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  Noah stood and said, “What is Barak doing?”

  “He is preparing firewood,” Enoch said.

  Noah sucked his teeth and tried to avoid looking at the food on the table.

  “Eat,” Enoch said. “Barak is not angry you tried to steal food. He already offered what you took, save the knife. And you returned that.”

  Noah sat cross-legged before the table and ate, knowing he must consume as much as he could to fight the sickness that tightened his throat. When he finished, he stood and gathered water in a cup.

  “Follow me,” Enoch said.

  Noah downed the water and followed him through the door.

  Behind the home, Barak stood with his axe in hand and paid them no mind as they passed. Enoch neither prayed nor spoke, though he took uncomfortably wide strides, forcing Noah to rush. As they passed under a low tree branch, Enoch snatched a leaf and continued.

  The old man seemed to take turns with no more guidance than whichever path was the easiest—now turning left to avoid thorns, now descending a ferny valley to avoid a rocky hillside, all the while nearly going in circles. When given the choice between a bog and a hill, he ascended the hill and sat at the top, laying the leaf on the ground before him.

  Noah sat facing him and mirrored the man’s crossed legs. “So,” Noah said, struggling to excise the disdain from his voice, “when does my training begin?”

  “It began more than a day ago. You’ve done nothing but fail, which is precisely why we are sitting on this hill.”

  Noah reached for the leaf, but Enoch slapped his hand hard enough to drive an ache through his bones. Noah scowled and rubbed his knuckles.

  “Don’t ruin my illustration.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That leaf is you,” Enoch said.

  Noah stared at it with one eyebrow raised.

  “You have been snatched from where you belong,” Enoch said, “severed from the roots that would otherwise nourish you. Just like this leaf, the longer you remain separated from your beginning, the more you will deteriorate, until you can no longer fulfill your purpose.”

  “And what is my purpose? To save the world?”

  Enoch rocked back as if Noah had struck him. “Of course not. What gave you such a ridiculous idea?”

  “You did, you old fool.”

  “If you fail, the world will be destroyed, but you were never tasked with saving it. No man ever will be, save one, and you are not him.” Enoch reached toward Noah’s forehead, but Noah struck his hand away.

  Enoch caught Noah by the wrist and squeezed. “I may stoop as I walk, but it would be many years before you could hope to best me, even with a weapon in hand.”

  He let go, and Noah stood and turned away as much to hide the heat rising to his face as to avoid looking at Enoch any longer. He hated how the man’s eyes probed. How his bent posture held a strange confidence. It reminded him very much of Methuselah, and of his father.

  “Sit down,” Enoch said. “I wasn’t finished.”

  Noah turned and lifted his foot to kick sand into Enoch’s face, but one look at the man’s expression stopped him. He growled and sat back down hard enough to send a bit of grit into Enoch’s teeth, then folded his arms and glared. “Get on with it.”

  “Do you know how we came to be on this hilltop?”

  “You led the way,” Noah said.

  “I’m looking for the symbolic answer, not the obvious one. Apply your mind and answer appropriately.”

  Noah took a deep breath and let it out slow, consciously willing his fingers to relax. “We took the easiest paths.”

  “Wrong. We took the less difficult paths.”

  Noah couldn’t stop the incredulous chuckle that escaped his throat.

  “Think about it,” Enoch said.

  “I did.”

  “The difference resides in the attitude.”

  “Are you trying to tell me I like the easy way?”

  “You may be foolish, but you’re not lazy,” Enoch said. “When tasked with getting from one cliff to another, rather than climb or search for a hidden path, you would rather jump to your death. The Old Way is neither the easiest nor the most difficult path—or in your case the impossible one. The Old Way is the less difficult way, though it often doesn’t appear so.”

  “I’d only jump off a cliff if I saw no other way.”

  “Exactly. Which is why I have been sent to you. You are brash. Impetuous. Easily angered and disturbed. You face an enemy beyond you, forced into an impossible situation.”

  “You’re the only one who’s disturbed,” Noah said. “Just tell me what the Old Way is so we can be done with this.”

  “The Old Way is not some principle of carpentry. It is a lifestyle. You can only understand it as you live it. I am not here to teach you concepts so much as to equip you emotionally and spiritually so that you might experience the Old Way and allow it to transform you.”

  Noah considered that. “This isn’t going to be quick, is it?”

  Enoch chuckled. “What is Time to the Almighty?”

  “Will the Old Way help me reconnect with my father?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps. Maybe not. It hardly matters.”

  Noah tore up the grass and tossed it to the slight breeze cresting the hill. The blades shone as they spun, reflecting the sun, scattering light as they scattered themselves. “How am I supposed to know which paths to choose? Is it just some random dance?”

  Enoch lifted the leaf between his thumb and forefinger, twirling it before his eyes. “If you walk with the Almighty and daily seek his face before anything else, he will speak to you.” He blew on the leaf, sending it fluttering in a new direction.

  “What if I don’t understand him?”

  “He wove you with his own Word. He knows how to speak so that you will understand.”

  Noah stared at his hand, subtly stained green by uprooting the grass.

  “You are displeased?” Enoch said.

  He could not remember the precise moment the burning returned, but nonetheless it was there, spreading through his chest. “I must leave my family, my dreams, and my desires to sit on a hilltop and follow an imaginary being that I don’t believe exists. And every important choice for the rest of my life must be defined by what makes me the more perfect person you and this invisible being expect me to be. Correct?”

  “Hardly.”

  “What am I missing?”

  “In worshipping the Creator who made you for his own good pleasure, you will please yourself.”

  “The last thing I want is to please your God.”

  “That’s because you do not know him yet.”

  “Do you know what it’s like to never know your mother? To have your father torn away? To see the only woman you ever called family murdered in front of you?” The burning rose to the backs of his eyes.

  Enoch’s voice settled. “No, child.”

  “Then you have no right to tell me what I want. Because the only thing I desire is to kill the God-King like he killed Elina and my mother.”

  “You think that will satisfy you?”

  “I do.”

  “And what happens once you’ve succeeded and the ambition gives way? What will be there to greet you?”

  “The drive to find the rest of the Others and do the same to them.”

  “You are not special in your pain. Your ambition is not driven by the loss of your family, but by something deeper and more primal. We are all born forgetting our Creator, and life is but a long discovery of his goodness. Pain, many times, is the pathway that teaches us. In time, you will see. I pray sooner rather than later.” Enoch rose, set his hands on his hips, and popped the bones in his back. “That’s enough for today,” he said. “Your training will resume tomorrow. I need to spend more time in prayer before we continue.”

  Chapter 52

  Jade squeezed her eyes shut, but no matter how hard she tried, sleep eluded her. She only wanted to return to dreaming
so that she might steal another glance at Mother’s smiling eyes.

  She thought she had known pain until she saw her mother murdered. Now, each moment that slid by seemed a little more of the stuff of life lost to the dust.

  She rolled to her side and saw a white lily laid an arm’s length away. Barak had offered it nearly an hour earlier. She knew the flower’s form held beauty, yet could no more feel its beauty than she could feel her mother’s hand on her shoulder.

  However, all of Elina’s mistakes and loveless distance now seemed emptied of substance. Jade knew her mother deeply flawed, yet finally, in death, somehow Elina’s love had been freed to touch her.

  “It’s sick,” she whispered to Enoch’s God. “You’re sick.” Because if he truly were in control, surely he would know . . . how cruel that is.

  The door creaked, and Jade did not look, for she believed Barak returning. Then she heard Noah’s voice speak her name. “Jade.”

  She turned and met Noah’s gaze. He stood alone beside the knee-high table. A boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the intensity of manhood thrust through green eyes.

  She knew she must face him, even as she’d avoided him these past days. For she could not bear to lose him. She loved him more deeply than ever, but when he looked at her, she heard Elina’s screams and felt the pain of that knife at her own throat.

  She could endure the pain for a time, but soon it strangled her, until she needed to push him away to breathe more easily.

  “Jade,” he said a second time.

  She looked away as he sat in front of her. She picked up the lily between her first and second fingers, twirling it, studying its curves and silken texture. “You returned quicker than I expected.”

  “Enoch said we’ve done enough today.”

  Jade nodded and broke the stem. Clear fluid oozed from the stem onto her fingers.

  “I don’t think I can do it,” Noah whispered. “Do you really believe what he says is true?”

  She folded the remains of the flower on itself and broke it again. “What would change if I didn’t?”

  A pause. Then, angrily, “Nothing, I suppose.”

  Jade crumpled the petals in her fist, tossed them away, and lay down again, turning her back to him. She felt she would cry, though she could identify no reason why.

  “It’s not my fault,” Noah said. “What happened to her.”

  Jade’s body shuddered.

  “So stop blaming me,” he said, and the words pricked her like a thorn in the side.

  He stood and exited, slamming the door behind him, making her jump and whimper beneath the covers.

  Chapter 53

  The next day, Enoch took Noah on another walk. This time, Noah was expected to listen to Enoch’s prayers. When it came time for him to mumble assent, he let out an involuntary snort.

  “You’re being insincere,” Enoch said, and stopped them short.

  “How can I be anything else?”

  “By choosing to be sincere.”

  “You want me to lie?”

  “Repent for not believing, and ask the Almighty to give you the strength to believe.”

  Noah rolled his eyes, but the old man was watching, so he followed it with a shrug and walked on.

  Enoch didn’t follow. “I’m waiting for you to say it.”

  Noah turned back, balled his hands into fists, and spoke each word slowly and deliberately. “Dear Almighty, forgive me for not believing. Make me believe you so that this fool servant of yours can finally give me peace.” And he turned and began making his way back to Barak’s home.

  Enoch followed and said, “Where do you think you’re going? We’re not done yet. Get back here.”

  Noah flicked his wrist in dismissal. “Apparently I need to spend more time in prayer before we can continue.”

  ...

  Later that night, after Noah calmed enough to speak with Enoch, he interrupted the man’s evening prayers by asking when they should expect to leave Barak’s home.

  “I don’t know,” Enoch said. “That’s why I’m praying.”

  “You’ve been praying since the sun set,” Noah said. “How could you have anything left to say?”

  “Because I’ve not been speaking. I’ve been listening.”

  “What has he said?”

  “Nothing.” Enoch opened his eyes. “Silence can also be a gift. There is great peace to be found in it, if you know what to listen for.”

  “Right.”

  “If you sit down, I’ll show you.”

  Noah groaned. “Do you really think I want your training after earlier today?”

  “Just hush and sit. You don’t have to fake anything. Just sit and listen.”

  Noah looked toward Jade to see if she was watching, but she was sleeping again, a crumpled heap beneath animal skins, seeking dreams for what life could not offer. Barak had left to hunt for food and wouldn’t be back until deep in the night, so Noah had little else to distract him. He wasn’t tired, so sleep seemed an impossibility.

  He sighed, sat where Enoch indicated, and said, “Fine. But I’m not doing anything weird.”

  Enoch closed his eyes. “No reason to.”

  After a long, uncomfortable silence, Noah said, “What am I supposed to do?”

  “First, stop talking. Second, focus on the quiet. Let your thoughts, worries, and cares fall into it.” Enoch opened one eye and smirked. “Or you can just sit there.”

  Noah tried to do as Enoch said, attuning his ears to the quiet. After a few moments, the sound of blood rushing to his ears intensified, followed by the deafening ring of silence.

  Silence is nothing. What’s the point of focusing on nothing?

  Is something supposed to happen?

  I don’t hear any voices.

  Apparently neither does Enoch.

  He said I’d feel peace, but I don’t feel any peace.

  Father is gone.

  Elina is gone.

  Jade is angry at me.

  Stop. Try to focus on the silence again.

  Okay. There it is.

  Right beneath Enoch’s loud breathing.

  “It’s not working,” Noah said.

  “Of course not,” Enoch said.

  “What am I doing wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing you say ever makes sense.”

  “You don’t have the strength to do it right.”

  Noah slapped the floor. “Then why did you tell me to try?”

  Enoch opened his eyes and stared at Noah with such intensity it sent a shiver down his spine. “You couldn’t be born on your own. You can’t breathe on your own. You can’t live another day on your own. You think you want justice, but if justice were allowed, you would be slaughtered with the rest of us. You are nothing special, save that you belong to the Almighty. That you were formed to reflect his glory, the same as the rest of us. Our purpose is to worship the Almighty, and to offer everything we have to him. It is only when we offer up our will to the Almighty and declare that we can do nothing apart from him that we will be able to do anything but die.”

  Noah scoffed. “Then how can I deny the Almighty’s existence?”

  “He gave you the strength to do so,” Enoch said.

  “How does that work with what you just said?”

  “The Almighty gives you the choice to deny him to intensify the meaning of choosing to love him. If that makes no sense to you, think about if Jade could choose nothing but to love you. Wouldn’t her love become meaningless?”

  “You never speak this straightforwardly. What else are you trying to get at?”

  “You should expect yourself to hate the Almighty, because that is your nature, just as it is my nature. We must die so that he can live. We must sacrifice our will, our lives, everything, and petition him to give us the strength to love and choose him. Only then will we live out our destiny. Only then will we find peace. But I promise you this—the peace, joy, and hope that you will find by walking
the Old Way cannot be stolen. The Old Way is sacrificial. Death is the ultimate fear, so if you’ve already died, your fear dies with you. That is why I spend so much time in prayer. That is why I sit here listening to the silence. Because I can throw all my selfish desires and ambitions and sin into that great abyss, and out of it comes nothing. Then, after I am emptied, the Almighty pours himself into me, replacing every dirty, broken part with wholeness. He restores my soul.” Enoch’s eyes shone as he said, “That is the Old Way. Believe and be whole or reject him and die a thousand deaths.”

  Noah leaned back, only now becoming aware of his fingers clenching his tunic.

  “Now,” Enoch said, and closed his eyes, “if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish praying.”

  ...

  Over the next week, the days fell into a familiar pattern. Noah would wake to the sounds of Barak working outside. In the mornings, Jade refused to speak, so Noah would accompany Enoch on his walks and listen to his ramblings.

  Enoch told stories of ancient times. Of the beginning of the world and the first years of humanity.

  At times, Noah was certain the man was insane. At other times, Enoch’s words struck a chord so unexpectedly profound that he wondered if the man truly did know the world’s deepest secrets.

  In the afternoons, after Enoch and Noah returned, Jade would speak, though in a stilted, limited fashion. Noah would tell her of his training, his doubts, and all he nearly believed.

  Jade would nod and agree, but she never spoke as she used to. Her haughty laugh and glittering eyes had been stolen, along with the rest of the life Noah had known.

  Ten days after they arrived at Barak’s home, Enoch declared that they must go to the City. When asked why, he replied, “The Almighty spoke.”

  “When will we depart?” Noah said. “And will we return?”

  “We will depart tomorrow morning. I do not know when we will return, or even if we will. Barak will accompany us, for he needs to replenish his supplies. Beyond that our way is unknown.”

  And so they prepared for their journey.