THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART SEVENTY-FOUR:

Edith rode back to the inn with Harold and Martha. She wanted to get her things, Connie's as well, packed up and ready for their departure in the morning. Ryan had taken Connie out for

a while in his car, saying vaguely they'd be at the inn...later. Marshall and Eden remained a bit longer after dinner, reluctant to say good-bye to Luke. Elizabeth and Dale were staying on at Stuart's, planning to get an early start from there.

Luke had come to where Marshall was seated on the couch and without preamble, climbed up onto his lap. "Marshy," he said, "it's Luke."

Marshall tried not to grin. "I sort of thought it might be you."

"Is it really all right?" Luke's voice seemed very small.

"Is what all right, Luke?"

"The darkness that you live in. Is that really all right?"

"Luke, it's not darkness for me." He'd tried to explain this before. Eden sat nearby, listening intently, and Elizabeth came and perched on the far arm of the couch. "It's hard to put it into words. For me, I am never in the light and so that makes it true that I am also never in the dark."

"But is it...scary?"

"No, Luke, it's not scary. It's what I know. I have no need to be afraid of it because it's just how things are for me."

"But...," Luke's voice became almost inaudible, "I don't know it like you do. Won't that make it different for me?"  Even though he was still so young, he'd obviously thought a lot about this.

"It would be somewhat different, yes," Marshall agreed. "I never had to get used to changes. But, Luke, you've seen the clouds and the mountains and the far end of the field. You know what that's like and I can only try to imagine such things. So some things are easier for me and some things are easier for you."

"Marshy, I'm worried about being alone in the darkness."  His mother pressed her hand to her mouth.

Marshall wrapped his arms gently about the boy. "Close your eyes a minute, Luke."  Luke did. "Am I still here?" Marshall asked and Luke whispered, "Yes, Marshy. You're there."

"Let me tell you something my mother told me when I was about your age that made me feel a whole lot better." He paused a moment, clearly hearing his mother's voice.  "O Lord, You have searched me and known me; You know when I sit and when when I rise, You know my thoughts from afar, my going out and my lying down and are familiar with all of my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, You know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in--behind and before--and have laid Your hand upon me. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I run from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,' even the darkness will not be dark to You and the night will shine like the day for the darkness and the light are both alike to You."

He rested his chin lightly atop Luke's head. "That's part of Psalm 139, Luke. My mother used to read that to me a lot. And do you know what she told me it meant?"

"What, Marshy, what does it mean?"

"That God goes beyond, He's greater than, the difference between darkness and light. You

can't keep God trapped inside the world of light and you can't defeat Him by the darkest night. Darkness and light are wiped out for me because of my blindness but God rises above them
and unifies them...makes them one.  He doesn't need the light to know and the darkness can't keep Him from knowing. God is the God of every world, Luke, and if I live in what I perceive

to be darkness or in light, He's there and He knows me and His hand guides me. It doesn't matter that I'm blind, Luke, it only matters that I am known and that I am led and that my life, if I'm sighted or if I'm not, is full of joy and love and hope."

"Your Mom knew about all that?"

"She did, Luke. And she helped me understand it. So, just like I'm with you when your eyes are closed, just like I know you and I have my hands on you even in the dark, there's never a place you can go where He's not already there and never a place you can be where He can't put His hand on you."

Luke opened his eyes, looking seriously up at Marshall's face. "When you were left in the forest by the bad guys, was He there, did you always know he was there?"

It was a profound question from one so young. He'd been trying to take the transcendent concept of Psalm 139 and put it into words a boy could understand. He'd always thought he understood it himself and, more often than not, he did walk in the knowledge of it. But he recalled all too well moments there on Simpson's Ridge when he'd felt utterly, utterly alone, desperately lost in his aloneness. How could he explain that to Luke?

"There are great truths, Luke, things that simply are true whether we are resting in them or not. When I broke that branch and started down that long hill, I asked Him to guide me, to

get me down, and I knew He was doing that. But, yes, there are those times when we are just

too sick and too tired and feeling so very lost that we can forget what we know and start to think it's all just up to us. It's what makes us human. And even though I'm all grown up, I still sometimes lost my sense of Him. It didn't mean He wasn't there or that He didn't know just where I was, it just meant I was too messed up to remember that. I wish I could say I didn't do that, but I did. The important thing is that no matter what I was feeling, He was still there. He never left, He never stopped knowing where I was, I just stopped knowing that He knew. It was me, not Him. And, in the end, I did get down the hill."

"If you didn't," Luke was very quiet, "would He still have been there?"

Marshall kissed the top of Luke's head. "Yes, Luke, He would have been there...even then."

"Does...does He get mad at us when we forget to know?"

"No, Luke, He doesn't get mad. He just stays with us and waits for us to remember."

Luke leaned into Marshall's chest. "I don't want you to go to Pittsburgh."

Marshall squeezed his eyes tightly shut a moment. "I know, Luke, I know. But we'll be together again. I promise. Nothing's going to keep me away from the inn."

"But I might not be able to see you, Marshy, by next Christmas." He closed his eyes.

"Then we'll still be together," Marshall breathed, "just like this."

Elizabeth let the tears roll freely down her cheeks as she watched the blind man holding her going-blind son, the two of them completely together. Eden, reaching back to put her hand on Elizabeth's arm, found herself thinking that just maybe Victor Hugo had had a point. Maybe there was such a thing as that 'cavern of deep harmony.' Watching Marshall, it was easy to believe there was.

Back at the inn later that evening, Eden sat in Marshall's lap in the rocker in their room. It

was what she wanted, just to have him hold her quietly and rock. Her eyes were closed and she let herself be entirely absorbed by the feel of his arms around her, the motion of the rocker.

His cheek rested on the side of her head, his breath soft and warm on her hair. It was the ending of the first day of the new year and she was doing what he'd asked; she was resting in the happiness of the moment and it was enough.

They were staying on at the inn for a few more days. Marshall's house in Mount Lebanon hadn't been lived in for several months and he'd arranged for Sylvie, his mother's long-time housekeeper, to come in and get it ready for them. When he'd stay there from time to time rather than at the university, he'd sleep in his old bedroom, but he wanted something different from that to bring Eden home to. So he'd asked Sylvie to arrange a complete refurbishing of the master bedroom suite that had been his parents'. He'd told her basically what he wanted done, that Eden herself would be adding to it what she liked after they got settled.

Home. He was going home and bringing a wife with him. The big stone house had seemed so empty for so long. It was why he stayed there so infrequently any more. But now it would be a home again. He sat there with her cuddled in his lap, thinking of her there, there in that place
that had been the center of his life from its very beginning. He'd stopped by briefly before coming to the inn early last autumn, he and Wadsworth walking through the rooms. There'd been a hollowness to it, as though all the sounds of all his memories echoed off the walls.

Locking the door behind him, he'd had no idea when he'd return. His arms tightened slightly around her and his lips began to roam through her hair.

She smiled and murmured, "Morgan would love to be doing that to Susannah."

"We have left them there in the garden for a good while, haven't we?"

"We've been busy. And they don't mind. They're together. That's all that matters."

"Do you want to write tonight?" he asked.

"Tomorrow," she sighed. "Tomorrow will be fine."

"After all," he added with a grin, "tomorrow IS another day."

"Yas'm, Miz Scarlet. Yo' is sho' nuff right 'bout dat".  And she reached her arm up behind his neck, pulling his face down so she could kiss his lips.

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