Debris of Shadows_Book II_The Forgotten Cathedral

by Tony LaRocca

  He winked, faced the fountain and its sprays of now–perfect arcs, and smiled.

  Chapter 14

  The New City Gallery’s facade of twisted mirrors overlooked the swirling base of the shield, reflecting its glowing patterns upon the desert. Brother Asher had ordered everyone to stay at least five blocks from the edge of the reconstructed city, lest they disturb the remaining Life Sands. For the most part, this decree was obeyed.

  Tish was, for the most part, an obedient child.

  Twenty–three other children had been resurrected so far, seven of them her age. Of those seven she had known five, back before the Shadows fell.

  They were jerks.

  She did not like them, and they did not like her. They had never once invited her to their birthday parties, though she had invited them to all of hers. When her parents had rented out Pizza Fun for her last birthday, not one of her guests had played with, or even talked to her. Her mom had been mad, but Tish had learned not to care a long time ago. They were jerks, they were mean, and they were big galoots. They had been jerks back when she was fat, and they were still jerks now.

  The parents had managed to put a single classroom back into session, mainly to keep the kids out of their hair. They did not learn anything new, because the teacher had not gotten her act together yet. That was something that her dad always said, that people needed to get their acts together. Tish was chubby, and she needed to get her act together. Mom got fired, and she needed to get her act together. WesMec Gov. was wasting his taxes, and the asshole bureaucrats needed to get their acts together… The list of people who did not have their acts together seemed endless. Tish had asked him once what kind of acts they performed. Were they jugglers, or magicians, or singers, like the girls who competed on WesMec Superstar? He had swatted her on the butt and told her not to be a smart–ass, so she had never asked again.

  So now, Tish was back in the same old school with the same old jerks, and a few new jerks besides. Kathy was there, of course. Out of the millions of kids who had lived in San Domenico, why did Asher have to bring back her? Also, he had made Tish’s mother and father nicer… somewhat, so why was Kathy still so mean? Kathy had been the first jerk to call her the bad word. Tish had asked her mom what it meant, a long time ago. Her mom had washed her mouth out with soap, called Kathy’s mom, and screamed at her at the top of her lungs, so Tish had let it go.

  Of course, that had not stopped Kathy from whispering it to her whenever she could. She still whispered it, even now that the world had changed. She had whispered it to her today, and the other jerks had heard her, and laughed.

  Tish hated Kathy.

  She had found the museum while exploring, almost a week after Brother Asher had brought her back. She had known that it was a forbidden place, but she had wanted to be where there were no jerks, where her dad was not kissing the monk’s bony butt, and where her mom was not trying to hide that she was crying most of the time. Crying was stupid. Crying just let the jerks know they were winning.

  It was the gift shop that had lured her inside. Tish had no idea why anyone would go to a museum to buy gifts, but she could see in through a long glass window on the building’s east side. She took a peek. They had posters, small sculptures, books, t–shirts, art kits…

  And soda.

  Tish could not remember the last time she had drank soda, and there it was, waiting just for her. Ever since she had come back, her parents had fed her nothing but vegetables and lean meat, with only water to wash them down. And next to the soda…

  Next to the fridge stood a counter display. It was chock full of candy. She could see chocolate bars, peanut butter wafers, lollipops, and bags of little chocolates in hard shells with NCG stamped on each one.

  She had to get in there.

  She looked up and down the street. There was not a person for miles. She walked around to the loading dock, and tried the back door. It was locked, of course. She repeated a bad word that she had heard her dad say now and then, and looked down.

  There, a foot above the ground, sat an open window.

  It was the kind of window that swung outward. Tish never would have been able to squeeze into it before, but now that she was skinny like everyone else, it posed no problem. It was as if the Ophanim Herself had placed it within the wall and opened it, because She had wanted Tish to have something decent to eat.

  She stuck her head inside. The top of a bookshelf sat a few inches below the window’s hinge. She slid her body in feet first. After that, it had just been a matter of lowering herself onto a nearby desk, and then the floor. She opened the basement office’s door, and climbed up the staircase to the lobby.

  The gallery had been built like a giant corkscrew around a central courtyard. A tree that stretched all the way to the museum’s glass–domed roof stood at its center. A maze, covered with vines and flowers, surrounded its trunk. The abundant garden smelled like earth, grass, and wood, more so than any park she had ever played in. It was beautiful, and for the first time since being resurrected, she had felt interested and excited.

  But first, the candy.

  She had made her way to the gift shop, and proceeded to stuff her face. When she could not eat any more, she guzzled down a few bottles of soda. After so many weeks on the wagon, the sugar tasted sweeter than ever before, and the chocolate richer and darker.

  She then walked back to the courtyard, and stepped into the garden.

  A continuous brick wall wove in–between the ferns, vines, and shrubs, making the atrium seem much bigger than it was. She had followed its path, surprised at how cool and moist the air felt. It was as if she had magically stepped into a jungle.

  Paintings, protected by glass, had been hung along the spiraling wall. They were all weird. One showed a bunch of melted, dripping clocks, one of which hung off of a tree branch. Another was a drawing of what looked like a guy reflected in a silver ball. She passed one depicting a man in a funny hat, with a green apple over his face. Another was a painting of what looked like a big, black backyard barbecue with a round lid and a hose, alongside some naked woman without a head.

  She could hear a faint rustling from within the depths of the maze. She stopped, and bit her lip. She imagined a snake slithering through the grass, but that was silly. Where would a snake have come from? A mouse was much more likely, or even a pigeon, though since she had been resurrected, she had not seen either. She took a step back, her heart pounding.

  Don’t be such a wuss, she thought. I bet if Kathy were here, she would see what it was.

  The thought filled her with a sense of loathing mixed with admiration. Deep down, part of her wished that she could be more like Kathy. But when she thought about it, there was no difference between them anymore, none that she could see. So why did all the other kids like Kathy, and hate her? It was not because of the bad word, she realized. It was because Kathy was not afraid to say it, even after her mother had probably whupped her behind.

  Yeah, she thought, but the difference is, I can be brave without being a mean jerk.

  She clenched her teeth, and continued along the winding path. It spiraled inward, the plant and art–covered walls creating a barrier between her and the sound. The leaves and petals grew darker as she walked, their velvety pigments sprinkled with a violet that deepened to maroon, and then black. The expanse of leaves overhead grew thicker until they nearly blotted out the sunlight. The flora, however, was no less lush. She realized that that did not make any sense. Flowers needed light, and bees to pollinate. She had learned that in science class.

  A shaft of sunlight peeked through to illuminate the final painting of the maze. It depicted French doors, adorned with dark, red, tattered drapes. A lion with a heart–shaped mane stared in through the jagged rips and tears from a mist–covered landscape. The panes around one of the doorframe’s wooden crosses were cracked, encircling it within a spiderweb pattern. Tish looked at the nameplate. It was called Pulling Back the Curtain. The artist was unknown.
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  She burped. It tasted sweet, but it also burned. Her stomach did a little flip, and she realized, with a sense of horror and shame, that she might be sick. She took a deep breath. I’m not going to throw up, she told herself, not here. She looked back at the way she had come. Would she be able to find a bathroom in time? More importantly, whatever was making that noise, would it wait for her, or would it disappear?

  I’ll be okay, she decided, and turned the corner.

  The winding path ended at the base of the tree. The oak towered above her, its leafy branches forming a canopy. The shaded sunlight made everything seem gray and bluish. She heard the sound again, coming from the ground. It was the rasping rustle of sticks rubbing together, or a snake slithering in high, dry grass. It was probably just some animal, caught in the tree’s roots. Would it bite her, maybe with poison, or even rabies? All she knew was that Kathy the Jerk would not be a scaredy–cat, so neither would she. She ignored the sloshing in her stomach, walked up to the tree, and looked down.

  She screamed, and slapped her hand over her mouth.

  The tree hovered at the top of a massive pit that teemed with rough, gnarled snakes. There was no soil inside. She watched as they wormed over, under, and through each other’s twisted coils. The abyss stretched down into blackness. She teetered, certain that she would fall in. Instead, she dropped to her knees, and puked.

  She squeezed her eyes tight, pushing back tears. Something tickled the back of her throat like a minuscule ball of feathers, and her queasy stomach let loose again. The prickly object dislodged itself. Something buzzed and whined in front of her nose, but when she opened her eyes, there was nothing there.

  If the snakes minded their bath of sugary upchuck, they did not show it. Instead, their squirmy dance knocked the slop further and further down until she could not see or smell it anymore.

  There was nothing Tish hated more than doing a multicolored yawn, but she felt much better for it. That’s what you get for being a pig, she thought, just eat one or two, next time.

  And from then on, that was what she did.

  She was careful to only sneak into the gallery two or three times a week, and just for a few hours. She only took a few pieces of candy (the chocolate bars stuffed with peanut butter were her favorite) and two bottles of soda at a time. She always brought them with her to the magic tree, and ate while she watched the snakes wiggle. She liked them, because they had not been mad at her for puking. They had not even made fun of her.

  She liked them even more when, on her second visit, she had realized that they were not snakes at all. They were roots. They wove around each other in an elegant, hypnotic dance. After a week, she had wondered if, like her, the tree was lonely. So ever since, while she stuffed her face with delicious, creamy chocolate, she talked to it.

  Now, almost a month later, it was nothing for her to sit at the edge of the pit with her legs dangling over its rim. Her mother had confronted Brother Asher about the book the night before, and had humiliated her in front of the whole town. Okay, it was getting a little harder to squeeze in through the window, but so what? She could always cut back on the sweets if she really wanted to.

  “Hello, tree,” she said. “Want some pop?” It had become a ritual. She opened a bottle, and dumped it into the hole. The brown, syrupy water fizzed as the roots drank it down. She opened one for herself, and took a sip.

  “I had another nightmare last night,” she said. “I keep dreaming that I’m a soldier, but every time it’s different. Sometimes I’m a woman, sometimes I’m a man. I keep changing and melting into different people, like I’m made out of plastic. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but dreams are weird. Then, bad things happen. I can’t remember them too much, which is good, I guess. Sometimes, the Clown comes for me. He’s always grinning, his muscles are on fire beneath his leathery skin, and he tells me how bad and worthless I am, how I did not follow the will of the Ophanim, so now he has to eat my soul, and I feel so scared that I get sick. It’s always dark and cold, and hurts, and I’m so hungry.” She popped a vanilla wafer into her mouth. It tasted like pure sugar. She shrugged. “I’m always hungry.”

  The roots gave no answer, save for their incessant rustle.

  “Mom and Dad keep fighting,” she said, “but it’s not scary yelling, not like it used to be. Mom keeps calling him a fool, and says that Brother Asher is something called a false prophet. He looks scary, like a zombie, but at the same time, he’s a skinny wuss. He’s dirty and smelly, and he always looks like he’s going to fall flat on his face and go to sleep.

  “And then Dad gets mad, and he says…” She put her hands on her hips, and jutted out her jaw. “You’re never happy Helen, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just enjoy what we have? You want that monkey on your back again? You really want that monkey back?”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears. “But he’s a liar,” she said. She sniffed hard, her nose gurgling. “I know he’s a liar, because I never, ever saw Mommy with a monkey.”

  The nest of roots stopped their chaotic dance, and lay still. Tish swallowed the last syrupy sips of her soda. She held her breath, her eyes wide.

  Seven, then eight thin, twisted roots sprung up. They wove and poked at each other, knotting into joints and limbs until they formed a two–foot high sculpture. It was crude, but recognizable.

  It was of a woman, carrying a monkey on her back.

  Tish giggled, and clapped her hands to her mouth. “Holy Ophanim,” she said, “could you understand me all this time?”

  In response, the entire nest of roots began to buckle and writhe. Each performed a separate dance, whipping like knotted worms. The result was a wooden animation of a woman and her monkey, running around the tree. Every now and then, the monkey would reach down and smack the woman’s butt. Tish laughed until her face hurt, tears spilling down her cheeks. It was her first true laugh in years, and her body shook with the storm of emotional release.

  The monkey jumped off of the woman’s back, and ran on before her. She chased him around and around in circles. Her belly plumped out as if she were pregnant until a hole appeared in her stomach. A weird tattoo marked her forehead, like a squiggly number seven. A cape, like Brother Asher’s, sprouted from her back, while tiny mouths — also like brother Asher’s — appeared on her neck.

  The monkey changed too. His face grew longer and leaner, his brow less protruded. His posture straightened. Although he was only a few feet high, she could see an expression of weariness in his features. He looked older than her father, though not by much. But as he ran, more wrinkles and lines appeared in his face. He seemed to be gasping for breath.

  One arm started falling off at the shoulder. At first, Tish was annoyed, because the sloppiness spoiled what was otherwise a perfect display. But then his left hand grew, the fingers and thumb elongating into a snout, and the arm became a snake. The man kept trying to rip it off, his face becoming layers of wrinkles as he doubled over, his steps faltering. Something was in his way, a wall made of root and vine. He smashed through, and somehow, he was younger again.

  The man looked over his shoulder. The woman still chased him, the woman who looked like Brother Asher.

  Tish gasped, and scuttled away from the tree. These were the two NorMec soldiers, the ones her parents and Asher had warned her about. They were the two dangerous, crazy prisoners of war. Brother Asher had said that they needed his help, but he had said it the same way Linda McMann’s mother had when Linda had thrown a major hissy fit, and broke their living room window. Linda’s mom had chased her into the street, wielding a giant wooden spoon. When she caught Linda, she gave her butt a good, hard whack through her pants, and shouted that Linda needed help. Then she had whacked her so hard that the spoon broke. Linda had screamed and screamed and everyone in the neighborhood had heard, but it probably had not hurt that much. Linda had a big butt. Then her mom had dragged her inside and slammed the door behind them, shouting over and over that Linda needed the Ophanim, she ne
eded help.

  She took a few quick, sharp breaths. She felt cold. In her dreams, it was always the NorMec soldiers who were chasing her, and trying to mow her down. Their Cyleb Abominations were monsters who could move and think faster than any normal person, and would stop at nothing to kill her and everyone she loved. They were the ones who had brought the Shadows, and had turned the world into sand and bug monsters. Did the tree want her to help them? Was it somehow under their power?

  She crouched, and dove for her candy wrappers and soda bottles. One fell from her frantic fingers, and rolled into the midst of the performance.

  Oblivious to her scrambling, the root–doll bald woman chased the root–doll old–young snake–armed man around and around the tree in a never–ending cycle. As they wove and danced, gaps opened in–between them to reveal the pit below. She could not see far into the darkness, but she caught whiffs of rotting vegetables and ash. The errant bottle bounced alongside the figures before tumbling into the chasm. Tish stepped back, and ran down the winding path, throwing her garbage into a can that was starting to fill.

  The sun had moved a few inches across the glass roof. It would be night soon. She made her way to the back of the museum, and crept out the door. She waited for the click of the latch, and pulled on it to make sure that it was locked. Then she ran home.

  Dinner consisted of a few slices of turkey breast, and steamed vegetables. She drank her water, and wished for soda. She bit into a mushy carrot. It tasted like nothing, because her mom had boiled all the flavor out of it. Carrots should crunch. If she had to eat vegetables, they could at least give her ones that crunched.

  Carrots were roots.

  The thought made her stomach bounce, and she dropped her fork to the floor. Her dad raised an eyebrow, and pointed at it. She sighed, picked it up, and put it back on the table.

  “Can I be excused?” she asked. “I don’t feel good.”

  Her parents looked at each other. “Tish,” her mom said, “where are you getting the candy?”