Elisabeth

Chapter 25

The road that wound through the hills toward Ein Kerem was bright with morning light. The grasses along the path were already turning gold at the tips, brushed by the warm breath of summer. Lizards slipped over sun-warmed stones and darted away as the young girl walked past, her steps careful, her hand resting lightly on the small curve that was beginning to grow beneath her girdle.

Mary drew her cloak a little closer, more from habit than from chill. The air smelled of dust and thyme, of distant woodsmoke, of something else she could not quite name, something sharp and sweet that seemed to come from inside her own ribs. Every once in a while she paused on the path, one hand steadying the water skin at her hip, the other pressing gently over her belly as if to reassure herself this was real, that Gabriel’s words had not simply been some waking dream.

“Blessed are you,” he had said. The memory of that voice still made her fingers tremble.

The hill that cradled Ein Kerem rose before her at last, pale stone homes clinging to its sides like nests. Olive trees ringed the village, and terraces stepped downward in careful lines of green. Somewhere beyond the first wall, she knew, there was a courtyard shaded by a fig tree and an olive that had seen more seasons than her whole life. Somewhere behind one of those doors, her cousin Elisabeth waited.