Anna smiled and opened the mouth of her pouch, releasing a spray of color.

At that same moment, having heard the commotion, Yoseph stepped out of his workshop. He spotted the old woman standing next to his daughter.

“Anna! This is no time for idle chatter. Go help your mother with the milking!” As his daughter departed, Yoseph cast an angry glare upon Zahra.

Anna held the cow’s head steady. Below, her mother balanced awkwardly on a stool, bending over her swollen belly to knead the animal’s teats. Mari worked in silence and Anna could sense her mind wandering. Hoping to capture her attention, she asked, “Mother? Who puts milk in the cow?”

Mari’s fists pumped up and down in absent rhythm. “God does,” she droned.

Anna eyed her mother. She then stroked the cow’s side and searched under its belly. “But where does He put it in?” she asked.

Mari leaned back and wiped her brow with the back of a hand. She swooned slightly to one side as if dizzied. “Only the Mother knows,” she said.

Anna’s eyes widened. “Whose mother?” she asked.

Mari flinched. “What?”

“Do you mean your mother? Like Zahra sometimes thanks her—?”

“No,” Mari said, interrupting. Her lips tightened. “I did not mean to say Mother,” she said quickly.

“But you—”

“I made a mistake,” she insisted, startled at having made such a potentially perilous slip. She glanced over her shoulder.

Anna kicked a toe into the ground, thinking.

“Mother?” she asked. “Why does Father not like Zahra?”

“Anna!” her mother gasped, exasperated. “Will you never run out of questions?”

Anna flinched. Her mother was never cross with her.

Mari sat back, wobbling slightly atop the stool. “Hand me the rag,” she said.

Anna handed her a small cloth. Mari wiped each of the cow’s teats. “That is enough for today,” she said, a strange tremble coming into her forearms. She covered the mouth of the milk jar with a swatch of linen.

Anna noticed beads of sweat forming above her lip. “You are melting.”

“I need air,” Mari mumbled. She stepped outside and fell against a beam, squinting as if her vision had blurred.

“Greetings,” a voice called out. “Blessings on your house.”

A youthful shepherd approached from behind. Anna smelled the sharp stink of goat urine.

Mari steadied herself. “Greetings,” she said.

Anna had never seen so young a shepherd. He was not much older than she, maybe nine or ten years of age. And he looked remarkably like her. They both shared long, curly dark hair, high coppery cheeks, and succulent green eyes shaped like almonds. She noticed too that his teeth were so white they shimmered even when he was not smiling.

Mari looked back and forth between the shepherd and her daughter thinking they could easily have been mistaken for brother and sister.

“Do you have any spare milk for a poor band of shepherds?” he asked.