Jonah

by Dana Redfield

  Zion smiles. “No, not Avery. Jonah.”

  “I can understand why you didn't want to tell me.” The disappointment is clear in her voice.

  “I honestly did not remember making love with Jonah.”

  “What, you were asleep?”

  “Not exactly. Don't ask me to explain. I can assure you I was more than awake. And it was consensual.”

  “You're spooking me. Like Mary and Joseph.”

  Zion laughs. “Don't expect me to give birth to a Jesus. I'm fairly certain our son will be a composite of our strengths and weaknesses.”

  “You know it's going to be a boy?”

  “A feeling…”

  “Oh, my…Jonah has to return. He'll be thrilled! All those years, a bachelor, but a born family man. He was just waiting for you. A son! Do you think he knows?”

  “No. And I should be the one to tell him.”

  “Of course. But Zion…I thought you said you couldn't have children here. All the trouble with your periods and all.”

  “Life is surprising.”

  They sit silent a while, pondering.

  Triss says, “I just thought of something. We never get over being amazed at the birth of a child. You would think we would get used to it. Billions and billions of births, and we still think it's a miracle.”

  “Life on Earth is miraculous, Triss. You helped me see that.”

  Triss blushes, smacks the air with her hand. “I'm just an old sterile bag of bones.”

  “I could ask for no better mother.”

  “Now you're going to make me cry.”

  “That would be odd for an old Irish woman.”

  “Oh, stop! There.” She swipes at her face. “You did it.” She bounds out of the chair. Returning with a box of tissues, she plops down. “Well, isn't that fitting. Piling our faith rocks in a baby buggy. He's got to come home now.”

  “Faith is a shepherd,” Zion reminds.

  “Leads to green pastures.”

  “Through the valley of death…”

  Triss wags her finger. “Don't you even think it.”

  “Would the sleagh maith leave me glitter to mislead?”

  “I think we best listen to Coral. She's their child.”

  They both nod, then sit silent again.

  “Don't look at me. I never had any babies. Guess we'll have to go visit a farm.”

  Zion nods. That sounded logical….

  It is after midnight when she enters her room. She flips on the light.

  There, smoothed out on the bed, is Coral's blue shawl. It has undergone a radical change. A Star of David in silver threads is woven into the center of the shawl. And in the center of the star, crimson threads…a rosebud.

  Zion is afraid to touch it.

  Chapter U (21)

  Jonah is dreaming. He is a powerfully built caveman with a thick black beard. He runs with a spear in the air. He throws it. A hail of spears pierces a mammoth. The beast falls. Wild men scream and leap, running with axes to finish the kill. His wife is waiting at the cave, a dark-haired woman, fat with child. Children and elders greet the hunters. Like harnessed oxen, they are packing the slain mammoth on wood poles hefted from shoulder to shoulder. A fire rages. The fresh meat is cooked, some eaten, some sacrificed to the mountain gods, the excess stored in salt pits deep within the cave.

  Jonah dreams of carving a picture of the kill on the cave wall. The hand that carves now holds a stylus. He is a scribe in a temple. He wears a white toga trimmed in gold; his dark hair is chin length, cropped at the forehead. He sits in the king's chamber, recording a dream told by an oracle. Sumer will die like an old crippled man, but will resurrect after the Water Carrier turns her urn on Gaia.

  The new man will wander all over the world, playing a flute. Wherever he goes, children who hear his music will leave their parents and follow him. When the Water Carrier bows in the sky, the children will follow the flute player into an emerald mountain. The Archer's arrow will strike Gaia and set her afire. The Water Carrier will turn her urn and cleanse the land. Inside the emerald mountain, the children are singing and dancing to the music of the flute player. A trumpet sounds and shakes the Earth. The emerald mountain breaks up into thousands of pieces, like eggs, that roll all over the world, each cracking open where each settles. From each emerald egg steps a man and a woman onto virgin land. Out of the dream of a flute player is born a new world….

  Jonah's sleep at the base of Star Rock is fretful. He is alone; the land is very old, and wind is the only music. Dreams tell lies and minstrels repeat them. Kokopelli plays his flute and children are charmed to follow him wherever he goes. Some he leads to deserts where water is as rare as emeralds. Here children must live by the memories of the enchanted music. But if they are faithful, fairies will sing the ancient stories to them as they lie sleeping, dreaming….

  A sound calls him out of the dream, the hiss of an angry cat. His eyes snap open. He sees blue sky and feels the warm rays of the sun. But the air is frigid. His eyes roll in the direction of the hisser. The scene strikes him as surrealistic—a bobcat on the hood of his truck, poised to spring. The cat bares its teeth in an ugly snarl.

  Although he is disoriented after waking abruptly on frozen ground in a sandstone wilderness, Jonah's instincts are keen. He knows the cat is afraid. He reaches for a rock to throw as a diversion. His hand recoils. No sense to it—when he sees the rock he reached for is a tambourine, he howls.

  At the noise, the bobcat bounds off the truck and skitters over the nearest knoll.

  Jonah discovers several disturbing realities all at once. He has a mustache and beard. He's barefoot. His overalls and long johns are ravaged and caked with…cornmeal? He's stiff, aches all over. Shivering, he sits up, crossing his arms over his chest. He stares at the truck. A beard means he's been gone for weeks. No one came looking for him? The truck would have been towed down the mountain…. Clutching his head, he looks around frantically, searching for a clue to clear the confusion. A gust of wind tinkles the bells on the tambourine.

  Someone must have conked him on the head, dragged him away, keeping him prisoner in a cave for weeks. Drugged him. Someone who needed a good pair of boots. A musician. He pats his pockets. Uh-huh! His wallet is gone, so is his watch and his knife with the turquoise handle, a gift from Frame.

  Knife. Anasazi knife. He pressed it into…

  The memory is an icicle trickling on his neck.

  He was abducted.

  He stares at the sky, remembering the huge spacecraft that reminded him of a Ferris wheel turned on its side. Big black alien eyes staring him down…praying mantis…

  “No way!”

  Maybe they shoot down rays, scramble your brain, you crawl off into a cave and hibernate. In your delirium, you think the cave is on another planet. By the time you crawl back to the site of the dirty deed, your memory is shredded, except for a few powerful images. So you tell everyone you were abducted by aliens, but it's a government experiment. Mind-control games. They threw in the tambourine to muddle the picture. And one of the agents really did like your boots. Or it was a band of robbers with big imaginations. Put you through all this for the nineteen dollars in your billfold….

  The cold gets him on his feet. His stiffness votes for the hibernation in a cave theory. The wind lays his hair back as he hobbles over the frozen ground toward the truck. His arms are out like wings, like a man walking on a ledge. He steps on something sharp, curses. Leaning against the truck, he pulls up his foot, yanks a thorny stem off his toe. A rose stem. Roses don't grow up here…Zion?

  Holding on to the truck, he inches toward the driver's window and peers furtively into the cab. His face knots in anguish. Tears spill his cheeks. Someone came. Left him a treasury of survival aides. It's like Christmas inside his truck. His hand are so stiff clutching the door handle, feels like they were encased in plaster casts. Pushing the door against the wind, he realizes how weak he is.

  Inside the cab, seated behind the wheel, he twi
sts the cap off the Thermos, pops the cork. He sighs at the aroma. No idea when the jug was filled, but it seems miraculous that the coffee is warm. Trembling, he pours the liquid, spilling some, into the cap between his legs. He wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his left arm before he takes a soothing drink.

  I'm alive, he thinks. And for the moment, this is enough. He doesn't care what happened. He is alive. He is home.

  He sits a while, sipping the warm coffee and gazing out at Star Rock, the Valley, and the mountains to the east. He's not hungry but nibbles part of a Power Bar and takes a bite of the apple. Refreshed by the fruit's tangy moisture, he eats all but the core, flinging it out the window for the birds.

  He turns on the engine, warms up the cab, and massages his feet, legs, and arms. All the time thinking, thinking…His situation sounds as crazy as the story of Rip van Winkle. He almost laughs. The miles he could get out of that story, if he weren't feeling so…burdened. Like something very serious happened. Something he's got to remember, like his life depends on it.

  Changing into the clean clothes his benefactors left is a clumsy chore. He shoves the overalls and long johns behind the seat, and leaves the parka where it is. Shirt, sweater, and jeans are warm enough, and they even brought a pair of hiking boots, as if they knew.…After weeks gone, he ought to stink like a warthog, but he doesn't. The discrepancy gives him the creeps, like suddenly noticing all of the clocks in the world have ten hours, not twelve. He shakes himself, tries to shake off the twilight-zone feeling.

  Starting the engine again, he feels anxious, contemplating the drive home. His desire to see his loved ones is so great, he's afraid destiny will snatch back his Christmas, just as he reaches out to embrace them.

  He spots the tambourine lying in the dirt near Star Rock. Part of him wants to fling it over the ledge, like evidence of a bad deed, but another part of him can't leave it out here. He clambers out of the truck. Now his feet feel like blocks of concrete as he tromps over the gravel. Before he bends to pick up the tambourine, his eyes are drawn to the Star of David he carved on the rock. He's hallucinating, he's sure. He steps toward the rock, his arm out, as if to ward off an evil spirit.

  It's no hallucination. In the middle of the star where he cut a hole is an intricate etching of a rosette, finely cut.

  He darts his eyes around, as if to spy the elf who did this. Squinting, he leans closer to inspect the etching. Embedded in the grooves are specks of something shiny. Glitter? He licks a finger and presses it against the rose. Tiny star glitter. Frowning, he eyes the tambourine on the ground. An image floats through his mind, of a handsome dark-skinned lad and an emerald cave. He stoops, picks up the tambourine, slaps it against his leg, tinkling the bells. For no reason, he feels like bawling.

  Seated behind the wheel of the Ram, he checks outside and inside mirrors. Catches his eyes in the indoor mirror. He stares for an eon-long minute, as if studying the eyes of a stranger. There's a man inside him he doesn't know. Dreadfully, this is the man at the wheel.

  He rips his gaze off the mirror and checks the instruments on the panel. Something tells him to open the glove compartment. There is his billfold, watch, and knife, right where he left them. So much for the story about the imaginative robbers. His other theories are just as lame. The tambourine lays on the seat, a silent prophet. Censors stand guard at the gates of the mind, ready to expunge all dissonant thoughts, as surely as the body rejects a foreign object that pierces the skin. But Jonah is an ordinary man. Since when did a curious, intelligent human being ignore a mystery and listen to caution over passion to know the truth?

  According to the date strip on his watch, it is December 24. No reason for this to tear him up, but he's crying again.

  Hoping no one will recognize him, he takes the back roads home. One close call when he passes Brother Hanson on Ripple Creek Road. But if Bro noticed him, he showed no sign. The Valley is dressed up for Christmas. My God…he was really gone that long?

  The first thing to catch Jonah's attention as he turns on Crabapple Drive is the blue van parked in the drive at Jo's Abode. Aunt Triss bought new wheels? Because he left them in the lurch.

  …Pulling onto the drive behind the van, he feels light-headed. Christmas lights glow behind the front picture window.

  Thunderpaws pops through the cat door and sits on the porch like a stern father who won't accept any excuses. Maybe some things will be the same. The thought is a hand softly touching his heart. He rips a wad of tissues out of a box on the dashboard and blows his nose. If he's a wreck out here, what's it going to be like inside? Why is love cause for so much pain? It's fear, because now you know everything can change in a split second. Nothing is certain. You can lose them in a snap.

  Jonah has never known a moment like this, the courage demanded, to face the people he loves most.

  He gets out of the truck, gently pushing the door closed. At the porch, he bends and runs his hand over Thunder's head. “Miss me? You didn't even notice I was gone? They treated you that good, huh?”

  Thunder's purrs are not loud enough to quiet Jonah's thoughts. What is he going to tell them? That he was abducted? For six weeks? That's crazy.

  Thunderpaws shakes his fur and strolls away.

  Jonah is facing the door. He sucks in a breath, opens the door, and steps into the foyer. Coral Kay is sitting at the kitchen table. Her eyes go wide and her mouth is a big round O.

  “Daddy!” she screams, and flies across the room into his arms.

  Why did he doubt?

  Triss comes around the corner, dabbing at her eyes. “You would think it was somebody's wake.”

  Hefting Coral up, he stands and wraps his other arm around Triss. She scratches her face. “Haven't seen a razor lately, I see.” Her laugh is nervous, her eyes sharp with concern. It's not just the beard…Jonah's eyes look wild.

  “Daddy, Daddy…look at the tree. I made a star for you—see on the top, see? And look—my teef came out and fairies took them—and see our faith rocks in the—”

  Coral follows his gaze. Zion came up from the basement and is standing at the far end of the kitchen table. She is still beautiful. And inscrutable.

  Jonah locates the anger and hurt, right where he left them, in a hard place inside his chest.

  “Where have you been?” she asks, as lightly as a butterfly dancing in the air.

  A startled laugh escapes his throat.

  No one else laughs. Coral and the two women are looking at him intently.

  “Fairyland,” he says.

  Coral Kay gasps, stares at her father with big eyes.

  “I'm going to have a hot toddy,” Triss announces loudly.

  Jonah and Zion are still looking at each other.

  Late that night, Coral follows Jonah into his bedroom. He's been acting weird since he came home, but Coral isn't surprised. Fairyland, she knows, isn't a real place, like Santa Claus is just make-believe, but she also knows both are real, in a way, because grownups get excited talking about either one. It's magic, like rainbows and knowing what's going to happen before it does, and everyone going, “Wow!” Like she knew he would come home for Christmas. But still everyone acts so surprised.

  If they didn't know he was coming home by Christmas, why'd they buy him presents and put them under the tree? She's not sure he liked all of his presents, mostly clothes, but he did smile when he saw the clay pot she made with KEYS in big glitter letters glued on it, because he was always losing his keys. Now he would know where to put them. But when Triss gave him a cactus plant (Coral told her he lost the one Jo gave him), he said thanks, but he frowned. Zion gave him the best gift of all. Coral didn't think so at first, but when he snapped open the lid and saw the silver pen and the eagle feather, he just sat there, tears in his eyes. Then he got up and hugged Zion for a long time. And then he—

  “Wow! He kissed her!” Coral said.

  Aunt Triss was fanning the air in front of her face. “He did more than that,” she said.

  Coral's be
st gift will be tomorrow when she plays “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on the violin. Aunt Triss said she's good, and Daddy will be so proud.

  She plops on his bed and watches her father roam around the room, looking at everything, like he's never been here before. He's opening all of his dresser drawers, looking inside. Does he think a thief came and stole some of his clothes? Thunderpaws would have screeched. Thunder is a guard cat.

  Now Daddy is just standing there, staring at the chair in the corner.

  “Zion washed your sheets, Daddy. And the bedspread, too.” His bed never looked this neat before, that should surprise him. But Thunder slept on his pillow and shed a lot of hair. Coral picks up the pillow to shake off the hair. Something is under the pillow. A beautiful necklace. She holds it up.

  “Look, Daddy. The fairies left you a present.”

  He comes over and sits down on the bed, takes the necklace and looks at it very hard. The string is something green like rubber, and there's a pink stone like the one the fairies left her, a pearl, a little blue feather, and a dark yellow stone with something white glinting inside.

  “Lemme see.” He hands the necklace to her. Right away she sees what's inside the dark yellow stone, but even though she knows fairies and magic are real, she almost can't believe her eyes.

  “Daddy… it's my teef.…”

  He looks at her instead, as if her face is peeling off like a mask and her real skin is purple. She points at the space in her mouth where her teeth used to be, then points at the yellow stone.

  He grabs the necklace. His eyebrows bunch up like two caterpillars smashed together. He keeps rubbing the yellow stone, staring at it, his mouth hanging open.

  “Did you really go to Fairyland?”

  He looks at the wall, as if he can see some fairies dancing in the air right now. His mouth is still hanging open.

  “You know, Coral, I think…” He looks down at the necklace. “Something happens when a person grows up.”

  Coral waits for him to explain. Grownups are always saying stuff that makes no sense. Especially tonight. Aunt Triss gave him a box of cigars, and twice she said he ought to smoke one. Both times Zion gave Aunt Triss a mean look, like Daddy smoking a cigar his first night home wouldn't be good for him. Zion cooked him a bowl of Campbell's chicken noodle soup, but he only ate a couple of bites. He liked Aunt Triss's hot toddies the best, saying, “Hit me again,” until he drank it all up and his eyes were glowing like the embers in the fireplace. But then he cried and Aunt Triss held him like a big baby. Zion went into the kitchen and started cleaning it up, very quiet, like someone was sick or sleeping.