Seraphim (3 page)

And then it struck her:
He’s not going to bury me. He’s going to–

Her body began to wrench and jerk; some kind of seizure.

She was dying.

Woeful baying rose from the woods. Not just from one dog, but many.

Her spasms quickly subsided; now just shimmers of their former selves.

The man was staring into the shadow-rich timber where, amid the howls, orange dots of light now cavorted like windswept embers. She thought he looked scared, and that gave her some joy. After a few moments, he resumed his picture-taking.

Another flash struck her eyes. She blinked incessantly, but the blinding impression did not fade this time. Instead, the lingering dot of white brilliance kept getting larger and larger until it consumed her. She felt as if she’d been encased in a warm batch of Jell-O, not quite hardened to its full consistency.

The pain now began to quickly bleed out of her, the molten liquid flowing through her body, down into her legs, then finally out the taps that were once her ankles. There was a popping sound, then the sensation of being…
rounded
, a converging of all sides of thought and memory. This new sensation gave her the ridiculous yet convincing notion that she’d been turned into a bubble.

Then the most soothing voice she had ever heard spoke inside her head, a voice so tender and feminine. And somehow so very familiar. “Forgive your tormentor, for he is seduced.”

“If Donut was here,” she said, her words as clear to her ears as if she’d spoken them out loud, “this creep’d be going home in a body bag.”

The voice had a pleasant, whispering laugh. “For just a little thing, you sound a lot like Charles Bronson. But don’t worry, his time will come.”

“Not soon enough!”

“Not soon enough,” the voice agreed, “as you are only his second.”

“He’s going to kill more people?”

“Yes, more little girls. But if I said that you will pave the road for his eventual destruction, would that make you happy?”

“Sure, but I’ll be dead, so how–”

“Come, Katherine,” said the voice. “Let’s leave the man to his work.”

*****

Eli lifted his angel from the ground, then dangled her over the edge.

Far below them, the sounds of wind and ocean melded to be almost indistinguishable from one another. And in the reaching light, the rocky shore below looked like a gaping, frothing maw of black fangs.

In the distant wood, those glowing eyes flared; bobbing and streaking, ricocheting off the shadows, their yowls rising like suns, competing with the wind and surf.

“Fly,” Eli shouted triumphantly, then released her.

And she did.

*****

Flying, flying…

Glitter and fireflies...

Fireflies sailing off of her, the release of each one a weighty burden gone, making her lighter, lighter...

Goodbye, Mommy…

Going were all the barbed and bitter pieces of pain and loss, the sweet petal smells of crayon marks, the multicolored sounds of silly laughter, plastic bracelets and Valentine candy, her friends and shiny bicycle spokes, carousel rides and Dairy Queen sundaes, dead skates washed upon the beach...

Going were the cameras and pictures and white feather wings.

All the good and bad men.

Memories glimpsed like vestiges of sunlight cast between the twirling blades of a windmill.

A pleasant wind rushing around her, through her. Eroding her.

Erasing.

All that was, all that had ever been, was molting off the orb, the bubble, falling away in a golden, sleeting rain; away into a vastness that was neither light nor dark, just unspeakably empty. She felt like a disintegrating comet plummeting through a strangely thick and infinite atmosphere, becoming even lighter now, lighter–

Someone beside her. Around her. Squeezing her?

Goodbye.

The bubble popped.

Now she was standing in warm, ankle-deep water.

The one beside her had no feet, no legs, but stood nonetheless. Just a faceless form. The one who had rescued her. Her protector.

“Where are we?” Katherine said.

“The Shallows. You’ve been here many times.”

“I have?” She could not remember.

“Many, many times.”

“Why?”

“Because you have.”

“Smells salty, like the ocean.”

“Tears.”

“Tears?”

“Every one that has been shed, and all that will ever be.”

Katherine reached down and wet her fingertips; drew them to her mouth.

“If you do, then you will
Know
,” said her protector.

She didn’t understand her sudden compulsion, but she had to
Know
. She brought her fingers to her lips and tasted the warm, briny water.

Instantly, she resumed her fall from the cliff. The wind grabbed her wings, pulling fiercely at the filament, ripping through her skin like talons. Horrible, searing pain. Her confusion was great. She had already forgotten.

Instinctively, she tried throwing out her arms, but her wrists were bound by rope. She screamed and screamed, but the tape across her mouth only permitted muffled barks.

Just a little girl. She began to cartwheel.

Delirious terror. One wing gone, whirling away from her like a dying feather kite. She could feel the icy sting of ocean spray, could taste the salt on her lips. An ocean of tears.

The other wing tearing loose now.

The hungry mouth below, yawning, cocking its jaws.

Closer, closer...

Please don’t let it hurt, please don’t let it–

She bounced upon a trampoline of light—a light of the most extraordinary brilliance and warmth. Her hands and feet were no longer bound, and as she rejoiced in her freedom the trampoline of light imploded, pulling her inward.

She was whisked into an inky, boundless chasm. All around her, as if sensing her arrival, the blackness began to peel away from itself in colossal, billowing sheets, revealing an even deeper blackness beyond. The absence of light did not interfere with awareness. She was observing everything with something much more perceptive than eyes, was
experiencing
with senses keener than she’d ever dreamed possible.

The sheets fell all around her, millions of them; an exfoliation of the blackest night. In noiseless procession they soared forth. At a great distance ahead, they converged, forming a planet-sized sphere, around which a golden atmosphere began to glow. As she drew closer, she saw that its surface was honeycombed, with each cavity splitting, dividing...

Despite her impression that she was being coerced, she had an underlying confidence that she could stop and turn back at any time. But she did not resist the obliging force—and quickly came to realize that to do so would leave her without subsistence, as it was this very force through which she was feeling-observing these incredible events; was an umbilicus tethering her to the Grandness, bringing her the Nourishment, feeding her the Incredibleness.

And upon that mentation, her
Knowing
fulfilled Itself. She was in the womb of God.

Nearly upon the surface of the sphere now, she saw one of the honeycombs begin to fill with what looked like molten silver. She instinctively curled into a fetal position—a bubble again—then willed herself into the opening. There was an actual sensation of splashing—

—then she was someone else.

There was a journey of lives revisited. The passing of each lifetime had felt incredibly long, and every one hopelessly unfulfilled. How many people had she been? She did not know. But the retention of all those lives—the cumulated cognizance, the plurality of awareness, the multiplicity of emotion—was unbearably fatiguing. She pleaded to be relieved of those souvenirs.

Now she was standing in the Shallows again, her amalgam of memories fading, fading...

But there still remained the
Knowing
.

“You see,” her protector explained, “
your
tears are here, as well.”

“Why did we come here?”

“So that you may
Know,
if you wish.”

“But…I’ll forget, won’t I?”

“Perhaps.”

“So, why keep bringing me back?”

“Because there will be a time when you will
not
forget, and that will be your salvation.”

“When will that time be?”

“I am not the keeper of that key.”

“Who is?”

“Your tears have already shown you.”

A bubble again. Her
Knowing
burst from her into countless radiant shards of silver, tumbling away in all directions, end over jagged end. Away.

Disappearing...

But she wanted to keep the
Knowing
.

...disappearing...

Goodbye.

A warm, tight place now.

Something began to beat within the orb. Something wonderful.

“Where are we now?”

“The road I mentioned,” said her protector. “The one you will pave.”

The beating grew louder, absorbing the bubble and all transient memories left unshed. She peered within herself and saw the tiny pounding heart.

“Who will I be this time?” she said.

That whispering laugh again. “Hmmm, I wonder.”

As she withdrew ever inward, she saw the second heart; as tiny as her own, and beating just as ferociously.

“Wait!” she called out. “There’s somebody else in here!”

Her protector’s voice was distant now, but no less playful. “Yes, there is.”

…disappearing…

Goodbye.

*****

An internal, dizzying storm. Rachel swooned, the world tilting so precariously that she had to lean against the window to keep from falling. Nausea doubled her over. Sweat beaded across her brow. Bile singed the back of her throat, watering her eyes.

People slowed, staring in concern.

An employee from the studio peered around at her from inside the entrance. “You all right, ma’am?”

“Morning sickness,” she told him, then managed a placating smile. “I’m fine. Really.”

In the window, she saw the reflection of someone standing over her, an unusually tall, looming figure. But when she turned there was no one there. Then that strange and comforting touch again, as if someone were stroking her anxiety with warm, wispy fingers. The sensation was so profound, so
promising,
that any lingering dread of miscarrying her baby was quickly ushered from her thoughts.

The tempest passed. Then a brief but intense blinding flash of silver, followed by a strangely pleasant cramping sensation.

The tall figure again. In the window. Something spreading outward from behind its back, like…
wings
.

Magnificent, enormous wings, stretching triumphantly past the edges of the window, then beyond the peripheral vision of her mind. Folding inward now, enshrouding her, suffocating her with a palpable radiance that was indescribably serene.

Then it was over. All was normal again. Almost. The picture of the little girl remained. Behind the window. Staring back at her.

Those eyes!

And her sudden need to possess that photograph was so gripping, so consuming that she nearly wrenched the door from its hinges as she burst into the studio.

ELEVEN YEARS LATER

“If the religious projections of man correspond to a reality that is superhuman and supernatural, then it seems logical to look for traces of this reality in the projector himself.”

– Peter L. Berger,
A Rumor of Angels

Part One

Pictures

1.

Perched within the confines of a towering oak, it gazed down upon the playground, regarding each child predatorily. Immersed in a tangle of shadows, it had only stopped here to rest, to groom, but had inadvertently stumbled onto something. Something that roused in it a kind of primitive panic. An urgency to fight or flee.

And that
something
was infesting one of the rollicking bodies below.

Extending a leathery wing, it began to preen with swift precision. In seconds, the appendage was glistening, free of the dust and grime it had gathered in flight.

It tipped its head, pensive as it held the thin membrane taut against a dapple of sunlight, watching the blood pulse through the labyrinthine array of veins and capillaries. It was amused, but only briefly. It then turned and began cleaning the other wing, the children below never leaving its scrutiny for more than a second or two.

The scent wafted by again. It stretched out its neck and licked the air. It was a most unsettling odor; alarming in its individuality, in its
familiarness
, as it now believed it had once known such a stench. Snorting again, it shook its head wildly. Its inquisitiveness was paying the price for its tenacity; a bear willing to be stung many times to get the sweet honey within the hive.

It was growing more aroused, the hair bristling along its spine.

Then—as the face of the little girl came into full view—it
remembered
.

Like a seahorse, it moved in unison with the wind-stirred branches. Just another limb, another bough swaying in a confusion of phantoms.

It would have to abandon its original errand and return to the place called Seattle. To alert the man who longed to fly.

The angel-maker.

2.

Before a barren patch of wall, Eli Kagan paced in circles. Some tight, some broad. Some not really circles at all, but more like the wobbly orbits of doomed satellites.

He was expecting the window to arrive any time now. Any moment.

Despite the relative coolness of his mother’s basement, his undershirt was saturated, the wetness penetrating to the spine and armpits of his black clerical shirt.

But then, he was always a sweater.