Rooms: A Novel (29 page)

After dinner he sat in his favorite overstuffed leather chair, Archie’s next letter resting on his 501s. Micah had avoided reading the letter earlier in the week as the last few had been portents of devastating circumstances. But where else could he turn? Rick had all but abandoned him; Sarah and Micah didn’t exist in this current reality; and the voice? He sighed. The voice was batting below .100.

He held the envelope up to the golden light that came from the lamp next to his chair. “Lord, if You’re anywhere near Cannon Beach, have Archie give me some hope.”

CHAPTER 41

November 24, 1992

Dear Micah,

Soon it will be time for you to confront your greatest foe—your villain—face-to-face. It will be just you and him, confronting one another in a fierce battle for truth and freedom. Ah, but Micah, the good news is, it will not be just you and him. For as the Scriptures tell us, greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world. In the strength you possess alone, there is no hope of victory. But with Him, as the apostle Paul says, we are more than conquerors.

The King of the universe is inside of you. You are in Him. As it says in the epistle to the Romans, if God is for you, who can be against you? Put on the full armor of a saint of God and swing the sword of the Spirit with all your might.

I am proud of you, Micah. Fight the good fight, and may the Spirit of the living God protect you on the right and on the left, as you come and as you go.

Courage,

Archie

P.S. If you have been counting, you must realize that at this point in our journey together, only two letters remain for you to read. Instead of waiting two more weeks to finish them, please open the next one the day after tomorrow and the last one four days after that. I will see you then.

Micah set down the letter. Was Rick the villain? C’mon. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling it was the mechanic.

And he had to fight? He shook his head and stared at the ocean. So much thunderous power in the waves, yet untapped. So much power in the Lord, yet untapped. But it didn’t give him any hope. He didn’t know how to fight this kind of battle.

||||||||

Micah woke at 5:30 the next morning and headed for Cape Lookout, a headland fifty miles south of Cannon Beach. There he would rip the emotions from his heart and lay them all out. He’d wrestle with the question of what to do with his life, away from the house, away from the voice, away from Rick—away from everything.

He’d heard the cape was spectacular. It jutted a mile and a half straight out into the ocean, five hundred feet above the waves. Apparently it gave dazzling views. Miles to the north, impressive Tillamook Head was visible. Looking south, the sand dunes of Cape Kiwanda could be seen on cloudless days. The Internet said massive spruce and hemlock trees hovered above an emerald green understory of salal, sword ferns, and salmonberry bushes.

He pulled into the parking lot a bit past 6:45. Not surprisingly his was the only car, and his shoulders relaxed. He didn’t want to meet anyone on the trail, and an early start would give him a sizable chunk of time alone, even if others started the hike after him.

A light mist drifted down on his windshield as he stepped out of his car and grabbed his day pack. When he reached the trailhead thirty seconds later, the rain came down in sheets. Micah smiled. Excellent. It would probably stop others from making the hike.

Fifty yards down the trail, the tree cover blocked out most of the rain, and his Mariners baseball hat handled the rest. The trail morphed from hard pack into black mud in spots but overall it was firm, and he clipped along at a fast pace.

He didn’t know why getting to the end of the cape in rapid fashion held such importance. But it did. So he plowed into the two-and-a-half-mile hike and only stopped once, to look at a memorial plaque commemorating the crew of a B-17 plane that crashed into the cape in 1943.

Three-quarters of the way into his trek, the clouds parted and the sun broke through with such strength Micah took off both his jacket and his sweatshirt. The sun shone through the raindrops hanging off the leaves, creating diamonds everywhere he looked. The steam rising off the fallen logs looked like tendrils of smoke and made it seem as if an unseen fire burned somewhere on the forest floor.

The beauty on the outside softened the turmoil inside, if only slightly.

Finally the thick Sitka spruce parted, and he stood five hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean. The coastline from where he’d come still sat in a shroud of fog right up to where the surf and the beach met.

It was as if Cape Lookout were singled out to receive the sun’s blessing while the rest of the coast was regulated to sit in the grayness of an encompassing cloud. It should have been a perfect setting to figure out where his life would go from here. But it wasn’t, because unbelievably, someone crashed down the trail behind him.

He didn’t expect to know them, let alone know them well.

Rick.

Loathing swept through Micah, and a thought slammed into his mind as clear as any he’d ever had.

Enemy.

Rick stopped twenty yards away and didn’t speak. His usual smile had flown, no hint of the typical laughter in his eyes. His being here was wrong.

Villain.

He glared at Rick, disgust joining Micah’s anger. There was no rationale for the feelings. Rick was the one person in the world who could help him work through the devastation his life had become. But logic had vanished. He could only react to emotions pumping through him.

Micah’s lips parted slightly, his teeth ground together, his eyes never leaving Rick’s.

Rick returned the defiant stare with an intensity Micah had never seen. And Rick’s body seemed different: taller, broader. The way the sun bounced off his clothes made it look like light came from inside him.

Micah couldn’t hold Rick’s gaze and dropped his eyes.

Rick took three strides forward and spoke with an authority that startled Micah. “Freedom is waiting to burst forth in you, Micah. You must not quench it.”

Anger surged like flashes of lightning inside him, and he had no idea how to rein it in. But he didn’t want to. It felt good. Very good.

“What gives you the right to tell me anything?” He hurled his pack to the ground. “You’ve done nothing but assist in destroying my life!”

“You’ve been listening to lies.” Rick took another step forward.

“Lies? Really? Your lies maybe?”

“You know what lies.”

“What are you talking about?” He turned his back and glared at the ocean.

“The voice.”

Micah whirled back. “I’ve never told you about—”

“The voice in your house? No, you haven’t.” Rick took another two strides forward. A large rock shattered into dust as his foot came down on it.

“You’ve been spying on me?”

“Why haven’t you told me?” Rick’s eyes flashed like steel.

“What gives you the right to demand that of me?”

“Why haven’t you told me?” Rick took another step forward.

“So that’s what our relationship is about? Me describing every intricate detail of my entire life? And what has it gotten me? Since I met you, my life has been destroyed. I’ve lost
everything!”

Rick took another two steps forward, and the ground seemed to shake. “Ask yourself, why didn’t you tell me? So many times you’ve wanted to.” His voice thundered. “What held you back?”

“You know what’s going on with my life but won’t tell me. Now you show up here without warning and start attacking with some feeble courtroom cross-examination about what I have or haven’t told you.”

As Micah spoke, an invisible chasm split the ground between Rick and him. He couldn’t see it, but it was as real as the cape they stood on. Physically they weren’t more than five yards apart. In all other ways it was miles.

“You feel it right now, don’t you?” Rick said. “We can’t see it, but it is definitely there. Pushing us away from each other. Dividing us. Stirring up rage in you. You know in your heart I’m your intimate ally, but something is speaking to you right now, fanning the flame of evil emotion, telling you not to trust me. And you’re listening.” One more step toward him.

“You are the villain!”

“Now is the moment where you must make your choice. Right now. The truth or lies.” Rick took three more steps. His eyes never left Micah. Rick was now just six feet away. “There is a battle for your destiny in this moment, and you must decide whom to believe.”

“The same exact words my voice said to me!” Micah spat out.

“Yes, the exact words. Freedom is fighting for you, but you must make the choice. He cannot make it for you.”

“Why don’t
you
make it for me? The man with all the answers. The man with the truth.”

“Fight it, Micah. This is not you. It is the sin that dwells within you talking. Seek the truth!”

Micah heaved a tree branch over the edge of the cape and watched it float down toward the waves. It would be so easy to follow the branch down to the ocean.

“Don’t listen. The Lord is a sword and shield. Call on Him,” Rick said.

“I’m tired of it. Archie, Sarah, you, the voice—everyone has a different angle, a different spin for my life.”

“In the Truth there is no spin.”

“Whose truth? Tell me, O Enlightened One!” Micah spewed. “Which voice is the final voice? Which one is the authority over all the others, huh? I’m ready.”

If his attempt to goad Rick had any effect, it didn’t show.

“In the end only one Voice matters.”

“What a surprise. Exactly what Archie’s letter said. But wake up. When I listen to my voice, it contradicts everything you and Archie say. It sends me back to Seattle where I lose Sarah and even lose God. But a minute ago you slammed my voice and slammed me for not telling you about him. Now I’m supposed to listen to it? Makes perfect sense.”

“As bright as you are in your natural mind, the enemy has greatly dulled your wisdom in your spirit.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The voice in your house is not the one you must listen to.”

“What?” He stared at Rick.

“It is not a part of you in any way.”

Rage and fear had mixed inside, anger the more dominant emotion. But now fear grew exponentially as his anger seeped away like a retreating wave. In desperation he tried to recapture the fury that had fueled his battle with Rick.

“And where is the truth, O Great and Holy Rick? Where is this voice I should listen to?”

“In you.”

“Oh, really?” Micah locked his arms across his chest and kicked a rock over the side of the cape. “Inside sinful Micah, huh?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, son. Sin dwells in you, yes. If a man says he does not sin, the truth is not in him. But you forget, man is also the dwelling place of God. The heart is the temple of the Holy Spirit, the living God.”

Rick’s eyes bored into Micah’s. “You don’t have to go outside yourself to find the answer. You don’t have to listen to me, or Archie, or Sarah. And you don’t have to ask a voice living in utter darkness inside your house. You need to listen to the Spirit of God that makes His home inside you. That is the one true Voice. Go there now and ask the question. Now.”

Micah wanted to lash out at Rick with the last of his fading anger. A thought screamed through his mind:
Push Rick over the side!

“You lie. My voice has been with me every step of this journey and has again and again given me perspective and insight I would never have seen without him.”

“He has deceived you. Time and again.”

Instantly the voice filled Micah’s mind:
Everything with Rick ends in pain. He’s trying to control you, destroy you. Resist him!

Rick stepped forward. “The Word says, ‘Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.’ You have to fight the thought attacking you right now.”

Micah didn’t want to fight. Despair hammered him to his knees, and he pulled in ragged breaths.

Why fight this? He could just get out of here and clear his head. That’s what he came to do, not debate this clown.

The thoughts peppered his mind like machine-gun fire.

Get away from him! He is the villain. You know that!

He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and whispered, “Lord, if You’re here, I need help.”

Immediately the thoughts stabbing at him like a knife vanished. He leaned against a boulder and buried his head in his hands.

“It is time,” Rick said.

“For?”

“Surrender. Complete surrender.”

“I have.”

“No. Not all. You’ve never fully surrendered all that you are to Jesus. You must give Him everything. Nothing less is enough.”

“Tell me how,” Micah whispered.

“Seek Him now, in this moment, with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength. Die to everything you’ve ever dreamed, ever wanted, ever hoped for. I’ll be warring for you in prayer as you seek the truth.” Rick walked fifteen yards back toward the trail and disappeared behind a grove of spruce trees.

The last bubbles of anger inside Micah popped as Rick’s footsteps faded. Micah was done fighting. But who was right? The answers were nowhere and everywhere.

What had Rick said? The answer was in his own heart because God’s Spirit was there. If only it were that simple. He sighed. Where else could he turn?

“Jesus, all of it. You can have all of it. I surrender everything I am or ever hope to be. My hopes, dreams, Seattle, Cannon Beach, Sarah . . . everything. Talk to me.”