“Six months is much too soon. We can manage eight,” Adva said. She and Galia scrutinized each other until at last Galia nodded.
“Agreed.”
The women closed the gap between them and kissed each other’s cheeks.
Hannah breathed a deep sigh of relief. Elkanah took a step closer and offered his hand. She took it and let him help her to her feet. She tucked the ketubah into her robe and allowed him to walk her into the courtyard while their families laughed and ate and talked inside the house.
“Tell me my mother did not embarrass you in there.” Elkanah did not release her hand, and the longer he held it, the more it felt right, like they were made to fit together.
Hannah laughed softly, a musical sound of relief to his ears. “Your mother was just playing her part. She wants what’s best for you.” She looked up at him, and moonlight splayed over her face. Torches lit the corners of the courtyard, and some of the children had snuck outside to sit on the stone benches and eat the sweet treats.
“My mother thinks she knows what is best for me,” he whispered, chagrined. How much should he reveal to this new bride about the struggles he had had with his family over his choice of wife? Or the strife that sometimes arose between his mother and father, his brothers and sisters-in-law? He tilted his head and gave her a curious look.
“What is it?” She pulled him away from the children toward the farthest edge of the court. “Something troubles you. Tell me.”
“You can already read my thoughts?”
“It is not hard to notice the expression of an anxious man. I can see it in your furrowed brow.” She smiled, and he knew he could deny her nothing.
He cupped her cheek, tracing a line along her jaw. “You must understand something, Hannah . . . about my family.”
She tilted her head to better look at him.
“My parents’ household is not always congenial. My mother and father have been known to raise strong wills against the other, and my brothers and their wives, except for Tahath, do the same.” He paused at the astonished look on her face. “But you need not fear that from me. I will not fight with you. And if my mother becomes too difficult for you, I will find a way to move us apart from them.” He squeezed her fingers. “You must trust me in this.”
She nodded. “I trust you.” She studied their interlocked hands. A shy look crept into her eyes.
He turned toward the door of the house. The children had slipped inside again, leaving them blissfully, momentarily alone.
“I know we are supposed to wait, but legally this is not wrong.” He bent low and brushed his lips against hers, a gentle kiss. “I love you, Hannah.” He kissed her again, the slightest touch, lest he awaken desires they could not fulfill for eight months, legally married or not.
He pulled back and heard her breath release as though surprised by his actions. But then a slow smile spread over her beautiful face. “I think three months would have been better.”
“I wish we could have convinced your mother.”
“As do I.”
“But it is done now.”
“Yes.” She touched his arm. “But I fear love has awakened and will beat in harmony with you until that day.” She moved her hand to touch her middle, the seat of her emotions.
He placed his hand over hers, careful not to touch more than her fingers. “Until then, I will count the days.” He longed to kiss her again, but his sister-in-law burst from the house, chasing after her son, the moment lost.
Hannah pulled back and chuckled softly at the boy’s antics. Elkanah placed a hand on her back and leaned close. “Someday we will be faced with similar high-spirited children. I look forward to the day they are like olive branches around our table.”
She looked at him and rewarded him again with a wide smile, which by her expression was meant only for him. He glanced heavenward and offered Adonai a prayer of thanks. God had granted his heart’s desire and given him the woman of his dreams.
6
Three Months Later
Hannah walked with Meira along the river’s path, where trees lined the embankment and dry brush crunched beneath their sandals. Meira’s wedding to Amachai was only days away, and Hannah had worked long hours to complete some of the linens and garments she would need for her own wedding five months hence.
“Are you nervous?” Hannah asked as Meira bent to pick up a stone and toss it into the river. They had been shooed from their homes by their mothers, who told both girls they needed a few hours of rest. Hannah had resisted, but relented for Meira’s sake.
“A little.” She released a long-held sigh. “Yes.” She looked at Hannah. “That is, I’m excited and anxious. One moment I’m constantly looking at the sun’s movement across the sky, and the next I’m thinking I will never be ready on time.”
“Which is exactly why you needed this break.” Hannah touched her friend’s arm. “In a few days you will look back on all of the frantic work and wonder why you worried at all.”
Meira gave Hannah a sidelong glance. “You’re telling me to not worry? What about you! Tell me you haven’t felt the same since the day of your betrothal.”
Hannah released a deep breath. “You are right. I am nervous and fearful of the future, while at the same time I can’t wait for it to begin!” She smiled. “We are both pathetic, are we not?”
Meira nodded and returned the smile. “I suppose all brides feel the same.” They continued their walk, drawing closer to the river’s edge. “I love the way the water rushes over the rocks here. It makes a person respect the river and yet gives us a sense of excitement at such power. I mean, can you imagine trying to stop the water from moving? If I put my hand in it or dip my foot, the water will simply move through or around it. The river won’t halt for me, for anyone.”
Hannah stopped as they reached the bank and looked out. “It is both beautiful and terrifying,” she said, watching as the rocks caused the water to turn white where the protrusions slightly broke the surface. “This is definitely not a good spot for bathing or washing.”
Meira laughed. “Good point. But I do love it here.” She sank onto the grass and pulled her knees to her chest. “I could sit and watch this for hours.”
“And get nothing at all done that needs doing.” Hannah sat beside her, her mind whirling with the number of things waiting for her back home. Still, she attempted to relax, for Meira seemed to need her here. “Of course, a break is good when one is working too hard.”
Meira didn’t respond right away, and Hannah looked out at the water, trying to quiet her own anxiety. She breathed in the scent of the river, the trees, and slowly let peace settle over her.
“We won’t get to do this once I am wed,” Meira said, her tone somber. She turned to face Hannah. “Amachai’s home is half a day’s walk from my father’s house. We won’t be close enough to get away to enjoy a day like this.”
A sense of loss swept over Hannah, but she brightened a moment later, unwilling to ruin this moment with her dearest friend. “And yet we will be sisters, so there will surely be times our families will gather together. Perhaps we can find a new place to escape the chaos and noise of the household.”
“Perhaps.” Meira took Hannah’s hand, squeezed, and released it. “You are a good friend, Hannah. I’m glad Elkanah chose you and that you agreed. You won’t regret it, I promise.”
“I don’t expect to regret anything.” Hannah clasped both hands around her tucked knees. “But I suppose we should start heading back. I don’t think they wanted us to stay away the entire day.”
Meira nodded but did not rise. “One more moment.” She gazed again at the winding river, and Hannah could not help but imagine the stories of old, of how God stopped the Jordan so that Israel could move across on dry land. Such impossibility! And yet, did they not believe in the God of miracles?
Meira stood at last and helped Hannah to her feet. “I’m ready.” She smiled. “And not quite so nervous.”
“Good. Because
your wedding is coming, like it or not.” Hannah glanced up at the trees towering over them, then fell into step with Meira.
“Let’s go back the other way,” Meira said, turning. “If we go a little farther this way, we can circle around away from the water and see how the fields are growing.”
Hannah lifted a brow. “You just want to avoid going home.”
Meira’s smile held a conspiratorial glint. “Perhaps.”
Hannah shook her head but followed her friend just the same. They moved toward a copse of trees not far from the river’s edge, kicking dry leaves and pebbles as they walked. The extra time it would take to circle around caused Hannah to want to push Meira along, but she forced her anxious thoughts in check. This was Meira’s time. She still had five months before she needed to fret. The thought troubled her.
Oh Adonai, I fear so easily.
Meira kicked at a fallen leaf-covered log at the edge of the small forest and stopped abruptly. Hannah looked at her friend’s wide eyes, seeing fear replace the peace they had just enjoyed.
“What is that?” Meira’s voice had dropped to a mere whisper. She looked at Hannah.
Hannah backed away. Strange creatures lived among the trees. What if they had come upon one that could do them harm? “We should go,” she whispered back.
Meira stared, her obvious terror not abating.
“What are you waiting for?” Hannah hissed. “It could be sleeping and awaken and attack us.” She stood frozen to the spot, watching helplessly as Meira crept closer and knelt.
“It’s not a log,” Meira said softly. She brushed leaves aside to discover a bunched-up cloak.
Hannah found the ability to move. “Who would bury a cloak in the woods?” She felt suddenly braver and came to kneel at Meira’s side.
Meira touched the cloak and slowly lifted it from beneath the brush. It was a woman’s cloak by the design and size of it. She turned it over and slowly stood, holding it to the sunlight. Hannah stood as well, half afraid to touch it but too curious to leave it.
“It looks familiar,” Hannah said, trying to remember where she had seen it or one like it before. Most women in Israel wore a similar simple design.
Meira gasped. “It’s caked in blood!” The wide-eyed look returned and she held it higher. “That looks like blood, doesn’t it?”
Hannah’s heart pounded and she glanced quickly around them. Had some woman been attacked by an animal? Did animals bury things they had killed? “We should go.”
“Yes.” Meira didn’t move. “But maybe we should look around first. What if some woman is lying hurt nearby? I would want someone to look for me.”
“But no one is missing from our tribe. We would have heard of it.” Hannah’s heart beat faster, if that were possible, and she couldn’t stop the trembling that made her knees grow weak. “Maybe we should go get our fathers and brothers to help.”
Meira seemed to ponder that thought, then shook her head. “First a quick look, then if we find nothing, we will go back and just show the cloak to the women. Maybe someone will recognize it.”
Hannah did not agree at all, her mind telling her to run as far away from here as she could get, but she could not desert her friend, stubborn though she was. “A quick look,” she finally said.
Meira turned to enter the trees, and Hannah followed, searching the ground. The crunch of leaves sounded like drums in her ears, and the river’s waters raced downstream to the pace of her anxiously beating heart.
They walked slowly, searching, until Hannah finally said again, “We really should go back.”
But a putrid scent and Meira’s screech stopped them both. “Look!” She pointed to a mound a short distance ahead of them.
Hannah squinted, trying to make out what it was, knowing in her heart it was not living. Meira stepped closer, Hannah on her heels. Both girls fell to their knees beside the body of a woman.
“Oh!” Hannah covered her mouth as bile rose in her throat. Decomposition and the buzz of insects filled the air around them, making them both instinctively move back.
They looked at each other. “It’s hard to tell for certain, but I would wager that it’s Lital.” Hannah spoke softly, tears clogging her throat. She swallowed several times. “That’s why the cloak looked familiar. She wore one like it all the time.”
Meira nodded. “We need to get our fathers.” She backed away. “Someone needs to examine and bury her. There is a reason her cloak was coated in blood.”
“I thought she was in Shiloh.” Hannah stared at her friend’s body, recognizing the shape of her mouth and noticing the way she was placed with her arms folded over her chest, as though she were merely sleeping. “However did she get here?”
Meira shook her head. “Why was her cloak removed? Was she killed? Why wasn’t she properly buried?”
Hannah met Meira’s gaze, and the horror she was feeling showed on her friend’s face. “Let’s get out of here,” Hannah said at last, tugging Meira’s arm.
Meira obediently followed, and Hannah’s pace increased until they were through the trees.
Meira still held Lital’s cloak in her arms. “Rinat will be devastated.”
Hannah looked down at the cloak, her throat raw from the exertion of holding back a river of tears. They both glanced once more at the small forest, then took off running toward home.
7
Hannah raced toward her father’s pottery shop while Meira ran to the fields to find her father, Jeroham. Before the sun reached its midpoint, the men of the town had gathered at Jeroham’s home and moved in the direction Hannah and Meira had told them.
Hannah sank onto a cushion beside Meira as their mothers and sisters-in-law discussed how to tell Rinat once the body was confirmed to be her daughter.
“She will be bereft of everything,” Adva said, wringing her hands while Galia paced the sitting room. “Whatever will she do?”
“Is there no family left to take her in? I know Lital was working as a cook for the Levites and serving as a singer to help her mother this past year, but how could she have gotten from Shiloh to here and end up in the forest?” Galia stopped her pacing long enough to look at Hannah and Meira. “You’re sure it was Lital?”
“As sure as we can be, Ima,” Meira said, fidgeting with the belt of her robe. “It was dark and we didn’t want to touch her.”
“No, of course not,” Adva said. “You girls did the right thing.” She stood and paced the opposite direction as Galia. Meira’s and Hannah’s sisters-in-law had taken the children to the fields behind the house.
“The rest of the women in town will need to know,” Galia said, halting her frantic movements and sinking onto one of the cushions.
“Surely not before the men identify her and we tell Rinat,” Adva said.
“Of course not.”
But Hannah wondered if Galia would keep quiet until then. The woman seemed itching to tell the entire town, while Hannah simply wanted to sink into the cushions—or better yet, her bed—and hide beneath the covers for days.
Oh Lital. What happened to you?
Commotion in the courtyard brought her thoughts up short, and she jumped up with the rest of the women. Her father and father-in-law entered the house together with Elkanah not far behind. She could hear the sound of men’s voices in the courtyard.
“Well?” Galia asked, staring Jeroham down. “Was it Lital?”
Jeroham nodded, but Hyam spoke. “We all agreed that it has to be Lital. All of us have seen her working at the tabernacle and been served meals at her hand.”
“Was she . . . murdered?” Hannah could not get her voice to work above a whisper. Her heart thudded with the weight of grief until she wondered if it would continue beating.
“I don’t think so,” her father said. “There was no sign of forced injury, although . . .” He paused, his gaze glancing off hers to her mother’s. “It is possible she gave birth to a child. We will need a woman to examine her to know for certain.”
&nbs
p; “So she died in childbirth?” Hannah’s mother looked at Hyam, aghast. “Lital did not have a husband.”
“Not that we know of.” Her father rubbed a hand over his beard. “We will have to investigate that to be sure. We need to speak to her mother.”
“Lital worked at the tabernacle only a year, Abba. She could not have married and borne a child in such a short time. And if she bore a child, where is it?” Hannah stood and came toward her father, allowing him to hold her close. She caught the look in Elkanah’s eyes. Fear and anger mingled in his gaze.
Hyam patted Hannah’s back. “We will investigate what happened. Though I’m not sure we will find any satisfactory answers.” He released Hannah and faced Jeroham. “We need to summon Rinat. Then we need to bury Lital in a proper grave.”
“My sons have already begun work on the bier.” He glanced at Elkanah. “Will you go to get Rinat, my son?”
Elkanah nodded. “Though perhaps it would be best if my mother and Hannah’s mother accompanied me?”
Both women hurried closer to Elkanah. Hannah felt the sting of not being included, but a moment later she realized a sense of relief to be left here where she didn’t have to face Lital’s mother just yet.
“We must hurry,” Galia said, taking Elkanah’s arm and ushering him through the door, as if she’d been waiting for permission to do exactly what she’d been longing to do for hours.
Elkanah met Hannah’s gaze after he stepped over the threshold. Clearly finding Lital’s body had shaken him as much as it had shaken her. She knew none of the Levites would rest until they had answers. And no woman would feel safe until then.
Elkanah led the women from Rinat’s home to his father’s house, heart pounding. They approached the courtyard in somber silence, and his mother led the poor widow to the bier, which now rested on the courtyard wall. The body was partially wrapped, waiting for Rinat to confirm their suspicions. He glanced toward the house and saw Hannah emerge, her brow lifted in the curious look she often gave. He nodded once and Hannah moved to the court to join the other women, Meira close behind.
A Passionate Hope--Hannah's Story Page 4
