Crux

a true fairy tale. all faults in its telling are mine.

Once upon a time, there was a family that lived in a village at the foot of a great mountain whose peak pierced the sky. But though from the mountain flowed streams which fed their fields and gardens, and goats which gave milk and wool, and all other manner of good things, no one ever climbed the mountain nor even touched its base.

"Why can't we go up the mountain?" asked the youngest daughter.

"Because God lives on the mountain," said the older ones, "And our hearts are far from God."

Every night in the village, monsters would come up from the ground and harm or kill the people. And though many had tried to escape this, no one had found a way.

One day, when the youngest daughter was playing in the garden, a man came to the village. He was kind and gentle and wise.

"I am going up the mountain," he told the youngest daughter. "You must come with me."

"But God lives on the mountain," she said. "If we go up with twisted hearts, we will die."

"I will deal with that," he said.

They went up the mountain together. The road was long and dangerous, but she leaned on his strong arm. Soon, the sun began to sink, and the sky darken.

"We must go back," said the youngest daughter. "Soon the monsters will come."

He looked pained, but all he said was, "I will deal with that."

The road grew steeper. Storm clouds gathered in the darkening sky. And the youngest daughter trembled, for she saw the peak that pierced the sky, and she was afraid of God.

The man stumbled, his hands bleeding on the sharp stones; the sun sunk behind the horizon. The monsters slithered from the ground. She cried out and hid her face. 

But the man covered her in his arms. The monsters tore into his flesh, scoring their claws across his body, and drew him down into the darkness beneath, instead of her. And she was left on the mountain.

She wept all night with the storm whirling above.

Three mornings later, when all her tears were gone and she wondered whether she should return to the village (though there seemed there was nothing to be done, now), she saw a figure walking about the slopes.

"Who else could have come up the mountain?" she thought.

The figure looked at her; she met his eyes. The man. The man who died. There were scars on his body where the monsters had torn him. He ran to her, and she touched him and found him as solid as the stones beneath her feet. Then looking up, she saw that at the top of the peak the sky had opened, and through it she could glimpse the places where God lived.

She clung to him, asking -- "How is it that we have not been struck dead? And how is it that you have conquered the monsters, and come back from the darkness? How is it that God has opened the sky?"

"Because," he said, "I AM He."

And she cried out and fell to the ground. She looked at him, though no one could look at God and live.

He said: "I will replace your twisted heart. We will go up the mountain together. The monsters are defeated, ground into the dust. The sky has been torn open as my body was torn, and God lives with all people." He held out a burning hand. "Will you follow Me?"

What is your answer?