Scared: A Novel on the Edge of the World

by Tom Davis.

Chapter One:

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa, 1998


Ten years ago I was a dead man.


It all began when Lou, my broker from Alpha Agency, said, “Stuart, how would you feel about heading to The Congo? Time is putting together a crew and needs a hot photographer.”


He asked; I went. That’s how I got paid then. It’s how I get paid now.


My job was to cover a breaking story on a rebel uprising that would soon turn into genocide. Unfortunately, neither Lou nor any of us were privy to that valuable information at the time. We should have seen it coming. The frightening tribal patterns resembled the bloodbath between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. We knew what happened there had spilled over to the DRC – but we ignored it.


Our job was to focus on the story of the moment, whatever we might find. But this was more than a search for journalistic truth. It was an opportunity to win a round of a most dangerous game – the chase for a prize-winning picture.



The plane landed in the capital city of Kinshasa. A man in combat fatigues stood near a large black government car. He was flanked by six armed guards toting fully automatic rifles.


“That must be the mayor and his six closest comrades,” I said to our writer, Mike, as I swung my heavy neon orange bag over my shoulder. “Welcome to a world where you are not in control.” This was Mike’s first international assignment. I swear his knees buckled.


Our team consisted of me; Mike, shipped in from Holland (a lower executive from Time who was looking for a thrill and trying to escape his adulterous wife for a few weeks); and Tommy, the Grip, whose job it was to carry our gear.


“Welcome to the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am Mayor Mobutu.” We introduced ourselves, exchanging the traditional French niceties.


“Bonjour Monsieur.”


“I must go and attend to some urgent matters, but there is a car waiting for you. These guards will take you out to Rutshuru, North Kivu.”


He pointed to a Land Cruiser near the airport building. The mayor’s face carried the scars of a rough life. His right cheek looked as if someone tried to carve a “Z” into it. His left eye was slightly lazy, giving you the feeling he was looking over your shoulder, even when you were face to face.


He turned to me. “You know how dangerous it is here. You are taking your life into your own hands, and we will not be responsible. We keep telling reporters this, but you never listen!” He started to walk away, but turned one more time and wagged his finger at each one us as if we were children. “Pay attention to what these guards tell you, and do not put yourself in the middle of conflict.”


Nobody ever won a Pulitzer by standing at arms length.


“Thank you for welcoming us, sir, and for your words,” I said. “We will keep them in mind.” The guards nodded for us to follow, and we made a solemn line into the Land Cruiser.


It was the rainy season, and on cue an afternoon storm whipped and lashed across the landscape like an angry mob. As we drove in silence, the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. We arrived at the village that would serve as our headquarters. Amid the familiar routines of a small community that seemed oblivious to the dangers surrounding them, people who were displaced by violence congregated in huddles hoping for safety.


I snapped off pictures of the scene. Once the children noticed my camera, school was over. They surrounded me like ants on a Popsicle. I had come prepared. I handed out candy as fast as I could, then got back to the business of capturing images of this unsettling normalcy.


The sun hid behind the trees, and darkness enveloped the thatched huts and makeshift refugee camp, swallowing them whole. Our armed guards escorted us into a separate compound meant to keep us safe from any danger lurking in the nearby jungles.


We took a seat on concrete blocks to enjoy a traditional African meal of corn and beans and we laughed about the monkeys we had seen on the road hurling bananas at our Land Cruiser. It was funnier than it ought to have been.


And then it happened.


The crisp pop of bullets battered our eardrums. The sounds ripped through the jungle night and into the village. Then the screams began. Screams that boiled the blood inside my ears.


I dropped, crawled on my belly to the window and slid up along the front wall, craning my neck so I could see outside. A guard across the room mirrored my actions at another window. Everyone else was flat against the ground. As I peered through the rusty barred window, flashes of light pounded bright fists against the sky, the road, and the trees.


Buildings exploded with fire and a woman cried out in terror. Shadows flickered, black phantoms haunting the night. I made out five or six soldiers beating a woman with their boots and the butts of their guns.


She quit screaming, quit moving, and then they ripped the clothes from her broken body. They began raping her. She came to and started to scream again, pleading for help, and they hit her until her screams choked on her blood.


She couldn’t have been more than sixteen.


I turned my head.


The horror of this night was no act of God. No earthquake or tsunami. This was the act of men. Evil men. Demons in the guise of men.


The uncertainty of what might happen next hovered at the edge of an inhaled breath.


The armed guards screamed for us to lay prostrate on the dirt floor as bullets flew through the walls and widows, scattering plaster and glass. I wiped away salty sweat burning my eyes. But the sweat was thicker than it should have been. I tasted it.


Blood.


Fear strangled the air. Shallow breaths and rapid heartbeats echoed throughout the tiny room. I thought about my last conversation with Whitney.


My last conversation.


Was it my last?


Mike’s hand slid up next to me. His whisper turned my head. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, man.”


Mike shoved his glasses back onto his oversized, pock-marked nose. “This happened to one of my closest friends in Northern Uganda. The rebel militia mutilated everyone and everything in sight. No one made it out alive. No one. These monsters believe in a kind of Old Testament extermination of anything that moves.”


“Thanks for the encouraging words.”


“I always knew I’d die young.”


He reached in his pocked and pulled out a string of wooden rosary beads.


“These were my mother’s.”


“I’m not Catholic.”


“Neither was I. Until now....”


“Shut up!” one of the guards hissed.


Rivers of sweat baptized our faces, our necks, our chests.


Death, real and suffocating, pressed in, driven by the wailing of dying babies, the yelps of slaughtered animals, the screams women being beaten and raped.


My heart raced in rapid-fire panic.


I peered through a hole between a cinder block and a broken windowsill. Rebel troops swarmed like locusts, devouring every living thing in their path.


Mike elbowed me in the thigh. “Remember that story about an African militia group that raped a bunch of Americans? Men, women, children – they weren’t choosy.”


“You have to be quiet,” whispered a guard. He got to one knee, steadying his gun. “Now shut up or I’ll kill you myself.”


A rebel commander yelled something just outside the door. Another shot, and the guard who had just spoken fell dead right on top of me. His blood flowed over my neck and right arm staining my band of brothers ring crimson. The screaming intensified, people ran, yelled, and died.


I scooted against the wall, huddled next to Mike as shots continued to shriek overhead. Plaster exploded and covered us. We tried to make ourselves invisible, curling into the fetal position, wrapping our arms over our heads.


A bullet whined by my ear, missing by centimeters. I crawled face down to the other side of the room, trying to get out of the line of fire.


Then, sudden, deafening silence.


Nobody moved for what seemed like hours. My thoughts milled with the ants of fear, waiting as the silence thickened, punctuated by a moan or a sob. We waited and waited, wondering when it would be safe to stand, wondering if it would ever be safe.


Finally, I gazed out the window, my eyes searching for rebel soldiers in the yellow-orange gloom of smoke. No figures or movement.


“I’m going out,” I whispered to Mike.


He didn’t respond


“Hey, listen. Let’s go man.”


I elbowed him in the ribs.


“Mike!” I grabbed his jacket to turn him toward me. There was a pinpoint crimson stain on the front of his light blue shirt. His eyes stared through me.


I was paralyzed for a moment, not knowing what to do. Then I pulled my camera out of my bag. I picked up Mike’s gear and slung it around my neck.


Outside, the air burned of flesh. Some shadows moved in the distance, but the streets were barren. A few jerking and twitching heaps lined the road and quivered beside the buildings.


Oh, God. Oh, God.


I walked toward the flames. Everything was silent except for a sour ringing in my ears. Something compelled me to enter the destruction, to get closer.


Severed body parts lay before me in a display of such horror I began to heave. A young, pregnant mother crumpled over, lying dead next to a burning haystack. She barely looked human. One leg lay at a right angle, an arm hung loosely from her shoulder, held there by a single, stringy tendon. Her stomach had been sliced wide open, the worm-like contents spilled in front of her, still moving.


There was nothing I could do to help her. Nothing.


I lifted the camera to my left eye. Snap. Snap. Snap. The lens clicked open and closed.


I stepped closer to capture the look on her face. Steam rose from her insides. More pictures. Through the blood and mucus by her midsection I made out a face, a tiny face with eyes closed.


Voices rose over the roofs. Something was happening at the end of the village. Without thought, I raced through the corpses and debris toward the commotion.


The rebel troops had gathered the bodies of all the men they had slain. They were stacking them together in the shape of a pyramid.


As each body was thrown on top of the others, the rebels jeered, spit on the dead, and drank from a whiskey bottle, relishing in their triumph. They shot their guns into the air. Fire flashed around the perimeter. It was a scene from hell.


A man climbed on the roof above the bodies, unzipped his pants and urinated all over the dead. The men slapped each other on the back and laughed.


Another rebel poured some liquid over the bodies.


I adjusted the camera settings and snapped a series of shots as fast as my fingers could click. The fire ignited, a pyramid pyre, and I continued to shoot. I snapped pictures of the dead - men I had seen earlier that day caring for their families - as their faces melted like candle wax. I snapped pictures of the rebels’ ugly glee. And I felt like retching again.


I turned and walked, faster and faster, until I was running.


Each step I took pounded the question: Why? Why? Why?


I raced to the edge of the compound and saw Tommy hanging out the window of our car, frantically motioning me to come. We sped off, the remaining guard driving like a bat out of hell, for it was indeed hell we were escaping. As I turn to look out the back window, I saw Mike’s body crumpled in the seat behind me. Like a rotted rubber band, something inside me snapped. My whole body shook. Sobs came without tears. I only could muster one coherent thought: If we get out of here alive, at least we can send Mike back to his family.


Back to his cheating wife.

The Note II

by Angela Elwell Hunt


Chapter One:

With one elbow propped on her desk, Peyton MacGruder chewed on the edge of a fingernail and glared at the clock on the wall. On days like this, when she was twenty minutes away from her deadline and far from finished with her column, she could swear that the minute hand swept over the clock face at double speed.

She transferred her gaze to the computer monitor and fluttered her fingers over the keyboard. Some days the magic worked and the words flowed. Other days she might as well be typing gibberish.

She skimmed the half-completed column on her screen and tried to focus her thoughts. Last week a reader had written that she was afraid to trust a brother-in-law who had stolen from her in the past. Peyton had answered that forgiveness was important, but experience could not be ignored. And when it came to matters of the heart, caution should always trump passion. Dozens of readers had e-mailed, filling her in-box with responses, most of them supportive.

Now she was working on a recap that included reader comments, but everything she’d written so far looked like extended self-congratulation. She needed a corroborating opinion . . . and any column could be improved with an appropriate quote, couldn’t it? She reached for her dictionary of popular quotations, scanned the index, and jabbed her finger at an appropriate entry. Smiling with satisfaction, she propped her reading glasses on the end of her nose and worked the quote into her piece:

And so, dear readers, when it comes to dealing with relationships, perhaps we should keep the words of Eumenides in mind. That venerable sage once wrote, “There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart’s controls. There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.”

Perhaps a happy heart is, at its core, a cautious heart.

There. She leaned back and clicked the word count tool. Seven hundred words—not bad. The dragon lady shouldn’t have to cut any of this column.

After a quick proofread, Peyton clicked Send and addressed the file to Nora Chilton, senior features editor. Another click and away it went.

She turned as something slapped the surface of her desk. Mandi Hillridge, an overenthusiastic intern from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, stood in the aisle, her arms filled with folders. Peyton picked up the envelope Mandi had tossed her way and studied the return address. “Am I supposed to know this Eve Miller?”

Mandi shifted her burden from one arm to the other. “I doubt it. I think she’s a reader.”

Peyton ran her fingertip across the ragged edge. “Why has this letter been opened?”

“Because Phil Brinker didn’t check the address before he tore into it. Our stellar mailroom staff mistakenly delivered it to him while he was in New York working on that story about the media covering the media. He just got back and told me to bring it to you.” Mandi stepped closer, her eyes gleaming. “You want me to go fuss at the guys in the mailroom? One of them’s kinda cute.”

Peyton glanced over the short walls of the reporters’ cubicles and saw Nora stepping out of the elevator. “No.” She propped both elbows up on her desk. “I want you to get me two Tylenol. Extra strength.”

“You have a headache?”

“Not yet.”

Mandi turned in time to see Nora approaching, a folded newspaper in hand. Even from her desk Peyton recognized the distinctive banner that contained her byline and staff photo. Had Nora come down to complain about a column that had already run? She wouldn’t, unless one of the higher-ups sent her to confront Peyton about some obscure point.

“About that headache—” Mandi lowered her voice—“I’ll bring the bottle.”

The young woman hurried away as Nora approached Peyton’s desk. The editor waved the paper before Peyton’s anxious gaze and nodded. “By the way, about this column last week? You were absolutely right.”

“That’s a nice change.” Peyton managed a smile. “About what?”

“Passion. It should always be tempered with caution. Especially when it comes to affairs of the heart.”

Peyton straightened in her chair, not certain why the editor had felt compelled to personally deliver this bit of elaboration. “You speaking from conviction or firsthand experience?”

Nora managed a coy smile. “None of your business. Anyway, you’ve been doing really good work lately. I had my doubts at first, but you’ve grown into the job.”

“You came all the way down here to pat me on the back?”

“Actually, I came down here to tell you that in addition to writing the Heart Healer, I’m going to need you to handle a feature or two for the Lifestyles section. We got the call last night; Marlo Evans had a baby boy, so she’ll be out on maternity leave for the next several weeks.”

Peyton dropped her head to her hand and groaned. “Why not use freelancers?”

“Because I don’t have the patience or the finances to deal with neophytes. The budget cuts have made it necessary for all of us to pick up the slack now and then. Besides—” her mouth curved in a wry smile—“you’re fast and you’re good at researching. A feature or two shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

“But I’m swamped with—” Peyton swallowed the rest of her complaint as sports editor King Danville moved into her line of vision. A warm feeling settled in the pit of her stomach and brought a smile to her lips. Would she ever stop feeling all gushy and girly whenever King approached her desk?

King glanced at the features editor before returning Peyton’s smile. “Hello, Nora.”

Nora’s chin dipped in a stiff nod. “Kingston.”

Like a flower seeking the sun, Peyton shifted to face the man who had recently brought new joy to her life. “I was just telling Nora that these days I don’t have time to keep up with my column and write a weekly feature, no matter how occasional it is.”

Nora glanced from Peyton to King and then arched a brow. “Perhaps if you temper your newfound passion, you’ll find the time.”

King grinned as the editor smiled and moved toward the elevator; then he pulled a white bottle from his jacket pocket and shook it. Peyton placed the familiar rattle within seconds: Extra Strength Tylenol, as requested.

“Ran into Mandi in the coffee room,” King explained. “She said you were going to need these.”

“She was right.” Peyton sighed. “Nora seems to think I can sit down and whip up a decent feature while I’m outlining my next column. I don’t know where she got the idea that I’m some kind of writing machine.”

“Maybe from the fact that you write so fast you make the rest of us look like we’re moving backward.”

Peyton shook her head, unwilling to accept praise she didn’t deserve. She knew the truth—she could turn an assignment around quickly because outside the newspaper office she had no life. While other writers struggled to work amid the pressures of family schedules, children’s homework, school events, sporting activities, and the needs of a spouse, Peyton only had to take care of herself and her two cats.

At least that’s the way things were before King and Christine came into her life. The situation was a little different now, and she was feeling the pressure.

“I’m not that fast,” she insisted. “And I’m not that versatile.”

“Then don’t cave so quickly, MacGruder. Just because Nora’s your boss doesn’t mean you have to let her push you around.”

“I was ready to push back until she played the guilt card. When she mentioned the budget cuts, I realized how lucky I am to even be employed. How can I not agree to write whatever she wants?”

“That’s what I like about you—you’re a solid team player.”

“I’m a pushover.”

King smiled and stepped to the side of Peyton’s desk. “In that case, I’d better prescribe two of these—” he held up the bottle of pain relievers—“or one of these.” Before Peyton could point out that they were surrounded by coworkers in cubicles, he bent and pressed a kiss to her lips. She closed her eyes, ready to forget about an audience of staff reporters, clerks, and copy editors, but the kiss didn’t last.

She looked up at him, unsatisfied.

“Do any good?” he asked.

“Not sure. Try again. Maybe increase the dosage.”

He bent, his lips warming hers with more passion this time. When he finally pulled away, Peyton exhaled a long sigh of happiness . . . and the writers around her erupted into applause.

Peyton grinned as her cheeks warmed. “They approve.”

“I don’t give a fig about them. What did you think?”

“Um . . . better.”

“Only better? Well, you know what they say about practice making perfect . . .”

As the other reporters hooted and King leaned in for yet another kiss, Peyton pressed her palm against the center of his chest. “You know, it’s this kind of temptation that led to Marlo Evans’s maternity leave. And in turn, to my impending headache. So maybe we should get back to work.”

With a roguish grin, King straightened and stepped away from her chair. “Yes, ma’am.”

“But after work—” Peyton squinted at him—“would you want to go for a jog with me and Christine? We wanted to run the paths down by the shoreline.”

King shook his head. “Enticing offer, but I’ve got to run out to the university after I finish up today. David needs to talk to me about something. He says it’s important.”

Peyton nodded, once again reminded that their relationship was not as simple as it would have been if they’d met in their twenties. She had Christine to consider, and King had David. Both children, hers and his, were nearly grown, and both had been forced to deal with the aftermath of their parents’ unwise decisions.

“MacGruder.” King’s voice, warm and insistent, drew her from her thoughts. “Maybe I’ll stop by your place later.”

“I’d like that.” Peyton offered him a forgiving smile. “I’ll be waiting.”

King took two steps toward his office, then halted. “Hey—” he turned, propping his arms on the cubicle wall—“I found an interesting e-mail in my in-box this morning. A friend in New York said my name recently came up in a board meeting at the Times.”

Peyton felt a frigid finger touch the base of her spine. “The New York Times?”

He chuckled. “Hard to imagine, huh? Moving from the Middleborough Times to the Gray Lady?”

“Your name came up in a board meeting? What does that mean, exactly?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’ll keep you posted.”

As he walked away, exchanging gibes with other writers as he passed their desks, Peyton felt fear blow down the back of her neck. Any other journalist would be salivating at the thought of writing for the Times, but King never seemed to get ahead of himself. Contentment was one of his primary virtues, and Peyton hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on his ability to remain satisfied with the status quo.

What would she do if she lost him?

The thought struck like a blow to the chest, stealing her breath. Until recently, she had managed to keep herself detached from complicated personal relationships. But then the tragedy of a horrific plane crash taught her about the brevity of life and the importance of connection. Now she was desperate to understand two precious people, but understanding took time, and time was something she no longer possessed in abundance.

She forced herself to take a deep breath and steady her pulse. No one was abandoning her; the world had not shifted on its axis. Her imagination was simply working overtime, a tendency that nearly always resulted in needless worry and borrowed trouble.

With her gift for imagining disaster, maybe she should have been a novelist.

When she swiveled toward her computer, determined to set her fears aside and tackle her e-mail, her gaze fell again on the envelope from Eve Miller. The postmark was five days in the past, so by now the woman’s comments were old news. And in an electronic society, old news was dead news.

Peyton tossed the envelope into a bin filled with unopened letters and turned her attention to her in-box.

***

Peyton slid behind the wheel of her car, tossed her purse into the empty passenger seat, and fumbled with the buckle of her seat belt. When she was certain the car’s computer wouldn’t scold her for forgetting some vital procedure, she turned the ignition switch and waited for the automatic seat to slide forward, tilt, rise, and whatever else it did to adjust to her frame.

King had talked her into buying this vehicle last weekend, insisting that her old car was only a few miles away from imploding. “Ninety-eight thousand miles?” he exclaimed after glimpsing her odometer. “Good grief, MacGruder, are you going for some kind of endurance record?”

She had to admit the new vehicle was nice, but its myriad bells and whistles bewildered her. She hadn’t taken the time to read the manual, and she barely managed to sit through the salesman’s demonstration. “I don’t have time to fuss with fancy gadgets,” she told the desperate young man who had greeted her and King at the auto dealership. “So just point me toward something safe and inexpensive. Something I won’t have to give up chocolate to afford.”

Like a village matchmaker, the salesman grinned and fixed her up with this sleek blue machine, which he kept calling a crossover—a cross between a sedan and an SUV. She had a feeling the vehicle was too big to be economical or politically correct, but since an entire row of similar vehicles waited behind a fence at the dealership, the manager was probably eager to move his inventory. Regardless, the car earned good crash ratings, it used less gasoline than a tank, and it had the one accessory she couldn’t live without: a CD player.

Before putting the car in gear, Peyton punched the button of the stereo system and relaxed when the professional reader’s voice poured through the surround sound speakers. She’d bought this audiobook about mothers and daughters shortly after telling Christine the truth about their relationship—yes, they were reporter and reader, but they were also biological mother and daughter. Eighteen years and difficult circumstances had kept them apart, but a series of newspaper columns had brought them back together.

Now Peyton wanted nothing more than to be the mother she would have been if tragedy hadn’t intervened. A heaven-sent miracle had restored the child she’d been forced to surrender for adoption, and Peyton didn’t want to forfeit this second chance to love. And parent. And occasionally nag.

She and Christine were still in the midst of that awkward getting-to-know-you phase, but Peyton felt they’d made great strides in their relationship. They tried to talk every day, even if only briefly, and though Christine still lived in the house she’d inherited from her adoptive parents, she felt free enough to drop into Peyton’s home unannounced, as any daughter naturally would.

Still, Christine rarely called Peyton “Mom.” When necessary, she called Peyton by name . . . or she didn’t call her anything at all.

“By late adolescence,” a confident voice intoned as Peyton put the car in gear and backed out of the parking space, “most daughters can be placed in one of three categories—distant, dissatisfied, or dependent. Do any of these words remind you of the young woman in your life?”

Peyton shook her head and shifted into drive. The author needed a fourth category for Christine—maybe delightful. They were still in the honeymoon phase, each of them unbearably grateful to have found the other. They might have disagreements later—in fact, they probably would—but for now Peyton was thrilled to be able to know and love the young woman who had never been far from her thoughts and prayers.

“Outstanding mothers devote most of their time to their children, instilling healthy values into daughters who will become outstanding mothers themselves,” the reader continued, “but unsuitable mothers abandon and abuse.”

Peyton winced at the author’s use of the word abandon.

“Bottom line, if you provide your child with what she needs—clothing, shelter, food, affection—you, concerned mother, are off the hook if your daughter makes unwise decisions. After you have taught your child right from wrong, your daughter has the freedom to choose . . . right or wrong. Do not blame yourself if she chooses to learn life’s lessons through negative experiences.”

Peyton frowned as she pulled out of the parking lot and into traffic. Over the years, she’d covered dozens of stories involving teenage delinquents—wayward boys who got mixed up with guns and drugs, runaway girls who ended up on the street or in the hospital because they went looking for love in all the wrong faces. Behind every sad teenager’s story, Peyton found a distraught mother who couldn’t seem to understand how her child ended up in such a deplorable state.

She hated to admit it, but every time she interviewed one of those mothers, she’d walked away feeling resentful and slightly smug, convinced that she would have managed better if only given a chance. But now that she was being given an opportunity to mother a teen, she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

To make matters worse, her time of greatest influence would be limited. After the plane crash in which her father died, Christine had taken time off to grieve, but soon she’d go back to school and get busy with her studies. She’d probably meet a young man on campus and want to settle down. Then she’d center her world on her husband and her children, and she’d expect Peyton to focus on being a doting grandmother, not a mom. So this precious opportunity to parent her daughter would be relatively short-lived.

Peyton pulled up to the red light at an intersection and snapped off the CD player. The bookstores were loaded with books about how to parent newborns, toddlers, middle schoolers, and teens, but no one had much advice for brand-new parents of young adults.

No one even seemed to be able to answer Peyton’s most basic question: at eighteen, which did Christine need most: an authority figure or a friend?


Copyright ©2009 by Angela Hunt. Used with permission from Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Unsigned Hype

I'll be honest. When I agreed to review this book I didn't expect to like it. I mean, what do I have in common with an urban hip-hop artist? A teenage boy, at that! But... the storyline intrigued me so I gave it a try. And I was pleasantly surprised! It was very well-written, great plot, and I loved the adult role models throughout the book that Tory learned from. I highly recommend it!

Here's the publisher's synopsis:

Tory Tyson may only be in high school, but he knows what he wants out of life--a successful music career. And he's not going to learn about all that at school. So when school lets out next month he's not going back. He's finally ready to stop spinning old records at parties and start laying down his own beats--and the Unsigned Hype music contest is the perfect place to launch his career. But will he be able to handle the fame and fortune he seeks?

Grounded in the world of today's urban youth, Unsigned Hype will draw readers in with its fresh voice and true-to-life rendering of the hip-hop world. Booker T. Mattison delivers a story with attitude in the vernacular of the urban teen.

Nothing But Trouble

by Susan May Warren.

This was a fun read about a small-town girl who goes home "after all those years." There's a mystery plot woven into the story, plenty of comedy, and some good thoughts about relationships. I'm looking forward to more in the series.

Chapter One:

PJ Sugar would never escape trouble. Clearly she couldn’t shake free of it—regardless of how far and fast she ran. It had followed her from Minnesota to South Dakota to Colorado to Montana, down the shore to California, and finally over to Melbourne Beach, Florida, where it rose with teeth to consume what should have been the most perfect night of her life.

She stood on the shore, her toes mortared into the creamy white sand, the waves licking up to her ankles, and with a cry that sounded more like frustration than fury, threw her linen espadrille with her best underhand pitch. It sailed high, cutting through the burning sky, disappeared briefly in the purple haze of night, then splashed into the ocean.

Gone. Along with her future.

A seagull soared low, screaming, pondering the morsel it may have missed.

“PJ, come back inside.” Matthew’s voice sounded behind her as he trekked out onto the beach, kicking sand into his loafers, looking piqued as the wind raked fingers through his brown, thinning hair, snagged his tie, and noosed it around his neck. He dangled her oversize canvas purse from his hand, as if it might be a bomb.

Ten feet away, he held it out to her like a carrot. “They haven’t even brought out the crab legs yet. You love those.”

“Oh, sure I do. Right along with brussels sprouts and pickled herring.” She’d been so soundly ensconced in happily-ever-after land she’d failed to see that the man she wanted to marry didn’t even know she hated crab legs.

Pretty much all shellfish.

Thanks to the fact that she was allergic to it.

Matthew lowered the purse, as if her words stung him. “Really?”

PJ shook her head, her mouth half-open, not even sure where to start. Behind them, calypso music drifted out of Dungarees Restaurant, festive themes for happy couples. Twinkle lights stringing along the thatched roof overhung the porch, and the piquant smell lifting off the grills on the patio snarled her empty stomach. Maybe she should go back inside, pick up the wicker chair she’d knocked over.

He owed her dinner, at least.

She stood her ground, forcing him to march her belongings across the sand.

“Here’s your, uh . . . suitcase.” He held it out to her, letting go before she had her hand on it. It dropped with the weight of an anvil onto the glossy sand.

“Hey, that’s my personal survival kit—show some respect.” She scooped it up, realizing she’d been entirely too civil during his execution of their relationship. “You never know when you’re going to need something.” Laugh all he wanted—if a gal was going to haul around a purse, it should be filled with all things handy. Tape to shut someone’s mouth, for example. Or a flashlight to guide her way home across a black expanse of shore.

“Sorry.” He stuck his hands into the pockets of his khakis, his sports coat like a warning flag as it whipped around him. “C’mon, PJ, come back inside. Please. It’s cold out here.”

“Seriously? Because ten minutes ago you were telling me how I wasn’t the girl for you. How, after nearly a year of dating, on a night when I expected—” Nope, she wasn’t going there. Wasn’t going to give him the slightest satisfying hint that she might have come to dinner tonight hoping—convinced, even—that he’d actually take a knee and put words to what she thought she’d seen in his eyes. Devotion. Commitment.

How could she have cajoled herself into believing that perfect Matthew Buchanan, church singles group leader and seminary student, might see a pastor’s wife in her?

Maybe she wasn’t exactly the picture of a pastor’s wife, with her curves, dark red hair, too many freckles spraying her nose as if she were still fifteen. She’d never considered herself refined, more on the cute side, her height conspiring against her hopes of being willowy and elegant. But her eyes were pretty—green, and honest, if maybe too wide in her face. And she’d cleaned up over the years. Even if Matthew didn’t think her beautiful, couldn’t he see past her rough edges to the woman she longed to be—a friend of Jesus, a woman of principle, a servant of grace? a girl who’d finally outrun her mistakes?

Apparently not.

She should be flinging herself into the surf right behind her espadrille.

“Expecting what, PJ?” Matthew had a faraway, even stricken, look in those previously warm eyes.

PJ couldn’t believe she was actually answering him and in a tone that betrayed her disappointment. “I just thought we were heading somewhere.”

“Like the missions trip to Haiti? You wanted to go on that with me?”

She stared at the place between his eyes, pretty sure she still had her shortstop aim. Her grip tightened on the other espadrille. “No,” she said slowly, crisply. “Not the missions trip.”

“Oh.” Wonder of wonders, he got it then, his face falling as he replayed his rejection. “I’m sorry. It just isn’t working for me.”

What did that mean exactly? Wasn’t working? Like she might be a cog that fouled up his perfect image? Clearly he’d forgotten the depths from which he’d climbed. Especially since, in her recent memory, he’d been a Budweiser-drinking surfer.

“You said that.” PJ hauled her bag up to her shoulder and curled her arms around her waist as her sundress twisted through her legs. She turned away, watching the ocean darken with its mystery. She never really swam in the ocean, just waded. The riptides and the unknown predators that lurked below the surface scared her. She tasted the salt in the cool spray that misted the air, heard hunger in the waves as they chewed the sand around her feet. She sometimes wondered what lay beyond the shore, in the uncharted depths of the sea.

And if she’d ever have the courage to find out.

“It’s just that, I want to be a pastor, and . . . ,” Matthew said, his voice closer to her.

“And?” She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, fighting a shiver.

“You’re just not pastor’s wife material.”

PJ refused to let his epitaph show on her face and found a voice that didn’t betray her. “Do you remember the last time we were out on the beach together?”

“What? Uh . . . no . . . wait—a couple weeks ago, we got ice cream on the pier.”

PJ closed her eyes. “That wasn’t with me.”

Silence. She didn’t temper it.

“Then, no.”

“It was the night of the sea turtles. Remember, we had to use flashlights because they made all the residents along the shore turn off their outside lights? We had our arms woven together to keep from losing each other. I remember wondering if it was possible to read your thoughts, because I couldn’t see your face.”

“We nearly walked on a sea turtle coming to shore,” Matthew said, reminiscence in his tone. She glanced at him, and something like pain or concern emerged on his face, edged in the shadow of whiskers.

PJ turned away, back to the ocean. “I kept thinking—that turtle mama’s going to bury her babies onshore and never see them again. She was going to leave them to fend for themselves, to struggle back to the sea, tasty defenseless morsels diving into an ocean where they’re the main course.”

She stared at her shoe, dangling in her hand. The wind ran its sticky fingers through her hair, tangling what had been a stylish short bob into a nest. Gooseflesh prickled her skin—she was cold and hungry, but she’d wrap herself in seaweed and dig a bunker in the sand before she’d return to the restaurant with Matthew. Probably she could even find something to eat in her so-called suitcase.

“Do you think they made it?” She wasn’t sure why she asked, why she prolonged this moment, their last. Probably trying to unravel time, as usual, figure out where it had snarled, turned into a knot.

Matthew dug his foot into the sand, watching it. “If they were supposed to, I guess.” He sighed. “Let’s go inside, PJ.”

PJ ran her eyes over the profile she’d previously—about an hour previously—told herself she loved. His sharp jaw, that lean rectangle frame. Barefoot, she still came to nearly his chin.

She wanted a taller man. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

He frowned.

“I’m not doing this ‘let’s be friends’ thing with you.”

“But we were friends before.” He reached for her and she dodged him, raising her shoe.

“Back away.”

“Whatya gonna do, PJ? Bean me with a shoe?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

He shook his head. “See, this is why we’d never work out. I need someone who is . . .”

“Perfect? Doesn’t show her emotions?”

He raised his shoulder in an annoying shrug. “Pastor’s wife material.”

Now he was going to get hurt. “Oh, that’s rich. Coming from a former surfer with a scar where his eyebrow bar used to be. What happened to ‘Ride the waves, PJ, and see where they take you’?”

His eyes darkened. “I’ve changed.”

And apparently she hadn’t. “Good-bye, Matthew. And by the way, yes, I hate crab legs. Because I’m allergic to them. Pay attention.”

She kicked up sand as she marched across the beach, thankful she could see her condo/motel/efficiency—depending on who she talked to—in the distance. She’d give just about anything for her Chuck Taylors to run home in. But she’d dressed to kill, or at least for love, this evening in a floral sundress and new espadrilles that gave her a sort of out-of-body feminine feeling. She needed her Superman pajama pants and a tank top—and fast.

“PJ! Don’t run away!” Matthew’s voice lifted over the surf.

“Running away is what I do best!” She didn’t turn.

“Why do you have to be such a drama queen?”

Okay. That. Was. It. She spun around, dropped her bag to the sand, and with everything in her, hurled her other shoe at him, a hard straight shot that any decent first baseman could have nabbed or at least dodged.

His four-letter snarl into the night put the smallest of smiles on her lips as she turned away.

The restless ocean stirred into the sounds of the club music as she hiked up the beach. She clung to the shadows, avoiding the pool of light from houses and condos, restaurants and cafés.

Not pastor’s wife material.

She broke into a little jog, hiking up the confining circle of her hem.

Angling up the sand, she hopped over the boardwalk toward her building. Brine-scented sea grass brushed the walkway, carpeted the trail to the two-story Sandy Acres motel/apartment complex, the half-lit sign now reading only “Sa d Ac es,” a term that seemed particularly apropos as she opened the metal gate alone, again.

Around the patio area, rusty pool furniture glimmered under the tinny, buzzing fluorescent lights. A horde of moths flirted with death around the heat of the bulbs; the earthy palmetto smell tangled with the coconut oil smeared onto the deck chairs, tempering the sharp odor of chlorine. Hip-hop thrummed under her downstairs neighbor’s door, and wet towels taunted by the wind slapped the metal rail above her as she climbed the stairs to her unit.

Home sweet home.

A temporary home. Three years could mean temporary. In fact, until tonight, she’d already been mentally packing, giving away her garage sale wicker and, finally, her Kellogg High School Mavericks sweatshirt. Maybe even Boone’s leather jacket, the one she’d stolen the night she left town. It seemed an uneven prize to all he’d cost her.

Her skin prickled as she fought the dead bolt.

Boone had probably forgotten the girl who wound her arms around his waist and dug her face into the leathery pocket between his shoulder blades as he roared them away from Kellogg on his Kawasaki.

Loneliness met her in the silence, the lights between the slats of the blinds striping the bedsheet that cordoned off her so-called bedroom. Her faucet dripped, and she dropped her key onto the counter, surrendering to the habitual attempt to turn it off. Then she ca-lumped her bag onto the chair, folded her arms, and stared out the window at the dark, hungry ocean.

Almost without realizing it, she clamped her hand over her left shoulder, high, near the apex, where the word Boone marked her in flowery script.

Beep. Behind her, the answering machine beckoned her away from the past and what might have been.

Boone was probably in jail or, worse, reformed and married with children. The great taboo, he wasn’t mentioned in her mother’s phone calls; his name wasn’t scrawled in her letters. She was sure he’d forgotten her, just like everyone else had.

Beep.

Forgotten that she’d left Kellogg, Minnesota, accused of a felony—an accusation too easily pinned on a high school senior whose reputation indicted her without trial. Her only crime had been abysmal judgment in men and allowing her heart to trespass into places her common sense told her not to tread.

A crime, apparently, she kept committing.

Beep.

Forgotten that her mother cut a deal with the director of the country club, one that included a full tank of gas and promises of a new kitchen. Her mother’s instructions to her included the phrase “just until things blow over.”

Beep.

Perhaps things had blown over long ago. Perhaps she was the one not ready.

Beep!

She pushed the Play button as she opened the freezer. Please let there be ice—

“PJ, it’s me.” Connie. The fact that her sister’s attorney-solemn voice tremored made PJ close the freezer door.

“Don’t panic.” Of course not. Because Connie never called her without some earth-shattering joyful news: I passed the bar. I bought a house. I’m having a baby. I’m getting married again!

PJ forced herself to remember that dissecting all that joy was the dark news of husband number one’s death. No one, regardless of how successful, thin, wealthy, and smart, deserved to be woken up at 2 a.m. by the police and asked to identify her husband’s remains. Or those of his mistress, with whom he’d been traveling when his car went off the road.

Still, PJ could hear panic under Connie’s voice. Especially when Connie continued, a little too quickly.

“Okay, listen, I know you don’t want to hear this, but . . . I need you to come home.”

Connie took a breath. And PJ held hers.

“Mom’s been in an accident.”

Everything went silent—the hip-hop beating the floorboards, the far-off hunger of the ocean, Matthew’s criticism in her ear. The years rushed at her like a line drive knocking her off her feet, regrets scattered like dust in her shadow.

Then Connie sighed and hung up. The beep and time signature noted no further messages.

PJ reached for the phone.

***

Connie sounded as if she might be on her fourth cup of coffee in some cement-lined corridor, tapping out the hour in her Jimmy Choos.

“PJ, where have you been? Mom’s already had her cast set and is in recovery.”

“Please, Connie, not now. Just . . . what happened?” PJ pressed the phone tight to her ear and paced to the window, the ten-year near estrangement with her mother hollowing her out. Had her mother forgotten her silent pledge to carry on, to be waiting if and when PJ summoned the courage to point her car north?

“She fell on the tennis court and broke her ankle.”

The window’s cool surface broke the sweat across PJ’s forehead. Tennis? “For pete’s sake, Connie, I thought . . . oh, man . . . Don’t call me again.”

“PJ!”

“What?”

“Don’t you want to know how bad it is?”

PJ sank into a chair. “How bad is it?”

“They casted her ankle; her bones are secured with a pin. She’ll be out of the hospital tomorrow. But I need you to come home. I’m getting married in a week, and I need help.”

Married. Of course. PJ had seen a picture of Sergei, Connie’s fiancé, and seriously wondered why a double-degreed lawyer might be marrying her tae kwon do coach. But who was she to question—after all, she, a near felon, had dreamed she might pass as a pastor’s wife.

“I thought you two were eloping.” PJ had managed to catch her breath and now returned to the freezer, cradled the phone against her shoulder, and dug out the Moose Tracks. As she opened the lid, crystallized edges and the smell of freezer burn elicited only a slight hesitation. She lifted a spoon from the dish drainer cup in the sink.

“We were flying down to Cancún, but Sergei’s parents couldn’t get a visa for Mexico, so I planned a little soiree at the country club. But the thing is, I have vacation time coming, and if I don’t use it, I’ll lose it. So we need to get away now if we want a honeymoon, and Mom certainly can’t watch David while she’s in a cast. I need you, Peej.”

PJ leaned a hip against the counter and cleaned the sides of the carton, the chocolate swirls melting against the roof of her mouth—sweet with only an edge of bitter.

“So let me get this straight—it’s okay that you weren’t going to invite me to the sunny sands of Mexico to watch you tie the knot with Mr. Muscle, but you want me to leave my life and return home at your whim?” She kept her eyes averted from the threadbare wicker and the chipped Formica table and stomped the floor once, real loud, hoping the boyz in the hood might hear her over the rap.

On the other end of the phone, Connie’s voice wadded into a small, tight ball. “I know how you feel about Kellogg and Boone and especially Mom, and frankly I don’t blame you. I’ve even tried to respect your decision. But it’s time to come home. You have family here. I need you. David needs you. . . .”

PJ tossed the empty container into the sink, licked off the spoon. Down the street, a car peeled out in a hurry, and a dog barked in disapproval.

“You know how I feel? Really? Because you got to stay, Connie. After graduation, you went on to college, to a life. I left town right after the ceremony, a Tupperware bowl of fruit on the seat beside me, praying my ancient VW Bug would make it to the South Dakota border. I’ve spent the past ten years wandering from one tank of gas to the next, trying to figure out where I should land. You lived the life Mom dreamed for you—”

“You lived the life you dreamed for yourself.”

PJ flinched, Connie’s voice sharper than she remembered. She stared out the window, wondering if Matthew still stood on the beach, a hand to his bruised head. “Is that what you seriously believe?”

Silence on the other end made PJ rub her fingers into her eyes. Connie had become an unlikely ally over the past ten years, mediating between PJ and their mother, once in a while sending her enough to cover her rent. However, it still wasn’t so easy to share the limelight with the sister who was wanted.

As opposed to being the one left on the proverbial doorstep. Being adopted sounded so endearing to everyone but the adoptee. The fact that Connie had been born just a few months later, close enough to share the same classes in school, constantly earning better grades and more awards, only served as a constant reminder that PJ hadn’t been good enough, even from birth.

“I’m sorry,” PJ said, letting a sigh leak out. “I’ve had a rough night.”

“Then come home, PJ. If only for a couple weeks. Or longer. You can stay with me until you find your own place.”

“Did you ask Mom?” PJ winced, hating the question and that she didn’t yank it back. Hadn’t she learned anything?

“I asked. Even if Mom won’t admit it, she needs you.”

PJ stood at her screen door, staring out at the now star-sprinkled night glistening on the rippled landscape. The Milky Way streamed across the sky, heading north.

“Please?” Admittedly, it was the closest to pleading she’d ever heard from Connie. “I need you.”

“How long before your wedding?”

“Six days. Sunday at two.”

PJ hung up without promises and walked back outside, over the boardwalk to the beach. The wind had chased the clouds, and a diamond chip moon hung in the sky, surrounded by the jewels of the night, brilliant and close enough to wrap her fingers around. She pressed her bare feet into the sand, then lifted them out, listening to the water slurp, then fill the imprints. Finally, she stared out again at the ocean and wondered how many turtles really made it back to the sea.


Excerpted from Nothing But Trouble by Susan May Warren. Copyright © 2009 by Susan May Warren. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes

I enjoyed this fun installment in the popular Sisterchicks series by c. It was fun to learn about Holland, and "visit" some of the points of interest along with the characters in the book.

When a mammogram result comes back abnormal, midlife mama Summer Finley makes a snap decision to relegate fear to the back burner and fulfill a lifelong dream. Summer heads for Holland where she meets up with tulips, wooden shoes, and her best friend, Noelle.

Pen pals since fourth grade, Summer and Noelle have never met face-to-face. Through decades of heart-level correspondence, they have sustained a deep friendship. A week of adventure helps both women trade anxiety for a renewed and deeper trust in God. When Summer confides in Noelle about the abnormal medical report, Noelle finds the freedom to share a long-held heartache, and both women discover they needed each other more than they realized.

Women ages 35 and up, readers of Christian Boomer Lit, and fans of books such as The Yada Yada Prayer Group will enjoy Robin Jones Gunn’s humorous and uplifting style. True-to-life characters and moments of poignancy bring a deeper understanding of the value of life and the gift of true friends. Readers guide and bonus material included.

By Darkness Hid

by Jill Williamson

I have a friend who refuses to start a series of books unless all the books in the series are out and available. I usually just laugh at him, but this is one instance where I can empathize with him! This is a really well-written book with a medieval/fantasy setting... definitely a page-turner. I can't wait for the next one in the series!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jill Williamson is a novelist, dreamer, and believer. She writes stories that combine danger, suspense, and adventure for people of all ages. An avid reader, she started Novel Teen Book Reviews to help teens find great books to read. She lives in Oregon with her husband and two book-loving children. By Darkness Hid is her first novel.

Visit the author's website.




AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Achan stumbled through the darkness toward the barn. The morning cold sent shivers through his threadbare orange tunic. He clutched a wooden milking pail at his side and held a flickering torch out in front to light his way.

He wove between dark cottages in the outer bailey of the castle, mindful to keep his torch clear of the thatched roofs. Most of the residents of Sitna still slept. Only a few of the twenty-some peasants, slaves, and strays serving Lord Nathak and Prince Gidon stirred at this hour.

Sitna Manor sat on the north side of the Sideros River. A brownstone curtain wall, four levels high, enclosed the stronghold. A second wall sectioned off the outer bailey from the inner bailey, temple, and keep. Achan wasn’t allowed to enter the inner bailey but occasionally snuck inside when he felt compelled to leave an offering at Cetheria’s temple.

The barn loomed ahead of him in the darkness. It was one of the largest structures in Sitna Manor. It was long and narrow, with a high, thatched gable roof. Achan shifted the pail to his torch hand and tugged the heavy door open. It scraped over the frosty dirt. He darted inside and pulled it closed.

The scent of hay and manure drifted on the chilled air. He walked to the center and slid the torch into an iron ring on a load-bearing post. The timber walls stymied the bitter wind, and Achan’s shivering lessened.

The torch cast a golden glow over the hay pile, posts, and rafters and made Achan’s orange tunic look brown. A long path stretched the length of the barn with stalls on each side penning chickens, geese, pigs, and goats. Two empty stalls in the center housed hay and feed. He approached the goat stall.

“Morning, Dilly, Peg. How are my girls? Got lots of milk for me?”

The goats bleated their greetings. Achan rubbed his hands together until they were warm enough to avoid getting him kicked. He perched on the icy stool to milk Dilly and begin his tedious routine. He could have worse jobs, though, and he liked the goats.

By the time Achan had finished with Dilly, the stool under his backside had thawed, though his breath still clouded in the torch’s dull glow. He lifted the pail to get a better look. Dilly had filled it a third. Achan set it between his feet, slapped Dilly on the rear, and called Peg. When he had finished milking her he moved his stool outside and set the milk on top of it. He grabbed a pitchfork off the wall.

“Anyone hungry?”

Dilly and Peg danced around as Achan dumped fresh hay into the trough. The goats’ excitement faded to munching. The other animals stirred, but they were not his responsibility. Mox, the scrawny barn boy, had arrived a few minutes ago and now shuffled from stall to stall at the other end of the barn.

As Achan leaned the pitchfork against the wall, he had to pause. A chill ran through him that had nothing to do with the temperature. He felt the familiar pressure in his head. It wasn’t painful but it brought a sense of a looming, sinister shadow. Someone was coming.

“Lo, Mox!” a familiar voice called from near the barn’s entrance.

“Moxy poxy hoggy face, we know you’re in here.”

Achan sucked in an icy breath and slid back into the goat stall. The voices belonged to Riga Hoff and Harnu Poe, Sitna Manor’s resident browbeaters.

Mox’s young voice cried out. “Stop it! Don’t do that! Ah!”

Achan set his jaw and thunked his head against the wall of the stall, earning a reprimanding look from Dilly. Poril would flay him if he returned late. And there was no guarantee he could beat both boys. He should mind his own business. Regular beatings had made him tough—they could do likewise for Mox.

Or they could cripple him for life. An image flooded his mind: a young slave being dragged through the linen field by Riga and Harnu. They’d crushed his hands so badly that all the boy could do now was pull a cart like a mule. Achan sighed.

He edged to the other end of the barn, stepping softly over the scattered hay. Two piglets scurried past his feet. He clenched his jaw. If the animals got out, Mox would be punished by his master too. Riga and Harnu knew that, of course.

Achan spotted them in a pig stall at the end of the barn. Harnu was holding Mox’s face in a trough of slop. The mere thought of the smell turned Achan’s empty stomach. Riga leaned over Harnu’s shoulder laughing, his ample rear blocking the stall’s entrance. Fine linen stretched over Riga’s girth and rode up his back in wrinkles, baring more skin than Achan cared to see.

He sent a quick prayer up to the gods and cleared his throat. “Can I help you boys with something?”

Riga spun around, his mess of short, golden curls sticking out in all directions. His face was so pudgy Achan could never tell if his eyes were open or closed. “Stay out of this, dog!”

Harnu released Mox and pushed past Riga out of the stall. The torch’s beam illuminated his pockmarked face, a hazard from working too close to the forge. “Moxy poxy piglet got out of his pen. He needs to learn his place.” Harnu stood a foot taller than Riga and was the real threat in the barn. He stepped toward Achan. “Looks like you need to learn yours too.”

Achan held his ground. “Let him go.”

Harnu’s gaze flitted to a pitchfork propped against the wall. He grabbed it and swung. Achan jumped back, but the tines snagged his tunic, ripping a hole in the front and scratching his stomach. Achan squeezed his fists and blew out a long breath.

Harnu jabbed the pitchfork forward. Achan lunged to the side and grabbed the shaft. He wrenched the weapon away and spun it around, prongs facing Harnu. He waved it slightly back and forth, hoping to scare the brute into flight.

“The barn is off limits to your instruction. Anything else I can do for you boys? A little hay? Some oats, perhaps? Drag you to the moat, tie a millstone to your ankles, see how well you swim?”

Like a dog being teased with a bone, Harnu lunged.

Achan stepped back and raised the pitchfork above his head the way he’d seen knights do in the longsword tournaments. With nothing to stop his hurtling bulk, Harnu stumbled. Achan swung the tines flat against Harnu’s backside, and the bully knocked head first into the chicken pen. The birds squawked and fluttered, sending a cloud of dust over Harnu.

Riga slipped past the stall and made toward the milk pail. Achan darted forward and stuck the pitchfork in the clay earth to snag Riga’s foot. The big louse tripped and sprawled into the dirt and hay.

Footsteps behind Achan sent him wheeling around just in time to lift the pitchfork to Harnu’s chest. Over Harnu’s shoulder, Achan could see Mox climbing out of the geese pen with a squirming piglet under one arm.

Harnu raised his hands and stepped back, a thin scratch swelling across his reddened cheek. “Lord Nathak will hear ’bout this, stray. You’ll hang.”

Achan knew he wouldn’t hang for a tussle like this, but he might be whipped. And Lord Nathak’s guards were merciless. Besides, Achan doubted Lord Nathak’s servants would bother their master with such a trivial matter. He shrugged. “Not much to tell. You fell into the chicken pen.”

“You attacked me with a pitchfork when I caught you trying to steal a horse.”

A tremor snaked down Achan’s arms. Stealing a horse was cause for a hanging. And no one—especially Lord Nathak—would take the word of a stray over a peasant, even one like Harnu. Achan jabbed the pitchfork out. “If Lord Nathak hears a breath of that tripe, I know where you lay your head.”

Harnu snorted and beat his chest with a clenched fist. “You dare threaten me?”

Achan glanced around for Riga, but the swine had vanished. He backed toward the hay pile, feeling cornered. Achan took another step back, keeping the pitchfork aimed at Harnu. His boot knocked against something.

Harnu cackled and pointed at the ground behind Achan’s feet. Achan looked down. The stool and pail lay on their sides, milk seeping into the clay soil.

Pig snout!

Riga charged out of the hay stall with a roar. Achan turned but Riga jerked the pitchfork away. Harnu rushed forward and battered Achan to the ground.

The pitchfork dug into Achan’s back. He gritted his teeth, not wanting to give the brutes the satisfaction of hearing him scream. He was more upset over the spilled milk than the pain.

Pain, he was used to.

Mox pointed at Achan from the end of the barn, his face gooey with slop. “Ha ha!”

The ungrateful scab was on his own next time.

Dilly and Peg kicked against the wall of their stall, agitated by Achan’s distress.

Harnu crouched in front of him, grabbed the back of his head, and pushed his face toward the puddle seeping into the dirt floor. “Lick it up, dog!”

Achan thrashed in the hay but lost his battle with Harnu’s hand. He turned his head just as his cheek splashed into the milky muck. The liquid steamed around his face. Harnu released Achan’s head and sat back on his haunches, his wide lips twisting in a triumphant sneer.

Riga chortled, a dopey sound. “I’d like a new rug, Harnu. What say we skin the stray?” He dragged the pitchfork down Achan’s back.

They never learned.

Achan pushed up with his arms. The prongs dug deeper but he was able to slide his right arm and leg underneath his body and twist free. He grabbed the handle of the pail and swung it at Harnu’s face. Harnu fell onto his backside, clutching his nose.

Achan scrambled to his feet. He grabbed another pitchfork off the wall and squared off with Riga.

The fat boy waddled nearer and lifted his weapon. Achan faked an upswing.

When Riga heaved the pitchfork up to block, Achan swung the shaft of his weapon into Riga’s leg.

The boy went down like a slaughtered pig.

Harnu approached, pinching his nose with one hand and wiping a fistful of hay across his upper lip with the other.

“This does grow old,” Achan said. “How many times do I have to trounce you both?”

“I’m telling Lord Nathak,” Harnu said, sounding like he had a cold.

“You’ve no right to attack us,” Riga mumbled from the dirt floor.

Achan wanted to argue, And what of Mox? but he’d sacrificed enough for that thankless whelp. He grabbed both pitchforks and fled from the barn.

Pale dawn light blanketed Sitna Manor. He ran toward the drawbridge, glancing at the sentry walk of the outer gatehouse. The squared parapet was black against the gray sky. A lone guard stood on the wall above like a shadow.

Achan ran through the gate and over the drawbridge. As usual, the guards ignored him. Few people in the manor acknowledged anyone wearing an orange tunic. One small advantage of being a stray. He sank to his knees at the edge of the moat to wash the blood off the pitchforks.

Riga and Harnu wouldn’t let this go easily.

Achan sighed. His fingers stiffened in the rank, icy water. One of these days he’d accept pretty Gren Fenny’s offer to weave him a brown tunic, and run away. He was almost of age—maybe no one would question his heritage. He could tell people his mother was a mistress and his father was on Ice Island. Sired by a criminal and almost sixteen, people wouldn’t ask too many questions.

When the pitchforks were clean, Achan returned to the barn. His attackers had left and, thankfully, had not done any damage they could blame him for. He shuddered to think of what their feeble minds hadn’t. The torch still burned in the ring by the door. They could have burned the barn to ashes. They were truly the thickest heads in Sitna, maybe even in all Er’Rets.

Not that Achan was much brighter, sacrificing himself for an ingrate who was probably out chasing piglets.

Achan hung one pitchfork on the wall and used the other to clean up the hay. When the ground was tidy, he picked up the empty pail and sat on the stool to catch his breath.

The consequences of his heroism were suddenly laid before him. The scratches on his back throbbed. The goat’s milk had completely soaked into the ground, the front of his tunic, and his face. Only the latter had dried, making the skin tight on his left cheek. His nose tingled from the cold. He shivered violently, now that he’d stopped moving. He scowled and pitched the pail across the barn. It smacked the goat stall, and the girls scurried around inside, frightened by the sound.

But Achan didn’t want a beating. So he picked the pail up againa, dragged the stool into the stall, and managed to squeeze another two inches of milk from the goats. It was all they had. Poril would be furious.

Achan jogged out of the barn, around the cottages, and across the inner bailey. By now, more people were stirring—it was almost breakfasttime. He wove around a peddler pushing a cart full of linens and a squire leading a horse from the stables. A piglet scurried past, just avoiding the wheels of a trader’s wagon. Achan ignored it. Mox could hang for all he cared.

Pressure filled his head again.

This time the insight that followed was not dread but kinship and hope. Achan paused at the entrance to the kitchens and turned, seeking out the source of the sensation. His gaze was drawn to the armory.

There, Harnu slouched on a stool clutching a bloody rag to his nose. His father stood over him, hands on hips. The warm glow of the forge behind their menacing forms brought to mind the Lowerworld song that Achan had heard Minstrel Harp sing in the Corner last night:

When Arman turns away, Shamayim denied

To Lowerword your soul will flee.

At the fiery gates meet your new lord, Gâzar

And forever in Darkness you’ll be.

Achan shuddered. The sensation of kinship was definitely not coming from them.

He spotted someone else. A knight stood leaning against the crude structure of the armory watching Achan with a pensive stare. He wore the uniform of the Old Kingsguard—a red, hooded cloak that draped over both arms and hung to a triangular point in the center front and back. The crest of the city of Armonguard, embroidered in gold thread, glimmered over his chest. The knight pulled his hood back to reveal white hair, tied back on top and hanging past his shoulders. A white beard dangled in a single braid that extended to his chest.

Achan recognized him immediately. It was Sir Gavin Lukos, the knight who had come to train Prince Gidon for his presentation to the council.

For what purpose did the knight stare? Achan had never met anyone above his station who hadn’t wished him harm or hard work. Yet his instincts had never been wrong. Sir Gavin harbored no ill will. Achan gave the old man a half smile before entering the kitchens to face Poril’s wrath.

* * *

Achan settled onto a stool by the chest-high table. The table was worn by years of knives and kneading. Poril, a burly old man with sagging posture, poured batter into stone cups and carried them to the hearth oven. Serving women scurried about filling trays with food and gossiping about Lord Nathak’s latest rejection from the Duchess of Carm.

Achan’s stomach growled at the smell of fried bacon and ginger cake. He wouldn’t be able to eat until after the nobility were served, and then he would be allowed only one bowl of porridge. Poril had a knack of knowing if Achan had eaten something he shouldn’t have. Achan suspected the serving women’s tongues flapped for extra slices of Poril’s pies.

The scratches on his back burned. He was in no mood for Poril’s daily lecture, nor could he stomach the cook’s nagging voice and the queer way he spoke about himself using his own name. Especially not when he was hungry and had a beating coming. He only hoped Harnu would keep his accusations of thieving to himself. Maybe it was time to talk to Gren about that brown tunic.

Poril scurried back to the table with a linen sack of potatoes. His downy white hair floated over his freckled scalp. Sometimes Achan wanted to laugh when he watched Poril. The man looked more like he should be wielding a sword than a wooden spoon. Some of the serving women said Poril was part giant. Achan wasn’t convinced. The cook might be tall and thick, but his sagging posture and thinning hair just made him look old.

“It’s what comes from giving a stray responsibility, that’s what. But Poril’s a kind soul, he is. Mother was a stray and no kinder woman there ever was, boy, I’ll tell yeh that. Worked hard so Poril could have better, she did.”

Poril dumped the potatoes onto the table. Several rolled onto the dirt floor, and Achan scrambled to pick them up. He spotted a crumbled wedge of ginger cake on the floor and stuffed the spicy sweetness into his mouth. It was even a bit warm still. Achan took his time setting the potatoes back on the table and pressed the lump of cake into the roof of his mouth to savor it, hoping Poril didn’t see. Then he grabbed a knife and hacked at the peel of the biggest potato.

Poril pointed a crooked finger in Achan’s face. “It’s only ’cause Poril’s the best cook in Er’Rets that Lord Nathak won’t be aware of yer blunder with the milk today, boy. ’Tis my responsibility to beat some sense into yeh, not his. Poril’s a fair man, and yeh deserve to be punished, that’s certain. But turning yeh over to the likes of the master is cruel. And cruel, Poril’s not.”

Achan set the peeled potato aside and picked up another. Poril always threatened to tell Lord Nathak of Achan’s every misstep, but the man was all talk. He was more scared of Lord Nathak than Achan was of Gâzar himself. True, Poril was not as cruel as some, but he was of the opinion that beatings with the belt were kinder than beatings with a fist. Achan grew tired of both.

Poril clunked a mug of red tonic onto the table beside Achan’s potato peelings. Achan glanced at it.

The old man’s gray eyes dared him to refuse. “Drink up, then. Poril’s waiting.”

Achan sucked in a long breath and guzzled the gooey, bitter liquid. He’d been fed the tonic every morning his whole life, and every morning Poril insisted on watching him drink. The taste killed the lingering ginger cake flavor on his tongue.

The thick mixture always churned in his gut, begging to come back up. Achan sat still a moment, breathing through his nose to calm his nerves. Then he rose to settle his stomach with a few mentha leaves from the spice baskets. Achan might not have free range of the kitchens, but Poril had learned long ago to allow Achan as much mentha as he needed.

Poril always claimed that Lord Nathak had insisted Achan drink the tonic to keep away illness—that strays were full of disease. But the tonic hadn’t prevented Achan from being ill several times in his life. Plus no other stray he knew had to take the drink. The one time he’d refused, he’d received a personal summons from Lord Nathak.

Achan shuddered at the memory and chewed on the leaves. Their fresh taste dissolved the tonic’s bitterness and tingled his tongue.

Poril wiped his hands on his grease-stained apron and sprinkled a bit of sugar over the prince’s ginger cake. Hopefully he’d forget to clean the crumbs off the table when he left to deliver it.

“Never wanted yeh, Poril didn’t. But the master brought yeh to Poril to raise and that’s what Poril’s done. Yeh brought none but trouble to the kitchens, the gods know. None but trouble. ’Tis why I named yeh so.”

As if an orange tunic wasn’t humiliation enough, achan meant trouble in the ancient language. Achan returned to his stool and raked the knife against another potato, trying to block out Poril’s braying voice. His pitchfork wounds stung but it would be at least an hour before he could tend to them.

“…and Poril will teach yeh right from wrong, too. That’s Poril’s duty to the gods.”

If that was true, Achan would like to have a little talk with the gods. Not that the all-powerful Cetheria would be burdened by the prayers of a stray—despite all the pastry tarts Achan had offered up at the entrance to the temple gardens over the years.

Day-old tarts didn’t compare to gold cups, jewels, or coins when you’re trying to win a god’s favor.

An hour later, Achan stood over the sink basin washing dishes while Poril delivered Lord Nathak and Prince Gidon’s breakfast. There were servants to do the task, but Poril insisted on being present when the first bites were taken.

Achan shifted his weight to his other leg. He hated cleaning dishes. Standing in one position for so long made his back ache, and today, with his pitchfork wounds, the pain doubled.

Though strays were lower even than slaves in most parts of Er’Rets, Achan had more freedom than most slaves. Poril kept him busy tending the goats, getting wood, and keeping the fireplaces hot and both kitchens clean, but at least there was variety. Some slaves worked fifteen hours a day at one task. Such tediousness would have driven Achan insane.

Achan dried the last pot and hung the towel on the line outside. When he came back in, Poril had returned. The cook wiggled his crooked fingers, beckoning Achan to follow him down the skinny stone steps to the cellar. Achan sighed, dreading the bite of Poril’s belt buckle.

The cook lived in a cramped room off of the cellar, furnished with a straw mattress, a tiny oak table, and two chairs. Achan slept in the cellar itself, under the supports that held up the ale casks, although he barely fit anymore. He feared to be crushed in his sleep one night when he rolled against one of the supports and it finally gave way.

As per routine, Achan went to Poril’s table, removed his tunic, and draped it over the back of one chair. He straddled the other chair in reverse and hugged it with his arms. His teeth fit into the grooves of bite marks he’d made over the years. He clenched down and waited.

Poril ran a finger down one of the scratches on Achan’s back. “What’s this?”

Achan quivered at the feel of crusty blood under Poril’s touch.

“Well? Speak up, boy. Poril don’t have all day to waste on yer silence.”

“I met some peasants in the barn this morning.”

“Spilled yer milk, did they?”

Not exactly, but Achan said, “Aye.”

“Yeh cause trouble?”

Achan didn’t answer. Poril always complained when Achan defended himself or anyone else. He said a stray should know his place and take his beatings like he’d deserved them.

“Ah, yer a fool, yeh are, boy. One of these days yeh’ll be killed, and Poril will tell the tale of how he knew it would come to pass. The boy wouldn’t listen to Poril. Had to smart off. Had to fight back. Not even Cetheria will have mercy on such idiocy.”

Achan doubted it mattered if he stuck up for himself or not. If a stray was invisible to man, how much more so to the gods?

He heard the swoosh of Poril pulling his leather belt from the loops on his trousers. He hoped his pants fell down.

When Poril was done flogging Achan, he kindly swabbed his back with soapy water, washed the blood from his tunic, and gave him an hour off to rest while it dried.

Good old Poril.

* * *

A kindly presence flooded his mind.

Achan was returning from the well carrying a heavy yoke over his shoulders with two full buckets of water. He rounded the edge of a cottage and found Sir Gavin Lukos heading toward him. Achan stepped aside, pressing up against the cottage and turning the yoke so the buckets wouldn’t hinder the great knight’s path. The buckets swung from his sharp movement, grinding the yoke into his shoulders.

Sir Gavin slowed. “What’s your name, stray?”

Achan jumped, wincing as the yoke sent a sliver into the back of his neck. Sir Gavin’s eyes bored into his. One was icy blue and the other was dark brown. The difference startled him. “Uh…Achan, sir.”

The knight’s weathered face wrinkled. “What kind of a name is that?”

Poril’s voice nagged in Achan’s mind, ’Tis trouble, that’s what. “Mine, sir.”

“Surname?”

Achan lifted his chin and answered, “Cham,” proud of the animal Poril had chosen to represent him. Chams breathed fire and had claws as long as his hand. Such virtues would tame Riga and Harnu for good.

Sir Gavin sniffed. “A fine choice.” His braided beard bobbed as he spoke. “I saw a bit of that ruthless bear in the barn with those peasants.”

Achan stared, shocked. He’d seen the fight? Would he tell Lord Nathak? “I…um…” Had Sir Gavin asked him a question? “I’m sorry?”

“I said, what’s your aim, lad?’

“I should like to serve in Lord Nathak’s kitchens…perhaps someday assist the stableman with the horses.”

“Bah! Kitchens and stables are no place for a cham. That’s a fierce beast. You need a goal fit for the animal.”

What could the knight be skirting around? “But I…I don’t have a…what choice have I?”

“Aw, now there’s always a choice, lad. Kingsguard is the highest honor to be had by a stray. Why not choose that?”

Achan cut off a gasping laugh, afraid of offending the knight. “I cannot. Forgive me, but you’re…I mean…a stray is not permitted to serve in the Kingsguard, sir.”

“It wasn’t always that way, you know. And despite any council law, there are always exceptions.”

Achan shifted the yoke a bit, uncomfortable with both the weight and the subject matter. He cared little for myths and legends. Council law was all that mattered anymore. Despite his fantasy of running away, he was Lord Nathak’s property, nothing more. The brand on his shoulder proved that. “Even so, sir, one must serve as a page first, then squire, and no knight would wish a stray for either.”

“Except, perhaps, a knight who’s a stray himself.” Sir Gavin winked his brown eye.

A tingle ran up Achan’s arms. He’d known Sir Gavin was a stray because of his animal surname, but it had been years since strays had been permitted to serve. Surely he couldn’t mean—

“Come to the stables an hour before sunrise tomorrow. Your training mustn’t interfere with your duties to the manor. Tell no one of this for now. If I decide you’re worthy, I’ll talk to Lord Nathak about reassignment to me.”

Achan’s mouth hung open. “You’re offering to train me?”

“If you’re not interested, I’m sure another would be eager to accept my offer.”

Achan shifted under the weight of the yoke. “No. No, sir. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“Good. I’ll show you a trick or two you don’t yet know.”

Achan grinned. “Yes, sir.”

The Diversity Culture

by Matthew Raley

"Creating Conversations of Faith with Buddhist Baristas, Agnostic Students, Aging Hipsters, Political Activists & Everyone in Between"

Introduction

A woman rolled over and reached, but remembered that her new friend had already left. She sat up, staring at the impression he had made on her bed. At least he had his own life.

Past cold candles she shuffled to her bathroom, the air inside still fragrant, condensation still clinging to the window after his shower. He would be wearing that Huntsman suit made for him last time he was in London—the suit he wore when she first saw him two weeks ago at Davies Symphony Hall. And maybe the same tie from Arnys. When you’re on a team preparing to argue before the Ninth Circuit you don’t wear your beloved tie-dye and jeans—even on Columbus Day.

The woman was annoyed that her new client had insisted on meeting. Even though the holiday is totally imperialist, she wished that she didn’t have to get into business mode, and she was bored by the prospect of yet another menu-design. Still, the meeting wasn’t until early afternoon, so she lingered over her makeup.

The TV remote called from the kitchen counter to her pre-election obsessions. She switched on MSNBC and caught the headlines. Weekend poll shows Obama up seven.1 Cool. Europeans try to keep their banks from collapsing. Not cool.

She poured coffee out of the French press and held the mug under her nose while she scanned the San Francisco Chronicle. Predictions that the financial collapse will stall climate change initiatives, anxious summary of the economic developments over the weekend, analysis of McCain and Obama avoiding the immigration issue.2

After the computer finished clicking and sighing, she checked how much e-mail had piled up over the weekend. Amid the flurry of personal messages were two articles from the New York Times. One friend had bragging rights, a mention of the bookstore where he worked, City Lights, in a travel article on Buddhist attractions in San Francisco.3 Another friend was gloating over Sarah Palin’s splitting right-wingers, forwarding a column by David Brooks that dissed the Alaskan governor.4 The friend wrote, “McSame’s going down! You betcha!”

Time kept on slipping, slipping, slipping.

The woman opened a cupboard. Froot Loops! It was very cute. Her new friend had gone out this morning and brought back Froot Loops and put Toucan Sam just inside the cupboard smiling down his beak at her. She loved a guy who could keep an inside joke going. All weekend bumming around Half Moon Bay it had been, “Follow my nose! It always knows!”

But if he went any further with it, she’d get annoyed.

Attired in the black trousers and narrow-shouldered jacket she found in Milan, her funky boots that clopped on her wide floorboards, and a low-cut, fitted T-shirt, she strode out of her loft into the fog, down to her Outback.

At this hour, the drive along I-80 and across the Bay Bridge into the City would not be enraging but still long. That was why they had KQED. “Talk of the Nation” was all about lynching—“How Far Have We Come?” Ted Koppel was talking about his new documentary on the subject, and a congressman described his experiences as an 18-year-old Freedom Rider in Mississippi.5 Mississippi, where they still believe the Bible’s commands to hate and kill people. The woman glanced at a billboard against the proposition banning gay marriage. We haven’t come all that far, have we. Still fighting hate.

She parked, slung her large leather portfolio over her shoulder, and walked to Café Siddhartha around the corner from her studio—as if she needed more caffeine. What she wanted was the aura of the place, the energy. It was like stepping into one of the temples where she’d meditated in Tibet. The walls were floor-to-ceiling saffron. Deep chimes spoke, and the Buddha laughed. The café had an authenticity she needed—in spite of the hissing espresso machine.

The woman took her mocha and turned to the seating area thronged with people. There was only one chair at a common table—right next to . . . whoever this was.

Well, she knew exactly who he was: he was her mental picture of a Mississippi bigot. He was fat, his face all soft and oily. He wore this dark blue cardboard suit with the jacket buttoned over his paunch. And where could he have gotten it? And when? It could only have been Penny’s, circa 1995, what with the wide lapels and sloping shoulders. This he had mated with a white shirt and skinny red tie—1984, Nancy Reagan red. And the pre-folded, matching pocket square.

His hair was Grecian Formula black, parted on the right by a razor blade and swirled above his forehead, apparently under thermonuclear heat.

He was reading a book by—no, surely not. It couldn’t have been Nixon’s Chuck Colson. But it was: his picture was on the back.

How was she to bask in the Tibetan aura sitting next to a Baptist? He reminded her of the imported southerner her parents’ church hired in 1979 when she was in high school—Mississippi in the San Joaquin valley. Had he gotten lost passing out tracts at Pier 39? Really lost?

The Barriers

Many evangelicals fear this woman.

They don’t know what to do with her hostility: confront, mock, soothe? There’s no soothing an attitude so visceral. Confronting it is asking for hostility times ten. That leaves mockery—the talk radio mode most evangelicals have learned by now—which fire-bombs whatever bridge there might’ve been.

But the fear goes deeper. Many evangelicals sense the woman’s hostility is the least of their problems.

Evangelicals in America have a distinct subculture. They tend to worship in churches with conservative political and theological views. The strongest bases of evangelicalism are in suburbia, and the movement is disproportionately white and middle class. Evangelicals have their own media, reading different books and magazines than secular people, visiting different Web sites, listening to Christian music and radio, and often watching Christian TV stations and movies.6

The woman, many evangelicals feel, has built a life in which they have no place. She didn’t just stop going to church after escaping her parents; she moved to the big city and changed identities. Her adopted ways were a point-by-point rebuke to her inheritance—not small-town or suburban, but urban; not Western but Eastern; not Christian but New Age; not monogamous but liberated.

I believe the woman now lives in her own distinct culture, one that is full of paradox.

While her culture is often urban, it thrives just as powerfully in Boulder as in San Francisco. The culture is often highly educated and artistic, embracing the preacher’s daughter who came out as a lesbian, went to Reed College in Portland, and became a visual artist. But it also belongs to the straight, blue-collar guy who, despite never finishing college, does well painting houses in Fresno, the guy whose history is unclear—the salt of the earth, but with a ponytail. While this culture is hostile to America’s vast consumer society, rejecting mass-production aesthetics and corporate values, its adherents have well-tended investment portfolios and are influential in the business world, nurturing such successes as Ben & Jerry’s and Starbucks. Yet Starbucks both appeals to and repels them (which is why our woman supports the independent café rather than hanging out at the chain). Politically the culture is blue: antiwar, environmentalist, pro–gay marriage, secular. But it consistently seeks to preserve local traditions.

This culture cries for a label. It needs to be distinguished from the consumer society, but a tag remains elusive. David Brooks calls it Bobo, “bourgeois bohemian.” Bill O’Reilly calls it “secular progressive.” Rush Limbaugh calls it “liberal wacko.”

I call it the diversity culture, after its top priority. Café Siddhartha is about a convergence of influences, insights into life that come from exploration, openness, and freedom. The worst evil to the diversity culture is bigotry. Every shelter for narrow thinking must be eroded by fresh winds.

The Diversity Culture: The dominant American ethos of openness toward all beliefs and spiritual traditions.

Most evangelicals have difficulty penetrating this culture’s ways, and seem to feel it was designed to exclude them. They feel the sting every time the woman talks about bigotry, not knowing whether to embrace the label or fight it. Multicultural talk is not merely irritating to them, but is insulting: “Diversity means every culture but ours.” So the rise of the diversity culture, especially when it wins elections as it did in 2008 with the triumph of Barack Obama, fills them with fear—the fear of having to interact with someone who looks down on them.

Evangelicals as a group feel they don’t belong in Café Siddhartha.

The barriers between the diversity culture and evangelicals are real. The hostility is not a misunderstanding, and the roots of it are often deep in the soil of family. The issues that have fed the hostility are consequential: disagreements about spirituality, cultural principles, history, politics, and the nature of free society. Mere dialogue will not make the hostility wither.

But evangelical fear can be dispelled—and must be.

Fear sabotages interactions with the woman of Café Siddhartha through pride, contempt, suspicion, and cynicism. Evangelicals’ inferior status in the diversity culture’s pecking order is often just as significant as the eclipse of their principles in provoking these emotions. They often react to Subaru Outbacks and the New York Times. Fear and its comrades can make evangelicals petty.

In addition, the fear often drives evangelicals to a blanket rejection of every aspect of the diversity culture without asking enough questions. For example, the diversity culture is overwhelmingly on the political left, while evangelicals are mostly on the right. But progressive political views are not necessarily anti-Christian. Is evangelism about winning souls, or votes? Further, the diversity culture often looks down on middle class life, provoking defensiveness in evangelical suburbia. But middle class life is not inherently godly. Should evangelicals be willing to question their social assumptions? More deeply, evangelicals can easily brand an openness to new perspectives as “relativism.” But is it relativistic to hear someone out, or to participate in discussions that may not resolve neatly?

The evangelical sense of calling in America needs to be refocused, which cannot be done wisely by reacting against the diversity culture in fear. The evangelical mission should be defined by God’s call in Scripture.

Fear of the diversity culture is not just a barrier to interacting with those outside evangelicalism, but even with some inside. The fear can be a generational marker: young believers, coming of age under the dominance of diversity, often do not identify with older believers’ suspicions. Truth be told, many young believers view the Baptist at Café Siddhartha from the same cultural point of view as the woman—fairly or unfairly. But they also sense that their heritage is a vital part of their calling to influence their secularized peers, and they desire wisdom from their elders about how to display Jesus Christ to a culture that will not acknowledge the category of Truth. Can older Christians impart that wisdom if they are fearful of interacting with Café Siddhartha?

There is an even more fundamental problem with evangelical fear. Amid similar conflicts, there was no such fear in Jesus.