Book of the Just

by Dana Chamblee Carpenter

“That’s not my name anymore.”

  “It will always be the name waiting for you when you forgive yourself.”

  “Let’s not rehash old arguments. It’s been a long night already.”

  “I’m the Messenger.” He shrugged. “I deliver the message I’ve been asked to give. And it’s hard to catch you at home these days.”

  “Asked? Since when does the boss ask?”

  “You’re proof of the free will he offers. Your own children have tried to teach you—through great cost to themselves.” Gabriel sat unnaturally still, but his eyes turned to meet Mouse’s for a breath and a heartbeat before returning to gaze on her father. “You have the power to choose.”

  “Just deliver your message.”

  Mouse had never before seen her father nervous and unsure of himself.

  “Are you ready to come home?” Gabriel asked, his voice soft and compelling.

  Their father looked down on Mouse and Luc, his eyes soft for such a brief moment that Mouse wondered if she’d imagined it. And then he looked out at the sea. “I don’t concede defeat. I’m not done here yet.”

  Gabriel sighed. “That wasn’t the question.”

  “Well, it’s my answer. Can we go now?”

  “No.”

  Anger flashed in his eyes as he snapped his head up to look at Gabriel. “You have no power to command me.”

  “You are free to go, Star of Morning. But they are not. They have choices of their own to make.”

  “They’re mine. They go with me.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “You helped to give them life, but they are part human and so under another’s purview. Thus, they have free will, like the rest of humanity.”

  “They belong with their father,” he spat.

  “They are certainly free to go with you, if they wish.”

  “No,” Luc and Mouse said together.

  The hurt in their father’s eyes stayed much longer than the softness had, and then he masked it with disdain. “Fine. Stay. You’re both weak.”

  Mouse could hear the promise in his voice—this wasn’t finished. He snatched his cloak around him and was gone. A rustle of wind floated down as if the stars and the sky and the sea all sighed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The boat swayed gently. Mouse turned to find Angelo standing behind her. She leaned into his arms, his crutches gently tapping against her legs, with Luc, still clinging tightly to Mouse’s neck, nestled between them.

  Mouse closed her eyes, counting souls. “Where’s the Reverend?”

  “Dead.” Angelo looked over his shoulder toward the back of the boat.

  She nodded—everyone else was accounted for.

  “What now?” Angelo asked as he pulled back.

  Mouse was looking up at the man on the upper deck. “Let’s ask him. Seems like he’s been pulling the puppet strings.”

  “Do we know him?” Luc whispered at her ear.

  “I think I do,” Angelo answered. “Sort of. He came to me at a monastery where I was doing research. And he’s been in my dreams.” Angelo turned and asked the man, “Why?”

  “It goes back further than that, doesn’t it?” Mouse said. “You pulled Angelo out of the Thames.”

  The man lifted his hands and shrugged.

  “Why?” Angelo asked again.

  “Some among my kind study the tides of humanity. They can sometimes see how events might play out. They help us be more watchful.”

  “Watchful for what?” Luc asked.

  At the same time, Mouse asked, “Us who?”

  The man smiled. “I am—”

  “Gabriel, the Messenger. I think we all had that figured out,” Angelo said.

  Gabriel leaned back, laughing. Mouse saw that he even had words inked on the soles of his feet—a messenger covered in messages, though the tattoos made him look more like a biker than an angel. He grabbed the railing, slid his feet under him, and pulled himself upright in a single, lithe motion, like a dancer at the barre.

  “I won’t be able to answer most of your questions—not in any way that will satisfy you. I’m not really supposed to be here.” He glanced at the sky and then down at Mouse and Angelo and Luc.

  Angelo had been searching for an answer to one question ever since he’d miraculously survived his suicide at the Thames all those years ago. “Why’d you save me?”

  “And here’s the first I can’t answer—” He threw his hands up as Mouse and Angelo tensed, ready to object. “Not because I won’t, but because I don’t know. You’d suffered so much sorrow in your young life already. I wanted to give you another chance.”

  Luc’s head snapped up. “Did you hear it, Mouse?”

  “Yes, I did. There’s more you’re not telling.”

  Gabriel smiled at her, his eyes lit with surprise. “You are good. Most people only hear what I want them to hear—that’s my gift. It’s why I’m the chosen messenger.”

  “Well, I’ve had lots of practice listening for lies and half-truths.”

  “I bet you have!” He looked over to where her father had stood.

  “You came down with my father and the others, didn’t you?” Mouse wanted answers, not polite conversation, and she’d already pieced enough together to have suspicions.

  Gabriel leaned against the railing. “I didn’t stay long.”

  “Long enough to do what you wanted—you had a family, didn’t you?”

  The sadness washed over his face again like the tide.

  Mouse looked at Angelo. “And he’s one of yours, isn’t he?”

  “I’m what?” Angelo asked.

  “A millennia-old descendant.”

  “You’ve kept track of your offspring over all this time?” Angelo asked incredulously.

  A ghost of a smile, mingled with regret, pulled at Gabriel’s lips. “No. But every so often, once in a generation maybe, someone’s born that still bears the mark of my seed. It shines to me like a beacon among the billions. It fills me with joy. It haunts me.”

  Mouse took a step forward, closer to him. “I thought you killed them all,” she said sharply.

  “Killed who?” Luc asked against her neck.

  “The children of the Watchers.”

  “Most of my kind had already gone back home before the Watchers started making their trouble. We couldn’t handle the pain of loving such terribly fragile creatures. We left. But your father and some of the others stayed and let their grief make them bitter, and their bitterness corrupted the world.” He ran his hands over his shaved head. “We had to fix it,” Gabriel continued softly. “We had to restore balance so humanity could have the chance to make their own choices.”

  “How much blood did you shed?” she asked.

  “A lot more than you.” He looked hard into Mouse’s face. She understood now the almost unbearable expression he wore because it mirrored her own.

  “Father . . . he’s a Watcher, isn’t he?” Luc asked in a high voice. “What’s going to happen to us?”

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” Mouse said as she pulled him tighter, her eyes fierce with defiance as she lifted her face to Gabriel again. “You’ve been pulling all the strings. Saving Angelo, sending him to the church at Santa Maria in Cosmedin to find me, making sure we—”

  “No.” Gabriel looked at her, understanding.

  “Don’t lie to me.” Her voice started to crack. “We deserve to know if everything we’ve shared was just part of your game.”

  “What do you mean?” Angelo asked, his own voice filling with the same wariness.

  Gabriel sighed. “A person in the right place at the right time sometimes just happens. But sometimes it is a gift of the angels—there are others among my kind who wish to pay penance for mistakes they made.”

  “So some angel pulled a thread and wove us together to make up for something they did an eon ago? Why?” Angelo said, his jaw clenching.

  “We have watched Mouse with great interest, as you might imagine.”

  �
�Because I’m the child of the Corruptor.”

  “No,” Gabriel said sharply. “Because you give us hope. One heartbreak after another, and you still choose to love. Tormented for who and what you are, yet you still sacrifice for others, for your own tormentors. We, who were not strong enough, who ran from this flawed and fragile humanity, stand in awe of you, Mouse.”

  She was shaking her head, tears rolling down her face. “I don’t deserve that. I am not what you say I am. I have—”

  “Made mistakes? Yes. And you’ve paid for them tenfold. Forgive yourself. Luc will help you.” Gabriel turned back to Angelo, pleading for understanding. “She struggled alone for so long, and when we watched her sinking into the pit with no one to help her, we sent you. But we merely brought you to the right place at the right time. The two of you did the rest. The two of you wove your stories together. Your love is of your own doing and none of mine.”

  “Mouse was really sad when you died,” Luc said to Angelo. “I saw her.”

  Angelo stepped close to her and kissed her on top of the head, but then he looked up at Gabriel again. “Did I die? Am I—”

  “Immortal? No. You’re as human—and as mortal—as Mouse’s son was.”

  “Then in the outback, how did I—”

  “My father’s doing,” Mouse answered.

  Angelo nodded, but he had a final question. “Why come to me at the monastery?”

  “To help you find the rod and the Book of the Just.”

  “Why be so cryptic, then? Why not just come on in and translate it for me?”

  “I don’t think he was supposed to help you. Right?” Mouse asked.

  “The Book and the rod belong now to the ebb and flow of humanity—not to the divine. The choice to use them or not belongs to you. When it was clear that they would be revealed once more, I wanted to make sure they came to the right hands.”

  “To the hands of the Just,” said Birhan, who had been standing silently at Angelo’s side. “Because someone who is just will not wish to punish but to forgive. They will never use the rod and Book to bring the end of the world.” He clapped Angelo on the shoulder. “Is like Indiana Jones and the Ark of the Covenant, yes, brother?”

  Angelo held the rod and the Book up to Gabriel. “You should take them, then. I don’t know where to find a big empty warehouse to lose them in, and we wouldn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands.”

  Gabriel put his hands up. “I cannot take them. You are the Bearer now. You can choose to hide them away like Joachim before you. Or you can keep them with you.”

  “What about us, Mouse? Will we be safe now?” Luc asked.

  Mouse would not lie to him. She shook her head. “I don’t think our father’s done with us. We’ll have to try to hide. I’ve done it before. I’ll teach you.” The idea of running again weighed as heavily as if the whole of the sea were pressing down on her.

  “There are other choices,” Gabriel said. “The Book of the Just and the rod can help you.”

  “But he knows where they are—they’ll make it easier for him to find us.” A new truth slammed against Mouse’s already tired mind, and her eyes shot over to meet Angelo’s.

  “I can draw him away from you,” Angelo said. He’d figured it out, too. Mouse and Luc would go one way, and he would have to go the other.

  “I don’t think the Star of Morning will come so near the rod and Book again. He risks forfeit of the deal he was given.” Gabriel closed his eyes a moment. “And he’s not ready for the end.”

  “So as long as I’m with them, they’re safe,” Angelo said.

  “From him, yes.”

  “But not from others like Kitty or the Reverend,” Mouse said sadly.

  “Not if they have the means and the knowledge to do you harm,” Gabriel answered. “And your immortality will still make you wanderers.”

  “What other choice do Luc and I have?” Mouse asked.

  “You can stay. Or you can come home.”

  Home, Mouse thought with a mixture of excitement and anguish. She’d never really had that kind of home or family—someplace where she could truly belong with people like her. She could stop running. She could rest and be at peace. She could share that with Luc. She could say good-bye to Angelo now in a quick, agonizing stroke, rather than waiting through the long days for it to come.

  She found him looking at her, his eyes filled with tears like hers. He was reading her face, as he did so well. “It’s okay for you to go,” he said, more breath than words.

  And her mind flooded with all the moments of joy she’d be giving up—the kisses and caresses, the jokes and banter, the adventures, all the places she’d yet to take him, the things they hadn’t done. She might have a lifetime with him. She didn’t know if she could let that go.

  But it wasn’t her decision to make alone.

  “What do you want to do, Luc?”

  Luc looked up at Gabriel, his face full of knowing. Going meant no more Kittys, no more suffering. He turned to Mouse and put his little hand against her cheek, wiping away a tear.

  “You said the world was a beautiful place full of beautiful people.” His voice cracked with hope. “I’d like to see it, Mouse.”

  EPILOGUE

  At twilight, a man walked down the street of a quiet cul-de-sac in a sedate suburb at the edge of a modest city. He stopped in front of a little bungalow with a front porch teeming with herbs and flowers. He crossed the yard, dipped beneath a willow tree, and stood just inside its curtain of leaves, mostly hidden from the view of any inconvenient passersby.

  He watched the pleasant scene unfolding on the other side of the picture window. It framed a living room that stretched into the kitchen at the back of the house. The front room was cluttered with photos and handmade art crafted by a child. A blanket and pillows lay disheveled on the couch. Stacks of books precariously perched in towers everywhere. Dog toys were scattered on the floor.

  Warm, creamy light spilled out onto the spring grass. The windows were open, and he could hear the clink of plates and a strain of music plucked on a guitar, then a man’s voice singing silly lyrics, followed by the high, bright laughter of a child and the happy bark of a dog.

  The sounds drew the man closer to the house, closer to the people inside, closer to his family.

  They are mine, he thought. I want them.

  But then Mouse turned, carrying something from the oven to the table. She took his breath away. She’d always been beautiful—he expected no less from his daughter—but he’d never seen her shine with such joy. She looked like an angel.

  “Birhan texted this afternoon,” Angelo said as he dropped the guitar onto the couch and went back to the table, where Luc was laying out the silverware.

  “Is he coming soon?” the boy asked.

  “His mom’s with him in Rome now, and they were planning to come when he’s on school holiday in a couple of weeks.”

  “That’s perfect! They’ll be here for my gallery opening,” Mouse said as she sat down between them, now facing the picture window.

  Her father spun away from the glass, his body pressed against the house as a flare of jealousy drove out his tender moment of pride. Mouse had finally gotten what she’d always wanted—a family and a normal life. Her dream closed the door on him. What part could he have in such a life?

  But in the corner of his eye, he saw the thin line of crusted blood and sparkle of salt that ran along the baseboard between the window and the door. Mouse was his daughter still.

  With a flush of unaccustomed generosity, he decided that she deserved a respite. A snippet of old scripture came to mind—To everything there is a season. He would ensure Mouse and Luc a season of joy and peace, free of torment from him or anyone else.

  There would be a time later to fulfill his own dreams. He could wait. He was good at waiting.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It might seem a little odd to some for an author to dedicate a book to dogs, though I know I’m not the first. I imagi
ne for most “dog people,” such a dedication makes perfect sense. And it’s not that I don’t love cats, too. I currently have two adorable kitties (okay, one we actually call “Fat-bottom Obi,” but that’s not the point). Cats teach me a different lesson than dogs. Cats teach me fortitude and my place in the world. Dogs teach redemptive love.

  I was a lonely kid, mostly by self-design. I lived in my books and on my bike. I didn’t know how much I needed some living thing to love me without reserve and without condition until I met Koko. He was an abandoned, tiny pup who needed me. I needed him more. Koko taught me to overcome the boundaries of my own experience. He played me out of too much seriousness about myself and life. He gave me the courage to show boundless, crazy, exuberant love. And he taught me how to say good-bye.

  The love we shared moves forward with me, and, even now, I find ways to give him a snuggle and a heartfelt “Good dog.” What Bohdan does for Mouse in Bohemian Gospel and what Mercy gives to Luc in Book of the Just are my tribute to Koko and to the other dogs, mine and yours, who have redeemed us with their love.

  And now I get to thank the people who walked with me through this last part of Mouse and Angelo’s story—a story that is also about redemptive love.

  My creative writing students rode the highs and lows with me this round, giving me an incredibly supportive community and hopefully getting a wonderful learning experience in return. My students, past and present, grow my heart and my horizons.

  As always, my ever-constant early readers, Paige Crutcher and Leanne Smith, bolstered my courage. They empowered me to let the narrative go where it needed to go; they pulled me back when I wandered too far. But sometimes writers find themselves lost in the wilderness at the end of the journey. Andy Davidson read for me when I had a last, panicked throe, and gave me the confidence to keep moving forward. My sister, Beth Spencer Cummings, shone like my very own Pleaides and guided me back home—as she always does.

  So many hands touch a book as it’s being born. I am immensely grateful for all the folks at Pegasus: publisher Claiborne Hancock, interior designer Maria Fernandez, and cover designer Charles Brock of Faceout Studios. I hope they are as proud of the result as I am. I owe special thanks to my editor for this book, Katie McGuire, who challenged me in all the right places, keeping me honest in the storytelling and working magic to make my sentences better.