Forbidden

  And somehow, this boy who was creeping into my mind and my heart a little more with each passing hour seemed to see everything and know everything about me.

  9

  We continued on, and after seemingly endless days of thirst and swollen, tender feet, the shimmering images of my mother, Isaac, and Sahmril wavered before my eyes. Their ghosts hovered constantly, and I often woke in the middle of the night with tears on my face.

  I shifted for the hundredth time on the dusty pillows while Leila studied the ragged hem of her dress. She plucked at the torn seams angrily. “I’m tired of traveling. I’m tired of being hungry and thirsty. I despise this old dress and this dirty litter we have to sit in all day, our father’s lack of position, Mother’s death, everything!”

  I reached out and stroked the back of her hair, my hands tragically empty without my baby sister. “Leila, we can’t change anything that’s happened. Mother would want us to persevere.”

  “Persevere for what? More long days and nights in search of water? Poor and wretched and begging the gods to keep us safe and bring us food?”

  “Leila, please don’t say these things,” I begged.

  Frustrated, my sister rolled over onto her back, our shoulders touching in the small space as the camel lurched beneath us. “I never want to be hungry anymore. I want roasted lamb and fruit from the oasis. And lemon juice sweetened with honey.”

  I didn’t speak, not wanting to encourage her when I was so hungry I was ready to start eating the camel’s harnesses.

  “You know it’s true. We have no future now without Mother here to arrange one for us. Do you really think Horeb is going to go through with his commitment to you, the way things are?” Her eyes passed over my chest, where my dowry jewelry used to be. “We’ll be lucky to earn ourselves the beds of a peasant now, and you know it!” She dropped her face into her hands and sobbed. “We’re doomed to travel endlessly with Father, trying to win back his dignity.”

  “How dare you say such things about our father, who gave us life and a home, Leila.” Her words tore at my heart.

  “What else is there to say? Our dreams have all been shattered.”

  “That’s always been your problem, Leila. You are nothing but a daydreamer.”

  “And your practicality is not a problem? Is it so bad to want to live in a city . . . to dream of riches and finery?”

  I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to scold her, but dreams of my own seeped from my mouth. “Sometimes I dream of soft bread sprinkled with cinnamon,” I admitted softly. She reached for my hand.

  “Baked turnips with spoonfuls of butter.”

  “Baskets of overflowing fruit.” I turned my face to her.

  “Gallons of real tea not watered down!”

  “Rice raining down from the skies and drowning our litter!”

  We started to laugh at the image of rice coming down from the clouds and flooding the desert, the camels stuck in waves of rice like heavy sand.

  Our laughter fell to silence. Both of us solemn with thoughts of hunger.

  Leila pressed her hands to her sunken belly. “We’ve been traveling for over two weeks now. How much farther to the oasis?”

  “The canyons are the halfway point. Hopefully, we’re almost there.” I parted the curtain and looked out into the sea of rolling sand. “The camels will need water soon.”

  “As will we.” Leila’s voice scratched as she spoke. Her lips were dry and parched.

  “We can wait for water. Without the camels, we will truly die in this desert.”

  Leila let out a whimper and clutched my fingers tighter. “I’m not sure I can do this anymore, Jayden.” She looked at me, her eyes pale and weak. “Mother would probably fall right out of heaven to hear me say this, but I don’t want to live in the desert anymore and move camp over and over again to find the rains, always moving. I want to live in a real house with walls that don’t shudder in the wind. With a fireplace and painted tiles and a pond in the garden. A well of cold water that never runs dry. A river to walk beside. Flowers and trees. And shade that goes on as far as I can see.”

  “You can’t say such things, Leila—”

  Her words made my throat ache. I’d known she had a secret dream to leave the desert, but I’d always believed it was a childish dream and nothing more. I believed the duties of our clan would wash the longing from her mind, but it was clear they’d been embedded far too deeply to be removed now. All at once, I was struck by a helpless betrayal.

  “When we gave Sahmril to Dinah, you said you didn’t want me to leave, remember? And now you want to leave me!”

  Leila’s eyes pulled at me. “What if we steal away together? We both go to the city?”

  “And leave Father here alone!”

  “It’d be a relief for him, not to have to fend for his daughters, don’t you think? We’ll be gone soon anyway once we’re married off—” She turned her face as if she wanted to hide what she had to say next. “Besides, he won’t be alone long. He’s likely to remarry.”

  “Leila!” I snapped, though it was probably true. It was just too soon after Mother to contemplate. “What of Sahmril? Is she to never know our father?”

  “What of Sahmril? Are we to base our futures on an infant we may never see again?”

  I choked as she spoke, knowing it might be true. But I couldn’t bear to lose Leila, along with everyone else. I reached over, taking her hands in mine. “We only have each other now. If you leave and marry a city person, I’ll be completely alone. Besides, you have no idea what you’re doing, Leila. City people are nothing like us. Their minds, and lifestyle, are completely different from ours. They care more about comforts and gossip and money than freedom and loyalty to their tribe and family. What you’re thinking of doing would be wrong.”

  Leila pulled her hands away. “I don’t think we’re that different. I’m more like them than you realize, Jayden. Besides, you’ll soon be married to Horeb and live happily in your beloved desert with as many camels as you wish. You can milk camels all day if you want to. Ride them. Play with the babies. Have your own babies. Once you’re married with your own family, you won’t miss me at all.”

  “That’s ridiculous! I’ll miss you every single day.”

  But my sister didn’t stop. “You’re likely to be married off this summer anyway; you know that. Like Hakak. Although she and Aunt Judith have been sewing her trousseau and making wedding plans for months already, yours is to be the wedding of the year. With the new baby coming, Mother hadn’t even started your wedding clothing. But the other women will help you. They’ll want to see this marriage follow through in memory of our mother.”

  I swallowed, turning my face away.

  “You know it’s true. And once you’re married, what is there here in this desert life for me?”

  I wiped a tear from my eye and she pulled my face around to meet hers.

  “What? What is it?”

  I wanted to tell her but I couldn’t. I shrugged and shook my head, wondering if I could confide in her. I feared she would run and tell Aunt Judith and Hakak and Falail all my secrets. I needed to find time to speak with my father about the betrothal first.

  Her face brightened in an effort to make me smile. “Not a single tribe member will miss the crowning of Horeb as prince. Don’t you see how lucky you are! You’ll be crowned as his princess. And one day you will be king and queen.”

  I tried to smile, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. I looked deep into Leila’s face. “But you were to wear the title of Queen. Does it anger you that I will have it instead?”

  “No,” she said thoughtfully. “I used to be angry that Zenos died, or got himself killed, but it means that now I’m free to live the life I’d rather have instead. I’m not sure I was ever that in love with him when my mourning lasted so briefly. But now I’m free from all the tribal and political problems of whether we should join another tribe, or making friends—or enemies to gain more wealth. Moving every few weeks during
the winter to catch the rains. The camp bickering and noise. I’d never have made a good Queen of Nephish.” She stroked my hair. “But you, my dear sister, will make a perfect one.” Her eyes became dreamy and distant again. “I want to be queen in a different way.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Don’t you see, Jayden? Now that I don’t have to marry anybody I can truly leave and go live in Tadmur or Mari, or even Babylon or Nineveh.”

  “But how would you support yourself? Have you thought about that? You’ll have no family to protect you. Those distant lands mean I might never see you again.” My heart lurched at the uncertainty of her future, my future without her in it. “It’s impossible. And dangerous. I can’t let you do it! Mother would never have approved!”

  My sister’s face became impassive. She stared out the front of the camel litter. The jangling of the bells on the camel filled our silence.

  “I don’t care what you say. I’ve decided,” she said quietly. “I will go to the Temple of Ashtoreth. There is work there. And girls and women who become your family. It would be a good life, everything I’ve always craved. Beauty and luxury and food—and baths every single day.”

  I blinked at her, not knowing what to say. “You would leave your family for gold and silk? For a bath?”

  “Yes.” Her lips were stark and pulled thin. “Oh, Jayden, the goddess priestesses are kind. I’ve seen them. They’re not sacrificing girls to Moloch, or throwing them into pits or turning them into street beggars! They dance to worship life. New life in the spring. Fertility. Good harvests and the bounty of the earth. That’s their biggest celebration, the one each spring as the earth wakes after the death of winter. It’s the celebration of Ashtoreth and Ba’al as they unite in the Sacred Marriage Rite to end the winter and bring good crops and wealth.”

  “How can you have a Sacred Marriage Rite with a god and goddess made of stone or marble?” I asked. I’d been warned away from the groves and temples my whole life, but I still didn’t understand exactly why.

  “Ashtoreth’s priestesses join with the priests of Ba’al to perform the marriage rite.”

  “You mean you’ll marry one of them? Someone you don’t even know?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You could have your choice of any boy in our tribe, Leila.” I was desperate to have her stay with me and not abandon our family.

  She shrugged. “It’s not a marriage, actually. There’s no ceremony or having children together. The priest doesn’t become my husband. We are united only in body and spiritual divinity so we can experience the god and goddess flowing through us.”

  I suddenly wished we were headed in the opposite direction. Right now we were only about a week away from Tadmur. And the Spring Festival would happen soon after our arrival.

  I took a deep breath, trying not to weep with the story she was telling me. “Is it always the same man, the same priest?”

  “Oh, no,” Leila said, leaning back against the pillows. “It could be a different man every night of the week.”

  My breath rattled against my chest. “Mother would rise from her grave and shred her soul into a thousand pieces to lose you to those temple ceremonies. You can’t do this, Leila!”

  “But I must.”

  A tense and uncomfortable silence drew out between us.

  A moment later, Leila brushed my hair with her fingers the way our mother used to do. “Father is getting desperate for more camels, especially since we lost Shiz to Dinah. Your bride price will bring him only so many. Just wait, we’ll be scrambling to sew your wedding clothes this summer and you’ll be married before the tribe moves back to the winter lands.”

  I tried not to choke, knowing she was right. I would most likely be married by the end of the summer. Five or six months from now. And she would be alone. No, Leila had already made up her mind to go to the temple, and nothing I said seemed to convince her otherwise.

  But if she did, the women of our tribe would banish her, and that’s what I was afraid of, too.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I said, picturing Horeb, his too-handsome face, his condescending manner and roving eyes. I held my arms against myself as I remembered the night of the betrothal celebration and how he stopped me on the path and tried to touch me.

  “Do you not want to marry, Sister?” Leila’s eyes were penetrating, as though she was able to read my thoughts.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Oh, Jayden.” She moved closer.

  “It’s nothing—I can’t explain my feelings.”

  “Try. Tell me.”

  “It’s Horeb. He’s different lately. He looks at me strangely.”

  “Because he can’t wait to marry you!”

  I shook my head. “It’s not like that. I fear he only cares to marry me because of the title and power it will bring. Not because of me. He’s not the same boy we’ve always known. Something has changed him this last year.”

  “He had to grow up quickly after we lost Zenos,” Leila said. “He’s been grieving, losing his older brother. We all adored Zenos.”

  “Yes, but there’s something more to it. He’s hard-edged—the way he speaks, his laugh—there’s no real warmth in his eyes! And—I’m not in love with him.”

  Leila laughed. “You’re breaking every girl’s heart in the tribe by marrying him. You are so naive, Jayden. Marriage isn’t necessarily about love. But,” she conceded, “most couples do grow to love each other. Hakak and Laham already do.”

  “I know,” I whispered. Jealousy ran through me whenever I saw Hakak and Laham together. How happy they were, how good together. “What if,” I added softly, looking up at her through my long hair, “I feel nothing for him? What if our friendship has turned to dislike? Leila, I fear him, and I fear that I’m starting to dislike him more than anyone else I’ve ever known.”

  Leila didn’t answer, just stared at me as though in shock.

  My belly felt like a stone was lodged at its pit. “What if I told you I wanted to break the betrothal?”

  My sister grabbed me by the arms. “Don’t be a fool, Jayden. You are just nervous. I will speak with Horeb and tell him that he needs to spend some time with you. That he needs to talk to you—”

  “No!” I nearly shouted. “Never speak to anyone about what I’ve told you. Not until I can talk to Father. Please, Leila, promise me you will keep this in confidence.”

  “All right, I promise,” she finally agreed, and closing her eyes, she settled back into the pillows as I wiped at my face, brushing away the tears and dirt.

  Father’s voice filled the silence, shouting at the camels at the front of the line. I wondered how soon it would be before he took another wife. I bent forward, craving to hear Kadesh’s voice, the slight foreign accent.

  Sitting up, I impulsively lifted the hem of the back drapery to where Kadesh was riding with the rear camels. I opened the curtain to find him gazing at our carriage as though hoping I would peek through the curtains. His dark brown eyes found mine, and even though he wore his scarf over most of his face to keep out the haze of dust and dirt rising from the road, I could tell he was smiling at me. I let out a gasp and let the curtain drop, my hands shaking.

  “What is it? What are you doing?” Leila said sleepily.

  “Nothing,” I said, lying down again beside her in the afternoon heat.

  But I found myself thinking about dancing for Kadesh, and the way his eyes locked on to mine each time he passed me by.

  10

  The next morning, we approached the jagged rock columns of the canyon lands, rising on both sides of the path like impervious, watchful kings.

  In the early-morning light, our camels slowed through the narrow, winding terrain as if wary and uneasy. My father and Kadesh walked up and down the line, urging the animals to keep moving. No more wading through slippery sand as we had for days. Everywhere I looked, layers of pink and red were painted in splashes of color over the rock of the entire valley. I wondered if the mirage
s of heat had permanently warped my mind.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” my father asked from his saddle as we passed through never-ending canyon walls rising up around us. “This sight always is.”

  I tried to smile, but my lips barely moved; they were cracked so badly. “My eyes aren’t playing tricks? This is always my favorite scenery of the journey. A piece of heaven, even though we’re starving and about to shrink from lack of water.”

  My father gave me a wan smile. “Your eyes do not deceive you, Jayden.”

  “I want to walk,” I told him. “My legs are so cramped.”

  Within a minute, the camel lowered the litter and I jumped out, stamping my feet. The towering stone walls shaded the glare of the sun. A perfect time to walk instead of ride.

  “We are ants, small and insignificant,” I said. “As if the rocks delight in glaring down at our trivial little camel train.”

  My father nodded at my words and trotted back to the rear of the line, Kadesh moving to the front to keep the animals firmly on the narrow road.

  Sunlight played between the cone-shaped columns, creating shafts of yellow on the desert floor. The beauty was stark and wondrous, but I sensed an unspoken danger, as if dozens of eyes were watching from the cliffs.

  Swiftly, I grasped the leather rope of Runa, the litter camel, and slowed her down. Standing on tiptoe, I hissed into the curtains, “Leila!”

  My sister’s sleepy voice floated down. “What is it?”

  “Take off your jewelry and hide it!”

  “I can hardly breathe in this oppressive heat, let alone move. I haven’t had a drink of water in nearly two days.”

  “Just do it.”

  Leila gave a groan, but I could hear the finery coming off piece by piece, jingling softly in the muted stillness of the walls of the canyon.