The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [42]
In all this time Leah had not moved from the wall. Once or twice, from the corner of his eyes, he noticed that she had very slightly turned her head, and he suspected that she watched him from behind the tangled hair. He tried not to look at her, to crowd back the fear that rose in him at the sight of her disheveled figure. She had been shut in here in the dimness for ten days. Had the devils taken possession of her altogether?
Daniel went out into the garden and milked the little goat, awkwardly, the feel of it gradually coming back into his hands. He carried the jar of milk into the house and set it on a shelf. The goat followed him through the broken door, sniffing timidly at the unfamiliar smell of him.
Daniel was reminded that the door must be mended before it was too dark to see. The goat circled the room and found Leah, and he saw her hand go out and her fingers grip the black fur.
Night was coming on. He mended the door after a fashion and propped it against the frame. Then he discovered that there was no oil in the lamp. How many nights had they gone without a light? He had not thought to ask Rosh for money, and though it was too dark now to search the room, he doubted there would be a single coin hidden there. Just as darkness fell, there was a timid knock on the door. The second neighbor, the one who had most feared the devils, held out to him a small saucer of oil with a flaming wick. He accepted the lamp with shame. Through all these years when he had thought of the village, he had remembered the poverty, the dinginess, the quarreling and meanness and despair. He had forgotten there was kindness too.
He put the lamp on the floor and sat down near his grandmother's mat. He was all at once very tired, more tired than after a day at the forge or a long hunt over the mountain. Dread began to creep along his nerves again. He knew he was terribly afraid to spend the night in this place. Rosh was right. There was a weakness in him. That devil of fear that held his sister helpless—was it cunning enough to find out his weakness? If he could run, out into the street, back to the mountain, it could never overtake him. But he could not run. He could only sit, while the fear reached closer and closer, hemming in the small circle of light that held it at bay.
Sometimes his grandmother stirred, the thin wrinkled eyelids opened, and the faded eyes groped toward him. If he spoke to her, she closed her eyes again, satisfied. How had she been so sure that he would come? What had he ever done for her that she would dare to believe he would come back? He wished now he could tell her why he had run away. He wished that he could explain about Rosh, could let her know that it was for her too that he worked on the mountain. But it was too late for that. The only thing he could do was to sit here beside her, to let her be sure that he was there.
Perhaps if she could hear him, she would not have to make such an effort to see. He began to talk, as he had talked that night to Samson while he filed off the chains, not knowing whether anyone heard or understood, but out of some need in himself.
"You thought I had forgotten," he said. "But I remember how it used to be when Leah and I first came to live with you. Your hair was still so black, Grandmother. You worked in the ketzah field that summer. But at night you used to tell us stories."
There was no sound, not from the still figure or from the corner. But was it his imagination that a faint softening, almost like a smile, relaxed the thin tight lips? He went on talking.
"You were the one who told me the story of Daniel, the prophet I was named for. How when Daniel refused to stop praying to