The Blessed

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “There is good sense in what our sister says.” One of the older sisters clustered around them spoke up. “The berries do not jump into our baskets on their own, and Sister Aurelia has no need of us all attending to her. Come, Sisters, back to picking before the rain that might come in the night sours the berries in the patch.”

  As the older sister turned back to her row, she caught Lacey’s eye with a quick smile that flashed approval. All the other sisters except Sister Drayma and the little sister holding the dipper reluctantly followed the older sister back to their deserted baskets.

  Lacey didn’t allow any hint of an answering smile to slip out on her face as she gathered her courage to look straight at Aurelia. She wasn’t anxious for another confrontation with the sister’s angel. “I beg your forgiveness, Sister Aurelia, for the way I splashed the water in your face. That was wrong of me and did not show proper thought or consideration. Will you forgive me?”

  Perhaps Aurelia heard the echo of her own words before she fainted in Lacey’s words now. Whatever the reason, her face softened as she wiped her face with her apron before saying, “Yea, it would be sinful to withhold forgiveness in the face of your confession of wrong.” She positioned the white cap on her head and tucked her hair up under it.

  “Very well, Sisters. That is good.” Sister Drayma slapped her hands together and then pointed Sister Betsy back to the water bucket. The child went willingly enough, since the drama seemed to be at an end with the forgiveness words.

  Lacey got to her feet and brushed off her skirt. Aurelia made no move to follow Lacey to her feet but stayed on the ground between Lacey and Sister Drayma.

  “Come, Sister Aurelia. Let us help you up.” Sister Drayma sounded more concerned than impatient as she reached down toward Aurelia. “You can lean on me as we walk to the infirmary. Sister Lacey will fill your basket.”

  “You can’t expect her to fill her basket and mine as well,” Aurelia said as she took Sister Drayma’s hand and got to her feet. She staggered back a step and Lacey put her arm around the sister’s waist to steady her.

  “I will work double quick,” Lacey said.

  “Perhaps you can.” Aurelia looked at Lacey so long that Lacey was beginning to worry her angel was coming back to torment the both of them. But then she went on. “You seem to be gifted at taking over the duty of others.”

  “What duties are those? Other than the picking of these berries.”

  “Don’t keep pestering Sister Aurelia with questions.” With a stern look toward Lacey, Sister Drayma stepped to the other side of Aurelia. “You can see that she is weary.”

  “Yea.” Sister Aurelia leaned away from Lacey toward Sister Drayma. “It is true that though the visitations of the angels leave me joyful of spirit, they also empty me of strength and leave me with tremors outside and in.” She held out her hand to show how her fingers were trembling. She covered her hand with the other and pulled it back against her waist.

  Lacey watched the two women move away, stepping carefully across the rows to do the least damage to the strawberries. Once at the edge of the patch, Aurelia leaned against Sister Drayma as they headed toward the middle of the village where the infirmary was located. With both her Shaker guides gone, Lacey was alone for the first time since she had put on the Shaker dress.

  Of course she wasn’t really alone. Plenty of other sisters were scattered about the strawberry patch filling their baskets, and the little sisters were up and down the row collecting the filled baskets and offering drinks of water. But no one was in her ear. No one was preaching the Shaker way to her or instructing her on the proper way to pick strawberries, as if that was something that took teaching.

  The silence was good. Being alone was good. She thought a moment about leaving Aurelia’s half-full basket and stepping across the rows out of the patch the same as Aurelia and Sister Drayma had. She could keep walking until she found Rachel, and then together they could leave this strange village behind.

  They won’t let you take Rachel. The words slammed into her head. True words she had no way of changing.

  Lacey bent back down to the strawberry row. She could pick double fast. Miss Mona had always told her she was quick about everything she did. Or maybe it just seemed so to Miss Mona, who at times was too weak to comb out the bed tangles in her own hair or even take the caps off a handful of strawberries for her morning’s breakfast. They’d never tried to grow their own strawberries. The little patch of garden ground where Lacey planted the corn and beans and potatoes was too small. None of that precious space could be wasted on strawberries.

  But this or that churchwoman had brought fresh-picked berries by at times, along with the sugar cakes to eat with them. Lacey missed the churchwomen. Her hand stopped in mid-pick at the thought, and she shook her head a little at her contrariness. Back at the preacher’s house, she had at times thought those very women were the bane of her existence, but that was before Sister Drayma and Aurelia’s angel started pushing the sin words at her. Miss Sadie Rose’s unsought advice seemed sweet in comparison.

  Then again without Sadie Rose and the other women’s gossipy talking, she might never have spoken vows with the preacher. They might still be living unbothered back at the preacher’s house with poor Preacher Palmer in his own pulpit armed with the word of the Lord instead of shaking and quaking and falling apart here in this place.

  A sigh swept through Lacey down to her toes. She couldn’t figure everything out. Certainly not angel visitations or the way Preacher Palmer was acting. Or even her own mind that hopped about like a grasshopper on a hot cookstove. Worry could do that to a person, Miss Mona had told her once. She’d said it was all right not to know all the answers and it was proper to leave some things up to the good Lord. That he could take care of the things Lacey didn’t understand. What she was supposed to think on was what she could figure out. Like filling up her basket with strawberries. Like thinking on seeing Rachel. Like praying about those other things so maybe the Lord would open up her own understanding.

  Praying. That was what she ought to be doing right at that moment while she was pulling off the strawberries. The berry picking occupied her hands, but not her head. She could ask the Lord to help her make sense of Aurelia and her angel talk about sin, but yet she edged away from offering up that prayer. She couldn’t seem to keep her mind focused on any prayer. It seemed so useless. She couldn’t get out of being married to the preacher. She couldn’t get out of this village. At least not without giving up Rachel. What was the use of bombarding the Lord with requests for things that couldn’t happen?

  Don’t think of prayer as a wish list to hand up to the Lord. You’ll be robbing yourself of Spirit power if you do that. Prayer is more than a list of things you get in your head and think you want. Miss Mona’s voice echoed in Lacey’s ears plain as if she was standing right beside her. Prayer is for asking the Lord to help you deal with whatever befalls you. And plenty is going to befall you. It befalls us all. But the Lord is only a prayer away.

  A prayer away and yet Lacey couldn’t seem to get past Dear Lord in heaven before the prayer words evaporated out of her head like water in a hot frying pan. She’d made the mistakes. She’d have to live with them. Of course she could surely find a thankful word for Eldress Frieda giving permission for her to see Rachel when the day’s work was done.

  She didn’t stop and close her eyes. She didn’t lift her face to the sky or hold her hands up in supplication. She just kept picking off berries as she whispered, “Dear Lord in heaven, thank you for your blessings.” Even to her ears the words sounded like something she was throwing out in the air with no more thought or feeling than speaking about the color of the strawberry in her hand. A person had to be open to prayer.

  Maybe that was the sin Aurelia’s angel kept seeing in her. But then she’d said it wasn’t Lacey’s sin. Lacey dumped another handful of berries into the basket. It was almost full and she stood up to rest her back as she waved at one of the little g
irls to bring a new basket. She watched the child walking up the row toward her. Not Rachel, but with the same bounce to her step. And the joy awoke in her again over the prospect of holding Rachel against her bosom once more. She pushed Aurelia’s confusing words out of her head. Maybe angel talk was just something that Lacey would never understand.

  At the evening meal Aurelia’s place was empty at the table. Lacey wanted to ask Sister Drayma about her, but no words were permitted in the eating room. And afterward, Lacey had to hurry to meet Eldress Frieda. She didn’t want to be late.

  The eldress was waiting in the hallway and led the way out the door and down the steps. She didn’t speak until they were walking along the path toward the Children’s House. “I am told the angel came to speak to you again.”

  “To me?” Lacey whipped her head around to look at the eldress.

  Eldress Frieda met her look with a deep calmness. “No one else was nearby.”

  “Sister Aurelia was there.”

  “Yea, but she was the instrument to deliver the message.” Eldress Frieda was silent for a few steps before she went on. “Do you fear the angel’s message? Does it disturb you?”

  “The thought of an angel coming down out of heaven to talk especially to me worries me some,” Lacey admitted.

  “I suppose that might be the normal reaction of one of the world. But here you should feel blessed to be so selected by the angels.”

  “Selected? I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

  The eldress smiled over at her. “Worry not, my sister. It is good to be selected. To be thought of as worthy of singular attention to bring you into our fold. Mother Ann must have some special work in mind for you once you embrace our ways. Once you become a covenanted Believer.”

  Only barely did Lacey bite back the words denying the possibility of that ever happening. She was but a few minutes from seeing Rachel. Not the best time to slap the eldress in the face with contrary words. Instead, Lacey bent her head to stare back down to the pathway to hide her total disbelief. But the eldress must have caught a glimpse of her face anyway.

  “You think that can never happen,” the eldress said with the sound of a smile in her voice. “I once felt something the same.”

  “You did?” Lacey didn’t try to hide her surprise as she looked back up at the eldress.

  “Yea, it is so. I came into the Believers much as you. At the bidding of my worldly family. Not to this village but to one in the East.”

  “You were married?” Lacey’s surprise grew.

  “Nay. I did not have the sin of matrimony to shake from me, but I had dreamed of that being my way along with many other worldly thoughts. I refused to bend my spirit to the Shaker way. I resisted our Mother Ann’s sweet love.” All trace of a smile disappeared from the woman’s face as she sounded almost sorrowful as she confessed. “I had a stubborn will.”

  “Why didn’t you leave?”

  “I harbored that sinful desire for many months, but such is not so easy to do when there is none in the world to take you in. I was yet young. Only fifteen at the time. I might have slid down the slippery slope and been sucked into the miry pits of sin if a man of the world had sought my hand.” Eldress Frieda looked up toward the treetops. “I am eternally grateful Mother Ann protected me against my own sinful lusts by enclosing me within a loving community of Believers. By the time I turned twenty-one, my heart and my will had changed and I was ready to step into the life of loving service and peace Mother Ann had ready for me. In time she opened the way for me to come to this western village that has been my home for so many years now. A good home.”

  “Did she send messages in visions to you?” Lacey was almost afraid to ask the question.

  “I was visited with dreams. Such can be visions. There is evidence of that in the Good Book.”

  “You mean Joseph.”

  “Yea. The moon and stars bowing down to his sun was a prophetic dream.”

  “I was thinking of the other Joseph. The one who married Mary. Angels kept showing up in his dreams.”

  “So they did.” Eldress Frieda inclined her head in agreement as they walked past the meetinghouse.

  On down the road, Lacey could see the roof of the Children’s House. Her heart began beating faster. She wanted to run on ahead, but she made her anxious feet keep matching the pace of the eldress who moved without haste as she kept talking about angels and their visitations and dreams.

  “But the plethora of angel visits that are enriching our spirits and worship now only began a few years ago. It is a special era of Mother’s work. Many among us here and in the villages all across the country are being visited with manifestations of the spirit. Some are gifted with songs. Some with drawings. Some with visions. Some lend their bodies to the angels or those who have stepped over the divide but wish to bring us some word of encouragement. Many of these come in dreams.”

  “Nothing like any of that has ever happened to me.” Lacey pushed out of her mind the times when she’d felt Miss Mona near after she’d passed on. That was just Lacey’s wishful thinking. She went on quickly. “I never can remember my dreams after I wake up. And I’m married.”

  Lacey didn’t know why she added that last unless she wanted the eldress to know she couldn’t be the reason the angel was showing up in Aurelia. If an angel was showing up in Aurelia. Lacey couldn’t keep from entertaining some doubts about that.

  “Married in what way, my sister? I sense little attachment between you and Brother Elwood.” The eldress paused on the walkway and fixed her eyes on Lacey. “It has been told to me that you yourself admitted to Brother Forrest your union was sinful.”

  Lacey stopped beside the eldress even though her feet itched to keep walking toward Rachel. She tried to answer the woman honestly, to get the conversation finished so the eldress would move on toward the Children’s House. “It was. Sinful in that it was wrong for me to marry him instead of trusting in the Lord to make a way for me. For us. Sinful in that I drove him to sorrow by not acting the proper wife.”

  “Yea, such sins of the world can bring much sorrow. We can have no true unity of spirit one with another if we cling to the selfish worldly relationships of a man and his wife and children. The Bible instructs us to love all in a practical, unified way and not in small worldly families but in the one family of God. That is how we prove we are true disciples.”

  “Yea.” Right then Lacey would have agreed with anything the eldress said just to get her to start walking again. Besides, the eldress had a way of saying things that came across as holy even when Lacey wasn’t sure what she was preaching about. But Lacey knew about the Bible talking about love. She didn’t have any arguments about that. What she couldn’t understand was how the Shakers tried to limit love by shoving it into a little box that had only one label on it. The brotherly love label.

  But a mother’s love, that was surely something the Lord had a hand in putting inside a person the same as the love between a man and woman. That love was the good Lord’s design from Adam and Eve on down through the ages to bring children into the world. All that seemed plain as day to Lacey, but not to the Shakers.

  The sound of young voices singing drifted out the open windows in the Children’s House down the pathway toward them. It was a good sound. A happy sound. Lacey started to turn toward it, but Eldress Frieda laid her hand on Lacey’s arm to stop her.

  Where before there had been the bare hint of a smile, now Lacey saw a flash of worry. Not something she’d ever seen on Eldress Frieda’s face. Normally she floated along on a visible sea of content even when others were naming their wrongs of the week.

  “Before we go on, you must keep in mind that all things change, Sister Lacey. It is the way of life. All people change. We grow. We adjust. We move on with the days assigned to us. Especially the young ones. Children have a way of adapting and learning and leaving the old life behind with much more ease than one would suspect.”

  Lacey tried to concentrate on what the
older woman was trying to tell her, but the children’s voices pulled at her. She wanted to hear Rachel’s voice. She wanted to feel Rachel’s small hand in hers. She threw another yea of agreement out into the air.

  The eldress breathed out a slight sigh and looked upward as though wishing for divine inspiration. Lacey eyed her uneasily and fervently hoped the woman wasn’t about to have a visitation that would delay their progress to the Children’s House even more.

  After a moment the eldress began walking again. “Come. Sister Janie will be waiting with the child and we must return to our dwelling before the retiring bell rings.”

  Finally they climbed the steps up to the sisters’ door. The children were in the upper gathering room practicing the same as the Shaker brothers and sisters were doing in the other houses. But Rachel’s voice wasn’t among them. She and Sister Janie were waiting for Lacey and the eldress in the schoolroom.

  The skirt of the long blue Shaker dress covered all but the toes of Rachel’s sturdy black shoes as she perched on the schoolroom bench like a lost little bird. Her hands were folded in her lap and her head was bent, staring down at them in a prayerful pose that hid her eyes and face. All Lacey could see was the white cap that hid Rachel’s curly black hair. She didn’t look up even after Sister Janie greeted Lacey by name. What had they done to her? What had Lacey let them do to her?

  Lacey would have rushed across the floor to grab up the little girl, but Eldress Frieda stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “You must not attempt to disturb the child’s spirit of unity. Sister Janie says she has made much progress in the days she has been here.”