“I had a dream about last year. Tony, we lost him, Martin—we lost him! He was with us. Then—How did he get away? What happened—where?” She sounded so stupid but the blubbering words came out uncontrolled.
“Cloth is playing with you. Tony’s not the first one we’ve ever lost, Teresa. It’s okay. We’re okay.” His words cut through her dream hysteria and made her sober. “It won’t happen again. Just don’t worry, okay?” he said. “Just pull it together.”
Teresa considered a moment if she’d come fully awake or not. She leaned over, held Martin, and her shoulders trembled and guts began twisting. Tears wouldn’t come but she was closer to shedding them now than she’d ever been. She couldn’t even remember crying after she found Martin with that waitress of his.
He studied her expression. “Must have been one hell of a dream. You weren’t even asleep for ten minutes.”
She sat back. Only now did she realize what she’d done. The passenger side door rested across the street, half-propped up on the curb. “We should get going,” she suggested in embarrassment. “Where are we?”
“The GPS says about half a mile away from the Hearts. Are you sure you’re okay now?”
She went to strip off her seat belt.
“Let me get it.” He jumped out of the van before she could argue.
Teresa watched as he trotted across the street and lifted the door up. “Heavy, but the window didn’t even break,” he commented. “I told you we have a tank.”
“Put it in the back of the tank then, General Larson.”
Teresa waited for him to get back in and start up the van. As they rolled on, the wind blowing through the van’s open wound felt wonderful. Houses began to look less run down, their simple architecture suddenly fascinating. The rain cloudy sky even seemed to grow metallic through its gloom. When they arrived at the location on the Messenger’s letter, they both had to take a moment to process their new surroundings.
The grass blinded them with green, the house’s sandy paint came alive with snapping gold flake, and the Spanish tiles ran down in a perfect formation like a rich strawberry waterfall. Teresa knew this wasn’t reality. Without the Hearts nearby, the grass was likely burnt from dog piss, the house’s paint faded like said urine, the strawberry Spanish tiles most likely crumbled and dusty looking.
Teresa scanned the area. She spotted a mallard duck on the mailbox. The painting might possess little actual artistic acumen in reality, but here and now, through the Hearts’ influence, each of the duck’s feathers had fine slices of iridescence running through them. The bird appeared tangible, touchable. So much, in fact, that it might take off and leave the plain black mailbox behind.
She stretched her eyes down the street and found other houses glowing with a hint of the same immaculacy. She wondered if those people sensed even a little of what lived next door. Being that the blood of the Old Domain ran through both her and Martin’s veins, supposedly they were the only ones who could notice—and even they couldn’t notice the Hearts’ influence forever. They became accustomed to the luster, eventually. Last year the Heart had been exceptionally powerful. Tony Nguyen had made his studio apartment shine like El Dorado. But that sight was meager compared to this.
The overwhelming power contained in that house made Teresa’s breakfast twist in her stomach. If she was feeling this reeled by the Hearts, imagine what kind of sacrifice they would make for Chaplain Cloth.
Outside the rain had thinned. It wasn’t torrential anymore and the hoary old clouds appeared happy with the prospect of death. A large vehicle sat in the driveway under a tarp. Martin gestured with some enthusiasm. Under that tarp would be their new vehicle. Teresa acknowledged his little-boy-excitement but was still entranced from her dream.
She never let Martin take all the blame for Tony, although most of the responsibility had been his. In her case it had been over ambition—pride. Pure and simple. With Martin, he’d gotten fancy with the mantles and that made him sloppy and eventually exhausted. It was bound to happen over so many years, getting cocky after saving five or six Hearts in a row. Over the years Martin had developed a displacement mantle with a trigger point that blasted through the ghost-matter, creating a type of invisible landmine. Teresa had never found these types of mantles as reliable as Martin. She’d rather they set real mines and C4 charges. Mantles were delicate at times, and the long-lasting mantles could be debilitating. It wasn’t in their best interest to experiment on Halloween. She knew that before last year, but she got comfortable. They both got way too comfortable.
A finch flew into the influence and went from a dull liver color to chocolate. The finch sang and looped around before lighting on a eucalyptus next door. If only it could stay this way forever and we could put up some strong mantles, seal this place off until November. It would be like living in Candyland or the southern Californian version of the North Pole.
But there were no mantles strong enough to keep Chaplain Cloth away. If one was set in his way, he’d tear it down. In the end, the barriers she and Martin created only bought them time. That was it. If they slowed down Cloth until the first of November, then that was good year.
“The rain,” Martin said uneasily, looking up. “Time to stop thinking and go in there.”
“What if one has a wheelchair, like in Duluth? We almost lost her.”
“Yep, but does it matter? We didn’t lose her. Of course the next year we lost that track and field guy—”
“And Cloth nearly took your head off,” she added.
“Well that wasn’t something I wanted to remember.”
She stared at the house. “So what do you think?”
“The Jordons are probably a family,” he said. “Mama bear, Papa, Gilligan and Beavis.”
She didn’t find his humor appropriate and sighed.
Martin sighed too. “Well, you know we can’t drive away.”
“The Messenger should have found someone else, someone in good health. I didn’t even think I’d make it here—not this time last year. Look, this is too much responsibility. Four? Four? We couldn’t even save one Heart last year.”
Martin slammed the door so hard the hinges shrieked. Teresa watched him for a moment. He turned to look at her. Then, slowly she slid out of her seat and grabbed where her door used to be, pretended to slam it.
He stared in disbelief. “You’re too much.”
“Oh I know.”
They locked hands and crossed the street. She plucked a chilly white mushroom from the lawn. “Good one,” Martin complimented.
He looked up just in time to see the drapes in the front window fall away. The Bearer knew they were here.
When they got up to the porch the front door opened and a hand came through. The skin was a rich bronze, the fingers male but delicate, the wrist forked with veins. Teresa placed the mushroom in the palm and the fingers folded over like a Venus flytrap. A sigh came through the door. Teresa couldn’t tell if the sigh was of relief, exhaustion, or disgust. She was aware only of splendor ebbing through the doorjamb. Sugar fumes. Vanilla hope. Life-giving dreams of pine and clean skies.
The hand dropped the mushroom on the porch. A finger jutted at Martin. When words came, the very sound of them was a stinging annoyance through golden bliss. “Pick that up please.”
Martin gave Teresa a sidelong look. “Anything you say, chief.”
He stooped down.
“Not with your hands,” the voice said quickly.
Martin’s brow lifted.
“Draw from the Old Domain.”
“Yeah,” answered Martin and he looked at her. “I get it now. This is our proof of ID.”
A cool shadow crept over Martin’s face for a minute. There was no sound in the neighborhood. Nothing. Stillness. The process seemed to stretch on forever. Teresa felt a small, paper-thin mantle come into being. With his mind Martin slipped it under the mushroom. The mushroom rolled a little, but he rooted underneath it with a mental shove. The mushroom lifted to eye
level. It floated there, as if supported on nothing, and wobbled as his concentration fluxed for a moment.
The Bearer’s finger swung to Teresa. “You, crush the mushroom, please.”
Teresa dipped into the freezing pond in her own brain. Her mantle came into existence immediately, yet did not have the style or grace of Martin’s. His was a slip of royal parchment; hers was a paper ball destined for the trashcan. Stylish or not, when she brought it down on the mushroom, Martin forced up and the mushroom flattened.
They released and a mushroom pancake dropped down onto the porch.
“Anything else?” asked Martin.
The hand pulled inside and the door shut. A chain unlatched and clattered against the doorframe. The door opened, steady with deliberate caution.
The Bearer was not short in the conventional sense; he was in that four-foot category that didn’t migitize or dwarf him but had the stature of a taller man. Or so Teresa thought anyway. He was a handsome man. His deep, romantic black eyes stared from within graphite caves. Not as romantic however, was his wife-beater and boxer shorts with a school of extraordinarily happy fish. Teresa caught the subtle addition of sombreros on each smiling mackerel.
“So you are the Nomads.” His voice had a Bearer’s usual dislocated accent, like textbook English language. The Messenger had Bearers moving constantly and they never had time to absorb culture, let alone dialect. In a way, they were the same creature as the Nomads, except that their job eventually had a terminus. Usually.
The Bearer extended his hand and his lips peeled slightly for a smile. “I am Enrique Gonzalez. I am sorry I am not dressed yet. I expected you to arrive here at this house yesterday.”
Teresa drove two sharp coughs into her fist to get them out of her system.
Concern touched Enrique’s eyes. “We must get you on your way before the rain stops falling.”
Martin held out a hand to catch raindrops. The sky was white overhead. All gray had fled. They began to step over the threshold and Enrique held out a hand. “I should mention that the Hearts’ potency is harsh at first.”
Teresa gestured to the brilliant cast of the neighborhood. “We couldn’t help but notice. Don’t worry, we’ve done this for a while now.”
Enrique’s dark face pinched. “Yes, I am certain. But as you come inside, things will intensify. I will walk you through and we can take breaks along the way to make it easier.”
“Breaks?” she asked. Did this kid think they were rookies?
“Try to hang on to each other or something stable, so that you do not fall and hit your head. It may take a while to acclimatize. But you will.”
“We know how it goes, Mr. Gonzalez.”
Enrique waved them inward. Teresa went in first, steeling herself. When they both stepped completely inside the house, the atmosphere roared into a symphony of terrifying beauty. The living room was only the first movement of that symphony.
~ * ~
I know the feeling of dedicated worship. It grabs me completely against my will and subjugates my initial detachment from an otherwise complete stranger. Though I follow these special people all of my life, meeting a Heart of the Harvest always creates a lightning strike of loyalty—there is boundless pride just sharing the same oxygen with them. After only a moment I feel I’ve known them for a thousand lifetimes with not the slightest spark of a secret having ever fallen between us.
And this experience was no different for my Martin and Teresa.
~ * ~
Crossing the threshold took Martin to a completely new, painful location in the territories of love. It would be natural to assume the feeling would be four times greater with four Hearts, but that wasn’t the case—calling it just exponential would be vapid. The experience transformed everything into a cerebral circumlocution of both the fascinating and abhorrent. Martin cared about Teresa more than anything else; his soul was patterned around their bond. Yet at that given moment he’d have ripped the ties apart to that bond and done something awful just to service this new love.
Teresa pitched over and he winged an arm under her chest to keep her from falling. The discharge of her wheezing lungs made Martin sweat and taste blood. His empathy had pulled him into a different zone. He felt as Teresa felt: a burning piece of murder in his chest, a quaking need to soothe it in smoke. All this and he still didn’t care about her problems; he cared about whether the Hearts were safe and if his head would keep spinning on three separate axes.
“Here if you please,” offered Enrique. “You will sit on the couch and you will try to regain yourselves from the influence.”
Martin didn’t remember the man. If he and Teresa passed out, how would they know the Hearts were safe? What would they do if they woke up and found them gone? It would induce suicidal heartbreak.
“You okay?” Martin must have been staring at Teresa for some time now, and she him, but neither processed the other. Teresa had just pawed her way out of a grave, her pretty brown hair coarse like decaying plants in a riverbank, her skin bloodless and true white, her eyes two simple stones with the intelligence amputated from their shine.
“Teresa?”
She turned away, stoned on the Hearts. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I will fetch you both some water.” Enrique was talking to different people, coherent people.
Martin rubbed his temples and concentrated on the wrinkly contours of the gray carpet. His head was sore from worrying. An endless song emanated off everything like heat waves. Being inside the house wasn’t getting easier—the love was getting worse.
Just then the living room sang at the top of its lungs,
Oh Hearts, come unto me and give over your fear.
Rest your heads in my company, rest your heads for old time’s sake,
Rest your heads in my cool gray wrinkled flesh. Love me, love me.
Sink into my couch and live inside my excellence.
Don’t forsake my love, and Hearts, never fret.
Oh-oh-oh, Hearts, you can never, ever, never fret!
“I don’t think I can stay here anymore,” said Teresa with a wild animal look in her eyes.
Martin hated her for even suggesting such a thing. “You want to leave?”
“I can’t stay in here, knowing they’re so close.” Her knees popped as she sprung up and rounded the couch.
“Wait!” The world went flat and tipped. Martin’s shoulder crunched against the corner of two walls. He laughed as the bone relocated into its socket. Why he laughed was beyond him, like everything else.
In the kitchen Teresa grappled the stove. Enrique filled two glasses of water from a pitcher. The ice water and lemon wedges cast silver and gold shadows across the mauve tile countertops. Enrique nervously giggled softly for a moment—or had it been loud, had it been a lot? “Couldn’t wait, huh?” he said. “Okay, but you will need a longer break than that I fear, if you both do not want to pass out on the floor.”
Martin stumbled to the adjoining dining room and sat at a card table with peeling avocado vinyl. Teresa joined him. On his tiptoes Enrique rummaged through a cupboard. Martin wanted to help him, for the first time feeling taller than someone else, but he was glued to the avocado table. To the left of Enrique the refrigerator sang an angry song with its compressor:
Hummmmmm, Hummmmmm—My waiting’s so atrocious!
Hummmmmm, Hummmmmm—Precocious but so hating!
Hummmmmm, Hummmmmm—To be cold without your love!
Hummmmmm, Hummmmmm—My waiting’s so atrocious!
“Do you hear the song?” Martin whispered.
Teresa leaned to his ear. “You mean the whales mating?”
Enrique set down the glasses and pulled a box of Saltine crackers out from under his arm. “This is the best food that I have to offer. I cannot go out much, as you might have guessed. I am about sick to death of cheese pizza.”
Teresa took a long drink of her water and then her head moved side to side like a junkie. “How can you live like th
is?” Then, what seemed like an eon later. “Mr. Gonzalez.”
Enrique’s smile shone like a pearl boomerang. Martin was afraid it would come after him. “In about an hour you will both feel normal again. That is why the Messenger wanted you to meet them before the Hunt. It is just something our kind goes through from this kind of exposure.”
“Our kind,” Martin mused. “Tied in blood to the Old Domain.”
Teresa’s voice boomed over the appliance caroling. “This is so much different than the Hearts of the past. I have a question.” The last sounded really boisterous, so obnoxious that Martin wanted to run screaming from the room, but he shook his head violently to regain control. “The Bishops are tied to the Old Domain, aren’t they? This is more intense than anything... anything... we’ve ever seen. What if the Bishops can sense this?”
“As you know, the Bishops are not tied through blood. They’re corrupted earthborn. We’re safe from them, at least for now.”
“Cloth?”
“He belongs to neither world, but you know not to underestimate him.”
“Yes, we do know that much.”
Martin writhed against the need again and had to thrash a little. The sensation had stacked up. He needed to be free of it. “Can I ask something?”
“You don’t need permission,” said Enrique.
“Aren’t we fooling ourselves going through all of this? One way or another, the gateway will open. The churches will unite.”
“If we fail, you mean.”
“If is damned generous. If the churches are this close then it’s only a matter of time. Maybe not this year, but what about next year, or the year after? It’ll happen. It almost happened last year. We’ve lucked out that the Bishops haven’t posed a problem, but we know they’ve made major trouble for Nomads in the past—the Church in this world only grows stronger. We’re only two. Why won’t the messenger get the hint that we need more help?”
“He asks the Bearers this every year,” Teresa said, abjectly.
Enrique’s eyes warmed like simmering peanut oil. Martin suddenly wished he hadn’t embarked on this subject. “We trust in the Messenger.”
Black & Orange Page 16
