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The Refuge

By Ann H Gabhart

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1
October 9, 1849
You can’t cheat death. We thought we could. At least we hoped we could. That was why I sat in a blue Shaker dress, staring across a narrow table at Eldress Maria in her like garb as she told me about Walter. She had fetched me from the cellars and my duty of peeling apples to lead me to this little room where twice a week she encouraged me to confess my every sin. I was ready enough to do that now. To do anything to block away the truth of her words tearing my heart asunder.
“I am sorry, Sister Darcie.”
She did look as though she might be. Actually sorry along with being concerned over how I might react to her news. A Shaker through and through, she was left at a village somewhere in the east when she was eight. A blessing, she claimed. Opened the door for her to a perfect life. Then forty-some years ago when she was twenty-nine, a mere five years older than I was now, she came here to teach the Shaker way to those who joined together to form the village of Harmony Hill. Ever a true believer.
I could not say the same. We were here, Walter and I, merely to escape cholera. To escape death. And then Walter did not. Oh, cholera didn’t slay him. But death can come in many ways. Like a steamboat explosion. That is what Eldress Maria said stole Walter from me. He’d gone with the Shakers on a trading trip downriver to New Orleans, picked for that duty because he’d been a river man before we married.
Married. Not something the Shakers recognized. Here in the village, men were brothers and women sisters and never the twain could meet in what seemed a God-ordained relationship to me but sinful to them. Neither Walter nor I believed being man and wife was wrong in any way, but we didn’t come here to convert to the Shaker way. We only intended to stay among these peculiar people for a little while. Just until the autumn winds blew away the bad air that brought cholera death.
I stared at Eldress Maria. A tear made a laborious trip down through the wrinkles on her cheek. Whether a tear of sorrow or simply a tear from an old woman’s watery eyes, I could not know.
My own eyes were dry. I couldn’t take it in. The words hung in the air between us, but I didn’t want them to be true. Walter couldn’t be dead. Not now. Not before I could tell him my news. My hands slipped under my apron to cradle the small swelling there.
Eldress Maria leaned across the table toward me. I sensed she wanted to hold my hands, but I kept them under my apron. I had no idea how long I could keep my secret hidden as well.
“We do understand this news may be difficult for you, Sister Darcy, since you are so new to the Shaker way. How long have you been here among us?” Another tear slid down Eldress Maria’s cheek. She was not without feeling for me.
“Three months. We came in July.” Somehow I managed to push out an answer. Words that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now. Nothing except the baby Walter and I must have made right before we came to this place where marriage vows were negated and marriage beds denied.
I would have told him before he went down the river to trade the Shaker brooms, seeds, and jams. I did suspect I was in the family way back then at the first of September, but we had no way to talk. Not without breaking the rules.
In August I had managed to whisper a word to him during one of those times when we were learning steps to the dances they claim as worship. Dancing for church took some getting used to, but practicing the steps proved useful that day. A stumble here, a misstep there, and I ended up near Walter, close enough to arrange a midnight rendezvous.
I climbed through an open kitchen window and made it to the tree behind the Gathering Family House first. I had no problem sneaking out since the three other sisters in my assigned room were all snoring and sound asleep. And little wonder they snored, with orders to sleep laid out like a corpse in those narrow beds. On your back. Arms down to your sides. The Shakers had rules on how best to do most everything, but a body should be able to sleep however she wanted. How I wanted was to be curled next to Walter. Definitely against Shaker rules.
That night I heard him coming before I saw him, and my heart pounded with as much sweet anticipation as any time during our courting days. We weren’t newlyweds. We’d shared four years together before coming to the Shakers, but the separation made his touch that much dearer As I stepped into Walter’s embrace and rested my head in that sweet spot below his shoulder, I realized how much I missed Walter’s arms around me and his manly smell. And now I must miss them forevermore. At last tears filled my eyes and breath came hard.
“Are you sure he is dead?” I choked out the words.
She inclined her head until I couldn’t see her eyes under the brim of her bonnet. I wore a like white bonnet, my copper-colored hair twisted into a braid and hidden beneath it. I had refused to cut my hair like the other sisters, because Walter loved stroking his hands through my curls. I blinked away tears and stared at Eldress Maria.
She played her fingers over the table as though searching for the best answer. When she seemed unable to find it, I spoke first. “Walter was a strong swimmer. He could have made it to the other shore.”
Eldress Maria said Walter had been killed when the boilers exploded and sank the riverboat carrying the Shaker traders back to Harmony Hill. Such tragedies were not uncommon on the river. But Walter could have escaped death there the same as we escaped cholera. I was not wrong about him being a strong swimmer. He was strong in every way. He had once carried me across a wide creek as if I weighed no more than a dandelion fluff.
The old Shaker sister looked up at me, her eyes kind, but her words unyielding. “Nay. He did not, much to our sorrow. The other brethren escaped death and brought Brother Walter’s body back for a proper burial. Even now, they are digging the grave.”

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