The Master's Wall Page 10

  “Sshhhh.” She put her fingers to her lips and looked around. “My father taught me all about his God, but I won’t make Him mine.”

  “Why not?”

  “Grandmother says that no god is worth dying for.”

  “But He died for you.”

  She went silent and straightened the wool braids of her doll’s hair.

  Why was she acting this way? He’d assumed all these years she was a believer. What happened? She was awfully young when she’d lost her father, and it’d been three years, which was a long time. Aloysius and the rest of her family were a powerful influence. She must be speaking their words and not her own.

  She looked around them, her face reflecting fear. “My gods are the Roman gods.” She said the words with an air of confidence, but he could see they weren’t coming from her heart.

  “What do you know about Yahshua?” He knew he made her nervous, but it was for her own good. He had to find out what she remembered.

  She glanced behind her and to each side. She urged him to follow deeper into the woods. Finally, when she stopped, she looked at the ground as though ashamed. “I know that Yahshua, as you call Him, was God’s Son. The God who made you and me. Yahshua died to save us from . . . .” She looked up at him, her brows furrowed.

  “Sin.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes searched his face. “What is sin?”

  She seemed sincere.

  “Sin is when you do something wrong or not good.”

  “Oh.” She nodded as though satisfied. Then she frowned. “But your God is dead, just like my father is dead, and one day you will be dead for serving Him.”

  Her words jolted him. He took a deep breath. “Yahshua is not dead. He came back to life.”

  She raised her brows. “Grandmother said that was a lie.”

  “It’s not a lie.” David took a step closer. “Elohim—God—can do anything. He made you and me, didn’t He? So why can’t He make someone come back to life?” He picked up a stone. “He could turn this rock into a person if He wanted to.” He tossed it in the air and caught it.

  She furrowed her brows, as though pondering his words, and suddenly her face brightened. “Where do I pray to your God?”

  “You can pray to Him from anywhere.”

  “Where is His temple?”

  “You don’t have to go to a temple to pray to Him.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Every god has a temple.”

  He couldn’t resist, he bent down and tapped her upturned nose. “If you became a Christian, your body would be His temple. That’s why we can pray to Him from anywhere, and we can tell Him anything. He knows all about us.”

  “How do I pray to your God?” She stomped her foot.

  He wondered if she heard or understood anything he just said. “Like this.” He took her doll and set it on the ground. They held hands, clasping the flowers between their fingers. Her hands were small in his, so much like Sarah’s.

  He looked up to the sky as his father used to do many times. “Dear Father in heaven, You are so good. Forgive us when we do wrong, and help us to forgive others when they hurt us.” He repeated some of the words he remembered his own father saying in his prayers. Then he added, “Please, help Alethea to want You for her God.” He glanced down at her as he said the words.

  Her eyes were closed, and her face gave nothing away.

  “You are mighty, powerful, and greater than all the gods created by man. Please make Alethea see how true and real You are. In Yahshua’s name, I pray. Amen.”

  He watched her, waiting for a reaction.

  She opened one eye and looked up at him. “Is that it?”

  “You can talk to Him much longer if you’d like.”

  “Alethea!” A voice came from the edge of the woods.

  “It’s Portia.” A look of fear washed over her face. “She can never know what we’re talking about.”

  “Alethea.” Portia’s voice drew near.

  Alethea whispered, “I will pray to your God tonight.” She flashed a smile and handed him the flowers. She scooped up her doll and started towards Portia.

  He grabbed her by the arm and whispered in her ear. “God is bigger than your grandfather.”

  Eyes wide, she stopped walking. “Bigger than Grandfather?”

  He squeezed her arm and nodded.

  She smiled, then quickly turned and left, working her way through the trees.

  David crouched behind a thicket.

  “There you are.” Portia’s kind voice carried in the distance. “What does a girl like you find so fascinating about these woods?”

  He knew the answer to that question. The woods were the only place she could escape the watchful eyes of her family.

  “Give her strength, Jehovah-Shammah,” David whispered under his breath. “But more importantly, give her courage.”

  Ω

  That night, Alethea said her first prayer to David’s God.

  “To the God of David, I pray. David told me about You. You are a very powerful God. You are bigger than Grandfather.” A thrill of joy swept through her. “He said You could raise people from the dead. I wanted to ask if . . . if You would please raise Mpampas from the dead? And let him come take me and Paulus away.” She sighed. “You are a nice God too. Thank You for hearing me when I pray, no matter where I am.” She paused, trying to remember how to end. “Oh yes, I pray to You with Yahshua’s name. Amen.”

  A sense of peace washed over her. She felt the way she did when Mpampas was alive . . . cared for, and no longer alone. Her blankets felt like arms, holding her, hugging her as she drifted off to sleep.

  Ω

  David had finally shown Ace his father’s scrolls. He learned that Ace had knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures and was eager to learn what his father had copied. It wasn’t long after studying the scrolls that Ace gave his life to Christ. Which meant David was no longer alone. Ace was now his brother in Christ. Now together they reached out to other slaves at the villa. And Ace was able to teach what he knew about the Hebrew Scriptures to the rest of the people gathered with them.

  David, with his chamber-mates and a female slave from the house, all sat in a small circle behind the stables as they listened to Ace. The moonlight reflected off Ace’s smiling face, and the smell of manure and a nearby torch wafted over David.

  “David often refers to God as Elohim,” Ace whispered to them.

  This got David’s attention since Ace mentioned his name.

  “The word Elohim is plural. The Hebrew Scriptures say that we are all made in the image of Elohim. What could that mean?”

  David waited for the others to answer. They’d already been taught so much about what Christ did for them, that Ace told David he wanted to explain Elohim. That sounded good to David, but where he was going exactly, David didn’t know.

  “From what I’ve read in the Hebrew Scriptures and from these letters to us Christians,” Ace motioned toward the parchment unrolled on the ground in front of them, “it’s my understanding that Elohim is made up of three Persons: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What do we have in our lives that resembles that?”

  Tempted to blurt out what he knew, David waited for someone to answer.

  Finally, one of his chamber-mates spoke up. “Well, there’s a father and a son.”

  David raised his eyebrows. That was obvious, but what did it have to do with people being created in God’s image?

  To David’s surprise, a huge grin spread across Ace’s face and he nodded. “Elohim wants us to understand Him by what He’s created. He created people and told them to have children, thereby creating a family.”

  David leaned forward.

  “Fathers and children have characteristics of those roles found in Elohim,” Ace said. “In the same way, the wife has characteristics similar to those ascribed to the Holy Spirit.” He held up his hands toward David as if warding off a rebuttal. “I’m not implying that God has a gender or that the Holy Spirit is
a woman. The family is created in Elohim’s image. The father, the mother, and the child are patterned after Elohim.

  “Each Person fulfills an essential purpose. Without one of them, Elohim would not be complete and perfect. Elohim would not be Elohim. So it is with family. Each person is important and necessary to complete the family. They are each their own person, and yet they are one.”

  David leaned on his knees. He’d been made to memorize the Hebrew Scriptures, and he’d never forget the creation of mankind—though he’d forgotten a lot after that—but he’d never given much thought of what it meant to be created in Elohim’s image. He thought it meant that people were intelligent beings. But Ace was saying it meant more. That the father was created after God the Father, the son after the Son, and the mother . . . the mother was created in the image of the Holy Spirit. It made perfect sense to David because the Holy Spirit was known as the Comforter, and when David thought back to his mother, that’s the purpose she’d fulfilled.

  Hmm. David sat back and rested, satisfied, against the wall as Ace answered questions from his chamber-mates and the woman. Elohim really was amazing.

  ten

  Alethea hid inside the stables and watched the boys race toward the other end of the field. When all their backs were turned, she ran as fast as she could into the trees.

  Out of breath, she leaned against a tree trunk and looked back. They hadn’t spotted her. It wasn’t fair that the boys were allowed to play, while she and Vibia were stuck in the house. So, while Vibia learned the proper way to roast meat on a gridiron, Alethea stole between the trees.

  The boys neared her end of the field, and she peeked around a tree. Paulus drove the small makeshift chariot pulled by a goat. His thin brown hair clung to his flushed cheeks as he tried to maneuver it. He swatted the goat, and it took off toward the other end of the field. Paulus had eyes like Mpampas, and when Alethea told him so, he’d said that he wished his eyes looked like Grandfather’s. This made her mourn Mpampas all the more. His own son didn’t even know him.

  It wasn’t Paulus’s fault. Alethea sighed as she made her way deeper into the forest as birds sang and soared above the canopy of trees. He was only three when Mpampas died. It was hard to believe four years had already passed.

  When she neared the edge of the woods, she saw a large pine tree that grew close to the wall. She climbed its low branches. Something Vibia would never do. Alethea hoisted herself onto another branch, and then jumped onto the wall’s edge.

  Still holding the pine branch, she looked around. From here, nobody could see her, not even the guards. She walked farther along the edge of the thick wall until she spotted a high mound of dirt and rocks piled against the other side.

  Freedom.

  She clapped her hands and did a little dance. Leaning on one hand, she jumped off and slid down the dirt pile. Alethea headed for the other side of Vibian Hill.

  After running through the clearing and making her way through more trees, she came to a brook. Holding up her stola, she hopped onto a flat rock and then another until she made her way to the other side. As she climbed the bank, her heart pounded and she breathed hard, but she wouldn’t let it slow her down. The desire to be closer to Mpampas drove her. After coming up over the top, she ran into more trees, but even this didn’t stop her.

  She finally made her way through the woods. And there it was. Her old house, standing on the other side of the field. She stood amazed. It wasn’t at all the magnificent, bright-colored house she remembered. It looked much smaller and gray. It resembled an old square rock sitting in the middle of the wide-open land.

  Her gaze darted back to the trees and to the opposite side of the field. No one was there. She strode through the clearing and came closer to her old home.

  The wind blew, whipping loose curls into her face and sending chills up her spine. She glanced back at the woods. Loneliness swept down on her, and even the woods seemed to be alone and empty. No birds soared in the air, and she felt small, just a speck, surrounded by sky and field.

  She fixed her gaze back on the house. Iron grilles barred the windows. Tattered curtains that used to hang in thick masses waved from gusts of wind. She wanted to get closer, but her feet wouldn’t move. She imagined herself inside her once beautiful home, and a distant memory came to her.

  Visions of Mpampas danced through her mind, his blue eyes, his smile, his laughter. He scooped her up in his arms. Then he sang and danced, spinning her round and round in the air. She lifted her stola’s skirt and spun in circles, she was a child again in her father’s arms. A breeze carried the scent of pines and grass. It even smelled like the home she remembered.

  The sound of her own laughter startled her out of the imaginary world, a world once real, now gone. She faced her old abandoned house again. Dark walls, lonely gardens, and empty rooms now lived there, all a reflection of what lived in her heart.

  She edged closer, making it as far as the well.

  That last night her parents had fought about Mpampas’s God. She’d watched them argue as she hid behind a plant outside her chamber door. Sometime in the night, she awoke to footsteps and whispers and spied her mother sending Portia out with a sealed scroll tucked into her palla, her cloak hiding a secret missive. The next morning a slave came running for Mpampas, saying something about a fire in one of the fields. After he left, her mother grabbed all the household goods and anything else she could carry, while Alethea and Paulus were whisked away on a litter and carried to Grandfather’s villa.

  She stared at the house for a long time, turning the memories over in her mind. She’d always remembered the events that took place just before her father’s death, but was too young to comprehend that it had anything to do with her mother’s plan to leave her father. Could her mother have planned Mpampas’s death? Angry tears blurred her vision and streamed down her cheeks. Portia had also taken part in the plan. Did Portia know what was in that letter? It certainly explained the distrust Alethea had felt all these years. Portia couldn’t have known. Her mother had given the scroll to her already sealed. Her sweet, dear Portia. Alethea wanted to believe in her innocence. But how could she when she couldn’t even trust her own mother?

  She dropped to her knees in the soft dirt and grass and buried her face in her hands. Her nose burned, but she forced back her tears. She wouldn’t cry. She was tired of crying. She swallowed hard, fighting the knot that grew in her throat as she gazed at the house.

  A strong gust of wind blew at the ragged curtains, chilling her bare arms and the back of her neck. What if someone or something might be in the house? Perhaps an evil spirit was coming to punish her for escaping the confines of her grandfather’s villa?

  She jumped to her feet, gazing intently at one of the windows. The curtain moved. Was it the wind? Or was somebody in there? She didn’t wait to find out. She charged back into the woods, dodging branches overhead and on the ground. She slid down the hill toward the stream, and when she hopped onto a smooth wet rock, her feet slipped out from under her. She landed with a splash, and cold water covered her from head to toe. She yelped and gasped for breath, pushing herself up on the rocks.

  As she climbed out of the brook, she shivered uncontrollably. She grabbed the skirt of her stola and ran through the trees, hearing the crackling of branches. Was someone following her? Or were those the branches under her own feet?

  She stopped and held her rapid breath. She stood very still and slowly looked behind her. Nothing but trees. She lifted her stola and ran again.

  As the woods grew more sparse, she finally came to a meadow. But instead of the wall, she saw a cluster of trees. How could she have missed the wall? She was certain she had gone the same way. Her mouth grew dry from panting. Another desire to run out of sheer panic seized her.

  She said a brief prayer to David’s God and sang a song to try and calm herself. Instead of going back into the woods, she headed for the trees across the clearing where the wall should have been.

 
Once she entered the trees, she spotted the meadow on the other side. “Thank you, Fortuna,” she cried with relief to the goddess of luck. There was the wall, farther away than she remembered. She ran to it as fast as she could.

  When she reached the mound of dirt and rocks, she climbed onto it. She stretched to climb up, but she couldn’t reach the top of the wall. She balled up her fist and hit it.

  “Fortuna, where are you when I need you?” She put her hands on her now shivering hips. She looked down the mound, searching for rocks she could use to stand on. They were either too big for her to carry or too small to be of any use.

  “Now what do I do?” She could walk to one of the gate entrances, but she didn’t want anyone to know where she had been. If anyone found out, she would certainly be punished and never have another chance of seeing her house again.

  She looked up at the top of the wall and with renewed vigor, jumped. Her fingers barely got over the top and she dropped back down. She breathed deep and jumped again, and then again.

  Finally, she got a grip and dangled from the wall. She strained to get a better hold. How would she have the strength to get to the other side?

  Desperation took over.

  Alethea pulled straight up. She hung from her fingertips, took a deep breath, and pulled again. She scraped her cheek and stola against the wall, and when she got high enough, she used her elbows to pull the rest of her body over the edge. When she made it to the top, she lay on her back to catch her breath. Her arms, as heavy as the rocks she didn’t carry, throbbed.

  As she finally wobbled to her feet, the wall, the ground, and the trees tilted around her. She tried to focus on her sandals, but black spots and shadows blotted her vision. She knelt down to steady herself, but her body pulled to one side, and she fell to the ground.

  Luckily, she landed in a thick bed of pine needles. A painful weight contracted in her chest; she couldn’t breathe. She lay paralyzed on the ground. What was happening to her? Would she die here in the woods where no one would find her? She gulped in air, but not nearly enough to survive. Panic streaked through her, and she grasped her immovable chest. Finally, the weight lightened and she gulped in short bursts of air.