Sarah patted her shoulder and, in apparent misunderstanding of her frustration, advised her, “Try not to worry yourself, dear. It’s your first time separated, and that’s hard for any woman to bear. I been without my Daniel twice before. But you both gonna be together for eternity soon enough, and there’s nothing can stand in the way of that, ’cause that’s God’s will, that is.”
Vern made herself smile, and thanked Sarah for her consideration. She turned back to scrubbing at the plates, but Sarah wasn’t finished. She said, “You’ll want to rest up, girl, get your strength back so that when he returns, you can greet him proper.” The statement might have been innocuous, but Sarah seemed to leer as she said it.
Vern stood at the sink, almost afraid to look at the faces of the others for fear they would all be grinning in the same grotesque way. Did they somehow know the intimate details of her life with Elias? She glanced sidelong at Sarah, but the older woman was stacking up plates with innocent efficiency, seemingly thoughtless and content, as if that look of depravity had only been in Vern’s mind. Riddled as she was with self-doubt, she thought it just might. No one was going to accuse this petite old woman of lewdness.
Vern quit the kitchen at the first opportunity and retreated to her room. As always, the second floor was deserted. Without women attending to her, the sense of isolation was complete. Comforted at first by the distance, she soon became uneasy. The solitude became oppressive, not as if she were alone but rather as if she were surrounded by a population already become ethereal. The whole house hovered in between moments of time; even the dark clock on the landing held silent, the hands motionless, until she arrived at the top of the stairs and set everything in motion again. The community waited for her and never blinked.
She got up and opened the window at the head of her bed, and let the evening breeze in. It billowed the gauzy curtains. She lit a candle and tried to read from her Bible: “And when he was come to the other side of the country of the Ger-ge-senes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs…” Devils and tombs—her mind could not focus on the words. She read whole pages of Matthew without any sense of what they were about. Without realizing, she was straining to hear something.
The breeze carried the hint of distant voices, brief laughter. Absurdly, she imagined that someone somewhere was laughing about her, despite which she wanted to fly there, to take part in the conversation, even laugh at herself, making light of her situation: “Oh, yes, I was quite out of my head when I said those things. Do you know, I actually thought my husband was some sort of nocturnal demon himself.”
She needed the company of others. There were so many unanswered questions that someone in the community must have answers to. What was the fearsome Dark Angel? How many people had taken their own lives here? Was it only the end of the world that frightened them? The idea remained so abstract to her.
She closed her Bible. The last question surprised her, but as soon as she’d thought it, she knew it was true. Everyone was afraid. Now her picture of them changed—from clockwork mechanisms to quivering rabbits, so terror-struck that they rushed to judgment, condemned too quickly, took their own lives out of fright.
The end of the world was coming and they couldn’t do anything about it, couldn’t stop it or change it. Couldn’t be certain if they were saved or not.
They were like Amy, weren’t they? So sure of their evil core and damned for it despite anything good they’d ever done. Amy hadn’t always been like that. Vern could recall how her father had come back that first time from the tent meeting on the commons. The Reverend Fitcher had preached a sermon that persuaded him, and in turn he had explained it to all three girls. Perdition awaited them, it should be expected sooner than anyone imagined, but they might yet save themselves if they followed Fitcher’s precepts. Amy had responded as if she’d believed all along that she was corrupt and was free at last to admit it. Maybe the kind of people who enlisted in Elias Fitcher’s cause despised themselves the way Amy did. But Vern didn’t want to hate herself. What she did hate was what this calling of the world’s end had stolen from her.
Abandoned in the midst of hundreds of people who resented her insertion between them and their intermediary to God, she had been wed to the harbinger. She was the bride of death, his concubine, his victim. She had no friends here, nor ever would, before or after the world’s end. They must all hate her, like that woman who wouldn’t let her eat.
For an hour perhaps she lay upon her bed in the throes of self-absorbed despair. Then at some point, out of the darkness spilled music.
Like the earlier voices it ebbed and flowed with the breeze, distant, tantalizing. She had forgotten how music could sound.
She sat up, perched, listened. There—voices whooped in with the instruments. There—a fiddle most certainly, and a piano, and another sound that brayed beneath them.
She picked up the keys, then stopped; turned and placed them on the bed. She removed the marble egg from the pocket between her breasts and set it down there, too. She knew this defied her promise to Elias, but she felt these things did not belong with her when she didn’t know where she was going. Surely they would be safer here.
Once outside, Vern had no trouble following the sound. It came from down in the village, from the big barn on the far side of the ironsmith’s. There were people hollering, joyous.
The barn was open. There must have been fifty or more people dancing, and another fifty milling about. Candles and lamps were lit not just in the barn but in places along the street. The light and the noise spread an exuberance through the night.
People looked Vern’s way. They saw her and stopped talking. But she went to them, full of a brand-new resolve, and said, “Hello,” and “Please don’t spurn me, don’t shun me, I’m no different than you. I’m alone here.” She would not be the wife of death. She would be herself, vital and young and kind. She couldn’t tell what effect her words were having—she kept trying different ones, hoping to see someone break out in a smile that would tell her she’d made them understand her plight. At least they didn’t flee from her, and the music and dancing didn’t stop on account of her. Fiddle and piano, and someone cranking the handle of a stringed hurdy-gurdy—that was the exotic whine.
She entered the barn, and a young man sitting on a bale of hay by the door jumped up and said, “Here, sit here, Mrs. Fitcher.” Vern gawked at him—he couldn’t have been any older than she was. The name he called her felt as if it belonged to someone else. How old she must be to be thought of as “Mrs. Fitcher.” It was the way she didn’t want anyone to think of her, but she accepted his offer and sat on the bale. She took in the crowd, many of them staring back. Even some of the dancers as they spun by cast her a glance. She felt tears welling up but refused to give in. She made a brave face, wanting them to see how happy she was to be in their company. She glanced aside to find that the young man had left her, but when she turned back it was as if she’d passed some test, or a cloud had rolled out from behind the moon and banished the doubtful shadows. Dancers had stopped paying her any mind. Others met her gaze with a smile, a true welcome.
The young man came back shortly. He offered her an earthenware cup. “It’s only hard cider,” he said, “left from the winter.” She took it and thanked him. He nodded and remained standing beside her. There was plenty of room on the hay, she thought, and moved over, then gestured for him to sit. He performed a slight bow before seating himself. She almost giggled at his formality.
“I’m Lanny,” he said. “It’s really Orlando, Orlando Gibbons. I got named after a musical composer, though most nobody’s heard of him. Everybody calls me Lanny.” He was a little taller than she. His hair, she saw up close, was actually a brown that had been burned lighter by the sun. His thin beard was a little darker.
“Then I shall, too. You must call me Vern, then.”
“Vern,” he repeated, nodding.
She sipped the cider, which was cool and sharp. “I didn’
t know anyone danced here,” she said. “I wasn’t sure…how we felt about dancing.”
“We didn’t dance in the winter much, on account of it’s too cold,” he explained. “But now it’s warmer, we’ll dance on Friday nights sure enough.”
“You sound like you’ve been here awhile.”
“Since the groundbreaking of the house,” Lanny said proudly. “I was fifteen. Come here with my family.” He pointed at the dancers as if all of them might be his family—she couldn’t identify who he meant. “The reverend, your husband, he says dancing is God’s pleasure.”
“Does he? I didn’t know.”
“He told us about Sister Anne of the Shakers and how she allowed them dancing even though about everything else they might have done was forbidden. And how after she died, they still went right on dancing, in order to communicate with her spirit. So dancing, he said, moved them up closer to Heaven.”
She surveyed the crowd again, looking for the kind of ecstasy he described. “And do you move closer to Heaven?”
He blushed and lowered his eyes. “Sometimes, ma’am. When I have the chance.”
She set down her cup. “Well, I’ve never done. Would you show me how?”
“You don’t know how to dance?” he asked, incredulous.
“Oh, I know how to dance, but I’ve never flown to Heaven on account of it.” She tried to keep a serious face, but her mouth trembled. He laughed, realizing that he’d been teased, and the moment made her nearly burst into tears. The burden of her doubts, so heavy an hour ago, was lifted for the first time since she’d arrived.
Standing, he offered her his hand. “I hope you know how to contredanse and galop.”
She replied, “I think I can do those,” with some bravado. “Contredanse” could mean just about anything here. She would have to watch closely.
They moved through the crowd to the last position just as a new sequence was beginning. The beat of the dance was easy to find, and Vern watched and followed only a fraction of a second behind the woman in the line beside her. She hadn’t done a quadrille in a while but it came back almost immediately. Lanny crossed the floor and she passed him, and then turned, switching places. Then he took her hand and they half promenaded, turned, and separated.
The second figure of the set began with them approaching and retreating. People were laughing, enjoying themselves however they went. The energy filled her. Lanny caught her hand and passed her to the next gentleman. He was grinning at her as he did.
They proceeded on through the third and fourth, returning to their partners, falling in line beside one another with faces turned away, promenading once more. Then she moved into the ladies’ chain and from there into the step called the great round, which this time ended in a galop, as Lanny had implied. It caught Vern by surprise—she recovered almost immediately, but the surprise was a delight, and she burst out laughing. After that she lost herself in the dance, counting her steps, minding her position as the top of the line became the bottom and the first figure of steps began again.
She danced and whirled, and everyone who took her hand was friendly and as carefree as she felt.
When the tune stopped, everyone applauded the musicians; Lanny led her over to a middle-aged couple. The man was heavy and half bald. He was flushed from dancing. His lady had sparkling eyes and the same beaked nose as her son. Her teeth were bad, though, and she smiled with her lips pressed together. Lanny introduced them as his parents. When they heard who she was, their receptive expressions stiffened for an instant, barely noticeable, but enough to bring Vern back to herself.
She said, “Your son is very kind to dance with me. And I see how he has come to know the dance so well.”
“You did not travel with your husband,” said the father.
He was stating the obvious, and she knew some explanation was expected. “I was ill for some days, Mr. Gibbons—weeks actually, I think—and he didn’t want to risk my falling ill again while traveling.”
“It is hard on the road,” he agreed.
“But you aren’t ill now,” said the mother, her tone identical to her husband’s. Without asking, without truly intimating anything, they were questioning her behavior, doubting her intentions. Did they think she’d come here to tempt their son?
“No, I am much mended—I didn’t know how well until I took a few turns upon the floor.”
The music began again.
“It is good to open oneself up to the beauty of God this way,” said the mother.
“Yes,” answered Vern, “it brings us all closer to Heaven.” She glanced at Lanny as she said it.
“That’s right,” the mother replied. “That’s just so right.”
Her husband said, “The reverend has attended the dances from time to time, but he so rarely dances himself.”
She couldn’t fathom what criticism this implied; perhaps the man meant simply that Elias had no partner before her. Was he inviting her to change that? “I cannot say, sir, how he goes,” Vern replied. “It was my own opinion of dancing I expressed, not my husband’s.”
“Oh.”
“We have not—he and I—had much time together since I arrived, and dancing has not even been discussed. He’s had so much planning to do. The date and all—”
Lanny’s mother pressed her hands together and bowed her head a little. Father and son followed. “The end time is nearer every hour, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes,” Vern said, “that’s very hard to forget.”
The couple exchanged perplexed glances, as if unable to decide what she could mean by that.
Then the father took his wife’s hands and asking, “One more dance, Mother?” led her toward the middle of the barn.
“And for you, Mrs. Fitcher?” Lanny asked. “It’s going to be a Virginia Reel this time.”
“Please, Lanny, I’d like that very much.” They moved to take their places as the dancing began anew.
As the night wore on, the Gibbons family introduced Vern to others in the barn, most of whom were happy to have her in their company. Some spoke of Judgment Day with an implicit understanding that she was on intimate terms with Fitcher about it and so might tell them things. They talked about what they hoped to find afterward or, whether they felt themselves prepared to face God. Most seemed to feel they had banished their sins and cleansed themselves. They owed their cleansing to her husband. It was Reverend Fitcher who had shown them the path they must follow. Everyone knew far more about the end of time than she did, as they all seemed to know more about her husband. The former they shared, but whatever they knew about Elias Fitcher as a person, they kept to themselves. Certainly the dance was not the place for confrontation, and she didn’t want to confront anyone for fear that she would lose the friendliness she’d just gained. There would be plenty of time to winnow his secrets. After all, he must be gone for weeks yet.
Having danced herself to near-exhaustion, Vern finally wandered back to the house and her room. Though her legs ached, she felt wonderful.
The room was dark. The candle she’d left burning beside her Bible must have guttered—it was too new to have burned away. She fumbled her way to the mantel and found the container of matches, then knelt and sparked one, putting the flame to a bit of kindling in the hearth. From that she lit a spunk, which she used to light the oil lamp on the mantel and the candles around the room. Afterward, she removed her dress.
From the bed she scooped up the keys. She stopped, paralyzed. The egg wasn’t there.
She knew she’d placed it beside the keys. It could not possibly have rolled off. She carefully patted the covers all around, as if the egg might have sunk through them. She got on her knees and peered under the bed. There were clumps of dust there but no egg. She stood, turning, glancing at every surface, none of which supported the egg. She thought: What will I say? How can I tell him I lost it? He would not understand—after all she’d sworn to keep it with her every moment everywhere. She’d been so careful with it, how coul
d it not be here? Someone had come into her room while she was gone. She realized now that she should have taken the keys, if only to lock her door. Of course Elias had entrusted someone to keep an eye on her—maybe that Notaro fellow. She hadn’t seen him since before she’d taken ill, but maybe that was because he was spying on her.
He would tell Elias what she’d done—how she’d gone out for an evening of pleasure and left the egg and keys in her room for anyone to take. She felt shamed, though she’d done nothing to be ashamed of. Why did she feel as if she’d betrayed him by enjoying herself?
Finally, overcome with a sense of doom, she tucked one foot beneath her and sat on the bed in her chemise. She knew she would never be able to sleep now. She lifted her pillow to hug.
The marble egg rolled out from beneath it.
“Oh, God, oh, thank God,” she sighed. She clutched it in both hands and pressed it to herself. It was safe. She was safe. Yet its appearance did not answer the question of how it had come to be under the pillow. She vividly recollected the bed as she’d left it; the egg could not have rolled there on its own. She looked across at the door. From now on she must be more careful. There were agents at work here, whoever they were, whatever their purpose.
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