Out of Heaven's Grasp Read Free Page A

farmer’s market circuit, driving produce out to various places and selling organic and whole foods. As part of our beliefs, the followers of the Life ate very natural, very healthy food. We believed that our bodies were temples for the holy spirit, and that we shouldn’t do anything to defile them.
    Since we’d be doing so much, we took the family RV instead of just a car. It was possible to make the trip to Lebenet all in one day, but doing so was rough, because it meant eight hours on the road, four there and four back. Staying overnight in the RV made things a little bit less arduous. I’d done it as a little girl, when I’d accompanied my father. We’d parked the RV in the Costco parking lot and slept right there.
    The ride there was a lot of fun. Carla knew a lot of silly car games, like looking for letters on license plates and signs. We talked and laughed. I could see that Carla was relieved not to have the children for a day or two.
    We’d brought all our food with us, because the worldly restaurants didn’t prepare food to our standards. But I was shocked when we stopped for a restroom break at a fast food chain, and Carla came back with three soft drinks and a container of French fries for us to share.
    It must have shown on my face, because she laughed at me.
    “What?” she said. “My parents always let us kids have fries and Coke on trips. It’s my favorite thing about leaving the community.”
    I couldn’t believe it. Her parents let her do this? I’d always thought of Carla’s family as godly. My parents would never allow such a thing, and I couldn’t believe Thomas was condoning it.
    But he snagged a fry and grinned at me. “Go wild, Abby.”
    I took a tentative sip of my soft drink. It was really sweet.
    “Good?” said Carla.
    I had to nod. “Really good.”
    She smiled. “I think it’s okay every once and a while. For a treat, you know?”
    “Yeah,” said Thomas. “A treat.”
    The French fries were good too. They were salty and greasy, and I found myself gobbling at them. Still, even as I enjoyed them, I felt a well of guilt. Thomas and Carla both knew that what we were doing was wrong, and yet they were doing it anyway. It didn’t make sense to me. If something was a sin, then even indulging in it a little bit was bad for our spirits and our souls, not to mention our bodies.
    But I ate the food anyway, and I also got a charge from doing it. It was exciting to rebel. It was exciting to taste the wickedness of the world.
    After we arrived, we were busy until dusk, running our various errands. Then we sat in the RV and ate our dinner—hummus and vegetables wrapped in homemade tortillas.
    As the sky grew darker, Thomas and I got out our guitars, and the three of us sang and played music for several hours. But after a while, the singing wound down. I wasn’t tired, not exactly. I was too wired by the change of scenery and the freedom of being away from the community.
    But Carla had her head on Thomas’s shoulder, and he had his arm around her, and I started to feel uncomfortable, like I was intruding on them.
    I set my guitar down. “Um, should we go to bed?”
    Carla giggled. “Don’t you want to do some exploring, Abby?”
    “Exploring?” I said.
    “Yeah,” she said. “On your own. You could go run around town a little bit and give Thomas and me a few hours of privacy?”
    Privacy. I looked back and forth between them.
    Thomas was grinning. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”
    It did? What was going on? Were they kicking me out of the RV?
    Thomas unwound his arm from Carla and came over to me. “You’ll have a blast.” He reached into his pocket and took out some money, which he handed to me. “Go get a burger or something. You could even go to the movie theater.”
    “Movies?” I was shocked. Movies were expressly forbidden. They were the height of wicked worldliness.
    He pressed the money into my palm. “Come on, Abby. Go wild. I promise not to tell.”
    And