Exodus (7 page)

12

THE DARK WOOD

Aria found herself in a dark forest. The red rays of a setting sun just barely filtered through the old, twisted trees. Above her, tree branches grew so closely together that they intertwined, competing to reach the twilight above.

Aria scanned the canopy for any sign of movement. She thought she had heard whispering. But all was still, the only movement a single yellow leaf drifting down to rest on the path in front of her.

Aria stepped over the dead leaf and passed deeper into the woods.

              She walked for what seemed like several miles, but the thick, gnarled tree trunks never thinned out. In fact they seemed to stand more closely together, crowding around her, closing in. The path continued to wind between them in no apparent direction, but it gradually narrowed and became more overgrown.

Aria started to feel suffocated by the dead air and the leering trees. They seemed to close ranks around her, dark underbrush in every direction. She had lost sight of the sun. She turned around and looked for a hint of where she should go.

There was a flash of color by the path ahead. Aria hurried around the bend to investigate.

Then she stopped short. There in the middle of the forest was a circus carousel, with gold lights and blue, orange, and scarlet ribbons trailing from the tented top.

The carousel was spinning silently among the trees.

Aria approached cautiously. Mirrored panels covered the center pivot, projecting colored light over her head against the black tree trunks around her. But there was no music, and there were no people on the ride.

              She walked alongside the carousel until she was sure of her timing. Then Aria swung herself up onto the steel platform. Horses and bears and birds rose and fell, rose and fell, as she threaded her way between them to find just the perfect animal to ride.

             
It was a gray eagle with a fierce, faraway look in his eye. Aria pushed her foot into a metal stirrup that hung below his right wing and swung herself up onto the eagle’s back. The carousel jolted and started to turn a little more quickly.

             
It was hard for Aria to tell how quickly they were moving. Everything swirled by in grays and blacks and flashes of colored light. She began to feel dizzy.

She reached out to steady herself on the mirrors closest to her hand, but as she did so the glittering carousel gave way slightly under the pressure of her touch.

Then it shattered into a thousand pieces.

             
Behind the shards of cheerily colored glass was darkness.

For a moment it contracted.

Then it lunged at Aria.

She screamed, falling off the eagle’s back and onto the forest floor.

The carousel had disappeared, leaving just a small clearing in the woods.

Aria found herself lying on the hard ground. She checked herself for injuries. Nothing seemed to be sprained or broken.

              “What are you doing out here all alone, little girl?” a woman’s voice asked abruptly.

Aria jumped to her feet to find a pale, dark-haired woman in a glittering red sari standing next to a large tree. Her hand caressed the trunk, making her heavy silver rings and bracelets shimmer in the low light.

She smiled, but it came out sort of upside down, with deep grooves running down the sides of her mouth.

Aria took a step back.

The color of her eyes was very dark, such a dark gray that her eyes almost looked black.

             
“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Aria stuttered. “Was that carousel yours?”

             
The woman laughed a deep, growling kind of laugh.

“You shouldn’t be all by yourself out here. You never know who is in a forest like this.”

She laughed again, and her sari slipped away from her feet, revealing gold, pointed shoes. They quickly faded to a bright orange, and Aria tasted blood on her tongue. The sense of a dark presence only intensified when the woman moved toward her again.

“It’s you!” Aria gasped, stepping back. “You were in my house!”

The woman sneered. The darkness of her pupils flooded the whites of her eyes, so they were ink black from lid to lid. She blinked quickly, like a reptile.

“What do you want with me?” Aria cried, scrambling backward. “Who are you?”

The soulless black eyes of the sheep bird flashed in Aria’s mind, and suddenly she knew it was all the same force. The same evil.

“You seem confused,” the woman replied.

Aria
was
confused, but she realized in a moment of clarity that it was the wood, or the woman—or something—that was making her confused. She struggled to think clearly.

“Are you the bear, too?” she asked. What other frightening creatures had she faced down in her dreams that could have been this woman—this
thing
pursuing her?

The woman chuckled. “You can’t blame all of your insanity on me,” she hissed. “The darkest creatures in your dreams come from deep inside
you
.”

             
“I need to go,” Aria said. She stumbled backwards and tripped over a log.

             
“Where will you go?” the woman asked, towering over her with another upside down, black-eyed smile.

             
“My daddy’s house isn’t far,” Aria replied. She peered through the trees and finally spotted what she knew was the western edge of the forest. Her head was feeling clearer now.

             
“Your daddy? He left you in here all alone? Not a very nice daddy, I don’t think,” the woman smirked. “Come with me.”

She reached out for Aria’s hand, but Aria pulled back.

              “I’m not alone!” she said.

             
“No?” The woman waited for her to explain herself.

             
“No.” Aria stood to her feet.

             
The woman’s manner changed. “I see,” she said, scowling.

             
“I have to get out of here,” Aria repeated, searching the underbrush for the path.

The woman raised her hands and hissed, “Well let’s see if you can get out of this!”

She thrust her hands toward the ground. A foul-smelling breeze lifted a cloud of dead leaves off the forest floor at Aria’s feet.

Something inside Aria shouted,
Run!

An invisible force pushed Aria back onto the path, where she took off toward the west. She tore through the forest, crushing the plants underfoot and pounding the hard ground with her feet. Whispers swirled behind her and pursued her as she fled. She looked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of dark winged shapes hurling themselves through the forest canopy behind her. The creatures snapped through thick tree branches and shrieked to each other in a strange language.

Aria could just barely make out the edge of the tree line, where some light from the dwindling sun filtered through the trees. She headed toward the light as fast as her feet could manage.

Something tore at her shirt, but she didn’t turn to see what it was. She could feel hot breath on the back of her neck and could picture talons reaching out to slice through the flesh of her back.

She ran for her life.

             
She ran until the trees thinned out, and headed full-speed for the light of the setting sun.

Then she found herself airborne where the ground fell away beneath her, and she fell through a rainbow-lined mist.

Aria woke up shaking with fear. She immediately checked her body for injuries. Everything seemed to be okay.

She started to cry, but something about the dream wouldn’t let go of her. The carousel reappeared in her mind, turning in silent circles.

She made the connection.

Mrs. Coghill’s voice echoed in her mind: “It all just spun around and went nowhere.”

The carousel is our church!

Aria was excited now. These dreams
were
connected! And that forest. The confusion she had felt for weeks was just like it in some ways. She didn’t know which way was out, but she knew one thing now. She did want out.

She was starting to understand how these dream symbols worked. The carousel was going nowhere, and shattered when she touched it with the slightest pressure. Just like the revival, it had been an illusion. The revival had gone nowhere and also shattered under the slightest pressure. Her dreams
were
coming true.
All
of them. And she was beginning to understand.

13

ELDERS MEETING

“You knew this whole time he was stealing from the church and you didn’t tell us?”

Aria could see through the stair railing down onto the men sitting around her living room. It was another elders’ meeting, and it was getting loud. She pressed her face against the balusters to see more.

A skinny young elder Aria didn’t know very well was standing on the rug by the fireplace, pointing at her father. She saw the back of her dad’s head when he stood up from his armchair to respond.

“I wasn’t going to accuse Pastor Ted of embezzlement until I was darn sure that was what was going on! He swore up and down he didn’t take money from the church, so how could I bring this to you until I had irrefutable evidence? It would have just been my word against his, and he’s very good at getting people to believe what he says!”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Mr. Bob shouted, heaving himself up from the leather couch. “You had better watch it before you get out of line.”

“Before
I
get out of line? This man has half the church convinced my daughter is crazy because she had a dream that he ordered evil spirits to attack her. You know what? He
has
been attacking her through malicious rumors all to distract you from this, and my wife tells me the tornado she dreamed of is a common symbol for spiritual upheaval. Aria was absolutely right about him, though she doesn’t even now know what her dream really reveals. Pastor Ted here has been tricking all of us into worrying about my sweet daughter’s sanity, all the while skimming the offering plate for—.”

He stopped and looked at Pastor Ted.

Pastor Ted glared back. His dark eyes glittered.

“For what?” Mr. Bob said, his face turning almost purple. He looked back and forth between the two men.

“His
pants
were missing in Aria’s dream, Bob! His
pants
!”

“What the heck are you talking about?” Phil Donagee joined in now.

“Yes, just what are you implying?” Mr. Stauffin said from the couch. He stifled a yawn and smoothed the front of his sweaty dress shirt.

“I went back over the budget again and again to try to find my mistake, to try to reconcile these numbers,” Aria’s dad said in a quieter voice. He picked up the stack of papers Aria had seen him pouring over in the previous weeks.

“And?” The skinny elder was still standing with his hands on his hips and his feet spread.

“
And
,” Aria’s father said, “I did what any good lawyer, any good treasurer, would do. I followed the money. I followed it all the way to the red light district! Where do you think he’s been spending his weekday afternoons? Not preparing his sermons, I can tell you that!”

There was silence while the accusation sank in.

“Hookers?! You have been spending your ‘earnings’ on hookers?” Phil Donagee threw his arms up and looked like he was about to punch Pastor Ted in the face. “You have got to be kidding me! How could you do this? After all that preaching about faithfulness?” He let his arms fall to his sides with a slap.

“How could you do this?” he asked again.

Pastor Ted sat between the TV and the fireplace, cornered by Aria’s dad and Phil.

             
“It’s a fair question,” Aria’s dad said quietly, massaging his forehead with his fingers. “Ted?”

Pastor Ted stood up. He pointed at Aria’s dad. “How could
I
do this? How could
you
turn on me after we’ve been friends for twenty years? I needed your friendship and loyalty, and you betrayed me.”

He crossed his arms and tapped his foot on the carpet. The framed photo of all the elders building a bonfire together crackled silently on the wall behind him.

“Don’t you turn this on me,” Aria’s dad growled. “You stole money from the church, you spent it on
prostitutes
, you even tried to accuse
me
of falsely accusing
you
of embezzlement. You’re not going to deflect this conversation onto some other topic or push it off on someone else this time. You’re a thief and a liar: let’s deal with that first! Then we can talk about how
I
disappointed
you
. I only uncovered this because you forced me to go back and double-check my accounting, and you know it!”