A Deadly Shaker Spring (5 page)

“Rebecca,” Rose shouted to a young sister who was hurrying toward the shouting in the schoolhouse. “Run and get the brethren from the fields. Tell them
to bring sticks and sacks. Quickly. We can't let these creatures roam the village.”

She turned to the schoolhouse door as Samuel plunged into the room, trampling a squealing rat that wasn't quick enough to get out of his way. He scooped up two boys around their middles, one under each muscular arm, and hauled them out.

Rose kicked a rat away from Charlotte's paralyzed feet and grabbed her elbow.

“Come on, Charlotte, don't look down, that's a girl . . .” Rose dragged the young sister though the classroom door.

Once outside in the sunshine, Rose took a look at the sobbing child's ankle. The rat had pierced the skin and drawn blood.

“Take Amanda to the Infirmary,” she told Charlotte. “Tell Josie just what happened. She will need to summon Doc Irwin.” Rose did not mention the possibility of rabies. It would only panic the child even more.

As Charlotte left, Rose went back inside to help Samuel herd out the rest of the children. Exhaustion had quieted the screams, and the children fell gratefully into Rose's and Samuel's arms to be carried outside. Rats—dozens of them, it seemed, frightened and starving—were finding their way outdoors, too. The brethren had a job ahead of them.

As the children were bustled off to the Trustees' Office in Samuel's care, Rose closed the front door of the school building and all the windows to trap the few remaining rats indoors. She left by the closed door at the back of the classroom, which led into a storage room and then to an outside door.

She closed the storage-room entrance behind her. The door to the outside was shut, and only one small window allowed light into the room. Like most Shaker rooms, this one was neat and clean. Extra student desks lined one wall, their attached chairs side by side. Dust-free pine shelves held squared stacks of books, chalk, and other supplies. Wall pegs circling the small room held flat brooms and dustpans and two ladder-back chairs hung upside down.

A wrinkled and dirty burlap sack, which lay just inside the inner door, stood out like poison ivy in the medic's garden. The sack's open end faced toward the classroom. With her thumb and forefinger, Rose lifted one corner of the sack's opening and peered inside. The rough brown weave had snagged dozens of small gray hairs. So that's how the rats were transported to the building. She dropped the burlap and backed away as her stomach spasmed in revulsion.

Whoever had sneaked in here with a squealing, wriggling bag of rodents had taken a terrible chance on being seen or heard. Yet, to someone familiar with Shaker routine, this might have seemed the safest time. Planting season had just begun. On a good day, they had perhaps twenty able-bodied workers who could be spared for fieldwork, and that's where they would be at this time of the afternoon. There were fields near the schoolhouse, but they were always last to be planted in the spring. At that time of day, no one should be in the nearest buildings: the Children's Dwelling House and the currently unused Carpenters' Shop. Anyone arriving on the road from Languor could easily have veered behind the Carpenters' Shop to reach the back entrance of the schoolhouse. Though
a few kitchen sisters would be across the street, cooking the evening meal in the Center Family Dwelling House, they would have seen nothing unless they left the building for some reason.

Could a stranger, someone from the world, possibly have sneaked into the village on such a horrible mission? Or was it a Believer? And most alarming to contemplate—why?

“We thought our children were attending a clean, well-run school, not some open sewer! Who knows what dreadful diseases they've been exposed to—and bringing home to the younger ones, too!” Mrs. Franklin Saunders, a plump and wealthy mother of four, stood with her arms crossed on her matronly bosom and glowered at Rose. Behind Mrs. Saunders crowded eight more angry parents, people of the world who had sent their children to the Shaker school because of its excellent reputation. The afternoon sun brightening the Trustees' Office seemed out of place in the midst of their fury.

Rose spread her hands, palms outward. “I understand your alarm, truly I do, but I assure you that this incident is a mystery to us as yet. We have never found so much as a field mouse in the schoolhouse. We've always kept it—all our buildings—spotless.”

“Then how do you explain them rats, huh?” A thin farmer in dirty torn overalls poked his finger in the air toward Rose. The man's wife, her skin pulled tightly over her cheekbones in fear and hunger, held a young boy in front of her. The child's eyes were dark holes in his bony face.

Rose thought quickly. She couldn't leave the impression
that the village harbored rats. Yet if she revealed finding the burlap sack and her suspicion that someone had planted the rats, she might start a panic among parents fearful for their children's safety. The Shaker school might be forced to close forever. Having their own school district meant income from the state. Since Sister Charlotte taught without a salary, all the money was used to buy supplies and up-to-date books. If the School Board closed their district, the Shaker children would have to attend a school in the world, where Believers could not watch over them.

“I can't explain the rodents,” she said finally, “not yet. But I promise you that I will find out what happened. Please give me some time.”

“And what about that girl who was bit, huh?” The thin farmer wasn't ready to give in so easily. “I heared she was bit real bad, might not make it. What about that, huh?”

Gasps and high-pitched chatter greeted the farmer's announcement. Rose shouted to be heard above the din.

“Amanda is fine. She has been seen by Doc Irwin and is doing well. She is heading home with her family right now. Please, I know how concerned you must be, and I assure you we will do everything in our power to protect the children.”

“What about rabies? Have you even given a thought to that?” Mrs. Saunders asked. As a young woman, she had volunteered as a hospital aide during the Great War, and she could be counted on to trigger medical anxiety on any occasion.

“We will certainly take care that Amanda does not
contract rabies,” Rose said in a voice calmer than she felt. “She will be given the best of care, and we will pay for it. Nothing will happen to her, and no one else has been injured. In the meantime, I will get to the bottom of this, you have my word.” She looked into the eyes of the frightened parents and smiled. There were no answering smiles, but at least they were listening.

“Now I suggest that you all go home. I am closing our school for the time being. I'll alert the School Board myself.” She certainly intended to capture the School Board president's ear before any of these furious parents did. She dreaded the Board's reaction and assumed she would have to deal with an inspector at some point. But she would tell the state officials about the burlap sack; perhaps she could convince them that the rats were brought into the village, not sharing room and board with them.

“I assure you I'll look into this incident carefully,” Rose said. “I'll personally oversee the extermination and investigation. I will reopen the school only when I am certain it is safe.”

The parents whispered among themselves for a few minutes. Mrs. Saunders, who assumed the role of spokesperson, gave their response.

“You may be sure we will not allow our precious children to set foot in your school until we are absolutely convinced of its safety,” she said in a tone she might use with a servant on probation. “When the time comes, we will inspect this place from top to bottom ourselves.” She gave a brisk, dismissive nod of her head and nudged the shoulder of a plump boy whose sulky face had brightened at hearing he'd
have no school for a while. “Come along, Thomas,” she said, loudly enough so all the children and parents could hear. “Be sure to watch your feet when we get outside. Heaven knows how many of those foul creatures are waiting for us.”

R
OSE WATCHED FROM HER OFFICE WINDOW AS THE
parents herded their youngsters in the direction of their cars and wagons. Sinking down at her desk, she allowed herself a moment of rest. But she couldn't sit still for long. She put through a call to the president of the School Board, who was out until the next day, and left a message with his secretary for him to call her immediately. She hung up and instantly the phone jangled.

“Eat in the Ministry dining room this evening. We must talk.” Elder Wilhelm's terse command crackled over the wire. Even though she was now eldress, his female counterpart in the Ministry, Wilhelm still treated her as a subordinate. He could make her feel for a moment like a guilty schoolgirl.

“So you've heard about the incident in the schoolhouse?”

“It should be clear to thee by now that little escapes me,” he said. “Though I had to hear it from Brother Samuel, instead of from thee, as I should have.”

“It's unfortunate I was unable to call you immediately, but too much was happening at once.” Rose sighed, but she tried to do so quietly.

“A child was bitten, I hear,” Wilhelm continued. “How is she? Did anyone think to call Dr. Irwin?”

At least Wilhelm was showing concern for the child, and Rose liked him better for it.

“Yea, of course Josie called him in. Amanda is well for now, but the doctor says she'll need rabies shots, to be on the safe side, since we can't possibly know which rat bit her.”

“Rabies?” Wilhelm's tone was outraged. Rose closed her eyes and imagined Wilhelm's craggy face hardening with fury. She knew all too well what a rabies scare would mean for the Society's reputation, but she supposed that Wilhelm would explain it to her anyway and blame either her or the world or both.

But Wilhelm surprised her again. “We'll talk this evening,” he said.

Rose spent a grueling hour lending a hand in the Laundry before allowing herself her promised visit to Agatha's sickroom. The former eldress, Rose's friend and spiritual adviser, had survived her third stroke, just barely. Visiting her, watching her struggle to survive, was painful, but Rose was drawn by hope and by love.

“How is she today, Josie?” Rose poked her head into the Infirmary nurse's office. Josie sat behind her desk, her several chins in her palms as she peered through reading glasses at an open medical book. Her cherubic face, surrounded by wisps of white hair that had escaped her cap, looked more suited to a nursery than to this room filled with apothecary jars, tins, splints, and bandages. At hearing Rose's voice, she brightened.

“About the same, dear, about the same,” Josie said with the gentle acceptance of one who has seen many deaths in her eighty years. “Have you come to sit with her awhile?” Rose nodded. “Good, that'll cheer her. Here, I'll go along with you.” Rose followed as Josie bounced down a short hallway.

The room glowed with afternoon sunlight softened by thin white curtains. Unlike sickrooms Rose had visited in the world, this one smelled of lavender and roses and lemon balm. It was too early in the season for fresh sprigs of herbs, but Josie had placed bowls of crushed dried herbs on any surface she could find. A small bowl of rosewater sweetened the air next to Agatha.

The former eldress's frail body lay bundled in an adult-size cradle bed, so that she could be rocked to prevent bed sores and to help her sleep. The right half of her face hung loosely from the thin cheekbones. Agatha stared with cloudy eyes at her visitors before registering recognition and pleasure. She opened her mouth to greet them, but only the left side responded with a garbled syllable.

“I'll leave you now and go back to my studies,” Josie said.

Rose pulled over a chair and reached into the cradle bed for Agatha's left hand.

“I've got a nerve coming here and pouring my troubles out to you every day, don't I? Well, all I can say in my own defense is that it was you who insisted I become eldress!” She laughed, which brought a slight, lopsided smile to Agatha's face. “Did you warn me how hard it would be? Not that I remember, but then I was so insistent I didn't want to be eldress,
you probably thought it best to keep the difficult parts to yourself.

“Agatha, I really don't want to burden you. I know I should let you heal, but I also know how much you love the Society and would want to know . . . nay, I'm not fooling anyone, not even myself. I just miss talking out problems with you.” Rose felt Agatha's fingers wind around two of her own and squeeze lightly. Rose squeezed back.

“Okay, you've talked me into it,” she said. “I'll tell all. It started so mildly, you see, with just some stolen raspberry preserves. Then someone sneaked into the village early the other morning, opened the barn and smashed part of the fence, and let all the animals loose. Whoever it was actually sedated poor Freddie.”