A Wrinkle in Time Quintet (78 page)

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. Japheth 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 Adnarel 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 Japheth. And to Japheth 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. “The weeds 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 nobody’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 does 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—I 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 nephil’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 flame, 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 pale 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?”

“As long as you don’t ask me to do anything I don’t want to do.”

“I want you to get to know this young giant. Find out where he comes from, why he is here. Will you do that for me?”

“With
pleasure.”

“Not too much pleasure,” Rofocale chided. “I want him to be attracted to you. I do not want you to be attracted to him. You are mine. Are you not?”

She raised her lips to his. His lips were as red as hers, although no berry juice had been rubbed on them.

“Mine,” Rofocale purred. “Mine, mine, mine.”

*   *   *

In the cool of the evening, Sandy sat on the low bench made by the root
of the old fig tree. Higgaion was curled up at his feet, making little bubbles as he slept and dreamed.

A man with a full brown beard flecked with white, and with springing brown hair, strode toward him, turning in from the public path and toward Grandfather Lamech’s tent. He went up to boy and mammoth. Stared. “You are the Sand.”

“I am Sandy. Yes.”

“They told me that you look like one boy
in two bodies. Now I believe them.”

“Who are you?” Sandy asked curiously.

“I am Noah. Your brother is in one of my tents, and my wife and daughters are taking good care of him.”

“Thank you,” Sandy said. “We’re very grateful.”

Noah continued to stare at him. “If I did not know that the Den is in one of my tents, I would think that you were he. How can this be?”

“We’re twins,” Sandy explained
wearily.

“Twins. We have known nothing of twins before.” He paused and looked at Sandy, then at the tent. “Is my father in his tent?”

Sandy nodded. “He’s resting.” Then he added, “But I know he’d be happy to see you.” He wished he felt as certain as he sounded. Grandfather Lamech struck him as being a very stubborn person, with his natural stubbornness augmented by age.

Without speaking further,
Noah went into the tent.

Noah!

Suddenly the name registered. Sandy had not heard Noah called by name. Lamech referred to him, when he spoke of him, as “my son.” The women who came with the night-light called him Father.

Noah.

The galaxies seemed to swirl. Sandy had been convinced that he and Dennys had blown themselves somewhere far from home, at least out of their own solar system, and probably
out of their own galaxy. If this Noah was the Noah of the story of Noah and the flood, they were still on their own planet. They had blown themselves in time, rather than in space. And to get home from time might be far more difficult than getting home from space, no matter how distant.

But it seemed to fit. Desert people. Nomads, with tents. Cattle. Camels. People used to be smaller than end-of-twentieth-centu
ry people. Way back in pre-flood days it was logical that they would be a great deal smaller. Higgaion was small for a mammoth.

He put his head in his hands, suddenly dizzy.

*   *   *

Dennys sat with Japheth and Oholibamah, and with Yalith, on one of the desert rocks. The sky was still flushed with light. The first stars were trembling into being.

Japheth looked at Dennys in the last light.
“You talked with my father.”