returned to the sarb the following night.
The stone was there. She pushed it aside. She climbed down.
The dark was the same. The cold of the clay climbed into her fingers. She found the bottom. She knelt. Her hand found the cloak.
Warm.
She slid her hand inside. The body moved. Small. Warm. Short breath against her wrist. The heart beat against her palm.
She lifted him. She held him close. He was not crying. A rasp, almost a mewl. His cheek against her forehead. Warm.
She sat him on her knees. She opened the waterskin. She poured water on the scrap of wool. She washed his face. His eyes were closed. She ran the wool across his eyelids. They did not open. She washed his body. The cord hung there, black, knotted, dry.
She dried him. She wrapped him in the cloak. She held him to her chest.
He startled. His mouth searched. She pressed her thumb to his lips.
He took it. He sucked.
The thumb stayed dry. Damp with saliva. Nothing else.
She waited. The crack in the sarb let in a gray light. She set the baby on the ground. She filled the waterskin at the village cistern. She set it against the wall. The clean scrap of wool beside it.
She bent close. Her lips brushed his ear. She said no word.
She climbed up. She pushed the stone back. She walked.
The canal had dropped. The reeds were dry.
She went back the next evening. The path was shorter. Soldiers did not patrol the same stretch two nights running.
She climbed down. The sarb received her. The dark was the same. The smell of wet earth. The cold rising from the walls. She knelt. The cloak was there. She slid her hand inside.
The baby was sleeping.
She washed him. She pressed her thumb against his mouth. He sucked.
The tingling came. Faint. At the base of the thumb. Like a bee sting, but gentle.
She pulled her finger back. A white drop beaded at the edge of the nail. She touched it with her lips. Sweet. Very sweet. Like honey diluted. Like fresh goat's milk.
She did not understand. She did not try to.
She pressed her thumb back to his mouth. He sucked. The tingling came again, stronger. The flow moved beneath her skin. She watched her thumb in the dark, as though she could see it.
She could not see it. She felt it.
Allah provides for whom He wills, by ways of His choosing.
The stone found its place again. The reeds closed over it.
The ground was white, cracked. The sun had baked the mud hard. Her bare feet on the burning dust. She walked faster, to outrun the burn.
She climbed down. Her knees knew the wall now. Her fingers knew the ledges. She no longer needed to count.
The baby was awake.
His eyes were open in the dark. Still. Unblinking. They were not looking at her. They looked into the black, as if they saw something she could not.
She passed her hand before his face. His eyes did not follow. They stayed fixed on the black. She pulled her hand away. She looked into the black herself.
She saw nothing. Only black.
She pressed her thumb to his mouth. He took it. He sucked. But his eyes stayed open. They watched the black while he sucked.
The gray of morning entered the sarb as she left.
The reeds she had parted that first night were dead. New ones grew in their place, paler, shorter. The canal had dropped further.
She climbed down. The dark was warmer now. The air no longer moved. The smell of earth had changed. Drier. Her back no longer flinched against the cold of the clay.
He sat against the wall, his back to the clay. Legs folded before him. Eyes open. He was watching the crack in the sarb, where the gray light entered. The crack was wider now. The reeds outside had dried and hung loose, letting more light through. A gray rectangle on the earthen floor.
She stopped on the last step down.
He did not look at her. He watched the light. His eyes were absorbed in it. The light touched them in flashes, whenever the wind stirred the reeds. She could see the light inside them. The reflection of the gray rectangle passed over his cornea.
The cloak she had brought that first night now only reached his knees. Last time she had folded it in two. Now she folded it in four, and his feet still hung past the edge.
She knelt. She set her hand on his shoulder. Warm. He did not turn. He watched the crack.
She pressed her thumb to his mouth. He took it. He sucked. But his eyes stayed open. They watched the light.
She kept her hand on his shoulder. She no longer looked at his eyes. She simply gave him her thumb.
She climbed up. She pushed the stone back.
She did not come back for a long while.
The midwives had returned. They had knocked at her mother's door. They had pressed her belly. They had found it flat. They had left.
Her mother had said: "You are healed."
had not answered.
She waited. She found the gap. On the third day, the midwives did not come. On the fourth, the soldiers passed through another alley. On the fifth, rain fell and no one went out.
She went down into the sarb.
The print of her foot, there in the damp earth, had faded. Another one, wider, had taken its place. She did not remember making it.
He sat with his back to the wall. He was not watching the crack. He was watching his hands. He opened them. He closed them. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Fingers longer than she remembered.
She knelt. She set her hand on his shoulder. He did not turn.
She pressed her thumb to his mouth. He took it. He sucked. But his eyes stayed on his hands. He sucked, and counted.
She said nothing.
She climbed up. The clay stayed on her palm.
She lingered before the sarb. She set her hand on the stone. She had not wedged it in place. She had only set it there. It held. The clay had left a white mark on her palm. She closed her hand over it.
She walked away.
was not sleeping.
He was in the workshop, his back to the wall. The unfinished wood lay on the bench. He did not look at it. He watched the door.
A man came in. Not a soldier. A priest of the temple. His sandals were coated in dust. He carried a clay tablet. He set it on the bench without asking leave.
"The king wants an idol for the spring feast."
did not answer.
"Your wife is in Hurmuzjard."
It was not a question. It was a statement. The priest knew. Or he guessed. Or he was testing him.
picked up the chisel. He set the blade against the wood. The grain of the cedar was smooth beneath his thumb.
"She is ill."
The lie came out before he had prepared it. He heard it as though it came from someone else. His voice was steady. His fingers did not shake. The chisel held firm.
The priest looked at him. A long moment. Then he nodded. No sympathy in it. Only calculation.
"The feast is in two moons."
He left. His sandals left traces of dust on the threshold. looked at them. He did not move to sweep them away.
He set the chisel down. He looked at the wood. He could not remember what he was carving. A god. A man. The wood said nothing.
He looked at the door. No one came. The chisel stayed in his hand.
He did not know why he was thinking of her. He did not know if she was sleeping. He did not know if she was alone. He did not know if the child was there.
He did not ask.