My clothes were folded neatly on my bed, in piles, when I got back to my room. They were separated by color, whites together, darks together, jeans together. It looked as if she’d ironed everything. My shirts hung neatly on hangers in the closet. They were crisp and sharp, as if they’d been dry-cleaned. I was putting things away when Cora came to get me for Bible study. I dreaded it but I couldn’t think of a good excuse to get out of it, so I followed her to the main house, dutifully.
She seated me in a parlor off the main hallway in the downstairs of the house. I hadn’t seen it before; it was probably one of the many rooms she kept locked. The room was small by the standards of this house; about fifteen feet square. The walls were lined with book shelves. The remnants of a gun rack hung above a fireplace that was outlined in stained dark brick. Several caramel colored leather chairs had been pulled close together.
Cora took a seat in one and quickly became engrossed by the pages. She glanced up several seconds later. “I assume you didn’t bring one with you?” I shook my head. “Look on the shelf.’ She pointed to the wall. “There should be some Bibles there.
I stood in front of the shelves full of books. They looked worn, old and tattered. There were collections of poetry, Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats and volumes about Civil War history but I didn’t see any Bibles. I waited for some direction.
“Third shelf from the bottom on your left.” She had been watching me.
I pulled a dark blue Bible from its place and took a seat in my assigned chair.
“We’re going to start with the parables in the chapter of Luke,” she said, but she didn’t have my full attention. Every nerve in my body was tingling. This had been Nick’s Bible. He’d written his name on the inside cover in neat childhood lettering,
“We are going to start with chapter 6:27.” She started reading.
I didn’t care about Luke. I was flipping through the pages, looking at faded pencil marks in some of the margins. The pages seem to want to open to one particular chapter. The Epistle of James. I was transfixed. Nick, for some reason, had drawn all over the edges of the pages. Violent doodles and boxes marred the edges of every page. He had underlined occasional passages so heavily that it almost broke through to the other side.
Cora looked up at me. “Are you listening, Mackenzie?”
“Yes, yes.” I said turning to the chapter of Luke. She looked back down.
“I want to go on through chapter 9 and then we’ll talk about it?” She went on.
I had my head down and pretended to be listening but my mind was racing. Other than a few notes here and there, the Epistle of James was the only one that appeared marred. She droned on and on. Her voice was dull and as monotonous as her expression. I was bored and excited at the same time.
“Do you want to read the next line?” she asked me. I’d lost my place. My eyes scanned the page quickly. I had no idea what she had just said.
I took a stab at it. “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light. Luke 8:17.” I read the passage and looked up. She was staring at me, or rather, through me.
“Is there something hidden that you want to bring to light, Mackenzie?” Her eyes were as cold and flat as a doll’s. I felt my throat constrict
I could feel my skin flush. “Do you mind if I take this back to my room?” I closed the book and went to the door afraid to wait for an answer.
“But I tell you truly there are some standing here who will taste death and will see the kingdom of God.” I looked over my shoulder. She was staring into the fireplace. Her voice was soft, as if directed nowhere. I might not have heard her at all had I not been standing so close.
‘What?” I said turning around.
“Luke 9:27.”
My whole body was shivering when I opened the door and went out into the hallway.
I sat on my bed with the Bible in my hand. I turned to the Epistle of James and studied the doodles. They were drawn haphazardly all over the margins, and went in every direction. There were no words, just drawings, scribbles, and violent geometric patterns. I turned every page in the chapter; each was the same.
He had underlined four verses. It looked as if he had taken a dull pencil in his fist and pressed it to the page over and over. The first passage read: Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. 1:15.
I moved on to the next passage. Part of it had been obliterated by his pen. The rest of the passage read …of daily food and one of you says to them ‘depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 2:15, 2:16. I scanned down the page.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. 5:2 I laughed a little, remembering the closet last night and the stench of moth balls.
This last passage was so violently attacked by his pencil it had been eliminated from the page. The verse numbers around it were, 5:5 and 5:7. I had to find a Bible and see what it was about passage 5:6 that had inspired Nick to destroy this page, this book.
I dropped the Bible onto the bed and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. The brush was pushed all the way to the back of my mouth, minty gel ready to spill out of the corner of my mouth when it hit me. The brush and froth dropped from my mouth into the sink, I raced back to the Bible.
The Epistle of James. Find James. Nick had written James 5:6 on the paper in the envelope. “What is the connection, Nick?”