The Wonder of All Things

by Jason Mott

  “Finally,” Wash added. But, still, Ava did not move.

  “I understand. I’m sure that there are people worried about you.” Sam lifted one of his hands from beneath his body. It was pale from lack of circulation. He waved it to see the blood flow. “Do you mind if I stop sitting on my hands?” he asked, and offered his discolored hand as evidence of need.

  He liberated his other hand and rubbed them together. “This is weird,” he said, looking at his hand, but perhaps talking to Ava. He shook his head. “Do you mind if I stand up?” He stood and brushed the back of his pants and put his hands into the pockets of his coat. He shifted his body weight from one leg to the other and stamped his feet, smiling all the while. “Cold,” he said. Then he offered his hand to Ava and took two steps forward. “Can I just shake your hand?” he asked. He looked down at his hand, then at the girl.

  “No,” Wash answered.

  “It’s okay, Wash,” Ava said. “I’m tired of being scared of everything. It’s just a handshake.” Before Wash could step in, in spite of everything inside of her that told her she should not be doing so, she walked forward across the street and shook Sam’s hand. “It’s good to meet you, Sam,” she said.

  Sam gave Ava a two-handed handshake. “Thank you,” he said softly. “Thank you.” The handshake continued into awkwardness. It continued until Ava realized that, for her, it had already ended. Sam was clutching her hand. “You’ll help me, won’t you?” Sam said softly. There were tears in the corners of his eyes. “I’m not well,” he said. “I haven’t been well for a very long time. But you’ll change that, won’t you? You’ll help me.” Ava tried to withdraw her hand, but Sam seemed made of concrete. “I just need you to do for me what you did for your friend,” he said. “I just need you to help me. And then I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again. I promise.”

  “Let me go,” Ava said. She was afraid. Truly and genuinely afraid. She struggled to pull away, but Sam matched her efforts. He overcame them, pulled her in like a sinkhole. Wash raced across the street and tried to pry the man’s grip from Ava’s, but to no avail. All of the size and muscle the man had previously exuded returned to him.

  “You just have to help me,” Sam said.

  “Let go!” Wash shouted, still struggling.

  “Please,” Sam said. “Please heal me. Please fix me.” She struggled, but Sam’s arms were everywhere. He pulled her body against his. Finally, he had both arms wrapped around her and had lifted her—still kicking and yelling—from the ground. “You have to do it,” he said. Still his face was like a child’s, as if he truly meant her no harm.

  He got down onto his knees and pulled Ava down to kneel with him. Wash punched the man, but it made little impression upon him. Sam grabbed Ava’s wrists and placed her hands on both sides of his face. “Do it,” he said. His cheeks were wet with tears. “Help me,” he pleaded. “Help me so he’ll be proud of me.”

  And then Sam was silent. He closed his eyes and held Ava’s hands to his face and he wept softly. His lips moved soundlessly, as if uttering a prayer. Ava was still afraid, still terrified, by what was happening, but she felt sorry for the man. Even Wash was caught unprepared by the man’s reaction. Where the boy had expected violence, there was only a man—whose intellect seemed somewhat childish—asking for help.

  “Please,” Sam said, sobbing, but still not letting go of her wrists.

  “Okay,” Ava said softly. “But I need you to let go of my hands.”

  “You’ll really help me?”

  “Yes,” Ava said.

  “What are you doing, Ava?” Wash asked.

  “You promise?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” Ava replied.

  After a deep breath, he let her go. “Okay,” he said, his voice trembling. He still wept. “I’m ready,” he said. And then he waited. Ava waited, too—for what, she wasn’t sure. The man continued to kneel and to wait. Ava stood and watched him—her hands still cradling his face. “I’m ready,” the man repeated, again and again, in a low voice. “I’m ready...I’m ready...”

  Ava looked down at her hands as they cradled Sam’s face. They were small and darkly colored, as they always had been. They reminded her of her mother’s hands. She could almost hear her mother’s voice, just then. It was in the wind that rustled the bare branches of the oak trees lining the street. It was in the low shaking of the underbrush of the forest. And it made her angry. Her mother was dead. And she always would be. And there was nothing in her hands that could change that.

  When Sam finally tired of waiting for God and opened his eyes, he found himself alone, mumbling prayers to an empty street.

  * * *

  “Macon,” the deputy called as he opened the office door. He was young—barely twenty—and had grown up in Stone Temple. He was one of the few people working at the station who was there because he wanted to be and not for the money he could make selling info to reporters.

  “Yeah?” Macon answered. He’d just finished taking care of the business with the church. Now he’d finally made it back to the office and was hoping to find a way to plow through a small mountain of paperwork that sat on his desk waiting for him.

  “There’s a preacher out here who wants to talk to you,” he said.

  “Tell him to get in line with the rest of the preachers,” Macon replied, still not lifting his head from the paperwork. “In fact,” he continued, “have the preachers and the UFO people line up in alternating order.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too, Sheriff,” a deep voice replied.

  Macon looked up from his papers to see a tall, broad-chested man entering the room at a lope. He patted the deputy gently on the shoulder as he passed him, as one might thank a bellman for holding the door. “Thank you, son,” the man said.

  Macon put his pen down and sat back in his chair. He waved the deputy away. “I got it,” he said. The deputy nodded and left.

  The man walked over and sat in the chair on the other side of the desk. From the way he carried himself, he seemed to be a man accustomed to getting his way in the world. “Reverend Isaiah Brown,” the man said, offering a hand to Macon. “John Mitchell must have told you I’d be coming by.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Macon replied, standing to shake the man’s hand.

  “First of all,” Reverend Brown said, “I want to apologize for my intrusion here today. I can only imagine how much you’ve got going on in your life right now. It must all be chaos and bedlam.”

  “It’s something like that,” Macon replied. The man seemed familiar, Macon thought. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with a smooth-shaved face and a roof of thick black hair. He wore a well-tailored suit and there was confidence and assuredness in his demeanor. “What can I do for you, reverend?”

  “For today, nothing,” Reverend Brown replied. “I just wanted to come by and introduce myself properly and, if possible, to offer you any help you or your family might need.”

  Finally Macon recognized the man. He had seen him preaching on the television to a congregation that measured in the tens of thousands. He was a phenomenon, a man who had started with a small church up north and, slowly, built it up to be something of an institution in its own right.

  “You’ve got a lovely town here,” Reverend Brown said. “Filled with wonderful people.”

  “We do okay,” Macon said politely. “You know, I recognize you now. It’s an honor to meet you.” He stood and offered another handshake, one slightly less reserved than the previous one now that he had a better sense of who he was dealing with. “Sorry if I seemed a little standoffish before,” Macon said. “There are lots of types coming and going these days. So, do you need help with permits or something?”

  “Not at all,” the reverend said. “It’s all been taken care of. I came here merely to meet you face-to-face. To speak with you. And I completely understand what you mean when you say ‘lots of types.’ I understand who you’re referring to. And I can also understand if you think I’m jus
t another one of those types, just someone else who has come to town in the hopes of gaining some greater notoriety by using you and your daughter as leverage.”

  “Then you won’t take offense when I say that the thought had crossed my mind,” Macon said. “Nothing personal, but I’m sure you can understand that I need to be, shall we say, reserved when it comes to people.”

  “I’ll definitely excuse you.” Reverend Brown sat forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees. “I like to be sincere whenever I can,” he began, “so I’m going to get straight to the point. I’m not here to take advantage of you or your daughter, but I am here to be a part of this moment, this event, whatever it may finally turn out to be. I won’t ask about your personal stance on all of this—not just yet, at least. I’ll admit to being curious, but I can respect the idea that your religious beliefs are your own and I’m not here to make you believe the same things I believe.” He smiled, and there was sincerity in it. “I’m here because, whether you’re religious or not, you’ve got something happening here that is steeped in religious connotations and implications. Your daughter healed someone. She touched him and his wounds disappeared. That’s a miracle—even if that might not be the word you would use for it.” He paused. “Am I making any sense at all?” Reverend Brown asked. “There’s a part of me that feels like the more I say the more you’ll think I’m trying to con you.”

  Macon thought for a moment. He tried to remember what he knew about Reverend Brown. He remembered images of the man on television: tall, pacing across a stage with a Bible in one hand, a microphone in the other. He was always imposing on the television, and now that Macon was sitting across from him, he seemed smaller. “I think I understand what you’re saying,” Macon replied. “You just want to be sure that your side of the argument is represented here. Does that sound about right?”

  “Something along those lines,” Reverend Brown said, and there was a look of relief about him, as if he was thankful that Macon had, in fact, understood his intentions. “It’s easy to be leery of people, and for some in this modern world, it’s easiest of all to be leery of religious figures. But we’re not all, as I once heard a colleague accused, ‘wearing suits only to hide our tails.’ Some of us are just trying to help. And if I can help, then I invite you to let me know.”

  Macon wasn’t sure exactly what his opinion on the reverend’s words was, but he was leaning in favor of the man. Macon’s views on religion and God had oscillated heavily over the years, and they had yet to settle one way or another. Now, with the whole world looking at him and his daughter, with everyone—on all sides of the religious aisle—laying claim to Ava and what she had done, Macon had to admit to himself that he liked the idea of having a preacher he could lean on.

  The world, and what was happening in his life right now, was bigger than the small-town sheriff, and he knew it. As much as he hated to admit it, he wanted help.

  “Thanks for coming in,” Macon said. He stood and shook the reverend’s hand. “I’ll think about what you’ve said. And, well, maybe we can sit down together another time.”

  “I’m delighted to hear that,” Reverend Brown said. He turned to leave the office. When he reached the door he looked back at Macon. “Whatever you think about all of this, about what your daughter did and what it means,” the reverend said, “you’re allowed to believe it. Don’t forget that, and don’t let anyone else, not even me, make you feel otherwise.”

  * * *

  Macon and Ava made their way over the mountain in silence. It was a couple of days after his meeting with Reverend Brown and he was still trying to puzzle it all out. They’d managed to sneak away from the house unnoticed thanks to the darkness of the predawn forest and the bitter cold of the night that had sent nearly all of the people camped out at the base of their driveway home. Carmen wasn’t happy with the idea of the two of them heading off into the woods, but Macon assured her that there were still places in this world where, even among chaos, it was possible for people to slip away safely. It was one of the reasons why he hadn’t wanted to stay in Asheville when Ava came out of the hospital. He’d had offers from people who insisted that Ava should be kept close and examined more. But he felt safer having his daughter home. These were their mountains, the part of the world the two of them had learned to navigate together over the years. How could he take his daughter away from that at a time like this?

  The wind was cold and it swept down off the mountain like an arm trying to dislodge them. They’d started out before sunup—slinking off into the forest like thieves, escaping the photographers and reporters and fanatics under cover of darkness—and the frost that would disappear in the early part of the day was still on the ground as their feet crunched a little in the grass as they walked. Sound traveled deeply and the world seemed empty.

  They would spend the day hunting near a cabin upon a mountain on the north side of town. Once upon a time, Old Man Rutger and his wife had lived there. But then the woman died from pneumonia and, not long after, Old Man Rutger died. Most folks said it was from not knowing how to live alone. Now that both the man and his wife were gone, it made a good place to camp and, if you were hunting, it was an even better place on account of how the deer liked to come near the cabin and eat from the remnants of the vegetable garden Rutger’s wife left behind—a garden which was overgrown and wild, but alive every year.

  “Cold,” Macon said when they had almost reached the place where they would ascend into the tree stands and wait for the deer to come. He had placed the tree stands here years ago and they had hunted from them and been successful many times. He hoped today would be no different.

  “It’ll warm up,” Ava said stoically. She stopped walking briefly and stood in the low light and looked around. “We’re almost there.”

  “I’m glad you wanted to do this,” Macon said.

  “We don’t get to hang out anymore.”

  “I know,” he replied. He clenched and released his hands to get the blood flowing and to evacuate the cold from his fingers. “Things are a bit strange right now.”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  She continued down the slope of the mountain. The wind came down again and pushed at their backs and almost made them lose their balance, but they continued on, certain that soon the sun would rise and the day would brighten and they would be warmer. When they reached the bottom of the mountain Ava looked across the field and listened. There was only the wind and the rustle of the leaves and branches.

  “Good to be away from it all,” Macon said.

  “We should get to the tree stands,” Ava replied.

  “We’ve got a little time still,” Macon replied.

  “Sun’s already up,” Ava said. “Just hasn’t cleared the mountain.”

  “So what,” Macon said. “That doesn’t mean we can’t stop and talk for a while.”

  “I thought you wanted to hunt,” she said, and then she walked off toward the edge of the tree line to where the tree stands were.

  Macon followed, slowly, feeling the missed opportunity.

  The tree stands were placed closely together, too closely. But he had placed them that way out of a parental instinct when Ava was younger. He’d wanted to be near her in case she needed him. As consequence, this had become the place where their secrets could be passed back and forth in the calm and quiet of the forest, the place where there was no one to stumble upon them, the place where there could be a father and daughter alone in this world.

  Ava had already ascended into the stand by the time Macon got there. She pulled her bow up to where she sat using a length of rope and placed it in her lap and began looking out over the forest just as the rays of the sun broke the tops of the trees.

  Macon thought for a moment, then he ascended the tree beside hers and climbed into the tree stand and pulled his bow up just as she had done and he sat and looked through the dense forest.

  “Do you think about her sometimes?” Ava asked in a soft voice.


  “Your mom?” he replied, and then he immediately nodded an affirmation.

  “What do you think about?”

  “Depends,” Macon began. “Usually I think about her around the holidays. On your birthday. Things like that. I wish she was here to see you.”

  “Do you dream about her?”

  “Sometimes,” Macon replied. “How often do you dream about her?”

  “A lot.”

  “How long has this been happening?”

  “Sometimes I can go for a long time and not dream about her—even though I think about her every day. Do you?”

  “Do I think about her every day? No, Ava. I think about her. But I’ll admit that it isn’t every day. It was at first, but not now.”

  “Is that going to happen to me, too? Will I stop thinking about her? Will I forget her?”

  “Never.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you loved her. Because you still love her. And you don’t forget people you love. That’s just how it works. So, no, you won’t ever forget her.” In the distance of the forest, they heard the sound of a twig breaking. “But you have to let her go.”

  “And what if I can’t?”

  “You have to.”

  “But if I can’t, will I kill myself like she did? Is that why she killed herself? Was there something she couldn’t let go of?”

  “Truthfully, Ava,” Macon began, “I don’t know. Maybe. I never really thought of your mother as a sad woman, but then, in the end, maybe that’s when I found out I didn’t really understand her.” He cleared his throat. “That’s something I think about a lot.”

  Ava was silent. In spite of their talking, there was a deer approaching through the dense forest. The sun had reached the halfway point in the trees and the deer came tentatively through the underbrush. Ava raised her bow and notched the arrow.

  The deer came closer still. It tested the air with its nose but Ava and Macon were downwind and so it did not find them when it searched. It was a male deer, full and old. Its antlers stretched wide and dangerous, like the branches of a great tree reaching up from it. Then, not far behind, came the doe and her fawn. They walked through the forest without hesitation, the buck having searched for predators in the dim light and heavy wind of the morning. But it was the same wind that was leading them into Ava’s arrow. The wind was heavy enough that it rustled the trees in such a way that Ava could not be heard when she shifted slightly in her position in order to better get the buck in her sights.