A Deadly Shaker Spring (11 page)

Agatha's brow furrowed, but she remained quiet.

“Sarah has seemed so at peace here,” Rose continued, “and a very good Shaker as well. How can I ask her to leave? And yet how can I let her stay if she refuses purification through confession?”

Agatha's eyes closed briefly.

“But I shouldn't bother you with these problems,” Rose said. “They are my job now, so I must solve them.” She rocked the cradle gently. “I'll keep reading your journals, will that help?”

Agatha opened her eyes and gazed at Rose. She seemed to be tiring after her show of strength.

“There may be another way out of this mess,” Rose said, patting Agatha's hand. “Perhaps I can find the man Sarah was with, talk with him, find out more about what is going on between them. It may be more innocent than it looked, after all. He looked familiar to me, so perhaps he lives in Languor. Yea, that is
what I'll do, I'll speak with this Caleb Cox, and I needn't bother you about it anymore.”

Rose bent to kiss Agatha's forehead but halted halfway when she saw that her old friend's faded blue eyes had widened in what looked like alarm.

“What is it, Agatha? Do you know this Mr. Cox? Shouldn't I try to speak to him? Is that what concerns you?”

Agatha nodded her head repeatedly. Her thin chest rose and fell quickly with the effort. She made a strangled sound that conveyed fear.

Rose was puzzled. How would Agatha know this stranger? And why would she be alarmed by him? She longed to ask, but Agatha's breathing had become labored, and pink spots appeared in her cheeks. She'd had too many strokes, and Rose had no intention of causing yet another. She lifted Agatha's frail hand and held it lightly in her own.

“Quiet now, be at peace, it's all right. If you think it isn't a good idea, I'm sure there are others I could talk to instead of Mr. Cox.” Rose stroked Agatha's hand and waited until she fell into an exhausted sleep. She tiptoed to the door and pulled it shut behind her. On her way out, she stopped to warn Josie that the visit had agitated Agatha.

Back out in the spring sunshine, Rose shook off Agatha's fear. She knew what to do. More than ever, she knew that she must find Caleb Cox and have a long talk with him. She hadn't exactly promised Agatha that she wouldn't seek him out. She just wouldn't tell her about it. It would only worry her.

* * *

Agatha's eyes snapped open as Rose closed the door to her room. She'd fallen asleep. Shouldn't have. But why? Why? She squirmed and her cradle began rocking. She cried out in confusion and fear. She froze, the rocking stopped. Cradle bed. She was ill, in bed in the Infirmary. Another stroke. She remembered now; Josie had told her.

Rose. Agatha relaxed as she thought of her young friend. Rose came to talk to her every day. Had she been here yet today? Agatha glanced at the wall, saw the empty shelf that had held her journals, and felt her mind disentangle and clear.

Rose, Caleb, Sarah, the Society. All in danger. Warn them, warn them. She tried to sit up, but her useless right side wouldn't budge. She forced herself to be still and concentrate. The journals. Rose has the journals, she'll see. She'll understand.

A wave of panic shot through her.
Nay, nay
, she thought, and heard the meaningless sounds that escaped her lips.
I kept the secret. Even from my journal. They all left. It was over, no proof. Nay, Evil will always come again. Should have known. Too late
.

She picked at her blanket and rolled her aching head from side to side on the feather pillow. The fog was moving into her mind again. She was losing something. What had she been thinking about? She screwed her eyes tightly shut and tried to concentrate.

She had to warn them. Warn Rose.

The words floated by and were gone, and Agatha fell into an exhausted sleep.

T
HE CRISP AIR OF
S
UNDAY MORNING AND PREPARATIONS
for the Sabbath celebration distracted Rose from her plans to talk with Caleb Cox and with Samuel. For now, her questions could wait. Worship came first.

In quieter times, the worship service had been open to the public. Many Believers had begun their journey to faith with a visit to the Sabbathday service, where they intended to jeer and mock but instead found themselves entranced by the joy of the singing and dancing. Today, however, recent events had convinced Rose and Wilhelm to close the service. Small groups from neighboring Languor arrived by car or wagon, hoping to slip through the Meetinghouse doors, but brethren and sisters, stationed at the separate entrances for men and women, turned them away.

Rose settled onto her bench on the west side of the large meeting room. She sat with the other sisters, dressed in their blue-and-white striped Sabbathday gowns, facing the dwindling group of brethren across a large expanse of shiny pine floor. Rose felt the relentless decline of their membership most acutely on these mornings when the community of twenty-nine
adults and nine children gathered in a room that used to hold two hundred Believers, in addition to dozens of children and countless guests from the world.

At the sound of knocking on glass, she glanced toward one of the tall windows lining the two-story room. Bright eyes in a small round face stared at her with the rude curiosity of a child. The child wore a little boy's sailor hat perched on a wealth of dark curls. A well-dressed, well-fed, well-tended little boy of perhaps six or seven. Rose realized that she, too, had been staring when the boy covered his mouth with a small fist and his shoulders shook with laughter. Rose felt her own lips curve. Her smile froze as Richard Worthington's stern, patrician face appeared beside the boy. He must have been holding his son in the air to look in the window. The child disappeared, and Worthington continued to stare directly at Rose.

Rose averted her gaze, then scanned all the windows lining three sides of the meeting room. All were filled with staring faces. Now the bright, spacious room felt small and cramped, as if the world had wrapped it round in a tightening noose.

Rose exchanged a concerned glance with Josie, who sat next to her. Across the room, Wilhelm seemed impervious to the tense atmosphere. He stood to begin the service. His powerful voice began the lyrics to an old Shaker song well-known to all in the room. Three sisters and three brethren rose from their seats and joined their voices in a song welcoming everyone to worship.

After singing the verse through twice, the six singers joined together, keeping to one side of the room to provide plenty of space for dancing. Following Wilhelm's lead, the brethren removed their blue surcoats and filed into the center of the room. Rose stood and led the sisters to stand across from the men, still separated from them by several yards of smooth floor.

The singers began again, stepping up the pace with a dance song.

The Believers began to dance, slowly at first, every step choreographed and executed so that the men and women formed flowing mirror images of each other. Rose concentrated on her movements, watching her own feet, even the brethren's feet, but still she felt the faces at the windows staring in on them.

After two more gentle dances the worshipers took
their seats, while Wilhelm slipped back into his surcoat and walked to a podium that stood between the men and the women. He drew his spectacles from an inner pocket in his coat and settled them on his nose, then peered over the rims at the silent gathering. He looked down at the empty podium as if reading notes, letting the anticipation build.

“Cast thy minds back, brethren, and remember,” he began quietly. Several of the older Believers leaned forward to hear him better.

“What was thy first thought upon awakening this morning?” He let his eyes slowly scan the room. As always, he spoke most directly to the men, as though only they were capable of understanding a spiritual message.

“Was thy first unbidden thought of God? Of Mother Ann and her joy in the face of suffering?” Wilhelm's voice was still restrained but gathering power like a rain-swollen river. “Was it a prayer of thanks for the faith that binds us one to the other? Nay,” he said, with an audible sigh and a shake of his head, “nay, I think not.” He leaned over the podium, one thick hand grasping each side as if disappointment weakened him. With a deep breath, he drew himself straight and squared his shoulders.

Rose realized that she was holding her own breath. She forced herself to exhale. No matter how many times she heard Wilhelm's homilies, she found herself captured by their power. She knew his techniques, resented them, yet fell under their spell. The reason, she knew, was Wilhelm himself. What he believed, he believed with such fervor that his strength, his passion, the whole force of his personality converged to
create a compelling performance. Rose always wished she could agree with him.

“Nay, brethren! I say to thee, thy thoughts are the playthings of sin!” Wilhelm's voice blasted through the tense room. Though she had expected the explosion, Rose jumped in her seat.

“We have been seduced by the world, by its comforts and pleasures, those sins as soft and tempting as a kitten's fur, yet slippery as a serpent's skin.” With narrowed eyes, Wilhelm scanned the chilled faces of his people.

“In our thoughts, we are as carnal as the vilest worldly sinner ever to draw breath. We strive to perfect ourselves in our deeds, our work, and our worship, and all the while our thoughts trip freely down the path to Hell.” His voice reached a rumbled shout. As he drew in his breath and raised his arm for his next blast, the crash of broken glass shattered the silence. A second crash followed, then a third.

Rose twisted in her seat to scan the room. The curious faces had disappeared from the windows. Inside the meeting room, no one moved. Even Wilhelm froze and stared, mesmerized, at one west window. A dark red liquid oozed in rivulets down the outside of the glass.

Rose shook her head slightly to break the spell. Keeping her movements slow and calm, she edged past Josie. The other Believers watched with such frightened faces that she felt like a sister in the Children's Dwelling House, chasing monsters out of dark corners. Cautiously, she peered out the window. She saw no one about on the lawn or path. On the grass under the window lay three piles of smashed glass
with dark clumps clinging to their jagged edges.

Rose groaned in relief. Vandalism was always unpleasant, but this didn't seem too threatening. As she turned to reassure the other worshipers, more smashing sounds startled the group into turning toward the east side of the meeting room. The sixth and final missile shattered a window and landed with a splat at Brother Hugo's feet.

Hugo stared for a moment, then lowered his bulky form on to one knee and stuck an index finger into the red mess on the floor. He raised the finger to his nose and sniffed. Then he lightly touched his tongue to his finger.

“Ha!” He grunted as he pulled his body upright. “Raspberry preserves,” he announced. The silence in the room exploded into gasps and mumbling. While Wilhelm slapped his hand on the podium to bring order, Rose rushed across the room to Hugo. She knelt and tasted the red pulp herself, avoiding the chunks of broken glass mixed in.

“Our very own raspberry preserves, if my tongue does not deceive me,” Hugo murmured, so only Rose could hear.

“I'd say someone has returned our stolen preserves in an unneighborly way,” she said.

The click of the east door, near Hugo's chair, distracted both of them. They looked up in time to see Brother Samuel's strong, straight back disappear. Rose ran to the nearest window. She saw Samuel sprint toward a brown car parked in the central path in front of the Meetinghouse. Two people sat in the front seat, but Rose couldn't see who they were. Without stopping to think, she rushed toward the east door.

“Eldress Rose!” Wilhelm's booming voice stopped her with her hand on the doorknob. “Leave the world to wallow in its own filth. Our worship is not yet finished.” She clenched her teeth in frustration. Wilhelm had taken her to task in front of the Society. And yet he was right. If she ran through the door, she'd be allowing the world to control them, to stop their worship whenever it wished. She wouldn't do that. With a show of calm dignity, she returned to her place and nodded to the sisters to take their seats.
Samuel will find out who they are
, she thought, as Wilhelm resumed the service. She would talk to him as soon as worship ended.