Chapter 11
I snuck from the bed without waking Jacob just as the first streaks of light filtered through the fraying curtains. Dressing quickly, I slipped out of the room. There was work to be done.
The cool morning air sank into my skin as I searched through the kitchen for a broom and cleaning rags.
Without the other wives nearby, the silence surrounding me was almost palpable, like I could reach out and hold it in my hands.
I pushed away the thought that the quiet stillness breathed in and out with me in a mimicking rhythm.
In the parlor, I dropped my supplies to the floor as I surveyed the damage. First, I would need to rearrange the chaotic furniture, then I would scrub until it shined. Surely, this would show my sister wives that I was useful.
I hummed beneath my breath as I worked pushing armchairs and tables.
The pink-checkered sofa here and the tattered red armchairs there.
I looked around to examine my handiwork and frowned.
I hadn’t moved the furniture much at all.
If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought the pieces had all shifted back to their original positions.
“Perhaps I’ll start cleaning first,” I said to myself. Resuming my hymn, I bent and began to scrub.
The floorboards creaked behind me. “Up early, little Sister?”
I startled.
“Sister Abigail,” I squeaked more than spoke. She peered over me with her hands on her hips. “Yes, I wanted to clean the parlor for you.”
“For me?”
“Oh, well, I mean, for the family, of course.” I squeezed the rag in my hand.
She stared with pursed lips as if contemplating telling me a secret, then giggled high and birdlike.
“Very well then. Thank you, Hazel.” Crossing the room, she flopped onto the sofa, sending dust into the air. “I shall keep you company then.”
“Thank you,” I replied with uncertainty.
She sank into the cushions and stretched her legs over the sofa arm, her dress riding up to expose the white fabric of her sacred temple garments from her ankles to her knees. I turned away from her improper position and vigorously scrubbed my rag down a chair leg.
Another skirt stepped into my view.
“What’s going on here?” Prudence smiled down at me. “Sister Hazel, are you cleaning before breakfast?”
“She wanted to clean the parlor for me,” Abigail said.
My ears heated. “Well, for the family.”
“That’s very kind of you, but you shouldn’t have to—”
“Oh hush, Prudence,” Abigail scolded, a glint in her eye. “Let Hazel enjoy being Jacob’s new Cinderella.”
I glanced between the pair of wives, not wanting to acknowledge what her words meant.
“Abby, you’re incorrigible.” Sister Flora swept into the room as a storm cloud. She scowled at Abigail’s position and knocked her feet off the sofa arm as she passed. Abigail only replaced her legs, her garments that should have stayed hidden still hanging out for all to see.
Flora frowned. “Really, Abby. Have you no decency?”
“Poor little Hazel is scrubbing our floors and you’re being positively ungrateful, Flora.”
“Why should I be grateful she can’t even arrange the room properly?” Flora said.
Embarrassment crept up my neck. I knew there was something wrong with the furniture.
“Is there a different way you’d like me to clean, Sister Flora?” I said.
Prudence shook her head. “No, dear. You’re doing fine. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
“There’s only one way that’s proper,” Flora muttered.
I sat back on my heels, wringing the rag. Could I do nothing right?
Abigail threw up her hands. “Proper this and proper that. Heaven forbid we upset our slaver!”
“Really, Sister Abby?” Prudence questioned.
Cinderella, Cinderella, that wicked voice taunted in my mind. You’re only the next piece in a household collection.
“It’s only harmless teasing,” Abigail said.
“What’s harmless teasing?” Jacob’s voice cut through the room.
Everyone froze, except Abigail lounging blithely on the sofa, who stared right through him.
“We’re simply initiating your newest acquisition, dearest.” Nothing in her tone suggested she held her husband particularly dear, though.
“By showing off your sacred garments?” Jacob reached down and tugged her skirt.
Abigail sat up swiftly. “I’m instructing her on cleaning.”
“How kind of you,” he said flatly.
Jacob’s face found mine as I sat paralyzed, uncertain how to defend her—or perhaps it was best to say nothing at all. After a moment, he shifted to Flora. “I believe it’s time to start breakfast. The children are already stirring upstairs.”
“Of course, forgive the delay.” Turning on her heel, Flora disappeared into the kitchen.
“Prudence, darling, could you see to the children?”
She smiled back at Jacob, her hand gliding down her belly. “Certainly.” As she waddled away, her fingers squeezed my shoulder, her touch comforting.
I rose slowly. “I wanted to clean the parlor this morning for you and the family.”
“I see.” He cast Abigail another look of frustration. “Though you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen cleaning, I wouldn’t disrupt the order of things, my Hazel. Breakfast and the children first.”
I’d broken another unspoken rule. But Jacob also called me beautiful in front of another wife. Perhaps I was Cinderella, but I was his. A greedy stitch of satisfaction surprised me at Abigail’s sour face, but I buried the sin away.
“Why don’t you go and help Flora in the kitchen?” he said.
“Yes, of course. I’ll just return the rag and bucket.”
He didn’t take his eyes from his first wife. “Abby can do that for you.”
Panic clawed at my chest. “I can do it.”
“Oh no,” Abigail said. “Let me do it. I live to serve the harem, after all.”
I flinched, but Jacob didn’t. We watched as Abigail rose from the sofa and bent slowly to retrieve the bucket.
The wind rustled through the chimney.
“The children will need you, Abby,” Jacob warned.
She lifted the bucket with a pasted-on smile. “Then I’d better hurry to my tasks.”
I wiped my hands on my apron as she left. “Are you sure you don’t want me to help Sister Abigail?”
“Abby,” he corrected.
“Abby,” I repeated on impulse. It tasted awkward in my mouth. I had been mistaken from her introduction.
I shook the thoughts away. “I’ll go and help Sister Flora.”
Jacob nodded. “Thank you for your generosity, my dear. I don’t deserve a wife as wonderful as you.” He pressed a kiss to my lips and my heart fluttered.
A thud broke us apart.
A fallen book.
“I’ve been needing to fix that shelf,” Jacob said.
I swallowed. “Yes, of course. I’ll see to breakfast now.”
Our hands brushed as we walked away. I tried to ignore that the shelf wasn’t broken at all as I passed.
Afternoon light poured through my bedroom window as I scrubbed and scrubbed.
Morning chores were now properly finished and I wanted to impress Jacob tonight with a shining and orderly room.
But the layers of grime were stubborn. My fingers pinkened raw, but I tried to stamp out my frustrations with the unyielding house as I shoved the vanity table screeching across the floorboards to clean beneath it.
“You must work harder,” I murmured to myself, as I’d been reminded an untold number of times in my life. Nothing was wrong with this house, only with me.
I dragged the chair over to the wall and grabbed my broom.
Perched up on my toes, I swatted at the cobwebs in the upper corner.
Dust scattered in the stream of light from the window as I swiped furiously.
By the time I’d finished all four corners, a bundle of glistening strings hung off the end of the broom.
I stepped down, but my ankle collided with something hard.
Losing balance, I slipped off the chair and caught myself awkwardly before I fell to the floor.
I looked at the chair and gasped.
The vanity table was directly behind it, not where I’d pushed it across the room. I gripped my broom tighter and inched away. My mind roared into a frenzy as I sank back onto the bed.
My own imagination was an untrustworthy place, I knew that. But that table had moved! Hadn’t it? Who had done it?
“Who’s there?” I asked the room, unable to believe my own words.
“It’s only me.”
I yelped.
Flora leaned in the doorway, her arms crossed.
“I didn’t see you there.” I forced myself to take a breath. How long had she been watching me?
“I told you there was a proper way to these things, which I suppose I’ll have to teach you. You’ve been in this room for far too long. It shows your vanity for your own earthly things rather than the rest of the family.”
Vanity. My heart thudded out of time. The vanity table moved. Across the room. Had Flora moved it? But why? How hadn’t I heard her?
She tsked her tongue at my silence. “Come, it’s time to prepare dinner.”
I nodded, nearly tripped over my own feet to follow her out the door and away from this unexplainable room.