Abandoned Memories (42 page)

Angeline squeezed his hand as a laugh-cry emerged from her lips. She could hardly believe her ears. This was precisely what she had prayed for during the long night.

“So, will you marry this imperfect man who doesn’t deserve you?” He raised her hand and placed a gentle kiss on it.

She batted her tears away as reality set in. “You heard Dodd. He intends to take me back for trial.”

“Then let him. I will go with you. As your husband.”

She searched his eyes. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“Then don’t ask. Just answer me.”

A giggle burst from her lips. “You’re mad.”

“Incredibly, wonderfully, and hopelessly.”

“James, Angeline!” A call came from the camp.

James glanced over his shoulder to where Blake, Eliza, Magnolia, and Hayden prepared to head into the jungle. Eliza had woken Angeline before dawn to inform her of their plans. Though the scheme sounded crazy, Angeline agreed and had slipped down the beach to pray. Pray for James. Pray for protection. Pray for God to empower them. Yet she feared her faith was too small to be of any effect.

Down shore, a few colonists stirred from their sleep and began stoking the fire for breakfast. Though the pirates drank and sang well into the morning hours, their greed had woken them early to head to the temple. Along with Dodd and Patrick and a few other colonists they had dragged from their beds.

Blake gestured for Angeline and James to join them. He had thought it best not to tell the rest of the colonists their plans. No need to spread unnecessary alarm when there was nothing anyone else could do. But the six of them must leave soon before the others started to question.

James faced her, a questioning look on his face.

“I will give you my answer later.” When her heart stopped flipping and bouncing through her chest like an acrobat and when her thoughts descended from the clouds onto reason. Then maybe she could think with her head and not her heart. And pray. Yes, she must find out what God wanted. A first for her. But a habit she intended to foster for the rest of her life.

“Very well.” He extended his elbow as if they were going for a stroll in a garden. “Shall we go defeat some demonic beasts?”

HAPTER
36

I
feel so helpless,” Blake muttered as he trudged beside James through the jungle. “Not bringing anything with us but the shirts on our backs. No weapons—not that we have many—no clubs or spears or even iron skillets to slam over the fallen angels’ heads.” He gave a nervous laugh.

“The battle is not yours, but God’s.” James quoted from Second Chronicles. “We need only Him.” Which is why he’d left the Hebrew book back on the beach. They didn’t need it anymore. He’d read it over and over but still found no particular instructions for defeating the beasts, save commanding them back to their chains. At first he’d found that rather alarming, but then God had led him to the story in Second Chronicles where the Israelites faced a massive army of Moabites and Ammonites. Outnumbered and overwhelmed, the people trembled in fear. But God was with them.

“Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the
L
ORD
.”

That verse had flown off the page and embedded itself in James’s heart. And he knew that they had only to show up in the tunnels beneath the temple and God would do the rest. Yet now as they made their way through steamy leaves and branches and vines laden with all manner of skittering, crawling things, a small part of James began to skitter as well. Had he really heard from God? Had his father been correct when he’d told James he’d been chosen for this task? Or had it just been a silly dream?

Doubts saturated him, like the sweat trickling down his back. Tabitha sauntered out of the leaves on his left, Abigail on his right. She winked at him, her dark lashes fanning her cheeks. “You haven’t changed, James. I see the desire in your eyes.” Tabitha sidled up to him, pressing her curves against his arm. Both ladies giggled. James turned to see if Blake noticed, but the colonel kept walking, face forward. Ignoring the women, James pressed on.

And nearly bumped into his father.

The man blocked the way with a body that looked more real than the trees. Yet the colonel strode right through him as if he wasn’t there.

“Who do you think you are, boy?” His father clicked his tongue in disgust. “You’re leading these people to their death. Just like you led me.”

Guilt gripped James’s heart, threatening to squeeze his remaining courage. He brushed past him. He appeared in front of him again, looking more like James remembered—tired, aged, and worn. “That wasn’t me last night,” he snarled. “That was just a foolish dream. I don’t forgive you at all. You’re nothing but a failure.”

James halted, gut clenching. Those words were more what he’d expected to hear from his father.

“
Believe the truth
,
reject the lie
,” a voice within him whispered.

But what
was
the truth? The truth was God’s Word: forgiveness, love, grace.

Clamping down his jaw, James charged forward. “I don’t believe you. Leave me alone,” he said as he passed right through his father.

That’s when the wind picked up.

Blake glanced up to see patches of dark sky through the canopy. He’d grown accustomed to storms rising quickly in Brazil but not this quickly. Wind whipped leaves and dirt in his face. The wound in his side ached. Ignoring it, he shoved aside a swaying branch, drew Eliza close, and continued forward. They wouldn’t allow a little storm to stop them.

But he would allow his brother.

The boy appeared ahead on the trail in his Confederate uniform, leaning against a giant fig tree, unaffected by the battering wind. A vision. Only a vision. Blake stiffened his jaw and proceeded, but the boy’s call to him halted him in his tracks. How could he ignore his only brother? He missed him so.

Jerry lifted blue eyes—so like their mother’s—to Blake. “Why did you marry the woman whose husband murdered me?” Those eyes, now burning with hate, shifted to Eliza. “Why?”

Blake’s heart shriveled. Thunder shook the ground. Drawing a deep breath, he led Eliza forward.

“How could you?” His brother’s voice haunted him. “Do I mean so little to you?”

Blake’s breath clogged in his throat. Agony burned behind his eyes. But he kept going.
Father, help me. Please, help me
.

“I love you, Blake. Don’t you love me?” Sobbing came from behind, and Blake turned and stared at the boy he would gladly have given his life to save. But it wasn’t his brother. Jerry was dead and in heaven. This was a monster. No matter what form it took.

“Leave me alone!” He yelled above the rising tempest. Then drawing Eliza close, he lifted an arm to protect them from flying debris, and proceeded.

Lightning scored the sky.

“Did you see something?” Eliza shouted over the wind. She’d felt her husband stiffen beside her several steps back, had witnessed him stop and stare at a tree, then stop again and shout something. Now, he gripped his stomach as though someone had stabbed him.

Another flash of lightning lit the darkening skies. Thunder roared. Eliza jumped and dodged a flying branch as she huddled beneath her husband’s arm.

“It’s nothing.” Blake gave her a reassuring smile and kissed the top of her head. “I wish you didn’t have to come along. Especially being with child. It isn’t safe.”

“I would be in more danger if I didn’t come.” She hoped her words reached his ears in the torrent of wind. His nod confirmed they had.

She glanced up to see how the others fared and wished she hadn’t. Her father crossed the clearing up ahead, one hand behind his back, the other rubbing his chin. Turning, he started back the other way, deep in his musings, pacing as she had so often seen him do in his study back home. The sight of him stole Eliza’s breath. He was young once again, strong, determined, so handsome in his suit of gray broadcloth, his thin mustache and dark hair clipped to style, his regal stride. She knew he was a vision, she knew she should ignore him.

But she couldn’t.

Finally his eyes met hers. “You left me. Disobedient girl! Left me all alone. Ran off with that Yankee! Broke my heart.” Anger turned to despair.

Eliza reached out to him. He withdrew. Lines creased his skin as it folded and drooped. His dark hair shriveled and turned gray, falling out in clumps until all that remained were feeble wisps atop his head. His shoulders stooped, his eyes grew cloudy. And she turned away as she and Blake passed him by, unable to bear watching him age. Seeing the agony in his eyes. The loneliness she had caused. She tossed a hand to her mouth to subdue a sob.

“Resist it!” Blake shouted, squeezing her shoulder. “It isn’t real.”

Nodding, she drew a deep breath and faced her father, who now walked beside her. “Go away. I want nothing to do with you.” It was the hardest thing she’d ever said, yet as soon as she spoke the words, hatred fired from her father’s eyes before he became a dark mist and blew away in the wind.

The sky broke open, releasing an army of rain.

Droplets stung like pinpricks. Magnolia ducked beneath a banana tree. Stopping beside her, Hayden plucked a giant leaf and held it over her head. “We should keep going!” he yelled above the tapping of rain and roar of wind.

Oh, how she hated what the rain did to her hair! Matted it to her face like strands of oily rope, making her look like a wet cat. But why was she thinking of that now? She hadn’t been overly concerned about her appearance in months. Still, she hated that Hayden saw her like this. Would he still love her looking so hideous? Taking the leaf from him, she shielded her face from his view and dashed onto the trail again. Up ahead she spotted the blurry shapes of Blake and Eliza.

And someone else.

Someone wearing a gray cloak and limping across the trail. Splashing through the growing puddles, Magnolia drew near, curious who the intruder was. Perhaps a colonist who had followed them? A gust of wind nearly knocked her down. Clutching her close, Hayden tried to use his body as a shield, but the tempest shoved them both to the side as if they weighed no more than a feather. Leaves and twigs struck them from all around. Batting them away Magnolia peered once more toward the strange person.

Gray, spindly hair flowed from beneath a hood covering the woman’s head—a hood that stayed put, despite the tempest. A flash of white light blinded Magnolia.
Crack! Snap!
Magnolia followed Hayden’s gaze above to see a wide branch cascading through the canopy, heading straight for Blake and Eliza.

Releasing Magnolia, Hayden charged forward and barreled into the couple. All three of them tumbled into the middle of a large fern as the branch struck the ground with a thunderous roar, flinging mud into the air.

The earth shook. The cloaked figure reappeared. With a long pointed fingernail, she slid the hood from her face. Rain pummeled skin, shriveled and blotched. Drooping, sunken eyes met Magnolia’s. The skin beneath them hung in blue, veiny folds. Magnolia gasped. It was her! Her old self that appeared in her reflection.