Aeon of Wonder

by Carey Henderson

  The angel lifted his sword high into the night. The glint from it nearly blinded Joshua. The angel brought the sword down at full speed and the Dragon howled. But the angel did not slay the Dragon. He stopped the sword at the malformed neck of the monster.

  "I am His messenger," the angel said, his voice resonating so loudly in the night that Joshua felt his chest vibrating. The rocks in front of him seemed to be making noise themselves. None of it made any sense to him. He figured he was either mad or this was happening and, either way, he was stuck for the duration of it.

  "Your time is now, Azazel. But let it be marked that only a messenger defeated you. One will come after me who will put His foot on your neck and break it, and cast you away, where you belong."

  "I will not allow that," the Dragon howled.

  When the angel yelled silence, Joshua heard something that he had never heard in his entire life on earth: utter quiet. Not only was the Dragon stilled but the very air and earth and all their creatures did not breathe nor move. He was himself frozen. He wanted to look back, to see if the survivors finally heard. Joshua found that he simply could not look away.

  "This is my message, Azazel. Now you are free. You will not likely now forget what awaits you at the end."

  Joshua didn't hear a verbal agreement from the Dragon. Merely more silence. The angel released the fell monster and the Serpent's seed slinked away into the night.

  And then Joshua realized he was screaming at the top of his lungs. He was doing so because twenty-plus feet of angelic being was standing in front of him. He could not even describe the terror and awe he felt because his mind had no classification for such things as what stood before him.

  "What did you see, Friend," the being said.

  Joshua couldn't say a word until the giant man laughed. Then his tongue was suddenly loosed.

  "I saw nothing..." his whispered. He paused for a moment and looked up as close to the giant man's face as he could dare and said:

  "And everything!" Joshua didn't realize he'd spread his arms wide, like a little kid.

  The angel was gone. Joshua could hear screaming behind him, toward where the survivors were.

  A dark cloud was hovering over them. Joshua traced the black cloud back to its source: the crack in the earth that had opened during the battle. Something, some kind of creatures, were swarming out of the earth itself like locusts.

  Thousands, Joshua thought at first.

  "No," he said out loud, "millions."

  The Old Woman of the Lake

  2003

  Keith watched Becca as they drove down the road. She was angry. She was always angry. He tried again to remember what it was that made him marry her.

  "So, explain this to me again, Keith?"

  Keith made the mistake of sighing.

  "Oh, then just never-freaking-mind. Where's my iPod?"

  Keith said not a word. She could find it herself as far as he was concerned.

  "So, you're really not going to answer me?"

  "No, I'm really not."

  She flipped him off and found her iPod, put it on and pouted the rest of the trip. That was fine by him, at least she was quiet. It wasn't like he'd cheated on her since Karin. It wasn't like he hadn't paid for that. He had days where he secretly wished she'd cheat on him, just so they could call it even.

  Now, he was trying to do something good for them. He remembered their argument the previous night.

  "So, let me get this straight, Keith: you spent the last ten years building up one of the biggest tech companies in this part of the country, and now, you just wanna give it all up, move upstate, and escape the rat race? The one you helped to build?"

  "That's it," he said, "you've got it. I knew you could, honey, if you tried."

  "God, Keith. Why does everything have to be a fight? I'm asking a question."

  "No, you're asking several questions loaded with an agenda."

  "An a-what? Are you kidding me?"

  "Look, Becca, I want to get us out of this city. I don't think it's good for us anymore. It's not like we're going to be hurting in any fashion, honey. I came out sweet on the sale. Frankly, we're set for a very long time."

  "But why the country? Why? All my friends are here, so are yours."

  "My friends are friends because I'm the former CEO of the biggest company in the state, Becca."

  "You're so paranoid, Keith, I swear. How do you know they don't really care about you?"

  Keith started to walk out of the room, simply unable to keep up with all of Becca's moving targets. But she always kept the one bullet in the chamber with his name on it.

  "Is there some hot thing up in God's country you want to get natural with, Keith? Is that it?"

  Keith rubbed his hand across his face, slid it to his forehead and then over his hair. He turned and looked at Becca, not saying a word. Then he turned around and walked out of the room, out of the house, out into the rain and got into his car, all the while she followed him, screaming at him. He left and came back three hours later, after Becca had fallen asleep.

  And so now they drove to a place he'd hoped would be good for her, and yet he realized she'd merely forwarded her misery to their new address.

  He failed to come up with that reason that he'd married her.

  Their new house was, to Keith, perfect. It was an old cabin that had been restored from the ground up. Four bedrooms, one with a loft, a large Great Room, den, three bathrooms, a game room and large kitchen, topped off with ample overhead attic space. It had cost him a mint but as soon as he walked in, he felt at home. He looked over at Becca, hoping to see the same.

  She was slightly hunched with her arms folded tight around her.

  "It's so far out here, Keith. What if something happened?"

  He didn't answer her. He went to the game room, straight to the bar and poured himself a whiskey. Keith tilted it back and drank it in one gulp, then he went out onto his new porch that wrapped around the entire cabin, and looked down. The south end of the cabin where he stood was on very tall supports. The ground went down at around a 60 degree angle. So the view was magnificent. Tops of tall pines and some cedars, a few hardwoods and the like and the blue lake shimmering in the distance.

  "Wow, this is nice."

  Keith nearly fell over the railing of the porch when he heard Becca say the words. "You think?"

  "Mmm-hmm." she said. Keith noticed her knuckles had turned white. She'd looked down. "Keith, this is dangerous. I don't like this."

  He turned and walked away from her and mumbled to himself.

  Becca and Keith argued again that night, and the words quickly morphed into munitions, and the two unhappy people tore at each other verbally, like animals. By the time the shouting was done, Becca had taken a comforter and a pillow into the bedroom that had the loft. She'd climbed up into the loft making much fanfare of it, crying and cursing, belittling Keith between gasps of air.

  Keith rolled his eyes and walked out onto the back of the house, onto the porch, and looked down below. The moon shone. He could see the tops of the trees swaying, the wind whistling through their dying leaves and undying evergreen needles.

  When he was a child, Keith could remember only his grandfather giving a real damn about him. When his dad came home in the evenings, he was tired and grumpy, generally rude to everyone. He sometimes had to work a double shift at the factory, which meant that he'd been standing for eighteen hours. Keith's mom would always seem to jump right on top of him as soon as he walked in the door, and Keith's dad would get so angry that he sometimes would slap her, and those were the times that Keith would find his way out of the house, as quietly as possible.

  His mother's father was nothing like either of his parents. He was calm, patient and understanding. Yet he always told Keith the truth. Keith always understood, even as a child, that it was this that he sought. His parents lied, all the time, about everything. They said they wanted to 'protect' him.

  "Why does dad work all the ti
me? Why won't he ever just stay?"

  "Because," the old man said, "he's trying to give you a better life than he had."

  Keith could remember looking down at the ground, not knowing how to make sense of such a thing. "We could have a better life if he just stayed at home, Granpop. It makes mom so mad. She's mean to him, too. But sometimes I feel like being mean to him, because I miss him."

  Keith's grandad put his hand on Keith's head, then mussed his hair. "Look, kid," he said, getting that look Keith knew meant he was speaking his mind, "I didn't say what he's doing is right, ok? But it is right to him. A man needs a purpose. Work. He needs to protect his family the only way he knows how, and sometimes that 'how' might not be the best but it's still the only way he's got to show love. Your job is, I'm sad to say, to make the best of it sometimes. You'll be grown one day and out. Then, you may see what pushed him to work so hard."

  Keith remembered how that didn't give him comfort. As an adult, he knew that he was spoiled and prone to self-pity deep inside. Remembering those days made him remember he'd always been like that. One night, it got so bad that when Keith went to see the old man, he said, "I wish they were dead."

  His grandfather's brow furrowed. It scared him at the time, Keith remembered, seeing anger on such a kind face.

  "Never say that, boy, ever."

  For a moment, Keith had been too stunned to speak. Finally, he said, "Wh-why, Granpop?"

  "Because, son, sometimes, Something hears you."

  "What do you mean? What thing?"

  "Pray that you never find out." Then the old man had smiled. "Son, why don't you just stay here tonight? Take your mom's old room. I'll call them up and square it with them."

  "Can I, Granpop? You don't think they'll mind?"

  "No, son, they won't mind. Go throw your bag in there while I call them. Then, we'll go get something to eat."

  Keith had been delighted. Grandpop let him stay up late and watched TV with him, instead of sending him to his room, to watch it alone, like his parents did.

  That night he dreamed of the better life he wanted, not the one his parents wanted him to have.

  Keith fell asleep in a lounge chair on his back porch. When he woke and opened his eyes, the sky looked like ten billion stars gleamed; as many as he dare count like so much glitter on a black wall. The wind had died down and the night was crisp and quiet, a cool humidity lingered. It all made him smile for a moment. Then he heard a voice. He couldn't make out the words but Keith could tell that it was a human voice echoing slightly through the trees. His wife.

  He walked slowly around the porch toward the west side of the house. Becca stood outside, leaning on the railing, the Nokia phone making a blue ring of light around her ear. She was smiling and talking to someone and he noticed that the someone made her giggle quite a bit. Keith's gut screamed at him to turn around and go back.

  That night, maybe it was because of recalling the grandfather he so loved, a man who'd shared something called wisdom with him, Keith listened to his gut. He turned and walked back to the south side of the house, went inside, closed the sliding door and found his bedroom. He shut the door so that he wouldn't hear anything.

  It sounded like a machine gun in a movie in Keith's ears, only muffled and distant. The sound stirred him enough that he woke up and realized he was hearing a woodpecker foraging on a tree right outside his bedroom window. There were woodpeckers all over the city, but he could never hear them because a city just never stopped shouting over everything else.

  He sat up in bed and stretched, looking at the beams of light coming through the windows, dust motes hopping around everywhere.

  "So you're awake," a voice said.

  Keith looked and Becca was standing in the door, drinking a cup of coffee.

  "How'd you sleep," he asked.

  "Not bad," she said. "Once I fell asleep. I had to read to get there, it's so quiet out here."

  Not being quite awake yet, Keith didn't note that she actually smiled. He looked around the room, stretched again and said, without thinking, "So who were you talking to last night?"

  Becca got a strange look on her face for a moment, then said, "What do you mean?"

  "Who were you talking to out on the porch last night? I fell asleep out there and heard you, and you were talking to someone."

  "I got out of bed sometime after eleven and got on the couch and read. That's all. I never got up from the couch."

  "So you weren't outside?"

  "No, Keith."

  At that moment, Keith's mind began to feel suspicion. "So I was just hallucinating, then?"

  "I don't know, Keith, and don't take that tone. I swear, I did not talk to anyone last night."

  "Maybe that's why you didn't want to leave so bad, huh, Becca? Maybe you had somebody back in the city."

  Becca put her hand up and said, "Oh, for God's sake, Keith! Are you really serious? Do you really want to go there? You know what? Fine." Becca whirled and left the room.

  It hit Keith what he'd just said to her. He didn't know why he'd said it because he really didn't believe she'd lie about that. Of all her many, many faults, Keith thought, she's really not very good at lying. He was about to get out of bed when something dropped onto the comforter in front of him. Becca's phone.

  "Look, Mr. Paranoid," she said, "just look at the outgoing calls and then maybe you'll stop this, ok?"

  "No," he said, "I... let's just let this go. I shouldn't have..."

  "Oh no, Keith. You started this, now let's finish it." She had put her coffee down somewhere, so she flopped onto the bed next to him and picked up the phone. She pressed a couple of buttons and then she looked stunned.

  "What?" Keith asked.

  "Nothing. I don't know."

  Keith reached down and took the phone. "This call was made just after three a.m.," he said. Becca grabbed the phone back from him.

  "I wasn't awake then, Keith, I'm telling you. I don't know how this happened."

  "Call it."

  "What?"

  "Call the number, see who it is."

  "Ok," she said. He could see by the look on her face that Becca truly was surprised. For a moment, Keith took comfort in this. She pressed a button and turned on the speakerphone. The number rang three times, then someone answered. A man's voice.

  "Hello? Becca? Everything all right?"

  "Who is this," Becca said. It was not a request. Keith didn't know what to think.

  The voice on the phone chuckled. "That's the game we play when I call and he's home," the voice said. The tone was sing-song.

  "What the hell," Keith asked.

  "I don't know," Becca mouthed to him.

  There was a rustling sound on the phone, like whoever was on the other side shifted position. "Look," the voice said, "I'll call you again tonight, late, ok? He's gone tomorrow night and we can set it up."

  Becca didn't say a word. She looked to Keith like she was in shock. Unfortunately, at that point, he wasn't buying her act anymore.

  "Becca? Hello? Ok. I guess he's home. Talk to you tonight, Becs." The voice hung up.

  Keith swept up the phone, then stood up from the bed with it in his hand. He didn't say a word to Becca as he started to walk out.

  "Are you honestly believing that pervert?" Becca asked.

  He turned and looked at her for a moment without saying a word.

  "You do," she said, looking incredulous. "I don't cheat," she said, "that's your department."

  Keith knew she'd said it to sting him, to get the focus off herself and onto him. He knew this and it did not matter. He hurled the phone. It went whizzing past Becca's head and shattered the mirror on the far wall of the bedroom.

  "Go to hell," he said, turned and walked out.

  He could hear Becca sobbing quietly.

  Out the front door of the cabin, off from the main porch to the left was a trail that led to steps that someone had gone to the trouble to put into the hillside at least fifty years prior. They were some
what worn but only slippery in the rain, and they were the only safe path to the lake far down below.

  Keith took the steps down the hill, deep into the forest, and he listened to the wind as he walked. Birds sang, squirrels and other critters chattered at one another. Keith noted that they didn't seem to approve of his presence. Far off in the distance he heard a gunshot. Likely a rifle, a hunter.

  After some time, his legs started to tire and he sat down on one of the steps. Tomorrow night he was, in fact, going back to the city. A final business dinner to cement all his assets and make certain that the company put the right person in charge of the board of directors before he left. Another woodpecker hammered a tree not far from him, the sound having the same quality as the question he continued to ask himself: should I cancel the trip?

  He knew that if he did he risked their future. And though he wanted with all his might to hate Becca if she was cheating, he couldn't. Hell, when he thought back on it, he really didn't know why he'd done it. He'd only told her about the one time but there were more. It wasn't something he did because he didn't love her. She just drove him crazy. And he knew that he really didn't know how to talk to her very well, didn't know how to negotiate things with her. When she got angry, so did he. When she got defensive, he lined his defenses right up to fight hers. They just didn’t even seem to know how to communicate much at all.

  He heard a boat out on the lake, an outboard motor speeding across the water. I wonder, he thought, if our parents had spent less time giving us what they wanted us to have and more time giving us the tools we needed to make things like marriage work, we might not be in this hell right now.

  Keith stood up and saw a bird fly from a nearby tree. He resumed his trip to the lake. A large gazebo, twice the size of most normal ones, sat as close to the water as possible without risk of being flooded. It sat under a large oak hanging over the lake, with a massive hammock under the gazebo roof, and waited for him. He'd tried not to ask for too many of what he called 'vanity projects' while having the cabin refurbished. But he'd insisted on this one.