O You of Little Faith

O You of Little Faith

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Walking on the Water

“22 Then Jesus commanded His disciples to get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away. 23 When He sent the crowds away, He went up into a mountain by Himself to pray. And when evening came, He was there alone. 24 But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was turbulent. 25 During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a spirit.” And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer. It is I. Do not be afraid.” 28 Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, bid me come to You on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” And when Peter got out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the strong wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.”

- Matthew 14:22-33 Modern English Version (MEV)

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Chapter 1 In the Beginning.

When John was a boy, he’d known oppression.

In a way that a chill can set an ache in your bones despite a warm climate, John was only 9 when the onset stirring of unease had entered his cherished family home of Columbia, Missouri and turned the walls talkative. Whispers in the dark that crawled along the ceilings and rattled his windows at night. As a child John had seen the truth of things in the shadow creatures that lingered in the corners of the bathroom and kept turning the knobs on at night. He’d seen the sallow cheeks and empty eye sockets of the man-thing that used to open all the cupboard doors in the kitchen, and soon strayed to hovering above him on all fours at night. Staring at him with a hunger that shone through the gaping nothingness that were the holes in his face.

As a child, John had known with a certainty that defied the whimsy of his peers that the scratches that began occurring on his body were not self-inflicted. That they weren’t wounds gained from sports or rough housing or any other form of “Boys will be boys” play that was so often uttered by the grown ups in his life for that first year.

And then John turned 10.

He remembered now, that the sweltering burn that had flushed its way through his body on the eve of his tenth birthday had been likened to the white hot blue flames that come out of the tail end of a rocket by his feverish mind. And tiny, yesterday’s John had wanted to be an astronaut. When the mood didn’t strike him to become a secret agent, or crime fighting detective like the hero’s in his comic books. But his brain had latched on to the stars and welcomed the blanket of darkness that had veiled his thoughts for a long time after that.

To this day John cannot recall the instances when little John left the building, when his own ten-years-old bright eyed and inquisitive mind vacated to be away with the faeries. The only thing he does remember from the first instance, was the minute his head had returned from the veil, and staring up at his parents’ horrified, truly shocked faces.

He remembers trailing his small fingers across a blood slick jaw, looking down to see crystalline water washing away smoky looking trails of deep red while his heart beat to the sound of a faucet.

He still wonders if the scar will fade.

His parents, being the loving, agnostic family unit his mother had always craved, had had no clue as to how to deal with the sudden psychosis of their child. His father in particular had suffered into an abrupt bout of bewildered sorrow following the pained introversion of his son. Johns mother however, was much more proactive in her despair, her fiery denial of the faith she had been raised by forced her to seek any answer she could find to spite the solution she must have known deep down that he truly needed.

And so, in an onslaught of grueling tests within hospital walls, listening to the bickering and embittered platitudes of countless doctors upon finding no solution, and the ensuing war when any of them deigned to mention the word ‘institution,’ John- the precocious, outgoing and wide smiling John that he once could have been, died.

His parents relationship, his loving family unit that once was, strained all too much and all too soon, followed.

And then one day, after months had passed; dry lipped and dull eyed John had watched a new manner of creature enter his house. The shining gold of a pocket watch chain had drawn his eye as it gleamed from the breast of a tweed waistcoat, and when he’d reached out to grab it, the man had given him a high brow look over the bridge of his nose and stepped away.

“Mind your paws boy.” He’d said, “and watch who you’re snarling at.”

Then he’d turned to Johns mother, and pulled out a bible.

His uncle Thaddeus, his namesake oddly enough, was an ostentatious sort of man with a love of fine things as deep as his love of his own religion, which was deep indeed. What his piousness hadn’t granted him however was an ability to be steadfast to his family. His mother in particular had suffered from his well tailored, turned back for the most part of Johns life as consequence of renouncing the faith of her family. John had never thought to ask what deigned his uncle to turn up when he did that day. Nor will he ever be able to. But it would become his salvation.

A pointed storm had rolled through his house in the ensuing words between his uncle and his mother. Though in the small stretch of lucid time John had had to listen, Margaret, Johns Mother, had quickly given in to the strongly spoken reasoning’s of his uncle. Perhaps it was her weariness of the everyday sciences not working that turned her hand, in which she’d be willing to try anything at that point, but Johns uncle Thaddeus had always insisted to him in the years after that his mother had known the solution all along, that she had never lost her belief in the faith she’d had drilled into her. And an older, desperate and more cynical John would despair at having not even a headstone to ask. To blame. That a willing decision to hold out and allow it to fester for so long on her part would change the course of Johns life so irrevocably.

So Thaddeus called a priest.

And what followed can only be described as a world shaking, confused mess of pain and white hot flushes of anger not his own. He’d wondered if he had, at some point, swapped bodies with his father; whom had seemed so very angry at the preacher every time John looked at him, perched in an old wicker chair that had been placed in the corner of Johns bedroom. His mind displacing at the emotions not his own. When he’d been moved to the bed and tied, Johns father had been ordered to leave, though who by, John wouldn’t know. But for the best he did not see the blistering welts John had ripped into his own skin as he’d pulled against the leather restraints. Another set of scars John mused over daily as he dressed. Though the jagged, silvery scars encircling his wrists and ankles brought him mostly comfort, to be able to see and touch the evidence of his own deliverance.

And a Deliverance was what it became.

“God, Creator and defender of the human race, who made man in your own image, look down in pity on this your servant, now in the toils of the unclean spirit, now caught up in the fearsome threats of man's ancient enemy, sworn foe of our race.”

Days passed with Father McGeough, the holy man who had claimed his house as his own as it had seemed, and his uncle Thaddeus watching, always watching, zealously by his side. His parents where nowhere to be found for the most part. Drifting aimlessly downstairs John was told, sighing into the windows but refusing to come and see what was becoming of their son when the howls were at their worst. Only every so often would one of them enter through the threshold of his room in the hopes of reminding themselves that it was a child in there. Their child. And perhaps in part, to reaffirm their disbelief as to what was actually happening in their home.

“Repel, 0 Lord, the devil's power, break asunder his snares and traps, put the unholy tempter to flight. By the sign of your name, let your servant be protected in mind and body.”

Days turned to weeks, and after an untold plethora of Hail Mary’s, prayers to the Father and invocation of the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Saints from the preacher that had stayed with him and begged of God through the long dark, John saw Light for the first time. And not just a metaphorical light for what it was, but an unearthly Halo that seemed to glow around every object in the room, and John felt Safe. He’d breathed free, untainted air for the first time in many, many months through a mouth that suddenly felt like his own again. Felt the trickle of mercifully cool water drip from the preachers fingers as he’d gently stroked the sign of the cross upon Johns forehead.

“Graciously grant, 0 Lord, as we call on your holy name, that the evil spirit, who hitherto terrorized over us, may himself retreat in terror and defeat, so that this servant of yours may sincerely and steadfastly render you the service which is your due; through Christ our Lord, Amen.” He’d said. And John was saved.

The Light never did fade though, nor did his sight of the Truth for what it was. John had watched through tired, but wide open eyes as the mischievous creatures from the bathroom and the terrifying one that used to stalk his bed at night had clung to the ceiling where they’d been reaching for John and screeched, as every portion of them that was touched by the soothing rays of golden light burned an unforgiving, fiery orange and turned to ash.

When John had told Father McGeough what he’d seen a short while later, about the light and the monsters, the old priest had gone quiet and weepy, before telling John that the Light was the grace of God sweeping its way through the land, ridding it of evil and bestowing upon it a blessed protection. And when John had told him that he could still see it, see the rising swirls of butter yellow clinging to the mans shoulders, the father had sobbed heavily before wrapping John in a strong, warm embrace rife with relief and deep rooted joy.

“Never forget John, we’re all His children. Whatever ill may come to us in the form of Man or Divine Beast, God will always answer the call of the faithful. And give us the means with which to combat the darkness.” He’d said, voice breaking, and John had believed him.

“Or in your case,” he’d pulled back, smiling, to look John thoughtfully in the eye, “A Gift, perhaps. For being such a good, and incredibly brave young man.”

“A gift for being good?” John had asked, “like Santa?”

And the man had erupted into a great, belly shaking laugh that made the tears in his eyes glisten as he ruffled Johns hair. Neither had noticed a solemn Thaddeus M. Colmhurst behind the door, thanking God for the safety of his nephew and crossing his chest with a shaking hand as he thought about Light and Monsters.

And so later on, after Father McGeough had left the Myers family on a fond farewell and a proud, grinning smile for an exhausted and suddenly shy John, and his uncle Thaddeus had left with an abrupt, familiar handshake for his parents and a peculiar glance in Johns direction, Johns life began to get back to normal. Relatively.

As the months passed John could still see the Light that Father McGeough had called the Light of God, although it had dimmed to a soft glow that lingered only in the places where John felt most uneasy, yet there we’re many places like this. John also continued to see what he came to call the Truth. Ugly, terrifying creatures that would stare at him with a yearning that gave John nightmares for many weeks, fearing he would be taken over once again. But curiously they never tried to touch him. Some, most, would even shy away in fear if John gained the courage to shout at them to ‘go away!’ when no one was looking.

Though there were a few who snarled back, unfazed.

And as time went by his parents began to recognize that their son might never go back to the child he once was per se; he was too quick to shy as a result of his ordeal and much quieter in character. But gradually, as the nightmares dwindled from Johns mind and the smiles came more often, the unspoken tension in their shoulders eased, and their relationship began to rekindle anew. Laughing became a go-to reaction from his father, as though even the act itself was a triumph over the evil he couldn’t touch before. And the soft gleam in his mothers eyes whenever her husbands hands would linger on her after a kiss was a divine glow all in itself.

John could still remember that it was the second week of the fifth month in the first year of him being saved, the day before his eleventh birthday, that his father had announced an abrupt and spontaneous camping trip. “Something just for us.” He’d said, and his mother agreed. So they’d gone, and what followed was one of the happiest weeks of his life. Just him, his mother, his father, and the open wilderness where Ted Myers spent two days trying to teach a too small, giggling John how to fish while his mother flounced and laughed in the background.

It seemed to heal something none of them had actually known was still hurting, John thought, allowing his parents time to forget the Truth, at least for a little while.

Though not all of it had managed to pierce the veil of disbelief he’d realized, when they’d given him grown-up, indulgent smiles the night he’d told them he could see fairies dancing in a ring of mushrooms ten feet away from camp. One had even taken a liking to Johns father, fluttering over to sit on his shoulder and tittering away behind a tiny, gleaming hand as though he could hear her. And perhaps he could in some ways.

He’d seemed to perk up strangely with an incredibly loving look in the direction of Margaret Myers whenever the winged creature visited him.

And John couldn’t begrudge them for not believing him then, even now he couldn’t. He’d had trouble associating such light and happy creatures with the Truth when first he’d caught sight of them too. And neither of his parents could see the things beyond reality like John could. The only thing they had known was what had come to pass through John himself, and the success of Father McGeoughs faith in God. Fairies and other such fantastic creatures was definitely a bit of a stretch.

But John could see them. And it gave him faith that beauty existed beyond the dark, snarling ugliness that seemed to follow him everywhere. The rot in his destiny that caught up to him six months later, on October 10th 1991 , the anniversary of his exorcism.

The day his parents disappeared without a trace.

End of Chapter 1.