Evelyn Klebert

The Most Unlikely of Places

“Wherein there is no question of how we must meander forth into a treacherous world, though a world of our own making, which God himself still waits upon us to reform. Not in our image but in humility, charity, and perhaps forgiveness for our fellowman. Not in the wickedness of destruction but in the glory of creation. Although our God waits for us at the holy hour, it has always been our choice how we come to him, how we care and culture this land that he has gifted us with.”

Then he hesitated, “There is still time for a new world to begin.”

She took a sharp breath inward. Like a physical stab just between her ribs, she could tangibly feel his pain. His eyes rose from his prepared works on the podium as he began to search the congregation in the small church. She shivered inwardly because it felt as though he had begun to hunt for her. But she stepped backward internally, slightly hunching her shoulders, and in some regards, shrinking herself physically so she would blend in. She willed herself to be inconspicuous as her long gray woolen skirt swished nervously against those sitting on either side of her in the rustic wooden pews. Once the sermon concluded, she could easily withdraw. Much as she longed to stay, it would not behoove her to be discovered.

“Good citizens,” he continued. “All we can do is persevere in these catastrophic days. Hold on to what is most godly, what is best in life.”

She stilled her anxiety, unequivocally mesmerized by the sound of his voice. Yes, all she could do was hold on.

Once she was outside the church and away from other members of the congregation, she closed her eyes, using her tremendous power of focus, and slowly reopened them. It happened quickly, so quickly that she scarcely felt the journey. Around her were the familiar walls of her bedroom again within her apartment. The year was 2020, April 2020, and she was observing stay-at-home orders amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

“CeCe,” it was scarcely a whisper in her mind. But she was accustomed to paying attention to whispers. She closed her eyes, putting her psyche in a receiving disposition. The soft image of her older sister, Amelia, floated into her inner vision.

“Millie,” she sent outward with a direct thought.

“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach out to you for hours.”

“Hours?” she sent back quizzically.

“Well, an hour, I tried an hour ago and then just now.” Amelia did tend to lean toward the dramatic side of things.

“Sorry, I’ve been busy.”

She could clearly see Amelia’s face in her mind’s eye. She lived up in Maine with her husband of two years and a toddler. It was a wonder she had time to do anything, much less play big sister to her. “You know Mom is worried about you.”

Her parents had also relocated up north, not so very far from Amelia’s rural country house. Of course, this was the era of social distancing, but she suspected they snuck over to see her occasionally.

“Why isn’t she doing the checking-in then?”

“She’s too sensitive. Her empathic abilities make her vulnerable to all the strong emotions around.”

“Well, you can tell her I’m fine. I’m only out at the grocery once in a while and as little as possible.”

The vision of Amelia in her mind looked at her oddly, with skepticism, wrinkling her nose the way she always did, well, when she was in the flesh and in a snit.

“You know Cecilia, it’s not safe right now to travel too much.”

“I just told you —”

“That’s not what I mean. There are things about, people about, capitalizing on all this upset. You — well, we really — have to be careful now more than ever.”

A slight but substantial chill crept up her spine as she wondered exactly how closely Amelia was keeping tabs on her.

“I’m aware,” she mumbled, or as much as a mumble that could be achieved in thought transference.

“Stay safe.”

“Always.”

It was undisputable, however, that she did feel a somewhat desperate need to escape, not just from the four walls of each room of her one-bedroom apartment but from so much more.

“What does it feel like?”

“Panic, embedded deeper than the surface of my skin.”

Her dad nodded with understanding in his remarkably green eyes. That was what she’d always noticed about him. No matter how snowy he got on the top, those eyes were always a brilliant emerald green.

“In some ways, you seem even more sensitive than your mother, Cecilia. And that’s saying a lot. For your peace of mind, you’ll need to learn to erect some armor and simply get away from the madding crowd occasionally. You just absorb too much.”

Yes, indeed, she had been diagnosed as an intense empath by her family at a fairly young age. And here she was, trapped, away from her extended family during a pandemic. The very walls of her apartment building were oozing with anxiety and, in some regards, the sheer fear of its occupants.

Who could blame her for occasionally escaping the excruciating pressure, even if it was to the most unlikely of places?

“Reverend Bradshaw, we are so blessed to have you amongst us in these most trying of times.”

He smiled at the elderly parishioner, Goody Burroughs, and was moved by her sincerity. Only six months earlier, he had stumbled onto this relatively obscure Puritan village of Saybrook in Connecticut. With a reasonable cover story, they had wholly embraced him more quickly than he’d ever expected. And he stayed, finding his rather unorthodox approach subtly melding into their dogma. But the truth was this area was ripe for his interference. It was weary, weary of its own inflexibility, weary of tearing itself apart with suspicion, weary of torturing and, at times, yes, hanging innocent people for witchcraft. In a nutshell, these people were feeling the weight of their misdeeds, and he was just the man to push them along that new path of enlightenment, albeit ever so gently, ever so gradually. He could be patient as he, too, was weary.

“My great niece Anne Greenwood was quite taken with your sermon as well.”

“Anne?” he questioned, not having heard that name bandied about before in the village.

“Yes, the child arrived from the Roxbury colony of Massachusetts some weeks back.”

“Some weeks back, Goody Burroughs?” he questioned, probing her resolve somewhat, but as he did, a look of confusion dropped across her pinched and wrinkled face and then a blank stare. Clearly, he surmised, there was nothing cohesive there in terms of memory. “Oh yes, I remember now, young Anne, a dark-haired girl.” That was the only coherent fact he drew from this mishmash of flimsy threads in the old lady’s recollections.

“Yes, Reverend Bradshaw, I felt sure I’d introduced you to her.”

He smiled in a comforting manner. “I’m most certain you have. It is just my fatigue of late that may have caused my forgetfulness. Perhaps I will visit your farm soon and be reintroduced.”

The lady smiled now, feeling more comfortable and complacent in the facade that had been perpetrated on her.

“Thank you, Sir. That would be most welcome,” she murmured before she took her leave.

He leaned back into the rather uncomfortable chair near his stark wooden desk. That was the way of things here, stark, colorless, shredded of luxury. But on the other hand, it was quiet, true, devoid of pretension for the most part — except for the old ways he was working hard to purge them of.

So, all of that now could be disrupted by an interloper with selfish intent. It was true. He had felt something during the sermon, powerful energy. And he had now secured a concrete image of Anne Greenwood in his mind.

He could see it now in great detail and focused acutely on it. It was odd. The energy from her was faint. It appeared as though she had already moved on.

He could track her, but what would be the point if she was just passing through. There was more than the possibility that he could call on Goody Burroughs at her farm, and she would have no memory of her great niece visiting from Roxbury. The delicate illusion may have already begun to fade. Perhaps truly, there was nothing to do, no harm done unless, of course, she decided to return.

Copyright © 2023 by Evelyn Klebert