Death of a Winter Shaker

by Deborah Woodworth

  Albert studied his sinewy hands. “My clothes were stolen,” he said. “About a week ago. Spilled a bucket of water on them.” He waved a hand in the direction of a large bucket in which strips of maple soaked prior to being curved into oval boxes. “So I changed into my spare work clothes and hung the wet ones out in back to dry. Forgot about them till next morning. Came out to fetch them first thing, but they were gone.”

  “Gone! We’ve never lost old-style Shaker clothes off a line, even when we hung them outdoors and had visitors all day long. It’s hard to believe!”

  Albert’s face reddened. “Look, I’m telling the truth. I didn’t want to say anything because . . . well, because of my past.”

  “Albert, no one is accusing you of anything. “Your past has been forgiven. But it would help me to know who might have stolen those clothes.”

  “It’s clear who stole them, least to me.” Albert turned back to his workbench and straightened the last few tools with slow movements.

  “Who, then?”

  “Whoever killed Johann, of course,” he said. “Stands to reason.”

  FOURTEEN

  WITH A BURST OF ENERGY BROUGHT ON BY DELIGHT that her kitchen duty was almost done, Gennie hooked the last of the clean copper pots on their wall pegs.

  “You’re trottin’ like a horse headin’ for the barn,” Elsa said. “’Course, you didn’t work as long as we did.”

  Not even Elsa’s barbs could ruin Gennie’s mood. Monday she would be in the Herb House, crumbling those heady fragrances; packing them into round, tin boxes for sale; toting up the day’s work and recording the number in the daily journal. Everything she loved most to do in the whole world.

  It helped, too, that she’d had a load lifted from her shoulders when Rose got Molly to confess her meeting with Johann. Rose was so clever, Gennie thought, to get Molly to tell. Of course, during their enforced stay in their room that afternoon, Molly had been vague about whether she had told Rose everything, like where she got the nail polish and lipstick and perfume that she kept under her mattress. Even Gennie didn’t know that for sure. Well, Rose would figure it out. But just to be sure, Gennie decided she would try to get Molly to confide in her as soon as she got back to their retiring room.

  “Charity, may I be excused now?”

  Behind her, Elsa scraped a bucket across the floor. “Nay,” Elsa said loudly, “there’s no call for y’all to be runnin’ off when we still got work to do. Git thyself over here and mop this floor.” She held out her dripping mop.

  Gennie hesitated and watched Charity, whose pinched face flushed with anger. “Elsa, just because your own work is not completed does not mean that Eugenie should do it for you. Yea, of course, Eugenie, run along,” Charity said, as Gennie had hoped she would as soon as Elsa challenged her authority as kitchen deaconess.

  Gennie smiled her thanks and hurried through the outside door so that she would not have to pass close to Elsa. She was glad to get away from both women and their perpetual bickering.

  At 9:00 P.M. it had long been dark, and a damp wind penetrated the thin fabric of Gennie’s dress. The afternoon had warmed up enough that when Rose came to fetch them, after the sheriff left, she and Molly had hurried back to work without their cloaks. Gennie raced toward the Children’s Dwelling House, hoping that Molly had stoked up the stove in their room. Knowing Molly, she wouldn’t be asleep yet. She would probably be combing her luxurious hair or fussing with her secret hoard of makeup. Gennie hoped so; it would give her an opening to try once more to find out where the items came from.

  To warm her blood, Gennie sprinted up the Dwelling House steps and the inner staircase. She arrived panting at the door of her retiring room and pushed it open after a perfunctory knock. The room was dark. Through the uncovered windows the moonlight outlined the shapes of furniture, including Molly’s neatly made bed. The cold stove and open window shades indicated that Molly had not been back since before sunset. Her work in the Laundry would have ended in time for the evening meal. Her cloak was missing from its peg, so she must have come back just before or after her meal to fetch it. Maybe Elder Wilhelm had given her evening duty harvesting apples. Everyone had to pitch in right now. That must be it.

  Gennie lit a lamp, drew the shades, and started a fire in the woodstove. She kept it small, since she would be in bed soon. She pulled her nightdress from a drawer built into the wall, laid it on her bed, and pulled off her shoes. But something kept her from undressing. Gennie was rarely alone in this room. It was deadly quiet. She tucked her feet underneath her on her own bed and stared at Molly’s empty one. A slight bulge on the far edge, probably invisible if she hadn’t known what was there, betrayed Molly’s cache of beauty items.

  Without stopping to think, Gennie slipped across the room and slid her hand under Molly’s mattress. Her fingers closed around a small, oblong object, probably the Ruby lipstick. She drew it out and pulled off the lid. It was a different shade, more pink than red. Pretty Pink, it said on the bottom. The stick was perfect, unused.

  Beyond her door, Gennie heard quick footsteps and a girl’s laughter. With shaking hands, she crammed the top back on the lipstick, nicking the pink smoothness. Molly would know that someone had been looking at her things. Well, too late to worry about that now. Gennie slid the lipstick back under the mattress, wishing she had been more careful to remember exactly where she’d found it. She dashed to the stove and stoked it, waiting for her breath to come more evenly.

  The footsteps passed her door and went on down the hall. Her heart still thumping, Gennie shoved the poker into the fire and raced to her own bed. Her quick, shallow breathing made her feel light-headed. This is wrong, she thought. I shouldn’t be digging through Molly’s things.

  Gennie forced herself to take deep breaths. Her heartbeats gradually slowed to a more normal pace. She glanced again at Molly’s bed. Maybe it wasn’t right, but she had to know if there was anything else that Molly hadn’t shown her. The pink lipstick was brand-new. Was Molly still receiving gifts? If so, then they were not coming from Johann. Was she seeing another man?

  This time she poked her head out the door and listened for footsteps on the stairs. The lamps cast shadows in the deserted corridors. She had never before noticed how silent the building could be at night.

  She eased the door shut and raced to Molly’s bed before her courage evaporated. Grasping the edges of the thin mattress with both hands, she lifted it from the pad underneath. Along the outer edge, arranged in a crooked row, were five items: red nail polish, the mother-of-pearl-handled nail file, two lipsticks, and a small bottle made of pale blue glass. Balancing the mattress on one elbow, Gennie lifted the glass bottle. Lavender Eau de Toilette, it said on the front. She sniffed the cap. The cloying sweetness smelled nothing like the fresh scent of the lavender buds drying in the Herb House. The Shakers distilled rose petals into rosewater for cooking, but somehow it still smelled like roses when it was done. Why ruin a scent, Gennie wondered, when the original was so perfect?

  She carefully replaced the bottle as she had found it, label down, and rearranged the lipstick she had shoved back so hurriedly. She lowered the mattress to the bed and smoothed the bedclothes.

  In the distance, the bell over the Meetinghouse rang the hour. Ten o’clock. Normally they would be drifting off to an exhausted sleep by now, after such a long day. Where could Molly be?

  Still dressed, Gennie stretched out on her own bed and pulled her coverlet up to her chin. Maybe Molly had sneaked out for a walk. It was the sort of thing she would do, though never this late before and not on such a chilly night.

  Molly loved to visit the quiet Shaker cemetery, now unused, on the edge of North Homage. The graves were old, all but a few with simple, deteriorating markers bearing only the initials of the deceased. None was more recent than the end of the last century, when a new cemetery had been created on the other side of the village. The old cemetery was usually deserted and, because of its location at the edge of a drop-
off, it provided a panoramic view of the surrounding land. Gennie had found her roommate there more than once, sitting with her back to a small tombstone, watching the movements on the farms nearby. It gave Gennie the shivers. Molly was actually sitting on the grave of an eldress, but that didn’t seem to bother her. It was the best place to watch the world outside their little village. But surely Molly wouldn’t go there at such a late hour, would she?

  Under the warmth of the coverlet, Gennie’s body relaxed, and her eyes closed. Her shoulders ached from the hours of rolling pie crusts. How many pies had they made? Charity would have kept count and recorded the number in her journal. Gennie knew she could ask the next day, if she cared to know, but she didn’t. Pies were not nearly so interesting to count as tins of dill and marjoram and thyme. And lavender and rosemary. Gennie drifted to sleep with the comforting names floating across the backs of her eyelids.

  She slept in a field of lavender, the intensely fragrant buds just beginning to open. She looked up at a peaceful sky through dense purple stems swaying above her head, but as she reached up to touch one it turned wet and sticky. And then the thick liquid engulfed her, pinning her to the bottom of a lavender lake. She struggled upward. As she reached toward the light, a vibration rocked her slowly back and forth as if she were trapped in a vat of thickening jelly. A body floated past her, rocking downward. The still body of a girl wrapped in a dark cloak, her long, black hair billowing around her head in thick tendrils. Gennie thrashed her arms and legs, unable to save the girl or herself.

  With a strangled cry, she sat up in bed, her eyes open but unseeing. Her breath came in panting whimpers. She had left the lamp lit, and as her eyes focused she saw Molly’s still-empty bed and her own coverlet crumpled on the floor, where she had tossed it.

  The half hour chimed. How long had she slept? Gennie pushed aside an edge of the window shade and surveyed the darkened community. She saw no lights in the south side of the Trustees’ Office. Could it be 11:30 or even later?

  Gennie had to look for Molly. Maybe it was just the aftereffects of the lavender-sea dream, but she feared her roommate was in danger. She thought about going to Rose. It would be so much easier and less frightening. But if Molly had met with a man, Gennie would get her into terrible trouble.

  To be honest, Gennie was afraid to tell Rose about her dream. Everybody argued these days about dreams, with Elder Wilhelm encouraging visions and Elsa doing spirit drawings from designs she said appeared to her in dreams. Rose agreed with Eldress Agatha that such things were all right a hundred years ago, when the rest of America was holding séances and having their palms read, but not now. Gennie feared Rose would think her under Wilhelm’s influence.

  Gennie slipped into her heaviest shoes and her long wool cape. She left her bonnet hanging on its peg. Too much trouble. Everyone would be in bed; no one would know she’d left her hair uncovered. Easing the door closed behind her, she crept down the staircase, keeping close to the wall, where fewer boards creaked.

  Outside, the crisp, still air shocked her to alertness. Bright moonlight caressed the silent village, illuminating the neatly trimmed walkways and the spare simplicity of the buildings. Gennie dashed across the central path and through the dew-damp grass toward the cemetery. She drew her hood close to her head to avoid seeing the dark, eerie corners which the moonlight couldn’t penetrate.

  The old cemetery had been used when North Homage was small and young and gave little thought to whether they had enough burial space. The spot had spiritual meaning. Their first eldress had a vision very near the drop-off marking the western edge, where she had stood to relay messages from long-dead Believers. In a more practical vein, the early Believers were afraid that their cattle would graze too close to the edge of the drop-off and slide down. So the spot became a cemetery.

  For the safety of the living, the brethren had stretched a three-slatted fence across the edge of the drop-off. On the other three sides, they had built thick fieldstone fences by piling large, flat pieces of Kentucky limestone horizontally in a jigsaw pattern, topped off with a row of additional flat pieces balanced side by side vertically. A wooden gate provided the only entrance.

  To Gennie that night, the fieldstone fence looked like a massive, open jaw, lined with jagged teeth. She felt a prick of fear as she peered over the fence’s saw-toothed top. It reached just above her waist, and it felt like a shield between her and the dim shapes on the other side.

  “Molly, are you here?” she called softly, then “Molly,” again, with more force. Silence.

  This is foolish, she thought. I know Rose would say so. Fear turned to anger with Molly, the reason she was out here feeling cold and silly and a little bit frightened. She shivered, pulled her cape tight, and followed the wall until she came to the entryway. The wooden gate felt cold and slippery. It screeched as she inched it inward.

  As if in response, a cry of pain, faint but clear, pierced the still, night air. Gennie froze. It seemed to come from behind her. Sound travels far at night, she knew. She strained to hear above the thudding of her own heart, but she heard nothing more. Propelled by growing alarm, Gennie hurried around the inside perimeter of the cemetery, squinting at the crooked markers.

  The Shakers’ humility was reflected in their choice of small, metal markers, most inscribed only with initials and birth and death dates. But one especially beloved eldress rested under a larger, well-worn marble plaque, which faced toward Languor and was broad enough to hide a girl sitting in front of it. Gennie peered around the gravestone. The moon floated behind a cloud and left the cemetery in near darkness. She could still make out shapes, though, and none looked like Molly.

  She was halfway around, intent only on finishing and racing to her room, when she heard the sound of creaking hinges. She froze and squinted into the darkness covering the silent grave markers, toward the gate. Framed in the opening was a huge figure, bearlike in size, with a large furry head and powerful shoulders. It stepped inside the gate. Thick arms swung at its side as it took another step, then a third, straight across the graves and toward her.

  She spun around, desperate for an escape. She couldn’t reach the gate without passing the creature, nor could she take her chances leaping over the slatted fence to the drop-off before he—or it—could stop her. She tossed her cape back to free her arms and clutched at the rough fieldstone fence beside her. The stone edges felt sharp enough to pierce her palms.

  “Halt there!” said an angry voice in a hoarse whisper.

  Gennie whipped around to see the creature lumber toward her, his face still hidden by shadow. Was this what Johann had seen just before he died? She tried to mumble a prayer, but none came to her.

  Scooping up her heavy skirt with one hand, she flung herself at the fieldstone fence. She poked frantically at the horizontal layers with her foot. After several agonized moments, she found a foothold and dragged one leg over the serrated rim of the fence, terror numbing her skin to the pain as the rock scraped through her stocking.

  “Who is that? This is desecration! Halt now!” The voice, resonant with outrage, boomed close behind her. Gennie paused, straddling the fence. She had heard that deep timbre before—preaching at Sunday worship service.

  Elder Wilhelm grabbed her around the waist and yanked her back into the cemetery grounds. She yelped as a razor-sharp stone scraped the inside of her thigh. He twirled her around to face him.

  “Eugenie!” He dropped his hands from her waist and leaped back. “Is no one in bed tonight? Thy bonnet. Where is thy bonnet?” Gennie understood. Had he seen the outline of her bonnet, he would not have touched her as he did.

  The returning moonlight lit his features. His lower eyelids drooped as though he hadn’t been sleeping well, and his eyes were feverishly bright. Gennie wondered if he were ill or just very angry, but when he spoke again, his voice sounded tired, even defeated.

  “Child,” he said, “it is not safe to be out alone at night. I’ll not ask thy reasons for being here, th
ey must be shared with the eldress in confession. Go back now to thy retiring room and to bed.” He stepped aside and waved her past. Her trembling legs wouldn’t budge.

  “Run now, run along,” he said, with more of his old impatience.

  With fumbling fingers, she gathered up her cape and skirts and flew through the dark until she saw the silhouette of the Children’s Dwelling House. Once inside the building, her fear-induced energy drained away. Gasping, she used the railing to pull herself up the stairs, no longer caring if anyone heard her. Without knocking, she slipped into her darkened retiring room.

  Too tired to undress, she stumbled toward her bed. Even in the dark, she knew her way. With a sigh that was half moan, she slid between the sheets and pulled the coverlet over her head for comfort. She had no strength left for thought or worry about Molly, and even the throbbing scrape on her thigh could not keep her awake.

  She began to sink into a dreamless sleep, when a strong arm grasped her shoulder.

  “Gennie Malone, it’s past midnight!” Molly’s voice sounded hoarse through the layers of fabric. Gennie snapped awake as her coverlet was flung aside.

  “Where you been?”

  FIFTEEN

  “WHERE HAVE I BEEN?! MOLLY FERGUSON, I OUGHT to . . . to . . .” Gennie was so angry she couldn’t think of a painful enough punishment for her roommate. She swung herself to her feet. Both girls stood with their arms akimbo, glaring at each other in the dark. “Do you have any idea what I went through tonight to find you? You were gone forever and I thought something awful had happened to you. Where were you?”

  “I can take care of myself,” Molly whispered harshly. “You’re the one oughta be horsewhipped. I been worried sick about you.”

  “You? You probably were sound asleep when I came in,” Gennie said.

  “Was not.”

  “You were, too. Now you’re just trying to keep me from asking where you were. You’d better tell me this minute, Molly Ferguson, or I’ll march right out in the hall and call over to the Trustees’ Office, and I’ll tell Rose everything, and I’ll tell it loudly, too, so everybody in the House can hear.” Gennie crossed her arms and flopped on her bed.