supposition as I had. I didn’t take the time to inquire.
x.
I found Yaltha napping soundly in the chair beside the door to the courtyard, her mouth open and her hands folded high on her chest. I knelt in front of her and softly called her name. When she didn’t rouse, I gave her knee a shake.
She opened her eyes, frowning, her forehead wrinkling up. “Why did you wake me?” she said, sounding annoyed.
“Aunt, it is good news. I found a document that may give us a reason to hope Chaya is not dead.”
She sat straight up. Her eyes were suddenly bright and churning. “What are you talking about, Ana?”
Please, don’t let me be wrong.
I told her about my dream and the questions it had stirred, compelling me to return to Haran’s study and reopen the box. As I described the document I’d found inside it, she stared at me, mystified.
I said, “The girl who was sold into bondage had the name Diodora. But don’t you think it’s peculiar that both Chaya and Diodora were the same age? That one died and the other sold as a slave in the same month of the same year?”
Yaltha closed her eyes. “They are the same girl.”
The certainty in her voice startled me. It impelled and excited me, too. “Think of it,” I said. “What if it wasn’t some poor camel keeper who sold a two-year-old girl to the priest, but Haran himself?”
She gazed at me with sad, stunned wonder.
“And afterward,” I continued, “Haran concealed what he’d done with a notice of Chaya’s death. Does this seem possible to you? I mean, do you think him capable of this?”
“I think him capable of anything. And he would have good reason to cover up the deed. The synagogues here condemn selling Jewish children into slavery. Haran would be removed from the council if this was discovered. He could be cast out of the community altogether.”
“Haran wanted people to believe Chaya was dead, and yet he told you she’d been adopted. I wonder why. Do you think he wanted you to leave Alexandria believing she was loved and cared for? Maybe there’s a speck of kindness in him somewhere.”
Her laugh was bitter. “He knew how anguishing it would be for me to have a daughter out there who was lost to me. He knew it would haunt me all my days. When my sons died, the grief was an agony, but with time I reconciled myself to it. I’ve never reconciled myself to losing Chaya. One moment she seems within reach and the next moment she’s in an abyss I can never find. Haran was pleased to offer me this special brand of torture.”
Yaltha leaned back in the chair and I watched her anger fade and her eyes soften. She let out an extravagant breath. “Did the document record the name of the priest who bought the girl, or what temple he served?” she asked.
“It mentioned neither.”
“Then Chaya could be anywhere in Egypt—here in Alexandria or as far as Philae.”
Finding her suddenly seemed impossible. I could tell by the disappointment in my aunt’s face that she thought so, too.
She said, “It’s enough that Chaya is alive.”
But, of course, it wasn’t.
xi.
One morning shortly after I’d arrived in the scriptorium, Haran’s servant appeared at the door. He made a little bow in my direction. “Haran wishes to see you in his study.”
During the many months we’d been here, I’d never been summoned by Haran. In fact, I’d rarely seen him, having passed him no more than two dozen times as I moved between the scriptorium and the guest quarters. I’d paid his rent requirements to Apion.
It’s a curiosity how the mind alights first on the worst scenario. I immediately thought Haran must have discovered I’d been prying into his locked cabinet and box of secrets. Wheeling about on my stool, I looked at Thaddeus, who seemed as surprised and disconcerted as I. “Shall I come with you?” he asked.
“Haran asked only for the woman,” the servant said, shifting about impatiently.