Angel Realms

by Malynn, Vivienne

  “That is, unless there is something else you want to talk to me about,” he says with a strained grunt as he heaves a large book out from the bottom shelf. Turning he places it solidly on the counter next to the sword, again arousing the surrounding dust.

  “Ethan mentioned you deal with unique objects,” I say.

  “That I do,” he says. “It’s one of many of my specialties.”

  “I have this locket,” I say, tugging the chain at my neck, releasing the clasp. I set the locket on the counter, turning it slightly so the engraving faces the clerk. “I was wondering if you could tell me about this symbol.”

  The clerk scrunches his nose, raising his specks slightly up the bridge toward his eyes. “Yes, I can tell you what that is.” Clasping the corner of the book, he heaves the cover over in an arcing motion. The pages follow with a wispy intelligence that seems to be guided by some unseen force. They flutter like the wings of birds until finally the clerk places his finger on a page and they all fall silent, settling into place like the cue from a maestro.

  “I believe this is the symbol,” he says, as he rotates the book for me to see. His finger taps a large image of the symbol scrolled out in dazzling colors across the ancient pages. The inscription to the photograph reads: Etz Chaim.

  “Etz Chaim,” I read out loud. “What does that mean?”

  “The tree of life,” he replies. “Of course, the tree of life is represented in many ways in many cultures, but that particular representation most closely resembles that used in Kabbalah.”

  “Kabbalah?”

  “It’s a school of thought, which deals with the more, what would you call it, mystical parts of Judaism. Needless to say, it has a lot of misunderstandings like all groups who delve into such forbidden mysteries.”

  “Why are they forbidden?” I ask.

  “Because someone deems it so,” he answers. “But who is to say what is forbidden to us.” He peers over his spectacles at me.

  “I saw a similar symbol on a painting. Someone called it the mystic…something…tet…”

  “Tetrad,” he injects. “The mystic tetrad and this symbol are variations of each other. One was worshipped by the Pythagoreans as perfection of the outward Cosmos. The other as perfection of the inward Cosmos, our path to God through his ten emanations called the Sephiroth.”

  I have no idea what he means, but I get the basic gist of what he is saying. This is a sacred symbol. The question still remains, why did my mother give it to me? The shop keeper picks up the locket and examines it closer. Running his fingers over it, he opens it, dropping its contents onto the counter. Moving the locket to the side, he looks at what has fallen out. “Interesting.”

  His reaction is about the same as mine was when I first saw the hair. A mix of bafflement and disgust. “Do you know why someone would put hair in a locket?” I ask.

  He looks at me curiously. “You mean you don’t know why the hair is there.” Furrowing his brow, he repeats, “Interesting.” He stops to think a moment. “There are many reasons to put hair in a locket, some less mystical than others. Who did you say gave you this locket?”

  “My mother,” I answer. “She gave it to me recently, as an inheritance I suppose.”

  “Hmm. Why don’t you just ask her then,” he says distractedly as he pieces through the hair on the counter.

  “I can’t. I don’t know where she is.”

  “I see,” he says, looking up from the locket. “Well, there is the idea that power resides in the hair. The story of Samson and Delilah is the strongest example I can think of. But there are many more stories that follow the same vein.”

  I vaguely remember the story of Samson from a child. “He’s the guy who was really strong until his girlfriend cut his hair.”

  “Yes. Such betrayal love is. But you are much too young to know the betrayal of the heart.”

  “Believe me,” I say, “I know betrayal.” A bitterness enjoins my voice. He does not press me on the issue. Instead he returns his attention to the locket.

  “Could the hair have something to do with the symbol on the front?” I ask.

  “I doubt it,” he replies. “The locket was probably just something to hold the hair in.” The old man turns the locket over in his hand and then begins to rub the inside of the casing. “That’s strange,” he says. “There is something else here.” Taking a magnifying glass, he looks closer. “See these,” he continues, offering me the magnify glass.

  I look through and see three unfamiliar letters arranged in a triangular shape like the engraving on the front, only they are enclosed in a circle. They are crudely engraved into the locket as if they don’t belong there. In some ways they resemble the ones on the sword as if they could be from the same language. “They’re like the writing on the sword you were looking at when I walked in.”

  “You noticed that too,” he said with a grin. “Very interesting indeed.”

  “Do you know what language this is?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. He looks around the room as if there is someone listening in. Leaning over the counter, he whispers, “It’s the angelic language.”

  “Angels,” I say unconvinced. What is it with these people and their hokey religious nonsense? Mystic religions. Secret brotherhoods. And now angelic languages. Next he’ll be saying that Noah’s ark is parked out back. “You expect me to believe that this was written by angels.”

  Rising back up, he lets out a sigh. “Not necessarily. Could have been written by one who knew the language.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Oh yes, very serious.” He taps the sword with his hand. “This particular sword happens to be an angelic sword, said to belong to a Seraphim. Nearly impossible to find.”

  Well it’s not Noah’s ark, but it’s enough to convince me that this guy is ready for an institution. He can’t possibly buy into this. I decide to push him on it. “And where did you get it? The internet?”

  His mouth bunches into a dissatisfied frown. “No. Let’s just say I have connections. Some you wouldn’t want to associate with.”

  By the looks of him, I would say he’s probably right, but I still like to push, “With the exception of the writing, it looks like an ordinary sword to me.”

  “This is no ordinary sword,” he says. “It is said to be forged from the heart of a dying star. God himself wrote these words on it with his flaming tongue. And when this sword burns it burns like a thousand suns.”

  “Looks like this one is broken,” I say, touching the cold sword with my finger. “No flames.”

  “Flaming swords lie dormant until they’re wielded by their owner,” he says, sternly.

  “Then wield it.”

  “I can’t,” he exclaims. “I am not the proper owner.”

  “So it’s a stolen angelic sword.”

  “No,” he says, offended. “Let’s just say I am holding this sword for safe keeping until its owner arrives. You see each sword is especially made for its owner. It can’t be activated by anyone else. It’s completely useless to me.”

  “So it’s just a glorified paper weight until its owner comes.”

  “It’s still sharper and stronger than any man made sword. And can cut through any earthly material.”

  I still don’t believe this guy. The idea of angels and flaming swords is completely crazy. No one in their right mind would believe it. I should just leave the store now, but at the same time, he does seem to know a lot about this stuff. Perhaps my mother got mixed up in this same insanity. It certainly would explain a lot. “So can you read the writing?” I ask.

  “Some of it,” he says, picking up the sword. “But like the words in your locket. I only know what they represent; I can’t speak them the way they are supposed to be spoken.”

  “What does it matter if you can’t speak it?”

  “Because it is in the speaking of the words that lends them power. I can tell you what the words mean but the vocalization of each word is hidden. Only one w
ith the true voice can speak them.”

  “You mean the language can’t be spoken. What good is a language if it can’t be spoken? Was it lost or something?”

  “No,” he says, running his fingers along the engraved words on the blade. “Most of the words can be spoken but only by those who know the language. Enoch, the prophet of the old, was said to know the spoken language of the angels. Before the tower of Babel, supposedly all men could. But this word…” Propping the sword on its point along the counter and turning it toward me, he points to a particular word. “This word is a hidden word. Meaning only the one who God has chosen to voice the word can speak it. A secret covered and sealed with six rings.”

  “Six rings?”

  He places his hand over his throat as if he is going to choke himself. “The six rings of your throat,” he says. “The one with the voice is the only one that can speak the word and give it power.” Placing the sword on the counter, he continues. “The same goes for the words in your locket. They are hidden and can only be spoken by the elect of God.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s your locket. Maybe it’s you.”

  “It can’t be me,” I say. “I don’t even know what those symbols mean.”

  “I can tell you what the three letters represent. The top one is the crown; the other two are wisdom and understanding. They are the first three emanations of God. The names over the three gates leading to God in the seventh heaven. When spoken they are ‘the three mother words’, used in the creation of the world.”

  And he says that like it’s a known fact. He probably doesn’t even know how crazy he sounds. It’s just bread and butter to him. “Why would those be on this locket?” I ask.

  “That’s a good question? I don’t know.” The shop keeper shrugs his shoulders. “It could be that the locket is just a keepsake of sentimental value given to you by your mother. The words could be nothing at all.”

  “And the hair?”

  “The hair could be your own or your mothers,” he says, returning the hair to its secret compartment and offering me the locket. I hold out my hands, cupped to receive it. He sets the locket in them and pours the rest of the chain as if it were liquid gold. At the last moment, he grips the end of the chain and says, “then again, this could be a talisman of great power.”

  Tugging the chain from his hand, I take the locket and again secure it around my neck. Tucking it under my shirt, I press my hand against it. A talisman of power. That’s absurd. It’s probably just something she picked up from a junk sale. “Thank you for your time,” I say. “Be sure to tell Ethan I came by.”

  “Of course.”

  As I walk out the door, I stop a moment. Curiosity over takes me and I ask, “On the sword. The hidden word. What does it mean?”

  The shop keeper peers at me over his specs and grins once more. “It’s the name of the angel who is to wield the sword. He is called by many names by many different people. We call him Abbadon.” He picks up the sword and holds it up to the light, and with a loud voice proclaims, “And he shall blacken out the sun and consume the Cosmos in his wrath. The holder of the keys of the bottomless pit, the great void. Abbadon, destroyer of all.” He ends with wrenching laughter.

  I back out the door with a forced smile, closing it firmly behind me, convinced that I will never be going in there again. The guy is definitely off his rocker. I can see why townspeople don’t frequent his shop. I again press my hand against the locket under my shirt. Despite my skepticism, I can’t help but get caught up in the mystery of the locket. Perhaps my mother did have a reason for giving it to me.

  Chapter 6

  I meet Justine on the street outside the bookstore. She is carrying something in a large paper bag. Seeing that she is not distraught like she was before, I decide not to ask her about it. She greets me with her usual perky smile. “How was your visit?” she asks.

  “Fine,” I reply, not wanting to go into the specifics of my discussion with the lunatic shop keeper. I am not even sure how that conversation would go. It probably would leave Justine in greater distress than she was before.

  “So…how’s Ethan?” It’s evident that ‘fine’ will not squelch Justine’s curiosity.

  “Ethan wasn’t there,” I say.

  Disappointment falls over her like a dark specter. “That’s too bad.” I think she is more disappointed than I am. “It’s just last night; I really think I detected some chemistry between you two.” Reminiscing, she clasps her hands and raises one foot like a school girl who just got a new puppy. “Ahh, first love.”

  “Wait a minute. I am just being friendly,” I say, straining not to blush. “And he is not my first love.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Justine says, lowering her excitement a bit. “It’s just; I remember when Jeff and I met. It was love at first sight. He took my breath away with all his talk about numbers and theorems.”

  “Really,” I say. I can’t imagine anyone being twitter-pated over mathematical equations, but to each their own. Justine is lost in her thoughts, swaying back and forth. I need to put an end to this before it gets out of hand. “Right now we’re just friends and I would like to keep it that way. I have other prospects to think about.”

  Justine looks at me blankly. “Other boys? But you just got here.”

  “No,” I exclaim. “Not boys. College and maybe getting a job. You know, grown-up stuff.” Somehow I don’t think Justine has any idea about grown-up stuff. She seems like one of those women who get married out of high school to their high school sweet heart so they never have to grow up. Of course, with her and Jeff’s age difference, she must have married her high school math teacher.

  “Certainly, college is very important,” she says, but I know in the back of her mind, she is envisioning me walking down the aisle with Ethan waiting at the altar.

  Some first time fosters get big ideas of what it’s going to be like to have a foster child. Especially those who are looking toward adoption. They think they can fix you and make you into that perfect vision of the child they dream of. Of course, when they realize that you will never fit into that mold of perfection, they get buyer’s remorse and end up returning you, finding any excuse they can. I almost prefer the jerks. At least, with them you know they are getting rid of you, because they’re jerks and you rub them the wrong way. The types like the Gregor’s get rid of you because you aren’t good enough. You become just another dog at the pound who can’t be house broken.

  Over the years, I’ve gotten used to it. At first, it hurt. Each time I tried harder, but then I would be put in a home where you were just assumed to be a delinquent and everything that went wrong was your fault. Every time the fosters spoke about me to others, it was always about what I did wrong and how ungrateful I was. I was just a symbol of their martyrdom, a reason for their affliction. And everyone always commented on how saintly they were for putting up with me. But that’s what all kids are to them, something to put up with, foster kids especially. Pretty soon, I stopped caring about what people wanted. I am who I am, and if people don’t like it, well…I look over at the church at the image of the people being pushed into the fire. A slight smirk comes over me. Good riddance to them.

  “Weren’t you going to show me the bookstore,” I say to Justine, who is still lost in her romantic aspirations.

  “Oh yes,” she says, shaking herself from her daydream. “Do you like reading?”