More bits and pieces of conversation bombarded his ears. Josiah became more certain that what had destroyed his own home, and his family so many years before, was here.
“Why here, O God? Why now?”
His strength waned. Josiah sat down on a bench. Behind the bench a sign read, “Cassie's Salon.” A 60-ish woman, just coiffed and smelling like salon chemicals, swept out of the salon's glass and wood door.
“Cassie never says a bad word about anyone. What a lamb!” the older woman was saying to someone who had caught the door to walk out behind her.
“Yes. Although, sometimes I wonder why she's so good and her life is such a wreck. Husband left her, estranged from her parents. Why would that happen to such an amiable and kind person?”
“Don't know. It is a shame.”
Both women continued down Main, their conversation melting into the loud buzz on the street.
Josiah knew all things were not as they seemed. And people in particular were not as they seemed.
“The hidden secrets destroy our souls,” he whispered. Not so long ago, or maybe very long ago, he had been a drinking, laughing, jovial man who came home to a wife and children every night after he relaxed at the local bar.
“Nice fellow,” all his drinking friends said of him. He smirked. They had not known.
He presented a kind persona to all that knew him. All but his own family, of course.
“With them, I was as mean-spirited and evil as I had pretended to be pleasant and affable to my buds,” he lamented. Josiah wiped a tear from his eye.
The day of his home's destruction, he was not there. It was much more important to be celebrating his big raise and flirting with Jane, the town's most available young woman. He was on top of his world. An hour later, hell on earth paid a visit to his small hometown.
Josiah wiped back the angry tears and stood up. “What's done is done.” He pressed on toward the church.
Convincing Pastor Lucas would not be easy. It was never easy to speak of the spiritual realm in concrete terms. Not so long ago, his view of God and a spiritual world was agnostic, at best.
“Been there, done that, bought that wardrobe.” Josiah winced at the sad memory of one of his wife's many euphemisms.
Josiah's advantage was knowledge. He was aware that Lucas was already fighting a battle with evil that clothed itself as light and a friend of God. He just needed to convince Lucas of that fact.
Josiah took in the small, mom-and-pop shops of Ravens Cove as he walked up Main toward Birch. There was the all-important General Store, which sold everything from bolts to TVs. Through the window, he could see a food aisle on the left—better check the expiration date.
The library sat across the street, the largest and newest building he had seen so far. It was at the town's center amid dead-looking birch, mountain ash, and willow trees of late-autumn.
“Knowledge is a pride to this small town,” he mused. “I wonder if wisdom is as well.” For the town's sake, he prayed so.
Next to the library, almost joined to it, was the town hall, filling in the rest of the town center. Except for the library, this was the most ornate building in town. Two lions sat on either side of a large, arched doorway. Its grey concrete exterior made it almost oppressive. Large, Greek-style planters sat in front of the lions, a few geraniums still fighting to maintain their scarlet colors, but losing the battle to the cold days and even colder nights. The crimson blooms underscored the coldness of the structure, giving it a most sinister look.
A place to investigate further. It was not just the look. It was a feeling. He could imagine how the green trees and beautiful flowers of spring and summer disguised the building's oppressiveness. But just as light throws truth on what lies in the shadows of night, the bareness of October exposed the structure's personality. That building had a power of its own and dwarfed the larger structure to its right.
Josiah took his eyes off city hall, and focused his attention on the rest of the street. People milled in front of the hardware store. Josiah imagined that it housed the essential odds and ends needed to keep a home or business in decent repair during the long winter to come. A bookstore with a coffeeshop was next. The aroma drifted back to Josiah on the light breeze as a customer opened the door, pulled on his coat, and started up Main.
Josiah shivered. The breeze was cool, but his senses discerned something much more sinister in the air. His step quickened. Time was shorter than he had first thought. He had caught the unmistakable stench of iron and blood in that wind. A malicious snigger assaulted his mind's ear. He made a quick turn to his right and froze.
There, two storefronts ahead, a dark cloud oozed in a square mist from the minuscule area around the doorjamb of the blacked-out front door. The black fog began to take form. It stood on two semitransparent limbs, like a man coming out from a crouch, and first walked, drifted, then walked again until it disappeared up Main. Josiah looked at the sign over the blackened door. “Adults Only!” it shouted in bold, red lettering. Centered below the scarlet lettering was even larger, black lettering that read, “The Trash Bin: Occult and New Age. Adult Entertainment Section.” Josiah turned back to Main and followed the dark being up the street.
Where it stopped first shocked, then struck a vibrating terror through him. It hovered at the door of the Congregational Alliance Church—right beside a placard that stated, “We love all of you! Those who believe are saved, no matter your lifestyle. Come, join us!”
Josiah slowed his pace to study the blackness that crowded the church's door. He watched as a mid-30s, red-haired, ruddy-skinned man walked through the foreboding shadow to unlock the church door. A wide smile replaced the grim, serious mouth in a flash. At the same time his neck rose, stiff, as if he looked down on this world and no one knew better than he. Then he walked through the door.
“Is he lost, Lord?” No answer. Not surprising. The answers were not at Josiah's command. More often than not they came later rather than earlier in his missions.
Josiah made a start toward the long stairs to the church. He wanted to warn those inside of the destruction hanging over the place.
An unseen hand pushed on his chest, strong and gentle. The command coursed through his heart. “No, Josiah! This is not part of your battle!” Josiah hesitated, and then turned, fighting with every thread of his being to obey.
For the third time in a day, tears welled up in his topaz-blue eyes, spilling in silence down his weathered, lined cheeks. Memories and emotions flooded his mind. He smelled the burning flesh, and saw their deformed bodies. He grasped his elbows in both hands, bent over and dry-heaved. He had been too late in so many ways.
“Why, Lord, must I wait? You can make me invincible so that I can kill the thing that has killed my heart. Why must I continue to live and not have vengeance?” His foot was in midair, ready to stomp the concrete. He stopped short, and stood like a pelican in the water.
“Too old,” he muttered, “sure as life, I'd fracture something, and then who'd have a good laugh?” He smiled at the impetuousness; an older body and a youthful mind were always in conflict.
“I know, Lord, vengeance is Thine,” he whispered, and bowed in reverence to God.
His meeting with Pastor Lucas took on more urgency, and he quickened his pace.
Uniform, white, homes with dark shutters replaced his view of the church building.
“Little houses on the hillside,” he began to sing, remembering the old song about all houses being the same and made of ticky-tacky.
The town fell behind and the sidewalk ended, giving way to a rudimentary pathway, full of dips and holes. He opted for a brush-covered, one-lane gravel road because it looked less hazardous than the path. He observed several driveways that went nowhere. They sliced into the thick brush, and ended ten feet in.
“Abandoned hopes or hopes for the future?” he wondered aloud.
Even in late-autumn, the green grass was tenacious and pushed its way through dead and crackling le
aves. The surrounding vegetation bent low under the weight of the night's frost where no sun had warmed it.
Just as Josiah began to think that Katrina had sent him on a wild-goose chase, he saw a small, dirty-white structure in the distance. He recognized it from his dreams. The dreams that directed him to travel to Ravens Cove, so far from his home in what the locals here called the “Lower 48.”
He proceeded up the paint-chipped but strong wooden steps to a porch in similar disrepair and made of the same sturdy wood. It looked to be about the same size, and from the same era, as most of the houses he had seen in Ravens Cove. What differentiated it from the others were the words over its door, “Let all who enter here, enter to find salvation in the Truth, the Way and the Life, Jesus Christ.” Josiah smiled, and said a silent prayer that God go before him so he, Josiah, would speak God's truth to this pastor, this shepherd for the Most High.
Chapter 2
David and Goliath
Paul Lucas had spent a fitful night, a night full of violent visions and unseen foes. At 4 a.m. he tiptoed from his dresser to his closet, aware of any movement that would alert his resting spouse. Continuing in stealth-mode, he sneaked down the stair and managed to avoid the one that protested in a tone that was loud enough to wake the dead. The front door secure, Paul headed down the outdoor steps, and arrived at the small church that he had poured his heart and soul into over the past several months.
He was under attack by the Congregational Alliance, the Right Reverend Plotno and his “Elders.” His own congregation was questioning the Word of God and he didn't know why. His shoulders slumped in weariness. Paul prayed, “precious Jesus, grant me courage. Let my heart be at peace. You told us to give You our burdens. I feel like I have, Lord. So, why I am so weary? Was I wrong to come to Ravens Cove? Did I just imagine that You wanted me to come here?”
Paul sighed, then continued, “forgive me, God. I am a sinner and human; I am dust and I find comfort in the fact that You know it and love me anyway. Help me to do Your will, O God. Help me, please.”
The door squeaked open, reminding Paul of the need to oil it. The morning sun bathed the makeshift pews in golden light. Paul turned toward it and squinted into the brightness.
A man who looked to be in his 70s, or then again maybe in his early 50s, walked through his door, purpose guiding his steps.
“Reverend Lucas.” Josiah held out his hand as he walked up to Paul.
Probably another of the Right Reverend's parishioners sent to discourage and maybe threaten me. Anger colored his cheeks. He stood rigid, both hands at his side.
“Not a reverend but a minister of God.” Paul answered. He had never attended seminary, as had the Right Reverend Plotno, who used any instance to remind Paul and others of this “failing.” Paul's studies were through a Bible College in his hometown of Missoula and that by correspondence course. The self-doubt that plagued Paul rose to the surface.
“You aren't a real minister,” the voice whispered through his mind. “You're a fake; if people knew, they'd send you packing!”
Shame reared its ugly head, and his confidence plummeted to a new low. He should have stayed in Missoula and worked the ranch. He knew how to do that and had more than enough experience to be an expert there.
“What can I do for you Mr …?”
“Williams.” Josiah continued to extend his hand, “but, please call me Josiah.”
“What can I do for you Mr. Williams?” Second time today a person did not take his offer of friendship. Josiah sighed and lowered his hand.
“I come on most urgent business. I have been sent to help you.”
Cynicism replaced shame. Paul had also heard this before. The last time someone was sent to help him, he'd offered Paul a large sum of money for him to leave Ravens Cove and never return. It hadn't worked then and it wasn't going to work now!
“I don't need the kind of help you're offering, Mr. Williams. Please leave. I have work to do.”
“I have never come to offer you help before. I am here to talk to you about a matter of great import—a matter of life and death! We must speak. I have been sent by God!” Now that did sound much worse than Josiah had hoped.
Lord, are you guiding me here?
Paul believed it a more authentic scenario that this Josiah Williams represented a new attack by the CA'ers. Have the Bible thumper become involved with a loony commanded by God.
“I do not believe you. Go to the Right Reverend and tell him this plan won't work either. Now, again, please leave!” Paul was more emphatic this time.
Josiah stood in silence, not taking his eyes off Paul. Paul was caught for a moment in those eyes that were so clear, so transparent. They reminded him of the rich blue of the sky on a crisp, cold, Ravens Cove day. He shook his head.
Josiah took a deep breath, “I do not know a Right Reverend. I do know a humble Jewish carpenter who is my King, who told me to come to this church in this town.”
Paul wavered. Maybe this man wasn't a CA underling. Just maybe he was who he said.
“You may be who you say you are and God forgive me if I am wrong. If you are not associated with the Congregational Alliance then you do not know how I have battled to establish this humble church in this town. If you are associated with them, then you know all too well the slander and schemes I have endured in the past months. I am a prudent man, Mr. Williams. I will not help to disparage my family and this church. Now, please go!”
Josiah sighed again, heavier this time. “What now, O God?” The answer came before he had finished the prayer. “Come back tomorrow; he will understand more by then.”
Josiah turned to Paul. “I will return tomorrow. God bless your day with truth and understanding.”
“I'd rather you didn't.”
Paul watched Josiah stride to the entrance and open the door. The noonday light outlined Josiah's frame with a bright silhouette. He watched as the older man placed the well-worn, black hat on his head, but not until he had cleared the threshold. As the door closed, Paul caught a glimpse of a second man standing so close to Josiah they could have been one. His height dwarfed the old man's tall frame. An electric-blue light swirled and danced with each man's movement.
Paul shook his head from side to side to clear his vision. Just what I need, to start hallucinating angelic beings!
A whisper with the strength of a thousand stallions plowed through the cynicism that had taken root in his heart. “Not a hallucination, Paul, but a vision.”
Relief and hope flooded Paul. As quickly as they rose he pushed the feelings from his consciousness. Where had hope gotten him? He had come to Ravens Cove full of a small child's optimism. He had learned the devastation of crushed hopes and innocence born from the naïve belief that all who professed to love Jesus Christ were telling the truth. No, he would not make that mistake again.
The Right Reverend Plotno was humming a happy tune in his grand church, his kingdom, as he liked to think of it. He knew he was on the right track. That feeling that came over him on the way into the church door this morning proved it.
To make the day even better, he had heard from his favorite parishioner, the luscious Anita Conner. Stop, Plotno. You are a married man!—as if that small fact had ever kept his libido in check. He felt his manhood rising at the thought of her. His favorite spy had reported to him on the dreadful Paul Lucas.
“He's wearing down, Right Reverend. I went to one of his services, as you requested.” Her nose wrinkled above her mouth as she grimaced in distaste. “So few there.” she grinned as she reminisced. “The ones that were there are ancient and can't even stand up for the worship songs.” She sniggered. How she hated that place! Anita always left feeling guilty and condemned. Relief flooded her as she realized that nightmare was over!
She didn't tell Plotno that there were a few faces she had not seen before in church that Sunday, younger ones, with small children playing at their feet or in the chairs next to them. She wouldn't tell him about the new members
—that would upset him. And she wanted nothing to upset him.
Anita knew that Plotno obsessed over ridding the town of Paul Lucas. “That man's a fanatic and a danger to my people,” he said as he paced back and forth in front of the altar. He stopped, and turned blazing eyes to Anita.
“All he does is make people feel guilt and shame over accepting each other's actions. So what if people embrace adultery and worship angels or nature? Jesus was a wise man, well known for his radicalism 2,000 years ago. What makes that any different from our congregation's practicing what used to be taboo and is now tolerated, even accepted, by society?”
To Plotno, Jesus’ message was outdated. Sin and condemnation were man's way of controlling man. Love meant acceptance. It meant complete tolerance. Love always felt good because pleasure and love are synonymous. There was no sin.
“The man doesn't look like he's sleeping well, Reverend. Big circles under his eyes and deep lines on his young face.” Her voice fluctuated in a mock tune, “can't be good.”
Anita raised smoldering, hooded eyes to Plotno's cold, grey-black ones. She longed to dive into his arms and watch those cold eyes turn warm as she nuzzled into his neck. Plotno held her gaze for a moment and then turned it to the stained-glass window that sent rainbows of color into the sanctuary.
Seminary had taught about forgiveness but there was none for Paul Lucas. He taught the wrong message, one that would destroy any church—all are saved by faith not by works. Lucas quoted nonstop from the Bible.
“Pfft,” escaped Plotno's lips. Why would people attend a church, unless it was to ensure salvation? Plotno believed as long as a congregation followed his instructions they could not go to hell. All they had to do was attend church services every Sunday and Wednesday and give as much money to the Congregational Alliance as they could, then they would be saved.
He turned his attention back to Anita. “That is good news.”
He caressed her arm, sending a thrill through her whole body that brought instant color to her cheeks.
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