Beyond the Farthest Star

by Bodie Thoene

  Retrieving her painting, “Sunny Days,” from the back of the room, Anne placed it on an easel at the front of the room. Some of her classmates regarded the black-on-black rays with curiosity, some with indifference, and one—cheerleader Susan Dillard—with apprehension.

  Susan probably thought the monsters in Scooby Doo were frightening.

  Opening her notebook Anne read:

  I am the night. I am your night.

  Descending upon you as your day slips away too soon, too suddenly.

  Anne saw uneasiness cross Susan’s face and a newly stiffened granite quality to Mrs. Harper’s. Nevertheless, she continued:

  I am the alien pod germinating in your bowels;

  Sapping all your bodily fluids;

  Keeping you alive just long enough to see me

  Bust out of your corpse with teeth like razors

  And acid in my blood and slime.

  Slowly dripping slime.

  Your night … your barren infertile night … is upon you.

  Susan looked as shocked and horrified as if she’d just found a worm in a salad.

  Mrs. Harper, who boasted that nothing ever disrupted her ability to remain in control of any situation, looked slightly stunned. “Well, thank you, Miss Wells, for your poem entitled ‘Some Happy Thoughts.’ ”

  Maurene, still in bathrobe and slippers, wandered about the parsonage’s dining room. The walls were lined with crates awaiting opening and unpacking. She bristled at the memory of Adam’s words. It was not true that they were three addresses behind in getting their possessions sorted. Well, perhaps two or three crates were still labeled as having come from Michigan, which was four moves ago now, but not that many.

  A blank, legal-sized yellow pad lay beside her Bible on the coffee table in the adjoining living room. Maurene was reminded of her speech for the ladies’ luncheon, now only—she glanced hurriedly at the wall clock—three hours away. She circled the coffee table warily, as if the blank pad were a serpent.

  Plenty of time to pull together an address worthy of a former high school valedictorian. This was no time to be distracted with unimportant matters like unpacking.

  “Take that, Adam Wells, Miracle Preacher Boy,” she thought. Her sense of injustice at his remarks now calmed, she sat on a sofa with a firm resolve to deliver the best speech a pastor’s wife had ever given.

  But where to begin? It was the height of the Christmas shopping season. Perhaps something about “The True Gift of Christmas”? That would be appropriate and easy to pull off.

  Maurene again eyed the notepad with uneasiness. Blank pages were always so intimidating. The very thickness of the writing tablet seemed designed to be an accusation of inadequacy: You’ll never be able to do this! What makes you think you have anything to say that anyone wants to hear?

  Accusatory—that was the word.

  Maurene scanned the room, seeking inspiration. Her gaze fell on the cover of one of her favorite romance novels. It was so inviting, so tempting, like luscious fruit.

  She turned quickly away. Where was that Scripture about salvation being the free gift of God, so that no one should boast? That was about gift giving, right?

  Maurene felt herself drawn back to the wavy-haired Edwardian-era male on the book cover. Strong and gentle, passionate and understanding, impetuous but not demanding.

  “Perhaps just ten minutes,” Maurene promised herself. Ten minutes to calm her nerves and relax herself. Her thoughts would flow so much better afterward, she was certain.

  Then Maurene told herself sternly that she must not touch that book right now. She knew how the hours would pass with the pages and the daydreams of the romance she would never have, and how frustrated with herself she would be afterward.

  Maybe what she needed was a short nap. That was it: a brief rest before launching into writing.

  A smile played across Maurene’s lips as she dozed. Lord Nathan … Chadwick Castle … being rescued from all unreasonable demands.

  When the phone rang, she awoke with a guilty start. She could not speak to anyone right now. Better let the answering machine pick up. Maurene rubbed her eyes with both fists, trying to get her world back into proper alignment.

  As the phone clamored through four rings, she glanced back at the clock. Where had the time gone? Two hours had passed. Now there was barely enough time to get dressed for the luncheon. Who would be calling her now, anyway? All the people she knew in Sticksville—she corrected herself sternly, in Leonard—were already gathering to lay out their homemade fried chicken and macaroni salad and sweet-potato pie.

  Maurene had heard of the latter but never sampled it. She could certainly manage several bites of most anything the cuisine of Leonard offered, as long as it didn’t include boiled okra. She’d been offered that dish once at a pastor’s conference in Waco and nearly barfed at the sight of its stringy, slimy, snotlike consistency.

  The answering machine beeped and picked up the call. Maurene, with no intention of lifting the receiver, wandered nearer to hear the monitor.

  It was Adam times two. The first voice was their recorded pastoral greeting: “Praise the Lord! You’ve reached the home of Pastor Adam and Maurene Wells. You are so very important to us and to the Lord Jesus, so please leave a message and we’ll get right back to you.”

  This was followed by Adam, live, so that he was speaking to himself. He often did that, she thought. Her eyes narrowed with that truth. Adam so frequently made pronouncements about how things should be done that Maurene frequently tuned him out.

  “Hey, Mo. Wanted to remind you Margaret’ll be by at eleven to drive you to the luncheon. She’ll have my notes, just in case. Hope you won’t need them.”

  Glancing over her shoulder, Maurene could not escape the accusations in the closed Bible and the blank notepad.

  “Really, I think it’s wonderful you’re taking the initiative with the address. Your speech will be great.”

  Maurene headed toward the bathroom without waiting to hear the rest of the message. More important than the notes and the bath, she needed the contents of the pink shoebox, now resting behind the lower rack of clothes in the closet.

  Chapter Eight

  ADAM LEANED FORWARD over the desk in his church office. Despite the fact he was alone and the door was shut, he spoke in a guarded tone. “Really, I’m sure it’ll be great. It is going to be great, isn’t it, Mo?” Now wasn’t the time to tell Maurene about the destruction of the crèche. She’d hear about it at the luncheon anyway, but the longer she could go without any additional stress, the better.

  Once, on another occasion when Maurene was supposed to speak, someone had told her of the death of a mutual friend five minutes before she went on stage. It was a disaster. Maurene had mumbled and stumbled her way through fifteen disjointed minutes, then sat down in a flood of tears.

  Maurene was not strong, like him. She needed to be sheltered from her own fragility, he thought. Just as he’d protected her nearly seventeen years earlier and had ever since.

  Adam had the greatest sense today’s speech writing had not gone as well as Maurene had bragged, but it was going to be all right anyway. Adam was prepared for Maurene’s failure. He was always prepared for her failure.

  Margaret barged in without knocking, waving a Post-it note.

  Leaning back in his chair, Adam lightened his tone abruptly for the rest of the phone message: “Know you’ll be a real blessing to our women. Can’t wait to hear the praise report. Lots to tell you later. Bye.”

  Margaret ignored the glare Adam bestowed on her, apparently secure that the importance of the yellow sticky note justified her uninvited entry. She held it out for Adam’s inspection, and he plucked it from her fingers.

  “Holden Bittner? Cutter’s lawyer?”

  “Pro-fesh-in-al lie-yor, if you ask me,” she said vehemently. “All the way from Washington, DC. Wants to meet you a-sap … the talon-toed demon.”

  “Margaret,” Adam scolded, “no matter what we
think, let’s hear what the man has to say before we consign him to the lowest circle of hell.”

  Margaret sniffed. “Of course, Pastor. Just like you say.”

  From inside his briefcase, Adam retrieved the copy of the speech he’d written for Maurene to give and handed it to the secretary. “And Margaret, Maurene asked me to review her speech before the luncheon,” he lied.

  Completely justifiable fib, he figured. No reason to give gossip a chance to start. Adam felt a brief glow of pride at the way he was covering for his wife. Women might be weaker vessels, but he would protect his wife’s reputation. “It’s excellent. Please return it to her when you pick her up and tell her I said so.”

  Hanging up the receiver, Adam lifted it again and began to dial the number on the note. He had punched three keys before he noticed that Margaret was still hovering over the desk with an eager expression. No doubt she wanted to hear him confront the “talon-toed demon.”

  “That’s all, Margaret,” he said in dismissal. “Thank you.”

  Margaret sniffed again, louder than before, then exited.

  Pausing before completing his dialing, Adam turned toward his computer screen, open to an Internet news site. He studied the headline once more, the receiver dangling in his grip: TOWN OF WILL’S POINT DROPS APPEAL ON NATIVITY RULING.

  Underneath the main heading a line of smaller type explained: “Appeals court signals lower ruling will not be reversed. Public display of religious symbols must go.”

  Savagely Adam stabbed the last digits while looking past the computer screen at a family portrait.

  Calm. He would need calm when dealing with a hostile civil liberties attorney.

  The framed photograph was of Adam and Maurene with a six-year-old Anne. Where had that sweet child gone, he wondered, and who was this stranger in black clothes now living in his home?

  The reminder was not calming.

  Sixty women politely stared up at Maurene as she read Adam’s speech in the First Church social hall. She knew Adam had not only written the message for her, he had written the message to her.

  Not very subtle, Adam. The story of Sarah, longing to conceive and give birth when she was barren. Like me, huh, Adam?

  After she’d prayed for years to conceive another baby to follow Anne, every month when her period arrived completed another cycle of disappointment.

  Finally Maurene had stopped believing God heard her prayers. She was convinced He had turned away from her when …

  She shook the thought from her mind. But the message of hope and miracles Adam had prepared today for her to deliver to the women’s group was stillborn in her own heart.

  Maurene read Adam’s words without inflection. “And so, in conclusion, we see that Sarah laughed.”

  Trying to maintain emotional detachment from material that hit too close to home, she hoped her anger toward Adam was not evident in her voice. His selection of canned subject matter was both thoughtless and cruel.

  “Twice she laughed. Once at the promise. She was, after all, ninety years old and … barren …”

  Among the small crowd, Maurene’s gaze fell on the brimming eyes of Candy Cutter. The senator’s wife was childless, and clearly the speech touched her deeply.

  “And again the day she held Isaac, her newborn baby and God’s manifest promise in her arms …”

  Maurene could not bear to look into Candy’s brimming eyes. Adam’s newest convert had not lived the Christian life long enough to experience the reality of unanswered prayer or disappointment with God. Candy was too young in her faith to know it was better not to hope. So she hung on every word that came out of Maurene’s mouth as though it was … gospel.

  Maurene was Adam’s puppet, merely mouthing the words of the puppet master. And she hated every minute of it. “So if the miracle you’re wanting to give birth to seems like a joke, remember Sarah, whose descendants would eventually outnumber the stars in the firmament … and know there’s a miracle birth of a great nation in you.”

  “Right, Adam. A miracle for me? After what I have done? With the lie I’ve lived for seventeen years?”

  She smiled wearily as a smattering of applause wrapped up the luncheon. Only a few minutes more to endure, responding to polite greetings, before she could go home and be alone!

  Maurene no longer believed in miracles. She wondered if she ever had. Her marriage was a joke. Her life was a great acting job. Appearance was everything. Inside, she wasn’t laughing as she played the role of devoted-wife-of-a-preacher.

  Before they crucified Jesus, hadn’t Pilate asked, “What is truth?”

  If the truth had been known about the pastor’s wife, it would have choked the ladies at the women’s luncheon: Maurene Wells. Hopeless. Faithless. Phony as a three-dollar bill.

  And yet Candy Cutter and a second, teary-eyed woman stood and continued enthusiastic applause. Evidently Adam’s words meant something to someone. Maybe that was enough to keep Maurene going—pretending to be alive, dragging herself out of bed every morning.

  Maurene thought bitterly, Thank you, Adam. Great speech. If only they knew the truth.

  Principal Johnston disliked conflict. He hated disciplinary meetings. He despised contract talks. Every time he had to chastise a supplier about shoddy merchandise or short measure, he fell back on writing letters or e-mails in hope of avoiding personal confrontation.

  He thought of himself as a referee, not a combatant. He liked to work from consensus, not by laying down the law. He had achieved his position by being golfing buddies with the school board president and the mayor. Those connections insulated Johnston from most criticism.

  As long as things were running smoothly at Leonard High School, Principal Johnston was happy. When things did not go to suit him, it was always someone else’s fault, and the sooner they understood that fact, the better for all concerned.

  Johnston was in his office, planning a three-day golf outing for the holiday break. During the week between Christmas and New Year’s there were no games or plays or meetings requiring his presence. He and his foursome were going to give the courses in San Antonio some serious attention while their wives trolled the River Walk shops. Perfect, and not a conflict in sight.

  Mrs. Harper burst into Johnston’s office without knocking.

  For a moment the principal was confused. Had he missed a meeting of the department heads?

  His confusion was not relieved when Mrs. Harper slammed a handwritten note down on his desktop. “What’s this?” Johnston sputtered.

  “What the administration and the police missed at Columbine and Virginia Tech, Mister Johnston.”

  Mrs. Harper was at the top of her tight-lipped, most-demanding form.

  At the references to school massacres, Johnston’s blood ran cold. In Leonard? At his high school? Whom should he call first? The sheriff? The National Guard?

  “But what is this?” he said again, hoping to buy time and collect his shattered thoughts.

  “It’s that new girl—the pastor’s daughter, Anne Wells.”

  Johnston bent over the paper, struggling to decipher the handwriting. In his teaching days Johnston had been a gym instructor. The only writing he ever had to interpret was excuses for getting out of PE. “It looks like a poem,” he ventured.

  “A poem?” Mrs. Harper shot back. “A vile, evil collection of homicidal thoughts! Alien pods bursting from bowels! Slime and acid! What are you going to do about it?”

  Johnston still felt like he was racing to catch up. “You found this? Another student turned it in?”

  “No! The Wells girl read it aloud in class.”

  “She … volunteered this?”

  Mrs. Harper’s voice grew even shriller at the suggestion she was overreacting. “Don’t you see the threats behind the words? Her in her black clothes and black makeup and smirking ways? We need to investigate immediately. What do we really know about her background? Is she on drugs? Does the pastor own a gun? And what brought them to Leonard from Cal
ifornia, really? Have the proper background checks been done?”

  Johnston could have asked what background checks were required for a pastor’s family to move from one state to another, but he wisely refrained.

  “I’ll call the sheriff,” Johnston said. “This is a matter for him.”

  The drumbeat of the marching band rehearsal echoed from the football field as the sheriff’s car pulled into the school parking lot. Anne, Stephen, Kyle, and Clifford sprawled on the picnic tables to catch the afternoon sun.

  Anne spotted Principal Johnston and Mrs. Harper as they greeted Sheriff Burns. Both men and Mrs. Harper turned at the same moment to cast stern looks toward Anne and the boys. What was up? Was this about Kyle? Anne noticed that he became even surlier beneath the authority’s watchful gaze.

  The hiss of snare drums sounding a quick march gave the atmosphere a kind of half-time feel. The second half of an important game was about to begin on the school campus.

  Kyle glanced away guiltily as Principal Johnston crossed his arms and stared in their direction. Mrs. Harper gestured forcefully, making a point.

  At the same instant Susan Dillard, flanked by two of her ditzy friends, sauntered toward Anne. Susan extended a notebook to Anne.

  “It’s a petition,” Susan announced. “Signed by everybody, stating that just because you’re a little different from the rest of us and because your favorite color is obviously black and you probably do own a trench coat …”

  Susan’s friend added, “And her poetry made you want to hurl, Suze …”

  Susan glared at her friend, who fell silent. “… doesn’t mean we don’t accept you as you are and, facing our fears, offer you a big Leonard High School hug.” She nudged her friend, who stepped forward to give Anne a cautious hug.

  Susan flashed a phony smile at Stephen. “Oh, and I really do miss ridin’ Midnight, Stevie.”

  Stephen seemed pleased. “Sure she misses you ridin’ ‘er, Suze.”

  Susan tossed her head and simpered, “Really, that is, like, so sweet.”