The Letter in the Light — Under his tunic, Lior kept a folded scrap of smooth parchment tied with blue thread. Read the full story →
Under his tunic, Lior kept a folded scrap of smooth parchment tied with blue thread. If Saul needed a copy of the letter before they reached Damascus, Lior wanted to be the boy who handed it over first. So when the travelers left the fig shade and took the pale road between stony hills, he stepped out after them, dust tasting bitter on his tongue and donkey bells clinking behind him.
Near the last bend, a stranger in a gray cloak appeared beside Lior, walking without raising dust. “That letter is heavy,” the stranger said. Lior frowned and touched the scrap. It was only parchment. Then the sky cracked open—not with thunder, but with white-gold sound, bright enough to press warmth through Lior’s eyelids. Horses snorted. Men shouted. Saul fell to his knees in the road, hands lifted as if catching a voice no one else could hold.
When the light thinned, the gray-cloaked stranger was gone. Lior’s blue thread had snapped, and the spare letter lay blank, smelling faintly of rain on hot stone. Saul asked to be led by the hand toward the city gates. Lior gave him his arm instead of the paper. If you trace the road back from Damascus, can you find the boy who carried a message and came home with a question?
