Hastening through the halls to get back to Ben’s room, Ben cautiously explains a little more to me. “The man in the chair was Cosimo. He’s undead. The children. In the cells. All of us. We are very important to him. His Mistress has us perform our gifts in front of him, whether it’s song or dance or poetry. Sometimes artwork. He needs our gifts. We still shine, Stori. And our light. When we let it shine before him that glass ball lights up. It’s like a drug to him. He’s all darkness. But he wants to be light. Not to let it shine but to crush it deep inside him. To possess it only for himself. The rest of the world under darkness and he has the light only for himself. But the Mistress keeps complaining it can only buy him time without the Crown of Final Sight.”
Back in Ben’s quarters I let my knees crash to the cold stone floor and I weep. “Wake me, up, Ben. Wake me up from this nightmare.”
Ben crouches low by my side and strokes my back as I weep. His touch is gentle and reminds me of my mother’s and the way she strokes me when I’m sick. “Shh. You’re giving up hope. You can’t do that.”
I look at him. “They’re going to kill my father. I have to go back in there and end it.”
“Violence isn’t the answer. I’ll help you, Stori. I promise. Look at me.” He moves in front of me and takes my face in his tiny little hands. He stares deep into my eyes and I see that a boy no more than nine is braver than I am at almost seventeen. That trust feeling comes over me again and I could shout out a Hallelujah in response to it. But Ben’s words are more important. “I am a prisoner just like your father. My nights are dark as well as my days. I know the way out of here, but I won’t take it. Because I have to help the others. I know if I go out, there’s no coming back in.”
“What about the police?” I ask.
“They can do nothing. This is way bigger than that. But now, there’s hope.”
“There is?”
“Yes. You!” he says smiling.
“Me?”
I begin sobbing again.
“Stop crying. You got down here for a reason. And now we’ve just learned you’re a Brave! The same blood that runs through your father runs through you! You have to go back up and find out about the Crown.”
“I know about that Crown. And so does this woman. A prophetess. She can help.”
“Get to her. Tonight. Tell her all you have seen and heard here. I’ll be waiting for you. Your coming here has made me stronger.”
“But what if I can’t find it?”
“No time for doubt, girl! Have faith. Have faith.”
Looking at him I realize his strength for only a young boy. “Oh, Ben.” I caress his face and fear all kinds of danger that might be ahead for him. I fear the cold dark nights he spends here sleeping in this unfamiliar bed. My heart breaks open in a way it has never broken before. To a perfect stranger I say, “I love you.”
A tear slides down the side of his nose, “I love you too. See? Nothing bad can ever come out of love.”
23: Frank
My name is Frances David Putzarella, born to Concettina and Pasquale Putzarella on the fifth of March, 1966.
I didn’t know I was a Brave until the age of seventeen. My mother was a trash picker at the time. She had a hard life and she was dying from cancer. But she was one of those women who never complained.
One night when she was very ill, she woke me from bed and told me to dress and put on a warm sweater. Once outside, she led me up Windy Way into Forest Boom.
Carrying a satchel, she guided me to a small clearing where a silver maple sat by a stream. Under the silver maple is where she gave me the news: “There is a world beyond this one son. I am going to it. Tomorrow I will be gone.”
“Mama, no.”
“You are not to fight it.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“You have Papa and Joseph.”
“But I don’t like Papa and Joseph. They don’t love me.”
“Nonsense. They love you. Sit down on that rock.”
I hated having to obey.
“This world is dying, Frank. It is like me. Under a dreadful curse that can’t be cured. The people in it are dying too. They are living but dying all at once, because they are sick with the curse, the curse of forgetfullness. Look at me. I am going to show you who I truly am. I should have showed you sooner. You are not to speak a word of what you see to anyone. Do you hear me?”
“Mama. You scare me. Let’s go home.”
She took out something from her satchel. It was a crown. A crown of indescribable beauty. Too regal for even a mighty and just king. The moment she brandished this marvelous thing, her whole being was lit up in blue light.
She held the crown to her heart and closed her eyes and tilted her anguish up to the green canopy. The moon shone in fullness above us. Fireflies winked in the shadows. Then a gust of air hit us and the maple thrashed its boughs and sent a shower of green over our heads. “The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. They are more desirable than gold, even the finest of gold. They are sweeter than honey, even honey dripping from the comb.”
Still bathed in blue, she held out the crown to me.
I fell to my knees.
“This was forged after the great flood, when the Tower of Babel was being built. Our tribe, the Braves, smuggled it out of the city when the Lord came down and dispersed the people, spreading them out over the earth. During that time, men still had divinity in them. They walked with lions and spoke to trees and knew many secrets of the universe. Keep it always with you, Frances. But never place it upon your head. Let noone know you have it. Hide it Frances. For you are of the ancient lineage of the Braves.”
I reached up and took it from her, somehow knowing by taking the crown I was allowing her to die.
And then an angel appeared. He walked straight through her.
I whimpered like a wounded bird.
He touched me on the top of my head. “You are anointed, my son. Do not fear in this life. Do not fear.”
The clangor of bells flooded my ears and they were heavenly. A thousand gongs. All the bells that have tolled through time and all the bells that will toll after I’m gone, were ringing at once inside of me.
I was still mourning but also filled with a bone crushing ecstasy.
The angel spoke to me. “Son. The final battle has begun. We have arrived at the time when almost the whole world will fall under the spell of the Brotherhood and their Dark Council—Cosimo and his immortal witch. The people will become like zombies. They will forget who they truly came from and what they are capable of. But fear not. For you will raise a daughter. She will fight the evil ones. She will race them through time and take this crown back to Babel. She will fight to bring the crown back to its rightful owner, the Great Ancient of Days. If she can achieve the final coronation the Brotherhood, Cosimo, the witch and the Hounds will be no more. The people will awake from their slumber and usher in the new age. The new age of abundance and enlightenment. The Dawn of the Second Eden.”
“Will she get there? Will she crown Him.”
“Let the story tell itself. In time, all will be known.”
Then a sword appeared. It lay diagonally across his chest, the point facing up. The sword was also consumed by the blue. “If you choose this sword, you will suffer in this life. The world will scorn you. Your good deeds will go unrewarded. But you will be my child, a Brave, living the life of truth. You will help the Crown back to Babylon.”
I spoke without even thinking. “I want the truth. I want the truth and no other.”
He lay the sword out for my taking. I took it in my free hand, the crown still in the other. I felt its power, its weight. Its heat from the light consumed the grip. And then there was no longer a weight. For the sword became my very hand, my very arm. It became all of me. I was not separate from it anymore. We were one. I and the sword. One.
The skin on my chest, just over my heart began to burn. I looked down and saw
a hole in my sweater with singed edges.
My mother died at dusk.
I did not weep. For after I stopped the hands of her clock in her bedroom, I opened the windows and leaned out into the quivering dawn. A bird flitted down from a rooftop and perched upon our neighbor’s fire escape. It had just returned from the south, and its song was robust and almost violent.
She paused in her song and looked at me and I looked at her. Our souls were speaking to one another. “Is it safe?” she asked me.
“I have it hidden.”
“We watch your house, in the mornings. Our songs fight away the Brotherhood’s Hounds. The light snatchers, the demons of the night.”
“I fear the Brotherhood and their Hounds,” I told her. “I fear the witch and Cosimo. I fear they will all get me, get the crown in the night.”
“Sit with us in the mornings, listen to our songs, and they will protect you.”
“I never knew you could speak.”
“I am the keeper of you, my child. I am the messenger of the Ancient One. I am the keeper of paradise.”
“Stay always with me.”
“For as long as I can, I will stay.”
I never knew the birds were protecting me. Their songs were not just pretty to the ear, but were keeping the darkness at bay.
I never looked at life the same way again, after the death of my mother and all that came with it. With the burn mark on my chest and the crown in my possession, I was a different man. I was a better one and a weaker one all at once. My life was not going to be easy, but it was going to be full and of great purpose. It was going to be the life of the Brave. A life of truth and courage and love. I was going to make a difference for my city and perhaps the world. I took great solace in that.
But the world is a very hard place for a Brave to live in.
If I had known what it meant to take the sword, I might not ever have. That angel never told me my family would suffer too. You see Braves can only live lives of truth and honor. They cannot lie and hurt and steal. Because I was actively living as a Brave I turned down a lucrative job collecting for the Tapparellis. I knew hurting people for money was wrong. I got laid off several times and Anna had to go back to work. And then Stori jumped off the dam. I lost my speech because of that. I lost my agility, my quickness. It hurt my pride. Cut me down. Made me feel less than a man.
It hurt worse when some people called me names in the street. They must have felt real tough knocking down a man already on his knees. I’m a big guy and I’ve never been afraid of a fight, but with the sword fighting wasn’t possible. Until Sidewinder called me retarded. I hesitated. I wasn’t sure what I should do. That’s when Stori stepped up and knocked him over. When I saw the knife I thought she would retreat, but she didn’t. When I looked at her bleeding face I saw myself and I got scared. She was showing signs early, talking about angels and the children who live in Forest Boom. I knew I had to get it out of her. The Brave. I didn’t want her becoming one like me. Before something really bad happened. I couldn’t take losing someone again—especially my eldest daughter. So I brought her down to the Cage and made her fight. She wasn’t going to suffer the way I was suffering. She was going to beat it all down, all the cruelty, all the mayhem, all the noise.
I tossed the sword after that. I got rid of the crown. (Hid it in a place where noone would ever find it.) And just like that the Brave in me was gone. I became more of a sinner than ever. I drank, whored and lied to my family. I even justified my actions by telling myself I was at essence doing it all for them. Hardening my heart was keeping my family safe from harm. I really believed being bad would keep them secure somehow—cause it seemed only bad things happened to good people.
But I knew it was only a matter of time before my sins caught up to me. I just never knew my karma would come in the form of a tiger.
I didn’t know feeding an innocent little cookie to a hungry tiger was going to end up like this. The tiger was telling me for weeks that it was hungry. So one day I just stopped and looked at it and asked, ‘Well what is it your hungry for?”
“A lemon cookie,” he said.
How could I walk away from such a request, knowing Anna baked the best lemon cookies in all of Redemption? So I snuck in here one evening when I was doing overtime. The tiger was grateful and he told me as a gift in return he would tell me a secret. “Children are going down there,” he said.
“Where?” I asked.
“Down there.”
That’s when I found the door. I guess my curiosity got the best of me.
When I saw that spiraling prison leading into the abyss I cut right out of there and returned to the streets a madman. I found a cop parked by the movie theatre. “Officer. There’s a prison under the casino. Please. Call it in right away! A prison! A secret prison!” It took me a while to get it all out, since I was speaking the words, not thinking them as I am doing now. So of course, the cop thought I was drunk. “Get the fuck out of here, you Valley trash. Get off the streets and go home!”
There was no one else I could think of besides my brother Joe. I know we hadn’t spoken in so long, but he had friends in high places. People who might listen. And I told myself, Joe knows goodness. No matter what he’s become.
I was wrong. He told me the same thing. I was crazy and to get out of his sight.
Oh, Anna. I have so much to tell you and I don’t know where to start. The night I woke up to see Mo standing over our bed, I thought he was going to kill both of us. He shushed me. “Just you I want.”
I went with him, because I feared he might hurt you and the girls and I knew deep in my heart this was part of the plan.
You see my work as a Brave might have taken a detour but it is not finished. I am here for a reason. I am here not by chance, but by design. I am part of a story being told. A prophecy is being fulfilled and I am a spoke in the wheel of that prophecy.
I am dangerous to them, as all who are Braves are dangerous to those who aren’t. We threaten the very core of their pathetic being. We represent everything they are afraid of.
Once I was brought here by Mo, a woman named Smyrna made me write a letter saying goodbye to you. I started to put down all the love I had in my heart but they ripped it up and told me to start again. So I wrote the note, hoping Stori would get the meaning and get to the crown.
He’s having another child sent down. From what I’ve learned he lives for the children. He can’t get enough of the light they bring.
This time it’s a girl. Maybe 10 or 11, I don’t know. She’s carried in by a Hound and set before the throne.
Smyrna looks at the girl. “What is your name?” she asks.
The girl just stands there.
“It’s okay, my love. Are you scared of that creature sitting over there? Don’t worry. He won’t hurt you. He won’t even touch you if that’s what you think. You have my word.”
The girl looks at the floor. “Adella.”
“And what is your gift, Adella?” she asks.
“She’s a dancer, your grace,” the Hound offers.
Cosimo seems pleased. He leans back into his golden throne and waits as they bring the machine out. This is his drug. Not wine, not the lines of white dust the minxes snort from the coffee table. Just the machine.
It looks like a humongous Christmas globe, made of some kind of glass or maybe it’s crystal. They roll it out carefully and pull off the heavy blanket that keeps it covered while it’s not in use. Dust rises and settles.
Cosimo’s breath is even. Nothing puts him more at ease than knowing he will soon get the drug.
Smyrna moves to a stereo and presses a button. Music plays. Classical symphony stuff. It’s pretty and Cosimo approves with a nod.
“Dance,” she tells the girl. “Go ahead. The faster you start, the sooner I can take you back to your cell.”
The girl is still looking at the floor. She’s not sure what to do. I can tell. I try to get her to look at me, by staring intently. I have foun
d that people can always sense when someone’s eyes are boring into them.
It works. She glances up to see who it is. She looks down but then brings her eyes back to me again. She sees my chains. I nod to her, the way I would if she were one of my own girls.
She takes a deep breath, tilts her head to the side and then slides an arched foot forward, pointing her toe.
The dance is a little timid at first. But then the music takes over and she finally gets lost, as children often do when the music gets down to their soul. The crystal ball lights up. A soft glowing white at first. But as the dancing continues it grows stronger. There is a spinning blue planet in the center of the light.
Then the girl lets off her own illumination. It shoots straight from her chest, beaming right through the darkness and travels straight to the crystal. The crystal receives it and is now even more brilliant than it was before.
From the opposite side, the beam of the child’s light travels, piercing out, flowing directly into the chest of Cosimo.
Cosimo grips his throne, the ropes of blue veins standing up on his decrepit hands. He isn’t breathing. But is braced by some kind of personal ecstasy.
Sick bastard. He’s stealing the light from this poor child.
When the dance is done the music cuts off and the girl collapses. Smyrna snaps her fingers and an attendant comes and picks her up in both arms and hurriedly carries her out.
Stori, if I could just get back to you and Regi and Mommy. I’d make up for hurting you. I’d make up for everything I’ve ever done.
And I’d tell you this, Stori: I will hold this guilt with me when they finally take my life. Because I was wrong for trying to take the Brave out of you. I was wrong for keeping your destiny hidden from you. One day when you have kids you might understand. How scary it is to think they might come to harm. You will do anything in your power to keep them from it.
But looking at the faces of these captured children, seeing their fear and knowing you might be the one to save them, I can say wholeheartedly I was wrong. If only I knew it then. I would go back and change everything.
The Book, the Key and the Crown (Secrets of the Emerald Tablet Book 1) Page 23
