Heaven's Lies

by Daniel Caet

  Ashes

  Becca's eyes opened like someone waking up startled from a nightmare. At first she could only see the ceiling of the room she was in, but when she turned her head she realised that she didn't recognise the place. Her heart began to accelerate when the images of the creature and what happened in the cemetery returned to her head. She sat up instantly to find Sadith who was facing away from her looking out of a window at the back of the room, and Becca couldn’t help but recall the similarities with one of the scenes that woman had described for her sometime before. Noticing that she was awake, the woman turned and approached the bed.

  “Welcome!” she said with a smile. “I was starting to worry. No, don't get up! It is important that you let your body and your mind rest.”

  “What happened? How did I get here? That being, it attacked me, wanted to kill me, but I couldn't let her, something told me that I shouldn't allow it …”

  “Calm down!” The woman hugged Becca gently. “You must pay attention to me, your energy is at a minimum, you need to rest and let your body and your mind heal.”

  For several minutes Becca said nothing. The woman's hug was comforting, healing. Her unexpected tenderness, the way she took care of her, made Becca think that moment and that gesture was the closest thing to a mother she had ever had. When she finally felt calmer, she could find the strength to ask what had happened. Sadith reached out and handed her a newspaper that was on the bedside table. Becca took it and saw that the cover was completely occupied by a large aerial photograph of what looked like a part of a city devastated by an explosion. Despite not speaking French Becca could understand the words ‘terrorist attack’ in the headline.

  “I do not understand. What is this, Sadith?”

  “That's the interpretation that newspapers, the police and even the army have made of your encounter with Tisiphone.”

  “Who?”

  “Tisiphone, one of the three Erinyes, although you may know them better by the Latin name, the furies.” The woman continued seeing that Becca did not quite understand. “Furies have lived in this world since before man existed. Their role has always been to maintain order and balance by punishing those who deviated from the straight path of truth and justice. Tisiphone and her two sisters, Alecto and Megaera, have always been neutral in their way of acting, punishing men, angels and demons equally, but evidently something has suddenly caused them to take sides. I always considered that Megaera was the most vicious and perverse of the three sisters, but it is obvious that Tisiphone was the most easy to influence.”

  “But influenced by who?”

  “That's something I'm not sure about. In this game in which Helel has decided to involve you, there are too many players, I'm afraid. Maybe more than I suspected. But whoever it is, it is obvious that they consider you a threat or they would not have sent such a powerful force against you.”

  “What happened in the cemetery? Was it that creature that caused this?” asked Becca, pointing to the newspaper that Sadith had given her.

  “No, honey, that was all your work,” the woman replied, smiling. “The wave of energy that you launched against Tisiphone was so great that not only did it end her, but it spread around you, destroying everything with the force of a bomb. Fortunately there was no loss of human lives. You can imagine that the police were absolutely confused, so they have opted for the most credible version in the face of the public, a terrorist attack.”

  “But that is impossible. I don't have that kind of power. I am not even aware of wishing to do so. All I wanted was to save my life.”

  “Let me explain something to you about what is usually called power,” Sadith said, sitting back on the bed. “Power does not really exist, it is not something physical, it is simply the ability to absorb the energy present in everything around us and transform it into something different. It is a catalyst” she explained using a term she knew Becca would understand, “and all humans are born with that ability in them. The only difference is that in some that capacity is much more developed than in others. In your case, that ability is greater than I have ever seen in any son of Helel's and the only reason you had not noticed yet is because, after the school fire incident, your mind decided to numb that ability for fear of what it might trigger.”

  “Then fire …”

  “Fire is just a manifestation of that power, but I am convinced that you can do much bigger things. You just have to be willing to embrace that power and learn to control it. I can help you with the latter, but only you can help yourself with the former.”

  The conversation was interrupted by the face of Charice who looked behind the door of the room.

  “Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt, but I thought I heard you were awake, and I was dying to know how you were.”

  “No problem, Charice, come in, I think Becca will appreciate your company.”

  “What three days you have given us, honey!” said Charice, throwing herself on the bed.

  “Three days?”

  “It is the time you have been unconscious,” Sadith replied. “I already told you that you consumed a lot of energy in Montparnasse. Anyway, now that you are awake, you need to recover as soon as possible, we must leave here.”

  “Leave?” asked Becca, surprised.

  “Whoever is after you has been able to find you in Paris, here you are no longer safe.”

  “But where will we go?”

  “Well, that depends on you. Do you want to get to the bottom of all this or do you want to spend the rest of your life hiding like others before you?”

  “You know what the answer is.”

  “In that case, you need to know all the versions of the history of this family that you have been given, and for that it is necessary that you go to see your mother.”

  Sadith left the room with a last smile of tenderness and her last word echoed in Becca's ears for a long time.

  They left the next day at about ten o'clock at night. Becca, who had not yet recovered from the effort generated in the cemetery, got into the completely black car waiting for them at the door of Sadith's house. Eustace had made sure that all their things were picked up from the hotel and taken to the house, and now he was behind the wheel of the vehicle ready to drive them where necessary. Becca did not even deign to look at him when she got into the car, partly because of the accumulated fatigue and partly because her anger had not yet died out. The comfort of the immense car and her own body that shouted for it made Becca fall asleep reclining on Charice as soon as the car started, and she remained that way during the whole journey, which was a blessing considering that it took them almost eight hours to reach their destination.

  Sadith had explained to her that they should go to a place called Cassis that meant nothing to Becca, but had avoided telling her why. When they finally arrived there, Charice gently woke Becca who felt as if she had only closed her eyes for a few minutes. As she could, she got out of the car, but could not open her eyes due to a blinding light that hit her directly on her face. When her eyes finally got used to the brightness, she realised what it was. The dawn sun was reflected in the bluest sea she had ever seen and that they could observe from their position in some elevated cliff. Around her there was no one or anything, just low bushes and some trees that looked like some kind of pine trees grouped in the distance. On her right she saw a sign in French with a map of the area that seemed to indicate that the place was called Les Calanques d'En-Vau.

  “Becca, you better not stay behind” Sadith's voice called from a few meters away, from what looked like the beginning of a wooden staircase that ran down the side of the cliff.

  She followed the woman down the stairs without being able to look up due to the reflection of the sun and striving to be careful not to stumble on the steep steps. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Becca, they reached a small cove. Becca's shoes were a hindrance in that area so, imitating Sadith, she decided to take them off. The sand was cold and its contact caused her neurons t
o finally fully wake up and she looked around. The stillness of the cove, the turquoise blue of the water and the sun formed an image of a singular beauty. For a second, Becca wanted to be able to sit there, just to smell and listen to the sea, to forget everything she had lived in recent weeks, but Charice approached her to take her hand.

  “We have to hurry, honey,” she said, pulling her.

  Becca was dragged by Charice stumbling across the sand until they reached the water's edge and, suddenly, Eustace grabbed her in his arms without saying anything and placed her on a motorboat that was just a couple of meters from the shore .

  “You're good? You're very blushed,” said Charice, smiling.

  “You are an idiot!” Becca answered blushing even more.

  The boat loaded with the whole group and their belongings left offshore abandoning the cove behind and heading for a larger ship anchored in deeper waters. As they approached, Becca realised that it was not a normal ship, within the limitations of what she could know of ships, but that it looked old, different from the boats that Becca had seen before in her life. When they reached it, she could see that it was a large ship, with two masts holding large white sails placed obliquely instead of straight as Becca had seen in photographs.

  Eustace jumped on board and tied the motor boat to the side of the ship to immediately deploy a ladder made of rope and wood planks that looked very precarious. Sadith did not wait a second and climbed the ladder to get on board as agile as a cat. Charice followed her, performing considerably well for what Becca would have expected of her. Becca was next, but trying to grab the ladder to ascend the ship her feet failed her at the edge of the boat causing her to lose her balance and fall backwards. Luckily someone grabbed her tightly and lifted her as if she were a feather to deposit her on the deck.

  “Be careful or you'll get wet!” said a voice that, to her surprise, was not Eustace's. Becca raised her eyes and for a second she thought she had died and gone to heaven. In front of her stood a tall man, almost two meters, with a back like a two-door closet, a three-day blonde beard to match the hair that fell on his shoulders and grey eyes capable of leaving anyone breathless. Becca felt her heart racing, erasing any remaining drowsiness she could have left and was unable to say a word or stop looking at that magnificent male specimen in front of her.

  “Becca, this is Marcel!” Sadith introduced him.

  “Rebecca,” the man said, using the name Becca hated and making it sound like music on his lips.

  “I ... Likewise,” Becca muttered meaninglessly.

  “Welcome to the Rogue!”

  “Thank you. It is a very beautiful ship.”

  “It is an eighteenth century schooner. It was renewed by my father, and I have continued with his work,” the man continued, extending his arms as if wanting to cover the entire ship he was obviously proud of.

  “Marcel is a descendant of Jeshar’s, I think you've already heard about him. Several generations ago his family decided to leave the mainland to give themselves to the sea in body and soul.”

  “And this ship was your gift, aunt!” the man replied, approaching Sadith to hug her and lift her up.

  “Get me down, piece of brute!” the woman laughed out loud as Becca would never have imagined. “When his great grandfather decided that his life was at sea, I wanted them to desire for nothing, and I made sure they could have the fastest ship of the moment. And also the safest.” Sadith approached Becca and, standing behind her, put her hands on her temples, making her look at the side of the ship. “Look, but do it with the eyes of the soul,” she whispered. At first, Becca couldn't see anything, but suddenly there was a kind of translucent wall of intense blue color that covered the entire ship around and over them as far as the eye could see, as if the ship was surrounded by a beautiful glass. “I protected this ship with all the spells I knew so that it would never be detected by men or by those who are not. For all intents and purposes, from the moment you boarded this ship you have disappeared from the world.”

  “Is that the reason we don't go by plane?” asked Becca. “The boats and I don't get along very well, the constant wiggle and that. Couldn't you do those spells on the plane?”

  “Leaving aside the attention that would attract a plane which suddenly disappears from all radars, some of those spells would take weeks.”

  “Okay, I guess then ship will be, but could you at least tell me where we are going? I don't like being transported across the planet without knowing where.”

  “We are heading to Romania, specifically to the port of Constanta, although there we will meet other friends waiting to take us to our final destination.”

  “Romania? By sea? And how long is it supposed to take?”

  “About a week.”

  “What? I can't be in a boat for a week, I get very dizzy!”

  “Don't worry, if you get too annoying we can throw you overboard,” Marcel interrupted with an advert smile.

  Becca spent the next two days locked in one of the two cabins of the schooner, hugging a bucket and wishing someone would tear her guts out. Sadith and Charice tried to make the cruise as pleasant as possible, but nothing worked, her body was on state of war for having subjected her to the torture of that trip, and she didn't bother to disguise it. There was a time when Becca came to think that she would not survive that punishment; but suddenly, on the third day, she woke up with a different sensation, she was hungry. She stepped out of the cabin that smelled of concentrated vomit and climbed weakly up the stairs leading to the deck. The sea wind made her feel renewed, fresh, and she was glad to see that the dizziness had completely disappeared. She approached the ship's rail and closed her eyes filling her lungs with an air she really needed.

  “I see you're feeling better, I knew it was a matter of days!” Marcel's voice resounded beside her, making her eyes open.

  “Yes, I'm not so dizzy anymore, I suppose the sea has calmed down today,” she said, looking at the blue, immense and serene surface in front of her.

  “Actually, it has been like this every day,” Marcel replied, trying to hide a smile.

  “Well, then it is that I am especially sensitive.”

  “It's not bad, many people get dizzy by boat until their body gets used to the movement. Also, now that you have overcome it, you will no longer have any problem when we get to the complicated part.”

  “Complicated? Is there a more complicated part?”

  “I'm afraid so! The Mediterranean is a pretty pleasant sea to sail, but things will change when we cross the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Then we will enter the black sea and that is a different kind of fish. The winds change very frequently making the sea more raging, and mists are common. That is why it is called the Black Sea.”

  “I think I'm going to feel sick again.”

  “You'll see you will not!” said the man, grabbing her by the shoulders causing her to blush. “Sadith wouldn't let anything happen to you.”

  “How long have you known her?” Becca asked, trying to change the subject and hiding the rapture that the man's arms had caused.

  “Well, all my life. My ancestors have served Sadith for millennia, as strange as it is to say something like that, and my family continued with that tradition, so I have known her forever. When my parents died she took care of me, looking for a family that loved me and looking after me, and she has always taken care that I was not missing anything.”

  “How old were you when …?” Becca replied without daring to formulate the sentence.

  “Six years. You don't remember, right?”

  “Remember? Me? What?”

  “You made me this scar when we were children,” he said, indicating a small white mark on his chin where the blond hair that covered the rest of his face did not grow. “You pulled me off a swing at my parents' house because I didn't let you go up.”

  “How? No, it can't be, I don't remember any of that!”

  “Well, you were only four years old, I guess it's normal.”


  “Marcel,” Sadith's voice interrupted, “could you go prepare some food for Becca, honey? I'm sure she is hungry.”

  “Sure, aunt,” the man replied, perfectly understanding what Sadith wanted while Becca was still clutching the rail and turned to look at the infinite.

  “In this family, surprises never end, huh?” said Becca in a neutral tone.

  “Is it surprising to know that you once had some family?That you still have it?”

  “Why can't I remember all these things?” Becca said, turning to face Sadith.