The Blessed

by Ann H. Gabhart

  When Aurelia nudged her with an elbow and nodded a bit toward Lacey’s plate, Lacey realized all the sisters around her had cleaned their plates and were waiting for her to finish. Why ever in the world had she put that biscuit on her plate when the last thing she felt like doing was eating? A Shaker wasn’t allowed to leave anything uneaten on her plate, so Lacey picked up the biscuit and bit into it. The morning before she’d eaten the biscuits with pleasure, but today her body rebelled against the thought of food. She wallowed the doughy bread around in her mouth, not wanting to swallow, but she did anyway. She had to. Didn’t she always do what she had to do?

  She looked at the biscuit in her hand. It looked bigger than when she’d picked it up, and her stomach heaved at the thought of forcing more of the biscuit down her throat. She pretended to take another bite and then, when Sister Drayma looked away, quickly palmed the remainder of the biscuit and dropped her hand to her lap while chewing the air in her mouth with a seemingly hearty appetite.

  A moment later when they rose from their chairs and knelt for the after-meal prayer, Lacey slipped the rest of the biscuit into her apron pocket. Do what she had to do to follow the rules or at least pretend to until she found a way to break the rules and talk to Rachel.

  They were on the way to the strawberry patch when Sister Aurelia threw all the rules to the winds as she pulled Lacey off the path. “Come with me,” she whispered.

  When Sister Drayma glanced back at them, Aurelia smiled and waved vaguely toward the privy. None of the other sisters paid them much mind as they passed by on their way to their assigned chores for the day. Their eyes on the path, minds and body ready for work. Following the Shaker rules. Doing their duty. But Aurelia’s mind wasn’t on duty. Or on any call of nature.

  “What are you doing?” Lacey asked her.

  “You look peaked this morning. You don’t really want to pick berries all day again today, do you? I know I don’t.”

  “You didn’t pick many berries yesterday. You spent the day in the infirmary.”

  “Yea, so I did. Berry picking might have been better. Sister Drayma hovered over me all day, trying to get me to tell her about the angels.” Aurelia made a face.

  “Why didn’t you tell her then?”

  “I did tell her. Over and over. But she wants me to make her see them, and the angels only dance with those they choose. They have not chosen Sister Drayma.” Aurelia veered off the path and through a gate into a field. “Come on. Hurry.”

  “Why the hurry?” Lacey asked as she walked faster to keep up with Aurelia.

  “We don’t want to keep the angels waiting.”

  “How do you know they’re waiting?” Lacey peered over at Aurelia, who had an odd shine in her eyes.

  “They told me, of course.” Aurelia spun around in the middle of the field until her skirts stood out in a circle, before grabbing hold of Lacey to keep from falling from the dizzy spin. She laughed out loud, a sound so unexpected in the quiet village that Lacey jumped.

  “You don’t have to fear the angels, Sister Lacey. They like you. They want to dance with you.”

  Lacey looked around. “Here? Now?”

  “Nay. Not yet. We have to go meet them in the woods. They like dim places.”

  “I thought angels were bright, glowing.”

  “Very bright. Very glowing. But an angel has no need of the sunshine to stay that way.”

  Aurelia started walking toward the trees on the other side of the field. Lacey hesitated before hurrying after her.

  “Does anyone see angels other than you?” Lacey asked.

  “They say they do.” Aurelia looked over at Lacey with a bit of a smile before she added, “I’m sure they do.”

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “Don’t I?” She raised her eyebrows at Lacey and laughed softly. “Maybe I should say I believe them every bit as much as you believe me.”

  Lacey looked down at the lush pasture grass under her feet. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “You must turn loose of your fearful worry.” Aurelia threw out her hands and shook them as though such worry could be shaken off as easily as dust. Then she touched Lacey’s shoulder. “The angels will tell you what to believe. That’s why they want to dance with you.” She grabbed Lacey’s arm and pulled her toward the trees.

  For a minute Lacey wanted to dig her heels into the ground and not follow Aurelia into the shadow of the trees. She should be doing her duty, picking strawberries, thinking of how she was going to talk to Rachel again, anything but chasing after Aurelia and pretending to dance with angels. That’s all it would be for Lacey. Pretense. Even if she believed Aurelia could call down the angels, she would never believe that she could see them. Hadn’t she already messed up enough of her life by pretending to be someone she wasn’t? Like the preacher’s wife. Like Rachel’s mother. But no, she was Rachel’s mother. The Lord had given the child to her. She had to believe that. She had to.

  “Are you thinking of Sister Rachel?” Aurelia’s hands still held Lacey’s arm. “Your visit didn’t go well?”

  “She was angry with me for bringing her to the Shakers.”

  “But it wasn’t you who brought her. It was her father, wasn’t it?”

  “In her mind, I was the one who deserted her. Preacher Palmer, I mean Brother Elwood has never acted as a father to Rachel. Miss Mona had to talk him into letting her keep the baby when we found Rachel on our doorstep.”

  “Who talked Miss Mona into keeping the baby? You?” Aurelia stared at Lacey as she tightened her fingers around her arm. “Or the angels?”

  Lacey frowned at Aurelia. The woman’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes so glassy that Lacey wondered if she was being overtaken with a fever. “Perhaps we should go back to the infirmary. I’m not sure you are well, Sister Aurelia.”

  “You are not sure of many things, Sister Lacey. Me. Brother Elwood. The angels. They frighten you, don’t they? But you don’t need to fear them. The angels bring joy. Peace. Understanding. You’ll see. The angels will open your mind to truth. You have no reason to be afraid of the truth.” Aurelia paused for a moment before she asked, “Do you?”

  “Nay.” Lacey was surprised the Shaker word came so easily to her tongue. Was that because it was easier for her to lie when she was pretending to be a Shaker sister?

  “Then come with me. The angels await.”

  She let Aurelia pull her into the trees then. A shiver walked up and down her spine as she went from the bright sunlight into the deep shade. She thought again of turning and going back to the village. But Aurelia had let loose of her arm and was running down a faint path through the trees. She couldn’t leave her there alone when she was giving every indication of being ill. “Wait, Sister Aurelia!”

  Aurelia looked back over her shoulder. “Hurry, Sister. The angels are impatient with our slowness. Run.” Aurelia started running faster.

  “I’ll trip on a rock,” Lacey called after her.

  “Nay. The angels will lift you up and keep you from dashing your feet on the stones. Such is the promise in the Scriptures.”

  “I don’t think that meant when you were running through the trees like a fox with his tail on fire.”

  Aurelia’s laugh drifted back to her. “Trust me, Sister Lacey. Let go of your fear and run.” She was already almost out of sight ahead of Lacey.

  “I’m not afraid,” Lacey muttered. “I am not afraid.” She gathered up a thick handful of skirt and took off down the trace of a path after Aurelia. She kept her in sight for a while, and even when she disappeared into a thicker stand of trees, Lacey chased after her by following the sound of brush rustling as Aurelia made her way through the woods.

  But then the angels must have run on ahead with Aurelia and forgot to leave somebody behind to lift Lacey up and carry her along. Lacey stubbed her toe on a rock in the path and fell flat. Her cap flew off as she caught herself with her hands. If this was what it was like to dance with the angels, sh
e hoped the music would end soon. She sat up slowly and bent her wrists to be sure they were still in working order as she tried to catch her breath. She pushed up off the ground. She wasn’t hurt except for a little scuffed-up skin on the heels of her hands. Nothing to be bothered about, but where was her cap?

  “Sister Aurelia. Wait,” she called as she spotted her cap in the middle of a patch of poison ivy. She gingerly snatched up the cap and hastily stuffed her hair back up under it as she called out again.

  Lacey listened for an answer but heard nothing but birds singing and the chatter of a squirrel high over her head. She shut her eyes and concentrated on listening. Surely Aurelia couldn’t have gotten so far ahead that Lacey could no longer hear her running through the trees, but nothing except the whisper of a breeze rustling through the leaves came to her ears. Aurelia had to know she was not behind her anymore. She’d come back and find her. Unless she was so entranced with dancing with the angels that she had no thought for anything else.

  Lacey let out a long breath and looked around. What she’d thought was a path earlier when she’d been running after Aurelia seemed to melt away before her eyes. She had no idea which way to go to follow Aurelia or to return to the pasture field. She wasn’t exactly worried about being lost. It might take some time, but she’d find her way back to the village even if Aurelia didn’t come back for her. It might be good to be lost and alone for a while to have time to think.

  Blessed are the lonely and lost for they shall be comforted. She could almost see Miss Mona frowning at her and telling her it was a sin to add or take away from the Scripture. So many sins to watch for. But it shouldn’t be a sin to seek comfort. And being lonely and lost wasn’t that much different than mourning.

  The scrapes on her hands were stinging and seeping a bit of blood. She reached into her apron pocket for her handkerchief and instead pulled out a handful of crumbs from the biscuit she’d stuffed in there at the morning meal. She felt like Hansel and Gretel with naught but bread crumbs to mark their path in the woods so they could find their way home. They’d ended up getting fattened up for the witch’s oven. A foolish fairy tale. But was it any more foolish than running after a woman who claimed to be going to dance with angels?

  Lacey flung the biscuit crumbs out into the woods. Let the birds eat them. The way they did in the fairy tale. Her path hadn’t been marked with crumbs. She’d have clear marks where she’d crashed through the woods like a mad cow. There would be broken branches, stomped plants. Lots of trail signs.

  She hadn’t walked far when the signs disappeared the way the path had seemed to do earlier. Maybe the angels were wiping it out. Maybe instead of dancing with Lacey, they wanted to lose her. Forever. Or perhaps that was only Aurelia’s plan.

  “Stop being silly. Aurelia might be a little strange, but she’s not mean.” Lacey spoke the words out loud as if she needed to hear them as well as say them. Aurelia hadn’t lost Lacey on purpose. She would be aggravated with Lacey for not keeping up.

  She’d find the path again. She just had to look for it. She moved to her left, but the underbrush seemed to get thicker that way. Nobody would be able to run through that. She was turning to go back the other way when she heard a noise.

  “Aurelia?” she called.

  A cow raised its head up over the bushes. Lacey jumped back and then laughed at herself. Of course there could be cows in the woods, since the pasture ran right up to the trees. But they’d passed the herd in the field. This one must be as lost as Lacey was.

  Lacey stepped around the bush to get a closer look at the little cow down on its side. It stared at Lacey with panicked eyes as it tried to get up. But then the cow’s head plopped back down as its stomach heaved. The poor thing was trying to have a calf. A little hoof appeared and then disappeared back inside the cow again. Lacey had heard men back at the church talk about pulling calves when a cow was having trouble, but she had no idea how to do that or even if she could. She’d have to go for help.

  Before she started back through the trees, she called for Aurelia again, but it was a waste of breath. Aurelia had run on ahead to dance with her angels with no worry about leaving Lacey behind. If she did decide to come back for Lacey, maybe she could get her angels to point the way. It should be easy as pie for them to find Lacey.

  But just in case Aurelia and her angels didn’t show up, Lacey tried to mark her trail by breaking the ends off a few branches and pushing up little piles of last fall’s leaves. It wouldn’t do much good to find one of the brothers to help the little cow if she couldn’t point out where the animal was.

  Intent on marking her path, she didn’t know Isaac was there until he stepped out in front of her. She was so startled that she tripped over her own feet and he reached out to steady her.

  “Whoa,” he said. “I didn’t aim to scare you.”

  “You didn’t,” she said as she stepped back away from him and stumbled again. This time she fell flat on her backside.

  “Are you all right, Sister Lacey?” He stooped down in front of her, a concerned look on his face.

  She sat there a minute, not sure whether to cry or laugh. To her surprise the laughter won out. “You must think I’m the clumsiest person you ever met,” she said.

  “You do seem to have a problem staying on your feet.” He smiled as he stood up. A nice smile.

  He held his hand down toward her, and with no thought of whether it was improper or against the Shaker rules, she let him help her to her feet. “Thank you. And thank you for keeping me from falling into the benches at meeting. I figure that probably brought you a good number of frowns from your Shaker brothers.”

  “Brother Asa understood. I’m not much worried about what any of the others think.” He was still holding her hand. She tried to ease it away, but he tightened his grip on her fingers as he held her hand up to look at her palm. “You’ve hurt your hand.”

  “It’s nothing. Just a little scrape.” She pulled her hand free and hid it under her apron. She could feel the color rising in her cheeks. “You won’t believe this, but I fell.” Then she looked up at him and couldn’t keep from laughing again. “Or then again, maybe you will believe it.”

  He laughed too. The sound seemed to fit with her laughter and land softly in her ears. Not like Aurelia’s laughter earlier that had seemed so jarring and out of place in the Shaker village. But they weren’t in the Shaker village now. They were alone in the midst of the trees with no spying eyes watching from the high windows or from the fenced walkway on top of the Centre Family House. Built to give the watchers a good view of the whole village. But the watchers couldn’t see through the trees.

  27

  Isaac had the strongest desire to reach for the new sister’s hand again. And to not let her pull her fingers away from him this time. To instead pull her closer to him. To where he could look into her beautiful brown eyes. To where he could feel the whisper of her breath on his cheek.

  He remembered feeling this way once before. With Ella. Swallowed up by her beauty even though there was little in the young woman’s face in front of him that was like Ella. Brown eyes instead of blue. Soft brown hair instead of raven black. A scattering of freckles across her nose and upper cheeks that would have sent Ella into a panicked frenzy of creams. Standing there with an aura of toughness that Ella would have never known. That Ella hadn’t needed to know. Not with her father protecting her. Not depending on Isaac to continue that protection.

  The all-too-familiar flash of guilt burned through him, but then when it was gone, Lacey was still standing there, her eyes not shying away from his even though her cheeks were flaming. “Are you alone?” he asked.

  “I was with Sister Aurelia, but she ran ahead and I lost sight of her.” She glanced around as though she thought she might yet locate the other sister. “Then I saw this little cow. So I was trying to find my way back to the village to tell someone.” She turned her eyes back to Isaac’s face.

  “You found the cow?” Isaac did
n’t wait for her to answer. “That’s why I’m out here. To search for a heifer ready to calve.”

  “That must be the one I saw. She appeared to be having some trouble.”

  “Can you show me where she is?”

  “I think so. I tried to mark my path.” She turned away from Isaac and hesitated a moment before heading back the way she’d come through the trees.

  He followed after her along the faint path and thought how unlikely it was that he and the new sister would stumble across one another in the woods. And that she would have seen the cow. It seemed Providence somehow, the same as Brother Asa appearing out of the fog on the river docks to help him keep breathing.

  Providence. What was it Mrs. McElroy said about Providence? That it was the Lord taking care of a person. But why would the Lord be taking care of him? A man who had never reached for help or forgiveness. Who deserved no forgiveness. Instead of the Lord’s providence, it could very well be nothing but sinful temptation, and he should be doing the Shaker stomping dance to keep back the devil. But he didn’t stomp once. He just followed after the young woman, glad for whatever had made their paths cross.

  When she stopped to get her bearings, he stepped up beside her. “Have you lost your way?”

  “Sister Drayma certainly thinks so.” She looked up at him with a wry little smile. “And I don’t doubt the truth of that. Ever since I stood up beside the preacher and said the marrying words, my way has been muddled.”