Dancing Dead (9 page)

“She was up on the third floor, and the rain and wind was blowing in on her, but she tied one end of the sheet-rope to the door of a cabinet built into the wall of her room—you know, you've all got 'em in your rooms.” Beatrice chuckled as if enjoying a secret joke. “She tied it to the knob, I reckon. Then she climbed out the window.

“But that Shaker brother outside her room, he got suspicious what with all the ruckus she made opening the window. He unlocked her door and come right in, never mind him being a Shaker man and all. He saw the rope, and he saw the open window. And he didn't see any Sarina. So he ran to the window and looked out.” Beatrice leaned forward in her chair and lowered her voice. “Sarina was just out the window, hanging three big floors above the ground, wet and scared and helpless as a newborn babe. And you know what that brother did?” With a smug grin, Beatrice studied her listeners, face by rapt face.

“He took out a penknife and he sawed right through that sheet.”

Daisy gave a tiny squeak, but no one else made a sound. Beatrice held up her half-f glass of port and looked through it, staining one cheek blood-red.

“Three stories, that's how far she fell. Broke her neck. Two broken necks in one night.” Beatrice lowered her glass and drained it in one gulp. “The Shakers inherited her entire fortune, jewels and all. That's why the ghost is here, goin' through every building. She's lookin' for her mother's jewels. And she won't rest till she finds them.”

“Or perhaps,” Horace said, “until she avenges her own death.”

Eight

T
HE STORM RAGED UNTIL JUST PAST MIDNIGHT, TAPERING
off in the early morning hours. What little sleep Gennie got was tainted by lurid dreams about falling bodies and necks snapped in two. At one point, she'd bolted upright in the dark, sure that skeletal fingers were clawing at her window, but it was just another burst of hail. Toward morning, she'd finally dropped off. By the time she woke up, sounds in the hallway told her she'd miss breakfast if she didn't hurry. It was Sunday, and Beatrice had hinted at a more substantial meal than usual.

It was a dreary group that gathered around the table that morning. Puffy eyes and feeble conversation said that no one had slept well the night before. Breakfast still hadn't been served when Gennie arrived, even though she was late. She had several seats to choose from, so she sat next to Saul. He was likely to be the most cheerful. Moreover, he was lifting a pot that, unless she was mistaken, held coffee.

“Have a cup, Gennie,” Saul said. “I bought this in Languor yesterday, thought we'd gone long enough without coffee for breakfast. I mean, it's fine for the Shakers not to drink coffee, but they shouldn't expect everyone to go without.”

Port, cigars, and coffee—quite an expensive shopping trip. “Heavenly,” Gennie said. That ended conversation for another minute or two. The coffee brought Gennie to semi-alertness, and for the first time she realized that someone was missing.

“Is Mrs. Dunmore ill?” she asked.

“We're not sure,” Daisy said. “No one wanted to disturb her.”

“She imbibed a fair amount of port last evening,” Horace said. “I suspect she is nursing a painful head. It's likely her appetite is not at its best, either.” He gulped his coffee as if it were water and held his cup out for more.

“I'll check on her after breakfast,” Gennie said. She didn't relish the idea of awakening a hung-over Mina Dunmore, but, for Rose's sake, she felt responsible for the well-being of the hostel residents.

“Such a sweet mother you will make, my dear,” Horace said.

No one responded. Gennie stared into her coffee cup and found herself missing Beatrice and Mina, who would have put Horace in his place.

The harsh smell of burning grease drifted in from the kitchen, where Beatrice was clattering what sounded like a full orchestra of pots and pans. “Dammit!” she screamed, followed by a crash. Beatrice appeared in the doorway with grease dripping down her front and mud stains on her shoes and ankles. “Don't expect breakfast anytime soon. That darn Brother Linus never did bother to show up with the food and wood for the stove, so I had to go out and get it all myself. After that gully-washer last night, it's a swamp out there. If I catch a chill, it'll be on his head.”

“May I help?” Saul asked. “I can fetch whatever you need, and I've been known to cook an egg or two in my time.”

“I don't need no clumsy menfolk in my kitchen.” With that, she withdrew, and the cacophony began again.

“Maybe I'll go check on Mrs. Dunmore now,” Gennie said. “All this noise must have woken her. I'll bring her some coffee.”

She half filled a clean cup and held it steady as she climbed the narrow, winding staircase to the second floor. Mina's room was about halfway down the hallway. Gennie knocked lightly, in case Mina really did have a headache, then with more power when no one responded. The Shakers had installed locks on the hostel's bedroom doors, but Gennie tried the knob anyway. It turned, and the door opened. The curtains were closed, keeping the room in darkness. Gennie had to step inside to see anything.

“Mrs. Dunmore? It's me, Gennie. I've brought you a cup of coffee.” No sound came from the rumpled bed, so Gennie tiptoed closer. The bed was empty. The sheets looked like they'd been dumped on the bed in a pile. The bottom sheet had been pulled off the mattress, and the pillow was missing. Gennie walked around to the other side of the bed and found the pillow on the floor. The blanket lay half off the mattress, as if Mina had fallen out of bed and pulled it along with her.

On the floor, poking out from under the blanket, an empty bottle of port lay on its side. Gennie didn't need to see any more. Mina must have continued drinking after retiring to her room. Most likely she was suffering the consequences in one of the two bathrooms shared by hostel guests.

Taking the coffee with her, Gennie closed Mina's door and checked the bathrooms. Both were empty. Neither showed any evidence that someone had been sick in it. In fact, Gennie realized that she'd smelled nothing noxious since leaving the dining room. More than anything, Mina's room had smelled . . . empty. As if no one had been there for some time. The guests had all received their clean sheets on Saturday, so there hadn't even been the odor of dirty bed linens. If Mina had slept in the bed, it couldn't have been for very long.

Gennie could think of only one explanation—Mina must have felt unwell and gone out for a walk in the fresh morning air. It sounded unpleasant, given the volume of rain that had fallen the night before, but perhaps Mina had found mud preferable to staying trapped indoors. Gennie had no intention of mentioning her discovery to the other guests; she was inclined to let Mina learn her lesson in private. On the other hand, Mina might be seriously ill, so she'd better alert Rose.

At the other end of the hall was a small parlor. Gennie had seen a phone on the parlor wall. She hoped it worked. To get to the parlor, she had to walk past the stairway landing. She tiptoed close to the inner wall to avoid being seen or heard downstairs. She didn't want to trigger curiosity in the dining room. At the end of the parlor was a door that led outside to a second-story porch. Just to be sure, she opened the door and poked her head outside. The porch was empty.

The phone worked. To her great relief, Rose had just finished breakfast and was at work reconstructing the Ministry library in the Center Family Dwelling House.

“I can barely hear you, Gennie. Are you ill? Shall I get Josie?”

“No, Rose, I have to speak softly. Just listen hard, okay? It's about Mrs. Dunmore, you remember her? Well, she's . . . I guess she is sort of missing.”

“
What?
Do you have any idea what's happened? Has Brother Linus gone looking for her?”

“Now that you mention it, maybe he did. Mrs. Berg complained that he didn't come to help her this morning, so maybe he saw Mrs. Dunmore out somewhere and became concerned. Anyway, it looks like Mrs. Dunmore might have had a bit too much to drink and gotten sick during the night. Her bedroom is empty, and she isn't in either of the bathrooms, so I thought maybe she took a walk.” As she explained her theory, it sounded unlikely.

“Was her coat gone?”

Gennie closed her eyes and imagined Mina's room. “Yes, I'm pretty sure it was. But she had other clothes hanging on pegs, so she didn't pack up and leave without paying her bill.”

“Then it's probably as you've suggested. She felt unwell and went for a walk. She may have wandered too far and gotten lost, though. Leave it to me, I'll send someone out looking for her. Thanks, Gennie—and don't worry.”

Gennie returned to the dining room, carrying the now-cold coffee, to find eggs, fried ham, and hot biscuits finally on the table.

“Her Highness didn't feel much like drinking coffee this morning, did she?” Beatrice said. “Give it here, I can find some use for it. Coffee's expensive; some of us know better than to waste it.”

“I gather Mrs. Dunmore is indeed unwell?” Horace asked.

“Everything is under control,” Gennie said, reaching for a jar of raspberry jam. “This food looks yummy, Mrs. Berg.”

“No thanks to that Brother Linus,” Beatrice said, but she sounded a shade less surly than usual.

Horace, for once, was not shoveling food into his mouth. He waited for Gennie to swallow and asked, “Would you say that Mrs. Dunmore's condition is serious? Will she be joining us for lunch perhaps?”

“Oh please, could we stop talking about Mrs. Dunmore?” Daisy said. “Let the poor woman alone. It isn't kind to talk about her behind her back.”

Horace turned his attention to Daisy. “I do apologize, Miss Prescott. I had no idea you were so fond of her.”

“It isn't fondness, just . . . well, it's just bad manners to talk behind someone's back.” She kept her eyes focused on her plate while she spoke.

“I heard laughing coming from her room last night, well after midnight. Wouldn't be surprised if she had some company,” said Beatrice.

“Dear me, what a thought,” Horace murmured.

“More'n likely they was drinkin', from what I could hear.” Beatrice held up a nearly empty serving plate. “Anybody want more of this ham? I fried it up real crisp.” Horace lifted his hand to reach for it, but Beatrice ignored him, scraping the last bits onto her own plate. “Yep, I reckon I'll find a bottle or two in her room when I clean it.”

Though Gennie had lost her appetite, she ate as quickly as she could. She'd forgotten that Beatrice would clean Mina Dunmore's room, which meant she would find it empty except for the port bottle. The rumors would sail through the hostel and into Languor by afternoon. “Shaker Hostel Is Devil's Playground”—that would be the headline in the next
Languor County Courier
. She'd have to swipe the bottle, maybe hide it under her coat, and bring it to Rose. Otherwise, Brother Andrew could wind up in real trouble, maybe even lose his position as trustee, and Rose would not be able to save him.

 

Sister Isabel went straight from breakfast toward the Sisters' Shop, where she hoped to finish dyeing some fabric before the afternoon worship service. She'd been scheduled to help in the fields, but the soggy ground made that impossible. Isabel was glad. She much preferred plunging her arms elbow deep in a vat of dye to slogging around in mud over her ankles. Besides, she'd be the only sister in the shop, what with Sister Sarah helping out in the kitchen, so she could sneak in a little experimentation. With Rose's permission, she'd bought some commercial dyes in town, and she couldn't wait to see what shades she could create by mixing the store-bought colors with the butternut and golds and browns she made from barks and roots. Wilhelm would frown, of course. He insisted she use only natural, Shaker-made dyes, the colors of the earth. Well, weren't the sky blue and the grass green?

Isabel had to stop and wait at the unpaved path that ran through the center of North Homage. A car and a farm wagon, both full of folks from the world, passed in front of her, heading toward the Meetinghouse. “Just what we need,” Isabel muttered, “rowdy ghost hunters invading our worship. Do they think some poor creature will materialize before their eyes?”

She tried to cross the road through a break between two groups on foot, but an arm grabbed her elbow.

“Are you a real lady?” demanded a high voice.

Isabel found a girl of about six hanging on to her elbow with both hands. Her parents walked on ahead, not realizing their child had stopped. The girl examined Isabel's face with suspicious brown eyes. Her gaze shifted to the elbow in her grasp, and she frowned. She unhooked one hand, grabbed a hunk of Isabel's forearm, and pinched hard.

“Ouch!” Isabel yanked her arm away. “I most certainly am real, and it's very rude to go around pinching people.”

The girl crunched up her face, sniffed, then let out a howl.

“What's going on here?” The girl's mother and father had circled back to find their errant child. “What have you done to our daughter?”

“She . . . she called me rude,” the girl said, between sobs.

Two angry parental faces glared at Isabel. For the most part, Isabel liked children. She sometimes helped Sister Charlotte plan outings for the children being raised by the Shakers. There were, however, exceptions, and this child was one of them. She could not abide ill-mannered behavior. “Your child pinched me,” she said. “Kindly remember you are visiting our home, not a circus.”

The girl's father took a menacing step toward Isabel, who stepped back to avoid being too close—or being struck.

“Just because you're a Shaker don't mean you're better'n the rest of us,” the mother said. “You're just a spinster lady, you don't know nothing about raisin' up a child.”

The day was shaping up badly. Isabel longed to escape, to engross herself in fabric dyeing, away from the world. Best just to walk away, she decided. She turned around and came face to face with Elder Wilhelm. He was close enough to have heard the exchange.

“If thy work in the Sisters' Shop is finished, thy help is needed in the fields,” he said.

“I was just on my way to the shop,” Isabel said, edging away.

The irate family left, apparently more interested in continuing their hunt than in further threatening a Shaker sister. Or maybe the look on Wilhelm's face told them they might end up as the threatened ones.

Wilhelm fell into step beside Isabel as she headed for the Sisters' Shop. “Thy behavior concerns me,” he said. “Consorting with the world is dangerous for thy soul.”

“I wasn't consorting, they were—”

“Our Father abhors excuses.” With that pronouncement, Wilhelm veered off toward the Trustees' Office, where the community's black Plymouth waited in the central path, its motor running. Isabel was relieved to remember that he and Andrew were heading off on a sales trip to drum up new business for their medicinal herb industry. She'd heard they were going farther south than they ever had before, so they had to leave on Sunday. With luck, Wilhelm would be so tired when he returned, he'd forget to criticize her behavior to Rose. Not that Rose would pay much heed to his complaints, anyway.

Isabel had never been so happy to step inside the cool, dark Sisters' Shop. She rolled up the sleeves of her loose work dress as she entered her favorite room, which housed the dyeing vats. Loops of yarn, recently dyed in muted gold, rust, and shades of brown, hung from wall pegs, turning the room into an autumn forest. Isabel sighed with pleasure. She was eager to check the wool yarn she'd left soaking overnight in a mixture of green and rust dye.