Disclaimer: Angel belongs to Joss Whedon, everyone else belongs to me. I am making no money off this fic.
Chapter Two
My mother was not happy when I came home without the laundry. She was even less happy when I told her why. Well, I didn't exactly tell her why. I told her there was a strange goy watching us from the woods. With my brother soon to become a bar mitzvah, she had enough to worry about, and although logically I knew I should tell her that the goy was a Dybbuk, something stopped me. He had not harmed us and I felt I owed it to him to keep the secret.
"Oy, Saraleh, Baruch Hashem, you made it out alright!" My mother fussed over me and spat between two fingers. "But what are we to do about the clothes? God knows we are hardly rich, and we don't have the money to buy new clothes."
"Raisel, Sarah will retrieve the clothes tomorrow, no one will have stolen them, it's late in the day yet," my father reasoned. "Nu a goy was there today, he won't be there tomorrow."
I left to change from my wet and dirty clothes. By the time I came back down, there was a table to set, a chicken to pluck, and dishes to wash. It was enough to drive the Dybbuk from my mind. I wasn't so lucky when I went to sleep that night.
I tried to concentrate on my sisters' breathing to calm me, but all I could see was his starved face, his yellow eyes. I felt awful. I had been brought up taught to feed the hungry and give to charity, and I had seen no one looking hungrier than the man at the stream. I resolved to bring some rugelach with me the next day and to leave it under the tree where I last saw him. It might get to him, it might not, but at least it would be a gesture. I finally fell asleep.
When I woke up the next day, It was to a whole new round of chores. It was Friday, and there was much to do to prepare for Shabbos. I helped my mother bake the challa and prepare the meal. I visited the butcher, the baker, and the tailor. It was late afternoon before I could go and retrieve the laundry.
I tucked my hair under a kerchief, and took a basket and some rugelach wrapped in a cloth to the stream. When I arrived at first sight I didn't find the clothes, which should have been strewn around the riverbank, and I was scared that someone had stolen them. Mama was right, we were not a rich family, and could not afford to lose the clothing. But as I looked closer, I found the clothes folded up under the tree in three separate piles, a pile each for Chava, Tzippy, and me. I assumed the demon did that, and I felt good about leaving the pastry under the tree. I took our clothes, and I hoped that the next time I came, the rugelach would be gone.
Glossary of Yiddish Words:
Bar Mitzva – son of the commandments, and a coming of age ceremony.
Baruch Hashem – Praised be God.
Challah – braided bread eaten on Friday nights.
Dybbuk – a spirit that posses others' bodies.
Goy – a gentile, non-Jew.
Nu – well, so?
Rugelach – a kind of pastry
Shabbos – the Jewish Sabbath lasting from Friday night to Saturday night.