The Outside by Laura Bickle Read Free Book Online

white sky.
    I was nothing. I was less than a feather, dark and vanishing in that vast expanse.

C HAPTER F IVE
    I don’t know that I ever had any particular thoughts or expectations about what heaven would be like. To be honest, I’d always been too caught up in the day-to-day details of life to really ponder it in more than a vague “someday” sort of way. Deep down, I wanted it to be a certainty. I expected it. I believed that I was good. And I believed that I’d have time to make up for all my sins.
    But the end of the world had undone all of that.
    And now I was going to be undone. Caught out. And lost from those I loved forever.
    I wondered if it would always be like this: the searing heat of the venom, the cold of the water, the pearly gray-white of the sky surrounding me. Gradually, it all faded, even the ringing and the sensation of water in my ears, leaving behind that sense of sky.
    I closed my eyes, savoring that feeling of the in-between.
    And sucked in my breath.
    It hurt to do so. It hurt more than anything I’d ever done. The air in my lungs seemed to sear their interior, but I made myself breathe.
    I was not yet done with life. I had too much left undone. I would fight for it.
    I stared, blinking. I saw three faces above me: Ginger, Pastor Gene, and Alex. There was such an awful expression of fear on Alex’s face that I wanted to reach up and wipe away.
    But I started to shiver.
    Alex broke into a smile, and his ice-blue eyes glistened. “You with us?”
    “
Ja
,” I said, through chattering teeth. “I am.”
    “She’s freezing,” Ginger said. “Bring her to the fire.”
    It took the three of them to haul my sodden body from the creek, up the bank. I was in Alex’s arms, and I pressed my ear to his chest as he carried me toward the burning church. I could feel the heat on my back, but I shivered violently. Alex sat behind me, wrapping his arms around me, and rested his chin on my hair.
    I stared down at my hand. It was swollen to three times its normal size, gone black and red as a rotten apple. It didn’t look like my own body—it looked like something that belonged on a corpse. Pink water drained from the wound. It throbbed, but not with the sharp viciousness as before. Ginger huddled over it and began wrapping it up in fabric from her apron.
    “It’s a miracle,” Pastor Gene said, crouching beside us.
    “
Ja
,” I said, too exhausted to argue.
    And the four of us watched the church burn down, blackening and curling in on itself in silence.
     
    I fell asleep and dreamed of a snake.
    It wasn’t just any snake.
    In the dream, I was back at home in my village. Night shrouded me in a soft blanket of darkness, and I was walking through the field toward my house. I’d recognize that sharp roofline against a starry sky anywhere. A light burned brightly inside. I ran toward the house, but it seemed that the light kept moving farther away.
    Ravens cawed in the sky, darker specks of black against the purple night. They moved as one, south, away from the land I knew and loved. I knew that something terrible must have disturbed them.
    But I was determined to make it to the house. At last, I reached the back step. I tugged open the screen door.
    In the light of a lantern, I saw a familiar silhouette.
    “Elijah,” I breathed.
    He turned toward me. He was taller than I was, with dark hair and hazel eyes. But his gaze was hooded. I’m not sure of the exact point at which I began to think of him as my enemy. Maybe it was when he had gotten baptized before I did, crossed that invisible divide from ordinary to blessed. Maybe when he had insisted that I do it, as well, and that we should be married without tasting the Outside world. But it was certainly when he found Alex and me together and brought the Elders to my doorstep.
    I flinched away from him. “What are you doing here?”
    He looked at me from under the brim of his hat. “What are
you
doing here? You don’t belong here anymore.”
    A