by P. J. Day
Matt pulled away from Keelen and kept her at arm’s length, and noticed her dour blue eyes. “What’s wrong? Was my kiss that bad?” he asked.
“No, I’m just worried right now.”
“About what?”
“I can’t get a hold of Logan.”
Matt pulled away and grunted. “Really now?”
“I’m sorry, but I kinda depend on him for work...”
Matt turned around and headed straight toward the shower. While strutting away in slight agitation, he sarcastically said, “I’m taking a shower. If you want to wait… you’re more than welcome to. If not, you can go search for Logan.”
Keelen puffed a breath through her lips. She surveyed the gym for a chair. There were a row of multicolored banquet chairs ringside and picked the yellow one.
She pulled out her phone and felt compelled to check on Cindy. She dialed, but Cindy’s phone went straight to voicemail.
A touch of despair entered her mind, as she began massaging her scalp in an act of self-consolation. Although she repeatedly prided and boasted to others about her independence, she immediately realized how dependent on others she really was. A hypocrite in her own mind.
Chapter Twenty-five:
Blessed Sacrament
Cindy stretched her foot down into the darkness. She bit her lip, maintaining a hardened squint, hoping she’d feel solid ground whenever she lowered herself into the underbelly of the church, one grip at a time. Cindy counted to 25 before her foot made contact with a hard surface. She lowered herself, and planted her entire sole, before deciding to release her other foot from the ladder.
“There,” she said to herself. “I’m on the ground, I think.”
She grabbed her phone and used the camera flash as an impromptu lantern, waving it around the immediate proximity. There was only three feet of space between her and the walls of the tunnel, and another three feet of space between her head and the ceiling. She whistled loudly and used its echo to see how far the tunnel bore through.
“Not too long, it seems,” she muttered.
Her heart fluttered with each step. The sounds of dripping water kept her mind at ease. Complete silence would have sent her into claustrophobic panic.
After walking ten meters of hard, darkened and mysterious ground, Cindy noticed the tunnel straighten. She waved her phone light ahead and observed two long and narrow rectangular hollows in the tunnel wall, one on each side. Her hand began to shake with fear, and the light from her phone flickered rapidly off the walls. She opened the red book and flipped rapidly through the pages, looking for clues that might describe the indentations. She didn’t know the tunnel forked right up ahead. It was much too dark to make that determination.
She reflected on her dilemma. Her lack of patience was a hindrance. She stared at the battery icon on her phone. It was halfway dead and draining fast as it wasn’t meant to last as long as a flashlight.
“I should’ve devoted more time with the professor before coming here,” she said, to herself, rapidly turning the dried pages in the old book. “I need to hurry, come on Cindy, what could those holes mean? There’s no way I’m walking up to those things until I know what’s in em’, yuck...”
After flipping two-thirds of the way through the book, she eventually stopped at a picture of a bearded man lying down on his back with a sword in his hand. Below the man a diagram showed the approximate dimensions of the nook that she faintly saw on the walls. She tried to translate the text on the page with her limited linguistic research.
“The right...the left...come on Cindy, don’t mix up those two. D...exia...Plevra...to the right...yes, to the right,” she said. “No, no, I’m not looking.”
The page read that the nooks were tombs, tombs for the chosen two, who would know of the Concord. Who made sure the Blessed Sacrament was kept away, so that man could remain on the destined path.
Enthralled by the living and breathing words of the ancient text, Cindy somehow mustered enough courage to walk up to the tombs. Actually, it wasn’t courage, but more like subconscious physicality brought upon by being in the “zone.” She lowered the book and spooked herself as she stood in front of the nook. The soft glow of her phone, which she held at waist level, showed a shadow inside the stone crevice, a long and human-like shadow. She cocked her head back and lifted the phone’s light to chest level. The unmistakable soft glow of bone in pale light shocked her entire being. She shone the light from the corpse’s feet all the way to its skull, where a dried and desiccated skin with a black beard hung from its face.
Around the dead man’s neck, a long, brown leather scapular hung down to his chest cavity. Cindy stretched her neck and head as far away from the body as possible while reaching for the scapular. She snapped off the scapular from the corpse’s neck and took two steps back as she analyzed it under the phone’s fluorescent glow.
The exact image of the veiled woman from the red book was displayed on the front of the scapular, and on its back, a name.
“David Horsley?” Cindy said to herself.
She checked her phone and tried using the browser to research the name, but there was no cell signal fifteen meters below ground. She turned on her heels and flashed the phone toward the other nook. Another body laid in peace. She walked up to it and tore away its scapular as well. Behind the scapular it read, “Horsley, William.”
“David and William Horsley,” she said. “Brothers, perhaps? They’ve got to be brothers.”
She took a few steps forward in the tunnel and came upon the fork. The ground under her suddenly made a loud, crunching sound, as if stepping on dried cereal. By illuminating the ground, she noticed tiny multi-colored pebbles replacing the hard rocky surface. They extended past the fork. As she crouched to examine the pebbles, she heard the faint sound of fast-moving water, like a stream or a rushing river. Her eyes smiled with relief. Where there’s water, there’s escape, she thought.
Cindy followed the cryptic instruction from the page and took the right tunnel. She illuminated the gravel and sand surface. The sound of flowing water increased with each stride.
The pebbled floor became thicker and sandier. She came upon an opening at the end of the tunnel. It was a cave, hewn from the bedrock underneath the city. However, the walls sparkled brightly, like stars in a desert sky. She inched closer to one of the rocky walls next to the tunnel exit and lighted the wall with her phone. Gold.
Cindy walked completely out of the tunnel and was encapsulated by a wide, shimmering cavern. Flakes, nuggets, and some of it in chunks larger than her hand were studded all across the cavern walls. She then walked to the bank of the river. The water was as clear as the skies over the San Gabriel Mountains on a smog-free Saturday in December.
A withered wooden boat with a splintered paddle was tethered to a decrepit willow tree that jutted out from the sand. The stunted tree only had two branches, both dry and hollow. Ages ago, sunlight must have sneaked through from somewhere, before erosion or seismic displacement of rocks, to produce such a parched and pathetic organism.
Cindy inspected the boat, but there was only a puddle or two inside. The river rushed east to west. The only clear opening was to the west. Although resilient, Cindy did not have the strength to paddle upstream.
As she carefully stepped into the boat, she hugged the small, crammed backpack which held her book, the rod and the sphere.
Cindy cast off the ropes that secured the boat to the willow tree. She placed the bag at her side and paddled downstream.
Dim light sourced from somewhere, as the walls of gold radiated with a gentle, bronze incandescence. Cindy made out numerous burial crevices along the walls of the cavern. As the cavern narrowed, she recognized the presence of mummified bodies inside some of the crevices. They also were surrounded by small groupings of native artifacts. Clearly, the dead belonged to a long-lost tribe. Awed, Cindy was aware she’d discovered a historical jackpot, but her eyes remained steadfast on the bow of the small boat, and felt s
omething far more important lay ahead.
The stream slowed and she paddled faster. She could see an old wooden dock a few meters upstream. She slowed the boat by reaching the paddle into the silt just a few feet below the surface of the river. In fact, it was so shallow, she jumped out of the boat and as she waded through the cold river water, she dragged the boat to shore. She moored the small wooden craft to the one of the wooden pillars, and climbed up onto the dock. Her sneakers were drenched, and water spilled through one of the small holes where the rubber sole met her big toe.
Above the dock, a small tunnel gashed through stone. Listening hard, she stood before the entrance. She couldn’t hear anything but the sounds of the flowing river.
Her phone was still without a signal, and had only thirty minutes of battery power left. She stared headlong into the dark tunnel and then glanced over her shoulder, contemplating the river’s end. She dug into her backpack and extracted the metal sphere.
“Do your thing, little guy,” she said. “You’re gonna tell me your secrets, right?”
Cindy brandished the rod and pointed it toward the ball. It rolled toward the dark tunnel, and fortunately, not toward the river. With trepidation, she followed closely behind, holding the phone out in front of her at arm’s length, wary of surprises along the way.
After fifty meters, the ball quit rolling. Cindy moved ahead of the sphere. She came upon a flat concrete slab inscribed with a lily superimposed on an X. Next to the lily, a locking mechanism, similar to the one found on the manhole cover at the church, was built next to it. Below the flowery symbol, she saw a golden gear with a hollowed-out twelve-inch indentation that ran across the slab.
Instinctively, Cindy picked up the ball and inserted it into the locking mechanism. The familiar clacking sound commenced. She pushed against the slab with her shoulder. It did not budge. She then placed both hands on the slab and tried to move it—first left and then right. Nothing. She leaned and further examined the golden gear. Her dry lips puffed out as she blew into the gear, clearing away the years of dust that had accumulated around it. She ran her finger through the twelve-inch groove, and held the metal rod in her other hand.
“Of course,” she muttered. Cindy placed the rod into the groove. Another clack echoed throughout the entire tunnel. The small figurine at the end of the rod popped out toward her and exposed a small gear, which converged with the other gear. However, the door still did not open. She pulled on the rod. With a quick automated snap, it extended out to her like a lever. She grabbed it tightly with her small hands and first pushed the door, then pulled at it with all her strength. Tiny dust particles sprayed all over her fine, black hair as the door opened for the first time in years. As soon as the large concrete door gave way, the walls of the tunnel began flickering. The static that preempted Raffi’s death surprised Cindy’s senses. They flickered like the flashing lights of a space coaster.
“What was that?” she whispered out loud, startled.
Unbeknownst to Cindy, her innocuous act of opening an old, concrete door triggered the holy synapses of its guardians. Atop the snow-capped peak of Mt. San Antonio, a Seraph’s eyes coruscated like the flash of a mini-supernova. It swung its head toward the city skyline, shrieking at the smog-filled valley below. It flapped its wings furiously as it leaped down from a pine’s branch. A faint light rose above Hollywood; a secret beacon for the protectors of the harvest— only visible to the beasts with the spiraled pupils.
As the creature began its descent onto the Blessed Sacrament, Cindy walked into the space beyond the concrete door. The floor was smooth and flattened, unlike the cragginess of the floor leading toward the space where she stood.
As she walked into the void, the white from a marble altar emerged slowly from the lightlessness like the blurred vibrations of an apparition. Cindy’s approach was prudent. She perceived a pristine white lily, as if it were just-picked from its emerald stem minutes ago, resting on the hard, ivory surface. The phone’s light gave the flower an anemic gleam. She tapped the soft, spotted petal with her finger, confirming its freshness. Its large, red anthers dangled from their filaments like tiny anvils made of polymeric fabric. Cindy picked up the white flower and placed its center under her nostrils, inhaling the red, granular pollen.
Her sinuses immediately began throbbing, as if their mucous lining were barraged by rancid infection. “What have you done, Cindy?” she asked herself, as she squeezed her temples, desperately trying to diffuse the incessant cranial throbbing. She fell to her knees and her eyelids fluttered, finally giving way to painless slumber.
Cindy awoke to the familiar hollow thumping on her bedroom door inside her parents’ home that sat at the edge of a cul-de-sac in a tract-home neighborhood in Puente Hills.
“You are bringing dishonor to this family,” said the familiar, patriarchal voice. “Open the door.”
“No,” she yelled back, immediately recognizing the old Backstreet Boys posters that used to hang on her bedroom wall when she didn’t know any better.
“Why can’t you be like your sister?” scolded her father.
“Because she’s Linda and I’m Cindy.”
“Sue, speak to your daughter. I’m done with her,” hollered her father from behind the door.
“Cindy, can I come in, please?” her mother asked.
“Are you going to yell at me, too?”
Her mother paused. “I promise I won’t,” she said, in her slight accent, but with a confident command of English.
Cindy swiftly got up from her bed and unlocked the door. She then returned to her bed, and resumed her ostrich act.
Sue opened the door and walked into the bedroom. She was a little shorter than her daughter, her hair taut in a bun. Her body stiff and guarded, keeping her arms close to her chest, she sat next to 16-year-old Cindy on the bed, who was laying on her stomach, face-first into her pillow. She placed her hand on the small of her daughter’s back.
“You know your father. You know how he can be.”
“He wants to control every move I make. I feel like a prisoner,” Cindy said, her voice muzzled by the softness of her pillow.
Sue let out a deep sigh.
“He just wants what is best for you. He wants you to have a successful life, one without struggle.”
Cindy turned her head away from the pillow, and stared into her mom’s eyes. “I already struggle. He wants me to be a doctor or an engineer because it will make him look good in the eyes of our family and friends. He’s never once asked about my schoolwork or gotten involved with any of my extracurricular activities at school. It’s a selfish dream for him.”
Sue eyed the door with worry. “You shouldn’t say that.”
“I can never express myself in this house. It’s the truth, Mom,” Cindy bemoaned. “I no longer have control over who I am.”
“If Linda can do it, you can do it, too. She’s getting straight A’s again. She listens to me and your father. She knows what’s best for her. And she attends all the tutoring sessions we pay for, unlike you. You’re wasting our money. Do you understand?”
With tears streaming down her cheeks, Cindy sat up from her bed, her face red. Years of pressure throughout her formative school years had taken a toll on her. Born with a tremendous amount of empathy toward others, and a caring constitution, Cindy went against her nature, as she lashed out at her mother. “I’m not Linda, okay? We have different brains. Things don’t come easy to me, like her,” she yelled. “Stop comparing us. I don’t want to live your life either. I don’t want to end up like you. You’re practically a slave in this home, doing Father’s bidding.”
Cindy’s father was leaning against the wall next to the door, hearing the conversation between Cindy and her mother. He stepped into the doorway with his arms crossed and the end of his leather belt wound around his hand like a coiled snake. Defiant, Cindy stared into her father’s eyes. “You can’t,” she yelled, “I’m 16. You can’t do this anymore.”
Her father
charged the bed and whipped Cindy’s back and bottom, as she spun onto her stomach, protecting herself from a frontal beating.
Sue stood up and just watched, silently, flinching at her husband’s strikes. Linda, who was in the kitchen, came to Cindy’s doorway, and watched her big sister get beat, her face neutral, without emotion, conditioned to neutralize aggression.
“You will do as I say as long as you live in this house,” Cindy’s father barked.
Cindy tucked her legs and arms away from the lashes. Her father’s belt stung her ribs. She remained silent and smothered her cries underneath her pillow.
The flogging stopped, Cindy relaxed her body. She needed to cry out, to exhale the pain. Her father panted as he stood over her, his rigid stance signaling dominance. There was no need to keep whipping her, he thought. She got the message. As long as she lived in his house, she had to honor him. It was just the way things had to be. It was how they were when he was young.
Cindy’s father walked out of the room with his head down, the belt over his shoulder. Cindy lay in bed whimpering. The stinging pain from her raised and reddened skin was usurped by torment brought on from parental betrayal.
“Do what he says,” Sue said. “Don’t fight further. There is nothing for you here, only pain. Go away, Cindy, and never come back.”
Her mother’s voice wasn’t human, she thought. It wasn’t recognizable. However, Cindy felt compelled to adhere to her request. It was her mother after all, the mother who never protected her, who never took her side, but still her mother, nonetheless.
But something burned inside her. She was onto something much larger than herself, much larger than her past, and most importantly of all, much larger than the coward of a father to whom she had the misfortune of being related to. She had to tell her father what she was doing. About her own journey, her own path, and what her new destiny had become.