The Wonder of All Things

by Jason Mott

  “Why shouldn’t I?” She rubbed her shoulders again, beating back the chill she felt. “Do you really think somebody could do it?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Do what Ishmael did,” Ava replied. “Run away.”

  Wash could see the seriousness in her eyes, even if he did not fully understand its genesis. “Maybe,” Wash said.

  “How would you do it?”

  “I’d head north,” Wash said definitively. Perhaps there was a part of him that had considered this, as well. “If you got past the radio tower you could really disappear for a while. Nothing but trees and mountains.”

  “There’s Rutger’s cabin,” Ava inserted, and it was clear that she was thinking ahead of the boy. “Dad and I go hunting up there. And Mom took me there once.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Wash replied. “Grandma told me about that place. Some guy and his wife lived up there a long time ago. They didn’t want to be around anybody. They only came into town once a year.”

  “Once every two years,” Ava said. “Dad told me where it is. It’s not too far from where we go hunting sometimes. I know almost exactly where it’s supposed to be.”

  “We’ve got to go sometime,” Wash said. “Grandma says the ridgeline takes you right there, but nobody goes that way because that part of the ridge is pretty rough.” Wash’s face tightened, as if a decision had been made. “Anyhow,” he said, “if you keep going, you could make it up into Virginia. The Appalachian Trail runs up that way—once you get past the radio tower on the north side of town. And then you could really control just how much running away you wanted to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there are always people up that way. But at the same time, when you’re on the trail, you can really disappear. You could walk along the trail, just off to the side—that way you wouldn’t get lost and, if you needed help of some kind, there would be people not too far away. It’s the perfect place to run away...if such a thing exists.” He smiled awkwardly.

  “Would you do it?” Ava asked.

  “Are you going to do it?” Wash replied.

  In Ava’s mind she saw a small cabin in the woods—silent and forgotten and waiting. Calling to her as the sirens called to Odysseus, full of promise and terror.

  * * *

  It was Macon’s second time attending one of Reverend Brown’s sermons. He had trouble explaining to Carmen exactly why he came back—knowing full well what reaction people would have to him attending the church. To the rest of the world, it appeared that he was choosing sides, making a statement about what he felt Ava’s gift meant, where he felt it was rooted. And, after his first appearance at the church, there were already people formulating theories that he might someday take over Reverend Brown’s church. Or that he might start one of his own. There were all manner of theories and ideas drifting around the internet and television about why Macon was coming to this particular church. But none of them struck at the truth of things: the simple fact that Macon felt adrift, and Reverend Brown, for better or worse, was something of a tether.

  But Macon was smart enough to know that he didn’t need to fan the flames of conjecture any more than he already was. So when people asked him why he came, he simply said, “Because I want to,” and left it at that. He knew that regardless of what he said, it would be twisted to each person’s own ends, so he chose simply to tell the truth. Yes, it was a manicured version of the truth, but it was the truth nonetheless.

  So for the second time he stood and he listened to Reverend Brown talk to his congregation about Ava and about how, above all else, they needed to guide their desire for her to fulfill wishes that they had. “She is her own person,” Reverend Brown said. “And we have to be willing to let her be that.”

  Reverend Brown’s sermons were not quite as well-received as many of his others. While he spoke of Ava’s right to be her own person, there were others in town—and around the world—who spoke of Ava’s duty. They had begun calling it “Divine Compulsion,” the idea that Ava had no choice in what happened next in her life now that the world knew about what she could do. Her fate had been determined by a higher power, and many people felt that she should use her gift, regardless of the cost to her.

  And so with each sermon of tolerance, Reverend Brown lost a few members. Some of them began following other preachers and ministers. Others simply decided that they did not need guidance on this matter—having already come to their decision about what Ava’s responsibilities were. And, day by day, Reverend Brown watched his congregation start down the slow path of dwindling.

  The reverend was not yet sure how Macon felt about him. He was sure that there was a large part of Macon that did not trust him, that saw him as just another person trying to exploit Ava. But he wanted more than that. Regardless of appearances, he wanted to help. So it was with great reluctance that he would do what he was planning to do tonight. Likely as not, he knew, Macon would see it as a betrayal. But the reverend figured that the best way to control a storm was to grab the lightning.

  “As you all know,” he said, halfway through his sermon, “the local sheriff, Macon Campbell, is with us this evening.” A round of applause went up and all eyes turned to Macon. He sat in the front row, flanked by the church’s deacons. Reverend Brown looked down at him. “I have a wonderful announcement,” Reverend Brown continued. “I’m pleased to announce that, after much discussion, the sheriff has agreed to become a part of our church. And he will be bringing his family with him.”

  The roar that went up from the crowd was deafening. Before Macon understood what was happening, Reverend Brown came down from the stage, microphone in hand, and asked Macon to join him in front of the church. Macon resisted. His fists were clenched and his jaw locked in anger, but he went, compelled by the thousands of eyes upon him.

  “You son of a bitch,” he whispered to the reverend as they climbed the stairs to the stage. “What are you doing?”

  “Everything I can to help you,” Reverend Brown replied.

  And then Macon was before the crowd. Eyes and cameras loomed upon him. He couldn’t remember another time in his life when he had been so afraid. Reverend Brown stood in the center of the stage, smiling and patting his shoulder. He turned the microphone away. “This is the only way you’ll make it through this,” he whispered into Macon’s ear. “They won’t let you sit idly by. You’ll have to take a position sooner or later. At least, this way, you’re not alone.”

  He stood with one hand extended toward Macon and the other aimed at the crowd, in a gesture of introduction, as if he could take Macon’s hand and provide a living link to every person who was now standing on their feet and cheering.

  Macon felt light-headed.

  “Here is the man himself,” Reverend Brown said, and Macon could hear his voice echoing around the arena, thrumming from the speakers positioned around the room. The crowd responded to Reverend Brown’s voice by applauding all the louder. “Amen,” Reverend Brown said. Then he raised Macon’s hand up like a referee raising the hand of a conquering fighter, and the people became louder and more excited and Macon trembled.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Reverend Brown said, leaning in and whispering into Macon’s ear. Then he sat in a small chair on the far side of the stage and Macon was left to face the people of the congregation on his own. Seconds passed like years. Macon cleared his throat and the microphone picked up the sound and broadcast it through the speakers.

  “Don’t be afraid,” someone said.

  “Excuse me,” Macon said, clearing his throat once more. “I apologize for my nervousness,” he said. His voice was gathering itself up. “This is all...very sudden.”

  “Amen,” someone shouted.

  “How did it happen?” someone in the audience shouted. Macon searched the crowd, trying to meet the eyes of whoever had posed the question, but all he saw was a sea of waiting faces.

  “Through God’s grace,” Macon replied. Though he had not spent much time in
church over the course of his life, he was born and raised in the South. He knew the words to say. “But like so many of you here,” he continued, “I am still waiting to see what the future holds for me and Ava.” Macon stopped then, expecting a round of applause, but all that returned to him was a resounding silence—occasionally broken up by the shuffling of someone’s feet or the sporadic and distant sound of someone coughing.

  “What about your daughter?” some asked.

  “My daughter...” Macon began, his hesitation booming through the speakers.

  “When will she be coming to the church?”

  Macon looked over at Reverend Brown. He hated the man just then. And he hated himself for trusting him, for coming to the church, for sitting and talking with him, for believing that, among all of this that was happening, there was someone who might be willing to help him.

  Still the crowd waited, and still Macon looked at the reverend. The crowd followed Macon’s gaze. All eyes fell on the man of the cloth.

  Reverend Isaiah Brown stood and walked over to Macon. His suit was sharp and clean. He was the perfect image of order among chaos. He placed one hand on Macon’s shoulder and covered the microphone with the other. “It’s your decision,” he said to Macon in a low voice. “Everything that happens after this will be your decision,” he said. “I promise you that.”

  Then he took his hand from over the microphone. “Well,” he said, and his voice was carried over the speakers. “Will you be joining us?”

  In that moment there were a thousand variations of “no” swirling through Macon’s mind. He would simply walk away. He could denounce the reverend. He could go home to Carmen and Ava and tell everyone to go away. But would it solve anything? Or would it simply make things worse?

  There was no end to this in sight. If he walked offstage, the church would still be here. And so would the other churches. So would the reporters, and people like Eldrich, who wanted to poke and prod and test Ava. No one was going to simply let her be the child she had been. No one was going to forget. So, Macon suddenly thought, when there was no way around it, maybe it was best to just tuck your chin and head straight into the storm.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, I’ll be joining the church. We’ll be joining.”

  Then Reverend Brown raised Macon’s hand high again. “Wonderful,” he whispered. And the applause boomed and continued and continued and Macon felt as though he were being washed away in it.

  Even if Ava remembered what had happened with the deer, her mother would not have let her talk about it. In the days following their journey into the woods Heather treated her daughter like delicate glass. At bedtime, on that first night, she tucked her daughter in and knelt beside the bed and asked, “Do you remember?”

  Ava closed her eyes and thought as hard as she could about their walk together, but she could not recall. She shook her head, and so her mother recounted the story to her.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Heather said.

  “Did I really help it?”

  “You did,” Heather said. “But you scared me, too.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Ava replied. “Tell me again how it happened.”

  Then Heather would retell of their walk, of the deer with the arrow through its lung, of the two of them kneeling beside it, expecting to share its last moments. This was the time when Ava would become excited. She would grip her bedcovers and squeeze them to her chest and a grin would spread across her face. “What happened next?” she would ask. And Heather would act out the way Ava pulled the arrow from the animal’s chest. The two of them would fix their hands together and pull the imaginary arrow out together.

  “And then I covered up the blood and closed my eyes?” Ava asked.

  “That’s right,” Heather replied. “And you’re sure you don’t remember anything else? You’re sure you don’t remember what you did or what you thought?”

  “No,” Ava said. “I wish I did.”

  Over and over again the story was passed from mother to daughter, refined just a little more each time, until it had become as much of a tale as that of men who discover icebergs buried beneath mountains. They shaped it together, with no input from Macon because he did not know about it. It was a secret between a mother and daughter. Heather asked her daughter about how it happened. She wanted the answers, but she began to realize that Ava did not have them. And, eventually, she wondered how much of it she could even believe herself. At the end of the day, all that had happened was that her daughter pressed her hands on a wounded animal and, perhaps out of fear, the animal mustered up strength enough to stand and flee into the woods. For all she knew, it might have marched out of sight only to die the death it was already destined to have.

  “He wouldn’t believe us if we told him,” Heather told her daughter when the child asked why she couldn’t tell her father. “He’s the type of man that understands what he can grab ahold of. Not like you and me. He’d never believe us, and if he did, he’d want to tell people about it.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Ava asked.

  “You passed out afterward and I don’t know why. I just know that I don’t ever want that to happen to you again. And if other people found out about this—even your dad—they might want you to keep doing it. Can you understand that?”

  The child nodded. She understood. She trusted that her mother loved her and was making the decision that was best for her.

  “Have you ever seen anyone do anything like that before, Mom?”

  “No,” Heather replied. “Not ever.”

  “That makes me special, doesn’t it?”

  “It does, my sweet girl. More special than you can understand.”

  SEVEN

  AVA WOKE TO a hand over her mouth. It was very late on the night after Macon’s appearance before Reverend Brown’s church. He had come home from the event full of energy and confusion. He paced back and forth in the living room, telling Ava and Carmen all the details of how it felt to stand in front of the church. “Scared the shit out of me,” he said.

  The two women of his life said very little; they only let him speak, let him sort out his own thoughts as he stood before them. “I can do this,” he kept repeating. “I can manage all of this and make it better for all of us. I know that she’s sick,” he continued, “and it’s terrifying. But this can all be okay. This can all work out.” Then he looked at Carmen and Ava and his face was filled with a type of asking, a need to be told that he was doing the right thing.

  “This can’t keep going this way,” Carmen said.

  “It’s okay,” Ava replied. She tried to sound strong. She did not want her father to be afraid. “I’ll be okay,” she said. “You’ll make it work out.”

  After Macon had talked himself into exhaustion, the three of them went to bed. Ava drifted to sleep to the low murmur of Macon and Carmen continuing the conversation in the neighboring bedroom. Perhaps Carmen was saying all of the things she did not want to say in front of Ava. But then sleep took her.

  Now she was awake in the late hours of the night and there was a hand over her mouth.

  “Shh,” a voice said. It was low and frightened, almost like a child’s. But the hand covering her mouth was not the hand of a child. It was large and rough, and with enough force that she could not lift her head from the pillow. “It’s okay,” the man said. “Please...don’t yell. It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.” The words came fast and low and, still, there was fear in his voice.

  Ava’s eyes adjusted to the low light of her bedroom until, finally, she was able to make out the face of the man sitting on the edge of her bed, holding his hand over her mouth. It was the man who had found her in the street behind Dr. Arnold’s office. The one who had begged her to help him. The one she had left standing alone. “I just needed to talk to you,” the man said. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

  Ava’s heart pounded in her chest. Her breaths came fast and shallow.

  “Please don’t worry
,” the man said. “Calm down, okay?”

  Ava took a deep breath. Her heart slowed. She nodded in affirmation, uncertain of what the man intended or what she could do to resist him. She thought of pounding against the wall, of kicking and fighting. Macon and Carmen were asleep in their bedroom, and Carmen was always up and down in the course of the night to go to the bathroom. They would hear her, Ava knew. But what might happen in the time between when they heard her and when they made it into the room? She could be killed.

  “It’s okay,” the man said again softly. He was pleading with her, as he had in the street that day. “My name’s Sam,” he said as though he had not told her that before. “I just need you to listen, okay?”

  Slowly, Ava nodded in agreement. But, still, Sam did not remove his hand from her mouth. He shifted his position so that he was no longer sitting on the edge of the bed, but kneeling beside it, almost as though he had come to pray.

  “I just need help,” Sam said. “That’s all.” Slowly, he took his hand away from Ava’s mouth. The weight of it was like a large stone being lifted from her body. She slid across the bed and pressed her back against the wall—still not brave enough to yell, still not ready to call out. Sam watched silently as Ava tucked her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them and made herself as small as she could. Her heart was pounding.

  Sam held his hands with his palms upward, as though surrendering. He did not wield a knife or gun, as Ava imagined he might.

  “My name’s Sam,” he said again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do this. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to talk to you. I just wanted to say I was sorry.”

  Sam smiled, and there was nervousness in it. Perhaps there were tears in the corners of his eyes. “I’m broken,” Sam said softly. “I’ve always been broken. But I try not to be. I do my best.” He nodded, as if to agree with himself. “I mess things up a lot,” he said. “I try not to. But I mess things up a lot.”

  Still Ava did not reply. She did not call out for her father. She was transfixed.