Exodus by Laura Cowan Page A

oppressive evening heat of what was turning into a serious drought. Aria wanted to open the sliding door and let her dad out on the deck, to run away with him through the garden. She wanted to see his boyish grin again and to skip with him across the grass.
    “Jim, it’s vital that you stand with us on this issue,” Mr. Bob was saying.
    Aria pushed her face against the railings again to get a better look at him.
    “We value your service to this church, and we need your support now more than ever. For the sake of this church and its outreach to the community, this issue needs to stay behind closed doors for now, all right? Our solidarity is important to prevent outsiders from misinterpreting what is going on here, and that reflecting poorly on the God we serve.”
    Aria lay down on the hall carpet and closed her eyes. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she prayed. Where are you? Why is everything still going wrong?
    Her bird dream replayed on the back of her eyelids, then. She saw Pastor Ted’s boxers once more. Her eyes flew open, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Why hadn’t she understood until now? She had seen the future. His pants. The prostitutes.
    “We can’t even trust you to keep your pants on or your hands out of the offering plate!” Phil Donagee was yelling downstairs.
    Aria stared at the ceiling. That was why Pastor Ted had glared at her at the picnic. That was why he had fought so hard to keep everyone from finding out the truth. That was why he had done everything he could to take her out. Her very nature threatened his secrets. And how could someone so blind know that she really had a dream telling the future and wasn’t just trying to oust him so her parents could take his job?
    “Where are you?” Aria begged the ceiling. Tears started to drip into her ears. Her chest shook with silent cries. “I thought you were coming for me. You promised!” She pictured the deep, soft eyes she had fallen in love with, and her stomach tied itself in knots. I love you, she thought. Come back for me!
    All Aria could think about sometimes were those eyes. He had promised—those eyes of his had promised—and he had seemed so good. She closed her eyes one more time and returned to the place where everything had last made sense….
    Aria had walked past the brass lamp stands in her vision of the gold temple and lifted the hem of her white dress to step up to the altar. She turned to face him.
    His eyes were a soft black and gold—and so deep. Endless.
    Aria fell to her knees, and a few tears had dripped onto the church floor where she lay curled up under her pew.
    She heard someone speak into the microphone, “At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. ‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’”
                  “I don’t deserve you,” she had groaned.
    In response, he placed his gentle hands under her elbows and lifted her slowly back up to her feet, facing him.
    “We have been waiting for you,” he said softly.
                  Aria turned to see forty angels assembled in the pews facing the altar. Two near the center aisle looked like twins. Blond curls circled their heads, and white-feathered wings were folded neatly behind their heads and backs.
    Their huge wings were composed of layers of small feathers. Aria tried to look more closely, but the twins slipped silently behind the dark-haired angel to their right.
    The dark-haired angel smiled, and the corners of his mouth creased into little tanned folds.
    They didn’t want the attention.
    Aria turned back to her groom.
                  “I have a gift for you, will you receive it?” he said, and gestured toward the side of the room.
    Wings fluttered behind her. The angels were whispering.
    Aria nodded.
    They stepped down