Rebekah’s eyes hurt. Mud shanties quivered next to mansions, muddy streams next to flowing rivers, the pit next to a hill of precious stones. Ululating women whirled around, their faces hidden behind costly veils, their bodies decorated with silver and gold. Was this the king’s harem, where sultanas covered their faces in the presence of alien men? The harem!

Why had she not considered the safe haven of the harem? A future beyond the Jewish Quarter, the pit, and the house of a whore. The palace jealously guarded its secrets, but the few facts Rebekah knew were encouraging. The harem housed at least three hundred concubines with their attendants, tutors, readers of poems, keepers of the jewels, the baths, and the schools where women were placed under supervision to go through apprenticeships and master a variety of skills. That sanctuary could offer her daughter liberties marriage could not. The company of women without the limiting yoke of one man. The security of a roof and financial assurance without the insulting debts and obligations of a demanding husband.

From her pocket Rebekah clutched a fistful of seeds of wild rue and flung them into the flames. She summoned the strength to influence fate. The seeds popped, raising a cloud of smoke. Clawing at her bosom, she cried out, “I see a commanding presence clad in a splendid cape!”

A flush of anger stabbed at Gold Dust. Her mother had grabbed her life and was molding it without considering her, Gold Dust’s, personal wishes. Sitting there helpless, as if she had no hand in her own future, she longed to douse the flames with water and laugh when the man with the splendid robes drowned. She rose and stared into the fire. “I don’t see anything!”

Rebekah turned a purple storm on her daughter. “That’s because you’re too young. Go beyond the illusion of your five senses; call upon your sixth, seventh, eighth. You can’t see the sun on a cloudy day. That doesn’t mean the sun isn’t shining. You’d swear the sun rises at dawn and sets at dusk. An illusion. The sun never sets. Is the world flat? Is the sky blue? Do you think the creatures that share my bed are men?”

Gold Dust sank back onto the carpet.

Invisible forces overwhelmed the Ancient Zoroastrian. The other woman’s will had clouded her ability to prophecy. The flames licked the thatch roof without burning it. Was this an indication from Ahura Mazda? The old woman’s voice regained confidence. “NOW! The time has come. She must find her mate!”

“Yes,” Gold Dust agreed. “I’ll find my own mate, and I don’t care for power and money.”

Rebekah lifted her arms. “May the ears of the Devil go deaf, and the eyes of the ignorant be illuminated.” She raised her face toward an unknown force and with authority declared: “My daughter will lounge on jewel-studded divans.”