The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (The Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mysteries) (13 page)

T
he room just
off the hallway appeared to be an office converted from a bedroom. One wall was
devoted to books, the other a windowed panorama of the lake. Strangely enough,
Father’s desk, a large cherry behemoth, was arranged facing away from the view.
Taking one of the small wooden chairs placed in front of the desk, I sat before
him.

I felt like Goldilocks sitting in the wrong seat.
My knees were higher than usual. Behind the desk, Father was ensconced in Papa
Bear’s chair. Thronelike, the red brocade wingback chair held him aloft,
floating against the dramatic backdrop of the lake.

These chairs were rigged.

Moses declined to sit, choosing to lean against
the bookcase, skirting the edges of my peripheral vision. If I wanted to look
at him, I had to turn my head. I didn’t. Instead, I faced straight ahead,
keeping my expression soft, eyes nonconfrontational. Hands folded in my lap,
knees together, feet tucked under. Such a little lady.

“Maranatha,” Father said.

“Maranatha, Father. I am so sorry—”

“You are forgiven, child,” he said. “Let us speak
no more of the matter.” Worked for me.

 He studied me. His brown eyes scanned my body
from head to toe, emphasizing how disheveled I looked. Hair like a banshee,
twig accessories jabbing through the fabric of my clothes, and bloody knees
staining my skirt from the inside out.

“Abigail sent—”

Father flung a hand up like a traffic cop, and I
stuttered to a stop. Lips pinched, he shook his head. Permission to speak
denied.

I kept quiet, waiting for him to take the lead.
That he would want to regain control of the situation was a given. How he
obtained it would tell me a lot about him and the dynamics of the community he
had created.

“You are a traveler,” he said eventually. “You are
weary. Alone and confused about your place in this world. You are looking for a
place to belong.”

We were going mystic.

I raised wide, wondering eyes and clutched my
hands together so the knuckles stood out white.

“Do you know your path, child?” Second time he
called me “child.” Had he forgotten my name or was this an affectation with
him?

“No, Father.”

“The book of Romans tells us ‘all things work
together for good to those who love God.’ In Ephesians, we are told ‘In Him, we
are predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according
to the counsel of His will.’ What does this tell you, child?”

Good question. I thought about what Tracy had told
me about misinterpretation of scripture and wished I still had my Bible. Father
waited for an answer.

Ever since the first Peace meeting, I had been
psyching myself up in preparation to give a whole-hearted acceptance to joining
the church. My role depended on it. Inexplicably, I found myself balking.

“That… God will… lead me to my path?”

Must have been the right answer. Father bestowed a
warm smile on me.

“And what was in your path?”

I gasped with pretend awe. “You were, Father.” Of
course, if he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be sitting here with blood running down
my legs. “Still… this just seems so…”

“No one will force this on you, child. But you
must understand that to not make a choice is a choice in itself. Don’t be
fooled into thinking you have all the time in the world.” His voice was gentle,
his eyes lit by the soft entreaty of a benevolent parent to a misguided youth.
Father, indeed. “Society has become lulled into a narrow focus on today, on
immediate gratification. ‘Live for the moment.’ ‘Chase your dream.’ ‘Everyone
deserves to be happy.’ The world is numb to the signs all around them.

“The End is coming, child. You must have
recognized the signs yourself or you wouldn’t have come as far as you have.
What causes you to doubt now?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it doubt, exactly. I do
see terrible things happening, and I want to be ready. I just want to
understand what exactly would be expected of me. Nobody has explained your
doctrine. I was meeting with Maliah, but then the police showed up.”

His lips thinned, telling me that he had been
alerted about the police. “Ah, yes. Well, no wonder you are hesitant. And you
didn’t have much time before arriving at Megiddo, did you? There is usually an
extended period of preparation. However, events have become more rushed of late
for reasons beyond your awareness. Persecution is a sign of the chosen, you
know.

“Essentially, we are a group of people who are
dedicated to purifying ourselves for acceptance by the Holy Spirit.”

“By ‘acceptance,’ do you mean accepting Christ?”

The hesitation was slight, but I had been watching
for it. “Accepting Christ is only the first step,” Father said. “There are
many, like yourself, who have accepted Christ halfheartedly. Conditionally.
Those who aren’t willing to sacrifice their hold on this world have no place in
the next. The book of Revelation tells us ‘a remnant’ will prove worthy, but
many will not.”

“What do you mean by purified?”

“You must embrace a way of life—be baptized into
it, in fact—that centers on the three elements fundamental to spiritual purity.
Today’s Christianity has lost touch with these elements. They are shunned and
even cause disgust. In fact, few Christians realize how their disobedience in
refusing to practice these elements has crippled the Church.”

“What are they?”

“Confession, atonement, and sacrifice. Fully
two-thirds of holy scripture is dedicated to the instruction and understanding
of these practices, and modern day Christians are repelled if sermons address
them. Yet even Jesus said, ‘I come not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.’
The First Coming did not invalidate the Old Testament as false religions would
have us believe. It is not obsolete. The King will be returning as a warrior,
as a judge, and those worthy of the Elect will be allowed to enter the Kingdom
because of our ongoing obedience to purification as scripture commands.

“You will start with confession,” he went on. He
nodded at the journal in my lap. I flicked a dead leaf off it. “The journal
you’ve been provided with will be your confessional. Write down your sins—those
of the past and those of the present—and study them so that you might see how
the Enemy works inside you. Later, we will work together—you and I—in cleansing
you of the evils of this world. You are an impure vessel, my child. This isn’t
your fault, but you must learn the ways of cleansing. It starts with
confession. Later, you will be instructed in the other disciplines.”

As an active member of A.A., the practices of
confession and atonement weren’t strangers to me. They saved my life, actually.
Sacrifice, on the other hand, sounded a little worrisome. As did the idea of
writing down all my sins so I could hand them over to this wily old man. Talk
about blackmail potential.

“The world does not hold the answers for you.
You’ve searched and now, you have found.”

“Yes, Father.” I spoke as if I’d just met the man
who’d discovered chocolate. Who wouldn’t stand in awe and gratitude?

“We will talk again,” he said, leaning his head
back and closing his eyes.

Maybe it was nap time. 

Moses moved to shoo me out the door. I hated being
dismissed so soon, but I went docilely. He led me to the door, but then blocked
it, hand on the knob.

“Father does not talk with anyone unless he calls
them forth himself. You should consider yourself very lucky.”

Raising my eyes to his Pez face, I said softly, “I
do.”

He flushed, but not with anger. Averting his eyes,
he opened the door, letting me pass.

After the police left, Maliah secluded herself in
her bedroom, and both Eli and Moses stayed “in conference” with Father at the
farmhouse. Planting myself in the cafeteria with Jala and Talitha, I was able
to ride the wave of gossip and innuendo that flooded the community.

Baara was the first to arrive and the only one who
didn’t bother with a pretext. She slipped over from the laundry, a windowless
room that connected to the kitchen building through an enclosed walkway. I
quickly learned she was a frequent visitor. But not the only one. Other
in-workers and any of those with a day off from their community jobs
manufactured excuses to visit the kitchen and speculate. Even Rachel unbent
enough to stop into the kitchen for coffee. The fact that the church office,
where Rachel worked, possessed its own coffee pot was charitably ignored.

I may have “inadvertently” disclosed that the
police were talking to Maliah. Silly me.

Opinions varied, but each was received, debated,
and scrutinized for accuracy with delight and high excitement. Clearly, Enoch’s
desertion from the Elect, as well as his wife, had been an ongoing scandal and
a mystery within the church. And therefore was of all-consuming interest to the
friends he had left behind. Father had placed a ban on discussing the subject,
but the horse was out of the barn now and nothing would hold it back. Every now
and then, someone would throw in a token admonishment about the evils of
gossip, but after a brief moment of silent homage to the ideal, we ignored it.

Explanations for Enoch’s flight from the Elect
fell into three categories: worldly, religious, and sci-fi.          

“Money,” Talitha whispered in a raspy voice
designed to be heard across half a football field. This signaled a “secret”
that she wanted everyone to know.

“What do you mean?” Baara asked.

“I bet Enoch has been skimming money for ages.
Father probably got suspicious of him, so he took off.”

“Nonsense,” Rachel cut in. “Even though Casper is
our treasurer, Abigail keeps the books and we work in the same office. I would
have heard if there was any embezzling going on.

“Besides,” she went on. “Enoch is so devout. He
would never steal.”

Baara seemed troubled. “Maybe he was good while he
was here, but he left. He returned to a life of sin. He turned his back on
Father and rejected The Way.”

“I don’t know, Baara.” Rachel’s voice softened.
“We all have struggles, but I can’t believe Enoch would turn his back on God,
even if he left the Elect. Perhaps he just needed some time to… meditate.”

“Doubt will open the door to Satan,” Baara said.
“You know that. It lets Satan in. I think Enoch’s sins of the flesh got hold of
him. You know his special demon was lust. And then he fell.”

Rachel’s face flushed. Turning her back, she went
to the sink to wash up.

We fell silent, and Jala tactfully disappeared
into the pantry. When she emerged, she looked as guilty as if she had succumbed
to all seven sins simultaneously.

“Well, now. I sure don’t want to be the one to
lead anyone astray, but I don’t believe in letting good food go to waste. After
all, Job enjoyed good food and was considered righteous.” Defiantly, she
brought out a package of generic cookies and plopped them on the counter.

“Yay!”

Baara was shushed, and we fell on the cookies like
raccoons on a trash barrel. God was good. We waited until the only thing left
was the crinkly plastic tray and cookie breath before returning to feast on the
scandal. One sin at a time, after all.

“But why do you think the police were here?” Jala
asked. “Did Maliah report him missing?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “She didn’t know they
were coming.”

“Oo! Maybe he was abducted.” Talitha tossed a new
theory into our midst.

“Abducted?” Rachel’s face scrunched in disbelief.
“Like by aliens?

“No, silly, by the feds.” Talitha said. “We’re
supposed to be alert for persecution. ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake.’ And Revelations tells us that…”

“Yes, but if the feds kidnapped Enoch, why on
earth would the police be coming to announce it?” Rachel interrupted irritably.
“Why wouldn’t they just let sleeping dogs lie?”

“Okay. Maybe Enoch is on a secret mission,”
Talitha pushed on. “Maybe Father sent him to spy out the land like Joshua did
in Jericho.”

“That’s even sillier than the feds, for heaven’s
sake.”

“Well, I sure hope there’s no Rahab in the
picture,” Jala said. “Although Enoch grew up in Las Vegas, so it’s not like he
hasn’t seen a prostitute before.      

“Besides,” Jala continued. “Rachel’s right. I’ve
never met anyone as devout as Enoch. I betcha it was some kind of family
emergency or something. Maybe someone took sick.”

“Then why didn’t he just say so instead of
slinking off like he did?” Talitha said. “Father would have given him
permission. I mean, he even let Rachel go see her kids in the middle of all
that chaos. Megiddo was like a ghost town with all the searchers out. More than
one person thought you would have been more useful here at the church than with
your kids, Rachel.”

Rachel flushed again. “My son had pneumonia. The
point is: I
did
have permission. Father apparently believed I could be
spared. Casper didn’t go, either. Do you doubt Father’s judgment in these
matters?”

“Of course not.” Talitha’s turn to flush.

I was surprised at Rachel’s mention of a son,
especially since there didn’t appear to be any children at Megiddo that I had
seen. To keep the topic on track, I cut in with a question of my own. “What
searchers?”

“Father was concerned about Enoch’s well-being,”
Jala answered. “He sent the menfolk out to search for Enoch. I have to confess
I always wondered if Enoch had taken off to start his own church. He is such a
natural leader.”

“To be a leader of a church, he would need better
control of his flesh urges,” Baara said.

I wanted to hear more about flesh urges, but just
then, like an ambulatory visual aid, Justus walked in. Jala squeaked “
Uff da
,”
and the conversation stopped.