Shadow of the Storm

by Connilyn Cossette

  “I am looking for my mother and Reva. There are babies coming tonight. I need to help.”

  “I just passed them. I will take you there.”

  I smiled, hoping he would see that I was no longer frightened. But a thought flashed into my mind, erasing my pretense. “Where is Eben?”

  His gaze cut to the mountain. “We were separated in the confusion. He has not yet returned?”

  Confirmation lodged in my throat.

  “He will, Shira. You needn’t worry about your brother.” He nudged me with his elbow. “Have you not seen that man wield a knife?”

  I ignored his obvious attempt to distract me with humor. “What happened tonight, Jumo?”

  His long sigh was wrapped in grief. “I’d rather not speak of it just now.”

  In uneasy silence we wound through camp until we heard the unmistakable cry of a laboring woman. We changed course to follow its summons and discovered my mother standing outside a large black tent with Reva’s reassuring arm across her shoulders.

  “I am a weaver, Reva, not a midwife.” The tremble in my mother’s voice surprised me.

  Reva’s pragmatic tone did not. “This one has given birth before. The baby is coming normally. Her mother and two aunts are here as well, and they will be an enormous help.”

  She patted my mother’s shoulder. “I must go to the other girl. She is much further along. Just be there to guide her, Zerah. You’ve done this four times yourself, you know the process. Let the body follow its natural course. You’ll do fine.” Reva nodded and turned away, giving her no chance to waver. She knew how to maneuver my mother—a feat not easily managed.

  I stepped forward. “I can help as well.”

  My mother twisted her body around to glare at me. “No. Shira, you should not be here.”

  “I want to help.”

  She regarded me with an utter lack of faith, and I met her pointed stare with a silent plea. Please. I cannot sit idle tonight.

  Reva came to my defense, arms firmly crossed and authority in her voice. “She will be fine, Zerah. She is a strong girl. You and I both know the extent of her strength.”

  Fighting the instinct to disagree with her assessment, I held my breath. A bevy of emotions played across my mother’s face—doubt, anger, panic—but resignation conquered.

  “All right, just this one time.” My mother lifted a threatening finger. “But you will go with Reva and run any errands she needs. You will not be in the way. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Ima.”

  A heady thrill stirred my senses as I followed Reva. A life would be entering our camp tonight, and I would be there to welcome it! Determined to take advantage of the distraction from my missing brother, I blinked away the fleeting image of Jumo walking back to camp, shoulders hunched, tunic soaked in blood.

  3

  Disoriented by the black sea of tents, I skittered along to keep up with Reva’s brisk pace. As usual, the midwife’s wiry frame moved with relentless purpose, and two small eyes above her hawk-beak nose threatened first blood on anyone who dared cross her.

  Reva was much older than my mother and had been a widow herself most of her life. After my father was killed when I was eleven, it was Reva who came to our mud-brick home and built my mother back up after her world crumbled to dust.

  “There are two more women in labor,” she said over her shoulder. “One is only in early stages and has given birth before. I am more concerned about this other girl. The baby is in a good position, but it is her first and she is a few weeks early.”

  Near the center of the Levite camp, she stopped and turned those piercing eyes on me. “Are you ready for this? I told your mother that I think you can handle it, but childbirth can be a gory business. I can’t have you fainting on me.”

  Was I ready? Could I endure the sight of a woman agonizing, writhing in pain? There was only one way to know for sure. I lifted my chin, ignored the violent flutter in my chest, and forced an even, confident tone. “I am.”

  The poor girl inside was sickly white, sweat running in great rivulets down her face and into her black hair. Another woman knelt next to her, rubbing the girl’s lower back as she moaned and rocked back and forth.

  “I cannot do this. I cannot,” the girl groaned. She was so young, a few years younger than me—barely into her womanhood. Her eyes wheeled as she gripped the blanket with white knuckles, pain written so clearly on her face that an echo of it panged my heart.

  “Now, Hadassah.” Reva’s usually brusque tone gentled and lowered. “Vereda tells me you have done very well so far. Soon you will hold your child in your arms.”

  After lighting two more oil lamps to brighten the tent, the midwife washed her hands in a nearby clay bowl. Vereda guided Hadassah to lay with her legs bent—all modesty set aside in relief that the midwife had arrived.

  Although I had anticipated being unnerved by the process, I watched Reva with fascination. How many babies had her capable hands ushered into the world? The many lines around her eyes, like ripples in sand, attested to her concentration. She nodded as she examined Hadassah, mouthing a few unintelligible remarks to herself, and then patted the girl’s knee.

  “Almost there, my dear. Let’s have you up and moving around now. The baby will come easier if you are standing and moving. Do whatever feels comfortable—rock, moan, yell if you need to.”

  I laid a hand on Vereda’s shoulder. “May I give you a rest?”

  “That would be wonderful. I must find my son, her husband—or find someone to send him word.” She tugged at her fingers, voice dropping. “He has been gone since this morning, when the festival began.”

  Was Hadassah’s husband involved in the worship of the golden idol? I swallowed against the foul taste that coated my tongue. The Levites were at this moment carrying out Mosheh’s orders. He may not return at all.

  The pinch of Vereda’s face told me she, too, was concerned that her son might be gone for good. I gave her the best of my reassuring smiles. “I will assist Hadassah so you can go.”

  I helped the girl to her feet and onto the two clay bricks designed to lift and support her as she labored. Placing my hands on her back, I rubbed gently.

  “No.” Hadassah moaned. “Press harder.” Then, through clenched teeth, she cried out, “Oh! Another!” She threw her arms around her belly and screamed so loud my ears rang from the violence.

  Reva squatted in front of her. “Are you ready to push?”

  Hadassah nodded but drew her brows together, her brown eyes murky with fear.

  “Breathe, my dear, breathe.”

  The girl released her air with a painful groan. “It hurts, it hurts!”

  “Yes, it does, dear one. Bear down for me now. Lean back against Shira. She is little, but she is strong.”

  Hadassah leaned against me and squatted down on the birthing bricks. The girl screamed again and then bore down hard. Digging my toes into the sandy floor, I put my hands on her rock-hard belly and gently pushed, hoping it would help.

  After a number of hard contractions with little respite, Hadassah’s breaths shallowed into a pant. “I can’t do this.” She shook her head violently. “I am too tired. I need to lie down. Where is my husband?” She whimpered, sounding more like a little girl than a woman. “Where is he? I need my husband.”

  From her seat on the ground, Reva rubbed the girl’s leg. “This is no place for a man. You are stronger than you know, Hadassah. Yahweh has prepared your body for this. Everything is working as it should. I know the pain, dear girl. But we are here: you, me, and Shira. We will bring this baby into the world. You are young, but you are as strong as every woman who has ever given birth.”

  Hadassah’s legs wobbled and I struggled to hold her upright, digging my toes into the dirt floor.

  “Stand firm,” Reva said, whether to me or the laboring girl, I did not know, but I tightened my grip and tensed my muscles.

  After another contraction, Reva declared she could see the head. But
Hadassah sobbed, insisting with a piteous cry that she could no longer push.

  “You must!” The midwife’s brusque tone returned.

  “No! No! No!” Hadassah screamed and thrashed about.

  What could I do? Reason with her? I could not sympathize, could not even fathom the depths of her pain and fear. My interference would probably cause more harm than good. Yet something deep inside commanded me—Sing.

  In the wilderness after we had crossed the sea, when my sisters were starving to death and their bodies lay lifeless from thirst, my songs had distracted them, calmed their fears. Perhaps it might do the same for Hadassah. Hope surging, I opened my mouth and sang a wordless tune, the flush of foolishness hot on my cheeks.

  Hadassah moaned and bucked against me. I pulled her back, pressed my mouth close to her ear, and sang a lullaby that my mother had sung to me long ago. Within the first verse, Hadassah’s shoulders dropped, her breathing slowed and, although she still moaned, she did not try to pull away. I sang through the next contraction, and the next, and somehow the girl summoned strength to push the baby free of her body.

  The surge of elation at the sight and sound of a squalling baby boy was staggering. The force of emotion flowed through me like a crashing river. It was more than a miracle, it was the imagination of the Creator wrapped in the skin of a newborn babe. He blinked fresh eyes at the brightness of his new world.

  The pure joy of the moment was marred by Hadassah’s next question. “Where is Nadir? My husband will want to see our boy.”

  “He will come.” My mind protested the lie, but I composed a smile and brushed sweat-drenched hair from her face.

  Reva laid the sweet baby, covered in birth-slime, across Hadassah’s chest. The cord that connected the two of them still pulsed with life. All concern for her husband faded into wonder as the young mother gazed into her son’s eyes, cooing and stroking his swollen face with a finger. After the cord was severed, Reva gently showed Hadassah how to guide him to his first meal. Hadassah’s eyes shone with pride when he latched to her breast with little effort, his downy head moving in eager rhythm as he suckled.

  Reva winked. “An eater, this one. He will be strong as a rock.”

  Eben. Just like my brother.

  Hadassah glanced up at me, then back to her precious boy. “Yes, a rock. We will call you Eben, little one.”

  Had I offered the name out loud? I fluttered my hand, embarrassed at my presumption. “Should you not wait until your husband returns to name him?”

  “Without you and your beautiful voice calming me, I could not have endured the pain. Your song blunted my agony. In honor of you, my rock this night, I will name my son Eben since I cannot name him Shira.”

  Startled by his mother’s giggle, little Eben lost his source of food and made sure we all took note of his displeasure. The thought that this sweet child might never meet his abba made my own laughter seem false in my ears. I knew the void of fatherlessness only too well.

  My thoughts flew to my brother Eben and the grim, dangerous task given to him by Mosheh. Would I lose the brother who had taken up the mantle of responsibility after our father had been murdered? The brother who would do anything to protect me?

  4

  Dvorah

  My husband’s body was still, dark blood oozing from the gash where a sword had penetrated his side. Every hope I’d ever had lay dead with him.

  He had laughed at me this morning when I’d begged him to stay, or to take me along to the festivities—even pushed me out of the way when I threatened and cursed and stood in front of the door flap. “I’ll go where I want, when I want, Dvorah,” he had said. Now, he lay facedown in the dirt, his impossibly light hair reflecting the last flickers of the common fire, steps away from our tent.

  How will we survive now?

  Around me, the sounds of mourning rose and fell, the tremulous wails calling attention to the number of the dead all over camp. Ice flooded my limbs. Would they kill us all? Would that crazy, voice-hearing Mosheh murder the families of the fallen as well? My stomach contracted painfully. What of Matti, my little son, who slept nearby, blissfully unaware that his father had been slaughtered like a pig? How had they found Tareq here, on the edge of the camp? So far from the Apis idol near the center of the valley? Only a few more paces and he would have made it inside.

  “You there!” a voice shouted.

  Startling, I scrambled away from Tareq’s body. I sprang to my feet as a tall man carrying a torch strode up to me, dagger outstretched, tunic stained with blood. “Open your mouth,” he commanded.

  “My mouth?”

  He leaned over me, pressing the point of his weapon into my collarbone. “Now.”

  Disoriented by the strange order, I obeyed. Sheathing his dagger, he gripped my jaw in his large palm, jerked it upward, and squeezed my cheeks together as he lifted the torch higher to inspect my mouth. With a grunt he let go. “You’re clean.”

  “Why would you care about my mouth?” I snapped, rubbing my chin.

  “It’s not red.” He pointed at Tareq’s body with the torch, the light illuminating the bright crimson of his lips. “Only looking for the ones who drank the red beer.”

  Of course. If revelers partook of the sacred ochre-tainted drink to drown their inhibitions, their crimson mouths would be easy to distinguish.

  “You know that man?” he said, tipping his head toward Tareq.

  The father of my child? “No.” I flicked a dismissive hand at my husband’s body. “I heard a commotion. Thought I could help.”

  “Get back inside, then. All of us Levites are scouring camp, cutting down every rebel involved in that disgusting display. Good thing Mosheh came back when he did. Could have been worse.” He shook his head and walked away, bloody dagger again at his side and knotted tassels of his garment swinging to the rhythm of his gait.

  I cursed the arrogant Levite under my breath. Worse than the murder of the only man who’d ever protected me? Worse than a fatherless boy? What could possibly be worse than being a half-Egyptian widow in a multitude of Hebrews?

  Seized with a violent pain in my abdomen, I doubled over, retching on the ground. I had been wrong. It could be much worse.

  Shira

  Closing my eyes, I pulled a deep breath through my nose. The fresh air combated the weariness that had washed over me as soon as I placed my foot outside Hadassah’s tent. A little white dog flashed through the deserted campsite, yipping at the sunrise.

  “You did well, Shira.” Reva wrapped a sturdy arm around my shoulders. “And singing to calm Hadassah—I have never thought of such a thing before. However—” She chuckled. “My singing would make the pain of labor harder, not ease it.”

  I brushed away her compliment with a flip of my hand. “Music settles my own soul, chases away the shadows. It’s my first reaction when others are anxious as well.”

  “It did the job.” She adjusted the leather pouch at her waist that held the tools of her trade. “Have you ever considered midwifery?”

  My heart thrilled at the tiny seed her question planted. To experience the miracle of birth, day after day? To know the things Reva knew and guide a new life to its mother? To see hundreds of babes catch their first breath, blink their eyes for the first time?

  Marriage, my own children—they were an implausible dream. But was midwifery a possibility? My stomach ached with the wanting, but before I could respond, reality slammed a flat palm over the notion. My mother would never allow such a thing. She had said “just this once” tonight, and she had meant it. I could never bear the disapproval in my mother’s eyes if I went against her.

  Swallowing the knot in my throat that tangled with the compulsion to say yes, I shook my head. “I have been weaving with my mother since I was smaller than Zayna.”

  Reva looked down her long nose at me, one wispy silver brow lifted high. “That is not what I asked.”

  My mother had made it clear, without a word, that I would learn her trade—the
trade she’d learned from her own mother, as did her mother before her, the trade that had sustained us after my father was killed. Zerah’s talent was the continuation of skills cultivated, stitch by stitch, by each successive generation. I could not break the chain and let my mother down in such a selfish way, even if every part of me yearned to follow another path.

  Conflict raged inside me, but I arched a flippant tone into my voice. “It was a wonderful experience, but I love weaving. Thank you, though, for allowing me to help.”

  Reva was not fooled. “Shira. Look at me.”

  I faced her with reluctance. Wisps of mottled, silvery-brown hair stuck out at all angles from her loosened braids.

  “I watched you with Hadassah.” She narrowed her eyes, red-rimmed from lack of sleep and old age. “Your cheerful manner and unflappable demeanor is perfect for working with laboring mothers. You should discuss this with your mother.”

  She scrutinized me. “Or.” She tapped her chin. “Shall I?”

  “No!” I put a hand out, then snatched it back, embarrassed at my insolence.

  She crossed her arms, determination etched in the many lines of her face.

  I pressed my hands together in a plea. “I will . . . I will think it over and talk to my mother and my brother, if need be.”

  Eben. Urgency slammed into my gut. Jumo’s bloody tunic once again stained my vision, and I ran from Reva with quick apologies over my shoulder. With every footfall, dread built inside me like the menacing cloud of sand that had crowded over the horizon. I raced toward camp, desperate to see my brother’s face.

  But it was Jumo I saw first as I entered the clearing, huddled on the ground near the remains of the cookfire, his black curls against his bent knees. Slithering fear coiled in my stomach as I approached him. I pulled my headscarf tight across my face to avoid the stinging lash of the sand-laden winds. “Where is Eben?”