The Esther Paradigm (A Contemporary Christian Romance) Read online

  The Esther Paradigm

  Sarah Monzon

  Contents

  Untitled

  Prologue

  1. Hannah

  2. Karim

  3. Hannah

  4. Karim

  5. Hannah

  6. Hannah

  7. Karim

  8. Hannah

  9. Karim

  10. Hannah

  11. Karim

  12. Hannah

  13. Karim

  14. Hannah

  15. Karim

  16. Karim

  17. Hannah

  18. Karim

  19. Hannah

  20. Karim

  21. Hannah

  22. Karim

  23. Hannah

  24. Hannah

  25. Karim

  26. Hannah

  27. Karim

  28. Karim

  29. Hannah

  30. Karim

  31. Hannah

  32. Hannah

  Untitled

  Untitled

  © 2018 Sarah Monzon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Radiant Publications

  Moses Lake, Washington

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events is strictly coincidental.

  The Qur’an (Oxford World’s Classics). Trans. M. A. S. Abdel Haleem. USA: Oxford University Press, 2008.

  Scriptures used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased, are taken from:

  Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Holy Bible, King James Version, public domain

  Cover design by Sarah Monzon

  Manuscript edited by Dori Harrell, Breakout Editing

  Prologue

  Hannah Pratt stared out across the grainy hills as the wind blew a gentle kiss over the crest. The laughing desert flitted away in a game of tag like she used to play at recess. Had it only been a few weeks since the phrase “amber waves” referred to the bendy blades of grain lining the fields of her Iowa hometown? As she peered over the horizon, the dunes continuously shifting, “amber waves” took on a new meaning, even in her seven-year-old mind.

  Missionaries. The name had sounded adventurous. She’d pictured herself a soldier for Jesus, clad head to toe in armor like the dress-up costume the kids in her Bible class at church played with. She’d be David, and with God’s help she’d slay a Goliath. After that everyone around would believe in the God of the Bible, not…well, whatever that weird-sounding book was called that they believed in here.

  “Hannah.” The swish of fabric announced her mom’s exit from the large tent behind her. The one that she’d thought would be fun to live in. After all, camping was a blast. But this tent was different from the one they’d used in the woods by the river back home. This tent smelled funny. Like sweaty camels. And it was dark and heavy and hot.

  “Could you gather some twigs for the fire for me please, baby?”

  “Yes, Mama.” Their tent had been pitched along the rim of the encampment. Another reminder they were outsiders. She’d tried to make friends with the other kids, but she didn’t know their games and couldn’t understand anything they said. The words felt funny on her tongue when she’d try to repeat them, her only reward for the effort being the grating sound of their laughter.

  She’d never felt so lonely. So out of place. When they’d moved from Martinsburg to Hallesville, she’d been scared to leave her friends, but then Jenna had spied her swinging alone and had challenged her to a race. They’d been best friends ever since. What was Jenna doing now? Mom had explained time zones on the plane ride over, but Hannah wasn’t sure she really understood it all. Would Jenna be sleeping? Or maybe she was playing with the collection of Barbies Hannah had left her.

  Whatever it was, Jenna sure wasn’t scrounging around the hot, sandy desert looking for small twigs, hoping to find enough so she didn’t have to gather any dried animal poop to fuel the fire for her mom to cook on. So gross.

  A stray limb a few feet away snagged Hannah’s attention. Perfect. Her feet sank into the hot sand as she walked over to the foreign wood. Bending down, she reached and curled her fingers around the bark-covered cylinder.

  A sting, like the shots she’d received before they’d left Iowa, pierced the top of her hand. Tears flooded her eyes as a scream left her mouth. She pulled her hand to her chest and cradled it. Under the twig, a vile creature sped away. Looking part spider, part lobster, and part dragon, she recognized it right away. A scorpion.

  She looked at her hand, angry, red, and swollen. Her heart felt funny, as if it were growing too big in her chest. Numbness spread through her fingers. She opened her mouth to yell for her mom, but invisible cotton balls filled her mouth.

  Tears coursed over her cheeks as she forced her legs to move through the sand that clasped like hands around her ankles, tripping her. Knees in the hot dust, she struggled to stand. A pair of tan hands hooked under her arms and lifted. Black eyes the color of her dad’s morning coffee stared down from a boy years older than her. The traditional white garment of his people hung from his shoulders to wrists and all the way to his ankles, his head covered and protected from the sun by a checked keffiyeh.

  Hannah lifted her hand to show him the sting, hoping he’d understand what he saw. She hadn’t learned how to say scorpion in Arabic yet.

  He held her hand up, studying it a second before looking back into her eyes with a funny expression on his face. Like he’d never seen a girl before or something. He scooped her up into his arms, making a soothing noise in the back of his throat.

  Her hand hurt, and she was scared she might die. She’d read that somewhere—that a scorpion sting could kill a girl. But somehow, she felt safer now that this strange boy held her.

  “Jawharat aleaynayn.” He touched her blond hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. “Alshshier min aldhdhahab.” He stepped toward her tent. “Kanz.”

  If only she could understand what he said.

  She sniffed. “Will I be okay?”

  He gazed down again, the same wonderment on his face, but his lips remained closed against any more words.

  She’d been found, rescued. Maybe this could be the beginning of her first friendship in her new homeland.

  If she didn’t die, that was.

  Chapter 1

  Hannah

  This was not how I’d thought I would die.

  Not that I sat around imagining my death. I’m not that morbid. But never in my wildest dreams had I imagined this.

  Along the horizon, racing toward me with frightening speed, a billowing brown wall licked the earth’s surface and spit it out again—a ferocious scream that caused my heart to stutter in my chest. Six years away and this was how my beloved desert welcomed me home.

  Wind whipped my long, loose dress around my legs and tugged at the few strands of hair not safely tucked in a ponytail under my hijab. I’d always been thankful the Bedouin clan my parents ministered to as missionaries didn’t adhere to the more concealing Muslim headwear, such as a niqab or burqa. I had to admit, though, that having more material to cover my nose and mouth would be helpful against the dust storm about to consume me. With quick motions, I reached around my head and unwrapped the bottom of my hijab, rewrap
ping it around my nose and mouth. A bit of water or petroleum jelly would work even better to save my nose and lungs from the dry desert sand, but some protection was better than none.

  Tiny grains of sand picked up by the wind pelted my body like fastballs pitched by major league baseball players. I hunched over, lowering my frame as close to the ground as I could. Never knew if the wind had picked up more than just the earth’s surface. An abandoned tire rim or something else could decapitate a person when chucked at top speeds. It would be just like that temperamental mistress to hurl an object absently left on the wayside.

  The storm was on me now.

  My lungs constricted to rid themselves of the tiny particles I’d breathed in, coughing hot breath into the material around my mouth. My eyes watered with the force of the wind, and I blinked rapidly to try and rid the granules scratching my irises.

  Lifting my backpack, I shielded my face and eyes, wishing I hadn’t let the driver drop me off so far from where the clan currently had their tents pitched. The inside of a twenty-year-old Jeep would have served as a wonderful bunker against this onslaught. Now I had no protection.

  In the thick of it, I squinted through the brown haze, looking for something to hunker under on the leeward side. The rise of a nearby dune lied of its ability to protect. Fortunately, I understood the reality of the phrase “shifting sands.” Had no desire to change my death sentence from asphyxiation due to sand in my lungs to being buried alive when the wind deposited the dune right on top of my head.

  A camel’s bray rent through the cacophony of the storm. My heart restarted. If ever there was an animal built to survive the temper of the desert, it was the camel. I pushed my legs forward, wishing I wore pants rather than my dress, which wrapped itself around my calves and threatened to topple me. If I could hear the camel’s call, perhaps its owner could hear mine. I lifted my chin and took in a lungful of air before pulling down the covering from my lips.

  “Musaeada!” I yelled for help in Arabic. “Musaeada!”

  The camel answered, and I took a few more stumbling steps toward the sound. The sand made it difficult to do anything—walk, see, breathe. If I didn’t find a place to wait out the storm soon, I wouldn’t survive it.

  A man appeared as if a mirage, the kind that might strike fear into some of the hearts of my fellow Americans after the horrifying terrorist attacks. Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Islamic Jihad, Taliban. While a few extremists built hatred throughout the world, my heart harbored no such feelings. These people were my brothers and sisters. The family among which I’d been raised.

  No traditional greeting of Assalamu alaykum passed the man’s lips, covered by the same scarf that wrapped his head in a turban. Only his dark, piercing eyes showed through the small opening of material. He studied me a moment, a question in his gaze, as if trying to place me from his memory. Or wondering about the crazy woman with impossibly light skin who’d found herself in the middle of a death storm in a barely inhabited desert.

  With blue eyes, blond hair, and a fair complexion that the sun loved to torture, I’d long since become accustomed to such looks from those whose mere appearance made them better suited for this climate. I was an anomaly. But one who’d rather stay alive, so when the man pushed my head down and dragged me forward by the arm, I followed willingly.

  The camel’s bray sounded louder, and soon we slumped along its side, allowing its body to shield us from the spitting wind and sand.

  The sheer force of the wind made it impossible to talk, so I forwent a thank you and bent over at the waist, tucking my chin to my chest and allowing my body to lean heavily against the scratchy brown hair of the big animal next to me.

  The man stroked his camel’s side, talking low and making reassuring noises. Growing up among the Bedouin people, I realized the importance of livestock, camels especially. They were currency, transportation, sustenance, and overall survival. I’d never truly grown fond of the stubborn beasts. Their milk too sharp and salty on my tongue, I’d missed the pasteurized cow’s milk bought by the gallon at the local supermarket. Their gait too choppy, I’d missed the pony rides at the petting zoo. Their hair too coarse, I’d missed the soft cotton sundresses that twirled around me as I spun in a field of wildflowers.

  But surprising enough, I’d discovered over the past six years when I’d been stateside to finish high school and then attend college, that while I’d never liked camels, I had come to respect them, and maybe even miss them to a degree.

  Now the tally chart in the animal’s favor grew, since the mammal currently shielded me from sudden death.

  As quick as the storm had raced in, it vanished. Like a sprinter who collapsed after passing the finish line, the winds died, dropping the sand back to the ground.

  The man patted his camel’s side with two hearty thwacks, then stood and pulled a rope connected to the animal’s halter, bringing its big head around. He inspected its nose and eyes, murmuring low as he did so and pulling the scarf down from around his face.

  Not as graceful as the camel, I unfolded my legs beneath me and arranged the bottom portion of my dress before awkwardly standing.

  I tilted my head in his direction, lowering my gaze to his feet. It was out of respect to his culture and religion that I did so. I didn’t want my actions, or lack thereof, to build a barrier between a friendship with anyone. Although I didn’t have ulterior motives besides Christian love, in a country where proselytizing remained illegal, the only means of sharing Christ lay in friendship evangelism. Despite my respectful humility, I had to speak my deepest heartfelt thanks, as I knew he’d saved my life.

  “Shukraan.”

  His feet moved toward me. I held perfectly still, eyes downcast and hands clasped together in front of me. When his thumb and forefinger lightly pinched my chin, I sucked in a breath, stunned. Interaction between genders was severely limited, physical contact reserved for the privacy of the marriage tent.

  Upward pressure raised my face. I found his black eyes in a fixed stare, probing, searching my own. One side of his mouth lifted, and the hardness that had creased his forehead eased away as amusement flashed across his features.

  His hand dropped as the other side of his mouth lifted to join the first. His full lips, framed by a dark short-trimmed beard, formed a wide smile. He shook his head.

  Based on his reaction, I should know him. But who was he? I racked my brain but came up empty. It had been six years since I’d been around my desert family. People could change a lot in that amount of time.

  My eyes narrowed as I focused on his face. His brows were thick and hung low over his eyes. Eyes that were serious and lined with the weight of heavy responsibility, even with the lightness that sparked at his discovery. The one he currently enjoyed as a secret.

  I lifted my own brows in a silent request that he share his hidden knowledge, but the answer to my unspoken question was a widening of his smile. The lines his grin made on his face were not deep, and I suspected he didn’t make them as often as he should. Which made me feel rewarded, even though I was still left in the dark as to his identity.

  He gestured to the camel’s saddle. “Arkab.”

  I looked warily at the beautifully woven red blanket covering the wooden saddle. Remembered the way my lower back and inner thighs felt after even a short ride. I returned my gaze to the man. He knew me, and that should’ve put me at ease. But it wouldn’t have been safe to accept a ride from a stranger into desolate lands.

  “Should I know you?” Might as well ask outright, even if the directness was very American of me. But I was American, and even though I could assimilate, I couldn’t change who I was by birth.

  He continued to grin and touched the pad of his thumb to the corner of my eye. “Jawharat aleaynayn.”

  Jewel eyes.

  He ran a finger along the edge of my hijab, pulling strands of blond hair away from my face. “Alshshier min adhdhahab.”

  Hair of gold.

  The weight of his hand fell onto my
shoulder. “Kanz.”

  Treasure.

  My eyes widened. I peered at him more closely. Karim Al-Amir? Could this really be the same boy who’d rescued me after the scorpion? My first friend among his tribe?

  He’d grown, both taller and fuller. But yes, now that I really looked, I could see it. This man in front of me was Karim. The same serious nature. The same shroud of responsibility and air of importance. The same need to look after his people. Of which I was yet again thankful he saw me as.

  I wanted to leap forward and hug his neck. But I knew better.

  It had taken two years of being back in the United States before I could comfortably look people in the eye when they spoke, and a year more to not tighten whenever I was wrapped up in someone’s arms in a friendly hug. And since I’d decided to go to school in the South, the hugging thing had happened a lot.

  My face broke into a huge grin, and I clasped my hands tighter so I didn’t touch him in some way.

  “It’s good to have you back among the people.” He regarded me with sincerity, but then his mouth tipped again, and he surveyed the dunes surrounding us. His eyes still sparked when he looked back down at me. “Although I see your education has not taught you to avoid trouble.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. A penchant for finding myself in predicaments? Yeah, that was pretty much my birthright. No amount of schooling could ever teach me how to steer clear of getting myself in a pickle. Although, it would’ve been profoundly helpful if it could have. Much more useful than my research and statistics class had been.