Chapter 18 - one must first

The lack of air in The Chapel suffocates me. This is crazy. I don’t know anything about the Bible. My stomach whirls like a hurricane. Based on Daniel’s expression throughout the morning, the message has to be something wonderful. He hasn’t smiled at me like that since before school started. He’s sorry. His weeks of coming to The Center prove that. The words on the folded paper are further evidence. I know he’s a Christian. He probably wants me to become one too. I mean, that was the reason he wouldn’t date me at school. It would explain why Daniel came. It would explain his smile. It would explain the glow I saw in his eyes.

I need to read his words. My heart accelerates. I can’t do it in this room. I want to read this outside, out past The Bunker, a remote place in the woods with only a single camera creeping on me. My nerves tingle with an exhilaration I haven’t known in months. I carry my secret from The Chapel embraced to my chest. I won’t keep the Bible but I need it for my search. I’ll bring it back like a library book when I finish. Cameras hum as I move. They follow me out of the room.

On the southeast path, Daniel’s winks and smiles prick against my gut. My nerves are raw as I march past The Bunker. Its entrance today reminds me of a metallic version of the glass entrance to the famous Louvre museum in Paris. The city of love.

I step off the cement onto a gravel trail, happy to return to nature. The desire for Daniel’s acceptance touches some place sad inside of me. I seldom called on God or Nanny Bella's Jesus, and then it was only a cry to some unknown force that might rescue me from a test or something. There was no reason for me to seek him in my previous life. All my physical wants and needs were supplied to me. Because my father treated me like nothing more than furniture, I had no interest in a spiritual father. But now, the sinking daylight flakes off some of my skepticism. The love I’ve waited for my entire life could materialize in this moment. Maybe Jackson is right. Maybe The Chapel does offer love. A real love. The sweet gentle look on Daniel’s face. The small note I now embrace. The sacrifice of his summer to come see me. For four weeks, Daniel sat in The Chapel only a few feet from my dorm room? Wow.

The Bible sticks to my sweaty fingers. I switch hands and continue. Nanny Bella used to say, “You find love when you stop looking for it.”

I tighten my grip on the book. A rectangular booth stands at the edge of the woods. I step inside the glass room and shut the door. Directly in front of me, a flat-panel screen sparks to life. I wait for the Tower guard to answer. The image of Rowena appears on the screen.

“Good afternoon, Courtney. Lovely day.” She smirks.

“Yes, ma’am.” I fake my smile. Love might be real, but Rowena’s presence reminds me that God is not. Any other guard would be understanding. Any other guard would let me wander past this booth to the seclusion of the woods. But no. This witch stands between me and Daniel’s message.

“What can I do for you on this beautiful afternoon?”

“I’ve borrowed a Bible from The Chapel. I’d like to go into the woods and read on the bench down by the creek.”

“The sun sets in less than an hour.”

“I won’t be long.”

“How not long do you plan?” She glares at me.

“About an hour?”

She cackles and shakes her head. “Now, Courtney, you’d never find your way back in the dark.” She looks over at a clock I can’t see and says, “The sun sets in about twenty minutes.”

I hate to beg her, and only Daniel could get me to do it. “Can I please go out there for twenty minutes?”

“What’s so important?”

“Nothing much,” I shrug. Hoping she won’t see past my lie. The last thing I want her to do is send a guard to inspect the Bible in my hands. I should have memorized the letters. That would have been easy. But it’s too late now. “I want to pray.”

She doesn’t believe me, I can see that, so her next words surprise me. “I’m setting your timer for fifteen minutes. Make sure you’re back in your dorm in twenty.” She reaches across the panel and types something into a computer. I try to keep the shock from my face. The Shackle on my ankle beeps twice. This is too easy.

“Thanks,” I say, with suspicion in my tone. I suddenly fear a big conspiracy. I look through the booth window to see if I can spot any alien aircraft. Only woods and privacy await me.

“You going or not?”

“Yeah.”

“God Bless you.”

I push open the door. Her words and the meaning of them don’t hit me until I duck into the tall trees. Rowena’s a Christian? I shake my head. Long pine needles crunch under my feet. My entire world has seriously flipped upside down. The last thing I can ever imagine is Rowena in the crowd of happy faces I saw at the concert. No. Her comment must have been sarcasm. Yeah. That’s it. She was being sarcastic.

One thing for sure. She has killed the mood. A few hundred feet from the booth, water ripples in a stream of melted snow. Palm sweat glues the Bible’s cover to my left hand. I shift the book back into my right. The cool shade helps me chill a bit, and Rowena cracked my anxiety. Now that I’m less exhilarated, I can focus. The shimmer of aspen leaves doesn’t lighten the weight of Daniel’s hidden note. Nothing in nature can pull my attention away from my need to know.

An isolated, wooden bench waits for me near the creek’s clear water. I put my feet on the bench. In front of me, the red light blinks on a camera above me. I pull up my knees, the Bible hidden from view. The laminated cover feels soft to the touch. The Holy Bible, New King James Version. I flip the book open to where I left the note. It lays flat against the page, as if it knows the trouble it could cause. Daniel protected me by keeping his message small.

When I take the Bible back to The Chapel, I’ll leave the small piece of paper inside. No one will know where it came from. If they find it, no one can connect it to me. As much as I want to keep his precious gift, I will have to leave it behind. For his protection and mine.

I take time to memorize its message now. Proverbs 6:16-19. A tingle shimmies up my spine. Proverbs 6:16-19. I finger the black print and remember Daniel’s hand in mine. Proverbs 6:16-19. I still can’t believe it. I close the book again and try to figure out the best way to start. The letters and number imprint in my mind Proverbs 6:16-19.

Proverbs doesn’t mean anything to me so I open the book to page 616. The structure of the paragraphs remind me of Shakespeare. The words don’t flow all the way across the page, but instead are set up in columns. Each line has its own number, and some of the passages are broken up by titles like the one in the middle of the page.

Psalm 20, a psalm of David to the chief musician.

Pages 616 and 617 appeared like twins. I have no clue, but Daniel would have made the message obvious. Where should I begin? At the top of the page it reads:

“More to be desired are they than gold,

Yea, than much fine gold;

Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Moreover by them Your servant is warned,

And in keeping them there is great reward.”

Man, did William Shakespeare write the Bible too? I rub two fingers over my forehead with one hand. It doesn’t make any sense. English always crippled me. I am much better at math. Think mathematically. This problem must have some logic even though it is made up of words.

I think back to Daniel’s note. Maybe it’s not a page number. It would make sense if “proverbs” appears somewhere. I touch each word of the thin paper as a crow caws above me. The stream dances over rocks in the creek bed. I notice a lot of other numbers on the page as well. Big numbers at the start of major sections and smaller ones mixed throughout the paragraphs. Could Proverbs be the name of one of the poems? I roam a few pages in search of a title with the word Proverbs. There are lots of numbered Psalms with titles the way literature books had sonnets. I turned back one page and find Psalm 19, then Psalm 18. It must go all the way back to Psalm 1. Hey, maybe there is a section called Proverbs.

I open to the table of contents.

Excitement grows as I find a list of all the different sections of the Bible. Genesis, Exodus, all the way down until I pass the word Psalms. Amazing. There it is. A thrill tickles its way up my arm. Right there for the world to see, Proverbs.

That’s it.

Daniel’s message has developed into a treasure hunt. For a moment, I forget to be anxious. I forget to worry as I turned the pages past Psalms to the beginning of Proverbs. “The Book of Wisdom.”

Okay. That’s a bit archaic, but it is an old book. What could Daniel want me to find in its pages? Nanny Bella spent much of her time reading her Bible aloud to me when I was sick, but I couldn’t understand a word of it since hers was written in Spanish. Maybe Daniel wants me to know Baby Jesus just like Nanny Bella does. Maybe that’s what this wisdom stuff is all about. That would be disappointing. More realistic, but disappointing. 

At the top of the page, a big number one precedes corresponding smaller digits and words, just as I’d seen in Psalms. Daniel’s message said 6:16-19. My heart beats faster as I peel back the gift wrap of my private present. It doesn’t take long to find the bold number six.

The section had a title: “Dangerous Promises.”

Hope slips like the creek water over rocks. My hands shake. I can’t calm the tremor that overtakes my arms. “Dangerous Promises,” I say aloud. The words drift out into the woods without an echo. Across the stream, the cawing crow lands. Its head moves slowly to the side. It spies me with one eye before it flutters off into the trees, where my words disappear. The branch the bird abandons shakes.

My finger trembles as I scan the page past the small number five. Right below it another break in the page appeared. Another title, “The Folly of Indolence.”

What a word.

I bite my lip. I have no idea what “indolence” means, but it doesn’t sound good. Further down the page, above the small number 12, are the words, “The Wicked Man.”

No translation needed there.

I close the book. This is pointless. Daniel didn’t come to comfort me. He didn’t come to forgive. I don’t need to read any further to know his intentions are bad. Real bad.

A small breeze brushes past my face, and I know I’ll still read it. I mean, I’ve come this far. It’s like all those stupid girls I insulted on Facebook, they should have stopped. They shouldn’t have read what they knew would hurt. Looks like I’m just as stupid as they are. Just as hungry for punishment.

“Stop stalling.”

The words come out of my mouth unintended. There’s no one near me to hear it, but I’m embarrassed just the same. Of course, every flaw of my personality weighs on me at this moment and I haven’t even read the folly.

I open the book again and place my finger on words next to the small number sixteen. Around me nature settles down, silence invades my mind. To make sure I understand it the first time, I read the words Daniel chose for me out loud. The trees listen. The birds and creek and maybe even Rowena hears the message.

“There are six things the Lord hates.” I shake my head and continue, “Yes, seven are an abomination to Him.” My heart crashes into my Velcro sneakers. What was I thinking? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Daniel is the same jerk he’s always been. No big. Tell me Daniel, just what does this God of yours hate.

“A proud look.”

Whatever.

“A lying tongue.”

Who doesn’t.

“Hands that shed innocent blood.”

A new name pushes Daniel’s from my brain. The little freshman Lorry is a memory I’d left back home with my peace. So far everything in this precious book describes me. My past. My crimes. I take a deep breath and read the last four accusations.

“A heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.” I have no idea what discord means, but I don’t need to know. I did it. I did a ton of junk in my life or I wouldn’t be locked in this stupid place reading this horrible trash.

Daniel doesn’t love me. In fact, Jackson’s God could never love me. Nanny Bella’s precious Baby Jesus can bite me. If these words are true, and God had any feelings for me at all, what he feels is hate.

I slam the Bible closed and stare across the water. I don’t want to cry, not here under the tree cameras. I shake my head and push down the pain. I’d gone to The Chapel this morning to do something nice. What’s the point? Anger wrestles a tear from my eye. Daniel hit his mark. I’ll accept it. Even the “all-loving” God of the universe could never love me.