Prologue
I didn't know him.
I think that's what stuck out to me the most, more than the mane of dark hair that fell around his shoulders, more than the tall boots, or the careworn jacket of black leather, or the chains that criss-crossed its lapel. These things certainly stood out to most people who passed him, surely, so prominent against the muted background of the church pew. But the fact that I had no name for this person, this stranger, stuck out so much to me; in the tiny town of Lewitt, New Jersey, everyone knew everyone.
No one, not among my family or among the congregation, gave him a second glance. He was a stain on the wall. He caused no trouble thusfar, and perhaps they thought if they went on ignoring him, he would just decide we weren't entertaining him, we with our perfect, devout ways, and he would leave on his own. So far, this hadn't happened. I had noticed him now for three weeks, in the very back pew, and he seemed to have no intention of breaking his new habit.
I got a good look at him every week as I passed, as he always seemed to be the first to arrive and the last to leave. And though I'm sure I expected him to sneer, to gawk at the pristine churchgoers and mock them with his eyes, I never saw such an expression cross his face. The first time I met his eyes, the deep, mossy hazel of his eyes, I felt a jolt within my belly that did not belong there.
Just as we believed that he did not belong in our world.
And I did not belong in his.
Chapter 1 - Eucharist
Though the contents of my life were in constant, slow metamorphosis, the shell they occupied remained relatively the same. My childhood home had undergone very few renovations beyond basic maintenance. The bedroom I awoke in had the same gray carpet and robin's-egg blue walls that it had always had, though they bore more wear and scratches than when the room was my nursery. The routine and ritual that formed the structure of my family was forever unchanged. On Sunday mornings, I was woken for church by a voice and an unmistakable breakfast aroma.
"Ash! Come eat!"
Pancakes. I could smell the perfume of butter tinged with burn before I even opened my eyes, before my mom's voice floated through the door. She didn't need to knock or call twice. A heavy sleeper I might have been, but quick to wake, acclimated to early mornings by twenty-some odd years of church services, K-through-12 schooling, and college classes. I inhaled slowly, reinvigorating my lungs, and swung my legs out from under the blankets. My sheets snagged on my pajama pants and pulled the cuffs several inches above my ankles, exposing my skin to the slight chill in my room. I welcomed the gentle twinges of awareness, the crush of the carpet under my toes, the light stretch in the base of my spine as I sat upright and rolled the sleep from my bones.
Getting ready in the morning was a quick affair. I took care to lay out my clothes on my desk chair the night before so I didn't spend too much time trying to match shirts and pants. I took a secondary glance at my outfit for the day - dark blue, short-sleeved shirt with pearl buttons and a single pocket, paired with light khaki slacks - and proceeded to dress myself. While straightening wrinkles in the mirror, my reflection pointed out the matting in my hair - I beat the worst out of it with a wide-tooth comb only because I knew my mom would comment on it otherwise. Truthfully, my light brown, thick, chin-length curls were picky. Too long and the tangles were unmanageable. Too short and it would become a mess of Shirley Temple ringlets. I liked my hair the way it was.
Satisfied that my hair would at least survive scrutiny, I added one last thing to my outfit. When I graduated from high school, my parents had bought me a beautiful silver cross pendant on a chain, and hardly a day went by that I didn't wear it. It was simple and plain, similar to one my dad wore. I clasped it around my neck and folded my collar down over it so that it would sit neatly over my clothes.
My parents were both in the kitchen, my dad at the stove flipping pancakes and my mother at the sink trying to clean up after him, a checked blue apron protecting her neat skirt and blouse from soap suds. Sunday was the only day my dad regularly cooked, aside from summer barbecues and the odd spaghetti night. He had gone the opposite direction of my mom in his attempt to protect his Sunday clothes from pancake batter - he was only wearing his undershirt and khakis. He looked over at me, gave me a nod, and said, "Hey, kid. Go wake up your brother, will ya?"
Kid, my dad said, despite the fact that his oldest son was now twenty-three. "He's still in bed?" I asked.
"I called him," Mom said over her shoulder. "But you know how long he takes. And please comb your hair, Asher."
"All right, all right. Got it."
Knew it
, I thought. I ran my fingers through my hair roughly as I walked back to the hallway between my brother's bedroom and mine, and knocked on the door. "Dan, get up."
No answer.
I pounded the door. "Daniel!"
A mumble that could have been an expletive.
Well, that was as much of an invitation as I needed. I turned the knob and went in, taking care not to trip on the heap of last night's jeans Dan had left on the floor. My kid brother was sixteen, and it showed in his wall hangings, his cleanliness, and his attitude. But hey, I was sixteen once. I knew what it was like. Still, that empathy didn't exactly factor in when I unceremoniously threw the sheets off the lump in Dan's bed. "Get up."
Daniel unfurled and thrust himself upright in bed, his hair hanging in his glaring eyes - hair that was straight like our dad's, but the same color as we all had. His face was flushed slightly red - I'd forgotten he slept in his cartoon-pattern boxers. "Fuck
off!
" he griped, throwing a pillow at me.
"Woah, dude," I said, weaving to avoid the pillow. "Cut the cussing. Better not let Mom hear that."
"Like you don't say it."
"Yeah, yeah. Get up and get dressed or I'm gonna eat your pancakes." I left him with that and shut the door behind me.
Back in the kitchen, I sat myself down at the table where a platter of pancakes was steadily growing as my dad tipped each one from the pan. I took a plate from the stack my mom had provided and helped myself to a couple. "Dan's up," I told them, scraping a pat of butter from the floral-patterned dish between plates.
Mom turned from the sink and wiped her hands off on her apron, then shot me a look. "Would you like to wait for the rest of us before you eat?"
"He's fine, he's fine," Dad said, flipping the last of the pancakes onto the stack and sliding the frying pan into the sink. "Let him eat. With how much he puts down, he'll be a minute anyway."
I shrugged and poured syrup over my plate. Sure, I ate a little more than your average person, but I used every calorie I took in. So long as I didn't gain weight, I didn't think my parents would ever complain about me getting seconds and thirds. I was grabbing another pancake by the time Mom and Dad sat down to have their own breakfast, and they were halfway through themselves when Dan stalked into the kitchen in the same black polo shirt he'd worn the previous Sunday. He grabbed a pancake, rolled it, and ate it like a burrito.
"Daniel," Mom said sternly. "Sit down and eat like a normal person."
"I'm good," he replied between bites.
Before Mom could start in on my brother, I spoke up to save him. "Are you gonna go to Youth Group tonight? I'll drive you."
Dan chewed, swallowed, and seemed to consider for a moment. "Maybe. I dunno."
"I'll go with you if you want," I offered.
"Ugh. No thanks. You're too old for Youth Group, anyway."
Mom shot him a look, but I just laughed and wiped my plate with the last bite of pancake. Only a minute later and Mom found a new target, glancing at my father still in his undershirt. "Honey, go get your shirt on. We have to go soon."
My dad grunted some form of affirmation, finished his plate, and stood with a scraping of his chair. "Boys, brush your teeth and get your shoes on," he told us. "Dan - your nice shoes. I don't want to see you in those ratty sneakers again."
Dan made that
ugh
noise again and stuffed the last of his pancake roll in his mouth. Personally, I silently agreed with him - did our Heavenly Father really care what kind of clothes we wore to worship Him? But it was better to keep that to myself. You go to church, you dress nice. That's how it goes.
Five minutes later, minty fresh and beshoed, my family reconvened at the side door and shrugged on jackets. After a final "Ready?" from my dad, we all traipsed out to the silver SUV parked on our sloped driveway. Each of us carried a personalized bible we'd gotten as gifts at various points in life, myself holding two as Dan had forgotten his in the living room - twin blue leather volumes only set apart by the names on their covers and the innumerable colored tabs on the pages of mine. I passed Dan's to him in the backseat. He scowled at me sidelong, but said nothing. It was clear to everyone that Dan wasn't keen on the whole church thing, and that he only went along at our family's insistence. Dad had said he'd grow out of it.
But me? I couldn't remember ever having a phase like that. My whole life was one of devotion, a life where I believed in God's plan for me and thanked Him for it. I had only brief moments of doubt. I attended weekly bible studies. I went to a Christian university. My faith was part of who I was. And I had never questioned it.
The parking lot was already bustling a bit when we pulled up to the church. Lewitt First Baptist Church was not our small town's only place of worship, but it was our oldest and probably most popular. Most attendees were lifelong members like my family. The sleek exterior, however, spoke of modernity. The old building had been fixed up quite some time ago when rot set into the roof and repairs were desperately needed, and now it was all white siding and clean brick, with the old iron spire at its peak remaining, cross-tipped and stretching to the sky, to remind us all of its rich history.
I trailed after my parents, bible under arm, down the concrete walkway around the parking lot. At the double doors to the lobby stood the adult's bible study leader and assistant pastor, Jeff, a middle-aged man who smiled and shook hands with most everyone who passed inside, and probably had done so for as long as I'd known him. While my parents lingered there and my dad went through his usual chat with Jeff, I was clapped on the back with unexpected force from behind.
