Truth Runner

by Jerel Law

  “I’m sorry. I know it’s nothing compared to . . . to losing your mom. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, so the only thing I have to relate it to is, well, missing my family back home.”

  Eliza’s temper flared, but she bit her tongue and told herself to calm down. A year or two ago she wouldn’t have been able to control the rising tide of her temper, but Elohim was helping her. She took a deep breath, and instead of lashing out, reached out to her friend and hugged her. It wasn’t the same as having her mom there, but it was nice to have a friend who really cared.

  “I know you love me,” Eliza whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek again. “Thank you. You’re a good friend. It’s just . . .”

  She knew if she continued, she would be buried in her pillow again.

  “It’s okay,” said Julia, patting Eliza on the back comfortingly. “You’re okay. Elohim really cares about you. All of us do.”

  Eliza nodded, pushed herself away, and grabbed the box of tissues. She then turned toward the mirror once more, with the tall task of making her face look as if she hadn’t been sobbing for the past half hour.

  When she finally made it downstairs to dinner, long after everyone else had started, she saw a group of kids crowding around Jeremiah, who was telling them in great detail about their adventure earlier. He apparently was relating the part about how he had caused them to be discovered by the fallen angel under the T-shirt cart and was adding in his own sound effects for good measure. The boys were red-faced with laughter, and even the girls were giggling.

  She couldn’t help but roll her eyes as she prepared a plateful of green lettuce and vegetables at the salad bar in the corner of the dining hall. Typical, she thought. Jeremiah leads us all down the wrong path, and everyone still loves him. Even Frederick, who had been with them, was standing there laughing.

  “Hey, Eliza,” Frederick called out. “Jeremiah was telling us about the factory you guys ran through. And how you were jumping over the conveyor belts . . .” He mimicked the balancing act that Jeremiah had shown him while the other kids giggled. “Is that how it went?”

  “Well, you sure are one to be joking around about it, considering your life was in danger just as much as mine was today,” she said, and sat down at the end of the long table.

  Frederick walked over and sat on the table beside her. “Come on, Eliza,” he said in his South African accent. “You have to admit, it’s kind of funny now.”

  “No, I really don’t,” she answered, taking a big bite of her salad.

  “You know what your problem is? You’re too tightly wound.”

  She scowled at him as he walked away. Too tightly wound . . . I’d like to wind you around a telephone pole, she thought.

  It wasn’t long until they were off to their Angel School classes for the night. They met at the New York Public Library, and it was the perfect place for them to hone their special quarterling powers. Since it closed at nine o’clock, and the library director was “sympathetic to the cause,” as Camilla had explained, the side door was always left open. But to get there, they had to move into the hidden realm and then walk very quietly from the convent under the guard of angels.

  That night Eliza walked along with Julia, just behind Jeremiah and some of the other boys. Within the hidden realm, she could see the mark of Elohim inside each of them. As Elohim’s followers, there was a bright, steady glow starting in the center of each of their chests and moving out to fill their entire bodies. She had seen it a thousand times now, but it was still somehow the strangest, most beautiful thing she had ever witnessed.

  Andre, the huge Russian quarterling, pulled the door open and held it for everyone while his eyes scanned the grounds of the library.

  “After you,” he said.

  They entered the cavernous library and made their way up the marble staircase to the third floor. Paintings lined the walls, and the ceilings were covered with gold and silver gilding and more artwork. It was no secret that Eliza loved books, and this library was her favorite building in all of New York City.

  The reading room was the best part. Thousands and thousands of books lined the shelves, and the soft glow of the table lamps made the room feel calm and peaceful. The ceiling was painted like the sky, and Eliza had spent more than one afternoon here reading everything she could get her hands on.

  The quarterlings had been split into three groups for the fall semester. The first group headed to the set of tables in the corner, where a tall, thin angel named Samuel stood smiling at them, with a tall stack of books beside him.

  “Greetings, friends!” Samuel said. “Are we ready for a wonderful night of study once again?”

  The muscular angel Marcus stood beside redheaded Taryn in the wide-open space in the middle, having pushed the tables against the wall. They greeted their students and didn’t waste any time getting started with their lesson in Angelic Defense for the evening.

  Eliza and the third group, which included Jeremiah, Andre, Rupert, and Lania, walked into a smaller room just off the reading room.

  “Remember, guys,” Eliza said. “Hidden realm?”

  Andre stopped at the doorway. “I almost forgot.”

  They bowed their heads to pray and reemerged into the physical world.

  The glow of candlelight shimmered in the doorway, and as they walked in, Reverend Kareem Bashir was sitting on a stool against the back wall of the room.

  “Hi, my friends!” he said, with a large smile behind his neatly trimmed black beard. “I hope you are all doing well this evening. We have a lot to cover, so I want you to go ahead and find your seats.”

  He was the one human who taught them. As a pastor of a church in the city, he was a friend of Sister Patricia from the convent, and she had invited him to instruct them in the ways of the Spiritual Arts. He also had been let in on their secret identities and powers.

  Unlike Samuel’s class, where there were tables and chairs set up in rows, Kareem preferred his students to sit in a circle so everyone could see one another. He always pointed out that they would often be able to learn just as much from one another as from him.

  “Welcome back to another quarter at Angel School. As you know from the readings you’ve been assigned, and from our work together over the past year, the Spiritual Arts are extremely important, not only in your work to fight the battle against Abaddon and his dark forces, but in your lives in general. As you follow Elohim in this world, you will need to learn to use certain gifts, disciplines, and skills in order to grow in Him and discover the richness of His relationship with you. Now, let me ask you something—what are the special gifts each of you has?”

  Jeremiah’s hand shot up. “Eliza got a sword!”

  She blushed as Kareem nodded. “Yes, she sure did. What else?”

  Andre spoke up. “Rupert can produce a really neat shield, and you should see Lania fire arrows. She’s amazing.”

  Kareem smiled. “And what about you?”

  He shrugged. “I’m strong.”

  “Yes, you are,” answered Kareem. “And not just human strength. Each of you has angel blood inside you and has been given very rare, very special gifts because of that. But tonight, we’re not going to talk about using any of those physical abilities. There are some other gifts you’ve been given, you see.”

  They looked at one another. More gifts? Different abilities?

  “Like walking on water, maybe?” Jeremiah said, to the laughter of everyone else.

  Kareem chuckled. “I think that one is probably saved for Jesus Himself. No, what I am talking about are gifts that are given to every single believer of Elohim on the planet.”

  Eliza raised her hand. “You mean, spiritual gifts?”

  He pointed to her. “Exactly, Eliza!”

  “Oh, great,” said Rupert, slouching a little more in his seat. English-born Rupert tended to see the negative in everything, but the others seemed a little disappointed too.

  Kareem studied them for a second. “I c
an see that you don’t think these are all that big of a deal. Well, I hope tonight’s class will change your mind about that.”

  He held up his well-worn Bible in front of them. “This says that everyone is given at least one of these gifts—a supernatural ability to do something that serves other people, as well as Elohim Himself. There are all kinds of these gifts like encouragement, leadership, fasting, prayer, faith . . . the list goes on.”

  “But those are things we can all already do,” said Eliza. The others were nodding. “I mean, truthfully, I don’t see how those are actual gifts.”

  “You’re right, Eliza!” Kareem said, clearly getting excited. “These are abilities everyone can do. But Elohim has decided to give an extra dose of ability in specific areas to certain people.”

  “Kind of like it’s supercharged or something?” Andre suggested.

  “Yes, that’s probably a good way to put it.”

  Lania spoke up in her soft voice. “So how do we know what gifts we have then?”

  “Well, we don’t have a special process for this, like your other abilities,” he answered. Eliza remembered back to their first year of Angel School, when Camilla had them read from certain passages in the Bible, which revealed to angels what their quarterling gifts were. She hadn’t told any of them exactly what those gifts were, saying only that Elohim would reveal them Himself when He wanted. Eliza was sure that no one had fully discovered all of his or her quarterling abilities yet.

  “What we do have, though,” he continued, “is each other. Spiritual gifts are best discovered by our close friends observing us and pointing out what they see.”

  The students looked at one another a bit uncomfortably, sizing each other up, wondering which gifts their friends had been given.

  Kareem sat down and pulled his chair a little closer to them. “So,” he said, clapping his hands. “Let’s talk! Here’s the question I want you to answer—when you think about each of your friends here, what is the thing about him or her that comes to mind most?”

  “Rupert likes to complain a lot,” Andre offered, apparently trying to be helpful.

  Some of the kids laughed. Kareem closed his eyes for a second. “No, Andre, that’s not what I mean. Let me rephrase the question. When you think of each of your friends, what is a positive impact you see him or her having on you and people around you? Let’s start with Rupert, since you brought up his name. Stand up, please.”

  Rupert sat with his arms crossed, looking back and forth from Kareem to the other students. “Do I really have to?”

  Rupert saw that he didn’t have a choice and reluctantly stood.

  “Okay,” Kareem said. “Who would like to go first?”

  They sat, staring at Rupert. A minute passed, then another, and one more. Rupert fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  “Well?” he finally erupted.

  Eliza cleared her voice. “I have something to share,” she said. “Remember that time when Sister Patricia needed help downstairs, in the quarterling lounge, because the bookshelves were an absolute mess, and no one really wanted to do it? Well, you jumped right in and volunteered, which, honestly, surprised me a little. You seemed excited about it, and you got to work and came up with a really cool way to rearrange the room and organize the shelves into different categories. It was kind of neat to see that happen. And it really made the bookshelves a lot easier to manage down there.”

  The others were nodding, agreeing with her.

  Kareem began to smile, leaning forward on his knees again. “So the rest of you recognized this ability in Rupert too, huh?”

  He stood up. “Well, let’s put this to the test, then.” Kareem stood face-to-face with Rupert, his eyes to the ceiling, thinking. He snapped his fingers. “Okay, I’ve got it. I’m going to give you a real-life situation of mine that I do need help with. Now, while I ask Rupert for his help, here’s what I want from the rest of you. Enter back into the hidden realm and make any observations you can. I have a suspicion that something interesting might occur.”

  Pop, pop, pop.

  One by one, as they bowed their heads and prayed, they disappeared from Kareem’s view. He turned his attention back to Rupert, taking his phone out of his pocket and holding it up. Rupert was still standing with arms folded, not at all enjoying the attention he was getting, but he did seem intrigued.

  “Okay, Rupert, here’s my situation,” their instructor said, glancing at his phone and thumbing through the screen. “The truth is, I am a terrible organizer of my time. I constantly overbook myself, commit to too many things, and I end up missing appointments and making people mad . . .”

  Eliza was a little surprised to hear him talk so openly about his disorganized life, but he continued on, explaining in great detail what next week looked like and how he had overbooked himself yet again. She studied the two intently but saw nothing out of the ordinary, even in the hidden realm. Rupert, whose smirk was gone and was now listening, grabbed Kareem’s phone in his hand to have a look at the entangled schedule himself.

  He looked up at Kareem and smiled. “This isn’t that hard to figure out, you know,” he said. He leaned over and began to point at the screen, growing more and more excited as he explained how their instructor could solve his scheduling problems.

  “Would you look at that,” Andre muttered.

  “Whoa,” Eliza said.

  Jeremiah’s mouth hung open. “Ooooh.”

  The same tendrils of white light that were visible in the hidden realm when someone prayed, that usually stretched upward, had begun moving out from Rupert. It started as a barely visible fog, but grew clearer and more defined as he continued speaking. The fingers of light moved toward Kareem, playfully surrounding him, and then moved into his chest.

  As they did, Kareem’s inner light actually grew just a little bit brighter.

  “That is so cool,” Eliza exclaimed. Discovering anything for the first time excited her, and she began to speak more rapidly. “He’s helping Reverend Bashir by using his spiritual gift, and it is literally making him glow brighter! It’s like Elohim is actually involved in it too.”

  “I know,” Lania said. “Isn’t it awesome that it’s making the one he’s helping grow brighter? Not just Rupert alone? I wouldn’t have thought it worked that way.”

  Eliza couldn’t wait to share what they were seeing with their instructor and Rupert. They reemerged from the hidden realm as Rupert was telling Kareem about an app he could get on his phone that would help him.

  “It’s called Org for Dimwits, and it is a fantastic application that will let you input your entire calendar, set up meetings in different categories depending on who you are meeting with, and—”

  “Don’t you guys want to know what we saw?” Eliza interrupted.

  Rupert scowled at the interruption. “Well, sure, I guess.”

  She explained in detail the tendrils of light and how they were filling Kareem up as Rupert shared his gift.

  Kareem stood, smiling, as he heard the excitement in her voice. When she was done, he had them sit down again.

  “So does anyone want to take a guess as to what gift you think Rupert has?” he asked.

  “The gift of telling people what to do?” Jeremiah asked, raising one eyebrow questioningly.

  Kareem laughed. “Well, close, but not exactly.”

  Eliza raised her hand high. “From the readings we’ve done and what I have seen in the Bible, I would say administration—the ability to come up with systems and structures that help things work better. It’s a pretty phenomenal gift, if you ask me.”

  He nodded. “And it’s pretty cool, isn’t it, that they are for helping each other, not just something that is for our own benefit? What we’ll be doing over the next few weeks is discovering more about each of your gifts, how to use them, and how powerful they can be as we serve Elohim and battle Abaddon. Let me leave you with one thing tonight: you each have some pretty amazing physical abilities, but don�
�t underestimate the power of a spiritual gift. You never know when Elohim might want to use it in a mighty way.”

  Everyone wanted to know what his or her own gift was, but it was time to move on to the next class.

  Eliza thought about Jonah as she slid back into the hidden realm for her next class. What was his spiritual gift? More importantly, was he okay?

  She bowed her head and said a quick prayer for his safety and strength. She couldn’t help but think that he was awfully alone.

  1:14 a.m.

  Hey Jonah,

  I hope you’re doing okay . . . are you lonely? There’s no one around you like YOU, if you know what I mean.

  We had a great class tonight with Kareem. You would have liked it. Rupert discovered a pretty cool spiritual gift he had no idea he had! And Jeremiah . . . well, don’t even get me started.

  I miss Mom. I miss you too and wish you were here with us. Give Dad a hug for me. And tell him I miss him too.

  Love, E

  SIX

  CRAZINESS IN THE CAFETERIA

  Jonah walked into the Peacefield High cafeteria, his backpack hanging from his shoulder and his new pink socks pulled to just under his knees. He glanced down at them uncertainly, even now. His dad had stared at them at breakfast this morning, giving them a one-word response: “Really?” Jonah had simply shrugged, and that had been the end of that conversation.

  Pink socks weren’t really his thing, but half of his friends on the basketball team were wearing the same ones. It was in, and so he had sucked it up and shelled out fifteen bucks for them at the sports shop last night.

  “Nice socks, Jonah,” one of the cheerleaders said, smiling as she walked by. “Those are so cute!”

  He was growing used to more attention, so he looked back at her with a smile and said thanks.

  The high school cafeteria was so much bigger than the one back at Granger Community School. It made for a loud, chaotic room that the lunch monitors could barely keep under control.