After breakfast, I sat on a hewn log in the back portico. The air was dry, making my eyes sting and nose itch. A full-fledged pity party consumed me. Would I ever enjoy meals here?
My almost teenage half-brother had the annoying habit of making embarrassing, unintelligible sounds while eating, and my stepmother handed me a long list of chores. I was glad to help out, but I didn’t want to be treated like a slave. I picked up a rock and skipped it across the ground, watching it disappear beneath half-dead weeds. Maybe I should leave, except I wanted to meet my father.
“Ca-ca. What’s got you down?”
I looked up and spotted Worldly Crow peering at me from a palm tree a few feet away. He flew over and lighted beside me. His dark blue feathers shone in the harsh sunlight while his bulging eyes fixated on Baruch’s red apple. I wasn’t going to give it to him. I’d pulled it out of the knapsack—the very last one.
Worldly Crow cocked his head coyly. “Don’t want to talk about it?”
I gazed off in the distance. “It’s not what I had expected. That’s all. I don’t even know what I want. I just know this isn’t it.”
Worldly Crow sat listening. “Your father is on the way.”
I sat up straighter. “He is?”
“Yes. He should be here later today.”
“How do you know?” I was reluctant to believe him.
“I fly everywhere keeping track of the news of the day. I saw him myself, traveling up from Jerusalem. He’s a very important man in the government, gone more than he’s here. Be happy that you get to see him at all.”
“Tell me more about him.”
Worldly Crow cackled. “He likes to drink, and he likes women.”
Just what I wanted to hear. “What else?”
“Ca-ca. He has lots of money.”
“What else? Has he ever mentioned me?”
“I overheard him say you were coming. I didn’t know you existed.”
I laughed demurely. “So my father kept me a secret all these years.”
“Now, listen here, little girl,” the crow admonished. “I don’t want you to be disappointed, but he’s a diplomat in the Roman government. He may not have time for you. He has to tend to matters of the state and make important decisions.”
“More important than his daughter?”
Worldly Crow ruffled his feathers at my rebuff. “I say it as it is. Take it for what it’s worth.” He eyed my apple. “Are you going to eat it?”
“No. This is for Baruch. He loves apples. The red ones are his favorite.”
The crow smacked his beak. “Oh. We don’t have anything like that around here. Where did you get it?”
“The garden. Now you know. It’s the last one he’ll get for a long time. Unless you can tell me something else about my father, I’m going to give this to him now.”
The crow closed his eyes poetically. “Scylla has been fussing over you coming. She’s protective of him.”
“What do you mean?”
Worldly Crow sneered. “Everybody knows she married him for his money. Your father is a brilliant man except when it comes to women—his downfall.”
Then the crow disappeared into the hedge. Good riddance. When I entered the cave, Baruch was not in his usual pen. Instead, the brazen donkey I had seen with Judd greeted me. I was afraid to approach him.
“If you’re looking for Baruch, he’s in the back,” the fiery red donkey said.
“Why?”
“Judd put him back there. This is my stall, not Baruch’s.”
I kicked the door to his stall and gave him a dirty look.
“What’s your name?”
“Assassin.”
His name stopped me cold.
“Where did you get the apple?” Assassin asked.
“It’s Baruch’s from the garden. The last one.”
“So he likes apples?”
“Yes.” I examined Assassin. To think of him being around Baruch frightened me. I didn’t trust him or Judd.
“I’m back here.” Baruch’s words trailed from the back of the cave.
I followed his voice, and my favorite trio greeted me. Cherios jumped into my arms, almost knocking the apple out of my hand. I glanced back at Assassin as the other animals watched us. I handed Baruch his apple, along with the knapsack. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to mend it yet. This is the last apple.”
I leaned over his stall door and whispered, “You should savor it and eat it s-l-o-w-l-y.”
Baruch had other ideas. He chomped it down in seconds.
Then the front door opened, and Daniel walked in. After wiping his hands on a well-used cloth, he plopped down on the bench. “How was breakfast?”
“Fine, but I’m not happy Judd put Baruch in the small stall in the back. Aren’t you in charge?”
“Oh, Shale, does it matter? Aren’t you being picky?”
“What do you mean, picky?”
“Judd knows how to take care of the animals. It’s not as if Baruch is being mistreated.”
“Why are you siding with Judd?”
“I’m not. I took over the animal care when your father hired me. Judd refuses to accept that I replaced him, but it’s not as if Baruch is being abused.”
“I don’t want Baruch in the back by himself. He might get lonely.”
Daniel rubbed his eyes and squinted. “We can move him.”
“Got something in your eye?”
“No, it’s not that.” He rubbed his eyes some more, and I stopped talking, waiting until he wasn’t distracted. Unexpectedly, a round plastic object fell on the table. He picked it up and hid it in his hand.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Is that a contact lens?”
“What?”
“The thing in your hand?”
“No.”
I stared at him. Things didn’t add up. I had been here long enough to know they didn’t make contact lenses around here. “Where do you come from?”
Daniel’s eyes bore into me. “How perceptive you are.” He fidgeted for a minute as I waited for an answer.
Finally, Daniel asked, “How do you know what this is?”
I spread my palms out towards him, waiting for him to answer me.
“Why don’t you tell me about yourself,” Daniel suggested, although not convincingly.
“Me? Tell you what?” Flustered, I turned away. He was the one with the contact lens. I wasn’t going to tell him anything.
Daniel stood and began to pace. He came up behind me and stopped. “I need to be able to trust you.”
“You can trust me.”
He walked over to the bench along the wall, near the door, and plopped down again.
“Wait a minute.” I glanced at Assassin—I didn’t want him to overhear. “Can you put Assassin to pasture?”
“Assassin?” Daniel looked perplexed. “How did you know his name?”
“He told me,” I blurted.
“The donkey told you?” Daniel asked.
My face grew hot. “Well, sort of.”
Daniel raised his eyebrow. “I’ll put Assassin outside. Wait here.”
A few minutes later, he returned, leaving the door ajar.
“Don’t you want to shut the door? Someone might hear us.”
“There’s no one else around.” He sat beside me at the table. We both started talking at once. I laughed. Daniel’s eyes reminded me of Rachel’s.
“So you can talk to animals?” he asked.
Would I reveal my secret? “Yes, I can talk to the animals, and they can talk to me.”
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck intrigued. “Have you always been able to talk to the animals?”
“No. Someone called my name. That was the first time.”
Much-Afraid padded over and sat beside me.
I scratched her behind the ear. “The first voice I heard was hers—I’m pretty sure—before I was transported to the garden.”
Daniel glanced at Much-Afrai
d. “What garden?”
“The king’s garden.”
He leaned on his elbow and seated his chin in his palm. “The king’s garden? Why don’t you tell me from where you come.”
I laughed. “You really want to know?” I began from the beginning and explained about the garden and meeting Baruch and Cherios. I told him how we had ended up at my father’s home. After I finished, Daniel seemed more engrossed in the images carved on the back of the cave wall.
I examined his face and reached for his hand. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you? I need you to believe me.”
“No, Shale, you’re not crazy. If you were, I would know. I came from a psychiatric ward.”
Chapter Fourteen
DANIEL CONNECTION