Upon This Rock

by David Marusek

  The angel seemed puzzled by his question, as if refusing were even an option. “God has granted mortal men the burden of free will, so I suppose you may well refuse,” she said in an even voice. “In that case, the forces of Satan will surely arrive first, whether or not I launch a flare, and though this sanctified fortress may hold fast against them for a while, without relief from Heaven it cannot withstand them indefinitely. The gate will be breeched, I will be overwhelmed, you and your offspring will be slaughtered, and the key to the pit will be lost forever.”

  “If it’s the key they want,” Poppy said, “I could remove it from the keep myself and take it somewhere far away from here.”

  “You could, and by doing so betray the Father’s trust in you. Do you imagine He has led you to this place and endowed you with the cash needed to possess it and to stock it — all for your own private sanctuary and nothing else?”

  Well, to be honest, yes. Until that moment, that was exactly what Poppy had imagined. And the scope of the angel’s sudden revelation left his head spinning.

  “When do you need my decision?”

  “Go, supplicate the Father for guidance, but keep in mind that each hour that passes, the enemy approacheth.”

  AF4 1.0

  THE VERY IDEA of angels looking down on the roof of their house thrilled the children, but not as much as the fact that there was an actual angel at that very moment inside their keep and that it had spoken to their father and Hosea and Proverbs. The little ones kept glancing back at their brothers in wonder even as their father spoke. The heavenly trumpet was old news compared to this latest miracle.

  “Can we see it?” Frankie begged, and the rest of them took up her plea.

  “Silence!” Poppy said. “The angel didn’t come here for your amusement. There’s a war on, and we have very little time to prepare. The angel says an army of devils will attack us within a week. Are we ready? No, we’re not.”

  He succeeded in spoiling the mood. The children’s excitement gave way to anxiety, and they held each others’ hands. Deut took Ginger’s hand in hers, and Ginger let her do it though she didn’t believe a word Poppy was saying.

  Poppy turned to Adam, who sat in the back, arm-in-arm with Sue. “How close are we to moving into the keep?” he asked him.

  “Well, lord,” Adam replied, “the cottage won’t be finished, but I reckon we can sleep rough till it is. We have most of the major supplies in but only about half of the lumber and cordwood. And then there’s all the stuff we want to take from the house.”

  Poppy said, “I know we all been working extra hard lately, but we need to work even harder. Every boy, down to you . . .” he pointed at Uzzie, “drop whatever you’re doing to help Adam. You girls will take over the boys’ chores. The older girls will start packing things to take to the keep. Get the essentials first.”

  Ginger caught Proverbs watching her from across the room. He was still wearing the eyepatch, and Ginger wanted to apologize for her insensitive remark the other day. But his brooding manner was making her uncomfortable.

  “No one is to go outdoors without a shadow,” Poppy continued. “That means no one. Keep this in mind: between here and the keep, a whole army of demons is skulking around looking for someone to jump into. Don’t give them the chance. Pray out loud. Sing His glory. Repeat His holy name again and again. Remember, prayer is our best defense against unclean spirits.

  “Speaking of defense, I want you older boys to be armed at all times. Corny, you too.”

  “Me too?” said Ithy.

  Poppy looked at Adam, and Adam nodded.

  “You too, and Uzzie, but only with .22s. I want you boys to shoot down every raven you see hanging around. I know that at least one of ’em is a demon. Don’t take any chances — shoot ’em all.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Ginger said, raising her hand. She hadn’t intended to speak, but this was taking things too far. “Ravens are protected birds in Alaska. You can’t just go around shooting them.”

  Poppy gave the girl a hard look. He was this close to packing her off to town. “Leave us,” he said.

  “Sir?”

  “Go to the girls’ room until we’re finished here.”

  Ginger harrumphed. Banished. She supposed it could be worse. She smiled at Deut as she got up. She went to the bunkroom as ordered, but she stood just inside the doorway to eavesdrop.

  “Any questions?” Poppy asked his congregation.

  “What about when we’re asleep, lord?” little Myrrh said. “Will the demons bother us then?”

  “No, we’re safe inside the house. Remember how we anointed it after chasing all the evil ones out? This is a sanctified place. Don’t worry. Just don’t go outside unless you have to, and if you do, go with someone and pray the whole time.”

  Poppy looked around for more questions. Finding none, he said, “Then it’s time for dinner. I won’t stay. I have to go pray. I have a really big decision to make.

  “Which reminds me. Sarai still owes Father God a punishment. Now would be a good time to settle your debt, daughter. So after you eat, I want you to bring a basin of water out to the prayer cabin. Understand?”

  Everyone looked at Sarai, who sat alone and didn’t seem to be paying attention.

  “I’m talking to you, girl.”

  Sarai lifted her head and met his gaze.

  “Wash your mother’s feet first, then come out to wash mine. We can’t have any lingering sin befouling this house. Got it?”

  He waited — everyone waited — until she nodded.

  AF5 1.0

  THE HUMANS LOCKED the gate when they finished work for the day. The raven flew to one of the narrow sniper slots overlooking the mine adit. The bird squeezed inside the gallery and hopped along the floor to the entrance area. From there it flew through utter darkness to the break room where it alighted on the wooden table next to the sphere. Except for the sphere, the room appeared to be unoccupied. The raven leaned over the sphere and pecked at it, but its beak left no mark.

  Wait till I soften it, the angel said.

  The bird, endowed with legacy reflexes, startled and leaped into the air. But it landed again and settled, searching all around for the source of the communication.

  Now. Try it again.

  This time the surface of the sphere was pliable, and the raven was able to peel away a tiny strip of it with the tip of its beak. The bird dropped the shiny strip on the table, where it sizzled and condensed into a tiny ball the size of a mustard seed.

  When the seed had cooled, the raven seized it in its beak and without so much as a squawk of farewell flew down the tunnel

  OF THE DOZENS of ancient volcanos in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountain Range, only one was considered still active, though dormant. Its last eruption had occurred in 1930, and even that was little more than the release of gasses. This was Mt. Wrangell (14,163 ft. or 4,317 m), looming over the Copper River Valley. It did occasionally belch ash and sulfurous clouds from three fumarolic vents on Mt. Bonasso, a 13,009 ft (3,965 m) cinder cone that sat like a wart on its northwestern flank. The fumaroles led, after many twists and turns, to the massive magma chamber deep inside the mountain.

  The raven landed next to the largest of the fumaroles. Snow surrounding the vent had been melted, leaving a bare ring of fractured basalt. Hot, poisonous gasses ruffled the bird’s feathers as it hopped into the breach.

  The raven didn’t get far. The large opening at the surface quickly narrowed, and after advancing only a few yards, the bird encountered an immense rock blocking its way. The rock was too large for the bird to hop over, and the space was too confined for it to spread its wings.

  So the raven backed out and tried the two smaller vents. Both proved equally impassable. The bird’s avian architecture, while ideal for covering long distances in the atmosphere, was the wrong kind for burrowing underground.

  With the seed still clamped in its beak, the raven climbed into the air and circled over the volcano, before turning south
and continuing to its secondary destination. Needle Peak was a mountain bordering the Bagley Ice Field but still within the park. The bird alighted on a granite ledge above an exposed seam of coal that it had logged during its initial survey of the region. There were gaps in the seam where large chunks of coal had broken off and fallen away. Into one of these cavities the raven dropped the golden seed.

  The seed rattled down the crevice and out of sight.

  The raven waited in the icy wind until a trickle of smoke began to escape from the cavity. The trickle quickly grew into a smoky cloud leaking from cracks and seams all along the cliff face. When black smoke began to spout from multiple coal veins, the bird launched itself from the ledge and headed for home.

  AF6 1.0

  DURING COLD MONTHS, when the stove in the common room ran out of fuel in the middle of the night, the entire house cooled down. Sleeping girls and boys snuggled deeper into their downy cocoons, and no one seemed to notice the chill. Except maybe the dog whose water dish in the kitchen sometimes formed a skin of ice.

  Something awakened Ginger. The sound of the front door closing perhaps. It was Sarai in the shadows, returning from her punishment in the prayer cabin. So late? Ginger had asked Deut about this punishment, and Deut recounted her twin’s transgression before their trip to Wallis. Without, however, including her own part in the event or her simmering resentment over the special-daughter status her sister enjoyed with their father.

  “But washing feet?” Ginger had said. “That’s so, I don’t know, odd.”

  “It’s the right punishment for the sin,” Deut replied, confident in the biblical basis of her argument. “Sarai committed a sin of pride. Our Savior washed the feet of his disciples as an act of humility. What better remedy for pride?”

  Lying in bed, Ginger listened to Sarai preparing to retire, and she drifted back to sleep. But her bladder, once awakened, refused to settle down until she emptied it. Eventually, despite the frigid room, Ginger surrendered to necessity and slipped her feet onto the cold, cold floor.

  With an LED candle to light her way, Ginger padded silently past the beds and bunks of sleeping girls to the corner where the honey bucket was kept. When she pulled aside the curtain, she was startled to find someone already there, seated on the bucket. It was Sarai.

  “Oh, I’m sorry —” Ginger began, but Sarai shushed her.

  “Don’t tell,” Sarai whispered. “Please don’t tell.”

  “Don’t tell what?”

  Then Ginger saw Sarai’s bare thigh, a rare sighting in this house, and a knife. Blood trickled from a short notch Sarai had carved into her own flesh. She held a baby diaper under it to sop up the blood. Before Sarai was able to lower the hem of her nightgown, Ginger saw two more notches next to the fresh one, older and scarred over.

  “Swear you won’t tell. Swear!”

  IT SEEMED THAT Ginger was Sarai’s friend now. Sarai had exchanged no more than a dozen words with their guest since she’d arrived, and now suddenly they spent every minute together, whispering like sisters. When Deut asked Ginger to help her sort out the linen closet for their move, Ginger begged off saying she wanted to help Sarai that day.

  It was unfair, typical, and the story of Duet’s life. Evil thoughts coursed through her mind — jealousy, self-pity, anger — but she throttled them back because they were unchristian and unloving and because they would make her soul an easy path for Satan to invade their home. And she, at least, took the safety of the household seriously. Sarai might steal away the only friend she ever had, but that was no reason to wallow in sin.

  AF7 1.0

  THE COTTAGE CHAMBER was mostly dry. Except for a few spots where water dripped from the limestone ceiling, it would never rain there. So there was no reason to cover the firewood. Nor was there any compelling reason to stack it in neat piles. Yet that was how Hosea chose to store it, and since he was in charge of the firewood, that was how he insisted it be done. So far he had about fifty two-cord stacks lined up in rows of ten.

  “Five rows times ten in a row times two cords to a stack,” he told Adam, “makes one hundred cords. This way, we’ll be able to see how fast we go through it and whether we need to ration it.”

  “Oh, for pity sake,” Adam replied. “We’re in a race against the devil. You heard Poppy. You saw the angel. Just dump it now and arrange it later.”

  Hosea relented. His brother was right. It was a small thing. What counted now was just getting the wood in. He’d have seven years to stack it. But when he played his light over the existing stacks, there were gaps in the ranks. He couldn’t believe it. A pile was missing here, another pile there.

  “What the frick!” he said.

  “Your mouth, brother.”

  “Look, there are whole double-cords missing.”

  “What?”

  “There should be piles there, there, and there.”

  “Maybe you missed those spots.”

  Hosea gave his brother a withering look. “I didn’t leave any gaps. Why should I leave gaps?”

  “Maybe someone moved them.”

  “Who? Where to? Why? They could just ask me for wood. They didn’t have to pull stacks apart I already built. And who’s burned through that much wood in the last couple of days?”

  No one had. Adam and Hosea explored the gaps. The cordwood was gone, not even a splinter or piece of bark was left behind, only a thick layer of dust on the rock floor. It was a mystery, but there was no time to sort it out just then.

  AF8 1.0

  DEUT HADN’T MEANT to eavesdrop. She was busy collecting cast-off mittens and scarfs in the arctic entry that adjoined the kitchen. When Sarai and Ginger came into the kitchen to start prepping dinner, Deut’s first impulse was to storm through the kitchen, head held high, impervious to Ginger’s treachery. If they said anything to her at all, she’d just say, “Sorry, but I’m busy,” and not look back.

  But Deut was anything but impervious. There was a big gaping hole in her heart where her friend had been. She hated Ginger. She hated her with all her might.

  The two girls in the kitchen spoke in low voices and paused each time one of the little ones came in to ask for this or that. Their tone sounded serious, but the arctic entry door was mostly shut and Deut couldn’t make out the words. Which was fine. Except, once she’d straightened out the arctic entry, what was she to do? Put on her own coat and go outside and around to the front door? Otherwise, they’d know she had been eavesdropping.

  Then the door swung completely open, and Deut’s heart stopped. But it was only Crissy Lou, who had come through the kitchen searching for something. Uzzie probably. The dog wagged her tail when she saw Deut lurking there, and Deut pulled her all the way in so she wouldn’t give her presence away.

  With the door now open, Deut could hear everything, and the first thing she heard astonished her.

  “Please don’t,” her sister was saying, urging, begging. “They’ll sic the state on us. That’s not what I want. That’s not why I told you.”

  “You told me,” Ginger replied, not unkindly, “because I saw what you were doing to yourself.”

  Then her sister began to cry, and Deut’s first impulse was to rush out there to her defense. But she held back and continued to eavesdrop.

  “I’m sorry,” Ginger went on. “But when the Troopers come out here to arrest him, Child Services won’t be far behind, and there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s just the way it is. Especially with your mother sick and all.”

  “Mama isn’t sick,” Sarai insisted, “and my brothers and sisters shouldn’t be split up because of something he done. I’d rather die before that.”

  “Maybe they won’t be split up,” Ginger said. “We have a big house. I’m sure my parents will take you in until we figure things out.”

  “All of us? We make a crowd of people, you know.”

  “I know! Well, the three oldest are adults and can do what they want, even stay here, but we have a big church in Wallis with plenty of g
ood people there who can help out. We’ll figure something out so you can all stay together. I promise. The big question is how do I get to town.”

  “Aren’t your parents picking you up?”

  “My brother, in Gulkana, but that’s still a couple weeks away, and I don’t think I can last that long here. And besides, what are the chances that your lord will want another foot bath before then?”

  “Stop it!” Sarai pleaded.

  “I swear, I’ll shoot him myself before I allow that to happen.”

  Deut’s sister was crying hard now, and Deut couldn’t make out anything else she said. For that matter, she couldn’t make out anything she’d already heard. None of it made sense. It was gibberish. What were they talking about? Arrest him? Him who? Poppy? Adam? Proverbs? And for what?

  DEUT WAS SO shaken up, she had to talk to someone. But who? Not Poppy; she didn’t dare. He’d probably punish them all (though the idea of Poppy whipping Ginger with a willow switch did hold some appeal). Not her brothers. What could they do but tell Poppy?

  So Deut told the only person she dared, Mama, while she brushed her hair in the warm corner.

  “What gives her the right to judge us?” Deut asked. There was so much noise and commotion swirling around the common room that she could talk in a normal voice without the danger of being overheard. “Just because people don’t wash other people’s feet in her church doesn’t mean it’s not biblical. I mean, Mary Magdalen washed Elder Brother Jesus’ feet, didn’t she? And dried them with her hair. The pope in Rome washes Catholic feet, don’t he? But according to Miss Busybody it’s child abuse. Call in the highway patrol. Haul Poppy off to prison. Put the rest of us in foster care. Put you in —”

  Whether or not her mother was paying attention was hard to tell. She did seem to wince when Deut’s hairbrush struck a knot. That meant some part of her was present, right?

  “You must tell Elder Brother Jesus, Mama. Someone’s got to stop her before she ruins everything.”