Free A Deadly Shaker Spring by Deborah Woodworth

her a solemn promise to cut back on the booze. She’d said her uncle had been a boozer, and it made her sad to watch.
    Caleb leaned across the cot and plunked the bottle on the upended orange crate that served as his nightstand. Trouble was, life drunk was plain easier for Caleb. His nightmares struck as the alcohol wore off—the shelling that still blasted his brain every night, though the war had been over for nearly twenty years. Then there was his wasted life, filled only with empty bottles. Sarah was the only happiness he’d known in the past twenty years. Too bad she was a Shaker, but he’d change all that. He’d get her away from that place. He couldn’t remember why exactly, but he knew it was their fault his life had gone so bad. Yeah, he’d save Sarah from those people, and then they’d be together, and he wouldn’t have nightmares or need to drink anymore.
    Content again, Caleb grabbed the bottle and took another swallow. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. He settled on the cot with his thin legs crossed underneath him. He was to deliver the page to Sarah when he saw her next. He knew it was a page torn from a journal, and it held information Sarah wanted, stuff about her mother and who her father was. He knew, too, how she’d react—excited and scared at the same time. Steadying the whiskey bottle against his thigh, he unfolded the paper and read it through. It began in the middle of a sentence.
    . . . my sister is Faithfull, and yet she is not, not to me, neither to her vows. But I cannot blameher. My own heart betrayed me, and I have paid with my soul. Indeed, I gave all for a touch of her wheat-brown hair, not knowing that there would never be a second touch. Not after she turned her eyes back to him. I hate even his name and will not grant it substance by writing it. I know that he has been with her. I see every flick of her eyes, every tiny gesture. When she is out of my sight, I dream every movement and each sleeping breath she takes. Nay, I cannot blame her. I see the purity of her soul through her clear eyes, blue as a lake in the sun, and as deep. The fault is with him, Brother Satan, Satan himself. He seduced her innocent heart, and Mother Ann is a witness. There will be a reckoning. God grant that I may be His instrument .

EIGHT
    R OSE WAS STILL LEARNING TO BE A SPIRITUAL leader for her people, but she knew that her way was not Wilhelm’s, nor was it Agatha’s. Wilhelm was a visionary, whose eyes saw only what had once been. He was a powerful force, though, as she’d found out more than once. Agatha was contemplative, closely linked to the realm of spirit, increasingly so as she grew older and more feeble.
    Though drawn to spiritual concerns, Rose’s practical nature fit perfectly with the world of business: herb sales, real estate purchases, new economic ventures. Once the nation’s economy improved, and their own debts lightened, she hoped to dabble again in investments to provide monetary security for the Society. For now, she kept in daily contact with her people, eating with them when she could avoid Wilhelm’s demands that she eat at the Ministry House, helping with the ironing on hot afternoons, watching for signs of unhappiness. She prayed, of course, and derived great comfort from that. But if she saw a problem, she wanted to solve it.
    Now she had several problems. She extracted a sheet of paper and a pen from her desk drawer andbegan a list. A familiar relief settled in as she organized her thoughts and plans on paper. Under “episodes,” she listed:
    1.    Stolen jars of raspberry preserves
    2.    Broken fence—and Freddie drugged
    3.    Sister Sarah injured (attacked?) in the Sisters’ Shop
    4.    Rats released in the schoolroom—and Amanda bitten
    5.    Anti-Shaker literature left in the Trustees’ Office and Ministry House, for me and for