Point of No Return (33 page)

Reverend Andrew suddenly stopped midway up the tunnel and turned to the wall. “Push this,” he told us. He pushed at the wall. The rocks gave way and spilled inward. We helped until we'd cleared the entrance to
another
tunnel. “It's my emergency escape,” he said.

We ran down the tunnel, skipping over fallen rocks and coughing at the thick air.

“Are you sure this leads somewhere?” Clarence asked.

“To the old rectory,” Reverend Andrew explained. “It's the ruined house not far away.”

I remembered seeing it the first time we tried to escape from the church.

We reached the end of the tunnel and saw a wooden ladder. “Hold this, please,” Reverend Andrew said and passed the lamp to Clarence. He climbed up the ladder and pushed at something above. It sounded like a latch. With a rusty groan, it opened, and a burst of fresh air poured in. Scrambling up the ladder, he called for us to follow.

I nearly had a heart attack when we got to the top. We were in the middle of what looked like the remains of a house. A band of men with torches and horses surrounded us, and I thought for sure that we were caught.

“Thank you for coming, Adam,” Reverend Andrew said to a man at the front of the group.

“Glad you're back, Reverend,” Adam said. “What would you like me to do?”

Reverend Andrew gestured to us. “Take these friends of mine to the next station on the Railroad. They're not safe here.”

“Yes, sir,” Adam said. “Can you ride horses?”

Clarence nodded. “I can. My daughter can ride with me.”

“Then get on. I don't think it'll be long before that riot makes its way here.”

We looked in the direction of the church. The shouts and chaos were unmistakable. It was a full-scale riot.

“Oh no,” Reverend Andrew said. Flames reflected off the glass on the inside of the church. “They're burning my church down!”

Clarence climbed on the horse and then pulled Eveline up to his lap.

“What about your two boys?” Adam asked.

“We're staying,” Matt said.

Reverend Andrew turned to face us. “You can't. They'll try to take you as a slave again.”

“They won't be able to,” Matt said.

Reverend Andrew persisted, “I don't know that I can stop them.”

“You won't have to stop them,” I said with a strange confidence. “We have another way out.”

“How?”

I smiled at him. “You never know when or where your friends will turn up.”

Reverend Andrew waved at Adam. “Go, then. Hurry.”

“Right,” Adam said and gave his horse a nudge.

“No, wait,” Clarence said. “Reverend…Matt…Jack…I don't know how to thank you.” He reached down and shook our hands.

“Thank you,” Eveline said. She had tears in her eyes. Suddenly, with Clarence holding on, she threw herself halfway off the horse and grabbed Matt to kiss him. She pulled me close, too, and kissed me on the cheek. Then Reverend Andrew.

“Lord love you,” she whispered.

Clarence pulled her back up, tugged at the reins on his horse, and steered it away. Adam and his men followed. With a “Hyah,” they raced off into the night.

The mob around the front of the church drifted to the side and someone saw us. With shouts and angry gestures, the crowd moved our way.

Reverend Andrew gestured to us. “Well, boys? Care to run for the woods?”

I looked at Matt, and we both knew it was time to go home.

“Good-bye, Reverend Andrew,” I said. “Thank you for everything.”

He shook my hand. “You're welcome, Jack. You made a nice nephew for a while.”

“See ya, Reverend Andrew,” Matt said and held out his hand.

Reverend Andrew took it but pulled him close for a hug. He then wrapped his other arm around me.

My face was buried in his side so that all was dark. I felt that rollercoaster feeling again and thought my legs might slip out from under me.

I heard Matt say, “Hey, what's going on?”

And then the Imagination Station wound down.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Matt wraps it up.

T
HE
I
MAGINATION
S
TATION
door
whooshed
open. Mr. Whittaker stood just outside with his hands on his hips. “Well?”

Jack crawled out. “What an adventure!” he said.

I got out behind him and realized right away that I didn't feel stiff or sore. I reached up and touched my back where I'd been whipped. It felt fine. “That's weird. I wasn't hurt.”

“I hope not,” Mr. Whittaker said with concern. “Whatever you experienced in the Imagination Station should never come out with you—except what you learned, of course.”

“So…was it
all
just in our imaginations?” Jack asked.

“Yes…and no,” Mr. Whittaker smiled. “The stories you went through are based on the truth, on history. It was your imaginations that let you take part in them.”

“What happened after we left?” I asked. “What became of Reverend Andrew and Clarence and Eveline and—”

Mr. Whittaker held up his hand. “One thing at a time. Let's talk about Odyssey.”

“Yeah, we left in the middle of a riot. I didn't know we had riots in Odyssey,” Jack said.

Mr. Whittaker pointed to the old newspaper on the workbench. “The Odyssey Riots of November 1858 are well known to anyone who's studied our local history. They caused several things to happen…some good, some not so good. The town finally made up its mind about how it felt toward the slavery issue—and became the first in the state to refuse to cooperate with slave hunters.”

“That's good,” I said. “What's not so good?”

“The church burned down.”

“No!” Jack cried out.

“Everything except for the church tower. It was the only thing left standing. You can still see it.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Right upstairs,” Mr. Whittaker answered. “It's the tower you see on the side of Whit's End.”

“
What?
” Jack and I said together.

His white mustache spread out in a broad smile. “Uh-huh. This building was built on the site of the church. The tunnel leading into this very workroom was used by Reverend Andrew and the Underground Railroad.”

“What happened to Reverend Andrew?” Jack asked.

“Reverend Andrew Jamison later became a leading light in the fight against slavery. He later lost his life while ministering to Union soldiers during the Civil War.”

This made Jack and me go quiet for a moment. Somehow I think we had hoped that he lived on for years and years.

“It shouldn't surprise you that he would sacrifice himself that way,” Mr. Whittaker observed. “He said he was God's servant and believed it through to death.”

“How about Clarence and Eveline?” I asked.

Mr. Whittaker smiled again. “You'll like this part. Clarence and Eveline took the Underground Railroad all the way to Canada, where they were reunited with Lucy—Clarence's wife and Eveline's mother. They lived there until Clarence died, then Lucy and Eveline moved to Chicago. Eveline got married to a fine gentleman named William Teller, and they had children of their own.”

I thought about it quietly for a minute and had a strange feeling. “Maybe one day we'll bump into someone who was related to them. Maybe they don't know all that their ancestors went through to be free.”

“Maybe so,” Mr. Whittaker said. “But now
you
know, right? You've seen what it's like to be in a time when you couldn't take freedom for granted.”

We nodded.

He said, “I hope that makes you appreciate your freedom even more now—that it's something to be treasured.”

As a kid who never thought much of being black, I realized I had a lot to be thankful for.

When I got home, I asked my mom and dad if we had any books or papers about the history of our family. They were surprised that I would ask, but then said they did. Dad took me into our little family library and pulled out a book with “Our Family Record” stamped in gold on the front.

“Because our ancestors were slaves, the records don't go back very far,” my dad explained.

“How far back does it go?” I asked.

He pointed to the top of a page where a tree had names filled in on various branches. “Right there.”

Clarence
and
Lucille
, it said on one side.

He traced his finger down to the next line.
William & Eveline Teller
it said.

I followed the lines down the page until the names came to my grandfather, then my father and his family. “No way,” I said in complete and absolute disbelief. “You mean, I'm related to Clarence and Eveline?”

Dad looked at me, puzzled. “Sure. Why? Do you know something about them?”

“Oh, Dad,” I said with a laugh, “have I got a story for you!”

Note:
In 1897, Charles Sheldon wondered what would happen if an entire town decided to “do as Jesus would do” throughout their homes and workplaces. The answer was the classic novel
In His Steps
. It is this author's hope that our
Odysseyized
-adaptation of the same concept will inspire readers to go back to the original book and take to heart its simple yet powerful message.

CHAPTER ONE

“L
ORD, HELP ME
,” John Avery Whittaker said under his breath as he sat down once again at the oak desk in his study. His plea for help had an uncharacteristic edge to it. He had been trying to assemble the questions for a Bible contest he was hosting at his shop, Whit's End, later that evening, but one interruption after another conspired to keep him from his work. Three phone calls, a door-to-door salesman, the postman, and a pesky fly that kept dive-bombing for his nose pushed the normally affable man to the limits of his patience.

He glanced around his study suspiciously, wondering what would interrupt him next. Maybe one of the many bookshelves would suddenly collapse, or the window shade would violently flap upward, or a leg on the desk chair would break. It felt to him as if the very silence of the room might scream, if only to ruin his concentration. He stroked his bushy white mustache and waited. Nothing happened.

Satisfied that he could resume his work, Whit (as he was best known) opened his Bible to find a verse in the book of James. He accidentally opened a couple of pages past it and found himself looking at a verse in the first letter of Peter, chapter two, verse 21. It said simply:

He stared at the verse with an unexplainable feeling that the words there were significant. After a moment he dismissed the feeling then turned to the book of James.

The doorbell rang.

“I knew it,” Whit groaned. He sat still as if afraid that if he moved, the bell might ring again. He secretly hoped whoever it was would go away. The doorbell rang again. Whit sighed, stood up, and gently moved the curtain aside on a window that gave him a clear view of the front porch. A man stood on the steps, dressed in worn, dirty clothing. He had greasy, matted hair that looked as if it hadn't been washed or combed in a long time. Frowning at the work yet to be done on his desk, Whit went down the stairs to the door. It was the last straw—the last interruption he would tolerate—and he yanked the door open as if to warn whoever it was that he wasn't in a mood to be trifled with.

The stranger looked at Whit with a startled expression, as if he didn't expect anyone to answer the door. Whit gazed at him, not sure what to make of someone who looked so bad, then asked, “Can I help you?”

The stranger coughed nervously. “I'm out of work, sir, and thought you might know of someone who's hiring. Maybe to do some odd jobs…”

“I'm really sorry,” Whit replied, “but I don't know of anything offhand. Try the shops downtown.” He slowly began to close the door.