JASON LEANED ON THE DOORPOST of the old shack and watched Leiah with Caleb. The boy sat cross-legged, talking to her in sweet tones. It was the most Caleb had talked since they’d first met him. He seemed to have broken out of his distant seclusion and found common ground with them. Or at least with Leiah. She sat with her legs folded to one side, listening to him intently.
The meadow had remained perfectly still through the morning. It was amazing how many jets and helicopters took to the air around the L.A. basin. There was hardly a minute when their sound could not be identified with a careful listen. But none of them came swooping in over the treetops with megaphones blaring. If they were doing a search, they were sticking primarily to the city, which made sense, considering the fact that they were probably operating under the assumption that Caleb was sick and required medical attention.
Caleb had spent most of the morning sitting on the grass overlooking the forest that fell away below them, content in the solitude. Leiah had changed his bandage twice. From what she saw, the bullet had struck his belt buckle and been deflected. The resulting superficial cut ran from his bellybutton to his right side.
Despite their growing hunger, Leiah had agreed that they should at least wait out the day before making a move. Jason would go into the Texaco for information and food if nothing happened before five. How to get in and out without being recognized was still under consideration. For all they knew, their pictures were plastered all over the newspapers and television. He couldn’t very well walk up and make conversation with the store clerk.
Jason walked up and eased himself into the grass beside Caleb. A bird chirped noisily on the edge of the meadow.
Caleb turned and smiled and then continued his discussion with Leiah.
“It’s not like really stepping into a kingdom with your feet, but with your heart. So this is why it’s done with faith. Because faith’s like the feet of your heart. That’s what Dadda used to say.”
“And by kingdom you mean the realm? Like it’s a different dimension?” Leiah asked.
“Dimension?” Caleb stumbled over the word. “It’s a place, but a place your heart goes to. Where God rules. A kingdom.”
“But it’s real? I mean real like this world.”
“Yes.”
“And you walk into it with faith, like just opening a door and walking in?”
Caleb chuckled. “I think you’re already in this place, Leiah. You entered it on Sunday. Dadda used to call it being born into the kingdom. But to walk in the kingdom . . .” He scissored his fingers on his knee in a walking motion. “To walk in the Spirit—that’s a different thing. Dadda called it stepping past the skin of this world. You find a new world.”
Jason listened, leaning back on his hands. The distant midday smog hung over Los Angeles in gray streaks, but here a pure breeze rustled through the trees, uncaring. Two worlds: the distant one where Nikolous was undoubtedly climbing the walls in search of them, and this one where the meadow lay peacefully under the sun. Like Caleb’s two kingdoms.
“And what about me, Caleb?” Jason asked, facing the boy. He doubted Caleb’s theology could be easily reduced to a book, but in a simple, childlike way it had the ring of truth. Dr. Thompson had a sharper understanding of proper theology than most, and what had he said about Caleb? “He knows the reality of the kingdom of God like he knows his hands each have five fingers.” More importantly, Caleb was clearly walking places few Christians Jason had ever known walked. Places Christ walked.
“I was a Christian a long time ago, I think. At least I made a profession of faith—when Stephen was sick. You think I was in this kingdom you speak about then?”
Caleb looked at him with round aqua eyes. “I don’t know. Did you love God? Did you follow his Son? Then you were his child, but only you really know.”
“So you’re saying that maybe I was born into the kingdom, but didn’t have enough faith to walk where the real power exists? If I would’ve walked there, my son would have been healed?”
“The real power? Do you think that real power is found in the miracles? God does them, of course, but other things like loving are much more powerful than healing. That’s what Dadda taught me, and I’ve seen it too. God can form a world and straighten a crooked hand with a whisper, but to lure a black heart—that’s the amazing thing. Did I tell you about the brine and the oil?”
“No. You sound like Dr. Thompson now. And where are all the black hearts you’ve lured?”
“God lures.”
“Either way, the fact of the matter is that if my son were here under the influence of your faith, he would be healed. But under my faith, or whatever you want to call it, he wasn’t healed. That’s a fact.”
The boy shrugged. “I don’t know exactly how it works. I don’t know why he didn’t heal your son’s body. But that’s a small thing; the small things that happen in this life aren’t really so important.” Caleb smiled wide. “We all die, Dadda used to say. Some a moment sooner than others. The moment works out to fifty years here on earth, but it’s really only a blink of an eye and it comes for everyone.” Caleb looked down the valley. “I think that one of us will die soon.”
Jason blinked. Die? Leiah was staring at the boy. “What do you mean? You can’t mean that! Why do you say that?”
The boy shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. It’s just a feeling I have.”
For a long time they sat in silence, staring at the horizon over Los Angeles.
Jason was the first to speak again. “My son was everything to me.”
“I think you’re missing his point,” Leiah said. She leaned forward and studied him. “He’s saying that the things we think are so important in this world aren’t really that important at all! It’s the heart that matters. The healing of the heart, not the body.”
Caleb didn’t agree or disagree. He just looked down-valley.
Leiah was saying it, but watching her swallow, Jason knew that she was struggling. “And I think that makes sense,” she said. “What happens to this silly body of ours isn’t the point. A person may be beautiful in this life—they may be given shiny hair and silky smooth skin—but it all means very little. It’s gone in a flash. Like Dr. Thompson said: ‘Whoever said that a straightened hand was more dramatic than a healed heart anyway?’”
She was talking about her scars, which it seemed God had seen fit to leave her with. The comment brought another stillness to the knoll. Jason felt the impulse to rise and sit by her, but he sat still, awkward.
A strand of her dark hair played along her cheek, bent by the breeze. He saw her throat move with a swallow. And below, just below that blue collar, began the rumpled skin that she was relegated to hauling through this life— her skin of this world. One which she couldn’t step past if she tried.
“Would you like to walk in the kingdom?”
Caleb asked the question, and it sounded odd on that lonely hill.
Jason joined them in looking down-valley. “What do you mean walk?”
“Would you like to empty your heart and let the Spirit of God give you the strength to walk in the kingdom?”
“Yes,” Leiah said.
Caleb turned to her. “Then you should first want it like you’d desire a treasure. More than anything you could own. It’s your desire that will guide you, not your intention.” He spun back to Jason, excited. “Do you understand?”
Jason thought about that. In all honesty the things that once seemed so important to him felt like crumbs next to the peace he’d felt last Sunday. He was being a fool about his son’s death, letting it hold him in this impossible place. What he would give to be free from it all—to walk where Caleb walked.
“ . . . give it up,” Caleb was saying. “Surrender it all for the treasure. Even your life. It’s not worth anything anyway!”
The boy scrambled to his knees. “Then you ask and trust him,” he said.
Just ask and trust? Easier said than done. Jason glanced over at Leiah. She sat cross-legged and her face rested in her hands as if she were praying.
He looked to the horizon and closed his eyes. Dear Father, I’m a fool. I feel like an ant down here. He paused, thinking on the truth of that. This kingdom Caleb talked about seemed so far beyond him.
But I will set it all aside to walk with you. With your Spirit. Fill me with your Spirit, Father.
He paused. In all honesty he would give up everything to walk with the Spirit. He would soon die anyway—another fifty years maybe. But to live with Caleb’s simple joy, now that would be something. Just ask and believe? And why not? If Caleb could walk in this kingdom, why couldn’t he?
Father . . . fill me with your kingdom, your Spirit. Open my eyes—the eyes of my heart.Maybe he should put it like a relationship, he thought. I will leave everything for you.
For a few moments the silence continued. Jason opened his eyes and looked over at Caleb and Leiah. Leiah had lifted her head and was staring ahead without expression. Caleb knelt between them wearing an openmouthed smile.
Jason grinned patently. “Is that it?”
Caleb didn’t speak. He bounced his head a little and looked at Leiah.
That was it, then. And what had happened? Jason looked back to the tree line. He felt peaceful enough; the breeze tickled his neck and the sun was warm. But had he just been somehow changed again?
“I don’t feel anything,” he said.
Caleb giggled and Jason faced him again. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel any power or anything. I just don’t—”
Caleb’s hand suddenly covered Jason’s eyes. The boy’s high-pitched voice rattled off a short string in Ge’ez. Then he stopped and Jason could hear the boy’s quick breaths.
“Open the eyes of his heart,” Caleb said softly in English. He removed his hands.
A high-pitched ringing filled Jason’s ears, but otherwise nothing happened. Nothing at all. The field grass still faced the same sun; the breeze still rustled through the nearby trees; the sky was still lined with that distant gray haze. A voice came to Jason’s mind. It was Dr. Thompson and he was repeating himself—“Maybe the boy can help you see some things. Whoever said . . .”
Whoever said.
Jason was about to turn to the boy when that gray sky exploded.
He caught his breath and jerked back. White light streamed from a round hole cut from the clouds, as if a bomb had detonated over Los Angeles. Nothing else around him had changed (unless you count the boy’s sudden laughter a change), but that hole in the sky hung there, glowing white like a small sun. A low roar filled the air. The thought that it really might be a nuclear bomb flashed through Jason’s mind.
He glanced quickly toward Leiah and saw that her mouth hung open. She saw it too.
The hole in the sky suddenly rushed them, widening with a transparent blue throat, as if it intended to swallow them. The roar grew louder.
Jason threw his arms up instinctively. The hole smashed into them, and Jason clenched his eyes and cried out.
Only it didn’t really smash them. It swallowed them, and then it was gone, leaving pitch blackness and absolute silence in its wake.
Jason heard a soft rushing and it occurred to him that it was his own breathing. He let his eyes flutter open. The blackness was as thick as cotton. He could be in the void of a black hole and see more, he thought. A thumping drummed in the background, but he quickly realized that it was only his heart. Had he gone blind?
“Caleb?” he called out.
Nothing.
“Leiah!”
Not even his own voice echoed back.
I’ve died! I’ve died!
A pinprick of light suddenly poked through the blackness. A tiny spot of white, like a star a hundred miles off. He blinked and steadied himself on the grass. Yes, the grass was still there, at his fingertips. He glanced down but saw nothing. When he lifted his head again, the pinprick had become a hole. And it was widening, slowly. There was something in it.
Jason pulled back instinctively. His first thought was to run. To jump up and scramble for safety. But to where? And who said that hole there, growing by the second, wasn’t safety?
It was the size of a headlight now, like a train heading toward him in the dark. The hole in the black sky swelled to the size of a three-story house just over where the trees had been a moment ago, nearly close enough to touch, it seemed. And then it hung there, motionless: a tunnel of light.
Jason recognized the shape in the light: the silhouette of a man. A tall, strong man walking directly toward him with a deliberate step. Footsteps echoed through the sky. Clack—clack—clack—clack.
It was the sound of Florsheims on a marble floor and they came louder. Clack—clack—clack, right toward him with hands swinging at the waist and shoulders square.
The sound of the man’s footfall joined the pounding of his pulse to fill the black sky. And then it was only his pounding pulse, because the silhouette had stopped at the tunnel’s mouth, standing much taller than an ordinary man and gazing faceless at Jason.
“Do you believe?”
Jason jerked at the rumbling voice. The man had said that! The man had talked!
Thump—thump—thump. Only his heart answered. The man stood still. He was waiting! Did he believe? Yes! Yes, he did believe, didn’t he? Yes, he did! He scrambled to his knees.
“Yes,” Jason said, but it came out scratchy and breathy. He tried again, with more power. “Y—”
“Then I will show you something,” the man interrupted. The silhouette whirled around to leave, as if he’d done what he intended to do here. Jason saw his cloak swirl around his body, like a bold musketeer.
What happened with the sweep of that cloak could only be described as a detonation in his mind, because it was too large to have occurred over the trees. The horizons of his skull blinked to a brilliant white and Jason gasped. He clenched his eyes tight.
When he opened them three seconds later he stared at a new world.
The first thing he saw was blue. Not only above them in the sky, but all around them, as if they were submerged in a warm, transparent blue sea. But he could still see the sky and it was even brighter blue. Wisps of red and yellow swirled through the air, as if carried on a breeze that drifted lazily about the meadow. The distant smog was gone, but the meadow remained, surrounded by trees greener than they had been a moment ago.
He turned slowly, stunned. Leiah was there, where he’d last seen her, looking around, fascinated. Their eyes met.
There was something strange about those beautiful eyes of hers. A very faint blue light was streaming from them. He looked down at his chest and saw that the light played on his shirt. If he wasn’t off the deep end here, he could actually feel it, warm and numbing.
Then I will show you something.
And what was he seeing?
Jason smiled and looked up at her, filled with a strange intoxicating love. He felt the impulse to shout out to her. Something like, Hey, Leiah, did you see what I saw? Are you catching this? But actually it sounded . . . crazy. Childish.
Leiah smiled sheepishly, and a green light spilled from her lips.
Jason rose to his feet. Dear God, they were in heaven!
Caleb skipped up to them from the direction of the cabin. He was pumping both arms into the sky, laughing. How had he gotten over there? He skipped around Leiah, and a red hue rose from his skin like colored steam. His eyes shone bright green and a yellow light glowed around his mouth.
Leiah stood and stared at her fingers and then touched her mouth with them. If Jason hadn’t been firmly rooted to the ground, he might have run over to her and swung her from her feet and given her a great big bear hug. But his feet seemed unable to move.
They had entered a world of impossibilities.
Light was everywhere. Yellow light, red light, green light, blue light. Oozing from their dumb smiles and streaming from their eyes.
Caleb started to giggle again. “Say something, Leiah,” he said. “Tell me what you think of me.”
She faced him and spoke immediately. “I love you, Caleb.”
A shaft of red light rushed from her mouth with those words. Jason’s heart jumped. The thick beam was laced with wisps of smoke like at a laser-light show. It struck Caleb in his chest, cascaded over his body, and was gone.
The boy threw his head back and laughed as if tickled by some great unseen hand. Leiah stared ahead, mouth still open, dumbfounded.
Caleb dropped his head and looked past his eyebrows at Jason. “Now how’s that for power?” he asked with a smirk. “And don’t think it comes from your own heart.”
“What’s . . .” Jason’s skin tingled with anticipation. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“He’s showing you! Do you see it? This is what it’s like! The kingdom of God is among you. It’s like Elijah’s servant! You’re seeing some things. You think he still uses chariots today? I’ve never seen it like this. Have you read John’s Revelation? This makes me think of John’s Revelation.” He laughed, delighted at the idea.
“This?”
Jason looked at Leiah, who was breathing into her palm and watching it as if she expected fire to consume her fingers. She suddenly faced Jason and smiled.
“I love you, Jason.”
The shaft was bright red, but it was laced with gold. It struck Jason’s chest like a battering ram and took away his breath. It didn’t physically hit his flesh. But it slammed through his heart, and it might as well have been a real shaft made of raw energy, because his whole body buzzed with it. Maybe it was real energy.
His knees felt weak. He loved her desperately, but it was a new kind of love. Suddenly everything in him wanted to say that back to her. He did.
“I love you, Leiah,” he said, and it came out like a shout.
A red shaft of light from his mouth smashed into her, and she took a step backward, gasping.
“See? See?” Caleb shouted, jumping up and down now. He suddenly ran over the knoll and tumbled from his feet. He somersaulted through the grass once and sprang to his feet again.
Jason’s head swam in the mind-numbing intoxication of the moment. Leiah was still staring at him, wide-eyed at his last statement.
“I love you,” he said again, and the light shot out again.
This time she stepped into the shaft and walked to him as if she were walking upstream. “Say it again,” she said, locked on his eyes.
“I love you, Leiah.” He stepped toward her.
“And I love you, Jason.”
His body trembled with her words, and he loped the last three steps. They collided there on the meadow, lost to the world, swimming in this mad passionate love spun from words made flesh. This love born of the Spirit.
Leiah broke away, laughing with Caleb, who still skipped around, delighted at their display of love. She danced, twirling, like that shot of Maria spinning on the hills in The Sound of Music. She began to sing, and despite the silliness of it all, Jason joined her twirling.
They were children on the meadow. Ha! The air felt heavy with anticipation and pleasure all bundled into one. It was like a surreal version of Hansel and Gretel’s candy land.
The boy ran up to them, panting. “Do you know what’s happening now?”
“Our eyes have been opened?” Leiah said.
“It’s . . . it’s like a picture. Today it’s his picture,” Caleb said.
“The kingdom of God?” Jason asked. “It’s full of colors?”
“Today it is! You’re seeing the power of the Spirit. Dadda called it the fruit. The greatest power.” Caleb grinned. “Love, joy, peace. Pretty neat, huh?”
Jason blinked at the revelation. God was showing them the stunning power of the simplest things born of the Spirit. Love. Whoever said that a straightened hand was more dramatic than a healed heart?
“Thank you, Father,” he breathed.
The swirling colors suddenly stopped their drifting as if they had taken note of his words. Silence engulfed them. All except for Caleb, who’d rolled to his back and faced the sky spread-eagle, still giggling, as if he knew something they did not.
Jason spoke again in the quiet. “Thank you, Jesus.”
The ground began to tremble.
Leiah lifted both hands and whispered to the sky. “I love you, Father.” White light streaked from her mouth toward the heavens.
Jason lifted his chin and joined her. “I worship you, Father. I love you.”
Three blazing shafts of light fell from the sky, like supercharged spotlights illuminating each of their heads. The light pounded through Jason’s skull and numbed his bones with a love so pure and raw that he thought he might die. He dropped to his knees and then collapsed to his back, trembling from head to foot.
God was responding.
I love you.
Jason could barely breathe. An ache rose through his chest and he began to weep.
“I love you, Jesus.”
The light washed through his body, like an airborne intoxicant, and he lay there quaking and begging forgiveness and loving his Creator in a way he did not think humanly possible. Beside him Leiah and Caleb lay on the grass, receiving this kiss from heaven.
And then, like tractor beams pulled in on themselves, the shafts from heaven were gone.
Jason lay still for a while before rolling to his belly and pushing himself to his knees, dazed. The colored lights had not gone. Caleb was already on his feet dancing around. Jason dropped back to his belly and rolled through the grass. He bumped into Leiah and their eyes met, wild and zany.
They burst into laughter simultaneously. Gut-wrenching peals of laughter that refused to let them go. It took them a full minute to find enough control to stand.
“I saw something,” Leiah said.
“I did too,” Jason returned, and for some inexplicable reason, that made them bend in laughter.
“No, I mean I saw a vision,” Leiah said.
“Oh.”
Caleb suddenly grabbed both of their hands and began to jump up and down in his customary form of dance. Without a word and smiling like a chimpanzee, Leiah peeled his hand off theirs and put it through the crook of her elbow. She winked at Jason, bent her other arm for him to take, and then led them in a circle dance.
They laughed and danced as if this were a fairy tale and they were the children, expected to live happily ever after. But it wasn’t a fairy tale. It was somehow more real than life itself. Jason knew that. Unless you become like a child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Caleb said Jesus had said that. Did that mean you couldn’t be in the kingdom of God without being like a child?
They were mid-dance when it occurred to Jason that Leiah hadn’t told them her vision. They’d become distracted.
He pulled up. “What was your vision?” he asked.
Leiah was showing Caleb a chorus kick and giggling with him. She turned to him. “My what?”
“Your vision.”
“Oh, yeah. The vision.” She stopped. “Yes, I should tell you the vision. It was important.”
Caleb found a little humor even in that statement. It was like that. The importance of anything but this display of Dadda’s fruit, as Caleb put it, seemed to pale in comparison.
Leiah continued, still smiling. “I saw a small fledgling bird in a nest. And at first it looked okay, like any innocent little bird. But then it began to grow big. Very big, and black too.” Her smile softened as the details came back to her.
“Then it cried and flew into the sky, growing even bigger. It circled, screeching.” The smile left Leiah’s lips. She turned from them, suddenly serious.
“Suddenly the bird dove to the earth, breathing fire and looking very angry. It was headed for a woman.”
“That was my vision!” Caleb said.
“I know what it means too,” Leiah said.
They looked at her, expectant. She stared back with wide eyes.
“Well? Tell us,” Jason said.
“The woman was me. But it was also you, Jason. And you, Caleb. It was the whole . . . church. The bird wanted to destroy the church.”
“Really?” Jason asked.
“Really. And the bird is Crandal. He’s the fledgling bird. But when he gets into power he’s going to grow.” She became excited and grabbed Jason’s arm. “Do you see it? He may not even know it yet, but if he gets in power, then someday he’s going to try to destroy the church.”
Jason looked at Caleb, who didn’t seem too concerned. “How?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He’s an evil man who’ll grow worse in power. Much worse.”
Jason looked around. The blue light covered the field, and he suddenly felt like running through it. Oddly enough this revelation of Leiah’s seemed perfectly natural. Incidental information.
“So, what do we do?”
“I don’t know,” Leiah said. She turned to the boy. “Do you know, Caleb?”
“No.” He was watching some yellow wisps to his right.
They stood silent for a few moments. The notion of fledgling Crandal growing into a monster began to feel distant.
A mischievous grin spread over Leiah’s face. “I know what I want to do.”
“What?”
She looked first at Jason and then at Caleb, and then back at Jason, tantalizing him. And then she tapped Caleb on the shoulder. “You’re it!” She tore off, laughing hysterically and looking over her shoulder.
Caleb looked at Jason, not understanding.
“It’s tag! You have to chase her and touch her!” Jason cried.
“And when you catch me you have to hug me!” Leiah called back, circling to her left.
“Yeeehaaaa!” The boy leapt into the air and tore after Leiah with Jason on his heels.
They were playing tag. They were jumping and running and laughing and playing tag. And it might as well have been skydiving or zooming through space.
That’s how this strange, wonderful world made them feel.
This fruit.
Sometime during the jubilance Leiah’s left sleeve was inadvertently pulled up to her elbow and left there, unminded. Jason remembered thinking to himself that he could see her flesh, wrinkled up to her elbow. But time seemed to have stalled, and the realization drifted in and out like a distant, inconsequential snippet. Leiah evidently liked the feel of air on her skin because she pulled the other sleeve up as well and waved both arms above her head in the kind of victory dance you might expect from someone whose team has just won a very important game.
It suddenly occurred to Jason that they should try some things. If the light responded so strongly to simple words like, I love you, what would happen if they tried other things?
“Leiah. Leiah?”
She smiled. “Yes, Jason? What would you like, my love?”
For a moment he forgot what he wanted, because when she spoke, blue light from her mouth washed over him and he began giggling. Then she got to giggling, and it took them a few minutes to calm themselves.
She stood there with both arms bared, delighted and finally stilled. “What were you saying?”
“What was I saying? I was saying that we should try some things.”
“Things like what?”
Caleb stood ten feet away and answered them. “Try praying.”
They looked at each other. “What kind of praying?” Leiah asked.
“I don’t know. Pray for India.”
“India? How do you pray for India?”
The boy walked toward them. “Ask the Father to protect the orphans in India.”
Leiah looked at him and then back to Jason. “Do I close my eyes?”
Caleb found it funny and he began to laugh.
“I guess that’s a no,” Leiah said, grinning.
She turned down-valley and spoke aloud. “Dear Father . . .” She paused and turned to Jason. “I’m going to close my eyes,” she said.
He just shrugged.
Leiah faced the valley again, closed her eyes, spread her palms at her waist, and spoke again. “Dear Father.” She paused again, and blue light spilled from her lips as if she were speaking with dry ice in her mouth. “Father, please show mercy to the poor orphan children in India. You are their Father . . .”
She kept speaking, but Jason didn’t hear any more. Blue light had erupted from her face and blazed toward the horizon. Jason took a step back, stunned. She prayed on, evidently unaware of the light that engulfed her whole face so that he could no longer see her eyes.
“ . . . I know you will, Father, because you must love them very much and . . .”
“Leiah, open your eyes,” Jason said quietly.
She stopped praying and opened her eyes. The light vanished.
“No, keep praying. Open your eyes and pray.”
She faced the valley. “Father, I ask that you will . . .” The light bolted from her face and her words froze in her throat. She trembled and then sank to her knees, overcome.
She continued in a whisper now. “Dear Jesus, please show them your love.” The light crackled as if it were charged with electricity. Leiah began to weep. Beside her Caleb smiled, delighted.
Jason turned and opened his mouth. “Dear Jesus, Son of God, I ask that you show your love . . .” His eyes were open and he saw the light leap off his face and shoot to the sky. “ . . . to the children of Ethiopia who have lost their mothers and fathers.” It was as though he were speaking through a tunnel of light.
A lump rose into his throat. This by a few words of prayer? For how long had he considered the prayers of Christians foolish blabberings? And all the while they had wielded such power?
Jason looked at the rippling sky, and suddenly the gravity of this entire magnificent display boiled over in his chest, as if it had outgrown his capacity to contain it. It was all so very real—God’s ever-present power streaming over the earth it had created, awesome above the ants who marched in defiance below, blind to it.
And he had been one of those ants, hadn’t he?
The sorrow hit him like a sledgehammer dropped from heaven. How could he have doubted such a loving God? He who had fashioned man swirled passionately around him still.
Jason groaned, suddenly overcome by desperation. He sank to his knees. Sorrow unlike any he had known rolled up his chest, and he begged God to forgive him. A minute ago he had been dancing before his Father with delight. Now he could do nothing but bow at his feet in a state very near agony. But it was a kind of agony that felt pure, like a cleansing fire. His bones trembled under its weight and he began to sob softly.
Oh, Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have . . .
Now the emotion poured out of him and he could not finish the thought, much less kneel upright. He bowed to the ground and worshiped his Creator.
Beside him he could barely hear Leiah praying through tears now—praying for forgiveness as much as for anyone in India. Caleb was praying as well. They knelt on the knoll, swept away by the majesty of their Creator, desperate in his presence, overcome by their dependence upon his love.
Jason wasn’t sure exactly what happened to the light that streamed to the horizon as they prayed, but it was real and it was crackling with static. Somewhere a little boy in India with a runny nose was having his heart warmed; somewhere a little girl with round eyes had just found food for another day. The notion made him desperate to pray.
He did that. He stood and prayed, stunned that God would use him as a conduit for such power.
Somehow Jason and Leiah ended side by side, hand in hand, humbled by God’s presence, silent in the wake of his power. Jason looked into her eyes and then at their hands. She lifted her hand, clasped around his, and they both looked at her arm.
“That’s my arm,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?”
It was twisted and lumpy and looked like the bark of a pine tree. But at the moment it didn’t bother Jason.
“No,” he said.
“It seems stupid that it used to bother me so much.”
“Yeah.”
“I ran away from Canada because of it. I mean it looks pretty ugly, but who cares? Seems kinda minor when you compare it to this.”
Jason lifted his free hand. “Can I touch it?”
“Yes.”
He lowered his index finger and ran it along her skin. It felt like rubber. He rested all of his fingers on her arm and drew them up toward her elbow. The gnarled skin covered her entire body; he knew that and he even imagined what it must look like: her back and her chest and her thighs, pitted and rough. But it did seem silly right now. Like a woman worrying about the shade of her lipstick before a party, but hardly more.
“Does it feel strange?” she asked.
“Yes, it does. But it doesn’t bother me.” He turned her around to face him and held each of her elbows.
“I love you, Leiah.” Light spread over her face. “I love you more than words can say.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips.
She pulled back a fraction of an inch. “And I love you, Jason.” Her hot breath mixed with light and washed over his lips. He held her, overwhelmed with the impulse to squeeze her as tight as he could.
“Excuse me.”
They parted to find Caleb standing beside them, that wide smile still stuck on his face.
“Do you think you would like to have smooth skin, Leiah?”
Jason’s heart bolted. What was he asking? Leiah looked up at Jason and opened her mouth, but she seemed too flummoxed to speak.
“I just wanted to know if you would like to have the burn marks taken away,” Caleb clarified.
“Well . . . yes, I . . . I suppose so. I mean, I don’t have to have them taken away. I’m okay with the way that I look with them. It’s not like I really need to have smooth skin or anything and I . . .”
Caleb gave a short snortlike laugh and touched her hand.
A surge of power crackled through the sky, and for a brief moment Leiah vanished behind a brilliant flash of light, as if she herself had become a strobe light. And then she stood there, as if nothing had happened.
It occurred to Jason that he still held her fingers. He absently wondered if he’d lit up as well. He looked down. The sight of her arms confused him at first, simply because they were not her arms. They couldn’t be; they were white and smooth like cream.
Leiah gasped and jerked her hand away. Her mouth gaped and she stared bug-eyed at herself.
“Uhh . . .”
Jason blinked once. Then again.
Leiah lifted trembling fingers to her forearms and touched her skin lightly. Her jaw hung open and she ran her fingers up her arms very slowly, as if afraid they might break. She suddenly reached down with both hands and pulled her blouse from her jeans. Her bellybutton was surrounded by perfectly smooth skin, like the vortex of a whirlpool made of milk.
Leiah stared at it for three full seconds, frozen.
She looked up. “I . . . I have . . . skin.” Her round mouth spread into a splitting smile. “Eeeeeiiaa!” She dropped the hem of her blouse and threw both arms around Jason’s neck, screeching like a child.
“I have normal skin!”
Jason held her and spun around, laughing and hooting. She had normal skin. What a gift! What a gift! Thank you, Father!
Leiah spun from him and twirled away like a ballerina. She pulled the rest of her blouse out and it rode up her torso, revealing smooth flesh all around her belly and back. She kept stopping and looking at it and pinching it.
She ran over and lifted Caleb high in the air. “Thank you!”
“Thank your Father,” he said, but he squealed with laughter.
“Thank you, Father!” She cried it to the skies. “Thank you, Jesus!”
Jason thought his heart would explode.