Chapter 13 | The Unseen Hand
I wrapped the bracelet carefully in its cloth, my hands trembling as I tucked it into my sash. The market was already busy by the time Lavi and I reached Capernaum. Dust clung to our sandals; the smell of fish and dung stung our noses.
Children shouted, a goat protested its rope, a seller sang out the sweetness of his dates. I stood in the crush and thought how strange it was that the world does not pause when you carry your ima’s last laughter at your hip.
Lavi pressed close to my side, his fingers curled into my sleeve as we moved through the stalls. I did not tell him to let go.
Before I reached the tax booth, a familiar voice called my name.
“Talia!”
Malka stood behind a low table piled high with figs, her arms smudged purple to the elbows, her grin as wide as the lake beyond the city. She lifted one fruit in greeting. “Grapes holding?”
“Barely,” I said. “They argue with me and the weather like they have a say.”
She laughed. “That’s why I like figs. They trust God to do the work.”
“Or they lack discipline,” I said dryly.
“Or,” she countered, eyes twinkling, “they understand mercy.”
Lavi snorted before he could stop himself. “You’re funny!” he said, looking up at Malka.
“Thank you, my boy! That earns you one juicy fig!” She reached to the top of the basket and handed him a beautiful fruit, which Lavi accepted as though it were made of gold.
“Thanks!” he said, grinning.
Malka leaned closer then, her mirth softening as she searched my face. “You look tired.”
“I’m thinking,” I said. “Or hoping for a miracle.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them—and I regretted them at once. They called up James’s voice, the way he spoke of his teacher. The stories. The healings. All of it.
As if on cue, Malka’s mouth curved. “As a matter of fact, I know a guy—”
“Don’t,” I said quickly. Maybe too quickly. I tightened my grip on the edge of the table. “I don’t need stories. I only need the Lord to be on my side.”
Even as I said it, the words felt thin, like a prayer spoken more from habit than hope.
Malka studied me, then nodded, as though she understood far more than I had offered. She lifted her hand in a small blessing and stepped back. “Go, then. May the Lord bless you and keep you.”
I inclined my head. “And you.”
Then I took Lavi’s hand and turned toward the tax booth.
I stepped up to the counter, shoulders squared. “I’ve come to pay for the vineyard of Yosef, son of Haggai. North slope, near Bethsaida.”
The clerk—bored, hunched, ink-stained—flipped through his wax tablets. His lips moved silently as he skimmed the columns. Then he grunted. “Nothing due.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
“Nothing due,” he repeated, impatient.
“There must be some mistake. Yosef’s vineyard. The land on the northern slope.”
He checked again, tapped his stylus against the tablet. “Paid three days ago.”
The ground tilted under me. “By who?”
He shrugged, uninterested. “Don’t know. Don’t care. It’s paid.”
I stared at him, the cloth-wrapped bracelet burning in my hand. “How can I know for certain?”
He rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to mark it unpaid?”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. “No!”
“Then get out of here before I change my mind.” He flicked his stylus in dismissal, already turning to the next person in line.
I stumbled back into the street, the clamor of the market pressing in on me. The bracelet weighed heavy in my sash. Paid? How? By whom?
A fisherman’s laugh burst from a nearby stall, and my heart tripped before my head could stop it. I thought of James—the grin, the laugh, the infuriating certainty.
I shoved the thought away and walked faster, the silver pressing against my side with every step.
It couldn’t have been him.
Silas? No—he would have come to collect his praise, to tighten his net.
Eleazar? He would have told me, and besides, he pays in counsel, not coin.
I felt the strange, unwelcome warmth of relief rise against the cool, practiced edge of caution.
At the corner, I slipped into the shade of an awning and pressed the bundle to my chest. I had come to sell the last piece of my ima for a season’s reprieve, but I would not sell it today. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
“Ima,” I whispered into the cloth. “I am trying.”
Then, more firmly: “Toda, Adonai. Thank you, Lord. For this reprieve. For the breath between burdens.”
I tucked the bracelet deep into my sash and turned toward home.
Lavi looked up at me with questions in his eyes. “What happened? Do you get to keep your Ima’s bracelet?”
“Yes,” I said smiling. For now.
But as we started for home, a question walked beside me—silent as a shadow and just as close: who had paid our account, and what would it cost in the end?