“Stephen!” At that moment Andrew felt as if he’d never been so glad to see anybody in his whole life.

“Demas trouble?” asked Stephen, helping the boy to his feet and brushing the dust from his cloak and tunic.

“‘Crazy Jacob’ trouble,” Andrew responded, fumbling to reattach the leather purse to his belt.

“I see,” Stephen said. “And what brings you to town so late in the day?”

“Mother needs grain and oil tonight, or we won’t have any bread tomorrow. This is the last of our money,” he added, patting the leather purse.

“The last!” said Stephen, raising his bushy eyebrows. “That won’t do! Here, I have a few coins of my own left. That should be enough to buy her an extra measure of barley, I think. But we’d better do it quickly. The merchants are packing up to go home.”

The grain merchant grumbled about having to reopen a sack of wheat that he had already loaded on his donkey for the trip home. Yet he showed no lack of eagerness when it came to taking Andrew’s money.

The shadows were lengthening over the agora, and a dry wind was sporting in the shop awnings when Andrew and Stephen set out for home. It would be dark by the time they reached the village. But then a walk under the stars on a summer evening would be pleasant, especially with the black-eyed Greek as a traveling companion. This will be my chance to ask him, Andrew thought.

“Thanks, Stephen,” he said as they came out of the gate and set foot upon the road. “Again.”

“Well,” laughed his friend, “it’s just lucky I happened to be there!”

“Lucky,” mused Andrew, glancing up at the leering gargoyle above the gate. “Like old Meonen. Maybe he was watching out for me, after all.”

“You mean you’d begun to doubt it?” asked Stephen.

“Haven’t you?” returned Andrew, staring back at him. “I mean, Meonen was always sort of a favorite of my father’s.”

“Ah yes. I see.”

Far to the west, out where Andrew knew the Great Sea stretched away to the end of the earth, the sky was aflame with orange, copper, and violet. Above the craggy ridges to the east, the horned moon sailed like a dancing ship. Andrew and Stephen quickened their pace as they felt the darkness gathering.

“Stephen,” said Andrew in a little while, “you believe in the gods and spirits, don’t you? As my father does . . . I mean, did?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not quite in the same way.”

“In what way, then?” Andrew asked.

“That’s difficult to say,” Stephen replied after a thoughtful pause. “I suppose I’m a little bit like Plato.”

“Plato?” Andrew asked.

“One of our greatest thinkers —the Greeks’, I mean. You would have heard about him if you’d stayed on at the academy.”

“Really? Could you introduce me to him?”

“No, no, no!” laughed Stephen. “He died about four hundred years ago! But he wrote things about our Greek gods that would make you think he both believed and didn’t believe in them.”

“How could he do that?” Andrew said.

Stephen answered. “I’m not sure. I think he believed in them as pictures or shadows of . . . well, I don’t know . . . some greater God, maybe. The one true God. Sort of like the God of your father’s people.”

Something inside Andrew perked up at this. “Do you believe in Yahweh, then? The God of the Jews?”

“I’ve often wondered,” Stephen replied.

They walked on into the hazy distance. Ishtar and K’siyl —Venus and Orion to the Greeks and Romans —began to twinkle in the blue dome above their heads.

After a while, Andrew said, “What about miracles?”

“Hmm?”

“Miracles. Do you think that the gods cause things to happen? Like making sick people get well? Or does the one true God, whoever He is?”

Stephen stroked his smooth chin and was silent a moment. Then he answered, “A few weeks ago I think I’d have said no. And yet . . .” Here he paused, putting his face very close to Andrew’s and lowering his voice. “I’ve been hearing stories about happenings of that very sort. On the other side of the lake.”

Andrew’s mouth dropped open. “Who told you?” he said, surprised at the eagerness in his own voice.

“Fishermen. From Capernaum,” Stephen replied. “One of them said that his wife’s mother had been cured of a fever —just like that! —by a man named Jesus.”

They walked on in silence while Andrew’s imagination burned with the things Stephen had told him. At last the lights of the village appeared at the end of their road. They flickered strangely, it seemed. Andrew said, “Stephen, do you think there might be anyone like this Jesus on our side of the lake?”

“I couldn’t say for certain,” Stephen answered. “I’m not sure what kind of man he is. There are the conjurers, of course —”

“Conjurers?” Andrew was curious.

“Magicians. Wizards. All the old women swear by them.”

“Do you know where I can find any of them?” Andrew was excited at the idea.

Stephen eyed him oddly in the light of the moon and stars. “At the Place of the Stone,” he said. “Near Philoteria, where the Jordan River leaves Kinneret. The place the ancients called Beth Yerah, the House of the Moon.” He paused. “Are you going to tell your mother?”

“Tell my mother —?” Andrew began. But then he stopped in midsentence and pointed. “Stephen, look!”

They were now close enough to see the cause of the odd flickering of the light from the village. Fire!

They ran the rest of the way to the cluster of houses, dashing into the courtyard just in time to see several men beating out the last of the flames with leather tarps. It was a scene of complete confusion. Men coughed and hacked and waved their arms and cloaks at the thick smoke. Children, goats, and chickens ran this way and that, crying, bleating, and clucking. Women came and went between the ring of houses and the well, pouring water on the smoldering heap and then hurrying away to refill their jars. The donkey stamped and brayed.

It seemed the fire had begun in the straw around the donkey’s manger and spread along the wall of one of the houses. That wall was badly blackened but still standing. The awning seemed to have had the worst of it. It was now nothing more than a flutter of smoking black ribbons. Andrew breathed a sigh of relief. It could have been so much worse.

Through the smoke he caught sight of his mother standing by the door of their house with Lyra in her arms. He ran to her at once.

“Your father,” said Helena, looking not at Andrew but at the blackened wall. “He was here.”

“Father did this?” exclaimed Andrew.

“What happened?” asked Stephen, stepping up and laying a hand on Helena’s arm.

“Something I wouldn’t have believed unless I had seen it with my own eyes,” she answered. “I was working at the loom when I saw him run into the courtyard. Naked, filthy —like a . . . a beast! I picked up Lyra and ran with her into the house. I didn’t want him to frighten her again. When I returned, he was standing at the open door of the big brick oven. I saw him reach inside. He took out a coal —a coal as hot and glowing as the fire in his eyes —and just stood there with it, holding it in the palm of his hand! He didn’t even seem to feel it. I screamed. He looked up at me —I think I startled him —and dropped the coal. It rolled into a pile of straw. Then he ran away. That’s all.” She bent her head and laid her cheek against the hair of her little girl, who lay sobbing on her shoulder.

“I’m afraid that isn’t all,” said a high-pitched, nasal voice. Andrew turned to see the short, round shape of Artemas. The wispy black whiskers around his thick lips waved in the air as he nodded in greeting.

“As a matter of fact,” Artemas went on, “this is probably just the beginning. There is sure to be more of the same . . . unless measures are taken.” He smiled unpleasantly.

Andrew felt the muscles of his jaw tensing.

“What kind of measures?” asked Stephen.

“I wouldn’t like to guess,” the herdsman responded. “Extreme measures, no doubt. I mean to speak with the authorities in the morning. The man is out of his mind. Dangerous. A menace to the community. Something has to be done.”

“But he’s my father!” said Andrew.

“Unfortunately, yes,” agreed Artemas, pulling his tasseled cloak over his head. “A good evening to you all.” He smiled, nodded, and walked out of the courtyard.

Helena sat down on a stone with Lyra on her lap. “What do you think he means, Stephen?”

Stephen brooded silently, staring at the remains of the fire.

“He’s right about one thing, the old pork face!” said Andrew. “Something has to be done! And it will be done —tonight!” Catching up a walking staff that was leaning against the doorpost, he wrapped his cloak around himself and turned to follow Artemas out the gate.

“Andrew!” his mother called after him. “There’s nothing you can do, especially not tonight! Where do you think you’re going?”

“The House of the Moon” was his only answer.