Chapter 1

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

"Gather some extra wood," my father called. "We have visitors."

I hurried to obey, after all, I only had to gather it, it was Fauron who had to chop it. I found the biggest and most unwieldy logs I could carry and threw them at the feet of my sixteen year old brother.

"Hah," Fauron scoffed when he saw my offering. "Still trying to find something I can't handle?" His humility and kindness were as developed as a mulberry in spring, but I had little room to talk.

"You want something easier, you can get it yourself," I called back before I walked to the trees once more. We were brothers, what else can I say? We bickered and fought endlessly, but never intending real harm. I honestly think that the emotion of hate wasn't in us. It was something I had to learn later.

"At least Fauron does the hard work," Karala, my little sister by one year, chimed in. "You save all of the easy work for yourself." She hauled a pot full of water and set it beside where dad was lighting the fire.

"That also means more water for you to fetch, young lady," dad said with a smirk.

Karala rolled her eyes at me then went to get another pot from the wagon. I lingered near the edge of the woods in the direction of the stream until Karala came close. Hiding myself behind a tree, I waited for her to pass and go ten paces to the stream; then, as silently as a young boy could, I crept up behind her. When I was only two paces away she turned and saw me. She still yelped in surprise, but I was let down that I hadn't been able to push her into the water.

We would need to be collecting a lot of water for the next week. Our destination was the city of Enoch in the center of a massive shallow crater where, according to legend, the Fallen One impacted the earth before mankind began. The crater was barren until you reached the lake at its center.

"Don't scare me, Namir," Karala said.

"I wasn't trying to," I lied. I told you I wasn't a good person. "Who is coming?"

"Uncle Lamech," Karala answered.

The words didn't mean anything to me. I hadn't met Lamech and had no idea what to expect. Nothing could have prepared me for what would happen. I think that living apart from others had skewed my family's perception on what was normal and acceptable. But now that I think on it, the real problem wasn't that our views were warped, but that they were not. I gathered more firewood and returned to camp, then sat beside the fire and helped mother and Karala with the meal. My father had stepped away to greet our guests. 

I heard them before I saw them. My father was leading them the furlong or so that separated us from the road. I wasn't expecting what emerged into camp, though I should have. I knew my family was small, but this was my first glimpse of exactly how big a single generation of a family could get. My father and uncle Lamech were followed by two women and a score of children ranging from the infants in the mothers' arms to nearly adult. The impressive quantity of them overwhelmed my perception, otherwise I may have noticed something that struck me as bizarre later. I could hear my father and Lamech speaking. I could understand every word. In a group of twenty eight, most of which were less than twenty years old, there was only one conversation.

"Think nothing of it," my father said. "It is our honor and privilege."

"Yet it is a great imposition to be host to so many," pleaded Lamech. "At least accept compensation for your generosity, I insist."

"But, if I am compensated, then it is no longer generosity," my father countered.

Lamech stopped as if frozen in time when his deep black eyes met my pale blue ones. His retinue ground to a halt behind him, careful not to run into him, but flowing around him like a cloud. Lamech's eyes fastened on me like a lure in a fish's mouth and, try as I might, I couldn't look away. Nothing in his expression showed it, but I felt such hatred, anger, and pure bitter malice from him that I staggered backward. The look seemed to have lasted for minutes, but when he broke eyes with me no one had noticed the exchange.

"You and your wife are legends, Roulan, and I'm sure that any generosity you offer could never be easily repaid," Lamech said easily.

I fell into the shadow of my mother as the meal began and after she snapped me out of my stupor she was happy for the help. We had to double the amount of food which added up to cooking a whole second meal. As I scurried around fetching water and gathering dishes to be washed and reused, I gleaned a little of the conversation.

"The prophecies state clearly that the infidels will be destroyed. My son, Noe, will be the savior of the world."

"You forget that the infidels have their own patriarchal line," my father countered.

"Cain is the firstborn and rightful heir, and you know it," Lamech said with passion. His eyes latched onto mine and I dropped the empty cups that I had been carrying. "You welcome the infidels into your family, but we shall purge them from this world."

My father saw who our guest was looking at and would not be insulted by his nephew. "You will not threaten me nor mine, Lamech."

"Of course not," the other man soothed. "I was merely speaking of events soon to happen in this world, you understand."

The spell was broken. I scurried to my parents' tent as fast as my little legs could carry me leaving those dirty dishes in the dirt. Like most children, I knew my parents would keep me safe. That was why I fled to their tent. They would never allow anything to happen to me. Oh, how naive I was.

The gathering ended and, indeed, nothing happened. We continued our journey the next morning. Tension was high and as we drew nearer to populated areas, the stares and whispers all seemed nefarious and menacing.

When the day finally came that we were entering Enoch itself, I thought it would be best if I stayed out of sight. My family tried to tell me that it wasn't necessary but, even then, I knew. My family was different. I was different. I had no people, and my dear cousin Lamech would only add fuel to the fire.

As we came through the city gates, I stared with a slack jaw at the brick and plaster buildings and the crowds of people. There weren’t just tens or scores, but hundreds. Though it can’t compare to the cities I would see later, it shattered my view of the world and made me question. Though while out in nature I had felt small before, this was the first time I had felt insignificant.

We went to the central square and my father opened shop while my mother went out to buy supplies. My father traded with dried fish and seaweed, shells and rare wood, but most of all with salt. Very few people had seen the ocean and they viewed the things that came from it as wondrous. I marveled at the easy manner my father had in dealing with the hordes of people who came to trade. He would smile at the crudeness of others and laugh at their attempts to swindle or steal from him. I never understood til much later that he wasn’t trading the same way as the men and women who wanted to get as much as they could. We did need the things we traded for, but he did it for the joy of interacting with others. He didn’t come to Enoch because we needed to for survival, or even comfort: we were self-sufficient in our home by the sea. We came to the city because my father knew that they needed what we had. He knew that most of the people that stole from him did it out of necessity and he was more than willing to show a little charity, even under the guise of being swindled.

My mind, however, was full of the sight and sounds of Enoch, the mountains of buildings and canyons of streets, the rivers of people that flowed and surged. At every opportunity I could, I went out with my mother to buy cloth or food or the occasional wonder from the heathens of Edom or Atlantis. Yet, as much as I loved the newness of it all, stares followed me wherever I went and racial slurs, as well as jabs at me and my family, were common.

I accompanied my mother on one of these excursions on our third day there, not knowing that this day would be different. The crowds were bustling through the midday heat and all of the shady spots were thick and overcrowded. Kids played in the open areas of the squares and a group of them, my own age, were kicking a ball to each other in a game I didn’t know. I was tempted to try to join them, but no, even as I looked on, people jeered and pointed. My mother kept a tight grip on my hand. We hustled into a clothing shop and my mother seemed to know the woman running it. We were soon led out a back door to a small adjacent courtyard. Another door opened to a store room containing bolts of cloth. I waited, as my mother viewed and touched the various fabrics, and inspected the courtyard. On the far side, someone stood in the shade of a white stone pillar. A leafy vine obscured their face, but I saw dark hair falling off their shoulders in dozens of braids and fingered my own braided hair. From behind the adult stepped a girl my own age, maybe a year younger. When she saw me she quickly ducked behind the pillar, for safety from the barbarian that had infiltrated her home, no doubt. I edged closer and leaned over to see where she had gone with the image of her dark, almost black, eyes pushing me forward. Eyes met mine, though not the ones I expected. Her face was hidden beneath a hood, but I could still see deep blue, almost violet, eyes looking out at me from a face even more pale than my own.

I was entranced.

I was afraid.

I was frozen in a single moment and knew my life would never be the same again. The dark girl ran back through a door, tugging on the pale girl’s hand and, after only slight resistance, they both disappeared inside. I stood staring at the spot where they had been, like a deer that had just spotted a wolf, unsure whether to run or hold still and wait for the danger to pass. I had completely forgotten the woman that the girls had been hiding behind and it was her chuckle that woke me from my trance.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said.

I answered with a barely perceptible nod.

The woman’s small tight braids hung past her hips and she had the same nearly black eyes as the dark girl I had just seen. I thought she was younger than my mother, but with most people, the five or six centuries in the middle of life were very hard to tell apart. “You’re a curious one aren’t you?” she asked.

I nodded again.

“I suppose I don’t need to tell you to keep what you saw to yourself.” Her tone was firm and I nodded dumbly once more. “Off you go then, and tell Kiara that I said hello.”

I stumbled my way back across the little courtyard in a stupor. My mother bought two bolts of fabric and we left the shop carrying a heavy bolt each. The sun was still hot and the crowd was still thick, but I didn’t notice: my mind was still drowning, trying to make sense of what I had seen.

“So,” my mother said as we walked down the cobbled street, “you’re being awfully reserved. What’s on your mind? Hannah’s shop didn’t scare you, did it?” Her banter brought a smile to my lips and that seemed to break the spell I was under.

“No,” I stammered, “I saw a girl and…”

“Oh, a girl,” mother interrupted. “I didn’t realize you were old enough for that, yet.”

I blushed and blustered, trying to defend myself even if I knew she meant it kindly. “It wasn’t like that. She was… She was like me.”

“What do you mean?” mother questioned. “She was your age?”

“No. Her skin and her eyes. She was like me.” After I said the words, I remembered the woman’s warning and snapped my jaw shut. My mother and I stopped dead and wild shock shone in her eyes. She glanced around, then strode forward and beckoned me to keep close.

“Who else could it be?” I heard her mutter. “Dear mothers, who else could it be?”

“The lady told me not to speak of it,” I explained as I scrambled through the crowds to keep up.

“Naomi always was a fool,” she snapped. “That girl is not of this world. She knows that!” We were about to walk into the pavilion we had made beside our cart when I stopped and waited until mother turned around to look at me.

“Am I of this world?”

The fear in my mother’s eyes melted away. She set down her bolt of fabric and caught me in a hard embrace. “You are my son,” she said, and I knew it was true, but not the whole truth. My mind was full of questions and doubts. For the first time in my life, I was far from home, somewhere I didn’t belong, and I had found someone like me. We stayed in our tent for the rest of the day and my parents discussed the events of the day in hushed voices. Fauron and Karala pestered me about what had happened until my despondency won out. My brain could not stop going over the same questions endlessly, even into the night:

Why was she here?

Why was I here?

My mother thought that girl was dangerous. Was I dangerous? 

My family had certainly been threatened enough on my account. My thoughts ground in circles like a millstone around all that I had seen and heard.