The Paradise Gate

Ch.1 Come Softly From Eden

Startled by a crack in crumbling masonry, a rook takes flight from the moldering timbers buttressing the ceiling of an ancient, rough-hewn stone tower, the flapping of wings heralding its departure through a hole in the roof. The echoes of its piercing cry are carried back through the aperture upon the reaching fingers of the cold, grey fog otherwise insulating this lonely place from the intrusions of earthly noise, from any reminders of joy or possibility. Silence reigns.

Until, that is, the sharp, staccato sound of booted heels striking the stone stairway intrudes at volume. Those steps are loud and swift and confident, the stride of a battle-tested general taking the field, or perhaps an emperor who needn't watch his feet for knowing the world will bend to the path he chooses.

Had the rook remained, would he have kept a beady eye on the rotting oaken door, awaiting the arrival of this newcomer? Would he have been surprised, perhaps watching the space a foot higher than the eyes of the one who would enter? It was a young woman— a girl, really— whose steps made such an intrusive cacophony, their intensity against the fog thickened quiet matched only by the force of determination behind her clear, grey eyes.

She strode to the center of the empty tower chamber and placed her wicker handbasket on the flagstones. Kneeling, she withdrew a number of candles and placed them around the edges of the room, lighting them one by one.

Returning to the basket, she retrieved a linen wrapped bundle of odd-looking instruments. Unwinding the fabric, she laid out what appeared to be a series of quill-tipped tuning forks and a striker. Next, a silver bowl, a small, black censer, a large copper coin, a set of tongs, a wafer of compressed white powder, and a glass vial of clear liquid. Last of all, she carefully and almost reverently withdrew a small silken pouch, but did not yet expose its contents.

In a black velvet cape, with her long, lazy, auburn curls catching red highlights from the candle flames around her bowed head as she examined her materials, she appeared supplicant before this strange altar. Satisfied with her preparations, she rose and let the cape fall from her shoulders, exposing the bell-shaped skirt and fitted bodice of her navy dress with its creamy crêpe-de-chine petticoats that hung a touch longer than her hem and matched the ruffles at her cuffs and throat.

The polished black boots that laced up to her knees, the gleaming buttons on her cuffs and arranged in twin rows down her torso, and the high cut of her collar before it opened to a spill of ivory silk gave her an almost militaristic cast. Adding to that martial air was the final item she'd brought to this forgotten outpost: draped across her breast, a bandolier of thirteen silver bells.

Her hands were steady as they loosened the leather fastenings at her waist and opposite shoulder, but her movements were slow and cautious as she placed the row of bells on the floor at the top of the linen square, arranged smallest to largest, ensuring no unintended tintinnabulation could escape in the event that their dampers had come unmoored in the course of her travels.

Kneeling once more, the girl closed those fierce eyes, the action making more noticeable the way they tipped up at the outer corners by the contrast of dense, black lashes against pale cheeks. She drew in a deep breath, the delicate arches of her winged brows drawing into a vee of concentration. Should our corvine voyeur have remained, would his interest be piqued by this odd display? Would the gleam of such a clinquant offering have compelled his avarice? Might the pregnant anticipation in the air have itched beneath his feathers?

Would the bird be absorbed by his dull, birdy thoughts, or would he have taken note of the slight pursing of lips possessed of such generous femininity that they'd be louche if not tempered by a tension that seemed perpetual? Even to the rook, it would have been plain that this was not a mouth used to smiles.