FIFTY-TWO

Mr. Lee’s voice echoed inside her head. You are so scared, but no one notices. Because you are of no consequence. You don’t matter and you never have.

It was true, so true. His words were inside her and she fell to her knees because she could not fight them. You couldn’t save your son. You couldn’t save your marriage. You abandoned your life’s dream.

Mr. Lee’s mocking laughter filled her mind.

Rachel curled into herself on the ground, pulled her knees to her chest.

Worship Ba’al, Mr. Lee whispered. And you can have another chance. Go back to where you gave up your dreams and do it differently.

She was at the hospital, sitting in a familiar hallway waiting for news about her parents after the car accident. This is where you gave up your dreams, Mr. Lee whispered. Walk away from your burden of family. Walk away from all the planning, all the struggles, all the worry and you can draw all day long, more alive in your imagination than you ever were tending to everyone else. Walk away and you’ll never experience failure again.

Rachel felt part of her melt at the chance to go back in time to when nothing depended on her, but she shook her head. She would not turn into a monkeywoman, a mad shell of a human.

The hospital corridor melted, grew impossibly long. No doors. No turns. Buzzing fluorescent lights overhead. At the far end of the hallway, the lights flicked out. The darkness was coming. Rachel pushed against the white walls, but they wouldn’t give. She began to run down the hallway, away from the dark.

“Hurry, Rachel.” Mr. Lee stood at the end of the hallway. “I’ll give you a new life as the artist you’ve always wanted to be.” He snapped his fingers and Rachel, twenty-year-old Rachel stood beside him. Her hair was cut fashionably short, bangs swept to one side. A silver cuff on her right ear and a sketchpad under her arm. Shy smile and innocent eyes.

Rachel held her cramping side, slowing to a walk.

“Take my offer,” Mr. Lee called. “You know you aren’t strong enough. You certainly aren’t smart enough. You are no use to anyone. You are not worthy of being loved. Your only use is being fodder for Ba’al.”

He’d chosen her because she was the weak link in the team. Her pride stung, and Rachel gathered herself. He cannot defeat me. Only I can defeat myself, by believing him. Feeling as if she stood on the edge of a precipice. Rachel stood up straight and spread her arms to fly. A feeling of peace filled her. Whether she was able to heal Elijah or not, she chose to try. Her healing was an extension of who she was, a powerful extension.

Rachel clenched her fists and moved through her memories, grabbing onto the moments that she’d saved Scott from the fallen tree, carried Adam’s body up to the Bathhouse, healed Captain Lewis. She was not a weak link. Rachel psychically reached for a connection with the nearby ley line in the river. “Yes, I wanted to be an artist, but I’ve become a warrior.”

Surprise flickered across Mr. Lee’s face.

She heard the darkness coming behind her, the snick of the lights trying to scare her.

“You’re right that I’m not strong enough … alone. My family—birth, adopted, and found—they are my greatest strength.”

Rachel put her hand on the walls meant to be a mental cage. She imagined lines of energy and plunged her hands into the space between the lines. The walls shimmered. Rachel yanked her hands apart, ripping a hole in the wall. She stepped through as the last light went out.

“Mom, open your eyes. Mom you’re scaring me.”

Adam. It was Adam.

“Mom, I need you. You said you’d fight for me. I’m fighting for you.”

Adam leaned over her, cheeks blotchy and tears falling from his red-rimmed eyes. He wiped snot away with the back of his hand and wrapped his arms around her and Rachel held on.

I am loved, she thought. Imperfect and messing up all the time, I am loved. And it is enough.

“I’m sorry I scared you. I scared me too.” With Adam’s help, Rachel stood and unwrapped the whip from around her arm. She felt shaky, as if she’d been gone a long time. “But, it’s over.” And though she didn’t yell, Rachel knew Mr. Lee heard because she saw the blood drain from his face.

“I don’t think so,” Mr. Lee said.

“I’ll make it so.” Captain Lewis said, striding toward the woods.

“How not very nice to see you again,” Mr. Lee said as he walked forward, coiling the whip as he did.

“Indeed,” said Captain Lewis. “Do you choose to submit and come with me as a prisoner of New Babylon?”

Mr. Lee scoffed. “I don’t think so, archer.” With a flick of his wrist, Mr. Lee sent the whip lashing out. Captain Lewis lunged forward and caught the whip in one hand, hacking at it with the knife in his other hand. The two men raced at each other, grappling and falling to the ground. Captain Lewis straddled the man and punched him in the face. Blood gushed from a broken nose. Mr. Lee tried to wrap the whip around Captain Lewis’s neck, but couldn’t reach.

“Help me to Elijah.” Rachel turned away from the fighters at the northern woods and leaned on Adam to walk toward the clearing of Hiraeth. The motorcycle gang had gathered in an outward-facing circle around their friend, their flamethrowers pointed at the Golden Bull. The ball of etemmu hovered in the air. If he inhaled it, he would kill everyone. Ba’al leaped forward.

An’s arms shook with effort.

“Chase the bull again,” Rachel said, strangely calm. “Distract him now or he’ll be too strong for us to fight.”

Immediately Jeremiad surged forward with his flamethrower and Ba’al bellowed in surprise. Rachel straightened Elijah’s body, feeling detached as she looked at the gaping wound. She closed her eyes and reached out to the energy in the clearing. She plunged her hands into the bloody mess, not using her own energy as she’d done with Dido, but becoming a vessel for the flood of etemmu. Rachel prayed to Elijah’s god, El-Elyon, knowing he would answer for his prophet. Unlike the previous healings, Rachel had the sensation of trying to navigate a flood rather than being in control. She barely had time to pull her hands away as the flesh knit across his midsection, even his clothing stitching itself closed.

Rachel rocked back on her heels. Noise from the woods made her look.

Both Captain Lewis and Mr. Lee were on their feet, swaying from exhaustion. Mr. Lee’s eye was swollen shut, his nose still bleeding. Captain Lewis had a mark around his neck like he’d been strangled with the whip. Lowering his shoulder, Mr. Lee charged into Captain Lewis, who grunted as he held onto the man, dragging them both to the ground.

Next to her, Elijah stood and began chanting again, full of renewed energy. The Golden Bull shook his massive head and let out a thunderous bellow, saliva dripping from its mouth. He took one step back, and then retreated another step. The motorcycle gang cheered.

The bull god gathered his massive haunches and pushed off the ground and into the sky.

“Hold him!” yelled An. “He’s getting away.”

“No!” Mr. Lee screamed. He scrambled to his feet and ran toward the charred spot where the bull had launched, ripping open his shirt to expose the burn scar on his chest. “I call upon the power of Ba’al. Take me with you.”

“Ba’al’s gone,” Captain Lewis said. He’d put away his knife and nocked an arrow from his quiver. Assuming the readied stance, he pulled the string back to his ear. “Last chance to surrender.”

“I call upon Marduk for deliverance,” Mr. Lee searched the cloud-covered sky, his arms raised and fingers tensed so that tendons raised out from his arms.

“He’s not allowed here.” An opened his mouth and inhaled the giant ball of energy that had been hovering in front of him. He whipped off his sunglasses so that his otherworldy eyes glowed with silver and green swirls. Then, his body began to grow until he stood twenty feet tall, his six arms visible to all. “And neither are you.”

An raised up his mountainous foot and stomped on Mr. Lee. When he removed his foot, there was only a pile of brown dust. He stepped back and raised his top two arms. Wind swept through like a dervish. Brown ashes rose in a mini-tornado and ascended toward the clouds.

An put his sunglasses back on and began to shrink back to human size. As he did, he opened his mouth and the white ball of energy came flying back out, hovering in the air.

“Rachel-girl, this etemmu is attracted to the ley lines and I can’t hold it much longer. Quick, name your favorite fruits.”

“Umm. Lemon? Strawberry? Apple?”

The ball of energy escaped An, speeding around the clearing like a released balloon trailing random strings of light. Rachel didn’t know what everyone else saw, but for her, white energy strings wrapped the trees around Hiraeth and were absorbed into the vegetation, moving inside like a blood transfusion. The trees grew a foot, branches unfolded, leaves exploded from bare branches, suddenly vibrating with color. In other places the strings broke into small dots that flittered around the area evolving into what looked like lightning bugs.

An’s six arms moved through the air, bouncing the strings back from the ley line. Rachel turned her head when Adam gasped. Their garden sprouted in a symphony of color. Yellow squash popped out from buds like popcorn. The smell of rich loam filled their nostrils. Green pumpkin vines climbed the wire cage. Wild red strawberries grew in a patch that looked like pampered specimens from a green house. As the etemmu soaked into the plants, Rachel felt the keenness of her senses begin to dull. She blinked in relief.

Then, one last particularly long string of etemmu seemed to plant itself at the corner of the house, growing into a glowing, three-dimensional tree trunk, expanding upwards into branches and a beautiful crown of glowing leaves. Round shapes descended. The glow faded and resolved into an ash-gray trunk, brilliant green leaves, and yellow lemons on the bottom branches. Small suns. Green apples with pink-red stripes grew on the middle branches and red apples grew on the upper branches. Citrus perfume wafted on a cleansing breeze.