marriage checks every once in a while, and cards at Christmas (signed by his secretary).
Plus a topnotch, chain-smoking real estate agent mother (who must always be called “Claudette,” not “Mom”), who never had time or energy left over for her daughter. Except to criticize her for “dabbling around with those yucky paints that are just horrible for your fingernails, instead of learning something sensible. Besides, everyone knows that artsy-types are losers. So why do you want to hang around losers?”
Melinda was always tempted to retort: “So why do you hang around with your loser of a boyfriend, Matt Scherinski?” But she never did.
Even as a child, Melinda knew the heartache of having neither parent ever show up for her school events. Not even for her birthday parties. They sent expensive gifts, professional clowns, and nannies—when what she really longed for was their hugs and kisses. She’d tried so hard to be a “good girl,” to win their approval by excelling at tap, ballet, gymnastics, guitar—whatever Claudette signed her up for. But nothing worked. If it hadn’t been for Melinda’s sweet Grandma Jemima Jackson, a hard-working widow who loved the Lord and called Melinda her “sweetie-pie,” she would never have known real love and affection during those years.
Indeed, Melinda sometimes felt neither parent would even notice if she just dropped off the planet. Unless, of course, her paintings brought her instant, international fame. Or she nabbed a rich husband. Either of which she considered about as likely as her classmate, “Mr. Loser”—Harve, that is—turning into “Mr. Popularity Plus.” Why would she want to marry anyone, anyway, after seeing what happened to her parents?
And then one day she met still another student—Joshua Wayne Currie, tall, quiet, with dark, intense, longing eyes, and problems of his own.
An orphan, who jokingly called himself “Joshua the son of none,” he had bounced from foster home to foster home from pre-school to college. A certified computer genius, he won an award for designing the video game, Surf ’s Up! Produced by GottaHaveIt! Industries of Hollywood, it paid his junior year expenses and quickly became a cult favorite. Yet he was so lacking in self-esteem, so hungry for love, he could scarcely believe Melinda’s interest in him. In fact, Josh fell so hard for her, he soon followed his “Little Lin-Lin” around day and night.
He later fell in love with Christ just as hard and completely, the first time he heard Pastor Preston present the Gospel at the off-campus Latte’s Going On Here Coffeehouse—immediately promising to go anywhere and do anything God willed.
Back when God’s will—not the Prophet’s—came first.
Now, as Melinda hurried behind the Messenger along the weed-and trash-choked path through the Plain of Jordan area of the compound, his heavy boots sprayed her with dust and pebbles. On all sides of this open courtyard rose junk piles and buildings in total and ominous disarray. The Plain itself was strewn with paint-peeled gas pumps, broken-down trucks and tractors—plus decrepit, fly-blackened outhouses, and “sanitary” fills, all reeking in the stifling air. As well as several well-used Repentance Punishment Posts.
In between, at least a dozen unmarked, overgrown mounds. The Disappeared Ones: sickly infants and children, women who died in childbirth (doctors were never called), and “rebellious” Disciples Under Blood Atonement. All forbidden to be mentioned ever again.
The only bright spots in the whole dust-covered shambles were the towering metal lampposts everywhere, their searchlights always on. And the huge, full-color portraits that hung from each one. Portraits of Harve and Agnes Osborn: their Prophet and Prophetess.
All around her, hardworking, long-haired, bearded men in tattered straw hats and torn overalls or jeans—the Unanointed, rank-and-file Disciples—labored in fields, gardens, and repair shops under armed supervision; faces grim, muscles straining, feet bare and callused.
Even though Josh was forced to continue his original responsibilities of maintaining the commune’s computer and electronic equipment, he also had to pull full duty every day out in the fields. With scarcely a moment’s rest in between.
Now, as Melinda neared the faded red barn crudely labeled “God’s Storehouse,” a mother hen and her chicks scurried past. Three hogs wallowed in a mud-and-filth covered pen near the sagging front doors, usually propped open. Across their peeling paint someone had scrawled a crude pitchfork, a pentagram, and the words: “Repent or Die.” She glanced at the doors, expecting to see her husband and son inside with a work crew, hauling old-fashioned rectangular bales of new-mown hay up into the loft.
My darling Josh, please be careful. When I saw you at Morning Prayer Feast, you looked so frail and exhausted. And do keep an eye out for our little Jeremy. Those old ladders up to the loft are dangerous!
But, strangely, the barn doors were closed. Alarmed, she glanced in through a broken window. The haylift was still in position, bales left where they fell. A few barn cats lolled next to a truck piled high with still more bales. But not a single Disciple in sight.
Had the Prophet suddenly called the hay crew away for more teaching? Or punishment?
Turning quickly, Melinda accidentally stepped on a loose board—which flew up in her face, knocking her down.
“Idiot!” the Messenger cried. “Slut! You did that on purpose!” Grabbing her arm, he pulled her up—then slapped her hard across the face. Right where the board had hit.
“And if you think that hurts, female,” he snorted, “just wait till the Prophet gets a hold of you. He’ll have you begging for mercy. That is, if you survive. Now, move!”
Chapter Two
How peaceful, how quaint, how totally American-apple-pie this barn and the large ramshackle farmhouse close by had seemed to all the Disciples when they first arrived. A picturesque covered well, inviting shade trees, rambling rose-covered fences, and acre upon acre of rolling Iowa cornfields and pastures. Like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.
A dense stand of trees shaded nearby Crawdad Creek, clear and fish-filled, flowing into larger Rainbow Branch—with wide, willow-edged Bounty River just a few miles away. Sunflowers and daisies nodded everywhere, while mockingbirds trilled joyously from an old apple tree in the front lawn. Inviting rocking chairs waited on the wide front porch.
And so secluded—20 miles from sleepy Cottontree, the nearest small town. With bustling Big Bend City 40 miles in the other direction. And no freeways or shopping malls within 50 miles.
“This is it!” the Prophet had shouted to Josh when they first saw the farm, after driving cross-country with Harve’s wife, Agnes, in Josh’s old Honda. They’d been scouting a location for their new “true-to-the-Scripture” Christian commune, where “God’s people can all be safe from worldly temptations and End Times tribulations. This is exactly where God wants us to be.”
Only, back then, the Prophet was still just plain Harve, a caterpillar slowly developing his wings. That, of course, was a miracle in itself, beginning the night newly-converted Josh invited his floundering friend to the little Coffeehouse where he had found Christ. Then and there that young man without a purpose declared that God would be his purpose. Cold-turkey, he dropped his booze, grass, and 24/7 goofing off, replacing them with a sudden, fervent certainty that God had now raised up a brilliant
