appeared transported.
Freirs realized that he must be seeing, in all this, proof that his luck would surely turn. What Deborah felt was impossible to make out.
Freirs moved beside him and looked dubiously at the clouds. In a clearing to the east a smoke-white half- moon hung suspended in the sky. 'Let's hope it doesn't rain,' he said.
Poroth glanced up but, surprisingly, showed no concern. 'No matter,' he said with a shrug. 'Twould simply be a cleansing sign from the Lord.'
Freirs nodded, privately recalling twin sayings about the weather at funerals: sunshine was a sign that heaven loved the deceased; rain was a sign that heaven was weeping for him. It was impossible to lose.
He looked back down at the lawn in time to see that a group of nearly twenty young women had joined hands in a ring and were staring in their direction.
'Who are they?' he whispered.
'Unmarried women,' said Poroth. 'I'll explain in a minute.' Smiling, he strode off into the center of the circle. One of the girls brandished a large black kerchief and, as Freirs watched, bound it around Poroth's eyes like a blindfold. Suddenly the group began singing, their high, girlish voices carrying eerily across the lawn:
'Make the choosing, round about,
Choose the one and draw her out.
First her willing hand you take,
Then the Cleansing she will make.'
As they sang, they began turning slowly around Sarr, watching him intently. They had circled three times and had finished three complete choruses of the song when suddenly Sarr's hand shot out and tapped one of them, a thin young blond girl, on the shoulder.
'Eve Buckhalter,' someone called.
'Draw her out!'
It was Joram Sturtevant who'd spoken. He was standing straight and tall on the back steps of the farmhouse, still grim-faced from the encounter and careful, it seemed, not to glance in Freirs' direction. Freirs assumed that, by this time, he'd settled the matter with his wife, for she was no longer in the car. Perhaps he was even ashamed now of having gotten so hot under the collar.
The Buckhalter girl was led outside the ring, where a woman
Freirs didn't recognize handed her a small white feather. Grinning broadly, she stood waiting, awkward as all teenagers but clearly pleased at the attention.
'She will lead the Cleansing of the barn,' called Sturtevant. 'Now choose for the house.'
Once more the girls in the ring began revolving, raising their voices in song. They had sung for three more revolutions of the circle when Sarr's hand shot out again, touching another girl, this time just below her breast, which made her squeal.
'Sarah Lindt,' Brother Joram called. 'Draw her out!'
It was Rupert's daughter; Freirs studied her closely as she was led from the circle, recognizing the wide face and snub nose. He felt even more certain now that she had been the girl in the truck.
Sarr, his task completed, had returned to Deborah's side, while in the center of the yard two women – the girls' mothers, he guessed, recognizing the woman he'd seen arrive with Lindt – proceeded to twine corn leaves in their daughters' hair. The leaves in place, the pair of girls, each grasping a white feather, were led before the group, where they stood waiting nervously. The second girl, young Sarah, he saw, looked very nervous.
Sturtevant, on the back steps, raised his hand. Turning to the girls, the congregation murmured an invocation:
'May the Lord be with you as you carry out your holy task.'
'They're the ones who'll cleanse the buildings,' whispered Poroth, his arm around his wife. He looked pleased, though Deborah's face was blank. 'They're robed in innocence, you see, and are fit for such holy work.'
'Oh, so that's the object,' said Freirs. 'Yes, I guess it makes sense.' Virgins, he said to himself, as, in silence, the Buckhalter girl began walking past the company toward the barn while the Lindt girl proceeded toward the house.
For all the awkwardness of it – the round self-conscious teen-aged shoulders and the determinedly stately pace, the silly white feathers and the corn leaves in their hair – it was a curiously solemn moment. He scanned the assembled crowd. Parents were nodding and murmuring silent prayers; Poroth was gazing at the two girls like a proud papa at graduation. Only one face made Freirs pause: that of Poroth's mother. For the first time that he could remember, the woman looked surprised and uneasy. Freirs followed her gaze. She was staring hard at the Lindt girl as the latter walked slowly toward the house, her girlish face grave, eyes directly before her, clutching the white feather as reverently as if it had been plucked from an angel wing.
'What's troubling your mother?' whispered Freirs.
'Sshh!' said Poroth, not looking at him. He did, however, turn to look at the woman, and, seeing her expression, his own face grew puzzled.
All this time the Lindt girl had been advancing slowly toward the house past the rows of assembled men and women. Suddenly Freirs saw her pause and, for the briefest moment, gaze wide-eyed with terror and misery at a white-faced young man who stood in the midst of the crowd. It was him once again, the one from the truck; Freirs had no doubt of it now. For an instant the young man returned the girl's gaze; then he looked guiltily away.
The eye contact between the two teenagers had been brief, and only someone who'd been watching for it could possibly have noticed. But it had lasted long enough for Freirs to see the look that passed between them, and he almost burst out laughing. Hah! he thought, she's not really a virgin! And the only ones who know it are her, the boy, and me! Scanning the crowd again, he saw the shock on the face of Sarr's mother. And maybe, he added, Mrs Poroth.
No one else had seen. Sarah Lindt continued moving toward the house, Eve Buckhalter toward the barn. At last the two disappeared into the buildings, the Lindt girl hesitating a moment before entering, and there was an audible sigh from the assembled Brethren. As if suddenly released from a spell, they broke ranks and milled around the yard while Freirs and Poroth looked on, the crowd eventually spreading over the lawn so that each person was left standing before a small clump of household objects.
'What's going on?' whispered Freirs.
Sarr, too, seemed more relaxed. 'Well, the girls are inside now. Sarah will go through every room of the house, from attic to cellar, blessing each room with a prayer, and Eve will do the same with the barn. Meanwhile, the others are going to bless our possessions out here. Deborah and I aren't allowed to participate.'
The blessing he'd spoken of had already begun, Freirs saw; Brethren with waving hands were making signs and passes in the air, murmuring strings of prayers like people at some ancient bazaar.
'This does my heart real good,' said Sarr, taking it all in.
Obviously size didn't matter. Freirs saw a little boy who looked all of seven standing solemnly before the grandfather clock, which dwarfed him, while hulking Rupert Lindt, his younger daughter in the house, stood mumbling a prayer over several lanterns and a rolled-up rug. Corah Geisel stood before a table piled high with jugs and jars and bowls; nearby stood her husband, blessing two of the implements from the barn, a broken plow and a rusted vehicle with wicked-looking prongs around the wheels. Brother Joram gravely blessed the pickup truck, whose cab, Sarr had said, still smelled of decay. Freirs wondered if the smell would disappear now.
Watching Geisel at his prayers, he realized that an item had been overlooked. He slipped into the outbuilding and emerged with Poroth's shiny little sickle, which had been lying on his night table. 'I wouldn't want anything to escape your blessing, Matthew!' he said, tossing the sickle on the ground beside the plow. The old man nodded distractedly and continued praying.
At last Eve Buckhalter appeared in the doorway of the barn. Sticking the white feather like a talisman into a chink in the wood by her head, she gazed around her, smiling. Moments later Sarah Lindt appeared and forced a smile too, though she looked somewhat drawn and pale. Pausing at the back door, she struggled for a moment and finally managed to fit the white feather into a crack in the wood. She descended the back steps to a host of smiling faces; the praying had stopped. The Cleansing was completed.
'Brothers, Sisters,' said Poroth solemnly, climbing onto the porch, 'I thank you all for the service you've performed and the kindness you've done me and Deborah. Now let us thank the Lord for allowing us all to be here together.'
