[Note: Due to popular demand from a few of the Twitter kids — okay, it was Dark Gracie but she is quite popular — I’m posting a chapter here from the Undertaker story for your reading pleasure. There’s actually some *spoilers* in this chapter, so be forewarned if you were planning on actually reading the damn book at some point in your life. At any rate . . . this is what I worked on tonight, instead of sleeping.]
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Chapter Fourteen
The fruit on the gate rattled dead and hollow as I entered Cires Ling’s garden and found that every plant, shrub, and leaf within had withered somehow, the lush growth crumbling under the touch of some unknown blight. Nothing had been spared . . . but whatever had struck this place, it wasn’t natural. The marking stones of the path had been scattered, their boundaries blurred beyond recognition. The head of the stone demon lay on the blackened lawn, the baleful gaze accusing me as I passed through the bare skeletal trees clutching at the flat cast of the sky.
Above, the house squatted over the ruins, the windows staring blankly down on the tragedy.
Whoever had done this, they’d been comprehensive in their vandalism. My head swam at the sheer scope of the destruction. I could not imagine the force of will and effort it took to dismantle the former beauty of the place. It seemed beyond the petty hate and prejudice of the village. I wandered in the new wasteland, fearful of what grisly discoveries I might make should I venture up to the house.
I found her sitting by the pond where the elegant, iridescent fish had once swam — their tarnished carcasses drifting lazily on the greasy surface of the water, gutted and ruined forever.
She did not look up at my approach, nor asked my purpose. The sleek, sad beauty of her face unveiled, I realized that she was not past the birthing age. For a moment I hesitated, uncertain in my transgression and fearful of rebuke.
Seemingly oblivious to my trespass, she spoke — her voice so low and measured that I had to move closer in order to hear.
“You want to know about monsters.”
I nodded. It never occurred to me to ask how she had anticipated my purpose. It was a long time before she spoke again.
“I have heard a story told — not in my lands, but in another — and it is the story of the first people.
“The God of that time — and I do not know which god it was — shaped the first people from the earth, the mud, the dust.
“In that time, the God of that place had made man and woman as one, male and female together, joined at the back.
“A garden was given to them and responsibility to find the names of the things they saw there. So the man and woman spent their days going about their work, speaking to each other over their shoulder, always together.
“Soon, they fell in love as was natural and good and what the God of that time had intended.
“But their lips could not reach and neither could they love one another as they desired. So when the God of that place came next to visit, they prayed for Him to draw a line between them and allow them their freedom to do what they desired.
“The God of that time took mercy on them and did as they asked.
“For the first time they saw the face and form of their beloved. Their love feasted upon the sight and grew stronger than before. So consumed, they did not think to thank the God of that place, nor did they notice when He departed.
“They joined then, together once more, this time face to face. And it was good.”
A chill wind rattled through the stripped branches overhead. Cires Ling waited, as the bony fingers of the willow stirred the surface of the pond. Once it had passed, she continued.
“And, after a time, they spent their love and returned to their work together in the garden. But no longer did they have to scuttle like crabs back to back, and so their work was sooner and better accomplished than before. And yet, it took them much longer to complete, for they were so distracted by the other and stopped often to join together again.
“A day came when the God of this time returned once more to walk in the garden and take joy in what He had made. He called for the man to come and walk with Him and tell him the names of things . . . but the man did not answer.
“So the God went looking for His man in the garden. And it was in His garden that He found him.
“There they were — joined together, face to face.
“The God of that time spoke to His man: COME AND WALK WITH ME.
“But His man, busy with his woman, did not hear nor answer.
“And the God of that time said: I MADE YOU BOTH, ONE AND TOGETHER. YET YOU BEGGED OF ME TO BE SEPARATE WHAT I HAD MADE, ONE FROM THE OTHER AND FREE. WHY NOW DO I FIND YOU JOINED AGAIN? WHY DO YOU NOT COME TO ME WHEN I CALL? WHY DO YOU NOT HEARKEN WHEN I SPEAK? I AM GOD AND I AM ANGRY.
“Then the God of that time separated them and His man was very angry, saying to Him: You gave her to me.
“The God answered: I GIVE AND I TAKE. I AM GOD. WHO ARE YOU?
“And His man answered: I am Man.
“So the God of that time drove woman out of the garden and into the shadow, all for the pride of His man.
“Once woman had gone, He asked again: WHO ARE YOU?
“And His man answered: I am alone.
“The God of that time said: COME AND WALK WITH ME.
“But His man replied: I am Man. I will not walk with God. I walk alone.
“As he has ever since.”
She sighed then, this beautiful woman. I could not tell if it was an affectation of her performance or if she truly felt it.
“Now woman, with the help of man, had made something of her own and she carried it away with her out of the garden. After a time, she brought it forth in shadow and when it had reached it’s age, it faced it’s mother and together in the darkness they made more in kind company to fill the shadow.
“In time, there were many of them and in the shadow their mother smiled while somewhere else, in what used to be a garden, Man walked alone and apart from the God of that time.
“As he is walking still.”
She finished, the evening deep upon us.
I did not speak.
She looked up at me, her face as smooth and pale as an egg. “That is the story I’ve told.”
Having little or no experience with authors, I asked “It is one of your own?”
To my regret, her brow wrinkled briefly. “I have no stories of my own. They are all given by the gods.”
“But you wrote it?”
She frowned, doubling my regret. “I am not a god. I did not, I cannot create these things. They are given to me and so I give them to you.”
“But you’re a writer,” I protested. I’ve seen your books and heard of your fame.”
She faced me and, with the last light of the day on her face, I saw at last the woman for whom poor Gaines had given up his life.
“My books, my fame…” she sighed. “They are nothing. None but gods shape the chaos, none but gods can raise something out of the shadow.”
I did not need to say that I didn’t understand.
She sighed again, saying “You came, wanting to know of monsters. I have told you of monsters.
“Now go your way with this knowledge.”
But I stood there a few moments longer, waiting for something more.
Yet she did not speak to me again.
I left through that damned, rattling gate — left her alone to stare into the gloaming with that damned, beautiful face.
I have not seen her again in this life.
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[I should have the whole book done by Good Friday. Shortly thereafter, I’ll release it in some form or other. Stay tuned…]