“You believe in life after death?” Ada asked, turning to Kol curiously.
“I believe that no soul ever truly ends. And if you love strongly enough, you can remain anchored to those you love who have not yet followed you into the next life.”
“I like that,” Ada said, slipping her hand into his and leaning against him.
Kol looked down at her, then up at the small building in the distance. “Would you like to go inside and see the museum?”
“Yes, I think I would,” Ada answered.
Together they strolled toward the museum, taking their time as Ada read each and every headstone to ensure that if she knew them, she’d said hello.
As they exited the graveyard, Ada suddenly looked nervous. “They’re going to make us take down the flowers and the edging!” she said worriedly.
“Why?” Kol asked.
“Because this is a historical graveyard and museum. They don’t allow things like that. Everything has to be the same.”
“We shall see. Come, let’s go inside,” Kol encouraged.
As they approached the small ‘museum’, Ada Jane took her time, taking in every aspect. “Looks like they tried to make it like our church. It’s a little bigger though, and obviously newer.” She paused to look up at the steeple. “It’s close enough that it’s familiar.”
“Is that a good thing?” Kol asked.
“Yeah, it is. I wouldn’t want a building here that didn’t feel like it was similar to the original building.”
As they stepped through the front doors of the church, Kol had to bow his head to be sure his horns didn’t catch on the way in, but once inside the room opened up greatly. Kol raised his eyes to the ceiling and smiled at the sight of the open beams displayed over head and the vaulted ceilings displaying the woodwork inside. As his eyes moved down from the ceiling, he took his time to appreciate the stained glass windows depicting the stations of the cross, and the beautifully woven pastel tapestries hanging from the walls on either side of and just behind the altar and pulpit. He took in the wooden pews taking up most of the floor space and following Ada Jane’s lead, he joined her in the third pew from the front, taking a seat next to her.
Ada Jane reached under the pew in front of her and pulled out a cushioned length of wood and knelt on it. She clasped her hands in front of her and closed her eyes.
Kol leaned forward, pretty sure he knew what she was doing. “Ada Jane?” he whispered.
Ada didn’t answer.
“Are you praying, my Ehlealah?” he whispered again.
“Yes,” she whispered back.
Kol watched her for a moment, then got to his own knees beside her and clasped his hands in prayer beside her.
Ada felt him shift as he joined her and she glimpsed him out of the corner of her eye as he too clasped his hands and closed his eyes in prayer. She smiled, then returned to her own prayers.
The curator and pastor of the church turned museum smiled as he entered the main room, which was actually the nave of the church when it was a fully functional church. He waited quietly while the two visitors knelt in prayer.
Eventually the male, obviously alien from the color of his skin and the horns on his head, lifted from his knees and slid back into the pew. Shortly after the woman with him did the same. He watched as they sat quietly for a few moments before the woman spoke.
“What did you pray for, Kol?” she asked.
“I prayed for the souls of those who have lost their lives. I prayed for the people who used to pray in this building or the one that used to stand here before the war. I prayed for your parents — that they be aware of your return, and I prayed for you, that you might find the peace and happiness that has so long escaped you,” Kol answered.
Ada smiled.
“I pretty much prayed for the same things. Only I sent thanks for sending you to find me,” she said quietly.
Kol smiled but didn’t say anything further. He was struck by the feeling of peace and harmony, complete calm that simply entering this building had given him, and quietly sat breathing it all in.
“You didn’t pray for anything for yourself,” Ada observed.
“If you are happy and have found peace, there is nothing more I need,” Kol answered.
Ada reached over and placed her fingers on top of his hand.
Kol turned his hand over and curled his fingers around hers, and they sat like that, together in silence until the curating pastor cleared his throat to let them know he was there.
Kol had known they weren’t alone, but also sensed no danger or ill will, so simply remained aware of their observance and continued to sit and enjoy the sanctity of their surroundings.
Ada Jane leaned forward a little and over toward the sound of a clearing throat.
“Welcome to our church slash museum. I’m pleased you’re here,” the pastor said.
“Thank you,” Ada Jane answered.
The pastor approached the pew and offered his hand for shaking as Kol got to his feet and stepped into the main aisle.
Kol looked down at the pastor’s hand, then met the pastor’s eyes before slowly extending his own hand to the man.
The pastor grasped Kol’s hand in his right hand and shook it slightly before embracing Kol’s hand with his left as well. “We don’t get many visitors. The locals will come for services on Sunday mornings, but there honestly aren’t that many left in the area to attend.”
“It’s a beautiful church, or museum… I’m not quite sure which to call it,” Ada Jane said, coming to stand beside Kol.
The pastor smiled and chuckled slightly. “Yes, well. It’s first and foremost a church, but, in order to maintain it and the property around it, it had to be registered as a historic place. And in order to do that, we had to rebuild the original church as well as we could after it was damaged in the war, then add room for artifacts and collections so that we could call it a museum. It worked!” the pastor said, lifting his hands palm up and looking around the place as he shrugged. “Here we are!” he added.
“You’ve done a good job,” Ada Jane said.
“Thank you,” the pastor said. “I like to think we managed to maintain the feel of the church, while adding the little things from the community’s history and keeping both complementary to one another.”
“You’ve done well,” Kol said.
“Thank you. I’m Pastor Douglas,” he said, introducing himself.
“I am Ambassador Kol Ra’ Don Tol of Cruestace,” Kol said. “This is my Ehlealah, Ada Jane…”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Pastor Douglas,” Ada said, interrupting Kol. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to know who she really was. “We won’t take up any more of your time…”
“Nonsense!” Pastor Douglas exclaimed. “Take all the time you like. In fact, please be my guest. Peruse the collections we have here. It will give you a real sense of the community that once flourished here.”
Ada looked around herself and noticed the photos on the wall in the alcove. And in looking through the glass windows of what used to be the crying room, the room mothers would take babies to if they cried during the services, she could see more photos.
“If you look over to the right there, we’ve added another room about the same size as this nave. We have artifacts collected from the area as well as more photos. I’d be pleased to give you a tour if you like. I’ve had a lot of time to acquaint myself with most of it.”
Ada Jane looked up at Kol to see if he minded.
“It is your day, Ada Jane. Anything you wish is more than acceptable.” Kol thought about it briefly then added. “Anything you wish is more than acceptable on any given day,” he said, his expression thoughtful.
Ada smiled as she was about to accept the pastor’s offer when he spoke.
“Ada Jane. That is a very unusual name. We have a display built around a local legend of a girl with that name. Most of our displays are built around the families that used to live in this region, and her
family’s collection is no different, but her story is unique.”
“Really?” Kol asked. “I would be most interested to see this collection. Would you not, my Ada Jane?”
Ada looked up at Kol. She was excited, but also apprehensive.
“I am right beside you,” he said softly.
Finally, Ada nodded. “Okay.”
They followed Pastor Douglas to the opposite room. The displays were set back against the walls and when necessary stood out from the wall approximately five feet. There was a wooden railing, similar to a rough hewn wooden fence separating all the displays from the viewing areas of the room. You could walk up to the ‘fence railing’ to see the displays, but not get any closer without crossing into the actual displays themselves.
Chapter 13
“Here we are. This display is of the Andersen family. They lived several miles from here. They were actually one of the first families to take up farming in the area. They bought their land in the early 1960’s and started a small dairy farm. Like everyone else, they grew their own corn and rotated out crops as the government asked. Like now, the government used to pay a certain amount of subsidy if you grew whatever was on their list that year.”
Kol listened to Pastor Douglas, but kept his eyes on Ada Jane. She was eerily quiet as her eyes fell on an old rocker that must have belonged to her family. She stared for a long time at an old handmade quilt that was draped over an old dresser. There were bits and pieces of furniture and decorations that she walked past every day of her younger life and never thought twice about. There were photos of her family home, and of the cows and even one of a small child on a roan horse. No one but her would know she was that child. She paused to look at each. Finally she moved a little further down the display and reached over the railing to run her fingers over an old yellow piece of farm equipment.
“That’s a fork from a hay baler,” Pastor Douglas said.
“I remember,” Ada Jane said softly, as she moved slowly down the exhibit. Then she saw it. A whole section filled with photos and newspapers. There even seemed to be some handwritten letters and cards there. She was drawn to it and moved quickly toward that area. She leaned over the railing trying to read the letters and cards and get a better look at the photos.
“We dedicated so much space to this one family because of an incident that occurred back in 1986. You see, their daughter was taken. It was a really big deal around these parts. People didn’t just go missing out in the country like she did. Her father claimed there were bright lights shining over the field she was in, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get into that field. It was like the lights were keeping him out. Then suddenly the lights were gone, and so was Ada Jane.
“He said he couldn’t see into the field she was in, just the illumination overhead, so he didn’t see what happened, just knew that she went out to feed the animals, sharing the feeding with him like she always did, and as he came over the hill that led into the pasture she was supposed to be in, through a copse of trees and shrubbery, he was frozen in place and couldn’t go forward or backward. Soon as he was able to move again, he rushed to the pasture screaming her name. The side by side ATV she was driving with the feed buckets was there, the feed was spilled all over the ground, but she was nowhere to be found,” Pastor Douglas explained.
Ada Jane stood there, tears running down her face as she quietly remembered that day. She was leaning precariously over the railing still trying to see through her tears.
“They always insisted she’d be back one day. Some said she just ran away, that what he thought he saw was just the stress of worrying about his missing daughter. But they never swayed from their story. They even left a message for her on their tombstone, just in case nothing else was left standing for her to come to,” the pastor said.
“We have been to the burial place. We have seen the message,” Kol said.
Ada leaned a little too far and almost tipped over the top of the railing separating her from the things that were once her family’s.
Kol moved swiftly, just catching her before she toppled into the exhibit. “Be careful, my Ada Jane. I know it is enticing, but we have plenty of time. Do not harm yourself as you finally get to see things from your parents’ point of view.”
Pastor Douglas heard Kol’s comment and walked up beside them, looking closely at Ada Jane, and then the last known photo of her. She was standing on the front porch of her home with her mother and father. They were smiling into a camera as they all posed with their arms around each other. The historical society had had the photo blown up to an 8” x 10” photo and had it framed. It was the center piece of the ‘taken’ part of the exhibit.
“It’s you, isn’t it? You’ve finally come home,” Pastor Douglas said, looking at the young woman standing next to him.
Ada Jane glanced his way. Her lip was trembling as she nodded her head.
The pastor opened his arms and Ada willingly accepted his hug. She could feel Kol’s hands on her hips, and knew though he was tolerating this male hugging her, he didn’t like it. So she only allowed a few seconds of hugging before she pulled away.
Pastor Douglas smiled at her before reaching for the railing meant to separate the visitors from the exhibits. He lifted the top section of railing from the notched posts it sat in and leaned it against the post behind himself. “There. No one has as much right to the things in this display as you do. Go ahead, get as close to it as you like, Ada Jane. And welcome home, young lady.”
Ada wasted no time, she walked through all the items set up. She ran her fingers across every single thing she found in the exhibit. She read all the cards sending condolences from families she’d grown up with. She touched her father’s favorite baseball cap — the one he wore every single day for as far back as she could remember. She picked up and studied every single photo.
Ada worked her way back through the entire exhibit on her family, touching and sniffing, remembering and reconnecting with every thing she saw. Her last stop was the handmade quilt on display. She lifted it from the dresser it laid across and held it to her face, inhaling deeply. “I can still smell my mom on it,” she said. Ada turned to Kol, holding it out. “Here, Kol. Smell it…” she said, holding it out.
Kol, who’d been softly speaking with the pastor explaining some of what had happened and just the very basics on the fact that he and his people had rescued her, walked to Ada Jane and leaned over to sniff the quilt without taking it from her hands. “It smells of apples and something else I am not sure of the name of,” he said.
“Cinnamon. Apples and Cinnamon. My mother always used apple scented everything, and she baked apple pies with cinnamon and brown sugar in them all the time. They were my father’s favorite. This quilt used to sit folded on the sofa in the living room. It was there from the time I was a tiny little girl. I don’t ever remember it not being there. The scent must have permeated it over the years,” she said.
“We did not launder anything we brought into the exhibit, we wanted them preserved just as they were,” the Pastor said.
Ada Jane sat down in the middle of the display, the quilt in her hands, the photo of herself and her parents in her lap. She looked up at Kol, who watched her patiently, lovingly. “I don’t ever want to leave here,” she admitted with a sad smile. “It’s the closest I’ll ever get to home.”
“You know,” Pastor Douglas said. “While I don’t wish to lose our exhibit, these things do belong to you — technically speaking. “
“They do?” she asked, perking up a bit.
“The way I see it, they do. I wouldn’t feel right with keeping your family’s keepsakes from you. If you wouldn’t mind providing copies of the photos, and maybe choosing a few things here and there that we could keep on display, I see no reason you couldn’t take what is rightfully yours, Ada Jane,” Pastor Douglas said sincerely.
Ada smiled up at Pastor Douglas excitedly, then over at Kol, who while looking like he was grimacing at her, was act
ually giving her a full-blown smile. But then she deflated. “I don’t even have anywhere to live right now. I have nowhere to keep anything of value, or myself for that matter.”
“You can stay with me, Ada Jane. You already know that I wish for you to be by my side. I only try not to push you too much so you know you have made your own decision.”
“We have a few small cottages on the property. They were meant for the maintenance people and their families to live in, but after the last one quit, I’ve just been taking care of everything myself. I live in the parsonage just to the side there,” he said, pointing to the opposite side of the building where the church nave was. “You are welcome to stay in one of the other cottages for as long as you like. It’s not fancy by any means, but, it’s dry in the rain, warm in the winter and cool in the summer. You’d have your privacy, and all I’d ask in return is maybe a hand around here, cleaning and mowing and keeping the graveyard neat and tidy.”
“Really?” Ada asked, getting to her feet, holding the blanket to her chest, her smile wide and bright.
“Yes, really. I’d like to tell you that you could just reclaim your family’s property, but, it was taken over about fifteen years ago. No one is really sure what’s going on over there, because it’s all fenced in and the public is kept out. It’s the same with all the land the military seized. There’s not much traffic in and out of it, but they do still have personnel there as far as I can tell. This,” he said, lifting a hand and waving it around the building, “is probably about as close as you can get to home. Unless you have a better offer, you’re welcome to be here.”
“Kol?” Ada Jane asked, looking at him for his opinion.
Kol looked into Ada Jane’s eyes. He knew no matter how much he hated leaving her without him anywhere, this was the only place she wanted to be right now. “How safe is it?” Kol asked the pastor.
“It’s very safe here. Since several years before the church was rebuilt and the museum added to it, we’ve not had a single incident. The only people through here are usually just families out for a drive, trying to show their kids what life was like before the invasion and subsequent war.”
Transcend Page 11