I leapt up, beside myself with worry. The knife I carried as a love token clattered to the floor. Shirah reached for it. I could feel heat rise into my face as she ran her finger over the blade. It was still sharp enough to bring forth a bead of her blood.

“Sit down,” Shirah crooned. She cautioned me that if I was agitated I would only quicken the blood between my legs. “Don’t help your rival with her revenge.”

I did as I was told.

“When you’re with a man who has a wife, you marry her as well. Surely you knew that at the time?”

I tilted my chin and gazed directly into Shirah’s eyes. “I would not undo what I had with him.”

“But that’s exactly what is happening,” she cautioned. “If you want the child, you must rid yourself of the ghost, and to do that you must possess regret. A ghost doesn’t just go away. She’s sewn herself to you. You’re sharing the same skin, so she thinks this child belongs to her even though she’s in the World-to-Come. There’s only one way to be rid of her.”

I listened closely, not knowing which I felt more, terror or gratitude.

“Do what I say and don’t take it upon yourself to change anything. Cut a lock of your hair. Tie it in a knot. Go to the place where the new willows stand below this fortress and burn your hair on willow wood.”

She returned to the vials of herbs and plucked three leaves from a jar, wrapping them in a piece of white linen, then handing me the folded scrap.

“Eat these when darkness falls. What you swallow is the taste of what you’ve done. Be prepared for that. Only you know how bitter it will be. But don’t bother with any of it if you have no regret. If that’s the case, pour your rival a cup of tea every morning, because there she’ll be, with your child in her arms.”

My eyes were burning. If I wasn’t careful, I would weep Sia’s tears once more. I said nothing.

Shirah leaned forward, lowering her voice. Her head scarf slipped down. Her hair was plaited in a sleek braid, then looped up gracefully, in the Egyptian fashion. “If you are ready for forgiveness, you will have to take up the angel Raphael’s name three times. Then three times say I should not have harmed you. At the very last, say it backward three times to make sure what you’ve done disappears.”

Shirah took up the assassin’s knife. Before I could react, she reached to slash a long shock of my hair. It fell between us like a snake. I thought I heard it hiss as the merciless black vipers do.

“You have to give yourself over to her if you want to be free of her. Just know that what’s done can be undone, but what’s undone can never again be.”

I SET OFF the next day. I asked the watchman at the gate if I could walk along the path of the serpent. There were some small willows which grew nearby, new, pliant trees whose branches I wished to use to fashion a basket. The watchman was young, and he failed to question me further, waving me on, even though women were not allowed to go beyond the gate. I went forward straightaway, down the plummeting path, before he thought better of it and called me back.

The air felt especially dry on this day. Little sparks sprang up from the chalky earth as I ventured forth. Winter had disappeared. Soon the land would burn and I would burn with it. I walked quickly on the downward pitch, the desert before me. Everything looked white in the haze. There was no difference between the earth and the sky. I spied the stand of willows Shirah had spoken of and veered from the path onto a ridge, then down into a hollow, where there was a canopy of shade and a pool of still, fetid water. I sat there sheltered by the trees and tried to catch my breath. My cramps had been stanched, but there was still the trickle of blood. A flutter of despair beat inside my chest.

I’d brought Ben Simon’s knife with me, that odd killing token of his love. I thought that of all the people he had murdered, he’d done his best work with me. There was a part of me that was forever gone. I could hardly resist the lure of the cliffs and the desire to end my struggle. I did my best not to think of such cowardly actions. It was against the law to harm oneself, a sin so great there was no forgiveness and only a field of fire in the World-to-Come.

I set my thoughts on the pattern of the leaves of the willow as I looked for fallen branches, and on the smoothness of the bark as I inhaled its scent, so fresh and green. I gathered the kindling in the white scarf the Essenes had given me. I brushed away stray leaves. When I did, they looked like rain falling, or the tears on Ben Simon’s face when he saw the two sister-brides in the desert.

I brought the firewood to a cave where I wouldn’t be seen, slipping inside a crevice that split the rocks. Women were warned away from such places. There were wild beasts in among the rocks, and robbers, perhaps demons as well. The sky was glowing with fading light, and the cliffs were streaked pink and gold. I waited for nightfall. I breathed the way a leopard might, panting, still feeling heat between my legs where I bled. I felt alone, drawn deep inside my own silence.