But then again, I didn’t want to have come all this way for nothing.
I scooted my hands up over my head as far as they could go and grabbed the rope tightly. Pulling myself up, I pinched the rope with my feet, then continued like this upward, switching from hands to feet then hands to feet. My hands burned from the friction and my shoulders and arms ached, but I kept going, my fear overcoming the pain.
Fear is good only for one thing.
I was about halfway up when the rope started to move. I froze and hung on tightly, my heart beating faster. I looked down, but the ground spun dizzyingly and the rocks jutted out dangerously from the angle I was in. My common sense voted against it. Finally, when I came closer to the top of the wall and the rope went taut, a hand came out and caught me, hoisting me up onto the ledge.
I was face to face with a woman about in her thirties. She had dull green eyes and an oval-shaped face that was framed by brown, matted hair that reached to her waist. Two small braids started at her temples and went all the way down to the ends of her hair. She had on a satin robe that was wrapped tightly around her torso and brown sandals with straps that crisscrossed up to her knees. She was still holding on to her end of the rope, her skinny frame bent over with my weight.
She blinked twice.
“Rahab, who is that?” said a voice from somewhere in the house.
“Nairi, we have more company.”
Another woman appeared around the corner, this one much older looking with thick, gray hair that only reached to her chest and similar green eyes and oval-shaped face of Rahab. Her eyes widened at the sight of me. I was perched on the ledge like a cat sitting on its haunches, ready to spring at any moment.
“You said there were only two men, not two men and a girl,” Nairi hissed out of the corner of her mouth, her eyes watching me even as she spoke to Rahab.
Rahab stared at me dumbfounded, her mouth opening and closing as if she was about to say something but couldn’t. I thought this would have been a good moment to speak, but I was too stricken with fear to say a word. There was nowhere I could go. It was either down…or through.
It was too dark to see much, but the candle Nairi was holding illuminated the rest of the room behind her enough for me to see the latched door that seemed to lead inward towards the city. If I could get through, I could make it to the street, and from there, figure out what would come next.
But towards the city? Did I really want to do that? The rope was the best escape route, maybe my only escape route. It might be my only chance.
I was just about to grab hold of the rope and swing down over the ledge when there was a commotion at the front door that made me freeze. A group of men stood outside the entrance and someone’s fist was pounding against the wood. They were shaking the frame so hard splinters were shooting out from the door. The voices were muffled, but at the sound of them, both Nairi and Rahab went rigid. Nairi blew out her candle silently, and Rahab grabbed ahold of my arm, her face turning white.
“Come, come quickly. Do not ask questions.”
I could do nothing but follow her. She helped me down from the ledge, and through the dark, she led me to a ladder. I climbed it without hesitation, relying on my hands and feet to find the creaky rungs of the ladder that were made out of stalks of flax bound together. Rahab went up with me about halfway up the ladder and stopped, whispering for me to hide underneath the flax on the roof.
Once I reached the top of the ladder, I felt around on the ceiling and pushed up on the wooden door. Sticking my head out, I realized that the opening led to a flat roof covered in stalks of what looked very similar to fine strands of hay lying parallel to each other. The wooden door came out all the way, coming off like a jewelry box lid without hinges. I fit the door back into the square opening, making sure to bend low so that no one who happened to be looking at the roof could see me.
I chose a spot in one of the corners of the roof where the flax was piled up thicker. I dove underneath, covering myself with it and hoping no part of me was showing. I could hear the sound of the soldiers clearer now that I was outside, and the knocking persisted at the door. Not a second after I had hidden under the flax, I heard footsteps parading the room below. I lay perfectly still, anticipation making my body motionless with fear.
There was a muffled conversation underneath the door that led to the roof, some shouting, and then the sound of a soldier barging up the steps.
He stepped out onto the roof.
I could hear his labored breathing and his sandaled footsteps kick around the flax. I held my breath so my chest wouldn’t move. The soldier’s footsteps drew nearer to where I was, stopping an inch from my right hand. Closing my eyes, I waited for the moment when he would move his foot and discover me.
I should have made a run for it when I had the chance, but it was too late for that now. Much too late.
The soldier turned, his foot kicking the flax next to my hand, leaving it exposed. I didn’t dare move. One look down and then there would be no hope.
But he kept going. He didn’t stop and didn’t look down, disappearing down the ladder and closing the door shut.
It wasn’t long before the night fell silent with its regular commotion when I knew it was safe to move. I poked my head out of the flax, then scooted the rest of my body out from under it, a few pieces sticking to my clothes and hair.
From a pile of flax next to me, a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. In surprise, I almost let out a scream. I fought the hand that had grabbed me, wriggling and twisting.
“Stop moving!” a voice whispered, the tone urgent and panicked. I stopped and the hand let go immediately, disappearing back into the pile.
“Lie still.”
I did, keeping silent. A few moments later, the door opened to the roof and a figure poked her head out. A female voice whispered, “You can come out now. They have left.”
The pile beside me moved and a shadow emerged. It was too dark to see the figure’s face, but I could tell he was a male. Another pile of flax broke closer to the outer edge of the roof as another person crawled out. I drew back as the hand touched me again, but this time, it was gentler, “You can go ahead now.”
I nodded although I doubted he saw it. The woman disappeared back down the ladder to let us through. She had a clay oil lantern in her hand for light, only part of her face illuminated by the small flame.
“I know who you are. You come from the tribe of Israelites, the ones whose god parted the Red Sea and spared your people from the Egyptians. The ones whose god let them conquer many lands. I tremble in fear of you—all our people tremble in fear—and our hope has been diminished to nothing,” Rahab said. The older woman, Nairi, appeared from behind Rahab, her face enclosed in shadow.
Rahab’s eyes were wide and hopeful. “I ask that you repay our kindness to you with a promise that we will not be harmed when the time comes for your people to attack Jericho. I believe that your god has the ability to spare us. My whole family.”
The two men were easier to see in the light of the lantern, and I easily recognized them as the two spies I had been following.
“I told the soldiers you had already left before the gate had closed when you arrived. They are on their way in pursuit of you and don’t know that you are here, still in the city.”
The two men looked at each other silently, then one of them spoke. “Thank you for doing this for us. We will do as you asked. When the time comes for Jericho to be under attack, as long as you and your family are inside this home, you will be safe.”
Behind her, Nairi sighed a breath of relief and Rahab embraced her.
“We will need to bring the rest of the family here. It will be cramped, but we will be safe,” Nairi said, speaking softly. Rahab nodded.
“You can stay here for the night, but at dawn, if I were you, I would leave for the hills and stay there for three days before making your way back to your camp.”
“Xenon, how will we know which house is thi
s?” said the second spy.
“You’re right,” Xenon agreed, turning back to Rahab.
Rahab looked around, then left and came back with the rope. “I will leave this hanging out of the window, then you will know which house is mine.”
“Where will they sleep tonight? If the guards come back while we are all sleeping—”
“Mother, everything will be fine. They will just stay on the roof for tonight. The flax will cover them,” Rahab said.
“And what about her?”
Everyone turned to me, and automatically, I shifted backwards.
Xenon sighed. “We know who she is.”
It was then that I had finally found my voice. “What?”
“We know you’ve been following us. We’ve seen you.” Then to Rahab, “She is from our camp, although we don’t know who she is. She wasn’t sent by Joshua.”
“What is your name?” Rahab asked me.
“Genesis.”
“Genesis, why did you follow them?”
I thought about Jedidah and how much trouble she’d be in if I told them we had eavesdropped on Joshua, the leader of the Israelites. Me, I could be leaving this story any minute, but she was a part of the past and could suffer the consequences.
“I saw you leaving camp, so I followed you,” I shrugged.
“How did she last that long? You let a little girl follow you?” Nairi scolded. “If it is so easy for a girl to follow you, who is to say the guards will not follow you too? That means we are all in danger!” Her voice grew into a panicked shriek.
“Mother, please, be calm. These men know what they are doing.”
“And you are sure of that? Will they keep their promise? We won’t ever know for certain until it is too late!”
The first man laid a hand on Nairi’s shoulder and spoke softly but firmly. “It is not our promise, it is God’s. And the Lord never breaks His promises.”
“What do you mean there are two walls? And how could they be that massive?”
“I’m telling you the truth. The city is made of two walls, an inner one and an outer one. The actual heart of the city lies in the center, on top of the tell. It’s impossible to get in.”
“How did you get in, then, if it is so impossible?”
“A woman let down a rope and pulled us up through her window. That’s where we stayed that night, and then we hid in the hills for three days before we came back,” I said.
Jedidah leaned back against the boulder and pressed her fingers against her temples, her eyes glazed over and fading away into some distant place I didn’t know of. She was shaking.
“Jedidah, are you alright? What’s wrong?” My stomach clenched into a tight ball.
She didn’t look at me, but only whispered, “How is there any hope?” Her voice was icy and remote.
That was when I remembered something. It dropped like a stone out of the blue, and coming from nowhere and no one. Her face was blurry, like watercolors running together on a canvas, but her voice was clear and distinct. A drop of red on white.
“Faith gives us hope, darling. Faith has hope.”
And just like the red drop, her voice spread across the pale surface until it reached the outermost edges, spilling over the sides and cascading over the corners like a crimson waterfall. There was a burn deep in my chest as I remembered. I remembered.
Gently, I took Jedidah’s hand in mine and carefully placed it over her heart. Her tears dropped onto my hand. I caught them before I pulled away, her hand still on her chest.
“There is hope.”
She looked at me, a black strand of her hair sticking to her wet cheek. “How?”
I looked straight into her, her eyes swimming with something that I didn’t even know had a name until now.
“Because you have faith.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
I gasped, sitting upright with a heavy jolt, as if someone had sent a current of electricity through my body. For a moment, it was like my heart had hesitated, its half-beat hanging in the air. But the panic passed, my heartbeat steadily returning to normal.
I let out the breath that I was holding and picked up the book from the tattered carpet, its heavy sides hanging downward and bending back into a loop as I lifted it up by the bottom of the spine. The words swam around in little pools of black letters and I blinked my eyes to clear my head, setting the book back down again.
I felt a throbbing pain above my right eye. I rubbed it. The afternoon light shot through the grimy window and lit up little specks of dust that floated in the air. It hit the white pages of the open book that was still resting on the floor, making the words disappear beneath the blinding white light.
Reality. We meet again.
Why was it that my heart sank when I came back to this world? My two realities. The problematic part was that I couldn’t figure out which was which. I couldn’t remember who I was in the world I had come back to, only the person I used to be. And seeing everything that I had seen so far, how could that honestly compare to my life now?
I had lived a lie. The lie that there was nothing more to be given to us. Nothing more than to just find plain happiness and to live while you could and take what you didn’t already have. That there was more than just love and passion and mercy and peace and joy and everything else.
That there was faith.
Why had no one ever told me about faith?
Do I have faith that my dad will come home every day after work? Do I have faith that there will be food and drink in my mouth every night? Do I have faith that my teachers and friends will still be there every day at school instead of disappearing into thin air? I could say that I did, but only because they had been always there—constant. But did we not fall into the habit of things being there because that was what had always been? What was always expected?
It was what my dad and I had expected. Not for our lives to fall apart. Not for our lives to tear at the seams, breaking in half into two parts and two worlds. Pre-accident and Post. Past and Present. Could’ve Been and Never Would.
And why had we failed to build back everything we lost? Everything that vanished into thin air?
Because we tried to live two worlds at once, and that kind of thing just wasn’t possible.
“So…what do you want to do?” Aven asked for about the fifth time that night. And for about the fifth time, I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. It always bugged me when I was over at a friend’s house and they asked me that. How was I supposed to know what we should do? It was her house.
But it was never like this with Aven, even from the beginning. We never had the “awkward” stage in our friendship. We weren’t friends, and then we were. There had been no in-between. She accepted me from the start and we connected instantly. The fact that she was so different from me never got in the way of how we also were so similar
It was tonight, for the first time, that things felt different. A polite space had stretched itself out between us. I wondered if she had noticed yet, because it was staring me straight in the face.
She huffed. “Genesis, just pick something.”
“Why can’t you pick something?”
“Because you’re the guest.”
“Well, you’re the host.”
“But I picked something last time,” she argued.
I shifted myself into a different position on her leather couch. We were in her basement and a movie we had started half an hour ago and had long since abandoned still played on her television set. I picked at the frayed ends of the rug, now on my stomach and hanging halfway off the sofa.
“What’s wrong?” Aven asked suddenly.
I looked up at her, incredulous, craning my neck to see her from my awkward position.
“I was just about to ask you that.”
She looked offended. “What do you mean?”
I looked back down at the carpet and continued to pick at the rug, embarrassed to meet her gaze as I was about to accuse her of her actions over th
e past couple weeks.
“Well, usually I wouldn’t say anything, but you’ve been acting weird lately. I mean, you used to get just as good grades as I did. But now, it’s like you don’t care as much anymore. And you’re so distant—short-tempered even at times.” I took a breath and was about to say more, but she jumped in.
“I’ve just been stressed, is all,” she said. This time, it was her turn to look down, playing with the buttons on the remote.
She was lying. But I kept my mouth shut and continued to press. “Stressed about what?”
“I don’t know, tests, things going on. I’m just really busy,” her voice went up in a whine at the end of the sentence. She stabbed at the mute button with her finger. Sound off, sound on. Sound off, sound on.
“Okay,” I answered tentatively, but I wasn’t satisfied, so I let my voice show it. She looked up and eyed me, her brow furrowing and teeth biting at her bottom lip.
“You told me you were fine with Alex.”
I thought about that. Yes, I had texted her and asked about her “new friend” a week ago. Although I hated to admit it, I was jealous. But that was just it, Alex wasn’t one of her old friends like me. She was new. Alex’s world was light-years away from mine, and what I would like to think was the same for Aven’s. If I had known anything about Aven, she was not the faded blue tips of dyed blonde hair and tight skirts kind of girl. Alex’s very disposition screamed it like bloody murder. That girl bothered me. She bothered me to no end.
“I never said I was fine with Alex.” Except I did. But it had been a lie.
“What’s so wrong with her? You don’t even know her,” Aven shot back, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder.
“She just…I don’t know!”
“Like you haven’t been ‘making friends’ lately,” she jabbed, exaggerating “making friends” with the most sarcastic tone she could come up with.
Worthy of Rain Page 21
