“I know this garden,” Baruch said. “This is where I was taken by the sheep when the king called me.”
A high rock wall enclosed the garden, and a clump of thick olive trees provided a false sense of security. The place was dark except for two fire pits cradling a fire by a stone entrance. The moving shadows in the fire reminded me of the cartoon characters on my bedroom walls—except these were more ominous because of their enormous size.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Besides an olive garden that looks familiar to you?”
“Shhhh. If the guard discovers us, we’re dead.”
“What guard? Come on, don’t scare me.” My hands were cold, and I stuck them under the blanket to keep them warm, but the wetness didn’t help much.
Baruch lifted his head and flared his nostrils. “The smells are familiar, too.”
“What smells?” I couldn’t smell anything.
Across the way, lights flickered on a steep hill that sloped into the next valley. I wished I could see more. Baruch leaned forward and stretched out his head. His wide nose reached for familiar scents. “I smell people, fish, vegetables, and wine.”
“People?”
“From the village. It’s not far.”
I still couldn’t smell anything, but howling wolves made me uneasy. Baruch took a few steps forward to get a better view. Rustling leaves startled me. Baruch swung around in a circle, and two savage-looking eyes that glowed in the dark confronted us.
“Get us out of here!” I choked.
Baruch dug in his hoofs and bared his teeth. “I’m not a horse.” Holding his head high, he uttered a loud bray.
The wolf snarled, arched its tail, and pulled its ears back to challenge him.
“You’re going to get us both killed,” I whispered.
He growled and assumed a crouched position as if to lunge at us.
“Baruch, back off,” I pleaded. “I don’t want to die.”
“If I run, he’ll crush my neck.”
Nevertheless, Baruch edged away, a few inches at first, and then a few feet. The wolf dropped its arched tail, but still showed its large canine teeth. The animal curled its mouth into a sinister smile.
“Baruch, make a run for it now. You’ve got a chance.”
Without warning, Baruch heehawed and bolted, snapping off branches and slapping leaves in my face. I grabbed him around the scruff of the neck He tore through the trees, catching his knapsack on a limb. I reached out to save it.
The olive trees looked like shaggy ghosts in the moonlight and waved sinewy fists. I buried my face in Baruch’s neck. Suddenly, he panicked, running around aimlessly in circles. This must be the end. I remembered my family and a report I once cheated on. Would anyone ever find me?
A loud yelp pierced the thick darkness. Baruch stopped. I held my breath, fearing the wolf would charge us again. A sudden jarring movement and rustling of branches disturbed the silence. In a hysteric frenzy, the wolf jumped out of the thick underbrush, his long body silhouetted in the moonlight. He was no longer chasing us—he was running away from something, but what?
Something moved behind us. The swishing noise cut like a knife at my heart. I muffled my screams in my hand and clenched my eyes. I was too terrified to look. Whatever it was, it was trailing us.
Baruch ducked behind an olive tree, and I slid off his back. I’d had enough. A man, dressed in a long drab-colored robe, strode past. In the dim light, he seemed to be holding something similar to a sling. I dared not move, lest he see us.
Could he be the gardener or night watchman? Whoever he was, he saved us from the savage wolf.
We waited a while longer, too afraid to make a sound.
The silence was broken by Baruch. “Shale.”
“What?”
“Something is kicking me on the side.”
I peered through the darkness. “What did you say?” I tiptoed towards him, ready to flee if something lunged at me. Baruch’s plump body reflected in the moonlight with his knapsack hanging on his shoulder. “There’s nothing near you. I can’t see anything.”
“There it is again. I felt something.”
I moved the branches around and examined his protruding belly. “Felt what? There’s nothing here. You’re frightened, imagining things.”
“No, it’s still doing it. I tell you, I feel something on my side. Is it coming from my knapsack?”
“Your knapsack?” I glanced at Baruch’s side and my heart pitter-pattered. “Baruch, there’s something alive in your knapsack. What did you put in it?”
Baruch flailed his head around and stomped his hoofs. “Get it off me.”
“Not so loud,” Struggling with the cord in the dark, I tore it loose and dumped it on the ground. The knapsack landed hard with a thump. Bulging left, right, up, and down, at last, the top flung open. Something white popped up in a blur. Startled, I fell back into some thorny briars and the spiny branches held me like a spider.
“It’s Cherios. What are you doing in there?” I exclaimed.
“I hid. It was too tight so I ate an apple.” Cherios threw the apple core onto the ground. “Uh, where are we? This isn’t the king’s garden.”
Sharp barbs dug into my side. I didn’t move. “Welcome to Planet Earth.”
Cherios scrunched up her nose as if she didn’t understand.
“Seriously, we went through a gate, a doorway into another place. I don’t know where we are.”
Cherios’s eyes bulged. “Can’t we go back to the king’s garden?”
Baruch twitched his tail. “You want to go back and be pursued by that dark shape shifter that was chasing us?”
Cherios held up her paw and examined it. “It’s dirty here. I don’t like this place.”
In the moonlight, Baruch saw his eaten apple lying on the ground.
“You did eat my apple.”
“It was tasty. I couldn’t fit in the knapsack otherwise.” Cherios looked sheepishly at Baruch. “Are you mad at me?”
Baruch rolled his eyes. “You scared the bejeepers out of me, that’s all.”
“Can’t you get us back?” Cherios asked. “You got us here. You must know the way.”
“I don’t know how we got here,” Baruch said.
“Oh, dear me, what shall we do?”
“We're going to go back home—my home—as soon as it’s light enough,” Baruch said.
“Do they have carrots?”
“I guess so.”
Cherios licked her front paw.
The briars entangled me, and I couldn’t move without scratching my arms and legs. Suddenly Cherios hopped away.
“Come back here,” I shouted.
“Not so loud,” Baruch said.
“Go get her. I can’t move in these thorns. Why did she take off anyway?”
Baruch swished his tail. “I think she panicked.”
“Go get her and come back. Don’t leave me here.”
While Baruch chased down Cherios, I climbed out of the thistles enduring scratches on my arms and legs. Why would there be so many thorns in a garden? And why did I wear a dress?
The night air was chilly, and with the adrenaline wearing off, I was cold. I crossed my arms and rubbed them to generate warmth. A few minutes later, Baruch returned, carrying Cherios in his mouth. He plopped her down, and I grabbed her by the scruff.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, wide-eyed.
“You can’t go running off like that. There’s a wolf around and a night watchman. We aren’t in the king’s garden anymore. It’s dangerous. You hear?”
Cherios nodded again, but didn’t say anything.
“Baruch, we need a plan.” I took the blanket off his back and plopped Cherios down in its place, and then put the blanket on top of her.
“Why did you do that?” Cherios asked.
“So you can’t run off. We don’t want you having panic attacks.”
Cherios fidgeted underneath the blanket, but seemed resigned to stay put. Fatigue came over me.
Morning was setting in, and we hadn’t slept.
“I saw the entrance over there,” Baruch said. “It’s about a two-day walk from here to my master’s estate.”
“Estate? That sounded impressive, although I didn’t want to walk for two days to get there. I was hungry, tired, and wanted a shower.
I scrunched my dirty dress where it was torn and picked off a briar. “We need food, and I need more clothes. Where are we going to sleep?”
Baruch nudged his knapsack still on the ground. “Are the rocks in there?”
“What? Oh, yeah, the golden rocks.” I dug into the knapsack to see how many we had. “We have one apple, the white pearl, and one golden nugget.” Why hadn’t I grabbed more? Dozens covered the bottom of the river. I found one more in my dress pocket.
“Baruch, we could sell this pearl.”
“Yeah, we’ll try in the village.”
After a short while, we found the opening to the garden. We took the dusty road leading away that disappeared into a secluded valley before climbing up the other side of the mountain. Fiery beams of light splashed over the crusty hills in the early morning. Here and there, sego palms and low-growing plants found water and clung to the rocky terrain. Sheep and goats wandered about in a field guarded by a young shepherd with a bony staff. The road stretched forever in snaky turns and sharp twists along the mountain passes. A strong gust of wind blew sand in my eyes.
“How much longer?” Cherios asked from underneath the blanket.
My parched throat and rumbling stomach made me irritable. “I don’t know.”
Buzzards flew by as if looking for carrion, and a band of wild camels stirred up a dust storm in the distance. I did a double take. Where were we? After several hours, the sun climbed overhead and burned us. Our pace slowed from fatigue. How many people died in the desert for lack of water? Some travelers passed us on the road. We were getting close to civilization.
“Where are we?” I asked the donkey. My lips felt swollen, and my rear end was sore from sitting so long on a bony animal. The men wore togas and looked poorer than a penny stuck in a gutter. They also stank. Did anybody around here bathe?
“We’re getting closer,” Baruch said. “Everything looks the same as before.”
The little hump on Baruch’s back bobbed up and down. “I’m tired of being trapped under this blanket,” Cherios whined. “I can’t see anything. Plus I’m hot.”
“We’re almost there. Wait.”
The sun clipped the precipice of the jagged mountains in the distance, its rays casting shades of pink over the desert landscape. I missed home—my forest green bedroom that Mother said I could repaint ocean blue, my collection of fantasy books, and my best friend, Rachel. All I could think about was Atlanta.
Deep down, I had longed to run away but this was not what I had in mind. If I ever found that white dog, would she be able to lead me home? How would anybody find me here? Was this God’s way of getting back at me—giving me a taste of the king’s garden and then taking it away to punish me?
I wiped the sweat off my brow with the back of my hand, and more drops beaded up. My torn and dirty clothes disgusted me, but Cherios’s wails under the blanket kept me from wallowing in self-pity.
“Baruch, let’s stop for a second.” I lifted the blanket off her sullen face. Her glossy eyes were sad.
“I don’t belong here,” she confessed. “I was just so afraid, I wanted to hide. Oh, what have I done, what have I done?” She sobbed.
Baruch’s ears stood on end. “I hear horses. We’d better hide.”
I lowered the blanket over Cherios, and we hurried behind a large boulder. Baruch stooped down, and I hid behind him. He shook violently. My heart thumped—if Baruch was scared, what did that mean for the three of us? The hoof beats approached. I tried to count how many riders there were. As they neared, they slowed down.
“Why are they stopping?” I asked Baruch.
“Shut up.”
Cherios whimpered, and I whispered to her, “Be quiet.”
“Whose voices are those?” she asked.
“Shut up, both of you,” Baruch demanded. “Many robberies happen in the wilderness so you don’t want to be seen. It’s dangerous on the open roads.”
Chapter Eight
WHERE AM I