Soon Tola learned of his son’s strange and sudden sickness, for Mishael lost no time in reporting it to him. Tola confined Ezra to his room for the rest of the afternoon and evening, explaining that a boy so seriously ill should not leave his bed until a qualified physician or man of God had a chance to examine him.

Tola even hinted that he might ask the prophet Isaiah himself to make a house call. At this suggestion, Ezra perked up and insisted that he was feeling much better. But Tola was unrelenting. Ezra was not to leave his room until the hour of his lessons the following day at the earliest.

There was no supper to speak of that night —just more of the same round loaves and leben he had shared with his father that morning. Ezra’s mother had gone out again.

Ezra ate his meager meal alone and in silence, sitting on his reed sleeping mat as the last slanting rays of the red sun faded from his window. Tola’s measures were seriously complicating his plans to meet Shub and Hezekiah at the base of the stone stairway after dark. But he hadn’t given up hope. This wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. I can still sneak out the door after Father goes to bed, he told himself.

But then he found out that the door was going to be blocked that night —blocked in a most unexpected and frustrating way. Apparently Tola had invited a houseguest to come and sleep in the front entry hall —the last houseguest Ezra would ever have chosen to sleep under the same roof with him.

“Old Hephzibah,” he whined when his father told him. “You can’t be serious!”

“It’s the least we can do for her, Ezra,” Tola responded. “She’s old. She’s a widow. And now that she’s hurt her arm, she can’t possibly fend for herself. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the prophet, it’s that the Lord wants us to look out for people like Old Hephzibah. Isaiah has said it many times:

Defend the cause of the fatherless,

plead the case of the widow. . . .

Provide the poor wanderer with shelter. . . .

Then your light will break forth like the dawn. . . .

Then your righteousness will go before you.

“I really don’t think we have any choice except to take her in.”

That absolutely settled it. Rendezvous or no rendezvous, there was no way Ezra was going to wait around that house for a confrontation with Old Hephzibah. He just had to get out. So as soon as his father left the room, he grabbed his cloak and took the only way of escape that was left to him.

Off came the window lattice. Up onto the sill went Ezra. Then, leaning out the window as far as he could, he laid hold of the nearest branch of the almond tree that grew outside and swung himself out. The scent of the almond blossoms invaded his nostrils. The gentle night breeze brushed his cheek. He was out; he was free! It was great to be alive.

He found the others waiting for him at the bottom of the stairway leading to Mishneh Street. Shub was there with his precious kinnor. Hezekiah had covered himself in the same ragged, ash-smeared sackcloth robe he had worn the previous evening. Overhead, the first stars were gleaming dully through a gauzy veil of gathering cloud and mist. Ezra took a deep breath and straightened his headband. This was going to be his night of nights. The making of a true hero.

“Well,” he said, spreading his feet and folding his arms, “I’d say it’s time we got going. What do you guys say?”

Hezekiah got up from the step where he was sitting, glanced at the sky, and drew his cloak closer around his shoulders. “Where are you taking us this time?”

“Didn’t Shub tell you?”

Hezekiah looked at Shub. Shub shrugged his shoulders. “No, Shub didn’t tell me. As a matter of fact, he’s been acting pretty funny about the whole thing. I almost didn’t come. I figured you must be up to something really bad this time. You’re going to get caught one of these days, Ezra, and I don’t know if I want to be around when it happens.”

Ezra laughed. “So what if I do? What’s it to you? And anyway, you did come —which shows that you know I’m right after all.”

“I don’t know about that.” Hezekiah bit his lip, rubbed his right temple, and sat down on the step again. “I’m not sure why I came. I guess there are some things I have to find out for myself.”

“Whatever,” said Ezra impatiently. “So do you still want to know where we’re going?”

Hezekiah looked up. “I’ve got an idea, but . . . go ahead and tell me.”

“All right, then.” Ezra drew himself up to his full height, pushed the dark curls out of his face, and smiled. “We’re going to a Molech festival.”

Shub shuddered at the name of the Red King. Hezekiah set his jaw, folded his hands in his lap, and stared down at them. “I had a feeling you’d say that,” he said.

“So are you still coming?” Ezra asked.

Hezekiah didn’t answer right away. He just bit his lip and kept staring down at his two thumbs where they lay locked in his lap. His face was pale and his eyes looked glassy. Ezra stared at him and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He felt very uncomfortable for some reason. That Hezekiah. Scared and worried again. It was the same old story. And yet, somehow, there was something different about it this time. Well, he can go on home if he wants to, Ezra told himself. I’ve had just about enough of his worrying anyhow.

“I don’t want to go,” Hezekiah said at last. “But . . . but maybe I should.”

Shub perked up at this. “Should?” he said. “What do you mean should?”

“I need to know . . .” Hezekiah said slowly, “exactly what happened to them.”

“Them?” Ezra shot a questioning glance at Shub. Shub looked down at his kinnor.

“I’ve only heard rumors,” Hezekiah continued. “I asked my mother several times before she died. But she wouldn’t talk to me about it. Sometimes I think that’s what killed her —the grief and the shame . . . and the fear. Not that they were her sons. They were the children of other wives. But she was afraid.

“Shub’s father says I’m under Yahweh’s special protection. Otherwise, the same thing would have happened to me. Supposedly Isaiah made a big deal of it in his prophecies when I was born. There was an oracle or something.”

“Yes,” said Shub quietly, without looking up. “It went something like this:

“For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders. . . .

He will reign on David’s throne

and over his kingdom,

establishing and upholding it

with justice and righteousness.”

Ezra was confused. “What are you guys talking about?”

“I’m going to sit on my father’s throne someday,” Hezekiah went on, ignoring Ezra’s question. His lip was beginning to tremble. “And yet, by right, it should have gone to one of them. I just have to find out what . . . happened to them. I don’t really want to know, but I need to know.” He looked up into Ezra’s eyes. “Do you understand?”

“No,” said Ezra angrily. “I don’t understand! And I’m not going to take the time to try right now. You’re wasting my time. If we don’t get going soon, it’ll be too late! Do you know the way, Shub?”

Shub stood up and gave him a sheepish look. “I think so,” he said.

“Well, then —lead on!”