by Ted Dekker
I saw that Judah’s ears perked up and his jaw closed. When I looked back at Talya, he was on his feet, swaying and dancing in that long robe of his. Doubling over and throwing his arms up, chanting with delight. The sight mesmerized me. He was like a grown child, oblivious to this world.
Finally, he faced the desert, pressed his hands together as if to pray, and dipped his head to the vista before him as if bowing to an unseen master. Then he gathered up his book, returned it to the bundle with the others, carefully tied them back up in the protective leather wrapping, and strode back to me. He looked like a child who’d just experienced his first exhilarating ride on a roller coaster.
“Gather the sticks into a pile, daughter of Elyon!” he cried. “Tonight we feast by the fire!”
Caught up in his joy, I quickly formed a pile, though I had no idea how to make a fire.
“Good enough,” he said, spreading his blanket out on one side, then a second on the other side for me. He squatted on his heels, facing the wood.
I folded my legs under me so I was seated across from him. “You spoke of Inchristi,” I dared to say. “Inchristi is all. What do you mean?”
Without any spark that I could see, the wood burst into flame. Firelight shone in Talya’s eyes.
He winked at me. “They are only ancient words that will be meaningless to you until you know them yourself.”
“I don’t know the words now?”
He tossed something at me over the fire and I caught it. A hairy red fruit of some kind, the size of a golf ball.
“Do you know the fruit?” he asked.
I turned it in my hands, trying to recall something, but nothing came. “No.”
“Then let me tell you about it. It’s called a rhambutan. The skin is bitter. The flesh inside is translucent and sweet, wrapped around a large seed only good for planting. If you eat the sweet flesh you won’t dream. Which means as long as you eat this fruit, you won’t awaken in the Eden of ancient Earth. You could go a whole year, eating the fruit each night, and not once dream. For all practical purposes, that ancient world would cease to exist for you.”
Both the Roush and Samuel had mentioned this fruit, the one Thomas of Hunter used to stop dreaming.
“Now . . .” Talya stared over the flames as he squatted. “Do you know this fruit?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“But you are wrong. You don’t know this fruit. You only know about it. To know is to have intimate experience with, as a woman knows a man to produce the fruit of a child. You may know about Elyon and commit your life to the infinite Origin of all that is, but that doesn’t mean you know Elyon. When you know Elyon, you will experience that realm called eternal life in this very moment, as Yeshua taught. Then you will produce the fruit of love that holds no record of wrong. This is your path.”13
I thought about my experience in Eden, finding that First Seal. I had been knowing the truth of my Father, experiencing the infinite intimately. Wonder washed through me as I understood at least this much.
“Now, once more, dear daughter. Do you know this fruit?”
“No.”
“Good. In the same way, you can know about the seals, even their meaning, but until you know them, until you yourself experience their truth, they will remain powerless. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Tonight you will taste this fruit. You will know it so that you don’t dream. As you will the next night, and the next.” He stared into the fire. “You must find the treasure in the field of this life through your own experience. Only then will you pay the price that costs you everything to gain peace and true love in this life.”
His eyes met mine.
“And you will need that power, because when you next wake in ancient Earth, you will find yourself in a great darkness.”
15
“YOU THINK it’s possible that she’s right?” Miranda asked.
David sat on the couch, tapping his right foot, a nervous tic he’d developed after his wife died. Or was murdered. Which was it? He glanced at the clock on the wall. Just past midnight. Thankfully, it was battery powered—he didn’t own a wristwatch. Without power, his iPhone would soon die.
Candlelight from three small flames cast the room in a dim orange light. Rachelle had been asleep for over two hours and didn’t appear to be having nightmares. At least that much was good.
“You mean the dreams? We’ve been over this.”
Miranda stood from her chair and crossed to the kitchen. “Yes, but maybe we’re thinking too small.” She put her hand on the pitcher of water and stopped. “What if Rachelle is somehow connecting with the fabric of reality, not as we know it, but beyond our understanding?”
“You mean spiritual reality?” he said doubtfully.
“I mean all reality. Like an oracle who’s going to the beyond and bringing back the keys to truth. We could be sitting on one of the most extraordinary events in all of human history.”
“I think that’s the job of science, not dreamers.”
Miranda turned back. “I don’t think you’re keeping an open mind, which surprises me. All of these years teaching Rachelle to believe in the impossible, but now you’re unable to practice your own dogma.”
“Me? No open mind? You seriously expect me to believe a person can travel in their dreams? Because that’s essentially what she says is happening.”
She poured herself a cup of water. “Before seeing what happened in the sanctuary, I wouldn’t have dreamed it was possible either.”
“So you actually believe her now? An hour ago you flatly dismissed it.”
Miranda leaned back against the counter, cup in hand, staring absently over his head. “I’m not necessarily saying I believe her, but I do believe that she believes herself. And I do know what I saw.”
“An hour ago you were adamant—”
“No, an hour ago, you were adamant and I was agreeing.” She set the cup down without taking a drink and walked to the breakfast bar. “Have you ever known anyone with a mind as reasonable as Rachelle’s?”
He thought about that. She was only sixteen. A child still. One who’d suffered more than anyone else he knew in Eden. The black sheep in this paradise of theirs. Reasonable, yes. But still . . . so young.
“Listen to me, David. I know it’s hard to see your own daughter as more than a little girl who’s struggling to be typical, but trust me, she’s far more than that.”
“Maybe, but I’ll settle for typical.”
“Vlad Smith clearly has her on a pedestal. Why?”
“Vlad Smith is a predator who sees Eden as an opportunity ripe for the picking. Rachelle is only an object of convenience for him.” David heard himself saying it, but only part of him believed those words. “This is all about control for him. He’s using her to make a point. Write in the freaking book already. It’s a test!”
“But he has the same book she dreamed about.”
He shook his head. “Her dreams are fabrications—personifications—of her hopes and fears. Like I said, Smith is testing us by using her.”
“If it’s a test, I’ve never seen anyone as brave. She walked right up to him, took the book, and then refused him. But there has to be more to it.”
“There is no more. What more?” Why was he reacting so strongly? But he knew . . . If there was any validity to Rachelle’s claims of this other world she was living in, everything he knew about reality was upside down. He couldn’t accept that. And he was surprised that Miranda was now doing an about-face.
“The point is,” she said, walking around the breakfast bar, “her reaction to the book. Something happened to her, you can’t deny that. It might as well have been an electric socket she plugged her hand into.”
“Psychosomatic,” he shot back. “The body does as the brain does because the body is part of the brain. What she believed manifested in her body. What do you think we’ve been slaving over all these years?”
“I know. Epigenetics. Plac
ebo. But so dramatically?”
“You know the studies. Convince someone with an allergy to poison ivy that the cream in your hand is filled with poison ivy, and their arm breaks into a rash when it’s applied, even though that cream is only hand lotion. You call that less dramatic than what happened to her?”
“She was blind!” Miranda sat down, leaning forward. “Blind, David. You know as well as I do that CRISPR didn’t repair her sight. Nor did a placebo, not all of her blood cells that quickly.”
“I don’t know. Rapid spontaneous healing isn’t unheard of. So-called miracles happen more frequently than we realize. We’re only just beginning to comprehend the power of the brain.”
“Granted, and if it was only her healing, I would be inclined to agree.”
“It’s all related, Miranda. It’s all about her dreams, I’ll give you that, but it’s her belief in those dreams that are affecting her. She’s been tormented by them for years. Somewhere along the line they became an expansion of her reality. She no longer knows what’s real and what’s the dream.”
David stood, paced to the window, and peered through the drawn curtains. Not a light to be seen. The room felt muggy without air-conditioning, but he was reluctant to open a window. Not muggy enough for him to sweat—that was just nerves.
He released the curtain and drew the back of his hand over his forehead. “Either way, her dreams are now the least of our problems. It’s only a matter of time before they try to force her hand. We need to buy ourselves some time! If Barth was behind . . .”
David caught himself. Miranda had already pointed out that his preoccupation with his wife’s death was distorting his perception, and she was right. Best not go there now.
“Maybe we should just take her now,” he said. “Get her up in the woods where at least she’ll be safe. Or out of the valley altogether.”
“We’ve been over this. The tunnel is sealed. We run and they come after us with a posse, shoot on sight, remember?”
They were grasping for straws, the same straws they’d already drawn and discarded.
“Then we take her straight to Simon first thing in the morning and settle this business once and for all. He’s a reasonable man.”
“You mean settle the real business, which is confronting Barth about your wife’s death.”
“I mean that all of this ties back to something Simon and Barth are keeping from us, and it’s tied directly to why my wife was murdered and why Rachelle was born blind!”
There, he’d just come out and said it.
“Maybe,” Miranda said, leaning back and crossing her arms. She’d clearly forgotten about her cup of water. “But we can’t let them force Rachelle’s hand. We have no idea what will happen if she writes in that book.”
He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
“You really think it’s all in her mind?” she continued. “That everything we’ve seen is just her body reacting to new neural connections in her brain? That we can’t even consider the possibility she’s not writing in the book because it really will have consequences?”
He wanted to say yes—the alternative was far more difficult to explain or accept.
Miranda stood, grabbed his hand, and pulled him off his seat. “Come here.”
“Where?”
“Just come with me.”
She picked up one of the half-burned tapered candles from the table and led him down the hall to Rachelle’s room. Touching a finger to her lips for quiet, she opened the door and walked up to the bed.
Rachelle lay on her side, head on one pillow and right leg thrown over a second. She’d pulled her long hair into a ponytail to keep it from her face while she slept. Cheeks amber in the candlelight, smooth as silk. A life lived mostly indoors had protected her from sun damage.
To think something was actually happening to her at this very moment that would affect life here was incomprehensible, if not absurd.
Miranda reached out and gently lifted her T-shirt sleeve. The white ring on her arm glowed faintly. The perfect circle seemed, by some optical illusion, to have depth. Impossible, but so was the tattoo itself.
“Is this just the result of her beliefs too?” Miranda whispered.
If a poison ivy rash could manifest through belief, why not other discolorations on the skin? But David knew he didn’t believe that either. Rachelle had called it a seal. The First Seal.
“She got this from touching the book,” Miranda said quietly. “Until you can come up with another explanation, I’m going to believe her.”
A loud bang on the door to the kitchen shook the house.
Miranda gasped and spun around, and David instinctively moved to put her behind him. The bang came again.
“Wait here!” he whispered.
He was halfway down the hall before he realized that she’d closed the door to Rachelle’s room and was following. But his mind was on the banging, now accompanied by a voice, demanding they open the door.
Barth Caldwell. David had feared this scenario, but the fact that the man had the gall to demand an entrance in the middle of the night also infuriated him.
“David!” Miranda was warning him, but he held up a hand, setting aside caution. They were defenseless here, better face-to-face than in hiding now.
He flipped the dead bolt, turned the handle, and pulled open the door. Light blinded him and he jerked his hand up to shield his eyes. The light shifted and David saw who’d come.
Barth stood on the gravel, holding a military-grade flashlight. But he wasn’t alone. Six of his joint forces, as he called them, stood by his side. The Glocks on their hips were holstered, but three of them also carried assault rifles.
Barth glared from the shadows, in his element.
“What do you think this is?” David demanded. “Raid on Entebbe? It’s the middle of the night, for heaven’s sake!”
“Wrong, David,” Barth said. “It’s the middle of a crisis. Or hadn’t you realized? The council requires your daughter. Now.”
He could sense Miranda behind him, and a part of him wanted to shove her back, slam the door, and take their chances. But the part that knew Barth had something to do with his wife’s death resisted any move that could be seen as cowardice.
“So a terrorist strolls into church and holds this town hostage, and you’re going to give in to his demands, is that it?” David shot back.
“Wrong again, David. I’m giving in to my own demands, and my demands are that I take control of a situation that undermines the very foundation of this town. Electricity is the lifeblood of this valley. My first order of business is to restore that power at any cost. Then I’ll deal with Smith. Basic strategy. Anyone who stands in my way is in direct violation of Eden’s laws. I, not Smith, enforce those laws. And I will enforce them vigorously. Now, unless you want a bullet in your head, stand aside.”
A male voice yelled from the direction of the town square. Something was off here. But Barth was fixed. Once he had his jaws clamped down, nothing was going to dislodge him. David had seen the man break Claire Davis’s jaw two years earlier when she’d been found stashing liquor in her house.
“Take it easy. I’m sure we can work something out, but I want this in front of the full council. You hear me?”
“Oh, I hear you all too well.” Barth’s right eye twitched. He slowly withdrew his gun and leveled it at David’s forehead. “The question is, did you hear me?”
“Easy . . .”
“I don’t think you understand our situation here. The country’s infrastructure is collapsing. Millions are going to die out there. A few might die in here. Smith is our terrorist and we’ll deal with him. But to do that, I need leverage. Your daughter is that leverage. I don’t give a tick’s whiskers if you live or die tonight because, frankly, the survival of Eden has nothing to do with you. It does, however, depend on me. So I’m going to tell you one more time. We need the girl. Now.”
“Stop this!” Miranda brushed past David. “Who do you th
ink you are, storming in here to take a young—”
Barth’s gun bucked in his palm. The night air exploded with the sound of its discharge, cutting off Miranda’s voice. Her head snapped back and she dropped to the ground in a heap.
It happened so quickly, so unreasonably, that David wasn’t sure it had happened. Barth had shot Miranda? His mind refused to accept what he’d just seen.
“Extreme times, David,” Barth said, gun trained on him again. “Extreme measures. You can either move or join her.”
“Barth!” Someone was running toward them. “Barth!”
David stepped back, eyes on Miranda’s body. Blood was soaking into the gravel from the gaping wound on her head. Simon had come, he knew that. Barth had acted alone, he knew that as well.
But he still couldn’t get his mind working to process what any of it meant. When he lifted his head he saw Simon staring down at the crumpled body.
Simon’s face flushed. “Have you gone mad? You have no right! You can’t just go around killing innocent people!”
Barth returned his stare, undisturbed. “I have the right to do as the council orders.”
“This,” Simon snapped, stabbing his finger at Miranda’s dead body, “was not what we discussed.”
“Actually it was, you just weren’t a part of that discussion. You gave up that right when you let Smith take the stand without opposition. Seeing as how you don’t have the balls to stand up to Smith, Max and I agreed that task falls to me. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to end this threat. It’s not the first dead body on our watch.”
Simon backhanded Barth full in the face. “How dare you!” The Judge was taller by four inches, but Barth was a bull with twice his muscle. Despite the loud crack, his head didn’t budge.
“You have no idea what’s really happening here!” the Judge roared. “No idea! This is exactly what he wants. Don’t you see that?”
Barth stood still, as if for the first time considering he might have misjudged the situation. But David was no longer misjudging. The full horror of what had just happened crashed over him, and he felt his legs go weak.
