“Why, Jehudith?” said Tola. “Why must you go out again?”

It was the following evening, and Ezra was listening to his parents go through the same old tired argument. The timing couldn’t have been worse. He’d made secret arrangements to meet Shub and Hezekiah after dark, and the evening was wearing away.

“This is your home,” Ezra’s father went on, twisting the edge of his brown robe between his hands. “Your family is here —your son, the husband who loves you. Why are you never content to remain at home with us?”

Tola stood in the small entry hall at the front of the house, pleading with his wife, a look of desperation on his face. Jehudith was wrapped and veiled in a cloak of midnight blue bordered with a stripe of Tyrian purple. In her right hand she held a small pitcher-shaped clay lamp. Her left hand rested on the door latch. Gold bracelets with silver baubles jingled at her wrists. Matching earrings dangled at each side of her face —a surprisingly young and pretty face for a woman of middle age.

Ezra hung back in the shadows, beyond the circle of the lamplight. He hated it when his parents fought like this. The edge in his father’s voice cut him like the edge of a knife. He didn’t like to hear his father speak to his mother in that tone. After all, Mother had a right do as she pleased —that’s what Ezra always said. But then he had to admit that he too hated it when she went out, as she did almost every other night. Somehow it always gave him a hollow, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach to see her leave. And yet he knew that there could never be a moment’s peace in the house as long as she was there.

“I really don’t see why it concerns you, Tola,” said Jehudith in a cold and distant voice.

Ezra could see the light of the lamp gleaming on her white teeth and glinting off her shiny red lips from within the folds of her veil. “I should think you’d be too busy with the Remnant to notice or care whether I stay or go. And I will go, for I want to experience new things. I want to taste the gifts of the gods. Ahaz is a brilliant, forward-thinking king. He’s done wonders for Judah. I for one wish to follow his lead. And I won’t let you hold me back!”

Without another word, she lifted the latch, opened the door, and slipped out into the night. Tola covered his grizzled head with his hands and stalked off into the interior of the house, muttering to himself.

It was the opportunity Ezra had been waiting for. As soon as he could no longer hear the sounds of his father’s frustrated fumings, he covered himself in a cloak of his own. It was dark gray, perfect for making himself as “invisible” as possible. Slipping through the door, he found himself in the gray-cobbled, high-walled canyon of the street, darting from shadow to shadow, his sandals slapping the stones.

He found Shub, just as they’d arranged, at the dark, arched corner at the end of Mishneh Street. He too was dressed in a dark cloak. One of his father’s, to judge by the way it trailed along the ground. Shub’s head was bare except for its natural covering of wild black hair. Cradled in the crook of his right arm, he carried his precious kinnor. It was a simple harp: a small, rectangular sounding box of cypress wood, two upward-curving arms of ash, a crossbeam of the same wood, and ten strings of dried gut. Apparently Shub was looking forward to a night of music and dancing.

“Hey!” said Shub as Ezra emerged from the shadows. “Where’s your tambourine?”

“You know I don’t have a tambourine,” said Ezra impatiently. “Where’s Hezekiah?”

“He’ll be here,” said Shub softly. As he spoke, he caressed the strings of the kinnor the way Ezra had sometimes seen his father caress his mother’s hair —back when they were on better terms.

Hezekiah arrived shortly, draped in a very ragged and dirty piece of sackcloth. In compliance with Ezra’s instructions, he had smeared his ruddy face with a handful of ashes so that he looked every inch the wild and homeless street urchin. Shub laughed when he saw him, but Ezra eyed Hezekiah up and down and nodded with solemn approval.

“Good,” he said. “It wouldn’t do for anyone to recognize you where we’re going tonight.”

“Where are we going, anyway?” asked the prince, looking up at the older boy with a frown and a wrinkled forehead.

“To a place I’ve always wanted to see at night,” answered Ezra with a confident smile. “The bamah —the high place —in Ophel.”

“Ophel? The high place?” said Shub. “You mean the pagan altar?”

“That’s right. I told you there’d be music, didn’t I? There’s supposed to be a festival there tonight. It’ll be fun!”

Without another word Ezra set off, leading the others southward along the winding lane that led to Ha’iyr-David, David’s City, the most ancient part of Jerusalem, and beyond it to the Potsherd Gate and the Hinnom Valley. Above them loomed the dark and lofty grandeur of the temple, and beyond that the high roofs of the royal palace. They moved as silently as cats, keeping to the shadows.

Ezra was in high spirits, pleased as he could be with his own resourcefulness. He’d show them. He’d teach Hezekiah once and for all that a kid didn’t need anything but his own brains. They’d visit the high place. They’d eat and dance and sing and have a great time. And nothing bad would happen to them. Then he’d be a bigger hero than ever. It was a good feeling.

For some reason the face of Shub’s younger brother popped into Ezra’s mind as he made his way down the street in the moonlight, thinking these pleasant thoughts. That pudgy, snotty face, topped with a bush of ridiculous black fuzz. Ezra was glad that he was so much wiser and cleverer than that insufferable bore of a mommy’s boy. Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, he thought scornfully. Give me a break. He turned to Shub, who was walking at his side and said it aloud in a scornful tone. “Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. Quick to the Plunder, Swift to the Spoil! What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”

“It means,” Shub answered carefully, “that if the people don’t shape up, the Assyrian army will swoop down and make fish bait out of them. Just another way of saying that your sins catch up with you. My father’s very fond of that kind of thing.”

Tell me about it! thought Ezra, choosing to ignore the comment.

The moon went behind a blanket of cloud as they trudged forward. From that point on, the night seemed to grow darker with every step they took. They didn’t dare carry a lamp for fear of attracting attention. Every so often they stopped and peered ahead as darker blobs of blackness loomed up or lunged out at them from the heart of shallower pools of murk. They would laugh at themselves nervously when they realized that the blob was nothing but a cat or the swaying limb of a stunted acacia tree. But Ezra couldn’t help wishing that the moon would come out again. He’d never realized that Jerusalem could be so dark at night. He didn’t really know the night side of the city at all.

On they walked, staying close to the wall. As they came around a bend in the lane, Ezra could see an orange glow rising beyond the dark shapes of the huddled houses and shops. The glow pulsed, fluttered, and reflected dully along the rough vertical edge of a tall structure of stone. The Tower of Ophel.

“That’s it!” said Ezra excitedly. “See? There’s a fire on the altar! The high place is just below the tower. There’s an alley that turns to the left just before you get to David’s City. It’ll take us straight there. Not much farther now. Follow me!”

Quickening his pace, Ezra pushed on. But he was stopped in his tracks by a thud, a shout, and the jangling of harp strings behind him.

“Ummpphh! My kinnor!”

Oh no, thought Ezra. Shub tripped again! Wheeling around and peering through the darkness, he searched for Shub and found him lying on his back, the precious harp clutched tightly to his chest. His long legs were sprawled across another dark shape that lay beneath him on the ground. At first Ezra thought that Shub had fallen over Hezekiah. But no —Hezekiah was standing right beside him.

“What happened, Ezra?” asked the prince, staring down at the two prostrate figures.

“Oh, it’s just that clumsy Shub again,” he answered. “What did you trip over this time, Shub?”

Ezra bent down to get a closer look at the unlucky individual who lay squirming beneath Shub’s long legs. It was hard to see anything now that the light of the moon was gone. He leaned closer . . . and closer. Then, with a gasp, he recognized the face at last.

It was Old Hephzibah!