Writing on my phone and tablet while on my trip to see my dad (who is out of the hospital and in a skilled nursing facility for rehab) so please forgive spelling errors. Writing is a good distraction and something to do when waking up way too early alone in my dad's empty house. So here is a short chapter.
By the way, just learned yesterday of news reports that Johnson and Johnson knew some of their talcum powder was contaminated with asbestos (apparently deposits of the two substances are often found near each other) and did nothing about it, thereby exposing all of us who used it to potentially being at risk for mesothelioma. And of course I used it for a couple of years for work purposes to set makeup and I'm sure I inhaled the stuff. Lovely, right?
"I am not a hopeless cause, am I?" Wickham asked Rebecca. He heard a slight whine in his voice when he asked that question. He did not want to be pitied or humored, coddled or consoled. He wanted her to honestly tell him that everything would be fine.
Rebecca gave him a solemn look, "That Wickham is entirely in your hands. God's grace is freely available to you, but you must be willing to accept it. So far any desire I feel in you to do so is restrained by the chains of your selfish nature, chains that you have fashioned yourself from links made of resentment. I have one final vision to show you, perhaps that yet will make a difference."
"Do you mean to show it to me now?" He asked.
"I leave it to you to decide," she responded.
"Yes, let us conclude this matter," Wickham said decisively, feeling anything but decisive. I do not wish to be a hopeless cause, but if hopeless I am I might as well finish with this purgatory of the powers that be fighting over me like two dogs tugging on one bone. Then I can get on with living my life such as it is without them focusing on me.
Muck whispered in his ear, "You are so very important to have such attention. God cares because you were treated unfairly over and over. Why will He not avenge you?"
In Wickham's quarters Rebecca considered what to do to combat Muck, who was on Wickham's chest. Muck was normally invisible to human sight and his words always appeared to his subjects as their own thoughts unless he made himself known. Rebecca who could see both what humans did and beyond their visible spectrum, into infrared and ultra violet, saw Muck as lots of little infrared particles clumped together. Currently, he was a misshapen thing that clung to Wickham with irregular tentacles that snaked through every opening on Wickham's face.
This interaction was euphemistically referred to as "whispering in the ear" because the reality was too awful. A soul strengthened by God's power could push demons out, but a soul like Wickham's, thinned out by years of misuse had many holes, a sort of swiss cheese on a microscopic level which a demon could thread through to reach the brain. Rebecca could see bits of Muck twisting its way through Wickham's mouth, nostrils, eye sockets and ears, following nerves and directly interacting with his brain, with Wickham's soul no protection at all. In reaction to Muck's whispering Wickham was again feeling that he was a wronged party.
Rebecca was frustrated but tried to not let her frustration show to Muck. She had such hopes when first given this assignment but wondered now whether Wickham's lasting resentment of Darcy, which still clouded his perception and overlay everything could ever be overcome and if Wickham could objectively see how he himself was wrong. Rebecca understood that Wickham still felt too superior to see himself as others did. Perhaps the vision of his future is what he now needs. Rebecca paused to pray earnestly for Wickham's redemption. She felt peace come over her as she again placed the outcome in God's hands. She, herself, did not know what the view of Wickham's future would reveal. She only knew it would track the timeline of how others reacted to his death.
The mist began to form as Rebecca followed Wickham's directive but just as it was the thickest, obscuring both the present and future, she felt a surge of panic from Wickham and he shouted, "Stop!"
She did then, leaving them in the mist as she sensed the mist itself was not the problem."
"I am not ready," Wickham confessed and then asked, "Can we go to the forest instead."
"Of course," she replied. She found herself curious as to what Wickham wanted to talk about before he saw the vision of his future.
