Rachel and Leah (Women of Genesis) Read Online Free PDF Page B

know!
    “When you yell at me, then I have to punish you,” said Father, “or there’ll be rebellion in the camp.”
    “Father,” said Rachel, “I yelled because you weren’t listening to me. You decided you knew what my vision was, only you were wrong, my vision was nothing like what you were saying. And it wasn’t like the romantic stories of Rebekah, either, because the girl in my vision was too young, about twelve years old maybe, and the man was on foot, carrying a bundle on his back, and
he
drew water for the girl. So it was nothing like Rebekah.”
    “Then why did you tell me you had a vision of Rebekah?” said Father impatiently.
    “Because the voice said her name,” said Rachel. “At least that’s all that I caught.”
    “What voice?”
    “The man.”
    “What man?”
    “The man who talks when I have this kind of vision.”
    Father got very serious. He led her to the table where the two images of the gods always stood and made her place one hand on each of them. “You’re speaking before God now,” he said. “Who was this man?”
    “I don’t know,” said Rachel. She tried to take her hands off the little stone statues. Father held them there.
    “It’s a terrible sin to pretend that God is talking to you when he isn’t,” said Father.
    “I never said it was God!” said Rachel.
    “She said it was a man,” said Leah helpfully.
    “I know what she said,” said Father. “It’s exactly what a child might say if she wanted people to think that she was getting visions from …”
    He let his words trail off and relaxed his hold on Rachel’s hands. She pulled away from the statues. She didn’t like the statues. They didn’t look anything like God, she was sure of that. God had to be tall and strong, not little and stumpy and rather badly sculpted.
    “Listen to me, Rachel. You must tell me. Was the girl in the dream
you?
”
    Rachel wondered if he ever listened to her at all. “I said she was older than me. How could she be me if she’s eleven or twelve years old?”
    “But did she look like you?” he asked.
    Rachel rolled her eyes. “How would I know? I’ve never seen myself.”
    “You’re very beautiful,” said Leah. Rachel hated when she said things like that, because of course Leah couldn’t see her all that well, so she was really repeating what everybody else said, and Rachel was sick of hearing it, especially because she knew it hurt Leah’s feelings.
    “I don’t know what beautiful looks like,” said Rachel. “Or what I look like.”
    “Haven’t you ever looked into a still pool of water and seen your face?”
    “The girl in my vision wasn’t all ripply and dark with stones and moss in the middle of her face.”
    Father glowered. “Don’t get bratty with me, Rachel. I won’t take it from you.”
    Leah murmured, “You always do.” Naturally, Father didn’t hear what she said—and Rachel did. Leah was very good at pitching her voice exactly right.
    “What?” said Father.
    “I don’t think it was a vision,” said Leah.
    Rachel turned and glared at her sister, but they were standing too far apart, so Leah couldn’t possibly see the expression on her face.
    “What do you think it was?” said Father.
    “I think it was a wish,” said Leah. “I think Rachel is wishing it would happen to her like it happened to Aunt Rebekah.”
    “Then why was everything different in my vision?” insisted Rachel.
    “What kind of blessing is this?” said Father. “Two beautiful daughters, one who can only see half of what’s there, and now the other sees more than what’s there.”
    Neither Rachel nor Leah thought this was a very funny comparison, but Father did, and he chuckled at it for so long that he ended up brushing tears of mirth from his eyes. “Sorry, sorry, I keep forgetting that neither of you has a sense of humor.”
    Rachel knew perfectly well that both she and Leah had very good senses of humor—they laughed a lot. They just didn’t think