Page 55 of The Maiden and Her Monster

“Why would you tell me this story?” she asked, voice cracking. More tears threatened to fall. She gritted her teeth and slammed her fist to the stone. She could never know peace again, only loss and grief and anguish.

The wall shuddered. So softly, Malka could have mistaken it for her own movement.

The ground crunched beneath the Maharal’s footsteps as he approached.

He traced his sleeve along the paper cuttings on the wall.

“The king was greedy for Master Hus’s talent.

He wanted it for himself and no one else.

He gouged out Hus’s eyes so the power of the clockmaker would always be his.

But power is not static. It flows like the Leirit river, winding and uncontrollable, easy to let slip through your fingers.

The king did not expect Hus to give his life to destroy the clock. In that way, Hus took the power back.”

He settled his arm gently on Malka’s shoulder. She blinked away her tears.

“Sévren has your eyes now, Malka, and he thinks he has won. But he will not expect you and your strength. He will not expect your resilience. That is how you will win.”

“He has taken my strength,” Malka choked, thinking of Hadar, of Imma, sentenced to death.

“Look at me, Malka,” he said, tilting her chin toward him.

Malka’s body racked with tears, and the earth felt them, swaying with the force of her cries. The Maharal’s eyes widened as if he, too, could feel the earth shift.

“There is a strength in you Sévren cannot take. It is the same strength I called forth to create Nimrah, the same force you wrapped around your heart to save your friend from the creatures in the forest.”

“Kefesh.”

The Maharal hummed. “That is the conduit, but what is Kefesh really? It is your relationship with Yohev—your belief in God. You nurture it every time you close your eyes to pray, when you kiss your hand and raise it to a mezuzah, when you strike a match and light candles for the Sabbath. We do not do these things to please Yohev as we would a king, or to meet certain expectations as we would a child looking to appease their parents. We do them to strengthen ourselves, to give order in the chaos. An explanation in a vague world.”

“Why would Yohev allow this?” Malka asked, teeth gritted. “Why would this happen to Their people? I am not the only one who prays, who keeps the faith. Why are they dead? Hadar—”

Malka’s voice cracked on her sister’s name.

“It is true that Yohev is in those atrocities, in the hate and violence that our people experience. But They are also in our faith, in our ability to recover, and to take one step after the other in the face of unspeakable tragedy.”

He leaned down, pressing the end of his wrist to the ground, where moments earlier it had grumbled with her cries. “It responds to you still, even when you doubt your own strength.”

“But I have not been able to use Kefesh since freeing you. It has abandoned me.”

“Perhaps you have begun to doubt yourself in a way you did not when you conjured the magic in Mavetéh. The earth does not choose when we are or are not worthy of commanding it. Only we, as humans, doubt our abilities. When we forsake ourselves, that is when true failure happens.”

Malka ruminated on that. She wasn’t sure where she had begun to falter. When new doubt wormed its way in that had not already been burrowed deep.

“These paper cuttings,” the Maharal began, “they mean something to you. That is easy to see.”

“My sister was a master at the craft,” Malka responded. “She would spend days on the same paper cutting, staying at it long after Danya and I had given up on our designs.”

“How similar Kefesh is to a paper cutting.”

The Maharal’s eyes trailed the paper cuttings on the wall, and for a moment, the paper, previously dull and faded, began to glimmer. So lively these paper cuttings became, they sparked light into the space of the ruins until the synagogue appeared before her in all its former glory.

It was taller than the ruins suggested, sprawling as high as some of the oak trees.

It was not out of place in the forest, but made for it: spires acting as branches, windows parting like gaps in the trees, seats like great tree logs.

Candles were suspended in midair, floating like stars in the night.

They flickered and shone, making the synagogue glow a soft orange light.

Malka stared in amazement. She knew the Maharal was powerful, that his magic was legendary.

He had created Nimrah, someone who lived and breathed and thought, out of nothing but the earth.

But Malka had never seen him use Kefesh.

She had never seen Kefesh like this, a trickery of belief, a past and present pressed together as one.

It did not seem possible that mere words in their sacred language could do this—could alter the universe and her mind.

“How are you doing this, Rav?” Malka asked hesitantly. “Without your…”

The Maharal chuckled and held up his arms. “Ah, yes. They cut off my hands expecting to sever my ability to perform Kefesh. After all, how can one draw letters without one’s fingers?

But I have been studying this magic for many years, Malka.

Longer than Sévren has been archbishop, and longer than Valski has been king.

The letters of our ancient language are tied to the elements, to the shape of the world, yes.

But our magic has never been exclusionary—many holy people have never been able to write.

We speak and think prayers, but we rarely write them. Why can’t Kefesh be the same?”

Even when writing the letters, Malka still could not command Kefesh. She could scarcely imagine the skill the Maharal must have to create with an unwritten word, especially the grand image before her.

“I have never heard of this synagogue. Surely people would speak about something as magical as this shul and not allow it to turn to ruins in Mavetéh.”

“It was truly beautiful, wasn’t it?”

The Maharal’s eyes gleamed as he reveled in the wonder of the synagogue.

“We like to think the desire to preserve beautiful places would outweigh the desire for power,” he responded sadly.

“But places of worship are never safe. They are targets for violence, even though they are made for community and peace. The Ozmins want us to feel afraid in the places that strengthen us, to make us fear our desire to practice our faith. The name for this synagogue does not exist in the Kra ? -Yadi language—it is as ancient as our sacred language, made when this forest was a young and wild thing. We refer to it now as the shul Amichati.”

The synagogue for the life of our people.

“What happened to it?”

The Maharal tilted his chin up and breathed in deep.

He smiled at the scent, probably smelling a memory, for this forest air held nothing but rot and death.

Timidly, Malka closed her eyes and inhaled.

It was subtle, but it was there—pine and rosemary, frankincense and myrrh.

The scent of bread and honey, of fresh parchment and ink held close to the nose.

When she opened her eyes, the synagogue had changed again.

It was filled with people. The chatter was like a buzz in the air, a song of its own accord.

Musicians pressed their bows against string, twisting their pegs until the notes hummed together.

Children chased each other down the aisles, some of the floating candles pressing low enough to worry their parents as they swung their hands in the air, trying to hit the candles from their hanging place.

The people sang a hymn in unison, their voices melting into the music.

We remain

An endless, undying flame

Surviving by the strength of Yohev’s name

We remain, oh

Still, we remain

“To understand, we must start at the beginning,” the Maharal said. But Malka’s eyes were fixed on the scene before her, and she let the memory of it press into her skin, soul, and mind as the Maharal continued.

“When our people were small in numbers, and we had not grown beyond the borders of the ancient Anaya Sea, we gathered in this temple. Though it was not the first holy place where we practiced our religion, it was a symbol of our people and our determination to remain. The clay walls were built using Kefesh, and sunk so far into the earth, it did not rattle even during the largest quakes. It gave the Yahad strength. Strength enough to fight back against the Jalgani, the polytheists who ruled the empire, who determined what the Yahad could and could not do. When the Yahad revolted, the Jalgani burned the shul Amichati to the ground and massacred our people.”

Like Eskravé. Like Hadar.

“They were in despair, having lost their loved ones and the place which grounded them.

When they began to sort through the wreckage, they noticed the jut of clay from the earth—the same foundation which had survived deep below the ground.

On it, an etrog shrub had grown, already bearing a green-yellow citrus.

“Life remained, and so the Yahad decided, so would they. They rebuilt the temple, over and over, as it was destroyed again and again. Each generation teaching the next how to pile the clay and sand the beams—how to save the sacred text from fire, and repair damage to the animal skin.”

“But Rav… the ancient Anaya Sea is nowhere near here. How could the shul Amichati end up in Mavetéh?”

“Ah, that is my favorite part of the story, Malka. For as history came and went, and the Jalgani fell from power, so did the Yahad strengthen and grow in numbers. Soon, the temple could not contain all those who wished to pray there. So, more synagogues were built across all places where the Yahad lived. It was decided that the shul Amichati would be a reminder of our ability to remain. The etrog plant which had grown from the rooted clay was transported here for safekeeping. It is ready, should we need it, to grow the shul again.”

The vibrant memories before them grew dull as the Maharal’s story concluded, and the ruins once again materialized before her. But if the etrog plant was moved for safe keeping, how did the ruins appear?

“They are a memory of the shul’s burning, and a reminder of history,” the Maharal answered, seemingly knowing her thoughts. “But look close, Malka.” He guided her to the decayed bimah. In its center, a stiff twig of an etrog plant spurted from the earth, its leaves beginning to unfurl.

“Still, it remains.”

Malka’s jaw slackened. It couldn’t be. She fell to her knees, bending close to examine the plant. It looked new, yet she could tell it was not. Like the Great Oak tree at Mavetéh’s center, she could feel the life it had lived, and the life it would live long after they were gone.

Her ancestors had persisted, despite the attempts to destroy them.

Still, we remain, they had sung, and the words flowed through Malka again. She heard Chaia, Amnon, and Danya in those voices. She heard Imma. And she heard Hadar sing to her the loudest.

Still, Malka would remain.