Worthy of Rain

by Elizaveta Fehr

  I choked back a gasp. “Death? That seems a little harsh.” But Jedidah didn’t seem interested in my comment. She was staring out over the last of the crowd with a frown, her eyes narrowed and brows furrowed.

  I looked over my shoulder to follow her gaze.

  Joshua and two other men I’d never seen before were disappearing behind the entrance of the tabernacle. I looked from her, then to the guards who were now garrisoned at the entrance, and then back to her again. “Jedidah, no, I don’t think we should—”

  “Come on.” She grabbed my wrist and urged me along with her, spinning me in the opposite direction of her retreating family. We pushed past the last of the dwindling crowd.

  “Your father…” I began, casting a quick glance behind me. Jedidah’s family had already morphed into the trail of the mob.

  “It’s fine, I’m always running off. He should know by now.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” I muttered under my breath. “Jedidah, what exactly are we doing?” I added a bit louder.

  Jedidah, who was now standing outside the tabernacle, still had my wrist clenched in her hand. For a nervous girl she had an insurmountable amount of curiosity.

  “I want to see something.” She frowned at the wall of fabric blocking our entrance, creeping closer.

  “Considering that it’s guarded, I don’t think we are allowed in there.” I had my arms crossed, watching Jedidah’s exaggerated inspection.

  She faced me, hands on her hips, a little huff escaping her lips. It blew a strand of hair from her face. “Of course not. The Ark of the Covenant is in there. Only Joshua and a select few are allowed inside.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “The Ark of the Covenant?”

  “A gold chest that has the Ten Commandments inside. It’s extremely holy and no one can touch it.” She dropped to her knees and tried to put her face to the crack at the bottom of the tarp wall. She looked up at me and squinted in the sun. “Everyone knows that.”

  “Then why are you trying to get in?” I changed the subject.

  She gestured for me to come closer and kneel down. I sighed but obliged. This was ridiculous.

  “Joshua is smart. Even with God on our side, he’s not going to send all of our armies in blind, especially into a territory we’ve never entered before.” She was whispering now that we were so close to the wall of the tabernacle. “Just listen.”

  We flattened ourselves against the sand and pressed our ears next to the gap between the wall and the ground.

  “I need you to do a favor for me,” said Joshua’s distinct voice.

  “Anything,” a man’s voice replied, one I didn’t recognize.

  “I need you to go to Jericho and scout out the city. You must go either in the late of the night or the early morning. Tell no one or our enemies might find out you are spying on them.”

  “We will go soon. The faster we get there, the faster we can get back,” another man’s voice said, different from the first.

  “Of course, go,” Joshua agreed. “You will need to cross the Jordan River, and that may slow you down. May the Lord be with you, my good men.”

  “Thank you, Joshua.”

  There was the sound of shuffling feet as the trio moved farther from the wall where we were eavesdropping. Jedidah sat up swiftly. The whole front half of her body was covered in sand, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Now what?” I brushed off the sand stuck in the creases of my tunic. I froze when I looked up and saw her staring at me, mouth agape.

  “Jedidah…” I warned.

  “Someone has to follow them.”

  My shoulders sagged and I rolled my eyes. “Okay, and why exactly? They sound like they’ve got it covered.” I tried to sound uninterested, but to be honest, my curiosity was more on Jedidah’s side. I mentally smacked myself.

  “No one has been to the city before. You heard Joshua. No women and children will even be there when the soldiers conquer it. Someone has to tell us what everything looks like. We’ve been dreaming about this for ages. It’s not fair that the men get to be the first to see it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We’re following two very well-trained spies because you’re jealous?”

  Jedidah finally brushed the sand off of her stomach casually. “You mean you when you say ‘we,’ right?”

  I gawked at her. “What? I’m not going by myself.”

  “Why not? It can’t be that hard to follow two spies.”

  “It’s not like they’re watching their backs or anything,” I added sarcastically.

  Jedidah clasped her hands together. “Please? You know my father. He rarely lets me out of his sight anymore. If he found out…”

  “I have a father too,” I grumbled. I glanced at her waiting face and sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  Her grin reached her ears and she hugged me.

  “What do I have to lose anyway?” I said under my breath.

  I jerked awake. The blood rushed to my head. My body tingled almost painfully. I waited for the room to stop spinning—for the attic room to stop spinning.

  My shoulders sagged. I’d thought I was strong enough to stay in the story. How did I get back so soon?

  I had no idea what time it was. I checked my cell phone screen. Midnight.

  I rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing before I started reading. In fact, I couldn’t remember what I had been doing before that either.

  Ah. Jace. The paint. The project. It was coming back.

  I tucked the Bible back onto the shelf and tiptoed softly down the steps. The door to the kitchen creaked a little as I pushed it open, and I turned sideways to fit myself through the small opening before the door could make any more noise.

  The house was quiet and dark. Shadows took the places of furniture. Willingly, I crept into my bed and tried to sleep. But my mind was uneasy.

  It was…eerie…jumping from one world to another. A world I’d never even known existed. A world of the past I used to think was fake. A part of me wondered if it was a figment of my imagination. I mean, it had to be, right? Who time travels to the past?

  But how could I make something up I’d never known existed?

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “‘Whatever you have commanded us we will do,

  and wherever you send us we will go.’”

  Joshua 1:16 NIV

  Panic set in.

  How could I have lost them? If I could have kicked myself, I would have. I’d closed my eyes for a second. How could they have left so silently?

  They’re well-trained spies.

  Yeah, I needed to start listening to myself more.

  This morning had started off on the wrong foot to begin with. The chill of the morning was long gone by now as the sun heated my skin to a pulp. Minus the fact that I’d gotten little to no sleep, having woken up with Jedidah pushing me out of the tent even before the stars were gone for the night. I could have given myself a pat on the back for following them this far…this long.

  And then they’d stopped to rest. My eyes had drooped heavily. My legs had turned into freshly cooked sausages. I had blisters covering every inch of my feet.

  Stop thinking of sausages.

  I shook my head. Focus. I needed to focus.

  Can you die in a book?

  West. They were headed west. I needed to get higher up. I couldn’t see much from here. The thought of subjecting myself to the harsh sun boiled my already aching skin, but I reached for a crevice in the rock and hauled myself up. I stood up, panting, and tucked my head covering farther over my forehead. I shielded my eyes from the sun and squinted, scanning the distance.

  I stopped when I saw the river.

  It was filled to the brim, reflecting the sunlight with millions of shards of glass spilling over the bank. The water gushed downstream rapidly, reeds tumbling in the river’s current. Its rustling filled my ears.

  There was movement along the bank. I crouched low so they wouldn’t se
e me. It was them alright. Their figures stood out against the rocks near the Jordan River.

  I didn’t waste any time. I started to make my way down the hill to the river, careful to keep low behind the boulders. I glanced up in my haste to check if they had crossed, and indeed they had, swimming through the currents expertly and attentively, as if they had done it many times before. They appeared on the other side of the river.

  I was too far, too many paces back. They were already over the grassy hill that covered the ground on the other side of the Jordan River by the time I reached its banks. Pacing along the edge, I let out a sigh of frustration. The muddy current broke over rocks in the river, churning and spilling, then rushing on past with vigor that made my insides squirm in fear. I would never be able to cross this current. It was one thing for two full-grown men with experience to do it and another for an unathletic bookworm like me to do the same.

  Now what? I couldn’t go back to Jedidah. She was counting on me to make it through.

  I didn’t have a choice. I needed to cross.

  Pushing back the part of my mind that was screaming at me to stop, I waded in the river to about knee-deep. The water was icy against my bare legs and toes. Little pins jabbed my skin as goosebumps rose up my legs and back and arms.

  Genesis, keep pushing through, you’re almost there. Keep going. Don’t think, just keep going.

  And that’s when the muddy bottom of the river disappeared from under my feet. I plunged into the river’s depths, the water engulfing me whole.

  The water poured into my ears and my mouth as I fought for the surface. I panicked, enveloped by a dome of murky water. Finally, kicking my legs and flailing my arms, I broke through the water and gasped for air. Twigs and palm branches scraped passed me as I let the current carry me downstream. I could feel the bottom of the river as I went down and under several times, so I knew the water level was just over my head. Grabbing for a bundle of reeds and gnarly bushes sticking out of the bank, I grunted and used whatever strength I had left to pull me onto the other side.

  Lungs on fire, water flowed out of my nose and mouth as I laid on my chest, my cheek resting against the ground. I breathed deeply to get air back into my lungs, then ended up spewing up more water that burned like flames on its way out.

  I groaned and pushed myself up. There was no time. I had to keep moving.

  I got up to the top of the hill, chest heaving and body shivering as the wind blew across the landscape. My heart lifted.

  Stretched out to the horizon, the land flowed into a chain of hills and mountains. The dips and bends obscured most of the view. Heat waves rose from the ground and made the image shimmer, as if the mountains themselves were alive and ebullient, their outlines and shadows dancing across the sand and dirt. A stillness like no other seemed to pervade the air, filling the atmosphere with a calming sense of tranquility, the very kind that settles in the heart and seems to linger like the aftertaste of a sweet fruit on your tongue. Even though the wind kicked up clouds of caramel-colored dust and the heat of the sun encircled me with humidity, there was a taste of salt blowing in from the west as the smell of life swelled through my lungs. I had never seen anything like it before.

  It had only been a few minutes before I realized I had been standing in the same position the whole time without moving an inch. I looked back at the river, the waters lapping over the sides and carrying branches in its arms that floated passed and disappeared downstream. I regained my composure, turned, and started ahead towards the cluster of hills, my heart fluttering faster with each step. There was no turning back now.

  “I’m so nervous for this test.”

  I picked at my green beans. They were bland and tasted more like wax and less like vegetables. Aven sat next to me at the lunch table, braiding her hair.

  “I’m not.”

  I looked at her. Lunch was when we usually compared notes or checked homework together.

  “Did you study a lot?”

  She shrugged. “No.”

  I put down my fork. “Uh, since when have you not studied? I thought you cared about school.”

  “I mean, I had more important stuff to do last night. One bad test grade is not going to change my grade.”

  “Aven, you’re at a D right now.”

  “Right, that’s my point. There’s no point in trying.”

  I picked at my green beans again, but not because they tasted bad. It’d been testy between the both of us lately. There’d be days when Aven wouldn’t even sit with the regular girls and me at lunch. She’d go back and forth between Alex’s table and ours, but then she’d end up staying over there anyway. I was sick of watching her turn into a Ping-Pong ball.

  And guess when this all started? When her and Alex became friends.

  I swallowed. “That sounds a lot like something Alex would say.”

  Aven glared at me. “Can you stop? Alex is actually cool. You don’t have to be so judgy,” she snapped.

  I held up my hands. “Geez, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound mean. I’m just looking out for you.”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine.” There was a bite in her voice.

  I tried not to show the hurt on my face. “Is something wrong? You haven’t seemed like yourself lately.” I thought about how she acted when she saw Jace and me at the library.

  “No, there’s nothing wrong.”

  I went back to eating my green beans. Or not eating them, technically.

  “Hey,” she added, finishing her braid, “let’s hang soon, okay? Come over to my house. We haven’t done anything together lately.”

  That’s because you’ve been with Alex.

  I tried to smile. “Yeah, I’d be down.”

  Aven’s attention turned towards another table in the corner of the cafeteria. “I’m going to go talk to Alex super quick. I’ll be right back.” But as she stood up, she took her tray with her. I stared at her backpack as she walked away.

  Something told me she wasn’t coming back.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “But someone told the king of Jericho,

  ‘Some Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.’”

  Joshua 2:2 NLT

  I waited and watched as they slunk across the stony ground, keeping low and staying near the base of the wall that loomed thirty to forty feet high above their heads. The afternoon sun was beginning to descend towards the ground, a hue of salmon and golden streaks spreading out into the cloudless sky.

  The city of Jericho was so massive, I had spotted it from several miles away. It was set on a tell that rose above the ground and had two walls enclosing the city, one running around the base of the hill and the other running around the pinnacle of the mound. A heap of stones made up the base of the outer wall, reaching to about twelve feet and then merging into the actual wall, which from the looks of it was made of mudbrick and seemed to be several feet thick.

  I watched the city in wonder from my position. I was only able to make out the top of the houses at the crest of the city. From farther away, I was able to see a few of the houses that were between the lower wall and the upper wall, but now even the sun was blocked by the looming walls of Jericho.

  I caught up with the two spies. At first, they were careful not to go near the city wall, taking shelter behind a grove of trees. But as the sun dropped lower and shadows became more prominent, they ventured out from their spot, moving closer with slow but carefully timed movements. I tried to mimic them, but I fell back farther and farther.

  Once they reached the base of the wall and were moving at a fast pace along it, I sprinted from my spot behind a boulder to a tree dying in the shadows of the city. Concealed behind the almost dead leaves, I watched them. They stopped at one part of the wall not much farther down. I squinted my eyes to see better in the darkness as the last of the sun disappeared behind the earth. Both of their heads were tilted upward towards the top of the wall.

  I followed the direction they were looking,
and for the first time, I noticed the small window at the top. It wasn’t very big nor very noticeable, and from a distance, could be easily missed.

  One of the spies in the dim of light clasped his hands together and put them over his mouth. A faint sound, high-pitched and one that could easily be mistaken as a bird call, whistled through his fingers. He put his hands down and waited, watching the window.

  Only a few seconds passed before a rope appeared through the window and was quickly let down. There was a loop at the bottom of it. The spy grabbed it as it came within reach and he pulled it down to his foot. He slowly ascended up the wall and disappeared through the window before the rope was let down a second time for the other spy. This time, as he crawled over the ledge, the rope slipped past him and fell, loosely swinging back and forth against the wall like a red pendulum.

  I didn’t waste another second. Springing to my feet, I raced across, running parallel with the wall until I reached the rope. I jumped up and swung my arm to grab it, but my fingers missed the loop by an inch. I tried again, and this time, I gained about a centimeter but still fell short. My heart was skipping beats. Out in the open, I was vulnerable. Anyone could just look down and spot me if I stayed here much longer.

  I looked at the stones that made the base of the wall. They weren’t as consistently built as the rest of the wall, some pieces jutting out in certain places and certain stones not fitting together at random intervals. Turning so that my back faced them, I took several steps back before I faced the wall again. Running at full speed towards it, I leaped, pushed off a stone in the wall, and kicked upward, making one last reach for the rope.

  This time, I connected.

  My arms burned as I pulled myself up so that I could put my foot through the loop and stand on it. My weight made the rope swing back and forth against the wall, and I waited until it stopped moving before I took a breath and calmed my pounding heart. I looked up at the wall towering above me. It looked much more menacing than it did before. I considered dropping back down to the ground to find a place to hide somewhere in the hills away from the city. This was too dangerous. How was I expected to get up there? And worse yet, what if I was discovered here by someone from the city, hanging from the wall like a skinned cow in a smokehouse?