A Wrinkle in Time Quintet (94 page)

Aariel smiled down on Yalith. “El has told us to bring you, and in the same way.”

She shrank back. “I don’t understand.”

Dennys moved as though to go to her, but Higgaion nudged him to stay still.

Aariel said, “There is no need
to understand, little one. I will take you, and it will be all right. Do not fear.”

She looked very small, very young. She asked, timidly, “Will it hurt?”

“No, little one. I think you will find it a rapturous experience.”

She looked up at him, trustingly.

“Enoch, your forebear, will explain everything you need to know.”

Adnarel’s fingers held Sandy back. “You will tell Noah and Matred?”

“I will tell them,” Sandy said. “I think they will be very happy.”

Dennys, who had not heard the extraordinary story of Enoch, looked confused but hopeful. If Aariel was taking Yalith somewhere, she would not be drowned after all. The seraphim were to be trusted. He was certain of that. Aariel would not take Yalith to the sun, or to the moon, or anywhere that was not possible for her with her
human limitations.

Aariel said, “It is time.”

Yalith remembered the words Aariel had said to her when she had gone out to the desert in the heat of the day. “Many waters cannot quench love,” she whispered. “Neither can the floods drown it. Oh, twins, dear twins, I love you.”

Sandy and Dennys spoke together, their voices cracking. “Yalith. Oh, Yalith. I love you.”

“Will you go back now, to
where you came from?”

The twins glanced at each other.

“We will try,” Sandy said.

“We think the seraphim will help us,” Dennys added.

“If we had been older—” Sandy started.

Dennys laughed. “If we had been older, it would have been very complicated, wouldn’t it?”

Yalith, too, laughed. “Oh, I love you both! I love you both!”

Aariel urged, gently, “Come, Yalith.”

“I can’t say goodbye to my
parents? To Japheth and Oholibamah?”

“It is best this way,” Aariel said, “without goodbyes, as it was for your forebear Enoch.”

Yalith nodded, then reached up to Sandy and kissed him on the lips. Then Dennys. Full, long kisses.

Aariel wrapped her in his creamy wings, glittering with gold at their tips. Then he held her only with his arms, lifted and spread the wings, beat with them softly,
and then rose into the air, up, up.

They watched until all they saw was a speck of light in the sky, as though from a new star.

*   *   *

Sandy spoke to Noah, “Do you remember the night when you and Grandfather Lamech were talking and I was there?”

“I remember,” Noah said.

“And Grandfather Lamech talked about dying.”

“I remember.”

“And about his Grandfather Enoch, who walked with El and
then he was not, for El took him?”

“I remember that, too. Why?”

“Yalith is not.”

“What are you saying?” Noah’s eyes widened.

Matred put her hand to her mouth, focusing intently.

Sandy continued, “Aariel, the seraph who loves Yalith, said that she was to be taken up, like her forebear Enoch. And he held her and flew straight up into the sky. We watched.”

Dennys nodded.

A light of great joy
came into Noah’s eyes.

Matred burst into tears.

“I felt a drop of rain,” Sandy said.

Noah turned away. “The ark will be finished tomorrow.”

*   *   *

That night, the twins sat outside the big tent. The three mammoths curled up together, near them. The rest of the family was within, asleep. Except for Yalith. Yalith’s sleeping skins had been folded and put away.

“I didn’t have a chance to
talk with Adnarel about getting home,” Sandy said.

“But Yalith is all right. At the moment, that’s all that matters.” A drop of rain fell on Dennys’s nose.

“The rain is beginning.” Sandy reached down to pet Higgaion, who was pressing against his feet. “What was it that she said about many waters?”

“Many waters cannot quench love. I think that’s what she said.”

Higgaion reached up with his
trunk to touch Sandy’s arm. “It’s time for us to be going home, Higgy. I have to speak to Adnarel.”

Higgaion reached with his trunk to touch his ear. The scarab beetle was not there.

Another drop of rain fell. It was a quiet, beginning rain, with occasional droplets. No thunder or lightning.

Sandy asked the sky, “Is God really doing this? Causing a flood to wipe everybody out?”

Dennys raised
his face to the sky. The stars were not visible, hidden by thick veils of clouds, but it seemed that he could still hear their chiming, dim but reassuring. “Whenever there’s an earthquake, or a terrible fire, or a typhoon, or whatever, everybody gets it. Good people get killed as well as bad.”

Sandy was wriggling his toes against Higgaion’s shaggy grey flank. “Well. Everybody dies. Sooner or
later.”

“Even stars die,” Dennys added.

“I don’t like entropy,” Sandy said. “The universe winding down.”

“I don’t think it is winding down,” Dennys contradicted. “I think it’s still being birthed. Even the flood is part of the birthing.”

“I don’t understand.” Sandy’s voice was flat. “Everybody knows that entropy—”

“Everybody doesn’t. And entropy is in question, anyhow. Remember, we had that
in science last year. There’s no such thing as an unbreakable scientific rule, because, sooner or later, they all seem to get broken. Or to change.”

“Grandfather Lamech said that these are last days.” The occasional slow drops of rain made Sandy on edge, and argumentative.

Another splash of rain touched Dennys’s face, muting the stars. “There have been many times of last days,” he said, “and
they mark not only endings but beginnings.”

“Is there a pattern to it all?” Sandy demanded. “Or is it all chaos and chance?”

“What do you think?” Dennys asked.

Selah had come to lie beside Higgaion, and Sandy reached to scratch her with the toes of his other foot. “Did we come here, to Yalith, to Noah, by chance?”

Dennys wiped his face with the palm of his hand. “No. I don’t think so.”

Sandy
said, “The ark is finished. Yalith is with Grandfather Enoch. And perhaps with Grandfather Lamech. What was it Grandfather said? We know little about such things…”

There was a radiance in the air, and Adnarel stood before them.

“Oh, Adnarel.” Sandy leapt up. “I need to talk to you about particle physics and quantum leaps.”

Adnarel sat beside them, listening.

“So,” Sandy concluded, “if you
could go to our time and place and call the unicorns to you there, you could tesser us home.”

“It does not sound impossible,” Adnarel said. “It is consistent with our knowledge of energy and matter. I will talk with the other seraphim.” As he turned to go, he said, “Do not stray far from the tent.”

“The nephilim,” Dennys agreed. Then, in a louder voice, “We will not stray. It is just that somehow
we are not sleepy.”

Adnarel paused. “Your love for Yalith, and hers for you,
is
, and therefore it always will be.” And then he was gone.

*   *   *

They smelled Tiglah before they saw her. Quickly they sprang to their feet and ran to the tent flap, which was half open.

“Oh, don’t go, please don’t go!” Tiglah cried. “I’m alone, I promise you.”

Tiglah’s promises meant little. They stood warily
by the tent flap, watching her as she approached. But there was nobody with her, neither father and brother, nor nephilim.

“It’s starting to rain,” she said. “We never have rain except in the spring. Did Noah really build this big boat because he thinks there’s going to be more rain than we’ve ever seen before?”

Sandy nodded.

“Anah is my sister. Would there be room for me on the ark?”

“There
is not room for Sandy and me,” Dennys said.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“We’re not sure.” Sandy was cautious. “We hope to go home.”

“I don’t like this rain.” Tiglah sniffled. “It’s cold and wet.”

“Rofocale will take care of you,” Sandy said.

“Oh, he will, won’t he! I’d better go find him. It’s very nice to have known you.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Sandy said rudely.

“Ditto,” Dennys echoed.

“You’re not blaming
me
for my father and brother, are you?”

“Perhaps not for your father and brother,” Sandy said, “but for doing whatever Rofocale tells you, yes.”

“So go to him,” Dennys urged, although he did not have much faith that the nephilim cared enough about any human being to be willing to help unless it was convenient.

“I still think it’s nice to have known you,” Tiglah said.

“I
wish I could have known you better. I mean, really
known
you.”

“Sorry, Tiglah,” Sandy said. “You are a great deal older and a great deal more experienced than we are.”

“I could teach you—”

“No, Tiglah. The timing isn’t right.”

“Goodbye, then,” she said.

“Goodbye,” the twins echoed.

*   *   *

Japheth came to them. “I’m worried about you.”

Sandy was still looking after Tiglah’s retreating
form. “Don’t worry, Jay. We’ll be all right.”

“How?” Japheth demanded. “You know we can’t take you on the ark.”

“We know,” Dennys agreed. He looked up at the clouds, which occasionally let a drop of rain fall. Tried to listen for the hidden stars.

“Can you get home?” Japheth asked. “To wherever you came from?” He, too, looked at the sky, shook his head as though baffled by silence.

“We’re
going to try,” Sandy said. “Don’t worry about us. You have enough to do, collecting all the animals and food and fodder and grain and everything.”

Japheth nodded. “Perhaps—”

“Perhaps what?” Sandy asked.

Japheth rubbed his broad hand across his face, wiping away tears. “Oh, twins—” He rushed at them, and they flung their arms about him and the three of them rocked back and forth, holding one
another.

*   *   *

Oholibamah went, just before dawn, to Mahlah’s low white dwelling.

Mahlah was alone, nursing the baby. It was indeed a large baby, drinking greedily, and Mahlah looked pale and fragile, but she crooned over the child while she fed it.

She looked up at Oholibamah and smiled in welcome. “It’s good to see you, Oholi. Come in.”

Oholibamah stood, looking down at Mahlah and the
child. “Is Ugiel good to you?”

“He is very good.” There was deep love in Mahlah’s shadowed eyes.

“You’re happy with him? Truly happy, as I am with Japheth?”

“Truly happy. Though Ugiel is Ugiel and Japheth is Japheth.”

“He doesn’t ever hurt you?”

“Never.”

“He takes care of you?”

“Very good care. And he loves our baby.”

“Good,” Oholibamah said. “That’s all I wanted to know.” And she left
Mahlah and went back to the tent she shared with Japheth.

*   *   *

The seraphim were gathered together as dawn suffused the desert with a soft pearly light. The clouds were thickening, and in the trees the birds sang more softly than usual, and the baboons’ chatter was muted.

“It does look possible, I think,” Adnarel said.

Alarid nodded. “We are not bound to this place and time. Two of us
should go to the twins’ world and call them back.”

Admael asked, “Does it really need to be unicorns? I would feel safer if I could carry them.”

Adnarel’s eyes widened for a moment, then nearly closed in thought. “I do not think they could take the transition from matter to energy and then back again to matter. Even we find it tiring.”

“But what about the unicorns?” Adnachiel, sometimes a giraffe,
asked. “What happens when they go out?”

Adnarel said, “They
are
only when they are here. Or when they are there. But not in between. It is not quite the same thing as a transfer of matter and energy.”

Alarid nodded. “They have to be observed in order to be.”

“Believed in,” Adnachiel agreed.

“It is a long distance,” Admael said, “both in time and space.”

“It is a risk,” Adnarel agreed, “but
one I think we must take.”

“Why are they here at all?” asked Achsah, with wings the same soft gray as his mouse fur.

“Do you think El sent them?” Admael suggested.

Adnarel spoke slowly. “I do not think El sent them. But neither did El prevent their coming.”

“Are they part of the pattern?” Admael asked. “Is it right and proper for them to be here?”

Alarid looked up at the veiled sky. “Perhaps
Aariel will have word when he returns from taking Yalith to the Presence. But I think, yes, that they are part of the pattern.”

“The pattern is not set,” Adnarel said. “It is fluid, and constantly changing.”

“But it will be worked out in beauty in the end,” Admael affirmed.

“Then you agree?” Adnarel asked. “We will try to help them to return to their own time and place in the way in which they
have suggested?”

“We agree,” affirmed the seraphim.

The air lightened slightly as the hidden sun lifted above the horizon. There was a faint spattering of applause from the baboons, who were confused by the clouds and the occasional drops of rain.

Despite the clouds which obscured the light of the last dim stars, the seraphims’ ears were attuned to the song, although it was far away.

“Let
us sing with them,” Alarid suggested.

And the singing of the seraphim joined with the singing of the hidden stars, and the call of the invisible sun.

*   *   *

Sandy and Dennys slept fitfully. The rain had not really begun in earnest. But there was an occasional patter on the roof skins as a drop fell here, there. The three mammoths were curled into a ball at the foot of the twins’ sleeping
skins.

The morning songs of the oasis were softer than usual, but both boys roused from sleep and looked at each other. Nodded.

Quietly, they dressed in their clothes from home. Dennys was without the garments he had discarded after the garbage pit, but he pulled on his sweater and his lined jeans, feeling strange and constrained in clothes. The twins had become used to the freedom of being
naked except for loincloths. Their winter clothes were hampering as well as hot.