The Afflicted

Chapter 12.

Benjamin appears. I push myself up. Though I am not in a proper bed, but a cot in the sitting room, lying down while he is near makes me uneasy.

"Iris?" I croak, and Sister Anne hands me a cup of water.

"She is resting," Benjamin says, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. "It was quite a shock to the family to see her...attachment to the boy."

In the wake of Iris's heartbreak, she stands before Benjamin in judgment. I swallow my contempt and school my expression. "It was a shock to see a man dead."

"Rest thyself," Sister Anne counsels me, her hand on my arm. I sense that she doesn’t want me to speak further.

Benjamin sits at the end of the cot, and I draw my feet up. Any courage my anger might have given me shrivels beneath the physical fright I feel. Though he tries to smile warmly, the expression chills me. "As you are close with Iris, perhaps you could tell us what you knew about her involvement with the boy?"

"Nothing." I frown and pretended to remember something. "Although, I did think it strange that she left her bed so often in the night."

Sister Anne's face registers alarm, but it is Benjamin who speaks. "She left often? And you told no one?"

"Not often. Only a few times...she told me to go back to sleep, that she was going to the privy." I shrug, feigning helplessness. "It was when I first arrived."

"The hired men knew nothing of it. They said they caught the boy taking food and hiding it, but they thought he was planning to leave on his own." There is a fourth person in the room, one I wasn’t aware of, but from the slobbery sounding speech, I know it is Elder Frank, the middle-aged man who’s the head of the other family. His jowls make his speech impediment more pronounced.

"Poor Iris is insensible," Sister Anne says quietly, as though she isn't sure her words will be welcome. It was under her watch that Iris strayed, after all. "They hid their intentions so well, I doubt we'll ever know the truth of it."

"If you do know something, Evie, you should tell us." Benjamin fixes me with his predatory eyes. I'm sure he fancies himself smart for figuring me out, but I will reveal nothing.

I widen my eyes and look from Sister Anne to Benjamin and back again, slowly shaking my head. "She never spoke a word of it to me."

I feel a momentary stab of panic at the thought that one of the hired men might have told all, and Benjamin is trying to trick me. Or perhaps they’ll break later, and I’ll be caught in my lie. But I think of Quill's reticence to speak to seemingly anyone. I don't have to worry about him keeping the secret. Pete, however, I can't judge. Though he seems kind enough, he drinks, and I know all too well that spirits make men strange.

"And why would she have?" Sister Anne fusses with my skirt as I swing my legs to the floor. Is she defending me? She, who seems to revel in each mistake I'm unfortunate enough to make? She goes on, "Thou looks for conspiracies where there are none, Elder. Let the matter lie."

It's shocking to hear a woman talk so frankly to a man, but that's the way of the Shakers. Women speak freely, work as they like, give their opinions, and the men never balk. It is as if there is no division between the sexes but for the ones placed on physical intimacy.

Sister Anne helps me to me my feet and walks me from the Elders' house. As we pass beneath the big maple at the corner of the yard, she says, "Iris will spend a few days and nights in quiet seclusion and prayer. She is in a great deal of shock."

I nod, numb, my earlier realization still hanging over my head. Not only did I kill the hired man with my terrible wish, but I broke Iris, as well. No matter how much rest she gets, she'll never be the same. Death transforms not just the soul he snuffs out but all those around that poor, doomed life. And the circumstances are so tragic; I'm not fool enough to hope she'll find her peace.

I go to my bed, too aware of the empty one beside mine. I feel a shameful relief; as long as Iris is away, I won't be called upon to deliver heartfelt platitudes that will only deepen my guilt.

Without Iris's presence, I notice for the first time that other conversations happen in our room after dark. Lizzie and Jane speak in hushed tones until nearly sun-up, speculating on Iris's reaction and her involvement with the hired man.

"What if he was her brother?" Lizzie wonders aloud. "That happened with little Annie, remember? Her mother dropped her and her sister off here, and her brother came looking for them."

"Iris has a brother, in the other family." Jane tsks. "Iris was going to run away with her lover, it's a simple as that."

"I never would have thought it of her. But she's been under a bad influence, lately."

I sink further beneath my quilt, hot tears of embarrassment stinging my eyes.

More than once in the night, they remark snidely about me, and each time it hurts all the worse, for I know it to be true. Not that I am responsible for Iris's romance with the hired man, but that I didn't try to stop her. I'm a terrible selfish person who wishes others ill and can't bring myself to feel sorrow when ill befalls them. Has my awfulness swallowed up all of Iris's goodness? Have I poisoned the well by coming here?

The following days pass in a blur of endless, lonely repetition. One morning, I take out my sewing, but I realize there is no point without Iris here to tutor me. I sit, looking out the window at the horizon and the jagged bruise of the mountain against the blue sky. My mother is out there somewhere and my uncle who has so smoothly assumed my father's place. And Iris, too, though I haven't seen her, and Sister Anne will not tell me where she might be.

I do my chores obediently and silently, for no one wants to talk to me. They don't wish to associate with the girl who's caused so much trouble, who dragged poor Iris down to the depths with her.

The more miserable I become, the more concerned Sister Anne is, which is a puzzle to me. I thought my failure would cheer her, for she's never seemed to like me all that much. Instead, she displays genuine worry for me, and often reassures me that Iris is well and recovering from her unfortunate shock.

Still, a week passes, and Iris doesn't return. I begin to worry all the time. I want answers, and it seems I will not get them from the people around me. I know I have to seek out John Quill, though he is the last person I wish to see.