The evening had been quiet. There were the comforting sounds normal to jungle living: the forest’s song, a pressure lamp’s monotonous hissing, clinking silverware. Following the father’s confession of his parents’ sacrifice, the day had floated by like a dream. Perhaps the most peaceful day she’d experienced in eight years. They talked of what it meant to lose life and what it meant to gain it. They talked of real love, the kind of love that gave everything, including life. Like her father had given, and according to Father Teuwen, the kind they were all asked to give. She let herself go with him, remembering the passionate words of her own father—reliving the best of her own spiritual journey, before the box.

It brought her peace.

For the last twenty minutes her mind had come full circle, to the box, to suffering. She had cried, but it wasn’t a cry of remorse. It was the cry of a heavy meaning. A head cold was coming on, she thought. Unless it was only the day’s crying that stuffed her sinuses.

And suddenly this rap-rap-rap on the door.

She glanced at Father Teuwen and swiveled in her seat to see the door swing open. A well-muscled stranger stood in the frame, his arms hanging loosely to his sides, his legs parted slightly, his shoulders squared. But this simple realization quickly made way for the dawning that the man wore only shorts. And torn shorts at that.

Sherry felt her jaw part slightly. His face was painted in strokes of green and black that swept back from his nose, casting the odd illusion that his head belonged on a movie screen, not here on a mission station. Brown eyes peered from the paint. A sheen of moisture glistened on the intruder’s dirtied chest, as if he’d worked up a good sweat and then tumbled to the dust. Short-cropped, dark wet hair covered his head. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn that this man had just come from the jungle. But she did know better. He was a white man. And white men didn’t come from the jungle during the night. It was too dangerous.

The stranger stepped into the room and pulled the door closed behind him. Now other details filled her mind. The sharp edges to his clenched jaw, the hardened muscles, the muddied legs, the wide band of browned tape around his thigh, the bare feet.

He was dripping on their floor.

“Good evening,” he said, speaking evenly as if they should have expected this visit.

The father spoke behind her. “My goodness, man. Are you all right?”

The man shifted his eyes from Sherry to the priest. “I’m fine, Father. I hope I’m not intruding, but I saw the lights and hoped I could ask you a few questions.”