The Believer (17 page)

"The river is a ways away. You could follow the creek and reach it, but you can go to the north and find the road not far from this spot. Maybe a mile's walk. I can take you there if you want"

"Brother Issachar will be worried about you. You need to fill your water bottles and go back to where you were working" Elizabeth kept her eyes on the top of the little girl's head and didn't look at Ethan. "I can keep my bearings and find the way. We will be all right at least until we get back to the village, and then we will beg our sisters' and brothers' forgiveness, won't we, Hannah?"

"If we must:" The child's shoulders drooped. She peeked up at Ethan. "Will Sister Ruth whip me?"

She looked so worried that Ethan had to smile. "Nay, my little sister, you need have no worry of that. She will merely point out the error of what you did and suggest ways you can correct such faults"

Hannah crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. "I think I'll take the whipping instead'

Ethan couldn't keep from laughing. He knew how the little girl felt. He'd often felt the same as a young boy having to listen to Brother Martin listing his faults. His smile faded. He felt some of the same now.

Elizabeth didn't smile. She gave the child's shoulder a shake. "You will do as you are told, and you will keep your promise to me:"

"Yes, Elizabeth:" Again the girl's shoulders drooped. "If I must"

"You must;" Elizabeth said. "And now we must stop burdening our brother and find our way back to the village. Get one last drink so we can be on our way."

"Can I fall in again?" Hannah asked.

"No:" Elizabeth's voice was firm. "It is November. You cannot swim in November."

Suddenly Ethan wanted to throw aside all the rules and not worry about what Brother Martin would say. He wanted to be a boy again running alongside Brother Issachar who did naught but laugh when he fell into the water. He wanted to feel that laughter inside his heart and see it in the eyes of the white-haired child.

"What matters the day on the calendar?" Ethan said as he kicked off his shoes. "It is the warmth of the sun that matters, and today the sun is warm" He gave his hat a sling up on the rocks before jumping into the pool.

The little sister shrieked with joy and fell in after him. Then Elizabeth laughed as she unlaced her shoes, pulled them off, and did the same. For a brief moment in the sun, they floated there, free of all cares and rules. And Ethan knew that of this he could never speak.

The week after Hannah made her brief escape from the confines of the village, clouds rolled in to hide the sun and brought a cold rain and piercing winds. Elizabeth spotted snowflakes among the raindrops as they walked back to the Gathering Family house after a day of labor in the laundry, but Sister Melva kept her head tucked down inside the hood of her cloak, claiming she had no desire to see proof of winter so early in the year.

Elizabeth held out her palm to catch one of the snowflakes, but the raindrops overwhelmed it at once, turning it into water to drip off her hand the same as the rain. That's how she felt among the Shakers. Something different. Something apart, but at the same time she was being surrounded and absorbed into the whole. Often at night as she lay in her narrow bed under the same color woven covers as all the other sisters in the sleeping room, wearing an identical nightdress and sleeping cap on her head, having eaten the same food and sung the same songs, she had to fight the feeling that they were breathing in unison and that if she didn't match her breath with theirs, the air in the room, the Shaker air as Hannah had called it, would not fill her lungs. More than once she had awakened gasping for breath after dreaming she was in a grave with the sides falling in on her.

She hadn't seen Hannah except at the Sunday meeting since they had walked back up the river road to the village. Over the course of the week, Elizabeth had found it necessary to bow her head and listen to many words condemning her actions. She confessed her wrong again and again to Sister Ruth, but the sister never heard enough sorrow in Elizabeth's voice and continually warned her of eternal punishment if she did not turn from her worldly ways.

Both Sister Ruth and Sister Melva had shown much concern that Ethan had found them in the woods, as if Elizabeth had set out with such a meeting in mind. As if Elizabeth had been the one to run from the village and not Hannah. When she had quietly reminded them of why she had left the village-to search for Hannah-they let her know that too had been wrong.

The special feeling she carried in her heart for Hannah was not part of the Shaker way. They told her over and over that she must loosen her hold on her little sister of the world. She was sister to all in the village now and not Hannah alone. And as a sister she had the duty to work for the good of all and not think only of her own selfish pleasure or of the relationships she had carried to Harmony Hill from the world.

There was talk of Elizabeth being assigned solely to Sister Ruth to be sure she walked the proper path of an obedient sister. In the end, they had left her in Sister Melva's daily charge, but Sister Ruth's stern eye was never far away. On the Sunday after her lapse of obedience, Elizabeth had to stand before the assembly and admit her wrong. Hannah did not because she was a child and could be more readily forgiven a lapse of judgment. After Elizabeth had said the words Sister Ruth told her she must say, the elders and eldresses chanted a song full of woes as they stomped their feet and circled around her. Then others of the brethren and sisters stood up from the benches to join the elders and eldresses until Elizabeth felt as if she were in the midst of a whirlwind of disapproval.

She kept her eyes to the floor and did her best to appear penitent. She was not. She would leave the village again on the morrow to find Hannah if need be, but these people stomping away evil as they danced around her didn't have to know that. She could only hope Hannah would keep her promise to restrain her spirit at least for a while.

And then as if they had won the battle and pulled her back from the mouth of the evil about to swallow her, they began marching in a more orderly fashion around her. Their faces were transformed now with smiles instead of fury as their feet whispered quietly on the wood floor. They began to sing. "'Tis a gift to be simple. 'Tis a gift to be free. 'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be:'

Sister Melva reached out and took Elizabeth's hand to pull her into the marchers, and Elizabeth knew she had been forgiven. This time.

"Sing with us;' Sister Melva whispered in Elizabeth's ear.

So she joined her voice with theirs, and if she didn't feel the spirit they wished her to feel, she did at least feel grateful that they weren't pushing her out of the village.

Ethan's name wasn't mentioned by her or by anyone else in meeting, nor did she see him there. Her eyes had searched furtively through the brethren as the men entered the meetinghouse through the door assigned to them. She had seen Payton, but he only allowed his eyes to touch on hers for a few spare seconds before he turned away. She had continued to watch him as she wondered at the change in him. Payton had completely lost the resistance he had carried with him to the Shaker village. He looked like one of them. He moved as they did. In unison. In harmony.

She did not wish that different, but she couldn't keep the surprise of it from rising inside her. And a tinge of sorrow that he seemed so ready to turn loose of all they'd shared over the years and become her Shaker brother with no more attachment to her than the dozens of other sisters in the village. Once more she reminded herself that was good. She had enough concern with Hannah's unhappiness. And her own.

When she didn't see Ethan among the brethren, Elizabeth feared he was being ostracized for the confession he had perhaps made to Brother Martin, for even though they hadn't allowed their lips to meet, Elizabeth knew he had desired to do so. Elizabeth had felt no need to speak of such forbidden desires to Sister Ruth, but Ethan was a true Believer and might think it wrong to hide even the thought of doing something considered so sinful by the Shakers. The Bible was plain on that. A sin in the heart was the same as a sin done. It was the definition of what was a sin that was different for Elizabeth and the Shakers marching around her.

Later as Elder Joseph spoke of the activities of the Society, Elizabeth felt a rush of relief when he stated that Ethan had gone with Issachar on a trading trip down the river. At least she hadn't been the cause for him to be punished. And she did plan to stay away from him as Sister Ruth warned she must. She was attracted to the young brother, but surely that was all it was. An attraction. Not love. Even though the mere thought of his eyes on her made her legs feel weak.

Her mother had often told the story of how she had known she would marry Elizabeth's father from the first moment she set eyes on him.

"But did you know you loved him right away?" Elizabeth had asked as she tried to understand the great mystery of love she'd read about in books.

Her mother had smiled over at Elizabeth's father as they sat on the porch and watched evening drop its night shadows over the woods around the cabin. It was a secret smile that he met and shared as he reached to hold her hand. "Oh yes, better than that;" she said softly, not turning her eyes back to Elizabeth. "I didn't only know I was going to love him from that day forward, but I think I knew I had loved him forever'

"And did you feel the same, Father?" Elizabeth had asked.

"I felt as if the stars had come down and were sparkling in your mother's eyes. I was captivated by her very first smile at me'

Had that been how she felt looking at Ethan that day on the road when he had seemed so reluctant to meet her eyes? Something had flashed between them. But surely that had been nothing more than curiosity of their disparate worlds. He had been from a strange society she wished to join, and she had been coming from that world the Shakers took great pains to shut away from them. The very sight of her represented sin to him. Especially when it appeared all his thoughts weren't brotherly toward her as they were supposed to be.

Elizabeth had no trouble admitting she lacked the proper Shaker feelings toward him. She had wanted Ethan to kiss her. Even now, days later, the thought of his hand caressing her back while his other hand pulled her head down toward his lips made her heart speed up and her breath come faster. She had kissed Ralph Melbourne before he deserted her for life in Indiana. Colton had almost forced a kiss on her. The first she had accepted as part of courtship. The second had been a violation of her person. But with Ethan there had been no thought of yes or no. It had just felt right and natural to feel him next to her, to see his eyes staring into hers, to know he was going to kiss her.

In another world, it might be natural, but not among the Shakers. So even if it was love she felt for Ethan, she couldn't allow it to grow. She didn't want to be a stumbling block in his path of belief. It was good that he was gone from the village for a while. That would give her time to settle in and accept the Shaker rules. For in truth, with winter coming, she had little choice but to embrace the Shaker way and to pray that Hannah could do the same. No choice but Colton Linley.

As they turned up the walkway to the Gathering House, Elizabeth shivered and pulled her cloak closer about her to keep out the cold wind. She told herself she didn't have to worry about Colton anymore. He had no way to find her. She had disappeared from the world as completely as the snowflake had melted on her hand.

Two days later Elizabeth found out how wrong she was. She heard the commotion outside the Gathering Family house, but so much was strange about the village that she found little to be remarkable. Sisters who were sedate all through the week broke out in the strangest of songs and the most feverish of dances at their worship times. Even Sister Ruth was at times gifted with a whirling dance. At those times the older sister was transformed into a different person, but as soon as meeting was over, the stern shield fell back in place over her face. So Elizabeth paid little notice to the noises as she went about gathering the bed linens.