A Warmth in Winter Page 25

  He held his breath until his head broke the surface, then he began to swim in what should have been long, sure strokes. As a seasoned sailor he swam like a fish, so why did his arms and legs feel like lead?

  The cold. The villainous cold had attacked his limbs, as it would soon attack his lungs and incapacitate every cell in his body. In his urgency to reach the children, he’d underestimated its power on his aging body.

  Stroke. He lowered his head and thrust out an arm, forced it past his benumbed body, but he could see nothing but darkness. Was he horizontal? Was he still swimming toward the dory?

  Stroke. He pulled with the other arm, forced it to sweep back to his side, commanded it to push against the water that felt like stinging alcohol on his skin. He tried to move his other arm, found that he couldn’t, and had the presence of mind to turn and float on his back.

  An old sailor’s trick—the best way to conserve energy. Fill the lungs and float, curling into a ball if you had to, and wait for drowning or hypothermia to overpower you.

  “Where’d the old man go?” Charles asked. He and Babette stood at the railing with Birdie now, and she could feel their fear. The searchlight operator hadn’t taken the beam off the kids for fear of frightening them, so Salt was swimming in darkness.

  Moving with quick, powerful steps, the captain joined them at the rail. Birdie stepped back to ask him a question and frowned when she noticed a white ponytail at the back of his cap. Since when did the Coast Guard allow their members to wear long hair?

  She brushed the question aside. The man could have hair down to his knees for all she cared. “Captain,” she touched his arm, “please, how do we get them on board?”

  “We get Cap’n Gribbon first,” the officer said, accepting the life preserver another sailor handed him. “The children are dry as long as they’re in the boat, but a man can’t survive in these waters for long.”

  “The old fool,” Charles muttered. “What was he thinking?”

  As a rush of defensiveness fired Birdie’s blood, she swiveled to face Georgie’s father. “The children couldn’t hear the bullhorn above the wind. He was afraid they’d fall in.”

  “Salt Gribbon,” the captain called, leaning over the bow railing with the life preserver in his hand. “Do you hear me?”

  By some miracle, Salt heard. “Aye,” came the weak response.

  “I’m going to throw you a life preserver.”

  “No.” Salt’s wind-borne voice had a haunted quality, but Birdie recognized the stubbornness in it.

  “Salt Gribbon, you obey this man!” she yelled into the darkness, leaning over the railing as far as she dared. “For once in your life, don’t argue!”

  The wind whispered his response: “Get . . . kids . . . first.”

  “We can’t do that, Cap’n.” The skipper of the rescue ship lifted his head toward the children, and one of the sailors handed him the bullhorn. “Kids?” the captain called. “We’re going to have to take the light off you for a moment.”

  The children must have heard, for Brittany began to wail. “Noooooooo!”

  The captain looked at Birdie. “Please, Miss Wester,” he asked, his eyes at once gentle and powerful. “Will you talk to them?”

  Trembling, Birdie took the bullhorn from his hand and leaned over the railing. “Listen, Brittany, we’re going to come out and get you in a minute. But first, we’ve got to use the light to find your grandfather. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t wanna be in the dark!”

  Birdie clutched the railing, her heart torn. She didn’t want to plunge the children into darkness, either, but if Salt were to be saved—

  Birdie watched, amazed, as Bobby lowered the oar he’d been holding and put his arm around Brittany, then looked up into the light. “It’s okay,” he called, his voice distinct and strong for one so young. “We’ll be fine. Please save our grandfather.”

  The captain didn’t hesitate. “Move the light!” he called. Immediately the searchlight shifted from the dory and moved unerringly toward an object floating off the right bow—Salt Gribbon.

  The captain expertly drew back his hand and tossed the life preserver, which fell within inches of Salt’s limp arms. But the stubborn lighthouse keeper did not move.

  “Salt!” Birdie screamed, hysteria rising in her chest. “You take that line and you take it now!” She knew what he was doing, but this was not the time nor the place to punish himself for the children’s mishap.

  Finding courage from some place deep inside herself, Birdie snatched the bullhorn she’d returned to the captain. “The children are all right,” she called. “They’re waiting for you to reach out. Catch the line, Salt. Your grandchildren want you safe.”

  And then, while the group at the bow watched, Salt’s fingertips appeared against the stark whiteness of the bobbing life preserver. Charles, Babette, and the captain yelled encouragement as he looped his arm through the circle, then the skipper gave the order to pull him in.

  As a pair of sailors lowered a rubber raft to go fetch the children, Birdie waited by the railing until Salt was brought aboard and taken to the cabin. She turned her back as a couple of the sailors stripped off Salt’s wet clothes and wrapped him in a large towel, then they laid him on a cot and covered him in layers of blankets.

  When he had been safely tucked in, she sat beside him and ran her fingers over the soft beard on his cheek. His bleary eyes met hers, and his mouth moved for a moment before sound crossed his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I’m not,” she answered, placing her hand full against his face. A moment later the cabin door opened and Bobby, Brittany, and Georgie swarmed into the room, accompanied by Babette and Charles, the captain, and a pair of smiling sailors.

  “Were you scared?” Babette kept asking, her arms around her son. “We were so worried!”

  “We weren’t scared at all,” Georgie said, puffing out his chest. “Brittle-knees said that as long as we held up the assistants of God, we’d be okay.”

  Babette looked at Birdie, a confused expression on her face.

  “The assistants of God?” Birdie asked, looking from Brittany to Bobby. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  Bobby grinned as he looked at the tall, white-haired skipper. “I remembered,” he said simply, “when Moses held up the big stick and won the battle. God told him to hold it up, and when he got tired, his friends helped him.”

  “We helped hold it,” Georgie said, flexing his muscles. “We held up that oar for hours!”

  Birdie looked at Salt, who closed his eyes. “Thank God,” he said simply, reaching out for Bobby’s hand.

  “Everybody warm up,” the captain said, walking to the wheel. He glanced at Salt. “Sir, we’ve tied your boat to the stern and will haul her in for you. Everybody is safe and sound, so our mission is accomplished.”

  “God bless the Coast Guard,” Babette whispered, wrapping her arms around her shivering son.

  Shifting her gaze from Babette, Birdie saw the white-haired captain smile.

  Drifting on a tide of fatigue, Salt floated in and out of consciousness, weighted by a weariness that seemed to drag body and soul into the depths of darkness. In clearer moments he felt himself being lifted, then heard a hum of voices that faded to a silent echo. Some still-functioning part of his brain registered soft sheets, a warm bed, and the faint scent of lilacs.

  But none of that mattered. The children were safe, his secret had been revealed, and soon the world would know that he’d stolen his grandchildren and proven himself an unfit guardian. Soon bureaucrats from the State of Maine’s Social Services Department would descend upon Heavenly Daze and take the children away.

  “You worry too much, Salt Gribbon.”

  The voice, powerful and unfamiliar, jerked him from the benumbing darkness. Opening his eyes, Salt turned his head and saw that he was not alone. A man sat in a chair across from the bed—a man dressed all in white, with snowy hair spilling over his shoulders. His
eyes were the most piercing shade of blue—

  Salt sat up and stared, tongue-tied, when he recognized the fellow. Why had the Coast Guard captain come into his bedroom?

  “It’s not your bedroom,” the man said, his voice calm and matter-of-fact. “You’re in a guest room at the Baskahegan B&B. The lavender room, Cleta calls it. Rather charming, don’t you think?”

  Nonplussed, Salt could do little but nod. This had to be a dream. No one could read a man’s thoughts.

  “It’s no dream . . . well, not like any dream you’ve ever had. Consider this a visualization, if you like. A special gift from the Father.”

  Salt felt his mouth go dry. “Whose father?”

  “Your Father, the Almighty God.” The man stood, then held out his hand. “Come with me, friend. Don’t worry—the Lord will supply the strength you need. You have only to trust.”

  Salt clutched at the blanket. What was this, some deranged version of A Christmas Carol ? Whatever it was, he didn’t need it. He was no Ebenezer Scrooge. He was a fair man, an independent man, a man who wanted only to be left alone to do what duty demanded—

  A faint smile played at the corners of the stranger’s mouth. “God knows who and what you are.”

  Salt blinked several times in rapid succession, hoping the man would disappear and prove to be a figment of his imagination. But the image persisted.

  “Who—who are you?”

  The seaman’s smile deepened. “I am a messenger from the Most High God.”

  “Not a Coast Guard captain, then. And not a ghost like the Spirit of Christmas Past.”

  “I am a captain. I am called Gavriel, but you can call me Gabe.”

  As the name registered with his dizzied senses, the being who called himself Gabe stood and gripped the back of Salt’s shirt—an odd flannel pajama top at least two sizes too big and decorated with little red fire trucks. Before Salt could protest the strange clothing and the even stranger situation, the room filled with bright light and a whooshing sound. Cleta Lansdown’s curtains and doilies and bed ruffles flapped and fluttered in an invisible wind, then the double windows blew open and Gavriel carried Salt out into the night.

  Salt blinked in stupefaction as the ground flew away from his feet. Together they rose above the island, its outline dimming and eventually becoming lost in a diorama of lights from the coastlands below.

  “Is this dangerous?” Salt gazed around in wonder. “I mean—can’t I get radiated or something up here?”

  Gabe smiled. “You’ll be fine,” he said, his voice reaching Salt’s ear despite the sound of rushing wind. “Your body absorbs radiation all the time, both from the world and from your own body. Your cells can usually repair any damage, though. In fact, without the natural background radiation the Lord designed for this planet, your cellular repair mechanisms would become dormant, making you much more vulnerable to sudden bursts of radiation.”

  Salt swallowed the information with a simple “Oh.”

  “Every second, every human on earth is penetrated by more than one hundred cosmic rays,” Gabe went on, apparently warming to his subject. “In the same second, more than fifty thousand gamma rays from your surroundings zip through you at the speed of light, while thousands of potassium atoms and two or three uranium atoms within your body release more radiation. With every breath, you take in several radioactive atoms that decay in your lungs.”

  Salt forced a laugh. “Reckon it’s a miracle I’ve lived to threescore and ten, heh?”

  “Every day is a miracle, Captain. But life is not the miracle I’m to show you tonight.”

  Salt squirmed in his pajama top. “I can’t fall, can I?” He dared not look down, but he couldn’t help but see that they now flew over a glittering array of lights. Boston? Washington, DC?

  “You cannot fall. You are held in the palm of God’s own hand.”

  Salt didn’t feel terribly held by anyone or anything, but he kept his mouth shut. Up and up they flew until the rushing wind grew silent and they moved through utter soundlessness. Holding his breath, Salt wondered if they had crossed into outer space, but the blackness was like that of the sea at night, the stars like the reflection of a million tiny organisms that spun and glowed in the deepest compartments of Davy Jones’s locker . . .

  That’s all this is, a dream springing from my subconscious—

  But suddenly the angel roared upward in a blaze of brilliance so stunning that Salt threw up his arms and still his eyes burned behind his fists and his closed eyelids. He could feel light pressuring his eyes and knew he couldn’t open them without blinding pain. Even behind his fists and lids, his pupils must be mere pinpricks, so intense was the light—

  “Humble yourself,” Gabe said, his voice now a reverent whisper. “You are about to behold the throne room of God.”

  Still hiding behind his hands, Salt whimpered. “I’m in heaven?”

  “No. You’re being allowed a glimpse; the things you see are only a shadow of the glory that exists in the third heaven. Your mortal body could not survive the journey into that realm.”

  And suddenly the blinding pressure eased. Lowering his clenched fists, Salt saw that they were moving through an atmosphere the color of a Maine sky on a summer’s day. Bright lights winked through this firmament, and as each light approached Salt caught a glimpse of a face and smile, then the dazzling creatures passed with no more sound than a sigh.

  He and Gavriel flew on, toward a gleaming temple with pillars that radiated in a soft golden glow. Through a courtyard they moved, over a sea of those intelligent, brilliant lights.

  “What are they?”

  “The spirits of those who await the resurrection,” Gabe replied.

  On the wings of this celestial morning they descended into a chamber dominated by a throne so impressive in its brightness that Salt’s weakened eyes ached to look at it. A man sat upon the throne, and at their approach his eyes lifted—

  Salt covered his face with his hands. “Is that—”

  “Yes,” Gabe answered. “The Ancient of Days, the Alpha and the Omega. He who was, and is, and is to come. He who is holy.”

  Salt cringed, knowing that he reeked of grief and guilt. The ravages of his life on earth clung to him like smoke from his woodstove, permeating his clothing and pores and even his soul. “You’ve brought me here to die,” he cried, tears stinging his eyes. “I know what the Good Book says. No man can see God and live.”

  “That’s right, for God is a spirit, and only those with spirit eyes can see spiritual beings,” Gabe answered, his voice but a breath in Salt’s ear. “The souls you see as lights below—they see him, they know him. But until you are incorporated in spirit, Salt Gribbon, you must see him as he is.”

  Salt raised his arms, determined to flee from the sight.

  “I can’t!”

  What had he done to merit this supernatural interrogation? He had done wrong, he knew it, but he was willing to pay for his pride and stubbornness. Let them come and take the children; let them take everything he owned. He had been wrong; he did not deserve to live. He was guilty, guilty, and he knew it. He had been willing to die in the sea; he was willing to die now.

  So why was he here? As a child he’d been taught to honor and obey God, except the preacher in his small church had always pronounced the word Gohd, as if it must be spoken in an affected and holy whisper. Gohd , the preacher had frequently intoned, did not suffer fools. He watched over all; he kept accurate accounts, He knew when every single person sinned and fell short of his holy standard. Therefore every man had to fear Gohd, and tremble before him, lest he be cast aside in the final reckoning . . .

  “Salt.” This voice was new, but it resonated through every fiber of Salt’s being. It was the voice of knowledge, love, and justice.

  “Salt, do you not know who I am, even after all the time I have been with you?”

  Lowering his hands an inch, Salt peeked over his fingertips. The One on the throne had risen and seemed to be s
peaking to him alone.

  But I can see you!

  The Lord smiled. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

  Gabe whispered in Salt’s ear: “The Word became human and lived on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And now you see his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.”

  Salt felt his spirit wavering before the steadfast concentration of those loving eyes.

  Why have you brought me here?

  “Because I long for your companionship.”

  The words were spoken without rancor, but they fell with the weight of stones in still water, spreading ripples of guilt and conviction. Salt bowed his head, unable to face the loving rebuke in those eyes.

  “Because God’s children are made of mortal flesh and blood,” Gabe whispered, “Jesus also became flesh and blood by being born in human form. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the Devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he deliver those who have lived all their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.”

  Salt felt a trembling arise from some place at the center of his soul.

  “Do you not see?” The angel’s voice softened. “It was necessary for Jesus to be in every respect like you, his brothers and sisters, so he could be your merciful and faithful High Priest before God. He then could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. Since he himself has gone through suffering and temptation, he is able to help you when you are being tempted—or when you’re afraid. He endured it all for you, Salt—so you wouldn’t have to endure pain alone.”

  Like a careening vehicle, the truth crashed into Salt full force, wrenching a soft cry of despair from his battered heart.

  What a fool he’d been. Self-reliant and stubborn, he had scorned Birdie’s help, refused the town’s assistance, and ignored this Savior who stood ready and willing to give grace and comfort and fellowship. Oh, he’d muttered perfunctory prayers every night when the children first arrived, but he’d addressed them to the great and powerful Gohd, never really believing that he would be interested in Salt’s situation. And then, as time passed and Salt’s little family settled into a routine, he had convinced himself that he hadn’t needed Gohd after all. He alone had made things work.