Between Two Fires

by Christopher Buehlman

“You’re really going to the river, then?” “I said I would.” “What we say and what we do are . . .” “Well, I do what I say. Which is why I don’t say much.”

Thomas grinned at him, suddenly boyishly happy at the probability that he would be swinging a weapon at this man in the coming hours.

This pestilence cooked away pretense and showed people’s souls, as surely as it eventually showed their bones.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But don’t you see? This is the one thing I can do as well as anyone else. I can’t plow. I can’t build. But I can suffer. God wants suffering now.”

“She was tempted by something stronger than her. Adam was tempted by a weaker creature. Or so we are told. If Eve was his inferior, his sin was greater. You can’t have it both ways.”

Two angels and a devil had tumbled into the water. Three angels came up. Forgiveness, then, was possible even for the worst.

Love is always harder. Love means weathering blows for another’s sake and not counting them. Love is loss of self, loss of other, and faith in the death of loss.

fear of Hell is one of many paths to it. Forget Hell and love one another. That is all He wants of you.