Exodus (11 page)

Aria returned Mr. Bob’s gaze. Her hair tossed around her face in the growing turbulence of the approaching storm. She could feel a new power rising inside her. She smiled.

Mr. Bob shook his head again and took his foot off the brake, letting the vehicle slide away into the street. Then he accelerated and was gone in the gloom.

Aria followed her father’s gaze to the horizon over the park. She relaxed in the face of the wind. They both loved a big storm, and this promised to be a good one, finally.

The first raindrop fell on the windowsill with a splash.

Aria inhaled the fresh breeze that whistled through the crack as she slowly closed the window. She crept downstairs through the storm-darkened hall to the family room, where her mother reclined on the couch. She was watching the trees in the back yard wave back and forth.

“We’ll lose power soon,” Aria’s mom said. She stared out the window at the dark sky. One side of her face was lit by the green half-light of the storm, and Aria was surprised to see no tears on her cheeks.

Aria cracked the sliding door to let in a bit of air and then curled up on the armchair near the couch. She and her mom then watched the heavens open and the water pour onto the deck with a rush. The deluge flattened the brittle plants by the house.

The back yard was a blur of gray water. Rain streamed down the glass sliding door and left a little pool on the carpet.

Aria’s dad slammed the front door. He kicked off his shoes in the foyer. He was grumbling.

Aria wished she could cry, but the tears just wouldn’t come anymore. She sat in silence while the trees flipped around and the rain fell.

The rain had finally come, but it wasn’t the gentle, soaking rain everyone had prayed for. Aria imagined it rushing in rivers over the hard-packed earth that couldn’t receive it. Just like revival. So much like the revival.

The rush of the rain hushed Aria’s mother to sleep. She sighed and fell away into a dream. Dark circles under her eyes gave her a gaunt appearance that was so unlike the lively face Aria had always known.

Aria’s dad walked in. He leaned on the back of the couch and gazed out into the storm. Aria could read on his face that he was rehashing arguments inside his head, over and over, looking for the flaw in his prosecution.

              “Dad?”

             
He looked over, and his face softened.

“Aria,” he said. “I’m so sorry. For everything…. Where did we go wrong?”

              Aria turned away to blink back tears. She watched the rain stream down the windows.

“Maybe we didn’t, Dad,” she said with a sad smile. “Not really.”

              He flinched as if her words had cut him.

“Maybe,” he said.

Aria sat for a while longer and watched her father.

Are they going to be okay?
she asked.
Please help them!

She felt as if she were watching her mother fall off a cliff as she fell deeper into sleep. She wanted to protect them from this hurt, this death blow to all that they knew and loved—but what could she do?

Her father was crusting over in front of her eyes, hardening himself against the betrayal.

Help!
she cried inside her heart.

But there was nothing to be done.

The rain blew against the windows in spitting fits of wind.

Aria finally closed her eyes and turned inward in exhaustion. She fell asleep to the rhythm of the soaking rain. The wind was calling her name.

18

ON THE CLIFFS

The field of tall grass rippled in a gust of wind under a bright sun. Aria followed the waving strands toward the horizon.

Soon she came to the edge of a cliff, where a bright blue ocean spread out before her. She knew this place. She had been here before. Aria sat in a small depression in the ground and let her legs dangle over the edge of the cliff. She waited.

Dandelions were growing in a patch to her left. She picked a few and began weaving them into a chain. Whitecaps formed and faded on the sea far out beyond the crashing foam and rocks below.

“Can I sit with you?” a voice asked.

The hair on Aria’s arms stood up. Her vision blurred with tears. He had come.

He lowered himself down next to her, dangling his bare feet over the edge of the cliff with hers, and began to pick dandelions for her. They seemed to glow more brightly as he plucked them. 

He completed the chain and placed it on her head.

“Someday, you will be clothed in honor,” he said.

Aria tried to imagine the incredible adventure he had planned for her, but all she could think about was how tight her chest got when he was near.

“I love you,” she managed.

She could feel him beaming in response.

“You’re my girl,” he said. “My little fish.”

She looked up. He was smiling down at her. His linen shirt flapped in the breeze. She couldn’t meet his gaze for long.

Aria lowered her eyes to his feet. She loved them with a passion, suddenly. They were overwhelmingly beautiful, humble, true.

The surf shook the cliff below them.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice caught in her throat. “I waited like a vulture for you to punish Pastor Ted.”

He tucked her hair behind her ear.

“He’s going to lose everything, isn’t he?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “He already has.”

They turned to look out over the sea. Aria thought about Tara and Jenny. She realized what she had seen in their eyes was not revulsion: it was fear.

What would happen to them? All the people who didn’t even know the truth well enough to choose it? Aria wondered how things could ever go back to normal.

But she was ruined for normal anyway.

She wiped her eyes.

“I’m ready,” she said, plucking a handful of grass and throwing it into the breeze. The wind carried it over the edge of the cliff and down to be swallowed by the waves.

“For?”

“For whatever you have planned for me. I don’t care if people think I’m nuts. I don’t care if they stop loving me. I—.”

Her voice broke.

“I just love you. That’s all.”

Now his eyes became watery.

“You found the truth,” he said, “and the truth has set you free.”

“It never really was about them, was it?” Aria asked. “It was more about you and me. It was about love.”

He smiled. “First of all,” he said.

“But they do matter to you,” she added.

He nodded. “Everyone matters,” he answered.

Aria grinned wider than she ever had before. The truth
had
set her free. He was truth. He was love. And she had never felt freer.

“Come on,” she said, rising to her feet.

He sprang up beside her.

“Where to now?” he said.

“Let’s go swimming.”

“I thought you’d never ask!”

He grabbed her hand.

They counted to three and then took a running jump off the cliff, laughing and flipping through the air toward the deep blue water below as the wind whipped their hair around their faces.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laura K. Cowan, The Dreaming Novelist, writes spiritual supernatural stories set against rich dreamscapes. A lifelong dreamer and modern Christian mystic, Laura draws from subconscious depths to bring the things we believe are impossible, spiritually and physically, into the world in a literal way, to bring the supernatural into the natural and help others come to see their infinite worth and the exquisite possibilities that exist in a world in which the supernatural is part of the natural order of things. Connect with her on her website
www.laurakcowan.com
, on Twitter (@laurakcowan) or on Facebook. She lives in Michigan with her husband and her 3-year-old daughter.

If you would like to contact Laura directly, please email her at

[email protected]
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