The ship bobbed in a blessedly calm sea. Belowdecks, Noa groaned and blinked, startling the baby sleeping beside her. She patted his back until his whimpers turned back to long, deep sighs. Noa looked across the baby at her husband, Laman, who also slept. His face lay slack beneath the dark beard, his smooth brow untroubled now by last night’s resentment, rage, and terror.
Her mouth felt stuffed full of foul-tasting cotton, and her head ached like the morning after drinking too much. That morning now lay three days behind her, but the taste of regret still lingered. She gave her head a shake, but the motion only set her brain pounding.
She needed a drink of water. Careful not to disturb the baby, the children, the husband, she crawled free of the covers and headed for the ladder. She paused before she climbed up, but she heard no movement or voices over the creaking of the hull and the soft splashing of the waves. She hoped that meant Laman’s brother Nephi and his family slept soundly at last. Up top, she had to pick her way past puddles from last night’s storm. They would have a lot of cleaning up to do.
Stars shone in a dark, clear sky, a welcome change from last night’s pouring rain and pounding waves. The storm had ceased when Nephi prayed. Did he really have that sort of power?
God did. She knew that. She’d always known that. She swallowed, and it tasted bitter.
A nearly full moon still hung far above the western horizon.
A few dark figures lay sighing on the deck, bundled in blankets. No one disturbed her peace, and she stepped quietly to preserve theirs. They’d all had little enough peace over the past few days.
The past few years.
As she passed the main mast on her way to the water barrel, she noticed that someone had made a neat coil of the rope Laman had used to tie Nephi to the mast. She scowled at the rope, as though it, and not her husband’s rage and envy, had caused all the trouble. She wished she could shove the rope, and the harrowing memories that clung to it, into the sea. But no one knew how much longer this voyage would last. They might need the rope again.
Beside the mast stood the sturdy wooden stand Nephi had built for the compass ball. The brass instrument had appeared at her father-in-law’s tent door one day, like Abraham’s visiting angel. It was a simple enough thing. One merely had to wait until the two spindles inside lined up, one on top of the other, then go the way they pointed. Except, it only worked when they gave it faith, diligence, and heed. Nephi had told them that, again and again.
And they had utterly failed.
She had utterly failed.
She paused on her way past the stand, then turned toward it.
Nephi and his father were always protectively waving people off from the thing. Half the women couldn’t have read the messages, anyway, but her father had let her learn to read.
The ball pointed the way and told them in writing where to go. Did that mean it housed the Lord Himself…if only part of the time? Back in Jerusalem, women weren’t allowed past the first court of the temple. Of course, only the Levite high priest could enter the holy of holies, where the Lord dwelt, and only once a year. Nephi and his father, who weren’t Levites, consulted the compass all the time.
She didn’t know which of the old rules applied, out here in the middle of the sea. But here, no priests stood guard. Still, she hesitated. The compass was supposed to be leading them to the promised land, like Moses himself. Would it bother to speak to one tired woman? One tired foolish woman who’d made a long string of terrible choices?
There was no one to stop her as she opened the hinged lid. The brass compass-ball lay nestled in a cradle of wool like one more baby. Its top half was divided into six segments, with openings between delicate arches, so the user could look down into it and see the two spindles, pierced through the center by a slender rod connected at both ends to the inside of the instrument. Now the spindles lined up neatly on top of each other, pointing the way to sail in the morning.
She glanced toward the hatch in the deck, then carefully lifted the instrument from its nest. From what she understood, the writing appeared around the ball’s outside border. But she saw no writing now—just geometric designs that were strange to her eyes.
It felt heavy—heavier than it should. And…not exactly alive. Not like a sleeping baby or a docile lamb. But aware, maybe. As if it were watching her watching it. And waiting.
She heaved a tremendous sigh, grateful the thing probably couldn’t smell her breath, and whispered the question that dogged her.
“Did I choose the wrong brother?”
She sighed. Of course she’d married the wrong brother. He’d tried to kill Nephi and his father more than once—and not for the measured, inspired reasons Nephi was supposed to have followed. Sometimes Laman even used his family’s suffering in the wilderness as one more accusation to throw in his brother’s face, as if she and the children were props in a long, tedious drama about the injustices heaped upon him.
But it was too late. She couldn’t very well stomp back home across the ocean and the desert. Besides, she believed her father-in-law: God’s wrath would soon destroy Jerusalem. Maybe it already had.
And even if she did somehow return to a city that had somehow survived, she’d take herself with her. The shallow self that had chosen status, gold, and a charming smile over truth or wisdom.
The thing…did not move in her hands. But she looked down at it anyway. On the border, a single word had appeared:
No.
She startled so violently that she nearly dropped the ball. Had it heard her?
The Lord had heard her. He heard everything.
It took her a moment to remember her question. Had she married the wrong brother?
No.
She stared down at the thing. If the Lord knew her, then He must also know Laman—all the sides of him that she knew. And He’d certainly given Laman many, many chances to grow and change, to redeem himself.
Noa had been drawn to Laman, the oldest of the four brothers, from the time they were all small: his ready humor, his quick mind, and the glint in his eye that was just for her. He thought of the best games, and he could charm servants, neighbors, and parents out of their anger when his games got them all in trouble. Even then, she’d been the only one who could put her foot down and make him listen to her ideas.
Then his family had left under a cloud of rumors, from heresy to insanity to outright murder. She’d tried to not care, tried to turn her mind to other suitors, but she could never get those sparkling eyes out of her mind. And then the boys had come back, speaking words that moved her. They’d convinced her father to join them on a journey that had led through the wilderness, into marriage, all the way out here to the middle of the sea.
Two of her sisters had stayed behind with an aunt in Jerusalem, unimpressed with the boys’ gracious, compelling words. Or, maybe they’d just done the math: if they all went, someone would have to marry a common servant.
Noa had had no such worries. She believed the words, she loved the oldest boy, and as the heir’s wife, she would be first among the women. He gave her golden earrings and a jeweled armband—treasures that somehow hadn’t gone with the rest of the family’s riches to appease the man who’d kept the ancient records.
The man who was dead, probably at Nephi’s hand.
The choice had seemed so easy—marry the oldest, the heir, the charming, reasonable one, the one who believed enough to follow his father into the desert…but maybe not quite enough to lop off a drunken man’s head.
Wasn’t that the right amount of belief?
Besides, she loved the feel of his thick beard against her face, the strength of his arms around her, the way he could draw an unexpected burst of laughter from her. None of her gentler sisters could have coped with his high energy, or stood up to his rages, demanding his respect and teaching him gentleness with his children.
He’d never raised his voice to her, not even last night, and he’d never threatened her or the children.
She blew out her foul breath. She couldn’t begin to untangle the mess of wisdom and foolishness in her brain, much less the path ahead of her.
Make a different choice.
She almost caught the words forming around the ball this time. And when she read them, she almost shoved the ball back into its box and slammed the lid shut.
She’d come too far. If they actually found a promised land, rather than quarreling again until the sea swallowed them for good, would a shiny new husband stand waiting for her on the shore? And what was she supposed to do with this man she loved, and the children who were starting to imitate his jeers and sneers?
Your actions now matter a great deal.
She stilled, staring down at the new words. She didn’t move until the moon sank below the western horizon and the sky started to lighten.
The ladder belowdecks creaked. She had just enough time to return the ball to its place and close the lid, before Laman’s head appeared in the hatch. She bit her lip. When the waves crashed and the thunder cracked around them for three days straight, heaven save her, she’d added her voice to the others pleading with Laman to let Nephi go.
Would he speak to her? He could hardly cast her off, unless he threw her overboard. His wrath at its least rational hadn’t let him do that even to the brother he despised, so she was probably safe.
When Laman had finally, finally let Nephi go, his parents had half-carried him belowdecks to tend his wounds. Her mother-in-law had shot Noa a glare—Noa had pled for Nephi when the ocean had threatened to swallow them whole, but she’d let so many other things go by before then.
It was a mess, all the way around. No good answers remained. Even the baby would fuss and howl, when he tasted the remorse leaking from her breasts.
Maybe the taste in her mouth was shame.
Or maybe she still needed that drink of water.
She waited as Laman rubbed his hand over his face, then stumped slowly to where she stood.
He didn’t quite meet her eye. “I’m…sorry, Noa.” His voice was rough and raw from the yelling and the tension and the salt water last night. “Sorry I put you and the children in danger. Sorry I forgot so many things.”
She waited for him to berate her for her disloyalty, but he only looked shyly into her eyes with the true regret she often glimpsed after one of his towering rages. Would the regret last, this time? Turn into something deeper and better? She grabbed his big hand with both of hers and squeezed her gratitude and love.
A ball of brass had said she’d married the right man. And that she had choices to make—choices that mattered.
He turned from her, toward the stand where the instrument lay. Noa stiffened. She couldn’t stop him, if he decided to hurl the Lord’s compass into the sea. But Laman opened the lid and drew out the ball with shaking hands and more reverence than he’d ever shown it before.
His lips moved as he read its words, and his breath smelled at least as bad as hers. “Make a different choice. Your actions now matter a great deal.”
Noa frowned. Those were her words—the ball’s counsel to her. It both thrilled and annoyed her to watch Laman drinking them in like the antidote to deadly poison. And, where had the “no” gone? Was that single word the only one meant for her alone?
She peered over his shoulder, at the spindles inside the compass. They still lined up neatly…pointing straight at her husband. But only because of how he happened to be holding the ball. So maybe the spindles weren’t sending one, final message, just for her.
Laman bowed his head over the ball for a long moment. Then he raised his face to the sky. “We must…” A familiar wave of pique flashed across his face, but he shook his head impatiently. He winced, probably against a headache that matched hers. “We must ask my brother. He can tell us what it means. He will know what to do.”
He laid the ball back in its place and strode to the ladder, stumbling once against the boat’s gentle movement. Perhaps Noa should have been glad he was seeking his brother’s counsel for once. But to her practiced eye, it looked more like turning his choices over to Nephi yet again.
She sighed. Would anything change? Could anything change?
He’d left the lid open. She nudged the ball so she could see the words.
Her choices could change—and they mattered a great deal.
She could honor the Law she’d known since childhood, and teach it to her children—or do her best. She could honor all the good she found in this man. And if the day came when their choices no longer aligned, and she could no longer bear to live with him…perhaps then she could make a different choice.
It was like Nephi kept telling them:
The Lord had given her a commandment. He would provide a way for her to keep it.
Lee Ann Setzer holds a degree in speech-language pathology and works as project coordinator with a free early literacy project at Brigham Young University. While not a history expert, she understands it (at least very narrow slivers of it) best through reading and writing historical fiction.
