Death of a Winter Shaker (5 page)

Rose slapped an onion against the hard ground to free its roots of dirt. A few loose clumps stuck to the skirt of her long, loose outdoor gown, and she quickly
brushed them off. The dark blue wool hid most stains, but the dress wasn't due for washing until later in the week.

As she tossed the onion into her basket, she glanced up and saw that she had company. Unwelcome company. Elder Wilhelm stood at the end of the row, his burly body straight, legs apart and arms stiff at his sides.

“Agatha is not well,” he said. “She was not thinking clearly when she asked thee to meddle in this affair.”

“Agatha's body may be weakening, but her mind is as quick as yours or mine,” Rose said firmly. “If she wants me to investigate this tragedy, I most certainly will.” She yanked up a large onion and held it in front of her like a shield—and a reminder to Wilhelm that she had work to do.

Wilhelm's right hand clenched. Rose saw his fist and questioned, not for the first time, the power of Wilhelm's loyalty to his vow of nonviolence.

“I should not have to tell thee what it means to be a Believer,” he said, his rich voice sharpened by irritation. “But apparently we have expected too much of thee. This eagerness to meddle in the world, these defiant words . . . a clear lack of humility. This is not the behavior of a leader. I should relieve thee now of thy duties.”

His words dropped like sharp knives at Rose's feet, and she twitched as though they had struck her.

“You haven't the authority to do so,” Rose said in a voice turned cold and hard as Kentucky limestone. “Not alone. I believe that Agatha is right. Because of my experience and my position, I am the one who must find Johann's killer. No matter who it is.”

Wilhelm paced between two rows of brown, shriveled onion stalks, his hands clasped together behind his long, dark coat. As he turned again to Rose, his hard blue eyes glittered with cold anger, and his mouth
formed a thin slash across his face. Rose stood her ground.

“Agatha and I disagree on many things,” Wilhelm said. “Her mind has grown old. I reason with her as best I can, and she has often come to see that I am right. She cannot live much longer. And when she is called back to God, I will have much to say about who will take her place. She will not be here to protect thee.”

“Agatha is my friend, not my protector,” Rose said. “You are mistaken if you think that I expect to become the next eldress.”

“Good,” Wilhelm said, crossing his arms over his thick chest, “because I have decided who is to be the next eldress.”

Rose did not ask who that might be, only tilted her head as though politely interested.

“One of our newer members has the right qualifications, I believe,” Wilhelm continued, with a firm nod of his head. “I've been impressed with the devotion she has shown by leaving her husband and sons to join us. She will bring enthusiasm and new spiritual energy to the Society. Through her gifts, we will again draw in hundreds.”

“Can you mean Elsa Pike?” Rose couldn't keep the astonishment out of her voice.

“I can and I do.”

“But Elsa can't possibly be ready for such a responsibility. She's so new and so . . . unschooled in our ways.” What Rose meant was that Elsa was unschooled altogether. She had lived in North Homage for about a year now, only six months as a full-fledged sister. She had not gone through the Society's excellent school system, nor any school system beyond the third grade.
No doubt she's a good woman,
Rose thought,
but an odd choice for eldress.

“Her gifts are natural; she does not need further
education,” Wilhelm said, a defensive edge to his voice.

“What does Agatha say about—?”

“Agatha will not be here when the decision is made, will she?” Wilhelm smiled, a rare occurrence, and usually not a pleasant one. This smile was no exception. “Elsa has gifts we have not seen the like of for a hundred years. It is Mother Ann's Work once again; Mother Ann is working through Elsa, and she means to make us strong again. Already, Elsa has given us two spirit drawings and a dozen new dances. And there will be much more that will surprise thee. Soon, very soon.”

Elder Wilhelm tipped his hat to Rose, then looked down a row of onions. “Thy harvesting is not finished,” he said. “Hands to work.” With that, he disappeared around the corner of the Herb House.

A part of Rose wanted to believe that Wilhelm might be right about Elsa and the gifts she seemed to display. From the 1830s to the 1850s, the Society had experienced a tremendous revival, which they called Mother Ann's Work. Believers fell into trances and spoke with lovely angels, who filled them with powerful words and sweet songs. Some Believers received, in visions or in their dreams, gifts of intricate drawings or prophecies or messages from long-dead Believers. Others spoke unknown languages. Outsiders flocked to the worship services, and many new converts signed the covenant. It was an exciting time, but it ended badly, as Rose recalled. Eventually, the derision of the world had forced the Society to close its worship service to the public.

Wilhelm was a powerful man, in many ways. The Lead Society—Mount Lebanon in New York—would surely listen to him if he recommended Elsa for eldress. Rose wasn't certain that she wanted to be eldress herself, yet she disliked the thought of Elsa taking the place of her much-loved friend, Agatha.

During her novitiate period, Elsa had had plenty of opportunity to learn about the gifts. Was she clever enough to use her knowledge to impress Wilhelm?
Who am I to judge,
Rose thought,
whether her gifts are real?
Yet she trusted neither Wilhelm nor Elsa.

“I'
D RATHER HARVEST THE PUMPKINS
.”

“Yea, Gennie, I know. But you're needed in the kitchen, and that's that.” When Rose said “that's that,” it was. She sounded unusually brusque now, too, so it wouldn't be wise to argue.

“You've had a trying day, you needn't begin instantly,” Rose said, more gently. “Do as you please for an hour, then report to Charity in the kitchen.” She flashed Gennie a tired smile and left her alone.

Free time was rare in North Homage. Gennie sought the farthest herb fields, with spiky thyme plants awaiting their final harvesting. She paced the rows. Out of habit, she brushed her cloak against the branches to release their spicy fragrance. But for once it gave her no pleasure. Her mind was elsewhere.

Gennie was not enjoying her freedom. Shock had set in and, along with it, other feelings that she had more trouble identifying. New feelings, ones that she couldn't share with Rose.

A twig cracked behind her. She whirled around to see Grady O'Neal coming toward her, his hands in his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind.

“Hi, there,” Grady said. “The sheriff's taken off, and I was having a last look around outside the Herb House. I saw you head out here all by yourself. Still upset, are you?”

“Nay, I . . . well, a little, but . . .” Gennie took a deep breath. Her hands were trembling, so she thrust them under her cloak.

“Did you have more questions for me?”
There,
she thought,
that's much better, much steadier.

Grady smiled broadly and shook his head. Brown hair fell over his eyes. “Nope, just thought I'd come over and see how you're doing. Talk a spell, maybe.”

“We shouldn't, you know.”

Grady looked puzzled. “Yeah, I got that idea from Sister Rose telling us about Union Meetings, but I thought that with me not being a Shaker and all . . .”

“It's not that,” Gennie explained. “It's that you're a man. I shouldn't talk to men alone, at least not for long. Don't you know about us? Didn't you grow up around here?”

“Yup, Languor-born and -bred,” Grady said. “Left for a couple years of college in Ohio, but otherwise I've been here all my life. I love it here, came back as soon as I could.”

Gennie nervously scanned the area around the Herb House. She saw no one. With a twinge of guilt, she made a decision.

“Let's walk farther out,” she said. “There's a crick behind those trees. I wander there sometimes, when I can get away.”

Grady grinned and approached her.

“Nay,” she said quickly. “Stand away a bit.”

They walked in silence, several yards apart, stepping carefully over the rows of short thyme plants. They entered a clump of oak trees with leaves just turning a golden brown. Gennie's excitement gained strength over her guilt.

“You sit there, on that rock,” she ordered. She smoothed her cloak under her and arranged herself as gracefully as she could on the grassy stream bank. She wanted to skip a stone across the water, but she was afraid that it might look childish.

Grady obediently parked himself on a large, flat rock, which overlooked the water.

“You're fond of Sister Rose, aren't you?” he asked.

“Of course. She's been as good to me as my own mother.”

“Will you stay with her?”

“Become a sister, do you mean? I don't know. I suppose I'll have to decide soon. I'll be eighteen in a few months.” Sometimes Gennie was mistaken for younger because of her size, and she wanted Grady to know that she was nearly grown.

“What does being eighteen have to do with it?” Grady inched across the rock, closer to her, and leaned forward.

“Eighteen is the first time I'll be asked if I wish to become a Believer,” Gennie explained. “They'll ask if I want to sign the covenant.”

“What's that?”

Gennie's smooth forehead furrowed in concentration. “It's a promise. If I sign, I promise to follow the Shaker ways. I wouldn't be just myself anymore, I'd be a small part of the Society, and everything I own would be everybody's. My work would be for the whole village and not for me alone. They'd be my family, and I'd have to promise not to have any other.” She lowered her eyes shyly.

“Will they kick you out if you say ‘no'?”

Gennie laughed. “Nay, of course not. Rose would probably let me stay forever, but it wouldn't be fair of me. I'd hardly be any better than a Winter Shaker then, would I?”

Grady eased forward again and dangled his long legs over the rock's edge.

“I doubt that you have to worry about that,” he said. “When the time comes, I bet you'll make the best decision.”

Gennie played with a blade of grass. “Thank you,”
she said faintly, feeling as if this meeting surely wasn't her best decision. Yet it felt good. Very good.

Grady slid his legs back on to his perch and sat cross-legged, his elbows on his knees.

“So,” he said, settling his chin on his hands, “tell me what is so wrong about me being a man and you being a woman.”

Gennie gulped. “It's not that there's anything wrong with that really, it's just . . .”

“Yes?”

Gennie was foggy about the Believers' theological reasons for remaining celibate. To be truthful, she and Rose had never discussed the topic. The sisters who had taught her in the Shaker school until she turned fourteen had been vague. They'd used terms like “carnal relations,” which sounded intriguing but meant little to Gennie and the other girls.

“Well, you know, Jesus never married,” she said in a halting voice. “So the Shakers believe that's just the most blessed way to be. Not married.”

“Then how do Shakers make babies?”

Gennie grabbed a small stone and flung it across the water, where it skipped once before sinking into ripples. Normally she could skip up to five times, but her hand was shaking. She was in over her head.

“A lot of us are orphans,” she said, rather than answer Grady's question directly. “The Shakers took us in and raised us. My father brought me to live here just before he died in 1929.”

“I'm sorry,” Grady said. “Did he . . . did it have anything to do with the stock market crash?”

“I don't know,” Gennie said. “I wish I did. I miss him. And my mama, too.”

Grady leaned over and picked up a smooth stone. He rubbed his fingers over it as though judging its skipping potential. He took careful aim and flipped it toward the water, where it skidded six times.

“I want you to know, Gennie Malone, ‘just Gennie,'” he said quietly, “that I'll respect your ways. But at this moment I wish I could take your hand.”

Gennie reported for kitchen duty feeling a guilty glow that faded quickly as she endured the feuding of the two kitchen sisters, Charity McDonald and Elsa Pike.

“It were a judgment, I reckon,” Sister Elsa pronounced. A plump and muscular countrywoman with the plain, flat features of a local native, she pounded rather than kneaded the large lump of bread dough in front of her. She had taken over the breadmaking without asking permission from Charity, who was kitchen deaconess. It was a battle that Charity had chosen not to fight, but Gennie was disappointed. She liked making bread, especially when she could experiment with herb breads. She'd especially loved making “Rosemary's Muffins” from a recipe Rose had created when she wasn't much older than Gennie. But Elsa insisted that plain food was best, and she looked down her nose at the Shaker herb industry. Salt and pepper were spice enough for her, mostly salt.

“A judgment. Wouldn't you say, Sister?” Elsa directed a piercing look at Charity, who stood facing the sink, washing up the many pots and pans they had dirtied since lunch.

Charity increased the volume of hot water surging into the sink. She did not turn around. Under the pale gold hair that pulled free of her white gauze cap in soft wisps, a mottled redness crept up the fair skin on the back of her neck.

When Charity had finished the washing, she turned to the open hearth, where a large kettle of beef stew simmered in preparation for the evening meal. As she stirred, she stared toward the strip of wooden pegs along the wall, from which hung silky copper-bottomed pans, kitchen utensils, and even a broom.
She gave no sign that she was anything but alone in the room.