CHAPTER Twenty-Nine
Auda
The cycles of the seasons melted away and, to Rapha’s ancient eyes, the children grew at an astonishing pace. Yes, he had experienced childhood before but never as the primary caregiver, where he was so busy with the demands of daily life they seemed to sprout up when he blinked.
At fifteen, Rafe towered over Rapha who had to look up to see the boy’s chin. Auda, whom they guessed to be eight, was tall by human standards but only reached Rafe’s mid-thigh. However, this did not prevent her following the lad like a faithful puppy, climbing, cultivating, and spending hours observing in companionable silence. For his part, Rafe could have gone much farther afield on his excursions if the determined imp with flaxen curls had not bounded up each morning and rushed through her duties to be certain she would not be left behind. Rafe made the mistake of departing before she woke only once, but the red-rimmed eyes coupled with the cold shoulder sufficiently chastised him. He never did it again—at least not without a good explanation.
Rapha’s heart warmed when he would watch the two traipse off together, Auda trotting and Rafe matching his pace to hers, lending a hand to help her leap their creek, a hand stubbornly refused by Auda whose motto in life was, “I can do it.”
But on the morning of Rafe’s seventeenth year, as Rapha noticed that the traveling cloak Auda used to trip over no longer reached her knees, he felt a chill of foreboding. Rafe was a man in so many ways and his devotion to the girl was evident. Rapha’s shoulders slumped as he realized his duty, a duty he could delay no longer.
That night when Auda slept, Rapha motioned to Rafe, who followed him out of the cave’s entrance. A cool breeze swept down from the mountain, stirring the pungent fragrance of their herb garden. As they sat to study the nighttime sky, another of Rafe’s favorite pastimes, the boy reached for a mint leaf, crushing it in his fingers before placing it on his tongue. Rapha’s stomach was unsettled as well. Their meal that evening had not been his best, for he had been distracted, rehearsing the words he would share with his son. With a sigh he reached for the mint.
“We need to talk about Auda,” Rapha began, pausing to recall the exact wording he had rehearsed. But Rafe was way ahead of him.
“I think I’ll go away awhile,” Rafe said. “I see the birds and the foxes, how their young leave the nest and make their own way. Adonai has made it clear it is time for me to do the same.”
“How will you tell her?”
The stark grief in Rafe’s eyes tore Rapha’s heart. “I don’t know. She spoke today of how many children she wants to have—only two babies at a time so they can be carried on our backs when we walk.” The boy’s head sank lower. “Don’t worry. I… I know I am a combination Adonai never intended. At times I feel wickedness in me and wonder, if I had lived with my true father….”
“I am your father, Rafe.”
“But the blood in my veins is not yours. Those who share my blood roam the land to destroy. Will I become one of them? Will I hurt Auda when the beast inside grows stronger?” The boy’s eyes, so dark and intelligent like Sheatiel’s, begged him to disagree.
Rapha sighed. The rehearsed speech was useless. Rapha reached to Adonai for wisdom while Rafe drowned in despair.
Rafe answered his own question, “The tiger is a killer at heart. The gazelle feasts on the grass. When they grow they cannot deny their nature any more than an apple tree can produce figs,” the bitter edge in Rafe’s voice cut through Rapha’s stupor.
“No, son. I have also witnessed a tree of the best seed, raised with the purest of sunshine and water, produce only thorns.” Rapha said, recalling Lucifer’s origin.
“How much harder is it for a bad seed, then, to produce good?”
“I cannot explain Adonai’s ways but what we think is impossible, He can do.”
Rafe leapt to his feet as if the ground burned him. “I want to believe that! If you only knew…” He glanced toward the cavern entrance, his face contorting with grief. “I must do what creation has taught me. I will not wait until the evil in me rises up to hurt those I love.”
“Please, Rafe, I have seen both—goodness can spring from evil—evil corrupts what is good. Lucifer was raised in purity while my old friend, Kal, grew immersed in poison. There comes a time each seed chooses what will feed and mold it. With Adonai as your source you will produce good.”
A flicker of hope shone in Rafe’s eyes but it dimmed quickly like a quenched spark. “But there is more,” he whispered. “If Auda remains with us, with me, she is cut off from others of her kind.”
Rapha could not argue the truth of that statement.
“How will she bear the children she desires? Will she remain content hiding in caves?”
Again Rapha was silent.
“I have enjoyed playing that we are a family but it is best for all if I dwell alone.” A spasm of rage caused the strong jaw to clench. “That is what you were going to tell me, right—that we, those like me, should never reproduce, that the offspring get larger and more evil with each generation?”
Rapha bowed his head. How could he lie? So far, that had been the trend, as if Lucifer had known from the start his mighty hybrid would eventually consume all creation. That was like him. Win, even if no prize remained when the war was over.
“Adonai is cruel,” Rafe said. “He allows me to love when I should not have lived.”
“No,” Rapha protested, “He led my steps to your mother. I loved her with all the passion a life mate could ever feel. You were a gift to me.”
“But you did not mate with her. Did Adonai kill her to prevent it?”
“No—I… cannot say what might have been.” That question opened uncomfortable possibilities, so Rapha hastened on, “There was something wrong, the birthing process was difficult, perhaps if I had not run away because I feared to love her, I would have been there… soon enough.”
“I was too large for her womb?”
He wanted to spare the boy but what else could he say? “You were large.”
Rafe winced as if that word sliced his heart. His head fell into his hands. “I have no choice. I will leave tonight.”
“Where are you going?”
They turned to see Auda’s bright curls shining in the moonlight. “How did we not hear you?” Rapha asked.
“Easy. You were not listening.”
She was right. Rapha must have been deaf and blind not to see the depth of Rafe’s attachment to the girl. Though the light was dim, Rafe’s face appeared pale as if a knife had plunged into his heart.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
“It is time I learned to care for myself,” Rafe said.
“You do that already.” Auda stated.
“Maybe when you are older, I will explain,” Rapha said. “For now, you need to get back to sleep.” He rose to usher her inside.
But Auda would not budge. Her eyes were still on Rafe. “I will wake in the morning and you will be gone.”
“It is not forever….”
“Yes it is! Your body says so.”
Rafe’s eyes pleaded for help but Rapha only shrugged, palms held out in defeat. They had taught her too well. Now, instead of reading wildlife, she was reading them.
“Why were you sneaking away without telling me?”
The pain in Rafe’s eyes disappeared when he turned to look at her. “I must go alone to seek Adonai’s path—without short legs to slow me.”
It was a direct hit. Auda’s eyes opened wide as if her lungs would never expand again.
Rapha placed an arm about her thin shoulders, “It is like the birds when the young leave their—”
“Good!” Auda yelled and shook off Rapha’s arm, her eyes brimming, “I am tired of trying to keep up with your stupid, long legs, and, and you make snort noises when you sleep, and,” she wiped a hand across her cheek, “j-just go live with those stupid, big, giant people and, I hope you never get to sleep, because you all snort!”
With a loud hiccup, Auda turned and ran into the cavern.
For a moment, even the insects were silent. Finally a nearby cricket gave a tentative chirp as Rafe let out a long breath. “It is better for her to hate me.”
“That was fear and panic,” Rapha sought to soothe the lad, “a long way from hatred.”
“But as the years go by, that is what it will become.”
Rapha took a deep breath of his own. “Remember what happened before she came to us? Her family was slaughtered, all but her and her mother, who were salvaged for the men’s… entertainment. Her mother pushed Auda down into a ravine to save her. She still has a hard time believing she was shoved for the sake of love.”
“And now I have done the same thing,” Rafe whispered. “Will she ever know it was for love?”
“Do you want her to?”
Rafe’s answer was almost too quiet to hear.
“No.”
The next morning Rafe was gone and the light was gone from Auda’s eyes. When Rapha asked her to walk with him she cried. When he asked her to fish with him she cried. When it was time to eat her favorite meal of tender fish with herbs she would not touch it.
In the coming days, Auda stopped laughing and talking. In fact, though she was taller than when she came to them, she reverted to the sad child Rapha first met. On rare occasions she would smile when they came upon a kit of fox pups or a baby goat, but the smile would soon turn to sadness.
Once in a while Rafe sent a raven to gather news but he never gave a report of himself. However, as time went by rumors circulated of a large man who would warn villagers of an approaching raiding party and then melt back into the trees to ambush the marauders, often using trained birds to peck at the eyes of the enemy. Thus Rafe, son of Sheatiel, adopted son of Rapha, became both a legend and an outlaw.
The Fall - By Chana Keefer
's books
- As the Pig Turns
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Breaking the Rules
- Escape Theory
- Fairy Godmothers, Inc
- Father Gaetano's Puppet Catechism
- Follow the Money
- In the Air (The City Book 1)
- In the Shadow of Sadd
- In the Stillness
- Keeping the Castle
- Let the Devil Sleep
- My Brother's Keeper
- Over the Darkened Landscape
- Paris The Novel
- Sparks the Matchmaker
- Taking the Highway
- Taming the Wind
- Tethered (Novella)
- The Adjustment
- The Amish Midwife
- The Angel Esmeralda
- The Antagonist
- The Anti-Prom
- The Apple Orchard
- The Astrologer
- The Avery Shaw Experiment
- The Awakening Aidan
- The B Girls
- The Back Road
- The Ballad of Frankie Silver
- The Ballad of Tom Dooley
- The Barbarian Nurseries A Novel
- The Barbed Crown
- The Battered Heiress Blues
- The Beginning of After
- The Beloved Stranger
- The Betrayal of Maggie Blair
- The Better Mother
- The Big Bang
- The Bird House A Novel
- The Blessed
- The Blood That Bonds
- The Blossom Sisters
- The Body at the Tower
- The Body in the Gazebo
- The Body in the Piazza
- The Bone Bed
- The Book of Madness and Cures
- The Boy from Reactor 4
- The Boy in the Suitcase
- The Boyfriend Thief
- The Bull Slayer
- The Buzzard Table
- The Caregiver
- The Caspian Gates
- The Casual Vacancy
- The Cold Nowhere
- The Color of Hope
- The Crown A Novel
- The Dangerous Edge of Things
- The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets
- The Dante Conspiracy
- The Dark Road A Novel
- The Deposit Slip
- The Devil's Waters
- The Diamond Chariot
- The Duchess of Drury Lane
- The Emerald Key
- The Estian Alliance
- The Extinct
- The Falcons of Fire and Ice
- The Fall - By Claire McGowan
- The Famous and the Dead
- The Fear Index
- The Flaming Motel
- The Folded Earth
- The Forrests
- The Exceptions
- The Gallows Curse
- The Game (Tom Wood)
- The Gap Year
- The Garden of Burning Sand
- The Gentlemen's Hour (Boone Daniels #2)
- The Getaway
- The Gift of Illusion
- The Girl in the Blue Beret
- The Girl in the Steel Corset
- The Golden Egg
- The Good Life
- The Green Ticket
- The Healing
- The Heart's Frontier
- The Heiress of Winterwood
- The Heresy of Dr Dee
- The Heritage Paper
- The Hindenburg Murders
- The History of History
- The Hit