The Visionist: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

reveal the tenderness she allowed herself to visit upon me when I was young. Her blue eyes shine hard and are quick to spot clumsiness and an idle hand. And though she is far from aged, she combs back her graying hair in a tight bun and creases her brow such that it seems permanently set into an expression of disapproval. Who could imagine her chafed red hands caressing my baby cheek, or her upright bearing crouched low behind a cupboard in a game of hide-and-seek?
    Yet in the privacy of our rooms, she sometimes sang and bounced me on her lap with the devotion a flesh mother might have shown a beloved son or daughter. She was patient as she taught me to dance our dances and sing our songs, the better that I might worship well in weekly Meeting. When I was older, she told me stories about the first Visionists, wishing that I might someday witness the miracle of Mother Ann’s chosen instruments for myself. Of course, I do not know what she truly thought of me, nor what she might feel about me now. And, to be sure, for every one moment of intimacy there were ten, twenty, one hundred when she appeared driven only to raise me up as a dedicated believer. I was the chore assigned to her.
    I suppose that when one knows nothing of one’s origins or whether a soul on this Earth truly cares, it is natural to scavenge what love one can find—watching, waiting, always on guard for the dropped morsel. I read and read again the hearts of those around me and so find sustenance in the more generous aspects of their natures. That is how I have come to know that there exists a softness beneath the hard attitude my caretaker presents. She can indeed be formidable, but she is not so dissimilar from the many others in our settlement who carry secret wounds. Often as not, those who find this place seek it out for the balm of its routines, the haven a life of unquestioning worship can provide.
    In near twenty years of service to Mother Ann, Elder Sister Agnes has become perhaps the most well-regarded sister ever chosen to oversee those of us who find their calling in The City of Hope. She did not always reside here, having first made herself known in the place we now call Wisdom’s Valley. A young bride, bruised and rejected by all of her kin—she told me about her past. When she was sixteen, she married the only boy she’d ever known—a farmer’s son from down the road. They were happy at first—as a steadfast Shaker, she had difficulty admitting it, but it was the truth and my eldress does not lie. Time passed and her husband inherited his father’s farm. He needed children, he told her; she’d best get on with birthing them. Elder Sister Agnes tried to give him what he wanted, but her body forced out the fruit of his seed the way winter’s frost heaves up stones from a field. She could bear him nothing but misery so he began to hit her. It didn’t matter to him that her milk money kept the farm going. It didn’t matter that the yards of palm bonnet trim she braided bought them food and fuel and grain all the year long. What mattered to him was that she could not give him a child.
    I cannot recall what prompted my eldress to tell me all this. I can only think that she did so because some sadness in me reminded her of her own difficulties. I have never been a popular sister. Respected and favored by the more senior members of the community, I enjoy a position that is unique. But such good standing comes at a cost, rendering me the object of jealousy among the younger sisters. The snubs have always been small. Taking my place at the dining table, I feel the sting when the sister next to me turns purposefully—if by minuscule degree—away from me. Picking up my knitting, I am jostled so that the skein falls to the floor and I am left to scramble after its unspooling yarn. There are whispers and sudden silences when I enter the schoolroom. I am that strangest of creatures: a celebrated outsider.
    My eldress is not blind to my troubles.