BURN IN HADES (14 page)

The red rain showered harder, beating down on him with heavier and heavier drops. The thick blood stuck to his clothes, but avoided his mother’s halo; she was there, but not there in full, too heavenly for the underworld to taint her, which seemed to hate her presence. She radiated a serenity he hadn’t encountered since he was booted from paradise so many years ago. Her holiness touched the center of his spirit. He bathed in the rapturous light from her celestial smile. Without her ever touching him, she embraced him, wrapped him up in safety of her arms like she used to. Like a goddess, love poured out from her and enveloped him.

But never had he met anyone from his former life since he had been dead, and it wouldn’t have been the first time he had been tricked by someone pretending to be a loved one. Seeing his mother had to have been a dirty trick of the underworld. It was an evil ruse, a cruel joke meant to build up his hopes only to crush them. No matter how good it made him feel to see her, perhaps because he wished so badly that the spirit truly was his mother, he couldn’t trust the vision, couldn’t appreciate a potential gift from the Great Goddess.

He hated the underworld.

“I’ve sent you help,” said Mama.

“I don’t need anyone’s help.” He stepped past her, and she was still standing ahead of him as if he had never moved.

“You’ve always been strong,” she said. “You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. Your problem is your ego. You’ve allowed your experiences; both living and dead, to make you believe you can do everything on your own. In turn, it has made you selfish. You can’t go through any existence only caring about yourself. One day, you’re going to need someone. I just hope that when that time comes you’ve given them a reason to help you.”

“You know how long I’ve been down here? Because I don’t. Not anymore. It’s always the same day here. There’s no night. Every soul has to count their own sleep cycles if they want to keep track of their individual days. So a day for me won’t be the same as a day for another soul. And it’s not like you get any real rest anyway. Don’t even get me started. But I stopped counting. Know why?”

Mother pursed her lips and head dipped downward off to the side as if she knew what he was about to say, but would allow him to voice his frustrations.

“I kept track of months and years,” he said, “but after a while I had to ask myself why. Why the hell was I counting? It’s not like I’m ever going to leave this place. I didn’t think you were real at first. But with your
no man is an island
speech, I’m convinced you’re definitely not from around these parts.”

He wiped the tears from his cheeks. Red blood stained both sides of his hands. He held his palms out and closed them. “It must be real nice up there or wherever you came from, Mama. And I’m glad you made it. I’m really happy for you. But you can’t come all the way down here after hundreds of years and scold me for something I have no control over. John Donne wasn’t talking about me, okay. I’ve been on my own since I was nine. I can take of myself. I always have. I always will.” Defiantly, he walked through her.

She appeared in his path again. “I’m sorry I left you, Charles.”

“Don’t call me that,” he said.

“When I left, you didn’t see everything that happened, because it was meant for you not to see. Had you been watching me, everything would have been different.”

“I wish everything
was
different. I wish none of this ever happened.”

“I can’t say that everything happens for a reason. But this did. I promise you, one day this will all make sense. Just remember, you don’t have to change the world around you. You only need to change one mind.”

“Yeah? Then what?”

“Then we’ll see each other again.” Her smile beamed and her halo grew brighter.

She reached out to him as if she wanted to caress his cheek. He raised his hand to hers to feel her warm touch once more. She vanished, leaving him with his own palm nuzzling his cheek, abandoning him yet again.

He pressed on through the red rain like the soldier he was, one foot in front of the other through the endless dust. Left, right, march.

Chapter 7 - Soul Mates

Nine year old, Charles may not have understood everything
that went on around him, but he always paid attention because one day everything would all make sense. He knew a lot more than everyone around him gave him credit for, because he kept his mouth shut and was an expert listener.

He heard the plantation workers whispering of a “Moses” aiding slaves in escapes far off in the old states. He heard them planning their own revolt. When that night came around, he was ready for the rifle shots and the screams of torment, the chaos and commotion. He had prepared himself for the deaths or recapture of the slaves he had considered family, but all of it still made him cry.

He and Mama fled north for a few days after the uprising. They hid from the bloodhounds in the cold woods at night. Mama kept him warm in her tight embrace. He tried to wrap his arms around her to keep her warm, but he was too small, and she wouldn’t let him anyway. She claimed she was warm enough, but he could feel her shivering.

“Tell me about paradise again,” he said. “I like to hear you tell it to me.”

“Paradise,” she said, her teeth chattering. “Oh, it’s a place where the sun is always shinning. You never want for nuffin’, never need for nuffin’, and the work ain’t too much you can’t handle. It’s all that is good in this world. It’s peace. It’s freedom. And only one master rules in paradise. God A’mighty. Our Lord, Jesus.”

Her words warmed him up. Every time she spoke of paradise, a calmness set over him. All his worries washed away. Then he fixed him mind to ask something he had never thought to ask before. “Where is paradise?”

“A long long, long way from here.” She pointed to the sky. “See that star right there. It’s the brightest one in the sky. It’s called the North Star. We follow that, its gon’ take us all the way to paradise. Keep your eyes on that star. Don’t let it out of your sight.”

He did as told and kept his eyes pressed onto that North Star every night. They passed over hills and through meadows, swam across stinky swamps. One evening they crept into a town so Mama could steal some food for him. It was odd to Charles that she didn’t include herself in the plan to eat, but he stayed quiet. Mama knew best.

The town was crawling with men holding shotguns and rifles. On the edge of Main Street, Mama shoved Charles behind a wagon filled to its brim with wooden beams.

“You tell them I made you do it,” she said. “You just a boy, they’ll believe you. And they won’t whip you too bad. No matter what, don’t you look now, hear?”

He nodded and she took a long gaze at his face as though drinking him in, stamping that moment in her memory for one last time. She stepped around the wagon.

“Hey you,” said a man Charles couldn’t see, but the voice snapped through the air like a whip. Footsteps shuffled. “Hold it right there. Where you goin? Hey, we got one, boys!”

A thump pounded the ground as though a body had fallen. A scream exploded in Mama’s voice. Charles crouched. Through the space under the wagon, he viewed his mother being dragged across the ground by her hair, kicking and flailing.

Charles shut his eyes in obedience to his mother’s last wish. A whip cracked through the air. He covered his ears, but that only muffled her screams. He buried his head between his knees in an attempt to silence the world around him, but with each lash the crowd boomed with boisterous glee and carried on as if they were attending a festival. Charles rocked back and forth, pretending his Mama was holding him in her arms again, and when all went quiet, he sat there, still too afraid to look.

He worked up the courage to stand, and he peeked around the wagon. To both his joy and horror, his mother remained alive. She sat horseback with a noose around her neck. Her gaze fell onto him. She blinked tightly, and nodded, signaling him to close his eyes, but he froze.

He squeezed the wood in front of him. A splinter stabbed his palm. By the time he looked back up to Mama, she was drifting at the end of the rope in a slow swing. He had missed it. He knew seeing his mother drop would have been devastating, but in an odd way he wished he had seen her last moment, if only to see where her soul went, so he could follow her.

His body flushed with coldness. The world around him wobbled and turned black, little glimmering lights appeared in his eyes, blocking his vision. Nothing felt real. The splinter in his hand no longer hurt. He became aware of a presence near him, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn his head from Mama.

“You better get low,” said a young girl’s voice beside him. Small hands gripped his shoulders and guided him into a crouching position. The girl disappeared around the wagon as heavy footsteps pounded toward the wagon. Under the wagon, he saw a man’s boots and slacks and pale legs extending from the bottom of a girl’s dress.

“If you’re looking for the other one,” said the girl. “I saw him go around the building. Hurry, you might can catch him.”

The man ran off in the opposite direction of Charles’s hiding spot. The girl waited for a while then shuffled her way back behind the wagon.

“Hurry,” she said. “You better shin out while you got time.”

Finally, he gazed upon her, a girl about his age with angel eyes that bore into his soul with grace and kindness. The glint in her gaze was like a light leading out of a deep dark underworld. A North Star.

“It’s ok,” she said. “My name’s Kate. What’s your name?”

“Charles,” he said softly, surprised that he could still speak.

“Where’s your momma and poppa?”

He wiped his wet cheeks and gestured out into the area where his mother hung.

“Oh.” Kate’s mouth hung open, and she stared down for a while. “I think you should come with me. My father will know what to do. We were just getting inside our coach when I saw you standing here.”

Another man raced up to them. Unlike the wild men who hung Mama, this man was well dressed and clean shaven. “Kate, don’t you ever run off like that again,” he said. “These mobs can turn dreadfully ugly.”

“Father, this is Charles.”

“Hello, Charles. Come on, Kate.”

“That’s Charles’s mother.” She pointed to the short drop.

Kate’s father removed his hat. A lock of his hair curled down to his forehead. He placed his hat on his chest. A ring on his finger glistened in the dark as though it bore its own light. “My condolences,” he said. “I’m deeply sorry for your loss, Charles, but we have to go. This town is getting restless.”

He placed his hat back on his head and grabbed Kate’s arm. She grabbed Charles’s arm and hauled him along to the center of the dirt road.

Her father halted. “Let him go, Kate.”

“We can’t just leave him here.”

“He isn’t our responsibility.”

“You always tell me to care about all life. He’s all alone.” She gripped his arm tighter.

“I’m very sorry for him,” said her father. “Truly, I am. I can’t imagine what he just experienced. But he can’t come with us. He belongs to someone else.” He nodded to Charles. “You understand? If these were honest men, they’d have returned you and your mother to your master, jailed you or at least sold you to the highest bidder. But these aren’t men of reason. Those vigilantes don’t care about reward money, only punishment. They’ll hang us all for aiding runaways. Now, I don’t know who your master is, but for your own sake I suggest you find your way back to him as soon as you can, all right. I’m afraid that’s all the help I offer you.”

Kate’s father spun around and came face to face with the barrel of a rifle.

“What you doin’ with that boy?” said the rifleman. A bristly blonde moustache covered his mouth. His chin was clean shaven. Nothing about the man was familiar to Charles except the man’s voice.

He was the man who dragged Mama.

Kate pulled Charles closer to her. “He’s with us.”

The rifleman eyed Charles and then Kate’s father. “Is that right, Mister? This nigger boy yours?”

Kate’s father opened his mouth to speak but said nothing.

“Lower your weapon!” A bearded man raced over to them. “Put that rifle down, you idiot. Do you have any idea who you’re addressing?”

“I’m addressing a runaway and his possible aide,” said the rifleman.

“You’re a guest in my town only for as long as you capture your fugitives, but this man here is a friend of mine. And that little girl is his daughter. I will not tolerate this inferior treatment directed towards them. Nor do I take to either of them as liars. If they say this boy is with them, I’ll take their word as bond, understood?”

The rifleman hesitated, glanced down at Charles and flipped his rifle to his shoulder. “Apologies, Mr. Garrett.”

“Don’t apologize to me,” said Mr. Garrett. “Apologize to Miss Katie, whom you’ve just frightened with your crude brutality.”

The rifleman gave a quick nod to Kate. “My apologies, Little Miss.”

Mr. Garrett shuffled them off to the side of the road, ran his hand along his beard, and sighed. “Now, please tell me I didn’t just help you aid a runaway, Mr. Carson.”