Fellowship & Fairydust

Part 1 of a web serial somewhat inspired by The Screwtape Letters.

I could hear welding torches and power saws being used on the second floor, close to my room. I looked to the hostel’s foyer doorway, waiting for the roars to die. My friend turned his head away from the noise, toward the Sharpie sketch of the Great Wall of China.

“For a tourist, that’s not bad,” he said.

I looked at the signatures and messages scrawled on the other walls.

“Maybe,” I replied. “I prefer that message just above your left ear. ‘Live Free or Sushi.’”

My friend chuckled. Zane had met me on a Rome subway car, a conversation that began with him asking if the Chesterton book I carried was homework or genuine interest. When he got off an hour later, we were still talking and had traded books. He got my copy of Orthodoxy, I got The Man Who Was Thursday. That meeting was more years ago than he cared to admit, and we were still loving the books we shared and the jokes we made.

Several years into our friendship, Zane told me about his work. I knew him as a sort of journalist, sort of culture writer who specialized in the religiously bizarre. Neo-pagans setting up shop in Fresno. Vatican debates about whether Lucifer of Sardinia should have his sainthood erased. That sort of thing.

Around the time I started freelancing for religious magazines, Zane asked me what I thought about the old idea that we were fighting an eternal war against powers and principalities. I told him about my travels in Inner Mongolia, seeing a pastor pray over a man about to attack him. The man had been attacking a tree before he went after the pastor. The pastor held up his hand and prayed out, then the man dropped his fist and slowly walked away.

“I don’t doubt there is something dark out there for a minute,” I concluded.

Zane nodded. He went back to talking about the Mark Heard biography I had given him for Christmas.

Six months later, I met some of Zane’s compatriots. Many worked in what my missionary parents would call “underground positions.” I learned about their work. After several package transit trips, I became part of the work too. I wasn’t a major contributor like Zane, but I helped here and there. 

I had arrived in this Beijing hostel after one such assignment. I was recuperating, looking forward to a few months of revisiting connections. Zane had been in the city for a month and would be on a flight to Los Angeles in the morning. He had asked to see me to catch up.

The power saw roaring stopped. Zane tilted his head and pounded his ear. I held up a bowl of fried bread and he took half a piece.

“Alright, let’s be honest,” I said. “Are you just here to chat?”

Zane cocked an eyebrow. Then he reached into the knapsack by his feet and pulled out a leather package. He plopped it onto the coffee table.

“Don’t ask how I got it,” Zane said as he slid it toward me.

I examined it. The leather package was about the same size and shape as an accordion folder. The leather had been brown but was stained almost black.

“Carpentry tool bag?” I asked.

“Nope. Dossier. Documents are in sequential order and have to be annotated before I can pass them on to some stateside friends. No grammar polishing. Just look up whatever events the writer talks about and add footnotes so the reader has context.”

“Sounds easy.”

Zane chucked. “Not quite. The documents are a bit fragile, they need careful handling. Careful has never been my area.”

I picked up the leather folder. Soot covered my fingers as I turned it over. The other side had a flap with rusted iron clasps.

“How much trouble will I get into for having this?” I asked.

“No legal trouble. Just don’t show it to anyone.”

“Anything dirty in it?”

“Not the kind of dirty you’re thinking,” Zane said. “Just kind of… nasty.”

I weighed the folder in my hands. It didn’t look nice. Whatever was inside was dangerous enough that Zane didn’t care for it. I looked back at him. 

“When do you want it finished?” I asked.

Zane smiled. “Always liked your enthusiasm.” 

The couch squeaked louder as he stood and reached for his knapsack. “Email me when you’re finished with it. There’s no hurry.” 

“Understood,” I said. “Enjoy your flight.” 

“Good to see you, too.” Zane walked around the table and started walking past me to the door. He paused at my shoulder. “Try not to let the contents get under your skin. It’s not worth it.”

I fingered the envelope’s flap. More soot came off on my hand.

“Thanks,” I said.

Zane punched my shoulder and disappeared through the doorway. 

When I walked up the stone steps to my room, the construction crew had finished everything. I nodded at a worker recharging his torch, then squeezed past him to reach my hostel room. Inside, with the door locked, I undid the metal clasps. The folder held forty sheets of paper. The sheets were almost the same color as the envelope. Later, when I examined them closely, I saw someone had smeared ashes over them. At the time, I was more interested in a word branded into the underside of the leather flap. The word was in all capitals:

EKRON.

Return next week for Memo 1 in The Ekron Initiative.

Cover Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash