Forbidden by Kimberley Griffiths Little Read Free Book Online

on my mother’s closed eyes when we laid her in the ground.
    I bit my lips. “You’ve said that three times now, but you’ve made no attempt to help me.”
    “I can’t touch her!” Leila cried. “Her dead body scares me. What if there are evil spirits lurking about, waiting to take us to the land of the dead, too?”
    I stared at her. “Where would you get an idea like that?”
    She turned away from me. “Nowhere.”
    “Is that something you’ve heard people say in the caves or cypress groves where Ashtoreth’s priestesses meet?”
    “You know nothing about it!” Leila turned on her heel and threw herself on a pillow.
    I tried not to scream with impatience.
    Taking off the small knife I kept strapped to my leg, I cut strips of linen for washing my mother’s body. Over and over, I had to wipe my eyes, my face, in order to see more clearly. One moment grief threatened to drown me. The next I was so angry I wanted to bite Leila’s head off.
    Last night my family had celebrated one of the most important events of my life. Today, less than twelve hours later, my mother and my little brother were dead. And my new sister, as perfect and sweet as she was, would soon die as well without my mother’s milk.
    I tried to steady myself, even as hatred rose in my chest. Dinah had a toddler whom she was still nursing, and I’d hoped she would volunteer to become a wet nurse for Sahmril. But then I overheard the quick burst of words between Dinah and her mother.
    “There’s no point in my feeding her,” Dinah had said.“The baby will die without a wet nurse, and I don’t intend to do it. Besides, we depart for the city of Mari halfway along the journey. I might be able to keep the baby alive for ten days, but after that she would surely die.”
    “Hush!” Nalla had hissed, darting a glance behind her.
    I sagged against the tent door. Dinah and her husband had been keeping their plans to leave the tribe a secret. The news just added another dose of misery. I couldn’t understand how anyone would willingly leave the freedom of the desert to live in a city far from family and friends, or to walk on crowded, dirty streets each day.
    This news also meant my family would travel alone. We’d never survive, not without a group. Sickness, running out of food and water—all meant death. Not to mention a raiding tribe who might take what we had and leave us to die.
    “Nurse the child, at least for a few days,” Nalla urged. “The girls will be grief-stricken and unable to make the journey if the babe dies now. They’re already burying two this day.”
    Nalla’s husband, Shem, arrived at the tent just as Dinah strode away, clearly unhappy with her mother’s advice. The conversation between Shem and my father had gone no better.
    “We can travel together for the first half of the journey north to Tadmur,” Shem had said. “But we’ve made arrangements at the crossroads to meet my brothers who will take us to Mari in the East, across the barren desert.”
    Watching from the doorway, I saw my father’s face fall as he studied Shem astride his camel. “Why would you want to leave the tribe, Shem?”
    “We’ve had news that Nalla’s mother in Mari is ill. And there are signs that the Tadmur oasis is shrinking. It’s a good time to move to a city. Come east with us and we can travel together. Mari is still a free city, and far enough away that Babylon’s grasp will never reach it. A walled city with farms and plenty of grazing by the great river.”
    My father shook his head. “I don’t trust the land of Mari any longer. Haven’t you heard that King Hammurabi of Babylon has taken over that part of the world? It’s not safe.”
    “This is no time to discuss the politics of Mari,” Shem replied with impatience. “I suggest you bury your wife as fast as you can and get your camels moving before we all die out here.” He wheeled around and galloped off in a cloud of dust.
    “I hate him,” I said from behind