LO, I WILL TELL YOU A MYSTERY

Chapter 4 Joan's Secret

After having dinner in their hotel, Joan and her Dad retreated to their room, basically a single large room with two beds.. Joan was getting a little nervous. One of the advantages to being the only girl in the family was that she had a separate room at home, a retreat where she didn't have to be "on guard" against giving herself away to other people. That was important to a girl who was harboring a very weird secret.

But now she was going to be around Dad all evening and through the night. Joan was afraid of blurting something out. She vividly remembered how Grace had overheard one of her conversations while sleeping over last summer -- though, in fact, God had intended it that way.

"Did you and Mr. Mars figure out anything while we were out?" asked Joan, considering that a safe topic for conversation.

"We came up with several suspects," Will replied. "There's one of them that you might be very interested in. Ryan Hunter."

Joan gasped. Whatever you called her special relationship with God -- errand girl? Handmaiden? -- Ryan Hunter had done it earlier and for a longer period of time. But his relationship had soured after his fiancee had died in an accident and Hunter had blamed God for not saving her. Hunter knew about Joan and had once tried to tempt her away from her calling. Fortunately, he had left Arcadia last fall, after Luke had dug up information on his earlier life, and she had been able to put him out of her mind.

Will knew little of that, of course. To him, Hunter was a half-crazed rich man who had committed hate crimes, desecrating the local church and synagogue in Arcadia, plus lying about his past..

"When you originally tried to tell me Ryan Hunter was a criminal a year ago, I didn't believe you, and it was one of the worst failings of my career," said Will. "I'm not going to make the same mistake again. So what led you to expect that he was guilty of the sabotage?"

"He paid me a visit the day before, in my bookstore, and talked about how he hated God. So I figured he was the one behind the desecrations."

"Why would he tell you that?"

"It's complicated, Dad." Joan said evasively. How could you tell an atheist that you worked with God?

"We have all evening. And if there's a link between you and him, I need to know. That might affect how we investigate him."

Joan thought quickly. "Well, you already knew he had weird ideas. Somehow he got in his mind that I was special. A prophetess, or saint, or something. He thought that it was important to win me over." There. I've planted the idea of what I'm really like, blaming it on Hunter. If I have a chance to tell the truth later, at least the idea's in the open.

"Where did he get that idea?"

"I don't know." I really don't. When we first encountered each other after Adam's rescue, he looked at me and immediately knew my secret, and I never knew how. Maybe that's a gift you get after serving Him for a certain period.

"It might have been dangerous to refuse to cooperate with him, Joan."

"I didn't think I was in danger. Violence, physically hurting people, didn't seem to be his thing. He damaged property -- what he considered God's property."

"But the Rivers' auto accident--"

"Maybe he's changed, or maybe it isn't him."

"Good point. I'll think about it. Thanks, Joan, you gave a lot of information which may prove useful."

They talked of other matters -- Joan's upcoming wedding, the final months of high school -- until it was time to go to bed. To Joan it was an example of how close she and her Dad could be, when she wasn't keeping a secret.

Why do I have to lie? Because he wouldn't believe the truth, of course. Unless God backed me up, as He did with Luke and Grace, and later Adam. I wish He would. But if only we had a more open relationship, like Veronica and her Dad---.

With those thoughts in mind, she fell asleep in her bed.

She found herself walking down a dark path of packed earth. There were skeletons standing/hanging (she couldn't tell which, and didn't want to examine the matter in detail) on each side of the path, grinning at her. Well, of course they couldn't help grinning, but there seemed something derisive about it. In the distance she heard something go Hoo-hoo-hoo, but could not see anything. The only source of light was a full moon, and that only illumined objects close by.

"Am I in Hell?" she called out.

"No, Joan," said a voice, which made her jump even though it was soft and gentle. She turned around and found herself staring at Goth God. "This is my version of Heaven."

"Well, you could've fooled me."

"What was fooling you was cultural conditioning, Joan. The full moon, the owls hooting, the skeletons of the dead -- none of this is evil in itself. They are all part of nature, as good as the sun, and eagles, and the living human body."

There's a lesson in this, but I've got better things to think about at the moment. "All right, have it your way. I've got a question. Why can't I tell Dad about you?"

"Nothing is stopping you."

"You know what I mean. I need you to back me up, or otherwise he'll think I belong back in Crazy Camp. You did it with Grace and Luke."

"Grace and Luke already believed in Me, in their own ways. It was part of Grace's family heritage, and Luke had read Einstein's sayings about me. But how would your Dad react?"

"I guess he'd be upset," admitted Joan.

"Exactly. 'God' has negative connotations for him. So either he would think that his daughter is enslaved by something evil, or that his philosophy of life has been wrong."

"Well, it IS wrong, isn't it?"

"Not in an important way. Your father has developed a moral code of helping and protecting people. He doesn't associate it with Me because he has a bad idea of Me, but I'm cool with that. He's doing the right thing." Goth God waved his arm at the weird surroundings. "That's why I'm showing you THIS. To teach you that Godliness can exist in forms where you would not recognize it. Do not worry about him, Joan. Worry about the men who would create a car crash, or mug a woman on a sidewalk."

Joan tried to push the worry about her Dad out of her head. "So that's the real mission now? Solve the mystery? Nothing to do with Veronica?"

Goth God grinned. It made him look like one of his skeletons. "Oh, Veronica's involved too. Didn't anybody ever tell you about multitasking?"

Joan groaned. This really did look like a nightmare

TBC