The three mammoths, trumpeting joyfully, bounded around them.
Bronze flashed against Higgaion"s ear, and then Adnarel stood before them. "Go!" he commanded the nephilim in a bugling voice.
"Kkk. You have no right to take them from us," Naamah said.
"And you have no right to them whatsoever." Adnarel was fierce. "Go."
From the four corners of the desert the other seraphim came, to stand with Adnarel, Alarid, Admael, and Aariel.
Then Ertrael, whose host was the rat, whined, "Tell us what is about to happen."
"Do you not know?" Alarid asked.
"I a.s.sume," Ugiel hissed, "that since Noah is building a boat, he must be planning to find some water."
"Your a.s.sumption is correct." Admael had his arm lightly across Dennys"s shoulder.
"Kkk. And then what?" Naamah asked.
"Rain," Alarid said. "Much rain." The seraph raised his hand skyward, seeming to touch a bright star. A flash of lightning split the sky, bolted to earth with a great crash of thunder.
"Now," Alarid ordered the nephilim.
As the nephilim slipped, one by one, into their animal hosts, Sandy felt a drop of rain.
The seraphim gravely led the twins and Yalith deeper into the desert, not explaining where they were going. Sandy started to ask, "Where-" then closed his mouth.
When they reached a single monolith of silvery rock, the seraphim encircled it. Aariel drew Yalith into the center of the circle.
Adnarel took Sandy by the hand, and Admael reached for Dennys, so that they were part of the circle around the monolith, Aariel, and Yalith, who looked at the seraph questioningly but without fear.
Alarid said, "Yalith, child, you did not know your Great-great-grandrather Enoch."
Mutely, she shook her head.
"But you know of him?" Aariel asked.
"I know that he did not die like ordinary men. He walked with El, and then, according to Grandfather Lamech, he was not. That is, he was not with the people of the oasis. He was with El."
With a rush of hope, Sandy remembered his conversation with Noah and Grandfather Lamech and their recounting of this strange happening.
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 j.a.pheth 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 G.o.d 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 rea.s.suring.
"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 s.h.a.ggy 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 n.o.body with her, neither father and brother, nor nephilim.