A Gift Upon the Shore

by Wren, M. K.

  “I fantasized about that occasionally. After all, there are other survivors in our corner of the world. Luke found some, and Jerry told me a family came to the Ark from California.”

  “But . . . didn’t you ever wonder if somebody from the Ark might come here?”

  “I wondered, yes.” I don’t add that I was afraid someone from the Ark might come here, that I preferred my profound loneliness to their company.

  But perhaps age had mellowed me by the time these survivors of the Ark arrived. And things had changed there. These people had endured grief and despair that had forcibly opened their minds to some degree. At least, most of them.

  Stephen asks, “Weren’t you surprised to see us down on the beach that day?”

  I have to laugh at that. “Surprised? That’s putting it mildly. Do you remember that?”

  “No, not really. Except I think I remember seeing all the cats and dogs in the house. I liked that.”

  “They certainly weren’t allowed in the households at the Ark.” I open the diary, turn a few pages. “Well, you arrived on the second of February. That was about two months short of the twentieth anniversary of Luke’s arrival at Amarna. I remember it was around noon, and I was in the house, when I heard the dogs barking. I came out to the deck and saw all those animals and people on the beach. And I hadn’t seen another human being for nineteen years. Yes, Stephen, I was a bit surprised.”

  He laughs. “I wish I’d been old enough then to remember.”

  “It must’ve been quite a journey. Jerry told me it took you eight days to travel from the Ark to Amarna. I can understand that, with the animals to herd along. There were goats, sheep, hogs, cows, a couple of bulls, a small flock of chickens in a wooden cage, and five horses carrying loaded packs. Enid even brought her loom, dismantled into a Chinese puzzle. Anyway, I got out my binoculars, and I knew you were from the Ark by your clothing. I even recognized Bernadette and Enid, in spite of the changes inevitable in nineteen years.”

  And in a way, I recognized Miriam. It was her red hair, so exactly the color of Luke’s. And I recognized—no, I simply saw something else: her imperious posture, her forceful manner with the other women and the children. But I had no premonitions about her. I wonder if it would have changed anything if I had. Probably not. Because of the children.

  It was the children—Stephen, three years old; Jonathan, four years old; and Isaac, only a baby—who made me decide even at that point that I would have to take these people in at Amarna.

  “Mary?”

  Stephen is looking at me inquiringly, and I’m sure he’s been talking to me, and I haven’t heard him. “Yes, Stephen?”

  “I was saying Jeremiah told us that you knew who he was before he said a word.”

  No doubt Jerry considered that amazing and probably a sign of maternal recognition. “It was only an informed guess, Stephen. I knew he came from the Ark, and when he reached the top of the path, I thought I was hallucinating. It might as well have been Luke coming toward me, except for the color of his hair. He had to be Luke’s son, and his age made it likely that he was the boy I’d last seen at the Ark. Of course, Luke might’ve had other sons only a few years younger, and this might’ve been one of them. But I guessed Jeremiah, and I was right.”

  Stephen laughs, then: “Why did you decide to let us stay here?”

  “Well, one reason was Jeremiah’s responses to my questions.”

  “What did you ask him?”

  “I asked if he thought the nuclear holocaust was the Armageddon Saint John imagined, and if the second coming of Jesus was at hand.”

  Stephen’s lips part. He pauses before he asks, “What did he say?”

  “He said that Luke had preached that the true Armageddon hadn’t yet occurred, and that Jesus wouldn’t take so long to find the righteous if he had in fact come again to Earth.”

  Stephen nods almost imperceptibly, then, “What else did you ask?”

  “I asked if he believed the universe was created in seven ordinary days.”

  “How did he answer that?”

  “He said, ‘I don’t know.’ Profound words, Stephen. When you can say ‘I don’t know,’ you’ve freed yourself to find the answer.”

  “That’s why you decided to let us stay here?”

  “Yes. And you—the children. I struck a bargain with Jeremiah then. His band of refugees could make their home at Amarna, if I would be allowed to teach their children.”

  Stephen doesn’t respond to that, and perhaps he’s thinking about the present dissension in this family that seems to be the ultimate result of that bargain. And I’m aware, as I wasn’t when the bargain was struck—and my failure to recognize it was hubris—that it wasn’t so much a bargain as a concession on Jerry’s part. I couldn’t have stopped him and his entourage from living here, although if I hadn’t wanted them, they’d have had to take Amarna over my dead body. I doubt that was considered an option. Not then.

  Stephen says, “There was a letter, wasn’t there? From Brother Luke?” And when I frown absently at him, he adds: “Jeremiah told me about it. I asked him if I could read Brother Luke’s journal—”

  “Oh, yes. Is he going to let you read it?”

  “Well, he said I could, but that was before . . .” His shoulders rise in an uneasy shrug. “Anyway, while we were talking about that, Jeremiah said you had something else Brother Luke had written. He said he carried a letter from the Ark and gave it to you that first day.”

  “So he did.” I’m a little surprised that Jerry mentioned the letter. At the time he gave it to me, he didn’t ask to read it, nor has he spoken of it in all these years. Perhaps it is in his mind sacrosanct. And I’ve never offered to let him read it. It was a very private communication, and I wasn’t sure Luke would want anyone else to see it.

  But perhaps the time has come for Luke’s last words to be heard.

  Time for his son to hear them.

  “I’ll read the letter, Stephen, but not today. I want Jeremiah to hear it, too. Tomorrow. I’ll talk to him about it later.”

  “And will that be the end of the Chronicle?”

  “Yes. I suppose it will be a fitting epilogue.” I study him, trying to read behind his dark eyes. “What do you think of the story, Stephen?”

  He clasps his long hands in his lap, staring at them, then looks up at me. “I’m glad you told me the story. I don’t know if I understand everything about it yet, but . . . maybe I will. Someday.”

  That’s all I asked and hoped for. Then I lean forward, push myself to my feet. “We’ve both had lessons enough for today. Let’s go down to the beach. I need a little time with the sea.”

  And do I need the protection of his company?

  Damn her. She’s closed me in an invisible cage, and I despise it.

  Just before supper I go out to the breezeway to get wood to fill the wood boxes in the house. The wind funnels through the narrow space, carrying the smell of rain. I balance my load—only five small pieces; I can’t carry more at a time—on one arm, but pause when I hear voices. Jonathan and Stephen are running toward the backdoor. They’ve been helping Jerry cut trees again; both of them are carrying axes.

  “I think we should blow up the big stump,” Jonathan says.

  Stephen scoffs. “Sure. What’re you going to blow it up with?”

  “Dynamite. There’s still some left. I remember when Jeremiah blew out the pond in the north pasture. Bet you don’t remember. You were too little.”

  I don’t hear Stephen’s response. They pile into the house, slamming the door behind them, and the wood falls from my suddenly lifeless arm and thuds on the concrete.

  Dynamite.

  The image springs whole out of memory: a fountain of black earth, a billowing cloud of dust. And what an incredible thing the human mind is.
The mind leaps chasms, plunges into nothingness, and comes up with a trapeze.

  One thing I’m sure of at this moment: it was an error to think that Miriam must kill me to negate my influence. She has only to destroy what is most vital to me.

  The books. The vault.

  It hadn’t occurred to me before. I suppose I didn’t think it was possible. But it is. Nobel’s legacy to the world may yet destroy mine.

  “Oh—Mary, I didn’t know you were here.”

  Esther has come out the backdoor. She sees the wedges of wood on the concrete and hurries toward me. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  “No, Esther.” She starts picking up the wood, and I tell her, “Here, I’ll take that.”

  “Maybe you had too big a load.” She is solicitous as always, yet she seems to be having trouble meeting my eye. She balances three pieces in the crook of my arm. “That’s enough, I think.”

  I don’t argue with her, but take my light load into the house and deposit it in the wood box by the living-room fireplace. When I go back for more, I find that Esther has detailed Stephen and Jonathan to assist me. I leave the job to them, go out on the deck, and feel the damp wind in my face. I’m shaking badly, but I can’t seem to stop it.

  Again, I consider Miriam’s options.

  If she has decided to negate me by destroying the vault, it must still seem an act of god. Would a dynamite blast fill that bill? Yes. If Miriam can’t be connected with it. I can imagine it. In the middle of the night the silence is broken by a rumbling explosion, and the family starts from their beds, and Miriam, snug in hers, wakes from a sound sleep and asks in convincing innocence, “What happened?”

  She could manage that—slip out in the deep of night, take a lantern to light her way, place the dynamite and leave a long fuse, long enough for her to run back to the house, get into bed, and seem to be sleeping when her god strikes the vault and its evil contents a thundering blow.

  But doesn’t she think I, at least, will call that explosion an act of man? Rather, of woman. Doesn’t she think I will remind the others of the dynamite?

  Perhaps she hasn’t thought that far. Perhaps she’s too obsessed to look past that act of god—the act of a vengeful, jealous god.

  Or perhaps she knows this family better than I do. She knows their mood now, knows they aren’t likely to examine closely her act of god. They’ll accept the destruction of the vault as an act of god just as they accept the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem as an act of god because Jesus predicted it. That the prediction was recorded years after the temple was in rubble doesn’t matter to them. They are ready to have me repudiated by a higher authority. Then they can in good conscience join Miriam in repudiating me. Join. That’s the key. This family lives too near the edge of survival to tolerate schism.

  I leave the deck and walk across the wind-rippled grass to the head of the path, look down at the beach where ships of foam scud across the sand. I’m not afraid to stand in such a dangerous place now. Miriam won’t bother to push me into the ravine. She doesn’t need to.

  “Mary?” I turn and see Isaac running toward me with his swaying, graceless gait, and his smile is a beatitude. When he reaches me, I put my arm around his frail shoulders.

  “What is it, Isaac?”

  “It’s time for supper. We’re having pea soup!” Pea soup is one of his favorites; he likes the green color.

  I laugh. “Then we’d better get at it.”

  After another quiet meal in an atmosphere heavy with tension, I busy myself building fires in the living room and bathroom, then carry a bucket of water into the bathroom and put it on top of the stove to heat. This is the children’s bath night. Every night is someone’s bath night, but we’re lucky if each of us gets a bath once a week.

  But first, evening service, and I wait impatiently until the family leaves the house for the church. I go to the kitchen, take one of the oil lanterns out of the cupboard, light the wick with a strip of kindling dipped into the stove’s firebox. More pots of water squat on the stove top in preparation for the baths. I go out the backdoor, hear a hymn raggedly sweet in the twilight: “Nearer My God to Thee.” The yellow glow of the lantern precedes me along the east wall of the new wing and around to the north side. The wind, heavy with moisture not yet resolved into rain, whips around the corner. Inside the storeroom, the air smells of dust and rust, and the floor-to-ceiling shelves are filled with crates, jumbles of tools, loops of rope and chain and electric wire, empty cans, buckets, glass jars, pipes and plumbing fixtures, house paint and turpentine, stacks of lumber, nails and screws, nuts and bolts. The lantern casts dense shadows as I search for that small, wooden box. Perhaps I remember it so clearly—and everything about the dynamite—because I didn’t want it here. It was a bitter symbol of humankind’s violent history. I can even remember that Jerry brought exactly twenty sticks to Amarna. He used five to blow out the spring.

  The light falls on a box marked in stenciled letters: DYNAMITE. The box has been recently moved; there are clean areas in the dust on the shelf. I open the lid, my pulse rushing in my ears. The sticks seem innocuous, perhaps an inch in diameter and eight inches long, wrapped in thick, oily, yellow-brown paper. There is no hint of their lethal potential, except the word printed in faded black: DANGER.

  I count five sticks. Ten are missing.

  I replace the lid, turn the lantern on the hand-lettered message on the smaller box next to the dynamite: BLASTING CAPS—FUSE. I don’t bother to look inside. I’ve seen enough. Too much.

  When I return to the house, I put away the lantern and go into the living room, where Shadow is sleeping on the couch. I build up the fire, then sit down beside her, stare into the flames, and remember evenings with Rachel here while we were still alone, then her casual “lessons” with Luke at this same fire. And in the last ten years there were many evenings when the family gathered here to talk or sing. I’m not sure when we stopped having those evening gatherings. Their cessation was a gradual thing. It began with Rebecca’s death three years ago.

  I take a deep breath, let it out in a sigh, and consider my options.

  At least, now that I’m sure of Miriam’s intentions, I can stop her. I can tell Jerry and the others that the dynamite is missing and demand a search. I wonder where she’s hidden it.

  I hear myself sighing again. I can’t look to Jerry and the family to help me. But, Mary, why would any of us steal the dynamite? And if I explain why, they won’t believe me.

  Still, they might if Miriam succeeds. Which will be too late.

  And even if I can stop her from destroying the books now, she has an advantage over me: an advantage of nearly forty years. I am constantly reminded that I’m an old woman. I’m lucky to have lived this long, and I can’t count on living much longer. There is in Miriam’s eyes that banked fire that tells me she is impatient to do something now. But if I stop her now, she has only to learn patience, to wait until I die. I wonder how long it will be after my death before all the family joins her in a Pauline frenzy of book burning.

  No, I can’t simply stop her. I must negate her influence, just as she must negate mine. And perhaps age has an advantage. You learn deviousness when you can no longer, physically, solve problems in a more direct fashion.

  I hear rain slapping at the windows, a hard rain that will undoubtedly last all night, and I smile. I won’t have to worry about her dynamiting the vault tonight. A storm might make her act of god more plausible—she could say god struck the vault with lightning—but it has its drawbacks. For one thing, it would be difficult to light a fuse in a driving rain. For another, she couldn’t avoid getting soaked. None of the waterproof coats and boots are left. Now we arm ourselves against the rain with wool and leather, which once wet take hours to dry. It wouldn’t make her story that she was asleep before the blast credible if she or any of her clothing were wet with rain.
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  No, she’ll have to make her attempt on a clear night. That means I can sleep tonight. And I’ll need it. There’ll be no rest for the wicked for many nights to come.

  Now that I truly understand the threat facing me, I feel a deep calm, a mental clarity. On this fifth day of May I wake ready to take up the gauntlet and capable of being amiable and almost garrulous at breakfast—much to the confoundment of the adults, especially Miriam. School is again an invigorating experience, although I have to curb my tendency to lecture on general principles as if this were my last lesson.

  By noon, the clouds from last night’s storm are breaking up to let the sun make shining spangles on the gray-green sea. After midday meal I manage to corner Jerry in private long enough to ask him to join Stephen and me for our lesson. He is irritable and almost eager to turn me down until I tell him I’m going to read his father’s letter. For a moment he seems stunned, then he squares his shoulders and nods.

  I go to my room and open the bottom drawer of the chest on the east wall. My souvenir drawer. I sift through it like an archaeologist on a midden, unearth letters my father wrote to me; a bottle of L’Interdit perfume; my college diploma; the sketchbook Rachel gave me when I left with Luke for the Ark; the sole copy of October Flowers; the handcuffs awarded to Jim Acres by the Shiloh Apies garrison—the key is still attached by a string; a blue silk scarf that was a gift from my mother on my sixteenth birthday; the first piece of fossil wood I found on the beach here; Topaz and the first Shadow’s collars.

  There. In a flat, wooden box, Luke’s letter. The paper—ordinary typing paper, a relic from Before—rustles like dead leaves. The letter was written in ink with a blunt nib; the handwriting is large and childlike, and page after page becomes more erratic, and by the last page almost illegible. Jerry told me Luke worked at it a few minutes at a time while he fought the nameless fever that had already killed over half his Flock.

  I close the drawer and pull myself to my feet. When I reach the deck, I find both Jerry and Stephen leaning against the railing, Jerry watching me as I approach, Stephen looking seaward. When Stephen turns, finally, and looks at me, I feel an inexplicable chill. It’s what I saw in his eyes in the split second when he first focused on me that engendered the chill.