“In Jesus’s name, get away,” said Naomi. The man began to laugh as he backed away from us, away from the firelight and into the darkness.
“Have a pleasant journey,” he said. “You won’t remember me, but everything’s stored away in your heart, Jacob.”
And then he vanished.
We asked the others who that creature was, but nobody could answer us. They said they didn’t know who we were talking about. Eventually we stopped thinking about it. Naomi never mentioned him. Everything he said, how he looked: sometimes I think it was just a dream.
That night we slept in shifts, and as soon as day broke, we headed north and crossed the river Jordan. We were careful about whom we talked with. I felt tired; I slept badly and had terrible dreams. We prayed together, but something had taken hold of me and wouldn’t let go.
Early one morning, we went along with a family that was on its way up the valley where the river Jabbok ran. I recognized it from when I’d met Hananiah there, and I wondered if the false prophet and his followers were still in the area. How had they been doing? I asked the family we were walking with if they knew anything, but when I mentioned Hananiah’s name, they asked me not to mention such things. Naomi apologized and told them that it didn’t matter. Still, something had stirred in me, and I asked the eldest in the group if he could help us to find those lost people. He stared at me.
“I think there are still some there,” he said, “but if you go there, may the Lord God be with you.”
We followed the directions the eldest man had given us, and some distance up the valley, we found a path leading into a cleft in the terrain. The cleft was narrow, and a foul stench met us that grew ever stronger the farther we entered. There was nobody to be seen, just rocks, dry, yellow plants, and the foul smell.
I was about to turn when somebody called to us. A person was standing outside a cave farther up the mountainside, dressed only in rags. His head was covered with hair and a grimy and uneven beard. His whole body was dirty. As he gradually climbed down to us, it dawned on me that he had excrement smeared all over him, and both Naomi and I began to move back the way we’d come.
“Have you come because of Hananiah?” the man shouted. “He’s still here, he’s among us.”
He was thinner than when I’d last seen him, smaller, and there were red and black sores underneath all his hair. I recognized the man, but I struggled to understand how it could be possible. It was the one-eyed man my father and I had met all those years ago. He didn’t seem to realize who I was. His gaze was constantly fixed on the air between us and the surrounding rock faces.
“Can we meet Hananiah?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said. “The Master is here, let the poor and the weak come to him, and he will give them salvation.”
Naomi stared openmouthed, and it seemed as if she were having trouble breathing. I lifted up a scarf and held it in front of my face before handing one to Naomi.
“He’ll be pleased to receive you,” the one-eyed man continued. “Come, come, follow me to greet the Lord.”
“Where is he?” I asked. “What’s happened here?”
“Everything’s happened here,” the one-eyed man replied, waving his arms about. “The world has ended, it has risen again, and it will end again, just as our Master has told us. Everything happens according to his will, death and life, life and death, darkness and light, mountain and flood, skin and hair, and the rocks, have you seen the rocks? They can speak, I’ve heard them, down in the water, if you lift them up. Oh God, dear God, he speaks through the rocks, through water.” The man waved his arms even more wildly and bowed to us, before he turned around and began walking back to the cave, climbing back up where he’d come from. I told Naomi to wait.
“Don’t go in there with him,” she said.
“I’ll come back,” I said. “Just wait here.”
“There’s sickness there,” she said. “Watch out, be careful what you touch.” I nodded, held the scarf around my mouth and nose, and followed the one-eyed man up and into the cave.
It was a large cave, and the walls glistened with moisture. There was water running somewhere, and the smell was even worse in there, like clods of earth sticking to the skin. It was dark, and I had trouble seeing. The one-eyed man had gone, and I called after him. I took a few steps and trod on something soft and wet. I bent down to see what it was and felt the cold seize hold of me.
“God,” I said. “Good God.” There were bones and corpses across the ground and along the sides of the cave. I began to step back out of there, but there stood the one-eyed man. He came toward me, and I could feel the sickening warmth emanating from his mouth.
“You shall meet the Lord,” he said. “Hananiah is ready to receive you.”
I stepped backward.
“Greet the Lord,” said the man, lifting up a head in his hands. I recognized the features from some years ago, even though the eyes and mouth were just black holes. The one-eyed man began shouting now, his voice echoing in the cave.
“Come to the Lord, let him taste you, let your body become his,” he shouted.
I turned and began to climb back down. The light outside blinded me, but I didn’t stop. I called out to Naomi, telling her to get away.
We didn’t stop to rest until we made it back to the river Jordan, by which time it was dark. I wanted to wash. Naomi asked what it was I’d seen in the cave, but I told her I couldn’t talk about it.
“It was just death and sickness,” I said. “They’ve been consumed by darkness.”
“What’s happened to them?” she asked.
“They are no more,” I said.
We traveled up to Galilee to seek out our brothers and sisters in Nazareth. We said little about what we’d experienced. One evening around that time, while I sat there alone, staring into the starry heavens, I felt everything stopping up again. I got up and started walking about in the dark. I picked up stones and tried to chew them, I scratched the inside of my mouth with my nails, I retched.
When Naomi eventually found me, and I had to speak to her, I couldn’t look at her. I shook my head, my fingers twisted up. Naomi started crying, but she held on to me tightly and kissed me on the forehead, kissed my hair and whispered in my ear.
“Relax,” she said. “Try to take deep breaths. Talk to me, Jacob.”
I tried, but everything was broken, it was stuck.
Naomi wasn’t giving up. She begged me to speak and held me closely.
“It, it’s, d-d-diiifficult,” I said. “It d-d-doesn’t m-m-make sense.”
“Jesus touched you,” she said. “He made you conquer this. You must fight against it, Jacob, it won’t go away. Don’t let it grow, Jacob.”
“D-d-don’t l-l-let it g-g-grooow,” I said.
“Don’t let it grow,” she said.
Sarah opened her eyes and got out of bed. She fetched water for herself and her beloved. Her husband woke up with a start when she got over to him.
“A dream,” he said. “A bad dream.”
“It’s morning,” she said. He nodded, looked at her, smiled, and reached out his hands to her.
“Come here,” he said, pulling Sarah toward him. He put his hands around her pregnant form. “When he comes out,” he said, “he’ll be the first of many boys. He’ll be called Jacob. He’ll be big and strong.”
Her hair flowed down over his. He smelled her, all the scents of her long curls, her neck, her stomach, and below.
“It’s a good world he’s being born into,” said Sarah.
Her pains began later that day. He’d already summoned women to be ready to help. They would tend to Sarah, and he promised them whatever they asked if this first child made it into the world fit and well.