A Deadly Shaker Spring

by Deborah Woodworth

  She saw Sarah lying on the floor, a man pinning her down. She was moving, struggling, thank God, not dead. Rose raised her scissors in the air, aimed at the shape of Sarah’s attacker.

  “Get away from her!” Rose shouted. “I warn you, I have a weapon.”

  The man rolled away from Sarah and scrambled to his feet. He stumbled past Rose in the dark, leaving behind the unmistakable odors of sweat and whiskey.

  “Dammit!” Caleb cursed as he crashed into the worktable. Before Rose could take more than a step in his direction, he recovered and staggered out of the room. Rose turned back to Sarah, who had pulled herself to her feet and stumbled to her desk chair.

  “Sarah!” Rose dropped her arm and the shears clattered to the floor.

  Sarah’s fine brown hair hung to her shoulders, free of its thin cotton cap. The white kerchief that should have crisscrossed her bodice was hanging loose over one shoulder. The top of her dress was unbuttoned. Her hands shook too much to rebutton them, so she grabbed the fabric and held it shut.

  “Sarah, did he force himself on you?”

  “Oh, Eldress, I . . .” Her brown eyes seemed to overtake her face, which was drained of color. “I’ve been so foolish.”

  “What was Caleb Cox doing here? Did you agree to meet him?”

  Instead of collapsing, as Rose feared she would, Sarah drew in a deep breath and steadied herself. She buttoned her dress and recrossed her kerchief over her chest, tucking the edges into her apron at her waist.

  “I’ve met him here before,” she said quietly. She slid wearily onto the chair at her sewing table. “But he never acted like this, truly. It’s my fault he was here. Samuel’s funeral upset me so, I called Caleb’s boardinghouse, just to talk. I guess I knew he’d been drinking, but I didn’t want to admit it. He said he’d come over so I wouldn’t be sad anymore.” Sarah’s shoulders rolled forward in a gesture of shame. “I should have known better, but I promised to meet him here,” she said.

  Rose felt a wave of exhaustion as the fear drained from her body. She pulled a spare chair next to Sarah’s table and sat down. “How does he get here?” she asked.

  “He can borrow a friend’s car whenever he needs to. He parks it a ways outside of the village and walks in, so no one hears.”

  “What friend? Another apostate?”

  Sarah’s eyes grew wary. “I don’t know. Just a friend.”

  “Sarah, this has gone far enough. I want to know what is happening here. Frankly, whether you can stay with us depends on whether you are now willing to be honest with me.”

  Sarah closed her eyes. Rose waited, letting Sarah draw her own comparison between life as a Believer and life with a violent drunk. She had faith that Sarah would make the right choice, but just to be sure, she said a silent prayer.

  Sarah opened her eyes and gazed directly at her, and Rose knew Mother Ann had heard her prayer.

  “I will tell you what I can, but I don’t know much.” Sarah’s voice faltered, but she rushed on as if she had to say it all in one breath. “Caleb lied to me some, I know that now. He seemed really scared for me after I was attacked, and he kept saying he’d find out what happened, but he just gets drunk instead. He isn’t going to change, is he?” Her body seemed to lose the support of her bones, and she slumped in her chair.

  Rose shook her head. “Nay, Sarah, I think it unlikely. I believe it would take God’s direct intervention; yours will never be enough.” Sarah nodded.

  “Now tell me,” Rose said, “what you know about the threats to our village.”

  “Caleb said that a Shaker killed my mother.” Anger lent force to Sarah’s light voice. “He said a friend told him, and this friend cared for my mother and wanted to punish the Shakers for protecting her killer.”

  “And you believed this? Sarah, how could you? You know we would never break our vows by harboring a killer.”

  “I didn’t believe it at first, but . . .” Sarah squared her shoulders. “I know it’s true. Caleb brought me proof.”

  “What proof?”

  Sarah lowered to her knees on the floor and removed the second drawer of her sewing desk. She turned it over, dumping out the contents. Several sheets of paper were secured with a tack to the underside of the drawer. She pried off the tack and handed the pages to Rose.

  Rose recognized one sheet as the handwritten journal page she had read in Caleb’s room. The other two were written by the same hand.

  “So Sister Faithfull was indeed your mother,” Rose said, after she’d skimmed the pages.

  Sarah nodded.

  “These pages claim her death was not natural, that someone killed her. Yet all the records indicate she died of a heart attack. Who wrote these?”

  Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know. Caleb didn’t tell me, and I guess I didn’t try too hard to find out. I was afraid he’d stop bringing them to me if I pushed too hard, and I so much wanted to know about my mother.”

  “Whoever wrote these was in love with Faithfull. Who is this friend of Caleb’s? An apostate?”

  “Yea,” Sarah said. “There’s more than one, but I never met them. I do know that the leaders were all Believers right when Caleb was, and they all left in the same year.”

  “Did they all leave for the same reason?”

  Sarah’s face was just beyond the center of light from her lamp, and her puzzled frown created dark furrows on her forehead. “I’m not sure, but I do know that Caleb left for his own reasons. He had no calling to be a Believer. He wanted to be out in the world and do all the things the world’s people do—you know, marry and suchlike.”

  “I suspect there were more reasons than that for Caleb to leave. I’ve been reading Agatha’s journals, and she seemed to feel that Caleb was having serious difficulties even as a youngster. Several Believers watched over him and tried to guide him into the light, but he was unable to follow, Sarah, my dear, I believe that several of the threats we’ve been experiencing—the rats, the smashed preserves—are very like events our village lived through twenty-five and more years ago. I believe Caleb is responsible for these evils, both then and now. He blames us for the weaknesses woven into his own character.”

  Sarah’s face crumpled in pain. “I had begun to fear so,” she said, “but I wanted to believe in him. He seemed to want to help me find my mother’s killer, and he needed me so. I’ve never been loved before.” Her voice trailed off.

  Sarah twisted a lock of her long hair around one finger. “I’m so deeply ashamed of my part in this. Mostly I smoothed the way—brought Caleb a set of Shaker work clothes when he asked for them, took the preserves from the storage cellar, and . . .” She slumped against the back of her chair. “I’m the one who fed the meat to Freddie that made him go to sleep. I didn’t know it had anything in it, truly I didn’t. I just thought I was supposed to keep him busy for a while.”

  She leaned forward, her hands almost touching Rose. “I left the Languor County Watcher for you and Wilhelm. I made Caleb bring them to me as soon as he picked them up to deliver them. He didn’t want to, but I told him to or I’d leave him. They scared me. I never wanted anyone to get hurt.” She sounded like a pleading child.

  “Yet people did get hurt. Why didn’t you come to me directly?”

  Sarah pulled back her hands. “I was so happy here as a child,” she said. “I thought Faithfull was my aunt, and the sweetest aunt on earth. She used to slip me pieces of candied angelica root and give me hugs when the other girls weren’t looking. When she died, my world ended. I went to live with her sister, who everyone thought was my mother. She told me soon enough that Faithfull had been my real mother. My aunt resented having to feed me; she only wanted me as a servant. My uncle was fond of me, but he was hardly ever sober.”

  “You allowed yourself to be used by these apostates so you could learn whether your mother was killed?” Rose asked.

  Sarah nodded. “And who killed her. I didn’t want her killer to go free after taking away my mother’s life and my happ
iness.”

  “And have you found the killer?”

  “Nay.”

  Rose stared hard at Sarah. “Did you know that Samuel was your father?”

  “I only found out a few days ago from Caleb. I wanted so to talk to Samuel about my mother, and I managed to get a moment to ask him to meet with me. He looked very sad, but he agreed. He died before I could talk to him. To think that my own father was so close, all these years . . .” This time her eyes filled with tears. Rose relented and reached out with a comforting touch.

  “When were you to meet?”

  “Just past midnight.”

  “Wait a moment. Are you saying you went to meet with him that night? And he was dead already?”

  Sarah nodded. She shifted in her seat.

  “And you said nothing? You just left him there? How could you do such a thing?”

  Sarah’s long fingers fidgeted in her lap. “I was frightened.”

  “Were you afraid you would be accused? Why? You had no real reason to wish him silenced, did you? Your birth wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know, but . . . I told Caleb I was going to meet with Samuel. Caleb got so upset, I was afraid . . .”

  “That Caleb might have killed Samuel?”

  “Yea. So I just went back to my retiring room. But I couldn’t sleep at all, and I stayed dressed. When I heard the ruckus in the kitchen, I knew the sisters had found him, and I couldn’t stand it. I came running down. That’s when Gertrude sent me to get you.”

  Rose felt a chill settle over the room, despite the many bolts of densely woven wool. “I have two more questions for you, and then I’ll walk you back to your retiring room. We can collect some of your clothing. I want you to stay in the Trustees’ Office for a while, so I can be sure you’re safe.”

  “Safe from what?” Sarah’s eyes seemed to pop out from her face in sudden alarm.

  “Just a precaution,” Rose assured her. “Until we can bring these apostates out of the shadows.” She did not add that Sarah’s mother and father had both been killed, and she didn’t want Sarah to be next.

  Instead she asked, “Do you know where Samuel’s journals are? Did you take them?”

  “Nay, I did not. I don’t expect you to believe me, after all that I did, but I’m telling the truth. I do not know where they are.”

  Rose studied her for a long moment. After all her admissions, Sarah had no reason to lie.

  “One more question, Sarah. How did Elsa know that Faithfull and Samuel had a child?”

  Sarah’s jaw tightened in the first show of anger Rose had ever seen from her. “Elsa is evil,” Sarah said, her voice hushed. “I truly believe she is in league with the Devil.”

  NINETEEN

  AFTER ASSURING SARAH THAT SHE COULD BE FORGIVEN and remain in the Society, Rose sent her to bed, tired but grateful, in the empty retiring room next to hers in the Trustees’ Office. Rose was relieved to be bidding her good night rather than striking her from the rolls of Believers.

  It was past midnight. Rose crept back to her own retiring room and settled at her small desk. She knew sleep would be difficult. She tried to force her tired mind to go over what she had learned from Sarah.

  An unidentified brethren, now an apostate, had confided to his journal his belief that a Believer killed Sister Faithfull, after which the Society sheltered the murderer from paying for his crime. Other apostates have joined with this man to threaten North Homage with a series of attacks. To what purpose? Was the so-called murderer still among the Shakers? Did the apostates hope to bring him or her to justice? Or did they wish to drive the Shakers from their village as punishment for protecting the killer? Most puzzling: Why was all this happening now, twenty-five years later?

  Rose sensed that danger lurked very close. Caleb may have been drunk, but once he returned to his comrades—assuming he didn’t drive into a tree on the way back—they would suspect that Rose had pressured Sarah to reveal what she knew about them. It was quite likely that Caleb had either killed Samuel himself or reported back to the other apostates about Sarah’s appointment with her father. Rose was nearly certain that Samuel had died at the hands of an apostate.

  Might as well check on Sarah, she thought. At least she’d be moving, doing something. She stood in the hallway, straining her ears for unusual sounds—the click of a door, a soft footfall on the stair. Besides Sarah, Rose shared the floor with just two other sisters. She eased open Sarah’s door and peered inside. The room was darker than the dim hallway. Once her eyes adjusted, Rose watched Sarah long enough to see her turn and hear her sigh in her sleep. All was well.

  She turned back to her own retiring room, trying to ignore the large wavering shadow her moving figure made on the wall. She entered and left the door to her sitting room slightly ajar. After taking Agatha’s journals from her recessed cupboard, she pulled her rocking chair up to her desk. She smoothed a soft brown wool blanket on her knees, more for comfort than warmth.

  Maybe she had missed something in Agatha’s journals. Maybe there had been some event that drew these apostates together into bonds of hatred. She selected the 1912 volume, determined to read it through page by page. When she had skimmed it the first time, several days earlier, she had been interested mostly in references to Samuel and Faithfull. It was too bad that Agatha’s sensibilities had led her to use so many initials; it made Rose’s work much harder.

  She came to the disappointing section about Faithfull’s confession and Agatha’s conference with Samuel. Both references were vague—deliberately so, Rose assumed. She continued to read and realized that everything sounded new to her. Of course, she remembered, she’d been reading this volume when she had drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened by Sarah telling her that Samuel was dead. She had never actually finished the journal.

  After several pages of reports on how the crops were doing, despite the lack of rain, Rose came to an intriguing reference:

  Now having the same difficulties with K. and E. as with F. and S. Can there be something in the spring air that afflicts these young people? It does seem to happen every year about this time. It is to be expected, I suppose. Not everyone answers the call with a complete heart. This problem is worse than most, though, as E. moons around and is becoming quite negligent in her work. Josie says she does little but sit and dream out the window. She stammers when K. is nearby, while K. pretends that nothing is going on. But he, too, stares into space more than a Shaker should, and somehow I do not believe he is praying. When I became eldress, I saw myself providing guidance for the spiritually perplexed, not discipline for the carnally inclined!

  Rose chuckled as she placed the journal on her desk. Disciplining the “carnally inclined” seemed to be her own assignment as eldress as well. She tiptoed into the hallway and to Sarah’s room again, but nothing was amiss. Perhaps she had overreacted. Perhaps Caleb was too drunk to report coherently to his apostate “friends.” Back in her own room, she checked her bedside clock. It was 2:30 A.M.. Rose sat on her tightly made bed and longed to snuggle under the coverlet. Nay, she thought, I mustn’t. If anything happens to Sarah . . . She couldn’t take the risk of being so close to her enticing bed. She picked up her clock and took it with her back to her sitting room.

  Settling again under the cozy blanket, she leaned back in her rocking chair. Placing the clock on the desk where she could easily see it, she allowed her head to roll back against the wooden slats and closed her eyes. Just for a moment, she told herself.

  A scraping sound intruded into her deep, dreamless sleep. At first she didn’t realize she was asleep and wove the sound into an instant dream image of the brethren scraping mud from their feet before entering the dining room. She clicked her tongue at the sight of so much mud caked on the outside stoop, and the sound she made in her throat brought her closer to wakefulness.

  The scent of lavender brushed her nose. Something soft touched her face, pressed against it, then tightened. She no longer smelled lavender because the soft object
smashed against her nose and mouth, cutting off her breath. It pulled her backward in her chair, but the chair itself did not fall. Fully alert now, Rose understood why. Someone stood behind her. She felt her chair stop, braced against her attacker. Something downy covered her face. She was being smothered with the pillow from her own bed. The lavender scent came from the final rinse used in the Laundry.

  Rose was caught by surprise, but she had the strength and agility typical of young Shaker sisters, who worked as hard as the brethren. She flung her arms upward and clutched at the top of the pillow, but it didn’t budge. She was losing time. She squirmed to pull herself down under the soft weapon, but she couldn’t escape the suffocating pressure. Finally her fingers touched the wrists holding the pillow. Her fingernails were blunt but strong. As bright spots began to appear on the insides of her eyelids, she dug her nails into flesh and scraped. A moment before she blacked out, she heard a gasp of pain, and the pillow bounced away from her face.

  A blast of cold water splashed on her face returned Rose to the light. She was carried a short distance and placed on a bed. A sea of worried faces with disheveled hair bent over her. The roundest face belonged to Josie, who cried out in relief as Rose coughed and opened her eyes.

  “Ah, thank the Lord, you are back with us,” Josie said. “I was a bit worried there when the smelling salts didn’t work. We could see you were breathing, but you seemed determined to stay unconscious.”

  “What . . . How did you . . .” Rose’s voice sounded faint and hoarse. She was regaining her focus, though. She saw she was in her own room on her own bed.

  “Don’t try to talk too much, dear. Just lie back and rest, and we’ll tell you what we know first.” Josie looked around at the other faces. “Gretchen, you found her. Tell her everything you saw.”