“Yes,” he answered. “A smaller world that goes around and is bright at night.”
“Oh,” I breathed. “You mean the moon. Yes, we have a moon but it’s not very bright now. There was only a sliver showing just after sunset.” I felt Timmy sag. “Why?”
“We can do large things with sunlight and moonlight together,” came his answer. “I hoped that at sunrise tomorrow-“
“At sunrise tomorrow, we’ll be finishing our packing,” I said. “Go to sleep.”
“Then I must do without,” he went on, not hearing me.
“Barney, if I am Called, will you keep my cahilla until someone asks for it? If they ask, it is my People. Then they will know I am gone.”
“Called?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“As the baby was,” he said softly. “Called back into the Presence from which we came. If I must lift with my own strength alone, I may not have enough, so will you keep my cahilla?”
“Yes,” I promised, not knowing what he was talking about. “I’ll keep it.”
“Good. Sleep well,” he said, and again waking went out of me like a lamp blown out.
All night long I dreamed of storms and earthquakes and floods and tornadoes all going past me-fast! Then I was lying half awake, afraid to open my eyes for fear some of my dreaming might be true. And suddenly, it was!
I clutched my pallet as the floor humped, snapping and groaning, and flopped flat again. I heard our breakfast pots and pans banging on the shelf and then falling with a clatter. Mama called, her voice heavy with sleep and fear, “James! James!”
I reached for Timmy, but the floor bumped again and dust rolled in through the pale squares of the windows and I coughed as I came to my knees. There was a crash of something heavy falling on the roof and rolling off. And a sharp hissing sound. Timmy wasn’t in bed. Father was trying to find his shoes. The hissing noise got louder and louder until it was a burbling roar. Then there was a rumble and something banged the front of the house so hard I heard the porch splinter. Then there was a lot of silence.
I crept on all fours across the floor. Where was Timmy? I could see the front door hanging at a crazy angle on one hinge. I crept toward it.
My hands splashed! I paused, confused, and started on again. I was crawling in water! “Father!” My voice was a croak from the dust and shock. “Father! It’s water!”
And Father was suddenly there, lifting me to my feet. We stumbled together to the front door. There was a huge slab of rock poking a hole in the siding of the house, crushing the broken porch under its weight. We edged around it, ankle-deep in water, and saw in the gray light of early dawn our whole front yard awash from hill to porch. Where the well had been was a moving hump of water that worked away busily, becoming larger and larger as we watched.
“Water!” said Father. “The water has broken through!”
“Where’s Timmy?” I said. “Where’s Timmy!” I yelled and started to splash out into the yard.
“Watch out!” warned Father. “It’s dangerous! All this rock came out of there!” We skirted the front yard searching the surface of the rising water, thinking every shadow might be Timmy.
We found him on the far side of the house, floating quietly, face up in a rising pool of water, his face a bleeding mass of mud and raw flesh.
I reached him first, floundering through the water to him. I lifted his shoulders and tried to see in the dawn light if he was still breathing. Father reached us and we lifted Timmy to dry land.
“He’s alive!” said Father. “His face-it’s just the scabs scraped off.”
“Help me get him in the house,” I said, beginning to lift him.
“Better be the barn,” said Father. “The water’s still rising.” It had crept up to us already and seeped under Timmy again. We carried him to the barn and I stayed with him while Father went back for Merry and Mama.
It was lucky that most of our things had been packed on the hayrack the night before. After Mama, a shawl thrown over her nightgown and all our day clothes grabbed up in her arms, came wading out with Father, who was carrying Merry and our lamp, I gave Timmy into her care and went back with Father again and again to finish emptying the cabin of our possessions.
Already the huge rock had gone on down through the porch and disappeared into the growing pond of water in the front yard. The house was dipping to the weight of our steps as though it might float off the minute we left. Father got a rope from the wagon and tied it through the broken corner of the house and tethered it to the barn. “No use losing the lumber if we don’t have to,” he said.
By the time the sun was fully up, the house was floating off its foundation rocks. There was a pond filling all the house yard, back and front, extending along the hill, up to the dipping place, and turning into a narrow stream going the other way, following the hill for a while then dividing our dying orchard and flowing down toward the dry river bed. Father and I pulled the house slowly over toward the barn until it grated solid ground again.
Mama had cleaned Timmy up. He didn’t seem to be hurt except for his face and shoulder being peeled raw. She put olive oil on him again and used one of Merry’s petticoats to bandage his face. He lay deeply unconscious all of that day while we watched the miracle of water growing in a dry land. The pond finally didn’t grow any wider, but the stream widened and deepened, taking three of our dead trees down to the river. The water was clearing now and was deep enough over the spring that it didn’t bubble any more that we could see. There was only a shivering of the surface so that circles ran out to the edge of the pond, one after another.
Father went down with a bucket and brought it back brimming over. We drank the cold, cold water and Mama made a pack to put on Timmy’s head.
Timmy stirred but he didn’t waken. It wasn’t until evening when we were settling down to a scratch-meal in the barn that we began to realize what had happened.
“We have water!” Father cried suddenly. “Streams in the desert!”
