She nodded. “I think my father is afraid. But what can we do? If the volcano is going to erupt, there is no way we can stop it.”
“No. Nor can you run from it. But I will protect you.”
“How?”
“Nephilim have powers. If you will come with me, I will keep you safe.”
“Come with you? Where?”
“I will make a home for you full of lovely things. You will no longer have to steep on rough skins, still smelling of animals. I will give you food and wine such as you have never tasted. Come, my lovely little jewel, come with me.”
“When—“ She faltered.
“Now. Tonight.”
She thought of the two circles, the seraphim and the nephilim. It was Eblis who was offering her protection, not Aariel. Mahlah had gone with Ugie., not with Alarid.
“What about my family?” she asked. “What about my twins?”
“Only you,” Eblis said. “That is as far as my powers I extend.”
She looked up at the stars. Shook her head. “Twin Den still needs me.”
“Love is patient,” Eblis said. “I will wait. But I think, that in the end you will come to me.” His hand soothed her soft, burnished hair, and there was pleasure in his touch.
She blinked, looked at the brilliant pattern of stars, and it seemed that she could see Sandy bowing to her in her grandfather’s tent, could see Dennys holding her hand as the pain of his burns made him cry out.
Eblis touched her hair again. “I will wait.”
Japheth came to visit Dennys, examined him carefully, touching the remaining scabs, gently pulling off a flaking strip of paper-thin skin. “You are better.”
“Much better.” Dennys smiled at him, and the smile no longer seemed to crack the burned skin of his face. “1 go out at night with Yalith and Oholibamah, and we listen to the stars.”
“It is good that you can hear the stars.” Japheth sat beside Dennys on a pile of skins, putting his hands, stained purple from winemaking, on his brown knees.
Dennys looked troubled. “They keep telling me to make peace. At least, I think that is what I hear the stars saying to me.”
Japheth nodded. “Oholi told me. Peace between my father and grandfather. Have you talked to my father about his quarrel with Grandfather Lamech?”
“Yes, once when he came to visit me. But I didn’t really understand what their quarrel is about.”
“Water,” Japheth said flatly. “That is what most quarrels on the oasis are about Grandfather has the best and deepest wells on the oasis, and he’s letting his own gardens and groves go to seed in his old age.”
“But he lets you take all the water you need from his wells, doesn’t he?”
Japheth sighed, then laughed. “Oh, Den, the quarrel is so old and stupid I think that both my father and grandfather have forgotten what it is about. They are both stiff-necked and stubborn.”
“Your grandfather—what is he like? I mean, if he’s so old, is he able to take proper care of Sandy?”
“Oh, I’m sure he is. Grandfather Lamech is as hospitable as our mother, and kind, and gentle. It was he who taught. Yalith and me to listen to the stars, and to understand the wind, and to love El.” He sighed again. “Oh, Den, I’m sorry to involve you in our family quarrel.”
Dennys sighed, too He did not reply. He looked up at the brazen sky, behind which were the stars. And they had already involved him.
He shivered.
Grandfather Lamech and Higgaion began taking Sandy out in the daylight, not into the direct and brutal sunlight, but in the shade of a thick grove. Like Dennys, Sandy wore only a loinskin. His underclothes were folded with the rest of his things, in case they were ever needed again. The loinskin, unlike his own clothes, could be scrubbed clean with sand and eventually discarded and replaced. He liked the freedom of the loinskin, liked the way his own skin had healed and was slowly turning a rosy tan.
Adnarel came by Grandfather Lamech’s tent almost every day, and as Sandy grew stronger and more willing to accept that he was not going to wake up in his own bed at home, he grew more aware of his surroundings and of the tender care given him by the tiny ancient man.
“Hey, Grandfather Lamech,” he said one morning after breakfast, “now that I’m better, it’s time I stopped free-loading.”
The old man looked at him questioningly. “What’s that?”
“What can I do to help?” Sandy asked. “I’ve never done any cooking, but isn’t there stuff outdoors I could do to be useful? At home, Dennys and I chop wood and mow the lawn and we have this huge vegetable-garden.”
At the mention of the garden, Lamech’s eyes brightened. “I have a vegetable garden, and lately I have much neglected it. Higgaion helps with the watering, but I am too old for the long hours of work, and now there are great weeds choking the plants.”
“Let me at it!” Sandy cried. “Dennys and I are terrific gardeners.”
Grandfather Lamech’s face creased into a broad smile. “Not so fast, my son. The time for work in the garden is in the earliest morning, and just as the sun is setting in the evening.”
“Oh.”
The old man laughed. “Truly, you do not want to go out in the garden during the day, or you will be felled by the sun all over again. But as soon as the sun drops behind the palms I will show you the garden. I thank you, dear my Sand. You have been sent to me by El—this I believe.”
“Hey, it’s the least I can do,” Sandy protested.
In the late afternoon, when the sun’s rays were slanted, Lamech and Higgaion led him past a small grove to the garden, which was indeed in need of helping hands. Great weeds of varieties Sandy had never before seen grew higher than many of the vegetables. This was going to be a full-time job. The weeds had deep roots, he discovered as he tried to pull one up. He found a sharp stone and would have started digging had Lamech not stopped him.
“You are not quite ready for such hard work, and it is still hot. Tomorrow morning you can try coming out for an hour.”
“All right. It’ll make me feel at home, working in a garden again.” Sandy knew that he did not have to win Grandfather Lamech’s approval, but he had a deep sense of happiness that he could do something for the old man who had been so kind to him. Despite the profusion of weeds, the garden was lush with more vegetables than he had ever seen before. —Too bad there was no way to can or freeze them.
“We sun-dry some of these.” Lamech pointed to a long row of red ovals on tall, leafy stalks, and another of something purple that looked like eggplant but was twice the height of the plants at home. If these people of the desert were smaller than anyone Sandy had ever seen, their plants were larger. “That way,” the old man continued, “we can eat them in the winter in soups and stews. I have groves of fruit trees, too, that need pruning and harvesting. Japheth and Oholibamah come when they can, to help me out, but they have more than enough to do in my son’s vineyards. It must have been ordered in the stars that you should come just as I have to accept that I can no longer manage on my own.” His face was joyful.
Sandy felt bathed in the old man’s joy. There was certainly going to be no time for boredom. And if there was plenty to do, there would be less time in which to worry about getting home.
One morning Adnaret said, “The Den is much improved.”
Sandy nodded. “Good. But why do you call us the Sand and the Den, as though Sands and Dens were some kind of rare species?”
Adnarel’s bright laugh pealed. “We picked it up from Japheth. And to Japheth the Sand and the Den are indeed rare species, of a kind never before seen on the oasis, or indeed on any oasis roundabout. It is good that your head is covered.” Adnarel nodded approvingly at the woven straw hat Matred had brought over one night with the night-light. “Lamech tells me you are doing valiant work in the garden.”
Sandy pulled the hat firmly down on his head. “Theweeds are something else. We have weeds at home, but not like these. But I’m getting rid of them, little by little. Hey-Does your name, Adnarel, mean anything?”
“That I am in the service of the Maker of the Universe.”
“Why are you sometimes Adnarel, the way you are now, and sometimes you seem to be a scarab beetle?” Sandy started to scratch his shoulder where skin still flaked, stopped himself.