EVEN THOUGH THE Ark was complete, there was still much to do. The final few crops had to be harvested, our stocks counted, and all the while, Noah kept casting nervous glances at the sky, like the slowly-darkening heavens could split open at any moment and flood the land.
But even the clouds that cast shadows over the forest couldn't dim the brightness I was sure shone from my cheeks and eyes, that I could feel lighting my every step as every second — one second closer to finally marrying Ham — passed. I was impatient, and couldn't focus on the tasks at hand.
"Na'el!" Ezmara screwed up her face, tossing a bundle of poorly-wrapped skins to me. I flushed as the twine I'd used to seal the ground barley into its bowl unravelled in my hands, nearly spilling the powder we'd be able to make into dough, with enough luck, on the Ark. "What do you call that?"
"Distraction," I mumbled, trying to retie the twine more slowly, under her gaze. But my fingers were trembling, and between each knot I made, I tried to flex my nerves away.
"Seems more like an accident waiting to happen, to me." Her words were harsh, but her eyes stayed on my hands, softening from being narrowed in impatience. "Thinking about marriage has addled you, and you're no good to me, shaking like a lamb."
She stood up from her seat on the log by the firepit, and beckoned for me to follow her. I obeyed, trying to rub face free from my flush of embarrassment as she led me to the women's tent.
I wished that I could deny it, but she'd been right. My excitement seemed to have overtaken my ability to function normally, and actually help the others in their preparations. I wondered if Ham felt the same way, then chided myself for my foolish thoughts.
Focus, Na'el. Focus.
Ezmara emerged from the tent after a few moments, and passed me some delicate garments that I held gingerly in my hands and regarded with awe.
"Ezmara, these are beautiful!" I unfurled the folded white tichel — fit for a marriage — and then the matching white simlah, its sturdiness feeling heavy and good in my grip. I tucked them both under my arm and then gave her a hug, my cheeks split by a grin.
"It's the least I could do," Ezmara said, shrugging my compliments off. But I didn't miss how her eyes glowed with pride. She rested a soft hand on my shoulder. "You and Ham have waited so long for this. And I know that you're ready, no matter how nervous you're feeling right now."
She laughed, her face instantly becoming more youthful in her mirth. "Elohim knows I was sweating puddles in my wedding garb, when Noah and I were married! I was so embarrassed."
Imagining Ezmara and Noah young and in love made my heart tighten with longing. I hoped Ham and I could be together as long as they had, through all their tribulations — I had never considered before how Emzara must have felt, her husband and sons taken away from her, enveloped in their development of the Ark. Alone until Elohim gave her daughters in the form of Ada and Sedeqet.
And soon, me.
"Thank you," I said, again, truly meaning it for so much more than just the clothes. "I'm sorry, Emzara, that I was so awful to you when I first came here." Thinking of it again made me dig my nails into my clenched palm. I'd been such a fool then, fighting against the people I hadn't yet known truly cared for me.
"Oh," Emzara waved her hand dismissively. "I forgave you for all that long ago. I know what it feels like, trying to settle into a new family. All the women do. But," she smiled knowingly, looking beyond my shoulder, "you soon realised we weren't all that bad."
I turned to see who she was gazing at, and my grin widened at the sight of Ham. My betrothed. What would it be like, calling him my husband for the first time? I tried to imagine the feeling, but didn't have time to before Ham hobbled towards me, and Ezmara knowingly retreated, gently carrying my wedding clothes away with her.
"You're getting better at walking on your crutch," I said, my voice lilted with jest. He looked down at me and smiled his beautiful, crooked smile.
"I'm glad. I don't want to fall trying to dance at our wedding ceremony." The hand not holding onto the crutch that Shem had crafted for him crept towards my own, lonely at my side.
I casted a worried look to his leg, then back up at him. "Dancing will be out of the question," I told him, recognising I was being patronising, but trying to communicate my concern for him through my eyes. "You still have to be careful, Ham."
His forefinger brushed against my pinkie, but he talked over my small gasp at his touch. "I will," his voice was low with assurance. "You don't have to worry about me, Na'el."
My hand clenched, but his thumb grazed over my knuckles and gently rested on my pulse. All the while, he searched my eyes, maybe sieving through the memories of my pain — the sleepless nights I'd spent against Naamah's side, terrified she'd stop breathing in the night and I'd wake up next to her corpse, and then the tears I'd shed whilst he'd been comatose, dreaming in a place I could not reach.
"Tell me," he whispered, his curls hanging over my eyes, but not covering his desire for my assurance. His touch stilled, waiting, at my wristbones.
My thoughts came in sharp white bursts, nothing clinging long enough for me to act on. I wanted him to hold me. I wanted to dance with him, broken leg be damned. I wanted to thank Elohim for him against his lips.
"Ham," I started, though through the buzzing of my mind and the blood pumping in my ears, I wasn't even sure of what I could say.
A dark shadow then shrouded us, and I pulled back as I cast a horrified look at the sky. It was like all the elements of the earth all at once began to clamour, drowning out the words in my head. I saw Ham's mouth move, but over the shrieking coming from the sky and the rustling of tree branches and leaves, I couldn't make out what he said.
The shadow surged, creating a spiral that looped against the ash grey of the clouds. Birds, I realised, my terror fast fading, now replaced by bewilderment.
" — heading for the Ark," Ham said, against my ear. I nodded in understanding, but my jaw remained dropped as every kind of feathered creature I'd ever seen — and the ones I hadn't — teemed together in the sky, and then made a beeline for the clearing where I knew the Ark sat.
Ezmara rushed past me, a blur of moving cloth and dark, graying hair that had come undone from her bun. "It's starting!" she yelled over her shoulder, her words emphasised by the fading shrieking of fowls.
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Everyone else was already at the Ark by the time I reached it, determined to see whether my help was needed or not, so that I could return to Ham, whom I'd left behind at the camp.
Knowing Ham, he'd push himself too far, trying to be useful, and I couldn't let him injure himself any further.
The women were shredding pieces of leaves, and tossed them into the air, to be snatched into the talons or beaks of birds that then swooped through the Ark's open doors, and faded into the darkness to settle.
Nearby to me, Noah held his hand out gingerly to birds that appeared to be flightless — fat, stocky chickens and tall, long-necked creatures that scrutinised me with beady eyes before dutifully swallowing the leaves and too, entering the Ark.
I watched in amazement. "Elohim's told them what to do!" I laughed to Noah, as he stood up from his crouch and dusted off his hands. "The birds just know!" Bird by bird, they flew unprompted towards the hulking wooden behemoth, unafraid of us or each other. Sparrow shared the air with hawk, and all snatched pieces of leaves from the hands of Sedeqet and Ada.
"It ensures they'll sleep," Noah said, before I could ask. He was always able to pick up on my curiosities, and answered questions I hadn't spoken yet. "We can't have the animals eating up our supplies. The leaves are from the bush Elohim grew with the first Raindrops."
It all made sense, and I marvelled at Elohim's thoughtful design. He'd created that special, ever-growing bush to aid us in our efforts in saving His creatures, and I also knew (though the women had never told me; it was an unspoken piece of information not shared between married and unmarried women) that the berries that grew from the same bush closed their wombs once eaten.
It was why the eldest of Noah's sons and their wives had no children yet, even though their ... Pleasures, for a lack of a better word, as I cringed thinking too long about it, hadn't ceased.
Until Elohim's latest orders, at least.
"And these are just the first few," Noah added. A broad smile crept across his face, but failed to eradicate the tiredness I could see dimming his eyes. "Elohim will guide them all to us."