Chapter 18
I volunteered to take Abby her tray in the morning.
She’d been laid up in bed for over a week now.
My chest hummed with worry. I needed to make sure she was all right—alive and whole.
Despite trying to keep the nightmare from my mind, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she may be in some kind of danger. That we all might be in danger.
The kitchen door flung open, and I nearly dropped the tray.
Abby stood in the doorway, inspecting us.
Her face flushed vibrant pink, and her dress was impeccable.
She even bounced a little on the balls of her feet.
Nothing about her smiling demeanor appeared out of place, as if she’d never been ill at all.
“Well, good morning to you all too,” Abby said with a huff. She eyed the tray. “No need for that today. It’s such a lovely morning.”
She flopped into a chair at the table and plucked up a piece of bread.
“Oh, of course, Your Majesty. Heaven forbid you tell us when you’ve miraculously risen from your sick bed,” said Flora.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Sister Flora.”
Prudence replaced the plate she’d been assembling. “Glad to see you’re well, Sister Abby,” she said. “Did Jacob anoint and minister to you?”
Men could pronounce a blessing of healing on others by virtue of their priesthood. Faith and the power of God wielded in men’s hands would heal us.
“I don’t need Jacob’s blessing when I’m perfectly fine.”
From the stove, Flora grumbled. “Perfectly fine.”
“Glad to hear you’re doing well,” I said.
“Thank you, Hazel.” Abby clapped her hands. “Well, we mustn’t keep the children waiting for their lesson today. Prudence, you’ll come with me, and, Hazel, you can help Flora finish tidying up from breakfast.”
“And as always we must bow to your whims?” Flora said.
“No, as always we see to our duties,” Abby replied, her voice soft as silk. “Unless, of course, you think you know better than God in heaven?” She raised an eyebrow, daring Flora.
Flora opened her mouth as if to say something further, then promptly closed it. Satisfied with her victory, Abby steered Prudence by the shoulders back out the kitchen door.
I stood, my fingers dancing through the loose thread on my bodice. Their footsteps disappeared, leaving only the sounds of the sloshing water in the basin and Flora’s scrubbing behind.
I knew I needed Flora to teach me the intricacies of running a household and being a successful plural wife, but I would have given anything at this moment to be anywhere else in the house.
“Don’t just stand there,” Flora snapped. “Fetch a towel and dry these dishes.”
I opened the nearest cupboard to comply and drew back the requested cloth.
“It’s little wonder how this house would function without me. This is my kitchen, you know, despite Abby’s attitude,” Flora went on beside me.
From the prickle on the back of my neck, I wondered if something unseen listened in to our conversation.
With stiff arms, I took the first wet dish from her hands. “You must struggle with Sister Abby frequently,” I said, immediately regretting continuing this conversation.
“Well, I’m the one sacrificing time with my children to mind the kitchen. Heaven knows what goes on in that schoolroom when I’m not around.” Flora’s words were strong, but her shoulders drooped lower.
“I imagine that must be difficult. It seems that you and Sister Abby don’t get on.”
“That’s putting it mildly. She has no respect for my position in this household.” Her rag scrubbed faster against the dish in her hand. “She’s only brought Jacob two children yet expects me to show her deference.”
I resisted the urge to scowl. Her words reminded me of Aunt Emma and her large brood, which was constantly maneuvered as a wedge between my parents.
“She can rile me as she wishes, but at least I am fulfilling my duty in Zion, though it may kill me.”
Flora tossed her rag to the bottom of the basin and let out a long exhale. She leaned over the edge of the sink. Unspoken sorrows wafted off her. Even if I could offer words of solace, there was no balm for the hidden grief of plural marriage that we all buried within our hearts.
But still a part of me urged to try to lessen her burden.
“I’ve been doing my best to follow your instructions, Sister Flora.”
She straightened up and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Have you been snooping around the house again?”
“No, I promise.”
“Then why did I see you standing before the attic door again yesterday when you were supposed to be doing the mending?”
I nearly dropped the wet dish in my hands. Flora watched me. But why? She wanted to train me, yes, but how could following my every move be needed?
“Are you the one always spying on me with that light?” I asked, unable to hold in the question.
“A light? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve just seen this—”
She cut me off. “You saw nothing.”
I gave her a confused look and she sighed. For the first time, Flora appeared despondently human—battered and thrown against the rocks of life.
“Sister Hazel, listen to me very clearly,” she said. “You might have thought you saw something, as I did once, but such things are tricks of the Devil and not real.”
My heart thudded out of control. What precisely had she seen? My tongue tied, unable to voice the dozens of questions dancing in my head.
She spoke deliberately, sincerely. “You’re young, so very young, and you’re easily mistaken and confused, as I once was. You can’t possibly understand all it entails to be a wife, let alone a plural wife. This Principle is our test of faith and I fear you will fail. I must help you.”
Since I was a child, my mind repeated over and over that I was doomed to fail. It echoed day and night that I always lacked—too sinful, too idle, too distant, too shy, too useless. I was never enough.
She drew a step closer. “I wish this household would realize that I would do anything, anything, to save you all. Even if it meant great sacrifice.”
“But what kind of sacrifice would be required to save us?” I asked breathlessly, though I wished to ask, Save us from what?
Music swelled from above in response.
Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?
“The music …” I whispered.
’Tis not so; all is right …
I raked the beams of the ceiling with my eyes. Flora gradually tipped her head back, mimicking me.
Why should we think to earn a great reward …
The hymn rattled through the walls, piercing my skin. I exchanged a look with Flora.
If we now shun the fight?
“Flora,” I whispered. “Do you hear it too?”
I said a silent prayer—a fervent pleading that I wasn’t mad, that I wasn’t alone. That Flora would confess more.
“Hear what?”
My face fell. “The … the music.”
Her voice once more turned cold. “There’s no music, silly girl.”
My heart sank. I was alone in this madness.
The attic door creaked open much easier than before. I climbed up the passage, making certain this time to close the door behind me, obeying the siren call drawing me in. I needed one moment of solace and quiet contemplation, perhaps to at last hear the word of God telling me what was true.
Prudence and Abby had taken the children out for a walk, and Flora toiled in the small garden among her cooking herbs, leaving the house empty. I was supposed to be cleaning, but this was perhaps my only chance.
In the mildewed attic all was the same as before, even my trail of footprints lay undisturbed. Untucking the bench, I gathered my skirts and sat down at the box piano. My fingers pried under the wooden lid and it lifted with a creak. My hands stretched out above the keys, poised and ready.
I glanced once more over my shoulder. I was alone. Warmth started in my toes, rising as floodwater. I gasped in relief as my hands settled onto the keys, a displaced part of me honed and ready.
The first few notes were soft. I struck the keys with resolution, craving each stroke of the ivory against my fingertips. I closed my eyes. The notes grew bolder, inflating that sore part of my soul with hope. A tear trickled down my cheek. Here was my respite. Here was my God.
Hymn after hymn poured from my hands. The notes were slightly sour from lack of tuning and the keys stiff. But the music was a cloud elevating me above this sordid plane.
Was all this madness in my head? Mother taught me as a child that Satan desired to have me, to sift me as wheat as the scripture said.
I’d prayed and fasted my whole life for this burden of a worrying mind to be removed from me, but it never gave way.
Places I’d never been and stories that existed only in my head were as much a part of my reality as my own body.
This affliction was my greatest weakness, my place for refining.
For who would want me if I couldn’t give them perfection?
I opened my eyes. Tears dripped onto the keyboard below in a light fall of rain. If only flowers would grow from them.
A light flashed. My hands froze mid-chorus. Had the sun suddenly emerged from behind a dark cloud? I shifted my gaze to the window.
My mouth dropped open in a scream.
Abby stared back at me. All around her a light glowed—a dull white that outlined her vividly but lacked brightness.
Her hair was undone, her curls surrounding her head in a fiery headdress.
Her faded white dress was nearly worn through and splotched with dark stains.
Her eyes were heavy, drooped with a universe of sorrows.
I blinked again and she was gone.
My hands slammed into the keys, sounding a loud, discordant jumble of notes. I shoved away from the piano and shot up to my feet, knocking over the bench. Then I turned and ran from the attic as fast as my legs could carry me.