“When I was growing up,” Ruth said, her eyes never leaving the parchment, “I used to watch with envy as my brothers received tutoring in the art of letters. Every day when the old man arrived with his fistful of quills and inkpots, I would slide my weaving loom closer to my brothers so that I might overhear their lesson.”

As she scripted word after word, Ruth took care to reveal the manuscripts’ content and meaning. “This passage toward the bottom describes how to collect the Seven Cures and how to apply them,” she would say. Or, “This passage describes how to prepare an antidote for beestings.”

Turning to another sheet, Ruth said, “Ah! Now this is an important section. This describes how the mind’s health affects the body.” She pointed to the page as she read from it. “This says that grief can cause all the same symptoms as illness. And that it takes sensitivity to divine the actual cause of someone’s suffering. It further says that sometimes a cure can be affected by simply listening.”

Anna thought back to the night Zahra had healed her neighbor Daniel. She remembered how the old woman had listened as the boy spoke, until his breath miraculously returned.

Had Daniel been grieving?

In a cautious tone, Ruth then added, “But the passage further reminds us that not all pains can be soothed and not all lives saved. After all, it says, the beating of our hearts is not promised, and our breath is as fleeting as the wind,” she said. Ruth gazed into the distance and shook her head. “So many have forgotten this,” she said. “And so many act in ways that presuppose ownership of their existence. But our life truly is a gift.”

“That is what Shereen says,” Anna noted. “She says that gratitude is a far more reasonable approach to life than presumption.”

Ruth returned her gaze to the young shepherd and smiled. “Shereen speaks with wisdom. And you have listened well,” she said.

Encouraged by her words, Anna then asked, “But Ruth? If all these books contain knowledge of various cures, then where is the book that talks about The Way? In which jar do you keep it?”

Ruth’s eyes glimmered. “I suspected you would ask that,” she said. She drew her pen down the parchment, leaving a black vertical line in its wake. “There is no such book.”

“What?” Anna squinted with suspicion. “But why not?”

Ruth leaned back and laid her quill in its trough. She set to the task of making more ink by mixing water with pulverized soot and tree gum.