Page 145 of The Confidant
She shivered, like she was reliving the most intense moments. I pulled her close, kissing the top of her head and saying, “I’m so sorry you had to go through this. So sorry you were ever put in contact with that guy.”
She leaned closer. “I just can’t believe that no one knew he was dangerous. How does someone like that slip through the cracks? How was he ever considered eligible to be an associate pastor?” She shook her head. “Like, I’m pretty sure he’s met with the High Priest at least a few times. Shouldn’t the High Priest have sensed something was off in their meetings? Shouldn’t his special gift of discernment have tipped him off that something was wrong with Xander?”
That was certainly the kind of thing we’d been taught would happen. That the Lord’s servants had some kind of almost supernatural power to bless people’s lives or to figure out things like this—like having a special sixth sense.
And even though I wasn’t sure how Scarlett would react to my skeptical thoughts on the subject, I knew that staying silent on things might only keep her at risk for being preyed on by other wolves in sheep’s clothing. So I said, “Do you think it’s possible that the High Priest is just as susceptible to human error and oversight as the rest of us?” I swallowed and licked my lips. “That maybe Xander was able to slip through the cracks because we’re all human and perhaps a little too trusting when someone claims to have special inspiration from God?”
Scarlett went still, and when her brow furrowed, I worried that I had upset her further with my skeptical thoughts.
But after a few heart-pounding seconds, she said, “I guess that’s something I might need to think about.”
51
SCARLETT
I fell asleep cuddledup to Hunter on my mom’s couch but awoke in a panic a little after two, my mind racing with nightmares of locked rooms and stained-glass windows and all the questions the events of last night had spurred within me.
Even though I didn’t want to think that what Hunter suggested about the High Priest having no more discernment than the rest of us could be true, I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind.
Or the other questions that came with it.
Because if there was some sort of flaw in the High Priest’s power as a seer for our time—if he could get things so wrong with Xander and that revelation—what other things could he or any of the other High Priests of the past had gotten wrong?
Had any of the teachings I’d been raised to believe in actually been inspired by God and Jehovah?
Or were they just the workings of man? Men who may be doing their best, but were nonetheless, still just men.
I glanced at Hunter sleeping in the corner of the couch. I knew I wouldn’t be falling asleep again until I’d done something about these new thoughts and questions I had, so I grabbed my phone from where it had fallen to the floor earlier and opened up an Internet browser.
With my fingers trembling only slightly as I typed in the URL I’d visited once before, I hit the search button and let the “Questions for the High Priest” load.
Then instead of listening to the voice I’d been conditioned to hear when looking into anti-Fold material, I scooted closer to the light of the lamp bookending the other end of the couch and started reading.
Once I started, I literally couldn’t get myself to stop. Just as Hunter had said had happened to him, the more I read, the more questions I had.
Because how the heck had Samuel Williams created such a tangled web of lies and turned it into a religion that still preyed on good people today?
How had I never been taught any of these stories in Sunday School?
And how had Hunter resisted telling me everything he’d studied?
* * *
I was justcross-referencing some of the things I’d read on the website with some of the church history essays when Hunter woke up. His lids were heavy as he looked in my direction. After wiping some of the sleep from his eyes, he sat up straighter and asked, “Couldn’t sleep?”
“I had a nightmare,” I said.
“Really?” Concern was etched in his eyes. “You should have woken me up.”
“It’s okay.” I shook my head. “It gave me time to catch up on some reading.”
“You’re doing homework?” Hunter raised his eyebrows, like he assumed that the reading I was doing was for school.
“I’m not reading for a class,” I said, pushing myself away from the corner of the couch I’d sunken into over the past four hours. I sat on the cushion next to him. “I started reading that essay you told me about a while back—the essay that Pastor wrote after finding a lot of problems in his church history research.”
Hunter’s eyes grew wide. Glancing at my phone in my hand, he asked, “You’re reading the ‘Questions for the High Priest?’”
“I finished that about an hour ago.” I nodded. “Now I’m going through the church history essays so I can cross-examine everything.” I was still feeling shocked about how much information had been packed into one document. “And my mind is kind of blown.”
