“I am not sure you will understand,” Adnarel said. “The scarab beetle is my earthly host.”
“What on earth do you need an earthly host for?”
Adnarel sighed. “I said you might not understand.”
“Hey.” Sandy was indignant. “Dennys and I may not be the geniuses of the family, but we’re nobody’s idiots.”
“True,” Adnarel agreed. “And I suspect that you also understand that energy and matter are interchangeable.”
“Well, sure. Our parents are scientists.”
“On the other hand, you live in a time and place where those like myself are either forgotten or denied. It was not easy to get you to believe in a unicorn until the need was desperate.”
Unthinkingly, Sandy scratched his forearm, and shreds of skin blew across the ground. “When you’re in the scarab beetle, can you understand everything we say?”
“Certainly.”
“Then why do you bother to come out?”
“When I am in the scarab beetle, I must accept its limitations.”
Sandy grunted. “I think better when I have Dennys around to bounce ideas off. When am I going to be able to see him again?”
“As soon as he is able to be moved. Grandfather Lamech has offered his hospitality. It is less noisy and crowded here than in the big tent.”
Sandy sighed. “People have been very kind to us. You, too.”
Adnarel smiled a smile so grave that it was not far from a frown. “We do not yet know why you are here. There must be a purpose to your presence. But we do not know what it is.” His eyes seemed to shoot golden sparks at Sandy. “Do you?”
“I wish I did,” Sandy said. “It all seems to have been some kind of silly accident.”
“I doubt that,” Adnarel said.
Noah came again to visit Dennys. “I am told that you are nearly well.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Oholibamah says that you will soon be ready to be moved.”
Dennys felt a surge of panic. “Moved? Where?”
“To my father Lamech’s tent. To be reunited with your brother.”
The panic subsided. “I would like that. Is it far?”
“Half the oasis.”
The tent flap had been pegged open, and through it and through the roof hole Dennys could hear the stars. Could hear their chiming at him. “Will you take me?”
Noah pulled at his beard. “I do not go to my father’s tent.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It is his place to come to me.”
“Why? Aren’t you the son?”
“He is old. He cannot care for his land as it should be cared for.”
“I’m sorry, Father Noah. but I still don’t see why you won’t help him.”
“I told you.” Noah’s voice was gruff. “I work long hours in the vineyard. There is not time for coddling the old man.” |-
“Is speaking to your father coddling, or whatever you call it? Sandy and I get mad at our father. He pays more attention to our sister and our little brother than he to us, because they’re the geniuses and we’re only—but even when we’re mad at him, he’s still our father.”
“So?”
“When we get home, we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do to our father. He will probably be very angry with us.”
“Why?”
“Well, we sort of got in the middle of something he was working on.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Noah said.
“Neither do I, exactly,” Dennys admitted. “The thing is, we’re going to have to talk to our father when we get home. It would be a stupid thing if we tried to avoid him.”
“So why are you telling me this?”
“Well— really do think you should talk with your father.”
“Umph.”
“I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but it sounds to me as though all this argument about wells and stuff has gone on for so long it doesn’t make sense anymore. And he’s an old man, and you’re much younger, and you should be strong enough to back down.”
“Backing down is being strong?”
“It takes a lot of courage to say ‘I’m sorry.’ That’s what Sandy and I are going to have to say to our father when we get home.”
“Then why say it?” Noah growled.
“Because things won’t be right between us till we do.”
“You’re too young to be telling me what to do.” Noah was testy. “You would not even be alive now if we hadn’t taken you in.”
“That’s true, and I am more grateful than words can say.” The stars chimed at him again. “Father Noah, please go see your father, and make peace with him before he dies.”
Noah grunted. Rose. Walked out of the tent.
Dennys looked at the patch of velvet sky he could see through the open flap. The stars were brilliant. And silent.
Tiglah, the red-haired, rubbed the juice of some red berries on her lips, over her cheekbones. Took a stick of wood which she had shredded at one end to make a brush, and used it on her abundant curls. She had taken the worst of the tangles out with her fingers, and the brush was only to add sheen.
I am beautiful, truly beautiful, she thought. —My hair is as red as my nephit’s wings. We are beautiful together.
A mosquito shrilled near her ear, lit on her neck, and bit.
“Ouch!” she protested. “Why did you do that?”
The mosquito was gone, and a nephil, with wings like name, stood before her. “Because you are indeed truly beautiful. You are so beautiful I could eat you up.”
She burst into tears. “Rofocale, don’t bite me!”
The nephil laughed. “It was just a tiny bite. Tell me, little Tiglah, have you seen again the young giant your father and brother threw out of your tent?”
“No. I think the women from Noah’s tent are nursing him.”
“Your sister?”
Tiglah laughed. “I wouldn’t want to depend on Anah if I needed nursing. The younger ones. Oholibamah and Yalith. Anah is helpful when they need ointments, and—“
“How did he get into your tent in the first place?”
She pouted. “How would I know? I called for a unicorn, and suddenly this pate young giant was there, too. I was sorry they threw him out. I’d like to have had a chance to talk with him.”
“Tiglah, my beauty, you’ll do anything I ask, won’t you?”
“As long as you don’t ask me to do anything I don’t want to do.”
“I want you to get to know this young giant. Find out where he comes from, why he is here. Wilt you do that for me?”
“With pleasure.”
“Not too much pleasure,” Rofocale chided. “I want him to be attracted to you. I do not want you to be attracted to him. You are mine. Are you not?”
She raised her lips to his. His lips were as red as hers, although no berry juice had been rubbed on them.
“Mine,” Rotocale purred. “Mine, mine, mine.”
In the cool of the evening. Sandy sat on the low bench made by the root of the old fig tree. Higgaion was curled up at his feet, making little bubbles as he slept and dreamed.
A man with a full brown beard flecked with white, and with springing brown hair, strode toward him, turning in from the public path and toward Grandfather Lamech’s tent. He went up to boy and mammoth. Stared. “You are the Sand.”
“I am Sandy. Yes.”
“They told me that you look like one boy in two bodies. Now I believe them.”
“Who are you?” Sandy asked curiously.
“I am Noah. Your brother is in one of my tents, and my wife and daughters are taking good care of him.”
“Thank you,” Sandy said. “We’re very grateful.”
Noah continued to stare at him. “If I did not know that the Den is in one of my tents, I would think that you were he. How can this be?”
“We’re twins,” Sandy explained wearily.
“Twins. We have known nothing of twins before.” He paused and looked at Sandy, then at the tent. “Is my father in his tent?”
Sandy nodded. “He’s resting.” Then he added. “But I know he’d be happy to see you.” He wished he felt as certain as he sounded. Grandfather Lamech struck him as being a very stubborn person, with his natural stubbornness augmented by age.
Without speaking further, Noah went into the tent.
Noah!
Suddenly the name registered. Sandy had not heard Noah called by name. Lamech referred to him, when he spoke of him, as ‘my son.’ The women who came with the night-light called him Father.
Noah.
The galaxies seemed to swirl. Sandy had been convinced that he and Dennys had blown themselves somewhere far from home, at least out of their own solar system, and probably out of their own galaxy. If this Noah was the Noah of the story of Noah and the flood, they were still on their own planet. They had blown themselves in time, rather than in space. And to get home from time might be far more difficult than getting home from space, no matter how distant.