The stars never gave false comfort.
She was less afraid.
They worked on the ark all day, taking time out in the heat to sleep. Then they worked again until it was too dark to see. Every evening Matred prepared a festive meal. Therefore, Shem was often out hunting, rather than busy with the ark. Sandy and Dennys worked along with Noah, Ham, and Japheth. There were no hammers or nails or any of the modern tools to which they were accustomed. The boards had to be joined and pegged. At nighty they were tired and hungry, ate well, slept well. They were building an ark, but they did not talk of the rain.
Dennys looked at Elisheba, Anah, and Oholibamah. They were in the story, even if not by name. They would go with Noah and Matred and all the animals onto the ark. He looked at Yalith, her hair amber in the lamplight. He slipped out of the tent, feeling a little strange. He was the follower. Sandy the leader. And now he was off, without even consulting his twin.
He walked swiftly toward Noah’s well. His skin prickled as he saw the vulture, huddled on the tall trunk of a long-dead palm, then looking up as Dennys approached, peering this way and chat, stretching its naked neck, staring at Dennys with hooded, suspicious eyes.
At first, Dennys saw only the dark bird. Then his eye caught a glimpse of white, and on a young fig tree near the well sat a pelican, its head tucked under its wing, so that it seemed no more than a bundle of white. Dennys heaved a sigh of relief. He had left the big tent to find one of the seraphim, and it didn’t really matter which one, but he was more familiar with Alarid than with many of the others. He went up to the sleeping bird. “Hsst.”
The pelican did not move.
“Alarid!” Dennys shouted. “I need to talk to you!”
The feathers quivered as the bird shoved its head farther under its wing.
“Alarid!”
The feathers ruffled, hunched, indicating, “Go away. I have nothing to say.”
“But I have to speak to you. About Yalith.”
At last the head emerged from the fluff of feathers, and the dark bead of eye blinked.
“Please.” Dennys indicated the vulture. “Please, Alarid.”
The white bird hopped down from its perch, clumsy and cumbersome.
The vulture was an ink blob of immobile darkness.
“Please.” Dennys pleaded.
The pelican stretched its wings up, up, until the seraph appeared. Without speaking, Alarid turned from the well and walked toward the desert. Dennys followed. When they had left the oasis far enough behind so that the vulture was no longer visible, Alarid turned to the boy. “What is it?”
“You can’t let Yalith drown in the flood.”
“Why not?”
“Yalith is good. I mean, she is really good.”
Alarid bowed his head. “Goodness has never been a guarantee of safety.”
“But you can’t let her drown.”
“I have nothing to say in the matter.”
“I should have spoken to Aariel,” Dennys said in frustration. “Aariel loves her.”
“He has no more say than I.” The seraph turned his head away. /
Dennys realized that he had hurt Alarid, bun he plunged ahead. “You’re seraphim. You have powers.”
“True. But, as I told you, it is dangerous to change things. We do not meddle with the pattern.”
“But Yalith isn’t in the pattern.” Dennys’s voice rose and cracked. “There’s no Yalith in the story. Only Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives.”
Alarid’s wings quivered slightly.
“So, since she isn’t in the story, it won’t change anything if you prevent her from being drowned in the flood.”
“What do you want me to do?” Alarid asked.
“You aren’t going to be drowned, are you?” Dennys demanded. “You, and the other seraphim?”
“No.”
“Then take her wherever it is you’re going to escape the flood.”
“We cannot do that,” Alarid said sadly.
“Why not?”
“We cannot.” Again, the seraph turned his face away.
“Where are you going, then?”
Alarid turned back to Dennys and smiled, but not in amusement. “We go to the sun.”
No. Yalith could not go to the sun. Nor to the moon, which Dennys had been about to suggest. Yalith could not live where there was no atmosphere. But surely there was something to be done! He made a strangled noise of outrage. “We’re not in the story, either, Sandy and I. But we’re here. And Yalith is here.”
“That is so.”
“And if we drown, that is, if Sandy and I drown, that’s going to change the story, isn’t it? I mean, we’re not going to be born in our own time if we get drowned now, and even if that makes only a tiny difference, it will make a difference to our family. If Sandy and I don’t get born, maybe Charles Wallace won’t get born. Maybe Meg will be an only child.”
“Who?”
“Our older sister and our little brother. I mean, the story would be changed.”
Alarid said, “You must go back to your own time.”
“That’s easier said than done. Anyhow, what I wanted to talk to you about is Yalith. Listen, it’s a stupid story. Only the males have names. It’s a chauvinist story. I mean, Matred has a name. She’s a mother. And Elisheba and Anah and Oholibamah. They’re real people, with names.”
“That is true,” Alarid agreed.
“The nephilim,” Dennys went on. “They’re like whoever wrote the silly ark story, seeing things only from their own point of view, using people. They don’t give a hoot for Tiglah or Mahlah, for instance. They’re just women, so they don’t matter. They don’t care if Yalith gets drowned. But you ought to care!”
Alarid asked gently. “Do you think I don’t care?”
Dennys sighed. “Okay. I know you care. But are you just going to stand by and do nothing and then fly off to the sun?”
Again Alarid’s wings quivered. “Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.”
Dennys felt chastened. He had not paused to listen, not for days. “They don’t tell you anything?”
“To continue to listen.”
The breeze lifted, washed over Dennys in a wave of sadness. “I don’t like this story,” he said. “I don’t like it at all.”
He left Alarid. Before he reached the oasis he paused, sat on a small rock. Tried to quiet himself so that he could listen. To the wind. How could he unscramble the words of the wind which came to him in overlapping wavelets?
He closed his eyes. Visioned stars exploding into life. Planets being birthed. Yalith had spoken of the violence of Mahlah’s baby’s birth. The birth of planets was no gentler. Violent swirlings of winds and waters. Land masses as fluid as water. Volcanoes spouting flame so high that it seemed to meet the outward flaming of the sun.
The earth was still in the process of being created. The stability of rock was no more than an illusion. Earthquake, hurricane, volcano, flood, all part of the continuing creation of the cosmos, groaning in travail.
The song of the wind softened, gentled. Behind the violence of the birthing of galaxies and stars and planets came a quiet and tender melody, a gentle love song. All the raging of creation, the continuing hydrogen explosions on the countless suns, the heaving of planetary bodies, all was enfolded in a patient, waiting love.
Dennys opened his eyes as the wind dropped, was silent.
He raised his face to the stars, and their light fell against his cheeks like dew. They chimed at him softly. Do not seek to comprehend. All shall be well. Wait. Patience.
Wait. You do not always have to do something. Wait.
Dennys put his head down on his knees, and a strange quiet flowed through him.
Above his head, the white wings of a pelican beat gently through the flowing streams of stars.
Work on the ark progressed slowly. In the heat of the sun, his body glistening with sweat, Dennys found it hard to remember his vision of understanding and hope. But it was still there, waiting for him, surfacing during the after-noon rest time, or at night when the sun set and the stars blossomed.
Hammer. Peg. Measure for stress.
Noah insisted on following exactly the directions which were given him.
“This El,” Sandy said to Dennys, “I don’t understand.”
“El knows about shipbuilding,” Dennys said. “The instructions and measurements are pretty much the basic proportions for modern ships. The ark’s not designed for speed, but then, that’s not the purpose.”
“All those animals—Noah’s surely going to have to shovel out a load of manure.”
“I bet nobody around here has ever seen a boat this big. Maybe they’ve never even seen a boat.”
Sandy sought out Yalith, feeling a little disloyal to be going to find her without Dennys, but going, nevertheless. Dennys had vetoed it when Sandy had suggested taking Yalith with them.