The Tithe

by Elle Hill

  As she progressed, Josh wondered where her picture hung. Or did it? Did each of these people travel their own hallways in which hung the painting of each taken Tithe, minus themselves? Or perhaps her painting waited at the very end. The hallway stretched infinitely before her and back, always dimly lit wherever she stood and fading into darkness on either side.

  She’d know soon enough; it wasn’t as though she had anything else better to do. Dying tended to clear one’s schedule.

  Josh scuffled onward, her feet dragging on beige tile, while well-clothed, dead Tithes smiled and pointed the way.

  Much later, after admiring the bloom in Pius’ cheeks, she drew before another painting . . . and halted. She even stumbled a bit, here in heaven. Before her, smiling and holding a pink blossom in his large, brown hand, sat Blue. He wore all black, as he had every day she’d known him. His hair curled neatly about his shoulders, his blue eyes sparkled. Even the tiny scar on his right cheekbone gleamed a cheerful, shiny pink.

  “Blue,” she whispered. Had he found a way to come see her? Was this a sign, an omen, a reminder of some sort?

  No, she realized, and something in her chest trembled. This hallway featured dead Tithes. This wasn’t Blue—well, not her Blue. This picture featured the Blue Lenwood an angel had taken—killed—and whose live he had co-opted.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to him.

  He smiled down upon her, pointing her onward.

  After a moment, she obeyed his silent command and shuffled further down the hallway. At the next stop, she found a painting of a beige-skinned woman with short, tousled hair and a dark smear under one of her eyes. She’d found her own portrait. She wore a long, ivory gown, but unlike the rest of the paintings, Josh stared unsmilingly forward. She didn’t point.

  Josh moved forward, and the figure within the frame grew larger. She lifted her right hand, and the figure waved back.

  “A mirror,” she murmured.

  The reflection within smiled and nodded.

  She hadn’t smiled.

  Josh took a step forward. The figure, still smiling, drew closer.

  “Hello?” she asked hesitantly. The other Josh’s lips didn’t move.

  “Hi,” the figure said.

  “Hi,” she repeated. She stared hard into the dark eyes of her reflection. “Who are you?”

  The other Josh shook her head, but she still smiled. “What do you think, Joshua Barstow?”

  “Are you Elovah?” Josh asked, and her voice only trembled a little.

  “Sure,” the other Josh said.

  “‘Sure’?”

  “For your purposes,” the reflection said. She continued grinning.

  Josh didn’t think her own face had ever maintained such cheerfulness.

  Staring at herself, Josh ran a hand through her hair. There was nothing to be done about the black eye and the unfortunate fact that, while she was perfectly adequately made, she didn’t dazzle the eye like Lynna.

  “‘Death is a mirror,’” Josh said dryly. “Who knew it wasn’t a metaphor?”

  “Blame yourself,” Elovah said cheerfully. “You chose this setting.”

  “I did?”

  Elovah, wearing Josh’s virtual body, nodded.

  They stood in silence for a minute. “May I have a chair?” Josh asked. A sudden pressure pushed against the backs of her thighs. Without looking, she sank into a plush chair. The mirror slid slightly down the wall, and Elovah plunked down in her own chair.

  “So what do we talk about?” Josh asked.

  Still smiling, Elovah shrugged. “This is your time.”

  “Do you give everyone their own audience?” Josh asked.

  “Wrong question. Correct question: Do I give an audience to everyone who demands it? And yes.”

  Josh’s eyebrows scrunched together. “I didn’t demand anything.”

  Elovah smiled. “You most certainly did, or I wouldn’t be here.” She used the toe of one boot to massage her other leg’s calves. “This pain is horrific. How can you stand it?”

  “You can feel it?” Josh asked, and then sighed. This was Elovah. Of course she could feel Josh’s pain. She felt everyone’s pain.

  “Unfortunately.” Elovah grimaced.

  “You’re . . . not what I expected,” Josh said.

  “I’m exactly what you expected,” Elovah said.

  “You are?” Josh asked dumbly.

  “Yes, or I wouldn’t be like this.”

  Josh hesitated for a moment before admitting, “I don’t understand.”

  Elovah nodded. “Oh, I know. And I know you want everything, every bit of knowledge I can give you. I’ve been preparing myself for your arrival, gathering my memories, tucking them safely back into my head.”

  Josh drew back in confusion. “I’m sure everyone wants all their questions answered when they die.”

  Elovah’s face bloomed into a giant smile. Her mouth, her cheeks, even her eyebrows: everything lifted in amusement. “No,” she said.

  “No?”

  Elovah shook her head. “Most people want a guide who tells them what comes next and offers them rest, happiness, and comfort. They want us to take control. Living is difficult. It can be so lovely to just hand over responsibility. Not you, though.” Elovah gestured toward her. “You can’t even let go of the pain.”

  Can’t even . . .? What did she mean? “Are you saying I’m the one who brought my pain with me?”

  “It’s such a part of you, you can’t imagine yourself without it,” Elovah agreed.

  “Well then, go away, pain!” Josh said. It remained. “Shoo!” Nothing. Even in death, she was cursed with wonky legs? And her pain at not seeing Blue, Lynna, and Garyn throbbed even more acutely in her chest. It was the definition of unfair. Josh scowled.

  “I’m pretty sure,” she said grumpily, if still hesitantly, “I expected you to be more like the Elovah in the Bitoran, the god who killed the Twelves because they refused to acknowledge Her. Elovah is a god of wrath. I always envisioned Her as tall, brown, and stout with, you know, flames or an axe or something.”

  Elovah shrugged. “Maybe this is what you needed, then, to get your questions asked.”

  “But . . .” Josh began. She hesitated, bit her lip. Finally, she blurted, “But you’re God! How can my expectations shape anything?”

  Elovah nodded.

  Josh still hadn’t gotten used to seeing her own face stretched into expressions she’d seen so rarely in a mirror. For all the glowing traits Blue attributed to her, she’d never counted cheerfulness and lightheartedness among them.

  “You interpret Elovah all the time, Josh. You wrestle with her, you question her, you imagine her as you, only godlike.” She smiled and gestured at herself. “Sometimes, she’s the manifestation of all the anger, dominance, and unfairness in the world, while others, she’s the figurehead of a curious and self-analytical species. Elovah-the-symbol serves many purposes.”

  Josh sat back in her chair, biting her lips. Elovah was vast: she got that. But that’s not how the god in front of her talked. She spoke of Elovah not as their leader and judge, but as a tool.

  “Who are you?” she asked slowly.

  Elovah, using Josh’s small, broad hands, clapped in excitement and grinned. Josh wouldn’t have been surprised had the god bounced in her chair, but she didn’t. “I knew you’d ask the question.”

  “You’re a god, but not how the Bit’ describes you,” Josh went on.

  “As I said, Elovah-the-symbol serves many agendas.”

  “Who are you?” Josh repeated.

  Elovah nodded and smiled. “Yes, yes. Such is the question. And I know your questions are deep and wide, so I collected all my memories and stored them for your arrival.” She tapped her head. “I think to best answer many of your questions, I will need to tell a story.”

  Her god, Elovah (may we remain shielded from Her wrath), wanted to tell her, Josh Barstow, a story. What did one say in such circumstances?

  “Uh,
thank you,” Josh offered.

  “It all started with the ones you call the Twelves.”

  It was the weight of belief that first drew them. The belief spread and spread, gaining weight and bulk, becoming ever bigger, always heavier. It grew denser with each person’s consideration, its effects grander with each mind that accepted it. Soon, it swelled big enough, solid enough, to attract its own satellites.

  Think of a bull’s-eye. No, no. Think of four people, each pulling a corner of a sheet till it stretches tautly between them. Now drop a heavy rock in the center. The sheet will bend under the weight, and other objects on the sheet will tumble toward the rock.

  This is how they first came to know the Twelves. These seven billion people lived their busy little lives, crammed in among everyone else but still isolated, alienated. They agreed on little and hadn’t in a long time. That is, until most of them united in a single, simple belief: on a certain day, their world would end and most of them would die. Not all seven billion believed, of course, but enough, just enough did.

  The People became ensnared in the gravity of their belief. And oh, it was delicious. Many billion people, all harboring the same belief in something so specific, so tangible: The People glutted themselves and grew content. Until then, they’d subsisted on whispers of external awareness, scraps of common beliefs, watery rituals performed in the name of paper gods.

  This wasn’t new, of course. The People lived on the fringes of consciousness, barely surviving on the diminishing sparks of belief in small, random acts of magic. In the befores, entire civilizations believed, and The People thrived as gods, sometime small, sometimes magnificent and terrible. They ate well during those centuries.

  Not so in the time of the Twelves. As their numbers swelled, citizens grew surprisingly more isolated, less united, more focused on the mysteries of their own individualities.

  And then the belief in the end of the world kindled a fire that ignited the minds of billions. The People awakened once again and tumbled inward toward the lush density of that single, simple idea.

  They feasted. And then, as the date grew closer and closer, they grew despondent. They knew, as all living things know deep in their being, that belief shapes the structure of the world. As eaters of beliefs, The People were malleable to their constructive power. The weight, the pressure of expectation of destruction, would shape The People into the very weapons that would destroy humanity, those beings whose overwhelming belief gave The People strength and sustenance. The People wept at the irony.

  When the day of destruction arrived, The People gnashed their teeth, but they existed within the gravity of belief. And so, knowing the very belief that sustained them existed to give them the strength to destroy the believers, they despaired.

  Forged by expectation, The People arrived, eyes empty and swords dripping fire. Swaths of humans fell before them.

  It must be god! the humans cried, wringing their hands.

  Which one?

  All of them! We have failed them all!

  Many died that day. You would think the humans cursed The People, shaking their fists and organizing their armies to strike back. Not at all. You might be surprised to know most of the humans who passed from this realm and into the next didn’t feel rage, despair, or even sorrow. They mostly just felt relief.

  Some survivors fled to holy places and prayed. Fiercely, as if truly expecting an answer. The weight of their belief drew The People. Remember the sheet. While the slaughter continued outside, many of The People appeared, more or less in human form, in the world’s holy places. For the first time in millennia, they opened mouths and spoke with humans.

  What do you think the survivors asked for? For forgiveness? To spare humankind from its annihilation? Oh, no, no. Some asked to be taken quickly, painlessly. Some begged to be spared. Few prayed for humankind as a whole.

  A sizable minority approached The People and offered an exchange. Yes, they said, humanity had become wicked. Few cared for their neighbors, human and animal. They had bred without forethought, destroyed much of the planet, bled dry its resources and poisoned its waters. They’d waged wars, beaten and raped women into subordination, enslaved and exploited entire races of peoples.

  But, they said, humanity could start over. Divide them up into collections of small towns, big enough to support themselves but not too big to create castes and breed inequalities. Everyone would know their townsfolk. They would reproduce only enough to sustain the species. No one would eat animal species out of existence; neither would another human go hungry. Exploitation would cease. Everyone would work for the good of their family and the town. Older children would apprentice. All adults who wanted could marry.

  And best of all? All would worship their god. Their god, since no one had the same one. For some, She was a woman, for others, a man; some thought Her legion and others a single entity. No matter how they envisioned Her, She would be their god, the one to whom they dedicated their individual lives and the continued existence of humanity.

  Well, The People were pleased, weren’t they? Why would they want to kill humans, the beings with whom they lived in such cozy symbiosis?

  We will spare you if you make this so, they said in their various voices across the world. The killing stopped; only a few million humans had died.

  The humans who had taken refuge in the holy places conferred. After some number of days, they returned to their new gods. By then, The People had grown fat from the humans’ fear as well as their juicy belief in this new, perfect system.

  We know you did not come here to spare humanity, the clumps of devout humans, a few million, said. We don’t blame you. We don’t hate you. Why would we? We have become too big, too unwieldy for this world. You are the god of wrath. We have betrayed you. When you rid the world of the plague of humanity, we will atone for their sins. We will give you a world of believers. Just spare us. Just spare those who have come to you. We speak for humans now.

  And so The People slew humankind. They left only those who believed and who promised to create a world of believers.

  Across the world, towns formed in the rubble. The survivors set up their holy places and worshipped in the ways they thought best. To help them, the scholars and philosophers from each group of towns wrote a holy book that relayed its version of their god’s (or gods’) return and Her, His, or Their destruction of the wicked Twelves. Rituals, rules, prayers, names and duties of holy persons, even personalities of their deity: each varied per town, but all towns had them.

  The survivors fulfilled all their promises. The People had believers and humankind lived in isolated town clusters, self-sufficient and peaceful. They had manufactured a world of perfect equilibrium, of ideal symbiosis.

  Generations came and went. The stories behind the gods and the authors of the holy books faded. As the surviving humans had promised The People, all that remained was a rich, self-sustaining system of belief.

  Josh’s fingers gripped the cloth arms of her chair.

  Elovah beamed at her. “Not bad, eh? It was difficult for me to draw on the memories of everyone who had been present those days. Obviously the account varied a little from place to place. I provided a, well, an average of the accounts.”

  Josh sat before this being, her legs aching, her breath slow, her mind so full it felt heavy. Minutes passed. Her mirror self sat patiently before her, occasionally rubbing her calves and grimacing.

  “Who are you?” Josh asked finally.

  “It’s difficult to translate, since your very material brain creates words that solidify what should remain vast and abstract. But ‘The People’ seemed a good enough label. We are a collection.”

  “Where do you come from? You’re not gods, are you? Are you from the stars?”

  “Your question implies a material reality that we sometimes inhabit but which doesn’t define us,” Elovah said, as if that explained anything.

  “You’re not a god,” Josh said calmly. “You’re not my god.” With a
n angry shove, she rose to her feet. “You’re not my god!” she cried. “I’ve lived my entire life in a house that worships you, and you’re not even a god. Everything, everything is a lie!” She walked around to the back of the chair and clutched its back with shaking fingers.

  Elovah stared at her for a moment. Her face—Josh’s face—relaxed into something resembling compassion. “What is a god, Josh?” she asked. “Have you ever asked yourself that?”

  “She’s the being that created us and that watches over us!” she said, voice shaking. She passed a hand over her face.