“Willa!” Jonah exclaimed with some audible frustration. “We needed to be on the road ten minutes ago.”

     “We’re fine,” the petite brunette replied. “Wren, do you have everything?”

     “Yeah Mom,” the blond twelve-year-old responded without looking up from her phone.

     “Do you have shoes on?” Mom asked knowingly.

     “Uhh, yeah,” Wren lied as she slipped on her tennis shoes.

     Jonah appeared at his daughter’s door, “What can I bring to the car for you?”

     Wren tilted her head to the right indicating the three bags neatly stacked on the floor of her slightly messy room.

     “Make your bed and meet us at the car, we’re already late,” he said trying to hide his frustration. Nothing bothered the former soldier more than being late.

     “Why do I have to make the bed, we’re not even going to be here?” She huffed, not for the first time.

     “You know…” Mom’s voice joined Dad’s in practiced unison from the other room.

     “…the rules!” Wren interrupted knowing full well what the answer would be. She finished making the bed perfectly, if half-heartedly. She paused to take a long look at her room, especially her trophy shelf full of achievements. As she left the room, she reached up instinctively and slapped the well-worn wooden plaque above her door that stated, “Take up your cross and follow me.”

     “There she is,” Jonah announced as he packed the last of the gear into the back of Willa’s roomy Honda Odyssey. He could almost feel the eyeroll he received in return from his daughter. Willa was in the front seat, running through her mental list of what they needed, making sure nothing was forgotten. She had long since set aside the need to write these lists down. Her mind was a carefully curated memory palace populated by the needs of the family. Jonah slid into the front as Wren did the same in the back. They both buckled up and Jonah started the car looking over to Willa for approval.

     “Well,” he asked.

     “We’re good,” his wife responded, making eye contact. “Let’s go.” She reached down to the console plugged in her phone and pulled up her ‘Worship Station’ on Pandora. They always started longer drives to tournaments with worship songs, singing along together in praise.

     The road was quiet, early on a Saturday morning in late December. Traffic was light, the sun was bright, but behind them, and there was barely a cloud in the sky. Jonah looked to his right to see Willa reveling in the sunshine as he knew she would be. She had always been susceptible to depression when the long Michigan winter brought weeks with little sunshine. This was not one of those weeks, she was in her glory. Jonah adored the glow she emitted when the sun was out, and the weather was warm(ish) and mild. Focusing back on the road for a bit, he next checked on his daughter in the rear-view mirror. She was lying across the seat reading a book while singing along with the song.

     “Homework?” He asked.

     She held the book up so he could see it. Though the reflection was backward he could tell she was reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

     “That’s one of my favorites,” he said, proud of his pre-teen daughter’s choice.

     “It took a few chapters to get the backwards nature of it, but I’ve got it now,” she explained with a maturity well beyond her years. “It’s as if he wrote this yesterday.”

     “I have always been amazed at how well Lewis holds up,” her dad responded.

     Willa chimed in, “When I first started reading him, I thought he was so far ahead of his time. Then I did some research on what the world was like when he was writing, and he really wasn’t. It’s just that culture keeps repeating the same failures and mistakes.”

     “We are as hard-headed as the Israelites,” Jonah added.

     “Stiff-necked even,” Wren tacked on.

     Jonah and Willa beamed with silent pride at the simple comment from their daughter. She was a good student, a hard-working athlete, and a kind-hearted friend, but most importantly she was a committed follower of Jesus Christ. They both prayed every day that she would keep that focus as she got older and more ‘out in the world.’ The van fell quiet as they continued the longest part of this road trip to Indianapolis. I465 was busier but still quiet for a weekend. The weather was still good, making the drive easy, if a bit mind-numbing.

     Later in the road-trip Willa and Wren both napped with their ear pods in, allowing Jonah to listen to some podcasts as he drove. He got caught up in a particularly rousing episode of William Lane Craig’s “Reasonable Faith” and by the time he realized he was going to miss the rest stop for gas it was too late. Undaunted, he punched in nearby gas stations in his GPS app and found one, but he would have to leave the interstate. He swerved a little too suddenly at the next exit waking everyone in the car. The bags in the back shifted, toppling on each other. One of them emitted a strange yelp as it hit the floor of the van.

     Wren sat up instantly, recognizing the sound, “Leo?”

     The bag jostled and moved slightly. There was a low growl as the bag moved even more this time. Suddenly the bag tipped over and a fourteen-pound gray Shih-Tzu emerged. His tongue to one side of his snaggle-toothed smile, he sat up waiting for approval.

     “Come here, silly boy,” Wren instructed, causing the tiny ball of energy to leap into her arms awkwardly. He nuzzled deeply under her chin, licking her face excitedly.

     “How did he get in here?” Jonah split his attention between the rear-view mirror and the windshield.

     “He must have escaped the neighbor’s house again,” Willa offered as if it was old hat. It was.    

     Jonah regained his focus on the road and followed the sign that noted the direction of the nearest gas station. About a mile down the road, he felt a vibration in the front right wheel seconds before the tire gave way with a thump. The van pulled hard to the right as the tire flattened. Jonah responded with counter-steer and brakes getting them safely to the side of the road.     

     “Another flat?” Willa asked matter-of-factly.

     “Another?” Jonah was concerned by the comment.

     “Yeah,” Wren piped in, “Mom and I had one last week. We changed it. It was no big deal.”

     Willa sat forward pushing her hoodie back away from her face revealing a look of great concern. “Uhh, except we never got it back from the tire shop.”

     “Ok, so no spare,” Jonah stated. “Could be worse. We could be in the middle of nowhere…” he stopped mid-sentence looking around, “oh yeah.”

     The Odyssey had come to a rest in a heavily wooded residential area. Despite the leaflessness of the trees not a lot of sunlight got through to the densely tree-lined street.

      “Should we walk to the gas station for help?” Willa was always the one to just move on and find a solution.

      Jonah looked down the road, considering his wife’s solution, then looked to his right at a house down a long winding gravel driveway. “No, I think I’ll try at this house first. If they can’t help, maybe they will give me a lift to the gas station.” He asked the girls to wait in the car and instructed Leo to guard them with his life. He talked to Leo partly out of habit, but mostly because he loved when the dog tilted his head as if listening intently. Jonah stepped out of the car and started up the driveway passing the mailbox with the name “Ravendusk” painted on it. He flashed a thumbs-up back at them when he heard the doors lock.

      The girls and Leo watched as Jonah made his way toward the house. Suddenly, Leo huffed and stiffened, as if seeing something he didn’t like.

      “What is it, boy?” Wren followed the dog’s eye line to the right, into the wooded area in front of the house and saw a shadow paralleling Jonah’s movement. “Mom, someone is in the woods following Dad toward the house.”

      Willa tracked to what they were seeing, “Maybe the person who lives here saw him coming?” She sounded unsure.

     “We should make sure, shouldn’t we?” Wren’s concern for her father’s safety instantly overwhelmed her fear.

     “Ok, let’s go,” Willa answered as she jumped out of the van, “but stay quiet and behind me.”

     Wren got really close to her dog’s face and said, “Stay! I’ll call if I need you.” They had worked on this trick for weeks. Leo pawed at her arm and let out a whine in protest, before laying on the seat with his chin on his paws. The twelve-year-old fell in about ten feet behind her mother, who was staying fifty feet behind the stranger following Jonah. The girls could see Jonah say something as he entered the open garage, but they were too far behind to hear him. As Jonah entered the structure, the stranger stopped briefly to the side of the entrance, peeked in, then followed. Willa arrived at the door and looked in. She saw her husband wrestling with someone twenty feet into the garage. There was a weird glowing circle in the air behind them. It seemed to swirl with a translucent golden light, pulsing occasionally. The stranger they had followed was facing away from the door watching the grapplers. Willa waved for Wren to join her by the door. The young girl let adrenaline get the best of her and came in a little too fast hitting the garage with a thud. Knowing that the stranger had to have heard that Willa went into protective mode. She grabbed her daughter’s arm and pulled her around the corner of the garage and behind some bins stacked there. Moments later she heard the footsteps of the stranger scoping out the front of the garage. Satisfied that it was nothing he returned to the garage. Willa grabbed some broken metal rods from the ground. Handing one to Wren they returned to the garage door. This time when she peeked in, Jonah and the man were fighting. The man tried to grab Jonah, but the veteran, still in decent shape, fended him off. Reacting to the escalation the man the girls had been following charged at Jonah and shouldered him through the shimmering sphere. The first man nodded wordlessly, gestured toward the street with a thumb, then stepped into the swirling lights himself.

     When the remaining man turned, he was surprised to find the two women standing in the doorway brandishing make-shift weapons. Undaunted he moved toward them.

     Willa warned the man, “Stay back! Tell me where my husband is, and we will leave.”

     The stranger said nothing as he turned and pointed at the swirl.

     Wren looked over her right shoulder and whistled loudly.

     Willa moved forward cautiously as the man made no move to stop her. When she got between him and the swirl she motioned behind her back and said, “Wren, go.”

     The girl stepped forward but stopped short when she got to her mother, “You want me to go in that? What if it is dangerous?”

     “Dad is in there. Whatever it is, we stay together. If it kills us, we know we will be reunited,” Willa mustered all of her courage to resist letting her voice falter.

     “Ok, Mom. Let’s go,” the girl pleaded.

     “I’m right behind you,” Willa responded, never taking her eyes from the stranger, “go now.”

     The frightened twelve-year-old stepped through the sphere as a guttural growl could be heard approaching. A gray blur appeared, ramming its small body into the man hip high. The man, more surprised than hurt by the assault, stepped back to regain his balance.

     Willa used the welcome distraction to make her move toward the swirl. She looked back as she stepped inside, “Come, Leo,” and then she too was gone.  The remaining man and the dog followed right behind her.