Many Waters Part 13

"It is good that you can hear the stars." j.a.pheth 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."

j.a.pheth 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," j.a.pheth 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?"

j.a.pheth 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. j.a.pheth 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 j.a.pheth. And to j.a.pheth 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.

"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 n.o.body'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?"