She heaved a deep sigh. “Now I have to save Grandpa Jared, Grandma Irene, and the other anthrozils who are being killed by this terrible parasite. I am probably the only person in any world who even believes this will work, so I am the only option.”
You haven’t told them what you plan to do, Joan said.
Right. I know. They will see for themselves. Forcing another smile, she lowered the phone close to her chest and angled the lens upward, hoping to show the dark ceiling while she stayed in range of the lens. “After I sign off here, this is the next view you’ll see. Just show this to Eagle, and he’ll explain.”
She glanced at her bloody footprints on the lava field. “If this works, then I will have followed in some noble footsteps. If it doesn’t, then I will be a fool who hoped for the best. Either way, I don’t really have a choice.”
Wiggling her fingers, she gave a little wave, tensing her muscles to keep from crying. “I love you all.”
She turned off the camera. As she stared at it, a spasm forced its way into her throat. A sob broke through. Tears dripped.
“No!” She clenched a fist and swiped away the tears with her sweatshirt sleeve. “I don’t have time to cry!”
She tore the goggles over her head and hoisted the backpack on. “I’m ready.”
Are you? Joan floated in front of her eyes, staring with her eyelets open. I am not so sure.
Lauren’s head pounded, and dizziness returned, but not too bad. “Well, I can’t wait until I’m fully recovered, if that’s what you mean. If I don’t go now, I’ll change my mind.” She set the phone on the floor, aiming it at the ceiling, and turned the camera on again. “Let’s go.”
She picked up Apollo and limped to the Heaven portal. The room swayed twice before settling. If only the effects of the gas would stop, this would be a lot easier.
The ladder stood near one edge of the portal and rose into the dim reaches of the museum room. Tucking Apollo under her sore arm, she gripped the ladder’s side and climbed toward the top, her shaking body making the ladder quiver.
Joan hovered close to her ear. There is still turmoil in your mind.
Shouldn’t there be? Trying not to grunt, Lauren trudged up each rung. It wouldn’t do to make too much noise and bring Eagle running back in.
There was none in Sapphira. She pressed the cross into her bosom, and it set her heart aflame.
Lauren continued climbing until she reached the truss. I saw that. I did sort of the same thing. She set Apollo on top of the truss.
True. You are very similar, but Sapphira did not die.
I remember. What’s your point? With a quick leap from the rung, Lauren vaulted to a sitting position on the truss. After rising to her feet, she picked up Apollo and shuffled toward the center where the trusses intersected. With every movement, Joan stayed close, her light glowing bright blue.
As she edged farther out, Lauren slid her feet, now glad that they were bare. The skin-on-wood contact helped her grip the truss and maintain balance. The effort felt like balance beam practice in gym class.
She whispered to herself, “Three more paces. Slide, don’t lift.”
My point is that you have great faith, but not every faithful servant of God is called to give up her life. Even with a set of identical twins, Acacia and Sapphira, one was called to die, and one was not.
Lauren’s head continued to pound, making Joan’s words spin in her mind. They made almost no sense. “I realize that, and I’m glad Sapphira didn’t die. She’s still doing a lot of good.” When she reached the center, she crouched low and set Apollo on the trusses’ intersection. Using its backlit display, she browsed through recent portal openings, found the one for the museum room ceiling, and programmed the flash settings.
Joan floated between her face and Apollo, as if trying to block her view. Do you know what Jehovah-Yasha means?
“My mother was praying the first time I heard it. She said, ‘Jehovah-Yasha, the Lord my savior,’ so I guess that’s what it means.” With a gentle push, she guided Joan out of the way. She set her finger on Apollo’s button, looked to the side, and pressed it. A flash brightened the area, then vanished, and a glow washed over the trusses.
Above, Second Eden’s moon shone brightly overhead. Lauren raised her hood and looked down. The phone lay on the floor, a tiny light flashing to indicate recording mode.
Spreading her arms for balance, she straightened. Now higher than she was before when she stood on the ladder, her entire body from her thighs up protruded into Second Eden. Yet, the portal’s edges didn’t extend as far to the sides. Apollo’s energy hadn’t quite recharged.
Joan settled on Lauren’s shoulder. Your mother was right. A person who calls out Jehovah-Yasha is trusting in God to save. It is a valid call for both physical and spiritual deliverance.
Lauren crouched low again and ducked under the portal plane. She grabbed Joan and held her between her thumb and finger. “Listen, my head hurts, I’m dizzy, and I can hardly keep from falling off this truss, so I can’t handle riddles right now. If you’re trying to tell me I shouldn’t do this, then just tell me, but you’d better include another way to save Jared and the others. I have lives to save and no time to waste. The portal’s going to close.”
I … I know of no other way to save them.
“Then I guess you’re done.” She set Joan back on her shoulder. “I hope you’re not offended.”
I am not offended. I am troubled. Perhaps I am not the companion you needed. I know intimately the pain you are about to embrace, and my emotions are shouting at me to stop you from destroying the wondrous life you could have in service to the greatest of kings. Joan’s voice grew somber. I assume you know that suicide is forbidden. It is murder of yourself.
“This isn’t suicide. This is sacrifice.” Lauren sharpened her tone. “Don’t tell me you haven’t marched straight into death to save the life of another person.”
It is true. I have. I cannot deny it. Joan’s light darkened. Do what you must. I cannot make this decision for you.
“I don’t think I have a choice.” Lauren reached for her backpack strap, but when she pivoted, her hip bumped Apollo off the truss. It plunged and clattered to the floor, breaking two dowels and smashing the interior glass.
She pounded a fist on the truss. How stupid! Now if the portal closed too quickly she wouldn’t be able to open it again.
With a quick lift of her shoulders, she let the backpack straps slide off, then spun it around her body and set it on the truss. She unzipped the main pocket, tossed the hand shovel out, and checked the soil level. It seemed that none had spilled, but something sizzled deep inside. Warmth emanated, along with a foul odor.
“What are you doing?” The voice came from below.
Lauren looked down. Eagle stood next to Apollo’s remains. “I … uh … I’m throwing the parasite-making stuff into the volcano. I told you about that.” She glanced at the portal opening. It had shrunk to about four feet wide.
He walked to the bottom of the ladder, passing by the phone. “You didn’t say when to come back, so when I heard the crash, I decided to check on you.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it. I knocked Apollo off. Pretty clumsy, right?”
“Accidents happen.” He gripped the side of the ladder. “Do you need help?”
“No! I mean, help would be great, but there’s not much room up here, and I have to hurry.”
“Lauren, your words trouble me.” He stepped up to the first rung. “Since I knew you would take a little time to finish recording your message, I ran to the hospital to see how Dr. Conner would heal Jared, but he has no cure yet. It’s all on a computer. Poor Marilyn fell to the floor sobbing. Jordan is already dead, and Dr. Conner thinks Jared and Irene will die in mere minutes. They are failing quickly.”
“I know. That’s why I have to throw this stuff into the volcano.”
“Then why didn’t you simply tell us that’s what y
ou were doing?” He took another step up the ladder. “Mount Elijah won’t erupt unless someone falls in. I told you that.”
“I know. I believe you.” Hugging the backpack, Lauren rose to her full height and gazed out over the volcano crater. Lava boiled and bubbled below. Even from a hundred feet away, the heat scalded her cheeks, worse than last time. She swallowed. No turning. No looking back.
“No, Lauren! Don’t!” Heavy footfalls sounded from the ladder.
“Eagle!” Listener’s voice broke in. “What’s going on?”
Lauren turned her head toward Joan. She sat motionless, her shell darkened. “Thank you for being with me all the way. I’ll see you in Heaven.”
Joan nuzzled her neck. I hope so, mon amie. I hope so.
Lauren took a deep breath and jumped over the portal edge. As she plunged toward the lava, she closed her eyes and cried out, “Jehovah-Yasha!”
Chapter 23
TRIAL BY FIRE
Falling facedown, Lauren opened her eyes and clutched the backpack. Joan plunged with her, hovering close to her shoulder. Death would come quickly. The suffering wouldn’t last—
A whistle sounded. Something snagged the back of her sweatshirt and stretched it. Like a rubber band, she snapped upward and sailed away from the lava.
Lauren jerked her head around. Albatross flew toward the sky, his claws embedded in her sweatshirt as he beat his wings furiously. He flew past Eagle, who stood in midair over the volcano crater, his shirt smoldering. “Eagle!” she screamed. “Tell him to let me go! I have to create the parasite! I have to make Mount Elijah erupt!”
Setting two fingers in his mouth, Eagle blew a shrill whistle. “Albatross! Bring her to me! Hurry!”
Albatross circled back. With every beat of his wings, the tips came into view, blackened and smoking. As he closed in, Eagle appeared to be marching in place. His pant legs had caught on fire, and the edges of the portal brushed his thighs. When Albatross passed, Eagle leaped, grabbed one of his rear legs, and hung on, dangling next to Lauren.
Squealing, Albatross dipped. His wings beat out of sync. He and his passengers dropped closer and closer to the lava. The portal closed with a splash of sparks. Lauren gasped. There was no returning now.
“He’s not going to make it!” she shouted. “Tell him to let me go! It’s his only chance.”
“There is one other chance.” He wrestled the backpack away from Lauren and yelled, “Albatross, make sure she gets to the hospital safely!”
Eagle let go and plunged toward the lava. The release sent Albatross skyward. Eagle dropped into the volcano with a silent splash. Fire erupted at the entry point and quickly settled.
“Eagle!” Lauren cried. “Oh, Eagle, how could you?”
A low rumble emanated from the crater. Dozens of fountains spewed lava. Geysers of smoke shot out from each one. Albatross’s wings beat out of sync again. With every flap, he dropped closer and closer to the shooting spray.
He stretched out his neck and dipped his head down to Lauren. With a snap of his teeth, he grabbed her sweatshirt, swung her up, and set her on his back. She hugged a spine and hung on. Still, he floundered. In seconds they would splash in and be consumed.
“Fly, Albatross!” Lauren patted the dragon’s scales. “You can do it! We have to hurry! This thing is going to blow!”
He lifted over the crater’s ragged edge and descended toward the plunging slope—sharply angled and still covered by superheated lava rock. Shooting a torrent of ice out in front, he dropped to the slope and slid down on his own carpet of frost. Lauren bounced hard on his back, making her slide off to the side. She hung on to the spine with her right hand, her body dangling as she slammed against his scales with every bump and twist. Vapor shot skyward all around. Sizzles and crackles ripped through the air. Sooty mud splashed Lauren’s face, hot and slimy, though cooled by Albatross’s ice.
Albatross rocked forward, then back. He beat his wings to keep from tipping over, slinging Lauren in all directions. With Joan floating an inch from her eyes, Lauren dug her feet into the dragon’s scales, lunged upward, and latched on to the spine with her other hand. Pain roared through her sore arm, but it couldn’t be helped. Flexing her biceps, she pulled with both arms, pushed with her pedaling feet, and scrambled back in place, again hugging the spine.
Finally, Albatross reached level ground and slid for another hundred feet or so before coming to a stop. He huffed a few more jets of ice around his body, raising more skyrocketing walls of vapor. With a final heave, he shot out a wheezing spray of drizzle and slumped to the ground, his wings splayed.
Gasping for breath, Lauren looked around. To the rear, behind a veil of mist, Mount Elijah coughed billowing clouds of smoke and glowing ash. In front, an expanse of huge boulders and piles of smoldering logs stretched out across the hazy landscape, impassable on foot for at least a couple of hundred yards. With an exhausted, crippled dragon as her only transport, there was no escape.
The mountain rumbled. The ground shook. Lauren wiped grime from her face with her sleeve. “Oh, Albatross! What are we going to do?”
He curled his neck and laid his head on her lap, whimpering. As her tears flowed, she petted his scales, pushing back his pointed ears. “I know. I know.” A sob erupted from her gut, but she sucked it back in, allowing only a lamenting tone to break through. “I saw what happened to Eagle. He was so brave. So sacrificial.”
Joan floated down and rested on Lauren’s petting hand, as if joining in the effort to comfort him. Discouragement is the greatest crippler of all. No human or dragon can struggle through suffering without a reason to believe that his efforts will make a difference.
Another rumble shook the ground. A loud crack sounded. To the left, a split in the rocky floor opened wide. A boulder toppled into the gap, and a pile of fallen trees cascaded behind it.
Lauren fought back another spasm, gasping between phrases. “I know you’ll miss Eagle … but we have to keep going somehow. … Mount Elijah might erupt at any minute … and if it heals the anthrozils, no one … no one will ever know … about what Eagle did to save them … if we don’t survive to tell the story.”
Albatross looked up at her with unblinking eyes—sad, exhausted eyes. Then, with a low groan, he lifted his head slowly. He nuzzled her cheek with his and stretched out his neck, aiming his eyes again to the front.
As he lifted his wings, the ground quaked. Lava shot from the volcano in a towering geyser. It rained over the upper part of the slope in splattering fiery globs and ran downward in a boiling avalanche.
Lauren spanked Albatross’s scales. “Hurry! The lava’s coming!”
* * *
Walter stood hand in hand with Ashley between two beds, one holding Irene Conner and the other, Jared Bannister. Both patients gasped for breath, their mouths hanging open, accentuating their macabre faces—gaunt, wrinkled, and pale.
Dr. Conner crouched at the opposite side of Irene’s bed, combing through her straw-like hair, while Marilyn sat on Jared’s, her eyes sad and wet. Gabriel lay awake on another bed, curled on his side to keep from compressing his injured wings. Adhesive bandages covered gashes and cuts on his face and hands, a temporary stopgap while he awaited stitches.
With the lights on in the hospital’s dorm cabin, several women and children sat up in their beds, most with troubled faces. It seemed that death stalked the room with a sharp sickle, ready to reap at any moment. Candle paced the aisle, his long dreadlocks swinging every time he reached the end of his route and spun to go the other way, ready to jump if anyone called for help, but so far there was nothing to do.
Walter leaned close to Ashley and whispered, “How long has Listener been gone?”
“Only a minute, but it seems like an hour.”
He added a thought. Dr. Conner’s story about Lauren seems too wild to believe. Does she think throwing a bunch of supercharged soil into—
“Shhh. I know, I know. Just be patient for a
nother minute. There’s something I need to do.” Ashley slid her hand away from Walter’s and cleared her throat. “I have to interpret for Jared,” she said, loudly enough for all to hear. “He is trying to speak to his wife, but he hasn’t the strength.”
Marilyn blinked at her. “You’re reading his mind?”
“Quite easily. He’s thinking straight at me on purpose.” Ashley knelt by the bed and stroked Jared’s head. He stared at her with wide eyes, his mouth still open. “Go ahead, Jared. Pour your heart out. I won’t leave anything unsaid.”
Ashley grasped Marilyn’s hand and interlocked their thumbs. “Like this?” Ashley asked as she looked at Jared. “Oh. Okay.” She shifted her hand around and intertwined her fingers with Marilyn’s. “Like this. Got it.”
Marilyn pressed her lips together and choked back a sob.
“That’s fine, Jared,” Ashley said. “Take your time.”
Jared swiveled his head toward Marilyn and looked at her, though his face stayed locked in a hideous mask.
“Marilyn,” Ashley said, closing her eyes as she continued stroking Jared’s head. “My darling. … You often worried that you would grow old without me … that you would become wrinkled and gray while I stayed young. … I promised that I would love you no matter how you looked. … Remember? For better or for worse? Till death do us part?”
While Jared continued his gaping stare, Ashley chuckled. “But now look at me. … I am the one who looks like a zombie … while you are as beautiful as ever.”
Marilyn pressed a hand over her mouth. “No, Jared, I think you look—”