Death of the Body

  “This ring?” Joshua questioned, sliding it from my finger. I felt it pulse cool one last time before the warmth of my own dripping blood replaced the sensation. My hands felt heavy now. I wasn’t able to lift them.

  “No,” I choked out and my head rolled backward. “Mine…”

  Joshua laughed, “Does this ring allow someone to enter into this level and not forget?”

  His question was incoherent. His guess was as good as mine. All I cared about was that the ring was a gift from my father.

  The rage returned. It bubbled to the surface like the blood bubbling from my mouth. It brought all of my feelings into clarity. For a few moments the world snapped back into place. I was higher now, a few feet off the ground. Joshua was taking off my clothes, but I didn’t know why.

  Then I noticed the link. He was probing my mind. He was reading my thoughts. My father’s ring was now on his hand as he ripped off my shirt! The link between our minds worked both ways though, and as I questioned why he was taking off my clothes, I saw him glance toward the grinder.

  I started kicking frantically, trying to free myself from the hook. The pain I felt as a result was dimmed by rage and terror. Joshua hit the button that lifted me higher into the air. I tried to cry out, but every time I did I was met with a mouthful of blood. I spit this mouthful in his direction.

  The sound the grinder made when it started sent waves of electric fear through my body. But even through the roar of the machinery, I heard my cell phone buzz in the pocket of my pants that were lying in a heap beneath me.

  Our minds connected; Joshua heard it, too. He glanced at me quickly, aware that the familiar sound of the phone had caused me to stop struggling. I knew I didn’t want to endanger my friends so I had to keep my mind clear.

  Joshua reached into my pocket and read the message.

  I could see the words on the screen through his eyes. I love you, too.

  Joshua smiled wickedly and started plotting the death of my friends.

  “So you’re loved, are you Edmund?” he spoke aloud, even though I could hear his thoughts. The sound of his voice and his thoughts created a delayed echo in my ears. “How will this poor girl feel when she learns that her great boy toy has abandoned her, just like you were abandoned by the last people you loved? ”

  Visions of my dead father, slouched over in his office chair, filled my mind. He didn’t abandon me. He was murdered.

  “Yes, that secret room in the parliament building. How do I get inside?”

  Shit. I hadn’t meant to give that up. I could feel Joshua probing for the entrance to the room, but I thought about the swirling blackness behind the word scripture in the orphanage instead.

  “Stop fighting me, boy!” he screamed. Then his voice softened. “No matter. Think about the book. Your father’s book. How do you read it?”

  I found his question hilarious. He had had the book for over twenty years now and still hadn’t figured out how to read it?

  Joshua lowered me toward the grinder. He knew I was mocking him. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to read the book; my father’s letter had been cut short by his death—a death that Joshua had caused.

  I would give him nothing else.

  My feet caught fire as they hit the whirling blades—at least, that is about the only way I can describe it. The whole scene seemed to happen in slow motion, but while I could feel the pain and still see through my own eyes if I chose, I actually had the sensation that I was watching the entire last moments of my life from above, a bird’s eye view of my death.

  I continued to be worried for my friends, but I was no longer linked to Joshua’s thoughts. Actually, I was no longer linked to any thoughts. All my worries, all my hatred, all my love, all my fear, were replaced by a blissful nothing—a clarity that came unexpectedly.

  And then I was on the sidewalk in front of the store, watching Joshua in Henric’s body placing packages of ground meat in the storefront window. Each paper-wrapped package had a daily special sticker price tag. I had to hand it to him—the window display had never looked more organized.

  Above me was a silver river, much like the silver thread that wove through Orenda that I had followed twice to the mountains where I was able to jump between that world and this one. But above me now was not a silver thread—it was much larger, and I could feel it pulling at me with an attraction like a magnet, whether I wanted to follow it or not.

  Xia and Nicholas were walking up the sidewalk. I tried to cry out to them, but they couldn’t hear me.

  “Don’t go in there!” I yelled, but Joshua had already seen them coming up the sidewalk, and went out to meet them.

  “Hi, Henric,” Nicholas started.

  “Stop, please! Run away.”

  “Have you seen Edmund?”

  I noticed that as Joshua walked farther from me, the pull from the silver river got stronger. I knew it was the ring. The closer I stayed to it, the more control I could keep. The easier it was to stay in this world.

  “Xia,” I whispered near her ear. I could feel the warmth of her body. I was so close. How could she not feel me?

  “No, he never showed up for drinks last night. I actually did file a missing persons report. I told him I would. If you haven’t seen him, he must be in real trouble.”

  The look on Xia’s face was filled with worry.

  “Stop. I’m here.”

  She clung to her phone—I could see my last message to her on the screen.

  My heart leaped…

  She loved me.

  …then fell.

  I was dead.

  “Well, if you hear anything, do you have my number?”

  My connection to her had to be enough. She could see my aura before. She must be sensing something was wrong. She had to know.

  “Go! Get away! Don’t say anything else to him.”

  I moved closer to Joshua, hoping to read his expression, sense his thoughts. All I could feel was the damned ring he stole from me.

  As if connected to it, I felt it pulse cold. Joshua’s reaction was subtle—a slight tic in his eye—but Xia glanced down.

  I couldn’t believe how well she maintained her composure. If I didn’t know any better I wouldn’t have guessed she’d seen the ring. Her expression didn’t change at all—but I knew she knew because instead of looking at her phone, at Nicholas, or at Henric, she looked past them and right at me.

  She couldn’t see me but she was trying. I smiled. I felt warmth, love, and sadness fill her body—but her expression didn’t change.

  “I’ll call,” Joshua responded coolly. “But tell him he’s fired if he dares to show up again.”

  Xia turned and walked away. The farther she got, the more my heart broke. I longed to be near her, so I did what any man in love would do—I followed her.

  Every step I took from Joshua and the ring was fraught with difficulty. The farther I got, the more the silver river pulled at my spirit. After a block it felt like I was fighting the current of a raging river. It didn’t matter. I had to be with her. I had to find a way to get through. I had to stay. I had to ensure her safety, somehow.

  It only took one step past an uncertain threshold, then I was pulled, willing or not, into the silver river. My vision burst into stunning white light as the current grabbed me. I watched Xia drift away as I was swept upward and the light in my eyes grew brighter. At the last moment, struggling to keep her in my sight, I thought maybe, just maybe, she turned around and looked at me as I was slipped into oblivion.

  Twenty-Two

  The silver river, it turned out, was literally a river. It alternated between a completely bright white and a totally annihilating darkness, creating a gentle rolling visual that was quite hypnotizing. I found myself standing on a bank, watching the silver liquid flow toward an unknown location. While I didn’t know exactly where I was, there was something familiar about this place—something I once explained to Nicholas as the space between spaces. This was different, though; I wasn’t
just passing through or pushing an object into this space in order to then pull it out. The space was more defined now, like a tight container. I was stuck here.

  The bank was on one of the corners of a supernatural river confluence. Two silver rivers flowed together here, but instead of merging into one stream, they simply crossed each other and continued flowing in their respective directions. While the silver liquid resembled water, the way they crossed resembled an intersection of a road.

  The two rivers bordered the corner I was standing on, and to my back was a steep cliff. There was a bit of room, so I wasn’t in danger of falling. However, there was no real place for me to go.

  I walked to the edge of the precipice after surveying my surroundings. I peered down into a red fiery glow that brought up memories of all those Catholic teachings about Hell and damnation. I wondered if I was doomed to wait here until I decided it was better to fling myself over the cliff and into the abyss… maybe this was the entrance to Hell and I was here because I’d had premarital sex or taken the Lord’s name in vain one too many times.

  Stuck as I was, I didn’t feel any fear until I turned around and discovered an unexpected person. The figure stood silent and still, observing me. I hadn’t noticed the figure because it resembled a shadow and was standing across one of the silver streams. The being wasn’t much taller than I was, but now that I had noticed it, it took on a forceful and ominous presence that began to fill the space.

  It walked, gliding across the silver stream. As it got closer and took shape, I couldn’t believe my eyes—the stories and legends were true. I didn’t know whether to be insanely terrified, or if I was supposed to feel no fear at all, or if I should laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

  The figure wore a cloak that resembled smoke. It was in a constant state of motion whether the figure was moving or not. The face was hooded so I couldn’t make out any details, just a hollow blackness where the face should’ve been. Large black wings expanded as the creature flexed them commandingly, a feature that I did not recognize based on the usual archetypal depictions. The look was completed with a long, sharp-bladed scythe.

  We stood staring at each other for a moment. I assessed my emotions, trying to put this effigial character into some sort of teaching or story that made sense. I certainly wasn’t with God. I hoped I wasn’t in Hell. I suppose I could have been in Purgatory or some sort of holding place, but where were my loved ones? All of the different belief systems I had been taught, and the single truth out of hundreds of religions was that there really was an Angel of Death who looked exactly like the sketches I used to see around Halloween.

  “The Grim Reaper? Really?” I accidently said out loud with disbelief.

  The dark figure took a step toward me.

  The way he moved was majestic. The cloak surrounded him, moving effortlessly, as if it was thicker than air but not made of cloth.

  I felt apprehension with each step of his approach, an escalating apprehension that raised the level of my fear. As he took a step forward I found myself stepping back until I was at the edge of the cliff. Still, the creature moved toward me. Was he there to make sure I went over into the fiery depths?

  The dark mass moved fast, so fast that at the last moment, my foot slipped and I started to topple over the edge. I would have fallen, had I not been caught by the Reaper’s long scythe.

  He pulled me toward him, away from the ledge.

  “Do you know who I am, mortal?” he spoke.

  If I had blood, because at this point I didn’t really know, it would have run chill. It didn’t matter if I had a body or not, if I was in the flesh or out of the flesh—when this being spoke, my entire soul reacted with pins and needles racing up and down my arms. The majesty of that voice. The awe-inspiring sound. The familiarity…

  “Dad?” I choked out, fighting for the word as it caught in my throat.

  The Grim Reaper pulled me in closer. I was inches from the black void of his face before he lowered his hood.

  Those were the eyes of my father.

  My fear was instantly replaced with elation. I fell into him, embracing him. I never thought this would happen. My elation was unlike anything I had ever felt before. Finally, I had a piece of my family back, a piece I thought I had lost forever.

  “Edmund!” he exclaimed. “Thank the Earth and the Heavens that it’s finally you.”

  “Dad!” I returned the exclamation. “Wait. You’re the Grim Reaper?”

  I meant the question as a joke, the observation obvious. Instead, his face grew serious.

  “We don’t have much time. We have a lot to discuss. I need you to listen.”

  “Okay. But, you’re the Grim Reaper. You look kind of ridiculous.”

  This time he smiled, but as he looked down at my hand, disappointment crossed his face. If there’s one emotion a son doesn’t want to see on his father’s face when they are reunited after a long separation, it’s disappointment.

  “You don’t have my ring.”

  “Joshua took it from me,” I explained.

  My father paused. “Hopefully it won’t matter. The ring should find its way back. It belongs to you, not him.”

  “Actually, it belongs to you,” I corrected, feeling sentimental.

  “No, my son, it doesn’t. Listen, Edmund,” my father laid the scythe at my feet before continuing. “The ring is the key to being able to cross physically into the earthly realm, a place we call ‘the level of the body.’ It’s a level Joshua hasn’t been able to find a way into yet.”

  “I don’t understand. Joshua found a way in. He possessed Henric.”

  “Possessed in spirit, perhaps. Possession is a spiritual power—the power of the energumen. But to have all power over the level of the body, Joshua would have to go there physically.”

  He was talking too fast. I thought in death we had an eternity. Why was he talking so fast?

  “Joshua is seeking power. He hopes to learn the magic of all the levels. He’s already conquered the level of the spirit—the energumen. That is how he learned the power of possession.”

  “Yes, I know. He made a deal—”

  “The energumen’s knowledge in exchange for the spirits of men,” my father interrupted. “Joshua was the Master Elder of the level of the spirit. Do you remember?”

  “Orenda,” I spoke, my teaching as a child striking a familiar chord. “You’re the Master Elder of the level of the body?”

  “I was, until Joshua killed me. Since that time I’ve been here, waiting for you.”

  “Wait, I don’t understand.”

  “Instead of going to the level of the body like you did when you died, I was able to use my knowledge to come here. Every soul has a cycle. The human soul is born first on Earth. When they die, our family is responsible to help them cross safely to Orenda. Your mother—” his voice failed as his memories of her surfaced. “I’m sorry. I miss her.”

  “Me, too.”

  I watched him swallow his emotions, pushing them back down into the pit of his stomach. It was odd to watch someone else do something that I had always done. I didn’t realize I’d inherited my ability to swallow my emotions with the identical physical gesture.

  “She was amazing. I know you didn’t know this, but her job was to help with the transition. She was so good at taking a person’s beliefs and helping them to reconcile those beliefs with the reality of Orenda. She could convince anyone that they were exactly where they were supposed to be: heaven, Hades, Sheol, a waiting place to be reincarnated… your mother had explanations for them all. It was something in her eyes, I suppose. The way she would look at a person—she could convince them they were a giraffe.”

  I felt a strong connection to my mother as my father spoke. I learned more about her in that brief insight than I had ever known. Her life was always such a secret—just like my father’s. Now I knew why, and the fact that we both had the ability to convince with our eyes was something we shared.

  “The human cy
cle continues for as long as the soul had something to learn. Once in Orenda, the Council of Elders is responsible for a human’s Planning, where the lessons of their next life are decided. Then the soul is sent back.”

  “Reincarnation?”

  “Yes. Humans are supposed to live that existence, in a cycle of learning between Earth and Orenda. The mages, however, are not human. You, my son, are not human.”

  “Then what am I?”

  “Your soul began in Orenda. We are not supposed to exist in the human cycle. We have our own cycle, but it was interrupted when Joshua traded the human souls to the energumen. There was a side effect. Murder was the dark magic Joshua used to gain control over the magic of the energumen, and with the first murder of a mage, our souls fell. When he killed us, he made it impossible for us to fulfill our birthrights. We can’t complete our own cycles with the mess Joshua has made. The side effect of murder was that our souls were pushed into the human cycle.”

  “So other mages have been sent to Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “But won’t they come back here when they die again? Can’t you just take them back to Orenda?”

  “There is a rule you must understand. Memory of a higher level of existence cannot be sustained when descending to a lower level. It’s meant to be that way so that men don’t remember their previous lives or the reality of Orenda. The soul imprints the experience but the body cannot remember. Now that Joshua has condemned our race to exist in the human cycle, none of them remember who they really are. That means that any mage who was killed will descend into the level of the body, and forget.

  “Except you.” My father beamed. “You were the first of our kind to experience the transition and remember everything.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “It was my power that gave you that ability. Since I was the keeper of this crossroads, I knew how to cross between our world and theirs. I was gifted a ring by my father, who was gifted it by his. The ring has the power of our family, generations of our ancestors who learned to guide the spirits of the dead to Orenda by paying the price of this crossroads. Now, the ring allows the bearer to control this crossroads. Without it, there could be no Angel of Death.