The Emerald Tablet: Omnibus Edition

by JM HART

  “Hi son, what’s your name? What are you doing out here,” the older taller man asked.

  “Nothing much.”

  Tim, nodding as if he knew, said, “You must be interested in figuring out how the fire started?” He looked at Kevin who cleared his throat, and Tim got the message to keep his mouth shut.

  “Yeah, smart kid.” The old guy spoke with a strong accent. “Do you know how the fire started?” he asked, while the other man walked to stand by Kevin and Tim. “Is that your blue bike, son?”

  “Who wants to know?” Kevin asked.

  “Is that your bike?” the older man said to Tim.

  Kevin just walked over to his bike and climbed on casually; Tim mirrored Kevin’s movements.

  “What’s your name, son?” the younger guy asked. His biceps seemed to prevent him from being able to straighten his arms. He held them at an angle.

  “Why? Who wants to know?” Kevin asked.

  “You’re a rude little prick, aren’t you? Where do you live?” The old guy stepped forward.

  “Down the road,” Kevin said, rocking his front wheel back and forwards. Suddenly, coming up through the handlebars Kevin felt a low pulse, a soft hum and could smell sage and lemongrass. He had a metallic taste in his mouth and could hear a scrunching or a slow-tearing Velcro sound.

  “Don’t get smart, boy. I’ll ask you again — what’s your name?”

  “Look, we didn’t start no fires,” said Tim.

  Kevin frowned at Tim to keep quiet.

  “I didn’t ask you if you started them, and I don’t care.”

  Kevin’s sense of smell heightened and the aroma of dead animals turned his stomach. These men weren’t here to investigate the fires, he realized.

  “I think you know what we want. I think you both know,” he said, looking from one to the other, and then began to undo his buckle. The older guy looked at his partner.

  “Vremaya dlya distsipliny. What you think?”

  “What does that mean?” Tim asked.

  “It’s Russian; it means it’s time for a good whipping. It might jolt your memories.”

  “You can’t do that?” Tim said.

  Yes, they can, Kevin thought.

  “What’s your mother’s name?” he said to Kevin.

  That’s when Kevin started to feel his body changing, becoming lighter. He could feel every atom in his body become alive and all fear evaporated. He felt a strong sense of urgency and was certain of his movements, confident, buzzing, alive. He was again feeling like a solar battery soaking up the sun, feeling its rays energize him, pulsating through his being and he thought, the universe provides. Rippling liquid waves appeared behind the older man, suspended in mid-air over the embankment, growing wider and stretching. Kevin’s skin tingled. A window, instead of a wall, was opening, a tear in the atmosphere into the parallel world. Kevin felt the coolness of its vapors radiating towards him; his hair puffed out a little. “I know what you want,” Kevin said. The older guy had removed his belt and wrapped it around his fist. “See over there, where the burnt-out car is?” He pointed behind Tim, leading them away from the window.

  The oldest walked up and stuck his face in Kevin’s. “What is it that you think we want?”

  “You’re looking for how the fire started — right?” Kevin said, playing dumb. “Go check it out, over here.” Kevin pedaled over and behind the old car and said, “Come and see.” Tim followed Kevin’s lead and lapped the car.

  The older man reached out for Kevin and missed. He walked over to the burnt-out car, saying, “Get off the bikes!”

  Kevin snuck a sideways glance at Tim and nodded. Tim nodded in reply and they pushed down hard on the pedals and took off, riding straight off the edge of the embankment into the shimmering vapors and disappearing. Skidding to a stop and sliding the bike around to face the wall, Kevin saw the guy stumble on the edge of the embankment.

  “What the hell!” The youngest and closest of the two men gave chase. He halted at the edge of the river, nearly falling in.

  He looked surprised, as if expecting to see Kevin and Tim bogged in the water below.

  The older guy came up behind him and called out. “Stupid move, boys. I was told you had your dead mother’s brains.”

  Looking up and down and across the river, the fake fire investigators searched for Kevin and Tim.

  “How come they can’t see us, K?” Tim whispered.

  “Shh! Why do you always ask me everything? I don’t know!”

  Tim raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Because you usually do know.”

  “What the hell are those metallic things flying around their heads? Look, it’s trailing them like a veil of flies,” Kevin said.

  “I don’t know, a commercial for hay fever. What did they say about your mom?”

  “I don’t know! Stop asking me all these questions, and how do they know my mom? I think maybe they’ve been following us. Did you notice the car parked down the road from old man Pat’s?”

  “The black hummer with the scratches along its side. Yeah, I’ve seen it at school too. I thought it was that new guy’s dad’s. The one who started a year ago just after your nanna and pops — well, yeah, I’ve seen it around.”

  Kevin watched the men, who were in arm’s reach. He wanted to jump them. He was getting pissed off having to hide all the time. He stepped back into the vapor, it felt like silky satin. He calmed down. The feeling reminded him of the edging on Molly’s blanket and the fresh new clean-baby smell. His body relaxed and he felt neurons firing in his head, the infinite sparks of life being shared by the embryonic window; nourishing effervescence of light raced through his body, sparks of colors ignited around him, flaring brightly. Tim pulled him back just before he stepped out and into the older guy. He was bigger than any bully at school.

  He looks like a gym junkie, K, not a good idea. They probably spot each other when they aren’t chasing kids, Tim thought to him.

  Kevin was feeling fearless within his parallel world. Hearing Tim’s thoughts again, they high-fived and smiled at each other. They kept watching to see if the men sensed their presence.

  The shorter, younger man was wearing a bulky smartwatch and he was sweating like a turkey on Christmas day. Kevin was focused on wanting to know how they knew his mom and why they thought she was dead. There was so much about her he didn’t know. She was the hardest person to read. She had said to his dad that it was her “fault”, because she had kept her family name. Maybe, just maybe they had killed nanna, thinking she was Mom. But why?

  “They’re not here,” the old guy said. “Shit!” He jumped down the embankment into the river and walked across, following Kevin and Tim’s tracks, heading downstream. A crow on the other side cawed and a kookaburra sitting on a burnt limb laughed raucously. The younger guy picked up a rock and threw it high. It missed the bird and ricocheted off the side of a tree just missing his own head. He turned around and threaded his belt through the loops of his pants. He looked back to where the boys went airborne.

  “Where did they go? That has to be her kid. Best to call it in.”

  The short man picked up the squeaking radio to mutter a few words in another language and then hung it off his belt.

  “Let’s get out of here and get some extra hands.”

  “Yeah, piss off,” Tim said. Gym junkie stopped and looked back across the river right at Tim. Tim froze, his eyes widening — his eyebrows raised and he held his breath. The man turned away. Kevin watched Tim’s shoulders drop as he let out a sigh of relief.

  “They can’t see us, Tim. It’s just a coincidence.”

  “There is no such thing as coincidence. My mom says it’s just God remaining anonymous.”

  “No way. My nanna said that too!”

  *

  Shaun backed away from the track. He saw the gorillas chasing Kevin and Tim over the embankment and saw them and their bikes disappearing into thin air. The men were heading back in his direction. Shaun ducked behind a charc
oal tree waiting for them to pass. He followed the goons to the entrance of the track where a black hummer was parked. They sat talking with the windows down. A hungry, stray German Shepherd, sniffing around for scraps, leapt up and rested its big front paws on the open window. The driver, the tall guy, pulled away from the drooling, panting dog. The other guy freaked out and quickly extended his arm that held a gun with a silencer, and fired. The dog dropped. The driver jumped out of the car, screaming.

  “What the hell? It’s all over me. You stupid idiot!” He walked around to the back of the car and popped the boot. He wiped himself down with a greasy rag.

  “Sorry, boss. It had that look …” He backed away from the bigger dude. “It had that rabies look, like the animals in the labs, the infected ones. Hey, man, it was seriously fucked-up shit.”

  “I should shoot you dead! But I can’t be bothered cleaning up your sorry ass.”

  “Why do you reckon we haven’t caught this bug? Shit, we’ve had enough exposure.”

  “Who said we’re not infected?”

  Shaun watched them get back in the car. Once the car took off he ran back to the river looking for Kevin and his sidekick, to see if they had returned from wherever they had gone. He walked across the river to where they had disappeared and waited. His head hurt badly and daylight was fading. He eventually passed out from the pain and dehydration and did not stir even as the moon sank and the sun rose.

  12

  Astral travel: Sophia. Scotland.

  Morning light streamed into the cabin, settling across Sophia’s bed. She woke with the warmth and the brightness of the sun on her face. She opened her eyes and a bird hopped across the skylight and flew into the sky. Sophia rolled over in her sleeping bag. Father McDonald wasn’t in bed. She unzipped her sleeping bag, padded across the room to her backpack. She emptied the contents onto her bed, separating the clean from the dirty clothes. Sophia dressed in her second new pair of jeans before she stuffed the dirty items back into the backpack and carried it downstairs for washing. She looked around the cabin. Father McDonald wasn’t on the couch, in the kitchen, or the bathroom. She dropped the bag on the floor by the bathroom and stepped towards the open door and into a patch of streaming sunlight. Instantly, she felt the warmth under her feet rise up into her body. She stopped reaching for the door handle, closed her eyes and breathed in the light.

  The door squeaked as she stepped outside. Mindful of the noise, she let it go softly and tiptoed across the porch. At the end of the porch on a wooden bench next to a box of kindling Father McDonald sat sleeping. Sophia picked up his fallen Bible, placed it neatly next to him and went back inside. She busied herself in the kitchen making breakfast: a can of corned beef and powdered eggs. The external and internal silence felt great. Nobody’s voice in her head but her own; nobody’s thoughts or fears coursed through her space. There was no one except her and Father McDonald. Thank you, God, for the calmness, the lull in my mind, she thought. Sophia looked beyond the window, into the blue sky, and said, “How you manage hearing the thoughts and prayers of every man, woman and child, I can never begin to imagine. But that’s what makes you God. Give my family a big hug with your endless loving mercy. I’m sorry for not wanting to be me; it was just hard to find me, to separate from others. Thank you for giving us a place to rest.” She stood on tiptoe reaching for the plates in the cupboard high above the sink.

  The smell of the food wafted out the kitchen window, waking Father McDonald. “Breakfast,” Sophia said, holding two plates. She watched as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, cleared his throat and slowly unfolded his stiffened joints to heave himself off the bench. He stood stretching, looking out into the distance. Sophia followed his gaze. Between the trees, she could see rolling hills, and suddenly had the impression they had to walk across those hills into England.

  “It’s a beautiful morning. God bless you.”

  Sophia sat on the bench placing the two plates beside her. Father McDonald cast his face to the sky. “God send your angels that govern this day to guide the souls of this earth, to seek within their hearts the door to your eternal light. Give them the strength to battle against the virus and fight for their spirit. Many souls in the past few years have been lost to your enemy. I pray you help keep Sophia safe so she may fulfil her purpose. Help us to walk the path of light. Thank you for restoring our soul with the creation of this glorious day. Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  Sophia saw the white deer walk into the clearing with the sun shining brightly behind it. “Good morning to you, too,” she said and Father McDonald saluted the deer with his Bible in hand.

  *

  The water lapped around her bare feet. She waited for the tug on her line, for the fish to bite. Fresh water from the mountains flowed down into the river, creating the sound of gentle splashing over rocks. It was blissful. Occasionally an eagle cried above, music to Sophia’s ears. From time to time she jerked the fishing line. The hook sported a piece of stale bread. She laughed, as the tiny fish seemed to prefer nibbling on her toes. Two weeks had passed and every day was bright and sunny. Grey clouds circled at night and lightning lit the distant horizon, but every day was beautiful.

  Sophia tied her reel to a rock and pressed it into the ground so she didn’t need to hold it. She saw the white deer drinking at the water’s edge across the lake. She watched until it went back into the woods. Sophia sat next to the rock and reel and daydreamed of living a hot summer’s day in a small town in an average house on a street full of kids.

  The town generator blew. There were no fans or air conditioning. Screen doors slammed as children rushed onto the streets heading for the lake. She imagined jumping on a pushbike of her very own and riding where the sun would be so hot the tyres nearly stick to the tar and sweat would be dripping from her armpits. A place where there was a lake, with people of all ages camping on top of rocks that overhung the fresh crystal-clear water, shaded by willow trees.

  “Pull up ya shorts, Dave,” one of the women would yell.

  She imagined turning away, shocked at the unclad nannas with the wobbly arms. Sophia smiled to herself, thinking how her friend Gemma might be inclined to stand high up on the edge of the cliff where other kids were throwing themselves into the water, laughing and calling down to Sophia, encouraging her to climb up onto the overhanging rock to join in on the fun. Sophia could see herself huffing and puffing, her nostrils burning with each breath, as she reached her friend. Flies would buzz loudly around her head; she might frantically wave one away as it tried to settle onto the side of her mouth, swatting at it and accidentally slapping herself in the face. Gemma would be in stitches of laughter to Sophia’s great delight.

  “Jump, I dare you,” Gemma would say.

  “No, you go first.”

  Sophia started to feel her pale skin turning lobster red. Not caring how high up it was, yearning to be in the cool crystal-clear water below, she scanned the water for an empty patch, nearly impossible with most of the town out swimming. Finally, she finds a spot, bends her knees, throws her arms back and dives over the edge. For a moment, she would be free. Splashing into the silky ripples of the river, submerging into silence, Sophia would feel alive, refreshed, and cool, as if pulled just in time from the wicked witch’s oven. She continued to daydream, imagining she was floating endlessly under the water, watching big and small fish darting around her legs. Her lungs would eventually push against her ribs, craving oxygen. She wished she could gulp water and extract oxygen just like the fish. Holding her nose, closing her eyes, and seeing her heartbeat getting slower, until giving in and pushing off the bottom of the lake, swimming up through the sun’s rays and breaking the surface with her ears popping, her lungs drinking up the air, and nothing would have changed: the sky is still blue, the women would still sit chatting at the river’s edge and kids laugh and jump off the rocks. Floating on her back, until she gazed upon a blanket of stars.

  In the distance, Father McDonald was c
alling, pulling her back into reality, back to the cabin by the lake, back to sitting by the rock and fishing line.

  “Sophia! Sophia, you alright? Dear God, let her be okay.”

  Hearing the panic in his voice, she yelled back, “Sorry, sorry. I was just daydreaming.” She lifted her rock and gave the line a tug and smiled at the fading image. One day, she thought, I will live on a street with other children in a regular house and have a normal teenage life.

  Sophia looked over her shoulder and saw Father McDonald walking down the embankment.

  “What are you smiling about? I am so happy to see you smiling. It lights up your face so beautifully,” he said, carefully lowering himself to sit beside her.

  “Oh, nothing really. Daydream, that’s all,” she said and tugged on the line again. “The fish aren’t biting today. Not the bread, although they nibble on my toes a lot. It tickles.”

  “We have some rabbit stew left over,” Father McDonald said. “I know it’s not your favorite but it’s better than going hungry, right?” Her appetite had improved since she had been up in the mountains. She had color in her cheeks.

  Sophia smiled at Father McDonald. “Rabbit stew will be good.” She felt calm. She had been working on controlling her communication with Casey over the past week. The more inner peace she felt the more she was able to stay in her own body while connecting to the universe, as if she was holding the front door open but not stepping over the threshold. The white deer would be pleased, she thought.

  Sophia liked the routine they had settled into. Together they would have breakfast; she would tidy while Father McDonald prayed. Afterwards, they would check the traps and fish. In the afternoon, they would both sit quietly on the porch. Father McDonald would pray while Sophia meditated and connected with the oneness of the universe, then Casey. Monday was laundry day. Friday night to Saturday night the world felt lighter. Sophia didn’t understand why, it just did. It felt like God’s eye was keeping a close watch and pushing the shadows of the dark creatures back. In a couple of weeks, if they could avoid getting the virus or killed by someone who had it, Sophia and Casey would finally meet. She was certain of it. He made her smile; he made her feel good about herself. Her heart skipped a beat when she felt him reach out for her.