The Believer (33 page)

He was as pale as the cases on the pillows behind him. Sister Lettie feared he might be bleeding internally. Elizabeth carried the bowl of food to him, but his hand trembled so much when he tried to hold the spoon that she took it from him. He seemed to have no interest in eating, but he opened his mouth and let her feed him. He shuddered with each swallow.

"Is it so bad tasting?" Elizabeth asked as she offered him another spoonful.

He gave his head a tiny shake and opened his lips to receive the food without fighting against it as he had sometimes when he was more unconscious than conscious. He swallowed four more bites, each seeming to be more of a struggle than the last, before he shut his eyes and pushed her hand away. "Later," he said.

Sister Lettie had left the room to go across the hall to check on Sister Emma, who had twisted her ankle. Through the open doors, Elizabeth could hear Sister Lettie encouraging the injured sister to move her foot. Elizabeth straightened the covers over Brother Issachar's legs and adjusted the pillows behind his head.

When she started to turn away to let him rest, he put his hand on her arm. She looked down at him and asked, "What do you need, Brother Issachar?"

His fingers felt cold even through the fabric of her sleeve, but she didn't pull away from him. Instead she touched his forehead with her other hand to see if the fever was returning to him. He didn't feel hot. `Are you in pain? Sister Lettie can fix a draught to ease you:'

"Nay." His eyes fastened on her face and his breath seemed to come harder. "You look like Eva:"

"But I am not," Elizabeth said gently.

I know." His fingers tightened on her arm. "What you said to Sister Lettie. I heard:"

A flush of color rose in Elizabeth's cheeks. She shouldn't have spoken so freely in front of him. "I'm sorry to be such a reluctant convert. Perhaps it was wrong for me to come here"

"It's not a bad place:" He looked at her a moment before he went on, his voice growing stronger as he talked. "If you are ready to close away the world. I could never think of marrying another after my Eva died, so I was ready. You are not"

"Does that make me evil?" Elizabeth's voice shook a little as she spoke.

Issachar moved his hand from her arm to her cheek as she leaned toward him in her earnest need of an answer. "Nay, you are not evil:"

"Then what should I do?"

His hand trembled from weakness and she put her own hand over his to help keep his touch on her cheek. His eyes didn't leave hers as he answered, "Follow your heart:"

"But what if my heart leads me wrong?"

"It will not. Not if the love of our Lord dwells there. Trust what he tells you" He smiled slightly as he dropped his hand back down on the covers. "Trust what I tell you. Follow your heart"

"But I see no way," Elizabeth said.

He shut his eyes. Elizabeth watched him a moment in hopes he would speak more, tell her a way would open, but he did not. He looked even paler than he had a few moments before, as if his words had drained additional lifeblood from him, and she felt guilty that she was thinking of her needs instead of his. She gently stroked his face. "Rest, Brother Issachar."

"Yea," he murmured. "Rest forevermore"

Ethan stood in the doorway and watched Elizabeth smooth down Brother Issachar's bedcovers. Sister Elizabeth, he sternly corrected his thoughts. Not Elizabeth. She was his sister and to be thought of as such. It was a sin to think of her in any other way. A sin he committed daily. Sometimes hourly as thought of her stole into his mind even as he worked to put his full concentration on his duties. Not brotherly thoughts. Nay, far from them.

He had made his confessions to Brother Martin. He'd told him of his sin of worldly curiosity about the man named Hawk Boyd. A man, Brother Martin said, who had nothing to do with Ethan now. Brother Martin had no understanding of why Ethan would have even carried the name in his memory through the years he had spent with the Shakers.

"He should have been long dead to you, Brother Ethan, just as all things of the world are dead to the covenanted Believer" Brother Martin didn't conceal his impatience with Ethan's lack of discipline. "I should have never let you go with Brother Issachar into the world. You seem unready to resist the temptations of the flesh:'

Ethan couldn't say he was wrong. Especially not here, standing in the doorway watching Elizabeth tend to Brother Issachar with such tenderness. He did not think of her as a sister. Instead the desire to feel her hand touching him with that same tenderness swelled up inside him and took away his breath. Brother Martin had cautioned him to stay away from her, but he had to come see Brother Issachar. He had to try to pull him back to life.

And he couldn't simply stand and watch while that man of the world attacked her. No one else had been there to help her. He had pleaded for Brother Martin's understanding. "Surely it was only right for me to protect one of our sisters"

"Yea," Brother Martin had answered, but with a frown. "But why, Brother Ethan, is it always that sister you are called upon to protect? I fear wrong spirits are loose here"

Of course, Brother Martin was right. Ethan had been filled with wrong spirits when that Linley man had grabbed Elizabeth. He had wanted to smash the man in the face and knock him to the ground. Anger had burned through him for hours after the man rode away. At meeting he had tried to shake it off as he went forth to exercise the songs and reclaim the proper peace and love of a Believer, but he couldn't forget how the man had held her so roughly or the man's mocking words and eyes as he stared down on them from his horse. And even as Ethan labored the songs, he feared the seed of Hawk Boyd was sprouting higher within him.

He needed to hear the calming words of Brother Issachar assuring him that was not true, but Brother Issachar had hardly seemed to know Ethan or even where he was in the days since they returned to Harmony Hill. Ethan had been so sure that Brother Issachar would step away from the shadow of death as soon as he got back to his home, but it hadn't happened. So now it was good to see him sitting up, to see him speaking something to Elizabeth, even if the words did seem to bring a look of distress to her face.

He had passed Sister Lettie in the hallway on the way in, and she told him Brother Issachar was sitting up and talking.

"That's improvement;' Ethan said as a grateful prayer took wing in his heart.

"Yea, it would seem so:" Sister Lettie looked concerned. "Yet he seems weary of the effort"

"To talk, you mean?"

"Yea, that too:" She pulled in a deep breath. "Perhaps sight of you will be an encouragement to him. I'm glad the Ministry didn't deny him the comfort of your presence"

"I can only come during the times of rest. All available hands are needed for the planting;' Ethan said.

"So you are working in the fields?"

"Yea, planting corn. When I'm not here with Brother Issachar or at meeting. We have many fields this year."

"Mother Ann is blessing us with much prosperity," Sister Lettie said. "There will be plentiful food for our tables" She turned away from him to go on toward the sisters' outside door. "Tell Sister Elizabeth to come help me at the Medicine Shop while you are sitting with Brother Issachar"

It wasn't instructions he would need to speak to Elizabeth. She always rushed out as soon as he came into the sickroom. She seemed anxious to avoid tempting the wrong spirits even if he did not.

"I hear our patient is speaking," he said as he stepped into the room.

Her attention had been so fully on Brother Issachar that his voice startled her. Her eyes flew to Ethan's face and then quickly down to the floor, but not before he saw the same gladness he felt to see her reflected back to him in her eyes.

"Yea;' she said softly. "But he's very weak. I'm not sure he knows what he speaks" Red bloomed in her cheeks as if she were worried that he might have overheard their conversation.

"I couldn't hear his words," he assured her.

"Good;' she said, then stammered. "I mean, what he said would have been of no interest to you" Those words seemed wrong to her too as she rushed on. "I'm sure he will have much to say to you:" She mashed her mouth together as though she feared whatever words might escape her lips next. She tightened the strings of her apron, straightened her cap, and moved purposely toward the door. "I must go help Sister Lettie."

"She told me to so tell you:" As she passed by him, Ethan remembered how her brown hair had blown in wisps across her face the day he and Brother Issachar had come across her on the road, and he had the sudden desire to pull off her cap and free her hair to fall down around her shoulders. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets to keep them from the sin of reaching out to stop her. His tongue was not as easily controlled as he tried to delay her leaving by asking, "Did Brother Issachar say something to upset you?"

It worked. She hesitated as she passed him. "Nay, not really. He was sharing advice with me as I struggle to follow the Shaker way"

`And what was that advice?" When she looked reluctant to tell him, he hurried on. "Nay, I shouldn't have asked that. You need not answer"

"I can:' She lifted her head and looked straight at him. A flash like the charge in a lightning bolt shot between them. "He told me to trust the Lord and follow my heart:"

"Follow your heart;' Ethan echoed. He looked at her a moment before he said, "And do you know where your heart wants to lead you, Elizabeth?"

She slipped her eyes away from his. "Not all pathways are open." She snatched her cloak from the peg by the door and almost ran from the room.

He stared after her until he heard the outer door open and close. He shut his eyes and pulled in a shaky breath. He had to gain control of these worldly urges. He couldn't let his feelings keep catapulting him into sin. He opened his eyes and turned back toward the bed where Brother Issachar sat propped up by several pillows. He was watching Ethan. Not with condemnation, but with his old kindness and something else. Something Ethan didn't quite recognize. A sorrowful longing perhaps for something lost, never to be found again.

Brother Issachar held out a hand toward him. It trembled, but he kept it out, reaching toward Ethan. "Come, sit with me." His voice sounded weak and hoarse as he spoke not much above a whisper. "There are words I need to speak to you while there is yet time"

Ethan took a chair down from the pegs and set it beside the bed. "It's good to see you better;" he said as he sat down.

"Nay." Brother Issachar closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the pillows for a moment. "Not better."

Ethan wanted to argue against his words, but the truth was on Brother Issachar's face. His cheekbones practically protruded from his skin as his fight to live had used up every ounce of extra flesh. So Ethan stiffened his spirit and put his hand over Brother Issachar's as he waited silently for him to go on.

"The Eternal Father has given me this gift. Allowed me this moment of clarity to say goodbye. A precious gift:" Brother Issachar opened his eyes and looked at Ethan. "Just as you have always been to me. I said when I found you on the riverbank that you would be a gift to the Shakers, but the gift was really to me. You are the son the Lord knew I needed. He supplies our needs. Always"

`And now you're paying for that gift with your life:' Ethan couldn't keep the despair from his voice.

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." Brother Issachar turned his hand over to clutch Ethan's. "I am glad to be the one taken and not you. I've had a good life here at Harmony Hill. I'm ready to step over the divide, but you are not'

"If not for my sin, we would both have many more years here" Sorrow threatened to overwhelm him as he spoke and tears pushed at his eyes.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Another misfortune might have overtaken us:" Brother Issachar pushed his tongue out in an attempt to moisten his lips. He motioned toward the glass of water on the table. "Let me wet my mouth:"

Ethan stood and put the glass to Brother Issachar's lips to help him drink. He held the water in his mouth for a long moment before he swallowed as if he had to force it down his throat. His face grew paler even though Ethan had not thought that possible.

When Ethan stayed standing beside him, Brother Issachar smiled the barest bit and said, "Sit. My spirit lingers yet a little longer, and even if it did not want to do so, you couldn't hold it here by hovering over me"

"I will miss you:"

"Yea, that is so" Brother Issachar's voice seemed weaker. He was silent for a moment as if gathering his energy. His next words carried more force. "You must not sorrow over much for me. Nor must you carry guilt. What has happened has happened. Each hardship helps us grow in the spirit:"

"Yea, Mother Ann's teachings remind us that is so:"

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God'

"That's Scripture;' Ethan said.

"Yea. Words to remember, and not only for Shakers, but for all men and women"

"But the Shaker way, our way, that is the true way?" Ethan made it a question.