Leaving Fishers (9 page)

“I do,” she replied. Dorry had been to weddings where the bride and groom responded less solemnly.

“Are you willing to do anything to prove it?”

“I am.”

He held his hand out to her. She clasped it and rose gracefully. “Come,” he said.

Others began standing up, so Dorry did, too. Pastor Jim led Moira to the huge, open staircase in the middle of the lodge. He signaled for everyone else to stay at the bottom. He and Moira climbed to the top. Pastor Jim whispered something to her, then turned to the crowd.

“Jason?” he called.

A burly boy weaved through the crowd and mounted the stairs. He joined Pastor Jim on the fourth step down. Moira stood at the very top, facing away from Pastor Jim and Jason. Only her toes touched the floor. The heels of her boots hung in empty air above the step below.

“I ask you again—do you trust us?” Pastor Jim’s voice rang out, echoing against the lodge’s cathedral ceiling.

“Yes.”

“Will you prove it?”

“Yes.”

And then, without so much as a glance over her shoulder, Moira let herself fall backward. Dorry wasn’t the only one who gasped, picturing Moira’s thin body tumbling down the dozens of stairs. But before her head hit the first step, Pastor Jim and Jason had her in their arms. There was a cry of relief from the crowd. Pastor Jim and Jason took turns hugging Moira. Then they released her and she turned toward the crowd. Dorry saw that there were tears streaming down her face, but with her victorious smile, they looked like tears of joy.

“Janelle?” Pastor Jim called.

There were whispers in the crowd, as everyone realized that others were going to be asked to fall. Dorry stepped aside as Janelle, looking white-faced but resolute, pushed toward the stairs. Two others, a boy named Mark and a girl named Becky, joined her at the bottom. They climbed the stairs together. Janelle’s “I am” and “I do” sounded more frightened than Moira’s, but she let herself fall without hesitation. Mark and Becky caught her and hugged her just as carefully and joyously as Pastor Jim and Jason had hugged Moira.

“Not me. Please, God, not me,” Dorry prayed without quite realizing what she was doing.

Seven others went, falling and being caught in turn. Then Pastor Jim called Dorry’s name. Blood pounded in her ears. Brad and Angela stepped up behind her. Angela put her hand on Dorry’s back, gently guiding her forward. Dorry wanted to protest, to say no. But how could she? She’d look like a coward. Brad and Angela would think she didn’t trust them. She stumbled toward the stairs. Her legs trembled as she climbed. Brad and Angela were on either side of her, each holding an arm to steady her. Then they let go, and Dorry realized she was at the top. Brad and Angela backed away. She couldn’t see them behind her.

I hate heights, she wanted to say. I don’t have to do this, do I? Maybe she could make it into a joke, say something like, “I’d rather have chocolate.” But everyone else had been totally serious. The somber mood in the room felt like a weight on her chest.

Angela’s clear voice asked behind her, “Do you trust us?”

“Yes,” Dorry mumbled.

“Are you willing to stake your life to prove it?”

“Yes,” Dorry mumbled again.

And then Dorry was supposed to fall backward, but she couldn’t make herself do it. She
remembered once when she’d been nine or ten, and Marissa had talked her into going up on the high dive at the Bryden pool. She’d stood at the edge of the diving board, looking down at the blue, blue water, which seemed miles away. All she was supposed to do then was jump, feet first, facing forward, but she hadn’t been able to. She’d backed down the ladder in shame, jeers ringing in her ears from the older boys waiting in line behind her.

“Dorry,” Angela said behind her, so softly that probably no one below them heard. “We want you to be one of us. But if you aren’t willing to trust us, we can’t trust you.”

Dorry squeezed her eyes shut and tilted her head back. Before she had decided if she was going to let herself fall entirely, Brad and Angela’s hands were on her back, lifting her up. She was safe. It was over. Dorry wanted to cry and laugh all at once. Angela hugged her tight, and then Brad did, too, just as if she’d really fallen, really proven her trust. They held her hands climbing down the stairs. Their hands were warm and strong. She felt like a little girl safe between her parents. She felt overwhelmed with relief and joy and—though she tried to hide it—shame. Why hadn’t she let herself fall? She did trust Brad and Angela, didn’t she?

Dorry barely watched the others repeat the ritual. Everything seemed to be happening at a great distance. Even if someone had fallen without being caught, had tumbled down the stairs and landed right at her feet, she wouldn’t have had the energy to help them, or even to step back and let someone else help.

At the end, Pastor Jim went around hugging everyone who had been caught. Then he stood back and proclaimed, “You are all ready.”

His words were like a blessing.

He led them all out the back door of the lodge, down the steps from the deck, and into the dark ravine. Dorry stumbled over roots and rocks, but every time she almost fell, Brad or Angela caught her arm. Finally, when the crowd stood at the bottom of the ravine, beside a roaring brook, Pastor Jim stopped them.

“The early Christians met in the catacombs of Rome,” he said. “It was probably about this dark.”

High overhead, practically hidden by trees, Dorry could see a thin moon. It went behind a cloud.

“But Christians, true Christians, are not afraid of the dark. We know the true light.” Pastor Jim struck a match and it sprang to life. He touched the match to a candle and the glow lit up his face.
“All of you know about the salvation Jesus offers you. You know that you are steeped in sin, that, as you are, you are filthy and despicable and unfit for the sight of God. You know that only Jesus’ intercession, his mercy and sacrifice, can redeem you. He said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.’ He said, ‘You must be born anew.’ Will you come? Will you renounce your former life, your sin, and your evil and be born anew?”

Dorry thought about getting rid of her shame over not truly falling into Brad and Angela’s arms. And beyond that—if she was born again, would she be free of feeling fat and ugly and undesirable? Would she be as happy as all the Fishers? Maybe they weren’t crazy, as she’d thought. They just focused on what was truly important—God.

Nobody spoke. Pastor Jim placed the candle on a rock. “This will be our altar,” he said. “Will you come forward and leave your sin behind? Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Will you be cleansed for all eternity?”

“I will,” a girl called out. She stepped forward and Dorry saw that it was Janelle.

Others followed, tentatively at first, then in bunches. They crowded around the rock, kneeling and praying.

Dorry bowed her head. “God?” she called
silently. “Will you save me?” She didn’t hear a clear voice, the way Angela evidently did. But she suddenly felt a sense of peacefulness like she’d never felt before. She wasn’t worried about anything anymore. Was this what the Holy Spirit was like?

Angela gently pushed her forward. “You’re ready, Dorry.”

Dorry knelt with the others. Pastor Jim lay his hand on Dorry’s head and called out, “Dorry Stevens, your sins are forgiven. You are a new creation. ‘The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.’”

And it really seemed that it had, that she was a new person.

Dorry wasn’t sure how long she knelt there, not really praying, not even thinking. She was barely aware of Pastor Jim laying his hand on others’ heads, calling out the same words. Then on some cue Dorry missed, everyone began standing up. Someone started singing, “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder,” then “Kum Ba Yah” and other songs. Pastor Jim led them out of the ravine a different, flatter way. When they reached a road, the Fishers’ vans were there waiting. Pastor Jim directed them to climb in.

“Where are we going?” Dorry whispered to Angela.

“Ssh,” Angela said. “Don’t talk. Trust us.”

In the van there was more singing. Dorry tried to hold on to the feeling she’d had when Pastor Jim laid his hand on her head, that she was totally forgiven, totally pure and totally clean. She must not do anything bad or think anything bad again.

The van stopped and Dorry realized with a jolt that they were at the apartment-complex clubhouse where the Fishers’ parties had been. She turned to Angela and started to ask, “Wh—” Angela silenced her with a shake of her head.

Everyone trouped into the clubhouse. What seemed like hundreds of people were silently waiting for them. Dorry passed through a gauntlet of hugs, mostly from people she barely recognized or didn’t know. But the feeling of love and belonging was overwhelming. She was surprised to end up by the side of the indoor pool. Pastor Jim was in the shallow end, the water halfway up the legs of his jeans.

“The Bible says, ‘Repent and be baptized,’” he proclaimed, his voice echoing in the atrium over the pool. “Jesus himself was baptized by his cousin, John the Baptist, in the River Jordan. If you are to follow Christ, you must do the same.”

Becky and Mark led Janelle down the steps into the water.

Dorry watched, puzzled. “Angela,” she whispered. “I—”

“Ssh,” Angela hissed. Others around them turned to stare.

“No, I have to tell you this,” Dorry insisted. “I’ve already been baptized. When I was a baby. So I shouldn’t do it again, should I? It’d be a sin or something, wouldn’t it?”

“No,” Angela shook her head, and whispered back. “Infant baptism is wrong. If you aren’t baptized in Fishers, you’re going to hell.”

Dorry considered that. She didn’t remember being baptized, and she’d certainly never felt like this before. Angela knew a lot more about religion than Dorry did.

“Dorry,” Pastor Jim called. Dorry stepped forward. Angela and Brad walked into the water on either side of her. The smell of chlorine filled her nose and she held back a sneeze, but the water was warm and inviting. She wondered if the River Jordan had been cold or hot—it certainly hadn’t smelled of chlorine. Then she pushed away those thoughts because she was supposed to be thinking about God.

“Dorry Stevens, do you renounce all sin and evil?” Pastor Jim asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

“Yes.”

“Do you accept the love and dominion of the Fishers of Men, as the representative of God’s mission on earth?”

Dorry blinked, trying to comprehend his words. Everyone was waiting.

“Yes,” she said.

“And do you vow to dedicate your life to God as embodied in Fishers? Do you vow to forsake all outsiders and all worldly pursuits and endeavors for the good of God’s kingdom?”

“Yes,” Dorry said again, not stopping to think this time. That was what everyone expected.

Then Pastor Jim was pushing her down, down, into the warm water. She forgot to take a breath and came up sputtering. Water dripped from her hair. Brad and Angela led her out of the pool and wrapped her in warm towels, handling her as tenderly as a baby. Dorry noticed that, though they were both wet up to the waist, they did nothing for themselves. The three of them stood on the edge of the pool, arms around each other, watching the rest of the baptisms.

“Welcome to Fishers,” Angela said gently. Her lips brushed Dorry’s cheek, almost like a kiss.

Chapter

Nine

AFTER THE BAPTISMS, DORRY FELT LIKE A new baby chick, freshly hatched from its egg. But no chicken had ever felt such joy—or been greeted so happily. She couldn’t stop grinning as people told her, over and over again, “Welcome, welcome. You are God’s child.” It was after 2
A.M.
before the retreat group got into the vans and went back to the lodge, but people still lingered downstairs by the fireplace for another hour or two, reliving the evening.

“If I die tonight, I will die happy,” someone said.

“If I live a million years, I will never forget this night,” someone else said.

Dorry kept quiet, afraid that speaking would destroy her fragile euphoria. She couldn’t possibly explain how she felt.