I frowned. This wasn’t right.
The arrival we had come for wasn’t at the gate. There were no elders. No other witnesses or welcomers.
Only me.
Sara Bishop.
And Pastor Carter.
“Where are they?” I asked. The wind had picked up. It was early summer, yet spring still held on with cold fingers. I shivered.
Pastor raised a hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun that was just starting to dip behind the mountain. “We’re a little early. Just be patient.”
I bit down on my lower lip and took a deep breath. I could be patient. I could wait and wait and wait. As long as necessary. I knew how to be dutiful. The perfect disciple.
I closed my eyes, wishing I could feel heat of the sun on my face. But it was low in the sky behind me. I felt nothing but a chill slither over my skin like slime. I shivered. I couldn’t help it.
Stop it. I have to do better than this.
I held myself perfectly still. I breathed in deeply, exhaling carefully. Controlled.
Peace.
That’s what this was.
Was it?
Peace wasn’t conditioned silence. Peace wasn’t smothering discontent, pretending it didn’t exist.
A strange image flashed behind closed eyelids.
Walking through the gate. Rocks crunching beneath my worn shoes. The thin, itchy material of my skirt brushing against bare legs.
Laughter bubbling up from the center of my chest as I ran far, far away…
I opened my eyes, hatred filling me from the inside out. Hatred for a weakness I hadn’t realized I possessed.
Hatred for myself.
I was home. I was where I belonged. God had a plan. The plan was my path. The truth was all that mattered.
I was home. I was where I belonged.
God had a plan.
Iwasthe plan…
I repeated the words over and over to myself, wondering where this out of character displeasure came from. Where its roots were planted.
“Mommy, I don’t like it here.”
“I want to go home.”
I pinched the underside of my arm hard enough to bruise. I twisted the skin until I wanted to howl with pain.
It was the least I deserved for thinking that way. For surrendering myself to negative thinking.
I ran the tip of my finger along the jagged scar on my wrist.
