Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel)

by Rubart, James L.

  “When’s the next time you’re going to see him?”

  “Tomorrow night at our Warriors Riding meeting.”

  “I see.” Perry sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  What do you want? The Spirit spoke to her so softly she almost missed it.

  I want to love again. She turned and gazed over the water.

  Yes. I want that for you too. Is Perry the one?

  It was a question she should be asking the Spirit, not the other way around. Right? No, she knew the truth. Knew the answer because it was as clear as the cobalt sky above her.

  She turned and looked at Perry. “There’s nothing going on between us.” Nothing between her and anyone. Except for the gnawing feeling deep down inside that she wouldn’t even tell herself about. She took off her sunglasses once more. “And there never will be. I don’t think we should see each other again.”

  They didn’t speak on the way back to shore and their good-bye was short and tense. Where did she go from here? Not Perry. Certainly not Brandon. No way, never. If God truly wanted her to find love again he would have to create the painting of romance. Because as far as she could see, the canvas was utterly blank.

  Dana shifted her mind to the meeting tomorrow night and the strange line Doug’s cryptic e-mail portended for their meeting. “. . . when we meet you will go deeper than you’ve ever gone before.”

  It sounded like the gathering would be one to remember.

  TEN

  REECE FELT THE HANDS OF HIS WATCH ON SUNDAY, WISHING his meeting with Tamera was already over. Twenty minutes till she arrived. He had a feel for what she wanted to talk about, and the answer he would give her certainly wouldn’t be the one she wanted.

  He sat on his back deck, the late afternoon sun on his face, the image of what the maple trees looked like at this time of year filling his mind, leaves full of light from the sky turning them a more brilliant green, tiny veins weaving through their form. How he missed seeing them.

  Nineteen minutes later a knock came from the front of the cabin. Reece heard Doug invite Tamera in. A creaking came from the living room floor and Reece imagined the woman bouncing across the floor as if trying to burn off some of the perpetual energy she stored inside. Then closer, into the kitchen and out through the screen door that led onto the back deck. The shuffle of two pairs of shoes went silent.

  “Tamera is here to see you.”

  Reece turned to the sound of his voice. “Thanks, Doug.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Reece imagined his friend giving a slight bow, a smile, and a flick of his upturned hand toward Tamera that would have fit into eighteenth-century England like an ivory-colored glove. Tamera and everyone else who saw it wouldn’t understand it was Doug’s dry sense of humor on display for anyone who had eyes to see.

  The sound of Tamera sitting in the chair across from him pushed the image of Doug from his mind. “Hey, stranger.”

  “Good afternoon, Tamera.” He pictured her as he’d last seen her. Short blond hair, fair skin, in excellent shape of course.

  “Thanks for taking time for me.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Her chair creaked. “But it has been a problem, hasn’t it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s been a workout trying to get a one-on-one audience with you. This is our first just-the-two-of-us meeting since . . . I don’t remember when.”

  “Life has been busy. You know that. The training school at Well Spring. The mundane things of living taking longer due to this.” He pointed to where his eyes used to be.

  “I understand that, but the last time we really talked and I asked to be part of Warriors Riding, you said you’d most likely invite me into the inner circle once I went through the training at Well Spring.”

  “No, I did not say I’d ‘most likely invite you in.’ I said I’d consider it, pray about it. See where the Spirit led.”

  “So now I’ve been through the training at Well Spring. Well over three months ago.”

  “Yes?”

  “Marcus, Brandon, and Dana said I had a number of substantial breakthroughs.”

  “They conveyed that to me.”

  “And since then I’ve been growing in the Spirit and seeing him do amazing things through me.”

  “I agree.”

  “I’m learning to love like I’ve never done before.”

  “Again, from what I’ve been told, I would agree.”

  “I’d like to join you.”

  “I don’t understand. You have joined us. You’re one of a select group of warriors Jesus is raising up.”

  “No, I want to join the inner circle. The one that was formed at Well Spring when you and the others went there a year ago. I blew it. I’ve told you that many times. I should have been there. It’s something I regret every day. But stop making me pay for my mistake. Let me into the inner circle and be one of you like I was meant to be.”

  “That choice isn’t up to me. It’s up to the Spirit.”

  What sounded like Tamera slapping the side of her chair filled the air. “Cut it, Reece! That’s such an easy cop-out. You don’t want something to happen so you blame it on God and it’s his fault.”

  “The truth is never a cop-out.”

  “You invited me to Well Spring. You chose me.” Tamera’s voice rose in volume and pitch. “I was one of the four and now I’m just another grunt in the tribe following the great man.”

  Reece let the silence grow till Tamera spoke again.

  “You have no answer for me? Figures.”

  “You know about the prophecy, yes? During your training at Well Spring it was shared with you. And you heard of the truth that surprised all of us, most of all me. Do you remember what was told?”

  “That you’re supposedly the Temple and not me.”

  Reece uncrossed his legs. “You can still be an integral part of this mission but there are four to the prophecy, not five.”

  “If it had played out as you intended and I’d gone to Well Spring with you last year, it would right now be Dana, Marcus, Brandon, you, and myself. That’s five. So why can’t it be five now?”

  “You chose not to come. I’m sorry for your regret and the weight of that, but the tapestry is what it is at this point. Neither you nor I can go back and unravel what has been done.”

  “That’s not fair, Reece. Where is the grace you supposedly speak of so frequently when you train people at Well Spring?”

  “This isn’t about grace or absence of grace. It isn’t about what the Spirit did back then, but what the Spirit is doing now. And in this now, there are four Warriors Riding. Not five.” Reece tapped his armrest in a slow cadence. “Is there anything else?”

  “You’re making a mistake, Reece.”

  “Oh?”

  “I could do such powerful things for this ministry. I have my own exercise TV show. I have the ear of producers who would be able to put you in front of millions. I have a newsletter of more than seventy-five thousand people. I have a Facebook page with over thirty thousand likes. I have a book contract.”

  “I don’t want to be in front of millions. I don’t want be in front of thousands. I want to be in front of the remnant of warriors who want to go deeper and are willing to pay the price that will entail. There will never be many.”

  “I get that. But to get to the few, you need to get to the many. You need me, Reece. Think about it. If you’re trying to find a needle in a haystack you have to figure out a way to spin through a lot of hay.”

  “Tamera, you’ve learned much and grown in love as we both said a moment ago but you’ve failed to realize your place in the tapestry.”

  “What’s my place? I’ve found my place. I’m making huge changes in people’s lives.”

  “Yes, I believe you are.”

  “And you need me to do the same for you.”

  “No, I don’t need you, Tamera. You’re not needed at all.”

  “What?” The scrape of Tam
era’s chair filled Reece’s ears and her voice came from above him. “You’re wrong. I have so much to offer you. I’m worth something.”

  “Sit down.”

  “How do you know I’m standing?”

  “Sit down, friend, and listen. I don’t need you just as he doesn’t need me. His purposes will be accomplished with or without me. All God’s offering is an invitation into his story, the greater story, the things he’s doing on a grand and microscopic level.”

  “I want to be needed. I need to be needed. I want to feel like what I’m doing matters. That God is using me to make a difference, to create some kind of legacy. I want to know I’m worth something. Is that so wrong?”

  “And what if the legacy you create is simply one of loving the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength?”

  “I couldn’t live with that. I need to be able to point to something.”

  “Open your heart to my words, Tamera. Don’t you understand what that means? It means he values you for who you are, not for what you’ve done or what you might do for him or others. There is no earning his favor, his grace, or his mercy. There is no action you can take to make him love you. He already does. More than you will ever imagine. But you’re not wrong to want to know if you’re worth something. You are worth something. More than something. You are worth his being crushed and broken, torn and scourged. Executed against a scorching sun and the utter scorn of those around him. You are worth so much.”

  The air went still and all Reece heard was a gentle wind in the trees. A few seconds later the cry of children playing floated over the air from at far away. “Do you hear that? It’s what we must become. No pride, no self-focused ambition, no—”

  “I get the message.” The volume of Tamera’s voice dropped—Reece couldn’t tell if it was from sadness or anger seething just below the surface. He wished he could see her eyes, to know if she was about to explode or let the truth in.

  “Why is this so important to you? It sounds like you have a tremendous career in fitness going.”

  “Because I want the power you four have. I want to be around it. Learn more. Do the things you talked about that are on the fringe. I want to experience it all.”

  “I don’t know which way the wind will blow tomorrow, Tamera, but the answer in this moment is to wait.”

  “I’m done waiting.”

  “I’m sorry. This is not about you or your worth before God. It’s about what he is doing. It’s possible I’m not hearing correctly from the Spirit, but I believe I am, and this is not the time and I don’t know when it will be.”

  “You’ll regret this, Reece. So will the others.”

  ELEVEN

  MARCUS ARRIVED AT REECE’S HOUSE ON SUNDAY EVENING at 7:05 and scanned the driveway. Brandon’s and Dana’s cars were already here. He didn’t get out. Should he tell them about the bizarre incidents that happened on Friday? Or just let it go like Brandon suggested?

  Nothing similar had happened for the past two days. Perchance it was a result of stress or a dream that seemed so genuine he hadn’t been able to distinguish it from the real world. A somewhat common occurrence in human dream states.

  Marcus stepped out of his car, shut the door, and rubbed his hands as if ridding himself of his visions of Abbie and Kat from Friday afternoon. If Doug and Reece were finally going to tell them about the Wolf and they were about to set their strategy, the focus shouldn’t be on his hallucinations. It should be on the coming melee.

  A firm rap on the front door of Reece’s home startled Dana. She’d been wrapped up in studying a site map she’d developed for the Well Spring website. At some point they’d need to expand it beyond the splash page and she was hoping the Warriors would use some of the photos she took at the ranch.

  She stood as Brandon opened the front door and ushered Marcus inside. A few minutes after she greeted him, Doug descended Reece’s lightly stained wooden stairs and settled onto the couch in the living room. He rubbed his hands together as if getting ready to sculpt an object out of the air in front of him.

  “Remember me saying last spring after the victory you had in Reece’s soul that you’ve just begun your journey into the vastness of God? That you’ve only started down the path of joy and freedom?”

  Dana nodded along with Marcus and Brandon and she studied Doug’s eyes. They were bright and playful like a little boy’s, as if he were about to show them one of his favorite toys. She hadn’t ever seen him this animated.

  “Today I’m going to show you more of the path. You have seen marvelous things so far but going into souls is only part of what God has made available to us if we only believe and are willing to let the Spirit take us deeper. There are far more tantalizing wonders to be explored for those who want to fly on wings like eagles.”

  “Here we go again.” Brandon smiled.

  “Oh yes.” Doug returned the Song’s smile and laid his hands on his knees. “Most assuredly, yes.”

  “Are you telling us we’re going flying?” Dana flapped her hands like a bird.

  “Something far better, yet at the same time I think there might be a bit of flying involved. We will have to see where the Spirit takes us.” He winked, opened his Bible, and for a few moments the only sound was the rustle of pages as he searched.

  He stopped toward the front of the book and then glanced at each of them, his eyes even brighter. “Are you ready to hear this?” Doug started reading without waiting for a response. He read in a soft voice that built to a crescendo by the end of the passage.

  “‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’ Genesis 28:17.”

  “Are you saying—?” Brandon pointed the forefingers of both hands at Doug and then at the sky.

  Doug held up his hand and patted the air as if to silence Brandon and used his other to paw toward the back of his Bible. “‘I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body, I do not know . . . I know that this man . . . was caught up to paradise.’”

  Marcus looked up from his ever-present notepad and tapped the air in front of him with his pen. “In an effort to accurately summarize your insinuation, you’re articulating the view that we can voyage into supplementary spiritual and heavenly realms with as little exertion as we’ve expended to journey into the souls of others.”

  Doug stared at him with a bemused look on his face.

  Brandon laughed. “Come on, Professor, give it more effort next time. I’m sure you could have stuck five or six more words in there to make that sentence one only your fellow geek-brains could understand. As it was, I understood over a quarter of it.”

  “Sorry.” Marcus shrugged. “You’re saying we can send our spirits into spiritual dimensions other than souls?”

  “Yes.” Doug winked at Brandon. “I am, and we can.”

  Brandon stood and pretended to hand something to Doug. “I have to take the gold medal from the current record holder and hand it to you, Doug. I’ve always thought Reece was the outright winner of the On-the-Fringe Olympics, but you’re clearly sprinting past him with this one.”

  Doug smiled. “This is probably true. But I accept the medal with a humble heart and assure you I was taught by another just as I’m about to teach you.” He spread his arms wide. “This evening, my friends, we shall go through the gate and see wonders beyond wonders. Are you ready?”

  Dana glanced at the others, then settled her gaze on Doug. “Where is Reece?”

  “He’s upstairs and he’ll be praying for us during the time we leave our bodies and then join us toward the end of the evening when we talk about where we need to go from here.”

  “He’s not coming with us.” Dana said it more as a statement than a question.

  “No.”

  “Why not?” Brandon said. “We’ve sent our spirits into seventy-four souls over the past ten months and he hasn’t been along for the ri
de even once.”

  Doug hesitated before answering. “He says he feels for the moment he’s to stay out of souls and the heavens. That the time hasn’t come for him yet to reengage in that way. He feels the three of you are doing powerful work—setting others free, bringing them healing—but it’s not for him to join in on that front yet.”

  Dana folded her arms. “In other words, he’s letting the enemy convince him he’d be of no use inside a soul or anywhere else in the heavenly realms without his sight.”

  “Reece is strong and will join you again when he is ready. In the meantime, we shall extend our friend grace.” Doug set down his Bible and held out his hands. “Now, let us have an adventure together that will be most enjoyable.”

  Dana reached for Marcus’s hand on her right, then extended her other hand to Brandon on her left. The moment her fingers touched his, her body went weightless and Reece’s living room vanished.

  She blinked twice, then opened her eyes fully to find herself floating on a current of air. The sensation was like river rafting down a surging rapid, only faster, but there was no undulation in the atmosphere beneath her. A few feet ahead was Doug. Brandon and Marcus were on either side of her.

  She looked down and saw they floated miles above an ocean smooth as glass that extended as far as her eyes could see in every direction. Lush green islands dotted the sea, some massive, some not more than an acre across. Far below, birds, seagulls maybe, rode the same currents that must be gliding them toward the horizon and a massive descending sun.

  At first she didn’t move, concerned the wind wouldn’t hold her up if she did. But after a few minutes she twisted and realized no matter how she turned, it wouldn’t affect the river of air around her. She turned to her side, then her back, then onto her stomach, and as she did, laughter pushed out of her in waves. Dana spun and twisted and was a little girl again, rolling down the tiny green hill in the park near her school and then sailing to the heavens on her old, rusty, light blue swing set in her childhood backyard.