A wink of lucidity collapsed into the sensation of gliding, free of the sense of weight or resistance. As she neared the top she could see the tapestry of growth halted at the base of the dune, a stark contrast at the edge where sand infiltrated the onset of grass—beach sand sprinkled amongst rushes. Alina floated harmlessly through the empyreal radiance of the teeming blue sparkles, coming to settle within the spirit’s calm proximity.
The woman’s features were almost entirely shrouded by the sheer luminance of her raiment, yet her face was discernable from the framing of silken black hair around it. Her lips were warm with the pink of life, and her eyes dark but studded with the cosmic refractions of a clear night sky. Her gaze penetrated Alina and carried upon it a solitary word she could understand without hearing it: “Look,” it whispered.
The woman’s hand slowly rose and its fingers unfolded, a nurturing palm stretched out toward the horizon. Alina’s gaze followed, the view before her once again creating a paroxysm of neural activity, resources typically engaged in learning were subsidized by rerouted energy from other minor processes—a fever of paradox washed over her brain.
Off in the visible distance, against a ribbon of jade that was replacing the former blot of orange, a spindly dot was silhouetted. Strange clouds began to materialize along the horizon line, wisps of sunset reds and blues streaming and billowing as they formed, then outlined with threads of grey and dusty silver. Beneath the nebulous veil a tree was taking shape, rising slowly yet steadily; its branches reached out, arching and stretching in every conceivable direction. The momentary sapling was growing at a furious rate; she was witnessing the birth of a living monolith. Its canopy splayed outward and upward, seeming to brush the very edge of creation, as if to be pressing the very ceiling, pushing apart, separating the heavens from the earth below.
The mighty arbor continued to rise and expand. Alina watched as the ground around it wrinkled and furrowed as massive roots sought purchase in the earth. Even at the lofty height where she stood she could feel the ground tremble as if thunder were trapped within the soil. In the mist of astral genesis Alina watched a burgeoning carpet of amber glimmers drift as a massive, flowing entity toward the mighty tree—a sea of fireflies.
As she watched the fireflies swirl about the immense trunk the feminine whisper returned. “Alina,” it seemed to gently sing. Alina turned instinctively to face the woman. A languid shroud of blue and amber lights enveloped them.
The apparition slowly extended her arms, her hands cupped together. As they approached the level of Alina’s sternum the hands carefully opened revealing a perfect egg cradled inside. “You must hold this” she said. An exiguous halo shimmered around the egg.
“But,” Alina stammered, “but, I . . .”
The woman smiled and shook her head knowingly. “Understanding the egg is necessary to break the shell.” She raised the gift slightly higher so it cast a pale glow upon Alina’s cheeks. “Only when the shell finally cracks will your pain do the same.” The lips remained fixed but the voice burrowed to her core. “Take the egg, guard it with your heart,” she whispered.
Alina reached up and received the egg in her cupped hands. “Peace,” the whisper emphasized, “peace will come when you are truly ready to breach the shell.”
Pallid moonlight eased through the window and cast a milky aura about her face. She rolled over and felt the blanket move with her. The transition between liminal spaces, from subconscious to consciousness, lacked its usual fluidity—Alina’s eyelids snapped open and her mind instantly set to proving reality; a lack of evidence would set neural pathways ablaze in a systematic check of quantifiable elements versus qualitative integrity. The entire process would take mere seconds before the realization would be fired to the pre-frontal cortex, and she would recognize the bedroom as her childhood room.
Deep inside her limbic system the residues of dreaming were still warm but beginning to evaporate. Alina brought her hands out from under the pillow and considered them carefully. The last scene was so fresh she felt disappointment when no egg appeared. Shimmying to the edge of the bed, she reached over to nudge Catherine where she slept upon a makeshift mattress of couch cushions and blankets.
“Cath,” she called quietly. “Cath!” Alina pressed her fingers insistently into Catherine’s shoulder until she stirred. The voice that rose from the floor was unmistakably annoyed.
“What?” she mumbled. “This better not be another one of your poorly timed yogurt cravings.”
“No. It’s better,” Alina whispered. Catherine rolled toward Alina’s voice, her eyes still closed. “Better? Sweetie, I may be half asleep, but trust me when I tell you that ‘better’ is relative—in this case, to you, not me.” Alina forged ahead.
“I just had the strangest, most beautiful dream.”
“About yogurt?”
“Cath! Seriously!” Alina complained. Catherine rubbed her eyes in resignation. “Alright, alright,” she muttered. “Go on, then.”
Alina poured forth details from her vibrant recollection. The dream itself was waning but its imprint was strong. The images she described were cast with the energy of a sputtering sparkler, flecks of pictures scattering, brilliant and random, yet still forming a cogent whole. As quickly as the pictures burned in the darkness they just as swiftly cooled and drifted intently to settle upon both women’s short term memories, enough to make for more coherent discussion later in the morning.
THE DOORWAY HE had stepped through had given every indication that he and Lauren would be entering into Alina’s old bedroom, a provenance of fatherly emptiness. Passage across the door’s threshold unexpectedly revealed a chamber resplendent in its elegance and simplicity. Hagren had assumed that with a title like Advocate General he would be escorted into a kind of opulence that defied description. Instead he was struck by how utterly similar this space was to Lauren’s, sparse and efficient, yet oracular. Most astounding was the plenitude of books, most all neatly shelved upon bookcases of perfect marble, smooth as glass and veined with the slightest blush of pink.
“This must be Mr. Hagren Roose,” a polite voice said. The soft baritone seemed altogether at one with the chamber. Hagren turned to encounter a man whose countenance fulfilled the very definition of sage: flowing locks of silver-grey hair with uncannily neat and matching facial hair, eyes light and profound, and more than a few lifetimes worth of embodied wisdom upon his frame. His crisp, white suit did not escape Hagren’s attention—a neat triangle of dark blue poking out of his vest pocket added an almost playful aspect to the figure standing directly in front of them.
“Everyone likes the suit,” he said, stretching out a burly hand. Lauren stepped next to him. “Mr. Roose, this is Mr. Petros,” she said. The bear paw of a hand grasped Hagren’s hand and practically lost it within its grip. “Good to meet you, Mr. Roose.” Hagren attempted to stammer a response.
“I’m, um, not sure—I mean, I think—” Mr. Petros gave a warm smile. “If this were my first day on the job I’d be offended,” he joked, exchanging a knowing grin with Lauren. “I’ve been doing this a very long time, Mr. Roose, so believe me when I tell you that I understand. It’s okay, really.” Hagren’s entire being suddenly found the stiffness it so completely lacked on the other side of the door. The Advocate released Hagren’s hand and gently clasped his shoulder. “Lighten up, Mr. Roose. Please call me Peter if it makes you more comfortable.” Motioning Lauren to a pair of high-backed stools, he nudged Hagren in the same direction. “Both of you, please, have a seat.”
The stools awaited them at the edge of a desk that Hagren guessed was the size of a small swimming pool; it was in perfect accord with the rest of the chamber, no grandiose flourishes or ornamentation, all style and function. At the opposite side of the semi-circular bulk, directly across from where they sat, was an rectangular ingress as wide as two men; two matching ingresses on either side allowed for access to mammoth books at the apex of each end. Hagren leaned towards Lauren.
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“Look at those books!” he tried to whisper in amazement. “Nobody reads those but Mr. Petros,” she replied calmly. Hagren marveled at their sheer magnitude, leviathans perched atop stands so solid he figured an elephant could sit on them without causing damage. Both volumes were splayed open, pages the color of ancient ivory seemed to glow amid the ubiquitous whiteness. He looked back and forth at them, his thoughts simmering as he gave them reverent consideration.
“Are those the books?” he asked Lauren. The Advocate stepped purposefully into the main ingress of the desk and eased himself into his own chair. He regarded Hagren with curiosity. “One should be more specific, Mr. Roose,” he said. Hagren’s look of surprise gave his thoughts away.
“I may be old but I hear very well,” Petros grinned. “To which books do you refer?” Hagren looked to Lauren, as if requesting her permission to speak, to which she nodded and motioned toward Petros.
“Um, well,” Hagren began unsteadily, “the, uh, Book of Deeds and, you know, the, uh—”
Mr. Petros let loose a grandfatherly laugh. “The Book of Life?” Hagren nodded. “No, my dear Mr. Roose, although given their size it’s understandable you would think so.” Petros leaned on the desk upon his forearms. “For my purposes the Book of Deeds is apocryphal. Earthly kings and mortal magistrates once kept records of their constituencies. Only later did they become famous as the apocalyptic book of deeds. That John wrote one heck of a story, didn’t he? I daresay that’s a pot that never needs stirring.” Petros paused. Hagren wasn’t sure if he was preparing to deliver an analysis of Revelation or if he was allowing a moment for reflection—or angst.
“As I’m sure you noticed, Lauren carried a volume with her since the moment you two met. You certainly have surmised by now that book is your book.” He paused again, thoughtfully, then continued. “That is to say, that book is about you.” Hagren grimaced slightly. Petros leaned back.
“The books you mention are metaphorical, Mr. Roose. But these,” he stated with outstretched arms, “are, what you might call, registers. Every soul born is entered within them. Would you like to see your name?” he offered. Hagren brightened. “Absolutely!”
Hagren practically leapt off his stool en route to meet Petros at one of the prodigious tomes. The fluid manner of the advocate’s movement caught Hagren’s attention—he seemed to glide toward the book on his chair. Petros grasped a solid mass of pages and tenderly turned them aside, then attentively flipped several pages, running a beefy index finger down a column on the far right, closest to Hagren. He slowed to a stop at an entry which pulsed bright yellow. The surrounding entries were entirely cryptic, yet his name was clearly discernable: Hagren Ernest Roose, followed by what he presumed to be his birth date in some form of hieroglyphics.
“Sanskrit,” Petros told him without being asked. The two facing pages, their spread about the width of an ordinary desk, blinked in a pastel version of Christmas lights—entries pulsed in muted shades of red, blue, and green; some did not pulse at all—the ash grey accounts. They were plentiful. Hagren thought better than to ask what it all meant. His head suddenly bustled with activity, a strained attempt to make connections, to derive some sense from this newest information. He looked up to find the advocate no longer at the book but back at the center of the vast desk.
“We should get started,” announced Mr. Petros, motioning for Hagren to take his seat again. Lauren arose and bowed ever so slightly, then turned to leave. Overcome, Hagren blurted “Where are you going?”
She paused between him and the door. “Mr. Roose, strange thought it may seem I’m not leaving you.” She gave a judicious glance in Petros’ direction. “I have urgent . . . material matters to attend to.” Hagren recoiled, his face flush with sudden panic.
“But . . . but you’re my counsel,” he pleaded. “What about this?” he asked, his hands sweeping toward the desk and Mr. Petros. Lauren stepped toward him. “I have provided everything you need, Mr. Roose. I won’t be seated next to you, but I will be here.” Hagren was dazed.
“Remember what I told you outside that door,” she said, pointing behind her. She leaned in close, her lips only distant enough to push her whisper to his ear. “Believe.” She leaned back and delicately grasped his hand. “Mr. Roose, we have a saying—well, closer to a mandate: amor vincit omnia.”
Hagren furrowed his brow. “Twain, I would understand. But not Latin.” Lauren began her slow retreat as she replied. “Love conquers all, Mr. Roose. You understand this, otherwise you would not have walked through your daughter’s room to get here.”
Hagren watched in wide-eyed disbelief as she turned around and vanished through the door. He stood transfixed, another mute, porcelain-white fixture in the vast chamber.
“Mr. Roose,” came the level baritone of Petros. Its smooth yet purposed edge sliced neatly through Hagren’s abstraction of moment. He snapped around to face the advocate. “Will I see her again?” he whimpered.
Petros grinned, intuition twinkling in his eyes like stars reflected in still water. “Indeed, you shall.” Leaning to his right he plucked a familiar book from row of neatly aligned volumes atop the desk. Hagren recognized it immediately, from the gold tassel to the foreign symbols impressed upon the spine.
It was his book.
“Let us begin, then,” Petros said calmly.
For Hagren Roose, time and space appeared to freeze, supergalactic and subatomic planes suddenly held motionless in their mortal construct. His mind’s eye replayed the scene outside the door, recalling and, for the first time, truly absorbing Lauren’s words of support and guidance. In the blinding white flash of an instant he could see the folly in any attempt to presume anything outside of the simple truth. He would either climb the hill of his own ashes of failure, or lie beneath them.
“I am ready,” he said.
“Girls . . . c’mon, gotta get up.” Jodi Roose had breached household etiquette by entering Alina’s room without knocking. No time for such formalities. Groggy though she was she could literally feel her blood coursing through her veins, her heartbeat banging at her temples and thundering in her stomach. She barely avoided stepping on Catherine in her rush to rouse Alina. “Ally, rise and shine. Let’s go!” On her way out of the room she slapped the light switch.
Alina squeezed her eyelids tight trying to fend off the intrusive light. Every inch of her mind and body howled for more sleep. She groaned and mumbled incoherently as she rolled over for the clock. Opening her eyes just enough to get a fix on the clock face, she stared at it for a long moment of disbelief. “Mom, it’s like, 4:30! We’ve only been in bed for, what . . .” Alina’s brain slipped a few sleep-deprived gears trying to make the otherwise simple calculation; “three or four hours?”
Jodi peeked around the door frame, disheveled black hair pulled back in a ponytail and a toothbrush in her mouth. “I missed the call,” she said through the foam. Catherine was grudgingly coming around on the floor. “What’s going on?” she asked Alina on the bed above, her arm draped over the edge and eyes stubbornly closed. “Mmm-mm-mmm,” was her torpid ‘I dunno’ reply.
When one is more half asleep than half awake, time, as ordinarily measured in minutes, is sharply compressed into seconds. Further fracturing that time-slice is like pulling off an old band-aid—it only stings for a moment but it can really piss one off. Mrs. Roose never had a problem with poking things with a stick, which was precisely the course of action she chose when she walked back into the room to find the two girls still lying horizontal. Her decision was no act of caprice, rather one of necessity. Jodi promptly opened the hall closet and rummaged along the shelf for a moment, finally hitting upon the air horn she used to use to scare off crows and pigeons from her now defunct vegetable garden. Her arm thrust into the room, she closed the door against her forearm and squeezed the trigger.
The sleepy silence fractured into varying degrees of rudeness: bodies sat bolt upright, the clock slammed against the wall, and shrieks of
angry surprise erupted from the once slumbering women. A frightening new Alina had pinned down the once charming, intelligent version of herself and unleashed upon her antagonist a seething current of profanity. A sleep-deprived brain spewed rancor and a cloud of curses into the pre-dawn air of the room. Catherine, now fully more awake than asleep made a quick exit from the room in search of her mother, whom she found smugly brushing her hair in front of her vanity mirror.
Cath tugged her robe around her as she approached Jodi’s room and knocked lightly upon the door. “Good morning, Mrs. Roose.”
“Morning, Cath! Come on in.” Catherine nudged the door open, unsure of what else might possibly be in store from a woman unafraid to use an air horn for a wake up call. “Glad you’re up—and Ally?”