Final Tribute

The door to the church was open. And had been for quite some time. At first, the small creatures entered and set up house. The telling of time passage could be ascertained by the dust that clung to the webs that the spiders had spun. On gusty days, leaves and other debris would blow through the doors in whirling tornadoes and settle out when they could no longer dance on the wind.

On this cold October day, the teens were the first humans to dare to explore the interior of the building since the time of the Great War. The children eased along the walls to the stage, swearing that they could hear the echoes of the evangelist who had once roared out his message to a rapt and attentive congregation.

The oldest, Michael, embolden by the power that had once filled this hallowed hall, stepped up and imitated the long gone evangelist that his father had told him about when his father was alive. The seven other children joined in the mockery with their fake amens and hallelujahs as Michael directed.

It was funny at first, until the pall of their sacrilege formed in their consciousness. Jewels was usually the timid one, the follower. This time her quietness rang with a power greater than herself. “Stop! This is a bad thing. Let’s just find it, and then go. Quickly.”

Timothy may have been the youngest, but he was also the smartest. “The most obvious place would be in a tabernacle. Where would that be in this kind of church?”

The children exchanged shrugs and vacant looks. But there is always one who seemed to rise to the top of the chain of command. In this case, it was Robert. He did not speak. He just stomped his foot twice. When he had the attention of his pack, he pointed his head in the direction he wanted them to follow. And they did.

They had to let their eyes adjust to the darkness behind the tattered and dusty velvet blue curtain that separated the stage and congregation from the production set. Marti moved to a large board that once held blinking lights, slide controls and knobs that must have meant something to someone at some time. Robert pulled her away from the boards, shaking his head. “We are looking for something that would have these symbols on it.” He showed his cards to the others to refresh their memory. “It would not be here, unless they got careless. I don’t think they would do that.”

Marti was miffed. “How would you know that this is not the tabernacle?”

Robert didn’t know for sure. “We’ll come back to this if we have to. But for now, we need to keep looking.”

Morning Star leaned her head back to let her long raven hair fall away from her body. She extended her arms from her sides and breathed the dank and stale air into her lungs. The children remained in quiet and respectful as Morning Star communed with her spirits. The other children did not understand Morning Star’s abilities, they just had seen her predictions become reality on more than one occasion.

Robert could sense when Morning Star was coming out of her trance. “Where?” He led the others in the direction Morning Star had pointed to. With his hand on the knob, he looked at her again, “Here?”

“Yes. There is nothing to fear. This is still a place of goodness. It is not sacred or hallowed, but it is not evil…. Yet.”

Robert resisted the urge to shake Morning Star. She knew he liked her and she knew how to push his buttons. He pulled the door open and walked through it with cautious bravado.

The spacious room was set up with a large ornate desk with many things on it. Timothy stepped forward and addressed his team, “These are all communication devices. They would talk in this end and listen to a voice of another person in this end. These buttons could be punched in a sequence and you would get to talk to a person who was not near you.” The children gathered around in awe. Timothy picked up a small rectangular plastic box. “Believe it or not, this was considered smarter than some people. You could get information from the sky and people really believed most of the information that they saw on this screen. There are tales of kids our age walking into things because they are so intent on the information being transmitted in this device.”

Marti was curious. “How does it work?”

“It doesn’t. It needs this thing called electricity. It is useless now.”

Marti pointed to the large square plastic screen in the center of the desk. “Is that the same thing as that?”

Timothy nodded. “Similar anyway. These cords fed information from these rows of buttons, to this box, to this screen. This thing transmitted a pointer to that screen and was supposed to make it easier to select information that you wanted. I think they called it a mouse. I don’t know why.”

Robert saw enough. “This isn’t the tabernacle. Would it be here?”

Timothy shrugged his shoulders. “None of these things work. You would think they would have written down where their important artifacts were kept. Open the drawers. Look for writings.”

The children looked at Timothy with blank stares. Timothy quickly drew figures in the dust on the desk. Look for something that would look like that. The children separated and opened all the drawers and cabinets in the room.

Donya let out a low gasp. “This has one of the symbols on it!”

Timothy came over. “It is a book of their sacred writings. We should take it.”

Robert hesitated. “It is not what we are looking for.”

Timothy insisted. “I think we should take it.”

Robert only relented when the others seemed to agree with Timothy.

“Okay. But I don’t like it. What will happen if we take out the wrong thing?”

The others did not like that option either.

Morning Star took this opportunity to lean her head back and intoned her mantra with outstretched arms. When complete she quietly advised, “No harm will come to us if this book is with us.”

Robert held her gaze for a beat or two, “Alright. What’s on the other side of that door?”

Morning Star drew in a deep breath. “That which we seek. But if we take it, one of us will have to stay behind to be the sacrifice.”

Marti was the first to voice the question, “What sacrifice?”

Morning Star wept. “Blood.”

Michael stepped forward, “I, for one, say this is enough. If we have one of their holies, that should be enough.”

Morning Star shook her head. “They know.”

She now had Robert’s attention. “Who exactly is ‘they’?”

Morning Star sniffed, “The evil ones.”

Mitch had been silent up to this point and found it hard not to be gruff. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

Morning Star looked at him and lied. “They hid it from me so that they could get the sacrifice.”

Marti was quite practical, “Well, if this book is protection, we should just leave and forget the tribute.”

The other children looked at her with forlorn expressions. Robert spoke in hushed tones, “No negotiations. You know that. We need to find the tabernacle. The guardians will choose the sacrifice. I wish I listened better when dad told me about the holy places and the guardians to the gates of hell.”

Jewels timidly asked, “Will they take a volunteer?”

Morning Star examined the scratches and tears in her shoes, while she nodded. She knew Jewels would volunteer, but was prohibited from voicing the prediction. The sacrifice had to be voluntary in its entirety.

Jewels took the book from Donya. “What do I do now?”

Morning Star briefly gave the instructions. Jewels was so brave as she walked through the second door to get the offering. She returned with a small black box with the symbols from the cards on it. No one was allowed to look inside the box. “You must go now. I will keep the book. My spirit will be taken before the guardians can get to me. But you have to go now.” She remained in the room holding the book to her breast as her team retreated to the outdoors.

The children were rewarded handsomely for their offering. Each accepted their prize without words or acknowledgement to the clan leader. As the tribe disbanded to their various lodgings, Michael covertly asked Robert, “Does your dad still do the teachings?”

Robert glanced at the others and nodded. “New members are always welcome. I think he will be quite surprised to see me there.”





[word count with title: 1468]





2nd place in "Invalid Item"  February 2015