Chapter One: The Ides of March In my eyes, indisposed
In disguise as no one knows
Hides the face, lies the snake...
-- Soundgarden ("Black Hole Sun")
Jami stared intently at her Bible, but she was not reading any of the words on the tissue-thin paper. She was instead trying to keep a surreptitious eye on her brother, who was sitting on a couch two people over and looking as if he were just about ready to explode. Christopher's social skills had improved a lot over the past few months, but he still forgot to keep his mouth closed sometimes, especially when he was running out of patience.
She winced as she saw that his eyes were closed, and his head was slowly moving from side to side. This was not a good sign. Christopher did that whenever he was trying not to listen to something, and she knew tonight's aimless discussion must be driving him up the wall. It was hard enough for her to sit through it all, and she could listen to one of Holli's endless lectures on the importance of eyeliner without even blinking.
"...so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."
Asako finished reading the verse. She was a cheerful Asian girl with long raven-black hair. "I don't know, I just think that's really neat!"
Christopher's eyes snapped open suddenly. Oh, please help him keep his temper, Jami whispered under her breath.
"You think...what?"
Her brother's voice was low and controlled. Too controlled, Jami thought to herself. She could hear the venom lurking beneath his polite tone.
"Well, I just think it's really neat. You know. What the verse says, and all."
Jami had to bite her lip to keep from laughing when she heard Christopher groan, and saw him put his head in his hands. She could understand if he was feeling frustrated tonight, because she was, too. The last hour had been nothing but a repetitious circle of readings followed by agreeable but meaningless responses. It would have been almost funny, if it wasn't so painfully boring. Christopher smiled briefly, and for a second Jami thought they were past the danger zone, but she was wrong.
"I mean, don't you think so?" Asako looked to the rest of the group for support.
There were several nodded heads, and a few voices mumbled assent in one form or another. Jami desperately shook her head at her brother, but he ignored her as he closed his leather-bound Bible with an audible snap and rose to his feet.
"Yeah, it's really neat," Christopher echoed sarcastically. "It is the eternal Word of the Creator Lord of the Universe, and it's neat, you say? Well, that's tremendously insightful. We can all agree on that, can't we? The Bible is neat! It's really, really neat!"
Now it was Jami's turn to put her head in her hands. She didn't have to look up to know there were ten horrified sophomores, juniors, and seniors all staring at her brother with open mouths. This wasn't the first time he'd gone off like this in public.
Mr. Maples, the youth pastor who led the study group and was the only adult there, tried to defend poor Asako, whose cheeks were bright red.
"Really, Christopher, it's important that everyone shares their feelings -- "
"No, it's not!" her brother interrupted impatiently, his brown eyes blazing. "How many times do we need to repeat this nonsense? Look, we're all Christians here, right? And this is a Bible study, right? So can we just, once and for all, agree that everything in the Bible is really, really neat? Then no one has to mention it ever again! Yes, it's all neat and it's all good and it's all important -- so what? Can't we just forget about how it makes us feel, and for once talk about what it says we should do?"
"Sure we can," Mr. Maples assured him. "That's what we're here for, after all."
"Then why don't we ever do that?" Christopher asked, his voice suddenly soft. He pointed toward one muscular senior, a football player. "Blaine, you were asking why our prayers don't get answered, like when we prayed for Jim's shoulder and it didn't get better. Well, maybe it's because we don't do what we're told, or maybe it's because we really don't have enough faith. That could be all it is, you know? Either we have enough faith or we don't, and the evidence would seem to suggest that we don't!"
The youth leader frowned. He was a friendly, good-looking red-haired man, whose only flaw, as far as Jami was concerned, was the cheesy mustache which appeared to be some sort of occupational hazard. But, she realized, he wasn't really equipped to deal with her brother, at least not in this argument.
"I don't know, Christopher, I think you're treading on dangerous ground there. I mean, the last thing you want to do is question someone else's faith. Suppose there's a person who had a car accident, and they're in a wheelchair now. Is it fair to blame them for being in that wheelchair, to tell them that if they had enough faith, they could be healed? That's being pretty judgmental, and I don't think you'd want to go there."
Christopher smiled thinly. "Is it judgmental or is that just how it goes? Tell me, how many times in the Gospels does Jesus come right out and tell people that they had too little faith, Bob?"
Mr. Maples frowned and scratched at his mustache. Jami sighed, knowing Christopher wouldn't have asked the question if he didn't know the answer already.
"Why, I don't know."
"Twelve times, Bob. Twelve times. And he said, according to your faith will it be done to you. And he also said that nothing was impossible for us. Nothing. So I don't understand where the problem is. If the mountain moves, you've got enough faith. If it doesn't, you don't, end of story."
No one responded right away, not even Mr. Maples, to Jami's surprise. Christopher shook his head, in sheer frustration, Jami thought, not without sympathy.
"Look, I'm sorry, everybody, but I just don't see any point in what we're doing here tonight." He reached behind the couch and retrieved his blue jacket. "I should probably go. I'll see you all later."
Most of the girls were too surprised and upset to say anything, but Jami saw that Scott and Blaine, the Bible study's two seniors, were more amused than offended. Mr. Maples, though, looked worried as he walked her brother to the door and softly told him to take care.
"Well," the youth leader said as he returned to the living room. "That was certainly interesting! Does anyone want a can of pop or anything before we go on to verse six?"
Jami thanked Mrs. Maples for having them over, then walked out into the darkness as the door closed behind her. It was cold, and she could see her breath floating before her. The night sky was dull and dark as the clouds lingered overhead, threatening more snow, and she could not see the moon or the stars. But she was not afraid of the night anymore, not as she'd once been. Although she couldn't see her guardian angel any better than she could see the moon right now, she knew that Paulus was just as real and that he was somewhere nearby, watching over her and keeping her safe from evil.
Sometimes, she thought, it was easier to remember you were a Christian than others. It wasn't that she didn't believe in Jesus anymore or forgot who He was when she was at school or with her friends. It was just that it was so easy to fall into the flow of things, to go to school, hang out with everybody, and just live your life. Sometimes that was really all you did. And was that such a bad thing, when you were fifteen years old? What was she supposed to do anyhow? She was a freshman, after all, not a superhero. What was she supposed to do, like, save the world from itself?
Her boots made squeaky, crunching noises as she walked over the remnants of the icy snow that had fallen the day before, and as she passed the last of the study group's parked cars, she saw her b
