“There you are.” He smiled. He glanced at the door as I clicked it shut behind me.
“What were you doing in the attic again?”
“Just looking at the books there,” I said carefully.
His reaction lasted for only a second, but was I imagining it or…was that suspicion that crossed his face? If I would have looked away at that moment, I would’ve missed it.
“Were you looking for anything in particular?” He turned his back to me and picked up his keys from the counter. He tossed them in his hand and placed them back down again.
“No.” I paused, and then curiosity got the best of me. “Why are you asking?”
He shrugged and turned towards the sink. “I just thought,” he cleared his throat then continued. “I could have gotten you something from the library, if you were looking for something…”
That cough was a dead giveaway. He definitely didn’t like something.
I frowned. I had never taken much interest in the attic before, so what was his problem now? It was usually covered with stuff like Mexican sombreros and ornaments shaped like the Washington Monument, most of it all from vacations my mom and dad took before I was born. One time, I found an old chess board and my parents’ decorations and guest book from their wedding, but that was pretty much it.
“No, really, it’s fine. I’m pretty much done up there anyway.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie, but something told me all of these visions and the book searching wasn’t the best thing to bring up.
Dad gave me an unconvinced smile and scratched his stubble.
“Mom used to love old books,” I said after a long pause.
He drew in a troubled breath and his face acquired a distant look. “She did.”
He leaned against the counter with one hand and shuffled his feet for a moment, and I could tell memories were swarming through his mind like a cloud. It could just have been about all the mementos up there in that attic that was making him anxious. Objects and pictures seemed to pluck a piece of time out of the air for safekeeping.
But the moment lasted for just that—a moment. “I’ll be at my desk,” he said tersely. He headed down the stairs that led to the basement. I watched him, my heart crushing, and wondered if this all would ever get better.
Just to get things clear, my mom died when I was five years old. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so it’s just my dad and me. Sometimes, I think it’s just him and his grieving, even though he’s gotten better at accepting it. In a way, we’ve come closer together, but the space between us will always be an old enemy.
I glanced at the door that led to the attic. I knew my dad well. Something was bothering him, and it had everything to do with whatever was in that attic that he didn’t want me to find.
Unless…I’d already found it.
Chapter Fourteen
“‘Sin is crouching at your door;
it desires to have you,
but you must rule over it.’”
Genesis 4:7 NIV
I knew I’d come far when the labyrinth of trees began to thin out in front of me. The forest floor was now golden with sunlight, the patchwork of canopy shadows retreating back beneath what was left of the trees.
Unlike last time, I found the clearing before it found me. The forest had developed into a grove before opening up into a wide meadow. I could see to the other side of the forest, the trees reaching up to the sky with healthy, rich branches. Vividly colorful and swollen with juice, ripe fruits hung from the limbs.
One massive tree stood in the middle of the meadow. The base of its trunk fanned out over the ground like a skirt of satin, the roots tangled into the dirt in a mess of thread weaving in and out of an embroidered pillow. The roots themselves stretched farther than the canopy. Some of them rose above the ground high enough for a human to pass underneath.
That was where the normalcy of the tree ended.
The right half of the tree was shining with light.
I stepped closer. Even in the setting sunlight, the leaves had a soft iridescent glow to them. Some type of fruit I’d never seen before, something like a cross between a pomegranate and a pear, grew from the branches. Its crimson skin burned like a smoldering flame. But the left half was an entirely different story.
It was completely dead. The tree limbs, twisted and mangled, bent in different directions. The heavier branches were lowered to the ground, as if they were cowering from the sun. Amazingly enough, the same bright red fruit clung to the dead side of the tree. They seemed unaffected by the darkness harbored by the gray cloud.
I backed into the shadows as I saw movement from the corner of my eye. Out from the thinning tree line, a woman walked into the clearing. Her hair was a dark mocha that trailed down her back and fell over her collarbone in wavy strands. Like the man, she was naked, although her cascading hair covered most of her body.
I turned to leave. The man and her hadn’t even noticed me. Maybe they were natives, who knew? But I didn’t have any business with them. I needed to get out of this world I always seemed to come back to.
The grass not farther than a few yards ahead shifted suddenly. Something familiar in the way the grasses parted struck a chord in my brain. Fear echoed the racing beats of my heart.
A black, scaly body slithered through the grass. It was wider than my leg and several yards long. It was so large that the grasses it parted nearly stayed flattened to the ground. The tail of the creature disappeared, heading straight towards the woman who was now standing underneath the half glowing, half dying tree.
I ducked low, taking a step out into the open. The grasses were parting in a slow line ahead, growing nearer and nearer to the woman. I was too far to shout at her, so I ran, keeping a wide berth around the creature.
“Hey!” I yelled as I drew closer. “Hey! Watch—”
The woman looked around the clearing. I tried to wave to get her to see me. But then, the movement of the grass stopped.
I froze.
Where was it? Did it burrow underground? I jumped as the tall grass bent in the oncoming breeze. I looked ahead.
My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. The meadow was eerily still. Every instinct in me told me to run back. But a part of me felt frozen in horror. I watched as the woman turned towards the tree as if in a trance.
A few paces ahead of her, the black serpent weaved its body around the trunk of the tree and disappeared into the canopy.
I jolted upright, my heart still racing.
It took a moment for the room to focus. The full moon shone through the attic windows, so brightly I hadn’t needed a flashlight to read. The Bible lay open on my lap, its delicate pages still in my hands. I closed the book and put my hand to my chest. The image of the snake burned in my brain. In panic, I flipped to the page I’d stopped at and tried to reread the line again.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals.1
Nothing happened.
Frantically, I read the line again, hoping to trigger something. Anything. But the book lay still in my lap and the attic room didn’t change into a forest.
I tried flipping towards the first page.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.2
But the old world didn’t come, and I was left with the shadows upstairs. I ran my hands through my hair and hugged my knees. She’d heard me. I wasn’t imagining it. She’d heard me. Which meant these weren’t visions. They were real.
And for some reason, I couldn’t go back to them.
With every push, the sky seemed more and more possible to touch. The clouds were patchy against the deep sky. The sun was soft and the wind from the swing blew my hair off the nape of my neck.
“Higher!” I screamed.
I could feel her hands push my back gently. “Are you sure?”
I nodded and giggled, leaning back to look at her upside down. The grass and the sky switched places and she hung from the clovers scattered near her fe
et.
“Alright, if you’re sure.”
I popped back up and swung my legs excitedly. All I could see was the sky. Even when the swing swung back, my eyes were cast upward. I pretended like I was flying.
“Don’t look down!” she shouted from far away.
And I didn’t.
Notes
1 Genesis 3:1 NIV
2 Genesis 1:1 NIV
Chapter Fifteen
“Today feels more like summer than spring.”
That Saturday came quicker than I thought. The week was a mess of homework with teachers trying to fit in tests before the end of the year hit too hard. I kind of felt like a dog on a leash, trying to plant my paws firmly in the ground to avoid being thrown into the bath.
But the week was easy to get through. It was the weekend that I was worried about. When all the homework and noise and chaos was done. When I’d be mostly alone with my thoughts in the quiet house.
Aven licked her Popsicle and pushed herself on the swing. “This summer is going to be incredible. The summer before high school. I can just see it.” Aven’s eyes glazed.
I bit a chunk of my Popsicle with my front teeth.
“Oh my gosh!” Aven cringed. “How do you do that? That’s painful to watch.”
I shrugged. “I can’t feel it,” I said with my mouth full. Aven cringed at me again and looked at her Popsicle warily.
“Mom was that way too.”
Aven looked at me while she let the red syrup from her Popsicle leave a trail down her arm.
“Gen, you never talk about that day.”
I frowned and shifted uncomfortably. I’d talked about her before with Aven. But she was right. Even though I was only five, that day and all the moments I’d had with her before it were stuck in my head, cycling around like a broken record, replaying itself over and over and over.
“You’d think everything would be sort of okay by now.”
Aven sighed and looked out at the rest of the playground. We might have grown old of the park, but since it was a place we used to go to while we were younger, it was just as much of “our place” as the old oak in the courtyard was.
“I don’t know, it’s just…that was years ago, Gen. Are you and your dad ever going to let her go?”
The blue raspberry syrup felt ugly in my stomach. I chucked the rest of the Popsicle into the grass. This was the first time Aven had said anything remotely harsh about me talking about my mom. In an irritating way, I knew she was right. My dad and I hadn’t let it go yet.
We were silent together for a few minutes. A two-year-old waddled to the end of a slide and fell on top of it, laughing hysterically. Her mom scooped her up and planted kisses on her cheeks.
I paused, thinking of the Bible sitting in the attic upstairs. I’d been avoiding the book all week. I didn’t know how to go back. It seemed as if whatever I tried, there was nothing I could do that would let me retrace time, even though it seemed like that was what I was already doing.
But maybe Aven was right. Maybe the only way to get through it…was to keep moving forward.
I pushed off the ground hard, gave a few kicks when the swing came back, and soared back into the sky. I pumped my legs and pulled on the chains, watching the sky dot itself with white clouds.
I didn’t look down once.
The next morning, I awoke to my dad nudging me awake. Instead of sunlight filtering in my bedroom, light from my bedroom lamp was glaring into my eyes. It was dark outside.
“Genesis, you need to wake up. Remember, I told you I have to be at the high school even earlier today?”
I mumbled a “five more minutes” to him and buried my head in the pillow. That’s when I felt the hard cover of the book underneath. I forgot I’d hidden it there. The corner of it was sticking out and I shoved it back under quickly. Suddenly, I felt a heavy weight on me and Dad’s scratchy beard against my face, his coffee breath wafting into my nose.
“Dad! Get off of me!”
He laughed and rolled over and picked me up—with the covers and all—and set me feet first onto the ground beside my bed. He grunted with effort. “I can barely do that anymore! You’re getting too big.”
I giggled. “Either that or you’re getting older.”
“Oh shush,” he teased. “Besides, I can barely see you. Where are my glasses?”
I reached into his shirt pocket and plucked his glasses out. “You mean these?”
He smiled. “Righhhhht. Anyways, be ready in twenty. I need to go.”
Half an hour later, I rested my drowsy head on the window of the car. It was so early no buses roamed the streets.
The secretary at the front nodded a “hello.”
“Dad have to be at the high school early again?” she guessed.
“One of those days,” I replied.
I stuffed my backpack into my locker and locked it shut before I made my way to the library. Surprisingly, the lights were already on inside. I opened the doors, expecting to see the librarian already there. Realizing the desk was empty, I disappeared between the book cases.
This was one of my favorite times of day—when the library was empty and it was just me with a collage of stories, words, and pages. The room was silent but the books were as loud as my own voice, brimming with secrets.
I turned into the first section and ran my pointer finger along the spines. The books smelled musty and were broken from wear. But those were the best kind. Their words lived in the mind of someone else for an hour.
I rounded the corner to the other side. My face met a solid figure with such force that I was almost knocked backwards. I gave a yelp of surprise.
Jace, with a book open in his hands, peered at me, annoyed. “Hello to you too.”
I adjusted my shirt. I was getting sick of running into him. Literally running into him.
“Maybe you shouldn’t walk while reading,” I said.
“Maybe you should look where you’re going,” he said without looking at me, his attention on his book.
I let out a huff. “What are you even doing here so early in the morning?”
He closed the book, detached annoyance remaining on his face. “I like to read. Is that a crime?”
“How did you even get in here?”
Jace smirked. “It’s not your library.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m the only one who has an extra key.”
Jace reached into his pocket, pulling out an identical one to mine. “Try again.”
I tried to hide my surprise. “I’ve never seen you here in the morning.”
Jace tucked the book under his arm. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I usually stay after school sometimes and she has me lock up.”
Oh.
I didn’t know what to say. Jace rolled his eyes at my lack of response. He walked down the aisle, searched for the book’s place, and slid it onto the shelf. His hair flopped over his eyes and he flicked it to the side.
I hated to admit it, but Jace was attractive—one of the indisputable reasons why he was so popular. But since his arrogant, smug demeanor made him about a hundred times worse, the former characteristic just made the whole thing more…irritating.
I scraped around in my brain for a clever comeback, but I came up with absolutely nothing. Which made me even more aggravated. I walked to the adjacent book aisle. Who cares anyway? I told myself to ignore him.
That was harder said than done.
Apparently, Jace hadn’t taken my obvious cues that he was unwanted. He continued to look through the book selection, picking up a book to read it a bit, then replacing it with the next one. I glanced at him above my book through the spaces in the bookshelf.
Was he going through the whole line of books? To annoy me?
I clenched my jaw. He knew he was aggravating me. He was doing it on purpose.
I rolled my eyes to myself. I would never like this kid. And it wasn’t because he was both popular and a class favorite, which made him even more astou
ndingly annoying. It was that little feeling I got in my gut. The one that told you to run when there was danger. To hide when there was fear. To be suspicious when there were strangers.
That same feeling was telling me something was off. Something was very off about Jace Anthony.
That boy was definitely hiding something.
I leaned against the bookcase behind me. I knew it’d be awhile before my dad got home, and my little encounter with Jace today had thrown me off. He always knew how to pack the hard punches. Get me off balance.
I really needed a distraction.
I brushed the cover off and set the Bible in my lap. Maybe I couldn’t go back, but maybe I could move forward.
“Here we go,” I said aloud. I opened to the part where I left off and began to read.
It was only then that I noticed the room was beginning to spin around me. I ignored it and kept reading, the sounds of the forest filling my ears. My heart pumped faster in my chest.
Green grass tickled my feet.
It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. The tree was the first real thing I could see. I recognized it almost instantly. I mean, normal trees didn’t exactly glow like that.
The meadow seemed unchanged, like time had frozen since the last time I was here and started back up again when I came back. But that meant…
The last thing I saw was the woman’s hair disappearing behind the low branches. I ran for the tree, instant fear pumping adrenaline into my legs. As I drew nearer to the roots, they seemed more like a maze than parts of a tree. It was difficult to pick through the labyrinth of roots that weaved themselves between each other.
I finally reached a larger root that connected directly to the trunk. I reached up and pulled myself onto it, trying to sit low. The glowing half of the tree illuminated the under belly of its low hanging branches. It created a brightly lit space underneath the canopy, even though the sun was enough to pass through the leaves. The other half of the tree was dark despite the sun. Almost as if it was creating its own blackness out of thin air.
I heard her voice before I saw her.
“Who are you?” she asked into the air, her voice sweet and trill.
Worthy of Rain Page 5