It wasn’t far from the palace to the house of Tola ben Abihu. Even so, it took Ezra nearly an hour to get home that evening. He had a long, aimless walk through the gathering darkness. After all, there was no reason to hurry. He wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when he got to his father’s door, but he was pretty certain it wouldn’t be pleasant. Mother was at the king’s dinner, he knew that. That meant Father would be in a mood. Even prophets, messengers of God, could get into a mood. And that meant Ezra would probably have to listen to a lecture about idolatry and the warnings of the prophet Isaiah. No wonder he felt like dawdling.

The sun had gone down in the softly glowing distance beyond Jerusalem’s western wall, and the first stars were just winking out of the deepening blue overhead. Clay oil lamps were being lit and set into niches in the walls of the houses that lined the winding cobbled lanes. Ezra could see their tiny flames blinking through the latticework shutters over the windows as he passed by.

Ezra sighed, straightened his leather headband, and kicked a big rock that lay in his path. He had wanted to look for some fun in the streets with the others before going home, but Hezekiah had turned him down. Said he wasn’t in the mood. That Hezekiah! thought Ezra. As for Shub, he had told Ezra that his parents and younger brother were holding another meeting of the Remnant somewhere in the neighborhood that night. So Shub wanted to go home and practice his harp while he had the house to himself. “They don’t always appreciate my music,” he had explained.

So Ezra was left alone. He kicked the rock again and shuffled on. When at last he could see the flickering lamplight in the window of his own house, he brought his feet to a stop, folded his arms, and leaned up against the wall of a house. As he eased his back against the stones, bits of loose mortar crumbled and fell to the ground, making a skittering sound on the pavement.

Consequences, Ezra thought. “Your tricks are going to catch up with you one of these days.” Remembering what Hezekiah had said, Ezra laughed to himself. What’s the big deal? What does it matter, anyway? Can’t a kid have a little fun without everybody jumping down his throat? He stooped down, picked up a rock, and with an angry grimace, heaved it into the darkness.

“Ai! Ow!” came the voice of an elderly woman through the gloom. Ezra froze at the sound. The blood rushed into his face. He hadn’t meant to hit anyone with the rock. He hadn’t even realized that anyone was there.

The voice cried out again: “Who did that? Come out, you young ruffians!”

Ezra took to his heels, darted down a narrow side alley, and came to the door of his house by a roundabout back way.

He wasn’t expecting what he found there. The doorway was jammed with people. Ezra knew at once what it was: The meeting of the Remnant that Shub had mentioned was taking place at his house! And it was just adjourning. His father, Tola, a short, bulky man, stood in front of the house at the edge of the street, taking leave of his guests.

Ezra knew them all by sight. There, for instance, was Shub’s goody-goody younger brother, Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, talking with Tola for all the world as if he were some kind of miniature adult. Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz —“Quick to the Plunder, Swift to the Spoil.” And some people thought Ezra-Elohenu was a strange name. At nine years old, Maher was already almost as big a pain in the neck as his father. A junior prophet in the making. Maher made Hezekiah look like a wild and crazy troublemaker. Always talking about “the Lord” this and “the Lord” that and “the Son of David.” It was enough to make a kid want to run off and join the Assyrian army.

Then there was Shub and Maher’s mother, Abigail —a petite, energetic, frizzy-haired woman who stood in the doorway just behind her boy. Most men called their wives things like shoshanna (lily flower) or yonah (dove) or yephath-mareh (fair one), but Isaiah referred to her as nebiah —“the prophetess.” It was all just a little too weird for Ezra.

He watched the guests emerge from the house one by one and wondered what he ought to do. After weighing his options he decided that the best thing would be to try to slip inside as the members of the Remnant crowded out. That way his father would be too busy saying good-bye to notice him. Having made his decision, Ezra closed in on the house.

Closer and closer he edged. He could see his father listening intently to an elderly woman who was weeping and gesturing angrily and talking rapidly about something. Now or never! he thought. And with that he made a sudden attempt to duck behind the woman and push his way inside. But just as he thought he was home free, he found himself looking up into the face of a tall, imposing figure: the prophet Isaiah himself.

“Well. Hello, Ezra,” said the prophet. His long, dark beard, streaked with strands of silver-gray, swept down over his chest as he bent to smile at the boy. “We missed you tonight!”

Ezra gulped. He tried to look cool and collected as he gazed up into the prophet’s deep-set eyes. But his heart was pounding as if it would jump up out of his chest at any moment. “Ah . . . yes. Hello . . . adoni Isaiah . . . sir . . .”

Just then Ezra felt the grip of a thick hand on his left shoulder. He turned to see his father’s nose an inch away from his own.

“Ezra,” said Tola in a frighteningly low and controlled tone, “let’s go inside for a little chat.”

Ezra was caught without a comeback.

Tola clamped his other hand down on his son’s right shoulder and turned to the prophet. “I’m sorry, Isaiah. We’ll speak again tomorrow.”

“Certainly, Tola. Good night,” said the prophet. Gradually, the smile on his face gave way to a sober expression made up of gathering wrinkles and creases. “Come, Abigail, Maher.” Isaiah took his shawl-clad wife by the arm. Then, followed by their son, they turned and disappeared into the night.

Meanwhile, Tola hadn’t released his grip on Ezra. As soon as the prophet and his family were gone, he gently guided the boy into the house and shut the door.

“Sit,” he said, still in the same carefully controlled tone. He pointed to a leather-covered stool that stood in the corner of the small, stone-floored entry hall that led to the main part of the house.

Now what? thought Ezra. Assuming a nonchalant, unhurried air, he sauntered over to the stool and sat down.

“Ezra, have you been throwing rocks again?” asked his father.

“Rocks?”

“Old Hephzibah was just hit on the arm by a rock. A big one. Near our house. I can’t tell for sure, but she acts as if she’s badly hurt.”

Ezra was beginning to tremble. “Father! You think I would do a thing like that?”

“What I think isn’t the question. Did you do it?”

“I didn’t do anything!” said Ezra, assuming an angry, offended air. “I didn’t throw any rock at anybody.” This was true in Ezra’s mind, since he hadn’t meant to throw the rock at anyone.

Tola cocked an eyebrow and looked at his son. “I see. Well, then, why don’t we move on to another subject. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what happened at the king’s dinner party tonight?”

Ezra felt the blood rush to his heart. How can he know about that? “What dinner party?”

“You know very well what dinner party,” replied Tola.

Ezra could see his father’s round cheeks coloring above his gray-streaked beard. He could hear the hint of a tremor in his father’s voice. How it had happened he didn’t know, but he’d been caught. The realization turned him sullen and resentful.

“What do you know about any old dinner party?” he said, casting his eyes down at the floor and readjusting his headband.

“Enough. Elisabeth, one of the king’s maidservants, joined the meeting of the Remnant when her evening chores were completed.” Tola bent down and gave his son a piercing stare. “She took me aside and told me everything.”

“So? What do you care?”

That was when his father’s anger suddenly burst its carefully set boundaries. His voice rose and swelled. “What do I care?” he shouted. “Am I not to care about my own son’s actions? Actions that bring shame upon his father’s household?”

“That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it, Father,” said Ezra without looking up. “Your shame. Your reputation. Like I’m just some kind of an extension of you. Well, I’m not! I’m myself!”

“Have you no respect, Ezra?” Tola went on as if he hadn’t heard the boy. “If not for the king, then for Isaiah and the Remnant and everything they represent? Elisabeth said you made a shambles of the party with your antics. How can you do this to me? What a way for Tola’s son to behave.” He bowed his head and passed a hand over his eyes. “As if your mother’s unfaithfulness to the Lord weren’t enough,” he added quietly.

“Leave Mother out of it,” said Ezra bitterly, looking up into his father’s face at last. “She can do what she likes. Why do you think that everybody has to be just like you? Even the name you gave me is about your beliefs, not mine.”

“Ezra,” said Tola, his voice dropping again, “it is not a question of my beliefs or your beliefs. It is a question of hearing and obeying the Holy One of Israel. It is a question of truth. Of knowing the true and living God! ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!’ There will be terrible consequences for those who forsake the Lord and follow false gods. Haven’t you heard what happened to Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu when they offered up strange fire in the desert of Sinai? The prophet said it again as he was teaching tonight. ‘ “This is what you shall receive from my hand,” says the Lord. “You will lie down in torment!” ’ ”

Ezra jumped to his feet. “Then what about King Ahaz? He believes in the other gods. Don’t you have any respect for him?”

“Of course I respect him —as my king. But he is wrong, Ezra. Sadly and tragically wrong. He will pay a heavy price for his sins one day.” Tola shook his head and added, “Perhaps he already has.”

“Yeah, right. Isaiah has been saying that for as long as I can remember. And nothing bad has ever happened to King Ahaz.”

“Believe me, my son,” said Tola sadly. “The day will come. The Lord’s timing is not as our own. Nor is He a man that He should delay to strike the wicked in —”

But Ezra didn’t want to hear any more. “I’ve had enough of consequences and judgments and all that stuff about the Remnant! And nothing bad is going to happen to Mother just because she went to the king’s dinner party. Why can’t you just lighten up a little bit?” With that he turned and stormed out of the entry hall.

“Ezra!” shouted his father as he went. “You’re not to leave this house for a week!”

But Ezra wasn’t listening. He could almost feel the skin of his face steaming with frustration and anger as he ran through the house. He ducked under the low arch that led to his room, pushed through the dark-blue curtain that hung over the doorway, and flung himself down on the reed sleeping mat in the corner. He didn’t bother to light a lamp but lay there staring up into the darkness, breathing heavily, his hands behind his head.

The events of the evening ran through his head scene by scene: Hezekiah’s sober, serious face under the table. His mother and the king and Hanun, their heads bent together in conversation about the Assyrian gods. The pomegranates and the spilled wine and the eyes of the crowd. King Ahaz’s indulgent smile. A rock flying through the darkness. Isaiah’s bearded face. His father’s weighty words.

Suddenly Ezra laughed. “Consequences,” he said to himself aloud, getting up and going over to the little window. There he stood, staring out at the darkened city through one of the spaces in the lattice. I’ll show them. I’ll show them all! Nothing bad is going to happen to Mother or me or the king or anybody else. I meant what I said to Hezekiah, and I’m going to prove it. They haven’t seen anything yet.