by Erin Lorence
I stepped down more firmly. No one here could catch me if I climbed. Not even Stone, second in line behind Cal, who led. And never the geezerly Council guy breathing down my neck—the one with the four-year-old humor who’d sniggered about Samuel’s—no Saul’s— hygiene.
Saul. Of course he was Saul and not Samuel. Not that names mattered now, but the Bible passage he’d referred to when asked his name was about Samuel declaring Saul as king. Brainlessly, I’d latched onto the wrong name.
Reed craned his neck around, and I gritted my teeth when I met his gaze. He was probably checking that I hadn’t left. He jabbed his walking stick into the ground until it bowed. He only had one prisoner now, rather than the eight who’d slipped through his fingers.
I lifted my chin and stared past.
Unfortunately, my sight line collided with the back of his brother’s head. I jerked my eyes from the view of his ashy waves. He’d only spared me one dead-eyed glance—one—right before we’d started this hike.
A jerk—like his brother. No, worse. Because, unlike his brother, I’d thought...I’d thought Stone had...but it didn’t matter now. Now I knew. He didn’t care if I got branded as Satan’s sidekick. He didn’t even care if I fell off the edge of the cliff we hiked since he’d never checked to see.
And my original traveling partner? She was harder to find in our moving line, sandwiched between the brothers. But I understood. I was dead to her.
I swallowed against the tightening in my throat and refocused on the route I’d need to remember to backtrack home.
Since an obvious way existed around the thinning bushes, sticks, and nettles, my unchallenged mind began dwelling on what would happen at the Council.
Would the “wiser” people be wise enough to believe me? Or would I have to deal with some sort of test to determine my alliance?
I skirted some nettles, recalling one of my grandpa’s history lessons on seventeenth century witch hunts and some of their “tests.”
I released my lip. You’re a Strong, Dove. Act like one. Don’t be so pathetic. Gran wouldn’t worry and carry on like this.
As we wound our way up Jefferson, patches of hard snow showed up in shady spots. Some I recognized, as well as the barren scree on our right, from an earlier scouting trip. Before Wolfe and Jezebel had tracked me down.
I gave up on not being pathetic. In my head, I accompanied them down the bluffs, through the foothills, and back to the pavement where their inevitable vehicle waited.
30
We halted once to rest. As soon as I sat, my sweat mingled with the breeze and became a herd of icicles. Shivering, I gulped my water, crammed the dried venison into my mouth carnivorous-squirrel style, and scrambled back onto my feet to keep going.
The sun dipped low when we abandoned the trees and stopped again. The others exchanged words, drank, and fidgeted. But I gazed around, pivoting in a slow circle. This made no sense. Where to from here? Where was our goal?
There was none. Unless the goal was the super-sheer wall of rock a few yards off that led to a mountaintop of snow.
Cal shattered my concentration. “OK, everyone. Now give your knots an extra tug to make sure they’re secure. If we stay together, there’s no reason we should lose anyone on this climb.”
With a blink, I discovered a bright orange rope—the kind Heathen owned—anchoring together most of our group. The small end of the rope stuck out from the knot Joshua had tied around his waist.
The boy ahead of me noticed the problem when he tried to hand me the foot-long length of orange.
The toothless councilman at my back sniggered. “Happy climbing.”
With a click, he latched his own climbing gear into the silent man’s behind him.
I forced open my clenched fingers and studied them. Strong or weak, they’d have to get me up this precipice. I had no other human help.
Bzzzz. A zipper hummed. Three young people tugged at outer layers of clothing, loosening jackets from under the knotted rope loops at their waists.
Wordlessly, Rebecca and the heavy-browed girl tossed their jackets to Hunter, who shivered in his shirt but held his own.
Reed objected. “There’s no time. We need to move right now or Melody’s going to be too frozen to make the climb.”
I caught a glimpse of her bent, furry back as she hugged her legs. In front of her, Stone’s was as straight as the wall he examined.
Hunter finished fashioning the bulky make-shift jacket rope with hard knots, and then he spat on them. Rebecca had untied her brother and now bound the orange rope together with the new one.
With a drum roll off his tongue, Joshua handed me the long length of knotted-jackets. The sound broke while I tied Hunter’s jacket around my waist with a triple knot. Hunter’s teeth chattered. Again, that weird sensation ripped me.
These strangers—nonbelievers, only recently converted— did this for me.
I blinked hard, still grasping the knot. “You know it probably won’t hold. And I’ll end up falling a million feet and getting smashed.”
Rebecca rubbed her ear. But her purple-tinged lips pulled up into a lopsided grin.
~*~
I saw it now—the optical illusion. The reason we hadn’t located the Council ourselves. What had appeared to be a solid slab of black bluff intersecting an even more sheer slab slathered with white, wasn’t that at all. The two rock walls offset, and the gap between them was spacious enough for an entrance to the hidden Council below.
I teetered at the sharp edge of the first slab, next to Joshua, clutching my jacket rope and peering into the crevice. The canyon’s floor was far below. The valley seemed to open up, but without signs of human life. I saw no shelters. No anything.
The Council would’ve built these under sections of undercut mountain. They’d be camouflaged to avoid detection from the nonbelievers’ planes and flying machines.
With a glance at the lone hawk circling the snowy peak, I followed the slow-moving line down into the canyon. Cal demonstrated how to climb over and onto the giant outcropping boulders, using them as footholds to work our way to the bottom.
At the canyon’s first shadow, my breath frosted my lips.
Before my fingers numbed, I picked at the jacket knot around my waist. I inched closer to the kid below me and undid the next one.
I didn’t need a rope like the others for this descent. And if I did, I’d climb without it because I wouldn’t be responsible for three messengers freezing to death.
The councilman’s boot on the outcropping at my ear grated as it slid. “Keep moving your paws, girl. Move. It ain’t the time to be changing accessories or adjusting your pretty outfit.”
Joshua glanced up. I shoved the three-jacket bundle at him. I didn’t survey further down the line to see if his sister and the others would accept their clothes back. Either they’d accept or Joshua would carry them.
A shower of pebbles rolled onto my sleeve.
“Move them paws!”
~*~
I sprang from the last foothold onto the crusted snow. Then I crunched over to join the huddle of messengers panting, shivering, and nursing crushed fingers and skinned ankles.
I’d survived. No thanks to my feet, which, like my brain, had been confused as to whether or not they’d wanted to reach the bottom.
No matter. I’d arrived with my prayer results. Melody had too. The grim red threat of my possible failure couldn’t haunt me anymore. Best of all, I stood in a sacred place that welcomed Christians. Except there was always the chance I’d be disbelieved, rejected, and kicked out of this Council with my shredded papers fluttering around my soles.
In the twilight, Joshua showed anyone who’d pay attention the new bloody gap in his smile. He paused for a moment. “Wow. It’s like I’m back home in Portland.”
I scanned this gloomy world—monotone gray with patches of snow and impenetrable shadows. After some serious eyestrain, I located a row of crooked stone huts huddled against the cliff’s base
.
“You’re serious?”
It was the first time I’d heard Melody’s voice today. My stomach contracted as she turned full circle. “You’re not joking? This is what Portland’s like?”
Rebecca cuffed her brother’s curls.
“Truth time.” At my elbow, Cal gestured left toward the yawning darkness engulfing the narrow canyon. “Councilman Zeke will guide the rest of you to your sleeping quarters. Help yourselves to blankets, but we ask that you not make fires in this area, in case any of you brought in fuel. Zeke will explain meeting and eating times as well as other safety requests. Before you sleep tonight, your prayer results will be secured.”
The man who’d trudged at the end of the line all day looked tired. He inclined his head and headed toward the line of crooked shelters.
Reed stepped toward me. “I’m ready to testify against her. Let’s get it done.”
Stone and Melody waited, watching Rebecca’s group trudge after Zeke. Councilman Cal shook his head. “No. You three go with Zeke. The Governor won’t need your testimony.”
“But—”
“Yes, Bender. But only if she summons you. She won’t. Now go.”
I didn’t dislike Cal, I decided, as we strode off into the darkness—neither of us gave a backward glance at the warrior fuming in the snow patch.
The uneven stones felt smooth under my aching toes, whispering through the stillness about all of God’s people who’d walked here before. My uncle’s feet might have pressed these stones. I shivered.
“Give it a week, Strong. In one week you won’t be able to remember it like this. So silent. So empty. Calm. You’ll see. That is, if you’re still here. It never fails to amaze me how small this place gets when we’re all here together like sardines. So hoard up your peace now.”
“Sardines?” I didn’t recognize that word.
A rock-hewn bench loomed out from the gloom. He beckoned me to sit on it. He touched a lantern stuck in the slab wall at my shoulder. Cool light illuminated us and revealed my least favorite councilman. He had shadowed us.
Cal chuckled. “Something my daddy used to say. Fish, I think. Sounds like they must swim in tight schools, all crowded. Rest your bones while I go see if the Governor’s up for this.” He opened the stone door. Warm air and light rushed out through the gap. He slipped through and vanished.
I perched on the edge of my icy seat, craning to see the heavy, horizontal slab above my head. Some type of roof? From the shadows, I heard snatches of the toothless councilman’s mutterings—stuff about a brimstone lake.
Then Cal reappeared in the cool light with a pile of fur, which he flung over my back. I wrapped the thickness around my clumsy fingers and studied the bundled woman who’d escorted him. Older than my mom. But fractionally less wrinkled than my grandma.
“First arrivals and already Satan’s among us. Name?” Her charcoal hovered over her clipboard.
“Dove Strong.”
Her gray head jerked up for an instant, and then the curtain of boredom dropped back down—the same one I used when I pretended not to care.
She began to question me. They were obvious questions directed at finding out whether my allegiance was to Jesus or Satan.
In my usual, super-articulate way, I choked out, “God is the Creator, eternal and perfect. He sent his only Son Jesus—God and man—to earth to live a sinless life and to die for me. Because He didn’t sin, death couldn’t keep Him, so He’s alive. And because of this I’m allowed to have a relationship with God—and eternal life with Him.” I stumbled to a stop.
“Do you pray?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“To whom?”
Would Satan’s spy be so easily tricked? I wondered. “Uh. To God.”
“Do you love Him?”
“Would I be here if I didn’t, ma’am?”
“Please answer ‘yes’ next time, Ms. Strong. Whom do you serve?”
“God.”
“Where do you learn your truths about Him?”
“From my Bible. My family. And the Holy Spirit.”
“Why am I standing in the snow, interrogating this obvious Christian child?”
I smirked when both men winced.
“I reiterate. What’s the accusation?”
Cal’s hands fluttered at the darkness and then at me. “This boy she traveled with—Reed, he calls himself—well, he...he testified that Dove here, well, I’m not quite sure what she did, but Old Saul brought up this group of pagan kids who got into a scuffle with them. I’ve been trying to piece it together, and as far as I can tell—”
“Reed accused me of acting on our Enemy’s behalf.”
Her unblinking stare shifted to me. “Did you?”
I shrugged—then realized that wasn’t going to cut it. “I don’t know. A group of unbelievers hunted us to Jefferson. Most of them wanted to start trouble. And I was sort of...merciful, I guess? Whether that pleased Satan, I wouldn’t know.”
I took a breath, thinking of Jezebel secure at home with her brother. “Reed’s biggest problem with me is that I messed up his plan of attack when I protected a godless kid who needed help. I mean, there was fire and bees and rocks and that crushing weight, plus she thinks she’s tough but...”
I shook my head. “What I did—protecting her—caused our self-proclaimed leader, Reed, to be burned a little. At least he blames it on me. Which is stupid.”
The woman’s mask cracked around her eyes and mouth. “And?”
“And I sort of made friends with two non-believers. They were the two who didn’t want to attack anybody. And I don’t allow my friends to be treated like prisoners. Or threatened with a death sentence.”
Maybe my blunt honesty would get me tossed out. I imagined an unseen, giant catapult in the shadows that would fling me up and back into the ferns halfway down the foothills.
My chin rose an inch. “So I convinced someone on our side to release them and help them escape—not only my friends, but the whole captive group. I didn’t trust Reed’s plans for them.”
The bored expression didn’t shift when the woman nodded. “Miracle. Send out another patrol. Check for more Christians on the southwest side, hunting for their way to us. And keep your eyes open for any Heathen youth, just in case.”
“Yes, ma’am. Yes, Governor.” Both councilmen backed away.
“Ms. Strong. Come get warm.” She leaned against the door.
Heat came from all directions, everywhere. With sharp stabs eating my fingers and cheeks, I gazed around at the golden-lit space.
The giant slab roof from outside gave the room a buried, claustrophobic feel. Stone Bender would have to do some serious slouching to move around in here.
I checked that thought and focused on the carvings above my head, stretching the length of the long room. The Garden of Eden gushed its detailed lushness. Abraham and Lot divvied up their land. David hid from King Saul in the cave, clutching his telltale knife.
In the center of it all, Jesus dominated in His glorious ascension.
Oh, Trinity. You should be the one here seeing this. If by some miracle I make it home, you’re going to strangle me for not being able to describe this well enough.
The whole place was chiseled to be holy. My eyes scanned the rows of polished stone benches filling the long room. The hundreds of birch-white candles in their pebble-formed sconces.
“And how is Sarah holding out in her tree home?”
My breathing froze. I took a backward step for the door.
“Hmm. I see you inherited all of Jonah’s chattiness.”
At hearing my dad’s name, shock rendered me mute. Then, I realized she most likely referred to my grandpa if she knew Gran. Both he and my dad shared the name Jonah. Neither talked much.
“My grandparents. How do you know about them? Governor.” I tagged on the title Cal had used.
“Best call me Miss Ruth since we’re such old family friends. Yes, I’d like that better. My title sits odd on me sin
ce my position is so new. I was elected Governor over the Oregon Christian Council only at the last Council meeting, and I’m still trying to fit it. Sarah ever recall me?”
I shook my head and dropped onto a warm bench. I kept my eyes on the stone Jesus.
“Your Grandma Sarah and I were classmates, almost sisters, up until the Purge.”
Again, I shook my head. “I don’t know, Governor Ruth. I don’t know about you or what that means, ‘the Purge.’”
“Miss Ruth. And that’s what we Councils call the painful moment in our history when our nation decided to take a stand against us true Christians. And labeled us a domestic hate group.”
My extremities no longer throbbed. Her words floated to me as if from a dream.
“As I recall, the only real hate I felt back then was being labeled that. Me? Part of a domestic hate group?” She shook a fist. “Ridiculous! But calling us that was the only way patriotic unbelievers could justify their actions.
“What it came down to was Americans not liking their sins called sins. For us believers to proclaim only one God and only one way to Heaven, and not to embrace the other blasphemous religions of the world. Well, it was unforgivable of us. Still is. It’s only a matter of time now before the government rounds us up like wildlife to be eradicated in order to keep the ‘civilized folk’ undisturbed. Unless...”
She zoned in on a flickering candle a while. “Sarah. She didn’t realize her blessing back when it first happened, having Christian parents. I wasn’t so lucky. And her engagement to Jonah. She was able to escape into hiding with his family on all that timber-rich land.
“She went southeast, and I came north. And here we are tonight—you and me. Still hiding from the patriotic unbelievers…yet, perhaps, with more hope?”
I slouched with half-mast lids when she abandoned the candle she’d been twisting in its sconce. “Sarah. Does she still receive visions? Dreams it was, I recall.”
I nodded.
“Hmm. You resemble her, Dove. And if God sent you here rather than her, I’m supposing He’s generously equipped you with a heavy spiritual arsenal as well?”
