Helena was made of the best marble, and in that light, it made no apologies for its finery. Colors swam across her curvy form like paint in a rainstorm. Francis looked at her with eyes as proud and as loving as on a wedding day. They danced through crystal pollen that broke the light into a spectrum of colors reserved for only the dead. It was, indeed, the gateway to paradise.
Who could resist rejoicing in such beauty? The sprint to meet the plain’s end began with vigor. Prancing in the flowers was a simple joy, the perfect reward for their recent trials. Memories of their last moments together would be beautiful and happy. After running and running to a place still unseen, Francis wondered where they were actually going.
The Prince observed the never-ending yellow glow. “There should be a marker, something to tell us where to head,” he said.
“Surely, it’s just over the horizon. I’ll walk until I’m rubble as long as it gets you to where you need to be,” Garth said to the Prince. He found pleasure in pledging allegiance to someone again.
They stood motionless in the golden sea of rustling flower heads. When the air became still, their clapping heads silenced, the sound of a steady trickle nearby caught their attention. “Hear that?” said the Prince. “It’s water.”
Hidden beneath the canopy of petals ran a softly babbling brook. The stream passed under them, snaking backward to the dark river that held all of their secrets and lies. The water was so clear, so pure, it hardly looked like water at all. The riverbed could be easily mistaken for a shallow trench until the tiniest splash from a downward reaching foot or hand made it visible.
“We have to find its source,” the Prince decided, and they all followed.
They waded against the rushing current for miles. “Where is it coming from?” asked Helena. “There is no sea or mountaintops nearby for it to flow from.”
“Someone’s been paying attention to her lessons,” said Francis with a grin.
“Of course I have. You’ve made me quite knowledgeable about the world, you know. It’s a shame I didn’t get a real body back there. I’d make a perfectly good human.” She allowed herself a second of sadness before continuing, “But I have much to learn still.”
“Don’t worry, Helena. I’ll continue with your lessons,” Garth said. “You’ll learn more from me without Francis’s joking and flirting.”
She settled into a good laugh. A single tear streamed down her cheek as she grinned. Francis inspected it with much bewilderment, thinking that a human Helena would soon break out of that stone shell. Then a second and third tear rolled toward the ground.
But the tears were not falling from her eyes. They fell from the sky. As they walked along the water-path, the rain fell with a force that more resembled a waterfall than a downpour. It beat the flowers flat against the soil and enveloped the landscape with a thick mist that forced each pilgrim several steps into solitude.
In that bright blindness, souls and statues were left alone with their thoughts. The souls found contentment in the silence of the final leg of their journey.
The stone ones were left with the unhappy reality of feeling their loved ones slip from their grasp. Like the fear of falling, a crippling nervousness caught in their throats. They would be alone, left to wander the world with undefined futures and never-ending lives. Their minds were exposed to the secrets of the world, which proved to be more poison than antidote. What to do with so much knowledge and nobody to share it with?
When the haze lifted, a steady and sensible rain washed away their fears. Clarity opened their eyes and hearts. Uneasiness trickled downstream into the murky waters under the bridge.
The stairway rose out of the ground. It was made of ancient stone and stood taller than any mountain and reached higher than the sky.
They walked forward.
A great roar came from above.
They stopped.
14. Into the Lonesome World
August flew by in what felt like seconds, as August usually does. I resented the recent goings on for keeping me indoors for the majority of summer. I was paler than the Twilight
posters in every tween’s bedroom. More so, I hated the forty-five jobs I was forced to take to make up for several weeks in darkness. I spent nearly every waking hour behind the front desk of a yoga studio or bussing tables at a cocktail lounge or tearing tickets at an off-Broadway theatre. I could see my social life making its few last, desperate attempts to revive itself. It twitched like a dying bug the world was about to fully smash. In the movie montage in my head, I walked home from every shift with a cover of “All By Myself” playing in the background.
I finally earned half a day off. After a moderately successful tanning session at the piers, I returned to my apartment and checked messages on my phone. I’d left it at home to grant me some peace. I still hadn’t heard anything from the lab about my blood and that made me anxious. A sane person would have assumed my supernatural efforts had worked and I was in the clear. My far from normal brain was wracked with a fear that the C.I.A. had gotten hold of my samples and decoded what I’d done. I was on the alert for Gillian Andersen, Will Smith, or Hugh Jackman to show up on my doorstep with a warrant for my termination. My thumb stumbled over tiny buttons to access a possible summons from them to appear in a secret government courthouse that dealt exclusively in the world of magic. Or a voicemail—whichever came first.
“Hey Jerm. It’s Robbie. I know that you probably don’t want me calling you but…I just wanted to talk. After I bumped into you last month, with Nick…sorry. I bet that was awkward. Um…he got really weird. It continued until, well, now. Needless to say, we aren’t together anymore. Not that you care. This isn’t a plea to return to you. I’m not that crazy. I just wanted to let you know that he’s in a strange place. In case he tries to contact you. It’s actually kind of creepy. Sorry. I hope you’re well. Um…yeah, bye.”
I replayed the voicemail for Dan and Asher over drinks.
“How tragic,” Dan said with a roll of the eyes.
“Do you think he wants to get back together?” Asher said, even though the answer was so obvious it didn’t need to be mentioned.
“He sounds like a serial monogamist.”
“I thought only straight people with low self-esteem from single-parent households did that.”
“Gays, too.”
“I don’t know about him,” I said. “He’s probably just lonely.”
“Rebound.”
“Rebound.”
“Yes, yes,” I scrambled. “But what if he’s really trying to warn me about something?” I quickly took the world’s largest gulp from my martini to cover up my nervous smile.
“What? You think Nick’s a serial killer? I mean, you were a threat to their relationship, but come on. You’re no Brad Pitt,” Dan said, putting me in my place. Then he mocked me: “Look at me, I’m Jeremy, everyone is trying to kill me.”
“Hey, if someone tried to kill you in the middle of the night, you’d be just as—”
“Paranoid,” Asher suggested.
“Yes, paranoid,” I cowered.
“Rightfully so. I guess,” Dan half-agreed. “You should probably be medicated.”
After several beverages we stumbled to the sidewalk. The poor boy that I was, I decided not to continue to bars numbered two, three, and four. I’d rather spend my money on a cab to avoid the potential attackers that I seemed to be so prone to attracting.
“For the money you’re going to spend on this cab, you could buy two drinks,” Dan scoffed.
“Yes, but Spanish Harlem isn’t exactly the most inviting place after dark. And it’s starting to rain.”
“The whole city’s a risk. Nowhere is safe.”
I knew that all too well but decided to cab it, anyway. TV screens had been installed in the back of every taxi, which made me sick to my stomach. If I didn’t turn it off immediately, I’d end up glancing down and watching a weather forecast or the review of a movie that I hadn’t planned on seeing.
Then I’d get sick. Luckily, that cab didn’t possess a working screen and my driver didn’t play music, leaving me to a ride home in almost-solitude. I closed my eyes and listened to the soothing sound of raindrops on metal.
We eventually came to a red light and I felt the usual jerk as the car stopped too short. Nothing uncommon. I began to drift off, dreaming of nothing in particular…probably tomorrow’s lunch or the barista at the Forty-Third Street Starbucks. Just as my dream man handed me my latte, I was jolted out of my haze by a rapping at the window. Through water droplets, I saw a face staring at me. A hand wiped the glass to reveal the maniacal grin of Nick.
“Hello, Mr. King. Hello, Your Highness,” he taunted through foggy breath.
The light turned green. “Go!” I yelled.
The cab took off, leaving Nick on the curb. After several blocks he was just a shadow on a far off corner of my window. I sunk into my seat, closed my eyes, tried to catch my breath, and waited to be home.
Then the driver called back, “Your friend! Your friend!”
I swung my head around and saw Nick lit in the blazing red of our taillights, running in quick pursuit of us.
“Just drive!” I demanded. The car turned down a street, then an avenue, then a street, until that crazy queer was out of sight. “Take the FDR, just in case,” I demanded.
We zoomed up the highway, along the East River. The long stretch of speeding cars helped put my mind elsewhere. It was like fleeing the country, even though I was just traveling a few miles northeast.
The cab dropped me off at the end of my street. I sprinted to the door, still spooked. I knew it was impossible for Nick to be nearby but I could feel imaginary breath making my neck hairs raise. When I was little, I used to scare myself on the way up the stairs to my bedroom. Even though nobody was behind me, I imagined little hands grabbing at my ankles. I’d run so quickly that I’d usually end up falling and waking up the entire house. I almost pulled the same stunt on the front steps of my building. The door couldn’t close fast enough behind me.
September had tricked us into leaving the air conditioner off even though the air was still thick with residual summer. I felt like a swamp monster in that sticky apartment. I tore off my wet shift and checked my armpits for B.O., which was kind of ridiculous because my bed didn’t care if I smelled. “Anyone home?” I hollered. My roommate was still out. It was too quiet. My phone chimed with the arrival of a text message, nearly sending me into cardiac arrest.
YOU’RE NOT SO PRETTY WHEN YOU’RE SCARED.
Another chime.
DOES ROBBIE KNOW THAT?
One more.
I BET YOU’D BE DOWNRIGHT UGLY WITH YOUR FACE SPLIT OPEN.
*
With wings whiter than the clouds it came from, an Angel descended, heralded not by its heavenly choir, but by its inhuman roar. When the Angel finally came into view, they could see why: the noble head of a lion sat atop the graceful body of man.
“Welcome, friends,” the Angel spoke from the first of many, many steps up the staircase. His voice purred from a deep register. “You’ve taken longer than many before you. I hope you find the rain refreshing.”
“Yes. Yes we do,” Francis eagerly replied.
“And I am glad. It is your final cleansing before you ascend the stairway to Heaven.”
Heaven.
The word sat solidly with Garth.
It was a place where his friends would go.
A place where his family resided.
A place that he would never see…
He tried to savor those last, precious moments with Francis and the Prince. He desperately burned their ghostly images into his mind. He’d carry those pictures with him forever. The light of paradise cascaded down the epic staircase and made his stone heart heavier than it had been for decades. He reached out a hand to find comfort from the souls, but they had already begun gravitating towards the Angel. Garth stepped forward only to be met by another roar.
“Guardian, you know well that this is no place for an Immortal. Our tasks are for Earth. Mine is at the bottom of the stair, greeting souls and ensuring only souls shall pass.”
“But they have no souls,” argued the Prince as if it would grant them special permission.
The Angel looked down on him sadly and said, “The human form, though great, is not everlasting. Your souls grow weary of their time here and must retire above.” His attention returned to the stone ones. “We need not ascend the stairs for we are strong and made for this world. We do not expire. That knowledge, the ability to live on, is our Heaven. They watch over us from above just as we watched over them here.”
“I had a soul,” Garth blurted, unable to find the required eloquence for speaking to an Angel.
“And it was not meant for you. Sometimes the Way of Things change as time passes. Humans show strength, Immortals show weakness, and souls tire of paradise. The rules of the universe are strict but not definite. One speck of dust can create a world and one exceptional man can make an Immortal.”
“But I know too much,” Garth cried. “How can I go through life knowing all of its secrets?”
“Hardly,” laughed the Angel. “Knowledge doesn’t ruin wonder; it inspires it. Live and help others do the same.”
Garth took a step away from the stairs, a step towards a new life. The Angel’s advice filled the place where his soul should have been. A new purpose flowed through him. He took Helena’s hand and smiled. Together, they would learn how to let go. They would help others to live.
The Angel looked again at the two souls. “It is time.”
15. Answers
The Prince was retired to his bedchamber long before the sun went down. Time crawled slowly after his doors were locked. Boredom set in too quickly.
He sat at the end of his bed and thought on the day’s lessons.
Then he looked out the window into his garden and admired its grandeur.
Eventually he lulled himself into a trance, listening to a strand of pearls beat against itself when tossed from hand to hand.
Click, click, click.
Click, click, click.
He thought he had been hypnotized for an hour. It was more likely just a few minutes. The moon had barely risen and was still mistakable for a cloud. Soon the torches would be lit, all except the one in his room.
Reveling from the halls below echoed through the ancient palace’s corridors and into his bedchamber, where he finally decided to close his eyes for the night. “Dreams,” he thought, “dreams will pass these hours much more efficiently than life can.” His hands ran across his warm skin. No need for a blanket that evening. His fingers grazed the place where a scar would form after the scabbing fell off and the tenderness subsided. That skin had felt a blade, on a night much like that one. But it had also felt dressings from a kind handmaiden. In his dark room, the memory flushed his face with embarrassment. “How could I have been so weak?”
It was a silly question, though. Of course he felt weak. Father, mother, uncles, aunts, cousins, and court all turned their heads, backs, and sympathies away from him. The boy Prince was peculiar, the adolescent was questionable, but the man was intolerable. Their new religion was strict, the stringency useful for keeping the people at bay. A King with a son like that would cause discourse. A King with a son like that could not be a god. So the King did not have a son like that. He was pushed to the back, hidden in shadows, never spoken of. Eventually the simple men and women of the kingdom forgot about the once future heir.
Despite all of this, the Prince went on sitting at the end of his bed, looking out his window, and tossing pearls from side to side. “One day, it will change…” His optimism was necessary. Many boys lacked that courage and disappeared to even darker places than he. For them, he would live. He was, after all, their Prince.
The drinking and singing carried late into the night.
The Prince dreamed.
Vile schemes were developed.
The Prince dreame
d.
Two men broke down the door.
The Prince awoke.
“Why?” he asked. The men said nothing, simply snickered. Then kicked, then hit, then broke, and then crushed. “But I’m your kin,” he said with a mouth full of teeth. When they finally spoke, their words were harsh. They could have killed him with their words alone.
The world was quiet as he began to die. Not even the smallest bird dared chirp with the rising sun. They bowed to their Prince while he dragged himself to the Queen near the water. In her arms he would lay until angels came to greet him. Oh, how strong she was. He’d modeled himself after her. “I tried, my lady. I tried.”
Were she real, she’d know he had. Were she real, she’d have replied, “Yes, you did. You were very strong. You were very proud. But so were they.”
“Then I will be stronger,” he said.
Then he wretched.
He screamed…
I awoke weeping and twisted in my bed. The dream was vivid. Too vivid.
“Garth!” I yelled, knowing fully well that he couldn’t hear me. He was somewhere else, maybe not even in the city. He could have been in a different state, a different country, found another staircase and climbed it.
“Garth!” I threw on some clothing.
“Garth!” I ran out the door.
“Garth!” I hurried down the street.
The homeless people thought I needed money. The deranged wondered what my disturbance was.
“Garth!” Maybe I could beckon him to my side. Possibly we shared some kind of ESP?
I came to a place where the streets were empty, save for me. I wanted Nick to come after me. I dared him. I was at once incredibly weak and insanely strong. “Come on, you piece of shit! I’ll tear your face off, you pathetic freak!” My articulation and vocabulary disappeared beneath my rage.
In Stone: A Grotesque Faerie Tale Page 20