lovely sight a new baby, a rejoicing mother and father, good news of lost loved ones. But she couldn’t smile, couldn’t shake the unbearable sadness that weighed her down.
Being alone for over twenty years seemed to make good news crumble to the floor. If Acacia had been there, they would have joined hands and danced in a circle. If Paili had been there, they would have embraced and squealed, feeding and watering the good news with hugs and kisses.
But now two of her dearest friends had disappeared to who knew where? Her only clue was a brief conversation she had heard between Elam and Patrick. Apparently, Paili ate Morgan’s fruit and had somehow vanished, but Gabriel, her eyes and ears to the world of the living, couldn’t pick up any more information. And she couldn’t leave to get any news on her own. The screen wouldn’t roll up into a portal column, so it was now impossible to go anywhere.
Sapphira stood up and wandered toward her bed. Everyone had forsaken her. Even Yereq no longer responded to her verbal prodding. No matter how much she chattered or sang, he just slept on and on. And loneliness led to her bigger problem boredom. With nothing to do but sit and watch others enjoy life, she could only reread the books she had memorized long ago. She had no slumber party friends giggling over shared secrets, no birthday guests singing around a frosted cake, and no family sitting at a table filled with steaming dishes of delicious bounty.
Not that she needed a meal. After nearly starving, she had finally eaten the fruit from the tree of life and never felt a hunger pang again. But watching families happily clinking glasses and passing laughter from place to place instilled a craving for their glorious joy.
Sapphira sat cross-legged on her mat, worn to a thin pad from hundreds of nights of tossing and turning. Acacia’s mat lay beside hers, its blanket pulled back for her should she ever return. Between the two mats lay her cross. She picked it up and stared at it. Why didn’t it work anymore? Had it lost its power?
She pointed it at herself. “Have I lost my power?” she asked out loud.
She cringed at the sound of her voice. It had been months since she had spoken, months since she had vowed never to speak again until she could be reunited with Elam and tell him . . . tell him . . .
She flopped down on her back. Not those words! They were too sad to utter, even in her mind.
Holding the cross upright on her chest, she gazed at its dark wood, now weathered and worn. Strange that it had always stayed smooth when she used it to open portals. As she traced her finger along its edges, an image from long ago appeared in her mind Elam walking into an Easter service at a church in Glasgow, and a cross decorating the front of the sanctuary. One of the songs played like an enduring echo, a song of death, resurrection, and victory.
Sapphira winced at the lyrics. The song didn’t make any sense. There was no joy in getting mocked and abused, living a life of torture, then dying a cruel death. So what if a messiah died and rose again? What good did it do? Elohim didn’t resurrect Gabriel’s body after he sacrificed it for a friend. He didn’t whisper in Paili’s ear to warn her when the devil’s mistress gave her the food of death. And he didn’t seem to care any longer about a freak of nature buried alone under thousands of feet of rock.
She sat up and slung the cross at the portal screen. It agitated the light as it passed through and bounced across the rocky floor on the other side. She flopped back down and, sliding her hands behind her head, squeezed her eyes closed. She sniffed and spoke out loud, her words pouring forth in a lament. “Elohim, please tell me you’re not just another Nimrod. Tell me you aren’t a king who just uses people for what you can get out of them.” She extended her open hand upward and shouted through her sobs. “You danced with me! Don’t you care about me anymore?”
She rolled over and stuffed her blanket into her mouth, biting it hard as she cried on and on.
Circa AD 1988
Gabriel floated high over the Drake residence, surveying the dim, moonlit landscape. The remote cabin sat