Jane started her day with the usual toast and French roast while checking the markets, which were climbing a bit. She decided to wait a day before making any trades. Then she called Roxanne for an impromptu lunch. She wasn’t going to tell her about the tantric room, but maybe she could find out something useful while Lois did the heavy lifting. They decided to meet at Old Salem Tavern, a place that had not been a feature of Jane’s childhood.
Years ago when a grocer had announced his plans to build a store in an empty lot next to the oldest house in the original settlement of Old Salem, people had realized that the village needed protecting. A drug store and one of the first Krispy Kreme donut shops were already located on that street. Citizens and members of the church community had founded an association to protect the historic site, and over the years it had grown into a tourist attraction complete with guides dressed in period costumes, artisans practicing the old trades, and shops.
Now the group was returning the settlement to its original condition, at least as close as possible, adding gardens, restoring old homes, using the records from the archives. They advertised it as a living museum, but the place had always been living to Jane. Home Moravian was an active church, and Salem Academy and College still women’s schools. Most of her family was buried in God’s Acre. But she was grateful the settlement was being preserved.
She parked in a spot across from the town square near the Market Fire House where a young boy worked the water pump and other children ran screaming around the spurting, cold liquid. The weather continued to be unseasonably warm. The children’s mothers watched with arms folded or heads together talking, occasionally telling them not to get wet.
Good luck with that, Jane thought. She remembered doing the same with her cousins. She wondered when children had started playing here or if it had been all work in the early days. In college she’d read Comenius, the early educator who encouraged play and liberty, not just rote memorization. He’d been a Moravian bishop, so she bet Salem children had played as much as they’d worked or studied.
Jane crossed the street and walked down the cobble stone sidewalk, past the Buehler House, then the Schultz House and Shoemaker Shop. Several private residences dotted the block. What would it be like to have tourists peering through your antique glass panes at all hours? Yet she understood the attraction of this neighborhood.
The restaurant had taken over the Old Salem Tavern annex in 1969. Jane had come to eat shortly after it opened and been surprised that pumpkins could be turned into soup and were not just for pies. She hoped the food was as good now as it had been then. She climbed the wide steps and entered the eighteenth century. A woman garbed in period dress with a white apron welcomed her. Jane gave Roxanne’s name and the hostess led her to a table in the front room where her friend waited.
Roxanne scrambled up and gave her a hug. “Thanks for the invitation.”
“I appreciate you coming,” Jane said. “I’ve been wanting to catch up and thought it would be fun to come down here.”
“I hate eating alone, too,” Roxanne said with an understanding smile. “That’s why I go to the Sisters’ House so often.”
The waitress arrived with a basket of bread and filled their water glasses. “I took the liberty of ordering some pumpkin rolls. I can’t get enough of them,” Roxanne confessed.
Jane glanced over the wine list and asked for a bottle of the reserve chardonnay, then looked through the menu. “When did chicken pot pie become Moravian?”
Roxanne stifled a laugh. “They found someone’s old recipe, I guess. Something about double crust and no vegetables.”
“I hear all the pubs near Rosslyn Chapel suddenly changed their names to something with ‘Grail’ in it after Dan Brown made the place famous.”
“It must be good for business.” Roxanne shrugged.
Jane ordered Moravian Chicken Pie and Roxanne, joining in the spirit, asked for Moravian Meatloaf. They joked that they’d never had either one before. “Oh, try the onion soup. It’s wonderful,” Roxanne said in a contrite voice, perhaps feeling guilty for teasing in front of the waitress.
Roxanne talked about a few of the changes in Old Salem, how they’d turned the old Coca Cola bottling plant into offices, moved a bridge and put it over the road so the tourist wouldn’t stand in the middle gawking and get run over, and remodeled the old Zinzendorf Laundry into a visitor’s center. There had been a Zinzendorf Hotel as well, both named after the Count who had allowed the Unitas Fratrum refugees to settle in Saxony and begin their church again after the Thirty Years War.
“There’s St. Philip’s, too. I never knew that African-Americans had their own church here.”
“Really? Where?”
“At the end of Main.”
“You mean behind that old white house at the end of the road?” Jane asked.
“Oh, that’s been torn down.”
“That beautiful house?” She brushed crumbs off the white tablecloth.
“Well, it wasn’t really part of the old settlement, and the African American graveyard was back there.”
Jane had known the people who’d rented that place just after college. They’d found graves in their backyard, which hadn’t made any sense to her at the time, so she’d called her minister to come take a look. Apparently it had panned out.
Their food arrived and between bites, Roxanne explained how the African slaves had worshipped with the whites in the same church and been buried in the same cemetery—until segregation laws had come into effect.
“In the early 1800s, they started being buried in the Stranger’s Graveyard. Then they built their own church and had their own.” She paused. “At least we kept teaching the slaves to read and write even when that became illegal.”
“I never knew that.” Jane let the other part go—that the Moravians had still held slaves even if they did educate them. She didn’t need to climb on her soap box today, even though Roxanne would probably agree. She let Roxanne ramble on, waiting for a natural turn in the conversation to bring up her subject.
“They know so much more about church history these days than when we were kids. You should read up on it.”
Jane frowned.
“No, really. It doesn’t matter if you’re religious. Moravian history is fascinating.” Roxanne picked up her glass and swirled her wine before taking a sip. “Not always what you’d expect, either. One of the associate ministers had a Sunday school class at Home that went through all of it. And there are new books that came out for the five hundred and fiftieth anniversary.”
“There’s a big collection in Miss Essig’s library,” Jane commented.
“You’d be amazed.” Roxanne polished off the last bite of meatloaf.
“Dessert?”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Speaking of church history and all, I’ve been wanting to ask you. You keep calling Dorothea’s house ‘The Sisters’ House’. I wondered about that.”
“Oh, you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
Roxanne looked around. “Let’s go for a stroll. I should walk off those pumpkin rolls.”
“If I can move.” Jane paid the bill and followed Roxanne up a side street past more private homes.
They walked down Church Street past the oldest dormitory of Salem College. “Now that building was the original Single Sisters’ House,” Roxanne said.
“Right, I remember that.” Jane glanced at the brick structure with its white framed windows. “And now?”
Instead of answering, Roxanne turned between the red brick buildings of the college, Jane following, until they made their way down into the natural amphitheater called the May Dell. Only then did Roxanne break her silence. “They used to crown the May Queen down here.”
“Did they dance around the May pole and fertilize the fields afterwards?” Jane teased.
Roxanne’s laugh was bawdy. “I don’t think they did that last part. Not before they married, anyway.”
The two settled on the lowest bench of the round rows of seats and enjoyed the bower, a few leaves the color of a full moon. The tiny creek winked silver light. Roxanne finally spoke again, “You know about the choir system, of course.”
“Yes, it started in Herrnhut. We’re still buried in choirs. That’s the only remnant of the system left,” Jane recited.
“That’s what most people think.” Roxanne pulled her scarf close around her neck. “Some people think the system developed from Philipp Spener. He thought that small groups encouraged spiritual growth.”
“Spener? Never heard of him.”
“Really, Jane, you’re shamefully uninformed.”
Jane’s head snapped around to find a playful smile on Roxanne’s face. “So, enlighten me.”
“Spener founded the Pietist movement.” At Jane’s blank look, Roxanne continued, “He thought personal religious experience and devotion more important than dogma. Zinzendorf’s family were Pietists, Spener his godfather.”
“I never knew—” Jane stopped herself from confessing more of her ignorance.
“Choirs lasted until the settlements were well established, when people started living in nuclear families for the most part.” Roxanne waved her hand to indicate the exact date wasn’t important. “But the system was popular and some decided to continue it. The numbers have dwindled now, so we combined the single and married divisions, and now women live in the Sisters’ House and men in the Brethren’s’.”
Jane thought of the collective households of the sixties and beyond, women living together, but under the guiding light of feminism instead of Christ. They’d turned out to be challenging—everyone bringing their unresolved issues along with their idealism.
Roxanne studied Jane’s face for a minute, then continued. “Since the church’s mission work has picked up, it’s come in handy for me, at least. We don’t live there, but it helps to be able to eat with the sisters and drop the kids off if I need someone to keep an eye on them.”
“If Dorothea’s house—”
“But Jane, surely you know now that she doesn’t own the house.” Roxanne’s tone held just a touch of impatience. “It’s held in trust. From your own great—” she waved her hand again, meaning she didn’t know how many generations it had been, “—grandfather, I might add.”
“So I’ve discovered.” Jane’s tone was wry. “Does that make the antebellum house on the north side of the church—”
“The Brethren’s’ House, yes.”
Jane looked up at the interwoven branches above her head. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but what about Anna and John? How are they related?”
A rich laugh rose from Roxanne, merry as the babbling brook in front of them. “They’re married.”
“What? But they don’t live together—oh.”
“Right.” Roxanne nodded approvingly. “Each is head of their respective house.”
“But—” Jane really didn’t know how to ask this next question. She was relieved when Roxanne anticipated it.
“Where do they have marital relations?” She whispered the last two words, but it was the question that had been in Jane’s mind, although she would have used a different term. Jane nodded, blushing like the old maid she supposed some people thought she was.
Roxanne chuckled, then took pity on her. “You’d have to ask them yourself. You never married, did you?”
“No, I guess I was just too busy. Did have a couple serious relationships, though.”
“If you married in the church, you’d have a pleasant surprise.”
Jane looked at Roxanne, intrigued. “What?”
“You know how our ancestors thought women should be educated as well as men, even back in 1772 when this school was founded?”
“Yes.” Jane smiled. Roxanne was sounding like a tour guide now, but really, she was right.
“Turns out they had some liberated attitudes about sex, too.”
“Like what?” Jane asked.
Roxanne studied her face. “I think you should ask the head of the Sisters about that.”
“That would be Anna, right?”
“Correct.”
✬ ✬ ✬
Jane left Roxanne, thinking that maybe the room she found had a less lurid purpose than she first imagined. But she still had trouble picturing herself talking about it to Anna. She headed up the hill to the archives. To her surprise, once she arrived she discovered they’d moved to a new brick colonial behind Cedarhyrst, the stone mansion at the top of Church Street in Old Salem. Once inside the new building, she walked down a long hallway hung with replica antique lanterns. A young man at the reception desk greeted her and she told him what she needed.
“We’ll see if we have a pdf of that. If so, you can download it off the website, or we can print one out for you, if you’d like. The general public doesn’t handle the actual documents.”
“I’m family,” Jane said.
“Oh,” he sat up a touch straighter. “I’m sure you understand that antique papers must be protected.”
Jane smiled. “Your group does excellent work. Would it be possible just to see the original?”
“I’ll let an archivist know you’re here.”
He escorted her to a reading room where she sat at one of the polished tables. The arched windows and the regularly spaced columns gave the space a soothing feeling of symmetry and balance. The walls glowed under the candelabras and sconces giving the feel of sitting inside a glowing eggshell.
“Miss Frey?” The quiet voice whispered almost in her ear.
Jane turned to find a woman wearing a plain skirt and oxford shirt standing beside her. “My name is Barbara. I understand you’d like to see some documents?”
Jane told her about her ancestor’s will and the document with the fuzzy seal. “I’m just following up on Miss Essig’s estate.”
“Yes, we all miss her. I’m sorry to have to ask, but may I see your driver’s license? It’s procedure.”
Jane pulled her wallet out and opened it.
“Colorado,” she said. “You’ve been far from home.”
“I’ve moved back. Guess I need to get a new license.” Jane wondered if she’d be here long enough.
“We’ve had a lot of interest in these documents.”
“Oh?” Jane asked.
“Well, with her death and all.”
Jane accepted this rather cryptic response, imagining archivists were like librarians who protected the identities and reading habits of their patrons.
“Wait here, please,” Barbara said. “I’ll bring them up to you.”
Jane barely had time to look around before Barbara reappeared carrying two white boxes. She opened them both, put on white cotton gloves and carefully looked through the contents of the first box, then pulled out a few yellowed pages. “Here we go.” She laid them out on a protective pad in front of Jane and handed her an instrument to use to turn the pages. “I must ask that you not touch the paper. Oil from our hands can cause damage.”
Jane leaned over and read the will. After some brief flourishes in the way of introduction, it left the farm to her great grandfather, Reuben John, and the rest in trust to the OGMS. Jane leaned back and nodded. “Can I get a copy?”
“We don’t photocopy documents older than 1900,” she said.
“But—” Jane started to object.
“The light and heat damages the originals. You may take a non-flash photo.”
Jane pulled out her cell phone. The picture would be better than the grainy blur the attorneys had provided.
“The OGMS paperwork is in here.” Barbara picked through the second box like a hen turning her precious eggs.
Jane snapped pictures of each page, then leaned over the documents. She pointed toward the seal on the first page. “Do you recognize this?”
“That’s the seal for the Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed.”
Jane looked up, startled. “The what?”
“A group that Count Zinzendorf founded in his youth. He wanted to bring people together based on the underlying spiritual truths and stop the hair-splitting arguments that divided so many Protestants in those days. They even mentioned reconciling with the Jews and Catholics, which was unusual then.”
“Does this group still exist?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. He did revive the group as an adult and there’s a list of the members somewhere.” An abstracted look came over the archivist’s face. She seemed lost in thought. After a moment, she said, “I can’t recall the names, but I’m sure we could find them for you.”
Jane shook her head. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble. I could probably look that up myself. Why would a group use this emblem now?”
Barbara shook her head. “Maybe nostalgia?”
Jane had her doubts about that.
“You’d enjoy reading up on the history of the church. It’s part of your family tradition, after all.” Barbara pointed to the will.
Jane chuckled. “I keep hearing that.”
“I’ll just put these back,” Barbara said.
Jane thanked the archivist and paused at the window. Outside God’s Acre stretched to the north, a deep green with rows of white marble, the reds and oranges of late fall leaves under the bright sun. Her eyes strayed from her grandfather’s grave nearby to the trees at the top of the hill where her grandmother lay, and finally over toward Miss Essig’s area. She could never have imagined these stern guardians of her youth had kept so many secrets.
She drove home, her mind buzzing with questions. Was it just coincidence that the property management firm had the same initials as some obscure group Zinzendorf had founded? That was the most likely explanation, but she didn’t believe it for a second. Maybe she should read some of Miss Essig’s books on the church. She might find some answers there.
Once at the house, Jane let Winston out. She checked her voice messages, but found nothing. Lois would use the land line for sensitive information and might not even leave a message, but the calls received list didn’t show that she’d even called.
She dialed Lois’ number, but it rang through to the answering machine. She left a message about the documents and Zinzendorf’s OGMS group, then added, “I’m going to do some reading and see if I can find out more about the history involved.” She told herself that Lois would call as soon as her detectives came up with anything.
Before settling down, Jane grabbed her camera and headed upstairs to the Blake room. The cats followed. She took the paintings stacked together and leaned each one against the wall, then switched on the lights above the oils. Jane snapped pictures of each, then went to her computer in the library and downloaded the file. She sent emails to two New York art dealers she knew, asking who was the best expert on Blake’s art. They’d probably answer her tomorrow.
After the pictures were sent, Jane took her laptop into the library with a bottle of Merlot from a local winery. It was late afternoon. She promised herself she’d practice the piano tomorrow. The cats arrived and settled in their favorite spots—Suzie B on the overstuffed chair by the fireplace, Marvin next to her on the sofa. Winston worked on his favorite chewy in the middle of the room. Jane poured a glass of wine and let it sit for a minute while she searched the phrase ‘Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed’.
It seemed Zinzendorf had started the group with some other sons of the nobility at the Halle Academy, naming his group after the bible story about faith. They’d wanted to spread the gospel, which was a typically vague teenage goal, but as an adult the Count had revived the group. Kings, archbishops and even a man named Tomochichi, reported to be Chief of the Creek nation, had been members.
Jane took a sip of wine and her mouth puckered. Too many tannins. Oh well, you never knew unless you tried. She walked back into the kitchen and put the bottle in the refrigerator. It would be fine for cooking. She chose an organic Frey—not a relative unfortunately—pulled the cork, and went back to the library with a fresh glass.
She clicked the next link, which took her to a contemporary group with the same name as Zinzendorf’s that dedicated itself to 24-hour prayer. Again the famous members were listed. This organization said that Zinzendorf had been revolutionary because he swore his loyalty to Christ alone, leaving aside the fealties due his king and the aristocratic order he’d been born to. Revolutionary, yes. And downright risky considering the time period.
Then she saw something that seemed familiar, a phrase in Greek. But this was legible. Κανένας από μας ζωές για τον. She printed the webpage, put the pages one behind the other, the webpage over the fuzzy phrase on the OSMG trust document, and held them under the light. They seemed to match. Same length. The accent marks appeared in the same places. If that’s what those fuzzy marks were. She decided it was close enough. The translation given by the website was, ‘None of us lives for himself’.
She went back to the search list and clicked the next link. This guy claimed that the OGMS was a group of contemplative, Gnostic Christians. Apparently this was a bad thing, at least in this guy’s opinion. This didn’t match her own memory of confirmation class, though.
Oh, how I love conspiracy nuts. Jane had heard some doozies working in oil and gas finance. She took a sip of wine and kept reading.
The article jumped from here into Arthurian connections, comparing the ring worn by group members of the OMGS to the ring carried by Frodo in—she paused in delighted anticipation, guessing where the writer would turn—The Lord of the Rings. Jane laughed out loud. Winston looked up, a question in his eyes, and wagged his stub. Jane reached down and scratched his ears.
“This guy probably doesn’t even know about Tolkien’s books,” Jane informed the dog, who turned back to his chewy with a snort of derision.
The diatribe ended by declaring that the OGMS was trying to take over the world through establishing a new global community in Christ. A few comments defended the Moravians, but wasn’t that a bit like casting pearls before swine, Jane wondered. Maybe they’d been added to soothe the unsuspecting Moravian reader.
That had been a bit of fun. She sent a few of the links to Lois, who still hadn’t called, and polished off the wine. So she was living in a house with a room for sacred sex run by people whose goal was world dominion. Started by her own ancestors. What next?