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For the rest of that day, which should have felt very long indeed but seemed to pass in only a few hours, Lukas stayed to listen to Jesse. The man’s words filled him with hope and peace and a longing for more of the same. He didn’t know the people who two times throughout the day passed him a cup of the hot, sweetened tea and a bar wrapped in cellophane to eat while he attended Jesse’s teachings. But he thanked them and stayed, focused on the teacher’s words and their meaning and how they seemed so very much aimed toward everything Lukas had been through, both in his previous life as a scientist and Hedge Master of Qumran and now as the last of his people, broken and deposed and yet given a second chance.
The gruesome sky darkened into the complete blackness of night—or as black as it
