Free The Believer by Ann H. Gabhart Page A

at times there was a passing on the walks with polite greetings as they went about their duties. But Brother Martin had advised Ethan to keep such exchanges to the very minimum. A nod was better than a word. So he really didn't know words to say to his own sisters at Harmony Hill. He certainly knew nothing to say to a female from the world.
    She didn't have that problem. "Are you Shakers?" she asked, looking first at Ethan and then at Brother Issachar.
    "We are," Brother Issachar answered kindly.
    Relief flashed across her face, lifting the evident worry for just a moment before it fell back into the lines of her face. She looked behind her toward the trees and then over her shoulder down the road. When she saw the road empty, she turned back to them and pointed the way they'd come. "Is that the way to the Shaker town? To your town?"
    "Yea,' Brother Issachar said. "Do you seek Harmony Hill?"
    "I have heard the Shakers ..' She hesitated before she went on, changing the words. "I have heard that you will take in orphans. Is that true?"
    "We do not turn away those in need,' Brother Issachar said.
    "You look old to be an orphan;' Ethan blurted out. She had to be nearly as old as he. More woman than girl. She certainly little resembled his Harmony Hill sisters with the wisps of her light brown hair blowing across her dirt-smudged face. Her dress was wrinkled and torn in a few places on the sleeves, with a scattering of sticktights on the bottom of her skirt. Her eyes looked tired as she turned to stare straight at him when he spoke. Then he thought "tired" was not the right word. "Desperate" suited better.
    "So I am, but I have no home;' she said plainly. `And I will be a Shaker if you will take in my brother and sister. I know how to work' She looked toward the woods by the road again and made a motion with her head.
    A youth as tall as Ethan and slim as a reed growing in a pond and a small girl with a cloud of white curly hair came out of the trees to step up beside the woman in the road.
    She said, "This is Hannah and Payton. My name is Elizabeth. Our father was Marlow Duncan:"
    The boy stared at them with misgiving. It was easy to see he didn't have the same eagerness as his sister to find the Shaker village. The little girl leaned against Elizabeth, her weariness showing in every line of her body.
    "How far is it to your town?" the child asked. "We walked much of the night"
    "Will we make it there by dark?" the woman named Elizabeth said. "We are very tired. It's been a hard few days. We buried our father the day before yesterday."
    Brother Issachar frowned. "The day before yesterday? And is there reason for your haste to come to our village?"
    Again the woman glanced over her shoulder down the road, as though fearing something might be overtaking them. She appeared relieved to see nothing there as she looked back at Brother Issachar and said simply, "We have no food"
    "We had apples but we ate them, and Aristotle ate the biscuits," the child with the remarkable hair added. She looked directly at Brother Issachar and then Ethan.
    The color of her eyes was the strangest Ethan had ever seen, like the blue of their Shaker cloth faded by the sun until it was more white than blue. Her direct look made him uneasy, and he shifted his eyes to the boy and then the woman. He thought he should drop his gaze down to his hands or off to the trees, but he did not. Something about her attracted his eye, attracted his curiosity. She looked frightened. Lack of food for a few hours would not be reason for fear. And she looked at him boldly as if she not only resented his curiosity but the fact of her fear.
    He ordered himself to look away at the trees, but his eyes stayed pinned on her. He was relieved when Brother Issachar spoke to take her attention from him.
    "We have food enough to share;' Brother Issachar said.
    "We don't want to take your midday meal. We aren't that hungry;" the woman said. "We only wished to be sure we were heading in