A Wrinkle in Time Quintet

by Madeleine L'engle

  Noah and Matred’s older daughters, Seerah and Hoglah, and their husbands and children, stood in a cluster, wailing loudly. Mahlah stood to one side with her baby. Ugiel, she apologized, was not able to come. She looked curiously at Dennys.

  Sandy, Noah told Mahlah in the same words she had used of Ugiel, was not able to come.

  “Why?” Mahlah asked. No one answered.

  Oholibamah spoke in a low voice, for Japheth, Dennys, and Yalith alone. “Mahlah will ask Ugiel about Sandy when she goes back.”

  Yalith whispered, “Will he know?”

  Oholibamah shook her head. “If he does, he won’t tell. I suspect the nephilim have something to do with this.”

  Japheth frowned. “I hope you aren’t right about that.”

  Dennys looked at them with fresh fear.

  The grave was dug.

  As the son and grandsons picked the old man up to place him in the grave, Dennys sensed, rather than heard, presences behind them, and turned to see the golden bodies of seraphim standing in a half circle. Once again, he could hear clearly the singing of the moon and the stars.

  Aariel called, “Yalith!”

  Startled, she let out a small cry.

  Aariel raised arms and wings skyward, and the song increased in intensity. “Sing for Grandfather Lamech.”

  Obediently, Yalith raised her head and sang, a wordless melody, achingly lovely. Above her, the stars and the moon sang with her, and behind her the seraphim joined in great organ tones of harmony.

  Japheth took Oholibamah’s hands and drew her out onto the clear sands, and they began to dance in rhythm with the song. They were joined by Ham and Anah, and the four of them wove patterns under the stars, touching hands, moving apart, twirling, touching, leaping. Shem and Elisheba joined in, then Noah and Matred and the older daughters and their husbands, and then Yalith took Dennys’s hands and drew him into the kaleidoscope of moving bodies, an alleluia of joy and grief and wonder, until Dennys forgot Sandy, forgot that Grandfather Lamech would never be in his tent again, forgot his longing to go home. The crimson flush at the horizon turned a soft ash-rose, then mauve, then blue, as more and more stars brightened, and the harmony of the spheres and the dance of the galaxies interwove in radiance. Slowly the dancers moved apart, stopped. Dennys closed his eyes in a combination of joy and fierce grief, opening them only when the requiem was over. The sky was brilliant with the light of the moon and the stars. The seraphim were gone. Yalith stood beside him, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Noah and his sons tamped down the earth over Grandfather Lamech’s grave.

  * * *

  Sandy opened his eyes and could see nothing. His limbs felt numb. Whatever had pricked him had temporarily paralyzed him. There was a strange tingling in his limbs as feeling began to return. He knew about the tiny darts that Japheth and Yalith and some of the others in Noah’s tenthold used, and guessed that something similar had been used on him.

  Why?

  He smelled goat, urine, sweat. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see that he was in a small tent. The smoke hole was covered, so that very little light came through. It was a much smaller tent than Noah’s or Grandfather Lamech’s. He tried to move his arms and found that his hands were tied, bound firmly with thong. So were his feet.

  As sensation returned to him, he wriggled around and finally managed to sit up, his back against the rough skins of the tent, his bound hands in front of him. He raised them and tried to bite at the thongs. The taste made him gag. The thongs had been wound about his wrists so many times that it was futile to try to chew through them, nor could he find a knot to try to bite.

  He stopped his useless reflexive efforts and tried to think.

  He had been kidnapped on his way from Noah’s tent to Lamech’s. Why? When terrorists hijacked a plane, they wanted something. What use would he be to anybody as a hostage? This was a world still without money, without political prisoners. As far as he knew, nobody held anything against Lamech or Noah.

  So, why?

  His stomach growled. How long had the poisoned dart kept him asleep? What time was it? He could not see even a line of light to indicate where the tent flap was. The light from the covered smoke hole was so faint that it might even have come from stars.

  There had to be a tent flap. He wriggled around so that his feet touched the tent wall, and kept wriggling, feeling with his toes. Wriggled until he was exhausted and had found no way out. Rested. Wriggled again. Again. At last his feet felt a line of roughness. He pushed, and the flap moved slightly, enough so that he could tell that it was indeed night outside. Stars. A single palm tree silhouetted against them. He had no idea where he was, or even if he was still on his own oasis.

  Worn out from his efforts, he fell asleep, his head just out of the tent. Sunlight blazing against his lids woke him, and he managed to slither back into the tent and sat leaning against the taut skins by the entrance. His stomach made loud, hungry noises. What wouldn’t he give for a mess of Grandfather Lamech’s pottage.

  Grandfather.

  When he got out of this tent and back where he belonged, there would no longer be the tiny, shriveled old man tending the hearth fire.

  Come on, Sandy. He’s old. Seven hundred seventy-seven years. And Noah was pushing six hundred years old. It didn’t make any sense. Except, he believed them. And after the flood people weren’t going to live that long. At least, he thought that was how it was going to be.

  “Twin!”

  It was a girl’s soft voice. His heart leaped. Yalith.

  Then smell followed sound. Not Yalith. Tiglah.

  “Twin?” she repeated.

  “Hello, Tiglah.” He did not sound welcoming. He remembered what Dennys had told him about the people in Tiglah’s tent. So it was they who were the terrorists. Terrorism was not just a twentieth-century phenomenon. It was evidently part of human nature, and it didn’t get wiped out by the flood. There seemed less and less point to the flood.

  “You recognized my voice!” she chortled.

  —No, your smell, you slut, he wanted to say.

  She pushed in through the flap and pegged it back to let in the light. She had taken unusual pains with her hair, so that it glistened brightly. Her loincloth was of white goatskin. “Dennys?” She was tentative.

  “Sandy.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad it’s you! Dennys doesn’t seem to like me, and I think you do, don’t you?”

  “Why would I like anybody who’s kidnapped me and tied me up and starved me?”

  “But I didn’t do that!”

  “You obviously knew about it.”

  “But I didn’t do it! My father and brother did. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything!”

  “But you don’t mind if your father or brother hurt me?”

  “Oh, beloved Sand, I can’t stop them! I’ve come to bring you food and comfort.”

  He sniffed. There was a nourishing smell of stew beyond the odor of the tent, as well of Tiglah’s perfumed and unwashed body. If they’d already used some kind of poisoned dart on him, was it safe to eat the stew?

  Tiglah said, “I made it myself, so I know it’s all right, and it’s good, too.”

  “I can’t eat with my hands tied up.”

  She paused. Appeared to be thinking. “I’ll feed you!” Her dimples came and went with her lavish smile.

  “No. I’m not a baby. Untie my hands.” He did not say please. How could he ever have been attracted by this girl?

  She paused again. “All right. I’ll untie your hands and stay with you while you eat.”

  “My feet, too,” Sandy ordered. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “What?”

  “I need to urinate.”

  “Oh, for auk’s sakes. Can’t you just do it in the tent?”

  “No. You can come with me if you want. I don’t care, but I need to go.”

  She knelt by him and began working at the thongs, first on his wrists, then his ankles. When he wa
s freed, he stood up, feeling very wobbly. This tent was not nearly as high as Grandfather Lamech’s or Noah’s, and he bumped his head on the roof skins.

  She took his hands and rubbed his wrists where the thongs had chafed them.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “I told you. I need to relieve myself.”

  “Come along, then.” She pulled him out of the tent and to a small, grassy hummock a few feet away. There was no grove to provide privacy or a modicum of sanitation. “Go ahead.”

  “Turn around.”

  “You’ll run away.”

  He looked about. He did not recognize the part of the oasis where this solitary tent was. A few yards away were some palms, and a rocky field dotted with black-and-white goats grazing under the high brassy sky. He had no idea in which direction to go. “I won’t run. Turn around.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.” He suspected that his promise meant more than would Tiglah’s. When he was through, he said, “All right.”

  She whirled around and caught his hand again. “Now come and have some of my good goat-meat stew.”

  They ducked back into the tent, and she brought him a wooden bowl full of meat and vegetables. He had learned to eat with his fingers, if not as delicately as Yalith, at least tidily enough so that he did not slop food on himself. Tiglah’s concoction was not bad. The goat meat was a little strong, but she had cooked it until it was tender. When he finished, cleaning the bowl with his fingers, he felt better.

  “I’ll have to tie you up again,” Tiglah apologized. “They won’t like it that I let you loose at all.”

  “Who’re they?”

  “Oh, the men of my father’s tent.”

  “What’s it all about?”

  “What?”

  “Kidnapping me. Keeping me tied in this stinking tent.”

  She shrugged and giggled. “How would I know? They’re always up to things.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “I’m only a girl.” She was full of righteous indignation. “I like you! Why would I want to tie you up?”

  “Then don’t.”

  She had the thongs in her hands. “But I have to.”

  “Why?”

  “They’d be furious. They’d hit me. They might kill me.”

  Would they? He wasn’t sure. But he understood Dennys’s refusal to have anything to do with Tiglah. Never again. “How long are they going to keep me here? What do they think they’re going to get out of it?”

  “Noah’s vineyards,” she said.

  “What!”

  “Noah’s vineyards. They’re the best on any oasis.”

  “That’s idiotic. Noah wouldn’t give up his vineyards. They’re his livelihood.”

  “He’d better give them up,” Tiglah said, “or they’ll kill you.”

  Sandy stood up, outraged, hitting his head against the roof skins. “Do they know Grandfather Lamech is dying—is dead?”

  “Of course.”

  “They’re monstrous.”

  “They’re clever. They knew everybody would be paying attention to silly old Lamech and wouldn’t miss you. They’re very clever.”

  “Oh, no, they’re not,” Sandy said. “No one gives in to terrorists. Noah won’t give anybody his vineyards.”

  “Then they’ll kill you.”

  “And what good will that do? They still won’t have the vineyards, and they’ll have murder on their hands.”

  “Oh, Sand. Sit down. This tent wasn’t made for giants. I hate to tie you up again, but I have to. Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “Come with me.”

  “What would your family think of that?”

  “They’d hate it. But I care more about you than I do about them.”

  Sandy did not believe her. There was a trap here. This had something to do with the nephilim, with that mosquito Rofocale. What, he did not know. Tiglah did not love him enough to anger her family. She did not love him at all. But she would obey Rofocale.

  He felt a sharp sting and slapped, but missed the mosquito, who buzzed out of the tent. Furious, he scratched at the bite. “Tie me up and go away.”

  She pressed her face close to his. “You won’t come with me?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll risk being killed?”

  His mouth twisted into a half grin. “There are fates worse than death,” and he laughed, because Tiglah did not have the faintest idea what he was talking about.

  “I haven’t bound you yet…” she whispered.

  “No.”

  “You’re a giant. You could grab me and run off with me, and you could tell them you’ll kill me if they try to capture you again.”

  It was tempting. He shook his head, and a great wave of sadness washed over him. Tiglah had never heard of the great heroes of lance and spear, of longbow and sword. But this was what she was tempting him to be. What he could be if he wanted to be.

  What in him was urging him to reject this attractive role? What was telling him to say no? It was more than his suspicion that all this was some kind of nephil trap.

  The sadness washed over him again. Violence was no longer an option. The splitting of the atom had put an end to that, though the world was slow to realize it.

  Yes, he could overcome Tiglah with ease. She was inviting him. But even if there was no trick in it, he would not do it. Violence met with violence produced only more violence. His stomach knotted.

  “Are you sure?” Tiglah’s voice had a little whine in it.

  “Of what?”

  “That you won’t come with me.”

  He smiled without mirth. There was poison in Tiglah’s offer, of that he was certain. “No, Tiglah, I won’t come with you. Yes, to you I’m a giant. I’m young and strong. But then what? I couldn’t survive in the desert. I’ve seen bones there, and not all of them are animal.”

  She pouted. “I thought you liked me.”

  “You’re a delicious dish, Tiglah. Now please bind me again, but perhaps you don’t need to do it as tightly as before.”

  She was offended. She tied the thongs as tightly as she could, with vicious little jerks, but Sandy used enough strength so that she did not succeed. Then she flounced out, slapping the tent flap closed behind her.

  He didn’t mind the darkness. Enough light came in through the edges of the closed roof hole. He needed to think. He was extremely confused at his own reactions. He and Dennys had had their fair share of fistfights when they were younger, though perhaps not as many as their sister, Meg. They played mostly team games and did not go in for boxing or wrestling. Was he being a coward? He knew that Tiglah’s father and brother would not hesitate to use bow and arrow, stone knives, or spears. He knew they were quite capable of killing him, just as much if he ran away as if he stayed. In fact, he thought he had more chance of surviving if he stayed and figured out some way and route of escape than if he rushed out to the desert, unthinking. He was not so much afraid as outraged. He did not think he was a coward.

  So. What to do? Violence was not going to work. Violence was what these little men turned to, and he did not want to be like them.

  He wondered if they had gone to Noah with their wild demand for his vineyards. He did not know Noah as well as Dennys did, but he did not think Noah would give in. Sandy’s rejection of violence had nothing to do with giving in. Anything but.

  * * *

  After Grandfather Lamech was buried in the grave in the small cave, and the singing had died out, and the seraphim were gone, Noah and his family walked slowly toward the big tent. Wherever there was an outcropping or rock or a cave, Japheth, holding his tiny bow and darts, would hurry to look, Dennys on his heels.

  “I do not like this,” Noah said.

  Dennys and Japheth returned from peering into the deep shadows of a little cave. The starlight was so bright that the shadows seemed to increase in darkness. “Is Sandy lost in the desert?” Dennys’s voic
e cracked more than usual in his anxiety.

  In the distance they heard a howl: “Hungry!”

  Yalith reached for Dennys’s hand and squeezed it.

  Shem said, “If the manticore is hungry, then he hasn’t found anything to eat.”

  Oholibamah said, “Don’t worry about the manticore. Sandy scared it away from Grandfather Lamech’s tent.”

  Could Sandy scare the manticore again, if they met out on the desert? Dennys was not certain, not after his own encounter with the ugly creature.

  Elisheba said. “Sandy would never have just wandered off on his own.”

  Yalith nodded. “He was following you to Grandfather Lamech’s tent.”

  Noah rubbed his beard. “Yes, yes, that’s what we thought. But when he didn’t come, then we thought he must have stayed in the big tent.”

  Anah said, “Well, he didn’t, and that’s that. I think he’s off with my sister, Tiglah, that’s what I think.”

  Nobody replied. The stars moved slowly across the sky. Dennys tried to listen for their singing, but he could hear nothing. After the glorious requiem for Grandfather Lamech, they were silent.

  The moon was dipping behind the horizon when they reached Noah’s tents, tired, sorrowful, anxious.

  “Now, before anything else, all of us must eat,” Matred said.

  Noah said, “She is right. Come, Den.”

  Dennys accepted the bowl of broth Matred gave him. He knew that he needed all his strength for whatever lay ahead.

  With his strong teeth, Shem pulled the meat off a mutton bone. Elisheba handed him a bowl of broth. “Will you go look for the Sand?” Shem, the hunter, was the one who knew the oasis and the desert best. Japheth and Ham worked in the vineyards, close to home. Shem was the one who should go, and Dennys flashed Elisheba a glance of gratitude. Absently, he patted Selah, who was leaning against him, putting her trunk on his knee.