The Edge of Over There

by Shawn Smucker

  He smiled. “Yes, yes, you do,” he said. “And I know what you are here to do, though you do not yet know. At least not precisely. Do we ever know exactly what it is we are to do until we do it? I doubt it.”

  He took another deep breath. He was like a bellows pumping air into some invisible fire. Some of the piercings on his face made a tinkling sound as they bumped against each other during his next boisterous exhale.

  “In any case,” he said, as if he had finally made an important decision, “as I said, you can call me Mr. Henry.”

  “And what are you?” Leo asked.

  Abra glanced quickly at him. There was something disrespectful about his tone, something sarcastic, as if he was talking to a child.

  But Mr. Henry paid him no mind. He only laughed. “You have words for it, but if I used those words then it would mislead you down well-worn paths that, unfortunately for you, go in the wrong direction. Those words, the words you have for what I am, are not quite right. I am light and darkness, I am power and weakness, I am vast and I am barely anything at all. There are no single words in your language that will suffice, so I will not tease you by using them.”

  He laughed again, and his laugh pushed back the shadows. Abra liked it when he laughed. The sound was like its own person, the kind of person you always feel comfortable around, the kind of person who helps you forget the things you need to forget, at least for a time.

  “Words,” he said, shaking his head. “Words should only be used as a last resort, a final attempt to communicate when all else has failed. They are unsteady ground. Words are nothing more than manipulated air.”

  He laughed another joyous laugh. Even Leo smiled this time.

  “Then why are you using so many of them?” Leo asked sarcastically.

  “Because words are all you humans have,” Mr. Henry said, suddenly scowling, and his scowl was as fierce as his laugh was joyful. “Words are the only anchors you recognize. Words are also why you’re so . . . unsteady. Don’t you ever want to flow with the movement of the river? Lift up your anchor, man!”

  Abra had a quiet confidence in Mr. Henry. How did she know he was good? She couldn’t have put it into words, but if she could have, she would have said that all the angels she’d ever met had at times been happy, and all of them had at times been nice (or seemed so), and all of them had at times been powerful, but only the good ones had ever been truly kind. She was beginning to think that the only distinguishing factor between good and evil, the only thing good possessed that could not be effectively copied by evil, was kindness.

  Perhaps Mr. Henry knew where the Tree was and she could simply cut it in half. Or maybe he knew where to look, and they would find it soon enough.

  “I’m here now,” she said. “Will you tell me what to do next?”

  18

  IT WAS NEARLY LUNCHTIME, and the crowd in the park had grown. Abra watched children run through the grass. Her eyes followed the drifting movement of Frisbees floating through the air. Some people had spread out blankets for picnics. The sunlight grew weary from cutting through the humidity, and it faded as large, white clouds flattened out. It looked like a storm was building far to the south.

  “Do you know the darkness in the angel who tried to possess the Tree of Life from the beginning?” Mr. Henry barked. “Of course you don’t. How would you know that? You’ve been alive for such a short period of time! A blink. Not even a blink. You’ve been alive for the first half of the first half of the thought of a blink.”

  Abra, Beatrice, and Leo stared at the man. He stopped talking and glared at them, as if they were the cause of his going on and on, as if their constant need for explanations was causing him to use too many of those despised things called words. When he started talking again, he shouted, and they all jumped.

  “It is a darkness you cannot imagine! The angel you know as Jinn was consumed by it. How you managed to bring him down . . .” His voice faded to a mumble. “We’re still wondering.”

  He stared this time at Abra, his eyes burning with questions and perhaps even a hint of suspicion. He continued in a whisper.

  “Do you know how many Beings of Light have pursued and destroyed the Tree of Life in all of its appearances from one end of the earth to the other? Since the beginning of time? Do you know?” His voice cracked at the end with emotion.

  The three listening to the story shook their heads slowly, back and forth.

  This time the man did not speak right away. He grew more emotional, and tears filled his eyes as he held up his index finger. He nodded resolutely.

  “One. One. The one you know as Tennin was the only one tasked to destroy the Tree. Until now. He was there in the beginning, when everything was sung into place. He was there in the beginning, when the first ones came to be. He was there in the beginning, when the dark angel wished to possess the Tree of Life and give its fruit to humans.”

  Mr. Henry reached out with one hand and grasped at an invisible piece of fruit, his face covered in anguish.

  “The Tree of Life?” Leo asked. Abra was surprised at how matter-of-fact the question was. He didn’t seem surprised by this new knowledge at all.

  “Are you talking about the Tree of Life?” Leo asked again.

  Abra and Mr. Henry exchanged a glance. When they looked back at Leo, they both seemed to be deep in consideration about how much they should tell him.

  “Because if you’re talking about the Tree of Life,” he continued, “if you’re talking about a Tree that would let people live forever, then why would you ever want to destroy it?”

  Abra recognized Sam in Leo’s face, the sincerity, the longing for deep, aching wrongs to be made right.

  “Leo,” she said in a quiet voice, “these bodies can’t live forever. Why would you want to live here on this earth forever? What if you were seriously injured but could not die? What if all of those you loved passed away and you were left here alone? What if your body grew old and frail until you couldn’t move or talk or see or hear?”

  “Anything is better than death,” Beatrice interrupted in her singsong, know-it-all voice. “It’s a black nothing that waits for you. Darkness and shadows and a long sleep, nothing more.”

  “Silence,” Mr. Henry hissed, and Beatrice shrunk back.

  In the past Abra would have grown indignant at what Beatrice said, argued in a mean voice against such talk, but the truth had softened her, as it does to all who encounter it. Knowing the truth, really knowing it, deflects the sharpest blows of cynicism or anger or bitterness.

  “Death is not a curse,” Abra whispered, looking at Beatrice with compassion. “It’s a gift.”

  Beatrice’s face curled up in disgust. “That’s no kind of gift at all.”

  “You will not speak again in my presence,” Mr. Henry said to Beatrice, and that was that. Abra thought there was something about those words that felt binding, as if he could actually control her speech. Beatrice’s power, if she had any, was manipulative and mischievous. Mr. Henry’s was deep, foundational, and solid.

  Abra looked from Beatrice back to Mr. Henry. “Is it okay for us to talk about this now?” she whispered, looking sideways at Beatrice. Beatrice refused to make eye contact, staring straight ahead now as if she couldn’t hear a thing being said.

  Mr. Henry shrugged. “If she is who I think she is, she knows all of this already. If she isn’t, then it does no harm.”

  “Okay. How did it happen?” she asked. “And why? If Mr. Tennin was the one, why did he fail at the Tree in Deen? Why did I end up with the sword? I don’t understand it, not any of it. Why me?”

  Mr. Henry softened. He reached out a hand and put it on Abra’s shoulder. “I don’t understand either. But I’m not sure that he failed. Let me also tell you this. This unexpected Tree of Life growing at the Edge of Over There, well, it is impossible for an Angel of Light to go there. We are not permitted. Angels of darkness, on the other hand, may do what they please.”

  He stared at Beatrice again. It
seemed to Abra that he was constantly probing, constantly trying to make a final conclusion. But something seemed to stop him from fully understanding. Maybe B was more powerful than she thought.

  “So, you mean . . .” Abra began.

  “Yes,” he said. “Mr. Tennin would not have been able to go there to destroy the Tree. Perhaps this is why it has appeared there, or perhaps it was only chance and a matter of time before it happened. Maybe this is why Mr. Tennin fell, so that he could pass on his duty to someone able to enter. Someone like you. Whatever the case, Mr. Tennin would not have been able to take the sword to the Edge of Over There to kill the Tree.”

  Abra stared at him. “But I can go there? To the Edge of Over There?” she asked.

  He nodded. His eyes smiled and the piercings in his face seemed like a constellation of stars leading the way. “Maybe Tennin knew there was a Tree of Life at the Edge of Over There. Impossible to say for sure. It was there even before the Tree in your valley came to be. He certainly knew he could not go there. And then he meets you, and he makes sure you end up with that”—he points to the sword—“and he gives you instructions that lead you here.”

  “I thought only one Tree can exist at a time,” Abra said.

  “We can’t explain that,” Mr. Henry said. “We’re still . . . searching for answers. Maybe the one in Deen was only a diversion. Maybe the one at the Edge of Over There can exist because it is outside of the world. Which poses its own problems. The main one being, there are seven gates that souls can go through to leave the world, and as of right now, we don’t know much about who has the keys.”

  “I dreamed about Mr. Tennin,” Abra said in a still voice like undisturbed water.

  Mr. Henry looked at her and his pierced eyebrows raised. “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  She hesitated. “He told me about the seven gates that need to be locked. And he told me to destroy the Tree, the one that was growing at the same time as our Tree, the one here in New Orleans.”

  “So, he did know,” Mr. Henry said.

  He went into deep thought for what felt like a long time. Children ran past them. Parents called the children back. The entirety of life rushed from here to there, all around, but Abra was nearly oblivious to it, staring at Mr. Henry, waiting to see what he would say.

  Finally, he spoke.

  “You are only the second to hold that sword since the very beginning of time, and you are nothing more than a blink, but maybe you are here for just such a time.”

  Abra took a deep breath. “I’m the third to hold it,” she said quietly. “My friend Sam used it to kill the Amarok.”

  “So he did,” Mr. Henry said, nodding with respect.

  “How do I get to the Edge of Over There?” she asked.

  Mr. Henry looked over at Leo. “Do you mind driving us?”

  Sitting in the back seat with Beatrice felt like being in a cage with a sleeping tiger. Abra felt a shift taking place. Before, when Beatrice still thought she might have convinced Abra she was nothing more than a schoolgirl, she had played the part well, coming across as weak and flighty and friendly. She had overplayed a fake fear when they first arrived, but Abra had been too excited to notice. Yet now that Beatrice knew her mask had been taken off, she came across as sullen bordering on angry. Abra wasn’t exactly afraid of her, especially not with Mr. Henry in the front seat of the car, but Beatrice’s slow and steady transformation was disconcerting.

  “Turn right here,” Mr. Henry said, giving directions to Leo as they drove.

  “Why won’t you tell me where we’re going?”

  “Left. Turn left,” Mr. Henry said. “Because if I told you where we’re going, you would go the way that you know to go. But I have a way I want to go, and that’s the right way.”

  “What is the Edge of Over There?” Abra asked. She didn’t want to look at Beatrice, so she stared at the back of Mr. Henry’s head as he shouted out instructions to Leo. Even with the windows rolled down, Abra was sweating. Rivulets ran down the back of Mr. Henry’s shiny, bald head. Tiny drops like tears.

  “The Edge of Over There. Hmm. Yes. Well, Over There is the great by-and-by. The far shore. It is the place everyone goes after they die. You have other words for it, but they are all insufficient.”

  “You mean heaven and hell?” Leo said.

  Mr. Henry practically growled at him. “Ha! First of all, you have no possible way of coming close to accurately imagining the beauty and terror contained in those two words. Second of all . . . oh, never mind. Never mind. I’m not going into that right now.”

  “But if that’s Over There, what’s the Edge of Over There?” Abra interrupted.

  “Yes, well, as I’ve said far too many times before, there are seven Passageways that lead from here to Over There. Seven. The Passageways are the ways souls travel after the body has died—souls pass through the gate whether it is locked or not.”

  He paused.

  “But here in New Orleans, someone unlocked the gate and allowed the living to enter. The living can only go so far. They can enter the gate, and they can approach Over There, but they cannot cross the Great Water unless they are dead.”

  Abra stared at Leo as he looked over at Mr. Henry with wonder in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Of course, there have been a handful of exceptions to that. There are always exceptions! The problem—turn right here, boy!—is that these Passageways were never intended for the living. These Passageways are . . . elsewhere. It’s difficult to explain. But as living people entered this particular Passageway, it expanded. It grew into an entire city, a city that runs right up against the Great Water, a barrier that only souls can cross.”

  Mr. Henry sighed.

  “Now they have the Tree of Life, and this poses some serious problems. One, they could create a never-ending city of people who would never die. And why is this a problem?”

  He waited, but no one answered.

  “Because it is a place that will eventually be full of only pain and sadness. There will be no reprieve for anyone there if they eat from the Tree, because even though they would eventually grow old, they would never die. Of course—left here, left!—if there was no Tree there, we could always lock the gate and let them die normal or not-so-normal deaths, at which point they would cross the Great Water into eternity. But if we lock the gate now, and they all become immortals, what will become of them? And what if someone lets them out, back into this world, and they bring their immortality with them?”

  He turned and stared at Beatrice in the back seat.

  “No. That cannot happen. That must not happen. It’s all a frightful mess. So, you must go and kill the Tree, and we can all hope together that no one has eaten from it yet. After you destroy the Tree, you can come back out, and we can use the sword to lock the gate.”

  Mr. Henry said this as if he was asking her to check the mail and take out the garbage, as if going to the Edge of Over There and destroying the Tree were daily occurrences, things he did most days before lunchtime.

  “They will live out their lives there, those who remain, and as the population returns to zero, the Passageway will diminish and return to what it has always been—a thoroughfare for the souls of men to escape this world. Right! Turn right!”

  “And this sword is a key?” Abra asked.

  Mr. Henry nodded. “How did you know?”

  “Mr. Tennin told me that too. In the dream. But there was also someone else. Someone . . . I don’t know, someone who tried to convince me to unlock the gate and leave it open, not in order to kill the Tree, but for other reasons.”

  Mr. Henry turned in his seat again, this time so he could see Abra. “Who was it?”

  “Koli Naal.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I thought.” He turned back around. “Did she say anything else?”

  “I don’t know,” Abra said. “I guess she said a lot of things. I don’t remember.”

  “Sh
e is Mr. Jinn’s replacement. Or successor. Or overthrower. Probably all of those in some way. Koli Naal was waiting in the wings for a long time, much longer than four years. ”

  They stopped talking and the wind blew through the car.

  “Some believe she orchestrated his downfall—they fight not only us but one another as well. She will do everything she can to deliver the Tree to humanity. She will do everything she can to rob them of death.”

  “The gift of death?” Leo muttered skeptically, but only Abra heard him.

  “Stop!” Mr. Henry shouted, and as soon as Leo had applied the brakes, Mr. Henry jumped out of the car and walked through a gate that led through a stone wall.

  “Where are we?” Abra asked Leo.

  He turned and looked at her. “This is Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1.”

  The northern sky held small patches of candy blue, but directly above them it was slate gray, and low. The southern sky held a swirl of gathering darkness under which a heavy mist of approaching rain fell. An occasional flash of lightning jolted the earth. Abra looked uneasily over her shoulder at the storm as they followed Mr. Henry through the entrance of Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1.

  They wound their way among the stones. Mr. Henry was hunched over, and Abra wondered how old he was, but he also reminded her of a bloodhound on the scent, leading with his nose. He seemed eager to get where he was going, as if he had been waiting a long time for something that was now very close at hand.

  Beatrice jogged every so often to keep up with everyone else, and Abra stared at her. She continued to shift into something different. The giggling girl had been replaced by a very serious child—no, child wasn’t even the proper word. Abra felt she was looking at an adult in a child’s body.

  Mr. Henry grunted in reply to some voice or suggestion Abra hadn’t heard, and he kept walking. He stopped in front of an aboveground grave, a crypt the shape of a miniature house.

  “This is it,” Mr. Henry said, and the four of them stood there for a moment, staring. Large raindrops began falling from the sky, intermittent, without any sort of rhythm. They made heavy sounds against the pavement and the surrounding crypts, as if someone was tapping, tapping, tapping.