by A. L. Mengel
She stopped and looked down at her feet. Her dirty toes, her dusty sandals. The cup was inside. She turned to the man in the hood. “What is so special about this cup!?”
“It will bring life eternal, if you drink from it.”
She climbed through the window, grunting through the frame. Her long, red hair was dusty, mussed and dirty, and glowed against the fire that was still burning on the far side of the room. The table, a large wooden slab with small pillows surrounding it, was left uncleared. Goblets and plates were sitting at each place, with partially eaten slabs of bread and goblets with bits of wine.
“Come back!” the man hissed. He stood, looking through the window, waving his arm for Claret to return.
CAIRO - 1805
There was a time when Claret did not care what Antoine or Darius did; she knew that they were part of her bloodline, but she cared not at all. But there was a day, when she stood amidst the soaring skyscrapers in modern days, when she could sense that it was time to return to Cairo; to return to the desert.
Claret paused at the corner, north of the market on the dusty streets with the clay houses, the square huts with colorful handwoven linens covering the doors, tapestries propped up with wooden sticks, and little children standing on side walls watching the shopping crowds walk back and forth on the dusty streets. Claret no longer had the red hair that she donned in Miami, for now, her hair was dark, and she was much truer to her heritage.
She dropped the red wig in the dirt below her feet, as she leaned against the concrete, reached for a cigarette, and scanned the crowds. The sun was shining, it was about mid day, and there was no sign of Antoine or Darius.
She waited until sunset.
And then, when the market was closing up for the evening, she saw them. Antoine rode on a Camel right down the center of the buildings, and Darius followed him on his own camel. They paused as a tired, old woman was closing up her merchant tables. And then Claret saw the small, brown satchel.
She waited and watched as Antoine and Darius spoke with the merchant, and then she noticed a smaller man with them – shorter in stature, with sloppy hair and an unshaven face. It could only be Azra. Their pet. Their little immortal who followed them everywhere like a little, obedient dog. Azra was very unkempt, very different from Antoine and Darius. Azra went inside the building as Antoine and Darius dismounted their camels at the side of the building behind the packing merchants. Claret watched them disappear inside.
She walked across the dusty road and stood, watched the old woman hastily rolling tapestries and closing small jars of spices. She looked up at Claret and smiled. “May I help you dear?”
Claret smiled, and took a step back. “Those two men that you just spoke to. I couldn’t help but notice them from across the way there. May I ask how you know them?”
“They are staying here.” The old woman continued rolling tapestries.
“Staying here?”
“In a room, yes.”
But Claret was not able to get the Cup that she sought. And despite crashing through the door and into the courtyard, she felt a sense that Antoine and Darius were not there.
*****
Claret stood on the corner of Washington and 5th and waited patiently, remembering her journey back to Cairo. She leaned against a traffic light, looked down at her watch, and shook her head. The wind caught her red hair, and she reached up and brushed it away from her forehead. She rummaged through her purse and fished out a cigarette, lighter, and hunched over as she flicked the lighter.
“Claret?”
She turned up and saw the boy. His hair was slicked back, as Darius had described. He was wearing an oversized pair of dark sunglasses. “I was told to look for the woman with the red hair.”
She nodded. “So you’ve found me. Now let’s go. I need to take you inside.”
Claret turned around and faced a red brick building, with cement steps that rose to a set of double doors. She reached into her pocket and jingled a set of keys. “Here we go!”
She unlocked the door, and it opened to darkness. “So your makers have been a thorn in my side for centuries,” she said, as she disappeared inside, while Ethan stood for a moment on the steps, looking inwards towards a black abyss.
“You mean Antoine and Darius?”
He peered inside but couldn’t see her. “Claret? Are you in there?” As he stepped inside, he felt a chill in the air. It felt like he was standing on cement, or stone, the floor felt hard and cold. He scanned the area, but saw nothing.
Claret appeared from the darkness and he stepped back. “Yes, them. Antoine and Darius. But I know it was Darius who truly is your maker.”
Ethan nodded.
The door slammed with a thud. He snapped over towards the door, and reached out and tried the handle, which would not budge. She disappeared into the darkness.
“Claret? Where are you?!”
A torch lit on the far wall, the flames reached upwards towards the ceiling, and bathed the room in a flickering, orange glow. He was standing a circular foyer, the walls and the floors were made of grey stone. He looked onwards, down the hallway, towards the torch, and saw Claret, in a far doorway, leaning against the side. “Let’s go,” she said. She took a few steps closer towards him, as her heels clicked on the stone. “Step inside my chamber.”
Ethan moved forward, lifting his right foot, concentrating on the movement, and then the left foot. There was a certain increased heaviness to his legs, as if his weight had compounded, and each step that he took, towards the massive door before him, took much more strength and effort than walking ever had previously.
Claret opened the door.
Brilliant crimson light spilled out, which fingered its way into the dark, stone hallway, and Ethan covered his eyes. The light brightened the further it reached out from the threshold, and darkened to a deeper red towards the center of the door. “Uncover your eyes,” Claret said. “You must step inside and we will go.”
Ethan lowered his arms. “Go where?” Claret reached out for Ethan’s arm. “This is a doorway,” she said. “A portal. The light will not harm you. I am going to show you my origins. You must trust me.” She held out her hand. Ethan took a step forward, stopped for a minute, and then stood before Claret, the Demon Princess, and looked at her tiny hand. The bright red nail polish picked up the light in the barren hallway.
Ethan looked up and in Claret’s eyes. She smiled. It could have been the history, and all he had learned about her. But he knew, from this point forward, if he stepped through that portal, that he would be submitting to the Demon Princess. For she had the upper hand; he would venture into a world he had never known before, in time and space that he had never previously journeyed to; and the only form of protection would be in the form of a monster he had always been told never to trust.
*****
He stepped into blackness as the door shut behind them; like a heavy stone rolling across the entrance to Christ’s tomb, they were sealed. And then there was silence. Ethan could still sense Claret was next to him, but the darkness shrouded his vision so intensely that he could not even see any figments of her fair complexion. “Claret?”
“Yes, Ethan. I am here. You must trust me. Move with me. And do not let go of my hand.” He felt her hand take his. The tiny, cool skin. She held his hand tightly as snippets of light flashed around them, moving from far ahead of them, back towards them, and back behind them. Ethan snapped his head in the direction of the passing lights. They looked like lights passing on a darkened highway, but so blurred. So unfocused. And when he followed another passing light, he looked behind them, and noticed that they were much further into the blackness that he had originally thought. There was no door behind them, no large stone rolled across the opening. But a dark infinity; for the lights moved beyond them, behind and into the black abyss.
*****
It felt like they were no longer moving. The passing lights stopped, and the darkness was lightening. Very gradually, the darkness abated
.
The stone of the Christ tomb had been far larger; but the stone that covered the entry from the chamber that he had entered from was so much more profound; there was a certain heaviness to it.
A sadness.
Tears that weighed so much more than joy. But the tears always flowed. Tiny rivers on the map of his face. And then the stone turned away, and it was revealed.
LIBERA ME
Somehow the casket must deliver a sense of freedom.
It’s constricting, but for many, it’s a freedom from the confines of their lives. How many have committed suicide and thought that act would be a deliverance from the ignorance, bigotry and rejection of human life? But the answer they got was a physically confining box.
And the casket is what it is – it’s a small, sealed box that contains a decomposing body after death. It’s traditionally sealed in a cement and steel vault (to help prevent water contamination – although that is not something that works indefinitely. Water always penetrates; it always finds a way. The insects and maggots always find a way to the body contained inside, no matter what.) So even despite our actions – placing a body in a sealed coffin, in an even more sealed vault, our preservation methods always fail.
Every time, without argument.
No matter how well preserved the body, dig it up after a decade, you’ll get a pile of bones. It’s only in very rare occasions that a body will last years after death. And that’s why we have caskets – and that’s why we inter our loved ones shortly after death, entrusting their bodies to the earth.
But where do they go? For if they do not rot in the earth? If they do not decompose in the casket? Where are they truly?
At this point, you probably thought you were rid of me. But I remember you.
You stood outside my door.
Outside my window.
I guided you through, into the bowels of my existence, through the preparation room, past the stainless steel table, the glass chambers that held the formaldehyde.
Do you remember me now?
So at this point, you should see what I am seeing now – it’s not just mortals who are coming into my funeral home. My chambers are filled with the immortals – those who supposedly once had the gift, the thought of living eternally, bestowed upon them. But what happened to that gift? And then, the differences in burial. When a deceased “immortal” passes through my preparation room, there are specific instructions.
I should not embalm, not under any circumstances.
And within a day after the arrival of the body, a representative arrives at my funeral home to claim the body of the deceased. And that has been happening, now, lately, quite often. There was a time when immortals were truly what they were.
Immortal.
They had the gift to live forever.
They did not have to worry about death, or disease, or sickness, or aging. But now, with this threat of the decanter, they have been coming into my chambers regularly. When will the gift of being immortal be, once again, what it was truly meant to be?
Or is the gift of immortality really a curse?
Deliver me.
– The Morticians Mortician
MIAMI
Darius might still be alive.
Why did that thought permeate his mind this morning? This morning, the first morning after he had returned to Miami, now an ocean away from where Darius lay in his coffin, now encased in darkness, now covered in layers of dirt and earth; no air to breathe, no water to drink, no voices speaking to him. Just silence.
Utter silence.
And Darius would be subject to that loneliness, that isolation, half a world away.
Antoine closed his eyes. He hung his head down. “But you’re dead. You’re dead and gone.” He shook his head.
Until there was a knock at the door.
He opened his eyes, and looked towards the large, oak frame. He stood in front of the mirror, wiped his face with the back of his hands, and straightened his hair.
The walk over to the front door was layered with questions. There had been no one in this house for several years. There was still smoke and water damage from the fire years ago. The crime scene tape was never removed. Windows on the second floor were still covered with plywood.
No one should have even suspected that Antoine would be there. Not a soul.
But there was still the persistent knock. Once again, the short, methodic raps echoed through the foyer, and Antoine stood frozen still, just feet from the threshold, waiting. And listening.
“Where are you Darius?” He looked upwards, at the crystal chandelier they had installed together. It was now covered in soot, a layer of gray ash, and it hung downwards from the ceiling at a haphazard angle, with an octopus of multi colored electrical wires reaching downwards from the ceiling.
But the front door was another matter.
And he managed to take a few more steps, finding the large, brass handle in the center of the doors. He grasped the cool metal, and paused. He could hear the leaves rustling in the trees outside.
But nothing more.
There was a certain time, in the past, when Antoine did not live in such fear. When he was the Antoine who had been known and respected throughout the city, when he was the enigmatic individual that so many had come to know and love.
But then everything fell apart.
When Antoine had been banished, when he had been dragged to the altar, when he had been burned to ashes. And when it had been his turn to wait in the coffin.
For Antoine knew of the isolation. He knew of the waiting, the loneliness. The darkness and the silence.
And now, standing in the burned out shell of his former mansion, that darkness and that silence entered his life once again.
He opened the door to an empty front porch. He scanned the area. The giant columns that rose from the front porch were stained with black soot, but they were still standing, reaching upwards towards the sky.
The porch, which ran the entire length of the mansion, was devoid of any furniture. Antoine remembered when he first had acquired the estate from the Perez family, years prior, and there had been elegant outdoor furnishings lining the porch, enormous palms in ceramic planters, ceiling fans and hanging light fixtures.
No longer was the porch inviting.
But it wasn’t the furnishings that Antoine was concerned with that particular day. Throughout the day, he heard the knocking again. He once more would go to the door, open it to no one standing on the porch, and would return to his meandering around the house, to his remembering as he walked the halls, and then there would be a knock on the door again. And the process repeated itself until evening. At the latest moment, he stepped outside, as his heels clicked on the stone, he walked to the edge of the stairs, which led downwards into the gardens, which had once been adorned with hibiscus, palms, birds of paradise and azaleas, were now untended and overgrown with weeds.
But there was no one standing in the front lawn.
Antoine stood on the front steps and looked upwards towards the sky. The clouds were parting, revealing an array of stars, and a crescent moon.
He fished through his pocket for his phone. He held it up to his ear, the glow of the screen shined against his cheek, as it rang. Antoine soon spoke. “I cannot stay here. There are too many ghosts.”
There was a brief pause, as Antoine looked over his shoulder towards the end of the house. “I am not sure. I don’t know…I came outside to see who it might be, and there is no one here. Like I said, too many ghosts.”
And then another pause. “Okay…okay. Good then, I will see you shortly.”
Antoine ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket, turned and went back inside, and closed the door behind him. Once inside, he stopped in the middle of the marble floor.
He looked around the foyer.
The soaring ceilings were now burned out and covered in ash. Some of the plaster was water damaged and dripping down from the walls. Wall studs were exposed above
the winding staircase, and the floor had crumbled paper and trash strewn about.
And then he closed his eyes.
And then he remembered.
It had been right after Darius had returned to Miami. Antoine had been so excited about the new house. The marble floors were polished and shined. The foyer, with the warmth of light from the wall sconces, was warm and inviting, with a large, round mahogany table in the center, and a silver vase with a voluptuous bouquet of white roses.
And at the end of the foyer, in front of the rear hallway, stood Darius. Smiling Darius. His ivory white skin, framed by his long, brunette hair, standing and smiling, opening his arms and welcoming Antoine.
“Welcome to this wonderful house,” Darius said, moving over to where Antoine was standing. “And you bought this from whom?”
“Well…” Antoine said. “It wasn’t as much as a simple real estate transaction. There was much more involved in acquiring this house. So much.”
Darius laughed. “I know, Antoine, I know about Roberto. I know about Hernan. Don’t you think I know what you are doing when I am around?”
Antoine smiled.
And then he was standing, alone, in the darkness. The chandelier was once again covered in soot and ash, the multicolored wires still fingered their way out of the ceiling, and he was again alone.
*****
Antoine stood at the edge of Andelusia Avenue and looked at the burned out shell of his mansion. His mouth hung open and he hung his head in disgust. The soaring columns were still there, but they reached to a burned out second floor; the white stucco stained with soot and ash; the windows were shattered. A white curtain blew in the passing breeze. Without venturing under the yellow crime scene tape that surrounded the property, he got back into his little, silver Mercedes. And shortly thereafter, after driving in shock across the city, he reached Miami Beach, and parked on the side of Washington Avenue. While standing in front of the tall, dark gothic structure that was once Sacrafice, the nightclub that he had invested so much time, energy, and passion into – was a burned out shell of its former self.
