“You haven’t told her?”
John took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “It’s never been the right time.”
Anita and Gerald both looked surprised. Simon, who had not said another word since introducing himself, seemed oddly distracted, staring out the nearest window as if lost in another place.
“The right time for what?” Lilly asked.
Letty stopped humming to say, “John, my friend, tell her what you know.”
“Lilly, the Healers have discovered that your DNA contains markers from every known race on earth.”
Anita clapped her hands together and almost seemed to bounce on her cushion.
“What does that mean?” Lilly asked.
John opened his mouth but Anita spoke first, “It means, child, that all humanity is contained in every cell of your body.”
“Thus, the daughter of Eve,” Gerald said.
John wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced at Lilly. “You remember asking me about my friend?” She nodded slowly. He looked at the Scholars. “Since Lilly’s arrival I’ve been visited by a Messenger three times.”
This seemed to catch Simon’s ear. He turned his attention to John.
“Messengers are always about,” stated Anita.
“This Messenger is a Singer!” John said.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. Gerald’s eyes got big and Letty just sat there humming and nodding slowly.
“And does”—Gerald cleared his throat—“does this Singer have a name?”
John paused.
Lilly guessed. “It’s Han-el.”
The others Scholars sat in stunned silence, frozen in the instant. Their movements seemed to slow and almost stop.
“My, my, my!” muttered Anita.
Gerald turned his face and his hands upward in praise.
Simon for a moment looked uncomfortable but recovered quickly. “Not just a Singer but a Guardian!” he murmured.
“A Guardian?” Lilly asked.
Gerald responded. “An Angel, a Messenger who is also a Guardian.”
“Angel? You mean one of those little fat baby boy cherubs with tiny wings and bows and arrows? Cupid’s cousins, we called them.”
“No!” Letty stated strongly. Her little legs stopped swinging. “No! Absolutely not! Cherubim are the terrible ones, and I mean that in a wonderful way. Don’t diminish them by ridiculous imagery.”
“Cherubim are beings of gathered light,” Simon explained, “the sustainers of wonder and worship. Next to the Seraphim, they are the most carefully positioned. As the Seraphim are turned inward, the Cherubim turn outward. As far as we know, and I defer at this point to other Scholars, only two, perhaps three Cherubim are named in all creation. Michael, certainly. Gabriel, perhaps, and”—he paused, a hint of something like a shadow passing across his features—“maybe the greatest is Lucifer, the Anointed Cherub.”
Lilly was hardly listening. She understood now what John meant about Scholars being annoying. But her thoughts tumbled over each other. Eden’s hallucinations had again linked her to this time and place. She kept her face as impassive as she could.
“John, tell them what Han-el told you,” encouraged Letty.
“He announced to me that Lilly is a Witness.”
Gerald looked at Anita and patted her hand. “That confirms it. We are not foolish.”
“In all my long life, I never thought this day possible,” said Anita softly. She stared at Lilly with so much adoration that Lilly had to look away.
“Over a year ago our Scholars, Thinkers, Searchers, and Astronomers told us the night skies had announced the arrival of a Witness,” Gerald said. “Of course it caused great consternation and fierce debate among us, but finally some of us were allowed to embark upon this quest. Nine of us began; only we three are left.”
“Only three?” John asked.
“Two turned back early,” Anita said. “They were homesick and distressed. Three felt compelled to leave us at the Gregorian Crossroads in search of another star, and one”—here she paused before sadly speaking—“one of our company, also a Scholar, fell ill.”
“Ill how?” John asked.
“Shadow-sick.” The term sent a prickle of unease through Lilly.
“What’s shadow-sick?” she asked.
“You might call it ‘heartsick’ or ‘soul-sick,’ ” answered Anita. “It happens when humans turn from face-to-face trust and let the darkness of death enter them. Thanks to Adam, we all have inherited shadow-sickness in our mortality. Resisting it is the war in which we are all engaged.”
“Is your colleague being guarded, then?” John asked.
Simon fiddled with a ring on his left hand.
“No, she is being companioned inside a community to the north,” Anita said. “It is a guarding of sorts—but for, not against. The purpose is to help her turn once again toward life.” She addressed Lilly. “We learned long ago that shadow-sickness feeds on isolation. So we take our stand against it by protecting relationships of intentional love and kindness.”
“I’m sorry for all your losses,” offered John. “Sorry and saddened.”
“As are we,” stated Simon softly. “Thank you.”
After a moment of silence, Lilly spoke. “So . . . all of this trouble—to meet me? Do you really think I’m the Witness you came to find?” She glanced at John. “I still don’t understand what that means.”
Anita got up and knelt beside her. “This must be extremely puzzling and confusing. Please, forgive me. Forgive us.” And she opened up her arms and, a bit awkwardly, let Lilly lean into her shoulder.
“Yes,” Anita continued, “we do believe you are the one we seek, but I have a few questions of my own before I dare attempt to explain.” Anita released Lilly and returned to the sofa. “John, you have told her about the Vault?”
“No.”
“I see, and you are certain that she is safe here?”
“Within these walls, yes. It’s the Refuge, after all. Nothing has ever found us.”
“And Han-el?” interjected Simon, a hint of apprehension in his voice. “Am I correct in assuming that the Singer is this girl’s Guardian?”
“No,” stated John, hesitating before he continued. “Han-el guards me.”
The muscles in Simon’s jaw relaxed.
“I see,” Anita said. “And your Guardian confirmed she is a Witness. Did he say what she will witness?”
The Scholars shifted to the edges of their seats. If Letty had done the same, she would have toppled off, but she was fully attentive, humming louder than ever.
“She is Witness to Beginnings.”
For a second, stunned silence. Then pandemonium. Anita stood straight up and raised her hands into the air and shouted in some language new to Lilly. Gerald danced a little jig in a circle, and Letty, her shoulders heaving, covered her eyes with tiny fingers. Simon had clasped his hands and turned his face upward as if in prayer.
“This calls for food and wine for celebration!” Simon announced.
John laughed and pointed to a door. “Help yourself to the pantry. Whatever I have is yours.”
Simon left, followed by the other Scholars.
John sat quietly, looking to Lilly for a response. How could she tell him that he was wrong? That his Angel had misunderstood? Sure, she was witnessing, but she didn’t want to. If she had a choice, she’d dream like a normal person. But no, Eve was taking her places she didn’t want to go, and now people were getting shadow-sick and messing up their lives to find her. For nothing! Internally she scrambled to justify keeping the dreams to herself. Looking out at the ocean, her mind and heart whirled as separated worlds reeled and intersected. When she turned back toward John, she found him kneeling at her bed, his eyes moist.
“It’s a lot to take in. I know,” he murmured.
“I don’t understand any of this.” And of course, the “this” to which she was referring was much more than even he could be aware of. His tenderness mad
e it worse.
“Understanding is not your task. Being Lilly Fields is all that is required of you.”
“But if I don’t understand, how will I know if I am doing the right thing?” She was almost begging him to stop. “I have nowhere to go. I’m stuck here and don’t comprehend why or even how I got here or where this is. I’m supposed to witness Beginnings? Beginnings? I don’t . . . understand! What do I do?”
John looked as if he was reaching deep into his own heart and past, searching for something that would help her, reach her, and comfort her.
It was Letty who spoke. “Perhaps, Lilly, you might trust. Trust is something that children are naturally good at, until someone lies to them or convinces them that it is dangerous.”
“Trust is dangerous,” she said without thinking.
“It is,” John responded, “but not the way you think.”
The others returned with plates of cheeses, fruits, crackers, nuts, and of course, biscuits. Soon wine had its intended effect, postures loosening even while intensity did not. Throughout the in-between and back-and-forth of interaction, Letty continued to hum.
During the course of the next hours, John, the Scholars, and one Curmudgeon attempted to answer Lilly’s questions.
“Well,” stated Gerald at one point in full academic mode, “each age and place has two primary Witnesses: one in Word of record and the other flesh and blood. The latter is more precisely the incarnation of the former, but you can’t have one without the other.”
“Perhaps it would help,” interjected Anita, shaking her head, “to think of it in terms of a photograph, which is the writing, graphe, of a moment of light, photos. Think of a Witness as both the photographer and the photo.”
“Okay,” Lilly responded. “I can understand that, sort of . . .”
“There is a third element.” Now it was Simon. “A Witness is not only the photographer and the photograph but uniquely an essential living participant inside the picture. A Witness is neither outside nor detached, is not objective and is not independent. Your very presence introduces innumerable potentials, and your choices impact history as we now know it. These are then woven in new ways into the unfolding purposes of God.”
It sounded complicated and Lilly longed for an escape, for an uninterrupted sleep, but she tried to focus. “Are you saying that without a Witness there is no photograph at all? If someone is not there to see it, it doesn’t exist?”
“Close but not exactly,” piped in Anita.
Gerald added as if quoting, “God has always been the Witness, apart from whom nothing has existed. God is the Grand Observer, always and continually the Picture; the Word in all Their nuance is the Glory and Affection.”
“And they are the Grand Interferer,” added Anita. “This is why knowing the character of God is essential. Without God being Who They are in essence—Good submitted in knowing Love, One to the Other—then everything would pffft.” Her fingers twirled up into the air like a balloon that had escaped. “Everything, including us, would vanish into nonbeing.”
“Then why does God need me,” queried Lilly, “or any human witness?”
“Ah,” Gerald replied with a chuckle, “we are back to Beginnings. God has need of nothing, but God will not be God apart from us. To live inside God’s life is to explore this mystery of participation.”
For Lilly, it was perplexing, but they encouraged her not to get lost in the details. She was a child, after all, they explained, and children know intuitively what they will never learn by education. That didn’t help her grasp what they were saying, but it was comforting regardless.
Sometime, as the evening wound down, Letty vanished without saying good-bye. Her humming simply disappeared.
John was about to accompany the three Scholars to their sleeping quarters when Anita held up her hand.
“Wait,” she exclaimed. “We have forgotten the gifts we brought for Lilly!”
“We certainly have,” said Simon. “But I have left mine in my baggage. I will have to bring it later. Tomorrow perhaps?”
“Gifts?” Lilly was feeling exhausted, but curiosity raised her flagging energy. The prospect of a gift from Simon sent a little shiver of anticipation through her.
The younger Scholar withdrew to the edges of the room while Anita and Gerald each patted pockets, trying to remember where they’d stored their treasures. The woman found hers first and approached Lilly.
“Dear one,” Anita began, “When I was praying about coming to meet you—”
“You pray for me?”
“We all do,” Gerald said. “Prayer is mostly about talking to God—about life and people and what is before us and who matters to us in that moment. Does that surprise you?”
She nodded.
“Well,” began Anita again, “when I was praying about coming to meet you, this token came repeatedly to mind.” She opened up her hand and revealed a small, ornate, and finely crafted silver key, hanging from a silver chain.
“It’s beautiful!” Lilly exclaimed. “Thank you.” Anita placed the delicate piece into the girl’s hand.
“This ancient key has a story, a fairy tale of sorts, attached to it. Are you familiar with the tale of the ogre and the princess?”
She shook her head.
“No matter.” Anita smiled and they hugged. “Lilly, this is not only a key to be worn, it is a key to unlock something. And no, I don’t know what. But you will, when the time is right.”
“That is true of my gift as well,” chimed in Gerald, holding out a little jewelry box. Lilly opened it to find a single band, a gold ring. “It is a Betrothal ring,” he said, and Lilly smiled, unsure what that meant. “This ring has been handed down through my family since the mists of Beginnings. Like Anita, I do not know why it is important that you have it, but there it is.”
“Is it the same thing as an engagement ring?”
“No. Engagement is much too weak a word. Betrothal is a resolute and firm commitment, a declaration of marriage sometimes years before its consummation. This is a ring the groom will give his bride as promise of a wedding.”
“Thank you, Gerald.” He leaned forward to touch her forehead, and though she tensed at the intimate gesture, she allowed it.
With that John escorted the Scholars out of the room. Simon, the last to exit, turned, smiled, and bowed slightly.
For a time Lilly sat quietly and tried to grasp the events of the day, but reflecting only seemed to make her more anxious. She hoped that Han-el was real and close, but that also meant the Angel was probably aware of her deceptions, and the possibility shamed her. Even so, the very thought of any Guardian was a comfort.
Unexpectedly, it also raised a different memory: the face of another man whom she couldn’t quite place.
Eight
* * *
MIRRORED INTENTIONS
Early the next morning, as the whispers of sunrise began interrupting the shades of night’s rhythms, Lilly made her first journal entry into the diary John had given her. Invited by its open space, she unloaded parts of her burden and took to writing like an eagle soaring, carried away on invisible drafts into vistas of honesty she had never intentionally explored.
Despite what John says, I don’t really think I am a writer. Ha, here I am already making excuses and I’m the only one who will ever read this.
I don’t know what I am or what is real. Half the time I think I’m crazy and surrounded by crazy people, and the other half I’m just confused and a mess of angry, overwhelming, horrid emotions.
Sometimes, I just want to scream until I can’t. I don’t want anyone to care, and then I do and that makes me mad, and then maybe I want to die.
Of all the people I’ve met here, I like John the most, but I’m really intrigued by this new guy, one of the Three Magi (I think that’s what they were called in the Sunday school stories, although I’m not the baby Jesus they were looking for). His name is Simon and he’s older than me but closest of anyone to my age. Anita an
d Gerald gave me a key and a Betrothal ring, but Simon said he would bring me his gift later. I think he just wanted to talk to me alone. I keep wondering about him, like he’s dangerous in a good way.
Yesterday was completely nuts. So much happened I don’t even know where to start. Eve took me to see Adam—it sounds nuts just to even write that—but anyway, we ran into a talking snake that scared the crap out of me. Then the Magi showed up and I saw Letty for the first time. I still don’t know why she is always humming. Then they told me that I’m a Witness to Beginnings. I didn’t tell them Eve already told me that.
I’ve been looking at my arms. Maybe I was a cutter, in the other life. That really scares me too. It might be better if I can’t remember, but I can’t seem to stop the flashbacks or the hallucinations either.
I watch the waves and the tides. It’s like wanting to live and wanting to die, tide coming in and tide going out. Most of the time all I can see is the waves and can’t even tell which tide it is. I wonder if Simon is going to come and see me today? Probably not.
At the thought of Simon she pulled back the covers to examine the foot that was not hers. She wondered about the girl to whom it had belonged. It appeared completely functional, though much whiter than her right foot, and freckled.
Women who were dressed as if they belonged to a religious order soon showed up and assisted her with her morning rituals. They were perpetually quiet and kind and smiled a lot, their presence comfortable and welcome. Then John appeared with breakfast, which heralded the beginnings of real food, though it was pasty and bland. He said her bodily systems were still in recovery. When they finished eating, he left her staring out at the ocean, the magnificent view of shoreline and sand below and, beyond the coastal divide, an odd mix of flora both tropical and northern rain forest.
Lilly then went through her regimen of exercises, contracting and relaxing each muscle beginning with her toes and working her way up her body to her nose. This was something she repeated six times each day between waking and sleeping. With a push of a button she could now change her bed to mobile chair, and even though she felt her strength returning, she resisted the temptation to try and step off and stand by herself. Everything, it seemed, was about timing.
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