Page 26 of The Maiden and Her Monster

“He shouldn’t be reacting like this,” Malka said, voice threadbare and desperate, hands trying to quell Amnon’s violent shivers. “Infection wouldn’t have kicked in this fast. I—I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“He’s dying.” It was the softest Malka had heard the golem speak. She hated it. Not now. Not for this.

Malka caressed Amnon’s burning forehead. “He has a fever. How does he have a fever already?”

“It isn’t just any beastly bite. It’s a bite from the mouth of a Kefesh-cursed creature. He’s not long for this world.”

Every horrible death she had seen Mavetéh give. Every sickness that had come from it. Yael’s terrible cough and her skin as pale as stretched animal hide. Rzepka’s body. The Ozmins raked in the snow.

“He cannot die. The forest is not allowed to claim him, too.” Malka curled her hands into fists. “This is your fault. He’s dying because of you. ”

“That’s fine,” Nimrah responded, no vitriol in her voice. “But you can save him. I can help you save him.”

A warmth ran down her face from where the deer had scratched her. It curved into her mouth, tasting like copper. “How?”

“It was not a jest, earlier, when I said you could be powerful.” Nimrah’s voice was close to her ear, and softer than she had ever heard it.

Malka wanted to yell at her, have her be flippant and uncaring.

It was worse, this way. It was real this way.

Amnon was going to die. “You can try to heal him with Kefesh.”

Malka shook her head. “If he can be healed with magic, why can’t you do it? I have seen how you command the earth. Just like the Maharal.”

Nimrah’s face twisted, hand cupping her side.

She had not been left unscathed from the deer attack, either.

“It doesn’t work like that. I can only do what I’m commanded to do.

” She pointed to the words which decorated the stone along her face and her body.

“The Maharal gave me the ability to make basic healing tonics, since I used to make them so frequently for him when his experiments went awry.” She tugged on the collar of her brocade doublet, revealing more words sliced into her chest. “Just like I can only command the vines because the Maharal gave me the command to do so. I can’t…

I can’t do anything for Amnon. I’m sorry. ”

Nimrah scrubbed a hand over her face. Hers, too, was covered in blood. “I’m a command. Not the commander.” She paused. “But you can be.”

“I don’t want this,” Malka whispered, digging the heels of her palms into the earth. It was cool underneath her touch, and a stroke of fear seized her at the idea of commanding Kefesh. Who was she to demand things of the earth?

She thought of the bruised waral fruit. But that was not real magic. She had traced letters into the air. She knew it didn’t work like that.

She curled her hand into a fist.

“ What don’t you want, village girl?” Nimrah pressed. “To save Amnon? To hold a God-granted power in your hands?”

Malka sighed, and sharp pain jolted through her where the deer had rammed its antlers. “All I ever wanted was to have Eskravé return to the village I once loved. One not plagued by famine or violence. I want to heal alongside my mother and make paper cuts for the holidays with my sisters.”

“That’s not your life right now. This is, with your dying friend against the trunk of this tree and his blood stained on your neck.” Nimrah tilted a water pouch against his lips. “Decide if your fear of magic is worth the price of his life.”

Amnon was so pale. Sweat gleamed across his skin. He shifted, beginning to rouse.

“Malka.” It was more breath than voice. The two syllables of her name slipped through his lips like a prayer.

She couldn’t deny him like this. When he was laid bare; when his lips trembled in pain and sweat stained the hollow of his neck.

“The fear isn’t worth losing him.” Her declaration shocked even herself. She felt the words on her tongue, what weight they carried.

“Is it not?” Nimrah asked, and Malka realized she was being genuine. Was the fear of Kefesh’s dangers worth the price of Amnon’s life?

“The fear isn’t worth his life,” Malka repeated again, like if she said it enough it would be true. It would be real.

She heard Baba’s warnings, but she also imagined Amnon dead when he didn’t have to be. When Malka could do something to save him.

He was sick and Malka was a healer. He was her friend and needed her.

Amnon had offered to use Kefesh without a second thought to spare her. He deserved for her to do the same for him.

Malka closed her eyes, her blood-stained hand wrapping around the flame pendant at her neck. The phantom scent of bitter thyme and the acrid odor of celandine juice from Imma’s workroom filled her nose.

Imma would do the same, Malka thought. Even if there was a chance of failure.

Even if it was forbidden. She moved through life with a grace that for anyone else would become easily muddled.

She had braved Mavetéh to pick black perphona, after all.

Malka owed it to Imma’s teachings, to Amnon, to try.

“What will I need to do?” Malka asked, her knees digging into the damp soil. He could not die. She was willing to bend the world to save him.

“Take the herbs leftover from your poultice and hold them tight.”

Malka followed Nimrah’s instructions, the black perphona crumbling in her fists.

The thorns cut into her skin, but she barely registered the pain as she scattered the herb around a small patch of snowy dirt.

Instructions were something she could do well.

She had years of practice following Imma’s hurried guidance and requests that sent her scurrying around her workroom.

She knew this. She knew how to be told to heal another.

“It’ll never work if you keep on like that.”

Malka jerked her head up at Nimrah’s disapproval. Though she was not all human, red tinted the puckering skin on her neck and her cheek. Malka was pleased to know the cold bit her, too. “I am doing everything you say!”

“It’s not possible to perform Kefesh mechanically. It’s a prayer deeper than most will experience in their lifetime. You cannot sit with God while your head is empty!”

“For someone who cannot perform Kefesh at all, you sure hold your criticisms like scripture.”

Nimrah huffed, and fog swirled by her mouth.

“I may not be a believer, but I know how your religion works. You pray in synagogue. With others. That’s what Yahadism is all about.

But this is something alongside that. Kefesh are the prayers you utter to yourself when you think no one is looking.

Kefesh is the way you talk to Yohev when you are desperate, sad, joyful, in pain.

It is the company you allow yourself in your bleakest moments.

It is the love you share in your greatest joys.

Think of those moments and let them console you. ”

Malka closed her eyes. Mavetéh was unnervingly quiet, like even the woods had stilled in anticipation of what magic might unfurl.

Malka wondered how the woods had reacted when magic tied Nimrah to the Great Oak.

Whether the limbs of the trees shook violently as it happened; if the wind became sick and pungent with poisonous odor as she slept; if the animals grew feral, their eyes as red as blood when she traced the Great Oak tree’s roots.

Malka questioned how the magic which gave Mavetéh its name could have the same power to heal Amnon. But Malka was desperate. She tightened her grip around Amnon’s clammy hand.

Malka thought of her first prayer after Chaia had disappeared into Mavetéh.

How the fear shaped her voiceless laments, becoming something else entirely.

They were no longer words, but a place where Malka lived.

It was a place where Chaia was not missing, where the bell tower never rang curfew, and Hadar could play without worry.

In the quietness of her room in Eskravé, the moon washing its glow across the floorboards, Malka remembered how her prayer opened in a way it had not before.

She had been desperate for Chaia’s safety, and she was desperate for Amnon’s health now.

She let her mind shape the holy words. They were laced with the same fear of loss she felt for Chaia.

The same fear of being at Mavetéh’s knees again.

She chanted the familiar words, letting them coat her tongue like goldenmase.

She thought of the comfort prayer brought her, how her words alone could have Yohev’s ear.

The God who gave her life, who gave her Danya and Hadar as sisters.

Who gave her Chaia’s and Amnon’s friendship.

The God who brought joy and light, pain and suffering.

And that pain racked her chest.

But like the thickest beam in the shul, Yohev also gave her the strength to overcome.

Fill me with strength, she said, unsure if her words were Kra ? -Yadi or her ancient holy language or both. Like the grandest oak tree, the most torrented river. Give me a strength as ancient as the earth itself.

Something within her broke. She was no longer in Mavetéh, no longer stung with cold or her skin torn with cuts. She was somewhere no one could follow, where she existed with Yohev alone.

Holding tight to this feeling, Malka dragged her finger along the scattered herb, letting the earth guide her hand. She drew out the block letters: ??? . Rapha. Heal. Ancient words from her holy language running across her tongue.

When she was done, she held her breath.

The earth was silent, and then it was not.

She felt it, warm and heady. There were no words to describe how it felt to command the earth, only an understanding that it heeded her.

And Malka churned with power. She opened her eyes, blinking away the white spots clouding her vision.

Careful not to smudge the letters, she collected the crumbled black perphona plant and shoved it into Amnon’s mouth.

She held his head in her palm and helped him chase down the herb with water. He coughed, but Malka held his mouth closed until he swallowed.

He fell still.

Malka, dizzy with power, leaned over him, hand tracking the pulse at his wrist. It beat slow, but steady.

Nimrah stared at her wildly, eyebrows knit together and mouth hung open.

Malka wondered what she looked like, cheeks flushed and pupils blown wide.

The look the golem gave her sent a chill up her spine, despite the heat of magic flowing through her.

She was unbarred, and Malka swore the golem’s lips trembled.

Her hands were still slick with magic as she fled from Nimrah and Amnon.

Her body was stiff from the creature’s attack, back in sharp swaths of pain from being thrown on the ground.

She bled where she had landed on jagged rock, soiling the right sleeve of her blouse.

Adrenaline coursed through her, numbing the pain that would worsen later.

She needed to be alone, to subdue the power that ached in her bones.

The sickly-sweet scent trailed behind her like smoke.

When she hid herself behind the tight-knit trees, she faced the direction of the ancient holy city and pressed her forehead to the tree in front of her.

The bark was cool, rough edges digging into her skin.

She inhaled, and the tree breathed with her, undulating like the movement of her chest.

It was like the whisper of those holy words, the letters of Yohev’s language wrapped in her mouth like cinnamon and myrrh, made her something dangerous.

For a moment, when the words awoke the herbs in her hand, she felt a power long lost to her.

There was no tithe collection, no knights or bishops with their iron threats.

There was no sickness, no Mavetéh. There was only her and the words she had spoken since childhood, since her mouth was able to form a prayer.

Eternal One, Malka prayed. Is this what it means to be held close? To walk with You without fear of falling?

A warmth flowed through her cheeks, the erratic beat of her heart loud in her ears. God of My Ancestors, give me the strength to hold prayer in my mouth like magic.

The tree rumbled in response, sending shivers down her neck. She stayed there, against the fluttering woods, until she could no longer hold her trembling body upright; until the cold whipped her down to her knees and the roots cracked against her bone.