Chapter 1

The Gathering

The rustling of the hay in the wind sounded like whispers to Esphe as she lay on a fresh heap, piled around her body by her watchful mate, Phese. He gently nudged her lower back whenever he recognized a pain rippling through her wooly body. It was unusual for her kind to birth at this time of the year. Esphe felt that this baby would be special. She didn’t know how, but she knew he was special. She knew that he was a male. Her feelings made her realize how near she was to the Creator. She seemed to feel Him all around her.

Creator, she thought to herself as another birth pain caused her body to tremble. She remembered so many nights her two-leg master, the man called Noah, would walk by their field when he thought they were asleep and ‘talk’ out loud to himself. Esphe never really knew who he was talking to, but it caused her to remember stories her grandmother and mother had told her.

“The Creator is everywhere! He’s in the clap of the thunder, the drip drops of the rain, in the warm sunshine, and He’s in the flash of the lightning,” her grandmother used to tell her.

She could remember asking her grandmother every time how she knew that, and she would answer the same every time, “He is in everything, and He takes care of everything. He created everything!” She even remembered the twinkle in her grandmother’s eyes, as she held onto a secret that only she knew.

Esphe felt another pain coming so she stretched out her rear legs to prepare herself. Phese gently smoothed the fur on the top of her head with his tongue, and he took a deep breath before he spoke, as he always did.

“Rain is coming. I can smell it. But something is different about this rain. The smell is so strong . . . ,” he stopped talking abruptly.

“What’s wrong Phese?” Esphe asked. He was standing over her now, and the muscles of his chest tightened. It seemed that he was lowering his head to prepare to fight, and he continued to gaze out of the shelter they were in. Again she asked him, “What’s wrong Phese?” She raised her head to see what he was focusing on, and her heart froze in the middle of a beat.

Flying creatures and living beings creeping on the ground were coming toward them. They had never seen these creatures before, and it was so many of them! One kind had four long legs with a neck as tall as a fruit tree, and another one was gold with a ring of fur around its head. When it opened its mouth, it sounded like the roar of the wind during a storm. Oh, there were so many! Another one had stripes all over its body, even on its ears. She also saw a giant creature with a horn in the middle of its nose.

How could something so large not make a sound? Esphe thought to herself.

Suddenly Phese walked away from her, moving towards the strange creatures. She saw creatures hanging from the trees by their tails and flying creatures of all different colors with huge beaks settling on the branches. Esphe watched in amazement as her usually quiet-natured mate walked up to a giant creature with a long nose that brushed the ground when it walked. It had sharp, white horns that stuck out of its face. The creature talked to her mate as if they were able to understand each other. A sharp inner kick to her side caused her to lay her head back down, so she closed her eyes. She would wait for Phese to return and then she would talk to him.

“Wake up Esphe. You haven’t had that baby yet?” A high crackly voice stirred her out of her rest. She slowly opened her eyes to see Old Gota standing over her.

“I don’t think you’re gonna have that baby here,” she said so matter-of-factly.

“Why do you say that?” Esphe asked.

“Haven’t you heard anything?” Mrs. Matter-of-factly asked again.

“No, I haven’t. I’ve been waiting for my mate to return so I can speak to him and keep whatever strength I might need for the baby.”

“Since you are ‘waiting for your mate,’ I’ll just be along then.” Old Gota turned up her nose and walked away. Esphe sighed in relief. She tried her best to be kind to Old Gota out of respect, but some days it was hard.

Old Gota had been around a very long time; since the beginning of time, with the Creator since the “sixth day.” She knew Old Gota was very wise, but still in her wisdom, she seemed not so wise. Esphe remembered the day that Old Gota told her not to do things Phese’s way, but to do things her own way. What she said didn’t sit well with Esphe at all. She remembered her grandmother and her mother telling her to do as her mate says and to always go to him first before making major decisions. They both told her the story of the first two-leg creatures and she never forgot it. They told her how the Creator loved them so much that He made them extra special, breathing His own life into them. They were different from every creation she had ever seen and her grandmother even told her that all creatures believed that the two-leg beings looked like the Creator Himself. No one had ever seen the Creator, but now all the other animals had an idea or a glimpse of what He was like.

She thought about the two-leg being that took care of her and Phese. He brought them hay to feed them and when they were out in the field, he watched over them. She didn’t call him by his name, but she knew something was different about him. The other two-leg beings that lived nearby stayed up all night until they could barely walk in a straight line; Noah had his family together talking to the Creator. When he and his family started to build that large box in the field, the other two-leg beings came by and said things that her master didn’t like.

“What a waste of time and wood!” they said.

“Something’s wrong with you! Haven’t you been doing that for years?”

“I believe you hear voices! You must be crazy to think it will rain enough to float that!” But yet her master toiled on.

“The box,” Esphe said out loud to herself. “Could it be the box?”

The box she was talking about was the biggest shelter she had ever seen. Her grandmother told her that her master had started it even before she had been born! Esphe remembered that lately as more days went by, the pounding and banging became less frequent. She even remembered seeing different kinds of hay and plants being put into the box; things she didn’t recognize.

The box itself was different. It was as large as the field they grazed on, and it had a pointed top. The huge door in its side seemed to be as large as her master’s house. There was black, sticky, strong smelling mud stuck in between the trees that made the box. There was something special about that box, but she didn’t know what.

“Esphe, are you alright?” Phese’s question interrupted her thoughts.

“Yes, I’m fine, but are you?” Her mate looked concerned, puzzled, and afraid. She had never seen this look on his face, and it worried her. She had always depended on him for protection in every situation, and his look alarmed her.

“I’ve been speaking with the other creatures.”

“Speaking with the other creatures? How? Sometimes we can barely understand the other creatures that live here with us, so how did you…?” He interrupted her,

“I can’t explain it. They could understand me, and I could understand them.” He paused. “They said the Creator told them to come.”

“The Creator?”

“Yes.”

“He spoke to them?”

“Yes.”

“But why?” she asked. He paused again, trying to make sure he even understood it for himself.

“The golden creature with the hair about his head and the large flying creature with the white head talked to me. They told me things I’ve never heard before. The golden creature, named Onil, told me he was from a far away place and that they walked a while to get here. He said the Creator told them to come here and look for the box in the field and to wait for a two-leg called Noah to speak to them. He believed the Creator and brought his mate, No’il with him as the Creator told him, and now he is here. As for the white headed flying creature named Legae and his mate Gleae, he said the Creator told him the same thing. But what I don’t understand…” his voice getting low, almost to a frightened whisper, “they don’t know why.” Phese could see the concern in his mate’s eyes. He too was concerned, about his mate, about his baby, about the box.

Why hadn’t the Creator spoken to them?

He mustered all the inner strength he could and somehow found a smile. He smiled at his mate and lay down on the hay behind her, close behind her.

“He hasn’t gotten here yet?” he playfully asked Esphe to ease her concerns.

“No, he hasn’t,” she paused. “How do you know it’s a male?”

“I just do,” he answered. “You try to rest and get some sleep. He may come at any time, and you need to be prepared.” Again he smiled at her and quietly watched as she fell asleep.