The Blessed

by Ann H. Gabhart

  The dancing was odd, but the Lord gave people feet and the itch to dance. There were places in the Bible where King David did some worship dancing. Plus she’d heard folks talking in tongues back at Ebenezer. Not often, but a time or two. Singing songs with words no ear could decipher wasn’t all that different. But to go into shaking fits and stomping till the whole building had to be doing some shaking of its own, that was worse than odd. It had to border on sacrilege. She couldn’t imagine Miss Mona disagreeing with her in any fashion, even with the way she never liked to find fault with anyone.

  And there had been Preacher Palmer right in the middle of them, shaking and quaking and giving her the eye like as how she was the evil he was trying to shake off him. Lacey’s cold heart after they married must have driven him to the brink of madness.

  She wasn’t too sure she wasn’t tripping along that crevice rim herself. She’d always thought of herself as practical about the things that mattered. Oh, so she did her spring dandelion dance, a gift from her mother, and it wasn’t all that different from the Shakers’ whirling dances. The same as the gift dance Sister Aurelia had said might fall on Lacey and take over her feet. And she dreamed up her fanciful stories about animals that talked and fairies that twittered around like dragonflies. She’d even spent some time imagining how true love, the kind she read about in storybooks, would feel. But underneath all that dreaming and wishing, she’d always stared straight on at what was actually happening in her life. Especially after she’d stood up with Preacher Palmer in front of his preacher friend and nodded her I do.

  But there in the middle of the Shaker meetinghouse with Sister Aurelia thinking she was some kind of angel and all the Shakers staring at them both, Lacey had lost her grip on practical common sense and felt like she might never make sense of anything again.

  Her head was already spinning before Aurelia jerked her along in a mad, whirling circle. When she had turned her loose with a hard fling, Lacey stumbled across the floor trying to catch her balance. The next thing she knew, strong hands were grabbing her, but that didn’t stop her falling. She ended up right on top of that Brother Isaac and wondering if she might not be just dreaming it all. That any minute she’d wake up in the narrow Shaker cot and have to get up to sweep and clean before going out to plant beans or some such chore.

  She’d looked right into the brother’s eyes and he’d looked right into hers. Her heart started beating even harder than it was before, while she was out there with all those eyes watching her and Sister Aurelia. Plenty of eyes were still watching her. And him. Eyes more shocked by a woman stumbling against a man than they’d been by an angel coming down to take over one of their sisters and shout out about sins.

  Lacey wasn’t so dizzy that she didn’t know that falling on top of the brother would be the height of wrongdoing even before she heard the mournful woes declaring it so. She pushed against Isaac’s chest to right herself, but instead of scrambling away from her, he’d tightened his hands around her waist. And right there and then, Lacey’s world shifted.

  Nothing about what was true changed as some sisters jerked her away from Isaac and began beating on her dress to remove any trace of his touch. She was still married to Preacher Palmer, who had brought her into the midst of the oddest bunch of people she could imagine. No wonder she was losing her grip on good sense. At the same time while nothing changed, nothing was the same. A smile sneaked into her eyes when Isaac got to his feet and looked toward her. A smile that had no right to be there. She was a married woman, even if the preacher was over there on the fringe trying to shake every carnal thought of her out of his head and body.

  Aurelia was still prostrate on the floor, but when the dancers started spilling back out on the floor, a few of the sisters lifted and dragged her over to the benches like she was no more than a piece of furniture in the way. A little Shaker man not even as tall as Lacey took hold of Isaac’s hand and led him out as the singers started a mournful “stop lustful sinning” song.

  Lacey knelt by Aurelia and took her hand. It was limp and her face was stiff, but Lacy had the almost uncontrollable urge to reach over and poke the woman in the ribs to see if she would jump. But she restrained her hand. She’d caused enough commotion in the Shaker meetinghouse for one Sunday. Besides, she liked Aurelia and didn’t want to go back to being preached at by Sister Drayma through every daylight hour. So if Aurelia wanted to play at courting angels, then who was Lacey to deny her the fun? Just as long as she didn’t pull her along into her vision. She’d make sure Aurelia knew that before the next time they gathered in the meetinghouse.

  She raised her eyes from Aurelia’s stonelike face and looked out at the dancers. They weren’t exactly dancing steps. Just shaking to rid themselves of the carnal burst of the world that had visited their meeting. Isaac was shaking too, the same as all the rest. Had she imagined that tightening of his hands around her waist? That hint of a smile in his eyes? He looked as much a Shaker as any out there. Shaking off her touch.

  During the final dance that was a march up and down with no shaking, Aurelia opened her eyes and claimed to remember nothing of the angel speaking through her. Lacey didn’t believe her. Any more than she believed an angel had come down from heaven to pluck Lacey off her bench and spin her in circles. With a flush crawling up into her cheeks, Aurelia looked entirely too pleased when some of the sisters clustered around to touch her like they hoped to get some leftover angel sparkle on their fingers.

  Nobody said the first thing about the sinful colliding of Lacey with Brother Isaac. Even to speak of such would have them sharing Lacey’s sin. A sin that it appeared had to be confessed before another hour passed. Eldress Frieda pulled Lacey aside as they were on the way back to the Gathering Family House for the time of contemplation and rest before the evening meal.

  Lacey followed the eldress into a small room equipped with a desk and chair. Another chair hung on the peg rail, but Eldress Frieda didn’t suggest Lacey lift it down as she settled in the chair behind the small desk. So Lacey stayed standing with her hands clasped in front of her and her head bent in a posture of compliance. It would do little good to defy the good eldress. Better to pretend to accept the Shaker yoke of obedience.

  The room wasn’t much bigger than a closet, but a small window let in the late afternoon sunlight. Only a few dust motes floated in the air, a tribute to the Shakers’ war against dirt. On the first day that Lacey had swept out the Shaker sleeping rooms, Sister Drayma had made sure she knew the importance of cleaning every nook and cranny.

  “If you do not sweep out the corners of a room when cleaning it, that is the way the corners of your heart will look.” Sister Drayma had stooped down to run her hand over the floor to make sure Lacey hadn’t missed even a smidgen of dust. She stared at her hand almost as if disappointed not to find a trace of dirt there before she stood up, brushed her hand off on her apron, and went on with her sermon. “Good spirits will not live where there is dirt. Mother Ann taught us thus.”

  Now from the look on Eldress Frieda’s face as she considered Lacey standing in front of her, she seemed to be having the same kind of doubts of Lacey’s sweeping ability. And yet her eyes weren’t condemning Lacey but simply waiting to see what would be said in confession.

  Lacey was waiting too. She had no idea what the eldress was expecting. She’d made confession several times. She’d offered up regret for bad thoughts and for dropping too many seeds in a garden row and not bending down to pick them out. With no truth in her words, she’d claimed sorrow for resisting the Shaker beliefs and then with more conviction confessed to sometimes not speaking the complete truth. But those confessions had been made to Sister Drayma who accepted them grudgingly. She had not spoken with the eldress since that first night when she had clung to Rachel and won one more night to hold her close. That had been ten days ago, and suddenly the need to see her child brought tears to her eyes. Tears the eldress misunderstood.

  “You are new to the Believers’ way, m
y child, so it is easy to understand and forgive when you stumble.” Eldress Frieda’s wrinkled face looked kind in the light from the window.

  “I did stumble, Eldress. I had no intent of disturbing your meeting.”

  “Your meeting too,” the eldress said softly.

  “Yea.” Lacey was glad she’d remembered to use the Shaker word to agree. “But I wanted to stay on the side to watch, since I know so little of your ways. I did not want to hinder the spirit.”

  A small frown appeared between Eldress Frieda’s eyes. Her cap very neatly covered all but a white crown of hair around her forehead. Everything about the eldress was neat and contained. “Yet the angel singled you out. Why would that be?”

  Lacey had no answer for that. Other than saying she thought Aurelia had faked it all. The truth of the other sister’s vision was between Aurelia and the eldress with no need for Lacey to get in the middle of that. She’d already been too much in the middle. She let a little silence build before she opened out her hands in a gesture of puzzlement. “I have no idea.”

  “Hmm.” The eldress studied Lacey’s face.

  Lacey shifted a little and the floorboards creaked to reveal her uneasiness as she waited for Eldress Frieda to go on.

  Finally the eldress said, “I sense a doubting spirit in you, my sister.”

  When Lacey opened her mouth to ask what she meant, Eldress Frieda held up a hand to stop her. “Nay, it is a time to listen, not speak. I am not condemning you, my sister. Merely saying what I sense. Sister Drayma has reported to me that you are a hard worker, diligent in your chores, but at the same time she says it is plain to see you resist our ways. Many do who are brought into our community of Believers from the world by others. As you were brought to live here by Brother Elwood. It was a decision made for you and not by you.”

  The eldress dropped her hand back to the table and let the silence gather around them. Lacey didn’t know whether the eldress expected her to keep listening or maybe start talking now, but she wasn’t ready to chance getting it wrong. So she just kept her head bent as she stared at the older sister’s hands.

  The woman’s hands were not unlike Miss Mona’s. Slender with skin so transparent it was easy to see the blue trace of veins across their backs. Her fingernails were cut blunt across to keep from interfering with her work, for Sister Drayma had told Lacey that all who were able-bodied in the community worked. Even those in the Ministry, although they lived secluded lives and had a separate workshop. When Lacey had asked what work they did, Sister Drayma had acted like the question was tantamount to blasphemy. The Ministry was not to be questioned.

  Lacey had the feeling it was the same with Eldress Frieda. Whatever she said, Lacey would have to do. What other choice did she have? If she refused the Shaker ways, she would have to walk out of the village and give up Rachel. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t. Even if they wouldn’t let her see Rachel, at least here in their village she might get a glimpse of the child from time to time.

  The silence continued. Lacey could hear Eldress Frieda’s breathing in and out as well as her own stomach complaining because her dinner was delayed. To go from the bedlam in the meetinghouse to this silence so deep Lacey could almost see it hanging in the air between her and the eldress was a little unnerving. Lacey started counting in her head to keep her mind disciplined so she wouldn’t blurt out some wrong word. She was up to forty when the eldress spoke.

  “Do you have naught to say?”

  Lacey considered the woman and tried to guess at the right thing to say. Yea? Nay? Beg for forgiveness? She might have guessed what Sadie Rose or some of the other churchwomen back at Ebenezer wanted to hear and come out with words to soothe their ears, but not here. She pulled in a breath and stopped trying to speak to please. “I don’t know exactly what you want to hear. It wasn’t my doing for Sister Aurelia to grab my hand and spin me around. I had no intention of knocking into anybody. I was dizzy and fell. The brother caught me. I see no sin in that. It was nothing but an accident.”

  “So you feel you have done no wrong that you need to confess?” Eldress Frieda’s eyes stayed kind even as her voice seemed to take Lacey to task.

  “I am not without sin.” Lacey managed to keep from sighing. Why did her spirit have to be so contrary to their ways? It would be easier to simply beg pardon for being clumsy and be done with it. “So please forgive me for the wrong I’ve done.”

  Eldress Frieda’s frown appeared between her eyes again. “Confessions should be from the heart, Sister Lacey. Not mere words uttered to tickle the ears of your listeners.”

  “I am truly sorry if what happened was upsetting to the sisters and brothers at the meeting.” She had no problem speaking those words sincerely.

  “And what of your words that seemed uttered to challenge the angel Esmolenda?” She spoke the strange name easily without hesitation.

  “You know the angel?” Lacey stared at the eldress. Maybe Aurelia hadn’t been making it up after all. “Is she like Gabriel or Michael to you here?”

  “There are legions of angels. We meet the ones Mother Ann sends down to us.”

  “And this Esmo . . . Esmolenda has been here before, talking to you?”

  “Nay, but you stray from the question, Sister Lacey. What of your words demanding the angel let you see Sister Rachel?”

  Lacey was suddenly so overcome with sadness and exhaustion that she gave no thought to whether or not the eldress would approve of her words. “I would do anything to see Rachel. I had not spent one hour away from her since she came into my life before she was stripped from me here. If I could call on angels to make that happen, I was ready to put out the call.”

  “You tread on shaky ground there, my sister. Would you also be ready to call on evil forces to bring your desire to fruition?”

  “I said what I said. I would like to believe I wouldn’t surrender to the devil’s lures, but at the same time, my arms ache for my daughter.” Lacey sent a silent prayer up from her heart without taking her eyes off Eldress Frieda. She was a woman. Surely she had once loved a child or been loved by a mother. “I promised I wouldn’t desert her. To a child her age, ten days must seem like forever. Please, would it break so many rules to let me visit her?” She was not above pleading. With her hands on the edge of the desk, she dropped to her knees. “Please.”

  “Come, my sister, your sorrow is misplaced. The child is well.” The eldress rose and came around the desk to lay her hand on top of Lacey’s cap with gentleness. “Gather yourself and surrender your will to the Eternal Father. Only then will you know peace in your heart.”

  “I do believe in the Lord.”

  “But not as we do here.”

  “Nay, but is not my Lord, the Lord I have prayed to since I was a child, the same Lord you worship?” Lacey looked up at the eldress. “The Creator of the world? The God of love and mercy?”

  Eldress Frieda dropped her hand away from Lacey’s head. Her words were stiff and unyielding. “And the God of judgment for those who choose worldly lives of sin.”

  “How can it be a sin to love a child?”

  “To love the Lord and do his bidding is the duty of all, and the Eternal Father revealed to Mother Ann how the selfish relationships of husband, wife, and children hampers the development of mutual love and order among his people. Our way is the best way. Nay, the only way to live a perfect life as is demanded of us.”

  “I have no hope of perfection this side of heaven.”

  “So it is with those of the world,” Eldress Frieda said. She put her hand under Lacey’s arm to encourage her to stand. “But here we are no longer of the world.”

  Lacey got slowly to her feet. “I feel as though I am floating somewhere between, unable to set my feet in either place. The world there or your world here.”

  Eldress Frieda surprised Lacey by smiling. That was the last thing she expected. “Perhaps you are moving closer to our ways since the angel chose you out of our number. We shall pray that is so.
And it is also true that you are not yet one of us. If a mother from the world comes to see a child given over to us, we do not deny her that right. Neither will we deny you as you float between worldly thoughts and right beliefs. It will be arranged. After the evening meal on the morrow, I will take you to the Children’s House. There you will see that Sister Rachel is well cared for, and perhaps then you will be able to turn loose your worldly thinking.”

  Lacey wanted to grab the eldress and hug her, but the woman stepped back to put distance between them. That was the way of the Shakers, Lacey thought. They wanted distance between them all, as though they could walk in their own individual circles without inviting any other person into the circle with them. Only the Lord and their Mother Ann were welcomed to step nearer. So Lacey restrained her impulse to hug the woman in gratitude. Instead she clasped her hands together to hide the way they were shaking with excitement and merely said, “Thank you, Eldress.”

  “Your understanding of spiritual things is like that of an infant, Sister Lacey.”

  “I have read much in the Bible,” Lacey answered in mild protest. She knew the Bible. Miss Mona had taught her and taught her well.

  “Yea, Sister Drayma has told me so. Perhaps that is why the angel reached for you. To help you see the truth that you have not gleaned in your times of studying the Bible in the past.”

  Lacey bent her head in submission, even as the stories of love in the Bible that were rewarded with children came into her mind. It was not a time to be contrary. Not when she had been granted the answer to her most fervent prayer. What was that verse that Miss Mona had sometimes quoted to her? Lacey searched through her memory for it as she followed Eldress Frieda out of the small room to join the line of sisters going into the eating room.

  It came to her as she knelt for the silent prayer before the meal. Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. A joyful prayer of thanksgiving took wing from her heart. She was going to see Rachel.