Arosh in Lalibela.
Saba allowing Arosh in Lalibela.
Saba knew they were already here. Did that mean she was confident they would find the scroll before Arosh? Had they missed it in their search? Were they completely delusional and mistaken that Saba wanted Tenzin and Ben to have it at all?
Ben still had questions swirling in his mind when he felt a small hand on his shoulder. He turned, not surprised that Sadia had managed to sneak up on him. She had on what Ben referred to as her “grumpy pixie face.” She was tired and cranky, but still so cute he had trouble taking her seriously. “What’s up, buttercup?”
Sadia didn’t answer, but she walked around the couch and wordlessly crawled up into his lap. “What’s a buttercup?” She rested her cheek on Ben’s chest. “I’m tired.”
“So why aren’t you in bed?”
She shrugged but didn’t say anything.
Tenzin sat across the room, watching the small girl with an indulgent expression while she balanced effortlessly on the back of an armchair. “You should be asleep, little one.”
“I’m not tired though.” Her voice held the hint of a proper whine building up.
Tenzin narrowed her eyes. “But you just said—”
“That’s okay.” Ben put a hand on Sadia’s head, pressed her closer to his chest, and wordlessly shook his head at Tenzin. “Why don’t you just rest here, Sadia?”
Her voice was garbled. “Don’t have to sleep?”
“Noooo.” Ben stroked a hand over the braids Beatrice had put in Sadia’s hair before she went to bed. “You don’t have to sleep; just rest your eyes a little bit.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and relaxed into Ben’s chest. “Your heartbeat is funny now. Like Baba’s.”
Ben’s heart probably beat even less than Giovanni’s. He wasn’t surprised Sadia had noticed. “Oh yeah?”
“But Tenzin’s heart doesn’t beat at all.” Sadia yawned. “She’s the quietest one.”
He looked at Tenzin, and a smile touched his lips. “Her heart beats sometimes.”
“Nu-uh, never.” The little girl rubbed her eyes. “Where were you guys tonight?”
“Looking at the churches.”
Tenzin watched the little girl with unhidden affection. “We are looking for a lost scroll.”
Sadia snuggled closer into Ben. “Like Baba.”
Tenzin nodded a little. “Something like Baba, yes.”
Her eyes were drooping. “My mama and baba find lost books. And my brother finds lost paintings.”
Ben shifted her a little bit as she began to droop more. “Yeah, that’s a pretty good summary.”
“Except Ben and I try to avoid paintings,” Tenzin said softly. “Especially after the incident in New York.”
“Can we not?” Ben asked. “Maybe can we just drop that whole—?”
“Paintings are crim-niminal.” Sadia interrupted Ben with a broad yawn. “They’re kind of make-believe because paintings are just…” She paused to yawn again. “Canvas and oil and pictment.”
“Pigment,” Tenzin murmured.
“Yeah, pigment.” She looked up at Ben through hooded eyes. “Paintings aren’t worth your time.”
“Really?” Ben shot a look at Tenzin. “Where on earth did you hear that, Sadia?”
Tenzin’s eyes went wide. “What? She clearly has good instincts about the intrinsic worth of specific artistic mediums.”
“She came up with all that herself?” Ben asked. “Really?”
“Benny?” Sadia’s eyes were completely closed. “I liked the angel churches. Well, they aren’t churches really, but I liked the paintings in them. If paintings aren’t expensive, can you get big angel ones like that for my room?”
Ben’s brain locked on his sister’s sleepy statement. “What do you mean, the angel churches aren’t churches?”
She groaned a little and squirmed in his lap. “Just… they aren’t.”
Tenzin leaned forward. “What do you mean by that, Sadia? Did someone tell you that those churches aren’t churches?”
Ben’s mind flew to a mental picture of the twin churches carved into the side of a small cliff. They were in the mazelike second grouping of Lalibela churches, accessible only by a wooden footbridge that connected to an open cavern that led to another tunnel.
Sadia was beginning to doze.
“Sadia?” Ben squeezed her a little. “What do you mean that they aren’t churches?”
She groaned a little and opened her eyes. “I told the guide that they didn’t look like churches to me, and he said I was right. He thought I was a dumb little kid though.”
Tenzin floated over to sit next to Ben, which woke Sadia up. “Tell me why you don’t think they’re churches.”
“I don’t know. They’re just not shaped like the other churches. And they’re way high up! Why would they make a church that normal people can’t get to? It’s like they wanted to keep people away from the church and make it hard, and that doesn’t make sense. All the other churches have lots of stairs and lots of people.”
Tenzin didn’t take her eyes away from Sadia. “Is there anything else about them that you think is different?”
“Yeah, because where the curtain part is was different in the angel churches too.”
Ben suspected she was talking about the curtain that separated the church interior from the “holy of holies” where the tabot was kept.
“What else?” Ben asked.
Sadia blinked her eyes and sat up straighter, suddenly aware of her audience. “Well, they have a door between them, and that’s different. Because it’s not just for the boys like some churches.”
There were some rooms in Lalibela churches reserved for monks to pray, and female visitors didn’t go into them, but Ben knew Bêta Rafael wasn’t like that even though it connected to Bêta Gabriel via a carved doorway.
“And… and they’re, like, way high up.” Sadia raised both arms. “But then where you get the water is allllll the way on the bottom. At Saint George Church, it was really high, but it was carved all the way inside. But not the angel churches. It was like the people who made them didn’t finish them.” Sadia shrugged broadly. “Maybe they forgot or something.”
Or maybe his baby sister was completely right.
Maybe the “angel churches” weren’t churches at all.
Isolated.
Elevated.
Inaccessible with a protected water supply.
Ben looked at Tenzin. “Get Giovanni.”
She reached out. “I’d rather hold Sadia.”
“I realize that, but I’m not waking her up because you don’t want to chance walking in on Giovanni making out with Beatrice.”
She made a face. “Every time they’re in the same room. Like rabbits.”
Ben couldn’t stop the smile. “You’re pretty insatiable yourself, Tiny. Remember nightfall?”
“That time when we were completely alone and not flinging ourselves at each other in front of other people?” Her expression said she was not impressed. Tenzin was highly affectionate, but she was not demonstrative in front of other people.