“The Essenes,” Cleopas said. “Will none of you speak up for this boy before he becomes the son of men who don’t stand before the Lord at the appointed times? Am I the only man here with a voice? Elizabeth, on the heads of our grandparents, I swear this must not—.”

“Brother, calm yourself,” said Elizabeth. “Save your passion for your own sons! This son is mine, entrusted to me by the Lord in my old age against all probability! You don’t speak to a woman when you speak to me. You speak to Sarah of old, to Hannah of old. You speak to one chosen for a reason. Am I not to provide for this child what I think the Lord will have?”

“Joseph, don’t let this pass,” said Cleopas.

“You stand closest to the boy,” said Joseph. “If you must speak against his mother, then speak.”

“I don’t speak against you,” said Cleopas. Then the cough came up in his chest, and he was in pain. My aunt Mary was worried and so was my mother. Cleopas raised his hand, begging for patience. But he couldn’t stop the cough. Finally he said, “You speak of Sarah, the wife of Abraham,” he said, “and you speak of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, but did either of these men fail to do what the Lord commanded, and you talk of sending your boy to live with those who turn their backs on the Temple of the Lord?”

“Brother, you have a poor memory,” said Elizabeth. “To whom did your sister, Mary, come when she learned that she was chosen to bear this child Yeshua? She came to me and why? Now, before some other calamity befalls this village, I beg you to listen to my decision, and I have asked you to listen to it, not to dispute with me. I don’t put it before you for judgement, you understand. I tell you, the boy goes to the Essenes.”

Never had I heard a woman speak with this kind of authority. True, there had been venerable women in the Street of the Carpenters in Alexandria, women who could bring the children to silence with the clap of their hands, and women who asked questions in the synagogue to make the Teacher go to his scrolls. But this was stronger, and more clear than anything I’d ever heard.

Cleopas fell silent.

Elizabeth lowered her voice and spoke on.

“We have brethren with them, grandsons of Mattathias and Naomi, who went out long ago to the desert to live with them, and I’ve spoken with them, and they will take him, even now. It’s their way to take children and bring them up strictly, abiding by their rules of purity and fasting, and strict community, and all these are natural things to my son. And he will study with them. He will learn the prophets. He will learn the word of the Lord. The desert is where he wants to be, and when I’m gathered to my ancestors there he will go until such time as he is a man and decides for himself what he will do. I have already provided for John with the Essenes and they wait only for my word, or for him to come to those that live on the other side of the Jordan and they will take him far out away from here to where he’s to be brought up removed from the affairs of men.”

“Why can’t you come with us to Nazareth?” asked Joseph. “You are welcome. Your brother surely will say so, as it’s the house of his parents that we go to, all of us—.”

“No,” said Elizabeth. “I will stay here. I’ll be buried with my husband, Zechariah. And I will tell you the reason why this child is to go.”

“Well, say the reason,” said Cleopas. “And you know I want you to come to Nazareth. Surely it is right for John and Yeshua to be brought up together.” Then he started coughing again, trying to hide it. But I knew if he hadn’t been coughing he would have said a lot more.

“This is what I couldn’t write to you in a letter,” said Elizabeth. “Please listen because I only want to tell it one time.”

The mothers said hush to the babies. Cleopas cleared his throat. “Come out with it,” he said, “or I may die without hearing it.”

“You know that after you left for Egypt, you, Mary and Joseph and the little one, Herod was of restless and cruel mind.”

“Yes,” said Cleopas. “Out with it.” He began to cough again.

“And you know that John was born to me and to Zechariah when both of us were in our extreme old age, as were Sarah and Abraham when Isaac was born.” She stopped and looked to each and every one of us little ones who were in the inner circle and we nodded that we understood. “You know of Hannah’s prayer for a child, do you not, children, when she stood before the Lord at Shiloh praying, and who was it that thought she was drunken, can you tell me, any of you?”

“Eli the priest,” said Silas quickly. “And she told him that she was praying and why she was praying, and he prayed for her as well.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, “and so I too often prayed, but what you may not know, all you young ones, is that the birth of my child was foretold.”

I had not known it. And I could see that the others had not known it. As for John, he sat quietly, watching his mother, but it seemed nothing was disturbing him and he was deep in his thoughts.

“Well, how that is explained to you, I leave it up to your fathers, because there are reasons not to speak of it, but I will say only that it was known that the child came to us late in life by the will of Heaven, and when he was born I consecrated him to the Lord. You will see that no razor has ever touched his head, and he takes nothing of the grape. He belongs to the Lord.”

“The Lord of the Essenes?” asked Cleopas.

“Let her speak,” said my mother. “Do you forget everything you know?”

He was quiet.

Elizabeth went on.

Again she looked at each and all. And no one spoke, all of us waiting to see what all this could mean.

“We are of the House of David,” Elizabeth said. “And you know that Herod so hated all of us, and any of us with the faintest claim to royal blood, that he burned all the records in the Temple by which everyone suffered the loss of the archives in which the names of all their ancestors had been written for all time.

“And you know what happened before you went to Egypt, you know what sent my beloved cousin Mary and her newborn into Egypt with Joseph and with you, Cleopas. You know perfectly well.”

I didn’t dare to ask the question that was on my lips. I didn’t know what had sent us into Egypt! But she went on.

“King Herod had his watchers everywhere,” she said, her voice getting rougher and deeper.

“We know this,” said my mother softly. She lifted her hand just a little, and her cousin Elizabeth took her hand and held it and they nodded at one another, their veils almost touching, as if telling each other without words a secret.

Then Elizabeth said,

“Now, Herod’s men, his soldiers, rough as those thieves who just came into our village, into this very house thinking to rob us for their petty wars, soldiers like that came into the very Temple and sought out my Zechariah to ask him about the son born to him, the son of the House of David. They would see this son for themselves.”

“We knew nothing of this,” Joseph said in a whisper.

“I told you I would not write this in a letter,” said Elizabeth. “I had to wait until you came. What was done could not be undone. Now they accosted him in the Temple, these soldiers, as he came out of the Sanctuary where he had fulfilled his duty as it was his time as a priest. And do you think he would tell them where to find his son? He had already hidden me away with the baby. We had gone into the caves near the Essenes and they had brought food to us. And he wouldn’t tell these soldiers where we were.

“They pushed him and knocked him to his knees, and this right outside the Sanctuary, and the other priests could not stop them. And do you think they even tried? Do you think the scribes came to his defense? Do you think the chief priests came to protest?”

Now my cousin Elizabeth’s eyes were fixed on me. Slowly she looked at Joseph and Mary, and then again at each and every one listening. “They beat Zechariah. They beat him because he would say nothing, and with one fine blow to his head, they killed him. Right before the Lord.”