by Leanna Ellis
The angel did not move until the beast disappeared, then his wings carefully folded and came to rest, secured between his shoulder blades. Turning, sword still at the ready, he said, “Come, Jacob.”
“You know me? But—”
“Completely.”
“And w-who are you? An angel?”
He inclined his head, indicating yes.
“Do you have a name?”
“Remiel.”
Jacob whispered the name, and his pulse leapt. “Where are we going?”
“Come now.” The angel began moving away from him, taking his circle of light.
Sensing others in the dark watching and waiting, Jacob scrambled to his feet and hurried to keep up. “What is happening? Where am I?”
Without slowing, the angel said, “You are dead. Do you remember?”
The memory shot through him, just as the shotgun blast had hit him in the chest. It struck him as odd that he should view his own death so dispassionately. It brought no resurgence of pain or grief. It was as if he no longer cared about the life he had known, as if the shackles and burdens had fallen away, and he now felt lighter and safer than he’d been moments before. “So this is it? This is death and dying? Heaven and hell?”
The angel again said nothing. A head taller than Jacob, he had long strides, which made it difficult for Jacob to keep up. Out of breath, Jacob rushed after him, his thoughts trailing way behind, lingering in the earthly realm. “But what about—?”
The angel kept moving.
“Wait!” Jacob stopped. “I can’t go anywhere. I can’t leave. Not yet. Not until… What about my brother?”
Remiel’s gaze, hard and stony, leveled on Jacob, yet the depths of his eyes flickered. “Do you mean, Samuel?”
Awestruck at the angel’s knowledge, Jacob nodded. “Yes, Samuel. There’s danger. We have to go back. I—” He hesitated, not wanting to admit he was the danger. “Akiva wasn’t the only vampire there. Samuel is in trouble. You’ve got a sword. You can help him. But we have to hurry.”
The corner of the angel’s mouth curled. “It’s too late. The moment has passed. Samuel does not want help.”
“What do you mean?”
“You cannot force help on those who resist. That is true in life and beyond.”
Desperation reared up inside Jacob like a startled horse. “But he’s my brother!”
“Yes, and stubborn, like you. He must learn. If he chooses to learn at all.”
“But that’s dangerous.”
The hint of a smile disappeared, and only Remiel’s strong, fierce features remained, his eyes those of a warrior who had seen into eternity. “Yes, it is.”
Slowly, the angel assessed Jacob, then continued in the direction he’d been heading. A halo of light encircled him, the light emanating from his ivory skin.
Jacob jogged a couple of steps. “I have to help Samuel. I have to—”
“Are you willing to sacrifice your eternity for his?”
The question caught Jacob off guard. He’d seen what darkness awaited, the painful torture. Pain had throbbed through his very bones and shaken him to the core. He’d heard the infinite, excruciating silence of an eternal darkness yawning before him. And he’d met frightening creatures. Creatures that had cowered before Remiel. Without Remiel, Jacob would have been at their mercy. And they offered no mercy.
Yet, Remiel suggested all that Jacob had experienced might be waiting for Samuel. Would Jacob take his brother’s place? Was his love strong enough to give his brother such a gift?
Samuel was young, two years younger than Jacob, and infinitely unschooled in the ways of the world, especially the unseen, unknown world. Jacob had done many things in his life to deserve eternity in fiery hell. So without much hesitation, he responded, “Y-yes.” He rushed ahead before cowardice made him recant his words. “Yes,” he repeated more firmly, “I will trade.”
Remiel stared off into the vast darkness as if judging distance or time or something Jacob could not begin to comprehend. “You think you can redeem yourself by helping Samuel?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this place. I don’t know the rules.”
“You know more than you think.”
Jacob didn’t understand. “You tell me the answer.”
The angel’s gaze never wavered, and no answer was forthcoming.
Jacob knew, if he could, if there was a way, he would help Samuel and keep him from falling into the same pit. “Can I at least try?”
Chapter Three
Samuel, won’t you eat some more?” Mamm called from the kitchen. She’d fixed his favorites: fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, along with buttermilk biscuits. He’d retreated to his room and lay on his bed, hands folded over his empty stomach, legs outstretched, and eyes closed.
“Samuel?” Her voice came closer, and he heard her footsteps. “Are you ill?”
But he didn’t respond, and her footsteps receded into the other room. She spoke softly to Pop, but Samuel rolled onto his side and faced the wall.
Three months had passed since Jacob’s death. The real one. The one Samuel couldn’t ignore, forget, or deny. Each day since, Samuel had risen early, completed his chores, worn himself out doing more than was expected. But his appetite had waned, and sleep evaded him. When he found refuge in short, sporadic dreams, Jacob appeared. And Samuel woke in a sweat with a cry on his lips and chest heaving.
Winter had taken hold of the land, and snow blanketed the ground. Samuel labored on his chores until his muscles quivered with fatigue. Only then did he seek the shelter of the house. His parents were already eating supper at the kitchen table when he walked in the back door, doffed his hat and coat, and headed toward his room.
“Aren’t you hungry?” his mother asked.
His father harrumphed. “Your mother worked long and hard on this fine meal.”
But he didn’t respond. He flopped onto his bed. For a long while he stared at the ceiling until his eyes closed.
A knock on the door jarred him. The doorknob twisted, and his father entered.
“Samuel,” his voice boomed, “this has to stop.”
Samuel blinked but did not answer. What was there to say?
“Now, I want you to get up and go in there and eat. Do you understand me?”
He couldn’t move. He felt nothing, as if he too were as dead as Jacob.
“Samuel, are you listening to me?” His father strode farther into the room and leaned over Samuel. “Is it that English girl you’ve been seeing?” This time his voice was quieter, as if he didn’t want Samuel’s mother to overhear. “Is it?”
He hadn’t gone to see Andi in a week. Only because he had not yet joined the church and was still in his “running around” years had his father kept quiet this long. Still, surprise that his father knew he’d been seeing an English girl made him sit upright. When he’d drunk too much, smoked some weed, and showed up at Andi’s door, she’d taken him in, taken him to bed, and he’d tried to forget. But he’d ended up weeping like a baby, his head cradled on her shoulder.
“Is this woman turning you against us?” Pop demanded.
Samuel met his father’s gaze with a challenge. “You didn’t tell me the truth about Jacob, did you?”
His father’s eyes narrowed and he straightened. “And you’re turning into him.”
Those words were meant to wound, and yet Samuel held on to them. At least Jacob hadn’t lied to him the way his father had.
“You heard me right, Samuel. Your brother believed we were hiding some big truth from him. And look where it got him! Is that what you want to happen to you?”
Words piled up in Samuel but could find no release. His hands shook as rage boiled inside him. The one thing his father had tried to teach him about God and faith Jonas Fisher had obviously known nothin
g about. Maybe Jacob had been right. Maybe there was more out there than the way they’d been raised.
His father stared down at him, waiting for an answer, an acceptable answer that Samuel couldn’t give. Finally, he left.
Later, as the room darkened with shadows, Mamm brought him a tray with buttered toast and strips of beef swimming in buttery noodles. “I thought you might be hungry.”
He forced himself to sit up on the edge of the bed.
She set the tray beside him and handed him an envelope. “This came for you.”
Samuel recognized the careful penmanship of his older brother, Levi. His mother’s fingers lingered on the envelope a second longer than necessary. Had Levi ever written to her? But she finally released the envelope into her youngest son’s hands and left him alone. Pennsylvania seemed so far away. So very far away.
All three of the Fisher boys had been born in Lancaster County and raised there in the district of Promise. When Samuel was fifteen, Pop told them of Jacob’s death. They’d all gone to the grave site and prayed together. Yet each of them had held on to grief. Their family might have survived Jacob’s death…or first death, except Pop decided he couldn’t live in Promise any longer. That decision had severed their family in ways Jacob’s death hadn’t. With his parents, Samuel had moved to Ohio, Levi had stayed behind, and Samuel had felt as if he’d lost both brothers. If he’d been older, then maybe he would have done the same as Levi. Or if he’d been sweet on a girl the way Levi had been on Hannah Schmidt. But Samuel hadn’t been given a choice.
Now, almost four years later, Samuel hadn’t seen his older brother since then. Levi had married Hannah, Rachel’s younger sister, and they were expecting a baby soon. Life in Pennsylvania had continued on.
But here in Ohio, it seemed to have stopped. Longing welled up inside Samuel. His fingers sought the sealed flap and tore it open.
Dear Samuel,
Roc brought news of your safety. I was relieved to hear that you are well and that no harm came to you. You must not feel guilty for what happened. We choose our own path, and Jacob chose his. I will never understand why, but maybe it is not for me to understand. Or maybe I only understand what I wish to.
Hannah shared with me a book of poetry Jacob loved. This passage has brought me comfort.
When some Beloveds, ’neath whose eyelids lay
The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one
Did leave me dark before the natural sun,
And I astonished fell, and could not pray,
A thought within me to myself did say,
“Is God less God that thou art left undone?
Rise, worship, bless Him, in this sackcloth spun,
As in that purple!”—But I answered Nay!
What child his filial heart in words can loose,
If he behold his tender father raise
The hand that chastens sorely? Can he choose
But sob in silence with an upward gaze?—
And my great Father, thinking fit to bruise,
Discerns in speechless tears, both prayer and praise.
Samuel stretched back out on the bed and reread the poem, his lips moving slightly as he read the words that had meant so much to Levi. Maybe his older brother could offer prayers and praise to the good Lord, but Samuel could not. Levi didn’t know the sin Samuel had committed. He was alone in this dark grief and stifling anger.
Clenching his hand, he wadded up the letter but stopped himself from throwing it away. A part of him wanted to hear his brother’s voice, to feel as if their family was once again whole, to know that all was not lost. And he opened the crinkled paper once more and read the rest of Levi’s letter.
For I know at the end, Jacob chose love, a sacrificial love. Love carries beyond the grave, as we know of our dear Lord’s great sacrifice and love for us.
Choose wisely, Samuel, how you will live. You are in my daily prayers.
Always your brother, Levi
Samuel’s thoughts lingered on the last. Sacrificial love. Jacob may have sacrificed his life in the end to save Rachel, but it was Samuel who had killed him. The choice he had made could never be undone.
The hand that chastens sorely? Samuel reread bits and pieces of the poem. Had it meant something to Jacob too? Jacob had revered words and stories, poems and books. What had spurred him beyond the confines of his Amish upbringing? What had pushed him to do so? His father’s lies? Had Jacob seen through the façade? Or was it simple truth in poetry? Words strung together on a page? How could words have lured him away from home, family, and faith? Could the words he’d read, the rhythm and cadence, have acted like a balm to his wounded soul? Had they held profound truths?
Either way, resolution and redemption seemed out of Samuel’s reach.
***
He was being watched.
Samuel felt a suspicious shiver run down his spine as he walked along the darkened street. Living in an Amish community, wearing the plain clothes, made one stand out, and all his life he’d been aware of the English, who liked to observe. It could have easily been the last bite of winter, as it clawed and scratched its way into late March, but the prickly sensation at the base of his neck told him it was more than the cold.
He glanced over one shoulder, nothing grabbing his attention, and jerked his gaze in the opposite direction. Again, nothing. No tourists. No Englishers. No one. Dismissing the sensation, he hunched his shoulders inside his jacket, tucked his chin, and stared at the glistening sidewalk as he trudged onward.
Rain puddles speckled the sidewalk and gave a shimmer to the pavement where dirt and sludge from the last snowfall had been pushed to the side of the roadway. High above, streetlights made tiny halos at the top of the poles in the misty night air. He felt like a man with a foot in two worlds, and his path was as murky and indistinguishable as light from dark on this cold, foggy night.
The bitter wind tugged at his coat, but he fisted a hand over the opening, the same way he held on to the Eden of his childhood, now lost to sorrow and heartbreak and sin. As a child, life had been simple—not easy, but comfortable. Comforting. And he longed for it once again.
He crossed Eighth Street and angled toward the building. Through the glass door, he entered this world so unlike his own, where artificial lights replicated the sun, an automated spring breeze cooled off rooms, and sleek steel, solid brick, and shimmering chrome replaced wood. In this place, technology reigned supreme, media took the place of teachers, and books were honored.
But in the Amish world, sun and sky, wind and rain bowed only to the hand of God. Furniture and attire reflected the natural world and order. Nothing seemed complicated. Everything adhered to simplicity. And only one book, God’s Word, held any value. His parents owned only two others in their home: a book of hymns and one of martyrs. But those, especially the Bible, had been displaced by others, which Samuel had delved into in an effort to understand what had happened to his brother.
For the past six months, he’d thought of nothing but Jacob, and each time, he felt the jarring shock and guilt jabbing into his heart. Oh, Jacob. What happened? How did we come to this? How should you be remembered? As a victim? A villain? Or simply a martyr?
Levi had said Jacob gave his life. Gave it? No, Samuel had taken it, like a thief. Their father wouldn’t discuss Jacob or his death, wouldn’t acknowledge that something disturbing and beyond the natural world had happened, wouldn’t admit he’d lied about Jacob’s first death. Or fake death. But as much as Samuel wanted to unload his own guilt, he couldn’t.
He’d attempted to banish the questions, shun the memories, but they hounded him like coyotes after a stray cat. The questions gnawed at his bones and flesh. He’d finally taken refuge in a place he hoped held the answers.
The library had become his church, where he bowed his head over pages and words, searching for truth. Now, passing
an elderly woman and bank of computers, he took the stairs to the third floor, a path well worn by his scuffed boots over the last three months. Down below, teenage laughter carried up through the atrium, bouncing around the walls and off the windows. Here above, the top floor appeared deserted. The reference desk stood empty. Samuel wandered through the maze of bookshelves, searching for the librarian who had helped him over the past few weeks.
Julie worked Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Midweek, most patrons stayed away. He’d learned to arrive a few minutes before closing, when she didn’t have anything much to do.
It had become a set time when Samuel returned books, chatted with Julie, learning she had grown up in Cincinnati and wanted to one day be a writer, and picked up more books she had ordered for him through interlibrary loan. He got the sense she anticipated his visits, as last week she’d said, “You’re late.” But maybe he was reading too much into her awareness.
Julie had graduated from University of Kentucky and was a couple years older, but she was always eager to help, her green eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, her smile quick and easy, if not on the edge of shy. Her long blond hair was usually pulled back at the base of her neck. She wasn’t one of those English women who wore a lot of makeup, and he liked her wholesome plainness. She was pretty in a simple way. She’d told him once, “I love books. Love them.” Her grin had been as broad as the state of Ohio. “Really, I just can’t help myself.”
When he’d confessed he appreciated the darker poems, she’d suggested the obvious: Poe. But Edgar Allan had nothing on Aleister Crowley and his works. One line in “A Saint’s Damnation”—My poisonous passion for your blood! Behold!—stopped Samuel cold. Deeper and deeper he dug into occultist practices and rituals, and Julie had eagerly supplied the tools, even pointing him toward musicians who were followers of “The Great Beast”: Led Zeppelin, The Doors, and Sting.