Martha came into the room. "Where did everybody go?" she asked with a smile.
"Mr. Kent had something he wanted to show Clark." She answered, but her mind was somewhere else. What did the costume mean? Were the Kents harboring the angel, keeping his costume for him? Since it was a sheep farm, had Martha Kent simply made the costume for him, but out of all the farms in the world…
When Clark and Jonathan came in, she squinted her eyes, trying to get an idea of what their face might look like from a great distance. Was it possible that one of them was the angel? It couldn't be Mr. Kent. She was sure the angel was younger and had darker hair. Her eyes fell on Clark. She didn't want to believe it. She had known him for a little over 3 years now. It didn't seem possible that he could keep such a monumental secret from her and yet, she had never seen him see the angel.
She couldn't just flat out ask him. If he wasn't, he'd have a good laugh and if he was, he likely wasn't going to tell her. She needed some proof.
She saw a strange glint coming from his pocket as the firelight reflected it briefly. It looked like a stone. Was that what had belonged to him, she thought with a laugh. Clark Kent, the rock collector, was a hero with miraculous powers? Still, he had proven that he was a hero.
---
The British troops had been driven out of New York at the end of that summer. Nothing much else had happened since then to further the American cause. The British weren't ones for fighting during the winter. They had settled into their winter quarters to celebrate the holidays.
A lot of the colonist soldiers' periods of enlistment were about to expire and General Washington knew he had to make another attack before the soldiers began to disperse. Now was the time. It was now or never. The troops were leaving on the 22nd of December. Clark and Lois were going to join them.
She was keeping an extra close eye on Clark ever since they'd left his parents. He seemed to notice it too as he looked over at her and smiled nervously every now and then.
They had the few meager possessions they were taking with them on their trip. They would have to go to the encampment alone as the troops weren't near Boston and then go with them to New Jersey. Suddenly Clark's eyes widened as if he heard something that she hadn't.
"I forgot something, Lois. I'll be right back," he told her.
"I'll go with you," she said.
"No, I can handle it. No sense in both of us going."
"No, it's fine. I have something I wanted to tell Perry anyway."
"It's not at the press shop. I—I'll be right back."
"There's a perfectly good row of shops here. Where are you going?"
"I'll be right back, I promise," he said, breaking into a run and disappearing around the corner.
She had the confirmation she sought, especially when he came back smelling like smoke, more strongly than when he left.
"Did you get what you needed?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, pulling a silver coin out of his pocket. "A friend owed me a debt. You should never go anywhere without money."
He had that coin before. She was almost sure of it. It was all a ruse.
It killed her to do it. She knew that he was the angel without a doubt now. He had to be. There were too many coincidences. She wanted answers and she wanted them now, but she wanted even more for him to trust her enough to tell her on his own. She sighed. It must be that pesky love thing getting in the way of confronting someone who had basically lied to her about something so critical, but she supposed everyone had their secrets, some bigger than others.
She shuddered to think of the description of the angel that she had given to Jimmy. Clark was there for that.
---
They'd been marching for a while now. Some of the men left their bloody footprints in the fresh pristine snow. Both Clark and Lois cringed to see them. It was as if they were cutting a bloody path to freedom and they were. All freedom both political and spiritual seemed to come at the price of blood. The right to govern themselves was being bought with these footprints. The snow would melt and take with it the visual reminder of the fact, but their blood would soak into the ground and remain there forever. It was a price that would likely have to be paid for again and again. A lot of the souls in this troop had been bought with the price of blood by the same being whose birth they would celebrate in 3 days and they would be slaying other souls that had been saved by that very same Christ child, maybe even on the very night of his birth.
It was tragic and Lois had to look up from the footprints and to the horizon, her eyes burning. War tasted more bitter with each passing battle. Clark took her hand and squeezed it and her focus came onto his clear blue-green eyes, making the journey just a little bit more bearable.
But maybe there were some things that were worth dying for, evidently God had thought so. Suddenly for the first time, she wasn't sure if this war was one of those things. She supposed time would tell.
TBC
