Another short season by Jay, but goodness, the surprise we’ve been left with! Let’s see what’s happening as season 2 ends…

PRESENT DAY

The steak was lit, and so was the lobster, but the silence at the table made it hard to tell. Stella, Marsha, John and Josh had met up at Ritz King Steakhouse for dinner later that Sunday, and none of them had uttered a word since they were seated. Reverend Mason’s announcement had been the nuclear bomb that no one saw coming.

Marsha looked at Josh, whose eyes were clearly fixed on nothing. “Josh, real talk, did you know about this? Did you get any hints, any suggestions, any unusual comments?”

Josh somehow shook his head while barely moving at the same time.

Stella followed up with, “Did they pack a lot of stuff when they were travelling this time?”

Still barely moving, Josh managed to say, “Nothing out of the ordinary. They were given a lot of stuff to take with them, so their own stuff was not even that much.”

John stopped midway through cutting a piece of his steak and dropped his fork. “Dang, man. I mean I could tell that they were getting ready to remove bishop, but I didn’t think it would be like that. That was disgraceful. To remove a man like Bishop Wilson in that manner? After everything he’d done for this church? Nah, that was bullsh*t.”

Stella jumped in with, “They did say it was temporary though.”

John wasn’t buying it. “Temporary my butt. Is that how to do things? Besides, if it really was temporary, do you think Bishop wouldn’t have come to say it himself? I may not always agree with his methods, but the man deserves more respect than that. Also, where does that leave us? Where does that leave the guys? Where does that leave Josh? Where does that leave you, Marsha? Where does that leave me? Clearly no one gave enough of a damn about us to at least notify us. Not even Bishop.”

Josh got up and walked away with the least amount of fuss he could conjure up. The three took to taking small bites of their food while the silence reigned for minutes.

Meanwhile, Josh walked outside and just stared at the sky. It wasn’t a slow night. For some random reason, there were a lot of people moving to and fro the large complex where the Ritz King was. After looking up for a while, Josh called Bishop Wilson but there was no answer. He called again, same result.

He then sighed, then called Lady Ellen, who also did not answer. He shook his head and stood outside a little longer.

Back at the table, Stella finally broke the minutes of silence. “I guess he’s taking it harder than we’d thought.”

John finished the bite of steak he’d just started on, and then spoke. “He left his life to serve them full time, and they didn’t even give him the courtesy of a heads up. His entire life is about them. He left his apartment to live with them, and now he might not have a home. He has no actual job, so he doesn’t have any pay slips to show to the landlords when they ask for proof of income. That chump change they pay us can’t even get a decent apartment or even a functioning car. To us, it’s just the departure of our pastor. To him, his entire life has just been turned upside down.”

*****

FOUR YEARS AGO

Wilson sat in what was now his office, taking in the room and processing what had just transpired. The transition itself had been very smooth, but Bishop Rupert did not spend one more second on the church’s property than he needed to. He left right after the benediction; did not even wait behind to say goodbye to anyone. It was like he was leaving prison.

That aside, Wilson had gotten introduced to a church audience whose response seemed more leery than optimistic. He clearly had a lot of work to do if he was going to be successful as a head pastor here. The one thing that had actually shocked him was how complimentary Kusi had been of him. If he hadn’t known himself well enough, he’d have thought that Kusi had been his long-lost brother with whom he corresponded daily. He was used to the crab mentality of the prayer guys who had all wanted the attention of Archbishop Rhamses, but this was way different.

Ellen came in and locked the door behind her. She had a small tray of cake and juice and two plastic cups, which she placed on the small coffee table in front of the guests’ sofa. “Come, let’s celebrate. Drink with me.”

Wilson put his thoughts to the side and went to sit with Ellen. She took a bottle opener from the tray and was about to open it when Wilson stopped her.

Something felt wrong. He couldn’t figure out what it was, but something felt very wrong.

Somehow, he went from being concerned to experiencing an exponentially rising anger, even though he was completely calm in his mind.

“Who gave you the drink?”

Ellen, a bit confused, responded, “It was part of the refreshments in the kitchen. It was for the ceremony, but they’d set it aside just for us. I just took some of the cake and brought them over because I knew you wouldn’t be at your own Item 13 session, and I wanted us to have a special moment together.” She was about to pick up the cake when he pulled her hand away.

“Wilson, what’s the matter?”

Wilson picked up the bottle and began to examine it closely. He turned it all around, and then began to vigorously shake it.

“Babe, its going to spray all over the office! The entire wall is going to be-”

Wilson immediately put the bottle down and gestured at her to look. At first, it seemed normal. She was about to say exactly that when she noticed the bottom of the drink.

“What the heck is that!”

Wilson picked up the bottle and shook it some more, which freaked Ellen out even worse than before. Out of the liquid began to form a solid, like a cube of sugar which hadn’t dissolved. The more he shook it, the more of it formed. Soon, the entire bottom of the bottle was filled with this while solid, while the rest of the drink sat on top of it.

“I’m going to find out-”

“Ellen, no.”

“Babe, we have to know. We literally just got here and someone’s already messing with us? We need to find out-”

“No, we do not.”

“Babe, we can’t sit by and let someone just-”

“Yes we can, and yes we will.” He took her hand and looked her dead in the eye. “Listen to me, babe. Until the Lord shows us who our friends are, we have no friends here. I will pray and cover you, but I need you to be very careful who touches any of our stuff. I felt a strong resistance in my spirit towards the entire tray, which is why I shook the drink. Even now, I still feel a resistance to-”

He took the plastic cup and used its rim to cut through the cake. Then he tried to separate the pieces, and Ellen immediately jumped at the sight of the ants and maggots that came out. The maggots fell out like grains of rice, so they must have been dead. But the ants were very much alive.

Wilson walked her away from the tray, even as the shock almost froze her completely. “Like I said, no one’s on our side until God says they are. Eventually, we will be able to get people to help us.

“Until then, remember that we are very much on our own.”

Oh wow!!! Incredible! Someone actually tried to poison them?? Something tells me we’re going to understand why they had so many issues with the church. But… but what happens with Josh, now that he’s been abandoned like that? And about Erasmus, where’s the connection just yet?

Season 3 will tell us, eventually!