"Gabrielle."
Gabrielle spun around. A voice. Speaking her name. Right in her ear. Uttered from just inches behind her. But there was no one there. She was alone in the woods. She turned again toward the coffee shop when the voice spoke again.
"I apologize for frightening you back there," the voice said in her head.
It was Zacharael.
7.2
Cole accepted the glass of iced tea with a wink. The girl, Dizzy they called her, though it seemed her given name was Dorothy, smiled shyly in return and went back to sit next to her father, Vince. Cole looked down at his tea. Dizzy had hung a wedge of lemon on the rim. How these folks had gotten their hands on a lemon was just one of the many mysteries here.
Cole was seated in an armchair near the fireplace. Across from him, tightly wedged on the sofa, sat the whole family, Vince and Dizzy in the middle, with the boys, Sam and Pauly, surrounding them like bookends or guard dogs. Stan remained standing near the door. The expression on the faces of Vince and his children was a mixture of awed respect and meek wariness, as though they feared judgment from their king. The look on Stan's face was one of intense interest.
"I'm sorry to hear of your wife," said Cole, sipping his tea. The cool liquid provided some welcome relief in this hot, stuffy home, reminding Cole once again that, while they still had working air conditioning in the Presidential Zone, the rest of his fellow Americans were not so lucky.
Vince nodded his thanks. "It's been hard, Stranger," he said, reaching out to take Dizzy's hand. "Hardest on the kids, you know?" He glanced at his sons, then looked down at his lap for a moment before returning his gaze to Cole. "I'm not... you know... the most patient and loving man in the world. I... I try." Vince smiled grimly, as if hoping that Cole would see how much he tried.
"I'm sure you do your best," Cole said. He took another sip of the tea. The taste was strange. Woody, with a bitter tang. Yet the lemon and the dab of honey were wonderful. "So why did you folks stay here?" he asked at last. "Why didn't you go to the shelters?"
Vince closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, his head shaking slightly from side to side. "With all due respect, Sir," he said at last, opening his eyes, "why didn't you go to the shelters?"
"I take your point," said Cole. "This is your home. Of course you want to stay here."
"Them shelters ain't nothing but trouble," muttered Sam. His eyes had grown dark.
Vince nodded his agreement. "We heard stories," he explained to Cole. "Early on, you know? We just hunkered down here when the troops came through. Got a cabin up on the ridge. Holed up there for a few days, while the soldiers went door to door to encourage people to leave." He smiled at the word "encourage," then sighed and shook his head. "The patrols since have been easy enough to dodge. Less and less of 'em now."
"There has been a great deal of trouble in the shelters," said Stan from his position near the door. "Some of it got pretty scary for a while. But people seem to have settled down now."
Vince glanced up at Stan, then returned his attention to Cole. "They're only going to stay settled down as long as you folks can feed 'em," he said. "We'll take our chances here. And besides, some of us had to keep the Watch."
"Keep the watch," repeated Cole. "You mean for this Wayfaring Stranger."
"We mean for you, Sir," said Vince, his eyes piercing.
"But... you know who I am..." said Cole, shaking his head.
"We had a television," Vince said, smiling to cover his irritation. "You and the Mrs. even made the cover of People magazine, you know."
"But..."
"So?" said Vince. "I mean... sure, it comes as a surprise to us too. But there you have it. No reason the President's husband can't also be the Stranger, is there? In fact, it all kind of just fits together right, you know?"
"'He will not know himself until the Time Has Come'," said Dizzy, her face rapt with the recitation of scripture.
"That's right!" said Vince, laughing and patting his daughter's hand. He turned back to Cole. "I say again, sir, 'welcome back.'"
Stan stepped closer. "So this whole story-"
"Ain't no story," said Pauly seriously.
"This whole... idea, then," said Stan. "This Wayfaring Stranger? Where's it come from? What's it mean?"
Vince scooted forward to the edge of the sofa and looked Cole in the eye. "This is Church teaching, Sir," he said. "This is the heart of it: 'The Wayfaring Stranger,' also known as 'The Wandering One,' the 'Magic Man,' and 'The Hand of God,' will rise amongst us in the darkest of times to lead us all back Home. You shall know him by the light of his hands and the righteousness of his Quest. Be awake and aware, for we know not when he shall arrive. Give him what succor and aid you might, and do not stand in his way, for he is powerful beyond measure, and his work is God's work.'" A few tears had welled in Vince's eyes as he spoke and he let them roll down his cheeks. "Do you understand?" he asked of Cole.
Cole's face was tight, his forehead wrinkled. "This church..." he began, trying to make sense of it all.
"The Church of the Strangers," said Vince, pointing toward the sky. "We ain't no Burners."
"The Church of..."
"And you are the Wayfaring Stranger, Mr. Thomas." Vince closed his eyes and started to sing, his voice low and full. "I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger, while traveling through this world below. Yet there's no sickness, no toil, nor danger, in that bright land to which I go." He stopped and opened his eyes, a look of embarrassment on his face. Beside him, Sam grinned.
"And you know this," said Stan, pointing toward Cole, "because of the light we all saw coming from Cole's hands?"
Cole examined his hands, turning them over to view both sides. There was no light now, no fireworks. And there were no signs left behind that the light had ever been there. His hands looked and felt as they always had. He looked over at Vince. "I don't know what that's all about," he said, shaking his head in confusion.
"You grabbed a bullet from the air, Sir," said Sam. "And you took one to the chest that just fell to the ground like you was made of steel. You should be dead now." He turned to his father with a headshake of amazement. "He really doesn't know!" he said. "Just like Pastor Tom said."
"Know what?" said Cole, staring at the floor, afraid to hear the answer.
Vince cleared his throat and sighed. "Stranger?" he said gently. "Mr. Thomas? I gather that this is all a bit of a shock to you, but the Time Has Come and you have work to do. And it seems the Good Lord has given it to me to tell you..." Cole looked up and Vince leaned forward to close the distance between them. "I'm not quite sure how to put it, but... you ain't from around here, Sir."
7.3
"You're taking a big chance here, Sweetie," said Keeley with a tired smile. "Didn't you hear? I'm toxic." She reached up and aimed the remote to mute the television news. Her hair, dull and damp, splayed out on her pillow under her head like a splash of brown paint.
Mary stood, hunched and small, behind the yellow taped line the nurses had put on the floor. She breathed heavily through the mask they'd made her wear. With her gown, her cap, her gloves, and her booties, Mary felt like a space traveler, stepping foot onto the surface of a hostile planet. The notion that the air of this room, or the surfaces of its many objects, was somehow infected with a deadly virus which nobody understood, cast the whole scene in a surreal light. That was her partner there on that bed. It was just a bed. Those were just sheets, and all around them was just air. And yet nothing was as it had been. An invisible presence haunted the room like an angry ghost. Mary wiped the hair from her forehead and tried to smile in return. "They didn't... want me to come in," she said. The long, faint scar on her forehead seemed to shimmer under the overhead fluorescents.
"But of course you talked them into it," said Keeley.
Mary nodded, hugging her hands to her sides in hopes of stopping their trembling. "I merely pointed out that I was taking no more chance than they were. Those... who are caring for you. And that I am responsible for my
own risks."
"You probably scare the hell out of them, Babe. What with your psychic gifts and all."
Mary closed her eyes for a moment and took a long breath, trying to ward off the dizziness that seemed to be crouching right behind her, ready to spring. "Yeah," she said at last. "I guess."
"So," said Keeley, turning her face to profile. "How do I look?" The red on her cheeks and nose resembled bad stage make-up.
"You look good," said Mary automatically. "You-" She stopped and shook her head and exhaled deeply. "No," she said at last. "You... your face. The rash. It's come so quickly. It... it frightens me."
"You slept through the bedside manners class, didn't you doctor?" said Keeley.
"Oh, Sweetie," said Mary, her eyes filling with tears. She shivered in the coolness of the hospital's central air conditioning.
Keeley shook her head. "I expect nothing else from you, Mar," said Keeley. "Having somebody tell me the truth is like a breath of fresh air around here."
Mary let the tears flow without words of explanation.
"You've come to look at my field, haven't you?" said Keeley. There were tears in her own eyes now. Shame and grief and fear had all risen to her face.
Mary nodded again. "I have," she said.
"Now I'm the one who's frightened," said Keeley.
"Oh..." was all Mary could say in response, a soft, breathy, moan.
Keeley held up a hand, pulling at the IV in her arm. "I need to know," she said softly.
Mary closed her eyes and took three long breaths. Then she opened her eyes slightly and peered at Keeley, cocking her head to the left like she always did when she opened her newfound power of sight to the spiritual landscape of another, as if tilting her brain might throw her thinking mind offline enough to let the non-rational get through.
Beneath the upper and more dominant emotional layers of shame and grief and fear, beneath the rapidly shifting series of images that hovered around her like floating television screens, Mary could see the new presence she'd come to observe. The virus. The pandemic. The alien flu. It flickered in her field like glitter tossed across a shaft of sunlight. And yet it was as much dark as light, as if each particle of glitter had both a silver side and a black one.
Mary willed her awareness of Keeley's field to shift, and brought her focus directly on the being they now called Greensleeves. Images of high-tech labs came to her then, of masked men and gloved hands, of dark, rich rooms and hushed conversations. The virus, if that's what this was, did not feel evil to Mary. No more evil than a tiger that kills to eat or a fire that burns. Neither did the men feel evil, really. And yet there was darkness here. Intention. Secret plans. A disregard for the greater good. Even a stain of scorn. But look as she might, these shadier whiffs remained elusive. They would not resolve into anything that Mary could see clearly.
And then the images shifted and Mary, with a start, pulled herself out of her trance to speak to Keeley. "You ate fast food," she said with surprise and confusion. She pushed the hair from her face.
Keeley blushed, causing her rash to fade momentarily away. "I..." she said, a slight squeak of protest that stopped as soon as it had begun. There was no arguing with Mary's statement.
Mary closed her eyes again. "That's the key," she said after a moment. "Or a key..." She opened her eyes. "Did you feel a craving?"
Keeley smiled weakly. "I don't know what came over me," she said. "I was on my way here to see you and..." She stopped. Mary understood.
"That's how it works," said Mary with a single nod of certainty. "This flu. There's the... virus itself, but there's a secondary trigger in the food. Probably the GMO corn syrup." Mary, now shaking with excitement, turned to leave.
"Mary?" said Keeley.
Mary turned and rolled her eyes. "Oh, Sweetie," she said. "I'm sorry. I just... I need to tell the doctors right away. They need to know this. I'll be right back. Okay?"
"You go, girl," said Keeley.
Mary turned and left the room.
7.4
The Fisherman raised his eyebrows playfully, then disappeared. Linda sat and breathed deeply. She knew that he intended for her to follow him again. And she would, soon enough. But she felt a distinct relief at his absence, and preferred to simply enjoy that for a moment first. She was becoming more than a little annoyed at how long this was taking. William's "I hope you understand one day" and "I want you to love me" were losing their endearing quality. They felt more and more like bait, with Linda the fish on the Fisherman's hook. He'd told her, years ago, that he would reel her in. Now he was doing just that, it seemed. And Linda did not like the feel of the lure in her mouth.
The frozen "Fortunate One" underneath her stared up blankly. For a moment, Linda envied him. He was at rest, at least. She was exhausted. It was not a body thing, this exhaustion. She wasn't in a body. It was her mind that was tired beyond words. Her soul. Her spirit. She shook her head in wonderment. The constant pressures of the weight of the world had brought her to the point where she was now wishing for her own eternal rest, though her present experience indicated that there was no such thing. And William was heaping on even more, trying to pawn off on her the decision to oversee the depopulation of the planet. Wouldn't that look good on her resume?
It felt nuts. One morning she's abducted from her home and drugged into unconsciousness, and she wakes up trapped in a lobster tank on the planet Mars. It's not the sort of thing one imagines as a kid when the teacher asks what you want to do when you grow up.
Linda closed her eyes and bowed her head. Right now, on another planet, there were three kids... not her kids, exactly, but they felt like hers... living in a world where even the question of what you want to do when you grow up no longer made much sense. Grow up? Who could think that far out with the climate spiraling so quickly out of control? Yeats had been right. The center had not held. Things were now falling apart. Anarchy, as she and her people all now knew from rough, painful experience, was anything but "mere." And the kids' innocence had long since been drowned. How could it be that the President of the United States, the so-called "leader of the free world," could be so powerless in the face of it all? Yeah. She'd been set up all right.
How long had she been gone? Was Cole holding things together? And was her staff even looking for her? Or had this computer simulation fooled them all? The only way for her to get answers, it seemed, was through William. But could she trust anything he might tell her? Linda sighed heavily. This was the source of her deepest exhaustion, she thought: it was impossible to trust anything anymore. There was no steady ground. All there was was tripping and falling and falling further. All there was was staying on the hook and seeing what boat the Fisherman hauled her into.
And why the hell not? Jesus! Let this Fisherman take charge. With the whole world falling apart, with all hope lost, who was she, President or not, to think she knew which way to lead? William was right. She had failed. So perhaps it was time to let go of leading and just follow for a while. There were good forces and bad, Obie had told her. Maybe the good guys were responsible for Linda's present situation. Maybe she was actually being helped here. Maybe there would be answers at the end, and meaningful actions she might take. So what if she didn't like the feel of the hook in her mouth? Maybe it would stop hurting if she would just quit tugging on the damned line.
Something suddenly softened in Linda as a piece of acceptance slipped into place. She was who she was, and she was doing her best. That would have to suffice. With a quiet sigh, she reached out to pat the bench on which she sat, as if she could somehow comfort the frozen figure beneath the surface. These people were a teaching tool. That's why William had brought her here: to use these Fortunate as an example. Discarded shells, he'd called them. Fortunate to be done with their physical bodies. Fortunate to have gone back to their true home. The thought of that brought an illusory tear to Linda's immaterial eye. Jesus. She was sitting in what people called the Astral realm! Was it really true, that her own body w
as just a shell? Was this her true home? How much evidence did she need?
William wanted her to accept the non-material reality of the human spirit, no doubt thinking that to do so would make depopulating the Earth an easier task. But it just didn't feel that simple. Immortal sparks of spirit or not, the kids, Cole’s kids, now maybe even her kids, were walking in physical bodies on a dying world right now. That was real too. And Linda was not convinced that the physical realm should be dismissed out of hand. It may be that William suspected the same thing. Perhaps that's why he did not trust himself.
What Linda trusted, right now, was her heart. There was no “figuring things out.” There was no “knowing what to do.” But there was her heart, and her heart felt honest and true to her. She could trust it, even when all else failed. Her heart told her that William, despite his membership in a secret layer of society that Linda did not trust, was trying to do good. Her heart told her that there was no way out but to go through, to stay on his line and let him reel her in. Her heart reminded her that there was good in the world, and that she could trust her sense of the good, and go toward it. William's expression before he'd left was not the mocking, teasing grin of an arrogant, controlling monster. It was the playful request of a colleague who was truly asking for her help. It was an invitation, perhaps from the Universe itself, to take the next step on her journey.
Obie had told her that her fate was much larger than to lead her people for a term or two. It was to help lead the whole of humanity to the stars. She ached to be on that path. Perhaps she was. Perhaps, even now when it seemed that all was lost, all was not lost.
Linda smiled tenderly at the dead alien, then stood and rose into the air of the tiny, circular room. It was time to go find William and see what he had in mind next. She had no choice but to trust her heart. But she would remember that her heart, this blood-pumping, truth-knowing, reality-sensing organ, was not just a thing of spirit, but a thing of muscle and blood as well, beating slowly but surely in a body encased in a force field of some sort on the surface of Mars. She closed her eyes, conjured an image of that strange, older man in the Hawaiian shirt, and stepped forward to meet him again.
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