You’re kidding, I think. You’ve got to be kidding. You’re supposed to prepare me to be a prophet? Like one of these god-men you described?
“Until you showed up,” Susanne says, “I thought maybe God had chosen me. I started looking through Maren’s books and folders and notes, and I thought God had directed me to them. That I was supposed to be this ‘custodian of the divine.’ But now that you’re here, well, it’s got to be you, right? Yours was the virgin birth.”
I feel like I should want to laugh, but I don’t want to. “So you believe in a God who intervenes in our lives? Who sends prophets to earth?”
“It’s hard not to. Look around. Look at Mor. It’s harder for me not to believe. But that doesn’t mean I believe in the Judeo-Christian God. Like I said, Socrates and Plato and Pythagoras all believed in God long before Jesus showed up, and their God was not the Jewish God. When Jesus supposedly started preaching some revolutionary spirituality, all he was really doing was meshing the values of pagan mythology with Judaism.”
“Mother taught me science,” I say. “Not theology. I’m not sure she would have believed any of this.” And she wore black most every day, I think. Not white like the Essenes—like when she lived here.
Susanne takes one more drag on the sloppy stub of cigarette. “The great pagan philosophers, like Pythagoras and Socrates, didn’t separate science from God. They believed the natural world was a reflection of God. In trying to understand science, maybe Maren was trying to understand God, trying to understand what happened to her. She kept looking, that’s clear. She kept searching.”
False nettle has no stinging hairs. It looks like stinging nettle with its wide, flat leaves and berry-like clusters of moss green flowers. But if one were to touch the plant, or pull a stalk from the ground, no needle-like hairs would puncture the skin; there would be no burning, no irritation. For false nettle is a mimicker. It capitalizes on stinging nettle’s reputation, warning animals not to touch or eat. It’s a charlatan, this plant, as am I. For as I listen to this, I don’t tell Susanne what I believe is true: I was not chosen by God. Although I don’t know how I came to be, I expect it had little, if anything, to do with Susanne’s theories. Perhaps I say nothing because I wish it were true, that my life were somehow blessed; perhaps because I need something to cling to, even if I know that something is false.
Or perhaps my silence is because of Rune.
“Hop to.” I hear Rune’s voice in the hall. “Hop to.” He pounds on the door. “The herd is stampeding.”
“I spoke to Mikkel, my dad,” Susanne says, as if this has something to do with Rune, or the herd. Rune pounds again, then moos and neighs and whinnies. “I told him what Mor said about you. About him and Maren. He called Mor a vindictive bitch. Said she’s full of shit.”
SOLOMON’S SEAL
2007
—Your Honor, I’d like to ask Dr. Lennart a few additional questions.
—You’re permitted redirect, Counsel.
—Thank you, Your Honor. Dr. Lennart, you said Aslaug Hellig also tested positive for atropine and scopolamine. How much of these toxins did she have in her system compared to the two women who died?
—The toxicology screen indicated Ms. Hellig had less of both toxins in her bloodstream. Obviously, her levels were not fatal.
—Dr. Lennart, in your professional opinion, is it possible Aslaug Hellig poisoned the two women, then took a much smaller amount of jimsonweed herself in order to deflect attention from herself?
—Objection. Leading and argumentative. And calls for speculation.
—Sustained.
—Dr. Lennart, do you have any way of knowing whether Aslaug Hellig voluntarily took the jimsonweed or whether it was given to her without her knowledge?
—No.
—So she could have taken it voluntarily?
—Yes.
—Thank you. I have no further questions.
HERB OF GRACE
2003
When we enter the sanctuary, only ten people, or fewer, sit in the pews. I realize the music I heard was from a recording, not from Rune. We’re not late; Susanne hasn’t been missed.
Rune stands, now, like a prop beneath the projector screen, near a vase of blue vervain. Mother called the vervain herba sancta, meaning “sacred herb” or “herb of grace.” Rune bends toward the vervain and smells it, but herba sancta has no smell. Its spiking plum-hued flowers are beautiful, but scentless—although they taste bitter, astringent. Mother made me eat the vervain for headaches and fever. And once when I was bitten by a snake in the woods, she sucked out the wound, then tied a stalk of blue vervain around my neck, like a charm.
Mother herself took the vervain for everything, it seemed, from bladder infections to stomach discomfort to pain in her bowels—even to calm the twitch of her eye. She’d take it as a poultice and it would flush her cheeks a splotchy red, like she’d tried to apply blusher but layered too much, missed patches. She called it herba sancta, she said, because it was her herb of grace, a cure-all.
I was fascinated by the vervain as a child because Mother seemed in awe of it. I remember the evening after she’d wrapped the vervain around me, to charm me. I scoured her botany books during the hour she bathed. And I found what Mother didn’t tell me: that, by legend, herba sancta was first discovered on the Mount of Calvary, where it staunched the crucified Christ’s wounds; that priests used it for sacrifices, and sorcerers used it for all sorts of incantations. And that, to some, the herb is named herba veneris, referring to the goddess Venus: it’s an aphrodisiac, the vervain. I remember this fact as my eyes travel the arch of Rune’s shoulders, his slender neck. And I feel the vervain staining my cheeks.
I look away, at the preacher, and I see her smile is colossal today, but easy, too; she seems in genuine enjoyment, still standing at the entrance, still welcoming. She wears her hair loose, unlike in my mind, and it makes her look younger. She is dressed in the suit jacket and flowing skirt, but her pale lips are brightened. She hugs and kisses and pats, and the parishioners reciprocate. Some whisper through her hair—which seems Mother’s hair—into her veiled ear. Children pull at her skirt, and she envelops them before they squeal and run.
Susanne walks onto the stage and approaches the boy who controls the projector. I sit near them, in a corner of the first pew, where the preacher directed me, and I hear Susanne refer to the boy as Hagen, and I hear the edge in her voice despite the rumble of other voices around me. And then the angel girl—Rebekka—joins them. She bends her slight body nearer the boy’s—she doesn’t look pregnant, I think—and strands of her hair twist onto the projector and are magnified like snakes on the screen. The boy laughs, points to the snakes, and Rebekka sees and slithers them. Then Susanne tousles the boy’s persimmon-hued hair, making it stand erect. He glowers at Susanne, but Rebekka shakes her head, whispers in his ear; the boy shrugs, nods.
They settle into place then—Susanne and Rebekka and the boy. Susanne moves to the circle of drums, the boy adjusts his seat below the now-snake-free screen. And Rebekka deposits herself at center stage. She shakes her head and enlivens the snake-strands that rise up, then fall to her shoulders and over her breasts.
Rune tugs free his glasses, swipes his eyes, and when he replaces the glasses, his eyes are focused on Rebekka, or just beyond her. Rebekka turns to him, as if she feels his gaze, and nods. Then she nods to Susanne. And the words slide up on the screen.
The music assaults the room. The preacher bounces down the aisle; her skirt flounces; the tambourine rattles not quite to the beat. The children stand motionless, on the pews or floor, or they hang from mothers’ hips, their mouths wide but silent. But the adults move, and I feel myself moving. The music liberates my body, it seems; paralyzes my mind.
Rune, Rebekka and Susanne are a triangle, aware of each other, affected by each other. When Rebekka’s voice dips, Rune softens his touch, or hardens it, depending. I can see Susanne thinking, adjusting; her hands quicken or slow or change
direction. I feel a yearning inside of me, a desire to be part of their web.
Rebekka launches a new song; Hagen scrambles, slides the words. People from the congregation join the preacher near the stage now; they jiggle their bodies in ways they do and don’t intend. The woman in army fatigues is back, still in fatigues, without the purple flag. Her hips pulsate, and her shoulders counter-pulsate, and her head does something in between. The preacher approaches her, embraces her, and the woman starts to laugh, and her laughter swells. And soon the preacher laughs, then the children laugh, and I find myself laughing, although I’m not sure why.
“Praise Jesus,” the preacher says when the song ends; she wipes tears from her eyes. “Oh yes,” she says. “Praise Jesus. Do you know what just happened here? We were all a little drunk in the spirit. Acts, chapter two, says on the day of Pentecost, God so filled the people with the Holy Ghost, they were thought to be drunk. Amen?”
“Amen, sister. Amen.”
“We don’t need wine,” the preacher says. “We have the holy wine. We have the spirit.”
“Oh yes, sister. Amen.”
Elderberry wine, I think. That’s what I feel like right now, like it’s dousing my veins, my brain. I’m glad for this. My brain felt distended with all Susanne told me; it feels good to let it slip free.
“You had a healing, sister?” the preacher says to the woman in army fatigues.
“Praise God,” the woman says. “Oh, glory be to God.”
“What was it, sister?” the preacher says. “How were you healed?”
“My tooth was aching so much—I couldn’t bear it,” the woman says. “But when you touched me, Pastor, the pain just washed away.” And now she weeps, this woman. And others weep. And then they sing again, and dance again. The singing goes on and on, and the dancing, too. And when the music slows and the congregation sways in rhythm, I realize well over an hour has passed. The song service ends, and Rune yanks the guitar strap over his head; Susanne circles back around the drums. They walk with Rebekka offstage, then past me to the rear pew, and I feel exposed suddenly—although I’ve been sitting in this pew, alone, from the start.
“Good morning,” the preacher says. “Thank you for coming today. God is happy you’re here. Praise God. I have a special announcement.” I remember Susanne’s forewarning. “For all of you who couldn’t be here on Wednesday night, we are blessed to have my niece visiting. Would you stand, Aslaug?”
I feel my legs sweating against the cotton of my dress; I worry the dress will cling to my legs when I stand. So I wave up and down fast.
“Thank you, Aslaug,” the preacher says, but she doesn’t elaborate, embellish the situation in some self-aggrandizing way, as Susanne intimated she would.
The preacher then discusses what she calls administrative matters, and I find myself thinking of Rune. He can barely read, but he makes me think, like Mother did, and yet not like Mother at all. Mother roused me with her abundance, her knowledge; Rune strips away, finds the core.
“Now,” the preacher says, “the Holy Spirit is moving me to talk about the difference between the soul and the spirit. Amen?”
“Amen, Pastor.”
I’m aware, suddenly, of the preacher’s God-pearl eyes.
“The soul comprises the mind, the will and the emotions,” she says. “Amen? But when the Holy Spirit fills you, God’s not filling your soul. When we receive the baptism in the Holy Ghost, we don’t experience the baptism in our minds. Amen? And it’s not about our will. It’s not even about our emotions, although it sure feels good.”
I feel Susanne in my head critiquing the preacher’s words, mocking her. I push the voice from my mind—as I’m learning to do with Mother’s voice.
“When God bathes us in His Holy Spirit, it’s our spirit that gets filled up. Amen?” the preacher says. “Our spirit is that void in all of us. That hollow space that can only be filled up with God’s Spirit. Now, that void is in all of us, but it’s different in each and every one of us, because even though we are each made in the image and likeness of God, we are individuals. We are individual incarnations of God, each one of us a fingerprint of God.”
Unless you’re me, I think. I’m a fingerprint of Mother. But then I stop myself. I remember seeing my face this morning, all shining and fresh as dew. Maybe she’s right. Maybe everybody feels an emptiness, a void. Until they get filled up. Maybe I’m starting to get filled up.
“But we have to be careful,” the preacher says. “We have to let the right spirit fill us. There is darkness in this world, don’t be fooled. We all have to make a choice whether to let in the light or to fill up with darkness. When God falls on you, fills you, His is an enabling presence. It may knock you off your feet, but when you get back up, the Holy Spirit will have nourished you, refreshed you. But the darkness, it is provocative. There’s no question about that. It can seem so appealing. And when it fills you, it may feel so good. But it will leave you hungry. It will leave you so hungry.
“So, people,” the preacher says, “are you hungry? We all get hungry at times, because there is a void there, in all of us. We need to keep that void filled up with the Holy Spirit. Amen?”
A piano sits to the left of the stage, and Rebekka, the angel, sits there now; her fingers fondle the keys. People in the pews stand, move forward, flow toward the stage. I feel myself join the river. The preacher meets me, lifts my hands in the air; I sense the thick moisture of the anointing oil, and the flat coolness of the preacher’s palm on my brow.
It would be so much easier to lie down, I think. I’d just like to lie down.
SOLOMON’S SEAL
2007
—Please state your name.
—Detective Gar Hoder.
—Where do you work, Detective?
—For the Bethan Police Department.
—Have you ever met the defendant, Aslaug Hellig?
—I arrested her last year.
—Please describe the circumstances of her arrest.
—Well, we got the call about the fire at the old monastery on Kettil Street, and when we arrived, she was just standing there in the yard, watching the building burn down. I thought at first she was a neighbor, somebody not involved. Normally people are screaming bloody murder if they have loved ones inside. But she was just watching it all. She didn’t even tell anyone there were people inside. We figured that out on our own.
—How?
—We went in. But it was too late. The two women were dead.
—Okay. Then what happened?
—Well, the defendant stood and watched us remove the bodies. We’d placed them on stretchers and were bringing them out, putting them in the ambulance. Anyway, she started going ballistic at that point. One of the officers restrained her.
—When you say “going ballistic,” what do you mean exactly?
—It was almost like she didn’t want us to take them away. She was screaming at us to stop. She gave me a good lash on my face with her nails.
—Okay, and then?
—We tried to calm her down, talk to her. But she wouldn’t answer any questions. It was obvious enough she was connected to the fire in some way, though. I felt we had probable cause to search her. So I told my officers to do it—search her. But she was like a wild animal. She got away.
—What do you mean, “she got away”?
—She took off running. We lost her.
—And then what happened?
—We ended up picking her up later. She came back to the church, tried to get inside. Said someone in the church had taken her money. We arrested her.
—And then?
—We had her examined by a doctor, to make sure she hadn’t been hurt in the fire. She wasn’t cooperative.
—Had she been hurt?
—She had some bruises and small burns. Nothing much to speak of.
—What, if anything, else happened?
—Well, we tried to question her again, and she started telling this cockamamy story about
a virgin birth. I don’t remember exactly all she said. It was clear, though, she wasn’t right in the head.
—Objection. Move to strike. Speculation.
—Sustained. Strike everything following his statement that he tried to question the defendant.
—Okay. Then what?
—The pathologist said we should do a tox screen on her, so I ordered that done. We got a search warrant. She fought tooth and nail when they were trying to get her blood. They had to strap her down. After that we didn’t even try to talk to her. It was two days or so, I’d say, before she calmed down. By that time we’d charged her. We’d found the fire was arson, and we’d learned the women died of poison. There weren’t any other suspects. But we never really got to question her after that. She was assigned an attorney. You know the drill.
AMPHICARPAEA
Seed at Both Ends
2003
The genus name for the hog peanut plant is Amphicarpaea, meaning “seed at both ends.” The hog peanut’s butterfly-shaped flowers are common in woodlands, its white-purple blossoms easily discovered by pilfering insects able to transfer the pollen from hog peanut to hog peanut. Yet along the lower, creeping branches of the vine hang additional flowers, strange flowers—flowers without petals. Flowers with no need to entice hungry insects: they are self-sufficient, these flowers, able to self-fertilize. Mother explained this to me as we gathered the plant’s underground fruit to boil and eat.
“But why does the plant bother with cross-pollination,” I’d asked her, “if the lower flowers can fertilize themselves?”
“Inbreeding produces degenerate offspring, Aslaug Datter,” Mother had said. “Why would the hog peanut rely on inbreeding alone?”
I think back on that conversation now as I sit in Mother’s vault watching Rune across the nave. I’ve told myself my feelings for Rune are not inappropriate—that I’m drawn to him because of our shared history, because I share history with almost no one. But then I look at him and the hog peanut grows in my mind. I’m just confused, I tell myself. I’ve never been around boys, men. Humans are animals, too. I know what it means to enter puberty—I’ve read of it in physiology books. My body is changing; there are hormones. It’s all natural. It doesn’t mean my spirit is filling with darkness.
Madapple Page 17