In the warmth of a Sunday evening, the Ardent children gather for scripture study. Candlelight throws their silhouettes across the wall as Mother reads from the sacred texts. Amid giggles, the children try in vain to settle into faith and the deeper meaning of the lesson, while the middle child, Henry, feels a quiet calling take root in him. Magical memory rises out of the mundane.
1 Beneath the wooden rafters, five silhouettes danced upon a wall, flickering in the glow of a candle overflowing with dripping wax.
2 The outline of small noses protruded suddenly from each silhouette, in turn, as side profiles appeared and went still. “On your mark, get set…” Eyes darted to one side, straining to see, before heads swiftly turned back, and the noses disappeared once again.
3 Backlit in black and turning like sprinkler heads, the siblings tried and failed to see the contours of their own faces. No matter how fast they whipped their gaze back to the wall, their outlined faces vanished at the speed of light.
4 Each shadow became nose-less again the moment it tempted to race the light. Muscle and twitch were no match for the faster photons.
5 The candle was forbidden—yet its flame swelled and sank in rhythm. Its heat, with outstretched hands, warmed the room’s dark corners in fellowship, drew the cold air away, and wrapped the space in a faithful embrace.
6 The children’s exhalations escaped in warm puffs. Their blended breath fused from fire-lit faces, an infrared sea that divided the light around them from winter’s outer darkness.
7 But lo, giggles soon erupted from their lips, for they could no longer resist the playfulness of the light—hand puppets rose as shadows on the wall, diving and biting at one another.
8 And thus the scene devolved into laughter, chasing away every good intent of reverence.
9 These five, still clad in Sunday best but soon to be in pajamas, sat in a row upon the couch, suppressing their laughter and shushing one another.
10 Their attempts to obey Mother’s decree of silence were soon futile, for every Sunday evening ended in this manner: family scripture study observed first with dutiful reverence, then with menacing mischief.
11 And lo, their mother read from the book of scripture and lifted her voice above the ruckus.
12 She silenced them with a raised hand and with these words, read aloud: “Then Jesus said unto them, ‘Have ye any children among you? Let them come unto me.’”
13 On she read from a large book, its thin pages enclosed in a cover of worn black leather. The words flowed from her lips as her finger traced them line by line, left to right, verily.
14 In common language the book was nicknamed a “Quad,” for it combined four sacred volumes of canon into one: the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. This very copy had been passed down from generation to generation.
15 On its cover, once boldly inscribed in gold, were the words “The Ardent Family.” Faded now with time and use, the gold was scarcely visible.
16 Cleo, mother and matriarch, read on with a steady voice. Her cuticles were cracked and worn; her hands, marking the years of service spent at the piano and worn in the work of the kitchen, manufactured both melodies of worship and mouthfuls of supper, making each of their many rented houses into a home.
17 Her nails, brittle and chipped at the edges, had pounded instruction and life into song upon the ivory. Her voice did not waver as she spoke the words of God for these many little listening ears—and for two other ears, grown though they were, that she feared had gone deaf to the whisperings of God’s Spirit.
18 And lo, she read on, saying, “He took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them.”
19 And the children sat arranged in a row upon the couch—a boy, a girl, and three more boys—and their shadows rose in height upon the wall, each according to his age and stature, and thus it was.
20 Jeff, the eldest, tall and upright, projected a posture of confidence, his head blocking much of the candle’s light from his seat furthest to the left. Ever mindful of his uneven stature, his mind was full of intellect as he waited for his body to catch up to his head and ears—whose size, he would not admit, had been noted by his peers at school.
21 Jack, the youngest and smallest, was seated furthest to the right, yet he was but half a silhouette—the top half, a crown of youthful energy. His head cast a semicircle that pinged back and forth like an Atari paddle and ball.
22 His shadow bobbed and weaved, sinking into disappearance at the right end of the wall only to reappear on the left, or betwixt the others, as he crawled across laps, slid down legs, and raced along the carpet just below the shadowed horizon, where the light was blocked at the level of the couch’s backing.
23 The ponytail of Kathy, the second eldest and the only girl, swung left and right as her head swiveled in bored, rhythmic defiance.
24 Her eyes rolled with each bounce of hair; her head turned in circles from right to left, her ears smaller but deaf by decision. Longing for the evening to end, she postured her disdain and projected her apathy.
25 Her head swiveled, it seemed, with the turning of the pages, for she timed it so that her eyes would roll just as her mother’s gaze lifted from the words of scripture.
26 When instruction was given, her eyes and ponytail bobbed in rhythm. Each upward sweep of her head she finished with a firm nod, like the dotting of an exclamation point.
27 This she did in spite of—and to spite—the erectness of her elder brother, who was taller, and whom their parents regarded as the more capable.
28 And it came to pass, as their mother read the holy words, that her own head turned in protest, bobbing downward for emphasis on each poignant word—‘watch,’ ‘the devil,’ ‘be led away.’ For Mother had read, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always, lest ye be tempted by the devil, and be led away captive by him.” And Kathy rolled her eyes, and her head, yea, her whole self, in silent and stern rebellion, verily.
29 Now and again a hand puppet rose from Sean, the fourth figure, second from the right—a shadow always in the form of an animal’s head.
30 The third boy and fourth child by age, mischievous Sean shaped a creature of his hands, opening and closing its mouth as though it fought, though only in faint whisper: “Roooaaar.”
31 The shadow of the animal crept upward slowly, to avoid detection. Yet rise it did, slithering like a serpent, until it stood at full height.
32 And then, with a hushed hiss, it struck in a sudden blitz, tickling the others on the couch, while air-siren giggles escaped and cracked open the reverence.
33 Scripture study often ended in chaos, as though the holy words used up all the air in the room, and the children, in their restless entropy, fell to disarray—as if it were preordained, the destiny of their energies.
34 And it came to pass that Mother Cleo, seeing the disorder, prepared to wrap up the reading. For though the moments of reverence were fleeting, they had done their work in planting seeds of faith within the children’s hearts.
35 “And when he had said these words, he wept, and the multitude bare record of it,” she read over the muffled giggles, “and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them.”
36 Mother continued: “And when he had done this, he wept again; and he spake unto the multitude, and said unto them: Behold your little ones.”
37 And so it was that every Sabbath evening, after church service and dinner, the Ardents dimmed the lights and gathered by candlelight—in defiance of the fire-risk prohibition on candles—for the reading of scriptures and the sharing of family stories.
38 And as the night wore on, the flame of the candle spiraled, sank, and rose again, hundreds of times. And the cycling thereof was good.
39 During the reading, the middle child, Henry, the one still soul among them, who had been silent and reflective, turned his gaze toward the candle, his face lit and set aglow.
40 His hair was brown, his eyes deep-set, and his features were illuminated by the hope of youth. And he, more than any of the others, felt a solemnity settle upon him, as though a cornerstone were being laid within his soul.
41 His heart burned with inspiration, and he welcomed—yet decidedly suppressed—an urge that rose in him to stand and applaud the flame’s finale.
42 He loved candlelight Sundays, for the warmth of the moment etched itself into his mind, and he knew it would hold reverence in his memory forever. Mother closed the book and sent a song from the stereo to synchronize, like mixed waves, with the light.
43 A deep faith rooted itself in Henry’s soul as the words of scripture rode the notes of soft music to fill the room—this night, the melody was Rutter’s “Magnificat Anima Mea.”
44 And he thought to himself, reflecting on what he had heard—on Jesus’ love, on what he felt he knew was true, on angels coming down among the children to minister to them—“I am a child of God. It is my true Father who sent me here, and I do have a special mission.”
45 And the eyes of his understanding were opened, and he saw that his very existence closed a circuit that caused the sun to rise, the light to take shape, and the possible to become probable and to come to pass.
46 As he gazed back at the dancing flame, Henry’s side profile was cast upon the wall in crisp lines he could not see but knew were there—his brow, his nose, his lips, and his chin outlined in a portrait of shadow and light.
47 The photons of the candle framed his face, and in that moment he knew his presence was projected upon the wall, even though to look would make it disappear.
48 He realized himself then to be a future king of this home, a star of this show, a central player in this, his own fairytale. His certainty was born then and there—unbending and irrevocable—arching upward to acknowledge a forging furnace and a coming fire of faith.
49 He reasoned his commitment sealed, and that this faith would burn within him forever, like the flame now flickering before him; and he knew that it would not—could not—go out.
50 And it came to pass that Mother Cleo, after the music had restored order, continued to read: “And as they looked to behold, they cast their eyes toward heaven, and they saw the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister unto them.”
51 And a tear fell from her eye as she read, “Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, my joy is full.”
52 And when these words were spoken, silence again fell upon the room, while coincidence timed the moment perfectly with the fading of the music’s vibrato voices.
53 The children, once restless, now lay across one another, calm and quiet, as the flame of the candle flickered in its steady rhythm.
54 And Mother, seeing that the moment was right, said, “All right, children—your joy will be full too, after you race to your room, change into your pajamas, and return for milk and cookies, and our family story.”
55 And at these words the children leapt from the couch and ran, their feet pounding the floors.
56 The sound of water running, and the accusations of clothes left upon the floor, filled the air, as the children prepared for the final part of their Sunday evening tradition.
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