Borderlands 3

by Thomas F. Monteleone (Ed. )

  No music was playing, but the television blinked silently. The bartender was wiping the bar with a dirty towel. The only customer, a middle-aged man in a business suit, stared drunkenly at the flickering images on the screen. Michela hovered near the coat tree, half-repelled by the emptiness. She had come for noise and laughter, not to sit and drink in silence. But the need for human companionship drove her inside.

  "I'm trying to close," the bartender said.

  She set her purse on the bar and climbed onto one of the stools. "I'd like a Tom and Jerry," she said as if he hadn't spoken. When he looked up, she noted that he was a young man. She had thought, from his graying hair, that he was much older. He probably had a family to get home to. "I'd—just like one."

  She wanted to believe that the look which passed crossed his face was compassion and not pity. "It's a bitch being alone on Christmas, isn't it?" he asked.

  Tears filled her eyes. She blinked quickly, hoping that he hadn't noticed. He looked down and concentrated on mixing the drink.

  "You a tourist?" he asked as he set the liquid in front of her.

  She shook her head and took a sip. The warm sweetness followed by the alcoholic bite reminded her of Christmas dinner at her mother-in-law's. She took another sip, but the drink had lost its appeal. Grabbing her wallet, she asked, "How much?"

  "It's on the house," he said.

  The tears still danced behind her eyelids. She opened her wallet. "I'd like to pay for it."

  He ignored her money. "Don't you have anywhere to go tonight"

  "There's always home," she said brightly and smiled even though she knew that a man with eyes as old as his would not be fooled by her cheerfulness. She left the money beside the full glass and started out of the bar. Behind her, the drunk laughed again.

  She didn't blame him for laughing. Home was a funny concept when you didn't have one. Safety and security were myths concocted by the same people who made up the idea of Christmas spirit. Safety and security had trapped her in a world of boredom and frustration, a place filled with little irritants that kept building and building until the day she exploded. She had exploded and Nathan got caught in the fallout. Nathan, the son she had been given.

  She slung her coat around her shoulders. He had still been in the hospital when she left, but Daniel said he would be okay. Her last image of Nathan would always be of the moment she came to herself: her son, wrapped in the fetal position, his arms draped protectively around his bleeding head. Daniel had been more than fair. He let her choose between potential arrest for child abuse or leaving and giving up her rights to Nathan. After what she had done to the boy, she thought leaving would be the best thing.

  No one out here knew that she was married or had a child. No one really cared. And sometimes she wondered if she had made the right choice. But she had always done what Daniel had told her to do—and he had said that the second option was the one which would probably help all of them. When she got to Oregon, she had sent him a postcard with her name and address on it. In four months, she had had no reply.

  "Home," she whispered as she pushed the heavy door open and stepped out into the fog.

  ▼

  For unto us

  (For unto us)

  A child is born

  (a child is born)

  ▼

  The fog smelled of seawater and decayed dreams. Michela walked quickly down the empty sidewalk. The cool air taunted her, made her skin tingle and reminded her that she was alive.

  Her footsteps rang against the concrete. We are the true Ghosts of Christmas Present, the caller had said. Perhaps she deserved to be a ghost, to wander alone on what had been her favorite holiday. Christmas belonged to children and she, in beating her son, had committed a sin against the holiday itself.

  Suddenly the carriage emerged into a patch of yellow light. She had been so preoccupied that she hadn't heard its approach. The horse danced before her, and as the carriage passed, she realized that the face in the window belonged to a child. She understood, then, what was happening. Someone had spent a fortune to give a child a special Christmas Eve. Michela felt a strong urge to be part of that specialness. She waved her hand and cried "stop" before she had a chance to think.

  The carriage turned and slowly rattled back to her. The driver hunched over the reins. A scarf protected his face from the dampness and his tall black hat obscured his eyes. She glanced down at the horse. The blinders directing its sight made it too seem eyeless. The violins screeched in the back of her head and cinematic images of dead prostitutes on fog-covered streets rose in her mind. Yet she stepped forward and opened the carriage door.

  There was no child. In its stead sat a man. He wore long black pants and leather shoes. A cane rested against his hip. His suitcoat and vest hadn't been stylish since the turn-of-the century, but his white cotton shirt was open at the neck. He held out a gloved hand. "Welcome," he said. "We needed a soprano."

  His face was hidden in the shadows of the carriage, but his voice was rich and warm. She found herself thinking that there was a strange kind of logic to it all, that magic, if it were going to happen, would on Christmas Eve. The carriage did not exist, the man did not exist, just as she did not exist anymore to the folks back home. Her mind was playing out a fantasy to hide her loneliness.

  She placed her fingers against the smooth silk of his glove and let him help her inside. The door swung shut behind her and the carriage started forward. He held her hand until she was safely seated. She opened her mouth to ask him how he knew that she was a soprano, but the carriage moved out of the light. And in the darkness she felt totally alone.

  The rhythm of the wheels rolling beneath them hid the roar of the ocean. Michela tried to look out the window, but only blackness faced her. Finally the carriage stopped. She reached for the door handle, but the man was quicker. His long, slim body brushed against her as he pushed open the door. "Let me," he said. He grabbed his cane and stepped down, then held his hand out for her once more. She was acutely aware of the inappropriateness of her clothing. She should have felt the swish of skirts about her ankles instead of the tightness of her jeans. She set her hand in his once more and climbed out of the carriage.

  They had stopped in front of a church. The great stone edifice rose in the fog like an old English castle. Candlelight flickered inside. Behind the building, the ocean broke against rocks, splattering spray against the cliff face, the church and Michela herself. The cold, salty water ran down her cheeks and into her mouth. It felt real, but it wasn't. No church would sit so close to the ocean. And waves that big could not exist without wind. "Come," he said and took her elbow, but she held back. No one moved inside the church, only the candles, flickering.

  "What's the matter," he asked, his grip growing tighter. "Have you abandoned the church too?"

  His question stung like the spraying saltwater. She didn't want to be in this fantasy any more, but the images refused to go.

  "It's real," he said softly. "This is very real."

  "I would like to go home," she said.

  "Yes." She could hear the smile in his voice. "Wouldn't we all."

  He led her forward, toward the church. His fingers pressed against her elbow so tightly that rivulets of pain ran down her arm. She stumbled as she tried to keep up with him. As they reached the church steps, another wave broke against the rock wall and sent water running over them. Michela shook her hair out of her face. She was drenched.

  He pulled open the great wood doors and they stepped inside a large entryway. Stairs curved up each side of the entry, and before her stood another set of rounded doors. Candles burned in every available corner and evergreen bows decorated the walls, but the church was cold and silent. Michela shivered.

  "The choir loft is upstairs," he said as he let go of her elbow. She turned to see his face, but only caught a glimpse of his coattail before the door closed behind him. There were no handles inside, nothing that made the doors seem anything but decorative. She pushed
against the wood, and the door moved silently as though blocked by an outside lock.

  Damn nightmares, she thought. Watch her wake up on her couch with Christmas music drifting in like cold on a windy night. But for the moment, she was trapped in the images her mind created. She sighed and started up the stairs to the right.

  The polished wood banister was cool beneath her fingers. No sound came from the choir loft. All she could hear were the waves breaking against the rocks below. She climbed until she reached the wooden doors at the top of the stairs. They too had outside locks, thin metal strips that bolted into the floor. She had never seen a church so obsessed with the ability to lock things inside. She pulled open the door. Rows of robed choir members looked at her. The director, a rotund, redheaded man who looked as if he were deathly ill, tapped his baton against a metal music rack. "Let's give Michela a moment to put on her robe." And as she passed him, he hissed, "You're late."

  An automatic guilt rose inside her, as if she really were late for choir rehearsal on Christmas Eve. But she refused to apologize. She went to the back to the tiny room and grabbed the remaining green robe. She slipped it over her shoulders and zipped up, feeling warm for the first time since she arrived. Then she took the only available chair, in the front row right before the director.

  "Now that our lead soprano is here," the director said, "we can get started. We don't have much time, so we'll warm up and then march down."

  He hit Middle C on the ancient piano and they began a series of runs that went up by half steps. As they went up into the higher range, Michela's voice cracked. It had been so long since she sang that she was starting wrong.

  "Diaphragm," the director snapped at her. She took a deep breath and filled her diaphragm with air. Suddenly the notes burst from her with a fullness of tone she had never had before. Then, with the circular movement of one hand, the director cut them off.

  "Let's go down," he said.

  The back row started filing out the door and down the twisted staircase. Michela tapped the woman beside her on the shoulder. "What are we singing?" she whispered. The woman handed back a booklet of music. Written in bold Gothic letters on the cover was "The Messiah by Georg Frederich Handel."

  Michela took the sheet music and clutched it against her chest. Somehow she had known they would be singing from that. She followed the woman out another set of double doors and down the left staircase. The sleeve of her robe caught on the edge of the banister, jerking her, making her lose her balance. Her foot slipped forward and she nearly fell, but she was able to grab the railing with her hand. She stopped to catch her breath.

  "Keep walking," the director said.

  He was right behind her. She looked into his watery eyes and thought she saw contempt there. With two fingers, he flipped the edge of her sleeve off of the banister. She turned away from him and continued down into the heart of the church.

  The stairway led directly into the choir loft. The loft was the second of three tiers that faced the congregation. Below the loft stood the pulpit, a heavy octagonal wood structure that seemed to imprison the minister instead of elevate him. Then the loft itself with rows enough for a choir twice the size of the one she was in. And behind them all rose the great silver and gold pipes of a magnificent organ, although the instrument itself was nowhere in sight.

  Michela stood before the last chair at the end of her row. At the director's small signal, she sat with the rest of the choir. The cold metal of the chair seat seeped through her robe. What kind of church could afford such a beautiful organ and yet refuse to heat the sanctuary?

  She could hear the rustle of the congregation, but could see nothing. A shiver ran through her. She didn't want to be in the choir. She didn't want to sing. All she wanted to do was wake up and shut off the Christmas music that had to be interfering with her dreams.

  A loud chord from the organ made her start. The organist was running through the opening chords of "For Unto Us A Child Is Born." The director tapped his baton on the music stand and the choir stood up. Michela stood with them. They were singing the appropriate chorus, but she didn't want to blend her voice with the music. She couldn't sing a hymn about an abandoned child that would become a sacrifice, a human sacrifice that forgave sin instead of preventing it.

  The director looked at her sternly and she found herself mouthing the words. Suddenly the constriction in her throat disappeared and her voice sang out over the choir and the organ, sweet, fluted and clear—angelic and totally out of place. The director smiled and extended a hand toward the congregation. She was to look at them, not him.

  She gazed out at the emptiness. Nothing in the pews moved, But toward the back, a man started down the aisle. He was cradling something against his chest. She could see his outline as he moved in and out of the candlelight. She knew that she should be preparing for something else, some new horror, but she found herself listening to the harmonies the choir created with her voice. There was a beauty in the chorus that she had always suspected, but never heard. A beauty that her voice, soaring over the congregation, had found. She had always believed that music was the purest distillation of spiritual power and the hymn was proving it, with the contrapuntal melodies, the richly varied voices blending into a bittersweet unit with her own notes providing a flowing descant.

  The man stepped into a pool of light before the pulpit. It was Daniel standing there like an angry god with Nathan huddled against his chest. Blood ran down Daniel's hands onto his pants and into the carpet. Daniel's gaze met hers and she saw in his eyes the same cold look that he had had that morning in the hospital. "He's dead," Daniel said flatly. "You killed him."

  Her descant turned into a wailing scream and the music stopped. The director tapped on the music stand for order. Michela stepped to the edge of the loft. "You said he was going to be all right."

  "You killed him," Daniel repeated and disappeared. The pool of blood gleamed darkly in the light.

  She leaned forward over the edge of the loft and would have tumbled behind the pulpit but for the hands clutching at her robe. They hauled her back toward her seat and she found herself looking up at the director. "I didn't kill him," she said.

  "No," the director replied. "You only beat him. But you are killing him now."

  "I don't even see him."

  "Precisely," the director returned to his podium and tapped at the music stand. "Sing now, with the richness and warmth and fullness of Christmas Past. Fill your voice with the memories and—"

  "No!" Michela flung down the music and ran from the loft. Her heels got tangled in the hem of the robe, but she managed to shake them free. She turned away from the base of the staircase and followed the corridor until she reached the main entrance. The doors stood open, sending wisps of fog and sea breeze into the large room. Michela took a deep breath and plunged into the night.

  The carriage stood at the edge of the sidewalk, the horse pawing restlessly at the ground. The man who had brought her stood outside the carriage as if he had been waiting for her. As she drew closer, he pulled open the door and helped her inside.

  She huddled against the far window, and this time, after he shut the door, the full darkness felt comfortable. Her heart was racing and she wished that the nightmare would end. "Can you take me back?" she asked. She wasn't sure if she were asking to return to the foggy street or Christmas Eve a year ago when she stood in a real choir loft, gazing fondly at her husband and unscarred child.

  But he said nothing. All she could hear was the rattle of the carriage as it clattered down the wind-drenched road. The darkness was becoming suffocating, the noise louder. Her heart began to beat in her throat.

  "Some," he said, his voice reverberating in the tiny carriage, "push a razor into their wrists. Others let the loneliness take them, holiday after silent holiday, until they simply slip away. But they all realize what they've done. You think you've sinned because you've abused your son. I think you've sinned because you abandoned him. A thousand people who don't
deserve to spend this holiday alone. And then there are the ghosts with no chains to rattle, living, breathing skeletons with only a trace of humanity remaining—"

  "Stop," she whispered. "Please stop."

  The carriage stopped. He reached past her, brushing against her like he had before, as he opened the door. Only this time, he didn't help her out. "Ghosts," he said softly, "should be laid to rest."

  She stepped out of the carriage into the yellow glare of a streetlamp. The carriage door slammed shut and the carriage disappeared into the fog. She stared after it, shivering in the damp chill. The nightmare had ended. She was back on the empty sidewalk, staring down an empty street. Alone. She sighed and stepped forward—and nearly tripped when her heel caught in the hem of her green robe.

  ▼

  For

  Unto Us A Child Is Booo —

  (A Son is Given)

  —oorn. Unto Us

  A Son is Given.

  ▼

  The fog swirled before her window. If she squinted hard enough, she could almost see the ocean salt in the droplets of mist. She let the curtain fall back into place and turned to face her silent living room. There were no ghosts in the room, no unseen presences mocking her. It was as if the place had been sterilized between tenants and she had brought nothing with her to fill the emptiness.

  This had been the longest night she had ever experienced. The clock's hands moved slowly toward five, each minute taking an hour to complete. Five was the earliest that she could call, the time when she was certain that Nathan would have awakened Daniel. Nathan couldn't sleep past seven on a regular morning. On Christmas, he would get up even earlier.

  Finally the chimes echoed softly and she lunged for the phone. She picked up the receiver. The buzzing tone sounded loud against her ear. She had a moment of doubt—what if Daniel hung up?—and then, with shaking fingers, she began to dial.

  Each ring seemed to last forever. Finally, a sleepy woman's voice answered the phone. "Hello?"