Free The Language of Paradise: A Novel by Barbara Klein Moss Page A

the others, but Micah had managed to infuse some of her airy spirit into the wood. The finials were birds on the wing caught in mid-soar; in their beaks they held the corners of a scroll that stretched between them, forming the back post. “Matthew 6:22” had been carved on the post in an elegant hand.
    “I ought to know the verse from the citation, but I don’t,” Gideon said. “Will you share it with a stranger?”
    “Oh, it’s very mysterious.” She traced the inscription with a finger as if it would open at her touch. “ The light of the body is the eye . If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light . What do you suppose it means? I haven’t any idea what use a single eye would be to anyone. Unless you have the misfortune to be born a Cyclops.”
    Gideon wasn’t about to offer an exegesis. “I wonder why your father chose that passage.”
    “Even Papa can’t tell you. He prays over the chair and a verse comes to him. He has faith that the Lord will tell him what we need to know.”
    And Hedge had accused him of mysticism, Gideon thought. How was Sophy to profit from a verse she couldn’t understand? He remembered the passage now, and the even stranger one that followed it. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be filled with darkness . If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! When he first read the verses as a boy, his orderly mind had rebelled at the odd diametric of “single” and “evil.” But he had thrilled, too, at the whiff of paganism that the words gave off—incantations and the black arts infiltrating the familiar neighborhood of the Golden Rule. Could the good shepherd that Gideon and his mother prayed to each night really have inflicted such a dire prophecy? The exclamation point at the end had filled him with pleasurable terror: he had imagined a hooded Druid priest poising his long knife over a bound sacrifice. It seemed a travesty that Sophy’s slender back should rest against such an enigma night after night, with only her innocence to shield her.
    She had left him to his meditations on the chair and was looking out the window. “Mama is coming back from the garden,” she reported. “Mr. Unsworth is carrying her basket. He reminds me of an old dog, the way he follows behind.”
    “I think you mean to say that he is faithful,” Gideon said, making no attempt to suppress the lilt in his voice.
    “Oh, he is that, I suppose—he’s always underfoot. I wish I liked him more. He stares at me when he thinks I’m not watching. I’m sure he means no harm, but he makes me uncomfortable.” Sophy turned to Gideon and lifted her chin, swiping with one hand at the errant lock of hair. “It would be quite different if you were boarding with us, Mr. Birdsall. We would have wonderful conversations about deep subjects—art and philosophy and true religion. Do you know, when I saw you in the meadow with the sun glinting on your hair, I thought you were an angel? That was why I ran away. I knew I wasn’t fit to meet an angel.”
    SHE WASN ’ T THE FIRST GIRL to draw conclusions about his character from the color of his hair. Gideon was reminded of this as he retraced his path through sweet-smelling fields back to the road, the drone of insects making a soothing counterpoint to his thoughts. For as long as he could remember, women had cooed over his blondness, assuming that a boy so fair must be as angelic as he looked. As a child he’d delighted in mocking their effusions, screwing up his face and sticking out his tongue while his mother feigned horror.
    When he was not quite fourteen, he began to stir another kind of interest. Gideon had been waiting in the schoolroom one afternoon when the girl who cleaned up after class stopped in front of him. She had never spoken to him before, and on the rare occasions when they’d shared the space, he’d ignored her presence. She was a farmworker’s daughter, a vacant,