"Call out for help," the glowing apparition said again. "Quickly! Now! Shout, Ulrika, fill the night with your voice."
She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Her throat was too dry.
"Again!" the shining spirit said. "At once! With all your strength!"
Ulrika reached deep within herself, gathered the last of her strength and life force and, stretching her mouth wide, screamed at the top of her lungs. "Help me! Someone, please! Help!"
And suddenly Ulrika was surrounded by a warm light. It engulfed her, embraced her like loving arms, lifting her up, buoying as if on a golden sea. She felt waves of compassion and security wash over her. She heard the voice, deep and mellow, say, "Do not be afraid. Everything is going to be all right."
Ulrika felt peaceful and serene. She had never known such calm, such quiescence. It was beautiful.
I am dying, she thought in detachment. The animals have found me. They are devouring me. This is what it is like to die. But I do not mind.
"Hello? Is someone out there?"
She ignored the call. It was only her imagination. And she didn't want to leave the light. The warmth was soft and precious. She wanted to stay in it forever.
"Who is out there?"
She opened her eyes. She blinked up at frigid stars overhead, felt the night cold sweep into her flesh, swift and biting. Where did the warmth and light go?
Ulrika sucked air into her lungs, tried to gather strength into her limbs. What had just happened? Struggling to a sitting position, she looked around. The hills stood black and silent behind her. Ahead, the salt-sea lay silver in eerie starlight. Who had spoken just now?
And then she saw the lights, bright little sparks growing larger as they drew near. A voice called, "Is someone there? Call out so that we can find you."
"I am here!" Ulrika cried, struggling to sit up. She waved her arms. "Here, over here!"
The bright glows drew near, and Ulrika saw that they were torches carried by two women. "Are you all right?" one of them asked.
"Dear child," the older of them said, "are you out here all alone?"
"I hurt my leg," Ulrika said. The women spoke a dialect that was prevalent in this part of the Empire—a mixture of "common" Greek and Aramaic, with which Ulrika was familiar.
They reached for her and, each taking one of her arms, lifted Ulrika to her feet. The younger of the two, a woman in her forties with strength in her body, steadied Ulrika and helped her along over the ground.
Wordlessly, they made their way to an outcropping of rock, passing around it and up a narrow ravine, where Ulrika saw a group of black goatskin tents standing protected from the wind. The older of the two women went into the largest of the tents, while the second placed her torch in a sconce outside, and then she helped Ulrika into the tent.
Ulrika welcomed the blessed warmth and light within, and sank with relief onto a bed of blankets and sheepskins. As the younger of the two women handed Ulrika a cup of water, she said, "I am Rachel. This is Almah. Welcome to our home, and peace be upon you."
Ulrika gratefully sipped the water and told them her name, adding, "I was certain I was going to perish out there. I do not know what I would have done had you not found me."
"We did not know you were out there," Rachel said. "And then we heard your call for help. It is a good thing you had the strength to cry out."
"I almost didn't," Ulrika said, trying to recollect the vision that had come to her—first, an ancient priestess named Gaia, and then a stranger who seemed to glow with an inner light. It was he who had commanded Ulrika to call for help.
Details of the dwelling's interior began to register on Ulrika's brain as the water refreshed her. Rachel's home was a typical desert tent with a center post holding up the ceiling, creating a spacious living area that was warmed by a charcoal brazier, brass and clay lamps glowing here and there. Rugs covered the floor, a small table held bowls, pitcher, utensils. A pair of sandals hung on a peg, along with a cloak, small and feminine. Ulrika assumed that the other tents she had glimpsed, smaller than this, were used for storage, or perhaps other people were sleeping there.
With a smile, the older woman, Almah, gray-haired and bent beneath black clothes and a black veil, handed Ulrika a plate of sweet fig cakes and a bowl of dates. "Thank you," Ulrika said as she accepted this most welcome offering.
While she ate, she wondered about her rescuers. Rachel was in her early forties, Ulrika would guess, slender, and dressed in a long gown that was gathered at the waist with a sash. The gown was made of soft wool dyed in brown and cream vertical stripes, and Rachel's thick black hair was concealed beneath a cowl-like veil of soft brown wool that pooled around her shoulders in gentle folds. She wore no jewelry, no cosmetics. But her face was arresting: square and tanned with large black eyes, wrinkled at the corners and framed by black lashes, thick black brows. Ulrika wondered why Rachel and her elderly companion seemed to live alone in this desolate place, or were there perhaps others whom she would meet in the morning?
"What happened?" Rachel asked, taking a seat on a large cushion and drawing her feet under her skirt. "Why were you out there alone?"
Ulrika told them about her search for her mother in Jerusalem, her intention to go to Jericho and from there to Babylon, and then about her abandonment that morning. "My donkey is out there with all my things."
"We shall find it in the morning," Rachel said. "When you have eaten your fill, I will treat your ankle. It is quite swollen."
"Thank you," Ulrika murmured and then addressed her food with singular attention. But after a moment she felt her hostess's eyes upon her, saw a question in them.
"The place where you fell," Rachel said after a moment. "Were you in that spot for a reason?"
"What do you mean?"
Rachel smiled and shook her head. "It is nothing. Here, let me bind your ankle. Almah has something for the pain."
Ulrika accepted the wooden cup containing a dark brew. She recognized the aroma. Her own mother, back in Rome, had made such a bracing tonic by setting twice-baked barley bread into water, leaving it to ferment in a large clay vat, and then, straining the liquid through a cloth, producing a strong, medicinal beer.
As Ulrika brought the cup to her lips, she thought again about her vision in the desert. It had been much more intense than any she had experienced. And this time, two people had spoken directly to her. Had it perhaps only been a trick of her mind? But what troubled her most was the peaceful, loving feeling that had engulfed her, a sweet state that, for one brief moment, she had not wished to leave.
And had she remembered to practice her new conscious breathing, to control the vision and make it last longer, would she have indeed stayed in there forever?
16
AS ULRIKA SURVEYED HER new surroundings in the morning sunshine, she wondered about this curious group of tents in the middle of nowhere, inhabited by two women on their own, with no family or friends, not even the humblest servant, just the company of chickens and a pair of goats.
Rachel had told her that an oasis lay three miles away, northward along the foothills, where a natural spring came from the dun earth and gave life to date palms, fish, and birds. Several families lived there year-round, and travelers stopped there to rest. Rachel and Almah visited the oasis to fetch fresh water and other supplies, but they did not live there, preferring to return to this lonely spot in the embrace of a barren canyon.