Mort(e) could not find Wawa in the crowd. It was probably for the best. They had said all that they needed to say to each other. She was free to tell herself, along with these chanting primates who were part of her pack, that all these things had happened according to some divine plan.
Later in the day, after Mort(e) had wrapped his wounded tail, a great commotion rose up. The people were yelling so much that he at first thought something terrible had happened. But they were cheering because, for probably the first time in years, Michael was brought down from the ship and onto land. Four people carried his stretcher, with the stern bald nurse giving them orders, smacking their foreheads if they jostled the boy too much. Mort(e) suspected that she did not approve of this spectacle, but had been pressured into it by the Elders. She waved to Mort(e), probably after someone whispered to her that the messiah was observing her from a nearby hill. He waved back. For the next couple of hours, people took breaks from their labor to visit the boy and whisper prayers of thanks and mercy to their prophet. The nurse stood guard with her arms folded.
When the crowds around Michael began to thin out, Mort(e) and Sheba approached him. Michael was exhausted from the experience, his weak hands grasping at some unseen object dangling above him. The nurse patted his head, a gesture signifying love, sadness, impatience, and regret all at once. When she noticed Sheba, she leaned over and scratched the dog’s ears. Sheba liked this.
“Sheba the Mother, home at last,” she said. “We sang songs about you. Did you know that, girl? Yes! Yes, we did!”
Mort(e) imagined the woman with a dog of her own, in a house like the one in which he grew up.
“I’m glad that you found your friend,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“You know,” she said, turning to Michael, “I thought this whole thing would kill him.”
“Really?”
“His connection with the Queen was so strong,” she said. “I was worried that he would sense her death, and then he would die, too. But he’s still here, our little angel. So innocent.”
She squeezed his hand. “I wish the rest of us were so innocent,” she said.
Mort(e) wanted the boy to get a good look at him and Sheba, and to recognize how things had come full circle. Michael’s blank stare suggested that this would never happen. So Mort(e) steeled himself to accept that he would never see this child again. At least it was easier this time. Sheba was with him.
“There’s something you should know,” the nurse said. “I can’t tell the others. But I can tell you.”
“What is it?”
“When the Queen died, Michael said something. Something she must have taught him. Or some kind of message she sent to him in her last moments.”
The nurse cleared her throat and said, “Love is stronger than God.”
Mort(e) turned to Sheba for a reaction. The dog merely sat on her hind legs, content. Was this the summation of all that the Queen had learned, or some desperate acknowledgement of the only things that her advanced intellect could never fully comprehend? The only one who knew now was a shivering, half-dead child who had never asked to be a part of this.
“Is that true, you think?” the nurse asked.
“We have to live like it is,” Mort(e) said.
He approached Michael and reached out his hand. He stopped suddenly, expecting the nurse to grab it once again. But she was transfixed on the boy. Mort(e) put his palm on Michael’s shoulder, whispered goodbye, and walked away. When Sheba lingered, he called her, and she followed.
THEY RETURNED TO the hill and ate some of the food that Mort(e) had collected. When Sheba was finished, she rested her head on Mort(e)’s thigh. He scratched behind her ears. The sun went down, turning the great bonfire into the main source of light. The flames were reflected in her tired eyes like two wobbling orange jewels. Sheba seemed happy. He had once told her that he was the strong one, but perhaps he had it all wrong then, and always would have, were it not for her. His strength began as bravery, then quickly calcified into an impenetrable shell. An exoskeleton. Her strength was love, always love, nothing but love. He was not strong enough to live that way, but he wanted to be. He would try. He owed it to both her and himself. Anything short of that would be unworthy of all the suffering he had endured. The sadness had no point unless he gave it one.
Mort(e) reached into his bag and fished around for the pill. It was still there, hard and cold and small in his palm. He held it toward the fire. Sheba sniffed and apparently liked the scent enough to begin licking it. Mort(e) closed his fist. Sheba stared at him in confusion, her eyes asking, Where’d it go? Mort(e) wondered what she would be like. Perhaps she would not love him. Perhaps she would have EMSAH. He promised that he would still be there for her, no matter what. After all, he had carried Sheba with him for so many years. They would both be dead were it not for the other.
He opened his palm again. Delighted, Sheba gobbled up the pill. She seemed to expect another, but Mort(e) held out both hands to show that this was all he had. Sheba responded by licking his fingers. He rubbed her neck and ears.
“Sheba is alive,” he whispered. It would take at least a day until the hormone began to take effect. Mort(e) was not afraid. What more do I need? he wondered as she nuzzled against him. Why did anyone think that they needed anything else?
He dozed off, the stars spinning above him. Sheba snorted once before falling asleep.
LATER, SHEBA WOKE Mort(e) by slobbering on his face. The sky grew brighter as it approached sunrise. The stars dimmed. Mort(e) sat up to find a more formal ceremony taking place. All the soldiers gathered near the dying fire while Elder Gregory gave a sermon and then read from his thick book. The words made as much sense to Mort(e) as his words did to Sheba.
Figuring that he was as rested as he was going to be, Mort(e) stood up and led Sheba down to the gathering. They had to walk through it in order to get to his newly acquired boat. That was okay — the EMSAH crowd had apparently been instructed to leave him alone now that he had fulfilled his role as messiah.
“And let us now sing the Prayer of St. Francis,” Elder Gregory said, “the patron saint of animals.” Many of the congregants turned to one another and smiled upon hearing this. “We sing this to honor this new friendship that God has ordained,” Gregory added.
Sheba barked when the people broke into song. The noise prompted several people to swing their heads in her direction. They continued with the hymn.
Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love;
Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord;
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.
A woman sang the line about bringing love while the top half of an ant’s head was slung over her shoulder, presumably to be used as a helmet. Mort(e) tiptoed along the perimeter of the gathering until he was beside the charred, ashy rim of the bonfire.
The fire lit up the faces in the crowd. Their open mouths glistened as they belted out the lyrics about bringing light to darkness.
O Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love with all my soul.