A Deadly Shaker Spring (6 page)

With surprising strength, Agatha gripped Rose's fingers. “Oh, I should have told you right away,” Rose said. “Freddie has come out of it just fine. And so has Sarah. You remember Sister Sarah Baker, don't you?” Agatha's face showed confusion and she shook her head slightly. “She was here with us as a child, and then left to live with her mother. I barely remember Sarah; she was five or six years younger, and we had many more children then. She came back to us about two years ago.”

Agatha's facial features softened, but her puzzled expression did not clear completely. Rose wondered if she should stop right then and leave out the details of the apparent assault on Sarah. But Agatha squeezed her fingers again and stared intently at her, as if to urge her to continue.

“Sarah had . . . an accident. At least, it could have
been an accident.” Agatha's eyes widened. “Nay, truly, Sarah is fine. She either fell down the Sisters' Shop stairs or was hit on the back of the head, but, aside from a nasty wound that Josie fixed right up, she didn't suffer serious damage. It's just that . . . you see, I checked in the shop, and I found blood near the spinning-room door, almost as if someone hit her as she turned away.”

Rose's thoughts had drifted to the Sisters' Shop, imagining the scene as it could have happened. A jerking on her fingers brought her back. Agatha writhed and tried to lift herself from the bed, but only her left side moved. In an anguished voice, she tried to form words. She could produce only short bits of nonsense.

“Agatha, please, don't upset yourself. I'm afraid for you. I'll go get Josie,” Rose said, extricating her fingers from Agatha's grip. “We'll give you something calming.”

Agatha's breathing was quick and shallow. Her head spun. She laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. The spinning slowed to a stop, and she opened her eyes. Rose was gone. Something calming. Sleep. Nay, danger,
danger
. Rashes like old stories in her head, stories she had lived. Remember. Remember.

Agatha grimaced as she tried to bring order to her thoughts. She heard Rose's voice say, “Josie, I think she's in pain.” Rose's face over her again. Sweet face, warm eyes. Remember for Rose. She remembered the beginning of a prayer, or maybe it was a song. It floated through her mind like a summer
brook, clear and full.
Mother and Father, be with me and help me. Bring me daylight in my heart. Push me, prod me, twist and bend me, till . . . till . . 
. Stolen food. Broken fence. Tiny little girl. Everyone gone, all gone at once. Faith, faith is dead. Faithless faithful.

A warm hand caressed her cheek. “Agatha, I wish you could tell us what is wrong.” Rose's voice.

The year that faith died. She tried to say it.

“Just take a sip now, dear.” Josie lifted her head and pressed a glass to her lips, but Agatha wrenched her head to the side. She pushed out her mouth, the part that would listen to her. Liquid spilled down her chin, a sweet-bitter smell.

“She doesn't want the sedative,” Josie said.

Agatha tried again, sputtering syllables to puzzled faces, rage at her impotence rising in her chest.

“I know Agatha.” Rose's voice again. “Even with her body so weak, she has a powerful will, and she is using it now to reach us. It sounds as if she is trying to say the same thing over and over, until we understand it. She wants to tell us something.”

Listen, Rose, listen.

“Don't try to talk just now. I know you can use this hand,” she said, taking Agatha's left hand in her own. “I'll ask you questions. If your answer is ‘yea,' squeeze my hand. Do you understand that?” Agatha squeezed her hand.

“Are you feeling ill in any way?” Agatha focused all her strength on the questions, and left her hand still.

“Are you trying to tell us something important?” Squeeze.

“Are you saying something about what I told you
earlier? The incidents in the village?” Squeeze hard.

“About Sarah?”

Agatha squeezed, then wrenched her hand from Rose's grip and lifted her thin arm. She pointed straight ahead of her, beyond the foot of the cradle bed. Rose and Josie followed her shaking hand and stared at the wall across from her bed. Agatha's heart pounded dangerously as she willed them to understand.

In an effort to ease Agatha's confusion, Josie had brought to the sickroom a number of items from Agatha's retiring room and arranged them so that Agatha would see them each time she awakened. The room was small, the wall close enough that even Agatha's weak eyes could see the spines of her own journals filling a narrow bookshelf hanging from two wall pegs. These were the old ones; she could tell by the cracked bindings. They held the answer. Exhaustion swept through her body and her will dissolved; her arm dropped. Her eyes drifted shut.

“She pointed to the journals, I'm sure of it,” Rose said.

“She's far too weak to write,” Josie said. “Look at her, poor sweet dear, she'd never be able to hold a pen. That's all there is to it.”

“Nay, Josie, I don't think that's what she meant. She pointed to the old journals, not the newer ones.” Another, larger shelf hung to the right and held the journals made since 1920, when North Homage started its small book-binding business.

“Ah, but would she know left from right? Rose, dear, you remember her as she was. That Agatha is
gone.” Josie laid a comforting hand on Rose's arm.

Rose studied her friend's sleeping face. Her translucent skin stretched so tightly across the fine bones that any wrinkles were smoothed away. How clear was the mind behind that fragile skull? Agatha couldn't speak, but did that mean she couldn't think or remember?

“I'm going to try something, Josie. I'll take those early journals with me to read in my retiring room. If Agatha notices they are gone, tell her what I've done. Watch her reaction. If she seems agitated or upset, I'll bring them back, but if she seems relieved, well, then we'll know something. In the meantime, it can't hurt to take a look at them,” she said, pulling the thirteen volumes, dated 1908 to 1920, off the shelves. “Just in case.”

The small Ministry dining room, despite its simple beauty, felt empty to Rose without Eldress Agatha. She took her seat at the long trestle table, set for two with plain white china and worn utensils. Wilhelm hadn't arrived yet. Rose could smell fresh bread and hear clanking from the small kitchen separated from the dining room by a swinging door.

The dining room, like the building itself, served the Society's spiritual leaders, the Ministry. Once North Homage had contained two “families,” each led by two elders and two eldresses. Discussions over meals must have been lively in those days, Rose thought. Especially a century earlier, when so much was happening, when converts—sometimes entire families—were eager to sign the covenant and live the ordered and celibate lives of Believers. Even then, women like
Agatha and Rose could serve the Society as spiritual leaders, as had their foundress, Mother Ann. Though, of course, Rose would never equate herself with Mother Ann, who was specially chosen, God's emissary, the embodiment of Christ's second appearing. Rose stifled a sigh. Now it was just Wilhelm and Rose, and their discussions usually ended in an angry impasse.

Wilhelm arrived, his broad shoulders filling the doorway as he entered. They nodded to each other, and he took his place at the trestle table. The Ministry's kitchen sister pushed through the swinging door, placed a platter of bread between them, and left. Wilhelm smoothed his white cotton napkin on his lap, and narrowed his eyes at Rose.

“Wilhelm, before you say anything, I'm sure the school will be all right. I'll handle the School Board, and—”

“We must discuss Sister Sarah,” Wilhelm interrupted.

Caught off-guard, Rose stared at him. “Sarah?”

“Yea, Sarah. She has eluded thy control.” His contemptuous tone implied that eluding Rose's control was neither difficult nor unexpected.

“What can you mean?”

“She has been slipping away from her work. For what purpose, I hardly dare contemplate. Not to pursue more work, though, I do assure thee. Ask thyself, why was she in the Sisters' Shop so early the morning she was injured? And was she alone?” He ripped off a hunk of bread and pointed it at her. “T believe the world was there with her. I suspect she welcomed it, and it turned on her.”

The kitchen sister arrived with a tray holding a tureen of steaming tomato celery soup and a vegetable pie. Rose silently ladled the soup as she thought furiously. The sisters were her responsibility. It wounded her pride that Wilhelm knew more than she did about one of the sisters, but as a Believer she welcomed reminders of the dangers of pride. Or she tried to.

More to the point, where did he get his information? It had to be from Sister Elsa Pike, who had recently been assigned to work in the sewing room, after the laundry sisters found her impossible to tolerate. Elsa had always been Wilhelm's supporter. She was the only Believer willing to follow his example and adopt the old-fashioned speech of earlier Shakers, though she often confused “thee” with “y'all.”

“And what in particular did Elsa tell you about Sarah's activities?” Rose asked as she handed Wilhelm his serving of vegetable pie. Only a flicker in his steely eyes showed that she had guessed right.

“It is thy duty to know what Sarah does,” Wilhelm said. He took a large bite of pie and chewed slowly.

“And I shall see to it that I do know,” Rose said.

Wilhelm nodded. “An eldress—a competent eldress—will strive to know always the spiritual health of those who are entrusted to her care.” He paused for a sip of water. “She cannot perform two roles at once, particularly when she is inexperienced at one of them.” He looked hard at Rose. “We need a new trustee,” he said, “or a new eldress.”

“Wilhelm, we've been over this already. It will take some time to find a new trustee. We have no appropriate brethren available except Samuel, and he
has always refused a position of leadership. I'm getting to know the talents of the younger sisters. Sometime in the next year or so, I'm sure a likely candidate will emerge.”

“I've been in touch with the lead Society,” Wilhelm said. “One of their own younger brethren is right for trustee. They will send him from New York whenever we request him.”

Rose leaned forward over her forgotten vegetable pie. “Wilhelm, I'm sure he is valuable to Mount Lebanon. Why send for someone new when we have several sisters who could—”

“Thy place is here, now. The Society needs an eldress who will focus wholly on her duty and not be lingering at her former position. North Homage needs thee in the Ministry House, not the Trustees' Office. If trustee is a more comfortable position for thee, then go back to it, and I'll bring in a new eldress. We must act now. We must stop the flood of Believers leaving the Society.” Wilhelm pointed his fork at Rose. “Why, there are fewer Believers remaining here than cursed apostates gathered in Languor. These are dangerous times for us. We need strong leadership to preserve our faith and our ways. If the task is too great for thee, then step down and let others who are stronger take charge.”

After a session of quiet prayer, Rose ended her long, unsettling day by sinking into the rocking chair in the outer chamber of her retiring room. She spread a soft wool blanket around her knees. Hugo, the Society's carpenter before he'd begun to go blind, had designed and built the chair to fit Rose's tall, lean
body, and over the years it seemed to have molded itself to her bones. She relaxed against the slats and rocked gently.

This room always calmed her. Its south and east windows afforded her almost a complete view of the village, though she was rarely here during daylight hours. The furnishings were simple and spare, as befit a Believer's quarters. The room held a simple oak desk lined with her journals, a wooden desk chair, and the small table at her elbow. Small wooden doors hid storage spaces built into the wall. From the pegs circling the room hung an extra ladder-back chair, a flat broom, and her heavy wool Dorothy cloak.

Nothing in the room truly belonged to Rose. Since they contained some community records woven among her own observations, she considered even her journals to be community property. It felt right to her. She knew, too, that it was time for her to leave these rooms behind and move to the Ministry to be eldress in earnest. Wilhelm had tossed her a challenge she could not ignore. No matter how greatly—and how frequently—they disagreed, Wilhelm was strong and far more experienced than she. In calmer moments, she knew that when he fought with her it was out of his fierce love for the Society. She would find a way to work with him.

Rose glanced down at the journal spread open on her lap, one of the stack of thirteen she had removed from Agatha's sickroom. She had read through two volumes already and found nothing helpful. This one was dated 1910. Firm handwriting filled the page with clear, rounded letters. The gentle, earnest style triggered memories of Agatha as she had been before age
and repeated strokes had sapped her strength.

Agatha had been eldress of North Homage for thirty-five years, and she had so many journals that most had been packed away in storage. Where on earth did she get the time and energy to write so much? Rose made a few notations a day in her own journal, but she was happier working than writing.

It was late and Rose could feel her heavy eyes protest that they wanted to close, but she picked up the book. Agatha had seemed insistent that the old volumes contained something related to recent incidents in the community. Unsure what to look for, Rose began to read. She came to a passage that intrigued her.