

Journey from Heaven

by

Joe Derkacht

Smashwords Edition

*****

Journey from Heaven

© Copyright 2010 by Joe V. Derkacht

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All names, locales, and incidents are either fictitious or used fictitiously and are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real persons living or dead, or to actual places and institutions and incidents, is purely coincidental.

Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (NIV), the Authorized Version (KJV), or the author's paraphrase.

_Majesty_ is used by permission of its composer, Jack W. Hayford.

Cover art is by the author, Joe Derkacht.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please *purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

*Though this Smashwords Edition is being offered to readers for free, please return to Smashwords for additional downloads for sharing with others. The author can better gauge interest in _Journey from Heaven_ by that means.

*****

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dr. Jack W. Hayford for his gracious permission to use the lyrics of his widely acclaimed _Majesty_ in the novel, _Journey from Heaven_.

Thanks also to friend Louis Serafin, Deputy Sheriff (Ret.), of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office, for his insights concerning police procedures in the State of Oregon. _Journey From Heaven_ , however, is not meant to be a police procedural; all mistakes and license taken in that regard are the author's.

*****

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:6,7 (NIV)

*****

Episode One

They were like a flight of beautifully orchestrated pyrotechnics, seemingly winking into existence as they emerged from the galactic corridor and exploded into the dark space between stars. Once coalesced, the wake of their glory shone greater than the tail of any bright comet. Together they streamed toward the star's fourth terrestrial planet, a lovely emerald world plowing through the velvet of night.

Intent as I was in my preparations, except for a warning from Leanhar, noblest of those angels who have served me through the millennia, I might have missed their approach altogether. _Steward John._ Leanhar's voice sounded in my mind, as only spirit can communicate with spirit. I looked up, my focus immediately on the dark heights far above Mt. Fe. My ears caught the telltale music I was accustomed to hearing at the opening of any of Heaven's doors. Overhead, the sky had blossomed with new stars—one central light enfolding other lesser lights expressed in brilliant, complementary colors, each as transparent as any precious gemstone.

Like a cascading waterfall they dropped straight toward us, toward myself and Leanhar and my 1200 servants, who'd been laboring all day upon Fair Ranar's loftiest peak.

In the twinkling of an eye, a bright star stood before us in all his effulgence, surrounded by a coterie of luminous angels. My servants, all 1200 centii and millii, edged nervously away, tension palpably evident in their shifting feet and twitching muscles. With a single tap of my ironwood staff on Mt. Fe's granite surface, they went scurrying, and as they disappeared down the mountain like flower blossoms driven by the wind, the messenger's heavenly aspect changed, the mantle of redeemed humanity falling into place. The star became a man.

"Steward John," he addressed me. Without formally introducing himself, he reached into his robes, pulled out a scroll and handed it over.

Proper introductions were normal protocol, especially when visiting a planetary steward. With the bright aura of the divine presence still upon him, though, and having had an inner warning of his visit earlier that day, I wasn't much concerned about how things were normally done. I took the scroll and opened it.

OFFICIAL SUMMONS

ADDRESSEE

Steward John Raventhorst

Member, Whitestone Holders

Order of the Overcomers

Pergamum Branch

ADDRESS

Fair Ranar, Northern Outer Trench, Sombrero Galaxy

ORDERS

Report to Capital City, New Jerusalem

to appear before

HIS MAJESTY, YHWH

Though the thrill of being summoned home for an audience with God Himself was a rare one, I perhaps lingered over the words longer than the messenger expected. Strangely, no reason had been given for the summons. Turning the scroll over revealed a completely blank side, which was no help at all. I turned back to the message. The wording struck me as a bit odd. Was I supposed to attach significance to the use of _New_ in combination with Jerusalem? Whether in official communications or otherwise, it had long ago fallen into general disuse. It wasn't like any of us could ever forget the difference between the truly eternal city and her ancient forerunner. Additionally, I wondered why a member of the Holy Names Branch had been sent ( _Samuel Draper_ , as revealed to me by the Spirit), when nearly any angel would have served the purpose equally well, with _messenger_ , after all, being the very definition of angel. For the Glorious Majesty to send a spiritual pillar, one who served directly in the holiest places of all the universe, fairly trumpeted the message's importance. Would he still really be standing in front of me when I looked up from my reading?

_He was._ Considering those of the Holy Names Branch never left the holiest precincts, I did almost ask how the summons could be important enough for him to be sent, except I suddenly remembered a few rare instances of seeing others of his kind outside the capital. His explanation, I thought, would doubtlessly be that temple business extended the attendant manifest glory of our Heavenly Father.

Instead of mentioning any of those things, I asked, "Why here—to Fair Ranar—and to me—and why now?" Before he could answer, I thought to ask: "Does He want me to do something differently? He can't be displeased with my work, can He?"

"I believe He simply wants to prove His kindness to you again, Steward John," he said, his voice ringing with the same sort of unutterable truth and warmth I'd often experienced in God's presence, which was natural, coming from a member of the Holy Names Branch. "You know His loving kindness is from everlasting to everlasting."

Such an answer told me that no matter how close he was to God's throne, he didn't know the reason for the summons, either—piquing my curiosity all the more. Astonishingly, though I hadn't been expecting it, was I to be a focus of the King's attention, I who'd labored far beyond the capital for what would've been considered unimaginable lifetimes to a mortal?

The thought literally dropped me to my knees. Praises bubbling forth from heart and mouth, I began to sing and was quickly joined by Leanhar and my visitor and his attendants in angelic chorus. Melodies infinitely sweeter and purer than any that ever rose from mere fleshly throats wafted over the mountain tops, until I heard and felt the surrounding rocky slopes resonating with joy. As Mt. Fe hummed along in accompaniment, the distant valleys boomed with answering bass notes, and the trees of the fields clapped their hands like the ancient psalmist had claimed. Nearly lost in the great symphony, Ranar's native creatures brayed, honked, squealed, hooted, and whistled, their animated chorus riding atop our crescendos of praise like surfers on a wave.

For such moments, we all live. Ranar's skies turned with our voices, the sun falling eventually into the west and the stars rising to the full, only to fade again under a new sun rising over the east. As one, we had offered our worship to God in perfect synchrony, and as one we eventually let our voices trail off into reverent silence. Looking at my visitor, I saw his brightness dimming, until he shone again like the brightness of a noonday sky with the reflection of God's light.

"Do I come with you now?" I asked, realizing I wished that I might. In my mind's eye, I already saw the brilliantly hued walls of the great city and its gates of pearl.

"What is your will, Steward John?" Samuel asked, as he reached into his robes and pulled out a stylus.

I signed the summons as an acknowledgment of receipt, writing _St. John Raventhorst, Steward of Ranar_. After the passage of the ages, the irony still remained: whether _Steward_ , as I always will be of Ranar and its star system, or _Saint_ , neither title had ever entered my mind in the old life as even the faintest of glimmers. I returned the summons and stylus, both of which disappeared inside his robes.

A moment later one of his attending angels stepped forward, bowed from the waist, and with a flourish extended one hand. A fruit from the tree of life sat in his open palm like a flashing gem. I reached out, not needing to ask if it was for me, and in a spirit of gratefulness began eating. Of the twelve kinds of fruit borne by the tree of life, this was my favorite. Among those of us who once claimed an American heritage, I'd often heard this particular fruit fondly referred to as a "Red Delicious," a comparison any apple of the old universe would have blushed at; resembling a red Christmas tree ornament more than something strictly organic, it was considerably more delicious and infinitely more refreshing and life giving than a mere apple. It was also the very first type of fruit I saw upon my entry into the city. By it, before my heavenly education began, I first realized that even as a possessor of a redeemed and glorified body, I would never be independent of God's provision; and which is why, as distant as the shores of Ranar are from Earth, angels routinely deliver a single monthly fruit from the tree of life into my hand.

"If I may...?" Samuel asked.

Understanding he wished a tour of Ranar, I nodded happy assent. Swallowing the last morsel, I strode to the nearby spring-fed pool to wash my hands. My reflection in the water revealed a brightening countenance, a renewed flow of life and strength radiating throughout my body. In the company of someone of the Holy Names, I gave myself no further glance, though the truth was that my reflection has always astounded me as much as anything in this life; I who'd borne Adam's marred image now bear the image purchased for me by Christ's own marred face—the image of the Creator Himself, shining through my body, soul, and spirit!

So unexpected, so revelatory, had come that very first glimpse of myself, as I walked through the gates of Heaven, that it amazed me not to have imploded with such a demonstration of God's love for His children. "Sown in dishonor, raised in glory," and "mortality swallowed up by immortality," the words written by the apostle, though absolutely true, were distant mutterings, compared to the reality.

Rising from beside the stream, I placed my ironwood staff into Leanhar's hands and told him to feel free to remain with Samuel's angelic attendants, who would welcome a time of fellowship with him. Gesturing for Samuel to follow me, we started down the slope, heading toward a prominence below where I'd been working for the last several days. The distant horizon came to life under the rays of the sun, with snowcapped mountains winking at us like rose-colored diamonds. The intervening valleys were clothed in the green beard of Ranar's forests. Much closer, unfinished broad terraces climbed toward us in a series of ever rising waves. Here, on this very prominence, a throne of Mt. Fe's native rock would one day look out, flanked by twin streams of silvery water spilling over the edge like tears pouring down stony cheeks. Our first drop would be a freefall of nearly 3,000 feet. Smiling in unison we stepped into thin air, a rush that never fails to thrill me.

Stooping like raptors, we landed feet first, touching down as gently as snowflakes. Samuel sprang eagerly forward, toward the next precipice, with me matching his every stride. At the edge we leapt into the air, this time soaring like eagles through wispy skeins of clouds, before embarking upon a long, downward spiral, allowing us to enjoy the full panorama of Ranar's rivers, lakes, and valleys. Tens of miles later we landed at the foot of the mountain and its terraces, and began to walk side by side—as if in procession to the eternal city's throne room. Hour upon hour, the sun shot broad shafts of emerald-tinged light through the forest corridors and gleamed from grassy carpeting as we continued into the west. The exhilaration I'd seen in Samuel was replaced by holy awe, as he gazed upon the majestic ranks of trees stretching before us, at their towering heights, their burgundy-colored bark and the massive branches of green.

"You have made Fair Ranar one vast cathedral of worship to the King," he said, pausing to breathe deeply of the forest and its woody fragrances.

I nodded, grateful he'd grasped my intent.

"They remind me of California's redwoods," he commented.

"They should," I said. "All you see here came from the cones of a single redwood. Any differences between these and earth's are due to the influences of the planet and her star upon their seeds."

With the mountain falling behind us, we traveled on, running as the fabled Hermes once might have run, sometimes swinging far to the north, venturing into a wide swath of Ranar's giant gingkoes, and then jogging far to the south, where mighty oaks reigned, before turning again to the west. Often, we chanced upon wild animals—some of them cousins, it seemed, to earth's deer, antelope, horses, big cats, and even kangaroos—all of them fleet footed and in varieties as bewilderingly diverse as earth's own. My centii and millii, which he had glimpsed upon his arrival, struck him as especially curious because of their long bodies and multiplicity of limbs and the unblinking eyes that stared from above each furry paw. Like the animals of the New Earth, Ranar's creatures arrayed themselves in finer colors than any we had known on the fallen earth: the twelve-legged centii, the males greener than grass and the females rosier than rose, while millii males, with their twenty legs, are turquoise and silver, and the females ruby red with spots of topaz yellow. These same richly "clothed" centii and millii, I explained to him, were my chief helpers in shaping Ranar's mountains to my liking; what joy they experienced, under my supervision, in shattering mountainsides with their great paws!

Eventually the trees we encountered grew older and taller, my labors upon Ranar having first begun here, and we again walked with deliberation, our feet silent upon millennia of shed needles gladly yielding up their nutrients to feed underground life and the trees from which they'd fallen. In the distance we saw rivers of muted colors rushing toward us, soon revealed as tall windblown grasses in soft shades of green, silver, red, and gold. Further on, the bark of many of the trees was clothed in cascading, flowery veils, their fragrances identifying them as roses long before they came into sight. Like those first redwood cones harvested from New California for Ranar's sake, I'd also diligently searched throughout New Oregon for earth's most beautiful climbing roses, finally introducing them a thousand years ago.

Reverence crowned Samuel Draper's brow. He braced himself, looked searchingly into the canopy overhead, and smiled. A holy hush reigned over the world, one that was about to be sweetly broken. A faint chorus reached our ears.

"The birds—" he said, staring up hundreds of feet into the highest branches for their perches and seeing their colors glitter like metallic confetti in rainbow hues.

"Few of them speak like they do on earth," I finished for him.

"Yes," he agreed. "Birdsong that is uncannily human. They're whole orchestras of _whistlers!_ "

"It's remarkable, isn't it?" I said, enjoying what had always seemed like a wonderful coincidence to me, since from childhood I'd been passionate about whistling.

"I'll demonstrate something for you," I told him. At once I began to whistle, letting the sound rise trumpet-like into the trees. Seconds later the birds whistled back, hundreds of them matching the note but at varying octaves. I whistled again, this time a few measures of a tune I had heard countless times in Jerusalem: Keith Green's _Easter Song_. Instead of the cacophony one might expect, the birds answered with wild exuberance more typical of a youth orchestra eager to perform under the direction of a renowned maestro.

Before I could continue with the next few measures, a shadow passed over us, interrupting their concert in a chaotic gabble from the trees. Looking higher into the heavens, we spied a flying creature utterly different from our whistlers.

"The symmetry of a pterodactyl," Samuel said, watching him spiral down on sail-like wings as majestically pretty as any earthly spinnaker. Other birds scattered without protest from their perches to make way for the newcomer. The branch still swaying under his full weight, he came finally to rest, with tangerine-colored pinions hanging down at least sixty feet. He bobbed his head of lapis lazuli toward us in acknowledgement.

"Watch this," I said, pointing as the creature reached talon-like hands into the feathers of his snowy breast and pulled out what appeared to be a long, thin stick. With golden eyes glinting knowingly at us, he clamped his beak down and began to play before Samuel had time to realize the "stick" was a sort of reedy flute.

The opening notes to _Easter Song_ had never sounded as beautiful as this on old earth.

"Don't tell me he can't whistle," Samuel said.

"Not a lick," I answered, matching his own grin. The music continued, taking flight apropos of birdsong. Varying from its original usage, it was much closer to jazz improvisation than to Green's ancient Christian Rock form. Then again, to the delight of every saint, Green himself has since erected endless, anthemic symphonies upon that same tune.

We stood as if transfixed. At length the music faded, the last notes quickly muffled by the woodland depths. Still looking into the trees, Samuel began to clap his hands in slow, thunderously resounding claps that rang with both appreciation for the performance and praise towards the Eternal Father. Seemingly startled, our bird musician slid his flute back into the hiding place in his breast and launched himself into the sky, quickly disappearing over the tree tops and from our view. Likewise, the chorus scattered, leaping _en masse_ from the trees as if fleeing a shotgun blast, something they would never see or hear upon Ranar.

Taken aback, Samuel glanced at me and laughed heartily. His voice rang with amusement: "They're as nervous as cats, aren't they?"

"It's early in their education," I said, smiling. "Except for a handful of us and my few cohorts of angels, we don't have many visitors."

He laughed, and I laughed with him, the sound as clean and pure as joyously rung bells.

"The one with the flute," Samuel said, walking again toward the west. "What have you named him?"

" _Cielo."_

"Sky."

"Yes." I preferred the more euphonious Spanish. "And for his long, indolent flights, and for the blue of his crest," I said, adding that from the forest floor, the skies often seem to be tinted green more than blue.

"Is he the craftiest of this world's creatures?"

"The one true toolmaker among them."

We smiled together, our thoughts in concert. On every world where creatures live, one wiser one exists, one more intelligent, one more skillful, than any other. The same had been true of old earth, where the Most High had planted the Garden of Eden. There the serpent had been the craftiest of all, except for Adam, his master. But Ranar sheltered no fallen angel, no cherub corrupted by pride, whose glorious office had once been that of _Lucifer_ , to possess and to deceive him. Ranar would never suffer corruption; the uncrowned prince of darkness was forever confined to the Lake of Fire, and corruption had passed away with the old universe.

"Cielo will never eat dust for his food," I said.

Samuel heard the gratefulness in my voice, and nodded his head enthusiastically in agreement.

We came to a lake bounded in the distance by a line of verdant hills. Beyond those hills were the same snowcapped mountains we'd seen from Mt. Fe. Far into the sky over our heads, birds spiraled and soared, their cries recognizably that of our whistling chorus.

Samuel pointed to Cielo floating lazily above the others, triangular wings billowing, and then to another one like him, soaring in from the direction of the hills.

" _Ciela_?"

"The mate," I acknowledged with a nod, grinning because he already understood I didn't care to be complicated, especially when it came to naming Ranar's creatures. Now Cielo and Ciela spun and swirled around each other as if in thrall to a common center of gravity.

"Will they follow us?"

"They'll soon be distracted," I said, knowing he was harking back to earth and its vast animal population, where their devotion to us was no different than it had been for the unfallen Adam and Eve.

Accepting my answer without question, my visitor stepped onto the surface of the water. "No oceans," he said, evidently abandoning thought of our avian escorts.

"None," I said, joining him. "Just tens of thousands of lakes, rivers, streams, and underground springs, whose waters, one way or another, irrigate Ranar's vast landscape. If you wish, I'll show you waterfalls to shame the old Niagara."

"Your handiwork or the Creator's?"

"Some of both. We gladly labor in His strength, don't we?"

His gaze shifted to my friends in the skies, who had abruptly forsaken their attendance upon us and winged with purpose toward the distant shore. Though we could have swum the distance, we instead began walking, even as Jesus once walked upon the Sea of Galilee.

The sound of what anyone from old earth would have sworn was a distant train whistle commenced blowing before we crossed a mile of the lake's surface. Samuel glanced inquiringly in my direction, and I gestured with my head toward the sky. Far away, the birds, glittering in the sunlight, began their steep descent, their bright plumage sparkling against the sky as spectacularly as a tornado illuminated by lightning.

As I'd hoped, a large serpentine head breached the lake surface, rising swiftly as if to intercept the flight of the birds. Accompanying that sight, the strangely haunting train whistle sounded again, disturbing even the placid waters beneath our feet. As water streamed down the moss-colored neck and back, the birds flapped their wings in sudden unison and struck the long neck like a clap of thunder.

Beside me, Samuel stretched forth one foot and was off, leaping into a sprint. Knowing what was to come, I followed at a more leisurely pace. In the distance, the apparition from the depths of the lake raced toward the far shore with the speed of a hydrofoil. Neck, shoulders, back, and tail undulated with greater force than a bucking bronco, revealing an underside that rippled muscularly in stripes of red and green.

With wings held aloft and flapping in the wind, the birds, seemingly unperturbed, hung tenaciously to their strangely wild roost: no longer whistling with praises for the Creator, their cries echoed across the water as shrieks of delight.

When I reached the shore, Samuel was dancing around the birds and their victim, its eyes shuttered as if in deep mortification for having collapsed upon the beach. Steam poured from its nostrils and its mighty chest rose and fell with each breath. As the birds whistled, cackled, and trumpeted their victory from atop its head and down the length of its spine, a whistling noise (like a damaged harmonica at this proximity) escaped through its bared, tubular teeth.

My guest's laughter was musical. His eyes sparkled with unrestrained mirth.

"I worship Him in spirit and truth!" He shouted, punctuating his words with graceful leaps and nearly launching into true flight. "He is to be praised! Praise Him with joy and delight in the works of His mighty hands! Praise Him with the laughter due Him!"

I leapt and danced, too. Until my arrival 5,000 years ago, Ranar had been a world largely of grasslands and the occasional untamed mountain. The birds had inhabited the rocky heights, while Brontonella, and other bottom-dwelling creatures like her, lived in the deep lakes and along their shores in solitude. At long last, Ranar's potentialities and glories were being revealed.

"Why call her _Brontonella_?" Samuel asked, after some time. Though not consciously sharing the name with him, perhaps I had spoken it in our mutual laughter, or the Spirit had whispered it to him.

"She is like a brontosaurus—and she isn't," I said, shrugging. Again, why make the naming of something complicated? Snout to tail, Brontonella was nearly 150 feet long and sported a narrow ridge of bristly hair upon its spine, and except for webbed feet otherwise answered to a description reasonably similar to the picture of any brontosaurus I'd ever seen in my childhood.

He nodded agreeably and reached out to stroke her head. At his touch the creature's enormous, bulging eyes opened in instant adoration, the horizontal pupils expanding until they nearly engulfed limpid green irises. At the same time, her lips curled back and a high pure note of ecstasy escaped through her teeth. The birds, including Cielo their maestro, rose like a cloud into the sky with answering whistles.

Samuel laughed. "I believe I'm falling in love with your world, Steward John."

I couldn't help smiling in return. Since those nearest the Master have the greatest revelation of Him and His works, his remark pleased me and in fact came as a seal of approval upon all my efforts. Though my boundless joy in the work might seem sufficient in and of itself, nothing compares to the Master's approval, whether spoken through an angelic messenger, someone like Samuel Draper, or the Master Himself.

"Have you decided?" Samuel asked, stroking Brontonella one last time before turning to continue our walk. He rose into the air, and I followed. "Do you wish to come with me now to answer your summons?"

I didn't have to reply with spoken words. He could see the answer on my face, and knew as well as I that it is always the desire of the Redeemed to return to the Heavenly City and her Lord.

Together we rose even more swiftly, until Ranar's emerald disk spread out before us, with lakes glistering like shattered mirrors in the sun, and we were rejoined by his angelic escort and my own Leanhar. Already, the stars burst upon our vision in a magnificent paean to God's handiwork, voicing their praises, with Ranar's nearer sun blending his song with the chorus of heavenly bodies.

Into Leanhar's capable hands I left my stewardship of the planet. Upon my farewell, Samuel's attendants took up both of us and we were on our way. The starry hosts, floating lazily around us as we soared above Ranar, began to race toward us like solid streaks of light. Accompanied by the softly crashing, crystalline tones of their wings, our escorts burst forth with song in an angelic tongue, nearly breaking our hearts for sheer beauty—and all became brilliant, cascading, beautiful light surging upon us from every direction. We had been launched into the portal home, that main thoroughfare used by angels for passage through the creation's multiple dimensions since eternity's dim past. Adjoining portals, trunk lines to the various galaxies throughout our own physical universe, flew past us like bright, exclamatory flashes of a strobe light...

All too soon, after what seemed like merely a few ecstatic moments, the poignancy of the angelic song fell in pitch; with its fall, the energy from their wings lessened, until they could be discerned truly once more as wings, fluttering as though in a wind. Discrete lights suddenly appeared and were disclosed as individual stars floating around us. In the distance, Sol shone joyously against the velvet blackness of space, his song the sweetest and purest and best of all stars, appropriate for the star chosen by the Eternal One to forever light the home system of the universe's capital, the New Earth and the New Jerusalem.

We were home. The journey from the Sombrero Galaxy had been wondrous, spectacular, and as always brief, far briefer than any physicist of the former order ever imagined possible—and far less complicated or elaborate, totally unencumbered by spacesuits or starships.

In the new order of things, our joy is not in the journey—but in the _place_ and more importantly that _Person_ Who is forevermore both destiny and destination. As one, angels and redeemed men, we looked along the solar ecliptic for the third planet from the sun and found her quickly, our eyes superior even to telescopes of the old order. Earth's rotation was just then revealing the golden city, with Sol's happy light limning the planet's night side in a perfect circle, as though it were a ring of gold surmounted by a gloriously flashing, cubic gemstone. For me, this view has always been the most breathtaking and meaningful in all the universe, as if the Earth and Jerusalem, taken together, is a great wedding ring hanging in space—the wedding ring of God's Son, King Jesus.

*****

Episode Two

Past the welcoming gaze of the thousand-eyed sentry with his fiery sword, past the sculptured pearl gate and the twelve foundations, past myriads of angels and redeemed humanity, we entered upon a river of light. As at any of New Jerusalem's twelve gates, we saw into the measureless distance of the city's heart and spied the One Who Cannot Be Ignored enthroned in blazing glory. Even while my heart welled up with praises, at once joining in the songs that are sung ceaselessly, we each went our own way, angels and men splitting off like sparks from a Roman candle. Before speeding toward the throne, Samuel Draper briefly clasped my hand, and in that instant I glimpsed how he had won to his lofty position as a member of the Holy Names Branch: a flash of imagery appeared in my mind of a young boy, bound by useless legs and arms, growing into manhood in a dark, cramped room in a Philadelphia slum of the 1800's—crying out to God on behalf of those who treated him with disdain and persecution and abandonment. Plucked from earth by an early death, murder through _neglect_ , really, he was at last elevated to a place of favor among Jesus' brothers.

Such glimpses given by the Spirit into another's life often overwhelmed me with glory and adoration for God. In the same instant, joy struck his face, and I knew that something of my own story had been revealed to him. As he disappeared from view, I was sure we would meet again; as a member of the Holy Names branch, he actually might be the one who would escort me to the throne in answer to Yahweh's summons.

All around me the seamless tapestry of music, the songs of earth and heaven, continued undiminished. Sights that would have been killingly beautiful to fleshly eyes, because of their bright glories, welcomed me home: the golden streets and golden buildings; the rivers that shone like light; the trees on the banks of those same rivers, bearing fruit more dazzling than earthly gems along with equally impressive flowers; bright angels in astonishing variety; the people, men and women and children, who shone like the starry hosts—and each, overflowing with joy and music and delight. Taken singly or in sum, they filled me up and told me I was home. This place and these people had been made for me, and I for them, and all of us together had been made for His pleasure.

Passing in among the throngs, greeting individuals with smiles and waves, I picked a "Red Delicious" from a tree, and made my way to a portal that would take me to my own home in this city. As much as I desired to linger in fellowship, I had my summons to consider.

#

Stepping from the portal, I surveyed the bluff that rose a thousand feet above me, my eyes quickly settling on one of the two houses fixed upon its green brow like jewels in a crown.

_In my father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, so that where I am, there you may be also._ These same words often rang in my ears, as I came upon this place, words that had once rung in my ears as I woke in a hospital on old earth, made all the more poignant to me by my having made the mistake of sharing the experience with someone in spiritual authority. Reverend Danin had fixed me with a stern look and said God no longer spoke to people through dreams or visions, and certainly not with an audible voice, either. Didn't I know all that sort of stuff passed away with the last of Christ's apostles, and would I care to have him prove it to me from the scriptures? Didn't I know eating late at night, maybe pizza or ice cream or pickles, or taking _drugs_ , gave people weird dreams?

Visions were dangerous, it seemed, even when offered to the dying or nearly dying. It didn't matter that Jesus' words sizzled with more raw power than electricity itself, or that I'd instantly understood how such a voice could speak worlds into existence... Never again would I dare tell of my vision; Reverend Danin already often looked at me strangely, and I didn't want anyone else thinking I was nuts, especially since I knew from experience how easily someone could end up in the loony bin.

Even now, I sometimes still laughed at the memory. Why wouldn't I? It surprised Christopher Danin to find that the New Jerusalem was an actual city!

A single bound carried me to the top of the bluff. A far shorter hop, over the stream separating the two houses, set me on the pathway to my own home's front entry. The mother-of-pearl door, coruscating with pleasure at my approach, swung open of its own to allow me inside. Passing quickly through the gem-studded foyer and into the great room, I walked alongside the stream of living water that divided the room neatly in two. A long corridor branched off into other rooms, the furthest my bedroom. Walking in, I closed the door behind me and knelt to offer up a brief prayer of thanks. Once again, I was home in the city prepared for all those who'd believed in Christ, home in the very house built without hands for my eternal habitation, at rest in a place more uniquely me and mine than any other in the universe.

#

I awoke to a serpentine form rising above me, its neck arching upwards, until it towered as high as a tall palm tree, with twin pools of shadow for eyes. Hesitating, as if preparing to lunge in my direction, it abruptly swung about, offering a glimpse of massive shoulders, its proud silhouette adumbrating a halo of Fair Ranar's twinkling stars. Among those stars an angel winged his sleepless way, his glory illumining the nearer landscape like a beacon. Brontonella, eyes kindled by that brightness, thrummed forth her deepest, most heart-wrenching call toward the heavens, and the angel answered with a song of praise, his rich voice singing out to me from across the universe. At the same time, a moving wall of beastly sounds—a whole midnight choir of Ranar's creatures—seemed to flow through and past me, dopplering away, as the angel disappeared over the far horizon.

As if in tandem with Leanhar's descent, whose signature glory I'd easily recognized, Brontonella sank beneath the waters. Wavelets lapped the shore. The peaceful waters still sounding in my ears, I suddenly felt myself launched into the sky without benefit of an angelic escort. Ranar's home star, leaping into view, flew over my head like a swift freight train and passed me by in a concert of other streams of light I knew to be stars. In moments, I had burst from the nearer star field and was in the gulf between galaxies.

The field of view swiveled, offering up a quickly receding Sombrero galaxy. Another galaxy appeared beside it, as much like it as a twin. Both receded, and in their light I saw great compassionate eyes contemplating me: dwindling alike, they became the eyes of a familiar face—the face of Jesus—with other galaxies constituting ears, nose, mouth, beard. The universe smiled an impromptu portrait of its Maker, the Great Pointillist Himself.

Just as abruptly as I'd been launched into the heavens, the wall facing my couch from which I'd viewed a nocturnal Ranar and the subsequent heavenly portrait reverted to one of my favorite landscapes—of verdant foothills sheltering beneath a snowcapped mountain. A well-worn track led out of those hills, a track filled with sheep. The sheep were trailed by a lonely figure carrying a lamb curled about his shoulders.

"Have you rested well?" the shepherd asked, looking directly at me.

"Yes, Lord," I answered, chuckling with recognition. The humble figure was now the Good Shepherd.

"We have all time," He said, before I could mention that I should be up, that I had a summons to answer. I could hardly argue with the One who had established both day and night and the times and the seasons.

"Refresh yourself, Steward John," He continued. "Drink deeply of the water of life, and fellowship with old friends."

"The summons, Lord—" I began, reminded of its strangeness.

"You will have my strength when you need it."

"Thank you, Lord," I said, vaguely wondering why He would mention that particular ancient axiom. Whatever the reason, it seemed He intended to let His Father answer my questions, because He said only one more thing:

"Zell will have further instructions for you, little brother."

Sight, smell, and sound told me the sheep were nearly upon me, close enough to touch. Feeling the ground shake under their hooves, I saw them swirl out and around me, barely avoiding trampling me. For a moment, the Good Shepherd towered over me, and then sheep and Shepherd vanished from sight. The lonely track, though infinitely nobler for the feet that had passed over it, was once again empty.

Staring, I lingered a few minutes longer, enjoying the hills and the farther mountain, actually the Matterhorn, to gauge whether I had matched it for its beauty and majesty on Ranar, where I had erected one that could be its sister.

" _Zell..."_ A smile rippled through me as I heard that name whispered.

"Yes," I said, rising from my couch. Regardless of having all time, it seemed I should get moving.

#

Except for being separated by the stream that tumbled over the bluff, Zell's gardens adjoined my own and were more extensive and fittingly more beautiful; all I knew about gardening, in fact, I had learned from her in the old life. Once, coming out of my workshop on earth, I had found her weeding my yard on hands and knees.

Contorting her neck to focus her intensely bright eyes on me, she asked me if I felt it.

" _I-It wh-what?"_ I stuttered.

" _Heaven,"_ she said. "I've been out here for hours, and every time I look up, I think I'm going to see angels. You don't feel it, as if heaven has come down to earth? Like Jesus might walk into the yard at any second?"

I shook my head anxiously. I wasn't one to think anything of the sort, much less feel it, especially since I had it on the authority of an ordained minister that God was no longer in the business of speaking to people. I was sure this was the same crazy kind of talk that could get me a room with pillows for walls.

"I-ah, I h-hope you d-don't g-go talkin' like that to nobody else," I told her. "They'll th-think you're n-nuts."

"Oh, John, you worry too much," she said.

_Of course I do, but who doesn't?_ I thought, returning to my workshop. Still, with my neighbor's words lodged in my mind, they were hard to get out, and as I thought about them day after day, eventually they began to grow on me. Was it possible to pray while I worked? Possible to have some sort of give-and-take between me and God even while I was ripping lumber or gluing a mortise and tenon? Maybe. But, like a lot of other things, it took a long time to accustom myself to the idea.

Staring now at her house, I wondered where she could be. In spite of the nudge to find Zell, I knew she wasn't home; its exterior walls gleaming goldly like most buildings in the Heavenly City, its roof a curvilinear form reminiscent of a seashell (appropriate for someone whose owner had lived most of her earthly life near the ocean), I knew it gleamed more brightly at her presence. Even as the thought occurred to me, I sensed someone standing behind me.

"Life is great until you weaken."

"Feeling that poorly, huh?" I asked, turning to find Zell grinning from ear to ear. It had been one of her favorite sayings in the old life on earth, and she still occasionally pulled it out of the old memory bag.

"Friends feel poorly when their friends move to other galaxies," she retorted.

Having observed our usual ritual at being reunited, we both laughed. As for me, I've always been glad irony survived into the new life.

"Well, as I always say, no place is too far for those who live forever."

"Is that what you say?"

"Among other scintillating things."

She looked askance at me, her smile broadening, communicating something she long ago ceased to say aloud, that for someone who hadn't much to say in the former life, I did a pretty fair job of compensating.

"You knew of my coming?" I asked.

"Shen Li told me."

"Shen Li?" I asked, surprised. I thought she would say the Good Shepherd had told her.

Taking hands, we walked companionably beside the crystalline brook I'd already waded, our steps leading to the brow of the cliff upon which our houses sat. Over that brow and down its vertical face we descended as if on level ground, walking upon grass growing alongside the falling water like it was an emerald sward bordering any gently flowing stream.

The brook's fifteen-foot wide stream, precipitously tumbling a thousand feet, would have been a noisy cataract on old earth. Here, it sang like the River of Life flowing down the center of Heaven's main thoroughfare, only muted compared to that fabulous stream. On old earth, it also would have boiled up into a cauldron as it struck the basin below. Here, it entered a welcoming pool without a splash, peaceful and serene, as if the basin were too profoundly deep to register any disturbance upon its surface.

To stand upon the surface of the waters, letting the falls crash over my body, was what I hoped to do, something I'd done numerous times in my life in the Heavenly City. It was something I meant to do now, one hand linked with Zell's. But she had other ideas. As we stepped from the cliffside to the pool, she continued walking, skimming the surface, my hand firmly in hers. The portal lay straight ahead.

"Shen Li, first?" I asked.

She smiled in agreement. We stepped into the portal's shimmering light and emerged upon a terraced hillside planted with golden oak trees more majestic than any on Fair Ranar. Through those trees, down green-stepped aisles, both angels and Redeemed walked toward us, many of them carrying books, appropriate since we were on our way to one of Heaven's great caches or repositories, this one devoted to the Pergamum Branch of Overcomers. Shen Li, though of the Smyrna Branch, was one of its historian-librarians. As we climbed, at length passing through the sheltering oaks, another broad terrace opened before us. A backward look would have revealed innumerable terraces descending into a golden mist: upward, the terraces appeared just as innumerable, shrouded in the same golden mist, and in the curious geometry of Heaven, to extend forever, without end, except that the place we were headed to would eventuate in a sort of side spur upon the mountain of God.

The oaks gave way to trees never seen on earth, trees whose bark was more silvery than any birch, with flaming leaves and softly-trilling flowers that resembled oversized snowballs. Lining both sides of our path, the trees reached out to each other, branches intertwining to form a tunnel-like, close knit sylvan canopy, telling us we were nearing our destination. Beyond them we would find a bulbous prominence topped with monoliths, each a precious gemstone matching those found in the heavenly city's foundations. Though sandwiched between filigreed rings of transparent gold, they always reminded me of one of old earth's henges. Unlike the preternatural dawn silence of those places, and unlike the studied quietude of a properly run library on old earth, this place was a hive of activity.

A golden mist shot with light from the gemstones suffused the place with glory. A squarely-built figure, with eyes illuminated by stern intelligence, stepped through the entry we'd chosen and walked purposefully in our direction. My mind automatically categorized him as one of the _Watchers_ , those who'd most closely kept track of our Race's doings throughout the millennia after Adam's fall. Everything about him was block-like, suggestive of granite, including the massive head that should have struck one as alien but was nonetheless distinctly human.

"Shen Li?" Zell said, not really asking.

Our Watcher, also wingless like us, glanced at Zell in polite acknowledgement before turning piercingly gold eyes on me, tacitly indicating I alone was to meet with Shen Li. Letting go of Zell's hand, I told her I would return shortly, and followed in his footsteps. Within the henge-like circle was an arena that could easily swallow Rome's ancient Coliseum and leave room for ten more like it. Down gently graduated slopes we walked, the Watcher in the lead. Hundreds of yards below us, Shen Li turned from another of the Redeemed to await our arrival.

Throughout the arena were multitudes of others like Shen Li—keepers of the Heavenly repositories—of which this hallowed place was but one of seven. Though I didn't know him as well as I knew many of the Redeemed, I did know he'd been a historian in ancient China, one whose God-given skills translated seamlessly from earth's uses to Heaven's. The elegant woman I'd seen speaking with Shen Li exchanged smiles with me in passing, and then he favored me with a courteous bow before handing a book to the Watcher and receiving one in return.

"Walk with me, Steward John," Shen Li said, secreting the book in his robes and taking me by the elbow. The repository within the circle was immense, easily accommodating our numbers without crowding, and especially appealing for its many water features and scattering of fruit trees. Central to its most pleasant aspects were the bright voices of speech and song and the scenes that sprang from books lying open in the hands of its visitors—each story a witness to Yahweh's infinitely faceted grace toward the Redeemed. But these were the repository's surface features; beneath were hidden warrens for the books themselves, frequented by the historian-librarians and certain classes of angels on behalf of the Redeemed.

"Do you remember the old life?" Shen Li asked without preamble.

"As much as anyone," I said. "Or as little." Some of the Redeemed remembered scarcely more of the old life than they did of the nine months spent in their mother's womb, which I didn't need to point out to him! If earth's unpleasant memories had persisted for them, how could it have been Heaven?

"You're not interested in your old life?"

"Why should I be, when all around us is the eternal present and its joys?"

"So these are wrong to investigate...?" He indicated the numerous visitors to the place, all of them seemingly mesmerized by the books in their hands.

I didn't have to think about my answer; neither wrongdoers nor wrongdoing could enter or dwell here, in the New Jerusalem. If some were interested in the past, momentarily preoccupying themselves with certain of its details, doing so couldn't be wrong.

"I don't suppose anyone here is actually reviewing his or her own past. What would be the point in that? For myself, whenever I've read any of the histories, it's been about other people. Every story of how God pulled His children out of the dark planet merits some degree of fascination."

"An astute answer," Shen Li said. "I believe he would agree." By _he_ , he meant the Watcher, who continued following us at a discreet distance.

"I doubt any of his kind were interested in my story."

"You think the Watchers were interested only in the mighty—the rich—the famous?"

"Wasn't everyone else?" I asked, returning his sidelong gaze.

"We could have him tell us."

Noticing our backward glance, the Watcher advanced upon us. Shen Li bowed from the waist and was answered in like fashion.

"Melachiel?" Shen Li queried him.

"Some of my kind certainly would have followed your story, Steward John." Seeing my genuine surprise, he asked, "How many of the rich and famous have you met in your Father's house? You do remember He said it was terribly difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven, don't you? That He took pleasure in confounding the wise by exalting the humble?"

"Thank you," Shen Li said, smiling brilliantly, taking my arm again to continue our walk. "Far more interesting to see if you could guess the Father's intent, don't you think? To discover which of the first would be last, and which of the last might be first?"

His remarks gave me pause to think. What, to a Watcher, I wondered, would constitute going from last to first? Reaching Heaven itself was infinitely greater than any dream of success I ever entertained on old earth.

"You've been summoned to the throne," Melachiel called out, interrupting my thoughts. More people and angels evidently knew of my summons than I'd expected! What, I wondered, could possibly be exciting their interest?

Shen Li appeared amused. "Watchers never change," he said in explanation. "You do know many of them serve the twenty-four elders, don't you?"

If I'd ever known that fact, it'd never been more than peripherally; it wasn't like I was a member of the Holy Names Branch, who could be said to rub elbows with the twenty-four elders.

"That's why I was to meet with you?" I asked, still incredulous that the Watchers, and therefore those whom they served, had ever been interested in me.

Now walking with a slight forward bow, Shen Li folded his arms over his chest. "The life of the planetary steward—especially that rare Pergamum member—is fascinating to many of the branches, even instructive."

Everyone knew learning more about God's children and the seven branches of Overcomers was a means of understanding Him better: didn't we individually and corporately display various aspects of the Creator and His works? These were rudimentary facts. Was he about to reveal why I'd been summoned to the throne?

Reading my thoughts, he said, "I will tell you this: When any of the Watchers who serve the twenty-four elders become interested in a particular individual, it tells me I too should pay closer attention."

"One begins to recognize these things?"

"There are patterns, and this is my work—which I'm very good at—" He held up one hand to forestall further questioning and instead aimed us toward the center of the arena proper, onto a gleaming alabaster stage. Atop this stage were columns laid out in a perfect square, forming a courtyard whose circumference ran at least a mile. Like those gemstones crowning the great bowl rising above us, these too were made without human hands, made just as the city had been: but these seemed to have been carved out of sky itself, or skies of different, shifting hues, with varicolored clouds, each borrowed from a different world. The light shining from within the courtyard was like the light shining from Elyon's throne and the throne room, and each column glowed as if swaddled in a baize of emerald. I looked questioningly at Shen Li, who urged me onto the stage with a gesture of his head.

"I wish to see us remedy our lack of chronicling your life on Fair Ranar as it should be," he continued.

"How?" I asked.

Reaching into his robes, he withdrew the book I'd seen Melachiel bring him, and handed it over.

"You yourself will chronicle it for us."

"Me?"

"These things are always best written in the first person." As I reluctantly took the book from him, he reassured me that I would know what to write. "He does express Himself through each of us in a unique way, does He not?"

Beyond the courtyard's threshold, which he clearly intended to cross, lay a reflecting pool, its heart occupied by a golden altar. Was I really to enter here? From within this place, a sort of nexus, had once shone images of the earthly conflict and Heaven's victories over dark forces, while Heaven's citizens watched from upon the bowl's undulating slopes. Often, I myself had joined the thronging millions dressed in white, that veritable cloud of witnesses...

"Are you ready?" Shen Li asked.

Upon the altar was another book. Contrasting with the plain, gold-bound one I'd slipped inside my robes, this one glowed crimson and might be ruby. Even at this distance, its glory and holiness were palpable.

"The Whitestone Holder is welcome here," I said, reflexively touching the pendant hanging from my neck. Shen Li nodded in agreement, and without further hesitation we entered that sacred place, walking on mirrored water that looked, because of the courtyard's exotic columns, as if it were a moving kaleidoscope of skies beneath our feet.

The place crackled with power. Above the altar and its book, the same green effulgence that spilled between the columns splashed like a cataract poured from a great height.

"This is the second reason—the _real_ reason—you were called here."

Unsure of how to reply, and feeling nearly overwhelmed, I said nothing. What could I add?

"Have you seen it before?" He asked, surely knowing as well as I that all of the Redeemed had seen this book and their names recorded in it— _The Lamb's Book of Life_. But at this proximity? _No—_

Reverently extending one hand, he opened the book without picking it up. White light shot from its pages, cleaving the book's halo of red. Upon those pages were names written in something infinitely more precious than purest gold or the rarest of jewels—the blood of the Lamb. Seeing it, seeing my own name rise from amid the vast hosts of other names and knowing without Christ's sacrifice none of us would ever have been redeemed, my heart welled up in gratitude.

"Never forget," Shen Li said.

_Forget?_ How could I? How could anyone, when it was the basis of all that we enjoyed in Heaven? Compared to this, the most precious memories of the old life were nothing!

Raising a cautionary finger, he said, "This too."

"This?"

Nodding, he gestured for me to look closer.

I saw it then for the first time, a sort of addendum, a branching off of names. Above mine, written in fancifully ornate gold script, was my father's, ultimately beginning with Christ's, and after mine were Lulu Clause's and Tryg Olssen's.

" _Begats_ ," I said. He bowed in agreement. Underneath their names were other begats. Those under Lulu were mostly African and ran into the thousands, from a place long ago called _Burkina Faso_.

"Do you understand the importance of the begats?" He asked. The question triggered a memory of my first struggles with dry Biblical genealogies—short-lived struggles, since I'd always thereafter skipped over them in my Bible reading. Being named in such lists made all the difference in the world: through them, the Jewish exiles, returning to Israel after their sojourn in Babylon, were able to establish their authenticity as inheritors of the land and its covenants. This addendum to the Lamb's Book of Life served as similar evidence, proof of a spiritual legacy transmitted from generation to generation of believers, speaking of inheritance and its rights and advantages. Would I be standing here, now, if not for the begats that came before me? Would those names after mine be there if not for me?

"Remember," Shen Li said, bowing solemnly in my direction. "Remember also your own book, Steward John Raventhorst. Every believer's story is different: every believer's story is the same."

Turning away he walked from the courtyard, arms crossed, hunched over in his characteristic semi-bow, evidently intent upon his next appointment. At the same time, the book closed as if by unseen hands. The light emanating from its pages retreated and the crimson halo again circled both altar and book. Together, they rose into the air, drawn skyward by the cataract of emerald light.

As I watched, two magnificent angels materialized above the courtyard, their brightness equal to the molten sun at its zenith. Catching hold of the altar poles at either end, they leaned toward each other, with wings curling up and over their heads. Knowing what was to come, I held my breath in anticipation, awaiting the collision of their wingtips. A thunderous concatenation followed, shaking the courtyard, rivaled only by the resulting conflagration of glory, like one might witness at the collision of twin stars.

Then they disappeared—angels, book, and altar—instantly transported back to a greater, even holier courtyard, except that the book's crimson halo persisted for a long, ineffable moment. Seeing it finally vanish alike wrenched at my heart. How, I wondered, could Shen Li or anyone else possibly touch that book and then turn and walk away from it?

Only gradually did I become aware of the Watcher's heavy, nearly claustrophobic presence. Melachiel stood at the courtyard's threshold, regarding me intently, his gaze, from eyes too deep and massive to be human, somehow oddly familiar, doubly stamping meaning and significance upon all that I had witnessed here. Then he, too, vanished.

#

I found Zell at our usual place, in a grove beside the River of Life, along with multitudes of the Redeemed either lolling on its banks or cavorting in its water. She was conversing with an angel once mistaken by many for a cherub, one of those our ancient artists called a _putto_. Held aloft on hummingbird wings, he turned shining eyes toward me and without speaking reached with childish hands to lay a garland upon my head.

Still dazzled by the aftereffects of my experience in the repository courtyard, I sucked in my breath, inhaling deeply; woven of leaves from the Tree of Everlasting Life, its fragrance was as life giving as the tree it came from. My mind sharpened instantly, like it would from eating the fruit of those same trees. My grateful smile proved sufficient thanks to send him on his way, rejoicing at having offered humble service to one of the Redeemed.

"You didn't wait for me," I said immediately to Zell.

Her eyes flashed teasingly. "You're not the only pebble on the beach, John." Reaching into a fruit-laden branch above our heads, she plucked off a handful of berries. I expected her to hand over at least several; I could already taste them, the explosion of flavor more intense than anything old earth ever knew. Instead, her brows lifted questioningly, her blue eyes darting past me. A man approached us through the trees. As if timed precisely for his arrival, the music of the river chose that moment to reach a resounding crescendo, and with it the voices and songs of Heaven.

"I've always deeply respected you planetary stewards," he said, handing over a fruit that might have inspired the earthly mango. Before I could recover myself enough to reply, he melted back into the trees.

Zell's brows rose again, this time in my direction. I'm not sure I could have answered her if she were to actually say anything. For myself, I'd never before encountered Abel, son of the first Adam, and in my mind's eye I still saw people and angels parting for him, yielding to the great dignity of old earth's first martyr.

Not just planetary stewards in general— _you_ planetary stewards, he had said. I wondered if he meant as _opposed_ to his father Adam's failure, a failure that led years later to meeting his brother Cain in a lonely field? Regardless, coming from him I considered it high praise indeed.

My mind flashed back to Fair Ranar and Samuel Draper's summons, to the succession of events leading to this latest encounter, which seemed to be a sort of exclamatory flourish upon it all. Nothing happened by mere coincidence, leastwise not in Heaven. Were all these meant to prepare me for my summons? To reassure me in the face of its peculiarities?

"It's time, don't you think?" Zell asked.

"Time?"

"Time you saw Brother Ruben," she said. "Remember to take the very best gift you can find." Time to prepare for my summons, she meant. Walking toward the River, she waved goodbye.

"You're leaving?" I asked.

"I have a life to live, too, you know," she called back. "Besides, I've done as I was asked."

"But I thought you would go with—"

"Don't worry, John," she interrupted. "Remember you're in Heaven. It's not like being called to the principal's office."

Waving airily in my direction, she kept on walking, grinning to herself, I supposed, as conscious as ever of how she'd always been able to point out the ridiculous in me—conveniently forgetting that no earthly principal ever knew me down to every atom of my being.

Now beyond the trees and unseen, her voice carried back to me. "You do remember that our Father does all things well, don't you?"

#

_Brother Ruben_ , whom Zell had mentioned, worked on the receiving dock for a large, upscale furniture store in a famous Portland shopping mall when I first met him. African American, with silver hair and mustache, he was short but wiry from years of physical labor and, perhaps for the same reason, seemingly indefatigable. He was also the most irrepressibly jovial person I'd ever met, though behind those dancing eyes one sensed something much deeper than mirth. He expertly scanned my invoice and let out a low whistle, before shaking my hand that very first time.

"Nice meeting you," he said. "I hear you're the _artiste?_ "

I nodded, overlooking his mistake. _Artisan_ would have been more accurate, or master craftsman. As usual, I didn't want to open my mouth and instantly lose any respect a person might have for me because of my wretched stutter.

"John Raventhorst?"

When I nodded in acknowledgment, he squinted briefly at me—searching my face for signs of hostility?

"I'm Ruben Howard," he said, evidently satisfied that my nervous smile wasn't an attempt to conceal a racist streak. Folding the invoice, he shoved it into his shirt pocket. "We'll just wheel this baby upstairs to the sales floor, uncrate it and have the manager sign for it, make sure there's no damage or nothin'."

Anxious to see my clock handled properly, I followed him onto the service elevator.

"Oh, no," he said. "You're a vendor, Mr. Raventhorst. You're supposed to go to the office first and sign in. They don't like people just coming in and riding my elevator—something to do with liability, you know."

I frowned, not budging from beside him.

He looked strangely at me. I knew I couldn't just say _nothing_.

"Y-Y-You sure, M-M-Mister H-H-Howard?" I asked, unable to meet his gaze.

He cracked a smile. I couldn't help but smile in return.

"Oh gosh, it's Ruben, not Mister Howard. We'll just forget about the rules this time." He pulled down on the freight elevator cage before punching the floor number. All the way up and until we reached the correct department, he provided a running commentary of the store's history and what its prospects were up to that very month.

"Here's the package you were asking about, Mr. George—the clock, I mean," he said, halting beside a desk.

The tall thin man sitting at the desk acknowledged Ruben and me with a harried nod and kept his ear glued to the phone, while he wrote on a notepad. The warm, unusually muggy day, unaffected by the store's air conditioner, had not yet managed to force him to loosen his professorial bowtie or to remove his dark brown suit jacket.

"This is John Raventhorst, the artiste," he announced, speaking for Mr. George's (or was George actually his first name?) presumably free ear. Looking at me, he said, "I guess we'll just open it up right here."

Squinting through oversized tortoiseshell glasses, George shook his head emphatically and pointed to a narrow open space between a set of tall armoires.

Ruben grinned at his boss. "Like I said, we'll open her up over there."

Instead of wheeling the box to the appointed space, he took it to a different wall fifteen feet away, where oil paintings were on display.

"Don't worry. After you've gone I'll explain to him why that would never work. He yells a lot but always comes around to the right decision, sooner or later."

We attacked the glue and tape holding the box together. It was nearly ten minutes before the high impact cardboard and my careful packing were fully stripped away.

Ruben let out another of his low whistles. "Bless God," he said. "That is beautiful. Do you come up with your own designs?"

I nodded. He walked around my creation, admiring the stained-glass art crowning the tall case, the handsome clock face below, the glossy cherry wood body, and the ebonized door frame and glazing through which the pendulum's disk glowed with a mother-of-pearl mosaic.

Looking thoughtful, he traced the stained-glass sailboat with his index finger.

"We'll let George wind it up and start the pendulum," Ruben commented. "It'll go great with these paintings around it—should sell a bunch of them."

I doubted I would ever see a "bunch" of them sell, but Ruben knew what he was talking about when it came to displays. Even a massive Grandfather clock in the style of London's Big Ben would have been lost among those armoires.

He pulled my invoice from his pocket and scribbled his initials on it before giving me a copy.

"You go ahead now, and I'll take care of the rest."

"Y-You s-s-sure?"

He grinned at me, and explained, "I got a brother just like you. These people treat him like dirt, so I'll tell everybody you were havin' trouble with your voice—that ain't no lie, is it?"

I escaped gladly, nodding at George as I passed his desk, and fingered my throat in feigned difficulty more than was perhaps honest or necessary. Halfway down the escalator, I heard a voice scream out Ruben's name. I shot a prayer heavenward for him to quickly smooth over the problem, that he would be able to explain the placement of my clock with the paintings and how the arrival of my other clocks would demand a grouping of their own. In the years to come, even as more and more of my Grandfather clocks sold, I never did have to speak with anyone else in the store; management and buyers looked upon me as an eccentric and never questioned my refusal to deal with anyone other than Ruben.

He is still the one person I deal with when I visit my favorite mall. Besides the difference in location, though, _here_ Ruben is a Managing Director of a showcase that stretches for miles in every direction and would make anything similar of old earth look like a collection of dirt hovels. In my view, Ruben is one of many examples of "the last shall be first," of those who had simply but nobly occupied humble positions in obedience to the Heavenly will in their mortal lives. As if to prove it, among his staff are former mayors and governors—believers who had not fulfilled their calling on earth nearly as faithfully as Ruben.

An angel pointed Ruben out to me in the midst of a throng. Another angel, who stood in attendance upon him, directed his attention to me. Seconds later, Ruben rushed to me.

"Steward John," he said, extending a hand in greeting and smiling the same old jovial smile I'd known on earth, though now it was more unfettered and light-filled and ingenuous than ever. We embraced for a moment, and then he stared closely at me.

"Over 10,000 years old," he said, "and you still don't look a day over 9,000!"

I have to admit I laughed. I shouldn't have but I did.

"Same old joke and same old Ruben," I said.

"Next year it'll be 9,001 years."

"All right, all right, you can use that one as long as you like, if we can dispense with the titles."

He pulled at an ear lobe, a mannerism carried over from the former life, and smiled, conveying the same old sense of camaraderie. We began to walk together. Around us some of his aides, including a coterie of angels, kept a respectful distance and for the meantime intercepted anyone who would disturb our conversation.

"I heard you were back home," he said.

"And I'd be stopping by?"

"An easy call," he said. "You're gone so much, it's natural you'd stop by."

Once more, the heavenly grapevine amazed me. Before yesterday, I myself hadn't known I would be in the city.

"Actually, this time a messenger was sent," he told me. "I understand you're to have an audience with the King?"

I nodded _yes_.

"You'll want something special."

I nodded my answer again, hoping he would have the appropriate thing to suggest. Countless available items were under his care.

"What about one of your old Grandfather clocks?"

"You have one here?" I asked in astonishment. "I haven't brought you one in—

"In maybe those 9,000 years you don't look older than," he cracked. "You still work in the Sombrero Galaxy, right?" He asked, pulling at my arm and directing me into a building through a Mission-style archway constructed of diamond. Into the distance, stretching for hundreds of yards, were display platforms, each of them showcasing a single object of great beauty. Here were treasures brought into the city by the Redeemed from earth's four corners and also from distant planets, the glory of Kings and Queens, as it were, and of the universe's finest artisans and artists.

Directly in front of me, situated prominently in the aisle, so that anyone entering the building must walk around it to reach the rest of the store, stood the most beautiful Grandfather clock I'd ever seen. My jaw dropped in surprise at the glory and love emanating from it as if it were a living thing. Whoever designed and crafted it had done so for the glory of God, something the Spirit Himself was revealing even as we looked upon it in admiration.

Applause erupted all around me. Shocked, I finally remembered that _I_ was the designer and builder of this clock. In the old life, I would have felt like turning and hurrying off like an embarrassed schoolgirl. Here I fell prostrate, feeling vastly humbled to think that the Creator of the universe, the One who stooped to the cross, continued to Himself honor those He loves in just the manner He now honored me. Tears rushing down my cheeks, I raised my hands in praise. Without seeing it, I felt those around me falling like a wave of the sea.

I don't know how long our worship lasted, nor was I in a hurry to see it end. I do know we continued shouting and crying and singing of the Invisible One who had revealed Himself to Adam's race until a hand touched my shoulder and lifted me to my feet.

I looked into the face of Jesus. Sometimes He appears as the Ancient of Days, the white-haired Patriarch with blazing eyes seen in Ezekiel and in Revelation; sometimes as the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world; sometimes as Elder brother, although like the rest of us, transfigured as He was upon the Mount long ago. To me, at least, it seemed His eyes were especially tender. If I'd known at that moment what was to come, I wonder if I might have interpreted it as pity or sympathy?

"It is time now, little brother," He said, His intent clear. Before I could think to ask how my Grandfather clock would be transported, Jesus took me by the elbow and glanced toward Ruben and several of his assistants. Together, we were instantly whisked from treasure room to throne room without the use of portal or the assistance of angels.

The Grandfather clock appeared beside me. Ruben and his assistants bowed to Jesus and withdrew into a surrounding throng of onlookers, out of sight yet near enough for me to sense their presence. Zell was in attendance, too, waving to catch my eye, before she was screened from sight by men and women from the Holy Names Branch, each of them dressed gloriously and adorned in the power of those who serve God most intimately in the holiest of precincts. Here, in the throne room, more than anywhere else, shines most brilliantly the imprimatur upon them of Heavenly Father, the Name of the New Jerusalem, and the Mysterious Name given Jesus. No doubt, as one of the Redeemed, the names also shine brightest upon me in this place, but not to the same degree as those of the Holy Names Branch.

As I scanned the multitude, Sam Draper's eyes met mine, and we smiled in mutual recognition. Directly behind him I beheld Revelation's twenty-four elders, each adorned in the regalia of those who have served God from time immemorial. Parted from a conference among themselves, they seemed to eye me with unusual interest. My attention would have lingered on them, except for the four living creatures towering gloriously over them, and the infinitely magnetic One installed upon the throne.

Leaving my side, Jesus strode forward. The exact moment of transformation from Elder Brother to Ancient of Days, with terrible power blazing like the sun's corona from His body, was undetectable to the eye. He sat beside His Father in the throne, One marked by human vestiges, while One bore manlike _form_ but shone like living gems clothed in an emerald rainbow.

"He is here to answer your summons, Father, and beside him is his gift," Jesus said.

Their attention turned appreciatively to the Grandfather clock I'd fashioned so long ago, and then back to me. I fell to my knees like all those around me, from men to angels to twenty-four elders to the four living creatures. As always, our praises were spontaneous, with songs quickly breaking out in mighty anthems. Musical instruments of every description and variety appeared. As usual, I had no idea how long our worship and praise lasted. But as is sometimes the case even in Heaven, it seemed to last all too briefly. When one can sing any note one wishes, when one can play any instrument with skill and virtuosity, when gratitude and rejoicing meet in music and song, all of eternity does not seem long enough or deep enough to praise infinite God and Savior. Still, as always, the time came when we must put away our instruments.

Raising my eyes, I saw Yahweh the eternal self-existent one lean forward to welcome and enfold me in His wings. Surrounded as I might be, by numerous angels and men, I was shut up with Him and Him alone. On old earth I seldom felt closer than a few hundred million light years to God. In the heavenly life it is impossible, by contrast, to feel far from God. Here, in His most directly manifest presence, I knew complete oneness with both Him and the universe itself—family and place—neither of which I'd felt more than a trace before my physical death. In those timeless moments, beheld by those eyes and their transparent acceptance, I felt I was freefalling into an infinite chasm of love and joy.

Do you know why I have summoned you here?

His words had not been spoken aloud. Instead, they entered my spirit directly from His Spirit.

I shook my head. _No, Lord._ I didn't need to explain the summons was a mystery to me.

You are a Whitestone Holder, are you not, Steward John Raventhorst?

From within the recesses of my robes, I pulled out the stone given me at the Judgment Seat of Christ before my entry into the Heavenly City long millennia ago. In the prophetic book written by the Beloved Apostle, he had spoken of Pergamum's Overcomers, those who were to receive the white stone as their reward. By this stone, I first knew that none of us would ever know everything, for within the stone was written the new name given me by the Father, a secret name known solely by Him, the name that revealed to me and none other who I truly was—and was meant to be—in the deepest recesses of my being.

Fatter than a jumbo hen's egg, it glowed whiter than the whitest diamond ever imagined on old earth. If any of the old jewelers had ever seen a stone like it, they would have recognized at once that because of its perfection it could not possibly come from earth; and then they would have died from the ecstasy of beholding it. Because of my _office_ as Whitestone Holder, Pergamum Branch, I am freer than those of the other branches to perform my work throughout the universe. Because of this office, I am also freely provided the hidden manna so necessary to my work. To one and all, this stone is known as the Stone of _Yes_ , whether of my own Pergamum Branch or the Philadelphia, Thyatira, Sardis, Ephesus, Smyrna or Laodicea branches.

Here, in Jerusalem's throne room, capital of the universe, where El Elyon, God Most High, happily deigns to manifest His Royal Person and His Sovereign Rule, the Stone of _Yes_ absorbed and effused the throne's emerald light. While alive on old earth, the stone of rejection had seemed my lot, my dearest hopes, dreams, and aspirations blackballed as a matter of course. But here, in this place, I hold the white stone, the Stone of _Yes_ , symbol and key for those whose desires are true and holy, forever purified since standing before the Judgment Seat of Christ. On earth, I'd read that all the promises of God were yes and yes in Christ Jesus. In heaven, where all the promises of God had been reserved incorruptible for me, the Stone of _Yes_ opened the gates to every door I wished, every storehouse, every world.

Why was He asking me, even rhetorically, if I held the Office of Whitestone Holder? Hadn't He Himself predestined me to it, ordained me for it, rewarded me with it, empowered me in it?

To my left, I was aware of the steady, reassuring gaze of Jesus, His eyes beholding me like twin suns. Still, I was offered no insight. Looking up from the Stone of _Yes_ , I couldn't find my voice to answer. Speaking in that moment would have seemed like a profanation of that holiest of holy places, infinitely worse than the screech of chalk on a chalkboard.

You who once could not speak are free to speak here.

In a flash, I saw something long forgotten. In the old life, I had lost my tongue to cancer a year or so before my passing. If I wanted to speak, in those days, it had to be by the few words I learned in sign language. As poorly as I'd spoken before then, for awhile, before starting on sign language, I'd felt entirely cut off from the rest of the world, as cut off as my tongue. His next few words instantly erased those memories.

_I wanted you to speak to me then, and I still do._ Feeling enfolded yet more deeply in His presence and love, I said, "Yes, Lord." No words I'd ever spoken up until then had ever sounded more crystalline pure, more fitting, more right. How could I have ever said, in the old life or the new, anything but _yes_ to Him? I glanced again at the Stone of _Yes,_ and knew it was what He had _always_ wanted for His children.

_Because you are a Whitestone Holder,_ He said, _you shall see a prayer answered, a desire fulfilled, a hope realized that was frustrated while you were yet on earth. This same shall be as perfect to you as the Stone of Yes and as burnished and polished as one of your own creations, Clock Maker. This is why you were summoned here._

Suddenly released from His enfolding wings, I felt momentarily staggered at the very existence of the throne room and all those in attendance. Was there really anything or anyone outside of Him and Jesus and myself? The four living creatures, turning the full attention of their countless, unblinking eyes in my direction, steadied me. From the twenty-four elders came the sound of hushed conversation; from the angels the musical rustle of countless wings; and from the Redeemed an excited buzz.

I stood speechless, as speechless as ever on old earth. The Most High had said something to me about an unanswered prayer—an unfulfilled desire—an unrealized hope—none of which were possible in Heaven. The implications left me slack-jawed—and feeling as unenlightened as when I had entered the throne room.

"I don't understand," I said. The words were perhaps the quietest I'd ever spoken. If we'd been a roomful of people on old earth, everyone would have leaned forward, straining to hear.

_To see the fulfillment of my promise,_ He answered, _you will return to old earth._

I think I stumbled backward a foot or two. Someone's hand gripped my shoulder. I heard astonished gasps all around me. _Old earth?_ Old earth had been destroyed in the fires of judgment and renewal all those millennia ago!

"How is that possible?" I asked.

_You are Whitestone Holder,_ He said, pointedly leaving unspoken the words— _I am Yahweh._

All things are possible with God. _Most certainly._ But my understanding had always been that the past was past and no longer accessible, the way forever sealed. It had never before occurred to me that it could be revisited, except in memory or through one of the books in Heaven's libraries. Besides, wouldn't my visiting the past somehow affect the future—my _present?_ Surely, no one could be allowed to tamper with eternal destinies?

Do not fear. All things shall be as I have preordained.

Until His pronouncement, I had not realized I was experiencing a pang of fear, something that just does not exist in Heaven. Reverential fear, absolutely, but not a genuine, craven fear of things to come. Did I have reason to fear now, when it was things which _had been_ , not things to come, I was to face?

What was this terrible fixed gulf that yawned between us? I felt closer to Him on Fair Ranar, in a galaxy 50,000,000 light years away, than I did now in the great throne room. It should not have been possible, yet _was_. Could the answer to any prayer or desire be worth this?

Vaguely, I began to remember those things we simply do not remember any more, those things wiped from memory just like our tears of sorrow and grief. Was I really to return to old earth and the old life? From the twenty-four elders, those privy to the councils of God from before the creation of the old universe, I sensed eager anticipation. As for everyone else, men or angels, astonishment seemed to reign. Like me, it was evident they had never heard it might be possible for a man to be sent back in time to the old life!

In the meanwhile, the reassuring hand was still on my shoulder. Now, as I bowed deeply before leaving the throne room, that same hand dropped to mine, gripped me tightly. For an instant, I looked with astonishment into Leanhar's eyes, not realizing it was he who had steadied me at the first shock of surprise. His presence meant God had anticipated my reaction; without a summons freeing him of his duties on Ranar, he would never have left his post.

A rushing, mighty wind drove unexpectedly at us, lifting us like autumn leaves caught in an updraft. With Leanhar's wings filling like great sails, we were blown from the throne room and palace of the Great King, the motive force more aptly, if prosaically, described as the Holy _Wind_ , as the name implies, than as _Spirit_.

Except for the timely handclasp, Leanhar and I would have been driven apart like straws in the teeth of a hurricane. Instead, we were carried aloft as one, our flight dictated neither by my will nor the consummate skills of one who'd flown from the day of his creation; together we tumbled uncontrollably through the sky. On earth I remembered seeing Auntie Em's cottage fly with more grace and precision than we did in the violence of that moment.

Jerusalem's sharp spires, reaching above the city's equally golden domes, flashed like a forest of unsheathed swords and seemed to rush upwards at us from every one of its hundreds of levels. Though we were both rendered speechless by sheer exhilaration, I don't think Leanhar, in spite of his vaster experience at flight, was any less disoriented by the experience than I.

Without warning, the wind yielded and we began our meteoric fall. Miles below, a sylvan park appeared to blink into existence. I know _I_ blinked, for one moment it had not been there and in the next it simply _was_ , a park like innumerable others found in the city.

We should have fallen for at least several minutes, should have been able to reorient ourselves, to easily stabilize our flight. Instead, we broke through the upper canopy of the trees far sooner than possible. Leanhar's wings beat mightily once or twice, then dropped uncertainly as we landed, deposited upon soft turf by God's sure hand, rather than by the angelic will.

Leanhar glanced around in surprise as much as I did. The place should have been familiar to one of us but was nevertheless foreign to both of us. Its park-like setting was similar to any number of places in the heavenly sphere, Jerusalem included, but here all similarities ceased. The differences, which had not been immediately apparent from the air, soon made us both wonder if we had been transported to some other dimension. The sky over our heads, for one, was lower than any I had ever seen before, whether in the city's first level, near the twelve foundations, or those reaching into the heights reserved for the loftiest of the King's servants. For another, the incredible distances familiar in Jerusalem (where perspective is godlike—or at least angelic—rather than merely human) seemed inverted, seemed impossibly close, like I remembered some densely wooded lot from my earthly childhood. Wherever my gaze fell, any possible avenue of escape through the trees was clogged with salal or fern or huckleberry or Scotch broom or rhododendron. As a child, I would have come to this sort of place with my machete and soon cleared out a likely path to ease further exploration.

Yet, as we began to walk, the brush parted willingly for us, moving aside as though through native sentience or as if by a strong, unseen hand, even as it would in Jerusalem for anyone stamped with the King's seal. Shortly afterwards, led by the Spirit, we came to an empty space in the midst of the trees with an expanse of champagne-colored grass.

An eagle-faced angel with gloriously wild, feathery purple hair tipped with bright gold awaited us. In contrast to Leanhar, whose spirit body shines like transparent, yellow gold, this angel shone like lustrously black obsidian. I wondered how Leanhar and I could have approached the clearing without seeing him; like those who guard the City's gates, his height challenged even the trees around us. A great sword, its broad blade a scabbardless, living tongue of fire, was on his hip. From the sword alone we would have recognized him as one of those fierce ones akin to the cherubim, who guard many entryways throughout the universes. Without a word, he knelt on one knee and unfurled two of his six mighty wings, at the same time extending a long arm in a gesture of welcome.

I must have hesitated longer than he thought proper. His large eyes flashed like star sapphires, and from the arches of his wings eyes of regal emerald and topaz searched me intently.

"The holder of the white stone is welcome to enter here," he said, his voice rumbling deeply. "I have been waiting for you, fellow servant of the Lamb."

Leanhar and I both nodded our heads in acknowledgment. From my robes I pulled my white stone and let it lie in my open palm, where it pulsated with rainbow hues. Granted the guardian's reassuring nod, I replaced the stone and we set foot upon the grass.

Told in the throne room that I was to journey back through time into the old life, and now witnessing the presence of a gate guardian, I expected a gateway, a portal similar to those used in journeys throughout the universe. Instead, I saw a series of natural pools strung down the length of the clearing. None of them was larger than three or four feet across. Upon closer examination, some of them proved to be shallow, mere inches deep, like depressions in a lawn momentarily brimming with rainwater. A couple of shallower ones were little more than mud slicks awaiting re-colonization by the surrounding grass.

Where was I to find the gateway?

Taken as a whole, the wood struck me as vaguely familiar, as if I had been here before, though I knew I had not. On old earth the experience might have been called _déjà vu_. In our resurrection bodies, animated by the Spirit, no one forgets anything in this life or suffers from a lack of brain cells to remember whatever one wishes—whether that first thrill of awaiting the King's pleasure at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb those many ages ago—or yesterday's drink from the River of Life—or a brief encounter with a friend passing in the opposite direction through one of Jerusalem's twelve pearl gates a thousand years ago. In the heavenly kingdom terms like _vague familiarity_ and _vague memory_ do not exist even as an oxymoron. I had never been to this place; if I had, I would simply remember it.

What could these pools have to do with my journey?

A shiver of recognition went through me. Long before leaving old earth I had once _read_ of it in a book, or certainly a place very like it, never suspecting it actually existed. Normally, I smiled at the memory of heaven's echoes felt so long ago on earth. Directed by the guardian to a pool between two dried out depressions in the lawn, I no longer felt like smiling.

Instead, trepidation stabbed me as sharply as on the day I'd stood before the Judgment Seat of Christ, awaiting the blazing fire of God's eyes to test and reveal the worth of my efforts on His behalf. Then I'd stood shoulder to shoulder with countless other believers, from apostles whose names graced the City's foundations, to men who had not seen the light until they were upon their deathbeds. Here, in contrast, I stood completely alone, my gaze fixed upon what seemed to be a pool of black oil.

Was I to descend to the old life through that? If gold, silver, or costly jewels could be won here for God's glory, it certainly wasn't obvious. I don't know how long it was before I realized Leanhar's hand still gripped mine. His voice reawakened me, reminding me that I was not alone as I had imagined. He was with me now and had been with me for most of my life on earth, serving God as my invisible guardian until death parted my flesh from my spirit.

"You must go—" he said, his words confirmed by the guardian's nod. The hesitation in his voice disturbed me like no words could. "But I must stay," he finished.

"What?" I asked. It didn't seem possible, or fair! Now that he had left Ranar to join me here, was I still to make my journey into the past alone?

"You will not be alone, Believer John," he said, answering the voice of my spirit. His demeanor struck me as almost piteous. I must have shaken my head in alarm.

"The Leanhar of the _past_ watches over you—you will see no difference."

It was true. Long centuries ago he had protected me, cared for me, watched and helped guide my way through the twilight lands to the very threshold of death, and walked beside me as I took my first steps in this world of light. It was equally true that I had almost never felt his presence in my fifty some years on earth. So I guessed he was right—I would see no difference—which was scant consolation.

"You knew the Lord's watchful care by faith."

I nodded my head and grimaced, something the muscles of my face should not have remembered from the old life. Faith had always been a mystery to me on earth, like trying to catch the wind in my fists. In stark distinction to that, Jesus had said if we had faith as a mustard seed, we could move mountains; to him who believed, all things are possible; that with God all things are possible—spiritual truths which had remained regrettably foreign and alien to my mind even into the first millennium of His reign on earth.

Was I to slip into the same old dismal ignorance again? In the resurrection life I routinely moved mountains—literally and not just figuratively—by my faith. Didn't the transformation of worlds require mature faith, more like that of the _tree_ than the seed? Retracing my steps through time, to the time that was no more, to when it was all I could do to simply believe for salvation, was abhorrent and frightening. My heart quailed, a palpable reminder of what lay within the deep dark murk. Though fully clothed in the resurrection body with all its attendant powers, I felt the heavenly life being stripped from me, torn away like so many layers of clothing. Hadn't I begun to know this stripping away while still in the throne room? Wasn't the distance between me and God the beginning of it all?

"No spirit of cowardice can withstand the Overcomer," Leanhar spoke softly.

"No," I answered, still pondering the dark pool and paying scant attention to his paradoxical words. Spirits of cowardice, like all those in thrall to the evil one, dwell forever in the Lake of Fire. Still, the pool's stygian depths looked forbidding. It might indeed even be some sort of cousin to a black hole: hadn't black holes sometimes been heavenly conduits by which angels, who are spirits, traveled throughout the old universe? Why not here, in the indestructible heavenly city or wherever we were, as well?

Beyond was the old life. Was I really to once again immerse myself in its utter darkness?

"You will have the Light of the World as before," Leanhar said.

"Uh-huh."

"The Holy Spirit interceded for you on earth."

I nodded, still reluctant to set foot into the pool.

"The Son interceded for you before the Father in the courts of Heaven."

"Yes. Of course."

"The Word of God was yours then as well as now."

"It's not as though I can become lost," I said.

"Certainly not. Your salvation is forever secure."

" _The called are chosen. The chosen are elected. The elect are predestined. The predestined are adopted. The adopted are sealed. The sealed are accepted in the Beloved."_

I don't know which of us spoke those words—Leanhar, the guardian, or myself. It could be we spoke them in unison. But I personally capped the litany with my favorite phrase of all:

" _The accepted were redeemed and glorified!"_

Still, I hesitated to step forward into the pool, and downward, and backward through time. Was this what I really wanted to do? I didn't even know what unanswered and unfulfilled and unrealized thing it might be that God wanted to address. He hadn't actually told me!

Was this the only way He could fulfill his promise to me? Perhaps I was resting upon my bed in my heavenly mansion, daydreaming all of this? I certainly hadn't been languishing in bed when Samuel Draper arrived with his strange summons to the capital city, the New Jerusalem. Regardless of my trepidations (I hated to think of them as full-blown _fears,_ since fears were as banished as tears of sorrow and regret from this life), my journey through time was something God wanted, what King Elyon wanted, the one possible reason for my standing in this wood between worlds.

At my back a stiff, cold wind began to blow. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that neither the guardian nor Leanhar moved a wing, though their feathers were fluttering, something no mere _physical_ wind could have as an effect upon a spirit. A moment later, my own long hair and white robes billowed in front of me.

A further sharp gust teased open the black guardian's great wings. A loud flapping noise, the same as when violent winds tear at the shrouds of a ship's mainsail, assailed my ears. Almost instantly, evidently helpless to resist, he was launched into the air over my head. Shrieking like an eagle, fierce joy flashed from his face as he was borne from my sight. A split second later my lifelong companion, too, went wheeling helplessly past me and with a tremendous stroke of his wings barely managed to clear the treetops.

" _Adonai is in the wind!"_ Leanhar cried.

Indeed. Though standing as if anchored to the ground, my robes whipped around me, mirroring the storm of indecision in my soul. Adonai, Lord and Master, was giving me a choice: He had summoned me to audience but now made it clear to me that it was not His demand I do this thing. It was truly to be my choice.

At my back, the wind still blew, the same wind that had carried me to this place as a singular manifestation of God and of His will. Then why wasn't I carried aloft as well? Because the pool called to me, was meant as my destination if not my destiny?

Couldn't God have at least made the pool, this _pit_ , more appealing? I wondered. But given the choice between two good things, to return to Ranar and my unfinished labors or into the past and its unfinished business (for unfinished business was what it seemed it must be), knowing God's will, as evidenced by His audience and His signs, sealed my decision. How could it be otherwise, when performing God's will was no less joy than that of worship in His very presence?

While it seemed like long minutes to me, my inner argument was actually concluded in less than milliseconds. With Leanhar's reassuring words still ringing in my ears, I stepped into the pool and was immediately sucked downwards, swallowed up by an irresistible, swirling vortex. For the briefest of instants, I felt as though some nightmare monster had lunged up from out of the depths of the netherworld to snatch me away in its jaws. A seal taken from sunlit waters by a killer whale couldn't have felt worse.

There was no turning or looking back now!

*****

Episode Three

Not so long ago, I had discovered what I thought a meteor must feel like, as Leanhar and I streaked through the glory-filled skies of the Heavenly City. Now I was a cold dead rock plummeting through the eternal, infinite stretches of night. Could rock feel darkness crushing its chest like I did, even as the sensation of plunging downwards grew with terrible speed?

A creature of light who had known nothing but the universe of light since my arrival in heaven, I began to doubt the very existence of light. Was I predestined for this terrible fall? Was this my true end, my true destiny? Had God rejected me, cruelly allowed me into His heaven in order to torture me with the knowledge of my eternal loss? A poor soul slipping down a dark and rainy mountainside or falling from a foggy sea cliff would have felt more hope.

Little by little, moment by moment, the clock turned back and with it what I knew of God's unimpeachable goodness and of the resurrection life and its powers. Already peeled away were gifts and talents never dreamed of in the earth life. Even _memory_ of those things was fading. Could the seed dream of the flower, or the flower of the fruit? Instead, memories sunken in the graveyard of a dead universe began flashing across my vision, those things I had put behind me long ages ago, the waking nightmares that were often my life while still clothed in an unredeemed body. 10,000 years ago I had forgotten the former terrors. Now I began to remember them again, as the glories of heaven and its life failed.

Somewhere below was a sea vent, warm against the surrounding cold, nourishing with molten nutrients. Would I find it? Would I, as sightless as a sea slug, recognize it once again? Or could I rise, swimming with mighty flukes, to rediscover the world of light and heave with the relief of that first breath as I breached the ocean swells?

Where was Leanhar? Where was the Holy Spirit? Where was the Son of God? Despair caught me with its claws. Raked me. Left me bloody.

Why have you abandoned me, O my God? Why? Why? Why?

You have the Word of God.

_Yes_ , I thought, reaching out as if for a lifeline. _You remember me! I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me._ Almost instantly despair loosed its terrible grip. My eyes discerned something in the darkness— a rope woven of light itself. I didn't have to reach out; my hands already encircled it, light that stretched far above me and just as far below.

_I have the Word of God_ — I said to myself. _The prophetic word made more sure—_

No sooner had I thought that, than a faint golden blur, perhaps no more than the size of a silver dollar, appeared in the nether distance beneath my feet. Was I falling toward it—or it toward me? Whichever it was the blur grew steadily, until it resolved into a broad, flattened disk. An apparition, perhaps? Apparition or not, it seemed to be my destination, for the rope of light centered upon it like an arrow for a bull's-eye.

Impossibly slowly the disk grew, taking on greater and greater definition, with an outer boundary of darkness. Just as clearly, the blur of light became individual, countless sparks of light. After a long while, the disk shrank unaccountably to perhaps half its size, with the rope in my hands whipping against me like a bowstring losing its tautness. My sense of momentum vanished. I hung between darkness and light. To remain here forever? Like a stuck elevator car?

At a sudden jerking motion, the disk expanded beneath me, exceeding its former size by perhaps a quarter. The rope tightened. I fell again, faster than before. Six more times I saw the strange disk shrink and expand, the rope of light affected in the same way as the first. By the time the bright disk nearly filled my entire field of vision, I could discern discrete bands of light exploding outward from a center of light, with bands of darkness between. I was still on target.

In the blink of an eye, I emerged into the universe of old and dying galaxies. At long last I had crossed the dark abyss forever fixed between past and present, an abyss I thought more fixed than the one which existed between Heaven and hell.

My rope of light seemed anchored in the long-buried cosmos—or was its anchor somewhere above me, beyond the terrible abyss, stretching toward the infinity that is the New Heavens and New Earth, but especially the Eternal City, even the throne of the Holy Place? Hidden from my sight, did they still exist? Would I ever see them again?

Somewhere beneath me lay the blue-green marble of my first birth, and on that marble, spinning in the heavens, also the place of my second birth. Travel at the speed of light would have taken billions of years to cross the universe to my first home. Traveling by the same means I had first left earth those many ages ago—by the spirit—I would surely cross the cosmos as quickly as I had in leaving it for the shores of light. This time, though, no angelic companions escorted me like the soul bound for Heaven. In their place I had only the lifeline in my hands, perhaps the soul's umbilical cord anchored in Heaven since the new birth.

A dozen lights popped into view ahead of me. My first impression was of headlights racing in my direction: then, as I moved closer, that I was seeing a bizarre juxtaposition of shiny Christmas globes flying through the blackness of space. We shot past each other like cannon shells aimed at opposing targets. An afterimage of stern joy registered in my brain, of fierce angelic visages stamped by victory over dark forces, and of song and music equally triumphant. _Their_ destination was the Heavenly City: _mine_ was the battlefield.

" _Holy angels!"_

My salutation went unheeded. I may as well have been a ghost passing unnoticed through a crowd of blind men. Among them had been a soul naked except for a simple white robe. They were escorting a trophy of spiritual battle. Someone I had known—or rather knew from the heavenly life? Whoever it was, my own soul had called out in recognition as surely as I'd called out to the angels themselves.

The stars slowed down, again floated lazily in space. I had entered the solar system of my birth, a solar system broken but slated for redemption, a redemption I had enjoyed now for over 10,000 years. Ahead of me, I was gaining upon another cluster of angels, these headed toward earth. I passed through them unseen, too, just as invisible as before, and felt a sudden pang of recognition.

The time to ponder the strangeness of this second encounter passed like the strobing of a neutron star. I was hurtling much faster through space than they were, and while they were approaching Saturn, I was already within the orbital plane of Mars. Near Mars, I saw a spectacle I have never forgotten, one of the old demons in battle with a single angel who carried a human soul in his arms. Encompassed by light, the holy angel watched as though the opponent was a goldfish on the attack through an aquarium's glass walls. The demon, who appeared to be pitted stone, shielded its eyes with one free hand and wheeled blindly about with a stone sword in each of its five other hands, completely oblivious to the crumbling of its swords at each stroke against the sphere of light. Shortly weaponless, and with arms crumbling alike, the demon fell away in retreat.

"The Most High is Love," the angel spoke tenderly to the sleeping soul in his charge. "Against Him and His Light, in Whom we live, move, and have our being, the Dark Planet's so-called gods are impotent."

His words were far from new to me; the angel was Leanhar, and the human soul in his charge was my own. Clearly, I was returning to earth by the same way I had first come from it. Behind me a squad of angels was flying to meet us, the same squad I'd first seen _returning_ to Heaven, escorting my own soul. That was the reason for my disjointed sense of recognition of them—not once but now three times—I had been allowed to intersect them at various points along my own personal timeline.

Still hungering for a reunion with my old companions, my fall through time resumed. Instantly, it seemed, earth's blue disk loomed ahead, and in mute astonishment I saw thousands of those lights I had first mistaken for shiny Christmas ornaments, each of them an angel, and now each of them in individual combat, pursued by demons swarming from out of the mid-heavens—just as I had witnessed between Leanhar and myself and the hideous demon.

Momentarily shocked, I remembered having seen many demons while on earth; one Asian art museum in particular had devoted an entire wing to statues of them, where the ignorant dutifully labeled them as _gods_. The rope tautened again, plunging me toward earth, past one battle and into another. Cohorts of holy, implacable angels appeared, binding evil spirits and carrying them off to judgment. Still falling, I saw clusters of demons tearing at the souls of men who worshipped dark spirits. This was followed by the vision of a dark plain where men wrestled and bludgeoned each other in a contest more vicious than Greece's old pancratium, while monstrous scorpions crawled among them, biting and tearing friend and foe alike.

My senses were soon reeling. Visions fell across me like a kaleidoscopic hailstorm: I saw thrones where brutal, unholy powers sat, and one was unseated by a shockwave originating from the planet below; I saw numerous white-robed men and women turn their eyes toward some contest on earth and shout in triumph; I saw a seven-headed dragon, with one of its heads crushed, flying across the heavens, raking at the stars with its tail; I saw windows into other dimensions, from which sinless races seemed to be watching and pondering; I saw holy scribes escorted by fierce warriors as they walked or flew unmolested among men, angels, and demons, all the while taking notes upon tablets made of light; I saw fleets of what appeared to be flying saucers, manned by demons, streaming through a hole in the universe; I saw a throne ablaze with light being set up, and smaller thrones all around it; I saw a marble courtyard upon which stood ranks of transparent, freestanding pillars, each lit with glory, and each filled with a column of bearded human faces that stared back at me with fierce intelligence and even more avid curiosity; I saw a courtyard where two great pillars stood, morphing from shining bronze into two living olive trees dripping with oil...

The images in mid-heaven might have been infinite. Accompanying the noisy clamor of warfare were fragrances beautiful and stenches dreadful, in total a bewildering cacophony of sight, sound, and smell. One last scene stood out among the welter, that of two towering, mighty angels locked in desperate combat. One had weapons of light, the other of darkness. One was filled with stern wisdom and majesty, the other with lies and deception. One held open a narrow path, while the other guarded wide gates through which demons eagerly herded the damned.

The former was Michael, glorious and triumphant archangel, Protector of the Righteous. The latter was Discord, though perhaps that was his character and not his name, or after all these years I had simply forgotten what he should be called. But this and the previous images faded, quickly replaced by others, as I continued in freefall toward earth, the world men had once called _a mere speck in the vast cosmos; a backward planet situated on a remote arm of an obscure galaxy; cesspool of the universe; sinkhole of creation_ ; failing because of their spiritual blindness to see it as the battleground of demons and angels, nursery for the spirits of Adam's race, who were to inherit eternal life and to be co-rulers of the universe with Yahshua HaMeshiach, the One who came to be known in the West as Jesus Christ.

The earth flattened out before my eyes and seemed to be unrolling, transforming itself into what I recognized as a sort of Mercator projection. Instead of the expected continents and their mountains and plains and lakes and rivers, the entire earth was under a haze of smoke, with continents morphing into scenes uncannily like animated cartoons. Below me America had become a marble and gold edifice, its foundations licked by fire, its spires struck by lightning; Europe a rococo graveyard; the Mideast a trampled, bloody field; Africa a raging river of floating bodies; Asia a vast desert with oases springing anew; Australia a prison with its doors beginning to swing wide; South America a dark village with streetlights ablaze. Combat raged in all of them, and amid fire and darkness solitary lights shone brilliantly, like the stars in the heavens.

All these things I saw in the spirit, and then I was suddenly blind, like after my first step into the dark pool, though this time I felt myself spinning head over heels—tumbled—rolled—one moment battered, the next thrust into a green flash of light, and then pushed from behind and sunk like a stone. The battering recommenced, and was interrupted by some force bent upon lifting me toward another flash of light. Helpless against these strange forces, I was carried inexorably along, as if I were a piece of ragged driftwood plunging beneath a raging tide. Space with its stars was gone, as were the continents and the spiritual map I'd glimpsed. The rope of light, if it ever really existed, had disappeared, perhaps lost in the tide.

Then I was arching my neck and raising my head above bitterly cold water for a gulp of air. For one instant I caught a glimpse of raging, foam-wreathed surf—before plunging again beneath the blue waves. Saltwater and liquefied sand filled my nose, eyes, mouth as I was rolled about like a stone in a lapidary's drum.

#

What at first I thought were two white butterflies flitting across my field of vision resolved into white little hands busily twisting around each other in arcane gestures.

"C'mon Jackie-boy, get with it! We wanna go!"

I had the first boot on, had tied my childish foot into it with the same complicated lacing scheme I'd seen my father perform a thousand times before. It would never fit but I thought it would probably stay if I walked carefully enough. The other boot, also a discard my father meant to plant with hens-and-chicks, had lost its rawhide lace.

"C'mon, c'mon, we can't wait all day," the same girlish voice said. "By the time we get to the beach, the waves will all be gone."

I turned, glancing at Lulu Clause, my neighbor, who as usual was dressed in a pair of green bib overalls. Bib overalls because she was a tomboy. Green because it fit her mother's idea of femininity. Under the shoulder straps, one buttoned, the other hanging loose, she wore a raggedy, formerly white t-shirt. She impatiently tapped one bare, tanned foot on the concrete porch.

I glanced around, looking for whatever I might use to lace on the other boot. Lulu thought I was a sissy for sure, but the rocks in my driveway and the road that led to the beach two short blocks away were sharp and uneven, too harsh for my tender little feet. Lulu didn't mind a few sharp rocks—or broken glass, either. Her feet were tougher than the worn old shoe leather of my father's caulk boots.

"Leave him alone," her brother said. "You're always pickin' on him."

She crossed her arms over her chest and let out a loud, dissatisfied _huh!_ Her brown, curly hair bounced with the gesture.

Claude, her brother, in jeans with cuffs rolled up high and a sleeveless undershirt, didn't have her curly hair or her freckles or button nose. Instead he had the same tough feet. If she had hit the ground running barefoot since her birth seven years ago, he had hit it ten years ago.

I was still hurriedly rifling through a jumble of boxed chainsaw parts and other mechanical odds and ends, which had migrated to the porch from my father's workbench in the carport, for something to tie my boot. Claude picked up a rusty Folgers can and carelessly jammed his hand into its contents and stirred them up.

"Maybe we shouldn't take him to the beach with us?" Lulu suggested. "We are supposed to be baby sittin' him."

I watched anxiously as Claude stirred the rusty screws, nails, burnt out fuses, and other parts for which my father swore he would someday find a use.

Claude's response to his sister's suggestion was a quiet, "Mmmh."

"What if something happens to him?" She whined. "He's not much of a swimmer."

"Didn't know _you_ could swim," Claude muttered, shaking the can in disgust. Giving up, he poured out the contents onto the porch. "Besides, we're takin' him with us _because_ we're baby sittin' 'im. Hard to baby sit somebody long distance, you know."

From the resulting heap he pulled an old watch spring, its blued metal rusted like the nails and screws, and turned to me with a triumphant smile.

"Whaddya think, Jack? Will it work?"

I thought so. I eagerly grabbed it from his hands and began stretching it apart. It was easily long enough to wind around the boot top.

" _Keerful_ , now, don't cut yourself," Claude said encouragingly. He turned to his sister. "We can't just leave him here all alone—if you want to see the waves, we got to take him with us."

"You're just thinkin' of cookies," she said.

"Maybe," he said, shrugging. "Look at him go, Lulu! He sure is clever with his hands for a little guy."

"I'm not gettin' in trouble over him like the last time," she said, stamping her foot again.

Finished tying the boots, I looked up in triumph. I eagerly lifted a foot and stomped down hard, chipping off a few more flakes of red paint from the concrete. To celebrate my accomplishment, I did the same with the other boot.

Lulu skittered away as if I planned on stomping her foot next, maybe wanted to puncture it with all those nasty little spikes. She was probably right to move away—no matter how tightly I'd secured the laces, one a watch spring and the other a worn rawhide string, and no matter how small my father's feet might be, size 7 EEE to be exact, those boots weren't going to stay attached to my feet forever.

"Thattaway!" Claude exclaimed. "Off we go, Jackie-boy."

We left the porch, with me awkwardly clomp-clomping at Claude's side, and Lulu assiduously keeping her brother between us. The last time she had gotten in trouble over me was because of an umbrella. Everybody in the neighborhood said it was because you couldn't really make an umbrella into a parachute. She figured I just hadn't climbed high enough in the tree behind our house or maybe popped the umbrella open quite fast enough to make it work right.

"Wow! Look at those waves, willya!" Claude exclaimed. "Nine feet! Can you believe it?"

"Y-Y-Yeah," I said. Holding onto his hand, I stared at the beach. The morning fog had lifted, revealing waves that looked no higher to me than usual. Still, if he said so then they must be, even if I couldn't see anything different. Same beige sand, with the same madly hopping sand fleas as usual, that's for sure. Same few rock needles standing far out in the waves, too, the same riprap lining the shore, and the same driftwood tangled for miles both north and south, after which the town was named.

Much earlier that morning, my mother had been putting the finishing touches on her cloud of blonde hair when I opened the front door for Gerda Clause, Lulu and Claude's mother.

"She still primping?" She asked, starting through the living room and glancing into the empty kitchen without waiting for an answer.

"You in your bedroom?" She called out. She didn't wait for my mother's answer, either. She walked straight to the open bedroom door and stared in.

My mother was seated at her vanity table. The table was painted white, with gilt edging, and both tabletop and mirror frame echoed the curves of a violin. My father, who dabbled in furniture making when he wasn't logging, had seen something like it in a museum and made it for their fifth anniversary. Besides her hair brushes, it was her most precious possession.

"Did you know we was havin' nine foot tides today?" Gerda asked.

Mother's eyes shifted momentarily to Gerda in the mirror. Her lips turned down in a pout. She flounced her hair around her shoulders one last time and carefully set down her hair brush, before smoothing out the shoulders of her sweater.

"I'd sure like to have me a look at those tides," Gerda announced.

"A nine foot tide or nine foot _waves_ , Gerda? There is a difference, you know." my mother said, standing to admire herself in blue jeans and a lemon-yellow, chenille sweater. She had lived all her life on the Oregon and Washington coast and didn't much care about tides or waves, whether they were six inches or sixteen feet. "You can see the ocean anytime."

Gerda was originally from the Ozarks. Stubbornly, she said, "Yeah, but nine feet—"

"Try adding a couple feet in your imagination," Mother said, grabbing her black patent leather clutch from the table. "Do you want to go to Astoria with me or not?"

"Well, sure," Gerda answered uncertainly, as Mother herded us out of her bedroom.

"You do still have the money you saved for that dress? You didn't lose it in a card game, did you?"

Gerda snickered, her face turning red when she realized I was listening.

Stopping for a closer look at her, Mother asked, "Oh, Gerda, couldn't you wear something nicer to town?"

"I-I—" When flustered, she stammered as badly as I did. Like my mother, Gerda wore jeans; unlike Mother's, hers were wrinkled and not nearly as tight fitting. Instead of a sweater she wore a plain white blouse. An ink stain over the breast pocket matched the blue of her jeans.

"And your hair! What a mess!" She ran back to her bedroom, returning shortly with a red cardigan and a matching red scarf. Ordering Gerda to hold out her arms, she helped her into the sweater and then demanded she take off her glasses. Draping the scarf over her head, she gathered the corners together and tied her knots, completely hiding her mousy, brown hair.

"Much better!" She said, standing back for a look.

"Really?" Gerda asked, fumbling with her wire-rimmed glasses.

Except for my mother urging us to the front door, Gerda would have taken a long look at herself in our living room mirror. In spite of my ignorance of fashion, I supposed she would have seen the improvement. Gerda wasn't unattractive; she actually had a pretty, country girl's sort of face. Unfortunately for her, her fashion sense was stuck somewhere back in the distant Ozarks. As for my mother, she drew stares wherever she went, and women were always asking her for advice about their clothing and makeup. Her softly lilting accent, passed on to her from her Finnish-born parents, seemed to be another plus in her favor, too, though I didn't know particularly why it should, considering half our neighbors were of Finnish or Swedish extraction.

As soon as we stepped outside and closed the door behind us, Mother snapped open her purse and pulled out a box of cigarillos and her Zippo lighter. With her purse tucked under one arm, she lit a cigarillo and at the same time placed her free hand under my chin.

She stared into my eyes.

"Now, Jackie, are you listening to me?"

I stared back, fascinated by the lit cigarillo waggling between her pink lips. In the town of Driftwood Bay, in the 1950's, many women weren't daring enough to smoke cigarettes in public, much less a cigarillo—yet another point of curiosity for folks, some of it less than friendly.

As an aside, she said to Gerda, "You have to look boys straight in the eye—just like a dog, Gerda. That's the only way they'll listen, you know."

Her hands, always as soft as rose petals, gripped me tightly.

"Are you?" She demanded. "Listening, I mean?"

I nodded.

"You stay out of trouble, do you hear?"

My eyes watered from the tobacco smoke.

"And don't let that—" she hesitated a moment, glancing at Gerda before continuing. "Don't let precious little Lulu talk you into anything you shouldn't be doing. Your father isn't made of money. If you do hurt yourself, I don't want to hear about it—you just keep it to yourself."

I nodded again.

"I've asked Claude to look after you. He'll make a peanut butter sandwich for you at their house if you get hungry. Do you understand?"

Seeing I did, she released her grip.

"We'll stop and buy cookies at the bakery in Seaside, but Claude knows neither one of you'll see even a crumb if I hear you've been a bad little boy."

"Y-Yes, M-M-Mama. I-I-I'll b-be g-g-good."

"You better," she said. Gerda smiled at me and waved, going ahead of my mother to my dad's black '55 Chevy Bel Air coupe.

"Well, _do_ you still have it?" Mother demanded of Gerda.

"Have what?" She asked, obviously flustered at this seemingly out-of-the-blue question.

"Still have your money? You never did answer me, you silly goose."

"In my purse," Gerda answered, primly straightening up and squaring her shoulders before tugging open the passenger door. She slid in and rolled the window down.

"Mr. J. C. Penny is not about to sell you that dress on your good looks alone, Gerda," Mother lectured, as she walked to her own door. She settled behind the steering wheel and checked her hair in the rearview mirror.

"Maybe if _you_ asked him, he would," Gerda replied, attempting a smile.

"Gerda, he's not a _real_ person, you know."

"J. C. Penney not a—? Are you sure?"

"All those people are made up names. Didn't you know?"

"Then who's in those pictures you see of him?"

"Oh hush!" Mother said, digging through the bottom of her purse for her keys. "Just because you've seen the Jolly Green Giant on a can of beans doesn't mean he's real, does it?"

Gerda looked askance at her. "I don't think that's the same, Emilie."

Mother had found her keys. She ignored Gerda's response and started the car. She fixed her eyes on me as she backed from the driveway.

"And you stay out of the house until we come back. I don't want you tracking dirt all across my nice clean floors."

I nodded. She drove perhaps ten feet down the road, and then stopped the car and threw it into reverse. Gerda, busily winding the window up, wound it back down.

"If you can't find something to do with yourself," Mother said past Gerda, "you can cart some of your father's junk from the porch and put it on his workbench. Maybe that will keep you out of trouble."

"Y-Y-Yes, M-Mama."

The tip of her burning cigarillo winked goodbye at me. I watched until they turned the corner and were lost from view, hoping that they weren't really going to Astoria, that it was all a game, that they would return in a minute or two. After five minutes of waiting, of staring forlornly at the end of the street, I took a long look around the porch. It was littered with a dozen or more cardboard boxes, most of them open to the elements, stuffed full, as my mother had said, of my father's junk. I already knew I couldn't actually lift any of them.

Mother had said _if_ I couldn't find anything to do with myself. I wandered over to my red tricycle and pulled it out of the weeds growing up against our white picket fence. My father didn't like mowing and weeding any more than he liked picking up tools after himself. I dragged my trike into the gravel roadway instead of trying to push it through the high grass, and began riding. Claude and Lulu wouldn't be over for another hour. They liked to sleep in late on summer days.

All of that had been hours ago, long before Claude and Lulu finally made it over to my house. Now, Claude walked me down the short path to the beach past clumps of tall sword grass. Lulu waited for us to reach bottom and then ran out to the water without asking permission. The dry, fluffy sand squeaked under her feet as she darted off.

Letting go of my hand, Claude followed her. Watching them, as they began chasing each other barefoot through a tide pool, I forgot all about my mother's remonstrations, all about cookies and other dire warnings. Nothing other than Lulu and Claude, the roar of the surf, and the wind in my hair, was on my mind.

Running over soft sand in my father's boots was impossible. Even walking was difficult, until I reached the area compacted by the waves. With arms held wide open, I marched up behind Lulu. Noticing Claude look in surprise at something over her shoulder, she turned and let out a loud shriek at finding me almost upon her. She jitter-bugged out of my grasp, and I turned to follow.

Claude splashed out of the tide pool and ran after her, easily outdistancing me, which didn't say that he was fast enough to catch his sister. Each time he lunged toward her, she gave him the slip and bolted in the opposite direction.

"Look, Jack," Claude said, coming back to me. "You keep chasing her no matter what. Sooner or later I'll herd her into your arms, okay?"

I watched eagerly as he ran after her, hounding her, trying to drive her back in my direction. She was too smart and too nimble for us, aided as she was by all sorts of logs or piles of driftwood she could leap over, run atop, or step between to evade capture. Shrieking with unbridled joy, she laughed or called us names unfit for the ears of adults, once in a while adding insult to injury by clipping me on the ear or swatting the back of my head as she swept by without my laying a finger on her.

That said, she couldn't dodge the two of us forever. Gasping for breath, she finally stopped, leaned over at the waist, and rested her hands on her knees. Equally spent, Claude gave up the chase and stared haggardly at his sister.

As for me, I marched gleefully on, arms held wide, finally ready to grab her from behind. At my very moment of victory I saw Claude's jaw drop.

"Run!" He yelled. Lulu sprang into action, doing just as her brother had said. Sprinting past him, she scampered up the gnarled branches of an old driftwood log that seemed to have been planted upright in the hard damp sand by a giant's hand. Taking his own advice, Claude quickly scrambled after her and urgently shouted for her to climb higher.

Until the noise of the surf rose behind me, I thought it was part of our game. A wall of water was headed in my direction. Somehow over its roar I heard Claude and Lulu screaming at me to run.

A log bigger around than I was tall, and easily thirty feet long, was beside me. I had just time enough to clamber aboard. From my vantage point I looked down upon the wave, as it rolled in, unaware, in my childish ignorance, of how easily a wave could carry a log out to sea as if it were no more than a matchstick. If I had known that smaller waves routinely threw ashore logs just like mine, I might have been frightened.

Gulls cried overhead. Behind me, Claude and Lulu were screaming. The wave hissed as it surged around the end of the log. I felt a sudden lurch, like a car quickly accelerating from a standstill. The log rolled.

In caulk boots my father, who had won more than one log-rolling contest, might have rolled that log across the entire width of the bay. Me it threw. I tumbled into the surf and barely missed being struck in the back of the head, as the log bounced under a second roller. Even while I struggled to right myself, the tide sucked back out, rolling me with it, first sending me to the sandy bottom in those heavy caulk boots, then yanking my feet out from under me and somersaulting me forward, toward a stretch of the beach famously treacherous for its rip tides.

Still, I wasn't scared. The relentless waves beat all fear out of me, beat out of me almost everything not related to catching a breath of air. If I thought of anything at all, it was that I would never again see my mother or father. _Never again... never again... never again..._ thoughts the malevolent surf seemed intent upon drowning out before finally drowning me.

From nowhere, a hand reached down and plucked me half out of the water. A muscular arm encircled me. A desperate struggle toward shore commenced.

Give him the works!

The works?

Full power, you heard me!

Lightning shot through my body. My neck arched and I felt cold fire racing down my throat into my chest and arms. I convulsed against the metal table.

The strange voices faded into the distance. Soaking wet, I was standing up with my hands holding onto the seat in front of me, watching over a stranger's shoulder as he drove. A woman sat next to him.

"If his hair wasn't red—" she sobbed.

He took one hand off the steering wheel and patted her knee.

"If his hair wasn't red—" she sobbed again, as if I weren't standing right behind her.

"But his hair _is_ red, red as a copper penny," he said, shaking his head wonderingly. "That's why you were able to see him in the surf, and that's why I was able to save him. Even then, when I got out in the water, I almost lost sight of him."

"I'm just glad we were driving by," she said, her voice teary. "Do you really think he knows where he lives, Eddie? He's awfully young."

"You know where you live, young fella?" Eddie asked, looking in the rearview mirror for my answer. "You don't say much, do you?"

I nodded, and he laughed.

"But you can point out the right roads?"

I did as he'd asked—pointed the way home.

My father's rust bucket pickup truck was parked out front. Homelite chainsaw in one hand and a five-gallon gas can in the other, my father was headed into the carport. Steel hardhat cocked on the back of his head, suspenders hanging loosely over his work pants, caulk boots thrown over one shoulder, he wore the beat up old slippers he liked to drive in when on his way to work or coming back. An unlit Camel cigarette dangled from his lower lip. His eyes widened, as he saw the burgundy-colored Buick coupe pull into the driveway.

Eddie opened the car door and stepped out.

"You the owner of a fine, red-haired young lad?" He asked. As my father approached, Eddie flipped the seat forward and lifted me out.

"Looks like a drowned rat to me," my father said, throwing his head back and laughing. The woman leaned over in her seat to speak through the open door.

"The tide was taking him out to sea. Eddie had to go in after him."

"That right, son?" My father asked, though he didn't have to; Eddie's jeans and short-sleeved checked shirt were as soaked as mine.

"He doesn't talk much, does he?" Eddie asked.

As if lost in deep thought, my father scratched at his dark stubbly beard and stared at me curiously.

"Nick," he said, vigorously wiping his hand on his shirt before sticking it out for the other man to shake. "Nick Raventhorst."

"Ed Rhone," he replied, wincing at my father's handshake. "And this is my girlfriend, Sylvia."

"Nice to meet you folks. You want a towel or something, Ed? You don't want to ruin your nice new car."

"No, no, that's okay, I have a blanket to sit on. I'll just get on home and change my clothes."

My father extended his hand again. "Any thing you ever need, Ed, you just let me know, okay?"

"Don't worry about it, it was a privilege," he answered solemnly. "It's not every day I save a life."

"What do you do for a living?" My father asked, as Ed backed his car from the driveway.

"Doctor—I'm the new doctor at the clinic."

"I'm a logger," Father said unnecessarily. "Anything you ever need, you let me know. _Anything_ —"

I waved as they drove off.

"Why the devil are you wearing one of my old caulk boots, and where's the other one?" Father demanded. When I didn't answer, he shook his head and gestured for me to follow. Muttering, he added, "I could kick a pig, get a better answer than out of you, boy."

My mother woke me up from a sound sleep. She sat on the bed and tousled my hair.

"Your father tells me you took a swim today."

Remembering my tumble through the surf, how I was sure I would never see her again, I stared as if speechlessly memorizing every feature, her large green eyes beneath thin, sculpted eyebrows, the heart shaped face with small but shapely nose, evenly spaced perfect teeth, ears tucked well within her voluminous hair—

" _Don't you think the oxygen flow should be upped, Doctor?"_

" _In the old days they didn't even use oxygen."_

" _Or muscle relaxants, I know. Is that what this is all about? You're trying to see if you can get better results by those same old methods? Prove you're smarter than they were?"_

" _Just do as you're told."_

The jarring voices faded, replaced by equally jarring, ghostly images that played across a sort of inner movie screen. First she sat next to me with her arm curled around me, tucking me under her chin, and then I saw a shorter-haired version wearing a different outfit, watching through the Venetian blinds to make sure my father really was driving away. This woman didn't know I, in turn, watched her through a crack in the door, that I could hear her as she dialed the phone and spoke quietly to someone.

The scene shifted. She smiled with relief that I was leaving for the summer to stay with a childless aunt and uncle in California.

Again the scene shifted: my mother, yelling and screaming at my father, raised a knife in the air. Turning in what appeared to be slow-motion, he knocked it from her hand as easily as someone else might swat a fly.

Blinking hard, I again found myself staring into my mother's eyes. Stroking my hair, she let out a sigh. "I don't suppose you can tell me what you thought you were doing at the beach," she said, hugging me tighter. "Ohh! I remember, Gerda's nonsense! She wanted to stay and see the high waves, didn't she? And Claude and Lulu wanted to see them, too. Is that why you were in the water? Nitwitted Lulu had to play in the surf? Didn't I tell you not to let Lulu talk you into anything you shouldn't be doing?"

I was tired. I closed my eyes and her voice dropped away. My father was leaning over me. Even with my eyes closed I could still tell he'd had his bath. He smelled like the powdered laundry detergent he bathed in every day after work to wash the smell of gasoline from his skin.

"You'll get through this like you've gotten through everything else, Johnny," he said.

_Get through what?_ I wondered.

"This too shall pass," he said quietly. "At least that's what your grandmother always says."

A smile was in his voice. "Of course she doesn't say it in English, and she likes to add that all good things pass along with the bad ones."

Which grandmother? I wondered. His mother was Romanian and my mother's mother was Finnish. Neither one of them spoke English with ease. Some people thought maybe I had trouble speaking because of my spending so much time in their company instead of with my parents. Which didn't explain a lot since neither my father nor my mother stammered or stuttered, and each had grown up with English as a second language.

Staring out through slit eyelids, I pretended to sleep. One moment I had been listening to my mother and the next to my father. One moment I was looking into my mother's beautiful face, the next my father's dark, craggy visage. Against my father's wishes, she was smoking in the house, while he had his usual pinch of Copenhagen tucked in his cheek. The flat round can was clearly visible in his t-shirt pocket. One day the unfiltered Camels he loved, and that little can of smokeless tobacco, would ravage his muscular body...

Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I could still smell mother's cigarette. I certainly smelled tobacco on my father's breath. I took a lungful of air through my nostrils, loving the fragrance of tobacco and the scents of mother and father.

" _No, no, open your mouth, I said. I didn't tell you to take a deep breath."_

I reflexively gritted my teeth.

" _Open your mouth!"_

Icy chills shot through my body. Though my eyes were shut, I felt the world spinning around me, tumbling me end over end over end.

" _Open your mouth, Mr. Raventhorst!"_

This time a slap came with the order. My eyes flew open.

The face hovering over me held no more than a vague resemblance to my mother's. The hair was short and blonde, the eyes blue, the features pudgy and not nearly as refined. The stale smell of tobacco rolled over me from her open mouth.

Leaning closer, she smiled triumphantly. The look on her face made me want to slug her. What was wrong with my hands and arms? Try as I might, I couldn't move them an inch. I seemed completely paralyzed.

She leaned closer still, and that was when I arched my back and flung myself at her.

" _Omigod!"_ She screamed, jerking away, her hands flying to her face. "My nose! My nose!"

Footsteps hurried off. Another face leaned over me. This one was black, male, very round, clean-shaven, and much more kindly looking.

"Well, I'm sure that about tears it with her, Mr. Raventhorst," he said, returning my gaze without coming closer.

"Wh-Wh-Wh—" I struggled to speak, the words refusing to form on my lips. What could possibly be wrong with me? All I wanted to ask was, _Where am I?_ Why had the strange woman wanted me to open my mouth? Why had she slapped me? If my mother or father had seen her, she would have had worse than a broken nose.

"Mr. Raventhorst?"

That _Mister_ business again. Why didn't my father answer him? I stared into brown eyes shading into black, pools almost deep enough to fall into.

"Will you open your mouth for me?"

Why was he calling me, a little boy, _Mister_? Was it like Uncle Erke calling me _Mister Jackie_?

"Don't you remember me, Mr. Raventhorst?"

I must've shaken my head.

"I'm Ralph, your friend. I'm trying to help you."

I opened my mouth. The man stuck a raspy finger inside my cheek and began fishing around for something.

"Here we go," he said, retrieving a capsule from beside a back molar. "You're wise not to swallow something like that."

He offered me a cup of water in exchange. Dutifully, I took a sip.

"She'll be back with a needle, I can guarantee you," he said. "But maybe I can talk to her, tell her I got you to swallow it."

He must have read the questions in my eyes.

"Tell you what. Why don't we get you up and into the shower? That way if she comes back she'll just have to hang fire until you darned well feel like coming back to bed. If I know her, she have to wait too long, she'll give up all right—"

Under his breath, he added a few, familiar sounding curses, and began working at my wrist restraints.

"Mr. Raventhorst, you ever read that book, _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_?"

_One what?_ I shook my head.

"Our Nurse Jo, she's worse than her," he said. "Most of us around here call her _Nurse Wretched_. Not that we say it to her face, naturally."

Neither the book nor the name meant anything to me. But my eyes widened, as first one hand and then the other came free of the restraints, hands that proved to be deeply callused and, even more surprisingly, with muscular arms attached to them. I wasn't a little boy. I was a man, and I was in the nuthouse again. Let everybody else call it an Insane Asylum or something polite like State Hospital: to me it was the _nuthouse_.

*****

Episode Four

Amid a vast sea of trees that marched toward the distant horizon, two men stood like gods. One held a double bitted axe, its blade as shiny as molten silver and its creamy wooden handle as beautiful as a Louisville slugger. The other man, identical axe resting over one shoulder, pointed at the surrounding forest with his free hand. The first was my father, the other my Uncle Erke: sunbeams seemed to radiate from their faces, and at their smiles the mighty Sequoias trembled.

The dream faded...

#

Ten of us, me in pajamas and bathrobe, everyone else in street clothes, were in the dayroom, facing each other in a circle of folding metal chairs. A lab-coated, white-haired, overweight older man, who seemed to be in charge, sat with a stack of manila folders on his lap, holding the top one open with his right hand while he wrote with his left. He adjusted his black horn-rimmed glasses before looking up and focusing his attention on me.

"You do know why you're here, don't you, Mr. Raventhorst?"

His milky blue eyes inspected me as if he couldn't possibly make the psychic connection between the shell that is the body and the person living inside. I stared down at hands lying unfolded like an open book in my lap. They were strong and callused, obviously the hands of a working man but with neatly-trimmed nails.

_Why am I here?_ I asked myself. Vaguely, I remembered waking up to the sight of a woman's face hovering over me like a vulture ready to tear out my eyes.

Next to the man in charge sat a blonde in a nurse's uniform, the one woman in our midst. Except for a bandage over her nose, she might be the vulture-woman, Nurse Jo. She seemed to enjoy the doctor's interrogational style. As the seconds dragged by, her grin stretched wider, pulling her lips back from her eyeteeth as if in anticipation of an easy meal.

A barrage of mental images flashed across the inner screen of my mind. None of them made sense, none could be connected with any sort of continuity or logic. They just _were_ , with their meaning tantalizingly out of reach, if they could be said to have meaning at all. Mostly, the images were of my mother and father, of shouting matches with the sound alternately blaring and fading, like with poor radio reception. Every once in awhile a momentary flash of scenery was thrown in, of an impossibly brilliant city or of miles and miles of forest stretching toward the far horizon. Everything else was a total blur. Somehow, I had grown into adulthood without the attendant memories. How could I possibly know what had brought me to this place or who these people were or what they wanted?

"I don't know," I finally managed to answer, each word arriving in multiple, tortured syllables.

Titters broke from around the circle. The nurse grinned wider. The doctor stared over his glasses and wrote again in the folder.

"A few more electroshock treatments and we'll take care of that stutter of yours," he announced.

"Delusional," one of the inmates to my left opined. I wasn't sure who was the target of his remark; all I knew was that I didn't like the sound of the word _electroshock_.

The doctor slapped the folder shut. "In the meantime," he said, "we'll continue with your daily doses of Thorazine."

#

" _Do you hear voices?"_

I was unaccountably in the dayroom again—the same morning sun shining through the windows on my face, the same doctor, the same circle of inmates. The single glaring exception was Nurse Jo's purple, swollen nose, impossible to hide under makeup but remarkable for the vanished bandage. One moment I thought it was glued to her face, the next it disappeared, like a magic trick. Had I taken my eyes off her face at the wrong moment?

I must have looked blankly at the doctor, because he repeated the question, this time changing it to, " _Are_ you hearing voices?"

"Why, are you?" I asked in complete confusion.

The circle nearly exploded with laughter. Because of my usual stammer? The man in charge held his lips in a tight, straight line. The nurse frowned as if swallowing bile.

"This isn't about me, Mr. Raventhorst," said the doctor in measured tones. "You're the one in treatment. Surely you remember that much?"

"Sure, nothing's wrong with my hearing."

He did a slow simmer. After a few moments he steadied himself and poised the pen over the open folder once more.

"And what are these voices saying to you?"

Hoping to discover some clue as to what my answer should be, I glanced at the others. Despite a couple of encouraging smiles, nothing came to me. Simpkins, who always looked like I was wasting his time and would just as soon kill me, threw me an angry smirk. Everyone else stared at their shoe tops.

Harry Shin, the single Asian inmate in the circle, began to whistle thinly. He stopped at Nurse Jo's sudden hiss.

"We're waiting, Mr. Raventhorst," the doctor said. We're all waiting."

"They keep asking me questions."

"Now we're making progress— wh-wh-wh-what a-a-are these q-q-questions?"

He had my attention now. Mimicking was a low blow, and cruel, especially coming from him. The explosion of laughter this time sounded like a pack of nervous hyenas.

"They want to know if I'm hearing voices," I answered.

The laughter died away. The inmates sat in stunned silence. Eyes bulging in anticipation, every face turned toward the doctor. Unable to hold back any longer, they erupted in laughter, now against _him_.

" _All right, Jack, got him that time!"_

In the ensuing uproar I wasn't sure I'd heard right, or if maybe several inmates had shouted it at the same time, though I would have sworn Simpkins was the loudest of the bunch. Instantly red-faced, the doctor bent over my folder and scribbled furiously. Stabbing the paper with a final period, he slapped the folder shut with all the violence he could muster.

"I think that's enough for the day."

Nurse Jo looked confused. "We've just started—"

He rose to his feet. "If Mr. _Ravinghorse_ ," he said, "can't contribute to the group, and the group takes everything as cavalierly as he does, there's no point in continuing, is there?"

Nurse Jo gave me an evil look. "I don't suppose there is, Doctor.

"Do you," she said, addressing the group, which was well along the way to moving the chairs to their usual places around the room, "do you, I ask, expect to get well, if you can't take our work here seriously? Isn't it important to you?"

Dr. Laberly, folders and all, disappeared through the door, showing his back to us for the last time that day.

Dog-eared playing cards were already coming out, a cribbage board, and several sets of dominoes. No one mentioned that people never seemed to get well under her ministrations or the doctor's.

"No games today!" She burst out.

Mouths hung agape. Shin, eyes darting at me, nervously shuffled his deck of cards.

"No entertainment!" She declared loudly. "No amusement! We are not amused!"

She stood to her full height and thrust out her chest, her breasts shaking with fury. "Orderlies!"

Three orderlies, huddled by the door since Laberly's departure, answered in unison.

"Yes?"

"Make sure the card tables are put away."

"Ma'am?"

"They may have their magazines—nothing else!"

"Aahh—" Shin started, quickly lapsing into singsong incomprehensible to the rest of us.

"Mr. Shin is to return to his room at once," she cut him off. "If he doesn't like it, use the restraints." Imperiously, she added ,"This is Mr. Raventhorst's fault, if any of you wish to lay blame where it belongs."

She stood watching, as if waiting for someone to respond to her hint. Most glanced in her direction and gave a shrug, shambling instead to the bookshelves arranged against the wall, to their stacks of outdated, well-thumbed magazines and paperbacks. Now that she had taken away their daily entertainment and offered no carrot of inducement, they lost interest. Except for Simpkins.

Simpkins walked in my direction with the requisite saunter and bent threateningly over me. Throwing up one hand to ward off a blow, I started to rise from my chair.

He was quicker, grabbing my hand and using his full weight to force me back down.

"I'd kill you, you sorry sack of—" he whispered loudly enough for the whole room to hear. More quietly, he said, "Some other time, loser. In my book, that was too funny."

Still grasping my upraised hand, he turned and kissed me on the cheek. I would have pushed him away but he was already swaggering off.

"Plenty more where that came from," he said, grinning at Nurse Jo. She smiled, seemingly pleased, and returned to her desk behind the dayroom's glass partition.

I wiped my cheek in astonishment. To me, it seemed Simpkins just pretended to craziness, though with his tattooed bald head, acne scarred face, and chipped teeth he looked the part. Why was he really in this place? And why the kiss, and why had he and the nurse exchanged a knowing glance between them?

It didn't make sense, and my presence in this place made even less sense. Why was I here? Thus far, all I could tell was that the people in authority seemed to hate stuttering and wanted to treat it like it was a product of insanity. If they didn't like to hear me stutter, I would be glad to never speak again.

The nurse sat at her desk, scratching words onto paperwork with a Bic pen. I tapped on the glass partition.

"Go read a magazine, Mr. Raventhorst," she said without looking up.

"I want to know—"

"I said, _go read a magazine!_ "

I tapped the glass, and kept tapping ever more urgently. Briefly, her eyes flitted in every direction but mine. Vainly hoping for the orderlies to return from hustling poor old Shin to confinement? At one time she might have been pretty, might have had a trace of compassion, might even have revealed interest in another human being. Now, as the blue eyes settled on me, all I saw was the sort of panic a woman has when she runs across a large, distasteful bug.

"Why do you hate me? Is it my stutter?"

She stared unblinkingly. Almost, I thought I could hear the calculator that was her brain clicking and whirring, millisecond by millisecond working to formulate a reasonable sounding answer. Or was it taking so long because I fought to push words from my mouth—words she had to struggle to translate?

"Don't be ridiculous," she finally said, bending exaggeratedly over her paperwork.

"Don't be ridiculous—?"

"Th-Th-That's r-r-right!" She said.

I don't know what made me do it, if I simply reached forward or if my hand jerked involuntarily in her direction, as if the glass partition was non-existent—which it began to be—shattering in slow motion, cracks spreading outward from my fist like the spears of a snowflake. As the bright shards fell away, Nurse Jo screamed. The screams didn't make sense. Why should she scream as if I were murdering her?

White uniforms fell from the sky, a flurry of knees and fists driving at me, until I was overcome, as though tumbled to the floor by a wave of the Pacific. But what did I care about fists, about pain, about being kneed repeatedly? Everything seemed as distant to me as the story in a magazine or the lights flashing on the screen of a drive-in theatre.

Eventually, the flailing stopped. I nearly retched at the smell of onions exuding like a noxious mist from the man pinning me to the floor. I was vaguely aware of someone else on the floor, someone grunting and cursing. It was Simpkins, who had decided to join in on the fun, to give the orderlies a few licks in the confusion of the moment. Despite his bravado, they hadn't been in much danger. Hubie, a thin diminutive black man, held him down, easily dodging his ineffective blows. Two orderlies, both of them stocky, sat on me, and I hadn't even resisted.

"Take them to their rooms," Nurse Jo said. "Restrain them both and lock them in. We'll see how much they enjoy a few days of rest without food or water."

"This one's bleeding," said the orderly on my chest.

"I'm sure it's not anything," she began. Glancing down at herself, she saw a bloody crescent stained her white uniform. She stumbled backwards, falling onto her rolling chair, and gingerly ran one hand down her chest, checking for wounds.

I felt a weight lift from my ankles. An orderly approached her. "Maybe one of us could help you with that?"

She looked up with a snarl. "Get away from me, you animal!"

Before he could answer, she was out of her chair and rushing toward the lavatory.

"All I meant was—"

"Yeah, right, we know what you meant," laughed the man sitting on my chest. "But what do we do now? This guy's bleeding bad."

Hubie rolled off of Simpkins and levered himself to his feet. "I'll get Doc. You know the rules, no calling for an ambulance without permission."

"And what am I supposed to do?"

"Find the first-aid kit. He's not going anywhere. Put a tourniquet on that arm. You know your first aid."

"All right," he said, grunting heavily, as if _he_ were the one pinned to the floor.

#

I swam through a current of alternating light and darkness. Or maybe lights were swimming around me, and I was bobbing in a dark vortex. I heard something click, the nearer, spinning lights went out, and my vision strangely began to clear. A young woman in a green smock gradually materialized.

"And he got this way _how?_ " She asked.

"Look, Doc," the orderly spoke patiently, as if to a child. "He's one of our criminally violent inmates. He was going after one of the nurses, probably wanted to rape her or something."

The doctor tapped her lower lip meditatively with her ink pen. She shone her flashlight in my eyes for a moment, and clucked in disapproval.

"A bit overmedicated for raping anyone, isn't he? What is your Dr. Laberly using on him? The standard Thorazine, I suppose? I've never seen anything in the literature about it causing aggressive behavior. Just the opposite, in fact."
"I don't know nothin' about that, Doc," the orderly answered sullenly. "All I know is he went after the nurse, 'cept he didn't seem to realize a glass partition was between him and her."

The doctor was silent for a moment, evidently unconvinced. "What about all these other injuries? It's obvious he's been beaten."

The orderly folded his arms across his chest, carefully hiding skinned knuckles behind bulging biceps. The doctor eyed him closely and waited.

"We have our share of violent inmates. Some of those guys don't like it when their favorite nurse turns into a target—ya know what I mean?"

" _Uh-huh,"_ she answered insincerely, making a notation in her medical chart. "You know he'll have to stay here for observation a few days, don't you?"

"Uh, I don't think they'll like that. Him being criminally insane and all, I mean. These guys have to be watched all the time, kept in restraints, that sort of thing."

"Oh, I think we can handle him here. We have an open bed on the psych ward and all the same drugs, if they're really necessary." She put down the medical chart. "Besides, his wounds have to be looked after, bandages changed regularly. I did put ninety stitches in his arm and would hate to see all that time and effort go to waste because you people can't properly care for him."

The orderly shrugged, and stood closer to her, towering over her. "I don't know, Doc. You'd probably have a lot of paperwork to fill out."

"Oh, I think Admitting can deal with any paperwork that might be involved," she answered, turning and walking to the door, having settled the issue once for all.

" _You talk out of turn and you'll regret it, spazz,"_ the orderly said, leaning over to whisper in my ear.

The doctor reappeared at my bedside. Behind her loomed a tall, imposing figure of a woman. The orderly, one hand still on the bed, straightened up and instinctively held his breath.

The doctor's warm smile swam across my field of view. She gently fingered my right temple.

"I'd swear these look like burns," she remarked levelly.

"Uh, I d-don't—" the orderly stuttered.

"Fresh ones and some not so fresh," she said. A tube of ointment appeared in her hand. She unscrewed the cap and applied a dab of goop.

The orderly waited, hesitating.

"If you like, the nurse here can treat your scraped knuckles with an anesthetic spray on your way out," she told him.

The orderly left, the vastly bigger nurse following in his wake.

"He's a tough guy," the doctor said. "I don't suppose he'll want the anesthetic."

From the way she handled the orderly, I knew she had courage. More importantly, as she leaned over me for another look, I sensed her gentle spirit.

"I wonder what kind of torture chamber they're running?" She murmured. "I wish you could tell me but I don't suppose you can. Are you really insane? To look at you, I wouldn't think it. Not that it's always so easy telling—and who would know, after they've shot you up with lobotomizing drugs and run high voltage currents through your brain?"

Something about her stirred up vague memories from within the deep well of my consciousness. Did I know this woman? The face that came to mind revealed depths of loveliness and courage this one only hinted at, as if it were the seed for the infinitely more beautiful blossom. If I could just remember!

Answering my thoughts, she said, "The problem is, your memories, both good and bad, Mr. Raventhorst, may have been forever wiped out by them. Electrocution kills good brain cells along with the bad, and unfortunately drugs often aren't any better."

I think a tear dropped from one of her eyes. Something rippled across my fading consciousness. She gently pressed her thumb to my cheek, and everything went dark.

*****

Episode Five

" _Mr. Raventhorst, do you hear me?"_

It was an urgent whisper, repeated several times, before it registered in my consciousness. I swam up out of darkness into lesser darkness. A hulking, shadowy form leaned over me. A penlight came on momentarily, illuminating a jack-o'-lantern face. _No._ Not so much a jack-o'-lantern. Vaguely familiar. _Ralph?_ Assistant to Dr. Laberly in the electroshock room, sometime counterfoil to Nurse Wretched.

"Don't wanna turn the lights on, wake up your roommate," Ralph's hovering face whispered.

"Fine," I murmured, drifting off. Didn't know I had a roommate. Someone shook me, had a hand on my shoulder. I gradually floated back to the surface. My arm ached terribly, one ache among masses of them. More ached as I was taken by the ankles and my legs were swiveled over the edge of the bed.

"I'm gettin' you out of here. I'll wheel you to the elevator. If anybody asks, I'm transporting you to the psych ward. Somewhere along the way I'll dress you up in orderly's clothes, and we'll walk out."

"Halloween," I said. Without stuttering, I think. Ralph, or whoever he was, was silent. He pulled socks over my feet.

"You won't have to say a word. I'll do all the talkin'."

Fine by me, I thought. Who in their right mind ever wanted to hear me talk? The lights in the hallway made me squint. The elevator jarred all my sore places. More lights to make me squint, then we were in a dark place. Someone was dressing me in white pants.

From somewhere in the distance, I heard music playing softly. I opened my eyes, saw lights glowing across a dashboard. Hot air blew across my feet and in my face. A reassuring, black hulking form sat in the bucket seat next to mine. Headlights flashed across my retinas, blinding me.

Eyes squeezed shut, my head fell to one shoulder, and I drifted off.

"Is this the place, Mr. Raventhorst?"

There was that _Mister_ business again.

#

I came to in what seemed to be a dark closet, wakened by a distant pounding that made the building tremble. Someone shuffled past my room on quiet feet. Several moments later I heard a door opened, followed by murmuring voices. The door shut and the murmurs rose in volume, as though drawing nearer, until a vague recollection of the people behind the voices came to me.

"You can sit in my rocker. Coffee won't take any time at all to warm. I made cookies yesterday."

"Well, I guess that'll be okay. It'll be another half hour before a man from the county sheriff's office makes his appearance."

My gaze wandered over the tiny space in which I was confined, its deep gloom broken by occasional shafts of light, as a breeze disturbed a roll-up shade to my left. For the briefest of moments I thought I'd seen faces staring at me! My eyes rolled back in alarm. There might be _hundreds_ of them, all as bleached white as a skull, some stacked in rows along the walls, others much closer, even upon the bed. On a card table next to the bed were heaps of tiny human limbs, of individual arms, legs, naked torsos. What had I fallen into? What kind of monstrous, nightmare world—?

Then I remembered. The woman I heard speaking was Zell and the man was Chief Blackie, as everyone in Driftwood Bay called Burt Blackmer, the town's single full-time policeman. Someone had deposited me in Zell's craft room, where she assembled dolls for Driftwood Bay's summer tourist trade. I tried calling her name but no sound seemed capable of passing my lips. I struggled to lift an arm and instead barely managed to lift one of my fingers; I was as useless to help myself as one of the half-assembled dolls on the card table.

If I could groan loudly enough, Zell or Blackie would come running.

"What was that noise?" Blackie asked.

"Oh, the wind," Zell said lightly. "You know how any little breeze around here makes the place sound haunted. Sugar and cream in your coffee?"

"Sure, thanks."

Now why had she told him it was the wind? Blackie and I knew each other well, even if we weren't exactly buddies. Through the thin walls I heard the clinking of spoons. They were drinking coffee without me.

"For what reason did I see you prowling around John's house?"

Either he was swallowing coffee, or her use of _John_ rather than _Jack_ threw him for a moment. "Lookin' for him," Blackie finally said. "The sheriff says he's been in the loony bin for a few weeks and tried raping a nurse. They figure he'll turn up here sooner or later."

I heard what sounded like a crash of china. Someone had dropped a cup.

"Why—" Zell sputtered. "Is that where he's been? Do you actually believe that nonsense? I thought something might have happened to him while he was out camping!"

"You knew I made inquiries a week ago but didn't hear anything."

"Probably one of those turf issues," she said.

"What?"

"You know— _turf_ , Blackie. Like they talk about on TV, where one police department won't cooperate with another because they're afraid someone else will interfere with a case or get the credit for a job well done."

"Oh."

"Would you cooperate with them?"

"Them who?" He asked thickly.

"Another police department. You know, the county sheriff you were talking about."

"Well yeah, Zell, sure. We're just a little municipality here. It's not like it'd be smart, refusing to cooperate. I'd be in hot water myself."

"Even if you knew they were wrong?"

"What are we talkin' about here? Have you seen him?"

"If I had, do you think I would tell those jackbooted—"

"This isn't Nazi Germany, Zell. Everybody knows about Albert and how you lost some relatives in the war, but that was a very long time ago and it's not the same. You can't go around obstructing police business."

Silence reigned for a moment. Then, "You haven't tried one of my cookies."

"I was waiting for you to ask," he said.

A longer pause ensued. I imagined they were busy chewing, swallowing, something like that. I wished I had one of Zell's cookies. I didn't care whether anybody knew about it, either, county sheriff or otherwise. I just wanted a cookie.

"You didn't tell me if you've seen him," he said.

"Was his ex-wife involved in this?" She asked. "That little tramp would say anything to get him in trouble. You know as well as I do the reason she married him was because she wanted his house."

I didn't hear his answer. _Ex-wife?_ I didn't remember any wife, _ex-_ or otherwise. The very thought made my head feel like it was a coffee can with marbles rolling around in it. No face came to mind, no personality, no voice, no scent. _Nothing_. I remembered Zell and Chief Blackie. I remembered Driftwood Bay. I remembered my parents and vaguely recalled their deaths. I remembered my house and thought I remembered my childhood. Why couldn't I remember a wife? What else had I forgotten? Did I have children?

My mind must have drifted, or I simply fell asleep. When I came to again, I sensed someone seated at the foot of the bed. Voices filtered in through the window. One was Blackie's, the other a stranger's.

"No one's seen him, and I've checked the premises," Blackie was saying.

"Did you go inside?" The stranger asked, his voice officious, as if addressing an idiot child. Blackie got that a lot from people who didn't know him well. It was difficult for most people to see past his bulging eyes and chipped buck teeth to the subtle mind beneath.

"Not without a warrant. All I did was look through the windows and walk through his workshop, which he always leaves unlocked."

"You don't need a warrant when you're pursuing a fugitive."

My window must have been open, because I heard every little sound, even Blackie's sigh. In my mind's eye, I saw him scratching the back of his head, a habit he had when thinking things through. A whiff of cigarette smoke told me the stranger was smoking, since I knew Blackie, except for the occasional Swisher Sweet cigar, seldom lit up.

"Look, he's someone I've known for forty years. The worst I can say about the poor sap is that he has an awful stutter and lets people take advantage of him. He's not crazy, and he's certainly not dangerous."

The stranger exhaled loudly, before answering. "He's been in before."

"Yeah?"

"Something about his having bl—"

"He was _ten_ , forgodsakes."

_Been in what?_ I wondered.

The stranger continued doggedly: "Is he a loner?"

"Sort of."

"Introverted?"

"You could say that."

"Girlfriend?"

"Divorced."

"In and out of work?"

"Has his own business—he makes do. But what that—"

"Poor relationship with his parents?"

"Both dead," he admitted grudgingly.

"Suspicious deaths?"

" _No_ ," he said, obviously irked. _"_ Oh, let me correct myself. His mother died in the same hospital you're telling me you want to take him back to."

"Sure fits the profile."

"Profile?"

"Yeah, you know, _sociopath_. As far as you know, he might be a serial killer and he's been sitting here under your nose all these years."

I could almost see the officer's eyes narrowing smugly, as he stared down at Blackie, Driftwood Bay's finest, the moronic local yokel.

"Fine theory," Blackie said. "Except you have one problem."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"A lack of victims. Don't serial killers usually have victims?"

"You—"

"Unless maybe you State and County boys have been hiding information from us local jurisdictions?"

"You know what I meant."

Blackie was controlling himself admirably, but the shadowy presence at the end of the bed shook with mirth.

"Actually, I don't think I do know. Jack doesn't get around much, not in that old rattletrap pickup of his. When he does drive, and I admit he probably shouldn't drive at all, it's to pick up supplies at the local lumberyard for his work, or for groceries. And oh yeah, once in awhile he goes camping somewhere up on Old Baldy or out near Batterson."

The opposing police officer was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, it was with great deliberation—and _louder_ , as if he were speaking to someone deaf.

"I was making a point. He's a time bomb waiting to go off. He's already tried to rape a nurse."

"I talked with Salem General this morning," Blackie said, speaking patiently, and just as loudly. "A Dr. Sarah Mc Gilly told me a different story."

"Is that right?"

"She says no way could a human being in his condition have raped anybody."

" _Attempted_. Attempting is still a crime."

" _Or_ attempted, according to her. She says the shrink at the mental hospital has had him in electroshock and kept him doped up enough to keep a horse down."

"And?"

"This Dr. Mc Gilly says he was in some kind of accident, that they were probably just trying to cover their backsides."

"Then you can maybe explain how this doped up friend of yours walked away from Salem General, escaped clean as a whistle?"

"No." Another sigh. In my mind's eye I saw him scratching the back of his head; this was a tough one.

"I'm going in. I have my court order."

"Fine," Blackie said. "You can do that, being from the sheriff's office. I'll even go with you and take notes. If for no other reason, I'm sure his insurance company will want a complete list of everything you break. And since I moonlight for our local fishwrapper, maybe I can make a few extra bucks selling the story of your success to _The Oregonian_."

Except for a scatological, one-word expletive, the deputy sheriff gave no answer. Gravel crunched under two pairs of feet, the sound quickly fading.

"Oh, dear Lord in heaven!" Zell exclaimed in a loud whisper. "The fools will break down the door."

She bounded from the bed and out of the room. A door slammed. A couple of seconds later, I heard her calling out, offering to tell them where they could find the key to my house.

#

Night was falling. I could tell because the room's roll-up shade let through the orange-red light of the setting sun. The door opened and the shadowy figure I knew was Zell came in and turned on the brass work lamp over the card table. Behind her came a man carrying a black bag. It was Dr. Schiffman, my physician, I was sure, though he seemed to have aged considerably since the last time I'd seen him.

He sat on the edge of the bed, the small twin mattress sagging precariously under his weight. Zell watched over his shoulder.

"How are you doing, old boy?" He asked me. "Sorry I couldn't come sooner. Do you remember me, John?"

I guess I must have nodded.

"Good, good, that's a very good sign," he said, removing stethoscope and blood pressure cuff from his bag. He muttered incomprehensibly throughout the examination, at each point jotting down a note or two in a little book.

He took out scissors and cut the bandage from my injured arm. As it fell away, he whistled through his teeth.

"Fine job of stitching," he muttered.

He kneaded my belly, then peeled back the covers from the bed and scrutinized my legs. His eyes narrowed with displeasure.

"All this bruising. What on earth did they do to you in that place?"

"What the Nazis always do," Zell said.

_Tut-tutting_ in obvious agreement, he shook his head and removed the thermometer from my mouth, which had, I think, distracted me from most of his prodding and probing.

"Little elevated," he muttered. Shaking the thermometer down, he said, "In a lot better shape than a few days ago, I bet."

"Will he be all right?"

"Oh, you know John, he's tough as nails, really," he answered, tucking the blanket up around my chin. "Has to be, to be doing as well as he is without pain killers—

" _Need anything?"_ He asked, turning his gaze back to me. "No? Electroshock tends to blunt normal sensory perceptions. Could be he's not feeling much of anything."

He swung toward Zell. "You don't mind babysitting him a few days? If that doesn't work for you, I could have him transported to Seaside or even our little hospital in Healy City, if they have room for him."

"The boy'll be fine here. I think I can remember how to care for one patient."

"I thought so," he said, rising from the bed. "If you notice any change, make sure you call me."

"You'll remember not to let on to anyone that he's here, Dr. Schiffman?"

His eyebrows, bristly and sticking in all directions, lowered disagreeably, as if hurt that she wasn't sure she could trust him.

"I don't want any of the town's old biddies thinking I've taken up with a younger man."

"Your secret is safe with me, madam," he said, winking broadly at me.

She followed him out. I hadn't spoken in a week or more, and saw no reason to speak now.

#

"I'm off to my quilting group," Zell said from the bedroom doorway. She was dressed in a warm Scandinavian sweater and dark wool slacks, a perfect combination for Driftwood Bay's usual morning fog. The sweater was navy blue with white snowflakes across the shoulders, matching her shock of wavy, white hair. I must have given her announcement a blank look.

"I've told you time and time again. Seems like you should remember _something_ I tell you."

I waited, and her words poured out in a swift torrent of explanation.

"It's for Lutheran Women's World Relief. We get together every Tuesday morning and sew quilts for people overseas. We finish off four a week, which means we send out over 200 quilts every year. I've been in the group for more than thirty years, in case you want to know, which makes—" She halted in mid-sentence, her eyes momentarily distant, as she did the calculation. "Since you can't do it, I'll do the math for you. Our little group of women has sent out more than 6,000 quilts, all told. I like to think lots of people have found them to be quite a comfort in their time of need."

In sudden disgust, she said, "Except for the year a thieving wretch stole our quilts on the night before they were to be sent out. Can you imagine that? I've always wondered what he did with them. Did he sit down and cut out every one of the Lutheran Women's World Relief labels we'd sewn into them? Or when he saw the labels, did he maybe just ditch all of those beautiful quilts at the dump?

"Or—oh wait a minute. Maybe that was the year they had us quit sewing in our labels. I never have understood that. Makes me wonder if they're afraid someone will become a Christian if they start thinking about who we Lutheran women might be?"

She adjusted her eyeglasses and glanced at her wristwatch. "I know, I know. If I don't start right now, I'll be late. You'll be fine, won't you, John? You'll be sure not to wander around the house in my absence? I would hate for you to fall."

_Quilting group. Lutheran women. Late. No wandering._ I got the picture. I nodded, and she was out the door. A minute later, I heard a car engine grind to life in the carport. Shortly, the fading crunch of tires over gravel told me she had gone.

The world seemed to spin around my head as I sat up. It continued spinning, as I slowly swung my legs over the side of the bed nearest the window. Maybe getting up really wasn't a good idea. Maybe she was right about not wandering around the house? I felt like gravity's giant hand was pushing at me, wanting me to fall backward onto the bed. Still, something called, urging me on. Was I to stay in bed for the rest of my life? Here I was next door to my own house, yet I wasn't even able to see it. What might have happened to it during my several weeks of absence?

Gradually, the spinning slowed enough to ease my mind about toppling over. I reached out and pulled at the roll-up window shade—and kept pulling for a minute or two. To no avail. The spring must have been every bit as tired and worn out as myself. Finally, I simply pulled the shade back over my head for a look, revealing the double-hung window.

Wan sunlight filtered in through the carport's yellow fiberglass roof panels. The rafters and support beams were painted white. Latticework once white like the rafters and beams was overgrown with several kinds of densely flowering vines, and served for both the end wall and the side wall, effectively screening out any view of my house and property. Regrettably, though the flowers were familiar, their names were somehow just out of reach. One or two kinds of roses, certainly.

The driveway was not gravel, as I had imagined. It was crushed oyster shell, both naturally white and bleached white by the sun. Leaning my head against the window and twisting to the right, I saw an identical driveway of oyster shells kitty corner from where I sat. Surely I should have remembered...?

Beyond the end of the carport, I was able to make out what looked like a bit of fence; in fact, fence woven from driftwood. Who would go to all the trouble of that in my absence? Unless my eyes were playing tricks on me?

My legs proved too weak to let me rise under my own power. Fortunately, the mattress had enough spring in it to help bounce me to my feet. Leaning against the wall, holding desperately onto the window frame, I finally managed to remain standing. This was going to be more difficult than I'd imagined.

I had to find out about that fence!

_You're not going to make it_ , a voice whispered.

No, you are. It won't be easy but you can do it.

Two voices that were really one— _my own_. I was both talking and arguing with myself. I'd have to keep from doing that in front of other people. No sense in confirming their suspicions.

I began walking, slowly negotiating my way around the bed by supporting or pushing myself off whatever I could with my left hand—first the window frame, then the wall, and finally the shelves littered with doll parts. My right hand wasn't good for much of anything. Flexing it in the least caught painfully at the stitches in my arm.

I was sweating before I reached the door, which was no more than four feet from the bed. My heart pounded in my ears. Perspiration poured from me, soaking my t-shirt.

"Control your breathing. Take deep breaths and breathe out slowly. Take a step and rest, before taking another step."

I was talking to myself again, my stammer poignantly reminding me of why I was in the condition I was in. I clamped my mouth shut, and kept it clamped. The hallway to the living room was short, abbreviated like most everything in Zell's house, a cottage in the Cape Cod style. Framed photographs lined the walls. Though they were of faces that must be long gone, I vaguely remembered them and echoes of the tragedies attached to them. Something about Germany, it seemed. A man in an Army Lieutenant's uniform smiled wistfully from one. In another, a group of women in Army fatigues was assembled beside a hospital tent. Beneath them, I dragged my left hand for the sake of balance and hoped I wasn't soiling the wallpaper with perspiration.

The combined living room and kitchen area was gloomy, with thin cracks of light gleaming in past the curtains. She had shut them before leaving. To make sure no one could peer in to find me? I tottered past a wooden rocker, two overstuffed striped armchairs, and a couch, before finally dropping into a padded kitchen chair.

I think I must have dozed awhile sitting up. I found myself lurching forward in my seat, my progress impeded by the kitchen table, as its surface intercepted my nose. I stayed in that position for long minutes, smarting from the impact, tears running down onto Zell's flowery tablecloth.

What was I doing? Why was I here? Why was I alive at all? I might as well slit my throat while I had the chance.

Life is useless. Pathetic. You're pathetic. You. You. You. You don't even know why you're here! You're here because you're a joke. You know that, don't you? Life is one big cosmic joke and you're the punch line. Go ahead, kill yourself. No one would care—you'd be forgotten in a day or two, if that long. Miserable, worthless piece of nothing—

I sat up, wondering where the voices in my head were coming from and why they seemed eager to make themselves heard. Forcibly ignoring them, I reached for the kitchen curtain.

That's right, twist it around your neck and hang yourself.

Hang myself with this? The curtain rod would fall on my head! I saw it clearly, even to Doc Schiffman sewing stitches in my scalp.

"That's stupid, stupid as they come," I said, laughing. At my laughter, the voices died as if I'd slapped a chorus of idiots in the face. As instantly as at the flip of a light switch, I felt alone once more, the surrounding gloom empty of its evil, clamorous inhabitants, and the air clean and breathable again.

Reaching out with my left hand, I pulled back the curtain and saw a fence woven of weathered driftwood enclosing a small front yard and a single, tall Scotch pine. Flowerbeds resembling those in Zell's yard were spread both inside and outside the fence line. As gray as the sky and as gray as the driftwood fence surrounding it, the modestly-sized house that went with the property resembled an English cottage. The trouble was I'd never seen it before that very moment. My house was a yellow duplex, its concrete porch painted red. As for its white picket fence, it was nothing like this.

_Don't say anything, don't tell her_ _or anyone else,_ I said to myself.

Fool!

I shrugged in agreement. How could I argue?

#

Zell, a silhouette against the hall light, beckoned to me from the open doorway. She helped me down the back steps and walked me through the rear of the carport. One hand on my elbow, in her other hand she carried a broom.

"For the spiders," she said, noticing my furtive glances.

A porch light came on, revealing a pathway of crushed oyster shells. She swept aside cobwebs that only she saw, and took a key from her apron.

"If you remember, I have your key, you have mine," she explained half-apologetically. "My niece in Florida made you promise to check on me mornings, but I'm usually the one who does the checking."

She led me into the kitchen and flipped light switches on as we made our way through the house. In the bedroom she sat me down in a beautiful cherrywood rocker. As I watched, she pulled back the covers from the bed and patted the sheets.

"There now," she said, "I'm sure you'll feel much better sleeping in your own bed."

She tugged off my shoes and then helped me out of my shirt. By now I was used to her mothering me. Maybe I'd been used to it for years but simply didn't remember.

"Anything else, John, dear?"

I looked around, taking in my surroundings, wondering about every picture, every book, every piece of furniture in the room and those in the rooms we'd passed through.

"This is my house?"

"You don't remember?" She asked.

I shook my head.

She sat on the bed as if stunned. "This isn't another of your lame jokes?"

Lame jokes?

"Dr. Schiffman told me—" she started, nearly knocking off her glasses in swiping at a tear. "Oh, never mind. You know John, when a person's brain has been injured as yours has, sometimes it takes a while for things to come back.

"Now don't look at me like that. I don't know how long it takes," she said, sniffling. Steadying herself with a deep breath, she forged on. "You can worry yourself to death over it, or you can just look at it like you have a new house and new furniture, make an adventure of it. Do you think you could do that?"

"Can we go back to your house, now?"

"John! Were you listening to me?"

"But Blackie—he might—"

"Is home in bed, don't you worry," she asserted. "And that worthless deputy of his will be parked at the beach turnaround doing heaven knows what. Angie says Blackie complains about him all the time."

Rising peremptorily, she stepped to the bureau and laid a framed photo down on its face.

"You don't need to see that tonight," she said, obviously annoyed. "Why you'd even keep a picture of her is a mystery to me, John."

Too confused to do or say anything else, I nodded in agreement.

"I'll be over in the morning to get you before Blackie goes on duty. Your favorite waffles and a pot of strong coffee will be waiting for you. If you still have questions, you can ask me anything you want then. Is that okay?"

"Sure," I said, sure of nothing but somehow comforted by her air of confidence.

"Believe me," she said, "Everything will be fine. You'll see. You just have to believe it yourself."

I suppose my weak smile sent her on her way. She went out, leaving me to survey my surroundings. A flat round can of Copenhagen sat beside the table lamp and a windup alarm clock on the nightstand. At sight of the Copenhagen, I felt my mouth tingle. My tongue shot immediately forward, as if to explore the space between my lower lip and teeth for something it had been missing. Reaching for the can, I found myself beset by a ball of orange fur that seemed to have fallen directly from the ceiling.

"Drat that cat!" Zell said, breathlessly rushing back into the room. She gripped her broom and lifted it like it was a shillelagh.

Tail held high and purring loudly like the sound of a distant motorboat, the cat arched its back and rubbed up against my chest.

"Oh," Zell said, watching as I ran my hand over its fur. She lowered her broom.

"My cat?" I asked wonderingly.

"Yours, mine, the neighborhood's," she said, in a slightly less disgusted tone.

"His name?" I stuttered more from pain, this time, with the cat testing its claws as it walked back and forth over my legs.

"You always call him Ferd."

"Ferd?"

"One of the neighbor girls says he looks just like a Ferdinand."

"Oh." Naturally I would call him Ferd. It was easier to say and seemed to fit him quite well, especially since the fur around his mouth resembled twin white mustaches. At last, he stopped his pacing and curled into a ball on my lap.

"Ferd," I said. He arched his head up at me and grinned as if to say he was satisfied with the name, too. I tickled him under his chin.

"I'll leave you two alone, I guess," Zell said, smiling thinly. She left for the second time. A few moments later, I heard the back door pulled shut.

I lifted Ferd from my lap to the quilted bedcover, slipped out of my jeans, and crawled between the sheets. The Copenhagen interested me, as did the books I saw crammed into the low, built-in bookshelves around the room and the framed photograph Zell had been careful to set on its face. But I was too exhausted to care much about them or anything else. For the moment, sleep was all that mattered.

I reached out and turned off the lamp. The room's mini-blinds glowed with the light of the same streetlamp I'd seen for the last several nights from my room at Zell's. Beside me, Ferd's contented purr was a low snore.

#

The sky darkened without warning, as if something blotted out the sun. Far above me, high in the sky, something round and disklike side-slipped back and forth, falling like a leaf toward where I stood. It was a giant ship, and it would never make it to the ground safely; the trees would skewer it in a hundred places. Couldn't its pilot see everyone aboard would be killed?

But as it fell, floating ever more gently as it lost altitude, I looked and saw the trees did not close in, did not march in the ranks they should. Instead, where scores of trees had towered like skyscrapers into the emerald skies, a great open space surrounded me.

Who could have done this? The earth itself seemed to ooze with blood in protest. Who had marred my labors, desecrated this place forever sanctified to the Master?

How had the visitors known to land here?

I retreated to the open space's perimeter, and the ship settled to the ground, with long, jointed metal legs for supports. It sat like a gargantuan mushroom on the forest floor. Steam vented from hidden outlets. Popping and pinging noises signaled the exterior hull's cooling. Minutes later, a hatch door opened and a rope ladder snaked toward the ground below. The creatures were bipedal and moved like men, though with quick, catlike grace, as they descended. When they reached the ground, they fanned out and stared into the surrounding trees, their eyes fixed with wonder at what they saw.

The forest, preternaturally silent until then, exploded with noise. Thunderous wings and a mighty chorus of whistled birdsong sounded from above, led by an exotic, triangular-bodied creature with a flute, his avian orchestra following in a majestic anthem that rolled on like the waves of a sea.

A car horn blared loudly and discordantly, breaking through my consciousness like a rock flung into a reflecting pool. I bolted upright, thrashing against my blankets for a few moments, at the same time disturbing a yowling creature which until then had evidently been sleeping peacefully beside me.

I was at home in bed! The whole strange world had been a dream—the spaceship and its aliens amid the majestic trees, the gloriously beautiful birds and their equally glorious birdsong—all a dream!

The noise of the horn gradually died away. Just another drunken fool driving past, gleefully waking the neighborhood, I guessed. It was the price one paid for living only a few blocks from a tavern. Profoundly disappointed, I stretched back out and sank my head into the pillow, propping it around my ears in hopes of blocking out all sound.

Meowing soft questions, Ferd jumped up and positioned himself at the foot of the bed where he would be out of danger's reach, should a certain crazy person care to repeat his wild antics.

#

What does an evil person really look like? She looked quite attractive, if not exactly beautiful. Light brown, sun-bleached hair cut in a soft wedge. Basically triangular face, nice eyes and cheekbones. Lips held in a thin, straight line, attempting a smile? I saw insecurity, if anything. Maybe she didn't like having her picture taken. Maybe she found it difficult to smile for the camera in general? I couldn't really condemn her for that.

A wallet-sized photo was tucked into the framed portrait's lower left corner. In it a man stood at her side, both of them wearing swimsuits, hers a lime-green bikini. The scene was from a beach, Driftwood Bay's, I supposed, though if I remembered anything about its waters, the combination of riptides and cold temperatures didn't make for pleasant swimming. Behind them was a wall of driftwood. It took me a moment to realize the man was myself.

My arm was around her waist, my photographic self smiling down at her, while she stared into the camera. I wondered if she ever smiled, or if she had never found anything to smile about being married to me? Had I been her problem?

Zell said I would sleep better not thinking about her, and certainly I had slept well. The bigger truth was that I couldn't even remember her name. If I'd ever felt anything for this woman, it was totally forgotten. Vaguely, I wondered if that was a good thing, if perhaps the things they'd done to me in the hospital had been of some benefit. What if I'd been suffering from a broken heart? Obsession? Or a thirst for revenge? What did I really know about myself?

I laid the framed portrait down as Zell had left it, and picked up the Copenhagen can from my nightstand. Popping the metal lid released a sudden welter of memories even as the fragrance filled my nostrils, of my father hand-planing a board at his workbench; of my father coming home from the woods, toting a chainsaw; of him gluing and clamping one of his custom-made chairs. In each of them, the familiar round impression of a Copenhagen can showed through the breast pocket of his work shirt.

Removing a pinch and lodging it between my cheek and gum line was as natural as breathing and seemed to immediately satisfy some inner longing.

#

Sensing Ferd would eventually wish to follow me, I left the back door ajar. Thirty feet from the small porch and down the path of crushed oyster shells stood another building, a smaller twin of the house, complete to the eyebrow windows. The door, painted in green exterior enamel, opened at a twist of the knob. No need for locks here. Flipping on the lights, I saw a green rubber doorstop that could be used to keep the door wedged open, something Ferd might appreciate.

The place was a workshop. As I walked in, the first thing to strike my eyes was a host of machines, their names coming grudgingly to mind: _band saw_... _radial arm saw... jointer... planer... drum sander..._ and others that refused to come to mind at all. As I walked around them, trailing one hand over their surfaces (triggering oddly familiar echoes in my brain), I found racks of lumber stock. Workbenches. A dizzying variety of hand tools hanging from the walls on hooks. A large shop vac.

I came to a sort of display shelf. On it stood three different items, _projects_ I thought of them, in various stages of completion. What they were supposed to be, I couldn't quite visualize. Two of them reminded me of coffins. The third, nearly identical in its dimensions to the others, might be a skeleton, with wood stretchers for bones, awaiting its skin of veneers. But for coffins, the dimensions were oddly narrow and in an unfinished state the doors (or lids?) cried out for panes of glass to reveal their hidden parts.

Close at hand were boxes of polished metal tubing and chains, neatly arranged bins of abalone shell, colored glass, and thin slices of various types of polished stone. Further on paints, varnishes and glues filled several racks.

Something brushed against my leg. Gazing up at me from blue, warmly luminous eyes, Ferd began to purr with undisguised pleasure. I bent over to run my hand along his back, before continuing my tour of the shop. There were paint sprayers; grinders and polishers; a wall of clamps; sturdy sawhorses. Whether new or used or seemingly antique, all of the equipment appeared to be well maintained.

Another door was located in the far right corner. Behind it I found a toilet and sink. On the toilet tank sat an old tuna can I appropriated for a spittoon, and immediately discovered that I must not quite have the hang of Copenhagen. The brown juice dribbled down my chin. I rinsed off in the sink, and came back out.

"I see you've found everything," a smiling Zell said from the front door.

I nodded, wishing I had brought my Copenhagen with me from the house.

"What do you think?" She asked, walking in and gesturing broadly.

Wondering what I should say, I let my gaze trail over the shop. The oddly-sized "coffins" were close at hand. I pointed to them.

"What are these?" I asked.

"Wh-What?"

I guess I looked blankly at her. Briefly, I wondered why people like me were put in asylums for stuttering, yet she had never mentioned being in one herself.

She must feel ill. Her lower lip trembled and tears welled in her eyes. Perhaps it was her allergies. Although the place looked generally immaculate, with the concrete floor painted a marine gray and interior studs covered with taped and mudded drywall, I could see a light coating of dust. I dragged a chair from beside one of the workbenches and sat her on it.

Ferd jumped instantly into her lap. She absent-mindedly stroked his back.

"You really don't know?" She asked.

A harvest gold refrigerator stood in the alcove between the shop's bathroom and its entrance. Inside its magnet covered door (all of them miniature replicas of either power or hand tools), I found a roll of Copenhagen cans. Hesitating momentarily, I tore off the paper, thumped a can on my knee, and fumbled with it until I finally managed to pop the top. I took out a pinch and lodged it in my cheek in the old, familiar place.

"Don't know what?" I asked, happy once more.

She didn't look nearly so happy as I felt, her gaze going from me to the Copenhagen in my hand.

"You haven't forgotten everything."

"No, I guess not."

"This is your workshop, John," she said, staring bleakly at Ferd. "Just like the house is your house."

"Oh."

I dropped the Copenhagen tin into my shirt pocket and did another circuit of the shop. Like the house, nothing really rang a bell. I was seeing everything as if for the first time, a fact that did not seem to matter to me in the least. Instead, I vaguely wondered why I hadn't been able to make the connection between the house and the shop, that both of them belonged to me. Maybe the real owner would show up at any moment, catch us here, call Blackie?

"These—?" I asked, gesturing to the mysterious wooden cabinets.

"They're Grandfather clocks, John," she said. "They're how you make your living."

Dumbfounded, I stared at them, not in wonder as much as in stupefaction.

"You store the clock works in that far right cabinet."

"I guess I'm in trouble," I said, though not really feeling like I was. I may as well have been watching a scene from some television soap opera while half asleep. Her eyes searched my own.

"Why?" She asked, bracing herself.

"You, you know, ever looked at something and wondered how in the world somebody coulda made it?"

*****

Episode Six

Up on Old Baldy... Up on Old Baldy... Up on Old Baldy...

The phrase pulsated in my head all night long, an insistent whisper I could not keep out with even a thick feather pillow to clog my ears. Maybe it was something I'd heard all my life. I did know I must've taken a look at the mountain most every day I'd ever spent in Driftwood Bay; it couldn't very well be avoided or ignored, its central peak towering 1,800 feet above the town, with massive shoulders hunkered against Oregon's oft storm-ridden, fickle skies.

Men wielding sledgehammers and dynamite and driving diesel powered bulldozers for the old CCC had helped carve Highway 101 into its lower rocky slopes during the late 1930's. At its highest point, the road snaked no more than 600 feet in elevation, the rest of the mountain leaning drunkenly oppressive overhead, threatening to collapse like a house of cards at any moment.

Clearing the highway was a daily routine for county road crews in their orange dump trucks. Lacking cable nets to restrain crumbling stone, rock falls were common. While the idea of a few crushed car roofs and shattered truck windows rattled around my brain, my memory of any fatalities was even vaguer. Evidently Old Baldy was not vengeful, even if its real name did mean "teepee of the Great Spirit" or something like that in the local Indian dialect. The Indians must have thought Old Baldy and the Great Spirit lived in pretty close fellowship with them, since even in their day they had treated it as the home of the deity and at the same time burned off its upper slopes in order to grow onions for trade with other coastal tribes. At least that was the story I remembered hearing from one of my grade school teachers in the 1950's. Whether the story was true or not was difficult to determine, since the local Indians had vanished from the area by 1910 (my grade school teacher never intimated exactly how) and I never met anyone who actually spoke any of the coastal dialects. _Nekahniekan_ definitely _sounded_ Indian to my boyish imagination. If one needed further corroboration, the mountain was known for its wild onions instead of the old growth forests one might have expected.

I remembered a childhood wish of someday meeting Indians in my explorations of the mountain. I also remembered that besides their onion fields, a few mysterious petroglyphs were the only trace left of them in Driftwood Bay.

Sheer cliffs rising straight out of the Pacific formed Old Baldy's westerly face. Atop them, Highway 101 offered a series of spectacular vistas. For even more spectacular views, tourists climbed to the mountaintop over switchback tributaries of 101 that were for the most part little more than a stiff hike.

The mountain and I faced each other, two opponents with nothing in common. Actually, from my yard I could barely see the mountain that morning, obscured as it was by fog. Which didn't keep me from its central truths; it was a gargantuan, immovable mass, while my life (or least its memories) was a moving target; it was immutable, scorning wind, rain, and surf, while I wasn't sure of anything about myself from day to day. It certainly wasn't about to come to me, yet, in my condition, regardless of the sense of compulsion that was upon me, I wasn't about to go to it. I wasn't strong enough for a walk on the beach, much less a hike up 101 and the mountain's steep slopes.

Perhaps more than anything else, it was a magnet; thumb out, my back to a deep roadside ditch, I found myself standing on 101, close to a mile from the house Zell told me was mine. A car slowed, a Datsun 510, its white exterior blooming with a widespread acne of rust. The boy driving it might've been 16—or 26—his long blond hair and beardless face lending him an air of angelic innocence.

"Goin' far?" He asked.

"Nekahniekan," I managed to answer without stuttering, perhaps because the strange conglomeration of syllables, on my tongue, was already more of a stammer than a real word.

"Get in," he said, pushing open the passenger door. The bucket seat formerly had been covered in black vinyl. Now, exposed springs peeked through tattered gray batting.

"Got some weed to harvest on the old boy," he offered conversationally, as he began running through the gears, letting the little four-cylinder engine scream before each shift.

I nodded my head. The area's current natives evidently still used the mountain for growing their favorite crops. I vaguely wondered if he had ever run across any of Old Baldy's Indians, maybe one or two who'd been hiding out, hadn't disappeared with the others around 1910?

"A business partner and me, we're growing it up off the road that goes to the repeater station. You ever been there?"

Reaching for my Copenhagen, I grunted an affirmative. Everybody in Driftwood Bay knew the repeater station's location. His eyes widened as I tamped the can on my knee, removed the lid, and took a pinch for my cheek. He was silent for a long while, perhaps debating with himself what he should say. In the meantime, I determined to enjoy the cold ocean air blowing through the passenger window, which had refused to roll up in spite of a few hard yanks at the handle.

"Man, that stuff is murder," he said at last, meaning the tobacco, I assumed after a moment's reflection. "My dad gave me some when I was a kid, made me green as a cucumber. By the way, how far you going? I'm turning off in a sec, you know."

The main lookout wasn't much more than a half mile further than his turnoff, which was coming up fast. Preoccupied with my Copenhagen and a sudden rush of memories about my own father, I could do no more than gesture with my chin.

"Right," he muttered, bypassing his turn as if reading my mind. Although fog lay heavily over the lookout, he slowed at the right point, downshifting quickly to pull a screamingly tight U-turn and momentarily setting the car on two wheels.

I thanked God for a seatbelt. The lookout was wide enough for several cars to park. I opened my door and stepped out.

"Hey, you're that crazy clock guy aren't you?" He yelled through the window. At my shrug, he said, "You don't look all that crazy to me."

"Thanks," I said. "You too."

He waved airily and drove off, flooring the accelerator at just the right time to avoid being overrun by a fully-loaded log truck. Fog never seemed to be much of a deterrent to speed over Old Baldy, I guess because most people just wanted to avoid getting their skulls crushed by falling rock, turning out to be that first fatality everyone would read about in some paper like _The Headlight Herald_ , _The_ _Seaside Signal_ , or even _The Oregonian_.

Up on Old Baldy.

Though nowhere near the mountain's peak, which rose little more than sixty or seventy feet higher than its twin, flanking peaks, I was at the roadway's summit. Instead of white safety rails, a narrow concrete curb and a three-foot wide barrier of native rock separated the roadside from sheer cliffs that fell steeply away to the ocean hundreds of feet below. I remembered the lookout well, especially the narrow spur jutting out beyond the waist-high barrier. How many people had I ever seen standing here or sitting on the stone barrier, as I drove by?

Clambering up for a look over the edge, I felt my breath catch in my throat. Far, far below, long white combers crashed violently into rocky spines that seemed to be pointing accusingly in my direction.

I couldn't recall ever hearing of any jumpers. Maybe the idea of smashing onto those spines at terminal velocity, or plunging into cold ocean water and being battered ceaselessly against the rocks, wasn't romantic enough for people who wanted to murder themselves?

I carefully let myself down onto the spur, which seemed far narrower than I remembered, and sat with my back to the barrier. Sheltered from the road, the wind was loud, louder than the sound of the occasional passing car, truck, or eighteen-wheeler, certainly louder than the sound of the distant waves. The fog was lifting rapidly, and to the south miles upon miles of coastline were levitating into view. Seagulls wheeled right and left, shrieking with delight, cavorting upon the air currents like dolphins upon the currents of the ocean.

_Not jumpers._ Two guys on hang gliders, one after the other. I remembered the story, now. Planning on catching thermals that would carry them out to sea a few hundred yards and then allow them to spiral lazily toward Driftwood Bay's sandy beach, they had pushed off from this very spur. The idea had been beautiful. Hang gliders launched themselves from hills and cliffs every day. But something went tragically wrong. Perhaps the thermals simply didn't put in an appearance as expected. Perhaps a violent gust of wind caught and smashed them against the cliff, shredding fabric and flesh, before they could sail safely clear?

Then why are you here?

_Up on Old Baldy_ , I mouthed the words to myself. Why was I here? Was it just for the view? Or did I want to feel the cold ocean air tearing at me with its probing fingers, maybe see if I was actually alive? Or had I come to jump, forgetting even the pretense of a hang glider?

White specks moved over the horizon. Eventually, they resolved into two fishing boats working their way south. I wondered what it would be like to be a commercial fisherman, hauling in the long lines, icing fish in the holds below decks, spending nights on the water?

Perhaps I'd already done all that at some point in my life? I had a sudden flashback of salmon skipping along rain-slicked decking, and of a slender blade in my hand as I gutted and cleaned fish, preparing them for stowing in the freezers below.

I looked down at my hands. Why the sudden memories of working with lines and knives and fish, when I couldn't remember using my hands to build Grandfather clocks? Nothing about saws or sanders or any other of the tools necessary to woodworking came to mind. The neat little shop Zell had shown me was a complete blank, as was the house.

Had I ever done the things she told me? Ever been married to the woman in the pictures on my bedroom bureau? Or was it all fiction, a story concocted for some mysterious purpose unknown to me?

If I'd once been a fisherman, maybe I could be one again? Though it was all vague, I remembered Astoria's docks and the bristling masts of its fishing fleet. If I closed my eyes, I could almost make out the names of some of the boats. Shadowy figures tousled my hair. I heard a smattering of some language unintelligible to me.

I opened my eyes, all of a sudden remembering the name of a boat and her skipper, my grandfather. The strange language was _Suomi_ , better known to some as Finnish. While my grandfather always spoke English ashore, onboard he reverted to the mother tongue except when conversing over the ship's radio. Like my mother and father, he was long dead. But now I at least knew the source of my fishing memories.

Somehow, I doubted I'd ever cared much for fishing, especially for spending days at sea, far from land. Staring out at the two boats, I experienced a sense of unease, as if I were on deck and could feel each roller tossing me up and dropping out from beneath me.

Still, with the blood of generations of fishermen running through my veins, I doubted I ever suffered from seasickness. At the same time, I figured my experiences on the open ocean were probably never pleasant ones. Why else would I turn to woodworking?

Your father.

Yes, that was probably it, plus the simple act of creation, coupled with the satisfaction of crafting something beautiful with my own hands. Which brought me back to the questions facing me. How was I to earn a living, when I couldn't remember how to do even the simplest tasks that I imagined must be involved in the work I'd once done?

Your books, stupid. Your books.

I stiffened, recognizing the same voices I'd heard in Zell's living room. Were they my imagination? Or were they simply the wind whispering in my ears? How did they know things I hadn't told anyone else?

I had taken a few of the books from the shelves in my living room, opened them on the kitchen table, discovered pictures of fine furniture and cabinetry and accompanying drawings which I felt surely had something to do with how to build them. My problem was that I could no longer read. Nothing at all of the strange alphabet trailing across the pages made sense to me or cast the least ray of light upon my brain. Nor could I make heads or tails of the drawings. I hadn't told even Zell, though she would figure it out soon enough.

Maybe I could return to fishing, learn it again if I'd ever known it before; fishing wouldn't take years of study, practice, and sure hands. I lifted my right hand. It trembled before my eyes. I lifted the left. In a second or two, it jerked with painful spasms. As I'd slowly recovered my strength over the last few days, the spasms, at first noticeable as occasional, mild twitches, had begun to grow in intensity. If the spasms were permanent, I would never build another Grandfather clock.

Fool! You may as well throw yourself off the cliff right now! You stutter, you stammer, you spazz out, your mind is gone. What else is next? You're more worthless every day!

"What is that, Daddy?" A young girl's voice asked. I sensed, rather than saw, two people standing on the stone barrier behind my head, the first sightseers of the day.

"Doesn't look like any whale I ever heard of," a man's voice answered.

I glanced up, saw him raise binoculars to his eyes. He adjusted the focus and squinted at the same time.

"Since when do they have long necks?"

I jerked to my feet, straining my eyes in the same direction. _Long necks?_

"Aw, nuts," the man said, obviously deflated. "Just my crazy imagination, I guess."

For a second, I thought I'd seen it, too, a black silhouette with an impossibly long neck. Then the sight faded, replaced with disporting whales.

"They call it _breaching_ ," the girl said. "Isn't that right, Mister?"

I nodded. It seemed like a big word for a little girl to use, especially a five or six year old, but "breaching" was the word I remembered for their spectacular leaps from the water.

We were definitely looking at a pod of whales, even if at first I'd thought they were something else. My eyes had been playing tricks on me. _Our_ eyes.

I heard car doors slam, and an engine starting. The man and girl drove away. _Our eyes?_ I wondered. What had we really seen?

What are you waiting for?

The same old voice. I was growing weary of it. As I climbed back over the stone barrier, a black and white SUV pulled up to the concrete curb. The door opened. Chief Blackie stepped out.

"Well lookie who we have here. I got a call we might have a jumper, and here it's _you_. You coming peaceably, or do I have to cuff you and throw you in the back seat?"

I went to the front passenger door and got in.

He was fuming, as we drove south on 101. I expected him to bypass Driftwood Bay, continue on toward the county seat, where he would throw me in county lockup. I had visions of a long trip back to Salem, flashbacks of a blonde woman leaning close and slapping my face, and a bespectacled man attaching electrodes to my temples.

Instead, Blackie turned off 101 and drove down Driftwood Bay's Main Street. Following the usual turns, he parked in front of Zell's house.

"C'mon," he said, gesturing with his head for me to get out. He swung open the white picket gate and preceded me up the neatly groomed, stone-paved walk to Zell's front door. Her kitchen table looked out on the yard, its lawn lush with green, the flower beds bursting with colorful alyssum, Gerbera daisies, mums, and dahlias. She was up and out of her chair before he could rap his knuckles against the door.

"I suppose you want coffee," she said, swinging the door wide and flashing us a smile, expecting us to come in.

Blackie scowled at her retreating back and again gestured toward me with his head. I shrugged, stepping inside, and he shut the door behind us. Zell was pulling cups and saucers from her cupboard. Her own cup and saucer and a matching stoneware cream and sugar set were already on the table. Blackie pulled out chairs for both of us and I settled into the middle chair, affording myself the best view of the yard and street. I could perhaps admire the scenery even if they had to talk over me, or around or through me.

"No cookies?" Blackie asked, as she set the steaming cups in front of us. Clucking to herself, she turned back to the counter and lifted the roof from the Swiss-chalet cookie jar.

Lips set in a tight, thin line, Blackie stirred sugar and cream into his coffee with great deliberation. Perhaps his method of "counting to ten?" He broke a sugar cookie in half, dipped it into his coffee, and began munching on it before speaking.

"Why didn't you tell me he was here?"

Sipping placidly at her coffee, she studiously avoided his gaze, instead looking out the window as if she hadn't heard, though we both knew she had. The table was small and she wasn't deaf; all three of us sat with our knees nearly touching.

Any outside observer might have thought we were simply enjoying a few moments of bird watching; robins pecked at the lawn, stellar jays supervised from the fence, a tribe of black-capped chickadees hopped like fleas in the slender branches of one of Zell's larger shrubs.

"I know you knew he was here," Blackie said. After a moment's contemplation, his eyes gleamed with inner realization. "In fact, I bet he was right here in your house, maybe in your spare bedroom, when I came looking for him the other day."

For just one brief moment, her eyes darted in his direction. I could feel the electricity in the air. The gleam in his eyes spilled over into a triumphant grin.

"I knew it!" He said, thumping the table top with the flat of his hand, noisily rattling the stoneware and utensils.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. After the initial shock, Zell absorbed it all like she'd anticipated this very thing. If she expected him to take us both to county lockup, she didn't seem worried. Her hand was as steady as a rock, as she took another sip of coffee.

"You're supposed to be a Christian," he said accusingly. "You lied to me. You even dropped your cup when I told you where he'd been! My god, you coulda won an Oscar."

Merriment played briefly at the corners of her mouth. Dropping any hint of pretense, she let her shoulders droop comfortably and relaxed against the back of the padded kitchen chair. Now that he had the goods on her, she didn't seem to care.

"You and my wife, both claiming to be good Christians," he said disgustedly. "Yet you lie to me."

I had a sudden flash of his wife's face. She was some sort of shirttail relative to Zell. Together, they often drove the thirty-plus miles to one of Seaside's Lutheran churches. She didn't seem to be the type to lie. Then again, appearances could be deceiving and my memory wasn't all that good. Or maybe he simply meant she and Zell were both Christians, not that his wife lied to him, too?

Quietly looking out the window, she said, "I'll lie to the Nazis every time. You remember that, Blackie."

He took it as matter-of-factly as she had stated it.

"I seem to remember something in the Ten Commandments against lying, and all liars going to hell."

Unable to restrain a grin, she set her coffee on the table and playfully ran a finger around the lip of the cup.

"That's what you get," she said, "for just reading snippets of the Bible or letting someone else tell you what it says without studying it for yourself."

His eyebrows arched questioningly.

"Plenty of places in the Bible tell where they were willing to lie to the Nazis. You would know that if you read it."

"Enough with the Nazis, Zell," he said, setting his coffee cup down hard. "You know I have a duty to uphold the law."

"I hope you're proud of yourself, arresting a white-haired old lady for helping out a persecuted neighbor." She held out her wrists, awaiting the handcuffs.

He shook his head, his eyes popping more than usual and his lips pulling back from his teeth in a rabbitty scowl, before taking another bite of cookie.

"I won't be arresting anyone in this house today."

"Why not?" She asked in an aggrieved tone of voice.

"I heard from the county sheriff's office last night. The attempted rape charges have been dropped. Seems there's no real evidence, and someone has come forward, contradicting the other witnesses."

Taking a last gulp of coffee, he stood slowly.

"And—?" She asked.

"They dumped him in the loony bin because he was in Salem and had some kind of fit on the street. When SPD checked his pockets, they found a name and phone number."

"Yes?" Zell said, her eyes suspicious.

"It's not like they'd automatically know he and Kit were getting a divorce, Zell. She evidently told them he was psychotic and in desperate need of help."

"I knew it!" She exclaimed.

He looked pitiably down at me, and wiped his mouth on a napkin.

"Sorry, Jack. With your history, I'd have to call it an honest mistake."

My history _?_ I nodded mutely at him. The fits _I_ remembered were from the electric shocks they'd applied to my head, the memory of the terror, of facing the abyss, the palpable loss of my _self_.

"It'd help if you didn't look crazy, you know, Jack."

I didn't attempt a rejoinder. He winked one eye at me before going to the door.

"One more thing," he said.

"What?" Zell asked.

"It's nothing to worry about, but I'll probably have to take Jack to county lockup for a few days."

"Why?" Zell demanded, rising from her seat. "You said you weren't here to arrest anyone!"

Smirking, he said, "I lied, Zell, just like a good Nazi, right?"

Before she could interrupt, he held up one hand, gesturing her to be silent. "Protective custody, standard in cases like his. The State requires a hearing to determine his mental capacity. They'll want to verify he's not a danger to himself or to anyone else."

Deflated, Zell dropped back into her chair. "You can't do something, Blackie? See if they'll let him stay here with me?"

He paused for a long moment. Screwed up his face in a frown. "I can try. I'm not guaranteeing anything." He winked at me again, before letting himself out the door. He had one last parting shot.

"And oh yeah, in case you can't tell it, Zell, I'm sick of your Nazis already. That was a long time ago."

Struggling for words, in the end she said nothing, and by that time Blackie had closed the door and sauntered out to his black and white. We remained seated, me trembling under a cloud of doom, and her quivering with what looked like a mixture of anger and grief. After a few minutes, I was still trembling. She banished her quivering by fetching herself a few more cookies.

"What do you think he's doing?" She asked. Blackie, she meant; he was still parked at the curb. If I was lucky he'd stroked out and I wouldn't have to go to lockup as threatened. I saw movement through the 4x4's window. Good luck had never been my strong suit.

Thirty minutes later the door of the black and white swung open. He sauntered back up the walkway and stuck his head inside her door without knocking. I swiveled to meet his gaze. His eyes were on Zell.

"The Reich has agreed to your proposal, Frau Zelig. Herr Raventhorst's hearing will be the day after tomorrow." To me, he said, "You off yourself or anybody else in the meantime, I'm coming after you. _Capiche?_ "

I nodded mutely. Behind his flip façade, he was dead serious. A terrifying vision of _Monte Python's_ flying bunny rabbit came to mind. I didn't allow myself to grin until he reached his truck. The trembling resumed as he drove away. The day after tomorrow was a long time. Anything could happen before then.

#

I expected the hearing to take place in a courtroom. A stern, white-haired judge in black robes. A baleful bailiff and a demure court reporter. A crowded gallery of lawyers huddling with clients waiting to be arraigned. Instead I was in a cramped office, seated between Zell and Blackie on folding metal chairs, facing a man behind a beat up old steel desk. Chrome-framed reading glasses sat low on the bridge of his nose.

"The two of you are here to vouch for Mr. Raventhorst?" He asked, his gaze flickering at them for the briefest of moments over his glasses.

Zell and Blackie nodded in reply. The gray little man, _sans_ any demure court reporter, et al., made a quick notation in the folder that lay open on the desk. Pinching the tip of his nose between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, he turned through several pages, brooding over them.

Gradually, I became aware of a tuneless hum filling the room, rising and falling every few seconds, the kind of sound you might hear if you were to sink your head back and forth into a beehive. Zell, her spine stiffening in alarm, searched the room with her eyes. Blackie leaned forward, catching her attention, gesturing discreetly with a nod of his head toward the man behind the desk.

"You felt like killing anyone lately, Mr. Raventhorst?" The weird humming ceased when he spoke.

_No_ , I shook my head. In the interval, my own heartbeat filled my ears.

"I need to hear you say it," he instructed me, pen held ready to record my answer.

"No," I said.

He didn't bat an eyelash at my stutter. He asked if I'd felt like killing myself lately.

"Sometimes," I said. Zell and Blackie swiveled in my direction. To my left, Zell gripped my hand.

A slight grin crossed the man's face. He turned a page and scanned down its length.

"The drugs they gave you can do that," he said. "So can electroshock. Not unusual. Helps considerably to be aware of that fact. Side effects, you know."

Zell loosened her grip.

"Hold your hands out straight."

I did as instructed. Tremors jerked at my right hand and arm, then the left. Embarrassed, I folded them on my lap.

"We call that _tardive dyskinesia_ ," he said, as if it were as common as the rising and the setting of the sun. "Sometimes it goes away." He made another checkmark in the folder.

"Are you feeling better now?" He asked. "Incrementally better each day?"

"I think so."

"Show me your arm."

He meant my wound. I held it out, displaying the stitches in all their glory. He leaned forward for a closer look. The skin on either side was white and taut.

"Can't have felt very good." He returned to his humming, his nose once again pinched between thumb and forefinger. He scanned several more pages. Once I thought I heard him mutter the word _ridiculous_.

Zell took my hand again. As time went by, her grip grew tighter. I squeezed back to let her know I was okay.

"Very well," he finally said, closing the folder and picking up another. "The judge will have my recommendation on his desk today. Just make sure you don't come back here to embarrass me, Mr. Raventhorst."

No battery of tests, no revealing questions or Rorschach blots? I felt frozen to my seat.

"You're not even going to—?" Zell started to ask. Before she could say more, Blackie stood up, loudly scraping his chair on the floor.

"He's free to go?" Blackie asked.

The psychiatrist stared at us, as if startled to see us still there, then nodded deeply and returned to the new folder.

Blackie hurriedly ushered us from the office. Thirty feet down the corridor, Zell asked, "Was that man really a psychiatrist?"

"The best kind," Blackie said, his lips peeling back from his buck teeth in a scowl. I didn't argue, though I knew he wanted to say more, probably something about the doctor being nuttier than me. We kept walking, Blackie still hurrying us. Alarm seemed to be draining from Zell's face.

#

Walking into my workshop was about as warm as walking into an early morning fog on the beach. This must be where Ferd had spent the night, since tawny-colored cat hair clung to the top of one of the work benches. Maybe I would have to install a lock; this made the third morning in a row I'd found the door hanging open just wide enough for a cat to squeeze in. Either that or maybe I could remember to scratch out a note reminding me to let him into the house before going to bed at night?

_At least the place seems like home to him,_ I thought. Hands in pockets, I paced the floor. How long would it take to wear a pathway through the warmly gleaming paint to the concrete beneath it? I walked until I was tired, probably not as long as it might have been for most people, with me still recovering from the ordeal the State Hospital's zookeepers and its shock troops had put me through. Why hadn't I jumped from Old Baldy, I wondered? _Why? Why? Why?_ What could I possibly have to live for, when the memory of those things most important to me had been wiped clean, along with the skills I needed to make a living? Regardless of what some crazy State doctor thought, what good was it when walking the roads, maybe collecting pop cans, was the only future I saw for myself?

The more I thought about it, the more my chest constricted. The workshop ceiling inched lower and the walls closed in. The place was far too small for me to stay. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't think. I had to get out, run for the door. _Now!_

Before I could reach it, fog blew in like the breath of some frozen Valkyrie. Though no hand was upon it, the door slammed shut. I stumbled, plummeting headfirst as if felled by an axe. Dark, roiling clouds received me. Forked electricity leapt and danced around my head, crawled down my throat and neck and jammed steel rods down my spine.

Something cracked loudly in my jaw, and then I felt nothing more...

" _Let him rest now,"_ a voice said.

" _Will he be all right?"_

" _For the moment, yes."_

Rest? _Who?_ I wondered. How could anyone rest in this storm? Shouldn't they be trying to protect themselves, pull themselves into a black hole like I'd done at the first sign of trouble? They should take cover. If the two men with swords, one streaming light and the other shadow, should collide with them in their struggle, I certainly couldn't take responsibility for them.

"You've had a nasty concussion, along with a few nastier contusions, I'm afraid, Jack."

Someone was leaning over me. It was Doc Schiffman, peering through his gold, wire-rimmed glasses. I was in a strange bed, under crisp white sheets, with walls and ceiling slowly circling around me in matching white.

"You're safe, Jack, you're in the hospital."

He answered my groan with an understanding smile.

"My guess is your old childhood epilepsy has resurfaced."

I know I looked dumbly at him, because I couldn't come up with any possible response; I didn't remember having childhood epilepsy.

"It's hard to say with complete certainty," he said, scratching his nose in thought. "I'm guessing it's what put you in the State Hospital this last time. The shock treatments they gave you could easily exacerbate the problem."

He took a deep breath and exhaled, before going on. "Fortunately, it's controllable by drugs, Jack. Unfortunately, you'll probably have to take them for the rest of your life. Do you understand that?"

I groaned, awful pain shooting through my jaw and spreading up the side of my head like hot flames.

"Another thing," he said, leaning over me again. "You're black and blue and swollen from the fall you took in your workshop. I'm afraid you fractured your jaw just badly enough that you may have to eat through a straw for a few weeks."

" _Aahhh,"_ was all I could manage. The next thing I knew, something sharp pricked my right arm.

"I'm keeping you here another day for observation..." His voice faded, receding into the far distance, his face framed by the hospital's spinning ceiling and walls.

*****

Episode Seven

Resting her elbows lightly on the card table, Zell adjusted her glasses and closely surveyed the picture of the jigsaw puzzle we were working on, before searching among the loose pieces she had spread over a cookie sheet.

"Let me see yours again," she said, abruptly reaching for a cookie sheet littered with my own share of puzzle pieces, pieces I'd stared at without success for the past three hours. She squinted over them a few moments, pulled out two, and handed the rest back to me.

"Keep looking, John," she said, as she hooked the pieces into a section she'd nearly completed. For maybe the tenth time that night, she told me puzzles were good exercise for the brain. Maybe it would help jog my memory, remind me of how I had once assembled my Grandfather clocks.

_Good theory_ , I supposed to myself. Now if I could just find one single solitary piece of the puzzle to fit with one of its 999 mates, instead of them being a senseless jumble. In the meantime Zell had linked together the outside edges and filled in two-thirds of the rest by herself.

"The brain needs time to recover," she said, speaking of mine as if it were not present, which was, I also supposed to myself, by all accounts true, considering the damage inflicted upon it by electroshock therapy. Until that opportune moment should come, though, she thought it would be good to suggest various means by which I might support myself.

Brows furrowed in concentration, she slid a metal spatula under a large section of puzzle, cautiously lifted it, swung it into position, and lowered it into place.

"For a start you could do yard work," she said, looking as hugely satisfied as any crane operator might from lifting the key part of a skyscraper into place.

While I certainly remembered cutting lawns in my teen years and it was true that a decrepit old push reel mower sat in the corner of my garage, the growing season was drawing swiftly to a close.

"Well, maybe not," she remarked. "What about hiring out as a handyman? You must remember enough of your carpentry to repair roofs and windows. With the number of storms we have, you'd have all the work you want, dear."

I shook my head. Somehow, I still hadn't gotten across to her that I didn't remember _anything_ of my former skills. Worse yet, my problems went further than simply attempting to progress through the basics and advancing to where I could one day again be called an artisan, a prospect likely to consume years. I actually found myself afraid to run my woodworking equipment. The ear-splitting whine of the saws, the whirling blades with their flesh-eating, barracuda-sharp teeth, gave me the heebie-jeebies. What if one of those blades cracked, came flying off? What if I forgot what I was doing, let my mind wander, accidentally sliced off a finger—two fingers—a hand—an arm—my _head?_

Such thoughts made my breath catch in my throat.

"You should try returning to church."

I grunted, not so sure, though she'd made the same suggestion numerous times. The thought of facing unfamiliar people in an unfamiliar place, even if I was supposedly familiar to them, was too daunting. Besides, what would they think of my bruised face and my tremors?

She must have seen my anxiety, because she said: "At least you don't have to worry about being arrested, you know. You can be grateful for that."

I shook my head, wiggled my jaw, and gingerly ground my teeth together, testing my bite. As much as I might be on the mend from my fall, a few of my teeth were bothering me. Maybe I should cut out the coffee and sugar cookies?

"Am I a Lutheran?" I asked. In spite of her urging me to return to church, I didn't know which church she meant. Every Sunday morning I heard her elderly white Buick Skylark leave the driveway promptly at eight, while on Tuesdays her quilting sessions called her out by nine. Like everything else, I simply must have forgotten that I ever took the drive into Seaside with her and Angie Blackmer.

"You, Lutheran?" She followed her question with a laugh. "No, do you want to be? Your mother's parents were Finnish Lutheran, you know."

I shrugged my shoulders. "I, I don't remember going to church."

She glanced out of the corner of her eye at me, as she expertly lifted in another section of puzzle with her spatula. The emerging picture was of a bearded old man bent over a workbench, crafting a wooden toy. A Grandfather clock stood in the background. Because Zell had the box lid propped up for us to gauge our progress, I knew what the entire picture was supposed to be, yet I still hadn't been any help. Picture or no picture, she'd pieced together the puzzle by herself.

"Now that I think of it, I suppose you didn't attend church much as a child—" She didn't have to finish the thought. I was well aware of how most of my memory after elementary school was a black void, that what I did remember came mostly from my earliest school years and beforehand.

"Santa Claus!" I exclaimed, the name popping into my head.

"Santa Claus?" She asked, looking at me peculiarly. " _Yes!_ I didn't realize you weren't aware of that."

The man carving the wooden toy was Santa Claus. It wasn't that I'd forgotten about Christmas, which was coming up in little more than a month. I'd just misplaced Santa's name somewhere in my brain's filing system. The red suit with white ruffs had teased at my mind all evening.

"That's good," she said encouragingly. "Little by little, it's coming back to you. We'll just keep praying it all comes back."

She saw me shake my head.

"That kind of attitude won't help, John. I know what Dr. Schiffman told you, that in many of these cases the damage is permanent. But we're just going to have faith for something better. Like most men he figures it's best giving you the facts as he sees them, afraid if you get your hopes up and things don't turn out the way you like, then you'll just fall to pieces and want to throw yourself off a cliff.

"You do see how that kind of thinking doesn't help, don't you?"

I shrugged, hoping she couldn't read my mind, how I'd been thinking of an extended swim in the ocean. A long walk off a short pier. That sort of thing.

"I'll drop you off at Driftwood Bible Church in the morning. The more you return to your old surroundings and the people, the more you'll remember."

She steadily added in puzzle pieces, working as she talked. Santa Claus was complete. The Grandfather clock and most of the toys on the workbench were done, leaving the background walls and Christmas poinsettias to be filled in.

"I'm sure of it," she continued. "I saw the very thing during the war. Does that make sense?"

I grunted my assent. The war. Dubya Dubya Two. What a lot of the black and white photos in the back hallway were about. The picture of the girls in Army fatigues was of Army nurses, herself among them so many years ago.

"Did I go to church often?"

"Every Sunday and sometimes Wednesdays, before a certain woman came along," she said, biting her lip and hunching over the puzzle.

"Are the people nice?"

"Nice enough," she said, momentarily relaxing.

"And?" I asked.

"I don't much care for the new minister," she admitted. "Which might have something to do with his not thinking too highly of Lutherans.

"Which is _his_ problem," she laughed. "I don't have any problem with the people at Driftwood Bible. He's just a bit of a cold fish and I hear all he talks about is hellfire. Other than that, I'm sure he's wonderful!"

We both laughed, me thinking I would have to make certain I overslept my alarm or otherwise manage to beg off when she came for me in the morning.

After we finished the puzzle, she took me home. In spite of my perfectly functioning backyard porch light, she was not yet comfortable with letting me walk alone at night.

"Breakfast will be at seven, John. If you're not up in time, I'll wake you with a cup of black coffee under your nose."

I stood in the open doorway and watched to make sure she safely retraced her steps through my back yard. As I waited, Ferd walked in, whapped my leg with his tail as he squeezed by, and made a mad dash for the bedroom. He was curled up next to the pillow, purring as loudly as most people snore, by the time I crawled into bed. I went to sleep wondering how I could get out of both breakfast and church in the morning. It wouldn't be easy; I didn't want to offend Zell, make her think I didn't like her cooking.

#

Fog as cold, gray, and frothy as the wind-whipped Pacific seemed to follow me inside the church's windowless foyer. Someone was conserving electricity, or they thought freezing to death in church on Sunday mornings was an appropriate religious exercise, something like penance?

A young man handing out church bulletins urgently gripped my hand and immediately apologized for the lack of heat. It seemed the church organist, who normally arrived early to see to the furnace, had called in sick. Hoping to avoid conversation, I nodded my head and slipped past him into the sanctuary, where I found a seat in the back pew. The service was already in progress.

If I'd thought the foyer cold, the sanctuary was frigid. Sitting at the piano, a diminutive, kinky-haired elderly woman quietly feathered the keys as if she felt too frozen to play louder, perhaps afraid that her fingers would shatter like glass. The atmosphere seemed tense. I held my breath, wondering if some explosion was about to hit us.

Instead, people began to sing a hymn, their voices as tentative as the music emanating from the piano itself. I let out my breath and picked up a hymnal. Since numbers were still a challenge for me and reading was out of the question, I cracked the hymnal to about the same place other people held theirs and simply hummed along with the singing. If I'd seen or heard anyone whistling, I would've done that instead.

Three other hymns followed, with the pianist continuing to play at a whisper and the church's steam registers occasionally banging percussively as if in protest. Continuing my humming, I looked around the room, taking in the scattered congregation (many of them sitting alone like me) and the rickety wooden pews, the poor lighting, the unadorned walls, and finally the dais, where two men sat at opposite sides in ornate but clunky-looking chairs. One of the men was frail and elderly, the other perhaps forty years of age, blond and crew cut, with a broad nose supporting thick horn-rimmed glasses.

In the middle of the dais stood the pulpit, shouldering its way into my consciousness like a living entity. I know my eyes goggled. It was difficult to understand how I could have missed noticing it sooner; in comparison to everything else I'd seen, it was like a pearl dropped into the dirt. Everything about it was elegant, its execution shouting excellence of craftsmanship. The front was a lovely barrel curve complete with tapering shoulders, like one might imagine the body of a gracefully executed chariot. A slender, beautifully-turned handrail crowned the top, perfect for a charioteer to grip as he leaned forward to goad the horses, or in this case, the pulpiteer his parishioners. Unlike anything else in the church, its face was dark wood, probably cherry, finished to a high gloss. The attractive trim molding and handrail, along with the cross, as well, were darker yet, ebonized and also in a high gloss. The pièce de résistance, though, was its ornate escutcheon, resembling a conch shell and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, creating a jewel-like setting for the cross. As I squinted from my pew I could make out flowers, perhaps diminutive hand-carved roses, garlanding the rood's crosspiece.

While wondering from the moment I stepped into the church why I had ever attended there, sight of the pulpit was like the tolling of a bell through the chaos of a storm, something to focus on through the conflict of images and voices in my head. The one person I could think of who might have crafted it was my father. Or _I_ had, linking it in every way to why I was in that church and not in another that morning.

The singing ended. The pianist rose from her piano bench to take a seat in the front pew, and the elderly man on the dais went to the pulpit. He read out announcements from the bulletin and then called for men to come forward to receive the offering.

I had forgotten an offering would be taken. I think I probably grimaced, as I took out the solitary dollar from my wallet and dropped it into the chrome plate thrust under my nose by the same young man who'd greeted me in the foyer.

A moment later, I was startled to hear my name called out. It was the elderly gentleman behind the pulpit, squinting in my direction and welcoming me back after a long absence. A handful of people turned and glanced at me, some of them with acknowledging smiles. I steeled myself, afraid I might be expected to answer, maybe say a few words of explanation or in the least a greeting. Instead, the elderly man smiled respectfully to the man on his left, and then asked everyone to turn to Matthew 7 in their Bibles.

Expecting a tedious half-hour, I closed the hymnal, crossed my arms over my chest, and settled as deeply into the wooden pew as possible. It seemed he was making his farewell address to the church before going into retirement, a message that could be summed up in three simple letters, one short word he wanted us to imagine as boldly, indelibly, and emphatically as if God Himself were the one planting it in our minds. That word was _ASK!_

Did we want something from God? We were to _ask_ for it, because everyone who asks receives. If the blessing didn't seem to be forthcoming, then we should _seek_ for it. Except if we were seeking for something from God but not seeking God first, maybe we were missing the whole point, for everything we want is _in_ God. And if neither of those seemed to be working, we had better _knock_ , actively go after what we wanted from God, even enlisting the help of others in our cause, for to those who knock, the door is opened.

Ask. Seek. Knock. ASK!

Hadn't Jesus invited us to ask of the Father, who _wanted_ to give good gifts to His children, with one _caveat_? If we wanted anything from God, it was important to make sure that we had pure hearts, that we forgave those who trespassed against us. Having fulfilled that, God could freely give us all that was in His heart to give His children.

The man was no great orator, which was fitting, I thought, since except for the beautiful pulpit, the shabbiness of the sanctuary did not seem appropriate for great oratory. More than once he stumbled, had to repeat himself, sometimes fumbling with the microphone as if he perhaps could not hear the words passing from his mouth and into the air, sometimes even hacking out a brief, dry cough before he could go on. He was old and worn, stepping out of harness and turning it over to the new man. Still, in spite of his limitations, in spite of the fidgeting congregation seated sparsely throughout the sanctuary, his words seemed to carry to me like a lifeline flung out over the waves.

_A-S-K! Ask. Seek. Knock._ Was that all I needed to do? Did God really love me _that_ much, actually want to be a _father_ to me?

By the time he resumed his seat on the dais, turning the pulpit over to the new man in a record twelve minutes, I felt like I was losing a friend, a comfortable old house slipper of a friend. I had come through the church doors full of fears, as cold and anxious as the surrounding frigid atmosphere, and now found myself warmed to the core, fully reassured of the Heavenly Father's love for me.

Then it was the new man's turn.

He read his comments from a script, pausing to look up only once, when someone near the front of the sanctuary went on a brief coughing jag. The competition having lapsed into silence, he recommenced reading, this time louder. His voice was much clearer, steadier, more confident than the elderly pastor's even if his speech was clipped and delivered in an almost military cadence. But if the first pastor's words were like a lifeline shot straight from heaven, this man's seemed to float in my direction like flotsam and jetsam across choppy waves. Snatches reached me about how _we_ don't raise our hands in church to praise God, how _we_ don't play jungle music, how _we_ don't speak in tongues, and something about how _we_ must be careful of fellowshipping with people from other churches.

He concluded his speech by putting aside his script to tell us about his obligation to warn us of hell. Were we believers? Did we know that unless we walked the aisle, came forward to confess our sins, and received Jesus into our hearts, we were on our way to the lake of fire?

As though none of us had heard him the first time, he repeated the same spiel, this time poking his finger in our direction for emphasis. He stared owlishly at us through horn-rimmed glasses, demanding an answer. His gaze roved the room, starting with the front pews and working toward the back, finally settling on me.

I felt panic, as his finger began to rise. Suddenly, he coughed. He cleared his throat, and coughed again, this time a long, hacking spell that set him to fishing for a handkerchief in his back pocket.

"I think we'll dismiss the service," the older preacher said, going to the microphone. "It's cold in here. Could someone please bring Brother Danin a glass of water?"

Handkerchief to his mouth, the younger man nodded in speechless agreement.

Saved! As the congregation rose from the pews, I found myself able to breathe again and was the first to make it to the door to the outside world. I escaped to the sidewalk, with sunlight breaking through the morning fog, feeling as though I'd been released from a prison cell that I couldn't have borne much longer without screaming. Nobody would ever catch me going back to that church. Zell had been so wrong!

I was halfway home before I began wondering what the preacher, who looked from his close-cropped hair and joyless demeanor like a new parolee from either a prison camp or the military, had meant by his comments: _Speaking in tongues? Jungle music? Raising hands?_

None of it made sense to me. It made even less sense, when I experienced a flash of imagery before my eyes. Strangely bright and beautiful creatures (I wasn't sure if they were men and women, or angels) were raising their hands and speaking and singing ecstatic praise, while a burst of exuberant music struck my ear drums, overwhelming me like a wave. The last thing I remembered, before stumbling, was of those same bright creatures joining hands and swinging out in a long, sinuous reel, celebrating in dance!

As the world revolved around my head, with green shrubbery rushing at me as if it meant to swallow me alive, I wondered what he would have thought of _dancing_ in heaven. Dead pine needles and hard dirt pushing into my face cut short my ponderings. Everything went black. A flash of light followed. Strong hands pulled me back to my feet. For one brief, supremely odd moment, I thought I was looking into a bright, leonine face. The sensation passed quickly; I instead found myself staring into the face of an elderly woman.

Disoriented and thoroughly embarrassed, I brushed dirt from my shirt and pants while trying to figure out why the woman looked familiar. After a few moments of furious thought, memory of the frail looking church pianist came trickling back. Brown eyes staring up at me through thick, round bifocals, she patted me on the arm. The swollen, arthritic knuckles explained her apprehensive approach to playing the piano. At the same time, they definitely could not explain how she might help lift me to my feet as if I were a child and not twice her size, nor even how she could carry the large Bible that was in her hands.

"Are you hurt, John?"

She actually said _Johan_ , her quavery voice revealing a German accent. Her skin, nearly the color of dishwater, was sprinkled with age spots and appeared to have the texture of parchment. The silvery full hair, at first glance resembling a fright wig, proved to be real upon closer inspection.

She had asked me a question but I felt tongue-tied and frozen in time. Like the Salem doctor whose face had seemed infinitely familiar, hers was too, though it was more of a mask, as if at any moment her real face might break through, like a chrysalis shattering its husk to reveal something truer, more real, even pure and holy.

The impression faded. Birdlike, she cocked her head to one side, eyes attentive, waiting.

_What was the question?_ I wondered. "I'm all right," I finally muttered, brushing myself off one last time.

"I'll walk you home," she said, encouraging me in the right direction with a light touch on the elbow.

"Do I know you?" I asked. She didn't answer immediately. Tit for tat, I wondered? As we walked, she held my arm by one hand, her fingers sharp talons clutching at me. Her lips moved soundlessly.

Was something wrong with my hearing? First my mind, now my ears were going? What next?

"What are you saying?" I asked.

She glanced at me, not really looking at me, just one of those polite acknowledgments of another person's presence.

"You ask the oddest questions, John." After a few more steps, she said, "I was praying."

"Oh."

"Silently. For you."

"Oh. Oh, thank you." What else could I say? What else should I say?

As if reading my mind, she said, "You needn't say anything." Glancing up at me again, this time meeting my eyes with a birdlike smile, she added, "You relax, young man. We'll be home in a minute, don't you worry. A cup of hot tea will do you good."

We walked in silence the final block and a half to my house. One block or twenty, walking in silence suited me fine, though I should say it wasn't complete silence, since I found myself whistling a hymn, perhaps even one she'd played on the piano that morning. I say _perhaps_ because I didn't actually remember precisely which hymns they'd been, even if she did glance up at me and smile in recognition of the tune, whatever it was.

I stopped whistling when we reached my house and stepped from the sidewalk onto the pathway of crushed oyster shells leading to the front door. It occurred to me, in that moment, that I should put in a gate, fill the opening between the two sides of the fence of woven driftwood, to give it a more completed look. From Zell I'd learned I was the one who hauled the driftwood from the beach in my beat up old pickup, collecting it over a period of months and finally constructing the fence during a few fitful bursts of creativity that lasted a solid week. Why I'd never put in a gate was a mystery to her, too.

The Pianist, as I'd come to think of her, looked more and more delighted, as we approached the door.

"Your house always reminds me of Germany," she said, pronouncing the word always as _alvays_ and of as _off_.

She must have seen my quizzical look, or read my mind again. My _English_ cottage looked like Germany?

"You don't often see exquisite craftsmanship in this country," she explained. "And everything is so clean."

I couldn't help but smile. I know my face reddened a little.

She tried the doorknob before I had my keys in hand.

"You lock it now?" She asked.

Preferring as usual to let the other person do the speaking, I shrugged, letting us in and making a mental note to myself that I used to leave the front door unlocked. We walked through the living room and into the kitchen. I threw my coat over a chair and excused myself to wash up in the bathroom. Dirt still clung to my hands and face from my unexpected side trip into the bushes.

When I came back out, she had the teakettle on the gas burner and was rinsing a ceramic teapot with hot water in the sink. Cups, saucers, spoons, and paper towels were on a tray, along with a sliced lemon, ready to be transported to the living room.

"I always forget," she said. "Do you like milk in your tea?"

I shook my head. Even if I did live in an English cottage, and tea was the preferred hot beverage of the English, I couldn't stand milk in tea.

"Lemon and sugar," I said, feeling as though I was a guest in my own home. By the time the tea was ready, I was once more wondering just who did own the house; she certainly seemed to know her way around my kitchen.

Neither of us spoke again until after we'd sat ourselves in the living room and had our first sip of tea. Her face brightened visibly, as she set her cup back on the saucer.

"You haven't asked me about my trip to Germany," she said.

I opened my mouth to speak but answering was unnecessary. She launched into a description of Day 1's flight and barely drew breath until the end of Day 5. I must have looked at my wall clock one time too many, because at that point, as she was about to launch into Day 6, she squinted strangely at me, clamped her mouth shut, and grabbed her cup for a short sip.

"I talk too much," she said, noisily banging the cup down on its saucer. "It comes from living alone. When someone's willing to listen like you do—" Consternation crossed her face. "But then _you_ live alone and seldom have a word to say to anyone." As a seeming afterthought, she muttered, "Of course you don't."

_Of course?_ Did she mean because of my stutter? Or did she mean because I was too stupid to have anything to say? Or maybe too crazy?

Staring into her teacup, she sighed.

"Why should you? You keep yourself busy. Having something to do all the time keeps your mind off yourself."

She looked up, brightening again. "Reverend Grunwald said you were absent a long time. Did you take a trip, too?"

_Reverend Grunwald?_ Vaguely, it came to me she meant the elderly gentleman who'd greeted me from the pulpit.

Not waiting for my answer, she asked, "What do you think of the new man?"

_New man?_ While I fumbled for words and struggled to marshal my thoughts, she shook her head and clucked her tongue. Again, she didn't wait for a response.

"I think we may have made a mistake with him. He's not like Reverend Grunwald at all. He's so negative. Even if he did make an altar call, he didn't really speak from the Bible, now did he?"

For a few moments she was silent. From the changing expressions of her face, I could tell she was enduring some inner conflict.

"Of course we mustn't be too critical. He did just complete his seminary studies, and like Reverend Grunwald says, it does take a man time to adjust, to get his feet under him, to find his depth."

Her eyebrows seemed to twitch with thought. "But his wife! What a sad looking little mouse. She won't do at all!"

"I was in the hospital!" I blurted. "In the nuthouse." I deliberately rolled up my sleeve, displayed the minute crosshatching painstakingly accomplished by Salem General's woman surgeon.

"I had an accident, too."

Behind her bifocals, her eyes swam with shock.

"They-they had you—? All this time? Locked away?"

I shrugged resignedly and nodded, hoping it would be answer enough. She cocked her head to one side and looked at me. Her eyes radiated compassion.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she said. "I know all about those doctors in Salem."

She did? Had she spent time with them, too?

"Your father explained everything. It took him two years to have you released."

"My father? But he's dead!"

" _John_ ," she said, speaking very kindly. "I know your father is dead. If you can call living in heaven _death_. I meant when you were ten, the first time they took you away."

"What?"

Her jaw dropped and she stared. She struggled to pull herself together. She set her lips in a straight line.

"You don't remember?"

I must have shaken my head.

"About your mother or about the house? Nothing?" She finished faintly. "God is truly merciful. Some things are better forgotten."

"But—"

She shook her head insistently, cutting me off. "Just like this old world, one day we'll forget it all, all the pain and misery, all the suffering and poverty."

She gazed up at me and smiled brightly. "I know because I died once. It's a beautiful world we're going to, John. Your father already waits for you in heaven. You'll see it all one day, if you remain faithful."

She chattered on, my head still echoing with her remark about my mother and the house. Finally, I reached out and grasped her by one thin arm, halting her in mid-sentence.

"What do you mean about my mother and the house?"

" _Oh John,_ " she said, pulling away from me.

I waited. She stared for a moment, her forehead crinkling in dismay. Clearly, it had nothing to do with my staccato style of speaking. Rising abruptly, she took cup and saucer back to the kitchen. I followed her through the open, curved archway.

"Zell is much better at explaining these things than I am," she said, rinsing her cup out at the sink. Looking earnest, she faced me again. "Why don't you ask her?"

I watched as she gathered up her Bible and purse and fled back into the living room.

"Thank you for the tea, John." She pointed suddenly toward the windows, to my neighbor's white Buick turning in at the driveway. "Here is your Zell, now! She can tell you none of us ever believed a ten-year-old should be held responsible for _kaputting_ his house."

"Kaputting?"

" _Kaputting._ Kabooming. Blowing up." she said. She was out the door and on the sidewalk before I could react. I must have sat down without realizing it. I don't think I actually moved for another several minutes. I was too much in shock.

Zell came to the door.

"John? Tyrollia said you—"

That was the woman's name: Tyrollia. _Tyrollia Grafhausen_. I remembered, now.

"Are you all right?"

_I blew up my own house when I was ten!_ I wanted to shout. Instead, I asked her about my mother.

"Oh, John," she said, her chin trembling with emotion. She reached blindly for a chair and sat down. "Do we have to talk about that now? The day has been so lovely—please, don't give me that hang-dog look of yours."

I tried smiling, probably unsuccessfully, because she threatened to go home and lock her door behind her.

"It won't do any good," I said.

She stared questioningly.

"I have the key to your house," I said. "You gave it to me."

"I'll call Blackie on you. Sometimes it's useful being related to the town constable."

"He thinks I'm harmless."

"He never was a good judge of character," she said, her eyes twinkling. I waited. The twinkle faded. She took a deep breath and soberly gathered her thoughts.

"Someday we have to figure out how to do this differently."

I nodded my head encouragingly.

"I don't like to have to remind you—"

"I killed my own mother?"

"No!" She said, staring in surprise. "She killed herself. That's what the hospital always said."

"But she said I blew up the house."

"John," she said sternly, leaning toward me. "You misunderstood Tyrollia. Your mother was taken to the State Hospital after she tried to kill your father. The doctors said she'd had a breakdown. You didn't blow the—the house didn't blow up until a few weeks after her funeral, so no, you couldn't have killed her."

Perhaps some things really were better left forgotten.

"You weren't responsible, John. A child can't blame himself for his parents' problems. Your father always believed it was those treatments they gave her. She couldn't handle it."

_Electroshock_. That I could understand.

Zell sat back in her chair. "They said she must've hoarded her meds to take them all at once."

I might have done the same, except for being rescued by Ralph from Dr. Laberly and Nurse Jo.

"Reverend Grunwald," she said, her voice rising in surprise.

"What?" I said, startled by the change of subject. A white, 1965 Ford LTD had pulled in at the curb in front of my house. _Great_ , I thought. Remembering the year and model of an old car was a snap. But try to remember a wife, or blowing up my house? It must be wonderful to have a brain.

The passenger window rolled down, revealing a white-haired woman. The driver door opened, and the elderly gentleman I'd heard preach that morning got out. His head was barely above the LTD's roofline. He came around the car and stood talking to the woman.

"You think they're coming here?" I started worriedly.

"I'll see to his wife," Zell said, hurrying out the door. She and Reverend Grunwald met on the walkway and exchanged greetings. Politely, it seemed to me.

I didn't want company. If it had been the other, younger minister, I would have locked my door and pretended no one was home, maybe snuck out the back, left Zell to make up excuses.

"John?" Reverend Grunwald called. Zell had left the door ajar. Seeing me, he walked in without waiting for my reply. He seated himself in my wooden rocker and glanced familiarly around the room.

"You rushed out from church so fast that I was worried something was wrong," he commented.

Was he serious? I wasn't the only one who'd made a mad dash for the exit. He continued in an apologetic tone before I could muster an answer.

"If it was because of Reverend Danin, I'm sorry. I just hope everyone will give him a chance, give him time to come around. If they don't, I don't know what will happen to our little church. I'm afraid I haven't done a very good job of shepherding the flock these last few years, with Mary's problems."

Mary? Through the windows, I could see Zell walking arm-in-arm with the pastor's wife, the two of them chatting amiably. Looking closer, I saw Zell was doing all the talking. As they stood by the Scotch pine in my yard, the other woman's jaw dropped and her eyes grew big, as if delighting in seeing a tree for the very first time. Still holding onto her arm, Zell took her to the driftwood fence and pointed out the curling, curving, tortuously interwoven forms, and elicited the same kind of overblown admiration.

I was drawn back to Reverend Grunwald's dry, raspy voice. Finding the other minister, Reverend Danin, in my living room would have been as alien to me as entertaining a Martian. Unlike him, this man's presence was comfortable, grandfatherly, solicitous.

"You've lost weight since I last saw you," he said. "Have you been ill?"

I wanted to tell him it was none of his business, except that the next thing I knew, I was babbling, my stammer no impediment to the words that spilled from my mouth. What an idiot, I thought, when I finished telling him my problems. What would he think of me now? Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut?

He dabbed at rheumy eyes with a handkerchief, rocking assiduously, the chair squeaking in accompaniment. It occurred to me that he'd probably heard everything possible there was to hear; he was an old man, a minister. Maybe he wouldn't bolt for the door. Or he was still thinking about it, how to escape graciously?

"Oh John," he said, his gaze flitting between me and the scene outside. "If I was Catholic, I think I'd say we all have our cross to bear. But I'm Protestant, you know, and I _still_ think we all have our cross to bear."

He smiled faintly, wiped at his eyes one more time, and put the handkerchief away.

"The cold gets to me," he said. "Ever had a hypodermic injection in your eyes for an infection? I have. You never forget it."

He hadn't given me the chance to respond, and I wasn't sure if he expected me to; still, my first thought was that electroshock was far worse.

"My older sister was blind," he went on, "which probably has something to do with my fear about anything to do with my eyes. But compared to losing a son in Viet Nam, or losing my youngest daughter to drugs..."

He squeezed his eyes together, foregoing recourse to the handkerchief. Tears ran down his cheeks. His children, if I'd ever known them, were a complete blank to me.

"There are times I've wished I could forget, times I wished I could be like you," he said. He rose slowly to his feet, his eyes again on his wife and Zell, who were strolling up the walkway to my door. "But if I was like you, who would take care of my Mary?"

I shook my head, at a complete loss to know what to say.

"I wouldn't like the thought of losing myself, either, John, forgetting who I am. I'm sure it's a special hell to you."

He turned from the window and came to me, lightly placed a trembling hand on my shoulder.

"I'll be praying for you tonight," he said. "Tomorrow I'll come by early. Mary invariably sleeps in, you know. We'll see just what you can remember about running those tools of yours. I'm still pretty handy, even if I am old and doddering."

"Reverend Grunwald?" Zell said from the door. "I think Mary's ready."

"Thank you, Mrs. Zelig, I think so, too," he said smilingly. To me, he said, "You pray tonight, too, John, and make sure you don't limit God's ability to answer your prayers by doubting. Allow him the grace to answer in his own way. Your part is simply to believe. Trust him. Trust him like—"

He hesitated. I think he meant to say like a _child_. But he must know trust had been stolen from me when I was a child, by my mother's death in the State Hospital and the rape of my own mind through electroshock treatments.

"Just trust him to do right," he said, his voice trailing off softly. "He might even answer in a miraculous way."

#

Neither one of us could have guessed just how miraculous the answer would be. The high-pitched whine of a radial arm saw ripping through a piece of lumber was something I would have recognized anywhere. No longer knowing the safest, most proper use of one was irrelevant, when it came to being jerked awake by one in the middle of the night. The sound was nearly loud enough to be coming from under my window. The alarm clock on my nightstand read 5:01. What crazy person would be working at this hour of the morning?

Burying my head into my goose down pillow didn't begin to help. Still groggy with sleep, I gradually realized the source of the noise was my own workshop. I dismissed a fleeting thought to call Blackie and wake him from his own slumber. It was probably nothing more than a high school prank. If I couldn't roust a few kids on my own, what good was I?

Light blazed from the workshop's open door. Whoever they were, they were certainly brazen. As soon as I set foot on the pathway, the whine of the saw died. The crunch of oyster shells under my feet warning the intruders of my coming? I stuck my head inside the doorway.

No kids. Instead, a man stood with his back to me, whistling a maddeningly familiar tune somehow beyond my ability to place. Worse yet, he wore a ridiculous red velvet suit with white fur trim. Across the workbench were scattered wooden toys in various stages of completion. Someone had also put out bright poinsettias in foil-wrapped pots.

Such beautiful toys! It would have been like sacrilege to disturb him, when he was making toys for children. No sooner had the thought crossed my mind, than he put aside the toy he was working on and instead picked up a notebook. Leaning over his shoulder, I saw him turn first one page, and then another, and another, all of them devoted to drawings as familiar to me as the tunes he whistled. Unfortunately they were just as inaccessible.

He closed the notebook. He selected and pulled lumber stock from my stacked supply. He marked off swift measurements and switched on my saws, planers, routers, sanders. He ran the lumber through, again making enough noise to wake the neighborhood. Working more swiftly than I thought possible, he glued, joined, clamped... applied veneers... sanded... sprayed on varnishes, and sanded and varnished again, and again, and again... added clock works, weights and pendulum... polished stone, cut abalone shell, pieced together stained glass... screwed in the door hinges, inserted a glass pane...

Before standing back to admire his handiwork, he switched off every piece of machinery. Miraculously, the floors and workbenches were clean, entirely free of sawdust and woodchips.

Turning in my direction, he gestured toward the completed Grandfather clock with a flourish, and then winked at me. He was white-haired, bearded, half bald, wearing wire-rimmed glasses. It was my father.

Still whistling, he faded from sight. With that, I felt myself begin to rise, as though surfacing from the bottom of a lake. I awoke, his whistling still in my ears. The tune was a Christmas carol, _Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring_. I was pretty sure _Angels We Have Heard On High_ had been another of his selections, and _Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly._

_How strange, how deeply, deeply strange,_ I thought. Reluctantly sitting up and swinging my legs to the floor, I found myself whistling, too. The sound was even more satisfying than the thought of a pinch of Copenhagen.

What a dream!

_If_ it was a dream. What if it had been real? I threw on my jeans and rushed out to my workshop. As I opened the door and flipped on the lights, I smelled freshly sawn lumber. I nearly heard the echo of _Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring_ lingering yet. My eyes searched hungrily for my father, and for toys and poinsettias, any sign at all that the dream might have been real. The three coffins, the unfinished Grandfather clocks, were in their usual place. No _new_ one stood ready for my inspection.

When I rested my hand on the radial arm saw, I felt warmth radiating from its motor housing. My imagination?

_Crazy!_ I thought, momentarily shuddering; maybe it was the voices, again. Should I tell anyone?

Dream? What did the dream mean? Did it mean anything? Was it supposed to? I sat down on a metal folding chair and covered my face with my hands. Just what had I seen? As I pressed my fingers hard against my eyeballs, I no longer saw a man in red, or toys, or poinsettias, or even a new Grandfather clock. Instead, step-by-step images came to me of how to construct one of my clocks. Opening my eyes, I stared at my unfinished clock carcases.

Maybe starting over again was possible. But how did one come up with the ideas in the first place? The idea, the inspiration, the epiphany that might birth a work of art in the mind and heart, was as important as the skill to bring one to completion. Without a knowledge of how I'd meant to finish the work already begun, all would be clumsy at best.

It was then that I saw the gray vinyl notebook sitting out on the workbench next to those three clock carcases. Chills ran up and down my spine. I couldn't remember leaving any notebook out the night before. Flipping it open, I began leafing through the pages. As in my dream, each presented a highly-detailed drawing executed in a sure hand. As before, whenever I perused the books from the shelves in the house (I was not yet entirely comfortable thinking of it as _my_ house), the measurements still presented me with problems. But I was catching gleams of insight into the mind that had once been capable of both creating these drawings and bringing them to reality. Beautiful reality, if the drawings were any indication, and the photos I'd found of others I'd done.

Two hours passed, in my close inspection of the notebook, before I realized the drawings corresponded with the three carcases awaiting their completion. My first clue should have been the number of notebook dividers with their colored, transparent tabs.

But how was one to go from page to finished piece? Beside each drawing were paragraphs printed block-style in a neat hand. More clues to help me along the way? I might now possess a better grasp of the work before me, and of my former techniques, but at present I still could not read and the numbers included in the drawings meant nothing to me.

_Numbers_. I at least understood what numbers were for, that the measurements corresponded to those printed on a metal tape measure. I picked up my tape measure from where it lay abandoned on the workbench like the gray notebook. The heft of the metal case was strangely reassuring. Pulling out a length of the blade, I stared at the black numbers printed on yellow.

An image flashed through my mind: My father sat at his workbench drafting a scale drawing of an armoire he meant to build. He turned to me with his ruler and asked me to check the measurement. Fractions had been difficult for him, at least those smaller than an eighth of an inch. The memory came flooding back, of how he had often had me double-check the measurements for his projects, whether for a house or for a piece of furniture.

_Yes_ , fractions had sometimes been a challenge for him. Yet he hadn't let that fact keep him from building everything from his beloved chairs and tables to a handful of finely crafted houses.

Excited, I pulled the tape out further and compared the numbers on it to one of my drawings. If these numbers corresponded to what I'd actually produced in the cases standing next to my workbench...

Gradually, I became aware of someone watching me. It was Zell, coffee mug in hand. Her face beamed.

"You must be feeling better!"

"I think I am," I said, rubbing my forearm over my sweaty brow. "I still can't read yet, but numbers seem to be coming back to me."

I measured the height of the nearest carcase and locked the tape and shoved it in her direction.

"Tell me what that measurement is, will you?"

She squinted at it for a moment, before saying, "Seventy-two inches."

I opened the gray notebook and leafed through to the appropriate page. I pointed to the drawing.

"Is that what this measurement says?"

She glanced at it and nodded, agreeing quickly.

"Then it's beginning to come back to me," I said, collapsing onto my folding chair.

"That's not all," she said, smiling and handing the mug of coffee to me.

I took a slurp from the cup, and asked, "What do you mean?"

"You were whistling when I came in."

"Whistling?"

"You used to whistle all the time. It didn't matter if you were working here in your shop, or mowing your lawn, or weeding in the garden. You were always whistling."

"That must have been annoying!"

"Not at all," she said. "You whistled quite beautifully."

"I did?"

"I always loved hearing you," she said, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye.

"Yes?"

"My Albert was a whistler. Not nearly as accomplished as you, mind you. I've sometimes wondered if he was killed because of it, if he forgot where he was and somebody from the other side heard him whistling and just sort of fired in his direction."

WWII again.

"Maybe he annoyed them?"

"Maybe," she said, smiling. "Do you think you can whistle that again?"

"What?"

" _Joy to the World._ You were whistling it when I came in."

"Really?" I said, pursing my lips and experimentally blowing air through them, whistling a nonsense tune. "Doesn't sound like much to me."

"Oh, you!" Zell said, hitting me on the shoulder.

"John?" A voice called from the door. It was Reverend Grunwald, in jeans and a rumpled plaid shirt.

"Reverend Grunwald!" Zell exclaimed. "John has some good news!"

"Wonderful," he said. "Good news early in the morning is always the best kind."

"He can tell you all about it, and in the meantime I'll rustle up John's favorite breakfast for us, strawberry waffles with whipped cream."

"Oh, good news on top of good news," Reverend Grunwald said, obviously pleased. He rubbed his hands together in anticipation, and winked at me. "Can your neighbor cook, though, John? That's the question."

"She's not bad at all," I said.

Zell was already to the door. She turned with a parting shot of her own. "It's not surprising you have so few friends, John Raventhorst. And as for you, Reverend Grunwald—"

"Yes, Mrs. Zelig?" He asked, eyeing her innocently.

"Oh, just get on with what you came to do."

"That I will," he said. "I'm looking forward to those waffles of yours."

"Hmmph," she snorted, walking out.

*****

Episode Eight

Like most small beach towns, Driftwood Bay had its share of restaurants, in our case a fish and chowder house, a hamburger joint, and a pizza parlor. For the best chicken, everybody went to _The Driftwood Drifter,_ one of two local taverns, whose cook split whole chickens down the breast and then deep fried them by halves, serving the succulently golden halves with a side of equally golden fries and a tiny paper cup of cole slaw, along with a choice of beverage. Since I wasn't hungry for a hamburger, or for chowder or pizza, that day, I walked the four short blocks to the tavern.

You couldn't miss The Drifter if you wanted to; distinctively Mission-style, with a brick façade, there was no other building like it in town or maybe even in the entire county. In a community built of Cape Cods, too many Ranch styles thrown up after the war years, and the occasional Craftsman or log house, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Even the local Catholic church, established sixty or seventy years earlier, had opted for nautical-themed architecture, with porthole windows and narrow shiplap siding painted in white.

When I reached the tavern, I was disappointed to find the takeout window closed and its _World Famous Chicken_ sign unlighted. The tinted windows looking onto the street sputtered with neon displays advertising Blitz and Olympia. For international flavor they had a fiber optic Heineken sign that looked real enough to drink.

Despite the plenitude of neon, the interior looked dark and uninviting from the sidewalk. I wondered if the blinking OPEN sign was a forgotten relic, if the tavern had actually gone under without my having heard, or no one having remembered to come along to pull the plug.

There was one way to find out. I turned the doorknob and pushed my way inside. The interior wasn't nearly as dark as I thought it would be. Beyond that, the first thing I noticed was a garishly lighted art deco jukebox standing against the opposite wall, a country tune pouring softly from its speakers. To my left, directly under the windows, I saw an ancient tabletop shuffleboard, complete with sand sprinkled over it.

Half of the floor space was taken up by tubular chrome chairs and small round tables, the other half by three pool tables plus a single table for snooker and one for air hockey.

It seemed the lunch hour rush, even if delayed by an hour, had yet to begin. To my right, two older men sat at the far end of the bar, staring into their beer glasses, with a dozen upholstered bar stools between them and a far younger man sitting near the door. The younger man held a stubby brown bottle in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. Around him, both on the countertop and the scarified, ancient plank flooring, were scattered peanut shells.

Behind the bar, a fleshy, gray-haired woman in a white t-shirt advertising _World Famous Chicken_ was busily drying beer glasses. Her eyes, framed by square, horn-rimmed spectacles, narrowed when she saw me, as if she recognized me but didn't care for what she was seeing.

One other person was in the room, for the moment hunched over a pool table with his back turned to me. Everything about him seemed lackadaisical, from the way he held the stick in his hand as he surveyed the lie of the billiard balls across the green baize, to his posture, his shaggy black hair, and the baggy jeans that threatened to fall off unless he should soon hitch them back up.

When he made his shot, two or three balls went down at the same time. He walked around to the other end of the table and, without looking up or in my direction, surveyed it as if for a difficult golf shot. First impressions, I guessed, weren't everything.

I walked to the bar. The woman stared, her lips tightening in a frown. Before I could open my mouth, she turned away to pick up another glass to dry.

"I-I-ah—" I began. "Don't you have any chi—"

To my astonishment, she noisily cleared her throat, ignoring my stillborn request, and continued working her towel over the beer glass. The two men at the far end of the countertop swiveled their heads and squinted in my direction as if they were twins, neither of them seemingly pleased at what they saw, either. The younger man shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

"You want something?"

It was the pool player. I turned to face him. I recognized something familiar in his voice, even if the face was not.

"Jack!" He cried, thrusting out his hand for me to shake.

Tentatively, I put out my hand. He shook it vigorously.

"Man, haven't seen you for a coon's age! Where've you been hiding yourself?"

"I—" Memories of a different face came rushing back, one without long, bushy sideburns or pockmarked skin, or the red beak of alcoholism. Still, I could tell Claude was happy to see me. For a moment the years fell away between us—again I was the little boy standing on a concrete porch, watching him dig a rusty watch spring out of a still rustier coffee can.

"You want something to drink? A beer maybe?" He asked eagerly. "Oh yeah, oh yeah, I suppose you're still on that religion kick, right?"

Again, my stutter prevented me from a quick answer. Before I could react, he had ordered the gray-haired woman to bring me a cup of coffee and steered us back to his pool table.

He handed me a stick. "You still play, right?"

Play? Not that I remembered.

"Eight ball?" He asked. "A little one pocket? Whatever you want, man."

"Stripes," I said, fighting to remember, "and solids, I guess."
He corralled the balls, racked them, and stretched over the table for the break. It was several minutes before he missed a shot. All through that time, he kept up a running conversation, none of it demanding a response, time during which I hoped for an opportunity to mention (without stuttering) his World Famous Chicken.

Finally! He fell silent. Grinning happily, he nodded emphatically at me to take my shot. Instead of letting him know a basket of chicken and fries was what I really wanted, I looked at the table and leaned over for my shot. Just as I began my stroke, I felt a sudden spasm through my arm. The cue ball dribbled off the end of the stick.

His eyebrows arched in surprise. He mouthed a silent _Wow_.

"Wasn't expecting that," he muttered, before calling out his shot and sinking it. "Guess I should've laid down a bet."

I consoled myself with the coffee, pouring in lots of cream and sugar to quell my hunger pangs.

"Heard from Kathy lately?"

He was racking the balls for a new game. It was a moment or two before I realized he was directing a question at me that he actually wanted answered.

"From _Kathy_ ," he repeated himself. "You know."

I shook my head. Whoever he meant, I hadn't heard from her, or from anyone else to speak of, for that matter. Kathy was just another face and name lost to the winds of shock therapy.

Taking my response for a _no_ , he shook his head regretfully. "I never figured her for just up and leaving you, man."

Oh, _Kit,_ my ex, he must mean, I thought, shrugging and lowering my head to hide my confusion. Like everyone else in Driftwood Bay, he seemed to know more about my life than I did. I used the moment to finally ask my question.

"You don't sell chicken, anymore?"

"Chicken?" Realization seemed to dawn on his face. "You hungry, man?"

At my nod, he walked over to the bar and grabbed up a gallon jar of beef jerky. He had the lid screwed off by the time he got back to me.

"Here, man, whatever you want. On the house, buddy."

I took out a strip and began chewing. It was peppery, just the way I liked it.

"The stinkin' deep fryer's on the fritz. I haven't been able to get a repairman out to fix it. Costin' me money hand over fist, the jerks."

I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. Whether it was because I was still on the "religion kick," I didn't know.

"Maybe they got a deal with Captain's to shaft me," he said.

_The Captain's_ was Driftwood Bay's fish and chowder house.

"I do buy all my oil and other cooking supplies from them as part of the deal, though, so I don't know what gripe they'd have with me.

"Anyhow, eat all the jerky you want, buddy. It's good to see you. You want some peanuts, too?"

He didn't wait for me to speak or nod. He went to the bar and grabbed a bowl of peanuts.

"Just throw the shells on the floor like everybody else," he said, putting the bowl down on the same table as my coffee cup. Instead of returning to his game, he watched as I ate, especially eyeing me as I struggled to crush the peanut shells between my fingers.

"You having trouble with that hand?" He asked. Evidently, he was a keener observer than I'd thought.

I nodded.

As more of an accusation than as a question, he said, "You've been back to Salem, haven't you?"

I mumbled something about getting better, and started on a second piece of jerky. It was embarrassing to think anyone could figure out my problems so quickly. But then, we had known each other for decades, I supposed, regardless of how little I remembered of our relationship.

"All right, 'nuff said." He fished billiard balls out of their pockets and nonchalantly began tossing them onto the table. This time he didn't rack the balls before picking up his pool cue to knock them back down.

"You know, since you're in here, maybe we can talk about that little proposition of mine."

Proposition? A chill of regret traveled up and down my spine. I wiped my hands on my jeans. Did he want me to buy drugs? Maybe sell some for him? I suddenly wished I hadn't eaten or drunk anything he'd offered me.

He seemed to be hesitating. He killed a few more balls before continuing. In the meantime, I fished out my Copenhagen from my shirt pocket and took a pinch to steady my sudden case of nerves.

Over the past couple of months I'd scraped by with odd jobs, mostly repairing windows and roofs like Zell suggested. The usual surfeit of storms were little short of hurricanes, and when I wasn't playing the role of local handyman, none of which required the esoteric sort of craftsmanship that went into my Grandfather clocks, I perused my books. With Reverend Grunwald coaching me in my reading, I was spending a lot of time in those books, lately. While it was a slow process, progress was nonetheless being made. Unfortunately, the more time spent in the books meant the more time I had on my hands, and the less money.

I shook my head—habit, I guess—my conscience speaking for me even if my mouth couldn't.

"You haven't even given me a chance!"

I shrugged, not knowing what to say to him. I had a vision of all sorts of illegal activity happening in the tavern's back room, even if it didn't necessarily go on around the pool tables. Maybe he'd made me lots of illegal propositions over the years, none of which I remembered.

He turned back to his game, racked the balls and broke them forcefully enough to send one caroming over the far rail and onto the floor. He ignored the escapee and kept playing.

"I can't pay you what you normally get," he muttered. "But it'll still be good money, don't you worry none about that."

What on earth was he talking about?

"You can choose the style you think best, something different from the rest of your pieces, if you want. I suppose it'd be best to go with something that fits the decor."

Decor?

"Half up front, the other half on delivery."

I think tobacco juice dribbled down my chin. I probably looked like an idiot. I know I felt like one, since I still couldn't figure out what he was talking about.

Eyes narrowing, he dropped his pool cue on the table and stared hard at me. His eyes widened in surprise. "You don't get it, do you?"

I shook my head and shrugged. Laughed self-consciously at myself.

"One of your clocks, you dork. I want to buy one of your clocks, if you think you can spare the time!"

I don't know what made me do it. Maybe a tendency to think through all things financial. Maybe some natural bargaining instinct that couldn't be erased or forever submerged by anything as minor as electroshock. Maybe a perverse streak of mischief. But I shook my head.

He nearly exploded. _"No?"_

"Have to think about it."

He drew himself up to his full height. His eyes bulged with anger. For a couple of seconds, I thought he might pick up his pool cue to take a swing at me.

Instead, he guffawed and turned back to his game.

"You never were one to negotiate, not even as a little kid."

I wiped my chin on my sleeve and let him blow off steam. His words had triggered memories of my mother. She was shaking me, telling me I was stubborn, bullheaded like my father. All things considered, maybe it was good to be bullheaded. If I weren't, how would I have survived? And when it came to negotiating, how was someone like me supposed to be able to negotiate when no one ever had the patience to hear me out?

"No wonder Kathy left you," he concluded. He smirked, as he stood his cue stick on the floor and propped it under his chin, with both hands cupped over the tip.

The memories of my mother gave way to a tsunami of other memories that nearly overwhelmed me. I saw flashes of a woman's pink mouth and heard the echoes of a slightly nasal voice that would not shut up. I think I staggered. For a brief moment I was falling into darkness.

Someone's loud guffaw brought me back to my senses.

"You okay, man?"

It was Claude. He was staring, still leaning precariously on his stick. The darkness and nausea faded.

"Rustic," I replied.

"What?" He demanded.

"Er-Er-r-rustic," I said. Ironically enough, I had finally managed to say a word without stammering for once, and Claude still hadn't understood me.

"Rustic?" He asked. "What do you mean?"

"The clock has to be rustic."

"Ohhh! Rustic!" He said. He surveyed his tavern with a long, appreciative look. I suspected he didn't see any of the shabbiness I saw.

"Yeah, _rustic_ ," he said, savoring the word. "That would be good. You mean like beat up or with chipped green paint, or something? I've seen some of the hip stores in Portland selling furniture like that."

I nodded tentatively, hoping he would get the idea that I still wasn't necessarily sold on actually making him a clock.

He looked at me closely. "You mean it, you're actually saying yes? You'll make one for the tavern?"

The words seemed to rush out. "For an old friend."

"Wow," he said, shaking his head as if amazed. "I wonder what the hypocrites will say?"

"What?"

"Oh nothing," he said, smiling quickly.

Though I wasn't sure it was the right time to, I asked if he knew how much I would charge him. I asked because I was afraid the old invoices I'd found in my office files couldn't be true.

"Oh, I know," he said. "A couple _thou_. Don't worry, I'm good for it. And if not, you can take it out in Baskets O' World Famous Chicken."

He laughed, and I let the remark pass. I wasn't about to tell him chicken would have been as good as money at that point. Now I knew I wouldn't have to completely scrape by with just a few house repairs. I could again work full time at my craft. Since this one clock would be made-to-order _rustic_ , I could practice some of the old skills Reverend Grunwald was helping me with, while not having to worry about reaching the same level of polished craftsmanship expected in one of my _Raventhorst Originals_.

_Raventhorst Rustic._ No, maybe _Rustic Raventhorst_ would be better. I had a sudden flash of a whole _line_ of rustic Grandfather clocks, all with my imprimatur. Maybe building just _one_ wasn't God's plan at all. Like Zell was fond of saying, maybe today would be the start of something new, the day I finally put the loss of my memories and skills behind me, the day I got on with my life.

That's what I was thinking, as I waved jauntily to the barmaid and walked out of the tavern. This time she smiled, though it was likely she was simply pleased to see me leaving. When I closed the door behind me, I recalled a childhood memory of playing shuffleboard and of a metal puck rebounding unexpectedly into my little finger. I saw blood spurt, and tasted its saltiness on my tongue. It was my last recollection of being inside _The Driftwood Drifter_.

I glanced at my right hand, at the tiny knot above the middle knuckle of my little finger. Every time the weather changed, that finger twinged with pain. But I didn't spend any more time thinking about it, or about Claude's offer, for that matter. Thoughts of Kit surged over me, pummeling at me with all the painful details of her departure, striking like an ice-cold sneaker wave from off the Pacific.

#

With a new commission in hand, I could sit at my drafting table and put Kit out of my mind. It suddenly didn't matter that nothing had come easily to me these past few months in spite of my strange dream and Reverend Grunwald's coaching. I started doodling on a bit of scratch paper to see how things would go. If it went poorly, I'd crumple it up and throw it away. If something worthwhile emerged from the roiling concoction of thoughts and emotions in my brain, all the better.

I let the ideas flow as freely and quickly as possible, without the restraints of the usual implements of drafting, even employing a stick of charcoal instead of a mechanical pencil. I was looking, at the moment, for _attitude_ , mostly, with rusticism as my spiritual guide, as it were. After I captured something of the spirit, then I could add the flesh with precise ideas of proportion, materials, finishes.

All the same, thoughts of Kit kept nibbling at my mind, tempting me to put aside the charcoal. Claude's seeming familiarity with her was especially annoying, his calling her _Kathy,_ when as far as I knew, myself and everyone else had always called her _Kit_.

" _Focus... Focus... Focus..."_ I mumbled. Once the flow of inspiration was interrupted, it might take me hours or even days to find it again!

Like Claude, Kit liked the sound of her own voice too much. Unfortunately, I'd always tended to gravitate to people who talked a lot, likely to compensate for my own inability to communicate without driving other people crazy. In utter contrast to her, I loved the periods at the ends of sentences, and all the spaces between. The result was that her incessant chatter tended to give me headaches, and though I was the one who owned a history as a nutcase, she was the one it drove crazy.

The first time she walked in through the open door of my workshop and glanced around, I was searching through the wood blocks I used for my inlay work. I nodded politely in her direction, selected a piece of mahogany I wanted, and went to my table saw.

"You're the strong, silent type. I like that in a man."

I shrugged, grinning noncommittally, as I pulled my safety glasses down onto my nose and reached for the power switch. On any given day, especially summers, when Driftwood Bay was overrun with tourists and the usual influx of Portlanders and Seattleites who owned homes along the beach, a handful of the curious poked their heads in past my open shop door. I welcomed visitors, since I'd earned commissions over the years by letting them wander in to watch me pursue my craft. She didn't look like one of my typical customers, though, in her plunging, orange halter top, cutoff jeans, flip flops, and a nice tan that contrasted with her short, wedge-cut sun-bleached hair. She wasn't thirty, yet, that's for sure. Most of my customers were couples, gray-haired ones at that, often attired in Dockers and matching Izods.

It wasn't that I'd stared; like any artist, I was simply observant. I certainly didn't expect her to have stuck around, after I pushed the block past the blade ten times and finally shut off the saw.

"That's for parquetry, isn't it?"

Startled, I dropped the pieces of mahogany like playing cards squirting out of my hand. As they clattered to the floor I leaned over to pick them up, and we bumped heads. Simultaneous exclamations turned to mutual laughter. I stepped back apologetically.

I slid my safety glasses up, perching them atop my head. An angry red mark appeared near her scalp line. She reached up and touched it gingerly, before removing her sunglasses and squeezing them into a hip pocket.

I blurted three words without stuttering, the words I'd practiced more than any others in my life: "Sorry! 'Scuse me."

"That's okay, _mea culpa_ ," she said, grinning wryly, still fingering her injury.

In that moment, I noticed a fragrance in the air different from the shop's usual freshly sawn wood spiced with machine oil. I would have sworn she smelled like fresh raspberries. For a second or two I felt my head swim. Then she knelt down to retrieve the pieces of mahogany scattered across the floor. I knew I shouldn't look but I did anyhow, staring for reasons that had nothing to do with my artistic inclinations, and couldn't tear my eyes away until she stood back up and winked conspiratorially at me.

I think that was when I fell in love with her. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, it wasn't exactly _love_. But for someone who had given up on the idea of love by the time he managed to escape from high school, it was close enough to be in the neighborhood—the county—even the solar system. For the next two weeks, she came in and watched me every day as I worked. As usual, I didn't say much beyond a single syllable word. As usual for her, as I would shortly discover, she kept up a running commentary, most of it for the present to do with her fascination over the creative process—of making something from nothing, of taking pencil markings on paper and transforming them into something as beautiful as a Grandfather clock. It was the easiest relationship I ever fell into, requiring nothing more from me than admiring glances and the occasional _uh-huh_ , _yup,_ or _nope_.

At the end of those two weeks, we were on a plane headed for Las Vegas. It was the stupidest thing I ever did, even stupider than getting married by a cross-dressing Reverend Elvis. I remembered that first morning we woke up together. Sunlight streamed in through the hotel curtains, while the sounds of children splashing in the pool drifted in through the balcony screen door. For some reason, the word _marquetry_ came to my lips.

Actually, I said, " _M-M-Mar-q-q-quetry_."

She rolled over and squinted at me, her blue eyes curious.

"What's wrong with you?" She asked.

"Nothing," I said, creating a paragraph of unintelligible squawks from one word.

"Well, that was totally annoying."

Despite the cool morning air, my face felt as though it were on fire. Unable to bear it for long, I reached for her and held her as tightly as if we were going down on the _Titanic_.

#

Kit didn't bother with the niceties of a note or a face to face explanation. She simply left on a day I was making one of my deliveries to Portland. When I came home that night, the front door was hanging open. I would have reported her as a missing person, except the clues were everywhere: the empty garage, the empty closets and shoe racks, the missing furniture.

Zell walked in while I was wandering dazedly through the house. Her eyes were red and she kept dabbing at them with a lace hanky. If I expected to see her crying, I was wrong, though. I had never heard her swear before, but she would have made a commercial fisherman blush. Between her cussing and spluttering about Kit, I thought she might fall down with a stroke. It took me ten minutes to reassure her that I would be fine and to usher her out the door, before I could return to my wandering.

If not for all the built-in cabinets, she wouldn't have left me any place to keep either my socks and underwear or my thousands of books. She'd taken nearly everything except the bed, probably because the oak headboard and footboard were too massive to move without the help of several men. The bed linens were an altogether different story: the duvet, the sheets and pillows, the dust ruffle, all the things she picked out for our bedroom, were gone, ripped from the pillow top mattress without leaving a trace.

I stumbled out to my workshop and turned the lights on. To my relief, the bigger machines were undisturbed, perhaps because they were permanently bolted to the floor and simply too much work to steal. I wasn't as lucky with my air tools—all missing—and my compressor. The worst was discovering that someone had broken the intricately-worked leaded glass panes out of two different clock cabinets and smashed the clockworks sitting ready for installation on a workbench.

Had Kit done all this by herself? I wondered. Or had she prevented someone from doing worse damage? Even in my state of shock, I couldn't resist sweeping the place with a push broom and straightening up the mess. By the time I made it back to the house, it was nearly midnight. I dropped onto my bed from exhaustion. Around 2 o'clock in the morning, I woke up with the shakes.

A few seconds passed before I remembered Kit's betrayal. Dimly, it came to me that I still wore my clothes and shoes and was lying on a bare mattress. A search of the hallway closet revealed my new mummy bag was missing along with most of my other camping gear (something she had never shown any interest in). After a thorough search, I found my father's old sleeping bag on the top shelf of the linen closet. Feeling greater and greater disgust, I rolled out the bag on my mattress, unzipped it, kicked off my shoes, and crawled inside. Another hour passed before the shakes subsided.

Why? Why? Why?

The questions weren't so much about why she left me; that one was easy to figure out. Mostly, it was a matter of why I ever thought someone could love me. How could I fool myself like that? No one ever really wanted to love a freak like me. How could I be so stupid? Crazy moron! Why didn't I just kill myself? Why not go to the shop, flip on the switch to the radial arm saw, and slide it over my neck?

Nobody cared. Nobody ever had, nobody ever would. What was the use of living?

Kill yourself! Kill yourself! Kill yourself!

I curled up into a fetal ball. My chest felt ready to cave in from the pressure. I wanted to sob, I wanted to cry, I wanted to shriek, and only god awful groans shook from me.

Daylight awakened me. Someone was knocking at the front door. I let them keep knocking, and prayed desperately for them to go away. Finally, the knocking ceased.

Ten minutes later, I heard another knock at the door, a couple of sharp raps followed by the sound of the door opening. As usual, I hadn't locked up for the night.

"Jack?" A voice called out. It was Blackie. He came in without my answering. A couple of seconds later, he stood in the bedroom doorway.

"Zell thought you might want to talk."

I stared up at the ceiling, something I'd done a lot through the years, especially under the care of the State.

I grunted noncommittally.

"Couldn't even leave you any chairs," he muttered, swearing under his breath. "Guess I won't be sitting down. Look, I was in Corvallis all day yesterday and didn't find out about this until she was already gone.

"Not that I really could've done much anyhow—she's your wife and when a wife moves out with a bunch of stuff, that's pretty much the way it goes. You know what I mean? You just have to cowboy up, buddy—be a man about it."

The ceiling and I were locked in silent communion. Mostly, I was aware of Blackie's presence as a sort of shadow in the room.

"Look," he said, walking over to the bed and leaning directly over me. "I know about these things. It's rough and it'll be rough for a long time. Thing is, man, you got to check with the bank. Situations like this, one of the parties involved usually cleans out the joint-checking account before they leave town.

"Do you understand what I'm saying? Nod or something, willya?"

I nodded. It was Saturday and the local bank did not have Saturday hours. What I could do about it was beyond me.

"Call on your charge cards, too. Those banks, they're probably back East, so you better get on it. It's already 11 o'clock, man."

I shook my head.

"No charge cards?"

"Never used 'em," I managed to say. The words sounded like rain spatters on a tin roof to me. Was I stroking out?

"All right, at least you did one thing smart."

_Probably not_ , I thought to myself, remembering I had co-signed on one or two for her. For the moment my bigger worry was the more than $12,000 in our joint checking account, three-quarters of which should have been transferred into my business account last week. If she emptied it, I would be scrambling for months to make up my losses.

Finally, alarm bells rang in my head, rang through the swaddling rags that were my emotions. I crawled out of bed and went to the room I used for my home office. My business checks were missing, and she was a signer on them.

Scrambling was exactly what I would be doing the next few months, but I didn't have to wait until Monday to start. Blackie called the bank manager at home for me and was told Kit had come in early Friday morning to make her withdrawals from our personal account.

"So far, she hasn't done anything illegal," Blackie told me. "As a signer on both accounts, she can withdraw as much as she wants, as long as the cash is actually in the bank. If she's really greedy, though—"

He didn't have to explain it to me. If she wrote checks against an empty or closed account, it would constitute fraud. At the same time, if I didn't honor those fraudulent checks, both my business and reputation could be irreparably damaged.

Three months went by, during which I worked both night and day to keep my head above water. A few bills came in from the department store charge accounts I knew about, plus others I hadn't known anything about. Most were for clothing and jewelry bought before the split, items I never saw Kit wear but for which I was evidently responsible, according to the collection agencies. Those bills were minor in comparison to the checks she wrote against _Raventhorst Originals_.

Financially, it was a struggle. Emotionally, I began recovering, perhaps because I was forced to keep my mind on my work so much, or simply because in reality I accepted that she wouldn't be coming back and I was getting better at killing my emotions. Blackie helped, too: he floated the theory that I wasn't her first victim, that she had done this very same thing before.

Then one day a delivery man knocked on my open workshop door. I nodded a greeting and automatically signed on the dotted line before taking custody of a large manila envelope.

"Sorry, pal," he said, rushing off without an explanation, maybe because of the oversized hammer lying on my workbench. Explanations were really unnecessary; stamped on the upper left hand corner of the envelope were the words, PROCESS SERVERS. What now? I wondered.

They were divorce papers. Driftwood Bay's city attorney had drawn papers up for me shortly after Kit's disappearance, but without knowing her whereabouts I was powerless to have the papers served. Now she was serving me. Irreconcilable differences, it seemed. That part was true; what did a scam artist have in common with a responsible, hardworking stiff? Correction—with a credulous sucker like myself?

The papers had been drawn up by a Salem lawyer, but Kit's mailing address was a box number in some no name town in Montana. I was just glad we didn't have any kids. My blood ran cold, when I saw she wanted the house. I could keep everything else.

How generous of her. She would get the house and I would get all the bills, including her attorney's fees and mine. I wondered if she knew about the liens threatened against my property because of her liberal use of my business checking account?

My hands shook, as I shoved the papers back into the envelope. Blackie would be interested in seeing them. With her address and her attorney's name, we could realistically hope to discuss criminal charges with the D.A.'s office; she had written checks totaling over $18,000 on my business account in that first week after her disappearance. Blackie didn't think he would have much trouble in proving his theories concerning a criminal past.

Shirley Icenogle, the City Attorney, who was representing me as a personal favor, wasn't as optimistic as Blackie. She grew even less optimistic when another manila envelope arrived in her offices a few days later. This one contained glossy photos of a bruised and battered Kit. Did I want an amicable divorce, or would I rather let it be known that I was a wife beater?

"Never happened," Blackie told Shirley. "These photos could've been taken anytime, before or since she lived in Driftwood Bay, and they might be stage makeup, as far as we know."

"They look pretty convincing," Shirley said, glancing at me in a way that made me feel uneasy. Her reaction wasn't all that bothered me. One of the photos was a frontal shot, with Kit barely concealing her breasts with her hands.

"Never happened," Blackie repeated emphatically. "My god, Shirley, you don't see the smirk on her face? This is not a battered wife. This is pornography! And come on, look at the dates. They're from last summer. She always showed off more skin than anybody else in town. People would've noticed bruises—I certainly would have noticed.

"Sorry, Jack," he said to me. "It's not like she's ugly, you know. She was always wearing those backless, those backless— _thingies_. You know, whatever they call 'em. I got more of an eyeful of her than of own my wife in the privacy of our bedroom.

"And besides, Shirley, you know darn well I would've been notified by someone, by whatever ER she went to."

"Well," Shirley began again. She adjusted her reading glasses. " 'He said, she said,' you know. Maybe it so happens no one did notice her bruises, and maybe she didn't actually go to any ER. Maybe she was trying to protect her husband, at the time."

Blackie swore.

"You and I know he's harmless," Shirley said to Blackie. She paused, though not for effect, I figured. I knew where the conversation was headed or where it would eventually. I also noticed that for someone I'd known for over twenty years, it took her longer than it should to see things Blackie's way.

"I hate to have to say this, but no case is ever as open and shut as you would like it to be."

"Yeah?" Blackie asked, confronting the inevitable.

She glanced apologetically at me and brushed back her bangs from her eyes. "There's the tiny matter of his having been in and out of the State Hospital a time or two."

Finally! It was out in the open. As if it weren't always out in the open. Who would believe the testimony of a nutcase over a battered wife's?

"What do I do?" I asked.

"Make sure you document everything you can, start marshaling witnesses on your behalf, character references, that sort of thing."

She wasn't finished. She glanced again at Kit's attorney's name and address.

"You might start looking for a real divorce lawyer, too. The one she found for herself, I've heard of him. He has a reputation for winning his cases."

#

I set down my charcoal stick and steadied myself by holding onto the edges of my drafting table. Everything was rushing back to me; I finally remembered what had triggered the seizure that put me in the hands of the doctor in black horn-rimmed glasses. Once again I was sitting in Kit's attorney's office. This time we were alone. Here was the man who had sent the photos of an abused wife to Shirley Icenogle. Here was the man who was demanding everything I owned in return for the dissolution of a fraudulent marriage. At this point, he just didn't know precisely _how_ fraudulent.

"You really shouldn't have come without your attorney," he said.

I nodded my head in agreement. It didn't take a high school education, much less a GED, to figure out that the man who stutters and stammers doesn't win too many arguments. Instead of attempting to say anything, I slowly scanned the room, taking in the impressive bookshelves displaying handsomely bound volumes, the wonderful stereo system softly playing background music, the massive but tasteful desk, the beautiful brass and crystal chandelier, the hardwood flooring and Persian rug...

He was putting my money to good use, even if everything was overdone. I guessed he didn't realize the desk and high-backed chair dwarfed him, made him appear smaller and more distant than he really was. Because of it, the psychological strategy of providing flimsier, smaller chairs for his clients was flawed.

"Mister Raventhorst?" He said, pointedly glancing at his expensive wristwatch. "You wanted to tell me something?"

This time I shook my head. He had glanced more than once at the manila envelope I was holding, and now I leaned forward and slid it to him over the desktop.

From his frown it was easy to see he didn't like it. Whether because he was afraid the desk's high gloss finish would be marred or he simply didn't like mysterious envelopes, I didn't know.

"About the divorce?" He asked.

"You're getting smarter," I said.

One eyebrow went up, in restrained irritation. "You do realize," he said, "I bill by the hour?"

I shrugged. Money, I supposed, was his answer to everything. He just didn't know yet that I would be suing him for the return of every dime he'd taken from me for the privilege of representing Kit.

I think we stared unblinkingly at each other for a long while. I remembered him smiling coldly in my direction. I wasn't going anywhere. He glanced at his telephone a few times. If he thought he could lift the receiver to call the police before I could vault over his desk and smash him in the face, he was wrong.

"All right, I'll play your game," he said, shrugging before finally picking up the envelope and sliding out the contents. I didn't bother to tell him none of this was a game. He shuffled through the papers, taking far longer to read them than I thought necessary. By the time he looked up from them, I was wondering about all those law books on their shelves: did it really take that much knowledge to steal the shirt off the backs of a few poor suckers like me?

Neither eyebrow was raised this time. His complexion was ashen and his mouth twitched, pulling at his pencil-thin mustache. He started to say something but it all came out as an unintelligible stutter.

"I didn't know," he finally managed. I almost felt sorry for him. Maybe he had a conscience after all. Unable to meet my gaze, he again stared down at the papers in his hands.

In a way, we were in the same boat. Neither of us had known anything about Kit's true background. Those papers said it all; Kit Raventhorst was not Kit Raventhorst, nor was she Kit Huffy, either, the name she went by before we married. She was a woman with a criminal history, who had a penchant for marrying without bothering to divorce any of her former husbands. Which made our marriage null and void. If she wanted money, she would have to get it by some other means, maybe from stamping out license plates in the State Pen.

"If this is true," the lawyer muttered, looking up from the file and staring hard at me for a second, as if hoping I was attempting some sort of hoax. When I didn't blink, he glanced at the papers again. He knew they were real enough. Blackie had supplied me with copies of official police reports.

Swearing softly, he slammed the papers down on his desk, swiveled his chair around and violently pulled open a file cabinet drawer. Reaching inside, he fished out a manila envelope. This one was much thinner than mine. He slid it in my direction.

"You'll want to have a look at this."

My sense of self-satisfied triumph died quickly. Inside was a single 8X10 glossy photo, nothing like the others sent to Shirley Icenogle; this one was of an infant girl. Her red hair and green eyes were just like mine. I had thought I was beyond feeling pain, but the sadness I saw in that face pierced my heart like nothing else had ever done before, shredding my defenses like they were less than tissue paper.

"You'll want this, too," the lawyer said, scribbling on a yellow Post-it note. He came around the desk to hand it over. Numbly, I read Kit's name and Montana phone number, then jammed it into my pocket and blindly stumbled from his office and into the street. After that, I recalled nothing more until I woke up in the State Hospital, with the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Nurse Jo staring down at me.

Thought of the woman the inmates referred to as _Nurse Wretched_ jerked me back to the familiar surroundings of my home. Kit and I had a _daughter!_ My teeth began to chatter as if I were freezing to death. I tried to stand but my knees buckled under my weight. Both my drafting table and stool spun away from me as if sucked away by a tornado. The oak flooring that should have been under my feet vanished as I fell, and fell, and fell, and kept falling into an all too familiar black vortex.

*****

Episode Nine

" _You've been doing so well, Jack."_

I opened my eyes and blinked, waiting for my vision to clear. Things grew gradually brighter, as if I were emerging from a dark tunnel, until I finally realized I was looking into a stranger's face. _No_ , not really a stranger's.

"How many times do I have to warn you that you can't just stop taking your meds?"

I stared for several long moments before I realized his beard was what threw me. It was long enough to touch his chest. I couldn't recall ever seeing Doc Schiffman in a beard or that his hair was completely silver.

"Where—?" I asked, seeing the surrounding white walls and a curtained-off sliding glass door.

"You're in Seaside Hospital, in one of the emergency bays. I happened to be here when they brought you in."

Without realizing it, I must have struggled, because suddenly he was holding me down with one large paw on my chest.

"Jack, you're in restraints. Give me a chance to undo them first."

I let him work on the straps. Seaside Hospital made no sense at all. The last thing I remembered was stumbling on my way home from church. The closest hospital was in Healy City, not Seaside.

"Why—Why am I here?"

"Why not?" He asked in return. "You have a medical emergency, people usually want to transport you to the nearest available hospital."

"Nearest?"

He squinted briefly at me. His glasses were new, too, still gold-rimmed, but squarer. I decided I didn't like them as much as the old ones. Nor did I like the beard, his attempt, perhaps, at trying to conceal an aging neck? The overall effect made him look fatter, drew more attention to his spreading paunch.

"I understand Zell is coming for you, if that's what you're worried about," he said. "You're just lucky you were sitting down when it happened."

He jotted one last note in my chart and turned away. At the door, he said, "I'll see about your release. You'll find your clothes in the closet."

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I found I was dressed in a hospital gown. I looked down at my arms, thinking I would find scratches or perhaps bruises from my fall. Instead, I saw a peculiarly darker shading than usual, almost as if I'd somehow found time for a tan during my spell. As I dressed myself, a glance in the mirror over the room's sink startled me even more. Since when had I grown a mustache and goatee?

Venetian blinds covered the room's single window. A desperate pull on the cord revealed the hospital grounds. My heart sank at the sight of flowers and shrubbery in full bloom. Worse yet, in the distance two shirtless young boys were riding skateboards. Closer by, several women in sleeveless blouses were eating lunch at a picnic table.

I probably stumbled backwards. I found myself seated on a tartan-upholstered chair next to the bed. The last thing I could recall from before waking up in the hospital was walking home from church in early December. Yet, here I was, in Seaside, with summer's bright sun shining everywhere, my arms and face tanned reddish brown, and a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee I didn't remember growing.

"John?"

I glanced up from my chair. It was Zell, poking her head in past the curtain. She looked harried but otherwise the same as always.

"Are you all right, dear?" She asked as she came in, glancing to right and left as if looking both ways before crossing a street.

"Doc Schiffman tells me I am," I managed to say.

She stared at me sympathetically and clutched her purse to her chest.

"I looked all over town for you. When I couldn't find you, the police—"

I must have stiffened at the word _police._

"They were very helpful and polite," she finished primly. "Especially after I told them I was Blackie's favorite aunt."

I know I grinned. She was not Blackie's aunt. If I remembered rightly, Blackie's wife Angie was actually a step-niece or something like that.

"I don't know why, but I hadn't even thought about checking with the hospital. Are you really all right?"

"I ah, I don't know. Everything's kinda fuzzy." I couldn't tell her the truth. She would think I was nuts, me thinking I'd stepped from winter into a balmy summer day. Something like that didn't happen to normal people. Why did it have to happen to me?

Strangely, I didn't feel the same as I normally did after one of my episodes. The usual giddiness and lightheadedness were absent, replaced by a sense of displacement, like I didn't belong here. On the sidewalk going home, in a patch of shrubbery, was where I belonged.

It wasn't until we were on our way home in Zell's old, white Buick that another memory intruded itself upon my consciousness. I hadn't fallen into shrubbery on my way home from church. I had been at my drafting table thinking about Kit. I'd tried to stand and instead toppled over and had fallen into a swirling black hole!

Sitting in the car, with events strobing through my mind, I shivered, feeling the same old giant waves rolling over me. When would they end? Where were they carrying me?

To reassure myself, I felt my shirt pocket for my Copenhagen. The pocket was empty.

"Would the hospital take my Copenhagen?" I asked.

Sneaking a peripheral glance my way, Zell kept her eyes to the road. She didn't trust herself or anyone else on 101's narrower curves.

"Copenhagen?" She stammered. "Oh John, you quit years ago. Don't you remember?"

Feeling bile rise in my throat, I cranked the window down as fast as I could and hung my head over the side of the door. Zell found a place to park off the shoulder of the road and stopped the car before I actually puked. I was glad the pavement no longer rushed past like a dead gray river. The ocean air felt cool on my face.

"Here," Zell said, grabbing up a brightly colored newspaper ad sitting between us on the bench seat. "Sorry, the tissues are in the trunk with the groceries."

I dutifully wiped my mouth. As I wadded up the ad to throw it away, I saw the words, " _1995 Model Clearance!_ "

"Is this—?" I started, faltering as I again glanced at the date.

"What?" She asked.

"Nothing," I said lamely, sobered by her stare. If it was 1995, I had a lot to think about. I'd somehow misplaced seven years of my life.

#

Two new restaurants stuck out like sore thumbs on Driftwood Bay's Main Street. Actually, neither one looked brand new, a fact I wasn't about to comment on lest I give myself away to Zell. A facade painted in broad swaths of aqua and red, with yellow cartoon dragons gracing wide picture windows, was obviously Chinese. I assumed _EL DIABLO'S_ , its Mission front an echo of Claude's Driftwood Drifter directly across the street, must be Mexican. It needed a new coat of paint unless they were going for the shabby look.

Despite its brick facade the Driftwood Drifter was shabbier than I remembered, mostly due to the cigar store Indian standing forlornly by the tavern door. Someone had regrettably splashed it with fluorescent orange paint, an obvious act of vandalism.

"Nice Indian," I muttered.

"Nice what?" Zell asked, zeroing in on me with her gaze.

I shrugged, gesturing toward the tavern receding in the rearview mirror. Still looking curiously in my direction, she turned at the intersection leading to our street.

"Nice Indian," I repeated.

"You should know," she said. "You carved it."

I stared at her for a long moment. " _Riiiight_ ," I said, laughing louder than I should. As I was about to discover, the joke was on me. We turned onto Manzanita Avenue and my house came into view, unchanged except for one thing; instead of the expected open gateway in the woven driftwood fence, a set of carved wooden Indians supported a verdigris, spot-welded arch. Attached to the curving arch, a stone and seashell mosaic declared, _Raventhorst Kraftwerks_.

Zell parked in the carport and we began unloading groceries from the trunk. Surreptitiously glancing toward my house a few times, I tried to ascertain other differences. If she should quiz me further, I didn't want to look like a fool.

The first thing I noticed was that the oyster shell pathways were replaced with paving made of white aggregate. Beyond that, I saw no other differences except for expanded flower beds nibbling away at the space formerly devoted to lawn, undoubtedly Zell's idea. Overall, an improvement. I was just happy I hadn't sold or somehow lost my house in these past seven years. It would have been embarrassing to have to ask where I now lived. That was the problem with losing one's mind; I could never be certain of precisely where I stood.

I grabbed up the three sacks of groceries Zell pointed out as being mine, and she opened the back gate. Because I gestured for her to take the lead, I was luckily able to hide my astonishment at seeing a sign on my workshop door. It read:

Summer Hours

M-F 10 to 6

Closed Wknds

Once we reached the kitchen, we dropped the bags onto the counter and then Zell disappeared into the living room without explanation. I began stowing canned goods in the pantry. A minute later she returned with a stack of green spiral notebooks, which she tossed onto the dinette table.

"Start with the top one," she said, brushing tears from her eyes. "If you need help reading, you'll have to tell me."

"Aw, Zell," I said.

She was already pushing her way through the back door. The screen slammed shut behind her.

The notebooks could wait. I continued putting groceries away, finishing the work by pouring out a half gallon of syrupy glop that had once been Tillamook Rocky Road ice cream. Feeling thoroughly depressed, I carried the empty carton out to the trash and then came back in and washed my hands.

Finally, I sat down and stared at the notebooks. Maybe I should walk to the local market for another carton of Rocky Road. Difficult reading always went better with ice cream. Too bad I didn't use Copenhagen anymore. Maybe if I searched hard enough, I could still find some I'd squirreled away somewhere around the house or in my workshop?

Somehow, a can of moldering tobacco didn't seem terribly appealing. I gathered up the notebooks and took them to my office. On the first page, I found block printing done in a shaky hand that was still recognizably my own.

THE SAYINGS OF AGUR SON OF JAKEH—AN ORACLE:

THIS MAN DECLARED TO ITHIEL,

TO ITHIEL AND TO UCAL:

As to who Agur might be, or Ithiel and Ucal, I didn't have a clue. Had I fallen into some weird religious cult?

2 "I AM THE MOST IGNORANT OF MEN;

I DO NOT HAVE A MAN'S

UNDERSTANDING.

Well, that's for sure, I thought. No matter what cult it might be, this fellow Agur sure had me pegged.

3 I HAVE NOT LEARNED WISDOM,

NOR HAVE I KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY ONE.

4 WHO HAS GONE UP TO HEAVEN AND

COME DOWN?

WHO HAS GATHERED UP THE WIND IN

THE HOLLOW OF HIS HANDS?

WHO HAS WRAPPED UP THE WATERS IN

HIS CLOAK?

WHO HAS ESTABLISHED ALL THE ENDS

OF THE EARTH?

WHAT IS HIS NAME, AND THE NAME OF

HIS SON?

TELL ME IF YOU KNOW!

5 "EVERY WORD OF GOD IS FLAWLESS;

HE IS A SHIELD TO THOSE WHO TAKE

REFUGE IN HIM.

6 DO NOT ADD TO HIS WORDS,

OR HE WILL REBUKE YOU AND PROVE

YOU A LIAR.

7 "TWO THINGS I ASK OF YOU, O LORD;

DO NOT REFUSE ME BEFORE I DIE:

8 "KEEP FALSEHOOD AND LIES FAR FROM ME;

GIVE ME NEITHER POVERTY NOR

RICHES,

BUT GIVE ME ONLY MY DAILY BREAD.

9 OTHERWISE, I MAY HAVE TOO MUCH

AND DISOWN YOU

AND SAY, 'WHO IS THE LORD?'

OR I MAY BECOME POOR AND STEAL,

AND SO DISHONOR THE NAME OF MY GOD.

PROVERBS 30: 1-9

Agur wasn't some cult nut, then. Whoever he was, he did seem to have been pretty confused, though, which must have been why I originally wrote down that particular passage from the Old Testament. The words certainly resonated with me now.

Written in the very middle of the next page was a single word: _JOURNAL_ , with the date _1988_ written underneath it. Perhaps I had begun this very journal within days of Claude's commission to work on his rustic Grandfather clock. A quick look at the rest of the notebooks revealed I'd completed one for each of the last seven years. Anything important I wanted to know about my life, I supposed, was likely contained within the pages before me. Vaguely, I wondered how Zell knew about my journals. Did I begin keeping them at her suggestion, or had I simply asked her to pull them out for me if I lost my memory again? Or maybe if I just started acting weird?

As tempted as I was to find out what had been happening to me during these last few weeks, if something in particular had led up to a bout with one of my seizures—if that's what it really was—I nevertheless decided to start with the oldest of the journals first. Life happened chronologically, didn't it, in an orderly fashion? I needed something orderly or at least sequential, and I figured I may as well get the fullest possible picture I could of my life. I had lost years before, had lost entire memories, but this time I had my journals and I still had the capacity to read, for which I felt immensely grateful. At the back of my mind was some niggling memory of more than one struggle to re-learn reading and writing.

I returned to the earliest of the journals, the one Zell had placed on top of the stack for me. After Agur's obviously prefatory remarks (which I subsequently found at least partially repeated in each of the notebooks) and the title came the first entry— _February 17_. The entire page was filled with repetitions of one short verse from the Bible. _You have not been given a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and of a sound mind._

February 17, 1988 must have been a very bad day, I took it. Each time the words _sound mind_ appeared, they were underlined for emphasis. It was several pages and several entries later, before mention was made of Claude's Grandfather clock. Beside the brief entry was a neatly drawn depiction of the clock and a few explanatory comments.

I wondered how long it would be till I found the date of completion and how much Claude had actually paid me for my work. Or had he compensated me in Baskets O' World Famous Chicken, instead? Which of these journals would mention the carved wooden Indian in front of Claude's tavern, or the reason for the carved twins in front of my house?

The first question was answered by the third week of entries. Fortunately, Claude paid me in cash, which was important because as the first two notebooks revealed, the debts Kit had incurred in my name were still substantial. While I might have entertained the fantasy that she would be responsible for the credit cards and the fraudulent checks, I had co-signed for the cards and no one could prove she ever wrote the checks. The signatures were actually in my name, and while I was sure she stole them on the day of her departure, the fact I was never one to lock my doors let her off the hook; anyone or everyone, in the eyes of the D.A., had access to both my house and my checkbook. The one genuinely criminal misdeed that could be pinned on her was the little matter of neglecting to observe the formality of divorce proceedings before marrying me. Which didn't seem to be of great urgency to law enforcement, if my journal entries were to be trusted. Besides, nobody knew Kit's whereabouts.

By the middle of the third journal, I was well on the way to paying off my debts and could again breathe freely. At the same time, entries concerning Kit and what might have happened to her were rare. Looming far larger were questions about the red-haired, green-eyed little girl, whose picture had once released a maelstrom in my brain and heart. What had happened to her? Was she with Kit, ever on the lam? Had Kit abandoned her like she abandoned me? Was she even alive?

Sprinkled throughout my entries were Bible passages like the first one I'd found, sometimes the very same one dealing with a sound mind, although not entire pages filled out in a laborious hand (or a hand any longer jerking with annoying tremors, either). Ostensibly, I wrote and then repeated the passages aloud to myself, since there were instructions attributed to an _R. G._ , whoever that might be, to speak out God's promises. R. G. appeared in more and more entries, as in, _R. G._ says to do this, or _R. G._ says to do that... One entry attributed to R. G. said, _He says speaking it out loud is like planting a seed in spiritual soil._ Another one said, _He says speaking God's promises seals His covenant with me._ In another was written, _He says speaking God's word decreases doubt and increases faith._ This last one was double-underlined.

Continuing to proceed through the journals, I began reading them aloud, especially those entries from either the Bible or perhaps some other inspirational book. Sometimes they were poems, though if I remembered correctly, I never was much of a poetry fan. Most of the Biblical passages said things like, _The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?_ ; or, _When I am afraid, I will trust in you_ ; or, _I will never leave you nor forsake you_ ; or, _Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled and do not be afraid;_ or, _But take heart! I have overcome the world._

A lot of the entries revealed my preoccupation with the weather, especially warm sunshine, probably because on average Driftwood Bay's days began and ended with rain or fog. Some days were skipped entirely. Many focused on the progress of one of my woodworking or other artistic projects, though these often occupied whole pages and were accompanied by meticulous details in almost microscopic print, as if I was afraid I would again lose my mind; _here_ would be my means of continuing my work if I could cram in as much information as possible! Then another quote from the Bible would appear, suggesting I was struggling again. Once, I included a passage that read, _The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone._

Another quote said, _Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in God my Savior._ Beside this last one was written: _R. G. says if we thank God only during the good times, then we don't really trust in Him._

By the end of the fourth notebook, all entries concerning Kit had ceased. I suspected that in spite of three notebooks still to peruse, I had finally outgrown or recovered from the trauma of our relationship, perhaps largely due to R. G.'s assistance. Gradually, throughout the days and the years, I seemed to have been making steady progress to free myself from the morass my life once was. Life might always be a hill, but at least it seemed it was no longer a slippery slope more suited to the likes of Sisyphus.

Yet, hadn't I just suffered another of my episodes, somehow relapsed and again lost everything? Wasn't some traumatic event always the trigger to my seizures? Eyeing the last three notebooks, I felt a sudden chill.

Perhaps the chill was from a cold ocean breeze. Night had fallen and the window shades were rattling. I rose from my chair and closed the windows before resuming my seat to open the next notebook.

Agur's words were the same as always, except that they were reduced to the first two verses, perhaps because I had finally figured out the rest for myself. The title page, excluding the New Year, was like the others. Many of the opening entries were again concerned with the weather or with my woodworking projects, and continued in the same vein until July. It seemed I had at last entered a kind of easy routine never before experienced in my life. _Raventhorst Rustic Grandfather Clocks,_ along with a few like those from earlier in my career, were selling briskly (enough to at last pay off my debts). More detailed discussions followed, especially of personally formulated finishes that might reduce my costs. Among references to old books supposedly containing the secret formulas to varnishes developed by Old World violin makers, notation of a D. Platt of Santa Rosa appeared—someone who could translate various ancient Italian dialects?

For a few weeks the entries listed results of my tests on various wood veneers. While the local marine humidity was within the proper range, that year's cool summer temps wreaked havoc with curing. Then came August's entries. The name _Judith_ appeared, followed by nine other days devoted to that one name—those six letters—sometimes in bold capital letters and always followed by question marks. My heart sank and I felt a flush come over my face.

Who is Judith, you idiot! Why didn't you write more?

Was she a new girlfriend or someone I hoped would be a new girlfriend? A new wife? What? Was I that stupid? Could I be crazy enough to want to try marriage again? Was I stark raving mad?

I leafed through several pages, looking for more clues, to no avail. The entries turned back to discussions of formulas (with me, myself, and I) that seemed to reflect intellectual curiosity rather than plans to actually use such finishes in crafting my clocks. What did I think about using wood from old logs dredged up from rivers or lake bottoms to make my best pieces? What about a new line of lower-end clocks that could be produced faster and cheaper?

August 24th was a single shocking line. _Kit dead—Blackie says it was a car wreck._

Wrack my brain as I might, I couldn't recall hearing about her death or having felt a twinge of regret or sorrow. Like everything else outside of what I was reading in these notebooks about the last seven years, the moment was a blank. But thinking of her now left me feeling profoundly sad. Regardless of our sham marriage, and the headaches her constant talking sometimes gave me, I had once been in love with her. More than once, really. Day after day after day for nearly a year, I had been in love with her, until the night I came home to an empty house— an empty bed— and empty bank accounts— And even then my love for her had not just ended as if it were a 2x4 to be cut off with the single pass of a circular saw.

After that entry were days left either blank or filled with question marks. Had I grieved over Kit's death? Somehow, judging by her disappearance from my journals until then, I doubted it. It seemed unlikely, certainly illogical. But if I remembered anything about the heart (and mine wasn't much different from anyone else's) it was that it couldn't care less about logic.

Either I hadn't known what to write or I simply found myself at a complete loss for words. Perhaps my mind and heart had become more like my mouth, unable to do more than stutter and stammer.

Eventually I came to a single entry, the last, I would come to find out later, about Kit in my journals. It read: _R.G. asked me if I ever forgave Kit._ Had I? I wondered. A pang of genuine regret, the worst I'd felt since opening my journals, struck me. I hoped I'd forgiven her. More than that, I hoped God had forgiven her for what she'd done to me.

I returned to reading. _Judith_ reappeared in the next entry. For several days, her name and nothing else was recorded. I turned another page. At the top, in bold caps, I'd written, _JUDITH DIDN'T DIE IN THE CRASH. WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN._

Could Judith be my daughter, the little redheaded girl? Was that what all these entries were about? I glanced down at my wristwatch. It was after 11 p.m. Through the kitchen window I saw Zell's lights were out. She was usually in bed by 9:30, if I remembered correctly. Still, I was tempted to give her a call. She would clear up my confusion in a second or two, I was sure.

I already knew, though, that I hadn't recorded any other crash in my journals except the one that killed Kit, with that particular information attributed to Blackie. For a moment, before again buckling down to my reading, I wished the mysterious R. G. would miraculously appear at my desk to explain all. But he did not, and Zell was certainly asleep. I knew I didn't want to bother Blackie with a phone call, either. Deep down, I already understood all those entries were sheer nonsense, unless Judith was my daughter and Kit's.

A page later I found what I was looking for:

September 18—Blackie says Montana's child welfare services does not know anything about any Judith Huffy or if Kit even had a daughter. He's asked the appropriate jurisdictions to make enquiries. Doesn't know if Kit may have had other aliases besides Sandra K. and Chloe B.

I leafed ahead in notebook 5. Except for the year's final entry, no further mention of either Judith or Kit appeared, or Blackie's enquiries, for that matter. Numerous entries held nothing other than question marks jotted in red ink, all related to Judith, I assumed. Was she really the red-haired, green-eyed little girl in the photograph shown to me by Kit's lawyer so long ago? How old would she be now? Seven? Maybe even eight? Would I ever see her? Did she stutter like me? Would anyone love her like only I could?

The year's final entry was the same as many others: _JUDITH???_

In each of those letters and question marks I saw growing frustration. If it wasn't frustration, it was despair, despair over something I finally did remember, in fact remembered and felt as poignantly as anything in my life: denied marriage (a real one, anyhow) and the love I'd always wanted, I'd nonetheless always wanted a daughter.

Why? Maybe because I thought even if a woman wouldn't love me for who I was, a little girl might be able to look up to me, might need my protection, might let me be her hero. But like most things in my life—well, the journals spelled it out pretty well.

In the sixth year's journal, I returned to more discussions of Grandfather clocks and other projects I was taking on. From the very first entry after Agur's words, the handwriting turned minuscule, if not microscopic, and recorded each of my days in great detail, evidence to me of determination to forget the past and to forge a new life that might never include a daughter.

February 14, Valentine's Day, returned to a brief entry written in my regular hand. _Ferdinand run over. Buried him in back yard. Said a prayer._

Ferd. No wonder I hadn't seen him tonight. To be truthful, reading of his death hit me harder than Kit's. Why shouldn't it? I was pretty sure he had never betrayed me. He was certainly a giver and not a taker. It was a safe bet he couldn't have cared less about my speech impediment.

One thing I realized, as I kept reading: the higher the emotional content, the less I wrote in an entry. The restraint I showed in those particular entries was a reflection of the way I had expressed myself verbally throughout my entire life.

I found myself choking up. _Poor Ferd._

A week later, an entry remarked: _R. D. says animals don't go to heaven._

_R. D.?_ Who was R. D.? Did I mean R. G., instead? The following day was blank. Then another entry: _Tyrollia says how would R. D. know? Has he ever been to heaven?_ In smaller handwriting was written, _Tyrollia talks like she's not sure R. D. ever will see the inside of heaven, either._

Two days later, I wrote: _R. D. says animals don't have souls._

The next day: _R. G. says Hebrew word for soul, nephesh, is same for animals as word used for soul in humans._

R. G. was back! I began to smile. The discussion over Ferd had taken on a life of its own, and continued the next day: _R. D. says Jesus didn't die for animals._

Again: _Z. wonders what redemption of the fallen universe means if animals aren't redeemed as well._

Yet again: _R. D. points out that the Bible says Heaven is for God and man, certainly not to be wasted on cats and dogs!_ In my smaller hand, I wondered, _Is R. D. arguing because he's worried about stepping on dog or cat poop in heaven?_

Good old R. G. returned again in the next entry: _R. G. says the redeemed universe will be a big place. Plenty of room outside of the Heavenly City's gates for cats, dogs, and brontosauruses, if you like._

At that point the journal faded before my eyes. Squinting, I looked hard and saw what appeared to be a memo of some sort. In fact, _MEMO_ was written in fancy calligraphy at the top of the page. The page itself was completely unlike anything I'd ever seen before, parchment that shimmered with the iridescence of pearl and was edged in purest gold. The words that followed were in the same calligraphy and sparkled like ink made of finely crushed rubies. In full, it read:

MEMO

from

Shen Li, Associate Chief Historian

Order of the Overcomers

Member, Smyrna Branch

Jerusalem

to

John Raventhorst, Steward of Ranar, etc.

Subject

Re: Your inquiry about participation in the Annals. It is the function of historians to edit where we see fit. While the redeemed share a common experience of the New Earth and the New Jerusalem, your views as a Planetary Steward in a distant galaxy are unique, individual, and valuable to our understanding of the fuller and ever unfolding revelation: members of our six other branches of the Order of the Overcomers will find your perspective especially interesting, so please freely supply what narrative you wish to and rely upon us to edit those things irrelevant to our mission. As always, if you have further questions, please contact my office. I look forward to hearing from you.

I woke with a start and found I was still at my desk and had been sleeping with my face in my journal. A car alarm sounded annoyingly from somewhere nearby. The page was wet with slobber, which I wiped away with a tissue.

More annoying than car alarms or slobber was the fading of a strange dream. A glance at my wristwatch told me it was 4:31 a.m. I buried my face in my hands. I had a distinct feeling I'd been dreaming about heaven, and now trying to hold onto the memory was like grasping water in my fists. It was fading so fast!

Why shouldn't I dream about heaven? Hadn't I been reading about it, even if in petty arguments over Ferd's death?

_Ferd is dead,_ I told myself. _And Kit. They both have been for a long time. More importantly, what about Judith? Is she still alive?_

_Crazy dream,_ I thought. _Time to go to bed._

By the time my head hit the pillow, the dream had faded totally. If I remembered anything about it, it was that it really wasn't about heaven at all—just something about a shimmering page that came to me straight from an infinitely better world than this one.

*****

Episode Ten

Sisu!

I swam, stroking desperately, with Great White sharks and sting rays and octopuses darting in and out, shocking me with glancing blows, determined to make a dinner out of my flesh.

_Hold on_ , something told me. _Let the air in your lungs carry you aloft._ Aloft? Like a hot air balloon? What good would that do me? Where was the light? I should swim toward the sunlight, shouldn't I?

But which direction was _up_? Wherever I was, it was as if I were at a depth too great for sunlight to penetrate here. How could I hold on? My lungs burned like fire. How could anyone hold on, with his heart about to burst? One breath was all it would take—one gulp of icy seawater to end everything—

Sisu!

That voice again. I remembered the word. It was Suomi, a word I'd learned from my mother's family. It meant to hold on, to hold on against all odds, to stubbornly persist until winning through, to overcome. My grandfather even named his fishing boat _Sisu_ as a reminder of what it took to survive as a commercial fisherman in Astoria.

Uncle Erke told me dozens of times: "Think of a rock wall, and think of your head as flint battering a rock wall, Jackie." It was the essence of _sisu_ , a quality much admired by Finns, one Uncle Erke knew I would need more than any other in my life. Sooner or later, the flint of my forehead would bore through any obstacle I faced. I remembered it as a word my mother hated; to her it was just another word for bullheadedness, something she despised in both me and my father.

With the word echoing strangely in my ears, I held on, now stroking with both arms and kicking my feet as hard as I could. Great Whites swarmed around me like hornets, their bulging eyes glowing in the darkness like painfully bright streetlamps that lit up my retinas with searing afterimages. Were the sting rays holding back, waiting for the sharks to do the work for them? Did an octopus lurk in the shadows as well?

Thrashing water, I at last broke through the surface and filled my lungs with one gulp after another of air. With heart racing and eyes burning as though someone had rubbed salt into them, it was at least ten seconds before I realized I was in bed.

I hadn't been underwater at all. I was in my own bedroom. Somehow, I had nearly suffocated under my goose down pillow. Gray morning light filtered in through the Venetian blinds. I willed my heart to slow down. In my mind's eye, familiar shadows still rushed at me through the dark waters. Just before breaking the surface, I thought I'd seen something entirely different; one second they were the familiar icons of sea life I'd grown up with, the next they were gibbering nightmares assaulting me with weapons resembling swords far more hideous than jaws full of teeth or barbed tails or gruesome suckers.

I was in my bedroom. I could breathe freely and forget what I'd seen. The pillow was on the floor. Wound around my legs was a perspiration-soaked top sheet, which I threw off before stumbling to the bathroom for a quick shower. Thirty minutes later I was on my way to my workshop, a pot of strong coffee and a Styrofoam cup as companions. The coffee would fortify me against the chill of the thick-as-wool morning fog. Except for the walkway made of white aggregate leading from the kitchen door to the workshop, I might have lost my sense of direction and stumbled into the bushes.

The locked door surprised me. Vaguely, I wondered if I would find in one of my remaining journals the exact date I began locking the workshop. I'd seen no mention of it earlier. Locking up made sense, though, seemed more official, with business hours posted on the door.

My house key opened the door. Overhead fluorescent lighting concealed behind translucent panels flickered to life when I flipped the switch. The sight that greeted my eyes stopped me in my tracks. The floor was no longer marine gray and the walls were no longer unadorned drywall. Someone had laid Mexican tile for flooring, and the walls looked suspiciously like Port Orford cedar (the place was certainly redolent of its spicy scent). Actually, the walls were difficult to see, since nearly every square foot was devoted to either shelves or alcoves. Carved wooden Indians filled the alcoves. Most of the shelves held dolls, many of them dressed in buckskin seemingly to reflect the theme of the wood carvings. As if an afterthought, two Grandfather clocks flanked the bathroom door, each on its own freestanding base, one a model in the rustic style, the other reflecting my original nautical-themed models.

Was I selling _dolls_ , now? What about my clock business? What had I done, stepped into a parallel universe? In my astonishment, it was perhaps a full minute or two before I realized my woodworking tools had vanished. What appeared to be a sales counter stood in the very place my radial arm saw had once been bolted to the floor. Rather than fall down, I sat with my back to a wall. That was where Tryg, whose name I would find out later, discovered me. By then the coffee, still untouched, was cold.

"You ready to go, boss?"

I looked up at a vaguely familiar face. Except for blond hair tied back in a tight ponytail and an equally blond mustache and short, well-groomed beard, he looked a lot like one of those blond angels you see in religious pictures.

"Who are you?"

His jaw dropped, and then clamped shut. I could almost hear it clang. Evidently quick at making decisions, he spun away from me and ran out. I knew my stuttering frightened some children, but I'd never seen it scare off fully grown adults. Maybe in this parallel world my wretched handicap was a sort of weapon? _Poof!_ Just like that, he had disappeared.

In five minutes he was back with Zell. I knew it was Zell before my eyes reached her face. I recognized the black pumps and the blue and white flower-print dress. The dress was her own creation, at least twenty years old.

She and the young man stared intently at me. I stared in return. What did they want?

"You should go, Tryg," she said quietly.

"You sure?"

"Yes. We always work it out."

"Okay." He deserted us unreluctantly, with one parting shot— "I'll be praying for you."

Nice of him. Nice guy. Probably not many like him around.

"My legs aren't what they used to be, John. I can't get down on my knees to talk with you," Zell said. "Please stand up."

"I don't think so," I said, averting my gaze.

"John!"

I needed time to figure out those dolls. Her gaze followed mine, which was stuck on a life-sized papoose.

"All right," she muttered. She pulled over a handsome wooden chair reminiscent of an Eames, and sat down. A price tag dangled from its backrest. In the welter of dolls and wooden Indians, I had somehow overlooked the lone chair, which I guessed should be added to the list of items I was now producing. Custom-made furniture made sense. But dolls?

"How far did you get through your journals last night?" She asked.

"Journals?" I scratched my head. Oh yeah, the journals. I vaguely recalled waking face down in a notebook, with drool slipping onto the page. The date escaped me, for the moment. Something about a crazy dream niggled at the back of my mind. But what was one crazy dream compared to another? Didn't I _live_ in them all the time?

"You're the one who suggested I sell my dolls in your shop," she said. As if I didn't understand, she added, "It was your idea."

"March!" I stammered. "March of ninety-four."

"We remodeled in April of ninety-four," she said, taking in my uncomprehending stare. She sighed. "I was just on my way to church," she continued, speaking slowly, enunciating each word as if she wasn't sure of my English. "It is Sunday, you know."

"Sunday?"

"Sunday," she nodded. "You haven't had breakfast, have you?"

Maybe as some sort of reflex or to simply mirror what she had done, I think I shook my head.

"Come," she said with a sigh. "I'll whip up your favorite waffles."

She stood and walked to the door.

"Are you coming?"

I nodded, struggling to my feet, leaving behind coffeepot and Styrofoam cup.

"Who's Tryg?" I asked.

Seemingly unsurprised at my question, she said, "He works for you. I'll explain over breakfast."

Literally speaking, Zell didn't explain anything over breakfast. Nor did she mention my problems while she worked wonders with a Belgian waffle maker and a fry pan. Though it was her second breakfast of the morning, she ate as heartily as I did and drank just as much coffee, figuring, I supposed, she would skip lunch that day. It certainly wasn't like her to eat two breakfasts a day. If it were, she would have lost her trim figure years ago.

Maybe the combination of carbohydrates, sugar, caffeine, and crisp bacon fat settled my mind. We both fiddled with our empty coffee mugs and stared out the window at her front yard. If I was having a struggle, it was more about what I saw in the flower beds than anything else. I remembered a profusion of tall, colorful Japanese irises and broad mounds of white candytuft crowding the fence; instead, Gerberas in Kool-Aid colors, snapdragons, and brassy-hued grasses took their place.

Except for Driftwood Bay's banshee fire siren going off as usual at noon, we might have sat for the rest of the day without saying a word between us. I didn't know what it reminded her of, but I was thinking of Driftwood Bible Church, where the nearby firehouse's noon whistle signaled for the pastor to shut up unless he wanted to be witness to a modern reenactment of the Exodus before he could say a closing prayer.

I started laughing, and she laughed with me. Maybe it was just the caffeine. Four cups of coffee from one of her man-sized stoneware mugs was enough to make me giddy.

"Will you be okay?" Zell asked, wiping a stray tear from her eye. This time it was from too much laughter.

"Fine, I think."

"Good."

Again, maybe it was combination of chemicals released in my brain by food and coffee, yet equilibrium did seem to be returning. After losing seven years from my life and then trying to mainline five or so of them back into my brain via my journals, all within a period of 24 hours, didn't I have a right to a sense of dislocation? dissociation? depersonalization? Or of panic, or even vertigo?

Finally, Zell began talking in earnest, weaving with care details outside of those I'd read last night, until the tapestry that was my reality began to feel like it made sense. She told me the journals were mostly Reverend Grunwald's idea; thus, _R. G._ He was Driftwood Bible Church's retired minister. _R. D._ was Reverend Danin, Driftwood's current minister, who took over upon Grunwald's retirement.

Like me, Zell grieved over Ferd's death. Kit was barely a footnote. In vain, I waited for her to mention Judith. Instead, she explained about the dolls. Nearly two years ago, the demand for my _Raventhorst Rustics_ and _Raventhorst Nauticals_ had inexplicably died, which shortly led to my experiments in carving. One day I would return to making Grandfather clocks, but in the meantime I needed to make a living. Working as a gardener/roofer/door installer/all-around handyman was no way to maintain my skills as an artist or artisan, and since I'd always been interested in carving and in local Indian lore, Cigar store Indians seemed a natural.

_Cigar store_ , as Zell called them, really wasn't even close; the folk art or merely artsy style conjured up by that sort of label was light years removed from the meticulously detailed, high-gloss specimens presently occupying my workshop. Cigar store wooden Indians typically didn't have polished jade eyes or simulated feather headdresses made from mother-of-pearl, either.

"We were sitting here drinking coffee one day, when you suggested I bring over several of my dolls to see if they would sell."

She was silent for a long moment, staring at me as if waiting for me to comment or to argue with her. But why should I? The dolls were displayed right among my wooden Indians and the custom made chairs, weren't they?

"Do they?" I asked.

"Do they what?"

"You know—sell?"

She nodded vigorously. "They all sell. My dolls, your Indians, Tryg's chairs."

"Tryg's?"

"The young man who works with you," she said.

"They're _his_?"

"He designs them and you build them together. He designs tables, too. The furniture sells fairly well in Portland."

"Ummh." I was struggling to digest everything she said, to relate it all to my journal entries.

"I watch the shop when you two are in Portland or when you're working in the shed."

"Shed?"

"About a year ago you and Tryg were able to buy an old boathouse that used to belong to his grandfather," she explained patiently. "It's in Newaulakem. That's where you make your Indians and the furniture."

Newaulakem was a small town on the Newaulakem river about four miles inland. It must be where my shop tools and lumber stock were now located. In my mind, I visualized a dusty old boathouse converted into a workshop, open rafters splashed with shadows, and boarded-up, broken windows. I shuddered at the spider webs in the vision. None of it actually explained how Tryg had become a partner in my enterprises.

Still, the question could wait.

"Judith," I said. "What about her?"

"Oh John," she said, averting her gaze and staring out the window.

I felt a sudden lump in my throat. "Is she dead?"

"Oh, no, I don't know, John," she said, rising up and taking her coffee cup to the sink. "More coffee?"

I shook my head, and she returned to clear away the rest of the dishes. I watched her as she squirted soap in and started the water running. While the sink filled, she sponged off the table. As far as I could see, the table was already clean.

"Do you want me to help?" I asked, wanting instead to know more about Judith.

Lips compressed in thought, she shook her head. She dropped the sponge in the sink, turned off the faucet, and dried her hands on a towel. She sat down opposite me.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No!" she said. "I was just hoping—" The towel was still in her hands. Elbows on the table, she stared out the window again.

"Sometimes I wonder why you—why you—why _God_ —" She sighed with frustration. "Oh never mind."

I stared out the window with her. I knew what she wanted to ask. I also knew I wasn't the person to solve the problem of pain and evil in the world. For the moment, she looked sadder than I felt.

"It's okay," I said without stuttering.

She shook her head. Her lips quivered with a smile. A diminutive figure was turning in at the front gate.

"Here's Tyrollia," she said, pushing her chair back to go to the door. "She always has an answer."

The remark was facetious without being cutting. She threw the door open and told Tyrollia to come in.

Tyrollia's eyes lit up when she saw me.

"I wondered where John was," she said, speaking as if I weren't present. Her voice quavered cheerily, just like I remembered it. If she looked any different from the last time I recalled seeing her, I couldn't tell. The parchment-like skin was as ancient as ever, the eyes as bright as a bird's. But then Zell looked the same as always to me, too.

"Hardly anyone made it to church today," Tyrollia announced.

"John has had another of his episodes," Zell said.

"Oh, _Johan_." Her eyes were instantly concerned. " _Gut Gott_ , not again." She rested her birdlike claw on my shoulder. I wondered if she still played piano for the church. What kind of music could come from those hands?

"How badly this time?" She asked, looking at Zell.

"Ask him," Zell told her.

"I'm fine," I heard someone say. I wished the person saying it could manage the simple word _I_ like a normal human being.

Tyrollia ran her claw over my cheek. It sounded like a torn autumn leaf scraping across the stubble of my beard.

"What, no coffee, Mrs. Zelig?" She said, abruptly shifting gears. "Not even instant for a guest?"

Zell, six cups of perked already under her belt for the day, went uncomplainingly to the cupboard and pulled out a jar of coffee she kept on hand for emergencies. Considering the amount of caffeine in our systems, she probably could have flown to the cupboard. As for myself, my hands shook with tremors that had nothing to do with the dyskinesia suffered by the victims of electroshock or of lobotomizing drugs.

Tyrollia made herself at home and went to Zell's cookie jar. A moment later, she disappointedly closed the ceramic Swiss chalet's rooftop, having withdrawn a crumbly sugar cookie.

"You are out of cookies," she said in a hurt tone of voice, as she took a seat in the chair between mine and Zell's.

Zell set the timer on the microwave to boil water, and muttered, "I'll write myself a note."

Tyrollia munched contentedly for the few moments such a small cookie afforded. Something seemed vaguely different about her. Her hair, maybe? No, it was the same old thicket standing wildly on end. It was her teeth. They were too white, obviously much younger than anything else about her. Fortunately, she didn't notice me staring at her dentures. She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin.

"All things work together for good to them that love God," she said.

I didn't know whether it was the cookie or the Bible verse that made her sigh with satisfaction. The bell on the microwave sounded. Zell stirred coffee crystals into Tyrollia's mug, handed it over, and took her own seat at the table. Tyrollia took a sip, drinking it black, and smiled again, her dark eyes darting between the two of us. Her inquisitive glances would have been hard to miss, with her eyes swimming like black pools behind those thick glasses.

"You'll be fine, John," she said, smiling quickly. "God takes care of people like us."

"People like us?"

"I wonder if that's how Job would have expressed it," Zell said quietly, maybe too quietly for Tyrollia to hear.

The older woman seemed to be concentrating solely on her cup. She might have been reading tea leaves.

" _The faithful_ ," she finally said, sticking to my question. She answered Zell's in the next breath. "Both Peter and Paul said anyone who wants to live a godly life in this world will suffer persecution and tribulation."

By her tone of voice you would have thought she knew the two apostles personally. Had they spoken with a German accent? I wondered. Looking at her desiccated features, it was easy to think she really might have known them in her younger years. In fact, she might be older than either one of them.

"He wants to know about little Judith," Zell said.

Tyrollia's eyes darted between the two of us. "You've heard something new?"

Zell shook her head. "No," she said, looking adamant. "John, all this worrying you do about Judith has _always_ set you off. You have to stop thinking about her."

"It makes you sick," Tyrollia said. " _Verry_ sick."

I guess I sighed. Zell reached out and laid her hand on my left forearm. Tyrollia grasped my right.

"No one knows anything about her," Zell said. She squeezed my arm tighter. "We're not sure she—not sure _Judith Huffy_ —ever really existed."

"She gives you migraines," Tyrollia added helpfully.

Migraines? Was that her way of saying one of my seizures? I nodded disappointedly and rose to my feet. As I went out the door, both women were still chattering in my direction, Tyrollia telling me to take it easy for a few days, Zell telling me to finish reading my journals. Back at home I rested by avoiding the journals. I was sick of reading about my life. I just wanted to live it!

Instead, I went to bed and stayed there.

#

"Boss, you okay?"

I opened my eyes, and possibly thrashed about a little. A golden-haired angel loomed over me, his face filled with concern. It took me a few moments to find my bearings. I was in bed and the angel was the young man Zell had called _Tryg_. The halo was merely backlighting from the ceiling fixture.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

He glanced at his watch before answering. "C'mon, we'll be late getting to Portland."

I kept staring at him. After the initial shock of waking to find someone standing over me, my first impulse was to yell at him to get out. I probably would have, too, except that accompanied by flashes of light, my brain seemed to be shifting through several different memories of this same face—bearded and beardless, flesh and incorporeal. Was I losing my mind? With every flash, I heard a _chunk-chunking_ sound, as if from the carousel of a slide projector.

"You okay?" He asked again. "Zell said you maybe wouldn't feel up to going today."

"You better go without me," I said, shaking my head. Yelling was out. Stuttered shouts never impressed anybody.

"You sure? You have an appointment with some kind of Doc."

A Doc? A shrink? The last person I wanted to see was some psycho shrink. He probably wanted to put me back in the nuthouse or to give me some new drug.

"Later," I said. "You go."

"You sure? If you get up right now, we can still just make it."

I was sure. It finally came back to me that he'd picked me up once when I'd been hitchhiking on Highway 101. He was a skinny kid headed to his own personal patch of weed. He drove a rusty old Datsun 510 like he thought he was a race car driver. A drug dealer was working for me!

I shook my head vigorously. He finally got the point.

"I'll say hi to Bro Ruben for you."

"Fine," I said, waving him out. I didn't remember any _Bro Ruben_ and didn't really care who he did or didn't say hello to. I just wanted him to leave.

Hours later, Zell found me digging through my desk drawers, searching for my check books. Too many people came and went through my house as if it were their own. Either I needed to write a note to myself to keep my doors locked, or I needed to install new locks—I didn't know which.

"I need the cashbox for the store," she said without preamble.

Cashbox? For the store? I looked at her blankly.

"What are you searching for?" She asked.

"My checkbooks."

She went to a cabinet and opened the door. From where I was sitting, I could see a combination wall safe. I didn't remember the safe, so how could I remember the combination? She must have read my expression perfectly, because she immediately spun the dial. In a couple of moments, the door swung open for her.

I think my face was burning when she placed both my personal and business checkbooks on the desk.

"How many people know about—?"

"The three of us," she said, answering me before I could finish. As if I couldn't put two and two together, she added, "You, Tryg, and I."

"Funny way to do business," I said, thinking I might have gaps in my memory but I certainly did recall someone named Kit stealing my checkbooks. If my wife could steal from me, why not my neighbor or someone like Tryg the drug dealer? Didn't I ever learn from my mistakes?

As if to confirm my suspicions, she slid out a metal box from the safe and headed for the door. I followed her. For someone thirty years older than I, she was still quicker. She disappeared inside the shop before I was through the back door of my house.

I went charging in, probably looking like a madman. Thankfully, my stammer prevented me from yelling like one, too. The sign on the door was finally registering, along with the carved Indians, the dolls, the chairs.

Zell looked up from counting out money from the cashbox. A dark-haired young woman, obviously startled, took a step back from me, protectively grasping a doll to her breast. You would've thought she held a newborn infant instead of something made of ceramic.

"I'll wrap her for you, Miss," Zell said, speaking in a soothing tone of voice, as if it were a common occurrence for people like me to burst into the shop unannounced.

Under the woman's suspicious stare, I beat a hasty retreat, nearly bowling over a young girl as I went out the door. A family of four was behind her on the walkway. Zell had a busy day ahead of her.

I was sitting at my desk, reading through one of my journals when she finally found time for a break.

"I put up the 'Out to Lunch' sign," she announced. She stared at me, as I studiously ignored her. Eventually, when I looked up, she had vanished. I continued reading, my conscience arguing with me about my behavior. Maybe Zell had grown accustomed over the years to my outbursts, to my suspicions, to my dark moments. I hoped she didn't feel as badly about them as I did.

"If you feel up to it, I'll drive us over to Newaulakem for you to see the shed."

Zell was back. A ride to Newaulakem would be a welcome break. Despite the neatness of my journal entries, my head seemed to be swirling. I'd included everything in my journals—how I transitioned from clocks to Indians, how Tryg came to me as an apprentice after a five year stint in jail for possession and intent to distribute marijuana, how I was still wondering about Judith and pestering Blackie and everyone else I could think of for information. Made in my dense, microscopic hand, the entries, along with my usual detailed sketches, seemed to strike me from several different directions, like torrents of water threatening to capsize an inflatable rubber dinghy. I was on information overload.

Or maybe I just needed glasses, after squinting at the fine print for so long? Dizzy, I rubbed my eyes. Zell hadn't gone anywhere.

"Sure, love to see the shed."

*****

Episode Eleven

_Newaulakem_.

Beyond the vaguest of recollections about a river (a few pleasant flashes of sunlight off my own wet shoulders as I dove from high rocks into a seemingly insignificant stream), I remembered nothing about the town itself. As unsure as I was of myself, and of my Swiss cheese brain, I did remember the town was about four miles east of Driftwood Bay.

As Zell told it, in her childhood its main thoroughfare had consisted of one cafe, a gas station and mechanic's garage, a grocery store with a genuine pickle barrel just inside the front door, a church, a tavern, and a bait shop, (both of the latter better attended than the church), exactly the sort of place that comes to mind whenever one thinks of a sleepy village. Situated on the stream of the same name, which was no more than 100 to 120 yards across at its very broadest, it had displaced an even older and ostensibly sleepier village of mixed Clatsop Tillamook or Clatsop Nehalem Indians.

The shed she brought me to was a relic of Zell's childhood; damaged in the storm of 1939, it had been hauled out of the river and placed on a concrete foundation with plank flooring. A hand carved wooden sign declared _Newaulakem Artists Co-Op_ over the doorway. Like the door of my own shop, business hours were posted, except that these included weekend hours. Zell didn't have to unlock the glass-paned door. A pretty blonde opened it from the inside and breathlessly ushered us in.

The interior was not at all like the vision I'd seen of boarded-up windows, dark ceiling spaces and lone, hanging light bulbs and cobwebs. Inside the weathered exterior were white plaster walls and rustic open beams lit by skylights.

"You didn't go to town with Tryg, Mr. Raventhorst?"

_Mr. Raventhorst_ unsettled me, as if I were hearing echoes in my head. For a moment I had a flashback, of waking up to a slap, and voices demanding something of Mr. Raventhorst. Wasn't Mr. Raventhorst my father? Then all at once my head cleared; I was back in the present. I would have answered the girl, if Zell hadn't tightened her grip around my arm and stepped me past her like I was some sort of show dog instead of a human being.

"Tryg went by himself, Candi dear," Zell said without explaining a thing. Trying to look normal, I waved, stumbling at the same time, as Zell hurried me on. I would have stayed to talk if allowed; despite the _Mister_ routine, I was sure I knew Candi well. Or maybe it was just that her features and corn-silk blonde hair were distinctively Finnish. She was a cousin of mine, perhaps?

The shed, or _Co-op_ , as I should have thought of it, turned out to be a series of spacious cubicles devoted to the works of local individual artists: a seascape painter; a sheet-metal sculptor; a bowl maker (in burled woods); a potter of Picassoesque forms; and finally, Tryg's furniture and my carvings. That was perhaps half of the building. Several chattering tourists walked ahead of us through a set of French doors into a more rustic workshop. Here were my missing tools—my table saws, routers, sanders, and everything else. Once again it was as if I'd been transported to a place I could call home. Still, as familiar as the place felt to me, it didn't make much sense. Why should I move all of my equipment several miles away from where I lived, when I'd always been able to simply walk out my back door to go to work?

Zell must have seen my puzzled expression.

"What is it, John?" She asked.

"Why? Why should I—? It's crazy!"

"Crazy?"

"Moving all my tools here."

"Oh, that's what everybody says—or used to say."

"Then why did I do it?"

"Because you could?" She said, smiling brightly. Even coming from her, it didn't seem like much of an answer to me. "Why should you care?" She demanded. "A lot of people already figure you're crazy, so why should it matter?"

I must have frowned or looked even more confused.

"You tell me yourself all the time, John. At a certain point in your life, a person has to quit worrying what people think about your decisions. And should it matter? You're helping people here. Even if you're not very good at communicating with most people, you've always done okay at selling what you make and making a name for yourself. The Co-Op isn't just for you. It's helped Tryg a lot, along with the other artists, as well as Newaulakem. Without the Co-Op, the town would lose a good percentage of its tourist business. You couldn't do all that in Driftwood Bay. Your place is just too small."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the tourists we'd followed conversing with a woman seated at a pottery wheel. As in my old workshop, the artists evidently welcomed the tourists to watch them as they labored over their creations. The potter nodded in our direction and I distinctly heard my name mentioned.

"Maybe we should go," Zell said, propelling me back toward the shed's retail section.

"But those people might want—"

"Don't worry, dear, talking to them is Candi's job." She glanced at her wristwatch in mid-stride. "Besides, it's time we returned to the shop.

I tried to protest.

"Candi knows everything anyone needs to know. She's Tryg's fiancée and runs the sales end." Her voice lowered to a whisper: "She may look empty headed but she's really very bright.

"We'll see you, Candi dear," Zell said more loudly, waving with one hand and still herding me with the other. I almost felt as if Zell didn't trust me with Candi. Or perhaps it was vice versa? My heart seemed to hammer in my chest at her enormous blue eyes—maybe just the same old appreciation I'd always felt for blondes?

Customers were milling around on the sidewalk in front of my house and at the door of my shop, waiting for us to re-open, when we pulled into Zell's carport. Eagerness lit her face.

"You go back to your journals," she told me, patting me on the arm. Over my protests, she said, "Better yet, dear, go talk to your old friend Claude. Anything to rest that poor brain of yours as much as it needs."

She was out of the car and headed through the gate into my yard before I could properly respond. Running the shop seemed to suit her. It might even be her calling. My own tortured responses to questions from customers certainly would not measure up to her voluble, happy exchanges with them.

#

As if fluorescent orange was not insult enough, someone had newly splashed white paint over the tavern's wooden Indian, the better to show off their command of four-letter obscenities done in a broad-tipped black marker. Upon closer examination, I discovered someone had used a pen knife to carve two names into one shoulder, too, names entwined with hearts and arrows. It seemed Sheila loved Jen. That was followed in black marker by _Sheila loves Sally_ , then _Sheila loves Sheila_ , an apropos sign of the times, I guessed.

When I pushed my way in through the front door, I found Claude sitting at the bar, both elbows on the counter, reading the sports page from the Oregonian. A glass of beer was at his left elbow and a cigarette smoldered in his right hand. Besides him, I saw two other persons in the room: a solitary, long-haired man played pool at a far table, muttering curses about a bad shot, while a chunky, butch-cut blonde stood at the Art Deco jukebox. _Sheila?_ I wondered vaguely. In a moment, mournful Country Western music floated through the air.

Intent upon his newspaper, Claude didn't seem to notice I had sat down beside him, giving me opportunity to examine his profile for changes. His nose was more pockmarked than ever, his face redder, his hair thinner and grayer than I remembered.

"What do you want?" He asked, seemingly without a flicker of interest in my direction.

"I hear you have great service here," I said.

"Yeah, well don't believe everything you hear."

Never tell a joke while you're stuttering—unless it's a joke about a stutterer.

"No baskets of chicken?" I tried, wondering if the chicken fryer was on the fritz again.

He swung toward me, rolled his eyes and at last folded the paper and laid it down.

"You been back to the funny farm?"

I shrugged, at the same time shaking my head in a _no_.

"I ain't had chicken in here for a year and a half." He said, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Not since Linda burned herself on the deep fryer and the aliens came down and took her away."

"Came down?" I asked, completely bewildered. "Aliens? As in Canadians, you mean?"

"No no no," he said, pointing toward the ceiling. "Aliens. You know, from outer space." He spun his finger in the air and whistled crazily.

"Woman was nuttier than you," he said, finally explaining himself. He picked up the newspaper again, opened it and snapped it between his hands to straighten the fold. He scanned the pages while he talked, interrupting himself every few moments for a drag on his cigarette. "Probably from the LSD and booze. She started young, you know."

Linda was the hostile barmaid. I could not recall anything about her and LSD, or about her and booze, for that matter, other than what she drew from the taps behind the bar for customers. He might be making it all up, or none of it. I wasn't sure. I also wasn't sure of his point.

"About like Lulu," he muttered, now addressing me by glancing toward our reflection in the mirror behind the bar. "Traipsing off to Africa for _Jeezuss_. Crazy, crazy, _crazeee_ , man."

Off to Africa? His sister Lulu? For Jesus? He must have seen my astonishment, because he was staring even harder at the mirror, incredulity written all over his face.

"You've done it again, haven't you?" He demanded, slamming the paper down on the bar. He cursed, his beer glass falling over, spilling its contents.

"You here to get me saved again, tell me all about Jesus? Is that why you're here?"

Confused, I nearly fell off my bar stool, stammering out an answer that was unintelligible even to me. I had decided on the walk from my house to offer to refurbish his poor, abused wooden Indian. What was this about Jesus? Who was I to get him saved?

"It's bad enough you told Lulu about getting saved and she went off to be a missionary," he muttered, swinging up the countertop gate to fetch a bar towel. He threw it over the spreading beer. "Don't know why I put up with people like you."

He carefully swabbed the countertop before throwing the towel into the sink and reaching for another.

"What did Jesus ever do for you?" He demanded, turning his attention back to me. "Most people think you're retarded, Jack, if they don't already know you're crazy."

I was still too astonished by his outburst to speak. I was trying to form words in my brain, words that were a long time in coming, as usual.

"You really don't remember nothin', do you?"

It wasn't true. Because of my journals, I remembered mostly everything about my past, even if it did seem like a story about someone else. It certainly wasn't any revelation to me that people often thought I was retarded or crazy, or both. I'd heard it all my life!

"After every time you have one of your episodes, it's not long before you come in here to talk to me about Jesus."

I shook my head. "I wondered if you wanted me to do something about my Indian." At last I'd gotten out what I wanted to say.

"Oh," he said, looking deflated. "Like repair it, dude? Is that what you mean? You serious?"

I nodded solemnly.

"Well," he said, brightening. "That's different. For free, you mean, right?"

I glanced around the room. If anything, the place looked dingier and shabbier than I remembered. The lunch-hour crowd wasn't indicative, I figured, but it looked as though business hadn't been good for him for a long time. I guessed I could do the work for free. I wasn't doing anything else for the moment; as things stood, the Indian's condition certainly wasn't a good advertisement for my work. I started to nod my head in assent.

"Oh forget it," he said, throwing his hands up in defeat. "You can't blame me for trying, can you? Make it an even $500, we got ourselves a deal, dude."

This time he let me nod. He came out from behind the bar and slapped me on the back.

"All right!" He said. "Got you on that one, didn't I? And some fools think I don't know nothin' about business."

Five hundred dollars was probably just about right, for me. But to deal with the vandalism problem, the Indian should be brought indoors. A mahogany base and lighted glass case were what he really needed. That would cost him another five hundred or more. What I was really thinking about, as we went outside to again examine the damage, was his sister Lulu. What did he mean about her being a missionary?

After satisfying him with details of what needed to be done and letting him know I would pick up the Indian tomorrow to begin the work, he slapped me jovially on the back. About to slap me again, he held back, eyes narrowing with some new concern evidently crossing his mind.

"You still working with that hypocrite?" He asked.

"Zell?" I asked, startled by the thought.

"The old broad?" He laughed, equally startled. "Tryg, I mean, you nitwit." At my dumbfounded nod, he said, "Just remember I don't want him touching anything of mine. You got that? Nothin'!"

"Nothin'—" I said, jolted by a wild dance of neurons firing in my brain. I was suddenly riding up Old Baldy in a rusty old Datsun 510 with the passenger window down. A young Tryg told me about harvesting weed on the mountain. _A business partner and me, we're growing it up off the road that goes to the repeater station._

Tryg the "hypocrite." Tryg who refused to rat on his mysterious business partner and had spent over five years in jail while the other man got off Scot free.

"You!" I blurted, drawing up to within inches of his face.

Fear registered in his eyes, as if the knowledge of his guilt had sparked across the gap between our two brains. He shoved me, both hands against my chest, momentarily rocking me back on my heels. His jaw dropped, fear again widening his eyes, this time because I hadn't fallen down as he expected. Stepping back, he set his feet and ran at me. Head down, he didn't see me react, the pivot aside or the foot stuck out to trip him, something that seemed to come naturally to me, as if I'd had to do the same thing many times before.

He went sprawling across the sidewalk, and didn't come up nearly as fast as he'd fallen. On his knees, he stared down at his hands, at the blood that was beginning to seep from newly shredded skin.

"I'll kill you for that," he said coldly.

"I'll let Blackie know," I said, strangely calm and speaking as clearly as I'd ever spoken.

"I'll get my gun. I'll blow your brains out!"

I reached out, offering to help him back to his feet, but he slapped my hand away and hissed suddenly from the pain of contact. Shrugging, I walked past him and didn't turn around to acknowledge any more of his threats. The last thing I heard him scream was that I could forget about the five hundred dollars, something I'd done even before tripping him. As for his threats, I realized I'd heard them plenty of times in my life. They were maybe the real reason Tryg had never ratted him out. He probably just hadn't realized his "business" partner's memory was as beer soaked as his brain.

#

Sitting on the high, backless stool to my drafting table, especially for hours on end, might seem uncomfortable to some people. To me, since my early teens, it had been a place for dreaming and relaxing even as I drew up plans for my various projects. In fact, no place seemed more _right_ , where I felt both at rest and at my most productive. The one place that rivaled it was my workshop, where I could bring into being the dreams that were birthed here—a workshop now several miles distant—a nuisance, now that I thought of it.

Having placed a mug of steaming hot Earl Grey along with the last of the journals on the drafting table, I shoved aside the vague sense of dread I felt and thumbed through the pages until I came to where I'd last left off reading. Actually I had been procrastinating this moment for fear of discovering that something terrible had happened to Judith. The something that had sent me once again into the abyss just a couple of days ago?

The sheer length of the final entry suggested nothing unusual had happened, though, judging by my usual pattern; more emotionally disturbing events typically evoked my briefest responses. Contrasting with the length was my handwriting; it was once again shaky, not a good sign, almost as if I'd been suffering from an extreme chill or an attack of severe arthritis.

Sipping from my tea mug, I ignored the entry date and began reading. The first words were: _Dr. Ray says he doesn't like the look of it._

Dr. Ray? I wracked my memory but was at a loss. Did I mean my dentist? I vaguely recalled my dentist's first name was Ray.

He's arranged the test for me in Portland. He says we'll know the answer within a few days.

When I next remembered my tea, the mug was cold in my hand, perhaps chilled by my icy grip. Looking up from the table, I saw daylight was beginning to fade. It occurred to me that if I hurried, I just might make it to Old Baldy by sunset.

While some people put hours into planning a campout, for me it was merely a matter of opening a closet in the utility room and grabbing out my backpack, already loaded with all the paraphernalia I needed, including a can of Deet. For water, I took along the same mug I'd been drinking tea from; within yards of my favorite camping spot, a spring ran ten times sweeter and more satisfying than any bottled water I'd ever sampled, no matter how famous or expensive. For food, trail mix and a couple of candy bars would do fine. Except for heating water on my little camp stove for tea, I wouldn't be doing any cooking. My actual preparations took less time than it did to lace up my hiking boots and zip up my windbreaker. The mountain awaited me. I was on my way in under fifteen minutes.

Two hours later I had pitched my tent and set out my folding campstool. The small grove of trees, as I'd expected, was unoccupied; few people ever actually camped on Old Baldy. In spite of its commanding ocean views, suffering from unpredictable winds and rains (because of its bony visage thrust into the wild Pacific) had never made it anyone's favorite, especially with excellent State parks north, south, and east of Driftwood Bay. No campsites or RV hookups, here, and whatever ranger one might encounter on the mountain would be a game warden, since the mountain was home to a federal game preserve. As for the rumors of mountain lions and bears, I'd never seen signs of anything wilder than the plentiful elk or deer, or the occasional bobcat. In fact, most of the wildlife ran to squirrels and skunks, possums and raccoons, jays, crows, and seagulls, along with _bats_ the most exotic creature among them. How many times had I seen leather-winged apparitions swarm from Old Baldy's caves, as twilight settled over the mountain?

If a bat had landed on my head that night, I wouldn't have noticed. Not even one of Driftwood Bay's spectacular sunsets could make the least impression on me. Wearied by the hike from my home and stunned into a sort of psychic exhaustion by what I'd read in my journal, I went to bed and rolled up into a fetal ball.

When I opened my eyes in the middle of the night, I think I smelled the smoke before I actually understood that it was the glow of a fire I saw reflected from my tent ceiling. Through the mesh of my tent door, I saw flames. Beyond, someone dressed in a white shirt and dark tie sat on my campstool, his face clearly illuminated by the flickering firelight. It was Reverend Grunwald. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and zipped open the door.

The night air was unusually balmy and sweet smelling, more like the flowers of summer than the smoke of the burning pine boughs I expected. Overhead, the stars flashed gaudily, with infinitely more glory than the precious gems found in any jeweler's shop. The melancholy hooting of owls sounded from the dark mass of trees above, while nearer still a jovial choir of frogs advertised their presence.

Folding my legs under me, I took a seat across from him and waited, expecting him to speak first. For the moment, it didn't occur to me to ask what he was doing; it seemed enough to know that he had come and that we shared the same campfire. The fire crackled, pitch ran hot and bright onto the coals, and we continued in a fellowship of silence, neither of us needing to openly acknowledge the other's presence. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. It was more as if the wind had snuck up behind me to speak quietly in my ear.

"God knows you."

From reading my journals, I knew he had given me a lot of advice these last seven years even if I couldn't remember exactly what had occasioned much of it. Though he had yet to lift his eyes from the campfire, he must have sensed my bafflement.

" _God_ is the only one who really knows us, John. Down to the core, the hidden things, the forgotten things, the who and what he designed us for. _Everything_."

Maybe from frustration, I think I sighed. He pulled out a Bible from nowhere and flipped it open to somewhere near the end. At last, having settled his reading glasses over his nose, he looked up at me.

"I want to tell you about something from the book of Revelation," he said. "Have you ever heard about those who are given the white stone?"

I shook my head. The book of Revelation, like most anything in the Bible that involved prophets and the prophetic, was a complete mystery to me.

"To those who overcome, he promises to give them a white stone with a name on it, a secret name God alone knows. Do you know what that means?"

Again, I shook my head.

"As for the stone itself, the Romans considered a white stone as a symbol of joy. Far more importantly, I think, is that it bears the name God has for you, John. That name encompasses everything he created you for, meant for you and meant for you to be, the deepest, most penetrating truth he sees about you and destines for you. So if you lose your way—"

He hesitated, his snowy eyebrows knitting together as if in contemplation of some mystery that might be entirely unrelated to his conversation with me. Understandably, that might have been my imagination, or maybe it was simply the uncertain light. In either case, something was very different about him that I couldn't quite pin down: for one, he seemed more robust than I remembered. Even Tyrollia, who was considerably older, usually looked like she had a surer grip on the life force we all possess than he did.

"If you should forget your name or even your own face, God still knows the real you."

Unsure of how to respond, I nodded my head.

"Alzheimer's," he said, triggering my memory of his wife's death. I was amazed at how calmly he was able to say the word. I had seen him weep over her inability, in her last months on earth, to recognize him or any of their grown children or grandchildren and great grandchildren.

"Or a stroke, or electroshock, it doesn't matter," he rushed on. "None of those, no, not one, can ever take away the name that awaits us in heaven."

"What does it mean to be an overcomer?"

Dread settled over me, as he hesitated again, evidently pondering how to answer. I couldn't see how anyone could consider me an overcomer. Martyrs were overcomers, I didn't doubt, as were missionaries and people in full-time ministry. People like him, which pretty much left me out. What kind of destiny did I have, when I sometimes couldn't remember anything, much less my name or my own face?

"I'll read you the answer," he said. He turned back several pages in his Bible. "Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world? He who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."

He closed his Bible, removed his reading glasses, and settled his gaze on me. Kindliness lit his face.

"I won't even ask, John. You've told me more than once you believe in the Lord, and I baptized you myself."

"I don't remember," I said. Still, something had seemed to warm in my chest, as he spoke.

"But I do, and far more importantly, infinitely more, God remembers."

Again, I felt that strangely comforting sensation in my chest. I did believe... I had believed before and would believe again, even if I didn't feel I fully grasped the meaning of that belief. A vague memory stirred in my brain, of my father leaning over me and telling me he loved me and that he knew God loved me, too.

I was twelve or thirteen years old and sitting at the kitchen table. The table was new, the kitchen cabinets, the walls—everything was new. The walls still awaited plastering. Then I remembered why: _dynamite_. In the garage, I had unexpectedly discovered a box left over from one of my father's stump-clearing jobs. After taping together several sticks, I managed to insert a cap like I'd once seen my father do and attached about six inches of fuse. Then wandered with the destructive little package from the garage into my mother's bedroom.

My mother, my beautiful, beautiful mother was gone. They had come and taken her away, and now she was dead. What point was there to this house and everything my father had made for her—the custom made vanity, bed, and long bureau? Why shouldn't I blow it all away?

Because of the resulting rubble, I had been taken to the same place, too, where she had died, for a very long time afterwards. Now I was back, and everything was new, including my father. He leaned close, his craggy features filling my view. Between us on the table, he had opened a shiny black Bible.

"Nobody can bring your mother back, Johnny," he said. "I can't and neither can you. Do you understand that? We make decisions, decisions we sometimes can't change our minds about, which is what your mother did."

He paused for a long moment, his face contorting with emotion. His fingers clutched at the pages of the Bible.

"But while you were in the—" he began, still choking up, not able to spit out the word _hospital_. He paused again, set his jaw, and began reading to me.

" 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth in him is saved. He that believeth not is already condemned.' "

He flipped through a bunch of pages, and began reading again.

" 'The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.' "

Still, without looking up, he leafed back through the pages, before stopping to read.

" 'To as many of them as believed, gave he the power to become the sons of God.' "

Finally, he closed the Bible and looked at me.

"You can't have your mother back, Johnny," he said, struggling to control his quivering lower lip. "I can't have her back, either. We both know that. But while you've been away, I've found something that means even more to me. Do you want to know what it is?"

I nodded, unsure as to what else I could do or say.

"God is here with us. All we need to do is believe in his son and invite him into our hearts. No matter the pain or loss we feel, he can heal it all. Listen to this."

Again, he was flipping through the pages. He stopped near the end of the book.

" 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me.'

"Do you get it, Johnny? It's a gift, a gift He's inviting us to take. He's not trying to keep it from us. He wants us to have it! Eternal life with him! Isn't that great?"

Great? I didn't know if anything was great. My own truth was that after two years of treatments, as they called them, my brain was too numb, even more numb than it had been on the day they called to tell us my mother had died at the State Hospital, to know or care about that day, the next, or any day following. Still, I nodded my head. My father, taking it to mean far more than it really did, told me to bow my head and pray after him, which I did, stumbling and stuttering after each phrase.

"Dear Jesus—"

"I want to receive this gift—"

"If you want to make me your child—"

"I'd really like that—"

"So please come into my heart, now—"

"And do all the stuff you've said in your word—"

"Even if I don't know much about this stuff—"

"I'm sure you'll teach me all I need to know."

"Amen."

When I finished with the _Amen_ , actually saying it without my usual stammer, I saw tears in his eyes, something I'd never seen before. I didn't know if it was from seeing the tears, or something else, but that same strange warmth spread through my chest again. Whatever had just happened between us, no matter how much I had stumbled in repeating his makeshift prayer, it was something very real, more real than anything I'd ever experienced before.

Vaguely, looking back, I recalled touching my mother's flaming Zippo lighter to the fuse. Still holding on tightly, I watched in fascination as the fire crawled toward the sticks. Sixty seconds to a foot, I'd heard my father tell someone. Or at least that's what I'd thought, which meant thirty for six inches. It seemed to be going faster. I pinched the fuse between thumb and forefinger, suddenly thinking to quench it. _What am I doing?_ The fire crawled right past, scorching my fingers, jerking my hands toward the bed. The dynamite landed on a pillow, and I turned and ran, not knowing if there was time even to reach the bedroom door.

The explosion came as I slammed a second door, the living room door, behind me and dove into the front yard.

I must have lost track of time. Thinking back over forty years can do that to a person. When I looked up again, expecting to see Reverend Grunwald across the brightly burning fire, I saw an empty campstool. Perhaps my consciousness, like my memory, was made of Swiss cheese.

Rising stiffly from the grass, I went back to my sleeping bag, grateful that Reverend Grunwald had taken it upon himself to leave his own bed in the middle of the night to visit me. How many people in the world would do that for another human being, in particular for someone like me? Not many, I was sure.

Don't fear, John, it won't be long now. Your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you or your many good deeds.

Startled, I opened my eyes. Hunched over me in the pitch blackness was a golden figure. Reflexively closing my eyes, and just as quickly reopening them, I discovered he had disappeared. Was the mountain still home to a few Indians nobody else knew about? Strangely, this one had been as bald as Old Baldy itself, not my idea of a Native American. Nor had I ever dreamed any Indian could appear to be made of gold, or be as oppressively massive as this one, his head a great block set atop a chest and shoulders of even greater blocks.

How could he know my name? I wondered sleepily. Memory of him was already fading, the darkness closing in like the ocean around a sinking rock.

I rose later than planned, with the sun gleaming between two of Old Baldy's peaks. Breakfast was a cup of icy cold spring water more bracing than a snort of whiskey. I was tying my sleeping bag to my backpack frame when I heard a rumbling noise. A black and white SUV 4x4 appeared through the trees and rolled up to my campsite.

Blackie killed the engine. Through the windshield I saw him shake his head as Tryg opened the passenger door to step out. Blackie followed, though pointedly ignoring me while he walked about, gingerly shaking the stiffness out of his left leg. I heard him grumble something under his breath about the blasted clutch.

"Doc Ray's mad," Tryg said, staring at me. As an afterthought, he added, "So is Zell."

Tryg looked mad, too, but maybe wasn't saying so because he was more an employee of mine than a business partner. Or maybe it was worry I saw in his face. I couldn't really say for sure, never being all that good at reading people.

"You saw my journal?" I asked.

"He didn't have to," Blackie said. "Ray called Zell at the store when he heard you missed your appointment." He adjusted his gun belt and hitched up his pants to tuck in his shirt properly.

"Good thing I didn't catch you up here startin' no fires."

I glanced at the few square yards of flattened grass that had served as my campsite. The only thing left to secure was my folding campstool. Fire? Why would I need a fire, when I had my little single-burner camp stove?

As I climbed into Blackie's SUV for the trip back, I glanced at the campsite again. Where were the dead ashes and the circle of stones from last night? I turned to Tryg and asked him if he'd seen Reverend Grunwald lately.

" _Oh, John,"_ Blackie answered for him.

If Blackie's response weren't enough, Tryg's shocked look was. I started to say something, then thinking better of it, clamped my mouth shut and instead stared out the window. How many times in my life had I heard that same _Oh, John?_

In my weariness over reading about my past seven years, I'd finally skipped ahead to reach the last entry. Somewhere in those pages leading up to the end, I was sure I would find an entry about Reverend Grunwald's death and maybe even his funeral.

*****

Episode Twelve

Tight spaces never really bothered me. If someone had shoved me into a dark closet as a child and locked the door after me, I probably would have simply pulled a bunch of the clothes off the hangers and made a bed out of them for myself. Or maybe I would have kicked the door until it broke from its hinges. I certainly wouldn't have cried or screamed from fright. Small places or dark places or small dark places, for that matter, just didn't scare me. A white-belted jacket associated with a small room and padded white walls was a different story.

Fortunately, I couldn't see any straitjackets or padded white walls. Not yet. Just the machine with its table and the odd, massively oversized donut hole they intended to slide me into for the test, awaited me. Maybe the whiteness of the walls, and the fact I'd seen the technician wore white, was what disturbed me.

"You aren't claustrophobic, are you, John?"

His voice echoing tinnily, the technician standing beside me seemed to dwindle off into the distance. The world shifted, as if I were slipping sideways into an alternate reality. A dark, indefinable something approached, drawing steadily nearer. At first it appeared to be a hole I was about to tumble into: a second later, I realized I wasn't tumbling at all. The hole was expanding, growing, spinning, coming for me like a beast hungry for prey.

" _Mr. Raventhorst?"_

An urgent sounding voice snapped me back. The technician was again at my side. In answer to his question, I slowly shook my head, a sort of stuttered physical response for the voiceless.

The machine took center stage again. Its "donut hole" reminded me of one large, orthopedic pillow. The obvious "machineness" of the device triggered thoughts of humming dynamos and flickering lights like those I'd seen on old Star Trek movies. All in all, it was vastly different from those rooms in which I'd been strapped to a table in years past, though something still felt and even smelled the same. Rational or otherwise, I knew I had to get out, to get out now!

"Mr. Raventhorst!"

I looked up into the technician's eyes. He stared concernedly at me. He was bearded, with longish, neatly groomed hair. Had they selected him because they thought I might be more comfortable with someone at least superficially resembling me?

"Are you all right?" He asked.

Feeling anything other than all right, I still nodded. Instead of his face, I saw Zell's and Doc Ray's. Doc Ray was upset because he'd taken so much trouble to wangle a free MRI in Portland at OHSU for me. Zell was upset because I hadn't told her about either Doc Ray's suspicions or the test in the first place. Both faces were stern and demanding. Except for them, I wouldn't be here.

I stared at the machine's toroid again. From donut hole to orthopedic pillow standing on edge, it had turned into a giant toilet. My life was about to be flushed down the drain. Somewhere within it, or perhaps far beyond it yet somehow integrally linked to it, a far greater, darker, more sinister hole awaited my arrival.

"Mr. Raventhorst? John?"

I guess he wanted more than an unsure nod in response. This time I mumbled a yes. The same stern faces swam before my gaze, demanding I go through with the test.

It was my life, wasn't it? Why should I always do what other people demanded of me? If I had cancer, so what? What business was it of theirs? I didn't have to answer to them, did I?

"No straps?" I asked.

The technician looked confused for a moment, glancing toward the waiting MRI table and then back at me.

"Straps? Restraints, you mean? No."

This time he accepted my simple nod as an okay to let him guide me to the table. I was closer to being swallowed up, with the sterile toroid _cum_ white donut _cum_ pillow _cum_ toilet now the gaping maw of a great white shark. After a few interminably long moments, the technician's voice reached me as a reassuring mumble from a hidden speaker, something about lying perfectly still. I was sliding noiselessly into the hole, my life advancing into...what? A flash of red blinded me. Was I already bleeding? When would those tough, sandpapery lips close around me?

It was all a mistake. I couldn't have cancer, not when I'd quit the Copenhagen years before. No matter what Doc Ray said about what he saw in my mouth, I really hadn't felt anything different, either. Or maybe with my Swiss cheese memory, I just didn't know what my mouth _should_ feel like? Had my use of tobacco killed off or reduced all normal sensitivity until I was incapable of recognizing the difference?

Could cancer strike years after I'd already quit using tobacco?

Clicking noises began, at first no louder than a power stapler. Before long, the stapler had begun to gallop, and shortly afterwards, thumping, clanging noises, like rocks cast at an empty metal garbage can, struck all around me, from right and left and directly overhead.

A shadow fell over me, advancing from within the well of the machine. I felt my body jerk in opposition, as the toroid began to spin. In an instant, it had thrown me, striking first one shoulder and then the other against its circular wall, battering me around the head, as it began to accelerate. Swallowed up in white noise, as if boulders were sliding and crashing around me, I screamed. Zell and Doc Ray disappeared, swallowed up by a black vortex.

#

How much longer?

Not much. He has just a few more edges to come off.

A few more edges? What was I, a stone to be polished for someone's rock collection?

The nauseating motion ceased, yet I felt myself rushing upward, as if propelled through water by giant rubber flippers. Must reach air!

A harshly grating, different voice spoke: _"I want full power, everything she's got."_

" _You'll—kill—him—he's just a little boy!"_

" _Everything, curse you! Now!"_

Someone—perhaps some force—shoved me back under.

I heard dials clicking. My back stiffened. I felt the old familiar surge through my body, like iced iron spikes driven down my spine. My head exploded, and everything went black again.

" _Thank God, he's still alive!"_

" _Of course he's still alive. Why would you doubt me? I'm the doctor."_

I was strapped to a cold metal table. I opened my eyes to blindingly bright lights. The light moved away, a wake of shadow following it.

A black, round and kindly face bent over me from a great height, came near. It was Ralph, Dr. Laberly's assistant.

"Are you all right, Johnny?"

My lips felt dry and cracked. My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth.

"He's crazy, you know," he whispered into my ear.

" _Of course he's crazy!"_

Ralph's kindly face was pushed aside. Replacing it was the face of the man with black horn-rimmed glasses, Dr. Laberly, his milky blue eyes twin icebergs on the horizon of my consciousness. They loomed dangerously closer.

"You shouldn't have come back, you know that, don't you?"

"Water. Please," I said, my voice a whispered croak.

"Right away, Johnny."

It wasn't Laberly who'd spoken; his head swiveled, eyes shooting malice toward Ralph.

Moments later, a small paper cup was put to my lips, and I drank. The water was gone all too quickly. Ralph let my head back down to the table. The room felt icy cold. A split second later I realized I was naked, with leather restraints for clothing.

Something burned at both temples. The doctor loomed over me again.

"Doesn't matter," I managed to answer, speaking as if I'd never stuttered or stammered in my life, or lost my tongue to cancer. "He is all in all."

"Who?"

"El Elyon," I whispered. "Your old enemy."

"Little boy, you are insane, you are completely insane," he whispered in return, backing away, unable to conceal the self-doubt in his eyes, the sudden recoil of fear.

"Get out of my way," he ordered Ralph. "I'll handle the machine."

For a second I heard the sound of a scuffle, and then the doctor shouted hoarsely—

" _Everything! Full power! The works!"_

An icy spear shot down my spine, with branching spears piercing my limbs. My body arched, every joint crackling with the surge of electricity. Suns exploded around me, my head going nova. Yet one thing held me to the earth, one thought, one silken strand. I would never hold my daughter in my arms, hug her, kiss her, tell her I loved her. Judith would never look into my eyes and tell me, "I love you, Daddy."

Then even that strand broke. My _daughter?_ I was a little boy! What did I know about daughters? More flames surrounded me. From somewhere outside the conflagration, I heard a commanding voice.
Come up here!

The flames were instantly snuffed. The ensuing darkness, at first everywhere and all-inclusive, began yielding to pinpoints of light. A beautiful, gorgeously executed door, rotating on a single axis, flew toward me through starry space, with a succession of other doors following, each one opening before I reached its threshold, allowing me passage through what seemed an infinitely long hallway. Gleaming exotic woods flashed with panes of diamond-like glass and inlays of mother of pearl, sunsets and sailing vessels, stars and the moon over water...

I remembered them now. From my clocks I'd gone to carving noble native-Americans, and from them I'd graduated to custom-made doors, doors to grace mansions and boardrooms and churches. But could these doors really have belonged in some earthbound building? What building, unless made of diamond or gold, could possibly support the radiance emanating from each of these?

Ahead, as door after door opened, more and more light was revealed. Gradually, the doors became a tunnel of light, and finally, light itself. I had come to the end of my journey. Within the light was a Man of pure light. I stared into the eyes of Jesus.

God was all in all. _Again!_

*****

Episode Thirteen

Having relived so much of the old life, I might have expected to find myself where I found myself the first time after death. So many people once spoke or wrote of traveling through a dark tunnel at high speed until they emerged into a bright light, where they encountered a wonderfully loving, beneficent Being. As I have recounted elsewhere, for myself, it was nothing like that at all—which makes sense, the tunnel being nothing more than the dark cavern of the body from which the soul emerges fully into the realm of the spirit. The explosion, the obliteration of my brain, allowed for no "tunnel" experience, I guess. Even then, one might have expected my soul would stand immediately before the Beneficent One for approval or disapproval.

Instead, my memory of experiencing death is of first hearing a voice saying: _"The Most High is Love."_

Meaning what? I wondered. Whatever those words meant, they seemed to pour into my soul like water upon parched land. The voice faded into the background and was followed by a welter of images not unlike those I sometimes experienced when felled by epilepsy. The next thing I knew, I felt the old familiar giddiness that so often came after reviving from one of my episodes.

When the giddiness passed, I found myself sitting alone on a weathered old stone bench that overlooked a vast rolling lawn sprinkled with groupings of trees and flowers and shrubs. The bench was set in a space much like an alcove, although this was a sort of stone niche in a hillside with slopes rising far above me.

The birds were what I noticed next, their melodious songs far more complex and meaningful than any bird song I'd ever before heard or imagined possible. While I was wondering about the strangeness of their singing, I saw I wasn't alone as I had first supposed. Much further down the slope, children played, their happy voices reaching me as if they were merely fifty or sixty yards away, when in reality they must be at least two hundred yards distant.

I rubbed my eyes. _Must be dreaming_ , I thought, seeing a circle of dancing children, their leaps carrying them ever higher, with feet much further off the ground than was possible. _Unless maybe I'm on a different planet,_ I thought, grinning to myself, watching them float back to earth together, hands still linked, as if spinning around an invisible maypole.

What a dream!

Funny, though, how very awake I felt, like I'd never ever really been awake before. I wished real life could be like this! As I continued looking, I began to marvel at how clearly I could see; no matter where I turned my eyes, whether to the far horizon or the velvety, perfect grass at my feet, I could see better than, more acutely than, if I were looking through powerful binoculars.

Far more people were here than I'd thought at first, including adults and teenagers. Curiously, I found no old people, not if one judged by canes or eyeglasses, or wrinkles and stooped shoulders, though I did see white-haired women and men among them.

Fascinated, I looked further. Where were the blemishes we all have? Where the occasional chipped tooth or slightly twisted nose, results of that childhood bicycle accident or fistfights with the neighborhood bully? The white scar tracks left by an old dog bite on the forearm? All were the kind of distinguishing marks my own body carried. How was I to fit in with people like these?

What wonderfully remarkable, compelling faces they were, though! As I let my gaze wander in among them, I couldn't worry for long. Not really. Most fascinating of all wasn't the _lack_ of those features I'd taken for granted all my life; while every face seemed different, in the shapes and colors we are so used to, each was singularly beautiful or handsome in its own way, glowing with a kind of family resemblance far beyond my capacity to explain.

Suddenly, I felt incredibly eager to see if I might actually recognize anyone among all those people. As I searched, letting my vision zoom in and out like one sees in special-effects movies, individuals among them occasionally glanced my direction with a smile and waved, though I knew they couldn't possibly be waving at me; surely they must be waving at someone else, someone nearer (though I saw no one nearer, to intrude between). Still, finding it impossible to _not_ smile, as if in mutual recognition, I waved in return. How difficult it became, though, to simply pass on from one face to the next, as if discarding one for another.

Gradually, I realized that for the first time in my life, I didn't feel any anxiety, not even a tinge, at the sight of strangers. Then I reasoned that all these people were quite distant, that I didn't have to speak to them, stammer out my name or some other inanity. Why should I feel anxiety? If anyone started walking toward me, I could simply pretend not to notice, get up, and nonchalantly walk the opposite direction. They'd never know why; it'd be my little secret.

Just as gradually as I'd become aware of my lack of anxiety, I became aware of two men standing several yards to my left. How they'd come to stand that close without my noticing, I wasn't sure. Perhaps my thoughts had drifted, daydreams filling my mind more than the scenery before my eyes? But, oh yes, wasn't this exactly like a dream?

Both men were barefooted. As my eyes traveled upwards, I became aware of their strange clothing. It was as though they'd stepped from a movie set, because they were wearing what I thought of as Roman togas, though these were whiter than any I'd ever seen and much neater looking. If their clothing was strange, strange like this place in which I found myself, at least their faces were much more familiar and immediately comforting. Both men grinned, their faces beaming with light as my eyes met theirs.

One man was my father, the other my Uncle Erke. Both were young, bursting with vitality, and exuded a certain, sublime depth of character I'd never seen in human faces, yet they were undeniably my father and my uncle.

I guess I should have been shocked, maybe even frightened out of my wits. Instead, I shot to my feet with joy.

"Where am I?" I asked, realization beginning to dawn upon me.

My father and Uncle Erke smiled, for some reason electing not to answer my question. Both had their eyes on something else, or _someone_ else to my right.

"You should meet Leanhar," my father said.

To my right stood an angel. If his translucent, golden body hadn't been clue enough, the snow-white, mighty pinions growing out of his back were a dead giveaway. Like my father and my uncle, he too grinned broadly, and just as familiarly. To myself, I acknowledged I should probably have fainted at sight of him, or bolted in fear, especially considering his aura of fierce, nearly leonine wildness, except that his presence seemed every bit as natural to me as that of my father and uncle.

"Let's take a walk," Leanhar said, his voice pleasantly different from what I'd expected, as if it came from a horn rather than fleshly vocal cords, tongue, and lips.

Together, the four of us began ascending the hill above the bench. My father had been dead for many years, and my uncle, as well, for half as long. But here we were, very much alive, in the company of an angel—an _angel!_ —walking side by side as if this were an ordinary occurrence. Much more slowly than it should have, my brain began to put two and two together, to come up with an answer that was much more than a mundane _four_. The marvels had come at me much too swiftly: this place, the birdsong, my superhuman eyesight, my father and uncle, the angel, and the rest—all had happened in quick enough succession that until this very moment I hadn't even noticed an equally wonderful marvel—my own unimpedimented speech. I hadn't spoken in a couple of years, yet here I spoke without the slightest hesitation or difficulty, like I never stammered in my life or suffered from the cancer to which I lost my tongue.

Was _this_ reality? Had I at long last woken from a nightmare _un_ -reality? A wild sort of hope began to fizz up through the broken concrete of my soul. Had I escaped the acid-scarred, crazed, half-blind Quasimodo that was the me of my earthly existence?

Silenced by the wonder of it, I didn't speak again until we'd conquered the peak, a peak far steeper and taller than I'd realized, as mountainous as anything on earth. To add to every marvel which had come before, each step strengthened me, poured energy through every cell of my body until at the end, called upward by some incredible sense of urgency, I yelled out my exultation and began to run. The others shouted in answer and ran, too, until we were all racing up the hill faster than any gazelle had a right to run.

Long before we crested the summit and came to a triumphant halt, I _felt,_ rather than saw, an overwhelming effulgence looming beyond. Awe nearly struck me down. My father took my right hand in both his hands, while my uncle took my left. Leanhar turned to spread his wings and arms in my direction, as he and my father and my uncle spoke in unison:

" _Welcome home, Jack!"_

Floating high above us in the heavens was a City, an impossibly immense, golden cube shining brighter than the sun, flashing with improbably brilliant gemstones both familiar and unimaginable. Radiating from it as surely as the light were waves of love—and music—and security.

Gladness seemed to shout from my father's visage as he looked back at me. "If you think this is something, wait until you see the Master!"

"How?" I asked, trembling with anticipation. "How can I reach the City? What Master?"

Leanhar smilingly raised his hand, crooking a finger for me to follow. "Come and see, fellow servant, the thorn-pierced brow that now wears the crown of crowns."

Together, with Leanhar in the lead, we resumed our walk, now climbing stair steps of air, toward a gate of pearl glistening with all the colors of the rainbow. The pearl gate, however, was no match for that scene which greeted my eyes through the portal into the City's interior.

But all of that, the wonderful park with its people, the stone niche where I'd sat, the birds and their birdsong, and my meeting with my father, my uncle, and Leanhar, was in the distant past. Instead of reliving my first taste of death as I'd originally experienced it in the earthly life, I found myself falling, slumping unexpectedly, as though from faintness.

Strong arms caught me. Expecting to look into the face of Leanhar or perhaps the black gate guardian, I saw neither. Before unconsciousness overtook me completely, I saw Jesus, who hoisted me up into His arms like I was a mere child. My last thought was regret, of how terribly I had failed Him and His Father. How could I have let my imagination run away with me, let the fear of the old life hold me back from doing what God wanted? After 10,000 years of unimpeded fellowship with Heavenly Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, how could I have let cowardice control me, keep me from stepping into the pool, no matter how dark it seemed?

How could I still be in the wood between worlds?

#

I woke in my own bedroom. The loving, sympathetic eyes of the Good Shepherd stared down at me from the wall facing my bed. Curled around His shoulders, a lamb gazed upon me with equal poignancy. As I looked, even the lambs flocking around Him turned their attention in my direction. Before I had time to ponder my failure, I sensed the presence of Jesus beyond that presence communicated through His living portrait.

"You're here, Lord?" I asked, hardly able to believe it.

"I am," He spoke kindly from near the foot of the bed.

Covering my eyes in shame, I said, "Can you forgive me, Lord?"

"I paid the price in full, didn't I?"

I pondered His answer, knowing it was true. He'd spoken similar words from the cross on a hill in the old universe. My understanding had always been that I could never sin again, that certainly sin and sinners could not enter the City of the Great King. And yet I had done exactly what could not be done; somehow, I had managed to disobey God—I had sinned.

"But you didn't," He said, speaking to my anguished spirit.

"But I never left the wood between worlds! I never stepped into the pool!"

"The old world became a place of unimaginable darkness to the children of men when Adam handed over his authority to the enemy."

I waited silently, knowing He had more to say. As He spoke, my fears and my anguish began to fade.

"To step into the pool, to journey back in time, you had to enter the world of darkness and confusion even as you lived in it before. To those rare few chosen to return to it, it is not allowable that they should remain as they are now in the world of light, full of the gifts of light and eternity."

"I was stripped of everything," I said. _They thought I was insane!_ I wanted to cry out. Before the words reached my lips, a welter of images answered me, of men cursing Him, denouncing Him as one insane or possessed by devils.

"Not everything," He said. "You were stripped just of those things you have learned since you took up your life here."

_May as well have been everything_ , I thought to myself.

"I stripped myself before _I_ went," He pointed out, which I knew must be the end of any of my arguments. Even in Gethsemane, He could have taken up His powers and crushed all the forces of evil with a single word—but He didn't, instead allowing the wills of men and of devils apparently to reign for a time in the world, and to crucify Him. Without that, how could His blood have been shed for the remission of sins? How could salvation have been wrought for those who would repent and believe in Him? How could there have been hope for men living in the world of darkness?

What might have happened, if _I_ had been allowed to make the journey as the same person I was now, endowed with Heaven's gifts? Would I have illicitly bent the wills of men to my own will, changed things and events preordained otherwise? Perhaps even found myself worshipped by the world? Naturally, nothing like that had been or could be allowed. All things had been as they were supposed to be and remained, then and now, as always, under El Elyon's sovereignty.

"But I didn't have answered what the Father promised me, Lord," I blurted.

"You didn't?" It wasn't a question. I felt Him rise from His chair, with attendant light dawning in the room. He stood in front of the Good Shepherd, that image of Himself from the days of His life on earth. The One in the flesh smiled admiringly at the Glorified One.

"Join one of the heavenly choirs today, offer praise and worship to my God and Father. A spirit of gratitude will heal you much more quickly."

He vanished before I could protest. Along with Him, the Good Shepherd and His flock disappeared over a sere Judean hill. Why hadn't He simply taken me by the hand, perfectly harmonized my spirit to His, as I had sometimes experienced?

"Could have," I muttered to myself. But He hadn't. He wished instead that I do as He commanded, which was certainly His prerogative. Groggily, as if suffering from a hangover, I rose from my bed and went first to the room where I kept my musical instruments. _A drum would annoy me, right now_ , I thought. Stringed instruments seemed too complex, too challenging, for the moment. I needed something simpler, something basic. I chose a fine wooden recorder made for me by a friend thousands of years ago, and began playing a tune Cielo and his pupils would have recognized easily, _The Old Rugged Cross_. As music and words melded in heart and soul, my spirit rose in thankfulness. The niggling dark memories of the old life flapped their leathery wings in swift retreat.

Stepping outside, I breathed deeply of Heaven's fragrant, life-giving air and felt strength pour in. With it rose the sure knowledge that I was truly home, that Heaven had been made for me and I for Heaven.

How good it is to obey, I thought, still playing as I headed toward Zell's, wanting her to go with me to the falls. How I missed standing beneath the cataract of living waters! The brilliant flowers and bright skies that greeted me along the way sang joy into my soul. With every step I took and at every note upon the recorder, I felt revitalized. The question about the Father's promise, which seemed more and more a mystery, would have to wait. More importantly, I was to seek out one of the choirs, for praise to the Most High was to be done!

Surprisingly Zell wasn't home to share the joy of my return, my liberation from the former life. Still playing _The Old Rugged Cross_ , I walked to the falls by myself. When I burst from the waters, refreshed as if for the very first time by the inundation of God's Spirit, I picked up my recorder again and played like I had never played in my life. All around me, Heaven echoed with joy and exultation at my return. Angels traversing the skies shouted gladly, acknowledging my triumph over the dark world and its evil clutches.

Where was Leanhar? Certainly I could have expected to see him as surely as Zell. What about my father or my uncle? While the angels rejoiced with me, it was as if those closest to me knew nothing of my return. How long had I been absent from Heaven's shores? I wondered. Had it been long enough for them to forget me?

Answered by the Spirit within, my questions faded quickly. One of the six-winged angels akin to the gate guardians hovered nearby, looking eagerly upon me, an obvious invitation to _ask_. To my inquiries, where Zell might be, or Nick or Erke, or others of those closest to me, I was told simply to enter the portal. This same portal, just over the river, had been the doorway to Heaven's main avenues long before my first arrival here. As I stepped toward it, he darted ahead of me, flying as straight as a dragonfly, and I followed, suspecting nothing.

When I emerged on the other side I found myself miraculously outside of the City, in a place familiar since my childhood. Before me spread a great expanse of water and to the north, the towering hulk of a forested mountain, its shoulders and domed forehead no longer bare as I had once known it. Though the wide Pacific no longer exists as it was once known, nor the detritus of ocean squalls decorated its shores, the arms enclosing the waters were still Driftwood Bay's, and the mountain was Old Baldy as its Maker had always meant it to be.

The jolt of finding myself here rather than on one of Heaven's main thoroughfares was short-lived. As I took in my unexpected surroundings, my escorting gate guardian, his work complete, disappeared into a throng of other angels. The air vibrated with wings, and even more with the music of their wings. A chorus lifted all around me, music soaring with voices old fallen earth had forgotten until the Maker's word of re-creation. Then I heard a single long sustained note that seemed to continue for minutes, a note I reproduced, joining in with my recorder. And when it finally died away, it was as if all sound had gone out of the world.

I looked toward Old Baldy and saw a bright star crowning its main peak. As I stared I began walking, inexorably drawn to that light as if nothing else in the world existed. I felt, rather than saw, throngs of men, angels, and beastly creatures, both wild and domestic, parting for me, making way for me as if I were at the head of a river running through deep forest and straight up the mountain slopes, with trees looking benignly down upon me.

The star at rest upon the mountaintop was the Light of All Worlds. I could not help but be drawn to Him. With growing wonder, I approached the throne He sat upon, and fell on my face as if dead. How could He look at me with such love? How was it the holy angels, even those who were in the highest ranks and had once proclaimed His birth to the shepherds, gazed at me with broad smiles of approval? How was it men and women of my own holy branch smiled proudly at Him, and glanced knowingly at those of the Holy Names branch?

As I wondered those things, I heard a noise I couldn't interpret. It began quietly, and swelled like the wind passing through a forest, until at last I recognized the sound. Why were the assembled multitude applauding? Were they really applauding me?

I felt someone assisting me to my feet, the touch of a hand that poured strength into my trembling limbs. After 10,000 years I should have expected Leanhar to be at my side when I needed him, and once again, here he was. The applause faded like a receding wave of the ocean.

"What is that in your hand?" The Savior asked.

"My recorder. I wished to join the—" I began to explain, faltering. No one need explain anything to Him.

"The choir is here," He said, smiling like the sun. "Here to listen to you."

"Listen—to me?"

"Yes. But you won't need the recorder."

I looked down at my hand and at the musical instrument gleaming like gold in the light of His presence. He didn't mean I was to _sing_ for Him, did He? Perform a solo for Him and the assembled multitude, as well? Like anyone else who wishes to sing God's praises in the heavenly realm, I certainly have a fine voice. But why would He want to hear me, when countless voices more gifted than mine, whether human or angel, stood all around us?

"I'm not asking you to sing," He said. Now He was grinning! And the others grinned with Him!

"Not sing—? But how—?"

I wasn't to sing. I wasn't to play my recorder. Did He really mean it? Was I to whistle for Him and these others?

_Whistle?_ Was that it?

Whistling was something I'd done for most of my natural life. And while I often whistled on Ranar, I seldom whistled in Heaven itself. Compared to angelic voices or the voices of the redeemed, and the myriad musical instruments available to us, how could my whistling be anything more than the paltriest of expressions of praise to the Almighty?

He nodded again, obviously in encouragement.

So I whistled, at first tentatively. Then as I continued, I began to catch a vision of the old life, of myself at work or walking upon the beach, or hiking Nekahniekan, and of the hundreds of tunes I'd whistled. Then it was that I realized a few of them had come from a heart of true praise and thankfulness, and had risen, unheard and unnoticed by men into the heavens, where they were carried to the ears of angels and reached even God Himself upon His throne.

I had never dreamed it was possible. Yet the vision continued to unroll before me as I stood in the midst of the great throng of Heaven's citizens and earth's lowly but honored beasts. More than once, as I struggled in darkness below, God had listened to me and smiled at my humble gift of worship. As Jesus had promised, those who prayed in secret to the Father would be answered openly: so I who had worshiped in secret, though through this lowliest of instruments, was now honored openly. How infinitely deep, I thought, was God's work of redemption, that this gift, one I'd never thought of as a gift, could be used to exalt the Redeemer!

My whistling had never sounded like this in the old life. The sounds that came from my lips were every bit as beautiful as any I'd ever produced upon the recorder, the notes liquid and pure, and as refreshing to the spirit as any mountain stream might be to the eyes or upon the tongue.

I abruptly stopped whistling, and as the notes faded away, I felt their absence as a distinct loss of pleasure. The multitudes looked curiously upon me.

"Yes?" He said.

"I can think of one tune in particular I would like to perform. It's a favorite on Ranar, as well as in Jerusalem, Lord."

He nodded, and I recommenced, this time with Keith Green's _Easter Song._ I do believe Cielo and his avian chorus would have been proud of me; I had never whistled it more beautifully. How I wished they could be with me now, here on Earth, praising the Master of the Universe, the Crucified One, who had shattered the bonds of death and hell and risen from the tomb that first Resurrection Morn.

After awhile, I began to imagine that Cielo and his chorus _were_ with me, that I wasn't alone in performing my praise—though perhaps multitudes of angels joined in, reproducing my performance as only angels could.

And then it came to an end, the kind of end that in Heaven isn't any end at all. Men and women, boys and girls took up the words to the song and sang them again, and were quickly joined by the angels. I joined in by whistling, and together our music soared over earth's mountains and valleys, and over the surface of her great waters.

At long last our song faded, even as Sol's happy light faded in the west. I half expected the Lord to simply vanish from our presence or to rise with the cherubim in attendance and to return in procession to the City. Instead, He remained seated.

All eyes were on Him.

"I believe you have another song you love to perform on Ranar."

As he said _you_ , he gestured with one hand as if to include someone else. Instinctively, I glanced behind me. In the trees standing at the border of the open glade that held the throne, I saw rank after rank of metallic-winged birds alien to earth. It hadn't been my imagination after all. Cielo and his chorus really had been whistling with me!

"We do, Lord," I said, turning back to Him.

This time, I gave the signal to Cielo, and he began to play on his flute, while his chorus followed. The song was _Majesty._ After the first run through, I joined in, and on our third go around, the assembled multitudes fell to their knees, me included, and sang the words.

Majesty, worship His Majesty.

Unto Jesus, be all glory, honor and praise!

Majesty, Kingdom authority,

Flow from His throne, unto His own

His anthem raise.

So exalt, lift up on High the name of Jesus.

Magnify, come glorify Christ Jesus, the King!

Majesty, worship His Majesty,

Jesus, who died, now glorified,

King of all Kings!

Majesty, worship His Majesty.

Unto Jesus, be all glory, honor and praise!

Majesty, Kingdom authority,

Flow from His throne, unto His own

His anthem raise.

So exalt, lift up on High the name of Jesus.

Magnify, come glorify Christ Jesus, the King!

Majesty, worship His Majesty,

Jesus, who died, now glorified,

King of all Kings!

So exalt, lift up on High the name of Jesus.

Magnify, come glorify Christ Jesus, the King!

Majesty, worship His Majesty,

Jesus, who died, now glorified,

King of all Kings!

Together, we shouted and sang our praises until the stars shone brightly over our heads. I think it was later, rather than sooner, that I realized Cielo and his chorus sometimes sang the words, something I'd never heard them do on Ranar. Had they never actually sung words simply because my own habit was always to whistle?

I know King Jesus was pleased. The aura of His joy and appreciation shone forth like the rays of the sun through the clouds of early dawn, enveloping us all.

"Well done, good and faithful servant," he addressed me. To Cielo and his chorus, he said, "Well done, good and faithful avians. Your loyalty to the Steward of Ranar is noted, and so you shall stand head and shoulders above your fellows."

Truthfully, I didn't know exactly what He meant, unless it was that Cielo and his companions were to be more highly honored than any other of Ranar's creatures, which made sense to me, considering they alone seemed to approach our own power of worship and praise. If He meant more by His blessing, I would discover it in due time.

"Your work on Ranar is not yet complete," He said to me.

I nodded in agreement. Except for my sojourn in the past, I might even now have been applying her finishing touches. What I had not immediately understood was that this was farewell. As He literally faded from our presence, with the morning sun softly lighting Nekahniekan's slopes, I knew it was time for me to return to Ranar and the work. I had spent years of exhausting struggle in the distant past, yet I was now fully refreshed.

Expecting to leave at once, I turned to Leanhar. To my surprise, Leanhar had vanished. Instead, I was met by Zell, Tyrollia, and Tryg, then Nick and Erke, by Lulu, Ruben, Sarah Mc Gilly, Ronald Grunwald, and nearly every other believer I'd ever known on earth, it seemed, and others I'd met in Heaven or on Ranar. Laughing and singing and dancing in celebration, they streamed toward me, taking me by the hands and leading me down the mountain and toward the seashore. My return to Ranar, it seemed, was not as urgent as I had thought.

*****

Episode Fourteen

A planet is never _finished._ I can say that because Ranar is not the first I have had the privilege of helping to transform from bare bones or wild jungle. Like the restoration of a rambling old house, something always remains to be done, added or taken away, improved or rethought. The Creator Himself pronounced His creation _good_ and then placed the first Adam in the Garden to see what improvements _he_ would make. From experience, I know that the never-changing God still does the same, and as one of His sons, I strive to emulate Him.

Originally, before Sam Draper's visit I thought my work on Ranar could be completed within a decade, though I suspected a hundred years was more likely. The passing of that hundred years, with work still to be done, came as no real surprise, either, and my joy in the work, though the prospect of finishing was joy in itself, could not be diminished. Until I should be called to some other planet or was told in my visits Home that my work was done, my labors upon Ranar would continue.

I was again upon the same lofty mountain where Sam Draper had delivered his summons from YHWH the Almighty. Standing beside me, his wings outstretched in a breeze, the broad shouldered Leanhar looked with stern satisfaction upon Ranar's vast panorama of hills, forests, and lakes. As for me, I sat on a seat of naturally formed granite, contemplating my next move as if I were matching wits against a great chess master—which is very much what transforming a wild planet is like. While the first moves are colossally important, with everything to follow building upon them, the final moves can determine failure or perfection. As anyone knows, crowning touches must be considered carefully.

This went on for days. As he had done in my former life (then it had been invisibly and completely without my knowledge), faithful Leanhar came and went, his keen, deep eyes surveying my countenance for commands or questions. The birds flew overhead, whistling their majestic choruses, sometimes landing beside me in great flocks, with Cielo and his mate in attendance, venturing upon a new work dedicated to the Great Father of us all, or perhaps instead leading a serenade to me, Steward and Master of Ranar. Cielo, who had learned some English in order to occasionally sing words to the praises he fluted, was teaching more and more of his charges his newfound communication skills.

Among Ranar's other beasts, many of my visitors were from the centii and millii, whose multitude of feet enabled them to "out-mountain" any of earth's mountain goats, no matter how sheer the cliffs. These often hosted birds upon their lengthy backs and thumped the ground with their paws or clapped them like we clap our hands, drumming out the beat to any song or even creating a complicated, musical beat of their own strangely as satisfying as most any musical composition. Alone, the centii or millii could shake a mountain by their tramping; I still often made use of the skill of their paws in breaking rock from Ranar's quarries for my building projects.

But building was not now upon my mind. Finishing was. For that, I decided I needed the advice of an old friend. I turned to Leanhar, who was, as always, in the right place at the right time. He looked into my eyes with the attentiveness angels are famous for.

"Leanhar, I just wish—" I didn't complete those words—not yet. A star had appeared over the horizon, startling me into speechlessness: as though a door had opened in space and was pouring forth light from the New Jerusalem, it traveled straight for us instead of rising higher in the sky with Ranar's rotation. Leanhar gaped as well at the sight. It reminded me of another star, a star which had once announced the birth of the Redeemer and led the Magi on their journey to the Holy Family. This one, like that star of long ago, was neither mere star nor planet nor wandering comet. Both Leanhar and I recognized him as one of those who attended Heaven's throne in eternal vigilance.

Ranar was to be graced by the presence of a cherub, one of the Four Living Beasts, as John had called them in Revelation. While it had been a rare occasion for a member of one of the Holy Names Branch to appear outside of the holiest precincts of the New Jerusalem, as Sam Draper had once done in visiting Ranar, it was rarer still to see a cherub apart from the manifest presence of God. Even knowing God's manifest presence is ever enthroned in Jerusalem, upon recognizing the distinctive glory of a cherub, we naturally looked to see if another, greater Presence was to follow.

Instead, as the cherub hovered over Ranar like a second sun, several of his lesser angelic attendants flew to meet us. I had risen to my feet in my astonishment, and continued standing to exchange greetings. Two of the angels were like Leanhar, closely resembling men but for their greater height and their mighty pinions; two resembled birds, one an eagle and another an owl, though both were a brilliant snow-white with eyes of molten gold; and three resembled the race of old earth's dragon flies, not terribly different from Ranar's own insect life and metallically colored like many of her birds.

Per usual, they addressed Leanhar first, and he turned to me with their greetings and their request. Was I, Steward John Raventhorst of Fair Ranar, willing to meet with the cherub here upon this mountain? Though I wondered privately at the import of his visit, my ecstatic reply sent them winging skyward without delay.

Leanhar and I exchanged glances, my own deep sense of wonderment, of appreciation, of sublimely felt honor, reflected in his eyes. I think I had never seen him smile more broadly or effulgently.

Seconds later, the cherub came down, the noise of his descent, the beating of his wings, like that of thundering rocket engines. Beside him came his attendants, their glory like mere fireflies circling a bonfire. His feet straddled the mountain peak, as he looked down upon us from his great height. As any citizen of Jerusalem knows, it is not the cherub's six wings that impress one, though they are more impressive than any angel's. It is not their four, perfect faces—one a cherub or ox, one a man, one an eagle, one a lion. It is not their countless eyes, intensely intelligent and searching, every one of them visible through the glorious, transluminescent wings and body. It is not their mighty legs and hoofed feet. Especially, it is not their great height that is so impressive, though they are easily taller than any ten or fifteen of old earth's antediluvian giants. Nor is it that one sometimes spies what Ezekiel called "the whirling wheels" in attendance upon them, which stand eighteen feet above the head of the tallest man. It is their _chabod_ that makes them impressive, the gravity of their presence, more massive than the mountain upon which we stood.

How could it be otherwise? The Four Living Creatures are imbued with holiness and glory from standing in the presence of the Almighty since before the foundations of the first universe. Moses' face, shining with God's glory from a mere _forty_ days spent upon Mt. Sinai in the Presence, had struck men with fear.

If I were a mere man, I certainly would have fallen before the cherub in helpless prostration. But as a blood-washed, transfigured son of man, I too have the privilege of standing before the very throne of Yahweh, and of bowing at His feet in worship, and the privilege of sitting enthroned with the Eternal Son.

To see this one here, though, on Ranar, one of the Four Living Creatures—! He certainly noticed my astonishment. How could he not? Among created beings, none see further and deeper and more searchingly and with greater comprehension than the cherubim, among whom the fallen, nameless prince himself was once numbered.

Mightier than thunder, more powerful than Niagara, his voice shook the mountain to its roots. Mortal flesh would have been flayed from the skeleton by the sheer energy behind his words; indeed, instinctively fearing for their safety, my wards, from birds to centii and millii, had wisely fled the heights at his approach, as if some terrifying force of nature was about to fall upon them.

Cherubim are much, much more, than a force of nature, though to the undiscerning eye they might even appear as an onrushing tornado. No mortal could endure speech with a cherub, much less comprehend his words. One might as well attempt to parse thunder or the roar of a cataract.

Even most immortals have not had the privilege of conversing with cherubim, something I was keenly aware of, since this was in fact the first time for me. When he spoke, the thunderous voice was accompanied by a vision of what he meant to do.

In astonishment, joy, and exultation, Leanhar and I fell away from both mountain and planet, as though catapulted from the cherub's presence, until we breached Ranar's upper atmosphere. I heard the stars singing in concert with a glad chorus of angels who, unbeknownst to me, had gathered from throughout the galaxy as witnesses to what God wished accomplished upon the planet, and hung beyond us like bright clouds in their attendance.

Below, on Ranar, clouds like I had never seen since the days of old earth swirled from every corner of the globe, advancing like nightfall, filled and punctuated with starbursts of lightning. Dark, impenetrable heap piled upon dark, impenetrable heap atop Ranar's highest mountain and the cherub who presided over her.

Visions passed through my mind of my centii and millii, of Cielo and Ciela and their children, of my innumerable flocks and herds, avian and terrestrial, of Brontonella and her kind, and my beloved trees. What was to become of them? Was Ranar to be unmade by the cherub? Were all to perish in a total refashioning? Was my work, more than five thousand years' effort, to be wiped out to satisfy the Divine whim? Had I erred, failed, fallen short, sinned against Heaven?

Like all unworthy thoughts, these too faded even more quickly than they had flashed through my mind. Sin no longer intrudes upon God's clean universe or in the hearts of His children, less so among those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb—nor can it ever do so again. Neither is anything wrought by a cherub or any angel conceivably evil. Once, though the memory comes with difficulty, some claimed to be destroyers of worlds, even arrogating the title, _Destroyer of Worlds,_ to themselves. But the destroyers are themselves destroyed, suffering eternal destruction outside the New Heavens and New Earth. Why spiritual powers prided themselves in destruction is incomprehensible to me; as someone wrote long ago in the old world, the spoiled brat, flaming matchstick in hand, cannot compare to the builder of bright mansions. How had those who once dwelt in light sunk into the dark quagmire of evil and depravity, preferring lies to truth, choosing sly murderer over Lifegiver? I, of course, like all the redeemed, know or am aware of the story and their reasons. Finding them comprehensible, though, mercifully remains outside of my grasp. Those cast from heaven are not missed, and if they were once mourned, mourning over them ceased long prior to my arrival upon the shores of light.

Upon Fair Ranar, far from the Milky Way and its capital, the cherub did his work. At last, pinpricks of light appeared, followed quickly by great fountains shooting skyward from the mountain, scattering the cover of darkness, with clouds receding, boiling away to nothingness. To cherub, like to God, the darkness is not dark, but as light. My mountains, my trees, my lakes, rivers, and falls began to reappear, the entire planet rejoicing under Ranar's star and more importantly with the Shekinah of the Presence. As the beloved brother Paul wrote, glory differs from star to star, and it's no different among the planets. While no planet will ever possess the glory of the Earth (crowned as it is by the Enthroned Presence), it seemed as though Ranar was now in a class little removed from it.

Leanhar and I dove toward the mountain, where the cherub awaited us. A semi-circle of tall trees, I saw, were behind my granite chair, except the granite chair was no longer dark stone, nor was it merely a chair. Fittingly, it had been transformed into a throne, an emerald throne clearer than glass, shining as if from the rays of the morning sun. On the slopes below the throne (slopes now equally transformed from granite to stone that looked like jade gleaming with gold) fell living waters reminiscent of the waters that flow from the throne of God in Heaven.

The cherub's thousand eyes searched me.

I asked, though I am not sure if it was by the Spirit or in words, "Is He coming here?" I meant the Savior, Elder Brother, the only begotten Son who Himself is sometimes called Eternal Father. Was He to now visit Ranar? Surely this throne, so like Heaven's throne, was fit for Him, King of Kings, Lord of Lords.

The cherub's eyes, his full attention, seemed already elsewhere, as though he was no longer aware of my presence or perhaps even of Ranar. One of the attending angels answered for him.

"Well done, Steward John. The Father is pleased with your faithful service."

"But will He—?" I asked, seeing Him seated upon Ranar's throne, His eyes gazing upon the work of my hands. But I had momentarily forgotten. His eyes are everywhere, just as He is. He was watching us even now. That is why from the instant of the new birth I have never been alone, though in the Old World I seldom _felt_ like it.

"He will take this seat in due time," the eagle and the owl patiently spoke in unison. "But you do remember the promise, don't you?"

The three jewel-like dragonflies hovered in their midst, their beauty glittering doubly in the light of their companions.

"The promise?" I asked.

Instead of the attendants replying, the cherub glanced in my direction. In that moment, with his singularly peculiar attention on me, the memory of being enthroned with Christ in Jerusalem that first time was communicated to me. Now I saw it from the cherub's perspective: I was one who shared the Son's glory, the glory of the inimitably peerless, and Fair Ranar's throne was a reiteration of that.

To him who overcomes I will grant that he may sit with me in my throne, even as I sat in my Father's throne.

I would also share this throne in the heavenlies, on Fair Ranar of the Sombrero Galaxy, with Him. The steward of Ranar was her master, servant to The Master and glad co-inheritor of all the Son owned.

Joy radiated from the cherub. Mission accomplished, his wings stroked the air, lifting him instantly above the mountain. Rising with the same thunderous, world-shaking noise as in his descent, he rocketed into space, his attendants following in his train. I saw again, as it were, a door opening and then closing, the brilliance of his glory disappearing from my sight in the blink of an eye, as he bypassed the intergalactic corridors back to the Milky Way, desiring instead to reach the throne room of God in Jerusalem without delay.

" _It's a great life if you don't weaken."_

"What?" I guffawed. I swung toward the throne, where Zell sat, glee shining from her eyes. Leanhar gave her a welcoming grin.

"How did you—?" I began, wondering at her sudden appearance, as if out of thin air, just like an old magic trick.

"I came by _Express_ ," she said.

"Express?"

"You know," she said, laughing at my consternation and gesturing toward the sky. "The tall fellow."

"Oh!" I exclaimed with another guffaw. "The cherub! But you— but I didn't—" I fumbled for words. Then she was out of the throne and embracing me in a big hug.

She released me just as impetuously as she had thrown her arms around me. Her eyes sparkled as she gazed upon the vista from this, the greatest of Ranar's mountains, Mt. Fe, named for the word _faith_ in Spanish.

"So this is what you've been doing!"

"Where were you? How did you know?"

She winked conspiratorially at Leanhar. "I thought you told me he got over that stammer of his a long time ago."

"He was fine just a minute ago," Leanhar quipped.

"All right, all right," I said, shaking my head. They could go on for hours, if I allowed it. "Enough already. I still want to know how you did it."

"It was easy. I hid behind him, behind one of his legs. You weren't exactly looking for anyone else."

_True_ , I thought, though I had seen his other attendants. Then again they hadn't been standing behind him, trying to be inconspicuous.

"But what about when he was—was doing whatever he was doing here on the mountain?" I asked wonderingly, finding it difficult to imagine enduring the creative outburst we had witnessed from space—the noise, more than anything else, and the explosions of light—even if she couldn't actually be harmed, since our immortal bodies aren't subject to permanent damage or pain.

"It was very much like being at the heart of a lightning storm," she said, exulting in the memory, obviously seeing it all again. In a flash, she communicated her experience by the Spirit: the cherub shielding her with one wing, as he released vast energies through hands and eyes, transmuting both the granite face of the mountain and the throne itself, while imbuing the air of this world with that which imbued himself—a sense of the Presence now more tangible, as is apropos to a temple.

I could see, hear, feel, smell, even _taste_ for myself what she had witnessed.

She stamped her foot once. "You built solidly," she said. "At first I wasn't sure the mountain could stand under his tread. And then I realized he meant to establish it even more firmly than you had been able to do when you lifted it here yourself."

I nodded, seeing it all clearly. On earth, very few people had ever taken the Savior's words literally, when He said we could move mountains by our faith. In the eternal now, it was something I literally had done many times in the transformation of this world. With his tramping hooves, the cherub meant to doubly communicate the imprimatur of God upon my work. No world, no star, no star system or galaxy can be shaken so as to be destroyed, since all is established by God and His word—which we all know. The First Universe, the heavens and the earth, were shaken and became no more, until they were replaced by that which cannot be shaken. But God still sets His seal of approval upon that which we ever do to glorify Him, even as He had done so through the cherub.

Zell sat again in the throne and grinned up at me, smiling like a canary-swallowing cat.

"Can't do so much as offer a chair to an old lady?" She asked.

"He hasn't even sat in it himself, yet," Leanhar said.

Enjoying the cherub's handiwork, I shook my head and began my descent of the mountain. They knew I wasn't worried about being first to sit on Ranar's throne. As co-inheritor, she was as welcome to it as I. But she and Leanhar weren't above pulling my leg, or even both legs at the same time.

"Are you coming?" I shouted back at them. "I'm sure you think some improvements are needed, though I fail to see what further work can be done, now that the cherub has approved of everything."

Flocks of birds winged skyward, heading in my direction, as I let myself soar from the mountaintop toward the ground miles below. Behind me, the peak glowed with the sun on its begemmed surface, and the throne gleamed invitingly.

"Leanhar told me you wanted help," she said, sailing past me, her dark hair and white robe flying in the wind. She headed straight into a bright cloud of birds, as if eager to see whether she could converse with them. All an act, I was sure; she was doubtlessly more than eager to see what enhancements she could make on my handiwork. In the old life, she had taught me all I knew about gardening. In Jerusalem and the New Earth, which she preferred to anywhere else in the universe, her expertise was much in demand.

I wondered when Leanhar had found opportunity to let her know of my wish for her help. Evidently, he'd anticipated my request long before the cherub's arrival, because I knew I hadn't actually verbalized one. He'd certainly had plenty of opportunities these last few days, as I pondered my final steps in making Fair Ranar fairer. Having attended me at different times over the long ages, he might simply have read my face, knowing my desire for help and knowing Zell and I sometimes worked together on projects, affording him time to travel to Jerusalem and back as many times as he might wish. Or as is often the case, the Spirit might simply have told the Father, and the Father told the cherub to bring her along to Ranar: _"Before a word is on your tongue, I will answer you."_

As unlikely as it might seem, after my years of work upon Ranar and the cherub's message of God's approval, even more could be done. For my part, I was eager to see what enhancements Zell had in mind. I am like a master builder: she is like a fine interior decorator. The broad, sweeping plans I executed upon Ranar's face, as beautiful as they were, would come into sharper focus, revealing the planet's inner beauty, much like the depth of character revealed in every redeemed soul through resurrection.

#

As Sam Draper once said, I made of Ranar a cathedral world, a planetary temple entirely turned over to the occupation of worship. My hands, and those of my assistants, whether human, angelic, or Ranaran, labored to elicit both reverence and awe in the heart. Though I know intimately how that particular effect was achieved, my own response to Ranar is no different. It is why, when I am not occupied with some labor directly related to my efforts here, that I do as I understand the monks of old sometimes did: I embark upon contemplative walks, taking a single stride and pausing for long minutes to consider the divine mysteries, before beginning all over again with another stride. Ranar's fastnesses, the long avenues through its majestic forests, lend themselves to exactly that sort of perambulation, leading ultimately to the solemn, reverent heart given up to untold depths of gratitude—always the goal of grace.

But as every citizen of Heaven knows, many expressions of worship exist. Zell's enhancements upon the planet were never meant to make something already profound even profounder—to gild the lily, as once was said. If what I did brought reverence and awe, hers was to elicit joy and exultation. If mine brought one to one's knees, like Jacob at Bethel, the house of God, hers caused leaping and dancing, like David before the Lord when he brought the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem.

I am always amazed at what Zell does with the miniscule, with baby roses or colorful alyssums or Sweet Williams, for instance—touches that appear like shards of light down many of Ranar's avenues—meaning I must choose carefully those avenues I wished to tread. I cannot very well worship in solemnity and reverence at the same time I am doing cartwheels or leaps of praise.

I stood at a crossroads of Zell's making—or of mine, depending upon one's perspective _—_ putting forth one foot in contemplative stride, when Leanhar appeared at my left shoulder. High overhead, Ranar's star shone joyfully bright, while within the valleys between trees lay green, cool shadows.

As always, Leanhar waited politely. I glanced at his face to discover the reason for his sudden appearance, and saw a mixture of curiosity and expectancy. If he needed my permission to speak, my own look gave it to him.

"We have visitors."

"All right," I said, immediately turning in the direction of Mt. Fe, assuming they must be of some consequence above the norm. But Leanhar neither turned with me nor took a step toward the place of Ranar's throne. Instead, he looked up in greeting, as angels descended upon us from above like a flock of birds coming to roost.

Every one of them was familiar to me, having spent long decades or even centuries in Ranar's conversion, so I knew they weren't our visitors. I looked to Leanhar for an answer. The angels stared curiously, with that intensity rivaled by few other creatures in the universe. It's a look that can't be mistaken for anything else, among angels. I could hardly accept it, but I saw agitation in their demeanor and their very stance, like so many cats on a hot tin roof, though perhaps theirs was more anticipation and eagerness than anything else.

"That direction," Leanhar said, pointing a hand toward the west. "About sixty miles. Your earthly father and uncle have arrived."

I know I stared at Leanhar for a few long moments. Regardless of what Nick and Erke had been to me in the old life, regardless of earthly family ties, our general protocols, the _polite_ thing, if nothing else, would have been for them to call upon me, the Steward of Ranar, at Mt. Fe. Since they hadn't done that, and I'd been given no prior warning, how could I not attach some unusual significance to their visit?

I don't think Leanhar or any of the angels present communicated to me what I was seeing in the spirit. It came much more as a flash across my memory—an ancient recollection of something from the old life. Two men standing in primeval forest, their countenances godlike as their eyes surveyed the surrounding trees. Two men with axes. The branches of the trees quivering, as if in fearful anticipation.

Leanhar need say no more. We headed in the direction he indicated, toward Ranar's most ancient stands of trees, as hallowed a ground as any except for Mt. Fe's throne. To myself, I smiled secretly. Without their saying it, I knew the angels expected me to run pell-mell to our destination or even to fly. Instead, their eyes flitting questioningly in my direction, I walked slowly and deliberately. I would prove I could keep my own counsel, and at the same time I would take this opportunity, fully escorted by the angel cohort, to more fully appreciate Zell's genius touches. Indeed, the avenue we took bore her handiwork upon Ranar significantly more than any other, making it doubly difficult to restrain my own curiosity and sense of urgency.

It was, in fact, impossible not to wonder about my father and uncle and at the same time think of the ancient memory that came to me. Were the two actually connected? Had I really dreamed of events more than 10,000 years in my future? Would God, would the Spirit, have actually foreshadowed this day so long ago? It didn't seem possible, or reasonable. Yet, here I was Steward of Ranar, a world I sometimes "idly" thought of in the old life, perhaps even dreamed of, walking toward a destination that might also hold a moment of God-foreordained destiny.

Leanhar and I exchanged glances. When the other angels saw I was determined to absorb myself in the moment, one-by-one they begged release of me, nodded courteously to the two of us and, too eager to restrain themselves, departed in haste.

For my own part, I saw no reason to be in haste. Whatever the rationale for their visit, Nick and Erke would not be offended at a little delay. As immortals unaffected by the passage of time, we do not worry or fret about _waiting_. Neither would they do anything without me—not on Ranar—not without my permission. Not even the cherub would have done anything on Ranar without first acknowledging my stewardship.

Deserted by the escort, Leanhar and I continued on alone. Even Cielo and his numerous companions seemed to avoid us this day, neither accompanying us upon our journey or in song, though they might very well have matched our progress from afar, flying just out of sight. As for Ranar's other creatures, they too were conspicuously absent. Except for a few of the planet's beautiful and beneficial insects (all of them are beneficial and at least interesting, if not beautiful), one might have thought Ranar uninhabited. Had all gathered with the angels in attendance upon Nick and Erke, too?

Sixty miles on foot afforded me ample time to consider what I would do upon our meeting. Sixty miles of a subtly, ever increasing display of genius also afforded me more than enough time to develop an inner sense of exuberance nearly impossible to contain. Within a couple of miles of our destination, I was shouting and singing, perhaps loudly enough to be heard all the way to Brontonella's abode. Leanhar exulted, too, and brimmed with joy at my exultant leaps and cartwheels. Ranar was and is truly a place of worship and praise—if not exactly the same as the New Earth, at least close relative to it.

Thousands of Ranar's creatures awaited us—even _tens_ of thousands. On the ground and in the sky, they milled and wheeled about in their glorious rivers of color and cried in their various languages as if in excited anticipation.

Except for the fact they are spirit, I think our attending angels would have been stepping on each other. All parted, both ministering spirits and creatures of flesh, as Leanhar and I approached, the animals bowing and scraping in obeisance and the birds alighting silently in the branches above our heads.

Nick and Erke smiled gravely at our arrival. No doubt Leanhar and I smiled gravely in return.

"Steward of Ranar," they spoke in unison, nodding courteously. I glanced around, searching for some sign of my ancient dream. Here were the trees, and certainly here were men to match those I'd seen. But neither of them carried an axe. Unless their axes were concealed behind a tree— which was unlikely, because by the Spirit I can see through any tree I wish. Their axes could be hidden in their robes, though, just as any number of implements or other items might be concealed within my own.

As I thought these thoughts, my father reached inside his robe and handed over a message addressed to me. I read it aloud for all to hear.

MEMO

ADDRESSEE

Steward John Raventhorst

Order of the Overcomers

Member, Whitestone Holders

Pergamum Branch

ADDRESS

Ranar, Northern Outer Trench, Sombrero Galaxy

SUBJECT

Harvest

ORDERS

Please allow the harvest of trees selected

by the bearer of this message, trees to

be transported to earth for Our use.

His Majesty, etc.

I looked up. My earthly father's eyes met mine. I smiled at last and he smiled in return, as if greatly relieved.

I said: "I think a space of about three hundred yards in diameter, starting from where we stand."

Around me I heard a sudden buzz, a commotion of angels and of animals.

"You're not surprised, Steward John?" Leanhar formally addressed me.

"Surprised that this place of worship, this hallowed ground, this land labored over for thousands of years to the glory of His Majesty, is to be harvested to His glory?"

I shook my head in denial. But I think the angels, as well as my father and my uncle, had difficulty believing me.

Tears coursed down my cheeks.

"I've waited more than 10,000 years for this. How could I be disappointed? I dreamed of this very moment while I was still in the old life. God told me of it before the rebirth of our universe."

Angels and men were astonished, perhaps Leanhar more than any of them.

"Besides," I said, "if a cross of wood in the old world could bring glory to God, why not Fair Ranar's humble redwoods?"

No one seemed to have an answer.

"Where are your axes?" I asked.

Nick and Erke smiled. Light seemed to leap joyfully from their eyes. From inside their robes, they took out axes, their enormous blades shining like molten silver, with handles as satiny and creamy-white as the Louisville sluggers of my youth.

At sight of those blades, our accompanying angels bolted into the sky like frightened birds. Waves of the avian escort followed suit, thunderously winging up and away from us, with Ranar's sun glancing brilliantly off their metallic pinions. On the ground, the animals, led by the centii and millii, wheeled from sight in mere moments, scattering down every nearest avenue through the trees.

Nick and Erke roared with sudden laughter, their eyes once again flashing with joy. As they began to wield their axes, Leanhar and I rose quietly into the air and soon floated above the tallest of the trees.

"Do you wish to watch?" Leanhar asked.

I shook my head. On old earth, no man would ever have dreamed of felling giants like these with mere axes. But my father and my uncle were not ordinary men, nor did they wield ordinary axes. Because of my own labors upon Ranar and the tools available to me, whether the power of faith or actual physical implements, I knew axes were all they needed. At day's end or at the end of many days, certainly they would know they had worked—but the trees, regardless of size, would still be down.

Working from opposite sides of a single giant specimen, Nick and Erke swung hard, straight and true, the noise of their blows reaching my ears simultaneously, like the report of a single cannon shot. Its fate sealed, the tree shivered from root to crown. I recoiled but quickly recovered. The strike of dolorous blow after dolorous blow, in this sacred and holy place, would have seemed egregious sacrilege, except that the Lord of the sacred and holy had Himself ordained the work. If the tree they belabored had been sentient (like some trees on other worlds), it would have rejoiced with loud praises and the clapping of hands to be so used.

Leanhar and I turned toward Ranar's throne.

"Do you want Zell?" He asked me.

"Good idea," I said. "What do you think she'll suggest, maybe a continuous blanket of wildflowers?"

His gaze seemed focused on the future. "Perhaps tulips. I see a vast field of tulips in my mind's eye—" He turned to me with a speculative look.

"You know what this is all about, don't you? If long ago you dreamed about this day, then maybe you dreamed more—?"

"Don't you think the Steward of Ranar should have a few secrets of his own?" I asked.

Tulips have always been my favorite flowers. What better flower to greet our visitors upon their landing? Interplanting with lavender or mint or lemon verbena might be nice, too, tulips of themselves having little fragrance, as they lay crushed beneath the weight of a— _starship?_

*****

Episode Fifteen

Zell planted the sacred clearing in tulip bulbs, and didn't even wait to see the results before returning to her home in Jerusalem on other business. Nothing else—nothing fragrant in addition, as I had thought—just crimson tulips, exactly as Leanhar had envisioned, creating a field of red, as red as blood. If the open clear cut looked briefly like a moonscape, these few weeks later it looked like an upwelling wound upon Ranar's face of green.

How appropriate, I thought, that the empty grove should appear to be a place of sacrifice, as though blood had been spilled here, reminding me once again of the Wounded. In all creation only one, the Crucified One, still bears His wounds, and through Him everyone crippled, everyone blind, everyone diseased or maimed or tortured was healed.

"It is beautiful," Leanhar murmured to me. I nodded an answering _yes_ , knowing that he meant both the field and the beautiful witness it bore to Christ's sacrifice.

Leanhar had been right in his choice of tulips, and so was Zell, in refusing to interplant the tulips with more fragrant species. She said it was unnecessary, that the scents of the encircling forest and its myriad flowers were sufficient to overwhelm even the most grossly underdeveloped sense of smell. Besides, we did not yet know if our visitors even possessed a sense of smell. A few species didn't, including some of those among the angelic.

"They're coming," Leanhar said, glancing toward the sky and again at the field of tulips.

He didn't mean it prophetically. He meant the arrival of visitors was imminent. We had received a word of confirmation shortly after Zell's departure, and now his far-ranging eyesight had evidently discerned the presence of a starship against the backdrop of the galaxy's starry host. Taking my cue from the direction he was looking, my own eyes quickly located a vessel crossing the orbit of Ranar's most distant moons.

Others of the angelic cohort joined us. Already, they were discussing the question of how long the ship would take to land. Once it was actually in a position above Ranar itself, would they orbit the planet for no more than a few hours? Or would it be days or even months? Could they even possibly reject landing, turn instead and return to whichever distant star they called _home_? Or would they not be satisfied until they touched down, struck their colors above the soil of an alien planet, called it their own?

As for Leanhar, he was satisfied, by long association with me, that our visitors would land in this very place—and do so very soon—as I believed. I hadn't even had to tell him of my ancient dream, foretelling the event before the renewal of the universe. He was beginning to understand that I sometimes knew more of future events than he, and that more and more I felt at home in the universe created for those who co-rule with Christ.

"Shall we visit our visitors?" I asked Leanhar.

"Why not?" He said, turning eagerly to me. "Perhaps they need assistance."

"They'll have guardians, won't they?"

He nodded, not having to answer with words _. Of course._ But then my question had been rhetorical. Seeing us rise, the other angels looked toward me for approval to accompany us. Together, with the angels stroking their mighty pinions, we soon left Ranar's atmosphere behind, myself cosseted as always within the nimbus of the angelic embrace.

The vessel flown by our visitors shone as though with gold fire in the light of Ranar's star, and twinkled like a diamond in the glow of the nearby moons. Even as Jesus had once stepped through the locked doors of the Upper Room, startling the disciples who had not yet grasped the reality of His resurrection from the dead, we passed through the walls of the great ship as if they were thin air.

The interior was more beautiful than any seagoing vessel's on old earth. Instead of the gleaming metal and smooth vinyl surfaces I'd expected to find in a spaceship, tight-grained, exotic woods, polished to a high gloss to reveal remarkable depths, sheathed every bulkhead and deck. The variety of colors, for wood, was surprising, in a few instances equaling the luminescence of any Morning Glory blossom, and used to excellent effect with wonderfully detailed parquetry. Interspersed throughout the designs, all of them abstract, were what first appeared to be colored mirrors but upon closer inspection proved to be polished stone.

Leanhar and I exchanged glances. Whoever these people were, they were skilled craftsmen, certainly rivaling those skills and gifts I'd possessed in the old life. I knew immediately that I would love them, both for the medium in which they chose to express themselves artistically and for their obvious intent to glorify God.

Unlike the disciples of long ago, who were cowering in fear of the Temple authorities and their Roman overlords when Jesus miraculously reappeared among them, upon _our_ miraculous arrival, the visitors were sleeping peacefully. Waiting to wake to the light of day like bees enwombed in the hive, hundreds of them were ensconced in a honeycomb of chambers. Machinery hummed quietly in the background. Upon closer examination, I saw tubing running between the chambers and back to the machinery. The room was not just one giant bedroom or bunkhouse; it was intended to keep our visitors resting safely in _stasis_ until the day of their arrival.

How many years, I wondered, had they slumbered here? How many light years had they traveled, and from which star within the galaxy?

"Where are their guardians?" I asked. I was frankly a little surprised they had not yet revealed themselves and greeted us. Could they be ignorant of the protocols? "Why aren't they here to waken them—?"

At that moment, the guardians appeared, two of them stepping through the bulkhead just as we had moments beforehand. They were angels very much like my own cohort, differing mostly in dress, fashions reflecting the culture of those asleep here, I surmised. As on old earth, angels had often interacted with humans in garb reflecting the culture for the sake of mutual identification and empathy. A third guardian leaned in—his massive head and neck most immediately evident—a gate guardian much too large for either the room or the ship to hold him. Glancing, like the others, in my direction with avid curiosity, he greeted Leanhar in an angelic tongue unknown to me, before asking a question in the same language. It didn't matter; the intent was clear. He wanted to know if I was the planetary steward. When Leanhar replied in the affirmative, he asked another question. Was it true I was one of the Overcomers?

Since the intent and meaning behind words is most easily discernible in spiritual languages, I had no trouble following their conversation. Human languages, and the languages of other corporeal creatures as well, I am sure, are much more difficult to learn than angelic tongues, though naturally with a redeemed brain to facilitate learning, no language—human or otherwise—takes more than a couple of days to learn with complete fluency.

Leanhar smiled, replying with a gentle jibe for the gate guardian, who had introduced himself as _Bo'el_ : Could the angel with a thousand eyes not see for himself? Of the others, he asked if it was possible they had not heard the stories of the redemption of the children of men, of how the Father had adopted them as His own?

In response, they seemed to goggle at me. Even more, they were startled when I laughed.

"I've waited for your arrival since before the redemption of the universe," I told them. "What's taken you so long?"

They gabbled excitedly like children for a few moments. Was it possible I really meant what I said? It seemed beyond comprehension. What was to happen to them, now that their service to their charges was complete? Had other races arrived from throughout the galaxy before them? They'd accompanied the M'hah-hu-uuu for precisely one day short of 5,300 years in their crossing of the stars and still not encountered any other peoples in all that time. Where was the great gathering of the galaxy's inhabitants to be—if not here, if not now?

Leanhar and I exchanged glances. So many questions! In reality, the M'hah-hu-uuu guardians were not much different than what I myself was like in those first days, weeks, and years after arriving in the New Jerusalem. Certainly, they were like every angel I'd ever known, deeply curious, forever seeking to further explore and apprehend the mysteries of Elyon and His infinite ways.

Like myself, though, and like Leanhar and our cohort, who labored with us throughout much of Ranar's transformation, these newly arrived guardians must also be patient to receive their answers.

"The old chapter is about to close, and a new one to open," I said, speaking to Leanhar and my own angels as well as to the new arrivals. "Which is at least clear to me, if not to all of you."

Leanhar nodded his head in a knowing gesture. The others, including our own attending angels, listened raptly, waiting for me to continue.

"I don't say that because the Spirit is whispering it to me, but because I recognize the Father's hand in this.

"Tomorrow," I said to all but Leanhar, "will be 5,300 years to the very day since Leanhar and I arrived on Ranar to begin our work. Tomorrow, I am sure, the M'hah-hu-uuu will elect to make planetfall. God is truly all in all."

"Amen," they said in agreement, wings vibrating with anticipation.

"Still, many of your questions must await the new chapter El Elyon began writing before the foundations of the universe—whether the old or our renewed one."

" _But when, Steward John?"_ The gate guardian asked. The brightening intensity of the glory surrounding him, the spiritual wind I felt generated by the beating of his wings, his earnestness, his passion to _know,_ were abundantly palpable.

I answered him with a question of my own. "You've waited all these millennia. Can't you wait a few more days?"

Perhaps it was my mention of _days_ , rather than years or decades or millennia, that satisfied him, or perhaps it was simply his own recognition of Yahweh's divine plan. I didn't know. But when I turned to my own escort and instructed them concerning the slumbering M'hah-hu-uuu, and then gestured for their guardians to accompany Leanhar and myself to Ranar, they followed without protest or obvious qualms.

#

_An incredible ride!_ I thought, watching the ship as it entered Ranar's atmosphere exactly as I had dreamed it an eternity ago—side-slipping back and forth like a fluttering leaf. The technique was evidently efficient, since I couldn't see any ablative shielding to keep the ship's skin from glowing cherry red like it otherwise should. Not until what seemed like the last possible minute before impending destruction did the ship right itself, hidden rotors kicking in to ease it toward Ranar's surface like a hovercraft. Articulated metal legs were extended, tentatively felt their way into the soil, tested for solid ground. The ship leveled out, its rotors whirring to a stop. At the same moment, millions of crimson tulip petals began settling from the air as well.

I glanced at the M'hah-hu-uuu guardians. They must be accustomed to the unusual descent; they certainly hadn't shown any signs of nervousness or undue concern. Except for the ship's mirrored surface reflecting the surrounding trees and overarching sky, it really did look like a giant mushroom sat in the clearing. Hot gases escaped noisily from concealed vents, and the cooling hull creaked with the sound of its contracting metal.

We watched and we waited. Overhead in the trees, just as I remembered it, tens of thousands of Ranar's birds waited, too, now silent and brooding, as if anticipating the birth of one of their own from the shell. Perhaps to them the ship really did resemble a giant egg, if a much shinier one. But then, some of Ranar's birds eggs are nearly as shiny and brilliantly colored as their own feathers. From the marges of the surrounding forest, representatives of the centii and millii, as well as most every other Ranaran "terrestrial" creature, watched with curiosity equal to that of their avian cousins.

The hours of waiting and of holding my own breath in anticipation afforded me more time for reflection on my role here on Ranar. Yes, I was Steward of Ranar, but what did that really mean? Didn't a steward hold something in safekeeping for someone else? Wasn't a steward servant to another? Had I been Steward of Ranar all these centuries in order to turn it over to these others, these who were about to emerge like chicks from an egg?

I was still mulling my own questions when a hatch clanged open and a rope ladder dropped out, its end falling short of the ground by two meters. Moments later, a manlike creature swung to the first rung, and began climbing down, feet first. I say _manlike_ , because he was bipedal and physically similar in proportion to a man. Concerning his face, animated it was far more beautiful than in _stasis,_ where all those aboard had been masked and intubated for their long journey. I remembered, from my dream, creatures who possessed a catlike, physical grace beyond that of humans, and he had a feline if not leonine visage and a mane of hair to match. It was a face I was instantly drawn to, and just as instantly recognized; though the M'hah-hu-uuu were from a different world (indeed from a different galaxy and even a different universe) than I'd been born to, they were nevertheless related to me at some level through the Heavenly Father.

Yet, the deep truth was that my real questions concerned those intangibles which ran far deeper than outward appearances: spiritual insight, character, personality, intelligence—

Their native intelligence was obvious, illustrated by their ship and its artistic treasures wrought in wood and stone. Their character, personality, and spiritual insight would require far longer to explore.

Disdaining further use of the ladder and giving no detectable warning, our M'hah-hu-uuu guest let himself freefall toward the ground, where he landed in a crouch. His legs were like coil springs, as he sprang to his full height a split-second later and pivoted, head first, arms swinging out, body following, as in a ballet. Other than the impression of gracefulness, as I'd expected, his blend of strength and agility suggested that he could leap back into the ship at any moment without benefit of the rope ladder.

Instead, he cocked a hand behind one ear, and listened. He sniffed the air. The swiveling motion began again, head turning round and round, his body moving in a slower rotation.

Though the centii and millii and others, watching eagerly from the forest's edge, were clearly evident to me, he just as clearly did not see them or the birds perching hundreds of feet above us in the trees. But then again, in contrast to the visual acuity of creatures made of flesh, my own eyesight is virtually as unlimited as I wish. Neither did he see myself or the angels standing in attendance beside me. As with the angels, he would not see me until he was ready to, or until the moment of my choosing.

Ceasing from his graceful spinning, he spoke, aiming his voice up at the ship's open hatchway. Bo'el had already begun tutoring me in M'hah-hu-uuu in the hours before their landing, but hearing actual speech from the lips of a native was electrifying. It wasn't anything an angel, short of taking on the physical guise of one of them, could hope to faithfully replicate. The difference was far greater than my own initial meeting with Leanhar upon the Elysian fields outside Heaven's gates, when I first understood an angel could not sound completely human unless he took on human lips, tongue, larynx, and human chest. For that same reason, it had been rare for demons to dare converse openly with their human victims on old earth, instead choosing to whisper or mutter, or to reveal themselves in evil dreams, or to make use of automatic writing or a Ouija board.

I knew at once that if anyone could hope to speak M'hah-hu-uuu and actually sound like one of them, it was I. I was even surer when others of the visitors dropped from the ship and began conversing with the first of the M'hah-hu-uuu; like one might hope to hear from creatures who were genuinely feline in appearance, a purring resonance accompanied their words. More importantly, the most distinctive feature of the language was their universal _stutter_.

Leanhar recognized it, too. He turned to me with wide, mirthful eyes. In the meantime, the M'hah-hu-uuu were fanning out. In seconds, they would encounter their first Ranarans, who were still concealed at the forest's edge. We followed, with Leanhar grinning broadly, as if at some private joke, while the M'hah-hu-uuu guardians shot mystified glances in our direction.

At last, our visitors came face to face with the centii and millii, who shyly stepped from the encircling forest and stood in ranks, as though for a parade ground inspection. The M'hah-hu-uuu halted in their tracks, their eyes wide with astonishment. They made as if to bow in greeting, and would have done so, except for one thing. At that moment, Cielo and his orchestra broke forth in a chorus of music so loud, so cacophonous, its first opening notes literally sounded like thunder.

The M'hah-hu-uuu bolted like a pack of yowling, scalded cats, and the avian orchestra, seeing its opportunity, dropped all pretense of music and stooped upon their victims like a cloud of ravenous vultures. But as swift as Cielo and his people were, their quarry had already disappeared into the forest. The centii and millii, keeping pace with the fleeing M'hah-hu-uuu for a while, soon gave up the chase, too; even they, with their limited intelligence, understood there would be no reasoning with their terror-stricken visitors.

Unable to restrain himself any longer, Leanhar exploded with laughter, and I laughed with him. The M'hah-hu-uuu were quickly lost to the forest. With one backward glance at Leanhar and myself, who were by then shouting gleefully loud praises to God, the guardians rushed after them in swift pursuit.

*****

Episode Sixteen

Ranar is a place of worship. It is a cathedral world and is as much of a temple as any building ever was on old earth. The fact it is an entire world does not make it any less a temple, just as New Jerusalem is a temple though it is the City of God. Doesn't even the Heavenly Father call Himself our Temple, and He is neither building, city, world, or even corporeal—He is Spirit?

What I'm wondering, as I write this, is whether the M'hah-hu-uuu can possibly understand Ranar's purpose, when the truth is, I myself took years to fully appreciate that it sprang from a place far deeper than my own imagination or idle fancy. Most poignantly, to me, this world's deeper purposes were first birthed in the heart of the Logos before being entrusted to my stewardship.

What I must really know before I presume to talk to them is if this truest dream of Ranar is theirs as well, or if in their heart of hearts they have simply ventured here because of some far lesser motivation? Is Ranar an adventure? A living scientific laboratory for their experiments? A coming tourist attraction? A suitable world for colonization or the exploitation of its natural wealth, whether plant, animal, or mineral?

I could ask their guardians. Doubtlessly, they could tell me what I wanted to know. But would they truly fathom the heart of a M'hah-hu-uuu like I myself would hope to, or trust I would, in due time? I don't mean that as a criticism of the Angelic Orders. What I mean is that no angel truly ever knew any human being, especially that one who presumed to (whose name, other than that of _Prince of Dystopia_ , is forever forgotten), when all he was really doing was projecting the foul image of himself on his victims. It took the King of Angels, creator of angels and men, and of all the universes besides, to truly understand Adam's race.

It seemed to me that as Ranar's Steward, as co-heir of Christ, the onus was upon me, which is why, despite the desires of their guardians, I was unwilling to reveal myself to them prematurely. Simply put, if they wanted to see me, they would have to prove themselves worthy.

"How will they do that, Steward of Ranar?" Bo'el asked. It was early morning, and we were once again standing in the field of crimson tulips, beside the M'hah-hu-uuu ship centered perfectly within the bull's eye of majestic redwoods. All of us, including Bo'el, were dwarfed by the shadow of the trees.

From Leanhar's gaze, I could tell he was every bit as intent upon my answer as Bo'el. Ever since the humor of the moment (a very long one at that) had faded between us (and the subsequent return of the M'hah-hu-uuu to their ship, where they were still holed up after a full week), he had been eager to know what was to come next.

When I didn't immediately answer Bo'el, Leanhar uncharacteristically answered for me:

"It is not really a matter of what they _do_."

I nodded my agreement. "It's more of who they _are_." For clarification, since I saw even more questions popping into his eyes, I asked him a question.

"Who they _are_ determines what they _do_ , don't you think?"

My question, a rhetorical one, was simply politeness on my part. Bo'el mulled a response. Before he could voice more questions or doubts, I asked him when he thought his charges would come out from their hiding place. Or did he think they had no further plans of exploring Ranar? Were they preparing for a return to their own home planet?

When he didn't answer, I turned to Leanhar, who began speaking to me in English, a tongue we both knew Bo'el and his angelic companions had not yet had opportunity to learn. In fact, they didn't know any of earth's old languages.

"I don't think it's because he doesn't want to answer, Steward John. He doesn't seem quite used to dealing directly with your kind."

By that, I understood Leanhar meant with someone as close as myself to the top of the heavenly chain of command. Like most of the countless hosts of God, Bo'el was accustomed to receiving his orders indirectly, from angels of higher position than himself, of whatever order, rather than from El Elyon, and certainly not from the Redeemed, those who sit enthroned with El Elyon's only Son. If he had wheels in his head, they would have been turning, probably even smoking with the effort.

"Reassure them, Bo'el," I told him.

"How?"

"You've known them much longer than I have," I said. "I'll trust your experience."

He was thinking again and at the same time listening to his two companions, who were back to speaking in the unfamiliar angelic tongue I'd first heard them using a week earlier. It was unfamiliar to me no longer. They were asking him if the protocols had changed, were they to now reveal themselves fully to the M'hah-hu-uuu?

"The protocols are the same," I said in their own language. "We will reveal ourselves to them when the time is right."

Bo'el nodded to them at once. They nodded respectfully to me and rose from the field, a moment later entering the ship through its solid hull.

"You're not waiting, Steward John?" Bo'el asked, anxiously seeing me start toward Mt. Fe.

I shook my head. "Let us know when they come out again."

"But what if they don't? What if they decide to return to M'hah-hu-uuu-thu-P'nar?"

P'nar was the name of their planet. What _they_ wished, under the present circumstances, didn't matter.

"They are not to leave without my permission."

"But if they—"

"You are Bo'el, guardian of their comings, as your name suggests. You will guard now against their going."

"Yes," he said, nodding his giant head, which was as big as a fair-sized boulder. "I understand."

Leanhar and I, along with our own companions, continued toward Mt. Fe.

#

What they were doing inside their ship was talking, something I would learn in the course of time is one of their favorite preoccupations. As counter-intuitive as it might seem, among those who stutter and stammer the M'hah-hu-uuu are wonderful conversationalists, their speech marked by great eloquence and poetry, and along with all that entails, they display a great desire among themselves for consensus. That was why they were holed up in their ship, that and the fear which had eventually driven them, one-by-one, from the forest. They missed, also, the familiarity of a place that had been their home for long ages and a sanctuary for prayer.

What finally drove them out was a distinct feeling that their prayers were bouncing off the ceiling, something I knew had been arranged by neither their angelic escorts nor any intention of my own. If their prayers seemed to be going unheard, it was because God meant it to be so.

In addition, they discovered their food stores were not what they should be and food production had taken an inexplicable drop in the ship's hydroponics. It came down either to leaving the ship or to starving. Already beginning to feel the pangs of hunger, it was another week before they again ventured down to the ground.

To their surprise, they found fruit and vegetables heaped beside one leg of the ship. A trail of alien produce led to the edge of the clearing, where they found great heaps of more of the same and a wide variety of grasses, nuts, and fungi, enough food for weeks, if they wished and if they dared to sample it. Wherever they looked, too, understandably cautiously, in consideration of their frightening encounter with the sky creatures, none of the planet's inhabitants could be found. Other than insects, it seemed to them as though all other life had simply disappeared, vanished into thin air.

The M'hah-hu-uuu couldn't know it at the time, but the centii and millii, and the birds (plus nearly every other creature of Ranar), kept their distance because of my orders, just as the provision of food was also my order. Except for the occasional snatch of birdsong wafting to them upon the wind, and obvious tracks in the wilderness, they saw no other indication of life in the new world in which they found themselves.

What they would do next, what they would do with their circumstances, was entirely up to them. They ate their fill, they gathered up more of everything close at hand, and they retreated to the safety of their ship, where they stayed in self-imposed confinement for another week. When they reemerged, their circumstances were once again changed—I had ordered the removal of everything edible for miles around. This time they would have to begin exploration of the planet in earnest if they wished to survive.

In the old life, I never knew what it was like to be a father. Though I had supposedly fathered a child, the woman I married had, for her own dark, twisted reasons, denied me that honor and privilege. Neither had most other people ever wanted me around their children. Who knew what the crazy person might do, what the idiot stutterer and stammerer would say that they shouldn't hear? And in fact, perhaps some of their fears were justified, since my stuttering did frighten some children, while providing glee for others. If I thought about it hard enough, I could still hear their gales of laughter, remember them even if I no longer remembered the pain. But _father_ was what I actually felt like, now, as I kept track of the M'hah-hu-uuu and their progress. Like an earthly father, or like the Heavenly Father, I watched them, hoping to see in them those things I wanted to see. Most of all, I wanted to see if they would be like me, if Ranar evoked in them what it evoked in me, if Ranar fit them and they were fit for Ranar. I did not want their epic journey to have been a waste for them, nor did I want my old vision to end in regret.

The weeks passed. The _Mah_ , as Leanhar and I took to calling them, began to splinter off into smaller groups, having until then explored Ranar as one large, extended family of 500. On old earth, even a handful of unredeemed men would have begun cutting down trees, would have trampled the flowers, muddied the waters, polluted the skies, hunted the wildlife... The Mah did none of that; like felines, which I seemed ever more reminded of, they were easy on whatever path they took, never forcing their way, always careful of where they trod, and in general (though it certainly was not feline-like from my experience), they were _respectful_ , whether to each other or to Ranar.

Regardless of their individual grace or their comportment as a whole, 500 quickly proved too unwieldy. They could travel both farther and faster in smaller groups and learn vastly more in a shorter time. From listening to their conversations, I knew they believed Ranar was special, that in fact they had been directed to it even while on P'nar. Finding a world laid out on a perfect grid, with the various tree species limited to their own territories, had not disabused them of the notion: neither had discovering a perfectly suitable landing place where it did not seem reason existed for one, unless their arrival had somehow been planned for...

All of which presented them with the greater question: Who and where was the Designer of this world? Why had they found boundless habitat for the various species they'd seen that first day, yet no signs of habitation for Someone or Something greater?

They had, then, decided on searching the planet for none other than— _me_. The mystery behind the mystery had become more important to them than Ranar itself.

"It was to be expected," Leanhar remarked.

He should know. He had been in the business of secretly observing earthlings for long centuries before I ever appeared on the scene. I thought back to old earth, to the first Adam in Eden's garden and to the second Adam in Gethsemane's garden. I, too, would have sought the Gardener. While it had not been my intent, why should it be any different for the Mah?

It did not take me long to decide.

"Then we will have to let them find me."

Leanhar mulled my words.

"Where?" He asked.

"Mt. Fe. Where else?"

#

Months passed. Our visitors headed north, west, and south, _away_ from Mt. Fe, in their grand search. As they traveled, they collected plant and soil specimens and made a study of the environment and local ecology. Early on, they encountered Brontonella's abode. Recognizing all the signs of an aquatic giant, who, despite their best efforts, eluded them as ably as any monsters of Loch Ness ever could have, they posted a handful of their number to carry on further investigations. The whole wide world awaited them; why delay over a creature who inhabited a lake that was a mere twenty-five kilometers long and five kilometers wide?

It was those few visitors charged to watch over an inconsequential lake, who made the push east. Frustrated with their search for the impossibly elusive lake dweller(s), and suspecting their Mah brethren were engaged in infinitely more interesting pursuits, they decided to launch an exploration of their own. Consensus of the many had abandoned them here, and now consensus of the few drove them on.

They reached Mt. Fe in three weeks, each of the Mah carrying his or her own baggage on the back or, like ancient Africans, balanced on the head. Coming to the mountain's high, sheer cliffs and its cascading waterfalls, they looked on with both admiration and dismay. Though every bit as beautiful as it had appeared in their original survey from space, not until this very day had they been able to prove for themselves that the mountain was absolutely unscalable, its sheer face ascending vertically for miles above their heads before being lost in clouds.

Nuor, one of their females, studied the ground while everyone else stared in wonder at the mountain.

"What is it?" Orda, her mate, asked.

"Why here?" She asked, eyeing him strangely. She gestured to the strange confluence of trails where they now stood, and then pointed at the trails individually and murmured out a count, finally letting her voice fall silent.

"Water?" Someone suggested.

"I see no lack of water anywhere on this planet."

"True," someone else commented.

"It's not the water," Nuor said. That much should be obvious. Though they stood about midway between twin, mighty cataracts (either one of them considerably more impressive than anything found on P'nar), the actual outfall of both, with their attendant rivers, was at least several minutes distant from their present position.

"What, then?"

"Nor food," she said, shaking her head. The others nodded in agreement. Food was plentiful everywhere, if they were to accept the witness of their own eyes and the abundant produce offered to them that first time by the native species.

Since leaving the shores of Brontonella's abode, their explorations had been nothing but congenial, easy, a lark. Here was a mystery rivaling all others; if neither food nor water attracted the native species to this place, to this very spot, then what?

"They are perhaps social creatures, even as we are."

Nuor had been with the original party greeted by the millii and centii and the taloned avians. She knew what she had seen, and could not wholly disagree. The creatures of this world, though they no longer seemed willing to interact with the Mah, were undoubtedly social. _Something_ had gathered them together that day by the thousands. _Something_ had encouraged or motivated them to leave gifts of food by the ship. _Something_ or _someone_ had also encouraged them to withdraw their gifts and any further contact. What that could have to do with this place, though, was utterly unfathomable. It might have everything to do with it, or it might have nothing to do with it.

She continued staring, first at the ground, which was bedrock evidently polished by foot traffic, and then at the stone perpendicularity towering above them. Orda and the others followed her gaze.

"How long do you think this has been here?" She asked.

"Forever," Orda whispered, feeling no longer capable of speaking in a normal voice. A hushed whisper seemed more appropriate, like it would be less easily overwhelmed than regular speech, if it could just be blended with the distant roar of the waterfalls to north and south.

Orda followed his wife's lead. He walked over to the mountain and without touching it peered intently at its surface. Soon, everyone else was doing the same, their corporate mien demanding that it give up its secrets. A few dug through their packs for magnifying lenses.

What they saw upon closer inspection, or thought they saw, raised the hair on the back of their necks. Though smooth like the ground underfoot, the stone was wholly different from the bedrock. Something was oddly gemlike about it. At this proximity, they could see it was not at all opaque, as they had thought. It was green bordering on black, with glints of gold sparkling in its depths.

"It's not natural," Orda said, glancing skyward in awe, as if expecting a sign from heaven to confirm his claim. Seemingly moved by a single impulse, several of the party reached out and laid their hands on the stone. As one, they hissed at the strange tingle that passed through their bodies, and took a step backward.

"Don't!" Nuor cried in warning, as one of the party swung a small pick hammer against the stone, hoping to extract a sample for further analysis back at their ship.

Too late! As metal met stone, there was a loud, crackling discharge and a flash of light. He screamed, flung backwards in a somersault, which the others matched, as if in psychic unity. Nuor and Orda, included, came to rest on all fours, like felines fallen from some height.

When they were able to breathe again, Orda was the first to speak.

"None of it is natural. We knew that."

The others understood he was speaking of Ranar in general, her peculiarly orderly ranks of forests in particular, and now this mountain. They had been asking questions, perhaps the wrong questions, and the mountain had answered them. With the answer came a terrible sense of dread. They were trespassing upon sacred ground; even if the animals of this world were obviously welcome here as evidenced by the polished bedrock beneath their feet, that did not necessarily mean visitors from another world were equally welcome. The mountain's response seemed proof of that.

"We should withdraw to the forest," Nuor said.

No one protested. Someone pointed out that Ranar's star was failing in the west. They began gathering up their packs at once. None of them mentioned how glad they would be to put miles between them and this place by nightfall, or that making camp and sleeping here were unthinkable. Neither did anyone point out that Kaniik, who had been impertinent enough to strike the mountain, still seemed badly dazed. Two of their number helped him to his feet without a word and waited for Orda's command.

Disdaining to again hear his own voice this close to the mountain, Orda signaled with one hand for them to move out. Nuor took the lead, quickly breaking into a loping run. The others followed, with Orda bringing up the rear of the tiny column of M'hah-hu-uuu. Relieved to have the mountain behind him, Orda kept his eyes on Kaniik and the two men assisting him. The occasional backward glance sent shivers up and down his spine.

They did not halt again until well past midnight, when exhaustion finally overcame them. Rising long before sunrise, they continued their journey under the light of Ranar's moons. For the next several days they traveled as far and as fast as their strength would allow them. On the fifth day they began to abandon their packs. By the seventh they left behind all but the clothing on their backs and traveled without stopping even to rest. If they hungered or thirsted, they ate whatever came to hand along the trail, mostly seeds or edible grasses, and drank from the streams or rivers as opportunity presented itself.

By the morning of the eighth day they were considerably further than halfway back to the ship, yet they yearned to travel still faster. The endlessly long aisles between the trees, as beautiful and inviting and captivating as when they first traveled them, now seemed drearily endless. This world might have its virtues, but as the hours and the days stretched on, the promise of them was being steadily sucked dry, until even the light from the alien heavens began to seem dark and joyless.

What would they tell the others when they reached the ship? For the first time in their lives, though it was against all M'hah believed in and knew to be true, they wondered if they could hide something from their brethren. Should they even speak of the course of events they'd triggered by abandoning the lakeside outpost? These were the things they mumbled among themselves, as they trudged ever shipward, traveling Ranar's lonely corridors. And what of the creatures of this world, they wondered? Didn't refusal at contact, after the initial encounter, point to this world's rejection? Didn't it shout to them that they did not belong, that the long journey from P'nar was somehow misguided?

It became their most important discussion. What about the creatures, both terrestrial and avian? What had been their offense against them? And was it possible for them, the M'hah, to have been misguided? Hadn't their wisest leaders, among whom Wuanta the Uruff-fa was numbered, declared that it was the Deity who summoned them here? Could they have been wrong? _Be_ wrong?

Midway through the eighth day, their discussions, already tiresomely burdensome, tailed off in fright. What was this mirage they were seeing? Was fatigue affecting their brains? Black specks crowded the horizon, specks that grew disturbingly larger the harder they squinted.

Were the planet's beasts to once again reveal themselves? Did they mean to visit some sort of retribution upon them for Kaniik's deed, for something they considered an act of impudence or something far worse? If so, the way back to their ship was blocked. If so, the M'hah were vastly outnumbered; they were only twelve, and Kaniik was still not his old self. Again, they wondered if abandoning their lakeside post in search of discoveries that might rival or even surpass those of their brethren had been worth it.

Perhaps because of dread at the apparently impossible odds, or simply from exhaustion, both physical and spiritual, they slowed their pace until they were barely able to set one foot in front of another. Shortly afterwards, they sprawled out upon Ranar's luxuriant turf in the shadow of a great tree, stretched their weary limbs, yawned expansively, and soon fell into a deep asleep.

After a long while, they heard music in their dreams, music familiar to all the people of P'nar, patterned after the happy, piping sounds of that world's avian species. Orda and Nuor were the first to sleepily open their eyes. Looming over them, blocking out the rays of Ranar's midday sun, was a crowd of their own people.

Orda squeezed his eyes shut. Nuor did the same. Orda opened his eyes again.

"They're not going away," he muttered.

"Someone kicked me," she said.

"Get up," a voice said. "I barely nudged your foot. But if a kick is what you like—"

"The voice is suspiciously like Uruff-fa Wuanta's—and the humor is the same," Orda said, throwing one arm over his eyes.

"Wake up!" Wuanta shouted, his words underscored by a sudden blast of music.

Everyone sat bolt upright, including Kaniik, whose dazed appearance was not much different from the rest. They were surrounded! Dozens of their brethren held stick flutes to the ready, as if they were weapons about to be wielded against some imagined enemy. Behind and beyond them were ranks and ranks of M'hah-hu-uuu. Uruff-fa Wuanta had come to them with all of their people, and no one even asked why. Everyone simply knew—the exploration of the planet was drawing to a close.

Wuanta glared balefully at Orda and Nuor's handful of followers, and then chortled loudly. Soon, everyone was laughing merrily or dancing or piping, Orda's people included, though theirs was from sheer relief. Singing followed, along with a great deal of drum beating and the ringing of chimes. Food was brought out and presented with a flourish, most of it the fruits of Ranar, enough for an impromptu feast, which was followed by more singing and dancing.

The trees of Ranar looked down upon revelry and celebration the likes of which they had never before seen. Hours later, P'nar's folk lay sprawled upon the ground, with blankets now covering them against the chill of night. Orda and Nuor lay not far from Wuanta and his own mate, Awani.

"How did you know to find us?" Orda whispered in the darkness.

"You don't know?" Wuanta murmured back.

Orda lay quietly, reticent to mention Kaniik's deed. Even now he felt a sense of dread, thinking back on that fateful moment, when the mountain had spoken in response to the stroke of one small hammer. Was it some terrible, cosmic blunder, not unlike those blunders cited in some of the old stories, calling forth doom upon those responsible for the misdeed, and retribution from the Deity? At least one of those had happened in a garden, hadn't it?

If Ranar was not a garden, literally from pole to pole, he didn't know what it was. Perhaps Ranar was actually that very place!

Wuan took his silence for a _no_.

"One of the winged creatures—"

"An avian?" Orda whispered.

"Let me finish," Wuanta said. "He seemed to be their Uruff-fa. He played a stick flute like one of our own. He woke me up one morning while everyone else was still asleep and spoke to me in our own language."

Orda silently mulled Wuanta's words. How could some creature from another world speak in the language of P'nar? Unless everyone everywhere, in all worlds, spoke the same language? The idea was mind boggling. It just didn't make sense. Orda knew something about the development of language among his own people, that much of it was constructed along purely artificial lines.

"What did the creature want?" Nuor asked, startling Orda, who'd thought his wife was asleep.

"We were to come to the mountain."

"That's all?" Nuor asked.

Orda waited, listening intently. From his wife's tone of voice, he knew she was fascinated, which was natural. He was every bit as fascinated as she.

"He told me that in the shadow of the great mountain called Fe, some of our people were in trouble."

Trying to cover a sudden gasp, Orda noisily cleared his throat. An uncomfortable silence followed.

"How long ago?" Nuor whispered.

"Just over a month," Wuanta said.

"Go to sleep," a voice said in the darkness, interrupting their conversation. It was Awani. "We have an early start tomorrow."

"We—" Orda began.

" _Shhh!"_

Frowning in annoyance, Orda fell silent. However rude Awani might seem, she had spoken with the authority of mothers everywhere.

"What's he thinking?" I asked Bo'el. As fluent as I'd become in the past few months with the Mah language, I would still rather trust my reading of his thoughts to someone who'd been in contact with them for thousands of years.

Bo'el nodded to one of his companions, who leaned close, well within range of the electromagnetic field surrounding Orda's brain.

"He doesn't understand how it could be possible," she said. "How could this avian have known they would be in trouble several weeks before it happened? He's thinking at the time they were still debating about giving up their search for the lake monster in order to explore where no one else was..."

Orda slapped at something near his ear. I smiled, knowing the buzz he heard was the companion's higher-frequency speech, a frequency almost entirely outside of his hearing range.

"He is also intrigued by this alien name— _Fe_. He wonders what it could possibly mean."

"Who would have told Cielo to speak with them?" I asked. "One of you?"

I stared at Leanhar, then at Bo'el and his companions. The Mah escort fluttered their wings nervously, expression enough to tell me that they didn't know the answer.

Leanhar shook his head.

"Someone else among us?" I asked him.

A slight smile played at his lips. "Perhaps the Spirit?"

I had contented myself, these last weeks, simply to observe the Mah, letting them explore as they wished, in order for them to reveal everything about themselves I wanted to know. It seemed someone else might have a different idea— _Someone_ , that is. Though every Overcomer is Spirit-directed, the Spirit of God sometimes still reveals the Father's will to us through means other than that of the inner witness or by angelic messenger.

"I don't think Cielo learned to speak Mah on his own, do you?"

Leanhar's nimbus of glory brightened and dimmed, as he considered the question. The other angels watched us closely.

"It might be interesting to ask him about it," I suggested.

"All right," Leanhar said. "Now?"

"Not here," I said, gesturing to the sleeping Mah. "No point in disturbing their rest. They're as exhausted as Orda and his crew."

I went to Kaniik, the most impetuous of the Mah, and leaned over him. I laid my hands on his head and kept them there until his brow, furrowed deeply even in dreamless sleep, relaxed at last.

The Mah escort nodded their heads at me in appreciation.

"Bring Cielo to me in the morning," I told them. "Let us hear what he has to say for himself." What they didn't know was that whatever Cielo might say, it wouldn't matter terribly much. I wanted his company and the attendance of his fellows; they should be with us, as well, when the time came for me to reveal myself.

#

The mountain's twin cataracts stood out like broad ribbons of silver upon its dark face. What Orda and Nuor's people had failed to notice before was that between the falling waters, the stone bore an inexplicable sheen. Under full sun and a cloudless sky, the curious difference in luminosity suggested something very much like a well-worn pathway. Perhaps that first time they had simply been too travel-weary to see it as they approached, or perhaps the roiling mists had obscured their vision. Now, they wondered how they could have missed it regardless of the circumstances.

Around them, around Nuor and her husband and the others who'd fled from this very place a few scant days before, dozens of Mah began pulling out their field glasses for a closer look. Nuor glanced at her husband and wondered if he shared her anxiety over their return. Ever since hearing of the winged creature's summons from Uruff-fa Wuanta, she had experienced a rising sense of anticipation. Anticipation of what, though? she wondered. Thus far, none of their experiences upon the planet had fulfilled the expectations they began their journey with those long ages ago from P'nar. Was returning to the mountain really advisable? In spite of Kaniik's miraculous recovery and his tale of the Glorious One's visitation, wasn't the fact of his injury warning enough?

Wouldn't it be wiser to return to the ship, to restart the engines for liftoff, to flee to P'nar, where they knew they belonged?

Loud cries of exclamation rose around her. Darkness fell as if someone had pulled shut a window shade. She looked up and saw thousands of the planet's avians crossing the sun on a direct heading for the mountain. Music reached her ears, the music of the flying creatures, music more complex and beautifully ordered than she could describe in the M'hah tongue.

More cries rang out. All around her, M'hah pointed at the mountain. She would have sworn the strange path between the ribbons of silver water was filling with color, sparkling like gems of red and blue and silver and pink and green. As the waters fell, the fountain of colors kept rising, gushing skyward like a geyser. She grabbed out her own field glasses from her pack and raised them to her eyes. She fumbled with the adjustment lever for a few moments before the river of color came into focus.

The M'hah around her started running before her brain was at last able to interpret what she was seeing. Astonishingly, creatures were running straight up its face as if it were a flat, horizontal surface! She recognized them; they were identical to those species she'd encountered that first time she left the ship—the strange beasts with a superfluity of legs.

The M'hah began running en masse _toward_ the mountain. Counter to all her fears, she ran with them though everything in her being clamored to run in the opposite direction. Fleetingly, she wondered if these other creatures were answering the same summons given to Wuanta. Could any of them resist it even if they wanted to?

#

The winged creatures flying toward the mountaintop seemed to be an endless overhead stream. At times, they blotted out the sun entirely. It was difficult for the M'hah to conceive of how one planet could possibly support the sheer numbers of creatures they saw, yet just as it seemed the stream might be coming to an end, more of them appeared on the horizon.

Even more astonishing to the M'hah, when they neared the base of the mountain, they saw the great gathering place of the planet's more terrestrial beasts swirling with countless numbers—one vast moving whirlpool of multihued animals. From north and south, down the great aisles of the planet, surged more and more of them, thousands upon thousands—perhaps _ten by tens_ of thousands—and in contrast to the birds, they made no other sound than that which shook the earth under their remarkably graceful limbs. Rushing in, the beasts effortlessly shouldered their way into the mass of their brethren, were sucked toward the center, then whirled outward, finally making it back to the outer rim, from which they made contact with the mountain itself, and leapt— teeming, bestial rivers crashing together, resulting in an upward gout that splashed higher and higher upon the mountain's face.

The M'hah, having run until they were out of breath, halted at the sight of this strange, alien maelstrom. Nuor looked around and wondered what to do next. The M'hah closest to her appeared to be utterly spent, with tongues lolling from open mouths, and chests heaving with exhaustion. Uruff-fa Wuanta and his wife, Awani, were no different.

To Nuor's alarm, others stared at the alien spectacle as if utterly enthralled, eyes bulging with a mad light. Then, to her shock, someone darted into the great, heaving clot of alien beasts and leapt onto one's back. It was Kaniik, impetuous Kaniik, who should have waited for a th-th-rak-rakim, the meeting of consensus. Nuor's breath caught in her throat. Would he be flung out like a stone from a slingshot—once he was crushed to a bloody pulp? Or would the silver and turquoise steed simply turn and bite off his head?

Kaniik and the creature reached the center of the whirlpool. Together, they leapfrogged out toward the rim, their movements a complex dance impossible to be understood or imagined by mere two-legged creatures. And then they were leaping at the face of the mountain. Everything happened too quickly to believe it could be happening at all. Kaniik's steed seemed utterly unhindered by the presence of its rider. Within seconds, Kaniik and his mount were an upwardly moving speck to the watching M'hah. In less than a minute, he disappeared altogether from their sight.

M'hah began to surge forward, ten and twenty at a time, leaping even as Kaniik had leapt, offering themselves to the unknown. But when perhaps a hundred or so had joined the fray, Wuanta held up one arm, gesturing for the rest of them to halt. By means of sign language, he conveyed that no one but he and Awani, along with Orda and Nuor, were to proceed further.

Nuor's heart hammered in her chest, hammered though she could not hear it above the thunderous maelstrom. Would the others do as Wuanta commanded? She herself did not wish to join Kaniik in his folly, but something called to her that she did not think she could deny, command or no command from the Uruff-fa.

Disappointed yet obedient, M'hah fell back, retreating to the trees from which they would watch their brethren. No matter what their desire might be, they were M'hah, and Wuanta's rule was that they should stay.

Nuor, unable to wait longer, lurched forward and half fell, half leapt, anticipating landing on one of the turquoise and silver animals just like Kaniik's. Instead, she landed on a rose-colored beast with far fewer legs. The animal's head swiveled momentarily in her direction, favored her with a nod (which Nuor answered with a fascinated nod of her own), and then they were off.

To Nuor, her ride was no different from Kaniik's; at least the result was the same. In short order, she and the animal, whose head looked decidedly feminine to her, were leaping and dancing at the center of the whirlpool. How Kaniik could have survived the experience astonished her, for the noise was stupendous, worse than the sound of rockets firing. Besides that, the creatures moved with agility that was beyond any M'hah's imagination, jerking her in one direction one instant and in the next instant the very opposite, with leaps and bounds and squats and pivots to near flight included. And the very alienness of the creature itself and its seeming oneness of spirit and action in concert with its fellow creatures! Everything she saw and felt was wildly bewildering and utterly intoxicating. Nothing had ever been more exhilarating, not even liftoff from P'nar or landing on this planet. Neither was any of it explicable to her, nor did she have time to parse out the meaning of what was happening. How she had fled this place but days ago, pursued by fear and guilt, yet now rode one of this world's elusive creatures, was both mystery and enigma—and an incredible blur.

Her mount's leap toward the mountain to finally join the great pursuit came as a blur, too. Craning her neck, she espied Orda some fifty yards above her, and Wuanta and Awani above him. She craned her neck until she was nearly in danger of falling from her mount in hopes of spotting anyone else. The river of beasts was endless, and the sky overhead was a chasm she fell into instead of climbing toward...

Distances meant nothing. If she looked right or left, the twin waterfalls limited her vision. Casting a look over one shoulder, she saw the bestial whirlpool and its tributaries dwindling swiftly to nothing. Thick clouds intervened, blinding her with their dew and their brightness. In seconds she shot through those, too. The twin ribbons of silver, the illimitable sky, and the colorful, rising fountain of which she was a part, had become the focus of her existence.

As they climbed, shooting skyward at a much swifter pace than she dreamed, the noise of the maelstrom was left behind. She began to notice the wind and the quickly falling temperature. The world below, the world of trees, forest aisles, lakes and rivers, was much warmer, a perfect match to P'nar's temperate zones. She realized her pack was somewhere on the ground, along with her sleeping rug. None of them wore a jacket. None wore breathers. What a horrible mistake to make! Didn't whatever or whoever was behind the avian and its summons know they could not _breathe_ at the altitudes pierced by this mountain?

Surprise tore a scream from her throat. As if they'd stepped into some sort of monstrous chasm, the river of creatures above and ahead of her had disappeared from view. Her own mount swiveled its head in her direction without breaking stride, and bared its teeth in what appeared to be a reassuring smile. Her stomach did a flip flop, before she realized they were at the extreme limit of the mountain's vertical face, and the alien beast's legs slammed onto a horizontal slope. Without the slightest hesitation or change in rhythm, they raced toward other distant slopes, none of them nearly as vertical as that first ascent.

Stands of trees and grasses reappeared, which she knew should not be possible. But if ample air existed here, and her lungs told her it did, and if it was reasonably warm, as her skin told her, then why not trees? Why not grasses?

More cliffs appeared, and the trees disappeared, along with the grasses. A series of prominences was followed by sere but wildly beautiful tablelands. Slopes of scree and talus came afterwards. Even when they occasionally lost traction and slipped, with legs ever churning, the beast she rode did not falter. Finally, they came to the mountain's summit and its broad, hunkering shoulders.

Without warning, Nuor's mount separated itself from the stream of other creatures and slowed to a walk. Ahead, Orda's mount did the same, evidently mimicking the Uruff-fa's and Awani's. Others followed. To her alarm, she counted a total of twelve among them—though she knew many more of the M'hah had made the ascent. Where were they? Why hadn't they halted, too?

Awani's mount reared up abruptly and dislodged her from its back. In the next moment, Nuor found herself dumped unceremoniously on the ground, too. Just as instantly, the rose-colored beast which had carried her up the mountainside now shot back into the stream of moving animals and disappeared from sight. Nuor looked around and saw Orda getting to his feet. Stupefaction was on his face. Wuanta was no quicker to recover.

Nuor wondered if they felt what she felt, disappointed to see the creatures go? Until this very moment, she had not realized that riding the beast had provided some kind of empathic link between the two of them. Its abrupt departure was like the unanticipated departure of an old friend.

Bereft of their transportation, the Twelve huddled together. Kaniik was among them. No one spoke a word, nor did anyone seem inclined to speak. Except for Kaniik, Orda, and Nuor, each of them was a ruling uruff-fa among the M'hah. Kaniik, as all of them knew, was responsible for striking the mountain with a hammer, and Orda and Nuor were responsible for his actions, if responsibility was an issue to be considered. The prospect of answering to some sort of enquiry lay heavily upon them.

No one was sure when the thunder of footfalls died away. As one, they were startled to realize the stream of multi-legged beasts had vanished as if it never existed.

"The avians—!" Kaniik said, the first to notice.

Everyone searched the sky. The birds had vanished, taking their exotic music with them. The M'hah were once again alone on the planet. The abrupt silence was nearly deafening. As they looked about them in wonder, they realized the world of the mountain was very different from the world below. Below, the trees marched in ordered ranks. Here, in sharp contrast, they seemed to have grown up as the result of natural dispersion.

Because of the exacting orderliness they'd grown accustomed to seeing until now, it took them longer to realize there was order here, as well. Everywhere they looked, the trees were planted in threes, a scheme familiar to any child of P'nar. The world above was like a park, with trees much more fitting to the M'hah sense of scale. The world below was meant to inspire awe. This world was meant to communicate—serenity? tranquility? quietude?

None of them wished to speak, to break the silence. What each wanted to do was simply to wander off alone to consider his or her own thoughts in solitude. Yet, as M'hah, they craved consensus over introspection. Perhaps more importantly, they seemed to have found themselves transported to an uncannily familiar world made the stranger because of the one they'd explored for the past few months.

They remained together, studying each other.

"How do we leave this place?"

The question hung upon the air, seemingly unanswerable. Maybe no one had actually asked it to begin with; maybe someone had merely _thought_ it. It occurred to them that they had been brought here for a purpose and could just as easily be returned to the world below. Surely, transportation was nothing to worry about.

Which left them to consider in silence why they were here.

"Do we try the road?" Awani suggested.

Their gaze shifted to the _road_. Road it was, even if at first it had simply seemed an undifferentiated part of the mountain's face. At some points along the journey they'd taken, this road had disappeared almost entirely. Now it was again evident, bisecting the mountain's summit. On either side grew grasses, trees, and other plants of all descriptions, as if the stone overlaid them like pavement.

Orda, Nuor, and Kaniik remembered what the stone looked like at the foot of the mountain, dark green filled with flecks of gold. Here the gold sparkled through stone as pale green as P'nar's seas. Whether an artificial road or a natural outcrop of the mountain, it was the richest deposit of mineral wealth conceivable—and they were sure that no matter how beautiful it might appear, it was not a natural geologic formation.

Kaniik thought of the first time he touched the mountain, the strange tingle he'd felt run up his arm, and then the fateful stroke of his pick hammer. It didn't matter how many of this world's beasts ran upon it as if it were no more than a road; he desperately wanted to avoid touching it again.

"We're not here to harvest minerals, are we?"

The others eyed Kaniik with curiosity.

"I beg you, Uruff-fa Wuanta, that isn't why we were sent from P'nar, is it?"

Wuanta shook his head. "That was never our purpose." He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, as if to steady himself before speaking again.

"You do understand, don't you, that whatever our purpose was when we embarked upon our journey, it's not this road that's important?"

Some nodded their heads, while others didn't seem as sure.

"What's at the _end_ of this road—need I say it?—has become of overwhelming importance. Irrespective of everything else we've seen and learned so far on this planet."

They all nodded.

Someone said, "That's where the beasts were headed, isn't it?"

No one answered. Instead, everyone stared at the narrowing pavement. Within a hundred yards, it disappeared from view and was lost in the trees. Wuanta said nothing, perhaps satisfied to let his words sink in, perhaps because he felt the trepidation they all felt. Whatever they had been brought here for, it could be they would find it just beyond those trees.

It was Kaniik who broke the silence.

"If it's the same to you, I would rather walk on the grass."

"The beasts did put us off here," Nuor said quickly. "It must be safe."

Wuanta nodded his head slowly, waiting for the others to agree or disagree.

"You would all feel better?" Awani asked.

"Much better," Nuor said without fear of contradiction. Still, though the question had been asked, and everyone nodded in unison, none of them put one foot in front of the other, whether on the grass or toward the road. The enormity of the moment seemed to have paralyzed them as if they had been instantly transported to a heavy-gravity world.

Their paralysis was short-lived. Something arrowed through their midst in a blur of orange and disappeared among the trees. Kaniik leapt backwards in a shocked somersault. Whatever the thing was, as it passed by, its tail had struck him on the shin like a whip.

"What was that?" He demanded.

"It looked like—" Wuanta began, and then clamped his mouth shut.

"What, husband?" Awani asked.

"You all saw it," he said. "But it can't be, can it? Here?"

A gust of wind answered, blowing through the trees in the same direction as the creature had run on its four legs. It was the strongest wind they had felt during their time on the planet. It seemed to push urgently at their backs, as if it meant to force them to do its bidding.

Everyone looked to Wuanta. He glanced uphill. Uphill was where the creature had gone. Uphill was where the wind blew. Somewhere uphill was the end of their journey, or perhaps even the very beginning of yet another. He held out both hands and nodded, to them the sign of resignation.

"Uphill it is," he said.

Kaniik led the way, walking at first, letting the wind aid him. Then Orda and Nuor, taking longer strides, passed him. When the others, led by Wuanta and Awani, began to pass him, too, he started to run. Soon, with the wind at their backs, all ran as if they were children again.

Nuor did not mention that they numbered twelve, that the same number had come first to the mountain and had soon run from it with their tails between their legs—if one could say they had tails, which they did not. Twelve was a sacred number; everyone on P'nar agreed. She was surprised no one else had noticed. Was it possible that twelve was sacred here, thousands of light years from home?

What were they running toward? What were they to find beyond the trees? As she ran, it began to matter less and less. New strength seemed to pour into every limb. Soon, she heard the same childlike cries of joy and exultation she remembered from her life on P'nar. To her astonishment, many of them came from her own lips.

#

I took my place upon Fair Ranar's throne and waited for the Mah. Flanking me on either side were hundreds of angels, chief among them Leanhar and those who had assisted me throughout our centuries of labors in making this a cathedral world. Their ranks grew with every passing moment. Someone had spread the news: today was Ranar's Day of Days. Looking skyward, I could see constant flashes in the starry heavens, signaling the arrival of more and more visitors through our closest interstellar portals. If the Mah were to look, with their limited vision, even they might see them, though whether they would interpret them as portents or as anomalies peculiar to Ranar's star system, I didn't know.

Leanhar was on my immediate right. Standing nearest him were the giant Bo'el and his assistants. To my left stood a gate guardian, the very same giant who met Leanhar and me in the wood between worlds, or perhaps more properly, the _Wood Between Epochs_.

I had long since learned his name— _Tios'il-ak'el_ , which in one of the angelic tongues means "fierce eagle of God." The meaning is somewhat akin to Leanhar's extended name, which is yet another angelic tongue. _Tios_ , as I privately thought of him, seemed to have a calming influence on Bo'el, whose patience had worn thin as the day progressed— _What did I, as Steward of Ranar, plan to do? Had the M'hah (he had not yet condescended to calling them_ Mah _) met my expectations, or were they to return to P'nar as unenlightened as when they had begun over 5,000 years ago? Had he, Bo'el, failed in his guardianship? What would YHWH think of him? What did_ I _think of him?_

He had not actually asked any of those questions aloud. Instead, everything about him had said them for him—his stance, the nervous flutter of his wings, the pleading look in his eyes.

Tios' sudden appearance at my side changed all of that. Without a word between the two of them, Bo'el settled down. Glances between angels, and subtle movements of their wings and the consequent music of their feathers, can speak volumes, if they desire. But nothing of that passed between them. It seemed the gate guardian's presence and obvious familiarity were all that Bo'el needed for reassurance; if he approved of me, then I must be okay.

New arrivals, especially of the Redeemed, put in their appearance every few moments. Many were intimately familiar to me, men and women I'd known from the old life, along with those I knew from the Pergamum Branch of Overcomers: hosts of others I would come to know in due time, as the eternal ages unrolled. Sam Draper, along with a handful of Overcomers from the Philadelphia Branch, represented the Holy Names. Even Shen Li, Associate Chief Historian of the Overcomers, a member of Smyrna Branch, was in attendance. At their presence, the mountaintop scintillated like an open treasure chest of diamonds under bright sunlight. Soon, the growing numbers of angelic spirits and glorified men and women required multitudes of them to stand above the mountain in serried ranks.

Only the presence of the One would have added to the glory of that august assemblage. I looked for Him, hoping to see Him, even while His indwelling presence shone through every eye turned in my direction.

As I watched and waited, something darted through the trees, momentarily startling me. An orange bundle of fur launched itself toward me and landed in my lap. Fortunately, his claws could no longer harm me.

"Ferd!" I cried. "What are you doing here?" I glanced at Leanhar for answer, and was rewarded with his amused smile. Every eye turned toward Ferd, and every eye reflected the same amusement, as he nuzzled my shoulder and purred contentedly.

Ferd didn't answer my question directly, for which I was grateful: though I know some people have taught their pets rudimentary speech, I never liked the idea of an animal forever declaring to me, _"I love you I love you I love you I love you!"—_ inevitably followed by, _"Feed me feed me feed me!"_ Somehow, it would not have fit my idea of the heavenly realm.

His sudden appearance here reminded me of the summons delivered to the Mah by Cielo. Dispersed across Ranar in their survey of the planet, the disparate groups of the Mah had received a summons to the mountain, all right. But Cielo, _my_ Cielo, that is, hadn't known anything about it, and certainly could not converse in M'hah. He spoke barely a thousand words in English. As with Cielo, Ferd's presence must be part of the plan being worked out by the Spirit. As for the unfolding of that plan, I would have to wait like everyone else.

Perhaps two minutes later, the first of the Mah appeared through the trees. _Kaniik the Impetuous._ It was a title that would stay with him forever. No sooner had he seen the throne than he threw up one arm over his eyes. Undoubtedly the strong sunlight, flashing from the green gemstone and the surrounding streams of rock gold, did blind him momentarily. As for the glory of the assembled Redeemed and of the angels, as well as the glory of this place, itself, he was ignorant, even if stray beams should seep through his subconscious; as yet, I had not deemed it proper to unveil ourselves.

Eleven others followed, handpicked by myself and their own angelic escort, Wuanta among them, chief of their Uruff-fas, which is like saying "prince of princes." Nuor and Orda, who had led the way to the mountain that first time, timidly brought up the rear. They, least of all, seemed to know what to expect, yet at the same time feared what they expected.

The Twelve Mah linked arms. No one watched them more keenly than I, unless it was Bo'el, who kept on casting sidelong glances at me as the Mah advanced. Studiously avoiding the cherub's path of beauteous stone, they advanced in my direction. Less than a hundred yards separated them from the throne.

Tears ran down some of their faces. Others sang out melodies. All of them smiled and burbled with laughter; as in the Heavenly City, they were experiencing the cascading joy of the presence of the Redeemed. Peals of laughter and rejoicing broke from the ranks of the surrounding assembly of the unseen. Because of their near proximity to those who had drunk uninterruptedly from the Fountain of Life and Joy since Resurrection Day, the Mah were more intoxicated than they would have been from strong drink.

An hour passed. Though the way was steep, even the Mah should have negotiated the rising terrain in a few short minutes. Instead, they had come little more than halfway. Considering all their weaving and stumbling about, _advanced_ might be a misnomer.

The pavement narrowed dramatically as it approached Ranar's throne. Still, for them to stand directly before me, they would have to once again set foot on the path they seemed intent on avoiding. Here, whether to Mah eyes or to the eyes of the Redeemed, the pavement was dazzlingly bright, surpassed only by the brightness of the throne to which it led.

Mumbling among themselves in an impromptu _th-th-rak-rakim,_ they teetered, both from intoxication and from indecision, at its edge for several minutes. Did they dare? Was this where the beasts and avians had run, somehow mysteriously vanishing once they reached it? They saw no other road, no way past, unless one were an avian. How could their mounts and their fellow creatures have returned to the world below without being seen? Had they been annihilated? Although an unfathomable concept to them, faced with what they saw here, there didn't seem to be any other explanation.

How little they knew of the mountain. How little they knew of Ranar and my creatures. Did they think they had learned everything in the few short months of their sojourn? They had seen and smelled its trees and flowers, eaten of the abundant produce, drunk from and swum its rivers and lakes, and ridden to the peak of Mt. Fe—mere scratches of the surface, little better than the survey photographs they'd taken from space before landing. What, I wondered, would they think, when finally allowed to see what lay hidden behind the mountain's twin waterfalls?

Even less could they understand of the Redeemed or the Redeemer, whose throne I sat upon.

"Wait until they see the Lion of the Tribe of Judah!" Someone shouted, drawing ripples of laughter from the great, unseen assembly.

The Mah were squinting their eyes at the throne through splayed fingers. This time, as they pointed in agitation, it wasn't at the throne; it was at Ferd who sat beside me, purring contentedly.

Teetering no more, they stumbled onto the pavement and fell to their knees. Ferd had helped them to make their decision. Ferd or creatures like him, it seemed, were familiar to them. Having fallen before the throne, they looked up dazedly and cried out with one single voice—before fainting dead away.

As I stared at these poor creatures of flesh who, except for their state of innocence, were not terribly far removed from what I had once been, the heavens above us flashed brightly. A Door opened and the skies filled with strong music, music as heady as the finest vintage of Heaven's wines, presaging the arrival of Heaven's Lord and Master, Jesus, King of All Universes. Angels preceded Him, then a vast throng of the Redeemed (most of them from the Philadelphia Branch of Overcomers), two mighty cherubs, and then Jesus Himself, followed by an equal throng of Heavenly citizens.

Before I could rise and prostrate myself before Him, He stood on the pavement, in the very midst of the Mah. The display of His glory was as great as any I'd ever seen in the courts of Heaven. The very air changed texture, with waves of electricity crackling around Him. I felt as dumbstruck as I'd ever felt on old earth.

He glanced down at the Mah with a smile, and then at me.

"Treat them with kindness, Steward John Raventhorst, Vice-Regent of Ranar, for it is my face you show to them."

I was too stunned to respond. In the next instant, He sat down in the throne beside me and placed a scepter in my hand. I had seen many like it over the years—clear as glass but made of iron—the symbol of rule and authority most often given to the Sardis Branch of Overcomers. He held up my scepter hand and extended my arm toward one of the attending cherubs, the same gesture Moses had used in parting the Red Sea.

The cherub took out a scroll from his robes, unrolled it, and read from its contents to the assembled multitude. His voice shook the heavens like the seven thunders. To this day I recall no more than the gist of his words, which shook me as much as his voice ever could. I, John Raventhorst, Ranar's steward, was now Vice-Regent John Raventhorst, with Ranar itself declared capital of the Sombrero Galaxy and a sub-capital of the universe. Here, like on earth, would dwell the Master's glory more than any other place in the galaxy. Here, the galaxy's far flung peoples would have their greatest revelation of the face of God made known to them. Here, those who were worthy would come to learn more of Him. And from here, some of them would one day journey on to visit the New Earth and see the New Jerusalem.

Like a dream, the moment passed and I found myself sitting alone on Ranar's throne. Could it be? Or was it all a dream, a fantastic hallucination? In my hand was the iron scepter. It flashed with the brightness of lightning. I glanced up, saw the assembled multitude, fell to my knees on the pavement, raised my hands to the heavens, and shouted praises. All around me, the others knelt, too, angels as well as redeemed men and women, and sang and shouted until the mountain rang like church bells.

#

Nuor woke, sinuously stretching her limbs before coming fully to her senses—and to her knees. Fittingly, she saw Uruff-fa Wuanta and Awani were already awake. Around them, the others were slowly stirring to life. All of them stared as if dazed. Did the throne shine brighter? Shouldn't this planet's star have long ago fallen in the west? Or had she and her companions fallen asleep and slept through the night without realizing it? It didn't seem possible!

Even the air seemed different in her nostrils, somehow thicker, more fragrant, and incredibly invigorating. As her mind sharpened, she thought she saw strange flashes of light from the throne. Around her and her companions light moved, passing back and forth before her eyes as purposefully as if motivated by intelligence.

She wanted to cry out, to say something, perhaps warn the others—if only the words would come! Speaking simply didn't seem right. Words would surely sound profane. She needed something greater, more significant, than words.

She heard someone clear his throat. She swiveled about, looking for the offender, and cringed as Wuanta began to speak. Was he to ruin everything? How was it, then, that as the words fell from his lips, she began to relax? Surprisingly, the words did not grate like M'hah could, even if they were certainly pure M'hah. Though it was Wuanta who spoke, it was as if someone else were speaking the words for him, words made holier, more beautiful, more musical.

" _Who sits upon this throne in majesty?_

Who is it that rules here in authority?

Who is he who has seen The People from afar

And Called them to this very star?

Reveal to us your likeness

So we stumble not in blindness.

Five thousand years have we sailed

among skies unknown,

Come here to see you unveiled

and seated upon your throne.

So let us see your likeness

That we stumble not in blindness.

Let not the chair that sits proudly here

Be something less than it should appear.

Does the throne glow and pulsate with power,

Yet wait for someone else, for another hour?"

Together, the M'hah held their breath. Another voice spoke in answer. It, too, was pure M'hah, though more fluent and fluid than Nuor thought any creature of P'nar had likely ever spoken or pronounced it. The rise and fall of the words reminded her of a lovely mountain stream flowing over flower-bestrewn rocks. For a moment, she thought she saw purple flowers and sunlight sparkling on the surface of the waters. With the coming of the vision, her anxieties and fears, the trepidation she had felt these past weeks, melted away.

Something rubbed against her leg. She looked down and saw the orange creature they had spied earlier, first as it ran through their midst and then as they'd seen it sitting upon the throne. She recognized it immediately as an _ek-ekkat-ekkati,_ its throat rumbling with pleasure, as if it knew her intimately. She reached down to stroke its back. When she looked up again, she saw a figure upon the throne, a figure of light. In his hand crackled a bolt of lightning. If he had not smiled, she would have fainted dead away. His face flashed with joy, as he again spoke in the purest, sweetest M'hah she had ever heard.

" _Welcome, little brothers and sisters_

You blessed of El Elyon

To Fair Ranar

and

To Fe

Holy Mountain of a Holy World."

The words rolled on, a sparkling sunlit stream flowing down a mountainside and across a fecund landscape, until it became a great river that eventually fell into an even greater, sunlit sea. As beautiful and soothing as the words were to her soul, it would take weeks or perhaps even months for them to fully sink in. As fascinated as she was, as much as her soul burned with joy, it was all too much. She felt her knees buckle but did not care. For the second time, she fell to the pavement. Around her, the other M'hah fell, too. But before Nuor passed dead away, she saw something she had never expected to see. It was an unbelievably tall being of light. He leaned over her, his immense face looming near. His great wings overshadowed her and her companions. His eyes shone down on her like twin flames.

Almost, she thought he, too, spoke to her in perfect M'hah, though his lips were unmoving.

" _Are you well, Little One?"_

She recognized him immediately: P'nar's Original Legends spoke of the Guardians, even if no more than a select few Uruff-fa claimed to have ever actually seen one. But here, on this planet? Was this where such beings came from? Then who was the crowned one who sat upon the throne, and the even greater One who had stood over them earlier, in what seemed like some ancient dream, whose voice was lightning itself, yet had seemed the embodiment of all that was good and kind? She had so much to learn, so much to understand—but she was slipping away again!

*****

Episode Seventeen

The ship's name in M'hah was _Mrranq'nux_ , literally "seed cone." It rose from Ranar's surface without any obvious motive force and then swiftly dwindled into the sky as if snatched from their presence. The reality of Guardians, rather than engines, lifting the ship's great bulk into space, required a complete paradigm shift, Kaniik decided. Like everything else he'd seen in the past few weeks, nothing would ever be quite the same. How could it? More than five thousand years ago, he and his crew mates had lifted off from P'nar knowing enough to traverse the galaxy safely—and that was about all. The M'hah might know the intricacies of much that was invisible to the naked eye, if they were using electron microscopes, or radio telescopes at the other end of the spectrum, but none of those devices had ever hinted at the realities of the spiritually unseen. For that the Original Legends, long spoken of throughout the history of the M'hah, had been the best guides. Who could have guessed they were intensely and penetratingly true? Who could have guessed at the real purpose behind their long journey, or how different _revelation_ would make them and the entire universe around them?

"How long will the return voyage take?" He asked. To the casual observer, it would have seemed like he was speaking to himself or to thin air—that is, if the casual observer were one of the M'hah or another of the galaxy's far flung species. Except for his experience before the throne of Mt. Fe two weeks ago, he himself wouldn't have known someone accompanied him as he watched beside the crimson field now known as _Sadeh-Dahm-HaMeshiach_. (The strange dialect the Guardians sometimes lapsed into rolled easily off M'hah tongues, whether or not the exact meaning of the words was beyond his grasp.) Even now, to his eyes, he only saw an occasional sparkle in the air or a flash of light above him. The Guardians and the mightier Uruff-fas above even them were kind, in that regard; M'hah eyesight could not yet accommodate for prolonged periods the glory revealed upon Mt. Fe. All that, he understood, would change in due time—as he and the others shared ever more deeply in the purposes of Ranar itself.

Kaniik waited. For the moment twilight reigned, with deep dusk gently paling the planet's dark skies and countless stars. They were to look in a certain direction and watch for a flash, signal that the ship had entered one of the doorways between the stars.

He saw it, finally, as if a door had literally opened for a long second, allowing in light from another place that was brighter than Ranar's sun. The light was extinguished, again as if a door had closed.

"How long will it take?"

The voice wasn't Kaniik's, or the expected voice in answer, either. It was Nuor who spoke. Kaniik smiled to himself. Everyone called him Kaniik the Impetuous, but more than anyone else of the M'hah Twelve, he seemed to be the quickest to appreciate that Ranar's High Uruff-fa and his companions dwelt in the universe like the M'hah, yet dwelt in ways different from the M'hah, too, especially when one considered _time_ as they'd understood it.

"They will be home shortly," a feminine voice chimed, feminine sounding because it was at a higher register than Kaniik associated with the one called Bo'el. In reality, he wasn't sure the distinctions he knew as feminine and masculine held with the Guardians and their Uruff-fas.

"Shortly!" Nuor almost snorted.

Kaniik smiled again, sure the Guardian noticed both his smile and Nuor's impatience. But he understood Nuor's feelings. All those centuries the M'hah had been aboard _Mrranq'nux_ , either in stasis or performing their rounds of duties, and now they were to return to P'nar _shortly_? Did the Guardian mean in minutes? Hours? A handful of days? What had it been like for the Guardians to accompany _Mrranq'nux_ for over five thousand years, knowing at any time they could have made the journey themselves _shortly_?

That line of thought led him back to P'nar. What kind of changes had taken place in their absence? Would P'nar even be recognizable? Would the M'hah they'd left behind remember them? Perhaps think they had been lost among the stars, never to be seen again? The galaxy was a large place—the universe infinitely larger. The galaxy alone could devour untold millennia in its exploration, especially if they were lost and must find their way home at a quarter of the speed of light, the top speed _Mrranq'nux_ managed in its flight to Ranar.

What did he care? Tomorrow (he assumed it _could_ be by tomorrow) all of P'nar would celebrate _Mrranq'nux's_ return with a grand fête, one in which he would not participate. None of the Twelve would. He flicked one ear with a finger, the equivalent of a pinch. He had to make sure this was real, that he was on Ranar and that he had forever become one of the Twelve. While the others of the _Mrranq'nux_ returned home, to family and their familial circles, he would be learning more of Ranar and sharing in the ways of Elyon's servants.

" _They're home,"_ I said in M'hah. The Twelve glanced at each other in astonishment mixed with awe. Nuor seemed the most affected. Kaniik, as usual, was the quickest to recover.

#

Another thousand years have passed since the Twelve discovered Fair Ranar's emerald throne. I sit here today as I sat here then, the only difference the Twelve themselves. Once supplicants, they now flank the throne, waiting even as I waited for them. Today, yet another race from among Sombrero's countless tribes of stars will arrive. Like the Mah, these newcomers will have their adventures, before eventually finding their way to the center of Fair Ranar's purposes. Now, it is the Mah, rather than men or angels, who will be their guides, even as they have been for dozens of others since that first time.

The Mah chatter beside me, a pleasant flow of joyous background noise that reminds me of the streets of Jerusalem. In another thousand years, I will perhaps transport these same Twelve to Earth, where they may glimpse the Heavenly City, true capital of the universe. In the meantime, I let my eyes gaze upon the fading stars; behind me, Ranar's sun eagerly rises, chasing the night back to the obscurity from which it came. A lesser sun approaches over the western horizon; this new race, the _Xoharpa_ , uses plasma rockets for their ship's propulsion. As I watch I contemplate _forever_ , as I often have, from the perspective of one who has been mortal and is now immortal.

Time is no more, when immortality reigns. Pain and suffering is no more. Nor will tears of sorrow ever again afflict Adam's race, long known as Messiah's seed to some, El Elyon's race to others. Some thought even the memory of all those things would fade. Instead, the reality is that when Death lost its sting and was banished to the Lake of Fire like everything else that was not of God, all those lost their power to hurt us anymore. When El Elyon, the source of all good and perfect things became our possession, and when we finally knew we were completely and utterly His, how could it be otherwise?

Still, I sometimes think of when I was summoned to YHWH's throne and the promise He gave to me. Whatever He meant by it, it must still be somewhere out in the illimitable universe, even if momentarily hidden in one of the equally unfathomable ages to come. It will come, of that I am sure. What is delay to someone who lives forever?

" _Delay is no more."_

Jesus stood in front of me on the pavement. His voice rolled over me like waves of electricity.

" _Well done, faithful friend, brother, and servant."_

Tears of joy filled my eyes. By the time I brushed them away, He was gone. Shen Li stood in his place. He held out a book for me to take, bowed slightly in farewell, and then he, too, vanished.

It was one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen. The cover seemed to have been chiseled out of emerald. Gracing the front was a white star, made of diamonds, surrounded by a field of rubies. The snow white pages were gilded with purest gold.

I opened the book and my eyes fell on its title.

JOURNEY FROM HEAVEN

Turning the page, I read,

another life from Heaven's Annals of the

Order of the Overcomers

Shen Li, Editor, Associate Chief Historian

Smyrna Branch

The dedication page said:

Dedicated to

The Light of All Worlds, Jesus Christ

and to

the further understanding of the Divine Purposes of this, our eternal life

and to

a more intimate understanding of the Pergamum Branch of the Order of Overcomers

I opened to Page 1 and saw a copy of the same heavenly summons Sam Draper once handed to me on this very mountain.

OFFICIAL SUMMONS

ADDRESSEE

Steward John Raventhorst

Member, Whitestone Holders

Order of the Overcomers

Pergamum Branch

ADDRESS

Fair Ranar, Northern Trench, Sombrero Galaxy

ORDERS

Report to Capital City, New Jerusalem

to appear before

HIS MAJESTY, YHWH

Still seated upon Ranar's throne, I looked up from my reading. Once again I was in YHWH's presence, His wings folded about me. The vision was nearly as strong as the actual experience itself had been. Was I to find within these pages the answer to all my questions?

I read on, my heart burning like fire as chapter by chapter, the story of my life unfolded. The final paragraph described me seated upon Ranar's throne, reading this very book. It finished with the words,

THE END

WHICH IN THE ETERNAL REALMS IS NOT TO SAY

THE END

BUT IS BARELY

THE BEGINNING

Deeply humbled and feeling incredibly grateful to the Master for His work in my life, I turned one more page and discovered a postscript. Its single paragraph said:

Feeling deeply humbled and incredibly grateful, he looked up and saw his old friend Leanhar and other angels accompanied by a host of the Redeemed. Leanhar ushered forward someone he'd never met before, whether in Heaven or on old earth—the Xoharpa Homeworld's planetary steward. She was tall, beautiful, and strong, with hair as red as his own and eyes equally green—in short, the daughter he'd never known. Her smile was like a kiss upon his brow from the Morning Star, and his smile in return shone upon her with the warmth of New Sol. "I love you, Daddy," she said. Laying the book aside, he stood up to embrace her.

Which is exactly what I did.

*****

Episode Eighteen

In a lonely hospital room on the Oregon Coast, two elderly women stand vigil over a lonelier, bedridden figure. One of the women has skin like tea-stained parchment and hair like steel wool. The other woman is tall and slim, has snow white hair and wears wire-rimmed glasses. In the hospital bed, tubes run in and out of the man's body from seemingly every angle, and machines beep and glow in non-sentient attendance. Hissing sonorously, one of the machines raises and lowers his chest every few seconds.

The hospital room door swings open. The women turn and see a policeman entering, urging a little red-haired girl to precede him.

"It's okay, honey," he says. As if she's done this before, she immediately goes to the bedside and takes one of the man's hands in both of her own. Though his hair is red like hers, his is shot with gray.

The policeman smiles faintly, revealing buck teeth. He asks the taller woman, "What's the word?"

She glances at the little girl before quietly answering, "The doctors say they'll pull the plug today."

The policeman shakes his head in resignation. The two women turn their attention back to the man in the bed and the girl at his side. All three adults watch as if expecting something momentous to happen.

The girl, holding the inert figure's hand, stares intently at his face and massages the hand as if it is her pet kitten.

"I love you, Daddy," she finally says.

Tears run down the women's wrinkled old cheeks. The policeman turns away and lifts a shirtsleeve to his eyes.

Outside the hospital room, in the long, dimly lit corridor, figures approach from opposite ends. One emerges from shadow. He seems to be made entirely of non-reflective granite, and wields an equally stony sword in each of his six hands. The other bursts from a ball of light, and seems himself to be made of light. From over his shoulder, between spreading white pinions, he unsheathes a blade of naked flame. The two of them leap at each other, the first exuding a sulfurous smell and eddies of swirling darkness. The other radiates the glee of battle finally met after long delay.

THE END

*****

To the Reader

If you enjoyed the free Smashwords Edition of this book, _Journey from Heaven_ , please consider sending a donation of any size to Iris Ministries, a mission devoted to feeding orphans in Mozambique and other African countries. Donations may be made online to www.irismin.org or to www.irismin.com, or by snailmail to Iris Ministries, PO BOX 493995, Redding, CA 96049-3995.

*****

About the Author

As of this writing, Joe Derkacht lives in Newberg, Oregon, where he is the sole caregiver for his elderly mother. He has lived up and down the West Coast, in cities large and small, and grew up in a small beach community (pop. 247) where he had plenty of time to fantasize about future writing projects. He has been involved in lay ministry for many years and earned a diploma in biblical studies from The King's College in Los Angeles, California: hence his interest in religious-themed literature. He has also written novels and screenplays in the Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Spy-Thriller genres, some of which he may later release as ebooks.

If you liked this book, you may wish to read _Street of Angels_ , also by Joe Derkacht, first published by Smashwords in 2009.

