The gavel raps on the dais, both of us leaping from our skins. Rimma leans over again, an eye to the spyhole as sounds below begin to soften. The gavel taps in quick succession.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Quiet now, quiet,” Deacon Abrum’s deep voice reaches soothingly into the room’s stuffy corners. “Let us pray God’s Assurance.”
Rimma’s palms press together at her chest, her eyes closed as she whispers with the congregation below. “Mighty God, bless us, your descendants, whom you have chosen in all your wisdom to guard the gates of Heaven. We await with faith and humility the day when the broken world shall bloom and we shall assume dominion over all that grows of the dark loam, creeps o’er the verdant land, swims the crystal waters and flies through sunlit air. This reward is ours for our ancestors’ faith and righteousness, our unwavering adherence to your laws, our steadfast denial of the devil-spawned and their evil ways. We are the merciless sword of your justice, keepers of the covenant, the Saved.”
The prayer ends but not the thick silence. I imagine Deacon Abrum’s gray head bobbing at the somber gathering, singling out a few men from the sea of faces, remembering to acknowledge those crowded in the back. “This day we shall never forget,” he intones, his solemn footsteps creaking across the wood floor as he begins to pace. “Today we learned that Paradise has fallen. How can this happen, we ask? How did the people of Paradise so incense God that He abandoned them? What did they do to bring this fate upon themselves?” He pauses as if expecting God Himself to answer from the rafters. “Why did He lead them to our gates except to test us, to remind us of the penalty for sinning against His righteous laws?”
My sister isn’t breathing. Her trembling hand slides up to her face and covers her mouth as the meaning behind the portly deacon’s words take root.
A man’s stunned voice cracks the silence. “We can’t leave them out there,” he utters in disbelief from somewhere in the back. I wish I recognized the voice and envy Rimma’s view through the rope-hole.
“We can’t let them in,” another man says indignantly. “We’re at capacity if all seven pregnancies produce healthy children. God’s law forbids it.”
“Elder Demar speaks the truth. The law is clear,” Deacon Elie asserts, his nasal whine unmistakable and just as grating up here.
“But God is also merciful, isn’t He?” another voice questions, this one familiar, my father. “Perhaps He challenges us to embrace His law of forgiveness and mercy.”
“Secondary, Julian,” Elie asserts.
“We can’t leave them out there,” the first man repeats, his voice approaching the dais. “Will we stand by and watch children starve at our wall when we have fields of ready food? Is that what we consider here?” A sudden swell of voices surges through the gathering, a dissonant blend of support and protest without definition.
“Peace, please,” Deacon Abrum’s rumbling voice rolls over the tide of divergent opinions. “One at a time. Please, one at a time. Barth, do you have more to contribute?”
“I do,” Barth says, continuing where he left off. “We have food to share. We have stores, at least temporarily, until we determine a next step.”
“Sustenance for Heaven,” Elder Demar argues. “You urge us to disobey God’s law? Risk his wrath for the tainted of Paradise?”
“Are you suggesting infants and toddlers are tainted?” Barth challenges as the men’s voices once again rise up in argument.
“We all saw the Biters.” My father declaration shuts them up. As my sister gasps, I realize that while she prayed for Paradise, she couldn’t see beyond the earthen wall. She never glimpsed the feral men and women at the forest’s edge. Her arms fold around her shoulders as she shudders.
“Food isn’t the issue here,” my father asserts. “How long until the Biters attack? A day? Two days? Then what? We stand by in righteousness as we witness slaughter and rape? What happens when they begin roasting bodies on spits and feasting on little limbs? How long does it require to gorge on two thousand—”
“Please, Julian,” Deacon Abrum interrupts, “there’s no need for grim details.”
“But in truth, there is,” my father argues, “because that’s what we decide here. Barth speaks rightly; if we allow them into Heaven, we grace them with a little time.”
Elder Demar huffs and clears his throat. “I am, of course, aggrieved for the descendants of Paradise, to this I attest wholeheartedly. However, God made His choice. If we allow them into Heaven, Julian, can any of us deny we defy His law?”
“We cannot,” Deacon Elie whines, answering for my father.
“Now then,” Elder Demar continues, “suppose we opt on the side of mercy and compassion…are we willing to jeopardize Heaven? Are we willing to upset God’s balance and risk the destruction of our own Garden, place our families, our infants and children in the mouths of Biters?”
“Of course no one desires that end,” Deacon Abrum assures everyone, staving off another uproar. “Neither Julian nor Barth advocates for the destruction of Heaven.”
My father repeats himself, “We simply suggest that we provide them temporary shelter until a solution arises.”
“And if no solution is forthcoming?” Deacon Elie asks. “How will we force them out?”
To that question, no man offers an answer, not my father or Barth.
“Regardless of what we decide now,” a new voice rises from below, “what will we do when Heaven falls?” My sister sits up straight, recognizing Max’s voice. “Who will save us if we refuse to save Paradise? Will Utopia or Sanctuary open their gates? Do they still stand? Will God pity us or punish us?” If Max receives answers to his questions, we can’t hear them, the room in a state of unreserved discord. Deacon Abrum pounds his gavel while Elie and the other deacons shout for order.
“Heaven won’t fall,” my sister whispers.
“Yes, it will,” I breathe, words so faint she doesn’t hear. I press my hands over my ears as the rancor rises.
“Quiet!” Deacon Abrum bellows. “Quiet or this assembly will be dismissed.” He whacks the gavel until I hear the handle snap and Deacon Elie’s surprised yelp. That silences the room to the extent that Abrum’s booming voice regains control. “We are not privy to God’s every whim,” he declares. “For this reason He gave us laws to guide us. If we abide by His word, we accept His will for the descendants of Paradise. To act out of conscience may kill us all and doom the future of our own descendants. Only one choice absolves us of responsibility—God’s choice.”
“There is another,” my father says. “A way that preserves Heaven, for now at least, while helping the children of Paradise.”
“No, no,” I whisper. I know what he intends to say. “No, no, no.”
“Go on, Julian,” Deacon Abrum says graciously, the silence absolute.
“We change places with the children,” my father explains. “One of us departs Heaven for every child who enters.”
A suffocating pause grips the room.
“I see,” Abrum utters into the breathless, timeless air.
“I don’t understand how this…how this…how this…idea…” Elder Demar stammers.
“It’s not outside the law,” Abrum says, those words slow in coming.
“Who would volunteer for such a thing?” Elder Demar protests.
“I will,” my father says. “I won’t watch Biters gnaw on the bones of children.” I curl into the corner behind the bells, folding in on myself as Rimma’s eyes dart frantically toward the belfry’s door.
“Neither will I,” Max avows. She grabs the bell frame, staggering to her feet.
“But, but,” the elder blubbers, “but that’s certain death.”
“Not if we’re armed,” Barth pipes up. “We have tools that will serve as weapons, knives.”
“But, but, but those belong to Heaven.”
No one appears to be listening to Elder Demar. I hear my father shout for all willing men to meet in two hours at the barn. Chaos swallows the rest of his words as my sister begins to wail.
3
~Rimma~
Azure light spits and branches across the night sky, a flare of brilliant blue in the west, a bat or owl blasted from existence. Insects sizzle and hiss like water on a skillet. I’m on the roof, my father offering comfort after wrenching me from the belfry. We sit side by side on the pipe, watching the shield spark and crackle. Sobs rack my body. I’m curled in a knot, arms wrapped over my stomach as I struggle to breathe. I can’t bear it.
My father’s hand pats my back steady as a heartbeat. “Breathe, Rimma, breathe, my angel.” A sigh lifts his chest and blows into the night air. “I would have liked to tell you myself, in a different way, with different words. You are always where you shouldn’t be, listening to what you shouldn’t hear, speaking what you shouldn’t say.”
“I’m sorry.” I weep through my words.
“No need,” he says softly. “Only remember that your recklessness often contributes to your pain.”
“But changes nothing,” I add bitterly. “Nothing. I have no choices, no power. God decides everything for us, for me.”
“Not everything,” my father states firmly. “Your life brims with choices. Every minute of every hour of every day, you face choices that define you as kind or cruel, respectful or dismissive, loving or loathing, goodhearted or evil. Every smile is a choice, every helping hand, every stitch you sew, every dream you nurture or deny.”
“I have no choice about anything that
matters
,” I cry, angry at his puny list of options. What’s the point of a smile or stitch if Heaven falls, if Biters rape me and flay my flesh, if my father dies? If the broken world skewers and roasts him? The urge to rebel against his solace, to strike him, to scream my helplessness surges through me. He must spot it pumping through my veins and amassing in my fists because he clutches me in a suffocating embrace until I wilt and my sobs soften to whimpers.
His lips speak near my ear. “I choose to protect the innocent, the hope of the world, even though my choice may now require that I sacrifice my life. That’s how I choose to define myself. This is how and who I am. If Heaven falls, I want someone to render this choice for you.”
“Heaven is going to fall, isn’t it?” I whisper. “Don’t lie to me, Papa.”
“I think it is,” he admits as he bears my tear-swollen face in his hands. “I wish I could tell you otherwise. I wish you could hold your hope and innocence in the palm of your hand and find peace, but I fear hard choices lie ahead for all of us.” He kisses each of my eyelids. “Come with me. I have something to show you.”
Slowly we creep down the ladder, rustling the ivy curled around the rails. I’m so tired; my arms ache and my hands slip on the metal rungs. Reaching the yard first, he lifts me from the last steps and sets me down on the grass. My hand in his, he hauls me around the hub, across the courtyard, heading for the women’s residence in search of my mother. Word has spread through the heart of Heaven, carrying with it an aura of desperation, people hurrying between buildings, seeking spouses and children. Those leaving us scrounge for anything that might serve as a weapon: hoes and shovels, hammers, axes, wood poles and iron bars, awls, levers, and picks.
Beneath a flickering lamppost on the stone pathway, I glimpse my beautiful mother wringing her hands, blue eyes searching among the frantic men and women. A short cry escapes her at the sight of us, and she bursts into tears, clutching at my father’s arms and face as if she foresees his death. “Come with me,” he says, pulling us both to the library.
Heaven’s library barely clutters up a tiny building, a single room with books lined up on a mismatched assortment of shelves. We have no paper, so the books count hundreds of years old, collected from before the breaking of the world, relics of the past, of places and things so foreign to us that they often make little sense. Some books are falling apart, the bindings unglued, pages yellowed and stained, or crisp and crackling, or torn out in binges of censure. I can read many words but find most books unreadable.
My father opens the drawers of a cabinet and pulls out wrinkled papers, edges frayed and corners ripped. He lays them on a table as the three of us bend over to inspect them. “These are maps,” he explains, “of the world before the breaking. There were seventy-two Gardens, five within a thousand miles of us.” He shuffles through the pile for the one he seeks and slides it from the short stack. He orients it east to east, pointing to the map’s compass. “Here lies Heaven.” He stabs a finger at a tiny black dot in a swath of green,
Heaven
written in minute script beside it. “This is Paradise, here, to the southeast. This is Utopia, then Retreat, then Sanctuary due west. When it’s time, follow the riverbed to Sanctuary.” His finger traces a faded blue hairline west. He folds the map into quarters and offers it to my mother, but she steps back, her hands hiding behind her.
“Julian, you can’t expect—”
“Don’t wait until it’s too late, Bria. Paradise made it here. You can find a way to Sanctuary.” He pushes the map toward her.
“I can’t,” she cries, her palms pressed to her head, her eyes shuttered. “No, Julian.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he slips the folded map in my apron pocket and reaches for my mother, embracing her as he embraced me, expending his strength comforting us when it’s he who will leave the protection of Heaven to face the Biters.