Or maybe he was just trying to keep out of sight or pretend to be an innocent bystander, because who could explain this?
Who would believe it?
Who except those who, through experience and asking, had grown ears to hear?
You couldn’t tell news reporters that the shipyards were on fire with the very Spirit that sustained all life and gave them the very breath in their lungs, and that the flames raged because they were consuming the demonic, the darkness, the enemy; and that what would be left when the fire died out would be a new beginning for the entire coast. That somehow the warfare one little group of people in a fishing village had been waging, a warfare of love and of connection and of sacrifice and of service, had culminated here and that this was victory.
And what would she tell them, if they asked her questions? Could she tell them that the fire was burning out of her the old fears, the old distrusts, even the sting of the old memories—that it was purifying her soul and making something new of her life, something that did not negate the old but transformed it?
What would Nick tell them, if he were asked?
So she smiled.
Smiled and waited and let the brightness drop another layer of scales from her eyes.
* * *
Reese slammed the car door and ran to Chris’s side. The others were behind her—spilling out of the two vehicles they had brought after Chris and April sped out ahead of them.
“Wow,” she said as she stepped up beside Chris and let him close her hand in his.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“This is it, isn’t it?” Reese asked. “The end of the war.”
“The end of the battle, anyway,” Chris said.
They watched the fire raging. Not a hundred feet away, firetrucks were pouring water into it, but they made little difference. News vans and the first crowds of onlookers were gathering, providing effective camouflage for the Oneness cell.
“When does the war end?” Reese asked after a while.
“When we defeat death,” Melissa answered. Reese looked over at her, and Melissa smiled.
“When we all become One,” Tyler put in.
“When no one is outside of love anymore,” Richard finished. “Or outside of life.”
“When fear is conquered,” Diane said.
“When forgiveness is the crown jewel,” Mary said with a smile.
They fell silent again for a long time, watching the beauty and ferocity of the flame. They all knew what was happening—they could feel it, almost see it. The purifying of the air. The ridding the world of spirits that were against them.
“They’re okay, right?” Chris asked.
Richard smiled. “Of course they are.”
Chapter 19
The village surrounding the castle on a hill was eerily silent and still as Niccolo rode in at the end of a thunderous ride, only a day after his death and resurrection in the depths of the forest. Could he have carried himself on his own two feet, he thought his heart might have pushed him so hard he could have made it sooner—but as it was, his horse could do no more than the momentous effort it did put forth.
Chimneys, and the hearths beneath them, were cold. No one stirred in the streets, no movement rustled behind windows. To all appearances, the place was abandoned.
Above the valley, the castle loomed ominous on the hilltop.
“Whoa, boy.” He patted his horse’s neck and dismounted, looking around for any sign of life. Nothing. A watering trough stood full, and he led his horse to it and let the animal drink while he gazed pensively up at the castle.
He had thought to ride directly to Teresa’s rescue. But he was faced, now, with the necessity of finding her first.
What if the castle was as abandoned as this village appeared to be?
He sent his heart out ahead of him, reaching up to the castle—
And found someone.
Oneness.
A faint life, in trouble, but living still.
He made to remount his horse and thought better of it. The animal had come too far, worked too hard; he couldn’t push it any further now. “I’ll be back for you,” he told it, and then he tore up the village street straight for the castle gates.
They hung open. No guard stood duty. The courtyard on the other side was an eerie ghost town: full of tents and pallets—a hospital, he realized. Teresa’s work, surely. But there were no patients, nor any dead. It seemed everyone had been spirited away.
But no.
Someone was here.
Teresa, he told himself. It was Teresa. He could feel the bond of Oneness tugging at him. It had to be her.
Closing his eyes a moment, he let the sensation pull him across the courtyard, where he stumbled on something—
A thin panel of wood.
Heart pounding, he flipped it over to find a painting, unmistakably Teresa’s work, though it had been slashed and defaced. Still, he could make out the luminous features of a young woman with wiry red hair and high cheekbones, an image that stirred him even in its corrupted form. The face was life.
The Oneness tugged harder at him, and he dropped the painting and stumbled forward. The pull was taking on words in his heart and mind:
Help me.
Quickly.
I need you.
His feet were pounding the flagstones before he was even aware that they knew where to go; then his eyes recognized a chapel just beyond the castle, and he was running, racing to get there before it was too late.
He burst through the door.
And his heart dropped.
A young woman lay on the floor at the foot of the altar, a pool of blood forming around her. Yet he could see her breathing—she was alive. Her face was turned away from him, but he recognized the red hair and knew the features would be those in the painting.
But she was not Teresa.
And he could not feel Teresa anywhere.
He hesitated in the chapel door.
It was not often in life that a man could see exactly that he stood at a crossroads, and that one choice would take away the other, never to be recovered.
He knew it now.
That if he stayed here, if he helped this girl, he would never find Teresa.
That if he rushed away, followed his heart, answered the urgency pounding in his ears, he might yet be able to help the woman who had been to him more than a sister, more than a mother, who had been one with him in a way only great spirits could be one.
But this girl, this stranger who was yet Oneness, would die.
She stirred.
Tearless, stronger than he’d known he could be, he passed through the door and knelt beside her. Gently lifting her head and shoulders, he gazed on the face that Teresa had painted—the life she had recognized as something beautiful.
“It’s all right,” he told the girl. “I will help you. You will live.”
“He has taken her,” the girl choked. “The lord has taken her away . . .”
“I know,” Niccolo whispered.
His heart stretched out to someplace unknown and said good-bye.
He hoped that she heard him.
In a cave deep in the rock of the mountains, trapped behind a wall of stone so thick and impenetrable that no man would ever be able to move it again, Teresa closed her eyes and smiled.
Good-bye, Niccolo, she answered him back. Follow me to the end. Paint again. Be the great one I saw in my vision so long ago. There is life in you, and it will be greater than death. I promise you that.
His thoughts, his pain, came to her from far away.
But why must it be this way? May I not even see you again?
Not now, she answered him. One day. I will see you in the cloud. And again, in the flesh. We will all be whole again, Niccolo.
She had already begun to starve.
But she was not afraid.
She told him so, and sent one final thought to him:
Do not fear, my friend. Nothing ends here. We may fall, but know
this:
We will rise.
* * *
Bundled in blankets, Nick slept in the backseat of Chris’s truck. Reese and April had crammed into the front seat next to Chris, and April kept her eyes on the child as they drove home.
“You should have seen him,” she said. “Standing there like he was going to take down the whole demon army by himself. He didn’t even look scared.”
“Maybe he couldn’t see them,” Chris said.
“He saw them.”
“Maybe he could see something else,” Reese remarked.
April turned around and settled back into her seat and closed her eyes.
Thank you, she prayed.
You’re welcome, the still voice in her soul answered.
Not just for saving him, she continued.
What else?
She struggled to put words to it.
For . . . for answering me. For proving that I can trust you.
A long time passed as the truck made its way home toward the fishing village. Reese and Chris talked in low tones; April found it easy to shut their conversation out.
The conversation within her began again with the Spirit asking a question.
If things had turned out differently, would that have proven that I am not trustworthy?
She thought it over. No. I don’t know.
You will know, one day. You will know me.
She smiled. I want that.
And the Spirit answered: Bit by bit, as you are ready, you will all know me. And we will defeat the darkness.
Forever.
# # #
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A Note from the Author:
Thanks for reading! I’m honoured that you took the time to delve into my world with me. I’d love to connect with you‒you can find me at Facebook.com/RachelStarrThomsonWriter or on Twitter @writerstarr.
My website, www.rachelstarrthomson.com, lists all of my other novels, short stories, and nonfiction. You’re cordially invited to come by! You’ll also find buy links, a blog, and usually something free to read.
Finally, if you enjoyed this book enough to tell others about it, would you consider leaving a review at the retailer where you got it? I’d appreciate it a whole lot.
Stan Lee always said it best: Higher!
Rachel Starr Thomson
Other Books by Rachel Starr Thomson
Novels
Worlds Unseen: Book 1 in the Seventh World Trilogy
Burning Light: Book 2 in the Seventh World Trilogy
Coming Day: Book 3 in the Seventh World Trilogy
Exile: Book 1 in The Oneness Cycle
Hive: Book 2 in The Oneness Cycle
Attack: Book 3 in The Oneness Cycle
Renegade: Book 4 in The Oneness Cycle
Rise: Book 5 in The Oneness Cycle
Taerith (Fantasy)
Theodore Pharris Saves the Universe (Juvenile/Humour)
Lady Moon
Angel in the Woods
Reap the Whirlwind
The Babel Chip
Short Stories
Magdalene
Butterflies Dancing
Ogres Is
Fallen Star
Journey
Wayfarer’s Dream
The City Came Creeping
Of Men and Bones
Non Fiction
Tales of the Heartily Homeschooled (Humour/Memoir)
Heart to Heart: Meeting With God in the Lord’s Prayer
Letters to a Samuel Generation: The Collection
Fifty Shades of Loved
Mind Soul Ink Paper
Now For the Not-Yet
Undivided Devotion
Still Praying in the Wilderness
Rise Page 21
