The sun began to rise behind them. The desert’s colors dazzled Anna’s eyes as if unleashed for the first time. She looked back down at the shoot. Her vision, she noticed, had sharpened considerably.

“My mother encouraged us to play that every morning before we began our day. Even if only for a moment or two. The game, she said, was more vital to our lives than food. And when we were older, she revealed the game not to be a game at all, but the art of Communion. The practicing of eternity. The secret of joy.”

Anna kept still.

“Do you understand where you have been?” Susana asked.

Anna nodded.

“Carry it with you in your heart. Always remember.”

After a while, Mother Susana leaned on her staff and stood. She tapped Anna playfully on top of her head with a finger. It had impressed her how instinctively the young shepherd had sustained Communion. And enticed the raven!

Truly the young woman possessed a great potential, she thought. As they returned together to the valley, Susana noted how Anna walked more thoughtfully, planting her feet so as to avoid the tiniest shoots and lichens.

CHAPTER 23

A village on the outskirts of The Narrows—30 A.D.

Solomon rested in the shade as the women’s wailing rose to his ears. To him it had become a familiar sound. And, once again, he had arrived too late to prevent it.

For years he had pursued his cousin from village to village, skirting along the perimeter of The Narrows. Though a capable tracker, Solomon was no match for Judas. At times he had felt certain he would come upon him, only to have all traces vanish. Yet, whenever word arose of a group planning an incursion into The Narrows, his cousin would strike, killing all who claimed to have knowledge of secret lairs or caves.

In this way, Solomon knew, Judas was striving to ensure the Sisters’ safety.

But at what cost?

Not only had blood been shed and lives shattered, but through his awful deeds, Judas was ruining his soul.

How Solomon wished he could find his cousin. And return him to his senses.

Exhausted, the shepherd leaned back against a rock. Soon his eyes closed. When he had entered the dreaming place that arises just before sleep, his mind drifted back to his childhood. It was a happy day. The morning sun glinting along the walls. Seated by the fire, his mother was baking bread with her sister, Maya, and best friend, Alawa. Nearby, Solomon and Judas sat together carving whistles with Alawa’s eldest daughter, Shereen. Behind them, two infants lay swaddled in a corner, Shereen’s sister, Yadira, and Judas’s sister, Delilah. The three mothers and their children had lived together almost as if a single family—the fathers’ trades taking them to distant lands for long stretches at a time.