Noah sighed. “It is not what we would have chosen for our daughter, but after all, Oholibamah—“
Macred leaned against her husband, and he put his arm around her. “I would rather have it one of our young giants. At least they are truly young, and I think they are good.”
“They fit in with us,” Noah agreed, “and the nephilim do not. It seems now as though our twins have been with us always.”
“The moons have slipped by,” Matred said. “Seven or eight of them, at least.”
“They have worked wonders in my father’s gardens and groves. It is hard work, and yet they never complain.”
“Perhaps Yalith—“ Matred started, then said, “It is time we asked them to take another evening off and come to our tent. I wish Mahlah had not been lured by the nephilim. They glitter, but I do not think they are loving.”
“I will speak to Mahlah.” Noah pulled Matred down onto the sleeping skins.
“If she will speak with you,” Matred said.
The twins enjoyed their visits to the big tent, the noise and singing and laughter. Once, at the time of the full moon, Noah’s married daughters were there with their husbands and children, and there was dancing and music and loud quarreling and reconciling.
“I wish Mahlah were here,” Matred said.
Less than a moon later, Anah and Elisheba, bringing a big pot of vegetable stew to Grandfather Lamech’s tent, again invited the twins to the big tent. “But you should feel free to come more often,” Anah said. “You don’t have to wait for an invitation.”
Sandy felt her eyes inviting him. He turned away. “We don’t like to leave Grandfather Lamech too often.”
Higgaion, lying stretched out by the embers, swished his stringy little tail, raised his head, and put it back down with a thump.
Again Anah lavished her smile on Sandy. “You’re getting nearly as brown as one of us, and you have freckles all across your nose.”
“The Den, too.” Elisheba’s smile was friendly. “I never believed he’d make it. Matred thought he was going to die. But Oholibamah is a healer. And Yalith was marvelous with him.”
Sandy felt a sharp twinge of jealousy. When Yalith came with the night-light or with the evening meal, she was careful, overcareful, he thought, to smile no more at one twin than at the other. “All that was a long time ago.” He was surprised at how cross his voice sounded. “We’ve both been well for months now.”
“For what?”
“Oh. Many moons.” Moon and month did come from the same root, after all. but the people of the oasis thought of time in moons and crops and the movement of the stars.
“Yalith will be looking for a husband one of these years.” Anah’s voice was suggestive.
Elisheba was brusque. “Yalith will make a good wife. But not yet.”
Anah’s eyes strayed from twin to twin. “Hmm.” She pursed her lips.
Elisheba jiggled Anah’s arm. “We’d better be getting back, or Matred will be after us.”
“She doesn’t scare me,” Anah said.
“Who said anything about being scared? There’s a lot of work to do, and she’s getting too old to do it all herself.”
“Too fat,” Anah muttered.
“Who’s talking?”
Still bickering, the two women left, taking the empty pot with them.
The twins went out to the vegetable garden, putting on Matred’s straw-woven hats. The sun was not yet high, the shadows still long. “We’ll stay just a little while,” Sandy said.
They worked hard. The weeds, it seemed, grew up as fast as they could clear them. Weeding was a never-ending Job. They did not mention Yalith. They had more than enough to do to keep them busy.
Grandfather Lamech no longer came out to the garden with them, but spent most of the day in the tent, drowsing.
After the long afternoon sleep he would sometimes accompany them to the well, where they drew water, filling large clay jars, one for use in the tent. The others were for the garden, which Higgaion helped them water, spraying with his trunk, which was almost as good as a hose.
“It’s good to be working in a garden,” Sandy said, “even if it’s not the garden at home.”
“Who do you suppose is tending to the garden at home?”
Dennys asked. “It’s got to be at least harvest time by now. That is, if time there is passing like time here.”
“Everything is different here,” Sandy said. “People living longer, for instance.”
“So maybe time is different, too. At home we had alarm clocks and those electronic bells at school, and here time just slides by and I hardly even notice it.”
“I don’t want to think about it, about time,” Sandy said. He looked at his twin. “We’re browner than we ever got at home. Anah’s right about that.”
“And our hair is bleached. At least, if mine is like yours, it is.”
Sandy looked at his twin. “Well, your hair is lots lighter than it used to be.”
“I wonder what it would feel like to wear clothes again?” They were used to wearing loincloths. They were even used to no showers, no water for bathing. The smells of the tent were hardly noticeable.
With a strong green vine, Sandy was tying up tall, green-leafed bushes, giant versions of the basil they planted between the tomatoes in the garden at home. Grandfather Lamech often chopped up the leaves to season his stews. “I’m not homesick anymore. At least, I’m not homesick.”
“I try not to think about it too often,” Dennys said, “except to remind myself that since I didn’t die of sun-stroke, then somehow or other we ought to be able to get home.”
“We won’t be the same,” Sandy said.
Sandy made a face. “Hey, I don’t like the way Tiglah keeps coming around. I don’t think I’m ready for Tiglah.”
“Tiglah,” Dennys said, “is what the kids at school would call an easy lay.”
“Except,” Sandy said, “there isn’t anybody remotely like Tiglah at school.”
“She’s older.” Still, neither of them mentioned Yalith.
“Yeah,” Sandy said.
“The thing is—“ Dennys paused. “Something’s happened. We’re not just kids anymore.”
“I know.” Sandy bent over one of the plants.
Dennys pulled up a resisting weed with such force that he sat down. “We haven’t seen Adnarel lately. Or any of the other seraphim.”
Sandy finished tying the plant to a bamboo stalk. Images of scarab beetle and pelican, camel and lion, flashed before him. He always felt better if Adnarel was with them. When the seraph was in his scarab-beetle form, he was usually near Grandfather Lamech’s sleeping skins, or on Higgaion’s ear. He gave Sandy a sense of security. “I think the seraphim like us.”
“But the others don’t,” Dennys said. “I mean, the other ones, the nephilim. I’ve seen them looking at us when they thought we weren’t noticing. And a mosquito kept buzzing around me the other day after Tiglah had been around. I don’t think it was just a mosquito.”
“Rofocale,” Sandy said. “I heard her call one of the nephilim Rofocale.”
“They don’t like us,” Dennys said.
When supplies were needed, the twins left Grandfather Lamech’s and went to the nearby shops, carrying figs, dates, and the produce of their garden to barter for rice or lentils. On the dusty paths they passed many of the people of the oasis, who always paused to look up at Sandy and Dennys, surreptitiously if not openly.
When they passed nephilim, with whom they could look eye-to-eye, brilliant wings quivered, but the nephilim did not acknowledge their presence, except in sudden reversion to the animal host, so that a tall, bright-winged man would vanish, and there would be a skink scuttling across the path, or a red ant, or a slug leaving its slimy trail.
The women, at least the young ones, let Sandy and Dennys know that they were admired. Small hands reached up to touch them. They were bathed in lavish smiles. Tiglah seemed to know when they needed rice or beans or lentils, and would be waiting at whichever stall they were headed for.
The men and the older women were different. Sometimes the twins were cursed at, spat at. They did not tell Grandfather Lamech, who would have been distressed. They learned to go to the few venders who treated them kindly and did not try to cheat.
Dennys said, one day, “Hey, Sand. If you want to go for a walk with Tiglah, don’t let me stop you.”
“I don’t want to.” Sandy turned his gaze from the side of the path, where a vulture was picking the flesh from a small carcass.
“I mean, just because it was her father and brother who threw me into the garbage pit—I mean, I’m not stopping you, or anything.“
“No problem,” Sandy agreed.
They were careful with each other as they had never been careful before.