Heavens Before

by Kacy Barnett-Gramckow

  Irritated, Naham gave Yerakh a shove. “What use are you, my friend, if you won’t talk to me? Where’s your laughter? If you give up your will to live, Yerakh, why not just kill yourself now? I haven’t said so before, but ever since that Annah-who-is-not-Annah spoke that curse upon you … well, you’re no longer a man. I should find myself a new friend who enjoys feasting and games and women—and vengeance.”

  Yerakh looked up. “What vengeance? Who has offended you?”

  “Who’s offended me?” Naham snorted and spat toward the fire. “I was talking about you. Listen, my friend, it’s been months now. You’re still alive. Do you need any more proof that your miserable sister was wrong to curse you? You should be angry! She’s used her words to escape you and to rob you of your joys.” Huffing, Naham said, “I swear, Yerakh, if I hear your pretty wife crying to my wives again that you don’t desire her anymore, I’ll take her for myself—since you’ve forgotten how to be a husband.”

  Yerakh glared at him. “It’s easy for you to talk. You didn’t feel that presence moving against you. You didn’t see the fear of the Nachash—who has feared nothing, until now.”

  “All the more reason for us to kill that Annah-who-is-not-Annah.”

  When Yerakh lowered his head and frowned, Naham said, “If you don’t kill her, then I will. Your fear has made you weak. And she—that Annah—has even changed Tseb-iy. He swears she’s turned all women against him, forcing him to marry.”

  Yerakh sneered at the mention of Tseb-iy, who had finally chosen to marry Yediydah, K’nan’s lovely, pouting-lipped younger sister. “Tseb-iy is getting married because the women of this settlement are tired of him and won’t yield to him anymore. His wife, however, must accept him whether she’s tired of him or not.”

  “Then,” Naham argued, “if you don’t believe Tseb-iy when he says he was cursed by your sister, why should you believe that you are cursed? I’m telling you, we should kill that Annah-creature. I’ll do it; I’m not afraid of her. In fact”—Naham paused, licking his lips—“it’ll be a pleasure.”

  “Tomorrow then,” Yerakh agreed, finally seeming to be persuaded, even pleased by the thought. “I’ll go with you; we can sneak away during Tseb-iy’s marriage feast. And you can do as you please with her; I’ll keep my distance until she’s dead.”

  “Coward!”

  For the first time in weeks, Yerakh laughed.

  Annah worked with Ghinnah in the middle level of the pen, fastening enclosures and cages. As she worked, she marveled at the orderliness and calm of the creatures as they entered their respective places. They all seemed drawn by Noakh’s presence. And they were utterly docile. Even the carrion-eaters, with their endless varieties of claws, horns, and teeth, seemed as easily led as sheep.

  “Look at them,” Ghinnah said as she fastened another enclosure containing two ponderous, leather-skinned, one-horned beasts. “I don’t believe it.”

  Annah didn’t respond; Shem had distracted her. He brushed past her teasingly, going toward the lower ramp, carrying a pair of night-rats and a pair of large-eyed tree-dwellers—creatures that loved the darkness. Other creatures slipped past Annah as well, seeming drawn to various corners, spaces, and levels of the pen. Glancing about now, Annah saw Tirtsah descending the upper ramp, her beautiful eyes huge and a little desperate.

  Tirtsah whispered to Annah, “This is not real. There are birds coming down through the windows—some I’ve never seen before!”

  “Are you helping them into the netted enclosures?” Annah whispered back, as she fastened the rows of smaller cages along the walls.

  “I’ma-Naomi and Yepheth are up there now,” Tirtsah said, distracted. She scanned the central level. “Where’s my husband?”

  Annah suppressed a smile. Tirtsah had been shunning Khawm for most of the week. Now, she was looking for him. “He’s working in the lower level.”

  “In the dark?” Tirtsah sounded unnerved by the thought.

  “Some of the light goes down there,” Annah said soothingly. “But, anyway, my husband is with him. And Khawm has a torch.”

  Tirtsah’s eyes widened in alarm, and she darted over to the central ramp leading into the lower level. Shrugging, Annah continued to fasten enclosures and cages, goading an animal here, lifting another there. Now and then, she paused to stare at some of the creatures. Each animal was young, healthy, and seemingly the most perfect of its kind. Annah was amazed and delighted by their beauty and astonishing variations, as well as by their similarities. She thought to the Most High, What joy You must have had in creating all these animals!

  “Look at these!” Ghinnah shrieked to Annah, laughing. Cautiously she lifted a stocky, spiny, dark-furred little creature that was equipped with a long, slender beaklike snout and oddly turned, bare-clawed feet. “Its beloved looks the same; absurd things!”

  “With those feet, they must like to burrow,” Annah thought aloud. “Put them in a dark corner cage with lots of leaves and straw.”

  “You have no sense of fun,” Ghinnah sniffed, heading for a corner.

  When more than half the day had passed, the sheer numbers of new and different animals dwindled. Then no more came. A muted breathlessness settled over the pen, an almost fearful sense of waiting. Full of wonder, Annah looked around. Naomi and Yepheth came down from the upper level, seeming perplexed. Shem, Khawm, and Tirtsah emerged from the lower level, dousing their torch in a pail of water, then squinting as they walked toward the great side door where Noakh stood.

  Puzzled, Annah followed Shem toward the door. Noakh’s cousin, Akar, was scoffing at Noakh from the base of the ramp. “Now what’ll you do, after calling all those creatures to yourself? What trick did you use, eh? You’ll have to get rid of them soon enough, fool. And remember, you’ve given me your lodge!”

  “May we close the door on him?” Khawm demanded from the left of the door. Without waiting for his father’s reply, he grabbed a great rope that was looped through iron rings in the base of the ramp and in the doorframe. Noakh motioned to Shem and Yepheth; they grabbed the ropes on the right of the doorframe, while Noakh helped Khawm.

  “Pull!” Noakh commanded.

  Annah held her breath, watching as they pulled. The ropes went taut, but the ramp door didn’t move. Akar cackled from his place outside. “Fools, you can’t even close your door!”

  “Child, let’s help them,” Naomi said to Annah.

  But as they were reaching for the ropes, the door lifted. Annah gasped, staring, confounded. The ropes are going slack, but the door is lifting. How can this be?

  “Living Word,” Noakh breathed, releasing the rope.

  The men were backing away now. Akar screamed from outside, “Wait, wait!”

  Annah felt her mouth go dry. She couldn’t move. She could only stand there, staring as the great door shut slowly, gently, as if controlled by an unseen hand. I’m not imagining this, she told herself, still staring. She could no longer hear Akar’s screaming, pleading voice; the door had cut it off. A sudden burst of warmth emanated from the door, and the scents of resins and woods mingled, permeating the air.

  “He’s sealing the door with His own hand!” Noakh exulted, gazing at the door, delighted as a young child. “Ah, Most High!” Then the warmth dissipated. Instantly, Noakh turned upon them all. “Hurry! Is everything fastened down? If so, then get to the upper level. Go! Go! Go!” He waved his hands, chasing Annah and the others away.

  Shem seized Annah’s hand, pulling her away from the great door. She ran with the others. Like sheep, Annah thought, as they all scrambled up the central ramp. And, almost like sheep, they hurried to the same place, the area surrounding the faintly smoldering hearth.

  For an instant, they all sat in pairs—husbands and wives together—looking at each other, still unable to believe what they had just seen. Then the pen began to quiver and vibrate. The tremors intensified, until they could do nothing but kneel, clutching the resin-coated floor and each other. Ghinnah began to scream and cry. Swea
ting, Annah reached out blindly for Shem, thinking, This is worse than any of the others. Then Annah heard a vast, booming, echoing, cracking sound from beyond the windows above them, as if the earth and the sky were splitting and breaking into tiny, irretrievable pieces. Terrified, scarcely aware of her husband’s arms around her, Annah began to pray.

  Twenty-Two

  YERAKH LED Naham along the riverbank to the bridge, talking eagerly. “One thing is true of Annah: She won’t stay inside that Noakh’s lodge for very long. She likes to wander outside. All we have to do is watch for her.”

  “You should have given her to me all those months ago when I asked for her,” Naham said, his voice deep and rumbling, a sneer on his broad, bearded face. “She’d be no trouble to you now.”

  “Who would ever have thought she would be trouble,” Yerakh muttered darkly. “When you see her you won’t recognize her.” He paused at the bridge, stepping aside to allow Naham to go first. Naham eyed the bridge warily, then shook his head.

  “You go first; that bridge is meant for an ordinary little man.”

  “Really?” Yerakh asked, hoping to taunt Naham into crossing. “Are you thinking you’ll break this thing and fall in? Who’s the coward now?”

  “Go first!” Naham commanded threateningly, flexing his huge fingers into massive fists.

  Reluctantly Yerakh started over the bridge. Now his fears took on a voice in his mind, hissing Annah’s warnings to him with renewed vehemence. You are a fool! You sheltered the Nachash. You killed your father. You willed the deaths of your mother, your wife, and your brothers, and now you seek the life of another. You are cursed!

  The voice seemed to end, but a new thought occurred to Yerakh: Your feet carry you to your death. Shuddering, he paused on the resilient reed-and-rope bridge. The bridge shook, upsetting his balance. Without turning, he screamed at Naham, “Quit shaking the bridge!”

  “I’m not shaking the bridge!” Naham bellowed from the riverbank. “It’s the earth shaking the bridge!”

  As Naham was bellowing, the tremors of the earth increased, with groanlike sounds reverberating ominously from deep beneath the ground. All at once, Yerakh lost his footing and went sprawling on his belly, facing north, clutching the ropes of the bridge. Panicked, he looked at Naham, but the giant man was on his knees. Even his great strength was not enough to keep him upright. Yerakh heard an immense burst of noise resounding from the depths of the earth up to the very heavens. In that same instant, he saw impossibly vast geysers of water and plumes of deep gray smoke blasting up from the ground in the distance, tearing through the roseate sky, splitting open the heavens.

  Yerakh stared upward, unable to scream, his horror was so great. An immense pattern of waves rippled east to west through the skies above him, as if the heavens were made of water. The physical shocks of these rippling waves, paired with the shaking of the earth, caused the two eastern trees supporting the bridge to lurch threateningly above the now raging current—above Yerakh himself.

  Terror-stricken, he clung to the bridge as it sagged into the current. The water dashed over his face, making him raise his head, desperately gasping for air. As he struggled to maintain his hold, Yerakh glimpsed Naham toppling into the white-crested waves. The giant man was swept downriver, howling, raging, all his strength useless.

  Suddenly an all-encompassing roar filled Yerakh’s ears; the force of the water increased with the noise. Looking up, he saw his death coming: a vast, surging wall of frothing, muddied water, filled with shredded trees, fragments of reed lodges, and battered corpses—animal and human—all sweeping toward him from the north. He could only wait, screaming as the wall finally struck, ripping him away from the sagging bridge. The mighty trees leaning above him fell into the river, rolling and tumbling in the muddy surge, following him downriver. His arms and legs crushed and useless, Yerakh found himself snared among tree limbs in the rapids. He longed, in vain, for a swift and painless death.

  Virtually every member of the settlement was gathered in the lodge of Sa-khar, to celebrate Tseb-iy’s marriage to Sa-khar’s only daughter, Yediydah. Standing near the doorway of the lodge, Ayalah watched the lean, black-bearded, narrow-eyed Sa-khar pronounce his formal approval of the married couple. Though the bride was her sister-in-law, K’nan’s sister, Ayalah felt no love or loyalty toward Yediydah or any of her family. By now, K’nan held no attraction for Ayalah. He was a sulking, willful husband, a complete disappointment. Ayalah glanced at him. Why did I ever want you? You’re nothing but trouble to me. Contemptuous, she looked away from her husband, toward Yediydah and Tseb-iy.

  Yediydah, lovely, pouting, and glistening with bride-gold purchased from Yerakh, shifted her gaze from her father to her new husband, the supposedly unattainable Tseb-iy. Ayalah almost laughed at Tseb-iy’s grim smile as he waited for the self-important Sa-khar to finish the marriage blessing.

  Gloating, Ayalah leaned over to Haburah and the other wives of Naham and said, “Look at that fool, Tseb-iy. By his expression, I think he could spit embers.”

  “I think he’s changed his mind already,” said Naham’s first wife, Shuwa, her dark eyes sparkling with malice. “Tseb-iy will keep that Yediydah guessing and looking to see where his affections will fall next, I assure you. She’s a fool to marry him.”

  Naham’s second wife, Qetsiyah, laughed beneath her breath, nudging Shuwa with one slender, graceful hand. “You’re just angry that he has never looked at you. If it weren’t for Naham’s jealousy, you would have thrown yourself at Tseb-iy long ago.”

  “May they be barren,” Haburah muttered darkly. “I should have killed Tseb-iy for scorning my mother.”

  Ayalah smiled, deciding that she must encourage Haburah to take vengeance on Tseb-iy—it would be amusing. Suddenly, the earth wavered beneath Ayalah’s feet, startling her from all thoughts of Tseb-iy.

  Haburah grabbed at Ayalah. “Outside, quickly, before the others trample us!”

  Ayalah managed to scramble outside with her sister before the tremors jolted them to the ground. On her hands and knees now, Ayalah looked around, terrified. This shaking of the earth was the worst yet. The lodges were being jostled like loose bundles of reeds. Other members of the settlement were crawling out of the lodge of Sa-khar, unable and unwilling to help those still trapped inside. Shuwa had also managed to escape the teetering lodge. Like the others, she was unable to walk, the tremors were so fierce. Obviously scared, she crawled to Haburah and cried, “Where is our husband?”

  Ayalah could not hear Haburah’s answer. A deep groaning noise rose from the earth, lifting into the heavens as an immense, distant fissure burst and spewed an endless protrusion of water and smoke upward, rumbling and crackling as it surged past the limits of the sky. Annah, Ayalah thought, you knew this would happen! I hate you—and your Most High! I hope you die!

  Ayalah gaped as boundless shock waves rippled through the sky from the east toward the settlement. The sheer power of these waves caused the lodges to tumble to the ground. Those trapped inside the lodge of Sa-khar screamed and wailed beneath the collapsing roof of the lodge.

  “They’re dying!” Ayalah screamed.

  “We’re dead!” Haburah cried, her gaze fixed on the darkening, churning skies. The usual rosy glow of the sky was gone, blotted out by smokelike billows of vapors. Sudden, terrifying streaks of white-blue light flashed downward from these billows, creating a terrible booming noise that shook the air as the tremors jarred the earth.

  Stunned, Ayalah could only wait on her hands and knees, watching as muddied walls of water poured down from the dark, seething heavens. The falling waters pounded Ayalah, Haburah, the settlement, and its inhabitants, eventually washing them toward the surging river. Ayalah finally lost consciousness beneath the force of the waters, her life ebbing away. All traces of the settlement were scoured from the surface of the earth.

  Its magnificent limbs whipped by the shock waves, its roots loosened by the tremors and the onrush of the waters from the river and
the skies, the Tree of Havah creaked and swayed in the earth. At last, weakened and overcome by the power of the waters, the ancient tree groaned and fell into the rising current.

  To the east of the settlement, the Nachash and her whisperers tottered outside when the first tremors hit. Hearing the rupturing of the earth and the crackling of the sky, the Nachash screamed, “Most High, will You destroy us? You!”

  Shaken to her hands and knees now, the Nachash spat vigorously, her emaciated face defiant. But her whisperers wailed aloud as the shock waves struck, felling the trees to the east of their lodge. And the waters of the darkening heavens descended upon the Nachash and her whisperers, sweeping them away like dry, brittle twigs.

  Far to the west, in the most distant grasslands, a small herd of tawny-haired, finely hoofed grazers trotted up to the edge of their watering place. They whinnied to each other, then stepped into the water and lowered their heads to drink. Another herd approached, also grazers, but larger and one-horned, with bare leathery hides. These larger grazers were ungainly on land, but graceful as soon as they entered the water.

  Birds, long-necked and elegant, also entered the water, moving lightly between the herds until the earth quivered. Alarmed, the birds took to the air. The sky reverberated and darkened ominously. The two herds milled about, their panic growing with the tremors and the approach of an immeasurably vast, roiling ash-cloud. As the choking, gray, gritty particles of heated ash and gases descended upon them, the herds mingled, struggling to breathe.

  The young tried to comfort themselves by suckling, but their mothers were already dying. The birds fell to the earth again and were trampled into the waters. In their blinded terror, the great one-horned grazers charged over the bodies of the delicate tawny-hoofed grazers. One by one, the animals succumbed to the chaos and to the suffocating dust and gases.

  Then the waters covered their graves.

  To the farthest reaches of the northeast, a large beak-headed female carrion-eater huddled over her carefully arranged nest of eggs. Fearful of the rippling violence of the earth and the sky, the female locked its long, clawed forelimbs together around its carefully arranged nest of eggs.