Mary stood alone in the Grotto.
Chapter Six
AS MICHAEL LEARNED meditation, the first memory that he recovered was the strongest, and also the strangest to him.
It wasn’t strange because it was of that first, alien life. That ancient memory was patchy and indistinct, and it came to him much later.
No, the first memory he uncovered was strange because he was happy in it.
Happy.
What a bizarre concept, happiness. As soon as he connected to the emotion in the memory, he realized he had never felt happiness, not in this lifetime or in many others.
In this lifetime, he had never given much thought to happiness before, but when he had, the concept had seemed pastel, an insipid, shallow thing that others claimed to either desire or feel.
Happiness led to other pastel emotions like contentment. It also seemed to be connected to things he had no interest in, things like steady jobs, marriage, children and community. Or it was connected to myths that people believed. Wealth would make them happy, or popularity would, or social standing.
But when the memory surfaced, and Michael touched the actual experience of happiness, even though it was only a shadow of the real thing, the feeling was so passionate, so golden and complete it shone a light on all the rest of his life. By comparison every other emotion he had felt was fractured, dirty and gray.
The details of that former life came to him piecemeal.
He had been a Norman lord under William the Conqueror. After the Battle of Hastings, he had been given a castle in York to live in and defend on behalf of the king, and she had been there. The other half of himself.
They fit together. Such simple words and yet so profound. They fit. Interlocking pieces, contrast and confluence.
And remembering that was, completely and utterly, the most devastating thing he had ever experienced.
Over the years, he returned to that past life again and again in meditation, painstakingly recovering shards of lost treasure.
The look in her eyes when she smiled at him. She was luminous. (If only he could see the details of her face more clearly, even though he knew that what she looked like did not matter in the slightest.)
How they talked late at night, discussing everything from the latest harvest to their great enemy. (For the danger was with them always, a thundercloud of war that shrouded their entire existence.)
Flashes of a mysterious and powerful intimacy. Her arms around his neck, his face in her perfumed hair. Their bodies entwined, and his spirit expansive and vibrant. (Not this thin, sharp sword that he had become.)
Laughter. Her laughter, and his. (He never laughed anymore. He had not laughed in so long, he had forgotten that he had forgotten how.)
The person he had been in this former life: this was who he was supposed to be. He took the memory and made it the cornerstone of his soul, and he built everything else around it, until he became a fortress.
* * *
IN THE GRAY light of predawn, Michael pulled his car into the small parking lot at the bottom of a lookout point. He took advantage of the early solitude and remote location to give his body some much needed rest, dozing for an hour or so behind the wheel.
Then something made him open his eyes, turn his head.
The shimmer of a transparent figure stood by his car. It was a strong quiet, steady presence. Recognition kicked him in the teeth. He straightened, staring.
The figure was that of a tall man. In that faint shimmer he caught a glimpse of short black hair, distinguished aquiline features, copper skin.
The figure was a ghost.
Michael, it said. I have fallen.
Heaviness plummeted onto his shoulders. Maybe it was grief. He didn’t know. It was certainly disappointment. They had not been friends, not quite. More like comrades-in-arms. Michael had met him when he had traveled north to spend summers with his mentor. Each year the boys would meet again, having grown taller and stronger, and they would assess each other as possible adversaries all over again. For a brief time, many years ago, they had been sparring partners, until Michael grew too dangerous to train with other children.
Michael slowly opened his car door and stepped out. He was the same height and stood shoulder to shoulder with the tall ghost. He said, Damn, Nicholas. I’m sorry.
There was a faint gleam in the dark, intelligent eyes that regarded him with a grave expression, without self-pity. I will not leave, Nicholas told him. I will do what I can to protect him.
Michael nodded. Most humans passed on to wherever it was they went after death, but a few who were especially passionate were able to turn away from that journey.
The ghost lifted his hand in good-bye, already fading as he turned to walk away.
Semper fidelis. Always faithful. Nicholas had loved his country and his President, and his continued devotion would help, but it wouldn’t be enough.
Which was why Nicholas had been killed, of course.
* * *
MICHAEL CLIMBED UP to the lookout point and sat on a short bluff above the western shore of Lake Michigan. The lake sparkled silver and blue, while green pines dotted the broken rocks of the coast. The bluff was north of Racine, Wisconsin, south of Milwaukee, and right in the middle of nowhere.
Even though the sun shone, the weather was unseasonably cold for late May. In some parts of the Midwest, rivers were flooding and people had been forced to evacuate their homes. This close to the Lake, especially with the fading of daylight, the wind felt as though it could peel flesh from the bone.
He didn’t notice. He was deep in meditation.
He had soaked up all the teaching Astra had to offer him with the ravenous appetite of the starving. Somehow he had managed to keep alive during the process, although looking back he knew he had been close to death several times. Most importantly, he had discovered the history and reason for his rage. He had grown into the kind of man who controlled himself with complete discipline and who used his anger as sustenance and weapon.
Now and always, he hunted.
Eyes closed, breathing deep, he had entered into the mental state the Buddhists refer to as utter mindfulness. He was quite aware of his surroundings but unaffected by them. With the hard-won patience he had learned over years, he called in all his messengers and companions. He asked each of them the same questions. He did this as a process of elimination, always aware that the enemy searched with as much eagerness and relentlessness, and with much more cruelty than he.
Voices sounded behind him. Teenagers scrambled up the path to the bluff, their raucous laughter and off-color jokes whooping through the quiet, windswept area. He ignored them, letting their voices flow through him like sand flowing through a glass.
One of them, a female, said, “Mm-mm, will you look at that.”
A boy laughed. “What, a freaking weirdo on a freaking park bench? Dime a dozen, babe.”
“You got no imagination. That there’s a juicy piece of USDA prime beef. Look at them muscles. I could love me some of that. Think his organs have been injected with growth hormones?”
“Girl, you a ho.”
Another called out in a high voice, “You guys. Look at the sky.”
Various exclamations followed. “That’s like something from a horror flick. Hitchcock, right? Or was it Scorsese?”
“How do they get the birds to do that? Are we on TV?”
“What kind of birds are they?” the girl asked.
“Hawks, I think. Hundreds of them. Maybe a thousand? I’ve never seen so many circling around.”
“They look like a tornado. That’s not right. It’s not natural.”
Michael continued to speak to his people. Brothers, we keep hunting south.
Still along the Lake? one of them asked, tilting in his flight so the sun shone on proud red
-tail feathers.
Always along the Lake, he answered. He and his old teacher had narrowed the search down to the shores of Lake Michigan. That was still a massive amount of territory to cover, and they were fast running out of time.
Then:
i need help!
The cry ripped across the psychic realm. Unprepared, wide open, Michael reeled from the shock. He heard the babble of teenagers as though through the roar of rushing water. Hands hooked under his arms to help him to his feet. He shook them off, focusing all the considerable force of his attention on that internal, ephemeral place.
There she was.
She was coming awake. She had ripped through the veil herself, and energy blazed from her like she was a psychic version of Chernobyl. Anyone with the capacity to see the psychic realm could see her. She was completely unprotected, and he was too far away.
His heart kicked.
He twisted, lunged down the path to his car, roared at the sky.
A whirling tower of a thousand hawks screamed in reply and hurtled southeast.
Chapter Seven
MARY NEVER REMEMBERED how she got from the Grotto back to her car. She simply became aware again of her surroundings when she was sitting behind the wheel, her head lying back on the rest. The sun had angled lower on the western horizon. The reflection of it caught in her rearview mirror, a great orange-red blaze that blinded her so that she had to squint and turn her face away.
She was covered in sweat as though she had raced the entire distance back. For all she knew, she had done just that. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she pulled the sleeve of her sweater over one fist and scrubbed at her face. Then she rolled down all four windows to let in the cold fresh air.
She shied away from thinking about what had just happened. It was too much. She couldn’t wrap her brain around it. All she knew was that she felt different. She felt eerie, light and hollow like a bird’s bone. The horrific pressure that had been building up inside of her, as though someone had been piling rocks one by one on her chest, had disappeared as if it had never been.
The world looked different as well. Everything around her seemed in constant motion, rippling as if a transparent Van Gogh painting had been draped across reality. She didn’t know how to interpret what she was seeing, but the trees along the line of horizon seemed to have a glow about them, a shimmer like a desert mirage. She sensed whispers again around the edges of her mind.
Van Gogh had cut off his own ear. Had he heard whispers too? Had he been trying to make it stop?
Without her permission, her mind slipped back to what had happened in the Grotto. What had the Lady said?
You’re in danger.
“Riiight,” she croaked, just to hear the sound of her own voice. It seemed to shock the silence in the car. “Let’s review. I’m fucking nuts. Any questions?”
What had they said in psych class? Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean anything. You’re just paranoid. She continued speaking out loud, as she needed to hear the sound of her own voice. “I guess I’ve had that psychotic break now. I’m suffering from delusions—and now I’m talking to myself. Gretchen should have warned me that I had a seventy-two-hour psychiatric detention in my near future.”
There went her medical license and career. Whoopsie.
All of a sudden she was ravenous, as though her lack of appetite over the last couple of months had finally caught up with her. Images of different dishes flooded her mind and made her mouth water. She craved normality as much as food, and she desperately wanted to be surrounded with noise, humanity and banality. Her fingers trembled as she started the car. She had to find somewhere to eat. She was too shaky to drive the hour or so trip home without it.
Those incredible eyes, starred with candlelight. You can’t go home, the Lady had said. You must try to find me.
What the hell did that mean? And why was she looking for meaning in something that was so clearly insane? She shuddered and told herself to stop. She would eat first, get steadier, dig through her purse for her car keys and her sanity, and then think about what had happened. Where should she go for dinner?
Unsure about what the dining options were after several years’ absence, she drove north to Cleveland Road, cut east and turned south on Grape Road in the neighboring town of Mishawaka.
The area had once been farmland but had, due to urban sprawl, become the main shopping and dining area for the region. Over time, as many of the businesses had moved to the Grape Road district, Mishawaka had received welcome additions to its tax revenue stream, but as a result the downtown area of South Bend was riddled with urban decay.
She caught sight of a T.G.I. Friday’s, and on impulse she pulled into the parking lot. The restaurant was everything she had hoped to find: cheerful, noisy and banal. She parked, stripped off her jacket and left it in the car. Climbing out and locking the doors, she went inside and stopped at the hostess desk. Overloud music, flickering imagery from high-mounted flat-screens, the red – and white-striped decor and the babble of various conversations crashed over her head.
The wavy Van Gogh effect was everywhere in the restaurant. Reflections of light were sharp on the polished wood and edges of glass. For a moment everything seemed to shift, as if it were breathing. She stood disoriented and somewhat sick, as a young waitress in jeans hurried toward her.
“Hi, how many?” the waitress asked in a bright voice.
The girl was very Van Gogh, radiating near-invisible ripples like steam rising from a pot of boiling water. Trying to make it stop, Mary blinked several times as she looked around. Even though the day had faded into early evening, the tables were crowded. A high proportion of the patrons were families with young children. Everyone was haloed with the same kind of rippling effect.
She shifted from foot to foot. Maybe coming here was a mistake. She would hate to cut off her ear in public.
She became aware of the waitress’s fixed, patient smile and consulted her watch. It was already almost five o’clock. Where the hell had the time gone?
“I’m alone,” she said. “I can eat at the bar.”
“Okay! Here’s a menu. Just go have a seat, and someone will be with you in a minute.”
She took the menu and went to the bar, where the music was somewhat lower. Unfortunately, it still competed with the noise from the flat-screen mounted high in one corner. The local news would be starting soon, so she chose a seat nearest the television, although she still wasn’t sure she would be able to stay. The overload of input made her head throb worse than ever. The light, hollow sensation from earlier had intensified until she felt as if she was only loosely connected to her flesh.
The bartender worked in an area ringed by the bar. He came up to her, a young, blond male with an appreciative, blinding Donny Osmond smile.
“How’re you doing today?” he asked. He wiped the area in front of her.
Mary cleared her throat and tried not to look at his mouth. “It’s so noisy in here.”
His smile turned crooked. “Yeah, I’ve gone deaf since I started working here. I can ask the manager to turn it down, but I can’t promise anything. It’s out of my control.”
“Thanks.”
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Coke, please.” She opened the menu and the items blurred in front of her. “I’m starving, so anything sounds good. What’s quick?”
“The burgers come up pretty fast.”
She ordered a burger with everything, fries and a salad, and sucked down the Coke he placed in front of her. He brought her the salad and refilled her drink as she tore into the food. “You weren’t kidding about being hungry.”
The high fructose corn syrup from the Coke and the first few bites of food helped to anchor her back in her body. Conscious of the bartender’s speculative expression, she swall
owed and told him a version of the truth. “I’ve been too busy to eat right these last few weeks, and all of a sudden it caught up with me.”
“Oh yeah? I do that when I’m studying for finals. I live on caffeine and cigarettes. Afterward I sleep for three days.”
“Where do you go to school, Notre Dame?” she asked.
He laughed. “Naw, can’t afford that. I’m going to IUSB. I’m majoring in business administration.”
The South Bend area was filled with higher education schools. Notre Dame University was the most famous of the schools, but there were also Indiana University at South Bend, St. Mary’s College, Holy Cross, Bethel, Ivy Tech and others. The wide choice, together with a relatively low cost of housing, made the area a good place to pursue a higher education.
When her aunt had died, the inheritance Mary had received had been relatively modest. She had been able to afford the prestige of a Notre Dame degree but little else, so she’d had to share an apartment with three other young women to cover housing costs.
The bartender leaned against his side of the bar and talked about school while she polished off her salad. She kept one shoulder hunched against the intrusion of his admiring presence, as her gaze returned again and again to his moving mouth. Those strong, bleached teeth would make quite a bite impression.
She had treated a bite victim last week. It had been a human bite, not animal. Each tooth mark had made a distinct puncture. Dots of blood had welled from the tiny wounds. After dressing it, she had given the victim a tetanus shot and a round of antibiotics. Nasty things, human bites.
Her burger and fries seemed to take forever to arrive. At last the bartender took away her empty salad plate, brought her the burger platter and moved down the bar to serve someone else. She tore into her burger with the same single-mindedness she had shown for the salad, chewing while she sprinkled catsup on her French fries.