A Face Without a Reflection Read online

  A FACE WITHOUT A REFLECTION

  A FACE WITHOUT A REFLECTION

  Linda Lee Bowen

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 Linda Lee Bowen

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0692999493

  ISBN 13: 9780692999493

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017919099

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

  North Charleston, South Carolina

  All scriptural quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  To my sons,

  Casey and Tyler,

  and to my sister,

  Sharon.

  I love you more than you will ever know.

  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

  —1 Corinthians 13:12–13 (NIV)

  CONTENTS

  Part I Grace Falls

  Chapter 1 Ending Eleven

  Chapter 2 That Which Is Perfection

  Chapter 3 The Gift

  Chapter 4 As Spirit Sleeps

  Chapter 5 No Way To End A Day

  Chapter 6 Faith, Hope, And Love You Stew

  Chapter 7 The Day Things Went Horribly Wrong

  Chapter 8 Off With Her Head

  Chapter 9 A Disappointment To Everyone

  Chapter 10 The Problem With Otterhounds

  Chapter 11 The Twelfth Day Of June

  Chapter 12 From Tomb To Womb

  Part II U-R-Here

  Chapter 13 Born Again

  Chapter 14 U-R-Here, But Who Are You?

  Chapter 15 Meeting Daddy

  Chapter 16 Meeting Micah

  Chapter 17 Whatever Is Right, Whatever Is Pure

  Chapter 18 The Finder Of Seekers

  Chapter 19 Gone Fishin’

  Chapter 20 And Then There Were Four

  Chapter 21 Farewell, Old Friend

  Chapter 22 The Enemy Is Fear

  Chapter 23 The Way

  Chapter 24 The Truth

  Chapter 25 The Life

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  PART I

  GRACE FALLS

  CHAPTER 1

  ENDING ELEVEN

  I was at the end of my eleventh year on earth, and turning twelve was only hours away—well…turning twelve in the natural, anyway. But I’ll tell you about that later. Let’s just say that on the night before my twelfth birthday, I had no way of knowing that in a few short weeks, my entire world would come crashing down and everything I ever believed, trusted, or loved would be permanently and irrevocably changed. If I’d had an inkling as to what lay ahead, I would have clung to every word, every gesture, and every movement my mother made that night as she sat in the faded-blue armchair next to my bed and began a tale she would never end.

  “Did you know,” she asked as she tucked me in, “that there once was a girl who had no reflection?”

  “She had no reflection? That’s weird! Was she invisible?”

  “No,” she replied matter-of-factly. “She wasn’t invisible.” Her bright eyes twinkled as she stood to turn down the light.

  “Was she blind?” I asked, trying to figure out where the story was going.

  “Oh no!” she answered, apparently distracted by the pile of clothes I’d left scattered on the floor. “She was blessed with twenty-twenty vision and saw others and everything around her with incredible clarity. Far better than most!”

  “Hmmm.” I rolled onto my back to stare at the shadows on the ceiling. I wanted to appear as though I was giving the story careful consideration, but the truth was, I was trying to ignore the sight of my mother picking up my things. I checked on her progress from the corner of my eye. When it looked as though the room was in order, I decided it was safe to look at her again.

  “Does that mean that everyone saw everyone else, but no one saw themselves?” I asked, without acknowledging her efforts.

  She sat sideways in her favorite blue chair and rested her tiny bare feet on one of the arms. My mother was a petite woman, who was perfectly proportioned and in excellent shape, although she paid very little attention to the way she looked and didn’t care if anyone else did. But it was impossible for people not to notice her. She was a natural beauty who never wore makeup or styled her shoulder-length dirty-blond hair—unless you would call a ponytail a “style.” Her wardrobe reflected her plain, no-nonsense approach and consisted mostly of T-shirts, sweats, and jeans. And when she absolutely had to wear shoes, her preference was work boots or flip-flops. But it was a warm night in May. So her feet were naked.

  “Well…” she began as she considered my question, “no. Everyone else saw their own reflections as well as the reflections of others. Just like you or me. But we must remember that mirrors can be deceiving. And what everyone thought they saw when they gazed into their mirrors often wasn’t there at all.”

  “Huh?” I propped myself up on both elbows and scowled. “I don’t get it. Mirrors don’t lie.”

  My mother’s hands were clasped tight to her chest. “Ah!” she replied, pointing one finger into the air. “But the truth is that much of what we see every day includes a measure of what we assume something should look like. So we don’t often see the whole picture. Only what’s on the surface. We miss a lot of beauty that way.”

  I flopped down hard on the bed and threw the covers over my head. The last thing I wanted to hear was a lecture on how “beauty comes from within” and “it’s not how we look that’s important but how we feel.” I had been feeling pretty lousy of late, and I put all the blame on the way I looked. I hated mirrors and everything about them. All they ever showed me was a fat, round-faced girl whose hands and feet were growing faster than the rest of her body. I felt like a freak. Hair had appeared in places I’d never even paid attention to, and if that was not enough, my chest was getting all puffy…like I was starting to grow breasts. Breasts! Who needs breasts? Who even wants them? I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I didn’t like it one bit. Of course, I was too embarrassed to talk to my mom about it. For one thing, I was afraid she might flip out or take me to the doctor or, even worse, tell me it was just my imagination and I was “beautiful inside and out.” As if that ever helped anything!

  “Argh!” I grumbled from inside my tent.

  “It’s complicated,” my mother said, peeking under the sheets.

  I didn’t look at her, but I knew she was making goofy faces. That was what she did whenever I was angry about something. She made goofy faces or pretended she didn’t hear me. Sometimes she’d leave the room for a while and then come back in and talk about something that was completely off the subject. I hated that. It was as if she thought I was too stupid to remember what I was mad about or that it wasn’t important enough to discuss.

  I shut my eyes as tightly as I could and snarled at the sheets until she retreated. It was quiet for a moment. Had she left? Then she plopped her feet on top of the covers, and they landed so hard that they made the bed squeak. Who plants their feet on a bed like that? No one. That’s who! Unless they were trying to make it very obvious that they were still there, which totally annoyed me, especially since it was getting stuffy in my hiding place and I needed a breath of fresh air. But now I didn’t want to give her the satisf
action of coming out. Even though I’d forgotten what I was mad about. And that made me feel stupid.

  “Well”—she sighed loudly—“I guess if you don’t want to hear what I have to say about mirrors, there’s no sense in going on with my story.”

  Oh…my…word! She was pouting. I hated it when she pouted. It was so childish. Pouting meant I’d hurt her feelings, and hurting her feelings was the worst thing I could do. It made me feel like an awful person and a terrible daughter. I wanted to tell her that, but instead I sucked it up, took a deep breath, and slowly pulled back the sheets.

  “I’m sorry, Mommy,” I whispered, with my mouth still under the covers. “I want to hear your story.”

  I caught a glimpse of her sad eyes and drooping mouth, and it was more than I could handle. So I mustered up the extra-big, wide-eyed grin that I knew she was waiting for before fully emerging from my inner sanctum.

  “Please, Mommy! Please!” I pleaded. “I really, really want to hear it.” As usual, this did the trick, and we both smiled as she pulled her feet back onto the chair and found her comfy place.

  “Okay!” she said, fully reenergized. “Let’s see…where was I? Oh yes. Mirrors!”

  If there was one thing my mother was good at, it was bouncing back. Of course, she’d had a lot of practice.

  “The thing is…mirrors can be deceptive. But not for the girl without a reflection! Not knowing what she looked like gave her a wonderful advantage over everyone else, for she saw the world around her for what it was, and she instinctively knew her place in it. She was completely unencumbered by a preconceived notion as to how something should look and was quite content with how it did look.”

  “What does ‘uncucumbered’ mean?” I knew that wasn’t the word, of course. But I felt like making my mother laugh. And she did!

  “‘Unencumbered’ means to be free of obstruction. In this case it means that although she was unable to see reflections, there was nothing that blocked her vision of anyone or anything around her. In fact, her vision was so keen, it was as though all her senses were wrapped up in her sight.”

  “Wow!” I rolled on my back and tucked my hands under my head. “It sounds kind of cool to be able to taste and smell something just by looking at it.”

  I took a few exaggerated whiffs of the air and licked my lips, trying to imagine what that would be like.

  “Argh!” I growled as I shot up like a rocket. “What if I was all dorky and goofy looking, and I never knew it?” I pulled my legs underneath me and sat on the heels of my feet as I leaned toward my startled mother for answers. “What if my eyes were crossed or I had a really huge nose? What if I had buck teeth and a million freckles?” My fingers danced across my face, planting freckles like falling drops of rain. “People would make fun of me all the time, and I wouldn’t even know why.”

  “Hmm,” she muttered with a smirk. “That’s an interesting thought. We should keep it in mind.”

  It seemed to me that if she’d been paying attention, she would have heard the air rushing out of the balloon she just poked a giant hole in by dismissing my valid contribution. This was, after all, the moment in my mother’s stories that I lived for: the all-too-rare opportunity to add logic and reason to her wildly creative fairy tales that might, in some small way, validate my existence by proving that my ideas were as valuable as hers. Even if they weren’t as entertaining. I didn’t want her to know I felt deflated, so I pushed back the blankets with the heels of my feet and rearranged the pillows to make more space for moving around. Lying down was out of the question.

  “Now, in the case of Mira,” she began, “not knowing what she looked like when she was very young didn’t matter to her at all. For one thing, she had no way of knowing she was not like everyone else. She assumed if she couldn’t see herself, no one else saw themselves either. This was a reasonable assumption, of course, as it is not the kind of thing that comes up in the everyday conversation of a small child. So Mira was completely unaware that she was, quite possibly, the only person who had ever lived who didn’t know what she looked like. It wasn’t that this phenomenon was a secret; it simply was not important enough to mention.”

  “Wait a minute!” I halted her with outstretched arms. “Her name was Mirror?” It didn’t seem like a terribly clever name, and I was quick to call her on it.

  “No.” She laughed. “Not Mirror. Mira. M-i-r-a. It’s a shortened version of her real name, Krasimira. It’s Slovakian, and it means ‘beautiful peace.’”

  “Beautiful peace. I like that.”

  My mother’s eyes were smiling. “I thought you would,” she said.

  “But how could she…how could Krasimira…have beautiful peace if she didn’t even know what she looked like?”

  I sat in limbo, waiting for my mother’s response. I was not at all like her. I could never be comfortable in a world that didn’t make perfect sense. To me, things were either black or white, and there was no room for gray areas. If she were to successfully stretch my logical brain far enough to grasp the unimaginable, she must do it ever so slowly, gently casting her extravagant ideas out as far as she could, yet never beyond my grasp.

  “Well,” she began, as she lifted the covers for me to slide underneath, “I suppose I could try to answer your questions all night long.” She fluffed the pillows to make them irresistible for my tired head. “Or I could start the story and see where it leads us. What would be your pleasure, Miss Johnson?”

  I pulled the blankets under my chin and held on to them tightly as she leaned over and tucked me in.

  “The story,” I conceded happily.

  “Well, all righty then! The story it is.”

  CHAPTER 2

  THAT WHICH IS PERFECTION

  Agentle breeze swept across the room from the open window and sent the sheer, diaphanous curtains dancing in the air. Mother settled into her old blue chair and placed an imaginary book in her lap. She held the pages of obligatory content under the thumb of her left hand as she fixed her gaze on the invisible text before her.

  “Chapter one.” She lifted her eyes for a moment to ensure she had my attention. I smiled as she read the words that were printed in her head.

  “Neither long ago nor far away, there was a beautiful young girl named Krasimira, who lived with her mother, father, and maternal grandmother in the only house on the only hill in a tiny village known as U-R-Here. They were a remarkable family who, long before Krasimira was even born, had earned the reputation of being the happiest people who ever lived, as they were always smiling and never seemed to want or need anything more than precisely what they had.”

  “Were they very, very rich?” I asked from beneath the covers.

  Mother continued as though I’d not interrupted her.

  “It’s not that they were rich. Heavens, no! But it’s not that they were poor either. Not at all! They were simply content. And that was something everyone from Anywhere and Everywhere wanted to be but didn’t know how to be it. They thought they would be happy if they had bigger houses, shinier cars, or the latest and greatest gizmo or whizzbang they’d seen on commercials and in magazines. But this was never the case, as buying more than what they needed often ended badly. People from Anywhere and Everywhere were never satisfied with what they had and always wanted more. To them, there was no such thing as ‘enough.’

  “‘Those who rely on the One Who Provides have all they ever need,’ Krasimira’s father would say.

  “And relying on the One Who Provides worked extremely well for the perfect family, as they counted everything as a blessing and gave thanks for it all. It’s what made them so very happy in their not-too-big-not-too-small house that suited their needs just fine. And because they were happy, they wanted other people to be happy too. So their door was always open to friends and strangers alike. And the people from Anywhere and Everywhere and even Beyond would leave their great big houses, jump in their shiny new cars, and travel up the winding hill that led to the only house on the o
nly hill in U-R-Here, just to be with Krasimira’s family.

  “Someone once said that people were drawn to the house because there was always something wonderful cooking on the stove and an extra place setting at the table. And that was certainly true! They dined on food that was delectably delicious and deliriously divine. Beef seared, roasted, braised, or stewed; perfectly poached poultry; fish grandly grilled; seafood battered, baked, stuffed, or sautéed. All the ingredients were as fresh as the morning and made by the loving hands of Mira’s mother and grammy, who were affectionately known by one and all as ‘the Two.’ But it wasn’t the food that fed their bellies that brought folks back time and time again. It was the light of pure love that fed their hungry spirits and filled their empty souls until they were full and overflowing with immeasurable joy.”

  I twirled a strand of hair around my finger as I tried to imagine what it would be like if everyone was happy all the time; but I stopped when I thought of some very sour people forcing a smile. I was glad it wasn’t my job to keep them happy.

  “Naturally, no one ever wanted to leave the house on the hill. For when it was time to return to their much bigger houses filled with a whole lot of stuff, they discovered that they were, in fact, quite empty. This made them unhappy as well as confused, as they didn’t understand what the house on the hill had that theirs didn’t. So they went out and purchased more things they thought would fill their hearts with gladness. But what they were looking for can’t be bought at any price.

  “‘A house is nothing more than a house,’ Krasimira’s father would say. ‘It’s the love inside that makes it a home.’” My mother smiled and nodded her head in agreement.

  “Krasimira’s parents were rich with love for each other as well as for all humankind. It was a gift, of course, and one for which they were truly grateful. They worked hard, helped others, and poured love over everyone they met. The only thing that was missing from their lives was a child. On the day they learned they were to become parents, they were so overwhelmed by this long-awaited blessing that they prayed to the One Who Provides, thanking Him, for three days straight. They didn’t eat. They didn’t sleep. They just gave thanks. As they prepared for the impending birth of their miraculous child, it appeared that the whole earth was awaiting her arrival in joyful anticipation. With so much love around them, it should not be a surprise that Krasimira was born on the most beautiful day that ever was. There wasn’t a single cloud in the azure sky as the sun shone down and warmed the lush green earth. The world was in full bloom, and the air was still and fragrant with the scent of lilac, roses, and new life. It was the perfect day to bear the perfect child.”