by August Arrea
“As the cats were leaving the ark along with the other animals, God blessed them with a touch of his hand and left behind this mark.” As he spoke, the angel turned the cat’s back to Jacob and smoothed the fur along its neck to reveal a dark discolored mark in the snow-white coat between the shoulder blades similar to the red-ringed patterns found on the tail. “The Kurds say it’s God’s thumb print.”
The cat purred loudly in Johiel’s arms, its large dual-colored eyes mirroring Jacob’s contrasting blue and green-colored irises fixed themselves firmly on the boy while continuing to enjoy the fingers stroking its thick, soft hair. Sure enough, Jacob could see as he stroked the cat the blemish marking its hide did indeed look like a thumb print, though much larger than the shape of his own thumb.
“I sense maybe you’ve become bored with my telling of church ruins, battles between good and evil and cats carrying divine markings,” Johiel, noticing an occupied look in the boy’s face, said.
“No, not at all. In fact, I could sit here all day long and listen to your stories,” said Jacob. And he was telling the truth. “It’s just…”
“Go on,” prodded Johiel curiously.
“I can’t keep from thinking about what you said about the Furies. You know, how they came to be what they are now,” said Jacob. “They were killed because they were Nephilim.”
The frown fixed on Johiel’s forehead gradually receded. “And naturally you wonder why a similar judgment hasn’t been cast down upon yourself and the other Nephilim roaming the world.”
“You said yourself Nephilim were a sin which angered God the most.”
“It was not the Nephilim who were the sin, but the manner in which they came to be,” explained Johiel.
“Um, I know I didn’t pass biology with perfect marks,” said Jacob, “but I’m pretty sure the manner everyone walking the planet came to be is universally the same.”
The boy’s reply forced a mirthful chuckle from Johiel. “Quite true, young Jacob,” the angel said. “But what truly shapes sin is not so much the transgression itself but the intent behind which it is committed. The union of angel and woman was not what angered God but the fact it was stirred by the Darkness. And as is everything which the Darkness has served as architect, it was a sin designed to pierce the heart of our Creator and tear asunder the loyalty and devotion the remaining angels had with Heaven.”
The words Johiel spoke appeared to only add weight to the troubled look fixed on Jacob’s face as he listened. “The boy who attacked me in Tatvan—or, rather the Infector—it said I was an abomination.”
“And it would be correct,” noted Johiel, drawing an even more unsettled look from the boy. “You are an abomination…to it, and most especially the Furies whose path you might cross. Because you are unlike them. You exist in the Light, while they dwell in the Dark. The only way for you to cease being an abomination in their eyes and thus end their torment of your existence is for you to willingly follow them into the shadows.”
“That will never happen!” Jacob exclaimed adamantly, and Johiel was pleased to hear the cemented defiance in his voice.
Lifting the cat from his lap, the angel brought his mouth to the feline’s one ear and whispered into it. He then set the cat back down upon the steps and Jacob watched as it quickly scurried off along the walkway. When it reached the dock serving to greet the daily arrival of ferry’s carrying visitors to the island, the cat maneuvered its way across the jagged rocks lining the shore and waded out into the water.
“Now that’s a first for me; witnessing a cat willingly go into water like that,” remarked Jacob. “Where’s he going?”
“To ensure your passage through the Gate.”
The answer appeared to catch Jacob by surprise. “Gotham made it sound earlier like you might not be too keen on letting us through.”
Johiel grew quiet for a moment. “In many ways Eden is like an exclusive club. One has to be very careful who is allowed inside something so protected,” he finally said thoughtfully. “These hours I’ve had to spend and talk with you have proven very insightful. Surprisingly so.”
“And?” pressed Jacob, unsure if what the angel was saying was a slight or a compliment.
“And,” answered Johiel, “Eden would be well off to have you.”
Jacob smiled and turned back to the lake where he looked for Van Gogh who could be seen paddling further out into the depths, its white head bobbing along the smooth silvery surface like the periscope of a submarine.
~~~
“What’s it like?” asked Jacob.
“Even if I attempted to describe it to you, I doubt you would find my words very believable,” said Johiel. “Eden is something which must actually be seen with one’s own eyes in order to exist as something beyond the trappings of some aged fable.”
“When I was a little kid growing up, my grandmother used to tell me stories about a place like this—like Eden,” said Jacob, his eyes remaining fixed on the water long after Van Gogh had swam out of sight and faded into the darkness. “I would sit and listen to her with wonder imagining this wondrous, beautiful place she described. It sounded like something out of a fantasy or fairy tale. Like Neverland come to life. And I wanted so badly to go there, to see it for myself. Now, here I am, standing at the doorstep, and suddenly—”
“You fear it,” injected the angel, finishing the boy’s sentence with words he knew wouldn’t be uttered. “Because even now you don’t truly believe.”
Jacob didn’t answer, because Johiel had managed to put into words exactly what he was feeling.
“So, tell me, young Jacob,” inquired the angel in his soothing tone. “How was it your faith became lost to you?”
It was the same question Gotham had asked of him on the train ride to Tatvan. The same one Jacob had refused to answer. And still now he hesitated.
“You had a childhood friend named Christopher. I’m guessing he had a lot to do with it, didn’t he?” asked Johiel.
The mention of his friend caught Jacob sharply off guard.
“How do you know about him?” he asked almost defensively.
Yet, as he looked into the piercing gold orbs fixed firmly on him, Jacob already knew the answer. And he suddenly found himself feeling as though he were naked to the eyes seemingly boring into him.
“He was the first best friend I ever had,” Jacob remarked quietly.
“Was,” Johniel echoed as his gaze fixed themselves ever more intently upon the boy.
“We had planned a campout in his backyard,” Jacob began with a notable hesitation in his voice as though fearful to revisit the memory he had fought to forget yet couldn’t. “I remember the two of us bouncing in our seats with excitement in the back of the car when his mother picked me up. Christopher’s family lived on the outskirts of town, and the drive along a two-lane narrow road that swept past acres and acres of open grass fields and woods leading to his house seemed to take longer than it actually did. We must have been about halfway to his house when Christopher noticed something in the middle of the road up ahead. As we got closer we could see it was duck. Somehow it had hurt its wing and was fluttering helplessly about in the opposite lane. Christopher argued for his mother to stop the car and she pulled over, with all of us staring out of the windows at the poor struggling bird. When he opened the car door to get out, his mom stopped him, but he was insistent. We can’t just leave it there and let it get run over, he said. Saint Francis of Cain’s Corner—that’s what I used to call him, because he was the Florence Nightingale of injured animals. I don’t think there was ever a time I went to his house where he wasn’t tending to some wounded critter. Birds, lizards, squirrels, you name it—his room looked like a rehabilitation center at an animal hospital. But the last thing Mrs. Whitling wanted was to bring home another patient. Christopher argued all he wanted to do was get the injured duck off the road and even pointed out a patch of tall grass nearby where he knew it would be safe. Finally, Mrs. Whitling relented, and as he da
rted out of the car I watched her cautiously scout the long stretch of road behind her that she had just driven and then ahead where the road snaked to the left, vanished for a short distance down an incline before reappearing at the bottom of the hill. I, too, looked as did Christopher. There wasn’t a car in sight.
“I watched as Christopher slowly stepped his way toward the duck while speaking gently to it in order to calm the agitated bird flapping about helplessly on the asphalt. He had a way with animals and was quickly able to scoop it up into his arms and the duck instantly settled down as though it knew Christopher’s intentions to help it.”
Jacob’s gaze became even more mournful and distant. It was as though the darkness of the night surrounding him and Johiel had opened a portal before him revealing the long-ago scene.
“It happened so quick. I don’t think either one of us, Mrs. Whitling or myself, knew what was actually happening, even as we were witnessing it. Suddenly, there was a truck. It was just there, appearing as if out of thin air and barreling over the top of the incline. I can still hear the sound of the horn blaring and the ear-piercing screeching of tires desperately grabbing at the pavement. And then that thud—that horrendous thud as Christopher was violently cleared from my sight. Just like that. He was gone. I never knew another living person could create the kind of sound that left Mrs. Whitling at that moment. It was as though she herself had been struck down and left dying in the road. Thinking about it now I guess she had.” Jacob let loose a choked sigh.
“I don’t remember much after that. It all seemed to go silent and everything was in slow motion—like in a dream. I remember getting out of the car and slowly making my way toward the wreckage. I’m not sure why. I just knew at that moment I needed to see Christopher. I knew I could help him. I walked past Mrs. Whitling, oblivious to her cursing at the truck driver who was holding her back while trying to calm her as she screamed at the top of her lungs for Christopher. No one seemed to notice me at first, though under the circumstances, why would they? I remember mumbling ‘I can save him,’ even when I reached the truck and peered past the front that was crushed and bent. I never would have imagined the impact of a fragile nine-year-old boy’s body could do so much damage. And then I saw him, lying still on the asphalt, more still than I think I’ve even seen a fallen tree lay stretched across the ground in the woods. He was still clutching tight the duck, or what was left of it. Feathers blew about everywhere. I remember looking at the socks hanging off his feet and wondering where his shoes had gone. That’s when someone grabbed me and pulled me away, but I fought to get to Christopher, screaming almost hysterically ‘I can save him’…”
Jacob stopped abruptly, suddenly remembering the presence of the angel seated beside him who he had momentarily forgotten. His eyes had grown misty at the long-ago memory, and he fought to quell the wall of water threatening to spill over the brim and streak down his cheeks. If there was one thing he did not want, it was to show this kind of weakness to an angel.
“I never said another prayer from that day on,” continued Jacob, once he had managed to regain his composure. “Sure I would pretend when I was in the presence of my mother, or mouth a rosary just to make her happy. But not the way one should. Not until the night before she died, what little good that did.”
~~~
“Of all things, death has always been the most difficult and trying for mortals to grasp,” said Johiel softly when finally he spoke. “You veil it in shrouds, adorn it in black and cure it with endless tears or sorrow.”
“You’re saying it should be opposite, that death is a happy thing? Something we should cheer and perhaps dance a drunken jig to?” said Jacob though not meaning the words which left his tongue to sound as hostilely sarcastic as they did.
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” answered Johiel who took no offense to the boy’s mocking quip. “It has never failed to astound me how man looks upon the inevitability of death’s arrival with fear. Oh sure, for a man who has lived a wicked and selfish life such fear is well warranted. But, for others, death should be a welcome celebration, for life in this world is not the true gift that has been given you, but what awaits on other side of the Gate, which death serves only to usher you through, no matter how tragic the circumstances it may come to do so.”
“In other words, getting run down by a big rig while trying to do a kind and selfless deed is actually a gift mortals are just too blind and dumb to see?” said Jacob.
“What I’m saying, young Jacob, is even in the grimmest of tragedies, Light, if you choose to see it, glimmers,” answered Johiel. “In your eyes, Christopher coming to the aid of a creature in need was met by a horrific punishment in which God stood idly by and did nothing. Yet is it so hard to cast your gaze on that memory that has so embittered you and see, maybe, the kind and selfless act, as you deemed it to be, and rightly so, was instead met not by punishment but instant reward? The same reward your mother would later come to receive—the reward of paradise?”
The mention of his mother grabbed Jacob, but only for a moment.
“No offense, but it’s easy for you to say,” said Jacob. “You have the advantage of seeing and knowing without a doubt everything we don’t.”
“Don’t be so quick and sure in your assessment,” said Johiel as he gazed out over the waters of the Van Gölü. “God has a tendency to navigate through this existence he has created in mysterious ways; ways so mysterious even angels are left to feel our way through darkness. In the end, as it is with mortals, all we really have left to us is faith.”
Jacob seemed to mull carefully the angel’s words and as he did he shook his head ever so subtly as though he held a private disagreement with some voice only he himself could hear.
“It sounds so easy coming from you, but I don’t know if I can believe in anything I can’t clearly see,” he said quietly as though shamefully confessing his sins to a priest positioned on the other side of a screen partition inside a church confessional. “Even sitting here listening to you speak about Eden I find it hard to believe its true. Despite everything I’ve already seen and experienced, I’m not sure I believe a hundred percent. It’s as though it’s all been a dream. A long, drawn-out dream that I’m waiting to awaken from.”
Once the words had left his lips, he regretted speaking them. And he braced himself for Johiel’s reaction. Anger, disappointment, pity, he had no idea. Certainly a banishment from the island, and the chance to never venture past its shores to have his disbelief proven or otherwise about the mythic Gate and the promised land said to reside beyond it. Instead, Johiel placed a comforting hand on Jacob’s shoulder and smiled; a smile that held the same unique kindness upon the youthful face as it did the one disguised with age.
“And that dear boy, you will come to discover, is the unfortunate chink in your armor,” said Johiel. “For true faith resides in not what one can see, but what one can’t. Which is what makes it such a difficult thing to truly possess, and why so few do. Believing in Eden and angels is not the challenge at hand for you. You will very soon find out that all this is far from a dream, and Neverland, as you so call it, will reveal itself to you in ways your imagination could never before comprehend. It is what comes later—that is where your true test lies. And then, mark my words, you will believe.”
The angel’s words brought both comfort and angst to Jacob at the same time. Then the golden eyes that held him firmly in their gaze quickly narrowed with a seriousness that made his body tighten.
“But be mindful, child,” continued Johiel, his soothing voice suddenly taking a grave tone. “True faith, as it is known, is a rare and very powerful weapon, but easily perverted and twisted to the ways of the Darkness. Trust me when I tell you many much stronger than you have succumbed to the enchantments of the Shadows. Once you have been visited by faith—and I hold hope you will—grab hold of it. Tightly. And don’t let go. For a day will come when you will be brought face to face with the Darkness and it will serve as your salvation,
or your total undoing.”
There was no smile of comfort to help soften the warning. And for the first time since leaving home for this ancient corner of civilization, Jacob felt a chilling shiver of fear move through him far more than any Infector could stir. The fleeting thought of getting on the next ferry back to the mainland and catching the quickest passage home passed as quickly as it came when he heard Gotham’s voice. Jacob turned to find the angel standing nearby and the first thing to spring into his mind was to wonder how long Gotham had been standing there, and had he been listening the entire time?
“The day is only a few more hours from being upon us,” Gotham announced.
Jacob felt the hand on his shoulder tighten and looked back at Johiel whose smile had once again returned.
“And so, the moment of truth is at hand,” said the angel.
~~~
Gotham and Jacob followed Johiel down the path leading to the water. Moored to the far side of the dock was a small rowboat.
“It will take you a bit longer to cross, but it’s the best way to make the journey as quietly and undetectable as possible,” said Johiel.
Jacob eyed the small rickety boat, and then out across the vast expanse of open water that stretched as far as the eye could see and he felt a subtle queasiness stir in his stomach.
“I’ve sent word ahead alerting to your arrival. So you should have no trouble passing through,” continued Johiel.
Gotham took Johiel’s hand in his own. “Thank you for your trust. I know it was not an easy decision for you.”
“To the contrary,” replied Johiel, looking kindly upon Jacob whose attention was still held by the lake. “These few hours spent talking with the boy made it surprisingly less difficult.”
When Gotham turned to board the small boat, Johiel grabbed him tightly at the wrist and held him firmly in his place. His face darkened with a seriousness.
“Be wary!” he said, leaning in closer and speaking with a low, hushed whisper so the boy would not hear. “It has been quite some time since you last passed. In that time, we’ve managed to eradicate the Furies from these shores. The Infectors, however, are an entirely different matter altogether; they have become a plague in these parts. I am certain your presence has not gone unnoticed.”
