Free Havah by Tosca Lee Page B

Where was the adam? There was an outcrop here, farther up, where I could watch for him in the intermittent lightning. I climbed upward, along the rocky path. My foot slipped again and—ah, now there was pain! But I went on, clutching at grass and stone and shrub. The thunder rolled away, the sky flashed in silence.
    I came to the outcrop that lay like a great lintel across the crumbling stone beneath. There was a small opening here like a cave. In here I had taken my meal of grapes and licorice root on hot days, watching the deer and lion upon the valley floor. I dropped, grateful to crawl within its low space where I would wait for the adam or God or death.
    A low, grinding growl came from the darkness. I halted, wondering if thunder, that anger in the sky, could issue from the earth itself. In a flash of shock lightning, I made out the form of a wolf crouched as far back as she could go, her narrow bite bared, all gums and long incisors.
    “Dvash,” I called, recognizing the she-wolf that had licked honey from my fingers. She relented only a little, her lips still peeled from her teeth. But when I moved toward her, she bit out a sharp snap so that I jerked back, hitting my head and scuttling backward out of the opening.
    Had the animals turned traitor to us as well? I thought of Adah and her mate.
    Or had we turned traitor to them?
    I backed out into the rain. Stones and pebbles broke the skin of my knee, bit my palms. My foot throbbed.
    I sidled along the outcrop to a smaller ledge and drew back as far as I could, pulling up my knees, shielding my eyes. Below me, tree and shrub seemed to dance to a frenetic rhythm.
     
     
    BESIDE ME THE VINES shivered, fruit spilled to the muddy earth. And there—ah! There I had lain, arms outspread. Was it only yesterday that this ground had been holy? That I had been holy before the One that Is and God had lavished joy upon my face as one drops kisses onto the head of a babe?
    I lowered my head to my arms and wept, my tears carried away by rivulets of rain.
    The sky rumbled and the thunder surged back. This time I felt it beneath my feet. It vibrated up through the earth. Stones somersaulted down the hillside. One of them grazed my shoulder. The black sky beyond the mount was veined with lightning like the back of an unnatural leaf. I could see movement on the side of the mountain: creatures fleeing for the lowland—no, they were not creatures but stones.
    I scrambled to the outcrop and peered into the darkness. “Come out!” I shouted to Dvash. She snarled and snapped a ferocious bark that sent me jerking back. Did she understand not at all? Did she not know that I told her come out for her own good, this creature that had once obeyed me without a thought, that had licked honey from my fingers and bared to me her belly? “Come!” I shouted, but she shrank back even farther.
    I retreated the way I had come up, the cut in my foot forgotten, struck twice by falling rock. Down. I must get down.
    Where was the adam?
    A thudding crash sounded above me. I craned to see and cried out; the outcrop had closed like a snapping jaw. There was no sign of the wolf at all. I started back, meaning to go to her, but even in my strength, which was considerable, I knew I could not free her. A large stone tumbled past me. I clung beneath a small precipice, knowing I could not go back.
    The earth rumbled, and I lost my footing. Sliding, scrambling, I reached the low hills. And then I sprinted, as fast as the gazelle, for the eastern gate.
    When I got there, I spun back. The earth shifted again and the river lurched up in the bed. There was no adam.
    I tried to shout the holy name of God, which I had known, but when I opened my mouth, it was like something beyond reach, so that I stuttered the unintelligible.
    “It is I!” I cried. “It is I!” I began to tear at the pelt, but it was firmly made. Thunder drowned my cries in a roaring clap, and lightning flashed so brilliantly it blinded me for