Her father, The Magician, and her husband, his Assistant, had access to books from Spain that revealed the inner workings of the known world through sacred geometry. The circle, for instance, was a perfect shape that possessed the power to ward off evil. In the first century B.C.E. a miracle worker named Honi Ha-Me’agel stood in a circle to call down rain upon the parched earth. Even now, on a couple’s wedding day, a bride must circle a groom, as mourners must circle the graves of the pious with thread. Numbers and shapes revealed the mysteries of the universe and the sacred name of God, which numerically represented the divine, and was present in all of His creations, including the mathematical equation of pi. Therefore it was through the purity of numbers that the rabbis attempted to understand God’s miracles. It was believed that all creation came from thought, language, and mathematics.

When Hanni knocked on the door, Ruth drew her distraught neighbor into her tiny apartment and listened as Hanni wept, insisting she must send her daughter away. Ruth didn’t need magic to see the blood under her neighbor’s fingernails. It was indeed a terrible time.

As Ruth made tea she thought over Hanni’s predicament. Ruth knew what evil could befall a young girl traveling alone, especially now, when there were demons dressed in army uniforms on every corner. Ruth knew of them as mazikin, terrible creatures whose work was the misery of humankind. They had accomplished their work in Berlin. Her neighbors hadn’t listened to Ruth when Nazi policy first began to separate Jews from the rest of the population. She had seen children and their mothers standing in the snow, begging for food, while the newspapers printed captions beneath photographs of Jewish businessmen and lawyers and professors. Here are the animals. Do you know this Beast?

That was how evil spoke. It made its own corrupt sense; it swore that the good were evil, and that evil had come to save mankind. It brought up ancient fears and scattered them on the street like pearls. To fight what was wicked, magic and faith were needed. This was what one must turn to when there was no other option.

“My father once told me of a creature.” Ruth lowered her voice as she poured the tea. “The golem.”

She went on to explain that this monstrous entity was made of earth, but imbued with life by God’s allowance and man’s practice. A golem was created by use of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. First mentioned in the Book of Psalms, it had no soul, only ruach, the life and breath of animals. The Talmud stated that Adam himself was a golem until God gave him a soul, for a soul is said to be what divides us from all others.

“What good would such a thing be to me?” Hanni wanted to know.