An Echo in the Darkness(130)

Marcus lay upon his own coat and stared up at the heavens, his mind in chaos. Someone had said sometime during his travels that Jesus had been called “the Good Shepherd.” Or had it been Hadassah who said it? He couldn’t remember. But, oh, the peace to be like one of those dumb sheep, watched over and provided for and protected by a Shepherd whose existence seemed to be simply that, the tender care of his sheep.

Again and again Marcus returned to watch, and still the pain tormented him, worrying his mind like a dog worried a festering wound. His heart was raw. He wanted to resurrect Hadassah in his mind and, each time he tried, remembered her death instead, the violence and horror of it.

Why? His heart cried out. God, why?

Without warning, he dreamed again one night, this time of a fiery pit inhabited by tortured beings writhing in the flickering dark light. It became more intense, more vivid, until he could feel the heat and smell the sulfurous smoke surrounding him. Terror filled him, and then a flicker of hope as somewhere far above him, out of sight and reach, he heard Hadassah crying out to him to come to her.

“I can’t find you!” he cried out in anguish and awakened abruptly, bathed in his own sweat, his heart pounding.

Night after night the dream returned, torturing him. And then, as suddenly as it had begun to plague his nights, the dream stopped, leaving a void far worse. A yawning darkness surrounded him—and, exhausted, he felt himself fall into it.

Haggard and unkempt, Marcus wished for death, for an end to torment. “I know you’re there. You’ve won! End it!” he cried out to the skies.

Nothing happened.

He went down to the shores of the sea and sat staring out at the rippling water for hours on end. The wind was cold and cut into him, but he scarcely felt it. A vision of himself came to him. It was so clear he might have been standing before a mirror, yet he saw beyond . . . into his soul. He covered his eyes, gripping his head, and heard his sister’s words.

“I heard what she said to you! I heard her throw your love back in your face. She preferred her god over you, and you said her god could have her. Well, now he shall!”

Marcus groaned. “No.” He held his head tighter, pressing, wanting to crush the words and images from his mind.

“You said her god could have her!”

“O God, no . . . !” If not for him, she would be alive. It was due to his own rash words, words spoken in hurt and anger, that she had been sent to die.

“I did it for you!” Julia had cried that day when Hadassah had walked out on the sand to face the lions. And though he cried out against it, he could no longer turn away. It came upon him like a storm wave, overwhelming. He saw Julia, the sister he had so loved, wild with fury, hands clutching at him and screaming.

“You said her god could have her . . . you said her god could have her . . . you said—”

“No!” he cried into the wind. “I never meant her to die!”

“You said her god could have her. . . .”

The wind came up strongly and Marcus remembered his last words to Hadassah in the upper chambers of Julia’s villa: “Your god can have you!”

He had wanted her for himself, and when he couldn’t have her, he had walked away full of rage and contempt.

And she paid the price.

On his knees, he covered his head. “I deserved death, not her.”

With the dark silence came the weight of judgment. He knelt on the shore until the wind died down and stillness fell around him. Digging his hands into the sand, he lifted his face. “I came to curse you, but I am the one who is cursed.” No still small voice spoke to him. He had never felt so alone and empty. “Why should you answer me? Who am I? Nobody. What am I? Nothing.”

He felt swallowed up by guilt and vomited on the sand in remorse, for he knew he deserved worse for his part in what had happened to Hadassah. He couldn’t run and hide from it anymore. “If you are God, take justice. Take justice!”

The soft wind rippled the waters, and a gentle wave washed the shore. He heard the old woman’s words again, as though whispered to him over the water.

“Until you find God, you live in vain.”

He saw the vanity all his life had been and the bleak, dark nothingness that stretched out before him. He was convicted of his sin. His own life should be forfeit. Despite Julia’s part in what had happened, it should’ve been him that day, standing on the sand. Not Hadassah. She had never done anything deserving of death. But, looking back, he could see the countless times and countless ways he had taken a path deserving of death.

He waited for judgment, but God was silent. So Marcus rose to his feet and judged himself. He proclaimed his guilt and handed down his sentence . . . and walked into the sea.