The Kingdom (Berkeley Blackfriars Book 1)

by J. R. Mabry

  Carrying the mirror under her arm, she went out the back door of the kitchen and crossed the yard to the cottage. She hesitated for a moment—she didn’t really know Terry all that well, and if she were honest, his mercurial extroversion scared her a little. But she breathed deep and knocked.

  He answered the door moments later dressed in a lavender leotard, wearing white pancake makeup with neat little circles of rouge painted onto his cheeks.

  “Do I need to explain this to you?” he asked her with the tiniest intimation of prickliness.

  “You do not,” she assured him, mildly amused.

  “Please come into my fairy castle, fair princess,” he waved his hand in a grand gesture bidding her to enter.

  “Why, thank you, I think.” She smiled, a little nervously. The cottage was very small but was painted with such bright colors and was so devoid of clutter that the size did not seem oppressive. The furnishings were elegant, modern, and spare. A couple of scented candles gave the room a yellow warmth on what was otherwise a gray and gloomy day.

  “What’s up?” Terry asked, stepping into the kitchenette. “Tea?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Anything.”

  “Whatchagot there?” he asked.

  “It’s a mirror,” she said.

  “No shit,” he said, plugging in the electric kettle. “That’s the one from the guest room, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I wanted to show you something. Can we—um, go into the bathroom? It kind of needs to be dark.”

  His eyebrows rose dramatically, and he signaled her to follow him. They squeezed into the tiny bathroom together, and Kat pushed the door until it was only ajar a few inches.

  Terry gasped. She had hoped to hear such a thing, and the tension in her shoulders lessened somewhat.

  There, in the mirror, a dim violet light about the size of a golf ball hovered.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” she asked him. “Not my brother, I mean. It’s the angel. I’m sure it is.”

  Terry was nodding, and she watched as he reached out his hand and attempted to touch the radiance. But it seemed to be several inches into the mirror, on the other side.

  “Probably got trapped there once his body…expired.” He looked at her with soft eyes. “At least he’s somewhere.”

  “What would happen to him if he weren’t…in there?” Kat asked, opening the bathroom door again.

  The kettle was whistling, and Terry skipped ahead of her to turn it off. “I’m not sure. Spirits need to be in bodies, even subtle bodies like angels have. If they’re not, they…dissipate. Then they’re really dead, because they’re just gone.”

  “That’s scary. I think that’s scarier than thinking Heaven or Hell is real,” Kat said, her brow knitting.

  “Well, some people prefer the idea of annihilation to the survival of the soul, but I’m with you—I think it’s pretty scary, too.” He poured them each a cup of tea and set out a couple of oat cakes.

  “So, what can we do for him? The angel, I mean,” Kat asked.

  “Well, I’m not sure,” Terry sat down and gave her a serious look. “What we need to do is to get him back to Heaven, to his proper body.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. Fear seized at her chest. “And what will happen to Randall’s soul when that happens?” she asked.

  Terry didn’t look at her. But he did, in a way, answer her. He leaned over and blew out a candle.

  56

  WHEN HE OPENED his mind’s eye, Dylan saw the tree. It was the same tree he always climbed when he went to visit the Upper World, and he climbed it with an alacrity impossible in the conventional world.

  Not bothering to look down, he felt the wind on his face and the slight sway of the tree as he reached higher and thinner limbs. Soon he climbed through a cloud, and once above it, he swung down.

  He was still in the clouds, only now he was standing on one. An arm reached out to help him find his balance.

  “Hullo, Arnault. Good to see you, dude,” Dylan shook his head and beamed. Arnault was a slight, elderly man wearing a vaguely Roman-style toga. He was cordial, but never exactly friendly. Dylan wondered why everyone in the Otherworld was so…not depressed, exactly, but not happy about things, either.

  “Good morning, Father Dylan,” Arnault spoke with a stiff British accent, too, which was just a little too cliché for Dylan’s comfort, but who was he to complain? It was his Otherworld, after all. If he wanted to people it with the cast of I, Claudius, he bloody well could.

  Soon, Dylan saw Jaguar padding over the clouds toward him. He waved at the big cat and raised a friendly hand to pet his muzzle as he approached.

  “To the Grandfathers, please, Jaggy.” Dylan supposed he would be able to find his way by himself, but Jaguar didn’t do much when he came to the Upper World, usually, so Dylan thought it was a kindness to give him a job.

  He waved goodbye to Arnault, whose never-ending, never-wavering occupation seemed to consist entirely of helping people down from trees. As he and Jaguar walked toward a deep green valley, he wondered what crime Arnault had committed to be resigned to such petty work.

  Eventually, wisps of cloud gave way to rolling green hills, and Jaguar led them over a knoll toward a ring of tepees beside a thin, winding river.

  It was a familiar sight, as Dylan often approached the Grandfathers to solicit their wisdom. Seven small tepees were gathered in a circle around an enormous one in the center. No one met or questioned them as they approached the flap on the largest of the skin structures.

  Without hesitation Dylan ducked his head into the tepee, and Jaguar followed him inside. There they saw a large circle of Native-American men and women, some sitting quietly as if waiting for him, and some talking and joking in low voices. He and Jaguar found gaps in the circle and filled them. Dylan sat cross-legged, close enough to the Grandfather who seemed to be in charge to hear him plainly. Dylan called him Old Leatherface, though not to his leathery face. The elderly Indian rocked back and forth, a gap-tooth smile playing on his ancient and weatherbeaten jowls.

  He didn’t seem to notice Dylan or Jaguar but did start to hum after they had been seated for a while. His humming seemed tuneless, almost random, but it did have a rhythm to it, more or less matching the beat Susan was pounding out, still audible, though distant.

  When he finished his song, a deep silence descended on the room. No one spoke, although Dylan could see a lot of smiles on the twenty or so Native faces.

  “I think last time you were here we named you Sleeping Bear,” said the old man, and chuckles spilled out into the room from the other Grandfathers and Grandmothers.

  “Yeah, Ah’ve put on a few pounds, even since Ah saw y’all last.” Dylan also thought the name apt because he would really like to be taking a nap about now.

  But there was business to tend to, so he forced himself to stay awake and alert. Grandfather seemed to notice. “Sleep, if you want,” he said. “We’re in no hurry. Not our way.”

  Dylan knew all about their “way,” and it was precisely because of this that he had sought their council. If there were a path, a “way” to Mikael, he wanted to know it.

  “Ah’m sorry to take up your time, Grandfather, Ah just don’t know who else to ask about this stuff.”

  “First, let us have a smoke,” the old man said in a tone that left no room for negotiation. A peace pipe was produced and filled with sacred tobacco. It was passed around the circle. When it came to him, Dylan noticed that it was packed with sticky green bud, not tobacco at all, apparently, just for him. He took a deep hit and exhaled slowly, passing the pipe to his left, where it once again inexplicably seemed to be filled with tobacco.

  It was a kindness that Dylan appreciated, and he felt his muscles relax as the THC invaded his nerve-addled brain.

  Once the pipe had made its way all around, the Grandfathers and Grandmothers sat silently, apparently waiting for him to speak.

  “Grandfathers, Grandmothers, I come seeking your help,” Dylan began.
Many of them were smiling slightly and nodding, giving him their rapt attention.

  “Mah friend Mikael got waylaid by a demon—he viewed the sigil, see. The demon had been summoned to switch the magickian’s body with an angel’s, and now Mikael’s body has been…well, abandoned by his spirit. Ah attempted a soul retrieval, but Ah couldn’t find a large portion of his soul. It don’t seem to be in the Middle World. Ah’m hopin’ you can give me some clue as to where Ah can find ’im.”

  Dylan looked at Jaguar, but the great cat’s face revealed nothing.

  “What makes you think he wants to be found?” Old Leatherface asked.

  “He didn’t leave his body willingly,” Dylan said, “At least, Ah don’t think he would’ve. Ah haven’t known Mikael all that long, but from what Ah’ve seen, he’s a life-lovin’ kind of dude.”

  “Demons are bad news,” said one Grandmother. Dylan resisted the urge to say “No shit, Grandma” in response and waited for her to continue. Her face was wrinkled like a dried apple, and ringlets of smoke-black hair hung into her eyes. She ran her tongue over her few remaining teeth. “If he were scared, he would go someplace safe.” She nodded at him.

  He thought about that. What is a place that Mikael would consider safe? The grove where his Christo-Pagan Craft Circle did their rituals? Maybe. The Montague Sommers Memorial Chapel at the Friary? An equal chance, but it didn’t strike Dylan as much of an aha. He looked at Jaguar for help, but the cat was licking its ass with no apparent self-consciousness whatsoever. In fact, he really seemed to be digging for gold.

  Dylan made a face and turned back to the elders. “A safe place, Ah get that,” Dylan said. “Can you be more specific?”

  This was the problem with help from the Otherworld, of course. You could always count on them for input, but it was almost always so cryptic as to be maddeningly unhelpful.

  One old man pointed at Dylan and laughed. “What?” Dylan asked, checking his nose to see if there was a booger hanging from it. “He is doing what he loves most! It brings him comfort.” The old man smiled a toothless smile and nodded his head.

  “Sleeping Bear has his answer. Time to go,” said Old Leatherface.

  “What are you talking about?” Dylan asked. “You’re just tossing me out? But Ah still don’t know where he is.”

  “Yes, you do. He is safe, doing what he loves. Go there.” And then the Grandfather began humming again. The audience was ended.

  57

  CEDAR STREET in north Berkeley was buzzing with students from the University of California and young mothers pushing prams, yet Richard saw no one. On autopilot, he steered himself toward All Saints’ Episcopal Church and opened the door to the offices.

  He did not bother to straighten what was left of his windblown hair but merely plopped down in a chair in the large hallway. He fought a moment of resentment toward Dylan and Susan, but knew it was all for the best. He didn’t like being ordered around, but his spiritual director’s perspective was always valuable, if not completely welcome. In a few moments, Mother Maggie poked her head into the hallway. “Hello, Padre. Are you ready?”

  Maggie was a diminutive dumpling of a woman who seemed to Richard unmoved by age, illness, or any variety of trouble. Her gray hair and wrinkled features suggested she had seen plenty of it, but her zeal for every endeavor, and indeed, everyone she met left no doubt who had been victorious. Richard admired her, and her matronly attention persuaded him to open up to her. She was, in fact, the only spiritual director he had ever been able to be completely vulnerable with. Mother was an unusual nickname for an Episcopal priest, but it fit her. He sometimes referred to her as his true alma mater, the mother of his soul.

  “Thanks for the short notice, Maggie,” he said. “Even if it wasn’t entirely my doing.”

  She nodded. “What are friends for?” He wasn’t sure whether she was referring to herself or to Dylan and Susan but decided it didn’t matter. They sat for a few minutes in silence together. Once they had centered, Maggie lit a candle on the table beside her. “Let this serve to remind us that there are three of us here.” The statement jolted him, and Richard caught a note of profound sadness in her voice. Usually, Maggie’s dog, JoJo, was lying in her bed in the corner. Maggie’s usual invocation was, “Let this serve to remind us that there are four of us here.” The new formulation only served to point out that JoJo was gone. Richard’s eyes lit upon the little blue dog bed, void and lonely in its familiar place.

  Then they sat in silence some more. When he first started seeing her, Richard had found Maggie’s methods unsettling, but he was used to it now. To be alone with another person and not speak was profoundly countercultural, and yet now that he was used to it, it seemed to him almost obscenely intimate.

  When he finally did speak, he was surprised to find that it was not in words but sobs. They had started as words, but they had never made it. Crossing the threshold of the throat, they swelled with emotion and choked him. He folded over and surrendered to an accelerating rush of pent-up feelings scrambling to get out through the hacking, snot, and tears.

  When he was conscious of his surroundings again, he found Maggie’s cheek resting on the top of his head, hovering above him, her hands caressing his shoulders. When she noticed the storm within him subsiding, she kissed the bald top of his head and took her seat, nudging the Kleenex box closer to him.

  She didn’t ask, “What was that about?” She just waited, and the silence spoke for her.

  When he finally did speak, his voice sounded to him like a child’s. He told her all about what had happened, about being dumped by Philip, about the avocados, about the dogs, about the confrontation with the lodge, and about Kat’s brother. Through it all she sat silently, giving him the gift of her attention and her presence. When, finally, the story lay as if open on the floor between them, she asked him what seemed to be a most irrelevant question. “And how do you feel?”

  Without pausing to think, he blurted out, “I feel damned.”

  She nodded as if expecting this answer. “By whom?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth to say, “By God, of course,” but he knew before it had come out that that was not right. Damn her, he thought, she always knows just the right questions to ask.

  He knew what the wrong answer was to the question, but not what the right one was. “I don’t know,” he finally breathed.

  “Bullshit,” she said with an affectionate smile. “‘I don’t know’ always means ‘I don’t want to say.’”

  “But I really think I don’t. It’s just a feeling.”

  “Okay,” she said, “Why don’t you tell me how you feel using other words?”

  His gaze wandered off and became unfocused as he rooted about inside. “I feel completely fucked up inside.”

  “That’s more like it,” she said. “What feels fucked up? I’ll make a list.” She held up her clipboard in a gesture of helpfulness.

  “I don’t deserve to lead this order.”

  “Why not?”

  “I feel like a fake, an impostor. Like I’m just playing at being the prior. I feel like a friar—I just don’t feel like a leader. I’m not…holy. I’m fucked up.”

  She bent her head and scribbled with hands misshapen by arthritis. She looked up. “What else?”

  “You aren’t going to try to talk me out of it?”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Should I?”

  He scowled at her. Her methods always caught him off guard.

  “I hate being bisexual.”

  “Why?” She looked at him with real affection. It unnerved him.

  “Because I don’t know who the hell I am. I don’t understand myself. I can’t seem to commit to men or women. I feel…”

  “Don’t say ‘damned’,” she warned.

  “Okay, I feel…” But there wasn’t another word. “Set up? I feel set up by God. For failure.”

  She wrote. “Good, good. This is all good. Anything else?”

  “What—?” In what way
was this good? he wondered. He teetered on the brink of exasperation with her. But he gave in and continued to play it her way. “Yes. I drink too much. I worry about myself. About being an addict.”

  She looked up from her clipboard, and Richard could see the emotion in the corners of her eyes.

  “Let’s pray!” she announced, grabbing his hand.

  Richard resisted inside, hating at that moment the roller coaster ride that every session with Mother Maggie turned out to be. Yet for being such a workout, they were almost always transformative, and it was with great effort that he tried to get his ego, fears, and resistances out of the way. Not that there was any way to stop her. She had already turned her face to Heaven and parted her hands, her misshapen palms held upward in entreaty to God.

  “Lord of Heaven, we give thee joyful thanks for the gifts thou hast given Father Richard, thy servant, in the form of these icky feelings. We thank thee for his feelings of damnation, for because of them he will never presume himself to be superior to anyone. He will not think he is special, or elect, or somehow favored by thee over another. We thank thee that he feels like a fake, for then he will never assume that he knows what he is doing, and will never make bullshit pronouncements about what you allegedly want. For these gifts of humility we give thee hearty thanks—”

  Ouch, Richard thought.

  “We thank thee for his bisexuality, for his confusion and struggle, for thou hast given him the special gift of being able to love all peoples, regardless of their genitalia—”

  Richard winced painfully but restrained himself from interrupting.

  “And finally, we thank thee for his troubled relationship with alcohol, for the longing for transcendence it represents. We thank thee that he can empathize with all those who fight against the unseen forces of addiction, and that he is brave enough to speak it aloud, to himself, to me, and to thee. And we thank thee for Richard’s vulnerability, that he is fully human, even as the rest of us are, and we ask thee to comfort him, to see himself as the blessing to the world thou hast made him to be, even in the midst of his petty afflictions. Amen.”