When it came time and the sky was sifting into darkness, I made a fire between the cliffs, so the wisps of smoke wouldn’t be noticed by the watchmen who patrolled the walls. I slipped off my garments and folded them. I had brought along pomegranate oil, which I poured into my hands and rubbed into my hair and skin. I then threw the knot of my shorn hair onto the pile of burning willow twigs. The sharp odor of a part of myself set aflame sent a shiver through me.
I crouched among the rocks and ate the herbs I’d been given, even though they made my tongue swell. It was blessed thistle, and the taste was indeed sharp, leaving a gritty film inside my mouth. I could barely swallow. When I had consumed the leaves, I felt a shadow reach a hand inside me.
For what seemed a long time, I sat back on my heels and waited for the spell to begin. I watched stars drop down from the sky. I glimpsed the bright arc of the new moon. It was Rosh Chodesh, the new month of Nissan. In the plaza this night was being celebrated, for this had been God’s first commandment to Israel, that we should keep time by charting the new moon, for it meant the renewal of our people and was a reminder that there is light in the darkness. This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed.
I realized then that I needed to forgo silence, which had been my sword and my shield. That was the price I must pay. What protected me once, I now must cast away. It was my gift, but no more.
I began to pray. Amen Amen Selah. The spell wound around me as the dark spun into light. The stars dropped closer. I was afraid of what was about to happen once my true nature was revealed before the eyes of God. But what was to be was now beyond my will, in the hands of fate. I had eaten of the herbs, started the flame, said the prayer that opened my wounds and my heart, lifted my voice to the Almighty.
The fire’s roar sounded like the voice of the ghost. I had called to her, pleading for her to come to me as she had once bathed with me and brushed the ashes from my hair. The fire was so bright I shielded my eyes, but it burned brighter still. Something inside me broke apart and splintered. I made a sound I didn’t recognize as my own voice. I called out, pleading, and then my pleas were answered.
Sia was before me.
Her cloak was in tatters, her hair in knots, her arms were nothing more than bones. I could not bear to see the harm I’d done to her. I ran to the edge of the cliff to escape her. Stones shifted beneath my feet, and I could feel myself sliding. If I leapt I would fly to the desert floor below, a petal from a flame tree, a dove set free. But the ghost still would not let me be, even now. She would not release me to the death I wished for myself. She reached out, pulling me back from the edge. I fought her, but she refused to let go. When at last I had no choice, I wrapped my arms around her, my one and only friend. I gave myself to Sia.
When I begged for forgiveness, it was not her tears I cried but my own.
I fell asleep on the rocks, sprawled out on a dark ledge where the thorn trees grew. When I awoke it was almost morning. Sia had been in my dreams all through the night. She was with a lion in the desert, beneath a willow tree. She had taken him back from me, as she deserved to, but unlike me, she was not a thief. She left me what was mine. I felt the child move within me and wept with joy. I was not a demon or a leopard, only a woman with red hair. Now, as light split apart the sky, turning the desert pink, I slipped on my tunic. My body felt raw and bruised. I saw the marks I had made long ago on my leg, pale, like the arc of the moon. They seemed to belong to someone else, but I was the one who would have to carry the scars.
I knelt by the fire to make certain there were no burning embers left. That was when I spied the tracks of a lion. There were only a few such beasts left in the desert, but one had come here, answering my call. He had been there all the while, watching over me, before he left me at last.
I ATTEMPTED to speak to my father to make amends, but each time I approached, he turned away. He waved at me, his signal for a dog, for that was what I still was to him. He had become an even more miserable man here at the fortress than he’d been in Jerusalem. He, who had courted invisibility, had become what he desired to be; no one could see him now. Old men were invisible in this world of war, thought of as useless. My father was no longer vital. Ben Ya’ir needed young men who could fight in hand-to-hand combat wielding axes, not assassins who hid their sharpened knives inside their robes and stalked their enemies in the dark corners of the Temple courtyard. No one honored the great Yosef bar Elhanan for his ability to slink into the houses of his enemies, at one with the darkness of the night.
He’d been assigned to keep track of the weaponry. It was a lowly job, meant for young boys and old men. Replacing the tips of arrows was beneath him, but no one would listen to him, no one valued him. He began to fold in on himself, a tangle of envy. Now when he saw my brother return with the warriors, my father was jealous rather than proud. Amram had always been the one to shine in his eyes, but lately our father had begun to look upon him with distaste. Like the teacher whose student surpasses him, my father resented my brother his victories and his youth.