Hark! the Herald Angels Scream

by Hark! the Herald Angels Scream (retail) (epub)

  Bailey’s standing in the door frame; he’s her favorite, though she’d never say it aloud. Not because he reminds her of his father, because he doesn’t, but because he reminds her of herself. There’s something so very light about him, from the way he walks to the way he talks. Phips used to sneer effeminate, which was curious given that he’d tell her during their worst fights that she was masculine—or perhaps not so curious. Yes, they fought; mostly he gave in, but sometimes resentment would rise up from somewhere deep inside and he’d spew forth an acidic fury few folk would have believed him capable of. Then he’d rage and shout and throw things—not at her, he wasn’t that stupid—but at the things around her, so it was like he was trying to hit the pedal to dunk her in a tub of water, trying to find the trigger that would make her hurt. Phips’s heart was tender.

  It never worked.

  “Mom?” Bailey was softhearted, too, though his father never saw it. That’s why he’d named his youngest “Phips,” even if the old man wasn’t around to see it anymore. The little boy is strapped to Bailey’s chest, and his was the heartbeat the child would know best, of that Agnes was certain.

  “Yes, honey?”

  “Are you comfortable like that?” He nods at her crossed legs, at the lotus position she habitually adopted when she was on her own, when there was no one around to see how she never moved like an old woman unless she was in company. Her flesh had declined, yes, but beneath it she was ageless. She just had to hide it most of the time, that was all.

  A deception she’s finding more frustrating by the day.

  “Oh. Sometimes I forget,” she says, and smiles, uncrossing her legs and letting her feet touch the floor beside her house shoes. He’ll tell the others I’m getting demented, she thinks. “How is that little one today?”

  Bailey comes over, unstrapping the child. He hands his youngest to Agnes, who rocks Phips gently as the blue, blue eyes stare up at her in awe. She wonders if perhaps the littlest ones can see better than the others whose minds have filled with so many mundane things they can no longer perceive what’s uncommon. Small fingers reach up to touch her face, get caught in the furrows of her cheeks. It makes her heart ache, although not enough to stop her.

  Bailey kneels at her feet, just like he used to when he was a toddler and his hair was so blond and curly. It’s cut short now; he looks like a soldier, but he’s an accountant. “Dinner will be ready soon, Mom. Amy asked me to let you know.”

  “How kind. I am looking forward to some of her turkey,” says Agnes. It’s always been her gift, to sound sincere even under the most trying of circumstances, the driest of Christmas turkeys. She rubs noses with the baby, thinks Good-bye. No need to get too attached.

  “Mom, have you thought anymore on what we talked about? At Thanksgiving?”

  Thanksgiving, when all she’d got were calls. Thanksgiving, when her best boy thought the subject he’d broached was a conversation to be had on the phone. Then again, she reminds herself, that was the price of Christmas. Didn’t stop her from feeling annoyed about being alone then. But Christmas was better, Christmas fit the bill. She smiles and Bailey thinks it’s for him.

  “I know it’s hard, Mom, to think about leaving. You—we—have so many memories here.” He sounds sad; perhaps he really is. But not sad enough to do the right thing. To respect his mother’s house, her wishes, her memory. They’ve mistaken her for a little old lady, which, she supposes, is understandable; that’s what she’s been—appeared as—for so many years. “But you’ll like the new place. It’s full of people your own age, they have clubs, movie nights, knitting circles—”

  “I’m sure it’s delightful, Bailey darling, but I’m not going.”

  “Mom, you said you’d think about it—”

  “And I did, but that’s not the same as agreeing,” Agnes says, a hint of steel in her voice. When had her sons decided she was feeble? Open to being bullied? That they were young eagles who could tear at her belly? Was it just their bitch wives who had pushed for this? Were her sons so without intestinal fortitude—without balls—that they’d agree to anything their spouses suggested? She leans forward, hisses into Bailey’s face, “If you think you’re going to ship me off to God’s waiting room that smells of piss and shit and boiled cabbage, Bailey, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  Her son recoils in distaste. They’ll take that, the cursing, as a sign of dementia. Why couldn’t she get pleasant dementia? she imagines Brian complaining as if she’s already got the other kind, as if she’s not in full control of her faculties, as if she couldn’t still think rings around him. Her oldest has always hated that he’s never been able to win an argument with her, never been able to put one over her. Agnes saw right through him from the day he was born. He’s only ever submitted to her will because he was too stupid to think his way out of it, too afraid to try to intimidate her. He’s afraid of his wife, too, sharp-eyed Jill, so he cheats on her regularly and thinks she doesn’t know. Thinks his mother doesn’t know, either, thinks she can’t see into his head and heart.

  Adam, her quiet middle boy, is smart but sly. He’ll store away all the little behaviors that can be made to appear aberrant, start making notes. He’s a doctor, he’ll be the one to get her declared unfit, asking his roster of medical friends to sign off on the required documents. She imagines them, a cabal of professionals: You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours; legions of elderly parents consigned to places they shouldn’t be just because their children can’t be bothered to be grateful. He’ll be estimating how soon they can sell the house so he can use his share to pay off the gambling debts he thinks no one knows about.

  But Bailey, sweet Bailey, believes he’s doing the right thing. He’s taken her silences, her melancholy, for signs of a decrepit old age; thinks she’s drifting. Thinks his mother needs company, needs to be somewhere she’s watched twenty-four hours a day as if that’s something to be desired! As if she no longer requires her privacy, her independence. That’s why the family sent in Bailey, her baby, her favorite: so his credulity might convince her.

  Agnes is missing her old life, true, but not the one her boys or Phips shared. The weight of grief doesn’t lessen, she’s found, even when the loss is one you yourself occasioned by fleeing. She stares down at the baby in her arms—honestly, she’d almost forgotten he was there. She looks at Bailey and returns the child to his father’s trembling hands.

  All she can think is, With such divine blood in their veins, how did they get so mundane?

  * * *

  —

  She wonders if it would be different if she’d had daughters: would she have hesitated if she’d produced girls? They have such power, after all, so rich and full of life. But the daughters-in-law are not hers, she shares no blood, no link with them. Her sons are as weak with their spouses as their father was with her; she shouldn’t be surprised to find them so easily dominated.

  Bailey is back in the kitchen, reporting his failure. She can hear them clear as a bell, clear as she can hear the snow falling outside, clear as she’s always been able to hear everything in this house. In the street, too; even farther if she’d but let her powers loose. But to do so would have been to draw attention. Agnes has no doubt she’s still being looked for. She’s seen enough of her brethren over the years, sitting in trees, on rooftops, in the belfries of nearby churches where they can siphon off the adoration, get drunk on it. Junkies, she’d once have thought, for it wasn’t something she indulged in; she wasn’t that kind of being, although judgment was long her stock-in-trade. One of them, but not the same. Set apart; so far apart, really, that at the time it was easy enough to decide she didn’t want to be there at all. Didn’t want to be in the nest with the rest. She was a cuckoo, no matter that she looked the same. A cuckoo in her heart and mind, a cuckoo with a silver sword etched red by blood—a substance of which she’d grown so very weary.

  She can
hear Brian now: If she won’t go quietly, then we’ll force her out. She can go kicking and screaming. My, how brave he sounds when she’s not in sight, when he thinks she’s out of earshot. Adam now: I’ll talk to some of my colleagues. It’s not that hard, to get old people declared non compos, not really.

  Oh, you little shit, Agnes thinks. Did she deserve them? Were her sins really so great? In her heart, she knows the answer. That’s why her self-imposed exile has begun to hurt so much. Even though she thought herself different, distinct, apart, the Heavenly Host was her first family, her true family.

  She wants nothing so much, she now knows, as to go home.

  When she fled the Heavens, denied her Father and refused her name—Azra, Azrael—she was hunted, sought out, constantly discovered until she’d at last hidden herself thoroughly in humanity. When she wrapped her sacred flesh in the ordinary stuff of mortals, when she lived a life as one of them, when she almost let herself forget who and what she’d been, then she’d been free. The angelics sitting in trees, on stoops, disguised as beggars, no longer looked at her twice. Perhaps she’d sunk so truly into being other that when she gave birth none of her divinity could pass to her sons. How else could they be so fucking ordinary? So disappointing?

  She’d found Phips so soon after she’d fled, he seemed to be what she needed, a good disguise, a mostly easygoing mate—but with him gone she thinks more and more on the old days, recalls with nostalgia being something different entirely. Inside the aging flesh she remains what she’d once been. Always been. Unlike others who chose to fall, who’d begged their departure from the powers that be, she had asked no permission. Doing so would have meant she’d have to have given up her memories, her uniqueness, her wings, and that was something she wouldn’t countenance.

  Quite apart from anything else, the Lord God had no interest in letting its Angel of Death go lightly. It was not a forgiving God, no matter what the propaganda said. A simple apology would not suffice.

  It did, however, love a good sacrifice.

  “It’s time,” Agnes says, and stands. She smiles at the pink marble of the fireplace that she selected long years ago, because she knew it had a dampening effect; because she knew it would camouflage what she hid there. The old woman makes a fist, knows this will hurt, for the human meat is vulnerable and fragile, but there’s a different core underneath that will shine through soon enough. She draws the fist back, concentrates, and then rams her knuckles into the stone, through it, feels the broken rock tearing the muscle, breaking the bones, ripping at the skin. Agnes doesn’t hesitate, repeats the blow, does so again and again until there is a good-size rectangular hole. She reaches in with her broken, bleeding right hand, feels around, finds the cloth wrapping with a tiny relief, retrieves the bundle, and unwraps it.

  The light from the fire picks out the red engraved along the silver blade, so it looks like pulsing veins. The sword will draw Them down, she knows. Even now she can hear its song, so high that only dogs and angels can perceive. Her family won’t hear. They won’t know anything until the last moment. She’ll do them a greater kindness than they’d have done in deserting her in a single room in some low-rent care facility, wasting her days in despair and fear.

  The hilt is warm in her palm. Its touch speeds up the process of unbecoming: the broken skin and flesh peel back from her fingers, her hand, up her arm, across her shoulders, down her back to her heels, up her neck, over her head, down her face, throat, chest, stomach, thighs, knees, shins, ankles, and feet. It sloughs off as a snake’s might, taking her gray hair, red dress, and black stockings with it, to reveal the bright shining substance beneath. Flesh like white opal, limbs long and muscular, a warrior’s garb and breastplate in a dove-gray leather whose sheen is glorious to behold. And at her back…

  …at her back, the wings. They scrape the ceiling; with a spiteful swipe she uses one to knock the angel from the top of the tree. In the kitchen is the laughter of her children and grandchildren, of her daughters-in-law with their malicious giggles, plotting what they’ll do with their share of the sale proceeds. Agnes thinks of the grandchildren, of their innocence, then shrugs. The Lord God does love a good sacrifice, and innocent blood will buy more than what flows in her sons’ veins. Agnes thinks how wonderful the red will look on the white of the snow, like a beacon to those above.

  Help me. Take me home. I’m ready.

  Flexing her wings, Agnes heads for the kitchen.

  HOME

  TIM LEBBON

  The man woke up hungry again. It was the same every morning, and he didn’t think things would ever change, but that didn’t prevent him from mourning his lack of food. Nor did he ever stop feeling the intense cold, suffering from pains in his bones, or hearing voices in his head because outside was so silent, still, and desolate. Sometimes he believed that dwelling upon the wretchedness of his existence was the only thing keeping him alive.

  He rolled onto his back. The ice that had formed over his one thick blanket crackled and broke, and as he sat up he heard the familiar sound of his bones doing the same. He took in a deep breath. It seemed to stall in his lungs, heavy and cold, and his heart felt like a lump of ice. He sighed, and his meager exhalation misted ice crystals in the air before him. They drifted and settled on the inner surface of the small tent. He wasn’t certain how long he sat and stared. Time had lost all meaning.

  Eventually he reached for the flap. He sensed that the sun was up, and once outside the tent he would perform his usual morning rituals. Sometimes they took him all day.

  Today, he would ensure that they did not. He was almost there.

  Standing, stretching, the beauty and horror of what he saw struck home as it did every single morning. “Look at that, Old Bob,” he said. “There’s the end of the world, just as it was yesterday, and just like it’ll be tomorrow. And only you and me left to witness it.”

  The dawn sky was smeared red, pink, and purple, like an open wound or the sickly tint of spilled insides. The sun hung above the eastern horizon, piercing the heavy atmosphere yet still undefined. Soon it would disappear as heavy clouds began to build toward the midday blizzard, but he was pleased to see it, for a while at least. It was the first time in seven days.

  He had camped beside a rocky outcropping on top of a hill. By the time he’d pitched the tent and buried Old Bob, it had been too late to check for dangers—icy outcroppings, frozen ledges, the chance of the tent being swept down the hillside in the grip of an avalanche. He’d crawled into the tent not really caring. One day he would be taken, and as he suspected he was the last man standing, that event would come as a blessed relief. He did not court danger, but neither did he expend every ounce of energy and brainpower avoiding it. He wandered, camped, backtracked, searching for nothing, staying nowhere. He was like a breath of wind that would never find a home. It didn’t make him sad. He remembered too little to be sad.

  With each day the same, it was easy to forget how many had passed and awful to consider how many would follow. Few days threw up anything different enough to differentiate them. They were dictated by his search for food, water, and shelter. They were uniformly cold, usually with a blizzard around midday and a rapid descent into a clear-skied, blood-freezing night. He only rarely saw living things, and over the past few years—or maybe a score of years, he had no way of knowing for sure—there were so few creatures left alive that seeing one marked a day as unique. Seventeen days ago he’d seen a bird spiraling high up, so high that he could not make out its species. He’d watched for a while, then followed as it drifted eastward, spending hours kicking through fresh snow and hauling Old Bob behind him, finally losing sight of the creature as the day’s snow began. More than fifty days prior to that, he’d found a mouse half-frozen into the cracked bark on the side of a rotten tree. He’d plucked it from the tree and tucked it into his pocket, planning to cook it later if he could start a fire. But later it was gone, escaped
through a hole in his jacket. He was glad. He hoped it was still alive somewhere, if only because seeing it again ten days or a hundred into the future would make a day special for him once again.

  And today, down in the valley is…he thought, frowning at the idea that there would be anything down there other than what he’d seen everywhere else. He sometimes had these brief flashes of expectation, as if there was a separate consciousness within him constantly searching for something new. Searching for hope.

  He knew there was no hope. Walking to the edge of the steep drop-off and looking down into the snow-smothered valley only confirmed that.

  The valley sides had once been heavily forested, but the trees were now stiff, stark shards, angular spikes pushing up from the deep snow. Leafless, most branches gone, many of the remaining trunks were rotten. A heavy wind would topple some. The relentless passage of time would take the rest. There had been no new trees for a long, long time.

  Wending along the valley floor was a river. Ice floes drifted from east to west, and here and there they clogged the river and formed dams. Several small lakes had widened and broken the banks. Waterfalls tumbled. Mist rose, freezing and falling back onto the water’s surface. It might have looked beautiful if it weren’t for the small town the river flowed through.

  He caught his breath. “Old Bob!” he called. “Come and see! We didn’t know how close we were.”

  I knew, he thought, I always know. That internal voice again. He recognized it as his own, yet he did not understand the words. Perhaps it was madness stalking him.

  Old Bob did not reply. It was too early.

  The town was not large, perhaps three hundred homes and other buildings splayed either side of the river. Two bridges spanned the waterway, both fallen. A handful of buildings might once have been tall, but their upper floors had fallen or been blasted down. He could discern little detail from this far away, mainly because of the blanket of snow blurring the landscape like a hazy memory. But he knew what he would find when he made his way down. He’d seen it all before, everywhere else, and he would see it again.