Divine Temptation

by Nicki Elson

  “I’m surprised he didn’t want to stick around long enough to look into the Somme thing.”

  “We sort of forgot to tell him about that. Father Tom’s request. But I don’t see how he could help anyhow—Monsignor’s more interested in evil spirits than good ones.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I probably shouldn’t say…do you promise it won’t leave this office?”

  “Brenda…” The women had shared countless off-the-record church tidbits, and Maggie wasn’t in the mood to play coy.

  “He’s got training in exorcism.”

  “Really? Has he ever actually performed any?”

  “I assume so, but I don’t really know. Doesn’t seem to like to talk about it. I only know because some of his paperwork mistakenly landed on my desk one day. Maybe it’s only a hobby.”

  Maggie chuckled. “Yeah, given his personality, I’d say exorcism makes perfect sense as a favored pastime.”

  Father Tom didn’t appear by the time Maggie went home, but the next morning he bustled into the office carrying a stack of books. He set them on the edge of the desk while he fished around in his pocket and pulled out a key to open his office door. “I’m sorry to have procrastinated so much on this, Maggie. But I’ve finally gotten inspiration for the archaeology presentation. Now I’ve just got to comb through these and get some notes together. How long are you in today?”

  “I could stay until one.”

  “Oh dear.” He maneuvered so he could see the face of his watch.

  “Why don’t you give me whatever you have ready by then, and I’ll type it up at home,” Maggie suggested. “Then I can finish up anything remaining in the morning.”

  “That would be wonderful, thank you. I’ll get busy.”

  He stepped into his office, but Brenda stopped him with a shout. “Hey! You don’t think you’re going to bury your head in those books before giving us a full account of what went on at Somme, do you?”

  He paused, seeming to think over his words before saying, “Nothing conclusive. I wasn’t the only priest or minister called in. There were a dozen or so, all with different thoughts on what might be going on.”

  “Well, what do you think it was?” Brenda asked, and Maggie held her breath.

  “It’s not…I don’t…it’s probably nothing. A freak of nature. Nevertheless, we’ve all agreed to keep a close eye on the situation, just in case. For now the garden staff will downplay the spectacle—essentially ignore it and see if it goes away.”

  Maggie was relieved by his nonchalance. Surely if a priest wasn’t overly concerned about it, she needn’t be either. He took a step into his office, but then turned back to the women. “Before you get any ideas, I’d rather the two of you stayed away from the park for now. It’s just some vines, after all. And more people showing up, particularly church staff, will only give more credence to a fluke. It’s best not to get people riled up over nothing.” His eyes flicked between the two women before he retreated into his office and shut the door.

  “It’s kind of nice the gardens don’t want to use the visitation thing to lure more visitors,” Maggie said.

  “Not how they roll, I guess,” Brenda answered absently as she returned to her work.

  Maggie went home with several pages of Father Tom’s handwritten notes. She was happy when Liam’s friend Tommy called to ask him to the pool for the afternoon—this way she could work without interruption since Kirsten also had plans to spend the afternoon with her friends.

  Deciphering the priest’s handwriting was no problem, but sometimes his mind and his hand worked at two completely different speeds and his notes often ended up with arrows, asterisks, and circled text that took some figuring out. He’d bookmarked a picture of a small stone with rudimentary figures of a man and woman carved into the face that Maggie surmised he wanted included on the last page of the handouts.

  She typed an outline of various archeological discoveries—capitols, palaces, and stone tablets in places such as Bogazkoy, Turkey, and Iraq—that backed up the existence of kings and societies described in Scripture. She filled another page with a list of credible tombs of biblical figures in locations that could be visited today.

  Going through all the physical support—not something often explored when talking of faith and spirituality—had piqued her interest more than she’d expected, so later that evening she found herself exploring more online. Separating wheat from chaff was a bit tedious on the Internet, and she spent far too much time exploring something called the Protégé Prophecy, a supposed prediction that one of Satan’s followers would father a child on this Earth. The child would bring legions of humans into the devil’s fold and elevate his father’s standing in the underworld. Maggie found it all fascinating, but a few additional clicks of her mouse informed her that it had all been dismissed as an unfounded hoax.

  Since it was summer and there were no extra credit points to be earned, Maggie didn’t push Kirsten to attend Father Tom’s talk the next evening. Besides, this way she didn’t have to find a babysitter for Liam. She’d promoted the presentation in the local papers and was curious to see whether the blurbs had attracted any outside folks. But most of the people she handed information packets to as they filtered in for the lecture were at least somewhat familiar, except for one reserved gentleman who took a seat several rows behind the others. Estimating him as roughly her age, Maggie noted his refined features and was certain he’d have left an impression if she’d ever seen him before. It was a decent sized showing overall, and by the time Father Tom was scheduled to begin, she had only five packets left. She set them on a table in the narthex for latecomers and stepped just inside the doors, pleased that Monsignor Sarto hadn’t rushed back into town to take over this presentation too.

  After greeting everyone, Father Tom started his presentation in an unusual way. “The Bible reads like a work of fiction. ‘The greatest story ever told,’ they say. And it’s a story that has it all—action, sex, deception, murder. Love. So it’s easy to forget that as Christians, we believe it’s all true. Now, that’s not to say its literal translation is always historically accurate, such as in the story of creation. The story of Adam and Eve may be literally historically accurate, or it may be a parable of sorts, but as we move beyond Genesis, and prior to Revelation, our Holy Bible becomes as much an historical account as it is a spiritual one.”

  He went on to delve into accounts of each of the archeological excavations Maggie had typed up.

  “If I may now ask you to turn to the final page of your packet.”

  The swishing of paper sounded throughout the church.

  “This is a picture of a seal discovered near the bottom of the Tepe Gowra Mound in Iraq. Would someone like to describe the carving?”

  He nodded toward a man who stood up and said, “It’s a woman and a man. Naked. They’re bowing prostrate, like they’re broken.”

  “And what else do you see in that picture?”

  “A snake.” The man’s head snapped up to look at Father Tom. “It’s Adam and Eve.”

  The pastor nodded. “Please look at the notes below and see that this finding dates back to thirty-five hundred B.C.” He paused and looked out at the attendees. “It appears the fall of mankind may have a basis in history, after all. He gave them a garden. Paradise. And Satan came along and offered something else. They were tempted. They gave in. And God’s been punishing them ever since.”

  In the quiet of the night, an elusive drip coming from somewhere in the townhouse worked like a metronome to lull and focus Maggie’s mind. Yet she couldn’t fall asleep. She had so many questions after the presentation, and despite Father Tom’s assurances about the tholos, she couldn’t help but wonder. She wished Evan was there to talk to about it all.

  Before she lifted her head and saw him, she felt him. “Hey, stranger,” she teased as she propped herself up on her elbows.

  He smiled, but only halfway, and didn’t make a move to approach her. “What
do you need, Maggie?”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You brought me here.”

  “Against your will?” She sat straight up.

  He sighed, but didn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just…I have a lot of questions for you. If you don’t want to answer—”

  “I do want to be here, and I do want to answer your questions—to the extent that I’m allowed.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Why do you seem so…stiff?”

  He gave her a long and hard look, and then the cold steel of his eyes softened to something warmer and the tensed muscles along his rigid jawline relaxed. “There’s no problem. I’ve just not been summoned by a human before. I didn’t know it was possible.”

  “Oh.” She felt her face warm. She hadn’t realized she’d been wishing hard enough for him that anyone would notice. “Guess I’d better make good use of my ‘summons’ then.” She told him about the disturbance at Somme Park, but Evan didn’t know anything about it. She asked if he thought it could have anything to do with what she’d felt there, if perhaps he’d misinterpreted the energy and it had actually been something good.

  “Why would I lead you away from something good?” he asked.

  “You admitted to not fully understanding what’s going on here. I mean, why are you appearing to me in the first place? What drew you to the coffee shop? You don’t know. So, all I’m suggesting is that maybe you were wrong that day at Somme.”

  Through the fringe of hair that fell across his forehead, she saw that his typically smooth brow was creased in confusion. His frown told her he didn’t like the uncertainty. “Or perhaps what called me there was entirely different from the pull you felt at the urn—two conflicting spirits that appeared in the same area, either by coincidence or design. The dark shadows may have moved on from that space while the light stayed. Either way, I suggest you stay away from there for the time being.”

  “I was hardly planning to have a picnic there any time soon.” Maggie was frustrated with the continued lack of a straight answer and let out an irritated sigh. “I’m sure there’s no point to it, but let’s move on to the next question. Adam and Eve—fact or fiction?” The ancient seal had seemed to prove that an Adam and Eve-like legend had existed from near the beginning of time.

  “The story is true, but perhaps not exactly in the way you understand it,” he explained. “To be communicated, it had to be put into human words. There is no language understood on Earth that could convey an exact account.”

  In response, he said, “I know it’s a difficult concept to grasp—that there are things out there your mind simply can’t fathom. I could try to explain, but you wouldn’t understand.” He spoke in gentle tones and moved closer to the bed, sitting down on the end when she shot him a dirty look for telling her she wouldn’t understand. “That’s where your faith comes in.” He reached up and traced his thumb lightly over the tense wrinkle between her eyebrows, easing it away with his serene energy. She nodded, and his fingers moved down to rest at the bend of her jaw.

  “What do you mean when you say the story is true, even if I don’t understand it accurately?” she asked.

  “The essentials are true—God created man, then woman. They were meant to live in perfect tranquility. But they were tempted into disobedience.”

  “And God punished them.”

  “Punishment wasn’t God’s purpose. His purpose was to give them what they wanted.”

  “They wanted to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden?”

  “They wanted to be more open to sin. To bite that fruit, Eve had to overcome an enormous obstacle. God didn’t make humans to sin; it wasn’t in their original nature. But when Eve used her free will to surmount the obstacle—the innate goodness and obedience God had intended for mankind—and gave in to temptation, and then Adam followed, God saw what they wanted and he gave it to them.”

  “But everything became so awful after that; it sounds like punishment to me.”

  “Fear, hunger, shame, coldness—it’s all a part of sin. They couldn’t just have part of it; they had to take it all. But it’s what they chose.”

  “Not really,” Maggie insisted. “They wanted the fruit and the power they thought would come with it. They didn’t ask for the rest of it. It seems unfair that God didn’t warn them about the other stuff ahead of time.”

  “He did warn them.”

  “How?”

  “With the story of Adam and Eve.”

  Maggie narrowed her eyes until something clicked…sort of. “This is one of those circular things, isn’t it? They represent mankind and the fall, and he gives us this story as a warning, but it also really happened. So we had to live the warning in order to get the warning.” She felt more confused by the end of speech and understood what Evan meant about the limitations of the human language.

  He nodded, an approving smile playing upon his lips, and moved his thumb slowly back and forth over her cheek, sending a small wash of peace into her, calming her confusion and helping her to accept the gist of what she’d tried to explain without having to fully understand it.

  She took in his serenity and examined his features. He didn’t have any permanent lines there from worry or the harsh reality of aging. His face represented trust in and sincere devotion to something higher than himself.

  “Must be nice to be free of original sin. To automatically follow the Lord’s path and never mess up,” she said with a touch of envy.

  “Is that what you think? Do I need to remind you that the biggest sinner of all is an angel? And his most loyal followers, all angels?”

  Maggie’s eyes opened wide. She’d always feared Satan, but he’d also felt almost like a make believe character to her, like a villain in a Disney movie. With this very real angel sitting before her, touching her, and after Father Tom’s presentation, things that had always felt vaguely mythical were brought into crisp reality. Evan brought his other hand up to her temple and touched it lightly with his fingertips, surrounding her with gentle security.

  “It’s true that angels are less prone to temptation,” he said softly, “but when we give in, the betrayal is at a higher magnitude. It’s nearly unforgivable because it’s not in our nature, so it isn’t weakness we demonstrate. It’s willfulness, which is much worse.”

  His fingertips roved over Maggie’s face, tracing her cheekbones, over the bridge of her nose, across her lips. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in his silky touch as he glided over her eyelids, up to her forehead, and everywhere while the sound of his rich, steady voice rolled over her.

  Maggie thought of how different the sensations he now sent into her were from those she’d felt the last time he’d touched her, at the canyon. There had been an urgency then, something on the verge of losing control. He’d clearly mastered whatever had afflicted him then.

  “When we overcome the lure to sin,” he continued, “we’re strengthened tenfold and made able to face our temptations more easily. We can come closer to that which tempts us than we previously would have dared—” he lowered his hand to rest at the side of her throat “—and resist without effort.”

  Maggie stared into the depths of his mesmerizing eyes and wondered how he didn’t feel the throbbing vein in her neck as it pulsed in time with her thundering heart. She wasn’t quite as practiced as him at resistance.

  Chapter 10

  TWO DAYS BEFORE SENDING her children on their trip out west, Maggie took a day off work and let Kirsten and Liam each invite a friend to Six Flags Great America. Nothing in Wyoming would quite compare to being flung around in tiny metal cars over twisted tracks, or having cotton candy stuck to teeth and the bottom of shoes as the small group trampled across burning asphalt on their way to the next brush with death.

  They’d tackled all the major roller coasters by the time night fell and decided to take advantage of the short lines at smaller attractions. Having recently polished off a huge pepperoni pizza for dinn
er, the kids challenged each other to the Fiddler’s Fling—last one to turn green would be the winner. Maggie sensibly abstained and stood against the fence, watching and laughing and snapping futile pictures. Most of the photos came out as nothing but blurry streaks of light.

  Creating this distinct memory in her children’s minds further restored her sense of security. She couldn’t be the sole center of their universe, but she still played a significant role and that was enough for her. It seemed she’d become more satisfied in general since that day at the canyon, and she could legitimately call herself happy again. But she’d learned long ago that maintaining balance was a continual process, and even as she stood there, she knew this felicity wouldn’t last forever. Something would come along to throw her once again into doubt and despair; it was inevitable. But this time she was going to nurture her happiness and bask in it for as long as she could.

  She snapped another picture and groaned as she looked at the result. But rather than feeling the annoyance she’d just expressed, her contentment and joy received a boost of adrenaline just as someone came to stand at the fence beside her. She turned to look, and her mouth fell open when she saw Evan’s attractive, flawless figure.

  He laughed. “Nice to see you too. I can’t stay; I’m on my way somewhere else, but I thought of you and here I am.”

  “I won’t ask, because I already know the answer will be ‘I don’t know,’ but this seems…we’re both getting more control over this thing, as far as when we get to see each other, aren’t we?”

  He nodded. “Things feel different.”

  “But in a good way, right?”

  He nodded again, and this time he smiled too. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  He disappeared just as the ride began to slow. On one last, impulsive whim Maggie snapped a picture, and when she looked down at it, she saw both her kids’ screaming faces perfectly captured as their separate cars spun next to each other.