Page 41 of The Children of Eve

By now, Jennifer was once again within sight of the water and the endless torrent of the dead. So attuned was she to this environment that she sensed the change in it moments before she discovered the reason. She also noticed that the dead, who rarely paid attention to the shore, were now focused on it, even as they immersed themselves in the waters and were carried away.

Two figures were standing by the mossy rock that was Jennifer’s preferred vantage point, close to the edge of the forest. They were facing away from her, one dressed in a dark suit, the other in a plain cream dress that fell below her knees. Both had bare feet. They shimmered, like presences viewed through a heat haze, and Jennifer knew them for what they were.

Angels.

CHAPTERXXXII

Jennifer had long ago realized that what she saw was not a real lake—or was it more properly an unreallagoon? She could never be sure—just as the dead were not being carried out to an actual sea. Instead, it was like a film projected on a layer of smoke over a chasm, a falsehood concealing the terrifying vastness beneath: call it, perhaps, eternity. Whatever name it was given, the reality would be sufficient to unnerve even the dead were they to be confronted by it. Better to disguise it, to present it as something welcoming: a warm, still body of water that lulled whatever passed for their remaining faculties, gently tranquilizing them so the transition would not be so disturbing and they would accept an easeful drowning.

The stone thrown by Jennifer broke the surface but left no ripples as it sank. Slowly, and without obvious surprise, the figures by the lakeside turned to see who had thrown it. In their faces, Jennifer glimpsed versions of all those she had loved or who had cared about her in life—friends, a kindergarten teacher, her favorite crossing guard, her mother’s family, her mother—the angels presenting themselves as amalgams of joy and consolation, drawn from whatever they picked up from her, because Jennifer could feel them sifting through her memories, seeking what they might use to calm her. They were considerate intruders, but intruders nonetheless.

But they had underestimated her. Time moved differently here, if it could really be said to move at all, but whatever the manner of its progress, Jennifer had spent too much of it in that place to be so easily fooled. Just as she had come to grasp the reality of the lake and sea, so also did she perceive what lay behind the angels’ facade: the awfulness of their beauty, the violence of their passions, the blindness of their loyalty. Under the skin of each—spotless, unwrinkled—cyclonic spirits roiled.

She had been preparing for their coming, even before her mother’s warning. Now, as they tried to comb her history, drifting through the version of her former home in which she stored all she once had been and something of what she now was, they came upon doors locked against them, toyboxes that would not open, photographs that disintegrated at a glance, books that could not be read. Jennifer felt their puzzlement shade into annoyance. She was a child and a child should not be able to do this. But surely a child had nothing to hide, or nothing worth hiding, so they had no reason to be worried.

“Hello, Jennifer,” said the female, and in her voice, as in her appearance, Jennifer detected dissonance. The form the angels had assumed bore no relation to their actuality; they had appeared as a man and a woman because that would be less threatening to a child.

“Hello,” said Jennifer.

The female took a step forward and Jennifer retreated a step in turn. The female looked to the male, as if uncertain how to proceed in the face of such wariness.

“We don’t mean you harm,” he said. “We saw you by the water’s edge and were concerned for you. We’d like to know why you stay here, why you don’t join the others.”

Jennifer had to try not to lie; the angels would pick up on a lie of commission. But a lie of omission? That, she thought, was different. It was why she had spent so long training herself to visualize locked doors and keyholes without keys.

“I’m waiting for someone,” she replied.

“For whom?”

“My father.”

“If he’s not here, it’s because it’s not yet his time. He will be with you soon, I promise. In the end, all pass this way. But it’s not right that you should be so isolated. Those who wander are often unable to find their way back, or they’re taken by the ones in the woods. It would be safer for you to come with us. We will walk with you into the sea, and when you surface, it will be into a new life.”

“I’m afraid that I’ll forget him,” said Jennifer. “I’m afraid that he’ll be lost to me and I to him.”

She spotted a crack in the male’s veneer. Redness flared, and she knew she had hit upon a truth.

“It is a different way of being,” he responded, but only after a pause.

Ah, so you have to be wary of lying too.

“Nevertheless,” said the female, “we think you should let us take you away.”

Jennifer regarded the angels. To them, she was a misguided, mildly recalcitrant child who required only to be steered gently in the right direction. They did not know who she was, which meant they were also unaware of who her father was. Either they had not been given that intelligence before being dispatched or—

Or he had been forgotten. Was that even possible? If so, the cycles of pain he endured were the actions of a system set automatically to repeat, like a torture device activated before being left unattended, or an eternal oubliette. Jennifer, her face as much a mask as those of the angels, endured a cascade of emotions. First, rage at such a punishment for its own sake; then, despair that it should continue without the possibility of an ending, whether through mercy or redemption; and finally, a chilly sense of conviction.

We will stop it, he and I.

“I choose to remain,” said Jennifer.

The female looked sad, the male angry. Jennifer prepared to run, though she doubted she’d get very far. If they were determined to force her to leave, there would be nothing she could do to stop them.

Suddenly, Jennifer became aware of footsteps approaching from behind. She reacted to the new threat, expecting to be confronted by another angel, only to see a burly, bearded man wearing a clerical collar with a worn black shirt, his hands buried deep in the pockets of ill-fitting trousers. Through the straps of his sandals, gray socks showed, his big toe poking from a hole in the left.

“Why don’t you two just fuck off back where you came from,” he said, “and not be bothering young girls.”

Understandably, the angels looked dumbfounded. Even Jennifer was taken aback by the newcomer’s temerity. After all, what kind of priest swore at angels?

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