“Would you like to explain to me what has just occurred, Lord? Along with the scenes in the bakery? Are they tied together?”
He clutched the photos in his hands and tiptoed out of the den toward his bedroom. The door creaked as he opened it—he had to WD-40 those hinges. The lights were off and Kat’s rhythmic breathing told him she was asleep. He turned and eased back to the den. He needed to talk to someone now. Reece? No. That would be a ghastly choice. Their leader didn’t need anything reminding him that taking or looking at photos would likely not be in his immediate—let alone long-term—future.
Brandon. He was most likely still up and Marcus didn’t have to explain what had happened on the Ave last Friday. He pulled out his phone and dialed the Song.
“Professor. You have a physics question for me?”
“Sorry to call late.”
“I’ll be up for another hour at least. Talk to me.”
“I found a photo of myself standing on a mountain I couldn’t have been standing on.”
“Cool.”
“No, not cool.” Marcus explained what happened. “I need to know where that photo came from.”
“Do you feel like something weird spiritually is going on?”
Nothing in his spirit felt off in the slightest. Once again the situation felt neutral. “It feels the same.”
“What’s he do for a living?”
“What does who do for a living?”
“Your pal Dave. How does he produce cash-o-la? Put bread on the table, you know?”
“He teaches computers and video production at a junior high school.” Marcus leaned back, his leather chair bumping up against his bookshelves.
“Ah yes, that makes perfect sense. Which I believe gives us the answer to your one-question quiz.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Hello?” Brandon laughed. “I thought you were supposed to have the exceptional mind, Prof.”
“Apparently stumbling upon photos I know weren’t part of my life has stunted the flow of blood to my prefrontal cortex.” Marcus bit his lower lip and continued to stare at the picture.
“Would it be in the nature of this buddy of yours to do some Photoshopping as a practical joke?”
“You’re brilliant.” Marcus smiled as relief flooded his body.
“Thank you very much . . .” Brandon did a bad Elvis impersonation. “Ol’ Dave is a practical joker, huh?”
“He rightfully holds the title of emperor. The twentieth anniversary of the hike is coming up later this summer and this is precisely the kind of thing Dave would do to remind me of my . . .” Marcus trailed off.
“Regret?”
“Yeah.”
“And even though Dave snuck the photos into your house and stuck them on your desk in fun, it’s the perfect circumstance for the enemy to use to make you wallow in what didn’t happen, right?”
“Well said.” Marcus spun his chair back around and gazed out the window at the dark night.
“Take it captive. No regrets. Fight back. Speak truth and all that.”
“Thank you, Brandon. I will.” Marcus hung up and set his phone down. Finally, a mystery solved. As he hunched farther over his desk to examine the job Dave had done, the light from his emerald-green banker’s lamp flashed off his sliver letter opener. Marcus blinked against the glare, pulled his glasses off, and rubbed his eyes. When he opened them again perspiration broke out on the back of his neck and forehead. The photos were gone.
Marcus grabbed his phone and redialed Brandon. “They vanished.”
“Professor?”
“Yes, of course, who else?”
“What vanished?”
“The photos. They’re gone. I closed my eyes, opened them, and they disappeared.”
“Okay . . . I’m sure at some point you’re going to tell me what you’re talking about, but how ’bout you do it now?”
“I just talked to you!” Marcus wiped the sweat from his forehead. “The photos of the backpacking trip I didn’t go on. Determining where they might have come from.”
“You all right, Prof?”
The pounding of Marcus’s heart filled his ears. “No.”
“I’m guessing you had another one of whatever happened to you on the Ave the other day.”
“Yes.”
“Was it a vision this time? Maybe?” Brandon said. “Something the Spirit was taking you through to have you face a regret and work through it?”
“Not possible.”
Brandon gave a fake cough. “So your vast experience of having one vision makes you an expert?”
“No, but this wasn’t a vision. It happened. It was real.”
“Just because you know it makes it true?”
“I had a conversation with you.”
“That makes it not a vision? Why couldn’t you have a conversation with someone in your vision? John talked to Jesus quite extensively during the vision that became the book of Revelation.” Brandon paused. “So in your wildest imagination, what do you think is going on?”
“A possibility I haven’t wanted to admit to myself or anyone else since it happened the first time.” Marcus sighed.
“That your book is more than theory? That you’ve been taking little jaunts into alternate realities?”
“Exactly.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. That this is only the beginning.”
FIFTEEN
BRANDON GLANCED AT THE PARKING LOT ON WEDNESDAY evening, hoping Dana would show up first. He sat on the grass in the middle of Houghton Beach Park in Kirkland on the shores of Lake Washington, wanting to talk to her but not having a clue what he would say. He glanced at his watch. Six thirty-five. Dana and Marcus were both twenty minutes late.
Except for two couples and a family with a toddler, the vast green lawn in front of the water was empty. He stared at a boat making its way across the lake in front of the park and pictured Dana and him on it together with a couple of kids. Ridiculous. Would never happen.
“Hey.”
Brandon turned at the sound. Dana. “Nice of you to show up.”
“Thank you.”
“You could have told me you’d be late.”
Dana scowled, sat beside him, and pointed at his cell phone sitting between them. “I did.”
Brandon tapped the text icon on his cell phone. There were two messages, one from Dana, one from Marcus. “Oh. Sorry to accuse you falsely.” He slipped his phone into his pocket. “Marcus says he’ll be here in five.”
Brandon shifted forward and tried to ignore the fact this was the first time he’d been with Dana alone since last year on the way to the hospital to see Reece after he lost his eyes. Sitting here alone with her felt right and awkward at the same time. Did she feel it? He certainly wasn’t going to ask her.
“Did you get held up at the station again?”
“No, early dinner with a friend. I lost track of time.”
“Anyone I know?”
Dana flushed and gazed at Lake Washington. Interesting. A tinge of jealousy flared inside Brandon. Stupid. There was no reason to be feeling anything. Why couldn’t he get it through his thick head there would never be anything between them ever again? He pushed the emotion down, but it was like rubber and bounced right back to the surface.
“What’s his name?”
“Why do you think it was a guy?”
“Because I know you.”
“You don’t. Not anymore.”
Brandon grinned and wrapped his arms around his legs. “Yeah I do.”
“I thought we were here to talk about Reece, Doug, and pray for strength for them as we get ready to go after the Wolf.”
“I’m sure we will once Marcus gets here. Does your friend have a name?”
“Perry, but I’m not sure why that should concern you.”
“No concern, just curious.”
She was right. It was none of his business and there was no reason to press her about it. He should stop
and change subjects, let it go. He pulled off his sunglasses. “Do you like him?”
She sighed and turned the back of her head to him. “At one point, yes. But now we’re just friends and I needed to make sure he’s going to keep it that way.”
He stared at her till she turned her head back around, then raised one ear like he always used to do when he didn’t believe her. It irked her in the old days and he could tell it irked her now.
“Can we please drop this?”
“Have you ever been more than friends with this guy? Have his lips been on yours in the past six months?”
Dana spun cross-legged on the grass till she faced him and pointed her forefinger at his chest. “If we weren’t in the Warriors together I wouldn’t even bother to answer you. But since we are, listen very closely. If I had put my lips on another man’s during the time we were dating or the time we were engaged, it would have been your business. I would have asked Jesus for forgiveness and then asked for yours. But that’s not the situation.” She plucked a finger full of grass and tossed it into the breeze coming off the lake.
“So if you can explain to me why you should concern yourself with my social life, I’ll give you all the details. But if you can’t, please leave me alone on the subject of my love life.”
Brandon widened his eyes and fell backward. “Okay!”
“Don’t mock me.”
“Sorry, I just thought we were doing better than this. That it might be okay if I asked what was going on with you outside of the Warriors. You know, the healing may be changing the way you relate to people and everything.”
Dana scooted around so she faced the lake again. “That healing was one of the greatest moments of my life, and yes, we’ve worked well together but that doesn’t mean you can try to peel back my dating life and probe me for answers like I’m on a witness stand.”
“You’re part of me because you’re part of the team, one-fourth of the prophecy. I need to know how to pray for you and—”
“That’s why you are asking? So you can pray for me better?”
“I’m only thinking about—”
“Yourself. You’re wondering if our relationship could leap back onto the highway it used to be on because we’ve found some healing from the past. Right?”
Heat rose to Brandon’s face and he didn’t answer.
“You know me? Well I know you too, so let me help you out. Yes, we will be friends. Yes, we’ll probably be connected for a long time because of the prophecy and what God is doing with Warriors Riding. But you and I more than what we are now? No chance. Let it go. That time is irrevocably gone. I thought you would have figured that out over the past ten months.”
“Dana, I—”
“Put it out of your mind. Whatever was wrong with me when you broke our engagement is probably still there.”
“Come on. You know I didn’t break up because of you, but because I was scared you’d leave after I gave you all of my heart.” Brandon tugged his fingers through the turf. “Like my mom did.”
“Give up the idea of us. Forever.” Dana stared at the lake. “For both of our sakes.”
Brandon blinked and didn’t try to hide his pain. She would take one look at him and know it anyway. She’d always been able to read his eyes. She’d told him his eyes turned a shade darker when his sorrow ran deep, so they were probably two shades darker now. He thought he was over her, over them. Wrong. He turned to her, not sure what he would say, but as he started to speak he spied Marcus over her shoulder ambling toward them.
“There’s the professor.”
“Thank goodness,” Dana muttered.
Marcus settled down next to them. “Everything okay?”
“Great,” Brandon said.
“Fine.” Dana gave the professor a thin smile.
“Liars.”
Both Dana and Brandon laughed and it broke the tension.
“I apologize for being detained, and not to hurry things but can we get right to the subject at hand?”
“Yes.” Dana placed her palms on the grass and stared at the ground. She opened her mouth to speak but stopped as she glanced over Brandon’s shoulder.
Brandon turned. Two men strolled their direction. One had brown hair and was probably in his late twenties or early thirties. He was a little shorter than average with a lean build and a baseball hat turned backward on his head. The man next to him looked like he’d probably enjoyed deluxe double-bacon cheeseburgers a few times too many and was trying to cover it up with a Hawaiian shirt straight out of the sixties. Reece would love it.
They stopped three yards away. “Are you Brandon Scott, the fiction writer?”
“The what?” Brandon laughed. “The writer?” He’d heard “the musician” thousands of times, but “the writer”? Never. Where in the world would they get that idea? He’d started a blog three weeks ago but his name wasn’t on it and he hadn’t told anyone about it. Not Kevin, not Doug. Not even Marcus, Dana, or Reece.
“Yeah, the writer or blogger or whatever it is. The one who writes at www.godeeper.me. Isn’t that you?”
“Why do you think it’s me?” Brandon frowned and apprehension shot through him.
The guy with the baseball hat flipped his thumb back and forth between himself and Hawaiian Shirt Man. “We’re techies. And big fans of your music. So when we were doing a little searching online we found traces you left that identify you as the owner of the site.”
“I didn’t think I left a trail.”
“Yeah, most non-techies think that.”
“Right.” Brandon grimmaced and glanced at Marcus and Dana, then back to the man.
“Are you kidding me?” Dana tapped him on the elbow. “You have a blog?”
The guy with the baseball cap continued, “You’re prolific. Three posts a week with almost six hundred words each time—that’s a lot of verbiage. And the story you’re writing is certainly intriguing. The ideas in it are, uh, not commonplace within Christendom.”
Dana leaned in. “What kind of story are you writing?”
“I’m a little in shock anyone is reading it.”
Hawaiian Shirt Man smiled and motioned to his friend. “Both of us are reading it.”
Brandon turned to Dana and Marcus. “I started writing a story on a blog.”
“We deduced that rather easily,” Marcus said. “But not as private as you intended. Why didn’t you simply write it on your computer?”
“What inspired the name of the story?” Cap Man sat and the other man did as well. “Do you mind if we sit down?”
“Uh . . .” Brandon glanced at Dana and Marcus who stayed silent. “No, fine.”
Dana poked Brandon’s shoulder. “Let me guess. You’re basically making a story out of everything that’s happened to us over the past year in a thinly veiled exposé for the world to read and see?”
“No one is supposed to see it.” Brandon shrugged. “At least not yet.”
“Wonderful.” Dana slumped back on her arms. “What’s the tagline?”
Hawaiian Shirt Man grinned. “‘Skating on the edge of the universe.’” He motioned to Cap Man. “We like it. It sounds like us.” The man rubbed his hands together. “How close to the edge do you get?”
“Who are you guys?”
The man with the baseball cap said, “I’m Jotham, and this is Orson. We’re both ‘Softies’ and we love the Mariners. Now you know our entire lives.”
“Orson?” Brandon said.
“It’s a nickname.”
“Okay.” Brandon pointed at Orson. “And you’re ‘Softies’?”
“Microsoft,” Dana said. “They both work for Microsoft.”
“Got it.”
Jotham leaned forward. “So, how close to the edge?”
Something about these guys seemed . . . different. Not evil, just different.
“Close.”
Jotham turned and grinned at Orson, then shifted his gaze back to Brandon. “Do you really believe all that stuff you’re
writing in the story? I mean, have you really truly been going into other people’s souls, or are you simply having fun?”
“It’s a story, not nonfiction.”
“Really? That surprises me. The way you’re writing it gave me the impression it’s more than a story to you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Let’s just say I’m reading between the lines.”
These guys were playing a game and were a lot smarter than they were letting on. “Let’s just say you’re going to tell me how you acquired your between-the-lines reading skills.”
“It’s pretty obvious for anyone with eyes to see.”
Brandon glanced at Marcus and Dana, then back to Jotham and Orson. He still didn’t get the sense these two were evil, but there was more to them under the surface and Brandon had a feeling the lake was deep. They liked the Mariners? Good. He decided to throw them a fastball.
“You’re right, it’s not fiction.” He motioned toward Dana and Marcus. “My friends and I send our spirits inside other people’s souls to help set them free.”
Jotham nodded and the expression on his face didn’t change. Either he didn’t understand what Brandon had said or he was trying to play it cool. “Ah yes. That makes sense now given the story you’ve been telling.”
“You’re not surprised?”
“No.”
“This is something you’re familiar with?”
“I am.” Jotham motioned again to his companion. “We are.”
“Who are you guys again?” Dana said.
Before they could answer, the attention of all of them was stolen by a tall man who strode toward them over the grass, a big smile on his face. Brandon smirked. Why didn’t it surprise him? Tristan Barrow, his own personal blond-haired stalker, had appeared once again.
He pulled up between all of them and glanced back and forth. “I see you’ve met my friends, Brandon.” He sat and smiled at Marcus and Dana. “Can I meet yours?”
The guy was too comfortable, too confident, too assuming.
“Make yourself at home.” Brandon glared at him.
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” Tristan ignored Brandon’s look and addressed Dana and Marcus. “Did Brandon tell you he and I met a few nights back after one of his concerts?”
Memory's Door (A Well Spring Novel) Page 9
