Chapter One: Taken
I do not remember the face of my mother. Only the weight of her hands—warm, trembling—on my shoulders the day the raiders came. I remember her pushing me behind a reed basket, whispering, "Stay quiet, Bilhah."
But I was small, and fear was quick. I stepped out too soon. A man with a scar down his cheek saw me, grabbed my arm, and that was the last time I ever saw my mother's hut, my river, my childhood. I learned later that Zilpah had been taken the same day from a village not far from mine. We were both about ten years old, both terrified, both clinging to each other in a chain of children tied with rope and shame. No one told us where we were going or why. When you are a child in a slave caravan, you learn early that answers are for the powerful. We were sold several times before reaching Harran. By then, Zilpah and I had become sisters by necessity. We slept huddled together in cold markets, whispered stories to each other to push back nightmares, shared the hard crusts that passed as meals. But we never cried where others could see; tears were dangerous. They marked you as weak.
Laban bought us from a trader who lied about our origins, claiming we were from noble families taken in war. Laban only laughed, squeezed our arms to judge our strength, and paid less than the trader asked. We were not noble. We were not even people, not in the way that counts. We were girls to be shaped into servants—silent, obedient, invisible.
He gave me to Rachel and Zilpah to Leah. His daughters were opposites: Rachel, like a gazelle—graceful, careful with her words; Leah, like an oak—rooted, steady, burdened by something she did not name. Yet both were kind in their own ways. Rachel taught me to braid her hair; Leah showed Zilpah how to grind grain without blistering one's palms. But Laban's house was no home. It was a place of bargaining, secrets, and the sharp scent of sheep that never faded from your clothes.
Years passed. Zilpah and I stayed close, though Leah's and Rachel's rivalry often pulled us into two different worlds. We learned to read our mistresses' moods, to step softly when tempers flared, to soothe them when tears came.
Then Jacob arrived. He came to work for Laban, but from the moment Rachel's eyes met his, every corner of the household shifted. Rachel glowed with a joy I had never seen in her, and Jacob—oh, Jacob looked at her as if she were the only woman alive. Leah noticed, though she pretended not to. I think that was when her pain began in earnest.
Seven years Jacob worked for Rachel, and seven years Rachel waited for the night she would be his bride. But Laban, sly and greedy, exchanged one daughter for another in the darkness of the wedding tent. Zilpah told me later that Leah wept the whole night, not with joy, but with the terror of a woman who knows she is being used.
Rachel's rage the next morning was a fire that licked every wall. Jacob confronted Laban, fists clenched, voice shaking. But Laban only shrugged and offered Rachel as a second wife—after another seven years of labor. Jacob agreed.
After the wedding week passed and Rachel entered Jacob's tent as his second wife, the sisters' hearts settled into unequal rhythms. Leah carried the weight of being the first yet not the beloved; Rachel carried the weight of being the beloved yet not the fruitful.
Rachel cried often times—tears for barrenness, jealousy, and the fear that Jacob's devotion could not quieten the emptiness of her arms.
Leah cried quietly, when she thought no one heard, for being unloved though she bore son after son.
One morning, Rachel called me to her room. Her face was pale but determined.
"Bilhah," she said, "I will give you to Jacob."
My breath froze. Servants know such things can be demanded; we belong to our mistresses. But knowing something is possible does not soften the weight of it. I bowed my head. Rachel knelt before me—before me—and held my hands.
"I want a child," she whispered. "A child to call my own. Through you, Bilhah. You will sit on my knees as tradition demands. I will claim the child as mine, but I promise—I promise—you will not be forgotten."
Promises from the powerful are a fragile thing. But I loved Rachel. I had served her half my life. So, I nodded.
That night, Rachel brought me to Jacob's tent. She held my arm so tightly her nails left crescents on my skin. When Jacob saw me, confusion crossed his face, then sorrow, then resignation. He looked at Rachel, not at me, when he agreed.
Those nights were strange. I felt like a shadow wearing a woman's shape. Jacob was gentle, but gentleness cannot change the truth of being used. Still, I conceived. Rachel named the boy Dan—God has judged me, she said, feeling vindicated. Later I conceived again, and she named that boy Naphtali—my struggle. She said she had prevailed against her sister. I knew she spoke of Leah. But part of me wondered if she also meant the private battle she waged inside her own heart.
For a time, Rachel was content. Leah was restless. Zilpah birthed two sons for her: Gad and Asher. The household swelled with children—boys everywhere, running through tents, shouting, laughing. I loved Dan and Naphtali with a fierce, hidden love, but they grew up calling Rachel "Mother."
I remained their quiet shadow, the woman who birthed them but did not claim them. That is the burden of a surrogate.
Years went by. Rachel finally conceived and bore Joseph, her joy, her miracle. The tension between the sisters softened somewhat after that, though never fully dissolved.
But as Jacob prepared to leave Laban and return to his homeland, I felt something shifting—a shadow over my spirit. I could not name it then. I only knew it was connected to the sons, now nearly grown, especially to Leah's eldest—Reuben.
Reuben…
He had his father's intensity and his mother's loneliness. Too often his eyes lingered on me in ways that unsettled me. I dismissed it at first as childish curiosity. But as he grew into manhood, that gaze changed. And with it, my unease. I did not know then that his choices would soon destroy my life in ways even slavery never had.
But that is for another night.