As I walked along the rocky path, the silence seemed eerily quiet. Shouldn’t there be buzzing insects or bird calls or the scampering of lizards? I inhaled deeply but couldn’t smell anything either.
I pushed ahead to the top of the plateau where an unobstructed view provided a panorama from the pinnacle. A stark wilderness descended below for miles although the map showed an apple orchard with wild honey. This confirmed my fears. Assassin had sent Baruch to his death.
I scrutinized the wasteland and caught something moving in the valley. I strained my eyes to see what it was. Was it Baruch?
“Baruch, it’s me, Shale.” He was too far away to hear me. I called to him three more times before he turned around.
“Eeeee ooorrrr!” Baruch came towards me.
Did he know that Assassin had duped him? I ran down the rocky path to greet him.
The donkey’s tired eyes popped with joy. “Miss Shale, how did you find me here?”
I pulled out the torn map. “You left this behind.”
Baruch leaned over the map and scrutinized it. “I didn’t know I didn’t have it until I went to pull it out of my knapsack. I thought I could find the orchard anyway. Am I in the wrong place?”
“You’ve been duped, Baruch. There’s no apple orchard here. It was a joke.”
“A joke?”
The sun’s heat had drained me physically and emotionally. Perspiration dripped on the map.
“I need to get in the shade before I faint.” We edged over to some nearby boulders and I plopped down in a patch of shade. Baruch, subdued, trailed behind me. I pulled out the map again and showed him where we were. Assassin had put a large “X” over the non-existent apple orchard.
“There are no apples here. Assassin lied to you. He wanted to get rid of you so you wouldn’t get all of the beautiful jennies.”
“What jennies?” Baruch brayed loudly, stomping the hard ground with his hind legs. He then flipped the map out of my hands with his nose and smashed it into the gravel.
“I was afraid if I didn’t come after you, I’d never see you again. You and your apples. We’ve got to get your knapsack fixed, too, where it’s torn.”
Baruch snorted. “He wanted to be my friend.”
“Assassin is a cruel donkey. His owner is—never mind what he is.”
We sat resting for a few minutes as reality set in. Thinking about the long walk back exhausted me before we even started. “We need to go.”
Baruch’s ears drooped beside his crestfallen face. “I miss the garden.”
As my eyes wandered across the valley, rushing waters split the silence. My heart pounded. A similar sound chased us before—when we left the garden. I scanned the horizon. Flash flooding in the desert was dangerous. The water would cascade down the mountains, overflow the wadis, and drown anything in its path.
Baruch nodded towards the mountain facing us. “Look.”
Gushing waters heaved down the slopes followed by a bolt of lightning. The flashing streak tore the desert into two dimensions, one sense of reality draped over the other. The gigantic boom echoed, shaking my sense of safety, reverberating off the mountains and fading into the valley.
The new dimension opened up as the first one pulled back, like curtains at a play, revealing something hidden within the desert. What was real? Were there two dimensions existing side by side? The fabric of my world seemed torn, like the cloth of Baruch’s knapsack.
Chapter Eighteen
Three Temptations
The tear stretched up to the top of the mountain where two opposing forces faced each other. Blackness clothed one creature, layering him in obscurity. The other was a man with a white shawl draped over his head and shoulders. His feet were lacerated and cut from walking in the hot, dry desert. Weary, on the verge of collapse, he leaned against a rock, breathing heavily.
How could I see such detail so far away? Was I watching a movie that a mysterious director wanted me to see?
“Hee-haw, hee-haw! That is the king,” Baruch exclaimed. The donkey held his head high and bowed low to the ground.
“Which one?”
“The one in white. The one in blackness—oh, I bet that is THE underling.” Baruch dithered and dathered about, trembling one moment and singing the next.
“That is just a man,” I said. “The one in white doesn’t look like a king. You must be mistaken.”
“No, it’s him. The king. I’d recognize him anywhere.”
“How can you recognize him?”
“He called my name. Once the king says your name and you listen, you never forget who he is.”
I remembered the story about Baruch from The Donkey and the King:
“Baruch walked towards the flaming sword. He heard the king call
his name ‘Baruch.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ he said. ‘I know the king loves me.’
Tears of Joy fell from his face and covered the flames.”
“Why would he even be here?”
“I don’t know,” Baruch said. “Let’s watch and see what happens. The king has rewarded us with a front row seat to what might be a spectacular event.”
Except I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch. Maybe we weren’t even supposed to see it.
The dark creature’s outer covering was pitch black—so gloomy that nothing could penetrate its facade.
My vision, hearing, and sense of smell seemed magnified a hundred times—like an eagle soaring and spotting his next meal or a rescue dog discovering a missing child. A crow’s call from beyond the mountain echoed over the valley. An ant scurried several feet away, which I could see as if my eyes were like a Nikon lens. Sweet spices from a distant town made me hungry. I assumed that’s where the scent came from as I’d brought no food and no one was cooking nearby.
Lightning pierced the sky—revealing a wild remote niche hidden in the wilderness, nearby but far away.
The vile-looking creature towered over the man. His black robe furled across the sky darkening the desert of light, hope, understanding, and knowledge.
The underling said, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
Stones appeared before the man in the white shawl, some in piles, others scattered across the barrens.
“Son of God?” I repeated. “What does that mean?”
“I’m telling you, that’s the king,” Baruch said. “The other creature is an underling. Maybe THE underling. The underlings looted the garden and stole from the king. The king protected us and kept us safe.”
The blackness contracted and expanded across the hinterlands.
The man said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
“Baruch, if that is a king, a king of what country?”
“He’s the king of the garden.”
A longing arose within me and burned a pathway to my soul. Another reality emerged—of love, oneness, beauty, and knowledge, but a power struggle was brewing. Could evil challenge goodness and win? My heart thirsted for the truth, to understand. The meaning eluded me.
In the desert, a beautiful city sprawled out across the way of the wilderness. In the center of the metropolis stood a magnificent temple. Its ornateness spoke of charm and glory and future perfection, but where were the people? The city was empty.
The veiled creature led the man to the highest point of the building and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you’; and ‘on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
Was this man the Son of God? Where were the angels? What magic did the black creature possess? If he was so powerful, why did he want this ordinary man to call on the angels to save him?
The man replied, “It is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
The heavens shook at the man’s response. The evil creat
ure hissed and spewed profanities as if speaking the language of demons.
Angry lightening flashed across the sky. I tapped Baruch on the side. “If he’s a king, is he also the Son of God? How can a king be the Son of God? He even sounded like he is God.”
“Hush, just listen.”
The underling took the exhausted man to the highest peak. A prism stretched across the heavens and the wilderness. A third reality emerged, a magic beyond anything I had ever seen, revealing dark secrets.
In a twinkling, the cloaked figure that I now perceived to be demonic made known all the kingdoms of the world. Temples of gold sprung up over the mountains, and all the deceptive power of the black creature’s kingdom filled the air—an illusion of wealth that would fool those who did not know the difference between real and counterfeit.
How could something so vile create such beauty? The man, a willing captive, watched attentively.
The underling mocked the man’s appearance and cast insults. His desperation mounted to the point of total self-absorption. “All these things I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.”
“Baruch, what’s happening?”
“Wait, Miss Shale. We need to see the rest.”
Was he the king of the garden, as Baruch said? If he was, why was he here? Why were we the only ones to witness this? Did the powerful words stir me or was it something else? I identified with the pauper. I knew what it felt like to be bullied and mocked, but his humility was incredulous.
The man responded, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
A brief silence followed. “No!” the wicked creature bellowed.
Dark bat-like bodies fell from the sky, shape-shifting apparitions, without substance, and the desert floor broke apart to inhale them. A treacherous chasm opened swallowing the underlings. Screams screeched out of the hole in the ground, pathetic, whimpering gasps, and then the hole collapsed in on itself, like a sinkhole. The tempter departed.
Descending from the heavens were beautiful creatures, too numerous to count, decked out in white. They wore glowing robes of dazzling splendor. As they tended to the man Baruch called a king, I watched, too awed to speak and too stunned to know what to think.
A few minutes later, I regained my senses.
“Now you know what an underling is,” Baruch said.
“A coward, a bully, a demon.” I shook my head, still stunned. “Baruch, you did see all of that, right? I wasn’t imagining it.”
“Heehaw. Now you know the king.”
“I want to meet him, Baruch. How can I?”
“Just call on him and he’ll answer you.”
“Ca-ca. Shale Snyder?”
I spun around. I’d heard that voice before. On a barren rock sat a dazzling black crow. The pink backdrop of the desert silhouetted him making him look like a creature from Mars.
The crow cocked his head and flapped his wings. “Did you know that crows are among the smartest creatures in the world?”
Chapter Nineteen
The Conflicting Worlds of Shale and Daniel
“Worldly Crow, what are you doing here?” The bird had the most annoying habit of showing up when I was exhausted. Did I have a tracking device around my ankle?
Worldly Crow strutted on a flat, dull rock a few feet away. “Checking on you, to make sure you’re still alive. It seems some folks are ready to plan your burial. How do you think I found you?”
“Because you’re smart?”
The crow looked too smug for his own good—my flattery brought out the worst in him. I stared up into the sky. The only sign anything spectacular had occurred was the dissipating hole in the clouds. I felt numb and didn’t want to leave so soon, but life in the desert was tenuous at best. I knew it was late by the sinking sun and we were getting close to that boundary of no return.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Ca-ca. Late enough I came to find you.”
Fogginess crept into my mind. Would anything like that ever happen again? Within me, hope breathed and longing remained—which compensated for all that seemed but a fabulous memory.
“Ca-ca. What are you staring at in the sky?”
“Nothing, Worldly Crow. Nothing at all.” I turned and patted Baruch on the back. “We better head back if we want to get home before dark.”
As we walked down the steep mountain, a small stream percolated from a crevasse. I dipped my face in the cool water. After swallowing several gulps, I looked up over the desert and imagined the scene again—a dark creature taunting a poor wanderer whom Baruch called a king. As for the beautiful creatures that came to help the man afterwards, who else could they have been but angels?
We arrived home at dusk. My father had left for Jerusalem, putting word out to everyone to keep an eye out for me. I supposed it was good he wasn’t too worried or I would have been in a lot more trouble.
I found papyrus paper and a reed-pen on the vanity in my room. I smiled. I clasped the egg in my pocket—would I ever see him again?
I sat at the table to try out my new writing instrument. I’d pretend I was Anne Frank and keep a diary—in a way I was like her, held somewhere, though I didn’t know where. She called her diary “Kitty.” I’d name mine “Dog”—God spelled backwards.
“Dear Dog, I don’t know the day, but you do. Thank you for introducing me to my father—though it seems odd to meet my father at the ripe old age of fifteen. Thank you for my animal friends. Thank you for the gift of animal speak. You can take Judd away any time. Can you make Daniel like me? Tell me more about the king of the garden. Who is he? I saw him in the wilderness today. I’d love to meet him.”
I put the reed-pen down and reflected on what I wrote. I was glad to be writing again. I’d be careful not to write anything too indicting.
Earlier in the day when we returned, Scylla was furious with me. “I rescued your donkey,” I told her, “and returned him to the cave.” I’d hope to appease her but it didn’t work.
She accused Daniel of not doing his job.
“No, he just got out,” I insisted. I didn’t want to get Daniel in trouble for my impertinence. To be safe, I chose not to ramble on in my diary about her foibles. What if she ever found my notes? I didn’t need any more incriminating evidence against me.
After a bit, things returned to normal. I bided my time for a private moment with Daniel. When Scylla got busy with something besides stewing over me, I headed to the cave to find him. I spotted him in the field, staff in hand, watching over the sheep.
What a handsome young man. Too bad I couldn’t let my imagination wander. Since he was three years older, I was too young to interest him. Besides, Mother wanted me to stay away from “older” men. She said I was too immature.
As I approached, his face brightened. “You went on an animal rescue in the wilderness to find Baruch?”
“Yes.”
He prodded his staff in the dirt. “A young girl should never go out alone. There are robbers and thieves and men with bad motives.”
I ignored his rebuff. “Daniel, I need to tell you what happened and hope you can explain to me what it means.”
He raised his brow with interest. “What do you want to tell me, and what makes you think I’ll know the answers?”
“We saw something I can’t explain—Baruch and me.”
Daniel grinned. “I could read your mind, but it’s more fun to listen to you.”
I blushed. He might learn something I didn’t want him to know. “Yes, let me tell you.”
Daniel leaned against a palm tree and crossed his arms. “Go ahead.”
I was elated to share my story. I brushed my hair back from my face and took a deep breath. “I went after Baruch in the wilderness, and soon after finding him, the sky opened up into two dimensions. Lightning peeled down the mountain and into the valley.”
Daniel’s eyes popped. “How could the sky open?”
I glanced up into the
heavens, reliving the scene in my mind. How could I explain what I saw? “Have you ever seen evil?”
“Without a doubt.”
“Baruch said the black creature was an underling—I call him a demon. The more I think about it, the more the vision disturbs me.”
Daniel looked befuddled. “Tell me what you saw. I don’t understand.”
“The black creature wanted the man to worship him. The man seemed ordinary—except that he was exhausted and weak. The creature, who might have been a demon, tried three times to get the man to obey him.”
Daniel stared at the ground, deep in thought, tapping the rocks with his staff.
I added, “Baruch said the man was the king of the garden. He must have been very hungry because afterwards angels brought him food.”
“Angels?” Daniel eyed me skeptically. “What else did the demon want the man to do?
I swallowed hard. “First, the underling told the man to turn the stones into bread. Then the underling told him to jump off a high peak, claiming the angels would save him. The man responded by saying, ‘it is written.’ Then the underling offered him all the wonders of the world if the man would worship him.”
Daniel shook his head. “Sounds like something mystical. Nothing like that is in the Torah.”
“The what?”
“Our Scriptures, the first five books of the Bible.”
“The cloaked figure quoted words and the man quoted other words back. I don’t know where the words are written.”
“This has you worked up, doesn’t it?”
I nodded. “I wish you could speak to Baruch.”
“You’re very troubled,” Daniel observed. “And for a sensitive girl like you, that makes it even more unsettling. But do you believe what you just told me—you aren’t stretching the truth?”
“You don’t?” I snapped. “How do you explain it, or explain how we got here, or why we’re here? I thought you were smarter than me, but maybe not.”
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