Scroll- Part One

by D B Nielsen

  ‘Forget it! We’ve got enough problems as it is!’ Sage retorted.

  I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling. ‘Whatever. I was just kidding, Sage. Sheesh, you’re so uptight sometimes. The world’s not gonna end tomorrow. Chillax, girl.’

  But her next words were sobering, bringing my mood crashing down to earth.

  ‘I can’t relax. Not while this is hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles. Let’s just hope that the victors aren’t the Grigori.’ Sage shook her head ruefully and, bending down once again to tap away at the computer, said, ‘Look, let me try looking up the Wheel of Fortune. I think there’s some notion that the Wheel of Fortune links to the wheel mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel.’

  She was right, of course, as the information on Wikipedia about the Wheel of Fortune briefly mentioned the Book of Ezekiel, so she clicked on the hyperlink and the Bible passage was displayed on the screen.

  ‘Listen to this,’ Sage exclaimed and began to read, ‘Ezekiel. Verse 10. “I looked at the dome over the heads of the living creatures and above them was something that seemed to be a throne of sapphire. God said to the man wearing linen clothes, ‘Go between the wheels under the creatures and fill your hands with burning coals. Then scatter the coals over the city.’ I watched him go. The creatures were standing to the south of the Temple when he went in, and a cloud filled the inner courtyard. The dazzling light of the Lord’s presence rose up from the creatures and moved to the entrance of the Temple. Then the cloud filled the Temple and the courtyard was blazing with the light. The noise made by the creatures’ wings was heard even in the outer courtyard. It sounded like the voice of God ... I saw that each creature had what looked like a human hand under each of its wings.”’

  Sage broke off and, turning to me, commented, ‘Fi, don’t you think this sounds really familiar? Like the Nephilim?’

  I nodded in agreement, surprised that something secular like the Wheel of Fortune could be related to the sacred. Urging Sage to read on, I murmured, ‘I just can’t believe that everything seems to connect together like the pieces of a puzzle!’

  Sharing my view, she took up where she’d left off, her voice clear and mellifluous. ‘“I also saw that there were four wheels, all alike, one beside each creature. The wheel shone like precious stones, and each one had another wheel which intersected it at right angles. When the creatures moved, they could go in any direction without turning. They all moved together in the direction they wanted to go, without having to turn around. Their bodies, backs, hands, wings, and wheels were covered with eyes. I heard a voice calling out, ‘Whirling wheels.’ Each creature had four faces. The first was the face of a bull, the second a human face, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.”’

  Again pausing, Sage briefly turned to me and said, ‘The creatures he mentions are the Cherubim. Did you know they’re represented on the Tarot card of the Wheel of Fortune?’

  Dropping the pencil I was twirling between my fingers in surprise, I stared at Sage, my mouth hanging slightly open. ‘Girl, how do you know about all this stuff?’ Throwing up a hand, I continued, ‘Don’t tell me – Trivial Pursuit? Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The Crystal Maze? Jeopardy?’

  ‘Yeah, right. It might seem distinctly foreign to you but I read ... They’re called books.’ Looking briefly away from the passages on the computer screen to look at me again she grinned wickedly, taking the scorn out of her words.

  ‘Oh, that old chestnut, you’re right ... completely foreign ... printed pages are like the Dark Ages...’ I retorted in kind, but I barely noticed her mockery, distracted instead by the images – and one in particular – that flashed across the laptop in front of me as Sage redirected the search to the Tarot deck.

  The glare of the screen revealed an image of a Tarot card with the Wheel of Fortune printed on it. The Wheel was divided by eight spokes pointing at lettering in the outer circle. These letters represented the Tarot, so if read in a circle the “t” began and ended the circle to show its continuity. The other letters were alchemical symbols representing the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. In the four corners of the card resided the Cherubim as mentioned in the Bible. Sage had been correct again, as the Wheel of Fortune did have a link to the Book of Ezekiel.

  But that wasn’t all.

  Turning to face Sage, I asked, feeling slightly smug, ‘Awesome! Did you know there’s a link here to the Garden of Eden?’

  Sage quickly turned to look at me, her amber coloured eyes widening in surprise. ‘Really? Where? How?’

  I laughed delightedly. ‘What? Do you mean to tell me that you don’t know this? Sweet! So, just to clarify, I know something about history that you don’t? That’s brilliant! Let me savour the moment! Let me take it in! Is this what it’s like to be you? To know everything. Always. No wonder you always act so superior! Oh, no, wait! But you don’t know everything; do you, Sage?’

  ‘Fi!’ Sage warned, her eyes sparking flames.

  I gave another laugh, raising my hands in an appeal to calm her down and replied, ‘Okay, okay. Look, the Cherubim were appointed by God to guard the entrance to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were banished. They’re the guardians of the Garden of Eden. Two of their wings extend upwards, meeting above to sustain the throne of God, while the other two cover their form. If you’d bothered to watch re-runs of Season Four of Supernatural, you’d know that you shouldn’t directly look at them because they’re like pure light – it’s their grace.’

  ‘I was impressed with everything you said until you mentioned Supernatural.’ Sage commented.

  ‘Hey!’ I protested, ‘Supernatural is sick! Besides, most of the information is accurate.’

  ‘Yeah?’ she murmured doubtfully, ‘And how do you know this?’

  ‘It might seem distinctly foreign to you but I surf ... the Internet. It’s called Wikipedia.’ I threw back at her, scoring one. ‘Anyway, God expelled Adam and Eve from Eden so they wouldn’t eat from the Tree of Life. The story goes that he placed Cherubim to guard against future entrance into the Garden of Eden because they’re at the top of the angel hierarchy. And, more importantly, they’re all-seeing beings and armed with omnidirectional flaming seraph blades. That’s why they’re guarding the Garden of Eden from trespassers.’

  Sage leant a hip against the edge of the desk. ‘So Cherubim are like the generals in the angel army then. I guess that makes them amongst the most dangerous. It sure puts a whole new spin on those cute chubby little babies with wings, doesn’t it?’

  I gave a mock-shudder. ‘These angels are not the sweet cherubs standing at heaven’s gate like in the Renaissance paintings. To be honest, they always used to freak me out – especially that Cupid dude. I could never get used to a little baby flittering around with a bow and arrow ... scary dangerous, if you ask me.’

  She grinned at my words, warning, ‘Just don’t go into Dad’s office or you may regret it. There’s an original Caravaggio hanging on the wall of Cupid that’ll give you nightmares. But, seriously, they terrify me too, and I don’t think we’re ready to face any Cherubim yet as we don’t even have the other half of the map ... and, as you once pointed out to me, we’ll need a seraph blade to face the Grigori.’

  ‘We’ll be needing a lot more than that,’ I muttered. ‘We’re up against monsters, Sage. Fearsome, frightening creatures. With martial skills.’

  Sage nodded in agreement. ‘I think we should inform St. John about these voices you’ve been hearing.’

  I was about to answer her as her words brought a reminder of last night’s events – both Sage’s intention to apologise to St. John for doubting him and my own discoveries at Satis House – but I stumbled over the words when I caught sight of her moonstruck face. Her expression was faraway and dreamy as she twirled a glittering object round her finger.

  ‘Oh my God!’ I exclaimed, dumbstruck by the diamond ring she was wearing.

  Distracted by my surprised cry, Sage started out of h
er reverie to focus in the direction of my averted gaze. Blushing to the roots of her hair, she murmured, ‘He proposed last night and I accepted. I wanted you to be the first to know.’

  ‘Have you slept with him?’ I demanded tactlessly.

  If anything, Sage blushed even deeper, though the truth was written all over her face.

  ‘Okay, so you haven’t slept with him,’ I continued, mockingly, ‘but you’ve thought about it.’

  ‘Fi!’ Sage protested weakly, ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Hell, girl! I don’t think there’s a female on this earth – at least not one who has met St. John and has a pulse – who hasn’t thought about it!’ I stated in my usual blunt manner. Then, catching the look on Sage’s face, I quickly amended, ‘Except me, of course. He’s not exactly my type, if you know what I mean.’

  She looked dubious. ‘And what type would that be?’

  ‘Tall, dark – though dark blond will do – mysterious, dangerous.’ My response was automatic. ‘Like that guy Heathcliff with all his emotional angst – not that I’ve read the book or anything – or Thor or Loki, though I can’t decide which one I like better – a mix of the two would be pretty awesome – or Dean Winchester from Supernatural. Or that other guy,’ I said, considering, getting caught up in speculation, ‘You know – that guy whom Darcy hates?’

  ‘Wickham,’ she supplied automatically.

  I nodded in agreement. ‘That’s the one – completely charming and way too smooth but in the end he proves to be a real bastard. I mean, let’s face it, if you were Bella, you’d have ended up with Jacob because he’s so fuzzy and warm whereas I’d have done Stephenie Meyer proud and typically kept to the plot.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Sage protested with a snort, ‘You wouldn’t have ended up with either of them. You don’t even like Twilight. I know you – you prefer re-runs of that seriously sexed-up vampire show, True Blood. You’d be that weird girl on that show, if you could. What’s her name?’

  ‘Sookie Stackhouse.’

  ‘That’s her,’ Sage agreed, ‘And besides, you don’t know St. John as I do, he’s far more complex than you think.’

  ‘Really?’ I teased. ‘Like you know many three thousand-year-old Nephilim? “Complex”? He’s ancient! He could be like your great, great, great, great, great, great-grandfather! Though he does look pretty fit for his age! Not that I’ve been checking him out or anything!’

  ‘Shut up! And, yes, really,’ Sage responded with a huff, ‘You’re such a cynic when it comes to love, Fi. But you’ll learn. One day you’re going to meet your match, Saffron Woods, probably sooner than you think, and when that day comes, just remember that I told you so!’

  I had no idea how to respond to her emphatic statement, hoping that my face betrayed none of my feelings of doubt. Instead, I laughingly teased, ‘So ... are you gonna update your Facebook status now? Sage Woods is in a relationship with St. John Rivers. Sage Woods is engaged to St. John Rivers. Or ... No, wait! I’ve got it! ... It’s complicated.’

  ‘Oh, ha ha. Very funny!’ was all she said, making me laugh even harder.

  Automatically, I found myself going through the motions of belatedly expressing my happiness for her and St. John whom I genuinely liked, enfolding her into a close congratulatory embrace. I was elated for her sake and yet my mind was abuzz with conflicting thoughts. What about university? A career? What about living a little before settling down? What about boyfriends and dating? What about sex? And weren’t the Nephilim practically immortal anyway, so what was the hurry?

  But all of these thoughts congregated around the one persistent objection – she’s only seventeen! We were both only seventeen! It was just too weird, even for me.

  Sage mentioned calling St. John immediately and floated out of my bedroom on a cloud of happiness as I grappled with the news she’d just dumped on me.

  Maybe I was what she’d just accused me of – a cynic. I couldn’t believe what I’d been told as it was hard to accept that my twin sister, only twenty-eight minutes my senior, was engaged to be married. Sage had always been the responsible one whereas I had always been labelled impulsive. But even I would never think to get engaged at seventeen; to commit myself to someone for the rest of my life. Of course, I’d never met a guy I was remotely interested in in that way. And despite her intense relationship with St. John, it had never crossed my mind that my identical twin might do just that.

  A WAYWARD WIND

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I don’t know how long I sat there staring into space and I might have continued, lost in my thoughts, if it weren’t for the sound of sharp scratching at my door. I was almost grateful for the distraction. Ignoring it wasn’t an option – it was persistent and irritating, accompanied by a low whining, and I knew that if I let it continue for much longer my door would bear the scratch marks from Indy’s nails and Mum would go ballistic.

  Crossing the room to let in Indy who whipped me with his tail as he entered, I almost tripped on a flap of sharp cardboard hidden under a layer of discarded clothes and realised that it was past time to clean my room. Another distraction. Anything to keep my mind off Sage’s whirlwind engagement, hoping that she wasn’t making a huge mistake. Indy settled himself at the edge of my bed as I began throwing items into the laundry basket in the corner willy-nilly; a rather mindless task.

  Picking up a printed CK T-shirt to follow the other pieces I’d already tossed into the corner, I uncovered the object that had tripped me up earlier. It was the sketchpad belonging to the young man at Satis House, lying where I’d abandoned it after another episode of hearing the voices in my head. At the time, I’d been comparing the sketches he’d done with the photographs of Satis House I’d taken with my old Nikon camera. I’d assumed the sketches of the interior of Satis House were fanciful renditions of what it might have looked like in the past. Now I knew better.

  I immediately dropped the T-shirt back onto the floor and, instead, retrieved the sketchpad. Moving to join Indy on my bed, I sat cross-legged, flipping the pages of the sketchpad at random until my eyes alighted upon a sketch done in graphite of the entrance hall of Satis House, familiar to me from last night’s venturing onto the property. The detail was exquisite, finely rendered in pencil by the artist. I could see the cracks in the paving stones, the design of the parquetry flooring, the impressive ascending curve of the heavily carved staircase – all from the different orientation facing towards the entrance hall from the portico rather than from where I had remained hidden behind the banister.

  The beauty of the sketch held none of the horrors of my visit to Satis House – no unpleasant sensations emanated from this depiction. Yet there was something – some thing – I couldn’t quite put my finger on that nagged at the back of my mind, an elusive stray thought I couldn’t quite grab hold of which disturbed me about the sketch. Exercising an artist’s eye, I examined the sketch more closely.

  At first, I could see nothing amiss and wondered if I had to strip away the veil of glamour like I had last night, but that didn’t seem to make any sense. Then the hairs of my arms bristled in alarmed response and I gave a slight shiver when I finally realised what I had been missing. The young artist’s attention to detail was rendered so accurately that I could see that the carving upon the dark wood of the banister was a series of symbols similar to that of the artefact but not quite the same. The cuneiform script had been chiselled into the wood which my fingertips had passed over in the dark. Though I had not known it at the time, the strange, deeply disturbing sensation which I had felt emanating from the smooth wood, an instantaneous reaction as my exposed flesh came into contact with the symbols, was produced because of their dark energy which might have been due to some deliberate taint or contamination. But as the sensation had swept through me forcing me to withdraw my hand from the banister, I now realised that some unnatural force must have unleashed the symbols’ power.

  I didn’t know what I found more disturbing – the symbols themselves, which were similar
to those on the artefact and could be a representation of the original language, the language of Babel, or, worse still, that someone had tampered with them. This led me to only one conclusion; that the collector of the various macabre antiquities at Satis House which I had seen lining its galleries must really be as obsessed or insane as the character of Miss Havisham in Dickens’ novel.

  Bending over the sketch to get a better look at the tiny symbols drawn on the page, several strands of my long chestnut coloured hair brushed across the image. Suddenly Indy’s head shot up from his prone position at the edge of my bed, fur raised like a ridge along his neck and back, ears pinned flat, sniffing the air around him, alert, whilst I, almost simultaneously, felt an overwhelming pain assault me, shooting from my temple like quickened darts similar to the onset of an intense migraine.

  And the voices began whispering again, speaking in my head. A cacophony of sound in a foreign tongue like a hymn building to a crescendo pounded in my brain, making it feel like it was boiling over.

  But this time they gave way to one voice. A woman’s voice. Her clear, bell-like tones rang out as if across a vast expanse, raised in blistering anger.

  “Gatekeeper, ho, open thy Gate!

  Open thy Gate that I may enter!

  If thou openest not the Gate to let me enter,

  I will break down the door, I will wrench the lock.

  I will smash the door posts, I will force the doors.

  I will bring up the dead to eat the living!

  And the dead will outnumber the living!

  Gatekeeper, ho, open thy Gate!

  Open thy Gate that I may enter!

  If thou openest not the Gate to let me enter,

  I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,

  I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,

  And will let the dead go up to eat the living!

  And the dead will outnumber the living!”

  The door to my bedroom was flung open, shuddering with the force of being pushed hard as my Mum and Sage barrelled into the room.