In the Shadows of Fate

by Rick Jurewicz

  The sun was warming the air quickly that morning, and in the car ride to the church, Mr. Kowalski said that he wouldn't doubt it if they decided to have outdoor mass that day. There had not been rain for several days, so the bench pews would be dry and warm. Mr. Kowalski had arrived at the Shrine parking lot a little earlier than usual, fully expecting an outdoor mass at that time of the year to draw a huge crowd of tourists to the church, along with the local crowd.

  The Shrine is the home of one of the world’s largest crucifixes, with the statue of Christ on the cross being over 30 feet high upon the massive cross carved from a redwood tree. This mighty spectacle alone draws people from all over the world, flocking to gaze upon the awe inspiring bronze sculpture. On a sunny and warm day in late June, the numbers were sure to be high for those attending an actual mass before cross that morning.

  Miranda and the Kowalskis hurried over the busy highway from the parking lot across from the church. There were several different walkways down to the grounds where the outdoor mass was held. Miranda looked down at the reddish-brown brick pathway that they took, reading every four feet another persons name on a brick. Dr. and Mrs. Donald Green. The next one read In Loving Memory of Beatrice Warren. It went on and on along the way, all those who had donated money to make the pathway and grounds lush and beautiful. And they were truly beautiful.

  Tall maple trees and pines filled the spaces in between sidewalks and pathways that led to smaller monuments built along the way to honor saints and missionaries that once walked the lands of the north. The thick green of the trees allowed little flecks of sunlight to break through to the paved walk before them now. Up ahead, the trees parted and Miranda's eyes lit up in wonder at her first glimpse of the massive cross upon the mound beyond the two long rows of benches that faced the grey marble alter positioned down below the statue of Christ.

  Miranda stopped in her tracks at the first sight of the bronze Son of God, which caused a sudden disruption to the flow of foot traffic behind them. Mrs. Kowalski ushered Miranda on so they could find a seat, and Miranda began to follow along behind Jessica just as she had been doing before. Her eyes kept on going back to the face of the Man on the cross, and as she got closer, she felt a mild sense of trepidation. Miranda was certain, at least as much as she could be, that the eyes of the statue were fixed on her, watching her every move.

  The crowds grew more and more with every second gone by, and it almost seemed as if they were filing in from every path by the bus load. Jessica said something to Miranda, but she didn't hear what it was, not that Jessica even noticed. Miranda's eyes were just as much fixed on the statue as she felt the statues eyes were fixed upon her. Mrs. Kowalski noticed how Miranda stared at the cross, and smiled down at her.

  "He's beautiful, isn't He?" she whispered to Miranda.

  Miranda nodded her head slightly and then looked to Mrs. Kowalski.

  "Who is he?"

  "You don't know who that is?" asked Mrs. Kowalski, trying to dampen her sense of astonishment.

  Miranda shook her head.

  "That is Jesus," said Mrs. Kowalski.

  "He's God's son," Jessica interjected, before getting distracted again, fiddling with a pamphlet of some kind that she found beneath her seat.

  "Have you ever been to church before, Miranda?" asked Mrs. Kowalski.

  "No..." Miranda said, almost inaudibly as she noticed the two iron spikes that held the man to the cross. "Who did that to Him?"

  "People that were afraid of His teachings. Some of them were the religious leaders of the time. Some of them were people who didn't like the fact that people were calling Him a king. But I think most of all, it comes down to people who are just full of fear or full of greed."

  "What a terrible way to die," said Miranda, looking upward sadly at the cross.

  "He died for all of us, but then He rose from the dead. His Father took him up to Heaven, and He watches over all of us. That is why we are here. To praise Him and thank Him and to learn from Him through His teachings." Miranda looked at Mrs. Kowalski as she spoke, and then looked back at Jesus on the cross.

  The man in the robe on the shiny marble alter began to speak, and all soon became silent throughout the crowd.

  The mass lasted for just over an hour, and there was singing at times throughout the service, and there were also times when almost everyone in the crowd chanted the same things at the same times, and Miranda found it a little unsettling that everyone seemed to know what to say but her. Towards the end of the service, men and woman went out into the crowd and the people in the benches lined up to receive small, round white discs of some sort that they ate, and then they would return to their seats.

  Mr. and Mrs. Kowalski had Jessica stay with Miranda on the bench while they went up to get their little discs, and when they returned, Mrs. Kowalski told Miranda that the discs were little wafers that were like bread, and they represented the body of Jesus. Miranda said nothing to this, understandably, because it made no sense to Miranda why people would be eating the body of the Son of God. She pretended to understand, and Mrs. Kowalski once again gave her a soft and reassuring smile.

  "Now, we bow our heads and we pray," said Mrs. Kowalski.

  "What do you pray for?" asked Miranda.

  "People pray for all sorts of different reasons. It is simply just talking to God. Sometimes we pray to thank Him. Sometimes we pray for something we think that we need. Sometimes we pray for healing or forgiveness."

  Mrs. Kowalski bowed her head, and Miranda did the same. She didn't know much about praying. She had only once heard talk of prayer in her own home. She was five years old, and she remembered walking past her mother and father's bedroom, and she saw her mother kneeling on the floor with her arms rested and folded on the bed. There were tears in her eyes, and Miranda walked in and put her hand on her mother's shoulder. Even at the age of five, she was a sharp and perceptive little girl.

  "What's wrong, Mommy? Why are you sad?" Miranda asked her mother.

  Lorri wrapped her arms around her little girl, and sobbed even harder. Miranda hugged her back hard, and tears started to form in her own eyes, although she didn't even know why.

  "I was just saying a little prayer, baby, for your grandma," said Lorri, trying to gain some composure for Miranda, and for herself as well.

  "What's a prayer?" asked Miranda.

  "It's when we talk to God, when we need his help. Your grandmother is very sick, and she might not be around for very much longer," said Lorri, wiping the tears from her face.

  "Where is she going?" asked Miranda, looking sad and worried after hearing what Lorri said.

  "To Heaven, to be with God. I am praying that she gets better though. I want her to. I don't want her to go yet," said Lorri, holding her little girl's hand.

  "I don't want her to go, either, Mommy," said Miranda, hugging her mother tightly now. "I want to pray, too."

  "Okay, baby," said Lorri, squeezing her daughter tightly back. "We can pray together then."

  A week later, Miranda was in a church for the first and only time until that day with the Kowalskis, at her grandmother's funeral. And then, like now, as she prayed before the statue of Jesus on the cross, she wondered why it was that even after she and her mother prayed for her grandmother to get better, God didn't listen to them.

  Miranda stopped praying, and looked at the statue once more, and she saw those eyes looking at her once again. But this time, she saw something that no one else from that day would claim to see.

  "Why is he crying," Miranda asked, looking at the statue.

  Mrs. Kowalski looked around, but saw no one crying.

  "Why is who crying, Miranda?" asked Mrs. Kowalski.

  "Jesus. Why is he crying?"

  Mrs. Kowalski looked up at the statue, for a moment hoping to be witness to some sort of miracle. But there were no tears coming from the eyes of the mighty bronze statue.

  "Miranda," she whispered. "There is no one crying. Maybe you see the sunlight hitti
ng the face of the statue, and it might be playing with your eyes."

  Miranda said nothing more about it. She felt slightly embarrassed being the only person who saw what she was seeing, and she didn't understand why. But what she saw was no trick of the light. There were tears running down both sides of His face. It frightened her, and she was ready to leave.

  Mrs. Kowalski asked Miranda if she wanted to get up closer to the statue after the mass, but Miranda told her she wasn't feeling very well and asked if they could take her home now. Mrs. Kowalski looked concerned, and they took her right home after the mass.

  When they got to Miranda's house, she said goodbye to Jessica and very politely told Mr. and Mrs. Kowalski she had a nice time, and thanked them for taking her along. Mrs. Kowalski walked her to the front door and they met Lorri at the door. Lorri gave Miranda a hug and asked if she had a good time, and Miranda told her she did, but then quickly took her bags up to her bedroom. Mrs. Kowalski stayed for a few moments after Miranda went upstairs, and told Lorri what Miranda had said about not feeling well. She then went on to tell her how much of a delight she was to have with them, and how wonderful a little girl she was. Lorri smiled and thanked her, but was anxious to get upstairs to see that Miranda was alright.

  No sooner than Mrs. Kowalski had turned and walked away did Lorri head right upstairs to Miranda's room to check on her daughter. Miranda was playing with a raven haired doll that her aunt had bought her, sitting quietly on her bed.

  "Baby? Are you feeling okay? Mrs. Kowalski said you weren't feeling very well," asked Lorri.

  "I feel good, Mommy. I just wanted to come home," stated Miranda, taking no attention away from the doll in her hands.

  Lorri found Miranda’s actions strange, but finally just thought that perhaps after the long day that she had spent with the Kowalskis, she was overtired and needed some rest. She left Miranda alone to play with her doll, took care of her laundry, and went back to reading her book that she had been reading before Miranda got home.

  Miranda stayed in her room that afternoon, deep in thought. If God was there, and if He was listening, then why didn't He help her grandmother? Why did He let her and her mother suffer the way that they did? And why did He cry, up there on the cross? She had cried, and Lorri had cried, and it changed nothing.

  Miranda's initial fascination that morning had turned into a child's contempt for things that are usually far too complex for a child of her age to contemplate and realize. She decided that if God was truly there, He had stopped listening to people and their prayers probably a long time ago. That was a sense of reality that she had embraced from that moment forward, and had never bothered herself with thoughts of God and religion of any sort from then on.

  Until today.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jake and Miranda had been sitting in the car for several minutes in silence in the parking lot of the university's main building. Miranda had just stared out the passenger side window, seemingly lost in thought, while watching a seagull as it loitered a few feet outside the car waiting for something to be discarded out of the window. Jake was trying to be sensitive to the situation as much as possible, but staying still for too long, especially given the latest revelations to their predicament, wasn't something that he felt comfortable with.

  "Miranda," he said softly. "We need to figure out what we are going to do."

  Miranda knew that Jake most likely still wanted to go to the police. A few hours before, submitting to that wasn't an option for Miranda until she had figured out what it was that these people were most likely after. She knew what it was now that was written on these parchment pages, but it gave her no peace of mind at all. She felt empty and lost, and wished more than anything that she could call her dad and ask him for his advice. He was always so level headed, and always had so much confidence believing that in whatever she faced, she would make the right decisions and get through whatever came her way.

  But she knew that she could never hear her father's voice again, and for the first time in a long time, whatever sense of confidence that she had in herself - that strength that he instilled in her that would carry her through all obstacles that came before her whenever she had doubts about anything - seemed far beyond her reach. It was an unusual feeling for her, and it did not sit well with her.

  "What do you want to do, Miranda?" Jake asked her once more. His voice was calming in its tone, yet she could sense the uncharacteristic trepidation in it.

  "I don't know, Jake. I just...I can't think. Anywhere we go, I feel like we are putting more people in danger. I can't be responsible for anyone else getting hurt."

  "You are not responsible. None of this is your fault. Listen, we will do whatever you feel we need to do. But, can I make one suggestion?"

  "Go ahead," she said, almost imperceptibly nodding her head while looking down at her lap.

  "We need some time, and we need a plan, so let's find a place that we can lay low for a while. If we can find a way to expose these things to the public, let people know, and I mean a lot of people. TV - other media - at that point, the target will be taken off of you."

  "How are we going to do that? There aren't many people that can even make out what the parchments say or what they mean. We just talked to one of the only people that probably can tell anyone what they are, and now I probably put him in danger as well."

  Jake said nothing, and just stared ahead.

  "Okay. Then we'll disappear. We will go where no one can ever find us."

  "Jake, I can't ask you to do that," said Miranda.

  "You didn't."

  "You should just let me go," Miranda told him. "Get a bus ride home, go and tell the police everything, except that you came to Dr. Vikhrov with me. Tell Detective Rice I left you at a rest stop a hundred miles north. If these people think you don't know anything more than they are after me for something, then maybe they will leave you alone."

  "That's not going to happen," Jake said. "People like this; these fanatics...they'll stop at almost nothing when it comes to protecting their secrets. They won't let anyone get by that might be a threat to them or their beliefs. We hear about this stuff almost every day on the news. Suicide bombings. Public executions. All in the name of whatever higher power they believe in. And even more so, I am not going to let you run away alone and not be there to help you. Never again."

  "So what then? Give up your life and your dreams just to hide with me forever?"

  "If that's what it takes, then yes," he said, trying not to lose himself in the moment and let his heart overpower his head.

  Miranda looked at him with a strange sadness in her eyes. She could almost feel it, like a warmth running through her being, the depth of caring he had for her, and it made her feel even worse. She did not feel the love for him that he felt for her. She did care for him very deeply as well, but whatever they once had was long past. It was up to her to find another path, and not to get Jake any more caught up in it than she already had gotten him.

  "Dr. Vikhrov said there were people working on both sides of this prophecy. We need to get somewhere where we can buy some time and find some resources to try and find out which side it is that is coming after us for it, and who they might be," said Miranda.

  "And then we try to figure out who the other side is," said Jake, following where Miranda's thinking was going. "Do you think whoever is on the other side might help us?"

  "I guess it can't get any worse than where we are now. They can either help us, or they'll try and kill us as well. Let's just hope there is such a thing as a balance between good and evil. If the bad ones are the ones trying to kill us for the Oraclum, then maybe the other side will help us."

  "Unless one side or the other is just the lesser of two evils," said Jake. A thought came to Jake as he said this. He remembered a campfire story his favorite uncle told him as a kid when he camped with him at a lake north of Traverse City years before. It was a frightening story that he couldn't quite remember, but the "lesser of t
wo evils" comment he had just uttered reminded him of the story, and more importantly, of his uncle.

  "Do you remember my Uncle Jim? He's not a blood uncle, but I have known him since I was born. He has a vacation cabin about an hour north of Chicago on a small lake. I don't think anyone could make the connection between us if we could get there, and it would be a good place to get off the radar and start trying to find out who we need to talk to for help. I know where he keeps the key, and he told us we can use it whenever we wanted to. Our only problem is getting there. We have just over $200 left between us, and we can't use the credit cards or it will make a trail."

  Miranda thought about the money problem. She didn't know what they would need when they got to where they were going. She also couldn't say how long it would take to find all the information they would need to try and track down who else might want the Oraclum that may be able to help them…if, in fact, such others were still even out there.

  "There is one thing we can do. I hate doing it. I don't want anyone else close to me involved, but I think we've run out of other options. I will need to call my roommate at South Central. She can loan us whatever cash we need. I feel like shit having to ask though."

  "Is she hard to get along with?" asked Jake.

  "No. Lydia...she's an angel. She is...well, beside you...she's my best friend. I would do anything for her, and she would do the same for me. That's what makes this so damn hard. I don't want to put her in any danger as well."

  "If we play this right, no one will ever have to know," said Jake. "How much time would she need to get the cash?"

  "I wouldn't think too long. She has access to all of her family bank accounts and trusts at school," said Miranda.

  "Trusts?"

  "She comes from a wealthy family. She doesn't act like it though. She wants to prove herself on her own."