Channa was eyeing my mother as one might a demon that had crept in through an open window. My mother gave her no answer. She did not argue or respond to these evil words. She stood in the doorway so that Channa could not make an escape. It was too late to hide or shriek. My mother had already begun the exorcism. She spread down two circles of ash, then motioned to me. We stepped inside the circles as she began the Song of the Afflicted. My mother’s voice was lovely, pure and ethereal. At first Channa merely listened, falling under the spell. Perhaps she thought she was being praised, or she had convinced herself that my mother had come to pay tribute, to admit her wrongdoings and eat the salt she now threw toward her rival, as some were said to eat their sins. But our leader’s wife’s eyes opened wide as she heard the words my mother recited.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Perhaps the wings I had always imagined set upon my back had been placed there for my protection by the Almighty, for I felt sheltered, delivered from nets and traps. Whatever my mother said, I repeated with her. Whatever her sins, I forgave her.
Before us, Channa held the baby more tightly as she gazed at my mother in alarm. “You took what should have been mine. He was to give a child to me, not you! Thieves are murdered for their deeds, not forgiven. You can’t place a curse on me.”
My mother continued the song of the Almighty, praising Him and asking for His light.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
I listened, enthralled. Amen Amen Selah. My voice rang out, echoing my mother’s. Channa turned to me. When she looked into my eyes, she saw her husband in my gaze. I took a step backward when faced with her meanness of spirit.
“Stay in the circle,” my mother warned.
Now Channa knew me for who I was. She crept closer, the better to see me. Here I was, the child she had set into the wilderness for the ravens to peck at and the jackals to feast upon.
“You should have been mine,” she told me. She threw my mother a brutal look. Her breathing was so labored it was difficult to hear her, but we heard enough. “You are the destroyer and the sin before God’s name.”
Her voice was hoarse, wrenched from inside her. Her words pierced me as no weapon could; still I did as my mother advised and kept within the circle. I refused to hear the poison set upon me by her envy. I heard only my mother’s song. I could see the words she uttered becoming visible in the air between us, incandescent, written by faith.
Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under thy feet.
Channa was beginning to reveal who she was and what wickedness she was willing to undertake. “Arieh belongs to me! A covenant was made with the mother, before God!”
She, who had sent us into the wilderness so that we might be taken into the arms of Death when my mother was thirteen years old and I only newly born, grabbed for a knife and held it at Arieh’s throat. I started toward the child, but again, my mother grabbed my arm.
Not yet, she whispered.
Channa was clutching Arieh so tightly he let out a hurt little yowl. I was grateful that Yael was not present and could not see the demon revealing itself to us. The moment would soon be upon us when she had no power at all.
“You haven’t taken enough from me that you need to take this child as well? I’ll see him in the World-to-Come before I see him with you.”
There was sweat upon my mother’s brow. Her lips moved as she repeated the song. No wonder men were transfixed by her and angels came to speak to her. No wonder the rain did her bidding and even the daughter she had betrayed would do anything she asked.
My mother’s black cloak fell open. It was the moment when we all became who we were in the eyes of Adonai. Channa was outraged to see that my mother was with child. Her breathing worsened, rasping, as though a hand was at her throat, keeping air from her as she had kept my father from us. A sound emanated from her that was without words, a wounded, bloody cry. It was the demon.