Tree of Life

by Sarah Joy Green-Hart

  It would be so warm and comforting. Clean. If he . . . could just . . . hold it.

  Without warning, it expanded and flooded the area with blinding light. All was as it had been before. The familiar ink and paper smell of the Bastion returned. He hadn’t even realized it was gone.

  Laughter startled him. Two officers walked by, chatting. Hadn’t they seen that? Heard it? Was he the only one? He had to be. How could he be? Something tripped his trigger, set off his brain, traumatized him. That must be it.

  He locked his office and made a premature departure from the Bastion. Someone would give him guff about it tomorrow, but they could shove it. At home, David left Tom in Lorelei’s care and returned to bed for the afternoon. It would be unwise to diagnose himself, but it was a real possibility that he might need someone else to.

  He tossed about on his bed, trying to relax and calm his racing mind and heart. He wasn’t that tired. Not drunk. Not out of his mind.

  What remained?

  Maybe this wasn’t a hallucination. Maybe, for the first time in his life, he witnessed a supernatural event. Until now, he questioned the reality of spirits altogether. Like a frightened child, he yanked the covers over his head.

  Spirits were real.

  If spirits were real, perhaps God was real. God was a spirit, right? Good spirits came from God. Someone taught him that.

  Maybe?

  Where did bad spirits come from? Did they exist?

  For someone destined to God’s service, he knew precious little about his deity. He whipped the cover off his face and stared at a moon-silver spot of the blue and black damask bed canopy.

  He needed water.

  As he attempted to crawl out of bed, terror shot through his heart and up his throat. Too young for a heart attack, right?

  He grabbed at the canopy hanging down the bedpost and pressed his cheek to the cool silk. Breathe. Breathe.

  What kind of man was he, shaking like a super-virgin on her wedding night? He was no virgin, and this wasn’t his wedding night. Why was he thinking about virgins? This was spirits and the Kyrios and death and dying and—screw it! He scrambled off the bed and grabbed his keys. There were no prisoners in the jail tonight, so the Bastion would be empty. Perfect.

  God let him see those things, and there had to be a reason. If that was not the case, well, the Kyrios would catch him, find out he’d lost his mind, and hopefully put him out of his misery or get him help.

  He ran for the door.

  Shirt. He needed to put on a shirt.

  * * *

  Shadowy and streaked with angular lines of moonlight from the windows, the Bastion’s deserted foyer waited in ominous, too-good-to-be-true silence.

  David cursed at the sound of his own feet on the stone stairs to the Judgment Room. If those spirit people showed up now, he’d crap on himself.

  He pushed open the well-oiled Judgment Room doors without a sound. A faint light emanated from the staircase that led to the jail. That light always stayed on. Nothing alarming.

  He ascended the platforms to the large alcove where the Kyrios claimed they kept the Book of Light and grasped the curtain’s edge, feeling the red velvet in his palm—only a curtain—then pulled it aside and stepped in.

  He wasn’t dead. Friggin’ liars telling us we would die if we went in here. I knew it!

  The dark mysterious sanctum smelled faintly of incense. He swallowed back the rush of longing for Jade and blindly reached for something to hold on to.

  "God?” he whispered, too afraid to speak aloud. "God? I saw those spirits. Where are they? What do they mean?” This was ridiculous. Trying to chat with God as if It were his buddy?

  He touched the left wall and felt around as he dragged his fingers across it to the center wall, then the right wall, looking for something—anything! Staggering into the darkness of the center of the room, he passed straight through to the other side. It was empty.

  Frustrated, he leaned back on the hard stones to collect his thoughts. What could he tr—scra-a-a-a-pe.

  He froze.

  What was that? What was that? What was that? Heart pounding, he turned toward the sound.

  Scra-a-a-a-pe. Then voices. Judging by the tone, someone was arguing under the floor?

  He swallowed his heart back into his chest. Nope. Not happening.

  All awareness of his surroundings failed, and before he came to his senses, he had passed through the Judgment Room into the foyer and out of the Bastion. Stiff with terror, he slid into his vehicle, gently closed his door, and coasted down the road with his headlights off. At home, he pressed his car door shut and dashed for the back entrance. Once inside, he made for Lorelei’s quarters. A light rap and whisper of her name at the crack of the door brought her to him.

  "Sir?” Lorelei peeked out.

  He whispered, "I’ve been home all evening. Sick.”

  "Right, sir. If you say so, sir.”

  "Okay. Good.” Dear, dear, Lorelei. I could kiss her.

  After several cigarettes, twenty push-ups, a glass of ice water, half an hour of swinging and banging his gada around, a few cups of Earl Grey tea, and a reluctant shot of the spiced rum he purchased in the east a few years ago, David had rational thoughts.

  A room under the Bastion—under the place where the Book of Light was said to be. Said to be but wasn’t. This was big. He couldn’t ignore it.

  Yes, he could. He could ignore it and go on living like a well-fed slave until they pecked off every wife he had. Cheerfully!

  Perhaps he should tell Cole and let him decide what to do. Most likely, Cole would come home to visit someday and use that time to sneak into the Bastion and have a look.

  He poured another shot of rum. God, it smelled like Dulce. Down the hatch.

  Why couldn’t he do it himself? Why throw it on Cole’s lap? This had more to do with him and Jade than it did with Cole, really.

  Do it! Just do it, you pantywaist! Trembling, he opened his dresser drawer to dig out black street clothes and change into them.

  This was crazy.

  He slid a cigarette from the pack on his bed-stand and planted it firmly between his lips and lit it, puffing away as he searched for his flashlight. Half a cigarette later, he found it in the bed-stand that used to be Evelyn’s and clipped it onto his belt. He checked his watch. Three A.M. The Bastion opened at six.

  Time to go.

  Time to quit smoking.

  He never used to smoke this much. As a matter of fact, this was disgusting. Maybe Hesper knew an herb that would help. It was considered sinful in the eastern countries to do harm to others, even if his own religious leaders didn’t seem to think so. Smoking harmed others around him, didn’t it? Mayb—he was distracted, rambling to avoid what he dreaded. His feet wouldn’t move. Another drag at his cigarette and a moment resting his forehead in his shaking hand and he would be—crap—not ready. Never would be.

  Had to be.

  Also had to go pee.

  And get a gun.

  * * *

  Click. The flashlight’s strong beam reached across the foyer, and David swept the area with it a few times before proceeding through the darkness to the Judgment Room.

  Past the platforms, he pulled the red curtain aside and entered the alcove. Everywhere he stepped, the stone slabs seemed fixed in place . . . but he hadn’t imagined it. A room had to be here somewhere. The voices had been too clear and too near to have come from the jail or beyond a stone wall.

  Then, under a fortuitous step, the floor moved with an intriguing, quiet grate of stone on stone. Nervous excitement tingled in his fingertips as he fit them into a gap at the edge of the slab and lifted it. The aroma of incense wafted upward from the uncovered hole. David shone his light down a rough staircase of wood, building up courage—well, that was the idea anyway.

  A faint noise caught his attention. Human noise. He tilted his head to hear better. Slow, quiet screaming—like the strange spirit people earlier that day.

  God,
no.

  The noise expanded into a chaotic unity of voices, a supernatural orchestra tuning up before a performance. Getting closer. Closer.

  Time to run.

  He backed away, but the voices rose out of the hole. He could tell exactly where they were and shone a light on the spot as he pressed himself against the wall.

  Nope. Nope. Time to go.

  As he turned to run, the incorporeal voices exploded with a deafening scream. Someone grabbed and yanked him backward. He opened his mouth to cry out, but the voices were so loud, his own—if it was working at all—couldn’t be heard. An invisible force struck his chest, burning hot, violent, and swift. His body vibrated with the impact.

  After that, silence.

  He was alone.

  Panting, his body tense and tight against the wall, ears ringing, he closed his eyes and swallowed, then resumed panting. As he swiped his sweaty forehead with the bottom of his shirt, a whispering sound spoke into his ear. He scanned the area with his flashlight and even peeked out of the curtain into the Judgment Room.

  There it was again.

  Dad’s whisper. Nepenthe.

  “What do you mean?” David whispered. That voice had been missing for so long . . .

  You need it. Accepting it hurts.

  “It’s in there, isn’t it?”

  No answer.

  It was. It was in that hole. It was a step in the right direction. It was the thing he needed to be able to forget. It wouldn’t make life better, would it? Probably not. This was likely to make it worse, but he’d deal with that another time.

  Into the hole. With enthusiasm! Or something like it.

  The farther into the Bastion’s gullet, the less he smelled incense as sulfur overtook the sweet fragrance. At the bottom of the stairs, he paused. Jade returned to his mind, suffocating with his fourth child. The fourth. One by Anise and two by Jade, but he repressed the thought of the first one most days.

  Not today. He never thought of himself as a vengeful person, but a wild hope bubbled up in his mind. A hope for justice, not revenge. He passed the light across the small room before him. To his left, a swath of orange silk covered a narrow, roughly-built table. It hosted a few candles and fresh incense sticks, sprawling out of a green glass bottle like a dead, black tree, void of twigs. Beside the bottle, two gilt-edged wooden incense trays contained fresh ashes.

  High-lipped shelves, resembling feeding troughs, had been installed on the cement walls to his right. He shone the light on them for an instant and drew back with a sharp breath and leap of the heart. Recovering from the initial shock, he shone the light on the troughs again. Each one contained human bones, charred in a few locations.

  These had to be the people who showed themselves to him that morning—at least some of them. One caught his eye more than the others, though. All the skeletons were intact, but this one had a glaring anomaly: a missing finger. Dad had disappeared years ago, and most assumed Earth People attacked and killed him. Maybe that wasn’t true.

  As David turned to run, his flashlight caught the face of a visitor blocking his exit. Vincent’s grim visage turned David’s heart to ice.

  Vincent slapped the flashlight from David’s hand into the wall, where it landed with a crack, burying them in darkness.

  * * *

  Hesper awoke to a man’s scream, crisp and clean in her mind. The cold terror in the sound shattered her nerves. David? No. Almost, but not quite.

  It wanted her and looked for her—a moth to flame—and would keep coming until they met. She just knew.

  Cole would not wake. She shook him and called his name—only breathing. He never slept that soundly.

  She threw off the covers and fled the room, down the stairs to the glass doors that would lead her to the trees. The sound came from outside, so she opened the door and charged into the yard.

  City lights grayed the northern skies, and the fruit trees glowed orange in the beams of the alley’s street lamp. Hesper spun around, searching for the person attached to the voice. Then she stopped to listen. Which direction did the screaming come from? She could not tell. "Hello? Hello?”

  Only screaming answered.

  "Are you hurt? I might be able to help you!” Then, as if cut off with a hatchet, the screaming ceased.

  She squinted against the new moon and shadow-mottled light beneath the trees, hearing only crickets and her own hurried breathing. Perhaps she should try to wake Cole again. She turned to the house. Behind her, a thunk, a crackle, and a heavy, rapid swishing.

  A man, enveloped in flames from top to bottom, ran straight to her. She ran but caught a foot in her nightgown and tumbled to the ground. As she scrambled to her feet, he caught up with her and wrapped her in his arms. The orange glow of his blaze embraced her. Not hot, but a gentle and perfect warmth.

  He lowered his voice and whispered in her ear, "I burn, but I never die because I need you.” Sobs caught in his throat until, at last, the dam broke, unleashing a lamentable howl that hurt Hesper’s ears. A scream rang through her mind, but she could not speak. Confused and emptied of strength, she submitted.

  * * *

  Hesper opened her eyes. Only a dream.

  Seated at his desk, the small lamp’s light illuminated Cole’s face as he studied an old book he’d brought along from the base. A plate with a few crumbs had been pushed aside. He held a glass of wine in his hand but delayed in drinking due to a sudden interest in whatever he read. Hesper glanced at the clock. The short hand pointed to the two.

  "Cole?”

  He did not look up. "Hm?”

  "I had a bad dream.”

  He frowned. "Again? I didn’t know you still had those. The one about Joram?”

  "No. Different. I heard something like David’s voice and . . . and there was more, but do you suppose he is okay? Should we call him?”

  "It’s just a dream, Hesper.” He smiled. “Get some rest.”

  He needed to study. He had a Book to find. Mysteries to solve.

  She curled up into a ball, cold beyond the help of a blanket.

  Twenty-Nine | Post-Conquest: 232

  Pre-Conquest Religion absorbed Cole’s attention for too long, and his lack of self-discipline kept him up late. It was one of his favorite studies. He purchased the book in the northern country and smuggled it in, so he rarely cracked it open on the base. This was an opportunity to study it freely, but there was no excuse to stay up so late with it. Still, he rose early in the morning to exercise, have breakfast, and head to work.

  Alan’s office doubled as his home, crowding the place with a mixture of dirty dishes, pot holders, manila envelopes, and books. Fiction stacked with books of law, and biographies lay next to biology—overwhelming clutter.

  "Mr. Bandello?”

  The old man stepped into sight, a book in one hand and a mug in the other. "Honestly, please, call me Al.” He glanced up with a smile. "I’m shocked you’ve shown up so soon! You’re quite a man. Hard worker, I suspect. You just got here yesterday, and you’re already settled?”

  "Settled enough, sir. What may I do for you?” Cole pushed up his glasses.

  "First thing’s first, if you’d like, there’s kringle and fresh turnovers on the counter in my wee kitchen. Plenty of chicory tea. I don’t keep coffee these days.”

  "No, thank you, sir.” Cole smiled. "I’m here to be of service to you.”

  Alan sipped at his mug. "Right. Well, we don’t have much work just now. Only a few things I’ve taken care of already, but uh . . .” He looked this way and that, evidently trying to think of something.

  "I’ll organize for you.” Cole offered. He might even wash the dishes before the day was over.

  "Perfect! Do whatever you fancy. I’m sure we’ll have work soon. That lawyer across the gate’s taking folks from me with his young age, but they’ll see through his capped teeth in time.”

  "I hope you haven’t burdened yourself to show kindness to us,” Cole said. "If you haven’t the need for an assi
stant, please, say so.”

  Alan looked up, distressed. "What! No, no! M’boy! I always have need of help, as you can see.” He gestured to the disarray around him.

  Cole grabbed up the nearest stack of books and began the categorization process. "Let’s see. Fiction, fiction, biography, religion, reference, psychology, law . . .” On to the next stack, and the next, and the next.

  The old man waddled about, looking over papers. Occasionally he made comments about "that lawyer.” Cole didn’t want to be rude, but Alan’s interruptions were making him a little crazy. After the third interruption, however, Alan froze in the middle of the room until Cole sensed it and met his stare.

  “Brock, you like things just so, don’t you?” Alan asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Don’t like things or people to get in your way.”

  “Who does?”

  Alan chuckled. “Fair enough. But I think we both know you’re a little beyond the average in that area, son.”

  “I’m just honest.”

  He’d also blown Hesper off last night. She woke up scared, and he told her to go back to sleep because he was too concerned with his own interests. What good was an honest jerk?

  Oh, my god.

  “Honest! Are you now?” Alan flicked at his earlobe and looked around the room, entertained by something. “I suppose you are. Overall, you seem to be. You stand like an honest man, and you don't make bones about anything. I think it’ll be a delicious experience to get acquainted with you. However, I’ll let you make the environment one you feel comfortable in without further interruption.”

  * * *

  Nearing the end of the organization of the first half of Alan’s office, Cole grabbed some papers that had been hiding for who-knew-how-long underneath the mess of books on the table and shuffled them into a neat stack. The writing, loopy, long, and jumbled together, was almost illegible. Judging by the format, it was a letter.

  He wasn’t trying to read them, but the few legible words stood out. Dilemma, civility, Gentles, Book . . . Book of Light. Book of Light? . . . Book of Light into the hands of . . . something, something and hope in— Cole shut his eyes. He had begun to read but had to resist the impulse to keep going.