Free The Outsider by Ann H. Gabhart Page A

secrets they would hold out to her in time. The promise of those books had been lost to her the day she and her mother had come together with the Believers.
    The year before, she’d asked Sister Mercy if she could have more books. The elders and eldresses had discussed it before deciding Gabrielle’s time would be better spent working with her hands. What one learned from doing a physical chore well was of equal or even more importance to whatever one might learn from a book. If there was extra time and the desire to read, she could read from the Bible or a book of Mother Ann’s precepts. To soften the refusal, Sister Mercy had given her a journal to record some of the daily events of their family.
    Gabrielle had already filled several volumes with the daily happenings of the village, the accomplishments of her students, and a record of her duties. When school wasn’t in session, Gabrielle’s hands stayed busy working for the good of the village the same as any of the other sisters, taking her turn in the laundry room, in the kitchen, or wherever she was assigned. She enjoyed working with the other sisters nearer her age and hearing their talk.
    She was often touched by the new sisters’ sufferings and sorrows even though she had little direct understanding of their woes. She listened closest and with the least understanding when the women spoke of their husbands and how they missed lying by their sides at night. Many of the new sisters hadn’t wholly converted their hearts to the Believers’ way, and they spoke of their men with the longing of something much more than brotherly love.
    Once Gabrielle had dared ask a young sister about this love. “But we all love one another here. How is this love you speak of different?”
    The two of them had been working together in the washhouse, scrubbing the men’s clothes, and with the noise of the splashing water, there was little chance they would be overheard. Sister Cassie had paused with her hands still in the soapy water and looked up at Gabrielle. Sister Cassie was young, with eyes that shifted green to blue with her mood. She and her husband had been married only two years when he’d decided to join with the Believers. She had had no babies, and it was a grief to Cassie that now she would never bear a child. She looked at Gabrielle with something akin to pity in her eyes. “Poor Sister Gabrielle. My life may be barren now, but at least I’ve known love.”
    “But I know love,” Gabrielle protested. Her life fairly exploded with the love she felt for those around her.
    Sister Cassie smiled. “True. You know love as it is here. You’re much better at this kind of love than I will ever be. But I mean the love of a man and woman, bound together as one. James and I had that kind of love. It’s still strong in my heart.” Sister Cassie pulled a hand out of the sudsy water and held it against her bosom. “That kind of love should last forever. Till death do us part the way we promised each other in front of the preacher the day we married.”
    Sister Cassie bent back over her tub and blinked her eyes. Tears mixed with the sweat on her cheeks as she went on. “Now James won’t hardly look at me. Says I’m the devil’s temptation. Calls me ‘sister.’ I’m not his sister. I’m his wife.”
    “Maybe you should try to love as we love here,” Gabrielle suggested gently.
    “I’ve tried. Am trying. But it’s not enough. If I was like you and had never known a man’s love, then maybe it would be. But I don’t want to live like this with the natural juices of life dried up inside me. I want to have my own cabin, my own man, and a houseful of children just like my ma did.” Cassie began scrubbing the knees on a pair of trousers furiously. “I love James. Promised him I would forever, but I don’t know how much more of this kind of living I can stand.”
    Gabrielle had no experience with the kind of love Sister Cassie longed after. Gabrielle had witnessed no