by Jane Lebak
Michael said, “And it was perfect. Everything right to the last detail.”
Danel grinned. “So then Hastiel brought us all over to the duplicate and summoned Miriael to us and asked for a grand tour of the place, and when Miriael was showing it off, Hastiel just started shrinking the whole thing, smaller and smaller…”
Michael closed his eyes, shoulders shaking. “I don’t remember how crowded the place got before you said something, but we were all practically on top of each other, and then Miriael looked horrified, like he’d built his house on some kind of vortex.”
Danel said, “And then he ranted at Hastiel for about an hour afterward. The only saving grace there was that I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Michael made his voice a little deeper. “I’m sorry, Miriael. I’ll never do that again.”
“You’re not looking nearly smug enough.” Danel folded his arms. “See? We don’t have him anymore, but we do have the memories, and you can still laugh at the ridiculous things we did. It’s okay to still treasure the good times.”
Michael shook his head. “That’s so hard.”
“It is. I’m not denying how hard it is.” Danel looked at the darkening horizon. “I asked God to give me this acreage a while ago, as my own special place. He made it mine, but I’ve never built any kind of structure here.” Danel offered a smile. “Not just because of what happened to Miriael. I like it as it is.” He turned to Michael, the silver in his eyes glimmering gently. “You’ve still never staked out a home for yourself?”
“I have an office, but no, no place ever struck me as that special. God’s in all of them.” Michael shook his head. “I’m sorry for dumping all this on you.”
“We carry one another’s burdens. That’s what friends do.” Danel hugged him. “Are you going to speak to him again?”
“Probably.”
“I’ll be praying for you. Do you think it would help if I were to accompany you?”
Michael shook his head.
Danel projected agreement. “I wanted to ask, in case.” He stepped back and extended his hands, projecting an invitation to pray together. Michael reached for him with hands and wings. Together they stretched out for God, but Michael could feel that Danel also was remembering a time when they’d prayed together and there had been three.
FIFTEEN
After dinner, Mary watched Remiel cleaning the kitchen, noticing how sluggishly she moved, how her hands trembled. “Why don’t you rest a bit?” she said, and Remiel only shook her head. No, Kecharitomene, I’ll clean up for you.
Zadkiel had returned to a corner where she appeared to be making enough netting to snare a Leviathan. During dinner she’d told Mary (and anyone else who would listen) about two different kinds of knots and how they felt to her fingers. Mary grinned as Zadkiel worked the shuttle through the loops in her lap. Net-making could be fun, sure, but Zadkiel was more than reveling in feeling useful. For the first time since she’d gotten stuck in human form, she must have felt as if she were doing something. Finally her work mattered.
Remiel, though, Mary wasn’t sure how to help. She looked and sounded exhausted, and whenever Mary made the suggestion that she rest, or even slow down, Remiel declined. Eventually her human body would have to crumple and sleep, wouldn’t it? She’d been awake now for almost two days with only a couple hours rest. Mary had seen people awake for longer, though. She may have done it herself, assisting at births. Soldiers at war certainly did it. In a body young and strong, maybe Remiel could manage it too.
Remiel looked up, the lamp-light glinting in the rings on her ears. She had a young form, not even fully grown, with her hair shaved so short that her ears showed. “Is something the matter?” she asked.
Mary shook her head, smiling at her. “You look cute, that’s all.”
Remiel’s nose wrinkled, which made her look cuter still. “That isn’t how I thought I looked. I figured waif-like.”
Mary stepped closer. “One of the women has a mirror if you’d like to see for yourself.”
Remiel shook her head. “Mirrors and I don’t get along. But that explains some of what happened on my last assignment as a human.”
Mary nodded. “And that was…?”
The way Remiel smiled turned her face brighter. For a moment, she wasn’t tired anymore. “I came across a calf trapped in a ravine, and it was cold. The mother cow was up at the top, calling for her, but the baby couldn’t get out.”
Mary laughed. “You asked permission for that?”
“More than that! God gave me permission. It was going to snow,” Remiel added. “What I really wanted to do was prevent the snow, but He told me I could go down there in a human body and free the calf. So I did. When I got up to the top of the hill with her, two herdsmen came and confronted me, and I told them about the oncoming storm. Turns out they hadn’t realized it would be that bad, so I helped them get the whole herd to safety.” Remiel seemed amused. “So the assignment was done, and I tried to take my leave, only they insisted on knowing where I was going. I couldn’t lie to them, right, and when they realized I lived ‘far away,’ they wouldn’t let me leave because, you know, there was a horrible snow storm coming that would kill a herd of cows and therefore would definitely kill me.” She burst out laughing. “So they ended up with this unexpected guest stuck in their family home for three days while they burned peat and taught me to sing rowdy songs and play a weird little flute thing.” She bit her lip. “Oh, and they had this amazing wine made from fermented honey. That was really good. After three days, the matron of the house tried to marry me off to her youngest son, but as soon as the snow cleared, I left.” Remiel raked a hand through her hair and struck a pose. “Do you think I’d have done well as a young bride in Celtica, milking cows and cutting peat moss to burn?”
“I didn’t understand half of what you said,” Mary said, “but do you still remember the songs?”
“I am not,” Remiel said, “under any circumstances singing any of them to you.” She looked startled and a little serious. “I was just really glad Saraquael hadn’t gotten that assignment. Or Michael. They’d have walked out, blizzard or no. I taught the family a few songs in exchange, though. Someday, someone’s going to be surprised to learn he’s been singing the Holy Trisagion in an angelic language while milking the cows.”
Mary giggled. “Can you teach me to sing that instead?”
“I could. You can ask Raphael, since the Seraphim are the ones who maintain the song. It’s a constant backdrop in Heaven. If you ever want to hear it, you just listen and it’s there, thrumming in the background.”
Mary moved alongside Remiel and began putting away the cutlery. “And can you teach me how to make wine from honey?”
“Ah, now that stuff was good.” Remiel sighed. “I don’t know if you could get all the ingredients in Greece. It had an earthy, yeasty taste. It made me think of oak trees. Do you have oaks here?” When Mary nodded, she went on. “It wasn’t really like wine.” Remiel lowered her eyes. “Maybe if we get out of this situation, someday I’ll bring you a jar.”
“You’ll get out of this.”
Remiel’s shoulders slumped, and the exhaustion returned. “We’d better. Ephesus will run out of rope for Zadkiel.”
Mary was about to retort that they’d send to Corinth when a messenger came into the kitchen. It was a servant from a house Mary had visited this morning, the one with the sick child. “Mistress needs you,” gasped the servant, breath heaving. “Please, we need you now.”
Pausing only long enough to grab her tunic and a bag with supplies, Mary rushed outside following the servant. Remiel followed her.
“You don’t have to come,” Mary said. “Remember this morning?”
Remiel again sounded subdued. “I’ll go where you go.”
They navigated streets that had yet to fall fully dark, avoiding the sewage ditch down the centers. The servant hurried them, and Mary kept checking to make sure Remiel kept pace.
&n
bsp; At the house, Mary said, “You can wait outside,” and Remiel murmured, “Kecharitomene, I’ll serve you.”
The child had gone feverish, and the mother wrung her hands walking in and out of the room. Mary tended the child, then prayed over her. Remiel fetched water from the aqueduct and then back again. She still got that spaced-out stare whenever she drew near to the child, but Mary thought she was more in control. Whatever had happened before, this time Remiel expected it and had braced herself.
Mary sponged down the child, who lay on a sweat-drenched bed in no clothing. Her limbs were swollen but her eyes sunken. Her breath reeked of sweetness, and so did her sweat.
Mary said to Remiel in Aramaic, “What is this sickness?”
“I don’t know.” Remiel bowed her head. “Raphael would know, if you called for him.”
The child’s mother said, “What did she say?”
“Only that a doctor from her homeland might recognize it,” Mary said, “but we’ll do the best we can without him.”
Back during Jesus’s lifetime, of course she’d have called for Raphael in a heartbeat. But in the last twenty years, the angels had withdrawn from her everyday life in so many ways. Uriel sometimes communicated with her, but often it was only in different calibre silences, a pressure or a feeling that flitted through her heart and which she might have ignored if she hadn’t paid attention for those moments. The Holy Spirit filled her, and she couldn’t ask for better than God Himself, but at times she missed the angels and their ready companionship.
At the moment, Remiel and Zadkiel didn’t seem to have the ability to just call for the other angels either, although Remiel appeared to have a companion she consulted without too much hassle. Mary didn’t ask for details. If they wanted her to know, they’d tell her. So she didn’t ask now if Remiel could summon Raphael, and she continued sponging down the child.
The mother’s voice sharpened. “Your people claim to heal the sick. Why aren’t you healing her?”
“I’ve never healed anyone.” Mary looked up. “I pray. Jesus heals whom he wants, when he wants. He’s the one who makes us whole.”
The mother’s fists clenched in her tunic. “Then why doesn’t he want to make her whole?”
Mary said, “Your faith will have to save your daughter.”
“Why? Just heal her!” The mother stepped closer, but Mary didn’t flinch. “The magicians said they couldn’t heal her. The priests at the Temple of Artemis said they couldn’t heal her. But people said John and your ilk have healed the sick, and I’m begging you for your help!”
Mary kept her voice low as she turned back to the child. “You can’t force God to do something. You ask. You wait. You receive.” She reached for the mother’s hand, but the mother yanked back. “Healing isn’t the final good. If you have eternal life, that’s the final good. You need to have life in order for your child to have life.”
The mother sounded urgent. “And how do I do that?”
Mary said, “Repent and be baptized. Pray to receive the Holy Spirit.”
John spoke to people with such fluidity. He’d preach to crowds and people would press close, asking to become disciples. Why was it so hard for her, one-on-one, to find the right words? The Holy Spirit would move in her too, but Mary always felt this urge to do no more than repeat the things her son had said and then encourage people to do whatever it was he’d told them to do. She liked getting people to the brink where they’d finally pray, and then watching what happened when they reached out and God reached back. She could pray for the outcome, but it always felt so much better when she left off and God took over.
These final moments of struggle, though, when she knew there must be demons active just out of sight to pressure the person to cling to doubt—doubts that would be there in any case because the things Jesus said were so amazing, so true and yet so easy not to believe as true—those were difficult. You couldn’t say, “Trust me” because then the person’s faith was in you rather than in God. But how to guide them there?
So Mary tended the child and told the mother stories about Jesus, told her the things he’d said and the stories he’d told people whenever he’d traveled. She sponged down the child’s body and alternated praying over her with talking to the mother. Remiel fetched water. The household servant brought wine and brought food when they needed it. Mary spooned a little porridge into the child’s mouth, but the girl gagged, so Mary didn’t try again. They were able to spoon her up a little water mixed with wine, and maybe that would be enough for now.
“Why won’t Jesus heal her?” the mother sobbed. It was well after the second watch of the night. Remiel sat at the child’s feet, too weary to move, and Mary prayed for strength to see things through until morning. The night felt so long. Just so long now.
“Do something,” urged the mother. “Don’t you care?”
“Of course I care,” Mary said. “I watched my own son die.”
The woman leaned closer. “Then you know! Why would you do that to me too?”
Mary wrapped a hand around the mother’s. “It’s not up to me. I stood there. I watched the Romans execute him, and I knew he was innocent the whole time.” She nodded. “Crucified. He was bleeding and gasping too much even to breathe, and I could only watch.”
The mother whispers, “I’d trade places with her.”
Mary squeezed her hand. “I’d have done it too. But he’d already traded places with me. With you. With your daughter.” She reached for the woman, who relaxed into her hug. “I miss him. You know how a mother grieves. We lost him for a few days when he was twelve, and when I found him, he said, Didn’t you know I’d be in my father’s house? He meant the Temple, but now it’s real: he’s in his Father’s house. Waiting for me.”
The woman said, “That doesn’t help.”
“No, it doesn’t always.” Mary kissed the mother’s forehead. “But I know what you’re going through.”
“Tell me more,” the woman said. “Tell me more about him, if he’ll heal her.”
And so, during the course of the second watch, the mother asked more questions about Jesus, and when Mary answered, the woman seemed to understand, and as the night drew on, she asked if she could be baptized, and her daughter too. They prayed together that the mother would receive the Holy Spirit. And in the hour after, the girl’s fever broke and her swelling diminished. Her color returned, and the room air smelled pure.
Mary never presumed to predict how God would answer prayers. God did what He wanted, and that was good. But she’d found so often that healing and conversion worked together, that the healing was secondary to getting the heart where it needed to go. In the end, the healing served only as the catalyst to the spiritual life breathed now into the soul, and then it became that life’s physical seal.
At the foot of the bed, Remiel looked stunned. Why? She’d seen healings before. She might even have participated in them.
The mother fell asleep alongside her daughter. Mary would have to come back in the morning to pray with them again, maybe bringing John or Ignatius or one of the others. They would lay hands on the woman and her daughter, and then they’d speak to the men of the house. It would be good, but for now, Mary wanted only to get back home. So as the woman and her daughter slept, they bid farewell to the servant and returned to the street.
In the dark, Mary’s voice was small. “Are you all right?”
Remiel whispered, “I felt it. The moment God healed her, even though I wasn’t touching her, it was as if she’d been clenching my hand. And then she let me go.”
Mary’s brow furrowed. “What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I don’t know anything.”
Halfway to home, a light shone before them both. Mary stopped in her tracks. Remiel stiffened, then pushed herself in between the light and Mary.
What appeared out of the glow looked like an angel. She had dark eyes and sun-rich skin, and she wore Greek clothing. Gazing at Mary, she said, �
��Listen to my words. You have a demon imprisoned in your house. I require access to him.”
Mary said, “What is your name?”
“I’m Satrinah.” The demon cocked her head. “This means nothing to you, as well it shouldn’t. But his freedom is worth a lot to me. Give me permission to enter your house.”
“No.” Mary looked her dead in the eye. The demon had no readable expression and no body language, and if she had expected Mary to cower or bolt, she gave no sign of disappointment. “Under no circumstances will I give you permission to enter that house.”
The demon said, “The information I need is only to be found in a thorough examination of the demon, and since he’s in possession of that human, either you need to let me into the house, or you need to bring him out.”
“I don’t need to do either.” It had been years since she’d dealt with a demon this way, and she’d forgotten how infuriating they were. Gabriel and Uriel had wanted her never to talk to them, so Mary decided to end it. “Leave.”
Satrinah put her hands on her hips. “I thought your little community claimed to have power over demons. Why can’t you expel him?”
Standing in front of Mary, Remiel said, “Why can’t you figure out that you’re not going to get what you want from her?”
Satrinah noticed Remiel for the first time, and Mary shivered. Although confident that a demon wouldn’t be able to lay a hand on her (well, metaphorically speaking) she wasn’t sure what authority it could get as regarded another angel. Remiel didn’t look at all afraid. Instead she had her hands clenched and her shoulders squared. But in a girl’s body, what did she intend?
Satrinah’s eyes returned to Mary, marking the slave as no consequence. “Are you Christians weak after all, then? Unable to set a man free of a demon and unwilling to escort a possessed man even into your own courtyard so a demon can accomplish what you’ve so laughably failed to do?”
Remiel folded her arms. “Nice try. But go.”
The demon looked again at Remiel, and then for the first time her eyes brightened. “Remiel! You got trapped also! I didn’t think you could possess a human.” Satrinah flew at Remiel, but although Mary tensed, Remiel only stood in place as Satrinah whipped around her like a dust devil. “This is a lovely gift. But you’re not actually in possession of a human, are you? You’re just wearing a body. Still, I think I can get the data I want.”