When the Rivers Swell by Sierra A. Elliott

Author:Sierra A. Elliott [Elliott, Sierra A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

Hannah

Before the blood waters receded from the Nile, part of Hannah doubted whether the prophecy would be fulfilled in seven days. But it had happened just as Moses had predicted. After the seventh day, fresh water surged into the Nile, washing the blood out from the river, channels, and canals. Even the wells and pools were restored. But it wasn’t a cause for celebration. It was only the beginning.

Shortly after, Abba and the other Hebrew men received news from Moses that a second plague was coming. Though Pharaoh had relented for a moment, promised Moses that the Hebrews could be free, his heart had hardened again. And now, God was sending a plague of frogs. It was only a matter of time before they came.

When Hannah first heard the news, she nearly laughed. Frogs were some of her favorite creatures. Ever since she and Eliab were little, they would traipse through the muddy flats around the Nile to see who could catch more frogs.

Hannah didn’t remember the story herself, but Eema loved to tell of the time when she was four or five and had smuggled a frog into the house. Apparently, Hannah had carried it to bed with her, and when Eema awoke the next morning, she was greeted by two slimy, amphibious eyes. Needless to say, her scream awoke Hannah, and the fun came to an end. When asked why she’d brought home a frog, Hannah had said she wanted to raise the frog as a pet, like they did the sheep.

But something told her that this plague would not be so innocent.

Hannah’s family spent two days carefully watering their vulnerable sprouts and praying for God to restore their field. Hannah wished she could’ve been with Anipe when Moses’s prophecy came true, but she knew Nia would be there to answer the girl’s questions.

As Hannah closed her eyes for the night, she felt the nagging ache of field work in her back and shoulders, though she would find no rest. Just as she was drifting off, she heard shuffling about the room and her parents’ distressed voices.

“The loom!” Eema said. “We can move it against the doorway and cover it with cloth.”

“What’s going on?” Hannah sat up and leaned on one elbow to see what her parents were doing. Abba was working to pull her mother’s weaving loom across the room as Eema pushed with all her weight.

“Bring a blanket over here,” Eema called to her. “We need to block all the windows and doors so they can’t get in.”

Hannah understood then as her attention was drawn to the faint sound of croaking in the distance, a chorus that drowned out the sound of the Nile. After handing her mother a blanket, Hannah ran over to the window and looked down at the street. From what she could see in the moonlight, there were at least a dozen little frogs scaling the walls of her house and hundreds more waiting below, calling to each other in a loud chorus.

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