Talitha Koum

Prologue

TALITHA KOUM

PROLOGUE

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The flaming red curls on the boy’s head glistened in the early morning sun as he peered out the window, a sun god with his head on fire. The teacher droned on.

He sat in a dim room carved out of the attic of the Church. The smell of unfinished wood suffused the air. Dust hung as curtains, invisible except where shelves of sunlight revealed them, as they wedged from the window onto the floor several feet away. He gazed at the trees outside the window. Their topmost branches swayed in the breeze, beckoning him. His eyes followed the trunks down to the ground, where the oversized roots penetrated the soft loam of the earth.

Perched on the lowest branch was a boy. The boy climbed down the tree and skipped over toward the rocky shoreline of the river nearby. He dashed straight to the break in the fence that allowed passage, even though it was concealed amid the heavy growth of bushes. The giggling of the brook said hello and the springtime smell of the moss on the rocks asked him how he was. As he approached the water’s edge, a frog jumped into it. He took off his shoes and socks and waded into the edge of the stream.

Waiting with hands crossed in front, his companion remained standing on the bank while he played. The river was clear and where the sunlight fingered it, the water was not too cold.

Other children played farther downstream and he heard their laughter. Someone asked a question, but he couldn’t make out what the question was. Another voice answered and said something about the lottery, and then someone else said something about being a rock star. They laughed again. The boy made no move to listen in on the talk. He kept his head down, staring into the water. He saw a crayfish just a second ago under this very rock. His hands lifted several of them and he frowned…

“Tommy?” someone called.

“Tommy?”

It wasn’t a child’s voice he heard…

“Tommy, are you listening?” asked the tall lady with the glasses.

“Yes, ma’am.” With a jerk, he sat up straight in his chair, knocking over his Bible onto the floor. The class broke out in laughter once more.

“I was asking you what you thought,” said the teacher. “Solomon asked for wisdom and that was considered a good answer, pleasing to God. If God promised to grant one wish for you, Tommy, anything you wanted in the whole, wide world, what would you ask for?”

He turned his eyes up toward his Sunday School teacher. No hesitation. No pondering was necessary. His voice was steady as his gaze bored into her soul.

“I would ask to see God.”

“Ask to see God?” She nodded. She pivoted around, slowly. “Oh. I see.” She sauntered back to the front of the class. She turned around again to face them. “And why do you want to see God?”

“Because there’s a question I have to ask Him.”

Tommy was twelve years old.