The Visionist: A Novel (23 page)

Sister Charity

TRUTH. FAITH. LOVE.
Union. How does one lead a life that embraces them all? Tell me that and I shall never fear another day. Of late, I feel as though I play favorites from one moment to the next. Faith is my shield, Truth is my cross, Love is my reward, Union is my duty. Each takes its turn blinding, exalting, wounding, betraying, enticing, and enfolding me such that I see nothing in a clear light anymore, feel nothing without also suffering the awareness of its opposite, know nothing without doubting whether I know anything at all.

Rebecca is gone from us, and as I sit beside her body, I weep. I should have helped her die instead of trying to make her live. I should have been brave enough to choose Truth.

Although Sister Polly whispered her comforts, I was the only one allowed near at the end. I alone heard the sole sounds she could make, and oh, they were born of agony! I knew to leave her naked at times so that the air might begin to dry her wounds, but the pain of even the faintest breeze caused her to beg that I bandage her once again. I willed myself to be deaf to her pleas and how she suffered for it. I thought I knew better.

I tried to be good, saving her burns from becoming infected, cleansing the blistered skin then changing her dressings. Sister Polly brought Rebecca her milk-thinned gruel and I was gentle, spooning the food into the girl’s open mouth little by little so she would not choke, lifting a cup of water to her blistered lips that she might drink, and then wrapping and rewrapping her skin in clean muslin cloth. When the pain was too great, Rebecca cried out for Mother’s mercy, and in those moments, when she could no longer feel Sister Polly’s angels about her, I would take of opium and wine and make for her a liquid we call The Laudanum. The drink brought on a sleep so deep that Rebecca’s very life seemed to lie in suspension, all pain quieted, all movement made still. Indeed, so like death was her deliverance, she appeared preserved in amber.

I see now that my ministrations were hardly acts of kindness. I know what true mercy is for a believer in such pain. A few drops of the White Poppies mixed into a draught of sugar water to bring her permanent sleep—that is what would have eased her misery. I should have been brave enough.

I think Faith must know there are dogs at its heels, for it has, of late, presented itself in astounding ways. No sooner had it found voice in the curses my fellow believers bellowed across the field at Sister Philomen and Brother Luke, it showed its form in the Midnight Cry, and rarely have I felt so afraid. Just as I had heard of the warring songs but never sung them, I had only been told stories about the nights when elders roamed the houses like ghosts looking to sweep away sin. Truth be told, their dark faces and the sound of their chanting haunted me still. I felt they were after
me.
Did they sense something amiss in the chamber I share with my beloved Sister Polly?

What does it matter now? I reach my fingers towards Sister Rebecca’s face, afraid at first to touch. All I can see are her eyes, set so large and deep that it appears her skull has shrunken away. The skin of her eyelids—soft and papery as I slide them closed—seems too fragile a curtain to black out life. I sink down into the chair by her bedside.

I should have been brave enough to coax death into taking her sooner.

The night of the Midnight Cry, we poured forth from our rooms wondering where to run, sure that we were being called to the aid of believers in need. I can hardly think on it now, but I left my dearest friend alone and in pain.

We sped up the road towards the Church Family and, on the pathway that led to the meetinghouse, found Elder Brother Caleb, motioning us to hurry through the storm and take shelter inside. I could not see his face in the driving snow. To be sure, I feared the worst.

Sister by sister and brother by brother, we filed into the meetinghouse and took our places. The very elders who had, not an hour earlier, patrolled our chambers, now stood behind a long table that had been draped with a bright white cloth.

No one spoke, for it had not been made evident whether this was a moment for laughter or seriousness. Even in our uncertainty, we were astounded by the sight before us, for arranged upon the table were tens upon tens of small paper hearts—each about the size of a person’s palm, all covered in tiny writing. None of us had ever seen anything like them, for believers were rarely allowed to put pen to paper for any but the most practical of reasons. How then, I wondered, had these glorious hearts come into being?

Entering in a blast of wind and snow, Elder Brother Caleb walked the aisle between us and stopped in front of the table. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold, but also, I think, from excitement. Such a string of miracles as had taken place since Sister Polly’s arrival had reawakened in him, perhaps more than in any other believer, a sense of the divine. His ecstasy wafted round him like a flower’s heavy perfume, the effect part intoxicating, part overwhelming.

“We have been blessed on this frigid night,” he said, beaming. “Over the past fortnight, our dear Sister Cora Ann Reed has received a most remarkable gift. Not a one of us knew of it, thus not a one could have predicted that it would be the Cry that told her how and when to bestow it. But tonight, the voice of Our Heavenly Father and Holy Mother whispered into her ear and asked that she present the penned messages you will read on each of these hearts. Every last believer residing in The City of Hope was named unto her, and through her gift, every last one of you will receive the Word.”

He stepped behind the table to join the others while Elder Sister Agnes walked solemnly to the front. Her regard was not the hardened gaze to which we had all become accustomed. Rather, she looked out upon the assembled congregation with serenity, even joy. It occurred to me that perhaps Sister Cora Ann’s gift felt somehow more real to her because of the labor it had required, for it was indeed an impressive display of devotion.

“I see nervousness etched into the faces of some of the believers sitting before me,” my eldress said. “For if spoken to so directly by the Divine, how can we not tremble beneath the gaze of Her all-seeing eye? But I am here to say that you have nothing to fear, for not one of these hearts bears a message of chastisement. We shall call each of you by name, and when you hear it, you may walk slowly to the table and bow down to receive your blessing and be glad.”

Nothing like this had ever taken place.
What blessing,
I wondered,
will be written on my heart?
Elder Sister Agnes had been clear that the gifts spoke not of wrongdoing, yet in my confused state, I could not imagine that Mother’s message to me would be a simple one. My body continued to bear the Devil’s scrawl, I had favored my beloved friendship over union with my sisters, I had ignored the warnings of the very eldress who created me as a believer, and I had fallen under the spell of the red book. At strange moments, in the most private recesses of my mind, I had even allowed myself to question some of the beliefs I had long held to be set in stone.
Where is Sister Polly?,
I suddenly wondered.

Scanning the crowded hall, I finally found her, her face pallid, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Was she feverish or afraid? I could not tell, though I knew from what she had tried to say to me earlier in the evening that she and I held the same swirl of emotion within. We were as linked in doubt as we were in love.

One by one, upon hearing their names, believers walked to the table and lowered themselves onto bended knee. The litany was hypnotic, and given the lateness of the hour I found it lulling until I heard my own. Then my heart seemed to flutter awake, and I found myself rising unsteadily from my place and walking towards the table.

Before bending down in humility, I saw that Elder Sister Agnes neither repelled nor welcomed me with her gaze. She simply lifted one of the hearts from the table and placed it in my outstretched hands. I bowed my head in thanks, rose, and turned to go back to my seat.

While others seemed barely to be able to contain their curiosity—reading the slanted letters that leaned across the tiny hearts as if fighting a wind—I could barely look upon the paper in my hands. It felt cool and light, as though it might fly away if I did not pay it proper attention. Still, I left it lie, my hands trembling and growing moist at the notion that I was to receive yet another message. It was true that this one was not from the Devil, but I feared its meaning would be just as inscrutable.

In this moment of uncertainty, I was fortunate to be saved by the utterance of a single name. “Benjamin,” I heard Elder Brother Caleb say gently. “Will you come and receive your sacred gift?”

Turning towards Sister Polly—who must have been called while I was lost in worry, for she held her folded heart tightly in her hand—I saw her jaw tense and her eyes go hard. She had suffered mightily for the loss of her Ben. Perhaps if he had occasionally nodded or smiled upon her, she could have learned to show and receive love in small dollops. It is our way, after all. But I know now that the bond between blood relations has its own sanctity. Why else would I feel so palpably the pain that rocks my beloved friend when she sees her brother turn away his head as he passes by on his way to the barn, or the schoolhouse, or his place beside Brother Andrew in the dining hall? She says nothing to me and I know it is because she thinks I cannot understand. But the truth is, I have changed.

On the opposite side of the room, the brethren in one of the aisles stood and shuffled about looking downwards as though a runt pig had been let loose at their feet and no one could see where it might upset next. But then the bodies directly across from Polly parted to make room and Benjamin was suddenly standing so close she could have touched him. He froze a moment, unsure how to move through this mass of people, his brethren crowded as far to one side as he could see, his sisters to the other. He looked tiny and unsure, and I wondered if, in this unguarded moment, Sister Polly would try to catch him up in her arms and if he would fight it. His thin legs shook as he took his first step, then his next and his next until he was near running at the table. Some of the believers laughed softly at how erratically the little boy moved, while others saw only a reaction to the miracle at hand so pure that it knew no regulation, no self-consciousness, no propriety. Benjamin was Mother Wisdom’s and the Holy Father’s smallest gem, and as such, he received special attention from the elders beaming down at him.

He reached the white-cloaked table and stood before it with his head tucked down so far that his chin touched his chest. “You may look up, child,” said Elder Sister Agnes kindly. “You need not fear your heart, for Holy Father cherishes you best of all and sends only his love and gratitude. Here, hold his words yourself and see if they do not fill you with strength.” Slowly, Benjamin raised his head, reaching out his cupped hands as though he expected the heart to turn to water. But before bestowing it upon him, Elder Sister Agnes did a most astonishing thing. She raised the piece of paper up and brought it to her lips, kissing it lightly before placing it in the boy’s grasp.

“You have worked hard to be a good believer, Benjamin,” she said. “You have made many here in your new family glad. Keep this blessing close to your heart that you may draw strength from its wisdom and truth for all your years to come.” Elder Sister Agnes was still smiling when she looked up and found Sister Polly’s gaze. She seemed to be speaking to the both of them.

Benjamin took the paper heart and stared at it. As he turned and walked back to his place, he was visible for only a moment before the brethren shuffled and enfolded him into their numbers once more and I lost sight of him. Then, there he was again, his hands reaching up towards Brother Andrew’s chest. He was begging his caretaker to read the message, and as the brother leaned down to whisper it in Ben’s ear, the meaning of what had been written upon the little boy’s heart became clear and his eyes grew wide and serious before melting into the gaze of one who has heard a most wondrous thing.

The time had come for me to read what Holy Mother had directed Sister Cora Ann to write for me. I looked down at the paper in my hands. It was adorned at the top with a picture of a dove, as cunningly drawn as anything I had ever seen. These were the words that followed:

I closed my eyes. Mother had seen my doubts and decided that I should be tested until I proved myself to be true. Some of these trials would, I suspected, come as a surprise to me. But the heart told me that one such test was inevitable, and the mere contemplation of it filled me with dread.