TC65

“I’ll give them less than one minute,” said Jael. But when that minute passed she started to worry and at four minutes hy was stripping hyz own clothes off to go after them. Ariel decided to stay behind and remain dry. If there was anything to it Jael would give a full report.

Ten minutes after Dory and Gabriel had gone in, and five minutes after Jael went after them, they all rose together to the surface of the pool. When Jael saw his sister standing there hy said, “You’re still here?”

“Why not? It’s only been a few minutes.”

“It’s been few weeks.”

“Bolshevek!”

“I saw Dad. Our real dad. I helped dig him out of a collapsed church.”

“Cute! You re-enacted the story in the Green Book that inspired him to name you Jael in the first place.”

“What story?”

“Jael, how can you not know the one part of the Green Book that has your name in it? It’s not your name is very common! And I know that always bugged you.”

Jael looked at Gabriel and asked, “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

Gabriel said, “Maybe. I’ll need to read it again, now that we’re back.”

“And I see you got your own hat of horns now, just like the Shybear kids do.”

Jael hit hyz halo firmly with the heel of his palm. “This ain’t no hat, Ariel. And yours are coming in next.”

Gabriel directed hyz attention to a rack of clean linen towels that was kept fully stocked for any travelers between Earth and Kemen. It was, after all, one of the reasons his father had given him the key to the storeroom. When the kids were fully dressed they backtracked through the tunnel and scrambled out of the supply room. They sat together in the temple basement speaking no words. Ariel wanted answers but Jael didn’t even know where to begin. And just then the attendees began to filter in from upstairs.

During the shared meal after the Final Rite Ariel and Jael thought their foster mother seemed very different. Her grief was gone, but something else was gone too. Clara said, “Ariel! Jael! It’s all true. Everything in the Green Book is really true!”

“I know,” said Jael. He had come to the same place by a very different route. But there was a feeling of melancholy lurking behind everything now. Dory had justifiably warned of this. Belief was no longer on the table.

On Saturday morning Jael and Ariel went to the top of the high knoll adorned with Dory’s treehouse. To the north they could see where the New River forked to form an island, and that island was the business center of Headwater, to the extent that there was business in wartime Headwater. The island was anchored at one end by the courthouse and at the other end by the sheriff’s station. Jael was well aware, now, that the real source of the New River lay on the summit of the Mountain of God in Kemen, at the foot of the twenty-second needlegate. To the east over the roof of the Shybear house he and Ariel could see the bulk of the town platted out south of the river, and they spotted their own house. Just two blocks further on was a hayfield, one of many that ringed the border of Headwater.