by R.K. Ryals
~Bezalial~
The floor. That’s where Amber found me, curled up against the wall at the top of the stairs. She didn’t say anything, just touched me lightly and inclined her head toward her room. I nodded and let her lead me gently by the elbow. It’s amazing how long you can live at a place and still not feel at home. Amber didn’t seem to share my feelings and her room reflected it. A small desk, books, thick blue comforter, and warm lamp on the bedside table screamed peace. I wasn’t feeling the mojo.
“You okay?” Amber asked quietly.
I should have been angry at her but I wasn’t. This whole day seemed skewered. Life as I’d always known it seemed distorted. The man from downstairs had been my mad hatter. I suddenly understood how Alice felt in Wonderland. I hadn’t just sleepwalked into her rabbit hole, I’d stolen it. I nodded at Amber, too afraid of the tears if I tried to speak. She read my expression well enough and patted her bed. She didn’t talk, just moved around gathering up books before spreading them out on her bed along with an assignment sheet. It all seemed so normal.
Amber sat down at the head of the bed, and I sprawled at the end. Maybe that had been Amber’s intention all along, to create a sense of normalcy in a sea of chaos. Whatever it was, I was letting it sink into my bones. I needed normal. But the worries still nagged me, and I knew, without a doubt, that Amber was aware of something I wasn’t. It made me feel afraid and alone, adrift and without anchor. I wanted to lay here and fall asleep, pretend this day had never happened. Erase the confusion. Something was happening around me, and I wasn’t included in the secret. I was living a day walking in the middle of something that I obviously had not been prepared for, that I was only catching snippets of as I moved through. It was like trying to piece together a quilt, and I wasn’t getting the pattern right. No, I couldn’t sleep it away. I needed answers.
I lay there at the end of Amber’s bed, quietly watching her for a while as she flipped through one of her textbooks, stopping here and there to scribble a note. The lamp next to her highlighted the gold in her hair, and I tried not to feel envious. She shone like the sun even in the dark. I was muted, a fire that burned low right before it was supposed to go out. I looked away. I had more weighty things on my mind. It was time I work through it all.
“What’s going on, Amber?” I asked suddenly.
I could hear the pages in her textbook become still.
“It’s your birthday tomorrow, Dayton,” Amber answered simply.
It wasn’t the answer I was expecting, and I looked up so quickly my neck popped. I was definitely missing something. If I wasn’t confused before, I was now. The puzzle pieces didn’t fit—the dream, Mr. James, the weird man, Amber’s odd behavior . . . out of it all, only the dream had ever been a part of my normal day. The rest, not so much. And what did my birthday have to do with anything? I stared at Amber a moment, but she remained silent.
“So?” I asked, confused. Amber set her book aside.
“You don’t remember what my birthday was like a year ago?” she asked.
My forehead wrinkled with thought. I had been so caught up in my own problems at the time, I wasn’t sure I could remember. I thought harder. I did remember it being slightly odd. We didn’t celebrate birthdays at the Abbey, but that year, Aunt Ky had taken Amber out. Amber had not been the same since. I just figured it had something to do with hormones.
“Not really,” I admitted finally. Amber sighed.
“There are some things about the Abbey you haven’t let yourself see, Dayton. You’ve always been good at avoiding the obvious,” she said quietly.
I felt affronted but didn’t argue. I think it hurt to hear her say it because I knew it was true. I did prefer fantasy over reality.
“What have I missed?” I asked.
I knew she was leading up to something, Amber closed her eyes briefly, and I watched as she visibly collected herself. This worried me.
“When you turn seventeen, things change for you here. It’s like a rite of passage. And for you and me, it’s more than that. It’s life altering,” she said before looking away from me.
Rite of passage? I shook my head wearily, my brain overflowing with confusion and nerves. Something told me Amber felt she had said too much, but I wasn’t letting this go. If this had something to do with me, with her, and our birthdays, I needed to know. I was more than a little unnerved.
“Help me out here, Amber. I’m missing something.”
“It isn’t that easy, Day,” Amber replied. I sat up.
“Then make it that easy. Cause I’m beginning to feel more than a little freaked out. It doesn’t help that my own sister keeps avoiding my questions and some strange man shows up at the Abbey! And not just any man, Amber. A freaking psycho!” I whispered loudly. Amber shrugged.
“It’s all part of the cycle, Dayton,” Amber said off-handedly. I snapped.
“What cycle, Amber? What fucking cycle are you talking about?”
I knew by the sudden stillness I had shaken her. She leaned toward me, her face red with fury. She hated when I cursed.
“You have no idea what you open yourself up to when you do that, Day. There are things out there that like your dirty mouth, you know that. They feed off of it,” Amber said angrily.
I recoiled. What the hell?
“Like vampires?” I asked snidely.
The sudden image made me smile. Amber didn’t seem amused.
“It’s not a joke, Day. You risk yourself more than you know by the way you talk and behave,” Amber insisted.
I was getting seriously disturbed. Ok, scratch that. I had been disturbed before the day had even started. Now I seemed to be suffering dementia. Twilight zone much?
“What fucked up planet did you visit and fly back from, Amber? I’m not an idiot, dammit!” I said irritably. Amber’s gaze pierced mine.
“You aren’t a normal girl, Day. And your behavior, no matter how tame it seems to you, matters here,” Amber said fiercely.
Cold chills ran up and down my body. She really did have me seriously freaked out. My feet and hands were numb from nerves. This day kept getting more out of control, more nonsensical. Amber retreated.
“Do you believe in Demons?” she asked suddenly.
I stared at her. What? The change in subject had me putting on the mental brakes. After all the theology we’d been fed the past seven years, I suppose it was normal to find ourselves sitting here having this conversation. But it was out of context. We weren’t being questioned by Aunt Ky and we weren’t at mass. Amber’s eyes burned into mine, as if the question was far more vital than the heartbeat I could now feel heavily in my own throat. I thought a moment.
“I suppose so."
Amber nodded. “They are with us, Dayton. Everywhere. Among us, even a part of us. And when tomorrow comes, you’ll know them well,” Amber droned on, her eyes darkening perceptibly.
What? Where had that come from? I moved away from the bed. Had I believed this scene felt normal? Forget B rated movie. This was worse. Was I crazy or was she? I pinched myself and winced. Oh, it was definitely her! My own sister was having some sort of mental breakdown. Demons? Rites of Passage? I was more confused than I had been when I walked into her room.
“Do you feel okay, Amber? You need me to call someone?” I asked, my feet moving slowly toward her closed bedroom door. I’d never feared my sister before. Tonight I did.
“The Abbey is more than a religious institution, Day. It’s a calling,” Amber quoted, her eyes glazed over as if she were repeating lines from a well-read script.
I almost fled then but didn’t. She was still my sister. Fear gripped my heart. What had they done to her?
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. Amber didn’t move.
“I think you do, Day. I just think you choose to ignore it. The Abbey isn’t normal. It isn't even Catholic. It's much older than that. Much, much older. The people here aren't normal. Our descendants are old. They are glor
ious. You don't choose the Abbey. It chooses you. Everything about you. Even your classes at school. The Abbess chooses those. You’ll get tutors, Dayton. And like me, you’ll study philosophy, theology, out dated mathematics and science. We study history as if we were a part of it. And we are, Day. No doubt about it. You live here and you balk at us, make fun of us, curse. It’s blasphemy. Where do you think all of the women here come from?” Amber asked me with such hostility I shrunk into the door.
She looked over at me suddenly, noticed my fear, and shook herself. I was clutching the door handle, my knuckles white.
“Dayton—" she began, her face hollowed and disturbed. The real Amber, the Amber I knew, looked over at me, and I swallowed. She started to stand up, but I shook my head.
“You don’t understand, Dayton. It’s complicated,” she whispered. I had no sympathy.
“Then un-complicate it."
She sighed and sat back. I relaxed enough to move back toward the bed.
“The Abbey is part of a Sethian Sect,” she said softly. Yet something else I wasn’t expecting to hear. I sat down hard at her feet.
“A what?”
Now it was sects? She tapped the cover of her textbook.
“Think back on some of the theology we had to learn here, Day. Remember Genesis?” she asked me as I crinkled my nose in disbelief. Now, she was throwing religion at me. I just nodded. She took that to mean I understood.
“In the Bible when Cain killed his brother Abel, Adam and Eve had a son that, in a sense, replaced Abel. They called him Seth. He is the line from which Jesus was born. Some believe it makes those descended from Seth special. They are warriors and Sons of God. The Abbey is made up of people, women, novices, and employees who can all trace their lineage back to Seth."
She paused a moment, looking down at the history book in her lap before placing her hand reverently on the cover. I'd never really taken notice of her books before. This one looked old. Her gaze found mine again and she took a deep breath before continuing.
"Built by Morrison Jacobs when the French brought Roman Catholicism to our shores, the Abbey has been hiding here for a long, long time. And we aren't the only ones, Day. We have managed to build institutions in every state. In one form or another,” Amber explained.
I stared at her for a moment until what Amber was saying began to dawn on me, and my expression changed to one of horror.
“Omg! Is the Abbey a cult? Are we part of a cult?”
The church here had always seemed strange. She placed a finger over my lips, and I quieted. A Sethian Sect? I’d never heard of such a thing! And did this mean . . .
“We are not a cult. We are an establishment dedicated to good, to pursuing good, to banishing evil, to fixing wrongs. We have a calling,” Amber said morosely, interrupting my thoughts completely.
I looked up at her disbelievingly.
“You’ve been brainwashed.”
“I’ve been called.”
“You’ve been led.”
“You think that, Dayton, because you are afraid.”
“Afraid of what, Amber?”
“Of being part of something. Of the truth,” Amber answered.
I looked away from her.
“This is messed up, Amber. You realize how crazy this sounds? It doesn’t make sense. So does this make us descendants of Seth? And if so, what do we do, us descendants of Seth? Do we smite someone if they shoplift, condemn those who curse?”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Day. We’re more than that. We protect.”
“Protect from what?
“From Demons,” Amber answered. My eyes widened. I sooo wasn’t expecting that answer. I wasn’t expecting any of this.
“This is bullshit!” I exploded before getting up and heading once again for the door.
“Is it, Day?” Amber asked as I made my exit. This time, I wasn’t listening.
“Day, you will change. We aren’t like the rest of them. They will use you,” Amber called out after me.
I wasn’t listening anymore. From just outside the door, I turned back to Amber, my mouth open for one final protest. It froze on my lips when I saw Amber’s expression. Her gaze settled on something behind my head, and I felt numb with sudden fear.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as pain suddenly radiated along my head, down into my spine and ended with my world going instantly black.
Chapter 13
The Rite won’t bring peace. It will bring destruction.
