Free Killing Gifts by Deborah Woodworth Page A

anything.”
    â€œNo, of course not.” Helen patted her shoulder, which for some reason irritated Gennie.
    â€œYou haven’t mentioned what your business here is,” Gennie said.
    â€œI guess we didn’t get around to me.” Helen gathered up the empty sherry glasses and arranged them on a tray. She laughed lightly. “Well, I’m a collector, my dear, that’s all. I collect Shaker furniture and whatnot. In fact, I’m planning a trip out to Hancock bright and early tomorrow morning. I have an idea—why don’t we go together? We can go right to the Fancy Goods Store, and you can get that job you said you were looking for. I’m quite sure they’ll welcome you. Good night, now.” She moved quickly for a large woman, and she was halfway up the staircase before Gennie could form her next question.
    Â 
    Rose tossed off her covers and shivered. Six A.M. seemed to arrive earlier in the East than it had in Kentucky, where it hadn’t seemed so frigid outside of one’s toasty bed linens. Her hands shook as she pulled on her wool work dress. Folks here must be tolerant of the cold, so they kept their buildings cooler than she was used to. Or perhaps Hancock had suffered even more than North Homage from this endless Depression, and they were cutting expenses wherever possible. Rose guessed the washroom might be even colder, so she wrapped her long outdoor cloak around her.
    When she returned, she quickly tidied her retiring room, praying silently as she did so. She had arrived late the night before, and she’d chosen sleep in a real bed—one that wasn’t moving—over unpacking her satchel. She folded her few belongings into the drawers built into the wall. She shook out her spare work dress and a winter Sabbathday dress and hung them on hangers, which she hooked over pegs lining the wall.
    Rose looked around her temporary home. She’d barely glanced at it before falling into bed. The room was so like hers back at North Homage, yet different in ways that Elder Wilhelm would never have tolerated. On one wall peg hung a framed photo, probably dating back several decades, of horses in a pasture. An empty vase on her simple pine desk was, she knew from her previous visit, filled with flowers during warmer weather.
    Rose started at the sight of her own thin frame and her pale, freckled face looking back at her from a large mirror hanging from several wall pegs. In North Homage, only a small, and usually cloudy, mirror was allowed in each retiring room, so Believers would not be tempted to admire their own appearances. It was one of Rose’s duties, as eldress, to tidy Elder Wilhelm’s room and mend his clothing, so she knew that he shaved with only a small pocket mirror.
    The bell rang for breakfast, and Rose reluctantly slipped off her cloak and rehung it on a peg hanger. She would not be leaving the building until after the meal, so she had no good excuse to take it along.
    She closed her retiring room door and found herself alone in a wide hallway, punctuated by numerous doors. Weak winter sunlight from two large windows did its best to brighten the hallway, but it also reflected off a thin layer of dust along the edges of the floor. Rose was torn between sadness and an ingrained desire to clean. She knew that the sisters did their best, but they were so few now, and growing older. They couldn’t sweep every corner, every day—not in buildings that once had housed at least two hundred and fifty hard-working Believers. So much of the work was hired out these days, and cleanliness didn’t have the same meaning for folks from the world. Rose vowed that, if she could find the time, she would help out wherever she could. In fact, it would be a good way to get to know everyone involved in the tragedy.
    The hallway was silent. Everyone else had gathered for breakfast, so Rose hurried down the women’s staircase and entered a small room