SIN and HONEY: Seven Years of Longing

Chapter 11: Rachel

 "Leah, I'm sorry," Rachel whispered, reaching her shaking hand out to touch her, but fearing she might hurt her instead. "Please forgive me."

 Laban approached quietly from the left, his shadow adding to the gathering darkness. Rachel could not tell whether he was suffering like Leah, or taking pleasure in her pain.

 "The Anunnaki have seen fit to punish you. It is the last time you will defy the gods, or me," he said, his voice smooth as smoke.

"Just let me die," Leah wailed, rocking back and forth in Levi's arms. "That's what you want, isn't it?" Leah's chin quivered as more blotches appeared, red and vexed, like sorcery on her once unblemished skin. She looked up at Laban, tears streaming down her face.

 Rachel could not believe what her sister was saying. Her mind raced to find a way to save Leah's life, but she felt powerless and weak.

 Levi shielded Leah with his body. "Laban, do whatever you want to me. Punish me. I'll leave this place, or you can have my head. But do not harm your daughters."

"Silence!"Laban shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. "You deceitful, ungrateful ...I gave you work, and you thank me by stealing from my stores and defiling my daughter?"

            "You need Leah alive,"Rachel blurted out, and Laban looked down at her but did not speak. "To save the camp, you need money. Do as you originally planned. Marry her to someone. Send her away. But do not harm her. For me, Abī, please ..."

"Justice must be done,"Laban said, bringing his hands together in prayer. Leah's body shuddered, wracked with sorrow. Rachel hung her head. This was her fault.

            "You will marry a man of my choosing at dawn tomorrow," Laban said, reaching down and pulling Leah up by her wrist.

 "And you," he said, his eyes sliding to Rachel, "for your disrespect—another seven years of waiting is the only appropriate punishment."

            Rachel looked up in disbelief. Another seven years. It was impossible. Her father would never do that to her, not when she'd been so good and so patient all this time. "I ... I'll be past childbearing age by then,"she whispered in shock, looking up at Laban."Please don't punish us."

            "A punishment fit for the crime," he shouted. "Take them," he said to Eli and Achan, who stooped down and seized Rachel by her arm. Eli scooped Leah into his arms. Too weak to struggle, Leah sobbed. Rachel looked at her father, with his greying tufts of curly hair, and questioned the love she thought he bore her. Now, she saw only hatred and vengeance in on his face.

            Laban stalked back through the grove. Achan pulled her along, and she heard Jacob calling after her, screaming at Laban, but she could not look back at him.

            "Rachel! Laban, don't do this. Laban, I love her, please!"

 Tears streaming down her face, Rachel appealed to her father one last time."Abī, please—don't do this to us."

 "Be quiet,"Achan hissed. "Be glad this is all he's doing, that he's letting you live."

 Rachel didn't stop. "Think of our mother; her kindness, her mercy. She would not want us to suffer."

 Laban stopped for a moment, but did not look back at her. Eli continued ahead, Leah shaking in his arms.

 "Your mother showed me no mercy when she fell in love with someone else and tried to leave. When she betrayed our marriage vows. Does that sound very kind to you?"

 Rachel felt the blow in the pit of her stomach, right where Leah said the bleeding had killed her mother. Cassia is for spice. It graces the bedsides of new lovers for good luck. Her mother had taught her that. She had died for it.

 "If for any reason Leah does not marry tomorrow, I will know it is because of you," Laban said, as soft as the warning hum of the bees behind them. "And then you both will die."

 There were no tears left, so Rachel cried emptiness. Achan pulled her through the camp, past the stares of the mothers who covered their children's eyes so they would not know what shame looked like; past the old men shaking their heads with disapproval, spitting at the dirt near her feet; and The Birds, of course, with their knowing, pitying looks. Amit had tears in her eyes, her lips moving in prayer. Mirah, beside her, looked almost angry. Even the slaves peered at Rachel and Leah with derision.

 Rachel squinted in the sunlight, unable to meet their eyes, unable to face the truth: that while only this morning they were dreaming by the well, now she and Jacob were doomed, their happiness slipping through her fingers like grains of sand. 

****

Rachel has betrayed her sister, lost the man she loves, and no longer trusts her father. Leah is gravely injured not only on the outside, but her heart is broken. Can these sisters recover their once close relationship amidst the devastation? 

Pre-order SIN AND HONEY's 2nd novella THE TOUCH OF BETRAYAL (a retelling of Samson and Delilah) now! 

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