He emptied the bag into his palm as he approached, nodding at Mia to hold out her hand. She did. Erick poured dark, firm black seeds into the folds of her palm. She did not recognize them.

  “For flowers. I want you to have something beautiful to look at out your window while you tend to Alma.”

  Mia’s breath caught in her chest. She forced herself to look up, into his eyes. She wanted him to know what she felt. She would keep her promise to herself never to run again.

  “You are so kind to us. I do not know what to say,” she replied. She truly didn’t. She wanted to put it all into words, but they did not seem enough, after all he had done, after all they had survived together.

  “You don’t need to say anything.” Erick smiled at her.

  She found it hard to think with him so close. “Well, I thank you. But tell me, what are these seeds called?”

  “Bride’s flowers.”

  She knew the blush was rising in her cheeks.

  His smile widened as he reached for her hand. “We mustn’t waste another spring.”

  … a little more …

  When a delightful concert comes to an end,

  the orchestra might offer an encore.

  When a fine meal comes to an end,

  it’s always nice to savor a bit of dessert.

  When a great story comes to an end,

  we think you may want to linger.

  And so, we offer ...

  AfterWords—just a little something more after you

  have finished a David C Cook novel.

  We invite you to stay awhile in the story.

  Thanks for reading!

  Turn the page for ...

  • Bonus Chapter (for readers of the Chronicles of the Scribe series)

  • Author’s Note

  • Discussion Questions

  • Supernatural Housekeeping

  Bonus Chapter

  For readers of the Chronicles of the Scribe series

  Reporters spilled out onto the sidewalk as satellite trucks jockeyed for parking. Everyone scrambled to be the first to the door and into the building. Seasoned pros waved large bills in the air.

  Amber-Marie held the foul bag away from her body as she waited in the alley across from the hotel. Her driver, Jim, would start the car as soon as he saw her. Until the press disappeared inside the building, chasing down the story she just gave them, she’d stay hidden.

  A greasy stench from the manuscript Amber-Marie just stole nauseated her. The author she represented, Mariskka, had lost her mind writing a sequel to her surprise best seller. She was up there now. Those reporters would get a good dose of crazy. Let them have Mariskka. Amber-Marie had gotten what she wanted. She peered around the corner. Jim watched for her, the engine already running. Good man.

  She had to get rid of the source of this smell first. One fast breath and she opened the bag. A violent blast of burned hair and skin stung her nostrils as something sharp latched onto her ribs from behind. She flew backward so fast her stomach lurched forward. She tried to scream.

  Shoved into darkness and dropped, she recognized the sound of a bolt sliding into a lock. She could not detect walls around her or anything else—just a dark void. Then the smell hit her again, stronger now. She put her hand over her mouth, trying not to breathe. Something burned in here, a combination like fast-food grease and melting vacuum belts.

  “Is anyone here?” she whispered.

  A torch burst into flames near her head.

  “Take this,” a man’s voice said.

  Her whole body went cold. She couldn’t move her arms. The light was brilliant yellow against the black void.

  “Take this.”

  A hand grabbed hers and forced the handle of the torch into her palm. Her fingers closed around it out of instinct.

  “Start it,” he said.

  His hand grabbed hers again, forcing it down, pointing the torch at the ground.

  The flames lit a narrow stream of fluid, flames shooting down a straight line before bursting into a starburst of rivers.

  At the end of each river of flames, women stood chained upright to wooden posts. They screamed when they saw Amber-Marie holding the torch. Flames shot along the rivers, igniting the pyres of wood beneath their feet.

  “Why?” they howled, hair blowing straight up, carried above their heads by the smoke. The flames ate up the pyres, igniting their long skirts. They would die, all of them.

  Amber-Marie had killed them. The vision of the burning women grew brighter, and she shielded her eyes, looking for the man in the shadows. He stepped into the light, and she sank to her knees in terror. His face was more beautiful than she expected, smooth like a newborn’s, with dead, dull gray eyes. He lowered his face to hers as he spoke.

  “What do I love more than innuendo, rumor, half-truth? Do you even remember the feel, the smell, of real truth? Or do all your words stink of burning flesh?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He patted her head. “Of course you don’t. I just love you for that.”

  When Amber-Marie opened her eyes, Mariskka was sitting beside her. Amber-Marie was lying on a hard board, with tubes and strange hoses dangling from the ceiling of the vehicle. She understood. She was in an ambulance, but Mariskka was not the patient. Amber-Marie was. “I didn’t see an angel,” Amber-Marie said. “Or I did. But not like yours. I don’t want to go back.”

  The paramedic shook his head. He missed as he tried to land the IV needle in her veins. A different paramedic shoved a clipboard to Mariskka, who took it and signed where he had scrawled an X next to the waivers and permissions.

  “What did you see?” Mariskka asked.

  “I saw … words. What words have done.”

  The heart rate monitor flat-lined, and paramedics shoved Mariskka away. One straddled Amber-Marie and began chest compressions.

  Mariskka sat with her back against the side of the ambulance, the men and the tubes and wires blending into a whirlpool of motion. At her feet, Amber-Marie’s bag flopped open. Inside was Mariskka’s manuscript.

  She released the bolt holding the ambulance doors closed. The doors swung open as the ambulance took a corner. She didn’t listen to the screams as she reached for the manuscript, flinging it out into the streets, watching the pages scatter. Some floated in unexpected directions; others sank and landed without any air to move them. No one in the streets moved to gather them. It was just more litter in this city of accidents and betrayals. The heart monitor registered a return to life for Amber-Marie.

  Mariskka shut the doors and sat back, waiting for whatever would come next.

  Author’s Note

  Based on conservative estimates, we can say that for every word on these pages you just read, one woman was chained to a stake and set on fire. In Germany alone it is estimated that twenty-four thousand women were burned alive for witchcraft. These witch hunts were fueled in large part by the textbook for witch hunters, the Malleus Maleficarum, written by two monks. The Malleus could be considered one of the first best-selling books. What can explain the infamous “success” of the Malleus?

  • Women were excluded from leadership in church.

  • There was no readily available translation of the Bible in a commoner’s language (until William Tyndale risked his life to produce one).

  • Commoners couldn’t read anyway.

  • Women were often specifically banned from reading the Scripture.

  • Denied a voice in the church and persecuted for their distinct gender differences, women frequently turned to folk magic for help.

  • The attraction between men and women is a powerful, mysterious chemistry that every generation continually seeks to understand and control.

  Gender Roles and the Church

  According to medieval religious belief, evil existed outside of men and inside of women. This theory was the backbone of witch hunts. When the Age of Enlightenment swept through Europe, these theories about witchcraft and women’s nature were discredited—and the church lost its credibility too. This is why teaching about gender differences and gender roles must be undertaken with extreme care and extreme attention to the Scriptures. We must be careful never to put words into God’s mouth.

  The reality is that no one understands the complete truth about men and women, our chemistry together, and how each gender is a unique reflection of the divine nature of God. But we do know this—when we finally see God’s face in heaven, we will fully understand ourselves, each other, and God: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

  When half-truths, incomplete truths, or our best guesses are taught from the pulpit as if they are Scripture, we wreck the credibility of the church. We also shame both men and women into believing they are not normal. One expert on gender roles and sexuality told me that young girls raised in church sometimes believe they are abnormal if they have strong desires. After all, the modern church often teaches that women are more emotional than carnal and don’t tend to have strong sexual urges like men. A woman or girl who doesn’t agree is subtly labeled abnormal. If men, on the other hand, are emotional, they are labeled as “feminine.” Church leaders decry the “feminization of the church” as if femininity were a bad thing, as if the church was meant to be a strictly masculine organization, reflecting a strictly masculine God. Such half-truths leave us little room to discover God in ourselves or one another.

  I had a chance to chat over email about these issues with one of my favorite nonfiction authors, Jonalyn Grace Fincher. I’ll close this section of our discussion with her thoughts:

  Gender differences come in handy when we find ourselves baffled by those closest to us. Isn’t it so much easier to blame something we can’t control for our problems? For instance, when a man and woman get close (this is especially true in marriage), they discover those annoying differences about each other. Wouldn’t we rather locate these irreconcilable differences in gender or sex instead of personal growth?

  I’ve often heard married couples give up understanding or intimacy by discounting the baffling differences in the opposite sex—“Oh, men are all like that,” or, “Maybe this is just a woman thing.” Instead we could push into knowing one another and realize most of the gender differences are due to culture, family of origin, personality, or unique life experiences.

  I wouldn’t say the church at large leads the charge in defining gender roles because our Eastern Orthodox and Catholic brothers and sisters do not clamor to put the hard lines down around the differences. However, many churches where men (and their women) fear losing their power tend to define what women and men can and cannot do. The more fear, the more strictly the roles are delineated. For instance, I’ve been saddened how many gender-defining books are fueled by a misunderstanding and fear of feminism.

  Lingering Effects

  One other issue of particular interest to historians about the medieval witch hunts was the lurid connection between women’s sexuality and their prosecution for witchcraft. Not only were many of the accused women molested in the name of “interrogation,” but the witch hunts blamed women for sexual crimes in a way that still permeates our culture today. The prevailing medieval social theory was that women “made” men sin. According to the theory, if women weren’t so carnal and tempting, men would have no trouble staying pure. Today women are still held responsible for sexual crime in many of the same ways. The shame of reporting a rape and the fear of being accused of tempting a man beyond what he can bear still keeps women silent and rapists free. Our justice system continues to operate with a double standard when prostitution is involved too. Women are arrested for prostitution at nearly three times the rate that men are arrested for solicitation.

  But why should you and I care about prostitution arrests or subtle slurs on “femininity” within the church? Because history has shown us, time and again, that even little twists on truth can end with plenty of destruction. From the garden of Eden to the witch hunts of the Inquisition, to the persecution of Jews, to cults and suicide pacts, half-truths and best guesses leave a wake of pain.

  The issues of gender roles and religious thought are so much more complex than I can cover here. If you want a beautiful, thoughtful exploration of gender roles and differences, I recommend you read Jonalyn Grace Fincher’s excellent book Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home. You can also learn more about her work at Soulation.org. Jonalyn writes about these issues with passion and searing intellect.

  Which Witch?

  The vast majority of witch-hunt victims were not witches, but true witchcraft has always played a role in history. Throughout history, many women have practiced folk magic because they were denied access to education, medicine, and the courts. Women relied on the promise of magic to fight disease, keep their children alive, and bring justice to the afflicted. Wherever women were powerless and excluded, magic seemed to offer help.

  Today, you and I live in an age of unprecedented abundance and access to law, medicine, and education. So why is witchcraft often cited as the fastest growing religion in America?

  I decided to find out.

  I contacted a local New Age bookstore, and they invited me to sit in on a regular meeting of local witches. I was given free rein to ask any question. I came to the meeting with a notebook, a pen, and plenty of prayer. I worried that the witches would be strange, hostile, or want to hurt me because I was a Christian.

  I left the meeting burdened with sorrow and with a tender spot in my heart for these women. The women I met—these witches—were just like the women I knew in church. Lovely, wounded, searching, fascinated by a world beyond our own, generous, and open. These women were my neighbors, fellow taxpayers, and part of my larger community. We were much more alike than I would have guessed.

  In fact, all the women I spoke with that day grew up in church. Each expressed a strong awareness, early on, of the hypocrisy rampant in churches. (This is, of course, a plague affecting every church across the world. I don’t think Christian hypocrisy disproves the validity of Christ and Christianity. Rather, it proves it.)

  At my meeting with the witches, the women said something else that shocked me. Most of the women had experienced a strange supernatural event as a child. One woman saw spirits. One was plagued by bad visions. Each had sought help, or information, from others in the church and church leaders. Each received no help, no counseling, no information. So the women turned to the only people willing to listen, explain, and help: the local occult bookstore.

  Many of these witches now say that persecution, especially from Christians, is part of their everyday lives. One woman received death threats that included Scripture. Stories of hostility from Christians toward these witches broke my heart. If you want to reach out to a practicing witch or Wiccan, know that they most likely have been abused or berated in the name of Christianity. As with any opportunity to evangelize, we must earn the right to tell others of our experiences or opinions.

  As I sat with the witches and we discussed Jesus, one woman sighed and said, “I’d like to think that if Jesus were here on earth, He’d walk right into our meeting. He’d want to know us.”

  Knowing that Jesus lives within my heart, I smiled at her. “He is here,” I said. I saw myself in a new way that day: as a physical body with the spirit of Jesus living within. My job was to take His Spirit out into the world so that He could tend to the wounded and reach out to the hurting. I’m just His physical chauffeur. I wasn’t given this body so I could run my own errands. Those women belonged to Him, and He wanted to be there, sitting in that meeting, listening to their stories, looking into their eyes, and hearing their hearts. I know that He longs for them, for us all, to know Him and to know His truth expressed in love. This truth and this love are the source of all true hope and salvation.

  As I close this book, you may like to know that much of the book is based on fact, including the baptizing of the cat. Bastion’s arguments and theology and some anecdotes are taken from the Malleus. Stefan’s story of ministering to Ava the witch is based on a true story too. During the witch hunts, a witch was kept in a cage and used like a circus animal to scare people. One wise and courageous priest developed a relationship with her and taught her the truth of who Jesus was and how she could find true peace and love only in Him. This priest led her to Christ, and the woman escaped her captivity.

  Thankful for this freedom,

  Ginger Garrett

  Discussion Questions

  1. Read these three statements:

  • “All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.”—the Malleus Maleficarum

  • “This [theory of the insatiability of women, which I teach,] comes out of some social research which suggests that some women are insatiable or never satisfied. From that, I point out that Eve had paradise but wanted more. She lacked satisfaction with paradise!”—best-selling Christian author who teaches on marriage and gender roles

  • “The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust.”—God, as recorded in James 1:13 (MSG)

  The Malleus’s false theories are still being repeated today, often under the guise of “Christian marriage teaching.” What does the Bible say about the root of lust and temptation? Is it a particularly male or female problem? If lust is a male problem, what can explain the actions of Potiphar’s wife? (See Gen. 39.)

  2. Jesus said, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matt. 7:15–16). Not everyone who uses God’s name speaks for God. What are some of the signs that a person is truly doing God’s work? Is success always a sign God is endorsing them?