The Murder of Jesus Christ

Chapter 28

Yes, the moon disappeared that night. It wasn’t invisible, as if that would somehow be any more explainable. It was gone.

I remember looking up and somehow the information wasn’t adding up. My brain couldn’t comprehend what my eyes were telling me. I think everybody else felt the same way. There was no “Ooh, where’s the moon?” or anybody saying, “I know what happened!” There was only silence.

Some of the folks around me left to go inside. They figured they’d find out what happened in the morning, I guess. I didn’t leave.

Eventually, I found myself alone, staring up at the stars. I knew what I was looking at was not possible. I looked around, and even Erika had left.

I felt more alone than I’d ever felt before. My rock had always been science. Even though I knew Erika really was the daughter of God, the majesty and the power of that relationship still felt unbelievable. Until then she was a paper God, who knew things that she couldn’t have known any other way.

Moving the moon. That was a whole different story. The mass of the moon is 80,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. Not something you can hide very easily.

I reluctantly went inside at about 2:00 a.m. I walked to the kitchen and sat alone, opening my phone and flipping to CNN. Of course, the only story worth talking about was the moon and Erika Sabo.

They were a bunch of talking heads.

I flipped to the New York Times website and found they’d already posted an open letter from the National Academy of Science. I asked their permission to copy the letter here.

At midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on the morning of Adar 23, witnesses around the globe watched the moon disappear. This was after a short meteor shower of unknown origin occurred.

Analysis has been ongoing since that time, and this note is to summarize what we know so far. The following facts have been verified and are not in dispute:

I suppose there wasn’t anything particularly surprising in the information, but even so I pored over every word, reading it over and over.

The sun rose a little after 6:00 a.m., and I hadn’t slept. I wondered how many people were like me, so amazed that sleep seemed unimportant.

It was around that time that my thoughts turned to a different direction: Karen Anderson. I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to think about her.

Karen was aboard the Golden Luna, which was racing towards a moon that no longer existed.

“How are you doing, Karen…?”

I thought she was probably scared. Who wouldn’t be? Surely they had instruments aboard ship that would tell them that the target of their mission no longer existed.

I did a bit of googling, and it didn’t take long to find a minor news story at the bottom of CNN.com.

“Oh my God…”

The comment left my mouth before I even thought about it. It was ironic that God did indeed seem to be the cause of the vanishings.

“Karen, where did you go?”

Was she still alive?

It felt doubtful. It didn’t feel like the ship had been transported to a safe haven. It felt like it had been destroyed, as if it had never existed in the first place.

“David?”

I jumped at the sound of my name. It was Chris Spinnie. She walked up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“You look very pale. Are you okay?”

“Just a lot to take in, you know?”

She nodded and smiled. “I think it’s hit everyone in one way or another. I felt—I don’t know—maybe vindicated? Like the belief I felt deep inside me turned out to be true, and no matter how much I knew the truth, it still surprised me.”

I nodded.

“You should get some sleep,” she said.

I must have looked like shit for her to notice. I smiled back and decided she was likely right. I needed to turn off my mind. I went to my cot, pulled a blanket over my head, and quickly fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

I slept through the whole morning.

When I woke, I could hear a bird chirping. At first I thought it must be a remnant of some vague dream, but I blinked and yawned, and the bird was still chirping when I sat up.

It was a blue jay. It was perched on the cot next to me, the one that Miles Insa usually slept in. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a blue jay up close before. It seemed to be equally puzzled with me.

Erika walked in and the bird flew up to sit on her shoulder. She gave it an air kiss, as if it were a pet she’d trained for years. Nothing about Erika Sabo surprised me anymore.

“You’re awake.”

I couldn’t help but stare at her. I hadn’t seen her since she made the moon disappear. She really was the daughter of God, and I was somehow privileged enough to be part of her team.

“I was up all night.”

“I know.”

“Of course you do.”

She laughed like that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

Erika tilted her head toward the door. I followed her out of the sleeping area and over to the main office portion of the church. The others were all hanging out there, doing whatever they did each day to help the mission. Most of them had glum looks on their faces.

“What’s wrong?”

“They’re worried. There’s been some backlash on social media.”

“Like what?”

“Everyone has an opinion. Some of them aren’t exactly what we’d like.”

I found a desk and headed to Twitter. It was Erika’s widest channel of communication, and I surfed through some of the comments.

The comments rolled up, hundreds, thousands of them, many of them incredibly racist or ignorant. She’d proven herself but so many people didn’t want to believe her.

If this was a couple hundred years ago, there would be a mob outside with pitchforks ready to lynch her. Now, the assault was virtual, but the underlying antagonism was the same.

No wonder everybody was looking so depressed. Oh, there were some positive tweets as well, heartwarming comments by people who saw the truth, but most were awful.

“You must be disappointed,” I said.

Erika shrugged. “We have work to do.”

I stood and gave her a hug, as if that would make her feel better. Actually, I think that it was really to make me feel better.

To be sure, I sat back down and checked Facebook, and then Instagram. All of Erika’s social media accounts were showing the same abuse.

The news wasn’t much better. CNN.com was covering the massive backlash, almost seeming to forget what they were reporting on a handful of hours earlier. The miracle was old news now, and they’d moved on to help string up Erika as part of the aftermath.

Chapter 29

Three weeks passed, and the changing winds of public opinion meant there were days where the news was all about “Of course this proves God exists. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just being stupid.” On other days, the talking heads on the various news shows were the naysayers who were sure that Erika was a fraud, even if they didn’t quite know how the moon disappeared.

In general, there were three schools of thought for this:

1. Pure magic, the kind that any other magician could do if they set their minds to it. Sometimes, what seems like a miracle is simply misdirection, skillfully applied. This option ignored the scientific evidence about the Earth shifting in its orbit around the sun. That was another form of magical deceit, likely easily explainable once other magicians put their minds to it.

2. The moon hadn’t disappeared at all. In fact, it never existed. What Erika had done was to perform a global hypnotism, convincing everyone that the Earth had previously had a moon but now didn’t. As hypnosis acts go, this was quite impressive, but it certainly didn’t mean anything physical had actually moved as much as a centimeter.

3. Popular with the Flat Earth Society, the moon simply had set faster than normal and has stayed beneath the horizon ever since. This was nothing to be alarmed about and nothing magical.

There was one other theory, one that didn’t make it as much to the talk shows: Erika was indeed a supernatural entity, but clearly, she was sent by Satan, not by God. The unspoken evidence was her dark skin. God’s child would obviously be Caucasian.

I wondered how Erika never lost her temper whenever this garbage found its way to her. She would nod or shrug as if it was nothing personal.

Even I knew it was entirely personal.

Erika worked on her five-minute sermons and the additional information on her web site.

Then, on an otherwise totally normal day, she came to me and said, “We have to go. We’re addressing the United Nations General Assembly at 4:00 this afternoon.”

“We are?”

She laughed. “Well, I am. You’re coming to take photos. Peter is coming to record it and post it online.”

“You don’t seem nervous.”

“I’m not. I have a message they need to hear. It’s a good message, and I hope they learn something.”

At noon, a helicopter landed in the parking lot. Security had been notified, so the area around had been cleared. We climbed up and strapped ourselves in. Thirty minutes later, we landed on the U.N. helipad.

In all my time photographing important scientific achievements, I’d never managed to find a reason to go inside the United Nations Headquarters building. Even though I was walking beside God’s daughter, the building somehow affected me as much as Erika did, and I felt like an unimportant pawn in a cosmic chess game.

When the time came, Erika stood at the lectern and gazed out at the audience. There was no sound inside the large auditorium. Every eye was staring at her, and each face wore either raptured interest or hateful disdain. There was little chance for middle ground.

There are 193 countries that belong to the United Nations. I had to look that up. All 193 nations had their representative sitting in the assembly. Most had earbuds with wires drooping down. Erika’s voice would be simultaneously translated by an army in the floor below the main hall.

“Mr. Secretary General, thank you for inviting me to talk to you.

“Ambassadors to the world, I come before you with a message of hope, of faith, and of the profound opportunity you each have to save the people of your own nation.”

She paused and looked out.

That’s when I noticed a remarkable thing. All the ambassadors removed their earbuds. It wasn’t because they didn’t want to hear. Quite the contrary, they didn’t need a translation. Whether their native tongue was Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, or dozens of other languages, they each could hear Erika talking to them directly. Most of the naysayers lost their look of disdain and stared instead in puzzlement.

How could she speak fifty different languages, with each language directed only to the people who wanted that language? I, of course, heard her in English.

I later was told that not only did she speak Portuguese to the Portuguese ambassador, that person heard a different dialect than the Portuguese heard by the Brazilian ambassador. Languages change in distant countries. Even more surprising, each visitor saw Erika’s mouth move in exactly the right manner for the words they heard.

As I listened to her speak, I was only partly aware of the miracle she was performing right in front of me, and once again I felt like a small insect compared to her majesty.

She continued. “All of you represent your own nation, and I am also an ambassador to all of you. I represent the Lord, my father, and I am here on a mission of hope and excitement.

“My father wants to ask his children for only two things. He wants you to love Him and he wants you to love each other.

“Seems pretty easy, doesn’t it?” Erika smiled and about half the audience couldn’t help but smile back at her. She was beaming with charisma, and she took the opportunity to move out from behind the lectern and walk slowly around the stage. As far as I could tell, she didn’t have a microphone. It didn’t matter. Her voice carried out over the speakers as loud as when she spoke into the mic.

“As I look out at all of you, I see the reflections of your people. I see pools of kindness and gentle natures, I see love and respect.” She paused, locking eyes with a few of the assembly members. “I also see hate and corruption and jealousy and greed and fear. Fear from your people against their own government.”

I watched Erika as she stared at one of the people in the audience. She was sending a clear message to whoever it was. From my vantage point, I wasn’t sure who she was looking at. I think the stare made a number of people uncomfortable.

She finally continued. “Each of you also brings with you a balance of your people who follow my father. Some of you are full of faith, even if your nation is supposedly run by a secular government. God has noticed.

“Others of you are at the other end of the spectrum, crippled hypocrites who have no faith at all while professing that same faith to your people.”

Nobody whispered. They all stared at Erika, and I had a feeling this was the only time in the U.N.’s history that the general assembly was so quiet.

She walked down one of the aisles, glancing around at everyone. The ambassador from Israel reached out to touch her hand as she passed.

“You owe it to your nation to stop hating one another. You all have your land and your resources, and the Lord will help you if you simply ask him to do so. Our God is a good God who wants to have a relationship with you.

“But you must love your enemies. Put down your weapons. Help those in need, and start to enjoy the life our father has given you.

“These are not very difficult asks.

“If I put myself in your place, I might ask, WIIFM? What’s in it for me?

“The answer is easy. Peace is better than war. Love is better than hate. Faith is better than fear. Each one of you can make so much difference to your country. Go back and help your people. Tell them the Lord is listening and wants them to experience joy. Tell them the path to eternal life is to love the Lord and to love each other.

“It’s really very simple.”

Erika had come full circle and was back behind the lectern.

And then a surprise. She asked, “Would anyone like to ask me any questions?”

Immediately, there was a dozen questions or comments called out to her in just as many languages. It was a hot mess of noise. Not surprisingly, Erika heard each one and answered the questions asked. I won’t list everything she said here. The speech is easy to find on YouTube. Her initial talk was what should have changed everyone who listened.

Of course, things are never that easy.

Chapter 30

Another week passed, and I began to realize how much I missed the moon. Crazy, right? But it’s been in the sky my whole life, and as a science photographer, I’d aimed my camera at the moon hundreds of times, sometimes for practice, sometimes to wonder at how big and orange it looked when it was near the horizon, sometimes to focus in on one of the craters or the seas visible from Earth.

I’d had a framed print of the Sea of Tranquility hanging on my bedroom wall when I was a teenager. I stared at that photo for what seemed like hours, imagining Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin walking around there, a quarter of a million miles above my head.

So, the moon and I, we had a strong relationship, and, yes, I missed it.

I also have deliberately avoided one other aspect of the disappearance: the loss of Karen Anderson. She deserved me to talk about that in a more direct fashion.

Here it is.

I’ll admit she wasn’t the first thing on my mind when the moon disappeared in front of my eyes, but it wasn’t that much later, when I read the article on CNN stating the Golden Luna had vanished along with the moon.

At that precise moment, I think my heart broke.

I hadn’t spoken to Karen since she moved to Houston for her training at NASA. I don’t miss the irony that we parted after that big fight we had when I couldn’t accept her religious views, particularly that God existed.

The same instant that proved she was right was the instant she was taken away from me much more permanently, or at least it seemed like that at the time.

I didn’t want to admit how sorry I was that I had let her go without apologizing to her. Even if Erika hadn’t come along, I should have tried to accept her strong religious feelings. Why was it so important to me that she drop it?

I don’t have a good answer for that. Stubbornness? Arrogance?

In the weeks since she vanished and I was convinced she was dead, I never asked Erika about her. I couldn’t stand to hear her possible answer that the Luna was gone forever. If I didn’t ask her, there was a chance Karen might someday return.

If that day happened, I promised God I would be a more understanding boyfriend for her. That was an easy promise to make.

Each night, as I crawled into my cot and tried to sleep, visions of Karen came to me. I welcomed them at the same time I felt haunted. Closed eyes allowed Karen to visit me, misty memories of our times together bringing joy and sadness at the same time.

I loved her, and I wanted her back with me.

Then came the afternoon Erika was a guest on a podcast organized by the National Academy of Science.

I won’t list all the items they discussed on that podcast, because they’re mostly scientific, and to be honest I doubt many are interested. Anyone can check Erika’s site in the podcast section, and find it easily enough.

I’ve been avoiding a topic because it’s not something I’m proud of. In fact, I find it shameful. I didn’t want to cloud views of events so far in this book, but there’s another aspect of this story.

Beating Jesus Christ to death as a teenager was a bloody mess, horrific to have done, but I had to describe it as it happened. That, too, is part of Erika’s story, and it deserved to be told.

I imagine many thinking, “How could you have possibly been so cruel? It’s horrible, and most people couldn’t have gone through with it.”

I agree.

How was I able to do that? To get there, I need to backtrack to my childhood.

Ariela encouraged my playing sports. It was a way she felt I could fit in with the other kids in the neighborhood, which was sometimes difficult because I was a bit of an oddball. I loved science and wasn’t one of the “cool kids.” I was scrawny and short, and my geek-spirit tended to make me the brunt of cruel jokes that kids play on each other.

Sports would help that, so my grandmother thought. Growing up in Minnesota, the winters were bitterly cold, and the neighborhood kids played a lot of hockey. In the summer, it was mostly baseball with a bit of football later in the summer.

When I turned twelve years old, Ariela decided it was time. So, that summer I played pickup baseball. I played third base for reasons long since forgotten.

Every game, I ended up in a fist fight.

Maybe it was the stress or the competitiveness, or maybe the adrenaline rush that comes with playing sports, but every game, I’d end up losing my temper and starting a fight.

I always lost, and that summer I wore home many black eyes and a few loose teeth. After all, I was twenty pounds lighter and six inches shorter than some of the kids I attacked.

In winter it was even worse because hockey players carry wooden sticks, so we were always armed. Losing my temper was even easier in hockey because of accidental (or sometimes not) body checks or other physical events that triggered me to lose my temper. Again, the fights left their toll, and I soon lost the privilege of playing hockey altogether.

Probably a good thing.

My point is, I had a horrible temper, and when I lost it, I was an awful kid. I didn’t care about consequences, didn’t care how much I hurt another person, didn’t care about the damage to my own body.

Dropping sports meant fewer opportunities to lose my temper, but sometimes I’d get some kind of adrenaline rush from another source, whether it was based on watching a scary movie or worried about Grandma being late home one day. There were those occasional excuses when I’d act out, breaking things or otherwise hurting those I cared about.

By the time I was in my late teens, I was able to control my emotions more, and the outbursts of violence turned more and more rare.

Then they stopped.

Believe me when I say I don’t miss those days. I felt more in control and fitting more into mainstream society.

There were two times, though, when I lost control.

The second time was when I was bashing in Jesus’s head. It was the first fight I’d had since those long-ago days when hockey took control from me. I found myself hitting Jesus harder and harder and wanting nothing more than to keep on shattering his skull and pulping his brain. I had lost control and didn’t stop until his head was a pulpy mess.

It was hard to look at Erika Sabo sometimes, knowing she was the one I had murdered so brutally.

The first time I lost my temper recently, though, is the part of my story of which I’m most ashamed. Regardless of the other things I’ve done and may be judged for, this is (in my mind) the worst thing I’ve ever done.

Karen Anderson was going to leave for Houston to join the training camp for her lunar journey.

This was the highlight of her career, and she was overwhelmed by the thought of going to the moon to greet the aliens.

She wanted me to pray for her. That’s when we got into that big fight because I thought religion was nonsense, and I didn’t care that religion was the backbone of her whole life.

We argued and… well, I lost my temper. I lost control and found myself grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. Hard. She bounced around in my arms like a ragdoll and cried out, begging me to stop.

Somehow, her scream was able to find its way to my normal self, and I stopped, aghast.

She fell to the floor, and I dropped down to see if she was okay.

“Leave me alone!”

That cry and the look of fear in her eyes totally destroyed me. I had been abusing the one living person who loved me.

I sat a couple feet from her, stunned, not even able to apologize, while she slowly climbed to her feet and ran.

She left for Houston a couple days later, and I’d been too ashamed to even call her. I couldn’t face the hate she must have felt for me.

The horrible temper I’d thought I’d left behind had let me know it was still there, maybe forever—a ticking time bomb I’d pushed away but was now back.

29.53 days after its disappearance, the moon popped back into existence. Erika once again was showing her power, and along with the moon, so returned the Golden Luna.

I’d once again have a chance to apologize to Karen Anderson.

Chapter 31

Some people say Erika got what she deserved that day. She never paid much attention to security, and to be honest, none of the rest of us did, either. We were all people who’d been pretty fortunate in life never to have run across violence, except for the occasional fist fight as a teen.

That day, we all grew up.

Except maybe Erika herself, because she never would accept that evil could ever win anything, and every day was an opportunity for her to spread her message to whoever was around her, however they got there.

You had to look around her to see the homeless people who became part of her core team, or the ex-prostitute who kept track of her booking schedule, or the average everyday John Q. Public who formed the foundation of her ministry. She didn’t care what had happened before or the circumstances that befell a person. She only cared about treating every person with respect and love.

Sometimes I’d wonder how she did it, asking questions: Have you ever crossed the street because there was a beggar ahead harassing pedestrians? Have you walked through a dark parking lot and feared somebody might jump out to rob you? Have you ever thought badly of a person because they made a stupid mistake or had to break the law because of the circumstances in which they found themselves?

Erika knew all these things, of course. She never let them interfere with how she treated each and every person she met.

It worked well for her most days.

That day, though, I wondered if the lack of security at the church was going to end her fledgling ministry before it really could fly.

Most of the events of this day were never released to the public until now. That was Erika’s choice.

The morning started off routinely, reviewing the notes Erika had left me for the day. It included stops at two food banks and a sermon at an open-air theater in downtown Aynsville. The theater sat 12,000 people and was the largest arena in the town. I expected it to be full to capacity, because the entire populace supported Erika. They were proud Aynsville was her home, and they wanted to show the world that pride.

I knew the theater, of course, and I was sitting in the planning room sketching out ideas of where I could get the best photos. In the room with me were Erika and Chris Spinnie, the once-homeless drug addict whose sole focus in life now was to help Erika.

When the door opened behind me, I never heard it. I did hear Chris calling out, “Hey, who are you guys?” but even that didn’t cause me any concern. We had people wandering in to the planning room all the time, because Erika never wanted to have any doors keep her from her congregation.

I saw Erika smile briefly, as she likely expected an eager fan, perhaps newly convinced of her messages.

Instead, five men rushed in from the doorway and ran toward us.

Two went for Erika, two for me, and the last one to Chris.

I was totally confused. Nobody ever came to the church to cause trouble, and having those men (all more than six feet tall and huge) grab us and then… I felt something stabbing my mid-section. I had a brief glimpse of a hypodermic needle and then my vision turned cloudy, and I couldn’t balance myself anymore.

Everything went blank before I could issue a single call for help.

The first sensation when I woke was enormous pressure on my chest. It was hard to breathe and for a minute I wondered if I was having a heart attack. It was like a vice squeezing me.

I tried to shake my body, but I couldn’t move my arms. I couldn’t scream for help because something kept my mouth closed.

Panic started to set in. I opened my eyes but my vision was bleary, as if I were looking through a quartz crystal. Nothing made sense. I shook my head and blinked until I could see.

I was still panicking, but by then I was able to piece together what was happening.

There was duct tape tightly wrapped around my face. No chance I could make any noise. I was breathing thinly through my nose, and every breath felt like a struggle.

Ropes tied me to a chair. They were wrapped so tightly, I could barely take in air. It was like a gorilla was sitting on my chest.

What the fuck?

I was in a dark room, but I couldn’t tell if that was from low lighting or if it was night-time.

Erika was to my right, also bound in an identical fashion. She was awake and nodded to me. She must have been awake much longer; she seemed to have passed the panic stage and looked totally calm.

To my left, Chris Spinnie sat, also tied up in the same fashion. She was unconscious. Or dead. I couldn’t tell which.

I couldn’t see anyone else, so at that point I had no idea who had taken us. Even with the two women with me, I felt fear wash over me, and I panicked again, straining without any success against the ropes. All it did was make my breathing more difficult.

After a couple fruitless minutes, I stopped and tried to catch my breath. It occurred to me then that the reason Erika looked calm was that she was forcing herself to relax. I tried to do the same, closing my eyes and trying to think of something peaceful. I thought of an evening I had shared with Karen Anderson. We were sitting on the beach and gazing out to where the sun was setting, halfway below the water.

It was one of the last moments I could recall where I was truly happy.

I calmed myself and re-opened my eyes.

“Welcome back, buddy.”

The voice was from behind me. I couldn’t see whoever it was, but the voice was deep, and my mind wandered to a vision of a professional wrestler.

The truth was much worse.

The man walked slowly between Erika and me, and I got my first glimpse of Colonel Peter Lassiter.

He was tall, maybe six foot three, about forty years old, completely bald, and he looked like he could crush me in his bare hands without breaking a sweat.

He was dressed in a uniform. Very dark blue jacket and pants, a brass U.S. pin on each lapel, and a series of decorations covering his chest. There were a couple of other pins above the decorations, but I had no idea what they signified.

He smiled, a wide grin that told me two things. First, he was enjoying keeping us captive, and second, he had no intention of ever letting us go. He wouldn’t have let us see his face if that were the case.

He carried some kind of military cap in his hands.

“I’ve already introduced myself to Miss Sabo, so let me update you, Mister Abelman. I am Colonel Peter Lassiter, and I am your worst nightmare.”

Then he laughed, a full body laugh, bending over at the waist because he thought he was so fucking funny.

“We’re going to be good friends.”

I had my doubts about that.

“Behind you are four of my friends. They are all armed with M-15s, and they’d just as soon kill you as anything else, because they’re very nervous about this operation and they’d be happy it was over.

“Understand?”

I couldn’t talk, and I didn’t want to surrender any of the remaining dignity I had by acknowledging what he was saying, so I stared straight ahead.

That’s when he reared back and smashed my left cheek with his fist. I thought he was going to knock off my head, literally. Blood ran down my face and dripped from my chin. It was the worst pain I’d felt in my life, and part of me hoped his henchmen would shoot me and finish this whole thing.

Whatever this whole thing was.

Clearly Erika was the target. Chris and I were peripheral figures who happened to be in the room when they kidnapped her.

Lassiter grabbed my chin and lifted it so I was staring at him.

“You fucking will answer me when I ask a question. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Good. We hear each other.”

He started to laugh again, as loudly as he had earlier. “Well, maybe I don’t actually hear you, but you know what I mean.”

I nodded again, not knowing if he wanted a reply, but not willing to take a chance.

“Good boy, buddy.”

I glanced over at Chris. She hadn’t moved at all.

Erika still sat quietly, not reacting.

Later, I wondered why she didn’t roll her eyes or whatever she does and make a miracle happen. I thought she could free us by willing it.

She told me that’s not how it works. She’s totally human, the same as me or Chris or anybody else. She isn’t a magician. All she has is her faith, and when she prays to her Father, the Lord, He always rewards her. Faith was the miracle, not hand-waving.

God would do what God would do. She knew it would be the right thing. So far, that didn’t include freeing her from her captors.

Lassiter moved a few feet away, halfway between Erika and me.

“The thing is, and this is new for you, Ms. Sabo, the reason you’re here is to make me a lot of money.”

He paused, as if this were somehow an amazing secret we would never have imagined ourselves.

“The Founding Church of Saboism is taking in money hand over fist. I gotta hand it to you, Ms. Sabo, you have one hell of a gig going on. My guys estimate you have donations of about $40 million every week. The money goes into a bank and according to you, it’ll be used to further spread the word of God.

“Is that about right?”

I could see Erika nod. It made me wonder if she’d been beaten before I awoke.

“Good. We’re on the same page, then.”

She nodded again.

“So, here’s the thing. You need to have $100 million transferred from your bank to a numbered account in Grand Cayman. I’ll give you the account number when you need it. From there, a series of automated transactions will occur, switching the money into untraceable cryptocurrencies that will be funneled around the world a few times before coming home to roost.”

The more Lassiter spoke, the more I saw in his face that he was single-minded, and nothing was going to stop him from getting the money.

Certainly not me. Probably not Erika.

But, I had more faith in Erika than he did. I didn’t know why, but I knew she was capable of getting us out of there.

I hoped.

Chapter 32

While Erika, Chris, and I were trapped by Colonel Lassiter, the Reverse Miracle happened.

It was after midnight in Asia. Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Russia all had clear skies, the same way the east coast of the United States had twenty-nine and a half days earlier.

In the U.S., bright sunshine stopped anybody from noticing the miracle, but the news spread far and wide.

The moon was back.

Thousands of people posted on Facebook and Twitter, along with lesser known social media outlets.

In America, CNN broke the news within minutes. A shaking reporter, who had never been called on before, shouted over Skype to the central news desk and held his jittery camera up to the sky, in case viewers didn’t believe the story.

“The moon literally just popped back in the sky!” he shouted. “By coincidence, I was walking outside my apartment and happened to be looking in that general direction, and, poof, there it was!”

He continued to hold up his camera, proving the moon was back and hadn’t disappeared again.

Within hours, the National Academy of Science released another press article.

When the moon reappeared, the word most often used was that it “popped” back into existence. There was no associated sound, but even people who didn’t happen to be staring up immediately noticed the bright light cast from the moon, and they were stunned to see Earth’s only natural satellite hanging majestically in the sky.

As the Earth slowly turned on its axis, more and more people were able to see the full moon rise in the eastern sky. Most people were shocked to see the moon back in its familiar place. Because they were looking for the moon, having heard the news, when it did arise, the moon was huge and bright. It seemed much larger than it normally appeared because of the proximity to the horizon.

The questions started immediately.

Did Lady God make the moon come back?

How did she do it?

Why did she bring it back?

And the question that every reporter in New York state was asking: Where exactly was Erika Sabo?

For the first time in many months, the girl who was the self-described daughter of God had vanished herself. Rumors started that she had either been called back to Heaven or she proved she was a fraud, somehow hiding the moon for a month.

The ridiculous nature of that last rumor didn’t stop it from being a trending topic on Facebook.

Even her closest disciples claimed to have no idea where she was.

The nineteen-year-old black girl from upstate New York had vanished.

Aboard the spacecraft Golden Luna, Karen Anderson heard the alarm from the central navigation module. It was a high-pitched chirping sound she only recognized from the intense training sessions the crew had gone through. Everyone had to be able to understand and interpret problems, in case the commander was ill or worse.

Habit kicked in and she grabbed the handrails and pulled her way through the center of the ship toward the front section.

“Murray?”

“Here.”

Murray Thomson sat in the primary command seat. He was staring at the displays in front of him, but he wasn’t doing anything.

“What’s the problem?”

As she asked that, a couple of other crew members reached the area as well. They all floated in zero-g, looking like synchronized swimmers.

“Parallax change.”

The flight engineer, Jose Monteiro, said, “That’s ridiculous. Must be a problem in diagnostics.”

“I’ve forced a double check using the redundant scope. Same answer.”

Murray leaned forward to read something on the display, shook his head and turned to face the growing crowd who had joined him.

“Apparently we’ve just travelled forty-nine million miles.”

After a moment, Jose broke the silence. “Again, that’s ridiculous. Like, over how long?”

“Instantaneously, by the looks of it.”

“It’s got to be a mistake.”

“No shit.”

Jose climbed into the co-navigator seat and clicked through menus. Everybody, including Murray, stared at him.

Karen remembered vaguely of a test on parallax shift in training, but even at the time, they were told it was impossible to trigger it. If it happened—which it wouldn’t—it would be a computer error the redundant systems would rectify.

She looked out the thick window on the right side. Below them, she could see the Earth in the distance. It looked to be exactly where it was last time she checked, a couple hours ago. No indication the ship had moved anywhere, except slightly farther away from the home planet on the way to the moon.

Jose stopped tapping the screen and stared at the results. By his expression, Karen could tell he had found the same situation that Murray had.

Forty-nine million miles. That’s halfway from the Earth to the Sun, but they hadn’t left Earth, so that meant they’d gone, what, sideways? That seemed as impossible as anything else.

That’s when they received a call from NASA Headquarters.

When Murray acknowledged the call, Karen heard an excited voice, “Oh my God, you’re back!”

That’s when they found out they’d vanished more than twenty-nine days earlier. They hadn’t experienced as much as a second’s loss, but they’d apparently been gone somewhere for the past month.

Not surprisingly, this was difficult news to accept.

When they found out all the details, and then found out Erika Sabo had taken credit for the vanishing, Karen went back to her sleeping area, away from the others. She had no interest in sleeping. She just needed time and space to think.

God had performed a miracle. Or had He?

Chapter 33

I don’t know how long we sat strapped to the chairs as prisoners of Colonel Lassiter. He seemed to have a lot of patience, just leaving us alone and wandering behind us for quite a while, even though both Erika and I were conscious.

At one point, I had to urinate. I tried to hold on as long as I could, but after a few hours (I think), I couldn’t hold it anymore, and I had to let go. I glanced over at Erika, totally embarrassed, but she didn’t seem to notice.

A lot of emotions ran through me in that short eternity while we were sitting there. Mostly, I was afraid. I knew Lassiter wouldn’t let us leave alive. He wore a determined expression on his face, and I had no doubt he wouldn’t hesitate when it was time to get rid of us. It made me wonder why he bothered keeping Chris and me alive. We weren’t the valuable ones. Maybe he’d use us as leverage to get to Erika? I couldn’t think of any other reason to hold onto us.

On top of the fear, though, was frustration at not being able to help free us, a sense of loss, because this felt like the end of the line for the Church of Saboism. Anxiety, anger, and even boredom covered me like a shroud of emotions.

“Unnn…”

It took me a moment to realize Chris was gaining consciousness.

She mumbled and blinked, trying to lift her head from her chest, but it bounced around as if it were a basketball balanced on an index finger. Her body jerked as she tried futilely to get free of the ropes binding her to the chair.

“Chris, don’t struggle.” Erika’s strong voice soothed Chris immediately, and she stopped exerting her energy in a losing cause.

That’s when I noticed the duct tape that had held Erika’s mouth shut was gone.

She smiled at me as if we shared a secret.

“Have faith in the Lord,” she said.

As unlikely as it seemed, I felt that was good advice, and I closed my eyes and silently prayed for God to help us get out of the situation alive, or at least for Erika to be safe if all three of us couldn’t be.

“We’ve been kidnapped by somebody named Colonel Peter Lassiter,” Erika said to Chris. “He’s going to ask for one hundred million dollars in ransom.”

Chris’s eyes opened wide, and I imagined her asking where in God’s name that kind of money could possibly come from.

I knew the answer, knew the church’s finances were in extraordinary shape. Erika planned for the money to finance her worldwide movement, with churches to be built in every city in every country on every continent. Her vision was to have places for her followers to meet, wherever they were. It would take a lot more than the money the church had already raised, but the vision was astonishing, and I believed she would succeed.

Erika’s sole mission was to encourage every person on Earth to form a relationship with God and also with each other. She wanted there to be peace and happiness. Everywhere.

How could anybody not want to help her with that goal?

I fell asleep at one point. It couldn’t have been for long, and when I woke, Colonel Lassiter was in front of me.

“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty. I was about to dump a pot of water on your head to wake you. It’s time to get this party going!”

Chris was awake and so was Erika.

“So, here’s the plan.”

Lassiter moved closer to Erika and smiled at her.

“You’re the only one who matters, so you can either agree right away or you can watch while I torture your friends. I really don’t care either way.”

“It’s not too late for you to repent,” Erika said. “God loves you. You have tremendous talents and can use them to help carry His word.”

“Yeah, well that’s not going to happen.”

Erika closed her eyes, and I knew she was praying.

“Pay attention!”

She continued to whisper with her eyes closed. Lassiter closed his fist and punched her in the head as hard as he could. She cried out in pain. Her head lolled on her neck, and blood fell from at least two cuts on her forehead.

I struggled in vain to get loose, but there was no chance. The ropes still constricted and barely let me breathe, let alone move any part of my body.

“Stupid cunt!” He grabbed her chin. “Pay fucking attention!”

Erika looked at Lassiter, but there was no fear in her eyes, no anger. What I saw there was pity.

“Good.” He pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at Erika. “Pay attention.”

He hadn’t commented on the missing duct tape. I don’t know if he asked about it while I was asleep or if he forgot she should have had it on her mouth. I was guessing God made him forget, but that’s a hunch.

It looked like Lassiter was going to say something else, but he stopped in mid-breath. His mouth closed, and he clenched his jaw.

“Uggh…”

He fell to his knees, and then used one arm to stop himself from collapsing. His other hand clutched his chest and he panted.

I think we all had the same reaction. We wanted to find a way to help him, but of course we were all tied up.

Lassiter gasped for breath and glanced behind us. His cronies were not coming to his aid.

“Pray,” said Erika.

Lassiter grunted and looked down, as if the solution to his attack was sitting on the floor in front of him. Then he fell over, grunted one more time and then was still and silent.

Behind me, I heard some shuffling and then loud footsteps. The rats were fleeing the sinking ship.

I never did ask Erika if she caused the massive heart attack that killed Lassiter. Maybe it was his time, but part of me doubts it. I think Erika, or maybe God himself, decided this was not the right time for Erika’s crusade to end.

As I was wondering that, I heard Erika stand. The ropes that had bound her were gone.

So were the ones holding me and Chris. We were free, and the ropes had disappeared, perhaps to wherever the moon had gone.

By instinct, I moved to where Lassiter was lying and checked his pulse. Nothing. I felt I should say “Good riddance,” but that’s not what I was feeling at all. I had been thinking how he’d wasted his life, and he should have taken Erika up on her plea for him to repent.

Chris, Erika, and I hugged each other.

“We need to call the police,” I said.

“No,” Erika replied.

I looked at Chris, puzzled. I think we were both wondering about the alternative.

Erika showed us.

She kneeled beside Lassiter and put her left hand on his face. She closed her eyes and seemed to be concentrating on her hand. It all seemed very odd, even though I had a rough idea of what she was trying to do. This seemed to be a day for miracles.

It didn’t take long.

After about a minute, I watched as Lassiter’s eyes opened.

“Welcome back,” Erika said.

He blinked and slowly pushed himself up, so he was in a sitting position beside her. For several minutes, he didn’t move. Rather he just stared at Erika.

Finally, he said, “I was dead.”

Erika nodded.

Lassiter looked at me and Chris. “You saw that, right? I didn’t just imagine it?”

Chris nodded. “You were dead.”

“I checked your pulse,” I added.

I felt tense, ready to protect myself or the girls if he attacked. Lassiter had no qualms about killing us all.

He was breathing heavily, and I wondered what he was planning on doing. I had no idea where my cell phone was, but something told me Erika didn’t want the police involved anyhow.

“It was horrible,” he said. “How long was I gone?”

“Only a few minutes.”

“It felt like days. I was somewhere else. I can’t describe it. It was—” He shook his head, not wanting to talk about it.

Sweat dropped from his forehead. He stared at Erika, and after a moment, I could barely hear him when he whispered, “I haven’t believed in God in a long time. I haven’t been to any religious service since I was forced to when my parents took me.” He slowly managed to get to his feet. “You really are God’s daughter.”

Erika nodded and smiled at him.

He shook his head. “All this time… I’ve been so wrong about everything.”

“It’s not too late to change. My father loves you.”

A tear rolled down his left cheek.

“How are you feeling?” Erika asked.

“As fit as I’ve ever felt.”

“Well, then, let’s go back to the church. We have a lot of work to do.”

Before that day, Erika had ten disciples. Now she had eleven.

Chapter 34

It took some time for the crew of the Golden Luna to get their minds around the fact that they’d somehow disappeared into some unknown space and that they were now back. The ship itself seemed unharmed, and it continued to speed along at a little over three thousand miles per hour toward the moon.

However, little things were bothering them. They now needed to apply a course correction because they were heading toward the moon at a different angle than they were originally. The ship was also lower on fuel than it should have been by a substantial amount. It didn’t take long to realize that if they kept with the original plan of circling the moon and taking a shuttle down to the surface, they wouldn’t have enough fuel to return to Earth.

After hours of consultation with Mission Control, the abort decision was made.

The crew wouldn’t be meeting any aliens this trip.

The engineers on Earth uploaded a new trajectory, that would have the Luna make a small correction, aiming it close to the surface of the moon, using it as a slingshot to accelerate the ship, and send it back toward Earth.

The manoeuvre worked perfectly. When they were at the closest point, they were within a hundred miles of the surface, but not close to the alien base, so they didn’t see anything unusual. Regardless, Karen Anderson stared down at the craters below her in wonder. She knew this would be the only time she’d find herself this close to any heavenly body, and she soaked in the experience.

At one point, she felt a twitch in her belly, and she touched it. She thought it was too early to feel the baby kicking, but she wasn’t sure.

She still hadn’t told anybody she was pregnant. It was still completely impossible, but it seemed this was a voyage of impossibilities, so what was one more?

She closed her eyes and prayed, asking the Lord for safe passage home for everyone, including the un-named baby inside her. Even though she knew it was impossible, the idea of having a child was growing on her.

“Mary,” she whispered. I’m going to name you Mary. Somehow Karen knew the baby would be a girl. She couldn’t have explained how she knew that. She just did. It felt right.

On the voyage home, Karen had almost three days of nothingness. She spent part of her time looking out the viewports at the receding moon and the growing homeland. She was surprised how excited she felt at the thought of being back home.

Mostly, though, she read through various media stories trying to get caught up on Earthly events. The past few months had been spent working tirelessly on training. There was no more training to do, and now she wanted nothing more than to be home.

Hopefully with David Abelman.

She hadn’t heard from David since she’d left Earth, and she was surprised to learn from the media that he had joined the troop following Erika Sabo.

The girl who claimed to be the daughter of God.

Karen read as much as she could about the young girl with the huge story. Was it possible?

She didn’t think anybody could want the story to be true more than she did. She’d been a follower of the Lord her whole life. She remembered every detail of her Bat Mitzvah, the ritual, the celebration, the feeling that she was now an adult, even at thirteen, responsible for her own understanding of Jewish tradition, laws, ethics, and certainly for her own actions.

She took that rite of passage seriously, and her spirituality had always been the most important part of herself. Karen needed that in a partner, and she’d not found it with David. Now, though…

Karen scanned through the various photos of Erika that David had published in newspapers and magazines. There was an honesty about the pictures that captivated her.

The girl, though, not so much.

While surfing through the information she could find, she found herself on the Church of Saboism website, www.ErikaSabo.god and stared at the image of the girl looking back at her.

Sabo was smiling brightly, her eyes dark pools and captivating. She overflowed with charisma and confidence, and that alone probably explained part of her success in establishing her new so-called religion.

Across the top of the screen was a series of options for her to choose. Not surprisingly the first was labelled Donate.

“No thank you.”

Other buttons were My Story, 5-Minute Sermons, Photo Gallery, Upcoming Events, and Contact.

Karen clicked on 5-Minute Sermons and a list of choices popped up. She scrolled down them and was surprised to find at least a hundred of the mini-sermons.

“Busy girl.”

One title caught her eye: Saboism for the Young at Heart. On a whim, she clicked on it. She had the choice of audio, text, or full video. She chose the video and the monitor flexed to bring Erika Sabo into full focus. Her voice was strong and clear.

On the screen, Erika Sabo stopped to let her viewers absorb what she’d said so far. Karen wondered how much of her promised five minutes had been used so far.

Karen Anderson closed her browser and then closed her eyes. She needed sleep, but she doubted it would come for her.

On a whim, she opened her email program and typed a name she hadn’t typed for many months: David Abelman. She needed to warn him. This wasn’t the daughter of God. Whoever she was, she was sent by Satan. David needed to get away from her. She wrote a pleading email, warning him to escape while he could.

After she hit Send, she lay down and once more closed her eyes. She wasn’t expecting a good sleep.

Chapter 35

That email was delivered, and I saw it later that day. I stared at it in disbelief, almost starting to laugh, which I probably would have done six months earlier.

I was also puzzled. Karen was the most religious person I’d ever known, and I would have thought she’d be both amazed and thrilled to know the long-promised Messiah was here.

Of course, I emailed her back almost immediately, telling her some of the things I’d seen Erika do.

The Golden Luna reunited with the Skywheel a couple days later, and it was another month before she caught a shuttle back to Earth.

I was watching her travels from afar, wondering what she was thinking. She didn’t answer my email, which could mean she was still on a different wavelength than me, or it could mean she didn’t think about me at all, or maybe she was too busy with the logistics of whatever she had to do while finding her way back home.

Regardless, all I knew is that her silence felt deafening. I wanted her back. The more I thought about her, the more I wanted her back not just on Earth, but back with me.

We’d had a wonderful relationship together, except for when we were arguing about religion. Now, it felt like we would be on the same side of that discussion, and things would be perfect for us.

Unless we’d changed places, and it was her who was going to argue against Saboism.

Maybe we would work through that, but damn it, I wanted her by my side, working with Erika, not against her.

I imagined Karen and I travelling to spread Erika’s word. Hell, that was probably silly since Erika only travelled a short distance. She spread her word on the internet, through her website, her social media connections, her YouTube channel and, of course, media interviews.

Old style of travel wasn’t important. Communication was.

Regardless, I liked the romantic notion of Karen and I travelling to spread the word. In real life, that might mean a lot of typing on keyboards, but we’d put our heads together to work as a team, single-minded.

No idea if that was in the cards or not.

What was she thinking?

I really missed hearing her voice.

Finally, I saw a clip of her on CNN.com as she climbed out of the shuttle and waved to the camera. She spent another three days with NASA, debriefing whatever it was she could tell them about the mission. It seemed to me there wasn’t much she could say, since their craft had zipped around the moon without any sign of the aliens.

Like everyone else, I wondered what they were there for, but it seemed it would be some time before we got any answers. So far, they remained a mystery.

I’d left emails for Karen, along with several voicemails on her phone.

Finally, I woke on a warm summer morning and found a cryptic text from her: On my way to you. Hope I’m welcome.

I immediately texted back: Wonderful news. I can’t wait to see you!

I added the address of the church where she’d be able to find me. A couple hours later she texted back a happy face.

That day, I was as nervous as I had been in high school before asking a girl to the prom.

It was Tuesday, and Erika didn’t have any media interviews planned or anything else I needed to photograph. I ate breakfast and found her in the main part of the church, sitting in a pew. She was praying.

When she opened her eyes, she turned her head to look right at me. As usual, her ability to detect what was going on around her continued to surprise me. She smiled and waved me over.

“Good morning, David.”

I nodded. “Morning.”

“I won’t need you today. You take care of her.”

With anybody else, I’d be shocked and wonder how she could possibly know what was on my mind. With Erika, that happened all the time. Disconcerting, but no longer surprising.

“I’ve missed Karen.”

“I know. She’s a good woman. Go be with her.”

A rush of gratitude fell over me, and I pulled Erika to me and gave her a hug.

“I won’t be long.”

“I know.”

I was waiting outside when she arrived. It was a warm sunny day, and I had to squint to see her shiny VW bug. She climbed out and a wide smile grew on her face. That was a huge sense of relief.

We ran to each other and fell into each other’s arms, as if we’d never been apart. I held her tightly, and then we kissed, a long passionate kiss that told each of us how much we’d missed the other.

I knew tears were falling down my cheeks, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was having Karen back.

Her hand held mine, and I didn’t want to ever let it go again.

When we were finally able to pull apart, I said, “I’ve missed you more than I can ever say.”

She nodded. “Me too.”

“Let’s go sit. I want to hear all about your flight.”

She let me lead her inside, and I took her to a small conference room we used for some of our planning. It had a couple of large stained-glass windows that let in a lot of light.

We sat on a couch. There were several soft chairs scattered around, but I wanted to be right next to her.

“I kept checking the news about you, wondering how things were going. It’s still hard to believe you went to the moon.”

“Bit of a wasted trip, though. Still, nobody knows what happened to us.”

“Erika Sabo knows,” I said. “She’s not talking about it, though. I’m just glad you came back safely.”

Karen licked her lips, and I realized she might be thirsty. There was a refrigerator at the back of the room, so I got us two bottles of water.

“It’s so weird. We didn’t feel the disappearance at all. We didn’t know anything happened until the computers started sending out alarms.”

I took a drink of water.

“You wanted to warn me about Erika.”

“David, there’s no reason to believe her story. God’s daughter? Really?”

“You need to meet her. She is who she says she is.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

How to answer? How could I tell her how the world was before? Before I went back in time and murdered the teenaged Jesus. How could I tell her that I stared into his eyes before I killed him and that Erika wore those same eyes now? How could she believe she was the only person on Earth besides me who knew exactly what happened?

Even forgetting that, though, surely she had to believe Erika was supernatural when she could make the moon disappear. And Karen herself, for that matter.

“I just know. I think it’ll take a while for me to explain.”

“You can start now, can’t you?”

I shook my head and held tightly onto her hand. I couldn’t lose her again.

“Why don’t you believe her?” I asked. “You’re a true follower of scripture, the most focused Jew I know.”

She shook her head as if I were an idiot. “It’s because of the Bible.”

“What do you mean?”

“I believe the Bible is the direct word of God.”

I nodded. Although she hadn’t been so blunt before, I certainly wasn’t surprised she felt that way.

It occurred to me that I didn’t know very much about the Bible. Given recent events, I planned to change that. I needed to read Erika’s history.

“There are a lot of prophesies scattered throughout the Bible,” Karen said. “Lots in the book of Isaiah, but in many other places, too. A very large amount of the book is dedicated to prophets.”

“Okay, how does that matter now?”

“There were lots of prophesies about the Messiah. Some are hard to interpret, but if you’re patient, you can see the whole life of the Messiah laid out in pieces, from his birth through his life as a teacher, and finally to his death by crucifixion.”

I was silent. I was pretty sure I knew where Karen was going with her comments.

“You see, some of the prophesies are much clearer, though. Three items in particular.

“First, the Messiah would be male.

“Second, he would be born in Bethlehem. That’s a town nobody’s ever heard of, in Israel.

“And third, his mother would be a virgin.”

The facts as she laid them out were familiar, although I didn’t know the Bible foretold Jesus’s birth in that detail.

Karen continued, “I believe the Bible. These facts are unquestionably true. So, when I look at Erika Sabo, she is not male. Her official biography on her website makes it clear she was born in Aynsville, New York. And, though I haven’t seen her comment on this, I have very large doubts that her mother was a virgin.”

She frowned. “You see, there’s no way Erika Sabo could be the Messiah. I don’t know what or who she really is, but she can’t be the daughter of God.”

It took a moment for me to take in Karen’s words. I tried to think of some way to make her change her thinking. Anything but the truth.

I wanted to tell her to trust me, but that wasn’t going to fly. There was only one thing to do. I had to tell her what really happened.

“The thing is… all you talked about happened,” I said.

“I think I’d know.”

“Please. Let me tell you what I know. It’s going to be very hard for you to believe, but I promise you on every good thing we ever had that it’s the truth.”

She didn’t react, but she seemed to relax a bit. Maybe she knew this was going to take a while.

“I’m not sure how to start. Maybe think of a parallel universe or something, a place where things are very close to our own universe, but where some things were different. Imagine in that universe a child was born in Bethlehem, exactly as you stated, 2,000 years ago. That child was named Jesus, and he was the Son of God.”

Karen was listening, but she wasn’t believing it. Of course not. She would have known.

“That child grew up to be the most famous person in history. A new religion grew from a dozen disciples to billions of followers around the world. In that alternate universe, you were a Christian, along with so many other Americans. I wasn’t.”

I felt my face redden with shame at that admission, which was odd because it was the least of all my sins.

I won’t re-tell the whole story here. You’ve read it. But over the next two hours, I talked about how my grandmother had died and left me the gift of Shelljah, allowing me to travel back through my previous lives, back to when my soul inhabited a body owned by Adlai. I talked about the journey to Galilee and finally meeting Jesus and his family.

As I recited the story, I realized every step of the journey had been etched into my soul.

I cried out as I told Karen the horrible thing I’d done: crushed the teenaged Messiah with a rock, snuffing the life out of him.

I couldn’t help myself as I finished the story of his death. I fell into her, full of shame and horrible guilt, but at the same time knowing I’d been acting with good intentions that were horribly wrong.

Tears fell down my cheeks, and I had to stop talking, while I cried a long time. Nobody in the world knew my story other than Erika, and she only knew because she lived through it, too. I hadn’t mentioned anything to anybody, because there was nobody I could talk to. It occurred to me then that Karen was the only true friend I’d ever had. She was the only person to whom I could tell the truth.

Finally, I lifted my head and was able to finish the story. I told her about coming back to the present day, which was almost the same as the time I’d left but oddly different. There was no Christianity, and now Erika Sabo had returned. Not as the first appearance of the Messiah, but as the second.

“I don’t think the Bible mentioned her second coming,” I finished.

By this time, she’d been listening to my whole story, and she hadn’t said a word, but she’d continued to hold onto my hand the entire time. I was grateful for that.

When she spoke, her voice was soft and tender. “What a horrible thing,” she said. “I can’t imagine holding that inside yourself.”

She pulled me to her and held me close. I closed my eyes and gave thanks to God and Erika, for having Karen listen to my story.

Some time passed. I don’t know how much, even when I think back and try to recreate the discussion in my mind. I remember at some point that I regained some semblance of sanity and locked eyes with Karen. I didn’t know what to expect for the long-term, but for now, she believed me. That was the first thing I needed.

“I’d like you to meet Erika,” I said.

She nodded. “I’d like that very much.”

I took her hand and we walked through the church to the back office, where I suspected we’d find Erika. When we walked in, she looked up from whatever she was working on and smiled. She hurried over to meet us and held out her hand to Karen.

“It’s good to finally meet you,” she said.

If Karen was surprised at the wording, she didn’t show it. She took Erika’s hand and held it. “I can’t believe I’m meeting you.”

Erika shrugged. “I know, but don’t worry. Everything will work out.”

They were still holding hands. Erika finally broke that and hugged Karen. Karen seemed shocked, and I knew she was overwhelmed. How often in your life does something so extraordinary happen as meeting the daughter of the creator of the universe?

“Why are you here?” I could barely hear Karen, her voice almost a whisper.

“What do you mean?”

“You were here before.” She looked over at me, as if asking for permission to talk. I nodded. “You were here 2,000 years ago, and you… died.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you back now? Are you here to punish us?”

“Punish? No, quite the opposite. I’m here because humanity is spreading beyond Earth. You are one of the people closest to that. It’s an amazing time for the world, and I want to help everybody gain a stronger tie to the Lord. Everyone needs that, and it’s what my father wants.”

“Are you staying forever?”

Erika pulled back from Karen, and then it was her turn to look over at me. She hesitated. At the time I had no idea why. I found out a month later.

Erika pursed her lips, and for once she seemed reluctant to speak. I’d never seen her challenged to find the right words before.

“Nothing is forever on Earth, only in Heaven.”

“Can I help you?”

“You bet! That’s why you’re here.”

Karen bowed her head. “I actually came because I wanted to warn David to stay away from you. I thought—”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I understand. I forgive you for what you thought.”

Karen raised her face to look at Erika. They stared at each other for an uncomfortably long period of time. It was like they were in telepathic communication.

“You need to know one other thing,” Erika finally said. She looked at me then.

Karen nodded. “What?”

“It’s about the baby you carry.”

“Excuse me?” I couldn’t help interrupting. Baby? What the hell?

I stared at Karen’s belly, but nothing looked unusual. If she was pregnant, she wasn’t far along. I felt a sinking feeling, though.

“How did you know?” asked Karen.

“There’s little I don’t know if I want to. But, in this case, you had a little bit of help.”

Erika turned to speak to me. “You don’t need to be jealous. Karen was not with another man.”

“Then how could she be pregnant?”

“The Holy Spirit visited her.”

She turned back to Karen. “You were not with another man, correct?”

Karen nodded.

“When the baby is born, you must name her Mary. When you get curious enough, you should take a DNA test, and you’ll discover that the baby’s father is David.”

Ha-what?

“How can that be?” I blurted out. “I haven’t seen Karen in a year.”

“Nevertheless, you are the father. Biologically speaking. You can thank God in your prayers tonight.”

I didn’t know how to react. I stared at Karen as if she were some weird animal in an exotic zoo.

Fortunately, she wasn’t as freaked out as I was. She smiled at me, that huge grin I remember so well, and that made me realize how much I loved her.

I always have.

We kissed and hugged and somehow started to laugh.

By the time we separated and looked around, Erika was gone.

But now she had her twelfth disciple. I was pretty sure that would be it. Her circle was complete.

Chapter 36

The summer seemed to go by in a flash. We were all busy doing whatever we could to get Erika’s voice in front of as many people as possible.

As time went on, I began to realize she had a very clear vision with the twelve she chose as her disciples. Every one of us fit a different niche. We had different stories, different audiences, different voices, all which seemed to combine to have the widest possible reach.

In my case, I’d already had an audience of people who liked my photographs. I wouldn’t go as far as to call them fans, but there were certainly thousands of people who looked for my work and sought out magazines with my photos on the cover. Tens of thousands more at least recognized my name.

Karen had a similar following, not just for her recent fame as an astronaut, but she had a reasonable number of people who knew the work she’d done before.

Chris Spinnie may not have had a built-in platform before meeting Erika, but the story she told of her life as a junkie and how she turned her entire purpose around resonated with a group of people none of the rest of us could reach.

Even Colonel Lassiter had an underground fame and people who would listen to him.

The twelve of us were unique but fit together to cover the vast number of people who still hadn’t paid attention to what Erika Sabo had to say.

During that lightning-fast summer, something really unusual happened.

When Karen returned from her flight to the moon, unsuccessful in the goal of seeking out the aliens on the far side, everyone expected NASA to quickly put another mission together to follow in the Luna’s flight path.

A week followed, and then a month, and we were soon into the dog days of summer. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t heard a single word about a follow-up flight. Neither had Karen.

When I mentioned this to anybody, I got the oddest reply. It was always something like this:

“Hey, have you heard any news about another trip to the moon?”

“The moon?”

“You know, to find the aliens?”

Usually at this point, whoever I was talking to would look at me with a puzzled expression on their face. Finally, they’d remember. “Oh, right, I think I remember something about aliens. On the moon? Sure, that’s right. Whatever happened with that?”

Before I could answer, though, the person would change the subject.

At first, I thought I was talking to maybe the only few people in the world who weren’t mesmerized by the whole thing. I mean, aliens on the moon?

It was the news story of a generation. Of course, Erika making that same moon vanish was the story of a millennia.

I kept asking. Whoever I’d meet, I’d hear the same thing. They’d have a blank expression, and then they’d eventually recall something vague but no details.

Nobody really remembered the aliens. Nobody really remembered the flight. They remembered Karen as an astronaut on the Skywheel, but they couldn’t say what she was up there for.

In my work talking about Erika, I had occasion to be part of interviews for the BBC in England as well as a half-dozen other countries. I took the opportunity to ask every person I encountered.

It seemed like the whole planet had collective amnesia. Nobody remembered the aliens. Not even NASA. It turned out they were concentrating on unmanned missions to the far planets, because there might be the building blocks of life out in those faraway reaches.

Ignoring the known life, right next door.

I only knew of three people who clearly remembered the mission to find the aliens: me, Karen, and of course, Erika.

Erika remembered it, but she wouldn’t talk to me about it. When I asked her, her face would cloud over. It was a subject she clearly didn’t want to discuss.

Why?

And how could that collective amnesia happen?

There seemed to be only two possible choices.

Either Erika had clouded everyone’s memories, or the aliens had.

I didn’t know which alternative was scarier, but I didn’t like either one.

During that summer, I reignited my love for Karen Anderson. We spent every spare minute together, talking, catching up on the time we missed, making love, trying to make sense of the weird set of circumstances that had brought us back together.

I could see the baby starting to poke her way around Karen’s belly, and by the end of the summer, it was clear to anybody who had any sense of their surroundings that Karen was pregnant.

We pretended there was nothing unusual about the baby, and really, nobody ever questioned things. We were a couple in every sense of the word, devoted to each other, and even though we hadn’t exactly committed to marriage, that was a clear event in our future as well.

So we thought.

Also through the latter part of the summer, Erika spent less time in public, more time in her own space. I know she liked to spend her private time praying and writing her sermons, but those sermons showed up on her website less and less frequently.

By the time she’d posted 300 of her 5-minute sermons, I think she was running out of steam. Somehow she’d managed to avoid duplication, so 300 different topics was an extensive and broad discussion of her thoughts.

It all boiled down to two things: people needed to love God, and they needed to love each other.

Her message wasn’t complex. But the ways she talked to her audiences was laser-focused. She was our rabbi—our teacher—and we could spend the rest of our days re-listening to what she wanted us to learn.

I know one thing bothered her a lot. For the past several months, surveys showed that she was no longer gaining large numbers of new converts. Estimates were around a hundred million Saboites.

She wanted to reach all ten billion people on the planet, but she was stuck at 1% of that number.

I remembered back before I murdered Jesus, that in the parallel universe where he thrived, there were 2.2 billion Christians.

Why couldn’t Erika get the same followers?

I think she knew, but nobody else knew. Erika was a smart girl, and she was always miles ahead of us in her thinking.

On the first day of autumn, she called her twelve disciples together and said she wanted to have a nice dinner with us all. We were thrilled with that idea, because it seemed like she’d been more and more distant from us. We all treated this as a reason to celebrate.

It was a warm evening, in the mid-seventies, and we collected at Gavin’s Choice, a small restaurant on the outskirts of Aynsville. Erika had arranged for us to have the entire restaurant, not that many others could have been seated anyhow. The place only had seating for about twenty people.

Gavin’s Choice was known for seafood, and when Erika ordered grilled tilapia, we all jumped on the bandwagon and called out the same dish.

Tilapia.

A vision of my trip living back in Galilee in the time of Jesus came over me. We had musht, the local fish from the Jordan river. Today, we call that fish tilapia.

I turned to Erika, “Are you remembering something?”

She smiled and playfully punched me in the shoulder. So, I don’t know.

What I do know is that the meal was marvelous. We had the fish, a Cobb salad, grilled asparagus, and some lovely red wine.

Lots of laughter, chatter, and praises to God.

I sat next to Erika, and Karen was on my other side. My two favorite people.

It was one of the happiest meals I’d ever had.

When the food was eaten, Erika stood.

“A toast,” she said.

We all raised our glasses, intent on hearing what she wanted to toast.

“It’s been my amazing gift to return to you all. I love each and every one of you, and I want you to always remember you are charged with taking my voice wherever you go.”

She paused and gave us one of her widest smiles.

“Soon, we must part, and you must be my apostles. I need you to tell my story.”

A sudden coldness swept over us. None of us knew what she was talking about.

Erika closed her eyes and then nodded. “One of you knows what must be done.”

She glanced up to the roof, and I knew she was looking for help from God. I don’t think any help came to her, because now she looked frail and afraid. Her eyes watered.

Down the table, I heard Chris. She tried to call to Erika, but her voice was feeble. “Am I the one?”

If Erika heard her, she didn’t answer.

“The only thing that matters is spreading the good word. You all know it. You must help me.

“And now, I toast all of you. Thank you for being my loyal crew.”

Then she glanced at me. We locked eyes, and a tear fell from one of hers. I wanted to hug her, but I was in as much shock as everyone else.

She had just given us some kind of farewell speech.

Erika broke the trance by clinking my glass with hers. That got everybody whispering and clinking their own glasses, albeit quite reluctantly. Nobody wanted to believe Erika was somehow going to leave us.

It was only later that night, when I was drifting off to sleep, that I realized why she’d given me that special look, why she’d drawn attention to me when she said one of us knew what had to be done.

The silence around me seemed to starve me of air, and I sat up in bed. I realized I knew exactly what she meant.

Chapter 37

The next morning, I drove to the airport and booked the earliest flight I could to Minneapolis. The flight left at 11:00 a.m. and landed a little after 1:00 p.m. As we descended, I stared out the window and tried to take in the whole city at one time. It’d been six months since I left there to join Erika. Somehow, it seemed much shorter, and I had to think back to everything that had happened to convince myself it really was that long.

After deplaning, I caught a taxi and headed to my grandmother’s place.

The memory of Ariela Abelman covered me like a warm blanket. The place was still the way she left it. Clean, neat, almost spartan.

I had picked up a six-pack of beer on the way. I popped one now.

“Here’s to you, Grandma!”

The beer went down smoothly. That was something else I hadn’t experienced in six months.

Grandma’s home was dead silent. I resisted the urge to turn on the television or otherwise find music. Ariela deserved the quiet.

The packages she had left me were still on the table. The family tree, the documents, and most importantly the description of Shelljah and how it would allow me to move backward in time. I thought of how ridiculous that sounded the first time I read it, but of course, like everything else Grandma had taught me, it was the truth.

I still didn’t know if my travel back to Galilee had helped or hurt the world. Probably hurt. I’d gone back to murder Jesus for what seemed like perfectly good reasons, but the six million Jews I tried to save ended up all dying along with an extra four million.

How could that be a win?

Christianity was now replaced by Saboism, but there were far fewer converts.

Erika herself seemed to recognize the difficulty in spreading her word. The only consolation was that it took Christianity a few hundred years to fully develop, so maybe my hopes were too extreme.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Erika.”

Then I thought I heard an answering voice. My grandmother’s voice. I smiled as I could hear her saying, “Of course she knows what she’s doing. She’s God’s daughter, and she speaks for Him, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she does.”

“Well then. That should be enough.”

Yes, it should.

“I miss you, Grandma. I wish you were still here with me.”

“I’ll always be with you, David.”

I smiled, wishing it was truly her voice. My thoughts would have to suffice for now.

Later that day, the doorbell rang. I opened it to see a smiling real estate agent.

She thrust out her hand and I took it to shake. Before she even said a word, I could tell she was full of enthusiasm. That’s good. I wanted to be around positive people right then.

“David, I’m Gwen Singleton. We spoke on the phone earlier.”

I nodded and smiled. “Please come in.”

She rushed past me as if she were late for an appointment. In fact, she was ten minutes early.

“It’s my late grandmother’s place,” I said.

Gwen walked quickly around the kitchen, stopping to stare at the appliances. They were old.

“I’m not interested in replacing them or doing any other upgrades. It’s a sell-as-it-is kind of thing.”

“You’ll definitely get top dollar if you wanted to consider—”

“No.”

She turned to stare at me, and for the first time, I saw her standing still and relaxed. She was about forty years old, white-blond-colored short hair. Pretty, I suppose, but all business.

“I certainly understand.”

“Do you?”

“I—well, I don’t know the exact circumstances, of course, but other clients have been busy and not interested in upgrades. Sometimes, it doesn’t take much, though, to really bring out the character of a place. Just a few touches would—”

“Please stop.” I held out my hand to reinforce my words. She nodded and smiled.

“Of course.”

“I won’t be here. I will sign whatever papers you want me to, to give you sole ability to act on my behalf. I just want the house sold as soon as possible.”

“I can do that.”

I gave Gwen a short tour through the place, which didn’t take long. Then I told her the rest of my plan, including that all proceeds were to be donated to the Founding Church of Saboism. By then, if she was surprised, she no longer showed it.

The drive to the airport in my rented car seemed to take forever. Of course, I wasn’t in any hurry. It would be my last visit to Minneapolis, and I wanted to enjoy it.

The midnight flight to New York City landed a little after 2:00 a.m. I retrieved my Camry from the parkade and drove in silence back to Aynsville.

I slept like a dead man and didn’t wake until 10:30 in the morning.

After a short shower, I grabbed a coffee from the main eatery and toasted a bagel.

I couldn’t think of any other reason to delay, so I walked around looking for Erika. I found her in the small garden in the back of the church. She was sitting on a beautiful stone bench. When she saw me, she looked up and forced herself to smile.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said. Her voice was soft, tinny, almost a ghost.

I sat beside her, and we locked eyes. We both knew why I had come to see her.

“How are you doing?” I asked. Silly question, I know.

“As well as I could be.”

“Any regrets?”

She paused and considered before replying. “I came here to fight Satan, sin, and death. I’ll be rejoining my father after conquering all three, so no, no regrets.”

I leaned over and hugged her. I knew I was stalling. I took a deep breath, and Erika closed her eyes.

My hands found her neck and started to squeeze.

Erika tried to stay still, but she started to shake. Her eyes opened and stared at me.

I squeezed harder and then harder still. She somehow was still able to get a small amount of breath. Finally, she started to panic. All of a sudden she was a flurry of fighting. She hit me and tried to pull away. I didn’t let go, using the panic as a way to gain more strength and squeeze harder still.

Her eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets.

I hated that it was taking so long and I was making her suffer. She tried to kick me but couldn’t get enough leverage to do anything serious. That’s when she reached out and pushed a thumb into my left eye.

I called out in pain and shook my head. I must have loosened my hold on her, because I heard her gasp. Damn.

Tears flowed down my face. I didn’t know at the time if it was from the pain she’d caused or for the horrible thing I was doing to a woman I loved.

Either way, I wanted this to be over.

Finally, I took a different tactic. I pushed her down rapidly, so she was lying on the bench. Then I grabbed her head and smashed it on the hard rock of the seat. She cried out in pain, but she still fought with her hands and tried to climb away.

The second time her head smashed onto the stone, I heard a loud crack. The third time, the sound was more muted, softer.

Erika stopped fighting.

I smashed her skull one last time.

The whole bench seemed to be covered with her blood, a flood of it. I knew she was dead; I turned to the side and threw up.

The whole thing had felt like it’d taken hours, but I’m sure in reality it’d only been a couple minutes.

A couple of minutes that changed the world.

Saboism had had a great start, but the movement needed more. It needed a martyr.

More importantly, it needed the ladder to heaven that Erika had promised she would be. All humans would be forgiven of their sins and find their way to heaven if they would only believe in Erika Sabo. Her blood was humanity’s route to salvation.

The courtyard was deadly quiet.

I grabbed my phone from my pocket and called 911.

“I just murdered Erika Sabo.”

After I said the words, I was overcome with guilt, and I dropped to the ground, quietly letting my head rest on Erika’s leg. I cried until the police came to take me away.