Wings of the Wind

by Connilyn Cossette

  As he described Yahweh, my apprehensions began to recede, replaced by the reminders of the glories my parents had seen in Egypt. The mighty Nile replete with blood, the swarms of locusts, the sky-blackening clouds of flies, the conquest of the sun itself, the sea congealed into walls with a blast of Yahweh’s nostrils.

  Yehoshua continued, his voice as strong as a man of twenty. “We have nothing to fear. Yahweh has already won this war for us. We will trample the gates of Edrei today. Our feet will tread upon the necks of our enemies. Our swords will remove the blight of their evil from this beautiful land.”

  Once again Yehoshua gestured with his sword, but this time toward the group of priests, two thousand cubits away, who carried the golden chest built to house the tablets of the covenant laws. The distance swallowed up any details of the holy object. I knew only from rumor that it was decorated with two winged creatures and carried by two fixed poles on either side. What courage those priests must have to approach such a deadly vessel! Tales of men charred to the bone by a flash of light from its core had haunted me since early childhood.

  “And there,” he called out, “on the shoulders of the sons of Levi, is the reminder that Yahweh stands with you this day. That he will deliver these enemies into your hand. So brothers, I ask you now . . . Will you lend your sword to this victory?”

  With one accord, we lifted our swords and spears, and a rumbling shout of solidarity burst from every mouth. The drums began to pound again, their summons to war melding with the many shofarim, and my blood pulsed in time to the driving cadence. But just as the signal was given to march forward, a clear image of Alanah’s blue-green eyes looking up at me on the battlefield crossed my vision. The memory of the resignation in her expression once again hollowed out my resolve to forget her. I missed her. I missed the taste of her mouth, her rare laughs, the wicked tease in her voice when she challenged me to a footrace or a shooting match. I even missed the temper that flared whenever I managed to best her in one or the other.

  Tzipi may stomp and demand that I marry Keziah, like she had two days ago—a vain attempt to keep me from this battle and ending up like Shimon. But I didn’t want Keziah.

  I wanted my wife. I wanted the vivid woman who made my pulse spike and my chest ache with longing. I wanted the woman who took on a serpent to protect two helpless sand kittens and who had seemed to give me permission to scale the walls of her heart. I wanted the woman who did not want me.

  Every step toward Edrei compounded the ones Alanah had taken away from me, and the closer I came to the dark-hearted men who guarded the city, the hotter the flames of anger kindled in my veins. Grief, betrayal, pain, and rage corded themselves together in my limbs. The writhing mass of emotions, coupled with my disgust of the abominations presided over by the king of Bashan, stoked a fury that burned away every trace of fear, leaving only the sight of the priests and the golden ark that housed the shekinah presence of El Shaddai, the God Most High.

  There was not a doubt in my mind—even if Yehoshua decided to send me into battle alone. Og’s men would meet their end today. Yahweh had already won.

  30

  Alanah

  8 TISHRI

  1407 BC

  The shard of flint split from the rock in a perfect, sharp-edged break. Reining in a cheer, I scuttled back into the cave. The cords that bound my hands had dried into an impossible knot; no matter which way I tried to loosen them, my hands were still imprisoned and my wrists raw from the chafing.

  “Moriyah, wake up. Help me cut this.”

  The girl peered at me through the cracks of her eyelids. “I’m so sore. I cannot move.”

  “You’ll have to, my friend. We must put more distance between us and that giant. Who knows how far we have to go to find the Hebrews?”

  “We are going back?”

  “Of course. Where else would we go? You need to be with your family.”

  “And you need to be with Tobiah.”

  I didn’t answer but offered her the makeshift knife. “Here, hack at this rope.”

  “Does Tobiah know?” Moriyah didn’t move. “About the baby?”

  I sucked in my cheeks. I’d hoped she hadn’t noticed, but I should have known better. Moriyah missed nothing. “No. And he won’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. Come now, cut this cord so we can go.”

  If I didn’t know better, I would have thought Moriyah was related by blood to Tzipi. The girl’s targeted glare cut me to the marrow. “You are coming back with me, aren’t you?”

  “I’m taking you back, and then I will go.”

  “So you will abandon me?”

  Sympathetic pain shot clean through my chest. “I’m not abandoning you. You have a family who loves you. I can take care of myself. Tobiah is not interested in being married to a murderer. He’s probably already betrothed to Keziah.” I swallowed the acrid taste of the words. “Or married, if Tzipi has had her way.”

  “No. Tobiah wouldn’t do that. He loves you.”

  “You know nothing about love. You know nothing about me or Tobiah. You are a little girl who is confusing marriage with the games men and women play.”

  Ignoring my caustic response, Moriyah set her jaw. “I may not yet be a woman, but I am not ignorant and I am certainly not blind, like you.”

  My mouth went slack. I’d never heard such impertinence out of the sweet girl’s mouth.

  “I may be blind, but if we don’t get out of this cave and farther south, we’ll both be dead. Now, cut the cord.” I jiggled the flint knife at her.

  With a scowl between her dark brows, she complied. It took longer than I had hoped to cut me free, but I nearly cried out at the relief. In turn, I cut Moriyah loose. What I wouldn’t do for a soothing salve to calm the enflamed skin around both our wrists.

  “How will we make it back? Won’t someone see two girls traipsing through the countryside?” She waved a hand between us. “What if we get taken again?”

  “I have a plan, but you won’t like it.”

  Moriyah lifted a brow. “What is it?”

  “Two girls will surely draw attention, but two ratty boys will not.”

  Understanding registered on her face, and her eyes darted to my hair. “You mean . . . ?”

  “It will grow back.” I scrubbed at curls that now reached my ear lobes. “Mine has.”

  She pinched her eyes shut but nodded.

  With admirable restraint, Moriyah sat very still as I hacked at her hair with the sharp edge of the flint knife. Although I had honed its edges once my hands were free, I could tell by her twitching shoulders and the fingers tapping against her knees that it was painful. Dark clumps of hair fell onto the cave floor.

  “There. You look awful,” I said.

  Tears sprang to her eyes.

  “No! I meant the haircut is a mess, just like a boy would do with his own knife.” I scooted closer. “Your mother will fix it. You are beautiful, Moriyah, with or without hair.”

  Silvery eyes blinked at me. “I am?”

  “Of course.” I gave her a tight smile. “In fact, we should do a little more work, or no one will believe you are a boy, short hair or not.”

  Using the flint knife again, we trimmed our tunics just below the knee, then I used the excess to wrap my breasts close to my body and another strip around my belly. Thankfully my tunic was loose enough that Moriyah declared my abdomen looked as flat as my chest. The binding was painful—almost unbearable—but at the same time felt like secret armor protecting the life inside my body.

  We scrubbed dirt onto our faces and under our fingernails, and then I showed Moriyah how to walk like a man: wide stance, long strides, moving her shoulders and arms instead of her hips.

  “Good,” I said. “Now keep your chin level but eyes more on the ground. Men don’t look people in the eye unless they want your attention or are asserting their dominance. We must blend in, avoid notice.”

  A sheen of fear shined in Mor
iyah’s pale eyes. “What if . . . ?”

  I grabbed her shoulders, giving her a little shake. “No. We will not think of the what-if. Do you not remember what we endured last night? In that river? You and I should either be dead or in that wagon headed to Damascus. I called out to Yahweh in the water and I immediately found you. So even if my only purpose in this life is to get you back to your family, then that is what I will do.”

  The morning was cold but bright. A huge three-peaked mountain range loomed white-headed in the distance to the north—Har Hermon, the throne of Baal himself. I’d always heard tales of the Storm-god who lived atop that mountain. As a child I’d envisioned it as some mystical place, where the peaks extended to the heavens and storms raged day and night as the gods battled against one another. Seeing it now with my own eyes, I realized it was only a mountain. A beautiful mountain that, as Tobiah had told me, was created by Yahweh. A god who was limited to a mountain—a god who demanded the flesh of children to be satisfied—was a god who was too small. But a God who deigned to hear me in the middle of a furious river, without benefit of idol or offering, was a God truly worthy of worship.

  Turning my back to the myths of my past, I set a quick pace. I kept the river to the east of us, as far away as possible while still keeping it in sight. Although I had no idea how we would find them, the river was my only guide toward the Hebrews. Once we moved farther south, I hoped to search out someone who might point the way, but I could only trust that the God who had ushered us through the rapids in one piece would guide me now, somehow.

  The land sloped downward, but the rugged hills alongside the river made for slow going, and the vegetation was so thick in places we were forced to climb higher to avoid getting mired in the underbrush. Moriyah never complained, although her stomach was as empty as mine. She walked next to me in silence, working hard to keep her stride long and straight. By the time I stopped to rest beneath a sycamore, Moriyah held herself more like a boy than I would have thought possible.

  She beamed at my encouragement. “Shimon would be proud of me. He always teased me about acting like a little girl.”

  The reminder of the brother I had killed knocked painfully against my ribs. “But you are a girl.”

  “No,” she laughed. “Shimon was always messing about. In fact, I think he considered it a personal challenge to make Tobiah explode. I remember one time—Shimon put indigo dye in Tobiah’s washing pot one night. Tobiah’s hair had a distinct bluish tinge for days.”

  I cleared the amusement from my throat. “Did it work? Did he get angry?”

  She shook her head and grinned. “Tobiah acted as though nothing had happened at all. He just sat down next to us and ate his manna portion, blue hair shining in the sun, even though Shimon laughed so hard tears ran down his face.”

  “And he let Shimon get away with humiliating him?”

  She waved a hand. “Oh no. We’d been camped near a swampy area at the time, a place where the water was so murky we could not use it. Tobiah gathered as many frogs as he could find and let them loose in Shimon and Tzipi’s tent.” She shook her head. “I thought Tzipi would murder them both. She was pregnant with Mahan and Yonel at the time, or she might have.”

  The image of a blue-haired Tobiah being ear-dragged by his twin sister surged into my head but was quickly replaced by such acute longing for my husband’s embrace that my heart contracted painfully. A flutter in my abdomen answered the emotion and I gripped my belly. “Oh!”

  “What is it?” Moriyah grabbed my arm.

  “It moved.” I blinked at her through a haze of relieved tears. “My baby moved inside me. It’s alive.”

  Moriyah’s smile lit up the shaded canopy beneath the tree. “She will be natanyah, a gift from Yahweh.”

  “A girl?”

  Her lips twitched. “Yes. I am certain of it.”

  “Well, let’s hope we don’t have to chop her hair off someday as well. Come, Mikal.” Calling Moriyah by her chosen male name, I patted my swaddled belly. “Natanyah is ravenous.”

  As we finally exited the narrow river valley, the landscape opened up before us to reveal a sparkling blue lake. The wide basin was a blur of every shade of green.

  “Look!” Moriyah pointed at a stand of trees. “Fruit!”

  My stomach snarled, overcoming the trepidation of running heedlessly toward the food. Moriyah reached the trees first, snatching a red globe off a low branch. Holding it up to the light, she studied it from every angle.

  “What is it?”

  I laughed. “A pomegranate.”

  “It’s beautiful! I’ve only seen the dried seeds that traders brought through camp once in a while.” She smelled the rind and then tried to bite into it, scowling when the tough skin refused to relinquish its treasure.

  I took the pomegranate from her, used a rock to crack it in half, and handed her one side, but I waited to eat, anxious to watch her discover her first-ever mouthful of fresh fruit.

  Her eyes grew as large as the fruit in her palm as she scooped the red seeds into her mouth. “Delicious!” Bright red juice dribbled down her chin as she pointed south. “Look! There, what are those?”

  Just past the pomegranate grove stood long rows of vines laden with purple clusters that sagged nearly to the ground. Saliva surged in my mouth and my feet walked toward the dark jewels without conscious thought.

  With a flick of my flint knife, I severed the arm-long cluster from the vine and held it in the air. The sun shone through the orbs, turning the skin a translucent red. They were almost too perfect to eat. Almost.

  Popping one into my mouth, I groaned at the tart sweetness and then lodged in another two. I had grown up nibbling fruit ripe from the vine my whole life, but somehow these were far and above the most delectable I had ever tasted.

  “How have I gone my whole life without eating these?” Moriyah’s words were slurred around the mouthful, and her cheeks bulged. “What are they?

  “Grapes. They are the fruit used to make wine.”

  “Oh! My grandfather owned a vineyard, back in Egypt!” She tilted her chin, curiosity twisting her face into a frown. “How do these become wine?”

  I resisted a laugh. Truly, what would these Hebrews do with farms and vineyards they had no idea how to tend? “Well, after they are harvested—”

  “You boys!” a booming voice called from a few rows away. “Get away from my grapes!”

  Grasping Moriyah’s juice-slick hand in mine, I ran, tugging her behind me but clutching the remainder of my grape cluster to my chest. Peering over my shoulder, I saw a large older man behind us, waving his arms, calling out for other men who were tending the fields farther up the terraced slope. In the distance, a small fortress stood guard at the top of the hill. How could I have been so careless? Hunger and fatigue had overtaken my normally acute senses.

  “Run!” Certain she could keep up, I released Moriyah’s hand and headed for the shoreline, the clearest path I could see away from the furious Canaanite farmer.

  Behind me, Moriyah was making a strange noise, but afraid to slacken my pace I simply yelled out. “What is wrong?”

  She released a loud laugh she must have been attempting to restrain. “They thought we were boys! It worked!”

  A rumble of thunder sounded off to the east and a sudden wind whipped across the water toward us. The clouds were gliding northwest, darkening with astounding speed. Relief sped through me just as quickly. The angry man would no doubt leave us be; two pilfering boys were not worth the effort of running into an oncoming storm.

  “We must find shelter.”

  Near the end of the lake, craggy cliffs jutted against the blackening horizon, pitted with dark holes and wide caves. “There!” I pointed. “Go!”

  Another boom of thunder shook the ground as a deluge broke free. Skidding on rain-slick rocks, we climbed, panting but pressing forward until we hunched inside a small cave. I swiped at the water dripping from my hair into my eyes. An awe-inspiring vista spread
out around us. The white peaks of Har Hermon were hidden behind the dark clouds, but rebellious rays of sun still shone through, glittering across the wide lake in large swathes.

  Terraced farms dotted the whole basin, and a village clung to the curve of the lake, hovering at the shore as if waiting on its edge like a patient fisherman, toes in the water.

  Moriyah gasped. “Alanah, you are hurt!”

  I looked down at my tunic. A dark red stain was splayed across my chest. Blinking, I spun the memory of our flight from the farmer backward in my head. My ankle throbbed from twisting, but I did not remember hurting myself otherwise.

  Sudden realization dawned. “The grapes, Moriyah. I must have smashed the cluster of grapes in my hand. I dropped them along the way.”

  She sighed loudly, her shoulders drooping in relief. “I don’t know what I would do if I was all alone in this land. If those men had caught us . . . discovered we are girls . . .”

  “I will not leave you alone, I promise. No matter what happens, I will not let anyone hurt you. We must be more careful from now on. It was foolish of me not to pay closer attention.” My mind finished Moriyah’s thought. If we had been discovered as women, there was little doubt we would be violated.

  “But Alanah—” Moriyah’s face was twisted into an expression of pain.

  I slid my hand into hers, reassuring her with a squeeze. The poor girl must be beside herself with fear after our second flight away from men who meant us harm, in as many days. “Yes, Moriyah?”

  “Did you have to drop the grapes? They were so delicious.”

  31

  14 TISHRI

  1407 BC

  I’d almost forgotten the taste of manna. Canaan was replete with crops: silver-leaved groves bursting with olives and terraced hills stacked high with rows upon rows of vineyards. Moriyah and I had become swift as larks snatching fruit from the fields. We’d learned from our first encounter with that farmer that one of us must be a lookout while the other harvested our meal.