All Living : A Seedvision Saga (9781621473923) (16 page)

Soon most people had food, piled high on…plates, Kole learned later; hard, flat, gray plates of food. A plate was thrust into Kole’s hands, and he marveled at the designs carved into it, at its texture, and at its mere existence. But he did not marvel for long. The food on his plate was hot, and a savory steam caused his mouth to water. He was just about to eat a bite when his father stepped in to the center of the circle of people, between the wood fires, and raised his arms.

“Let me have your attention, my children. Tonight we celebrate the return of my son, my firstborn and your elder brother. And a good feast we shall have. But no good feast can become a great feast unless we first give thanks to the Creator who made and blessed us with all this.”

Some in the crowd bowed their heads over their plates. Others looked up at the first few stars of the night. Still more stared in to the flames of the fires.

“Lord God, Creator of heaven and earth, hear the thanks of your servants. For tonight you have returned a son to us, resurrected him as if from the dead, and delivered him home safely to his family. We celebrate his return, Father, but we honor your gracious mercy. Your thoughts are not our thoughts, and your ways are not our ways. We accept the decisions of your wisdom, yet tonight your justice is a tangible blessing upon us. How great you are. How great you are! Please bless us this night, in all that we do. Please grant us all a bit of your wisdom, Master, for there is still much now that needs doing. Guide our actions, Lord, so that we are worthy of your attention. Bless this food that we share for it is a blessing from you that we have it to share. We bask in your glory and pray on your name, amen.”

When Adam finished his prayer a chorus of amens sounded. One young boy, about eighteen summers old, started tapping a series of beats on a hollowed piece of log with an animal skin stretch across the top of it. The sound was a joining of deep, rumbling booms, one after the other.

Men and women got up to dance as more drums started playing a counterpoint beat to the first drum. Kole discovered the sound to be exciting, invigorating. He felt his blood thicken and pump faster. He noticed, in particular, the bodies of the dancers as they swayed and leaped, narrowly missing each other, clasping hands, spinning, letting go. He had never seen anything like it and thought it was marvelous. They flashed out of light and into shadow, then back to light again.

As the flames flickered over and around them, flashing upon hair, teeth and eyes, the drums seemed to finally find a pace they could agree on and settled into an infectious beat. Kole noticed his right foot tapping, keeping time. He thought this curiosity odd and wonderful.

He walked over and found a seat reserved for him beside his father.

“Come, sit down, my son. Have you had enough to eat?” asked Adam.

“Well, Father, I am just getting started,” said Kole. He took a bite, and his eyes rolled back in his head from pleasure.

“Yes, your mother has taught these girls to be very good cooks. Some of them have even taught her a thing or two. But don’t tell her that I told you that. If I didn’t stay busy at all times they would fatten me up like a spring lamb. Have you tried the berry-pie?”

“I’ll have to try some of that after I make some room on my…plate,” Kole said, hesitating.

“Ah, yes. Interesting discovery. Your sister Tamalim’s son worked it out. Clay from down by the river bank shaped and left to harden in the sun. Holds food better than leaves or pieces of bark. Now of course we put them in an oven. Sort of a cave that we built out of stone. We can make more of them a lot faster, and with as fast as this family seems to grow, we need all we can get. Besides, if you drop one, it will break.”

“This family does seem large to my eyes,” Kole confessed to his father with a twinkle in his eye. “You and Mother have been busy.”

Adam grinned, “Just doing the Lord’s bidding. Trying to be fruitful and multiply. But it’s not just the two of us, as you well know. Your siblings too have found love and had children, created families of their own. Even some of their children now have had children. I expect soon you’ll have a few little ones running around now that you’re home.”

“I expect so, Father. At least I hope so. But with all the faces I’ve seen and all the names I’ve heard, there is one face that I have looked for but found curiously absent. There is one name my ears have strained to hear, and yet, of all the names I know, that is the one word that everyone seemingly has forgotten how to form. The loveliest word I know, yet everyone in my newly-discovered family has denied me the blessing of its music. You know the word I mean, Father. You know the name I speak of…”

“I do,” said Adam.

“Then tell me, Father, please, my insides tremble for word of my sister. I must know what tragedy has befallen her. Or if not tragedy, then tell me where I can find her. My arms ache to hold her. My thoughts have returned constantly to her for days. I have dreamed of her for one hundred summers. If that is not enough then I will do more. What has become of Kesitah?”

Adam stared at Kole’s face, searching him. Kole felt as if his father were sizing up some inner strength, as if hearing the truth would cause Kole’s very life to fall into jeopardy. Kole waited, but he was not prepared to wait much longer. If his father hesitated a few more seconds, Kole would jump up from this stump and scream into the very night which produced such unknowns,
where on God’s green earth is Kesitah?

He was prepared to grab any of these people around him, these strangers, by their happy little faces and demand they share with him whatever secret and vital details they possessed in their heads or as surely as the sun would rise in the morning, he would spill their thin, red thoughts all over the dust of the earth just as his brother Abel’s had been spilled right before his eyes. That may wake up a few of these tiptoe-ing tempters smugly testing his patience with their clumsy dancing, constant chatter, and breakable plates of food. Maybe they’d trade Kesitah back to him if he did make a few of their little ones disappear for a while.
Whoa, where did all these dark ideas come from?
he thought.

Kole’s face was flushed, and drops of perspiration beaded his forehead. His fists were clenched so tightly in his lap that his fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms. He was angry with his father, with all these people.
Who do they think they are, keeping me from Kesitah? Even if she’s dead, they have no right to withhold from me the cause of her death. Surely I will feel the loss, but I deserve to know. She was to be my mate, the mother of my children. We loved each other…

Kole’s thoughts were interrupted when he felt the hand of his father resting on his left knee. At some point Kole had closed his eyes, and when he opened them now he was face–to-face with his dad, instead of sitting beside him. “Son, are you alright?”

“No, I don’t really think so, Father…” Kole answered, ready to say more.

“Let me tell you a story, Kole. It’s one you will appreciate hearing, but not one you will enjoy.”

Kole lowered his eyes, then his head, as Adam took a deep breath and began.

“On the day that Abel’s spirit left us, Cain disappeared too. Three days later you left, seeking answers in the garden from the Lord. Your mother was broken like a plate that had been dropped on a rock. I felt her pain. You see, all three of our sons were gone, and the world seemed emptier. It was two Sabbaths later that Cain returned. He was angry at you, angrier at you than he was grieved at the loss of Abel. He was angry that you had watched his sacrifice. It is my opinion that he was not only embarrassed to have had another witness his offering’s rejection by the Lord, but I believe also that he wished you had done something to stop his fatal mistake. He had found a way within himself to blame you for Abel’s death.”

“Me?” gasped Kole.

“Yes, my son. Cain’s return was not so unusual. I knew it would be a matter of time for him to work out in his head his mistakes and to come to repentance. What was odd though was that he was following a young lamb. Not leading it but following it as if he had forgotten the way. It was a small lamb, one of Abel’s. A yearling he had called Nod.”

“Yes,” said Kole, “that very lamb followed me all the way to the gate of Eden. Only I was allowed to enter, and the sheep were made to stay in the meadow outside, between the gate and the cave.”

“Hmm,” said Adam. “I do not remember a cave but then the Lord works in mysterious ways. Cain and I sat up most of that first night of his return, speaking of Abel. I loved my youngest son and missed him, but I know the Lord has the power to bring him back to life when he sees fit. I was willing to forgive Cain his wrong, but he was unwilling to be forgiven. He was unrepentant.

“I am sorry to say that made me angry, and we argued. The next morning after the family had broken fast, I saw Abel’s lamb, the one called Nod, walking toward the plains east of here. I thought little of it, having my mind on other things. The lamb, though, never returned. I should have gone after him then, but Cain was still full of teeth and fire. Your mother had a hard time of things, and I did not want her drawn into a painful discourse with Cain during my absence. After three more days of cold stares and silent treatment of each other, Cain left. He went east following the lamb. I don’t know why that should have bothered me, but it did.”

“And that was the last you saw of him, Father?” asked Kole bewildered.

“Unfortunately not,” answered Adam torn by his emotions. “Cain returned the following summer, to the day. He asked if you had returned. We told him no. Cain informed me that he had built a sort of cave out of stone, a building he called it, where he then lived. He said that it was less than two days walk from here, across the mighty east river. We begged him to return, to make peace, but he refused. He did not stay the night but left after midday.

“Exactly twelve moons later he returned again; once more it was summer. He asked if you had returned. We said you had not. He told us that he had several more of his buildings completed; water close by, crops, and animals. He asked us to leave this place and travel with him to his ‘city’ he called it. When we refused, he said he wanted a wife. That with you gone, he was by rights the eldest and that Kesitah should return with him.”

Kole got a sickening feeling deep down in his belly.

“We refused of course. We had not given up hope of you. Cain returned every twelfth moon for five more consecutive summers each time demanding that Kesitah was rightfully his wife. Each time your mother and I refuted him. Each period of time between Cain’s visits we began to call a year.

“By the seventh year after you had left for the garden, your mother and I had a painful discussion. We did not know what was to become of you, whether you were to return to us or not. She thought that perhaps you had gone to live with the Lord. I thought…otherwise. Nonetheless, our family was not growing. By then we had had two more children, Kolech and Toshia, but they were young. Mimah was only twelve and Nolia only ten, too young to become wives. Kesitah was a woman and more than grown enough to have children of her own. We were not following the Lord’s instruction, Kole. We were to be fruitful and multiply, yet it all felt so wrong. Cain was right in one thing, he did need a helper. And Kesitah needed a husband. We made the difficult decision to give Kesitah to Cain.

“When we told Cain, he was delighted. He said he would fetch her right then. But your mother and I insisted that we be the ones to tell her. She had taken the younger ones for a walk, and when we found her she was sitting on a log telling them a story. I think when she saw our faces she knew, but she said nothing and by doing so forced the words from our mouths.

“She refused us, Kole. She said she was waiting for you and would wait until she passed Mother and was older than me before she would ever marry Cain. He had killed her brother and chased the other off, and she wanted nothing to do with him. We were determined though. She begged, she pleaded, she cried. I am sure Cain must have heard her all the way down the beach. When we returned he looked none too happy. He went to her and tried to hold her. He tried to speak soft words of reassurance to her, but the rigid set of her body spoke rejection louder than any words could have done. Still, he announced that they would be leaving before the sun set and to get her things together. It was a very sad day, watching them go until they were no more than small dots in the distance. Then disappearing into the land of Nod. Neither of them has been back here since, although your mother and I have gone to visit them several times. I think the way is hard for your mother, and I do not know when, or if, we shall return there again. But harder than the way, is the visit itself. There is little happiness in the city of Enoch.”

“Enoch,” Kole managed to grunt through the tightness in his throat.

“Yes, Kole. That is the name of your sister’s firstborn. Cain named his city after his firstborn son. They have had many children, children who have had children. Every few years someone from Enoch shows up to find a bride or to marry off a daughter. Occasionally, some from here travel there for the same reasons.”