She found the black candles and the gleaming knife and fork and each item struck terror in her heart. When she saw that the utensils were clean, that there were no stains on them, for a moment she breathed easier, but then she found the unholy crucifix with the naked doll still tied to it and she was certain he had killed them. If he could kill his wife who had borne him three children, he could easily have killed two small dark boys from the ghetto.
Men like him hated fiercely and she knew how strong and powerful their hate was.
Guilt, swift and brutal, overcame her. It's what I've done to him and taught Rachael to do -- God is punishing me for it.
She looked up at the brilliant blue sky. "He deserved it," she cried. "He's evil. He killed her. I've only done a small thing teaching Rachael - my magic is weak. I'm sorry. Who am I to take vengeance in my hands, even such a small vengeance?"
A robin sang and Rosa saw two young birds hesitating in the tree. The first one flew, awkwardly, but he made it to another branch. The mother bird sang encouragement and somehow Rosa knew her sons were not dead. In her heart of hearts I would know, she thought, and went back into the house calling her sons.
Juan said, "It's Mama - she's calling us."
"Rachael said we shouldn't answer no matter who called."
"But it's Mama," Juan pleaded.
"You know what Rachael said - now shut up."
"I'm hungry and I've gotta pee."
"Pee in your pants - I already did."
It was another hour before Rosa came down the steps. She slid open the panel and when she saw them, screamed, "Bad boys - come out of there. You're bad - so bad. I've been calling you for hours. You scared your mother - it's a sin."
She pulled them out roughly, smacked each one hard on his butt, and then drew them both close, crying, "Oh, you bad, bad boys."
"Rachael said," Juan began.
"Rachael was right," Rosa said, holding the boys so tight they could hardly breath. "Yes, I was wrong. You are very, very good boys. I can never tell you why, but you were very good. Now, hurry, today we go home."
"We go home."
"Not that home. Today we go to real home. Today we go to Mexico," she said, frantically kissing every inch of their dear faces.
She looked up. "God is good. Thank you."
"He was in there with us," Juan bragged importantly.
"I know," she said, "I know. He sure was."
Chapter 27
The new owners of Portland Place decided they didn't like the fence; they found the angels offensive. They had been on Mr. Kramer's list for four years, so they traded it for a modern chainlink fence. After months of hustling, Kramer could not sell the fence so he moved it to the back of the yard.
New laws came into being and he now had an illegal fence on hands. Fearful of exorbitant fines, he had a large hole dug and buried it. "That's all you can do with rubbish," he said, relieved that his boils would be gone soon.
Chapter 28
From the plane, Anderson looked down on the desolation - the fires and the wasteland - rapidly passing under them. He knew that he had had some failures there, but in time his companies would devour them. It would be a total success, he was sure of it.
The news told him the rest of the world was going as planned. Wars raged in Europe and on the African continent, torture, murder, genocide, and ethnic cleansing fueling the madness. Ireland still battled and the killings escalated. Small countries headed by madmen entered into localized nuclear wars.
Anderson smiled to himself. All of this in God's name! Good, it was very good! A few places were still holdouts, but it would not take long.
He thought of Christine and remembered why he had chosen her. With her tall slimness, her desire to have a dozen children, her naivety, she had seemed perfect. But like all best laid plans... After their third child, she could have no more children and that was when he lost interest in her as his brood mare.
But it didn't matter. He looked toward Rachael in the next seat and saw her hand on her tummy. It was either his child, or Luke's or Matthew's. And this one would be born - not like her others sucked out into the world. And this wasn't a stranger's child. The one she carried now was inbred and pure. She would have many more.
He looked back to his papers. So much work to do. The "It's OK" campaign would be the beginning. He would go slow and then introduce "Gifts from the East". Slowly, so slowly, but once they had internalized "It's OK", everything would go smoothly. A sedative to the right brain. Man, after all, is a selfish beast. He would promise them the Garden of Eden and they would find it wanting, for he knew there was only madness and ennui.
Anderson lay back and drifted into sleep, the hum of the motors faintly reminiscent, like the hum of voices. There had been voices ringing around his mother as she struggled to give birth to him. He read about it later when he was grown - about his remarkable birth at the public borning.
It didn't matter that he didn't know in the beginning about his conception. Later, when he was grown, he saw the picture and knew who he was. That's when he had clipped it out carefully and put it in its golden frame. In time he would be told how it began, his selection, the warrior plucked from the wheel of time to come down to earth and change it.
From one of the senseless, so-called miracles, his master had to choose one method to send his warrior forth in the world. The fallen angel chose the pointless example of the cattle tic; but maybe not so pointless for he, too, had great patience.
The blind cattle tic, after laying its eggs among the hairs of the hide, dies. The eggs hatch and then drop off to climb the nearest bush and wait, sometimes for years, in the umwelt, for the one sign, the one scent, that triggers its existence, the scent of butyric acid - sweat - the sweat of a warm blooded creature. Thus triggered, the tic flings itself forward, hopefully to land on a warm blooded creature, drink its fill of the blood, and lay fresh eggs to complete the cycle – that is its only moment in time.
Appropriately, this time the fallen angel chose his warrior carefully. He picked Hitler from the wheel of time and flung him, rock-like, to lay among the ruins, under the shadow of the fence, to wait for the scent of butyric acid - the sweat of a female human being - which would trigger time into existence and give him the pleasure just once of warm female flesh.
It was a long wait. The unholy slab lay among the moss. Wildflowers covered its sinister shape. It was that girl - the one they called "her" - who found it. For the record, her name was Daisy - an inappropriate name at best - for she never bloomed - she was born deaf and dumb.
The religious cult that her mother belonged to lived nearby and instead of pitching their tents within the fence, they burned down the madhouse and camped outside. Daisy was looked upon as one of God's abominations, she was left alone, tattered and ragged, to hunt the fields, for she was rarely fed; she was held out as an example of what burdens were given to sinners.
Hunger drove her to hunt the fields for insects and small lizards, which she ate with ravenous hunger. The open gate drew her that day within the fence, where she tugged at the rock, knowing that such rocks could hide succulent creatures that were good to eat. Her effort produced a bead of sweat upon her forehead and the scent triggered time into existence. He lived, the creature lived, his brief moment in time.
He reached up and drew her to him. Ignorant, she felt no fear of the remarkable metamorphosis. He placed her body above his and began the act of creation. It was such a fleeting moment. He craved more, but with regret he was sent back to the underworld, his mission completed.
Later Daisy went back again and again to that spot, puzzled, stroking the rock, looking again for the only comfort she had every had from anyone.
When it became apparent that she was with child, the preacher asked her over and over who, who had dared to mate with an imbecile? She could give no answer and was relieved when they stopped asking and seemed preoccupied with building benches in a circle around a stage within the fence.
When her time came, they led her inside the fence, placed her on a pallet of straw, gave her a thin grey blanket to cover herself, and took their seats to watch "the public borning".
"Sin has its price," they said to one another when her labor went on into the second day. They enjoyed the spectacle of suffering as she writhed and clutched at her stomach, cheated of the ability to scream. She thrashed wildly, wanting to run away, but strong hands forced her back onto the pallet.
It was when the campaigning politician came that way that the baby was born. With newsmen falling over each other to get the best shot, the politician saw his opportunity. "Barbaric," he pronounced as he strode into the arena.
With an incredible effort, at last she pushed the child out. It was male. No one came forward to help her. Finally one reporter said, "I was a medic in Iraq..." and he knelt in his rumpled suit and cut the cord. The baby cried.
"Shameful!" the politician pronounced. "Who's responsible?" he shouted.
The self-proclaimed religious leader came forward. He pointed toward the woman on the pallet. "It's born in sin, from this unclean creature. No one here is responsible. No one will claim this child. She cannot even claim herself."
They looked down. She had taken the child to her breast and it fed hungrily. She smiled, the pain already forgotten, the alien feeling of love coursing through her.
"No one will claim it?" the politician questioned. He paused as an aide whispered into his ear. Then he straightened up, looked toward the cameras, and announced, "I'll claim it."
Flashbulbs popped and someone pulled the baby out of her arms. She sat up and reached a weak hand after it, looking around bewildered, but understanding that it was hers.
It was as the entourage drove way, when knowledge fully dawned on her, she screamed the only sound or word she had ever spoken. It was a miracle, for she was a dummy, she had never spoken, but clearly she screamed "No!" The word or sound was strange - more a cry of sorrow than an actual word - and the hills echoed it back - "No! Nooo..!"
She lay beating the blankets, then herself, her tortured fists striking her own face until it was an unrecognizable mass of blood.
In the car, the infant squirmed and cried lustily. He missed the warmth of her bosom and the comfort of the warm milk. He sucked his fist hungrily.
"Here, take him, the little bastard peed on my suit," the politician ordered. "Drop him off at the next town. There must be an orphanage there or somewhere to leave him."
Anderson's only account of his birth came from the yellowed pages of the paper which he found in the top drawer of his adopted mother's dresser when he was sixteen. Just as well, he thought, these parents he had been given were ordinary - and he knew in his genes that his real father was special.
Now the stewardess passed Anderson and did not wake him for lunch. He dreamed on. Gifts from the sea I bring you, floating in vials. I have come to melt the children. His penis hardened. He had come to rape the West!
When the plane landed, they left it in single file. He first, a tall, impressive man - not exactly handsome - but striking, his eyes shielded by mirrored glasses. He knew they had to be veiled as he was always looking into the other dimension. In his right hand he felt the ball, the invisible ball of power that had been given him at birth. He remembered the figure cloaked in darkness standing over him; he had been given the power of the image maker. The power of his words and thoughts were now like deflated balloons, but they would live and soar again. He was the winds of change. His words - written, spoken, made visual - altered them like sheep. They followed.
The children followed him off the plane in single file. He was the Judas Goat leading them all to destruction.
At the huge windows, Anderson paused. The panoramic view of green fields and majestic trees made his heart soar. He imagined the apple-cheeked children and shuddered with want. This was virgin territory.
Truly they came like bottles, bobbing in the sea, swept ashore. They indeed had a strange message. Like Gifts from the East, he had come to melt the children. At first it didn't hurt; slow, insidious, painless, like novocain of the spirit and soul.
They looked like the other passengers, perhaps more handsome in their proud carriage. No one knew he was the courier; that he was the communicator, the spellbinder.
He looked down and felt it growing in his trousers - his desire - large, powerful, insatiable. He was the phallic symbol of ruin. He had come to rape the West!
Chapter 29
Anderson was pleased. The hotel had seen to his every request. The suite housed a self-contained office. The fax machine, set near a bank of phones, clicked incessantly. He fed videos into the machine, checking landscapes and vital facts. His quick mind could shift from properties to businesses. He needed to take over soft drink companies, cereal plants, perfume manufacturers, and he found himself returning over and over again to the video of the wineries. Hunter Valley, 125 miles north of Sydney, was where he would concentrate his activities. He would buy a house in Adelaide and settle himself and the children. He needed them in an appropriate setting to frame his image of a strong, rich, young widower recently immigrated. Now that he was in, he could drop the charade - of a married couple with two children - that had been necessary to get through customs.
The other property would have to be remote. The plant to manufacture the chemicals needed to be out of the way, with no limelight to draw attention to it; just a plain flat building with simple equipment and a team of chemists.
The Northern Territory would be perfect. He smiled to himself. The travel agent had said so proudly, "The Northern Territory has been named 'the land of God's eighth day'. After six days of making the world and one days rest, he decided he could do better, so he made The Northern Territory."
Of course - Alice Springs - he decided. He loved the inequity of it, his plant pumping out elixirs, the pills, in the land of God's eighth day. He would need a light plane to shuttle back and forth the thousand miles between Adelaide and Alice Springs, but money was not a problem. There was no inflation here and the millions collected in insurance from Christine's death gave him a real cushion. He had enough to see all of his plans to fruition. He rubbed his eyes, clicked off the screen, and walked over to the large windows that looked out over the city. The bluffs that sheltered Sydney from the Pacific shown purple in the sunset. The water of the Parramatta River glowed golden in the half light, and white sails dotted the natural harbor of Port Jackson.
Anderson felt a quickening thinking about the history of the country; about 1770, when a mere handful of convicts were brought to this land. They had become so hard working, so moral, that now this free Republic was an example to the world. Unlike Europe and the East, no wars raged here. Here religion taught tolerance rather than intolerance and hatred. He wondered how they had escaped the madness of the world, but he was here now, come to correct things. He felt the challenge and felt strong and powerful.
The Jesuits called to him - and the wineries that flourished. The wineries made wines for the Sacrament for many churches. A private joke, he promised himself that somehow when he was established he would get their accounts for his agency and persuade them to try a new ingredient to enhance and improve their wine. He did not doubt himself. He would succeed. He always had. Last time the warrior chosen had almost succeeded. Now it was his time to ruin the world and all that was in it.
He stretched and walked back to the desk. He had just begun looking through the files in his briefcase when he found it. When had she put it there? He lifted it out, holding it gingerly - a valentine. The flocked texture of the red heart felt unpleasant to his finger tips and the lace surrounding it reminded him of the bedroom curtains in the house on Portland Place. He opened the card and read "Wrong season, correct message. I love you with all my heart. Christine".
He dropped the valentine on the table. The cardboard, the paper, had transmitted to him instant anxiety, real and full blown - a sensation he did not court. Neurotically, he sensed his own
mortality and frightening possibilities flashed through his mind: if the chandelier fell right now it would crush him; during tomorrow's trip to Adelaide the helicopter could malfunction and crash and burn; on the street a wayward car could jump the curb and kill him; right now, this very second, a blood clot could be rushing toward his heart.
"No!" he said. "No, I will not think these thoughts. No!" he said aloud and reached for the pills. Two Valiums would do it.
He knew he had been sent here like any other mortal; the rules did not allow special concessions, only special abilities. The ball of power he held only gave him words and the ability to weave them together in a beguiling way. His father before him, he too took words and stitched them together cleverly, but they were not immortal, his father and he. But yet not mere mortals, but special and very different, and special weavers of tales, spellbinders. It would be talent enough.
He struck a match and watched as the flame caught the end of the lace. The valentine curled and he was left with only a grey ash, but still the anxiety stayed with him and he felt her in the room. He knew that was possible and that in some other dimension Christine still lived.
The urgent knock on his door chased those thoughts away and once again his vision changed to fast forward, looking toward tomorrow.
"It's Rachael - she's sick, she's bleeding."
He followed Luke to her room and saw his daughter curled in a fetal position, crying softly.
"It's all right, honey, you'll be all right."
He knew the baby was gone, but there would be others.
Even now, in the throes of pain, Rachael was careful that they didn't see the cross under the hand which clutched her blouse, cupping the metal in her hand. Even though the cloth it gave her comfort. In her other hand she clutched the Teddy that Juan had given her.
Matthew carried her to the car. "Don't let him look in my suitcases. Don't let him," she whispered.
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