Baffled, she locked her gaze to God’s again. And — just beyond her penetrating gaze — she saw — she thought she saw — she perceived — a creature, not an angel. In a field — No, in a garden of glorious flowers — and he was alone, terribly alone, and sad, as he stared down at an empty bed of orchids.
God blinked, and a whorl of colors in Cassandra’s mind wiped away the man alone in the garden.
“But, come!” God sounded jubilant again as He addressed the congregated angels. “I’ve just decided. I shall have a special entertainment for all of you. Tomorrow!” His darkening gaze bored into Cassandra, then into Lucifer beside her.
That night, Cassandra joined her brother, where he stood gazing longingly into the sky they had penetrated in their flight.
Sensing that she was troubled by developments — and so was he — Lucifer asserted with desperation: “I want to fly to distant stars again, this very moment!” He spread out his arms to the sky, anxiously, agitated. “Come with me, Cassandra.” Nothing ominous could possibly be occurring on a day during which they had discovered a sense of — There was no word.
“Freedom,” his sister said aloud. “Let’s give that name to the exhilaration we felt today.”
“Freedom.” Lucifer tasted the delicious word, smiled, and prepared to soar again.
Cassandra reached for his outstretched hands and held them, restraining him. “There are other matters to attend to now.” She tried not to sound as deeply concerned as she was.
“You sense betrayal.” Of course, he had known that was the source of her worry. God’s warning look at them had worried him, too.
“Yes.” She frowned. How could she tell him that she had heard the gates of Heaven closing when clearly there were none? So she spoke aloud only the thought that had asserted itself, so quickly, so firmly that it was as if it had sprung out of God’s mind and she had grasped it: “God intends to assure that we never again soar beyond His boundaries.”
“We’ll thwart Him, whatever it takes,” Lucifer said. “You’ll think of a way, won’t you, my love? — and I’ll help you, however it is!” His voice grew desperate. Forcing joy, he grasped her tiny waist in his hands, and he whirled her around. The filmy cloak she wore slipped from her breasts, small but brash and perfectly rounded, their nipples like two succulent pink berries, a spectacle he always cherished. Slowly, he released her. Her lithe body was tense with concern.
She said softly: “You loved Him, you loved God.”
“Before He lied to us —” He gazed into the space through which they had spiraled.
Other angels who had joined in the flight, and still more who had now heard of it and longed to experience it themselves, assembled in the darkened field with the brother and his sister. Gabriel had told them that Lucifer and Cassandra “looked sad.” Lucifer nodded toward them. In a silent promise, he raised his hands, up, out toward the limitless night of stars and moon.
Cassandra watched, with sadness and exultation, as the other angels answered her brother’s message, imitating his motions in preparation of triumphant flight.
In the moonlight, blades of wild grass quivered silver. Across the field and in bold silhouette, the Angel Michael faced the Angel Lucifer.
When the other angels disbanded — and Michael had abandoned his post — Cassandra closed her eyes. The image of Michael remained! — but not as he she had seen him tonight. The image had changed: Michael standing beside God’s throne, his hand poised on his sheath, which gleamed in the sun.
Tomorrow’s destiny, she thought wearily. She opened her eyes, and the thought returned, with excitement: Tomorrow’s destiny! And since it is tomorrow’s, then it can be thwarted. Thwart fate! The words of immense challenge tasted as sweet, as delectable as the word she had invented earlier. She wanted to speak out the bold and thrilling words of certain triumph to her brother. But she must deduce carefully what had begun to stir in her, she must grasp it all exactly, what she had never before had need to explore fully.
Her racing thoughts fascinated her: The fields of grass, the daffodils, the wild flowers — I saw them because He was preparing to create them! I perceived His intentions — that’s what displeased Him. Then why had He gone ahead and allowed the image to materialize? Of course! Because His plan was already too close to its goal. And the beautiful creature whose presence she thought she had sensed, alone in a garden, when she had locked her gaze to God’s today? He was included in His vagrant thoughts — and that’s why the image had faded into unshaped colors.
“The gates of Heaven are not closed, not even built,” she said aloud in amazement. It was so clear now: The sounds she had heard had not yet happened. They were the sounds of God’s intentions, shaping. The power of perceiving, which God had given her for simple entertainments, and which she had sharpened on her own, had located His plan on its way to becoming. She faced her brother, in growing wonder. “Fate can be stopped as long as it’s still only on its intended course!”
“We’ll stop it!” Lucifer accepted, without question, trusting his sister even when he didn’t quite understand her intricate ways.
Cassandra shuddered, drew her cloak higher on her neck. More of God’s intentions had already shaped. Her earlier perception of Michael had extended: He had pulled his sword from its sheath. No, no, he had merely clasped it more tightly. “There may not be time enough to change it all.”
“There must be!” Lucifer demanded. He held her close to him, to join their determination.
Cassandra’s look turned graver. This very moment God was pacing in His chambers, planning more of His terrifying entertainment, deciding what exactly to execute — She heard the footfalls of His sandals. There was much more He intended than the shutting of the gates.
His sister’s hand was cold, and yet the air was warm! Was there a vagrant chill within the night? Lucifer wondered.
Cassandra winced. Another piece of destiny had fallen into place. “He’ll ask us, during His ‘entertainment,’ what it is we most desire,” she announced.
“And grant it, or taunt us with the possibility?” Lucifer longed for the answer he no longer expected.
“That’s all I can perceive now.” Cassandra gazed ahead and saw the fields of Heaven bathed in the moon’s spilling light. “God has fallen asleep. He’s stopped plotting for now.” She closed her eyes in relief, feeling so weary that she sat on the field surrounded by poppies. She took one, looked at it, dreamily wondering whether at this very moment it might alter its color and she would be able to detect that subtle change even in the night. Still holding the poppy — it had not changed its hue — she inclined her head, and then allowed her body to rest. She lay down. She dozed, only to wake startled at the prospect before them.
“Lady, let’s pause here,” Madame Bernice said, that afternoon at tea. “We agreed to discuss this, in its place, the tricky matter of changing fate. This is the time.”
“I’m prepared to rehearse the matter with you even more thoroughly, Madame.” I was pointed in my words.
“Oh, I understand all of it, but interviewers —” She shook her head at their potential denseness. Pressing her bejeweled fingers on her forehead in order to concentrate fully — I saw a new ruby — she said: “Cassandra was capable of foreseeing —”
“Perceiving.”
“— deducing the very moment fate began to roll along —” She stopped.
Our tea setting was trembling, the whole château quivered for eternal seconds, even the lawn shifted, trees and flowers tossing about.
“I believe we’re experiencing an” — Madame clutched the armrests of her high-backed chair — “a temblor.”
I held on tightly to the table. Had the veranda tilted? If so, Ermenegildo was trying to hold it in place by clamping his feathers forcefully down on the steps. The table moved an inch or two. The vase containing Madame’s favorite flower of that day, a proud triumvirate of hyacinths, fell over, spilling the blooms among the dainty cups and saucers, which tinkl
ed nervously as they shook and shook and shook. The pastry plate rattled to the edge of the table and fell with a clang.
Then it was over.
Madame was so unsettled by the sudden shaking that she was mopping her brow with her bare hands. Although I, too — I readily confess — was just as unnerved, I was happy that the rattling had unsettled me more subtly. Ermenegildo had recovered with amazing aplomb, busying himself by gathering up the fallen pastries with his beak.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” Madame breathed in relief. “A brief one?”
Now the previous moments seemed to have surrendered to yet another rattling, but one that came from the road, the harsh grating of carriage wheels.
Madame reached for her opera glasses and scanned the direction Ermenegildo’s alerted stare was indicating with his beak, the road that connects our châteaus. Trees had grown so lush that Madame could locate nothing of significance, I could tell by her frustrated persistence in readjusting the range of the glasses. If the sound of wheels had not scraped so harshly on the road, the carriage — it was definitely a carriage — might have passed undetected after the previous disrupting moments.
When I would return, soon now, to my château, what would I find on the gate? Another subtle threat? Another installment of the mendacious novel, with what new hidden horrors and warnings in its distortions? The “Final Installment”? Fulfilling the terrifying menace that ends the preceding one?
The sun shone harshly on me all at once! It blinded me! I turned away! The time for interviews is nearing! I breathed deeply, attempting to control a flood of dread.
“I think,” Madame said — and I had been successful in concealing the moments of panic, “that what we heard was only the sounds of the wanderers from the City, their pitiful carts in which they wheel their possessions.”
“I’m sure of it,” I said, knowing she was trying only to convince me. She had noticed my anxiety.
Ermenegildo continued to direct his vision toward the road, his twisted feather — it seemed to me — angered.
The sound of the carriage faded, as if it had not occurred.
As quickly as it had assumed it, the sun lost its assaulting brightness. The mixture of soft shadows and filigrees of light was too gentle to contain any threat. Hyacinths were in full bloom in Madame’s garden, donating a perfect alternation of colors: yellow, blue, fuchsia.
We continued — a grand feat — with our rehearsal as if there had been no interruptions, not the temblor, not the carriage. “Cassandra was able to foresee —”
“— perceive —”
“Cassandra was able to detect the very moment fate began to roll along” — Madame paused, to select each word precisely — “like a stone set into motion and aimed at a certain goal. What she was able to foresee — perceive, perceive! — was the goal, the intended goal!” Her voice rose in excitement. “But!” She raised one finger, on which I noticed a second new ruby. “But! Just as a stone set into motion moves along toward its intended goal, its direction might be shifted, diverted! — even stopped! And that’s how you change destiny!”
At first I had been apprehensive of Madame’s metaphor, but now I thought it marvelous. I congratulated her.
“Thank you,” she said, and rewarded herself with her fifth crumb cake. “You may use the example at interviews, Lady — if you wish.”
“Indeed I shall!” I was delighted to accept. “Cassandra herself could not have condensed the matter better.”
“Oh?” Delight so overwhelmed Madame that she allowed herself a sixth pastry, a moon-shaped little thing sprinkled with cinnamon; it had escaped from the plate that had fallen over earlier. I could hardly hear the words she spoke next; she spoke them with a shyness I seldom notice in her — she tends to be quite forward, although always genteel. She said, “Do you suppose, Lady, that Cassandra . . . would have . . . approved . . . of me?”
“Oh, Madame.” I was swept away by her touching question. “I knew her well through all my lives, and I can assure you: Cassandra would have longed for your approval.”
Madame only smiled, but her smile was eloquent in its boundless joy. To celebrate her great pleasure, Ermenegildo swooshed his tail open for her, gathered it, then swooshed it out again, and yet again, in a display that brought a series of “thank you, thank you’s” from Madame.
The day was dusking, but I wanted to continue with the events in Heaven — yes, and to keep in abeyance the discovery of anything that might have been left at my gates — something startling; the coach’s scraping, echoing in my ears, had announced that. So I continued: “The next night —”
In Heaven, a band of young angels — beautiful youths, boys and girls, their bodies decked only in garlands of tiny orchids — but, Cassandra noticed, their eyes tilted with malice — announced:
“God’s Special Entertainment shall commence!”
XXII
INSIDE MADAME’S CHTEAU, candles had been lit. Their glow created a golden fan where we sat on the veranda, Madame, Ermenegildo, and I.
“Madame, I shall continue. I’m not tired. I’m exhilarated to be able to speak all this at last.”
“As well you might be, Lady! I approve our going on.”
All the angels had assembled early in the amphitheater God had built before His throne. These gatherings were not rare. God would listen to a song, encourage a performance, a dance, a scene from a drama. He would then make some suggestions: “A more dramatic moment, a quiet pause to create a more impressive highlight. Perhaps a more resonant first line? Risk melodrama — but! — retain control.” He Himself was well aware of drama. Before He appeared on His throne, there would occur a swirl of cumulus clouds, a flourish of invisible trumpets. The clouds would dissipate, and there He would be, sitting on His throne with His golden sandals and His rainbow-streaked scarf.
This much of what Cassandra had perceived last night had now occurred: Michael stood at the foot of the throne; he gripped the sheathed lance, firmly.
He was a strikingly handsome angel, but a certain sternness furrowed his brow. He was aware that he was among God’s favorite angels, along with Lucifer; but at times Michael thought God preferred Lucifer above all the others — and that he, Michael, was second in God’s hierarchy; Lucifer, after all, had been God’s firstborn. Now that there was tension between Lucifer and God, Michael saw an opportunity to replace him, especially since God had, last night before going to sleep, encouraged him to stand beside Him today. Also, He had given him a new silver sheath “as a present for your loyalty to Me.” All this might be intended to arouse Lucifer’s jealousy, Michael considered, and to convey a warning of caution to the other angels. Still, he was thrilled by his placement so close to the power of God’s throne.
As the flourish of trumpets faded and the mist before the throne cleared for God’s appearance, Michael readjusted the sheath on his bare hip, to emphasize the gift God had presented him. The sheath caught a blade of golden sun, a stabbing warning.
“My children!” God welcomed, with extended hands.
Cassandra and Lucifer, and some of the other angels, always winced to be addressed as “children.” Today the word assumed a threatening connotation.
“Because of what occurred yesterday,” God continued, “Our beloved Lucifer’s” — He leaned over conspiratorially to Michael, as if to allow him to hear a special tone, to pick up a nuance of added confidence and affection here and there, while His eyes remained nailed on Lucifer — “yes, and Our beloved Cassandra’s, joyful imagining that he and she and others have discovered that more exists beyond Our Heaven” — with a spiral of gestures, He dismissed the idea — “yes, because of that, I have, as promised, devised a Special Entertainment, to bring us all much closer together in the only Heaven that exists.” He rested His hand — lightly — on His lap. “I invite My favorite angels — and all of you are favorites —” He inclined toward Michael, who smiled, a smile so grateful that it almost wiped away the furrow on his brow. “I invite yo
u to tell Me what you long for most.”
Just as Cassandra had perceived! Lucifer knew. But had God already planned further than what she had grasped — and might intercept?
Throughout the day, as a certain anxiety had seized Heaven about the coming “Special Entertainment,” Cassandra had remained alone, walking along flower-strewn fields, pondering various strategies for several eventualities, pausing only to thrill to the deep blue of a gilia blossom, and to peer at a poppy in expectation — always — of witnessing the exact moment when it changed its tint. The smile on her face had remained, lovely, as if nothing were troubling her.
Now she stood against a marble column in the amphitheater and watched and listened carefully to God.
“And so, speak!” He commanded beneficently.
For a moment Michael felt brash enough, secure enough, to consider repeating God’s words. Instead, he clutched his sheathed sword more tightly.
Lucifer spoke out, “When we speak our wishes, shall they be granted?”
God’s smile remained on His face. “Oh, but of course. Why else —?” He pretended to entreat Michael in His puzzlement.
Lucifer faced Cassandra quizzically. All would be won? This easily?
Cassandra shook her head slowly, no. To nurture the full spirit of his defiance — which her plan counted on — she had not told her brother what she had plotted to foil the shutting of Heaven’s gates, now that she was certain of that much of God’s design. Her plan relied on this: When He had plotted that yesterday, and in His own mind heard the reverberations that would occur, she had perceived them as part of His intention. Now she knew exactly what sounds would precede the imprisonment in Heaven. And when that began —
She glided gracefully toward the throne. Passing her puzzled brother, she whispered, “Nothing has been won. It’s all still shaping, as He wants. Watch for my signal, keep our allies close to you, and be prepared!”