To Megan, whose birth started this journey,

Sheila, who showed it could be done,

and Dave—always, for everything.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Part One

1. Storms

2. Sand

3. Feasts

4. Darkness

5. Dream

6vJourney

Part Two

7. Star

8. Questions

9. Delegation

10. Breach

11. Pomegranate

12. Sandstorm

13. Oasis

14. Night

15. King

16. Wonders

17. Home

Extras

Acknowledgments

This story began on a muggy summer morning in an ancient stone cottage. I was alone for the first time in years and had watched a rainbow pour directly onto the cottage after thunderstorms the night before. Anything could happen.

A young boy fascinated by stars walked into my mind, and I began to tell his story. I looked up four hours later to see my husband and three preschoolers arrive and realized I had only begun to scratch the surface of this story. Melchior and I traveled together for more than a year until his story was done. At first, I kept it all close to my chest, like a treasure, but I needed help to tell the story truly. There are many people to whom I owe an enormous debt of gratitude for making this book a reality.

To Don Pape, who has always championed this book and encouraged me: my thanks. To my first publisher, Ruth Bradley-St-Cyr: we were sure we had met before we actually did but have never traced a link; thank you for your faith in this tale. A trio of fine friends turned an editorial eye on early editions of the manuscript, eliminating awkward language and foolish errors—many thanks to Dr. Peter Erb, Carroll Klein, and Bruce Soderholm for your generosity. Dr. Joel Pauls-Wohlegemut, Dr. John Steele, Dr. Philip Harland, Dr. Roger Beck, and Dr. John Percy helped with accuracy in astronomy, medicine, and culture. Elvera Froese gave me a small assignment to write a drama for our church, which I tried to write and instead wrote this—thanks for setting me on my way. Valerie Diefenbacher, Erin Noteboom Bow, and Joanne Walton read excerpts and made helpful suggestions. Joanne Walton also looked after my children at times during the writing of this book, a practical reality for which I am grateful. My children—Matthew, John Aslan, and Megan—are the delights of my life and have inspired me to creativity. My parents, Bob and Carol Meredith, affirmed me as a writer from a young age and imagined I could write a book someday—here it is! Sheila Karrow is the artist of the original cover of this book and has been an inspiration to me in her painting while raising children; I am deeply grateful for her vision and her gentle pushes. And thank you to my husband, Dave. Like Reta in this story, Dave is a bit of a pomegranate—worth cracking. Dave is a lover of stars who has always encouraged me to follow my passions and makes it possible for me to do so. Many thanks to all of you and the other people in my life who cheer and console in quiet ways. I wish for continued joy in the journey we travel together.

Part One

~ 1 ~

Storms

As a little boy, I found the storms disorienting. My brother was thrilled by the coins they uncovered and the feathers they brought on the swirling sand. Once he even found a soldier’s boot, which became the prize of his collection stuffed in the cracks of the wall. For me, though, the sandstorms obstructed my beauties. Each clear night, I stole from my bed and onto the roof to admire the stars. My parents must have known, but they closed their eyes to my habits. As long as I learned my lessons in the morning, my mother did not object. One night I stayed up nearly till dawn, watching shooting stars pierce the summer sky. The second time I complained or poked my brother, my mother fixed me with a stern eye and warned me that my nocturnal choices were not permitted to interfere with my daily work. While Salvi begged to know what nocturnal meant, my mother asked me if that was clear. Desperate to continue my rapture, I agreed, stifling both a yawn and the impatience that comes with fatigue. Where my brother moaned over our mother’s insistence on our afternoon rest when the sun bleached the world diamond white, I learned to fall into deepest sleep the instant my head touched my bed. This way I found I gained an extra hour with my beauties.

“That one there, Melchi, is a lion. Can you see it?” Uncle Taz indicated the stars with his pipe. It took imagination to see the shapes he described, especially because for me it had been about the dance, the play of stars across the sky. The red one that came and went in the spring. The brightest one over the horizon. The unmoving one like a navel on the canopy. I could not quite see what he meant. So Uncle Taz went down to his room and lumbered back up with a stylus and a board. He was a merchant who traveled throughout the world, selling the rugs my father made. Several times a year he would return with his caravan empty—but he was always full of stories of the places he had seen, the exotic foods he had eaten, and the women he had known. At this point, my mother would glance at Salvi and me and quickly silence him. He also came with great bags of money. The first evening of his return, he and Father would sit up long into the night, sorting coins into their own kinds and calculating the profits and sales with the help of Uncle Taz’s stylus and board.

Uncle Taz was a good merchant. I could tell that. His brown eyes were warm, honest, and full of fun. Salvi worshipped Uncle Taz and was spellbound by the coins. Every time one fell off the table, Salvi would leap to collect it, then claim he could not find it, all the time concealing it in his robes. Uncle Taz always allowed him to have one and then would wrestle the others from the nephew whose delight knew no bounds at this play. Then our father would clear his throat and Taz would grunt as we pulled him to his feet again. I always held back from the tussle, but I liked it nonetheless.

On those first nights, Salvi and I were permitted to sleep on the floor by the fire, and we curled together warm and sleepy on our bedding, falling asleep to the clink of coin upon coin, the rasp of the stylus, and the rich laughter of Uncle Taz. On those nights, our mother seemed like a young girl sitting happily in the firelight. Everyone relaxed when Uncle Taz was there. Our father pulled our mother into his lap after she had brought them yet another cup of wine, and he kissed her right on the mouth.

“A good trip, Taz?” our mother asked, lovingly pushing our father’s hair behind his ears with her long brown fingers.

“Always, Daria, always,” he said with a laugh.

We watched our father and Uncle Taz at work over the table, our father methodically adding or showing Taz his latest design, Uncle Taz interrupting with stories of the man who offered his daughter for a small stack of rugs.

“Not that I wasn’t tempted.” Uncle Taz laughed, his white teeth gleaming in his dark face.

I could see my brother picturing Uncle Taz’s nomadic life. We knew that Uncle Taz and our father had taken over their father’s work and that our lessons now were to prepare us to follow someday.

“How will we choose?” Salvi whispered to me one firelit night when our backsides had gotten too hot and we had rolled to face the fire.

“Choose what?” I asked. My face had already warmed.

“Who will get to travel and sell, and who will have to make the rugs?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered back. But I did. I knew that Salvi was far better suited than I to the work of selling. I liked the beauty of the mathematics my mother taught me and the magic of the pungent dyes that turned the rugs saffron and blue, but to spend the rest of my days as my father did, dyeing wool until my hands were as dark and weathered as old camel skin bags and splintered from tying knots, then falling asleep in my supper at night, seemed worse than being smothered. My friend Omar was eager to begin work with his father, but I could wait, perhaps even forever. I stared into the depths of the fire. What drew me to Uncle Taz’s life was not the travel or the coins, but camping in the desert for the night. The stars were brilliant against the empty desert, he told me one night, and they seemed so low you could almost pluck one.

I had gasped, recalling my dream. For as long as I can remember, I have had a recurring dream of reaching for the unmoving star and grasping it. My body moves around the star in the glorious dance of the stars, while my hand receives tingles of light that run through my entire body. It is always my right hand and when I awake from such dreams, so real are they that I can still feel the tingle and I search that hand with my eyes for the imprint of the star or traces of starlight.

It was in the desert, Uncle Taz told me, that he learned of the star patterns, from the nomads whose camps he sometimes joined. Using a finger instead of a stylus, they drew patterns in the sand, showing Uncle Taz the shapes made by the stars. These Taz taught to me during our pipe sessions on the roof. The next time the sandstorm came, I did not sweep the roof clean but gathered the sand and drew the nomads’ star shapes.

The stars grew as familiar to me as my mother’s face—and as beautiful. Then one summer, as the stars shifted in their course, I began to see changes in my mother’s face. Dark circles formed under her eyes, and her body and face began to swell. Alarmed, I questioned her. She patted my arm reassuringly,

“My little observer,” she said with a smile. “Nothing passes you by. I am very well. How would you like a little brother?” This unsettled me. It had always been two: our father and Uncle Taz, Salvi and Melchi. It felt like a disturbance in the stars.

I was ten years old and Salvi was twelve when our mother gave birth to her last baby. In bringing this life into the world, our mother, our guiding star, died.

The child was a girl. There were never girls in our family. Our father was doubly grieved. He was lost, tangled in the cut threads of his life. He sat in the dark room beside our mother’s body, rigid and silent as she.

It fell to Salvi and me to make arrangements for our mother’s burial and for our new sister’s care. The women of our village did all the work, but we were the ones who chose the burial cloths, the wet nurse, and the name for our sister.

“Her name is Daria,” my brother announced as he handed the bundle to our mother’s youngest sister, who wept and soothed the child at her breast.

Within the moon, Uncle Taz appeared, stricken and sorrowful but capable. He lifted the mantle of responsibility from our shoulders, commended our actions, and persuaded our father to eat. Over our father’s protests, Uncle Taz stayed a full month, claiming he had always wanted to learn rug making, that it would help him sell better.

That month the stars lost their luster. I sat under their silence, their fixity. There was no brilliance, no dance. Still I sat on the roof, hard rocks for eyes, and grieved alone for my mother, who had gone farther from my reach than the stars. I erased the star shapes in the sand and tried instead to capture a likeness of my beautiful mother. I could not, neither in the sand nor in my heart’s eye. Her hands I could remember, soft as olive oil, brown, warm, and strong, and I longed for their soothing touch as her face eluded me. I could almost see her, but I could not draw her. I put my head down in the sand and tasted its sour dryness.

Then I did feel a hand on my head, stroking my hair, soothing. It was Salvi. This was the first time he had touched me deliberately since we had fought as little boys. It was the first touch of genuine comfort I had had since our mother died. I clung to Salvi as I would hold tight to a tree in a storm, and we wept under the stars for our lost mother and the burden we shared together. At last my grief lightened, and I could breathe freely. Salvi and I talked that night for the first time. We talked of our mother—her meals, her hands, her laughter, how she eased our father’s moods. We talked of our father, how he had withdrawn into his grief, how he had refused to even see our sister. Salvi and I took food each day to our aunt and watched the red squalling bud of an infant unfold into a gurgling brown baby. This Daria did not know that she, too, had lost her mother. We talked of the girl who was making our food, how her lamb was not spiced as our mother’s was. We talked of our suspended studies. No one had mentioned lessons since our mother died. There were many holes in her absence, and we felt each one keenly. Periodically we wept a little, but the terrible knot of pain had unwoven and grief could now seep out as it would.

Salvi looked around at the sky above. “So these are your stars,” he said, as though looking at them for the first time. “Impressive treasures, Melchi!”

I did not know whether he could see what I saw, or whether he was indulging me, but I swept aside the failed likeness of our mother and drew several of the star shapes for Salvi.

He laughed. “Only you could find a hunter in all those stars. Look, there’s Leyla and there’s her—”

I punched him. Leyla was the most beautiful girl in our village, and Salvi was starting to see her as a man would. He rolled over my drawing, laughing. When his ribald laughter finally stopped, he lay back and grew serious.

“Uncle Taz is leaving soon,” he told me.

“Leaving? How do you know?”

“I heard him tell our father.”

“Then what?”

Salvi shrugged. “They can’t agree. Taz wants me to go with him. To learn the ways, he said.”

I looked at him, my heart choked with secret disappointment. “That’s wonderful for you, Salvi,” I said. “Think of the sights you’ll see.”

He grinned again and winked at me.

“Will our father let you go?” I asked, remembering that Salvi had said the brothers couldn’t agree.

“Apparently he will,” said Salvi. “It’s you they can’t agree about.”

“Me?” Did Taz intend to take us both? It was a possibility Salvi and I had never considered. I realized Salvi was still speaking.

“—wants you to study with the astronomers, but our father says no, Melchi must learn more of the knots and dyes.”

I fell on my back, and the stars swirled above me. Our mother had told us about the astronomers, the magi whose work it was to study and understand the stars. Our father, passing through the kitchen where we studied, had dismissed such work as foolish and impractical with nothing to show for it, like the old aunts who occupied their days counting grains of sand.

The possibility of studying with the astronomers dazzled me like a clear night full of stars. Then I thought of our father and knew in an instant how he would react. A blinding, choking sandstorm swallowed my dream.

“It won’t happen,” I said.

“It might.”

“It won’t.”

“Taz is offering to pay, Melchi. And you know how he can be.”

“Not this. Not now. Who would help our father?”

“I could stay.” Salvi spoke quietly. I loved my brother for that offer. Our father might dismiss my passion as foolishness, but Salvi and Uncle Taz did not. I knew I would not accept Salvi’s sacrifice, but somehow his offer made me feel less trapped in the work I knew was my lot.

“You’ll go, Salvi,” I said. “But thank you, my brother, for understanding.”

Salvi looked around again at the sky. “Understanding?” he said. “No, I don’t understand, Melchi, what draws you to your stars. But when I see you, I think you are like those astronomers our mother told us about and that you should have your chance to learn.”

I shook my head, not wanting to be seduced again by the impossible. “I’ll learn here,” I said. As an idea occurred to me, I said, “Salvi, if you hear stories about the stars, could you remember them for me?”

Salvi agreed. Then, eyes twinkling, he asked me in return if I were ever to discover a new star that I should name it after him. I agreed to this. We laughed, yawned, and went to bed.

For many, I expect, the transition between child and man is gradual, but for Salvi and me, childhood ended that summer night of grief and talk when the moon hung in the sky like a sliver of hope.

~ 2 ~

Sand

“You won’t let Melchi do anything,” Taz argued. “You’ll do it all yourself. You’re still young!”

“My wife was young too.” Our father silenced Taz’s argument, piling a stack of rugs into Taz’s arms. When Taz came back for the next load, he had a new line of reasoning prepared.

“The king pays astronomers and pays them well.”

Our father paused and considered this in silence while Taz tightened the ropes around a bundle of small rugs. Hope rose in my heart—and set again when my father shook his head.

“A few, maybe, but Melchi is not one of those city boys. For Melchi such knowledge would be unprofitable. He is young, and his fingers are ready.”

I stopped listening and blindly loaded rugs onto the camels. They stared at me with unflinching expressions of resignation, which I tried to match.

As we piled the rugs higher and higher, each camel became a rainbow-hued mountain. Taz stuffed shoes and food between layers of rugs while our father warned him against marauders and thieves. When the balancing act was accomplished, we stopped for a late supper.

We gathered in the courtyard as we had each night since my mother’s death. Somehow the open spaces seemed less empty than the house itself. The house would be emptier still when Taz and Salvi were gone. I could not think of it, or I would start to howl. Salvi shone with anticipation. His grief, unlike mine, was tempered by what lay ahead. Though he would have exchanged anything for our mother’s life, her death had quickened the future he had longed for. We assumed this, although our father had not said so. I could not imagine our father would be so cruel as to dash Salvi’s hopes, even though he continued to recline in the shadows without speaking while Salvi and I watched him, hopefully and fearfully. The girl Taz had employed to cook and clean for us brought out bowls of stew and fresh bread. I watched her silent, quick movements; she was a nervous night creature scuttling across the desert. Her presence in this house of men did nothing to fill the absence of my mother. The food may have been good, but it was not my mother’s cooking; I ate simply out of habit, with no awareness of taste or smell.

As we finished our meal, our father nodded to Salvi.

“Gather your things,” he said. Salvi jumped up with a yell that pierced the stillness. Now his fate was clear, and it was what he had hoped. Our father shuffled off to bed. He was over the paralysis of grief, but our mother’s death had left him soured and hardened.

“I’ll get my pipe.” Uncle Taz gestured at the roof.

It was the only time on this visit that Uncle Taz and I sat together under the stars. He seemed to understand that my mother’s death had closed the book of my childhood. He spoke to me now as an equal, and I dropped the “uncle” in front of his name.

“I tried, Melchi,” Taz said, sand trickling through his hands.

“I know, and I’m grateful.”

“You can learn from your father. He is a good man and a good rug maker.”

“I know.”

“He misses your mother.”

“I know.”

“It makes him lash out sometimes.”

I smiled ruefully, fingering the bruise on my leg, where our father had thrown his sandal one day when I whistled as I walked through the workshop.

“It won’t last forever,” said Taz. “Our father was the same after … our mother died. Be gentle with him, Melchi. And forgiving. Like Daria managed him.” When Taz said my mother’s name, his face twitched as though he was remembering a lost delight. I never knew whether Taz was in love with my mother, but he certainly loved her tenderly. And though he had many women, he never married.

As Taz turned to go down the stairs, he paused and put his hand on my shoulder. “You are a good man too, Melchi.”

Before I knew it, Salvi was preparing to climb up with Taz, who sat with the ropes in his hands. One hand upon his camel, Salvi turned to me. “Thank you, Melchi,” he said. “Don’t forget our sister.”

I had forgotten the baby, and when the dust stirred up by the caravan had settled again, it gave me something to do when our father spent the early morning with his ledgers. I loaded figs, wine, and bread and carried them to our aunt’s house.

When our aunt expressed surprise over not having seen anyone from our household for several days and inquired after our health, I explained the changes that had occurred.

Our aunt chattered with surprise while I sat on the floor next to baby Daria on her goatskin.

“Gone with Taz?” our aunt repeated. “I guess you boys are growing up. How is young Reta doing?”

“Reta?”

“The orphan girl. The one who makes your meals?”

I had not been aware of her name. I shrugged and looked again at Daria, who gazed at me expectantly from her mat. I did not know what she wanted. “What do you do with her, Aunt Babu?”

She smiled, perhaps recognizing my loneliness as well as my inexperience, and showed me ways to amuse a baby.

That afternoon, our father took me into his workshop and showed me the tools he used and introduced me to the two men he employed. I had known them all my life, but instead of them slipping me bits of cheese from their meals as they would have done not long ago, they rose and shook my hand. My father was pleased with the questions I asked, and I saw happiness dawn on his face for the first time in a month.

I settled into the routine of mindless dusty days in the workshop, ending, as I had predicted, with my head drooped on the table each evening. It was better that way. Better than staying awake with the hollowness of the house.

~ 3 ~

Feasts

When Salvi and Taz returned from that first trip, my brother had changed. His shoulders rippled, and his eyes had Taz’s ability to assess a situation in a moment. When he greeted me, though, Salvi commented on the changes in me—in my hands. I looked at them and realized how quickly they had grown to resemble our father’s: dye permanently ringing my fingernails, callouses at the base of each finger, and that annoying cut, which was daily aggravated by the strings of the loom.

That first night, we were allowed to be boys again and to doze by the fire while Taz laughed and our father calculated profits. Salvi had stories to tell: a two-headed camel, a wall of sand rising during a storm, the men and women who danced naked under the stars. I scarcely listened in my immeasurable comfort at the presence of my brother and uncle. I could have missed my mother, but I was so hungry for happiness that I would not allow the grief to penetrate the moment. I found myself laughing, and the sound was foreign in my mouth and ears.

The next morning our father took Taz and Salvi to see the rugs I had made in the workshop. “His fingers are still a bit clumsy,” our father explained, fingering the rug with a hint of a smile, “but he has the knack —and such an eye for detail.”

“He gets that from his stargazing,” Taz said.

“Honest work has helped Melchi forget his little hobby.” Our father patted my back.

Taz looked at me. “Is this true, Melchi?”

I shrugged. “I’m usually too tired. And it’s been a cloudy fall.”

When our father proudly explained that I worked as long as he did, Taz became angry. “Melchi is still a boy!” he exclaimed. “Salvi sleeps nearly every afternoon as we travel.” (At this, Salvi protested.) “You’ll break the boy! There are worse pastimes than stargazing.”

That night I lay rapt beneath the blanket of stars, enveloped in the beauty of the night. The next night I addressed Reta, who usually roused me in her attempts to retrieve my bowl, asking her to wake me fully so that I could go up to the roof rather than stagger off to bed. Meekly she agreed and never forgot the arrangement.

As my body became that of a man’s, I began to look at girls the way my brother had and saw that they also were aware of me. I was taller now than our father, and I had work to do and responsibilities. This no doubt added to my appeal, but the only opportunities I had were under my father’s eyes, when we delivered a new rug to a neighbor’s or when our families met to share a feast.

Late summer was a sociable time: gardens were harvested, animals were slaughtered, and feasts were held. Somehow the women worked out a schedule so we could share in one another’s bounty and no food would go to waste. Since my mother died, those who made such arrangements only sometimes remembered to include us, but my father’s workers never failed to invite us, and we in our turn hosted them. Garta was a young man with an industrious wife and no children; meals at their house filled me for days. The other, Manu, was a widower and the father of Leyla. Many of the boys admired Leyla, and as I watched her serve her father and mine, I could see why. Young Leyla had a woman’s body with full command of its powers. She sat next to my father, offering him dates and oranges from her bowl. Though she giggled often, no sandals did my father throw that night.

I invited Leyla to come to the roof and was fully prepared for her to decline but was shyly pleased when she accepted. The next night, I was eagerly watching the light fade from the sky when I heard a noise behind me, and, excited to share my beauties, I turned to the waiting Leyla. As she moved toward me, her hips swayed sensuously. I was stunned.

“What are you doing?” I managed to say, realizing in an instant that her interest in seeing the stars was feigned, or that perhaps she thought I was proposing an open-air tryst. Later I would consider the opportunity I had missed, but at that moment, I was only disappointed. Leyla, like my father, could not understand my passion.

It became a test: I would invite girls to view the stars, and invariably they would think I spoke in some sort of code and would look at the stars in order to contrive a kiss. For a while, my contempt and passions melted together, and I accepted the beauties offered me. But I never invited those girls again.

My friend Omar was now working with his father, making dyes, and we began to renew our friendship. A round, enthusiastic boy, Omar had always reminded me of a ripe date; now he had matured without losing any of his sweetness. When I invited Omar to join me to view the stars, he was struck dumb at their beauty, as I had hoped Leyla would have been. Omar apprenticed with his father by day and with me by night until I had taught him everything I knew about the stars.

One day, Omar came running to my workshop in the middle of the day. He held a scroll in his hands and offered it to me. Inside were diagrams of the stars and many words in a language I did not recognize. Omar had found the scroll in a stack brought back by one of his father’s men. Taz would know the language, I supposed. In the meantime, I pored over the drawings.

That night when Reta woke me from the table, she gasped when she saw my scroll. Tears welled in her eyes. Tired as I was, this unusual display of emotion from the girl who was still largely invisible in our lives surprised me. “What is it?” I asked.

“Your book,” she said. “It’s Hebrew.”

“Hebrew?”

“My mother tongue. Your book is a Hebrew book.”

My chest tightened. “And you—can you—read Hebrew?” I asked.

When Omar arrived, I was still at the table, listening to Reta as she faltered through the beginning of the book. The Hebrew descriptions of the beauties were less accurate than those of our own astronomers, but they had a cadence that caught the mystery of the heavens.

Suddenly our lamp burned out. Omar yelled. I clapped a hand over his mouth. In the dark, Reta laughed quietly. I smiled.

The next night, I invited Reta to join Omar and me in watching the stars. She agreed. My prize pupil Omar explained about the dance of the stars. I watched Reta’s eyes sparkle as she listened to Omar and then widen in amazement as she surveyed the skies. Tentatively she pointed out the patterns she had read about in our book. Reta did not come often—could not, I supposed—but when she did, she drank in the stars.

One evening our class swelled to include a fourth—my uncle Taz. Reta retired to her room after Taz joined us. Taz indicated his pipe after her. “That one, Melchi—that one is a treasure.”

I laughed and shook my head.

“I’m serious. She’s fed you and that father of yours with his temperamental stomach. She knows her place, and she likes stars. What more could you ask, Melchi?”

I laughed again. Taz was an incurable romantic, a bachelor always trying to marry us off.

“She honestly is interested in the stars. Not like some.” I told him about the girls who had ignored the stars in their attempts to reveal their own beauties.

Taz threw back his head and laughed. “Melchior! Melchior!” he gasped when he finally caught his breath. “Here you are at home with your out-of-the-world hobby, being propositioned left and right, and there’s your big brother traveling the world—and I have to pay the dancing girls to play with him a little. I knew you were the smart one, Melchi!” He laughed again, and soon we descended the stairs to sleep.

Another night, Taz asked about Reta. I shrugged my shoulders, but Omar filled in details. An orphan of Jewish exiles, Reta had a large family in Israel but was not sure where or how she could find them. I was startled by how much Omar knew and wondered when he had learned it.

“While you were looking at the stars,” Omar explained. “You shut everything else out then, Melchi.”

~ 4 ~

Darkness

One day, my world broke apart again. I was setting the strings of the loom when the bobbin crashed down, crushing my right hand and nearly severing my thumb. Threads wrapped around my mangled hand. I screamed at the sight. Manu sprang to my side. He began cutting the threads. My father stepped into the workshop.

“What are you doing?”

“Melchi’s hand,” Manu explained, not stopping.

My father ran to me. My hand was bleeding freely. I felt faint as they untangled the web about my fingers. I willed myself to stay awake: if I fell, the threads would shred my hand. In my pain, I pictured the unmoving star, and, as in my dreams, I imagined myself grasping it and spinning about it. The stars were brighter than any I had ever seen. I wept for pain and for beauty. My arm tingled. Garta was back with the healer. She bound my hand with herbs. I was a child again, wrapped and carried. I was in my bed. Someone gave me bitter tea to drink. I fell into a starless darkness.

Throbbing pain woke me. I was shaky, thirsty, frightened. When I saw a figure sitting next to my bed, I knew I must be sick if I was being attended at night. I assumed it was the healer, my aunt, or even Reta, but it was my father. He sat in the shadows, his eyes intent upon me. As I stirred, he rose and sat beside me. His tone was still gruff, but his manner was gentle as he spooned water into my parched mouth. For six days, until the risk of infection had waned, my father sat beside my bed at night. I am not certain he slept at all, but those days were hazy and confused.

Still, I enjoyed the sensation of being cared for. As my father’s attention was devoted to me, I began to sense that the bitter absence that had filled him since my mother’s death had somehow eased, though I knew he had still never seen our sister, Daria, who was now seven years old.

On the seventh day, the healer returned and changed the cloths on my hand herself. She looked intently at my thumb joint and nodded to herself.

My father was watching her face with a matching intensity. When she nodded, he leaned forward. “Yes? Yes? He is recovering? He will work again soon?”

At this, my stomach churned. I had not presumed much of my father, but I had assumed his concern for me was more paternal than proprietary.

The healer was speaking. “It’s far too early to say,” she said in her clear voice. “You have done excellent work, keeping the wound clean. There is no infection, and that is the best I could have hoped for. It will be a full moon more before I can begin to know what will happen.”

My father nodded. “I understand,” he said. “I can be patient.”

During the next month I became a nocturnal creature, spending long nights with my beauties. When I watched them shift across the sky, I forgot my pain. The stars moved, but I remained still in my black uncertainty—and yet, I thought little about what would become of me. I joined my father for breakfast each morning, then slept all day until he returned at supper. One day Leyla came to visit me, rubbing wine on my temples when I agreed I had a bit of a headache. The smell of her aroused every fiber in my body, and her visit told me she had not been entirely discouraged or disgraced by my rejection two years before.

Another day, my father roused me from bed to review the ledgers. As I added columns of figures in advance of Taz’s sales, I sensed I was being tested for a new role in the business. Though my mind was dulled, I caught my own errors quickly and was able to please my father. Writing the sums with my left hand was difficult, but I had learned to do many things with my left hand in the previous weeks.

The day arrived for the healer to pronounce me healed. Salvi and Taz were to return soon, and I knew our father was behind in his preparation for their next trip. I had gone to bed early the night before, knowing that I would be back at work the hour the healer allowed.

She arrived as we were finishing breakfast, unwound my bandages, and had me stretch and flex my fingers. I had secretly been doing so for more than a week. Though the skin was pale and wrinkled and the scar still fresh and red, I knew my hand was healed.

The healer smiled as I demonstrated my muscles. Then she asked me to pick up a cup from the table. I was a scorpion with a broken claw—my fingers could not close to grasp or pinch. The smile on her face sank into a look of concentration, and she examined my thumb closely. I did not dare look at my father, but I could hear that he did not exhale.

She shook her head, and my father sagged. “I was afraid of this,” she said slowly. “The accident severed the joint between your thumb and your fingers. I think the joint is dead. There was nothing more that any of us could have done. I am sorry, Melchior.”

My father opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again as if to gasp for breath, and then turned and fled the house.

Though he had disappeared within himself after my mother’s death, this time we did not see my father for three days. He missed Salvi leading the caravan for the first time, with Taz at his side. I had to explain what had happened, and I spent the first night of their return neither on the floor with Salvi, nor looking at stars, but adding figures with Taz. Salvi slipped out to look for old friends and did not come home till morning.

~ 5 ~

Dream

Soon after Salvi joined us, our father walked in. He was unshaven, but his face was as impassive as ever. He sat down to eat as though he had just arisen from a regular night’s sleep. Taz fell upon him with a tearful embrace.

“My brother, we knew nothing of Melchi’s accident.”

Taz’s tears reminded me that I had not wept myself. Reta brought tea to our father, who drank, oblivious to Taz weeping at his feet.

Our father had missed that first evening, and there were matters to be settled now before work could be started. Once again I would be the object of their conversation, and as their scrutiny focused on me, like a single eye, I suddenly felt myself more grounded in reality than I had been since the accident. What had been unthinking, unworking limbo suddenly became fixity. I looked at the limb I had already learned to regard as useless, and tears welled up. I excused myself from the table, but our father held out an arm.

“No. This concerns you. You will stay.”

There was no resistance in me. I played out the argument that would follow: Taz would argue on my behalf, and our father would argue on the side of the business. Salvi rolled his bleary eyes at me; he, too, knew what to expect. Taz patted my knee reassuringly as he drank his tea, wetting his argument.

“My brother,” he began persuasively. “You need to consider—”

“Consider?” Our father exploded. “I’ve done nothing but consider these last days and weeks. I’ve considered everything.”

“But Melchi—”

“I am Melchi’s father.”

“Then do what is best for—”

“I am sending Melchior to study with the astronomers.”

The world spun around. My ears buzzed. I could not get enough breath. Taz’s mouth gaped. Salvi clapped his hands. Our father did not smile. This was no reward on his part, I knew; it was a reasoned decision he would rather not have made.

“My brother, you bring me such joy,” Taz said at last, tears forming in his eyes. “Gladly will I pay for Melchi’s—”

Our father dismissed the offer with a contemptuous wave of his hand.

“The shop?” Taz asked next.

“You were right years ago,” our father explained. “I am not so old yet. We will make fewer rugs than we have, but we will make enough. And in a few years, I will have a new apprentice.”

“Who?”

“My daughter,” he said, stunning us once again. “Little Daria will learn to help me.” None of us dared to ask, but our father answered the unspoken questions. “I have seen her, my Daria’s Daria. She is bright and beautiful like her mother. I am told she is good with her hands and smart. When she is ten, she will come to work with me, as Melchi did. Someday her sons or yours will learn to weave and dye.”

It was unusual but not unthinkable for daughters to assist in family businesses, but never when there were sons. Salvi’s sense of duty rose within him once again, and he offered to take my place. Our father shook his head.

“I considered that, but you have learned your routes well, Salvi. Melchi’s work suited him too, but I must find him another trade so he can support himself. There are fools who will pay to have their fortunes read in the stars, and fools who will read them. I still consider his hobby a waste of time, but others do not. It is the one profession Melchi would gladly do, and it is the one he is best prepared for.”

I sat very still, as I did when waking from a brilliant dream, not moving a muscle, lest I break the bubble of joy.

~ 6 ~

Journey

When the caravan pulled out next, for the first time in my life, I was not among those left behind. As our father became a speck in the distance, I suddenly realized with a pang of dislocation that I was farther from home than I had ever been before and that I would go even farther. I marveled to realize that I had always looked up and not outward, had never desired to see other parts of the world. Still my eyes were open to each new sight.

As our camels settled into their rolling gait, Salvi, who was driving, also settled back. He grinned at me. “You finally escaped, little brother.”

I had. Six weeks of healing, packing, and sending letters to the astronomers. And money. Our father’s first letter had received a polite refusal, which choked me with disappointment and shock. I had been so certain that the barrier of my father’s will, now removed, had been my only one. Taz laughed and told our father to write again and to send the letter with money. Taz delivered the letter and came back with a letter signed by the chief astronomer himself, welcoming me to study with them.

The city was four days’ journey across the desert. I was fascinated by the new surroundings: the unbroken horizon, the ripples of sand disturbed only briefly by our caravan before the wind covered our trail, the signs of water invisible to my unpracticed eye. I was curious about how Taz and Salvi navigated this terrain without getting lost. I lost myself each day in the eternal spectacle of the shining desert. It was only at night that I could relax: the stars far from home were still the same stars. Whether I was the same Melchi, I was less certain. I ran my fingers over the new scars on my right thumb to be sure of myself.

The first night we camped alone, and I understood the appeal of nomadic life in wild spaces. Taz built a huge watch-fire, and we made tea and ate the bread and goat Reta had prepared. I had grown used to Reta’s cooking, I realized, and its pungent aroma stung me with a feeling for the home I had left already far behind. Yellow eyes peered at us from the darkness, but the fire repelled as well as attracted, and I did not feel afraid. When we had finished our meal and the fire had died down, Salvi and Taz motioned for me to climb to the top of the rugs piled high, where they had spread out skins and blankets. They insisted I sleep between them, lest I fall out. Accustomed as I was to sleeping on a mat on the floor, I acknowledged the wisdom of this plan. Nestled between them, under the stars, I also soon realized the comfort and glory of sleeping under my beauties, the stars.

“Our moving bed,” Salvi joked before he rolled over and began snoring. “It starts out up high, and by the time the rugs are sold, I’m nearly home and ready to sleep on our father’s mats again.”

As I lay high atop the rugs, without the village sounds I was so used to, the stars seemed closer, and I stayed awake, smiling long into the night.

The next night could not have been more different. We encountered a caravan of desert people Taz knew. We were welcomed. Sweet wine and bread were passed around. I watched my brother become one of their tribe, laughing and dancing. The horns sang in my ears, and I felt the drums throb like a heartbeat within me. A man kissed a woman, and longing rose in my stomach. I thought of Leyla. I carried the petals of the flower she had given me the night before I left, the night I asked her to watch out for Daria. The night Leyla let me kiss her. When I walked home that night, for the first time I did not see the stars.

Daria and I had had one of our frank discussions before I left.

“Why are you going away, Melchi?”

“To study the stars.”

“Do they have different stars?”

“No. The stars are always the same.”

“So why go?”

“If I learn all about the stars, Daria, I can serve in the king’s court and teach people about the beauties of the heavens.”

She looked skeptical. “I’d like to meet a king, but I don’t think studying stars would be worth it.”

I shrugged.

“I’m going to make rugs someday, you know, Melchi. When I’m bigger.”

“I know.”

“Because you hurt your hand. Otherwise they’d make me cook and have babies.”

“Lucky you.” Daria would be glad to escape the usual role, and I guessed she would enjoy working in our father’s shop. More than I had.

“And I’ll live with our father,” she continued. “And Rena will cook for us.”

“Reta,” I corrected. She nodded and kicked a pebble with her toe.

“Melchi, does he like me? Our father, I mean.”

How to answer that? Daria knew that her birth had occasioned our mother’s death, but she had been raised in Aunt Babu’s household, where she had been petted and adored, with Salvi and me dropping by to play with her. How could such a child understand our father when he was a mystery to me, who had worked next to him for seven years?

“You’re a much-loved girl, Daria.”

She grinned. “I know. It’s just that he seems a bit …”

“He’s serious.”

“No. You’re serious. He’s … more, well, not … he doesn’t … does he know how to love?”

“He …” I started and then stopped. Daria would have to do her best with our father and get to know him for herself. She had the strength of our beautiful mother, and I was not worried about her—she would do well. It had been only a month since she had first spoken to our father. I marveled at the accepting nature of the child who questioned neither why she had never known her father nor why he had suddenly appeared in her life.

The next two days we traveled on our own again, our camels stepping gingerly over the fallen rock on the twisting track. We stopped at three small villages, lowering our moving bed by seven rugs.

The instant we arrived in a village, Taz would assess the situation. He would nod at Salvi, who’d spring down from the caravan and begin unloading rugs in front of the most prosperous-looking tent. Salvi would carefully lay the rugs in the sunlight, with winks at the girls who peered out from their tents, figs for the small children who ran up to touch his robes, and kicks at the dogs who sniffed the rugs. Taz was slower to dismount, and when he did, he carried a skin of wine and a broad smile. In our short journey I watched Taz share the skin with many different men, laughing and convincing them of their prosperity and their need for new rugs.

At the first stop, I was unsure of my role and was happy to observe, but Taz would have none of this—he called me down and insisted that my presence on this journey was essential, that he had brought with him an expert rug maker. I could see that many of the men were impressed, bright raisin eyes fixed upon me. I hid my right hand in my sleeve and played my role, if awkwardly. Taz was exuberant in his enthusiasm and said sales had never been so good. Still, the selling had little appeal to me, and I realized that though I had dreaded the making of the rugs, I had enjoyed the quiet freedom of creating patterns in solitude while my mind roamed the skies.

What I liked best was watching how well my brother was suited for his role as a merchant, a man of the world, a traveler. I was happy in Salvi’s happiness. I could see that he was now Taz’s equal and that the two of them had worked out a partnership without competition, though they were so much alike. I was glad of Salvi’s success.

He was doing his part in fulfilling the pattern of our family. I had done mine reluctantly though well, but the accident had set me free onto the edge of a new life. Our paths were diverging, and at some level we knew it and had begun to grow apart. Already Leyla was an unspoken subject between us. I knew my brother had long admired her, but so had many others. I had not felt I was wronging Salvi, but twitches of his mouth when he saw her with me made me silent about her in his presence.

Only in order to study the stars was I leaving. Though I was eager, the new life awaiting me was foreign and unimaginable. I realized this the night we made camp outside the city. Taz and Salvi had miscalculated the time and distance, and our afternoon nap had meant that the city gates were closed by the time we arrived.

I was disappointed. The knot of anxiety and excitement that had filled my stomach all day dissolved into a kind of frustration. Taz simply shrugged, saying he was a better cook than any the city could offer, and set about making camp for the night.

I wandered off toward the city. I could see lamps illuminated within. I touched the still-warm bricks of the city wall. What did these walls contain? What did they keep out? Would I feel penned like a goat? One thing I knew: the walls contained the knowledge I sought. What knowledge it was I could not say exactly, other than that I wanted to know it all. I had begun to feel similarly about Leyla. I wanted to know her thoughts, her dreams, her secrets, but when I asked her about such things, she giggled and said no more. I hoped studying with the astronomers would help me open the mysteries behind the giggle of the stars.

My stomach rumbled, and I turned back toward our caravan. The stars were already bright in the darkening sky, and I was enjoying my beauties when suddenly I heard voices. Every muscle in my body tensed. Taz had warned of marauders. I hurried back to our camp and told Taz and Salvi. Taz nodded to Salvi and, with a warning finger against his lips, ordered me to follow him. We stole close enough to hear them. In the darkness, I could see a scene that reminded me of vultures we had seen picking flesh from a carcass on the road. A group of men dressed in dark, heavy cloaks circled together. We could hear a murmur of low voices and occasional exclamations among the cluster of capes.

“Marauders?” I whispered. Taz shook his head, then motioned me to be quiet and to follow him back to our caravan. When we reached our fire, my curiosity could be contained no more.

“If they weren’t thieves, were they necromancers?”

Taz laughed. I would miss that laugh. “Necromancers? Of a sort. Melchi, those were your astronomers!”

I was astounded. I had never considered what astronomers actually looked like, nor how they looked at stars when they lived in a city that was lit at night. What do they do in the day? I wondered for the first time. Would they laugh at my lack of knowledge, or would I impress them? Would they love the beauties as I did, or would they be sophisticated intellectuals? I wanted to see more, but Taz urged me to bed.

“You’ll see enough tomorrow,” he reminded me.

I gave one quick glance at the unchanging star, a touchstone so far from home, and turned in for the night.

Part Two

~ 7 ~

Star

The torches had long been lit on the city walls by the time I walked home, the route that had become so familiar to me after a dozen years of living among the astronomers. But everything appeared new to my eyes now that we had discovered the star. I thought of my wife waiting for me, and once again I recalled the shock that had come when I married Reta. Since we found the star, there were days when I awoke with a sense of disorientation, wondering where I was and who was beside me.

“A new star?” Reta said, frowning at the news that burst from me as soon as I entered our house. “I didn’t think that happened.”

“It doesn’t.”

Reta shook her head as she walked back into the kitchen to fetch my supper. When she returned, she was still frowning. “Why would a star appear?” she asked.

“Caspar says it means something. A portent. A sign. Something big.”

“Something good?” My wife’s hands instinctively covered her growing belly.

“It’s not an omen. Balzar says it may signal a new order. Do you want to see it?”

Reta’s hungry eyes betrayed her. With a sense of shame, I realized I had not invited her to look at the stars with me since we had married. I offered her a robe, but she shook her head.

“It’s late. Let’s just go up on the roof the way we used to.”

I put on my own robe and followed my wife up the stairs. As I climbed, my eyes instinctively sought the unmoving star to orient myself in the dance of the night. I realized I had not been to the roof of my own home in months, maybe years. Then, looking around, I realized someone else had. “Who—?” I asked.

“Sometimes when you are out, I steal up here for a look.”

I stole a quick glance at her just then, though I said nothing. I thought of the chief astronomer’s wife, who sat sewing and gossiping. That was what wives did, I had assumed. I had little opportunity to find out otherwise. Every clear evening, I carried the water clocks out of the city to observe and calculate the stars’ positions. When I returned, Reta was always asleep. When it was cloudy, I came home in the evenings, but I always felt I was disrupting Reta’s peace with my presence and rarely knew how to respond. Reta gazed at me from the pools of her eyes. This wife of mine surprised me with depths like the jet blackness of the space between the stars.

I had begun to think quite a bit about that blackness since it had been pierced by a new and moving star. Before, I had only noticed my beauties and measured their positions. Now I began, for the first time, to wonder what was behind them. The new star reminded me that all was not fixed.

My father’s death had rocked my sense of stability. Daria and Salvi’s wife running my father’s workshop had stretched my understanding. Reta’s pregnancy after we had spent years hoping for a child was a new but strange joy. I knew it in the way Reta smoothed her robes over her belly and the way she crooned Hebrew songs as she went about her routines. I knew it in the pride I felt. But we never discussed it. We lived together, ate, slept, and loved together, but we were also silent together.

Standing together under the naked sky, I felt almost shy as I put my hands on my wife’s shoulders to turn her in the direction of the new star.

“Oh!” she exclaimed softly. “It is a new one. But it isn’t moving, is it?”

“Slowly,” I said. “Not like the regular stars in their courses, but little by little each night.”

“When did it appear?”

“Three weeks ago.”

“And it isn’t a comet?”

“No.”

Reta shivered—with cold or fear I did not know. I placed my cloak around her shoulders and guided her downstairs to safety and warmth.

When we lay in bed a short while later, I knew from her breathing that she was still awake. I wondered what she thought about and how I might ask. In my studies, I had learned that when a bird hatched from an egg, it would follow any other creature that happened to be in the nest as it would normally imitate its mother. Our marriage was like that—the behavior of our wedding night printed indelibly on our future. Both were characterized by mutual courtesy, if not pleasure or intimacy. We were silent, circling each other, perhaps afraid to nest. I was nearly asleep when her hand found mine.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

~ 8 ~

Questions

Reta joined me several times to view the new star—or, rather, I joined her. Several nights when I came home from my meetings with the other magi, I found Reta curled up on a chair on the roof. I had given her one of my cloaks to use for this purpose, and she was always careful to avoid getting a chill. On one such occasion, I remarked to her that our encounters reminded me of our old meetings back in the village.

“Except for Omar,” she said. “Yes. Poor Omar.”

Omar had been dead nearly ten years, yet the reminder of his death never ceased to amaze me. How could someone so full of life cease to be? There were those in the cabal who would have answers to such questions. Though I had been a magus for many years and was responsible for forecasting, I found it hard to believe that my beauties could explain the loss of a friend. But now, beginnings and ends were among my cosmic thoughts as I studied the motions of the new star.

One evening when I came home, I found Reta on the roof in her usual posture with her eyes closed. They flew open at my arrival.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” I said.

“I wasn’t asleep. I was praying.”

Another depth of this wife was suddenly illuminated.

“You pray?”

“Of course.”

“To your god.”

“I often pray here. The heavens declare the glory of God.”

“What … may I ask … if you can tell me, do you pray about?” The question hung in the air until I wished I had not asked it.

Reta spoke quietly. “I pray for you, my husband, and your work. And for this little one. And for the Savior of my people.”

“Who’s that?” I asked quickly, wanting to move the conversation to safer ground.

“The Lord knows! He will be the fulfilment of promises.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, husband, it has been a hundred years since I sat in the synagogue.”

“But you pray for me?” The question escaped unbidden from a place I did not know.

“Always, dear husband.” She kissed my cheek and went down to bed, leaving me to ponder.

The next time I sat with Reta on the roof, she seemed to feel freer to speak of her people and her faith than she had before.

“I wonder …” she began.

“Wonder what?”

Her eyes were intent upon the new star. “Someday, my people say, a Messiah will be born.”

“So you said.”

“And that a star will herald his birth. Perhaps …”

“Perhaps this star is for our own son’s birth,” I joked.

“Or our daughter’s,” Reta replied, though the one thing we had discussed was our certainty that the child would be a boy. Salvi had four boys already, and Daria seemed the only exception in generations of my family.

I persisted in asking Reta questions about her people’s understanding of a herald star and their savior. To my surprise, Reta had kept the worn scroll Omar had brought me so many years before; she brought it out now from some hidden place and found the prophecies of a star and Israel’s future king.

One night, Reta ventured a tentative question without looking at me. “My husband, you do believe in your gods, don’t you?”

I shrugged. I made the ritual sacrifices each year, as my father had, and I had even made a few secret sacrifices to the gods years before, asking for a child, but that was all. The stars had never moved me to wonder about spiritual matters. I was interested in their beauty. In my school, many were mathematicians who delighted in measuring and calculating the angles and positions of the stars, watching them echo the records of years past. Others were gamblers, trying to outwit the charts with predictions of unforeseen portents. Some were explorers by nature, always restless to discover and conquer. One or two were aesthetes like me who simply gloried in the beauty of the stars. Most simply wanted to gain an audience with the king. Still, some shared my wife’s metaphysical interest.

Among these was my friend Balzar. Balzar was one of the few astronomers who had not inherited his position in the school, so for an outsider like me, he was a natural ally. Even forty years after he had been accepted, and despite his mystical abilities to dream and interpret dreams, Balzar was not as respected as his wisdom deserved. It was Balzar who had kept me from returning home to my father’s contempt when I had been scorned by the others, and who had been a refuge for me another time. Though he did not have the title, to me, Balzar was chief among the astronomers. And it was Balzar’s belief, and Reta’s, that made me begin to wonder how to interpret the new star.

A concern was growing among us to understand the new star. The king had sent urgent, anxious messages, requiring us to determine its meaning. Our usual scribing was put aside for this more pressing matter. Shaz, my oldest enemy in the magi—who now served at the king’s court—sent a message requiring a formal assembly to consider this star so the king could take appropriate action. The very tone of his letter gritted me like sand in the teeth in a storm. If Balzar was above all in the matter of dreams, Shaz was the master of commanding people to serve his own interests. Too well did I remember him once claiming my calculations as his own. I was nearly discredited for deception. I would never forget Shaz’s gilded smile as the others cackled at my work. The ranks were closing me out, and it was only when I caught a small slip in Shaz’s copying and corrected it that my position was saved.

But nothing had changed. Shaz glittered with success and was now returning, a carrion bird, to gather our wisdom.

We prepared for the assembly. I wrote a translation of the prophecies Reta read to me from Omar’s scroll and waited.

Shaz arrived on the appointed day, borne on a litter by slaves. For solidarity’s sake, he had donned the black robe, but colorful glints of silk beneath set him apart from his peers. If anything, Shaz had grown more imperious in his manner since our time studying together. I was reminded how much I despised him, and for the hundredth time, I wondered how his wife could bear his touch.

I was disappointed when, early in the discussion, someone else mentioned the idea of a Jewish Messiah, and several heads nodded familiarity with the idea. My careful piece of research was common knowledge.

Shaz, however, sneered at this. “Some uncle’s feeble recollection is not what I have been sent here to find. The king seeks proof. Does anyone have anything else to offer?”

After such an opening to the council, no one felt free to speak. Shaz noted any ideas ventured with a skeptical eye. My gaze fell upon the notes I had transcribed. Was it worth Shaz’s withering commentary to share them? I looked at Balzar’s earnest face with its long white beard. Balzar often inspired me with his lifelong dedication to seeking the truth. I recalled the vow I had made when I joined the magi—to seek truth and to share it freely. All these years I had been diligent and content in my studies, but my vow had never before been challenged. I swallowed my pride, accepted the inevitable experience of being belittled yet again by Shaz, and rose to my feet.

“When I was a boy,” I began, “a Hebrew book of stars discovered by a trader became mine. In these last weeks as we have pondered this new star, I have read in this book of Hebrew prophecies that fit our situation aptly.”

I could see Shaz was interested, almost against his will.

“Do you have these Hebrew prophecies?” he asked.

“I do. Here is the original, and here is the translation a friend helped me to do.”

Reta had begged me to keep her identity as a Hebrew secret. Insecure enough among the wealthy wives of the astronomers, Reta was worried old racial tensions would surface if her origins were widely known.

A few more outlandish interpretations were offered and rejected while my little Jewish scroll was passed around and copied by the astronomers. Balzar, who read more widely than most, appeared deeply moved by the Hebrew poetry. Shaz dismissed us all to our tasks for the evening, demanding our presence the next week for a decision.

I picked up the water clocks and the measuring sticks and carried them to our usual place outside the city. The star had moved farther to the west. I found myself straining my ears for a message from the star, and though it radiated beauty and mystery, the skies were silent. When we finished making our calculations and recording all we observed, we headed back to the city. With his stiff joints, Balzar was, as usual, the slowest. As I carried the equipment, I fell into step with him, my arm supporting his, his thoughts lifting my own.

“‘The heavens declare the glory of God,’” he quoted, as Reta had. “It’s true, Melchi, isn’t it?” He beamed at the beauties around him.

“How do you do it?” I asked. “How do you cultivate this interest in the gods?”

“What do you mean?”

“For me, the stars are like jewels—lovely, fascinating, but that’s all. Perhaps they reflect what is happening here, but the idea that they can be messages from a god—it’s unsettling.”

“Why is that?” Balzar asked.

“It changes everything if there is something beyond what you can see. Or Someone. This god of my wife’s—” I stopped.

“Your wife?”

“Reta is a Hebrew. She is Jewish.” I knew I could trust Balzar, but for Reta’s sake I explained her desire for secrecy.

“My first wife was half-Jewish. Jewish. People were not always kind. I will protect this truth about your wife. Tell me more of your questions, Melchior.”

I shrugged. Did I have questions? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that belief in a god reoriented everything. My father’s death, Omar’s, the new star, the spaces between the stars—all these had shaken me, revealing space beyond my view of beauty, but it was an uncomfortable place to be, nothing like the happy worship Balzar quoted.

“What is the deepest desire of your heart?” Balzar asked me.

I hesitated, though I knew my answer immediately. I considered the conventional answer: my wife was expecting a child, and desire for a safe delivery was certainly one I held. My thoughts of truth, however, convinced me to be honest with him.

“All my life, I have dreamed of reaching up and grasping the unmoving star,” I said.

Balzar nodded seriously. Then, as we reached the doorway of his house, he patted my arm. “You may be closer to God than you think.”

~ 9 ~

Delegation

A week later the council reconvened, and Shaz was again presiding. “The king agrees that the Hebrew prophecies are convincing. The ephemerides, the star charts, certainly point to a regal birth in Israel. We believe that the birth of a new king in Israel is the meaning of this star.”

Balzar patted me on the back.

Shaz continued. “The business at hand now is to select a delegation to represent our king and to deliver the official gifts.”

I looked around, trying to imagine who would be sent. When I had first joined the astronomers’ school, I had been surprised to discover how much rivalry there was. Though I had seen much striving for position when I lived among the merchants, I had not realized how universal the activity was. It was not enough for many of these men to be magi; they wanted positions at the king’s court, and they would peck and strike at anyone who stood in the way.

My first day in the city I had learned several important lessons. One was that I had not been accepted into the astronomy school; I had been accepted to be tested. The other was that the test would be harder for me than for the others, simply because no one knew my family.

Breeding and family counted to Shaz more than to anyone else. Being the nephew of the chief astronomer had gotten him further than my mere calculations had, and he was all too aware of the benefits of a system that promoted its sons. The decision regarding the delegation to the new king would not be Shaz’s alone, however. The chief astronomer was responsible for such choices. The process was a delicate one, done publicly in council as it was. Raised eyebrows, averted glances, cleared throats were all part of the subtle game I had seen played before.

“Our king has asked for four magi as well as servants,” Shaz explained. “Horses will of course be made available, and king’s guards will secure the gifts.”

His face expressionless, the chief astronomer gestured in Shaz’s direction. “We would, of course, be honored to have you, Alshazak, lead our delegation.”

As Shaz bowed in ritual agreement, I could see his eyes glow with the pleasure of being recognized.

The chief astronomer’s second choice was equally predictable: his other son-in-law, Caspar. I wondered once again how my own career might have advanced had Stela chosen me instead of Shaz. Not that I had ever expected it. I had learned the politics of the magi early on.

Choosing the remaining candidates proved a more difficult matter. The chief astronomer listened to requests from several rising young men, but there was no obvious candidate from among them.

Finally Hasin, Balzar’s son, nudged his father. “Tell them your dream, Father,” he urged.

At this, all ears perked up. Dreams were held in high regard among the magi, and the telling of dreams was an art form of which Balzar was a master.

Balzar rose to his feet slowly, clasped his hands in front of his stomach in his customary posture, and began. “At this time last year, I awoke from sleep with my dream carefully and fully preserved as if in wax. Joy filled my heart as I thought in my bed upon this dream. I have long pondered its meaning and wondered if it foretold my death. Lately I have begun to wonder if it might foretell something else.

“In my dream, I was traveling across the desert by night, as I have not done for twenty years. I was not alone, but I did not recognize my companions. We rode on horses, not camels. I felt we were being pulled to a destination, one I eagerly anticipated but did not know. The stars guided us in their song.

“I sorrowed to awaken from this dream, so real it seemed.”

Balzar sank back into his chair. Describing the dream had brought him a smile as of a happy memory. His description had been more brief than most dream stories, but there was a ring of authenticity to it.

Discussion of Balzar’s dream and its interpretation was lengthy. At first, magi tried to be tactful, but Balzar cut through their fine words. “We must state the matter plainly: I am old. My health is uncertain. If I were chosen to be part of this delegation, it is altogether possible the journey could kill me. I am aware of this. I am also aware that I could die in my comfortable bed tomorrow. I am not afraid to try.”

“The trip will be strenuous,” Caspar pointed out.

“But this task is one of diplomacy. We require wisdom, not might,” argued another.

“And there are dangers on the highway.”

“If Balzar were to become ill …?”

“I could be left behind.”

“It would not slow our trip.”

“Nor is speed the essential thing.”

“Except that our king wants a prompt delivery of his gifts to the new king,” Shaz reminded. “I do not think Bal—”

The chief astronomer interrupted Shaz. “Balthazar’s dream is persuasive. I appoint him as our final representative.”

As the magi began rising from this long council, I had to speak. “You’ve only chosen three.”

The chief astronomer looked at me. “I thought it was understood, Melchior.”

I shook my head.

“As the one responsible for the discovery of the prophetic scroll,” said the chief astronomer, “you will join the delegation to Jerusalem.”

The moment stood still with clarity. I saw Shaz roll his eyes, heard the cacophony of laughter from those who evidently thought it was a good joke that I hadn’t realized my reward. Balzar squeezed my shoulder. My heart filled with delight as my skin prickled with astonishment. I had watched the negotiations of many councils. I knew myself to be a perpetual spectator to the politics, and now, with no effort or ambition on my part, I was chosen.

The stars shone in the heavens as I floated home, too dazed and delighted to discuss the matter further.

Reta was already in bed when I crept in, though she awoke at my entrance. Her sleep had become more and more fragmented as the pregnancy progressed. She knew the subject of our council, and, yawning as she rolled over, she said, “Let me guess: Shaz and Caspar.”

“They chose me.”

“You!” Reta sat up and looked full in my face. “Are you joking?”

I shook my head. Reta stood up, walked slowly across the room, then stopped and came back to sit on the bed. “You. Going,” she said. With her hair around her shoulders, she looked like a young girl. Her lips quivered, and then tears coursed silently down her cheeks. I reached an arm out, but she shook it off and stroked her hair with her hands.

“Are you not happy?” I asked carefully. “It’s a great honor.”

She looked up, tears still streaming from her eyes. “Oh, Melchior,” she said, “it is such an honor I had never dreamed of. I feel struck with it—like a blow. It is a shock.”

“A good shock.”

She held her face in her hands as if to steady herself. Her small voice floated up through her hair. “When—when will you leave?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t discuss details.”

“Days? Weeks?”

“Days likely,” I said. “As soon as the stars are favorable. Shaz will want to get going.”

“And the trip will take—”

“One month. Possibly two.”

She looked up at me, tears spent, eyes flat. “Your child is expected in one month or possibly two.”

She said nothing else to me before I left two days later, other than what was absolutely necessary. She said nothing when in guilt and haste I brought home a birthing chair and a basket and set them up. She said nothing when I told her Balzar had arranged for two Hebrew midwives to visit and to be prepared to deliver the child. She said nothing at my eyes, which were rimmed red with tears, or my kiss as I prepared to leave.

“I will hurry back,” I said. “You know I have no choice, but I will hurry home.”

Eyes dulled, Reta handed me my bags, so hurriedly packed, and food she had prepared, and recited a blessing.

“The Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you.”

~ 10 ~

Breach

It was an inauspicious start, but once the city was behind us, I sighed with relief. The stars were indeed promising for journeying, and so it had been two days of intense emotion and feverish activity. Now nothing more could be done. I settled on my mount, trying to look as though riding a horse was something I did regularly, when in fact I had ridden a horse only once before.

It had been Stela’s birthday, and her father had thrown a lavish party for her. I had never quite been sure of my role when I lived with the chief astronomer. I was permitted to eat at the table with the family, and I could reply to their direct questions and smile at their jokes, but I soon realized I was not to initiate conversation. I became an adept watcher, my every nerve strung tight, while I appeared, I hoped, merely preoccupied with my meals. When a voice addressed my general direction, my head would whip up, so prepared was I to participate. I felt ashamed at my eagerness, and at times, I wished for the easy conversations of the servants’ tables, where merchants were welcome.

Since my first night in the city, such arrangements had split my family. As the chief astronomer’s daughter, Stela had been permitted to lead me to the dining table, while my uncle and brother were left outdoors to eat with the slaves and servants. It was that way each time our caravan arrived for a visit. The laughter and voices floating in through a distant window made me long for my brother’s position, while desire was plain on Salvi’s face as he took in Stela’s beauty. To this day, I am not sure whether it was more my brother’s envy or my own infatuation with Stela that caused the breach with Leyla.

Stela had blue eyes. I had never before seen anyone with blue eyes, and hers were white-blue, blazing in her golden face. Her hair was hennaed red, and she wore it in elaborate designs. She had the bearing of a young queen, and I was utterly captivated by her manner. Still, I was aware that if I held a limbo position at the astronomer’s table, much more uncertain were my chances with his daughter.

And I was in love with Leyla. I wrote her long letters, and she replied to each with packages of figs and wine. My sister included small drawings and little stones until she learned to write for herself, which was around the time Leyla ceased to correspond with me. Leyla had never liked to reveal much, but she wrapped each fig carefully and responded promptly so that I knew I was secure in her heart.

Once a year, I was permitted to go home for the harvest festivals. The first year I saw Leyla many times and spent only one night on my father’s roof with Omar and Reta, who were eager to learn of my discoveries and lessons among the astronomers. I was willing to teach too, but not as desirous as I was to see Leyla. I concocted excuses of taking food and wine to Aunt Babu’s, where I met Leyla and walked her home. Since she had begun to imagine herself as the future bride of a magus, gone were the provocative attempts of years past. Leyla was quiet, though when I kissed her cheek, I could feel a shudder of desire run through her body. Before she ran indoors, cheeks flushed, she smiled.

Before my second visit home, Omar died of fever, and I mourned his death as that of a brother. When I went home for the harvest, my heart was a heavy stone. Omar’s mother, still in high mourning, clutched me to her breast, keening and sobbing. She pulled a bundle from her robes, thrust it into my hands, patted my head as if I were a little boy, and returned to her solitary grief.

I waited until I was alone on the roof that night before I opened the bundle. It contained Omar’s stargazing cloak. He had made himself one after I showed him my own blue apprentice cloak and described the black cloaks worn by the astronomers. Omar’s coat was pieced together from scraps of different fabrics.

“The apprentice’s apprentices all wear such cloaks,” he had joked.

Now it was mine, along with a half-finished letter Omar had been writing me before the fever struck.

The shooting stars that night mirrored my tears. Succeeding waves of remembrance would pass over me, and my tears would course forth again and again. When at last I came downstairs, Reta was sitting alone at the table. I indicated the robe, and she nodded.

“He loved figs and jokes,” I said

“And stars,” she added.

“And stars.” I stood silent in the half light with Reta and became aware that she and I were now man and woman, and that with Omar gone, it would be unseemly for me to look at stars with her. “You understand, Reta, that we cannot—the stars—it wouldn’t be—”

“I know,” she said. “That’s what Omar said.”

I suddenly wondered about Omar and Reta. In my mind, I had been the force drawing us all together and upward to the stars. I had been away two years. Omar had never mentioned Reta in his letters, but I had never asked. A wave of a different emotion swept over me, but I dismissed the jealousy as foolish. I didn’t know how to speak of Omar to Reta. Was he—had he been her lover? At the very least, he had been a friend to her in this country so far from her home.

When I arrived back in the city, I could not decide what to do with Omar’s ragtag robe. Part of me wanted to wear it under my usual robe when we went observing, but I did not want to be subjected to the usual teasing such aberrations caused. I decided I would wear it to sleep and left it hanging over my bed each day.

One day Stela came to my room with a message. Her eyes were drawn to my colorful spectacle with some amusement. “A little gift from your beloved, Melchior?”

I flushed. “My best friend. It was his.”

“A touch of home. How sweet.” She turned to go, but then, with a glance over her shoulder, she paused. “But you do have a girl, don’t you, Melchior?”

I blushed deeper as her eyes burned into me. “Yes,” I managed to say.

“That’s a pity.” Stela’s silk skirts clung to her hips as she walked away.

From that day forward, I sensed I was an amusement to Stela, a plaything. Though I was flattered, not once did I take her seriously. Neither did I realize Stela’s intentions.

Stela began by making light gestures—picking a leaf from my robe or brushing a stray hair behind my ear. She laughed at my jokes and often turned her bright eyes on me at the table. As she helped pass wine around after dinner, she took care to let her arm brush mine.

She was a dazzling butterfly of a girl, and my eyes were delighted by her. At no time did I consider it anything more than Stela’s game and my own incidental pleasure. My useless hand, my social status, my lack of ancestry in the magi meant Stela would never consider me seriously.

My eyes were not so fully taken up with Stela that my ears failed to notice a new voice at our table. As the chief astronomer’s nephew, Shaz had joined our household. Shaz shared his opinions freely on every topic and had a willing audience in his family. Other than his teeth, which reminded me of a camel’s, Shaz was remarkable to look at—tall, bronze-skinned, and sleek-haired. I found his manner distasteful, but I could see how others were drawn to him and how he fed on their attention.

Only Stela stood aloof from this. She was as courteous to Shaz as she was required to be by blood and position. Her blossoming attention to me had made me see her coldness to Shaz by contrast; I admired her judgment of the man.

On Stela’s birthday, her father arranged with his brother to borrow two of the king’s horses for guests to ride. I was waiting for my uncle’s caravan to arrive and was surprised to be invited to join the celebration.

“Ride with me,” Shaz commanded his cousin. Stela wrinkled her nose but was persuaded. I had just ridden with her sister and was still removing my gear when a messenger informed me that my uncle and brother had arrived. Shaz and Stela completed their circuit.

“Melchior!” Stela called. “Come hold my horse while I dismount.” I did as she bid, but as she climbed down, her foot became tangled in the skirt and she slipped. I caught her awkwardly, hindered by my useless hand.

“Thank you, Melchior,” she said, kissing me full on the mouth. It was over in a second and no one commented on it, but when my brother joined me five minutes later, his face wore a dark look of disapproval. I decided not to ask or tell anything, unless he spoke of it, which he did not, but when he left that night the chasm between us had grown wider.

When I arrived home five moons later for the harvest, tension was there, too. Taz and Salvi were going to be late, so the first evening, my father and I went together to Manu’s house. I sat across from Leyla, who was lovelier than ever. I felt no guilt about Stela. Indeed I did not think of her once. Her amusement with me had passed, and I had realized Stela had been using me largely to make herself more desirable in Shaz’s eyes. Once she had succeeded, she relegated me to the status of outsider again, though I liked to think she was kinder than she had been before.

I could not catch Leyla’s eye throughout the meal, and I began to wonder if she, like Stela, was playing a game. After the meal, I began whispering into her ear. She stiffened.

“What is it?” I asked.

She shook her head and delivered wine to our fathers. “The evening is fine,” I heard her say. “Why not sit in the courtyard?” The men agreed, and I heard Leyla promise that I would join them soon. When she turned toward me again, I saw that her face was earnest. She shook her head once more. I reached an arm out to her.

“No, Melchior. I am betrothed now.”

“What?”

“And you—are you not betrothed also?”

“Of course not—what do you mean?”

“Salvi told me everything. The blue-eyed girl in the big house. The kissing. The caressing. And you say you aren’t even betrothed?”

I was aghast. I tried to explain, but I could not translate the culture, the game, Stela, or how it had been only flattery to me. I declared my love plainly for Leyla and begged her to break off the engagement. Tears rolled down her face.

“You belong to a different world now,” she said.

“Do you believe me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, Leyla—you have to believe me.”

She hesitated and shrugged.

“Then marry me!”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I promised him.”

“Who?”

“And I am pregnant.”

I sank to the floor. Leyla belonged to another. My faithful Leyla had been true until she believed me to be unfaithful. “And your betrothed?”

“Salvi.”

~ 11 ~

Pomegranate

This journey to find the new king reminded me of Salvi. These desert routes had been his home so long that the family jokes about him being a nomad now described him well. My relationship with Salvi was not as it had been for our father and uncle, and though I was forever glad to be done with my work in the shop, I missed the easy connection between us. Perhaps even without the accident, without Stela, without the magi, this distance would have grown. We were so different. At the same time, in this lonely place, I longed for my brother, for his simple words that cut cleanly through my confusions, for his hearty laugh I had rarely heard in years. Salvi and I had never spoken of what had happened between us, but nothing had ever been the same. My heart grew heavy at the thought of him, and each time we met, the silence was unbearably awkward.

Salvi had had his own struggles: the business could not afford a second caravan, but after years as Taz’s equal, my brother was full of frustration. The fact that the rugs were made by girls was also a source of occasional ridicule and mirth to many. Such comments, I knew, must sting Salvi, especially since one of the girls was his wife.

Salvi married well. I can say that much. It took many years and distance for me to be able to accept fully Leyla as Salvi’s wife, although now I can truly say that my love for Leyla is easily that for a sister. At times, I find it hard to imagine she was the girl of my dreams so long ago. At first, I fled into the desert, blindly traveling through a storm toward the city. My own storm broke when Balzar saw the pain I tried to hide and made a place for it to be revealed; I would never forget his kindness. When the storm was finally spent, I still felt disoriented, tricked, grieved. But it was done. I returned to my work, only occasionally finding a piece of grit from the storm still chafing me.

Salvi’s Leyla has many outlets for her industry—her four sons and her work. She is the most precise of the weavers, though my fateful experience with the loom has left her forever afraid to set the strings; that task she leaves to her father or to Daria.

Daria runs the workshop now. They—we—obey her in everything. She is bossy and imperious but also wise and clever, and her judgments of people are precise and true. It was Daria who wrote to me when I fled back to the astronomers and my beauties after Leyla confessed her betrothal. All the announcements of Leyla’s children came from Daria too.

I was afraid to hear Daria’s opinion of my own surprising betrothal, and I managed to avoid serious conversation with her until I was safely married. Daria had always treated Reta well, as far as I knew, from the time Daria entered our father’s household, but whether she welcomed a Hebrew servant as a sister, or merely tolerated her—as I suspected Leyla did—I was uncertain. For the first time, I began to allow the question to invade my thoughts unguarded. Our paths had crossed only when Reta and I came home for the yearly harvest festival, but on this journey to Israel, where I had much time to be alone with my own thoughts, I wondered about Daria’s ideas about my wife.

My brother, I knew, still worried about me with Leyla, especially since Reta and I had had no children of our own. When would the tumult settle? The most genuine smile I had seen on Salvi’s face sprang forth when we announced our hoped-for child. The smile was one of relief.

What Daria thought of Reta was far less certain. This question became stuck in my mind as we rode, like a melody echoing again and again, through the monotony of sand and the lulling rhythm of our horses’ paces. I longed to gallop ahead, but for Balzar’s comfort and Shaz’s sense of dignity we moved across the sand in a steady but slow rhythm. Sometimes I found myself nodding off to sleep on my horse. Nearly always my mind drifted during the heat of the day. It was at night when the temperatures dropped and the stars pierced the skies that my mind became alert and steadied. By day, my thoughts drifted and shifted and swirled so that past and future mingled. What Daria thought of Reta became one of those vague but fixed ideas rattling around behind my eyes. I recalled expressions on Daria’s face that made me wonder exactly what she had been thinking when she saw Reta and me at family gatherings each year. Though knowing Daria’s thoughts might be useless to me—what could I do?—I became driven to know.

I would have an unusual second visit with my family in three days’ time, as Shaz had determined my village would be the best place to load up on stores of water and food for our long journey. I would have a day or two to see Daria.

“What do you think of Reta?” The question, which had been forming itself in my mind as I listened to the hypnotic thud-swish of the horses’ hooves against the sand, sprang forth the instant Daria and I were alone.

Daria smiled, though her eyes looked puzzled at the urgency of my question. “She is lovely. Why?”

Why indeed? I shrugged, unable to find words.

Daria excused herself and returned with a pomegranate from the tree outside. “Eat this, Melchi,” she commanded. I shook my head, but she insisted. “They’re very good this year. Try one.”

Obediently I stripped the pomegranate of its leaves, cracked the outer casing with my teeth, and peeled the fruit and pith from its shell. I filled a small bowl with water and cracked the pieces of pith underwater. Tiny rubies fell to the bottom of the bowl and I fingered them out from under the floating casing and put several in my mouth, feeling them explode with tart sweetness. I smiled as I savored the bite. “There are no pomegranates like the ones at our oasis!”

“That’s Reta.”

I tried to grasp her meaning but failed.

“Reta is like a pomegranate,” she explained. “She is rich in spirit and mind and heart, but she keeps herself hidden away, just as the fruit of the pomegranate is hidden behind layers of hard casing. I was delighted when you saw that in Reta because you have depths in you, too. Leyla would not have satisfied you, Melchi. She is beautiful and I love her dearly, but she does not have the depths Reta offers you.”

I pondered my sister’s words long into the night as I lay on the rooftop we had once used as our observatory. The house was Salvi’s now. Though he was away, his wife and children slept below. Daria slept in a little apartment at the back of the workshop. Salvi had built it at Daria’s request. It was unusual for a woman to have her own home, and it would have been customary for Daria to stay with her brother’s family until she married, but everyone understood that Daria meant no slight to her family, nor was she being aloof. She ate more meals at the house across the garden than she did in her own kitchen, but she liked having her own kitchen too.

“I can’t go from being the master of the workshop all day to letting Leyla be my wife too!” she said with a laugh.

Thoughts of the kitchen made me hungry, and I slipped downstairs to find some fruit. After so many years, the kitchen in the big house, as they now called our childhood home, was not entirely Leyla’s but still Reta’s. I had never spent much time in the kitchen, but I found little had changed since Reta had left.

Why exactly had I married the girl? And why had she married me? I had considered the first question many times but never really the second. Had I simply been a way out of a difficult situation? A source of provision?

Until the time of our father’s final illness, I had certainly never thought of Reta in any way other than absently counting her among our father’s household assets.

News of our father’s illness had come by horseback. Daria and Leyla had decided the illness was grave enough to justify the expense of bringing Salvi and me home. The chief astronomer immediately gave me leave to return home, for which I was grateful. The messenger continued on his way, searching for Salvi, and I hired a camel and driver and spent four days clinging to the back hump, being swayed about with nausea, grief and confusion mingling.

I stepped off the camel unsteadily at my father’s door, and as I hesitated to enter, a figure dressed in white stepped out from the shadows of the house. It was Reta. She answered my unspoken questions with a nod, reassuring me I had arrived in time. She led me to a seat, removed my sandals, and bathed my feet. She gave me a glass of wine and a piece of bread and a basin with which to wash my face, and then she pointed me toward my father’s room.

I was mesmerized. Reta had always stayed in the shadows, doing as she was bid to do. My father’s illness had released her from this. Even Daria had slumped, sitting by our father’s bedside. Leyla was in confinement, expecting her third child any day. Salvi and Taz were still on their way home. Decisions, care, the household fell to Reta as it had to Salvi and me after our mother’s death. But where we boys floundered and stumbled as best we could, Reta glowed with the responsibility. Her white clothes, Daria explained to me later, were what Hebrews wore in mourning, but to me she moved through the house like a star tracing an arc across the sky. Grace and beauty were in her gentle touches.

Little could be done for our father. We could not tell what he was aware of. We could not tell if he was in pain or if he slept. His dying was as aloof and silent as his life.

One day he stopped. I looked at the casing of my father’s body and wondered. I had known death many times, of course, but my father’s death I observed as I had learned to watch the stars—with deliberate objectivity. I did not mourn him as I had mourned my beautiful mother or even Omar—my father had never belonged to my heart in the same way. Still his death left me an orphan. For the first time I asked myself questions other magi often asked: Where do the dead go? Is there life after this life?

My brother and sister did not share my questions, though I tried once or twice to talk with them. Beyond the grief I felt at my father’s death, I mourned, feeling a loss of all that had been my sense of home. This loneliness in the midst of a familiar place was hard to bear, and I made plans to return to the city as soon as I reasonably could.

One night I came down to the same kitchen to eat. Reta sat at the table. She startled when I came in but remained seated. The kitchen smelled sweet, full as it was with the fruits neighbors had brought after my father’s death. I loaded a plate and was about to return to my room when Leyla’s baby began to wail.

“May I join you?” I asked Reta.

“Of course.” I could see traces of tears on her face.

“Are you well?” I asked.

She looked at me in surprise. “I miss your father.”

Now I was surprised.

“He was kind to me,” she said. “Especially these last few years after Leyla came. He no longer needed me in the house, but he insisted I stay. I will always remember that.” Tears flooded her eyes.

I reached out my good hand and clasped hers. I had meant it as a gesture of comfort, but as I did so, a shock ran through me, filling me with a deep yearning for more. I looked fully at Reta all in white, and something in her echoed deep in me. She looked back without blinking, and I could not breathe for longing. A moment later, it was gone, but I still held her hand within my own, blindly asking about her plans for the future. She had none yet but knew she would move on, perhaps back to Israel to seek her distant family. Panic rose within me. I was to return in two days to the city, and by harvest time Reta would surely have disappeared into the desert, leaving no trace. No one had ever moved me as Reta had just for that moment.

As Daria had often told me, I was serious. I was a dreamer, too, though not prone to taking risks. Yet something told me I could not lose Reta, and so, still holding her hand, I asked her to marry me.

The next morning, Reta answered me with a brave yes. The veil had fallen again, and I looked at Reta much as I always had, yet with the same sense I had after awakening from a sweet dream I ached to recall. Acting in faith that my decision had been based on some deep truth, the next day we were married.

~ 12 ~

Sandstorm

One thing I have discovered about journeys is that at first you look back. You look back on your life and see it in relief. Daria’s image of Reta as a pomegranate came back to me each time I prepared one for eating. Was Reta one of those pomegranates that looked so promising and yet was bitter or tasteless? I couldn’t accept that she was, and yet I had to confess that I had not savored my wife as I did the fruit. I had not found a way to get behind her shell. Truthfully, I had not tried. Far too quickly I had cast her in the same role she had always occupied in my life: taking care of my needs. She did this well, as she always had, and though the wives of the astronomers might not have welcomed Reta as one of them, many of my colleagues envied my wife’s cooking and the quiet peace of our home.

As we rode into the desert, stores fully stocked up, I voiced my thoughts to Balzar by asking him why he had married his wives.

“Lust, Melchior, I married my first wife chiefly for lust.” He chuckled at the recollection. “Lust for her body, and also for her father’s approval. My second wife I married because she was a good friend. Why do you ask?”

I shrugged, unable to explain my thoughts.

“You’re thinking of your wife. She’ll be fine. You’ll be back in time for the birth of your son.” Balzar patted my arm reassuringly.

We rode on. Hours later, the questions still scratching at me, I spoke to Balzar again.

“I don’t know why I married her, Balzar.”

He nodded, not surprised at the delay or the resuming of the conversation. Desert conversations drifted like the landscape. I saw a bird land upon the sand.

“I feel like that bird,” I said, gesturing. “Flying away from my home. Running away into blinding storms. Hiding my head under my wing.”

Again he was not startled. “You know what the sand does for the bird, don’t you, Melchior? It cleans it. Sand sticks to the bird’s oils and dirt, and when the storm is over, the bird flies away, free from all that soiled it.”

I pondered his words silently.

“And sometimes it eats a bit of sand to help it digest its food.” Balzar paused, and I felt his gaze fix upon me, though I still looked at the bird. “A little sandstorm can heal and help.”

I became aware of other aches in my heart that needed healing. Among the ten of us on our journey was Balzar’s son Hasin, who had not been chosen as one of the magi but who had begged leave of the chief astronomer to go as one of our servants. He was kept busy cooking and caring for the animals, but he also took care that his father was drinking enough water each day and that a portion of food was set aside for him before it was too heavily spiced. In return, Balzar was grateful and affectionate with his son. Though Balzar and I often rode together during the daytime, in the evenings, around the fires, it was Balzar’s son who would recline with his head in his father’s lap. The two would laugh with an easy intimacy, listening to each other’s stories. Just as the smell of a meal cooking over the fire would suddenly awaken a hunger I had not been aware of, so watching this father and son filled me with an ache for what I had never known. I longed for such a father and thought back to what my own father had been. There was not much even to remember.

It was only when I recalled with a smile that Reta was indeed expecting our child and vowed that I would learn all I could from Balzar and his son that I was able to move beyond the upheaval. Things would not always be the same. I could be part of a different father and son relationship than what I had known. Salvi, with his boys, was very much like what Taz had been to us—a fun-loving visitor who stirred up their world with his whirlwind visits before leaving again—but this was not what I craved in a father, nor was it the kind of father I could imagine being. My hungry heart printed Balzar and his son upon my memory.

The trip was not an easy one for Balzar. I saw the heat weaken him a bit each day, just as a flower left out in the blazing sun will wilt hour by hour. I was torn between wanting to urge Shaz to slow down the pace and my desire to finish our journey. Shaz was now so eager to get to Jerusalem that if he was not reminded, he often drove us through the hottest part of the day without rest. I joined Hasin in taking care of Balzar along the way.

Balzar regarded his failing body as one might a favorite old pet—with a mixture of impatience and affection. Despite his physical weakness, Balzar pushed himself to keep up with the rest of us, but when he couldn’t, he would tell Shaz. With no attempt to disguise his annoyance with the old man, Shaz would call a brief halt.

It was on one of those halts in the white sun that Shaz began to speak about Jerusalem and the great Jewish king, Herod. Shaz and Caspar agreed that the star signaled that Herod had had a son. Balzar warned Shaz of all he had heard of Herod—the rumors, the wives, the murdered sons, Herod’s jealousy. These traits were all well known in diplomatic circles.

Shaz, however, was dismissive. “Every great man is slandered by lesser men,” he sneered, including Balzar in his insult.

Each day the sun blazed hotter. Heat rose from the ground like steam, confusing our perspective. I did not always know whether we were headed toward our destination or turning in circles. The days were endless infernos of heat, and at night we fell into unconsciousness.

One day I saw strange lumps on the horizon. As we drew closer I saw that it was a nomad with a herd of sheep. The sheep stood crowded close together, though they were in a wide space. I pondered this sight for hours and could come up with only one explanation: in this shadeless terrain, each sheep could find relief only in the shadow of another sheep. I had no shadow to protect me from the relentless blaze of the sun. I felt exposed and small on the vast landscape.

All that long day, I felt as though I were on a long tether and had unexpectedly reached my limit. I felt choked and stuck. My horse plodded with the rest through the raging waves of sand, but I resisted every step of the way. I did not understand this feeling. We were five days beyond my brother’s home and still a week from Jerusalem. The road we traveled was called the King’s Highway, though which king owned the highway was subject to local interpretation. We were on the outskirts of my own king’s territory. Aside from the nomad and his sheep, we had seen no one for several days.

Not only were we alone in the desert, we were also now traveling entirely by faith. Shortly after our departure, the moving star had disappeared from view. Some speculated that it could have been a seasonal phenomenon rather than a herald of a new king, and with bitterness I realized that if Herod were to look at us in puzzlement and mockery, this journey and my absence at my child’s birth would be foolish and costly indeed. I had not been able to bring myself to think of my own sweet mother as I prepared to leave home, but on the journey I dreamed of her almost nightly, though it was Reta’s face I saw.

The storm broke the night after we saw the sheep. My dreams shifted with the change in weather, though while the temperatures eased, my night visions became more disturbing. The night of the storm, I could not recall the details of the dream, only the atmosphere of fear and suspicion, but I attributed my restless sleep to the tempest outside. The second night, however, Balzar woke me when he heard my tossing and muttering. I lay still so as not to shatter the images from my dream.

“It was Herod, the Jewish king,” I whispered to Balzar’s eyes, bright against the darkness. “He had two faces, one behind the other.”

Balzar nodded. “I, too, have been dreaming of Herod. This new king poses him a real threat.”

Shaz had boasted to us some relative of Herod’s was a distant cousin of his—one of our people who had converted when she married Herod’s father. Herod had risen to power much as Shaz hoped to do. We could see that Shaz was hoping the family connection would lead to a faster route to success.

In the dark, Balzar whispered to me that he was worried for our safety if Shaz were to approach Herod wrongly.

~ 13 ~

Oasis

One afternoon, we found a small but welcome oasis and were resting in the heat of the day when another caravan appeared on the horizon. Idly, I watched it come slowly closer and thought of my brother. I had wanted to believe that Salvi no longer held a grudge against me, that we could be brothers again, but something Daria said as I left our village had settled in my heart like a stone. When she told me she would not mention my visit to Salvi, I knew how little the rupture of the past was healed. My unease at moving forward into new land was rooted in how much I had left undone and unsaid in my own land, my own home.

As the caravan drew closer, Shaz stood at the edge of the shade, leaning against one of the trees. “Israelites?” he wondered aloud. Balzar shook his head, but he knew by this point in the journey that Shaz needed to make discoveries for himself. “No,” Shaz said not long after. “They’re not. They’re from our country.”

I watched the caravan so like Salvi and Taz’s. As it approached the oasis, I realized it was indeed my own family, and I rushed to greet them. Taz quickly dismounted and gave me a hearty embrace. Salvi called down a greeting but stayed seated, his hands tightly clutching his camel’s rope, eyes surveying our group.

I felt the familiar sense of shame I always had when Salvi entered the world of the astronomers. I had spent so many years, particularly when I lived with the chief astronomer, feeling poor and provincial, only to feel decadent and privileged beyond reason whenever Salvi arrived. Things and money mattered to Salvi much more than they did to me, though I had to admit I enjoyed the luxuries of wealth.

“You know these … people?” Shaz asked, a barely perceptible pause between his last words, demonstrating again his subtle arrogance.

Despite his tone and Salvi’s reticence, I was happy. Taz was Taz, and while he did not dote on me as Balzar did on his son, in some ways I belonged to him, and he offered me a familiar feeling in this empty place. And Salvi—there was so much I wanted to say to Salvi. Words had begun to form in my mind and I longed for time and occasion to speak them.

“My uncle, Taz, and my brother, Salvi.” Taz was uncle to everyone, and he reached out to clasp Shaz’s hands and kiss his cheek. Salvi made an elaborate bow to Shaz and bent his head toward Shaz throughout their conversation. Even Shaz did not perceive the irony in Salvi’s tone. Shaz was impressed at my brother’s studied deference and invited him and Taz to join us for the evening. I was appreciative, and so was weary Balzar.

When it came time to eat, some awkwardness ensued. Generally the magi ate alone, while the guards and servants sat together to eat. Taz took Shaz’s invitation to mean he could eat with us, while Salvi held back. Shaz looked disturbed, though he said nothing. I decided to break rank. I took my uncle by the elbow to the second group and introduced the men to Taz and Salvi. When I had finished introductions, I sat down and indicated seats for my brother and uncle.

Taz was confused. “But what about—?”

“Uncle Taz,” I said cheerfully, “wait until you hear the stories of these men. Miraz here has traveled with the king through mountains and green lands.” Miraz smiled. Salvi relaxed a bit and nodded at me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Shaz did not like this arrangement any better than the first, but then I saw Caspar whisper to Shaz. The furrow in Shaz’s brow eased, and he began to eat. I did not know Caspar possessed such wisdom. I had always seen Caspar as Shaz’s shadow, the prince-in-waiting. Now, I suddenly saw things differently: Caspar was older than Shaz and was married to Stela’s older sister. By rights he should have been the brother treated with honor, but between Shaz’s personal wealth and connections, Caspar got the residue of Shaz’s glory.

I wondered if my own brother was essentially in the same position. Though my elder, he was still supposed to eat with the servants, while I had risen above him when I joined the magi. When I said class did not matter to me, I believe I spoke truly, but it was an easier position to ignore than the one my brother was in. I felt sympathy for Salvi and tried to be friendly and to lighten our conversation over supper. Salvi seemed curious though suspicious.

“Can I sleep on the moving bed with you?” I asked.

“Why?”

For once, I was prepared with words. “Salvi, I am far from home, and my family is doubly dear to me. It is like a gift to see you.”

My explanation did not lighten the tension, but Salvi agreed I could sleep with them. “Though I’m sure you would sleep better on the king’s silk sheets,” he grumbled under his breath.

As the stars came out, we climbed aboard the caravan. I was sad to see how feebly Taz moved. I watched how Salvi helped our uncle and was glad to see the kindness he showed him. Soon Taz was snoring.

“Will your great chief mind you sleeping out here with us?” Salvi scorned as we lay back under the canopy of sky.

“Probably.”

There was a long pause, but I knew Salvi was still awake.

“This is how it could have been,” I said, treading carefully on fine, invisible threads, trying to regain a way in.

“What?”

“Like Taz and our father. Only we would have met in the village, at the workshop.”

Salvi had a smile in his voice, in the darkness. “Daria and I have those conversations.”

“And Leyla?”

“Sometimes.” Salvi’s voice was clipped, and I knew to retreat from such territory.

“I was there, you know. In the village. A week ago.”

Salvi rolled toward me, his voice eager. “How were they? How was Damus?”

“He was so big I could hardly recognize him. They all were.”

“But his foot—how was his foot?”

“He was running about with the others.”

Salvi relaxed again.

“You have good sons, Salvi. I can only hope our son will turn out so well.”

“Has the baby been born? Why didn’t—”

“Not yet,” I interrupted. “At least I don’t think so. He wasn’t born when I left on this journey, though maybe by now …” I wanted my brother to speak, to ask more questions, to teach me, but he was silent. I had to ask.

“Do you think I did wrong to come on this trip when the baby was expected?”

Salvi laughed bitterly. “You want me to talk to you about right and wrong?”

Suddenly I was angry. I had wanted to clear up the past with my brother. I had hoped we might forgive and move on and that I might continue my journey unfettered, but now anger bubbled out of a deep well I did not know was in me.

“What do you mean?”

Salvi shrugged as if to say that the conversation was pointless, but I grabbed his arm. “No. Tell me what you mean.”

“I mean Leyla,” he said abruptly.

“And who do you think was wrong there?” I asked sharply. Taz rumbled in his sleep and turned over, reminding us that our discussion needed to be conducted in whispers and hisses. Salvi didn’t speak, so I did. “You think I was, don’t you?”

“And you think I was!” he shot back.

“Yes. I do!”

“And you’re so innocent and important.”

“I never said that.”

“Well, do you blame yourself?”

With this opening to speak my heart truly, my anger settled. “Salvi, my brother. Please believe me when I say that so much of this is in the past for me—”

“It isn’t for me!” he hissed.

“Salvi, if I am truthful, I recognize that I was foolish and—yes—even wrong when I played with Leyla’s heart years ago. I should never have done it.”

“Finally! You admit it! You broke her heart and acted the fool.”

My anger flared again. “And you! You trusted me so little that you convinced Leyla against me and betrothed yourself to her—all without a word to me!”

Salvi sighed heavily. “I know,” he said. “That is what bothers me. Is my Leyla stolen goods? Did I betray my brother?” His eyes glistened with tears in the starlight.

“But you are so happy—with Leyla and your boys.”

“I’ve always wondered—should they be your sons? Should Leyla be living in the city instead of sweating over the looms?”

“Oh, my brother, I have never thought of such a thing. In this sense it is in the past for me: I see Leyla as my sister. I have done so for many years now. She is a good wife for you, Salvi—an excellent wife—but I do not regret the change in my destiny that shifted her from my beloved to my sister.”

“Did you love her then?”

“I think so. I certainly believed I did.”

“And that blue-eyed girl?”

“She was merely using me. To make that ‘great chief’ over there jealous. And her plan worked—she is now married to the mighty Alshazak.”

“I am sorry.” Salvi’s voice was quiet, contrite. “I wronged you.”

“And I wronged Leyla. In all this, only Leyla is without blame.” Salvi nodded as I continued, “But she is your wife, Salvi, and we all rejoice in that. You should rejoice in her too.”

Salvi chuckled. “You sound like a happy man.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, Salvi. I have been looking at my life with a number of regrets on this journey.”

“You regret marrying Reta?”

“Do you think I should?”

“That is not for me to say. Is it what you are saying?”

I thought for a moment before answering. My reply would either affirm my marriage vows, or it would not. The thoughts I had been drifting over along the way, my conversations with Balzar and Daria—all took shape in my mind. “I do not regret marrying Reta. I don’t!” I said with a sense of discovery. Somehow I trusted the long-ago revelation and Daria’s image, as well as the glimpses Reta had given me of herself—and I was suddenly filled with longing for my wife far away. “But, Salvi, I need to tell her so much,” I said. “Is there a way you could deliver a message for me?”

“Of course,” Salvi said.

While the thought was still clear in my heart, I slipped down to where the fire was still glowing and found a tablet so I could write to my wife.

Reta,

I write to you by the light of the fire, under the stars from the oasis on the edge between my land and yours. My heart is restless, though I am well and we make good progress. You are never far from my thoughts. Tonight I am anxious to know—are you well? Is our child well?

But this concern for you is not the source of the storm within. It is my need to beg your forgiveness. I am deeply sorry for how we parted, and even more for how we have lived together. Reta, I have shut you out from the center of my life. After all these years, I see how little I have known you, how little I have shared with you. Again and again I have benefited from your strength, your peace, without seeking behind it, without savoring you.

Do you remember the night we were betrothed? In the midst of all the food, the flowers, the grief, the chaos, the mourners—there you were, an oasis, a place of repose, a pool of stillness and depth where I might be received and welcomed. This was what I knew that night and somehow forgot. At this oasis, tonight, I have met with Salvi on his way home, and we have spoken more truly than we have in years. Somehow the peace between us reminds me of the unspoken offer in your eyes that night. Reta, you have given me all I was willing to accept—you have managed our household so that I am the envy of many. On this trip, I have missed the flavor of your cooking—how my mouth waters for your lamb stew. Yet your offer was not to be my housekeeper as you were my father’s—but my wife.

I hope your offer still extends to me. What I want, Reta, is to go to our roof together on a clear night such as this, with the stars as a beautiful canopy over us, and to allow all to be revealed and received. Can you trust me with this? I do not wish to forget you again.

I am hoping to return in time for our son’s birth, but this journey through the barren wastelands has oriented me to the possibilities in our life together. For this reason, I have no regrets for this journey, and I hope that you will be able to forgive me in time.

Salvi tells me he will deliver this letter as soon as he can. We will be in Jerusalem in a few days, and once we have presented our gifts, I will return to you—but changed from who I was.

The stars are very clear tonight and low. Have I ever told you of my dream of grasping a star? If you were with me tonight, I would seek it with you—to see your eyes shine as they used to when you looked at the stars with me.

I hold you in my heart.

I looked at what I had written and felt only vaguely satisfied. I realized how unaccustomed I was to knowing my heart myself, let alone sharing it. My heart was as stiff as Balzar’s joints after a long day of being cramped in place while riding. Writing this letter felt a bit like Balzar staggering after climbing off his mount. I thought of Reta again and smiled. I trusted she would prefer the awkward stretches of my heart than my silence. Still, a one-sided conversation was unsettling—I sent out my words but would receive no reply. I wondered whether, if Reta had been there, I would have had either the clarity of vision or the courage to say anything of this. It would have to be different now, whatever Reta’s response to my letter. I had begun to peel the pomegranate, and I would continue.

I was wide awake, though my own muscles were stiff with cold as I climbed back onto the caravan. I thought my brother would be asleep, but he, too, was awake and pondering in the starlight.

“Thank you, Melchi,” he said, “for giving my wife to me.”

I handed him the letter, which he tucked into his robes with a promise of safe and swift delivery. “I have another gift for you, Salvi,” I said. “Or at least I did, though it seems to have disappeared.”

“What are you talking about?”

“A star, Salvi. I found you a new star. Do you remember when you asked me to name a star after you?”

Salvi shook his head.

“It was years ago, after our mother died.”

Salvi shrugged. “And it’s taken you all this time?”

I rolled my eyes. “Stars don’t just show up, Salvi! This one is special.”

“Why?”

“It announces the birth of a new king.”

“But we already have a king.”

“Not us. The Israelites. That’s why I’m out here. We’re on our way to deliver gifts to the new king of Israel.”

“Has someone finally killed the old scorpion? Last I heard he was killing everyone else.”

“Herod. I don’t know if he’s alive or not. Or maybe he’s had a son. We’re headed to Jerusalem.”

“And where is this new star?”

“It was right over there in the west. We’re headed in the direction it used to be in.”

“You’re following an empty place in the sky?” Salvi snorted.

I sighed. “Sometimes it feels like it,” I admitted.

~ 14 ~

Night

I had dozed off when Salvi grabbed my arm. “Someone’s in the camp.”

I was wide awake. “Marauders?”

“They saw the horses and figured you had money.”

Before I could think what should be done, a scuffle broke out in my tent. There were muffled sounds and a yell. Salvi jumped to the ground and ran to the tent. I did not know what to do. I trailed him and was knocked down by a man running out of the tent. When my breath was back, I got up in time to see him ride off. Pursuit was pointless.

Inside the tent, a shocking sight met my eyes. A strange man lay on the floor with my brother and Caspar sitting astride him. Our bags had been torn open and were scattered around the tent. Balzar lay still in the center of it all.

“Are these friends of your family?” Shaz asked, breaking the silence.

My eyes grew wide. “My brother has saved your life, and you question his honor?”

Shaz swallowed hard. I looked at Salvi, who shrugged. “What do you want me to do with this Israelite?”

Caspar spoke. “There’s rope in my pack. We’ll tie him up till morning.”

Balzar had still not moved. While Caspar and Salvi tied the thief up, I crouched next to Balzar. He was shivering, so I wrapped my cloak around him and kissed his cheek. I felt him breathe, rather than speak, words on me: “Seek the star, Melchior.” I looked full into his eyes filled with fading light and nodded. Only then did I notice Balzar’s son standing behind me. I left them together.

Shaz went to make sure our gifts were safe. Caspar, Salvi, and I went outside, stirred the fire’s embers to life again, and sat quietly. We were too shaken to sleep or to speak, though Caspar’s hand on my brother’s shoulder spoke of gratitude and solidarity.

Balzar’s son came out of the tent in the shadows before day broke. His eyes were rimmed red with tears. He shook his head. “He isn’t hurt, but this shock has weakened his heart. I don’t think he can be moved.”

With a heavy heart I looked at Caspar, knowing Shaz would be eager to continue and leave the wilderness. Caspar nodded, but no intervention would be necessary: Balzar died an hour later.

We buried Balzar at the oasis, employing our thief to dig a grave and to cover the body with heavy stones. Salvi and Taz stayed for the burial but had to resume their journey east. My brother and uncle gave me long, warm embraces.

“You are doing what you have always longed to do,” Taz said in my ear. “I am so glad.” Tears slid from my tired, grieving eyes. I did not want to move.

Salvi punched my arm lightly, and I looked up. “I will not forget,” Salvi promised, patting his bag. “Reta will soon have your letter.”

I had forgotten. The remembrance was bittersweet; Reta would miss Balzar too. I quickly added a note to my letter, telling of Balzar’s death and burial and asking Reta to send word to the chief astronomer. Soon, my family was gone.

As we sorted through our scattered belongings, Caspar handed me a small scroll with my name on it. I did not recognize it or the writing, so I quickly tore it open and found the writer’s name. It was Reta. Stunned, I sat down to read.

My dearest Melchior,

I write this as I watch you sleep. Words somehow get stuck in me when I try to talk to you, so I will write what I can instead.

You think I am angry—and I am, but mostly at myself for being so scared and silent. You must feel you are married to a foolish girl who has nothing to say—and yet it is not true!

I feel, Melchior, as though a sheet or a skin stands between us, covering us from each other. For years I worried that this distance was what prevented us from having a child. Now I am less superstitious, but perhaps also freer to remove the cover from my own heart since we will soon be joined by this child.

As this child quickens inside me and I stroke my belly, I am reminded of my own mother’s touch and of our child’s heritage. I am afraid I could die while you are gone or that something might happen to you, and so I must put words to my heart—though I feel as though I am tumbling into a well as I write, wondering how you will receive my words—lest our marriage be swallowed up and rendered invisible forever. At the very least you need to know now why I married you. Of course if I am a foolish girl and you return home safely and I am safely delivered as I pray to be, I can only hope that you will understand and accept.

So why did I marry you? Because I could tell you weren’t simply looking for a cook. Because you were the first person since my mother died who looked at me as a person. Because I knew of your passion for the stars, and I dared to hope that a man with such passion might learn to love with intensity. I think of my parents, and I still dare to hope.

My father was much older than my mother, though they were both members of the same community. Exiles we called ourselves, remnants of our people who had decided to remain in the new country even after the captivity had ended. We often talked of home, and from an early age I knew that home was not where I lived but somewhere I had never been. I am both amused and saddened that you will see my home and I will not. It makes me wish to be with you.

But I was born already on a journey, part of my people’s journey. Always they talked of home, of going home, of things from home, even as they participated in the life of their adopted country. Whether to actually go home was a source of endless pondering. I remember my uncle shaking his head and wondering aloud what would become of the next generation when he saw us playing with the local children and learning their language better than our mother tongue. His business prospered enough to keep him from packing his bags, but he was the most devout Jew I ever knew, and he insisted that his daughter as well as his sons learn to read and write in Hebrew.

I joined their household when I was twelve, after my father died. My uncle was my father’s brother, and he took my mother and me into his household, for which we were grateful. We occupied a strange place in my uncle’s household—neither servant nor family. My mother was still young and lovely, and I could see my aunt looked at her as a potential rival for my uncle’s attentions, though this was foolishness. Something vital went out of my mother after my father’s death. She turned to me for someone she could touch, and she told me story after story as we lay awake at night. I had always known my parents to be kind and respectful to each other, but my mother’s nighttime stories revealed to me a depth of love I had not suspected between them. She did not tell me stories a child should not hear, but as she stroked my hair at night, I sensed her longing for my father take on all the intensity of our people’s longing for Jerusalem. My father had been the home of my mother’s love, and I was the result. Despite the tears my mother shed onto my hair, my mat, and even my ear, I felt increasing happiness as I grew to appreciate my father more and to know myself as a child of their love. This was the richest gift my parents gave to me.

I was just fourteen when my mother died of fever. I missed her dreadfully, but her stories and her love had woven a blanket around me that held me securely. I had also come to have faith in the Lord God of Israel. Some time after we joined my uncle’s household, my uncle invited me to join Miriam, my cousin, at her Hebrew lessons and her prayers. The stories of the Lord’s care for our people sustained me. What I missed were my mother’s hands stroking my hair, and I used to lie in bed and run my hand over my own head and pretend she was there.

It was when my uncle became sick that everything changed. Fearing he would die, as his brother had done, without seeing his homeland, he became obsessed with returning to Jerusalem. I found myself back in my former position outside the family circle. My uncle was sick and single-minded and open to his wife’s suggestion that I be left behind when they journeyed to Jerusalem. My uncle knew your family, and when he heard of your mother’s death, he sent me to your father.

I have told you only small pieces of this before. Melchi, we have revealed so little of our hearts to each other, and for this, I blame only myself.

My heart swelled with joy at this unexpected blessing in the desert. Such a strange and full night it had been. After days of emptiness in the desert, to be reconciled with a brother and a wife and to lose my dearest friend was much to take in. It would take time, but now we were poised on the edge of Israel.

As we set off on our mounts, the air was cool for once, and I breathed in deeply. The restraints that had held me back no longer gripped my heart, and I felt a pull toward Jerusalem and the new king of Israel, just as Balzar had felt in his dream. I thought of Balzar’s dream. It had forecast his death as he had thought, as well as our journey across the desert. Balzar’s heart had long been weak, and he could have died in his own bed, as he had said. Though my heart keened with loss, I was happy he had died as he had lived, in pursuit of the stars. Looking at the empty place in the sky, I remembered his final words to me.

Two days later, we came to our first Israelite town. Entering its gates, Shaz found the city elders in the square and presented them with our marauder. Heads were shaken and eyebrows raised with recognition of the man. We were assured that justice would be done in the matter of Balzar’s death. We were prepared to trade for food and water but found ourselves welcomed with hospitality and delicious food. For the first time, I was glad for Shaz and Caspar’s presence on the trip: they had skills of diplomacy I did not have, knowing what to say and when to say it. Shaz sometimes said too much, but Caspar was a restraining influence on him and a good listener.

When we resumed our journey toward Jerusalem, Caspar shook his head as he spoke. “They know nothing of a new king or a star. And Herod most certainly is alive. It is he who built the library we just saw. They seem to see him as a most progressive king.”

“And so he is!” Shaz smiled. “It will be a pleasure to honor him! I wonder if we will be the first to arrive.” With this ambitious thought and no Balzar to slow our progress, Shaz urged us quickly through the rocky, mountainous terrain on our descent toward the city of Jerusalem.

As we crossed the last of the mountains, the city of Jerusalem rose on the plain before us, an impressive sight. Though farther from the border, the people of Jerusalem seemed less surprised by our presence and appearance. We soon saw why—in the public square were many foreigners. Indeed there were people from every corner of the world, including Jews who had returned from exile. Shining in the sunlight stood the magnificent half-completed temple, which would be a lasting memorial to Herod’s reign. We entered its outer courts to survey its beauty—I had never seen such a marvel of gold and white stone—before Shaz reminded us of our purpose in the city. We found one of the city’s elders, who was pleased to escort foreign astronomers to the court, where Herod was holding state in this dry season.

~ 15 ~

King

The man himself was small and twitchy. The condition appeared to be contagious. At Herod’s slightest move, a swarm of people would oblige him, almost panicked in their haste. The atmosphere around the man was one of great terror, with Herod at the center of everything. I found myself watching his face. The face we saw was welcoming, but Herod’s hands gripped his chair like talons, causing me to recall my dream and wonder if another face lay beneath and what sort of face it might be. My heart pounded as the doors closed behind us.

I could see Shaz was bursting with excitement. These were the moments he savored: opulent surroundings, men of power, all eyes on him. I stood to the side of the group, where I could watch the rituals Shaz had explained would take place.

There were none. Eyes glittering, Herod leaned forward and addressed us: “What is it you want?”

Shaz swallowed, adjusting to the situation, paring back the words he had prepared. “Where is he who is born king of the Jews? We have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

A vein throbbed in Herod’s neck, and a tremor ran through the room.

“King of the Jews? Star?” Herod spoke too quietly.

“Your son?” Shaz offered with an ingratiatingly hopeful smile.

Herod stood up. With no further words, we were dismissed.

The air seemed lighter outside of Herod’s throne room. Shaz, however, was at a loss to understand what to do next. He scowled at me, wondering perhaps if my Hebrew prophecy had misled our journey. I wondered this—not for the first time—myself. Caspar spoke courteously to one of Herod’s attendants, explaining that we were ambassadors from our king and inquiring whether we might be permitted to refresh ourselves after our long journey and to stable our horses for the night. The attendants conferred, then disappeared into Herod’s chambers once again. One of Herod’s quivering advisers returned with the attendant. We were immediately escorted to the palace, where we were housed in rooms with soft beds raised off the floor. We were shown a room where we might bathe. We left Shaz in this room, where he insisted he could think best, and sent our own servants off with the attendants to stable the horses and to find food for us. Balzar’s son now occupied a strange position on this trip: officially he was still one of our servants, but in reality he was an astronomer, and out of respect for his father, we treated him as one of the delegation.

“You can stay with us and bathe, Hasin,” Caspar volunteered.

Hasin smiled his appreciation but shook his head. “I want to go, to see what I can learn.”

I was eager to bathe. My muscles were aching from the long ride, and my heart ached with grief. I felt I could not completely exhale in this foreign city, but Herod’s bathing pools were legendary, and if anything could soothe me, a bath would be it.

When we arrived at the pool, Shaz was floating on his back, a perturbed look on his face. We did not have to ask the reason for his frustration. As soon as he became aware of us, Shaz spluttered out his complaint.

“Look at these girls! What kind of royal bath is this? No wonder Herod is out of temper—not one of them would come into the water with me.”

I looked at the trio of young girls who stood along the edge of the room, and I thought of Reta. “Hebrew girls are modest,” I said.

“Modest?” Shaz snorted. “Girls aren’t in a palace to be modest. Not in a pool just to stand there.”

There was no arguing with Shaz and his various desires. I realized Caspar had submerged himself in the warm salt water, and I did likewise. The water was soothing. I felt my muscles unfold and grains of sand fall out from every corner of my body.

Nearly three weeks had passed since I left Reta. I thought of her in this center of her homeland, a place she had never been. Perhaps someday I could take her and our child to Jerusalem. An image of Herod crossed my mind like a shadow, and I thought perhaps I would not.

After we emerged from the pool, the young girls indicated mats on the floor, where we stretched out while they rubbed aromatic oils onto our feet. I glanced over at Shaz and rolled my eyes at his unmistakable arousal. I thought of Stela and how utterly foolish she had been to marry this man. Then as the herbs, the warmth, and the massage began to sink in, I drifted off to sleep.

The next thing I knew, the room was darker. Several hours had passed, and the sun had changed places, casting long shadows across my now-chilled body. I could hear the sound of water splashing, and I sat up. It was Hasin, refreshing himself in the pool. Caspar, who had also slept, now rolled over. Shaz was gone, and I felt some misgivings for the virtue of the young Hebrew girls. Hasin climbed out of the water and stood dripping before us.

“Herod sent a messenger for Shaz, just a few minutes ago,” he explained. “I passed him in the corridor.”

Hasin dried himself. Caspar propped himself on his elbow.

“What did you find?”

Hasin shook his head. “It’s amazing how news travels,” he said. “The whole city is stirred up, troubled even. Everyone knew who we were, and no one was happy to see us. At each stall I was asked, ‘Are you the foreigners who brought the threat to our king?’ I kept repeating, ‘We mean peace to Israel and her king,’ or I would never have been sold food. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been asked to leave the gates before sunset.”

Caspar and I stood up.

“I guess Herod has no son,” I said as we gathered our clothes and hurriedly dressed.

“Or doesn’t want one,” Caspar replied

“Do you think we misunderstood the stars?” I asked, afraid to hear Caspar’s answer.

He shrugged. “No. There is a new king. Why else would Herod be so troubled?”

Shaz did not return to our room until late that night. He had enjoyed Herod’s full hospitality of food, wine, and women, having discovered that not all Hebrew women were modest. Shaz had never been treated so well by our own king, and we could see immediately that he would not share the apprehension we felt.

“Herod wants a secret audience with us in one hour’s time,” he announced. Exchanging eloquent glances, we prepared for a second meeting with Herod. Shaz fell into a satisfied sleep and had to be awakened when Herod’s advisers knocked on the door. This time we were conducted not to the throne room but to one of Herod’s private rooms. He was alone and had various scrolls and maps spread on a table in front of him. His face was crimson and drenched with sweat, though his expression had not changed from our first encounter.

Herod carefully questioned us about when the star had appeared to us and when it had disappeared. He read to us the Jewish prophecy that indicated that the king of the Jews, the Messiah, was to be born in King David’s city—in Bethlehem—and asked us to search diligently for the child, reporting back to him so that he could also go and worship.

Nothing could have induced me to speak or draw attention to myself. I could not be out of his lair soon enough. I was relieved when the interview was not prolonged. As we bowed and prepared to leave, Herod suddenly added, “I have arranged for your leader to remain with us a while longer. It turns out he is not only a brilliant astronomer but a cousin of my dear Mariamne. She will be so pleased to see him.”

Shaz smiled broadly. I was alarmed. Surely Shaz was not taken in by this man? And yet Shaz had heard exactly what his flattery-loving ears craved. What did Herod want with him? Wisps of fear curled inside my stomach. No conversation was sanctioned, and so with hidden heavy hearts, promises to return, and swift feet, we made our exit, gathering our servants and horses from the famous stables. We were swiftly escorted out of Jerusalem as day was nearly breaking.

“Is he dead then?” one of the servants whispered to me as we rode.

I shrugged. “He’s staying behind.”

The servant whistled and dropped back to share the news.

As the city gates closed behind us, we gathered around Caspar, who had become our leader without discussion. Caspar pointed at the eastern sky. There, far above the pinkish tints of sunrise, shone the moving star. Joy dawned on our faces, and the conversation of concern and strategy we were about to have melted away. Elated, we set off in the direction the star led, which was indeed Bethlehem.

~ 16 ~

Wonders

The journey was short, but now, wary of Herod, we were cautious of revealing our plans to anyone. We arrived in Bethlehem in the heat of the day and were greeted with the same hospitality we had been welcomed with in every Hebrew town. All Caspar would say to inquiries was that we were on a diplomatic mission on behalf of our king and that we were passing through their village. None of the rumors and fears in Jerusalem had yet reached this little town, and so his simple explanation was accepted. We had decided not to explain the details of our quest but to find any possible king ourselves; in a small town, we reasoned, it would not be easy to hide a king. And yet life seemed perfectly normal. If the elders were bursting with civic pride at housing royalty, they certainly hid it well. Children were everywhere, greatly admiring and petting our horses, and I found my eyes drawn to them, wondering if one might be the king. We were invited to sleep in the home of one of the village elders, and, our search for the king incomplete, we happily accepted the offer.

In the middle of the night, I was startled awake. My heart pounded, and I breathed heavily. The house was still. I sat up, taking care not to wake Caspar, who slept beside me. When time had passed and still the household was quiet, I began to search my mind for dreams, wondering if that was what had awakened me. In an instant, the vision came flooding back, frightening me with its intensity.

Bodies. Dead children clutched by grief-torn parents. Shaz’s body broken beside the road. I felt the menace of Herod’s wrath, and the thought came clearly into my mind that no matter what else happened, we must not return to Jerusalem. In an instant, I was ready to return home, convinced of the imminent danger. So certain was I that I shook Caspar awake and told him my dream in all its detail.

Caspar was a strong believer in dreams, and he got up and began to pace the floor, considering seriously what I had dreamed. He reached into his bag for our ephemerides to understand whether an omen was foretold. He moved to the window to read in the moonlight and suddenly gasped. Fearing that my dream had already come true, I ran to look at what had arrested his attention. The ground below was shadowy but undisturbed. Caspar shook his head and pointed above.

There in the east, the star we had followed now hung so low that we could almost touch it. As we watched, it proceeded across the houses of the town and then came to rest.

“Our mission is not yet accomplished, Melchior,” Caspar said at last, when we saw that the star moved no more. “I swear by the gods—this star will show us the king of the Jews, and I will go this night to present him with our gifts.”

I stared at him in wonder. “In the middle of the night? They will never open to us.”

“They must!” said Caspar with urgency. “Your dream convinces me that we are in more danger the longer we stay here. Herod will find us, and we will see another side to him.”

I agreed to join Caspar. As we dressed, Hasin awoke, insisted on accompanying us, and was ready in a moment. We climbed down the staircase from the roof, pointing out the low-hanging star to Hasin, who marveled at it. When we reached the stables, Caspar spoke to the servant who stood guard. We set off through the deserted streets, carrying a lumpy bag that had seen many years in the desert. I had no idea what we would say if we were caught, and I quickly said a prayer of sorts to whoever might hear me, that we might be safe.

Indeed we were the only ones on the streets.

We walked silently through the town, eyes directed upward and ears attuned for any sound. Finally we found the star’s resting place. Starlight poured on a small house, like cool, clear water over a bowl, richer and brighter than moonlight. I looked around. We had moved out of the prosperous part of town; we were near the market, in the merchant district. We stood in front of the light-drenched door and looked at one another. Caspar took a deep breath before knocking softly. My dream and the knowledge of Herod’s marauders caused my heart to quicken as the house remained silent and we stood exposed in the starlight in the street. After a while, I despaired that anyone would ever answer the door. Caspar dared to knock a second time, this time low and insistent. Noise stirred within, and a different anxiety gripped my heart: we had journeyed after a silent, moving star, following ancient prophecies, but this small house was different. We would face people who would either dismiss us as fools or perhaps—

The door opened a crack, and a gruff voice spoke from the darkness.

“Who’s there?”

I exchanged glances with Caspar and Hasin before speaking. “We are travelers,” I said, hoping the simplest truth would gain us entry. It quickly became apparent that Hebrew hospitality was less universal at the third watch of the night.

“What do you want?”

“Direction,” I said, suddenly inspired. “And perhaps a cup of water.”

The darkness grunted, and the crack widened. A man’s face emerged into the starlight. Squinting, he looked at us. “How many of you are there?”

“Just three,” I responded.

“May we come in?” Caspar asked. “I realize the hour is late.”

“It’s very late,” the man said with a yawn. “You can come in.”

As the door closed behind us, I exhaled and looked around. The only light inside was from a dim lamp held by the man, which he placed on a low table. After the brightness of the night sky, the house was dark and shadowy. At the same time, it was clearly not a palace. I felt a mixture of disappointment—surely we were mistaken in our destination—and confidence. For once, city-born scholars Caspar and Hasin were in foreign territory, with no idea how to speak to this rough-haired laborer, while I felt instantly at home.

Having allowed us entry, the man now seemed to decide he should embrace us as his guests. I was amused by the awkwardness of my companions, but when the man reached for me, I apologized for my bad hand.

“I wove rugs for many years, until an accident—”

The man’s eyes brightened with recognition, sparkling in the dimness, as he revealed a finger missing from his left hand. “I am a carpenter,” he said. He gestured for us to sit. “What leads a rug maker and his friends into the streets so late in the night?”

“Since my accident—even before it—I have studied the stars,” I said. “My friends and I are magi. We come from a land east of Israel, where we study stars for our king.”

“How does this bring you to Bethlehem? What is this direction you said you needed? Are you lost?”

I swallowed. The time had come. We were face-to-face with a man who could determine the success of our journey. My heart pounded faster than it had when we faced Herod with the same questions. “Could I perhaps trouble you for that cup of water?”

The man rose, apologizing for forgetting our need. As he did, a woman emerged from the shadows and put her hands on the man’s shoulders, indicating that he should sit again.

“I’ll get it, Joseph,” she said. In the dark, I heard the trickling sound of water, and then she handed a cup to each of us.

“Thank you,” I said, taking a slow draught. The coolness of the water clarified the tumult in my mind, and I spoke to the two, who were watching me intently.

“Some moons ago, a new star appeared in the sky and began to move in a way stars do not move. We watch the sky for signs that tell us what may happen on earth. This star was certainly a sign of something important.

“Perhaps you know the Hebrew prophecies of a king being foretold by a star? That’s how we have come to understand this star. And so we have followed the star in the direction it led, and tonight it seemed to lead us directly to your home.”

There was silence. I looked around the room. My eyes had adjusted to the dimness, and now I saw that though the windows were covered, light from the star seeped in at every crack, like little stars in a dark sky. The silence continued, but the man and woman looked out at the light. Caspar cleared his throat. “We are not drunk as you may suppose—”

“No,” the man said slowly. “No, I do not suppose that you are. This star—you have followed it?”

“As it has moved across the sky.”

“Looking for a king?”

“Yes.” I took another drink. “Can you give us any direction?”

Joseph turned to look at his wife. I could not see his face, but I could see hers, urging him to trust, to tell, to believe. Her smile was that of a little girl who has been happily surprised once again. “I think you have come to the right place,” he said simply.

My heart began to pound, and I felt Caspar and Hasin flutter behind me.

“It is you who may doubt us,” the man added.

“Please tell us all you can.”

An incredible story poured forth, one that made ours sound commonplace. Angel visitations, virgin fullness, joy and sorrow, dreams and resolutions, promises, panic and pain—a child—squalor and shepherds, glory and—

“God,” the woman said, forming the sound lovingly, reverently. “God chose me.” A giggle escaped her lips, a spring of joy bubbling from a hidden source. “My child is his own.”

I was confused, unsure how this tale of wonders connected with our journey. We were seeking a king, not a carpenter’s miracle son.

“We are seeking the king of the Jews,” I explained. I gestured around me. “Your child—can he be—he cannot be—the king of the Jews?”

Joseph looked deeply at me with long-suffering eyes. “Our people have waited a long time for a Savior to come. God acts in ways we cannot understand, but our child is indeed his Son.”

“The Lord has told me my son will reign forever on David’s throne,” the woman said.

“How can he be a king here in Bethlehem?” Caspar asked incredulously.

“What about Herod?” I added.

She shrugged. “The Lord chooses the king. He says Yeshua will save our people from our sins.”

“That’s a new kind of king!” I said.

“Yes!” she said firmly. “It is. The Lord is doing many new things in our midst.”

Excitement seized me. Had I believed until this point that our journey might find a resting place? That the star had indeed been a message we had received? Suddenly I was aware that it was no accident we had seen the star and had interpreted its meaning correctly. Perhaps Someone had even sent the message to us. I felt an urge to laugh, my heart light with joy and prickling with wonder.

“Would you like to see him?” Joseph asked. I nodded. The woman slipped into the shadows once again and returned with a bundle within her robes.

We left the table and gathered on the floor around her as though we were children eager for a treat or a story. The baby sitting on her lap was now wide awake and interested in the activity around him. When I looked at the child, I felt disappointed: there was nothing particularly different about him from the other babies I had seen in the town square that day. I would not likely be able to remember what he looked like once we left.

Hasin knelt beside me, fully prepared to worship. He had been trained at his mother’s knee to await this Messiah, and I could see that he was grateful to be a witness to a promise fulfilled. Caspar still looked doubtful, though he was willing to sit at the woman’s feet.

Fearful of hurting the child, I reached out with my bad hand to touch him, wondering if he would feel like an ordinary baby. He did, butter-soft skin on his naked legs. Then the child grasped my finger, and suddenly I was no longer in the room, no longer in any room, but whirling through the stars, spinning round and round, anchored only at my hand. It was my dream, my old dream, only real. I looked at the unmoving star that held my hand, saw the baby’s face, and heard a voice.

“Melchior. I am. I am.”

And then the child let go and began to play with his mother’s loosened hair, and I fell to the ground, my hand tingling as though with starlight. Tears poured from my eyes, and I began to pray, deeply from the heart. Somehow, this baby in this carpenter’s home, in the middle of the village night, was the magnificent unmoving star, the center of all moving things, of all life, of the whole world. The gods of my father and my land seemed suddenly like child’s toys, like foolish superstition. This was reality. This was what I had sought my entire life. This desire had been placed in my heart by this baby, this God, and he had filled it. I felt entirely small and yet blessedly significant at the same time. I felt loved as I had not since my beautiful mother died. I had been securely held all my life and led on this journey for the purpose of discovering this truth, of discovering God. Balzar had been right those months before when he said that the deepest desire of my heart might indeed lead me closer to God. The seeker of stars had been sought and found. There was nothing religious about this; it was holy and true.

We unwrapped gifts for the baby. Lavish, extravagant, impractical gifts. The mother gasped at the gold we held before her child. He tried to stuff one of the coins in his mouth before Joseph removed them to safety. The frankincense and myrrh in their heavy vessels we presented to the family, and I laid my heart before the child.

With the reticence of men, neither Hasin nor Caspar, nor even Joseph said anything of my tears, but the woman placed her hand on my head and said, “His mercy extends from generation to generation to those who fear him.”

I felt it as a blessing on my whole family, even on my son who was about to be born.

When all the gifts were presented, we sat back.

“Are we the first? To recognize him as the Messiah?” Hasin asked eagerly.

The woman laughed again. “I’m afraid not,” she said gently. “The Lord has already sent worshippers and prophets, though you are the only kings—”

“We’re not kings,” I interrupted, though our finery might have misled her. “We come on behalf of our king … and ourselves.”

As we rose to leave before the sun rose and our absence was discovered, Caspar apologized again for our clandestine visit.

The woman smiled. “I was not sleeping. The starlight woke the baby, and I was holding him in it when you knocked.”

~ 17 ~

Home

We rode at full gallop for three days, with pauses only to ensure the health of our horses. We needed to be well past the reach of Israel’s king as soon as possible, and we avoided the highway, sticking to the pass through the mountains.

For my part, the pace was welcome for several reasons. My spirit soared with the recollection of the infant king we had left behind—God had indeed lifted the veil from my eyes to worship and praise this child. Another baby also spurred me homeward: my own child would surely have been born by now. And Reta—my heart welled up with new longing for my wife. Her letter and the changes wrought in me on this journey made me crave her as she had been revealed to me.

Danger to our lives was, however, the practical reality that sped our journey. Even as we packed to leave Bethlehem, Caspar gathered us together—magi, guards, and servants—speaking freely of the accomplishment of our journey’s task and then his fears, my dream, and our necessity for haste and discretion. We talked of finding Shaz but knew that either he would laugh at us for seeking him or he would already be dead—depending on which way Herod’s whim had fallen—and so, reluctantly, we left him to find his own way. I did not envy Caspar telling Stela.

We broke into two groups, with Caspar leading one along with the guards and me leading the other with the servants. We needed to pack lightly, and so we took some of our belongings to the child’s father, Joseph. Caspar was reluctant to confide our plans to Joseph for fear that the man might suffer for his knowledge, but we did warn him to beware of the king and his representatives who might feign homage.

Joseph listened to all we said—and to what we did not say. Then he nodded. “We will soon be on our way home to Nazareth. There our son should be safe. Your gifts will help us on our journey. The Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you.”

It was the same blessing Reta had spoken over me in her fear and grief at the beginning of my journey. The journey to the child’s cradle had been a long one. I had traveled down years of my life I had only existed through before. I had reconciled with a brother and my beloved wife, and even with the Creator of my beauties. He was a God who delighted in small things—the stars, tiny but perfect, set in their places in the dance, leading those who would look to the small, perfect wonder of the infant king.

The night skies had shifted once again. No longer was I following a moving star, but I was following its Maker. The dark spaces between the stars were still mysterious but no longer troubling, and all the joy I had felt as a little boy, gazing at my dancing beauties, was back, and more. Finally the stars were a guide to me, familiar though glorious; they helped me set a course that was true.

Where my thoughts on the journey to Bethlehem had been heavy and circuitous, now my heart leaped with one simple thought: I’m going home.

We were well into our own country when I realized Hasin lagged behind the rest. One long day’s ride would take me to my heart’s desire, and my mouth longed to be there more than it yearned for water. I swallowed my impatience and dropped back to ride with Balzar’s son.

“Is your horse well? Are you ill?” I asked. He shook his head. As my horse slowed to meet the pace of the other horse, I suddenly felt in my body what my companion must feel.

“Balzar,” I said quietly.

“My heart grows heavier as we approach home.”

I was silent, feeling the grief. I felt a throb in my bad hand.

“It’s one thing in a foreign land where everything is different and when we’ve been running for our lives, but now that we’ve made it, the ache rises up,” Hasin said. “My father should be with us—or at home to hear our stories.”

I wiped a tear. Balzar had been a father to me among the cabal, a force of laughter and love. There would be a huge hole in my life. I considered how much more Balzar’s son would miss his father. The intimacy I had envied was now gone. I looked over and saw tears streaming down his face.

I had never tried to embrace anyone from a horse or a camel, and the task struck me as impossible now. Still, as we rode on in silence, I didn’t want Balzar’s son to interpret my silence as indifference. A tune Balzar had sung drifted into my head, and without thinking, I began to sing, remembering Balzar’s rich voice as he sang it. I glanced over and saw a rainbow: tears pouring down Hasin’s cheeks and across his smiling mouth, into his beard. When I finished, he said, “That was my mother’s song. My father sang it to keep her memory alive. And now you have kept his memory for me. Thank you, my friend.”

I bowed across my reins.

“I’m taking his name,” Hasin said. “I’m to be called Balthazar from now on. It really is my first name, but my mother insisted on calling me by my middle name to avoid confusion. She never could say my father’s full name correctly.”

“She was half-Jewish, I think?”

“All Jewish actually.”

“But Balzar said—”

“It was my parents’ joke. That she was Jewish at home and Gentile in the world, so that made her half-Jewish.”

I smiled, thinking of Reta, who played essentially the same game.

“So it is you who are half-Jewish … like my child waiting for me.”

Now Balthazar was intrigued. “Your child? Your wife … she is a Jew?”

“Half-Jewish, your mother would say, but yes, Reta is an Israelite, and she will have borne my child while we have been on this journey.”

“A good reason for you to hurry back!” Balthazar said, smiling. Then, setting his face toward the city, he said, “My hurry is pointless. I have no family waiting for me. Since my mother’s death there has only been my father and I.”

“I envied your closeness,” I said.

Balthazar looked up with the unconsciousness of a child with a loving parent—to him, such a father was as natural and familiar as breathing, and he presumed it to be the rule.

“It is no consolation now that Balzar is gone,” I said carefully, “but I think he was a rare treasure of a father. He taught me much about the kind of father I mean to be.”

Balthazar took this in quietly. “I’m lost without him,” he said.

“Come home with me,” I said impulsively.

Balthazar shook his head with a laugh. “A new baby and a guest? I don’t think so. You’ll want to see your family.”

“With all my heart, yes! And I mean no sacrilege to the infant king we have worshipped, but I suspect every baby needs as many admirers and lovers as possible. My brother will not be there to praise my son. Perhaps you could stand in.”

Balthazar smiled again.

“I will warn you,” I said, my light heart returning, “to be prepared with compliments for my child. And that I may not be an attentive host at all times.”

Balthazar laughed again. “Your wife won’t mind?”

I laughed. “Reta is a jewel. This will not trouble her!”

“As long as all is well then,” Balthazar said. A brief jolt of anxiety ran over me but was soon gone again, serving only to increase my impatience to be home.

“Let’s be there for dinner!” I took the reins in both hands and raced ahead of the servants, who hurried to keep up.

By the time we approached the city gates, the sun was low in the sky. We had ridden a three-week journey in nine days. We were worn, dirty, and exhausted. Our horses were weary. Balthazar and I left the horses in the care of the servants at the city gate. As we took leave of them on wobbly legs, I put an arm around each of the two faithful men who had served us well and without questioning; they had been pleasant and useful companions, and I told them so. I told them I would tell the chief astronomer and urged them to go home as soon as the horses were tended and word of our arrival was sent to the astronomers.

My legs were heavy on the ground and my bad hand twitched at intervals, but I was eager to be home. We met several people who greeted us, but no one spoke either of our journey or of my wife. It was good that way. I wanted no intermediaries.

The door to my home was opened by one of the Hebrew midwives, who smiled at my ragged appearance and pointed upstairs. I took the stairs in three bounds and ran into Reta’s room, where she reclined on the bed, and I flung my head into her lap.

“Melchior! You’re filthy!” The voice was my sister’s. Reta’s hands stroked my hair, unmatting and untangling it. I did not raise my head. For once, Daria would not be obeyed. Sensing either her own defeat or perhaps that she was intruding, Daria retreated down the stairs.

I looked up at last at Reta’s face and marveled that I could ever have lost sight of who she really was. Her eyes were large and shining with joy and love. Our letters had passed and the journey had stripped our hearts bare. I could tell I had been forgiven, though I still needed to ask it. In reply, Reta bent her head over mine and kissed me deeply.

“Now, Melchi, isn’t there anything else you wanted to ask about?” she said, voice bursting with delight.

“The baby! Oh, Reta! The baby has come! I shouldn’t—are you all right? The baby—is it—is he—it is a—”

Reta smiled and pointed to the small woven basket on the floor. There, nestled among soft blankets, was a tiny face whose beauty took my breath away. My eyes grew wide, and tears coursed down my cheeks.

“Our son,” Reta said. “Just as we thought.”

“And when?”

“Three days ago. I couldn’t wait any longer for you. I’m sorry, Melchi.”

“No. I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” I looked at my hands. “I can’t pick him up. I’ll ruin him.”

Reta pointed to a basin and towel on the table, and I washed my aching hands and sand-etched face. Then I felt afraid to lift my son, afraid I would hurt him. I lifted the basket instead, and Reta scooped him out. Then the baby—my son—began to wail. Reta loosened her robe and offered a breast to the baby. I was filled with longing. She was more desirable than ever, and I remembered the Reta who had met me after another feverish journey so many years before. What was it about suddenly seeing this woman that destroyed my defenses? This time I would not forget. I would learn to savor this wife of mine so that familiarity would not become a barrier between us.

I stroked the baby’s foot with a finger and then his hand, and his fingers curled around mine. I thought of that other baby holding my finger and my realization of who he was.

“I saw another baby, Reta.”

“A baby?”

“The star led us to a king as we had thought, but he was just a baby—bigger than this, but still a baby. Reta …” I paused, and she looked at me. “Reta, I think he is the one from your prophecies.”

“The Promised One,” she mouthed.

“The Messiah who will save his people,” I said. “Reta, I worshipped him.” Her eyes betrayed surprise. “I did. Reta, have I ever told you about my dream?”

She shook her head.

“You know the unmoving star—the one in the north? For as long as I can remember—before my accident, before my mother died, and Omar—I have had a dream where I reach up and touch the unmoving star and hold it with my hand and move about it in the dance of the night sky. Reta, when our baby holds my hand, I feel a sense of belonging—that my father and his father and I—all our blood is in his veins. I feel proud. But when this baby king held my finger, Reta—I was suddenly spinning around the stars. He was what I had sought all my life. I knew, Reta—I knew. You asked me once if I believed in my father’s gods, if I worshipped them. I thought I did in my own way, as much as I could. But it has been the stars that have—they have been the object of my worship. Only now it is what is behind the stars. Who, I should say. Your God, Reta, has been leading me all my life to this journey. I have no idea why, but he dazzled me with his beauties, and now he’s shown me his face. All I know, Reta, is that this is true, and I want you to teach me more about this God—me and our son.”

My finger was numb in my son’s powerful grip. I slipped it out and wrapped my arm around Reta, who sat taking it all in, much as the young mother in Bethlehem had. I could feel her smile against my arm and heard her whisper again, “The Promised One.” She shifted and looked at the baby’s face, as if to tell him the news, and said again, “The Promised One.”

A knock came. Daria had returned and was standing in the doorway.

“Well, Melchior,” she said, in her laughing, imperial manner, “it seems you have brought an equally grubby guest with you.”

“Balzar’s son,” I explained to Reta. She nodded, an expression of pain and remembrance crossing her face, then smiled. Daria crossed her arms.

“Strange sense of hospitality, Melchior,” she said, feigning petulance. “I don’t know how Reta puts up with you. I hope your friend cleans up well.”

I suddenly had a vision of this Balthazar in Daria’s apartment, and the thought made me smile with possibility. “I think he will. And I think you’ll like him.”

She rolled her eyes, but she blushed.

“I’ll clean up soon too, I promise. But Daria, how did you come to be here?”

Her eyes twinkled. “Someone had to deliver your letter to Reta. When Salvi came home with your letter, he wanted to stay at home for a while, he said, and he would help Leyla with the looms and would learn more about the trade. And Leyla and I both felt badly for Reta being here alone, so I invited myself to come and take care of things.”

“There was never a more welcome guest,” said Reta, smiling gratitude at my sister.

I reached an arm out to Daria, but she snorted in disgust and headed downstairs.

The baby was now gazing around in wonder with his black-bead eyes.

“Hold him, Melchi,” Reta said. She lifted the baby into my arms. I held my breath as I felt the gentle weight of him, the soft rise and fall of his chest under my hands. His head began to wobble to the side, but I caught it quickly. His eyes, bright dots illuminating them, searched the contours of my face.

“You have stars in your eyes,” I whispered. “I’ll show you all the stars, little one.”

Then I gasped, realizing that I had righted my son’s head with my bad hand. I thought quickly back and recalled pain and use of the hand on my trip home. We had been in such haste that I hadn’t paid attention. With an electrifying chill, I became aware that I had been healing since the infant king held my hand. “I’ll show you the unmoving star,” I whispered to my own son.

I turned to Reta, who was smiling at us. “Does he have—we didn’t talk about names,” I said.

She shook her head. “I don’t know what name is appropriate here. And I couldn’t name him without you. I just call him my yalud—my own lamb.”

I looked at him and flexed my hand. The idea forming in my head was too audacious. I felt self-conscious to say it even to Reta, and I could not think how my family or the cabal would respond. I stretched my hand once again and took the leap.

“The baby in Israel, the infant king, they called him Yeshua,” I said. “Reta, I’d like to name our son after him.”

Reta did not speak. I did not know how to read her silence, so I filled it with words. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. And I’m not sure what it means. It’s just—I think I want to declare myself as a follower of your God, this Yeshua, the unmoving star.”

Reta sat perfectly still as she spoke. “It means ‘the Lord is salvation.’ It was my own father’s name.” A smile dawned on her face. “Oh, Melchior, I can feel the stars dancing!”

If you enjoyed Seeker of Stars, I would be honored if you would tell others by writing a review. Go here to write a review on Amazon.

Thank you!

—Susan Fish

References

Cahill, Thomas. The Gift of the Jews. New York: Anchor Books, 1998.

Hoppe, Leslie J. A Guide to the Lands of the Bible. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999.

Johnson, Paul. Civilizations of the Holy Land. New York: Scribner: 1979.

“Magus,” TheMystica.org, February 14, 2012, http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/m/magus.html.

Meilsheim, D. The World of Ancient Israel. New York: Tudor, 1973.

Moss, Carol. Science in Ancient Mesopotamia. New York: Children’s Press, 1998.

Service, Pamela F. Mesopotamia. New York: Benchmark Books, 1999.

Smither, Ethel L. A Picture Book of Palestine. Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1947.

Thesiger, Wilfred. Desert, Marsh and Mountain. New York: Flamingo, 2001.

SEEKER OF STARS

Published by David C Cook

4050 Lee Vance View

Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

David C Cook Distribution Canada

55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of David C Cook, nor do we vouch for their content.

This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-4347-0727-7

eISBN 978-0-7814-1102-8

© 2013 Susan Fish

The Team: Don Pape, John Blase, Caitlyn Carlson, Karen Athen

Cover Design: Nick Lee

Cover Photo: Shutterstock

First Edition 2013

Photo by Matt Fish

SUSAN FISH is a writer, wife, and mother living in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Visit DCCeBooks.com for more great reads.

What people are saying about …

Seeker of Stars

“With a design as durable as a Persian rug and equally as intricate, Susan Fish has woven a profound and tender story that is both contemporary and as ancient as the stars. Very moving, beautifully told. There are threads of mystery, and yet we know the outcome; it’s a journey story, yet we are home. This is a tale that will be told again and again, and each time, when the seeker reaches for the star, we’ll reach, too, and be forever changed. Destined to become a classic is an overused phrase, but I think it’s true here.”

Jane Kirkpatrick, award-winning author of A Land of Sheltered Promise

“Susan Fish invites us into a beautiful and well-told fictional story that leads us into the greatest and truest story of all.”

Brian McLaren, author, ANewKindofChristian.com

“The author takes you on a journey that is as much about human nature and the spirit that draws us as it is about the star of Bethlehem—and as much about the universal embrace of the infant Savior as it is about the culture and myths of the period. There is power in the story’s telling as the magi become more human and recognizable, the Christmas star more astonishing and compelling, and the Christmas miracle more poignant and personal without losing any of the mystery that is the story itself.”

Doug Kranz, pastor and astronomer

“Susan Fish is a gifted communicator who paints with words. Her books are intriguing canvases that draw us into colorful stories and, in the process, make us feel and think—and as we do, our hearts are opened so that God can drop some nuggets in that make us richer for the experience.”

David MacFarlane, director of National Initiatives for Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

“Fascinating, timely, and challenging. We need such a work at such a time.”

Michael Coren, radio/television broadcaster and author

“Susan provides a brief but exquisitely written look at a biblical character and a culture we know very little about: that of the magi. I loved it and wished it were longer.”

Linda Hall, author

“I really liked this book. It made me laugh and cry and think. Susan Fish has a clear and winsome voice, and she tells her story in a way that is as fresh as sunrise, as fluid as quicksilver, and as evocative as an old tapestry. She sketches scenes and characters with a deft touch, never wasting words, always leaving space for readers’ imaginations. And the ending is pure gold. I know the impression made by Seeker of Stars is going to stay with me for a long time.”

John Bowen, evangelist and author

“A wonderful story that illuminates new wonder and awe through the familiar but mysterious travels of the three wise men.”

Lorna Dueck, executive producer of Listen Up TV

Table of Contents

Cover

Acknowledgments

Part One

1. Storms

2. Sand

3. Feasts

4. Darkness

5. Dream

6. Journey

Part Two

7. Star

8. Questions

9. Delegation

10. Breach

11. Pomegranate

12. Sandstorm

13. Oasis

14. Night

15. King

16. Wonders

17. Home

References

Extras