Chance wrinkled his nose. “Is that supposed to impress me or something? I’ve never heard of those people.”
I rubbed my forearms against the November chill and pointed at the historical marker my eight-year-old son had overlooked. “George Whitefield was an evangelist. Edward Teach is better known as Blackbeard.”
“Whoa! You mean the pirate?”
I did, and if I’d known Bath had once been home to the bigamous thief, we would have stayed in Winston-Salem.
With an energy I lacked and envied, Chance jogged across the blacktopped street, stirring fallen leaves. He pointed at the bay hugging the small peninsula. “Does that mean he sailed into town this way?”
As he swayed in a fair imitation of Captain Jack Sparrow, I stared at the placid gray waters, trying to imagine Blackbeard’s ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, gliding down the Pamlico River toward the bustling port town. It seemed too cartoonish, too unreal.
Like our life. I turned toward a historic farmhouse bordered by a white-picket fence and brushed away a tear. What kind of a man would abandon his family because his wife became a Christian?
Delana rested a hand on my arm. “Come on, Mom. There’s something I want you to see.”
Willing away the flood that could still consume me despite seven months of separation, I nodded and waved my son to my side. “Chance, let’s go, and don’t walk in the street this time.”
He stomped across the road. “Why? A car hasn’t passed us since we got here. Does anyone even live here anymore?”
The small residential community was indeed quiet. Clean streets and trimmed yards fronting wood-frame houses spoke of the pride residents had for their little hamlet, but we’d yet to see any other sign of life. I fought the despair clawing at my heart. Why would Delana choose such a place?
Our self-appointed guide for the weekly trips, she studied the North Carolina map and researched destinations online before presenting suggestions to me. In the past five months, we’d visited a former gold mine in a national forest I’d never heard of, the town that served as the model for Andy Griffith’s Mayberry, wild horses roaming the shores near Currituck Lighthouse, and waterfalls I hadn’t known existed. Each outing taught us something new about our native state and the beauty of God’s creation, all while keeping our minds off Todd and the girlfriend he found two months before.
Until now. Bath exuded charm, but lifeless streets and houses devoid of movement brought back memories of our broken home after the man we loved had left us. Delana was the first to rouse herself from the shock. Wielding a maturity far beyond her sixteen years, she’d dropped my new Bible on the bed and ordered me to move on, promising we’d get through it together. She kept that promise by setting up weekly getaways. Though she’d forgiven her father and talked to him daily despite my objections, she usually took pains to protect me from anything that would remind me of the grief.
We turned a corner and passed a row of evergreens. “Here.” Delana pointed to a one-room brick church in the midst of a cemetery. A carpet of dry, brittle leaves covered the ground. Several rose on a gust of wind and swirled above the heads of concrete angels praying over weathered headstones tilting in the soil.
With tears tightening my throat, I leaned toward my daughter. “This isn’t the catharsis I’d hoped for.”
Chase stared at the graveyard. “What’s a catharsis?”
“A cleansing.”
He looked at me with Todd’s eyes. “You didn’t think this was a real bath, did you?”
“No, toad.” Delana grabbed my hand. “Come on.”
She led us down a brick walkway and stopped at the entrance to the church. A white stone embedded above the door read Built in 1734. Closing my eyes, I rested my hands on the frame to draw strength from the thousands who’d gathered here for more than three-hundred years to worship the God I’d recently found. As much as I’d questioned myself and the Lord after Todd’s departure, I needed the reminder.
I smiled at my daughter. “It’s beautiful.”
Instead of basking in pride at having found the treasure, she watched me with an expression that looked guarded. “Let’s go inside.”
She turned the tarnished knob and the door opened with a splintering crack. Chilled air and heavy silence met us along with the sight of eighteen pews facing an empty pulpit. On a table, locked under glass as I’d once tried to lock away my sins, a Bible dating back to the days when an f doubled as an s lay open to the first page of the New Testament.
Chance ran up the aisle, plopped down on the first pew, and then ran back, stomping on the pavers embedded in the floor. Dust stirred as hearts must have in those days, and the building shook as it surely had when the Great Awakening’s famous evangelist expounded God’s Word from the pulpit. I ran my index finger along the smooth glass. “I take it George Whitefield preached here.”
“I don’t know,” Delana said. “They didn’t want to hear him anymore than Dad wanted to hear you, so they ran him out of town.”
“Oh.” Icy air seeped through my veins along with a malevolent presence I’d overlooked. Using hands that shook despite my effort to control them, I found the edge of the pew and lowered myself onto the red cushion. The vise that had wrapped around my chest seven months before tightened until my heart threatened to explode.
Chance flew at her, swinging fists. “Shut up, Laney!”
I tried to catch his arm. “Did your father set you up to this?”
Delana blocked the wide blows her brother threw. “It was years after Blackbeard died, but I guess the people who lived here were so used to the pirate life, they kicked Whitefield out of town when he tried to share the Gospel. But Mom,” she slipped into the pew across from me, “he cursed the town before he left. Supposedly, that’s why this place died out. I mean, you saw it out there. It’s one of the prettiest places we’ve seen and it’s right on the water, but it’s empty, and so is Dad. He has no idea what he’s done, but like the pastor said during one of our counseling sessions, he has to face God someday and he will pay for it.”
Pushing aside Chance, she leaned forward. “You have the right to curse Dad for what he did and to never talk to him again, but he’s just as lost as those people were, and I don’t want him to be. And I don’t want you to hurt anymore, but you will until you forgive him.”
I jammed my fist against my mouth and with burning eyes, stared at my daughter. Was this the same girl who snuck out of the house the previous year to meet a boy at a party? Who hit her brother when I wasn’t looking, and who, before Todd left, screamed every time I tried to talk to her? At some point during this crisis, she’d come to faith.
I groped for her hand through the hazy film trying to blind me and pulled both children closer. Clutching them as I had numerous times over the past seven months, I found my reasons to let go.
Together, we stepped outside. Beside the old church, an angel bowed its head in silent prayer. Water from pillows of clouds saturated the air, and I inhaled the refreshing scent. And leaving Bath that day, I finally felt clean.
Shining Rock
Kathy tightened the laces of her hiking boot and double knotted the strings. She stood, swiped dirt from her knee, and gazed across the Shining Rock Wilderness. Sunlight reflected off bits of mica and quartzite embedded in the surrounding mountain peaks in a scene unchanged from her last visit. The only thing missing was Brian.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Air laced with balsam and a hint of rime ice filled her, easing strained muscles. Freeing memories. Cold Mountain had been Brian’s favorite hike long before the book or movie brought the curious to its twisting paths and steep slope. So familiar with the trail that he no longer needed a topo map to reach his destination, he’d convinced her to trek to the summit for their first date. Three years later, after dragging her back up the six-thousand-foot peak to pick blueberries the size of marbles, he proposed.
“Kat, it’s getting late.”
Kathy glanced at the bear
of a man stationed near a cluster of Turks Cap lilies bobbing in the stiff breeze. Resting on his new hiking stick, his natural frown emphasizing his natural gruffness, Jason Abernathy looked more impatient than he had fifteen minutes before. If he was miserable, he had only himself to blame—he was the one who insisted she not hike the mountain alone. “I need a few more minutes.”
Jason jerked his head in the direction of the sun. “We need to get moving if we want to reach the trailhead before dark.”
“We can make it if we keep a steady pace.”
“Maybe you can, but this hike is about to kill me. Why didn’t you tell me it was over ten miles?”
A reminder that he’d invited himself along almost spilled off her tongue, but she glanced beyond his sagging frame to the spot where his eighteen-year-old son, Travis, stared at surrounding peaks coated with evergreens. During the early-morning ride from Asheville, Travis had stretched across the back seat to “catch up on sleep”, contradicting Jason’s claim that his son had badgered him to tag along on the excursion. But when they’d reached the Blue Ridge Parkway, an unexpected love emerged, and Travis sat up and stared through the window at the layers of hazy ridges spreading across the horizon.
She knew the look. Travis was learning what Brian had taught her five years before. Separated from the noise and stress of city life, formed by the clash of lands, the mountains were a place to connect with the Creator. A reminder of His glory and sovereignty. Where wisps of clouds flitting around folded peaks seemed the very breath of God. The mountains called her to that reminder, and to the memory of time spent with her husband.
She watched a peregrine falcon soar in silence near a rock outcrop below. “A few more minutes. Travis would appreciate it, and so would I.”
Deepening his frown, Jason propped his hiking stick against a balsam tree and pulled three protein bars from his pack, tossing one to her, and one to his son. She appreciated the gesture, and Jason’s unspoken concern, but she needed silence.
And a chance to say one more, final goodbye. Over the past year, she’d spent listless days and nights grieving for Brian. Asking God why He took her husband and why He’d left her behind. On the anniversary of Brian’s death, at the moment police estimated he’d taken his last breath, she’d fallen to her knees before the cross and begged God to take her or to give her strength to move on. Peace flooded through her at that moment. Changing peace. The tears that fell were tears of gratitude for God’s grace, and for the time spent with the man she’d loved. A week later, she did what Brian would expect her to do. She hiked Cold Mountain to let it go.
The falcon banked toward her, wings spread, and dropped to the valley. Her chest tightened. “Goodbye, Brian. I love you.”
Sniffing back tears, she scrubbed her face with both hands, then crammed the uneaten protein bar in a zippered pouch on her pack. “I’m ready.”
Jason swiped crumbs from his hands, wisely withholding the it’s about time that would have earned him a long walk down the mountain and back to Asheville.
With long, gangly legs, Travis moved toward them, trampling weeds with oversized boots. It wouldn’t be long until he would look his six-foot-five father in the eye. “Hey, Kathy. Can we come back sometime?” He lifted his shoulders in a limp shrug. “I mean, if it’s not too hard for you.”
For the first time that day, she smiled. “Anytime you want, but there’s a slew of trails here and in Pisgah Forest, several that lead to waterfalls. We should check those out, too.” She slung the strap of her pack over her shoulder. “You’ll have to leave your Dad at home, though. I don’t think he’s a fan.”
“It isn’t safe to hike alone.” Jason snapped his pack around his waist and retrieved his walking stick. “Haven’t you seen the reports on lost and injured hikers?”
“We discussed the fact that I’m a big girl at work last week. And I won’t be alone. I’ll be with Travis.” She stepped to the edge of the path that led down to the trailhead. “Now, be careful. If you thought climbing up was bad, wait until—whoa.”
Dirt beneath her boot shifted, then gave way. She fell forward, slamming her chest against the ground. Tall firs and blueberry bushes blurred past as she slid down the trail.
“Jason!” The scream echoed through the trees. She scratched at dirt, roots, rocks, anything searching for a hold.
“Kathy!” The two male voices blended in panic. They would follow her down the slope. It was too steep. He was too heavy.
“Jason, no, stop!”
She hit something protruding from the ground and banked. Banked just as the falcon had. She turned and rolled and smashed into a tree trunk.
Air left her lungs, and pain—oh the pain—burned her leg, back, places along her arms. Through blurred eyes, she watched Jason and Travis scramble to reach her. Travis on his rear in a reverse crab walk. Jason bouncing from tree to tree like a ball on a pool table.
Travis reached her first. Dust speckled with mica shimmered on his face. She opened her mouth but no sound, no breath entered or left. Tears coated her eyes, spilling toward her hairline.
“Dad, hurry, she can’t breathe.”
Hands landed on his shoulders and pushed him aside.
“Kathy? Kat?” Jason knelt beside her, the fear in his eyes draining blood from his face. She lurched her chest, tried to inhale, to fill her lungs with the cool air of the mountain Brian had loved. Jason’s eyes turned wild. He skimmed his hand along the back of her neck, shifted her head, raised her chin, and checked her mouth for blockage. Over his shoulder, set against a sky as blue as Brian’s eyes, a wisp of cloud darted through the treetops—the breath of God. Her eyelids shut.
“Kat, no. Come on.”
As the world faded around her, warm lips pressed against hers, and air that tasted like honey and nuts streamed down her throat once, then twice. Her chest expanded with a sharp pain, and she opened her eyes, gasping.
Thick fingers probed her arms, legs, crawled across her back and down her spine, his expression unmasking feelings that took her by surprise. That’s why he came up the mountain with her despite never having taken a hike. That’s why he insisted on being there. He cared. How did she miss that?
He placed a supporting hand behind her back. “Can you move?”
“I think so.” With his and Travis’s help, she pushed herself into a sitting position and leaned against a rock. After sliding down the hill, she had to look like a wreck, but Jason didn’t seem to notice. His entire attention was focused on her face. The feelings he’d kept to himself for who knows how long still plainly in his eyes.
“I’ll be okay.” She reached out and tugged a leaf from the pocket of his shirt. “I’m not ready yet, Jason. I need a little time.”
He sat in silence for a moment, as if debating whether to pretend he didn’t understand her real meaning. Then he sat in front of her and pulled a first-aid kit from his pack. “Take as much time as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
Travis smiled, and above the trees, the falcon soared.
A Note to the Reader
Thank you for reading Eternal Weight of Glory and other short stories. Why did I offer the collection for free? For two reasons.
First, earlier versions of several of the short stories appeared in Christian Fiction Online Magazine. As such, I didn’t want to charge for something readers may stumble upon for free.
Second, due to the nature and subject matter of Eternal Weight of Glory, I felt charging for the story would be counterproductive. Plus, the message was more important to me than the money.
I hope you enjoyed the stories and the messages of faith within. If you did, would you mind sharing it with a friend?
Kimberli
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