Chapter Text
On a turbulent night of Spring,
A child is to be born without a cry,
Serene and passive.
Fear not the silence,
For He is the Savior.
“Shut the curtains!”
Thunder rumbled across the black sky, making the walls shake and crackling the paint in the shape of lightning, as if the storm were taking root in the very house.
A flash of blinding light illuminated the bedroom before Simon drew the checkered curtains closed. The glow outlined the silhouette of his wife, wailing in agony in the center of the bed. The midwife between Candace’s legs encouraged her to keep pushing. The priest prayed silently, standing in the corner of the room, after having raised his voice at Simon to be heard over the rain’s ear-splitting assault on the roof.
“I see the head!” The Sister exclaimed, looking up at the woman who was in excruciating pain. “You’re almost there!”
Candace pushed, and with a last guttural cry from her, the baby was delivered.
No cries. No wails. No sound of any kind came from the child’s mouth.
Dread filled Simon’s body, a black hole forming in the pit of his stomach. “Is- is he alive?” He asked, tentatively walking to the midwife who was cutting the umbilical cord.
She nodded, looking at the priest with eyes so wide they threatened to fall out of their sockets.
The priest looked up at the ceiling, and in that instant, every soul in the room seemed to notice the deafening silence .
“Fear not,” The priest exhaled, in awe, a hymn on the tip of his tongue. “For He is the Savior.”
Souls filled the house before the sun of a new day even had the time to rise.
“Can we see him?”
“Have you chosen a name?”
“Could I hold him?”
Simon tried to keep them out of the bedroom, to give his wife the time to rest, but Candace dissuaded him.
“They want to see the one who brings salvation, Simon...” She whispered, brushing back the child’s thick black hair with her pale hand. “He gifted peace back to us... Letting our Brothers and Sisters see him is the least we can do. Don’t you think?”
Simon sighed and tucked one of Candace’s auburn curls behind her ear. He nodded and slowly opened the bedroom door.
A swarm of men and women filled the space, each wanting to take a look at the newborn.
“We’ve chosen a name,” His wife said, capturing everyone’s attention despite how softly she spoke. “Won’t you tell them, dear?” She grinned and held the child close to her chest.
Simon cleared his throat as heads turned to await the news. Eyes were wide and sparkling, galvanized to pray to the boy.
“Adam.” A smile tugged at the man’s lips. “His name is Adam.”
There was quiet chatter and sounds of approval.
Nods and hugs were exchanged, tears were shed, and people kneeled by the bedside to look at the boy up close.
Adam still hadn’t made a single noise– not a cry or a coo.
He stayed stoic, big blue eyes to the ceiling.
To the Heavens.
___
The child’s silence became worrying as the years passed. He would turn four in a week, and still, not a word had spilled past his lips. He never cried, never yelled, and never complained. If he didn’t want to do a certain activity or eat a certain food, he would simply retreat to his room or to a quieter corner of the house.
His mother would let him get away with almost anything, never forcing a thing.
“He has to eat what he’s given, Candace,” Simon had said one night when the boy jumped down from his chair to go read a book, laying on the orange carpet of the living room.
“Anything Adam says, goes,” She said before sipping her water. Simon scoffed at her wording.
He lowered his voice, barely above a whisper. “Honey, Savior or not, he needs nutrients.”
“I follow the plan of God. He who came through our son, shows us the way.” She excused herself from the table and joined their child.
___
Adam was six the first time they heard the sound of his voice. They were at church, as they were every Sunday. Adam’s followers asked him for healing, for their prayers to be answered. The boy sat and simply listened, looking upwards at the simple wooden beams of the curved ceiling. He never met their eyes, not even his own parents’. This also worried Simon.
When he had tried to discuss it with nurses and the doctor, they all told him that this was as the scripture had predicted: Serene, passive, silent.
That Sunday, a follower begging for guidance touched one of Adam’s long locks. His hair, slightly lighter than it was the day of his birth, was curling past his neck. The boy’s head jerked backwards, away from the woman’s touch.
“Don’t touch my hair!”
Gasps resonated throughout the small church, followed by shocked whispers.
Adam rose from the small stool he was sitting on atop the altar, and his breathing became erratic.
“Don’t touch my hair! Don’t touch my hair! Don’t-” He repeated the phrase like a mantra, growing red in the face from the lack of oxygen. The crisis prevented air from entering his small lungs.
He kept muttering the same sentence over and over as Simon walked them home, carrying the boy in his arms. Candace had stayed behind to reassure the church goers that the Savior needed time, that this was all as God had planned.
As soon as he set him down in their home’s entrance, Adam ran to his bedroom.
Simon followed him and slowly pushed the door ajar to see his son cut his long hair with safety scissors, the edges dull. He hacked at his curls without a mirror, blindly removing locks in a frenzied panic.
“Let me help, Adam.” His voice was soft enough to relax the agitated boy somewhat.
After a long moment of stillness, Adam gave him the scissors.
“Don’t touch my hair,” He repeated.
“I will touch them with the scissors, but not with my hands, how’s that?”
Adam nodded and let his dad fix the mess. It was difficult without the ability to grab the locks with his fingers, but he managed to salvage it.
He cleaned up and discarded the dark hair littering the blue carpet. Adam lied down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, silent as ever.
He didn’t speak again.
___
Adam was homeschooled. No public school could give the children of this neighborhood the proper religious education. Candace stayed home and taught the boy with textbooks and worksheets. Eventually, Adam began doing it on his own. He would read the books without any prompting and finish his homework in record time. He rarely made any mistakes.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all that he’s a genius,” Candace said with a wide smile, turning off her bedside lamp and laying her head on her bright purple pillow. “He is The One after all. His holiness extends to his knowledge, as it should.”
Simon nodded and looked back down at his Bible, annotating it.
“ For nothing will be impossible with God ,” He reads.
____________
Adam looked at himself in the mirror and adjusted his beige t-shirt with light blue stripes. The tag was brushing against the back of his neck, and it made his blood boil with uncontrollable anger. He removed the shirt and ripped the tag with his teeth in his sudden fit of rage. Satisfied with the result, he slid it over his head again and sighed in relief.
He stared at himself until he saw distortion, until his face was unrecognizable. He would do that a lot. It felt like his soul was lifted out of its shell for a moment, in suspension above his earthly body.
“I am the Savior,” He whispered to his hazy reflection. “I am the healer of the sick. A shepherd to the lost.” He only repeated what he was being told day and night. Adam didn’t feel like a Holy creation of God. He felt empty, like the molt of an insect. From afar, one believes to see a creature, but once one approaches, deception awaits. The dry exoskeleton stares back with vacant eyes.
His father knocked on his bedroom door before entering the entirely blue room.
“Ready for church, Adam?”
His dad looked up to the stars painted on his ceiling. Adam knew why he avoided his gaze after asking a question. It was to coerce his son to use his voice. It is to no avail , Adam thought, words are to be reserved for the worthy.
He had affection for his parents– for his father more than for his mother. But his speech was not for them. It was a precious thing. Adam wanted to keep it for himself as much as he could. It was the only thing that was his.
Adam nodded, even though his father wasn’t looking his way.
___
“He’s nine, Candace. He can stay home alone for a couple of hours one day out of the week!”
Adam listened to his parents arguing, his bedroom door ajar with his lights out. He pretended to be exhausted hours ago to escape Bible study. His mom followed his every wish.
“If it’s such an issue,” his father continued, “we can hire a babysitter for the subsequent times. There’s Abigail down the street.”
“I’m just terrified of something happening to him...” She said it so quietly that Adam barely heard it.
“You’re being paranoid, honey,” He sighed. “He will be alone for four hours, tops. Won’t you be back by 12?”
There’s a moment of silence before his father speaks again: “You know how he is. He’ll read in his bedroom for hours and answer the door to no one. There are no risks. Put your trust in the Lord.”
___
When Adam stepped foot in the kitchen the next morning, he noticed the quiet of the vacant house. This was the first time he’d ever been left alone. He took a deep breath in, held it, and expelled all of the air out, feeling the relief of a glimpse at freedom.
He poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat in front of the small television in the living room. His parents never let him watch cartoons. Even though his mother wanted to give in to his every demand, cartoons were where she drew the line. Apparently, it was a thing of the Devil. It was violent, and that violence could seep through the static of the screen and corrupt.
He took a bite of his All-Bran cereal and watched a show titled ‘Scooby-Doo’, in which there was a talking dog and ghosts. It seemed very unrealistic. The characters looked through books of witchcraft to find a solution to their problems. Adam’s parents would definitely disapprove of him watching this.
In the end, it was revealed the ghosts were merely men in costumes, scaring people away for ulterior motives. The dog could still talk though, and that didn’t seem correct. Everything should have returned to the natural order of things when the veil was lifted and the town returned to normalcy.
As another episode started, Adam walked to the sink. Passing the window on his way to the kitchen, a reflection of gold –like a coin in a wishing well caught his eye. He looked out into the street to see a boy about his age with a bag slung across his chest. Adam knew everyone in this neighborhood by name, every single one of his disciples. He stared with wide eyes as the mysterious boy looked around, like a disoriented soul.
Adam would do what he was expected to and shepherd the lost lamb. He deposited his bowl in the sink before returning to the entrance of the house. He opened the front door but left the screen door closed.
He observed the boy –who was standing in front of his house for a moment longer. His hair was longer in the back than in the front, flipping upwards where his neck met his collar, like a golden duck tail.
Adam’s voice was soft but loud enough to capture the stranger’s attention.
“Hello.”
The golden-haired boy turned his head towards him.
“Hi.” He frowned and stepped to the middle of the driveway. “Uh, do you know where Sycamore Street is?” His voice had a noticeably lisp, his ‘ s’ sounding like ‘ th’ .
Adam shook his head slowly as he took the boy in. He was wearing shorts to stay cool in the blistering summer heat, and his right knee was red. Blood dripped from a wound and stained his leg. It flowed down to the edge of his white sock and stained the cotton.
“There are no streets named Sycamore nearby,” He replied monotonously, though his curiosity was taking hold of him.
“Oh. Shit.” He pulled a crumbled paper out of his bag and squinted. “Um, Cypress Road?”
Adam shook his head again, his forehead against the screen door, making it dip with his weight.
“You’re bleeding.”
The boy put the paper haphazardly back in the shoulder bag, next to multiple copies of newspapers. “It’s nothing. I fell on some gravel when I hopped a fence.”
“Why did you hop a fence?”
“Not important.”
Adam frowned. He was used to his disciples telling him their every wish and secret. It was odd to have someone keep information from you.
“Let me heal you.” He opened the door, the final barrier between them, and stepped aside, gesturing with his other arm for the boy to come in.
“It’s nothing. It’s just a stupid fucking cut.”
“Every ailment needs remedy. Come in.”
The stranger took the steps necessary to reach the front door and mumbled as he crossed the threshold. “You’re weird.”
Adam closed both doors behind them and led him straight into the pink tiled bathroom. He gestured for him to sit on the carpet-covered toilet lid, and the boy obliged as Adam took out the first aid kit from under the sink. He would use it often when he’d claw at his own thighs too excessively in his fits of rage. Wrath of God, uncontrollable in his anger.
He picked up a cotton ball and soaked it with alcohol before kneeling and bringing it to the boy’s knee.
“Fuck!” The boy jerked his leg back.
Adam didn’t remove the cotton ball. He kept cleaning the wound despite the boy’s hissing and wincing.
“You say a lot of bad words.”
“Shit, my bad,” He stammered. “I mean-”
Adam let out a laugh and the sound surprised him. It felt rusted, like he needed to practice the noise to get it right. It was a high-pitched series of squeals, not at all the way he heard others laugh.
“It’s okay.” He cleaned along the dried trail of blood on his leg with another cotton ball, cleansing him of the crimson coating his skin. The sock would stay stained. He ripped open an adhesive bandage and placed it on the shallow cut. Gently touching the covered wound with two fingers, he closed his eyes and mentally recited a prayer.
‘May he be strengthened in his weakness and have confidence in my care.’
“There.”
He could feel the boy’s eyes on him with the intensity of the summer sun.
“Thanks.” He kicked his legs as Adam stood. “What’s your name, nurse?”
“Adam.” He had never introduced himself to anyone before. People knew him, followed him; they seemed to live for him. Someone not knowing him was foreign.
He looked at his face in time to see him smile. He was missing his upper left lateral incisor. “I’m Nigel.”
With that, the boy hopped off the toilet and made his way out the bathroom.
“Oh, sweet! Scooby-Doo! I love that crap!” Adam heard him say from the living room.
He put the first aid kit back in its place and flushed the cotton balls down the toilet, watching them paint the water a reddish orange before they swirled out of sight, taking the trail of injury with them. He joined the other boy and found him sat cross legged on the couch, shoes still on.
“Who’s your favorite?” He continued. “I like Velma because she’s the smartest. I don’t think the gang would have gotten very far without her. You got any snacks?”
Adam blinked in surprise at the turns the conversation was taking. He had never had conversations like this with kids his age, or anyone else, for that matter. They never played with him. The Savior doesn’t play. He listens and he heals.
“Today was my very first time watching Scooby-Doo.” He sat down stiffly next to Nigel. “Why does the dog talk?”
“I don’t know. I guess because it’s funny.” Nigel twisted his entire body in one swift motion so that his feet were up against the headrest and his head was hanging upside down off the couch.
“I don’t find it very amusing.” Adam tapped his fingers anxiously on his thigh. He watched the boy and decided to mimic him. He turned his body to match Nigel’s, his own head off the couch. The colorful images swirled in front of his eyes, barely recognizable. It felt like watching life through a kaleidoscope.
After a moment of silence, only filled by the scared whimpers of the character others call Shaggy, Adam spoke again. “We have tea cookies...”
Nigel gasped and flipped back to a normal position. He rushed to his bag that he left in the bathroom and returned with a small plastic bag before sitting back down next to Adam, who had resumed an upward sitting position.
“I forgot I had these.” The boy opened the bag and pulled out an apple slice, offering it to Adam.
Adam observed it for a moment before tentatively accepting it. His fingers brushed against the other boy’s, and he felt an unfamiliar tightening in his heart. Nigel grabbed a piece for himself and bumped it against his before shoving it whole into his mouth.
Adam took a bite of the apple slice and smiled. It was crispier and sweeter than the ones his father would buy.
Nigel shared his fruit with Adam. Every other slice went to him. The silence was often broken by Nigel’s vibrant reactions at what was on screen. He laughed, snorted, and commented. He was more talkative than anyone Adam had ever spent time with. It seemed he had something to say about everything. It was fascinating.
“I should probably go,” Nigel said once the credits rolled. “I had newspapers to deliver, and I’m probably getting...” He paused. “- fricking fired. But, hey, at least I tried.” He shrugged and went to get his bag, returning with it slung across his chest.
Adam rose to his feet as the boy walked past the couch, and he grabbed his arm with more force than he had expected to use. “Will you come back, Nigel?” His eyes were fixed on the golden strand falling over his forehead.
“Uh, sure. If you want me to.” He glanced at the fingers wrapped around his arm. “Next Saturday?”
“Yes, that shall do!” Adam replied with a bright smile. “If you could be here early, like today, I would appreciate it.”
Nigel seemed to hesitate. “Can’t it be later in the day?”
“No!” Adam exclaimed louder than he wanted to. He still didn’t have great control over the volume of his voice. “No, this is the only time both my parents are gone. Between 8 and 12, every Saturday.” From what Adam understood from his parents’ late-night conversation, their absence would be a routine occurrence.
Nigel nodded, his features softening, like he understood something in the unspoken. “Then I’ll be here at 8.” He smiled, showing crooked teeth and gaps, and Adam sighs in relief, finally freeing his arm from his grasp.
He followed the boy to the door and watched him walk down the street in the direction he came from until he was out of sight, his golden hair a dot on the horizon.
Perhaps it was because Adam had spoken more in the last thirty minutes than he had in years, but he felt like something in the earth had shaken, like something in his core had shifted.
An epiphany lying in wait.