A Deadly Shaker Spring

by Deborah Woodworth

  “Just so long as it isn’t Sarah who cracks first,” she said, her voice growing shrill. “I told you not to use her. I warned you not to give her that journal page. Now she knows too much.”

  “That’s enough. One more word and you are excused from this meeting. We don’t need you, anyway.”

  They locked eyes like old enemies. A candle wick sputtered and dissolved into a spiral of smoke. No one stirred. Finally, her gaze fell to her lap. He smirked in triumph and nodded to Caleb to continue.

  “As I said, Sarah’s been true blue, and she’s set to do her part,” Caleb said. His eyes darted nervously around the group. “I gotta say something, though. There ain’t no call for no one to go hurting Sarah. She done what she was supposed to the other morning, took care of the dog and all. It ain’t fair to her. She’s all upset because she didn’t know the meat she gave to the dog was fixed up to knock him out. And then she gets knocked out, too. She coulda got killed.”

  “Whatever happened to Sarah had nothing to do with us, Caleb,” Kentuck said. “As I hear it, she tripped and fell down the stairs. An accident, surely.”

  Worthington, too, wondered how the “accident” happened. It hadn’t been part of the original plan. Did someone besides himself have a separate, secret plan? He studied the faces around him. Caleb glared defiantly at Kentuck, who frowned back. Laura stared stonily at the floor. The others looked confused and embarrassed.

  “I also heard that Sarah has recovered well, right?” Kentuck asked.

  “Well as could be expected,” Caleb said.

  “Good. Then we’ll carry on. Just one question, though. That eldress, Sister Rose, somehow she got hold of a copy of our first Watcher. You know anything about that, Caleb?”

  “No, sir, not me. Not a chance. I ain’t that dumb.”

  Worthington hid the arrogant smile he felt. Caleb may have been a moderately bright kid once, but the war and years of drink had wiped that out. He wondered, as he had before, why the older apostate used Caleb as a go-between. Sure, they had been friends of a sort back when they had all lived in North Homage—at least, they had seemed to confer a lot in those days. Didn’t Kentuck remember how unpredictable Caleb could be? Of course, he’d also make a perfect patsy should anything go wrong.

  He felt the leader’s eyes on him. “What’s the news from your end, Richard?”

  Worthington crossed his legs and watched the candlelight catch the high shine of his expensive shoes.

  “I’ve made all the necessary preparations,” he said. He had no intention of revealing to this mangy group the details of his late nights of careful calculations, and changes in bank records that would give them the upper hand with those Shakers.

  “If it comes to that, we can foreclose quickly and easily. I’m assuming, of course, that actual foreclosure will be unnecessary, if the rest of you succeed in your plans.” Worthington wanted to distance himself from their scheme as much as possible.

  “We will succeed,” Kentuck said. “But we need to be prepared for anything. Floyd and Ned, are you set for the gathering tomorrow evening?”

  The two men nodded. “I’ve got my lines learned real good,” Floyd said. He looked ready to leap up and demonstrate, but Kentuck only nodded and riffled through a few pages of notes.

  “All right,” he said, “The next issue of the Watcher goes to press tonight. We’ve got people riled up enough about those Shakers so we’ll get a good showing tomorrow night.” He raised his head and narrowed his eyes at the circle of listeners. “But it’s important the Shakers not cotton on to what’s happening in Languor. Everybody understand?” Heads nodded, except for Worthington, who raised an eyebrow. The apostate leader’s folksy style amused him. It wasn’t real, just another role developed for this setting and audience. Even back in North Homage, Worthington had found him puzzling. He had seemed a devout Shaker, then he had left so suddenly, right around the time Worthington himself had finally gotten free, shortly after his mother died.

  “Those Shakers are clever, especially that new eldress. If she catches on and starts contradicting us, folks’ll get confused. They won’t know who to believe,” Kentuck said. Heads nodded again.

  “Now, that Watcher will be ready by three A.M. Caleb will pick them up for distribution—”

  If he can sober up by then, Worthington thought.

  “—and you’ll all give copies to the parties we’ve listed in your assigned parts of town. We have to work fast but real quiet. Don’t leave any copies out for the wrong folks to see. Warn people not to talk about the contents to anyone who is real friendly with the Shakers. Most folks won’t get involved, but there’s a few might take the trouble to call over to North Homage if they got wind of our meeting.”

  Worthington couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Do you really think the Shakers won’t find out about this? They seemed to know about the first Watcher almost as soon as it came off the presses. Obviously, they have efficient sources of information. They probably have spies all over. All they care about is their own survival.” Worthington made himself pause. He had his own plans for survival. No need to give too much away.

  Kentuck rolled back in his chair and laced his fingers over his skin-tight vest. “We all agree with you, of course, Richard,” he said. “They’ve likely got spies all over. Getting rid of the whole lot is the best thing we could do for this town, and I’m betting most folks will agree with us when they hear what we have to say. So, I’m thinking it’s worth the risk of them finding out.”

  “I agree with Richard,” Laura said, rushing to get the words out before her husband quelled her. “All we want is to get rid of the Shakers, right? So why don’t we just foreclose, if Richard thinks he can do it? Harassing them, getting people all riled up against them, it’s plain dangerous, has been since we pulled in that girl, Sarah.”

  The men stared at her. Even Kentuck was speechless. His wife usually said a few words only, or nothing. Worthington began to calculate. In fact, he agreed with her, but he didn’t want to be pushed into foreclosure too early. If he had enough time, he could get what he wanted without actually foreclosing and making a significant number of townspeople angry with his bank.

  “Let’s go on with the original plan,” Worthington said. “We need the townspeople on our side. If we foreclose too soon, it might turn the town against us, create sympathy for the Shakers.”

  Kentuck threw a triumphant glance at Laura and cleared his throat.

  “Just to be on the safe side, no reflection on anyone here, but I’ll keep the contents of the Watcher to myself for now.” He scanned the group with narrowed eyes. “Now, we have one more problem. No need to panic, but we’ll need to tread carefully. I’m sure we all remember Samuel Bickford—Brother Samuel to some of us.”

  Worthington felt his chest tighten. Laura stiffened, and the others nodded.

  “I reckon he saw more than he should have last Sunday. He knows us all, including me and Laura. I warned Laura not to go along on Sunday, but she did anyway. Always wants to be part of the action, thinks we menfolk won’t do things right. Anyway, maybe she thought she had a reason, but never mind now, the damage is done. Samuel saw her and recognized her—called her by name, I heard him. That means he suspected I was there, too. No need to hide from him anymore, I figured; might as well take the situation in hand. So I called over to North Homage this morning and talked to Samuel.” Laura emitted a high-pitched squawk, which her husband ignored. “Told him we had enough dirt on him to get him booted out of the Shakers so fast there’d be nothing left but a swirl of dust to mark his place.”

  “Was this wise?” Worthington asked. “Even if you know something about his past, how do you know he hasn’t already confessed?”

  Kentuck shrugged. “Unlikely. I know Samuel. We were friends once, remember. He plays it safe, never could admit his own failings. If he’d confessed, he’d be elder by now, or trustee, or something better than plain Brother Samuel. He’ll keep quiet about us.”
/>   Still Worthington had his doubts, but he kept them to himself.

  TWELVE

  STICKY KENTUCKY NIGHTS WOULD ARRIVE SOON enough, but for now Rose felt more comfortable in her long-sleeved winter nightgown. She slipped the worn garment over her head and settled in bed with all of Agatha’s old journals stacked on her nightstand. After Samuel’s interrupted confession about his relationship with a Shaker sister decades earlier, Rose was deeply curious. The affair might have been mentioned during the thirteen-year period reported in the journals that Agatha seemed to want her to read. She’d already finished the volumes for 1908 through 1910, so she picked up 1911, squirmed closer to her headboard, and began to read.

  The rough binding cracked as she opened the volume, and a few bits of dry glue fell onto her coverlet. The handmade paper had yellowed and smelled faintly of mildew. The reading was slow-going and required alertness, because of Agatha’s habit of using initials often, instead of names.

  Rose’s eyes had begun to blur when she finally found anything of interest, nestled between cheerful crop reports. It was late summer 1911.

  I worry about C.C., such a troubled boy, so nervous and unsure these days. K.H. has been taking a guiding hand to him—working him long days in the fields and the Broom-makers Shop, teaching him to read and write in the free evenings—but it doesn’t seem to do much good. The child always looks so forlorn and gloomy, as if his life stretched before him as a long sadness. I shall pray for him.

  The incidents continue. There was a terrible screaming yesterday morning, I heard it from my retiring room as I prayed before breakfast. I ran outside and saw all the kitchen sisters scurry from the Center Family House, hysterical every one of them. They’d all arrived in the kitchen to fix breakfast only to find a dead rat hung by its tail from a wall peg. Horrible, cruel joke. We have an evil with us.

  Rose felt chilled and pulled her coverlet up over her chest. Rats, again. Recent episodes in the village were not identical to Agatha’s reports, but they were eerily similar. She remembered something that Agatha used to say to her: “If evil is not vanquished, it will think it has won.” Had the same evil returned to fight again?

  Rose ran a hand through her tangled hair, free of its daytime cap. She still wore it long, even now in her mid-thirties and as eldress, to provide warmth during the damp Kentucky winters. Or so she told herself. Her hair was her sole point of beauty and the one conceit she had been unable to release. When it fell around her shoulders at night, she could, for a moment, feel like a young girl again, instead of a woman with too many worries.

  She skimmed through to the end of the journal in her hands. Aside from a small fire in the Broom-makers Shop—blamed on the hot, dry weather and piles of broom straw—nothing suspicious caught her eye.

  She put the 1911 volume aside and picked up the next in the pile. Her bedside clock said midnight. Breakfast at 6 A.M. during planting season, and she had promised to help in the herb fields afterward. She would be starting the new week with too little sleep, but that was nothing new. She stretched and settled down with Agatha’s observations of North Homage in 1912. Her efforts were rewarded quickly.

  The new year has barely begun, and already the signs are bad. I found F. and S. in private conversation behind the Herb House. Never mind how cold it was, there were the two of them, their heads shamelessly close together, their shoulders nearly touching. I stopped them, of course, and made no bones about my displeasure and disappointment. They stammered and said they had merely run into one another. I cannot believe them, and that saddens me. I am not so old nor so unworldly that I could not see the brightness in their eyes. I have given them a warning, and I’ll be watching them from now on. I pray they have not fallen into the flesh! They have been good Shakers, hard-working and kind. I told F. to meet me at the Ministry tomorrow for a thorough confession.

  F. and S. could refer to Faithfull and Samuel. Her heart racing, Rose skipped through Agatha’s four-page summary of how many tins of rosemary and basil and other herbs the sisters in the Herb House had prepared for sale to the world. She came to the section she sought, but she sighed in frustration. All Agatha had written the next day was:

  F. was here to confess this morning. It is even worse than I feared, and still I may not know it all. There are more involved. Must talk to S. soon.

  Rose flipped through page after page of everything from homily ideas to a variation on a recipe for rosewater cookies before Agatha reported meeting with S. in the office of the Ministry House.

  S. has refused to confess to me, or to Obadiah, but I have been watching carefully, and I believe my worst fears are confirmed. And more. The anger runs deep. There is great danger to all of us if this is not handled quickly and well. Must pray for guidance.

  The clock said 1 A.M. Rose tried to read on, but her eyelids dragged despite her curiosity. The open journal dropped against her chest, and she fell asleep.

  “Eldress! Eldress, wake up! It’s Samuel, you’ve got to get up and come to the kitchen right now, Josie said so.”

  At first Rose thought she must be dreaming, as if she had fallen into Agatha’s journal and was writing her own details to the skimpy story about Samuel and Faithfull. Then she recognized Sarah’s voice and opened her eyes to find herself still slouched against her headboard. She winced at the crick in her neck as she reached for her clock. Five-thirty A.M. Rose noticed that the room was lit. Usually she awakened as soon as a light came on. She must have been deeply asleep.

  “What is it?”

  Sarah stood over her, holding Agatha’s journal against her chest, her eyes wide with an unreadable emotion, grief or fear. “The kitchen sisters found him when they arrived to cook breakfast. He was just . . . just sitting there at the table, as if he’d gotten hungry and gone for a snack. The cookies were still sitting in front of him. He never even got to enjoy them.” Her voice sounded faint and far away. “Samuel is dead,” she said.

  “What?!” Rose tossed aside her covers and jumped out of bed. “But I spoke with him only yesterday. How can this be?” She noticed Sarah begin to sway. Waving her hand toward the bed, Rose said, “Sarah, sit down, catch your breath and get warm. Why didn’t you wear your cloak, for goodness’ sake? I’ll be ready in a few moments and you can tell me the rest on the way to the kitchen. You don’t have to go in again if it upsets you.” She turned to pull her work clothes out of drawers and off wall pegs. Hurriedly she dressed and stuffed her unpinned hair into her cap, where it bulged to one side. Never mind, she’d fix it later, or, more likely, forget about it.

  “Come along, Sarah, let’s . . .” Rose turned to find Sarah staring down at the open journal in her lap. She was shivering. “Sarah!”

  Sarah’s head jerked up and she closed the book. Rose lifted the journal from her loose grasp, placed it with the other volumes, and carried the pile into her sitting room. Sarah followed obediently.

  “Let’s find something to keep you warmer,” she said, pulling a small coverlet off the back of her rocking chair and folding it into a shawl. As Sarah wrapped the soft wool around her shoulders, Rose piled the journals into the small cupboard in the wall of her sitting room and led Sarah into the hallway.

  “Has Wilhelm been called?” Rose asked as they approached the Center Family dining room. She suspected that Josie, who was no supporter of Wilhelm, would bypass him.

  “Nay, I don’t think so.”

  “Then call over to the Ministry from the hall phone, please.” Rose had learned her lesson from the rat episode in the schoolhouse—no matter how difficult Wilhelm could be in a crisis, it was best not to leave bad news for him to find out from others.

  Brother Samuel Bickford slumped sideways in a large rocking chair pulled up to the kitchen worktable. One arm hung over the chair arm and touched the floor. Samuel’s eyes were closed, his face expressionless, as if he had slipped away peacefully during a nap. In front of him, piled on the notched wood of the table, sat three rosewater cookies. One cookie was partially eat
en.

  Samuel’s rocking chair looked low to the ground because of the unusual height of the table, which was designed for sisters to stand and slice bread or mix ingredients. Rose thought the arrangement an uncomfortable way to have a snack.

  “I left him just as he was when Gertrude found him,” Josie said. She and Rose were alone with Samuel. The kitchen sisters were in the dining room, praying for him.

  “There was nothing to be done for him, anyway, I’m afraid. It looks very much like a heart attack to me, but . . .”

  Rose brushed her hand against Samuel’s cheek. It felt slack and cool. “He has been gone awhile,” she said. “Josie, did something seem odd to you? Is that why you left him here instead of having the brethren carry him back to the Infirmary?”

  “Yea, though I could be wrong. Samuel was fifty-five, I know, but he was so lean and strong, no hint of heart weakness. Why, he rarely came to the Infirmary for more than peppermint tea to soothe a cold.”

  “Yet heart attacks do not always announce themselves, do they?” Rose asked.

  “Nay, you are right, of course.” Josie frowned and pursed her lips.

  “Something is bothering you, isn’t it? Do tell me now. I asked Sarah to call Wilhelm, so we won’t be alone for long.”

  “It’s the cookies. I’ve never known Samuel to eat sweets of any kind,” Josie said with a rueful smile. Her own fondness for sweets was apparent from her rotund form. “For years I thought he didn’t like them, and I used to tease him about it, but one day he looked very sad and told me it was penance for his sins, that he’d never touch anything sweet again. You knew Samuel, he was so serious about keeping his vows. I can’t believe he would sneak into the kitchen at night to eat cookies; I just can’t.”

  Rose thought of the vow that Samuel had broken many years ago. His guilt had been so strong that she could understand his spending the rest of his life making pointless vows and following them to the letter in an endless effort to atone. It saddened her that he had died without the relief that full confession and true atonement would have brought.