by Casey Hays
Sweat dots his brow, and surprised, I step forward.
“Ian?” I point. “You’re . . . sweating.”
He runs the back of his forearm along his wet forehead and pulls back in surprise. Astonished, I move closer.
“I think you need to let Claudia look at your wounds.”
I reach for his hand, hold up the wounded finger, still red and painfully swollen and covered in someone else’s blood. All my anxiety is written plainly across my face, and his eyes soften. A smile flits across his face and fades. He catches my cheek in the palm of his hand, leaving a pink stain.
“It’s so good to see your eyes again, Kate. The ones that recognize me.”
And for a moment, Ian—my Ian—is back. But I shake my head, and lift his injured hand. He frowns.
“It’s a flesh wound.” He tugs his hand away and stands. “I’ll be fine.”
“Will you?”
He drops his eyes, turning away from me, but I grab his wrist.
“I remember what happened to Liza’s friends. They’re both dead because of what caused this to your hand.” I push up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the grazed burn mark on his bicep. “Is this getting better or worse?”
He swallows.
“Better or worse?” I repeat.
“Worse.”
A shiver of apprehension shakes me. “You need to let Claudia look at you,” I repeat.
He purses his lips. “Okay. Okay, I will. Later. She’s dealing with too much right now.”
“Later may be too late.”
Ignoring this, he kicks open the door, holds it with his foot while he shoves his sleeve down. I simply stare at him, frustrated, and then pass through the open door ahead of him.
Dead silence accompanies us as we right the kitchen table. Ian brings water from the cellar, peels off his bloody shirt, and cleans himself, turning a whole bucket of water a rusty hue. I use a wet cloth to wipe myself, wishing I could bathe and put on clean clothes. We eat stale bread with raisins and water. I load a plate with food for Claudia and Sophia.
“We should clean this room,” I suggest. I stand in the doorway, the plate in my hands. “The bedroom, too.”
Ian nods. “Yeah.”
He tests the dampness of his shirt where it hangs drying over the back of a chair. He looks so tired—so unlike himself. Sweat dots his shoulders and chest, and my worry increases.
“You don’t look good, Ian.” I prompt him with a flick of my head. “Go lie down.”
Another moment, and he complies, falling heavily onto the cushioned couch in the living room. He stretches out, closes his eyes. I watch him a moment, before I turn toward the corridor.
“Kate?”
His voice is raspy. He lifts his head, and the sound of my name on his lips reflects everything in him. The pain, the relief, the sadness . . . the love. His eyes moisten with his tears even as his mouth tips upward ever so noticeably in an effort to smile through the agony. I take a step toward him, and I smile for him.
“I know,” I whisper.
He doesn’t have to say another word for me to hear every aching beat of his heart.
Chapter 20
I
watch Claudia pick at the food, move it around on the plate. It isn’t much anyway. A couple strips of jerky, some bread. A meager meal, but there isn’t much left in the house from which to choose. The soldiers have taken too much from the people of Jordan. If they take much more, it could mean starvation. I shudder at the thought.
Claudia managed to clean herself and put on fresh clothes. She also gave me a clean shirt, and one of Michael’s for Ian. She looks far better despite the ugly swelling of her face and the scratches along her arms.
The low glow of candlelight in the room causes our shadows to waver erratically. I concentrate on them. The movement matches the beating of my heart. I cast my eyes over Michael’s dead body. The room is full of sadness again, and I strain to find the peace I felt before. It’s here, in the quiet, clinging to the edges of this forlorn picture. I wish with everything in me it would make a greater appearance.
Sophia is curled on her side on a pallet against the far wall. She sleeps buried beneath the blankets. They rise and fall intermittently with her breathing. Watching her sleep makes me tired, and reminds me that I ache—everywhere. I raise my shirt, examine the wound above my liver. The bandage is fraying on the ends. I lift it.
The swelling is down tremendously, and the area looks to be healing nicely despite the fact that the scar will remain forever. I hate it, but I keep in mind that I should be grateful simply to be alive. Any scars are a testament to my survival. Nothing else matters.
A grim thought invades as I press the bandage back into place. Penelope saved my life, and I may never have the chance to thank her. My gaze falls over Michael again.
There are no guarantees anymore.
“I’m sorry about your brother.”
I cut through the silence, my voice small and shaky. My words seem shallow up against the reason for them, and Claudia doesn’t seem to hear me at first. She chews methodically, raising a piece of jerky to her lips with shaking fingers. Her breath is labored, and her one uninjured eye peeks out from puffy cheeks.
“Thank you,” she finally manages. She tries to smile, a grotesque thing in her broken face. She gives it up with a wince and sets the plate aside. Exhaustion overcomes her.
“You should sleep,” I suggest.
“I should.”
She tries at that pathetic smile again as she takes up a bottle of antiseptic. She douses a clean cloth and treats her wounds clumsily. Another wince as she misjudges the size of the bump on her face.
“Here. Let me.”
I rise and move around the bed, urging her to lean back in her chair as I take the cloth. Carefully, I clean her eye. It stings horribly, and she holds her breath, gripping the arms of the chair. I finish quickly. She relaxes, lying her head back.
“How’s Ian doing?” she asks.
“He’s . . . not feeling well.”
She looks at me. “Right. He’s been through a lot.”
“Not only that.” I shake my head. “He has some injuries I’d like you to see—when you’re feeling better.
“Sure,” she nods. “But he will heal up on his own.”
“I don’t think so,” I shake my head. “This time he’s... different.”
She squints from beneath all her swollen bruising.
“This time?” She straightens. “Does this mean you remember him?”
I smile, replacing the lid on the bottle. “Yes. Everything came swarming in like an ugly collage.” I swallow and shift on uneasy feet. “Everything I was happy to forget.”
“Good.” She gingerly wipes her cheek. “I’m going to miss my brother. I’m glad for memories—even the ugly ones.” She sighs. “It makes death easier.”
“Even this kind of death?”
“Yes.” She shrugs. “It’s done. Nothing I could ever do will bring him back. So I’ll cling to the memories.”
We stay in silence a moment, and I swallow the lump in my throat as Mona invades my memory.
“I know of death,” I whisper. “I’ve done some things, too. Things I remember now. I can’t forget them, and I shouldn’t be allowed to.”
The thought penetrates me, and I can’t say anything else for a moment. I’ve never pondered it—what I deserve—and I’m beginning to wonder if I deserve anything at all in this life. And as I consider the pain filling this room, I can’t help but reason that if other people suffer—if they endure sorrow and sadness and discomfort—who am I to think it should be different for me? And yet, all this time it’s been my goal to stop my suffering. To find some sort of justice for myself. To run from the Archer. To find something better. Peace, happiness, comfort. For me. I thought it was what I was entitled to. But.. . who am I to think I should gain such a thing?
I regard Claudia with her fresh grief, and I’m shameful of my selfishness.
“As far as the east is from the west,” Claudia whispers. I raise my eyes.
“What?”
“That’s how far God removes the ugliness of our sin, our pain, our sorrow. Never to harass us again. He forgets it for us where we can’t.”
My fingers find a piece of loose hair near my cheek. I tug at it. “Is that how you cope with this loss?”
She sighs, her gaze washing over her brother. “It’s how I cope with everything. I could not get out of bed every morning if I didn’t have this hope. Hope that God wants good for us and not harm.”
“So this was God’s goodness? What happened here?”
My voice carries a certain bitterness, but she tilts her head to peer at me from her swollen face.
“There is more to us than just this life, you know?” Her gaze grazes me. “Life is ugly a majority of the time. Times like now are even uglier. But God gives us moments of beauty to make up for it. Those moments are stronger than the worst hour. They are the ones I hold on to.”
I’m stung by the beauty of her words. I blink once.
“Your god teaches you this?” I ask. “And you believe it?”
“Yes.”
I don’t know what to say, but in that moment I think of the Archer. I have never prayed to him. He wouldn’t hear me if I did. He certainly has never answered any plea I’ve laid before him.
And the Moirai? They presume to hold my fate in their spinning hands, but I don’t believe that, either. If they were in control of my destiny, I would not be standing in a village that isn’t supposed to exist.
I have suffered much ugliness at the hands of my village, but I have seen beauty, too. Claudia is right. It’s the only treasure worth keeping.
“Have you been reading the scriptures I left with you?” Claudia asks.
“Yes,” I nod. “Yes, I have.”
“And what do you think about it?”
I bite my lip. What do I think? I think I would like to know about the god who stains the pages of the book with words of a hope that has never before reached me. Is he the greater power—the something bigger than the Archer and mightier than the Moirai—that I have longed for? Or is he simply another fabrication for another people?
A part of me hesitates, unsure whether I should trust something new written in a book. What if it lies to me, too? What if it promises me more of the same . . . or nothing at all?
After another long moment of hesitation, I sit.
“I should let you rest,” I say.
“I’m fine,” she assures me. “There’s never a bad time to talk about God.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Claudia smiles. “How about in the beginning?”
In the dim flickering of orange-yellow candlelight, she forgets the still body of her brother inches away and the fresh bruises decorating her flesh, and she proceeds to hand me her version of the greatest hope to ever grace mankind.
She speaks, and I begin to believe in this one God: Yahweh. The I Am. The Beginning and the End. He is made of three persons: Father. Son. Spirit. And three in one, I understand. Three persons with different functions, but representing one being. If nothing else, the lessons on the Moirai taught me this. But Claudia claims Yahweh is much more because he created everything we see. The earth, the sun, the animals. And us.
He made the stars.
“Lights in the sky,” I whisper. “That’s what Ian calls them. Just lights in the sky.”
Claudia reaches for a half-empty water bottle on the table and takes a drink, wincing when it bumps her swollen lip.
“Yeah,” she replies. She lets out a painful breath before continuing. “God named every one of them, and their shining lights glorify him as their creator. He holds them in his hand, you know? In fact, he holds the whole world together in his hand.”
I search my mind, visualizing this image. A giant hand, large enough to hold all the stars I’ve ever seen and everything else, too. My mind reels with the implications of Claudia’s words. I’ve seen this hand in my dreams; I’m certain of it. If it is true, and this god created the stars, then he created the Archer, which makes him greater than the Archer. If he created all things, it makes him greater—than everything.
A heat tingles up my spine at the idea, and the Archer suddenly seems small and unthreatening. But this god? He is suddenly a frightening thing.
“He created us?”
“Yes. Every characteristic of God has a different name,” Claudia continues. “Elohim is his name for Creator. And as Elohim, he created man first, then woman, and placed them in a garden called Eden.”
I lift my brows. “Eden?”
“Yep. Not our Eden, of course. But I imagine someone had it in mind when they renamed that compound over a hundred years ago.” She pauses. “God was with man in the first Eden—face to face. And man was perfect then. All good; no evil. But one day, the man and the woman disobeyed their creator by eating fruit from a forbidden tree. Everything changed then.”
“How?”
“A dark shadow called Sin fell over the earth,” she says quietly. “And we’ve been plagued by it ever since.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“In my family’s language it is called hamartia. To miss the mark.”
I furrow my brow, confused. “Hamartia?”
A shuffling near the door catches my attention. We both turn. Ian leans against the frame, listening.
“To miss the mark,” he whispers. He looks at me, wipes at his forehead. His skin is white—clammy—and sweat soaks his hair until it drips from the ends. “It’s an archery term. It means you didn’t hit your target.”
Claudia nods. “That’s right. Hitting the target means perfection. And that is our struggle.”
“So what’s your point?” Ian presses.
“Well,” Claudia clears her throat, returning her gaze to me. “We have two choices in this life: to obey God or to rebel against him. He makes the rules, the laws for his creation based on his perfect nature, and they are fair and right. We have a hard time obeying.” She shrugs. “And so... hamartia.”
“What are his rules?” Ian adjusts his stance, focusing on her. Even with this labored breathing, sweat pouring down the side of his cheek, I see the challenge in his agitated movements. I’m tempted to go to him, lead him back to the couch. He looks terrible.
Claudia merely shrugs. “Don’t be liars, thieves, murderers. These are the less complicated ones. The ones we can all agree we should obey.” She addresses me. “You know about these things, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I nod. Even in my village, these were punishable. “Aren’t these common to all people?”
“Sure,” she nods. “But why are they wrong? Where did the idea come from?” She raises her hand. “It’s God’s goodness that teaches it. His moral code. Even if we don’t know him, we can look all around us and see him in everything he created. Everyone has the ability to know right from wrong.”
I ponder this. It is a thing that treads close to my heart. I solidly defied my role as a breeder because it felt wrong. But my question always was . . . why? Why did the idea repulse me? Why did I have such an urge to fight what my village ordained as right? I release a breath as an understanding settles over me like a cool breeze on a smoldering day. Perhaps God was speaking to me even then.
“He teaches us not to hate or be jealous or seek revenge,” Claudia continues. “To love our enemies.”
“Why would he tell you that?” Ian’s voice is bitter. He pushes away from the doorframe to stand on wobbly feet in front of us. “There are plenty of reasons for revenge. For hate. Plenty. And love your enemies? What god in his right mind would expect that?” He towers over her trying to look menacing and failing miserably. Hands on his hips, the sweat pours down his face. “Do you love those men who did this to you?”
She gazes up at him, opens her one eye as wide as she can. But there is a deep chasm full of agony in her response. “How easy is it for you to fo
rgive your friends?”
The question surprises me. Ian drops his hands at his sides.
“What?”
“How easy, Ian?” Her lip trembles. “Do you forgive them? Love them? Do you do everything you can to protect them?”
He huffs, frustrated and shakes his head. “Of course I’m going to protect them . . . when I can.”
“Right,” she nods, and a tear slips out, racing over the bump of her swollen cheek. She looks at her brother. “So that’s not really a test, is it?”
Ian frowns, sways on his feet.
“Ian.” I stand. “Perhaps you should let Claudia examine you now.”
“No.” He takes a step back. Claudia hones in on him. “I’m fine.”
The ash white color of his skin says otherwise.
Claudia squints. “You don’t look right, Ian.” She starts to rise.
“No.” He waves her off and runs a hand up the side of his face. I wrap an arm around his waist. He pulls me into him. “I just need to get some real sleep, and I’ll be fine.”
I exchange a glance with her, my lips pursed.
“Ian—” I begin. He cuts me off.
“I said no.”
I can’t understand his resistance. Is he in denial? Is he so sure that he will heal, even as he deteriorates? I’ve never seen him in such an awful state.
“He’s probably right,” Claudia assures me. “He would know better than I what’s going on inside that body of his.”
I gaze up into his tortured face. I’m not so sure. But I turn away, guiding Ian through the door.
In the living room, he collapses onto the couch under the window. The couch is long enough for him to stretch his legs out like two fallen tree trunks, and wide enough for me to crawl up beside him.
“She’s talking nonsense,” he rasps after settling himself.
I throw a blanket over him, a longing like a wide open hole inside me. I disagree. Claudia has awakened something in me that needs to be fed. It’s been hungry for far too long.
“Is she?” I pin him with my gaze as I adjust a pillow behind his head. His eyes falter for a moment, but he shakes the doubt away with a blink and lies back. “I haven’t heard enough to be certain myself, but it’s intriguing.”
