He fell to devouring it without ceremony. “You’d think she’d be used to your great-grandkids popping over all the time,” he said between mouthfuls.
“She isn’t because they don’t. My progeny are scattered all over the globe. Dropping by for a visit is reserved for major holidays during alternate decades. No, Zachary, your situation is unique. Your parents have the distinction of being the only relatives who live in close proximity to me.”
While she was speaking the boy had managed to consume the rest of his sandwich and several chocolate chip cookies.
“Can I get you anything else?” the old woman asked.
“Got any soy milk?” he asked hopefully.
“I’m sorry, dear. Just cow’s milk, I’m afraid.”
“That’s alright. I’m good for now.” The boy stood up from the table and stretched contentedly. He wasn’t more than five foot eight but he towered over Faye. “Just point me someplace where I can crash.”
“You know this is only a temporary solution,” Faye cautioned. “You’ll have to deal with your parents sometime.”
The boy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but not tonight, OK? No lectures tonight.”
The old woman chuckled. “I remember being a teenager.”
“You do?” Zachary tried not to sound too shocked.
Faye gave an amused smile. “Yes, that long ago. Remarkable that my memory hasn’t failed, isn’t it?” She paused to recollect. “It was a time in my life when there seemed to be far too many rules.”
“And all of them made by somebody else,” her descendent muttered.
“Yes,” Faye agreed quietly. “I believe that was the troublesome part.” She exited the kitchen and gestured for Zachary to follow her. “I suppose the guest room will do. I just changed the bedding.”
“Were you expecting company?” The boy trailed her up the stairs.
“I’m always expecting the unexpected,” she said over her shoulder.
The second story floorboards creaked as she led him to a room at the far end of the hall. Switching on the light, she said, “You can put your things in here.”
The bedroom was set under a dormer at the back of the house so the ceiling was slanted. The room contained an old-fashioned brass bed, a nightstand and an antique oak dresser. White lace curtains floated on the evening breeze streaming through the open window.
“Better than Howard Johnson’s.” Zachary tossed his backpack in the corner and flung himself across the mattress. The metal springs rasped under his weight.
Faye stood in the doorway with her arms folded, regarding him silently for several seconds.
Noticing her scrutiny, the boy sat up. “What?”
“Just tell me what triggered this urgent need for freedom.”
“Gamma, do we have to go into that now?” His tone was wheedling.
“Twenty five words or less.”
“I wanted to do a summer internship with Greenpeace. The fascist dictators I live with said it was too dangerous. All I was going to do was hand out flyers in the city. It’s not like I was trying to stop an illegal whale hunt or jump in front of a baby seal that was being clubbed to death.” He threw his hands up in disgust. “When I save up enough money I’m gonna get a DNA test done. I can’t be a blood relative to those people. I swear I must have been left on their doorstep by space aliens.”
With a perfectly straight face, the old woman asked, “What color was the mother ship?”
“Metallic blue with white sidewalls.”
“I’m not going to lecture you,” Faye said softly. “But surely you know how worried your parents must be.”
“They probably figured out where I went,” Zachary offered grudgingly. He sat on the edge of the bed, kicking his legs back and forth. “I just took off, OK? It wasn’t like I did it on purpose to make them crazy. I just couldn’t take one more ‘No.’ For crying out loud, I’m not a baby. I’m sixteen!”
Faye smiled. “You’re fifteen years and eleven months. Had you been sixteen, I’m sure you would have availed yourself of a driver’s permit and hijacked one of your parents’ cars to get here rather than hitchhiking. Am I right?”
The boy hung his head for a moment. “Busted.” Then he gave his aged relative an appraising look. “How do you always seem to know stuff without being told?”
“Let’s just say I’m very good at mathematics.” She sat down on the bed next to him. “Being a parent is a tremendously hard job. They only want to protect you and keep you safe.”
“Then they should just seal me up in a big damn plastic bubble and get it over with!”
“I’m sure there’s a law against that. In fact, I read about it quite recently in the Enquirer.”
Zachary did a double-take until he realized Faye was smiling.
“I wonder if they might get away with encasing you in a hazmat suit until you’re twenty one. Yes, that may be the better way to go.”
Now he could tell she was joking. The boy grinned in spite of himself.
“In addition to remembering all the ‘no’s’ when one is a teenager,” she said, “I also remember how intense life can seem when one is young. I used to write some very lugubrious poetry at your age. Awful stuff!”
“Lugubrious?”
“Yes, it means melancholy. I had a perpetual case of the vapors until my early twenties. My own personal mauve decade.” She smiled at the memory. “And I wrote some truly terrible poetry to commemorate my maudlin phase.”
“I bet it was pretty good,” Zachary observed. “You’re the cool one. You’re the only one in the family I’d ever admit to being related to.”
“Why thank you, Zach. I’ll take that as a compliment.” She patted his knee. “But I can afford to be the cool one. I don’t have to do the hard part. I can simply enjoy your company and send you packing whenever you become tiresome.”
“Am I?” he asked anxiously.
“Are you what?” She brushed a breadcrumb off his shirt.
“Tiresome?”
She gave him a fond look. “No, my dear boy. Most assuredly not.”
“But we are different from them, aren’t we?” he persisted. “I mean you’re the only one in the family who gets me. Everybody else is so busy trying to fit in. Be a solid citizen. I’ve got parents who make their living watching mold grow in petri dishes and a sister who wanted to be a lawyer before she was out of diapers.”
“And what do you want to be?”
The boy paused and gave her a furtive glance. “I don’t know exactly but I want it to be something that isn’t ordinary. Something that’s going to change the world.”
The old woman nodded understandingly. “I think most young people want to change the world.”
“No, Gamma. I really mean it. I want to feel like my life makes a big difference. It’s almost like I’ve got some kind of mission.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “A mission. Indeed. What sort of mission?”
He gave a frustrated sigh. “That’s just it. I don’t know. I can almost feel it out there calling me but I don’t know what it is yet.” Zach paused to consider. “It’s really weird but I can feel it stronger whenever I’m around you.” He peered into her face. “What do you think that’s about?”
Faye returned his gaze. “I’m not sure, my dear. I do know, however, that people who feel a sense of purpose invariably find it when the time is right. Don’t worry. Your mission will make itself known one day. Perhaps sooner than you expect.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek and stood up to leave. “I’m going to speak to your parents now and ask them to allow you a one week furlough. You may stay here for seven days but after that…” she trailed off.
Zachary hung his head in submission. “I know, I know.”
“Tomorrow you will help me in the yard. My vegetable garden needs weeding.”
“You’re not gonna make me work, are you?”
Faye raised an eyebrow. “Were you under the impression that you wouldn’t have to earn you
r keep? And in order to maintain your productivity, there will be no email, text messages, cell phones, video games, or other electronic gizmos to distract you from your chores.”
“I get it.” The boy laughed. “By the end of the week, you’ll make me wish I was back home.”
“You see right through me.” The old woman chuckled. “Goodnight, dear boy. Get some rest. You’re going to need it.” She flipped off the light switch and closed the door.
Chapter 26 – Wedlocked
Hannah uncoiled the braid wrapped around the crown of her head. She untwisted the rope of hair and ran her fingers through the curls, shaking them loose. It felt good to ease the tension in her scalp. She brushed her tresses slowly and methodically in front of the bathroom mirror, dawdling over the task. She wanted to postpone the inevitable as long as possible, trying not to think about what was waiting for her in the next room.
Today she had been married for the second time in as many months. The Diviner’s thirtieth wife. A large gaggle of sister-wives had clustered around to welcome her into their family. Many were old enough to be her grandmother. No one seemed to think it was odd that a man in his seventies had just wed a girl of fourteen. Not unlike the comments made after her other wedding, everybody told her how happy she must be. No one mentioned the whereabouts of her first husband or what he might be thinking about the annulment of his marriage to her. She was supposed to be happy. Everybody said so.
“Hannah?” a male voice called to her through the closed door. “Are you almost ready?” The Diviner didn’t sound commanding the way he usually did. His tone was almost cajoling.
“I…uh…I’ll be out soon,” she stammered. She peered at her reflection in the mirror to see if she looked any older than she had done on her first wedding night but nothing had changed. The same slightly dazed and troubled face looked back at her.
“It’s getting late, my dear,” the voice hinted.
She gave her reflection one more anxious glance before opening the door and switching off the bathroom light. Hannah didn’t meet her new husband’s eyes as she scurried to the bed and slipped noiselessly under the covers.
He rolled onto his side, leaning on his elbow for support. She could feel his eyes on her.
She steeled herself and looked back at him with a blank expression. It gave her a start to realize he wasn’t wearing a nightshirt. Loose skin hung slack over the muscles on his arms. The hair on his chest was white and his arms were covered in liver spots. She guessed he was already naked below the waist and mentally cringed at the thought.
He regarded her for several more seconds with a doting expression. “You’re very comely.” He reached out to stroke her hair.
She lay still and said nothing.
He continued. “The Lord has great plans for you, Hannah. He commanded me to build up my celestial kingdom through you. As my progeny increases, so shall my heavenly estates increase. You will be the jewel in my crown and give me more children than any of your sister-wives. Do you know what that means?”
The girl shook her head slightly.
“As my fortune rises, so shall yours. You will be elevated to the rank of Principal Wife. Then you will have authority over all your sister-wives. I’m sure you’ll like that.” He beamed a sickening smile at her.
She noticed for the first time how yellow his teeth were and tried not to shudder at the sight of him.
“It is quite rare for a girl so young to attain so much,” he said. “You will be the model for all Consecrated Brides. A shining example of what they too might achieve if they are dutiful and please their husbands well.”
She knew he expected some sign of gratitude but she simply couldn’t bear the thought of thanking him. He had torn her family apart and separated her from everyone she loved. It didn’t seem to occur to him that she might not want to help him reach a higher rank in heaven. It also didn’t seem to occur to him that she might want something for herself that had absolutely nothing to do with him. She smothered the rage beginning to churn in her stomach, turning her face to the opposite wall. “Please put out the light,” she whispered in a small voice.
“Very well.” He nodded and did as she asked, too caught up in his own grand scheme to notice her lack of enthusiasm.
The room went thankfully black. No moonlight slanted through the single window in her bed chamber to illuminate that grinning, skull-like face.
“I trust you’ll have no reason to complain about this wedding night,” he said as he bent over to kiss her.
She didn’t answer. As awkward as her first wedding night had been, she now wished Daniel were here instead of his father. Even though the room was pitch dark, she shut her eyes. She wished she could shut her nose to the leathery smell of his skin and shut her ears to the sound of his heavy breathing.
Her own breathing grew shallow and sharp. She couldn’t seem to draw enough air into her lungs.
He began fumbling with her nightgown.
Panic-stricken, she knew there was nowhere to run. The sense of entrapment made her dizzy with fear. He began to whisper things but the words were drowned by a roaring in her ears that sounded like the ocean. She didn’t register anything he did to her after that because a funny thing happened to her mind. It flew to the ceiling and perched on top of the wardrobe in the corner, just like a bird. She became the bird, looking down on the room and the bed from a distance. Her mind perched and waited. The body experienced a brief stab of pain but the bird took no notice. It perched and waited.
The other body wriggled and shuddered. It made a gasping sound, then rolled away and was still. The bird perched and waited. After a few more minutes, the other body fell asleep. Then the bird fluttered down and returned to its home.
Hannah lay on her back in a rigid posture, her arms pressed flat against her sides. She tried to take up as little space as possible on the bed. Abraham had turned away from her. He snored deeply like a man who had just gorged himself on a big dinner and needed to sleep it off.
She stared at the corner of the ceiling where the bird had been and thought about all the future nights that would follow this one. They would stretch into years, maybe decades, and this would be her life from now on. Hannah knew she was Abraham’s favorite meal. He would glut his appetite until he was sick or until he developed a taste for a different kind of dish. That didn’t seem likely to happen any time soon. She had a nightmarish vision of the Diviner continuing to feed off of her for the rest of her life until there was nothing left to consume but bare bone.
The image horrified her. She felt like running down the silent corridor and screaming at the top of her lungs for help but she checked the impulse. Nobody would want to assist her and they wouldn’t like it if she made trouble. Her mind flitted back to the compound where she had been raised. There was an older woman there who fell into fits. Some said she was possessed. The elders sent her away to a place where she was given medicine to make her quiet. She never came back. There were other wives too who became discontented but they weren’t sent away. They were given medicine at the compound. Whenever Hannah talked to one of these women, she always got the feeling that some part of them had left anyway. Maybe they had turned into birds too.
Her eyes welled up with tears of despair. She was sure they would freeze as they streamed down the sides of her face so she made no move to brush them away. Her arms remained pressed against her sides. Hannah imagined she was lying in her coffin instead of a bed. It must be a coffin because she felt a deathlike numbness creeping over her limbs. She expected that in time the numbness would spread to her heart and extinguish the spark there. She could still feel it flickering now but she wondered how long before the light would go out completely.
Could hell be any worse than this? She remembered Annabeth’s terrified warning that she mustn’t think such things. A new notion struck her. Could the Fallen Lands be any worse than this? She almost gasped at the boldness of the question and what it implied. If she tried to run, she would be e
ntirely alone in the world. But wasn’t she alone already? If she tried to run, she would surely be damned. Didn’t she feel damned already? The numbness crept upward toward her heart urging her to choose the kind of hell that suited her best. She would have to decide soon before there was nothing of herself left to save.
Chapter 27 – Quartz Calendar Watch
“This is ridiculous,” Cassie muttered, hopping on one leg as she tried to jam her other foot into a boot. It was still dark. More than an hour before dawn. She knew she was the last one up. Racing down the stairs, she caught up with the rest of the Arkana team, minus Stefan, in the courtyard. They were preparing to make the journey back to the calendar stones.
The girl did a double-take when she looked at Erik and Fred. “Did you guys call each other up to decide what to wear today?”
The two men were both wearing blue jeans, yellow shirts and white jogging shoes. Even though Fred was several inches taller than Erik, they were both blond. The effect was disconcerting.
Fred laughed self-consciously but Erik chose to ignore the remark. The Security Coordinator addressed Griffin instead. “Now are you gonna tell us what this is about?”
“All will be revealed in time,” the Scrivener replied evenly as he climbed into the back of the Jeep.
For the past twenty four hours, the Brit had been in constant communication with his staff at the Central Catalog. Most of what his teammates could glean from his telephone conversations consisted of gibberish. Numbers and dates flew back and forth in some sort of coded language. Whenever the trio asked for an explanation, their questions were met by a brusque, “No time now. I’ll tell you later.”
With nothing better to do, Fred, Cassie and Erik loitered around the hotel grounds until it was time to bid Stefan farewell. The trove-keeper packed his artifact and departed almost as abruptly as he had arrived. During this interval, Griffin emerged from his teleconference only long enough to tell the team they would be driving back to the calendar stones before dawn.
The Mountain Mother Cipher (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 2) Page 16
