Reign of Silence

by Tony Martin

  November 7, 1879

  My dear Judith,

  We are finding that words are so feeble and futile as we reflect on the endearing gift you and the rest of your immediate family have seen fit, out of God’s own graciousness, to share with us. As Margaret has no doubt informed you, her extended stay with us has been pleasant in the extreme, and her confinement was handled with utmost discretion and sensitivity. Dr. Underwood has been so kind to us, and with his ministrations and the invaluable aid of June, the midwife, Margaret delivered without undue struggle and pain and, as she has informed you, has borne her ordeal with perfect aplomb.

  Baby Leonard has become the light of our household – indeed, the very light of our lives. In his short time in this world, he has shown himself to be robust, full of life, and a quiet little joy. Out of Margaret’s misfortune, a dream has come true for us. I had despaired of my barrenness, and now a little miracle has come our way in the person of your grandson. We could not love him any more than if he were our very own, and that God led Margaret and you to let us “poor relations” adopt him is a gift beyond measure.

  As we agreed, Leonard need never know of his lineage, and we will keep that covenant with you for all of our days. Moreover, while Margaret may despair of never being able to know her son, she agrees with us that he needs to know no other parents than Curtis and myself.

  You are God’s angel, and we trust and pray that He has found favor with us in granting us this desire of our hearts. Our pledge is that we will raise little Leonard to honorable manhood, and that his contribution to our Father’s world will be more precious than silver, more costly than gold.

  With best wishes for the most joyous of holiday seasons, I am

  Your loving cousin,

  Pamela Nix

  Joshua’s mouth moved, but no sound came forth. He turned the letter over, handling it as though it were some priceless holy relic.

  “Joshua,” said Bethany, breathless, “what does this mean?”

  Again, Joshua held the letter before him, then gently laid it down on the bed. He stared at it for a moment, still trying to form words. He was very pale.

  “It means,” Joshua began, then shook his head. Composing himself, he continued: “Pamela and Daniel Nix were my great-great grandparents. Leonard Nix was my great-grandfather, their only son.”

  “You and Meredith …” Bethany said.

  “Wait,” said Joshua. He felt as if his mind would simply shut down. “Let me think.” Then Joshua reached over beside the telephone and grabbed a notepad and pen. He started writing, mumbling, “Duvall … Daddy. Then, Jeremiah … Leonard… Daniel.” He held his notes before Bethany, who couldn’t begin to decipher his hieroglyphics.

  “Bethany,” Joshua said. “This is simply unbelievable. Jacob Dubose is my great-great-great grandfather. And he is Meredith’s great-great-great grandfather. His daughter Margaret gave up her son to Daniel and Pamela Nix, who are my great-great-grandparents.”

  Genealogy fascinated Joshua. Some years earlier, he’d spent an enjoyable afternoon at the Archives and History building in Montgomery. He was fortunate in that, paternally, excellent records were kept. He was able to trace back to Daniel and Pamela Nix, and three generations beyond that, to when Curtis Nix had first moved his family from Georgia to the sight of present day Eufaula. His family had lived there for almost two hundred years. Joshua was well versed in family history, and he knew that tradition held that Leonard Nix had been adopted, although he could never find any documentation to that effect. Now –

  “You and Meredith Dubose share a common ancestry,” Bethany said.

  Bewildered, Joshua said, “I’m sitting here trying to decide how to handle all this… what it all means.”

  “Joshua,” said Bethany, “we have moved into the surreal.”

  “I never dreamed…I never imagined…” said Joshua, still trying to get his wayward thoughts to coalesce. “Bethany – how much of the diary did you read?”

  “Not much.”

  “Well, let me tell you what else we found,” said Joshua. With that, Joshua told her about finding Meredith’s Bible – and the bizarre mutilation of one single verse.

  “Meredith didn’t do that, did she,” said Bethany matter-of-factly.

  Joshua’s voice was grim. “No … she didn’t,” he said.

  “Then, it sounds to me like Margaret Duboses’ baby…”

  “Leonard was Margaret’s son,” said Joshua, “and her brother. Don’t you see? Her father made Margaret pregnant. Incest – the vilest of all family sins. And Margaret, knowing whose child it was, most likely didn’t tell her mother who the father was. I can’t imagine her shame. Who knows what Margaret told Judith? Maybe she said she was raped. Then, in what was the only honorable thing to do, Margaret was sent off to spend her pregnancy with relatives in Eufaula. I’ve got to do a little research, but I’m guessing Pamela was a Dubose before she married Daniel – there has to be some connection I’m not aware of.”

  Bethany looked devastated. “Then there is a connection between you and Meredith. You’re cousins.”

  “Bethany,” said Joshua, and his voice fairly dripped with sarcasm and irony, “do you see how all this comes together? We are talking about providence here. I mean it just so happened that we were called to Calvary Church in St. Helena. It just so happened that I preached the sermon on Saul and the witch of Endor. It just so happened that Christine and Meredith were good friends, and because of the sermon, Christine came to me. It just so happened that, because of all this, my path crossed that of Meredith Duboses’. And now – what is this supposed to mean?”

  “It means we’re supposed to be here,” said Bethany. “No, Joshua, we are well beyond the realm of coincidence.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence, anyway,” said Joshua. “You know that.”

  “Nor I,” said Bethany. “So where do we go now?”

  Joshua took a Bible from the nightstand and waved it before Bethany before flipping to a passage of scripture – a verse that, several days earlier, occurred to him as he learned the history of the Duboses’ from Gretchen. He read aloud:

  “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

  Bethany looked into Joshua’s eyes. “And?”

  “The sins of the fathers,” said Joshua. “Meredith – and I – are reaping what our ancestors sowed.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Bethany. “You’re telling me that here in 2005 you are paying the price for what happened over a hundred years ago?”

  “Bethany, hon, we’re all sinners, by nature and by choice,” said Joshua. “I’m responsible for my actions. But what has happened in these last few days has been the result of a heinous sin that for some reason has been resurrected.” Joshua struggled to verbalize his thoughts. “I don’t get it, but we have to accept it.”

  “Maybe you’re supposed to take responsibility for breaking this chain,” said Bethany.

  “I can’t escape the sense that all this has been thrust on me,” said Joshua. “God, Bethany, I’m so sick of myself and my insipid ways.”

  “Joshua, I don’t think God wants you to be a hero,” Bethany said, “but I do think He wants you to be obedient.”

  “That, my dear,” said Joshua, “scares the literal hell out of me.”

  “Me, too,” said Bethany. “But I don’t think we can escape this. There was a desperately wicked act committed years ago. Meredith’s family – maybe even yours – has paid the price. Now, as your path and hers have intersected, it’s as though Satan has mounted an effort to destroy her, destroy your ministry, and demoralize our church. Joshua, we’re under attack. And, for reasons I can’t even begin to understand, you showed up… in the fullness of time.”

  “My wife, the prophetess,” said Joshua, wanting to pull the covers over his head.r />
  “Don’t you dare patronize me,” hissed Bethany. “What have I said that is not the truth?”

  Joshua collapsed on the bed, throwing his arm over his eyes again. “Don’t you get sick of being right all the time?”

  Bethany pulled his arm away from his face. “Hey, it’s a gift,” she said, allowing herself a smile.

  Joshua lay very still for some time while Bethany watched him closely. “I think,” he said, “we need to try to get some sleep. Who knows what’ll happen tomorrow?”

  Bethany kissed his forehead. “Joshua, I sure do love you,” she said tenderly.

  “And I love you,” said Joshua. “How do you ever put up with me?”

  “I gotta admit you make it challenging,” Bethany said. She kissed him again - this time on the lips – and turned off the lamp.

  Joshua looked at the ceiling, his mind racing, and unspeakably weary. He finally drifted off into fitful sleep.

  The rain continued throughout the night and on into the next morning. It finally settled in to what the old folks would’ve called a “garden rain,” gentle and steady. Joshua awoke from a miserable night; he was troubled with vaguely threatening dreams. He sat at the table, halfheartedly playing in a bowl of cereal, while Bethany unloaded the dishwasher.

  “I have to go to the church,” said Joshua. “I’d rather have root canal work.”

  “Time to face the day,” said Bethany. “What are your plans?”

  “I’m going to see if Al, Precious, and Jimmy can meet me for lunch. I’ll share with them what we found in Judith’s journal. We’ll decide what we need to do.”

  Bethany pulled a chair up close. “Do you feel like you may be headed for the lion’s den?”

  “The devil … a roaring lion,” said Joshua. “That’s really comforting.”

  The two sat quietly for a few moments before Joshua kissed Bethany on the cheek and left for the church. Bethany watched Joshua pull out of the driveway. She hoped her face hadn’t betrayed her fears.

  Bethany sat on the couch and closed her eyes. Her discoveries of the night before had shed sudden and unpleasant light on what was happening in the Dubose house. How can this be, she asked herself. She knew that most families had scandals and secrets spoken of in whispers, if at all. Why, then, did it seem that the sexual sin of so long ago would cause such a rip in the natural order of things one hundred thirty years later? To Bethany’s mind, the very fabric of what she thought was reality was unraveling. Into the Nix’s pleasantly mundane world had come the intrusion of pure evil, personified by entities from beyond the pale. Ghosts? Demons? For Bethany, it was all academic. She only knew that her husband was under attack, his church was under attack, and she trembled to consider what was ahead.

  Joshua barely spoke to Gretchen as he entered his office. He considered closing his door, turning out the lights, and daring anyone to speak to him.

  Sunday was coming, and he knew that he had to preach whether he was motivated, inspired, or not. Joshua went to his sermon file cabinet – he’d kept, in manuscript form, every sermon he’d preached since graduating from seminary – and spent the next half-hour selecting what he would preach Sunday morning and evening. He hated recycling messages, but he had no heart for research, for study, or for preparation. He just wanted to get through the weekend unscathed.

  Joshua also felt that soon he’d have to face the deacons of Calvary Church and give an accounting of all that had happened. He was numb to that prospect. Under most other circumstances, Joshua would have relished the opportunity to give a spirited defense of his ministry. This time, he didn’t care.

  Gretchen called mid-morning. “May I see you a minute?” she asked.

  Joshua invited her in. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Preacher, I just wanted you to know that I’ve been praying for you,” Gretchen said. “And I believe it’s going to be OK.”

  Joshua smiled. What a trooper, he thought. “That means an awful lot to me, Gretchen,” he said.

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “No,” Joshua replied. “Wait – yes, there is. If you’d call Al and Jimmy Tracy, and see if they can meet me here at lunch, along with Precious. And call the Flying Pig and get us four barbeque pork plates. We’ll just eat in the fellowship hall at noon.”

  “I can do that,” said Gretchen. She shifted uneasily on her feet, and then returned to her office.

  Joshua took Judith Duboses’ journal and spent a few minutes reading. Judith chose not to be as self-revealing as Joshua would’ve liked. He had the sense that, sometime in the Dubose family history, most of the personal items from those days were destroyed, and that perhaps this diary escaped.

  He thought of the amazing series of discoveries of the last several hours – the diary, the letter, the mutilated Bible – and knew that none of these occurrences was coincidental. It occurred to Joshua that it was as if someone were leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, to bring the participants in these recent supernatural events to the knowledge of what had happened between Jacob Dubose and his teenage daughter.

  Joshua thought that this didn’t make sense. Why would an evil entity care to bring to light an ancient sin? This, thought Joshua, didn’t seem reasonable. He thought about Margaret, the violated teenager, terrified of her father, shamed to tell her mother of Jacob’s unspeakable crime.

  Was Margaret – even now – trying to expose the truth about her father one hundred thirty years later? Could God, in some way, be allowing her the opportunity to right a deplorable wrong?

  Joshua wanted to pound his desk in fury. He thought he’d come to a conclusion about all that had happened, that all these paranormal events were a lie from Satan. Now, he wasn’t so sure. He was no closer to understanding what was going on than he was when he first spoke to Christine about Meredith.

  However, Joshua also had great respect for Dr. Peterson, and until he convinced himself otherwise, he felt safe in assuming that all of this was indeed demonic. Joshua wanted to run away, to put all this behind him, to start fresh with a rewarding new career –

  “Like selling cemetery plots,” he said aloud, and laughed at himself.

  Joshua was still bemoaning his fate when Al and Precious arrived. Neither man looked as though they wanted to be there. Moments later, Jimmy arrived, and after grunted greetings, the four men went to the church’s fellowship hall, where Gretchen had laid out their lunch. Joshua had Judith’s journal under his arm.

  “It’s hard to be too distressed when you can get good barbeque,” said Al, wiping sauce from his chin. The men enjoyed small talk while they ate.

  Joshua was finishing off his coleslaw when Jimmy – who’d been subdued – called them to task.

  “So, Joshua, where do we go from here?” he asked.

  Joshua took a big swallow of iced tea. “First, let me tell you about Bethany and my experience last night.” He opened Judith Duboses’ journal and read a couple of passages, then took out the letter from his great-great-grandmother. He didn’t say anything about who’d written the letter – he wanted to see if the men reacted as he had.

  He wasn’t disappointed. Al read the letter first, then let out a gasp. “Pamela Nix. The postmark is from Eufaula. Joshua … are you related to this woman?”

  “She’s my great-great-grandmother,” Joshua said. “Jacob Dubose was my great-great-great grandfather … same as Meredith.”

  Precious read the letter aloud for Jimmy’s benefit, who looked as though he’d been hit with a board. “In effect, Joshua,” Precious said, “you and Meredith share a tainted bloodline.”

  “The sins of the fathers,” said Joshua. “Here’s the question: Now what?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about that,” said Precious. “I think we just need to go back to the house and pray, asking God to deliver us from this pestilence – and Joshua, we’ll pray specifically for you and Meredith. Like it or not, these manifestations are directed at you two.”

  Joshua slumped back in his ch
air. “That’s exactly what Dr. Peterson said,” Joshua said, “but it sounds almost too easy. How do you go about praying that God cleanse a house?”

  “I think you just ask Him to,” said Al. “I don’t think there’s any formula or incantation that works any better than simple pleas.”

  “So that’s what we need to do,” said Jimmy with finality. “We’ll go out there, and say ‘get thee behind me, Satan!’ and let God take care of the results.”

  Joshua looked at the men at the table and felt very small and inadequate. He knew that as pastor – and as the target of the manifestations – the others were looking to him to be stable and confident. He felt anything but. He understood Jimmy’s sentiment to “let God take care of the results,” but he couldn’t help but feel he needed more preparation. Joshua knew he’d have to be “prayed up,” and as strong as he could be. He couldn’t shake his feelings of unworthiness.

  “Well,” Joshua said, “if this is what you all feel we need to do, let’s plan on meeting back here at the church at later, and we’ll go out to the Dubose mansion together.”

  “What about Meredith?” asked Jimmy. He smiled suddenly. “I understand that she accepted Christ as savior. So something good has come from all this.”

  “That is definitely a bright spot,” said Joshua. Then his face clouded. “Dr. Peterson said that we should have Meredith with us, if she were a Christian. She has been the focus of all that’s happened. But her health is so questionable, I don’t know that I’d want to put her through such trauma again.”

  “I agree,” said Jimmy.

  “She should sit this one out,” said Precious. He drummed his fingers on the table. “I’d suggest that we go to the house right before dark, maybe about five-thirty, and be prepared to stay as long as it takes.”

  “Tell you what else,” said Joshua. “Why don’t we all agree to set aside some time alone this afternoon, so that we can do all we can to get our hearts right?”