Authors: Hillary Jordan
“Hannah, where are you? Ponder Henley called me yesterday. He told me he had to expel you from the center. He said dreadful things about you, things I can hardly believe.” Despite his agitation, he kept his voice low. He must have been at home then, calling her after Alyssa had gone to bed. “I don’t believe him, Hannah, I know you better than that, but—” he faltered, and she looked at the rumpled sheets that surrounded her, the loaded pistol on the nightstand. She saw herself shouting at the enlightener, threatening Cole, defying Simone, pointing the gun at herself. How little he did know her now, she thought.
“You haven’t been answering your port, so finally I called your parents’ house. I just hung up with your father. He’s out of his mind with worry, and so am I. He said he waited for you all night last night and you never showed up.” Hannah pictured her father driving around the parking lot until the lights from the stores were extinguished and the shoppers and then the employees parked in the far reaches of the lot drove off, leaving him alone, growing more and more scared and despondent as the hours passed and she didn’t appear.
Oh, Daddy, I’m so sorry.
“I can’t even find you on geosat, because your signal has disappeared. I don’t know what to do.” Abruptly, he looked away, toward something outside the field of the screen, and she heard a faint female voice—Alyssa, who else could it be?—call out something unintelligible. Aidan pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and let out a pained breath. “I have to go now. Please, Hannah, call me or send a message as soon as you get this. I need to know that you’re all right. If anything happened to you …” His voice cracked. “I love you.”
The image froze. Hannah sat back, stunned. So, as recently as December 8, he was still grieving her absence. What could possibly have happened to transform him so dramatically?
She played the second message, dated eight days later. And there he was, the new, improved Aidan, ardent and vibrant, his despondency gone as though it had never existed. “My love, I’ve spent the last week praying to hear from you, praying that you’re alive and safe. I have to believe you are, because if you were gone from this world my soul would know it.” He leaned forward. His skin actually seemed to be glowing, as if it were lit from within by an otherworldly radiance. He’d never seemed more beautiful to her, or more remote. “I once told you I could never leave Alyssa, but that was before you disappeared, before I spent the last week thinking I’d lost you forever.” He passed a hand over his face. “Hell is a paradise compared to where I’ve been. You can’t imagine.”
Hannah recalled the hours, days, weeks she’d spent racked by the pain of the Aidan-shaped hole in her heart. “Oh yes, I can,” she whispered.
“I prayed to God for guidance, and then last night, at the moment of my deepest despair, He sent me a vision of us, living together openly as man and wife. We stood side by side in a circle of golden light, and I knew that if I could hold that light in my hand I’d be one, not just with you, but also with God. But as I stretched out my hand to grasp it, it disappeared, and you with it, leaving me alone in the dark. And into that darkness He sent a second vision, showing me the price I’d have to pay for loving you. I’d be cast down, cast out—of the cabinet, of my ministry, of the hearts of all those who’ve believed in me and looked to me as an example of godliness. I would be a worm and not a man, scorned and despised by all who saw me. But I’d be with you, Hannah, and I’d no longer be living this lie that burns inside of me, this constant red heat that torments me with the difference between what I seem to be and what I am.
“What God was telling me, as plainly as if He’d spoken in my ear, was that the truth alone will save me, and that without it, without you sharing my life, I have no life, only darkness and death.” Hannah rocked back and forth on the bed. How could she have doubted him?
“I’m going to ask Alyssa for a divorce,” he said. “But before I do, I need to know that you’ve forgiven me, that you still love me. If you don’t …” His face sagged, and she saw the same hollow despair she’d seen in the mirror for weeks. He banished it with a shake of his head and said, “No—I can’t believe it. However much I’ve wronged you, I know your forgiving nature, the constancy of your heart. And I can’t believe that God would have sent me these visions if it weren’t in my power to make them real. So please, my darling, call me and give me the courage to do what I need to do, so that we can begin our life together.”
The message ended. Hannah rocked herself, her emotions a welter of love and pain, joy and disbelief.
Our life together.
Whatever she’d expected him to say, it hadn’t been that: the very thing she’d always longed to hear from him while knowing she never, ever would. And now, he’d said it—and gotten no reply from her for almost two weeks. What must he be thinking? That she was dead? That she no longer loved him?
Resisting the urge to contact him right away, she played the final message, which he’d sent at five o’clock on Christmas morning. He looked awful: drawn, pallid, manic. His forehead bore a faint sheen of sweat.
“Hannah, I still haven’t heard from you, and I can only pray it means you can’t forgive me, and not that you’re ill or in some sort of trouble. If you’ve been harmed in some way because of my cowardice, I’ll never forgive myself.”
He reached up and gripped the cross around his neck so hard that his knuckles turned white. “I wanted to be sure that you were mine, but I see now that this is the final test the Lord has set for me, that I confess the truth to Alyssa without knowing whether you still love me, without knowing where you are or even if you’re alive—though I believe you are, I have to believe it. My parents are staying with us through the end of next week, but as soon as they’re gone I’m going to tell her. And then I’m coming back to Texas to find you.” Aidan’s color was alarmingly high now, and beads of sweat dotted his brow. “I won’t fail the test this time, my love. I won’t fail you or our Savior. I swear it.” The message ended.
Hannah scrambled out of bed and over to the vid. “Compose reply, audio only.” Her mouth was so dry it came out as a croak. She paced in front of the screen, anxious, confused. What would she say to him? What did she want to say? “Stop recording.”
She went to the bathroom, drank from the tap and splashed water on her heated face. She studied her reflection in the mirror, trying to parse her feelings from her expression. She had no doubt that he meant what he said. He would wreck his marriage, his ministry, everything—for her. They would weather the storm somehow, marry, go somewhere and live quietly, grow old together. It was a beguiling vision, and a familiar one. How many times had she lain beside him or in her own lonely bed and fantasized just such an ending to their tale? Except the Hannah in those fantasies had been someone else, and not just because her skin had been white. What she’d told Simone was nothing less than the truth: she couldn’t go back to being that person. But could Aidan love the Hannah she’d become?
The faint sound of voices outside reminded her of the minutes passing. She had maybe half an hour before Simone returned. She hurried back to the vid. “Show quickest route from here to Washington DC, avoiding all known checkpoints.”
She studied the shimmering red line: a bumpy diagonal leading northeast through Alabama to Atlanta, through North Carolina and into the southwestern corner of Virginia, up I-81 along the line of the Appalachians to northern Virginia and then due east to Washington. The driving time was eighteen hours, plus stops, which she planned to keep few and brief. Two nights, then. She’d hole up tomorrow somewhere in North Carolina. And then, the next day, she would see him. And she would know.
“Resume audio recording.” She took a deep breath. “Aidan, it’s Hannah. I just now got your messages. I’m safe, and I’m coming to you. There are things you need to know, important things I have to tell you before you speak to Alyssa. I’m in Mississippi now, it’ll take me two days to get to Washington. Send me an address, and I’ll be there sometime before dawn on Monday. Until then, I beg you not to tell her about us. And whatever you do, don’t tell anyone you’ve heard from me, not even my parents. Please, Aidan. Wait for me.” Her face flamed as she registered what she’d just said. She ended the recording abruptly, before she could add,
I will drive fast.
S
HE WAITED TWENTY AGONIZING
minutes for his reply, hovering by the window, watching the parking lot with mounting anxiety. When the vid finally informed her she had a new message from Edward Ferrars, her heart leapt into her throat.
There was no picture this time, only audio, sent from his port. She could hear street noise in the background. “Hannah, thank God you’re all right.” His voice was so pitted with emotion she scarcely recognized it. “But why did you leave Texas? You know if they catch you they’ll add years to your sentence. They could even send you to prison. Dear Lord, the thought of you in one of those places—”
She heard someone else speaking, interrupting him. A woman, but not Alyssa; the voice was too low-pitched, too coarse. “I’m sorry, Hannah, just a minute,” he said. And more faintly, “Yes, I am, but—” The woman’s voice rose, became an excited babble. He cut her off. “Yes, all right. Do you have a pen?”
Hannah groaned in frustration. Aidan was constantly being accosted by people wanting his autograph or his blessing or both. He would pray with them, lay his hand on their foreheads, scrawl his name onto their port screens and the backs of receipts, pages torn from magazines, dollar bills, palms, forearms, whatever they thrust into his hand, while they watched with hungry adulation. Sometimes they wept. He never said no to anyone, never expressed the slightest impatience, but she could hear it in his voice now as he hurriedly asked Jesus to give the woman another child and stop her husband from drinking.
Hannah paced back to the window, just in time to see the van pulling into the motel’s parking lot. “Fast forward thirty seconds.”
“… don’t know what to do, Hannah,” Aidan was saying. “I’d tell you to stay put and wait for me to come to you, but I have no idea if you’re somewhere safe or when this will reach you or how you’re traveling. One thing’s for certain, you can’t come to the capital. There are too many checkpoints, and they’re constantly moving them around. Let me think a minute.” He paused.
“Come
on!
” Hannah exclaimed. Simone was getting out of the van, would soon be climbing the stairs, opening the door. What would she do if she discovered Hannah had been in communication with someone from her former life? Would Simone carry out her threat? Was she capable of that, of killing someone she’d made love to a mere two hours before? Hannah’s instincts said yes.
“All right,” Aidan said finally, “here’s what we’ll do. I have a weekend house in Maxon, Virginia, the address is 1105 Chestnut. Go there. I’ll drive out tonight and disable all the sensors, and I’ll come to you Monday morning as soon as I can get away. The police make regular patrols so if you have a car, don’t park it at the house. The train station’s about a mile away, you’ll have to leave it in the lot and walk from there. I’ll leave the back door unlocked. Oh, and if you get to the house before dawn, don’t turn the lights on. There’s a flashlight on the wall in the mudroom, use that.” A long, hard exhalation. “Please, my love, be careful. I—”
Hannah heard footsteps approaching outside. “Log out. Vid off,” she said. She remained standing by the window and composed her face into a smiling mask. Simone opened the door and stepped inside, letting in a cool rush of air that smelled of the sea.
“That was quick,” Hannah said, a little too brightly.
Simone cocked her head, regarding Hannah with slightly narrowed eyes. “I keep my promises,” she said. The unspoken challenge seemed to hang in the air between them:
Do you?
But the moment passed. While they ate, Simone pulled up a map on the vid and plotted a rough route north for her, through Alabama and Tennessee to Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and then up through New York. She highlighted an area on the New York/Canada border. “This is where you will cross the frontier. But first, you will go here, to the town of Champlain. You must cross between midnight and two in the morning. If you are not sure you can arrive to Champlain in time, wait wherever you are until the next day. You must not park the van in town.” She switched to satview and zoomed in on a small commercial building. “Go to Main Street and look for this place, Aiken’s Animal Clinic. You see the sign? If all the letters are lit, you cross that night. If one letter is dark, you go the next night. If two, the night after. It should not be more than two, but make certain you have enough food with you just in case, because once you arrive to the final point, you will not be able to leave it until it is time to cross.”
“And where is the final point exactly?”
Simone refocused the map. “Here. An abandoned farm, I will give you directions. Park in the barn and wait until midnight to cross. When you leave, turn off the jammer of the van—you must not forget to do this, otherwise they will not know you are coming—and walk due north. I will give you a compass with which to navigate. It will be very cold, so wear all the clothing you have. After a half hour, take off the ring and let it fall. Someone will come for you.”
Puzzled, Hannah asked, “If I have the ring, why do I need the van’s jammer at all?”
“The rings are not nearly as powerful, and they can be unreliable,” Simone said. Hannah frowned. Susan hadn’t told them that. What if it failed when she was with Aidan? Would the police arrest him too, for harboring her at his house?
Simone snapped her fingers. “Are you listening? For this and many reasons, leave the van only if you must, and when you do, make it quick.”
She continued the list of dos and don’ts: Cross state frontiers on the smallest routes possible. Avoid all tunnels and important bridges, even if you must go miles around. Leave the speed control system of the van on at all times so you will not exceed the limit by accident. Turn on the privacy mode before sleeping but leave it off while driving, it makes the police suspicious. Apply mud to the plates to obscure the word “Texas.” Do not carry the gun into stores or restaurants, too many of them have metal sensors. Use only toilets with exterior entrances. If you are attacked, cry “Fire!” not “Help!” You will want to run but you must hold yourself and fight unless you are certain you can escape. Smash the nose first with the heel of your hand and then attack the balls. Do not use your knee, he will be waiting for that, kick them as hard as you can with your foot. Do not stop at truck stops, there are too many lonely men. Do not park in small towns or rich neighborhoods. Never ignore your instincts. If you feel yourself afraid, there is probably good reason for it.