Текст книги "Water Walker"

Автор книги: Ted Dekker

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

“Why did you defy me, Wyatt?”

“I’m sorry . . . I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, you weren’t. And unfortunately I can’t allow people who don’t know how to think to remain with me in an hour like this.” He drilled Wyatt with an uncompromising stare. “I’m sending you away.”

Wyatt blinked, dumb, face white. Blinked again.

“You understand I have no choice, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Whether or not I ever allow you to return to Bobby will depend on how you conduct yourself these next thirty days. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Zeke.” He cleared his throat. “Thirty days.”

Kathryn could see the beads of sweat on his forehead, but her mind was on her own head. If this was Wyatt’s sentence, what would be hers? Dear God, it was all falling apart. All of it!

“Well, now, I can’t have a traitor around while we reap our blessing, now can I?”

Their blessing, Kathryn thought. Eden’s money. It was Zeke’s fixation as much as their obedience.

She kept her eyes on Zeke, now unnerved by any impulse to look at Wyatt—it would constitute some kind of betrayal of Zeke. She couldn’t allow herself sympathy. Not now. But she didn’t have to look at him to know that he was shrinking and for that she couldn’t help but to feel strangely conflicted.

Zeke glanced at the door. “Show him out.”

Claude stepped forward, took Wyatt by the arm, and pulled him way.

Hot tears blurred Kathryn’s eyes as the front door thumped shut. She was alone now. Alone with Zeke.

Zeke took a long breath and let it out slowly. A heavy blanket of silence settled over them. He gently tapped the desk with his fingertips, eyes cutting so deep she felt her very soul being severed in two.

But this was his way, wasn’t it? A good and righteous and pure way, deeply dividing the truth like a sword. Bone and marrow.

“You disappoint me, Kathryn.”

“Forgive me, Zeke.” The words came out in a half sob. “Please. I didn’t know . . . I did what you asked. She didn’t know she could—”

“Shut up, Kathryn.”

“Yes, Zeke.”

“The issue has nothing to do with what you did or didn’t know. The issue is Eden. And here I was so sure that you’d brought her up in the ways of truth. Now I see you have a slut for a daughter.”

He was right. She couldn’t possibly offer any defense. There was nothing to be said. He let the statement stand and continued to tap the desk with the tips of his fingers.

Only when she didn’t think she could bear his dark gaze a moment longer did he shift it to the wall behind her.

“Like a shepherd I watch over the sheep that God has entrusted to me. Tell me that I haven’t cared for you, Kathryn.”

“Yes, Zeke, you’ve cared for me.”

“That I haven’t been merciful to you in every conceivable way.”

“Your mercy knows no bounds.”

“That you don’t owe your own life to me.”

“I do. All of it.”

He looked into her eyes again.

“That Eden and everything she is belongs to me.”

“She’s yours. Your lamb. Your gift to me and I am so grateful.”

“And yet this is how you treat me? What have I ever asked in return for what I’ve given you?”

“Nothing.”

“Wrong. Not nothing. What is the one thing I ask of you?”

She hesitated only a moment. “Love.”

“That’s right, love. And how will I know whether or not my flock loves me?”

“By their obedience.”

“Good girl. And as obedience brings the blessing, rebellion brings the curse, and, with it, judgment.”

“Yes, Zeke.”

“You are the people of my pasture, the sheep of my flock, and I am your good shepherd. Who knows what’s best for you?”

“You do, Zeke.”

“And who knows what’s best for Eden?”

She swallowed hard. “You do.”

“You’ve allowed her to forget who she is. She’s proven herself a stray sheep prone to wandering. One of these days she just might wander too close to the cliff and bring us all down with her.”

“I’ll do anything.”

“Yes. You will.”

“Just tell me what to do. Anything, I promise. This won’t happen again.”

“No it won’t, Kathryn. It won’t because you’re going to teach that stray lamb not to wander from the fold.”

“I will. I swear I will!”

“Just like a good shepherd teaches any precious lamb.”

“Yes, just like that. Just like a good shepherd. Tell me, Zeke. Just tell me what I have to do.”

He picked up his tumbler and drained the last of his whisky. Then set it down and slowly turned it with his thumb and forefinger, as if it was a delicate crystal.

“I want you to break one of Eden’s legs.”

EPISODE FOUR

22

Charleston, SC

CLOUDS THE color of cast iron hung low over the restless ocean and drifted inland. Gentle waves stretched up the beach, splashing over Special Agent Olivia Strauss’s bare feet as she jogged along the water’s edge.

C’mon, Liv. Pick up the pace.

The approaching storm had kept the usual crowd of early morning runners off the sugar-white beach. Besides a solitary figure standing fifty yards ahead, Olivia was alone with her thoughts and the rhythmic slap of her feet on wet sand.

Since moving here to supervise the Charleston field office, running was her daily therapy, the one place that put life’s madness into perspective. It would take more than a summer storm to keep her from it.

Olivia’s eyes were drawn to the man standing motionless on the shore. Something was curious about him, she thought. She slowed her stride.

She’d jogged this stretch of beach every morning for the past six months and knew the regulars well—the joggers, the fishermen, the retired couple that rose before dawn to search the sands with metal detectors in hand.

He didn’t carry himself like a tourist, which she could easily spot. Yet, he seemed strangely familiar.

The man looked out to sea with his arms by his sides, the sea breeze lifting his dark hair. Even in the dull, gray light of morning she could see he was barefoot. He wore dark jeans and a stark white T-shirt that stretched taut over his muscular frame. Behind him, a pair of black biker boots lay in the sand just beyond the tide’s reach.

She settled to a walk ten feet to his right. Did she know this man?

“Hello, Olivia.”

She stopped. He knew her?

The man turned. Staring back was a face she’d thought about countless times over the years. She blinked twice, half expecting him to vanish. But he didn’t.

“Stephen? Is that you?”

He walked toward her, eyes as gentle and strong as she remembered them. How long had it been? Four years? No, five. Five years since Stephen had shown up and spoken life into her shriveled soul.

Five years since she’d lost Alice Ringwald and unexpectedly found herself along the way.

Stephen stopped in front of her, smiling. “You look well.”

“How’d you find me?”

“You run every morning, don’t you?”

He studied her for a silent stretch. “I see you’ve found some peace. Light in your eyes.”

“I never got a chance to thank you. What you said that day . . .” She drew a breath. “It changed my life.”

“We all play our roles. One person plants the seed, another waters it, but it grows only when the season is right.”

His words soaked into her like the radiant warmth of the sun. But there was something else—a distant look of deep concern in his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” she said.

“Keeping a promise I made to you. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“Alice Ringwald?” she said.

He nodded once. “I said I would tell you if I ever learned anything new.”

The image of the young girl still haunted Olivia. Even years after the case had gone cold, she believed Alice was out there somewhere, terrified and waiting for someone to come.

“She’s alive, Olivia.”

The world seemed to still around her.

“You’re sure? She’s alive?”

“For now at least.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I spoke to her.”

Her pulse quickened. “You found her? When?”

He dipped his head. “A couple of times. This last week.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You said you found her.”

“I did. In a dream.”

A dream? Olivia held his gaze and let the words settle. Coming from anyone else it would have sounded ludicrous, but this was the man who’d told her things about herself that no one else knew. His eyes were unflinching, and there was certainty in them.

“And this . . . dream . . . You’re sure it means she’s alive?”

“She’s alive,” he said.

“How do you know it wasn’t just a dream? What if it was just wishful thinking, a trick of the mind? We both want to find her; we have for a long time. You know as well as I do that the mind sometimes sees what it wants to see. That doesn’t make it real.”

“The wind blows wherever it wills. How and why is a mystery. It’s enough to simply know that it is. In the same way, I know that my awareness and hers are somehow connected.”

“How do you know?”

He shifted his gaze and looked at the horizon again. “A dream called to my mother’s heart once. Drew her across the ocean. What she thought she would find and what she actually did were worlds apart. Her story came with great blessing, but also much death. You see? Both life and death were birthed from a dream.” He looked back at her. “I know because I know.”

She nodded slowly. “Okay. Then tell me where she is in your dream.”

“I’m not sure.”

“Yes, but assuming the dream is real, there must be clues to where she is.”

“My dreams are of that place where heart calls to heart. Even what I do see may not be a direct reflection of what’s outside that heart.”

“Is she in danger? That’s a matter of the heart, right?”

“Terrible danger.”

“And?”

“I believe that she’s with her birth mother.”

The prevailing theory at the time. So she was right.

“And that’s just another dead end. There must be something else. Anything that could at least narrow our search.”

“She was standing alone on a lakeshore, in fear of her mother. I came to her in a rowboat—from where I have no clue. There were thick trees covered in stringy moss and the air was tinged with the scent of salt.”

Olivia paced as he spoke, mind spinning through the possibilities. “She must be near the coast. Swamp lands near the ocean . . . that describes half of the Gulf coast.”

“Or perhaps not. It may only represent something more. What I can tell you for certain is that she’s alive, and, wherever she is, she’s trapped in a state of great fear and suffering. Truthfully, I may be the only one who can help her find emancipation.”

Drizzle began to fall as Olivia worked the problem in her mind. “What about sounds? Traffic? Maybe an airport? Anything that would put her near a landmark that we could use to narrow a search.”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

She stopped and faced him. “That’s it, then? Nothing but a dream with no helpful details.”

“Not nothing. Alice is alive and she’s opened up to me. That’s something.”

“What good is that if we can’t get to her?”

His right brow cocked. “But I can. I thought I’d mentioned that.”

“Through a dream.”

“Exactly.”

“Then can’t you tell her how to escape in that dream? Tell her to call a number or make a mark on the shore . . . Anything that might help—”

“I can only speak to her heart. What she chooses to do is entirely up to her . . .” He paused. “You must understand . . . there’s no guarantee she will get out. And even if she does, her freedom may only come at a great price to her or to others.”

“What kind of price?”

“I don’t know.”

She stared at him. “We’re helpless then.”

“Not helpless, no. We can hope that Alice will find that narrow way to her freedom. You must remember that she’s not just any child, Olivia. Not at all.”

He was referring to her upbringing in the monastery, a history totally lost to Alice.

“What was it about that monastery?” she asked.

Stephen stared out at the ocean, thinking.

“She was protected from this world. Taught the virtues of love, beauty, and peace in ways very few are. Although she doesn’t remember, there’s a deep place in Alice that still knows . . . Mountains can be moved, the blind can see, the lame can walk if only one can let go.”

“In my experience, the best way to move a mountain is with a bulldozer.”

He offered a slight smile. “That would be in your experience. In either case, I doubt Alice has access to a bulldozer at the moment.”

Touché.

“And if she can’t let go?”

He didn’t respond.

The rain fell harder and a peal of thunder shook the sky. “We’ll find her,” Olivia said, watching the waves.

“I hope you do. But I don’t think she’s ready yet. She’ll only be found when she is. It’s why I only met her in my dreams recently.”

“Because she wasn’t ready.”

“I can assure you, it wasn’t for a lack of trying on my part.”

All this talk of life and death and readiness was such an inverted way of thinking. Offensive even. Wasn’t any abducted girl always ready to be rescued?

Yes, yes, of course . . . but Alice wasn’t just any girl. And this was all coming from Stephen. She couldn’t bring herself to object.

“And it won’t be for any lack of trying on my part either,” she said. “I’m going to do everything in my power to find her.”

“As will I.” He dipped his head, gave her a parting smile, and walked to his boots. “As will I.”

23

BREAK HER LEG. That’s what Zeke had said.

Break her leg. And with those three words Zeke had broken Kathryn’s heart.

She’d driven home in Wyatt’s truck, mind numb, head ringing. It all made sense, she knew it did, but she wasn’t in the place to piece all the scriptures and bits of reasoning together yet. She could only trust in what she knew to be the truth.

And the truth was, Zeke had saved her. He’d led her down the path of righteousness and, when she wasn’t righteous enough herself, provided a way for her to be reconciled with God. Eden, the lamb of God, come to take away all of her sin.

And now she had to break Eden’s leg so that she couldn’t stray and fall off a cliff and bring them all down with her.

So why did it break her heart? Why did the thought of breaking Eden’s leg feel like an order had been given to break her own leg? Or worse.

Because you love Eden, Kathryn. Didn’t God love his child?

She walked straight to her bedroom without checking on either Bobby or Eden, knowing they wouldn’t dare make another attempt. Not tonight anyway. And not tomorrow because Eden wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow.

She lay in bed and stared at the dark ceiling, only dimly aware. An hour passed. Two. Three, and sleep didn’t even bother tempting her. Slowly her mind began to settle into that place of deep understanding that was far beyond the world’s way of knowing.

There were times when you had to shut your mind down and trust in what you knew at a deeper level. She’d invested her whole life in Zeke, and, in some ways, he’d invested his in her. All she knew now was that she had to follow him, regardless of where he took her. Regardless of how terrifying the path or sickening the thought.

And that meant she had no real alternative but to do exactly what he said.

Break her leg. She’s the lamb who would stray into guilt. By breaking her leg, you will save her.

Spare the rod, spoil the child. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. Put them on the slippery slope and they’ll slide all the way to the bottom. That’s just how it was. Hadn’t God put Jacob’s hip out of joint to help him understand?

Didn’t the good shepherd lovingly break the leg of the wayward lamb to teach it not to stray, just like Zeke had said?

And hadn’t God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac? It didn’t matter that God had sent a ram from the thicket to spare Abraham; what did matter was that Abraham had been obedient. Sometimes the righteous were called upon to do what seemed humanly impossible in order to bring blessing to the world.

Truth was, the first time she’d drowned Eden in baptism, she’d been terrified. And yet she’d been obedient, and held her daughter down, covering up her own fear with exclamations of praise and long quotes of scripture.

And, having died to the flesh, hadn’t Eden come out of the water with tears of gratefulness? Hadn’t they all been abundantly blessed for her obedience?

That was the path of being dead to the flesh.

So Kathryn shut down her reasoning mind and embraced the word of life that had saved her for this day of great blessing.

“Praise be to God,” she whispered, and doing so she felt even more calm. “Praise be to God.”

By the time first light was graying the sky outside her window, Kathryn had found a measure of resolution. It wasn’t her place to think or reason; only to obey. And the only way to obey was to shut out the tempting voice of the serpent that would seduce her into eating from the tree of death.

Kathryn lay in bed for another hour, trying her best not to think, remaining as best she could in that place of obedience, until it occurred to her that she might only be procrastinating the good will of God, which was only another clever temptation of the serpent.

She swung her legs off the bed and placed her feet on the floor.

Break her leg. So she would.

She stood, took up the small package Zeke had given her, and walked to the door, aware that she was moving slowly, as if through water. Drowned. Numb. Dead to the flesh.

She opened the door and listened in the silence for a long moment that might have stretched into a full minute. Not a sound in the house. They would be fast asleep.

Walking slowly so as not to disturb the children, she headed to the kitchen to retrieve the ball of twine. She’d never tied Eden up before.

Dead to the flesh, Kathryn. This is the path, walk ye in it.

She opened the drawer next to the refrigerator, removed a pad of paper and a small tray filled with incidentals, found the string in the back, and withdrew it. How many times had she pressed forward toward the goal through seemingly impossible situations, keeping all tempting thoughts in the grave where they belonged? This was no different.

So why did it feel different?

No Kathryn. Stay dead. Keep the flesh in the ground. Lean not on your own understanding. Take up your cross. Follow. Just follow Zeke.

Back across the living room, into the hall, to the bathroom. She reached for a white towel, then stopped, thinking that there might be blood. Red would stain the towel.

She closed her trembling hand, turned to her right and reached for a dark blue towel instead.

Back out of the bathroom and down the hall, one step at a time, just one step at a time, that was all. Walk, walk, walk. Placing one hand on Eden’s doorknob, she took a deep, shuddering breath, let it out through her nostrils, and twisted the handle. Slowly pushed it open.

Eden lay on her side, still dressed in the same pajamas she’d worn to bed, watching her with empty eyes. Defeated.

Terror sliced through Kathryn’s mind. She was awake.

For a few seconds, she looked at her daughter and knew she couldn’t follow Zeke in this. How could she? He was asking too much!

But only for a few seconds, because she was mature enough to realize that this objection was only the flesh, trying to climb out of its grave. If the serpent tricked her into turning away from obedience, there would be hell to pay. In this life and the next. Zeke might even kill Eden. She had to do this for Eden’s sake, not just Zeke’s. That would be the most loving thing. And she loved Eden more than she loved her own life.

The seconds ticked by and the terror eased, but Kathryn found that she still couldn’t move. It was Eden’s eyes. They watched her without so much as blinking. A hardness seemed to have set into them. She felt no ill will toward her daughter for this—she might feel the same way if their places were exchanged.

A knot filled her throat. The room blurred as tears seeped into her eyes. The only way was to obey quickly, without further thought, before she lost her nerve.

Taking one last deep inhale, she ignored the voices of protest in her head, walked up to the bed, lay the towel and the string on the nightstand, and reached for Eden’s shoulder.

“Roll onto your back, sweetheart,” she said.

Eden hesitated a moment, then did so, turning her head away to face the window.

It was almost as if Eden knew what was coming and had accepted it. An obedient lamb who knew not to resist anything her loving mother would do to her. She’d never been physically harmed, had she? She had no reason to suspect what was coming.

I’m sorry, Eden. I’m so sorry.

Kathryn opened the package, withdrew the syringe, slipped off the protective sleeve, and jabbed the needle into her daughter’s shoulder.

Eden jerked her head around, startled by the pain.

“I’m sorry,” Kathryn whispered, shoving the plunger to its hilt.

She didn’t know what was in the syringe, only that Zeke had promised it would put Eden to sleep immediately and keep her that way for a long time.

Kathryn jerked the needle out and stepped back.

Eyes wide with fear, Eden tried to push herself up, got halfway, and faltered.

“What’s . . .” She tried to sit up again but failed. “Mommy? Mom . . .” Her voice trailed off and her eyelids drooped and her head settled on her pillow. She was out and limp within five seconds.

Kathryn swallowed hard, blinking away tears. Now, Kathryn. Finish what you’ve started now, without thinking.

She stepped up to the bed, gently took Eden’s right wrist and tied it to the metal bedframe above her head, unable to stem the flow of terrible emotions battering her. Then walked around the bed and tied her left wrist in the same fashion, then her left leg to the bottom of the bed, leaving only her right leg free.

Without daring to hesitate even a moment, Kathryn lay the towel over Eden’s leg, climbed onto the bed so that she was standing over her daughter’s feet, and lifted her right leg by the heel.

With one last look at Eden’s peaceful face, she threw one leg over her towel-draped shin, took a deep breath, and pulled hard, teeth clenched and eyes squeezed shut.

The leg didn’t break, so she pulled harder.

“Use a sledge hammer,” Zeke had said. “Bones are hard to break.”

Lying on her bed in the early morning hours Kathryn had decided that she wouldn’t be so cowardly. This was her correction as much as Eden’s—she would do it with her hands, flesh on flesh, feeling the pain of inflicting pain as much as her daughter.

But the bone wasn’t breaking.

She groaned and tugged, tears now streaming down her face. Her mouth parted and she moaned as if it was her own leg under such pressure.

Still, the leg didn’t break.

And then Kathryn was wailing, because it was in that moment, while her head was tilted toward the ceiling and her veins bulging on her neck, that she came into the sudden realization that she couldn’t bring herself to use the force needed to break Eden’s leg.

Which meant that they would both end up dead. And surely in hell.

But she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. She couldn’t!

Kathryn slowly sank to her knees, straddling Eden’s leg, lifted her hands to her face and wept into them, feeling utterly worthless in her failure.

“Forgive me . . . Forgive me, Father. Please . . .” Her mind swam in a dark sea of fear and desperation from which she could see no escape. At another time she might have suggested that Eden be baptized or at the very least ritualistically cleansed to appease her mother’s failure, but Eden was unconscious now, put to sleep by her wicked mother who was failing Eden, Zeke, and God through one profound act of disobedience.

She could only hold her face in both hands, and sob, begging God for mercy in this dark hour of weakness.

“Give me the strength,” she whispered. “Please give me the strength you once gave Abraham. Let me rise in righteousness and wield your sword of judgment as commanded by your servant.”

“Mommy?”

Kathryn spun her head to the door to see Bobby standing there, staring dumbly.

“Shut the door and get back to your room,” she cried, shoving her finger at him. “Now!”

He spun away, pulling the door shut.

The interruption snapped her out of her mindless slobbering. Eden rested with her eyes closed, pale face tilted to the right, oblivious to any harm. Or so it seemed at first glance.

Kathryn blinked to clear her vision and looked at the corner of her daughter’s eye. There, a single tear slid slowly toward her temple. She was unconscious, but crying? In her sleep?

Or was Eden somehow aware of her surroundings?

The sickening voices of objection that Kathryn had silenced earlier were back and this time she made no attempt to stop them. She had to listen now because she knew that she had a new problem.

She could not break her daughter’s leg. She was too weak. God wasn’t going to give her the strength he’d given Abraham and he wasn’t going to send a ram from the thicket to take Eden’s place because Eden was the ram as much as she was the lamb.

Kathryn slumped back to her haunches and turned toward the window, swallowing against the ache that tightened her throat. She simply couldn’t follow through.

But Eden still had to learn her lesson in a way that she hadn’t. She’d been too easy on her daughter—nothing else explained Eden’s seditious rebellion and betrayal. Just as importantly, Zeke had to be appeased. He had to be assured that they wouldn’t fail him again.

Even so, Kathryn could no longer bring herself to break her daughter’s leg, not while Eden lay crying in her sleep. In fact, not ever. It was too much to ask of this mother.

Which left her with only one option, a small idea that had been whispered by the darkness during the night. One that now reasserted itself as a solution, never mind if it might also be a clever temptation.

How was a horse broken? Couldn’t ‘breaking’ mean bringing under full submission? If she was unwilling to actually snap Eden’s leg, couldn’t she ‘break’ it by disabling it?

The point was to keep Eden from walking and escaping. That and teaching her just how evil her sin really was while offering correction. But both could be accomplished as easily with a bad sprain as with a break. Eden’s mobility and her rebellious spirit would both be broken.

It was the only option Kathryn could think of other than going to the toolshed for a sledgehammer. She would sprain Eden’s ankle badly enough to keep her from walking, then wrap it up to look like a break.

Kathryn turned back and studied her daughter. Saw another tear follow the trail of the first.

She had to do it now, before her nerve for even that was gone.

So she did. She quickly scooted to the end of the bed, ripped off the towel to expose Eden’s leg, grabbed her foot, and twisted hard, grunting as much with anger at God’s cruel nature as with exertion.

There. Surely that was enough.

Eden lay in peace, save those tears.

Her ankle began to swell within the first minute.