“You can run, you can run far, far away, but always you will be returned to where you belong. You cannot escape”

From the shadows, Bilhah watches Eliyahu bend over Yannai. The cavern is slightly damp, and every sound echoes, so that a drip, drip of water seeping through the roof becomes insistent and carries fear in its vibration. A whisper becomes the rush of wind. A footstep is a drumbeat.

In the flickering darkness Bilhah sees a tear fall from Eliyahu’s eyes. It drops onto Yannai’s cheek. The old man raises his hand to his face and lifts the teardrop onto his fingertip. He holds it to his forehead in the place of his tefillin.

Bilhah stands and watches, pushing down fear. The air echoes with the sound of falling stone. She should have woken Elvira and brought her along. Not that she is safer here than anywhere else. The whole city, it seems, is being overturned.

Perhaps Elvira was wise: stay in bed, pull your blanket around you tightly, and lock the doors. Close your eyes firmly and pretend that you are not here at all, that you are floating on a cloud in the sky, toward a mountain covered in fruit trees, so you can reach down and scoop up a perfectly ripe peach and hold it in your hands, not even tasting it, just basking in the promise of a pleasure yet to come.

A huge thud shakes the ground. From the ceiling of the cave, a shower of stones and dust. She darts to the entrance of the cave and looks out.

The whole city, it seems, echoes with the sounds of falling stones. In the cavern of the cave, they feel the trembling, the thunder, and it feels like the whole cavern is shaking, for the vibrations and echoes reach all the way under the ground.

Fire. The black night sky is lit up with orange flares belching gray smoke. It comes from the direction of the city, from the direction of the prison.

Castro’s men have set the prison on fire.

Icy fingers of terror squeeze her. There are people inside.

People. Papa. That woman, Leonora.

Locked in their cells, are they to be burned alive?