As the days and weeks pass, I speak daily from my bed. At first, Martha only allows one hour per day of speaking, so I can continue to rest, but as I gain strength, she slowly loosens the restrictions, until I’m speaking and answering questions from around the world. People are truly hungry to hear and understand more of the word of God.
There are some questions about the torture I endured, but I tell the world that I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Instead, I limit the discussions to the Bible, and to what I saw and thought when I was back in time - particularly my interactions with Jesus. The one question I can’t seem to answer about time travel is about how Jocie died. Every time I try, I’m just too overwhelmed to continue.
One trauma counselor tries to get me to speak off camera about my thoughts and feelings, but I just can’t do it. I’m not even ready to relive it privately with Martha. Every time I even think about the brutal beatings, I get short of breath and the images flash into my mind. Sometimes I even start shaking. One counselor suggests I try a new enhancement that’s shown promise in blocking unwanted memories - and is politely shown the door.
Time will help this wound to fade; but the memories and emotions are going to be with me for rest of my life. I’m not sure I’d want to erase them, even if I could. Like both love and sin, the memories are a part of me now. So although the images cause me pain, in an odd way I cherish them as a reminder that - through it all - God was with me.
“I need to get out of this room, and out of this house,” I say to Martha one morning, when the camera in my room is turned off.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” she says. “Why don’t we go up into the mountains to a hot spring…”
“Actually, I have a place a little homier in mind. We’re going to Ogallala. There are a couple of things I need to do.”
“It’s a little late to ask my father for my hand in marriage.”
She rubs her stomach, which is now much more than just a little baby bump.
“Perhaps … but that’s not what I need to do. There are several pieces of this puzzle that still need to be put into place.”
Martha sighs, and closes her eyes.
“Can’t we put it behind us? You can fool everyone else - but you can’t fool me. I see the faraway look in your eye, and know what you’re remembering. I feel you shaking and sweating in the night, and I curl around you and hold you until you relax. I want it to be over, Cephas. I want to be done with the secrets, and the hiding in the shadows. I want us to be free.”
“Me too. That’s why we need to go to Ogallala. This will be good for me. I promise.”
I smile, and kiss her on the head.
“What does a wife need to do to get all of your secrets out of you? Travel through time again?”
*****
It takes some time - and a lot of convincing - to allow me to travel anywhere without Secret Service protection; but, in the end, they’re persuaded by the fact that I’ll be taking a team from Four along with me. In truth, the only members of Four who know what’s happening is the only security team I’ve ever needed: Martha and Cindi.
The tube ride from Colorado Springs to Ogallala, Nebraska is quick, and I’m soon enjoying a walk in the sun with Martha and Cindi along the South Platte River. It’s a warm day for April and we walk slowly because Martha is due to give birth anytime now, and because months of lying in bed have left me weak and stiff.
“Nervous?” Martha asks.
“No, but only because they don’t know I’m coming,” I reply.
“Your first Easter dinner with Aunt Kimberly. She’ll be so happy to finally wash that empty plate…”
“… and with your parents. I warned you months ago that if I didn’t meet them by video, Jocie would be born before I met them. We’re just barely making it in time. Speaking of time, you and I still need to make a stop before I make my surprise Easter appearance.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Cindi asks. “I mostly just get in mom’s way in the kitchen.”
“I’m sure. This is a special visit for me, and I want to take some time at their headstone. Besides, you can always go to a computer and track where I am, if you want to.”
I laugh, and hold up my wedding band.
Martha and Cindi stop dead in their tracks, and look at each other first, and then at me.
“Who told you?” Martha asks.
“Who told me you put a tracking device in my ring, way back at Bethany House? Nobody told me. The pieces of the puzzle just came together when we were in Sheridan.”
“I’m never planning a surprise party for you,” Martha says.
We reach a hover station on East A Street, and after hugs with Cindi, we head in opposite directions. I smile, when I see the ancient cemetery again. Its many acres of broad trees are just starting to bud in response to the warm spring sunshine, and I can’t think of a place that looks more restful.
Unfortunately, the dead are going to get no rest here today.
“I’m glad you asked me to come along,” Martha says. “I thought you might want to see their headstone alone this time - considering what you did to it the last time we were here. Have you thought about replacing it?” Martha asks.
“We’re not here to mourn. We’re here so you can learn one of Four’s best kept secrets,” I reply.
“The engravings on the headstone?” she asks, and I simply nod.
There’s an older couple strolling randomly through the graveyard, this Easter Sunday. The woman is wearing a very old-fashioned hat with a black veil, and the man is sporting a hat and sunglasses. I last saw them after I baptized them in the Trinity River in Dallas. At my request, Brill sent them a message, asking them to meet me here today.
Martha and I reach the headstone, and lean against an ancient maple tree to give Martha a rest. We say nothing, but we can both hear the couple approaching from behind us. Martha squeezes my hand, not knowing if she should be ready for danger or not.
“Planning a combat roll with that beach ball in your belly?” I ask.
“You’re nervous. I can feel it through your hand,” she replies.
“Secrets inside secrets; puzzles inside puzzles,” I say. “This part of the puzzle is about to have its last piece pushed into place.”
The woman looks eager to speak, but the man walks up beside me and reads the headstone.
“James and Hannah Paulson. Those are some names I haven’t heard in a while. They died in that horrible tube wreck all those years ago, didn’t they?” he asks.
“So they say,” I reply.
“The headstone looks like it went through the wreck with them,” he adds.
“The four of us have a lot in common with that stone,” I reply. “We all served a purpose and those purposes all included suffering some pain.”
I look at the woman, as she pulls back her veil. She looks agitated to the point of exploding.
“You’ve always had the most beautiful eyes,” I say.
She can’t take it any longer, and leaps at me - holding me in ten years’ worth of maternal embrace.
“Take it easy, Mom. There are spots on my back that still hurt, and probably always will.”
“I take it the engraving did its job? I knew someday you’d see it and figure it all out,” dad says, as he joins the hug.
“Puzzle pieces only fit together one way,” I say. “I just had to go looking for the two pieces I thought had been thrown away when I created my own solution. The file Aunt Jennifer showed me - as well as the classified report from the F.B.I. - never made sense. The Corps concluded that mom’s homemade incubator was used to experiment with the toxin and the vaccine. When I realized the headstone said: “When given time to incubate,” I knew mom had used it to incubate tissue samples containing your DNA to leave in the tube car. It fit perfectly with the F.B.I. finding that the DNA had some ‘aberrations.’ They wrote the aberrations off as contamination, but the real reason is because you grew them in a petri dish. You both got haircuts just before the accident so you could leave hair samples, too. It all just fit. I got Brill to admit that you’d been taking Capon Springs water - laced with vaccine - around the world for the last ten years.”
“I loved and hated every minute of our role in God’s plan,” Mom says. “We lost ten years of watching you grow up.”
“I know. Growing up without you wasn’t easy, but it was always part of the plan. Besides, we’re together now.”
Martha clears her throat.
“Can I join this hug?” she asks.
“Of course, dear,” mom says. “This hug is for family.”
We talk for a long time. Martha and I tell them about time travel and meeting Christ and the Apostles, and they tell us about travelling the world to vaccinate believers. Dad finally cuts it off.
“It’s getting late. Right now, let’s focus on what you’re suggesting we do today. Are you sure this is a good idea? They think we’ve been dead and gone for ten years. How can we just show up for Easter dinner? Maybe some things are better left in the past,” Dad says.
“Have you never read the story of the prodigal son? They’ll be shocked, but you’ll be welcome,” I reply. “We’ll do it in stages. They don’t even know that I’m coming; so I’ll show up first, and then I’ll signal you on a com so you can arrive just in time for pie.”
They look at each other, trying to decide.
“It’s the only way you’ll get to meet your granddaughter,” I say.
“Kimberly has always made a pretty good pie,” Mom says, and smiles.
*****
Martha and I go back to the tube station and I wait out of sight, while her parents pick her up from the car they think she just arrived in. I hang around in the station for a while, and then catch a bus to the other side of town.
Martha signals me through my com, and I arrive at Aunt Kimberly’s house at just the right moment. I let myself in through the back door and silently walk to the dining room where I find everyone around the table with their eyes closed and heads bowed in prayer.
There’s a hearth on the wall opposite me. Above the hearth is a picture of an old man with just a crust of bread on his plate with his head also bowed in thanks for what little he has. It’s all such a beautiful sight that I want to weep.
Aunt Kimberly is seated at the head of the table at one end, and Uncle Trevor is at the other. All of my cousins are here, as are Martha’s parents, and her brother Eddie and his family. At my request, even Albert is here. I’ve never met some of them, and yet I feel like I’ve been sitting at this table my entire life. My heart positively melts when I see the empty seat that’s been reserved for me all of these years, and tears start to roll down my cheeks.
“I can’t help but notice that you have an extra seat,” I say.
There are a few surprised gasps, as eyes open.
“Aunt Kimberly, do you mind having another plate to wash?”
At first, all eyes focus on me; but my gaze is locked squarely on Aunt Kimberly. I see heads turn to watch her face. She stares at me, as if she’s seeing me in a dream and is afraid that if she blinks, I’ll disappear again. Eventually, her eyes soften a little and begin to water, while her lower lip begins to quiver.
“How I’ve dreamed and prayed that someday you’d walk through my door and dirty that plate,” she whispers.
“I know. Thank you for never giving up on me,” I whisper back.
*****
When the plates are all washed and dried, Aunt Kimberly brings out three pies. I offer to get the dessert plates, and take a moment to send a message via my com.
“Cephas, you brought two extra dessert plates,” she remarks, when everyone has been served. “I could start setting one out for Jocie, but who is the other one for?”
“Aunt Kimberly. Do you believe that Easter is a day for new beginnings?” I ask, as mom and dad ring the doorbell.
*****
Hours later, when the crying and pandemonium have died down, I find myself sitting quietly in the corner of Aunt Kimberly’s living room, simply observing my new family. Mom and Aunt Kimberly are remembering their childhood, as they try to reconnect after ten years. Martha is telling her parents and brother about her time travel adventure, and persuading everyone to get married.
Seeing me sitting by myself, Cindi crosses the room.
“Figuring out a new puzzle, Cuz?” she asks.
“This one is out of my league,” I say with a laugh.
“I have something for you,” she says.
She hands me the pouch filled with gems that I plan to give to Jocie someday.
“I don’t think you need me to watch after this - or Martha - anymore.”
Dad comes over, and Cindi turns to him.
“There’s something I’ve wanted to know, but I never thought I’d get the opportunity to find the answer,” she says to my dad.
The room quiets, and heads turn to hear what she’d like to ask the uncle the world thought was dead.
“Technology was pretty good ten years ago, but I looked at the vaccine sample we had before it was lost at Bethany House. It was a very complex artificial virus. How in the world were you able to create it, and what made you think to distribute it in spring water?” Cindi asks.
Dad looks at me, and I look first at Albert, then James.
“You didn’t tell them?” dad asks me, and I shake my head.
“I didn’t create the vaccine, or think to distribute it through water. Cephas did,” dad replies to Cindi and the room.
“How could he? He was only eight-years-old?”
I dump the contents of the gem bag into my hand and hold up one of the smoky green crystals.
“Before we blew up the smaller time machine in Israel, Albert and I stole the key components,” James says, and Geoff’s jaw drops. I don’t think either twin had kept a secret from the other - before now.
“You used the device the day we lost Bethany House,” Geoff says. “I saw the data download from when you used the panic button. I knew there was something strange about the way the power went out, and how it took the Feds an hour to get there. It’s because the Feds didn’t cut the power. The blackout was from the time machine drawing power to send the vaccine sample back in time. Then you blew up Bethany House to hide the evidence.”
“You did it, Cindi,” I say. “You and Amelia made the vaccine that saved us all. You just needed more time.”
“That reminds me: I believe this belongs to you, my dear,” Mom says to Martha, as removes the ancient gold locket from around her neck.
“You used it to send a chip with the information,” Martha says.
“Okay. So you sent the vaccine sample and instructions back in time, and those instructions were added to the last page of the notebook to prove that Uncle James and Aunt Hannah weren’t conspiring to commit genocide. So, where did Uncle James hide the notebook page that we looked for all over the country, but never found?” Cindi asks.
Dad retrieves a pack he has been carrying since Dallas and pulls out a dodecahedron shaped puzzle about the size of a beach ball.
“No way,” Martha says. “It sat in your Aunt Jennifer’s house for the last ten years?”
I pull a few key pieces and the orb disintegrates into thousands of unique pieces that clatter to the floor, leaving an ancient sheet of greenish lined paper in my hand. Although I wrote the letter just a few months ago, it’s faded and worn where it was folded and unfolded many times. I open it and begin to read. As I do so, Dad begins to recite it from memory:
Dear Mom and Dad,
This is from your son, Cephas, writing to you from the year 2202. The metal cage in the abandoned tunnel in Bethany House is part of a time travel device which I’ve used to transport this package to you. In your timeframe, I’m just six-years-old; so there isn’t much I can offer as proof that this is really me - other than this.
Dad? Do you remember asking me: “Cephas, why do you like puzzles so much?”
My answer was: “Puzzles are like secrets that only the puzzle maker knows. It’s fun to know secrets, especially when people don’t know that you know their secrets.”
I know your secrets. I know you’re Christians and that you founded a new Christian group known as Four. My journey to get here was long and difficult; but now I’m also a member of Four - and Four needs your help.
Your prayer group includes people who are experimenting with the toxin that was used in the Final Holy War. Their plan is to vaccinate Christians and then release the toxin to kill all non-Christians. Their unspeakably evil plan is going to fail and their research will end up in the hands of the government. In my time, the government has vaccinated all non-Christians and is about to release the toxin to wipe out all believers. We don’t have time to produce our own vaccine, but God has revealed enough pieces of this puzzle to prove to me that the only way to save us is by sending the vaccine sample found in this package back in time. All the information we have about the vaccine is contained in the data chip hidden in the locket.
Playing with timelines is a tricky thing, but I can give you one hint: Brill and Austin know about the vaccine, and how it’s distributed around the world. This is Four’s greatest secret and must be kept a secret, no matter the cost.
Dad? Do you remember the question I asked you that day? “Have you ever thought that maybe we’re all pieces in somebody else’s puzzle?”
I know the answer now. We’re all pieces in His wondrous puzzle.
Love, Cephas
“Puzzle solved?” I ask.