Joy that I couldn’t contain boiled up inside of me, and suddenly I was leaning back on my knees, laughing at the ceiling, letting tears of joy stream down my cheeks as the gentle breeze that had brought my Father’s voice swirled around me.

My mother was in that breeze.

I impulsively jumped to my feet and began to spin, arms stretched wide.

Eli was laughing like the child he was, though he wasn’t really a child. He mimicked me, twirling. “Yes, yes, yes! She knows! She knows!”

Anyone peering into the cell would surely have concluded that we’d both lost our minds. But the ways of the spirit were insane to blind minds. If knowing the Father was insanity, we were celebrating that insanity.

Eli and I danced, laughing, caught up in boundless joy and peace. I had no thoughts of the past or what would come. I was just there with my Father, Eli, and the clarity of who I truly was.

Much later it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard Eli’s voice for a while. I settled and looked around. The cell was dark and empty except for me and the pot in the corner. Not a sound could be heard.

He’s gone, I thought.

But no, Eli was never gone.

Chapter
Thirty-Four

THE FIRST THING I SAW WHEN I WOKE UP WAS THE light. Not the light from my dream, but daylight coming in through the window.

I sat up and the reality of that dank cell crashed into my awareness. Eli had been here. Or had that all just been a dream? No, not a dream. I’d been awake with Eli, who’d shown me who I was. Who my Father was. Where my mother was.

And yet here I was, imprisoned and in terrible trouble.

I stood and walked to the bars between me and the next cell. The basement was empty. My heart raced as slivers of doubt cut into my mind.

“Eli?”

No response.

I moved back to the bench and sat, then closed my eyes. A tremble had taken to my fingers. I began to whisper Eli’s truth out loud, desperate to feel the love and warmth from before.

There is no fear in love.

“Is that really what you believe?”

I opened my eyes and saw Bobbie standing on the other side of my cell door, arms crossed.

“All because some little kid came to you in your dreams and said so?”

But this was Bobbie, who I now knew had to be a Fury, because she was full of fear—the wisdom of the world, desperate to protect me.

“You’re a Fury, aren’t you?”

She blinked. “Yes, but deep down you’ve always known that, haven’t you? And not all Fury are the same. I’m only here to help you. That’s what wisdom does.”

Maybe I always had known.