She stood silently in the doorway, watching, until she found what she was looking for.
John, wearing a white jade ring on the middle finger of his left hand.
Her parents, wearing matching white jade necklaces.
Two pairs of footsteps on the hardwood floor of the hallway. Heavy and light.
Rich set his fingers on the keyboard of the PC and stared intently at the green words on the top half of the screen, as though he'd been doing so all along. He felt Corrie's presence behind him even before seeing the blur of white movement in the glare of the VDT, even before her shadow fell across his papers. He typed a sentence that he had no intention of using but that would seem legitimate if read over his shoulder.
Corrie stood, silent, waiting, trying to force him to be the first to speak, but it was Anna as usual who unwittingly broke the stalemate.
"We're going to church, Daddy." Her small soft hand grabbed his neck.
She kissed his unshaven cheek, giggled at the roughness.
"That's good."
"Are you coming with us?" Corrie asked.
He turned toward her, shook his head, motioned toward the PC. "I have to finish this article. If I don't get it done today, there's going to be a big hole on the front page."
She looked at him blankly, saying nothing. He was embarrassed by the obviousness of his excuse and wanted to look away, but he forced himself to meet her gaze. They'd been playing this game for a long time. When they'd first gotten married, he'd told her that he wasn't a churchgoer, but she'd said that if he really loved her he'd go with her. She said that sometimes she did things she didn't want to do because he wanted to do them, and that he should do the same for her. So he'd gone. Then Anna had come along, and they'd both agreed that it would be good for the child to go to church. But gradually, over the years, he'd begun worming out of his Sunday morning duties, pleading work, fatigue, sickness. He'd started going every other week, but when the pattern had become too obvious he'd varied it, attending two weeks and missing the next, attending one week and missing the next two.
These days, he hardly ever went to church at all.
It had nothing to do with religion, really. It was church itself. He just couldn't help feeling that he was wasting his Sunday mornings by going to services. Sunday mornings were for eating waffles and lying around, reading the
Republic and listening to music. Not sermons.
Not the Pastor Clan Wheeler. '
That was a big part of his refusal this morning. Now that she was Wheeler's secretary, Corrie felt obligated to attend his services It was not an obligation he shared. The Methodist church had been bad enough, but testicle hooks could not drag him to one of Wheeler's sermons. He could think of nothing worse than spending his only real day off sitting on an uncomfortable bench with a bunch of self-righteous strangers listening to a hellfire and-brim stoner tell him that he was damned for eternity. He would rather stay home and work.
"Come with us, Daddy," Anna pleaded. "You haven't to church with us for a long time." gone
"That's okay. He has more important things to do." Corrie took Anna's hand to lead her from the room.
He did not dignify that dig with a response, but smiled and blew Anna a kiss. "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll be here when you get back. And if I finish my article in time, we'll go out for ice cream." - : : ': :
"Yeah! Ice cream!"
Corrie glared at him. "Come on," she said. "We'll be late."
He watched the two of them walk out of the room, Anna bouncing and happy, Gorrie determinedly flat footed and grim. What the hell was wrong with him? He knew Corrie hated it when he wasted money taking Anna out for ice cream: Why had he so purposefully and deliberately baited her? He sighed, staring blankly at the screen. He wasn't sure.
They'd had a right last night, a fairly big one, but when they'd awakened this morning the wounds seemed to have healed. They'd kissed, almost made love, probably would have had Anna not been awake already.
But something had gone wrong during breakfast, something had changed, shifted, something he could not quite put his finger on. He had sunk deeper into the words of the Republids sports section, Corrie had prepared the food in silence, and the two of them had spoken only to Anna, who had continued to chatter away, blissfully unaware of the change in atmosphere.
The front door slammed shut. He saw twin movements of white, big and little, on the porch.
Corrie did look good in her Sunday dress, he had to admit. He felt a twinge of regret that he had not told her so. In the old days, if he'd thought what he was thinking now, he would have acted on it, running outside, dragging her back into the house, throwing her over the back of the couch, flipping up her dress, pulling down her panties, and taking her from behind.
And she would have let him.
But now... :
Now things were different.
He watched through the window as Corrie led Anna across the driveway to her car.
When had it become her car? And his truck? When had they started assigning individual ownership rights to their joint property? Or had they always done so? He couldn't remember.
He watched his wife and daughter get in the car, close their doors, buckle up, and drive away. Anna waved at him as they left. Corrie did not even look in his direction.
He hadn't really lied to Corrie. He did have a lot of work to do. She knew that. He had to coordinate her columns as well as do his usual work. And there'd been a lot of news the past few weeks. He wished she would be a little more sympathetic.
The girl from his journalism class was supposed to come in tomorrow, and that would definitely help out the production side of the paper--she seemed bright, and he had no doubt that she would quickly pick up the technical aspects of typesetting and paste up---but he did not yet know if she could write. When she'd called on Friday, he'd asked her to bring in a writing sample, and she'd said she would try to dig something up, but it sounded to him as though whatever writing experience she'd had had been in high school.
Rich picked up his notepad from the top of the desk and glanced at the notes he'd jotted down. The top story was going to be Mike Vigil. The truck driver was still missing, although his rig had been found on the highway some forty miles out of Casa Grande. Rich just needed to call the DPS for a current status report, and then tap Robert for a few local police quotes.
Robert, he knew, was pissed at him. Although his brother had never before attempted to interfere with the content of the paper, he hadn't wanted Rich to run the story on the dead mice and had actually asked him to pull it. Rich had almost caved in on this one. With all of the vampire talk, he, too, was afraid of starting a panic, and he could definitely see the issue from his brother's point of view. But he hadn't bought the argument that the story would jeopardize the investigation into Manuel Torres's death, and he'd finally decided that it was interesting and offbeat enough to be newsworthy. He'd compromised, placing the article on the second page and treating it as a feature, but Robert still hadn't liked it.
Hell, Rich thought, it was a good story. He stood by his decision to run it. If the paper subscribed to one of the wire services, it probably would're been picked up by now. Besides, despite what Robert had predicted, there'd been no panicmalthough the tourist value of the arroyo had gone up considerably since publication of the article. For the past two days, small groups of people, mostly teenagers, had made pilgrimages to the site and had been combing the surrounding area trying to find their own mysteriously murdered animals.
Rich hadn't spoken to his brother since the paper had come out, had thought it best to wait and let Robert call him first. Now he wondered if he should call Robert at home for a quote, or call him later in the day at the sta He wondered if his brother would give a quote at all.
He put down the notepad and picked up his empty coffee cup, heading into the kitchen for a refill. The front of the house still smelled of breakfast: syrup and peanut butter, buttermilk waffles and jam. Corrie had washe
d, dried, and put away the dishes, but the waffle iron sat cooling on the counter, drying drips of batter decorating its lower half.
He put the waffle iron in the cupboard beneath the sink and poured himself the last cup of coffee. The house was quiet, the only sounds his own, and for a second he wished he'd accompanied Corrie and Anna to church. Then he reminded himself that he would have had to listen to Wheeler rant for an hour and was instantly reassured that he'd made the right decision.
He walked into the living room, turned on the stereo, put an old Jethro Tun album on the turntable, and went into the bedroom to call Robert.. :
The church was filled, the street outside lined with cars and trucks, the pews inside, nearly all taken. Corrie stood in the entrance, holding tightly to Anna's hand, looking for a place to sit. She was surprised by the size of the congregation. She had not realized that the Church of the Holy Trinity was so popular. She'd come here today because she worked for the church and thought it part of her responsibilities to attend Sunday services. In the back of her mind, she'd also half-thought that she would be doing Pastor Wheeler a favor.
He seemed so... awkward with people, so standoffish, that she found it hard to believe that he had much of a following. It was a shock to discover that there were more people at this single early service than there had been at all the combined services at the Methodist church.
No wonder Wheeler wanted to expand the building. She thought of her old church, of Pastor Franklin giving his benign sermon in his benign way to a half-empty chapel, and she immediately felt guilty. Maybe she should explain to Pastor Franklin why she was now attending the Church of the Holy Trinity. She did not know the pastor well, had never spoken to him on a one-to-one basis except at the obligatory palm-pressing at the end of each service, but he'd always seemed to her to be a kind, gentle, and rather fragile old man, and she felt the need to let him know that she was now attending another church, not because of anything he had done or because of any lack in his sermons but because she had gotten a job as Pastor Wheeler's secretary.
Maybe she should attend services at both churches.
She felt Anna tugging at her sleeve, and she looked down.
"There's a seat, Mommy. See? Next to that fat woman?" "Shhh," she admonished her daughter.
There was indeed a section of empty pew near an overweight elderly woman in a loud floral print dress, and Corrie led Anna down the carpeted aisle. She felt very conspicuous as the two of them walked through the center of the church, almost like an intruder, though she knew that the church was open to everyone. She did not know why she hadn't insisted that Rich come with them. If he had time to take Anna out for ice cream later this afternoon, he had time to go to church now. But that was just like him. He didn't stop to think that this was her first day at a new church and that she might like some moral support, a hand to hold as she entered this building filled with strangers.
She knew that, though. She knew what he was like. And, after all these years, she should have known that if she wanted him to do something, she had to come right out and say it. He never figured it out on his own. He never would ..... That was the main problem with their marriage. Miscommunication. A stubborn unwillingness on both their parts to adapt to each other's ways of doing things.
She could have and should have come right out and asked him to go with her and told him why. She could have brought it up yesterday or last night. He would have come. But some vain, quixotic, and hopelessly idealistic part of her had made her hold out, to see if this time he would volunteer on his own. And another part of her had relished the thought of taking him to task for not doing what she wanted him to do, even though she knew ahead of time that he wouldn't do it.
God, why was everything so complicated?
She sat down next to Anna. There was no hymnal in the rack on the back of the pew in front of them, no book at all, only xeroxed sheets of paper stapled together. She glanced at the people sitting about her.
She recognized a few faces, people she'd seen and did not know, but there was not a single friend or acquaintance in the congregation.
Anna tugged at her sleeve again. "Look at the cross," she whispered, pointing.
Corrie looked. She'd been in the church every day since being hired, but she'd spent her time in the office and had not really taken the opportunity to examine its interior before. Now her gaze strayed to the huge wooden cross displayed on the wall above the pulpit. Far from being merely an ornamental symbol, a sculptural representation of the Crucifixion, the huge wooden cross looked as though it could be instantly pressed into service.
It was nearly twice the size of a man and, though resting on the floor, reached almost to the ceiling. She shivered.
There was something about the cross that didn't seem right, something in the proportion of its sections or the luster of its wood that made her uncomfortable.
She turned her attention away from the cross, to the stained glass windows, finding solace in the familiar normalcy of their colored designs.
"Mommy," Anna whispered, "I think it's starring."
"Yes," Corrie said.
The congregation grew hushed, murmurs fading into whispers, then trailing off into silence as Pastor Wheeler entered through the vestibule. Corrie was unfamiliar with the specific rituals of this denomination, but she'd been to enough Sunday services in enough churches that she knew what to do and when to do it. She and Anna stood with everyone else for the invocation, bowed their heads to pray, stood politely when it was time to sing.,- :
Then Wheeler began his sermon
He stood at the pulpit, Bible in hand, and scanned the faces of his congregation. His eyes passed over Corrie, and he smiled at her. There were a few muffled coughs, the rustling sound of people shifting in their seats.
"I have seen Jesus Christ," he said, and his voice was low and filled with both awe and pride. "He has spoken to me."
Pastor Wheeler paused for a moment to let the import of his words sink in and then began recounting the text of his conversations with Christ.
He told of his dream and of the meeting in the church.
Corrie watched the preacher as he spoke, and she was afraid. She wanted to leave, wanted to rim, but was too scared to do so. There was no doubt in her mind that Wheeler had seen Jesus--the proof was in his face, in his voice, in the aura of rapture which now enveloped him-but the news did not fill her with joy the way it should have. As she looked between the heads of the people, over the backs of the pews, at the preacher's eyes, she was filled with fear and a deep, intense feeling of dread.
What was wrong with her? She had always considered herself a good person and a moderately good Christian. As a child, she had accepted Jesus into her life and had done her best since then to obey His teachings. Her feelings for Christ had always been uniformly positive and unambiguous.
So why was she afraid?
"He has a plan," the preacher continued. He was smiling now, getting into his rhythm. Jesus has a plan. He is going to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and He has chosen our humble town and our humble church as the seed from which this greatness will grow. We have been selected to be the first citizens of the Kingdom of God, and, as foretold by the prophets." Jesus will bring light and right to this troubled chaotic world and the fallen will be fodder for the cannons of Christ..."
Corrie felt Anna grab her hand and squeeze. "Mommy, I'm scared." '
Corrie was scared too, but she gave her daughter a reassuring smile.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," she whispered.
"I want to go home." :: "Shhh." She put an arm around Anna's shoulder and again focused her attention on the pastor. Around her, she could hear the crying and whining of other frightened children, the reassuring whispers of their parents. The fear in the church was almost palpable, though she was not quite sure why the pastor's words should produce such a response.
The sermon continued, a hypnotic intermingling of the pastor's conversations with Jesus, p
rophecy from the Bible, and personal interpretation of both. Wheeler described in detail his plans for the Church of the Living Christ, and he urged everyone to assist in raising funds and volunteering time to help complete this project, this project that would forever change the course of human destiny.
Wheeler was a stirring speaker. She had to admit that. The fear in the air shifted, changed, metamorphosed into anticipation and excitement as he spoke. Like the other people surrounding her, the men now chanting "Praise God!" the women now yelling "Hallelujah!" Corrie found herself caught up in the emotion of the moment, moved and inspired, despite her fear, by the power of the pastor's words.
Only... Only in the back of her mind, she wondered why Pastor Wheeler needed to resort to mundane pleas for money and volunteer workers if Jesus had really asked him to build this church. Did Jesus, who could cure the sick and resurrect the dead, really have to rely on simplistic evangelical techniques to ensure that His will be done?
The Pastor Clan Wheeler's gaze again fell upon her and Corrie shivered, feeling guilty for even considering such blasphemy. Who was she to question the ways of the Al mighty?
She spent the rest of the sermon concentrating on the back of the pew in front of her, trying not to listen to the preacher's words.
After the service, she and Anna walked quickly out to the car. Anna, usually animated and excessively talkative following the forced silence of church, was quiet and subdued and the two of them walked without speaking. The other members of the congregation were quiet, too, and she heard very little conversation from the other families heading out to their vehicles.
Corrie strode toward the Nissan. She was walking normally holding Anna's hand, a bland, placid expression on her face, but she felt anything but normal inside. She was frightened, deeply and truly frightened, and she felt like a character in a movie she'd once seen who'd known that the end of the world was imminent but had not been able to share the information with any of the blithely happy people around her.
The Summoning Page 10