Chapter 3: Cora
Sarah's young adult novel, "Peacekeepers/Truthbringers," continues
Sarah has written a young adult novel, “Peacekeepers/Truthbringers,” and we’re excited to share it with you. As a holiday gift, we’ll be serializing the book—releasing a new chapter every Monday. We’ll also continue to post occasional non-fiction reflections as inspiration and news arise.
The storm had been threatening for days, and it was finally here. The desert sky was a deep black that choked the stars, and the streaks of silver fire that shot through its depths every few seconds lit Cora and lit up the dumpy grey apartment house where she lived. The flash showed an athletic, barefoot girl with short dark hair pushed behind her ears, wearing dirty brown shorts and tank top.
She was alone, of that she was certain. What else is new, she thought to herself bitterly. Her father was gone. She had pushed off the idea that the authorities would figure out she was living alone as a problem she would solve when she had to. That time was now; the rent was due, and if she didn’t move on, she would be found out in days.
Her round face framed dark, nearly black eyes and thick eyebrows, a wide nose broad at the bridge, full mouth, and a smattering of freckles. Although Cora looked almost childish with wide, round cheeks and a broad forehead, her luminous, jet eyes made her look older, as did her heavily lined hands, which were calloused and chapped.
The sun was long down but it was still 90 degrees, the air thick and oppressive. Cora could feel the static in the air, and it felt as though it could ignite her. She feared something would happen, longed for something to happen. She paced, clasping and unclasping her hands, while balancing on the curb that bordered the parking lot. She watched the sky. She wanted to run, to push her body until she was exhausted, releasing the tension that coiled in her. The night was so black that when the rain started falling in sheets she didn’t expect it, although it felt like a relief, somehow. There was hail with it, too.
She didn’t stop moving but let the water soak her clothes and hair. There was a ditch nearby, maybe ten feet deep, gravel-lined. Most Albuquerque neighborhoods had arroyos to manage annual flash floods. Water rushing down from the Sandia Mountains, if not diverted, ran right over the clay soil that couldn’t absorb it, filling basements and washing out roads. The apartment development where Cora lived was large enough to have its own ditch. It was full of black water in minutes, and, still, rain pounded down, steam rising from the hot ground.
Newly connected electrical lines from the nearby construction site dangled above the ditch. Cora was thinking about how strange it was, that fire and water came together during a storm, how they enabled each other. She wondered if the ditch would be a likely conductor for the lightning that flashed every few seconds, thunder coming almost immediately on its heels.
From the curb where she paced faster and faster, Cora could see the high school where she would be a freshman for another few weeks. She felt sick and angry looking at it. To say that she didn’t fit in was so much of an understatement it made her want to laugh.
Only her math teacher seemed to notice her at all and harassed her with unwanted attention. Where was her homework? Why did she have so many absences? Could she ask a parent to call the school? The teacher had tried the number on record, she said, and it was disconnected. Soon she would figure out that Cora was alone, that her father hadn’t been home for weeks. Cora didn’t have money for rent, and by the end of the month she would be found out. She had to figure out what to do.
