Sealed - S. G. Ricketts (ink book reader .TXT) 📗

and amber, the colors that set off the fire in my eyes. The servants clucked and nodded approvingly as my mother worked. I barely saw them. Finally, my mother slid the slippers onto my feet and helped me stand. “Tamar, you will make our family proud tonight. I send you forth with love, pride, and the prayers of my heart.” She kissed my forehead, and I realized I was as tall as she. The realization scared me. Had I really become a woman so fast? I was only thirteen. How could my life be ending so soon? “Now go, Daughter, and meet your new husband.” She pushed me out the door and stood, waiting for me to walk into Father’s public tent.

I took a deep breath. The ritual words of the covenant carried on the breeze from inside. With one last silent plea to Kotharat, I stepped into the tent.

The men turned. My father smiled. Judah smiled. Er leered. My skin crawled just to look at him. He was handsome enough, with a strong jaw beneath a full, dark beard and with a strong, healthy body, but his eyes were cold. I schooled my face into a mask of blankness, determined not to ruin my family. Father patted the pillow next to him, and I settled as gracefully as I could. “Tamar, beloved daughter, Judah has offered his son Er as a suitable match for you. What do you say to such a proposal?”

NO! No, no, no, no, no! Father, don’t you see?

I glanced up through my lashes, careful to look demure while I examined my prospective husband. He sat quietly by his father’s side, ever the dutiful son. Of course Father didn’t see how cruel Er was. What man would show such a side to his father-in-law? I swallowed, trying to steady myself. For Jairus and Baruch and Vashti

, I swore silently. Finally, I looked up. “Thank you, Father, for such a suitable choice.” I prayed he couldn’t hear the lie in my voice. Judah continued to smile benevolently, but Er tensed. I bit my lip. I had a year to get myself better under control; it seemed cruelty wasn’t the only thing this son of Israel possessed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Laughing and waving to the crowd outside, Er shut the door behind him. The fear I’d been fighting off for the past few days rushed in. I couldn’t breathe. Of all the people my father could have chosen, it was this one. I stepped back from the doorway and deeper into the room. My attendants and the women of his house had prepared the room for us. Oil lamps lit the room in bright, wavering light, and the smell of jasmine and myrrh from his sash overwhelmed me. I took another step back and stumbled, falling against the bed. The light-hearted mask of the past few days dissolved from his face and I cowered before him. He unclasped the robe and let it fall in a rumpled mass on the floor. “Finally, I can see just what my father bought for me.” I pulled my knees tightly to my chest, cursing the year between our betrothal and tonight. It hadn’t been nearly enough time for me to stomach marrying a monster, but just enough time for my more womanly virtues to appear. His eyes raked my covered body hungrily, and I pulled tighter into myself. “Come now, Tamar. It wouldn’t do to displease your husband on your wedding night.” He tossed his wedding circlet onto the little table and strode the last few paces between us. “Now then, child, prove that you were worth every last worthless ram my father wasted on you.” Harsh fingers grabbed my chin and jerked it into the light. “Not terrible, not terrible at all.” A finger caressed my cheek and I couldn’t resist a shudder. His smile grew cruel. “Oh now, do you know how many women would love to be in your place? Daughter-in-law to the wealthiest man in Adullam, married to the heir. Not such a bad fate, now is it, little lamb?”

I closed my eyes, trying to keep the image of my family behind my burning lids. Everything within me screamed for me to run, but I was trapped. Er breathed rancid wine breath against my neck, more taunts whispered like lover’s words. I hardly heard him. My limps were frozen in terror. It didn’t seem to bother my new husband. He flipped me onto my stomach, wrenching each leg out from under me. I bit back a cry of pain as one knee popped. He laughed quietly in my ear. Tears ran like fire down my cheeks. One huge hand pinned my wrists above me while the other fumbled to pull up my skirts. Something warm and firm pressed against the side of my thigh and, shocked, I pulled away.

“Oh no, little lamb,” he hissed, fingers tightening painfully around my wrists. “There is no pulling away. You are mine now, to do with as I will. And this-” Something shoved its way inside me, splitting me nearly in half. I screamed, and his elbow pushed my head into the mattress. “This

,” he continued between further thrusts, “is what I’ll do with you.”

It was over in moments, his huge sweaty form shaking violently over me while I sobbed into the bed, and then he rolled off. “Stay where you are,” he said brusquely, and I heard him walk to the door. “It’d be best if we conceived tonight. Pretty as you are, you’re rather dull.” And with that, my wedding night was over.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We left Adullam the night after our wedding, traveling two day’s journey to Judah’s camp. Er made quick work of informing me that I was to never leave camp and that my family was not allowed to see me. He said it was the requirement by his god to prevent me from clouding his faith. Looking at him, I couldn’t help but hate this god. Yahweh was a cruel god, or a cynical one, to make such a man as Er. Still, I followed their ways.

The years passed in never-ending monotony. In Judah’s household, I was put to work on the loom. My mother’s skill was well-known, well past Adullam. I, as her daughter, was seen as quite the prize for Judah’s household. I spent my days weaving and my nights enduring Er’s ministrations. Er was always very careful never to leave a mark where it would be seen. With each passing month and each return of my uncleanliness, the beatings grew worse. Er enjoyed torturing me, I could see it in his eyes. What were worse were the hours after he’d finished with me and before he was ready to sleep. Behind Judah’s back, he’d sneak in servants or harlots and force me to watch. “If they conceive before you do, little lamb, you’re done,” he told me. More than once, I caught a servant girl drinking the herbs to rid herself of his child. I wasn’t the only one horrified by the thought of marriage.

The days wore on, endless weaving with sunlight and endless beating with moonlight. The summer of our first year, I conceived. To my astonishment, Er stopped his abuse. Of course, he stopped seeing me at all at night and rumors flew like embers among my servants that pregnant women disgusted him. The thought made me overjoyed. To think my protection would come in one so small. Even Er wasn’t willing to risk the child’s life. I counted and held the days of my pregnancy close to my heart, dreaming of the days when it would come. I hardly thought about Er’s return to me after the birth in the joy of the moment. And then, just as the third month passed, my dream was shattered. I woke to a pain even worse than that first night of my womanhood, with blood pooling beneath me. I didn’t need my maid to tell me the child was gone.

Er grew worse with the news. His drinking became a nightly ritual; by the second year, I had mastered the art of hiding during his more drunken nights. Judah caught him once raising his hand towards me and reprimanded him, sending his wife’s personal servants to sleep next to me. Er merely turned his brutal attentions onto the women he paraded through his tent. Some even whispered that men frequented his bed. In my growing misery, I didn’t care. The only light I saw was that my family lay safe and provided for, and that Er was not the only person in Judah’s camp.

Of my father-in-law’s children, his daughters were endlessly pleasant. Some were brighter than others, sharing Er’s same intelligence without the cruelty, and some were simple. Often, they gathered in my tent to watch me weave. They were my solace for Vashti and Jairus and Baruch. I clung to the girls as if they were my lifeline. I lived for their smiles and teasings and fumbling fingers. Of the daughters, Keturah was the oldest still in her father’s house. At twelve, she stood just to my shoulder and had a mind like the edge of a blade. She was beautiful, too, with almond eyes and soft, smooth skin the color of honey. She was my first friend on those lonely days after coming to camp, welcoming me as a sister when the others were still wary. Elisheba, with her doe eyes and soft curls, reminded me of what Vashti would look like at ten, and Charis at six was everything I had hoped my own children would be, sweet and caring and gentle. Of their brothers, only young Shelah resembled his sisters. He was ten the winter of my first year, and had all the qualities his father possessed, with none of Er’s. Onan, though, two years Er’s junior, tried to emulate his brother rather than his father. I despised them both.

I relied on the girls and sweet Shelah during the long hours by myself. I taught Elisheba how the embroider the palest of rock roses along the edge. Shelah and all three girls gathered nightly around my fire to listen to the stories I’d tell, stories that for my people were our histories. They would share stories of their Yahweh with me. Through the eyes of Judah’s children was the only time the Israelite god became anything more than a sadistic mastermind. Then, Keturah was betrothed and married, and left us for a village three days north. Her marriage left a hole within me, but Elisheba and Charis’s despair kept me moving. Then, scarcely two years after her sister, Elisheba was betrothed and married. Our little meetings around the fire became lonely, only Shelah and Charis and I. I clung to the little girl, desperate for the sister I had lost. Her own desolation at the loss of her sisters made my need that much easier.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the fall of my fifth year with Er, locusts appeared from the south and decimated our fields. We all watched in horror, hidden in the tents, as the swarm blacked the sky and filled the air with their screaming noise. Charis clung to me, the only daughter of Judah left, and Onan’s wife Naamah stood beside us. Naamah swelled with her coming child, and