26

The confessions and apologies Carlyn rehearsed on the walk back from the woods became naught but a stuttering mumble when she faced Sister Edna at the Gathering Family House.

Without a word, Carlyn followed her into the room where the sister listened to confessions. Sister Edna settled behind her writing desk and waited for Carlyn to take down a chair from the pegs to sit across from her. Still she did not speak. The silence thumped against Carlyn’s ears, but she saw no reason to step into more trouble with careless words.

At last Sister Edna broke the silence. “What have you to say for yourself?” In spite of the scowl that darkened the sister’s face, her voice lacked its usual fire. She seemed weary of the continual necessity to upbraid Carlyn.

Carlyn answered with the truth instead of her practiced words. “I needed time alone. To mourn the true knowledge of the death of my husband.”

“We have no marital ties here. Have you not read the book I gave you days ago?” She tapped the book on the desk, then held it up so Carlyn could see the title, The Principles and Practices of a People Called the Shakers. “On these pages you find the rules we must adhere to in order for our Society to prosper. The directives are written so even those of the world can understand.”

“I am reading the book as you instructed, but I have not finished it.”

“Or obviously paid attention to anything you have already read.” Sister Edna let the book fall open. She didn’t have to riffle through the pages to find the passage she sought. “Listen well while I read you principle number eight. ‘A united interest in all things in their general order; but none are required to come into it, except as a matter of choice.’” Sister Edna peered up at Carlyn. “You did choose to come among us, did you not?”

“Yea,” Carlyn answered weakly.

Sister Edna began reading again. “‘For this order is not a principle; but is the result of mutual love and unity of spirits; and cannot be supported where the selfish relations of husband, wife, and children exist. This order is the greatest and clearest demonstration of practical love. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”’” Again she looked up. “That is the Christ speaking.”

“I am familiar with that verse,” Carlyn said.

“But the question is, do you practice it? Leaving your duty for your sisters to perform in your absence is not a demonstration of practical love. Item four states that ‘to be a proper Shaker, one should be diligent in business serving the Lord. All—’” She poked the page and repeated, “‘All labor with their hands according to their strength and abilities; all are industrious, but not slavish. Idleness is the parent of want.’”

“I will work tomorrow.” Carlyn tried to speak with as much sincerity as she could muster, but the words lacked conviction even to her own ears. She would work. She did not mind working, but now her spirit was tired. Too much had happened in the last few days.

The same strain she was feeling seemed to be reflected on Sister Edna’s face even though she was saying the expected Shaker words. The woman smoothed her hand over the book’s page. “A proper Shaker knows her hands are to be devoted to work every day except the Sabbath.”

“Yea, if one is able, but today sadness overwhelmed me. Such as was overcoming you this morning.”

“A fleeting worry.” Sister Edna threw out her hand in dismissal of Carlyn’s words. “Mother Ann’s teachings show us that happiness does not so much depend on circumstances as we think. Within our souls the foundations must abide.”

“Do you have those foundations?” Carlyn asked.

“I did.” She quickly changed her words. “I do.” She stared down at the book. “I have kept the rules.”

For a minute Carlyn thought Sister Edna was going to read more of those rules to point out Carlyn’s wrongs, but instead she stared at the pages without speaking. Finally Carlyn said, “But others have not.”

Sister Edna looked up. “You have not.” Her voice regained its stern timbre.

“Yea, I have not.” Carlyn knew what was expected. To bow her head and be repentant. At times she’d done that, but now an argument rose within her. “Rules do not open the gates of heaven, and following every rule in your book or anyone’s book does not allow you through those gates. Faith in the Lord is what is needed.”

“You dare to preach to me of faith?” Sister Edna’s eyes flared open. “I am the one leading you. Not you leading me.”

“Nay, I am not a preacher.” She cringed at the thought of being like her father, but then in her quiet way, her mother had opened up the Scripture to Carlyn better than all her father’s sermons. “You Shakers speak of the gift of being simple and yet you’ve written books of rules.”

“To ensure we live a simple life with unity of spirit.”

She told herself to bend her head and pretend to accept Sister Edna’s rules. But words bubbled up inside her and she couldn’t keep them in. “Is it not better to allow love to rule our spirits? The love of God and the love of one’s neighbor.”

“We have such love. Surely even you can see that such love is plentiful within our Society. Brotherly love. Sisterly love.”

Again she told herself to be silent. Again the words would not be denied. “Do you have that love for me, Sister Edna?”

The sister’s eyes snapped with anger and Carlyn thought the other woman was going to lie. Then a shadow passed over her face and she looked sad. “The truth is always better and necessary. You are not yet fully a Believer sister. Novitiates must earn their place in our Society.”

“And love? Must we earn love when the Lord showers it down on us so freely, deserved or not?” Carlyn leaned toward Sister Edna, willing her to listen with an open mind.

Instead the woman put her fingertips on her forehead as though Carlyn’s words pained her. “There is much you do not understand about the Shaker way.”

“Yea, there is much I do not understand about many things.”

Carlyn looked down at her hands then and gave in to the older sister. But in some deep, abiding way her words of argument with Sister Edna put her own heart at ease. Whatever happened, she could lean on the Lord. Just as Ambrose, while he still lived, had helped her feel the love of God, now from the grave he was showing her that love was everlasting. It didn’t matter if she stepped up on the stairway with the proper foot or neglected to hang out the last load of wash on the clothesline. Such things had naught to do with the love of God. That was available to her no matter where she was.

She ran her thumb over the back of her hand. Would that be here? Would she turn from a confused novitiate to a resigned Shaker sister living by their rules not because she thought them necessary but for the more practical reasons of obtaining food and shelter? Or dare she hope another way would open? That she might once more have her own home and perhaps find love different than that only for sisters and brothers? The kind of love she’d known with Ambrose and that he had released her to find again.

The thought of the sheriff’s hand brushing her shoulder came to mind. Her cheeks warmed. She shouldn’t even be thinking about Sheriff Brodie with her husband’s last letter in her pocket. But Ambrose wanted her to reach for joy in her life. A joy she no longer believed she could find among the Shakers.

She had no doubt Sister Edna was glaring at her bent head, but the sister remained silent. Light-headed from her daylong fast, Carlyn wanted nothing more than to be out of this room, away from Sister Edna. She searched for words to appease the woman. “Whatever the fitting punishment, I will accept it and work harder in the days ahead to be a proper Shaker.”

“Empty words can come from beneath any bonnet.” Sister Edna shut the book with a snap and let her fingertips dance up and down on the book’s cover. “Truth is what is necessary when one makes confession of one’s wrongs.”

“The truth will out.” Carlyn repeated Sister Edna’s words from that morning.

Sister Edna sniffed in a deep breath and touched her nose with her handkerchief. “Revelation of the truth is not in our hands, but Mother Ann will light our path and show us what we need to know. I fear you do not want to walk the Shaker way, Sister Carlyn.”

“I am here.”

“But will you stay?”

“The Lord gives us one day at a time. Tomorrow has not come. Who could have said on the Monday past the things that would happen before the week’s end? The fire and the loss of Brother Henry. Nor would I have ever expected a letter from a woman I never met to put to rest the unknowns about my husband’s fate in the war. We cannot know what tomorrow holds.”

“The future is not fearful when one clearly sees the path Mother Ann has laid out for us.”

Carlyn raised her head to look at Sister Edna. “Yet you seemed greatly concerned about facing the day when we awoke this morning.”

The sister flinched back from her words. “I have confessed my lack of faith in the proper way to Eldress Lilith. I trust now that Mother Ann will continue to bless our community and those of the world won’t be back to torment us.”

Carlyn looked down again. “I will add my prayers to yours that there will be no more troubles here in the village.”

“The responsible parties have not been apprehended.” Sister Edna’s voice sounded a warning. “And may never be. Those of the world care little about what happens here in our village.”

“Sheriff Brodie will search for answers.”

“The answers he seeks will do little more than keep our Society in a state of upset. It would be best if he did not return with his questions.” She narrowed her eyes on Carlyn. “For all concerned.”

“Do you fear the answers he might find?”

“Nay.” Sister Edna answered too quickly. “I have no reason to fear any truth. Things will turn out as they should. On Sunday, we will exercise a song to return peace to our Society.” Sister Edna eyed Carlyn. “Perhaps you will be ready to labor the dances with us on that day.”

“I fear my feet are too clumsy and I might miss a step.” Carlyn had learned a few of the simpler dances in the practice times, but she still could not imagine taking part in dancing as worship in their Meeting House. Some of the dances on the Sabbath were ordered marches. Others seemed nothing but frenzied whirling. A few had the Shakers acting like children at play. None of what the Shakers called exercises had seemed any sort of worship to Carlyn, but at the same time, she did not doubt many of those who did dance felt a spirit of worship. Even Sister Edna’s demeanor changed during the worship times. Her frowns disappeared to be replaced by a joyful quietude.

The woman exhibited none of that serenity now. Only the weariness that Carlyn had noted earlier. A weariness Carlyn shared.

“The proper spirit can make your feet float above the floor. Mother Ann will gift you with such feelings if you stop clinging to your worldly beliefs.”

“Yea.” Carlyn had no more energy for argument. “What would you have me do to make up for my lapses?”

“We do not dole out punishments here, but be warned. A person reaps what she sows. If you engage in wrong behavior, there will be sorrowful results.”

“I am already sorrowful.”

“But does your heart sorrow for the right reasons, Sister Carlyn, or because of your yearning for things of the world?”

“I will pray for right reasons.” Carlyn avoided a direct answer. All she wanted was for their conversation to be ended. With the room seeming to close in on her, she fought the urge to gasp for air and dared stand even though Sister Edna had not indicated their time was finished. “I am very thirsty. May I get a drink of water?”

“Go.” Sister Edna gave a wave of dismissal. “Make sure you put on a clean apron and cap before you come to practice. Good spirits will not abide where there is dirt. You must sweep all the filth of wrong thoughts from your heart to be a proper Believer.”

Sister Edna followed Carlyn out of the room and hurried up the sisters’ stairway. She would not want to be late to the practice time. Her life had long been ordered by the Shaker rules. Carlyn stood in the empty hall a moment. She could hear the others gathering in the room over her head. Could she become one of them?

The sound of singing drifted down the stairs to her. She couldn’t quite make out the words, but the tune was lively, the voices strong, each sounding the same note to make even their voices stay in perfect union. Was it wrong to pretend to be in union with them when all she felt was disharmony?

Perhaps it was time to find a way to Texas to beg her father for shelter. But even though it would be good to see her mother, dread at the thought of living under her father’s roof again was like a heavy cloak weighing down her shoulders as she went down to the kitchen. She would wait. She had the promise of the pension. Elder Derron would eagerly seek the money to add to the Shaker coffers, but she could demand it be given to her instead. A few weeks would not be unbearable.

What was it Sister Edna had quoted the Shakers’ Mother Ann saying about happiness? That it wasn’t totally dependent on circumstances in life, but instead the foundation for it must rise from within. She had started building that foundation with Ambrose and now it was gone, blown away by the war.

The smell of ash drifted in through a window left open to cool the kitchen. The fire proved that fearsome things could happen anywhere, even in this village where the people claimed to desire peace above all. Sister Edna might wish for naught but goodness here, but Carlyn had felt safer alone in her house with Asher by her side and her gun over her door. Here, she was without defense.

Have you forgotten the armor of God? Her mother’s voice whispered through her mind. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: praying always. Her mother’s answer for every problem, the Word of God and prayer.

Carlyn got a drink from the pipe that brought water to the kitchen. The sound of the Shakers singing was not as loud here, but enough of the tune drifted down that she recognized it as one she knew.

Softly she sang the words. “Come dance and sing around the ring. Live in love and union. Sing with life, live with life. Sing with life and power.”

She did the steps she’d practiced with the song, and there alone in the kitchen, she moved back and forth and twirled. It felt good to shake free of her grief and worries. Then the singing above her changed and the ceiling vibrated as the Shakers pounded their feet on the floor to chase away the devil.

Such a people of contradictions. Quiet and staid, serious-minded with peaceful calm except during their worship when they stomped and whirled. Spiritual joy in motion. Would that it was so easy to chase away the devil with stomps and shouts. But the lingering odor of the destroyed barn wafting in on the evening air proved it was not so easy to eliminate the threat of evil and make happiness shower down like flowers from heaven.

My last prayer will be for your happiness. Carlyn touched the letter in her pocket as Ambrose’s words echoed in her thoughts.

Then even though her stomach growled in complaint of its emptiness, she didn’t pilfer in the cabinets for bread, but went back up the stairs to join her voice and feet in the practice. Sister Edna noted her entrance in the room with a look of disapproval that made Carlyn remember she’d neglected to fetch a clean apron and cap.