The Adoration of Jenna Fox (Jenna Fox Chronicles 1)

Seven-year-old Jenna leads Father through the house. He has a blindfold on. Lily must be filming. Glimpses of Mother smiling and following along, giggles from Jenna, and hollow protests from Father punctuate the journey.

‘Where are you taking me, Jenna?’

‘You can’t ask, Daddy!’ Jenna wails.

‘The moon?’

‘Daddy!’

‘The Mayflower?’

I watch Father being pulled, pushed, and turned. He trusts me as I lead him from room to room and down hallways. Step up. Step down. He exaggerates his movements, lifting his feet like he is stepping onto a stage. But he trusts me. He trusts seven-year-old Jenna. What did I do to make that change?

They reach the kitchen doorway. A large, lopsided blue cake is on the kitchen table, candles already burned halfway down during the long, blindfolded walk. The icing sags and bunches out on one side like a slow-moving glacier, bringing tipping candles along with it.

‘Stop!’ Jenna says. ‘Turn. No, this way, Daddy! Bend down. Ready?’

I remove the blindfold. ‘Surprise!’ Mother and I yell and clap our hands. Father throws his hands in the air. He gasps. Jenna beams. Her gap-toothed smile is nearly angelic.

‘It’s beautiful! It’s perfect! It’s the best cake I’ve ever had!’

‘She made it herself,’ Mother says proudly. ‘We doubled the batch because she wanted it big.’

Mother and Father share a glance, a brief look that flies over Jenna’s bouncing head. It is a full look just between them. A look of love, satisfaction, fulfillment. Easiness. Completeness. Everything they want and need is right in that room.

‘It’s big, all right! And blue!’ He continues to praise and adore it. Just as he adores Jenna.

I watch them dig in with forks and no plates. More laughter. More squeals. More looks.

It makes me feel all the ways I’ve wanted to feel ever since I woke up.

Trusted.

Happy.

Enough.

Father takes a fingerful of blue icing and decorates Jenna’s nose, and she squeals.

And now, in the quiet of my room, I laugh, too. I laugh out loud.

Just as I have done every time I’ve watched it.

Sanctuary

The church is empty. No priests. No Lily. Not even sweet singing voices to stir the air. The sanctuary is in the shape of a cross. I stand in the crosshairs, feeling like an imposter, waiting to be found at any moment and ushered out.

Sanctuary.

I weigh the meanings. A holy place. Refuge.

A place of forgiveness.

Rows of candles flicker on either side of me in the smaller arms of the church. I step forward, my clumsy feet scuffing the floor, echoing across the stillness. Souls, if there is such a thing, are nourished and mended here. In case of error they can’t be uploaded like the whole Boston curriculum—there are no spares in case one is lost. Souls are given only once.

I walk up the three steps to the altar and step over the small railing that separates the masses from all that is sacred. I am trespassing, but I can’t stop. I wait to feel something. Something different. But who knows what a soul feels like?

I dare to step closer, violating the holy space that surrounds me. I rest my hands on the altar, feeling the linen cloth only meant for a priest’s fingers. History. I can feel it in the threads. I close my eyes, searching for my own history, the intangible bits that will tell me if what I am is enough.