Ruth: Reimagined

Outcast

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Outcast
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It was night, the moon glistened as if beckoning her out, and like every other night, she made her way to escape.

Ruth held the blue, crystal pendant that hung from her neck, tightly, breathing softly. She was dressed as the night, a dark blue sheath dress, and a veil that hid everything, even her hair, all except her eyes.

On this particular night, as she was walking out her chambers, barefoot because she didn't trust that her sandals wouldn't slip out a sound, she passed her parents room, seconds away from freedom but then she heard it.

"I'm worried about her," Adira said, and the fatigue in her voice was something that became a part of her and drained life from her words.

Ruth heard her father sigh, wordless and she wondered, like she wondered many times, if he was ashamed of her, if he regretted her.

"Adira, I'm worried about her too." Barak settled on saying a despondency to his voice.

It felt like her father had fully given up on her, like he'd given in to the shame his daughter was growing up to become.

"You know what they're calling our daughter, in those little parties they plan?" Adira sounded disgusted.

"I have no need of knowing what they call our daughter behind her back. Why torture yourself with all this, Adira."

"I don't choose to hear it but it's all I hear when I step out the house, I can't -we can't run away from it. I understand why Ruth hasn't left the house in over a year."

Ruth clutched the pendant even tighter, as if it was the only thing stopping her from barging into her parents room, and telling them all that was in her heart.

"Don't choose to understand the beginnings of madness." Barak said, and he sounded angry. "People think that Chemosh has inflicted some deathly disease on our daughter, since she disrupted that ceremony last year. They think she's crippled, and carries leprosy. Our daughter's a symbol of Chemosh's wrath now."

"Oh!" Adira exclaimed, "let them think what they want."

"This, coming from you." Barak laughed, a bitter sound.

"What else is there to do? We've been trying, pleading with the gods for forgiveness, pleading with all of Moab. Fasting, praying, offering sacrifices but still they spit in our faces, call our daughter cursed, reject her for any marriage proposal, even a slave won't take her as a bride."

Ruth's breath hitched, the harsh words of her mother, stinging her.

"What we need to do is get Ruth out of the house. There's a banquet happening and all of the nobility will be there, the commoners and even merchants are coming. Ruth needs to be there, and they'll all see her. See that she's not some crippled, diseased girl overtaken by leprosy."

"She'll never agree to that." Adira settled on, and Barack released a frustrated grunt.

" I won't be asking for her permission, I'm her father and it's time Ruth lives her life again. She's nineteen but she lives like an old grieving widow."

" You know," Adira started out gentle, "that ever since Dalia's d-"

And that's when Ruth decided she'd heard enough. She fled, her feet padding against the floor softly, as she ran.

Ruth stepped into one of the guests rooms, the chamber was plain, dark and untouched all except for the curtains that whirled in and out with the wind.

She shut the door behind her, like she'd done a thousand times and she walked towards the window, climbing out with not even a second of hesitation. There was a rope, that lay hanging and it made it all the way down to her three storey home