Chapter 21 Daylan
twenty-one
Daylan
I tilt my face to the sunshine, sitting on my stump by the front of the cabin.
The trees sway with a gentle breeze, leaves falling to the ground at my feet.
Lazarus’ axe rests against my leg and I hope I will not have to use it, because it is a beautiful day out here in the woods.
I feel foolish, but the crisp fall day is helping my mood.
The scent of dirt and pine is softening the edges left behind inside me from hearing of Father’s deceit, but it still stings to think of.
I ache for Lazarus as well. For the broken man he has become and the person he could have been had Ezekiel not set his sights on him when he was just a child.
I believed I knew sin, but I had no real understanding until those words fell from Lazarus’ lips.
It is all so messy inside my head that I can hardly think clearly, so instead I sit here on my stump, watching the leaves dance in the sky above.
The cabin door behind me creaks and I glance up to see Lazarus standing there, his face pale and his body hunched. He wears only his overalls and I catch him shivering in the breeze, but he doesn’t comment. Instead, he grabs the axe from beside me and clears his throat.
“I’m going to go chop some wood,” he says. “I think better when I am working.”
“Okay.”
“Here. Keep this with you. It’s not much, but it will stick good into a neck if one of them comes for you.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a handled blade. I take it from him, turning it over in my hands.
“Thank you.”
“Stab,” he says. “Don’t slash. Shout for me and I will come help.”
“Okay,” I repeat. He stoops and presses a kiss to my forehead, then heads over to the edge of the woods.
I watch him scan the trees before stepping into them and nearly disappearing.
The sound of chopping wood meets my ears, and I take a moment to look around me to be sure nothing is stumbling at me out of the woods.
Everything is clear, at least for the moment.
While this cabin is tucked between trees, it’s been fairly quiet aside from the one day we were attacked, which I suppose is why Lazarus picked this place to keep me.
I sigh, turning the knife he gave me over in my hands, staring into the shiny blade while wondering if this is the weapon I may have to use to defend Bright Haven against the person who handed it to me.
A small laugh escapes me as I consider Lazarus and his axe versus me and this knife.
I know who will win that battle, and it isn’t me, but I will die trying to protect the innocents there.
Henry and his little sister with their syrup-sticky hands.
His father, who is a good man, and mother, who is gentle.
Lazarus has not met anyone who has come to the community since he left, and I refuse to believe that those who were not there to see the malice done to him should suffer for it. That is the one clear thing in my mind as I sit and listen to the sounds of the forest.
Everything else is layered with sadness and confusion.
My belief is shaken, and all I have known since I was a child is crumbling inside of me.
I don’t know if I can believe in the God that Bright Haven does.
I don’t even know if that God is real, or was created by Father.
Since we began comparing scripture, I have had questions in the back of my mind that have eaten at me slowly, and now, faced with Lazarus’ truth, they are at the forefront of my thoughts.
If God’s word is really contained within the Book of the Father, then how did it also exist with differences in the Seekers Book of the Faith?
If the passages I memorized throughout my youth and hold dear to my heart have been altered by Father, then whose words are they, really?
If there were no set of verses existing to guide the Lamb, then how did Ezekiel function and rise to his duty?
I know the answer to that one as it crosses my mind, and my stomach turns sour.
He didn’t rise to any duty except harming the man who now cuts wood in the forest. Lazarus says they were called the Seekers of Salvation, but clearly all Ezekiel sought was pleasure while harming another so deeply that the wounds still linger years later.
It is no wonder that Lazarus accused me of being a secret sinner when he first captured me.
In his mind, he is still that little boy being hurt by someone who once was me.
Who sat in my spot and wore the title of Lamb bearing none of the responsibility to Bright Haven.
The title of Blessed Lamb is not meant to be a weapon, yet that is how Ezekiel treated it, using it against Lazarus and ruining him.
There are too many things to think about, but there is no way to distract my brain from thinking through them.
I am deep inside my mind, trying to piece it all together when a small crack echoes through the forest coming from my left.
The rhythmic chopping sound of Lazarus cutting trees still exists in the near distance, but this sound was closer to me than that.
I stand and grip the knife in my hand, heart pounding like a drum inside of my chest. No more noise comes, but I am shaken, and my safety in this forest is at the forefront of my mind, pushing everything to the back.
The question of what made that noise is the distraction I had just wished for. Ask, and God will provide, I suppose.
I have just settled down inside when another cracking noise comes from the same direction.
I scan the trees carefully and can see something moving within them.
I cannot make out what it is, but that doesn’t matter.
Anything in these woods brings danger. I have only to look at the bite mark on my arm to know that with certainty.
“Lazarus!” I call, gripping my knife tight. I brace, preparing to defend myself against whatever is coming towards me, muscles tensing and stomach rolling.
Then, a figure steps out of the woods. He is tall and broad, dressed in black pants and a black sweater with the attached hood pulled over his face.
There are no bones sticking out of his flesh, nor is he stumbling like a zombie through the branches on the ground.
He appears alive and whole, which confuses me while also setting off alarms inside my mind.
“Who are you?” I demand, raising my knife.
“Woah,” a voice I recognize says. “Holy shit. You’re still alive?”
It can’t be him, but as the man lifts his hands and pulls the hood away from his face, my eyes pop open wide in shock. “Arn?”
“Good morning, Lamb,” he says, a grin on his lips. “I am very pleased to see you, but pretty fucking surprised if I’m being honest.”
“Have you come to rescue me?” I ask, still holding tight to my knife because of all the men at Bright Haven, this one I know I cannot trust. Memories of his closeness with Father rattle through my mind, and I frown at Arn, who just smiles back at me.
“You could say that,” he comments. “Though I believed you were long dead. It has been over a month, Lamb, since the Devil took you. I thought I would find your bones.”
“Over a month?” I ask. Time has flown by here in this cabin despite there being nothing to really do but sleep, eat and pray. We have lived here according to need, not following the rising and setting of the sun.
“Yeah,” Arn says, taking a step towards me.
“Lazarus will be back,” I warn, holding the knife out in front of me. “He is in the woods.”
“Is he? Good. I will wait for his return then.”
“You will regret that decision, Arn.”
“We’ll see.” Arn grins, his sandy blond hair flopping down off the top of his head and falling over his eye. He reaches up to push it away, and open my mouth to speak again but I don’t have time to saying anything before Lazarus comes barreling through the trees, axe clenched in his hand.
He steps between me and Arn, shielding me with his body, arms outstretched to his sides.
There is a silence that lingers between them, then Lazarus lowers his arms and steps towards Arn.
Arn moves towards him in response, and I grip my knife tight as the need to defend myself rises inside me, only to be snuffed out entirely as I watch them embrace each other.
“Hello, old friend,” Lazarus says, as Arn’s eyes meet mine over his shoulder.