Forty Days: Neima's Ark, Book One by Stephanie Parent Read Free Book Online Page A

crimson into the horizon. I shovel food into
my mouth without tasting it, avoiding my parents’ faces, my
mother’s questions. I fall onto my pallet in the darkness, finally
allowing my tight limbs to turn to liquid as I collapse, and my
shoulder hits something hard. I force myself to sit up again, to
reach under my pallet for the offending item: the carving I
began…was it only a few days ago?
    Carving useless objects out of wood is
a strange, stupid, pointless habit. I grab the wooden figure by its
crude shoulders and carry it into the kitchen, and then I throw it
onto the smoldering fire.

Chapter Four
    On the fourth day after Noah’s
announcement, the animals begin to arrive.
    Even before that, though, the day
starts off strangely: Aunt Zeda is loading her cart with all manner
of supplies Noah never mentioned, flat clay oil lamps and flasks of
olive oil, woolen blankets, clay plates and bowls, extra tunics and
shifts. Can she have begun to believe in Noah’s predictions? She
mutters to herself as she works, shielding her cart as though the
rest of us are spies or thieves. Perhaps this endless dry heat is
making all of us a little crazy; it does seem to suck the moisture
from our very minds, leaving our thoughts as heavy and motionless
as rocks in a dry streambed. I wish the rain would come.
    I do not wish Kenaan would come to
Grandmother’s courtyard, but he does, greeting his mother and
sister first before sidling over to me as if this is any other
morning. “I might try to catch a hawk today, Cousin,” he says.
“Maybe even an eagle. Would you like to accompany me?”
    I won’t look at him, but I can hear
the smirk in his words. “No,” I say sharply, focusing on the grain
sack beneath my fingers.
    “ I thought not,” he
mumbles under his breath as he saunters off. So this, I guess, is
the closest we’ll come to acknowledging what happened
yesterday—unless he finds me alone. And I won’t let that
happen.

    ***

    When I cross the river on my way to
the ark, it’s not the animals I notice first, but the people.
Villagers are actually clustered on the far side of the river,
nearer the ark than I’ve ever seen them before. Jorin’s father
Munzir, a skilled carpenter and a powerful man in our village,
speaks in a low rumble I can’t quite make out and gestures wildly
with his arms. The others follow his movements with their eyes,
faces creased in what looks like worry or anger, looking
toward—
    Oh. Barred wooden cages are spread
everywhere, some taller than any man in our village, and a few
strange men roam among them. The traders and hunters, I guess, and
I catch sight of at least four of them. How odd that they’ve all
arrived at once, as though Noah really has orchestrated all this in
a way beyond the power of any man. And Noah himself—he’s speaking
to one of the traders, peering into a cage, pointing at a row of
items spread out on a blanket on the ground.
    Not just any items, though. I
recognize the way the sun glints off the metal, separating the sky
into golden bars and dazzling the eye, and I can’t keep from
running forward despite the growing pit in my stomach. I know even
before I’m close enough to see clearly that these are Father’s
greatest bronze works: spears and hammers, axes and knives, strong
shovels and durable jugs, cuffs and bracelets that exist for no
reason other than their beauty. This is years of toil, of time and
skill and sweat, laid out on the ground, and Grandfather Noah will
trade all of it for wild animals in wooden cages.
    A high-pitched squeal
comes from one of the cages, and I turn toward it—and find myself
staring straight at two lions. Two young lions, not newborns but
certainly less than a year old, with eyes too large for their heads
and wide, clumsy paws. I breathe out an instinctive sigh of relief,
and then realize how foolish that is—they may be young, and
certainly preferable to full-grown cats three times their size, but
they’re still vicious