 
# **WATER IS LIFE**

A Critical Press Media Benefit Book

edited and compiled by Winston Crutchfield

## **INTRODUCTION**

by John Wilkerson

When Winston asked me to write an introduction for this book I really didn't know what to say. I've never written an introduction for a book. I've never had anyone inspired to write a book because of something I did or said. It's an odd and humbling feeling to know that you've so profoundly impacted someone that they felt the need to not only support you but come alongside you and help you.

In December 2008, my pastor mentioned the Advent Conspiracy (http://www.adventconspiracy.com) project in church. I went home that day, watched the videos and was immediately moved to do something about the water crisis in the world. If they could partner with Living Water International (http://www.water.cc) then so could I.

I cooked up a plan, set a goal and started sending emails to Living Water International and fellow podcasters. I have to admit, this little fund-raising project started off very slow and given the state of our economy then (and now) I would have been happy raising $100 much less the $2,200 raised by the end of November 2009. In fact, if things go the way I expect, we'll raise over $3,000 by year-end not including the proceeds that come from this book.

Without water people cannot live, eat or have any kind of progressive culture. Throughout history, empires have been won and lost over water. All throughout the Gospels, Jesus was around water. He understood the significance of water in the lives of people. He preached near it, was baptized in it and even walked on it. Paul describes the Word of God as water that's able to cleanse our minds and souls. I knew something had to be done about the crisis in our world.

The fact that 800 million people live without clean water is a tragedy. The fact that the problem could be so easily and economically solved and yet still there are people dying daily due to water-borne illnesses is a failure on the part of the Church to rise up and provide a cup of water to those who desperately need it. We spend billions of dollars a year on "Christian Entertainment" and yet people are dying. Where is our sense of urgency? I'm guilty of it too.

Podcasting for Water is a way for me to give back, to take a look at where I spend my hard-earned dollars and make a difference in the lives of others. Hopefully, the little I've been able to raise through this project will inspire and encourage others to seek out ways they can impact the world in a practical and spiritual way.

_John Wilkerson is a blogger and podcaster on the subjects of technology and home schooling._

## **The Missionary**

by Deborah Caligiuri

The cool breeze felt refreshing after the stuffy airplane. Marina could hardly remember that it was summer back home in Pennsylvania; in Malawi, Africa, across the equator, it felt like fall.

The group of young people and their three leaders navigated through the small airport and climbed into vans to head to the church where they would be staying. Marina tried to see everything at once, drinking in landscape vaguely reminiscent of home. Gently bulging mountains rose from an otherwise flat terrain. What little grass she could see was brown, but for the most part the ground was covered in red dirt. Tall trees lent the only color to the very red-brown tones all around. The large, blue sky seemed the perfect canvas for the whole picture.

"Rina, look! She has a basket on her head. They really do that. It's not just on TV." A slim, blond girl with excited, blue eyes directed Marina to the sight.

"Look, Lilly, the houses. They look like something on TV too. They're just little shacks. She's got a basket on her head and a baby on her back." Marina stopped talking at the sight of the dark-skinned mother, her seventeen-year-old heart pounding louder than the van's noisy engine. Sitting back, Marina watched her teammates through exhausted eyes that refused to close for fear of missing something. Chatting amongst themselves, most of the other girls were quick to point out oddities or the primitive nature of the country. Marina's heart saw only beauty and people whom God cherished. Saddened but not surprised, Marina focused solely on the surroundings slowly disappearing behind their van. A group of children huddled together, playing some game or other in the dirt.

With a quiet gasp, Marina instinctively turned to share the sight with someone, anyone. Two of the boys were asleep, and her eyes fell on Samson. Very tall and quiet, Samson held himself a little distant from everyone but was the first to offer service when needed. Samson held her gaze for a moment, and Marina knew his heart was in the same place as hers. They smiled wearily at each other.

"Hey, Ashley, when do we start building the orphanage?"

The youngest of the three leaders turned from the front seat with a tired smile for Marina. "It's already been started, but we start our work on it on Monday. I know you probably feel a little lost from traveling for two days, but today is Saturday. Tomorrow we go to church and get over jet lag. Homesick yet, Rina?"

"I miss my family, but I'm not really homesick."

"I'm already tired of wearing dresses," moaned another girl on the team.

Marina nearly made a snippy comment back, but she held her tongue. Wearing dresses showed respect for the country and its culture. For many years it had been a matter of local law and even now was the accepted practice of the people. Besides, Marina loved how girly she felt in dresses and skirts.

"What are they wearing?" A boy named Thomas wrinkled his forehead in curiosity.

"It looks like yards of fabric wrapped around and tucked in tight."

"That is what it is." The native translator confirmed with a friendly nod. She gave them the name of the clothing, but Marina knew it would take time for her to remember it. Marina had never been good at learning languages, including her own. Chichewa had a beautiful sound, but it was completely intimidating to try to imitate.

For two hours they traveled the empty, narrow road in Malawi until they reached their destination of Lilongwe, the capital city. Their hosting church had a facility large enough to bunk the six boys, one male leader, fourteen girls, and two female leaders.

The further away from the airport, the less Marina could see of the mountains that had greeted her. Now they were only visible as faded portraits against the flat, brown canvas. Buildings were beginning to look like buildings and not shacks. Marina easily recognized the church as a church. On the outside, it wasn't so terribly different from her church back home. Though everything was still very primitive for a group of teenagers accustomed to every possible convenience at their fingertips.

As soon as the van door opened after a very long day of travel, the primal nature of the country confronted them directly. Most of the group needed to find a bathroom. It didn't look like a normal bathroom, but the function was almost all there. "Even in the winter," one of the adults advised them, "there is no hot water. It's cold showers all year round, if you care to shower with absolutely no privacy whatsoever under what might or might not be clean water – when it works at all." Eyebrows up, Marina decided it would be bucket baths for her for the next six weeks. Shaving legs? Well, only time would tell on that one. Her three skirts and one dress were all long, so....

Her first glimpse of the long concrete room with two rows of bunk beds instantly brought to mind the old war movies she loved to watch with her father back home. Her heart raced a little more with excitement. There wasn't much settling in to do. Each member had a large, duffel bag, and that was it. Marina hung back a little while the other girls all chose bunks and bunkmates. She finally saw an open bunk above Suli and made her way there. The "mattress" was a very thin woven mat tied tightly to the sides of the bed, and Marina silently prayed she wouldn't break the ropes and fall on Suli some night as she slept.

"Rina, you're not assigned to it, but will you help with KP tonight?"

"Of course, Glory. I'll be happy to. Do you need me right now? I'm ready." Marina loved her soft-spoken female leader from the moment she met the full-figured brunette.

Glory handed Marina a heavy bag and led her toward the door, stopping at another girl's bunk. "Dina, the kitchen is in the next room. Go out this door to your right and into the next room. You'll see us."

"Okay, Glory. I'm coming."

Marina stepped outside where the sun was considering going down for the evening. They walked a ways down the sidewalk to the next room. It was one long building with all the entrances and exits on the outside. To her left was a large open area, what she would have labeled a field at home, but it was all dirt. There were two lonely trees not even close to each other. A few local children were playing with a ball in the field. One boy looked curiously at the white people. He's never seen a white person before, Marina thought; she smiled and waved as she followed Glory.

The kitchen was really just an area with some counter space, a primitive sink, and something that looked like it might be a refrigerator, possibly. The only cooking appliance was an electric camping stove with two small burners that the team had brought with them. Its purpose was largely to heat the water so they could purify it with the tablets they had brought from the United States. Drinking the local water was dangerous enough for the natives and even more so for the pampered immune systems of Americans. Samson was already waiting for Glory when they stepped inside the room. Dina and Samson were assigned KP, but the leader felt they may need another hand since they were just settling in.

"Okay. Rina, unload this bag and give Samson the two big pots. Samson, please fill those with water, and we'll get them boiling as soon as we can."

The man leading the team entered the kitchen with a smile. "Glory, the fire is going strong for you to cook."

"Thanks, Daniel."

Samson and Marina looked at each other then began looking around the room for a fire or a place to cook. Glory smiled and walked to the far end of the kitchen to a half-wall made of brick at the end of the countertop. The teammates followed her out of sheer curiosity. The brick wall was open on top, and they looked down into an empty iron rectangle. Glory explained, "Outside, there is a hole in the wall where a fire heats this vat. This is where I will bake bread and cook simple meals while we are here. We brought most of our food in cans or other sealed packages, but we will need to prepare a few things here."

Excited, Marina wanted to help in every aspect of her journey. "May I help some time, Glory?"

"I'm sure you will."

Dina joined them, and the four people worked hard setting up the meager kitchen for their stay and putting together food for twenty-one people. Samson had the heaviest work with the water. Many, many pots of water had to be purified for not only drinking but also cleaning the dishes after dinner and storing in the 'fridge' for use in the days to come. Marina thought briefly that Samson made it look easy lifting pot after pot of water, and these were no small pots. He was tall and lean and quiet.

Finally, the work was done for the moment, and the team sat on benches to eat in the large empty room at which one end was the kitchen. It was unusually quiet through dinner. Days of travel, anticipation, and weeks of training were finally exhausting the eager group of missionaries. After dinner, Marina helped Glory set up two bins of water, one with bleach and one without, for the team to clean their dishes. Once the dishes were clean and the team was settled again, Daniel brought out his guitar for a quiet time of worship before bed.

At long last, Marina lay on her thin mat in her familiar sleeping bag having only her Bible for a pillow. Night was the hardest time to be away from home, not because she missed the creature comforts of America, but because that's when she longed for her family. She was living an entirely different life from theirs; it felt very strange. During her two weeks of training, God had given her a particular verse in answer to her pleas for peace at night. Zephaniah 3:17 " _The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."_ She fell asleep this first night in Africa hearing those words in her heart over and over again.

Just as the sun was beginning to appear, Marina woke with a start to the sound of a man wailing in a foreign language over a loud speaker somewhere in the city. Several girls woke to the sound. Glory was just finishing smoothing her sleeping bag in place and reaching for her dress when someone asked her about it. "It's a Muslim call to prayer, girls. You'll hear it every morning and evening." Marina felt goose bumps on her arms. It was a positively eerie sound.

"They don't have proper toilets, but they have the technology to make that sound all over the city?" quipped Suli groggily.

A few girls chuckled as they all rolled out of bed and started their day. It was still hours before the church service, but that gave time for breakfast and quiet time. Quiet time was half an hour of pure silence when each person was required to spend time on personal Bible study. At first Marina found it challenging, but now she looked forward to the time to start her day with the energy found in the words of the Lord.

When the time was over, Marina joined everyone back in the big room and saw the translator and two more nationals with Daniel. All three would be translating and working with the team for the next six weeks. Quiet Samson made his way to the two male translators and began speaking with them when the group was given the freedom to do as they pleased until time to walk across the dirt to the church.

Marina looked through the window to see several children gathered on the dirt field, staring curiously into the big room. "Can we go outside, Glory?"

"Sure."

Marina and several others went outside to see the children. It was only when she drew closer that she realized she couldn't tell the difference between the boys and girls. Only some wore shirts, none had shoes, and all had hair that only barely covered their heads. It wasn't obvious without closer examination which were which. One child came to Marina with a hand stretched out, saying something in Chichewa. When the child was directly at Marina's feet she could see from the facial features that this was a girl, maybe five years old. The girl lifted her hand and kept saying something over and over. Marina knelt to eye level to try to communicate. When she did, the girl began to pet Marina's long, brown hair. She pulled on it then began stroking again.

The other children approached different members of the team and began doing the same thing. After only a few minutes, the number of children with their hands all over the team members became overwhelming, and the team retreated back into the safety of the big room. Marina stood at the window and watched the children as they excitedly talked with each other and peered into the big room. Her heart wanted to be with them, sharing God's salvation with them, but her common sense told her she was not equipped to accomplish that, yet.

"You want to bring them home and give them clothes and shoes?" One of the male translators approached Marina with a friendly smile and almost teasing question.

"No. My home would probably terrify them. I just want them to know how great God is and can be for them, McDuff."

McDuff was a Bible school college student, fully clothed and with proper shoes. "Then no matter what language you speak, you will be able to tell them this."

Marina smiled shyly, only praying that his words could be true of her. "I hope."

That day was in every way a day of rest. After the service, which charmed Marina, the whole team took to their bunks and slept, trying to let their bodies catch up with the clock.

The next day they started working, and they worked with passion. After a brief lunch of peanut butter sandwiches, they continued working until the sun was so low they didn't have adequate light. Exhausted, they returned to the bunker for a dinner most were too tired to taste, then a time of worship which refreshed the weary, dirty teens. Afterwards, they had opportunity to wash in the dark bathhouse and fall into bed.

For three weeks they worked this way. The days were hard work, but the teens found ways to enjoy the time and get to know each other even better. Once a week, they would stop work at lunchtime and go into the heart of Lilongwe to do street ministry and have an opportunity to experience the culture. They explored the open markets and the closed shops. They had lunch in a garden in the center of the city. Marina loved every bit of it. She went into a shop along a busy street. It had shelves to the ceiling of fabric for their wraps and woven blankets. A light blue blanket with a darker pattern caught Marina's eye, and she knew she couldn't leave the shop without it.

They visited a school to do a puppet show and bring God's word, and Marina was enraptured by the way the people would just start singing. She had no idea what they were saying, but they would sing as if an organized choir rather than just people going about their business. And the harmonies were amazing. Everywhere they went, Marina noticed this phenomenon. The people would see them and listen, then sing in response. It was incredible.

It seemed like on those days when they didn't work a full day, they worked even harder than the physical labor at the orphanage project. So many places they ministered, and so many people thirsty for this gift of life. The more of the country she saw, the more Marina loved it and the stronger her desire to bring real life and real hope to its people.

At the end of the three weeks, Daniel stood amazed at the door of the orphanage. In his sixth year leading a missions team like this, it still touched him how much work a group of teenagers could accomplish when their hearts were focused. The Saturday after they finished the orphanage project found the teens doing laundry and packing to leave the concrete bunker for their next location. They knew only that they would be training nationals to continue in ministry once the team left. By evening, the vans were loaded again, and they were on their way out of the city. Marina could hardly contain her excitement.

McDuff approached the girl, "Rina, your eyes are going to explode with happiness. Why?"

"Because we're going to really get to touch people's lives now, McDuff."

"But Rina, you've been doing that for the last three weeks."

"Now it will be personal, McDuff."

McDuff smiled softly at the pretty teen. "It will be very personal for the little girl who sleeps in the bed you prayed over yesterday. I saw you go to every bed and pray for just a moment for each child it would hold. That's what you did, isn't it?"

"Yes," admitted Marina quietly.

"You are a good girl, Marina. Don't take lightly any job God would ask you to do for Him. Somewhere, somehow, it touches people according to His design."

Nodding slightly, Marina felt her cheeks heat, grateful for the darkness in the van. From the corner of her eye, she could see Samson watching her and knew he'd heard the conversation through the noise in the van. Samson leaned forward a little and spoke for her ears only. "I agree with McDuff about not overlooking any job God gives us." Marina's eyes slid closed as she nodded again. She took their words very deeply to heart and wanted to be thankful that God used her in any way. At the moment she felt selfish. Samson continued, "But I understand what you mean about wanting to personally reach people."

His quiet words drew her eyes to his. "Thank you," she mouthed silently. Samson covered her hand with his and wasn't quick to remove it.

Exhausted but exhilarated, the team reached their destination, and the tired eyes hardly took in how much more primitive their dwelling was. Those who noticed weren't bothered. It was life on the mission field, sort of. The small civility of the bathhouse was no more. Now the toilets were mere holes in the ground surrounded by four thin walls of whatever could be found. There was not even the option of a half-working, cold shower. The cabin didn't look so different except that windows spread across one wall where the bunker had no source of natural light. The bunk beds looked identical to the ones they'd left behind, and that small familiarity helped the team to settle in quickly and find sleep. Tomorrow loomed uncertainly in front of them, but they were sure they were ready to face it.

The next morning, Marina woke to silence. She had grown accustomed to the sound of the Muslim call, and not hearing it was now startling. "Glory?" she called in a sleepy voice.

"What, Marina?"

"Where are we?"

"We are at a campground owned by our missions group. We won't be hearing the man on the loudspeaker anymore."

"That's nice."

Sunday morning was a time of refreshing. The team dressed and gathered in another building on the grounds, which was the meeting hall. Daniel led them in worship and a short service then spent a long time further explaining what they would be doing. The next three weeks would see them training about a hundred young men and women to reach out to their own country with God's word. Each team member received his or her teaching assignment.

Marina would be teaching puppets with the help of McDuff, and she would be helping prepare lunch for the camp. Those were her two main assignments, and there would be many more tasks for her to do in between those, depending on the need. With the camp resting on a lake, Marina felt quieted and awed by the simple beauty surrounding her. Once tasks and schedules were settled, the team played games and simply passed the time fellowshipping with each other. Monday morning would surely arrive with its workload.

Arrive it did with chilly breezes and clear blue skies. The camp nestled in a wooded area. The whole country seemed rural to Marina, so she could hardly classify these woods as a forest or any other label. Her "classroom" was just on the other side of the main structure, under a thin canopy of very tall trees. Maybe fifteen dark faces looked eagerly for her instruction, and Marina couldn't help but smile. She knew most of them understood English if she spoke clearly and did not use contractions or euphemisms. Marina didn't rush her forty-five minutes of puppets. She had time to teach them everything over the next weeks. While teaching, she spent a good deal of time in open discussion with the nationals and found some very good friends during the course of the camp.

Every day, she went to the "kitchen" which was little more than a small room with some rough wooden surfaces. Though it had two very large iron vats that sat down inside a brick frame. Outside there was a hole in the wall similar to the first kitchen where a fire would be burned to cook food for the camp in those deep vats. Marina couldn't help but smile as each day she chopped forty-eight tomatoes and eighteen onions. If only her mother could see her now. These would be cooked together with a few other ingredients and served on top of what Americans would call grits or polenta. It was a finely ground maize cooked until thick enough to be eaten with hands.

After her service in the kitchen one day, Marina stepped out of the hot, cramped room to give Glory as much space as possible. "Hi, Ruff, what are you doing?" She greeted one of the adult nationals in charge of the teens at the camp. He was bent next to the fire hole with a stick shoved part way inside. Marina knew better than to hope he was roasting marshmallows.

"I found a treat, and I'm cooking it."

Marina knelt next to him. "What is it?"

Ruff pulled the stick from the fire with his eyes shining. Marina gasped and moved back quickly. He had three small mice on his skewer.

Laughing delightedly, Ruff had expected her reaction. He had been to America on a missionary trip of his own and was familiar enough with the culture to know that mice were not something Americans consumed.

Marina stood quickly with a wide smile. "Enjoy your treat, Ruff."

His laugh followed her as Marina headed to the bunkhouse to wash her laundry and her hair before her next class. She did her chores and still had time to listen to the music class for a few minutes before her next class. She loved the way these Africans would sing without inhibition. After listening for a moment, Marina spent the last five minutes of her free time walking at the edge of the lake and praying for this people and this country. Very quickly and very deeply, she was falling in love.

The days continued this way, and one afternoon Marina was gifted with a chance for an adventure. Glory needed to walk to the local market to purchase more vegetables. Marina, Samson, and McDuff accompanied her. It was a dirt path at best, and Marina had the vague sense of being in a village when they came across a semi-circle of homes with a sort of courtyard in the middle. Marina and Samson waited in the courtyard while McDuff and Glory approached one of the homes.

Marina smiled in delight at the white eyes that stared in wonder at her from very dark, beautiful faces. One little girl, maybe three years old, came up to Marina and tugged on her skirt. Marina sank to the ground and pulled the girl into her lap. The little girl stroked Marina's hair with awe in her beautiful, round eyes. The girl was quickly distracted by the plastic water bottle on a strap going across Marina's body. The team members carried their canteens when they went anywhere. It was the only safe thing for them to drink. "It's water, little one." Marina knew the girl couldn't understand, so she made a drinking motion. The girl's eyes grew wide, and she started speaking excitedly and touching the water bottle. It seemed like she was asking for a drink, but Marina wasn't sure.

"She wants some water, Marina."

Marina looked up in surprise to meet Samson's eyes. "You understand her?"

"Yes. I've been studying Chichewa before we came and since we've been here. I can speak it almost fluently. I pick up languages easily, and this one isn't that difficult."

"It is for me. I'm stupid when it comes to languages. I've taken Spanish for two years, and I still can't say more than hello or goodbye." While she spoke, Marina opened her bottle and helped the little girl drink. "I wish I could give you the Water you need the most, little one." With a gentle smile, she stroked the girl's round head. "I wish I could just tell you God loves you. This may be your only chance to hear it, and I'm too ignorant to be able to say it to you."

Samson went to his knees in the dirt next to her and smiled at the little girl. "You just told her by sharing your water with her, but I'll teach you how to say God loves you, if you'd like."

"Just tell her for me, please. Maybe you can try to teach me later, but I doubt it'll work."

Samson took the little girl's hand in his and spoke softly. They seemed to have a sort of conversation for a moment, and the girl climbed from Marina to Samson. The young man clearly had no idea what to do with that.

Marina laughed lightly. "Hold her, Samson. She just wants some love."

"I don't know how to do that. Maybe you should take her." His already quiet voice was gravelly.

"You can do it."

Samson met Marina's eyes, "You struggle with languages. I struggle with this."

Marina could see how deeply it bothered him. She understood that feeling. It was how she felt about talking to the little girl. Helpless. "I'm sorry. Just put your arms around her like you're hugging your mother or something."

The young man's arms slowly went around the little girl. "I don't have a mother."

Surprised, Marina couldn't take her eyes from his. Samson so obviously had an incredible heart, but he remained a mystery in many ways. To hear him confiding in her thrilled Marina. "I'm sorry. Do you... do you have other family?"

"No. I'm an orphan. Since I was seven."

"Where do you live? Where are you going home to when we leave?" Marina's compassion and concern for Samson overwhelmed her.

"Well, before I came on this trip, I was at a foster home. I turned eighteen during our training camp, so I'm not in the system anymore. My youth pastor and his wife want me to live with them, but I don't want to get in the way. I'll just be there until I go to college in the fall. I'll be fine, Marina."

"My head knows that, because I know God is going to care for you, but my heart wants to do it for Him. You're an amazing guy, Samson. You deserve every possible blessing."

"I'm a sinner saved by grace, Marina. Nothing more."

Marina smiled softly. "I'm sure that's why you've got such a heart for missions. Where are you going to school? What will you study?"

Still holding the little girl, the two young people shared a little of their lives with each other while waiting on Glory and McDuff.

The next day, Daniel asked Marina to help him with a project during her free time. He brought her close to the lake where a pile of roughly chopped poles lay.

"We need to build a shower house for the campers. It's going to be very basic. Just an enclosure for modesty, really," he added quickly at Marina's intimidated glance toward the logs.

"I'm here to help. Tell me what to do."

They started by marking the ground with indentations where they would dig holes for the poles. Daniel instructed Marina to dig a certain depth and pack the dirt back around the pole once it was in the ground. "I have to get Ruff going on a project, Rina. Are you okay by yourself?"

"Sure. I'll be fine. After I set all these poles, I tie them together with this twine then come find you because I don't know the next step."

"Sounds right. I'll try to send someone down to help."

"Thanks."

With a wave and a smile, Marina started digging the next hole. She worked steadily and had most of the poles standing when Samson arrived. "Hey. Daniel sent me down to help. Wow. You work fast." Samson eyed the poles and the spots dug for them. "Are you sure those holes are deep enough?"

"I think so. I've never done this before. You tell me."

"I've never done it either, but I know if they aren't in there deep enough the wind will blow the whole thing over. I guess it's okay. They seem steady."

Marina was glad to let Samson take charge and show her what to do. Just as they started to tie the poles together, a strong gust of wind nearly knocked Marina down and ripped all the poles Marina had planted, out of the ground. With a gasp, Marina looked up to Samson, and the two of them started laughing and re-dug the holes much deeper. They worked until it was time for their other obligations, and after dinner they returned to finish the project.

After their trip to the village, Samson seemed to seek Marina's company in the evenings. Marina's heart was growing in many ways, and by the last week of camp she knew that even though she would return to America, part of her heart would stay in Malawi.

The night before they were to leave, the team stood in two rows, facing each other, and the campers had a chance to walk through and give a final handshake. Marina was crying by the fifth national. Every national who shook her hand also gently stroked her palm with a finger. She never asked for certain what that meant, but she knew it was some sign of fondness.

Her tears wouldn't stop. Long after the campers were in their own tents, Marina continued crying. She asked permission to walk to the lake, and Daniel let her go as long as Samson went with her. Samson stayed silent as they walked the short distance and stood by the lake. It was a beautiful night with the moon making a shimmering path across the water. Marina wanted to stay, but she knew her place was in America for now.

"I understand how you feel, Marina," said Samson quietly.

"I wish I could stay, but I know it wouldn't be like this if I did."

"I know. We're still just kids. We need to go home and grow up before we'd really be ready for a mission field, full time. But I want to stay too," he admitted.

"I'm sorry you got babysitting duty."

"I'm not. You're part of the reason I don't want to leave."

Marina's eyes went to his face quickly. "Really?"

Samson rubbed the back of his neck, looking like he wanted to take back the words. "Yeah. Really."

"I feel the same way, Samson. You're part of why I don't want to leave too. We can stay in touch."

"I'll be in Florida. You'll be in Pennsylvania."

"That doesn't matter."

"You'll forget about me soon enough, Marina."

"No, I won't!" Marina's passion surprised her. "Sorry. I didn't mean to yell."

Samson dropped his head for a moment. "This has been really cool, but I don't know that what we have can last in the real world."

"Why not? It's a really great friendship. Why would it change?"

With a shrug, Samson stared at the water. "That's life, Marina. No one is there forever."

"God is, Samson. Yesterday, today, and forever."

"Believe me. If I didn't have God, I'd have given up completely a long time ago."

Nodding her head with fresh tears, Marina kept her eyes on the water. "I won't push you to stay in touch with me, but can I give you my address or my email? I want hope, Samson. I want the possibility that one day you'll try to find me."

Crossing his arms in front of him, Samson nodded thoughtfully. "Let's plan to meet ten years from now."

"What?"

"In ten years, let's meet here again."

"I don't know the name of this place. Let's meet in Lilongwe. In the garden."

"Okay. I know I'm coming back. If you do too, I'll know this is real."

Marina looked up to see his profile. "Can I still give you my email? I can't imagine not being able to talk to you. I'll miss you too much."

"I'll miss you too," said Samson, finally meeting her eyes. "Yes. Give me your email."

"I will. Sit with me on the plane tomorrow."

"Of course."

They turned and slowly went to the bunkhouse for the night. The next day was a flurry of activity mixed with a lot of waiting. Marina didn't feel like talking and laughing with the rest of her teammates. She was going home, and she felt very torn about it. At long last, they boarded the plane, and Samson found his way to the seat next to her. She let her head slowly fall against his shoulder, risking a reprimand from Glory or Daniel.

The next twenty-four hours were grueling and unkind in the most unkind way. It didn't feel real when they finally settled in London at the place they would debrief for the next few days before flying into New York then on to their individual homes. It was supposed to be a readjustment period before returning home. Samson and Marina stayed together as much as allowed. Marina's tears started fresh a week later when she stood in JFK airport watching Samson get on his plane home first. Her flight into Philly would be unforgivingly short.

Seeing her family again was more comforting than she had expected. Exhausted and emotionally spent, that first hug from her dad made it wonderful to be home again. Modern society felt very strange. Readjusting to using a normal bathroom and having clean water available to wash her hands was almost irritating.

Marina stepped into her comfortable, middle class, home and felt as though she were in a foreign country, yet at the same time, it felt normal. In her room, Marina stood staring at the bed for a while. Even in London, the team had slept in sleeping bags in tents on the ground. It had been more than two months since she'd slept in a bed with a mattress and a pillow other than her Bible.

"Rina, I have something for you," said her mother softly from the doorway.

Turning with a smile, Marina went to her mother's arms for a hug before receiving the gift. "I have a gift for you too. For all of you."

"Are you okay, honey? You haven't said much since we picked you up."

"It feels strange, Mom. I'm sure I'll be fine in a few days."

"Here. Your sister and I were shopping and found this. We both instantly thought of you."

Marina opened the jewelry case her mother handed her and felt the tender expression of her mother's heart for her. It held a bracelet with three charms. A heart, a Bible, and praying hands. Still, at the moment, jewelry felt very extravagant.

"Thank you, Mom. It's beautiful."

Though she hadn't much room for things, Marina had bought gifts for her family. She had wood carvings for her brothers and father and woven gifts and hand crafted jewelry for her mother and sister.

Life presented a challenge for Marina for a while. Only a week after getting home, school started. She felt crowded and disappointed and covered it with cheerfulness.

Then she received an email from Samson. All it had was the date and place where they would meet in ten years. Smiling, Marina felt tears as she replied with, "I'll see you there." She moved his email address into her address book.

The days wore on, and Marina got involved in extra-curricular activities at school all the while feeling like she was somehow disappointing God by becoming part of this modern, pampered world again. She went out with her friends in a group but never dated. Only her family knew about Samson. Her sister Malinda thought it was very romantic, as any thirteen year old would. Her brothers didn't pay it much mind, but her parents waited, watched, and prayed. On the outside, Marina seemed okay. Her parents slowly let themselves feel safe about her heart and mind.

Then Marina graduated from high school.

She wanted nothing to do with graduation. She didn't want to go to any parties, and she didn't even want to buy a cap and gown. "I just don't want to," she would say over and over again. "It's all so superficial and selfish."

"It's a tradition, Rina. There's nothing wrong with participating," said her father gently.

Marina firmly shook her head. "Don't buy me anything, Dad. You can send money to McDuff to help the church he's planting. I got a letter from him yesterday, and I know he could use the support even though he didn't say it."

"If that's what you want, that's what I'll do, and you don't have to go to graduation. If you feel this strongly, I'm not going to force you."

Relieved, Marina hugged her father. "Thank you, daddy."

"You're still going to nursing school in the fall though, right?"

"Yes, Dad. More than ever, I know nursing is what God wants me to do. I'm going to go check my email."

It had been two weeks since she'd heard anything from Samson. They kept up rather regular, though very brief, emails. Her face split in a smile. She had an email.

"I miss you," was all it said, but it was enough.

"I miss you too. I'm praying for you," was her reply.

Marina dove into her new studies with passion. Part of her heart never readjusted to the frivolity of American life, and she was in constant internal conflict which kept her on her face before God. The more maturity and life experience she gained, the more settled her mind became though her heart still always felt the difference.

For about five years, Samson and Marina stayed in touch. Then emails became scarcer and eventually stopped all together. By this time, twenty-four year old Marina was an RN and established in the neo-natal intensive care unit at the hospital in Philadelphia.

In so many ways, it felt like she was once again on a mission field. What hope and peace she could share, she did. Her tongue was quick to give God praise for health and turn to Him in pain for peace.

Though it was painful when she could no longer reach Samson, she didn't fall apart. His emails kept bouncing back with an incorrect address. She tried Facebook and other social networking sites, searching for him, but he was gone.

Oddly though, she still had contact with McDuff. He now had access to the Internet, and they were able to stay in touch much more regularly than the post would allow. In the doctor's lounge with her laptop, Marina was stealing a break from her shift in the wee hours of the morning, and got an email from McDuff.

_Hello Marina,_

_I hope you and your family are well this day. The work here continues with many blessings, but we still need your prayers. The number of orphaned children grows daily, and our ministry never seems enough._

_Tell me more about your ministry in the hospital. I'm pleased to hear that you have grown into such a godly woman._

_Send me a snap of yourself, and I will send snaps of the work here._

_McDuff Banda_

Marina couldn't help but smile. She would get her sister to take a picture of her in her scrubs and email it to McDuff tomorrow. Marina and Malinda had moved into a shared apartment about a year earlier.

"Hey, Rina. How's it going? Quiet night?"

"Not really. I escaped for a minute. How about you, Dr.. Fred?" Marina smiled at the young resident working in the cardiac care wing.

"Okay, I guess. Haven't lost anyone tonight. That's a blessing."

"I hear you," Marina agreed.

"Don't you get off at three?" Dr.. Fred asked.

"I do, if nothing happens."

Chuckling, Dr.. Fred leaned against a locker. "I understand that. I'm off at three also. Can I buy you a cup of coffee somewhere when we're off?"

Marina smiled widely. "What's open at three in the morning?"

Dr.. Fred shrugged. "WaWa?"

Standing and stowing her laptop, Marina smiled at the young doctor. "Okay then. It's a date."

She often had conversation and coffee with Dr.. Fred after their shifts. His job was heart-wrenching most of the time, and the daily contact with suffering wore heavily on the good-hearted man. Marina's job was no less agonizing or stressful, and she knew Dr.. Fred could see the peace she carried through all of it. She had no doubt this was the thing urging him to seek her company. Just a few hours later the two of them left the cares of the hospital and stopped at the local convenient store for coffee.

It was fall in Philadelphia, and the air was crisp and fresh. If anything could be fresh in the concrete jungle that was her home. When they stepped outside with tall cups of hot coffee, a strong breeze caught Marina off guard and nearly blew her scarf from her neck. In a flash she remembered the primitive shower building being blown down and smiled. When she looked up, it was not to Samson's eyes, but to Dr.. Fred's, and Marina knew a moment of disappointment.

"Can I walk you home, Rina?" asked Dr.. Fred with twinkling eyes.

"Since you live on the floor above me, I think you should."

Most nights, this was their conversation. Marina never pushed God in Dr.. Fred's face. She simply let him see the difference in her life. In America, she had quickly learned that most people had no desire to hear about her incredible, amazing, loving, and righteous God. Dr.. Fred was different in some ways. His interest in God was subtle, and Marina knew he would ask when he was ready. Her friendship with him drove her mind to begin questioning the reality of the fairytale meeting with Samson.

"You seem tired or something tonight, Rina. Everything okay?"

Marina looked up to the doctor with a smile. "I'm okay. I was thinking about an old friend."

"A guy?" teased Dr.. Fred.

"Actually, yes."

"Someone that broke your heart?" His teasing turned into concern.

"No. Well, not yet at least. I'm just feeling a little melancholy I guess."

Dr.. Fred opened the door to their building. "That's a first, Marina. I've never known you to be upset."

"I'm a human being, Fred. My heart feels the same things yours does. When something is painful, I hurt. When something is funny, I laugh. When something touches me, I feel compassion."

"I thought God prevented you from feeling all the mess we deal with . You're always so calm."

"He doesn't prevent me from feeling, but He does comfort me."

There came a day when Dr.. Fred and Marina left the city by train to spend the weekend with her parents in a neighboring borough, Thanksgiving weekend. Marina's parents lived in a house on a street lined with sixty-year-old oak, maple, and pine trees. It was quiet and lovely.

Marina sat on the floor in front of the massive brick fireplace she had enjoyed since she was a child. The warmth of the crackling fire felt good on her back. Dr.. Fred pulled a poker from the flames and gingerly took the marshmallow from the end of it, popping the treat into his mouth. Instantly the image of Ruff with a skewer of mice came to Marina's mind. She laughed softly.

"What's so funny?"

"I remembered something that happened when I was in Africa years ago." Marina stifled another giggle.

"You've been to Africa?"

Marina told him the tale of the mice and a little of her trip to Africa.

Dr.. Fred listened with a wide smile and settled next to her on the brick hearth. "So you even had this relationship with God, as you say, when you were a kid?"

"Yes. I was only five or six when I asked Jesus to be my personal Savior, but of course it was years before I could fully comprehend that relationship."

"I bet nothing bad ever happens to you."

With a soft smile, Marina shook her head. "That's not true, Fred. I'm just a sinner saved by grace. Life is hard. I just don't have to deal with the hard stuff by myself. I make mistakes, lots of them, but I can be forgiven if I ask."

Dr.. Fred studied her quiet profile for a time. "That sounds ridiculously simplistic."

"You expected something complicated?"

"I don't know. I guess I did."

They fell silent again, and Marina knew it wasn't time to press the point.

Seeing his wrinkled forehead and knowing his mind raced with questions and arguments, Marina felt her heart warm in the places that had grown cold and doubting. Her soul came alive again at the most rudimentary level as a vessel for God to use to pour His living water into the lives of others. It overwhelmed her.

"What's that smile about?"

"I was thinking about my old friend again."

"The one who hasn't broken your heart yet," clarified Dr.. Fred.

"That's the one."

"Do you expect him to break your heart?"

"I don't know. I'll find out in about two years," Marina said.

"What? Two years? Is he in the military? In Afghanistan or something?"

"I don't know. I don't have any idea where he is, but I have a day and a place to meet him again, in two years."

Dr.. Fred pressed on, "All right. Now that you've teased me with it, I have to hear the whole story."

"God figures very prominently in it. Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"I'm dying with curiosity. Just tell me."

Marina shared her story with Dr.. Fred, and in the speaking of it, her faith was renewed and her purpose sure.

"So when's the last time you heard from him?"

"Three years ago." She knew it to the day but kept the details to herself.

"Wow. And you still think he's going to meet you there?"

"I know that I will be there, and I believe Samson will be too."

Dr.. Fred pulled one leg up resting his forearm on his knee. "Now I understand why I could never get a romantic vibe from you. You're taken."

"Yes, I am. You can be too. It's an absolutely giddy feeling."

"I meant by Samson, not by God," quipped the doctor wryly.

"God's claim on me is much stronger than Samson's."

After that, Marina's peace and joy were stronger and brighter than they had ever been. She had opportunity upon opportunity of offering hope and peace in the hospital, and even the angry, bitter responses couldn't discourage her.

In their apartment, Malinda sat on the couch with her sister talking about the impending meeting with Samson. "So what happens after you meet him?"

Marina didn't answer right away. "What do you mean?"

"You go to Malawi. Best-case scenario, you meet Samson in the park. Then what? You move to Malawi and live happily ever after?"

"I don't know. I guess I'll have to wait and see what's next. God will direct my path. I'm sure of that. He has been faithful every step of my life. He'll be faithful in this one as well."

"That's more faith than I have," admitted Malinda quietly.

"Come with me, Malinda."

"Where?"

"To Malawi. When I go to meet Samson."

"That's two years away, Rina. I'll keep it in mind."

Six months later, she received an email from McDuff.

_Lovely Marina,_

_I have some very exciting news. Today, we have finalized plans for a small medical facility near our orphanage. Will you pray with your heart about being part of our ministry? It will not happen for about two years, and God will need to provide much funding and workers first._

_These little ones have many needs, and we have not always been able to provide medical care in time to save their bodies. This facility will be a blessing, and I know your heart here would be a gift as well._

_Please prayerfully consider this request but know that you will have my devotion whether you say yes or no._

_McDuff Banda_

Wide-eyed, Marina read it again then forwarded it to her parents. Then Marina started praying and planning; a month later, she responded to McDuff's email. She started off telling with very scant detail of her future meeting with Samson, then continued telling him of the plans she and her parents had made.

_In two years I will be a physician's assistant and hopefully even a more valuable asset to your ministry. My family and I all believe this is what God wants for me. So no matter what happens with Samson I will be part of this orphanage ministry._

_I can't tell you how excited I am to have this opportunity. My heart has always lived partly in Malawi, and I'm looking forward to returning for however long a time it may be._

_Love, Marina_

What followed was a series of communications with great rejoicing from McDuff, then a barrage of information and things Marina would have to do before coming to join the ministry. She worked diligently at her studies and completing her residency. Her parents helped financially so that she would be debt free – one of the requirements for entering the ministry.

It was a long and tiring two years.

Her family was reluctant to say goodbye, but it would be different this time. Instead of infrequent postal communication, they would have Internet and satellite communication. Still it was hard to approach the separation with joy.

One evening at dinner, Marina took her mother's hands in hers and with shining eyes made this passionate suggestion. "You and daddy have always had a heart for missions. Why don't you come work with us? Even if it's just for a little while."

"That's something for us to pray about," responded her father quietly.

In her apartment later that evening, Malinda approached her sister. "Rina, I want to go with you. I don't teach in the summer anyway. I know you're excited about the orphanage, but I'm worried about what could happen with Samson. If nothing else, I'll have the fun of helping you take care of the children and get to see you settled."

Marina put her arms around her younger sister. Malinda was in her first year of teaching kindergarten, and loving it. "I know you really just want to see the babies," she teased, "but I'll be glad for your company. I admit, I'm a little worried about how I'll handle it if he isn't there."

"Well, I'll be there, and you'll be fine."

With the day swiftly approaching, they worked double-speed to get a passport and immunizations for Malinda. They arrived a week before her long-planned meeting with Samson, to have a chance to settle into the ministry and recover from jet lag.

It already felt different as Marina unloaded her suitcases from her parents' car at JFK. They had driven their daughters to New York to say goodbye as long as possible. With tears and smiles, Mom and Dad stood watching their daughters go through security and stayed as long as they could see a glimpse of the girls. Marina and Malinda settled on the airplane with excited anticipation. Marina remembered, though dimly now, the hard days of travel involved. This time, she was the one in charge instead of having leaders to trust. After almost twenty-four hours of travel, the women arrived weary and aching, yet ready to work. They went through customs and retrieved their bags before heading to the place McDuff had told them to meet him.

It wouldn't be hard for McDuff to find them; they were the only white faces in the airport. Marina, however, wasn't so confident that she would recognize McDuff, even holding the picture she'd printed. And then he was there. Her eyes scanned the room and found him instantly. He had matured and grown, as she had, but she would've known him anywhere. "McDuff!"

He turned with a wide smile and greeted the women warmly with his eyes lingering on Malinda. "You look much like your sister."

"Thank you."

"I'm sure you're tired and hungry. We have to drive a ways, so one of the workers made food for you to eat in the van. Come, let's go."

Marina had a hundred questions she wanted to ask, but when she stepped outside such a feeling of _home_ struck her that she couldn't speak. It was clear and cool and brown, just as she remembered, but there were definite changes as well. As they drove, Marina strove to remember Lilongwe. It seemed much more developed to her now, ten years later. Malinda sat in the front with McDuff asking the questions that Marina had intended to ask.

"No, I am not actually running the orphanage ministry myself. It is part of the larger ministry that I oversee, but my main ministry is the church. Another man runs the orphanage and can give it his whole heart. You will meet him tonight."

"Is it, Ruff?" asked Marina somewhat hopefully.

McDuff laughed. "No, Marina. Ruff is a businessman in town now. He helps support our ministry financially."

The idea of immediately working with a stranger was a little unsettling. For some reason, she had understood that McDuff's ministry was the orphanage, not an orphanage as part of a larger ministry.

Still, she knew this was where God wanted her to be. As they drove, Marina fancied that some things were familiar, but it had been ten years since she'd seen any of it, and she had been a child at the time. When McDuff finally pulled off the dirt path they had traveled for some time now, Marina felt that this was definitely a familiar place. There were several buildings. The older ones looked oddly familiar, and Marina could tell by the construction that some of them were only built in the last few years.

Her eyes landed on one small, brick, structure and awareness struck her like lightning. She gasped and zipped her eyes to McDuff's. "This is the camp, McDuff. I remember the kitchen, and there's the meetinghouse. Is this where the orphanage is?"

In answer to her question, the sound of children singing floated to her from the other side of the meetinghouse. Tears filled her eyes as she slowly rounded the building to get a glimpse of the lake.

"Marina, wait. Don't let the children see you yet. It will be very distracting. Though they have seen white skin before, they have never seen a white woman. Do you remember that from years ago?"

Marina nodded. "I do. They were fascinated with my hair."

"Yes, it would be quite distracting. Let us introduce you in the proper way. You will have plenty of time to see the land later."

McDuff led them to a small building, one of the newer ones, at the far end of the property. "This is where you will live. This is your home. The medical facility is connected to it by this path. Do you see that building there?"

Marina looked through the window at the building he indicated. It was modest, smaller than her parents' home. Her "house" was smaller than the apartment she had shared with her sister in Philadelphia, but she didn't mind.

Malinda was already snapping pictures on her cell phone and texting them home to her parents. It was expensive for sure, but she knew it would ease their minds. She could email them more later.

"That very large building is where the children live. We'll take a tour of it in a little while when we go to meet the director. He's also our only teacher, so he's quite busy right now."

"How old are the children?" asked Malinda curiously.

"We have infants all the way to young teenagers."

"So he is having to teach all of them?"

"Yes, it is a struggle for sure."

"I'm a teacher. Can you use my help?"

McDuff smiled gently, very drawn to this young woman. "You are an American teacher. You would need to learn some things first."

Malinda couldn't take her eyes from his. "I would like to learn. I would like to stay here and help teach the children."

Marina stared wide-eyed at her sister, then felt her heart exploding with the possibility.

"We will talk again of this, Malinda. Right now, we will pray about it. Meet me in the meetinghouse in about fifteen minutes, and we will go meet the director. Is this okay?"

The women agreed, and McDuff left them in the small house. Marina looked around her home. It was one large room with a small bed, a table and chair, and that was all. It was beautiful. "Malinda, are you serious about staying here and teaching?"

"I-I think so."

Marina backed off, hearing the hesitation. "Well, as McDuff said. We'll pray about it for now. Come with me to check out the medical facility. We have a few minutes."

The women went next door to the place Marina would spend most of her time. It was small but adequate. Marina's knowledgeable eyes already saw some needs. They met McDuff in the meetinghouse from the windows of which Marina could see the lake. It looked just the same. "I'm home," she breathed softly against the cold glass.

"Come, Marina. You need to meet the director."

Marina and her sister followed McDuff to the large two-story building. The first floor had a kitchen, a classroom, a room full of cribs, and a closed door. "This is where the director lives. He wants to be with the children at all times. We have several workers who come every day, and two who sleep here as well in a small room near the nursery. At three years old, the children move upstairs. You will have a lot to learn in the next few weeks, but we are thankful to have you, Marina."

"This is where I belong, McDuff."

"Ah. Our wonderful director is returning."

Marina was startled at the glimpse of white skin she saw through the window just before the director opened the front door. When he did, he filled the doorway. He was tall and broad and lean and very familiar. His eyes focused on her face, and he started walking toward them never breaking his hold on her eyes. Marina felt herself start trembling all over and felt tears in her eyes.

"Samson," she breathed as he stopped in front of her.

Samson smiled his gentle smile. "You're early. Our date isn't until next week."

McDuff put a hand on Malinda's back and gently led her from the building to give the two hearts privacy.

Marina hesitantly touched his face. "It's really you." She moved her hand away quickly. "I'm sorry. I should ask if you're married or engaged or something."

Samson's answer was to pull her into his arms and kiss her mouth hungrily. "I'm not, but I hope to be very soon."

Laughing and crying at the same time, Marina threw her arms around his neck. "That was a lousy proposal, but the answer is still yes!"

"You are even more beautiful than I remember, Marina. I was afraid you'd given up on me. McDuff told me to keep waiting and praying, and next thing I know, you're making plans to work with me here."

"Samson, why didn't you email me if you knew where I was?"

"I had to know you wanted this as much as I want it."

"How long have you been here?"

"Five years."

Marina laid her head on Samson's broad chest. "The Lord is gracious and compassionate. Slow to anger and rich, so very rich, in love. At this moment, I'm not sure I can put into words how very strongly I feel God's love for me."

"I know exactly what you mean," said Samson quietly. He lifted Marina's face to his for another kiss. "Should we give this time to find out if it's really love?"

"You aren't sure?" asked Marina, suddenly anxious.

"I'm very sure, but I've been keeping track of you through McDuff. Are you sure?"

Marina's eyes twinkled. "I don't know. Why don't you meet me next week in Lilong..."

Her smart reply was cut off with a kiss, and she didn't mind.

It took two weeks to get her parents and brothers to Malawi for the wedding, but two weeks of waiting was nothing compared with ten years.

_For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future._ Jeremiah 29:11

_Deborah Caligiuri is a graduate of Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida._

## **Adinah's Story**

by Laura D Thompson

The hour was early. It was still dark, the perfect time to draw water, before the town of Samaria woke up for the day.

I looked over at Avram. He lay on the ground sound asleep. The poor thing must have been exhausted. Who could really blame him after the night that we just had? I stroked some of his brown, wavy tendrils affectionately. He didn't wake, just sighed and moved his head slightly.

I crept over to go get my water jar. I grabbed it, hoisted up, and planted it on my hip. Before leaving to go draw water, I took another glance at Avram and my lips formed a tiny frown. _Why do we do this?_

I shut the door behind me quietly, so as to not wake him and then walked the mile to the well. The night air felt nice and cool. It left me plenty of time to think about life, about God. About sin. Mostly I thought about the men in my life. I loved Avram and I think he loved me. Avram and I were living together, unmarried; it was eating me up inside, like wandering the desert, desperate and thirsty.

As I walked down the path, I quietly sang my sad little song to God. " _Deliver Adinah, oh Lord, show me how. / Deliver Adinah, how to love more now. / Deliver Adinah, can't you hear my plea? / Deliver Adinah, do you even care for me? / Deliver Adinah, oh I know you are there. / Deliver Adinah, please hear my crying prayer. / Please, deliver me. Deliver me. Deliver..._ "

"Adinah!" The voice broke my thoughts and prayers, followed by the sound of women's laughter. The well had to be near; the women were discussing the day's gossip. I hurried to join them.

"Adinah?" one of them, Zara, said. "The harlot?"

I stopped in my tracks, shocked. _Surely they're not talking about me._ I crept closer and hid behind the wall of a house to hear them better.

Their conversation continued. "Who else?" said Pomona.

"What about her?" asked Tabitha.

"I heard she has a new man," Pomona said.

"She married again?!" Zara asked. I could hear shock and derision in her voice.

"Oh no, she's not married this time." I could hear the young women tittering; Pamona continued. "Well surely you've seen him. No? Last week with the brown, wavy hair and olive-green cloak? He just met her a few months ago, and now they're living together!"

"Pomona!" Tabitha exclaimed.

" _What_? It's not _my_ fault."

Rachel interrupted. "Perhaps we shouldn't talk about her behind her back."

"It's not like she can hear us," Pomona bit back.

_Little do they know,_ I thought.

"Really?" Rachel said. "What if she all of a sudden appeared right around that corner? Then what?"

"Not likely," Zara said. "She doesn't like showing her face in public."

_Well not anymore._ Droplets streamed down my face and into my water pot, as if to fill it with my tears.

"Well I wouldn't either," Pomona added.

"Maybe it's not what you think," Tabitha said.

"Maybe it's exactly what I think!" Pomona exclaimed.

"Maybe she just wants to have children," Rachel said. "Remember Tamar's sin? Her children were our fathers' fathers."

"Oh, Rachel, please!" Pomona said. "You can't be serious. Are you comparing Adinah to Tamar? You _must_ mean Jezebel."

"Pomona! Jezebel killed people! Adinah doesn't kill people!" Tabitha said.

"But she left every one of her husbands." Zara spoke up.

"She's not faithful, Tabitha," Pomona snapped back sharply. "Adinah grows tried of them and changes husbands as often as she changes clothes!"

My eyes widened and my mouth dropped. _That's not true; I loved them all, every one._

I heard Pomona pick up her jar of water. The sun was rising.

"Five ex-husbands and a live-in lover? A harlot by any other name." With that, Pomona headed for her house.

Zara picked up her jar to leave the well, "I have to agree with her this time. Adinah has made some horrible choices in life. She's such a naive little girl."

That left Rachel and Tabitha alone at the well. I heard them both sigh. Tabitha turned to Rachel. "I think you were really brave to defend Adinah like that."

"Pamona needs to get her own life and stay out of everyone else's," Rachel said, before leaving the well.

Tabitha stood there for a minute, bit her lip, and hurried along to catch up with Rachel.

When all went quiet, I peeked at the well to make sure nobody was there. Seeing no one, I rushed to draw water, trying to fill my jar as though nothing had happened. Years welled up in my eyes and my face turned as red as the sun when it rises in the hot desert. My fingernails dug in to the palms of my hands, and I shook uncontrollably. The water had had gathered splashed heedlessly back into the well. I leaned over the edge and let out a little gasp of sorrow and grief. I cried and didn't stop until the sun was up.

Back at the house, I opened the door to an empty home. Avram was not in; he had gone to work for the day. Placing the water jar back where it belonged, I leaned against the wall, and then slid down to a sitting position, covering my face with my hands. I tried to cry but my eyes had dried up, so I pulled my knees up to my chest. Folding my arms and placing them on my knees, I rested my head on them. " _Deliver Adinah, can't you hear my plea? / Deliver Adinah, do you even care for me? / Deliver Adinah, oh I know you are there. / Deliver Adinah, please hear my crying prayer. / Please, deliver me... Deliver me... Deliver..._ "

I looked out my window. The sun hung in the middle of the sky. No one appeared to be in the street. I quickly grabbed my jar and ran out the door. The sun's scorching heat beat down on my skin. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and the back of my neck. A throbbing pain formed in my legs and feet as I ran the mile to the well in the middle of the day.

As the well drew nearer, I hoped that no one was around, that the place would be empty. No one came to draw water during the day.

There was a man at the well. He was sitting down right next to well and leaning against it. He wore a white robe and cloak in the Jewish Galilean fashion. He looked tired. I tried to ignore him and just fill up my water jar. "Excuse me," he said. "But would you please give me a drink of water?"

I glanced behind me, but we were alone. I tried to pretend like I hadn't heard. "Please," he said again, turning to face me, "May I have a drink?"

I stared at him. "Sir, do you where you are? How could you ask me for a drink of water? You are a Jewish man and I am a Samaritan woman."

He smiled gently, "If you only knew who asked you for a drink, you would not hesitate. In fact, you would ask me for a drink of water and I would give it to you freely. I would give you living water."

I giggled just a little. "Living water? Is that a fountain of youth that makes you live forever?"

"Yes," he answered.

"Really? Sir, you have no jar or anything. Nothing to draw water with. Where are you going to get this living water?" I continue to draw my water and fill my jar with it, no longer giggling. "Do you know who Jacob was? He was our ancestor. He himself dug this well and gave it to us. He himself drank water from this well. His many sons and sheep and anyone else in his family did so as well."

"Yes he did," the man agreed as he stood up. "But after some time, Jacob and his sons and herds grew thirsty again. Everyone who drinks the water from this well, will eventually be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water that I freely give them will never become thirsty again. My water will be like a spring inside of them. The spring will produce endless life, and they will never thirst again."

I stared at him. "Are you serious? This living water exists?" I asked him.

"Yes, I am. And not only does it exist but, I give it out freely, without payment."

I set down my jar and hurried over to him, dropping to my knees and looking up at him. "Sir, please give me this water. I will do whatever you want of me. Please! I hate coming to this well everyday. Please give me this living water so I will never thirst."

He motioned for me to rise to my feet, smiling gently. "Go," he told me. "Go back in to the village and get your husband. Then come back and I will give both you and your husband living water."

"Oh," I said and looked down. I started to pick at my fingers. _Can I possibly bring Avram to him?_ I turned away, ashamed. "Well, I don't really have a husband."

"The truth of the matter is that you have had five husbands, and the man who you live with now is not one of them."

"How did..." I could not finish the question.

He said, "Come and sit down with me and we can talk some more."

We sat in the dirt next to the well. I spoke quietly, "You must be a prophet." Some time passed before I spoke again. "May I ask you a question?"

"Yes." He sounded like he already knew the answer.

"Our ancestors worshiped here on this mountain. You Jews say we can't worship at this mountain, you say we may only worship in Jerusalem, the Holy City. Where should I worship the Lord?"

The man just smiled and said, "Woman, trust me. A time is coming when you will worship God on neither this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship something you do not know; something you do not understand fully. We Jews worship what we do know and understand. You see, salvation comes from the Jews."

Not surprised, I let my head fall. "I suppose that means salvation is only for the Jews as well."

He shook his head and said, "No, that's not what it means at all."

I lifted my head and looked back up at him perplexed.

He continued, "A time is coming when it will not matter whether you worship here on this mountain, or in Jerusalem, or in your own home. It will not matter whether the worshipers are Jews or Samaritans. It will not matter whether they are men or women. The true and genuine worshipers will worship the Lord God with all their heart and spirits. They will worship the Lord God by who they are and how they live their lives. They will not only worship the Lord God with their voices or minds, but with their spirits as well. For this is the type of worship that our Father God finds pleasing and holy. These are the types of worshipers that our Father God wants and seeks for. Since the Lord is a spiritual being, it only makes sense that he would want worshipers who worship him with all their soul."

I sat there dumbfounded. "I never knew that," I replied. "I know the Messiah is coming. I suppose He will make it clear to us, that He will bring that time of worship."

"That time is now. I am He."

I covered my mouth with both hands. _The Messiah is speaking to me._

I heard a group of men coming near the well talking with each other and laughing. When they saw me, they stopped in their tracks, dead silent.

_I have to tell someone!_ I stood up, stepped back from him slowly, not letting him out of my sight. I finally turned and ran, forgetting my water jar.

I ran as fast as my legs could take me. I had to run; these people had to hear Him for themselves.

I met Rachel and Tabitha first. They were working in their little garden in front of their house. "Girls!" I shouted to them.

They both looked up from their work. Tabitha smiled a little, and replied, "Hello Adinah. What's wrong? You looked flushed."

I started babbling. "He's here, girls. He's here and He has come to save us! All of us! He's come to save us at last!"

Rachel stood up from her gardening, wiped dirt from her hands with her apron. "Who has? Adinah, you are not making any sense."

"The Messiah!"

"Who?" They both asked.

"The Messiah, He has come to us at last! He has come to save us and He has offered us a gift, living water! Living water that will never make us thirsty again! You must come and meet Him!"

"Wait, Adinah stop," Rachel said. "How do you know he is the Messiah?"

"He told me everything I have ever done! I did not know Him, but He knew me!" _They believe me._ "Quick, get your mother and father, your brothers as well! Then go to the well! He is by the well! Go now, hurry!" They scurried off.

I caught Avram, just coming home. "Avram!"

He smiled, tired. "Hello, Adinah. I have had a hard day today."

"The Messiah! He is here, Avram! He is here at the well!"

He just laughed. "The Messiah? You have met the Messiah today? Really Adinah? What did He look like?"

"I am not crazy, Avram!" I shouted. "He is the Messiah! I know it!" I calmed down, but only a bit. "He knew about us."

He turned bright red, "You told him about us? Why?"

"No, no, He knew about me too, Avram. He knew about my husbands, and I never said anything."

"That's impossible," he said, disbelieving, and turned in the direction of the well. "How would he know?"

"How else?" I whispered to him. "He must be the Savior. He is going to give us a gift, living water. Living water that brings eternal life."

"Is He still here? Where is He?"

"He is by the well. Go! Hurry! Tell the rest of the men in the village and then run to Him!"

Avram ran.

Soon after I saw Pomona and Zara. Zara was inside her house, Pomona conversing with her through window. _Will they believe me?_

"Oh, Adinah!" Pomona said. "Hello."

"We weren't talking about you," Zara spoke quickly. Pomona shot her a mean, silencing look, and hastily turned back to me and tried to smile.

"It's alright, just listen."

Zara tried to act interested. "What is it Adinah?"

"I met someone today..."

"I'll bet you did," Pomona interrupted.

"It's not what you think," I answered. "The Messiah. I met the Messiah today!"

They just stared at me. Finally, Zara said, "Have you been out in the sun too long?"

"Why won't you believe me?"

"Adinah," Zara said. "I'm sure we all want to believe you."

"Think clearly, Adinah," Pomona added. "How do you know _this_ one is the Messiah?"

"He knew everything I've ever done! He knew me!"

Something in their faces changed. "What do you mean?" Pomona asked.

"He knew about my husbands. He knew about Avram. He knew all of this and still offered me a gift. He wanted to give me living water. Living water which will make you thirst no longer!"

"He offered that to you?" Zara asked. "Would He give it to us?"

"He will give it to anyone who asks."

"Where is He?" Zara asked.

"He's by the well! Get your husbands and come to the well!"

Zara immediately went back inside to call her husband. Pomona stood where she was; I came up closer to her. "Go Pomona. Get your husband and go to the well. You will want to meet Him; I am sure of it."

After a moment, Pomona replied, "Alright. I'll find Nathan and meet you there."

I smiled and ran towards the well. "Adinah!" I turned back to see her. She smiled back at me. "Thank you for telling me."

"You're welcome," I replied.

When I finally reached the well, I could not believe how many people were there. The Messiah stood in front of the large crowd teaching them and blessing them. He told us who He was and called us to repentance. Many believed Him and came to receive salvation, myself included. He blessed me, and all I could think was, _He only asked me for a drink of water._

I shut the door as I went out. The Messiah was moving on to the next village and I wanted to catch Him before He went. Had He really been with us for two whole days? It seemed He had just come yesterday. I had a cup of water in my hands and I wanted to give it to Him before He left.

I caught Him at the edge of the village. "Wait!" I called out to Him. They all turned around and He came forward to me. I handed Him the cup of water. "In all the excitement, I forgot."

He smiled. "Thank you."

"You helped so many people and showed them love. No one can repay you for that. Must you really go so soon? We have lodging for you here. Anyone would give you and your disciples a place to stay and food to eat."

"That's very kind of you, but I must go. I must complete the Father's will for me."

"What is the Father's will for you?"

"When my time comes you will know."

"I don't want you to go."

"Adinah, don't let anyone tell you that you don't matter, that you aren't good enough. All of Samaria has come to know me because of your faith. I am your living water." He said goodbye and departed with His disciples. I waved goodbye and watched them leave. When they all were finally out of sight, I sighed, and sang.

" _Deliver Adinah from dry desert air. / Deliver Adinah to your loving care. / Deliver Adinah with water so pure. / Deliver Adinah and she'll thirst no more. / Please, deliver me! Deliver me! Deliver..._ "

_Laura D. Thompson is a 19 year old and lives in Lakeland, Florida. She attends Southeastern_ _University as a freshman and is studying Theatre and Creative Writing. Although she has a great passion for acting, one of her aspirations in life is to write Christian romance (in an attempt to prove that you can write romance novels and keep it clean)._

## **Willy the Fish**

by Justin Lowmaster

Willy longed to be a real fish. He hung on the wall and flopped while singing a really silly song. He yearned to be a real fish, to swim in the rivers, leap out of the water to pluck an insect from the sky, to fight the rage of rapids to go upstream during that special season.

Only Willy's boy, Bobby, seemed to understand. Willy sang to him until the light dimmed and the world faded to black.

When he awoke, things that were had changed, or were no more. The house did not look the same. He sang and flopped.

"Remember this? Still funny after all this time."

That voice, Bobby. Not a child anymore, but not yet a man.

Willy rested for some time longer without being asked to sing.

A storm raged outside one day. The family boarded up the windows and packed their bags in a hurry and left him on the wall. Only Bobby remembered him, had almost came back for him, but instead stopped short.

"Time to learn to swim, Willy."

The torrent of rain came. Winds smashed into the house. A branch rammed into a boarded window, cracking the board and shattering the glass. A gust tore away the broken board, ripping it and tossing it aside. Rains and spray poured into the window. The waters rose. The floor filled with liquid. A wave smashed into the house, the side with the broken window taking much of the blow. Water rushed in and swirled chairs about. Willy fell from the wall when the table, tipped over when struck by another wave, crashed into the wall. He plummeted straight down. When he hit an end table, he stopped. The water lapped at him. Something inside him tingled in a new way. The water rose, and he sang. He swayed as the waters rose and rose. Another wave tore at the wall of the house, smashing it away. A wild rapids of water filled the house. Willy swam and swam against it; his special season had come. He fought the rapids and sang, and swam.

_Justin Lowmaster is an author with a full time job to pay the bills. He is married and has a daughter who is really good and touching things she could not reach a week ago. He enjoys science fiction, horror, and steampunk. His hobbies are gaming of all kinds and thinking up horrible puns._

## **The Gargoyle: Reflections**

by David Crutchfield

So long have I stared at the waters of this pool, I wonder now what it is I see. An image of the world around me, a picture as real as the canvas it's painted on. It is but a reflection of the world around it, and reflections can be distorted or lost.

So what is it I see? A copy of my world, or a distortion thereof? The trees in my world stand tall, but in the pool they are short. Still they dwarf all around them. The sky is vast, piercing the forest that surrounds this place; but in the pool it is small, fighting to break the green canopy. There is a monster in the pool, bound by vines unmoving on his post, a distorted reflection of my own reality. Vines entangle me and the square stone on which I sit, but I am no captive to the vines. They will not release me because their life depends on me. My world is full of life, breathing and moving on its own. The image in the pool reflects my world, but it shows a world that is without life, a world that is not mine.

A seed falling to the pool brings life to the lifeless world. The trees move as though shaken by a great wind, and the monster comes to life and struggles against its bonds. The stones that keep the water's edge shake tumultuously, the violence threatening to shatter them. Yet there is no wind in my trees, I have not moved, and the stones hold fast. Soon the waters calm and the mirrored world is lifeless once more.

The acorn is such a small seed, but changed greatly the reflection of the water. So I shift my gaze from the image itself to the seed floating upon it. It drifts among the trees and bobs above the treetops, suspended by the reflecting surface. This tiny seed is now larger than the tree it fell from. Here is the power in the pool, to make small things great and great things small.

I turn back to my monster to consider what I see. It is ferocious and strong, hard and cruel, bound by nature. It is my reflection, but the pool has made me small, nothing more than what can be seen. Staring at my monster staring back at me I know he floats only on the surface, trapped in a reflection no more real than the canvas it is on.

_David Crutchfield wants to fly a helicopter, but can't find anyone willing to give him the keys. He is an air traffic controller who has been all around the world._

## **The Five Springs**

by Kelsey Felder

"Hey Trey. You know, I don't think that I can remember the last time it decided to rain in the Western Lands." My friend said, rubbing sweat off his forehead.

"Yeah, well, I remember when it didn't take so long to get a bucket of water from the wells." I gave one last tug on the rope and finally brought the bucket full of Twera's most precious resource into the late afternoon light. My best friend Brax, my senior by two years, and I hauled water from the community well near my house, which was really my parent's inn, for the last half hour.

On a regular day it would take us only ten minutes and we would be off playing hogball. Then again, "normally" The City-Realm of Twera had an abundance of water. The city-realm had been built over five massive, underground springs of water and tunnels transported the life source to community wells throughout both the city and the surrounding realm, allowing it to grow into the biggest city-realm in the Western Lands.

Drought after drought dried up the land and yet after four years they barely felt like drops in a bucket to us. The most recent drought though, scourged us the most and left Twera's water levels drastically lower than before. Everyone blamed the drought for the Twera's rapidly dropping water level but it was not entirely to blame.

As Brax and I hauled the last four buckets to the kitchen, I tried to think back to when this trouble started. How we began to lose what was keeping us from the death that awaited those without water. Like the No-Realms, dried up, cracked ground littered with dead and dying plants.

A year ago, the news of another drought ravaging the Western Lands hadn't bothered Twera. We had the five springs.

Unlike Twera, many other city-realms in the Western Lands were not built on top of springs. This new threat appeared before they had a chance to recover from the previous scorchings. We heard troubling news from travelers staying at the inn. Entire towns and small city-realms simply disappeared.

Brax snapped me out of my own world when he clomped up the steps leading to the kitchen door and kicked it open with a bang. "Here you are, Mrs. Chapman. The last of the water you wanted." I gave a satisfied grunt of agreement as I lifted the heavy buckets onto the table and released my aching fingers from the handles. "Is there anything else you need, mom?" I asked as I blew lightly on the reddened skin. I hoped not. The two of us were already late to practice as it was.

My mother kneaded flour-dusted bread dough. She knew that I hated being patient so she would make me wait for her answer nearly every time I wanted to go someplace. Finally she answered, "No, Trey, I guess not. Lauren will be back soon to help with the guests' dinners. She had to run a quick errand for me. Go have some fun playing hogball."

By the time she got out the last part both of us ran down the street, our legs carrying us quickly down the stone paved roads to the grass lot where we played our favorite game. When we got there our other friends started the game and Brax and I separated. I positioned myself on the defensive and he took the offensive side.

Two exhausting hours later, the ten of us lay out on the grass, panting and sweaty after that last hard and fast stint. Each of us gulped down water as a water skin came around.

My friend Aaron sat down next to me "Nice blocking out there Trey."

"Thanks." I muttered. I could already feel the bruise on my shin making its home under my skin.

While we recovered, a caravan of wagons passed by on the road. Large barrels packed as tightly as possible weighed them down. I could hear a faint chorus swishing sounds every time the wheels hit a dip or bump. My rough total came to couple thousand barrels of water.

At the sight of the water caravan all ten of us fell silent. Another shipment of "our" water went to Medi Dano. Feeling that the City-Realm of Medi Dano steadily taxed the springs, draining our water supply, indignation grew evident on a few faces.

That last drought hit everyone the hardest. City-realms from the surrounding areas heard of our abundance of water; several months into the latest drought, Twera received visitors from several other surrounding city-realms. Their leaders, hearing of our wealth, came to bargain with Twera's Five Officials in hopes of obtaining water for their citizens.

The Five said that they would debate this and come back to them with their answer as soon as possible. We held our own debates in the markets and around the dinner tables; not that it mattered what we thought.

From what I heard, the Official's were not keen on selling. Until City-Realm Medi Dano offered diamonds. It was then argued that the five springs had always supplied an abundance of water. Why not pass some of it on to Medi Dano? The decision came quickly.

Soon after, the first water and diamonds exchanged hands. The Officials threw extravagant town parties celebrating our prosperity.They bought supplies from businesses across the city-realm.

I had to admit, the parties were fun. There were so many people and the tables were piled high with expensive foods. However, the richer Twera became, the more the gardens that were once lush, even in drought, withered. The smaller trees died as well. Water that formerly went to watering the plants now went to the people.

Despite the creeping signs of death, Twera's water trade for Medi Dano's diamonds continued.

After the last of the convoy rounded a corner, we came back to life. None of us talked about the water with each other, though I nursed a suspicion that the Five were becoming more concerned with Medi Dano's diamonds than their own people's water.

By now the sun made its way towards the western horizon, signaling that it was time to get home. Dusting ourselves off we said our goodbyes and promised to meet early the next morning for a quick hogball game before chores.

Brax and I walked together until we parted ways at the inn.

When I arrived home, instead of parents the smell of fresh bread and stew, a combination of meat and vegetables swimming in seasoned, hearty broth and heat-ripened wheat greeted me. I couldn't wait to get some of into my growling stomach.

Lauren came bursting through the door to the common room. Setting down a serving tray she sat herself down with a sigh of relief on a chair across from me. She smiled in greeting, "Finally! Everyone has their dinner who wants it. How are you doing, Trey? Out having fun again while I'm stuck here picking up your slack?"

I smiled back at her. She had worked for my parents since we were both ten.

"As a matter of fact," I replied "I was busy getting the feeling kicked out of my left shin while playing hogball. Thank you very much."

Lauren shook her head. "You're so violent."

I knew she would say something like that. Once Brax and I tried to teach her how to play and to give the short version of that long hour we unanimously decided that Lauren was not a contact sport person. The first time I ran at her to teach her how to block a steal she promptly took off in the opposite direction screaming murder.

"Hey, just because you don't have the backbone to play the game" I stopped when Lauren threatened me with a bucket full of water. I jumped up and scrambled for the door, but took it full in the face anyway. Through soaking wet bangs I saw her laughing at me. The light-hearted sound spread throughout the room.

I grabbed my own bucket, ready to douse her back when my parents walked in, putting a stop to my revenge. One look at me and they ordered to clean myself up before I could eat. My stomach growled in protest, causing Lauren to giggle even more.

As quickly as I could, I changed and sat down at the table, digging in to the hot stew and bread. I wanted to get Lauren back but the opportunity never presented itself. I went to bed sore, bruised, and nursing a playful vendetta.

Waking up extra early, I met my friends before work as planned. In the middle of the first stint, Calex passed to Waren who kicked the ball wide, bouncing it off a post and straight into a nearby well. Instead of a splash we heard a muffled smack of the ball hitting rock.

Confused and knowing that something was terribly wrong, we all crowded the well's edge to take a look. It felt like the time when I was little and my parents told me that my grandfather had died. The well shaft was devoid of water. Nearly one hundred feet down and we only saw black. Our life-sustaining resource had vanished during the night.

We took off for my house around the corner. Questions barraged my father and mother as we burst through the door.

"Sir, is it true?" "Are we all going to live?" "Why is this happening?" "What about the drought?" and other questions like them came one on top of the other. We all knew what happened to things that couldn't get water. The No-Realm's present state was proof enough.

Once we quieted down the point where we could hear my father shouting "What's wrong with you boys?" I explained what exactly was wrong.

At first he quietly listened to what I said. Once I recounted what we saw he calmly asked us to show him the well, and afterward sent me home to help my mother and he went to check on some of the other wells.

For the next hour I tried to focus on washing the dishes, but that failed miserably.

"Trey, would you please stop staring out the window. Those need to be washed today."

"Yes mother. Sorry about that."

"Maybe it will help you to concentrate if I closed the shutters."

That made things worse. Now I couldn't see father coming down the street when he came back. I started to think about the catastrophe that loomed over Twera.

Lauren entered the kitchen. "Have you heard about the wells? They say we are out of water."

"Yeah, I was one of the ones who first discovered it. Can you believe this is happening?" I stopped washing the dishes and turned to face her. "Have you heard anything new?"

"Not more than what you know, most likely," she said. "Just that the levels are too low for comfort." She dried the dishes that were still wet and set them aside for the breakfast.

My mother came down the stairs to finish preparing the guests' breakfast. I turned back to the dishes, not wishing to get another scolding about not working.

When my father finally returned, he explained to us that it was the same for all the wells in our district. No water in any of them. Others had also noticed and sent a complaint to The Five. We would have to wait for their answer.

"Oh great. Even more waiting." I said, rolling my eyes. A sharp exhale from Lauren while she set out plates told me that she felt the same way.

My mother picked up a knife to cut a loaf bread, the same calm expression as my father's rested on her face. She said, "You need to learn patience Trey."

I mentally screamed. That was the same thing that she told me less than an hour ago when I asked if father was back yet. "Here we are, running out of the only thing keeping us alive and I'm supposed to sit around?" I asked in annoyance.

"Yes." And that was that.

His answer only made me even more determined to find out what was really going on.

It was three more days before we received any sort of reply. During that time, other parts of the city-realm lost their water. The Five Officials promised us everything was fine and that the springs were in perfect working order. I went in search of Brax.

I found him at the pastry shop staring at the sweets in the window. "Hey Brax," I said as I came up, "we need to talk."

"Sure thing. What's going on?" He said while he followed me.

I waited until we made it to the grass lot before I began talking. "Have you heard what the Five Officials are saying about the water?" I climbed into the only tree which grew at the back of the lot and settled on a browning branch.

"Yeah." Brax said, pulling himself up next to me. "Something about rationing it, right?"

I nodded. "Don't you think that's a bad thing?"

"Well, what are we supposed to do about it? Do a rain dance?" he asked back.

My only answer was a shrug. Honestly I didn't have a clue as to what we could do about it. "I'm just concerned. That's all."

Brax shifted positions on his branch. "Aren't we all? Just because nobody is up in arms doesn't mean no one cares about the situation. Just wait. Things will work out." Silence surrounded us as we sat in the tree. I stared into space, letting my mind wander over both this potentially deadly problem and what Brax said. I couldn't say that I agreed with him. Somehow or another the whole thing just didn't feel... honest.

"Trey. Just promise me one thing." Brax said, bringing me back from my own world.

"Hn?"

"Don't try anything stupid. And if you do, let me know first so I can tie you up in a closet."

I nodded in response.

"Trey! Are you up there?" Lauren stood underneath the tree looking up at us.

"You know I am. Why are you shouting?"

"Because I've been looking for you for awhile now and it's hot. Hello, Brax!"

He waved in response.

"At least you found me." I said as I jumped out of the tree. "Why were you looking for me anyways?"

"Your mother sent me to find you. She was wondering why you disappeared when you still had chores to do. By now she is probably wondering if I deserted as well." Waving a quick goodbye to Brax, who was still in the tree, I took off at a quick trot across the grass.

"Will you wait up?" Lauren said from behind me.

"Sorry about that." I threw a grin in her direction. "But I thought that you were in such a hurry to get back." She caught up with me and gave me a sideways glare. "I said I was sorry."

"I know." She said with a huff. All of the sudden, she took off ahead of me yelling, "I'll race you back!"

A couple seconds of hard sprinting put me right next to her. By the time we got back to the inn we both were red faced and panting. After a quick recovery, hurried along by my mother, we set about our chores.

It was later that night by the time we finished our chores, including the preparations for the next day's breakfast, and I volunteered to walk Lauren home.

We walked thankfully through the cool streets of Twera. The day's heat evaporated from the ground and surrounding buildings, the breeze refreshing compared to the heat blasts of wind during the day. Our part of the city-realm lay peacefully asleep.

We walked in a comfortable silence until the sound of horses' hooves and many wagon wheels bumped over the road and headed straight for us. We looked at each over in confusion, and ducked into the nearest ally. Waiting in the shadows, we saw another water convoy

"Thieves." Lauren's hiss cut into the darkness, startling me. I agreed.

As soon as they passed out of sight Lauren started on a tirade. "How dare they! How could those low-down scum call themselves officials? Selling off our water for sparkly rocks! They said they were going to stop the shipments! The filth!"

"Maybe they already had the shipment ready?"

Lauren turned towards me and looked like she was about ready to smack me. "Aren't you the one always complaining about the lack of water since Medi Dano started to share as well?"

"Um... Yes? I wasn't trying to defend them or anything." Then I added, more to myself than her, "We should check on the spring levels ourselves."

"True. We could easily climb down one of the shafts and follow the tunnels to-"

"Wait a second. I was talking about me an Brax."

She gave me a hurt look. "Why not me?"

Knowing that she would pound me if I said that I didn't want her to come with us because she was a girl, I didn't answer. Instead I stood there studying my untied bootlace.

"I have just as much right to know what's going on as you and Brax do." She said. "If you don't take me, I'll tell."

Of all the low tricks to pull. "You wouldn't," I challenged.

She smirked and cocked a questioning eyebrow.

"Fine, fine. You can come. Just don't complain or act all squeamish and girly when we're down there." She hugged me quickly.

Once we got to her house I promised to let her know when we would go under. First I had to convince Brax.

I found Brax the next day, and told him about the plan to go underground. "So, I know this is a crazy idea but Lauren and I saw Medi Dano leaving with more water last night and we are going to climb down a well shaft and find the five springs to see just what is going on down there."

"Sounds interesting. We would definitely need a map of the tunnel system. I think I can get a hold of one."

"Whatever happened to 'tying me up in a closet' if I tried anything stupid?"

Brax shrugged. "Not much is going on around here, so seems like fun. And besides, somebody's gotta chaperone the two of you." I slugged him in the arm.

That night we met in the grass lot in the shadows of the only tree. Brax was the first to arrive. Lauren and I were not far behind.

Once we were all together we reviewed our supplies. Between the three of us we had three lengths of rope, enough water and food to last us for several days if we took longer than expected, a lantern and several torches, my father's steel and flint to start fires with, and a water-proofed map of the tunnels. Lauren was in charge of distributing the supplies between our three packs.

When we finished, Lauren pulled out a tin box and opened it, revealing several thick pieces of white chalk and a few dry rags. She said it was to mark our way in case we get lost.

We walked to the nearest well, and tying the lantern to one end of the rope, lowered it in to the inky darkness. The lantern threw a circle of light like a halo on the dry shaft walls as it descended. Once it reached the bottom, we secured the end to a metal ring anchored to the outside of the well wall.

One at a time we climbed down the rope to the waiting circle of light. I went first, then Lauren, then Brax. We lit a torch using the steel and flint, sending rats scurrying. We all took a step closer to each other.

"At least we have company down here." I said.

"Isn't this your hogball?" Lauren picked up a round, blue object.

"Now we don't have to buy a new one. Nice, but I think we should leave it here for now."

I could have sworn we were in another world down there. The air was cooler, like when you go down into the cellar after being in the hot kitchen. The only thing that stirred the moldy air was our movements and breathing. Close darkness felt even more pressing by the long, black tunnel walls that arched so low over our heads that we had to hunch over. The light caught on the still damp rock, causing dull, shimmering reflections to spread out down the tunnel. A stagnant inch of water lay beneath our feet.

"You ready?" I said, raising my torch slightly higher in an effort to see farther along. Part of me wished that one of them would call the whole thing off.

Brax pulled out the map and studied it. "Obviously we start by going to the west." He pointed. We could only go west. The east was an immediate dead end. His statement came back to us in a jumble of quiet echoes.

I paused to fortify myself, sucking in a deep breath to do so. "Here we go."

Lauren blew out the lantern, we figured that it wouldn't last long enough anyway, and the three of us set out in single file.

"How long do you think it's going to take us to get to the springs?" Lauren said from the back.

Brax answered, "Looking at the map and not counting breaks, the times we get lost, and the possibility that we may never get out of here..." he paused to count on his fingers, "I'd say give or take a few hours... I have no idea."

I snorted.

Within a few minutes we came to an intersection of tunnels at a room with a ceiling that allowed for a decent stretch of the arms above my head.

"Alright, Brax. You're up. Which shaft do we take?" I said, as I walked the perimeter of the intersection, the torch light revealing five shafts splitting off in different directions.

He stood next to me in the light. "Um.... There? Wait this can't be right." A solid wall blocked the exact spot that the map was showing us there was a tunnel.

I traded him the torch for the map. "Are you sure this map is even of the water system." I turned the paper upside down in the idiotic hope that that would help.

"It says so on the back of it." He snatched it back. "I don't get it."

I groaned. "Don't tell me we have to go back."

Lauren interrupted, "Look up." She pointed to the ceiling above the blank wall.

Lifting the torch higher, I could see that she was pointing to a hole big enough for two of us to fit through at once.

"Uh, good job." I said. She grinned.

Lauren marked the tunnel we came through, before we forgot which it was, while Brax boosted me through the hole.

"Why can't you boost me, Trey?" He protested as he clasped his hands together in front of him.

"Because," I said, putting a foot into his clasped hands, "I'm lighter." He boosted me up till I could grab the edge of the hole. I tried to pull myself up but one of my hands slipped on some kind of slime.

"You alright?"

I grimaced as I wiped the slick substance on my pants. "Yeah."

"I'm finished with the marker. Should I come up next?" Lauren said, looking up at me.

"First toss up the bags then bring the torch with you."

After three successful catches, Lauren's head shot through the hole. I took the torch from her with one hand and easily pulled her up with the other. "And now, for Brax." We tossed a rope from the packs down to him.

"Alright, you try to climb up and we'll pull. Got it?"

"Yeah."

Lauren and I braced ourselves. The both of us kept our footing on that slick, downward slope and made sure he didn't fall.

The torch now half-covered in slime, I picked it up and lead the way up the curving slope. This one was taller than the last. "I think I'm just going to get rid of this torch and light a new one. My hand is sticky."

"And waste a good torch?" Brax said.

"I'd be happy to let you carry it." I held the smelly handle out for him to take.

He jumped back from the shiny green end. "No thanks. Feel free to light another."

"Think of it this way," I said while pulling out another and lighting it with one I had, "when we come back, if we're walking along and one of us trips over something wooden then we know we are going in the right direction." I put the old one out and set it on the floor.

"Sure, I just hope it won't be me tripping."

Our progress quickened as the tunnel floor no longer sloped upward but stayed flat. By that time, the bottoms of our shoes were mucked with the green sludge and made squishing sounds with each step.

Lauren sighed at the noise, "It's like an annoying younger brother who won't stop repeating himself."

"Hey!" I said "For one I'm the same age as you and two, I don't repeat myself."

She chuckled. "I think the fumes from that torch are getting to you. I'll take a turn with it."

"Thank you." My arm was getting tired from holding up since we climbed down into the water system maze.

We stopped at another junction.

"I can't quite make this out Trey. I'm not sure if the map is saying to go straight or through one of the tunnels to the right." Brax handed me the map.

I looked where he had pointed, and then turned to Lauren. "You know the way we determine who has to clean tables?" She nodded. "That's how we are going to decide which tunnel to take."

"How do you do that?" Brax said, looking confused.

"Rock, Paper, Scissors." We both stated in a matter of fact tone.

Brax rolled his eyes. "Because that's a smart way to do things."

I ignored the sarcasm, "If Lauren wins, we take the tunnel in front of us. If you win, then we take the tunnel to the immediate right. And if I win, we take the one to the right of that one. Got it?" He looked at me incredulously but still put his fist in with ours. The first three tries were three way ties. One more and Lauren was out. After two more ties Brax beat my paper with his scissors, his victory taking us down the shaft to the right.

Once again we made sure to mark the entrance to the tunnel we had come out of. We struck out into the black hole, rounding a bend we stopped at a dead end. A well shaft cut through the rock above our heads. Like other wells in Twera, this one's tunnel for water supply stopped below it so that the water level could build up.

"Brilliant plan!" Brax said.

"Well you shouldn't have won then." Lauren shot back.

"How about we go back to the junction again and take a break." I quickly suggested, hoping to avoid the brewing fight.

We tromped back to the room. I was tired of standing up and tried to find a place to sit that wasn't wet. Within a minute I gave up and set myself down where I was standing. We dug some food from our rations.

"So Brax," I said around a mouthful of bread "What's your take on this. You still think that it's nothing?" I gestured to the empty room.

He shrugged. "Like I said, even if there was something up down here. It's not like we can do anything about it."

"Why did you come with us then?" Lauren said.

"For the adventure of it." He stated flatly.

"Oh." Both of us said and we fell into silence.

"I say we try my tunnel first and if that's not it then we try Trey's." Lauren stood and led the way with the torch.

That one ended as well, sending us back to the room for a second time. My tunnel was the right one, or at least the one that kept going.

For the next half hour we said little.

I took the torch back from Lauren. Soon, the spreading halo of light gave me a headache and I wished that the torch would go out. Moments later it stuttered and died.

"Wait, what?"

"I think I've gone blind."

"Hang on. The torch just went out. I'll light a new one."

I dropped the used one and tried to fish another, as well as the flint and steel, out of my bag. Without paying attention to what my feet were doing I took a few steps forward. I yelped as I tumbled down a slope, hit the bottom with a splash, and sat up as quickly as possible.

"Trey! Are you all right?"

"What happened?"

Their voices came from a short distance above me. Spitting out water I answered, "I'm fine but don't come any closer or you'll wind up down here with me. Could you drop a rope down? I'm not sure how steep it is." I could hear them scuffling around in the dark.

"Here it comes." Lauren said.

The rope slid down and I easily found it by sense of touch. "Oh, almost forgot my bag." I had to fish for that. Once I located it I double-checked for the flint and steel.

I climbed up and sat in an unhappy, soaking wet huddle while Brax lit a torch from his pack since mine were no good. Lauren began to pack the rope away but Brax stopped her. "I think it would be best if we found a place to tie one end of it and keep the other end at the bottom of the slope so we can climb back up."

After a few minutes of searching the nearby rock face we came across a chiseled out ring of rock in the floor. "Apparently the tunnel workers had the same idea." I said.

Lauren spoke up. "We should eat then rest for an hour." She opened her bag and pulled out an apple. "It must be morning by now," she said, casting a glance at the lit rock above our heads. "Next time I ask to come along on something dumb like this, please don't let me."

"I thought Trey said you promised not to complain." Brax took a gulp of his water. She hit him square in the chest with her apple core.

"At least I'm willing to try and do something if there really is something wrong with the springs." She said.

By the torch light I could see him roll his eyes. "Not this again."

Lauren continued. "Come on Brax, you can't really think we wouldn't be able to help, even a little."

"Nope" He said and leaned against the wall with a challenging look.

"Leave him alone." I cut off Lauren's retort. "If he wants to think that way then let him."

We settled down to get some rest and I think someone asked me a question about how many miles we had left to go, but all the walking over the last who-knows-how-long, combined with lack of sleep, drew my eyes shut.

The next thing I knew I awoke to pitch darkness, wondering where I was. The torch had died out while the three of us slept. Searching for another, as well as the flint and steel, I woke Brax and Lauren up saying that we should keep moving.

We looked at the map again to check our distance. To our relief, the reservoirs were a mile ahead of us. Sliding down the slope into the same water that had already soaked me from head to toe, we slogged onward through the murky, knee-deep liquid. Brax lit the way. From the dampness on the walls I could see that under normal circumstances, there wouldn't even have been the space to catch a breath.

Lauren broke the sloshing silence. "So, what exactly are we going to do once we get there?"

"Huh? Check to see how much water there is of course."

"What I mean is, what are we going to do if the springs are empty? Or what if they are full? Then what?" I steadied her from behind as she slipped. "If the springs are full then I suppose we tell the adults and they go to the Five to get answers. Though you know how long that would take. And if the springs are empty then-"

"We're doomed." Brax said.

"Thank you for the delicate input." I said, tempted to splash water on him with my foot.

"Welcome as usual."

We rounded the latest corner and came to one of the opening shafts of the underground springs which rose a few feet above the current water level. A quick look at the map confirmed our guess.

We hoped to see water flowing from the tunnel but to our disappointment there was nothing. The three of us prepared ourselves for unpleasant news as we walked towards the other end.

A wall blocked any further progress.

"I've never been here before but I'm pretty sure that this wall isn't supposed to be here." Lauren said. She ran her fingers through the condensation covering the rough, new-cut stone for several feet above our heads. "There is water on the other side though."

Brax stretched his arm up as far as it would go. "Look. It ends before it connects with the roof."

"If you can boost us up again we can do what we did last time." I shrugged off my bag and placed it with the other two and the still-lit torch in the driest spot I could find.

Brax set the torch down a safe distance away and stood by the wall, ready to boost me up. This time I pulled myself up without incident. The whole wall was only a foot thick, making it hard for me to keep my balance when I helped Lauren up.

"We should try something different to get you up this time. There's not enough room for us to brace ourselves while you climb up a rope." I said to Brax in the circle of light bellow. "The wall is short enough so I think it will work best if I leaned down and reached for you and then pulled you up."

"Alright. Ready when you are."

Lauren looked skeptical. "Will this work?"

"Sure. We do this all the time to take short cuts through the neighborhood. Just make sure you hold onto my belt." With that I hauled Brax to the edge and he pulled himself over.

I thought I would be safe from mishap once he was up with us. However, the next thing I know Lauren lost her balance and grabbed onto Brax who grabbed my arm in an attempt to steady the both of them. "Of course" was all I could say as we fell into the water.

"Oh that's cold!" Brax yelled when he surfaced. We scrambled to get a grip on the ledge above us.

The temperature of the water stole my breath and caused my muscles to contract painfully.

Lauren clung with a shivering grasp to the rim. "Well, I'm awake now if I wasn't before." She tried to joke in-between shivers.

"Guess we should get out. There is obviously water here." I began to pull myself up but Brax stopped me.

"Hang on a second. Is that a light on the other side of the springs?" Through a large, natural archway the glow could easily be made out in the dark. Once total silence settled, the water effectively carried faint sounds to our ears.

"You want to check it out?" I said, looking between the two of them.

"It can't be too far of a swim."

"And it would be pointless to come all this way and not."

"Here we go then." I pushed off and they followed suit. We swam as fast as possible because we didn't want to be in there any longer than we had to. The voices and other noises became louder and more distinct as we approached.

Passing under the archway we entered the second of the five connected caverns and found a shelf above the water level near the light. We pulled ourselves up and huddled for warmth. I heard Lauren's teeth chattering next to me. Soon we warmed up enough to stealthily make our way single file over to where the people were. The shelf gradually widened until it became broad enough to hold the hundred or so people and their equipment. The walls echoed with hammers hitting metal, rocks being sorted into piles, and men yelling instructions and warnings, the sounds of a tunnel construction project.

We stayed in the shadows. Locating a hiding spot behind some rubble, we watched intently. "Who are these people?" I whispered. "That's not a Tweran accent."

"They sound like they're from Medi Dano. I visited the city-realm once with my family. How did they get so many of them down here?" Lauren said.

Brax moved to a more comfortable position. "They could have just walked in here through the main entrance in the Official's district."

His answer seemed too easy. "But we never saw more people come in than leave. I would count them every time they came through our district." I poked my head out far enough to survey most of the operation. "We assumed that the barrels that Medi Dano brought in were empty; we could have been wrong."

Three more official-looking men broke from the rest and started walking in our direction. I ducked back behind the pile of rocks before they got close enough to see us in the shadows.

They stopped at a table by our hiding place and looked over some papers by lamp light. I forgot to breathe, they were so close. The men's conversation could easily be heard over the noise of hammers striking rock from our vantage point. "At this rate, this last part of the connecting tunnel should be done within a few hours." One of them pointed to something on the table. "Just so long as things are kept under wraps, Medi Dano will soon have enough water to last the drought.

Lauren let out an angry squeak and I put my hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. Though I felt the same way, I knew that jumping up and punching one of them would not help.

Brax shifted positions as quietly as possible. He nudged me with his elbow and pointed. When I leaned towards him, I could see that he pointed at what looked to be the entrance to a tunnel. Many people went about their different tasks. Some empty handed, some with tools, and others pushed out carts full of rock.

Our attention came back to the three men at the table when one of them said, "I can't believe Twera's Officials would trade their water for the diamonds during a drought."

His partner scoffed. "I hear they left on the last water convoy a few nights ago. Glad they're not in charge of Medi Dano."

The man pointed up at the ceiling. "As soon as the connecting tunnel is done we can finish sealing off all entrances to Twera."

It took all I had to not lose my temper and let go of Lauren. Brax stayed silent, his jaw set in anger. We waited until the men went back to the others before making a move.

Brax leaned close to me and whispered in my ear so Lauren wouldn't hear. "Trey, take Lauren back to the surface as quickly as possible. When you get up there the two of you go tell our parents about this."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Just the two of us?"

"I'm going to find a way to stop them from finishing their tunnel-"

"Are you crazy?" I said, still in a low whisper. "You could get yourself killed or something! Now who needs to be tied up in a closet?" I could see that now was not a good time to argue with him; I knew that look from especially vicious hogball games.

"I'm not going to let Medi Dano take water away from us and leave my family and friends to die."

I reluctantly understood, "Well I'm not just going to leave you here to do something stupid by yourself. What if they catch you?" I argued back. "I want to help."

"Word needs to get back to the adults and I don't want Lauren wandering the water system by herself."

At the mention of her name, Lauren noticed our argument. "What's wrong?"

"I want the two of you to get out of here and tell someone what's happening. I'm staying behind to try and slow them up." Brax paused. A worker trundled past us with a cart of rocks. As long as he didn't look to his right our hiding place stayed a secret.

After the man continued on his way, I gave in. "We'll go and make sure that the adults know about all of this. First though, I want to know if you have a plan."

Brax nodded. "I saw some dynamite crates over there." He pointed to stack of crates ahead. "My grandfather used to work in the water tunnels. Sometimes they would use dynamite to clear or block passages and he taught me how to use it both ways."

"Right." I said, looking at the stone floor instead of him. "Good luck."

Lauren gave him a hug. "Please, stay safe."

He hugged her back. "You too." He let go and checked the surrounding area. "It looks clear. I'm going."

We watched until he made it safely to another hiding place. I heard a noise behind us and spun around in my crouched position to face it. Not five feet away was the same man with the cart of rocks who had passed by our hiding spot earlier.

"Hey! Who are you?" He said, looking just as surprised to see us as we were to see him.

Knowing that things would turn bad for the three of us if he sounded a warning, I jumped up and punched him in the jaw as hard as I could. With a groan he sank to the floor. Picking him up, I dumped him in the cart.

"Come on." I said to Lauren but she was already ahead of me.

We ducked our way through the shadowed rubble piles until we came to the end of the rock shelf. "That was too close. I think I stopped breathing." Lauren huffed. "I hope you hit him hard enough to keep him out long enough for Brax to do what he's going to do."

"Same here. I wish we weren't leaving him here." I looked back at the lit construction area.

Lauren pulled on my arm. "We have to go. I don't want him to stay either but the adults have to know."

I sighed and lowered myself into the pitch black water. Once again my breath left me on contact with the cold liquid. We began to make our way back to the tunnel, teeth chattering and limbs going numb.

Half-way there Lauren glanced behind us. "We're being followed; they have boats."

I stopped in order to get a good look. Two lantern lights floating above the surface of the underground lake were easy to pick out in the darkness. "Darn, he must have come to and told them about the two random kids he saw. I think we have a big enough head start to beat them to the tunnel though." We continued on as silently as the cold water would allow.

I made it to the wall first and hauled myself up, water running off me in rivulets. Thankfully the torch was still going strong where I had left it earlier. Lauren climbed up next to me. As we sat catching our breath the lights continued to close in on us. "You ready to go?" I asked her. I barely made out her silent nod in the shadowed light.

Suddenly a brilliant flash of light came from across the water; a loud, echoing explosion reached us seconds later. Lauren and I looked at each other.

"That was faster than I thought it would be. Should we wait for him?" Lauren said.

I jumped off the wall and hit the rock floor. "We don't know if that was even Brax who set that off. Either way, we need to tell our parents."

Lauren jumped down, almost rolling her ankle when she landed. I slung two of the bags over my shoulder while Lauren took the last one and the torch.

We set off down the tunnel as fast as we could, knee-deep in the stagnant water. Soon we made it to the slope that I had tumbled down earlier. "You first." I said to Lauren and took the torch from her. I followed, trying to hold on to the lit torch without setting the rope on fire.

"Should we leave this for Brax? I mean, if he might be coming it would make it easier for him to get back up." Lauren said hopefully.

"We have to cover our tracks."

Someone's voice came from back down the tunnel. "I see a light ahead. It must be those kids Jean was talking about."

"Thanks for the warning," I muttered. I untied the rope, knowing that the steep, slick slope would slow them down.

I would have put the torch out, we couldn't find our markers without it; we followed Lauren's chalk markers back to the second to last junction, smudging them out as we passed. I called a rest.

"I'm sure they're still coming." I tried to catch my breath after running the last stretch in the cramped tunnels.

Lauren smudged out the last chalk marker. "Since we know that it's a pretty straight shot to our well from here, I say we put out the light and run for it."

"Alright." I rolled the lit end of the torch in the mucky inch of water at our feet, enveloping us in darkness.

We held hands tightly, even though there was no way we could lose each other in the dark curving tunnel.

"Trey?"

"Hn?"

"I'm sorry about earlier and saying that you didn't care about Brax."

"Don't worry about it." I gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "You're worried about him. I am too."

We fell silent again, gingerly making our way down the mucked slope. I kept one hand on the wall to keep us steady. Lauren kicked something in the dark and it made wooden clunking sound.

"Was that the torch we left here earlier?" she said as she felt around the floor. She found the object and picked it up. "It is. Except now it's even more disgusting than before."

I smiled to myself. "The hole in the floor should be coming up." Sure enough, by stretching out my foot I could feel the rim of the hole not but a few feet in front of us. "That would not have been fun to fall through."

"So, who's first?" Lauren said.

"You as usual. Unless you want me to go first so I catch you."

"I'm good." She lowered herself as far as she could then let go. I dropped the bags after her. "Good grief, Trey. Give me a second to get out of the way. They nearly landed on my head."

"Sorry."

"Ok, everything's clear. You can come down."

I dropped down and we both stood in the first junction that we had encountered at the start of our adventure. I remembered that there were several tunnel entrances in the room. Our problem was finding the right one without the light.

Lauren nudged me with her elbow. "That one. To your left. There's a light."

"Let's go. I can't stand this place anymore."

We made it to the end of the tunnel and found the rope and lantern where we left them. Sunlight poured in. Lauren and I were smiling at each other, happy to leave the dark behind.

"You first," I said.

"As usual."

"I'll wait till you get all the way up. Just in case it's not strong enough to hold the both of us."

Lauren started to climb. I leaned against a wall while I waited and recovered the hogball from against the wall, exactly where Brax had left it at the beginning of our adventure. I rolled the blue ball absent-mindedly, worrying about Brax. Frustrated, I growled and unleashed the hardest kick I could on the defenseless ball. It flew into the gloom.

"Ouch!" said a voice from down the tunnel.

"Quiet, Haren!"

"But something hit my shin."

They were still on our trail. I grabbed the rope and pulled myself hand overhand as fast as I could.

Lauren stopped and looked down. "Geez, Trey. I thought you said you were going to wait till I reached the top."

"They're right behind us. Climb faster!"

"Why didn't you say so?" Lauren climbed faster.

"Hey! I see them!" Our pursuers were right below us.

"Don't let them reach the top!"

The rope below me pulled taut. I glanced down to see one of the men climbing after us.

I caught up with Lauren. "Hurry up!" I urged. My arms ached from the effort of climbing.

"I'm trying!" She yelled back.

The sunlight grew stronger with each foot we gained. Not a second too soon we popped out of the well mouth and into the late morning. We looked back down the well shaft to see the man still climbing.

"What do we do, Trey?" Lauren panted.

I gulped another breath before answering. "We could just untie the rope and let him drop. But," I paused for more air, "I have a better idea. We're going to pull him up."

"You've lost it, right?" Lauren said. "Why?"

"Because, the adults can question him in case they don't believe us." I seized of the end rope tied at the top of the well. "Grab hold of rope and we'll get him up here together." She did as I instructed, gave a quick count to three, and we hauled on the rope.

As soon as he came over the wall, the both of us pounced on him with the rope, smashing the lantern still tied to the other end. For good measure, Lauren gagged him with his own sock. "If you know what's good for you, don't try to escape." She threatened him triumphantly.

"Trey? Lauren? What on earth are you doing? And why are you so wet?"

I looked up to see a growing group of people gathering around us. "Oh, uh... hello Mr.. Pericles. We're just, um... Well." I didn't know how to even begin explaining why we just tied up a stranger who we pulled out of the same well we came out of.

Lauren saved me the trouble. "I'm sorry, sir, but we can't chat now. Can you watch this man till we get back? Thank you!" She pulled me through the crowd. Once it thinned out we ran for the inn.

I jumped up the back steps and threw the door open. "Mother! Father! Quick! We found out th-"

My mother opened my parent's bedroom door "Where have you been, Trey! You had us worried sick. Your fathers are out looking for the three of you." Behind her Lauren and Brax's mothers sat at the kitchen table.

"Thank goodness you're alright, Lauren." Her mother rushed over and caught her in a crushing hug.

Lauren tried to break away from her mother. "Yes, we're fine but Brax and Twera might not be if something isn't done soon."

Brax's mother stood up. "What do you mean Brax might not be alright? Did something happen?"

I was trying to figure out a way to explain to her that Brax was still underground when our fathers walked in with our captive in tow.

"This man says you tied him up." Lauren's father stated.

I sighed. "Everyone might want to sit down. We have a lot of news and less time." With that, Lauren and I launched into a two-person recap of our adventure. "So that's why we have to do something soon. Brax might be hurt and Medi Dano could have finished the tunnel if he didn't blow it up."

Brax's mother exclaimed, "We have to do something, anything! We can't leave my son down there!" And they started to argue.

"We also can't let them take our water. We're in the middle of a drought. They have no right to take our water."

"But the Five made that deal with Medi Dano."

"They left the city; shouldn't that nullify the deal?"

"The district governors need to hear this."

Exhausted, my head refused to stay up as my eyes closed on their own. Lauren's head already rested against the table top.

I woke up worried about Brax. I jumped out of bed and ran to find someone who could tell me what was going on. Delicious aromas of breakfast led to the kitchen. Lauren sat at the table with a plate full of bacon and pancakes.

My mother greeted me with my own plate of breakfast. "Well, good morning."

Lauren poked at her pancake with her fork before stabbing a piece. "Mrs. Chapman? Where are my parents?"

"They're with Brax's folks."

"Is he alright? Did he come back on his own or did they find him?" I couldn't resist asking.

She came over to me and laid her hands on my shoulders. "They were able to recover him from the debris of the tunnel collapse early yesterday, but," I could feel her grip on my shoulders tighten, "he was in bad shape. They took him to the hospital and I don't know much more than that. Right now, Lauren's mom is staying with his parents. Both of your fathers are in a meeting the district governors to try and figure out what to do with this whole mess."

"I want to see him." Lauren said.

"Me too." I added.

"Go change and wash up then you can go see him. I have to stay here to run the inn." My mother said as she scrubbed a dirty pan.

"Yes ma'am!" We both scrambled to get ready and left as soon as we could.

We hurried through the district; Lauren spotted a well and ran over to it. "Trey, hang on a sec. I want to check something." She lowered the bucket and pulled it back up. Water filled the bucket to the brim. We grinned at each other. "I guess somebody did something right." She dumped it back in and we hurried to the hospital.

We easily located Brax's parents and Lauren's mother, as well as both of our fathers. Everyone looked tired. We ran up to the group of adults. "How is he?"

His father answered. "Brax is stabilized, but he lost his right arm."

My jaw dropped; Lauren gasped.

"It was pinned under a slab of rock and they had no way to save it. They had to amputate up to his shoulder."

I didn't want to believe it. I shouldn't have left him there by himself. "Can we see him?" I asked.

"He's resting now, but maybe in a bit." His father said.

"Yes sir." More waiting.

I pulled a chair up next my father's. "What happened after I fell asleep? Did we run the people from Medi Dano out?"

He gave a tired chuckle. "Not quite, Trey. After a little persuasion, your captive told the district governors everything they needed to know. We took teams of medics and water system workers through the main entrance to the five springs' reservoirs."

"You mean the three of us could have just walked through the main entrance instead of sorting our way through those nasty tunnels?"

He laughed again. "Not quite. You have to get the keys to the gate locks."

"Good."

Lauren and her father came over to join us. "When we got down there the whole operation was in disarray. We could see that the tunnel entrance was completely collapsed and blocked off. We made sure that they didn't have any weapons before we offered our help. There were plenty of injured, but no casualties. They had already dug Brax out and tied off his arm."

"Then what did you do?" I said as I fidgeted around in my seat to find a more comfortable position.

"We brought everyone topside, took the injured to the hospitals, and the rest of them to the governors. The three of you might have saved Twera and her water supply by taking it upon yourselves to check the problem with the springs in the first place." My father ruffled my hair. "But don't think you're getting away with it."

"The same goes for you Lauren."

We both hung our heads in dread of what the punishment might entail. "Yes, sir." Lauren and I never did get to see Brax that day.

Three weeks passed before they allowed Brax to leave the hospital. Twera allowed the men from Medi Dano to return home, with the promise that we would share our water. I laid out in the shade of the solitary tree of our grass lot, dozing in the cooled heat of the afternoon. Someone's footsteps swished through the grass. "I thought I'd find you here. You're so predictable Trey." My eyes flew open at the sound of my best friend's voice.

"Brax! You're alive." I jumped up, self-consciously trying not to look at the stump of his right shoulder.

He noticed me staring at where his arm should have been. "I know. It's weird isn't it?"

"It's going to take some getting used to."

"Ha, you and me both."

"I'm sorry," was all I could say.

"Don't worry about it. The worst thing for me is that it's going to be awfully hard to play hogball now."

"That's right. What are we going to do without our star player?" We both laughed at the thought of Brax ever giving up hogball.

Brax leaned against the tree. "So I guess you, Lauren, and I are big heroes now. Saving Twera's water and everybody's lives and all that."

I laughed and rested my head on my knees, watching the people go about their business beyond our grass lot.

Suddenly Brax turned to me. "So, are you grounded for the rest of your life like I am?"

"Oh yeah."

_Kelsey Felder was raised in Miami, Florida, where her parents are evangelists on community college campuses. She is a General Biology major at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida, that wants to use that to enter the field of Zoology. She likes to read and write and play sports, something she has done since age five. She is working her way to a black belt in Tae Kwon Do._

## **Adventures on the Atomic Earth: Rain Man**

by Winston Crutchfield

Ashram Carver finished his morning prayers and looked up at the cloudless sky, already bright blue overhead and dazzling white to the sandy horizon. That sky promised another scorching day without the respite of shade or rain. He shook his head and rose from his knees, brushing the dirt from his legs and staring forlornly at the layers of grime on his skin. The village had run out of water for bathing several months ago, their drinking supply dwindling from scarce to vaporous. He motioned to the handful of people in attendance, saying a few kind words to each one as the prayer meeting broke up.

No more than a hundred families remained in the settlement. Most of the departed had simply packed their belongings and left when the well started to run dry. A few had died. Many more had stayed, preferring the hope of rain or the death of dehydration to the horrors of the atomically fueled wilderness. Ashram stayed because he was still needed. Still needed, he reflected, though not wanted.

He looked to the east gate at the town wall. Not even the first hour of daylight, and Alderman Sitz already waited patiently for yesterday's scouts to return with the day's water supply. Sitz had objected to Ashram's arrival from the Foundation a year ago, had opposed Ashram's staying once his meager supply of medicines had run out, and now had begun blaming Ashram for the current drought. Every one of Ashram's efforts to better the community met with stiff opposition from Sitz.

A pillar of dust rising above the wall started Ashram walking that direction. Everyone already awake would want to be at the gate when the scouts returned, and it looked like they were coming in early today. By the time Ashram made it to the town border, more than a dozen men and women had gathered; the makeshift cistern set up near the gate grew queues of containers like knobbly tentacles. No one stood by the tap. Ashram frowned; that meant yesterday's reservoir was completely gone. Same as the day before. Same as the week before.

The crowd noise swelled, drawing Ashram's attention to the gate. He moved quickly in that direction and pushed his way to the front of the gathering. Three rooster-tails of dust plumed against the sky, kicked up by the speeders of the town scouts. The town only sent scouts out two at a time. Ashram glanced sidelong at Alderman Sitz; the councilman scowled into the glare of the rising sun. Ashram nearly grinned; Sitz was going to hate having another stranger in town, however briefly.

Men on either side of the gate cranked the winches that drew apart the heavily reinforced doors. The crowd backed away from the opening, clearing a street for the speeders to enter. Three slim frames howled across the threshold, two of them skidding sideways to a halt just beyond the crowd. The third slowed, stopped, and parked his machine in the middle of the street. The town gates swung shut with a reverberating clang Ashram felt in his teeth.

The gathered people rushed the scouts, crowding the two men, shouting questions, and demanding water. Ashram hung back; Sitz moved up to his side. The two did not greet each other. The scouts worked their way forward to make their report, but it was Sitz who spoke first. "Where is the tank?" he asked softly.

The scouts glanced at each other, each hoping the other would explain. Finally, one of the men spoke reluctantly, "We lost it." The crowd, now doubled in size since Ashram's arrival and the gradual waking of the town, roared immediately in outrage and protest. "We was attacked by gaunts just after we left the crick," the other scout yelled to be heard over the noise. "Clipped my wing," he motioned with the shoulder of a bandaged arm in a makeshift sling, "ripped a hole in the tanker, near took the back end off my speeder. We got away while they was lapping at the water."

Sitz curled his lip in disgust, "Your cowardice has killed us all." He rounded on Ashram, "Or yours has, Doctor." He spat the title like a curse.

"Don't matter no how," the scout interrupted. "Wasn't nothing in there to speak of. Crick's dry." His companion nodded affirmation.

"And yet you still managed to bring home someone else to die of thirst with us," Sitz snarled at the two men. He glared at the stranger hanging back beyond the edge of the crowd, "You'll find nothing here for you. Get out and leave us to die."

"I don't like you, and I don't owe you anything." The stranger lifted goggles from his face, leaving clean rings of skin in a dust-caked face. He drew a piece of equipment from his belt, the T.A.Q. Device that was the Challenger City wilderness scout's badge of office. "But since I'm here, the least I can do is fill your reservoir – give you and your folk water enough to pack up and leave." The scout played with the settings on his device. A moment later, a small fragment of blue crystal hung in the air, tethered to the T.A.Q. Device by a nearly invisible cone of energy. "What's your processor there hold?"

One of the men in the crowd moved hastily to the controls of the reservoir, released the valves in the tank, and breached the reaction chamber. "This is a bad idea," Sitz began, but was quickly drowned out by the crowd's roar of protest.

The scout waited patiently, finally dropping the crystals into to the processor. The chamber sealed; machinery thrummed softly. With the roar of rushing water and the hiss of escaping air, water splashed against the walls of the reservoir tank, absolutely pure water extracted directly from the elemental matrix of the scout's atomic shards.

For the next hour, volunteers dispensed the water into waiting containers. Even with an apparent surplus, town officials stood by to ensure that rationing was observed. After the first round of earnest thanks and townsfolk clutching to grasp his hand, the scout withdrew to his speeder and away from the hubbub, warding off further expressions of gratitude by pretending to arrange his saddlebags.

Ashram received his ration and savored a few cool swallows before stowing his thermos out of sight. He approached the scout, who puttered pointedly with his speeder for a moment before realizing Ashram wasn't going to leave. The man finally looked up at him, "Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"Welcome." The scout turned back to fussing with his speeder.

Ashram continued, "They're going to want more."

"I'll fill it back up at the end of the day," came the answer, "but that's it. I can't stay, and you shouldn't either."

"I'm Ashram Carver," he extended his hand.

"Ted Bussen, a pleasure," the man's tone of voice didn't sound like it was a pleasure, but the scout took Ashram's hand in a cursory grip anyway. "Doctor Ashram Carver?" The grip tightened. "I read your treatise on resonance tracking and elemental polarization – real good stuff, sir."

Ashram managed a weak grin, "Pleasure's mine. Glad you could put it to good use."

"Are you on a missionary sabbatical?"

"Oh, you know," Ashram raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, "It's all about the field research. I came to fix their equipment and see about a mission – wound up rolling pills. You need anything from the clinic?" Ted shook his head; Ashram continued, "Any particular reason you think we should leave town? Some of those here won't take that kindly." He eyed Alderman Sitz, who had taken personal charge of the water distribution now that most of the town had arrived.

Ted closed the saddlebags on his speeder and sat roughly on the side of the seat. "I picked up your boys just after the gaunts found 'em. The creek they were using to fill that tanker's little more than mud; they said your well is dry. I don't figure you've got a good reason to stay." He shrugged, "but that's you. Happens I'm here cause your little vacation spot registered hot on my T.A.Q. Device. You've got a fairly high-level rad signature coming from right around here, and that's going to draw all sorts of nasties out of the wilderness." Ted lifted his chin curtly at the city walls. "That ain't going to stop much of anything serious."

Ashram nodded gravely. "I see."

"Yeah, you might," he hesitated, noting the look on Ashram's face. "But you don't look like they're going to do it."

"Oh, they won't." Ashram assured him, "They're going to want to stay more than ever, now."

Ted scowled, "Why?"

"The Foundation sent me here a year ago when the town requested aid. Their Quantumizer had failed; I brought the tools and knowledge to fix it." Ashram drew a hand across his forehead to clear the sweat already gathering in the heat. "But that didn't solve their problem."

"They've been a year without a working T.A.Q. Device?" Ted's hand moved protectively to his own machine.

"Off and on; I can't keep it working right. See, they aren't using it to provide for the town; they're using it on the monsters."

Ted grunted.

"This area's always had a faint elemental resonance. Instead of mining for shards to power the town, they would periodically use the harmonic to draw out monsters and pit them against each other. The conflict unleashed enough energy to feed the winner, and the town harvested the meat of the loser." Ashram shrugged at the grim set of Ted's jaw. "I guess they kept things far enough from the walls that nothing ever took any interest in the town; plus, it kept the population of mutants down."

"'S blasted foolish, is what it is," Ted growled.

"Huh," Ashram almost grinned. "When I got here, I found them in a panic because their favorite monster was drifting away."

Ted just shook his head.

"They had caught the interest of an elemental embodiment – an inertial/density matrix composed of air and water – and were feeding it enough energy to keep it pacified and localized. It killed the local creatures, rained on their crops, and everyone was happy."

"Shards and blazes," Ted swore. "Tell me it was a small one."

"Class Five," Ashram said. "A tornado in a bottle that doesn't exist."

Ted's scowl deepened. "I was worried I wouldn't be able to attract any attention to the area, be able to stir up enough trouble to trap some energy, but if they've conditioned a Class Five into thinking of this as its feeding ground..."

"Now you've brought a working Quantumizer into town," Ashram continued. "Elemental activity has spiked enough to draw your attention, which means it's going to draw monster attention, and the only things left in the area are Class Two and below." Ashram finished the thought with a grimace. "At least their pet cloud monster seems to have wandered off to the west. If their Device hadn't quit altogether when it did I doubt there would be a town left."

Neither one of them had noticed Sitz approach. "Dr. Carver is a self-important fear-monger who would rather _civilize_ heathens like us than help us improve our standard of living," Sitz said acidly. "He hasn't repaired our Quantumizer because he can't." Sitz turned his back on Ashram and stepped deftly between the two men, "and he won't live up to a man's duty and report that failure to the Foundation. Despite anything he would have you believe, Mr. ...."

"Bussen," Ted supplied.

"Mr. Bussen, we had and would still have everything under control. Come," Sitz made a move to walk away, "I'll have someone service your speeder so we can get out of this heat. Besides, I was intolerably rude earlier, and I cannot help but admit I owe you an apology."

Ted glanced at the readout strapped to his wrist and acquiesced. Ashram folded his arms across his chest and let them walk away without further protest.

Ted spent the morning letting Sitz talk. They toured the perimeter of the wall, Sitz proudly detailing their defensive measures against the atomically charged horrors of the wilderness. "Won't be enough," was all Ted would say.

Sitz led Ted to the garage where the town's motor pool was. Ted's speeder was there, already serviced and being detailed by a pair of energetic youths. Sitz showed him a workshop at the back of the bay, where the pieces of a Trans-Atomic Quantumizer Device lay disassembled in order along a schematic diagram. "Can you fix it?" Sitz asked simply.

Ted looked over the Device with a practiced eye. "Got no parts," he said.

Sitz gestured, and one of the men who had joined them lifted two locked cases from one of the shelves nearby. Ted shook his head, "Guess I could put it back together for you, flash the program from mine, and get you back up and running."

"Will you?"

"Not sure as that would be a good idea; software can get tetchy." Ted made a face and ran a hand unconsciously along the Challenger Foundation sigil stitched into his vest. "Dr. Carver's the senior Foundationist, and he doesn't seem to think you folks are hurting so bad you need it. Besides, from what I hear you've got a Class Five been visiting periodically. That's three kinds of dangerous."

Sitz exchanged glances with the other men, and let the matter drop. The group headed for town center, joined along the way by several more townsfolk. Once in town hall, they headed to the basement, the party of eight crowding into a climate controlled room lined with tracking equipment. Sitz sat down in one of the two operator's chairs, and motioned for Ted to take the other. On the monitors, a S.E.N.T.R.I. uplink fed data from the satellites keeping watch on atomic monsters in the region. Ted nervously eyed an indistinct hologram with the number five glowing uncomfortably close to the borders of the town.

Sitz spoke hesitantly, choosing his words carefully, "Mr. Bussen, I can't express how much we appreciate your refilling our emergency reservoir. With your experience and assistance, we can keep the town vital for a long time to come. You and I could become the pillars of a new community. We can replenish the well, and start to grow crops again. We'll track down the survivors of those that abandoned us and bring them back to safety."

"It's not safe here, Alderman," Ted grunted. "I tried to tell you that before, and now its getting on in the day. I've got to spike this signature and see if I can collect it before it draws the attention of something uglier even than me."

Sitz leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in displeasure, the last pretense of politeness vanishing from his face.

Ted shook his head, "I don't mind doing what I can, you're welcome to the water and all. But if I was you, I'd take advantage of the kindness and get to greener pastures. I passed two or three settlements towards the north that'd welcome some new faces. Settlements where you'll find plenty of water and a chance to start over."

"I don't care for your tone, Mr. Bussen. We've done just fine in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. But it's apparent we're just heathens and savages to you as well." Sitz fairly spat venom, "you Foundationists are all the same, convinced you've got all the answers, and the only right ones."

Ted stared, and rose to his feet. "Alderman, you've been playing with really dangerous creatures. I appreciate that you think you can control them, but you can't. Dr. Carver's a smart man who's spent a lifetime studying the effects of elemental signatures. I've near grown up in the wilderness, myself. Beats me why you don't listen to him, do what he tells you to do, and be done with it."

"What do you know about us? Only the lies Carver's put in your head." Sitz made no move to rise himself, "The Foundation thinks it can run our lives because they hold the technology that keeps us alive. Set up their tin-plated dictators to take the shards of energy that we've bled for and grow fat in their atomically powered city. Force us even to pray to their little invented god who's so powerful and aloof that he has to send atomic monsters to judge us for our sins." Sitz nodded to several of the others in the room, and Ted abruptly found himself surrounded.

"Carver's done nothing but preach this drivel since he got here; don't think I haven't heard what he's really saying beneath all the fine platitudes. He won't fix our Quantumizer until we pledge fealty to the Foundation, yield our independence to their appointed manager, and abase ourselves daily to an invisible, imaginary god so we never forget our place. No, I don't think so," Sitz didn't appear to make a motion, but four of the men seized Ted by the arms and forced him back into his chair. "We're surrounded by monsters in the wilderness, monsters we can see and touch and kill. I've tolerated Carver's poison this long out of desperation that his own survival would be enough to make him yield. I've no intention of letting more outsiders force us to suffer for their own amusement."

Ted struggled futilely, "You don't know what you're doing, Alderman. You're not playing with fire, you're playing with an atom bomb. Those creatures can't be controlled. You can't train them. They're not animals you can entice with treats and scare with tricks." One of the men strapped Ted's arms to the chair and relieved him of the Quantumizer on his belt and the controller on his wrist. "At best, these things are forces of nature utterly indifferent to your survival. At worst, they see you as rivals, intruders, and food."

Sitz rose and took the T.A.Q. Device from the man who had taken it from Ted. He smiled, and it wasn't a pretty sight, "You're wrong, Mr. Bussen. We aren't blind, superstitious savages – no matter what your Foundation believes. I do not act out of hate or fear or prejudice. I do what I do because we want to live, and we want to live in freedom." His lip curled in contempt. "Freedom from people like you and Carver."

They made to leave the room, and Sitz paused in the open doorway, "We're not barbarians, Mr. Bussen. We're simply going to repair our own Quantumizer and resume our way of life. Your property and your freedom will be returned to you once we're done." Sitz closed the door behind him, leaving Ted alone in the tracking station.

Ashram attended to the few patients at the clinic he operated, setting the injured scout's arm properly and making rounds checking up on the worst cases of dehydration and malnutrition, recent problems caused by the drought. Introducing himself as "Doctor Carver" last year had landed him an immediate position as the town bone-setter, despite Ashram's protests that his degree was scientific and not medical. He'd spent the first month in town using up the medical care package brought from Challenger City, and the next month studying furiously on practical rural medicine. His nurse was a thin, querulous man who had assisted the previous doctor, earning a field promotion when the doctor was killed by roving gaunts outside the town walls. The man had been relieved to abrogate the position of medico to Ashram.

By mid-afternoon, Ashram handed off a short check-list of duties to his nurse and excused himself from the clinic. Stepping into the heat of the day, Ashram headed for the motor pool, arriving just in time to witness scouts from the town tear out of the service bay on their speeders and through the western gates. He frowned. There had been three riders.

In the motor pool, he laid a hand on the shoulder of the first mechanic he saw, "Was that the stranger that just took off? I didn't think he'd be leaving this soon." The man just shrugged and pointed to the back of the bay where Alderman Sitz stood with several members of the town council. Ashram groaned inwardly.

He walked towards the workshop. "What's going on here, Alderman?"

Sitz smirked and made no answer. Ashram hurried past him and into the workshop. The non-functional Quantumizer was nowhere in sight. Both cases of replacement parts lay open on the workbench, and portions of the assembly schematic still glowed soft white against the surface of the display. Ashram's jaw clenched. A noise from the threshold drew his attention, and the door to the workshop slammed shut with a sudden bang.

A couple of Sitz's men pushed heavy equipment in front of the door, keeping it from opening. Sitz moved idly up to the large windows that enclosed the room, leaning against the wire-reinforced glass. He spoke loudly, so Ashram could hear through the window, "Mr. Bussen has enabled us to repair our Quantumizer and it is time to bring this drought to an end – without the help of your Foundation. When we're done, you will be free to leave and I intend that you do so without preamble." Sitz smiled without humor, and no small measure of malice. "In the meantime, we are going to retrieve our cloud monster and coax him docilely back into our service."

Ashram slammed both fists futilely against the glass, "Sitz, please, you don't understand what you've been messing with! You've got to get those scouts back here before they engage the creature! There's nothing left around here that can challenge a Class Five; feeding it energy from the T.A.Q.s will just make it more uncontrollable!"

"You're a fool and a coward, Carver. I've known that since I first laid eyes on you. We'll coax it close enough for a bit of rain, and then drain it until it leaves – just as we did before you began sabotaging our T.A.Q. Device." Sitz smirked coldly, "The rain will replenish the well in time, and now that we've got a hot zone again, we have all the time we need."

Ashram slumped against the window, "I've tried to tell you, the T.A.Q.s aren't meant to be used that way; they can't handle the resonant feedback. You're wrong, Alderman. These monsters don't serve us, they consume us."

Sitz slammed his hand on the glass between them, "Your Foundation can't abide the thought that someone might be able to survive without your precious technology. Men like me mastered these monsters long ago, drove them back to the center of the earth, and stupidly depended on men like you to advance civilization while we kept the atomic horrors at bay. Your god is a coward's gambit, an imaginary trump card to bring low all those greater than yourself."

"If my god is imaginary, he can't possibly matter." Ashram chose his words carefully. "But he's real, and powerful, and hasn't left us to face these nuclear-powered monsters alone." Ashram paused, "He's given us men like you, with great courage and leadership." He drew a measured breath. "And great pride."

Sitz sneered, "Then maybe you should pray for me. I've endured every one of your petty gambits to force us to the bow the knee to the Foundation; this town and these people have survived by my will alone. Let's see your god lay that low."

Ashram bowed his head.

The three scouts rode west into the desert, throttles maxed out on the open plain. Once outside the city walls, they had paused to lock onto the hot zone's elemental signature and secure an entangling particle for the T.A.Q. Devices to use. The city walls lay distantly behind them now; just ahead dark thunderheads rolled heavy and low, a dense mass of storm and twister in an otherwise cloudless sky.

The scouts glided to a halt, resting their speeders on the crest of a dune. Two of them fiddled with their Quantumizers, words muffled behind layers of cloth pulled tight across their faces against the desert sand. "You got a reading, Sten?"

"Yeah, I got two of 'em. That's our rainmaker right there, no doubt." Sten pushed on the controls of the T.A.Q., "but I can't figure what this other is. Got red and green energy signatures, and it's big, no doubt." He wiped the readouts from the display and looked around, "Just can't see nothing."

"Huh," the man without a T.A.Q. Device dismounted and slogged through the whipping wind and shifting sand to the edge of the dune. The heavy clouds that formed the body of their rainmaker surged overhead, supremely uninterested in the insignificant men below. Across the plain of the desert nothing moved in the glare, no elemental monstrosity rose against the sun to roar its fury, no treeline obscured the expanse of blowing, billowing white sand. "What you got, Lex?"

Lex booted up his own T.A.Q. and scrolled through the readouts. "Same as, Mark." He threw up his hands in frustration. "This our boy right above us. Something else hereabouts, just can't see 'im. What do you want we should do?"

Mark slogged back to his speeder, "borrowed" from Ted Bussen, laid a hand on the steering column, "You got a lock on the hot zone back home?"

"Yeah."

"Spike it."

Lex spun a dial on the controller, gripped the wrist strapped to it in one hand, and mashed the activator.

The world went white. Thunder split the air in the middle of the party of scouts; Lex and his speeder vanished in an incandescent, plasma-fueled inferno that knocked Mark to the ground and fused the crest of the dune into molten glass. Mark scrambled against the sand to clutch for his speeder, careering in the suddenly violent wind down the far slope of the dune. His hand snatched a loose tie cord, and the speeder dragged him across the sand.

Sten couldn't hear anything, could barely see, was grateful he'd remained in his seat, and now clung to his speeder with panic-born strength. Rain fell, a sudden downpour that ran in muddy rivulets down the slope of the dune to pool in spillways at the base of the hill. He spun his vehicle around and gunned the throttle for home.

Mark flopped onto his back, staring at the sky as the runaway speeder dragged him through the mud of the dune. In the thunderheads above, twisters roiled and surged against each other; lightning drew fresh lines of dazzle in his still sparkling vision. Columns of rain as dense as tree trunks blasted and blew and ruined great tracts of sand into gorges of flowing mud. The sky opened up jaws of midnight that swallowed the noon sun; lightning flashed in eyes that saw no mortal plane, and smoky claws of ice annihilated the smooth run of rain across the sand.

Mark screamed.

The wind pushed his speeder over the edge of a defile cut by the storm and already filling with mud. He dropped roughly on the rear of the vehicle and scrambled into the seat. A twist of the throttle leapt the machine out of the gorge, across the dunes, and away from the raging storm.

He couldn't see Sten, couldn't hear anything beyond the ringing in his ears and the howl of the storm. The speeder kicked and bucked against him like a thing alive, and Mark reached desperately for the tie straps that would secure him to the seat. He pulled them one-handed across his chest, swerved in the wind, and screamed out of the edge of the storm and into clear skies.

Mark turned to look behind him. The storm monster moved with deliberation, twisters and columns of rain marching inexorably over the dunes and in his direction. Mark gave his full attention to the speeder.

The vehicle surged unexpectedly and the ground in front of him rose sharply, launching Mark into the air. He fought for balance and control, trying to angle his descent for a sloped dune. Beneath him the ground opened up in an eruption of magma and earth. Inhuman jaws formed from rock and fire gaped hungrily, engulfing Mark and his speeder in a crushing, blazing death.

Sten whipped through the gates and past the entrance to the motor pool, sliding his speeder to a stop in front of town hall. He jumped from the seat and ran up the steps, pushed through the doors and yelled for Alderman Sitz at the top of his lungs.

Sitz appeared within seconds, followed by the town council. "Did you find it? The rainmaker, did you find it?" He demanded of the breathless, doubled-over scout.

Sten nodded, and handed over the T.A.Q. Device. "We found it alright. Killed Lex right off, never seen 'em act that way afore." He straightened up, "Ain't seen Mark, neither. He wasn't behind me when I cleared out."

"They're brave men who knew the risks," Sitz declared. "Their sacrifice may have saved us all." Sitz clapped a hand on Sten's shoulder, "Spread the word, get people indoors and secure the town. It's going to rain."

Within the hour, the storm being stood directly over the town, pelting the buildings with rocks of ice and dropping an endless rain of needles on roof, street, and wall. Winds tore at vehicle and edifice alike with an abrasive moan that twisted every structure around curve and corner. Bolt after bolt of lightning crashed into the rods strategically placed near energizing receptors designed to feed the power into capacitor banks.

Minutes after the monster announced its arrival in a roar of elemental fury, the town had recharged its generators, filled every cistern, and now simply waited for the creature to wear itself out.

Alderman Sitz and the town council convened in the basement of the town hall, attempting to stifle the radiation bleed from the latent hot zone so that the monster would lose interest. So far, Sitz's attempts to use the T.A.Q. Device this way had met with utter failure. He had finally given up in disgust, and set the instrument aside, content that this storm would pass, as had all others before it.

And then the ground shook.

A yell from the S.E.N.T.R.I. monitor room sent the men scrambling to the doorway. Ted Bussen's chair lay on its side, with Ted still strapped firmly to its seat. "What's going on," Sitz demanded. "Sit him up, might as well let him out."

Some of the men loosed the straps on Ted's arms, and he rolled onto the floor. They righted the chair, and Ted staggered to his feet, glaring angrily. "I warned you," was all he said.

On the tracking monitor, a holographic tornado hovered directly over the town, the number five burning inside it. On the outskirts, just breaching the walls, a shapeless mass also bearing the number five rolled like a tidal wave through the display. The building shook again, and the screeching tear of shredding metal reached them even in the basement. On the display, a section of wall disintegrated, and the second monster was inside the town.

"My god," breathed Sitz.

"That's the problem, isn't it?" Ted muttered. "Give me my T.A.Q. Device."

The building heaved, tossing everyone to the ground. "Now!" Ted ordered.

"We left it in the other room," someone answered.

Ted staggered as the building bucked again, and dust floated from the ceiling. He lurched into the conference room and scooped up the Quantumizer from the floor. "It's not mine," he grunted. No one answered. "Get out of here before the building comes down on us. I'll take care of this."

Ted grabbed at the handrails on the stairs leading up to the first floor, and hauled himself up, through the hall, and into the open.

The western quarter of the town was gone.

In its place, dark twisters struggled with columns of rock. Gobbets of magma shot into the air to steam sheets of rain into oblivion. Tongues of lightning fused sheets of earth into fulgurite tubes. The elemental embodiments of nature clashed and howled, each utterly unable to comprehend the other.

The earth heaved. Torrential wind plucked Ted from his feet and flung him down the street. He rolled to a stop against the wall of a house and dragged himself painfully to a sitting position. He grunted and activated the T.A.Q. Device, quickly calling up readouts and diagnostics. "Blast their eyes!" Burning, sulfurous boulders rained from the sky, smashing buildings and setting them ablaze.

Ted scrambled to his feet and lurched against the unsteady earth in what he hoped was the direction of the clinic, not included on Sitz's tour of the town. Flooding from the town hall, one of the councilmen seized his arm, yelling to be heard above the howl of the near tornado, "What do we do?"

Ted shook him free, "What do I care? This town is done; head north and pray you can find the next settlement before you die of thirst." Ted left the man in the dirt, pulled his goggles down against the wind and grit, and staggered away.

"Pray to whom?" The man called after him.

When he could no longer see the city center for the blowing dirt, Ted began pounding on doors, ordering people to evacuate by the closest gate. Before long, he had located several volunteer Civil Defenders waiting for official word from the town council. Ted grimly informed them of the state of things, mobilized evacuation protocols, and got directions to the clinic. Back in the street, people emerged from their homes in barely controlled panic, going from a state of lockdown to evacuation in the space of a few words spread by the talkies of the Civil Defenders.

To the west, the titanic battle between the two elemental embodiments drifted north, shearing away another section of reinforced wall with an ear-splitting shriek. Dirt, debris, cloud, and rain blotted out the noonday sun. The west end of town burned, including the motor pool, great billows of steam rising where unending rain fell on unquenchable fires.

Ted pushed south towards the clinic.

He finally made it to the small building, uncomfortably close to the southwest perimeter where the earth elemental had first breached the town wall. Ted tried the door, pounding on it with both fists when he found it was locked. The door cracked and swung suddenly open to slam against the wall as the gale roared into the clinic. Someone dragged Ted inside, and two other men forced the door shut again by sheer weight.

Ted sagged against the wall to catch his breath. Less than a dozen people were crowded into the main waiting room of the clinic, men, women, and a few a children. Dr. Carver was not among them. "Why are you still here? Didn't you hear the CDs on the talkies? Is anyone hurt?"

The scout with the injured arm from earlier in the day was the only one. "Some of us were about to make a run for the south gate," he said.

"Some of you?" Ted asked, "Where's Dr. Carver?"

"The alderman had him locked up in the motor pool, put a couple of guys on guard when we went to check on him."

Ted sagged, "The motor pool's a loss, anyone in there's got to be dead."

The scout lifted a talkie and keyed it, "How you doing, Ash?"

The voice from the speaker struggled against the static, drowned out on squeals and bursts of noise, "Hanging in there. Are they getting tired yet?" The ground shook; lightning and thunder split the sky. "Guess not."

Ted took the talkie, "Dr. Carver, can you get out?"

"Not a chance," came the faint voice, "there's an armored carrier shoved up against the door of the workshop. At this point I'm just thankful the wind keeps blowing the smoke and fire away from me."

Ted growled in frustration, "All right. Say a prayer, doctor, and get ready to run for it." He handed the talkie back to the scout. "Get everyone to the south gate, away from the town and make for the wilderness. If you're lucky, you can make the next settlement to the north."

The man nodded and the people in the room gathered themselves for a rush to the wall.

"Are you going to the motor pool?" The clinic's nurse worried, "It's far too dangerous outside; wouldn't we all be better off waiting for them to just leave?"

Ted grunted, "They aren't going to just leave. They'll level this town and mine the ashes for elemental shards. No one who stays here is going to live. Now, I'm going after Carver," one of the men protested, and Ted stared him in silence, "and I'm going alone. No sense more of us dying than have to. Get out of here."

The injured scout flung the door open, and everyone piled outside and into the wind and dirt.

Ted split from the main group and fought for the remnants of the motor pool. The fight had moved well north of the area, devastating another section of the town. He ignored the fires burning the buildings still standing until he reached a jagged hole in the wall of the motor pool. Pulling a scarf up over his mouth and nose against the thick black smoke that crept from the the breach, Ted carefully pushed his way inside, mindful of the jagged metal edges and wary of burning patches.

Once through he spotted the source of this smoke, a barrel of oily rags flaming red and orange in the twilight noon. Other sections of the motor pool burned as well, isolated plumes of fire restricted to benches, vehicles, and spilled chemical. As Ashram had described, the remains of the roof funneled a strong wind from the back of the room through the gaping hole where the garage doors had been. Ted climbed over a smashed equipment bank and skirted a carrier with a metal roof beam pinning it to the concrete. He found another carrier on its side at the back of the garage, pinning the workshop door shut.

Ted shoved benches and tool chests out of the way until he could reach the reinforced window where Carver's back pressed against it. He pounded it with his fist, and Ashram jumped away, startled. Motioning that Ashram should stay back, Ted looked for a heavy object, finally lifting with both hands a spanner as large as his arm, used to apply torque to the wheels of the armored carriers.

He twisted around, reached back, and letting out a grunt of effort swung the massive wrench with all the force of his weight behind it. The head of the spanner smashed into the window, shattering the integrity of the glass into a puzzle of fragments held firmly in place by the wire reinforcement. Ted yelled in frustrated incoherence and dropped the spanner loudly.

Ashram's shape appeared through the now opaque window. "Have you got a T.A.Q. Device?" He shouted.

"Yeah," Ted yelled back.

The door to the workshop barely opened an inch before hitting the body of the carrier. A roll of conductor sailed through the gap, clipped the frame of the vehicle and fell to the ground. Ted gathered the fallen wire, and untangled it. He went back to the window. "Now what?"

Ashram pressed up against the shattered glass, poking away bits of crystal with his fingers. "The wire in the window's also conductive. Tie it off, get some distance..."

"...and then spike the elemental signature. Yeah, I got it. Get to cover as best you can." Ted worked hastily, attaching the conductor to the improvised antenna, and laying as much distance between himself and the workshop as he could. He ducked behind the pinned carrier, and hastily used the Quantumizer to isolate the energy of the hot zone. A moment later, he mashed the control.

The motor pool bucked and heaved; sulfur and magma roared through the garage. The vehicle in front of Ted ripped free from its mooring and slid toward the open air. Ted clung desperately to the frame, tearing the antenna free from his T.A.Q. Device.

In front of the workshop, the earth gaped, swallowing the concrete floor with casual ease and plummeting the carrier into a chasm rapidly filling with molten lava. In the space of an instant, the gap widened from ten feet to twenty. The frame of the motor pool around the workshop twisted and warped. Glass fragments rained from the shattered remains of the window.

Ashram braced himself against the frame of the door, psyching himself up for a jump he couldn't possibly make. He looked for alternatives, but few presented themselves. The chasm rent by the earth elemental ran the length of the motor pool. Safety, if any were to be had, lay on the other side. Ashram gripped the frame with white knuckles and prayed.

White plasma fell through the hole in the roof and thunder twisted the motor pool's frame effortlessly. Ashram's hand slipped from its grip. Torn from its anchor by the brutal torque, the back wall of the workshop bent outward and caught the wind which stripped it from the frame of the building in an instant. Violent drafts sucked the contents of the workshop through the back wall, flinging Ashram like a paper doll against the burning carcass of a building twenty feet away.

Ashram lay gasping for breath until rough hands pulled him away from the structure and helped him to his feet. Drawn back to the area of the motor pool, fallout from the monstrous combat kicked Ted and Ashram along as they ran, stumbled, and clawed for the south gate.

Beyond the walls of the town, the survivors huddled in a mass of wretched misery. Barely two-thirds of the population were left; none of the vehicles had made it out. None of the watchmen along the city walls had escaped.

Ted and Ashram were the last to arrive. The saw a figure detach itself from the group well before they reached it, rushing across the distance to them.

Alderman Sitz hit Ashram in a rough tackle, bearing them both to the ground, pounding the doctor brutally with both fists, leaving him spitting blood before Ted could hall the councilman off. "This is your fault!" He screamed, waving a hand at the destruction of the town, knuckles still red with the other man's blood.

More townsfolk were right behind him; two men Ted recognized from the monitor room roughly freed Sitz from his clutches. Someone yelled an accusation, and the whole crowd erupted into shouts, shoving matches, and threats.

The controller strapped to Ted's wrist beeped for attention, and he shoved his way momentarily free of the mob. "Blast you all! Those things aren't done with us yet!" He shot the display into the air in full holographic projection. The threat monitor glowed angrily.

"We'll never get away in time," Ashram spoke softly. "Not all of us."

Sitz raised a fist to punch the doctor again, but someone behind him caught it before the blow fell. Sitz settled down, "Do you have anything constructive to add, or is this just more doom-saying."

"I can use the T.A.Q. Device to set up a resonance in the perimeter walls, keep the creatures' attention focused on the town while everyone else escapes." He shrugged, "In theory."

"In theory?" Ted asked.

"You read the treatise. These walls are lined with conductor so the towers can trade information and power securely. All I have to do is tie the Quantumizer into that network, and keep the harmonic entangled with the hot zone signature." Ashram indicated Sitz with a jerk of his chin, "He knows it'll work. It'd keep everything away from the town, including these Class Five elementals that Sitz keeps trying to tame."

"Or in this case, it'll keep the creatures inside the perimeter." Ted confirmed. "They'll level the place, but you might be able to make a clean getaway."

An explosion cast smoke and fire into columns that rose quickly above the walls. "That was one of the main generator capacitors," someone supplied.

Ted grunted, "I'll stay too, the rest of you git." Ashram started to object, but Ted silenced him, "The software doesn't work right. You'll need someone to keep a fix on the signature while you do the math thing.

"No." Sitz shook himself free from the men restraining him. "Absolutely not. This is my town. These are my monsters. I'm not going to trust a pair of Foundationists to keep their courage while my people flee for their lives." He nodded at two of his men, "Hold him."

Ted was ready for them this time, and one of the men went down with a mouthful of blood before the rest of them pinned his arms.

"Are you insane?!?" Ashram yelled.

Sitz relieved Ted of his T.A.Q. Device and turned to the doctor. "Pray that I'm not. Understand me very clearly, doctor. We are going to see this through, hold the line against these atomic horrors, and likely die in the defense of my people." He leaned in until the two men were nose to nose. "And if you try to run before the creatures leave, I'll kill you with my bare hands."

Sitz turned back to his men, "We can make the south tower from here. Get to Sulfur Springs in the north if you can. We'll follow in a few days if we're still alive."

Ted struggled against the men holding him, until Ashram shook his head. "Get them through the wilderness safely and report to Challenger City." Ted calmed down, the men released him, and the few hundred survivors turned and trudged north.

Sitz and Ashram started for the south tower, "Well doctor," Sitz said, "looks like we get to settle this once and for all." He held up the T.A.Q. Device, "Your god..." he pointed to the pitch black inferno of lightning, magma, and thunder, "... or mine."

Ashram said nothing.

Ted coasted his speeder across the plain to the wall of the town he had left just over a week ago. Little remained of the defensive perimeter. None of the towers still stood. One section of one quadrant of the wall was still intact. Within the gates, no building remained whole.

Parking his vehicle at the empty archway, Ted kicked at the shredded remains of a gate. Where the south tower had stood lay only rubble. The scout picked his way through scattered timbers and the crumbling remnants of houses. Deep trenches scarred the earth, hardened over with the onyx remains of the elemental's fury. Blackened earth marked the scorch patterns where lightning has obliterated every hint of metal.

Behind the ruin of the town hall, a thin stream of smoke rose wispy against the clear sky, still devoid of rain but no longer oppressively hot. Ted hoped it was a campfire and not the remains of another building still smoldering in a sealed fire pit.

The smoke proved to be coming from inside the town hall, and Ted picked his way over the jagged stones thrust upwards from the earth by the titanic clash and into a space mostly cleared of debris.

Ashram sat on the ground in front of a small fire, attempting to boil water. He looked up as Ted approached, gratefully rising to accept the man's firm grip.

"Dr. Carver," Ted said, "It's a pleasure." And he meant it.

Ashram led Ted through the ruin of the town to the edge of the western gate. He walked with a pronounced limp and paused every few minutes to breathe heavily. "We held out for three days in the south tower before they brought it down around us. He lived until nightfall on sheer arrogance, while we hid in the remains of the motor pool."

They rested in front of a cairn of shattered brick and ruined steel.

"What are you going to tell the rest of the townsfolk." Ted asked politely, though markedly without the emotion he had displayed on finding Ashram alive.

"I'll tell them the truth," Ashram replied. "Sitz was a man of great courage and leadership." He drew a ragged breath. "And great pride."

_Winston Crutchfield lives on the banks of the Ohio River with his wife, two children, and one black-and-white cat of undetermined breed but obvious noble birth. The cat has a pet kitten of her own._

## **Development of Water Purification in America**

by Allen Hazen

The filtration of river waters to remove sediment and turbidity and other impurities has been practised in Europe for many years. The first serious American effort in this direction was made by the city of St. Louis in 1866, when the late J. P. Kirkwood, a civil engineer, was sent to Europe with instructions to study the art and apply it to St. Louis.

Mr. Kirkwood made a report upon this subject, and a general plan for works for St. Louis based upon this study. This report was most remarkable for the insight shown into the conditions of success with European waters, and it will always remain as a singularly accurate statement of the conditions of the art as they existed at that time.

Kirkwood's plan for filtering the St. Louis water was not adopted. Possibly the cost was too great and the benefits of purification too little understood at that time; but there is some reason for supposing that tests made on a small scale, the results of which were not made public, served to show the inadequacy of the pro- posed plan. However that may be, we now know that the plan would not have given success, and that no plan based on European experience could have done so.

For among the niters of Europe there was not one that received water resembling even remotely the Mississippi River at St. Louis, or that was capable of treating such water.

Although Kirkwood's design for St. Louis was never carried out, several niters were built by other cities as a result of his work and report. From his plans a filter was built for Poughkeepsie, N. Y. There the conditions were sufficiently like those of European filters; and the plant was the first, and by far the most successful, of the early water purification plants in this country. After- ward a number of small but successful plants were built upon similar lines. Among them were the filters at Hudson and at West Point, N. Y. (both near Poughkeepsie), and at St. Johnsbury, V.T.

In other cases success was not attained. Lowell, Columbus, Toledo, and other cities also copied the Poughkeepsie filters more or less closely but without corresponding success. These failures were no doubt due in some cases to the failure to provide adequate filtering area, and to modifications of the design which did not prove to be beneficial. And in other cases they were due, or partly due, to the fact that the water carried more suspended matter, and this affected the process to such an extent that the general method was not applicable.

Soon after this the late Professor William Ripley Nichols of Boston became interested in filtration. He made experiments with it, talked of its application to the particular problems with which he had to do, and wrote an uncommonly interesting report upon the subject of water purification based, like Kirkwood's, upon European experience.

This report led to an experimental trial by the late A. Fteley, then engineer of the Boston water works. Other trials were made at Louisville and elsewhere. These trials, on the whole, were not encouraging, and did not lead to practical applications of the method.

About 1884 the beginnings of a new method of filtration, destined to play a large part in water purification, made their appearance. The process was patented by the late J. W. Hyatt, and the late Professor Albert R. Leeds was largely interested in the early development of the invention.

The essential and characteristic features of this method were the addition of a coagulant or chemical precipitant to the water, and afterward passing it through a sand layer so arranged that it could be mechanically washed by a reverse current of water, aided sometimes by other appliances. These features are characteristic, and have been the distinctive features of mechanical filtration, as it is called, to the present day.

This method met with some successes, and in the decade that followed quite a number of plants were in- stalled. These were divided between supplies for small cities, and supplies for paper mills. Paper mills require large quantities of clean water, and they have been among the earliest and best patrons of those who had methods of purifying water.

The Massachusetts State Board of Health commenced to investigate the purification of sewage and water in 1887. At first the purification of sewage received most attention, but about 1890 the study of water purification was taken up energetically. And this experimental work did a great deal to develop the art of water purification in America.

In carrying out these investigations Merrimack River water only was used. This water, which was used by the city of Lawrence at the time, contained a great deal of sewage, and caused much typhoid fever among those who used it. It was also somewhat colored, but was not subject to much turbidity. It was in a general way much the same kind of water that had been successfully filtered in Europe for the supply of such cities as London, Berlin, etc.

These experiments were carried out at Lawrence, under the direction of Mr. Hiram F. Mills, with at first the writer, and afterward Mr. George W. Fuller, and still later Mr. H. W. Clark, in direct charge, and with the advice of the late Professor Thomas M. Drown, and of Professor William T. Sedgwick. They served to determine in a practical way the nature of the processes that were investigated, and to show the conditions of success with them as far as they could be determined by small experiments; and the results obtained, which were most promising and were duly published, served to interest many people in water purification.

As a result of these experiments the city of Lawrence built a sand filter to purify its water supply. This was designed by Mr. Mills, following in a general way, but not in detail, European precedent, for it was based largely upon the results of the tests made, and in many ways it was quite different from any previous construction. This filter was put in service in 1893.

The Lawrence filter was the first filter built in America for the express purpose of reducing the death rate of the population supplied, and it accomplished this purpose in a most striking manner. Comparing the five years after it was in service, with five years before it was in use, there was a reduction of 79 per cent in the typhoid fever death rate, which had been excessive for many years. No less remarkable than this was the reduction in the general death rate from all causes of 10 per cent, namely from 22.4 to 19.9 per thousand living.

Following directly the success of the Lawrence filter, a number of other filters were constructed more or less like it, but none of them supplying as large a city as Lawrence.

Up to the year 1893 but little progress had been made in understanding the process of mechanical filtration, although many plants had been installed, mostly in the smaller cities and towns and in paper mills. The details of construction and operation had been developed to a considerable extent, but there was no adequate knowledge of what could be done in securing pure water, or how it could best be accomplished.

In that year Mr. Edmund B. Weston made some tests for the city of Providence, which indicated that very good work could be done by mechanical filters in purifying a sewage-polluted water. These tests were by no means all that could be desired, but they were important as being the first carefully conducted tests with that kind of filtration.

Meanwhile, the mechanical niters installed, though often giving relatively good service, were not by any means doing so uniformly. The conditions of success with them certainly were not understood. While excellent results were occasionally reached, the average work was at best mediocre, and there were conspicuous cases of failure to accomplish the desired results.

The practical and scientific basis for mechanical filtration may be said to date from the Louisville experiments of 1895-97. These were made under the direction of Mr. Charles Hermany, assisted by Mr. George W. Fuller, acting for the Louisville Water Company, and by several companies interested in the construction of mechanical filters.

These experiments were made upon the Ohio River water, and this water was radically different in quality from the Merrimack River water which had been experimented upon at Lawrence, as well as from all the waters with which practical experience had been had in Europe.

The difference was principally in the matters carried in suspension, or in the turbidity. The Ohio River water carried varying amounts, and at times very large amounts, of clay in suspension. Some of the clay particles are much smaller in size than the bacteria, the smallest organisms, the removal of which has been regarded as important. So finely divided is some of this clay that it will hardly settle from the water at all.

The removal of this clay is important and necessary on its own account, for no water can be considered adequately purified and satisfactory for a public water supply while it contains any appreciable turbidity of this kind.

Clay is also most important because when it is not removed its presence exerts an influence on many other things. Substances which would be readily removed by a given treatment in the absence of clay particles, may fail to respond to the treatment in the presence of such particles, and a treatment otherwise successful may fail when applied to a water containing them.

Now the Louisville experiments were the first to deal with this question of clay particles in a comprehensive way. The filtration proposed for St. Louis by Kirkwood, the filtration practiced in Europe, and the filtration studied at Lawrence were hopelessly inadequate for this business. The mechanical filters then in use in the United States, and those selected and designed for these tests were also inadequate, although they did embody to a large extent the ideas that were to prove successful, and were able, even at the outset, to accomplish a great deal.

As the tests progressed and the weaknesses of the various devices became apparent, modifications were made, and in this way at Louisville the first thoroughly successful method of treatment for this kind of water was reached.

The Louisville experiments brought mechanical filtration to a point where it was able to deal in an efficient and practical manner with many of the most difficult of American waters.

While the experiments were in progress at Louisville, others were undertaken by the city of Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati soon followed. Experiments were also made at Washington, at Superior, and at New Orleans, and elsewhere. And as a result of these, and the practical experiences with other waters by the men having to do with them, and by a free exchange of the results of this experience between the different workers, data were rapidly collected as to the characters of different waters, and as to the ways in which they responded to different treatments; and in this way a basis was reached for laying out methods of treatment capable of purifying a great range of waters.

Now the range in the qualities of American waters is much greater than the range in the qualities of European waters. The excess of clay which has already been mentioned is a controlling element in a considerable portion of American river supplies.

With impounding reservoir supplies also there is a difference almost as important, due to the higher summer temperatures and the growth of organisms, giving rise to more seriously objectionable tastes and odors. Such growths are not often troublesome under European conditions.

Although the purification of water for the purpose of removing tastes and odors is highly important, it has received less study than the removal of clay. Nevertheless, something has been done with it. More study has been given to preventive measures than to corrective ones, although there are strong reasons for believing at this time that the latter are more effective.

The city of Reading, P.A., made some experiments in 1897, in this direction, and since that time plants based on the experimental results have been put in successful operation for cleaning the water from two impounding reservoirs, which were subject to algae growths, and objectionable tastes and odors resulting therefrom.

The Ludlow Reservoir at Springfield, Mass., was one of the most notorious reservoirs for its tastes and odors.

The city of Springfield and the State Board of Health made continued and elaborate experiments upon the treatment of this water, from 1900 to 1903. These experiments showed that the water could be successfully treated, though with rather elaborate appliances and at considerable cost.

Afterward, in 1906, works for the purification of this water were installed. These works differed somewhat from anything that had been tested during the previous experiments, being simpler and cheaper. Only a partial purification was predicted and expected, but thus far the results have exceeded expectations.

One of the most important of recent developments in water purification has been the consideration of a partial softening of river waters in' connection with the other processes necessary for their purification. The idea of the possibility of doing this is very old. Wanklyn's "Water Analysis," published in London in 1868, spoke at length of the possibility of doing this; but there were practical difficulties, and the process was not actually used at any place, and it has only been since about 1903 that the process has been taken up in a way to remove the difficulties.

The development seems to have come about in this way. The coagulant most commonly used in mechanical filtration is sulphate of alumina or crude alum. Now, sulphate of iron, or copperas, is cheaper, and under some conditions fully as efficient as sulphate of alumina as a coagulant. With the iron it is necessary to use lime, as without it precipitation is not sufficiently rapid and complete. Only a little lime, comparatively, is needed to throw down the iron. A considerably larger quantity will also throw down some of the lime naturally present in the water, together with the lime that is added. This is the old and well known Clark process for softening water, which is the basis of all water-softening methods.

In 1903, the iron and lime process of treating water was applied to the Mississippi River water supplied to St. Louis. In this case the water, after the chemical treatment, passed through settling basins but was not filtered. At Quincy, 111., Lorain, Ohio, and other places it was applied as a preliminary to nitration. And it was soon found that when the amount of lime was increased, accidentally or otherwise, the resulting effluent was often softer than the river water. And when this was found it naturally led to the regular use of more lime and perhaps of less iron. In this way a substantial amount of softening was effected, at St. Louis and elsewhere, by the iron and lime process.

The matter was investigated by an exhaustive series of experiments at Columbus, Ohio, and the process was developed with a view to a combined coagulation and softening treatment prior to nitration. Works are now being built on this basis to treat the Columbus water with every prospect of success.

The indications are that the use of partial softening brought about in this way will not greatly increase the cost over that of the treatments otherwise necessary for purification. It is even possible that with some river waters the process may be actually cheapened. If this result is secured it will be by making use of the magnesia of the water to do a part of the work otherwise accomplished by alumina or iron. This will not always be possible, but even when it is not, the advantage of soft water to a city is so great that large expenditures can well be made to secure it where the natural supply is hard.

While these advances have been made in the knowledge of the processes of purification, and of the means of carrying them out with success, an almost equal advance has been made in the materials of construction of mechanical filters and in their detailed arrangements.

The Hyatt patent, the underlying patent on mechanical filters, expired in February, 1901. After that the field was open. All other patents related to details; and no one of them, nor even any combination of them, could serve to control the field of filter construction.

From that day rapid advances were made. The designs for the Louisville filters, which appeared in 1900, were important as marking the beginning of a rapid advance. Reinforced concrete was substituted for the wood and iron constructions previously used. The Little Falls filters, treating the supply of the East Jersey Water Company, were put in service in September, 1902, and were the first filters to be actually used on the newer lines. These filters were also equipped with appliances for the better and more certain control of coagulants and were far better in other ways than any before constructed.

The use of larger coagulating basins to allow the chemical changes to become complete before the water passed to the filters was early introduced at a number of Missouri River points, especially at the works owned by the American Water Works and Guarantee Company, at East St. Louis, 111., and at St. Joseph, M.O.

The use of cement blocks for the bottoms of the filters, containing the necessary channels for the effluent and wash water, in place of the metal structures previously used, was introduced at the filters of the Hackensack Water Company, built in 1904, and is also used with modifications at Columbus, New Orleans, and elsewhere.

While these rapid and revolutionary developments in mechanical filters have been taking place, sand filters, following European precedent, have been installed in many places where the conditions have been suitable and in a few places where they were not, and developments with them also have taken place.

Following the Lawrence filter, the first large installation was at Albany, put in service in 1899. These filters were covered by masonry vaulting as a protection from frost, which had interfered more or less with the winter operation at Poughkeepsie and at Lawrence. Such covers had long been used in Germany for the same purpose, and also at a few small American plants.

The Albany filters received water from the Hudson River a few miles below the outlets of the Troy sewers. The death rate in Albany was reduced by the use of the filters as much as it has been at Lawrence.

At Philadelphia the construction of covered sand filters was started in 1900, but the work has gone so slowly that only parts of the works are in service at the present time. At Washington the construction of covered sand filters was authorized in 1902, and the plant was put in service in 1905. In this case there has been no marked reduction in the death rate. The reason for this has been made clear by extended investigations. The Potomac River water used for supplying the city, after passing through the settling basins, which held a week's supply, and in which much bacterial purification took place, was not the principal source of typhoid fever in Washington nor an important cause of other water-borne diseases.

The amount of sewage entering the Potomac above the intake is only a small fraction of the amounts entering the Merrimack above Lawrence and the Hudson above Albany.

Providence installed a sand filtration plant, which was put in service in 1905. Denver is mainly supplied by water from sand filters, in service since 1902. Pittsburgh is now building an extensive plant with covered filters which will soon be in service.

Among the improvements in sand filters are the developments of methods of washing and preparing filter sand, and of cheaply removing and cleaning it after it has become dirty from use, and of replacing it.

The first of these improvements has made it possible to secure at moderate expense a filter sand of the best quality in places where otherwise the use of filters of this type would have been difficult. The second has resulted in a great reduction in the cost of filtration. For example, the cost of labor for removing, washing, and replacing sand at Washington is about $0.60 per million gallons, as compared with about $6.00 at Lawrence in the early days before labor-saving devices were installed.

_Allen Hazen was: a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, the American Water Works Association, the New England Water Works Association, the American Public Health Association, and the Society of Arts._

Hazen, A. (1907, 1914). Development of Water Purification in America (pp. 73-88). In Hazen's, _Clean Water and How to Get It_. Brooklyn, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

## **PURE WATER**

by Floyd Davis

Water is a chemical compound of hydrogen and oxygen, and is widely diffused in nature. As a solid, it exists as snow and ice; as a liquid, it constitutes streams, lakes, and seas, and in a state of minute sub- division, mist and clouds; while as a colorless vapor, it is always a constituent of the air. Natural waters are always impregnated with foreign constituents, which give to them their varying properties; and in the examination of water for sanitary and technical purposes, the water is analyzed to determine these constituents.

The palatability of water depends mostly upon its absorbed gases, which are principally oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic anhydride, and hydrogen sulphide. These gases give to the water not only an agreeable taste, but a sparkling brilliancy. The high degree of palatability and sparkle of spring-water is due mainly to its carbonic anhydride. Distilled water in its crystalline purity, or water deprived even of its gases by boiling, is insipid or "flat"; but by aeration and acidification it regains palatability. Water must be more or less impregnated with gases before it is suitable even to the dietetic needs of man; for when water deprived of its gases is used for purposes of experiment, it is found to be prejudicial to health, as the stomach can neither gratefully receive nor advantageously appropriate it.

The palatability of water is increased also by the presence of certain salts of the alkalies. In situations where distilled water is used for drinking, as on board of ships on long ocean voyages, mineral salts are sometimes added to the water to contribute taste and the needed piquancy. Mineral waters are now used in all civilized countries, not so much perhaps for their therapeutic properties, as for their "bouquet," or taste.

Taste for mineral waters frequently becomes a matter of education, and in every city there are many persons who use other than the natural water of the vicinity to gratify their palate. But some mineral salts, like those of iron, render water containing them unpalatable to many persons; and water that has stood for some time in iron service pipes generally has a disagreeable, chalybeate taste, due to the proto-salts of iron derived from the pipes.

Researches in etiology have shown that the health of an individual, or of a community, depends largely upon the purity of the water supply. Purity here means freedom from deleterious constituents. The terms _normal_ and _abnormal_ when applied to water refer only to mineral constituents, while the terms _pure_ and _impure_ refer to injurious mineral as well as to organic constituents. The salts found in all normal or wholesome natural waters are found in abnormal waters, only in much greater quantity; and as some abnormal waters are injurious to health, they may be rightly called _impure._ Organic matter is also a constituent of all natural waters. Hence, pure and impure, as well as normal and abnormal, waters are distinguished only by the amount of certain constituents common to all. And it should be further stated that a water which is wholesome for some persons may be unwholesome for others, depending largely upon the condition of the system and the nature of the mineral salts in the water.

All sanitary authorities agree that the most dangerous constituents in water are the products of decomposition of organic matter, and the germs that feast upon them. It is therefore evident that a drinking-water should be practically free from organic constituents, especially if they are undergoing decomposition; and chemists uniformly condemn all waters that are contaminated with sewage. The contamination of water is shown by chemical and microscopical analyses, and by examinations of the sources of supply.

From a sanitary standpoint, _pure_ _water_ may be defined as water that is unobjectionable for general domestic use, and especially that which may be used with perfect safety for drinking.

Some waters are so unpotable that the appetite does not demand the amount required for the normal functions of the body. Such waters not only lessen bodily vigor and thus frequently produce disease, but an insufficient supply of any water to the system is manifested by great pain, relaxation of muscular strength and mental vigor, and diminution in the elimination of pulmonary carbonic anhydride and bodily excretions. So, when we consider that about seventy percent of the human body is water, which is being constantly eliminated, the need of maintaining a copious supply of pure water becomes apparent; but an abundance of water is no more necessary to the support of life than is its purity to the continuity of health. People may habitually drink impure water and still live, but its continued use unquestionably affects the human system, and tends to the degeneration of the race. Experience shows that water even slightly impure may be productive of a host of ailments for which the sufferer finds no apparent cause; for the results are often so slow and gradual as to evade ordinary observation, and the evil is borne with the indifference or apathy of custom. Until recently, it was only when striking and violent effects were produced that public attention was arrested. But so much attention is now being given to public and private water supplies, and so many investigations are being made by competent men, that the use of impure drinking-water is a fault rather than a misfortune, and arises more from carelessness and ignorance than from necessity. Diseases are now seldom produced by the agency of drinking-water where proper vigilance would not avoid them.

Scientific investigation also reveals the fact that as a community is supplied with pure water, there is not only a decrease in the disease and death-rate, but often a most surprisingly rapid increase in thrift, morality, and degree of civilization.

One of the functions of water in the system is to cleanse the blood by dissolving the waste products that enter into it from the body, so they may he eliminated by the kidneys. Water can retain in solution only a certain amount of solids; and if it is already charged with salts when it enters the system, its capacity for dissolving and removing the waste material from the circulation is impaired. This adds extra work to the kidneys; and if already diseased, they are often incapable of performing satisfactorily the work required of them.

Aerated distilled water is the nearest perfect universal drinking-water, as it is wholesome for all classes of drinkers, and especially desirable for those afflicted with renal and bladder diseases. It acts upon the kidneys as a powerful therapeutic agent in the solution and removal of the waste products of the body.

Of the importance to such persons of a drinking-water free from salts. Professor Charles Mayr says : "Those who have never drunk pure water do not realize what an effect such water has upon the kidneys; its effect is better than that of acetates, nitrates, opiates, or alcohol, and for people with a tendency to kidney diseases or dropsy there is no better drug than pure water. Of the thousands of chemical compounds and waste products found in the human system, many require pure water for their solution and elimination; and water so overloaded with salts as average well-water is will not work satisfactorily."

It is not chemically pure water, however, that is needed for the renovation of _healthy_ systems; for such water does not exist in nature, and the small amount of mineral salts found ordinarily in drinking-water is in no way prejudicial to it. As chemically pure water contains nothing injurious to the system, it likewise contains no foreign beneficial constituents; and, for healthy persons, such water is no more wholesome than that which contains some salts of the alkalies. The human system ordinarily requires mild cathartics and other mineral salts for the continuity of health. These, in part, may be furnished to the system as the mineral constituents of potable water, and a water that contains a small amount of them cannot, from a sanitary standpoint, be considered impure. The wholesomeness of water for healthy persons is, therefore, increased by the presence of certain mineral salts in solution, which act as laxatives, and which are essential to the development of animal tissue.

A water that is used constantly by healthy persons for domestic purposes, should have the following qualities:

  1. It should be free from disagreeable odor and taste. 
  2. It should at all seasons of the year be well aerated, and uniform in temperature. 
  3. It may contain a small quantity of mineral matter in solution, but should be free from poisonous salts. 
  4. It should be free from suspended mineral and dead organic matter, and should contain only such living organisms as are purifying agents.

_Van Nostrand's Engineering Magazine_ , December, 1872.

_Contaminations of Drinking-Water_ , Norton.

_Human Physiology_ , Dalton, seventh edition.

For a consideration of the functions of water in the system, see _Food,_ Smith.

Report of New Jersey State Board of Health, 1887.

_Water Supply_ , Nichols.

_Floyd Davis (M.Sc., Ph.D.) was: a professor of general and applied chemistry at Drake University; a chemist for the Iowa State Board of Health; a member of the American Associaton for the Advancement of Science, the American Public Health Association, the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters; a fellow of the Iowa Academy of Sciences._

Davis, F. (1891). Pure Water (pp. 7-12). In Davis', _An Elementary Handbook on Potable Water_. Boston, MA: Silver, Burdette, & Co.

## **WATER SUPPLIES**

by Floyd Davis

**Rain-water.** There is a popular idea that rain-water, as it falls, is perfectly free from impurities; but, in fact, the first fall of rain after a drouth is swarming with living organisms, which multiply and perish, polluting the water with themselves and the products of their decomposition; but fortunately the living organisms are generally harmless. Even the purest unfiltered air contains myriads of these motes which can be seen in the sun-beam with the naked eye, but they are washed from it by the descending rain. Two hundred thousand micro-organisms are often found in a litre of water that falls at the beginning of a storm, the number being usually greater in summer than in winter. The principal genus of _Bacteria_ found in rain-water is the _Micrococcus,_ but other genera are also found, nearly all of which are in the stage of _spores_ instead of _adults._ Besides _Bacteria,_ spores of _Fungi_ and other microscopic plants, together with the pollen of flowers and grasses, are found in rain-water.

The exhalations that rise from decomposing organic matter, and float in the atmosphere, are also carried down by the rain, so that the first rain that falls during a storm is always more or less impure, and unfit for drinking; but the air becomes purified in a short time, and the rain that falls thereafter is approximately pure water. The British Rivers Pollution Commissioners concluded that "half a pint of rain-water often condenses out of about three thousand three hundred and seventy-three cubic feet of air, and thus in drinking a tumbler of such water, impurities which would only gain access to the lungs in about eight days, are swallowed at once." These impurities consist of ammoniacal salts, nitrous and nitric acids, sodium chloride, calcium compounds, and organic matter; and when the water has drained from the roofs of buildings, after a dry season, additional impurities are dust, dead insects, excreta of birds, and probably dried disease germs. The total solids from rain-water usually amount to two or three grains per gallon. As the rain falls, it becomes thoroughly aerated; but rain-water has usually a flat, smoky taste, owing to the small amount of carbonic anhydride and alkaline salts in it.

In Iowa the average annual rainfall is thirty-one inches. Consequently, on one hundred square feet of surface, about nineteen hundred and thirty-two gallons of rain-water will fall annually. The average evaporation from the roofs of buildings is about twenty percent of the rain that falls upon them, so that the eighty percent of water that may flow into cisterns from each one hundred square feet of surface is about fifteen hundred and forty-six gallons per year, or four and two-tenths gallons per day, on an average.

In the rural districts of our northern latitude, where the ground-water is generally quite pure, rain-water is not usually collected for general domestic purposes. When the ordinary source of water is excessively hard or impure, rain-water is, however, sometimes used for drinking; but it is usually collected for bathing and laundry use only, on account of its softness.

But in some of the southern cities, near the Gulf of Mexico, where it is impossible to secure a supply of pure well- or spring-water, rain-water is used extensively for all domestic purposes, and many of these cities derive their entire domestic water supply from rain. "In Galveston, Texas, where the island is so low that the use of well-water is entirely out of the question, each dwelling-house is furnished with one, two, or more large cisterns constructed of cypress wood, whose capacity varies from one thousand to forty thousand gallons; the cistern is generally elevated about two to three feet from the ground, is covered with a lid which is lifted a short distance from the top, and which allows proper ventilation.

"In some cases the cistern is placed in an independent enclosure made for the purpose, in others they are placed in the wood-shed, but far the greater majority are placed in a balcony or on the shady ground near the low oleander trees, and have but little protection, if any, from the sun. Some are made of cement and sunk underground, within a very few feet of the cesspool, which is naturally very shallow, as it is impossible to dig more than two or at the most three feet in the sand and avoid water, These underground cisterns are oft-times saturated with the emanations from the unclean cesspools in close proximity."

It is very important in the construction of cisterns for storage of drinking-water that great care should be exercised in preparing the walls against any leakage from cesspools and privies. The water should have a supply of fresh air, but should not be exposed to sun-light, or even diffused light. Rain-water collected near the end of storms, and thoroughly filtered through sand and charcoal, is wholesome, and can be kept suitable for drinking by storage in properly constructed cisterns.

**Well-water.** The purity of well-water depends mainly upon the depth and situation of the well, and the nature of the surrounding soil. The water in _deep_ _wells_ is separated from the surface by an impervious stratum. The water in artesian wells is nearly free from organic impurities, but it is usually highly mineralized, and the temperature is oftentimes objectionably high. Deep wells, when properly made, are also nearly free from organic impurities, but their waters are impregnated with hardening salts. Such waters are not best suited to the digestive powers of man; and every intelligent groom and herdsman knows that such waters are also more prejudicial to horses and cattle than even the water of a muddy stream. Although the water from deep wells and springs is generally sparkling and pure at first, it soon gives rise to a growth of _Algae_ if exposed to sunlight and heat in ponds or open reservoirs; but if stored in covered reservoirs, where sunlight cannot enter, it remains pure for a long time. A growth of _Algae_ is also often seen in the orifices of pipes discharging artesian and other deep well-water.

Surface wells depend for their main supply of water upon the area immediately surrounding them, no matter what their depth, and these are the wells most frequently used. The abundance of filth in densely populated cities renders the soil unfit for the filtration and storage of water; and surface wells in such soil furnish only a polluted and dangerous supply, as the water is not sufficiently aerated for the oxidation of its organic matter. _These wells are frequently situated in too close proximity to dwellings, stables, cesspools, privy-vaults, and other sources of pollution, and they are therefore sometimes important factors in disseminating disease._

Rain-water, as it passes into the earth, extracts from the soil quantities of impurities, like the products of decaying vegetation and the filth and excrement of animals, which it carries down into the circulating currents, and it occasionally happens that the drainage of cesspools and privies finds a direct channel into the well. _The germs from diseased persons thus find their way to the water supply, and some surface wells are nothing more than receptacles for diluted excrementitious matter._

"The common practice in villages, and even in many small towns, is to dispose of the sewage and to provide for the water supply of each cottage, or pair of cottages upon the premises. In the little yard, or garden, attached to each tenement, or pair of tenements, two holes are dug in the porous soil; into one of them, usually the shallower of the two, all the filthy liquids of the house are discharged; from the other, which is sunk below the water-line of the porous stratum, the water for drinking, and other domestic purposes, is pumped.

"These two holes are not infrequently within twelve feet of each other, and sometimes even closer. The contents of the filth hole, or cesspool, gradually soak away through the surrounding soil and mingle with the water below. As the contents of the water hole, or well, are pumped out, they are immediately replenished from the surrounding disgusting mixture, and it is not, therefore, very surprising to be assured that such a well does not become dry even in summer. Unfortunately, excrementitious liquids, especially after they have soaked through a few feet of porous soil, do not impair the palatability of water; and this polluted liquid is consumed from year to year without a suspicion of its character, until an outbreak of epidemic disease compels attention to the polluted water. Indeed, our acquaintance with a very large proportion of this class of potable waters has been made in consequence of the occurrence of several outbreaks of typhoid fever amongst the persons using them."

"The well-waters of New Orleans are unfit for use. They are but little less impure than the sewage water carried off by the drainage canals, yet they are reported as being employed for family use, in bakeries, and for stock, especially in summer, when the cistern supply fails. The site of the city is waterlogged to within a few feet of the surface. One well, on Chestnut Street, the least impure of those examined, is only ten feet deep, and contains seven feet of water. The saturated soil is of great depth, and the ground-water is practically stagnant. The filtration into the wells is insufficient even to free the water from turbidity. Organic matter is unaffected by the process."

The drainage section of a surface well may be likened to the contents of an inverted cone, the base of which is the surface of the drained ground, and the apex the bottom of the well. In a porous soil the drainage area is sometimes quite large and the water impure. It is said that the circulation of water is sometimes so thorough in the earth that if a barrel of kerosene oil be placed ten feet under ground, every well within a quarter of a mile will be contaminated, and the oil will be apparent to the taste. It has been demonstrated that in compact soils, the level of the ground-water is influenced by pumping, for a distance of two hundred feet in all directions around a well, while in loose, gravelly soils, the circle of influence may have a radius of more than two thousand feet. This produces a circulation of water toward the centre, and consequently a washing of the filth of the soil into the well. _No stable, cesspool, privy-vault, or other source of contamination, should be within this radius._

Many severe outbreaks of epidemic diseases have been traced to the use of surface well-water in cities, and there is strong reason to believe that sporadic attacks of typhoid fever often occur in isolated country homes from the same cause. When scientific views concerning the pollution of well-waters are disseminated, surface wells will be rapidly abandoned by the intelligent classes. It is often difficult to persuade the owner of a polluted well to abandon it, since the water may have an agreeable taste, and may have been used for years with impunity. The ignorant cannot often be convinced by the results of scientific investigation; they require the "test of experience," and to some there is no test convincing of the pollution of water, except the actual production of sickness and death.

Drinking-water should be well aerated. The well should be exposed to fresh, circulating air, if possible, and situated where there is no flow of water into it from contaminating sources. Well-water sometimes becomes impure from the absorption of floating matter from a stagnant atmosphere. Wells should never be situated in cellars, on account of the stagnant, impure air which is generally in them. Wells situated near a house, from necessity, are generally closed, but in all cases there should be some means of ventilation. Even some methods of agitating the water have been advocated by sanitarians. The "old oaken bucket," chain pumps, and similar agencies for lifting, may assist purification and aeration, by agitating the water.

In the ordinary method of bricking or walling a well, no protection is offered against surface drainage, and a deep well thus constructed is no better than a surface well. Open wells should always be walled with hydraulic cement above the water-line, to prevent the admission of filth. Surface contamination is also prevented by the use of deep "driven wells"; with these the only pollution comes from the downward circulating currents. These are also known as "Tube," "American," "Abyssinian," and "Norton" wells. Wooden curbing for wells is a serious source of danger, as the wood soon becomes rotten, contaminates the water, and promotes the growth of _Fungi._ It also affords lodging for myriads of insects which fall into the water and die.

**Spring-water.** Springs are fountains of water which flow from subterranean channels. This term is sometimes incorrectly applied to mere shallow pits, filled with water oozing from marshy surroundings, and with little or no visible outflow. Water which finds its way into a porous rock, between impervious strata, generally issues in springs along the outcroppings of the pervious stratum. The direction of dip generally determines the direction of the ground current, the water seeking its lowest level; and a sudden change in dip often gives rise to springs, or the water may flow from the lowest outcroppings of the pervious stratum. Springs are, therefore, similar in purity to deep wells, for these wells derive their supply from the subterranean channels.

The water which gathers into these channels descends from the earth's surface; and if the surface water is polluted, the springs which receive their supplies from it are liable to be impure. The organic constituents, in filtering through the earth, may, however, oxidize to harmless inorganic products if the filtering bed is sufficiently deep; but disease germs are not thus destroyed.

Average porous soil contains about two hundred and fifty times as much carbonic anhydride as does the air, under ordinary conditions, and this is taken into the percolating water as it filters into the subterranean channels, rendering it especially palatable. It is this carbonic anhydride in water which dissolves limestone, converting it into a soluble bicarbonate.

Spring-water which flows from hill or mountain sides is generally cold, and has a uniform temperature the year around. Springs may furnish the best water for drinking, as they are often nearly free from organic impurities, and their waters are very palatable from the gases and salts held in solution, but they are generally unsuitable for technical purposes, on account of hardness. They are superior to wells having water of the same nature, on account of their freedom from the accumulated matter which is always found on the surface of well-waters. A perfectly pure spring-water is certainly our healthiest natural beverage.

Such waters are abundant, and can often be easily obtained. Country residences should be located near perennial springs, if possible, and their waters adopted generally or universally for drinking. Spring-water is so much superior to surface well-water for domestic purposes that some cities have incurred considerable expense to introduce it. The city of Vienna uses water brought from springs sixty miles distant, and has freed itself of much sickness, such as prevailed there when filthy river and surface well-water only was used.

**River-water.** Owing to available water power, means of transportation by boats, and easy drainage, streams are the natural localities on whose banks manufactories and cities are generally located. From these enterprises pollution is added to the water courses. Nearly all improvements in the soil also tend to contaminate streams, for "the surface waters which formerly ran from the mountains and forest lands, now run off from cultivated and enriched fields, or from the roads and streets of towns and villages."

Rivers are the natural drains of the territory through which they flow, being fed by rains, small streams, springs, and surface drainage. "They are the receptacles of all the waste products of the inhabitants of the district; they receive the contents of sewers, cesspools, and privies; the offal of distilleries, slaughter-houses, and tanneries, and the refuse of factories. Into them are thrown carcasses of dead animals, as the most expeditious method of burial. From swamps they receive the matter of vegetable decomposition, and are discolored by flowing over beds of peat."

The factories that are especially objectionable are sugar refineries, and starch, glucose, and dye works. Rivers are also sometimes polluted by the filth from stock-yards. Many of the organic substances which are washed into rivers from cities situated on their banks undergo decomposition, giving rise to products, some of which have the power to produce disturbances in the human system, and others to propagate the germs of disease.

The Prussian government protects its public water supplies by forbidding the discharge of sewage into its rivers. Some of our states also have laws protecting the water courses, making it a criminal offence to throw any polluting substance into water which shall afterward be used for drinking. Some of our state and local boards of health are empowered to prohibit any nuisance which may tend to produce disease, but as a nation our sanitary laws are unsatisfactory. The pollution of streams can only be prevented by stringent regulations, and so at present it is absolutely impossible to prevent the pollution of many water courses.

One of the sanitary problems now needing solution, is how to get rid of sewage and protect our rivers. It has been suggested that the larger streams which furnish water for city supplies should be kept pure, while the smaller ones might be used for carrying off sewage, when they are not used for domestic supplies. "It is evident that nothing is more unphilosophical than that one town should be allowed to discharge its sewage into a water course that is the most available source of water supply for a town lower down on the stream.

"Each river-basin should be under the control of some central authority by which conflicting interests should be harmonized. An accurate survey should be made of the whole area, and no town should be allowed to introduce a water supply without due consideration being given to the future of the supply, and to the question of disposing of the sewage of the town supplied. Moreover, while sanitary conditions are of the highest importance, manufacturing interests must also be considered, and no undue burden laid upon legitimate industries."

River-water below the discharge of city sewage, is a filthy and dangerous beverage, and notwithstanding its natural purification by sunlight, by oxidation, and by living organisms, it may never be free from disease germs. A stream which has received much filth in its course is unfit for domestic use, unless the volume-ratio of the filth to the water is inappreciably small. The amount of impurities of streams in rural districts from the decay of vegetation is always greatest in the fall, and that from suspended matter is always greatest in the spring.

River-water originating in mountainous districts is unquestionably the best for city supplies, as under ordinary conditions it is softer than well- or spring-water, and is freer from organic and living matter than surface wells and stagnant ponds and lakes. The objections offered against the use of river-water are on account of its high temperature, frequent turbidity, and its liability to contamination; and it is true that some rivers furnish water only fit for hydrant and manufacturing purposes. But by the use of ice, efficient systems of purification, and proper precautions against pollution, river-waters are generally excellent supplies for cities and towns, where an abundance of pure water is needed.

In the ground-water system for central filtration, the wells receive only a part of their water from rivers on banks of which they are situated, as the ground-water is constantly flowing toward the river- channel.

**Lake- and Pond-Water.** Lakes are the reservoirs into which rivers and other streams empty, and when small their waters are not widely different from their sources. They are not often entirely free from suspended matter, but their waters can be easily rendered clear by filtration. Lakes are natural settling basins, and they are much less liable to be rendered turbid than streams. The water is somewhat purified by the sedimentation of its suspended matter, and it remains cold during the summer. The water of the Great Lakes is, however, rendered impure near the shores by the discharge of sewage from the cities situated near them. Cities like Chicago, which use a lake-water supply, are compelled to extend their receiving mains into the lake, beyond the limit of impurification.

Pond-water often becomes unfit for domestic use, from the growth of _Algae_ and fresh-water _Sponges._

**Water for Public Schools.** The water supply for public schools, asylums, hotels, and all other places where people are gathered together, should be exceedingly pure. One of the most potent factors in originating and spreading diphtheria, and scarlet and typhoid fever in schools, is the water used by the children, from surface wells and stagnant streams. The mere presence of these infectious diseases is all that is needed to inaugurate a general epidemic. There is scarcely a well supplying a public school in Iowa that is not suspicious. If not actually polluted, many of the wells are surrounded with dangerous agencies, such as privies, stables, and filthy streets and alleys. Dr. Chancellor, secretary of the Maryland State Board of Health, says there is not a well-water in the whole state of Maryland fit for domestic use.

City schools should in all cases be supplied with water from water-works, when there are works in operation, and analyses show that their water is pure and safely potable. "Village and country schools should have the well at least one hundred feet from any privy or stable, and the topography of the contiguous surface should be such as to secure rapid and free drainage in every direction from the well for the farthest possible distance. It should be free from the shade of trees and accessible to uninterrupted air-currents."

_Practical Hygiene_ , Parkes, seventh edition.

_Potable Water_ , Ekin.

_Treatise on Meteorology,_ Loomis.

Report of Connecticut State Board of Health, 1885.

_Domestic Water Supply of Great Britain_ , Sixth Report of Royal Commissioners.

Bulletin of National Board of Health, April 17, 1880.

_Water_ , Moore.

_Water Supply_ , Nichols.

_Hygiene and Public Health_ , Parkes, second edition.

_Geological Studies_ , Winchell, third edition.

Report of New Jersey State Board of Health, 1884.

_Water Supply_ , Dickinson.

_Water Supply_ , Nichols.

_The Baltimore American_ , July 31, 1889.

Report of Iowa State Board of Health, 1889.

Davis, F. (1891). Water Supplies (pp. 53-67). In Davis', _An Elementary Handbook on Potable Water_. Boston, MA: Silver, Burdette, & Co.

## **Methods of Purifying Water**

by Allen Hazen

The general natures of these methods are elsewhere noted in connection with the descriptions of different kinds of water that require treatment. A brief statement of the natures of the various processes at this point may be helpful, even though some of the matter is repeated.

The processes of water purification may be briefly classified as follows:

  1. **Mechanical Separation:** by gravity sedimentation; by screening screens, scrubbers, filters; by adhesion scrubbers, filters. 
  2. **Coagulation:** by chemical treatment resulting in drawing matters together into groups, thereby making them more susceptible to removal by mechanical separation, but without any significant chemical change in the water. 
  3. **Chemical Purification:** softening by the use of lime, etc; iron removal; neutralization of objectionable acids, etc. 
  4. **Poisoning Processes:** ozone; sulphate of copper, etc.; the object of these processes is to poison and kill objectionable organisms, without at the same time adding substances objectionable or poisonous to the users of the water. 
  5. **Biological processes:** oxidation of organic matter by its use as food for organisms which thereby effect its destruction; death of objectionable organisms, resulting from the production of unfavorable conditions, such as absence of food (removed by the purification processes) killing by antagonistic organisms, etc. 
  6. **Aeration:** evaporation of gases held in solution and which are the cause of objectionable tastes and odors; evaporation of carbonic acid, a food supply for some kinds of growths; supplying oxygen necessary for certain chemical purifications, and especially necessary to support growths of water-purifying organisms. 
  7. **Boiling:** the best household method of protection from disease-carrying waters.

These are the most important ways in which water is cleaned and purified, but the classification is necessarily imperfect and inadequate because each of the actions mentioned is related to and grades into some of the others, and in many cases it cannot be determined how much of the purification effected by a given process is brought about in one way and how much in another.

For instance, in filtration it is known that the straining out of suspended matters, the sedimentation taking place in the pores of the filtering material, and that adhesion of the suspended particles to fixed particles of filtering material, are all important in bringing about purification, and in addition, there is also taking place at the same time and in the same place a whole series of biological changes, so complicated that at the present time only a general outline of their nature is understood.

In a similar way, coagulation is usually effected by a chemical process, and some chemical change in the water is produced by the treatment, although this is not its direct and principal object.

Sometimes two processes are combined, as where river water is softened by chemical treatment in such a way as to produce a coagulating effect upon the suspended matters.

Many of the poisoning operations are by the use of very powerful oxidizing agents. Ozone and chloride of oxygen are among the most powerful oxidizing agents known. In addition to killing the objectionable organisms, there is sure to be direct chemical action resulting from these substances which tends to the purification of the water, and at the same time to the destruction and elimination of the applied substances from the water.

These secondary actions are often of great importance. If ozone is applied to a dirty water in quantity sufficient to kill the objectionable organisms in clean water, it may happen that the impurities in the water will absorb and use up the ozone so rapidly that it will not have a chance to act upon the organisms, and the desired effect will not be produced. For this and other reasons it is not advisable to apply such oxidizing agents to dirty raw water.

So far as they can be used with advantage they must be applied to waters that -have already been filtered and oxidized and largely purified by other and cheaper methods.

**Straining.** This is used particularly to remove fish and floating leaves, sticks, etc. Coarse screening is best effected by passing between steel bars arranged to be easily raked off. Fine screening is most frequently done through screens covered with wire cloth, arranged in pairs so that one screen is raised for cleaning while its mate is below in service. Such screens are often made large and heavy and are raised by hydraulic or electric power.

Revolving screens are also used, and they are better.

They are of two general types. In one the screen runs as a link-belt over pulleys above and below; in the other the screen is in the form of a cylinder partly immersed in the water and passing between guides which insure the passage of all the water through it. In either case the motion of the screens is continuous, and cleaning is done in the part of the screen above the water by jets of water playing upon it.

Screens are largely used in paper mills, wire cloth having as many as sixty meshes per lineal inch being often employed.

Many elaborate screening arrangements have been installed for unfiltered reservoir waters, in the hope that algae and other organisms would be removed by them.

Some organisms are removed, but the most troublesome ones and their effects are not removed or even sensibly reduced by screening.

Screening as a preliminary to filtration is often used, and within certain limits is advantageous; but close screening is unnecessary, and in many plants there is no screening before filtration and no need of it.

**Sedimentation.** This consists in taking water through tanks or basins in which the velocity of flow is reduced and the heavier suspended matters are taken to the bot- tom by gravity. The accumulated sediment is removed from time to time. Sedimentation is widely used as a preliminary process and is the cheapest way of removing those relatively large particles which will settle out in a moderately short length of time.

It pays to remove such particles in this way when they are numerous, even though other and more thorough processes are to follow, as the subsequent processes are more easily and effectively carried out in the absence of heavy suspended matters.

**Scrubbers.** These are rapid, coarse-grained filters, or their equivalent. They have been used to a consider- able extent in recent works. To some extent they are used in place of sedimentation, doing about the same work, but doing it quicker and in less space, though usu- ally at greater cost; and to some extent they carry the process further, removing smaller and lighter particles than could be readily removed by settling alone.

Scrubbers act in part as strainers, but the principal action is apparently the sedimentation which takes place in the pores of the scrubbing material, where conditions of sedimentation are extremely favorable.

It is very easy to build a scrubber to do good work. It is more difficult to build one to do this and also be capable of being cleaned in a cheap and efficient manner. From the standpoint of design and construction, the cleaning devices are the most important parts of a scrubber.

**Mechanical** **Filters.** This is a most important type of apparatus. It is an arrangement for passing water through a sand layer at a relatively high rate, with devices for cleaning the sand when it becomes dirty, by reversing the current, and by other means, and of all necessary auxiliary apparatus for regulating and controlling the process.

The term mechanical filter came from the mechanical nature of the appliances used for cleaning the sand.

There are many types of mechanical filters and there has been a great development in the devices used. The substitution of concrete, bronze, and other durable materials for the wood and the rapidly corroded iron and brass of the earlier designs, is conspicuous, but in addition, developments in the direction of simpler and more adequate and effective devices have been most important.

From the standpoint of design and construction the cleaning devices offer far greater difficulties than the filtering devices.

In mechanical filters the straining action is probably more important than the sedimentation taking place in the pores of the filtering material.

In a few cases mechanical filters have been used as a first or preliminary process, but usually they are employed as a final process of purification. To make them effective in this way the water reaching them must be thoroughly prepared by coagulation or otherwise. That is to say, all extremely small particles must have been drawn together into aggregates of sufficient size to be capable of being removed by nitration at a high rate, and the total amount of such particles must have been reduced by subsequent sedimentation to such a quantity that the filtering material will not be too rapidly clogged by them. Without such thorough preliminary treatment mechanical filters are not capable of removing the bacteria, or the finely divided sediment or turbidity, and many other matters requiring to be removed.

**Sand** **Filters.** Sand filters are used at a lower rate than mechanical filters, and cleaning is done by removing by scraping of a surface layer of dirty sand instead of by washing the whole sand layer by a reverse current. The cost of cleaning devices being saved, and construction simplified in other ways, as compared with mechanical filters, a far greater filtering area can be provided for the same cost; and filtration being at a lower rate, the straining action is more thorough, and there are opportunities for biological purification. Sand filtration alone, without preliminary treatment, is able to remove nearly all of the objectionable bacteria, as well as other organisms, from many waters, at the same time purifying them in other ways. The straining is not close enough, however, to remove the clay particles that render many waters, especially some river waters, turbid, and such waters require preliminary treatment.

Sand filters are used in connection with various preliminary treatments, but, generally speaking, they are adapted to treating only such waters as are capable of being purified in that way without any preliminary treatments, or with only rough and inexpensive treatments If the water ordinarily requires coagulation, then, as a rule, it will be better to make the coagulation thorough and use mechanical niters for the final treatment.

**Coagulating** **Devices.** Coagulating devices consist of apparatus for dissolving the chemical or chemicals used for coagulating the water, and for mixing the solutions, and bringing them to the required strengths, and for applying them to the water, and mixing them with it, and all auxiliary appliances.

There is great variety in coagulating devices, and much ingenuity has been displayed in meeting special conditions. There is no great or insuperable difficulty in se- curing the regular and proper addition of coagulant to a water, and in many cases this has been done in a perfectly satisfactory way. On the other hand, the coagulating devices have probably failed to act more frequently than any other part of the plants of which they form parts, and for this reason the greatest care must be given to their design and operation.

**Coagulating** **Basins.** Coagulating basins are required to hold the water for a time after it has received the coagulant or coagulants, to allow the chemical reactions resulting from the treatment to take place. They also serve to re- move by sedimentation the greater part of the precipitate that results from these reactions. This feature is of the ut most importance, as otherwise the precipitate would choke the filters, and cleaning would be required too frequently, The bulk of the precipitates should always be removed before the water goes to the filter, and to this end baffles and other devices tending to complete sedimentation are desirable, and the bottoms of the basins are made with slopes and gutters to facilitate the easy and frequent removal of the mud which is deposited upon them.

**Aerating** **Devices.** Aerating devices are used to bring the water in contact with air, either for the purpose of introducing oxygen or of removing carbonic acid or gases which produce pastes and odors. The natural flow of water in the bed of a mountain stream having a rapid fall aerates it in a most effective way, and many works are so arranged that this kind of aeration is utilized. Flow in sluggish streams or canals has comparatively little value for aeration.

When aeration must be done with artificial appliances, playing the water in jets forming fountains is one of the most effective ways, but to be thoroughly efficient considerable head is used up, and this is a serious obstacle, when the water is pumped, because of the cost. In other cases the water is allowed to fall through the perforated bottoms of trays, and similar devices. Under some conditions flowing over or through coke or other coarse-grairied ballast seems to aid, but it is essential that the air in the voids of such material should be frequently changed by some certain means, as otherwise the materials instead of being helpful will greatly reduce the amount of aeration obtained.

When aeration is used to introduce oxygen, a substantial result may be obtained by well designed appliances with a drop of not more than two or three feet in water level. Much more extended aeration is required to remove objectionable gases from a water, and a greater head may be advantageously used where they are troublesome.

Intermittent niters can be operated so as to thoroughly aerate the water passing them, so long as the water quantity and the amount of organic matter in it are not too large, having reference to the grain-size, depth, and condition of the filter sand; and for this reason this form of nitration has advantages when much aeration is required.

The above outlines of the most important processes of water purification, and of the appliances used to carry them out, is intended only to give a general idea of what is aimed at, and of the objects of the various parts of the works, and no detailed descriptions are necessary for this purpose. In the same way only those methods and appliances of some practical importance are included.

A great number of other processes have been proposed, and a few of them may be in time developed so as to be of practical value. But a discussion of such processes, not yet brought to successful application, would not aid in a clear understanding of first principles.

It is worth noting that most of the advance in water purification comes from the development of old processes.

It is only at long intervals that a new method or principle of treatment is discovered that is important enough to find a permanent place in the art.

Hazen, A. (1907, 1914). Methods of Purifying Water (pp. 89-99). In Hazen's, _Clean Water and How to Get It_. Brooklyn, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

## **Copyright**

"Pure Water"; Floyd Davis; _An Elementary Handbook on Potable Water_ , 1891

"The Missionary"; Copyright ©2009, Deborah Caligiuri

"Adinah's Story"; Copyright ©2009, Laura D. Thompson

"Water Supplies"; Floyd Davis; _An Elementary Handbook on Potable Water_ , 1891

"Willy the Fish"; Copyright ©2009, Justin Lowmaster

"The Gargoyle: Reflections"; Copyright ©2009, David Crutchfield

"Development of Water Purification in America"; Allen Hazen; _Clean Water and How to Get It_ , 1909

"The Five Springs"; Copyright ©2009, Kelsey Felder

"Methods of Purifying Water"; Allen Hazen; _Clean Water and How to Get It_ , 1909

"Adventures on the Atomic Earth: Rain Man"; Copyright ©2009, Winston Crutchfield

Water Is Life by Winston Crutchfield

Smashwords Edition.

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