To Dwell among Cedars

by Connilyn Cossette

  “How did you happen to witness all this?” I asked. “Were you with them?”

  “No,” she said. “I saw Natan and his friends leaving the marketplace and noticed Medad and his brothers follow them into the woods. I—I just knew something awful was afoot. So, I trailed them here.” Her eyes filled with tears again as she looked at the empty trail where Natan had disappeared. “I couldn’t bear to see him ambushed. I meant to warn him. But I was too late. . . .”

  Something on her face told me she was more personally invested in Natan’s safety than I had guessed, and I wondered what her father might think of such affection. She was nearly thirteen, not all that much younger than Natan. But even were he not Philistine, my brother had a few years before he’d be considered ready to sustain a wife and family. And perhaps the tenderness she harbored for him was only on her part, since I’d never heard Natan speak of her or noticed them together before.

  “You did well,” I said, pressing a kiss to the girl’s forehead. “Thank you for alerting me. You may well have saved two lives today.”

  “I’ve never seen him like that,” she half-whispered, then lifted a sad smile, her hazel eyes still shimmering. “I just wish I’d gotten to him sooner.”

  “He’ll be fine,” I said, my false assurance likely fooling no one.

  “Osher. Shelah. Will you see this brave young woman home?” Ronen asked his friends. Although his tone was mild, I could tell that he was still shaken from confronting Natan. “I’ll accompany Eliora back up the mountain and we’ll finish in the garden when you return.”

  “It would be our honor,” said Osher, gesturing for Shoshana to lead the way with a reassuring smile.

  Shoshana looked up at me with a question between her brows. These men were as much strangers to her as they were to me—not to mention imposing with their large, identical builds. But as I had from nearly the beginning, I trusted Ronen. Even more so after what he’d done here today.

  “Go on,” I said. “They are consecrated Levites. They will keep you safe.”

  Satisfied with my endorsement, she took one more longing look toward the empty trail and walked away, leaving Ronen and me alone in the silent clearing.

  “I can certainly see now why you’ve been so upset about your brother,” Ronen said, a grim undercurrent to his tone. He ran a hand over his mouth and beard—a hand I noticed was trembling slightly. “He’s not a little boy with a pouch full of dice anymore, is he?”

  “No,” I whispered. “No, he is not.”

  “Is your family not aware? Do they not see what a danger he is to himself? And others?” He swiped a palm in the direction Medad’s brothers had led their bloodied sibling away from the clearing.

  “They are worried for him, of course,” I said, surprised that he was still so agitated. “Just as I am. But . . .”

  He lifted his brows when my voice trailed away, waiting for me to finish my thought. But there were things I’d never spoken aloud, things that had remained between me, Yahweh, and the flowers in my garden, and I was uncertain whether I even knew how to say them, let alone reveal them to this man I barely knew. But then I remembered how he’d awakened Natan to his surroundings by reminding him that I was watching, somehow knowing that above anything else that was what my brother would respond to. He understood the bond the two of us shared, even if that once-strong connection had been corroded over the years.

  I let out a shuddering sigh, keeping my gaze averted from Ronen, whose breaths were still rapid and whose fists were tightly clenched at his sides, almost making me wish I could reach out and lay a calming hand on his.

  “Sometimes I still see that grinning little boy in my mind,” I said. “Whenever he lets out a rare laugh, or when he calls me Risi. . . . There are glimpses of him there, deep inside. My Lukio is in there somewhere. . . . Yet I can’t help but think that there is also quite a bit of our father inside him too.”

  “Elazar?”

  “No,” I said. “Our Philistine father.”

  Ronen remained silent, giving me space to explore the memories that swam in my mind, some of them sharp and clear and some of them blurred, like I was peering at them through murky water.

  “Our mother died when my brother was born,” I said. “I never understood exactly why, because I was so young when it happened. One day she was holding me on her lap and letting me feel for Lukio’s kicks in her belly, and the next she was gone.”

  I paused, wishing I could forget the screams that echoed through our home that night and the horrible silence that followed.

  “Afterward—the very next day, in fact—my father disappeared. He went to sea on one of his ships and was gone for months. When he came back, he was not the same man.”

  I lifted a small smile, skimming through a deep-seated memory, one that I’d clung to after he’d changed. “I remember riding on his shoulders during the festival of the new year, watching a parade of the gods through the city. And I even remember his laugh. . . . But after he returned from the sea, he did not smile, he did not laugh, and when I ran to him, excited that he was back, he pushed me away, saying he was tired from his journeys and to run along. He never asked to see Lukio, his firstborn son. Never even held him, as far as I know.”

  It had been during that time that my nightmares had been at their worst, those full-throated screams of my dying mother reverberating through my dreams until Azuvah’s steady presence in my bed, and the stories of Israel that she whispered each night in her soothing language, assuaged the terrors.

  The titter of a wren on a branch nearby brought me back to the moment. Ronen’s dark eyes were intent on me, but he’d calmed as I spoke, his jaw relaxed and his fists no longer clenched.

  “That was one of the last times that I remember my father speaking directly to me. He would spend days locked in his chambers, not saying a word to anyone other than to demand the servants bring him fresh wine but refusing any food. Then, at times, he would go out and be gone all night, returning the next day bloodied and bruised from meeting opponents on the fighting grounds. And then there were the days he would rage—screaming at the servants, throwing furniture, cutting my mother’s clothing to pieces, and shattering her cosmetics jars and accoutrements on the stone floor.”

  He’d worshiped her, Azuvah had told me. His heart had been broken into as many pieces as those pots and jars he destroyed.

  “But then one day when Lukio was just over two years old, our father was brought back to our home, barely conscious and with a deep laceration on his face. And I overheard one of his friends tell a manservant that my father had beaten someone to death during a fight. It was not long after that that he took us to my aunt and uncle’s house and left us there.”

  “He’s your responsibility,” he’d told me as I stood at the threshold of Jacame and Harrom’s home, trembling as my father addressed me for the first time in months and for the last time ever. “Keep him safe, or the last part of her will be gone.” Even though I knew he was speaking of Lukio, he’d not even glanced at the tiny boy sleeping on Azuvah’s shoulder before he walked away, and I wondered now if the sight of him, of both of us, was too much a reminder of our mother, whose death had shattered him beyond repair.

  “We never saw him again. He’d originally come to Philistia as a young man from a far northern country across the sea, but the moment he saw my mother in the market he vowed to remain. My aunt told me she suspected he’d returned to that distant country because nothing was ever heard of him after that.”

  He’d left behind his thriving trading business, his home, his wealth, and his children without ever looking back.

  “I fear that within Natan lies the same demons my father seemed to battle,” I said. “He is so much like him—his height, his strength, his coloring, even his voice. . . . And what if . . . ?” I pulled in a deep breath, blinking the blur of tears away. “What if next time, he doesn’t stop? What if he ends up just like my father? As you said, Torah law does not allow a murderer to live
, even if in Ashdod my father faced no such justice. In fact, he was undoubtedly lauded for slaying the other man and paid well for his victory.”

  “Have you told your parents this?” Ronen asked.

  I shook my head, a wash of embarrassment warming my face.

  “Perhaps it is time to do so?”

  And perhaps it was. My fears had become a reality today. My brother was walking the edge of the same cliff my father had in his anger and bitterness, and I could not bear to see Natan topple into a similar abyss. But none of that involved Ronen.

  “Thank you,” I said in a rush, “for what you did here today. If I’d been alone . . .” I shook my head, trying to push aside the images such a thought conjured. “I am grateful that you stopped him when you did. You came to our rescue. Once again.”

  His gaze was intent on me but no longer edged with latent agitation over the fight, and even though I was thoroughly embarrassed over unburdening myself to a near-stranger, I was glad that he’d calmed in the meantime.

  “We should head back up to the garden,” I said, pulling a smile across my lips to cover my growing discomfort, both with the conversation and with being this far away from the summit of the mountain. “I don’t want to keep you and your friends longer than necessary.”

  “We are at your service,” he said, a spark of humor alighting in his dark brown eyes. “We’ll not be missed among the growing number of Levites who have arrived over the past few days. And we are glad to be your pack mules for the day. There is nowhere else I would rather be.”

  Something about that statement, paired with the leisurely way his eyes traveled over my face, warmed my blood in a new way. I’d always thought Ronen handsome, even when I was only twelve, but his features had matured into strong, masculine lines that I was now hard-pressed to keep from dwelling upon too long. And the manner in which he was looking at me now reminded me that I was no longer a girl either.

  He’d thrown himself between Natan and Medad without hesitation, for my sake, and instead of scorning me for being the daughter of a murderer or disparaging my Philistine heritage, he’d responded with a gentle tease and a genuine smile that caused my heartbeat to quicken.

  “You must join me for a meal,” I blurted out, to distract my own mind from going down paths that were better left unexplored. “My family . . . I mean. Tomorrow. On Shabbat. With all the extra produce we’re harvesting today there will be plenty of food for you and your friends.”

  “Are you certain your parents will welcome our intrusion on your family gathering?”

  “Without a doubt,” I said. “Especially after they hear what happened here today, they will want to thank you in person.”

  “Not necessary,” he said, with a dismissive wave. “But we will be more than happy to accept your invitation to enjoy the fruits of our heavy labors. After all, the Torah commands us not to muzzle the ox as he treads the corn, does it not?”

  I laughed at his tease, relieved that he could not decipher the embarrassing notions that had been forcing their way to the surface. Ronen’s time here in Kiryat-Yearim was temporary, and my attraction to him was futile. But I would always remember the way he’d dashed to my aid without question today, and I was glad that I’d trusted him with a small piece of my ugly past.

  Twenty

  I took advantage of my long-legged stride on the trail in order to be the first to arrive at the spring that gushed from a crack between two boulders not too far from our home. Still, I had only a few moments to bask in the quiet before my sisters joined me.

  A multitude of birds filled the forest with song as a cool breeze whispered through the leaves and fluttered the edges of my headscarf to tease the fine curls at my nape. I dipped my jug into the icy stream, filling the vessel with fresh, clean water before sitting back on my haunches to breathe deeply of the green-scented air and thank Yahweh for such extravagant provision.

  Azuvah and the other servants in Ashdod had walked for hours back and forth from the well with their water jugs each day, and the labor took a heavy toll on their bodies. Yet I had only to walk about a thousand paces from our doorstep to find one of the many streams of clean water that bubbled up from deep in the earth, flowing down the mountainside in cascades that I’d been told had appeared only after the Ark rested at Kiryat-Yearim.

  Miri appeared at my shoulder with her own empty jug, panting from her attempt to catch up to me. Rina and Safira would be along shortly, since the four of us had been asked to retrieve fresh water for our guests to wash their feet this evening.

  “You always win,” she pouted. “Your legs are far too long.”

  The comment was not meant to wound, but it stung nonetheless.

  “You are the one who issued the challenge,” I said. And had you not been pressing me for information about Ronen earlier, I thought, I wouldn’t have accepted. I did not know how to talk about him without a flush coming to my cheeks. And I had no interest in explaining the unbidden reaction to my sisters.

  She sighed and knelt beside me, dipping her jug into the water, and I prayed that our brief conversation back on the path was forgotten.

  “Does Abba know Ronen and his friends are coming for Shabbat?” she asked, destroying my hopes.

  “Of course,” I said, holding back a groan of frustration. I should have known Miri would not let go of the subject. I willed my cheeks not to redden as her eyes sparkled at me. She was far too intuitive for a girl of thirteen.

  Her lips curved into a demure smile that betrayed the mischief behind it. “Are his friends as handsome as he is? I only saw him for a moment when he carried your basket home from the garden, but I thought his appearance was quite pleasing.”

  My face blazed. “I invited them all out of gratitude, nothing else.”

  She raised a brow. “Are you certain of that?”

  “We harvested more produce in those few hours yesterday than I did in all of the past two weeks alone. And they delivered three loads of food to the people down in the village,” I said, then leveled my own teasing gaze at her. “If only I could have that much help every day. You were certainly nowhere to be found when I was asking for volunteers.”

  “I was helping Rina, Safira, and Ima with preparations for tonight’s meal,” she retorted. “Besides, I would much rather have my hands elbow-deep in dough than dirt.”

  I laughed, brushing my knuckles down her cheek. “I know, sister. I don’t expect everyone to enjoy the lovely feel of dirt beneath their fingernails as much as I do.”

  She wrinkled her nose, and I laughed harder at her undisguised revulsion. She’d always been fastidious, barely tolerating any sort of stickiness on her hands or face when she was small and fuming whenever our brothers tracked mud across the woven rugs in our home. For as much as I loathed the tiresome job of scrubbing laundry until my knuckles were raw, Miri seemed to take pleasure in it, as if by cleansing the fabric her worries were washed away with the stains.

  “I might be a small bit more amenable to digging around in your garden if Ronen and his friends continue to appear there,” she said, an impish grin twisting her lips. “Even if it means dirt beneath my fingernails.”

  Rina and Safira joined us then, their own empty jugs perched on their hips. Although they were both now married, they’d been joined to Levite men who lived in the house next door and therefore hadn’t been forced to move away from Kiryat-Yearim, like some of our cousins who married men from other towns. I was grateful our Shabbat gatherings still included my sisters and prayed it would always be so. I did not know what I would do without them.

  When I’d first arrived in Kiryat-Yearim, I’d hoped to make friends with other girls my age, but it had not taken long to realize that my appearance made me stand out in town. Curious looks and whispers followed me everywhere, until it became much easier for me to stay on top of the mountain, where I was safe and secure. Up here, I could avoid reminders that, as Natan had said, I would never truly be one of them.

  “And who is th
is Ronen?” Rina asked, deflating my hopes yet again that the subject would be dropped. “I heard we are to have visitors tonight.”

  I cleared my throat and looked down at my hands. “He is the same Levite who found Natan and me all those years ago. He returned with the musicians and has been helping me in the gardens.”

  Rina and Safira exchanged a look of surprise.

  “And Abba approves?” asked Safira.

  “Of course,” I responded. “He is grateful the musicians have been aiding me with the harvest while everyone else is so busy.”

  I did not add that when he heard of Natan’s altercation yesterday, and Ronen’s part in stopping it, my father had immediately walked down the hill to personally thank them for their intervention and reaffirm the invitation. As far as I knew, my sisters had not heard of the fight, and I had no desire to discuss Natan’s foolish behavior.

  “I mean,” said Safira, with a touch of amused condescension, “does he approve of a match between the two of you?”

  My jaw dropped open as I blinked down at her, words refusing to slip easily past the confused knot in my throat. “No . . . it’s . . . he is only coming for the meal. To thank him . . . it’s not for me.”

  Rina’s lips twitched. “It is far past the time when you should be joined with a good man, Eliora. And he is a Levite, after all. Of course Abba would approve of such a union.”

  I heard such statements many times from my eldest sister and from my mother: gentle reminders that I was older than Safira and not even betrothed, and that Abba would be thrilled to find a worthy husband for me. But I knew the way of things. I held no foolish notions in my head that one of the Hebrew men from our town might select me over all the young women whose family lines were drawn all the way back to Avraham. I may be joined in covenant with the Hebrews, but my blood was of the people of the sea.

  “I am content as I am,” I said, lifting my chin.

  Rina set her water jug atop one of the flat boulders near the stream, then approached me with an expression that held both compassion and determination.