I turned to look out the window, my mind blurring the day into one blind mess. I tried not to think about what happened in the library and at lunch, but it was close to impossible. The distance from the school to my house wasn’t very far, but because we usually have to make so many stops, it could easily take ten or fifteen minutes to get to my bus stop.
Great. More time to torture myself.
An image of how Jace reacted back in the library popped up unexpectedly. Had he seen something? He looked like he’d seen a ghost.
I tried to shake it off. It probably meant nothing. But as we passed by the local ice cream shop, a chill spread up my spine, stretching its way to the base of my neck.
A stallion—burgundy-red coat glinting in the sunlight and wispy hairs whipping in response to its elongated strides—galloped into my view, growing closer to the window as its long legs carried it with the speed of the bus. I blinked in shock, pressing my hand against the window. His body looked strong and lean, muscles rippling. But as he grew closer, I began to see the details of his coat and the muscles underneath his skin better than before.
The red wasn’t a part of the color of his coat. Instead, his body was spattered with clusters of spots and raw flesh. His muscularity turned into swollen muscles and skin. Boils peppered along his flank, flaming and bubbling under a now scorching sun.
But his eyes. The eyes were what got me.
They were crimson.
And so was my hand that was pressed against the window.
I felt fingers grab my arm firmly, and I turned to see Jace whip his hand with my clutched arm in it towards his chest.
“Genesis, you’re crying. Your face is whiter than I’ve ever seen.” His eyes were wide as he looked into mine, scanning them for recognition. He acted like I was about to faint any minute, grasping my arm tightly. “Look at me.”
My eyes still hadn’t focused on him completely. He placed a hand under my chin to stabilize me.
“What did you see?”
Was I really crying? I brought up my hand to feel the still hot tears sliding down my face.
“I…I don’t know,” I tried to say, but I tripped over my words.
“Do you need me to tell the bus driver?” Anxiety was behind his words. He started to get up.
I put up a hand. “No, please don’t. I’m fine.” Strength was coming back into my voice, and now my vision was starting to clear.
He sat back down reluctantly. I tried to think of something to say, a way to explain everything, but I couldn’t.
“I’m fine,” I said again. “I just need to get home.”
He looked skeptical, but leaned back against the seat anyway. I looked down at his other hand. Embedded in his skin were crescent-shaped fingernail marks, the kind that would appear after you’ve been clenching your fists too tight.
Maybe he’d seen the stallion too.
He was quiet as I stood at the door to my house, trying to unlock it. I glanced at him as I unlocked the door. His eyebrows were furrowed and his mouth was set into a slight frown like he was thinking.
The back door grumbled as we got inside, the screen door slamming shut behind us. The house was enveloped in a quiet, subdued ambience, the kind that settled in an empty house on a cloudy afternoon. The sun had disappeared as a few dark clouds covered it.
The image of the horse still played in front of my eyes, appearing every time I blinked or turned my head. Jace was watching me closely, although he was trying not to make it obvious.
He leaned against the counter, his backpack dropped at his feet. I knew what he was saying even if he didn’t say it.
What happened back there?
You wouldn’t understand.
Oh, wouldn’t I?
It was nothing.
Didn’t look like nothing.
I’m fine.
Just try me.
Just trust me.
“So this project really determines our grade, huh?” He didn’t say it like it was a question.
I stared down at my feet and nodded. There was silence between us.
“Jace, I don’t know what to do,” I said as I brought up my eyes to meet his.
“We do what we planned on doing.”
“And what if she gets us kicked out?”
He shook his head as he looked at the ground. “Then so be it.” He nudged his bag with his toe and looked up, his eyes determined. “If we back out, we will be the hypocrites she already thinks we are. And that’s not the only thing. This is who we are, what we believe in. Faith should never be sacrificed to please a controlling teacher.”
Faith. There was that word again.
I closed my eyes and nodded. “Guess we should get started then.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
“When he feels the force of my strong hand,
he will let the people go.”
Exodus 6:1 NLT
The front door shut as Jace headed out. I waved at him from the window and I thought I might have seen him wave back through the tinted backseat windows in his mom’s car.
After two hours of researching, we were only slightly farther along than we were before. I was mentally exhausted, and all I really wanted to do was curl up underneath a blanket and fall asleep. But I couldn’t. Not now, at least. The day had been far too bizarre for me to just leave it as it was. Leaving off with the blood in my last reading and then seeing the frogs, the flies and gnats, and the horse…something wasn’t right. I wasn’t supposed to be able to see things in real life when I wasn’t actually reading anything.
The attic was darker than it usually was in the afternoon. The clouds outside shut out the usual light that came through the third-floor windows. It was thankfully still light enough to see the words as I flipped to my bookmarked page.
The room stopped spinning. Instead of grass or dirt, I felt sand turning underneath my sandals. The sky was dark, the line between heaven and earth almost invisible as black clouds shifted across each other in a thundering mass. It was already raining, the piercing drops attacking my skin as I squinted my eyes through the storm. I tried to see past the white streaks of rain that were obscuring my vision, but I couldn’t make out a thing. Trying to look past the rain made me look at the droplets closer.
They weren’t raindrops. They were chunks of hail.
I ran to take cover, but the hail was everywhere with no shelter in sight. The ice pellets were bruising my skin, and small trickles of blood oozed from open cuts. My tears mixed with the blood from my cracked lip.
The hail was silent as it landed in the sand, a deadly enemy surrounding me on all sides. I ran, my feet stumbling and my hands creating a shield above my eyes.
Suddenly, the soundless air vibrated with a penetrating hum. It reminded me of the humming of an old television set. Goosebumps crawled up my body, my instincts recognizing the sound.
Horrendous, ugly green locusts fell from the sky. The hail was changing into swarming, winged bodies.
I sprinted faster, adrenaline pumping through my veins. I swatted at the locusts. My feet blindly ran across the sand.
My toe caught on something solid, sending me sprawling onto the ground. The swarm of locusts rose over the figure like water flowing over the top of a rock in a creek, leaving a small space open on the other side. I ducked behind the object, leaning against it in the empty space so that the locust swarm passed over me.
I didn’t know how much time had passed, but eventually, the locust swarm started to thin out. I waited until it disappeared completely and the last of the locusts were out of sight. The desert was eerily quiet. I sat up, scanning my surroundings. It looked like I was stuck in the middle of nowhere.
It was lighter now that the hail and locust storm had passed. Thin slivers of moonlight showed through small holes in the clouds. I turned to see the object I had fallen over, wondering what could be lying in the middle of the desert.
When I saw it, my skin turned cold and my heart froze mid-beat.
; The little boy’s bloodless face was ghostly white, his mouth open and eyes vacant. His body was twisted so that his torso was turned to the side, but his face was looking up towards the moon.
The lights blinked out and I was yet again thrust into darkness.
Jedidah’s face was blurry at first. It came back into focus as I blinked my eyes rapidly. She was staring out into the river like I hadn’t just suddenly disappeared several hours ago. Her mouth was moving like she was telling me something, but my ears were ringing and I couldn’t hear anything.
“His child…dead…he let…free…” she said. I could only catch fragments of her sentences.
“Who?” I blinked my eyes like I do in the morning when the sun is too bright. I tried to steady myself.
“Pharaoh.” She looked at me. “That’s how the Israelites escaped forty years ago. After the ten plagues, he was fed up with God, so he let the Israelites go.”
Ten…
“The frogs, the bugs, the boils, the animals…that was all God?”
“Yes, I told you that, didn’t I?”
It was all making sense. The strange things I had been seeing all day. It was from her. At least, it was from what she had been telling me.
But why was I seeing it in real life?
“He came after us.” She was staring at her hands, her dark hair blowing across her face.
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t born yet, but my grandmother went through it all. She told us the stories. That’s why we all want to go to the Promised Land. It’s been so long, wandering for forty years.”
She sighed. “The Israelites…they did not take freedom so well. They indulged in everything and anything God told them not to indulge in, and He ended up punishing them for it. No one was allowed to enter the land set aside for God’s people. The land across the Jordan,” she looked down at the bank.
“My grandmother was pregnant with my mom. Then Udom and I came along, and you can guess the rest,” she finished. “Some of our people will never get to see the Promised Land, including my mom. She’s already gone.” There were tears in her eyes and she fought them back. “My faith has not been as strong since then.”
Her tears held hopelessness in them, desperate for something she knew was missing. Maybe it was her mom, God, or maybe it was both.
All I knew was when I looked at Jedidah, I saw someone I recognized. Her words echoed in my head, but instead of hearing her voice, I heard my own.
I held out my arms and pulled her into a hug just like she had done for me the night I stayed in her family’s tent. Her body wracked with sobs. She and I had switched places and I was the comforter now.
“I know what you mean,” I whispered.
She pulled away and wiped her eyes, taking a few last sniffs.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized breathily. “I don’t know why I broke down like that.”
“I do,” I assured her, giving her a small reassuring laugh. She laughed a little too and hugged me one more time. The sun was setting, making the Jordan River orange in hue and glowing with the last bits of afternoon light. The thumbnail moon was already out.
“Tomorrow is going to change everything. For the rest of our lives, we will always remember tomorrow in our history,” she said as she scanned the hills on the other side. “And this time, no one will be left behind.”
The golden box shone amber in the morning sun. The priests stood at the water’s edge with the box lifted onto their shoulders by two long poles bracing the bottom of it.
The Ark of the Covenant.
Inside it contained the Ten Commandments—God’s written law. But apparently, it was something no one could touch or even touch the box around it.
The procession of people stretched farther than I could see, tents and belongings packed up into carts with families waiting at the wheels. We watched intently as the priests slowly dipped their feet into the water. I was frozen in place, unbelieving. I had almost gotten swept away by this same river several days ago. How did they expect to get across? What about the rest of us?
I imagined the Red Sea splitting like how Jedidah described it. Massive walls of water towering over a narrow strip of land, shadows of fish and sea creatures darting near the walls. The sound must have been deafening, all of that water shooting up into two massive structures.
Is that what was going to happen now?
My heart beat faster with the prospect.
The priests shuffled farther away from the shallow bank, plunging deeper into the middle of the river. I held my breath, expecting one of them to drop into the water or be swept away by the current.
But as they walked farther and farther towards the center of the Jordan, the water level lapped at their ankles and tugged softly at their cloaks.
The water level was lowering…by the gallons.
In a matter of minutes, the Jordan River changed from a raging mass of current to a dark sandy beach sprawling across both banks. Bits of plants and clusters of rocks were scattered across the floor.
A rumbling war cry reverberated up and down the clans, the first in the procession stepping forward to join the priests across the Jordan River. They stayed in their spot in the middle of the river. The battle men were the first to advance, their faces vibrant and confident. The people’s pale faces flooded with color, the crowd breaking into song. The joy was intoxicating in the most beautiful way possible.
I glanced at Jedidah, her hair blowing back from her tear-streaked face. She was smiling and, for once, was absolutely speechless.
“If only my daughter could see this,” Hagar whispered. I hadn’t noticed her approaching from behind, but she didn’t seem to be speaking to me in particular. Her gaze was fixed on the bank on the other side of the Jordan River.
Not a drop of water touched our feet as we crossed. Jedidah’s family waited along the bank with the rest of their tribe on the opposite side.
“This is a big deal, isn’t it?” I said, standing next to Jedidiah and her brother.
He nodded, his eyes shining. “We are camping out here until Joshua tells us to head to Jericho—the men, that is,” he smirked at Jedidah who punched him. She had a gleam in her eye that I caught immediately.
I pulled her aside. “Jedidah, I know what you’re thinking,” I said warningly. She ignored me as she looked in the direction of the city of Jericho. A pit the size of a basketball fell to the bottom of my stomach.
This couldn’t be good.
Chapter Fifty-Four
“Now the gates of Jericho were
securely barred because of the Israelites.
No one went out and no one came in.”
Joshua 6:1 NIV
It was times like these when I wondered why I was the one in front all of the time.
Jedidah crouched behind me, biting her nails as she scanned the group of soldiers gathering at the meeting place. The group was filling in as men were added to the crowd. It was dark enough to hide, but bright enough to see the milling of faces as the warriors gathered together at the usual meeting place.
They had been doing this for six days now. They would meet here. They would march around the city. They would come back. They would repeat the process the next day.
But this day was supposed to be different. This day was the day everything was supposed to change.
The seventh day.
Which was definitely the reason why Jedidah and I were crouched down behind a boulder, waiting for the right moment; it was precisely the reason why we were dressed in warrior getup; and it was absolutely why we were going to see the Israelites charge the gates of Jericho.
I was terrified.
The number of warriors coming in started to trail off, the middle circle pulsating with energy. The warriors were excited, feeding off of each other’s anticipation.
A figure stood on top of another boulder, the outline of Joshua’s body black against the slight ray of sunrise peeking over the earth. The crowd turned and a hush
fell among them.
Jedidah nudged me forward. I waved her away, taking a tentative step out behind the rock. We silently camouflaged ourselves into the back of the group, our chins dipped to hide our faces.
“Today will not be the same, brothers,” Joshua began. “Today, the fears we have used to wash our feet and adorn our clothes will no longer be a part of our world any longer. This is where we belong, and this is where we will forever stay.”
A war cry erupted among the thousands.
“By the grace and mercy of God, we will march around the city seven times. When you hear the horns, shout as loud and mighty as you can, for that will be the weapon that crumbles Jericho’s formidable walls to the ground.”
The soldiers raised their spears.
“But mind the order of God who says anyone who will take any treasure from the city for themselves will suffer grave punishment. This same punishment will be awarded to anyone who harms the prostitute, the one who has helped our spies escape a terrible death.”
The name Rahab was whispered among the crowd, bouncing from tongue to tongue.
Joshua stood as still as a rock on top of the boulder. His stance was wide and he held a spear in his left hand, the tip pointing towards the now rising sun.
“By the grace of God, move out!”
The beast groaned with the cries, and it moved. At its tail, Jedidah and I kept our heads down as we blended into the army. I lifted up my head for a moment to catch a glimpse of the double-walled city appearing behind the hills.
Jace was sprawled out onto the bed, groaning into a pillow.
“At least the diagram looks beautiful.”
I looked over at the waterfall we added to the model. Elephant figurines stood around the bottom of a painted pool and a small creek led to a grassy hill where gazelles leapt in midair. Jace had to paint bases for the gazelles to make them stand up over the pop-up grass. A mountain, slightly bigger than the waterfall, took up the rest of the diagram, figurine birds held up above the peak with thick wire. Everything was made entirely of wood, Styrofoam, clay, and anything we could find from Hobby Lobby.
But the best part was that it was all painted. Beautifully painted so that every detail, every color, blended into each other like a scene from real life.
Worthy of Rain Page 24
