The Children of Red Peak Page 19

  “This place is crazy,” he whispered, as if afraid of waking something.

  The cabin still had furniture. Crumbling books lined a shelf. Chairs surrounded a table set for a meal for four.

  Beth looked around and murmured, “They just got up and walked away.”

  “With desert all around. Where did they go?”

  “Like those towns you hear about,” Wyatt said behind them, making them jump. “One day, everybody walks out and disappears.” He held up a small glass bottle with an eyedropper in it. “Look what I found.”

  “Cool.” Deacon overcame his fear of touching anything and poked around. He discovered a Bible, but it was wrecked. The rest was junk. A hairbrush, a basin for washing, a rusting can of Prince Albert tobacco, all covered in dust.

  David grinned under a floppy hat. “Check it out.”

  “You know how dirty that is?” Wyatt said. “Mice probably crapped in it.” He dropped the glass bottle on the table as if it too was contaminated.

  David took off the hat and flung it to the floor. “They did not.”

  “They did too. Now you have mouse crap in your hair.”

  “Shut up, Wyatt.”

  Deacon ignored them as he opened a box and discovered a small metal cross on a chain. He picked it up and scratched at a tiny blemish.

  “What’d you find?” Beth said.

  He held it out for her to inspect. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Way cool.”

  On impulse, he said, “It’s for you.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  “I mean, we can just take it?”

  “I think so,” he said. “I don’t see why not. Finders keepers.”

  “Okay. Put it on me, will you?” Beth turned around and pulled her hair up to hold it piled against the top of her head.

  Deacon draped it around her throat, the heat and his thirst forgotten. He eyed the back of her neck and remembered a movie he saw where a man put a necklace on a girl and then kissed the soft skin of her neck. Heart pounding in his ears, he fumbled with the clasp, but he couldn’t get it hooked.

  Unable to stand it anymore, he said, “I can’t see in this light.”

  “I’ll do it.” Smiling, Beth reached up to clasp it in place. “How does it look?”

  Every part of him ached now. “Really pretty.”

  Wyatt made puking noises and burst into laughter.

  “Get a room, you two,” David said uncertainly, repeating something he’d heard but didn’t quite understand.

  Josh poked his head in the doorway. “We should head back.”

  The kids marched back to New Jerusalem, tired but jubilant at their discovery. Their home had changed from a lush valley to a desert mountain, their parents had traded contentment for a forced cheerfulness, and God was still a no-show, but they’d found their oasis, a secret place where they could be themselves again.

  For days, they waited. The Family prayed, toiled to gather water, ate canned food in the mess hall, and otherwise tried to remain cheerful while nothing happened.

  The sky remained closed. The pearly gates stayed hidden. Each day, the sun burned across the encampment before the mountain cast it in shadow.

  Dazed by the heat, the kids sat around a table in the otherwise empty mess hall. Their third day at New Jerusalem, and nobody was up for exploring.

  David suggested a board game, but they’d left almost everything at the farm. They didn’t think they’d need it.

  Wyatt lay sprawled on one of the benches. “Never thought I’d miss chores.”

  The adults wouldn’t let them do anything, and there wasn’t much to do anyway. Every day, men and women trudged across two miles of baking rocks to fetch water from a spring, which provided just enough to keep them all hydrated. The rest of the time, they waited in the Temple.

  “I can’t stand this,” Beth said. “I want it over with.”

  “This is part of the deal,” Emily said. “We—”

  “I know what the deal is, Em. Let me complain.”

  “Sorry.”

  Beth gripped her forehead as if she had a crippling headache. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just sick of it.”

  Deacon understood how she felt. He wondered if this was a test. Like in school, only in this case he didn’t even know what the question was.

  “God changed his mind,” Wyatt said.

  “Shut up,” Beth growled.

  “He took one look—”

  “Shut up,” they all yelled while the kid chortled from his bench.

  Deacon stood. “Well, that’s it, then. I’m going to the top.” He gazed back at their gaping faces with all the gravity he could muster. “Who’s with me?”

  This was his time to follow in the Reverend’s footsteps and shine as a spiritual leader. He’d walk to the top and talk to God himself.

  “What the heck do you want to do that for?” David said.

  “I’m going to get some answers. So are you coming or not?”

  Emily paled. “Not me.” She was afraid of angering God.

  “In this heat?” Beth said. “It’s too far. No way.”

  “Right,” Angela said. “No way I’m doing that.”

  “You too?” Deacon thought she’d jump at the chance. He’d been counting on the big kids to come along. “Why?”

  “Suppose we hike all that way, and there’s nothing there. No voice, nothing. Do we tell everybody? What do you think would happen if we did?”

  David’s sister had a rebellious streak, but she was smart enough to pick her battles. This wasn’t one of them.

  “Don’t even look at me,” Wyatt said. “I ain’t going.”

  “If Angel goes, I go,” Josh said. “If not… sorry, brother.”

  Deacon sagged. He didn’t even bother asking David, who was, for lack of a better word, a coward—God bless him and all that, but he was. This was what he deserved for acting bigger than his britches. He’d wanted to prove himself, and now he’d have to climb alone. If he backed out, he’d never live it down.

  “I guess I’ll see you guys later.” He headed for the door.

  God never quit with the tests, even on the eve of apocalypse.

  “Wait,” David called after him. “I’ll come.”

  Deacon grinned with relief. “You will?”

  “I have some questions I’d like to ask.”

  “Good to have you along.” That’s what the Reverend would have said.

  The kids jumped to their feet to follow them out the door and into the blazing sunshine. All eyes on him, Deacon made it look good. He gave orders to David, stuffed water bottles into a backpack, and gazed stoically up at the summit.

  Wow, what a climb. The mountain appeared even taller now, every inch of it daunting and completely inhospitable to human life.

  If the Reverend had done it, he could too.

  David showed up wearing a ball cap and pacing himself with his walking stick, his tanned arms slathered with suntan lotion. “Ready.”

  “Time to get to the bottom of this then.” The others were depending on him.

  “You guys are nuts,” Wyatt said, ruining the moment.

  He rolled with it. “Yup.” He smiled at David. “You ready, partner?”

  David nodded, already out of breath from fear. Deacon was wrong about him. He wasn’t a coward. Right now, he was maybe the bravest of the bunch.

  They started walking. Angela shouted instructions and advice and warnings at her brother until the boys were out of earshot.

  “Okay,” David yelled back. “Okay!”

  “Your sister’s a handful,” Deacon noted.

  The kid sighed. “Welcome to my world.”

  They turned to give the others a last parting wave. Already, they appeared tiny. They all waved back, even Wyatt, who was probably still laughing at their expense. No matter, thought Deacon. His friends were counting on him.

  Now it was just him and the mountain. The roasting sun. The prickly bush
es that seemed to appear out of nowhere. The occasional burst of wind that blew blinding dust across the slope.

  David huffed next to him.

  “You okay?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Good. Because I’m not stopping until I get some answers for Beth.”

  “You don’t have to try to impress her. She likes you.”

  “What? She does?” Deacon cleared his throat. “I mean, why would I care about that?”

  David threw him a look.

  He paused to take a swig from his water bottle, then passed it to his friend. “I guess it doesn’t matter. The world’s coming to an end.”

  “That makes it matter more,” David said.

  Deacon returned the bottle to his pack. “Let’s keep going.”

  They toiled on. Shadows crept toward them from the crest as the sun crossed the peak. The summit appeared close now, but he knew this was only an illusion. It was only the first of the false peaks. Despite the heat, he shivered at the feeling the mountain was aware of him now and watching his every movement.

  There was something about this place. A raw power. The mountain hummed with it. The closer he made it to the top, the more he worried about exactly what he was doing here. Down in the mess hall, his plan had flashed through his mind complete and shining with perfection. Since then, it had slipped away. If he met God, what would he say? Who was he to ask questions and demand answers, when he should have faith in the plan, like Emily had said he should?

  Or worse, what if there was nothing up there?

  He was starting to think this was a big mistake.

  Gasping, he arrived at the top of the first summit, where the mountain plateaued before angling again toward the sky. He leaned on his knees, panting too hard to savor his victory.

  David was no longer next to him.

  He wheeled with a yelp to see the boy standing twenty yards behind, gaping up at the summit and shaking his head.

  “Dave? You okay?”

  The kid wagged his head again. “I’m going back.”

  Deacon walked back to join him. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry,” the boy said. “I can’t do it.”

  Above them, Red Peak’s shadow crept closer, consuming the ground.

  Deacon shivered again. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe another time.”

  “You can go on without me, if you want.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll make sure you get back safe.”

  His legs trembled with exhaustion as they wound their way down the long slope through the rocks and thorns. He didn’t stop to rest, though. Every step brought relief to be farther from the summit.

  David whispered, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.”

  Deacon joined in. “Down in my heart. Down in my heart.”

  “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart, down in my heart to stay.”

  They sang the second verse, louder this time. They repeated the song all the way back to New Jerusalem, as if it were a spell that might protect them from the thing they’d come to seek.

  The Family of the Living Spirit settled into old pews in the new Temple. The builders constructed the cabins as makeshift shelters but had lavished attention on the church’s construction. Large windows flooded the nave with daylight. The familiar wood dove was mounted on the wall behind the altar. Deacon’s mother welcomed the congregants from her organ, which filled the space with a plaintive hymn. Jeremiah sat on the left side of the chancel, waiting for his time to speak.

  Seated next to David, Deacon watched his mom play and thought about how beautiful she was when she did, her delicate hands tumbling along the keys. A finger poked him in the back, which could only belong to Wyatt, who sat behind him at worship. Deacon turned to scowl at his grinning face.

  “Are we there yet?” the kid said.

  Deacon shook his head, trying not to laugh.

  The organ lingered on a high note and then stopped.

  Jeremiah rose to his feet in his usual black jacket and T-shirt, lean and tanned by the sun. “Brothers and sisters, welcome to the first Sunday worship in our new home, and one of our last before the ascension.”

  The congregation clapped and cheered, though it was hesitant as the words one of our last sank in. Paradise would continue to elude them a while longer.

  “ ‘Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to the Light,’ ” he went on, and paused to let the words sink in. “John Milton wrote that. It’s a daunting message but an inspiring one, if you think about it. And something to chew on for those wondering why we haven’t crossed over already.” The Reverend raised three fingers. “The Living Spirit told me there will be three tests.”

  The Family grew still, waiting.

  “First, we will build a staircase leading all the way to the top of Red Peak. When we make it to the first summit, I will go again to the summit and receive the second test. While we go about this labor, we will daily confess our sins.”

  The congregation murmured at the idea of building stairs up a mountain. Deacon wondered at it himself. What was the point? God would only destroy it soon. But like the Reverend said, it was a test.

  “You may think throwing stairs up a mountain in May will be hard, but that’s the easy part,” Jeremiah said. “In the good book, James tells us, ‘Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.’ Imagine winning a free one-way ticket to a tropical island. The catch is you can’t bring a single suitcase. You learn real quick just how darn hard it is to let some things go.”

  While the Family chuckled, he went on.

  “Tonight, we’ll meet here again, and leave our children at home. Each of us will come prepared to confess his sins before the Family. But we won’t be confessing that we talked back to Mom or flirted with another man’s wife, no, sir. We’ll be digging deep, straight to the root. Right to the core sin that defines you. Only by recognizing the sin can we make ourselves clean for God. In lieu of a sermon today, I’d like to go first and confess my own sin. It’s a big one, the worst of all. Are you ready for it?”

  Across the pews, the Family nodded.

  “I was a big drinker back in the day,” the Reverend said. “Yeah, you all know that story. Nothing wild to tell, nothing juicy, just a sad story about a selfish man. A man who lied to himself and everybody he cared about because he loved a drink more than himself, more than God. The Devil doesn’t always throw a party for you. There isn’t a big reward before he comes around to collect your soul. Because you’d given it away. Sometimes, sin just slips into your day like mail through a slot, mundane as brushing your teeth, and once it’s inside, it takes over. Before you know it, all you care about is feeding it. You know I lost everything. You know I hit rock bottom. You know a higher power saved me, a newfound faith in Christ.”

  Deacon leaned forward in his pew, riveted as the first tears flowed down Jeremiah’s broad face, tears he refused to hide.

  “What you don’t know is that is not my biggest sin, not by a long shot,” the Reverend said. “My big sin was my faith sometimes seemed to me a fair-weather friend. It wasn’t just fear that God would reject me after all the bad things I’d done in my sorry life. What I’m about to tell you is way worse than that. In moments of weakness, I wondered if anybody was listening to my prayers at all. If I’d only become saved as a crutch to kick the booze. I’d have terrors, three o’clock in the morning terrors, about the worst horror imaginable, that death is the end, that after a long, full life, you just wink out of existence forever without it meaning a thing. So much of my ministry was just me trying to convince myself it wasn’t true.” He looked up at the rafters, the tears still streaming. “It took hearing your voice, Lord, to give me the absolute certainty my faith should have already provided. It took you showing me the bright star in all that endless black sea. I’m ashamed of this, and I beg your forgiveness.” His gaze dropped. “I beg all your forgiveness.”

  The sho
cked silence only lasted seconds before Mrs. Blanchard called out: “I forgive you, Reverend!”

  “Think about what you’re saying. The man before you is a fraud and a liar.”

  David’s mother jumped to her feet. “There’s nothing to forgive, as far as I’m concerned. Without you and this family, I would never have found my path. You brought me closer to God, and you saved my children from eternal death.”

  “We all struggle with doubt, Reverend,” Mrs. Chapman said. “There is no shame in it. That is the spiritual war.”

  “We forgive you!” Mrs. Diaz called out.

  They all rose shouting, and those closest to the Reverend crowded around to lay their hands on him and proclaim their love and forgiveness. Deacon jumped with his hands in the air, yelling over and over he forgave him too.

  One by one, Jeremiah hugged them back for all he was worth, bawling the whole time.

  Deacon’s mom began to play the first hymn, an uplifting song about tapping the strength of God, and the congregation sang with it.

  Then the Spirit arrived like an electric current flowing through the Family, energizing them toward dance and proclamations and prophecy.

  Deacon raised his hands with his eyes clenched shut as the raw music and its message soaked into his soul and set it alight with a love for humanity and God. This was his favorite time of worship, when he’d open wide and let the Spirit sing through him, filling the nave with his clear tenor, performing a one-man concert for his father looking down on him, for the angels, for God himself.

  “I forgive you,” he said through a smile so wide it hurt.

  “Ay-BRAY-mig a fafen!” Mrs. Young cried.

  Hands splayed, she gaped at something only she could see as the Spirit overtook her and spoke through her in tongues, the angelic language.

  “Ay-BRAY-mig a fafen!”

  “Niis aqlo etharzi od moz,” Freddie Shaw shouted.

  Across the congregation, people raved. Gibberish, but they were chanting now, chanting in unison. This had never happened before. Nonsense words that nonetheless were loaded with meaning. An important message that Deacon couldn’t understand, though he internalized it: It’s coming, get ready.