The Gravitational Leap. Darrell Lee

Timo’s and she leaned into him as they walked.

      The children were off the street, school having started. Only a crew of village workers moved about as they scraped snow from the rooftop of a dwelling into a cart below on the street. The warm food in their stomachs lifted their mood. As they passed a doorway they heard a baby cry inside the dwelling. They paused and listened, then continued.

      “I was wondering if you have thought about it?” Timo asked.

      “Yes, I have, a little bit.”

      “Anything decided?”

      “Not really.”

      “I love you,” Timo said. “You know that nothing would make me happier. A real family would mean so much to me—you know that. I never knew my mother, and my father was less than ideal. I’d like to give our child something I never had.”

      “I know, and I love you too. I’m just scared. What if it has a deviation?”

      “It won’t. Neither of our families has ever had a deviation.”

      Timo wrapped his arm around her, and they walked quietly the rest of the way to the market. Alyd got a small bit of salt and a half kilogram of cut-up chicken. The market owner debited the joint account they had through the army, taking a quarter of their monthly allowance. They walked two snowy blocks to Alyd’s mother’s dwelling.

      Alyd knocked on the door. She could hear the soft, shuffling steps before the lock clicked and the door pulled open. Her mother, Wen, smiled at her from underneath a worn, gray blanket that covered her head like a hood. She held it together below her chin with a wrinkled hand. Soft white hair, which extended below her shoulders, framed a weathered face. She hugged Alyd, and then Timo, as they stepped inside.

      “Bless you, come in,” Wen said.

      A small fire burned in the fireplace. “You need a bigger fire. It’s cold in here,” Alyd said.

      “It’s fine. I use less wood this way,” Wen responded.

      “I’ll get you some more,” Timo said, exiting the door before any objection could be made.

      “He is always so nice,” Wen said.

      “Since Javin died last year, I think he has been extra attentive to you,” Alyd said.

      “God bless her soul. His real mother couldn’t have loved him more. There wasn’t a godlier woman in the clan. I know it helped her having you and Timo by her side when the Lord called.”

      Alyd saw that the table beside the fireplace had the wooden cross standing in the middle and seven half-burnt candles and a handwritten Bible lying open.

      “You had a prayer meeting again last night?” Alyd asked.

      “Yes,” Wen answered.

      “I wish you wouldn’t do that so often…somebody could report you.”

      “Oh, let them report me. I’m too old to care about that now. And especially with the rumors of war with the Denock coming, our clan needs all the prayers it can get.”

      “Well, at least put the Bible and cross away after the meeting is over in case somebody comes by who’s a nonbeliever. You know assembly is forbidden.”

      Wen simply sneered. “Proverbs 15:29…what does it say?”

      “That’s not the point—”

      “What does it say?” Wen repeated.

      “The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous,” Alyd said.