Godsent

by Richard Burton

  And Ethan said, “Father, I have not the right to make that choice.”

  “You must,” replied the thunder.

  “No,” Ethan responded. “Father, I don’t deny that the sins of the human race are many. You don’t need to look beyond this room to see proof of that. But I’ve come to believe that some of the fault lies with you.”

  An ominous rumble shook the air.

  “Hear me out! You created everything, Father, but you gave your greatest gifts to human beings. Yet you didn’t give them the one thing they needed most. The one thing that all good parents must one day give their children: independence. The space to make their own choices, their own lives, free of interference and punishment. You demanded unquestioning obedience, unswerving love. You held the threat of eternal damnation and hellfire over their heads. Forgive me, my father, but that was ill-conceived. You gave me the power to choose whether humanity should live or die. Well, I don’t want that power. I reject that choice. I just want humanity to have the chance to become the race they are capable of being. And for them to do that, you need to step back and give them room. Give them the freedom to make their own mistakes and learn from those mistakes without the threat of eternal damnation or the promise of eternal reward. Humans may not be your equals in power, yet they are made in your image, with souls and free will, and for that they deserve your respect, your forbearance. Your trust. So no, Father, I will not make this choice. I am the Son of man, yes, but I am also Your son. And because of that, I don’t have the right to decide.”

  “Then who does?” demanded the voice. “Who will make the choice if not you? For make no mistake, a choice must be made.”

  “I will make it.”

  It was Kate. Though the gag remained in her mouth, she could not be silenced in the presence of God. It was her soul that spoke out now, and there is no gag in existence, not even if it were torn from the garments of the devil himself, that can completely silence a human soul determined to speak truth to power.

  “If the fate of humanity must be decided here,” she continued, “then it should be a human being who decides it. Someone fully human, with no spark of the divine in him beyond the soul and free will that are the birthright of all humans. You chose me to bear Your Son, but I wasn’t born sinless, like Mary was. I’m no saint. I’m just a regular woman who has tried her best to do the right thing all her life.”

  “So be it,” said the voice. “The cup passes to you.”

  “Jesus took the sins of humanity onto himself, and we will always honor him for that,” Kate said. “But we can’t lean on him forever. It’s time we took that burden back and stood on our own. Ethan’s right. It’s strange. Not so very long ago, I was filled with hate and anger. I wanted revenge so badly that the wanting of it hurt even worse than what had been done to me. But now that all seems so petty. So childish. I understand now what Gabriel was trying to tell me. It really is all about forgiveness and love. About faith. So that’s my choice. I choose life, in all its messy glory and flawed beauty.”

  “And if I were to tell you that there is a price to pay for this choice?” demanded the voice. “What then?”

  “Gabriel explained that too. There is always a price. I won’t flinch from it.”

  “So be it,” said the voice. “Behold the mother of my son! Behold the daughter of my heart!”

  And Ethan said, “I’m so very proud of you, Mom. You are the heart and soul of every man and woman on this earth.”

  The blinding light began to fade, and as it did, there came a second crack, only this was not the sound of thunder, or of anything like thunder.

  “No!” screamed the voice of Papa Jim.

  When the light had returned to normal, it revealed a stark tableau: three bodies bound to metal slabs. Two men and, between them, a woman.

  All dead.

  “No!” cried Papa Jim again, and, wrenching himself from the grasp of the priest who had been holding him, and who now seemed dazed, he stumbled forward to Kate’s lifeless form. There, too, the priests made no attempt to interfere, as if they were in shock.

  “Kate!” Papa Jim called, pulling at her arm. “Wake up, baby girl. Wake up! It’s me, Papa Jim!”

  “She’s dead, Papa Jim,” said Ethan gently, coming to stand beside him. Tears were running down his cheeks, but his voice was firm.

  Papa Jim turned to Ethan, his features sagging with uncomprehending grief. “Why?” he demanded. “Why did she have to die?”

  “So that the human race might live. There must always be sacrifice, Papa Jim. It’s the one law that my father Himself is bound by. Kate understood that. She knew that death was the price she would have to pay.”

  “And you let her do it! You didn’t stop her!”

  Ethan nodded. “That was the price I had to pay.”

  Behind them, the pope found his voice at last. “You haven’t even begun to pay, Ethan. You’ll never leave this room alive. The world will never know what took place here.”

  Ethan turned to him. “It’s too late for that, Your Excellence. The world already knows. What transpired here before us has simultaneously been displayed and heard on every TV, every radio, and every computer. The whole world is watching and listening, Your Holiness.”

  At this, the pope staggered back as if he’d been physically struck.

  Ethan, ignoring him, turned to Kate’s body. “Help me, Papa Jim,” he said. “Help me take her down.”

  Papa Jim nodded dumbly. Together, the two men undid the straps that held the body in place. Then, gently, they lifted her down. Ethan cradled her in his arms, as Papa Jim stroked her hair.

  “Bring her back,” he said through his tears. “You’ve got to bring her back!”

  “I’m sorry, Papa Jim. I know you loved her, in your way.”

  “Ethan, please. She’s all I’ve got left . . .”

  “Good-bye, Papa Jim.”

  “What do you mean? Where are you going?”

  “Where you can never follow.”

  And with that, another blinding light filled the room. Papa Jim squinted against it, trying to make out the shapes of Ethan and Kate. For an instant, he thought he saw them rising into the air, Kate no longer lying lifelessly in Ethan’s arms but instead standing beside him, gazing down with compassion in her eyes, and on either side an angel with wings spread wide. But then the light grew too bright, and he had to shut his eyes against it. With a strangled cry, he lunged toward where he’d last seen them, but there was nothing there.

  When his vision cleared, they were gone.

  At that moment, Papa Jim felt the deepest loneliness he had ever experienced. His chest heaved with a sense of despair and pain he could never have imagined possible. With a small cry, almost of wonder, Papa Jim crumpled to the floor. He fell between the upright corpses of Cardinal Ehrlich and Father O’Malley, landing before the empty slab where his granddaughter had died. At first it felt as though he hadn’t stopped when he struck the floor, but was continuing to fall, plummeting headlong through a darkness that was deeper in every sense than any darkness he had ever known. Papa Jim knew a moment’s terror and then thought to himself he must be dreaming.

  He waited to wake up.

  EPILOGUE

  2015

  It was a blustery March day at the Olathe Memorial Cemetery in Olathe, Kansas. Peter Wiggan kicked at small piles of unmelted snow as he walked through the imposing Civil War monument, honoring the Grand Army of the Republic that stood at the entrance to the cemetery. In the six months since Maggie’s death, he’d come here often to visit her grave, as well as the graves of Lisa and Gordon Brown.

  In death, Maggie had acquired—briefly—a fame that she had never sought in life. Her relationship to Ethan, and its tragic aftermath, had made her a symbol that others were quick to claim as their own. Some had seen her as a victim of Ethan’s callous indifference, proof that he was the fraud she claimed. Others had seen her instead as the victim of a Church that had only pretended to offer help.
But these disparate views had not survived the second great miracle of Ethan’s time on Earth, when every television, radio, and computer screen in the world had suddenly and spontaneously begun broadcasting scenes and sounds of torture and murder featuring Ethan, his mother, Kate, his great-grandfather, Papa Jim, and Pope Peter II.

  Those searing images, and the equally astonishing words accompanying them, had changed everything.

  Peter would never forget that moment. He’d been in a bar in downtown Olathe, nursing a beer and watching a playoff game between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, trying to take his mind off Maggie’s death and Ethan’s subsequent disappearance. In the bottom of the sixth inning, with the Yankees up by two runs and threatening to score again, the picture had wavered, and then, to universal groans of dismay from his fellow patrons, dissolved into static. But even as the bartender moved to adjust the set, the static had cleared, revealing a new picture.

  “Hey, it’s that Ethan dude!” someone had shouted.

  And someone else. “Yo, isn’t that the pope?”

  It being a playoff, and this being a sports bar, an attempt was made to find the game on another channel. But every channel was showing the same thing.

  Gradually, the bar grew deathly still and quiet as people absorbed the almost unbelievable import of what they were witnessing.

  They watched as the pope calmly ordered the deaths of Cardinal Ehrlich and Father O’Malley. They listened as he spoke to Ethan, offering him his three choices. And, when Ethan had refused for the third time, they watched as the pope gestured and a ski-masked priest stepped up to Kate.

  They averted their eyes from the sudden bloom of blinding light that poured out of the TV. And trembled at the voice that thundered from out of that light. More than a few covered their ears. Others fell to the ground.

  They listened as yet another choice was set before Ethan. A choice on which their lives, and the existence of the entire human race, depended.

  And gasped in disbelief as Ethan refused to make it.

  Then gasped again as Kate’s voice rang out, taking that terrible choice onto herself. And accepting, too, the sacrifice that went along with it.

  A sacrifice they had all seen, watching as the light ebbed to reveal another dead body added to the stark tableau. They’d watched in a kind of numb shock, seemingly unaware of the tears running down their faces, as Ethan and Papa Jim gently lifted Kate’s body down. Then, through another bloom of light, they’d dimly glimpsed, as Papa Jim had done, the ascending figures of Ethan and his mother.

  They watched as Papa Jim clutched at his chest and fell to the floor. They saw the bodies dragged away.

  After that, the picture had once again dissolved in static. But this time, the static did not lift.

  It went on for the next twenty-four hours. For that time, every television set and computer monitor in the world displayed the same peppery black-and-white jumble, accompanied by a steady hissing of white noise. And that sound, too, was on every radio station, whether AM or FM or satellite. It was as if the universe itself was grieving.

  After that, Maggie had been pretty much forgotten. Events had swept past her; she was a footnote to history now. But Peter had not forgotten her. He still loved her. Still mourned her.

  He thought he always would.

  So, as the effects of that second miracle spread like wildfire around the world, Peter had kept his sights set closer to home. He’d followed, in a distant way, the reports of new riots, fierce attacks on Church properties everywhere, climaxed by the storming of the Vatican by an enraged Roman mob—a mob that had been beaten back with difficulty by the Swiss Guards. Since then, the Italian army had surrounded the Vatican for its own protection, while, from behind that barricade of troops and tanks, Pope Peter II, who insisted that the images which had triggered all this were in reality sophisticated fakes, had called for a new crusade against what he disparagingly called the “Ethanites.” Despite the evidence of their own eyes and ears, a surprisingly large number of people believed him and answered the call.

  The other great and powerful world religions were also reeling under the impact of Ethan’s revelations. Embracing the pope’s term, uncountable numbers of people of all faiths had proclaimed themselves to be Ethanites. And it wasn’t just the flocks but also the shepherds; thousands of priests, mullahs, and rabbis had cast off their old allegiances to follow the new faith.

  There were widespread reports of miracles.

  Many people claimed to have seen Ethan. Others swore that Kate had appeared to them. But none of these sightings or reports had been corroborated.

  The world was going through a period of intense change. Throngs of people feared that the end of times was at hand and all they knew and loved would soon be wiped away forever. Others found a desire and spirit to change their lives for the better, now knowing they could enjoy a life everlasting. Still others did not know what to make of the shocking images they had witnessed. Stunned, they struggled to come to grips with what it all meant. What would emerge from the crucible was anybody’s guess.

  Peter was content to wait and see. Although Olathe was not immune to these sweeping changes, Peter did not become directly involved. He’d had his brief moment in the spotlight with Ethan, and he had no desire to reprise his role. He missed Ethan. He missed Maggie.

  He spent a lot of time at the cemetery, tending to Maggie’s grave and the graves of the Browns. Occasionally he would find other visitors there, curiosity-seekers wanting to see for themselves the burial place of the girl Ethan had loved and the man and woman who had raised him. But for the most part, Peter was alone on his visits, and he preferred it that way. His concerned parents had gently suggested that he see a therapist or go back to school; anything to give purpose and direction to what seemed to them an increasingly aimless life.

  So it was that on this particular chilly and breezy March day, Peter experienced a twinge of annoyance as he approached Maggie’s grave and saw that a man was already standing there, head bowed as if in prayer or reflection. He stopped, not wanting to intrude, and watched for long minutes as the man remained unmoving, his back to him, his figure shapeless beneath a long black coat and a stocking cap. The only sounds were the bluster of the wind and the intermittent cawing of crows. Then, just as Peter was about to turn and go, giving the man his privacy, the man dropped to one knee and placed his hand on the cold ground.

  Something in that movement chimed in Peter’s heart, and he found himself running toward the grave without even realizing that he had decided to do so. At the sound of approaching footsteps, the man stood and turned.

  It was Ethan.

  Peter halted a few feet away. He had so much to say that he couldn’t get any of it out. Where to begin? And, once begun, how to end?

  “Hello, Pete,” said Ethan with the same shy smile he’d always had, his breath fogging the air as he spoke. It was as if they’d last seen each other only yesterday.

  “What—what are you doing here, Ethan?”

  “Paying my respects,” he said. “And waiting for you.”

  “For me?”

  Ethan nodded. “Come on, Pete. Let’s walk.”

  Side by side, the two old friends strolled in silence among the winding paths of the cemetery.

  At last, Ethan spoke. “Do you hate me, Pete?”

  Peter glanced at him in surprise. “What? Of course not! Why would you think that?”

  “I thought you might blame me for Maggie’s death, among other things. So many do. Sometimes I do myself.”

  “I don’t blame you, Ethan. How could I? Sure, I wish things could have been different, but I know it wasn’t your fault. I know you loved her. That’s what really matters.”

  “Thanks, Pete.”

  “I’m sorry about your mom. I mean Kate. Well, Lisa too. Both of them.”

  “They’re with God now, Pete. So’s Mags.”

  “I know. Where else would she be?”

  “She’ll be wait
ing there for you, Pete. When it’s your time.”

  “I know that too. But just the same, I’m in no hurry to get there.”

  “Good. Because there’s still a lot of work to do right here. People are trying to start a new church in my name.”

  “Right, the Ethanites.”

  “I don’t want a church, Pete,” Ethan said. “Churches can be dangerous. Look what happened to the one my brother started.”

  “Well, why don’t you just tell ’em that? I’m sure they’d listen to you.”

  “Part of what Kate died for was to give human beings the freedom to grow on their own and demonstrate as one race that they can change, find true compassion and love for each other without the threat of divine retribution hanging over their heads. So I’m not going to interfere, and neither is my father.”

  “You’re talking to me. That’s interfering.”

  Ethan smiled. “Maybe a little. I wanted to ask you for a favor. Just between the two of us.”

  “Name it.”

  “I want you to make sure that people don’t forget Kate. I want you to tell people about her. Remind them of who she was and how she died. Don’t let them forget her sacrifice.”

  “I . . . I can do that,” Peter said.

  “And tell them about Lisa, too, Pete. And Maggie.”

  “What, a new trinity? To replace the old?”

  “To balance it out,” Ethan amended gently.

  Peter nodded, digesting this.

  “I need you to be sure the message is heard and understood, Pete. You’re the closest person to me left on Earth. People will listen to you.”

  With hints of both exhilaration and panic in his voice, Pete said, “I’m not sure I’m the best person for the job, Ethan, but I’ll do everything I can to spread the word and keep the dream alive. I think it’s what Maggie would have wanted.”