by Bodie Thoene
Stephen did both at once. Loudly calling, “Kyle! It’s me: Stephen! Don’t shoot!” he barreled into the door and crashed through it.
He tumbled as he entered, and that saved his life.
Kyle triggered off a round that nicked the window frame above Stephen’s left ear.
Pastor Wells was also on the floor. His face was pale as death, his white shirt a mass of crimson.
Stephen saw recognition enter Kyle’s expression. There was no mistake: the two childhood friends knew each other.
And then Kyle swung the muzzle of the pistol until it was pointed directly at Stephen’s face. “The trouble with you is you can’t ever pull the trigger, Stephen. Not like me.” And Kyle yanked the firing mechanism … without noticing that the action was locked open, the last round already fired.
There was a frozen moment while Stephen and Kyle both considered what had not happened.
His legs gathered under him, Stephen bulled his shoulder into Kyle’s midsection.
Kyle clubbed with the butt of the pistol. Stephen jerked his head to the side and the gun’s handle caught him a glancing blow beside his eye.
Stephen seized the wrist of Kyle’s gun hand and twisted it hard, then drove his fist into Kyle’s jaw … then his elbow … then his fist again … and Kyle crumpled to the carpet.
Chaos! The Starlight Motel parking lot was alive with activity. A dozen police and sheriff vehicles vied for space with two ambulances, three fire trucks, and a television news van recalled from Dallas after having just returned there from the Leonard town hall meeting.
At the far edge of the lot a silver Porsche hummed its idling song. Behind the wheel Calvin Clayman peered through the windshield at all the commotion.
A police helicopter circled overhead, illuminating an adjacent patch of bare ground with its powerful spotlight. A medevac chopper settled on the designated oval.
Maurene and Anne wept in each other’s arms. Stephen was seated on the back of an ambulance while a paramedic dabbed a cut beside his eye.
Kyle, in handcuffs, was dragged downstairs before being thrust into a squad car.
Overhead a sky full of bright stars glittered cheerfully.
The good cheer was not reflected in Calvin Clayman’s heart. Too many cops around here. Too many questions to be asked and answered. Too much at stake to hang around long.
Calvin caught a glimpse of his own face in the rearview mirror. He saw a moment of self-loathing printed there … just before self-preservation kicked in. Backing off the paved area onto a dirt frontage road, Calvin’s Porsche purred away.
Stephen, splashed with flecks of Adam’s blood, was silent and intense as he drove Anne to Dallas on US 75. Surely the medevac helicopter had reached the hospital. Had Adam survived the flight? And if he had, would he survive the night?
Anne’s cell phone was dead. No word. Anne held the finger painting open on her lap. Stephen fumbled for his phone, offering it to her. The light from the screen illuminated the picture and the handwritten childish scrawl: I LOVE YOU, DADDY.
Anne held the light above the painting, and tears spilled over, like rain onto the face of the daddy and the mommy and the smiling little girl beneath the stars.
Anne read the title aloud: “MY FAMILY.” And then she began to speak. “When I was little, I got a telescope for a birthday. And I remember Adam set it up in our backyard and he showed me how to use it.”
Stephen nodded, not wanting to break the spell with a question.
She continued, quietly gazing upward, as if she could see the memory. “I remember when I gave this to him. It was dark out. We lived in a big house—plantation style, you know, with a balcony and pillars on the porch. And he was sitting in a lawn chair in the backyard of our … home. The yard was cluttered with all the stuff from my party. Half-eaten cake, balloons, party hats, streamers. Gifts and lights hanging from the trees … watching us … so happy … He had set up my telescope.”
Her words came like a flood. “The box said OMEGA NINE: YOUR TICKET TO THE FARTHEST STAR. I still have it. And I remember asking him, ‘Will I be able to see Jupiter, Daddy?’ ”
She paused as though she could hear his reply. “And he answered, ‘Like Jupiter and even Pluto are as close as your nose.’ ”
Anne touched her nose and smiled. “We looked up into a brilliant, starry night, and I asked him, ‘Daddy, will we really be able to see the farthest star? No, beyond the farthest star?’ ”
Wiping tears with the back of her hand, she said, “And Daddy whispered into my ear like it was a secret and all: ‘Annie-girl, you don’t need a telescope to see beyond the farthest star.’ ”
Transformed by her father’s love for her, Anne turned her face toward Stephen. “And I remember that on the night of my fifth birthday, as I watched him draw the stars all around us on this picture, I knew exactly what he meant. And it was … one of my happiest thoughts ever.”
Stephen did not answer. Like Anne, he was sure of Who was beyond the farthest star.
The highway was empty of traffic. Tonight, there was no separation between stars and street lamps. Adam Wells had proven that God’s love joined heaven and earth.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
TWO AND A HALF WEEKS had passed since the Starlight tragedy. On the last day before Christmas break, the students in Anne Wells’s English class gazed at her with rapt attention as she stood before them and began to recite her poem.
DEATH
By Anne Wells
I went to the library
And looked up the word
Death
In a computer.
There were a thousand entries,
At least.
Names of famous people.
Good and bad.
Disease.
Personal testimony.
And how-tos.
A couple hundred or zillion years
Of entries in,
I read …
‘See also …
LIFE.’ ”
Anne looked up and smiled at her classmates. This time smiles of approval, respect, and appreciation were returned. Susan raised her face to Anne and gave a solemn nod to say she got it. “See also … LIFE.”
There was an audible sigh of relief from Mrs. Harper. “That was … wonderful, Miss Wells. Wasn’t it, class?”
The other students responded with strong applause. Stephen, his black eye faded to a barely noticeable pale green, winked at her.
The bell rang.
Anne did not look at anyone as she left the classroom and made her way to her locker.
Stephen stepped up behind her. “I’ll drive you to the hospital if you want to go this afternoon.”
“So we can both sit around and listen to the machines breathe?” She slung her backpack onto her shoulder.
“Pick you up at three then, Annie-girl.”
“Three-thirty. And quit calling me that.”
Stephen smiled as she continued down the corridor.
The automatic doors swung open into the lobby of the hospital. Anne inhaled deeply one last breath of fresh winter air before she stepped in. She hated the smell of the hospital: cabbage and antiseptic.
A Christmas tree stood in the corner of the waiting room—an attempt to bring cheer to cheerless circumstances.
Anne tried not to look at the faces of strangers, tried not to think about Adam and Darth Vader’s breathing machines. Stephen held her hand as they went up the elevator together.
Her stomach dropped as the bell pinged the floor and the doors slid open.
ICU nurses smiled up from computers and monitors as Stephen and Anne approached the desk.
“Any change?” Anne asked, hopeful that Adam had given some sign of awareness in the hours since she had seen him last.
A shake of the head from the nurse. “Your mom’s with him now, sweetie.”
Stephen squeezed Anne’s hand in farewell. “I’ve got errands for my grandparents. Just call my cell when you need me.”
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“Thanks, Stephen.” Anne watched him go, wishing she could go with him. Errands. Normal stuff. How long was it since life had been normal?
ICU Room 403 was close to the nurses’ station. Blue-plaid curtains covered the wide, sliding-glass door. Anne stood a moment, taking in the sight of Adam, still and gray on the bed, and the machines that kept him alive.
A Bible was open on Maurene’s lap as she sat close to Adam’s head. Her notebook was no longer blank. A hymnal … the hymnal … was on the bedside table.
Anne stood rooted in the doorway, feeling sick and remaining silent, until her mom looked up.
“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t see you.” Hurriedly Maurene collected her things, then followed Anne’s line of vision to the hymnal. “He really wanted you to have that.”
Anne nodded, remembering every moment of confrontation and anger over that very songbook. “Yes,” she said, unable to meet her mother’s imploring gaze.
Maurene replied quietly, “I wouldn’t blame you if you never want to talk to me again, Anne. If I’d heard my mother say the things … what you heard me say …” She stroked Anne’s hair. “But if you do wanna talk or just sit, let me know. Okay, sweetie?”
Anne nodded slightly. “Okay.”
Maurene slipped out of the room. Anne sank onto the chair at Adam’s bedside and watched the machines breathe for him. The monitors lit up the room like a spaceship.
Fixing her gaze on the hymnal, she picked it up and held it gently as she spoke to her dad. “You said the songs in this book, like, comforted the saints through famine, plague, and whatever, and since you’re a saint and all and being in a coma has to qualify as some kind of plague …” Anne thumbed through the hymnal until she found the page. “Hymn 567. Your favorite, you said.”
Looking up, she checked out the ICU observation window. No one watching. And then she began to sing in a beautiful, clear voice.
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;
Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!
O night divine,
O night when Christ was born …
The melody drifted through the corridor as emotion and longing cracked her voice. “Daddy,” Anne whispered.
And then, as she searched his face, Adam’s eyes fluttered and opened, filling with recognition and love.
Anne touched his hand, then hesitated a moment more before hurrying to the nurses’ station.
The nurse looked up. “Yes?”
Anne could hardly speak. “The patient in 403? He just opened his eyes and looked at me … and I think … I think you should go in there.”
Anne hung back as the ICU unit was suddenly filled with the frantic bustle of doctors and nurses rushing to Adam’s bedside.
It was a true miracle, they said later.
When all the tubes and machines were disconnected, Adam told everybody that he woke up after hearing an angel singing.
Anne didn’t tell him it was just … her.
Epilogue
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.
Psalm 19:1 – 2
Anne’s Journal, One Year Later
Two weeks after he woke up, my dad was released from the hospital. He had Stephen and me pick him up instead of my mother. And instead of driving him home, he made us drive him to the Bigmart in Alamo cause all of a sudden the “Miracle Preacher Boy” became like that Lord Nathan guy in my mom’s novels.
Stephen and I waited on the porch, pretending not to notice when Adam came into the house. Mom was unpacking the remaining boxes.
She said,” I mainly unpacked your things till we decide what we’re …” And then she noticed he was wearing a blue Bigmart employee’s vest.
He just stood there for a minute, then he said, “I bribed her, Mo. Miss Moore. The Tom Thumb wedding. I told her I’d clap erasers and wash the chalkboard for the rest of the year if she’d pick
you and me as husband and wife. Then he took her in his arms.
From that day on, my mother stopped reading romance novels and started thinking maybe what happened to Sarah and Abraham could happen to Maurene and Adam.
I remember the day she bought a pregnancy test at the Bigmart Pharmacy in Alamo. She brought it home and disappeared in the bathroom and, just like Sarah in the Bible, my mother started to laugh when the EPT advanced test strip turned pink.
I watched from my window as she ran outside to catch my dad before he got into the minivan. She had the test stick in her hand and sort of held it up for him to see. He knew, I think, before she told him.
I’m seventeen now. Since I’m older, I think life isn’t just razor teeth, acid blood, and slime. Sometimes it’s sunny days with blue skies and teacups of sunshine. I know now What’s beyond the farthest star—which, as Dad whispered in my ear on my fifth birthday, is so far no telescope can reach … yet so close that we can hold Him in our arms.
At least that’s the story Adam has been preaching since he was six years old. If you ask me if I believe it personally, if I believe that sometimes you get beauty from ashes? I’d have to say,” Wow.’ Really! And I’d mean it.
So I guess that’s all until later. Got to get ready. Tonight the whole town is coming out for the living nativity in the town square.
Leonard Town Square, Christmas Eve
A lot had happened in the last year. The folks in Leonard, Texas, were different since the night Senator Cutter burned the manger scene in the town square.
This year the nativity’s characters weren’t made of wood. Anne carried her baby brother to Maurene, who was dressed as Mary. Sheriff Burns and Principal Johnston, with Momsy and Potsy Dobson, were Bethlehem shepherds, and the sheep were real. Deacons portrayed the three wise men. Senator Cutter, as an apology for what he had done last year, volunteered to be the innkeeper. His wife, Candy, was the angel, dressed in a stunning white gown. The senator gazed deeply and lovingly into her eyes as he helped her into an elaborate, professionally designed set of angel wings.
Anne, dressed in a red Christmas sweater, observed from a distance. The girls in her class and Stephen and Clifford beckoned to her from the choir of angelic host gathered under the scorched star, which was all that remained of the old nativity scene.
Adam, wrapping a robe around himself, asked her, “Are you singing tonight, Annie? In the choir?”
Susan called over her shoulder, “Hey, Annie! Come on! The angelic host could really use your voice!”
Adam noted her hesitancy and took her hand. “It’s okay, hon. Maybe next year?”
“I only know the ‘new and glorious morning’ one, Dad,” she replied.
Adam’s eyes filled as she spoke his name. “That’s my favorite, Annie.”
She nodded and took his arm. Together, they joined the living nativity. Adam, as Joseph, stood beside Maurene and their new son. Anne joined the choir behind. Next to Stephen.
And they all began to sing,
“O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth …”
Notes
Chapter One
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat! …
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?”
Isaiah 55:1 – 2
Chapter Seventeen
[To] provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes …
Isaiah 61:3
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;
Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!
O night divine,
O night when Christ was born.
“O Holy Night” is a well-known Christmas carol written as a French poem by Placide Cappeau (1808 – 77) in 1847, translated from French to English by John Sullivan Dwight (1813—93), and set to music by Adolphe-Charles Adam (1803 – 56).
About the Authors
BODIE AND BROCK THOENE (pronounced Tay-nee) have written over sixty-five works of historical fiction. That these bestsellers have sold more than thirty-five million copies and won eight ECPA Gold Medallion Awards affirms what millions of readers have already discovered—that the Thoenes are not only master stylists but also experts at capturing readers’ minds and hearts.
In their timeless classic series about Israel (The Zion Chronicles, The Zion Covenant, The Zion Legacy, The Zion Diaries), the Thoenes’ love for both story and research shines. With The Shiloh Legacy and Shiloh Autumn (poignant portrayals of the American Depression), The Galway Chronicles (dramatic stories of the 1840s famine in Ireland), and the Legends of the West (gripping tales of adventure and danger in a land without law), the Thoenes have made their mark in modern history. In the A.D. Chronicles they step seamlessly into the world of Jerusalem and Rome, in the days when Yeshua walked the earth.
Bodie, who has degrees in journalism and communications, began her writing career as a teen journalist for her local newspaper. Eventually her byline appeared in prestigious periodicals such as U.S. News & World Report, The American West, and The Saturday Evening Post. She also worked for John Wayne’s Batjac Productions and ABC Circle Films as a writer and researcher. John Wayne described her as “a writer with talent that captures the people and the times!”
