by C. F. Waller
“Life and death are at his discretion,” she reveals, pointing a finger at the roof of the car.
“I did notice his preoccupation with religious rituals. Am I to understand he believed in a higher power?”
“Oh yes, he claimed he had it on good authority that the big man exists.”
“Dorian and Beatrix often a shared delusion on this matter as well.”
“He didn’t acquire his belief from your pals.”
“Pray tell who then?”
“I did mention he spent a significant amount of time with the Queen of the Immortals did I not?” she states with conviction.
“Queen of the—.”
“Immortals,” she interrupts as the car jerks wildly around a slower car. “Dad always referred to Rhea as the Queen.”
“And she confirmed the existence of God?”
“Not in so many words,” she balks. “But she inferred as much.”
“But animals are soulless and thus fair game for you to express your gift?”
“Apparently so.”
The perplexing thing about her talent is, how was it acquired? Being the result of Dorian’s son’s tryst with a mere mortal woman, it seems unlikely that this mutation would occur naturally. Moreover, I cannot recall any mention of this sort of power over my lengthy life. Our kind simply do not age, we are not wizards. Again, I have drifted off and Jennifer cranks up the radio, returning her attention to the road. Before I can formulate an intelligent question, we swerve off onto an exit ramp.
Several miles down the two lane blacktop a massive Cathedral comes into view. Sitting in the center of untold acres of manicured grass is an impressive pile of cut stone. The monument is familiar as well, since I watched her father venture here every Sunday for years. Today being a weeknight, the parking lot is mostly empty. Jenn wheels into a parking space on the far left side and hops out. Grey clouds block out the sunset leaving us in twilight. A bone chilling mist falls, not so much rain as perpetual humidity. Waving me forward she crosses the sidewalk and marches around the side of the two story stone monolith.
There are several wings off the main sanctuary. The term wing might be less than accurate. Each one is the size of a gymnasium. On this side, a two-acre cemetery stretches out like a sea of corn. Tombstones of every age and variety poke up from the manicured grass. A dozen rows down in the second aisle sits a pinkish granite monument with a cherub on the top. It’s large by any standard, standing maybe six feet to the top of the diaper wearing angel. Jenn stops at the foot and crosses her chest in an orthodox way. I have never seen her attend a church service so this is curious. She’s silent, her head bowed in what I assume is prayer.
The name on the stone is Rahnee Ben-Ahron and the dates under her name read Born 1982, Died 2016. Her father Arron came here often, a visitation ritual from which he rarely deviated. The church placed flowers on his wife’s grave every Sunday at his bequest. A dozen white roses lay wilted in front of the monument.
Given the dates listed and being aware they met at the time of my dear Beatrix’s demise, I had previously deduced the two were together only a year. More than likely she became pregnant at the beginning of the relationship, then died when Jennifer was born. The similarity to Dorians situation is not lost on me. Very soon after courting Jenifer’s grandmother, she received a similar death sentence by conceiving Dorians son. Honestly, the lack of sexual control exhibited in this family-tree is disgraceful.
“Jennifer, is that you?” a man’s voice inquires in a surprised way.
From behind us, a man in a black shirt and pants walks in our direction. His priest’s collar is visible and I recall seeing him before, although as a young boy. His father visited Arron’s home often and many times the young Michael tagged along. From appearances, he is the ranking religious official now.
“Michael,” Jenn exclaims before embracing him in a two-armed hug that lasts over a minute.
When he pulls back from her, his attention turns to me. His face twists slightly as he tries to place me. We did indeed meet once in a pharmacy. While I was purchasing some toiletries in town, the young Michael stumbled into me near the comic book rack. While his dad spoke with the pharmacist, he and I pursued the comics together. I rather doubt he will recall this now, but I enjoy his internal struggle. Deep inside our minds all memories reside, but most are out of our reach from lack of use. Of all people, I should know. Michael wags a finger at me while he thinks.
“Edward, Edward Grey,” I offer my hand.
“Have we met?” he queries, not shaking my hand.
“As a matter of fact we did, but you were very young.”
“Is he?” Father Michael mumbles in the direction of Jennifer.
“Yeah, long lost friend of the family,” she shrugs.
Michael’s father and grandfather before him were aware of Arron’s immortal condition. His generous patronage of the church guaranteed the facts remained a secret. The recent disclosure that Arron had some confidential information on the existence of God may have also played a part. Did Arron confirm his existence to these mortals? I find this idea distasteful. One should never lend credence to a wide ranging delusion such as religion.
“Were you just out wandering the plots?” Jenn asks.
“No, the ladies in the office alerted me the Mustang had pulled in,” he admits, using air quotes on the word Mustang. “Your father told me to keep an eye out for you.”
“That figures. Did he tell you to send me away?”
“No, just suggested you might pay a visit to your mother. How long has it been?”
“At least twenty years.”
“Far too long.”
“I’m going to need a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t answer too quickly,” she sighs. “I need to exhume her body.”
Father Michael’s face turns blank. Rather than a quick reply, he raises a finger, but then leaves it hovering as he searches for the right words. Jennifer huffs, shaking her head during the uncomfortable silence.
“I know my father has a standing order that this never be allowed, but I don’t have a choice.”
“I really can’t,” he croaks, then pauses as if under tremendous duress. “I want to help, but your father was very specific on this point. Anything else would be my pleasure, but not this. I simply cannot.”
Taking him by the forearm, she leads him away a safe distance. The two share an animated conversation for over ten minutes. I use the time to scan the horizon for suspicious people. A gardener of some sort digs in a flower bed around a massive monument with a crypt, presumably housing caskets. People stopped building above ground crypts quite a while ago making me wonder how old it might be. Three elderly ladies trudge down the sidewalk to a bus stop. Possibly, they were attending an event held here or they could be the aforementioned office staff. Either way it’s unlikely they are stalking us. Certainly, no one fitting the description of murderous henchmen is lurking about. When their chat is over Jennifer returns to me and the Father storms back inside.
“I should have called a cab back at your father’s place.” I remark, before she can speak.
“No sense of adventure?”
“Adventure maybe,” I advise. “Grave robbing or whatever you’re planning, I hardly think so?”
“No, no, no, I just need something from inside the casket.”
“Your mother is buried with something?”
Jenn nods and stares, arms crossed, at the tombstone, leaving me without any clarification.
“You’re not wearing your gloves, yet Father Michael didn’t fall over dead.”
“I don’t need the gloves to contain anything. Sometimes a person’s mood can transfer onto me. I have no idea why, but some days I just don’t need anyone else’s troubles.”
“Or their anger?”
“In this case yes,” she sighs, staring at her shoes. “I have placed him in an untenable position.”
I nod understanding, while po
ssessing none. What could possibly be inside her mother’s casket? When I ask a second time, she declines to enlighten me. We stand in the mist until Father Michael returns. They can do the work tomorrow. Satisfied at the outcome, they walk back to the church carrying on a pleasant conversation regarding his wife and two children. I follow a few steps behind pondering my decision to stay. Is she attempting to play God here or am I jumping to conclusions?
…
There is little dinner conversation as we sit across from one another at an Italian place a few miles from the church. Father Michael is going to let us stay in a small cottage on the church grounds. It was previously inhabited by the head groundkeeper, but after his passing a year ago, it had remained un-occupied. Other than a thick covering of dust and a woodsy aroma, it seems adequate. It would appear that going back to her father’s house would be un-wise. I grow weary of the only sound being one of her chewing.
“Any idea how you came to be a conduit, so to speak?”
“My father had a complicated theory, but who knows. It’s as good as any.”
I choose to wait, as opposed to pressing her. After a pause to finish chewing, she begins all on her own.
“Right,” she grumbles, wiping red sauce off her mouth with a cloth napkin. “Remember when I described the Queen being shot in the head?”
“A glitter explosion followed by her skull reforming.”
“Yes, anytime she was injured a similar swarm of glitter surrounded the injured part and repaired it. After she was turned into a pillar of ash the resulting repair work was much less effective. Before my mother and father escaped, the Queen practically fell on top of my mother, causing an ash cloud. Bits and pieces of the Queen fell all around her and she inhaled some of the glitter. As it happens, I had been conceived only a few days prior.”
“And your father believes that whatever the glitter is was passed from your mother to you during her pregnancy?”
She nods.
“Does the Queen possess this gift as well?”
Jenn shrugs her uncertainty.
“And your father believes she has recovered from this ashen state and demanded his presence at the birthday party?”
“It’s hardly a party,” she broods. “No doubt she’s using the occasion as window dressing for effect. Her motives for his attendance are purely vengeful.”
I hold my hands out to entice her to continue.
“At the time of their meeting she was engaged in the mass extermination of our kind. You might have noticed we are the only ones left.”
“Did we do something to offend her highness?”
“According to her we forgot to drown,” she remarks, holding out her wine glass for a refill.
“You will have to elaborate on that,” I shrug, filling her glass halfway.
“She claimed we were the descendants of those who lived before the flood.”
“As in Noah and the Ark?”
“As a matter of fact yes. According to her there were a few who survived.”
“Overlooking that it’s a fairy tale, how would that explain our agelessness?”
“Edward, you strike me as a worldly man. I trust you have actually read the bible?”
“Against my better judgment, yes,” I admit, recalling the prose in Psalms or Proverbs caught me as a cross between poetry and an advice column. “It was quite a popular work in my youth.”
“If you read it as a historical record and not a parable filled book of rules you’ll notice people from before the flood had long lives.”
“How so?”
“From Adam to Noah they averaged 900 years old. You’ve heard the cliché as old as Methuselah?”
I nod, thinking Dorian, being centuries my junior, used this phrase to needle me several times.
“After the flood, life expectancies fall off rapidly. Two thousand years hence, it’s dropped to Abraham around 175 years old. Two centuries later it tops out at 122, which is what it is today give or take a month.”
“How does reducing one’s life span correlate to better behavior?”
“My father suggested the older you get; the more things seem permissible.”
“Permissible,” I pause. “Good things as well as bad?”
She nods.
“Thus he cleansed the Earth of the wicked?”
“Something like that.”
“And we are the descendants of the original version of humanity?” I confirm.
“Correct.”
“I don’t feel particularly wicked? Possibly I am not making the necessary effort.”
“In that sense you do seem to be an underachiever.”
“I am somewhat older than Noah,” I suggest. “Quite a bit over a thousand.”
“More than likely your world isn’t as dangerous as the one Noah inhabited.”
“Easy for you to say my dear. You weren’t at the siege of Constantinople.”
“I’ll grant you that, but I haven’t seen any angry Crusaders hanging around lately.”
“You have a point. Assuming we take this fairytale as factual,” I groan, tapping a finger on my forehead and squinting. “How does that explain why the Queen was trying to wipe us out?”
“She claimed they were tasked with rounding up the flood survivors and eliminating them.”
“And to be clear they are?”
“I’m not going there, but there are supposedly twelve of them. Two like the Queen and ten others that you can’t kill.”
“Minions?” I smirk.
“Mockery is a sign of a weak mind,” she snaps. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
“Sorry,” I sigh, holding up a hand. “And where does the Queen come from? What does your father claim she is?”
“Primitus is Latin and translates as The First, right?”
“That’s accurate, although the modern translations of Latin don’t even begin to convey the intricacies of the spoken word. Some Latin words don’t even have an English translation. Take polyamorous for instance. There isn’t even—-.”
“Whatever,” she groans. “He figured they were from before.”
“Before what?”
“The Garden.”
“Of Eden?” I sigh; weary of this bible lesson.
She nods.
“So what are we talking about here? Fallen angels or demons?” I shrug unconvinced.
“No idea. She didn’t elaborate further, but Dad believed her. He insisted you had to see her in the flesh to believe her.”
“Just like most of the Bible, that’s a very convenient way to word things that are outlandish or cannot be proven.”
Jenn shrugs and rolls her eyes. “You must have been popular during the Reformation.”
“Funny, so we have a band of fallen angels tasked with tracking down the descendants of Noah and eradicating them.” I recap. “If we take this at face value, why didn’t they wipe us all out five thousand years ago? Why wait till seventy years back? Even more curious is their decision to abort operations when they seem to have us down to three.”
“It’s complicated for sure” she shrugs, “but that’s what I was told.”
“Were you also alerted to the existence of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus? I believe the latter was tasked with eradicating cookies and milk.”
“I should have let you run away,” she declares after a long sip of wine. “I suggest you take this opportunity to do just that. I was mistaken to think you might be of assistance.”
Her sudden desire to get rid of me catches me off guard. I try to gauge her resolve, but she simply finishes her wine and excuses herself to the restroom. As I am settling up the bill, the roar of the Mustang echoes from the parking lot. Before I can get outside, the smoking relic tears out onto the main road and disappears. I watch, slack jawed, as the blue fumes dissipate into the air. After checking with the cashier, I learn that cabs do not run at night. Apparently electric forms of conveyance struggle in the dark. I am again at a crossroads. A
drizzle begins to mist as I stand in the doorway. I gauge the distance to the church at no more than five miles.
“Not very courteous for a descendant of Noah,” I mumble stepping out into the mist. “At least he waited for the animals.
Chapter Nine
Rather than knock on the cottage door, I slip inside the sanctuary and sleep on a pew. I roll my suit jacket up for a pillow and hold tight to my briefcase. I sleep fitfully on the hard wood, waking often. I dream about a demon queen knocking on the sanctuary door and beckoning me to come out so she might devour my soul. While initially startled, I later found some amusement at the thought. Am I safer in a church than Jenn is in the cottage? My own doubts regarding the almighty aside.
I am jolted awake by Father Michael’s hand on my shoulder. He apologizes profusely for scaring me, but I assure him it’s not a problem. He is puzzled as to why I chose this location to sleep. Not wanting to disclose my discord with Jennifer, I hint at some early morning religious reflection. He finds this plausible, and by the looks of it, preferable. Apparently, Arron occasionally came here to clear his mind. Once he departs, I try to decide how best to approach Jennifer. My crack about Santa and the Tooth Fairy, however clever, was uncalled. If a person grew up with those stories, they might be difficult to put behind them.
“A seventy-year-old at that,” I grumble, my butt asleep on the pew.
“Are you coming to breakfast or not?” Jenn’s voice echoes off the high ceiling behind me.
Turning in the pew, I see Jennifer standing by the side entryway looking well rested, her backpack over one shoulder. Before I can answer she waves for me to join her and exits out the front door. Having been left behind once, and finding it un-pleasant, I hustle into the parking lot and find the car already running.
“I wanted to apologize. What I said about—,” I exhale, out of breath from the jog.
“Accepted,” she answers before I can finish. “Glad to have you back on the team.”
“We are a team now?” I query, dropping on the cool leather car seat.
“The team is going for breakfast,” she remarks without looking over. “Unless you’re not interested?”
