Free Strangers in the Land (The Zombie Bible) by Stant Litore Page A

withering of her olive tree. With so many men and women singing a greeting to God, itwas unthinkable that God was not here among them. Perhaps the withering had only been a warning, nothing more.
    As she approached the high priest’s tent—her husband’s was still many tents beyond it, in the western part of the camp—Devora halted and looked at the high priest and his wife as they sang outside the door of their tent. She had to tell him, she realized. She had to tell the
kohannim
of her vision.
    Eleazar ben Phinehas ben Eleazar ben Aharon was the head of Levi tribe and the one man who might pass within the last veil to speak face-to-face with the
shekinah
, the hot presence that dwelled over the Ark. He alone could give offerings there, sending up a sweet smoke to renew the Covenant between God and People. Among all the People, only he was permitted by Law to speak without the veil between him and the divine ears.
    Only he.
    Except that God, too, could draw aside the veil. Without consulting priest or levites, the
shekinah
might sometimes fall upon a
navi
, showing the prophet things that otherwise only God’s eyes would see. It was an uneasy relationship, that of the high priest and the
navi
.
    Eleazar’s robe was white like the other priests’, but over it he wore the
ephod
, a loose garment gold like the sun. And over that he wore an ornamented bronze breast-piece. It was the sign of his office, the
hoshen mishpat
, the breast-piece of decision. Embedded in the
hoshen
were twelve smooth river stones from the Tumbling Water, on which had been inscribed the names of the Hebrew tribes, and also two stones with no letters on them, one dark as a cow’s eye, the other pale as dead flesh. The
urim
and
thummim
, a last resort, a device for divining God’s will in uncertain matters.
    Beside Eleazar stood Hannah, his wife, in a white levite’s gown with the blue sash of the midwives about her hips. Her head tilted back in song. She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as the priest; she had always towered over Devora.
    “Eleazar!” Devora called out.
    The priest stopped his song, and his wife beside him fell silent. They looked at Devora curiously. Disheveled as she was, the
navi
likely was a strange sight to them.
    Devora found herself out of breath, trying to gasp out what was in her heart. “
Kohen
, there are dead—the olive tree—it withered—and there are dead. So many.” She swallowed, gathered herself. “God sent a vision.”
    “What did he show you?” Eleazar murmured. There was respect in his tone, but wariness too.
    Briefly, Devora told of her vision, of the lurching herds.
    “This is horrible!” Hannah gasped. And Devora saw in the other woman’s eyes that she too remembered the night of wrath thirty years before. No one who had been there would ever forget it.
    Eleazar’s eyes had become windows into a desolate place. “What you have seen is like cold water on my heart,” he said after a moment. “The men of the Galilee sent a messenger here today.”
    Devora stiffened. “What did he say?”
    “He said the other tribes were refusing to come at Barak’s call. He asked for the Ark.” Eleazar looked grim.
    It was said that in the days of Yeshua when the People took possession of lands east of the Tumbling Water, the levites had carried the Ark on stout poles in advance of the host. The few dead walking in those valleys had stumbled out of the fields with their lifted arms and their moaning voices, only to wither before the Ark like dry wheat before a desert wind. So it was said.
    “But they have come with only three tribes,
navi
. They cannot take the Ark. They think God does not care if his People are divided or together.”
    “Maybe we should talk, all of us, after the Sabbath,” Devora said quickly. “What I’ve seen—if there are so many dead—”
    “We are one People,
navi
.”
    “I
know
that. But perhaps it’s time to cast the
urim and thummim
, to find out if God
wishes
to go