The Multitude

by J M Fraser

  But could mankind be saved? And what could she accomplish from a distance? Whenever she stepped through the smoke, the barrier circling the cabin grounds held her captive. God hadn’t hinted at a solution yet, or if He had, she’d never noticed. His signs remained maddeningly ambiguous.

  Cold rain pouring down through the trees sizzled behind her.

  She turned to the smoke. “What do you hold in store for me today, old friend?”

  Her dogged shadow never provided any answers.

  * * *

  Sanctimonia: A moment later

  Gabriella crossed from chilly, damp weather to summer warmth, witnessing again the spectacular repercussions of her simple conversation with a biblical king. On Sanctimonia’s side of the portal, her erasure of Christianity’s birth had caused different patterns of settlement, a delayed beginning of the industrial revolution, less deforestation in critical areas, and many other factors leading to a radical climate difference.

  The sun-drenched meadow before her led to a nearby forest. As always, the trees teased her with a scent of pine she’d never been able to savor up close. But she always tried. Gabriella took a deep breath and started walking until the barrier announced its presence thirty-five paces later. The invisible bubble held fast against her probing hands.

  What a fool she’d been to expect anything different! She’d risen in the morning with a rare hint of optimism, believing this day might hold something special in store. Forty years had passed since her act, and that number carried biblical significance. Now, her failure to break through the barrier spoke volumes about God’s anger with her. Misguided hopefulness wouldn’t change the situation.

  A mild breeze brought the lilting voice of a woman lurking somewhere near the garden. Gabriella headed back toward the smoke and around the cabin, admonishing herself for her recklessness. The sunshine must have addled her mind!

  The local Mystic tribe had no way of knowing about the bubble unless some fool of an angel flailed against it in broad daylight. These natives passed through the barrier unimpeded, as did the birds, the butterflies, the squirrels, the leaves blowing in the wind. Anything and anyone except Gabriella. The invisible wall existed for her alone, and not by some freak of nature. She’d taken it upon herself to redesign God’s grand plan, and this clearly represented His punishment—a taste of the world she’d created, but access to only an acre of it.

  The Mystics were a cynical people likely to reach the worst possible conclusion if they learned about her imprisonment. They couldn’t be expected to straggle into a sinner’s garden for the blessings, dream interpretations, marital advice, biblical teaching, and the many other charitable acts she’d been performing to regain God’s favor. Thus, she’d taken great care to cultivate the image of an eccentric priestess who restricted her wanderings to the cabin grounds by choice rather than heavenly edict.

  Luckily, the dark-haired young woman waiting on a bench kept her gaze fixed on the garden and seemed lost in the melody of the ballad she sang. In fact, Gabriella came all the way over and settled onto the facing bench before attracting any notice at all. The woman had been twisting her long braid of hair in the lap of her weathered dress. Now she released it, clearly startled.

  “Abyssus.” Gabriella used the Latin word of greeting.

  Latin still thrived on this side of the portal. From what she’d been able to piece together after thousands of conversations with these locals and various travelers, the world she’d created was, in many respects, a biblical reflection of the original one across the smoke. Yet despite the Roman Empire’s survival here, a four-thousand-mile distance defeated the emperor’s attempts at authoritarian rule over the vast regions his armies had settled. Thus, Latin amounted to no more than the ineffective shadow cast by a toothless empire. A common language hadn’t been enough to prevent the colonists from splintering into tribes. Some, such as the barbarians across the border in Virtus, allowed themselves to be ruled from afar by proxy. Others, including these Mystics, proved impossible to control.

  Gabriella likened these loveable people to the Judeans of Herod’s era and found significance in the similarity, grasping at this straw as evidence a new messiah would wander onto her cabin grounds sooner or later.

  “Abyssus.” The woman’s initial wide-eyed reaction reverted to the stoic expression typically exhibited by members of her tribe. These hardy people preferred to reveal emotion only when it suited them. Otherwise, they favored the blank slate—maddening for an angel who couldn’t read minds on this side of the portal—another of the curses God had rained down on Gabriella’s head. She had no greater power here in Sanctimonia than the meekest of mortals.

  “I’m Gabriella,” she said.

  “I am Carmella.” They stared at each other for a long moment until the woman added, “What they say about you is true.”

  “And that is…?”

  “Goddess, you have the body of a fawn but the eyes of a lioness!”

  “Don’t call me goddess. I am only a prophet!” Gabriella relished the love these people had for her, but good lord! If she allowed them to feed her vanity by worshipping her, she’d probably lose grace with God rather than regain his favor. The road to forgiveness had so many forks.

  She had only herself to blame for her deification. She’d let the Mystics watch her pass through a portal that never admitted any of them, she’d stubbornly clung to her youthful appearance despite the passage of forty years, and she’d worked “miracles” by curing their illnesses. The medicines she brought through the portal always went flat and the food stale, but she knew how to make penicillin from bread mold and aspirin from the bark of a willow tree.

  A cynical inner voice reminded her she craved adoration. Asura had been right about her vanity. For that reason, Gabriella had tried doubly hard to please God by helping these people, teaching such subjects as advanced navigation techniques, the use of cover crops to avoid erosion, and on a spiritual level, lessons from the Old Testament. Perhaps this visitor had come to hear a Bible story. Mystics took delight in hearing Gabriella verify their ancient myths about Abraham, Noah, and Moses. Her promises of a messiah thrilled them.

  If only God would allow her to assume the role of savior! But the barrier had its own ideas.

  The woman gestured toward the circular stone entranceway in the center of the wall. “You created a beautiful garden.”

  “Your people lifted and set the stones at my direction, but yes, I planted every seed and dug the pond with my own hands.” Gabriella couldn’t hide the pride from her voice.

  They gazed through the entranceway together. The replica of Asura’s garden seemed to captivate the young woman, just as it had enchanted legions of Mystics before her. After obtaining medicine or a hint of magic or whatever else Gabriella came up with, they’d linger on the bench and soak in the flowers, the shrubs, the stones, and the koi in the pond. They’d tell their stories.

  Perhaps Carmella would add to the treasure trove of fact and folklore the others had already shared. Gabriella loved learning new details about their beliefs, ambitions, value systems, traditions, motivations, and dreams. But God hadn’t brought her here to serve as local historian. A messiah would come to her doorstep one day, and she needed to absorb enough local culture to bond with that person with ease.

  Meanwhile, the timing of this visit was decidedly odd. The Mystics lived in constant danger from their hostile neighbors in Virtus. This woman had risked her freedom to visit during a period of border unrest. “You shouldn’t have traveled here alone,” Gabriella said.

  The admonishment won a fleeting glance, but Carmella returned her attention to the garden. “I do what I must.”

  “Virtus lies less than a mile southwest of here.”

  “I’m familiar with the local geography.”

  Although Carmella seemed distracted, Gabriella pressed on. “Five women have been stolen in the past week. Perhaps you’ll write to me about the geography after you’ve been dragged across the
border and sold as a bride.”

  Smoke rose from deep within the forest. The barbarians of Virtus might have been sacking a Mystic outpost even as Gabriella spoke.

  Carmella swept an arm toward a thicker forest on the opposite side of the meadow. “If this region is so dangerous, why didn’t you settle farther away in a different clearing?”

  Why indeed? Gabriella looked to the heavens. This cabin location certainly hadn’t been her choice.

  “Because a goddess fears nothing! Nor does a Mystic.” Carmella delivered the answer to her own question with fierce pride shining in her eyes. “Woe betide the hapless raider who tries dragging me across the border.” She hiked her dress to reveal a curved dagger hidden against her calf.

  “Good luck with that. We both know the raiders carry far more weaponry than a butter knife.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “You don’t want to be captured by the barbarians of Virtus, Carmella. They stone adulteresses and crucify thieves. They slaughter innocents to thrill the crowds in the arena.” A persistent throb in Gabriella’s temples reminded her who had inadvertently created such a people.

  “All right, then. Let’s speak of innocents.” Carmella leaned toward the garden. “Stop hiding, Maynya! Come greet our hostess.”

  A girl’s giggle rose above the white noise of crickets from the other side of the stone wall.

  “Good heavens, Carmella! You traveled alone with a child?”

  “My daughter is the reason for this visit.”

  A lovely, dark-haired girl of perhaps three appeared within the circle of the gateway. She flashed a wonderful smile, but the dancing butterflies above her head stole the show. They circled counterclockwise before breaking away and scattering into the garden.

  Gabriella gasped. What were the odds a migration of butterflies would swarm into a stone entranceway and dance this way yet again, forty years to the day after Hiroshima?

  Carmella’s voice came at her through a fog. “Can a prophet stop my child from speaking in tongues?”

  The air became harder to breathe. Words spoken in tongues came directly from God, did they not? Gabriella gazed into the girl’s eyes. “You are Maynya?”

  The child nodded.

  “And you speak in tongues.”

  “No.”

  “Come here, Maynya, and sit beside me.”

  The child scurried over to the opposite bench, climbed onto it, and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder.

  Carmella picked thistles out of the girl’s hair. “If the elders label my daughter a witch—”

  “Hush. She’s no such thing.”

  “Maynya,” Carmella said. “Say one of the words.”

  The girl kept her face buried and said nothing.

  “Maynya, please.”

  “You said I shouldn’t.” The girl muffled her words into her mother’s arm.

  Carmella lifted Maynya onto her lap. Gabriella leaned forward, reached across the narrow path, and ran her fingers through the child’s hair. “Your mother has nothing to worry about. I see a perfectly normal child.”

  The perfectly normal child stiffened. She stared past Gabriella with thousand-mile eyes. “My mommy takes me to Burnet Park every day.” She spoke the words in perfect English.

  The rushing in Gabriella’s ears rose above the crickets, the squawk of a crow, and the rustle of a breeze through the garden. Gravity lost its grip on her. She grabbed the bench with both hands to keep from floating away.

  Carmella took a braid in her hands again and twisted it into a nervous tangle.

  Meanwhile Maynya came out of her trance, squirmed off her mother’s lap, and ran to a patch of dandelions sprouting from beneath the garden wall.

  “You warn about raiders,” Carmella said, “but we both know the elders cast witches and their mothers across the border to be rid of them. You speak of crucifixions. Do you know what the barbarians would do to us?”

  “Maynya, come back for a moment.” Gabriella struggled to keep her voice from trembling.

  The girl ambled over and offered a yellow flower.

  “Thank you, dear. Tell me now, where did you hear those words?”

  “They live in my head.” She had reverted back to Latin.

  “Always?”

  “Mostly when I dream.”

  “And you dream about…?”

  Maynya picked another dandelion, this one gone fuzzy. She puffed her cheeks and blew the parachutes apart. “My other mommy,” she said, in English.

  CHAPTER 5

  Burnet Park, Syracuse, New York (in our world), the next day

  A V-shaped shadow diverted Gabriella’s gaze from the children on the playground to a flock of geese overheard. Forty of them—no more, no less—and who wouldn’t find God’s voice in the sum?

  The Bible used forty as a period of testing—the duration of the great flood, the Israelites’ years of enslavement, the days Jesus spent in the desert. Gabriella had endured her own long trial, waiting, wondering, searching for answers, until Maynya appeared in her Sanctimonia garden on the fortieth anniversary of Hiroshima.

  Carmella’s daughter mentioned regular visits to Burnet Park with her “other mommy.” Gabriella hadn’t found any sign of the mother and daughter yet, but with forty geese honking encouragement from above, something fantastic was bound to happen.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the portal lurking behind her. Although she always cloaked the roiling curtain invisible and silent to everyone else, the murmur of rushing smoke still rose in her ears above the white noise of nearby traffic. “I’m hoping you’ll soon be obsolete, old friend.”

  Yes, superseded, because a possible second portal between the two worlds had been revealed. How else could Maynya have learned English, visited this park, and referred to a different mother? The child had most likely found a World of Mortal Dreams passageway into the dreams of an American girl.

  Extrasensory links often moved in both directions, offering the breathtaking possibility that if Gabriella located the American kid, she could access the same dream channel and travel in the other direction to any part of Sanctimonia and beyond, not just to a stale old cabin surrounded by an invisible barrier. She could widen her search for a messiah, or perhaps play the role of one and tame the barbarians in Virtus. Her heart beat fast, but she chided herself for putting too much stock in a possible pipe dream. The long, heretofore fruitless wait had bred a measure of cynicism even in her.

  After all, she’d already searched the children’s spray fountain and the zoo, places where other mommies brought their kids every day. This playground had been the next logical stop, but the boys and girls on the swings didn’t provide any clues…only the meandering thoughts of young children. Parents, siblings, toys, pets, backyards, Hot Wheels, ice-cream cones, churches, schools, day care, and goldfish swimming laps in a bowl.

  Gabriella clenched her fists. Suppose the dream visits had been one-sided? If the American girl had never reciprocated by traveling into Maynya’s dreams, she wouldn’t carry a single hint of Sanctimonia in her head. No words of Latin, no images of forest, no memories of peasant women who braided their hair or men who brandished crossbows when heading off to work. Without such a marker to distinguish the child, Gabriella wouldn’t find the right girl if she searched every young mind in the country! She’d never get to explore Sanctimonia and Virtus.

  She couldn’t even be sure she had the right location. Maynya might have meant Burnett Park in Jacksonville or some other park with a different name entirely. A young child schooled in Latin couldn’t be expected to pronounce an English name correctly.

  “Excuse me.” The voice of a woman approaching from behind almost startled her off the bench. “Are you one of my friends’ daughters? I’m sure we’ve met.”

  “She’s Gabriella!” a girl cried.

  Gabriella shot off the bench. Nobody should have known her name. She took pains to stay ordinary, anonymous, just another child in the crowd.


  She spun around…and caught her breath.

  Carmella and Maynya had stepped through the portal.

  No, such a notion was preposterous. The smoke had been adamant for forty years, granting passage only to confused angels—in fact, just one in particular.

  Besides, these two weren’t dressed as Mystics. They came wearing ordinary, American skirt-and-blouse combinations—pink and blue for the girl, white and floral for the mother. Dark, unbraided hair ran straight down their shoulders. The mother highlighted hers with streaks of auburn, and her daughter sported pink ribbons.

  Yet these touches did little to mask the similarity of features, facial expressions, and gestures with…whom? Their cousins on the other side? The mother played with the bottom of her blouse where she’d tied it closed, approximating Carmella’s signature nervous tic with her braid. And the girl bent to pick a dandelion, just as Maynya had done.

  The woman extended her hand. “I’m Bethany. Were you in the scout camp at Cayuga Lake last summer?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’ve met Carla somewhere before.”

  “Carla?”

  The little girl beamed, clearly pleased to be acknowledged.

  “Quando autem—” Gabriella flinched. Finding the mystery girl had flustered her into speaking Latin! She tried probing Carla’s mind to find hints of any connection with Maynya, but the three-year old’s thoughts were fixated on playgrounds and ice-cream cones. “The two of you do look familiar, but I’m sure we’ve never met.”

  “I suppose all of us might have known each other in a previous life,” Bethany offered.

  Gabriella flinched. How much did this woman know about Sanctimonia? How could she know anything? Gabriella raced into Bethany’s head, but she didn’t find any hidden meanings behind the old cliché she’d spoken.

  Carla tugged on her mother’s hand. “I wanna play!”

  “Go ahead,” Bethany said, “but stay near the swings where I can see you.”

  Before the child ran off, Gabriella stole one more peek inside her mind. She fought her way past a blast of joie de vivre and discovered a hidden gem in the quieter area where reality and dreams sometimes converge. She saw butterflies and a patch of dandelions in the Japanese garden outside Gabriella’s cabin. Gabriella blinked.