The Island of Heavenly Daze Page 2

  Gavriel nodded, knowing that if two or more believers agreed upon anything, it would be done for them. He waited for more information, but apparently God had finished. When he lifted his head, Gavriel saw that he knelt with six other angels, each as eager as he to do the Lord’s will.

  Slowly, Gavriel turned his gaze toward the One who sat on the throne, but Michael, the archangel, stepped into Gavriel’s field of vision. “You will all go to the island men call Heavenly Daze,” he said, his strong sword arm pointing toward the balcony outside the throne room. “Once there, you will each inhabit a building and guard the humans who dwell within its walls. Further instructions will come from the Lord as you need them.”

  As one, the line of angels stood and moved toward the balcony. Gavriel was pleased to see that Abner, a wise worker angel, walked ahead of him. They had served together before, at a remote missionary outpost in Africa. The missionaries on whose behalf they labored never knew how fiercely Gavriel and Abner had battled the powers of darkness.

  “Brother, do you know anything about this island?” Gavriel asked, careful to pitch his voice so that only Abner could hear.

  Abner halted for a moment, giving Gavriel time to reach his side. “I have heard it is off the coast of a district called Maine. It is a rugged place, particularly in the winter season.”

  The prophet and the father of Israel were still standing at the balcony, and Gavriel caught Jonah’s attention as he drew near. The once-reluctant prophet’s eyes shone with mischief as he looked at the advancing angels. “I’d keep my feet on dry land, if I were you,” he called, leaning on the balcony. “A veritable host of fierce fish dwell in that sea.”

  “Thank you for your help, but I don’t expect we’ll have an opportunity to test the waters,” Gavriel said, swinging one leg over the polished marble balustrade. He straddled the railing for a moment, then swung the other leg over. Perched on the wide rail, he looked down the row of his companions. “Calendar year?” he asked.

  “Seventeen hundred ninety-eight years after the birth of our Lord.” The answer came from Caleb, a quiet, unassuming angel who usually served in the halls of heaven. Gavriel suspected this might be that angel’s first earthly mission.

  “Let’s prepare ourselves, then.” Gavriel straightened as his wings slowly folded, then vanished into the fluid texture of his skin. He drew a deep breath, filling his preternatural lungs with a last bit of delicious celestial air, then felt bands of tightness in his chest as his body shifted and shrank to mortal proportions. Within an instant, he had taken on the appearance of human flesh and blood.

  He glanced down. The spotless white robe he had worn had altered into garb more appropriate for the time and place. He now wore narrow trousers and leather boots. A heavy frock coat with a flared skirt hung from his shoulders to his knees. A high collar, accented with ruffles, lay against the strange protuberance humans called the Adam’s apple, while tight sleeves ran the length of his arm and ended above a pair of close-fitting leather gloves.

  He looked again at his companions. Each of them had undergone a similar transformation, their shining robes replaced by fragile fabrics that felt shoddy against Gavriel’s responsive skin. He grinned when he saw that each of the others wore high-crowned felt hats, as out of place in heaven as a bucket under a bull, then he reached up and felt a curled brim beneath his own fingertips.

  “Fashion,” he muttered, holding tight to the annoying hat with one hand as he leaned over the vastness of the heavens. “Why are humans such slaves to it?”

  “Are we ready?” Caleb asked, a tremor of anticipation in his voice.

  Gavriel glanced down the row. Of the group, he was the most experienced in earthly matters, so they naturally looked to him for leadership.

  “We are.” Gavriel closed his eyes for a moment, seeking the Lord’s blessing, then gave Caleb a smile. “The journey will be swift. Do not be distracted by anything that comes against you. Keep your mind upon the task and your heart inclined toward the Lord’s will.”

  As one, the angelic company leaned out into empty space, and in the next instant they were soaring through the third heaven. Gavriel’s ears filled with the rushing sounds of mingled prayers and praise as they traversed the celestial winds, his field of vision darkening as they left the glorious city of God behind.

  Without warning, a current rippled through the angel’s flesh as they passed from the supernatural realm into the physical, where the God-ordained laws of nature and gravity and science kept the universe spinning in perfect order. Fixing their eyes upon their destination, the angels zipped through the second heaven, leaving only a vapor trail, but still the dastardly prince of the power of the air and his screaming minions gave chase. Gavriel glanced over his shoulder just long enough to see the archangel Michael mount a sure defense, then he returned his gaze to the shores of a tiny island called Heavenly Daze.

  Chapter One

  Rev. Winslow Waldo Wickam crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands, allowing one foot to swing in a stately side-to-side pattern as Micah Smith led the congregation in a rousing chorus of “Bringing In the Sheaves.” The beauty of Micah’s liquid tenor overcame the whistling wind outside, and for a moment Winslow was nearly able to forget that his worship leader was really the handyman/ gardener at the local bed-and-breakfast.

  He closed his eyes, losing himself in the familiar lyrics. “Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows, fearing neither clouds nor winter’s chilling breeze . . .”

  Chilling breeze was a bit of an understatement for Maine. Blizzard breath would be more suitable. Or frosty freeze, especially in October, when the weather could turn frigid overnight. But those sounded more like Dairy Queen treats than hymn lyrics.

  Winslow opened his eyes and moved his lips to the song, not daring to actually sing. Micah had clipped a new lapel microphone to his tie before the service started, and Winslow felt a little nervous about wearing it. Some of the folks in the pews might think he was putting on airs, using a microphone—a mike, Micah called it—with only twenty people in the congregation today. After all, the acoustics in the tiny frame church were pretty good, considering the building had been built over two hundred years before. But Beatrice Coughlin and Cleta Lansdown had been over to visit the First Presbyterian Church in Portland, and they’d come back with tales of sound systems, orchestras, and multimedia screens dangling from the ceiling.

  “And their minister,” Beatrice had said, a white curl escaping and falling onto her forehead as she bobbed in enthusiasm, “traveled all over that platform while we heard every word! If a Presbyterian can use high technology, I know we can!”

  “It’s not that we haven’t been hearing you, Pastor,” Cleta added, her thin mouth curling into a one-sided smile, “it’s just that you’re so soft-spoken, the microphone is bound to help. Maybe it’ll even keep Floyd awake.”

  Winslow had been a little surprised that Cleta would speak even a little disrespectfully of her husband, but Floyd Lansdown did have a habit of sleeping through the Sunday sermon. Winslow lifted his head and checked the second pew—Floyd was awake now, his mouth flapping in an approximation of the words in the hymnal. Winslow doubted that Floyd was getting any of them right—he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and everyone knew Floyd Lansdown was as blind as love without his specs.

  At least Floyd attended church. Winslow let his gaze slide across the building, mentally counting the heads of his small flock. Next to Floyd and Cleta sat their daughter, Barbara Higgs, whose husband, Russell, was nowhere to be seen. Russell always said he couldn’t afford to take a day off the water in tourist season, but he didn’t make church a regular habit in the off-season, either. In a lobsterman’s life there were always traps to be mended and repairs to be made on the boat . . .

  Sighing, Winslow looked across the aisle, where Olympia de Cuvier sat alone. Olympia’s husband, Edmund, was suffering from bone cancer. The long empty space next to Olympia was usually occupied by Caleb Smith, the el
derly butler who lived with the de Cuviers and helped nurse Edmund, and Doctor Marcus Hayes, the only physician on Heavenly Daze.

  Winslow frowned as he noted the absence of both men. After the service, he’d have to ask Olympia how Edmund was doing today.

  Looking across the platform, Winslow caught his wife’s eye and saw her smile. Edith knew very well what he was doing. She appraised the Heavenly Daze congregation every Sunday during quiet peeks over her shoulder and in the few moments when they sang “There’s a Welcome Here” and everyone turned to shake hands.

  Winslow gave his wife a smile, then glanced at the pew behind her. Birdie Wester sat there, decked to the nines, in a bright print dress and a matching hat. Winslow lifted a brow as the light of understanding dawned. Of course— he’d nearly forgotten. Today marked the tenth anniversary of his accepting the call to pastor the Heavenly Daze Community Church, and the church committee had undoubtedly been hard at work on some sort of commemoration. On an island as small and quaint as this one, any anniversary would do as an excuse for celebration. Last month Charles and Babette Graham had held a birthday party for their five-year-old—except that the party was meant to celebrate the fact that their precocious, squirmy son had turned five and one-half years old.

  “Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master . . .”

  As Micah sang on, Winslow’s thoughts turned toward his anniversary. Ten years! Hard to believe that he and Edith had passed so much time on this island. When they accepted the call, they’d been a middle-aged couple suffering from college tuition payments and the pangs of an empty nest. Heavenly Daze had seemed a true shelter, a quiet community where they could regroup and discover God’s purpose for their later years. And so Winslow had left the Bible college where he’d been serving as a professor of Old Testament minor prophets and moved to an island as beautiful in summer as it was brutal in winter.

  A lot had happened in ten years. The church building had begun to sag a bit, and the roof, new in 1980, had begun to leak, though the steeple looked as good as new. He had married Barbara and Russell Higgs, officiated at a baby dedication for little Georgie Graham, and buried Cleta Lansdown’s mother in the cemetery between the church and the sea. Tragedy had struck—in ’97 the ferry went down in a storm, drowning twenty-two tourists and a man from Ogunquit, and for the rest of the summer the folks of Heavenly Daze wondered if the pall of gloom would ever lift from the island. But winter’s arctic breath blew away the last vestiges of sorrow, and when spring dawned again, bright and green, hope returned to Heavenly Daze.

  Winslow smiled at the thought. Hope bloomed eternal on the island, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason why. The people here were typical Maine folk— stoic, direct, and hardworking—but more than once Winslow had walked into a situation where the hair at the back of his neck began to tingle with the inexplicable feeling that he had stumbled across people who were uniquely blessed by the hand of God. They had their problems, they had more eccentricities and quirks than most folk, but they were quite . . . singular.

  Especially the Smiths. There were six Smiths on the island, one living in each of the original six houses, each as different as noses. Winslow had once asked Micah Smith if he was related to Caleb Smith, and for an answer received only a bashful smile and an odd response. “Aren’t we all related, Pastor?” Micah asked. “After all, we have all sprung from the Lord’s hand.”

  Winslow got a more satisfactory answer from Vernie Bidderman, who had lived on the island since the day of her birth and knew everybody who was anybody in southeastern Maine. “They’re not related, and they’re not locals,” she told Winslow with an emphatic snap of her head. “They’re from away, every one of ’em. And if they’re odd, that’s probably why. You have to be born with the sea salt in your face to get Heavenly Daze in your blood.”

  Winslow’s face burned as he remembered Vernie’s comment. She hadn’t seemed to realize that in labeling the Smiths as outsiders, she’d smacked the same label on him and Edith. After all, they’d been born and reared in Boston, not Maine, and they knew nothing of the sea until they stood on the dock of the ferry that brought them and all their worldly possessions to the parsonage beside the whitewashed church . . .

  The sound of a dramatic piano arpeggio snapped him back to the present. Beatrice Coughlin ended every hymn that way, with a triumphant YA-ta-ta-DA-ta-ta-DUM, her fingers rippling from left to right over the keyboard as if she would tame the rattling ivories once and for all. Micah stepped back, tossing Beatrice his customary look of pleased surprise, then Winslow stood and made his way to the pulpit. “Thank you, Beatrice and Micah,” he said, nodding toward the pianist and song leader. “I know the Lord is pleased when we offer such fine praises to him.”

  His voice boomed through the narrow sanctuary with a resounding sound, and he caught Cleta’s look of satisfaction. The microphone wasn’t bad. Though he didn’t plan to do any platform traveling while he taught, it might be helpful to have a microphone that wouldn’t get in the way of his occasional gesture.

  As the musicians crept to their seats on the front pew, Winslow lifted his Bible, then winced as the book ba-thumped across the mike. He’d have to watch that—no sudden movements, no touching his chest or adjusting his tie.

  “I’ll be speaking today from the book of Habakkuk, first chapter, first verse,” he said, remaining still as he waited for the sweet sound of rustling pages. “So many of you have commented favorably on the expository study of Nahum that I thought we should turn our attention to another little-known prophet. Perhaps,” he smiled slowly as the pages fluttered, “if we finish this study within the month, we might have time to begin the study of Obadiah before the weather really turns cold.”

  He paused as the pages continued to rustle. Mike Klackenbush had opened his Bible to the front and was now running his finger down the table of contents, while Floyd Lansdown hadn’t even bothered to open his. Instead he settled into the pew, tucked his arm around Cleta, and looked up at the platform through heavy, half-closed eyes. Winslow knew he’d be asleep in five minutes—probably stayed up too late watching old movies last night.

  A half-formed thought flashed through his mind as he waited for his sleepy congregation to find the right chapter and verse. How would they commemorate his tenth anniversary? He had heard about a church in Boston that gave their pastor a new car after ten years of faithful service. Of course, that wouldn’t do in Heavenly Daze; the only motor vehicle on the island was the fire truck parked in the town’s brick municipal building. But a new electric golf cart would be nice. Or even one of those motorbikes like the one Vernie Bidderman used to scoot up and down the island . . .

  The sound of Micah abruptly clearing his throat brought Winslow back to the present. He blinked the images of a new motorbike away and looked out to see every eye turned expectantly toward him. Even Floyd Lansdown stared forward, doubtless wondering what had distracted the preacher.

  “Let us begin,” Winslow said, lowering his gaze to the page. “Habakkuk is a name that means embrace, and he was the eighth of twelve minor prophets. Of his personal history we have no reliable information, but we can assume he was probably a member of the Levitical choir. He lived at the same time as Jeremiah and Zephaniah, and wrote between 625 and 606 B.C., early during Jehoiakim’s reign over Jerusalem.”

  Winslow glanced up and saw Floyd Lansdown’s head bobbing like a float on a fishing line. Soon Cleta would be nudging him with a razor-sharp elbow.

  “Let’s read.” Winslow lifted his Bible. “This is the message that the prophet Habakkuk received from the Lord in a vision . . .”

  From the third pew, Floyd Lansdown began to snore.

  From her aisle seat on the second pew, Edith Wickam heard the steady snoring and bit down on her lower lip. Honestly, some people would be better off staying in bed than coming to church and sleeping through Winslow’s sermon. He worked so hard to prepare his messages. Without fail, every Saturday morning at 9:00 AM Winslo
w walked into the extra bedroom they used as an office and sat down to study obscure texts and commentaries. At dinnertime, she usually brought him soup and a tomato sandwich or, if tomatoes weren’t in season, some nice bologna on homemade wheat bread. He would eat, holding the sandwich in one hand and a book in the other, and not until four or five o’clock arrived would Winslow stand up to brush the crumbs from his trousers. Then he’d toss and turn all Saturday night, sleepily murmuring about the children of Israel and the Babylonians, and she knew he was dreaming about his sermon. Not even her most revealing red nightie could distract Winslow’s thoughts on a Saturday night.

  Sighing, she smoothed the worn pages of her Bible and let her gaze wander, trying to match the words on the page to those coming out of Winslow’s mouth. She loved the man and worried about him, and it was only because she worried that she sometimes found it hard to pay attention to his sermons. Of course, she’d heard them all before, too. Winslow liked to preach the Minor Prophets in a cycle, beginning with Hosea and ending with Malachi. Trouble was, no matter how minor the prophet, Winslow liked to spend at least a full month on each, so his Sunday morning studies only covered a half a dozen prophets a year. In the ten years they’d been at Heavenly Daze Community Church, they’d repeated the cycle five times, but Winslow believed that any lesson worth teaching once was certainly worth teaching again. “The Word is like a sunrise,” he often told her. “You see something beautiful and new each morning.”

  Ten years. Edith exhaled a long sigh of contentment at the thought. In the early years of their marriage, while Winslow studied in seminary and she struggled to work as a surgical nurse and care for their son, there were days when she had doubted if their marriage would last ten years.

  She had certainly never dreamed that they would remain in one place for so long. Winslow’s seminary graduation had been followed by a succession of pastoral positions— mostly small churches, many of them filled with cantankerous and impossible-to-please people who cared more for reserving their favorite pew than reaching the world with the good news about Jesus Christ. If Winslow preached on evangelism, folks squawked that they needed lessons on discipleship; if he taught on discipleship, folks griped that the lost weren’t hearing the gospel. And when Winslow walked the fine line of compromise, trying to insert a portion of each topic into his messages, people complained that he preached too long.