BLACK SABBATH

CHAPTER 18

INGA LIKAS (AKA INGA COGNITO)

IT SHALL COME TO PASS IN THE LAST DAYS, SAYS GOD, THAT I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UPON ALL FLESH; YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHECY, YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS (Acts 2:17)

            I couldn’t believe I didn’t see this one coming. Sevenia Sallie, Seven’s daughter, asked  “Do you know why my Dad’s twin brother Six is afraid of him?”

            “He is?” I frowned, recalling the two sibling’s warm embrace after Six’s arrival put the head count at the Storm’s farmhouse up to seventy.

            She tucked a strand from her shoulder length auburn hair behind her ear. Her almond -shaped green eyes looked earnest as she said, “Yeah, it’s because Seven ate nine.”

            I still didn’t get that she was joking for a few seconds. My frowned deepened. Was she talking about cousins? Because I knew that Sebastion ‘Seven’ Sallie was the youngest of seven children, and that Six and Seven were their actual middle names.

            Sevenia started giggling. I secretly fancied myself as a sharp cookie. How could I have been so dull? I once heard Seven express something a bit similar. ‘The funny thing about humility is the second you think you have, you lost it.’ I had told him this must be a regular occurrence for you.

            I think the funniest jokes are the ones that baffle me at first. So I burst out laughing after I said. “Oh, ate, not eight.”

            As I wiped a happy tear from my eye and relished the good endorphins just released in my brain, Sevenia was smiling sweetly at me. There was nothing malicious in her joke. Sevenia was right up there with the kindest, most Godly people I had ever met. There was not a mean bone in her body.

            “Thanks for that,” I said. “Nothing like a good laugh.”

            “Thank you,” Sevenia replied as she patted me on the knee. “For all you have taught me.”

            I tilted my head inquisitively. All that I taught her? She and I were roughly the same age. But I looked to her as a mentor. Her knowledge of scripture was unequaled. And I mean with not only with someone like her father, but she was right up there with Pastor Kirk Samson. He was the patriarch of Cotton Creek Cove Fellowship. He was more widely known to his parishioners as Captain Kirk, due to his decade as an Army Chaplin.

            “Actually it’s the other way around,” I smiled, giving her hand that had come to rest on my knee an affectionate squeeze.

            She shook her head. “Nobody has calmed, encouraged and exhorted like you have since the first plague fell. You’re one of the main reasons the children are behaving, well, like contented children.”

            “It’s God, not me.”

            “Right, but He’s working through you. And your humble attitude is what makes it possible.”

            “You know what your dad says about humility?”

            “I do,” she giggled, then asked. “So do you think you are humble?”

            “That’s a loaded question if ever there was one,” I laughed.

            “Haven’t you noticed that Francine practically follows you around like your shadow?”

            I smiled at the thought of Franny. She was a very shy fifteen year old who opened up to me about being bullied. Adolescence had not been kind to her. She was gangly and had pretty severe acne. So I showed her pictures of me when I was fifteen. Puberty was hostile to me as well. She and I had something else in common, unique eyes. Whereas mine were very light blue to the point of almost glowing, her eyes were violet. A color rarely seen in windows to the soul.

            “I honestly don’t mind,” I told Sevenia. “Her meekness quells my potential for being obnoxious. Especially around your dad.”

            She laughed, then rolled her eyes. “He loves exchanging good natured barbs with you. I know he looks at you like a daughter.”

            Sentiment swelled in my heart. “I guess that makes you and me sisters.”

            “We already were,” she smiled, indicating our sisterhood in Christ. Our hands were still joined, and she gave mine an affectionate squeeze. I reciprocated, and then our eyes turned to the door as a knock emanated from the old oak wood.

            Like I said, we were now seventy strong at the Storm residence. Their renovated farmhouse was very large, sporting eight bedrooms. It also had makeshift sleeping quarters in the basement, attic and living room. All these people seeking refuge here made it seem rather small, yet somehow cozy.

            I shared a room with Sevenia, Nancy Aldo, and the aforementioned Francine, who we called Franny. Sevenia’s husband Jerry was rooming with his brother Drew, who was married to Nancy. They also had to put up with Sevenia’s dad, Seven Sallie. Of course I jest by saying ‘put up with’… Well, maybe. Seven’s twin brother Six made it a foursome like our own room.

            So we assumed the knock at the door was one of our roommates. If the door was shut, we knocked in case one of the married roommates was having some private time with their husband, if you know what I mean. But low and behold, we were surprised to see the knock had come from Pastor Samson, AKA Captain Kirk.

            “Pastor, come in,” Sevenia invited.

            “Thank you, my Dear,” Captain Kirk replied as he shuffled in. The man of God was now in his nineties, and although typically spry for his age, he did have moments of appearing frail. He admitted such by joking about the oldest person recorded in the Bible. “Today I feel like Methuselah.”

            We laughed and then Sevenia asked, “To what do we owe the pleasure, Pastor?”

            With Pastor Samson’s long white beard and his reputation for impeccable character, he always reminded me of the Prophet Moses. He ambled toward a desk chair, pointed at it, and with raised eyebrows asked, “May I?”

            “Of course, of course,” Sevenia enthused.

            Captain Kirk groaned a little as he sat. The wood floor squeaked as he did so and with a chuckled he asked, “Was that my bones creaking?”

            Sevenia and I laughed again, then he asked, “How are you ladies holding up?”

            Sevenia and I glanced at each other, then looked at the Pastor and replied at the same time with the same response. “Good.”

            “Good.”

            “How about you?” I asked.

            “Fair to middling,” he replied.

            With the first of the seven last plagues falling, world chaos had ensued. So both Sevenia and I assumed the Pastor was just making rounds to check on the welfare of his flock. But he surprised us.

            “I had a vivid dream about you two as I was taking an afternoon nap today.”

            “Do tell,” I blurted. Then I wondered if it came across as flippant. I opened my mouth to utter an apology, but the Pastor spoke first.

            “I absolutely love your childlike faith, my Dear,” he told me with a chuckle. Then he became serious. “But I do not mean you are childish. Jesus admonished us to become like little children with their simple faith and humility.” (Matthew 18:1-5)

            He looked away and scratched his head. “Sure has been a long time since I was a little child though. Anyway, I had a dream about you two, but I’m not sure how to explain it.”

            “A dream or a nightmare?” I blurted again. You would think I was the daughter of Seven Sallie. But Sevenia did call us sisters.

            Captain Kirk chuckled. “Well, a dream if you follow God’s lead, or a nightmare if you don’t. But I have a good feeling about you two. Plus, it happened this afternoon, so it wouldn’t have been a nightmare in the truest sense.”

            “So what happened Pastor?” Sevenia asked.

            “Well, it was more like an instructive situation rather than anything specific happening.”

            “What do you mean?” Sevenia asked.

            “Can you two keep a secret?”

            “Wasn’t it Ben Frankin who said three people can keep a secret if two are dead,” my mouth spurted yet again. I instantly regretted it, especially given the Pastor’s age and frailty.

            But he chuckled. “It’s not that crucial of a secret. Several people already know about it. It’s just the fewer that know the better. I don’t want people thinking I’m off my rocker.”

            I stopped myself from a foot in my mouth statement, if I hadn’t already placed it there and simply asked, “Know what?”

            “I think I know,” Sevenia said. “Did you have an angelic encounter?”

            “Yes, my Dear, I did.”

            “And you’ve experienced that before?” I asked.

            “It’s complicated,” Captain Kirk replied with a frown as he began stroking his long white beard. “On a few occasions over the last twenty years, I’ve been given a message or instructions from an angel of the Lord. Whether these are actual encounters, dreams, or visions, I don’t know. What happened in my dream this afternoon was very, very real. But also very short. But the message was clear.”

            Despite his age, Pastor Samson gazed at us with the intensity of an NFL linebacker eyeing a quarterback. At the same time, Sevenia and I both said, “What is it?”

            “I don’t know.”

            Sevenia and I gazed at him dumbfounded. Then she said, “But you said the message was clear.”

            He shook his head. “No, no, we got off the same page. Let me clarify. I don’t know what your message is. My message was clear. It was to tell you two that you will be receiving a message yourselves. The purpose of me as a go between was twofold. It was so you weren’t surprised by the encounter and so you have faith in its legitimacy.”

            I felt a spike of positive adrenaline. “Are you saying Sevenia and I are going to have an angelic encounter?”

            “Either that or you will be given a vision. You both have been considered highly favored.”

            “When?” my spiritual sister and I asked at the same time.

            “Go to the two hundred year old oak tree behind the big barn at sunset. Keep this to yourselves. And may God richly bless you.”