Chapter 16 - Summer Harvest
Late June, 1981
Those who don’t fear death are the most powerful among us. But those who don’t fear love live on beyond the grave.
Elizabeth had dreams too. No, not dreams of fame or fortune, but dreams that showed her a glimpse of what was to be. These dreams didn’t happen often, but when they did she took heed. So, that Sunday afternoon when she saw Chase standing on her front porch, she was not surprised. She had been expecting him.
Elizabeth put down her book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and rose to open the door. Chase and she both knew that he could have walked through that door, but he showed her the courtesy of standing outside the screen door until she noticed him. Typically, on days like this, he doesn’t knock. He doesn’t wait to be acknowledged. He simply appears before his prey and strikes them down. Elizabeth opened the door.
“Chase,” she said as he entered the living room.
She closed the door behind him, shut the one open window, and closed the curtains.
“Elizabeth,” he answered as he stepped towards the armchair.
They both knew what he was there to do. Elizabeth asked her executioner, “Would you like a glass of iced tea?”
“Yes, that would be fine.”
Elizabeth went to the kitchen and returned with a pitcher of tea and two tall glasses on a tray. She sat the tray on the table and poured each of them a glass of the sweet delight. Elizabeth took a sip and sat back on the couch again.
“So, Chase what took you so long?”
Chase took the glass in his hand, “I’ve been a bit busy of late.”
They both knew that he was referring to the Omni Portal. “And, you, Elizabeth, after all those years on the run, why did you return to Atlanta?”
“Well, I couldn’t go back to New Orleans. I left that life behind. My life is here now with the girls.”
Chase continued, “But, I’m sure the Circle could have placed you in a safe location in return for all your years of service.”
“I ran all those years for the sake of the girls. Otherwise, I’ve never been one to run from my troubles. Life is trouble, is it not? But the beauty of life is in the struggle against the darkness is it not? So, if I must be somewhere when the end comes, I’d rather be here, where I was happiest in this life.”
Elizabeth took another sip of tea.
“So, where will you be when your life ends?”
Unlike his associates, Chase had no delusion that he would live forever. He traded in blood and fully expected to die in blood one day.
“Somewhere far away from my beloved New Orleans.”
“So, you do still love something? And still you would destroy the world for the sake of vengeance?”
“Yes, when vengeance is all that I have.”
“So, what will satisfy your vengeance? How many saints and Circle Knights must you kill to satisfy your vengeance?”
“I only kill the servants to draw out their master.”
Chase lowered his glass back onto the coffee table and for the first time Elizabeth saw another meaning in his words. She’d known for some time that Chase sought to force the Circle Knight Elders to deal with him directly, so that he might have his revenge on those Elders who took his beloved from him all those years ago. But his words that day, in light of his work on the Omni Portal, conveyed so much more. He was striking out at God Almighty.
Elizabeth hid her realization for the moment and carried on, “So, does that include Paul?”
“No, Paul and Elisa were the only ones who stood up for me and my love. So, I will never raise a hand against either of them. But the rest have to perish until vengeance is served.”
“Even the babies?” Here Elizabeth referred to Sarah and her sisters.
“Yes.”
“They weren’t even alive when all that happened.”
“No they weren’t, but they are agents of my accusers. Thus, my vengeance knows no limit besides those who defended me and my beloved in our hour of need. When you’ve done things for the cause that I have done, spilled the blood that I have to spare the innocent, taken on the weight of taking the lives of others, willingly sacrificed your own joy for the greater good and then to have that sacrifice rejected as unfit, then you can judge me.
“Chase, you know my story, living off the crumbs of murderers and thieves while I looked the other way. So, I certainly can’t judge you.”
Elizabeth took a last sip of tea savoring its coolness on her tongue before continuing, “It’s just that I don’t understand. Elisa, Zi, Henri, and you all seem so broken now. From what little I know of your lives before, oh, how you loved and sacrificed for one another and, now, it’s like you’re four strangers who’ve lost their way. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t make sense in your eyes. Each of us has served our time in hell, as have you, and sometimes when you’ve been through hell, that hell becomes a part of you.” Chase took another sip of tea. “Ah, I detect a hint of mint.”
Elizabeth nodded, “Yes, that’s my secret ingredient.”
Chase lowered his glass for the last time as well and then froze for moment, “I smell something.”
“Yes, that would be the gas. I’ve noticed over the years that you tend to shy away from Sarah and her gift of fire. So, I got this idea. I had to at least try to protect my babies.”
A tear ran down Elizabeth’s face just as tears had often run down her face in her dreams. But, never in the past eighteen years of her waking life had she cried until that moment. She smiled as she felt the wetness on her cheek. She realized that she had at last completed the circle.
Chase acknowledged, “Understood.”
Elizabeth thought of Hosea and wondered if they would truly see one another on the other side. Her last thoughts were of how happy she was that she’d seen Cil, Deborah, Ruth Ann and Sarah grow into adulthood and how the girls loved each other. Elizabeth pressed the remote in her hand tightly and a spark ignited the gas turning the house into a one huge fireball.
A translucent Chase walked towards the sidewalk from the smoldering remains. The deaf and blind woman who had been sitting on the front porch across the street first felt the shock waves of the explosion and then the heat from the fire and rose to her feet with her hand slightly extended trying to feel something. Chase had been denied a kill, but he always respected those who were unafraid to die. Elizabeth always held Chase’s respect and had done nothing that day to diminish that feeling.
THE BOOK OF
RUTH