As was Sephera, now a young woman of twenty-five. Some of her clothing strained against the new fullness of her body.
He reached out with an unsteady hand and gripped her arm. “Do I look any different to you?” Even his voice had changed; nothing dramatic, but its timbre was stronger, deeper and more mellifluous. It was the voice he’d had ten, fifteen years ago, before cigarette smoke and alcohol had harshened it.
“You look pretty much the same,” she said. “A lot of the gray is gone from around your hair and you’ve already seen that the liver spots have disappeared. The scar on your nose isn’t quite as noticeable; were you to remove that bandage from your head, the wound wouldn’t be as severe—but don’t take it off, okay? It would still bleed if you messed with it. The stitches have to dissolve, remember?”
“Yeah....” He looked at the pile empty clothes on the bench, then held Sephera’s damaged hand up between them, transfixed by the stump of her missing finger.
“That missing finger became my parents, the people you saw walking with me downtown. I had to cut it in half in order to make the two of them. Physically, their forms are much more fragile than Amy’s or Cathy’s. Cathy was a wild card. Denise took a big chance with her—that’s why she wasn’t quite the way you remembered her...the missing freckles were a stupid mistake—but you still needed convincing, and she thought Cathy would be enough of a shock to bring you around. She didn’t count on just how deep chronos had its hooks in you.”
“But how—”
Sephera placed a finger against his lips, helped him to his feet, and guided him back toward the playground. “Cathy was re-created based on Denise’s memory of what she looked like when you knew her in high school. It’s the only time Denise has had to repeat herself.”
“Repeat...?”
Sephera’s eyes glistened as she spoke, her words coming out in a rapid, intense cadence: “Before Amy Wilder there was Debra Jamison; before Debra was Linda McDonald, the computer technician; before Linda was Tammy Franks, the art gallery manager; before Tammy was Vanessa Long, the legal secretary you met at a Buster Keaton film festival; before Vanessa was Penny Duffy, whom you dated a few weeks before graduating college; before her was...you wouldn’t remember the names because most of them were one-nighters, women you met in bars or at concerts or football games and then fell into bed with...but not all of the women were part of the progression. That woman who came at the end of your boozing days, that thirty-five-year-old, the one you woke up with in the middle of your sophomore year in college and couldn’t remember her name, you have only yourself to blame for that...but before college was Cathy, and it doesn’t stop there, Robert, not by a long shot....” Sensing that he was still shaken from the metamorphosis, Sephera helped him sit on the merry-go-round, then—as his weight and the nightwind set it to slowly turning clockwise—listed the names of nearly every girl Robert had been involved with before Cathy: short-lived romances with girlfriends in ninth and eighth grades who let him get to second base; girls from sixth and seventh grade who liked to hold hands and maybe kiss once in a while—Sephera knew all of their names, what they looked like, how Robert had met them; and as he listened she guided him down through the years, through all the women and girls who had at some point staked out a claim on part of his heart, however briefly (he’d forgotten all about Tracy O’Rourke, the east-end girl who was the first to ever stick her tongue in his mouth), ending, at last, with Yvonne Carlson, who at age eleven was the awe-inspiring paramount of femininity to eight-year-old Robert (forget that she never wore a dress and was missing a couple of lower teeth and cussed when there weren’t any adults around and was a better baseball player than any boys in the neighborhood); she was Robert’s very first and, until Denise, sweetest kiss, the kiss that all others had to measure up to throughout the rest of his childhood and teenage years.
The merry-go-round came to a stop. Robert stared up at Sephera and whispered, “Were all of them...all of you...an outgrowth of the one who came before?”
“Not at first, no. Do you remember when you sometimes went as long as two years before getting involved with a woman? That’s when Denise returned to Chiaroscuro so she and Rael could replenish their strength. After a while, it became more difficult for her to make that journey back and forth. About ten years ago, right after Linda McDonald, Denise decided to hide herself from Rael and stay in this world until the two of you could be one.
“When you first met her, when you were a child and she was whole and chose you, it was a simple matter of a finger or toe, a digit here and there. But God has nasty sense of humor, especially where the Hallowers are concerned, and those pieces did not grow back. As a result, over the years she’s become less and less—when no fingers remained on her left hand, she cut it off; when no toes remained on either foot, she cut those off, as well, using them to grow the women who moved in and out of your life, each of them a direct outgrowth of Denise, each carrying the knowledge of you that had been gathered by those who came before. Though each new outgrowth took care to fit in to this world, they remained connected to Denise; what they experienced, she experienced; when they wept, the tears were Denise’s, as well; when they made love with you, Denise savored every delicious, life-affirming moment.” Sephera smiled and touched her chest. “I carry inside me the memory of nearly every romantic experience you’ve shared with a woman. If we were to make love right here, right now, I know all the things you like, I know every way to please you. If you were to be grieving, or frightened, or uncertain or sad, I know exactly, precisely how to ease and comfort you; heart, mind, body and spirit. I know all they knew, and Denise knows even more than she has shared.
“There were other men each of these women knew before coming to you; that was necessary in order to learn the ways of a man: his prejudices and fears, his dreams, his pettiness, his grandeur, his strengths and weaknesses, all of the tender nuances, the infuriating behaviors, every last endearing, perplexing, magnificent, selfish, contradictory, human imperfection that all men share and which gives them their worth. But always, they ended with you, for you were their goal. They learned from the other men as you learned from those women—and there were several—who were not an outgrowth of Denise. But each time, as you met these women created from Denise, the two of you came that much closer to achieving and sustaining the one thing that has eluded most of the human race since it first learned to stand upright.
“True Love—and don’t you dare laugh at those words. Denise would settle for nothing less for the two of you. Now I can understand why. You’re a much better man than you give yourself credit for.” She bent over and kissed Robert softly on the lips, smiled, then gave the merry-go-round a counter-clockwise push. “Denise had to extend the reach of her powers over the last ten or so years, as the chronos flies. Call it a lack of raw materials, if you will. The number of outgrowths she could produce was never infinite, but it’s grown dangerously small now. She’s had no choice but to pass on a little bit of her Hallower’s power to those of us you’ve know this last decade—that’s what I absorbed with Cathy’s ashes, that’s what entered you when you breathed in Amy’s remains: a bit of immortality. The ultimate recycling program.
“So, Penny Duffy cuts off her little toe to make Vanessa Long; Vanessa cuts off her thumb to create Tammy Franks; Tammy severs a digit from her foot and from that grows Linda McDonald, whose ring finger became Debra Jamison, whose toe then formed Amy Wilder. But with this last cycle of creation, the limits of Denise’s power started making themselves known. If Amy had not been wearing her gloves, you would have seen that the pinkie was missing from her right hand. She cut it off in order to create Cathy Number Two, and Cathy Number Two cut off one of her toes to make the woman you met on the bus...but it ended there. Denise’s power could not extend itself any further. She knew, after the woman on the bus, that any outgrowth she created from what was left of her body would only be able to repeat the process once; that’s all she had the strength for.”
> Robert swallowed with great difficulty, talking over his shoulder as the image of Sephera spun slowly past. “Then my wife...she was an outgrowth of who?”
“The woman you married was made from what remained of Denise’s left arm between the elbow and shoulder. Your wife’s missing toe was used to create the woman she introduced to you as being her mother—she had to do that because you insisted on meeting your mother-in-law; after all, the woman wasn’t at the wedding, was she? ‘Mom’s’ death and funeral were simply window-dressing to get her out of the way and out of your lives so Denise wouldn’t have to spend any more strength than absolutely necessary.”
The merry-go-round slowed to a stop. Sephera gripped the safety rails and leaned in until her face was only a few inches from Robert’s. “That woman, your wife, was the last direct outgrowth of herself that Denise could create. Unlike the others, she was physically human, inside and out—veins, organs, bodily functions, all of it. She was supposed to be the last in line, the Vessel of Becoming. Everything that’s happened since—me, creating my window-dressing parents from my finger, and now our—Denise’s—new pregnancy should not have happened. Why do you think your wife kept having miscarriages? She was only an extension of Denise; Denise should have been the one to become pregnant. That’s how she knew her powers were weakening, because the transference of memories and knowledge and all physical phenomena between her and the outgrowth that was your wife became more intermittent. She had to fight tooth-and-nail for what little control she did have. Finally, she became so weak only the most tenuous of connections could be sustained. That’s when your wife became pregnant with me. But the physical process of human birth has been and always will be Forbidden Knowledge to the angels, and that’s why your wife died.”
“But you,” said Robert. “You came back! I held your dead body in my arms. I buried you, for chrissakes!”
“But before Rael took me, you gave me part of yourself, remember?”
The image of that single globule of blood dripping from his nose and into her open chest cavity replayed itself in his mind. “Yes....”
“If that hadn’t happened, if Dr. Steinman had not taken you to the morgue...I would have been truly dead, and there would be no hope for Denise or Rael or the children of Chiaroscuro now. One drop of grieving blood, Robert, one drop that held your longing, your hopes, your love. But Rael had to be certain that the process had taken hold, that’s why he returned me to you. Remember what he said about the power of Home? It’s true, sentimental as it may sound.” Holding tightly to his hand, she whispered, “You can’t imagine the scope of the suffering that would have occurred if you, as a child, had just left that hospital without saying good-bye.”
Remembering Joseph Alan Connor and the faces of the children of Chiaroscuro, Robert said, “I think you’re wrong there.”
They began walking toward the car. Robert noticed that there were no emissions from the tailpipe and for a second feared that the car had either stalled or run out of gas.
“I turned it off before coming after you,” said Sephera, holding up the keys. “We can’t afford to waste gas, not with all the traveling we have ahead tonight.”
They got into the car and drove back toward town. Sephera gave Robert an address in the Morgan Manor area, one of Cedar Hill’s richest housing developments.
“Why do you suppose it happened?” he asked Sephera. “I mean, if Denise—if my wife—wasn’t supposed to get pregnant with you, then...how? Why?”
“I’m not sure, but my best guess is that Heaven has momentarily turned its back on us—God does blink from time to time. I have no idea how long it might be before someone figures out that the last two Hallowers have managed to survive and are laying groundwork for the race to be reborn, so Rael and the children of Chiaroscuro aren’t the only ones living on borrowed time.”
“But how...how can you be certain that you’ll be protected against...whatever…once Denise and Rael are reunited?”
Sephera shook her head and smiled sadly as she touched Robert’s arm. “Because kairos is neutral territory. It exists in the place between Heaven and Hell where the walls aren’t quite squared, and neither God nor Lucifer can trespass there without ruining it for all children for the rest of time...and the children have to be protected. The balance of Good and Evil in the cosmos must be maintained, that’s the agreement, and destroying kairos would tip the scales in one direction or the other. Believe me when I tell you that neither one of them wants that to happen.”
“But Ian died!”
“Rael’s powers are weakening, as well. He can only hold back chronos for so long without Denise. Every force in the universe, from the light of a photon to the cataclysmic blast of a supernova, has a counterpart that enables it to be. It’s that way with Denise and Rael’s powers, and it’s the same with chronos and kairos; one cannot exist without the other, so both are neutral territory—which, by the way, is one of the big reasons that neither God nor Lucifer intervenes in human affairs, regardless of what you’ve been told: trespassing in chronos would be just as destructive as interfering with its counterpart, so Humankind has been left to its own devices.” She sneered slightly. “And just look where that’s gotten it.” She gripped his forearm. “It could all come crashing down on our heads before the sun rises, Robert, so you have to promise me something. Swear to me that, regardless of how soul-sick some of it might make you, you will not hesitate to do what has to be done. Will you promise me that?”
“I’ll do whatever’s necessary, I swear on my life.”
“What a coincidence—that happens to be what one second of hesitation will cost you…will cost all of us.”
They drove in silence, save for the purring of the cats and Suzy’s wet, comfortable snoring. Robert took the exit to Cherry Valley Road, maneuvered the car through the countless twists and winds, came to the fork five miles down, and turned left onto Morgan Way. “I’ve never been here before,” he told Sephera. “You’re going to have to guide me.”
“Drive toward that house under construction and turn right.”
As he did, Robert saw the empty lot beside it and thought of his mother-in-law’s house.
“How did—”
“Denise’s mom, right?”
He was startled by her knowing what he was about to say, then realized that he shouldn’t have been. “Yes.”
“You know that pad and pen you used to keep by the phone for messages? Did you ever notice how when you removed the top page and began to use the one underneath that the impressions of what you’d written on the previous page were embedded there?”
“That’s how I once found a phone number I’d lost. I saw its impression on the new page, so I took a pencil and lightly colored over the area until the number appeared.”
Sephera nodded. “There’s a physicists’ term for the effect but I don’t remember what it is. Anyway, that’s how your wife was able to take you to a house that had burned down six years before. Just like words written on a piece of paper whose impressions are left on the sheet below it, a structure will leave its impression on the space it once occupied.” She shrugged. “Then it’s just a matter of—how’d you put it?—‘coloring it in.’ Or as Rael would say, ‘performing a goddamn parlor trick.’” Her imitation of Rael was dead-on, and both she and Robert laughed.
“Can I ask you something else?”
Sephera nodded.
“Why did Denise—why did my wife invent such a troubled relationship between her and her mother? Why not just have them be the best of friends?”
“Because you wouldn’t have understood a genuinely loving relationship between a parent and a child, having never really known one yourself. It was a way to connect with you.
“Okay, make a left at the stop sign, and go all the way into that big-ass circular driveway. Three houses share it. The one you want is right smack in the middle.”
The descent was much steeper than it looked. The carriers slid forward and bumped against t
he back of the front seat, startling both cats awake. They yowled in irritation. Suzy jerked her head up, sniffed the air, then offered a short, phlegmy rasp that was her version of a bark. Sephera turned around, lifted her hand, whispered, “Shhhhh,” and slowly brought her hand down. At once, all three animals fell asleep.
A large, new-looking Jeep Cherokee sat in the driveway, its front end facing toward the road. Robert barely had room to park beside it. Looking around, he saw that there was no way in hell he’d be able to turn his car around, which meant having to back the damn thing up that Kilimanjaro of a driveway, which meant that a quick exit wasn’t in the cards.
Before he could give voice to any of this, Sephera said, “We need to transfer everything to the Jeep. The keys are under the sun visor on the driver’s side, and a license and registration are in the glove compartment.”
It took them only a few minutes to move everything from the car to the Jeep. Not once did any of the animals stir. As Robert closed the hatch door, an upstairs light came on in the house to the right. He stood there, frozen and afraid to breathe, as a shadow passed by a window, paused, then—just as the light was turned off—pulled back a corner of the curtain.
“I think you’ve got a nosey neighbor,” he whispered to Sephera.
“Yeah, well...they’re under the impression that me and my family are just moving in. So far, we haven’t struck them as particularly friendly.” She took his hand and led him around to the side of the house and up a short set of wooden stairs to a door. Once inside the house, she closed the door and peeked out from behind the curtain. “Shit.”
“What is it?”
“The light’s back on, and now two of them are looking.”
In Silent Graves Page 32