I glance over my shoulder at the hangar’s silhouette—the rounded roofline glowing silver—not sure how Josh is going to appreciate having a teenager underfoot.
Seth doesn’t talk much as we walk up the snowy pathway that once led to the airport’s busy passenger drop-off zone but now leads to the decimated Concourse A. In fact, he does not talk at all. I can understand his silence, though. For one thing, he looks about ready to collapse with exhaustion; for another, he’s probably shocked by what he sees. Everything you view daily, you become blinded to over time: a curse if it’s beauty, a blessing if it’s ugliness. In this case, it’s the latter. I no longer see the rudder of the crashed Bombardier, sticking up from the top of the parking garage. I no longer see one of the three-ton engines burrowed into Concourse C, the force of the impact collapsing the steel beams supporting the roofline’s peak and shattering the glass below it so that yard-long slivers glint in the waning light. All of my senses have become deadened, it seems, because I’ve even stopped smelling the explosion itself: a toxic mix of oil and fuel that burned my nose the first time I got downwind of it.
Josh’s reaction when we enter the hangar is one I would expect. He glances up from the plane engine, and it’s like a hand sweeps over his face, transforming his relaxed demeanor into a no-holds-barred scowl.
“Seth’s from that community. The Mennonite one I told you about.” I hate how I sound like a child, trying to explain my way out of a fix.
Josh takes off his aviators and puts them in a pocket of his navy vest, fitted with more pockets than a fly fisherman’s. He looks at Seth. “And why is he here?”
Seth says, “I came because I heard of a militia.”
Josh raises a white eyebrow. “I thought you Mennonites don’t fight.”
“I’m not your typical Mennonite.”
Josh’s mouth twitches. “How old are you, boy?”
“Fourteen.”
“You’re little for fourteen.”
“I’m strong.”
I glance between Josh and Seth, trying to understand where this is heading before we get there. Surely Josh isn’t seriously considering letting him stay long-term? Regardless of how overblown our militia may be in the eyes of those who’ve lived to tell about it, we can have no one join us who is unwilling to shed blood or fight to the death to protect the airport for . . . what? Who or what is Josh waiting for? What is the catalyst fueling his survival to such extremes? Then again, why am I here? What is the catalyst driving me?
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
I guess you could say I had a slightly different childhood. When I was six and my brother ten, our family stood in a field at the camp where my parents were caretakers, and my parents told us that this was where we would meet if we were separated when the world “blew up.” From this field, our family would travel by foot to our friends’ elaborate, fairy-tale home and live in the blue room hidden behind their bookshelves.
My parents did not mean to instill fear in us. Now that I’m a parent, I see that they were trying to assuage their own fears by coming up with a plan. But I was born with an overactive imagination, and therefore this plan planted in me the seed of fear—and subsequently, a driving need to control my environment.
I wish I could say I uprooted this fear once I became an adult, but after I had my firstborn daughter, my fear grew worse, for not only did I have to control my environment; I also had to control hers. When my eldest was six months old, an unnerving exchange with a logger deepened the roots of my fear and caused me to ask whether I would ever use lethal force to protect myself and my family. I believed I would, even though, growing up, I sensed my own father would adhere to his pacifist heritage if placed in such a situation.
The final puzzle piece for my book, The Alliance, slid into place when my father told us that we needed heirloom seeds to last us until the next harvest season. I remember standing in my darkened kitchen and repeating that phrase to myself—the harvest season. Initially, I believed this would be the title of the book, but over time, I knew a community having enough food to last until the next harvest season was only a small element of the story. The larger element came from the protagonist, Leora Ebersole, and her driving need to control her environment, even after society crumbles around her, because she believes if she controls her environment, she will be able to keep her orphaned family safe.
With every one of my books, God’s been faithful to allow me to experience some portion of whatever topic I’m addressing. The Alliance has been no exception. My family and I moved from Tennessee to Wisconsin shortly before I finished the rough draft. Eight weeks later, my husband went in for a CAT scan, which revealed a tumor near his brain stem. He had surgery the next morning, and all through that night next to his hospital bed, I feared for my family. I feared for our two young daughters—our firstborn was two and a half and our second, four months old at the time. I feared that I would be a widow, living on a grid-tie solar-powered farm six hundred miles away from our immediate families. In a matter of hours, one of my worst fears had come true, and I didn’t know how to handle it.
However, all through my Garden of Gethsemane night, during the hours my husband was in surgery, and in the critical weeks that followed the craniotomy, I felt God’s presence as if he was sitting beside me. I then understood that God had allowed me to face one of my greatest fears so that I would learn that inner peace can never be acquired through my futile attempts to control my environment—and therefore keep my family safe. Moreover, I can only achieve inner peace if I continually surrender my life and the lives of my family to the One who called us into being.
So I pray, dear reader, that you will discover the author of the peace that passes all understanding and daily surrender your life—and the lives of your family—to him.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jolina Petersheim is the bestselling author of The Outcast, which Library Journal called “outstanding . . . fresh and inspirational” in a starred review and named one of the best books of 2013. That book also became an ECPA, CBA, and Amazon bestseller and was featured in Huffington Post’s Fall Picks, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and the Tennessean. CBA Retailers + Resources called her second book, The Midwife, “an excellent read [that] will be hard to put down,” and Romantic Times declared, “Petersheim is an amazing new author.” Jolina’s nonfiction writing has been featured in Reader’s Digest, Writer’s Digest, and Today’s Christian Woman.
Jolina and her husband share the same unique Amish and Mennonite heritage that originated in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. After years of living in the mountains of Tennessee, they moved to a farm in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, where they live with their two young daughters. Follow Jolina's blog at www.jolinapetersheim.com.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Have you ever given much thought to the dangers of an EMP? How likely do you think it is that something like this might really happen? Is it something you should prepare for, and if so, how might you prepare? How do you balance being prepared with being controlled by fear?
How do Leora’s beliefs change throughout the story? Was this progression portrayed realistically? Do you think Leora will ever come back around to her pacifist beliefs? Why or why not? Have your own convictions changed from childhood to adulthood? What caused them to change?
Moses feels anger toward God, believing that God has spared him while letting others around him suffer and die. Has there ever been a time in your life when God’s plan felt like a punishment? How would you encourage Moses to move past his anger?
How does Moses’s faith change throughout the book? How do you think he will continue to grow or change spiritually in the next book?
Describe Leora’s feelings toward Anna. Is Leora right to feel guilty about Anna’s accident? Have you ever struggled with a similar situation? How did—or might—it affect your outlook and decisions?
How do Leora’s feelings toward her father shift over the course of the story? How do you think Leora shou
ld have reacted to her father’s return?
Were you surprised by the identity of the person stealing food from the community? What did you think of the way Leora reacted? Where would you like to see this thread go in the next book?
When Moses and Jabil go into town in search of a tractor, Moses vacillates on how the community views their plan. Though they do not plan to pillage or harm anyone, they are prepared to steal to better themselves and the community. If placed in the same position, would you be willing to break the law in order to save yourself or your family? Why or why not?
In what ways are Moses and Jabil similar? In what ways are they different? If placed in Leora’s position, which man would you find it easier to trust with your heart? Why?
Leora admits, “I yearn to be with Moses, as if he is my North Star in this black hole of madness, but my duty to my family forces me to remain lost.” Could the two coexist, or must Leora make a choice? Faced with a choice between love and a responsibility to your family, how would you decide?
Why does Leora think her grandmother might not be as anxious as everyone else despite the upheaval they’re experiencing? How have you seen this illustrated (or contradicted) in people you know? In general, why do you think we are so fearful for our lives and those of the people we love?
Which characters, if any, would you like to know more about? What would you like to see happen to them as the story concludes in the next book?
The Alliance Page 25
