We have to get away from here, Mara thought. Saul’s men will come back. And when they do, they won’t think twice about hurting us.

Though it was a hot day, she felt chilled all over. Her pretty royal dreams were gone. The memory of sharp rocks raining down on Stephen’s head and body tormented her. Would the same thing happen to her parents and the others? How long would it take for rocks to finish off her mother and father?

Mara tried to think of what to do. The kids of New Israel crowded around. Their little sisters and brothers cried. The harder she tried to quiet them, the louder they bawled.

She looked into her brother’s tear-streaked face. He rubbed his eyes with his fists and tried to pretend he hadn’t been crying. “I want Mom and Dad.”

“I know, Nathan, I know!” she murmured, putting a comforting arm around his shoulders. “I’m trying to think of something . . .”

She looked at Karis at the other end of the roof trying to comfort the others. Their cries were getting steadily louder as the children began to realize what had happened. Soon they would be heard from the street. It was hopeless.

Karis came over and frowned at Mara. “We aren’t safe here,” she said, stating the obvious.

“I know that!” Mara snapped.

“So what’s the plan?” Karis hissed. “You got us up here!”

“And I’ll get us down!” Mara insisted forcefully, though she didn’t feel forceful. Getting down was the easy part. What then?

She closed her eyes. What do I do now? The neighbors don’t believe in Jesus. They’ve never liked us holding meetings in our house. They must know we’re up here. They might turn us in.

“Well?” Karis demanded.

“We can climb that giant olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane and hide out in the branches.”

“Right,” said Karis sarcastically. “And we can make like olives. They’ll never guess we’re really kids!”

“Yeah,” Akbar joined in. “If we painted Obie a dark green-black, he could pass for the world’s biggest olive!”

“You take that back or I’ll give you an ‘olive’ right between the eyes!” Obadiah pulled a wicked-looking slingshot from his cloak and scanned the roof for suitable ammunition.

“Would you two knock it off?” Mara yelled, forgetting to be quiet. “Obie, put that thing away. Can’t you see the kids are scared enough as it is?”

“You don’t have a clue what we should do, do you?” Karis put in. “I thought the leader of New Israel knew everything!”

“She’s trying, Karis,” Sarah said, arms tight around her sniffling little sisters. “Please give her a chance.”

Mara smiled gratefully at Sarah and ignored Karis. “I’ve got it! We’ll go to the Dead Sea and hide out in the caves. Nobody’ll find us there!”

“Including our parents,” Akbar snorted. “You can get lost in those caves.”

“It’s a bad idea,” Karis agreed. “They’ll be watching the city gates. Besides, it’s fifteen miles to the Dead Sea. How far do you think we’ll get with those?” She pointed to the short, chubby legs of Obadiah’s four-year-old sister.

“About half a mile,” sniffled Nathan.

Mara gave her brother a “Whose side are you on?” look. “Do you have a better idea?” she asked Karis.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “Follow me.”

The New Israelites looked at Mara for guidance. She hesitated a moment. She didn’t know what to do, and Karis seemed to have a plan. Surrendering her pride, she nodded.

The children streamed down from the roof, Karis in the lead. She darted from doorway to doorway, and they darted after her in twos and threes like hesitant shadows.

A woman yelled from a window, “Where are you going? Come back here!”

The children ran as if wild dogs snapped at their heels. They grabbed and pulled one another along, the older carrying the younger. When some stumbled, others picked them up. All ignored scraped knees and torn clothing.

When Sarah started to fall behind with her little sisters, Obadiah and Akbar carried the little girls. If they saw a commotion or a group of men in the main street, the children squirted away down a side alley. At one turn they panicked when a ragged man pointed a bony finger their way and shouted, “Runaways! Somebody stop them!” But they were gone in an instant. If an alley looked too dark or dangerous, they stuck to the main street, trying to act like children at play, as if nothing was wrong.

But plenty was wrong, Mara knew. There was tension in the city. People hurried along and looked at each other with suspicion. There wasn’t the usual market-day laughter and excitement. Even the noisy beggars were silent. She half expected to see a wanted poster painted on the side of the fish market: “Reward for Believers in Jesus —Dead or Alive!” Even the stiff fish in the baskets they passed seemed to look at her with accusing eyes.

It was only then that she noticed Karis was cupping a three-inch clay lamp in one hand. A tiny flame flickered at its tip.

“Hey, where’d you get that?” Mara demanded. “That’s one of my mother’s olive oil lamps. You stole it from my house!”

Karis shrugged. “We’ll need light where we’re going. Mine ran out of oil. Besides, it was a little hard to ask your permission in the middle of a war!”

Suddenly Karis slipped down a narrow passage where sunlight never penetrated. “Come on!” She motioned them to follow between the buildings. “It’s this way.”

When they caught up with her, Karis was lifting two paving stones from the side of the passage. Before Mara could say a word, Karis’s bottom half disappeared into the gap between the stones. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll help you down. Mara comes first, then the little ones, then you bigger boys. It’s wet down there, and you’ll have to crawl a ways on your knees, but soon you’ll be able to stand. Hand me the lamp once I’m down.” She dropped from sight.

The kids hung back, even the ones banned from New Israel. The nonmembers liked Karis, but they did not like going underground.

“Come on, you guys,” encouraged Mara shakily, determined not to quit. “She knows what she’s doing. We’ve got to trust her. We’re out of choices.”

With that, Mara followed Karis into the hole and dropped with a splash onto her hands and knees in six inches of water. The slow-moving water swished past her, smelling like the damp dirt of an open grave. She fought back a scream and wound her soggy veil around her neck to keep it up. Her pretty gown soaked up water like a sponge. She pulled it above her knees.

“Thanks for trusting me.” Karis’s voice echoed in the tunnel. She set the lamp on a small ledge in the rock.

Mara glared at her. “You’d better know what you’re doing.”

Karis pointed in the direction of the moving water. “You’ll want to go that way. The main tunnel’s not far. You can stand up there, and it’s not as dark. Here, take the lamp.” She handed Mara the light and reached up for Nathan, who insisted on not letting Mara out of his sight. He splashed down beside her. “Follow Mara,” Karis instructed. “I’ll send along the others.”

One by one, the other children dropped into the tunnel with a splash, many of them whimpering and shivering from fright and the shock of the cold water. But when Karis said crawl, they crawled.

Mara sloshed forward into the darkness on one hand, her other hand holding the lamp safely above the water. The damp, musty smell of the cool air grew steadily stronger. She soon emerged into a taller and wider chamber where she could stand. The others popped from the side tunnel until they all stood in a tight circle around the comfort of the tiny, flickering flame.

“I’ll take that,” Karis said as she joined the group. Mara hesitated and then handed her the lamp.

“That tunnel leads to the north cistern,” Karis explained, pointing back the way they’d come. “We’re in the main tunnel now.” Pointing downstream, she added, “That way leads to the center of the business district out through the Pool of Siloam, where we met yesterday.” Finally she pointed upstream. “That goes under the city wall and out of Jerusalem. We’ll go that way. There’s a place where everyone can get out of the water and dry out. Then we can decide what to do next.

“And one more thing.” Her words bounced off the walls like startled bats. “As long as you’re in my world, we talk in Greek, okay? I don’t want any secrets down here.” She looked right at Mara.

No one said anything, but someone coughed, and they all jumped.

The place gave Mara the creeps. She should never have let this foreigner lead New Israel to a watery grave. Her imagination began to conjure up images of the group wandering aimlessly through the tunnels for days, starving and forgotten. What had she been thinking?

“Well?” Karis’s one word echoed through the darkness with a dozen l’s at the end.

Mara began to vigorously wring the water out of her gown to hide her nervousness. She squeezed the soggy end of her pretty cream-colored veil until it looked like a big wad of muck. Were the tunnels what really bothered her, or was it that Karis was in control?

“Okay,” Mara said after a moment, “but you’d better be able to get us out of here.” Something wet plopped onto her shoulder from the ceiling, and she jumped back, frantically trying to shake it off.

“Look, I know my way around down here,” Karis said, flicking off the clump of mud that had fallen on Mara’s shoulder. “You’ve got to trust me.” The hand holding the lamp shook and made the reflection on the tunnel wall jerk around. “I’m worried about my parents too, you know. We’ve got to work together if we want to help them. While you’ve been playing queen for a day, I’ve been making up a map here of all the tunnels,” she said as she tapped her forehead. “The perfect escape. Keep the little kids quiet, and let’s get going!”

“Hey!” Obadiah piped up in a shaky voice. “Who put you in charge?”

Karis shrugged. “You were too chicken to ever come down here before. And most of you didn’t want me for a friend. But now what? Now you’re in trouble, and I’m all you’ve got. Let’s be grateful one of us knows these tunnels.”

The little ones had stopped sniffling. They were too frightened now to cry.

“Akbar, you take the lamp and the little kids and take the lead,” Karis commanded. “You older kids stay in the back with me. I want you where I can see you.”

“You don’t trust us?” Obadiah asked.

“I don’t trust you not to get lost,” Karis said. “It looks like I’m responsible for keeping you alive, so would you please do as I ask?”

They went forward, but nobody talked except Karis, who gave Akbar directions. The floor began to slant slightly upward. The water rushed against their feet and ankles, and the footing was slippery. The walls of the passage narrowed until it was barely the width of an adult. Husky Obadiah had to shuffle along sideways. Sarah, just ahead of Mara, started breathing hard. Mara reached out a hand and gave Sarah’s elbow a comforting squeeze. She knew Sarah didn’t like small spaces. Who did?

The lamp disappeared around a bend in the passage ahead, and those at the rear of the line were almost in total darkness. Mara’s heart began beating faster and faster. The dark was where the monsters lived.

She rubbed against the slimy walls. It seemed like tons of rock were pressing in on her. The farther they went, the sorrier she became that she’d let Karis bring them all here. In the inky darkness, she could barely breathe.

“Karis,” Akbar called back from the front of the line. The line stopped moving.

“What?” Karis replied.

“There’s something here you should see.”

“It can wait. We’re almost there. The big chamber is only a little ways more. The tunnel widens out soon,” Karis said.

“I-I think you’d better come look,” Akbar called out shakily.

“What is it?”

“Come see.”

Karis sighed and squeezed past Mara and the others. Now Mara was the last in line. In the pitch dark. Dead last, she thought.

She wished Karis hadn’t left. There was comfort in knowing the other girl was behind her.

Suddenly, something cold and clammy clamped itself around her neck from behind. Mara screamed.