The Twins of Noremway Parish by Eric R. Johnston Page B

had burned with a peaceful light. Oceans covered three quarters of the planet. Green grass instead of the dry sand coated the ground, and tall trees filled the landscape with lush forests in which animals of all types thrived. Peace, prosperity, and love reigned throughout the land. “Earth was once a paradise,” she said.
    “ Then what happened?” a student in the front asked.
    “ The Darkness came, burning the land asunder, boiling the streams and rivers, vaporizing the oceans, and bringing forth evil. But Ragas saved us.”
    “ What is the Darkness?”
    “ No one knows for sure. Some say the environment became polluted, others say maybe it was the sun. Some say the Darkness comes from another world: a world like our own but evil, pure evil. Others say the Darkness is a natural result of the world growing old and passing on just like our grandparents. Either way, droughts and famines overtook the land. Water became scarce. Ragas defeated the Darkness and banished it from Noremway Parish.
    “ When the Darkness first arrived, Ragas traveled Earth. He saw pain and suffering wherever he went. There were many people who had far more than they could ever need, while others had far less than the minimum to survive. Ragas taught that we must all work together if we are going to survive. So we pooled our resources into small communities that we call parishes. There were two groups of them: the Inner-Crescent and the Outer-Crescent. There is nothing but desert wastelands in between. Ragas founded Noremway Parish, an Inner-Crescent parish. When the Outer-Crescent fell, we thought all was lost, but Ragas stood and defended the Inner-Crescent.”
    A boy sitting in front raised his hand, “My father says Ragas was a liar and that the world was never green and beautiful. He says Ragas just went out in the desert and got heatstroke and dehydrated, and hallucinated and wrote down his crazy visions. And the Darkness is a lie, a myth; just a legend that only the weak and simple believe in. And he says that Ragas made a lot of money off his book by telling people it was a true story.”
    Teret got this sort of thing a lot, and brushed it off as nothing but the usual conspiracy theory. If you give in to it and defend the truth, you are doing nothing but giving credibility to these ridiculous notions. So she moved on without comment.
    “ Alright class, open your books to Chapter 5. This is where Ragas describes his meeting with who he called ‘the Angel of Mercy.’ She was a stunningly beautiful woman who had a tremendous impact on him. She cared for him in a time of need. She gave him his sense of right and wrong. Without her, he would never have grown to be the great person that he was to become.”
    The kids began reading their texts as instructed. Johan Fidler leafed through the pages, not really reading it. He usually came to class in torn pants, a dirty shirt, and sand caked into his skin. Teret could be a better mother to this boy than Hannah Fidler could ever be. Despite smiling politely at her whenever they crossed paths during the cathedral services or at the market, she felt a jealousy growing with intensity each year that she grew closer to the end of her own fertile years. Even though she couldn’t legally have children, the fact that she physically could was a small comfort. There would come a time when she wouldn’t even have that.
    She had been so happy for the Watermans when they found out they were pregnant. Lynn had been creeping up on the end of fertility as well, and it was fantastic that they were finally having a child, someone to replace them when they grew old and passed on from this place; to care for them in old age–a person to carry on their legacy.
    She became a parochial vicar so that she could share all the history to which she experienced such a deep connection. This Angel of Mercy had been, above all, a teacher. Despite this desire, as a child, she had always wanted to get married and have