The Hallelujah Side by Rhoda Huffey

Author:Rhoda Huffey [Huffey, Rhoda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-5580-3
Publisher: Delphinium Books
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Cadillac Faith

FOR THE NEXT SIX months the flying dream came each night, and Roxy lived for it. Each night she laid her head upon the pillow, happily anticipating. The dream never varied in its details of takeoff, flight, landing, and gallons of oxygen in your lungs. In it Roxanne Fish soared over the town of Ames, the sixth of a formation of five blue birds, the wind lifting her red hair, the Ames lights twinkling underneath her. At all times the largest bird, who knew her, flew directly to her left.

In the dream, first she woke. The hands on her small clock said three a.m., the minute hand exactly on the twelve.

Creeping past her parents’ bed on tiptoe, hands out to balance, was nerve-racking. Her mother snored softly while her father breathed on his side. Each night she almost tripped over the rug but caught herself. Her mother always stirred once. In the kitchen, with the door closed, she finally took a full breath. The linoleum each night was the same temperature. She went directly down into the basement stairwell, where she sneezed twice. After a pause she sneezed again.

Then she sneezed no more. Down in the basement she felt weirdly safe, not afraid like in real life. In the dark there might be monsters, but they stayed behind the washing machine. The Iowa sky waited for her, Roxanne Fish. She hurried past the tornado provisions, the piles of dirty clothes, her father’s study. Being near the water heater helped him think.

“Whoops!” Past the second timber on the left she always almost tripped again.

Going through the door into the church basement frightened her a little. The Sunday School rooms were dark and might contain demons. Roxy hurried past the third-grade classroom where God had not saved her. She could just make out the Walls of Jericho flannelgraph standing on its easel. The tile floor here was cold, and Roxy, barefoot, was relieved to reach the wood stairs that went up.

She did not look behind her.

Protected by angels, she unlocked the front church doors. Moonlight from the outside flooded her and washed over the floor. The Ames sky looked back at her. She ascended into the sanctuary, where she turned to face the open doors, shaking out her fingers, arms, and legs.

“I believe,” she said.

Like Roland’s healings, becoming airborne took profound mental energy. She tightened all her muscles until they shook, to tell God she meant business.

“I believe,” she said through clenched teeth.

Then she started running, across the foyer and out the door and down the concrete walk, arms flapping, mind thinking up, up, up, up, up, defying gravity, concentrating on the five birds hovering over Beardshear School.

“I believe,” she gasped.

She believed so hard her knees locked. Quickly she rebent them. She flapped her arms faster. It always took three tries, the first two ending in despair out by the center line of Carroll Street, flying a ridiculous notion, her body at least two tons.

“Okay.”

Sweat poured down her face as she went back into the church and up the platform stairs and turned around.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.