Don read it as something else.
CHAPTER 8
The basement of the church was an unwelcoming place, so Clara had done her best to introduce some verve into its cold, tomb-like emptiness. When she first inherited it, it was merely one large room with brick walls and a harsh concrete floor. A small kitchen was attached, but, as it was used mostly for preparing large amounts of food quickly, its industrial feel also lacked warmth.
Originally, the purpose of the basement was as a storage space—a reasonable excuse for its bleak appearance. There were two sets of stairs leading into its depths. The first set led down from the mess hall, the second connected the basement directly to the field outside, but were crumbling, as they hadn’t been used for years. A haphazardly-painted door blocked the entrance to the outdoor stairs from the children, who, in turn, had taken to peeling the flaking paint from its wood planks and daring each other to eat it.
Accustomed to working with what she had, Clara brought in portable dividers, which stood the height of the basement, effectively sectioning off the space into different rooms. Each divider was then decorated with colourful drawings and inspirational sayings to keep the maze of makeshift walls an entertaining journey. The contrast of garish primary colours against the dark grey of the stone was quirky to say the least, but better than nothing.
In one of Clara’s rooms, the children had gathered around a table, busily committing their tree illustrations to paper. As they worked, Clara circled them like a protective hen. She stopped next to Emily’s son, Stanley Rosenthal, who was the oldest child in attendance at an impressive ten years of age. His appearance, much like his mother, was traditional, sharp and crisp.
“What are you drawing, Stan?” Clara asked.
“That’s my mom,” he pointed to each subject as they came up. “And that’s my dad, and that’s my dog.”
“What’s that?” Clara pointed to one of the more indecipherable scribbles on the messy page.
“Pizza!” he replied with simple joy.
“Oh, I like pizza, too. Nice work.” It was important for Clara to always be encouraging, even if she considered putting pizza at equal importance as your own parents a sign of severe emotional detachment.
Stanley’s doll of a little sister, Samantha Rosenthal, was next to catch Clara’s eye. She was four years younger than her big brother, so her attempt at a tree resulted in something closer to bizarre geometric abstraction than anything recognizable in nature. The sight of it made Clara dizzy. However, Samantha had still done better than Bruce’s son Dylan, who had gotten as far as sticking the crayon up his nose.
Clara made her way around the table, her shoes tapping like a metronome. The assignment had awakened something unique in each child, despite a few common themes like parents and pets, there were fascinating and often subtle differences to be seen. One child drew clothes because she said she had seen people who couldn't afford any. Another drew stars because he said at night they watched him sleep. Eventually, Clara arrived at Alex.
“Can I see?”
Alex nodded and Clara carefully picked up his paper. Most of the branches were filled with typical bubbly depictions of happy things; however, Alex had included a figure in black crayon that stood next to the tree and as tall as its highest branch. The force with which Alex had coloured the giant, bruised the paper, muddying the image, like something not quite in focus and only half-remembered.
“Who’s this, standing next to the tree?” Clara was disturbed by the darkness of the drawing and couldn't take her eyes off it.
“God,” Alex replied abruptly.
Although Clara could relate to the formlessness with which Alex had portrayed the Almighty, its undeniable malevolence was troubling. God was not a looming, dreadful thing, Clara thought. He was pure, heavenly, the Father of us all.
“Where’s His big, white robe and beard?” Clara attempted to lighten the mood.
“He doesn’t have one.”
“What makes you say that?”
Alex just shrugged. Clara was entirely unsatisfied by this response, or lack thereof, so she pressed further. She returned the paper in front of him.
“Can you tell me who else is in your picture, Alex?”
“That’s my mom. That’s my dad.”
“You can’t draw your dad!” Stanley blurted out from across the table.
“Yes I can!” Alex hollered back.
“That’s very rude, Stanley,” Clara reprimanded and stood to her full height to add to her authority.
“Miss Muller,” Stanley whined. “You said it had to be important stuff in your life. Alex’s dad is gone.”
“Shut up, Stanley!” Alex yelled.
“Hey! Enough!” Clara shouted. “Stanley, back to your paper. Never you mind Alex’s.”
Stanley lowered his head until it was mere inches away from the table.
“Clara...” Alex whispered.
Her livid stare ripped into Stanley for a good five seconds before she could acknowledge Alex again.
“Yes, what is it?”
“My dad’s coming back.” This whisper was even fainter than the last.
“I hope so, Alex.” Her heart broke when a part of her demanded she tell him the truth. “But, we can’t really know that, can we?”
She thought, in the heat of the moment, her phrasing was delicate enough. She refrained from flat-out telling him his father was more than likely dead, gone forever. There's a difference between truth-handling and lying, she reasoned.
While watching Alex apply the finishing touches to his God, Clara thought of the conviction with which he had spoken. He did not ask if his dad was coming back, or wish for him to come back, he knew. Alex seemed as sure of it as he was of the table in front of him, or the paper in his hands. What had he seen or heard that convinced him so completely?
#
From deep in the Burward forest, the man with spectral eyes stumbled forth. His bare feet were raw from the cruel twigs and stones that assaulted his every step. Like jagged teeth imbedded in a cavernous mouth, this eclectic assortment of sharp points seemed determined to chew up his feet and spit them out. Nicks and scratches bled his ankles enough to leave a thin trail of red behind him, should he choose to retrace his steps. However, his steady stride showed he had an unwavering fortitude and turning back seemed unlikely.
Some of the harsher stones penetrated the same wound more than once, splitting the skin deep enough to scrape out pinkish flesh from the balls of his feet and between his toes. Despite the excruciating pain, the man endured, and marched on toward the edge of the woods.
CHAPTER 9
The congregation’s attentiveness had not waned, even though the past twenty minutes was mostly eaten up by dry, scriptural readings. On the contrary, as if by divine influence, there was a rising sense of zeal in awaiting the sermon; then, the wait was over. Don took his position again at the pulpit in the centre of the sanctuary and opened his Bible to the exhaustive notes he had prepared alone in his manse during the course of the previous week.
Angela, unlike the majority of Don’s audience, leaned against her pew with her arms crossed. Whatever spirituality had survived in her, she was certain Don’s approach, which was obviously geared to appeal to her predicament, would offer little comfort.
Her mind detached from Don as he fumbled through his notes, and switched focus onto the peaceful tapestry that hung on the wall just behind him. It was a symbol of serenity and worship. Dorothy had more than once informed Angela of the tapestry’s history, as she had played an integral part in its creation. Thirty years ago, Dorothy, along with three other women, two of whom were still alive, designed the image to the taste of their own spirituality, sewed the fabric with their own diligent fingers, and mounted the fruits of their labour so all could bask in its sanctity. It showed two hands gently unfolding as if recently in prayer. A dove emerged from the hands with a small olive branch in its mouth. Its flight looked calm, gliding effortlessly against the b
lue backdrop, soaring up to the heavens, rendered in the soft pastel colours of a baby’s room.
Angela tried to relate to it, but had never experienced that kind of peace through prayer. She did have faith in a God-like presence operating in the universe, she just didn't believe It listened every time someone clasped their hands together. A Being like that could not possibly care about the goings-on of a country church with dwindling attendance by the side of a highway, not with everything spinning through the cosmos. Yet, here she was on this little planet, in this little church, another Sunday, another sermon. The only way she could bear the ramblings to come was with the knowledge that Don was only human, and therefore could not talk forever.
“We all know pain,” he began ominously, “some of us more than others. It’s easy, when we feel pain, to get angry. It’s natural to wonder why; to ask what did I do to deserve this? Am I being punished? Is that why I lost my job? Is that why I got sick right before the big game? Because God wants to punish me? But let’s go even bigger. What about world hunger? What about the millions of people who are destitute? What about cancer? What about murder? What does God think of all this pain? These are tough questions. Really, really tough questions. Now, we’ve heard a lot from the Book of Job this morning. If you didn’t quite follow it, or if you were dozing off, I’ll sum it up for you. Job suffers. He suffers tremendous loss. He loses his family, his health, his money. He loses everything he had. Why? Was he a sinner who deserved punishment? No. He was an upstanding guy. He did nothing to deserve that kind of suffering. The hard truth is, pain exists because God allows it. Yet, there is hope. Though the immediate horror of the day may seem bleak, unthinkable, or even unforgivable, and although we may find ourselves at times on our knees asking why; why is this happening to me? To them? To us? And, although despair seems the correct response to this evil that is surely insurmountable, God asks us to trust in Him. Trust that He has not abandoned us.”
Panic started to build in Angela. He could not talk forever, right? Right??
#
Across the cracked soil of the Davidson’s field, as the congregation listened to the trials of Job, and the children below them drew trees that bloomed with love, the traveling man emerged from the woods, draped in a dirty cloth that cloaked him from head to bloody toe, like Death itself. The parched earth eagerly sponged up the blood from his feet as he made his way towards St. Paul’s United Church.
From afar, his limping, hunched form could have been mistaken for a sickly vagrant, but a closer inspection would have revealed hidden strength in his gait, with the dark cloak whipping up puffs of dust behind him. He was driven. By what, was impossible to say, but it pulled him closer to the humble house of worship.
And closer.
#
Don had taken a break to moisten his throat with the water Clara had set out for him. Being a consummate showman, the sip was brief and well-timed.
“He never abandons us. Just as you would never abandon your children, He is with us, always. But that does not mean He will protect us. It’s not just hard for us to understand God’s scale—it’s impossible. How do you measure the infinite? Is it by the teaspoon? And likewise, how do you measure God’s plan, which is of equal grandeur? We cannot hope to fathom the reason for pain, but God assures us that He has a darn good one. We send our children to school in order to learn. While they’re there, they are exposed to all sorts of pain. Suppose they even get into a fight. The other kid lands a lucky punch and all of a sudden, we’re faced with a bloody nose. As parents, we didn’t want that to happen, but the truth is we allowed it, just as God allows it. But at the end of the day, when all is said and done, God will be there to wipe away our tears, to sooth our aching nose, to reassure us that we did the right thing by not punching that kid right back. And it helps us to grow, to understand, and to be closer to God. Trust in God. Trust in Him.” Don’s eyes closed to allow the weight of his last statement to sink in before moving on.
Angela was, as she had predicted, unmoved by the remarks. Though she gave him points for trying, she had problems with the lack of cohesion in his story. Angela’s relationship to Alex was nothing like God’s relationship to her because, unlike her, God birthed the entirety of the world, not just one child. God, as ultimate Creator, was therefore still on the hook for the remarkably unpopular invention of suffering. At least the sermon got her thinking, even if they were blasphemous thoughts, she told herself.
She looked around the room for someone to share her resentment with, but found Dorothy, instead, with an expression of thankful enlightenment. It was clear she had received some kind of strength from Don’s scriptural interpretation. This only fed Angela’s annoyance and beckoned the self-directed question: if it worked for Dorothy, then why not her? What part of her was broken?
“I’d like you now,” Don stated, “to turn in your hymnbooks, to page one hundred eighty-five, to one of my all-time, favourite hymns. I think the sense of worship it evokes is appropriate. Please join me in singing Part of the Family.”
The sound of hymnbooks cracking open splintered the room. Tina, whose voice was unsurpassed, stood to lead the congregation in song.
She cleared her throat like a gruff man but hit the first note like a refined flute.
#
The man from the woods stumbled into the parking lot. His hands, which had been bloodied along with his feet, smeared glistening red as he braced himself on the vehicles for support.
His breathing was strained, as if the fabric that cloaked him had tightened and now attempted to snuff out his life before he made it any further. Even in light of all these hardships, he pressed forward.
The heaving gasps choking from his body reached a crescendo as the wet tissue of his feet slapped against the stone of the stairs leading up to the front door.
#
The congregation erupted in a powerful rendition of the cherished hymn. Low male voices rounded out the harmony, while a few sparse sopranos reached for the heavens.
Angela mouthed the words, but did not sing. She occasionally enjoyed belting pop tunes when all alone in her car, but not with these songs or with these people.
The second verse had already begun when the front door in the mess hall cracked open and distracted some of the lesser singers near the back.
A familiar moaning wind, like the one that had danced for Angela earlier that morning, caught her attention again and brushed against the curtains of the three large windows that connected the back of the sanctuary to the mess hall.
The front door slammed shut, echoing like a gunshot, effectively silencing the rest of the singing congregation and startling even Don. There was a pause then, a kind of shock and unease similar to when something breaks the surface of the water, then disappears again just beneath. Everyone waited in excruciating silence for the intruder to make another sound. Soon, all they could hear was the tightness of his breaths as they struggled in and out of his throat.
Tina, who had not moved from the front of the room, stared blankly at the three windows lining the back wall. They stared back at her, with the drapes pulled across them, suspiciously still.
Then, the footsteps began. Their wetness was evident to everyone in the room, which only fed curiosity. The sound was accompanied by something dragging, suggesting they were either hurt, or pulling something heavy. Whatever the case, they were undeniably headed toward the sanctuary.
The sound of the approaching trespasser sent a wave of frantic looks through the congregation. Every step was louder than the last and they seemed to convey a relentlessness about them, a determined drive despite the obvious labour of the journey. Once the footsteps reached the sanctuary’s entrance, everyone’s gaze abandoned the rest of the room. No more solace could be found in the faces of their loved ones, they had to know for themselves who was at the door. Abruptly, the sounds stopped and the room was again cursed with silence.
“Whoever you are, you’re welcome to join us,” Don announced from t
he safety of his pulpit.
The door did not answer.
One of the larger candelabras toppled over as if it was pushed. Its elaborate metal frame crashed against the ground sending spurts of hot wax across the floor.
A few screams escaped some of the more easily startled mouths, but everyone’s eyes were enticed to look. One of the candles had come loose and rolled across the carpet toward the door. Its flame flickered sporadically as it rolled past the pews. Dorothy stepped out from the gawking crowd and caught the rogue candle. When she lifted it, a tremendous rush of wind burst forth, claiming its little light.
Dorothy looked in the direction the wind had come from, and it was then she saw the sanctuary door was open. Standing in the doorway was the man from the forest, the man with spectral eyes.
His electric stare was fixed on Dorothy first, who, intimidated by his intensity, retreated back into the crowd.
The dirty fabric that encased him was bunched around his head like a hood and kept most of his face hidden, yet allowed his eyes to peer through.
With his torn foot, he made his first step into the sanctuary. A new stream of sunlight revealed a few more of his features. His beard was greasy and appeared partly singed, his lips were dry and cracked, like brittle paper.
No one made any attempt to help him; they were too afraid to step out of their role as audience.
“Bruce,” Don said quietly, “get some water.”
Bruce jumped up from his piano and hurried into the minister’s office behind the pulpit.
Don stepped down onto level ground with the man and raised his hands welcomingly.
“Friend, you look tired. If you need rest, please...” Don was silenced as the man pulled down his makeshift hood, revealing a surprisingly young, although filthy, face.
Angela’s scrutiny focused on the man’s eyes. Her powers of imagination were out of practice, but she tried to envision him clean-shaven.
“I think he needs help,” Tina spoke up with the certainty of a nine-year-old.
Like a beam of warm sunlight clearing the morning fog, the man’s blue eyes cut through the room. He was searching, or perhaps, hunting for something or someone. And like most predators, his vision also had a seductive power, confirmed by quiet gasps and a few bashful, bowed faces from the congregation. When his sight scanned over Emily, she instinctively grabbed Michael’s hand; it was as though the man was not looking, but rather touching every part of her. It was threatening, and, although she’d never admit it, also exhilarating.
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