The saga by PunkTorah columnist Rivkah Raven continues with steampunk midrashim (legends) on Parshat Balak, Pinchas and Mattot.

Chapter Nine: Balak

The light grew dimmer as they wove through the trees, pressing deeper into the forest without an end in sight, it seemed. Mari could not see a discernible path; she could not tell if the creature she followed was leading her somewhere specific, or was just mad, completely insane, and would lead her on a wild chase through the wood until Mari dropped from exhaustion…

Chapter Ten: Pinchas

As the days passed, Mari became increasingly aware that there were gaps in Jac’s story. Enormous gaps. Mari soon began mapping out, in her mind, the places in conversation when Jac would shift the subject or look uncomfortable and use misleading language to avoid answering Mari’s questions.

At night, in the room that they shared, bedded down on simple mattresses stuffed with feathers, snug under exquisite old handmade quilts, Mari would awaken again and again to Jac’s thrashing, screaming, and sometimes crying. Mari never asked. And Jac never told…

Chapter Eleven: Mattot

Mari awoke in darkness, to a world that was all noise. Noise dominated her consciousness: rushing wind, the continuous sound of impact. She could not tell if trees were falling against each other outside, or if the roof was caving in, or if the entire land was simply striving against itself, tearing itself to pieces. She could not at first pick out individual sounds. There were human screams, there was the clash of metal, there was the driving rain against the front of their dwelling; being that most of the dwelling was built into a hill, she had to think that many of the sounds, loud and overwhelming as they were, were muffled…