The Believer (36 page)

"I don't think they are broken;" he said as he let his eyes slide around the room to see if Elizabeth was there, but Sister Lettie was alone.

"Try making a fist," Sister Lettie instructed. She watched his fingers intently as Ethan curled them in a bit. He could barely move them, but the effort seemed to please Sister Lettie. "The knuckles work. That is good. Give thanks to Mother Ann it wasn't your right hand. There will be some duties you can perform while they heal, although no more rock hauling for a while:"

She mixed some powders in a basin of cool water and pushed his hand down into it.

"Soak for a minute while I fashion a splint. That medicinal bath might ease the pain and decrease the swelling:"

The throbbing did quit pumping through his fingers quite so strongly. Ethan watched Sister Lettie for a minute before he said, "You have no help today. Is Sister Elizabeth ill?"

He knew it was a question he should not ask even before Sister Lettie turned a considering look on him.

At first she didn't seem inclined to answer, but then she said, "Nay. I have sent her to harvest some roots for our tonics. My knees are getting too old to do the bending and digging. Plus she needed some time alone to think about her behavior among us." Her eyes narrowed on him. "Perhaps you have need to examine your own thoughts, Brother Ethan"

"Yea, Sister Lettie" He stared down at his hand in the water. "I have much need"

The silence that fell over the room thumped against his ears as painfully as the blood thumping through his injured fingers. He could feel her eyes probing him.

At last she sighed deeply and said, "You have been through a great deal, Brother Ethan. Your spirit is vulnerable now with the hurt you feel over the loss of Brother Issachar. It would be wise for you to vow not to do anything rash during this time of weakness. Your spirit will surely heal the same as your fingers, so don't throw away a lifetime of peace for a few moments of worldly temptations'

Ethan looked up at her. "Would you tell me to follow my heart?"

"Your heart?" She smiled the barest bit. "Nay, better to listen to the spirit in you that led you to sign the Covenant:"

"Yea, you speak wisdom"

'As would Brother Issachar if he were still here' She pulled Ethan's hand out of the water and gently dried his fingers before she began binding his hand to the splint.

She sent him out to rest until the evening meal. "Tomorrow you will have a new duty that you can accomplish with only one available wing. But today you have need of rest"

He left the Medicine Shop and started down the pathway toward his room in the Centre House to do her bidding, but when he reached the steps of the white stone building, he walked past without hesitation. He needed Brother Issachar's trees around him. He needed to see the river from atop the palisades. He needed time to grieve and to remember. Else he was going to be so soul-sick he would be of no use to anyone.

Elizabeth breathed in the smell of spring among the trees and accepted the warmth of the sun on her shoulders. She had not bothered with a cape even though the morning air had carried a slight chill. The sleeves of her Shaker dress were long and the kerchief across her shoulders was like wearing a wrap. She touched her cap. It would be heaven to strip off the worrisome thing and let her hair hang free, but she had already broken enough Shaker rules for one week.

And soon enough the dress and cap would be gone. She wondered if the Shakers had kept the dress she'd worn into the village. Would they insist she leave as she'd come even though the dress was ragged and torn? She could not imagine them letting her leave with a Shaker dress. All such were owned in common. One's soiled dress went to the laundry. Another dress took its place. One put no mark of ownership on anything.

But then again, the Shakers might be so anxious to be rid of Elizabeth and the trouble she seemed to bring into their midst that they would shove her out of the village with no worry about the loss of one dress.

Sister Lettie said that Elizabeth was forgiven. That once confession had been made in the meeting, she had a fresh start. But that morning as they knelt for their silent prayers in the biting room and sat down to breakfast, Sister Ruth had looked anything but forgiving as she glared across the table at Elizabeth with eyes narrowed to slits and her mouth twisted in a tight circle of disapproval. Sister Melva had kept her eyes on her plate while she dutifully shoveled the food into her mouth to Shaker her plate.

Sister Evelyn, a new novitiate who had just been joined to their group of four, didn't seem to know what to think as a worried frown creased her brow. Elizabeth could sense the questions in the new sister's mind as she looked between them, but no speaking was allowed in the biting room. It didn't matter. Elizabeth had no answers for her. She didn't even have any answers for herself.

Except that she would keep her promise to Hannah. Whatever answer she had to find, they would leave the Shakers before the week was out. She was only delaying their weeping in order to gather the courage for what must be done. She had need of much courage for she saw no choice but Colton Linley.

She hadn't told Sister Lettie she was leaving, but she thought the good sister knew. That was why she had sent her out into the woods to gather roots. She claimed it was because of the spring season when the roots were beginning their growth. Sister Lettie said their healing power was more potent then. But Elizabeth thought it was really because she hoped Elizabeth would find peace for her spirit and choose to stay in the village.

"You have a gift for mixing the potions, Sister Elizabeth, and a comforting healing touch. If you can only settle your troubled spirit, I could apprentice you to take my place here;' Sister Lettie had told her that morning as Elizabeth gathered the digging tools and tied the sack for the roots to her apron. "I'm growing old, and it won't be so many years until I follow our Brother Issachar over. It would be good to leave my sisters and brothers in capable hands"

"If only that could be, I would like that, Sister Lettie. You have taught me much:"

"It could be if you will let it be, my child" Sister Lettie said the words, but the doubt had been evident in her eyes that it would ever happen. "Young Sister Hannah will learn more control as she ages. She will understand your need to remain here and perhaps, in time, rejoice in that decision:"

"Yea, that could be," Elizabeth had said even though she knew it could not. For while she might like to work with Sister Lettie a little longer, Elizabeth knew that no matter how much she tried, her spirit would never turn completely to the Shaker way. She wanted to marry, to have children, to live the world's way. A way that she didn't feel was contrary to the Lord's will for her life, as the Shakers believed. The only thing contrary that pierced her heart was the thought of living that life with Colton Linley.

She would not think of that yet. Not until her feet were walking up to his door to beg for shelter for her and Hannah. And even then perhaps she could block it away. She could go through the motions, be the wife he wanted, and somehow find a way to get joy out of each day. She would have children. He had picked her for childbearing. She would love her babies in spite of their father.

She spotted a ginger plant just pushing through the rich earth and knelt to dig out its roots. She took one root and left the other for the plant to regenerate. Her mother had taught her that. Never take it all. Leave some for the years to come.

A mushroom was pushing up through the ground beside the ginger plant. Elizabeth touched its sleek top. Could this be what had taken her father from her and landed her in such a spot? She broke off a piece of the creamy top and smelled it. Her mother had tried to teach her the differences in the mushrooms in the woods, but Elizabeth had never been sure she had learned well enough to trust herself to harvest one. Her father didn't like mushrooms at any rate. He would never eat one. Yet Sister Lettie said he had been poisoned with something fiercely deadly.

A mushroom he got in something in the town or something else? She didn't know where he'd gone in the town or his business there. She did know his business with Colton Linley as he'd returned from town that morning. To deny the man's claim on her.

Elizabeth stood up and stomped the mushroom into the dirt until it was nothing but a smear on the ground. Tears pushed at her eyes as she stared down at it, but she blinked them away. Stomping the mushroom changed nothing, nor would tears.

She moved on through the trees, searching the forest floor for the roots Sister Lettie needed. The nibs of new growth were shooting up everywhere, but not many had leafed out enough to give clue to what they would grow into. Her mother had taught her to only dig roots she was sure of, for there were other poisons in the woods besides mushrooms.

Now and again she looked up to orient herself. She had promised Sister Lettie to return well before the evening meal. She didn't want the Shakers to have to search for her. She purposely walked the same path she'd taken the day she had gone into the woods to find Hannah last fall, since that trail was familiar to her. So she wasn't surprised when she heard the sound of falling water that had drawn Hannah on that day.

She patted her root bag and looked up at the sun. It was several hours past mid-day. She had a good collection of roots. She should head back. She looked over her shoulder at the way she'd come, but then she followed the sound. It drew her as surely as it had drawn Hannah on that day last fall.

With a smile, Elizabeth thought of how Ethan had run out of the woods to pull her back from the cliff edge for fear she planned to jump to her death. That was something she could not imagine doing, however hard life got. The Lord assigned her days. He would help her live them out. And because she felt his presence, she always felt the feather of hope alive within her.

Her smile got wider as she remembered the abandon with which Ethan had jumped into the pool with Hannah. Thinking back on it now, she realized it was at that moment the bud of love for him had flowered in her heart. She had felt giddy as she took off her shoes and laid her Shaker cap and apron on the rocks before she jumped into the cool water of the pool with them. The full skirt of her Shaker dress floated up like a parasol on top of the water and they had laughed like carefree children as she tried to push it down into the water. She almost laughed now thinking about it.

What had Brother Issachar told her? Follow her heart. If only that was possible.

For a minute when she came out of the trees and saw the Shaker brother standing there on the top of the cliff, she thought it possible she might have conjured him up out of thin air. She hesitated, ready to step back in behind the trees, thinking it couldn't be Ethan. But of course it was. That day last fall, Ethan had told Hannah he had been a child even younger than she when he had first jumped into the pool. Someone had to have shown him the pool. Who else but Brother Issachar?

And now his grief had led him back. The fates had once more thrown them together. Or not. She could still turn and walk away. He had not seen her there. She turned back to the trees, but Brother Issachar's words were in her head again. Follow your heart.

Perhaps the Lord had given her this moment of grace before she had to step forward toward the rest of her life. What wrong could there be in saying goodbye? No one else was around. There would be no spying eyes this far away from the village. Even if there were, what could they do to her? She was already leaving the village.

She stopped several feet away from the cliff. Ethan showed no sign of hearing her there. His shoulders were slumped and he was deep in his thoughts. When she spotted the bandage on his hand, Elizabeth took a closer look to be sure it was Ethan and not some other brother standing there. But she knew him even with his back to her.

"Ethan:" She spoke in a quiet voice. "I trust you have no thoughts of jumping"

He didn't appear startled by her appearance. Instead he turned to her as if he had been expecting her to come.

Ethan stared at Elizabeth. It was almost as if she had stepped out of his thoughts to stand in front of him. He started to reach out to touch her to be sure she was actually there, but he stayed his hand. If she was no more than a vision formed by his desires, he didn't want to do anything to make her image disappear. He wanted her there with him. So much that he ached with the longing.