All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (31 page)

I shook my head and
returned my attention to the thread but, in my distraction, I’d
dropped it. I scanned the ground at my feet, but didn’t see
it. My shoes kicked dirt aside. Nothing. I circled, pivoting on my
left foot like a basketball player. Still nothing.

I stretched to my
tallest to see over the crowd. The walls seemed farther away. I saw
no opening in them, no exit—not even the doorway through which
I’d come.

I’m never
going to get out of here.

I dropped to my
knees and sifted through the reddish-orange dirt with the tips of my
fingers but yielded nothing other than dirty fingernails.

It has to be
here.

Suddenly, I felt
like the thread was my last hope of salvation, for rescue from this
holding pen for the damned. I didn’t know where it led, or who
or what placed it for me to find, but I had nothing else. My hope
literally hung by a thread.

I shuffled forward
on hands and knees as legs thumped against my sides; I dodged knees
inadvertently or purposely aimed for my head. The crowd grew thick
around me, slowing my search. Someone’s foot mashed my fingers
into the ground as they strode by and I cringed.

Where is the
Goddamn thread?

I inched my way
through the forest of legs, my stepped-on fingers throbbing. A pair
of legs which looked different than the others—thick, green,
scaly—went by and I fought the urge to look up—limbs so
unattractive wouldn’t be attached to anything good.

Where is it?

Too many people
around me stopped my forward motion. I attempted to move forward,
left, right, and finally backward but legs penned me in on all
sides. My fingers, colored orange like the dirt I crawled upon,
scratched at the tiny patch of earth in front of me. Nothing but
dust and rock.

Defeated, I fell to
my elbows, rested my forehead on my grubby hands. When I’d
found the thread, hope filled me—here was my Ariadne leading
me out of the labyrinth. But now, with the thread gone, hope was
gone, too. I cowered on the ground, head hung in despair.

A hand touch the
top of my head.

At first, I ignored
it. Many hands, feet, elbows, shoulders had contacted me, so it
meant nothing, didn’t pull me from my wallowing. When it
remained, it drew my attention. When it stroked my hair
comfortingly, I looked up.

A black skirt which
brushed the dirt hid the person’s feet. I gulped around a knot
which formed immediately in my throat, remembering the long, black
trench coats favored by Azrael and his Carrion cohorts. My eyes
traveled farther up, past a belt fashioned of a piece of rope, a
wide sleeve concealing all but the fingers of the hand holding the
end of my black thread.

I pushed myself
back to my knees to look into the face of the woman holding my
thread.

“
Mother?”

A loose piece of
black hair fell over her forehead and across her left eye but it
didn’t hide the sadness flickering deep within them in spite
of her smile.

“
Son.”

Bruce
Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost

Sister Agnes—born
Alesya, but no saints shared the name, so she became Agnes when she
took her vows—sat on the edge of her bed reading the letter
for the third time. She’d expected the news for a long time,
dreaded it every time the mail came, so the contents shouldn’t
have surprised her. He’d been ill for months, but knowing the
inevitable didn’t make it hurt any less, nor did her learnings
and beliefs about what happened, now he was gone.

Her father had been
a good man, treated her like a princess, supported her when she was
eighteen and announced her intention to become a nun. Her atheist
father didn’t waste a word talking her out of it, only told
her how proud he was, that he secretly wished he shared her faith.

Five years later,
he was dead without anything close to that kind of faith, and her
worries began. Her belief in God and Heaven was unshakable, but on
the fate of unbelievers, she felt lost. She wanted to believe a
forgiving God would find a place in the firmament for a good and
caring man like her father whose one sin was lacking faith or, more
accurately, lacking proof to give him faith. But Father Dominic told
her unbelievers weren’t allowed into Heaven.

The paper slipped
from her fingers, floated to the floor between her feet. She watched
it settle on the carpet, the tear drops upon it discoloring the
paper, smearing the words staring up at her. She buried her face in
her hands and sobbed. Her shoulders shook as she did her best to
stifle them lest she disturb any of the other sisters in their
rooms.

When she heard the
whisper of a footstep on carpet, she clamped her lips closed around
the lament and prepared to apologize for the noise. She wiped tears
away with the back of her hand, breathed deeply through her nose to
collect herself and caught the aroma of cinnamon.

“
There,
there.”

The deep rumble of
the man’s voice startled Sister Agnes. She looked up, too
grief-stricken by the loss of her father to be confused by his
presence in her residence, too overcome by sadness to be afraid. The
man towered over her, his long, dark hair spilling past his
shoulders, an oilskin coat hanging below his knees making him look
like he’d wandered in from the Australian outback. She looked
into his face and saw caring eyes, beautiful features; some of the
sadness and grief which had settled into her body lifted, easing the
heaviness in her limbs.

“
Who...who
are you?”

“
My
name does not matter, child.”

He reached out and
swept hair off her forehead, fingertips brushing her skin lightly. A
sensation surged through her head and for a second it seemed like
her room sparkled. She sat straighter, unconsciously pulling her
face from his touch as her eyes widened, her mouth fell open.

“
I
am sorry your father’s time has come.”

She stared at the
man, wanting to ask him how he knew, but her lips didn’t
attempt the words. If she opened her mouth to speak, she suspected
they would produce nothing but a sorrowful wail. The man removed his
coat, hung it over the back of the chair at her desk, then sat on
the mattress beside her. Sister Agnes scooted away keeping three
feet between them.

“
I
will not hurt you, Alesya. Do not be afraid.”

“
How...?”

The man stroked her
cheek, halting the question. The electricity of his touch warmed
her, comforted her, but it wasn’t the electricity like she
felt on her prom night when Kelly Booker slid his penis into her in
the back seat of his parents’ Cadillac—a brief shock of
excitement and pain, over practically before it began. This was
closer to how she’d felt later that night, when God came to
her and beckoned her to be his bride.

A touch to change
her life, calling her to Heaven.

“
Am
I dying?”

“
Ssh,
Alesya. You are not dying, you are very much alive. Perhaps more
alive than ever before.”

He slid closer and
she felt heat radiating from him. His hand found her thigh and years
of training and study, belief and chastity told her to move away.
She couldn’t. His touch comforted her, spoke to her. She
looked down at his big hand resting on her leg where no man’s
hand had touched since Kelly Booker’s and her breath
shortened. The electricity of his touch swelled up her thigh, into
her groin, her lower stomach, filling places empty for half a
decade.

“
I
am here to tell you your father will be taken care of. You need not
worry.”

Grief and relief
exploded in her. She let out one loud sob, then buried her face in
the man’s chest. He encircled her shoulders, held her tight,
consoling her, and she felt the muscles of his arm against her back
and found herself imaging what they looked like. The thought sent a
shiver down her spine. She knew she shouldn’t be enjoying his
touch—she belonged to God, not any man—but something
about him made her feel closer to God. Instead of pulling away, she
settled into his embrace.

His hand inched
further up her thigh. Unconsciously, her legs opened slightly as if
making their own decisions. The warmth of his hand felt like it
might burn her through her nightie but she didn’t move away.
Instead, she brought her arm up and across his chest, turned more
toward him, hugged herself closer.

A part of her mind
implored her to stop, insisted a nun didn’t act this way, and
she knew it was right, but she felt like the closer she got to him,
the safer her father would be. She had the impression this man held
responsibility for getting him to Heaven and he deserved whatever
appreciation she gave.

A second later, his
fingers found the place only she and Kelly Booker ever touched—him
for pleasure and her only to wash in the years since.

When he laid her
down and loomed over her she wanted to tell him ‘no’.
She was naked by then, though she didn’t know how her
nakedness happened, and he was, too. When he entered her—gently
and firmly all at once—she gasped and bit down on her wrist to
keep from crying out. She’d never felt ecstasy before, thought
she never would until the day God took her into his kingdom.

After this, would
she be allowed in?

Stars exploded
before her eyes, a swirling cosmos blurring her vision of the man
above her as he rocked his pelvis back and forth against hers. The
movement, his touch, the sensations inside her transported her away
from her father’s death, from her life as a nun, into some
unknown firmament where only herself and the man existed—nothing
but the movement, the touch, the electric sensation. It grew and
grew between her legs, extending into her belly and chest, down her
legs and along her arms. She moved and bucked beneath him and, in
this unknown place, this beautiful, empty firmament where they
frolicked alone, she took her hand off her mouth and screamed her
ecstasy to the Heavens.

After the man was
gone—she still didn’t know who he was but felt as though
she’d touched a piece of Heaven—she lay naked on the
bed, the sweat of their coupling cooling on her skin. She couldn’t
cry anymore, she couldn’t smile, couldn’t move. She
luxuriated in the feeling between her legs, in her chest, permeating
her body, touching her soul. Time melted into a blur she would never
be able to fully recall. Later, she’d have a vague
recollection of his electric touch exciting every nerve in her body.

Somewhere in the
distance, she heard the sounds of insistent knocking, muffled voices
calling out. In her state, Sister Agnes didn’t hear what the
voices said, couldn’t answer, truthfully didn’t care.
The night air enveloped her as she lay listening to the sounds,
frustration mounting in her that they should distract her from the
lingering pleasure of the man.

Her hand crept
across the smooth skin of her flat belly moving down, down until her
fingers found the wetness between her legs, the heady mixture of her
pleasure and his seed, and the feeling of her own touch drove the
frustration and distraction from her mind. Somewhere far, far away,
the door to her room burst open and three people spilled in. She saw
them as if watching on television, the three sisters finding her
lying on her bed: sweaty, spent and touching herself. They rushed to
her side, speaking to her in concerned tones which she fought
against taking her away from her place of pleasure.

As the sisters
spoke to her, asked ‘are you all right’ and ‘what
happened’, Sister Agnes—named for the patron saint of
chastity—drifted off to sleep and dreamed about a child of
Heaven.