Chapter 15

 

The day after the wave of miracle healing, several of the villagers fell ill again. It didn’t take long before the disease reestablished its hold. Some of the healed had gone home; Teresa hoped they were still well. In any case, they never reappeared at the castle. But of those who had stayed, more than half were stricken again, and the servants were soon back to their unhappy service. The painting of Tildy remained in the courtyard, and some of the sick agitated to be positioned where they could see it, but it was as though the power was gone. Franz Bertoller, grim and stolid, said nothing to Teresa either about the healings or about the subsequent relapse.

Teresa herself alternated between resignation and feeling crushed.

She didn’t know what had happened the day before—other than that it had manifested the Spirit, his glory, his personhood. She had seen him. And she would never forget the sight. But the miracle had not been under her control, and neither was this reappearance of disease under her control. She was helpless. And hated that fact.

Caring for the sick on that first day after the miracle was no easier than it had been before. As some of the victims cursed and wept bitter tears, even so caring for them was bitter.

Teresa worked that day till she thought her back would break, and in the end refused to go back to her quarters. She simply could not. Instead, she retired to the chapel, lit candles, and knelt to pray all night.

This time, with the image of a bright man in her mind’s eye, holding sword and wineskin.

Teresa had long ago learned to function on only a few hours of sleep; her spirit was stronger than her flesh, and if she was troubled in spirit, or wanted to seek after the Spirit who sustained hers, sleep would elude her. Her body ached with exhaustion as she dropped to her knees, but she knew she would not doze, even in the soft light of the candles. She lit incense and let its fragrance rise, beckoning her soul to join it.

She did not anticipate the vision, but it came. And changed everything in an instant.

* * *

Tildy met Teresa in the castle corridor as she hurried over the flagstones in the early morning intent on confronting Franz Bertoller. The girl looked worried, and she reached out to clutch Teresa’s arms as she spoke.

“Where are you rushing to, my lady?”

Teresa hardly looked at her. “I must speak with the lord.”

“But . . . now? Have you eaten?”

Teresa forced herself to focus on the girl in front of her. “Tildy, it’s all right. I have to speak to the lord. I can eat later. I’m all right.”

But the fear didn’t vanish from Tildy’s face even a little. She was white, and Teresa could see that she was shaking.

“Please, my lady,” she said, her voice strained, “it’s not . . . you shouldn’t . . .”

“Don’t be afraid,” Teresa said softly. Fixing her eyes on the girl’s face, she gently removed her arms from Tildy’s clutches and took her hands, assuring her that she would not rush away. “What is it?”

“I shouldn’t trust the lord,” Tildy blurted out. “You mustn’t . . . he . . .”

“Not here,” Teresa said, looking up and down the corridor. “Come with me, Tildy. Come and tell me what you want to tell me. What you’ve wanted to tell me all this time.”

The girl had tears in her eyes, but she nodded. Hand in hand, Teresa led her back out of the castle and to the chapel. Tildy crossed the threshold with a visible abundance of nerves, her eyes darting around the tiny place of worship. They fixed on the altar, and Teresa saw her go pale again.

“What is it?” she asked.

Tildy pointed to the cloth over the altar. “He died there,” she said woodenly.

“What? Who?”

“Can’t you see the bloodstains?” Tildy asked. “The old priest. The lord killed him there.”

Teresa felt the blood drain from her own face. She had noticed the stains—but she’d seen them as mud, as neglect, not as what they were.

“The lord killed the priest here, and he poisoned his own father on the same day,” Tildy said. “I remember the day, though I were only a small bairn.”

“I had no idea,” Teresa said.

But she knew something else. She wondered if Tildy shared this terrible knowledge too. The knowledge that she had been rushing to confront the lord over—the knowledge given to her in vision.

All this time, as drawn as she was to the Oneness and the Spirit, Tildy had resisted being Joined. She had always been afraid. And for the first time, Teresa understood why.

“Do you know?” Teresa asked quietly. “Do you know what else he is guilty of?”

“Aye, he killed all the Oneness,” Tildy said. “There were many in his father’s day. He hunted them down and killed them all.”

Teresa looked down, her stomach lurching.

She hadn’t known that.

“He only left this chapel standing to remind us,” Tildy said. “He threatens all with death who would become One. So you must forgive me for resisting you . . . I . . .”

“Forgive you!” Teresa cried. “Oh, Tildy, there is nothing to forgive. But you must not allow fear to keep you from the Spirit. The Spirit is life. Fear is death. Now that you know all these things, now that you have seen the power of the Spirit, you must reject fear and choose life.”

Tildy simply stared at her with wide, fearful eyes. “All the sick,” the servant girl said. “They are those who joined with him in his persecution of the Oneness, and their families. He made a covenant with them to destroy the Oneness and keep them out of our land. I do not understand why he brought you here.”

Why indeed?

“Then he has betrayed them,” Teresa said, deciding that Tildy did not know what the Spirit had shown her in the dark of the night. “For the disease is of his own making. As it was ten years ago, in my country. He has conjured it through his own dark power, through his alliance with demons. That is why it has returned. Because he took up arms against the Spirit and recalled the disease to this place.”

Tildy hugged herself, thin arms wrapped around thin body. “It is a great evil,” she said, wonderingly. “Can any power be so great?”

“You can answer that yourself,” Teresa said. “You saw the miracles yesterday. You have seen the Spirit in me. Is the power of darkness greater than what you have seen?”

“I do not think so,” Tildy whispered. “But is the Spirit not losing now?”

“No,” Teresa said. “Did you see him yesterday?”

“See the Spirit?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I did,” Teresa said. “In a waking vision. I saw a man shining like the sun, with a sword in one hand and a wineskin in the other. The wineskin spoke of healing, joy, and life; it was the source of the laughter that swept across the castle grounds as the healing went forth. But the sword—the sword spoke of battle and judgment. I tell you this, Tildy, whatever may come, the Spirit will not lose. He cannot. No doubt Bertoller intended that all who were healed yesterday should come back under the power of disease; that did not happen. Many have returned to their homes and others are still well even here. Only some have succumbed again. And you tell me many of these were in covenant with him against the Spirit?”

“All,” Tildy said. “They all.”

“Then we should not be surprised if there is a sword against them. I thank you for telling me all these things,” Teresa said. “And for warning me. But I must go to the lord and confront him for the evil he is doing. He cannot go unchallenged.”

“But you . . . why must you challenge him? He is not your lord.”

“But he fights against the power in me,” Teresa said, “against the Spirit I serve. And many years ago he attacked my own power as he learned to wield disease like a sword. He brought death where I tried to bring healing. He cannot simply go on unchecked.”

“But I am afraid he will kill you,” Tildy said.

Teresa smiled, refusing to show the fear that she felt—the certainty that Tildy was right and the degree to which she did not feel ready to face death. The knowledge that her premonitions about the man had been so right—and far more so than she had imagined—was nearly crushing. She questioned now her own motives in coming here, the idealist hope that she could somehow change him. But now that she was here, now that she knew what she knew, she had to confront him. There was simply no question about that.

For the first time, she was glad Niccolo had not come. Better that he was not here for this.

Still smiling, strong in front of Tildy, she said, “He may kill me. But my spirit will live on in the Spirit. And light has come to this place, Tildy—I do not think the darkness will be allowed to reign unchallenged again. Others will rise up to challenge its sway.”

She locked her gaze with Tildy’s so the girl could not look away. “Others. You. Don’t fight the Spirit, Tildy. Life itself is not worth more than he is. Until you have entered into his being, you are not alive. You must believe me.”

“I know you are right,” Tildy said. “I have felt it many times—that you are alive where we are only half so. The Spirit in you draws me, calls to me.”

“Then answer that call.”

“But he will kill all who do,” she said, bewildered. “More blood will stain this altar.”

“But not in vain,” Teresa said. “Never in vain.”

She turned, paused in the doorway of the chapel, and drew a deep breath that Tildy could not see or hear. She could not let her own fear show—not only because she did not want this girl on the verge of overcoming to see it, but because she knew that if she let it become visible, it would overcome her too.

She would run.

And she could not, would not, do that.

* * *

“Tom Sanders,” April said, sliding into the car next to Richard. “Shelley’s new boyfriend. Nick’s dad was in there—he thinks they’ll be with Tom Sanders.”

“And that would be . . .”

“Up the coast somewhere. Several days’ drive. He doesn’t know more than that.”

“Can you still feel him?” Richard asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, April.”

“For what?” She turned to regard her old friend. He looked drawn.

“That we didn’t keep better track of him. For his sake, and for yours. We should have paid more attention to your concerns.”

“Maybe,” April said, sitting back against the leather seat. “I don’t know. I worry too much. I just wish we knew where to find him.”

“A name is a start. I can trace that. Maybe even tonight, if he’s got a record or anything I can easily look up.”

April closed her eyes. The thought of Sanders having a record didn’t make her any happier. “Yeah.” She grimaced. “I was so sure he’d be here. Wishful thinking, I guess.”

Anger at Shelley rose up, sudden and violent, and she wished again for the fire of the Spirit burning in her. Why was it so dull? Why now? And how could Shelley do this—how could she be so selfish as to put her own son in danger, pulling him out of a happy home where he was safe and thriving for the first time in his life, all because she wanted the gratification of feeling like a mother—even if she was a terrible one?

Bile rose up in the back of her throat.

“Are you okay, April?” Richard asked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. This is all so close to home for me. I feel like it’s me out there. Only it’s worse, because I thought I could protect myself, and I don’t think Nick can.”

“Nick has something you didn’t. He has the Spirit.”

“I hope it does him good,” April muttered. “I have the Spirit too, but it’s not doing much for me at the moment.”

Richard looked at her curiously, but he didn’t say a word—just started driving. “I’m going to the office,” he said. “To try to look up our friend Sanders. You coming, or you want me to drop you back at the house?”

“I’m coming,” April said. She had no desire to go home now. Not without having found Nick. It would feel too much like failure, or like giving up.

But she grew angrier as they drove across the village to the legal office where Richard worked. Angrier, more lost, more unhappy. And she found as they drove that most of her anger was turning inward, to where the fire was supposed to be. To where the Spirit supposedly was, silent and inactive.

What kind of time is this to stop speaking? she asked. Why show up all the time when I don’t want you, and now that I do, drop me?

Hot tears stung at her eyes. She was a child again, a victim of a father’s violence and a mother’s neglect. Like fire and cold, heat and silence.

They pulled into the parking lot behind the office. Richard parked and then paused, his hands resting on the wheel, his head turned slightly in April’s direction but his eyes not actually looking at her—nonconfrontational but clearly having something to say. She waited for him to say it.

“Don’t be alone,” he said finally.

“I can’t help it,” she snapped.

“You might not be able to hear right now, but that doesn’t mean nobody’s there. You’ve still got the Oneness. I know the things you’ve experienced have been isolating you somewhat, but that doesn’t change what you are—what we are.”

“I appreciate that,” she said, although she found his words as annoying as reassuring.

She was the painter from the cave, the great saint who had encountered the Spirit in the womb of the world and set loose a fire of vengeance, deliverance, and power. She was one whose experiences no one else could understand or enter into, one who could bring a new kind of vision and life.

Did that mean she didn’t need the Oneness?

Or that she thought she didn’t?

Maybe Richard’s words rankled because he was right, and he was calling her out—gently—for her pride.

As she got out of the car and followed Richard into the office building, she sent up a prayer into the cold, dark sky. Okay! I’m sorry! I surrender . . . whatever it is that I’m doing wrong. Just please, please help me.

Richard flicked the office lights on, and April just wanted to collapse in an office chair and cry. Her legs and arms and hands and feet were so cold, and she felt empty. Beyond herself. Exhausted.

Richard unlocked a couple of filing cabinets and fired up the office computer while April watched, dull and hurting at the same time. Thoughts of Nick plagued her like an ache in her stomach.

She just wanted him to be okay.

While Richard searched through files, he started to hum. The melody was low and rich, and she recognized it as one he had hummed for years—just to himself, half under his breath, a part of who he was.

She closed her eyes and let his baritone sink into her soul.

The sound of a life changed. Her life changed. The sound of security and peace after a childhood of fear, where a man’s voice was always a frightening thing and music was always loud and blaring. The sound of slow years of healing and change, before the cave, before the hive, before the fire.

And there, curled up in a chair listening to Richard sing, she heard the Spirit again.

I was there, the still voice said. All those years. I was the song and the healer and the safety you knew.

But you scare me now, she said. I don’t understand you.

Then hang on to what you already know. I am not changed. I am only more than you thought when you first knew me.

Part of her wanted to ask—since the voice was talking now—where Nick was. But part of her didn’t. Part of her just wanted to sit here and listen to the Spirit and talk to him, because she realized that her anger had come from thinking she was abandoned.

And she had been wrong.

Anyway, although she couldn’t explain why or how she knew this, she realized that whatever this person-to-person relationship with the Spirit was, it didn’t guarantee getting answers. She wasn’t just going to be able to ask any question and immediately learn what she wanted to know. Even if the answer felt important to her.

Right now, it was good just to know that she wasn’t alone.

She sat and basked in that for a while, losing track of time. She snapped back into the real world when the office door opened to a mittened hand, and Mary walked in and took a seat beside her. Without a word, she reached over and gathered April’s hand in her own.

Only seconds later, Melissa and Alicia came through the door, and Diane, Chris, and Reese after them. Tyler was a few minutes later, but he came too. No one really said anything. They all just took their seats around the office and joined hearts and waited for Richard to say something. He looked up and smiled at each one who entered, but he didn’t say a word.

Half an hour later, Tony and Angelica spilled through the door and sat on the floor, the only space left, at Chris and Tyler’s feet.

April didn’t understand. She didn’t know why they were here or how they had known to come—especially the twins, who must have driven in. But her heart wanted to burst.

With the reality, the power of not being alone.

She closed her eyes and let herself feel the truth of the Oneness. The more she let herself go into it, the more fully she felt it all: the heartbeats, pulses, breath in lungs. Souls intertwined. Thoughts and feelings winding around each other. They were all veins in the same stream, the same blood pulsing through all of them. One body, one heart, one Spirit: Oneness. All being sought and known and shaped by the same Worker in the womb in the world.

And they were all going to find Nick, and bring him home, together.