Soul's Gate

by James L. Rubart

  “Thank you. Thank you.” Marcus turned to Brandon, then stared at his arms and swiped at the cords still tied around his wrists and arms. The thin ropes fell off as if made of dust and floated to the wooden planks.

  Dana didn’t doubt the chasm they stood over was bottomless. Those insidious weights had vanished forever. But once again a niggling in her heart said it wasn’t enough. There was more, but what?

  Brandon set the knife down on the dark beam. “It’s over.”

  But just as in the media room—it wasn’t. Wispy strings grew around the professor’s arms and thickened until they were as wide as before. They snaked over the railing, waving in the breeze coming up from the depths. Then tiny weights appeared at the end of the ropes, the size of lead weights used by fishermen. Within seconds they grew to the size of grapefruits, then watermelons. Their combined weight yanked Marcus back to the railing, his arms again over the side, his body straining to stay on the bridge.

  “No!” Brandon snatched the knife off the railing and sliced through the ropes again. This time the weights came back faster. He turned, his face contorted in frustration.

  “What are we supposed to do?”

  Once again they were going after the symptom, not the cure. Dana turned to Reece, who had stood by with folded arms from the moment they’d spotted the professor. “Help us.”

  Reece nodded toward the end of the bridge. She sprinted to the end, then spun on her heel in a circle searching for clues. Dana scanned the trees along the steep slope that poked through the fog and spied a few caves that burrowed into the hills and thick rocks covered with jade moss that jutted out over the entrances. Something in the caves? No, that wasn’t it. There was nothing here. What did Reece want her to find?

  “What!” She screamed back the way she’d come, but the only answer was soft moans from Marcus.

  “Show me, Jesus.”

  She did another slow spin and stopped as the faint edges of a huge sign nailed to the side of the bridge filled her vision. Of course.

  “Let me see, Jesus.”

  The fog cleared around the sign and she gasped. On it were listed hundreds of Marcus’s regrets. Every choice he wished he could make over. Every moment missed with his daughters. Every moment missed with his wife.

  “Brandon!”

  He reached her in seconds and she pointed to the sign. He scanned it and turned to her. “What are you thinking?”

  “We burn it.”

  “No, that’s not enough. Nature abhors a vacuum. We need to put something in its place. We need to cover this—erase it—remove the words and fill the sign with thoughts to take the place of these.”

  “Cover it?” Dana spun in a circle. With what? Dirt? Take a rock and scrape the writing off the sign? “How?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we take it down and a new sign will appear.” Brandon reached up and grabbed the edge of the sign and yanked, but it didn’t budge. He stepped back.

  “Look!” Dana pointed to where Brandon’s hands had been. Smudges of white in the shape of his fingers covered the sign.

  She stepped forward, slapped her hands on the sign, and smeared them in sweeping circles. Brandon joined her and in seconds they stared at a white canvas.

  “Now what?” Brandon said.

  “Somehow we have to fill the vacuum.”

  “How?”

  She stepped up, placed her forefinger on the sign, and drew it along the bottom. A bright crimson line appeared. Dana turned to Brandon and smiled. “Ready? You take that side, I’ll take this.”

  “What do we write?”

  “No time to think about it. Write whatever the Spirit brings to mind.”

  For the next ten minutes the only sound was the squeak of their fingers on the sign and the clomp of Reece’s footsteps coming toward them. He stood to their right, his eyes bright, and offered a single nod in appraisement of their work. Dana reached the bottom of the sign with her words and stepped back. Brandon was already finished.

  I am a child of the everlasting King.

  I am forgiven.

  I am a warrior.

  I am cloaked in righteous armor.

  I was made for adventure.

  I was built for battle.

  I am part of a larger story.

  My true and lasting affirmation comes only from my King.

  I am unique above all creation—planned and perfect in design.

  I have been created for a glorious destiny.

  All my ways are established by you, my King, and I walk in them.

  My life and actions are real, authentic, and without compromise.

  I am quickened and made alive through the power of your Spirit.

  My whole life is before me.

  I am a shining gift from God to this lost world.

  I know my name, I understand my calling, and I am worthy to walk in it.

  I am strong, brave, and courageous in the face of my enemies.

  Whatever is good, whatever is pure, whatever is true, dwell on these things.

  My sins are scattered as far as the east is from the west.

  I am a good husband to my wife.

  I am a good father to my daughters.

  The past is over,

  And the future glimmers with radiant light.

  I will look to the new day, The dawning of hope.

  I will step forward with the truth before me and will no longer look on the day that is gone.

  The past is over; the future has begun.

  Brandon laughed and turned to Dana. “Where did those come from?”

  “You know exactly where.” She smiled back, then pointed toward Marcus. “Let’s try cutting the cords one more time.”

  After the weights hurtled into the chasm, they waited. The professor’s arms stayed free of the ropes and the wonder that filled his face seemed to burn into the light fog still hovering over the bridge. Then the fog lifted, shafts of sunlight cut through the dissipating mist, and Dana blinked and shut her eyes against the brilliance. When she opened them again, Brandon, Reece, and she were back at the fire pit—each of them breathing deep.

  Marcus sat on the back porch of his home in Seattle’s Belvedere Terrace neighborhood, his eyes closed, praying for freedom. Praying for the others. He knew they were warring for him. Possibly even inside his soul at that moment. Going into areas he hadn’t faced in years. Areas he didn’t even know were there. But he felt nothing. He opened his eyes and glanced at his watch. Nine o’clock. At nine fifteen he’d go inside. He turned at the squeak of the screen door behind him.

  “How are you doing?” Kat leaned against the wall to the right of the door in her dark sweats.

  “I’m okay.”

  “If they’re supposedly going into your soul, shouldn’t you be feeling something by now?”

  “I don’t know. The data to draw from at this point is extremely limited.”

  “I’ll keep praying.” Kat smiled and opened the screen door. “I do think God is going to do something.”

  Why hadn’t he felt anything? But as the screen door shut and the clop of Kat’s shoes faded into the house, Marcus realized something had happened. Something felt different. As if a match had been lit deep in his soul and the light was growing. Over the next ten minutes the sensation intensified till his chest pulsed with an energy he’d never felt before. His cell phone rang and he squinted at the caller ID. Dana.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “As if my chest is about to explode. It’s like I’ve swallowed a thousand gallons of light and have no power to keep it contained inside.”

  “I’m not surprised.” She laughed, and the sound of it reverberated through his heart and the light inside grew even more. “I’d say we had a significant victory, but you have to take the final step.”

  “Whatever is required, tell me.”

  “I’m going to text you a series of statements. Read them, out loud if you can, and let them sink deep into your mind and heart and soul and spirit.”<
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  “Anything else?”

  “You have to choose to believe them.”

  Marcus hung up and stared at his phone till Dana’s text arrived. For the next twenty minutes Marcus read the list over and over again, and the light inside him exploded.

  “ . . . the past is over; the future has begun.” He finished the list for the seventh time and closed his eyes. So much weight had risen off his shoulders, he was surprised he wasn’t floating up to the top of the Douglas fir trees in his backyard.

  Freedom like he’d never known swirled about him and all he could say was, “Thank you.”

  The screen door squeaked again. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but the girls just went to bed if you want to come say good night.”

  Marcus waited for the words to fly across his mental screen—“You missed so many times of saying good night that will never come again!”—and lance him with guilt. But when they came, no pain came with them. No guilt. No regret.

  His friends had made it inside—fought for him, set him free. He grinned at Kat as he reached out his arms and walked toward her. She stepped into his arms and he hugged her tight, then released her, took her hand, and stared up at the diamonds in the night sky. “I would love to come say good night.”

  “Your face tells me you’ve had quite an experience since I checked on you last time. Am I going to have to become a believer in your new wild and wonderful methods?”

  He turned and looked deep into her eyes. “I’ve become a good father.”

  She stared at him for a long time, a smile growing on her face. “Yes, you have. A great father.” Kat wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder. “And a great husband.”

  That night Marcus dreamed of bridges and weights and sunlight and freedom, and he didn’t want the dream to end.

  THIRTY-NINE

  MARCUS STROLLED TOWARD HIS FIRST CLASS ON Monday morning feeling like the poster boy for Clichés-R-Us. The air did seem cleaner. The songs from the birds in the oak trees were brighter. The color of the red square and Yoshino cherry trees in the quad seemed more vibrant than he’d ever seen them.

  The battle of his regrets wasn’t over. He realized there was more work to be done, more skirmishes ahead, and more rubble to be worked through. But his tower of regrets had been leveled and he would never allow it to be reconstructed.

  When he stepped up to the podium to begin his class lecture, he felt the Spirit suggest a different topic than what he’d planned. He smiled at the idea and started in. “Today we’ll be taking a slight detour from our current discussions to explore the intersection of what some would call the divine with quantum mechanics. Our beginning will be a review of Planck time.”

  Halfway through his lecture, a man of average height and build slipped into an aisle seat at the back of the room. Marcus had never seen him before, but he looked older than college age. Midthirties if he had to guess.

  The man crossed his legs, a thin smile on his face, his dark eyes riveted on Marcus, his brown hair slicked back from his forehead. Probably a new grad student or TA dropping in on his class. It happened often. But there was something about this guy Marcus didn’t like.

  He continued to lecture but the feeling intensified. Maybe because the man continued to stare at him. He stopped lecturing and looked at the man. “Excuse me, can I assist you? Are you in the right class?”

  As his students turned, the man rose from his seat and slipped through the door at the back of the lecture hall. Strange. Just before class ended, Marcus called to the student the man had sat next to. “Brodie, may I see you for a moment? The rest of you are dismissed.”

  Brodie shuffled up to the podium. Marcus stepped down and glanced around to make sure they were alone.

  “Do you know of the individual who sat next to you about halfway through class? And if you don’t, could you tell me if you felt anything strange about him? Or if he said anything to you that seemed off-kilter?”

  “When, today?”

  “Yes.”

  Brodie looked puzzled. “No one sat next to me today.”

  “I’m referring to the man who sat next to you for five minutes at most, at which point I said, ‘Excuse me,’ to him and he got up and left.”

  “No one sat next to me today, Prof.” Brodie frowned.

  “He sat right next to you. Brown hair, average size . . .”

  Brodie grinned. “Are you working me for some example you’re going to give in class later on? ’Cause if you are—”

  Brodie was serious. He hadn’t seen the man.

  Marcus forced a smile. “You’ve discovered my subterfuge. Well done.”

  “Rock on, Prof. Can’t wait to dive into alternate realities next quarter. Take care.”

  Brodie scooted down the aisle and pushed through the double doors at the back of the lecture hall.

  Marcus lifted his laptop off the podium and shuffled to the door at the side of the room, turned his back, and pushed it open. Before he backed through he stared at the seat where the brown-haired man had sat. His new, finely tuned spiritual eyes were miraculous and disconcerting at the same time. Marcus pulled out his cell phone and called Reece.

  Hopefully tonight he’d get to talk to Dana and Brandon about it as well when Reece took them to what he called a different kind of church.

  FORTY

  BRANDON STOOD WITH THE OTHERS ACROSS THE STREET from a two-story home in east Redmond on an unusually warm first day of summer as he tried to guess what the next few hours would hold.

  “Thursday night should be powerful,” Reece had told them a few days earlier. “I believe you’ll gain a new appreciation for what prayer can do.”

  Casually dressed men and women in ones and twos and threes strolled up the lighted walkway, greeting one another with smiles and laughter.

  “This is a church?” Brandon pointed at the house.

  “Yes. A home church,” Reece said. “old friends of mine. ready?”

  They were greeted at the front door by a man in his late thirties or early forties who grabbed Reece by the shoulders. “Great to see you, Reece. it’s been a few years.”

  “Too many, David.” Reece stepped into the entryway and the rest of them followed. “Thanks for letting us drop by.”

  David grinned up at Reece, then turned to them. “Who are your friends?”

  “They are the Warriors riding. come to see how your group prays for each other.”

  David waved them farther into his home. “come, come then, we’re just about to start.”

  He led them into a great room with chairs and couches strewn throughout the space on thick tan carpet. forty or fifty people in a wide range of ages were crammed in a large kitchen and dining area to the right, talking and laughing as they slugged down pop and coffee.

  David clapped his hands and raised his voice. “Let’s gather and see what Jesus has for us tonight.”

  After the people settled into the great room, a kid probably in his late teens picked up a guitar and threw furtive looks at Brandon as he tuned it. Did he know who Brandon was? It seemed like it. He flashed the kid a thumbs-up.

  “Go with it, you’ll be great,” Brandon mouthed to the kid and the teenager smiled.

  The teen didn’t have a great voice, but it didn’t matter as his passion and flawless guitar work took Brandon and the rest of the group deep into worship. Brandon got lost in the music, and peace settled on him like a dusting of snow.

  Twenty minutes later David clasped his hands. “Does anyone have anything you want to tell us before we go after some hearts?”

  A few people shared verses and how they impacted them, and another played a powerful clip on YouTube of a miraculous answer to prayer. When it was over, David stood and glanced around the group. “As always, we’ll break up into circles of four or five and see where the Spirit wants to set people free.”

  Brandon studied the people in the room as they broke into groups. It was obvious this part of their time together was a
regular activity.

  David looked at Marcus, Dana, and him. “Each of you feel free to join any of the groups. You can take part as much or as little as you want to.”

  Brandon looked around the room and saw an open chair next to the guitar player. He walked over, slid into the seat, and shook the kid’s hand. “Rock and roll.”

  “Are you really—?”

  Brandon leaned close to the teen’s ear. “Yeah, but let’s keep that between you and me, okay?”

  “Sure.” The kid grinned at him.

  “You did an awesome job up there.”

  “Really?” The kid’s smile grew wider. “Thanks, man.”

  As the rest of the group settled in, Dana slipped into a seat directly across the circle from Brandon. Great. She couldn’t have sat with one of the other groups?

  A few minutes later a woman to his left raised her voice. “Is there anyone here who would like us to pray about something specific?” She patted her chest. “Did anyone feel that pounding in his or her chest during worship where you knew the Spirit was saying, ‘Let’s heal this tonight’?”

  For a long time no one spoke. Then a man who looked like he was in his late twenties shifted in his chair. “Uh, yeah, but this might be a little awkward.”

  The woman who seemed to be the leader in the group smiled. “When does this ever get completely comfortable?”

  “Yeah.” The man glanced at her, then settled his eyes on Brandon. “It’s just that we’ve never done it with someone their first time here.” The man continued to stare at Brandon, then pointed his finger. “I think we’re supposed to pray for you.”

  “I don’t think it’s me.” Brandon frowned at the guy. “I’m fine.”

  “There is indeed a first time for everything.” The woman glanced around at the others in the circle. “Let’s pray for Brandon.”

  “No, really.” Brandon held up a finger. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t want us to pray for you?”

  Was she kidding? Of course he didn’t. These people were strangers. What would he tell them to pray for? He glanced around the circle and his gaze locked onto Dana’s. He knew that look and he knew she was right.