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Chapter 12
Ingrid swiped a banana from the break room and scarfed it down on the way to Heavenly Road House of Faith. She regretted picking it mostly because they made the roof of her mouth hurt and her breath taste bad, but it was the first thing she saw, and she needed to eat.
“Ingrid! Haven’t seen you in a while,” Josh said, clutching his Bible close to his chest. “I hope you’ve been digging into the Word?”
The girl barely resisted the sudden urge to roll her eyes. “Sure have, Josh. I think I’m pretty close to a spiritual awakening, in fact.”
The boy perked up. “Ooh! Care to share??”
“Er...later. Let’s focus on that lovely Word, hm?”
…
“Alright!” Josh clapped his hands together as he and Ingrid joined their peers in the study circle. “I’ve got a real powerful one for y’all today. This message comes from Romans chapter 7 verses 15 through 20, out of one of Paul’s letters to the young church...”
Oh great. Saint Head-Up-His-Ass himself.
As was her wont, Ingrid read ahead of the group, falling into her own ruminations. It was some nonsense about Paul doing what he doesn’t want to do and not what he does want to do because of demons or some such.
“...it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.”
This last passage was met with a smattering of breathless “wows” and “hallelujahs”. Ingrid simply hummed.
I’ve gone most of my life not doing things I didn’t want to do...I think.
“...Something has gone wrong deep inside me and gets the better of me every time.”
Josh bookmarked the page and closed the book with a contented sigh. “So! Why do we think Paul has this problem?”
Ingrid raised her hand. “Because he’s confused?”
“Oh, we can agree on that. But there’s something else, I think.”
Marie spoke next. “Because of his sin nature?”
“Exactly!” Josh said with worrisome glee. “We have to remember that Paul, as much as he loves Jesus, is still human, and...”
Uh oh.
It was then Ingrid realized something: She was just like Paul. She was doing something she didn’t want to do right now: Sitting in a circle with a bunch of people that she ultimately barely knew, even though she’d known them for over 20 years, listening to an account of a man writing a letter to a church admitting, or at least claiming, that he had no control over his own actions, expecting people to apply this attribute to themselves for the sake of growing the ranks.
Although she stuck out like a sore thumb among the druids, she felt like she belonged there, like rock climbing with satyrs and doing yoga with monkey people was doing something of substance for her soul.
And as she sat in that horrible metal chair, watching Josh ramble but not hearing him, she felt the energy drain from her. She looked at her hands holding the Bible open and felt utterly powerless.
She eventually gave up on pretending to listen and began to draw little potted plants in the margins of her Bible. She’d done this before, but this was the first time she was actually aware of what she was doing. It was the best part of the entire session, and as the power trickled back into her being, she thought back to how close she came to unleashing it at the bagworm.
If only she knew what she was missing...
Ingrid went straight home after the study, where she got a proper dinner and a chance to be alone with her thoughts.
The flow was stronger as she read through the books she’d borrowed from the library, and she so wished she could see those plants for herself. Maybe someday...
Hours later, through bleary eyes, she saw the ever-familiar borrowing card on the very back page of the last book, telling her the loan period for this batch ended the next day. Hopefully she’d be able to get up early enough for that...
...
Ingrid took one of the flying pods—she'd finally gotten the hang of piloting them—up to the top floor.
When she stepped inside the library, the center desk was unmanned, and instead there was a flurry of activity among the shelves as librarians removed and replaced books from metal carts.
She didn’t feel right just leaving the books at the desk, so she went trawling for an unoccupied librarian...
And bumped into Xenia emerging from a corner close to the reading area.
“Oh, Ingrid!”
“Hey! Busy day?”
“Oh yes. Sometimes these siblings are so engrossed in what they’re reading they forget to put the books back where they belong. We do reshelving once a month.
“Well, I’m sorry to say, I’ve got a few more books to add to your workload. Lemme fish them out.”
Ingrid put her bag on the table in the reading area and started emptying her bag of books. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Xenia looking curiously at one of them.
“This one doesn’t look familiar...”
Ingrid got a proper look at what Xenia was talking about.
“Oh, that’s my Bible. I guess I forgot to take it out yesterday.”
“...May I read it?”
“Pfft, be my guest. I dunno if you’ll find much though.”
Xenia picked up the Bible and started at the beginning, finding herself bored already. The interpretation of the creation of the earth was mildly interesting, as was the account of the first murder, but it was immediately followed by genealogy that did nothing for the plot and held no philosophical value.
Of course, Xenia could only infer that the genealogy continued for a while because after a few generations the text was covered with sketches of plants and flowers, some of which where obviously from Other Earth.
“Did you draw these?”
“Draw what?”
Xenia showed Ingrid the sketches woven through with words.
“Oh! Uh, yeah, whenever I had free time. None of the stuff on those pages is important, though. I think it’s an improvement, really.”
“...I have something to show you.”
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