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| Esther's Shadow |
The palace does not remember servants.
It remembers crowns, curses, and kings—but not the hands that folded their robes or the girls who vanished behind veils.
My name is Tirzah.
Daughter of no one important. Raised among linen and silence.
I have seen queens come and go.
But none like her.
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I was born in Susa, close enough to hear the palace drums, far enough to know I would never belong behind its gates. My mother worked the washing stones. My father carried water. When they were gone, the court claimed me the way it claims many—quietly, without asking.
I learned early:
Lower your eyes.
Listen more than you speak.
Survive.
But then the queen disappeared.
Vashti. Her name passed like a ghost through the women’s quarters. No one spoke it loudly. No one dared. But absence carries its own weight. Servants moved differently. Laughter died on lips. Power had shifted, and the court does not abide a throne that stays empty for long.
The decree came quickly.
Girls were gathered from every province—every beauty, every daughter who could be spared. Some were offered. Others were taken.
That was the morning Hadassah arrived.
___She came with the others—dozens in a single day. Some wept. Some postured. Some wore smiles too wide, already dreaming of a crown.
But Esther moved as though she carried something weightier than dreams.
She was quiet, but not afraid. Watchful, but not calculating. There was a stillness in her that unnerved the other girls.
Later, as I helped her bathe, I asked softly, “What is your name?”
She hesitated.
“Hadassah,” she said. Then, lower, “But here, they call me Esther.”
“Hadassah,” I repeated. “That’s not from here.”
She paused, then met my eyes. “It is the name of my people.”
“Your people?”
“I am a Jew,” she whispered.
The words struck something inside me. Not fear. Not judgment. Something I didn’t yet have a name for.
“Is it safe to say that here?”
“No,” she said. “But I needed someone to know me by my true name.”
I nodded. For reasons I did not understand, I felt honored.
___The months that followed were for softening. Oil. Spices. Perfumed cloth. Beauty painted on, piece by piece. Our duty was to please a king we had never seen.
The other women whispered about Esther.
“She’ll never last.”
“She eats like a bird.”
“She doesn’t belong here.”
One attendant leaned close as we folded silk. “Girls like her vanish quickly.”
But Esther never responded to their stings. She did not need to. Her silence was not fear. It was something else.
One morning, as I placed a simple comb in her hair, I dared to say, “You could be noticed, if you wished.”
She met my eyes in the mirror.
“I am not here to be seen,” she said. “I am here because the Lord placed me here.”
It was the first time she said His name so openly.
Her Lord.
I didn’t know what I believed then. But I believed that she believed.
Once, I found her gazing out from the women’s terrace. Beyond the gardens, near the gate, a man waited.
“He’s always there,” I said.
“He raised me,” she said softly. “His name is Mordecai.”
I remembered the name. A Jew. One who refused to bow to Haman. A man the guards whispered about.
And yet, when Esther looked at him, there was no fear. Only love. Only trust.
___The king chose her.
They placed the crown on her head and called it victory.
But I saw the weight settle on her shoulders. Saw her back straighten, not with pride, but with resolve.
Favor in the court is a dangerous thing. It breeds jealousy. Poisoned smiles. Whispers that turn into traps.
“She hides something,” the others said.
She did. I knew it. But I also knew she was not hiding from shame. She was hiding from the world that would not understand.
Then came Haman.
When he passed, even the walls seemed to flinch. The court bent low when he entered. Too low. The kind of bow that comes from fear, not honor.
Whispers swirled like smoke. That Mordecai had refused to bow. That Haman seethed.
One night, Esther pressed a folded cloth into my hand.
“Take this to the outer gate,” she said.
“To whom?”
She hesitated, then whispered, “Mordecai.”
The cloth was stitched with messages I couldn’t read, but I carried it all the same. Past guards and torchlight. Past fear.
Mordecai’s eyes were tired when he took it from me. “She still listens to the Lord,” he said. “Then there is hope.”
Hope. A strange word in a place like this.
___The message came back clear: Haman had convinced the king to destroy all the Jews.
Esther read the scroll in silence. Then she stood.
“If I perish, I perish,” she said.
She called for a fast. Three days. No food. No wine. No beauty routines. Just stillness.
The court noticed. “She defies the custom,” some muttered.
But we who followed her fasted, too. Not because we understood, but because we saw something in her that made us want to believe.
At night, I watched her pray. Not loud, not showy. Just lips moving. Tears falling. And once, in the dark, I knelt beside her.
I did not know the words. But I whispered, “If You see her, maybe You see me too.”
Esther looked at me. Not surprised. Just kind.
“He does,” she said.
___She went to the king uninvited.
And he spared her. The golden scepter extended. The breath of the court released.
But she did not speak her truth that day.
“Let the king and Haman come to a banquet I have prepared,” she said.
I helped her set the table. Gold cups. Honeyed wine. Spiced lamb and sweet dates. My hands trembled with every dish I placed. I could feel something pressing against the air — like the hush before a storm.
They came. They ate. She waited.
I didn’t understand why she held her tongue. But later, I would.
Beyond the palace walls, her people were fasting. Praying. Weeping. I had seen it in her eyes—this was not hesitation. This was burden.
The message she sent to Mordecai had returned with no words I could read, but her face changed that day. Her steps steadied. Her silence deepened.
She was carrying more than fear.
She was carrying a people.
And still—she waited one more night.
The second banquet.
She said nothing to me that morning. Only met my eyes and nodded. I thought I saw a flicker of something in her—resolve, or maybe release.
Again, I prepared the meal. Again, I was sent away.
But I lingered near the doorway, heart pounding like war drums.
Esther’s voice rose, steady as a psalm:
“I and my people have been sold to be destroyed.”
The king’s fury cracked through the walls like thunder.
I heard Haman’s voice — frantic, unrecognizable.
“Please… my lord… I did not know—”
His words tangled into sobs, then vanished beneath the scrape of sandals and the clatter of guards.
No one answered him.
Not even the king.
And I knew then — the decision had been made.
Later that night, word spread like fire:
He was hanged on the very gallows he had built for Mordecai.
The next morning, Mordecai walked through the court in royal robes.
But he did not look like a man who had won.
He looked like a man who remembered.
And in his remembering, I saw the mercy of a God I was just beginning to know.
They will tell stories of Queen Esther’s courage. Her beauty. Her boldness.
But I will remember Hadassah.
The girl who fasted when silence was safer.
The woman who waited until the moment was right.
The queen who bowed only to God.
She changed the fate of her people.
And she changed me.
I was just a handmaiden.
But I saw faith walk into a throne room uninvited.
And I believe now—the Lord who saw her, sees me.
My name is Tirzah. Daughter of no one important.
But I am no longer hidden.
Because I, too, was chosen.
And I will not forget her.
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