As the overseers retreat, YOUNG AVIVA — who has watched the whole standoff wide-eyed from the edge — breaks free of an adult's hand and runs to SABA ELAN. YOUNG AVIVA. Saba! Why wouldn't you sing for them? You have the most beautiful harp of anyone. (she points up into the willow) It's right there. SABA ELAN. (kneeling to her, with effort) Because some songs are not for sale, child. Not for gold, not for safety, not to make a fat man laugh. (he points up at the harp) That harp comes down on one day. One day only. YOUNG AVIVA. Which day? SABA ELAN. The day we go home. Not a day before. (he taps her nose) You hold me to that. You make sure I keep my word. YOUNG AVIVA. (solemn, the weight of a vow she doesn't understand) The day we go home. A SOLDIER strides back in, irritated, having forgotten something — or looking for a reason. He scans the camp and his eye lands on the child. SOLDIER. You. Little one. I heard one of the brats here can sing like a bird. Is that you? (Aviva freezes) Sing me something. Now. Or I'll find a reason to make this whole filthy camp regret it. The exiles tense. MIRYAM, across the camp, sees and starts forward — too far away. SABA ELAN's hand tightens on the child's shoulder. And YOUNG AVIVA, terrified, does the only thing she knows how to do: she opens her mouth and sings. A fragment of her mother's lullaby — small, pure, and utterly unafraid. The SOLDIER stops. Whatever he expected, it was not this. The mockery drains out of his face. The whole camp goes still. For one suspended moment the cruelty cannot find a foothold. Ashamed, almost frightened, the soldier turns and leaves without a word. The exiles exhale. But MIRYAM crosses fast and gathers her daughter up, fierce. MIRYAM. Never. (she holds the girl's face) Never for them. Do you hear me, Aviva? YOUNG AVIVA. (bewildered, near tears) But he was going to hurt everyone. And I — I stopped him. My singing stopped him, Mama. Didn't it? MIRYAM has no answer. SABA ELAN watches, and the look on his face is not pride — it is fear. SABA ELAN. (quietly, to himself, as the lights begin to shift) Yes. It did. (beat) And that's exactly what I'm afraid of. A voice like that... Babylon will hear about a voice like that. Lights shift — a visible transformation. YOUNG AVIVA is led off one side. From the other, AVIVA — now twenty — enters, and the years close over the child like water.
