Chapter Thirteen: The Denouement

Chapter Thirteen: The Denouement

Word got out as quickly as it ever did, the same way the world heard about every other time the Angels stepped in with force. Alec arrived at their door soon after breakfast, bringing a basket of fruit. Nick was a few minutes behind him, then Isobel, then others from the congregation.

Megan stayed in her room for most of it. Erica wasn’t well known to the congregation, but Megan was, despite her best efforts. Hugh and Kasumi had been part of the family for centuries; and everyone was quick to rally around them.

But after a while, most of the well-wishers left, except for family and close friends. The little group stayed together for most of the night.

It was not a unique story. Nobody was quite certain how far they could push their luck with the New World and it’s police force. The most common understanding was that being removed from Paradise worked the same way as being shunned from the congregation. Forgiveness and patience and compassion were the guiding force, but for people who made the conscious choice to oppose or stand apart, they were not allowed to draw others away, or inflict harm on anyone.

“I forget sometimes what a gullible breed of sheep people are.” Hugh commented once to Alec, who couldn’t help but agree. He himself had lost three friends to the way things used to be.

“There’s a new Remnant in the world.” Alec agreed. “And I can understand… feeling left behind, and I can understand wanting the familiar, but… Were things really so much better for those people?”

“Alec, my shower is solar heated.” Hugh told him. “That means the water is just as hot, but not as long lasting. Back in OS, a wealthy person could have all the hot water they wanted. We don’t eat meat, but back in OS, it took thousands of liters of water to make enough cattle-feed to get one pound of hamburger, and the world starved because of it. Being in balance with the world means that the see-saw is now level, and for the people who were always on the ground, that means the world is better… but for people who were happily above them on the other end of the see-saw, suddenly coming down to even is…”

“Undesirable.” Alec said it for him grimly.

“All men are created equal. For the first time in history, nobody is more ‘equal’ than any other.” Hugh said darkly. “It’s always been understood that the world wasn’t fair, but to almost everyone I ever met, the idea of ‘fair’ was that you got your own way. For people who had everything they wanted, the world seemed a very fair and equitable place.”

“And that’s not even counting people like Erica, who have a legitimate gripe and a perfectly understandable grudge against someone.” Kasumi whispered. “I’ve heard rumors of brewing conflict in the Middle Eastern Regions.”

“Again?”

“This isn’t like OS.” Kasumi warned. “Plenty of the Returned are demanding their old lands back. The Covenant Nations want their Inheritance. They don’t care anything for the four thousand years worth of changes since then, or the millions who moved in and out of those lands since; because they 'slept' through it all. They don’t like the fact that they’re getting assigned new places to live.”

“It’s not like for us.” Nick put in. “Me and Hugh were raised in a Brooklyn apartment that could have fallen down any time there was a good strong breeze. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live a hundred generations in the same place.”

“Or a hundred generations fighting for the same place. With all those hundred generations around, it suddenly gets a lot more crowded. And back in the day, most of those people settled their land disputes with a war. This isn’t a feud powered by The World or The Wicked One any more. This is about promises made on deathbeds, and vows made to our children. Promises that change your life. Promises like ‘I will avenge you’ or ‘I will see our homeland free again’.” Kasumi sighed. “Only that’s not an option this time, so… I wonder if the people who make the right choice have really let it go.”

“We don’t read hearts, Kas.”

“I know, but… A person can be totally sincere in their beliefs, and do so by burying the old ones; instead of letting them go completely. I wonder sometimes if in the back of our minds, so deep that we can’t even tell, there’s something simmering away; waiting for a chance to boil over again.” She sighed. “We all saw Erica and Megan settling in, getting better… But it was still right there, right below the surface. If she’d never found her father, would she have lived happily ever after?”

Alec sighed. “We have to remember: This is not the paradise God had in mind. Not yet. Neither was Eden. Eden never got it’s chance, and now God’s agenda for the world is just getting started. For Jehovah God, a thousand years are as a single day. The last three hundred years of work is basically a few hours of cleanup. We’re the Caretaker generation. We’re the Transition team. From God's view, the dust hasn't even settled yet, and we just got an example of that. A thousand years from now, two thousand, ten thousand, a million… All these painful thoughts won’t even come to mind. But we’re still in the very early stages. The good thing is, we get to be there to see the finished product, no matter how long it takes.”

Kasumi rubbed her eyes. “I promised Megan that she’d never have any reason to feel scared and alone ever again.”

“I don’t.”

Everyone turned, and found Megan in the doorway. She took in the room full of people at a glance and ignored them. She came over and gave Kasumi a hug, seeming like the little kid she was for the first time. “Third Rule of Survival: Don’t fall for lies.” Megan said. “You didn’t lie to me. Neither did the Angels. Neither did Erica. She did what she did and she knew what would happen… but if she didn’t do it, she wouldn’t be Erica any more. Right and wrong isn’t like that, it’s just… people doing what they do to keep going.” She looked to Hugh. “I can’t even blame her for it, because it’s just who she was… But it’s not who I am.” She shook her head. “I wanted to be her more than anything, but I don’t any more.”

The little speech took everyone by surprise. Judge Simpson was the first one to speak. “I know this won’t help so much right now, Megan; but just so you know, you never have to feel abandoned ever again. Back in OS, some brothers had to choose between the people they loved, and what they knew to be the truth. It’s a terrible, painful choice, but it was still the right thing to do. Scripture says ‘Even if my own father and mother abandon me, Jehovah himself will take me in’.”

“I know.” Megan wiped her face. “In fact, I can tell you for a fact that it’s true. Because my father and mother dropped me when I was five years old… I wanted them, even when they told me to go away and not come back. And God brought me back, put me in a real family. One that still wanted me when I told them to go away and leave me alone.” She reached a hand out to Hugh, and he took it immediately. She held her other hand out to Kasumi, and she did the same. “Erica left me. She was going to go, even before it happened. She was going to leave, because she knew you guys wouldn’t. Wishing things were different is a waste time, because the world doesn’t change for you.”

“The world did change, baby girl.” Kasumi said kindly. “The world became a better place for-”

“No. It didn’t.” Megan stopped her. No anger, just stating the facts. “God’s not a liar. I believe that now. I never did before, but if keeping His promises didn’t matter to him, I wouldn’t be here. But… This is His world now, right? He sets the rules now. Erica’s gone, and her father’s going to live forever. And I’m supposed to love Him for that?” Megan shook her head. “No.” She looked at Hugh and Kasumi. “I love you guys, but I can’t accept that. You wanna kick me out for that, I’ll understand. I’ve done it before.”

Hugh started to say something, when he noticed Judge Simpson waving him silent. Those in the room were looking at the girl with an aghast sympathy. Hugh knew there’d be lots of prayers spoken for his family that night.

Hugh and Kasumi looked bleakly at each other and spoke. “No. We're not sending you away.” Kasumi said. “Not even for that. You're our daughter. That won't change.”

Megan nodded. “I'm not going to change my mind.” She warned. “But thank you... Mom.”

~~/*\~~

“I should have said something.” Hugh sighed. “Erica could be right here with us right now.”

“Erica’s father was willing to make whatever changes he needed to make to be acceptable to God.” Carl pointed out. “So was brother Muller at the Convention; and don’t think I didn’t see the way you reacted to him being on stage. Erica wasn’t willing. But Megan is in no mood to hear anything like that at the moment, even if it is the truth. She’s young and full of many painful emotions right now. Anything you say will be seen as blaming Erica. And I daresay Megan has a history with people blaming her for her problems. Megan is young, with a full life ahead of her. Let her come around on her own, at least for now. We have time.”

Hugh sighed. “Yeah, I know.” He almost smiled. “This is what the program was talking about at the Centennial. About how we face up to the heroes and villains of our former lives. In my head I know that I have to forgive, but… Part of me still hates the fact that Mueller and my brother get to walk around the same planet forever. I can empathize with Erica so much more than I can with her father.”

“You feel like you failed her.” Carl said quietly.

Hugh nodded. “She was eighteen. Never exactly my responsibility, but-”

“It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to save one. It stopped being about what Dexter Knowles did wrong the moment he died.”

Hugh rubbed his eyes. “She called me 'dad'. She called Kas 'mom'. It should be the happiest moment we've had since getting her back.”

Carl sighed. “You know where I was, back in OS?”

Hugh shook his head.

“Tennessee, back in the 1960’s. A black man going to college wasn’t unheard of then, but I was still the first one in my family.” He rubbed his eyes a moment. “I knew the witnesses only incidentally. Someone I knew was studying with them, I went to two of their meetings. You know what struck me as amazing? One of the Overseers in that congregation was black. At a time when every church had to have two sets of bathrooms, and sitting at the counter in a diner could get you shot, here was a group of people that didn’t have different sections reserved in their halls. Blacks and whites sat together.”

“So you decided to stay?”

“Of course not.” Carl snorted. “I was young, and full of a burning need to change the world. I liked what the JW’s had, but I wasn’t content to wait and let God sort it out. I wanted to fix the world I was already in. So I joined the Freedom Riders, Civil Rights… Pretty much everything I could find that would have me.”

“How’d you guys do?” Hugh asked with curiosity. “I went down in flames almost twenty years before all that.”

“Things changed. Some of them for the better, but…” Carl shook his head. “I got myself lynched. My friends tell me that I got clocked over the head when the police were breaking up the march. I guess they hit me really hard, because my next memory is waking up here.”

Hugh snorted. “And so here you are, along with all the protesters, and all the people who bashed their heads in, and…”

“A hundred million people who had been slaves all their lives, along with each and every one who held a whip.” Carl nodded. “And I don’t just mean people like me. The Egyptian Masters and their Hebrew Slaves are all here too, or they will be eventually. As well as the Romans, the Babylonians... You think what people like me went through was bad, imagine when the Assyrian Victims come back and find their own torturers here too.”

Hugh squeezed his eyes shut. “I had a pretty privileged life, as such things go. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. And I can’t… I don't feel like I have the… I don’t even know how to say it.”

“You feel like you don’t have the moral authority to tell people that they have to stop hating.” Carl nodded. “It’s not a crime to be born into a life that is easier than other people had it, any more than it was a crime to be born in poverty. But to Jehovah, we’re all the same size.”

Hugh looked back at his house. “My wife is Japanese. When I first met her, I was barely back for a day or two, and I didn’t want to know her. Six months out of Pearl Harbor for me, and I was military. I lost a lot of Academy buddies in that attack. Now I can’t imagine life without loving Kasumi to bits every day.”

“See? It can be unlearned.”

“I know, but… I had a prejudice. I had held it for less than a year. Erica had it her whole life. I can’t imagine what generation after generation of hatred must feel like.”

“Back during the marches, I felt that same rage. It fed on what was happening to my friends all around me, more than what had happened a century before I was born. I saw my friends getting shot, burned, spat on and killed… For what? For things that seem so ugly and hateful now.” He gestured up at the sky. “To God, we’re all the same size. And if He chooses to stop some people, then I trust Him to be fair minded and evenhanded about it a whole lot more than I trusted a Tennessee Judge. None of this is coming from us. We work for the one person in the universe who can’t be prejudiced, can’t be unfair, can’t bend His own rules, and can’t be taken in by a lie.”

Hugh couldn't help the smile. “That’s true.”

“I’m sorry for what happened to your daughter’s friend, Hugh.” Carl said plainly. “But I feel perfectly safe walking home at night, and there’s never been a time in history when all people of all kinds could say that. If the guy who clubbed me over the head back in the day has changed his thinking, then he has no reason to feel unsafe, because even if I meant him harm, he’d be protected. The only people who don’t feel that sense of safety? They can’t put the blame for that on anyone else. And for the first time in the history of the world, that’s a fact, not an excuse.”

“Give it to God and go to sleep?” Hugh guessed.

“Better than trying to carry it alone.”

Hugh sighed. “How do I get my daughter to... Accept Jehovah’s decision?”

“Help her carry the burden. Which way she carries it is up to her, even at twelve years old.”

~~/*\~~

Weeks passed. Megan did not soften. She emerged a little from her shell, but her decision did not waver at all. Hugh and Kasumi knew not to push her. Megan withdrew from school, and the other students were actually a little relieved. Megan’s demeanor was so intense that she was starting to scare them, even the adults.

Kasumi wanted to break through to her, but Megan just refused to engage.

Nick came over to visit one day. “How is she?”

“She’s polite, she’s obedient, she doesn’t run away or take any food, or miss any meetings. She helps me in the kitchen and eats cookies and plays with her toys and...” Kasumi said in frustration. “And she’s sleepwalking. She’s on autopilot.”

“She’s not unfeeling.” Nick said quietly. “Just the opposite. She’s feeling too much, and what she’s feeling hurts. The problem is… Everything in this world is wrapped up in either the congregation, or Jehovah. Both those things are reminders of bad memories now.”

Kasumi sighed. “How to we snap her out of that?”

“To be honest, I don’t know if we have to.” Hugh observed. “She’s not isolated, the world is a warm and loving place now. She’s the exception, not the rule. She won’t wallow in her misery forever, because there’s nothing for it to feed on.”

“There’s plenty for it to feed on.” His wife countered. “It’s like seeing the kid across the street get his finger-painting rewarded while her own gets ignored. Every smiling face is just… Rubbing salt in the wound.”

Hugh thought for a while. “You’re worried that she’s going to wallow too long; but the world is a place where ‘too long’ doesn’t exist any more. When we first met, you pulled out that teaset and asked me what I would do with eternity. I didn’t believe in God, or in the Congregation, but it took my mind in interesting directions. Can we try and… inspire that in Megan?”

Nick nodded. “Interesting idea. But she’s twelve. Trying to get her to think in terms of eternal life is… not going to be easy.”

“Well, we’re pretty smart. I’m betting we can think of something.”

~~/*\~~

A few days later, Megan came home and found a garment bag on her bed. She unzipped it, and found a beautiful dress. The sort of thing a princess would wear at a ball, or a glamour model on the Red Carpet. Megan had never owned anything like it before. “Kas?” She called. She used the word 'mom' more and more often, but not all the time just yet. “What's this for?”

“It's for you.” Kasumi said warmly. “We're going to a show.”

~~/*\~~

“The De… The Den…” Megan struggled with the unfamiliar word written on the poster.

“The Denouement.” Hugh told her. “It means: The Reveal. Like when you’re reading a mystery story and you get to that scene at the end that ties up all the plot threads and explains all the things you don’t understand.”

Megan stared at the poster. She recognized the names Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Stravinsky… She’d never heard much of their music, but she knew they were supposed to be the best in history. “They’re all here?” She asked.

“First time you could ever have a collection of men like this in one room.” Kasumi nodded. “Music was a generational thing. Every generation gets their heroes back. Hugh’s generation will get a concert put together by Glen Miller and Vera Lynn; my sister will get Elvis and Bob Dylan.”

“Wonder what they would make of this place?” Megan said under her breath.

“Well in this case Megan, it goes a little further than having some celebrity artists.” Hugh told her. “They’ve been working on this project for a hundred years now. The composers got their heads together and wrote a concert, specifically for an audience this size. They put their heads together with a bunch of famous architects and builders and they all designed and constructed this exact concert hall, from foundations to rafters. The hall was designed to create the perfect acoustics for this exact concert.”

“What’s ‘acoustics’?” The girl asked.

“The way sound fills a room.” Kasumi asked. “It’s like when you go to a canyon and hear your voice echo back? But if you do that in a small room it won’t happen. So, what you’re going to hear tonight is some of the best composers practicing for a hundred years, and designing not just their best music, but a concert hall designed specifically for this exact music. The hall will only seat a thousand people, and only five Concert Halls were built to this design. Only five thousand people a year, out of billions, will ever experience this; and you got a seat on opening night.”

“How did we get tickets if it's that big a deal?” Megan asked, sounding interested despite herself. It was the first time she’d shown interest in something since Erica died.

“My brother reserved seats over a hundred years ago; before construction began.” Hugh explained. “They were building the Hall in our area, and most people didn’t hear about it until months later. First come, first served.”

“Wait, doesn’t…” Megan looked around. “If Uncle Nick got the tickets, where is he?”

“He gave you his seat.” Kasumi squeezed her hand. “He said you should get the chance to see this early.”

“He waited a century and changed his mind?”

“Well he’d hadn’t met his favorite niece then.” Hugh poked her side gently. “Besides, there’s going to be another show next year. These men worked so long on it, they could do nothing but play this same concert over and over forever, and still sell out every night; but they have lives of their own. So a compromise was made: A one night show in each concert hall, once a year, and the people who get tickets have to give up their reservations to anyone who hasn’t heard the concert before. When new people stop coming in droves, we will get the chance to see it again.”

“Yeah, in thousands of years.” Megan snorted.

“Exactly.” Kasumi said simply, and Megan let out a whimper at the ease with which she dismissed so much time. “You can see why we wanted to dress up for the night.”

~~/*\~~

They followed their tickets to find their seats. The Concert Hall was something else entirely. The seats were scattered around the Hall in groups, all of them on inclines, so that everyone had a clear view of the whole room. The walls and ceiling were covered in odd bulges and designs that Megan couldn’t guess at, but the feeling of the air changed the second she stepped into the room. It felt like she could hear every whisper, every footstep in the large space; as though her hearing had improved dramatically by sitting in her seat.

The stage was in the center of the room, surrounded by more seats, though these ones were for an Orchestra. Megan had only seen pictures of symphonies before. The orchestra wasn’t all sitting together, instead split into six groups, laid out in some strategic pattern that Megan couldn’t guess at.

But exactly on schedule, six different men came out on stage and took their places as conductors, each of a different group, to the eager applause of the audience.

One of them stepped up to a microphone.

“Good evening. My name is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”

Megan sat upright. She had heard that name.

“Tonight with me are several other people you will have heard of. In OS, some of our more... excited fans, saw our work as proof of God's existence. This is no small statement, even for us. In my time, the churches painted God as exacting in discipline and ready to smite; but I knew in my heart that He was more about beauty than judgment; for the simple reason that we had music. In the centuries that came before, and after me, there was no secular explanation for musical ability at all.

“The professional musicologists, for whom I have the greatest respect, haven’t the ghost of an idea about what music is, or why we make it and cannot be human without it, or even—and this is the telling point—how the human mind makes music on its own, before it is written down and played. The biologists are no help here, nor the psychologists, nor the physicists, nor the philosophers, wherever they are these days. Nobody can explain it. It is a mystery.”

(Authors Note: That last paragraph is a direct quotation from Dr. Lewis Thomas, who is affiliated with the Scientists’ Institute for Public Information. The quote is in the 3/15/1984 Watchtower, which deals with the subject of music.)

The audience applauded politely.

“It was no small mystery for us, either. For all the people who considered us experts in music, remember that we were simply musicians when we started. And we had no small problems of our own.” He gestured at some of the other conductors in turn. “Bach spent a month in jail, trying to break a contract with his patron. Tchaikovsky suffered from several mental disorders. When Ludwig van Beethoven first conducted his Ninth Symphony, he never heard a single note, until he came back to life in this world.” The man smiled. “He still won't tell me if it sounded anything like he thought it would.”

Polite laughter.

“When I came back a hundred and twelve years ago, my Welcoming Committee learned quickly who I was... And you know what? They refused to let me hear any music.” Their host declared. “I was furious! I was on the verge of violence.” He paused. “But I am so grateful to them now! Because the first music I ever heard from this world, was the Musical Introduction at the start of my first International Convention. It was a period of weeks, but that day and its Angelic Choir was my introduction to the New World! I knew then that I had so much left to learn in a field that I was meant to be an expert in!”

Stronger applause. Megan was turning her head left and right, looking at the strangely shaped ceilings. It felt like the applause was coming from everywhere.

“Music is the one art of Heaven that is given to the Earth. And since the sincere adoration of his faithful ones is so pleasing to Jehovah, it’s the one art-form that can be given back in return.” Their host declared. “God did not make his angels, or his humans to be robots. You were made to feel. And you were not made to be unthinking, acting only on emotion and whim; because he put eternity into your hearts. When your mind and heart are united in something, you understand the nature of your soul.

“And that is why Music is the art of Heaven, my brothers and sisters. It touches all parts of the human brain at once, so it invokes ideas, and feelings, and memories, and imagination and creativity at the same time. A single song can unlock a thousand memories in man, and we have all lived a single lifetime. Ask yourself what kind of music can someone make after creating the universe?

“Music is a mystery that I fear we may never fully solve... But the men who are here with me tonight will spend eternity trying!” He smiled. “And that is why, we have called tonight's concert: The Denouement.”

A round of applause rang out.

A few moments later, the music began. It rose and swelled and rang off the walls and ceiling, until Megan was spinning around, trying to find the source of the music that seemed to come from the air itself. Looking around, she could see the audience having the same reaction, swaying with it, eyes closed; giving themselves over to the music.

It was like listening to a chorus, a hundred instruments singing the same song, ringing over each other. The air sang with it, and Megan felt for a moment like she was breathing the music in. She could feel the enthralling pulse move her heartbeat, her breathing and pulse coming in time with a thousand people who moved in perfect synchronicity; a century of practice coming together to be a single voice with a hundred layers, harmonizing a song of praise, not just for the Creator, but the Creation itself. It was music that was calling out its gratitude for having someone listening to it. It was a song that vowed that it would get even better with time. It was a promise that it would wait for those listening, that one day they would come back and dance again without leaving their seats.

Megan's eyes flew open suddenly when she felt tears on her face. Hugh and Kasumi had the same, holding hands as they swayed with eyes closed and faces radiant. The musicians and their conductors had the same expressions. They were casting a spell. They were being spellbound.

The music moved and crashed and lifted and kept going for so long that Megan sort of forgot she was sitting in a chair. It wasn't anything like the Angelic Chorus that rang out for the Centennials, but if it wasn't heaven, it was at least the highest places of the earth.

Hugh leaned down to speak softly in his daughter's ear for a moment. “This is opening night. Imagine what they'll come up with after another century of work. Or three. Or ten. Or a hundred. I've already put our names on the waiting list for the next time around.”

Megan found she was crying again. You would have loved this, Erica...

~~/*\~~

The concert ended, and everyone erupted to their feet in applause. The orchestra were crowded with people offering congratulations. Megan watched the crowd, shaking off the music. She had been pole-axed into her chair for almost two hours, and it had made her heart hurt. Her heart had been hurting for weeks; but for the first time, a part of her wanted more of the feeling.

When Hugh and Kasumi went to speak to Alec, she slipped out of the concert hall. Like everything else, it was surrounded by trees, running streams in concrete creek beds and plenty of private places where people could sit and relax around living things.

She heard music playing. The world was a place where the sun coming up in the morning was reason for a parade, so someone playing music wasn’t unusual. But for some reason, she followed it. It lead her to a quiet, out of the way spot. She could see half a dozen people settling around some open plaza’s..

The music was coming from a Boy her age, who was tuning an electric guitar, with a bible balanced on one knee while he sat cross-legged on the ground. “Why is there singing in Heaven?” He said without so much as introducing herself.

Megan blinked. “What?”

“Heaven is a spirit realm.” The Boy explained. “There are no books written on paper, and the memory of spirit creatures is flawless anyway; so what need of bookshelves? There are no canvasses to paint, and if you’ve painted the stars into the night sky, then what need would you have for brushes and inks? But the music is constant; songs of praise sung day and night for their Creator. There are very few things that activate and stimulate the entire human brain at once. Music is one of them. Musicians say that music can express things and make us feel things that we don’t have words for.” He tuned his guitar a bit. “But in heaven, there are words that human minds would never comprehend, or have ears to hear. There’s no ‘searching for words’ because if anyone has them all, it’s God. So what need is there for music in Heaven? When angels gather to sing their songs of praise and glory, why not just speak the words? Why does the Kingdom of Heaven have any need of music?”

Megan stared. “I don’t know.” She said finally. “I heard the chorus at the International Convention. I think that I will never hear anything better. Not even tonight came close.”

“Perhaps, but to a loving parent, seeing a finger-painting done by your children is a wonderfully uplifting thing, even if it’s not quite the Mona Lisa just yet. Even God is a living soul; and He created music; and he listens to His Chorus day and night for eternity, and he gave that art to humans. Because He feels, and He thinks and He weeps and He remembers and He imagines and He laughs and He Loves. He wants you to draw close to Him. So if words can’t always get you there, why not give you a language that can?”

“Because we suck at it.” Megan said plainly. “The concert tonight was all the best musicians in history working together for a full century, and they were nothing compared to a few minutes before the International.”

The Boy grinned, readying his guitar. “Remember, the angels had a beginning. The universe is 13 billion years old, and if the angels spent all that time practicing, there will yet come a moment in your eternal life when you’ve lived just as long.”

He strummed a few chords, and the piercing tone seemed to echo off the air, surrounding them for a moment. Megan swayed with it for a while.

The music ticked up a bit toward the end of the melody, like moving from sadness to light. But the music stopped abruptly. Megan knew nothing about music, but the sudden halt felt… unfinished; like a question gone unanswered. The boy looked at her expectantly, and she knew he wasn’t waiting for a reaction to the music. She gave him nothing.

The Boy tried again. “The original Psalms were songs of praise.” He said, one hand holding open the bible, the other holding the guitar in position. “I thought I might see what they sounded like with more modern instruments.”

“Can’t really picture bible verses and electric guitars together.” Megan said lightly. The smile vanished off her face immediately. Nothing made her smile for long. “Did you see the show?”

“I did.” The boy nodded. “What did you think?”

“I think it was incredible…” Megan admitted. “I just wish… I don’t know, I wish I had it in me to enjoy things anymore.” She glanced over. “And before you ask, I don’t want to talk about it.” She looked down. “But I guess you already know. Everyone seems to know everyone’s business here.”

“We look out for each other. Not the same thing as invading privacy.” He played a few notes, as if testing them out.

Megan scrubbed her face with her hands. “They think I can’t handle the truth. They don’t get that I can work the Database myself. After they go to sleep… It’s on the news. Everyone knows it happened, and it’s not hard to figure out what everyone thinks. They all say the same thing. Erica made her choice. You make the choice, you live with it.”

“They treat you like you’re twelve years old, because you are.” The boy guitarist said kindly. “They don’t get that you’ve been living with hard choices for most of your life.”

“Since the moment I left the orphanage.” Megan nodded. “I know plenty of people who made bad calls and died by them.” Megan looked down. “But doesn’t that make her the bad guy?”

“You know, there’s nothing that says you can’t love her just as much, even if she was wrong.” He said kindly. “It doesn’t make her love for you any less either.”

“Except I was begging her to put down the knife.” Megan growled, betrayed. “What if it was always going to be this?”

“What do you mean?”

Megan looked around. Nobody but them in sight. Later, she would think that was strange. “She thought I didn’t know, but eavesdropping was pretty much the only vice we were allowed in the Orphanage. I heard her talking to the Padre. I know what she did, before she met me… And I sometimes wonder if she worked so hard to be my mom because of guilt. She said that some people don’t deserve a second chance. I wonder if she was talking about him, or herself. I don’t know, maybe she never cared about me at all. She left the second she knew Hugh and Kas were good people.”

“If she never cared at all, she wouldn’t have cared how good they were.” The Boy told her. “Scripture says that ‘the former things will not even be called to mind’. But it doesn’t say how long that will take.”

“You really believe that?”

“Well, look at it this way.” The boy said earnestly. “The whole point of the world now is that nobody loves you more than God. Or so deeply. How could they? God’s there for all those moments when nobody else is. When you take your first step, God knows it’s coming before your mother ever would. When something good happens, you don’t get how good it could be. When something bad happens, God knows just how much you can handle, and he’s already got a hundred different ways that you can get help with the rest.”

“That’s-”

“Sounds like a cliche? Sure. It’s also true.” The Boy smiled, plucking at his guitar again. “Ask yourself: If someone knows you so completely, more than you even know yourself, and yet loves you so much that He’ll tear apart time and space and death itself to give you another chance… how far would He go to have you be part of the family?” He played a few chords, soft sad notes. “And then ask yourself… If you can torment yourself with questions, worrying about what else you could have done, how much more so would someone who’s legitimately all-powerful?”

Megan blinked. “Are you saying… Is God feeling the same way I am?”

“When Hugh Alman realized that it was possible to refuse God, he said that ‘Choice is a very powerful thing’. You of all people know that, because you chose to leave the Orphanage, you chose to follow Erica, you chose to stay with your new family.” He plucked a few strings, keeping the sad song going. “But Jah loved that girl, and He remembered every moment that she protected you, He was there every moment that she held you tight on cold nights, every time that she made sure there was at least one person in the world who loved a tiny little outcast girl who wanted love so desperately that she would have settled for hate.”

Megan felt hot tears rolling down her face, and didn’t bother to wipe them away. “It doesn’t seem right, that she could be gone, and he be here.”

“I know. But Jehovah was there for all his moment's too.” He played a few chords. “What God is going through right now is what every good parent goes through. You create a life, and it has a mind of it’s own. You try and teach it right, and then they get knocked about a bit by life, and you try everything you can to bring them home, put them back on the right track. But in the end, they have to make their own choices, and live by them.” He caught the strings so that the music was cut off, instantly. “Trust me on this, He’s in mourning with you.”

She looked over to her fast friend. “Does everyone deserve a second chance?”

“That’s a good question. Here’s the answer: It's not about Deserving. All have fallen short of God's standards, simply by not being perfect. And nobody's perfect. But out of love, everyone gets another chance anyway.”

Megan scowled. “Doesn't make sense. Why would...” She grit her teeth, frustrated. “Argh!”

The Boy smiled serenely. “Look at it this way. Imagine you are given a gift. An incredible gift, from someone you've only known a short time. It's so lavish and expensive and grand that you know you could never pay it back. So lavish that you can't bring yourself to believe you deserve it... Now imagine that all the Giver wants in return is your appreciation.”

Megan said nothing, but her eyes changed as it suddenly made sense.

“You're right, we can't earn eternal life; its a gift. Mother Theresa didn't escape death by working so hard to be good. It's not about deserving a second chance, it's about showing appreciation when you get one. Does everyone do that?”

She wiped her eyes. “I guess she didn’t.”

The boy started playing again. “And you know, that’s not just limited to Erica, sweet girl. Jehovah looks at you and sees something so precious and unique and wonderful. In the whole record of everything that has ever happened, or ever will happen; there’s only one of you. That makes you more precious than any priceless thing. He had to let a bad world play out a while, for reasons that would decide the universe. You got caught in the middle of a much larger war. But every pain and every heartache… You think He wasn’t keeping count? Psalms 56:8 says ‘You keep track of my wandering. Do collect my tears in your skin bottle. Are they not recorded in your book?’ For all the talk about how excited we should be, you think Jehovah wasn’t even more excited? Every time something bad happened, He was keeping track of how it should have been, in a world according to His Will. At last, His people are getting what was promised to them.”

Erica sank into herself. “And Erica’s father was promised life, as long as he showed appreciation.”

“So was Erica.”

Megan looked at him, suddenly realizing. “You sure don’t talk like you’re ten years old. Who are you?”

“Not everyone asked for protection, you know. Hugh and Kasumi were flat out begging God for a child. Someone they could love and nurture and show wonderful things. And of all the unloved, lonely kids in the history of the world, He gave them you. Did you think He just flipped a coin? Chose someone at random?” He plucked a few strings again, the song getting lighter and sweeter. “So when He put you with Hugh and Kasumi, was he answering your prayer, or theirs, or Erica’s, or even His own?”

“I stopped praying when I was seven years old.” Megan countered. “And I didn’t even know their names then. Any of them. Erica hadn’t even met me yet.”

“Scripture says: ‘We do not know what we should pray for as we need to, but the spirit itself pleads for us.’ God has always known that there would be some things we would never find words for.” The Boy finished. “But He understands those things too. You know why?”

“Because there is music in Heaven.” Megan said, suddenly getting it. “And it's here on Earth too, because there are some things words couldn’t say, even for Angels.”

The Boy finished her song with a flourish. “God loved you and Erica every bit as much as you loved each other, He proved that when He brought her back and made sure yours was the first face she saw. Erica was right, sweet girl. Some people don’t deserve a second chance. But that’s up to them.”

“Megan?”

She spun around.

Hugh came up behind her. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t look at him directly for a moment. “How’d you find me? Follow the music?”

“What music?”

Megan turned to introduce her surrogate parent to the guitarist…

He was gone. In his place, the guitar in its case, with her name embossed onto it. Megan Alman. She looked back at Hugh in disbelief. It was the first time she had ever seen her name with his like that.

Hugh didn't even look surprised, just somewhat reassured. “Do not forget hospitality, for through it some unknowingly entertained angels.”

~~/*\~~

Megan came into the house, with her new guitar slung across her shoulders. She went straight to Kasumi and gave her a tight hug. “I was wrong.” She said quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“All this time, I was comparing God to everyone else who offered me a better deal. But everyone who acted like they cared about me or Erica? The first and only thing they did was try to toss us in a place we hated, and tell us we had no choice. God put us together and gave us all the choices.” She buried her face in her mother’s chest. “I don't want to turn out like her.”

“You won’t, sweetie.” Kasumi promised. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“I know I won’t.” Megan whispered. “And just so you know, the reason for that is you.”

Kasumi froze for half a heartbeat, and gave her daughter a hug that never seemed to end. “Don’t run away again tonight?”

“Not tonight.” Megan promised. “Not ever.”

~~/*\~~

“What scares me?” Kasumi commented later, as they got ready for bed. “Is that it’s not going to be an isolated case. There was so much hatred in OS. So much that it was all that got a lot of people out of bed in the morning. God can move mountains at will, but human hearts only by consent.”

Hugh almost laughed bitterly. “A rock so big, that even He can’t lift it.”

Kasumi slid down under the covers a bit, shivering in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. “I never appreciated what a powerful thing Free Will could be. Imagine God, too big for the whole cosmos to contain, and here we are, tiny specks of nothing. He knew better than us, and He cared if we suffered. He could have easily decided it would have been a kindness to turn us all into drones and make us stop doing such stupid hurtful things.”

Hugh smirked bitterly. “And yet, here we are, insignificant specks of nothing, able to defy the Almighty at will, as though we knew better.”

“I wanted to tell Megan that it had less to do with us and Erica, and more to do with Jehovah.” Kasumi whispered. “Why didn’t I say it on the spot?”

“Because we’re trying to wrap this girl’s head around three unimpeachable truths. One, that she is loved. Two, that she is safe. And three, that she is forgiven. All of those things come from God, but they all come from us too. If she’s been struggling all this time to believe it when we say it, then accepting her place in God’s Kingdom is a whole other conversation.”

“You don’t believe her story about the guitar player?”

“I believe every word. I saw the wings my first day here, and it still took me a few weeks. I must admit, I hadn’t thought of it quite the same way, but I’m sure God mourns every lost lamb that doesn’t want to come home.” Hugh kissed his wife’s cheek as they settled in for sleep. “But our kid is going to stay in her room tonight, and she’s accepting us as her mom and dad. She’s never thought of a family as a good thing, and now she does; and that’s no small miracle. If God mourns Erica like we do, He'll celebrate her calling you 'mom' just like us.”

Kasumi slid down into bed and turned off her lamp. “I have to admit, as much as Megan’s wondering if it’s her fault, I’m sort of wondering the same. I can’t imagine being so used to misery and hurt that you simply can’t process love and kindness.”

“It’s sad, I know, but here’s the thing: Erica could have if she wanted to. If she was willing. She knew what was going to happen, even if she hadn’t accepted it.”

“Are we sure about that?”

“If she wasn’t making an informed choice, she’d still be alive.” Hugh nodded. “It’s a fact of life, you can’t confess to a suicide run.”

“You think Megan’s going to be okay?”

“I think she’ll be fine eventually.” Hugh promised. “Kids who have lived the kind of life she has? They get a pretty good grip on what’s really going on. Megan and Erica had no tolerance for lies. She just needed to know that God cared about Erica as much as she did. She needed to think of God as being part of the loving, supportive family that rallied around her on her bad day. Now she’s made that much of a breakthrough. The rest is love and patience.”

Kasumi smiled a bit. “Fortunately, for the first time in her life, she’s in a place where both those things are easy to find.”

“It was a hard day, but there are finite number of bad days, and an infinite number of wonderful days to come.” Kasumi snuggled into his side, and he was more than willing to return the embrace. “Love you, husband.”

“Love you, wife.”