JERICHO

She hurried to her treasure collection across the room. Along a crumbling inner wall she’d carved a deep niche, the length of a man’s arm in each direction, and inserted a low table to display her most important possessions. Sparkling in the patch of sunlight, the baubles always enchanted--but not today. Today, she could waste no time, for she was caught in a terrible dilemma. The black worry-cloud had troubled her for weeks, but now she had a plan.

Disrupting the table’s formal arrangement, Rahab grew frantic as she rummaged for her good-luck scarab bracelet. She scanned the exotic trinkets in the small cedar box, pawed through paste jewelry polished to a brilliant shine, shoved aside valuable gold and turquoise pieces made by Egyptians, and pushed away rare nuggets of lapis lazuli brought from the east by strange tribesmen. No scarab.

Her quest grew frenzied. She groped behind the large chunk of volcanic rock whose strange shape and luminous surface reminded her of Nikkal, beloved consort of the Great God of the Moon, Yerah, but still she found no scarab. Her fingers poked around the varied jars of incense and perfume. Nothing. She looked behind the alabaster duck from Egypt and combed through the many pots of cosmetics, kohl, and powdered malachite.

Ah, there it was. Finally. The bracelet lay wrapped around the neck of her precious Moon-Goddess, an exquisite statuette carved from solid ivory and embellished with a headdress of pure gold. Rahab kissed the divine fingertips, then lovingly stroked the holy figure. "Once again you have saved me, oh Moon-Mother. Once more you have rescued your daughter. Please be with me today, my Goddess! There is so much to risk, so much to lose!"

She raised the scarab, her favorite amulet, to catch the glittering sunlight. No common, ordinary scarab, but rather a glorious bracelet, boasting a gold-mounted amethyst as the good-fortune Egyptian beetle, now winking its reassurance. Wrapping the bracelet’s coils around her wrist and up her arm, Rahab felt a current of confidence. This bracelet would infuse her with the courage needed for her plan.

She danced in silence across the gay floor-pattern, its diagonal stripes guiding each footstep to her sleeping mat. Working alone last year, she’d smoothed a rose-colored plaster over this floor, then with painstaking care, brushed on a purplish-black herringbone pattern. The project took two full days and her father was furious, but she loved the effect. She folded her lambwool mats and plumped the feather coverlets.

Pulling on a wrap, she left her room to creep past the space where her father slept. Zem’s heavy snores filled the air, but she knew him to be a light sleeper these days. Though stocky, he appeared small on his mat. Her hasty glance caught the sleep-furrowed lines deep in the childlike roundness of his face above his scruffy beard, and Rahab had to smile. In repose, his face carried a lighthearted quality, as jaunty as a Canaan chipmunk, so easy to appreciate when he wasn’t arguing with her.

She hurried on bare feet, fearful of waking him and losing this rare private moment. One hand holding her wrap around her, she tip-toed to the outside of the house, past her father’s ancient pull-cart. With movements so soft the little goats penned at the side of the house did not stir, Rahab scampered up the deep stone steps, worn smooth and concave with years of heavy usage, to her rooftop.