Emerald City Dreamer (5 page)

Against the wall to her right stood a regal statue of a nude woman. She held a crystal in both hands, which captured the light from Jett's torch and cast it all about the room in little reflective glints. The woman had a look of reverence on her face, her eyes and chin tilted upward.

To the west lay nothing but earth, and beyond that, the Puget Sound far below and miles beyond the hillside. Jett saw clearly the watery surface as easily as if it lay spread in its serene beauty in the cavern with her.

She sunk the torch into the earth, then knelt to the woman and kissed her feet. Softly, she whispered, "
Mother
". She stood and removed her clothing. Thus clad like the sky, she knelt at the altar, picked up the stone wand, and began the chant that would renew the house wards.

She hoped Ramon would be home soon. She was going to be
hungry
.

A LOAF OF DAY-OLD BREAD
flew towards Ezra's head. Surprised, he ducked and tried to catch it at the same time. He fumbled, and it fell on the ground.

"
Careful with God's bounty there, Brother Ezra. Head's up!"

Brother Benjamin held the next loaf aloft and threw it at Ezra as if it were a basketball and Ezra was the basket. Then he bent back down into the dumpster to grab another armful of castoff food.

"
Yahweh has truly blessed us today! This will feed us all for a week. And you kids will love those donuts." The metal dumpster walls both reverberated and muffled Benjamin's voice.

Ezra quietly loaded the bread products - hamburger buns, bagels, and sourdough - into a duct-tape-patched cardboard box. Reduce, reuse and recycle, and do it for the Lord.

He silently turned back towards the dumpster to receive produce from Benjamin: cabbage, lettuce, apples, onions, potatoes, and more bread. It was almost enough to make him smile. They usually never found this much, since stores often gave their expired items to charity.

"
The boxes are full, Brother," Ezra softly called. He ran his hand nervously through his tousled light brown hair and over horns he felt but knew Ben couldn't see.

"
What's that? Ah. Well we can't take any more than that on our bikes anyway. Yahweh provides!" Brother Benjamin swung a leg over the side of the dumpster and hoisted himself out.

Their bicycles were in good working order, even though they looked as though they'd just been pulled out of the dumpster, too. Each had a small cargo platform mounted over the back wheel where they could strap the overflowing boxes. With a wobbly start, they peddled off towards Congregation. They had a long way to go, up and down hills, on and off connecting buses.

Most members of The Wanderers were adults. Ezra was the eldest, or at least the tallest, of the nine children rescued from the streets by Brother Isaiah's ragtag group of nomads. He assumed his age was around sixteen, but he couldn't be certain. The youngest, Eve, was possibly thirteen. Like him, they had once been as cast off as this food, runaways, homeless souls now saved from crime, prostitution, or worse.

Ezra didn't say much and Benjamin was tired of carrying both sides of the conversation, so they mostly rode in silence except for Benjamin's occasional quoting aloud of scripture. Ezra hadn't learned much about the Bible before joining the group, so he listened and absorbed, grateful for any learning he could get. Elder Isaiah had called these words of God "pearls", even though sometimes they didn't make much sense to him.

The trappings of suburbia surrounded Cougar Mountain Regional Wildlands Park the way the evils of the world surrounded the Wanderers. Brothers Benjamin and Ezra walked their bikes down a well-maintained woodland trail, holding the handlebars with one hand and steadying their heavy payload with the other.

Not far into their journey, they paused where a small tree grew atop a crumbling stump. They turned sharply right, stepping over low-growing huckleberry bushes, and carefully wheeled their bikes between chest-high sword ferns, being careful not to trample a new path over the compacted pine needles. After the short distance of bushwhacking, they reached another trail, hidden and unmaintained. Park services had intentionally abandoned it years ago and planted foliage to block the entrances: an attempt to preserve this portion of the park for wildlife.

The Lord does provide.

They leaned their bikes against two tall pines, and returned to check for any sign that they had just rumbled through with bicycles.

The back path made bike-handling much more difficult, as it rose and fell more steeply. None of the trails had been made for bikes, especially not loaded with food, but Ezra, fortunately, was strong.

Benjamin walked with his head down. Ezra instead took every opportunity to notice the forest that everyone else overlooked in their pursuit of God. To Ezra, God wouldn't be found in scripture half as much as He proved himself through twig and vine, just as surely as God could be found in the crisp mountain air, just before rain.

God grew in that small tree that marked this path, in the way its roots spread over the mossy stump like a tablecloth over an end table. He bubbled in the distant creek. He was the sunshine that broke through the dense cover and played with the two-thousand shades of green and brown below. He crawled across the path in the form of a finger-length brown banana slug, leaving behind him a road of eldritch slime. He painted the moss over everything, as if he wanted to hide anything mundane or unpretty. And He pushed up mushrooms everywhere, on sides of trees, among roots, behind rocks, on fallen logs.

So tenacious is life, growing out of life, and living things feasting upon one another. This was scripture Ezra could read.

At last, they reached Congregation. A few dozen mismatched shelters nestled near a creek. The Elders occupied the large tents, while the newer members had lean-tos made of scrap wood, metal, mossy branches, or canvas. One ring of shelters encircled the majority of the fires where the cooking took place.

Everyone wore the simple, natural colors that God had intended: beiges, tans, off-whites. The men grew long beards, wore shirts of linen or muslin, and trousers. Most wore floppy hats, which served fairly well to protect them against the occasional spring drizzle. The women wore modest dresses or jumpers in faded earth colors. Some had their hair covered in plain-colored scarves or bonnets, though most just kept their hair in braids.

The people busied themselves with communal work - cutting wood, cooking, repairing bikes, or praying. This is where they made camp until Elder Isaiah could work out a deal with a property owner to get them proper housing in a vacant warehouse. Meanwhile, they had talked the park ranger into turning a blind eye. Ezra preferred the outdoor setting to the long string of abandoned buildings they'd squatted in from California through Oregon and now to here.

Several of the women heard the approaching bikes and looked up with smiles. Benjamin held up his hand in a wave. "Rejoice! Yahweh has given us a great harvest this day!"

They wheeled the bikes down to the cooking fires. The women cheerfully untied the boxes and carried them to rusty card tables.

"
You got back just in time for evening prayer meeting, Brothers," said one of the women, Sister Rebekah. "Let us gather to hear Elder Isaiah speak." She nodded her head in the direction of the Chapel. People were already laying down their tasks and heading in the same direction.

As Ezra walked, the small group pressed closely around him. He looked down at his feet and nervously fingered the twine bracelet around his wrist. He'd made it himself, as a young child, out of colorful treasures he'd found in the trash. As jewelry, he wasn't allowed to have it, but he never made a big show of it, and no one seemed to notice.

In a small clearing just outside camp, they had arranged a slipshod array of benches made from cinder blocks and 2x4s, wood, and barely-functional lawn chairs, all encircling a slight rise in the ground which served as a pulpit. Yeshua had preached from such humble surroundings, Elder Isaiah had told them.

Even though people still arrived, Elder Isaiah already spoke to the gathering crowd, with a worn Bible in his hands. Ezra found his usual quiet place under a tree along the back row. A small collection of pebbles was still there from the last gathering, and he leaned over slightly and began stacking them.

"
Yahweh has called upon us to leave behind our property, to forsake the riches of the earth, to follow Him. He has said it is easier for a camel to crawl through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. And the people of this nation are rich indeed.

"
Yeshua spoke to all people of all times. Worldly heathens worship the idols of money, televisions, automobiles, phones, and fancy clothing. They are haughty and walk with stretched forth necks, mincing as they go, making a tinkling with their feet. Isaiah of the Bible has said that God shall take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon."

Ezra wondered briefly what a caul was. Probably some kind of fancy clothing. He glanced down at the pyramid he'd built, then smashed it and started over with a circular structure.

Isaiah continued. "He shall take away their bracelets, the earrings, and nose jewels, the changeable suits and fine linen.

"
They do not own these idols - the idols own them! They are enslaved by their corrupt addictions, forced to work at jobs to pay for the next unaffordable toy by building more idols for others to consume.

"
How does Satan blind their minds and hide the truth that is so plain before them? They have ears, but they cannot hear. Satan blares over their radios, television, and newspapers, and spreads his filth over their internets. How can they hear the voice of God with all these distractions? They are given up to their lusts and vile affections."

Isaiah paused and waited a moment for his words to sink in. Ezra always felt as if Isaiah were speaking directly to him, and this was no exception. What if he knew that Ezra tried to glance at the magazines he found in dumpsters or enjoyed the bits of music he heard from cars passing by?

A
thought caused Ezra to hold his breath: What if Isaiah knew about his lusts? He looked up and it seemed the Elder's eyes met Ezra's, as if he could see into his mind. Ezra frowned at the miniature building. Not enough rocks. He started over, something square this time.

"
The Devil is crafty, misleading people by spreading the lie that he does not exist. He does exist, and with his pointy ears, forked tongue, distorted face, and horns of an animal, he leads men to indulge in those lusts."

Ezra blushed and felt the heavy horns weighing down on his own head. He forgot about his little pebble pile, drown in the deluge of rising panic. He reminded himself that no one had ever seen him as he saw himself, with his scraggly hair, monstrous nose, and long arms that ended in claws. For once he took refuge in the notion that, perhaps, he was only crazy.

"
There is hope..." Isaiah's voice had grown suddenly quiet. "There is hope in God's forgiveness."

Everyone leaned in a little, awaiting the Elder's next words.

"
You have all met Sister Esther, who has just joined our number. She told me her story, which proves how sinful the outside world is. She was a student at the University, being taught the ways of the Adversary. The Holy Spirit touched her heart, through God's mouthpieces, Zedikiah and Seth, who diligently and bravely went out to teach among the heathens.

"
Sister Esther is excited to share with us for the first time. Sister?" Isaiah motioned to a young woman sitting in the second row. She smiled and stepped up to take Isaiah's place.

Ezra recalled t
he last time he had been called upon to speak; he could barely find his voice. But she didn't seem nervous at all. Her jubilant, youthful voice rang out proudly.

"
Hello my Brothers and Sisters! I am so happy to be counted among your number, to be blessed by God, to have been discovered by good Zedikiah and Seth in my hour of need! I was lost. My life was empty. I was studying biology at the University of Washington, where they taught that there is no God, that creation is an accident. There is no meaning in their empty words. There are no spiritual laws. There are no sins, they say. All things are permitted.

"
Their textbooks misled me with lies. Each choice I made in this void of morality led me further from happiness. I sought meaning in sex and relationships. I spent my time with the most depraved people; liars, cheaters, drunks, and even homosexuals. I tried to drown my sorrow with loud music and drugs. I distracted myself with Facebook and constant texting.