“I don’t know,” Bryan finally said. “Your roll.”
I picked up the dice but didn’t roll them. “You don’t know?”
“I thought it would be fun at first, but. . . Now I’m not sure if it’s real or not.”
I snorted and rolled. “You are messing with me.”
“You owe me five hundred,” was all he said.
Bryan and Corey made me be the one to ask Mr. Christianson for the archives. Mr. Christianson is the research librarian, a tall, craggy man with wiry, steel-colored hair that’s a little bit long. He wears boots. His big nostrils flared when I asked him for the microfilm, as if he were trying to sniff out some kind of trick. But I gave him what I think of as my “big stare,” making my eyes all wide and innocent, and so he grunted and granted my request.
My brothers had already staked out a microfilm reader. The Bethel Hill library only has three. Not that there are a lot of people demanding to use them. There’s only about 6,000 people in the whole town to start with. And that’s including the farmers living on the outskirts.
The “Tate Tragedy” had occurred in August 1904, and there were dozens of newspaper clippings. The first of them were just about Yancey Tate being found floating in Bethel Pond. Then came all the interviews with the family. And finally the investigation.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Corey had ceased to read. He leaned against the table and picked at his fingernails.
“‘We had to’,” Bryan read aloud softly. “‘Yancey was the Son. He had to be sacrificed so he could rise again and save the world.’”
“It didn’t work that time,” Corey murmured. “We have to do it again.”
“That’s stupid!” I said, way too loud for a library. It wasn’t long before we heard the steady thump of Mr. Christianson’s boots and saw him snaking his way through the tables towards us. I looked up and apologized before he could reprimand us; it was a trick I’d learned with our parents that seemed to work with most adults. Mr. Christianson moved his bushy eyebrows in a way that I was sure was meant to be a warning, then he turned around without actually saying a word.
“It’s not stupid,” Bryan said lowly once the danger of being thrown out had passed. “How do you know we haven’t been born again to accomplish what the Tates failed to do?”
I stared hard at him, trying to guess whether he was joshing me. But it was impossible to tell; Bryan is a very good fibber. “Quit messing with me, with both of us,” I told him. “Look,” I gestured to Corey, who continued to focus on his hands. He turned them this way and that, as if seeing them for the first time. Bryan and I had had long discussions about our brother before, about how fragile he was. I couldn’t understand how Bryan could be acting this way, playing such a mean trick. Corey was really taking it seriously.
“What?” was all Bryan said, his face completely straight.
There was no way I could talk to him with Corey standing there. So I just glared to make sure Bryan knew that I didn’t appreciate his joke. It had gone too far.
After a couple weeks of not speaking much to either of my brothers and them not bringing up the Tates, I figured the game was over. I spent my time reading in my room, or sometimes up on the verandah roof if I was trying to keep Mom from finding me and giving me chores. Corey sort of drifted around the way he always had, and I hardly saw Bryan at all, which I guessed meant he was hanging out with some of his friends. Of the three of us, Bryan was the one with friends. Corey and I were mostly loners.
I was lying on my bed one afternoon, scribbling in my poetry notebook, when Mom poked her head in and asked, “Where are the boys?”
I shrugged without looking up and made an approximation of, “I don’t know,” with my pen jammed in my teeth.
“Are the three of you getting along all right?” Mom asked me.
“Yeah.”
“Because you don’t seem to be spending much time together the way you usually do,” Mom went on.
I took the pen out of my mouth then. “Mo-o-o-m,” I groaned, sitting up. “We’re thirteen already!”
All Mom’s tight and lovely facial features dropped about an inch the way they always do when she’s disappointed. “I know,” she sighed. “I just. . .” She drifted away from my bedroom door before she could finish her sentence.
After she was gone, I began to wonder just where my brothers had gone. It was one thing for Bryan to be away, but something else entirely for Corey to have wandered off. I went outside and checked the trees—Corey liked to climb—but he wasn’t in any of them. Bryan didn’t seem to be around anywhere either.
I went back into the house, this time to my brothers’ room. The door was shut, which would mean the room would be stifling hot. I tried the knob, but it was locked. I knocked, but there was no answer. Still, they would have had to lock it from the inside.
I went back to my room, which was next to my brothers’, and climbed out the window onto the verandah roof. I walked over to my brothers’ window, lifted the screen and slipped in. As always, Corey’s bed was neatly made, his books all on the shelf library-style in that he arranged them by subject and then alphabetically by author and title. Meanwhile, Bryan’s side of the room was an absolute mess. Stacks of paper and library books were strewn haphazardly around his bed, many with dirty sneaker prints on them.
Bryan isn’t much of a reader, so I went to see what the books around his bed could be. Printed pages from the library’s microfilm machine littered the floor. More handwritten notes were jammed into the library books, all of which were on magic and religion. Some had titles like Secrets of Zombies and Raising the Dead.
I reached down a pulled out a photocopy of a drawing—the caption called it a “woodcutting”—of Jesus bringing Lazarus out of the tomb.
I glanced back at Corey’s bed. It was so neatly made, you’d never guess that anyone ever slept in it.
When I got down to the pond, all I saw was Corey. He drifted face down in the water. He was wearing his white pants and the white, short-sleeved, button-down shirt he sometimes wore to Wednesday night church services. In the bright of the sun, his fair hair looked almost white, too. He was like an angel who’d come in for a bad landing.
“It’s your fault,” a voice said from behind me. “If we’d all three been here, it would have worked.”
I turned around. Bryan had his hands stuffed into his pockets; I could see the material stretched over the knuckles of his clenched fists. He wore his dark, Sunday-best slacks. The legs were wet up to above his knees.
“We’ve got to call somebody,” was all I could think to say.
“Did you hear me?” Bryan demanded. “This is your fault!”
“I’ll go get Mr. Buchanan,” I said. I started off past Bryan, but he grabbed hold of my left arm as I passed. “We’re all here now. It’ll work now,” Bryan said. He began dragging me toward the water.
“Let me go!” I screeched. I tried to kick him, but I was turned the wrong way to get anything damaging in.
When I felt the cold on my heels and begin lapping over the top of my sneakers, I panicked. Bryan had good hold of my arm, and I was faced backwards, but I twisted to pound and scratch at his back.
“Bryan! Let me go!”
Somewhere a dog began to bark, loud and low. “Mitzi!” I cried in relief as Mr. Buchanan’s bloodhound came pounding across the grass, ears and jowls flapping. She hit Bryan square in the back and my arm was yanked painfully as he fell forward into the pond. I came behind him, falling backwards, but by then Bryan had lost his grip on me and I struggled up out of the water and onto the mud and gravel. Mitzi danced around me, licking and wagging but no longer barking. When Bryan surfaced, she stopped still, ears lifted, and began to growl.
“Get her away!” Bryan shouted to me.
I reached over and grabbed Mitzi by her loose and faded collar.
“No!” Bryan called, “get her away!”
But I didn’t move. I was watching as Corey bobbed restl
essly toward the heart of the pond. We’d disturbed him. Mitzi sat down next to me, and together we waited. It wasn’t long before Mr. Buchanan came shuffling along. And that’s how he found us: Mitzi and I on the grass at the edge of the water, Bryan in the pond up to his knees and shivering, and Corey floating away.
On the Ruins of Eden
Stephen dug his bare toes into the wet sand. He loved it, loved the way it squished up darkly between the digits, the way it slipped in under his toenails. There was nothing like this where he came from; even on the farthest stretch of the Golden Shore, the sand was dry and warm.
He shivered suddenly, and from somewhere out of the bay mist stepped Andrew. His feet hardly touched the shore at all. He gave Stephen a little push, a grimace of disgust flying across his usually placid features. “Look at you! Get your feet out of that mess!”
Stephen gave a small sigh of resignation and bent to wipe his feet with an edge of his robe, but Andrew swiftly stopped him. “What, do you want to spread the dirt?” He pointed to the slate gray water of the bay. “Go on and rinse yourself off. It’s not the purest of water, but it’ll have to do.”
For the first time Stephen looked at Andrew, really looked at him. He knew that his eyes were just as silver, his nose just as straight, his lips just as generous. But had ever he seen such an expression, such a glower, on another angel? Stephen didn’t think so. In all his ages--and there had been many, although he was considered young for his kind--Stephen could not recall anyone ever looking at him with anything less than adoration and utmost approval evident in the gaze. And now here stood Andrew, scowling for all he was worth. And maybe he had reason. He had seen the War and the Fall and--
“What are you staring at?” demanded Andrew, the usually delicately smooth skin of his forehead creasing deeply. Stephen wondered if it was painful; it looked as if it might be. Angel skin, Stephen was sure, was not meant to be folded in such a way. And so, to relieve his elder, Stephen made for the bay and waded in.
When he felt sufficiently clean--and, to be honest, he’d never really felt dirty--and came back onto the shore, Andrew said, “Now you might do well to keep a little off the ground, like me.” And he began to half walk, half glide away from the water, leaving Stephen with no choice but to hasten behind him.
Lucien Defeu’s office was at the top of the highest building in the city. All but one wall was entirely glass. Lucien liked this vantage point, this ability to look down on the world. And he liked being this close to Heaven.
He sat back in the soft leather chair and propped his shiny shoes on his desk, next to the stacks of papers brought in periodically by his minions. A sly smile stretched his thin lips into near extinction. Minions. He liked the word, the sound. Here in the evening-dim office, he found it particularly appealing. He wasn’t quite sure why.
Then, without even a knock, the office door (which was situated in the one opaque wall) slammed open and one of Lucien’s minions entered, short of breath and panic-stricken.
Lucien arched a fine eyebrow; he was hardly used to such intrusive behavior from his well-trained workers. Lucien had spent far too much time constructing his efficient organization to have chaos--at least, any chaos he hadn’t planned for--bring it all crashing down now.
“Simon.” Lucien said it slowly, as if tasting his employee’s fear.
The gulp was almost audible. “Sir,” Simon acknowledged shakily.
“I suppose,” Lucien went on calmly, smoothly as a snake, “you have a good reason for bursting into my office unannounced?”
“Yes, sir.” It was barely a whisper.
Silence. The sun was gone now, the room quickly sinking with it into darkness. The buildings outside were nothing more than giant silhouettes that glittered with the only light most of the workaholics inside them would ever see. Lucien smiled again. It was not pleasant. Then, remembering his more immediate surroundings, he said with some impatience, “Well?”
Simon gasped as if the word had stabbed him. “He’s sent—”
Lucien sat up suddenly, and Simon did not have to be able to see through the darkness to guess at his boss’s expression.
“How could I have missed it?” Lucien growled to himself. Then, to Simon, “Where are they? Why are they here?”
“We’re working on it, sir. We just thought—” “Don’t think! Do! Do something!”
Simon gave a hasty bow and escaped the now thoroughly dark office.
They had been walking for a long time, which for them was no time at all. Still, Stephen was relieved when Andrew pointed to the dark city on the horizon and said, “There.”
“What place is this?” whispered Stephen.
“The City of Lost Angels.”
Stephen’s silver eyes widened and his breath caught in his chest. He had heard the stories--yes, even angels had ballads, tales, and rumors--but to see it! To see the truth behind the psalms sung on high; it was frightening and compelling and it upset Stephen’s normal sense of balance and peace.
“He’s there?” Stephen asked.
“Yes.” Oh the hate, the loathing embedded in that one word! Could any true angel say such a thing? Stephen’s gaze slid from the far-off city and focused on his companion. His elder. His superior, whose face had lost the light that shone from all other angels’ faces. The darkness that had taken root in Andrew’s features caused Stephen pain.
Andrew began to walk again, scowling and resolute. Stephen followed only because he had nowhere else to go; he could hardly return to the Throne without having done what he’d been sent to do. Which was. . . ?
“What will we do when we get there?” “We must search for a righteous man.”
Stephen nodded; he knew this story. They would find the one righteous man in the city and send him and his family away to safety. Then. . . Stephen shuddered. There was a cold spirit nearby, perhaps several. He opened his mouth to mention it, but Andrew cut him short.
“I know,” the elder said. “They want to know why we’re here. Well, let them know. The Lord’s justice will not be curbed, nor will His wrath.”
The words brought to Stephen’s mind an image of Michael. He’d seen the warrior angel once, only once, in full regalia, peering over the high wall of Heaven. Did Michael always dress that way, as if he expected a war to break out at any moment? Where was his peace, Stephen wondered. Or did he only find peace in war?
Jezebel stretched languidly across the desk, propped up by an elbow. She pushed at Lucien with a bare foot. “What’s with you?”
He sighed. He was not in the mood, not tonight, for her games. In the west, clouds were beginning to gather over the ocean. Behind them would come the darkness, the only darkness that Lucien was unable to see through.
“They couldn’t destroy you the first time,” she went on, “so why are you worried now?”
“I’m not worried,” he snapped. He rubbed his face with his palms. “I’m tired.”
She sat up and swung around to face him fully, and the fluid, feline motion of her body sent a chill up his spine. But he remained very still. It was part of their game, to see how much he could stand before--
She extended her feet so that they rested on the arms of his chair near his hands. He could see, even in the dimness of the city lights, the only lights in the office, that she wore no underwear under her short, tight dress.
Jezebel leaned forward as, with the strength of her legs, she pulled Lucien and his chair closer. Her long, copper hair brushed against his arm, his cheek as she hissed in his ear, “Too tired for me?”
Suddenly, he was furious. He stood, pushed her aside, and began pacing before his windows, his beautiful windows. This was his city, he’d built it on the ruins of Eden as a monument to his work, and he would not let it go.
Jezebel sat back again on the desk, swinging her lovely legs. There was not a more perfect woman in all Creation. Lucien glared at her. He hated her. He hated everyone. No, that wasn’t true. He simply didn’t like anyone. Either way, Jeze
bel didn’t care, he was sure. She was in it for the thrill of power.
Lucien stopped and forced himself again to be still, jamming his hands into his pockets as he gazed out at the city. He heard Jezebel move behind him, felt her approach as the scent of her perfume grew stronger. It was the smell of decaying leaves, the smell of a heavy, breezeless day in the Garden District of New Orleans, the smell of a haunted past.
Ah, New Orleans. What a city that had been!
Jezebel snaked her arms around his shoulders and rested her chin on his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his neck and throat. “Come on, honey,” she murmured. “I’m bored.”
“And I told you, I’m tired.” He tried to shrug her off, but her long, painted fingernails dug into his chest like a mean-spirited cat that, when you try to put it down, puts its claws in you not because it is afraid of falling but merely out of spite.
She kissed him behind the ear, then on the side of his neck. He tilted his head slightly to oblige her. Then, in one swift move he took hold of her arms and forced her away. He would not give in and lose this game so quickly.
With a little growl of frustration escaping through her clinched teeth, Jezebel pulled Lucien’s cigarettes from his suitcoat pocket and walked away from him, back to the desk. He mechanically held out his lighter for her, which she swiped from his grasp, refusing to allow him the courtesy. He gave a small shrug to show he didn’t care and went back to gazing out the window. “Bring me my bible,” he said. It came out flat, toneless, but it was enough to make Jezebel gasp.
Then, for the second time in one evening, the office door burst open. “Sir, we have news.”
“Evidently,” Lucien replied dourly. “What is it?” “They’re here to find the Righteous One.”
Still, very still. A rock, a pillar. He took a deep breath. “Bring me my bible,” he said again. When she didn’t move, he turned on her. “Now!”
Jezebel slapped the lighter onto the desk and marched across the room to where the book was kept in a glass case. It was beautiful, written by the hand of the Lord Himself, and the words burned upon the page. They were not ink but flame. Gently she lifted it from its place, surprised it did not scald her.
The World Ends at Five & Other Stories Page 5