Chapter Thirty-Nine - Cody
“I wonder if I should quit my job,” I asked while all of us were sitting down at breakfast. There wasn’t much to wonder about, honestly; I’d never be able to get anything done at Prudhoe Bay in the shape I was in. I only had about half the cash I needed to dig Goliad out of the hole, but I didn’t know what else to do anymore.
I was in pretty low spirits, especially for a man on the morning of his wedding day, and I had half a mind to tell Lisa we ought to just call the whole thing off.
“I’ll go instead, if it comes to that,” Marcus said staunchly.
“You’re not up to it, either, Marcus,” I said.
“No, but I will be. Give me a month or so and I’ll be fine,” he said. It was a noble offer, and I didn’t know but what I might not have to take him up on it. I poked at my sausage and eggs, not sure what to say.
“You got a letter in the mail this morning, Cody,” Mama said, filling in the silence.
“Really? Who from?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t open it, and there was no return address on there. Here it is, though,” she said, getting up to fetch it from the mail holder on the countertop.
I took the letter, and there was indeed no return address anywhere on the envelope, but it was addressed to me and I did notice that it was postmarked from Atlanta, Georgia. I couldn’t think of a soul I knew in that part of the world, but it didn’t look like junk mail since the address was handwritten. I shrugged and tore it open.
It was from Layla.
There was only a single page, and it was nothing but a long, poisonous tirade of hatred and spite. She spent most of it mocking me, telling me she’d been having dreams about me lying dead in the moonlight and other cheerful things like that. I turned it over and found nothing on the back, and wondered why she bothered. If she was hoping to hurt my feelings then she failed miserably at that. I was unmoved by the whole thing, except maybe to pity her a little. Hate hurts the hater more than the hated, so all she was doing was heaping coals on her own head.
I shrugged it off and dismissed the whole thing.
“What did she say?” Lisa asked, as soon as I finished reading.
“Oh, nothing much. Just a bunch of insults and nastiness, about like you’d expect. Read it for yourself,” I said, handing her the letter. She read it, and when she was done she turned to Brandon. He hadn’t gone to school that day because of the wedding, sad and hopeless as it seemed at the moment.
“Bran, do you remember the story about when the King of Babylon wouldn’t tell anybody his dream, but Daniel knew what it was and interpreted it anyway?” she asked.
“Yeah, what about it?” he said.
“Do you think you could do something like that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I never thought about it. Why?” he asked.
“Because if Layla Garza’s been having dreams, then they might tell us something, if you can read them,” she said.
I hadn’t thought of that, but it seemed highly unlikely. I could accept the idea that God might create such a thing as the Guardian Stones, but it was hard to see how something like that would work for an evil person like Layla Garza. It didn’t seem to make any sense.
But then on the other hand, it’s certainly true that everybody serves God’s purposes, whether they like it or not and no matter what they choose to do. They can choose willingly to serve Him like a son or daughter, or they can refuse and then He’ll use them like a tool instead. So it was possible Layla had been used as a tool, since she wouldn’t serve Him as a daughter. She could have been given the dreams He meant for her to have, to serve the purposes He meant for them to serve, regardless of what kind of person she was. That made sense, in a way.
But while I was thinking about all that, the conversation had moved on without me.
“I can try, but I’m not promising anything,” Brandon said, shrugging.
“No, I’m not expecting you to. Just thought it might be worth asking,” Lisa said.
“Maybe so,” he said.
He put down his fork and started praying, his lips moving silently. When he looked up, he had that unfocused gleam in his eyes that he sometimes gets, and finally he spoke.
“I know what she dreamed, but you won’t like it,” he said.
“What is it?” I asked, grimly preparing myself for the worst.
“She dreamed you were dead beside a pool of water, on a cloudy night with only one bright star shining down through the clouds and reflecting in the pool,” he said, and I think my heart stopped.
“What does it mean?” I asked. It seemed pretty dadgummed plain what it meant, but I had to ask. Bran looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t answer me directly.
“Call Matthieu. Ask him to go outside to the brick wall that separates the front yard from the flower garden next to his house,” he said.
“For what?” I asked. It wasn’t remotely what I expected to hear.
“There’s a ceramic troll about two feet high sitting in the corner where the house meets the fence, right next to the wrought iron gate. It’s hollow and has a removable head. Tell him to look inside it,” he said.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
“A little over a year ago, a boy had to climb over that fence. It doesn’t matter why; you can ask Matthieu if you want to know the whole story. But anyway, he was carrying a glass bottle full of water from a holy spring which had the power to heal any sickness or curse. The bottle was too big and too breakable for him to get it past the fence, so he poured as much water as he could into an empty Coke bottle from the trash. The glass one was nearly empty, so he left it sitting on the ground and completely forgot about it. The gardener found it later, and since he was too lazy to carry it all the way to the trash, he just put it inside the troll so nobody would see it, and then he forgot about it himself. Nobody has touched it ever since,” he said.
“So it’s still full of holy water?” I asked, but Bran was already shaking his head.
“No, not full. I told you there’s only just a little bit left, and it’s the last drop in the world. The spring was destroyed, and Andrew Garza shattered all the other bottles that were left. Matthieu knows that story, too. But that one last bottle is the single star in your dream,” he said.
“But it’s still enough to cure me of being older than dirt, though, right?” I asked, with a fresh sense of hope. It was so strong and sudden that I don’t think you could possibly imagine what it felt like; it almost hurt from sheer intensity.
“Well, yeah, it would be, Cody. But you can’t drink it. There’s something else you have to use it for instead,” Brandon said, and those few short words instantly destroyed every speck of my newfound hope, plunging me right back into a pit of despair even deeper than before. I had to take a deep breath to get a grip on my feelings before I could say anything.
“What am I supposed to do with it, then?” I finally asked in a dull voice. I knew the question mattered, but it was hard to care very much right then.
“Pour it in Cadron Pool,” Brandon said.
“You mean the one back there in the woods behind Nebo?” I asked skeptically. I guess that was a silly thing to ask; I certainly didn’t know of any other Cadron Pool. But Brandon’s suggestion was so unreasonable and stupid that I had to make sure we were actually talking about the same thing.
“Yeah,” he said, confirming it. For a second I was speechless.
“Why?” I finally asked, and he shrugged.
“That’s what Layla’s dream means. That last bit of water is the shining star that has to be put in the pool before you die. I can’t say why; I just know that’s what you’re supposed to do,” he said.
“You know this?” Lisa asked, and he simply nodded.
I don’t like doing things on blind faith, when I don’t know why. Which I suppose when you’re dealing with a prophet is a character flaw. They’re notorious f
or asking people to do things that don’t make any sense, to test your faith and courage. The ones who trust them are blessed, and the ones who reject them are cursed. I’ve read all the stories often enough to know it. But trust me, when it’s your own neck on the chopping block, it’s a lot harder to believe. I knew that water could erase Layla’s magic, and Bran was telling me to pour it out.
A year ago I don’t know what I might have said or done, but I’ve learned many things about what it means to trust God at times when He asks things that seem impossible. So I called Matthieu, and even though he seemed skeptical at first, he did go look inside the troll. The bottle was there, just like Brandon had said, with about an inch of water left in the bottom. Nobody was inclined to doubt the rest of what he said, after that.
Two hours later, Matthieu pulled into the driveway in his big black truck. We were already waiting for him on the porch, and as soon as he got there he wordlessly handed me an old green wine bottle containing what was left of the water. I wanted to drink it down right then and there; God knows I did, but somehow I found the courage not to stumble.
“Come on, let’s go,” I said, getting up from my chair.
I had trouble walking very fast anymore, and I looked more like a man of eighty rather than the boy of twenty-two that I’d been less than a week ago, but I was still determined not to give in to helplessness until I had to. So it took us a while to walk all that way, but when we finally got there the place was just like I always remembered; black stones around a wide pool reflecting the deep blue sky. I stepped up to the edge and uncapped the bottle.
“Whatever You will, Lord, let it be,” I murmured, and poured out the water into the pool. It made ripples that traveled across the surface to the far side and then reflected back again till they stopped. Even the wind died down to nothing, and all the world seemed breathless with anticipation.
“Now wash,” Brandon said, and I knew what he meant.
There are times and places when modesty is appropriate, and then there are other times when it’s not. This was one of those times when it wouldn’t have been proper at all. I took my clothes off and waded into the pool, which in spite of it being winter was no more than slightly chilly. The bottom was sandy, and when I reached the deepest point I took a deep breath and plunged all the way under.
When I came up again I heard simultaneous gasps from everybody except Brandon, and I saw so much joy on Lisa’s face that I hardly knew what to make of it. As soon as I got to the edge of the pool she grabbed my hands to pull me out, still dripping wet and buck naked, and her tears were mixed with laughter.
“You’re cured, Coby; just like you were before,” she whispered in my ear as she held me tight. But Brandon must have had very sharp ears.
“He’s even better than before. The curse is broken, too. From now on this place is holy ground, and nothing evil can survive here,” he said.
I don’t know if cold can be considered evil or not, but it’s certainly not nice, and I also realized that even if modesty hadn’t been appropriate before, it certainly was now. I quickly grabbed my clothes and got dressed.
“What do you mean, this is holy ground?” I asked, while I was slipping my boots on.
“When you trusted God and poured that water into the Pool, you consecrated this place. You and Lisa have been faithful with little things, so now you’ve been trusted with something bigger,” Brandon said.
“This, you mean?” I asked, waving at the pool.
“Yes. God never repeats Himself, but He does love reflections. This place isn’t quite the same as that other spring which was lost, but it’s partly a reminder. A man named Joram Ross called that other one into being over a hundred years ago, just because he had faith to believe. But that one and this one and maybe even others are all reflections of an even greater place, a Fountain clear and cold where the blessed of God can drink and erase for a little while the curse of the Fall. And even that place is only a reflection of God Himself, the Giver of all good things. So let people come here to wash away any kind of sickness or injury they suffer with, but also guard this place with your lives,” Brandon said.
“Why would anybody need to guard it?” I asked, puzzled.
“Because there are people out there who’d like nothing better than to crush this place and stamp out every memory of Heaven on earth. You can’t let that happen here. This Pool is yours to defend for as long as you live, and to use for the glory of God,” Brandon said.
“I never wanted to leave this place, anyway,” I said, and clasped Lisa’s hand.
“Me neither,” she said.
They say the threads of fate are woven tighter than we can possibly imagine. I never really understood exactly what that meant, till then. So many seemingly unrelated things: Marcus and Lisa, finding Brandon in the swamp, Matthieu and the forgotten bottle of holy water, even Layla Garza; all of it was beginning to come together with a click, and who knew where it might all lead? The threads of fate are woven tightly, indeed.
I guess it’s fitting, in a way, that Cadron Pool should become a place where filthy and evil things are washed away forever. After all, it’s written that long ago King Hezekiah cast the ashes of all the idols and evil things into the Cadron Valley in Jerusalem to make the land clean. Maybe that was a reflection, too.
I thought fleetingly of Moses on Mount Nebo, looking out across the Promised Land that he could never enter. I used to think my own life would turn out that way, once upon a time. But my prayers had been answered after all, and now I hardly knew what to think as I looked out on a future that seemed dazzling and deep. Whatever the years might bring, that was all right. I was content for now to enjoy the bright morning before the storm, if storm there had to be.