an attendant at Isis Medica. One of your servants left this behind in the healing sanctuary at Isis Medica. I’ve been sent to return it.”
He glanced at the cups of wine and gestured toward Yaltha and me. “And are these the servants who left the bracelet?”
“No, no,” she sputtered. “I was only inquiring if they knew who it belonged to.”
Haran was looking at Yaltha now, a burning, triumphant look. His gaze returned to Diodora. He took a step closer to her. He said, “Chaya, I see you’re back from the dead.”
We stood motionless, as if blinded by an inexplicable burst of light. Even Haran did not move. The room was silent. There was only the smell of the oil lamp, a cold tingling in my arms, heat shoving through the courtyard door. I looked out toward the garden and saw Lavi’s crouched shadow.
It was Yaltha who broke the thrall. “Did you really think I would not seek out my daughter?”
“I thought you smarter and more prudent than to try,” he answered. “Now I shall ask you: Did you think I wouldn’t fulfill my promise to go to the Romans and have you arrested?”
Yaltha gave him no answer. She glared at him, defiant.
I, too, had a question, but I didn’t voice it: Would you like it known, Uncle, that you declared your niece dead, then sold her into slavery? The disgrace of it would cost him. He would be thrust into scandal, public shame, and banishment, and I saw that this was his deepest fear. I decided I would remind him of what was at stake, but delicately. I said, “Won’t you have mercy on a mother who only wants to know her daughter? We don’t care how Chaya came to belong to the priest at Isis Medica. That was long ago. We’ll say nothing of it to anyone. We care only that she is reunited with her mother.”
“I’m not so great a fool as to trust three women to hold their tongues and certainly not the three of you.”
I tried again. “We don’t wish to reveal your sins. Indeed, we’ll return to Galilee and you will be rid of us.”
“Would you leave me behind again?” Diodora cried, turning to her mother.
“No,” said Yaltha. “You would come with us.”
“But I don’t wish to go to Galilee.”
Oh Diodora, you are not helping.
Haran smiled. “I’ll grant that you’re clever, Ana, but you won’t persuade me.”
He was, I realized, driven as much by revenge as by his fear of disgrace.
“Besides, I’m afraid you’ll be unable to go anywhere. It has been reliably reported to me that you’ve committed a theft.”
Theft? I tried to make sense of what he’d said. Observing my confusion, he added. “It’s a crime to steal papyrus.”
I lifted my eyes to the servant in the doorway. I could hear Yaltha breathing, a quick raspy sound. Diodora cowered against her.
“Charge me, if you must,” Yaltha said. “But not Ana.”
He ignored her and went on speaking to me. “The punishment for stealing in Alexandria can be as harsh as for murder. The Romans show little mercy, but I will do my best to have you spared the flogging and mutilation. I will plead for both of you to be exiled to western Nubia. There’s no return from there.”
I could hear nothing but the heartbeat in my head. It grew until the entire room pounded. My grip on the world loosened. I’d not been clever. I’d been reckless and full of hubris, thinking I could outwit my uncle . . . steal and deceive without consequence. I preferred to be flogged and mutilated seven times over rather than sent to this place of no return. I must be free to go back to Jesus.
I looked at my aunt, whose silence puzzled me—why didn’t she rail at him? But my voice, too, had disappeared into the dark of my throat. Fear sloshed in my belly. It seemed impossible that I’d fled Galilee to avoid arrest only to be charged in Egypt.
Haran was speaking to Diodora. “I will allow you to return to Isis