Written for Purimgifts 2013. Thanks to Rymenhild for beta-reading and giving encouraging comments.
The sun is hot. Miryam's hands are familiar with the work and know what to do by themselves, so she closes her eyes against the glare and waits to see if the Lord will send her a vision. She waits, while her hands go on with their tasks. But she sees nothing but the darkness behind her eyelids, so she opens her eyes again and begins to sing quietly. The women near her take up the song, and Miryam lets her voice rise in a descant.
Pakha the overseer listens suspiciously, to make sure there is nothing amiss in their song: that the slaves are not speaking ill of Pharaoh or grumbling about their work. He will find nothing in the words. The words do not matter. It is the melody that carries their cry and their prayer: Lord God of Israel, redeem us from bondage. But Pakha the overseer cannot hear it.
A sour note; the overseer's whip lashes out. Miryam's eyes were closed while she prayed, and she did not see the cause; perhaps one of them has dropped and broken something or stumbled in the carrying of burdens. The song falters and stops, replaced by the murmuring voices of fear, the lowered eyelids and shoulders that shrink inwards, not to be noticed as a target for the overseer's whip or heavy fists.
Miryam stands, hoping the Lord will tell her what to say. But her eyes meet Pakha the overseer's and she stops. She sees his eyes lost in darkness, his blood spilling onto the desert sand like drops of wine from a broken cup.
Pakha strides toward her, a new target for his wrath. "You!" he snarls. "Have you forgotten how to kneel?"
Before the overseer can vent his anger, her brother is suddenly there beside her. "Forgive her, lord," he says hastily. "This poor girl is mad, touched in her wits. Do not demean yourself by striking her." Her brother's eyes are lowered respectfully, his shoulders bent. Miryam realizes she has forgotten again, lost in her vision. A slave is forbidden to stand straight in the presence of a free Egyptian. A slave is forbidden to look him in the eyes.
Aharon's voice is smooth and persuasive. Before Pakha quite knows how it happens, Aharon has taken her arm and is hurrying her away. "Miryam." He speaks gently, but she can hear the strain in his voice. "If you anger the taskmasters too often, I am afraid of what will happen to you."
Miryam does not know what will happen to her. The Lord has not told her. "I had a vision," she says instead.
"What did you see?" he asks quietly.
"I saw his death," Miryam tells him. "His death –" She saw it before, but the details once so clear are slipping from her grasp. "From the water," she says, and then it is gone.
Aharon's face is drawn with concern. "Pakha's hand is heavy, and his temper harsher than the other overseers. The people have been murmuring against him. I have urged them to be patient, but if I do not find something better, one of the younger men will kill him, and the vengeance will fall on all of us." His fists clench at his sides. "I need something to tell them."
It is his usual refrain. Aharon needs things that are solid, that can be held in the hands like the clay and stubble they use to make bricks. But Miryam's visions are insubstantial as a cloud of mist and a burning fire, gone almost before she can speak them aloud. There are two of them, children of Amram and Yocheved: Miryam to see, and Aharon to speak. Together they try to protect their people. But always there is something missing, something out of balance, like a stool with a broken leg.
Miryam wonders sometimes if it would still be this way if their younger brother were with them. He must be a man grown by now, but she can only picture an infant. When she closes her eyes, she still sees his round sleepy face and feels the weight of him in her arms. But he is gone into the river mist, and she cannot see him.
"The river is rising," she tells her brother. "Only wait, and it will bring you back to us."
Aharon frowns, trying to understand. "It is not the season of inundation."
"The river is our cries," Miryam says softly. "The river is our tears. The Lord has heard it. The river is rising like blood, and soon it will drown the Egyptians."
"Is that something which will really happen, Miryam," he asks urgently, "or does it mean something else? Will the river become blood, or will it rise up and drown them? Do I need to warn our people to prepare for a flood?"
"I do not know," she tells him.
He sighs and takes her hands, and they lean together for a moment. Miryam does not know whether it is her pulse or her brother's which is beating in her ears like a timbrel, but suddenly she is certain that they will see their younger brother again.
Notes:
Pakha: named after an "overseer of the works" mentioned in the tombs at Amarna.
"his blood spilling . . . like drops of wine from a broken cup": At the Passover Seder, it is customary to spill drops of wine from one's own cup in compassion for the Egyptians' sufferings during the plagues.
"His death . . . from the water": referring to Moses' killing of the Egyptian whom he saw beating an Israelite (Exodus 2:11) and the etymology given for his name: "And they called him Moses, because he was drawn up from the water."