The Blessed Read online

  “I would, I would. Winter has lingered long past its welcome this year, but the sun’s got the promise of summer in it today.” Officer Neal pulled out a dingy handkerchief and wiped off his brow. After he stuffed it back away, he peered at the little man and said, “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you here in these parts, Brother Asa.”

  In his hiding place, Isaac felt a whisper of relief. At least the Shaker man wasn’t a stranger to Officer Neal.

  “Yea, that it has,” Brother Asa said. “But we’re building a new barn and had need of supplies.”

  “For dancing?” The officer’s voice carried the hint of laughter.

  “Nay, our meetinghouse serves us well enough there. Our brothers built it fine enough to stand for many years.” Brother Asa tied down a rope he threw over the back of the wagon.

  “I been hearing about some strange doings happening down there in your village.”

  “We’ve had a season of spiritual rainfall on our village for a truth. The kind the world struggles to understand.”

  “You fellers have odd cornered. Nobody’s doubting that. Me, I sing a hymn in the church house on Easter morning and Christmas Day. That serves me well enough. A man on the watch has little time for churchgoing at any rate, seeing as how there’s no stop to the mischief that goes on.”

  “So are you out looking for mischief makers this day?” Brother Asa walked around the wagon to pull the rope tight down on the other side.

  “Fact of the matter, I am. A mischief maker they tell me you was seen with this very morn.”

  Isaac wanted to shrink down smaller in his hiding place, but he kept his eye to the crack as he strained to hear every word.

  “Oh?” Brother Asa didn’t sound the least concerned even as Isaac’s heart began a slow thumping in his chest. “I did buy a man down on his luck breakfast this morning. Isaac he said was his name. Don’t think he gave a last moniker.” Brother Asa had the rope tied down. He leaned back against the side of the wagon and looked up at Officer Neal. “Would that be the man you seek?”

  “It would. Isaac Kingston.”

  “And what wrong has he done? He seemed harmless enough when I met him. Although a hungry man can be driven to desperation at times.”

  “Maybe desperate enough to stab a man and rob him of his pay, you think?” The officer fingered the top of his bludgeon that was sticking up out of his belt.

  “Did that happen?” Brother Asa didn’t seem to notice the officer’s hands.

  “That it did. On this very dock late last night. The wounded man gave a fair description of his attacker. It put me in mind of Kingston.”

  “I doubt the man I fed breakfast had a knife, and if he’d had any money, he wouldn’t have had reason to be hungry, now would he?”

  “Knives can be pitched in the river easy enough, and perhaps you ran up on him before the taverns came open.”

  Brother Asa seemed to ponder the officer’s statements a moment before he spoke. “That could be, I suppose.”

  Isaac’s leg muscles tightened, ready to run if Brother Asa turned his eyes toward his hiding place behind the barrels. It would be years before Isaac would see the light of day again if Officer Neal collared him. It wouldn’t matter that he was innocent. He’d been on the dock. Others had seen him there. While he hadn’t stabbed anyone—would never even consider stabbing anyone for money—nobody would believe him. Nobody. Perhaps not even Brother Asa. Isaac held his breath and waited.

  The two men out by the wagon seemed to be waiting too as they eyed one another. Finally the officer said, “You weren’t down on the docks in the midnight hours, were you, Brother Asa?”

  “You’re not thinking on me as a suspect, now are you, Officer? You know a Shaker man owns no weapons of violence. It is contrary to our beliefs.”

  “I’ll wager you have a knife in your pocket.”

  “A tool only, I assure you.” Brother Asa reached in his pocket and pulled out a small folded knife. He held it in the flat of his palm out toward Officer Neal. “Do you have need to inspect it?”

  The officer took the knife, opened out the blade, and held it up to the sun. “A fine bit of workmanship, but not much good for anything but sharpening a quill for writing. Or carving your lover’s initials on a tree.” The man laughed as he folded the knife up and held it back toward Brother Asa. “Guess as a Shaker man you’ve never had call to dull the blade doing any of that kind of carving.”

  Brother Asa laughed along with him as he took the knife but didn’t slip it back in his pocket. “For a truth. We give our hearts to God and he has little need of initials carved on a tree trunk. Better to make a fine piece of furniture or a building from the good wood he gives us.”

  Both men were still eyeing the knife. After a moment, Officer Neal said, “I’ve been looking for just such a knife.”

  “Then here.” Brother Asa held the knife out to him. “Take this one. A gift in appreciation of your work keeping the peace down here on the dock.”

  The officer took the knife and polished it against his sleeve. “I always knew you were a generous man, Brother Asa. In return I’ll offer you a bit of advice. If you run across that Kingston again, steer wide of him. He’s nothing but trouble and I’d hate to have to haul you before Judge Carver. The man has been low on mercy since he lost his daughter. Might be best if you left town and didn’t come back this way for a while.”

  “A wise man listens to good advice.”

  “That he does.” The officer pitched the knife up into the air and caught it in his fist before he jammed it down in his pocket and turned to head back down the riverfront.

  Isaac stayed where he was.

  Brother Asa tested the tautness of the rope, tying down his load, and then went to check his horses’ harness. He rubbed the patient horses’ noses as he said, “All right, boys. Looks like we’re ready to head home. Could be we’ll make it to the east edge of town about the middle of the afternoon. There’s a creek there where you can get a little grass and water before we start our journey to Harmony Hill. Could be we might find somebody there who needs some peace in his life. Could be.”

  The little Shaker never looked toward Isaac’s hiding spot behind the barrels, but Isaac knew the words were for him and not the horses. Isaac would be there. What other choice did he have? Leaving Louisville wouldn’t mean he’d forget Ella. He would never forget Ella.

  6

  From the time she was a little girl, Lacey had embraced spring like a miracle in the making as soon as the sun began to warm each year. It was a joyous fever she had caught from her mother. The minute she spotted the first dandelion bloom of the season, her mother would throw open the cabin door to the sun and shuck her high-top shoes and stockings to run barefoot with Lacey and Junie down to the creek. Often as not, their feet turned blue as they splashed through the chilly creek water that hadn’t been so quick to give up winter as the bright little yellow flower. But that didn’t stop them from doing their spring dance.

  Then they’d go back to the cabin and find the warmest spot on the porch to sit in the sun until their feet thawed out, while her mother told them stories about doing the same spring dance back in Virginia with her mother. At last, with their feet pink again and Junie’s eyes heavy with sleep, Lacey and her mother would go inside and bake a cake yellow as that dandelion bloom.

  After her mother died, Lacey tried to keep the spring dance going for Junie. The first year they just sat down on the rocks in the creek and cried. They tried to make the cake, but it came out of the oven so tough it bounced when they threw it out to the chickens. The second year the Widow Jackson whipped them for getting their skirts wet, but they made mud cakes with dandelion flower icing and both took a bite. The third year Junie was gone to live with their aunt in Virginia, and Lacey stood in the creek and let the water run over her feet until she thought her toes might fall off. She was too sad to do any splashing, but she didn’t forget the dance. The next year she was taking care of Miss Mona, and
when spring came, her feet felt like dancing again. While there wasn’t any creek close by, Miss Mona said it was likely a spring dance could happen anywhere bare feet could touch the ground. Just so long as it was out of sight of Preacher Palmer and the church deacons. And then Miss Mona sat at the kitchen table and stirred up a yellow cake almost as good as the one Lacey’s mama made.

  While Miss Mona was mixing up the cake, Lacey told her some of the stories her mother used to tell about doing the spring dance back in Virginia. Since Lacey couldn’t remember every word, she added a little here and there, but she told Miss Mona some of it was made up. So it wasn’t like she was telling lies or anything. Just stories.

  “Nothing wrong with telling stories,” Miss Mona assured her. “The good Lord himself told stories to help people know how to live. They’re called parables.”

  “Did he make them up?” Lacey asked.

  “I don’t know. Could be they were stories about real people, but he told them like stories. You remember the one about the prodigal son and how he wanted to eat the pig feed. Or how about that story you read me just the other day about that king who had trouble getting people to come to the wedding banquet for his son? That’s a fine story.”

  “But Jesus was teaching things with his stories. My stories are oft as not just silliness,” Lacey said. She licked the batter off the spoon Miss Mona handed her.

  “Not silliness. Your stories connect you with your mother and with Junie and your aunt in Virginia and with me. And someday when you have children of your own, you’ll be telling them stories that will connect them back to all of us too. No, not silliness at all.”

  Lacey knew about the parables. She’d heard Preacher Palmer expound on this or that one in sermons, and she’d read a lot of them to Miss Mona from her Bible. But try as she might, she couldn’t bring to mind any Scripture stories that might be about doing a spring dance. She told Miss Mona as much.

  “What about the parable of the sower?” Miss Mona said with a smile as she handed Lacey the cake pan to put in the oven. “You have to sow seeds in the spring.”

  After Lacey put the pan in the oven and stoked the fire to keep the stove warm enough to bake the cake, Miss Mona helped her find the sowing seed parable in the Bible. When Lacey finished reading, Miss Mona sat silent a few minutes the way she always did. She never spoke up on the meaning of the Bible words until she’d given them proper consideration.

  At last she said, “And I’ll pray for you, Lacey, that the seed of the gospel will always find good soil within your heart. That the nourishing rain will fall on your head and the tares won’t grow around you. I don’t worry about the seed falling on rocky ground. Your heart is too soft to ever be that hard.”

  Lacey didn’t like thinking about that parable now. Not this spring when all was hard ground inside her. On the way to church after a rain in April, her eye was drawn to a spot of yellow in the wet grass. It wasn’t the first dandelion of spring. She knew that, but she’d closed off her eyes to seeing any of the others. This one just popped up in front of her eyes before she had time to look another way. Lacey didn’t point it out to Rachel, who was walking along beside her. Instead she stepped off the path and stomped down hard on the yellow bloom and then twisted her shoe around like she was killing a wasp.

  Even before she lifted her foot up to see the smear of yellow smashed down in the soft ground, she was sorry. She might as well have ground her heel right down on her own heart. And not just her heart, but the hearts of her mother and Miss Mona too. She wanted to fall to her knees there on the wet ground and try to piece that little flower back together. She wanted to pluck it up out of the mud and hold it gently in her hand to show Rachel. She wanted to run to some creek somewhere and strip off her shoes and stockings and remember joy. And even if she couldn’t dredge up any of that joy in her own heart, she wanted to plant it in Rachel’s heart the same as her mama had once planted it in hers.

  But she couldn’t. Not right there beside the path in sight of the church house with Preacher Palmer walking two paces ahead of her. He stared back at her impatiently as he slowed to keep from leaving her and Rachel too far behind. She wanted to tell him to go on ahead. He liked to stand in the doorway and greet each arriving member. He didn’t want her beside him at the church door. She had to perch stiff and solemn on the front pew, the proper place for a preacher’s wife. A place that had been empty since Miss Mona got too weak to make the short walk to the church house some time back. A place that needed to be empty still, in Lacey’s mind. On Sunday morning when she sat there letting the preacher’s words stream past her ears without taking in any of their sounds, it was like she was sitting on a board with nails poking up through it. Or maybe that was just all the eyes of the church people stabbing into her back.

  Those stabs weren’t as bad as the preacher’s eyes following her around in the kitchen back at the house. It was getting harder and harder to stay out of the sight of those eyes, even though it was the first thing she prayed about every morning and the last thing she prayed about every night. Dear Lord, make me invisible. Not to everybody. Not to Rachel. Just to the preacher and the Ebenezer church people who seemed to be dropping by twice as often as before Miss Mona took flight for heaven. It was like they needed to make sure she didn’t find any escape from that prickly spot of having to act like the preacher’s wife.

  What was it Miss Sadie Rose had told her some days before? “A body makes her bed, she has to lie in it.”

  She hadn’t been talking about Lacey. Not directly at any rate. She’d been pretending to talk about some other poor soul who found herself in a patch of trouble, but Lacey had felt the words pound down on her. Lacey had wanted to tell Sadie Rose that was a bed she’d been keeping out of, but that wasn’t anybody’s business but hers and Preacher Palmer’s. She knew without bringing it up in uncomfortable words that the preacher wouldn’t be wanting anybody to know about their strange agreed-upon union. Nearly once every day he turned her Bible open to that passage about a woman cleaving to her husband and left it open so she’d have to see it. She didn’t have to ponder on the word cleave he underlined to know the meaning he meant her to note.

  Lacey could tell their agreement was wearing on the man as the days went by. The furrows between his eyes were getting deeper, and he hadn’t preached anything but brimstone sermons for three Sundays in a row.

  At midnight the Friday night before she’d seen the dandelion on the way to the church house, he’d climbed up the stairs to where she and Rachel slept in the little attic room. Some of the church folk had fixed up the space under the roof for Lacey when she first came to take care of Miss Mona. While there was barely room enough for the bed and no place for a grown person to stand up straight with the way the ceiling sloped down on both sides, Lacey had always felt as warm and safe in the little room as a downy chick under a mother hen’s wings.

  At least until Preacher Palmer climbed up the steep stairs and hunched over to come to the bed. Without the first word, he sat down on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes before he laid himself down next to her.

  Once Rachel went to sleep, didn’t much short of a booming thunderstorm ever wake her up, but any little noise made Lacey’s eyes pop open. She’d heard the first step of the preacher’s foot on the bottom stair and hardly dared to breathe as she prayed she was dreaming. She even reached up to touch her eyes in hopes she’d find them closed. But they were wide open, staring out at the grainy darkness, and her heart began to pound inside her chest. Not a good pounding. She felt as brittle as new-formed ice on a pond, and she wasn’t sure but what the way her heart was working overtime that it might not just cause her whole body to break into a thousand pieces.

  He lay there on the edge of the bed beside her for a long time—or what seemed like a long time to Lacey. She kept up the pretense of being asleep even though she figured her whole body was jumping with the force of her heart pounding in her chest.

  Finally when it was all she c
ould do to keep from screaming, he reached over and laid his hand on her stomach. She felt a quiver in his fingers as he moved his hand back and forth across her nightgown in the kind of strokes a body might use to settle down a fractious horse before trying to put a harness on it. She couldn’t move away from him. Rachel was on the other side of her with the bed pushed up against the wall so the little girl couldn’t roll out.

  “You promised.” Even though she whispered the words, her voice sounded loud in the stillness of the dark room.

  His hand stopped moving. Any gentleness he had been intending drained away, and his hand felt hard on her stomach.

  She braced herself for the anger she felt gathering in that hand, but she said the next words anyway. “On Miss Mona’s grave, you promised.”

  That wasn’t exactly true, but Lacey needed some way to bring Miss Mona in front of his eyes. Even if it did make him mad as old Balaam was at his reluctant donkey in that Bible story before the Lord let the donkey do some talking. She’d take a blow from him before a caress.

  But he didn’t hit her. Instead he pulled away his hand, and even though he wasn’t touching her up close anymore, she could feel how stiff his body got to match her own. After a long moment, he sat up on the edge of the bed and picked up his shoes. He stood up and stared down at Lacey. It was dark, but she could see the shape of his head and knew his eyes must look how they did when he was in the pulpit talking about sinners. Hard. Condemning.

  He didn’t whisper when he spoke. He said the words right out loud. “I didn’t promise forever.” The words hung there in the air over her, even after he turned away from the bed and made his way to the top of the narrow stairs.

  There he stopped. She didn’t look toward him. She kept staring straight up at the ceiling, trying not to think about anything except how the dark air separated and made little circles the longer she stared at it without blinking. The truth was, bringing Miss Mona in front of his eyes had brought an unease to Lacey’s mind as well. She couldn’t imagine what Miss Mona would think about what was happening. She had loved the preacher. More than she ever loved Lacey. What if she was looking the same kind of condemnation down on Lacey as the preacher was?