Return to Me

by Lynn Austin

  “Don’t eat all the treats while I’m gone,” she called back to the others. Zechariah led her through the crowd and out through the open gate, stopping on the other side. “Why so serious, Zaki? What’s wrong?”

  “The Holy One spoke to me, and now I know that He’s real and that all of the stupid Babylonian gods are false. The Almighty One is . . .” How could he describe the certainty he had experienced for those few brief moments, the sense of radiant awe and joy he’d felt in His presence?

  Yael was gazing back at the celebration, not at him, shifting her feet impatiently. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

  “Did you hear the passage I read from the Torah?”

  “I guess so, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  “I asked God for a sign, whether He wanted me to go to Jerusalem with you and the others or stay here in Babylon.”

  “A sign?”

  “Yes . . . You know how your father hired the seer and asked her to look at the stars so they would guide him? Well, I asked God to give me a sign—He can do that, you know, without using sorcery or the stars. And He answered me! He answered me through the words of the Torah, just like Saba said He would.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I’m going to Jerusalem, Yael, and you have to come with us. You and I belong with our own people, not here in Babylon. We’ll go together!”

  She took a small step back, and he could see that his enthusiasm hadn’t convinced her. “But my mother is buried here.”

  “So? That’s no reason to stay.”

  “You’ll never understand.” She turned to go, but he grabbed her arm again.

  “Maybe we can bring her bones with us. The Torah says that Moses carried Joseph’s bones back to the Promised Land so that he could be buried there.”

  “Do you think Abba will do that?”

  “I don’t know, but you belong with the living, Yael, not with the dead. And not with the Babylonians. You have to come with us.”

  “Is your whole family going now? Did your father change his mind, too?”

  “No. He’s still staying here.” Zechariah felt a new wave of misgiving. “But I’ve decided to go with my grandparents. And with you.”

  “I told you, I’m not going. I’m staying here.”

  She was just a slender little thing, the arm he was holding so thin he could almost encircle it with his fingers. He should let her go and be done with her. Why should he care what she did? Why did he feel the weight of her secret like a heavy stone that he had to drag everywhere with him? “Yael, your mother isn’t here anymore. Her spirit doesn’t live inside her body anymore—”

  “Stop it! . . . Let go of me! I don’t want to listen to you!”

  “There’s no reason for you to stay here. Please come with us, Yael. It will be the best adventure we’ve ever had in our lives.” She finally yanked her arm free and glared at him, her arms folded across her chest, her mouth stubbornly closed.

  His mother called to him from the other side of the gate, “Come on, Zechariah, you’re missing the feast. And you’re the one we’re honoring today.”

  “You’d better go,” she said, tilting her head toward the party. “They’re waiting for you.”

  “Are you coming with me, Yael?” He meant to Jerusalem, but she simply shrugged in reply. “Yael, please!”

  “I never should have told you my secret,” she said.

  He sighed and left her standing alone outside the gate, knowing she was right, wishing that she never had told him.

  Chapter

  9

  Tomorrow. They were leaving Babylon tomorrow. How had the day crept up on Dinah so quickly? She wasn’t ready. She would never be ready. But Iddo assured her that he had packed everything they needed for their new life. It was time to go.

  Dinah’s quiet Jewish community had become nearly unrecognizable, the market squares and homes overflowing as exiles from throughout the empire assembled to begin the long journey to Jerusalem. Thousands of horses and mules, camels and donkeys jammed the lanes and alleyways. But as she lay in bed, trying in vain to fall asleep, it seemed that all of the pieces of her life had been tossed haphazardly into a sack, shaken together, then dumped out again. And now, against her will, others had sifted through those pieces, deciding which ones she would be allowed to keep and which ones had to be thrown away.

  Iddo lay awake beside her, neither one of them able to sleep. “What are you thinking about, Dinah?” he whispered. She couldn’t reply. He sat up on one elbow to look down at her in the dark. “I wish you could have been with me yesterday to see all that gold and silver! I saw the temple treasures, Dinah, can you imagine? The Persian treasurer counted out every single item to Prince Sheshbazzar, more than five thousand articles—so much gold that it didn’t look real! The Persians are sending soldiers with us tomorrow to keep the caravan safe.”

  Tomorrow. The word felt like a kick in the stomach. The journey that had once been a distant worry would begin tomorrow. Staying or leaving, it was probably too late for anyone to change his mind.

  Iddo lay down again. “I was very disappointed when they announced the final tally of how many people are going, though. Only a little more than forty-two thousand. Can you believe that? It should be ten times that number. Hundreds of thousands of us were exiled, Dinah—including the northern tribes, who the Assyrians carried off. They’re free to return home from exile, too, but not a single one of them is going.”

  “That still seems like a lot of people to travel in one caravan.”

  “We won’t all leave at the same time. We’ve divided them into smaller caravans, leaving a day apart from each other. You and I will be in the first one, along with the temple treasures. Even so, I just don’t understand why we are so few people. . . . But I can hardly lecture the others when our own sons aren’t coming.”

  Dinah turned over, facing away from him. The hours seemed to pass slowly and quickly at the same time as the moon made its way across the sky. Iddo rose long before Dinah did, but it was still dark outside, the stars shining in the heavens, when he came to tell her that it was time to go. She tied on her sandals and combed her hair, pinning it up beneath a scarf.

  “The caravan is assembling over on the main street,” Iddo said. “I’ve loaded all of our things, but look around and make sure we didn’t forget anything.”

  Dinah heard his voice, but his words meant nothing to her. “What did you say, Iddo?”

  He rested his hand on her shoulder, his eyes filled with pity. “This day will be the hardest one. I promise you that it will get better from now on.”

  Dinah’s family roused from their beds to say good-bye, standing bleary and teary-eyed in the predawn darkness. When she finally had to let go and walk out of her loved ones’ embraces, it was worse than a death. People didn’t choose to die, but she and Iddo could have chosen to stay. For the hundredth time she remembered the seer’s words: “I see a great tearing in your life. . . .”

  She reached for Zechariah’s hand. But his father grabbed him one last time and held him so tightly that Dinah wondered if he would ever let go. She hadn’t seen Berekiah weep since he was a boy, but he was weeping now.

  “Don’t do that to the boy,” Iddo said. “He asked for God’s guidance, and the Almighty One answered.”

  “Why is it so impossible to follow God?” Berekiah asked bitterly.

  “It’s hard,” Iddo said. “That’s why so few people do it. But it’s not impossible.”

  Berekiah finally released his son. “You’ll come later, right, Abba?” Zechariah asked tearfully.

  “When we can, son. As soon as we can.”

  Dinah had to believe he was telling the truth, or she never could have found the strength to leave her family behind. She took Zechariah’s hand, gripping it tightly in her own, and turned away. They followed Iddo through the streets, jammed with Jewish families dragging their children and possessions to the waiting caravan. The so
unds of heart-wrenching sobs and lingering good-byes filled the morning air. The crowd jostled her. She had to look down to watch her footing on the dark, uneven road, her tears still blinding her, and when she finally wiped them away and looked up, Iddo stood waiting beside the two-wheeled cart that held all their possessions. A lifetime of memories crammed into a wagon that a single mule would pull—a mule that would plow land when they arrived. Iddo helped Dinah and their grandson climb onto the seat he’d made for them. He would walk in front of them, leading the mule.

  The stars were beginning to fade, the sky in the east turning light when the cart finally lurched forward and began to move. The procession filled the road from one side to the other, and Dinah couldn’t see the beginning or the end of it. They had traveled a very short distance and were still inside the city walls when she saw their neighbor, Mattaniah, running toward them against the flow of the caravan, weaving in and out between wagons and animals and people. He halted beside Iddo to ask breathlessly, “Is Yael with you?”

  “No, I haven’t seen her all morning. Have you, Dinah?”

  She shook her head.

  Mattaniah swayed as if his knees threatened to buckle. “She’s missing, Iddo! I can’t find her anywhere!” Iddo pulled the cart over to the side, motioning to the others to go around them. “I woke Yael up this morning, and we carried everything to our cart and loaded it. She said she was going to sleep in the back of it, but when I looked beneath the blanket just now, she was gone!”

  Too late, Dinah remembered her promise to Miriam to take care of Yael as if she were her very own daughter. She had been too engulfed in her own grief to do what Miriam had asked.

  “I thought she might be riding with you,” Mattaniah continued, “but if she isn’t here . . . Have you seen her, Zaki?”

  Dinah saw the unmistakable look of guilt on Zechariah’s face. He wouldn’t meet anyone’s gaze as he shrank back from Mattaniah as if wanting to hide. “Zaki? Do you know where Yael is?” Dinah asked.

  “I-I promised not to tell. I can’t break my promise.”

  “Well, I can’t leave her behind!” Mattaniah shouted. “Don’t you understand that? She’s my daughter!”

  “Tell us, son. Please,” Iddo said.

  “But I gave my word, Saba. How can I break my word?”

  “A promise may be broken if it’s a matter of life and death. Yael is just a child. She can’t survive here without her father. You have to tell us what you know.” But Zechariah bent forward and buried his head in his arms, sobbing. Mattaniah seemed about to leap onto the cart and shake the truth out of him, when Dinah suddenly remembered something.

  “Wait! Don’t torture the boy. I think I might know where Yael is. After Miriam died, I overheard that Babylonian woman telling Yael that she could live with her. She was enticing her to become a sorceress even before Miriam died.”

  “You’re right,” Mattaniah said. “She had the nerve to come to my home and ask to take Yael with her. Of course I refused but—”

  “Do you know where she lives?” Iddo asked.

  “In the Babylonian part of town, near the temple of Marduk.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Iddo handed the reins to Dinah. “Wait here. And we’d better ask some of the other men to come with us, Mattaniah. We may have to threaten her if she’s hiding Yael.”

  “What if Yael isn’t there?” Mattaniah asked. “Then what am I going to do?”

  Zaki lifted his head and wiped his eyes. “Saba? I-I just remembered a dream I had about Yael. I dreamt that the wicked woman was hiding her in a big storage basket.”

  “Thank you, son.” He and Mattaniah hurried away, racing back toward the city.

  “What a terrible way to begin a journey,” Dinah murmured.

  “Yael won’t like being carried away from here against her will.”

  “I know, Zaki. But sometimes we have no choice.” Dinah wondered how many other people in this dreary caravan—wives and children too young to decide for themselves—were making this journey against their will.

  Zechariah lowered his head again. “Yael’s going to hate me,” he said with a moan. “She’s going to think I told on her.”

  “We’ll make it very clear to her that you didn’t. Besides, that woman has no right to steal one of our children away like that.”

  There was nothing to do now but sit and wait, watching as carts and wagons and camels and pedestrians streamed past. Dinah wondered if she and Iddo would have to stay behind in Babylon after all, and join a later caravan. But as the sun rose higher in the sky, Iddo and Mattaniah finally returned. Yael was in her father’s arms, weeping inconsolably.

  “Let me take her,” Dinah said, reaching for her. “Yael can ride with us for a little while.” They would console each other.

  “It’s a good thing Zechariah told us about the basket,” Mattaniah said as he handed his daughter up to Dinah. “That’s exactly where we found her, hiding in an empty storage basket.” He thanked them again and jogged ahead to where he had tethered his own cart.

  Yael gave Zaki a malevolent look as she settled onto Dinah’s lap. “You broke your promise!”

  “I didn’t tell them your secret, I swear! I never told anyone!”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Dinah said as the cart lurched forward again. “I was the one who guessed where you were. Zechariah didn’t tell.”

  The steady stream of traffic hadn’t stopped flowing while they’d waited, and Iddo quickly rejoined the river of vehicles moving out of Babylon. Before long, Dinah saw the massive city gates ahead, guarded by armed soldiers, the enemy who had kept her people inside all their lives, reminding them that they were slaves. She was about to pass through those gates for the first time in her life. Her people had been set free. Under any other circumstances, Dinah would have rejoiced.

  She held tightly to Yael, who had cried herself to sleep in her arms. The caravan stretched in front of them and behind them on the vast plain as far as Dinah could see, enveloped in a cloud of dust like the glory cloud that had accompanied Moses and her ancestors. As the miles rolled past, she wondered if Iddo would grow tired of walking. But no, he stood taller than she had ever seen him, his back no longer bent as if carrying a heavy load. His face shone with sweat and with tears of joy in the sunlight. She closed her eyes, unsure in that moment if she loved him or hated him.

  Chapter

  10

  I’m tired of riding, Abba,” Yael called to her father. “May I please get down and walk?” The cart’s monotonous bumping and swaying, the endless rumble of the wheels along the dusty road bored her. A choking cloud of grit hovered over the caravan like fog.

  “I suppose so.” He slowed the cart so she could scramble down to walk beside him. “But be careful, Yael. And stay close.”

  Yael would never admit it to anyone, but one month into the journey she was glad that her father had found her and forced her to come along. At first the open countryside that surrounded and dwarfed her had terrified Yael. She had clutched the moonstone amulet Parthia had given her, wishing the seer could have read her stars one last time and given her a glimpse of her future before Abba had snatched her away. But little by little as the days and nights passed, Yael had found comfort and hope in looking up at the familiar stars each night and watching the moon goddess’ steady waxing and waning. Parthia had taught her well, and Yael knew that once she was able to study her star charts again, she would find advice and direction for the future on her own.

  It didn’t take long before Yael grew tired of trudging along at the caravan’s dreary pace. She walked faster and faster through the weeds along the side of the road until she was far ahead of her father. She heard Zaki calling to her above the rumble of hooves and wheels and finally stopped to wait for him. He straggled up beside her, puffing for breath. “Your father said not to run off like that. You’re going to get lost.”

  “How can I get lost?” she asked, spreading her arms. “You can see forever! I would stand out li
ke a flea on a bald dog.” She wished she could run through the green fields and wade through the canals on the north side of the road, exploring all the way down to the Euphrates, washing her dusty feet in the wide, murky water. The river was nearly always in sight, sometimes tantalizingly close to the road, sometimes shying away again to disappear for a while like a serpent slithering into the grass. So far, the caravan road had followed the winding Euphrates like a shadow, staying just beyond the broad swath of green farmland and date groves along the river’s banks. But on the other side of the road, away from the river, the flat landscape looked desolate and lifeless.

  “Let’s walk together,” Zechariah said, tugging her arm.

  Yael wiggled out of his grasp and stayed right where she was. “No. You’re no fun anymore.” She watched as their two carts rumbled past and continued down the road, side-by-side as if competing in a slow-moving chariot race.

  “Come on. We don’t want to fall behind,” Zaki pleaded.

  “I know, I know! ‘It’s important to keep up. No dawdling or lagging behind,’” she said, imitating the nagging voice of their caravan driver. She stubbornly waited until the two carts had nearly vanished in the dust cloud then raced to catch up, reaching them before Zaki did.

  “Stop running off,” Abba scolded. “If you don’t stay where I can see you, I’ll make you ride in the cart again.”

  They heard shouts ahead and the irritated bray of camels. The flow of vehicles slowed and began squeezing to the right side of the road. “Another caravan must be coming,” Zaki said. “We have to get out of the way.” He was right. And now their entire procession of people and carts would have to move aside to make room for the string of camels and donkeys approaching from the other direction, their drivers bellowing at their laden beasts. The delay would slow their own progress.