Many Waters

by Madeleine L'engle

  "A--Perhaps you need a drink of something cool?"

  "I'm all right. I'm sorry." There would not have been a Bible in Noah's time. Probably not even a written language. Not yet. Neither Dennys nor Sandy had given much of their concentration to Sunday school. They didn't go in for stories.

  No? He remembered their mother reading to them every night until too much homework got in the way. What did she read? Stories. Greek and Roman myths. Indian tales, Chinese tales, African tales. Fairy tales. Bible stories.

  Who was Noah? Noah and the flood. Noah built an ark and took his wife, and their sons and their sons' wives, and many animals, onto the ark. What about Yalith? He couldn't remember anything about Yalith. Or Oholi--Oholibamah. Japheth. Maybe that had a familiar ring.

  Shem. Yes. Maybe. But not Elisheba. Elisheba was all right. She had rubbed ointment all over him one day, matter-of-factly, when something had taken Yalith and Oholi away, not flinching at the suppurating sores, the crusting scabs. She had talked through, at, and around him the day she had attended him in the hospital tent, and he remembered her muttering something about it being a shame to leave the old grandfather all alone in his tent with only a mammoth to take care of him.

  Selah snuggled against Dennys's shoulder. He continued to try to think. There was Shem. And there was Ham. He barely remembered a small, pale man and a redheaded woman in the big tent that first night. "Is Higgaion all right?" he asked suddenly.

  "Higgaion?" Noah sounded surprised. "He's helping take care of your brother."

  "Are there many mammoths around?" Dennys asked.

  "Very few. Many have been eaten by manticores, and most of the rest have fled to where they feel safer." Noah shook his head. "It is a hard time for mammoths. Hard times are coming for us all. El has told me that."

  Dennis frowned. This pre-flood world was weird. Mammoths. Manticores. Virtual unicorns. Seraphim and--

  "Who are the nephilim?" he asked.

  Noah pulled at his beard. "Who knows? They are tall, and they have wings, though we seldom see them fly. They tell us that they come from El, and that they wish us well. We do not know. There is a rumor that they are like falling stars, that they may be falling stars, flung out of heaven."

  "Seraphim, too?"

  "We do not know. We do not know how it is that their skin is young and not yet shriveled from the sun, though they are ageless, it would seem--older, even, than my Grandfather Methuselah."

  --Old as Methuselah. It had a familiar ring. Vaguely.

  Dennys shifted on Matred's linen cloth. The remnant of his bundle of clothes had been found, and taken by Japheth and Oholibamah, to be aired and put away. In this hot land he would not need flannel shirts or cable-knit sweaters. He had been given a soft kid loincloth, and Yalith had told him that Sandy had been given one, too.

  In this tent where he was recovering, the stench was less disturbing than in the big tent. Yalith had bathed him with water scented with herbs and flowers. Oholibamah had rubbed him with fragrant ointment. Both young women were reticent about where they came by the perfumes, and Dennys thought he had heard Yalith saying something about Anah and Mahlah. Anah: Ham's redheaded wife, he reminded himself. Mahlah was Yalith's sister, who, it appeared, seldom came home. Who were all these people he did not remember as being part of the story? He needed Sandy. Sandy might be able to suggest some way for them to get home before the flood. How much had this El told Noah?

  Noah said, "El has told me that these are end times for us all. Perhaps we will have a great earthquake."

  "An earthquake?"

  Noah shrugged. "The mind of El is a great mystery."

  "Is he good, this El?"

  "Good and kind. Slow to anger, quick to turn again and forgive."

  "But you still think he's going to nuke everybody?"

  "What's that?"

  "You think he's going to send some big disaster and wipe everybody out?"

  Noah shook his head. "It is true, as El says, that people's hearts are turned to wickedness."

  "Yalith's isn't," Dennys said. "Oholibamah's and Japheth's aren't. I'd be dead if it wasn't for them."

  "And for my wife, Matred," Noah added. "I might not have let you stay in my tents had it not been for Matred." He looked thoughtfully at Dennys. "Sometimes I have wondered why I let the women insist on keeping you. But I think you mean us no harm."

  "I don't. We don't. Listen, what about my brother? When can I see Sandy?"

  "As you have been told, he is in my father's tent." Noah's voice indicated that the subject was now closed.

  "Have you seen him? Sandy?" Dennys asked.

  "I do not go to my father's tent."

  "Why not?"

  "He is a stiff-necked old man, insisting on staying alone in his own tent, with his wells, the best in the oasis."

  "But why don't you go see him?" Dennys was baffled.

  "He is old. It is nearly time for him to die. He can no longer tend to his crops."

  "But don't you help him?"

  "I have all I can do, taking care of my herds and my vineyards."

  "But he's your father!"

  "He should not be so stubborn."

  "Listen, he's taking care of Sandy all by himself. He doesn't have Yalith or Oholibamah to do the nursing. Only the mammoth."

  "One of the women takes him a light every night."

  "But he's your father," Dennys protested. "Wouldn't he appreciate it if you took him the night-light?"

  Before Noah's growl became audible, the tent flap shifted and a pelican waddled in, followed by Yalith. A pelican seemed a strange creature to appear in this desert place. The bird approached Dennys, then opened its enormous bill, and from it flowed a stream of cool, fresh water, filling the large bowl from which the women bathed him.

  Dennys asked, "Hey, you've been here before, haven't you?"

  Yalith spoke delightedly. "He is truly better! He's remembering things."

  The water felt healing as Yalith dipped a cloth in it and cooled his skin. She knelt beside him and with the wet cloth touched some of the loosened scabs. "They will soon be off."

  Dennys regarded the pelican. "Where did the water come from?"

  "From Grandfather Lamech's. And the pelican has been kind enough to bring it to us, flying across the oasis."

  The pelican nodded gravely to Dennys.

  "Do you have a name?"

  The pelican blinked.

  Yalith said, "When he is a pelican, we usually call him pelican."

  "When he is a pelican! What else is he?"

  "Don't confuse the young giant," Noah said.

  "I can't be much more confused than I am," Dennys expostulated. It was a relief to know that he was still on his own planet; even so, he felt lost, and far from anything familiar.

  The pelican stretched its angled wings toward the roof hole, raised its beak, seemed to thin out and stretch upward, and suddenly a tall and radiant personage was looking down at Dennys.

  "What--" he gasped.

  "A seraph," Yalith said.

  The glowing skin of the seraph was the color of Yalith's, and there were great silvery wings, and hair the color of the wings. Was it a man? A woman? Did it matter? Yet, with Yalith and Oholibamah, and even more with Anah, Dennys was very well aware that he was male and they were female.

  The seraph raised its wings, then dropped them loosely. "Fear not. I am Alarid, and I have been helping with your healing. At last you are getting better. No. Don't try to stand. You are still too weak." Strong arms enfolded Dennys, and he was taken out of the tent and lowered onto a soft bed of moss. In the starlight, the moss shimmered like water.

  "There," the seraph said. "So. I am Alarid. And you are the Den."

  "Dennys."

  "Den is simpler."

  "And your name is Alarid? And what about Oholibamah?"

  Alarid smiled gravely. "I take your point, Dennys. Forgive me. Now, I have conferred with my companion, Adnarel, who has been helping to take care of the Sand." />
  "Sandy. Alexander."

  "Alexander? Is there not an Alexander who wants to conquer the world?"

  "Not in our time," Dennys said. "Way back in history. Not as far back as now. But back."

  "Ah," Alarid said. "I tend to see time in pleats. Now, Dennys, there seems to be considerable confusion over who and what you are, and why you are here."

  In his weakness, Dennys could not hold back the tears which sprang to his eyes. "We are fifteen-year-old boys who come from a long time away."

  "You come from a far time, and yet you speak the Old Language?"

  "The what?"

  "The Old Language, the language of creation, of the time when the stars were made, and the heavens and the waters and all creatures. It was the language which was spoken in the Garden--"

  "What garden?"

  "The Garden of Eden, before the story was bent. It is the language which is still, and will be, spoken by all the stars which carry the light."

  "Then," Dennys said flatly, "I don't know why I speak it."

  "And speak it with ease," Alarid said.

  "Does Sandy speak it, too?" Dennys asked.

  Alarid nodded. "You were both speaking it when you met Japheth and Higgaion in the desert, were you not?"

  "We certainly didn't realize it," Dennys said. "We thought we were speaking our own language."

  Alarid smiled. "It is your own language, so perhaps it is best that you didn't realize it. Do others of your time and place speak the Old Language?"

  "I don't know. Sandy and I aren't any good at languages."

  "How can you say that," Alarid demanded, "when you have the gift of the original tongue?"

  "Hey. I don't know. Sandy and I are the squares of the family. Our older sister and our little brother are the special ones. We're just the ordinary--"

  Alarid interrupted him. "Because that is how you are, or because that is how you choose to be?"

  Dennys looked at the seraph, his eyes widening. "What happened to the Old Language?"

  "It was broken at Babel."

  "Babel?"

  "The tower of human pride and arrogance. It has not happened yet, in this time you are in now. You do not know the story?"

  Dennys blinked. "I think I remember something. People built a big tower, and for some reason they all began to speak in different languages, and couldn't understand each other anymore. It was in, oh, prehistory, and it's a story to, sort of, explain why there are so many different languages in the world."

  "But underneath them all," Alarid said, "is the original language, the old tongue, still in communion with the ancient harmonies. It is a privilege to meet one who still has the under-hearing."

  "Hey," Dennys said. "Listen. I guess because we got here so unexpectedly and everything was so strange, and we didn't have time to think, and when we met Japheth it just seemed natural to speak to him--"

  "It is a special gift," Alarid told him.

  "We're not special, neither Sandy nor I. We're just the sort of ordinary kid who gets along without making waves."

  "Where in the future," Alarid asked him abruptly, "do you come from?"

  "A long, long way," Dennys said. "We live at the end of the twentieth century."

  Alarid closed his eyes. "A time of many wars."

  "Yes."

  "And the heart of the atom has been revealed."

  "Yes."

  "You have soiled your waters and your air."

  "Yes."

  "Because you speak the Old Language there must be some reason for you to be here. But for the future to touch the past can be dangerous. It could cause a paradox. How did you get here?"

  "I'm not sure." Dennys frowned, then added, "Our father is a physicist who specializes in space travel, in the tesseract."

  "Ah, yes. But space travel is supposed to deal with space, not time."

  Dennys said, "But you can't separate space and time. I mean, space/time is a continuum, and..."

  Yalith and Noah came out of the tent, and Yalith put her hand lightly against Alarid's. "Look, he is very pale. You are tiring him."

  "Be careful of our young giant," Noah warned.

  Alarid regarded Dennys. "You are right. This is enough for tonight." The seraph's eyes were compassionate, and their silver-green seemed to darken. "I am glad that you are better, and that you are coming back to yourself. Please, be very careful what you say, what you do. Be careful that you do not change anything."

  "Listen," Dennys said. "All I want is to go home. To my own time. I'm just grateful to be on my own planet, and I'm not a bit interested in rewriting the Bible." Did Alarid know that there was going to be a Bible? That there was going to be a flood? He looked at the seraph, whose face, serene and severe at the same time, did not change expression. Dennys was willing to accept that Alarid and the pelican who brought the water were somehow one and the same, but he was not willing to accept that his presence in this time and place might have an effect on anyone except himself. And, of course, Sandy.

  "Sleep well, Dennys," Alarid said. "Yalith and Oholibamah will continue to take good care of you."

  --Yalith, Dennys thought. For Yalith he might be willing to change history.

  Sandy could not sleep. Not only was the tent hot, but Higgaion was snoring. Grandfather Lamech was not. Grandfather Lamech was tossing. Turning. Grunting. Sighing.

  At last, Sandy could not stand it any longer. He crawled over to Grandfather Lamech's sleeping skins. "Grandfather, are you awake?"

  "Um."

  "What's the matter?"

  The old man grunted.

  Sandy spoke to him as he would have to Dennys. "Come on. I know something's bothering you. What is it?"

  "El spoke to me."

  Sandy tried to peer at him through the dark. Did this mean that the old man was about to die? Right then? That night?

  But the old man said, "Great troubles are coming after I die. Terrible things are going to happen."

  "What kind of terrible things?"

  Lamech moved restlessly. "El did not say. Only that men's hearts are evil and hard, and it repents El that he has made human creatures."

  "So what's he going to do about it?"

  "I don't know," Lamech said. "But I fear for my son and his family. El plans to spare no one. I fear for Yalith. I fear for you, Sand, so far from your home."

  "Oh, I can take care of myself," Sandy said automatically. But his words sounded hollow.

  Yalith and Oholibamah came to Dennys in the deep dark just before dawn.

  "You need to get out of the tent into some air," Oholibamah told him. "You need to exercise. You will not recover until you walk about under the sky."

  "Starlight is healing." Yalith's voice was as gentle, he thought, as a small brook. But there were no brooks in this arid land.

  He followed them out of the tent. Each took one of his hands, and their hands were small as children's. They walked past the grove which served as outhouse, which was as far from the tents as he had ventured. Beyond them, the large tent was a dark shadow, with the smaller tents clustered about it.

  His bare feet were still tender, and he walked gingerly. The girls guided him to the smoothest ways, until the sharp dry grasses and pebbles gave way to sand, and they were in the desert. The sand felt cool to the burning soles of his feet.

  They paused at a low slab of white rock, which cast a silvery shadow on the sand. "Japheth and I agreed that this is as far as you should go," Oholibamah said. "Let's sit here and rest for a while. We'll take you back to the tent before dawn."

  He sat between them on the rock, leaning back on his elbows so that he could look up at the sky. "I've never seen so many stars."

  "You don't have stars where you come from?" Yalith asked.

  "Oh, yes, we have stars. But our atmosphere is not as clear as yours, and not nearly as many stars are visible."

  Yalith clasped Dennys's arm tightly. "It is frightening when the stars are hidden by the swirling sand. Their song is distorted, a
nd I can't hear what they say."

  "What the stars say?" Dennys asked.

  "Listen," Yalith suggested. "Alarid says you are able to understand."

  At first, Dennys heard only the desert silence. Then, in the distance, he heard the roar of a lion. Behind them, on the oasis, the birds chirred sleepily, not yet ready for their dawn concert. A few baboons called back and forth. He listened, listened, focusing on one bright pattern of stars. Closed his eyes. Listened. Seemed to hear a delicate, crystal chiming. Words. Hush. Heal. Rest. Make peace. Fear not. He laughed in excitement. Opened his eyes to twinkling diamonds.

  Yalith laughed, too. "What did they say?"

  "They told me--I think--to get well, and--and to make peace. And not to be afraid. At least, I think I heard them, and I don't think it was just my imagination." Suddenly he was glad that Sandy was not there. Sandy was pragmatic. Sandy would likely think Dennys was hallucinating from sunstroke. At school, if Dennys got lost in a daydream, Sandy always managed to cover for him.

  "Yes, that is what the stars told you." Yalith turned toward him with a delighted smile, very visible in the starlight. "You see!" she said to Oholibamah. "It is not everybody who can listen to the night. If the stars told you to make peace, Den, perhaps you will be the one to make peace between my father and my grandfather."

  "A big perhaps," Oholibamah said.

  "But maybe, maybe he can." She turned back to Dennys. "What else do you hear?"

  Dennys listened again. Heard the wind rattling the palm leaves like sheafs of paper. There seemed to be words in the wind, but he could not make any sense out of them. "I can't understand anything clearly--"

  Yalith withdrew her fingers and clasped her hands together. Shook her head. Opened her eyes. "The wind seems to be talking of a time when she will blow very hard, over the water. That's strange. The nearest water is many days away from here. I cannot understand what she is trying to say."

  "The wind blows where she wills," Oholibamah said. "Sometimes she is gentle and cooling. Sometimes she is fierce and blows in our eyes and stings our skin like insects and we have to hide in the tents until she is at peace again. It is good, dear Den, that you have not come at a time when the wind blows hot against the sand. You will heal better now, at the time when she is more gentle, and the grapes and gardens grow."

  They were silent then, listening to the dawn noises becoming louder, as birds and baboons began to get ready to greet the day. Tentatively, Dennys reached for Yalith's hand. She gave his fingers a little squeeze, then freed herself and jumped up. "It is time we took you back to the tent. This is more than enough for a first excursion. How do you feel?"