Forty Days: Neima's Ark, Book One Read Online Free PDF Page B

he’s been running his
fingers through it, over and over. “We can trust you not to repeat
what you’ve heard, right, daughter?”
    I nod. “So…” I swallow, suddenly aware
of the dryness in my throat. “Uncle Ham would not support
you?”
    My mother rakes the bronze poker over
the hearth with a sharp, metallic sound. “No, he’d rather let his
wife and young daughter cart food to the ark for no purpose, let
his son waste his time wandering the woods and trapping animals,
let the rest of the village gawk and gossip and—”
    I realize Mother is
speaking against her own husband as well. Father does not look
angry, though, only exhausted and somehow desperate, his wide
shoulders drooping beneath the cloth of his tunic. I remember what
he said to me so many years ago, when I first heard about the flood
and the ark and ran to him in fear: I
promise that if you, if any member of our family is ever in danger,
I’ll do everything I can to protect you. But Noah and Ham are as much a part of our family as Mother
and I are, so how can Father act against them?
    Still, a small, petulant
voice within me whispers: Shouldn’t he
care for Mother, for me , most of all?
    Now, Father clears his throat,
interrupting my mother’s complaints: “It is only seven days. We
will comply with Noah’s demands, but we will draw out each task,
doing as little as possible, so we’ll have less to undo when the
flood doesn’t come.” As he speaks, my father seems to grow taller,
his stance broadening and his voice deepening. His brown eyes
tighten in determination rather than defeat, and I realize it helps
him to have a plan, to reclaim what control he can.
    It should help me too, but I can’t
help thinking of—
    “ And what of the tigers
and lions and wolves?” Mother voices my own concerns, brandishing
the poker as if to fend off an imagined beast.
    Father sighs. “We will
deal with the animals when— if —they arrive.”
    And, I suppose, that’s really all we
can do.

    ***

    We begin by baking bread, moving
between Grandmother Nemzar’s kitchen and the courtyard outside her
cottage, where we slide the loaves into the round clay oven. We
make the loaves flatter than usual and bake them for longer, hoping
they’ll last and our flour won’t be wasted, though our teeth will
surely suffer from the hard loaves. Noah has already sent Japheth
and Kenaan out into the hills above the village to set traps; Ham
and my father are at the ark, making any last adjustments my
grandfather deems necessary. Noah himself, however, is still here,
puttering around the cottage and watching us and grumbling, until
I’m ready to cart supplies to the ark just to get away from him.
And to escape the heat belching from the outdoor oven.
    Aunt Zeda has brought a wooden cart
over from her own cottage, as have Mother and I, so together with
Grandfather Noah’s cart we have three. We fill three cloth sacks
with grain from the clay bin in Noah’s courtyard, load them into
the carts, and then Aunt Zeda, Mother and I each take one cart by
the handle. We leave Grandmother and Arisi behind to tend the oven
and grind more grain into flour, while Shai scampers after
us.
    I’m immediately jealous of Shai as she
skips and twirls in circles, relishing her freedom from the
courtyard, until her twin braids fly out at the sides of her head
and wisps of dark hair escape. This cart is heavy and cumbersome
and leaves me feeling anything but free. The river and the ark look
impossibly far away, especially when the cart’s creaky wooden
wheels jar over every stick and stone in my path, and I have to
jerk on the handle till my shoulder aches.
    It gets worse, though: it seems
everyone in the village is outside, feeding animals or baking bread
in their own courtyard ovens or patching their roofs before the
rains come. And it seems every single person stops his or her task
to look at us, until their gazes feel warmer than the sun bearing
down above us. Sweat trickles down the