Ragnarök

Sixteen: The Dalliance

"Edgar . . . Edgar, are you there?"

The wind she hears is the wind of the universe, the wind of dimensional membranes being torn and breached, the wind of God's primal breath blowing as strong as it did on the First Day, in the opening cantos of Genesis . . . She is the blood being transfused into an eternal body. She feels warm and liquid, able to spread herself thin enough to touch the farthest beyonds.

Whether Edgar responds is unclear. She's aware of his vibrations, the consoling fluctuations of space that comprise his voice, but feels sure of nothing, taking this as a sign that God has come to cradle her again. It's her meeting before the parole board, so to speak. Will He keep her in this prison, or will her bare feet finally tread the dewy grass of Eden? What will the passage of time be like in heaven? How long before Edgar joins her? She knows there is a small-mindedness laced into these questions, a mortal bias, extrapolating such a primitive tool as time to a world without need of it.

Part of her longs to gaze upon the faces of the angels, the Virgin, Christ her Savior, the Maker Himself. Part of her has longed for it since she was a little girl, before she could even comprehend what she was longing for in a literal sense. Another part of her is fearful yet takes solace in knowing that fear is as primitive as time. Fear, the antecedent to hatred, the antecedent to war. What a folly mankind has made of its staging process, for that's how she views life on Earth. Man has ransacked the lobby, torched the waiting room, devastated the elevators out of commission, and thereby trapped itself in a heathen rubble of its own making. Multitudes will never know what paradise awaits on the floors above.

Mildred prays. She prays with more intensity and pinch-eyed concentration than ever before in her life. She prays with such whole-minded vigor that she falls into a trance state more exhorted by Eastern religions. Better put, it is a non-state, the stripping away of veins and lungs as one strips saleable scrap from a car, the depression of pulse and heart rate, the metamorphosing of her brain from a wad of neurotic tissue into a miniature Sun, an orb of self-sustaining light. Untroubled, unqualified, numbing non-existence.

Meanwhile, to the unentranced, hours elapse.

The boy she calls Edgar busies himself around the house, bracing himself for the very real likelihood that he's poisoned the widow, irrevocably.

If such proves to be the case, he will not admit it to anyone, not even Liza. The coroner will rule it a confused accident begot by her dementia. Mason will deny knowledge of the pills' existence, though to be extra careful he ought to wipe his prints from the plastic tube. He can't predict for certain the amount of suspicion that will fall on him, her sole domestic companion. She is an old woman, after all. Accidents happen.

At around one-thirty, Liza calls on his new cell, asking if she can come over to discuss "developments" in the Kelly-Selby scandal. Unable to fabricate a reason why not, he agrees, realizing only then that he desperately wants her company. Throwing on his coat, he goes outside to feed the chickens and harvest their eggs. Busy work to distract his mind.

There are "developments" as well in the nature of the widow's fugue. She he can sit up straight without her head ever leaving the cushion. She can rise without adjusting the extension of her legs. Once risen, she doesn't whiz around the house on some bender of astral projection but is content just to hover there, keeping protective, shepherdly watch over her body. The world past her window sparkles, dances with such clean white purity that she doesn't know whether the farmhouse still squats on its old foundation, or if this is another hologram provided her by the God, meant to ease her transition into Paradise.

The appearance of the angel dispels any doubt whatsoever.

Mildred squints through the light to better etch out her features. Or perhaps it's a he? Perhaps angels are androgynous? Sexless altogether? Its narrow white face, inset with onyx eyes, approaches the house, coming so near that it passes from Mildred's field of vision. She turns and watches Edgar, whom she had not expected to be along for this journey, open the front door. The light spilling forth crowns his head. Mildred floats there in awe of the angel entering their home, their hologram, whatever the case may be. She's moved to tears when the angel falls into Edgar's arms, and they kiss.