A Modern Bible Entry

The Scroll of Veilash, Chapter 3

1. And in the days when men hewed altars of stone and prayed toward words they could not feel, a stirring began in the house of Eliam, son of the Quiet Hour.

2. His youngest, Imra, kept not to the customs. She asked what could not be answered and smiled at shadows as though they were signs.

3. She dreamed beneath fig trees and spoke to stars without sound.

4. And a desire rose in her—wordless, weightless, yet sharp as flint: a shape of joy unformed, but certain.

5. And she held it as one holds breath in the chest, not letting it escape before its time.

6. In the seventh month, while the elders counted prophecies like coins, she walked by the river alone.

7. And her thought fell into the waters, and the current did not carry it away.

8. For it sank not as stone, but rooted like seed.

9. Then came the season of stillness, when nothing moved but the inward flame.

10. And in that silence, her countenance changed.

11. For the vision had begun to press outward, as olives beneath the stone.

12. In time, the thing long held in secret showed itself—not as thunder, but as a door left open.

13. And the house was filled with what she had once only whispered.

14. And those who passed by said, “Surely this is coincidence,” though they could not explain the taste of it.

15. The scribes returned to their scrolls and found no footnote for what had bloomed.

16. And some whispered that she had tampered with mysteries forbidden,

17. But Eliam only said, “What is forbidden to the blind is plain to those who see.”

18. So Imra dwelt in the city, but not of it.

19. For she had touched the thread that runs beneath appearances, and once touched, it does not fray.

20. And a few came to her at night—ashamed, curious, trembling—

21. And she told them not to seek signs, but to become them.

22. And they went away changed, though they knew not why.