The Tenth Song by Naomi Ragen

Author:Naomi Ragen [Ragen, Naomi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781429941327
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2010-10-12T05:00:00+00:00

Warning to those who commit sins causing dissension in the community, passing malicious information to the gentiles, or revealing the secrets of the town. The One whose eyes roam over the entire earth and sees what is concealed will uproot this person and his seed from under the sun and all people will say Amen.

“This person and his seed,” her mind repeated, shocked. Children punished for the sins of the father.

She went outside, looking up at the path that led back to the dig. She turned in the opposite direction, toward the date palm orchard. Their swaying plumes were regal, their shade tempting and mysterious. They beckoned like a mirage amid the shimmering heat.

She climbed easily over the low fence, ignoring the KEEP OUT—DANGER sign, assuming it was meant to scare off potential date thieves. For what could possibly be dangerous about a date orchard? Falling dates? She smiled to herself as she wandered through the magical forest with its cool green shadows. She stopped now and again, looking up at the large orange-hued bunches at the very top of each tree, wondering how people could get up there to pick them once they ripened.

She walked forward, pondering this, and almost without noticing it, her foot hit a tiny hole in the road, a small inconsistency in the texture of the ground. Her toes dug in idly as she looked down. There was a small scraping noise and then, without warning, the astonishing plunge downward as her body was swallowed by the collapsing earth. In shock, she groped the dark earth that rose up all around her, her stunned mind unable to grasp what had happened. One second she had been on top, and the next she was on the bottom, the lower half of her body covered with debris.

It was so dark, with only a tiny pinpoint of light, like a forgotten star, above her. How far down had she fallen? Had she struck bottom, or would any sudden movement, any attempt to free herself, simply plunge her deeper into the abyss?

She thought about that. What a fitting metaphor for her life!

And then a sudden idea came to her: This is what it must have been like for them, those people in the pizza store in the center of Jerusalem: the solid familiar ground giving way with shocking suddenness, plunging them into darkness, pain, horror, and uncertainty.

She tried to dig out her legs, but a terrible stabbing pain in her wrist made her cry out in agony. Her head throbbed. She lay back, afraid to move, looking upward.

Am I going to die? she wondered, at first with clinical detachment and a touch of defiance, and then with horror and panic. She was buried alive in a place as silent and cold and dark as a grave.

Please, God, I don’t want to die. I don’t deserve to die!

She looked inside herself. Why do you want to live? Because I’m not finished. I’m not finished writing my song. I haven’t even started.

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