A Gift Upon the Shore (34 page)

I look out at the roiling ocean. Old women are apt to drown—if they are so foolish as to walk alone near high tide.

“Shadow!” But she doesn't hear me. I reach under my collar for the silent whistle and give it a long blast. She looks back at me, then when I blow again, she returns to me, taking her time about it. I lean down to stroke her head. “Good girl. Come on, we're going back.”

She follows me, reluctantly, and I feel a cast of anger in the apprehension that has taken firm root in my mind. How long, I wonder, am I to be denied the pleasure of walking alone on the beach or visiting the tree? Or climbing up to the Knob? Yes, old women are certainly apt to slip at the edge of a three-hundred-foot cliff.

Damn her.

But I don't intend to make it easy for her.

The midday meal is another test of our Thespian skills, but we get through it without ruffling the surface calm. Afterward, I go to the deck and stand at the railing. The wind is out of the north with a blunted edge of chill in it, but I prefer it to the chill inside the house.

Finally I hear the sliding door open. Stephen has a smile for me, but behind it is the anxiety, cloaked in silence, that haunts all the children today. We sit down, then I wait, giving him a little time. I know he has questions. I don't know if I'll have the answers.

He sits with one leg pulled up, heel caught on the edge of the seat, and at length, he asks, “What happened at the family meeting last night?”

No, I don't have the answers. I can only say, “Well, Jeremiah heard our arguments—Miriam's and mine—as to whether I should be allowed to continue teaching.”

“Yes, we could hear some of the arguing.”

I smile briefly. “I'm sorry if we kept you awake.”

He shrugs. “So, Jeremiah decided you
could
keep teaching us.”

“Yes, he did.”

He watches me, as if he's waiting for me to go on. Then, “Why doesn't Miriam want you to teach us?”

“Because she doesn't agree with what I teach.”

“I wish she . . .” But he doesn't finish that, instead asks, “Why did Jeremiah preach at morning service?”

“That was his decision. You'll have to ask him about it.”

“I don't think he'll talk to me about it. Well, I'm glad he said you could keep teaching us.” But his anxiety hasn't been alleviated. I don't know what I can say—and be truthful—that would allay his fears. Not when I am so steeped in fear myself.

“Yes, Stephen, I'm glad, too.” Then I change the subject with, “You know, we're coming to the end of the Chronicle. A few more sessions, then we'll get on to more orthodox lessons.”

“When will you be finished writing it?”

“I don't know.” The question now, perhaps, is not when, but will I be able to finish it at all.

He says, “If you can't finish it,
I
will—as best I can.”

I'm startled at that. I didn't mean to reveal so much of my fear. And I'm deeply moved. “Thank you, Stephen. Yes, if I can't finish it for any reason, you must. I keep it in the bottom drawer in the chest in my room.” He nods soberly, and I bring out a smile. “So, where were we?”

“You'd just found out you really were pregnant. Mary, what . . .” He hesitates, and I know the question he asks isn't the one he started. “What did the Doctor do after that? I mean, was he still angry?”

Stephen is thinking of my argument with the Doctor about Rachel. I didn't tell him about the examination. “No, he didn't seem to be angry. In fact, he was as kind and concerned as a doting grandfather. He treated me like a prodigal daughter returned. All the Flock did. And in December they had more good news. Sister Hannah was pregnant, too. She was Miriam's mother, and it was Miriam she was carrying.”

Now it seems darkly ironic that Miriam was taking the shape of life while I was at the Ark.

Stephen asks, “Were you happy then?”

And I remember that winter, a mild winter of gentle rains and few storms. I wasn't clairvoyant. I didn't even see the present clearly.

“Yes, I was happy. Luke was proud and loving, and everything seemed good. I was so consumed with my child, I didn't think past its birth. I was full of energy and self-satisfaction, and I couldn't imagine anything that would unravel the golden skein of my world.”

He hesitates, his night-dark eyes hooded. “But something did . . . unravel it?”

“It didn't so much unravel, really, as disintegrate.” I watch a solitary gull soaring low over the breakers. “That was late in February. I was seven months pregnant then. I always think of February as the real beginning of spring. The smell in the air is different, and the first daffodils are blooming. . . .”

But that year it wasn't a beginning.

—EPICURUS (341-270 B.C.),
APHORISMS

—HENRY VAUGHN, “
THE WORLD
” (1678)

T
he Jordan ran high with the first spring runoff, and even from the north garden, Mary could hear its murmur. To the east, the orchard was on the fine verge of exploding into bloom. Just outside the garden fence, a black Nubian doe, shadowed by her new kid, browsed in the green grass growing up through last year's rain-beaten straw. Mary leaned on her hoe and arched her back against the dull ache at the base of her spine. She watched the kid maneuvering on wobbly legs, bleating adamantly when the doe moved too far away, and she pressed her hand to the swelling curve of her belly, thinking to the child there:
Only two more months, and you'll be free
.

She often spoke to the child that way, and sometimes forgot and spoke aloud. The people who heard her laughed and asked, “Has it begun to talk back to you, Sister?”

In its way, it did. She felt it moving at times and was always awed by the sensation, savoring the private joy of knowing that however commonplace it might be in the grand scheme of things, she harbored a miracle.

“Sister Mary, aren't you getting too tired?”

Mary looked around at Naomi, one of the Barrens, who had also paused to lean on her hoe. The garden was full of people taking advantage of the sunny day to prepare the soil for planting. The raised beds in this garden couldn't be plowed, and in each of the long beds two men spaded kelp, ground eggshells, and manure into the earth, while two women followed with hoes to break the clods, then two more with rakes to smooth the nourished soil.

Mary shook her head. “No, I'm not tired.”

Naomi sighed. “You really shouldn't be doing this kind of work.”

“Yes, I should, Sister Naomi.” Mary began cutting into the dark clods with her hoe; the fecund smell of the earth was pleasantly sour.

Another sigh from Naomi, but she didn't argue. All the women had argued with Mary too often, too fruitlessly. They wanted her to do nothing but rest, and she understood their concern. They had seen too many of the few women who became pregnant lose their babies. But she would not become an invalid, would not sit placidly while her muscles turned flaccid. Her hope was in her good health and strength, and she didn't intend to forfeit them to fear.

Two months. After the baby was bom was time enough to sit and rest. No. Time to indulge herself in the pleasure of nurturing the child. She thought of it as a friend as well as a miracle.

And as soon as possible after the child was born she and Luke and the baby would go to Amarna. Luke had promised he'd talk to the Doctor about the trip, about Rachel. Mary would have to remind him again. She cleaved the lumps of dirt, feeling the rhythmic impacts through the hoe. Luke was so hesitant, almost timid, when it came to the Doctor, yet these last four months, the Doctor had been unfailingly solicitous and full of good humor.

“Mary, would you like some water?”

She looked up to see Bernadette offering a canteen. Mary took it and tipped it up to let the cool water wash down her throat, then returned it with her thanks.

Bernadette nodded absently. “Where's Luke today?”

“He's in the west field helping with the plowing.”

Bernadette looked toward the dust clouds rising behind the two teams of horses. Then she glanced up at the sky. “Getting on toward evening. I gathered some fern fiddleheads for supper. You need the vitamin C. Did you drink some extra milk this afternoon?”

Mary smiled at her stem expression. “Yes, I did. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For your concern.”

She responded testily, “It's my job, looking after you and Sister Hannah.” Then her eyes narrowed; she raised a hand to shade her eyes as she stared westward. “God in heaven, what is
that
?”

Mary turned, and at first she saw nothing unusual, until a movement fixed her attention on the road where it emerged from the forest.

A rider on a dark horse, a bay nearly black in the shadows of the trees, moving at an unhurried walk toward the main gate. A dog trotted ahead of the horse.

“A stranger!”

The words ricocheted around her with cries of surprise and alarm, and people began moving toward the garden's west gate. Mary dropped her hoe and joined them.

A stranger.

It was a staggering event here, and she felt her heart pounding. From the south garden, from the west fields, she heard shouts and questions, and near her someone cried, “It must be the Lord!”

The rider had reached the gate on the road and stopped.

The lord? Mary laughed. Would Jesus come on horseback with full packs behind the saddle and the barrel of a rifle clearly visible? Would Jesus be so small, bent over in the saddle like a tired child? Would Jesus be led by a black dog with white paws and . . .

Yorick.

And the horse—it was Epona. Of course, it was.

Mary pushed her way through the small crowd at the garden gate.

The rider—the stranger
—
was Rachel
.

Someone tried to hold her back. Bernadette. Mary pulled away from her, laughing, shouting, “It's Rachel! Go find Luke—tell him it's
Rachel
!” And she broke away and ran toward the main gate.

Rachel had come to the Ark, and Mary didn't stop to wonder why. She ran through the tangles of winter grass underlain with spring green, and the pent loneliness burst loose within her, and she wondered how she had borne it.

But now Rachel was here—she was here at the Ark.

When Mary was still fifty feet from the gate, Yorick wriggled under it and scuttled to meet her. She scooped him up, whirled around while he licked at her face ecstatically, then she put him down, and together they ran to the gate, where Epona stretched her neck over the top wire, soft lips pushed out in a nicker of greeting.

But Mary stood suddenly immobilized, jubilation overshadowed by a pall of apprehension.

Rachel's hair had grown to her shoulders, hung gray and lank, and her eyes shone feverishly out of shadowed hollows. She looked at Mary as if she didn't recognize her, asked plaintively, “Mary . . . ?”

Mary fumbled at the chain, pulled the gate open, and at that moment Epona turned, and Mary saw Rachel's right leg, the lower half of the pants cut away, the leg wrapped from the ankle to just below the knee in bandages soaked with pale, brownish patches.

Mary reached up for Rachel's hand. “Rachel, what happened?”

She enclosed Mary's hand in both of hers, but there was no strength in them. “I cut myself with that damn machete trying to clear some bamboo. Mary, I'm so glad to see you. Are you pregnant, or is it just those clothes?”

“It's not the clothes. Rachel, don't cry.”

“Why not?” She managed a wry laugh. “
You're
crying.”

“Never mind.” Mary reached for Epona's reins and led her through the gate. “The Doctor has to look at that leg. When did it happen?”

“I think . . . five, six days ago.”

Mary stopped, looked up at her with an emptiness bom of fear taking shape under her ribs. She stared at the stained bandage, and now she became aware of a faint odor she couldn't name.

“Rachel, how bad is it?”

She grimaced. “It's bad, Mary.”

“
How
bad?”

“Gangrene has set in.”

She said it as matter-of-factly as she might comment on the weather. Mary stood dazed, trying to assimilate the word
gangrene
. A killer and a cruel one, and in this new Stone Age without antibiotics . . .

Mary sagged against Epona's neck, hands clenched in her mane, and turned her face away so Rachel couldn't see her fear.

And yet . . .

Nehemiah. The Doctor had saved the old man's life when his injured hand became gangrenous.

Yes, the Doctor had saved his life—by amputating his arm. Mary swallowed at the bitter, metallic taste in her mouth. But if there was no other alternative—

At least, she was sure the Doctor could do it.

“Look at the people,” Rachel said. “It's hard to believe, Mary— so many people.”

Mary roused herself, looked around to see all the Flock gathering a short distance away. She grabbed Epona's reins and urged her forward, shouting, “Somebody get the Doctor! Hurry! Bernadette, where's Luke?”

Bernadette was hurrying toward her. “He's coming. I told him—”

What stopped her was a flurry of movement in the crowd. The Doctor, with Luke in his wake, strode through the aisle provided him by the Flock. Mary's breath sighed out in relief. “Brother, thank the lord you're . . .”

But her voice failed her, she pulled back on Epona's reins.

She didn't understand what she saw in the Doctor's face. In the four months since he had learned of her pregnancy, he'd shown her nothing but beatific solicitude, and that was what she anticipated now.

What she found revived with chill clarity the memory of a night in November when rain hissed at the windows of his barren room, when he had condemned Rachel with the evidence of her art.

Mary had forgotten that night. No, she hadn't forgotten it, only put it aside as something to worry about later, after the baby was born.

The Doctor had not forgotten, nor forgiven.

Mary ordered Yorick to heel. He did, growling softly while the Doctor marched forward, the prophet, the messenger of righteous wrath.

Luke. She focused her attention, her hopes, on him. Luke would bring the Doctor around. He wouldn't let any harm come to Rachel. When the Doctor stopped a few paces away, Luke continued toward Mary and Rachel.

The Doctor's whip crack “Brother Luke!” checked him midstride.

It was then that Rachel said quietly, “Hello, Luke.”

He looked at her, seemed to sway toward her, then turned his pleading gaze on Mary, and she couldn't make sense of his silence.

Finally he spoke, but not to Rachel. To Mary: “She shouldn't have come here!”

Now Mary couldn't make sense of his words. “Can't you see she's hurt, Luke? You
told
her to come here, you promised her help if she needed it.”

The Doctor rested a hand on Luke's shoulder and spoke in the moving-of-mountains timbre of his sermons. “Brother Luke had no right to make that promise.”

Mary faced the Doctor and found in his pale eyes a wall of ice. “Brother, whether he had a right to or not, Luke
did
make that promise.”

The Doctor ignored that. “Is this the witch Rachel?”

Witch
?

The word staggered Mary; she couldn't believe it, and without thinking, she laughed. “What
is
this—Salem in the seventeenth century?”

“What do you find to laugh about, Sister Mary?”

“I . . . I just couldn't believe you'd make such an accusation of someone who comes to you in her need.”

“She has come to the wrong place! God said to Moses, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' And I'll not suffer a witch to enter this, the abode of the righteous!”

All around them, the Flock stood silent, accepting that grotesque statement without so much as a murmur.

And Luke remained equally silent.

Mary cried, “Luke! This is Rachel—the woman who nursed you through your sickness and treated you like a son! Can you face her, can you face your god and call
Rachel
a witch?”

Luke let his head fall back, eyes closed, before he turned to the Doctor. “Brother, I owe her my life. How can you say—”

“You owe this daughter of darkness nothing! I say she is a witch, and I say she will not set foot in the Ark!”

“I can't believe she's evil. You don't know her, you can't know—”

“I
do
know her! I see the mark of Cain on her when nobody else can.” He looked around at the Flock, then turned to Luke, pronounced with ringing contempt, “Or do you think you know better, Brother Luke? Do you think you can lead my Flock? Do you think you can lead them in the paths of righteousness? Because if you do, then I will step down, my Godly mission fulfilled, and you, Brother Luke, can take my place!”

Mary watched the transparent transition of emotion in Luke's face: shock, uncertainty, fear, and finally defeated compliance. He slumped, staring at the ground, and Mary remembered the scars on his back. Yet she felt not a trace of sympathy for him, for the pain so patent in his face. She looked at him and despised him; she wanted to spit on him. She shook with the intensity of her loathing and cried, “Luke, you coward! You pitiful, heartless
coward!
”