Heavens Before

by Kacy Barnett-Gramckow

  “I have no wish to marry Tseb-iy,” Parah answered evenly. “One man is like another, and I’ll be too busy to care about anything in a few months.”

  Brooding before the fire, Gammad said, “We should have crushed Tseb-iy into submission. You’d have been married long before now, I’ma.”

  All you ever think of is violence, Annah thought, watching Gammad’s dark, self-absorbed face. She could not remember the last time she had seen him smile.

  Parah frowned, her lovely eyes severe. “Listen, all of you. I will not marry Tseb-iy, so just forget him.”

  “You say that because he won’t have you,” Chathath responded scornfully.

  Annah caught her breath at Chathath’s insolence.

  Parah’s lips tightened. “You are wrong, my son, and I won’t discuss him with you.”

  Iltani reentered the lodge, stalked into the storage area, and came out again with a cup of powdered herbs and a piece of honeycomb. They watched as she poured water into a small copper cooking pot and thrust it into the coals of the fire. “This is what you have reduced me to,” she told them, scowling as she waited for her water to simmer. “I’m taking remedies to settle my stomach.”

  Chathath snickered, and Ayalah rolled her eyes upward in disgust. Parah looked down at her hands, folded over her fully rounded belly. Gammad, glaring into the fire, ignored them all.

  Ayalah began to whine. “I’ma, please, won’t you at least try to speak to Yerakh? K’nan doesn’t expect a large marriage portion; Yerakh could afford one small field. Anyway, you’d think that if Yerakh’s planning to marry Taphaph sometime soon, he’d prefer to have us all out of his lodge before then, so he could have Taphaph all to himself. You should mention that to him and see what he says.”

  Annah blinked, unable to believe that Ayalah had said such a thing in front of Iltani. But Iltani scowled, repeatedly testing the water in the cooking pot. Finally she snatched a leather mitt, lifted the pot out of the fire, and dumped some water over the herbs and honeycomb.

  As steam wafted from the cup, Parah inhaled.

  Iltani saw her and slammed the pot back into the coals. “I suppose you want some too. Well, if you’re going to be staring at me the whole time I’m drinking it, you’d better take this one. I’ll just go get my own. After all, you are bearing a child, and I’m not!” She plunked the cup in front of Parah and stomped back into the storage room.

  Parah protested, “I didn’t say a word, Iltani.”

  “Oh, stop!” Iltani hissed, returning from the storage room with another cup of herbs and honeycomb. “It’s too late now.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like a serpent, elder sister,” Chathath taunted. “Why don’t you go live with the Nachash and save us all these scenes?”

  “Someone should cut out your tongue!” Iltani fumed, pouring hot water over her herbs and honeycomb.

  Ayalah leaned forward. “That does smell good.”

  “You can get your own! I’m not waiting on someone who thinks Yerakh should replace me with that Taphaph. Oh, how I’ll laugh at you when K’nan takes another woman—and don’t say he won’t.” Iltani slurped her hot drink noisily. “As much as you whine, K’nan will need a dozen wives to drown you out.”

  “You’re one to talk!” Ayalah cried, indignant.

  “Hush, all of you!” Parah screamed suddenly. “I’m sick of this fighting!”

  “But I’ma …” Ayalah began, and Parah slapped her. Ayalah started to cry. “I’m going to stay with Haburah.”

  “Do it!” her mother snapped. Ayalah fled, sobbing. Defiant, Parah took her steaming cup and marched off to her pallet to prepare for sleep. Astonished by their mother’s vicious outburst, Annah and the others silently followed her lead, preparing their sleeping places for the night.

  Annah was just dozing off when she heard her mother groan, then shriek.

  “I’ma?” Chathath called from the far corner of the main room. “What’s wrong?”

  Parah sucked in a ragged breath, then screamed again in agony.

  Iltani came rushing in from the partitioned sleeping area she shared with Yerakh. “She’s having the baby!” she cried. “But it’s too soon! I’m going to get the other women.” Highly excited, she ran from the lodge.

  Trembling, Annah crept toward her mother. Parah was writhing. She shuddered, then stiffened up as if all her muscles were seized and paralyzed. Chathath and Gammad hurried outside, unwilling to be anywhere near a female in childbirth. But this is not right, Annah thought, terrified, gazing at her mother’s rigid, mottled face. Parah could not seem to catch her breath, and the pain did not ease. Annah had seen women in labor before. Her mother’s seizures and paralysis were not natural.

  What should I do? Hearing women’s voices, Annah retreated to a shadowy corner.

  Haburah dashed into the lodge, followed by Ayalah, Iltani, and the wives of Naham. The wives of Naham had each miscarried before, and they questioned Iltani about Parah’s contractions. Parah could no longer speak, or scream, or breathe, or even move.

  Haburah turned ashen, and Ayalah began to sob. In her corner, Annah pulled her veil over her face and wept silently, watching as her mother delivered a stillborn son in mute, mortal agony.

  Realizing Parah would not survive, Haburah, Ayalah, and the wives of Naham lifted their voices in high calls of mourning. They did not see Iltani’s triumphant smirk as she took the body of Parah’s stillborn son. But Annah stared through her veil as Iltani pulled a knife of stone from inside her tunic and cut the umbilical cord. As the lodge of Yerakh filled with mourners, Iltani sadly showed them the dead infant.

  Later, Annah saw her pick up the infant’s tiny, leather-wrapped body and sneak outside. What is she doing? Enraged, Annah snatched her grass bag and followed Iltani into the darkness.

  Eight

  HARDLY DARING to breathe, Annah crept through the fields, seeking Iltani. With every step, her rage grew. She could not think of her mother’s death. Not yet. Pulling her veil away from her face, Annah listened to the sounds of the darkness, the croaking and rasping of hundreds of frogs and bugs and the faraway yipping of canines. She stopped. This is not happening, she told herself, swallowing hard against tears. No. This is true. And I’m afraid. Why did you do this, Iltani? Why did you take my infant brother? He doesn’t belong to you!

  She started out again, determined to learn Iltani’s motive. She had to stay far enough behind her quarry that Iltani wouldn’t sense her presence. I’ll risk being caught, Annah decided. I can’t let her escape. She gave that drink to my I’ma; she wanted I’ma to die. Maddened, Annah quickened her pace.

  Iltani was moving south, away from the settlement, cutting through Yerakh’s fields. Annah knew the Nachash lived just beyond these fields. She also knew that Yerakh—the bully—inexplicably feared the Nachash and her followers. He refused to drive them away during harvests when they helped themselves to portions of his grain.

  How hateful, Yerakh, Annah thought to her brother. You let strangers—whisperers and Serpent-Lovers—help themselves to grain from your fields, and you never demand payment from them. But if your brothers and sisters ask you for anything, even fields that are rightfully theirs, you threaten to kill them.

  Will you kill your wife for what she’s done? I believe you will. It will be disgusting to watch you stand before the entire settlement and demand justice, when you refuse to submit yourself to the same authority.

  Grimly, Annah passed the edges of Yerakh’s fields. Here trees grew freely, as did flowers, shrubs, vines, and thorns. Annah searched for some sign of Iltani. Then, farther south, she saw a flickering light—an evening fire glowing in an unkempt lodge. Annah shivered, hugging her veil and her bag. Never had she dreamed she would seek this place.

  “The Nachash will burn you to death,” Chathath had told her once, before their father’s murder. He had voiced her worst dream: The Nachash and the whisperers would steal her during the night. They would take her to their lodge and pass her, st
ill living, through the fire until there was nothing left of her but bones and ashes.

  Chathath had leaned close to her, hissing, “Then they will lick up your dust and the powder of your bones! After all, they are human serpents; they love the ashes of a dead child like you!”

  I am no longer a child, Annah reminded herself now, suppressing her fears. I’ll find out what Iltani has done. And if I have to confront her before the entire settlement, using my own voice, then so be it. If I find her in the lodge of the Nachash, with the body of the child, then I will tell everyone that Iltani has committed two murders.

  Annah circled the lodge of the Nachash, looking for an observation point. When she saw glimmers of firelight through the roughly woven grasses of the west wall, she summoned all her courage and crept up next to the lodge.

  Kneeling softly, she peered through a gap in the woven wall. Iltani was there, seated before a crackling, snapping fire. She had set the stillborn’s tiny body off to one side, as if it were a bundle of refuse. Annah shut her eyes briefly, steadying herself against this new indignity.

  Seated in a half-circle before the fire, the Nachash and the whisperers resembled dried caricatures of humans, whose individual characteristics had been sucked away by some vile, wasting blight. Yet they radiated a presence both compelling and dark. The strongest source of this dark presence was the Nachash herself. Encased in her circular, painted leather cloak, she exuded an arrogance that demanded submission.

  And Iltani humbly offered it. Like a child expecting praise, she explained, “I used the seeds and leaves of death plants; the woman died bearing a child. You told me ‘like for like.’ Is this not your price?”

  The Nachash sighed, low and harsh in her throat. “We will see what you have brought to our fire.” From the depths of her cloak, the Nachash extended two withered arms, her skeletal fingers reaching over the fire. Iltani winced, forced to stretch her own arms over the flames to pass the small bundle to the Nachash.

  The Nachash opened the bundle. “One heartbeat for another,” she muttered, a chuckling noise rasping in her throat.

  Nauseated, Annah pressed a hand to her mouth.

  Iltani sat down, obviously relieved. “Then you’re pleased? You’ll give me the remedies I need?”

  The Nachash remained silent, swaying, fixated on Annah’s stillborn brother. To Annah, this aged woman, leering at the body of a stillborn child, represented every horror clad in human flesh. O Nachash, Annah thought fiercely, I hate you! You’ve demanded the lives of my mother and my brother. If I live a thousand years, I’ll never forget what you have done.

  As if feeling Annah’s rage, the Nachash turned toward the wall through which Annah stared, and flicked her eyelids open. Where there should have been the color of brown for her eyes, the Nachash showed only whites. Yet she recognized Annah. Enraged now, the Nachash screamed, deep and hoarse. “You, watcher in the dark! You, hating us! You! Will you demand justice? Will you accuse us before the Most High?”

  The Most High? The Most High is the enemy of the Nachash? Does He exist after all? Confounded, Annah stared back through the tiny break in the wall, unable to move.

  Now Iltani looked in her direction, suspicion dawning in her smooth, full face. “We’re being watched?” she cried, horrified. “No. No!” She snatched the knife of stone from the earthen floor, gripping it in her fist.

  The sight of it jolted Annah to her senses. Iltani was going to kill her. And this time even Yerakh couldn’t protect her. Clutching her veil and her bag, Annah scrambled to her feet and ran toward the settlement. As she fled through the fields, she could hear Iltani behind her, running fast and hard.

  Terrified, her feet shredded by thorns as she ran, Annah cried out, the words breaking from her throat in the faintest of voices, “Most High, help me!”

  Hearing Iltani’s snarls of rage mingled with gasps for air, Annah sped on through the darkness. Then she tripped. The earth seemed to rush up to meet her, knocking the breath from her body. I’m going to die now. Iltani’s right behind me. Feeling smothered, almost suffocating with fear, Annah waited, bracing for a blow. But Iltani ran past her toward the settlement.

  Annah lay perfectly still, her face pressed into the earth, unable to believe she had escaped. Why hadn’t Iltani sensed her presence? Why weren’t the whisperers following her?

  Gradually, the smothering sensation faded. Annah waited, listening for the Nachash and the whisperers. She heard nothing. Only the croaking of frogs and the rasping of bugs. And night birds … singing joyously. Trembling, she sat up in the darkness and stared at the heavens, trying to gather her thoughts. I’m alive, she told herself, amazed. I should be dead, but I’m alive. The moon and the stars had never looked so beautiful. And she was comforted by an all-encompassing presence, the very opposite of the presence of the Nachash. You’re here, she thought to the Most High. I can sense You; it’s as if You’re touching me. But why should You notice me, a human-female-nothing?

  As she was trying to understand this, a distant clamor arose from the settlement, screams of rage and terror. Annah jumped up, panic-stricken, clutching her bag and veil. Most High, help me. Where can I go? Annah ran through the fields into the night.

  Shifting on a branch in the Tree of Havah, Annah scanned the heavens, waiting for the first signs of dawn. From time to time she sensed the presence of others—men and women—and heard them calling to each other in the darkness. Are they looking for me? she wondered, trying to peer through the rising mist of the night. Suddenly sensing someone at the base of the tree, Annah climbed upward, groping for branch after branch, her heart thudding. O Most High, save me from being discovered by this person.

  The person lingered briefly at the base of the tree, then hurried toward the river. Voices rose from that same direction, first in alarm, then in triumph. A woman screamed.

  Iltani, Annah thought. Her eyes widened as Iltani’s screams continued, mingled now with the curses and laughter of others, both men and women. The voices were moving, changing directions in the darkness. Unable to see through the deepening mists, Annah turned her head, following the sounds of the voices. Iltani’s captors were apparently dragging her back to the settlement.

  Sickened, Annah eased herself into one of the lower branches of the ancient tree. Should I go back to the settlement and speak to the others, and tell them what Iltani and the Nachash have done? No, they’d kill me—Yerakh would demand my death. O Most High, stay with me. I’m so afraid.

  Annah leaned into a massive branch, clinging to it while she prayed. The presence of the Most High surrounded her, enfolding her. Reassured, she dozed. She was awakened by the sensation of her woven-grass bag sliding from her fingertips. Snatching it into her arms, Annah straightened, staring at the sky. The first ruddy hints of dawn glowed in the east.

  I should go back to the settlement, she told herself. But she waited until the sunlight permeated the early mist, ending her night of fear. The light calmed her, strengthened her. O Most High … thank You for saving me, and for noticing me—a nothing-creature. Why should You care that I exist? Why should You stay with me when I have nothing to offer You but words that I cannot speak? But how glad I am for Your presence; I’ll remember forever that You were with me, protecting me when I was so afraid.

  She descended from the tree, wobbling a little as she turned toward the settlement. Birdsong pierced the morning mist from every direction. It was as if the terrors of the night had all been a dream; she would go back to her brother’s lodge and find her mother, still pregnant and sound asleep.

  No, I’ma’s death, the hatred of the Nachash, and Iltani’s screams when she was caught last night … all those things happened. Now I must face them. Slowly Annah pulled her veil over her head and entered the mist-shrouded settlement.

  Everyone’s still asleep, she thought. As she approached Yerakh’s lodge, she noticed a woman curled up on the hard, trampled path near the doorway. Wondering, Annah crept around the prone figure, then stiffene
d, almost crying aloud. It was Iltani, eyes half-opened in a death stare, lying in a pool of her own blood. Someone had slashed her throat with the knife of stone.

  Pressing one trembling hand to her mouth, Annah backed away from Iltani’s body. There was so much blood. As she retreated, she just missed stepping into another patch of bloodstained earth near the front entry of the lodge. She stared at it, bewildered. Had they killed Iltani at the door, then flung her body out, disgraced and unattended? Annah shuddered, revolted by the thought.

  Inside the lodge, Annah caught her breath and looked around. The wives of Naham were sharing pallets with Haburah and Ayalah, to the right of the hearth—on the same side of the lodge as the snoring Gammad. It was as if her sisters could not endure being on the same side of the lodge as their dead mother.

  Bracing herself to see her mother’s body, Annah turned to the opposite wall. She was surprised to see Chathath stretched out on a pallet next to Parah. Wondering, Annah approached them, staring at the two of them lying side by side.

  I would never have believed Chathath was so devoted to I’ma. As she gazed at them, Annah realized that Chathath’s face was bluish and unnaturally still. Refusing to comprehend the truth, Annah cautiously touched her brother’s hand. It was cold and bound in place by cords at his wrists—prepared for burial.

  Annah sat down hard on the earthen floor, thoroughly dazed. How can Chathath be dead? She half-expected him to wake up, mocking her, laughing over Iltani’s death. She could still hear him quarreling with Iltani last night as they sat before the evening fire, their voices resounding with hatred.

  Monster!

  Serpent-Lover!

  Shut up!

  When you do, elder sister.

  Annah winced, pained by Chathath’s prophecy of his own death. Iltani thought it was you spying on her last night, Annah thought, gazing at Chathath’s cold, still face. It’s my fault; you would not be dead if I hadn’t followed her. When I fell and she didn’t sense me, she came here—with that knife of stone—and killed you while you stood in the doorway.