The Gifted by Ann H. Gabhart

Believers?” Jessamine peered over at the girl. She seemed so resistant to everything Shaker.
    “It wasn’t a happy choice,” Sister Abigail said. “My father has ever been the kind to run after this or that idea. My mother and I and my little brother and sister had no choice but to follow him. Although if I could have found Jimmy to see if his kisses meant anything, I might even now be a married woman with roses in a vase on my kitchen table.”
    “But here you have row upon row of roses.” Jessamine waved her hand at the roses.
    “Roses that it is a sin to enjoy. How can it be a sin to enjoy a gift of the Lord?” Sister Abigail ran her hand over the rose blooms and then touched her lips. “Kissing is a gift too. The Lord put such desires in our hearts.”
    “While you are among us, it might be better to not dwell on such gifts. To think more on the gifts of the spirit and the gift of work.” Jessamine turned her eyes back to the roses and tried to concentrate on her work. It was not good to think how one’s lips felt every bit as soft as the petals. It was not good to wonder if a man’s lips might feel the same. To think that she could know exactly how a man’s lips might feel if she’d allowed her hand to stray from the cheek of the man in the woods to his lips. An image of his face popped in front of her eyes.
    She shook her head to keep from thinking on how his lips had looked. When she spoke again, it was as much for herself as Sister Abigail. “It is better to spend less energy on talk and more on our duties.”
    “Yea, I can’t seem to keep my tongue still as I’ve been told is the better way. Sister Annie says I am the serpent in the garden.” Sister Abigail smiled with no outward sign of being the least bit upset by Sister Annie’s accusation. “Perhaps she is right. For I look at you and I see someone who would like to taste of the fruit of the tree of the world. To know of things that the sisters here want to keep from you.”
    “I am often too curious about wrong things,” Jessamine admitted.
    “Like the man you and Sister Annie found in the woods. I have heard he is very handsome. Did you find him so?” Sister Abigail looked at Jessamine. “Or would you think it a sin to admit you admired his looks?”
    Jessamine looked up the row to where Sister Annie was clipping roses with such fervor it was easy to see irritation building in her to the point of sinful anger. At the other end of the garden, Sister Edna stood with her hands on her hips staring at Jessamine and Sister Abigail. Jessamine did not need to be near to know the look of displeasure that would be on her face. Displeasure that would surely grow darker if she knew their overabundance of chatter was about kissing. Sister Edna believed in following the rules. All the rules without exception. Without the possibility of excuses. Excuses had no place on a faithful Shaker’s tongue.
    At times, Jessamine thought the only pleasure the woman had was in catching one of her sisters in wrong. Jessamine smiled grimly as she pulled off two more roses. If that was true, she had without doubt given the woman much pleasure. She suspected Sister Edna often owned the eyes that peered out from the hiding places to be sure none of the brothers and sisters engaged in improper behavior. Clandestine meetings in the shadows along the pathways of Harmony Hill were strictly forbidden. Certainly there could be no kissing. If a wayward sister or brother tried any such thing, watchful eyes would see and report such sinfulness to the Ministry.
    “It matters not how one looks on the outside.” Jessamine heard the echo of her words to the man in the woods.
    “Perhaps not here in this place where these people have turned the normal ways of life upside down,” Sister Abigail said. “But how one looks can matter a great deal at a place like White Oak Springs. The beautiful girls always have a dancing partner, and if a girl lacks in beauty, she’d best hope