A Gift Upon the Shore

by Wren, M. K.

  With my cane probing ahead for anything unexpected in my path, I make my way through the greenhouse, then open the outside door cautiously. I’m not so much worried about waking the family now as alarming the dogs, and outside the door I’m met by all five of them, but they know me too well to bark at me. They have in my absence been summarily put out of the house. I put them back in—at least, in the greenhouse. I walk past the deck to the corner of the house. There’s no light in the windows of the new wing where Bernadette, Enid, and Grace are sleeping. I stand still for a while to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. The moon hasn’t yet topped the hills to the east, but its light dims the stars. I hear nothing except the frogs in the pond in the pasture. And the murmur of the surf. Rachel used to say it sounded like a distant freight train; a train that has no end.

  At length, I strike out north into a world of deep grays and blacks, sending my cane ahead of me at every step. I pass the gate into the north pasture, and the grass whispers with my passage, seed heads thrumming against my boots. The tart fragrance rises like a cloud around me, and there isn’t a breath of wind to blow it away. Ahead of me, above me, I see my objective: the Knob. The moonlight has already reached the top of it.

  The light moves down the slope as I move up, and as the slope steepens, my panting is added to the night sounds. Rocks surface in the grass, and I must pick my way carefully. Now I’m in full moonlight, and I pause to look east. The moon is blurred in my eyes, yet I take pleasure in the resplendent white of it, remember that human beings, not so different from me, once set foot there. I’ve seen photographs of what they saw, the Earth rising, a lapis lazuli sphere in a fathomless night, over a lifeless ridge of ancient rock.

  I told Jerry once about men walking on the moon, and he smiled tolerantly and said he had heard about that. But I know he didn’t believe it. Yet he believes there is a god that manages human affairs.

  Finally I reach the vault. I stop there to catch my breath, then climb past it to the top of the Knob. I can’t see the horizon; the sea goes on infinitely. Beneath me, it chums up whorls of foam as it meets the rock bastions of the land in their age-old battle. The rock stands fast, even though its defeat is inevitable. It stands fast.

  I go back to the vault, to the cedar door, run my fingers over it, feeling the grain etched by years of sun and storm. I tug at the padlock. It scrapes against the hasp, which doesn’t give a fraction of an inch. Luke fastened it with long screws that have by now rusted into solidity. I take the handcuffs out of my pocket, slip one loop into the hasp, close it with a ratcheting sound and a click. The other loop I leave open.

  I stand for a while, leaning on my cane. The night is sweet as silk, and I’ve discovered a magic pocket of time and place here: I’ve never stood at the top of the Knob on a warm, windless May night under a full moon. The beauty of it brings tears to my eyes.

  A fine night for dying.

  I shiver, look down at the house. The moonlight lies frost white on the angles of its roof. In this new Stone Age I’m an old woman. My pulse whines in my ears, my chest is tight and aching. And if my heart doesn’t fail me, one good bout of pneumonia will kill me. Old women are indeed apt to die, yet I don’t want to die tonight.

  But tonight that is a distinct possibility.

  I turn, press my palms to the door, in my mind’s eye see the waxand-foil-wrapped bundles stacked in their thousands within these thick walls. Such a pitifully small remnant of the treasure of knowledge. Still, it’s all Rachel and I have to offer the future.

  It’s worth an old woman’s life.

  It occurs to me then that perhaps all my fear, all my mustering of courage, is in vain. Tonight at least. Miriam may not come tonight.

  No. She’ll come. Miriam is not by nature patient. She won’t ignore this golden opportunity I’ve presented her.

  Miriam will come.

  I ease myself down onto the stone plinth, my back to the door, and contemplate the moon and the exquisite, indifferent night.

  The moon is perhaps thirty degrees above the black contour of the hills when I see a yellow star of a light east of the house.

  A lantern. It moves as if of its own volition toward the barn. I watch it as I might a natural phenomenon I can’t explain. The light winks out. Miriam has gone inside the barn. That, no doubt, is where she hid the dynamite. Within minutes the light reappears, bobs toward the fence, flickers behind the trees. A pause: the gate. The light twinkles across the pasture, then slows as it moves up the slope.

  And finally I can see Miriam. At least, I can see a ghostly shape reflecting the moonlight. On this balmy night she wears nothing but her long, white nightgown. She carries the lantern in her right hand, and under her left arm is a dark bundle. Her hair glows like an amber halo in the moonlight.

  She is still at least fifty yards away. I raise the shawl over my head to cover my white hair, then twist around to reach the handcuffs, slip my left hand through the open loop, and stop to wait out a wave of panic that leaves me panting. Then with my right hand, I close the loop around my wrist, hear the ratcheting click, and loose my breath in a sigh. Finally I bunch the shawl with my right hand to hold it up over the lower half of my face, at the same time grasping the whistle between my thumb and forefinger. Miriam is still moving through the moonlight like a mythical creature made whole of that mystic light.

  I press back against the door, my hand hanging in the cold bracelet a little above the level of my head. I remain as still as the stones that protect this keep, this treasure house, this life of mine, of Rachel’s.

  Miriam is only twenty yards away, but she hasn’t seen me yet. Faintly against the whisper of the surf, I hear her singing as she climbs the slope, singing like a child at play on a sunny afternoon— a child who thinks she is alone.

  Now she stops, looks at me. She is less than thirty feet away.

  And I begin blowing on the whistle as hard as I can, hearing nothing but its faint wheezing, wishing I could hear that high-frequency sound, wishing I could be sure—

  “Who’s there?”

  I almost laugh. As if she didn’t know. I keep blowing, and in the distance I hear—think I hear—the sound of barking.

  Miriam stumbles toward me, the lantern drawing streaks in my eyes. Six feet away she stops again, puts her bundle down. It’s wrapped in dark cloth.

  I’m still blowing on the whistle, and now I’m sure I hear barking. All the dogs are barking. But the family—certainly awake by now— will have to get out of their beds, will have to discover that Miriam is not in hers, nor I in mine, will have to, above all, let Shadow out of the house so she can lead them to me, and now, with Miriam looming over me, I understand that the plan was foolish. It can’t succeed.

  She closes the distance between us, the lantern glaring in my face, hisses, “What are you doing here?”

  I lower the shawl and whistle. “I’ve been waiting for you, Miriam.”

  Her face in the light reflected from mine is so fixed, so masklike, I can’t believe it is capable of change even as I watch it wrench into a grimace of frustration.

  “You unholy witch! You’re sick! You’re old and tired and sick!”

  “But I’m here, Miriam! I’m here to defend what I hold sacred, and I’m willing to die for it, if you’re willing to kill for it.”

  She doesn’t understand that yet. Her gaze shifts to my upraised arm, to the handcuffs. She pulls at the loop connected to the hasp, and I raise the shawl, blow desperately on the whistle. The distant barking gets louder, but there are no lights in the house.

  “What is this?”

  The handcuffs belong to a world unknown to her. I keep blowing on the whistle, while she puts the lantern down, grips my forearm and pulls hard, sending lightnings of pain through my wrist, and she is strong and determined, and my flesh and bones are weak and fragile. I cry out, “You can’t
break it, Miriam!” That doesn’t stop her, but I see a light in the house. Yes, a light in the new wing. I turn away from the pain, blow on the whistle, gasp for air, and blow again. Shadow, come to me, sweet Shadow. . . .

  Abruptly Miriam ceases jerking at my arm, shines the lantern on me, and I hide the whistle in the shawl, hear the rasping of my breath against hers. She stares at me for a long time. She doesn’t seem aware of the distant barking, doesn’t seem aware of anything but my face. And in her face I see the anger and frustration smooth away, see a smile press deep shadows into the corners of her mouth, and I’m struck with terror. I’ve been afraid to this point, but that smile throws terror into the equation.

  She touches my cheek lightly, her voice as gentle as the moonlight.

  “Oh, yes, I should’ve known you’d be here. The Lord has delivered His enemy unto me. Unto me!”

  She rises, stands limned in the moonlight, and she shouts to the sky, “The Lord be praised! Thou hast delivered thine enemy unto my hands!” Again and again she shouts this affirmation as if the words were charged with potent magic, as if they rise from a wellspring of arcane power within her that can change entrails into portents, water into wine, blood into absolution.

  And life into death.

  I’m incapable of conscious decision, and perhaps it is my body that remembers to keep blowing on the whistle. And the sound of barking seems louder. Shadow—that’s Shadow’s bark. Yes, I’m sure of it, I think I’m sure of it. Shadow, come to me, come to me. . . .

  Miriam’s exultant litany stops suddenly. She looks down at me, then with a hoarse cry, lunges, snatches the shawl away from my face.

  The whistle tangles in the shawl. She rips at it, finds the chain, tries to get it over my head. But I fight her for this, for my silent hope of help. The chain cuts into my neck and palm, and I kick at her, hear her yelp of pain. I see her fist coming, turn my head to make it a glancing blow, but the next one catches me at the side of my mouth, my head thuds against the door. She fumbles at my neck, muttering, “Mine enemy is delivered unto Thy hand . . . mine enemy . . .” And she pulls the chain off, tosses it away.

  And her enemy is a witless old woman with a mouth full of blood, head raddled with pain, who can’t even manage a coherent word to plead for her life. Or curse her killer.

  I stare up at multiple moons, my ears ringing, yet I still hear her chanting, “Mine enemy . . . mine enemy . . .” And scraping sounds.

  There’s Miriam, wavering into focus. Miriam at the corner of the vault on her knees, digging in the ground with her bare hands and—a knife. Yes, she has a knife. It flashes in the lantern light, but I can’t see what she’s digging up; it’s around the corner.

  No. She’s not digging up anything. She’s digging a hole next to the foundation. She grunts, throws a rock out of her excavation, and it tumbles down the slope.

  I hear a sound, insistent, continuous, and distant, and the ringing in my ears is abating. Barking. That’s what I hear. Barking dogs. I look down toward Amama, but all I can see is moonlit meadow and a swarm of stars twinkling in the black shadow clouds of trees.

  Not stars. Lanterns. I can’t be sure how many. I can’t be sure my eyes aren’t still multiplying the images.

  I shout, “Help!” and nothing comes out but a rasping croak, and all the while Miriam is chanting and digging. The lights haven’t reached the gate. I try again, head pounding with the effort. “Help!” The sound dies in the still, balmy air, and Miriam rises. I put up my right hand to fend off the expected attack. But she ignores me. She sweeps up the dark bundle, takes it to the corner of the vault, uncovers it, and I can see the stacked dynamite sticks, the silver bullet of a blasting cap, all wrapped in a black ribbon of fuse.

  I look down toward Amarna. The lights are past the gate, but the distance between me and that constellation of lights approaches infinity.

  “Miriam, don’t you see them?” I’m shouting, yet she doesn’t seem to hear me. She places the dynamite in her excavation; her hands catch the lantern light, and they’re streaked with her own blood.

  “Miriam! The family—they’re coming!”

  And she chants, “Mine enemy . . . mine enemy is delivered . . .”

  “Miriam, they’ll know you destroyed the vault, they’ll know you murdered me!”

  She laughs ecstatically. “Yes, they’ll know! Oh, Lord, I am the instrument of Thy will! And they’ll know!”

  There are four lights. I’m sure of that now. They’re spread out in a bobbing line across the pasture, and the first has started up the steep slope. I can see small, dark shapes moving ahead of them, a flash of white ruff. Shadow. She is in the vanguard, barking incessantly.

  And the plan worked. She has led the family to me, and they will know. They will know Miriam.

  Too late.

  The fuse coils in the grass like a thin, black snake. Miriam’s bloody hands are shaking as she unfurls it, then, with an oblique look at me, cuts the fuse—cuts it only a foot long. I hear shouts in the distance, my name and Miriam’s. Jerry’s voice, Jonathan’s, Stephen’s.

  She opens the glass face of the lantern, thrusts the end of the fuse in, and it erupts in a sputter of sparks, then seems to die. But there’s no hope in the lack of visible flame. It is hideously alive, burning within itself, sending out spurting fingers of blue smoke and the acrid smell of smoldering tar. Miriam rises, shouts skyward, “I am the instrument of Thy will! The Lord be praised!” then begins a stumbling retreat down the slope, and she has left the lantern, left it so I can see the fuse trailing out from the corner, and I can see exactly how fast it is burning and exactly how much is left.

  I wrench myself toward the dark snake that consumes itself second by second, stretch across the stone wall, straining against the handcuffs, but my free hand falls inches short of the fuse. The key. I fumble in my pocket, fingers closing on the key to the handcuffs. The barking and shouting are closer, and Miriam cries, “Go back! The Lord’s wrath will strike! Go back!”

  I can’t find the lock. Angrily I jerk at the handcuffs, gasp at the pain. The lock, damn it—damn her!—find the lock. My hands are shaking, I hear my panting over the hiss of the fuse. There! Key in the lock. No, it slips against the metal, and I can’t hear the deadly hiss for the barking in my ear. Shadow leaps at me in a frenzy of joy. She has found me, as I taught her. She has found me. And knocked the key out of my trembling hand and out of sight somewhere in the thick grass.

  “Shadow, get away!” Less than six inches of fuse is visible. “Shadow, go back! Get away from me!” I strike out at her, and she yelps; she can’t understand why I hit her, can’t understand that she’ll die if she stays with me.

  I run my right hand through the grass by the stone plinth, vainly seeking the key. My hand closes instead on my cane, I stretch toward the fuse, beat at it with the curved head. But the spurts of smoke won’t stop. I hook the cane around the corner to dislodge the dynamite and find no purchase. Shadow is barking hysterically, and I hear Jerry’s voice near—too near. I look around, see him no more than twenty yards away, but Miriam is running toward him, she shrieks a warning, throws herself at him, and they fall together.

  And the fuse has burned past the corner.

  Shadow won’t leave me, paws at me, whining, and it’s too late for her now. I press my face into her satiny fur, remember the night I lay in Rachel’s arms while she died. “I’m sorry. . . .”

  And I wait. Listen to the sputter of the fuse. Such a small sound, yet it drowns out every other sound. Until it stops.

  It simply stops.

  I wait.

  But there is no explosion. The sounds of the night—the frogs in the pasture, the murmur of the surf, the plaintive cry of an owl— softly fill the vacuum of silence in my mind.

  The dynamite didn’t explode.

  Maybe Miriam didn’t attach the bl
asting cap properly. Maybe the dynamite or the fuse were too old, stored too long in a damp climate.

  It doesn’t matter.

  I begin to laugh. I shift, put my back against the door, hug Shadow to me, and I laugh. I laugh with relief, I laugh because I’m alive, I laugh at the sheer absurdity of this little drama, I laugh at the thought of Miriam playing with the technology of destruction bom in an age she can’t begin to understand, I laugh at myself for believing an artifact of that age would in her hands be a real threat, I laugh at the irony of Miriam witnessing the wretched failure of her act of god. I laugh until I cry, and the constriction in my chest seems only part of the laughter, the electric pain in my left arm only inevitable after the abuse it’s had in the grip of the handcuffs.

  The other witnesses to this failed act of god have drawn nearer, but now they stand transfixed. There’s Jerry, with Jonathan and Stephen flanking him. Esther, her hand on Isaac’s shoulder. Enid and Bernadette. Someone had the sense to keep the other children out of this. Grace must be with them.

  These people aren’t laughing with me, and I’m vaguely surprised. It’s all so ludicrous. . . .

  They’re staring at Miriam.

  And my laughter and tears cease when Miriam lifts her white-sleeved arms to form a ghostly crucifix, and the moonlight flashes on the knife still in her right hand, when she throws her head back, and from her throat emerges a single syllable stretched into a shivering cry of anger and anguish. “No!”

  And I hear in that word other words unspoken: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

  But Miriam hasn’t forsaken her god.

  She faces me, then moves suddenly, runs at me with the knife raised, and I gaze at the translucent light shining through her gown, remember a picture I once saw of a snowy owl sweeping down on its prey, and it was as beautiful and terrifying as Miriam is in this instant of time that I recognize as my last.