landlost | ONC 2024

thirteen.

FOR THE FIRST time in my life, I prayed fervently.

Clasping hold of Ham's warm, limp hand, I begged Elohim to save him. I prayed that he would be spared from my sister's fate; that he wouldn't die under my watch. I offered the God my life instead. I wasn't a part of Noah's family yet, not until I married his son. But I knew Noah needed him more than me. I told Elohim I would believe —— truly believe in Him —— if only Ham lived.

I stayed with him in his tent those first few, awful days. Ham's leg was broken and his skin raged like a wildfire with fever, despite Ezamara and Sedeqet's best efforts. Maybe it was a mercy that he had been in a state of permanent sleep since his accident, although his shoulders occasionally twitched with a shudder, and his heavy sighs told me his dreams offered him no comfort.

I had cried my last few tears out that first night, along with Ezmara. Now I merely held vigil, irritated when someone came into the tent and interrupted my reverie of bartering and pleading with a God I wasn't sure could hear me, even if it was just Ada, giving me food.

Please. Please. Pleasepleaseplease. Sedeqet had told me once that sometimes, the words to the prayer didn't matter as much as my conviction. And I was convicted with ensuring Ham didn't die.

The pelt blocking the entrance way shifted, and Noah shuffled inside. The afternoon light beyond him blinded me before I returned my gaze to Ham. I couldn't let him die like Naamah had. I had to be there for him, looking over him.

Noah knelt beside me and dipped his head. I wondered, then, if he felt guilty. Maybe he deserved to. Ham had slipped on pitch on the third deck of the Ark and had fallen more than twenty cubits to the first one —— it was Japheth who had found him.

"I am so sorry," Noah said, his head still bowed. I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or his son. His shoulders began to shake violently, and I sat up in alarm until I realised the old man wasn't seizing out of hysteria, but weeping from his grief.

"I am so sorry, Ham," he rested his hand on his son's chest, and I could hardly bear the pain in his voice. I gently laid my palm on his, and we sat like that, feeling Ham's sturdy chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. Proving he was still alive.

Once he'd wiped away his tears, Noah cleared his throat. "You don't have to be here all the time, Na'el. Anyone can watch him." His blue eyes, so like Ham's own, were watery as I met his gaze.

"I need to be here," I replied quietly. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to explain to him why, only that it was a desire that went bone-deep. "I can't ... I can't lose him, too." My face crumpled, and Noah quickly caught hold of me as I leant forward, resting my head against his chest. Even thinking about it weighed down heavily on me.

"It's alright," he said gently, against my ear. His beard scratched against my hair, and his hands, though rough from hard work, were light on my shoulders. "It's alright, Na'el."

I clutched hold of the front of his kēthanoth and faintly felt the thumping of his heart against my knuckles. His embrace anchored me to the tent's floor, else I feared I would be thrown up into a whirlwind by the agony that raged inside my chest. I'd never been held like this before, not even by my own father. Like I was safe. Like I was loved.

"Your care for him is so plain to see," he said, after a few minutes had passed, and I'd stifled my shuddering; the noiseless, tearless cries that wracked my bones. "I know it pleases Elohim. And it pleases me, as his father."

I pulled back a little, searching Noah's eyes. "Can you give us your blessing, then?" I was  practically begging him. I didn't care how pathetic I seemed —— if my actions had satisfied him, and his God, how much longer would he make us wait?