the serpent. She oiled and braided my hair while singing songs. Occasionally she speculated aloud on the mysteries of the marriage bed. I found all of these things profoundly boring except her musings on the marriage bed, which were not boring in the least.
I’d understood even then that bringing Tabitha into my life was Mother’s attempt to distract me from my studies and lure me from things unbefitting girls. Clearly she did not know Tabitha had rouged her nipples with henna and proudly displayed them for me.
I glared at my mother. This time she would use Tabitha to divert me from my morning walks in the hills. While she didn’t know my true motive for these excursions, her suspicion seemed aroused. Be careful, I told myself.
* * *
? ? ?
TABITHA CAST HER GAZE about my room. “When I was here last, your bed was covered with scrolls. I remember you read one of them while I wove your hair.”
“I did?”
“Even when I sang, you read. You are very serious!” She laughed, not unkindly, and I absorbed her amusement without comment. I resisted telling her that my seriousness had only worsened.
We sat on a floor mat in an awkward silence, eating the goat cheese and almonds Lavi had packed for breakfast. I glanced toward the window. The morning was seeping away.
“So, we are both betrothed now,” she said and chattered on about her betrothed, a man of twenty-one named Ephraim. I learned more about him than I cared to know. He’d been apprenticed to her father as a palace scribe and now worked penning documents for a member of Antipas’s high council. He had little wealth. He was “firm in his demeanor,” which didn’t sound encouraging, but overall he was infinitely better than who Father had come up with for me.
I listened with one ear. I did not ask questions about her wedding date or her dowry price.
“Tell me of your betrothed,” she said.
“I would rather not speak of him. I find him vile.”
“I don’t find Ephraim vile, but I do find him ugly. My wish is that he had the face and stature of the soldier who accompanies my father to and from the palace.” She giggled.
I sighed, too heavily.
She said, “I think you don’t like me very much.”
Her directness caused me to choke on a piece of almond. I coughed so fitfully, she leaned forward and pounded my back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m often accused of blurting my thoughts. My father says my mind is weak, and my tongue, weaker.” She looked at me with stricken eyes that began to fill.
I placed my hand on her arm. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I’ve been rude. I’d planned to walk in the hills this morning, and when you came, I felt . . . diverted.” I’d almost said disappointed. She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve, trying to smile.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I added, and it was almost true. My remorse had softened me toward her. “Sing for me and I promise not to read.” There were no scrolls left in my room to tempt me, but even so, I wanted to hear her.
She beamed and her sweet, high-pitched voice poured through the room as she intoned the song the women sang when they went out to meet the bridegroom before the wedding.
Sing, the groom comes soon.
Lift your timbrel. Raise your voice.
Dance with the rising moon.
Let all of creation rejoice.
I’d thought Tabitha shallow, but perhaps she wasn’t superficial so much as lighthearted. She was a girl, that’s all. A playful girl who lifted her timbrel. At that moment she seemed everything I was not, and this came as a small revelation. I had hated in her what I lacked in myself.
You are very serious, she’d told me.
Despite the soreness that lingered in my ankle, I pulled her to her feet, joining my voice with hers, and we twirled in circles to the point of dizziness and collapsed onto the floor, laughing.
Mother’s plot to bring Tabitha back into my life had indeed