CALEB STOOD AT ATTENTION IN THE LARGE ROOM they called his new home, facing Martha, who wore a deep frown. They had given him brown shorts that came to his knees and a soft white shirt with a collar. The black shoes hurt his feet and she insisted he wear the socks up to his knees, but in some ways he felt at home in the strange clothes. They were what the other children he’d seen running outside the window wore.
“So what are we going to do with you, hmmm?”
The woman seemed upset, and he didn’t understand her. In the three days he’d been here, she had left him alone to stare out the window and wander around the large eating room. Each night she’d marched him down the hall to the small bedroom where she told him he must sleep. Each night he had left the dark room for this one with its tall ceiling and soft couches. She’d found him twice early in the morning and scolded him.
Now it looked like she meant to scold him again.
“Father Nikolous tells me that you’re not to watch the other children anymore. Do you understand me, boy? He doesn’t want you to look out in the play yard at the others any longer. He says it will mess with your head. But if I leave you alone, I know that you’ll look anyway, won’t you? I know that because every time I come in here you’re staring out that window. And that just won’t do.”
She sighed and glanced at the large window. “And I’m not about to cover up that window. It would look ridiculous in this large room, wouldn’t it?” She kept asking these questions without really waiting for an answer.
“Which means we’ll just have to keep you in your room when you’re alone.” She studied him for a moment, as if expecting him to say something, but he wasn’t sure what she meant.
“Let’s go.”
Caleb stared at her, still not sure what she wanted him to do. Go where?
Her face twisted into a snarl. “Don’t just stand there like you don’t understand me, boy! Move it!”
He felt a twang of fear at her anger, but he could not move. How could he move unless she told him where to move to? He suddenly wanted Jason or Leiah to be here. And he’d promised Jason that he wouldn’t go anywhere without him.
The woman took a large stride toward him, snatched up his right wrist, and yanked him behind her. Pain shot up his arm and he yelped.
“You’ll do what you’re told, you understand? I don’t care if Nikolous does think you’re God’s gift to man; you don’t fool me. When I say go, you go!”
She dragged him down the hall and he stumbled to catch up. They marched right into the small room on the left, and she flung him toward the bed. Caleb caught himself on the mattress and sat with a bounce. She gave him one last glare and slammed the door shut. Darkness filled the room. A click sounded in the latch and then her footsteps clacked away.
He waited for a few moments and then ran for the door. The knob wouldn’t turn. He spun around, suddenly frightened. The dim shape of the bed with its white sheets lined the darkness. To his right a big glassy box sat in the corner. He had no idea what it might be.
A scene from the monastery flashed through his mind.
“Dadda, Dadda, it’s dark! I’m afraid!”
“Dark? Nonsense, child. It’s as bright as day in here.”
“It is?”
“It is. Open your eyes.”
“My eyes? They aren’t open?”
“Not if you can’t see the kingdom. Not if you can’t see the light. Open your eyes.”
“Ouch!”
“What?”
“I touched my eye. It is open, Dadda.”
He chuckled. “Open your other eyes, Son. The eyes of your heart. You will see that it is very light in here. It’s always light in the kingdom of God.”
He was a small child and it was the first time he’d seen the light. The kingdom, as Dadda liked to call it. It occurred to him that this was no different than that.
Caleb crossed to the bed and climbed up. He sat against the wall, pulled his knees to his chin, closed his eyes, and began to hum. No, this was not different at all. The kingdom was not just bottled up in a monastery somewhere. It smothered the world. That’s what his father used to say. “It smothers the earth, Caleb.”
A thin film of light lapped at his mind and he smiled. He began to sing in Ge’ez. Words. Kingdom words. Then he walked in and his world went white.