Read Abigail's Story for Free Online Page A

out the clay, Rivai brought myfather’s short stool and set it in place. He nudged the edge of the wheel, smearing some grease beneath to keep grit out of the axis seam, and took position behind it. Because turning the wheel meant he would be continually splattered by the clay and water it flung, he wore only an old ezor modestly wrapped around his hips.
    â€œHow long will this take?” he asked me. “I am weary.”
    He was weary. I had been awake and working since before dawn, and had done more than he would in a week. I felt so tired my bones ached, and now the thought of eight maneh of gold ground like olive press stones atop my fatigue.
    For a moment I was tempted to throw the clay at my brother’s head.
    â€œAs long as it takes.” I put on one of my father’s woolen work aprons to protect my khiton, dropped a portion of clay on the reed bat covering the top of the wheel, and dipped my hands in the rainwater.
    Rivai sighed and bent to the wheel. Its edges were heavier than its center, so when it began to spin under his hands it continued revolving on its own for some time. In order for me to properly work the clay, all my brother had to do was give the moving wheel a push now and then to sustain an even rate of spinning.
    Pain knotted beneath my breast. If only a heart could be so effortlessly sustained.
    Fashioning pots was not as easy as it appeared. I had watched my father work at the wheel all my life,and time and again he had allowed me to work my own little pots. Those were the happiest times I could remember, when he sat me on his stool, my short legs dangling, and spun the wheel for me. He had always treated me as if I were a master potter.
    â€œYou have clever hands, my daughter,” he would say to me. “Ah, if only you were a boy.”
    For all my play on the wheel as a child, my first serious attempts had been laughably lopsided. It took many months of practice in secret before I was able to make something worth selling, and yet another season before I was skilled enough to create reasonable duplicates of my father’s work.
    From three mounds I worked utilitarian jars and lamps of sizes that I knew would sell well at market. These I made so often I could shape them with my eyes closed, leaving myself free to consider what to do about Rivai’s impossible debt.
    Rivai was right. We could not pay such a debt, not unless Father sold us and all we had. Even if our parents were spared lives as slaves, they would have to beg in the street for food until the shamar finally ran them out of the town. Unprotected in the wilderness, they would starve or be killed by wild animals, marauders, or the elements.
    I would die before I allowed that to happen.
    â€œWe could flee to Hebron,” my brother said, as if knowing my thoughts. “It is a city of refuge.”
    Rivai knew so little of the law. I, on the other hand, had learned much about it from other merchants as well as from those who passed through themarketplace. Knowledge I wished that I did not have, not on this night.
    â€œCities like Hebron are only for those who kill by accident, if they can persuade the gatekeepers that they are truly innocent,” I told him. “Sanctuary is offered to protect a life, not a purse—or lack of one.”
    He gave the wheel a halfhearted push. “You despise me, don’t you?”
    I had often resented Rivai because my parents had indulged him so much, and because he had so much more freedom than I. I also secretly envied his carvings, which were much finer and more delicate than anything I could ever make. Even so, he was my brother.
    â€œI do not always understand you, or the things you want,” I admitted, “but I could never hate you.”
    â€œI wanted a good life, and the chance to make my art. Now I have probably ruined mine, and yours, and our parents’.” He regarded me with suddenly sad eyes. “You should hate me. You deserve