Excerpt from The Flame Tree by Richard Lewis, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The Maranatha Church of Wonobo was an A-frame structure of gleaming teak and glowing stained-glass windows, located a quarter mile east of the hospital gates, down a quiet lane lined with old, unproductive rubber trees. On the northern side of the lane driveways led to middle-class brick-and-tile houses. On the lane's other side a curbless verge dropped off into a ten-foot wide concrete irrigation ditch as dry as the Sahara and filling up with garbage. Churchgoers parked underneath the rubber trees and crossed the ditch on a concrete footpath. The church itself was surrounded by a waist-high brick wall meant to keep out chickens and dogs. Prayer and angels protected this house of the Lord from more dangerous creatures.

Isaac, sitting in the back pew, sang the hymns while his mind busily reviewed the crazy events on the town square. He felt again the unsettling stare of the Tuan Guru. He glanced uneasily out the windows into the night surrounding the church, but all was calm and quiet. Not even a crow on the low wall. Was Ismail okay? Was he back with his family? Isaac wasn't sure the police lieutenant could be trusted. Everyone knew that once the police had you, you could disappear. Isaac had made a promise to tell Ismail's parents what had happened, and he intended to keep it. Mr. Suherman had said he'd tell them, but he didn't know where they lived, did he?

Reverend Biggs preached his sermon. Isaac was so drowsy, he couldn't follow. His gaze fixated on the large copper cross hanging over the pulpit, and he had a fantasy of the cross falling and bonking the reverend into silence. Ashamed of such a thought, he switched his attention to the back of Mr. Patter's fine black head, which bobbed up and down with regular and emphatic agreement to the reverend's sermon, a motion that hypnotized Isaac into chin-nodding sleep. A crow flew into his dream. He jerked awake again to the sound of snickering from the opposite pew. Slobert and some of the junior highers were giggling at him. Slobert had a shirttail hanging out and he'd misbuttoned his shirt. How come nobody ever picked on him?

As if on eerie cue, Isaac's mother, sitting next to his father, turned and gave him an odd, psychic sort of look. Isaac raised his eyebrows, as though to say, What? She smiled and returned her attention to Reverend Biggs.

Later that evening he lay sleepless on the mattress on the floor in Rachel's room underneath the screened window, staring at the half-moon, which was a baleful yellow. Why did the sky always hide the sun but let the moon appear?

The door opened. For a crazy tilted moment he thought it was Rachel, teleporting herself from the States to complain about him being in her bedroom, but it was his mother who spoke in the darkness. "Isaac? Isaac, honey?"

He stirred to let her know he was awake.

She felt his forehead. "Are you feeling okay?"

He nodded.

"But something is bothering you."

He couldn't tell her about Ismail being in jail, and he didn't want to tell her about his bad dreams. "No, not really."

"Don't you 'no, not really' me, young man. What is it?"

"Mom, is anything bad going to happen to us?" The words surprised him, coming out in a blurted rush.

There was just enough light for him to see the stillness settling on her face. Then a glint of teeth as her lips widened in a soft laugh. "I'd say that is a real big bother, not a 'no, not really' bother." She knelt beside him and took his hand. "No, honey, nothing bad is going to happen to us. We don't have to worry at all because God will take care of us. We'll be fine. Okay?" She touched his nose with her finger.

Isaac nodded. "Okay." And it was, at least for now, really okay. Nothing bad was going to happen to them, to any one of them, Ismail included.

Copyright © 2004 by Richard Lewis