To Dwell among Cedars Read online

  An altar of uncut stones had been built in the center of the ridge, and I watched in fascination as a number of animals were slaughtered and prepared for the sacrifices. My uncle, dressed in white like the rest of us, was assisting with the gruesome undertaking, his years of working in the Mishkan evident by the way his knife expertly butchered a goat. A discomfiting thought struck me as I watched him strip flesh from bone: if I was not successful in convincing Machlon to halt those plans, it was conceivable that a war could break out between many of the priests now working alongside him on this ridge. And the divisions between the Levites that I’d witnessed during the past few weeks would be nothing if Abiram was successful in deposing Ahituv and replacing him with a successor from the line of Eleazar ben Aharon.

  The true weight of my conviction and its implications settled over me, just as a man holding a torch strode across the ridge and silently planted himself in front of the altar. Gradually, those working on the sacrifices halted in their work to gape at the interloper.

  It took less than three breaths for me to realize that my guess earlier was correct, Samuel ben Elkanah—once assistant to Eli the High Priest and a man who, since the destruction of Shiloh, was known to wander the length and breadth of the Land prophesying and exhorting the tribes to repent—was on the mountain of Kiryat-Yearim.

  “People of Yahweh,” he called out, his voice echoing across the valley with surprising strength, “you gather here this day to shout to the Most High. You come before him with sacrifices”—he gestured toward the smoking altar—“and with glorious songs that lift high his name above all other gods. You claim him as your Rock of Salvation with the words of Mosheh and plead with him to rescue you from your oppressors. Yet I have been walking among you today.” He pointed his flaming torch at the crowd below. “There are heathen votives in your tents, graven images of false gods around your necks, and the flesh of swine in your stewpots.”

  All around me, Levites shifted, craning their necks to see the speaker and murmuring about his identity, but otherwise the congregation was quiet, both in the valley and on the ridge, all of us seeming to hold our collective breath to hear what Samuel might say next. There was nothing extraordinary in his appearance, other than the long, dark braid that dangled to the bottom of his spine, and he wore simple clothing that gave no indication to his unique, divinely appointed status among the Levites. But every eye in the valley was trained on him, and the authority in his voice was unmistakable. I briefly wondered if this was what it might have felt like for the distant ancestor who’d made my lyre to watch Mosheh speak on the Mountain of Adonai in the wilderness.

  After a taut silence in which I glanced over at my uncle, who was glowering at the prophet, with his bloody knife still clutched in his hand, Samuel began to speak again, his voice strengthening as he called on the am segula, Yahweh’s beloved people, to repent of whoring after the gods of the Philistines, the Canaanites, and the Amorites. He told us to break down the high places and cleanse the Land, instead of inviting the repugnant practices into our homes and convocations and calling them holy. He implored us to get on our faces and repent, to burn the idols and images and amulets. He declared that until we turned our faces to the Most High, our calls for rescue would not be heard, our holy sanctuary not restored. He spoke of how entwined we’d become with the enemies among us and that the process of untangling ourselves from them would be a difficult and painful one—one that would divide fathers and sons, brothers and friends, tribes and clans—but one that was necessary if we desired to be a light to the nations as Mosheh had challenged us to be.

  “Yahweh is a jealous God,” he shouted. “He will not tolerate your detestable idols. Do not rely on your own strength for your salvation, nor on the wicked plans of those who claim to know his will but speak with the tongues of vipers for their own gain. You are the beloved of the Most High, and it is he alone you must obey. So, as the sacrifices are being made here on this altar, throw your amulets into your fires. Smash your idols and burn your graven images. And when the first sliver of the moon is seen in the sky, shout to Adonai, lift your trumpets to the Holy One as our ancestors did at Jericho, and cry out in his name as you repent and plead mercy for the wayward tribes of Israel.”

  The moment Samuel began to speak of wicked plans, my attention had gone back to Abiram. No longer was he glowering at the prophet; instead, he and his friend, Bezor, were standing together, still covered in the blood of sacrifices, but both with expressions of satisfaction on their faces.

  Stricken at the sight of their arrogant display during a call for repentance, I turned to look over my shoulder, searching for Machlon. When we’d lined up earlier on the ridge, he’d been three rows behind me, with the other drummers. Now he was nowhere to be seen, and I had no idea how long he’d been missing. For all I knew, he’d left before we played our first note. Another quick overview of the men gathered on the ridge told me that Osher and Shelah were not here either.

  There could be only one reason as to why none of them were here right now.

  “There is no rethinking. Everything is in place,” Machlon had said on the path. It seemed as though he hadn’t needed me to lead them to the Ark after all. No wonder Osher and Shelah had sabotaged the instruments today; they’d wanted me occupied so I didn’t realize I’d been entirely cut from the plans.

  With my heartbeat thundering in my ears, I vaguely noticed that Samuel had stopped talking. After a lengthy moment in which he stared out at the people, he turned to cast his gaze our way, his eyes traveling over the musicians with the same scrutiny he’d given the congregation below. For the briefest of moments, his attention fixed on me, and a flood of regret and foreboding rushed through my limbs—as if the man of Yahweh could see all the way down to my guilty bones.

  The moment he released his stare and continued his perusal of the rest of the Levites, I leaned over to the musician standing next to me, a man I barely knew.

  “Take my lyre back to camp,” I whispered. “I need to go.”

  “What?” he hissed, as I pressed my priceless instrument into his hands. “Where are you—? You can’t leave!”

  But I’d already turned away, slithering through the rows behind me and considering how fast I could reach the summit. I had to reach my cousin before he did something that could not be undone.

  Thirty-Five

  Eliora

  I caught up to Natan at the remains of my tree, just as the sun began to sink behind the western hills. Although he’d ignored me the whole way, he’d known I was behind him on the trail or he would have far outpaced me and left me to find my way through the woods alone. I knew my way fairly well on this part of the mountain, even at dusk, but after my run-in with those men the other night, I’d been much more cautious about returning to the house well before dark.

  Although my father reminded me that I would be missing my very first ingathering festival, I could not leave Natan alone, not after he’d come home this afternoon with bloodied knuckles and a thunderstorm on his face, refusing to say what had happened to him. In fact, the only words he’d uttered since then had been a vehement refusal to go with the family down to the bluff to watch the Yom Teruah ceremony and sacrifices. I’d been so excited to see Ronen play his lyre alongside his fellow musicians and to take part in the Hebrew tradition, but I had the very deep conviction that my brother needed me right now.

  I surveyed the mess of mud and shattered logs and sticks that must have once been a charcoal mound in the center of the clearing. It likely had taken Natan hours to build this, and now it was as destroyed as my oak tree, looking like it had been hacked to pieces by an ax.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  His jaw ticked, as if he were grinding his teeth together.

  “Was it . . .” I paused, bracing myself for the answer. “Was it Adnan and Padi?”

  He shook his head, his eyes traveling over the mess dispassionately, his lips pressed tightly together. Remembering again how Ronen had s
aid that my brother needed time to let his emotions settle before he could discuss whatever was on his mind, I remained quiet.

  Natan was wearing something around his neck that looked suspiciously like Ronen’s lion claw. It took everything in me to not ask him why he had it, since I remembered the story of the treasured possession being passed down generation to generation within Ronen’s family. But instead of falling prey to my curiosity, I forced myself to stay silent, giving Natan all the time he needed to calm his soul.

  I peered up at the slowly dimming heavens to distract myself, searching for the faint crescent that would herald the beginning of the seventh month. Seeing nothing more than one lone star just over the eastern horizon, I dropped my gaze to the treetops. Although I could not see the cedar grove from this vantage point, and perhaps never would again now that my oak was gone, I turned my face in the direction of the Ark and prayed that somehow, someday, my brother’s troubled heart would be mended and that he would find true joy.

  “She doesn’t want me,” Natan said, his sudden statement nearly startling a squeak out of me.

  “Who?”

  “Shoshana,” he replied, his tone dry and flat and completely at odds with the abrasions on his knuckles. Remembering the way the girl had looked at my brother the day of the fight with Medad and how shaken she’d been as she’d called my name in the garden, I doubted such a statement but did not want to contradict him when he was finally talking to me. It seemed that Shoshana’s affection had not been one-sided after all.

  “What happened?”

  “She’s betrothed to someone else.”

  I barely stifled my gasp. “Betrothed?”

  He nodded. “To Medad.”

  I let my eyes drop closed, my head tipping forward. No wonder he was so devastated. The girl he’d set his hopes on would marry the friend who’d betrayed him. “Oh, Natan, I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. “It is done. Their fathers already drew up the ketubah. In two years’ time, she will be taken as my worst enemy’s wife. I tried . . .” He paused, took a breath. “I tried to convince her to plead my case, or even to leave with me instead. To choose me. We are young, and I have nothing to offer as mohar, but I said I would work with Adnan cutting wood, or perhaps find work as a farmhand down in the valley. But she . . . she said that she could not go against her father’s wishes. And that it was too late to undo anyhow.”

  “And your hands?” I asked, keeping my tone as gentle as possible.

  He lifted them, turning them back and forth to examine the knuckles with detached curiosity. Then he gestured behind him at the woods. “A tree.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. At least Medad had not been the recipient of whatever blows he’d inflicted on some unsuspecting oak. After what had happened last time Natan lost his control with his former friend, I feared that losing Shoshana to him might push my brother over a line he could not step back over, just like our father.

  “Why did you make me go?” he asked.

  I furrowed my brow in confusion.

  “I would have been better off in Ashdod, among my own people.”

  I stiffened, struck by the defeat in his voice. “That’s not true. And they are not your people anymore.”

  He stretched his neck and straightened his shoulders. “Yes, they are. We were born Philistine. No matter that you refuse to speak our language or how much you hide yourself away and pretend, you do not truly belong here.”

  I flinched at the stinging attack. “We are part of this family—”

  “I’m not. I’ll never be.”

  Anger began to simmer beneath my breastbone. “Of course you are. Abba and Ima have been nothing but kind to you. Our siblings treat you as one of them. They have never done anything but love you. I don’t understand why you refuse to see this!”

  “They pretend just as much as you do,” he said. “But it’s not real. We already have a family, in Ashdod.”

  “They’re dead, Natan. All of them. There was nothing left for us there but misery.” And something worse than slavery for me.

  “We have Mataro.”

  My jaw dropped open. “Mataro?”

  He folded his arms across his chest, his jaw going hard. How could he even suggest that our cousin was in any way a better choice?

  “I know you were young when we left, but don’t you remember what he tried to do to you?” I asked.

  “He was going to make me famous.”

  “No, Natan. He was using you. Planning to throw a seven-year-old boy out onto the fighting grounds to pummel other children in order to make himself rich.”

  “Perhaps so, but I too would have become rich in the process. And powerful and admired. I may have only been seven, but I bested two boys older than me that day. Mataro was going to teach me to become the greatest fighter in all of the Five Cities. Instead, you dragged me away, made me come to this place where everyone hates me.”

  “You don’t remember the danger we were in that night. There was a reason Azuvah sent us away—”

  “She just wanted us gone. Like everyone else.”

  I blinked, his statement so utterly untrue that I could not wrap my mind around it. “No, she loved us—”

  “She was a slave, Risi. Nothing but a slave obligated to care for two children. And when she tired of dealing with us, she tricked us into climbing out a window and running off.”

  I curved a hand over my wrist, gripping the old, tattered tzitzit there that still reminded me of that slave’s love. “You are wrong. Have you forgotten how she sang to us? How she told us stories of the Hebrews? How she called us her lights?”

  He shrugged a shoulder.

  I had to tell him. I don’t know why I’d waited so long to do so. When he’d been a boy, I’d wanted to keep the horror—all the horrors—away from him. Protect what innocence remained in him. And then, over the years, I’d convinced myself that dredging it all up again wouldn’t profit him, or me. “He killed her, Natan. Our cousin killed Azuvah that night.”

  His eyes narrowed at me. “That’s a lie.”

  “As soon as we left that room, he broke in and murdered her.”

  “How would you know? We were gone.”

  “I—” My throat closed, and I choked out the words. “I heard him . . . and her screams as he beat her.”

  “But you didn’t actually see her dead, did you?”

  “No, but I know—”

  “Why would he destroy his property? What use would he have for a dead slave?” His voice sounded so cold that I shivered. “But instead of finding out what happened, or giving me a choice, you forced me to leave my people. To follow a magical box to this place where I am nothing but a pariah.”

  Frustration ground at my bones, and I grit my teeth. “They aren’t our people anymore, Natan. And I am glad. The Philistines are cruel. They worship bloodthirsty and depraved gods. They want nothing more than to steal this beautiful land from those Yahweh gave it to.”

  He shook his head. “You are blinded by your devotion to the Hebrews. You don’t even know what you are talking about.”

  “Natan, please—”

  “Lukio!” he snapped. “My. Name. Is. Lukio!”

  The sound of shofarim and loud shouts from down in the valley jerked my attention to the sky, where the barest sliver of the new moon was now visible on the horizon. The piercing blasts continued on and on to herald the beginning of Yom Teruah.

  At nearly the same moment, a shofar sounded in the other direction. My head whipped around to search out the origin. This blast did not sound like the long, drawn-out ones down in the valley.

  It sounded more like an alarm.

  “The Ark,” I breathed out.

  Another shofar bleated, this time from a little farther away but was quickly broken off. Knowing the summit of this mountain the way that I did, I felt certain that the Levite guards had blown those rams’ horns not to celebrate the day of shouting, but as a call for help. Immediately, I was back in those terrify
ing moments when those two enormous shadows flew at me in the darkness. Had those same men returned tonight while everyone was occupied with the ceremony? I knew my father had added another layer of guards after he’d dismissed Menash, but something deep inside me whispered that perhaps it was not enough.

  With my heart pounding, I turned back to tell Natan we should go find our father but discovered he was gone. I shouted his name three times, but he’d disappeared into the deep-shadowed forest, leaving me behind to find my way alone.

  Torn between the instinct to follow my brother and the urgency in those shofar blasts, I wavered. Natan was so confused. So lost. And I had no idea how to convince him of the contrast between the life we would have had in Ashdod among the Philistines and this peaceful and safe one with the Hebrews.

  But for as much as I was compelled to fix whatever was broken in him, I had to remember that just like my mother had said, I was not his God and I could not save him from himself. The alarms had sounded during all the noise of Yom Teruah, and if something had happened out there with the guards, no one else may have heard it but me. I had to leave behind the brother only Yahweh could heal and run for my father.

  Thankful that there was still enough light remaining to find my way through the woods, I left the usual path and headed in the direction of the ridge, where the Yom Teruah ceremony was being held, all unease at going down the mountain swallowed up in panic that I might be too late for whatever had happened with the guards. I knew the exact bluff where my family planned to watch the festivities and was glad I would not have to search them out among the hundreds gathered in the valley below.

  However, just as I neared the head of the trail that would take me down to my father, I noticed a flash of movement about forty paces down the hill and coming up the path directly toward me. Stumbling to a stop, I dashed behind a nearby tree, crouching as my pulse galloped wildly. I prayed that it was only one of the Levite guards making his way toward whatever emergency had arisen, but after what had happened to me before, I would not take any chances.