Exodus

The

Little Seer:

Exodus

Laura K. Cowan

This story is a work of fiction, though its basic truths are very real. Any similarity to actual people or events is coincidental.

1

THE BIRDS

With a crash, the stained glass windows set high in the walls of the new church shattered, pulverizing the image of a man surrounded by birds. A fierce wind tore through the round openings. It whipped shards of glass through the cedar rafters toward the congregants, who ran screaming out of the pews.

              Aria shut her eyes against the grit in the air. Debris tore at her cheeks and arms, but still she groped for her parents, who had been sitting next to her in their pew. They were no longer there.

             
Aria felt her way along the white bench to the sounds of men shouting and things crashing against the far wall. And then, all she could hear was the wind. She felt unmoored, as if she were floating in a fog, even though she could still feel her feet planted on the ground, one after the other.

             
Finally, she found her dad’s hand, which yanked her to the floor. He pulled her under the pew just as a piece of wood flew by inches from Aria’s face. She huddled with her parents, her dad crushing her to his chest.

             
Aria managed to peek out from under her dad’s suit jacket to see who else was still in the building. Phil Donagee and the other elders cowered under the front pew across the aisle. Mr. Bob reached toward the stage where Pastor Ted somehow still stood, his hand held up as if he were making a point in his sermon. He ignored the men’s shouts and instead locked eyes with Aria.

Pieces of sheet music blew past him from the tumbling music stands on stage, but still he stared. Aria couldn’t tear her gaze away from his eyes.

They weren’t the eyes she knew.

Aria suddenly realized that Pastor Ted was only wearing a dress shirt and boxer shorts. He saw her looking, and his nostrils flared. His eyes bulged as he coughed up a sound that was part moan, part roar.

              Before the sound died in his throat, the winds calmed as quickly as they had risen. Dirt began to rain down on the pews in the still air.

Winged shadows were flapping over Aria’s head. She looked up to the hole in the wall where the tornado had blown through and saw crows balancing on the jagged glass above the windowsills.

Pastor Ted saw them too. He roared again and cast his arm in Aria’s direction.

             
The crows let out an unearthly scream. They dove through the rafters, straight toward Aria. The birds reached out with huge black claws as they descended on her, tearing at her exposed arms, ripping her skin with scissor-sharp beaks. Aria buried herself in her father’s chest and screamed.

2

ON SUNDAY

Aria gripped the sides of her Sunday school desk with aching hands. The black wings flapping in her mind had drowned out the lesson.

             
“God spoke through a dream,” Ms. Nancy said, and held up a book.

             
Aria’s head was swimming. It wasn’t the first scary dream she had ever had, but it was the first where—.

             
Aria looked down at her arms. She had covered them carefully with a long-sleeve shirt, despite the fresh spring sun outside. Bloody scrapes peeked out of her cuffs.

She went pale and sat back in her seat.

What if I did that to myself?
Her mind worked through all the possibilities—none of them nice.
What is going on? Could a dream like that be from God? But how could it be? Ms. Nancy always said God was nice.

Her arms and hands throbbed.

Aria tried to slow her breathing. She inhaled the fading scent of paint that mixed with the mustiness of old hymnals the church stored in the metal cabinet on the back wall.

If only the excitement of building a new church weren’t fading along with the construction smells, but there was undeniable tension in the air now that the thrill was beginning to wear off. Aria thought back to the sermon she had just heard.

“A sign of good stewardship is a consistent tithe,” Pastor Ted had said as he admonished the church members yet again to give more money to the building fund. “You need to ask God what you should be giving, and then be faithful with blessing his work.”

“What if he tells us to take our tithe where it does some good?” Aria heard Phil Donagee grumble in the pew next to her. She looked up at him, startled. He grimaced, smoothed his thinning blond hair, and went back to reading the Bible in his hand.

“Psst, Aria!” Aria’s friend Tara was holding out a note. Ms. Nancy had briefly turned her back to write a scripture verse on the board up front.

Aria smiled and reached out to take the note.

One of her bandages came unstuck from her stiff hand, revealing a fiery red scratch that reached around most of her wrist.

Tara’s eyes opened wide.

Aria shoved her fists into her lap along with the folded note. How could she explain that when she woke up from a dream of birds attacking her she had actual cuts on her arms from protecting her face? How could she explain the other dreams she had been having, or how this had all started?

You seemed so good when I saw you,
she prayed.
Why would you let something like this happen? What is going on? It hurts!

When Aria wouldn’t meet her gaze, Tara flipped her blonde hair around her shoulders with a sniff and turned back to the front of the room.

“Aria, what does it mean?”

“Hmm?”

“In the Bible when Joseph dreams that his brothers’ sheaves of wheat are bowing down to him?” Ms. Nancy shifted the bag of candy in her hand to remind Aria that she gave rewards for correct answers. She picked an invisible piece of lint off her white blouse while she waited for a reply.

“Joseph’s dream told the future. His brothers really would bow down to him when they had to beg him for food during the famine,” Aria replied.

She put her head back down on her desk. Then she raised it again.

“Ms. Nancy?”

“Yes?” Ms. Nancy turned around and squinted through her narrow glasses. The lines around her eyes were getting deeper as she began to age. Aria wondered if she ever was going to get married. She seemed much older than most women she knew who had started families. Her once-blonde hair was now streaked with gray.

“Does God ever give us
bad
dreams that come true in the future?”

“What do you mean?” Ms. Nancy asked.

“What if God gave me a dream where Pastor Ted ordered crows to, um,” Aria stole a glance at her classmates, “peck out my eyes?”

They were staring.

“Aria! You know Pastor Ted would never do such a thing!” Ms. Nancy said.

“But—.”

“God
never
gives us bad dreams,” Ms. Nancy admonished her. “If you had a bad dream then it came from your imagination… or from the devil!”

She straightened her skirt as if neatening her appearance would banish the unruly thought.

Jimmy grinned at Aria around a half-eaten lollipop. He pantomimed one of his hands pecking him to death and cast his red head back across the empty desk behind him, tongue lolling over his pale chin.

Aria turned back to Ms. Nancy.

“But he did, and a tornado destroyed the church, and—.”

“And what?” Ms. Nancy put her hands on her hips.

“… and—he wasn’t wearing pants,” Aria finished in a small voice. She slouched down in her seat and crumpled Tara’s note in her hand.

Someone behind her let out a snort.

“I think we need to ask the elders to pray for you,” Ms. Nancy said, frowning. She paused again and repositioned her glasses on her nose before continuing. “Now, let’s get back to biblical dreams.”

Her plaid skirt flipped around her knees as she whirled around and returned the bag of candy to her desk.

Aria’s cheeks burned hot. The classroom felt stuffy, airless. She looked past Jimmy to the garden outside, where poppies the color of his hair were blooming.

A black butterfly flitted from the poppies to the oak tree in the yard. The bright sunshine started to fade in and out. Tall, whipped cream-topped storm clouds passed overhead, flipping the leaves of the oak tree upside down with a stiff breeze.

In her mind’s eye, Aria pictured herself outside, standing under the large oak while the wind thrust against it. She could almost feel the rough bark under her fingers.

The tree was swaying dangerously. Then, Aria imagined the wind suddenly cracking the tree’s roots up from the ground. She jumped backward just in time, close enough to feel the rush of wind as the trunk passed her on its way down. The bark fell off the oak tree as it struck the ground, and underneath Aria could see that the wood had rotted through long before the tree fell.

It started to rain. The wood pulp washed away, leaving just the bark on the wet grass. Aria felt her heart hammering in her chest.

“Sometimes God gives us warnings about things that are about to happen.” Ms. Nancy’s voice brought her back to the present.

The images she had just seen reminded her of last night somehow, but why?

“But they’re never negative,” Ms. Nancy said with a hard stare in her direction.

Aren’t they?

Aria twisted her hands in her lap.

Why is this happening to me? First the dreams, and now I’m seeing things while I’m awake! God, if this isn’t you then I must be crazy.

But God did give people crazy dreams in the Bible. Aria already knew that. And warnings of coming wars and famines and even their own deaths. Ms. Nancy seemed somehow unaware of what she was teaching, even while she admonished Aria. And if it was somehow God trying to speak to her…. The thought gave Aria goosebumps.

What if you’re not who people say you are?
she thought.
Then I don’t know you at all. Neither does Ms. Nancy!

But how can I ever know for sure? And why would you let me get hurt?

The wounds on her arms began to throb again. She opened her hand, finally, and unfolded the wrinkled paper.

“I like Jesse. Who do you like?” the note said, with hearts over the Is.

Aria sighed. She held her pen above the paper.

I see things that aren’t happening. What boy is going to like a girl who cuts herself in her sleep?
she imagined writing back.

She paused and then wrote, “Nobody.”