The Blessed (16 page)

She lay there on the narrow bed and rubbed Rachel’s back. They hadn’t started out in the same bed, but as soon as Sister Drayma shut the door behind her, Rachel slipped out of her bed to crawl in beside Lacey. The room was small, barely big enough for the three beds that were little more than cots. No one slept in the third bed.

Rachel had fallen right to sleep as soon as she cuddled next to Lacey. She trusted Lacey to take care of her. A trust that was going to be broken come morning. As Lacey stared out at the dark air that surrounded her, she tried to think up what she would say to Rachel come morning. What words could ease their parting. What promises could she make and be sure to keep.

Think on the promises of the Lord.
The words whispered through Lacey’s mind again. Miss Mona would tell her it wasn’t this earth she had to worry about inheriting. It was the Promised Land she needed to be seeking. That all people needed to be seeking. So maybe that was the earth the Lord was talking about in that meekness verse. But Lacey wasn’t exactly ready to step over to heaven’s shore. Somehow she was going to have to find a way to live in this strange place where what seemed to be the natural way of life was denied. Not that she’d been living in any natural way with the preacher in the weeks since their marriage.

It kept coming around to that. To how she’d aimed to fashion and shape life to suit her will instead of accepting things as they were. She had no idea why she thought she could do that. It had never worked before. She hadn’t wanted her mother to die. She hadn’t wanted her father to marry the Widow Jackson. She hadn’t wanted to watch Junie ride out of her life back to Virginia where it was likely she’d never lay eyes on her again. She hadn’t wanted Miss Mona to move on up to heaven. She had never had the first thought of ever marrying Preacher Palmer. And yet she had. Stood up right beside him and surrendered every hope of knowing love like she imagined it could be. The way she dreamed it should be. And now come morning she was going to have to surrender this last person she loved.

She could make up a hundred stories, whisper a thousand wishes, and cry a million tears, but it wasn’t going to change a thing. Not one earthly thing.

The best she could do was think up words that might make the parting easier for Rachel. She’d have other girls to play with. Other women to mother her to whatever extent the Shakers believed in mothering. She would get to sing and dance in church instead of sitting still as a mouse. She would be safe. And Lacey would never stop loving her. That was a promise she could make with no worry of not being able to keep it.

Lacey kissed the top of the child’s head and then smoothed the hair back from her face. Each moment seemed extra precious as the night slipped past. Too precious to waste in sleep.

Once in the deep of the night, Rachel cried out and grabbed for Lacey as though she’d lost her footing on a cliff. Lacey tightened her arms around her and then to sweeten the child’s dreams began whispering a story into the dark air pressing down on them.

“Once upon a time, there was a little baby in a box and angels watched over her.” A tear slipped out of Lacey’s eye and dribbled down her cheek, but she didn’t quit whispering the story. “Those angels were the fastest flyers, because the Lord knew that baby was going to grow into a little girl who did the most amazing things. Her and her doll, Maddie, and her pet worm, Silas.”

Lacey didn’t know why she’d thought up a pet worm, much less given him a name, but a smile pushed some of the worry out of her heart. Stories had always done that for her. A gift, Miss Mona had said, as long as she stayed clear on which were the made-up parts and which were the real parts and didn’t mix them up. But there in the dark with Rachel’s hair tickling her chin, Lacey couldn’t help wondering which was harder to believe. The made-up story or the one that was truly happening.

16

Rachel didn’t cry the next morning when Sister Janie took her hand before breakfast to take her away to the Children’s House. Lacey had awakened the child at the first hint of daylight to prepare her for what was going to happen.

“It won’t do the first bit of good for us to cry and carry on,” Lacey told her. “All that will do is make our heads hurt and your mama up in heaven ashamed that we’re forgetting to trust in the Lord to take care of us. He will, you know.” She tried to sound extra sure of that. If she kept saying it, maybe she could start believing it the way Miss Mona did. “The good Lord has something in mind for us. Something good.”

“Can’t we just go home, Lacey?” Tears were in Rachel’s voice, but none slipped out of her eyes.

“Not now, sweetheart.” Lacey pushed Rachel’s dark hair back from her face.

“Tomorrow?”

She looked at Lacey with such hopeful eyes that a lump jumped up in Lacey’s throat so big she could barely squeak out an answer. “We can pray about it, but it might be awhile before we can go home.” Lacey tried to smile, but her lips wouldn’t turn up.

Rachel stared at Lacey’s face a long minute before she said, “We don’t have a home anymore, do we?”

Lacey swallowed down the lump in her throat and spoke her next words fiercely. “We may not be able to ever go back to our old house, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a home. We’ll always have a home together if nowhere but in our hearts. You in mine and me in yours.” Lacey took Rachel’s hand and placed it over her heart and then placed her own hand over the child’s heart. She imagined its steady thump under her hand. Life continuing.

“That sounds too hard.” Rachel lay her head over on Lacey’s shoulder.

Lacey stroked the child’s hair and let her rest there for a moment until a bell began tolling in the village. Measured and loud. No doubt a signal for the Shakers to rise. She had no idea how much time they had before the Shaker sisters would come for them. The only thing she knew for sure was that they would come. She took hold of Rachel’s shoulders and pushed her back from her so she could look into the child’s face.

“You can do this, Rachel. You have to do this. We both do.”

“But I don’t think I can keep from crying.” The little girl’s bottom lip trembled.

“You can blink those tears away. It’s not like we won’t see one another. We’re both going to be right here.”

“Will you still tell me stories?” She held up her Maddie doll. “About Maddie?”

“Every chance I get. We’ll get Maddie into so many pickles you’ll think there will be no way she can get out of trouble. But she always finds a way, doesn’t she?” Lacey pushed a smile out on her face.

An answering smile touched Rachel’s lips, but then disappeared as quickly as it came. “I wish we could be like Maddie and think up what we want to happen next.”

Out in the hallway Lacey heard footsteps. She wanted to shut her eyes to block out the daylight pouring in the window and delay the morning, but she couldn’t stop time. They would have to face the day. “All right. Let’s do that. Think up what’s going to happen next.”

“How?” A little frown wrinkled the skin between Rachel’s eyes.

“Think about it. What happens every morning?” Lacey pointed at the window where the first hint of sunlight was creeping into the sky.

“The sun comes up.” Rachel smiled. “Mama said the sun always comes up no matter what else happens.”

“That it does. And then one of the Shaker sisters will come and bring us new dresses.”

“Will mine be blue? I like blue.”

“Could be. Sister Janie’s was blue, wasn’t it? And she was the sister who was going to take care of you.”

“I didn’t like her.” Rachel stuck her bottom lip out a little. “She looked mean.”

“That’s just because you were worried about what was happening. She didn’t look a bit mean to me.”

“She did to me. I want to stay with you.”

“I know you do, but right now that can’t happen.” Lacey remembered the eldress taking her to account for using the word “can’t.” But no other word fit. “But you know I love you. My love wraps all around you and nobody can take it off. Nobody.”

Rachel settled her soft cheek against Lacey’s chest and was quiet for a long moment. Finally she said, “Lacey, can I call you Mama?”

Lacey caught her breath in surprise. While she knew in her heart she was Rachel’s mama, she had never expected to hear Rachel call her that. Sometimes Lacey wondered about the good Lord’s sense of humor. Here with them about to be parted, he had put in Rachel’s mind to recognize Lacey as her mama. “Why are you asking that now?”

“Because Mama told me that mamas never stopped loving their little girls. No matter what.” Rachel peered up at Lacey with intense blue eyes. “And I want you to have to keep loving me forever, Lacey.” She shook her head a little and changed her last word. “I mean, Mama.”

“You don’t have to worry about me stopping loving you, sweetheart. Ever.” Lacey hugged the child close and kissed her forehead. “It doesn’t matter what you call me. Lacey or Mama. I’ll always love you.”

“More than all the rocks in the creek?” Rachel leaned back to ask.

Lacey smiled and played the “more than” game Miss Mona had taught Rachel. “More than all the pebbles in the river.”

“More than all the stars in the sky?”

“More than the moon and all the stars put together.”

Rachel thought a moment before she said, “More than all the bees in a field full of daisies?”

“More than all the worms wiggling under the ground.”

Rachel giggled at that and ended it the way Miss Mona had taught her to. “Then that’s enough. Not as much as Jesus loves me, but plenty enough.”

Lacey held her a minute before she said, “Don’t ever forget that, Rachel, and somehow, someway, things will work out.”

“Papa will take us home? We can be happy again?”

Lacey didn’t know how to answer that. Home was never going to be the same for them and happiness was something that seemed out of reach. At least for her and Preacher Palmer, but maybe not for Rachel. “You will be happy again,” she promised her. She let a little prayer wing up in her heart that it was a promise the good Lord would honor.

The door opened and Sister Janie and Sister Drayma came into the room with dresses draped over their arms to get them started on their new lives. Rachel didn’t cry as Sister Janie led her away, but her face was sad as she looked over her shoulder at Lacey, who managed to keep a smile on her face until the child was out the door. Then it slid away from her lips like one of Rachel’s worms crawling back into the dirt.

That left her alone with Sister Drayma who didn’t appear to favor smiling overmuch anyway. The Shaker woman reminded Lacey of some of the churchwomen back at Ebenezer. Those who looked worried that if they smiled at church, they might look to not be taking the business of the Lord serious enough. It was more than obvious that Sister Drayma was taking the business of being a Shaker plenty serious enough, and making Lacey into a Shaker sister was her part of that business on this day.

Gray hair peeked out around the edges of Sister Drayma’s cap and her faded blue eyes were squinted as if she had to narrow her eyes down on something to see it clear. When Lacey gave in to her curiosity and asked her how old she was, the Shaker woman claimed not to remember the exact number of years. She said a Believer didn’t think on her worldly birthday that much. The important day to celebrate was the day one signed the Covenant of Belief and for her that was thirty-two years ago in March.

“What’s the Covenant of Belief?” Lacey was feeling as full of questions as Rachel on a walk through the woods.

“That’s your promise to live the perfect life in union with your brothers and sisters.”

“Oh.” Lacey eyed Sister Drayma and decided she couldn’t have been all that young even then. “But what about before then? You must have been older than me when you came here.”

The woman frowned at Lacey. “My worldly life ended and my new life began on the day I came into the village. Just as it will for you.”

Lacey slipped the Shaker dress over her head and shoved her hands out through the sleeves. She pulled her hair free of the dress neckline and picked up the broad white scarf. “But were you married? Did you have children?” Lacey asked as she draped the scarf around her neck.

“You ask questions of the world. Things that do not matter.” Sister Drayma narrowed her eyes even more on Lacey before reaching over to yank the edges of the scarf straight and even on Lacey’s shoulders. “Now pull the corners down in front. Your apron will hold them in place.”

Lacey wrapped the apron around her waist and reached behind her to tie it. She knew how to put that on without help. “But how can being married not matter? The preacher that spoke the vows for me and Preacher Palmer said something about what God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Till death do the two part.”

“Nay, those are the words of a preacher with worldly beliefs. The Lord revealed a better way to our Mother Ann. One of purity and peace. The man and wife relations of the world bring naught but worry and upheaval into our lives.”

“But what of children? They are a gift from God.”

“Yea. We treasure our children. In union with all. Young Sister Rachel will be much loved by all the sisters and brothers. Such love as she could never know in the world.”

“Nobody could love her more than I do.” Lacey straightened up and stared at Sister Drayma.

Sister Drayma met her stare and spoke with the confidence of one expecting to be obeyed without question. “So you may think, but now you will be sharing that love in union with all who are like-minded in our village. In time you will come to see how your love can change from a selfish, narrow feeling to something that can encompass all your brothers and sisters. ’Tis a gift to know such love.”

She reached her hands up in the air and gazed toward the ceiling. Lacey might have thought she was praying if she’d closed her eyes, but instead she kept her eyes wide open like she was searching for words written up there above her head. She reminded Lacey of an old tree with only a few branches left coming out of its thick trunk but rooted solid where she stood. She wasn’t exactly fat. Just thick through the middle the way a lot of older women got when the years piled on. Miss Mona hadn’t, but then she’d been afflicted with those weak spells that took her appetite.

When Sister Drayma started shaking her hands back and forth, Lacey spoke up to try to bring her away from whatever she was seeing up on the ceiling. Lacey wasn’t sure she was ready to witness one of the shaking dances just yet.

“Love is good.” She pushed the words out tentatively, but they worked.

The woman dropped her hands and was back to stern Sister Drayma. “Proper love,” the sister said. “Love you will gladly embrace when you learn more.”

“Love’s embrace,” Lacey whispered.

But the old sister had turned away to gather up Lacey’s discarded clothes and didn’t show any sign of hearing her. It was just as well. Lacey’s thoughts weren’t on brotherly love. Instead she was thinking she might never know a true embrace of love. One that made her heart quicken and stole her breath. The kind the young brother she’d met the day before had surely known with his treasured wife who had died too soon. Brother Isaac. He’d had such nice eyes. Just the thought of them made Lacey feel a little trembly inside as she took the cap Sister Drayma handed her. She could imagine loving a man like that. Just not the preacher.

She sighed softly as she twisted her hair and shoved it up under the cap. Her hands shook as she straightened the cap. She told herself that had nothing to do with the young brother’s face sticking in her head or her thoughts of love that would never be. It had more to do with the truth that she hadn’t eaten since her bowl of oatmeal the morning before. That was what brought the trembles on. Only that.

As the days passed, Lacey didn’t mind the work they expected her to do. A body needed to be busy. Even the practicing of the dancing they did in the evenings wasn’t bad. The up and back steps were curious but entertaining enough. Often as not, Lacey’s foot tapped to the beat of the songs while she sat and watched. Sister Drayma said it was best to watch for the first week or two so she wouldn’t mess up the lines.