Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

A winding set of stairs led up to the second floor. There were four bedrooms there, each one larger than the last. I visited each of them in turn, walking around fallen curtains and the strewn clothes that people had left behind as they fled. Inside the last one, there was a small bed stripped down to a dirty mattress. Next to it was a nearly empty bookshelf and a single window with torn Spider-Man curtains.

I drew the curtains out of the way. The neighborhood spread out below, black and pale gray where the moonlight struck. I tried to picture the place before the war, the drab houses painted in bright shades of yellow and blue, surrounded by yards so lush they seemed to smolder beneath the summer sun.

Now the empty houses made me think of seashells washed up on the beach. I imagined you could put your ear to them and hear the echoey sounds of the people who had lived there — bodies moving from room to room, distant voices.

I ran my hand down the dusty spines of the books that had been left behind on the shelf. An odd warmth came over me as I recalled a time when James was four and I was six. We had both fallen to the flu and collapsed into our beds for three full days, sweating with fever and groaning from aches that made it seem like our muscles had been tied into thousands of tiny knots.

Those three days had been torture — I knew that — but when I recalled them now, the pain and fear seemed distant, like things I had heard about but never actually felt. The only times that seemed to have any weight at all were when Mom and Dad crowded into our room to feed us ginger ale and read to us in low soothing tones. I could still feel my mother’s palm resting on my forehead, and my father’s voice, and the feeling of the four of us in that room, bound together in a way that seemed unbreakable.

It was strange that memory could do this, reach into our history and twist it into simpler, happy shapes. But didn’t I already feel the agony of our trek across Utah’s desert less keenly than the warmth of Bear in my lap as we watched the stars turn? Wasn’t the horror of our first days with the Path less present in my mind than the nights James and I laid up in the barracks whispering back and forth in our bunks? I wondered if this was a gift our memory gave us, or a curse.

There was a flash and the walls of the house shook from another bombardment out at the front. I looked down at the bed, which seemed as small as a dollhouse toy now, and then left the house to stand on the overgrown lawn.

The fighting had kindled a fire out on the northern horizon, a red streak singeing the black. Beyond it Ithaca sat like a bend in the earth, the gravity of it pulling at me. One word and I was through the lines and on my way. And if Nat succeeded, the war might be as good as over. Ithaca would remain untouched.

I pictured myself there and wondered how long it would take before the sting of the price Nat paid for my freedom faded in my memory too. A year? More? When would her death seem like just another detail, known but not felt?

Would the memory of Grey fade then too, along with James and Bear and Alec and all the rest? And if they did, if I looked back into my past and nothing was there, who would I be then?

A helicopter came in over the treetops, heading for the front. I stepped back and then made my way quickly through the streets, past the houses and the woods and the ragged little town. The next thing I knew, I was crouching in the brush outside the perimeter of Kestrel. I found the break in the fence and slipped through and across the silent camp.

I fell into a bunk and lay there sleepless, hoping I had the strength to carry out the plan that was clicking together in my head.

When Beacon Radcliffe arrived at the Lighthouse the next morning, he found me feigning sleep at the tent’s entrance.

“Son?”

His hand touched my arm. I leapt away in terror. “I’m sorry, sir,” I said, cowering away from him. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s all right,” he said, backing off with his hands up to reassure me. “Don’t be afraid.”

He took a step closer and held out his hand. I regarded it warily for a moment and then reached out to take it.

“Rough place to sleep,” he said as he pulled me up. I shrugged and kept my eyes on the ground. “There’s a little time before services still. Why don’t you come in?”

Radcliffe threw aside the tent flap and I peered inside.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s all right.”

I stepped through the tent flap, moving hesitantly like I expected someone to come along and strike me at any moment. Radcliffe followed and let the opening fall back into place. There were already a few lanterns burning, filling the Lighthouse with an amber glow. He set his copy of The Glorious Path on the altar and said a prayer.

The place had changed since I’d been there just the night before. A stage had been built beneath the altar, raising it high above several added rows of pews. Racks of folding chairs sat in one corner, ready to be placed behind them. When they were, I guessed the Lighthouse would hold a hundred more people than usual.

“Is there something going on tonight?”

Radcliffe looked over his shoulder. “Oh. Yes. There’s a… special service. I’m sorry to say that very few novices will be invited.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, I can go if you need to—”

“No. Please. How can I help you, ah…”

“James,” I said.

“There’s no need to be afraid, James. Sit down. Please.”

I took a seat in the second row of pews, and Radcliffe sat in front of me. He was a kindly enough looking man, plump, and bald on top with a weathered face. I looked up at a brand-new Glorious Path symbol hanging over the altar. The old one had been brass and aluminum. This one’s gold and silver curves gleamed in the lantern light.

“Couldn’t you sleep in the barracks?”

I kept my eyes on the altar and made my voice far away and dreamy. “It was fine, I just — I guess I felt… drawn here.”

The beacon smiled. “Yes. I feel like that too,” he said. “I used to be an accountant. Can you believe that? I sat at a desk all day long, looking at pages of numbers and fiddling with a computer. Now I never want to be more than ten feet from this place.” Radcliffe looked down at my cast and my old bruises. “You were badly hurt when we found you. Sick too.”

I nodded, cradling my broken wrist and wincing as I did it.

“What happened?”

“There was a battle,” I said. “Not far from where I lived. After it was over, there were so many injured people but there was only one doctor. He used to work for my dad, so I got this cast, but everyone else… they waited for more doctors to come, from the Army or the government, I guess, but no one did.”

Radcliffe shook his head. “It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

I stared at the floor and answered him with silence.

“Why did you come here, James?”

My head throbbed at the sound of the name. Why had I chosen it? “Some of the other men said they had to make a… a…”

“A choice.”

“Yes. They said when it came time for me to do it, I should just tell you whatever you wanted to hear because you’d hurt me if I didn’t.”

“And do you think that’s true? Do you think that’s how it works?”

I raised my shoulders weakly. “The doctors told me I might have died if you hadn’t been there to save me.”

“Well, I’m glad we could be, then,” he said. “There are a lot of rumors about the Choice. But do you know what it really is?”

I shook my head, and Beacon Radcliffe turned toward me on his pew.

“We believe there is a light inside all of us that comes from God. The Choice is simply you committing yourself to following the path that it illuminates.”