7

Hannah raced toward her father’s pottery shop while Meira ran to the fields to find her father, Jeroham. Before the sun reached its midpoint, the men of the town had gathered at Jeroham’s home and moved in the direction Hannah and Meira had told them.

Hannah sank onto a cushion beside Meira as their mothers and sisters-in-law discussed how to tell Rinat once the body was confirmed to be her daughter.

“She will be bereft of everything,” Adva said, wringing her hands while Galia paced the sitting room. “Whatever will she do?”

“Is there no family left to take her in? I know Lital was working as a cook for the Levites and serving as a singer to help her mother this past year, but how could she have gotten from Shiloh to here and end up in the forest?” Galia stopped her pacing long enough to look at Hannah and Meira. “You’re sure it was Lital?”

“As sure as we can be, Ima,” Meira said, fidgeting with the belt of her robe. “It was dark and we didn’t want to touch her.”

“No, of course not,” Adva said. “You girls did the right thing.” She stood and paced the opposite direction as Galia. Meira’s and Hannah’s sisters-in-law had taken the children to the fields behind the house.

“The rest of the women in town will need to know,” Galia said, halting her frantic movements and sinking onto one of the cushions.

“Surely not before the men identify her and we tell Rinat,” Adva said.

“Of course not.”

But Hannah wondered if Galia would keep quiet until then. The woman seemed itching to tell the entire town, while Hannah simply wanted to sink into the cushions—or better yet, her bed—and hide beneath the covers for days.

Oh Lital. What happened to you?

Commotion in the courtyard brought her thoughts up short, and she jumped up with the rest of the women. Her father and father-in-law entered the house together with Elkanah not far behind. She could hear the sound of men’s voices in the courtyard.

“Well?” Galia asked, staring Jeroham down. “Was it Lital?”

Jeroham nodded, but Hyam spoke. “We all agreed that it has to be Lital. All of us have seen her working at the tabernacle and been served meals at her hand.”

“Was she . . . murdered?” Hannah could not get her voice to work above a whisper. Her heart thudded with the weight of grief until she wondered if it would continue beating.

“I don’t think so,” her father said. “There was no sign of forced injury, although . . .” He paused, his gaze glancing off hers to her mother’s. “It is possible she gave birth to a child. We will need a woman to examine her to know for certain.”

“So she died in childbirth?” Hannah’s mother looked at Hyam, aghast. “Lital did not have a husband.”

“Not that we know of.” Her father rubbed a hand over his beard. “We will have to investigate that to be sure. We need to speak to her mother.”

“Lital worked at the tabernacle only a year, Abba. She could not have married and borne a child in such a short time. And if she bore a child, where is it?” Hannah stood and came toward her father, allowing him to hold her close. She caught the look in Elkanah’s eyes. Fear and anger mingled in his gaze.

Hyam patted Hannah’s back. “We will investigate what happened. Though I’m not sure we will find any satisfactory answers.” He released Hannah and faced Jeroham. “We need to summon Rinat. Then we need to bury Lital in a proper grave.”

“My sons have already begun work on the bier.” He glanced at Elkanah. “Will you go to get Rinat, my son?”

Elkanah nodded. “Though perhaps it would be best if my mother and Hannah’s mother accompanied me?”

Both women hurried closer to Elkanah. Hannah felt the sting of not being included, but a moment later she realized a sense of relief to be left here where she didn’t have to face Lital’s mother just yet.

“We must hurry,” Galia said, taking Elkanah’s arm and ushering him through the door, as if she’d been waiting for permission to do exactly what she’d been longing to do for hours.

Elkanah met Hannah’s gaze after he stepped over the threshold. Clearly finding Lital’s body had shaken him as much as it had shaken her. She knew none of the Levites would rest until they had answers. And no woman would feel safe until then.

Elkanah led the women from Rinat’s home to his father’s house, heart pounding. They approached the courtyard in somber silence, and his mother led the poor widow to the bier, which now rested on the courtyard wall. The body was partially wrapped, waiting for Rinat to confirm their suspicions. He glanced toward the house and saw Hannah emerge, her brow lifted in the curious look she often gave. He nodded once and Hannah moved to the court to join the other women, Meira close behind.

“Is this your daughter, Rinat?” Hyam asked as he lifted the cloth from the girl’s face.

Rinat crumpled and fell into a heap on the ground before the bier. Loud wails came from her lips, and she rocked back and forth, her whole body swaying with the obvious signs of one who grieved. “No! No! No! Adonai Tzva’ot, why?” She gulped back a huge sob. “Lital! My Lital!”

Elkanah watched, helpless, as the women surrounded Lital’s mother. Soon the entire household erupted in the weeping and wailing one expected when a soul slipped into Sheol.

Oh Adonai, how can she bear this?

What if Hannah had worked at the tabernacle? Would something like this have happened to her? But no. They had no proof that anyone from Shiloh was responsible for Lital’s death.

But someone was responsible for her pregnancy, for Rinat had confirmed that her daughter was with child at the last feast. Why had she told no one else?

“I should have made her come home.” Rinat’s soft cry pierced his consciousness. “I should have insisted, no matter what the priests promised.”

Elkanah glanced at his father and Hyam. His father-in-law stepped closer to the circle of weeping women and knelt in front of Rinat. “What did the priests promise?” If anyone could find the truth, Hannah’s father was the man.

“They said they would care for her and her child, that she would be safer living among the Levites at Shiloh, and that their wives would look after her.” Rinat sniffed against a flood of tears. “That way she could still work and support me.”

Weeping followed the remark, and Hyam stood and walked toward the men. “We need to bury the body before the sun sets.” He glanced at the women.

Elkanah’s heart ached with the pain so evident in the widow’s gaze. To lose a child. Was anything worse for a woman already a widow? He shook his head, unwilling to even imagine it. Everyone died, but not like this. Something was very wrong.

Elkanah walked over and pulled Hannah aside. “Can you ask her if Lital told her the father’s name?” he whispered. Trying to ask a woman such a question made his knees quake. What a coward you are, Elkanah, that you would put such a thing on your wife. But he waited for her answer just the same.

Hannah nodded and moved closer to Rinat. She touched the older woman’s arm. “Did Lital tell you . . . that is, do you know who fathered her child? Perhaps if we know, we can find out what happened to the child.”

Elkanah leaned in, trying to hear the woman’s soft-spoken words.

Rinat met Hannah’s gaze and lifted her chin, a hint of defiance in her eyes. “My Lital . . . she was afraid when I saw her. She would only say that one of the priests had been with her.”

“Hophni and Phinehas?” Hannah asked.

“One of them, yes.” Rinat attempted to stand, and Galia and Adva helped hold her upright. They walked toward the bier. “We must bury her,” Rinat said, suddenly sounding stronger than Elkanah could have thought possible.

His brothers lifted the bier, and the small group made its way to the cave where Rinat had buried her husband only a few years earlier. Elkanah walked with Hannah behind the others.

“What does this mean?” Hannah whispered. “You said Hophni ruined one of your cousins not so long ago. Is any woman safe to serve at the tabernacle anymore?”

Elkanah stroked his beard, feeling as though he had aged ten years in the past few hours. “It sounds as though desecrating the sacrifices was not enough for the priests. But to defile the serving women too? How far has it gone? Was Lital the only one? And what happened to her child?” His voice dropped in pitch, though the sounds of weeping drowned out their conversation.

“Can you or one of our fathers find out? Rinat would be so comforted if she could raise Lital’s child.” Hannah’s look held such hope. “That is, assuming he or she lived.”

“I will talk to my father—and yours. If there was a living child, surely we can find it.”

“But there was no other body found with Lital. If the child died, they might have thrown it in the river.” He saw the shudder work through Hannah and put one arm around her in comfort.

“What I want to know is why they brought her body and dumped it in the woods. If you and Meira hadn’t happened to walk that direction, we might never have found her.” Elkanah stopped with the rest of the group at the cave’s entrance.

“Meira wanted to go a different direction. If we had gone home the way we had come, we would have missed her.” Hannah met his gaze. “Perhaps Adonai was directing our steps.”

He nodded. “Undoubtedly. But I don’t like what it all implies. Perhaps God is showing us that things are much worse than we thought. The problem is, what can we possibly do about it?”

“Can’t the Levites approach Eli?” she whispered, but his response was interrupted by his father’s words of condolence and the final goodbyes and prayers for Rinat as they laid her only child to rest.

Elkanah pondered Hannah’s question long after the group moved back to his father’s house and later dispersed to their homes. If only he could give her an answer that would satisfy and fix the mess that was their priesthood. But he had no answers, and he knew in his heart that no one but God could fix this.