The Rising of Glory Land

by Janie DeVos

  “Let’s go back to the cottage,” he said, emotion evident in his deep voice.

  Leaving the remains of our meal behind, we ran up the beach to the keeper’s house, but the rain caught us anyway, and by the time we made it through the front door, we were thoroughly drenched. The cozy cottage was no longer bright and cheery, so Striker lit the gas lamp in the middle of the table, as well as a small fire in the wood stove. This early in March, it was still chilly, especially on the beach in a storm. Once the flames were licking the wood, Striker turned to me as I stood there drying my hair with a towel and dripping on the braided rug in the center of the room.

  Walking over to me, he took my face in his hands, brought his lips to within an inch or two of mine, then whispered that he loved me before kissing me deeply.

  When he pulled away, the look in his eyes was unmistakable: There was a confidence there, a knowing, and I knew that he was about to play teacher to a very willing but uneducated student.

  Keeping his intense eyes locked on mine, he pulled my soaked bandeau top over my head. Then, drawing me to him, he lowered his head, and his tongue sought out my taut nipples. The hot moisture on his tongue felt good on my rain-chilled skin. I held his head close to me, but he pulled away a moment later to finish undressing me. Then, as I worked at the buttons on his shirt and then his pants, he gazed down at me, smiling, obviously pleased with my eagerness to feel his naked skin against my own. Finally, after much kissing and touching, he led me to the bed. I lay down on my back, and he lay beside me, looking down at me as he gently brushed aside some wayward strands of hair from my face.

  “Eliza, am I the first man you’ve ever been with?” he asked.

  I was surprised at the question, but, at the same time, I respected him for assuming nothing and for realizing that my life might have involved others before him. I nodded, unable to trust my voice.

  “Good,” he whispered in my ear. He licked the outside of it, and then explored the inside. “That’s good,” he whispered again. I knew he was making me ready for him, and he was accomplishing it, to the point that I began to squirm against him, encouraging him, wanting him.

  “Eliza, look at me. This is going to hurt for a moment, but only for a moment, then never again after that.”

  I trusted him and gave myself over to him completely. And throughout our love making, Striker watched me, gently guiding me and encouraging me, while letting my excitement build and then relax a little so that he could build it up again. I felt as though I was riding a wave, rising and falling as it undulated. Finally, when he knew we both needed release, he let me crest the wave, and then we rode it all the way in together.

  At first light, I slid out of bed and put on a pair of pants and a flannel shirt. As I did, I looked down at my husband sleeping peacefully, and thought about how different I felt today. Something within me had been changed in the night, and as I looked down at the reason for the shift in me, I felt a depth of love that I’d never known before. Now, I understood how deep love could be, and I leaned over and softly placed a kiss on his slightly parted lips.

  Putting the coffee on, I sat out on the porch waiting for it to brew. Once it was ready, I filled a big mug, then walked down the beach, listening to the palm trees as they began to stir in wakefulness. Finally, I came to that place I’d remembered. It was a perfect spot to look across the bay at Miami and see her silhouette against the brightening sky. There upon the shore she stood, rising higher every day, and becoming a glistening, radiant jewel on the sand. Nestled within her were the people I loved, and together we would watch this glorious town grow; helping her to rise to magnificent heights, and helping her to stand up again if she fell. Through every season, for all time, we would be there, permanently weaving the stories of our lives into Miami’s beautiful tapestry.

  Read on for an excerpt from the fascinating conclusion to Janie DeVos’s trilogy of old Florida, The River to Glory Land, coming soon!

  Preface

  Eden in Ruins

  September 18, 1926

  Miami, Florida

  The roof blew off at exactly 3:17 a.m. I knew that because the violent winds that instantly invaded our home tore the kitchen clock off the wall, and shot it across our living room, where it barely missed Mama’s head before shattering at my feet. The roar in the room was so deafening that I couldn’t hear the clock’s wood and glass case explode. But I could see the time, and it was 3:17.

  Suddenly, Daddy grabbed my arm and pulled me into the kitchen, with Olivia and Mama right behind us. We made our way out the back door, which was hanging precariously by one hinge, and into the yard. Making a human chain, we clung to avocado and mango trees as we made our way through the backyard, paralleling the rising river, to Howie Weiss’s house. It was dark out, but the sky was an eerie cement-gray color, which only blended into the gray curtain of rain pelting us hard enough to skin us alive. Glancing up for a second, I caught a glimpse of Howie’s silhouette cast by the illumination of his lamp as he stood in the doorway urging us to hurry in. Thank God, he knows we’re coming, I thought.

  At last, we made it up the porch steps and into his kitchen, then Daddy and Howie used their shoulders to force the door shut. Once it closed, the muffled noise was a relief, yet oddly unnerving in its own way.

  “How’d you know we were coming?” Daddy breathlessly asked as he wiped the wetness out of his eyes with the back of his drenched sleeve.

  “Part of someone’s roof hit the side of our house,” Howie replied as his wife, Ellen, handed towels to all of us. “Looked out the back door to see what the dickens had crashed against our east wall and saw y’all comin’. Glad I did because I wouldn’t have heard you poundin’ on the door.”

  “That mighta been our roof,” Daddy said. “It’s completely gone.”

  “Well, thank God, you’re not,” Mrs. Weiss replied. “C’mon. Let’s move in to the living room. We’ll more comfortable in there.”

  We all got settled and I noticed that everyone had found someone to sit close to, closer than usual. I was sitting by Mama on the couch, while Daddy was sitting next to Olivia on a loveseat. She’d not said a word since she’d let out a blood-curdling scream when our roof started to peel back. Even in the weak lamplight, I could see that my younger sister was as pale as a ghost. Obviously, she was scared to death—we all were—but with Olivia’s quiet nature, I was never quite sure what she was thinking.

  Just then, something hit the house hard. “Lord God, this is a bad one,” Mr. Weiss said quietly, almost to himself. Fortunately, the sound of windows breaking did not accompany the loud bang, for if it had, it was likely the Weisses’ roof would go, too.

  The quiet in the room was heavy as we all continued to listen to the storm’s relentless rampage demanding entry. Each time the wind would rise into a high-pitched wail, I held my breath, and then let it out as the gale calmed down. Everyone gripped the arms of whatever piece of furniture they sat in with white-knuckled readiness as though we knew that at any second, we might be forced to make a mad dash out of the house. The only trouble was there was really no place to go. The neighbor between the Weisses’ place and ours wasn’t home and the house was boarded up tightly. And the neighbor on the other side of the Weisses was quite a distance down. Finally, my mother broke the silence.

  “Poor Mama said she got harassed all day by folks sayin’ that the headline about the approaching hurricane was just an attempt at sellin’ more papers.”

  She was referring to my grandmother, Eve Harjo, who worked at the Miami Herald. My mother said that Grandma had told her that by noon she’d heard enough malarkey about overblown stories, and so she’d left the paper and headed home.

  Home for my grandparents was the ten-storey Spinnaker Hotel they owned on Miami Beach, and the Weisses’ home actually belonged to them, too. It was the house where my mother and her brother, Dylan, had been raised, and Olivia and I had
spent much of our childhood there. Our home, which was probably completely destroyed by now, was where my father had grown up. Living practically next door to each other, my parents had been childhood sweethearts.

  “I’m surprised your folks didn’t come stay with y’all,” Mrs. Weiss remarked. “It seems like it’d be safer here, than right on the beach in a building that tall.”

  “Mama and Papa wanted to keep an eye on things at the hotel,” my mother explained. “Besides, some of the employees asked if they could ride out the storm there since their own places aren’t much more than shacks. Worries me, though, ’cause most of the windows on the upper floors don’t have protection on them. But all we can do is pray they’ll be fine.”

  And I was praying. I prayed that my grandparents and the hotel would both be standing after the storm. For without those two people I adored, I’d be completely devastated, and without their hotel, I’d be unemployed.

  Throughout the remainder of the early morning hours, we made small talk as we continued to watch the ceiling, praying the roof would hold, and listening to the storm’s wrath pound us with a fury unlike anything we had experienced before. Finally, as we sat at the kitchen table eating some of Mrs. Weiss’s guava jelly donuts, the rain stopped battering the house and the winds died down. Opening the kitchen door, we cautiously stepped outside to look at a new Miami awaiting us. In the course of just one night, she had fallen, leaving much of the city completely flattened and still submerged after a river of water from Biscayne Bay had surged inland. No one said a word as we surveyed the absolute destruction around us, though I could hear Mrs. Weiss and Olivia softly crying.

  “Well, I swear, would you take a look at that?” Mr. Weiss exclaimed. Everyone turned to him and saw that instead of looking around at all of the destroyed homes and buildings, he was gazing up. Our eyes followed his to a sight I was sure I would never forget if I lived to be a thousand. There, caught up in the splintered and leafless branches after being carried in on a tidal wave from the bay, were fish, hundreds of them, looking as though they were some kind of peculiar fruit hanging in a ruined Eden.

  About the Author

  Photo Credit: Barbara Kahn

  Janie DeVos is a native of Coral Gables, Florida. She attended Florida State University, then worked in the advertising industry for over a decade, including radio, cable television, public relations and advertising firms. Though her career changed over the years, one thing didn’t— her love of writing. She is an award winning children’s author. The Rising of Glory Land is the second book in her Glory Land series. Learn more at www.janiedevos.com.