Benediction Denied: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel

by Engstrom, Elizabeth

  Then a goose walked past the gate.

  “Hey!” he shouted, but it did not pause, did not look at him.

  Another followed it, and another, and soon there was a parade of geese, waddling single file past the gate.

  Behind them came an old man with a tall walking stick, which he used to tend the geese and keep them going in a straight line. He wore a wool cap, heavy trousers, a shirt and jacket, and well worn heavy leather boots.

  Adam almost forgot that he was small. This man was the same size as he. The geese proportional.

  Had he grown back to a normal size in the tunnels?

  No, a squash seed in his pocket was still the size of a sandwich.

  “Hey,” Adam said.

  The man turned and looked at him.

  “You can see me? Can you help me? Can you open this gate?”

  The man frowned, removed his wool cap and scratched his bald head. “Don’t know why I would want to do that,” he said.

  “Please,” Adam said. “I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. I’ve been trapped in these—”

  “There must be a reason for that,” the man said.

  “No!” Adam beseeched him. “No reason. I was kidnapped by thugs, and escaped into the tunnel, but now I can’t get out of here.”

  The man looked at him, cocked his head as if considering Adam’s plight. He put his hat back on and turned away.

  “Let something in, let something out.” The man shook his head, then walked on, tapping his geese into line.

  Did he mean something essential from his idyllic little picturesque town would escape? Or that Adam would be a corrupting influence?

  Or was there more to it?

  “Please!” Adam shouted. “Help me! I don’t belong here.”

  Adam put his arms through the gate and desperately searched for the latch. There had to be a way to open this gate, but even as he found no locking mechanism on the either side, he knew that the only way would be with magic.

  He could throw a card.

  But is this what he wanted? Did he want to be in this weird, sunless, underground village? Did he want to waste a card opening this gate and going into this town which might, in fact, just be a mirage?

  Another trick?

  He sat on the ground, leaning a shoulder against the cool metal of the gate and feasted his eyes at the pastoral scene.

  He and Chrissie had honeymooned in Ireland. Lisa was likely conceived there. Here. No, not here, not in this crazy place that made no sense. His precious Lisa had been conceived in the real Ireland.

  What was this beautiful, yet deceptive and unattainable Irish countryside doing in this nightmare of a dream? Was it to make him appreciative of all that he had at home?

  He was appreciative.

  Was it to remind him of something he had not done, or left undone, or something he needed to atone for?

  None of it made sense.

  He and Chrissie had stayed in a series of farmhouse B&B’s, had driven the countryside, deliriously in love, drinking and eating with the locals in picturesque pubs, made love out in the open, made love in the farmhouses, made love in the rental car. It was a delicious honeymoon. Perfect in every way.

  Except for that one thing.

  Adam shook off that memory and gazed again on the landscape banquet laid before him.

  He thought he even recognized this countryside. Thought he could see Mrs. O’Loughlin’s sheets hanging on her clothesline.

  Why would there be an identical replica of that here in this hellish labyrinth?

  And who was the man with the geese? Was his presence—the only person Adam could see—significant somehow?

  Or was it just more nonsensical nightmare stuff?

  He wondered what he had looked like to the old man. Was that man walking along the base of a cliff face with dozens of brass gates set into it? Did each side tunnel off the main one end up here?

  The man didn’t seem surprised to see him. Had he seen others?

  Had the town installed the gate to keep people like him from coming in?

  He reached through the bars, stretched his arm as far as he could, and the whole landscape shuddered.

  Wait. What?

  He waved his hand and the landscape wavered.

  He moved to the edge of the gate, put both hands through and felt around the ground, the sides, everything, as far as he could reach, straining, his face pushed hard into the bars of the gate.

  Fabric. Something like canvas. He touched the edge, he moved it, and the entire village rippled like a flag.

  This wasn’t real at all. This scene had no depth. It was all an optical illusion. The town had been painted on a canvas with exquisite detail and perspective, and was hanging, apparently, just out of Adam’s reach.

  Still, smoke rose from chimneys. Water ran over rocks in the shallow stream. Mrs. O’Laughlin’s sheets moved in the breeze. He had heard the church bell.

  Had the old man been walking his geese between the canvas façade and the tunnel entrance?

  Adam looked around for a rock to throw, or a stick to poke it with, but the smooth glass tunnel was barren. All he had was the little piece of glass and a couple of giant pumpkin seeds in his pockets.

  In a moment of inspiration, he removed his belt, wrapped one end around his hand and stuck his hand again through the bars.

  He flicked the buckle.

  It hit the painting. The whole town wavered.

  “Let something in, let something out,” the old man had said.

  What was behind that canvas stagecraft?

  Adam got back to his feet, took a deep breath, trying to regain his pride after begging an old man for help. Disappointed beyond anything he had ever known before, he headed back down the ramp. He didn’t even cast a final glance back at the false memory of Ireland.

  Going down was harder on his feet than coming up, and by the time he made it to the main tunnel, the blue light was again sputtering, his calf muscles were screaming, and his bare feet were raw with blisters.

  But he had a plan.

  If this tunnel wasn’t going to lead him out, surely the next tunnel would.

  And if that tunnel didn’t pan out, then he would try the next. And the next. And the next, until he got out of here. It would work.

  He knew it with a fool’s optimism.

  It had to work. He was about out of options.

  At the juncture, he turned left into the main tunnel, and the next tunnel entrance was barely six paces away, but the moment he turned into it, the blue light he carried on his shoulder winked out, and he had a very, very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  It wasn’t just that he had been plunged back into darkness—he was getting used to that. This was more visceral.

  This might be the end of the line for him. This was a place that swallowed hope. This was a place that told the truth, revealed ugliness, celebrated all the wrong things.

  Chances are, he belonged here.

  He could back out, choose another tunnel, but this one called to him. The opportunity to admit all his faults, all his wrongs, to be punished, or to have to pay for them in a meaningful way, was somehow, suddenly, very attractive.

  Wait. Was it attractive because he was already in the tunnel? Should he back out and give this a second thought?

  No. It didn’t matter, because Adam knew immediately that this tunnel wasn’t going to lead him to the fake little Irish town, or whatever was at the end of that other tunnel.

  This tunnel wasn’t going to lead him anywhere good.

  And perhaps he deserved what he was about to get.

  7

  IT SEEMED TO ADAM that whatever evil dwelt in this tunnel hovered mere feet from him. Perhaps inches. On all sides.

  He was surrounded by it.

  He could smell its putrid breath.

  An oppressive blackness encircled him. A thickening stench. A weighty darkness.

  After a few steps in, he had a change of heart.

  Sl
owly, he took a step backward. And another. And another, and then he backed into the wall.

  He turned around and reached for the tunnel entrance, but it had vanished. The entrance had sealed itself off, trapping him inside with … with something he didn’t want to know about.

  This darkness was absolute. Vast. Heavy. Darker than dark. It flowed into his lungs with every breath.

  His heart pounded so hard he saw red globes floating around him.

  He could run screaming further into the tunnel, but that would mean certain death. Besides, he didn’t think this was a tunnel at all. A room, maybe. A vestibule.

  Perhaps his coffin.

  His only option was to throw a card.

  Standing perfectly still in the absolute darkness, with a hot, nauseating darkness within that darkness pressing closer to him, he tried slowing his breathing. He stood quietly, letting the evil sniff him, touch him, taste him. It looked into him, saw his fears and magnified them. It saw his shortcomings and embellished them until he saw himself as an insipid cartoon. An uninteresting clown of predictably immoral behavior.

  This evil reveled in his sins.

  Slowly, very slowly, he reached up to his breast pocket, unbuttoned it and pulled out a card.

  “I need a way out of here,” he whispered, and bracing for the concussion, threw the card down the tunnel.

  The flat concentric circles of blue light flashed only briefly. The darkness muffled, absorbed, the concussion. The darkness, it appeared, was too thick, too substantial, too … evil even for the magic.

  He hoped to God that the magic hadn’t strengthened whatever it was that pressed in on him, so close he could feel it oozing around on his skin.

  And yet … and yet he heard the faintest of crackling sounds.

  This was similar to the crackling sounds the blue magic made when it melted these tunnels out of the pure rock to begin with.

  Was it melting a new tunnel for him?

  He didn’t want a new tunnel.

  All things being equal, he would just as soon go back to the big cavern with the lake and the rocks and the giant coconut and spoiled squash. He had tried to keep track of where he was within the tunnel system, but he had long ago lost his way.

  He could live in that big cavern with the lake. He could rest and eat and drink and swim and get himself strong and healthy, and then when ready, he could dive down and find the outlet. If it had an inlet as strong as the river he had ridden on to enter the cavern, then surely it had an outlet. He would find that outlet, swim through it, and be in another moving water system.

  He might drown trying, but at least he wouldn’t be here, caught in this black web of soul-numbing, paralyzing terror.

  Worse, of course, was the nagging feeling that the evil enveloping him was of his own making. It was his own evil, and he needed to accept it.

  The crackling noise became louder, as if it was coming closer. But it made no light, so Adam stood still, hands at his sides, eyes wide open, hoping for a glimpse of something that would indicate what the magic had brought him.

  Perhaps nothing good. Perhaps nothing at all.

  Very slowly, very carefully so as to not make any disturbance, so as to not create any ripples in the clot of evil that had enveloped him, he reached again into his pocket for another card.

  He had few cards left. Soon he would be alone down here with no magic to help him.

  Should he throw another card? Would adding more magic help? Or would it too, be absorbed, making whatever this was even more powerful and hasten his demise?

  “Please, God,” he whispered. “Please, God of the underworld. God of my understanding.”

  He paused for the briefest of moments.

  What the hell was the god of his understanding? Did he have any understanding of God at all? At all?

  “Please. I need my family. I need to get back to my family. They need me.”

  A deep rumbling arose from beneath his feet. The floor of the tunnel rolled and quaked. Adam took another step backward and put a hand to the tunnel wall to steady himself. The ground buckled, and he sat down before he fell down.

  The rumbling stopped, and Adam was left with the distinct impression that it had laughed at him.

  The evil had laughed at him.

  What was it mocking? His prayer? His need for his family?

  The idea that his family needed him?

  Perhaps it was right. Perhaps his family didn’t need him at all.

  He was the one who needed them. He needed their joy, their light, their wonderful, crazy senses of humor. The light they brought to his life.

  Why on earth would he have left them to come to Congo to dig wells, when he could have stayed home and helped Lisa find a college, helped Sonja with her homework and her self-esteem, helped Mouse navigate the subtleties of social interaction with her peers?

  He was a selfish bastard.

  Without a further thought, he flipped the card at the wall, and this time the blue shock wave punched him in the chest and in the flash he saw a door appear, still under crackling blue construction. He heard the sounds as the magic built it out of the plain black rock.

  Then the blue flash subsided, and the blackness again closed in, obscuring his view.

  Adam slowly and carefully got to his knees. He crawled quietly toward the door, listening as he went. He followed the sound, crawled toward it.

  The darkness again pressed close around him, enveloped him, crushed him with its domineering presence.

  Hope fled.

  He would die here.

  He deserved to die here.

  He was worthless as a husband, a father, a provider, and come to think of it, he wasn’t that great as a hydrologist. His boss was only too happy to give him a lengthy leave of absence.

  He had no business acting important, or even competent.

  He had an evil in his soul that was so dark and deep and black that he was afraid to let anyone close to him, lest they blow his cover and expose him for the fraud that he was.

  Fraud! That was such a nice word for the despicable shit he was.

  He should die. This would be a good place to die.

  The floor of the tunnel began to move again, only this time it was not laughing at him. Instead, it rocked him with approval.

  Adam wanted to die here, and this place would help him.

  Abandoning the idea of making it to the door, embracing the end of his life, he curled into a fetal position on the ground. Was there anything he needed to do or think or say before his life ended? He hoped his death would be swift and without suffering.

  Without suffering.

  But that would not happen at the will of this evil. It would delight in his suffering. His screams would echo through the labyrinth, and the evil would laugh.

  The crackling stopped.

  Adam barely registered the change, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that the door had been completed.

  Could he escape? Was that even possible? Could he die another way that was not at the tormenting hands of this nastiness?

  He unwound himself and crawled on his belly toward the door.

  He touched it with his fingertips, ran his fingers around the base of it, up along the jamb.

  Was there a knob? Was there a lock? Was it just another tantalizing thing that he would never be able to open?

  The floor of the tunnel buckled, tossing Adam away from the door.

  The evil didn’t want him to go.

  This wasn’t his evil. He didn’t need to own this terrible, soul-sucking darkness.

  He may have evil in his soul. He may have done appalling things in his life, but he could change. He could do better. He could accept mercy. He could accept grace. He could become a recovered person.

  The evil in the tunnel had turned his mind dark. He needed to get to that door, get through that door and slam it behind him. Maybe he could leave this feeling behind and get back to his senses.

  He crawled back to the door,
but the tunnel floor began to writhe, buckle and twitch, doing its best to keep him from escaping. There was no way he could stand long enough to reach the door handle.

  Strange hallucinations of pleasure began to tumble through his mind. He thought of that first swallow of a cold beer after a hot day’s work. He remembered the first time he had sex in the back of Mary Jane Moore’s father’s car. He remembered the look in Chrissie’s eyes when she said her vows. He remembered smelling the top of newborn Lisa’s head.

  He remembered winning a big jackpot at the casino. He remembered the look on that cashier behind her secure little brass gate, her solid, protective cage, as she let a little money out in order to let in a whole lifetime of his desperate gambling addiction.

  He recalled the sweetness of that Irish bar maid lifting her skirts to him in the back room of the pub while Chrissie played darts with the pub regulars. The girl was so fresh, so beautiful, her plump cheeks flushed with passion, her chubby thighs delicious, her little squeaks of pleasure egging him on, her long red braid bouncing on the sacks of grain as he took her, feeling like a wild stallion. Oh God, that was so good.

  No, it was not good.

  Yes, that was great, but it was wrong.

  He had been on his honeymoon, for God’s sake.

  He’d left the girl a big tip, much to Chrissie’s disapproval, and he couldn’t justify it and he couldn’t look his bride in the face.

  He saw where this was going. He was being seduced with the promise of more pleasure, but his greatest pleasure would be to get out of there.

  He let those memories of extreme pleasure wash over him, but held fast to the fragment of himself that would not succumb. He gritted his teeth against the temptation to just lie back and give up. Let it take him in a state of ecstatic reminiscence.

  The evil intertwined the pleasure of his heinous misdeeds with the pleasure of his righteous acts, and that was dangerous.

  Adam clung to the concept of right and wrong as he crawled back to the door. He grappled for something to hold on to, to help him stand and reach the knob.

  Then something dark and ice cold grabbed his left foot. His tortured foot, swollen and bleeding, had now become whole and good.