Seeker of Stars: A Novel by Susan Fish

Author:Susan Fish [Fish, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Wise Men, Star, Biblical Fiction, Magi, Journey, Historical Fiction, Astronomy, Christmas
Publisher: David C. Cook
Published: 2013-11-09T18:30:00+00:00

“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

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