Dark Rising

by Monica McGurk

  I made a face behind his back and grumbled in my seat, drumming my fingers in an impatient rhythm against the tabletop. When nobody emerged from the front after several minutes, I gave up and began rummaging in my ratty bag, looking for something to do.

  The first thing my hand pulled out of the depths of the backpack was the book about bronze doors that the antiquarian forced us to buy. I looked at the window and confirmed there was, indeed, nothing to see from this altitude. Istanbul was gone. I felt a stab of guilt at having left behind my little stray. But Enoch and Michael insisted I couldn’t bring a dog with us to Ireland, so we left him—and a big wad of cash—with a stranger at the airport who promised to take care of him.

  I realized I’d not even given him a name and felt somehow that I’d let him down.

  Doubtful I’d find anything of interest, I cracked open my book, the stiff spine resisting my intrusion until it gave with a slight pop, allowing me to flip through its untouched, creamy pages until I found the table of contents.

  I ran my finger up from the bottom of the page, looking at the title of each chapter. Casting methods from the Middle Ages to Renaissance. Byzantine Manufacture and Influence. The Advent of Bronze Doors. Church doors and the Theme of the Gates of Heaven.

  I stopped. The Gates of Heaven. I thought of the references to Heaven’s Gate in the Prophecy. Coincidence?

  Hurriedly, I flipped to the chapter and began reading, my eyes flying over the paragraphs, trying to absorb it all at once.

  In early church history, the doors of the church were seen both literally and figuratively as the entryway to eternal life … The image of the door as the gateway to the fountain of life and the summit of Heaven dates to as early as the year 1000 … Inscriptions carved above and around the doors reinforced this imagination of the church doors as a threshold to Heaven. They warned sinners not to attempt to enter unrepentant, while at the same time reminding sinners that through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ—who declared himself the Gateway into eternal life—salvation could be theirs.

  I flipped deeper into the chapter. Dozens of images of stern, stone-faced churches presented themselves to me. Translations of the doorway inscriptions surrounded each photo:

  This is the gate of the Lord, which is a church founded in honor of Saint Mary … How terrible is this place! This is no other but the house of God and the gate of Heaven.

  Each door was surrounded by incredible sculptures—Images of the Virgin Mary, a corona radiating around her head as she blessed those invoking her name. Monsters, gargoyles, and devils taunting the damned. Rows of saints, eyes rolling in agony or ecstasy as they contemplated their sacrifice and the promise of Heaven. Always above them sat a triumphant Christ, seated in Heaven and crowned in glory. The themes were the same, page after page of doorways, always equating Christ himself with the gateway to Heaven and forgiveness.

  Then one photo caught my eye. It, too, showed a triumphant Christ, crowned in Heaven, but it was different than the others. In this one, Jesus was seated near an angel bearing a shield. The angel was positioned side-by-side with Christ at the apex of the door, elevated above all other saints and even the Virgin Mary.

  I read the translation: You who are passing through, you who are coming to weep for your sins, pass through me, since I am the gate of life. I am the gate of life.

  I flipped to the Italianate chapter and began reading. Taken as a whole, one can discern four major themes of bronze church doors in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, all centered around achieving Heaven … Four major pathways are highlighted by these doors’ designs, each one offering the faithful a separate route to forgiveness and, therefore, entry through the Gates of Heaven to receive eternal life. These paths are, in turn, new birth in Christ through baptism (the primary route focused upon by most artisans), the intercession of the Virgin Mary and saints, the example of Popes and Bishops, and, finally, the guidance of the Archangel Michael.

  I reread the last sentence, incredulous. Here, in print, was a reference linking Michael directly to the Gates of Heaven. Hands shaking, I turned to the index, feverishly looking for mentions of Michael in doors. It was a short list.

  The first church I turned to was Monte Sant’Angelo in Italy. I pored over the photos of the doors dedicated to Michael. They were exquisite, divided into more than twenty panels, all depicting angel-themed events from the Old and New Testament. It was the right-hand door that fascinated me. It focused on Michael’s actions after Christ’s birth, including various local miracles attributed to him. The text underscored: The doors in Monte Sant’Angelo open the sanctuary to penitents and pilgrims, symbolically offering up the guidance and example of the Archangel as the path to Heaven.

  I turned to the next church listed—Hildesheim, the Church of Saint Michael in Germany. I gasped, looking at the close-up photos of each panel in the doors. They seemed alive, in motion, the tension in each scene leaping off the page. They moved first through the book of Genesis—I saw the Creation of Eve, her introduction to Adam. More ominously, brought to life and captured in bronze, was the rejected sacrifice of Cain and his murder of his brother, Abel.

  My breath caught in my throat. Michael’s association with Cain and Abel was laid out for all to see, captured forever in the doorways of Hildesheim. A thought, still vague, began to form in the back of my mind.

  I shoved the book aside and reached for the Bible I’d taken from the motel in Vegas. I knew the verse; I had memorized it as a child and heard it countless times in sermons. But I needed to see it for myself.

  I pressed the tissue-thin pages of the book flat and began to read the words attributed to Jesus.

  I am the Gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.

  “I am the Gate.” Michael’s voice, reading over my shoulder, made me jump.

  He swung around the table and sat opposite me, lifting the books from my hands.

  “You know, people debated that word, gate, for years. They always thought gate meant something to keep the bad things—wolves, thieves—out. But Jesus clearly spoke of sheep going in and out. His allegory of the Good Shepherd was meant to help his followers understand that through him, humans could overcome the Fall represented by original sin and ascend into Heaven, regaining God’s presence. He took their human form, so he could sacrifice himself for their sins and give them a second chance. He was a gate for coming in.”

  I sat there, looking at him, unable to speak as I began to understand what all this meant. But Michael didn’t notice my stunned silence. Instead, he began flipping through the Bible.

  “Hey, I bet there’s a book you don’t know. See if you recognize this one:

  I was asleep, but my heart was awake. It is the voice of my beloved who knocks:

  Open to me, my sister, my love,

  My dove, my undefiled;

  For my head is filled with dew, and my hair with the dampness of the night.”

  I looked at him, horrified, as he recited the words from Song of Songs. I clasped my hand over my mouth, pushing myself away from the table and stumbling down the aisle, dragging my backpack with me. But there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide from the ugly truth. Nowhere but the bathroom.

  I nearly broke down the door, fumbling to get in. Once inside, I locked the door and leaned against it, trying to block out what I knew.

  The disconnected thoughts came rushing at me.

  The jealousy of the angels. Michael’s name and all its meanings, including the most important one, the one we’d mistaken for a question: Who is like God? The confusion expressed by humans over his true identity. The chapel in the Pantocrator, elevating him to equal status with Mary and Jesus and practically calling him a martyr. The churches and the gates, including gates that elevated Michael as a path to Heaven. The strange distinction he had among all the angels.

  It was all there, the whole time. I began to shake.

  “Hope? Hope, what is it? Are you okay in there?”
He was shouting at me through the flimsy bathroom door.

  I took deep breaths, trying to calm myself.

  “Hope?” Michael’s voice was insistent as he pounded on the door, making it shake. “Hope! I’m coming in there.”

  “No!” I cried. “No,” I repeated, more steadily this time. Michael couldn’t see me like this. “I’m just feeling airsick. I don’t need you to come in.” I forced a laugh, trying to sound light-hearted. “See? I’m feeling better already. I just need a little time. And you’re wrong,” I asserted, my voice trembling as I tried to distract him. “I know how your verse continues.”

  I closed my eyes and recited the words from memory. At first all I could manage was a hoarse whisper, but my voice lifted with the rhythm of the poetry:

  “My beloved thrust his hand in through the latch opening.

  My heart pounded for him.

  I rose up to open for my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh,

  My fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the lock.

  I opened to my beloved; but my beloved left; and had gone away.”

  Tears were streaming down my face. Even the verse he had chosen—even it told me what I didn’t want to know, for it mentioned the unlocking of a gate, and myrrh. Myrrh, to anoint the dead.

  I huddled on the floor, crying silently, until I heard Michael move away.

  What’s all the drama? Henri demanded.

  I didn’t respond.

  Are you mooning over him again? Is that what this is all about?

  I ignored Henri, knowing that if he kept to form he’d give up and go away, leaving me to my own thoughts. Get out of my head. Get out of my head. Get out of my head, I repeated to myself, over and over as I rocked back and forth inside the tiny bathroom.

  I couldn’t share this pain. It was too fresh.

  The low hum of the engines was the only sound. Even my own gasping breaths abated, leaving me to sit, spent and squashed up against the door.

  I knew I’d eventually have to come out of the bathroom. I heaved myself up off the floor and splashed the lukewarm water from the tap onto my face, patting it down with a thin cloth. I stared at myself in the mirror. Even in the dim light, my eyes looked swollen. I picked up my bag and poked my head out to make sure Michael was back in the cockpit. Silently, I stole back to my seat, where I found Michael had left my Bible.

  Fingers shaking, I picked it up and turned back to the verse. Again, I didn’t really need to read it; I already knew what it said. But I wanted to see it there, on the page, stark and cold as the silent churches of Istanbul.

  I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

  I placed the book facedown on the table and dug in my bag, until my fingers felt the scrap of paper and drew it out. It was wrinkled and worn. I smoothed it out on the table, hoping against hope that the words of the Prophecy had somehow changed. But they were just as I remembered them:

  With this Key, the Bearer shall come and the Gate shall open, spilling out Heaven’s glory, and letting those desirous amongst you to ascend once more.

  I started crying again.

  Michael is the Gate. He is marked for sacrifice, his death the way the Fallen Angels will regain Heaven—but through redemption, not war.

  Michael is the Gate. And he doesn’t know it.

  seven

  IRELAND

  We’d been in Ireland for three days. For three days, the winds howled and the rain lashed the streets. For three days, we found the tourist ferries shuttered, the visitor center practically deserted. For three days, we haunted it anyway, desperate to find a way to the pile of rock that sometimes, when the rain lifted, would come into view a few miles off the coast.

  For three days, I refused to speak to Michael—no more than a few words at a time—because I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t possibly bring myself to utter the only thing that mattered.

  For three days, I cried myself to sleep.

  We were hollowed out, all three of us—jittery, tired, and afraid of what was coming next—be it a trafficker, a Fallen Angel, or simply what had been destined. With nothing else to do, we paced among the displays of the visitor’s center, numbly taking in brochures of the island’s flora and fauna we could not see, frustrated again by the multiple exhibits that were closed for repairs or otherwise inoperable. I moved mechanically, shoving my desperation deep inside, forcing my mind to fill with meaningless trivia, watchful and alert that I not give away anything, not even—or maybe especially—to Henri.

  All the while, through the clouds of mist, the Skellig taunted us, daring us to come.

  “There’s got to be a way out there,” Enoch muttered, pulling at the collar of his too-tight fisherman’s sweater. He paced noisily around the room, brandishing his cane as if he might kill someone with it. “It’s not right, this weather. Not this time of year.”

  Even Enoch feels it, I thought to myself as I turned to a display on seals. Even he can sense something is wrong.

  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that sitting in this dump is a waste of time.

  I smiled wistfully. “Good old Henri,” I whispered. “Always there to lift my spirits.”

  “I’m going to talk to the lady in the pub,” Michael announced, uncoiling his lithe body from the corner in which he’d been slumped for most of the afternoon. “There’s got to be someone who’s not afraid to take us out there.”

  “It’s not fear, lad, its common sense,” the curator tutted at him from her chair against the wall, never bothering to look up from her knitting. “Storms like this, you won’t even get past the rocks outside the bay. Waves have been known to reach out of the sea like bony fingers of witches grasping for your life, rising all the way to the top of the Skellig in a fury of icy water and spray before they dash themselves out on the rocks. Broke the windows out of the lighthouse, they did. T’was years ago, true, but we all remember that, now.”

  She tucked her needles into the ball of yarn in her lap and folded her work away neatly. Rising up from her seat, she smoothed her prim knit suit with her hand and peered over her reading glasses to skewer Michael with a stern look.

  “Only a fool would be takin’ you out in weather like this. A fool or a drunk. Wouldn’t be doing you any favors if he did.” With that, she marched out of the room, her unfinished handiwork tucked under her arm.

  “That didn’t sound very promising,” Michael muttered. “She’s probably warned off the whole town not to take us by now.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Enoch said. His eyes seemed to crinkle into a smile behind the reflection of his sunglasses. “There must be a fool, or a drunk, or maybe both, since she was so ready to mention it. Perhaps I can sweet-talk a name out of her.”

  Michael arched a brow. “Sweet-talk her? You?”

  Enoch grinned, forcing himself to take on a sprightly air that didn’t quite match the grayness of the day. “Someone’s got to do it. Besides, she reminds me of my favorite wife. You go to the pub, and I’ll work on her. A spot of tea might make her a little friendlier.”

  Michael shrugged and watched with wry amusement while Enoch sauntered awkwardly after the curator, a whistle on his lips, his cane almost an afterthought, leaving us to wonder just how many wives he’d had when he was human.

  “Are you coming with me, then?” Michael asked so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him. I looked up to see him staring at me intently, his icy eyes a cipher. The hot sting of embarrassment crept up my neck, snaking its telltale pink stain across my face. I turned my back to Michael, leaning against the glass case. It was cool and smooth underneath my cheek.

  “No, I think I’ll stay here,” I answered, refusing to look at him.

  “And do what?” he asked, irritated.

  I kept st
aring at the glass steadfastly, my eyes drifting down the case to the video where jellyfish and anemones danced in the current, softly out of focus.

  “Maybe the projector will be fixed, and I can watch the film in the auditorium. The one about the history of the monastery.”

  “They said it’s been broken for weeks. It won’t be fixed today.” He’d moved up behind me. He was leaning against the wall, his arm stretched above me, his body so close I could feel his heat radiating and enveloping me. I closed my eyes, breathing in his scent and letting myself imagine, for just a second, that we were in a sunny meadow instead of on this forbidding, wet stretch of seacoast.

  “Do you not want to go to the Skellig? Is this not the place after all?”

  I closed my eyes even tighter, listening to the thrumming in my body, the pull, like the tides, that was drawing me out to sea at the same time it was urging me to settle back into Michael’s arms.

  Instead, I just sighed.

  “No,” I conceded. “It’s where we need to go. I can feel it.”

  “Then I don’t understand. Hope,” he demanded, placing a firm hand on my shoulder and forcing me around to face him. When I kept my eyes fixed on the time-worn industrial carpet, he took my chin in his fingers and forced me to look at him. My body leapt at his touch while my heart sank. His eyes were hard, unforgiving.

  “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  I pushed his hand away. “I’ll come with you,” I said, stiffly, and made for the exit of the center. “We’d best go back to Portmagee.”

  The cold air stunned us both into silence. I kept a brisk pace, not waiting for Michael to catch up. I could feel his eyes boring a hole into the space between my shoulder blades. I could almost hear his mind calculating the ways he could force me to speak. I squared my shoulders and strode on, wincing as the wind chapped my face, focusing on the soft crunch of gravel under our feet, and trying to maintain the distance between us as we walked along the side of the road back to town.

  The sky was already dark as we approached the cozy village nestled against the coast. Her buildings formed a bright dash of primary color against the somber backdrop of shadowed emerald hills that rolled away from the water, lights twinkling against the storm. Boats huddled in the port, awaiting a better day. It was here that we were staying, and from here we would depart, if we could ever find someone to take us out to the Skellig.