“Hello,” said the golem, almost reassuringly, Cyrus thought. It took a sip of the tea.
“Hello,” answered Anthea, smiling gently at it. The golem smiled back at her. A mouthful of tea spilled out and back into her cup. Anthea reached over and dried her chin and shirt with a checkered tea towel.
“The part of her that is alive is what you have given her. When the magic that vitalizes her runs its course, her form with dissipate, the dirt will return to the earth, and the energy you have given her will return to you. Think of her as a tool that your body uses to protect you, like white blood cells.”
A sudden thump from outside made them both jump. Cyrus listened for a moment.
“We’ll have to continue this conversation later. It sounds like a storm out there. Really not what we need at the moment. It’s about the right time of year for the Santa Anna’s to be blowing, but the smell is off,” He abruptly stopped his rambling, “We have to go. Now.”
The golem stood suddenly. “Hello,” it declared, determined. Cyrus put his hand on Anthea’s shoulder.
The three of them drove over to Anthea’s house in silence, Cyrus behind the wheel, with the golem sitting next to him in the front seat. Anthea herself was crouched in the floorboards of the back seat, her body hidden by a cloth. Her face was uncovered, and she was staring up at the sky through the windows. She was thinking of another escape, in another vehicle, under another cloth, in another life. The sun had set long ago, and the wind was whipping through the city, creating a dusty haze. Every streetlamp had a thick halo surrounding its sallow light. The usually placid palm trees whipped their thin fingers around violently, throwing their dead fronds crashing to the ground. Cyrus was driving slowly and almost casually, it seemed to Anthea. And he was talking to her.
“I’m going to walk her to the door, but I will not go inside unless you allow me to. Is there anything inside that you need?” he asked Anthea.
She had nothing but her purse, and could not think of anything personal that she would want to recover from her home. She did not answer his question right away.
“Enter by the side door. The hand rail and door knob are charged. You’ll need to turn the power off. There’s a switch in the center of the garden hose to the left,” she answered finally.
Cyrus chuckled at her cleverness and it made Anthea smile faintly. “Anything else?”
Too soon they arrived on her street. “Stay out of sight and do not move an inch. Do you understand? Don’t even speak.”
“Take care of her, please,” Anthea said, and reached a hand through the seats to stroke the golem’s arm “Take care, sweet one. I’ll miss you.”
“Hello?” the golem asked, confused.
“Yes,” Anthea breathed, “hello.” She pulled the cloth to cover the emotions on her face.
The car turned into the driveway and lumbered to a halt. Cyrus, affecting a gallant appearance, jumped out and walked around to help the golem out of the vehicle. She looked up at him sweetly and allowed herself to be led to the door. The wind blew a hot gust into the car, making Anthea’s eyes water and her nose tickle. She breathed slowly and carefully, determined not to sneeze.
The car doors closed and Anthea could hear the muffled sound of Cyrus’ voice as he walked her golem to the door. Even though the uncanniness should have unnerved her, she was heartbroken that she would never see the sweet creature again. Long moments passed and Cyrus reappeared in the car, sitting down and sighing.
He glanced in his rearview mirror to back the car out of the driveway but then suddenly whipped his head around to look behind the car. In the mirror he had seen a dark figure standing at the end of the drive, but now it was gone.
“Shit,” he muttered quietly, and then launched into a litany of chants and prayers. Anthea went from being merely still to frozen as he backed out of the driveway and sped away, praying to anything that would listen to protect her golem.
Chapter 16
Answers
Cyrus drove down the darkened highways as though nothing was troubling him, as though no unholy demons in human flesh were pursuing him, as though he wasn’t smuggling precious innocence from the clutches of unimaginable terror.
In truth, he was somewhat pleased with how well the escape was going so far. He could feel from the tingling in his scalp that Agatha believed the golem was really Anthea. He had tricked her, and it was feeding him. This was a very pleasant thought indeed. Even better, his trick was saving Anthea and harming no one. But how to bring Anthea out of her guilt and sadness?
After a few hours, he spoke.
“You can come out now,” he said. “Come sit up front with me.”
Anthea heard him but did not respond, nor did she move from the back seat. After a few moments, he tried again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
She still did not respond. Talk about what? That she’d just abandoned the closest thing she would ever have to a child to the closest thing she would ever have to a mother? That she’d just abandoned a magical creature of her own flesh and blood (sort of) to a creature bent on terror and destruction?
Guilt and confusion warred for space within her. How could she love something like the golem so immediately and wholly? And why had her own mother never loved her this fiercely? How could she leave something so innocent in the hands of something so evil? What was wrong with her? Cyrus seemed to understand.
“No matter what happens to her,” he said gently, “she will not feel any pain. That much I know.”
“Will she sleep?” asked Anthea, finally. “And if she sleeps, will she dream? Does she understand fear? Does she understand dreams?”
“Come sit. Let’s talk,” Cyrus answered.
Anthea did as he asked. She was grateful to move her body after being still for so long. Her neck and hips ached, and half her body felt hot and tingly from the heat and vibrations of the floorboards. She sank into the seat with relief and buckled the seatbelt.
“I do not believe your golem will sleep or dream at all. When she lays down for the night, she will close her eyes and it will look as though she is sleeping, but she does not have the neurological or spiritual capacity to dream, nor does she have the physical need to rest.”
A tightness that had wound its way through Anthea’s chest began to unravel somewhat at his words. Dawn was just beginning to turn the horizon a rich navy. She hadn’t realized how much time had passed while she ruminated.
“She will experience some basic emotions, but it’s more like she’s remembering them than feeling them. Think of her like a program running on a sophisticated computer. She can access some of the computer’s functions with permissions that you built in to her, but she can’t go beyond that. And she relies on the whole machine for her most basic framework.”
“So if I die, she will also die?” asked Anthea. Some of her fear had begun to diminish and was slowly replaced by her curious nature. She was beginning to recognize what a valuable skill this was. Curiosity had probably protected her mind from fear for her entire life.
“I believe that’s so,” he answered carefully, “but you are not going to die. I am going to protect you, I swear it. No, my friend, you are not going to die. We’re going to go get you a passport.”
Anthea recognized that he was trying to change the subject but she wasn’t ready. She still had too many questions.
“Is this… feeling, these feelings that I’m having… is this normal?” She struggled to articulate what was eating away at her.
“Is it normal for a parent to love a child? Is it normal for the good to want to protect the innocent? Anthea, these are fundamental and absolutely necessary human emotions. If we didn’t all care for other people, a least a tiny bit, this world would collapse.”
“So, do you believe that human beings are fundamentally good?” she asked.
Cyrus again marveled at Anthea’s resilience. This was a heady conversation to be having at this particular moment.
&
nbsp; “I don’t know about that,” he answered truthfully, “but at an evolutionary level, I believe we have an awareness that tells us that what’s good for the group is good for us all. At least we used to. This century’s wars have made me rethink that belief somewhat. It feels sometimes like more and more people believe that what’s good for the group is bad for the individual. Usually because they don’t realize that the group includes them as well. I don’t know, it’s all a mess. People are complicated. Maybe it’s always been like this. Maybe the excuses we made for last century’s imperialist violence are just the same as the one’s we’re making for this century’s capitalist globalization. It’s all the same actors and motives, and they all seem to think they’re acting in everyone’s best interests even though the same people are getting richer and the same people are getting poorer. But sure, I guess I do believe that. If you gave an individual person a choice between helping or hurting someone, regardless of outcomes or consequences, I think they would choose to help.”
He was rambling, but, as usual, Anthea didn’t mind. His hands loosened and repositioned themselves on the steering wheel as he spoke. She found herself wishing he’d reach out, squeeze her hand, tell her everything was fine. She needed that human connection.
“Of course, evolutionary biology also tells us that parents will go to great lengths to protect their own genetic material, whether that’s potential material still contained within the self, or produced material within the child. So, of course it is perfectly normal for you to have maternal feelings toward something you imbued with your spirit and made with your hands. Hell, I even encouraged you to feel a responsibility towards it. Her. Sorry. What I mean is, I’m just as responsible for how you’re feeling as you are.”
Anthea considered this for a little while. Her mind was chewing on the same problem of parental love, but she hadn’t missed Cyrus’ casual mention of rethinking his ideas in the current century. As though he’d had a very long time to think it over.
She sighed and stared out the window. The sun was beginning to rise in front of them as they headed east, into the desert. Her temples and her chest hurt.
“Maybe I’m a golem too. Maybe that’s why my mother follows me. Maybe she wants me back.” Anthea let out a rueful laugh. “Maybe she misses me. How would you even know if you were a golem?”
Anthea stopped herself. She’d been thinking out loud, something she never did. She must be really exhausted, she thought. But Cyrus was a friend, perhaps it was time she trusted him with some of her past.
She turned to look at him and saw that his jaw had gone slack, his eyes wide and hardly seeing the road in front of him. His face had gone a bit pale and his neck muscles tightened as he swallowed once. Twice.
“Your mother,” he breathed.
Whatever else he was thinking, he kept to himself. Anthea didn’t ask, and she didn’t say anything else for a long time. She looked out again into the sunrise and wondered where they were going and what would happen next. Mostly though, and for the first time in her life, Anthea found herself trying not to think.
The sun had fully risen when Cyrus pulled the car off the highway to buy gas and coffee for the two of them. When he returned, Anthea was still staring blankly out the window. He was worried about her.
“Heartbeat,” he said as sat back down in the car, two steaming paper cups in hand. It was a little colder out here than it had been in LA.
She turned her blank expression to him.
“That’s how you know,” he put the two cups down, turned to Anthea, and took both of her hands gently in his. He turned one of her own hands toward her chest and placed it gently near her heart.
“You are not a golem.”
She smiled bleakly. She could indeed feel the heart beating inside her chest. If he was right, then she was a real, living human. That was one question answered. Her small smile died when she considered again the question of her mother. Cyrus took a deep, steadying breath.
“You are not a golem,” he repeated, “You are a flesh and blood human being who has undergone a traumatic past. At the hands of someone who does not love you. At the hands of someone who can not love you. Your mother is not a human being.”
She looked over to him again and her small smile returned. He understood much more about her than she had realized. And that was a kind thing to say.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“Anthea,” he started again, “I’m not just being nice, I’m serious. That woman can’t be your mother. Not your biological mother, anyway. Our kind can’t reproduce.”
She stilled. Our kind? What could that mean? Was Cyrus like her mother? What was Cyrus? Her hand crept slowly toward the handle of the car door.
“No, no, don’t misunderstand,” he said quickly, “I’m nothing like her. That creature may have started out like me, just a canny weirdo with a knack, but she no longer has any humanity left. None at all. She probably doesn’t even remember her human life.”
Anthea was afraid and confused.
“What?” she managed.
“She’s an avatar for something else, something terrifying. She’s not a human being, and she’s not your mother. You are human, you are good, there is nothing wrong with you, and you deserve to know all this. I haven’t been entirely truthful with you, which will come as no surprise I’m sure. I’m… Well I’m far older than you think. And I met your mother once. Over 100 years ago.”
Anthea’s breath caught in her throat and she tried to understand.
“I don’t,” she began, “… I don’t believe you.”
“I know you don’t,” he chuckled, “I can feel that you don’t. I want to explain that too, but I also want you to learn this on your own. We are safe from your mother, for now. I think we even have time to make a few plans. But first, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine in Tucson. Would that be alright? I think they’ll really like you, and you can ask them anything.”
“Them?” Anthea’s fear diminished again as curiosity got the better of her, and she now understood even more how powerful her peculiar gift really was. How many times had her inquisitive mind shielded her from the terrors of her past?
“Yes,” Cyrus took her question for acquiescence and turned the key in the ignition, “Bureaucracy is…, well, ancient for starters, but you’ll see.”
Chapter 17
Bureaucracy
Searing fluorescent lights, petrified stacks of papers, the smell of ancient, jaundiced wallpaper. Ceiling tiles sagging with age, peeling faux-wood paneling, a clock ticks tauntingly above the whisper of souls sighing in unison.
They are tired, nervous, annoyed, trying to be patient. They are standing in lines, snaking between saggy no-longer-retractable dividers, clutching loose papers and folders. They are waiting their turn, with boredom, with hope, with fear.
“Finally next! I’ve got my bills, library card, high school transcripts, everything. I can just get my address changed on my ID then I can prove I’m a legal resident and then…” one of the souls shudders to herself.
“I hope I brought the right papers this time. I can’t take any more time off to come back. If my job finds out that my license is expired…” the next one begins to panic and thinks of his family.
“God, please just let this work. I can’t go much longer without electricity and I just need a state ID so I can...” prays another, afraid to consider the alternative.
“So I’ve got my birth certificate original, marriage license, new social security card with my name change, and after this I can apply for a new passport! Easy peasy, they can’t possibly need anything else,” another mind contentedly but somewhat fretfully organizes.
“Just get his name out of my life. Just get his name out of my life. Just get his name out of my life,” a silent mantra cuts and tears through a desperate, broken heart.
A dusty piece of tinsel is hanging improbably from the ceiling, occasionally twitching in a non-existent breeze, clinging like a prayer t
o the thin tape anchor.
Now and then, a person carrying a stack of folders and papers appears from a door and everyone holds their breath. But then they disappear behind another door and they all sigh, disappointed.
“Why do they even have nine booths if only one of them is open?” and old person grumbles. His short sleeved shirt has been washed to transparency and the material flutters limply as he crosses his arms over his chest.
An overweight crone takes the bait.
“Our taxes pay their salaries and they’re just sitting around,” she says, her jowls pulled down in a frown almost touching the fabric of her faded American flag t-shirt.
The woman who is now first in line begins to look nervous, afraid that the solitary bureaucrat behind the desk might hear them and be offended, that they might go on a break, that she won’t be seen today, that she won’t get the ID that she so desperately needs. Her papers tremble in her hands as she tries to take a calming breath. She plasters a serene smile on her face, in case the office worker looks her way, as though to signal, “I am happy. This is fine. I am patient. I understand what it’s like. I’m not like them.”
She is just one of the hundreds of thousands of people who wait in identical rooms every week. Each of them enter the slouching old buildings clutching a stack of papers, hoping to trade them for other, newer papers. They may not like the system, they may bemoan the time it all takes, it may cost them dearly, but they still hopefully fill the waiting rooms of the world every single day.
Every single one of them believes that the papers, that the process, will change their lives.
Cyrus and Anthea had driven for what felt like decades, but was probably only a few hours. She felt… strange. Changed. Relieved. Afraid. Curious.
Cyrus had explained the very basics of the life he led, and about his relationship with belief. Anthea now found the questions that she had asked him early in their relationship funnier than they had been at the time. Back then, she couldn’t understand why he went to such lengths to create the show of his power, but now it all made sense. Faith, once proved true, seemed to be of no use to him. When belief became fact, he could not harness it. And so he spent his days cultivating the fantastic, plowing the human psyche in their winters of need and planting the seeds of belief to bloom in the springtime of hope and faith. Faith in him.
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