The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [67]
When the shadows began to lengthen in the little room, they all knew with regret that the visit must end. Before they set out for the city, Daniel took Thacia into his shop.
"You have brought so many gifts to Leah," he said, trying to choose his words carefully. "Would you let me give one to you?"
He reached into a deep niche in the wall and drew out a small object wrapped in a fragment of Leah's blue cloth. Awkwardly, he laid in Thacia's hand the little brooch. "I made it with a bit of scrap," he said.
Thacia stood looking down at it. "A bronze bow!" she whispered.
"Do you remember? It was you who thought of it, that night—that the bronze bow might mean some impossible thing—the thing we could not do alone? I never forgot it. I don't know how to say it, but it came to stand for everything we are working for. For our oath. For the kingdom."
He had never seen Thacia before when she could not speak. He would remember as long as he lived the look that sprang into her eyes, and was quickly hidden as she bent her head.
Then her words came hurrying out. "To think that you made it!" she exclaimed, her voice shaky. "Why, you ought to be a silversmith, Daniel. You shouldn't be working with these great chunks of iron!"
"I'd like to try," he confessed. "Perhaps some day, when we are at peace." It was the first time he had ever voiced his ambition, even to himself.
They set out together along the road, Thacia with the turban snugly about her head once more.
"Every time I come, Leah has changed," she told him. "It's like watching a flower opening very slowly. From week to week I can hardly wait to see how it has opened since I saw her last."
"It is due to you," Daniel told her humbly. "She has never had a friend before. After you leave, I see her trying to do things the way you do them."
Thacia smiled at him. "Little things," she said. "Her hair, and the way she folds her veil. That's not what I mean."
"She does almost all the work in the house now," he went on. "But there are days when she—goes back." He was grateful for a chance to speak of this to someone. "Days when she doesn't pay any attention. It's hard for me to have patience enough."
Thacia smiled again. "No, no one would ever take you for a patient man," she said. "But do you think Joel and I do not know what you have done for Leah?"
Daniel's gratitude went out to her. He would like to think he had done something to make up for those years.
"She is so lovely," Thacia went on thoughtfully. "I can't believe there are really any demons in her. Have you ever asked a physician?"
"The one in the village said there was no cure for her. Once there was a man traveling through the country who had magic power to heal, and my grandmother paid him to look at Leah. He could not do anything, either. He said that the demons that make a person afraid are the hardest to cast out. He said something queer. Leah was only a child, but he said that she did not want to be made well."
Thacia was silent for a moment. "I have heard Jesus say something like that, when people ask him to cure them. Once there was a lame man on a litter. Jesus bent over him and looked right into his face, and asked him, 'Do you want to be whole?' It seemed such a queer question. Why would anyone want to stay crippled?"
Daniel hesitated. This was something he had thought about, walking alone on the dark silent road from Bethsaida. He was not sure of his own thoughts. "Haven't you ever wondered," he attempted, "what good it is for them to be healed, those people that Jesus cures? They're happy at first. But what happens to them after that? What does a blind man think, when he has wanted for years to see, and then looks at his wife in rags and his children covered with sores? That lame man you saw—is he grateful now? Is it worth it to get on his feet and spend the rest of his life dragging burdens like a mule?"
"I never thought of it that way," said Thacia, her eyes clouding. "Is that why, do you think, that so many of them aren't cured?"
The thought