When Heaven Weeps by Ted Dekker Read Free Book Online

soldier who defied his superior’s orders. What kind of madness has come over you?
    He straightened. His comrades were turned from him, watching Karadzic, who was yanking the priest to his feet. Janjic looked at the soldiers and saw that a line of sweat ran down the Jew’s cheek. Puzup blinked repeatedly.
    The priest suddenly gasped. Uhhh! The sound echoed in the silence.
    Karadzic hardly seemed to notice the odd sound. “March!” he thundered. “The next one to drop a cross will receive twenty blows with the priest. We’ll see what kind of faith he has taught you.”
    The women tottered—gaping, sagging.
    The commander gripped his hands into fists. Cords of muscle stood out on his neck. “Maaarch!”
    They marched.
    IVENA SLOWLY lowered the book with a quiver in her hands. An ache swelled into her throat, threatening to burst out. After so many years the pain seemed no less. She leaned back and drew a deep breath. Dear Nadia, forgive me.
    Ivena suddenly leaped from her chair. “March!” she mimicked, and she strutted across the cement floor, the book flapping in her right hand. “Maaarch! One, two. One, two.” She did it with indignation and fury, and she did it without hardly thinking what she was doing. If any poor soul saw her, marching through her greenhouse like an overstuffed peacock in a dress, they might think her mad.
    The thought stopped her midmarch. But she wasn’t mad. Merely enlightened. She had the right to march; after all, she was there. She had staggered under her own concrete cross along with the other women, and in the end it had liberated her. And now there was a kind of redemption in remembering; there was a power in participating few could understand.
    â€œMaaarch!” she bellowed, and struck out down the aisle by the tulips. She made the return trip to her chair, smoothed her dress to regain composure, glanced about once just to be sure no one was peeking through the glass, and sat back down.
    Now where was I?
    You were marching through your greenhouse like an idiot, she thought.
    â€œNo, I was putting the power of darkness back in its place. I know the ending.”
    She cracked the book, flipped a few pages to find where she had left off and began to read.

CHAPTER FOUR
    FATHER MICHAEL remembered arguing with the commander; remembered Karadzic’s rifle butt smashing down on Sister Marie’s skull; remembered the other soldier, the skinny one, making him stand and then raising the rifle to strike him. He even remembered closing his eyes against that first blow to his kidneys. But that blow ignited the strobe in his mind.
    Poof !
    The courtyard vanished in a flash of light.
    The white desert crashed into his world. Fingers of light streaked from the horizon. The ground was covered with the white flowers. And the music!
    Oh, the music. The children’s laughter rode the skies, playing off the man’s song. His volume had grown, intensified, compelling Michael to join in the laughter. The same simple tune, but now others seemed to have joined in to form a chorus. Or maybe it just sounded like a chorus but was really just laughter.
    Sing O son of Zion; Shout O child of mine
    Rejoice with all your heart and soul and mind
    Michael was vaguely aware of a crashing on the edge of his world. It was as if he lived in a Christmas ornament and a child had taken a stick to it. But it wasn’t a stick, he knew that. It wasn’t a child either. It was the soldier with a rifle, beating his bones.
    He heard a loud snap. I’ve got to hurry up before the roof caves in about me! I’ve got to hurry! My bones are breaking.
    Hurry? Hurry where?
    Hurry to meet this man. Hurry to find the children, of course. Problem was, he still couldn’t see them. He could hear them, all right. Their laughter rippled over the field in long, uncontrolled strings that forced a smile to his mouth.
    The figure was still far away, a foot high on the