by A. Sparrow
As we approached the church, a pack of huskies came bounding out of the vestibule.
“Oh crap. Not more dogs.”
They wheeled around to face us, ears perked, snouts down, beady eyes watching us. When we came nearer, they stood up and formed a cordon on the steps.
“State your purpose,” they said in a tinny chorus.
Lille cleared her throat. “We’re visiting to the chapel to—”
“We’re going to see Luther,” I said, cutting her off.
The dogs howled. “Speaking the master’s name is forbidden!”
“It’s just a name.”
“Is the master expecting you?” said the huskies.
“Yeah, sure. Why not? He should be.”
Lille stepped forward. “We have come to pray. To … to the master.”
This, apparently, was just what the dogs wanted to hear. They trotted off the stairs and let us pass.
“Hah!” said Bern. “Who knew that Luth… um, Mr. L. … fancies himself a god?”
“Pfft. For someone of his vanity, it was inevitable,” said Lille.
We passed through thick, oaken doors twice our height. It certainly smelled like a church inside, a Catholic one, at least—all incense and resins and molten wax. Racks of burning candles lined several niches where a few people knelt, praying.
The pews were arranged orthogonal to the entrance, with an altar to the far left and some sort of baptismal font to the right behind the back most pews. Two simple doors flanked a larger, more ornate one clad in swirls of wrought iron, and opening into the wall opposite the vestibule.
Something about the décor seemed off, and then I realized that there was not a single Christian symbol inside—no crosses, crucifixes, angels, saints or cherubs. Nothing. This was a secular place. Even the stained glass bore only geometric patterns suggestive of no particular faith. There were no graven images of Luther, either, but that would probably be remedied with time.
“Fascinating,” said Bern. “I’ve never been in here, before. It’s like a journey into Luther’s skull.”
“Hallo?” called Lille. “Anybody home?”
“Lille! Shush! People are praying.”
There was a creaking from the pews. A few heads turned our way.
“Oh my,” said Lille, touching her fingers to her cheeks.
“Let’s find a pew and sort this out,” said Bern.
We knelt together in the backmost row. On the altar was a large, throne-like chair of rough-hewn wood, like something someone would slap together at a hunting cabin in the middle of a forest.
“There goes Harvald,” said Lille as Luther’s lieutenant came lurching out of a dim room. He passed through the vestibule, with yet another pack of six Dobermans trotting at his heels.
“Jesus,” I said. “Just what we need. More dogs.”
“Do you think Luther’s even here?” said Lille.
“Harvald would know,” said Bern. “Shall I—?”
“I’ll go see,” I said bounding up.
“No, James. You shouldn’t—”
Bern tried to restrain me but I slithered past him, heading for the room from which Harvald had emerged.
Luther had expended an enormous amount of effort in ornamenting his chapel. Nature and garden themes abounded in carvings, frescoes and statues lining every wall and niche. There were grape vine motifs twining everywhere, pine boughs with jays perched, leaves bearing ladybugs and dragonflies and scarabs.
The door to Harvald’s room was unlocked, a welcome change from all the solidified doors and immovable I had been encountering. At least I wouldn’t have to burrow through this one.
I glanced back at Bern and Lille, they were still kneeling at the pew, arguing in whispers until Lille rose and came after me. Bern rolled his eyes and followed.
I pushed the door open and found inside a good-sized room with simple furnishings: a wash basin, a table and an armchair looking over a mirror. The wall was decorated with blurry photographs of the same woman, various ages, with and without children.
An assortment of chain mail hung from crude hooks on the wall, along with a leather greatcoat. Halberds and maces protruded from a barrel like some deadly iron bouquet.
The room had a back door that opened into a cavernous chamber—a dome like Karla’s, but much larger. The wall encircling the immaculate marble floor was punctured by eleven other entryways spaced like the hours on a clock face. The floor was cluttered with heaps of contraptions and what looked like sculptures of animals and people.
Bern came up behind me, breathless. “James, you really shouldn’t be in here. If Luther finds you …. Oh, my God! What’s this?”
Lille squeezed around us for a better look. “That Luther may not have the best taste … but he sure knows how to hollow out a patch of roots.”
“It’s like a ballroom in here,” said Bern, forgetting his admonitions and entering.
“Luther has no sense of interior architecture,” said Lille. “Why would he tuck a ballroom behind his caretaker’s quarters? And why is it so cluttered?”
“It’s not a ballroom, it’s his work shop. James, Lille, come look, this is amazing,” said Bern, poking around through the heaps.
“Oh! His weavings,” said Lille. “How grotesque!”
I came up behind her. There was an inert beagle lying on its side—not dead, because it wasn’t clear it had ever lived. It seemed to represent one of Luther’s earlier attempts at dog creation. Apart from the supernumerary canine teeth protruding from its jaw and unfinished paws that ended in a splay of roots like a witch’s broom, it was anatomically, quite perfect.
Elsewhere among the heaps were stacks of gold bullion and Euro notes, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a side-car and piles of oversized and disembodied wings—of dragonflies, iridescent hummingbirds and snowy white swans.
“Oh! Bern, dear! Look! Bed sheets … and an actual down comforter. You don’t suppose Master Luther would mind if we borrowed some of his linens?”
Bern had his hands on his hips and was looking about the chamber, clearly discomfited. “Something’s not right here. The security’s awful lax. Don’t you think? I smell a trap.”
“Oh, calm down Bernard! Luther’s simply put his faith in his walls and his dogs. For a man of his talents, you know how he can be such a schlub sometimes.”
A pair of dachshunds came dashing across the floor, their yapping turning to happy wags as Lille crouched down to greet them with some high-pitched baby talk.
“What lovely pups you are! Oh, yes! Such pretty babies!”
“I hope to hell these mutts don’t talk,” said Bern. “I don’t think I could handle it.”
I peeked into one of the dimly lit rooms ringing the main chamber. Rows of folding seats staggered in terraces to a curtained stage the size of a boardroom table. It was a tiny theater with seating for twenty or so.
“Ho ho ho! What do we have here?” said Bern, as he opened the door to the next room down the arc—at ten o’clock if Harvald’s room was high noon. Treacly, tinkling music spilled out under the dome.
“Oh, my Lord!” said Lille, joining him. I rushed over to see what had alarmed her.
Entering that room was like walking into a snow globe. Little, animatronic ice skaters glided over a frozen pond surrounded by fir trees, holly bushes and ranks of creepy-faced nutcrackers peering from nooks in the wall like fans in the stands of a hockey rink. Fluffy, white flakes fluttered down on the scene from the blacked-out ceiling while a model steam engine puffed around the periphery, boxcars bulging with candied treats.
“It’s like … an entire Bavarian Weihnachten exploded in here,” said Lille.
A perfect snowflake landed on my wrist, but didn’t melt. Another landed beside it and was an exact replica of the first.
All that jingle, jangle overwhelmed me. I had to get out of there. Lille and Bern had already fled back to the main chamber.
“Yoo-hoo! Luther!” called Lille.
“I doubt he’s around,” I said. “He would have found us by now.”
“Can’t say I’m disappointed,” said Bern.
I ducked into the next room and cringed. It was a perfect replica of a hospital suite. It even smelled faintly of antiseptic and bedpans. Two bags of IV fluid hung from a chromed metal stand along yards of clear plastic tubing. I couldn’t help thinking of Mom’s last days.
The bed was empty, but a monitor nevertheless displayed an EKG graph frozen in time. Every item in the room was exquisitely detailed, down to the electrical specs and serial numbers on all the equipment.
A lunch tray rested on a fold-out table along with the hospital’s daily bulletin containing news of the day and a menu. The logo in top corner depicted a ladybug on a mulberry leaf and was labeled:
‘EMS La Coccinelle SA.’
I picked it up and tried to read the blurb underneath, but it was all in French. Only one in ten words was decipherable to me:
‘Un havre de paix depuis 1958 pour 44 résidants. Un lieu de bien-être et de vie agreeable. Notre Fondatrice et Directrice Martin Devereaux avec son équipe dévouée vous accueille avec professionnalisme et chaleur humaine dans une ambiance familial.’
I went to the window and looked out at a diorama backed by a matte painting. The scene depicted sloping fields and a long, narrow lake in the distance, with the rooftops of a city immediately below. It reminded me of the landscapes in some of Karla’s tapestries. A chill spread down my back.
Bern rushed to the door. “Quick! Someone’s coming!”
***
I stuffed the hospital newsletter into my shirt and dashed out. Lille stood in the doorway of the little theatre, dachshunds at her side, waving for us to hurry. Drawers slammed. Someone hummed a ditty in Harvald’s anteroom.
Bern grabbed my wrist and pulled me along pulled me along down the stairs, onto the stage and behind the curtain. The dachshunds remained at the door, yapping and growling as the curtain swooshed and swung.
“Those little turncoats!” said Lille. “As if we had never made their acquaintance.”
The humming ceased. Footsteps echoed under the dome. Harvald appeared at the door, looking wary. I held my breath. He lingered for a time, peering into the dimness before moving away, taking the dachshunds with him.
“There’s another door behind us,” whispered Bern.
He squeaked it open, revealing a narrow passageway illuminated by dim footlights. We scurried out into a long, curving corridor that seemed to follow the outermost edge of the dome.
“Chapel’s this way,” said Bern, heading towards a rectangle of light.
“Who’s there?” Harvald’s voice boomed. His silhouette filled the rectangle at the end of the corridor.
We pressed ourselves into a shallow niche in the outer wall. Harvald clopped into the passage with his heavy, plodding gait. We squeezed in tight, flattening ourselves against the wall.
“No one move,” said Bern.
That feeling was welling up in me again—righteous anger mingled with impatience and annoyance. I found a patch of wall to take out my frustrations on and went to work.
Harvald touched his hand to the stone and a diffuse glow spread out from his fingers and sped down the corridor.
The soft glow was enough to cast our three shadows against the inner wall.
“Bloody hell!” said Bern.
“Show yourselves!” Harvard shouted, his command echoing around the arc.
“It’s no use,” said Lille. “He knows we’re here.”
We stepped out into the corridor.
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh, um … hello Harvald,” said Bern. “Lille and I were praying in the chapel and—“
“You two? Pray?”
“Well, yes. Why not? But we got turned around and I thought this might be an alternative exit and … well it’s all my fault we ended up here. I’m so sorry.”
“This corridor is forbidden. You have sinned. Now you must pay.”
He whistled and there came the sound of claws clambering for purchase on the slick stone. An army of dogs came charging into the chapel, baying in unison.
“Oh my,” said Lille. “Those ones don’t sound like dachshunds.”
“Shall we … flee?” said Bern.
“It’s no use,” said Lille. “I can’t outrun a Shepherd dog.”
“Doesn’t mean you need to stay put, James. You’ve got young legs. Go!”
But I kept my attention homed in on that one patch of wall. Flakes began to curl and peel. Strands unwound and frayed.
“Lille, the boy’s onto something here!” Bern said, with a warble of excitement.
But then a numbness started to spread down my fingers. I glanced at my hand. My fingers had no tips. Streaks of translucency crept up my arm. “Crap! I’m fading.”
“Oh! Well, look at that, I suppose you are. Lucky chap. Leads us into trouble and leaves us in the lurch.”
“Don’t begrudge the boy, Bern,” said Lille. “Just bless his good luck.”
I scrambled to give that hospital newsletter one more glance before I disappeared. There was an address block in the top corner, but I was too flustered to make sense of all the French verbiage. I couldn’t even tell which words corresponded to a city or country. I couldn’t even know for sure if it came from France. It could just as well be from Belgium or Quebec.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, as my fibers and particles became sparser and sparser.
“No worries, lad. What’s the worst they could do to us?” said Bern.
“Turn us into mince meat,” said Lille, wincing, as the hounds turned the corner and bounded down the corridor in lockstep.
Bern took her into his arms as my head spun with the sensation of being sucked up the core of a tornado.
Chapter 32: Marching
“Sursum corda!” chanted the priest and the people all around me chanted right back.
My consciousness rejoined my earthly form in the middle of a Latin mass, during the breaking of the bread thing—the Eucharist—I guess. Mom tried to teach me some religion, but her heart wasn’t into it, so it never took hold. Sounds like I’m blaming her, but I’m not. Whatever faith she could have imparted would have been torn to shreds by what I had witnessed in Root.
Had I seen evidence of a higher power?
Probably.
Was this higher power worthy of worship?
Fear? Respect? Certainly. Worship? Not from what I had seen.
And I’m not talking about Luther. His soul was just a pawn like the rest of our souls. I’m talking about the raw material of Root itself, the Reapers and whoever made them. Evil could be the only word that described them.
My first reaction at being back in the pews of St. Peter’s was sheer horror. Lille’s screams still reverberated in my ears. One more minute working on that wall and I could have helped Bern and Lille make a clean get away from those dogs. Luthersburg had gone from quaint and curious to Nazi nightmare in the span of three visits. I couldn’t blame them for wanting out. Luther might not be Hitler, but he was a fool and a dangerous one at that.
I got up and left my pew during the breaking of the bread. I don’t know if people thought I was jumping the gun for Communion or what but I drew plenty of stares and mutterings.
I was in a foul mood and let these servile wankers know it with my glare. They were wasting their time on a silly charade. No amount of praying would save them from what was to come. I turned my back to the altar without as much as a genuflect or a nod and headed for the exit.
I paused on the steps of the Basilica and took in the scene outside. The day was crisp and bright but I didn’t feel worthy of breathing this air. This was not my world anymore.
I had no idea why I kept getting kicked back here. Hope was the drug that supposedly fueled this shared hallucination, but I had to wonder where this hope was hiding in me. It sure didn’t feel like I had a shred of it left.
As I gazed out over
St. Peter’s Square, this place and Luthersburg began to blur together in my head. I saw no distinction anymore. Root and Earth were just different facets of the same existence. I suspected there might be other facets I had yet to witness, some I’d better hope I never saw.
Hope. There was that word again. Amazing how closely it was linked with despair, because I was infected with both and it was getting harder and harder to tell the two apart.
All these other people though, the couples hand in hand, the lonely old spinsters maneuvering with their walkers—where did they find their hope? Did those with good lives hope things stayed good a little longer if not forever? Did those with crap lives hope things got better even a little bit, or at least that things didn’t get much worse?
Couldn’t they see the futility of it all? On a geologic scale, their lives had the significance of a gnat. They would be over in a blink and they would have nothing to show for it but a photo album and a headstone. Why did they bother? By what miracle did they not crowd the tunnels of Root?
I searched in my heart for the cursed seed of hope that had separated me from my friends in their time of need. I bet it was that damned sheet of hospital stationery I had found in Luther’s hospital play room. It had made me believe that I could track down Luther in the flesh, and possibly that would lead me to Karla, though a few pictures of a longish lake were a pretty feeble connection if you asked me. I guess it didn’t take much hope at all to get a guy like me kicked out of Root.
I hoped that wouldn’t be the last I would see of Lille and Bern. Harvald might be brutish but he didn’t seem evil. Surely he would have called off the dogs after giving them a good scare. Wouldn’t he?
For now, my destination seemed clear. A broad avenue spilled down to the Tiber from the split in the edifices that bracketed the Square. I started walking.
***
