But now, Jessica found herself walking with her eyes cast solemnly to the ground, something that would have made her mother cringe. Every time she glanced up and saw one of the scathing gazes, a part of her shrank and she would stare at the smoothly polished rock floor again. Her neck couldn’t seem to hold itself erect.
The Life Brothers had appeared.
The hallway that had been empty before was slowly beginning to fill. There were two, then six, then twelve, then more. The men stood or leaned in the archways watching her pass with Teferi and Fana as if they were a three-person parade. The first thing Jessica had noticed—which had made her eyes widen before she could contain her reaction—was that all of them were buck naked. Every inch of their lean, dark bodies was fully exposed without so much as a sash to cover them in the bright light. She was so intrigued and embarrassed at first, wondering whether she should cover Fana’s eyes, that she hadn’t even noticed their eyes.
They glowered.
Their expressions, when she felt brave enough to glance at those faces, ranged from what could only be described as pure hatred to uncomfortable distaste. Unless it was her imagination—and deep down she knew it wasn’t—she could feel those gazes against her face and skin like the waves of heat from an oven. She felt a band of perspiration form at her forehead, and her armpits were prickling fiercely. Her bottom lip quivered. These men scared her. Not because their number was so overwhelming—there probably weren’t even twenty of the immortals gathered in the passageway—but because of the intensity and solidarity of their feeling. They were like one person, one mind. And Jessica felt a dead certainty that they would celebrate the chance to hurt her and her child.
Jessica had heard people talk about what mobs felt like, itching for the slightest provocation, but she hadn’t experienced it herself until now. Was this what it had felt like for those civil rights marchers in Selma? Or in Tallahassee, Florida, where her mother had spent a night in jail after a demonstration in front of a segregated theater? If she glanced at any one of these men too long, she thought, he might devour her with his eyes. The silence in the hall was pure menace. Jessica looked at Fana’s face, which was as drawn and cautious as an adult’s as she stared at the men. Of course Fana knew it, too. She probably knew better than Jessica.
“The dining hall is twenty feet ahead,” Teferi said, his tone low. “Forgive me for this. I hadn’t expected a display quite so . . . hostile, or I’d have taken another route.”
One man stood closer to their path than any other, and the sight of him nearly brought Jessica’s feet to a stop; he was bigger and broader than the others, his body rigid with sharply contoured muscles. All he wore was a white skullcap, but he stood as if he were draped head to foot in regal clothing. He was princely, and the rancor on his face was terrifying. As he gazed at Jessica, his face was so tightly locked that he seemed to be using all his strength to suppress a desire to toss her down into the web of sharp spindles in the courtyard below.
“Let us pass, Kaleb,” Teferi said, although Jessica was sure she heard his voice waver. Though the man did not move, they delicately edged their way past him. Jessica felt a hot snort of air against the back of her neck, and her fingertips seemed to burn. Fana whimpered, hiding her face in Jessica’s bosom.
Jessica clung tightly to Teferi’s hand, mashing his fingers. Teferi felt like their only protection in circumstances that had gone from simply mysterious to perilous, a shift that seemed to have happened in a split second. She wondered if Teferi even knew what the hell he was doing. Was he a complete anomaly? All of the other Life Brothers, including David, might be full of this sort of smoldering rage.
“Kaleb is what we call one of our Lower Brothers,” Teferi whispered to her. “He is unevolved, more primitive in his ways of thinking. He is still far from his Path. Khaldun often assigns such men to be Searchers, since they enjoy the world above. That way, they are loyal and happy. Kaleb objected most loudly to your presence here. Be wary of him.”
But Jessica had figured out all by herself that she needed to stay out of Kaleb’s way.
The dining hall did not reassure her. Once they had walked through the immense archway, Jessica again felt the sense of being swallowed. The room was huge, big enough for five or six tennis courts, and the walls were covered with murals of brilliant colors that interlocked with almost hypnotic precision, tinged with shiny lines painted in gold. Instead of the highly modernistic-looking globes, this room was lighted only by torches on sconces and candles on the table, which gave the room an old, and mystical feel. The massive table was only knee-high, built in a U-shape, apparently carved from the same rock as the rest of the underground colony. But most of the fat, firm pillows with gold-colored tassels that served as seating at the table were empty. At a table that could easily seat sixty people, only five men were present, sitting cross-legged on their pillows in a small, pathetic group at the U’s curve. Three of the men wore white clothing that looked like gowns, apparently out of deference to the guests. They did not stand or nod when Jessica and Fana entered the room, but at least their eyes were neutral as they gazed at them. The man sitting at the end of the group, who looked barely old enough to be out of high school, seemed to smile slightly, but it was hard to tell.
And no David.
Jessica blinked back tears, tugging on Teferi’s arm. “I don’t want to do this. Obviously, no one wants to be here, so why do we have to do this?” she whispered. She felt as if she were regressing, becoming a child herself again.
“Khaldun wishes it so, Jessica.”
“Is he here? Is Khaldun here?”
“He will appear soon. I’ll take you to your seats.”
The men watched them as if they were circus animals brought to perform for them. Jessica and Fana sat on pillows close to the men, but not close enough to encourage anyone to try to speak to them. The group suddenly burst into spontaneous laughter and nodding. Ordinarily, Jessica would have enjoyed the harmless sound of laughter, but she didn’t like the feeling that she’d just been the butt of some telepathic joke. When she glared at Teferi for an explanation, he only gave her a sincere shrug that told her he had no idea what the others thought was so funny.
“We apologize for laughing,” the young-looking man said, raising his voice loudly to be heard. “It appeared to us that our guest thought she herself was about to be served as our meal.” This time, there was no mistaking his smile of dazzling white teeth. He spoke like a professional orator, as if he were on a stage instead of at a table, and his voice echoed in the large, empty hall. “My name is Teka. I am attendant to Khaldun, our blessed Father, who brought us the Living Blood. With me are my brothers Jima, Demisse, Yacob, and Abebe. They are members of our Council.”
This time, as the men were named, they did extend Jessica polite nods. She nodded back.
“No, we will not be eating you today. You and your daughter are not nearly plump enough for us,” Teka said, although his joke, assuming it was a joke, had been delivered deadpan.
Before Jessica could try to think of an appropriate response, the music began. She hadn’t noticed the musician tucked in a far corner of the hall, although he had a bizarre appearance; instead of wearing clothing, he was wrapped in white cloth in the fashion of a mummy, except for holes for his eyes, nostrils, and lips. Was this a ceremonial costume? The musician sat between two potted palms that grew several feet high, behind a harp-sized string instrument with four long necks. He played the instrument with two separate bows, one in his left hand and one in his right. Some of the tones he coaxed from the strings were high, others much lower, and all of them were colliding at a frenetic pace. The result, at first, sounded to Jessica like pure chaos. Fana, much to Jessica’s horror, had already covered her ears, her eyebrows lowered in indignation, which prompted more laughter from the other men.
“No, honey, don’t do that. Just listen, please. You’ll insult him,” Jessica whispered, pulling Fana onto her lap. Her heart pounded. Lord, she thou
ght, the last thing they needed was to lose favor with the handful of immortals here who were feeling hospitable.
The music was not classical, not Middle Eastern, not jazz, but something that sounded to Jessica like a combination of the three. And as she sat there trying to fix a pleased expression on her face while she listened to the crisscrossing melodies sparked by the musician’s quickly moving bows, her mind seized upon a recurring note that was almost like a drone. The more she concentrated on the single drone, the more the music around it seemed to make logical sense, until, sometimes for full seconds, she was riveted by it. Or moved, more accurately, just as she felt moved when she listened to an opera in another language. She didn’t understand what she was hearing, but a part of her was definitely beginning to feel it. Fana, too, was gazing toward the musician with growing curiosity.
“Try this,” Teferi said quietly, pulling Jessica’s mind away from the performance. He gave her a round, flat roll with a topping the color and texture of tar. “It’s bread with a ceremonial paste we eat to honor Khaldun. An appetizer, if you will. I think you’ll like it.”
“Is it ve-ge-ta-ri-an?” Fana asked.
“Yes, yes. We’ll see how your mother likes it first.”
Jessica took a tentative bite of the roll, which was brittle, and she froze before the food even rolled to the back of her mouth. Already, her tongue was screaming.
“Well?” Teferi asked hopefully.
Jessica forced herself to swallow, and the trail of fire made its way down her throat. “Hot,” she said in a breath. Her sinuses began to melt. “Water.”
“Oh, dear.” Quickly, Teferi reached for a crystal decanter and filled Jessica’s glass. “I’d forgotten that paste might be too rich for you. Drink.”
Jessica had emptied two full glasses, until her mouth had settled, before she realized that the water she was drinking was crisp and flavorful in a way she hadn’t known water could be; it was almost sweet. And, even stranger, her tingling taste buds were craving another bite of the tarry paste. She eyed the remaining bread in her hand hungrily.
“Is it good?” Fana asked too loudly.
“Yes, but it’s too hot for you, sweetie. It’ll hurt your tongue,” Jessica whispered.
The musical piece reached a frenzy, then ended in unexpected silence. Was it over? Jessica was about to clap, but she noticed that the other Life Brothers were only watching the musician pensively, so she decided applause was not part of their custom. Without realizing it, she’d slipped the bread back into her mouth for a bite, and this time the spices seemed less jarring.
The young-looking man, who’d called himself Teka, stood up. His tuniclike white gown hung nearly to his knees, covering anything she might not be in the mood to examine while she was eating at the table.
“There are no visitors to this house. Once we have entered, we dwell here for all time,” Teka said, and the other men mumbled a foreign-language response that sounded rote, like a congregational reading. Jessica’s heart flailed nervously when she thought he was talking about her dwelling here for all time, but then she realized that Teka was conducting a prayer. “The journey on the Path is long, but we follow the way of the gift-bearer, whose name is Eternity. We enjoy this food today because of the Life Gift. Our hearts beat today with the everlasting strength of the Living Blood. Thank you, Father, for this most invaluable gift you have bestowed upon us. Thank you for inviting us into your house, and for choosing us above all others.”
Yes, thank you, Jesus, Jessica thought, improvising her own prayer. She held Fana’s hand. All of the men, including Teferi and Teka, gazed upward as though heaven had parted open for them. With their shadows dancing in the candlelight in this solemn dining hall, Jessica felt herself relaxing slightly, allowing herself to be transported. Church had always had a calming effect on her, and she felt a growing awareness that she was in a house of worship. Their gods and customs were strange to her, but the spirit of God’s love was in this room, and God had given her this blood. That was good enough for her.
Fana tugged at Jessica’s hand sharply. When Jessica looked down at her daughter, Fana’s eyes were wide with almost comical childish wonder. She looked entranced, as if she’d been sucked away somewhere. Like the other men, she was staring upward, beyond Jessica. Toward the ceiling. Jessica followed her daughter’s eyes.
God.
God was there. God was looking down at them.
Jessica’s frame nearly buckled as her senses went to battle with her eyes. No, no, no, it’s a hallucination, the rational voice in her head was trying to tell her; it was the part of her that had long ago come to grips with the notion that the God she worshiped was invisible, and that was the way it should be. People who thought they saw the Virgin Mary’s image in their flower gardens or felt the hand of God squeezing their shoulders at exam time were just confused by wishful thinking, because she’d always thought God didn’t operate like that. He wasn’t running a magic show.
But what was this, then?
She could see an image of a man . . . in the air. He was blown up six or eight times the size of a normal man, and he was sitting cross-legged in the air itself, hovering above them like a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Jessica tried to see his face and could not make out his features because the figure was hazy; not quite ghostlike the way she’d imagined ghosts were supposed to look, but blurred enough that all she could make out of his face was dark skin and a long, bushy, black beard. He was wearing a white robe. She could see that perfectly well. And he was so close, not even six feet above her, that she believed she could reach out her hand and tug on his gilded hem.
And then God spoke. Yes, the voice was coming from the floating image, not from speakers hidden somewhere the way her rationality kept trying to convince her. The figure spoke in gentle cadences, just loudly enough to be heard, but he was speaking. He was speaking a foreign language, and every time he spoke five or six words, the Life Brothers responded in unison in the same language. A call-and-response, apparently. Worship up close and personal.
Not knowing whether she should be bedazzled or terrified, Jessica’s head kept flying back and forth between the Life Brothers and their floating deity. She began to feel as if she were outside the entire scene, observing this exchange in the safety of a movie theater, until the floating man’s head turned directly toward her and she heard his husklike voice wash over her like a rain shower: “Jessica. Fana. Welcome, my children of the Living Blood.”
The God figure might also have told her how the universe was formed, the secret to time travel, and who really killed JFK and Martin Luther King, but Jessica didn’t remember any of it later. She had no idea how long she sat there gaping openmouthed at the floating God.
All she knew was that at some point she was on the floor staring up at the murals painted on the ceiling, and the figure was gone. The back of her head was sore, throbbing against the hard floor. She was blinking fast, trying to remember exactly how to think.
She had fainted. Faces were gathered over her like a kaleidoscope. Fana was here, her eyes full of concerned tears. Teferi, looking so mortified. Even the musician with no face was above her, balancing the bow on his knee. The musician held her hand and squeezed firmly, bringing warmth from his wrapped palm, transferring it to hers.
“Jessica? Jess?”
Jessica blinked twice. Three more times. Her confusion broke.
No, she was not hallucinating. She was awake. She had seen God. And she wondered with almost dreamlike calm how in the world she had never noticed before that the mummy-wrapped musician was David.
“David . . . ?” she whispered in confusion, reaching toward those eyes, the only part of him that she could see. It was him! She knew those eyes.
But David only pivoted away from her with a start. Then, just like the God figure in the air, David was gone, as if he’d never been there. Jessica, lying on the floor of the immortals’ great hall, wondered if she’d only dreamed them both.
>
19
Fana’s tears were all Jessica could afford to think about as Teferi led them through a series of private passageways toward their guest chamber, which he told them was a wing in the House of Meditation. This area, much more compact than the others she’d seen, reminded her of a labyrinthine hive, with chamber archways leading to yet more archways, and all of it wrapped in faint light and a fruitlike scent. Jessica’s head still smarted from the bump to the floor when she’d fainted, but the muscle weakness that made her feel as if she were dragging something heavy probably had nothing to do with that. In the silence of this place, Fana’s cries were earsplitting, stabbing Jessica’s heart.
Jessica couldn’t think about the floating deity. Or the way David had run away from her, drawing back like a panther when she’d reached up to touch him in that wrapping he was wearing. She wanted to think of nothing except her poor, hurting baby. Fana was wailing in her ear, her face turning a stormy red-brown like an infant’s. This day had been too much for poor Fana, and she’d probably been scared by David’s strange costume. He’d looked like something out of a horror movie.
At the end of the corridor, a nude, somber man stood before a closed door with his arms folded across his broad chest. The man was bald, and his hairless scalp gleamed. The sight of him made Jessica hesitate, but Teferi gently urged her along as though he were not there, opening the door for her. A guard, she realized.