Part 32 (1/2)
”I'm so proud of you.”
”Thank you.”
Kathryn had gone about the rest of the day humming with grat.i.tude. The blessing that came after obedience and suffering never ceased to amaze her.
Bobby seemed quite distraught to learn that Wyatt would be gone for a while and, without a playmate, he was far too fidgety. So Kathryn had allowed him to spend some time in Eden's bedroom that afternoon. She'd listened at the door while Eden answered Bobby's questions about why she had a bandage on her leg.
”I hurt it,” Eden said. ”But don't worry, it was actually a good thing.”
”Why is it a good thing? Does it hurt?”
”Yes, it hurts, but sometimes you need to feel pain so that you don't get hurt again. Like putting your hand in the fire-you feel the pain so you don't get burned again. Isn't that right?”
”Fire will burn you.”
Eden had hesitated for a few moments before speaking.
”That's right, Bobby. Fire will burn. That's why we stay away from it.”
It was all Kathryn needed to hear. Why it had taken a measure so severe to finally show her daughter the full nature of righteousness after so many years of faithful service in purity, she didn't know. G.o.d knew how it pained her more than it pained Eden. The important thing was that her correction had taken hold.
Zeke would be proud of them all.
On that third night, Kathryn had knelt at the side of her bed before retiring and offered a long prayer of thanksgiving for the great blessing, once stolen by the locusts, now being returned a hundredfold as they all humbled themselves and walked in obedience. Then she'd climbed under the sheets, folded her hands on her belly, and drifted into a peaceful sleep for the first time in many days.
She dreamed of Wyatt, because she missed him. He was walking with her as she approached a towering cliff and at first she thought the cliff was an obstacle she had to climb to reach the top where heaven awaited.
”Where are you going?” Wyatt asked, in the echoing way people speak while dreaming.
”To the tomb,” she said, and she thought, that's right. I don't have to climb the cliff. I'm just going to the tomb at the base of the cliff.
”What's in the tomb?” he asked.
Jesus, she thought. But no, it wasn't Jesus. It was someone else. And suddenly she was very curious about who exactly was in that tomb.
The dream was interrupted by another, this one about a dog and Bobby and she was thinking that Bobby should have a dog as a friend. But then she was somehow back with Wyatt, at the base of the cliff, looking at the tomb with its stone rolled away.
”Are you going inside?”
”No.” Her answer surprised her.
”Why not?”
”Because I'm already inside.”
Why she said this, she didn't know. Dreams were just that way. But then she stepped up to the tomb and looked inside anyway.
Inside lay the body of a woman, arms and legs bound in strips of cloth. She blinked and saw that she was right-it was her, lying on her back with her hands folded over her belly.
”That's you,” Wyatt said over her shoulder. ”Are you dead?”
Was she?
She was no longer looking down at herself: she was herself, lying on her back, arms and legs bound. She tried to open her eyes, but couldn't. Tried to free her hands, but the strips of cloth held them together.
”Where are the keys to h.e.l.l?” a voice asked.
I'm in h.e.l.l?
Everything started to get muddled up in her head.
”Wake up!” The voice wasn't Wyatt's. It sounded more like an angel.
”Wake up!” Something pushed against her arm and she opened her eyes.
”Tell me where the truck keys are.”
Kathryn twisted and stared up into the face of her angel. Only it wasn't an angel. It was Eden!
”Tell me!”
She was dressed up in a dark-brown wig Kathryn hadn't worn in years. Wearing one of her dresses-a white one with yellow flowers that Kathryn had recently outgrown.
The truth crashed over Kathryn like a tidal wave. Eden was running again! She'd only pretended to have changed. And now she stood over her mother, glaring, demanding to know where the truck keys were.
Kathryn jerked up, outraged, and it was then that she found that her hands had been bound-wrists and fingers, so she couldn't use them. And her ankles. Twine, the same she'd used on Eden, had been tied to the bonds on her ankles and to the bedpost.
”Tell me where the keys are!” Eden demanded again.
Kathryn stared at Eden's work, hardly daring to believe. She'd managed all of this without waking her. She'd planned it all along?
”What have you done?” she stammered.
”What I should have done a long time ago.”
”You untie me this second, Eden Lowenstein! What in the depths of h.e.l.l has possessed you?”
”You have,” Eden bit off. ”You've come out of h.e.l.l and tormented me! Tell me where the keys are.”
”Don't be a fool! You can't just drive out of here! Have you completely lost your mind?”
”I don't know, Mother, have I? You should know. You're the one who tried to break my leg.”
”I had to! Don't you understand? I had to!”
”Of course you did. And if G.o.d-oh pardon me, Zeke-tells you to kill me I suppose you would do that too. But actually you won't, because I won't be around to kill.”
”I would never . . .” Kathryn felt the first waves of a panic attack coming on as the full scope of Eden's intentions settled into her mind. It was getting light outside. The dogs would be tied off soon. Eden was going to drive out dressed up like her and she might very well make it. If she did . . .
Kathryn set her jaw and leveled her sternest warning.