by Bruce Blake
His hand inched further up her thigh. Unconsciously, her legs opened slightly as if making their own decisions. The warmth of his hand felt like it might burn her through her nightie but she didn’t move away. Instead, she brought her arm up and across his chest, turned more toward him, hugged herself closer.
A part of her mind implored her to stop, insisted a nun didn’t act this way, and she knew it was right, but she felt like the closer she got to him, the safer her father would be. She had the impression this man held responsibility for getting him to Heaven and he deserved whatever appreciation she gave.
A second later, his fingers found the place only she and Kelly Booker ever touched—him for pleasure and her only to wash in the years since.
When he laid her down and loomed over her she wanted to tell him ‘no’. She was naked by then, though she didn’t know how her nakedness happened, and he was, too. When he entered her—gently and firmly all at once—she gasped and bit down on her wrist to keep from crying out. She’d never felt ecstasy before, thought she never would until the day God took her into his kingdom.
After this, would she be allowed in?
Stars exploded before her eyes, a swirling cosmos blurring her vision of the man above her as he rocked his pelvis back and forth against hers. The movement, his touch, the sensations inside her transported her away from her father’s death, from her life as a nun, into some unknown firmament where only herself and the man existed—nothing but the movement, the touch, the electric sensation. It grew and grew between her legs, extending into her belly and chest, down her legs and along her arms. She moved and bucked beneath him and, in this unknown place, this beautiful, empty firmament where they frolicked alone, she took her hand off her mouth and screamed her ecstasy to the Heavens.
After the man was gone—she still didn’t know who he was but felt as though she’d touched a piece of Heaven—she lay naked on the bed, the sweat of their coupling cooling on her skin. She couldn’t cry anymore, she couldn’t smile, couldn’t move. She luxuriated in the feeling between her legs, in her chest, permeating her body, touching her soul. Time melted into a blur she would never be able to fully recall. Later, she’d have a vague recollection of his electric touch exciting every nerve in her body.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard the sounds of insistent knocking, muffled voices calling out. In her state, Sister Agnes didn’t hear what the voices said, couldn’t answer, truthfully didn’t care. The night air enveloped her as she lay listening to the sounds, frustration mounting in her that they should distract her from the lingering pleasure of the man.
Her hand crept across the smooth skin of her flat belly moving down, down until her fingers found the wetness between her legs, the heady mixture of her pleasure and his seed, and the feeling of her own touch drove the frustration and distraction from her mind. Somewhere far, far away, the door to her room burst open and three people spilled in. She saw them as if watching on television, the three sisters finding her lying on her bed: sweaty, spent and touching herself. They rushed to her side, speaking to her in concerned tones which she fought against taking her away from her place of pleasure.
As the sisters spoke to her, asked ‘are you all right’ and ‘what happened’, Sister Agnes—named for the patron saint of chastity—drifted off to sleep and dreamed about a child of Heaven.
Bruce Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost
Chapter Twenty-Two
The craggy horizon drew no closer but the ground upon which Poe strode changed. It faded from red-orange to gray, then brown. Stunted shrubs and trees like over-sized bonsais popped up sporadically, their frequency increasing as she went. She never saw them in the distance but rather they seemed to spring out of the ground on her approach.
She did her best to ignore the pain in her leg, now dulled to a nagging ache, concentrating instead on surveying the area around her, watching the ground for footprints to show her the passing of a teenage boy. At first, she found no signs of anything passing. After a while, she came upon a set of footprints and, although she possessed no tracking skills, chose to follow them. She soon lost them among other tracks which seemed to appear out of nowhere, both human and otherwise, until enough prints covered the ground she thought she might be tracking Trevor along a parade route.
Wearily and losing faith, she pressed on.
Where are you, Trevor?
A few paces ahead she saw a tree which wasn’t there before. It grew a few feet toward the chaotic sky, hooked to the left a few feet before bending skyward again. It stood taller than the others she’d seen, its trunk thicker; big enough to pass for an earthbound tree. She limped over to it, leaned on it to test its strength then, finding it solid, sat in the crook. It bounced under her weight, swayed as she settled in, but held her one-hundred-and-two pound frame without bending.
She sat staring at her feet, shoulders slumped forward, her determination waned. Hell was too big a place to find one person with no direction, help or idea of where to look.
Needle, meet haystack.
The corner of her mouth twitched at the thought which sounded so much like one of Icarus’ sarcastic clichés but, given the circumstances, she didn’t allow herself to smile. And the thought of her charge made the shadow of a smile disappear quickly.
What would Icarus think if he knew I brought Trevor here? What would he think if he knew I lost him?
She leaned forward, propped her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Too late to have those thoughts now, she should have considered them before they ever came here, but she’d been blinded by Michael’s words.
‘There have been rumors about you, Poe. There has been some question about your loyalties.’
Spoken by anyone, the words would have stung, but all the more so from Michael, the archangel, the hand of God, her savior. As soon as they left his lips, nothing else in the world mattered but proving herself to him, showing herself worthy of the gift he’d given her four decades ago. Now, sitting on a crooked tree in Hell, she knew she’d let Michael or anyone else think anything they wanted about her if it meant Trevor’s safety.
The desiccated leaves rustled in the tree above Poe and she removed her face from her hands. She felt no wind to move the sparse leaves, the earth itself hadn’t shaken, yet the sound came again. The guardian angel looked up to see a raven perched on the highest branch. She sat up straight.
“Where did you come from?”
Her muscles tensed and pain from the gash in her leg shot up to her hip. On earth, the question would have been rhetorical, but in Hell, the possibility existed anything might respond...or attack.
The raven fluttered its wings and stared at Poe. Black flesh showed through its patchy feathers in some spots; a divot in its head held the place where an eye should have been. Its pointed beak opened and closed once with a click, then opened again and it spoke.
“Caw.”
Poe shook her head and allowed the corner of her mouth to curve up a fraction of an inch.
“So you are only a raven.”
The bird flapped its wings again, bouncing the branch on which it perched, held them out to the sides for balance as it leaned forward stretching out its neck.
“What are you doing, silly bird?”
Poe’s mood lightened with the bird here despite its motley appearance. Being in the presence of something else seemingly normal and alive, especially something not appearing to want her dead, made her feel so much less alone.
“Crawk!”
The raven drew its head back and extended it again, then did it a third time before Poe realized the bird meant the gesture as a way of pointing. A sliver of dread forced itself into her mood as she turned her head slowly.
Ten yards away, directly in front of her stood a decrepit shack. She blinked, shook her head, but the broken-down building—empty air seconds before—remained.
“What the...?”
Poe stood and took a step toward it, distrusting her sight. The brok
en-down wood building didn’t waver or disappear. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. It remained.
“Caw,” the raven croaked, startling her.
Poe looked back over her shoulder but the bird was gone. She searched the dark sky and saw no sign of the bird, no movement, no flapping wings silhouetted against the clouds.
She looked back at the shack.
Some of its boards canted at odd angles creating spaces wide enough to peer through into the interior. The door hung on one hinge; hastily nailed boards mostly covered the single, broken window. Improbably for a structure residing in Hell, green moss sprouted upon its roof.
Poe padded tentatively across the brown earth separating her from the small building. With each step closer, she felt she should recognize the place, though the reason eluded her. It felt like a place she might have seen in a dream a long time ago, a dream forgotten as others replaced it.
She crept to the window and peeked between the boards: empty. Nothing sat on the dirt floor, nothing leaned against the rotting walls, nothing hung from the splintered overhead beams. Empty, yet the sense of dread the raven’s prompting brought blossomed in her thoughts.
Her feet took her to the door though she didn’t ask them to. Her hand reached out for the rusted latch though she didn’t want it to. The one hinge creaked as her arm pulled the door open though she pleaded in her head for it not to.
In the middle of the single room stood a woman with long, black hair, pale skin and a silver stud gleaming between her bottom lip and her chin.
“Hello, Poe.”
Piper.
†‡†
Trevor couldn’t put his finger on the aroma in the room—there were too many mingling smells to identify any one of them individually, as if he’d been left in a kitchen cooking many foods, with the ingredients list including things like sulfur and roses. After a while, it began to burn the inside of Trevor’s nostrils and he covered his nose to alleviate the unpleasant feeling.
Rich tapestries covered the walls of the opulent room, though they pictured scenes he’d rather not see—torture and death, souls writhing in excruciating pain. Antique furniture, ornately carved and decorated, sat around the room. He knew nothing about such things but even he realized these kinds of furnishings would make the old English buggers on The Antiques Roadshow salivate.
He got up off the couch and padded across the thick carpet, moving furtively as he searched behind three sofas, under a huge grand piano, in the space under a massive desk with a roll top. No one else inhabited the room and he found no method of exit.
“Shit.”
The trip getting here was a blur. He remembered turning around and seeing Azrael; he remembered feeling fear at the sight of the banished archangel but exactly how he got here, or how long it took, he didn’t know. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in Azrael’s presence and he didn’t remember much of the first visit—the angel of death seemed to have that effect on him.
Maybe not such a bad thing.
Trevor moved to a blank space of wall: no pictures, no tapestry, just dark wood paneling taken from someone’s nineteen-sixties rec room. He examined it closely, drew his fingers along the ridges where one sheet met the next, looking for but not expecting to find some hidden egress, the empty feeling in his gut growing as he went.
If I got in, there has to be a way out.
He moved to the next seam, then the next until the empty wall ran out and he stood in front of one of the tapestries.
There might be a door behind it.
He raised his hand, intending to grasp the tapestry and pull it aside, either gain his escape or prove himself a captive to stay, but the scene elaborately embroidered in dark colored thread across the curtain’s surface caught his attention. It showed a long side-view of a cliff, a black winged beast pushed over it by a mob of beings who all looked the same, each of them bound to the next by a length of silver thread.
Trevor squinted and leaned closer.
“Abaddon.”
Another figure knelt on the ground behind the group plummeting over the edge: a woman, petite, her hair sewn of yellow thread. Trevor stared at the depiction and the tiny figure seemed to turn its head and look at him. He recognized her instantly.
“Poe!”
He reached his hand out to touch the figure but, a fraction of an inch away from his fingers brushing the velvety cloth, a voice broke the silence, startling him.
“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.”
The voice sounded more like multiple voices with a touch of discordant undertones ringing beneath the surface. The simple words held a tone of command and expectation which made him stop.
The depiction of Poe looked away, hung her head. Trevor pivoted toward the voice.
“Who are you?”
The boy looked a few years younger than Trevor, perhaps eleven or twelve years old. He smiled, the expression transforming his face into a thing of beauty despite a smear of dirt across his left cheek, the tousle of unkempt hair perched atop his head. The boy’s face mesmerized Trevor, distracted him from seeking an answer to the question he’d asked.
“You need not be afraid, son of Icarus. I won’t hurt you.”
Without seeming to move, he was at Trevor’s side, hand clutching the teen’s. Trevor’s mind told him to move away but his heart held his legs in check. The boy walked him toward one of the couches.
“Where’s Azrael? He brought me here.”
“He had things to do. You and I will be spending some time together instead.”
Trevor sat on the sofa while the boy remained standing. His eyes held on Trevor’s like they looked right into him, saw more than hair and flesh and muscle beneath. It made the teen squirm, but he didn’t look away.
I shouldn’t be afraid. He’s younger than me, and smaller.
Trevor cleared his throat.
“What’s your name?”
“I have many names,” the boy said still smiling, though now it held the quality of a willing secret, happy to be kept. “You can’t pronounce most of them.”
“Why am I here?”
“Your father’s looking for you, you know.”
Trevor nodded. “Is he alright?”
“For now. Many trials await him.”
He wanted to be concerned but the boy’s voice flowed through his brain like syrup, slowing its machinations, making his head feel tired though his body felt awake and alive, practically vibrated in the boy’s presence.
“Will he be okay?”
“We shall see,” the boy said, the smile clinging tenaciously to his lips. “We shall see.”
†‡†
Behind Poe, the door clacked shut against the askance frame, but she ignored it as she gazed into Piper’s face. The woman was beautiful, no doubt about it; her beauty made Poe feel embarrassed by her own plainness, a feeling which dogged her through her lives, both mortal and angel. An ingredient in her corporeal demise.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am,” Piper responded, smiling.
“I know your name. I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m like you, Poe. Only better.”
Poe’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think you are what you seem.”
Piper threw her head back and barked a short, sharp laugh. The sound made Poe jump.
“Who are you to accuse me of not being what I seem? Does anyone know the truth of your past?”
“I--”
“Have you ever told Icarus?”
“I wanted--”
Piper laughed again, interrupting her, and the feeling of inadequacy and desperation she’d been fleeing for so many years took a big bite and held on. Her head drooped until her chin brushed the top of her chest. She stared down at her feet smudged with dirt and whispered: “I wanted to.”
“Oh, poor thing. Of course you did.”
Poe didn’t know if she’d heard sarcastic tones in Piper’s words or if she added them in her head. When she loo
ked up, the supposed-angel stood immediately in front of her, her smile softened from border-line maniacal to sort-of-reassuring.
“Come, someone wants to see you.”
She took Poe by the elbow and an electric shock quivered the muscle of the guardian angel’s upper arm, not painful but not pleasant, like a bare wire brushed her bicep. The sensation remained with Piper’s touch.
They moved toward the door, Piper having to prompt Poe on.
“Don’t worry, muffin.”
“Who wants to see me?”
“An old friend.”
Piper pushed the door open and, instead of opening onto the bleak landscape of bare dirt and gnarled trees she’d left, Poe saw Arbutus trees and oaks. The roofs of houses showed through their branches, close enough to walk to but not so close the residents of those houses could hear.
She’d been here before, a long time ago. Seeing the shed out of context set against the backdrop of Hell’s desolation had camouflaged the truth, but now that she saw it back where it belonged, in the empty lot behind the Baxters’ house, she remembered it. She remembered everything she’d tried so hard to forget.
Piper’s hand fell away from her arm and Poe looked at the shed. It appeared the same as it did more than four decades ago, right down to the weeds growing out of control around the base of its walls, the blackened boards to the left of the door where some teenager once attempted to burn it down.
Poe’s mouth fell open, goose bumps prickled her flesh as she peered upon the place where she’d been raped. If she’d harbored any doubt before that she was in Hell, it disappeared.
Now she was in her own Hell.
Bruce Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost
Chapter Twenty-Three
My mother’s smile didn’t falter as I stood and looked down into her eyes for the first time in my life, but neither did the sadness concealed behind them. My mind whirled. I’d never expected to be in this situation, so I never planned what to say. When someone dies the moment you’re born, it’s normally a waste of time thinking about the conversation you’ll have when you meet them.
