lucy’s wild tales of gold plates and—”

  Mrs. Harris paused, looking squarely at Jenny. “I don’t claim to know all there is to know about the Bible,” she sighed. “That’s why I want to take you into Palmyra to talk to the parson. Everybody’s got to make a choice, Jenny. If you don’t make one—well, you make one anyway. And now’s the time for you to think about yours.”

  Jenny thought about the church in Palmyra.

  Every Sabbath day in that sanctuary, she had sat in cold, hard pews and listened to the organ draw threads of sound around her that amazed and awed her. She had looked at the small circle window of stained glass, showering arrows of brilliant color over the shoulders of worshipers, and had dreamed of them as mystical fingers bestowing blessing and fortune. Sometimes the parson’s words dropped on Jenny with raw-nerve intensity, creating a moment of awareness. But for the most part, Jenny’s Sabbaths were empty of the meaning of worship.

  On this day, with Mrs. Harris, she reluctantly entered the cold building with solitary and lonely thoughts. In the gloom the round window was a beacon, throwing colorful shadows throughout the sanctuary and tipping the heavy wooden cross behind the pulpit with shades of light. Did it happen by chance that afternoon shadows funneled one beam of rich light into a pinpoint finger precisely at the center of that wooden cross?

  Jenny’s mind amplified the results. As she sat facing that cross, listening to that somber man spread heavy words she didn’t understand, she felt the weight of light and form.

  She watched him turn and lift the silver chalice from the sanctuary table. At the moment he poured the wine, purple light from the window caught the chalice, spinning webs of brilliance for Jenny’s eyes. That moment of awe fell against her with greater weight than the words he spoke. The wonder of the total experience robbed words of meaning for her.

  Jenny’s mind reeled with the possibilities. In the cold church building, she had felt a sensation akin to what she had felt in the woods—with one exception. She was moved, but not frightened as she had been among the trees. The image of the chalice and the cross rose again and again to the surface of her thinking, until finally her question overcame her hesitancy, and she sought out Mrs. Harris.

  “The cross?” Lucy Harris replied. “Why, Jesus died on the cross for our salvation. The silver cup holds the wine—representing His blood—that we drink at communion.”

  As Lucy tried patiently to answer the questions, Jenny’s confusion grew. Was the blood of Jesus in the chalice like the blood of the rooster sprinkled around the circle where Tom and Joe were digging? Was the cross like the sword Hyrum Smith carried—did it have power to break through the spells of spirits? Is this act of baptism the one event that will launch me into the world of true power?

  The next Sabbath day, in the shadow of the same cross, Jenny Timmons was duly baptized at Palmyra Presbyterian Church. But the finger of light at the center of the cross was gone; the web of color that haloed the chalice was gone. And Jenny wondered if this way of faith really was the way of power.

  Just before she slipped under the water, her eyes met the eyes of that somber parson. For a moment his face brightened until he almost looked glad. She heard his words. “Jennifer Timmons, I baptize you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great God and Savior, who gave himself to redeem and to purify you. And just as He was buried to be lifted up, you shall be baptized to be lifted up for everlasting life.”

  “Child,” said Lucy Harris at breakfast the next morning, “don’t you just feel wonderful, now that you’ve chosen for the Lord?”

  Jenny murmured a halfhearted agreement and went about her chores, while Lucy watched and waited for the significance of Jenny’s decision to take effect. Jenny waited, too. She waited for the power to come, for the feelings she had known in the woods and in the church to return, for her mind to understand, for the vague thoughts that had haunted her to crystallize.

  She was still waiting when Martin Harris returned to Manchester the following Wednesday. Subdued and tired, he was nevertheless full of talk of getting the gold Bible printed.

  They were visiting Martin’s brother Peter and his wife Abigail when Lucy Harris finally had heard enough about the gold Bible. “Martin!” she cried, exasperated. “This gold Bible business is no religious crusade! It’s just a bunch of wild stories conjured up by those who’d take a gullible man for what he’s worth. Like every other project you’ve been duped into—when you get a new idea into your head, you get shaken loose from your money. Please, Martin, can’t you see—”

  “Woman!” he roared, jumping to his feet and flinging his chair aside. “Will you leave me alone? What if it is a lie? If you’ll just mind your business, I’ll
stand to make a pile of money out of it yet!” He stomped out of the house, leaving Jenny and Mrs. Harris to gather their belongings and follow.

  During these turbulent days, Jenny noticed how often Lucy Harris bore bruises. Many mornings Jenny observed the woman’s tear-reddened eyes and sensed her troubled spirit. As the summer drew to a close, Jenny’s own tension mounted; then, abruptly, there was release.

  Martin Harris turned jovial, kind—at least the few times he was at home. Most conspicuous was his absence.

  One late summer evening Jenny watched the man don a clean shirt and leave the house. She turned to Mrs. Harris and said, “He’s happy now. Where’s he going?”

  The woman’s lips quivered. “He’s happy because he’s off chasin’ after a woman.” Jenny’s fingers crept over her errant mouth, and Lucy Harris said, “You needn’t be embarrassed. Everybody in town knows Martin’s shenanigans. I can’t change him—but I wish the Lord would.”

  Autumn crept up and Jenny was getting acquainted with another new schoolmaster. Rumor had it that her previous teacher, Oliver Cowdery, had finished the translating of Joseph’s golden Bible—but not in Harmony, Pennsylvania. The whispers said that because Mr. Hale, Emma’s father, had vowed to see the plates, a fellow by the name of David Whitmer had moved Joseph Smith, his wife, and the whole translation business to Fayette, New York. Now there was serious talk about having the manuscript printed.

  One day, after Mrs. Harris had left to visit her sister for a week, Jenny discovered some additional information quite by accident. As she hurried about the kitchen preparing the noon meal, Martin strode into the kitchen ahead of Tom and Amos. He paced the floor with quick, excited steps.

  “Mr. Harris,” she apologized, “I’m hurrying. I just didn’t figure on you coming so soon.”

  Unexpectedly he turned a sudden smile on her. “Jenny, lass,” he chuckled, “don’t give me no mind. I’m a-thinkin’ about all that’s goin’ on with the gold Bible business and it excites me, my it does!” Tom came into the kitchen and began to wash up. With a note of apology in his voice, Martin said, “Tom, I’m about to run out on you again. I can’t stand not knowin’ what’s goin’ on in Fayette.”