Introduction

It is 1844 and Lacey Bishop's life is a tangled mess. Estranged from her own family, at age 16 she went to work for a preacher and his wife. When his wife died, the preacher convinced Lacey that the only decent thing to do was to marry him. That way she could continue to act as mother to the little girl who was left on his doorstop. But Lacey never expected he would decide to take them all off to a Shaker village. There she's still married but living in a community that believes marriage is a sin. And to make matters worse, she finds herself drawn to Isaac Kingston, a man who came to the Shakers after his young bride died. But of course any notion of love between them is only a forbidden dream. How will Lacey ever find true happiness?

Readers will find themselves engrossed in this heartrending tale of commitment and forgiveness, the latest from popular author Ann H. Gabhart.

Editorial Review

No editorial review at this time.

Excerpt

Autumn 1843

Isaac Kingston didn’t think his Ella would really die. Not
actually stop breathing and die. She’d told him she would,
but he didn’t believe her. At least not soon enough.
A person didn’t die because her mother wasn’t there to
stroke her head. If that could happen, he would have died
when he was thirteen, but here he was still breathing while he
watched them lower his beautiful Ella down into the ground.
Every breath seemed a betrayal of his love.

He’d brought her home. He had to. The Fort Smith doctor
who bled Ella advised Isaac to wait for her fever to abate before
making the trip back to Louisville, but the doctor didn’t
understand. He wasn’t the one being haunted by the memory
of Ella looking him right in the eye the day before the fever
hit and telling him she’d die if he didn’t take her home. It was
Isaac who had to live with that memory seared into his soul.
She’d been telling him the same thing every day since they’d
left Louisville weeks before, until the words had meant no
more than someone mentioning the sun shining or the rain
falling outside. Not that he didn’t feel bad that she was unhappy.

He did. He loved her. So some of the time he tried to
kiss away her sadness. Other times he would grab her in his
arms and dance her around their tiny boardinghouse room
until she laughed. But there was no laughing once the fever
struck, and he began to feel her words might be prophetic.
So he’d given up his westward dream, sold his horse and gun
to hire a wagon to take her overland to the Mississippi River
and then for the ticket up the river to Louisville. He’d carried
her up the steamboat’s gangplank before daylight so nobody
would know how sick she was and try to stop him from bringing
the fever on board. He had been so sure being on the way
home would pull her back from the fever. Bring the light back
to her eyes. But when he whispered their progress up the river
toward Louisville into her ear, her fever-glazed eyes stared at him
with no recognition, and it was her mother she called out for.
He told her over and over that he was taking her to her
mother. Patiently at first and then angrily. She had to understand
how he was giving up everything to do what she
wanted, but the words too late whispered through his mind
and turned his anger into sorrow. She died before they reached
the Ohio River.

Now the preacher Ella’s father had gotten to say words
over her grave was talking about Ella going home to a better
place. The home awaiting all who reached for the Lord with
faith and sincerity.

A chill wind blew across the open hole that was swallowing
Ella and ruffled the pages of the worn Bible the old man
held. His hands trembled as he smoothed down the tissue-thin
page and continued to speak the Bible words without looking
down to read them. No doubt he had spoken the same verses
over hundreds of newly departed souls.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil.” The preacher’s voice quavered and
sounded properly mournful.

Why couldn’t it have been the old preacher who had walked
through death’s shadow instead of Ella? Isaac’s eyes shifted
from the preacher to Ella’s ancient grandmother. The old
woman had to be pushed in a chair everywhere she went
and now sat huddled in a black shawl with tears gathering
in the deep wrinkles on her cheeks as she stared at the grave
of her youngest grandchild. Why couldn’t it have been her?
Isaac looked down at the coffin. Why couldn’t it have been
him? It should have been him. This was the second time in his
life he’d stood in a graveyard with those thoughts. But everybody
told him that was wrong when they buried his father.

Nobody told him he was wrong this time. Ella’s parents
would have gladly pushed him into the grave and covered
him over if that would have brought their Ella back to them.
Judge Carver had his arm around his wife, holding her up.
Isaac was able to bear the judge’s accusing eyes on him, but
the despairing look in the eyes of Ella’s mother smote him.
Ella looked like her mother. Delicate with beautiful pale skin
and often the hint of a tremble in her fingers. Ella had needed
a man like her father to hold her up and shelter her.

Instead Isaac had ripped her away from her family and
headed west where he planned for them to start a new life. The
kind of life he wanted. One full of adventure and challenge.
Ella had no desire for adventure. She wept when he said they
were going west. He held her gently while she cried, but he
didn’t change his mind. Instead he assured her he was strong
enough for both of them. He talked of the land they’d work,
the children they would have, and because she loved him, she
had gone with him. He’d never considered the possibility that
she might refuse to go. She was his wife.

The judge offered to buy them a house if he would stay in
Louisville. When Isaac told him he didn’t need a house, only
opportunity, the judge ordered him to leave Ella behind. To
go west and establish his claim, if that was what he had to
do. When he was settled, he could come back for Ella. Isaac
should have listened. Then he wouldn’t be standing beside
Ella’s grave, mashing down the desire to knock the Bible out
of the old preacher’s hands if he spoke one more word about
the Lord calling Ella home.

The Lord hadn’t called anybody home. Not that Isaac was
on good enough terms with the Lord to ever hear the first
thing he might call out. He’d sat in some churches. First with
his mother. Then with the old farmer who gave Isaac bed and
board in exchange for his labor after his father’s death tore
their family asunder.

The McElroys believed in church, but they lived a far piece
from any church house, so they didn’t make the trip more than
four or five Sundays a year. Even so, the old couple hadn’t
neglected spiritual matters. Mrs. McElroy made him read
the Bible out loud to her by candlelight nearly every night
after the supper meal. She claimed the Scripture could be a
powerful comfort and help if a person let the Lord’s message
speak to his heart, but Isaac had let the words slide off his
tongue without paying them much mind. Bible words were
for the old and the fearful.

And the dead.

The preacher’s mournful words kept spilling out of his
mouth. He read through the funeral psalm, but he didn’t
close up his Bible the way Isaac hoped he would. Instead he
thumbed through it searching for more Scripture. The rustle
of the pages was loud in the silence. Once he found the proper
spot, his preacher voice grew stronger and lost its quaver.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in
trouble.”

The preacher looked up at the sky and then across the grave
at them and spoke the Bible words again as if he feared they
hadn’t heard him the first time. Then the quiver was back in
his voice as he went on. “Sorrow comes to us all. May you
lean on the good Lord’s strength and call upon his help to
carry you through.”

Isaac let his hands curl into fists against his side, crushing
the stem of the yellow flower someone had handed him.
What good did it do to call for help now? Ella had needed
help a week ago. When the fever was burning through her.
He stared across the grave at the preacher who met his eyes
without turning away. He was the first person to do so since
Isaac had brought Ella home dead. Everybody else couldn’t
seem to bear letting their eyes light on him. Isaac understood.
He couldn’t bear the sight of his own face in a mirror when
he was combing his hair.

But the old preacher’s eyes settled right on him as he kept
going in his preacher voice. “The Lord giveth and the Lord
taketh away. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of
the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it
is gone. But the mercy of the Lord is everlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear him. Amen and amen.”

Amen. That was a Bible word Isaac was glad to hear fall
out of the preacher’s mouth. Isaac stared at the grave that
held Ella. They were all waiting for him to drop the flower
he held down on her. He kept his eyes on the ground. He
couldn’t do it. His feet wouldn’t move forward. His hand
wouldn’t turn loose of the flower.

The silence pounded against his ears and he almost wished
the old preacher would start up with some more Scripture.
Anything to push the silence back. The seconds stretched
into minutes. A bird began to sing in a tree not far away, and
while only seconds before, Isaac wanted some noise to break
the silence, now he wished for a rock to silence the bird. With
a keening wail that sliced through Isaac, Ella’s mother gave
way to her grief. The undertaker, a man so slim and gray in
his black suit that he seemed part of the shadows, produced
a chair from those shadows to push under her before she
could fall. A woman Isaac didn’t know and the preacher
knelt beside her to offer comfort.

The judge stepped up beside Isaac and whispered fiercely
in his ear. “For the love of God, Kingston, do what has to be
done so we can leave this place.”

But what Ella’s father didn’t understand was that Isaac
didn’t think he could leave this place. Not and surrender
Ella to the earth. An even more piercing wail rose from Ella’s
mother behind them.

When Isaac didn’t move, the judge gave him a little shove
toward the grave. “You killed her. Now be man enough to
bury her.”

Do what had to be done. That was what his mother told
him after the boilers of the steamboat Lucy Gray had blown
up and stolen his father from them. They did what had to be
done. He had to go to live with the McElroys. Marian had to
go live with the Shakers. And she, his mother, had to marry
the dour old banker, Mr. Ludlow. Nobody was promised happiness.
But if everybody kept going—kept moving forward
and doing what had to be done—then maybe around some
corner happiness might be waiting. At least for some of them.
He had thought to round that corner with Ella. Out west
where opportunity awaited those brave enough to chase it.
That’s where happiness could be found. And now it was all
dust. Dust to dust.

Isaac stepped forward at last and dropped the aster he held
into the grave. Ella’s father followed after him and then the
others. It was done. What had to be done was done.
None of his family had shown up for the funeral. Too
many miles separated them. And too many years. He hadn’t
seen his mother since he was eighteen and left the McElroys.
That visit hadn’t gone well with Old Man Ludlow hovering
in the shadows behind Isaac’s mother, anxious to see him
away from his door. What choice did she have but to send
him off to make his way as best he could? She and the sour
banker had no children, but there were Isaac’s young brother
and sister to consider.

She had kissed Isaac and then held his face in her hands
for a long moment before she said, “You’re like him. Like
your father. Live like him.”

Isaac knew what she meant. His father had carried enthusiasm
for life in his pocket and shared it with everyone he
met. Everything was an adventure to him, and an opportunity.
The steamboat explosion had ended that and plunged them
all into new lives. And now another death had plunged Isaac
into despair.

Isaac hadn’t gone back to see his mother since that day.
The only one he kept in contact with was Marian at the
Shaker town. He’d gone to see her there a couple of times.
She claimed to be content. Claimed to want to be shed of the
world. So perhaps she had turned the corner to happiness,
even though she hadn’t used that word. Peace and perfection
seemed to fit better on the Shakers’ tongues and on Marian’s.
And there in that village with those solemn people, it could be
she would never have that happiness or peace ripped from her.

He’d sent Marian word of Ella’s death but not with any
expectation she would make the journey to Louisville. While
she didn’t deny he was her natural brother in the worldly way,
she claimed no part of that world now. Her life was there in
the village at Harmony Hill with her Shaker brothers and
sisters. So there was no one to put an arm around Isaac, to
offer a word of sympathy.

In every face as they moved away from the grave toward
the carriages waiting to carry them back to Ella’s house,
Isaac saw the reflection of the judge’s condemnation. You
killed her. It was almost a relief when the judge stepped in
front of him as they were leaving the cemetery to block his
way to the carriage that had carried Isaac from the house to
the burial ground.

While Ella’s father was several inches shorter than Isaac
and stooped a bit by age, what he lacked in size, he more
than made up in authority. He was a judge. When he spoke,
people did as he said.

He tipped back his head and glared at Isaac from under
the black rim of his hat. “You took our child from her home
and stole her from us.”

“She went with me of her own free will.” Isaac was surprised
to hear his voice speaking up in his own defense.

“She went with you in tears.” The judge’s voice grew even
harsher. “You are not to darken our door ever again.”

“I didn’t kill her. The fever did.” His words sounded lame
even to his own ears.

“A fever you took her to find. She would still be alive if you
had stayed in Louisville. If you had let me build her a house
where you could have lived.” The judge’s voice cracked and
his eyes flooded with sorrow. “She would have never wanted
for anything. And now all I can build her is a monument
over her grave.”

“Your sorrow is no deeper than mine. She was my wife.”

The hard knot of pain inside Isaac’s chest made it hard for
him to breathe.

“A wife can be replaced. A daughter cannot.” With his
mouth tightened into a grim line and his hat pulled down low
on his forehead to hide eyes awash with tears, the judge turned
and stalked away from Isaac toward his waiting carriage.
Silently Isaac watched him go. He had nothing left to say.

He was empty of words. Empty of feelings. He’d dropped
it all in the grave with Ella along with the flower. His spirit
was crushed by her death. As crushed as the autumn leaves
underfoot on the pathway. The man who had wanted adventure
and love, the man Ella had fallen in love with, that
man was gone.

The carriages left the graveyard in a slow, somber black
line. Even after they had disappeared from sight, Isaac imagined
he could hear Ella’s mother’s anguished keening.

He didn’t turn back to look at the grave. He could hear
the gravediggers putting the dirt in on top of Ella, but he
couldn’t bear to look at them. Instead, he began walking
back toward town. The old preacher offered him a ride with
a goodly amount of kindness in his voice, but Isaac claimed
he’d rather walk. He told him he needed to be alone. He
couldn’t have borne the old man praying over him all the
way back to the city.

He didn’t deserve prayer. He didn’t deserve to still be
breathing in and out. But he was. His beautiful, fragile Ella
was not. Because of him.
... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. Lacey was ready to do whatever she had to in order to continue mothering Rachel even to marrying a man she could never love. Do you think she made the right decision? Do you think you might have done the same if you’d been in her shoes?
2. Lacey depended on Miss Mona to teach her what she believed about the Lord. She trusted Miss Mona to know the truth. Why was that not enough? Why did Lacey need to learn to trust with her own heart and not just because it was what Miss Mona would have wanted her to believe?
3. Isaac blamed himself for his wife’s death. Do you think he had reason to feel that way? Was he wrong to want to go west even though Ella didn’t want to leave her family?
4. Isaac was so depressed after his wife’s death that he wished he could die. Do you think that if Brother Asa hadn’t come along, Isaac might have ended up in the river? Do you believe that the Lord sometimes places someone in our path to keep us from doing the wrong thing or making the wrong decision? Have you had something like that happen in your life or known someone who has?
5. Lacey had a rocky relationship with the Ebenezer Church women. She couldn’t seem to do anything that pleased them or at least that’s what she thought. Do you think she was too hard on them or that they were too hard on her? How was that changed by the end of the book?
6. Reuben was a likable character from the first minute he showed up in the church graveyard. Since it was unlikely that he would ever marry and have his own family, do you think it was a good thing that he counted the church his family? Do you think the church can be a special blessing to people like Reuben when they are allowed to work for the church and thus for the Lord?
7. Lacey has a hard time believing that an angel is really speaking through Aurelia. She certainly never expects to see any angels and she can’t keep from doubting Aurelia’s claims to see the angels. Do you think that showed a lack of faith on Lacey’s part? Do you believe Aurelia could have really been an instrument of the angels?
8. When the eldress allows Lacey to go see Rachel, the visit doesn’t turn out the way Lacey expected it to. Why do you think Rachel was so cold toward Lacey? Did you guess who was poisoning Rachel’s mind against Lacey?
9. Why do you think Miss Mona kept Aurelia’s secret? Was it to protect Aurelia, Rachel or the preacher? Or perhaps herself? Do you think she did the right thing?
10. After he went to the Shakers, Preacher Palmer became obsessed with achieving balance. Do you think he really believed that he could find that place of peace in between earth and heaven where he would not be tormented by his failures and his sins would not be counted against him? Was he trying to earn that peace instead of accepting the free gift of grace and forgiveness?
11. Isaac started to ride on past Sadie Rose’s house when he saw the new preacher on his knees in front of Lacey. Why do you think he turned his horse and rode up to the porch instead? Do you think Lacey would have eventually married the preacher if Isaac hadn’t come looking for her?
12. Lacey’s mother taught her to welcome spring by doing a dandelion dance. Why do you think it was so important to Lacey to continue that tradition as the years went by? Can you see her as a gray-haired grandmother still dancing to welcome spring each year? Have you ever wanted to dance to welcome spring or celebrate some other time in your life?

Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Ann Gabhart's web site

Book Club Recommendations

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 0 members.

Member Reviews

There are no user reviews at this time.
Rate this book