24

Darkness swept over Jake, then through him, into the cracked parts of his soul so deep he had never sensed them before. His gut tightened and he fought to pull in ragged breaths. Sweat broke out on his face and hands, his arms. But not below his waist. Not on his legs. Not on his feet.

His vision went black and he clutched the sides of the kayak to keep from toppling into the water. He gasped for air and tried to keep from looking at his legs, but he couldn’t stop himself. What kind of sick joke had God just played on him? Did he enjoy this kind of cruelty? Jake fought to keep his heart from shutting God out as he’d done for a year and a half, to believe God was in this somehow, some way. But how could he? The meadow wasn’t heaven, it was hell.

For a moment he wondered if what he’d experienced on the other side of the corridor was real. But only an instant. No! He refused to believe it. It wasn’t a dream, wasn’t a vision, wasn’t some deluded fantasy he’d concocted inside his head. His gaze whipped to the place on his arm where he’d scraped it against a tree during his run. The scratch was there, a thin line of blood hardening. He clutched at it as if to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

Jake twisted in the kayak, his eyes seeking the corridor. But it wasn’t there. Vanished. Even the reeds he knew he’d broken to reach the lake looked like they’d never been touched.

“No!”

Jake screamed the word over and over till his voice grew ragged.

“Why, God?” Jake whispered toward the cattails, but the only response was their slight movement as a breeze came in from the east. There would be no answer, even if the corridor didn’t exist anywhere but inside his head. No! He wouldn’t consider that for a second. He’d been healed. It was real. There had to be something missing, something else God wanted him to do.

Steady. He had to take his time. Think. Make rational decisions. Jake glanced again to the spot where Leonard had bobbed two days ago. Yes. That was the smartest move he could make.

He didn’t care if his body would overheat. He’d let it cool in the water as soon as he reached Leonard’s. As he covered the distance to the old man’s home, Jake tried to pray, but words abandoned him. Or maybe he was too angry to pray. Angry. Stunned. Betrayed.

By the time Jake had taken five strokes forward, the breeze kicked up to a full-out wind, plowing straight into him with gusts up to at least fifteen miles an hour. Perfect. The ideal complement to the horror he’d just been through.

Jake struggled against the wind, his arms sapped of strength, his stamina flagging. But he kept pushing. Leonard would have answers. He had to. Tiny whitecaps danced on the water, sending spray into Jake’s eyes and soaking his shirt, but he continued to ignore the burn in his arms and concentrated on steady strokes. Dig in, pull, repeat.

Finally he reached the gentle curve of the land as it swept around to the left, and Leonard’s home grew slowly closer. Three minutes later he reached the dock and laid a hand on the gray, weather-worn planks and slowed his breathing. Relax. Answers were coming. They had to.

Jake got out of his kayak and slipped into the water next to Leonard’s dock. He let the coolness of the water seep into his body for two, three minutes, then pulled himself onto the dilapidated dock. The boards creaked under his feet as he strode across them, but the sound barely registered in Jake’s mind.

“Leonard!”

Jake went to the garage and swung open the door. Nothing. Next, the house. He banged on the sliding glass door. No answer. Jake pounded it again. Again, no response. Jake tried the door. Unlocked. He stepped inside.

“Leonard? It’s Jake. I have to talk to you.”

There was no sign of the man. Not in his garage, house, garden. Yet Leonard’s truck and scooter were there. As was his boat. Jake strode around to the side of the house and gazed up at the hill behind Leonard’s home.

There. Movement up on the hill two football fields away. Too far away to be certain it was Leonard, but who else would it be? Jake took a deep breath. Yes, the hill was steep and the sun was getting warmer, but if Leonard had made it up there, so could Jake.

He stopped after fifty yards. He’d paddled over from the corridor too hard. There wasn’t enough strength left to climb this hill. But his desperate need to get answers drove him upward. In another two minutes his breathing had turned to panting and he stopped. Had to catch his breath, slow down. Leonard wasn’t going anywhere.

Maybe he should wait. It wasn’t a bad idea. But Jake dismissed the thought after a few seconds. He couldn’t wait. He would take it slow. Get there without dying. Then get perspective on what had happened to him in the field.

Jake shielded his eyes against the rising sun and scanned for Leonard. Yes, it was him. In silhouette, but Jake had no doubt.

“Leonard!”

If he heard Jake he gave no indication. Jake called again; again no response. Another forty yards. Then a stop, hands on knees, gasping, waiting for his wind to return. Jake turned and looked across the lake to where his friends would soon be rising to make coffee and breakfast. Not good.

If they were up when he got back, that meant Ari would be up as well. And even though he’d left his pants on the dock, what if she was on the deck above and saw him? What if she was down at the dock?

Stupid. Why was he thinking about something so asinine as her seeing him, when the disaster of the corridor should be at the forefront of his mind?

“Leonard!”

This time the man turned and gazed down on him. But only for a moment, then he turned back to whatever he was working on high above the lake. Jake continued his trek up the side of the hill, pausing just long enough to gather the strength to continue upward. Ten steps. Rest. Fifteen steps. Rest. He couldn’t see Leonard any longer as an outcropping of rock blocked his view, but in a few minutes he’d reach the man and demand answers.

Twenty more yards. Come on. The air seemed to thin as he slogged on. One hundred more steps. Keep going. Almost there. And then he was. Jake stepped around the corner of the craggy rock and readied himself to confront his old friend.

But Leonard was gone.

“Leonard! I know you’re close. You have to be. Talk to me!”

He scanned the area where the old man had stood minutes earlier. But there was no one. Nothing but browned grass and jagged rocks pushing through the soil in stony patches.

Nothing to do but head back down, return to the house across the lake, and pray they were all still asleep. He glanced at the sun. Probably seven by now, maybe later.

As he trudged back down the hill, all the emotions of the past three hours seeped out of him and left a dull kind of despair that throbbed at the back of his mind. He wasn’t looking forward to faking his way through the day, trying to create answers as to what had happened. No explanation would come close to satisfying his aching soul.

When he reached Leonard’s dock ten minutes later, Jake slipped back into his kayak and paddled across the lake toward the rental house, dreading what he was about to face.

Someone sat in the spot where he and Peter had talked the first night. Still too far away to tell if they were male or female. A few minutes later he could tell it wasn’t Peter or Andrew. Too small for either of them. But no clue yet which of the women it was. If it was Ari, what would he say?

Hey, can you toss me my pants? Once I get them, I’ll paddle far enough away that you can’t see me, then put them on and paddle back before getting out of my kayak. I’m sure you’ll understand, because you see, I’m too embarrassed for you to see me as I really am.

Jake clenched his teeth, paddled forward, and shot up a prayer. “Please let it be Susie. Camille even. Just not Ari.”

Another minute and he’d know. He dipped his paddle in the water again and pulled hard. If it was Ari, he’d figure out a way to get ahold of his pants without looking like a moron.

Forty-five seconds later relief flooded him. It was Susie.

“Thank God.”

She waved at him. He waved back and eased his pace. His arms were still trashed from the slog between the end of the lake and Leonard’s place. When he was still twenty-five yards offshore, she called out, “Where have you been?”

“Just out for some time by myself.”

Should he tell her? Without Susie, he wouldn’t have ever discovered the meadow. He laughed sarcastically inside. Exactly. Without her he wouldn’t have found the corridor and his heart wouldn’t currently be in a blender. There would be time to tell her later.

“Hey, are you listening to me?”

Jake looked up. “Yeah.”

“Where’d you go for this alone time?” Susie hugged her coffee mug with both hands, face full of anticipation.

Jake glanced up toward the house, even though he couldn’t see it through the trees as he pulled up to the shore. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Go grab my pants? They’re on the dock.” He pointed to the shoreline. “I’m going to get out here.”

Susie was gracious enough not to ask him why. She shuffled down to the water’s edge and held out her coffee mug. “Hot cider. Want some?”

Jake shook his head.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m good.”

She marched off as Jake got out of his kayak and tied it up to a branch hanging over the water. By the time he clambered up the bank and settled into one of the four Adirondack chairs, Susie had returned from the dock with his pants.

“You want these?” She dangled them from her outstretched hand, just far enough away that Jake couldn’t grab them.

He leaned forward to take the pants but Susie drew them back.

“Oh, you do want them.”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me about whatever it is I see in your eyes.”

“There’s nothing to tell. Went for a long paddle, got some time to think about my mutated life, came back, and here we are.”

“Okay.” Susie draped the pants over her shoulder and started to walk away. “See you up there.”

“Fine. I’ll tell you.”

Susie stopped.

As he looked at her, one of the few people in the world he still trusted, the mask Jake had been wearing shattered.

“Oh my gosh, you went back, didn’t you? Did a little more exploring without me?”

“Why do you say that?”

Susie tilted her head and gave a thin smile. “You’d never make it in the World Series of Poker if I was playing. I know you too well. You held it together for a good three minutes, but that’s about your limit.”

“All right.”

As Susie studied his face, hers slowly shifted from one of curiosity to one of wonder. She set her cider on the arm of her chair as she plopped into the seat, and her voice jumped half an octave. “No, are you serious? You found it, didn’t you? You did.”

Jake gave an almost imperceptible nod. “I got through.”

“What!” Susie clutched both legs and leaned forward, astonishment splayed across her face. “What . . . what . . . what are you saying . . . are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Tell me, tell me!”

He reached out for his pants. “Give them over first.”

Susie handed Jake his pants as her face burst into a full-on smile. “Tell me every detail.”

“I don’t know where to start, Sooz.” Jake slipped the pants over his trunks and drew the string tight. “It was heaven and hell. More of the latter than the former.”

“How can it have been . . . both?”

Jake started to tell her, then stopped and drove his teeth into his lower lip. It was one thing to shell out the facts of a remarkable discovery, but another whole can of meatballs to describe the agony of having your greatest hope be crushed just as it was about to be gloriously reborn.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure I want to relive the pain.”

“This is me, Jake. You know sharing it will be a kind of catharsis. You need to talk to someone about it. I don’t know if I can offer anything, but I can listen.”

Jake locked his hands behind his head, pressed his elbows together, then let his arms fall to his sides. “I got healed, Sooz. I mean completely healed. Everything from my waist down was restored. No, I’m not kidding.”

Susie’s lips parted and her gaze slowly moved from Jake’s eyes to his legs.

He snorted out a bitter laugh. “Didn’t take. So fun to have God toy with me.”

“What . . . what happened? Everything.”

Jake told her about finding the corridor, then finding it again and the story of the healing. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I should have. I just—”

“I’m so sorry, Jake. It makes no sense.”

“I know.”

“Are you going back?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow morning.” He gazed at her. “You want to go, don’t you?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“All right, then it’s done. We go back together. Now that I know where it is, we can find it again—doesn’t matter what Leonard says.”

“But I can’t.”

“What? Why not?”

“That was my dream, Jake, the one I told you about. I dreamed about the corridor. That you went through. I had an overwhelming sense there was danger there, but also incredible hope. I didn’t see what happened in the end, but one thing was certain: you were there alone and no one else was supposed to be with you.”

He started to protest, but before he could, the sound of footsteps along the path from the dock stopped him.

“Hey, guys.” Peter and Camille stepped into the clearing. “Ready for breakfast?”

“Sure,” Susie said.

Susie glanced at Jake and told him with her eyes she wouldn’t say anything to anyone.

“What about you, Clark?”

Breakfast? Go up and pretend that everything was normal? Nah.

“I think I’m going to take the day to get out of here, spend some time thinking about life. Need it.”

Camille frowned. “How are you going to drive the boat today if you’re not here? You have to drive the boat.”

Jake stood and shuffled past Peter and Camille. “Nope. Don’t.”

“You okay, Jake?” Peter’s voice floated toward him as he strode away. Jake flashed a thumbs-up but didn’t turn around.

He spent the rest of the day exploring the roads in the area, finding nothing remotely interesting, but that might have been influenced by the fact that he couldn’t get his mind off the corridor for more than two or three minutes at a time.

By the time he arrived back at the house late that night, the only person up was Ari. She sat out on the deck reading a book under the star-blotted sky. In another age he would have joined her. For a short time that morning he had stepped into that other age. And if there was any way to figure out how to make the healing stay, that age would come again.

Sleep that night came in starts and stops, but when his cell phone alarm buzzed at four the next morning, he was ready to roll.