“…‘And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it’…”
Marc looks behind him. “Sarah?”
The stairs vanish into deeper darkness, divulging nothing. Above him, the light burns on. But is it salvation or simply a dying star, the failing light of what little remains, of what once was; the last bit of life, of him?
Set us free, Victim Soul.
Marc chases the light and all that resides behind and within it, aware now of what must happen, and what he must do to make it so.
Below, more screams echo forth. They are not his own.
* * * *
Rain falls across the farmhouse. A soft and quiet rain, a trick, an ambush as the storm bides its time, waits for the moment it can regain power and strike with merciless anger.
As it must… as it was created to do…
Creasing the darkness, the ancient tree stands alone on the horizon, its thick trunk and gnarled branches slowly transforming from a blackened and burned appearance to a more ethereal shade of gray.
Below, the wells, the farmhouse, the sisters…
The past… the present… the future…
Three wooden wells with draw buckets not far from the tree catch the rain, bad dreams of the living, the dead, the damned, the enlightened and the insane, dark fairytales, mythology, evil government conspiracies and the prophecies of Messianic martyrs and killers alike.
Flames slash night.
From the farmhouse come the twelve nuns. Carrying enormous burning torches, they walk in single file across the lot toward the tree, the wells; their destinies.
The darkness around them burns.
The brilliance of the fire, along with the heat, stirs the old man in the outbuilding. He staggers out, sees the others then looks to the night sky as if for answers. Continuing their slow walk up the side of the hill to Yggdrasil, the nuns pay him no attention, and he hurries to the farmhouse and disappears inside.
Somewhere far off, thunder rumbles.
* * * *
The higher Marc climbs, the narrower the passage and the lower the ceiling becomes, boxing him in and causing him to crouch, and then crawl the remainder of the way, taking the stairs on hands and knees. Exhausted, he pushes forward on his stomach, feeling claustrophobic in what has become such a cramped and confined space, his already injured hands scraping the rock walls on either side of him, his scalp brushing the coarse ceiling above him. The light is brighter but still small. He finally reaches the top of the stairs and the small wooden door that resides there. A trapdoor? He wonders. Maneuvering closer, he realizes the light is leaking through an inordinately large keyhole slightly bigger than a fifty-cent piece. The beam is littered with particles of rock-dust, dirt and debris floating through it in a slow spiral, and he can smell fresh, vibrant air just beyond the door. He struggles to get closer in the hopes of getting the door open or at a minimum peeking out through the hole to whatever lies on the other side, but when he’s mere inches away the light grows significantly dimmer.
An eye appears in the opening, bloodshot… unblinking… subhuman.
Marc wriggles back and away from it, attempting to hide in the darkness as groans and growls fill the musty air. But suddenly as the eye appears, it darts away, returning the beam to the stairway.
The door begins to rattle… softly at first, then violently. Whatever it is tries to get in but is unable to do so. It screams as if wounded and shuffles away.
Marc lies still a while, breathing heavily and trying to remain calm while wedged into the tomblike stairwell. The light remains uninterrupted for several minutes. He fears going through the door but knows he has no choice. He cannot stay here, he either had to get out or turn around and go all the way back to the bottom and hope Sarah didn’t lock that door behind him.
Sisyphus chasing after his boulder…
Crawling forward, he props himself up on one elbow and, ignoring the pain, slams his already damaged palm against the door. It refuses to move. He tries again, and again. The door won’t budge.
And then he hears it again. Water. Surging, rushing…
It begins to run beneath the door, trickling at first, then coming faster and faster still, spraying cold and violently through the keyhole and flooding the stairs with startling power. Marc tries to turn away but can’t. The passage has become far too narrow for him to change positions. His only choice is to back down the steps blind, feet-first.
As the cold water crashes his face, he drops his head, tucks chin to chest and attempts a deep breath.
His lips taste like salt.
* * * *
A wall of fire cuts the night sky. The nuns, their flaming torches hoisted high, stand at the summit of the hill, six to one side of Yggdrasil, six to the other.
Through the crackle of fire and the soft rain, their voices rise in unison, reciting a passage from the Völuspá that will call forth their mistresses.
“Thence comes the maidens… mighty in wisdom… three from the dwelling down ‘neath the tree…”
The front door to the aged farmhouse opens with a sinister creak.
“Urth is one named…”
A shadow figure emerges, its body covered from head to toe in what appears to be a dark shroud of some kind.
“Verthandi the next – on the wood they scored – and Skuld the third…”
Two more follow in single file, each holding a burning candle as they move across the farm toward the hill.
“Laws they made there, and life allotted to the sons of men…”
The shrouds brush the ground and conceal their feet. They could be walking or gliding, floating just above the ground, it is impossible to know for sure.
“…and set their fates…”
As the Three Fates reach the top of the hill, the nuns start back toward the farmhouse, their torches lighting the way. The last in line touches her fire to a bush near Yggdrasil and it bursts into flame, illuminating the otherwise dark hill even after the nuns have returned to night, their torches extinguished suddenly and without explanation, as if they’d never truly been there at all.
At the edge of the field on the other side of the hill, a fox, watching the proceedings since they began, slips away into the trees. He does not go unnoticed.
* * * *
The water continues to rush free, crashing over him and flooding the stairway. Marc struggles back to his hands and knees and reaches for the door again, but the force of the water makes it impossible now, and he slumps back, submitting to its strength, certain it will wash him away and back down the stairs to the darkness below.
But just as he prepares to be carried off, the door splits and implodes under the force with a loud crack. Shards of wood fall about him, carried off in the frenzy of water, the beam replaced with a shaft of light instead, a sanctuary of warm and bright light unlike anything he’s seen before.
Shine…
And for the first time, he understands.
Fighting desperately, Marc throws a hand up toward the opening, grabs hold of the side and attempts to pull himself up. But the water just keeps coming, and he soon loses his grip and flops back to the stairs, impossible amounts of seawater blasting through the opening now, taking him under, sliding him back down the stairs, blocking the beautiful light and all else as he holds his breath and feels his body slipping away on the current. Clenching shut his eyes, he’s pulled down into the cold water, swallowed in an ocean of water pouring over him and sucking him down into the endless darkness of the catacombs.
But in the deafening rush, all he sees, all he knows is Brooke.
* * * *
From the first well, the hag Urd draws her bucket while her sisters look on. With aged but deft hands she carries the full bucket to Yggdrasil and pours the water at the base of the tree, at the root, watching as the ground absorbs it. After replacing the bucket to the well, Urd peels back her hood and
looks to Yggdrasil with cataract-covered eyes. Moonlight and flames from the nearby bush conspire to illuminate her face, and within moments of emptying her bucket, Yggdrasil looks healthier, and although still an old woman, Urd becomes decidedly younger. Miraculously, her eyes clear and the cataracts burn away as she mutters quiet prayers.
* * * *
Twisting, turning, submerged and struggling to draw breath, Marc fights and thrashes against the onslaught as he falls lower and lower, sucked down as if into a great drain, or the gaping mouth of some gargantuan creature.
Water is passage…
He hears screams but they’re in his head, tearing at him like something trapped within his skull clawing desperately to get out.
And then everything goes dark and the world sleeps.
* * * *
Skuld steps forward, raises her arms. “Mimir, protector of this well and water spirit of great wisdom, we thank you.” She draws a bucket, pours it across the lower branches of Yggdrasil then removes her hood. Clearly the youngest, even in limited light she is voluptuous, erotic and beautiful as ever.
Once she has finished her prayers and again conceals herself beneath the hood, the third sister approaches the final well.
She is met by a strong gust of wind. Night, whispering secrets of what is yet to come…
* * * *
It is not water, but fire he steps through, effortlessly moving between the flames and at one with the inferno from which he comes. Unharmed, he steps onto a rural dirt road and walks toward a small cabin in the distance. He knows this place. Like so much else, he has dreamt it.
It is early morning.
He can hear birds singing, but not just singing, communicating, leading him closer to where he must go.
Like a fever dream, everything is slightly blurred and vaguely out of synch.
Don’t let them fool you…
He stops, closes his eyes.
Not birds – Archie – his roommate at the mental hospital.
Chemical Apocalypse, that’s all it is, see?
The corpulent middle-aged former electrical engineer, scribbling in his ever-present notebook, manically running a hand over his bald head, lips moving, working various scenarios and equations, sits on the edge of his bed. Now and then he glances over at Marc as if to be sure he’s still there, or perhaps because he suspects he may not be there at all.
It’s all a test, an experiment gone wrong.
“No,” Marc says. “It’s more than that.”
* * * *
Considerably broader and taller than her sisters, Verdandi removes her hood to reveal a young woman with a pretty but stern face. She looks to the well, Yggdrasil, and the distant forest beyond.
The large gray serpent, until then camouflaged in the tree, slithers to higher branches, its black eyes locked on the sisters even when four deer emerge from the dark field below and stride to the top of the hill. They stop, acknowledge the sisters then lope off in different directions.
“The four winds,” Verdandi whispers, “scatter to the corners of the Earth.”
* * * *
Marc opens his eyes, banishes Archie and the hospital to darkness, and focuses instead on the cabin. There’s a pickup and a small SUV in the driveway, both relatively new, and though the cabin is modest it is well kempt and situated on a beautiful plot of land set between two rolling green hills, a field of flowers to the front of the house, a large expanse of forest to the rear.
He continues down the dirt road then stops suddenly.
Spaulding stands on the front porch of the cabin. Although his face bore a few scars he never used to have, he looks vibrant and clear-eyed, healthier, happier, younger and content with himself. In one hand he holds a cigarette, the other he raises to his forehead to shield his eyes as he scans the field of flowers.
And then Marc sees what his old friend is searching for.
There, in the field, walking gracefully toward the cabin… Brooke. A small black puppy runs by her side.
Spaulding waves with a big, exaggerated, arcing motion. It achieves what he’d hoped for, and catches her attention. She waves back, though far more subtly, brushes a wisp of hair from her face and squints up at the sun.
She is the most beautiful vision Marc has ever seen.
Brooke is alive. Happy. Safe.
He sees Spaulding smile wide then take a long drag on his cigarette.
Brooke picks up the puppy, snuggles him, and with a wonderfully carefree laugh he hasn’t heard from her in years, continues on with the dog under her arm.
Marc calls out to her, quickening his pace along the dirt road. Determined to get to Brooke before she reaches the cabin he breaks into a run, kicking up dirt as he goes and continuing to call Brooke’s name even though it’s clear neither she nor Spaulding can hear him. He reaches the field of flowers and bounds across it, closing on her. “Wait!” he screams. “Brooke, wait!”
He is within a few feet of her but still running hard when he reaches out to touch her hair. His fingertips brush the back of her head, gently caress her, and she stops and looks back over her shoulder, startled.
But she cannot see him.
Pain stabs Marc’s chest like a dagger, and he draws a sudden and violent breath, as if he hasn’t taken one in some time. Or as if it’s the last breath he’ll ever know. His throat constricts and his body seizures uncontrollably.
He knows… he knows… but had hoped they’d grant him more time.
Lack of oxygen drops him to his knees, and as he falls over, gagging on an explosion of blood firing up into his throat, the last thing he sees is Brooke gazing out at the field behind her, a puzzled look on her face.
* * * *
Verdandi draws her bucket. When it reaches the top of the well, her eyes roll to white and she throws back her head, plunging her hands into the water with an orgasmic moan. “Blood of the martyr… Victim Soul… set us free.”
She pulls her hands free. They come back slick with bright red blood. Grasping the bucket carefully, she pours the mixture of well water and blood across several of Yggdrasil’s higher branches.
“Surt,” she whispers, “giant of Muspelheim, remain in your realm of fire… Ragnarok, doom of the gods… Gotterdammerung, end of the universe no more. Yggdrasil lives.”
Moments later, hood in place, she rejoins her sisters as Yggdrasil begins to change, the branches growing healthier and stronger.
Behind them, the farmhouse erupts into fire.
Watching from the front window, her wooden cross clutched in her hands, Sarah closes her eyes, smiles and begins to pray, ignoring the flames even as the old building burns and collapses down upon her.
* * * *
“My wife is alive,” he tells her. “She and Spaulding survived the accident.”
Dr. Berry’s face remains expressionless, and for a while she says nothing, as if expecting him to continue. All he knows is that he has to get out of this place, away from here, away from all of this.
“And what about you, Marc?” she finally asks.
“What about me?”
“Did you survive the accident?”
He looks to the lone window in the office, a crisscross of security wire sandwiched between two thick panes of glass. Rain sluices along the window, blurring the dreary parking lot beyond. Does it ever stop raining here? He wonders. “No,” he says softly. “I didn’t.”
Fifteen
Black ash falls from a gray sky, gracefully descending to Earth. It doesn’t accumulate, disintegrating the moment it lands, but leaves the world a strangely magical dreamscape.
Alone in the rec room, Marc watches the black snow through the windows. The hospital is unusually quiet, stranding him in indecisive silence. While the meds have left him calm and even, they cannot mute those things only he can hear.
“Do you hear the whales again?”
He turns from the windows, sees Dr. Berry standing in the doorway and nods. “I hear them while I’m awake now.”
“Are they talking to you?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“What are they saying?”
“Before, I thought they were asking for deliverance.”
“And now?”
“I realize they’re offering it.”
She smiles with her dark eyes. “The voice of God?”
“I hope so.”
“Maybe it’s the universe calling you back to where you began, where we all begin. Maybe there are countless voices within that realm most can’t hear. But you can. You hear them; those voices that were always there and always will be, flooding your mind, overwhelming and frightening, enlightening, oddly comforting and confusing all at once.”
Marc slowly closes the gap between them until only a few feet separate them. “You’ve known all along, haven’t you?”
Unexpectedly, she reaches out with her free hand and cups the side of his face. Her palm is soft and warm. “Doesn’t matter,” she says, and with a wink, turns and walks away down the dark corridor leading to the exit, her heels clicking against the floor as she goes.
Marc wants to stop her but knows he can’t.
Partially concealed in shadow, she stops at a pair of heavy double doors at the end of the hallway. “Just remember,” Dr. Berry says without looking back, “the glory’s not in death, Marc. Never has been. The glory’s in life. It’s always been in life.”
She pushes open the doors and walks through into the slowly dying afternoon. One door gradually closes behind her.
The other remains open.
Marc starts down the corridor, slowing only as he passes his old room and notices Archie sitting on his bed scribbling madly in his tattered notebook. Their eyes meet. Archie forms a gun with his fingers, points it at his temple and pulls the trigger, silent but grinning throughout.
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