Purgatorium (52 page)

“That’s not a problem, one of those Angels taught you the healing trick, right?” She raises the hatchet high in her hand. “This will only hurt for a few seconds.”

I am afraid in regards to her quick resolve.

She thrusts down the hatchet, shattering my frozen legs on impact. I feel the pain for a matter of seconds until it slowly slips away. I try to regenerate my legs as she holds out her hand again to me. Not wasting any more time, I reach up, grasping it. Trying to get up, my nubs slip on the melted ice.

She steadies me. I feel like my entire body is starting to freeze over. I don’t think I ever went this long without getting to the next time zone. The reapers must be doubling their fleet now.

Suddenly, my whole body goes weak and numb. I wobble to the ground. She looks down at me and tries to lift me up under her shoulders. She smells the whiskey.

“You are too heavy and drunk to lift,” she concludes. “Looks like I am pulling your drunk butt.”

My legs drag behind me as she pulls me out of the bathroom, into the wet living room, and through the open door. I look up towards my living room to see a reaper smashing in through my window. She quickly gets me all the way through and shuts the door.

“I could really use your legs right about now!”

She continues to drag me with an unknown massive force driving her down the hallway towards the elevator. The reaper has frozen over my apartment door and breaks through it with ease. “You are in dire need of some warmth,” she says, clearing the cold air out of her mouth.

I look up back towards the hallway and see a group of reapers walking deathly over to us. She slumps me up against the elevator wall, presses the 5 button, and the door closes.

“How about some coffee?” she asks me.

Stephanie looks empathetically at my weary face. She reaches over and puts her hand on my cheek. I stare at her suspiciously when all of a sudden I feel warmth. I look at my feet and see that my legs are connecting back together like puzzle pieces.

She looks over at the painting. “This is the oddest place to put a freaky painting like this. It’s why I take the other elevator each time.”

I raise my eyesight to the ceiling, trying to keep my mind at peace. To my surprise, I see a long black light fluorescent tube where the emergency lights would have been.

The elevator opens. I wonder why she didn’t press the button for the lobby? My legs are back healed as the elevator begins to freeze over from inside. She forcefully takes me by the arm and pulls me out. The elevator freezes over completely and falls to the bottom.

10 Minutes

“We need to run, now!” she screams as I get back on to my feet. We run to the very end of the hall and get to the stairwell door. I put my arm out in front of her letting Stephanie know that isn’t a good idea.

“Don’t worry,
we
got a plan,” she says as she takes my arm away. I bring it back up to her as I think,
We
?
We who?

She forces me to look out the window next to us. I immediately see someone is driving in my car, steering the reapers away from my apartment building. “We need to move.”

She kicks open the door and takes my hand. We run down each set of stairs. Arriving at the bottom, we open the exit door and race across the lobby through the revolving door.

We get outside and not a reaper is in sight. I try and catch my breath as I see Stephanie running over to the side of the apartment building. After a few seconds, she comes out riding a Dodge Tomahawk motorcycle.

“We need to hurry before they pick back up our heat signature!”

I run over and stop once I get to her. I look at her, feeling my masculinity drop at riding on the back.

She looks at me and says, “Do you know how to ride a motorcycle? Oh wait, you don’t. So get on and shut up!”

I quickly get on and grasp her waist softly. “You better hold on for dear life. This baby can reach 350 mph in a matter of seconds. AKA, don’t be shy.” She gives me a wink as if she loves the rush of it all.

I grip her tightly as she switches transmission speeds and floors it onto the interstate ramp. I look over to the horizon, feeling as if it goes on forever. No boundaries or frames to encroach upon the view. The many shades of blue and pink seep into the sky like a spilled bottle of ink. I feel an overwhelming sense of freedom as she clutches down again, putting us in, what feels like, warp speed.

She leans left and right, cutting past each car that gets in her way. She tilts right and dodges the truck holding the glass compartment. I look back to see the truck seems like an ant in size as we accelerate further. Every bump in the road reveals itself with an unmatched authority, and every winding turn pushes the earth on its side. The ride down the highway feels almost exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

Any coldness that was still lingering has now escaped me. I look over Stephanie’s shoulder and see the limitless vision on the world that surrounds us. The feelings of freedom are removed from my mind once she clutches to the final gear. Everything from the horizon to the cars in front of us becomes a blur. I hear her madly laugh from the adrenaline rush she must be feeling.

15 Minutes

She leans right and we are off the interstate. We look up ahead to see the road has been iced over. It looks almost melted as if they already came through here. It must have been when they were following the unknown person inside my car.

“We don’t have the time to stop!” she yells back. The wind rips through my hair like sharp blades. I feel my hands losing their grip. I look over and see in the blur, the coffee shop just a few feet away. I can’t hold on any longer as my hands suddenly slip away from her waist.

I fly off and land on the icy concrete. My body gets torn to shreds as I slide towards the door of the coffee shop. I concentrate, trying to think back to when I gained control on the reaper’s grid that one time. I need to regenerate my wounds first so I can find the strength to ground myself.

I continue to concentrate as I force my body to start rolling like Sonic the Hedgehog. Every bruise to broken bone that I encounter gets instantly healed. I then dig my foot heel into the frozen cement, roll myself back up, and run right through the door into the coffee shop.

Once in, I hear clapping coming from the window. I look over and see Stephanie sitting at the table, smiling at me. I gaze out the window and see her motorcycle parked right outside.
How did she get it to stop so quickly?
I wonder.

“Somebody is getting the hang of it!”

She walks over to me and swiftly kicks her leg in between mine. I fall back looking up at her. She puts her boot on my chest.

“If you break an hourglass the reapers will come, as you well know. But what I think you don’t know is that they multiply like rabbits. Being late or early in a time zone is a couple reapers at best, but breaking an hourglass is like sounding the alarm to a whole pack of them. You had better hope my partner got back in the correct time zone fast enough before it was too late. You are going to need his help when your final race comes.”

She bends down and takes out a napkin to wipe the paint splatter off of my face. Then she looks me straight in the eyes and says, “And don’t you dare go and pull that crap again.” She continues cleaning the paint off. “I know you are suffering right now but you can’t worry about things that aren’t for sure. That’s what you always told me.” She finishes. “That’s better! I can see your face now.”

She throws the blue covered napkin to the side. I look at her warily, waiting for her to strike. She takes her leg off me and sits back down on the chair. I stand back up and wonder about who her partner was. I look over at her as she stares out the window. I see that she is watching the sand from the hourglass fall. Probably counting each grain to the second, I think.

My legs still don’t feel all the way healed. I pull up a chair across from her and sit. I notice the bulbs in the ceiling lights are black. I take a gander at the light switch in the corner by the front door, wondering what other hidden messages did I leave myself. I stay at rest, not wanting her to know what I know.

A few seconds go by as I continue to look at her, wanting to know more answers. Though in the back of my mind, I feel totally wrong for misjudging her. She isn’t weak at all. The bangs over her eyebrows betray her innocence. She seems more fearless and motivated than what she appeared to be before. Maybe it has always been an act, as if she were waiting on the right moment to show her true self.
But why?
I wonder.

“I am not an angel so I don’t know what is running through your mind right now. I didn’t sell you out to the reapers, if that’s what you’re thinking. I was there trying to protect you that night, if you can believe that.”

I look at her confused, then abruptly remember that Sealtiel had said that she was there when I last had my mind erased.

“You will get your answers soon enough, I promise,” Stephanie says to me. We both look back over to the window and see the reflection of the
hourglass
is turning over.

20 Minutes

“Time to leave,” she says. I stand up. My legs have regained their strength. She walks out the door and I follow right behind her, stopping to flick on the light switch. The bulbs light up blue, showing me the next hidden message on the face of the coffee table. The word says “Pride.”

I turn off the lights just as Stephanie walks back in. “What’s taking you so long?”

I shrug and walk out, wondering all the while what the messages are supposed to mean?

We walk across the street and into the park. We look over the green field and see plum blossoms floating through the air. I see the wind blowing through her hair, pushing it back. I watch Stephanie close her eyes, as if she is enjoying the sensation.

Walking over to the bench, I sit down. When I look up, the little girl is beside the newly formed cherry blossom tree. Stephanie heads over and sits with me. I turn to her and she looks back at me, almost sorrowfully. I watch Stephanie, then look at the little girl and at the tree.

“It’s beautiful,” she says.

I look back over at the tree full of leaves and cherry blossoms. The little girl twirls around as the wind brushes the cherry blossoms off from the tree’s twigs. They float to the bottom as the wind wraps them around her. Her childlike laugh echoes through the park, bringing with it a certain innocent calm over me.

“You know, you helped me,” Stephanie says. I look over to her wanting to know more. “My whole world came crashing down. I was forced out into the darkness I created for myself. I couldn’t even die. I tried so many times. I didn’t know who I was or where I was going. I started moving from one person’s self-made prison to another. I was alone. No one heard my screams, not even me. But you did somehow. You saved me as much as you could. You read to me every day from the Handbook you have by your bed.”

I look over at the Ferris wheel, not wanting to think about what God has done for me lately. I notice the lights around the wheel are black bulbs. I hate myself for not ever noticing that before.

“I truly am here to help you. I’m sorry I haven’t come and talked to you about this before, but you gave me strict instructions to approach you on this day. I’m here to help you find the token you hid. You never showed me what it was or where you hid it. Because you must have known the reapers would have flagged it, sending my lost soul butt out of here.”

I look at her and try to explain using my middle finger that Madi’s ring could be my token. She looks at me, troubled, as if I was flipping her off. “Excuse me?”

I quickly wave off the notion and try to explain it again. She takes out a sticky note and pen from her jacket. Stephanie hands them to me and I write down ‘Madi’s ring and or my watch.’

“Those are not your token,” she says, “if that’s what you are trying to get at.” I put my elbows on my knees and lay my head in my hands, forlorn. She continues, “It has to be something in one of the memories you’ve seen here, in this place.”

I scrawl down a quick list:
Raphael
and Madi’s silver matchbook;
Gabriel
with Madi’s gum; Uriel and my wedding ring;
Sealtiel
with my
watch;
Michael
and my mother’s camera; my Dad’s
hatchet
and or knife; the Handbook; the snow
globe
; the pistol. My head aches, contemplating all the possibilities.

Suddenly, I look up. I take out the flask from my pocket and show it to Stephanie. She laughs, shaking her head. Despite myself, I feel warm to the sound of her laugh. I put the flask down on the bench.

She looks through my list. “None of these are your token. We tried all of these a long time ago.” She looks away for a few seconds and slaps her hand. “The day you found it, I now remember the clue you said to me is that it’s something that can never be taken away, only given.”

I look up, remembering how
Michael
had talked about a name is something that can’t be taken, only given. I promptly remember Jehudiel knowing it. He gave me a riddle, I remember. He wanted something called a silver? His silver, I think it was. Isn’t he supposed to see me today? I look around for him to appear.