Sins of a Shaker Summer (11 page)

Gennie knew she had to investigate. She had brought her own blue silk robe, an eighteenth birthday gift from Emily O'Neal. She tied it around her and tiptoed barefoot out of her room, taking care to turn off her light and to latch her door soundlessly. Patience's door was closed. She leaned close to listen. North Homage's doors did not have keyholes, since locked doors were almost unheard-of, so she had to settle for the slight crack between the door and the jamb.

The sounds were soft but distinct, and Gennie wondered why no one else on the floor seemed disturbed by them. Perhaps their own closed doors and their long days of physical labor were enough to keep them asleep. Patience's low, melodic voice moved incessantly through babbling tongues, prayers, snippets of song, and occasional moans. She must be in a trance. There was no other explanation. And it had to be real—there was no one here to impress.

Gennie hesitated. Should she let Patience have her trance and go back to bed? Call Rose at the Ministry House and risk alerting Wilhelm? She was loath to intervene herself, since she had no idea what should be done for someone in the grip of a trance. Her confusion ended abruptly when she heard a clear thump from inside the room. It sounded very much like a body hitting the floor, hard.

She knocked quietly. There was no answer, not even a moan or a cry for help. She turned the knob and pushed open the door. Night lamps from the hall spread light inside the unlit room and marked Patience's body, curled in a heap next to her bed, her knees pulled nearly up to her chin. She still wore her brown work dress, but her long black hair spread out around her head, its silver streaks gleaming in the dim light.

Gennie ran to her. Kneeling beside her, she took Patience's hand and felt her wrist for a pulse, as she'd seen Josie do. It was there, though weak.

“Patience, can you hear me?” Gennie asked, not sure what else to do. Patience twitched in response to her name, then went limp again. Gennie glanced around the room and saw a white basin on a dresser. Patience would probably keep it filled with water to splash on her face in the morning. Gennie could flick a few drops in her face now; maybe that would help bring her to consciousness. Failing that, she'd call Josie.

As Gennie rocked back on her heels to stand, Patience's head lifted off the floor and her eyes snapped open. She stared at Gennie. Was it a trick of the dimness, or had Patience's gray eyes turned a disturbing black? Gennie fell backward and plopped to a sitting position.

“Are you all right, Patience?”

No answer, just that black stare.
She doesn't see me.

Patience's head fell back to the floor, and her eyelids closed. Gennie jumped to her feet and ran to the hall phone to call Josie at the Infirmary. Josie's health was superb for an eighty-year-old, but her hearing wasn't as sharp as it
once had been, and it took many rings for her to answer the phone. Gennie fidgeted, wishing she had thought to knock on a few doors before making the call. But finally Josie responded and agreed to come right over. Gennie's near shouting into the phone had roused Sister Gertrude, whose room was closest. She peeked out her door.

“Gertrude, come quick,” Gennie said, reaching in and grabbing her by the arm. Gertrude stumbled into the hall, tripping over her cotton nightgown. Her knees buckled, and she fell against Gennie, knocking them both into the wall. Gennie's head snapped backward, against the edge of the wall phone.

“Oh, I'm so sorry, Gennie. Are you hurt? You've banged your head. Let me see.” Gertrude's gray hair hung in strings around her face, which Gennie suddenly found amusing, and she giggled. “Oh dear, you're bleeding,” Gertrude said, propping her up against the wall with both hands. The room wouldn't hold still for Gennie, but she had to remain alert, though she couldn't remember why.

Two nearby doors opened and more white-nightgowned sisters gathered around Gennie. Josie's face joined them. With gentle fingers, Josie probed the back of her head.

“Quite a bump you've got yourself,” she said. “But you'll be fine. Is your head clearing?”

“Yea,” Gennie said. She was feeling much more steady, in fact.
Patience!
“Josie, forget about me, I'm fine. Go take care of Patience.”

“Seeing as how you were being well cared for by the sisters, I looked in on Patience quickly first. There's nothing for me to do.”

“Oh, dear God,” Gennie said. “Are you saying that she is . . .”

Josie nodded. “Yea, indeed. Sound asleep in her bed. Oh dear, Gertrude, catch her, would you? Goodness, Gennie, you aren't as strong as I thought you were. We'll just carry you to bed, and I want you to stay there tomorrow.”

Gennie wriggled away from the arms that reached for
her. “Patience was unconscious on the floor. How could she be asleep in her bed?” Unsteadily Gennie made for Patience's door, four sisters behind her, making soft clucking sounds. She opened the door wide and stared at Patience's bed, where a still form lay covered up to her neck by a white sheet.

“You see?” Josie whispered behind her. “Sound asleep.”

“Did you check to make sure she was breathing?”

“My goodness . . . I didn't have to; she turned in her sleep, and I could hear her breathing. She does sound wheezy, probably coming down with something. I'll bring her a tonic in the morning. But she is certainly breathing. Now, I want to see you fast asleep in your own bed, young lady, for the next twenty-four hours.” Josie pulled Gennie into the hallway and closed Patience's door. “You've surely been having nightmares, and I'm not surprised, with you out there on your own in the world, exposed to all sorts of horrors. I'll be bringing you a tonic in the morning, too, and I expect you to drink it up completely. Come along now.”

Her head ached, and her body barely moved on its own, so Gennie gave in. Josie tucked her in, just as she used to when Gennie was a child, staying overnight in the Infirmary to nurse the mumps or measles. She was drifting already as the group of sisters let themselves out of her room. Her last conscious thought was a question. She knew it was an important question, too, but sleep had too strong a grip on her. She had time and energy only to hear the words: What was Patience wearing under that sheet?

Except for a dull headache, Gennie felt like herself again the next morning. And deeply curious. She'd drunk Josie's tonic and climbed back into bed with a docility that should have made the Infirmary nurse suspicious. Fortunately, it didn't. As soon as Josie left for the Infirmary, Gennie slipped into her borrowed work dress, snatched a leftover
muffin from the kitchen, and hurried to her post, the Medicinal Herb Shop.

Patience glanced up sharply as Gennie entered the shop, then ignored her. Feeling awkward, Gennie stood at the end of the table and looked around. The three brethren conferred over an open journal, on their side of the shop, while the hired hand, Willy, swept a growing pile of herb detritus out the front door. Clusters of herbs and flowers hung upside down on pegs circling the room. Several of the plants looked unfamiliar to Gennie, who prided herself on her knowledge of herbs. Others reminded her of drawings she'd seen in old Shaker journals, from the days when Believers conducted a thriving medicinal herb industry. The Mount Lebanon Believers must have brought some with them from New York; there wouldn't have been time to grow them here.

“Josie said you'd be staying in bed today after being injured last night,” Patience said. Gennie whipped her head around so fast that her bruised brain felt as if it bounced against her skull. Patience seemed intent on her task. She held a small bag of brown-green dried leaves, with lavender and pink flowers mixed in. From the mildly minty aroma, Gennie guessed they were wild bergamot leaves. Patience began to drop crumbled bits of the leaves onto a weight measure.

“She said something similar about you,” Gennie replied.

Patience hesitated, her hand still holding the bag of leaves above the weight. Her eyes narrowed. “Josie brought me a tonic and insisted I drink it. I have no idea why, though it sounds as if you do. What have you been telling her?”

Gennie was startled into silence, which seemed to irritate Patience even more. “Why are you here?”

“Well, I only bumped my head. I'm not really ill, so I thought I'd come—”

“Nay, why are you here in North Homage, working in this shop?”

Gennie prodded her aching brain to think quickly. She hadn't expected Patience to be so suspicious, and obviously, neither had Rose. “As Rose explained yesterday, I've worked a lot with herbs, and I lost my job, so—”

“I know what Rose explained.”

“Patience? Is there a problem with that headache curative?” Andrew had crossed from the men's side of the shop. He glanced from Patience to Gennie and back again, his expression concerned.

“None at all, Andrew,” Patience said. “In fact, I was about to ask Gennie to test it out, since she has a headache this morning.”

“Ah. Very good.”

With misgivings, Gennie watched Andrew return to the men. “I'd love to help out,” she said, “but, really, my headache is nearly gone, so it wouldn't be much of a test.”

Patience's mouth curved upward into the faintest of smiles. “Too bad,” she said. She made a notation in her journal and poured her concoction into a tin wrapped in a handwritten label.

This is ridiculous,
Gennie thought.
Rose sent me here for a reason, and I'm not getting anywhere. I won't let this woman scare me.
She studied Patience closely. The sister must be well into her forties, but she carried her years lightly. She was tall and well built, as far as Gennie could judge, since her roomy Shaker dress hid the curves of her body. The skin stretched tightly across her high cheekbones, as if she had recently lost weight. Deep circles marred the area under her eyes. Lack of food and sleep were taking their toll. Why did she want to hide her fasting and her trances? Surely most Believers would not do so. Or did she truly not remember what had happened to her the night before? Gennie could be quite determined, and this was one of those times—she wanted answers to all of her questions about Patience. She wouldn't be chased away.

“Patience, I realize I know little about medicinal herbs, so I may not be of much help immediately,” Gennie said,
settling herself on a high stool, “but I learn quickly, and I've always been fascinated by herbs.”

“I have no calling to teach.”

“Then I will simply watch.” Gennie's stubbornness was seeping into her voice. “I can learn by watching. You don't have to go out of your way to teach me.”

“Just don't get in my way,” Patience said. “And move that stool back. You are distracting me.”

Gennie remounted her stool, feeling out of place. Patience wouldn't let her near, so she couldn't make good her boast that she could learn from watching. She slid to the floor and began to circle the room, fingering each herb bunch that hung from wall pegs. Some were crispy, as if they'd been dry for months. Others were freshly picked. She played a favorite game from her days in the Herb House—guessing the herb by its shape, fragrance, or flowers. She quickly discovered that the fresh herbs were all ones she was familiar with, such as oregano, peppermint, calendula, and thimbleweed. The dried herbs, however, proved impossible to identify. Most of the leaves were brownish-green and broken, indicating they had been dried for many months. She decided to do a little research on her own as soon as she could. Maybe later she could break off a few bits and take them to Rose. Together they might be able to recognize a fragrance or a shape.

“Be careful where you stick those elbows,” said an annoyed male voice behind Gennie. She spun around to find Brother Benjamin scowling at her. She'd wandered around to the men's side of the workroom and was in danger of knocking some infusing equipment off the end of a large table. Gennie smiled at him, and his scowl deepened. It struck her that, while he would be nervous with a woman so close by, she was no longer under the Shakers' care. Her usefulness to Rose was all the greater because she was now truly an outsider; she could converse with the men—from a respectful distance, of course.

“I'm fascinated by herbal remedies,” she said. “It must
be very difficult to figure out what really works. I'd love to hear what sort of curative you're working on now.” She was being truthful, if perhaps overenthusiastic. To her surprise—and relief—Benjamin's expression mellowed.

“Yea, it is indeed extremely difficult to know what works. We must be precise in our calculations and thoroughly versed in the effects of our ingredients.”

Gennie kept her eyes wide and interested, to encourage him and so she wouldn't smile at his pomposity. She needn't have bothered. Engrossed in his topic, Benjamin had pushed his work closer to her. She had ceased to be an interloping female; she was now his audience.

“What I am working on here,” he said airily, “is a refined curative for various stomach ailments.”

“Do these plants grow around here?” Gennie asked, though she already knew, from their names, that North Homage had never grown them.

Benjamin lightly touched an unmarked apothecary jar half full of beige powder. “Nay, I knew this place would never have the variety I needed to conduct my experiments, so I brought these along, already dried.”

“So these unusual herbs hanging around the room are all yours?”

“The interesting ones are,” Benjamin said, glancing at some pegs near his table.

“What will you do when you run out?”

“Send for more, I suppose,” Benjamin said, frowning at his recipe journal. Clearly he was growing bored with the way the lecture was going. Gennie decided to save the rest of her questions.

After a few moments of silence, Benjamin's enthusiasm reemerged. He held up a vial containing a clear liquid. “This has the power to cure or kill,” he said. “If someone were to mix the ingredients incorrectly, one swallow would fell a man in minutes.” His smirk implied that the “someone” could be anyone else but him. “Even my formula,
administered by incompetent hands, could easily prove fatal.”