She crouched beside her weeping mother. “Mama, you can’t let him come here again.”
“It is for Asher. He needs a father.”
I don’t believe it. She isn’t making any sense. “Asher has a father. Or did you forget about Shaul? You know, your husband?” She took a breath and tried to speak calmly. “Mama, Alexandros doesn’t want to be Asher’s father. He’s not going to marry you.”
Nava wiped tears from her cheeks. “At his age, Asher should be learning a trade, not playing with toys. He needs a man to teach him.”
“Yes. Shaul is the one who should teach him. If you would just . . .” If she would just get up in the morning and work hard all day. If she would just take care of her children. Then she could send word to Shaul—beg him to come back. They could be happy again.
But Mara couldn’t say that. They never spoke of her mother’s illness.
Nava lay down and turned her back on the room. She pulled her cloak over her head like a shroud, as though she intended to sleep forever.
Mara blew out her breath in frustration. Nava would not get up again today. Sleeping seemed to be her only refuge from the dark thoughts and sadness that bound her. Lord, why do we have a mother who is not a mother at all? If she is the one who is sinful, why must Asher and I suffer?
Mara left the gloom of the house and crouched by the cooking pot. The two looming mountains seemed to press down on her. Would she ever reap the blessings of following God’s laws, or would she only see the curses that were sown by her disgraceful mother?
ALSO BY STEPHANIE LANDSEM
The Living Water Series
The Well
The Thief
The Tomb (coming April 2015)
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Stephanie Landsem
All Scripture quotations are from the Revised New Testament of the New American Bible, St. Joseph’s edition © 1986 CCD. All rights reserved. Catholic Book Publishing Co., New York, NY.
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First Howard Books trade paperback edition February 2014
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Landsem, Stephanie.
The Thief : a novel / Stephanie Landsem.
pages cm
1. Christian fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.A5493T48 2014
813’.6—dc23
2013022674
ISBN 978-1-4516-8910-5
ISBN 978-1-4516-8911-2 (ebook)
Thief (9781451689112) Page 32
