Japheth gave a shout of anger and anguish. “What has happened to Mahlah!”
Oholibamah said, softly, “We all have choices to make, dear one, and we do not all choose the same way.”
“Why can’t I get what you need for you?”
“Oh, love, it is a house for women. You would not be welcome.”
“I have seen men coming out. And nephilim.”
“Japheth. My own. Please don’t argue. We’ll be all right. Anah is tough.”
“And Mahlah?”
Oholibamah put her arms around her husband, pressed her cheek against his. Did not answer.
Mahlah went with Oholibamah and Yalith less and less frequently, because she was less and less often in the home tent. And when she was there, she came in late, after everybody else was asleep, then slept late herself, and managed to avoid confrontation with Matred.
Matred. herself, allowed Mahlah to avoid her. She was waiting for her daughter to come to her and her husband with Ugiel, according to custom, but Ugiel did not come, and Mahlah did not speak, and Matred said nothing to Noah of Mahlah’s betrothal to a nephil. Until the betrothal was made formal, and recognized by Mahlah’s family, there would be no talk of marriage.
Marriages were often casual affairs, no more than an agreement between the two sets of parents, with the bride’s mother and father bringing her to the tent of the groom. Matred liked to have things done properly, not overdone, but well done. Yalith and Mahlah’s two older sisters, Seerah and Hoglah, had been taken to their husbands’ tents after Matred and Noah had prepared a feast, with plenty of Noah’s good wine.
Elisheba, Shem’s wife, had come quietly to Noah’s compound and Shem’s tent, accompanied by her widowed father, and bearing several gold rings, and her teraphim. the small figures of her household gods. Anah, Matred said, had had a vulgar wedding, with crowds of people, many uninvited. There were musicians, dancers, and far too much wine, inferior, at that—who would dare compete with Noah’s wine?—for far too many days. Such excesses were not only unnecessary, they were unseemly.
Cleaning out the big tent with Yalith’s help, Matred said, “I do not understand Mahlah.”
Yalith shook out a sleeping skin. “Neither do I. I wish she would come speak to you and Father, instead of avoiding you.”
Matred fiercely beat the dust out of one of the floor skins. “If your father knew what she’s up to, he’d be furious. There’s something on his mind, something he’s not telling me about, or he’d have noticed her strange behavior. You think that this Ugh—“
“Ugiel.”
“That nephil—you think he means to marry her?”
“I don’t know.” Yalith scrubbed out one of the stone lamps with sand. “Mahlah thinks so.”
“Speak to her,” Matred begged, “Try to make her see reason. All she needs is to come to us with her nephil and tell us that they are betrothed, and we will make all the arrangements for a wedding feast.”
“I’ll try,” Yalith said, “but I’m not sure she’ll listen.” Mahlah had always been closer to and more like the older sisters than Yalith, the youngest, the different one. “I’ll try,” she reassured her mother.
The next day she went with Oholibamah and Anah to get a fresh supply of the ointment that softened Dennys’s scabs. Perhaps Mahlah would be with the redheaded Tiglah, and Yalith could talk with her then.
Anah walked slowly, with her usual undulating of hips.
Yalith and Oholibamah walked on ahead.
“Tiglah frightens me,” Yalith whispered to Oholibamah. “I know she’s Anah’s sister, and she is probably the most beautiful woman on the oasis, but—“
“Her beauty is for sale,” Oholibamah stated flatly. “But there is no reason to be afraid of her.”
They turned onto the narrow path which ran between low white stone buildings. “I don’t like coming here,” Yalith murmured.
“I don’t like it, either,” Oholibamah said, “but there is no other way to get the salves for the Den. The last of his scabs will be off in a few days. Then we can forget the ointment. The herbal water the pelican brings will be enough.”
“Den is getting better,” Yalith said. “That’s one good thing.”
“Only one?” Oholibamah laughed.
Yalith shuddered. “Everything seems to be changing. Mahlah avoids our parents. And my father keeps hearing the Voice in the vineyards, and whatever it says is upsetting him, but he won’t tell us what El says.”
“What El says is good.” Ohoiibamah smiled. “El said that Japheth was to marry. That is why I am here.”
“You wouldn’t rather have waited?”
“I love Japheth.” Oholibamah’s voice was tender. “I know we were both very young and unready for marriage. But we love each other. When the time comes, we will have children together.”
Yalith sighed. “I would like to love someone the way you love Japheth.”
“Be patient, little sister. Your time will come.”
They had reached the white house with the brightly beaded curtains at the entry, the house where Tiglah got the ointments they needed, and they stopped to wait for Anah, who made it very clear that she was doing them a great favor in being the go-between- The beads glittered and jangled, and Tiglah came out, followed by Mahlah—
Tiglah with her head of radiant red hair, Mahlah with her cascade of black hair, the two girls startling foils for each other.
“Where’s Anah?” Tiglah asked.
“She’s coming.” Oholibamah looked balk down the path to where Anah was slowly following them.
“Mahlah!” Yalith exclaimed. “I’m glad to see you. I need to talk to you.”
Mahlah raised her hands and pushed back a thick fall of black hair. “That’s funny. I want to talk to you, too. Shall we go inside?”
“No.” Yaltth drew back. “Please—“
“I could have your hair brushed,” Mahlah coaxed, “the way Tiglah’s and mine is, so it would look more beautiful.”
“No,” Yalith repeated.
Mahlah shrugged. “We can sit over here then, while Anah and Oholibamah go with Tiglah to get the ointment.” She led Yalith a little way down the path to a low wall. Yalith, with sudden and unexpected shock, saw that Mahlah’s usually flat belly was softly rounding.
“Mahlah,” she urged. “Please, please, you and Ugiel please come to our parents and tell them that you’re betrothed.”
Mahlah’s little hands proudly touched the small roundness. “And will be married soon.”
“Then please come and tell them. Mother will need time to prepare a wedding feast.”
“No, she won’t,” Mahlah said. “That is not how things are done with the nephilim. I will have a nephil wedding.”
“But Mother—“
Again Mahlah’s little hands stroked her stomach. “I’m sorry, really, I’m sorry. But she had it her own way with our sisters. She’ll probably have it her own way with you. So she’ll just have to let me do it my way.”
“But why? Isn’t the old way good enough for you?”
Mahlah laughed. “Customs change. We have to move with the times.” There was a slight hiss to her speech which Yalith had never heard before. She sounded more like Ugiel than like Mahlah. The sisters sat side by side on the wall, the silence between them becoming more and more uncomfortable, until at last Yalith broke it.
“What did you want to see me about?”
“Can’t you guess?”
No.”
“Eblis.”
Yalith looked at her in surprise. “But why—“
“He likes you,” Mahlah said. “He says he has offered to teach you.”
“No—“
“Why not?”
“I’m taking care of the Den. That’s why we’re here, to get salve for him.”
Again Mahlah sounded more like Ugiel than like Yalith’s sister. “That’s all very noble. But it needn’t stop you from going out with Eblis. Don’t you realize what an honor that is, to have Eblis interested in you?” She sounded strangely sibilant.
“I know he does me much honor.” Yalith’s voice was low.
“What’s wrong, then?”
“I have to stay with the Den,” Yalith whispered.
“I know you’re taking good care of him. But Oholi is there, too, isn’t she?”
“She—she is Japheth’s wife. She has to be in her own tent. She tells me what to do, but—“
“Little sister,” Mahlah said. “Don’t be foolish.”
Yalith looked down at her long, straight toes. Blurted out, “I don’t care about Eblis as much as I do about the Den and the Sand.”
“What!” Mahlah was scandalized.
“You heard me.”
“But we don’t know if they’re even human!”
“We know that the nephilim are not,” Yalith retorted.
“They’re more than human,” Mahlah said proudly. “The two—what are they? twins?—they seem subhuman.”
“No,” Yalith protested. “They’re human, I know they are.”
“Giants human?”
“Yes.”
“And you think if you start going out with giants, human or no, our parents wouldn’t be upset?”
“Everybody loves them …”
“Yes? Anyhow, they’re too young, much too young.”
“I know that.” Yalith hung her head even lower. “But I think that, where they come from, years are counted differently than here. And I would be willing to wait.”