H2O: The Novel Part 21

At last, the Radiant One refilled the basin and lifted it up, His eyes to the sky as He spoke a blessing upon the water, and then poured it over my head. Water coursed over me, drenching me, washing me free of crusty layers of filth-my sin. I could feel His water penetrate me, diving through me, blasting out charred flesh and smoothing horrid scars. It soaked me and lifted away a blackness I'd hidden deep from anyone's view, dirt I knew had been there for many years. I was scrubbed, gently, thoroughly, and I became a new creature.

He took my hands in His, facing me as I dried in His presence.

"Do you understand what I have done for you?"

Yes! I was clean at last. He had washed me. As though He'd become part of me, I felt the answer to His question without hearing it.

"Now, wash one another." He spoke to my soul. He was sending me.

The Radiant One handed me a cloth, and another basin filled with fresh water, then pointed me toward a dark area of my vision, a place where there were no colors, where no light shone. One hand on my shoulder, He walked with me, speaking in a soft voice, words of encouragement that gave me hope and strength. He promised to perfect me in my trials. I headed into an unknown, but now that I knew Him, I went with confidence that He would guard my path.

We arrived at a door, a portal beyond which I could see others, many of them people whom I knew. They were sad people, busy people. Xavier, Andrea, and Justus. They were all running, no one resting, their eyes covered with thick plates that reminded me of fish scales. He opened the door to the darkness and beckoned me through.

"Now that you know these things," He said, "you will be blessed if you do them." He withdrew from me, but I could feel His presence even as He moved away. As if the Radiant One lived inside me, part of me in a way that could never be separated. I was now one with Him.

His voice urged me as I headed into the blackness, encouraging me to extend a hand to the first desperate person I met.

"I tell you the truth," He said. "Whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me, and whoever accepts me accepts the One who has sent me."

I opened my eyes in the stream of the shower, its warm embrace stripping away tears of joy. I let the water pour into my mouth, drinking in its goodness. I had become a new creature, a restored woman. I raised my hands toward the top of the stall and cried aloud, gurgling as the water filled me, but sure He could understand.

"Yes, Jesus. Make me clean."

I heard ringing. A distant bell, one I knew had called me often. Embracing the One, sharing His news with others in the dark, I sensed a need to leave, to head back to my world and the chime that rang my name.

Face in the hot stream, I heard it again. My iPhone! Warbling on the floor of the bathroom, where I'd dropped it when I raced for the cleansing of my inner self. I let it ring, drinking in the goodness under the showerhead, wet love pouring over me. He had been there for me all along, waiting for me to embrace Him. Stubborn and determined to control my life, I'd layered dirt upon dirt, until at last I saw Him in the faces, actions and words of the people He'd sent my way.

The phone started to ring again, the caller determined to find me, to get through no matter what. For how long had that caller been trying to reach me?

Leaving the water running, I threw open the new shower door, not used since I crashed through the previous one months ago. Slipping on tiles not wetted for as many days, I stumbled over my clothes, fumbling for the iPhone in a pocket of my running pants. My feet went out from under me, and I landed on my bottom in a lotus squat, facing the wall, phone in hand.

"h.e.l.lo?" I exclaimed, clutching the wet device upside down, laughing.

"Kate?"

I knew this voice. It was the patient and forgiving man who'd found me, listened to me and loved me. A man who spoke the same love expressed by the Radiant One, yet he was only a dim shadow of the Voice who'd called me, washed my feet, and sent me to others to do the same.

He spoke again. "Kate, are you there?"

I righted the phone, staring for a moment at his picture on the device, a simple man who worked wonders with his hands, a man who made things right with water. A man who loved me unconditionally, despite my dirt and my faults. A man who forgave my deepest sin.

I pulled the phone to my ear, tears coursing down wet cheeks, reminiscent of the salty flow that had drenched me moments ago. I could barely speak, but coughed up the words I wanted him to hear, to let him know that I'd found the peace he'd promised. I'd found release.

"I'm clean!" I blurted out. "He washed me and I'm clean!" I sobbed with joy, unable to say more, holding the slick phone to my ear, desperate to hear him speak, sure he could hear my tears of freedom and understand their source. His entire adult life, he'd followed the same Light I'd just embraced.

"Kate?" the voice repeated. "Did you ask Him?"

"Yes." I could manage only one word, but it spoke eternity.

I heard weeping. "I love you, Kate! I'm coming home."

I held the iPhone at arm's length, staring for a long moment at the picture in my hands, cradling my future and my protector.

My best friend.

John.

EPILOGUE.

SUMMER.

JOHN EXTENDED his hand as I stepped out of the entrance of the Water Tower at Volunteer Park, warm air embracing us both as we emerged from the cool of the century-old stone structure. All around us, Seattle lay sweltering under the overcast sky of a windless summer day. Views in every direction from the top of the tower were one of the highlights of our day in the park.

The other highlight? The smile on Liam's face at the fundraiser for St. Jude's Children's Hospital, and a hundred kids just like him, reveling in the attention of this day. I chuckled, stepping out of the Water Tower, at how Liam still carried his latest ball and chain carving wherever he went. Funny, I thought, how I'd hauled my own ball and chain around, albeit of a different sort, for so many years.

"Clouds are moving in," John said with a rea.s.suring squeeze of my hand. "It's a few blocks to my car."

"I'll be fine," I answered, with more bravado than I felt. Sure as I was in my newfound cleanliness, I still preferred to control when I got wet, and how. John supported me, of course, but encouraged me every day to let go and enjoy G.o.d's wet refreshment.

A few steps later, as I emerged from the park on East Prospect Street, an old voice jolted me out of my joy.

"So that's the guy?"

I froze, holding John in place, squeezing even harder on his hand for strength-and my rock in the storm that was sure to come. I turned, facing the traffic, and Xavier's Mercedes Roadster, windows down. Stopped on the side of the street, holding up the traffic behind him, he leered. I cast a quick look at John, just to make sure that the hand in mine was the pillar of support I'd remembered, then looked back at X. He shook his head, frowning.

I felt a cool rush of wind, that just-before-a-shower blow of wet chill that precedes an approaching cold front. The weather had threatened all day on this fabulous outdoor fundraiser for the hospital. Until now, the rain had stayed away, blessing thousands who turned out to help Liam and his little friends. But that cool heralded rain. Soon. A chill ran down my back as I was haunted by my past parked at the street curb and a certain drenching so far from John's car.

"This is my friend John," I squeaked, gathering my voice. "John Connor." I pointed toward the Roadster. "John, this is Xavier. He was my boss at Consolidated Aerodyne."

John stepped toward the curb, pulling me with him. I wasn't about to lose this grip on my protector. He extended a hand, but Xavier, his arm bent at the elbow and resting on the open window of his door, waived a dismissive hand and shook his head as if to say "don't bother." John stopped with me at the curb as more cool wind blew in hard. Something wet was on the way.

"I saw you at the gala," he said, no words for John. "Your sushi was good."

"You tried it?" I asked, breathless.

Xavier smiled. That was a rarity.

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "Sounds funny, I guess. But some things about me have changed, Kate. Most of them for the better." He bit his lip, then extended his arm out of the car while he threw a scowling glance back at the honking driver behind him. He stuck his arm straight out of the car toward John, who took the grip in a long handshake. "I'm Xavier Morton," he said. "Glad to meet you." He paused, nodding my direction, and added, "You're a lucky guy. She's one cla.s.sy woman."

"I know," John said when Xavier released the grip. The driver behind X laid on his horn again, this time with more gusto.

Xavier pulled his arm back in the car just as the first drop of rain, one of those big crocodile tears from heaven, fell on my forehead. The drip scampered down the bridge of my nose. Lights flashed.

I stood on a road, surrounded by dry. The bone-dust parched landscape of desert rose up from a blue sea to a brilliant high place in distant mountains. Yet, for all the water behind me on the salty horizon, I stood in the grip of a thirsty desiccated place.

Ahead of me, along the side of the dusty road, sat a wagon. No, it was more like a chariot, shiny black and sleek, large enough to carry two people and drawn by two horses. In the shade of a rock outcropping, a muscular bald-headed man sat with a scroll in his hand, reading.

The Voice prodded me. "Go up and join this chariot."

When I drew close, moved again by the Spirit, I asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?"

"Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?" he replied. The traveler was dressed in fine clothes, so much finer than mine. But he implored me to join him, and I sat by his side, my gaze drawn to his scroll. Guided by the Spirit, I recited the entirety of that Scripture to him and explained all that he had read. After a time, we rode together in the chariot along the road, headed toward a jeweled city in the distance. We discussed the meaning of the scroll, climbing into the foothills of distant mountains as we drove. As we talked, he opened his heart to the One, and-like mine-his understanding grew.

More drops pelted me, little flashes of light popping behind my eyes as they hit. I felt a tug at my hand, but hung on to the chariot and the bald-headed man. We drove a long way, progressing up the road toward a brilliant city on a hill. Spying water at a curve in the dusty highway, he stopped the chariot and guided me to a nearby spring.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "What prevents me from being baptized?"

We left the chariot and descended together into the water. Again, guided by the Spirit, I dipped my hands into the cool spring, cupping them to gather the wetness, and poured it over the man's smooth head. Water coursed over a dusty scalp, washing away layers of grime thick from years of ignorance and sin.

As the man looked up, he instantly vanished from my sight. As if I'd suddenly been whisked away from that place, plucked out of that marvelous spring in the midst of a barren desert, I stood on the street with John, his hand wrapped about mine.

I saw him, my protector, smiling as rain pelted about us. The traffic moved past us at a good clip. Xavier's black Roadster had disappeared.

"I need to get you inside, Kate," John said, pulling on me again.

"No." I shook my head, lifting my face into the rain, my smile a gully for more drips that coursed over my cheeks. "Let's just stand here and enjoy this."

John moved behind me on the sidewalk and wrapped his arms about my waist. He steadied me as the clouds burst above us.

I looked up into raindrops, sky juice pelting my forehead with spiritual flashbulbs, each one a picture of the Radiant One, beckoning me on.

Face to the heavens, eyes closed to focus only on Him, I drank in a goodness that I'd run from for far too long.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

AUSTIN BOYD.

In 2008, my good friend, Brannon Hollingsworth, posed an idea while we escaped the office for a Value Meal dining experience at Wendy's. "We should write a novel together," he suggested over chili and a side salad.

"Coauthoring a book can really test a friendship," I said. "But we could make it work. So, what's the story?"

Never intimidated by a challenge, Brannon shared his brainstorm with enthusiasm. He described an edgy new idea: exposure to water sparks uncontrollable visions, imagery sent by G.o.d to draw His people to Him. "How long," Brannon wondered aloud, "could you go without a drink of water or a bath, if you were resisting G.o.d's attempts to get your attention?"

The next week Brannon and I ate lunch at a sushi restaurant, and Kate Pepper came to life as we watched the chef sanitize his knife to prepare sashimi and California rolls. Exactly three years later, we wrote these acknowledgements at the end of the editorial process. Ours is a strong friendship, and the coauthoring was a special experience that taught us more about writing, and about our Lord.

Special thanks go to Rick Steele and Dale Anderson at AMG Publishers for their "vision" to bring this novel to print. Many thanks also to our freelance editors and to the AMG staff who critiqued this ma.n.u.script and supported the marketing, especially Linda Nathan, Mary DeMuth, Susanne Lakin, Rick Steele, John Fallahee, and Trevor Overcash. A host of supporting readers provided critical input for early ma.n.u.script revisions; we thank you all for your time, your wise comments, and your inspiration. I offer a special "thank you" to our agent and my dear friend, Les s...o...b.., for his tireless efforts to find a home for this novel. We wrote the ma.n.u.script first, and then went looking for the right publishing house. Les never gave up on us, and taught us much in the process.

G.o.d places people and events in our lives to draw us to Him. He put Brannon Hollingsworth, and this unique novel, in my path so that I might understand Scripture in a new and vibrant way. For Kate Pepper, that person was her Instant Messenger friend John Connor, and the event was her unexplained visions when she touched water. Who is it-or what is it-that G.o.d has sent to draw you to Himself? Remember, Jesus will never give up on you, no matter how far you think you've drifted away.

BRANNON HOLLINGSWORTH.

I would first like to acknowledge my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for who He is and what He has done for me, for this book idea, and for the creativity that all comes from Him. This is YOUR BOOK, Jesus. Congratulations! Second, I want to acknowledge my bride, Heather, who walked faithfully beside me through every step of the amazing and unexpected H2O journey. "Blue eyes," you complete me! Third, I would like to thank my dear friend, mentor, and coauthor Austin Boyd, for the opportunity to write this book together. It's been an amazing and invaluable experience. And thanks so much to AMG Publishers for having faith in our idea and taking the steps to bring it to market. I am honored to be partnered with a group of folks who are so pa.s.sionate about spreading the Gospel.

To G.o.d be the glory!.

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