by Lee, Summer
Solomon received the insurance money and put it all in a special account for his mother’s retirement. She would never have to want for anything, ever again.
Eric studied Sybil’s notes on the Blood Moons, and accomplished the most he’d ever done. Isabella gave him enough money to live on. He sold everything that Sybil owned, including her car, and bought her a grave. He was able to get a beautiful plot in River View Cemetery. River View was located in the southwest section of Portland and had many notable citizens buried there. He picked a headstone that revealed her good character qualities. It read, “Nothing stronger than a sister’s love.”
After visiting her grave, he would return to the friends that he lived with. They all worked well together and soon became soulmates. It was apparent that Isabella still carried the guilt of what she had done to Eric and was looking for a way to make up for it. Above and beyond what she already sacrificed, she loved him.
Each one developed a hobby that made them stronger. Isabella studied the Bible. Solomon studied science in memory of Sybil. Eric had followed the war in the north country on the news. His concern was the US organizing a peacekeeping force in the Ukraine. It had not been settled yet. He walked to the corner to get a newspaper almost every day.
* * *
One day Eric went for a long drive alone. He had some thinking to do. When he returned, Solomon greeted him at the garage. “Hey, young man! Did you go get pizza?”
“No. I’m afraid not. Just been thinking,” Eric replied with a smile. “I’d like to call a meeting in the living room and tell you about it, if that’s alright.”
“It’s more than alright, Eric,” Solomon returned, with a smile of his own. “I’ll go get Isabella. Do you have anything in the car that you need help wit?”
“No.” Eric shook his head. “I didn’t shop. Thanks anyhow, Solomon.”
He followed Solomon back through the garage to the kitchen where Isabella was preparing lunch. Solomon said, “Hey, girl!”
“Hey, yourself!” she replied. “Lunch is almost ready. I heard the van. Is Eric back?”
“Right behind Solomon,” said Eric with a broad grin.
“Hi Eric.” She gave him a hug.
He saw the sparkle in her eye, when she mentioned his name. It made sense. He always thought that she had a crush on him, but had a twisted way of showing it. After all, had he not been the one who told her how to turn her life around.
Solomon nudged him in the ribs and winked. Eric blushed.
“We need to have a family meeting,” Eric told Isabella. “Will you turn the fire down on the food for a few minutes. We’re doing it in the living room.”
“Of course.” Isabella nodded and stopped what she was doing. They both walked into the living room together.
Solomon was already seated. “What’s going on? Are you moving out?”
Eric laughed. “Not unless you’re tired of my rantings. Ha ha! It’s about a trip.”
Solomon looked concerned. “Trip?” He put his finger to his cheek, thinking. “It’s close to the last Tetrad in the cycle. Does this have anything to do with that?”
“Actually, it does,” Eric responded with some apprehension. “I’ve finally read all of my sister’s notes and research. I also read yours, and, well, your research coincided with Sybil’s. Between the two of you, there is a lot of information about the fourth blood moon. Solomon! I’m impressed!”
Solomon nodded, with an over-exaggerated grin.
Eric’s smile faded, as his tone turned serious. “I had no idea about a lot of what you two found out about the Tetrad. Some of it, I know doesn’t apply to me, but other things were quite the revelation. I gotta tell you, man. You’re right on. Wow.”
Isabella looked nervous as she glared at Eric, waiting for him to finish talking. Obviously, she did not want to say anything before he had a chance to say all that he had planned on saying.
Eric inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Okay. Here we go. There was one thing I found while I was reading your notes that all of a sudden makes perfect sense to me. I think I know why I was having those dreams. There was something about all that stuff that happened in the forties and sixties with Israel and Jordan that opened my eyes. First, Israel became a nation for the first time in over two thousand years, and next was the war with Jordan when Israel took back Old Jerusalem. Both of those situations coincided with Blood Moons. Well, almost. Within a year. I must have had a pretty big ego if I believed the dreams centered around me. Now I understand that I am just a messenger. I may still be part of a bigger plan. One to rescue Israel. What do you think?”
“I’m thinking.” Solomon winked at Isabella, as if he now could put the pieces together. He groaned as if he mentally kicked himself for not doing it sooner. “I have a good idea of what Eric is going to say next, but I have decided to remain silent and listen. Continue, Eric.”
Eric took in another breath and sighed. He was obviously nervous and carried a huge burden. “I want to say that I respect you both, and I couldn’t have gotten this far without either of you. Now I have to go a bit further and see how this all ends. We may very well be at the end of all things now. The end of days is my simple message. But I feel there is something big that I have to do for Israel.”
“What?” asked Isabella.
Eric was impressed that they both were giving him their undivided attention. He could see that the wheels of their minds were turning. He wasn’t going to keep them in suspense any longer.
“To start with, I was adopted. Only recently did I learn about my heritage.” He took a sip of water and cleared his throat.
Isabella couldn’t wait any longer. “So, you found your birth parents?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. Not at all, really. What I found out is that I am half Israeli and half Jordanian.”
Isabella’s eyes widened, as her mouth dropped. “Really? So am I.”
Solomon placed two fingers on his chin and just nodded. “I believe you, man. I shouldn’t have discounted anything about you. Maybe if I had been more honest about God’s chosen people, I could have saved Sybil.”
“No. It’s not your fault,” said Eric.
Isabella looked at both men repeatedly, back and forth. A state of panic overtook her. “What does that mean? Does that mean what I think it means?”
Eric removed a suitcase from behind the couch. He searched for the right words, before he continued. “ Needless to say, that’s why I have this luggage.” He tried to laugh to ease the tension and even pretended he was one of the models on the Price is Right, showing the luggage, as if it was a prize in one of the pricing games.
Finally, his voice cracked. “I’m going to Israel.”
“That is what I thought,” said Isabella. “Who is going with you?”
“I’m going by myself.” His voice cracked again. He thought he could talk right through the pain, but it was nearly impossible. He took another sip of water, and clasped Isabella’s hand.
“Wait a minute!” Isabella interjected. “No way, mister! You’re not just going to lay this on us and then say that we can’t go with you! Huh-uh! Try again! We’re going with you! Right, Solomon?”
Solomon appeared to be shocked, because she put him on the spot. The sound of his name brought him into reality. He looked up. “Uh… yes! Definitely! We’re all going. Whenever dere are three friends, they must travel together. It’s the musketeer pact, or some such nonsense. Yes. We’re going with you.”
“You don’t understand,” Eric returned, wiping tears off his cheeks. “I will not be coming back from this trip. I will join the military and fight to my death. Or until I am too old. Or the second coming. Whichever comes first.”
“Says you!” screeched Isabella in his face. “I never let no one tell me what to do up to this point and I sure ain’t going to start now! How do you know it’s a one way trip? Huh?” She stood with her hands on her hips, while leaning forward just enough to intimidate.
“It’s
part of the cycle,” Solomon interrupted.
“I didn’t ask you, Mist-ter Know-It-All!” Isabella blurted out quickly.
“I know,” Solomon replied while smiling at Eric. “I think interrupting is the least of our problems and I think Eric’s right. I mean, it makes sense. That’s the missing link to all of this.”
Isabella calmed almost as instantly as she became angry. She looked at Eric, then narrowed her eyes at Solomon. “That sounds familiar, but I’m lost.”
Eric looked at Solomon and nodded. He was too emotional to continue his speech.
It was Solomon’s turn to take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Then he had a second thought. “Isabella may care. She not only is smitten with you, Eric, but she trusts you.” He turned to Isabella. “It would sound better coming from you. You need to tell her, Eric.”
“This is about your dreams,” Isabella said. “Do you know that?”
“Yes.” Eric thought about it, then nodded his agreement. “There is a whole section of the Bible devoted to the end of days. In the Book of Revelation, there’s talk of a lot of really scary things if we take them literally. Somehow, I believe… and I think Solomon can agree, that the Tetrads have something to do with the end of the world. The Biblical end of the world.”
Isabella’s eyes teared up, as she placed her hands over her mouth. Her bottom lip started to quiver. “So you need to go to Israel?”
“Yes. I believe…” Eric continued, “…that if something doesn’t change, Armageddon will begin on September 28. Maybe that is too soon. Now, everyone has their own interpretation, but the signs are all there. The prophecy started with Israel, surrounded Israel and will come full circle back to Israel. That’s why I’m going to the Middle East now. I believe with all of my heart and soul that if someone doesn’t stand up for the Lord in the right place at the right time, this world will end sooner than it is supposed to. I have been given a message to tell the world. No one can help me. It has to be me and me alone.”
Isabella clasped his hand. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “And if I die, I die.”
Solomon said, “You were born for such a time as this.”
“We didn’t do all of this becoming friends, just to have one of us go off alone and get killed for the greater good,” Isabella said. “We all go, or none of us go! Right Solomon?”
“I don’t handle things like this very well. Actually, not at all,” said Solomon, as he nodded. “But yes! Of course! We all go! Together! The three of us. Together.”
“Good.” Isabella looked pleased.
“Being a believer,” Solomon said, “I should have been the one to handle this truth better than anyone. The fact is that I am an emotional man.” He walked over and sat back down on the sofa, biting his nails. He tried to say more, but his voice faded. “We all go together.”
Eric looked concerned and didn’t know what to say.
The basement door opened and Ms. Dancer came in. “It is so good we all got this place together. I’m grateful, considering we lost our home.”
Solomon stood up, when his mother came up to him, and he gave her a hug. “Love ya’, Mom.”
“What’s going on here? I sense all kinds of sadness.” She put her hands on her son’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Are you okay? What’s wrong, son?”
He looked at his mother, as if he was looking at her for the last time. Tears filled his eyes. He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a big hug.
“Whoa!” she replied. “Be careful wit da goods, child!”
“Can I talk to you alone?” Isabella asked Eric, as she grabbed his arm and led him toward the kitchen.
Eric followed her to the kitchen. “Alright. Talk to me.”
“We’ll watch from here,” she said. “Solomon is a broken man. I can’t ask him to go with us.”
“You’re right.” Standing in the kitchen, Eric and Isabella watched a mother and son show family love. Eric said, “Solomon and Callista belong together.”
“Yes, they do.”
Chapter Thirty -seven
September 24th
All three of them were packed and ready to go. Solomon didn’t like lying to his mother, but he said that he had to tell her that they were going on a research trip. With everything that had happened, it wasn’t hard to convince her that they needed all three people for the project.
“I called the cab to come get us,” Solomon said. “A good idea indeed, to leave the vehicles here. Too much trouble wit everything.”
Eric looked at Isabella and winked. He then hugged Solomon tightly.
“Hey, man!” Solomon responded. “I know you like me, but not in front of my mother, yeah? Ha ha!”
Eric whispered something in his ear, and his playful mood stopped. Solomon shook his head.
Eric smiled at Callista and then looked back at Solomon and nodded.
“Mama,” Solomon said. “Could I talk to you for a moment in the kitchen? I have had this question burning a hole in my brain and you’re the only one who can answer it.”
Callista pushed her chin in the air and smirked. “Of course, I am. I know everything. Ha ha! Why can’t you talk to me out here amongst your friends?”
As Solomon looked at his new friends, his eyes teared up. He sniffed. “It’s personal, Mama.”
“Oh I swear,” she said, waving her hands in the air. “If dere’s any more crying in this house, I’m leaving! Let’s go talk about the birds and the bees or whatever, son.”
Solomon stopped in the doorway to look back at Eric. They both nodded to each other. Solomon kept eye contact with Eric, and managed to force a smile.
“Geez, son! It’s not like you’re never going te see them again! Let’s move, before I start aging!” As Solomon disappeared from sight, Callista turned and looked back confused. She then followed her son out of the room, leaving the door ajar.
When she disappeared into the kitchen, Isabella and Eric looked at each other with a knowing smile.
“It’s going to be alright.”
* * *
Solomon was a responsible, mature man. He looked at his mother like it was the first time. “I really love you, Mama.”
“I know you do, son,” she said, looking suspiciously around the kitchen. “Are you recording this for some reason? Is there a hidden camera in here? What’s going on? You better tell me, young man!”
He embraced his mother as if it would be the last time. “You never know what life will throw at you, Mama. Sometimes, we think we are supposed to go one way, when all of a sudden we are guided onto another path. It may not be the same path that’s meant for everyone, but each man and woman must walk their own path.”
She moaned, as if she knew there was something more going on, but she let him continue.
“You see, mama…” he said while looking up at the ceiling and starting to cry, “…everyone has a path. I know I’ve said that.” He turned and blew his nose. “Give me a moment, please. I wish I could understand everything about the way life works, but if we all knew everything, we would only use ten percent of our brains. I understand more now than I did a year ago. I also know that no matter what else happens, we have to believe in God, who is our higher power. A power that guides and protects and sometimes asks for more than we tink we can do. We are always able to follow Him, but you see, Mama, that path is very narrow. We don’t always get the chance to jump in that direction very often. Sometimes, it’s a long and dragged out process. One in which we are judged all along the way. Judged by how we treat each other, what we say, and what we do. We are even judged by what we think. That may seem a bit drastic, but necessary in the grander scheme, I suppose. Ours is not to need an explanation, because He’s supposed to know what He’s doing. Trusting him. That’s real faith. To believe in something or someone you can’t see or physically touch. Without the faith, dere is no bond or contract…”
“I believe the word you’re looking for is covenant, son.”
&
nbsp; He smiled and hugged his mother again. “Right. That’s the exact word I was looking for.
“We have a blood covenant through Jesus. Without that covenant, we may never see what He has for us. I guess through the power of prayer and the like, He is able to help us even when we reject Him. Even when we have rejected him for years. Decades, even. I guess what I’m trying to say with so much wind, is that I love you, Mama and I truly believe that you’re a gift from God.”
She smiled and gave her son another hug. “That’s all I need, son. That’s all I need.”
“I’m going to make sure that you’re cared for, Mama. You’re my responsibility. I will always care for you.”
* * *
They returned to the living room where Eric had just put on the television. Solomon gave a thumbs up to him. They all sat down to listen.
“Here is the evening news. There is turmoil around the world. Stocks have gone down, property values are down as well and food prices are up. Everyone is expecting a fourth blood moon to appear across America tomorrow night. Looking backward several centuries, there have been some amazing Tetrads in the world. Although NASA says that before the dawn of the 20th century, there was a 300-year period when there were no blood moons at all. According to reports, people like Sir Isaac Newton, Mozart, Queen Anne, George Washington, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln and their contemporaries never had a chance to see the beauty of a Tetrad. So get outside and see this one. Like every day after the news, our phone lines will be open for you. This time, we want you to share what the blood moon looks like in your area.”
He changed his tone to a softer delivery. “People across Oregon are anticipating a sight to equal a Fourth of July fireworks show. Let’s hope they are not disappointed.”
He said he would have more after a commercial break.
When he returned, he said, “We have a news alert. Another feed from the weather bureau revealed a coming storm across America.”
