Forbidden by Kimberley Griffiths Little

pestle, feeling secretive and guarded. Keeping my back to the rest of the camp, I quickly ground the nuggets. The frankincense tears were so soft, it didn’t take long before they became a silky, shimmering powder. I applied it to the wound and gently pressed down with a clean cloth as my father arrived with Shem.
    “Hide the bowl—quickly!” Kadesh began, and then fell back. His skin had suddenly turned ashen. Perspiration was a sheen on his face. He had lost too much blood, and was weakening.
    I tucked the grinding bowl under his pillow just as Shem kneeled down beside me, producing a stick from our supply of wood.
    “Clench this between your teeth,” he told Kadesh.
    My father was prepared with thread and a sharpened camel bone. “I’m going to sew up the skin so the scar will be small.”
    Kadesh nodded, closing his eyes tightly.
    Using tiny stitches my father sewed the flaps of skin together around the open wound. Sweat poured from Kadesh’s face, but he barely made a sound.
    “You’re doing well,” I told him when the stitching was finished. The bleeding had slowed considerably, and I wiped away the few streaks of blood with a clean, wet cloth one last time to prepare the skin for the burning.
    Shem had already laid a flat disk of iron on top of the hot coals of the fire. Using tongs, he picked it up and prepared to lay it on Kadesh’s side. The heated iron would burn the laceration and seal the skin together.
    “Is there any way to change your mind?” Kadesh asked.
    My father came forward to hold his arms down, saying briefly, “I promise you, the pain doesn’t last long.”
    Shem straddled Kadesh’s legs so that he couldn’t move during the procedure. Leaning over, the older man held the fire-heated disk close to the young man’s bare flesh.
    “Don’t look at it,” I warned. I closed my eyes, saying a silent prayer, and then quickly opened them again. I was surprised to find Kadesh watching me. His hand reached out to grip mine and the touch of his fingers made me tremble.
    My eyes watered as Shem positioned the scorching metal directly over Kadesh’s tender, wounded side, then pressed it down, hard. The young man’s entire body went rigid, and grinding his teeth against the stick, he choked down a series of screams. Within seconds, it was over and Shem stood, dropping the hot iron seal into the sand to cool it.
    I looked down at the wound, and even though it was bright red, it had closed, no longer seeping blood. Kadesh released his grip on my arm, his face gray as an old dishrag. “I didn’t mean to crush your hand.”
    I gave him a faint smile. “All my fingers are accounted for.” How many times in one day had he touched me now? I remembered every single one, and only wanted more. “I’m—” I started, but the next moment Kadesh lost consciousness. I covered him with a blanket, tucking it around his form as my mother used to do, and fighting an urge to curl myself around him while he slept so he wouldn’t be alone.
    I bid my father and Shem good night and walked throughthe camp, which had quieted at last under the milky stars. Usually there were dozens of flickering campfires to keep the wilderness at bay when the rest of the tribe camped alongside us. Now the blackness was so thick it was as though the world had been swallowed whole.
    The temperature dropped and the air turned colder. As I approached our bedding, which lay on top of tarps under a shelter of scrub brush, I heard Leila crying and I crawled into bed next to her and reached out to take her hand.
    “Leila,” I whispered. “Are you all right?”
    She didn’t speak at first, her back to me. And then she rolled over, shielding Sahmril, who was fast asleep between us for extra warmth. “My thoughts are hateful and horrible. At least you’ll think so.”
    “I would never think that.”
    “I can’t help wishing that our mother had lived, and Sahmril had not.”
    I reached out to wipe away the tears that rolled down