Two days after his departure, Jesus felt the landscape shift beneath his feet. Plants disappeared. Scents vanished. Even the wind had stilled, and the air thickened with an eerie silence. The ground rolled and unfolded in monotonous, endless waves. Every bank, every rock, seemed to be the same ones he had passed hours before. He rode the waves up and down, stumbling his way toward the ridge with a constant sense of déjà vu.

At night, the silence continued, and Jesus found it even more unsettling than if a pack of wolves had been howling nearby. A strange haze blotted out the stars, heightening his disorientation. He built a fire, not only for warmth, but for companionship. He could not remember a time when the land had felt so desolate.

He slid closer toward the fire. Flames licked the air like quick tongues. He laid his head against the cold ground, longing to feel Anna’s breathing at his side.

In his loneliness, his mind turned toward his final moment with Peter. He felt again the surge that had rushed up between them.

Drifting farther back, his mind returned to the first occasion when he had felt so altered by another.

It had been in Jerusalem. When he and Peter, on their way to bed for the night, had spotted the young girl by the well. Her mother had called her Mary, and she had held Jesus in the light of her silver-eyed gaze. He recalled how the girl’s look had produced a peace, and a stillness, within him. Though each of the memories left him somewhat bewildered, he let their recollection keep him company, until sleep came, finally, and took him.

Jesus did not rise until long after the sun. He berated himself for oversleeping. As he stood, a heaviness weighed down his limbs. He rubbed his eyes and found them puffy with sleep. Perhaps, he thought, he had been keeping too rigorous of a pace.

But what was too rigorous when men’s lives depended upon his return?

He shook off the sluggishness and gathered his belongings. He would forgo his morning tea.

After several hours’ travel, he paused to slip open his tunic and relieve himself. Before the liquid had soaked into the sand, Jesus felt eyes upon him. He gasped and spun around. Fear snaked up his back. He scanned the horizon but found it empty.

Easy, easy, he whispered to himself.

He was well versed in the ways in which constant sun and lack of water could turn the mind against itself. He scanned the land once more, just to be sure. When he was certain there was nothing, he lifted his staff and continued his journey. But he continued to sense that he was not alone.