A Gift Upon the Shore

by Wren, M. K.

  “Rachel cooked this, and she’s a master with spices and herbs.”

  “Rachel . . .” He seemed to savor the name, smiling faintly. “Rachel the shepherdess, daughter of Laban, wife of Jacob, mother of Joseph and Benjamin. And you—Mary, the mother of Jesus.”

  And Mary again had that feeling that a trapdoor had disappeared from under her. She and Rachel had always considered the religious associations in their names ironic. Luke Jason obviously found them deeply meaningful.

  She didn’t attempt a reply to his biblical lesson, and after a short silence, he asked, “Are you Rachel’s daughter?”

  “No, we’re not related. She took me in Before.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t seem to understand that, but his eyes were closing with weariness. Mary remained silent until she thought he was asleep, then she reached for the Eiseley.

  But Luke wasn’t asleep. He roused, asked, “What book is that?”

  “It’s a collection of essays by Loren Eiseley. Would you like me to read to you?”

  “Who was Loren Eiseley?”

  “Well, he was a poet and a scientist. He—”

  She stopped, catching the look of alarm in Luke’s eyes as he asked, “He was a . . . scientist?”

  “Yes, he was a scientist,” Mary said, finding herself annoyed at his suspicious tone. “Is that a problem for you?”

  He didn’t answer her question. “Where did you get such a book?”

  “Here. It’s one of Rachel’s books.”

  “Rachel’s?” That didn’t seem to make sense to him. He looked across the room at the bookshelves. “Are those . . . scientists’ books?”

  Mary answered coolly, “Some of them.”

  “Yet God sent me here,” he mumbled, and something more she couldn’t understand. But her annoyance turned to chagrin when he was overtaken by a racking bout of coughing, and she was helplessly aware of his weakness, his vulnerability. When the coughing eased, he lay panting, his forehead wet with sweat, his eyes closed.

  “Luke?” She took his hand, finding a stringent elegance in its form that surprised her as much as its strength when it closed on hers.

  Dear stranger, stay with me.

  She remembered the scars on his back and wondered what he had suffered in his lonely travels, wondered where he’d been, what he’d seen, why he left his home, why he left the we he was so reluctant to talk about.

  He whispered, “I have a book. . . .” Then his eyes flashed open. “My pack, where—”

  “It’s over there in the corner. Do you want something out of it?”

  He nodded. “In the top flap . . . my book . . .”

  Mary went to the backpack, and among the crumpled clothing that had a musty, musky smell, she found a Bible, its black leather binding frayed at the edges. She opened it. King James translation. Of course.

  She offered it to Luke, and he said hoarsely, “You said you’d read to me, Mary Hope. . . .”

  She sat down with the Bible. “Okay, I’ll read to you if you’ll close your eyes and try to sleep. What do you want to hear?”

  “Maybe . . . yes, Psalms. There’s great comfort in Psalms.”

  She had to look in the table of contents. She turned the thin, brittle pages carefully and finally began, “ ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. . . .’ ” And she thought, Luke, you’ve come to the wrong place.

  The Seth Thomas clanged six times as Mary pushed her damp hair back from her forehead and turned to the kitchen window, her face hot from stoking the fire in the cookstove. The sun was a long way from showing itself over the hills to the east, but the sky was suffused with pellucid light like fragile porcelain.

  The dawn of a new day—in more than one sense—and she met it with an odd mix of exhilaration and anxiety. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t know why.

  She jumped as a small, yellow tiger of a cat leapt up on the counter. “Cleo, you know better.” When she put the cat down on the floor, she saw that the kitchen was under siege: Cleo’s twin, Tony; Candide, the gray tiger; Petrouchka, a placid, odd-eyed calico tom; Jet, whose leopard lines marked her as part Siamese.

  Peacefully coexisting with the cats were Agate, Yorick, and Yorick’s sister and brother, Sheba and Pip. All three looked more like Sparky than their mother, Ophelia, who had been in every way Shadow’s daughter. Mary sighed, thinking of Shadow and her painful gait, the patchiness of her coat that had been so sable soft. She was still sleeping at the foot of Rachel’s bed now, and when Rachel woke, she’d have to lift her off the bed. She was the last of the animals from Before.

  “Okay, kids, I’ll get your breakfast as soon as I put the kettle on.”

  She placed the gray enamel kettle on the stove, then lined up the dogs’ and cats’ bowls on the counter. Their staple breakfast was milk and boiled chicken—guts and gristle, everything but the bones—with leftover vegetables for the dogs. This was the only meal they’d be given for the day. They had to catch their own if they wanted more. Mary put the bowls on the floor, segregating dogs and cats, but left Shadow’s bowl on the counter and added an egg from the cooler.

  The kettle began to shrill, and she snatched it off the stove to silence it. She didn’t want to wake Luke or Rachel. Usually Rachel would already be up and about, but Mary hadn’t wakened her. Let her have a little extra rest.

  Or perhaps, Mary realized, her motives were entirely selfish: she wanted to be alone. She was still trying to sort out her emotions, to understand the changes Luke Jason wrought in her once-ordered world.

  She turned, the muscles in her jaw taut, and took two mugs out of the cupboard, spooned chamomile and mint from their canisters into the tea ball, put it into one mug and poured hot water over it, inhaling the dusty, pungent aroma, thinking—as she did every morning—that she’d give her eyeteeth for a cup of coffee. She left the kettle wheezing at the back of the stove and took the mug out to the deck, where land and sea were drawn in soft pastels, and the air was as astringently cool as perfume. Our exquisite island, she thought, a model of what a world had been and perhaps might be again. In four and a half billion years, this world had tolerated many disasters on a planetary scale. But every disaster left it irrevocably changed.

  Change. That was what she feared.

  The swish of the sliding door startled her. Rachel stood at the open door ushering dogs and cats out. “Come on, everybody outside. Leave poor Shadow alone with her breakfast. Pip! Come on, little one.” When all the animals had trooped out, the dogs sallying forth to patrol their territory, the cats taking up stations on the deck to groom themselves, Rachel joined Mary at the railing, raised her mug before she took a sip. “Thanks for getting the tea ready—and feeding the menagerie.” Then she eyed Mary with a whisper of a smile. “You washed your hair.”

  Mary ran her hand through her damp hair. “Well, Luke was asleep, so I thought I might as well take a bath and wash my hair. Maybe I can get it dry before bedtime for a change.”

  “And this early-morning urge for cleanliness had nothing to do with our young guest.”

  Mary felt her face go hot. “I just thought as long as I had to be awake anyway . . .”

  “I know. But don’t kid yourself. Or me. After all, he’s a man in the prime of life, and you’re a woman in the prime of life. I wish you well.”

  But she forgot to revive her smile, and that was a signal Mary had long ago learned to recognize. When Rachel was angry or anxious, she seldom expressed it in words. Her words were those to be expected under normal circumstances. But she forgot the smiles that should go with the words.

  Mary took a swallow of tea, found it cool and flat. “I guess I’d better go see if Luke’s awake.”

  “I looked in on him a few minutes ago. He was sleeping like a baby—if babies snore. Did he wake up during your shift?”r />
  “Yes, and he stayed awake for quite a while.” She told Rachel what had happened last night, surprised at the detail she demanded, equally surprised that she could remember with such clarity exactly what Luke had said.

  Finally Rachel asked, “What do you think of him?”

  “I . . . don’t know. Except he is definitely a good Christian.”

  Rachel sighed as she looked out at the misted ocean. “Damn. After all these years, we finally encounter another survivor, and he turns out to be a rockbound, good Christian—and a literalist, undoubtedly.”

  “Did you expect a Buddhist? Or an atheist?”

  Rachel looked sharply at her, then nodded. “Good point. The odds are against any survivor in this country being anything but a Christian.”

  “Why does that bother you? What difference does it make?”

  Rachel took time for a sip of tea. “The only reason I’m bothered is that historically Christians have had a penchant for burning books.”

  That silenced Mary, sent a chill through her. The books—their justification for survival, their hope for the future of humankind. And it hadn’t occurred to her that humankind, as embodied in a good Christian named Luke Jason, might not revere the legacy of the books.

  I have a book. Those were Luke’s words. A book.

  Rachel said, “Just remember the example set by Paul at Ephesus, and the good Christians who burned the Library of Alexandria and flayed Hypatia alive. And book burning by good Christians has continued ever since, right down to that insidious ass, the Reverend Fallon and his Moral Purification campaign. Remember the pyres of burning books in front of the Washington Monument? That was only a year before the End.” She paused, studying Mary intently. “Face it, not many of our books would be included on a literalist’s list of acceptable reading matter. But when it comes to books, I’m as much a zealot as any literalist. I’ll protect ours with my life if I have to, and I think I might be capable of killing for them.”

  The mist was dissipating, and at the horizon waves glinted with the first sunlight. Mary said nothing, engrossed in flickering visions of burning books; visions of the fleshy, unctuous face of Reverend Fallon as she had seen it years ago on a television screen, Fallon in his nasal, rural accent urging his faithful to purify themselves and the world; visions of Rachel as a fated Hypatia, battling hordes of fleshy-faced zealots.

  “Rachel, I can’t believe it would come to that. I mean, I can’t believe we’d have to die or . . . kill to protect the books from Luke.”

  Rachel gave a short laugh. “I hope not. The trouble is, we’re not just dealing with Luke. There’s that we he inadvertently mentioned.”

  “But we don’t really know much about Luke—or his we.”

  “No. And with Luke I think we have an opportunity to make him an ally, even a convert. He’s given us an advantage: he thinks he was sent to me by his god. He saw me as—what was it? Full of wisdom. If he was searching for enlightenment when he embarked on his journey, he’ll find it here. At least, enough to give him some respect for books. Mary, I’ll play any role I must—even the role of god-sent ministering angel full of wisdom.” She laughed ruefully. “Just don’t blow my cover.”

  Mary mustered a smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll leave the enlightenment entirely in your hands.”

  “Well, I’d better check our supply of candles and oil. I’ll be doing a lot of reading at night. And we do have a Bible or two and a couple of books on biblical history.”

  “Maybe he won’t stay here long enough to get enlightened.”

  Rachel eyed Mary curiously. “I think he’ll stay awhile. Unless he’s taken a vow of celibacy.”

  Again, Mary felt the heat in her cheeks. She could think of no response, and after a moment Rachel said gently, “I meant it when I said I wish you well.” But there was in her eyes an equivocal melancholy.

  Mary looked up at the spruce trees where the sun lighted their green crowns. “We have livestock to feed and eggs to gather and goats to milk—and I’d damned sure like some breakfast before we start.”

  Rachel finished her tea. “And we have a patient to look after.”

  Luke Jason’s temperature dropped to normal by the third day, and by the fourth Mary and Rachel found it impossible to keep him in bed. They could only manage to keep him in the house, which he explored thoroughly. He pored over the titles of the books that filled every shelf and stood in piles on the floor, but he didn’t comment on them. He studied Rachel’s drawings and paintings, awed by the representational ones, but oddly bewildered and suspicious of all of them. He made friends with the household menagerie. Except for Shadow. She declined his every overture. He asked many questions about Amarna and their history here, and they patiently answered him. They didn’t question him about his history, and he volunteered nothing.

  On the fourth evening he sat down with them to a supper of rabbit stew thickened with cattail-root flour, steamed asparagus—the first of the season—cheese, and a salad of oakleaf and miner’s lettuce. Before they began eating, Luke folded his hands and bowed his head, then glanced up at Rachel. “Don’t you say grace here?”

  Rachel answered, “I always thought the god that could create this universe should be omniscient as well as omnipotent. That god would know I’m grateful for every mouthful of food. I wouldn’t have to say so in words.”

  Mary tried not to smile. So the enlightenment had begun. Luke’s eyebrows went up as he considered what was undoubtedly an entirely new concept to him. “Yes, God knows every man’s thoughts. Still . . .”

  “If you like to put it in words,” Rachel said, “by all means, do so.”

  He did, while Rachel and Mary waited politely, then, his thanks said, he turned to the meal with an appetite that precluded all conversation except his enthusiastic comments on the cuisine. Rachel laughed, called up the old saw that hunger is the best sauce, adding, “Sickness seems to work as well, once you’re over the worst of it.”

  He did consider himself over the worst, and after they concluded the meal with Gravenstein applesauce, canned last summer, he helped clear the table and declared that he would wash the dishes. “I’m still weak, but I’m good for woman’s work.”

  The silence that followed sent a flush into his face, and he added with a sheepish smile, “But everything is woman’s work here, isn’t it?”

  Mary gave him the laugh he was no doubt hoping for. “Yes, it is, but you’re probably not as strong as you think you are. Go sit by the fire. Rachel and I will take care of this woman’s work for now.”

  It was dark by the time the woman’s work was finished and Rachel had replenished the living-room fire. Luke sat on the couch facing the fire with Pip snuggled against his thigh, while Aggie lay at his feet providing a pillow for Tony and Cleo. Rachel lifted Shadow onto the couch, then sat down beside her, and Mary sat cross-legged on the floor by Aggie, welcoming Trouchka into her lap.

  Luke smiled at her. “They’re like a family to you.”

  “Yes. They are our family. All good and true friends.”

  For a while the fire hissed and crackled in a comfortable silence. Rachel finally broke it. “Luke, do you have a family?”

  Mary saw him tense defensively. It was the first time since the night of his arrival that either of them had asked him such a personal question.

  He took a deep breath. “Yes, I have an uncle. My parents and all the rest died in the Long Winter.”

  Rachel said, “I’m sorry,” then waited patiently. But he said nothing more. Rachel turned to Mary. “Maybe this is a good time to open a bottle of our mead to celebrate Luke’s return to health.”

  Mary put Trouchka on the floor and rose, but stopped when Luke asked her, “What’s mead?”

  “Well, it’s a kind of wine made with honey.” She took one of the candles in their glass holders from the ma
ntel and lighted it in the fire. “Actually, ours is more a fruit wine than a true mead.”

  “Wine? You mean spirits?”

  Rachel gave that a gentle laugh. “Not spirits in the sense that it’s distilled. We do have a small still out in the garage, though. Alcohol is such a good solvent and disinfectant. Do you object to drinking wine?”

  He paused before he replied. “The Bible says we shouldn’t drink spirits.”

  Rachel seemed surprised. “But wasn’t it Saint Paul who said, ‘Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake’?”

  “I . . . I don’t remember that.” But he seemed reassured by it. He said to Mary, “I’d be pleased to have some . . . mead with you.”

  Mary took the candle with her into the kitchen, got a bottle of mead out of the cooler and three wineglasses from the cupboard, and put them on a tray. When she returned to the living room, she put the tray on the side table by the couch and filled the glasses. The mead had a pale pink hue and the tart scent of wild berries that always reminded her of summer. She handed a glass to Rachel, another to Luke, then resumed her place on the floor, watching Luke with a faint smile. He held the glass as if it would break if he moved too suddenly. It was cut crystal, its prismatic facets making rainbows of the firelight. He whispered, “How could such things be made by the hand of man?”

  Rachel said, “With skill and art, Luke. They belonged to my great-great-grandmother. She brought them with her to Oregon.”

  “Where did she come from?”

  “Ireland, originally. She was a child when her family left Ireland. They went to Tasmania first, and after she married, she and her husband sailed for Oregon.”

  “How far is it to . . . Tasmania?”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly. It must be over eight thousand miles. You know where it is, don’t you?”

  Luke averted his eyes and shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “I’ll show it to you tomorrow on the globe.” She took a moment to taste her mead. “I’m surprised you don’t know geography, Luke. Someone taught you to read. Didn’t they also teach you geography?”