Guarding Grace

Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Grace opened her eyes to find herself in a dark cave, she gasped thinking she was back in Sarael's cave. She looked around for her uncle, hoping he was still here so that she could get answers. If he was willing to give them.

She quickly realized that this was not the little cave she had been in, it was darker and murkier. It was almost as if she was looking through a fog or swampy water. She walked forward, arms outstretched to feel for walls. She felt nothing as she continued on her path, she wanted to turn around and go back through the door she had come through but she knew that the door would no longer be there if she turned. She had no other choice but to continue, a small idea came to her that these doors were here for her to learn a lesson. But she disregarded the idea as soon as it came to her. What lesson would be learned from learning of her grandmother's past?

She soon saw a dim light, the mouth of the cave, she followed the light hoping that she would be able to see where she was. A glimmer of hope began to grow as she thought of the fairytale her grandmother told her of the swan who had been really a cursed princess, the one fairytale that the princess did not need saving by a prince. She smiled and twirled as she walked, pretending to be the princess cursed to be a swan. As she neared the mouth of the cave, a horrid stench reached her.

So this wasn't the fairytale world of the swan, but still; it was better than where she had been. The stench began to become a stifling almost suffocating breeze- rotting flesh. The smell conjured images of the Outcasts who lived in the alleyways near her home, the ones with their flesh dying and falling off.

Leprosy is a plague. Given to us by the Creator of All, it is given to those who blaspheme his name and those who actively seek to drag him down. Remember this Grace, stay out of the Creator's eye. Head down and wear humility like armor.

Her grandmother's words came back to her as she stood in the mouth of the cave, she looked over the scene in front of her. Bodies piled high, writhing in pain and wailing. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, nearly choking on the stench.

"I am nothing more than a scared little girl, no power of my own. No status of my own. I am invisible to Him." She opened her eyes and gently picked her way down the rocky hill, trying to follow the path through the piles of bodies. She continually reminded herself that she was nothing, nobody. There was nothing for her to have pride in, an orphan who has found herself lost. A memory came to her, a story her grandmother had told her one night.

There is a world close to the edges of this one, one of pain and anger. Souls of those who have committed the most awful sins go. Pride, wrath, gluttony- punishments that fit their sins. But the most awful of those is the sin of those who wish to place themselves equal to the Creator of All, they will be given sores- to mar their appearance-, they will be given nightmares- to mar their dreams-, and they will be forever tormented by those winged women who delight in the torment of others. The harpies, the evil witches of every fairytale. Demons who work for the angels.

Grace's eyes scanned the heavens for the harpies, she had feared them most of all. She picked up her pace, trying desperately to find a door out of this hellscape. She began to run as she heard the beating of leathery wings. She topped a hill, trying desperately to find a place to hide. Taloned hands grabbed her shoulders, ripping her off the ground and taking her soaring into the sky. She began to shake with fear, she couldn't not imagine the punishment for her. She did not know what sins she had committed beyond existing. An abomination is what Sarael had called her, something that should not exist. That was her sin, the child of an angel and a demon.

She watched the landscape change as she flew over it; the fields of bodies changing to lakes and rivers of flame. The flames giving way to soot and ash, Grace began to cry softly. She had wished for death so many times in her life and now it seemed that it would be a reality. A creaky voice reached her ears, "Even abominations have a purpose." She looked up to see the face of a beautiful woman, the harpy that held her smiled a terrible toothy smile in the beautiful face.