Part 16

Eleanor pulled into the airport parking lot and found a space on the third level. It was nearly lunchtime. She wondered what the children were doing right now. Lining up for lunch, washing their hands along with hundreds of other small people.

Eleanor remembered the line for lunch in elementary school. One of the few memories of school she possessed; standing with other children her age on a long sidewalk outside the cafeteria, waiting to put her hand under a silver canister that held powdered soap. She would push up on the lever and a handful of pink powder would fall into her hand. Gritty and dry, she would rub it in both hands before she put those hands under the warm communal faucets to dissolve it away. Sometimes she held the soap in one fist and ran water over her clenched fingers, waiting to see how long it would take to melt away the dusty pellets of detergent couched in her palm. She would open her fingers and there would be a mashed chalky wad, like pink mud, molded to the inside of her hand.

These things ran through Eleanor’s mind as she crossed the street and ducked through a revolving door into the baggage claim area. As she scanned the crowd, she wondered if she should have checked the flights before she left the house, to see if it would arrive on time.

Then she saw him. He saw her at the same moment, over the luggage carousel, and grinned. She ran to one side and around a bunch of weary travelers waiting for their bags. He had a guitar in a gig bag over one shoulder and was pulling a large suitcase off of the conveyer belt. He turned and opened his arms. She jumped into them, smiling.

“Jonathan,” she pulled back to look into his eyes and lay one hand on his cheek.

“Sister,” he hugged her again. “I missed you.”

She surveyed his bags. “Anything else? Or did you leave the bodies at home?”

He shushed her. “Hey, keep it quiet. No one is supposed to know I’m a Mafia hitman.”

They both laughed. “C’mon,” she said. “The kids will be home in a couple of hours. Let’s go grab some lunch.”

They navigated through the baggage claim and back across the street. Jonathan threw his bags in the back of her minivan and settled into the passenger seat.

“Nice ride,” he said. “Remember Veronica?” He was referring to the 1979 Volvo station wagon she had driven during high school.

“Yeah,” she checked over her shoulder before changing lanes. “Remember how we used to climb through the windows?”

“Dukes of Hazzard, dude!”

They both smiled at the memory. She laughed out loud then. “Remember that time you dove in through the window head first?”

He grimaced. “That hurt.”

“But it looked cool. What do you want to eat?”

“Ooo,” he said. “Where’s an Arby’s? I so want some curly fries.”

Eleanor shook her head. “Alright.”

Half an hour later, they were sitting across an Arby’s table from each other.

“So,” said Jonathan between bites. “How are the kids?”

She swallowed. “They’re alright, I suppose. Considering the circumstances.”

Jonathan nodded.

She continued, “Sometimes I really wish I knew what they were thinking. They’re so agreeable and effortless. I would feel more at ease if they would show some symptoms of extreme trauma or something.”

Jonathan lifted his eyebrows. “You want your children to be traumatized?”

She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean… if there were some overt sign of emotional crisis, I would feel like maybe I would know what to do. You know, reassure them and talk to psychiatrists and doctors and get them in for therapy or something.”

Jonathan popped a fry into his mouth. “So what are they showing signs of?”

“I don’t know. They get along perfectly. They take care of each other. They don’t fight or argue. It’s like they don’t even realize that Mady and Eli are gone. But it’s also like they’re in their own little world. I just don’t know.”

He looked perplexed. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You have two well-adjusted kids who enjoy spending time together.”

“That’s just it,” she said. “Are they well-adjusted?” She sighed. “Maybe I’m just waiting for the bomb to drop.”

“What if it never does?”

“It has to,” she said. “There’s no way it can’t. I just don’t know when it will be.”

“You know,” he said, finishing off his Dr. Pepper, “maybe you should talk to someone about this. Do you know anyone who might be able to give you some advice?”

“Well, I remember a social worker at the hospital, gave me her card and said to let her know if I needed anything. But those guys are so overworked. Their case loads are insane. There’s no way they could add Jack and Cailyn and be able to help them with any competency.”

Jonathan shrugged. “I dunno. Have you thought about taking them to church?”

She closed her eyes for a long moment and then gave him a pointed look.

“What?” he said. “Just because you don’t believe in God doesn’t mean they won’t.”

“For the last time, I do believe in God.”

He nodded knowingly. “Uh huh, right.”

"I don't want to argue theological semantics with you," she told him. "But thanks for the suggestion."

Eleanor examined the tabletop. Jonathan said, “Look, I can take them if you want, while I’m here.”

“I’ll think about it,” she replied.

“Good,” he said, before dropping a fry into her drink.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The school bus rumbled down the street just as they pulled into the garage. She popped the hatch for Jonathan to grab his bags as the kids turned up the driveway, waving goodbye to their friend, Wren. Seeing Jonathan, they stopped for a split-second, and then broke into a run.

“Uncle Jon!” they both yelled. Jack dropped his back pack and fiercely hugged Jonathan’s leg. Cailyn bounced up and down squealing, “We didn’t know you were coming!”

Jonathan looked over at Eleanor. “You didn’t tell them?”

She shrugged. “I thought it would be a good surprise.”

He swung both children up into his arms and carried them into the house. Eleanor followed pulling his suitcase, his guitar over her shoulder. The suitcase went into the spare bedroom, along with the guitar.

“Did you come here on an airplane?” Jack was asking. All three of them were on the living room floor. Eleanor sat on the couch with a smile.

“Well, I did have a ticket to come by dragon express,” he told them. “But they transferred it to an airplane at the last minute.”

Cailyn laughed. “Silly Uncle Jon, you can’t buy tickets to ride on a dragon!”

Jonathan looked astonished. “You can’t?”

“No!” Jack laughed as well. “Dragons are too mean.”

“They’re not mean,” corrected Cailyn. “They’re just primeval.”

Jonathan and Eleanor exchanged a look. “Where did you get a word like primeval?” he asked Cailyn.

“I read it in a book called Extraordinary Creatures at the school library,” she announced. “It said dragons are primeval and elemental. It also said that faeries haven’t always been poisonous, it was just a defense mechanism they developed when humans started taking over.” She looked around, and seeing she had everyone’s attention, continued significantly. “They also said that satyrs are smaller now than they used to be and that the most famous satyr, Pan, is still walking the Earth and that cockatrices are found in the southern United States and Central America, but gorgons are only found in the Galapagos.”

“Oh yeah?” Jonathan reached out one finger to tickle the girl, grabbing her by the foot as she shrieked with laughter and tried to crawl away. “And what does it say about the Dreaded Tickle Monster?” She squirmed, giggling, while Jack jumped gleefully on Jonathan’s back and wrapped his arms around his uncle’s neck.

Eleanor, watching them wrestle, felt suddenly stifled. As her body threatened to tense, she stood. She went to the front door and pulled it open, falling out onto the porch, shutting away the sounds of playful laughter behind her as she closed the door. She gulped the afternoon air on the driveway. The sun was setting later now, and evening would be coming on soon. Eleanor walked down to open the mailbox, reaching in to discover it was empty. She stood on the sidewalk for a bit while the breeze played through her hair. A car pulled up alongside the curb where she was standing. She leaned down to look into the passenger window, and saw that it was Weston Baylor.

He smiled at her. “Hi!” he said.

“Hello,” she replied.

“How are you?”

“Fine,” she said. “How are you, Mr. Baylor?”

His pale blue eyes sparkled. “I’m great. Please, call me Weston.”

The front door opened. The children ran out onto the driveway, Jonathan chasing them. They scampered in her direction and used her for a shield, peeking out from around her legs at their uncle. Jonathan trotted down the driveway.

“Hey,” he called curiously.

It was then that the children seemed to notice the car at the curb. They turned to look into the passenger window as Jonathan came up beside Eleanor. He leaned down to see the driver as well.

“Jonathan,” said Eleanor, “this is Weston Baylor. Weston, my brother Jonathan.”

Weston put the car into park and opened the driver’s side door, unfolding his lank form and walking around the hood of the car to shake Jonathan’s hand. His luminescent outline wasn’t as pronounced in the afternoon light, but it was still there.

“Hi,” Weston smiled. “Nice to meet you.” He looked down at the kids. “And you must be Cailyn and Jack.”

Jack laughed. “You’re silly Mister Weston. You already know us.”

Eleanor looked at Weston in surprise.

“It’s true,” said Weston. “Jack and my Emma are in the same kindergarten class. I see them when I drop her off at school every once in a while.”

Eleanor wondered if her children were acquainted with everyone in the neighborhood.

“Can you fly?” Jack was asking Weston. Weston laughed and ruffled the boy's hair. Cailyn and Jack ran back to the house.

“So Weston,” said Jonathan, “what do you do?”

“I’m an illustrator,” replied Weston. “I work for a film studio in Dallas.” He looked at Eleanor as he said it.

"Cool," said Jonathan. "What do you do for them?"

Weston shrugged. "I do creature and character design, concept art, that sort of stuff."

“Creature design,” said Jonathan. “Oh, that reminds me. Do you know of any good Christian churches around here? I’d like my niece and nephew to get some religion while I’m visiting.”

Weston’s smile widened. “Actually, yeah, I belong to a great church. It’s the Church of the One Truth. It has an awesome youth program.”

“Cool,” said Jonathan again. “Can you give me directions? What time does it start?”

Eleanor watched the exchange carefully with what she hoped was visible disinterest. Weston pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote a few lines on the back of a new business card. “It starts at 10am and it’s relatively close. I think the kids will really like it.” He handed the card to Jonathan, who took it and looked at both sides. “Eleanor, I’ve come to invite you and your family to dinner. Friday night, we’re having a barbeque.” He gestured to Jonathan. “You’re invited too, of course.”

“Great,” replied her brother. “We’ll be there. Eleanor knows where it is?”

Weston nodded. “So we’ll see you at church on Sunday?”

Jonathan held up the card. “Definitely.”

Before walking back around to the driver’s side of his car, Weston clasped her hand again, watching her all the time with curious eyes. “And what about you Eleanor? Will we see you at church on Sunday?” It seemed a monumental task for her to shrug casually. “Well, if you change your mind, you’re always welcome. Be at our house Friday at six o’clock.” He got back into the car and threw it in gear, waving as he pulled away from the curb.

She looked reproachfully at her brother, shaking her head, but she watched the car go, and wondered when she would see Weston Baylor again.

Jonathan slid the card into his back pocket. “He’s cool,” he said. “How did you meet him?”

“He came over to the house one day to welcome us to the neighborhood.”

“So he lives around here?”

She nodded. “Just down the street.”

“Huh,” he was looking at where Weston’s car had turned the corner. “I wonder what his wife is like.”

“Why?” she wondered.

“Because he seems so… odd.” He turned back contemplatively to look at her. “Don’t you think so?”

“Do you?” she said faintly. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“I don’t mean odd in a bad way,” he corrected himself. “I just mean… different.”

She wanted to tell him what she thought odd about her neighbor and disguised her desire with a surly voice instead. “Why did you tell him we would come to dinner?”

“Because I like barbeque,” he replied innocently. “And because I’ve heard Texas barbeque is the best.” He turned to follow her as she walked back up the driveway. “And because you can’t stay locked up forever. If you’re going to stay here in Arlington then you need to get to know people, especially your neighbors.”

She said, “And why, especially, should I get to know people?”

He jumped ahead to open the door for her, but stopped for a moment, blocking her way. He reached out to take her hand and turned it palm up, so that the new slices were visible. “We worry about you.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me and Mom and Dad and everyone back home. We worry about you, alone here with the kids, so far from family.”

She didn’t attempt to withdraw her hand. Instead she just looked up into his brown eyes. “Maybe I like being this far from family,” she said simply.

He lowered his hand, not releasing hers. “You can’t like being this far from me.”

“Well, no,” she conceded. “Being away from you is different… harder. Why don’t you think about moving here? The housing is cheap and there are plenty of schools to choose from.”

He pushed open the door and waved her inside. “I dunno. How would you ever get anything done, if I was always around?”

“True dat,” she told him. They both laughed.

Part 15

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,

but... against powers,

against the rulers of the darkness of this world,

against spiritual wickedness in high places."

~ Ephesians 6:12

There are many. The room crawls and writhes and slithers. There is an order of desperation to the apparent chaos and a black door that opens onto a black doorway. A Summoner steps from the doorway, indicating to one of the throng that he should follow. The summoned moves away from the rest, a hulk of black in the black mist. The mad assemblage makes a way for him, and he passes unhindered, leaving an instant of distressed silence in his wake. He raises one hand and six shapes disattach from the crowd to trail behind him. They pass through the black doorway, following the Summoner. There is a long, dark hall and another doorway at the end, obscured by another black door. The Summoner knocks three times, and a voice like burned chocolate mews through a hitherto unseen hole in the blackened panel, “What is desired?”

The Summoner bends to whisper at the hole, and the door swings open. The summoned and his entourage enter. A man sits in a chair across the room, on the far side of an enormous table that gleams like a lake of oil. The only light in the room falls upon the head and shoulders of the man from somewhere above, causing a halo of radiance to shine on the crown of his head. With black hair cut short and lying back from his face, his forehead is clear and strong, his eyes lost under the shadow of a compelling brow. His features are regular and attractive. Indeed, he emanates an overwhelming appeal, a dark charisma that seems to radiate from his intense white face. His hands are white also, resting lightly on the tabletop in front of him.

“Come,” he gestures casually. His voice is warm melodic honey.

The summoned moves forward and stands across the table from the man.

“My Lord,” says the summoned.

The man breathes in briefly when addressed, as if inhaling the title and finding it sweet. “What have you to report?” he asks the summoned.

“My Lord, what we feared would happen has occurred.”

The man sighs. “I was counting on you to prevent this.” The calm voice turns on an edge suddenly sharp.

The summoned hangs his head, his shoulders sag. “I know, my Lord.”

“Are you not one of my most trusted servants? Did I not give you this task as a privilege, telling you it was of extreme importance?”

The summoned nods. “Indeed, my Lord.”

“I am bitterly disappointed,” says the man. One eyebrow rises slightly.

The summoned is frightened. “Do not renounce me, my Lord,” he begs. “I will take steps. I have a plan. I will accomplish our goal.”

The man considers this and then nods once. “See that you do,” he tells the summoned. “My appetite is keen. If you do not satisfy it with the fulfillment of this task, then you will satisfy it with your self.”

The summoned shakes, bows. “My Lord.” He backs away from the table, where the man sits unflustered, his hands still motionless on the polished tabletop. The summoned reaches the doorway, where his subordinates await. They follow him back out into the hallway. He clenches his fists in nervous resentment. He must not fail. He cannot fail….

Part 14

He has fallen. This does not surprise her. But the lack of feeling she experiences while watching him stumble does surprise her. She moves forward, covering the distance between them in about twenty paces, until she stands over him. He rolled from his hands and knees onto his back and now looks up at her. She gazes down into his face. A breeze touches her briefly, drawing her hair across her eyes, and she looks up at clouds scudding across the moon. She can only see one or two stars, the moon is so bright. Her left hand lifts to brush the hair back from her forehead and she realizes her right hand is still raised. She lets it fall to her side. He flinches.

She inhales deeply, still looking at the moon. A luminous night, the moon sheds its silvery radiance across everything from her own face to the fallen form at her feet to the weed-choked, vacant lot where she stands. She knows he must be in an agony of conjecture as to what she will do next. No reason to prolong his torment.

She sighs, a slow exhalation of breath that accompanies her eyes back to his pale face. The fingers of her right hand quiver, loosen and then release their grip on the nine millimeter. It falls, no longer needed, into the dirt very near his arm. He looks fleetingly at the gun and then back at her, his eyes wide in a fusion of disbelief and fear. She knows he won’t even try to reach for the weapon, his hands clutching desperately at his abdomen. She bends down momentarily, feeling in the rough gravel for something that will serve. Her fingers close around a chunk of broken concrete and she hefts it as she turns to him.

His breath catches in his lungs. Her face is emotionless as she straddles his body. He groans in pain as she does this.

“What….?” He begins weakly.

But she puts her index finger to her lips.

“Shhhh…” she whispers, reaching the finger out to touch his temple, in an attitude of tenderness, running it down the side of his face, over the strong cheekbone, tracing his jaw. She continues the delicate touch further downward, past his throat, along his chest. It feels strange, having him between her legs again.

His breathing begins to quicken, as if he knows what she is thinking.

“Please,” he gasps.

She blinks slowly, pursing her lips almost in disappointment. “Oh come now, “she says to him. “Take it like a man.” And with that, she slams the chunk of concrete into his face.

The crunching impact of rock against bone, and the first spurt of blood, sends a shock up through her arm to explode in her brain. Rage suddenly flares to vaporize the numbness. She drives the concrete into his face once more, and his body shudders.

She raises her hand again and again, smashing the rock downward with all of the force in her being; over and over, crushing anything recognizable from his skull. She keeps doing this until she realizes she is no longer striking bone and tissue, but solid, blood-soaked earth.

Gradually, the rage recedes and gradually her arm ceases its destructive rhythm. She becomes conscious that she is still sitting astride his lifeless body. As the power drains away, a cold emptiness remains. She rises and staggers a few feet. Sinking to the ground, she holds up the rock in one trembling hand. It glistens in the moonlight. She wrenches back her arm, and throws the bludgeon as far as she can across the empty lot.

She wipes the back of a weary hand across her face, leaving a dark smear on her forehead. Feeling they are wet, she looks at her hands. They are crimson to the elbows. Bathed in the grey moonlight, her arms appear black. She knows she is spattered with blood. The thought makes her head swim. She closes her eyes as a tear slides down her cheek…

The windows rattled. Eleanor opened her eyes. Moonlight shone through the blinds, forming a disturbingly regular pattern on the ceiling. She sat up, blinking and leaned forward for a moment to rest her head in her hands. It was windy again outside. She remembered that it might rain. Visceral images flashing across her mind. She shook her head in an attempt to clear them.

The bathroom floor was as cold, like the water she splashed on her face. Once the light was switched on, she was oddly surprised as she looked in the mirror to find she wasn’t covered in blood. She was tired. And the memory of the dream made her feel ill. Her hands still shook. She cast her eyes around, but Harvest and the others were still missing. She wondered what they were doing, away for so long. Eleanor felt perversely lonely when they weren’t around and hated herself for it.

She glanced across the counter at his old things, still arranged in an orderly fashion under the mirror. Shaving cream, straight razor, toothbrush. Why do I keep these things around? Certainly not to inspire any warm reminiscences. Stepping across to his side of the counter, she reached out for the razor, picking it up gingerly, as if it would jump out of her unsteady fingers. Eleanor held it up by the handle, and then turned her hand so that it fell open, the blade reflecting a twisted segment of her face back into her eyes.

She wondered at how tenuous her hold really was. If a thin, polished sheet of metal was all it took to dissolve her life away in a matter of minutes, should she even really be here? She wished Harvest were here, so she could pose the question to him. The blade winked at her, flashing cheerfully in the fluorescent light.

The windows rattled again. She shivered and softly replaced the razor. Her hand clicked open the medicine cabinet. In an orange pill bottle, she found two small, white tablets which she swallowed. Her own eyes replicated in the glass looked out at her. At last, she went into the hallway, wondering how she should pass the rest of the night.

As she climbed the stairs to her studio, she thought that if the red ground she’d put across the canvas earlier were dry, she might do some more work on the piece. Halfway up the stairs, she stopped. A pair of red Mary-Janes sat exactly in the center of one of the steps, twinkling in the yellow light from above.

She stared down at the shoes, unable to place them in reality in this precise moment. She almost reached out one finger to touch them, then felt the action would be ludicrously silly and picked them up instead. She carried the shoes to the attic door and opened it hesitantly. Hadn’t she just done this very thing? Her feet took the attic stairs deliberately, two at a time. Once the bare light bulb was lit, Eleanor shuffled through the boxes. Finding the right one, she pulled it open, half expecting to find the shoes already inside. With hands that shook, she put the shoes back into the box and replaced it once again.

With the attic door locked behind her, she moved thoughtfully down the hall into the studio. The easel stood before her in the dark, awaiting her as thunder growled in the distance. Her hands itched to create something. Create or destroy, she decided. It didn’t matter which.

She picked up a paintbrush and grabbed a tube of paint, squeezing a mountain of white onto the palette. She jabbed the brush into the paint and began to lay it on the canvas in broad vertical strokes. She painted the shape in segments first, like pieces of a skeleton, adding more and more layers. Building up a heavy impasto, she worked feverishly, using shades of grey to create form, imply shadows. She plunged the brush into the water jar and then rolled it through some red, pushing the water-laden bristles onto the top of the canvas and letting the thin paint run down the surface of the image, droplets outlining the thick build-up that formed the main subject. She did this again and again. Finally, she dropped the brush to coat her hands with black paint, smearing two hand prints onto the canvas. When she stood back to see what she had done, Eleanor was breathless.

Out of the depths of a black abyss, two white and delicate arms reached upward, palms aloft, fingers curled. The wrists were crisscrossed with pale lines, the hands seeming to plead in a gesture of agonized supplication. Lines of red ran down from the top of the canvas, sliding through the fingers and along the palms and down the wrists like rivulets of blood. A black streaked wall behind the hands was marked by two dark hand prints with elongated fingers, as if whoever made them was being pulled downward. Eleanor sank to the floor, staring up at the easel. She couldn’t say how long she had been there when she heard a familiar voice.

“Look what you’ve been doing.” Harvest leaned into the room, stepped around her and put one hand to his chin, studying the painting. “Now this I like.” Baz and Pitchtongue followed behind and sat on either side of him.

She blinked slowly, the very effort of looking up at him through red-rimmed eyes making her head hurt.

“What do you call it?”

She shrugged.

“Well, we have to call it something,” prodded Harvest. “It can’t be one of those untitled paintings. That’s just stupid.”

“How about Rhinoceros Candy?” suggested Baz.

“Right,” said Pitchtongue, laughing. “Cuz that’s not stupid.”

Eleanor put her blackened hands to her head, which was beginning to pound.

“It looks like a rubber chicken,” said Pitchtongue critically.

Eleanor rubbed her temples. “Shut up, Liar,” she told him faintly.

He turned around and focused his catlike eyes on her. “Did you paint it with your eyes closed? What’s it supposed to be?”

“It’s a lobster!” exclaimed Baz.

Harvest chuckled. “Oh, come now,” he chided gently. “You two know better than that. It’s quite obvious what Eleanor has painted here.”

“Oh, really?” asked Eleanor ironically. “Do you mind telling us what I’ve painted here then?”

“Of course,” his reply was smooth. “You’ve painted The Question. The great human question. The question every man on earth has plied his intellect on.”

Baz’s mouth hung open as he watched Harvest. “What’s the question?” he wondered aloud.

Harvest turned to Eleanor. “The question…,” in the moment he said it, his voice seemed to multiply, not growing in volume, but seeming to speak out of twenty different throats, “…is there a god?”

Eleanor shuddered a little at the sound, then shook it off. She smiled humorlessly. She went to the sink and ran her hands under water.

“Well hell, Harvest,” she told him, reaching for a towel to rub her hands dry. “That’s not a question that bothers me. I had the answer to that a long time ago.”

“What’s the answer?” piped Baz.

Cocking his head to one side as he studied Eleanor’s painting, Pitchtongue told him.“That God is a giant incorporeal pair of yellow rubber kitchen gloves."