The Island of Heavenly Daze (6 page)

Why had he come to Heavenly Daze? The question begged an honest answer. The call had come at a time when teaching had grown predictable, and something in his heart had yearned for another chance to prove himself as a pastor. After all, he had gone to seminary in order to shepherd the flock, not teach, and the small congregation of Heavenly Daze seemed like a wonderful opportunity. He wasn't expecting a group of saints—you could put any two church people in a room and have them emerge an hour later with three different opinions—but he and Edith thought the island would be a safe place to fulfill their call to the pastorate. Perhaps they would even retire there.

He'd made certain the pulpit committee from Heavenly Daze understood his strengths and weaknesses—he wasn't the world's most stirring orator, and he loathed that particularly preacherly habit of ending every other word with an extra “uh” syllable (pick up-uh, your Bible-uh and turn-uh to the Gospel-uh of John-uh), but he was willing and able and faithful. And so, when Olympia and Edmund de Cuvier appeared in his office with a firm offer to pastor the Heavenly Daze Community Church, he had gladly accepted it.

Another memory flitted through his consciousness. He'd gone to seminary with a talented fellow, Roland Wiggins, who had seemed to have everything a clergyman could want—quickness, charisma, and people skills. When Winslow encountered his first problems with bickering church members, he had called Roland only to find that the man had resigned his first church after less than a year. The church secretary rather coolly informed Winslow that Roland had gone to work for Chad Randall, a hotshot television evangelist.

After playing phone tag for nearly a week, the two finally connected. “So,” Winslow asked, “what do you do for Chad Randall?”

“I smooth things,” Roland answered, a smile in his voice. “I arrange his interviews, carry his suitcase, and, on occasion, teach his Sunday school class.”

Winslow stared at the phone. “And you enjoy this job?”

Roland laughed. “You bet. The ministry pays me a really good wage to take care of the shepherd.”

Searching through a sea of words, Winslow finally found a rejoinder: “But you're a shepherd.”

“Not anymore.” Roland's voice was as light as air. “As a member of the entourage, I'm happy as a pardoned life prisoner. I'm still feeding the sheep, but in a roundabout way. And Win—we can always use a good man. The next time the goompas get you down, think about the ministry here.”

The memory of Roland's offer set Winslow's teeth on edge even now. Life as a professional second banana might be interesting and glamorous and relatively carefree, but Winslow had been called to feed the sheep, not “smooth” them. But apparently his feeding had become uninteresting, for his sheep routinely dozed off every time he opened the Book that would satisfy their souls . . .

He was as boring and out of touch as the man in the portrait.

Cold, clear reality swept over him in a terrible wave so powerful that he gripped the edge of old Jacques's slab for support. He had become everything the portrait revealed about him! But he could change. He was only fifty-two, and he had a good many years in him before he wanted to even think about retirement. Though his congregation was small, his people were steady, strong, and adaptable. Though Heavenly Daze had rejected automobiles, they had readily accepted satellite dishes and the Internet. Why, sixty-eight-year-old Vernie Bidderman had just completed her first Web page and was talking about selling Heavenly Daze blueberry jam internationally . . .

Vernie would love to see him try something different in church. So would Beatrice Coughlin and Birdie Wester. And though the cultured Olympia de Cuvier might turn her nose up at any new music, she'd undoubtedly welcome a new approach to the sermon. If the older folks would welcome a more modern approach to worship, surely the younger folks would! Maybe he could even find a way to cut through the layer of cool indifference that encased Buddy Franklin . . .

Completely surrounded by darkness now, Winslow lay back on the graveyard slab, cushioning his head with his interlocked fingers. Bending both knees, he crossed one leg and hooked it over the other while searching the sky for illumination. “I'm willing to try anything, Lord,” he whispered above the incessant rhythm of the sea. “Just don't let me be like the man in the picture. I'm too young to be so defeated, and too willing to look so . . . resigned.”

Again, he heard no answer but the mournful sound of the ferry horn, calling all who were leaving Heavenly Daze to get on board or be left behind for the night.

Chapter Four

E
dith wiped the counter with her dishtowel, then hung the cloth on the edge of the sink and untied her apron. Where was Winslow? He often went for after-supper walks along the shore, but he never stayed out this long after dark. He always said it would be too easy to twist an ankle among the rocks and freeze out there when the tide came in . . .

She moved toward the phone, lifted it from its hook, then replaced it. She could give Floyd Lansdown a thrill by placing an honest-to-goodness emergency call, but Winslow would probably be stomping his boots on the back porch before she hung up. If she completed the call and then Winslow came in, she'd have to go over to the fire station and convince Floyd that he didn't need to crank up the fire engine and summon the Coast Guard. As fire marshal, mayor, and sheriff, Floyd had too few opportunities to exercise his civic responsibilities. Any caller to the Lansdown house ran a calculated risk that they'd either wake the entire town for nothing or put Floyd in the hospital for overexertion.

Sighing, she moved away from the phone and poured herself another cup of tea. She wouldn't have worried, but obviously something was bothering Winslow. He hadn't said much at supper, and she had a feeling the anniversary portrait weighed heavily on his mind. Just why, she couldn't say. The picture was a nice resemblance and a fitting tribute, and Cleta had wasted no time in hanging it in the vestibule. Her handyman, Micah Smith, had remained upstairs during the reception to mark the wall and drive a nail into the plaster so the portraits of Reverend Winslow Wickam and Captain Jacques de Cuvier would be perfectly balanced.

The brilliant ringing of the telephone startled Edith so that she jumped, splashing hot tea onto her sleeve. Smiling at her tense nerves, she placed her cup back in its saucer and dabbed at her sleeve with a towel. That was probably Winslow on the phone. He must have stopped by the church or one of the parishioner's houses.

Smiling, she put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

It wasn't Winslow. Babette Graham was on the phone, wondering if Pastor could come over and pray with Georgie. The boy had spent the afternoon watching
The Wizard of
Oz
, and now he couldn't sleep. He was convinced the Wicked Witch of the West would come through the window and whisk him off to her castle.

“Pastor Winslow's not here right now, Babette,” Edith explained, forcing a light note into her voice. “He went out for a walk. Shall I have him come over when he returns?”

“No, that's okay.” Despite the reassurance, Babette sounded curt. “I don't know if I can last that long. This boy has to go to sleep, and I can't have him up there wailing until Pastor decides to come in. Charles and I will think of something.”

“It's no trouble—'' Edith began, but then the phone clicked in her ear. Sighing, she dropped the receiver back into its cradle, then moved to the window. Nothing moved in the blackness beyond, but in the reflection she saw her- self, a tiny woman with blonde hair, a trim figure, and wide, worried eyes . . .

A familiar stomping sound made her heart skip a beat. “Well, it's about time,” she whispered, running her hand through her hair. She was tempted to fling the back door open and berate her husband for worrying her, but in all these years of living with Winslow Wickam she had learned that nagging accomplished nothing. So she moved back to the table, picked up her cup, and was quietly sipping tea as Winslow came in.

“Hi, honey.” He slipped off his sandy boots, shrugged his way out of his jacket, then padded over in his stocking feet and kissed her cheek. “Enjoying your tea?”

“I was.” She waited until the significance of her tone registered and he stopped in his tracks.

“What happened?”

She lowered her cup and shook her head slightly. “Babette Graham called. Apparently little Georgie has been spooked by
The Wizard of Oz
, and they can't get him to go to bed. She called to see if you would go over and pray with the boy.”

“Of course I will.” Winslow straightened and moved toward the boots he'd just tossed behind the kitchen door.

“You don't have to. Babette said she and Charles would think of something.” Edith offered this strictly in the interest of honest and full disclosure. If Winslow thought one of his parishioners needed him, wild horses couldn't keep him away.

“It's no trouble.” Winslow sat on a chair and began pulling his boots on again, then he laughed. “That Georgie. I've never seen a child with such imagination.”

Edith motioned toward the phone. “Shall I call Babette and tell her you're coming?”

“Wouldn't want the jangling of the telephone to keep the boy from sleeping.” Winslow finished lacing one shoe and began pulling on the other. “I'll just walk over there and surprise them. If the boy is as tired as I suspect he is by now, he might fall asleep even before I arrive.”

Edith gave her husband a wifely smile, but lifted a brow as she asked, “Are you all right, Winslow?”

He smiled, and it was clear that he hadn't noticed the change in her tone. “Why wouldn't I be?”

She shook her head and looked into her teacup. “Don't forget your jacket. I don't care how short a distance you're walking; it gets chilly out there once the sun goes to bed.”

Hunched inside his jacket, Winslow stepped off his front porch and looked out into the night. Charles and Babette Graham, owners of the Tony Graham Gallery, lived directly across the street from the church and catty-cornered to the parsonage. As he walked into the wind, Winslow noticed that the lights in the gallery were dark, and only one dim lamp shone through the window of the Grahams' front parlor. The upstairs windows, however, blazed with light. Apparently the boy hadn't gone to sleep yet.

As he drew nearer, voices floated out to him from a partially open upstairs window. Pausing by the swing in Babette's flower garden at the side of the house, Winslow heard the tremulous whine of a little boy: “But how do you know the witch won't get me?”

The answering voice was strong and familiar, and Winslow smiled as he recognized it. The voice belonged to Zuriel Smith, the potter who lived in the Grahams' detached garage. Zuriel was a quiet, artsy sort who kept to himself most of the time, but the clay pots he contributed to the art gallery's inventory apparently covered his rent and then some.

Winslow lifted his head and peered in the darkness through the nearest upstairs window, then spied Charles Graham standing against the wall, his arms folded. Charles wore a look of relief, and Winslow smiled as that same relief crept over him. If Zuriel could find a way to calm Georgie's fears, they'd all be better off for it.

Deciding to wait it out, Winslow sat in the garden swing and gripped the chain, relaxing in the gentle rhythm of the wind. “The movie you saw was only imagination,” Zuriel was saying, his voice rising and falling in a calming cadence. “Do you know the difference between things that are real and things that aren't?”

Winslow strained to hear an answer. Georgie must have nodded, for Zuriel laughed and continued. “Let me tell you, Georgie, about the four kinds of stories. The first kind is true—and if the writer has done his work well, you can trust the facts in a true story. The second kind of story is made up—it's called fiction—but the things that happen in the story are things that could be true.”

Georgie's treble voice cut through the heavy stillness of the night. “Like
Blueberries for Sal?”

Zuriel laughed. “Yes. You could go out with your mother to pick blueberries, and you could meet a bear, just like Little Sal did. That is a made-up story that could be true. But there is a third kind of made-up story, Georgie, that cannot be true.
The Wizard of Oz
is one of those kinds of stories. A tornado could pick up your house, but it couldn't plop you down in the middle of Munchkin Land because there is no such place. And a wicked witch could not send an army of winged monkeys to carry you off.”

“I don't like that kind of story.” Georgie whimpered like a lonely puppy, and Winslow's heart contracted in pity at the sound.

“Ah, but Georgie,” Zuriel answered, his voice husky and filled with awe, “it is in that kind of story that the wings of your imagination can take flight. Imagination and creativity are good gifts from God, and he wants us to use them.” He paused a moment, then asked, “Can men fly, Georgie?”