9. The Most Important Drop

Of all the gods, Bella’s body remained the most. While Eeris neck shrank, and Feria and Darus saw their legs crumble away, she still looked like a big raccoon and could lift up Gulvi. With the dolphin in her paws, she jumped from black rock to black rock, to the highest point she could find. Gulvi hadn’t moved in a long time.

“This is madness!” cried Feria. “What if it doesn’t work? Gulvi will fall to his death!”

“It has to work!” Bella called back. “Otherwise we’ll all fall to our deaths.”

Bella stood at the highest point. A flat rough rock so high up that the lava streams below them seemed mere twigs. The other gods crowded around her so as not to fall over.

Feria looked upward. She longed so much for safety. For a blue sky without suffocation, for beautiful oceans she knew animals needed.

Her fox head supported Gulvi from below. Darus did the same. Eeris bowed her neck and gently bit Gulvi’s tail.

Bella counted down. Three, two, one—

They all flung Gulvi into the air.

The little dolphin rocketed towards the gray sky. He was swallowed by the clouds, just like the planet’s lava swallowed everything, until the gods could no longer see him.

He stayed away.

“Did … did we throw him too high?”

“Darus,” said Eeris, by now sized like a toy giraffe whom he could pet over the head. “Do you really think we threw Gulvi so high he went to another planet?”

“Nothing surprises me anymore!”

Feria liked Darus’ jokes. She couldn’t handle the suspense otherwise. Her body seemed to crumble away even faster from the fear that Gulvi wouldn’t make it, while her powers were definitely gone for good.

The air changed. Or, rather, the little wisp through which Gulvi had shot. It turned bluish. All the gods stared straight upward, mouths agape.

Until they couldn’t anymore, because fat raindrops splashed in their eyes. They all reacted identically: they shook their heads dry. That mostly led to soaking each other.

Feria felt more and more rain on her snout. Cold. Her ears seemed to freeze. The rock she stood on became slippery.

Those first drops turned a curtain of wetness, one that hung precisely beneath where Gulvi must be. The curtain became a downpour spreading out, further and further, until it was raining in all directions.

And they heard it.

For the first time there was sound. Finally there was air that could carry sound. In this case, the patter of drops as if a thousand beings knocked on the planet at once.

And this was no drizzle, dear reader. No little drops. It rained on a planet where it had never rained before. Because of the heat, the air could hold more water. Which, thanks to Gulvi, it now dumped onto the planet all at once. It rained hard enough to make seas within a day. But because the air was still gray, these seas were also gray.

“It worked! It worked!”

They tried grabbing each other’s paws to dance, but there was nothing left to grab.

“But we’re not done yet,” Feria said quickly. The next rock that fell from space was very much dolphin-shaped.

Feria looked downward. A puddle formed to her left. A little pond destined to be the First Sea soon.

“To the left, Gulvi! You’ll fall safely!”

“Can’t fly! Can’t steer!”

Gulvi was headed straight for a sharp rock. Eeris threw her paws over her eyes. Darus searched for strength to move the rock but found nothing.

“Yes you can,” said Bella. “You can steer water.”

Gulvi’s tail nearly hit the rock. The water from the puddle rose up, grew like a gigantic plant made of water drops, and grabbed Gulvi in its leaves. It softened his fall.

A moment later, Gulvi surfaced, laughing. He did spins and stretched out his fins. His dark blue eyes looked around.

“Water! More water!” he squeaked.

He swam away lightning fast in whichever direction he liked, even though Bella yelled for him to come back. And so it was that Gulvi made the first rivers. He’s still just a little kid, Feria thought with a smile. Hopefully he can find Hanah.

Eeris and Feria didn’t waste a second. They had held the little bit of DNA they created in their mouths. Now the spit all of it into the water.

Under the waves, the hot air currents were now clearly visible. The particles drifted back and forth by themselves. They found other particles with which to match by themselves.

Every so often they happened to pass a white stream: then they grew and doubled faster, as if the planet squirted cream on top of this dessert.

And with each doubling, the gods felt a little better. Their bodies grew back and Feria felt she had more magic and more control over this DNA.

But even after a long wait, the amount of DNA wasn’t even enough to properly see.

Why did this seem to go faster with all other living beings? Feria thought. At this pace we’ll be waiting billions of years!

Eeris pulled the particles toward herself and tried stacking them into a plant again. When that obviously wasn’t working, she tried a tiny blade of grass, also in vain.

Cosmo crashed down between the raindrops. His wing had regrown, yes, but the drops were heavy and the atmosphere was now full enough to make gusts of wind—so crashing was the right word.

“I come from Ardex,” he panted, “and he says: think of Zyme. You’re all going too fast.”

“He’s telling us we’re impatient? The explosive god-of-arguing-instantly?”

“He meant it. Something had changed, though I don’t know what. He’s rebuilding the Heavenly Palace and everyone’s invited.”

“Except Darus, of course?” the wolf said.

“No, you too.”

“Too fast?” Feria said through clenched teeth. “We’re going way too slowly! We need the opposite of Zyme! What do you call that?”

“Enzyme,” Bella mumbled. “If you want the reverse you put en in front.”

“Both could be true,” Eeris suggested. She saw her umpteenth blade of grass fall apart and threw the particles back into the ocean.

Now Feria understood too, even though she didn’t want to. Stupid world, she thought. Stupid planet, stupid rules, who came up with this? Our stupid Father of course.

She hadn’t had time yet to think about the banishment. But now that she paused on it a moment, she felt enormous anger. That he would do something like this to his children. That she had to come along too, even though he obviously wasn’t angry at her, because she had always been the perfect daughter.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “This DNA has to double faster. But after that … we can’t immediately make an animal or plant from it. That can only happen once we have WAY more of this. Once we can make other particles from this little speck, bigger and more special.”

“But that first part …” Eeris looked at Feria with a naughty smile.

The Green Sisters rubbed against each other and focused on the water. They stomped their paws, lashed their tails, rolled their eyes back and forth until they found the powers to grant their wish: enzyme.

It no longer took an eternity before the DNA doubled. It happened almost instantly. The particles doubled, and doubled, until there were so many that even your human eyes could see them. Until they formed a block so large and solid that it stilled parts of the water.

It did not, however, stop there. This planet was a particle soup from start to finish. It had precisely the particles this DNA needed—and those all moved through the water on their own. So the doubling only sped up. The gods stumbled backward to avoid the growing mass of hungry specks.

Between the DNA carpets, Feria noticed something else rise up from the planet crust, which by now had hardened and closed nearly everywhere. It wasn’t from a gust of wind or gentle quake, because the grains took on the shapes of living beings.

I doubt everything now, Feria thought, but I’m pretty sure sand can’t live.

The sandy beings formed a long line marching through the particles to break them down.

“No! Stop that!”

One sandy being was clearly bigger than the rest. It nearly reached as high as Feria’s snout, but was even longer because of the crown on its head. It looked most like a gingerbread man, with dimples for eyes and bulbous hands and feet.

The Sand King stormed toward the godchildren. None of them wanted to show they were afraid of a being made of sand.

That was their mistake.

He leapt around the gods like a cloud, scattered his grains through their fur and eyes, after which they all fell to the ground within two heartbeats—into a deep sleep.

Only Cosmo rose up quickly. But the Sand King effortlessly changed into a big bustard, just like him, and pulled him down.

The growth of the particles slowed to a crawl.

Now, however, there was enough to provide life force. Enough to survive on this planet.

The Sand King had no problem letting the gods sleep away the rest of the week.