Mist filled the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Before long, the sun seemed hidden behind thick cloth. Even the nearest trees grew hard to see.
Great-heart gathered everyone close and counted them. They agreed that when someone ahead called a name, its owner would answer. Her husband held their daughter’s hand. Chris walked beside Christiana. Mercy and two carriers followed with the luggage.
At first Christiana could tell the wind from their footsteps. Then voices came from both sides of the valley. Sometimes they sounded like laughter. Sometimes one seemed close to her ear: You brought them here.
She knew there were lying voices in this place. But these words sounded so much like her own thoughts. When her daughter slipped on a stone, she caught Chris’s arm so tightly that he gave a small cry.
“Mom, I didn’t fall,” he said.
She loosened her grip and looked down to apologize. Suddenly she could no longer see her husband ahead. The mist had folded across the path and hidden even the pack on his shoulders.
“Wait!” she called.
The others stopped at once. Great-heart came back through the mist. First he asked who was hurt, then what she had seen. Nobody was hurt, she said. She was afraid of losing the children. The voice laughed again, as though only a bad mother could be so frightened.
“I heard it,” Great-heart said. “It speaks of what you fear as though it has already happened, so you will let go of the hands you really hold.”
He asked everyone to answer in turn. Her husband spoke, then her daughter, Chris, and Mercy. Each voice was where it should be. Christiana reached out and touched her son’s sleeve. This time she did not clutch it.
“Where is the Lord?” she asked. “I cannot see any light.”
Great-heart read that even in the valley of the shadow of death, the Lord’s people need not fear evil, because he was with them. “It does not say the valley will vanish at once. It tells us that darkness cannot make the Lord’s presence untrue. You can tell him you are afraid and walk on with the help he has given.”
Christiana prayed quietly in the mist. She did not ask never to tremble again. She asked the Lord to help her hear his promise and care for the children before her.
Later her daughter began calling everyone’s name, waiting for each answer before the next. She called Mercy by the wrong name once, and the people at the back laughed. The mist had not lifted, but they could hear one another again.