Under-Heaven Read online

  Was she going to hit him?

  “Okay, Doyle, I’ll tell you. First, just the sight of you makes my skin crawl. Second, Wagner may have had his faults but he at least works for a living…something Marcie says you never did. Finally, I wouldn’t date a cheater and a woman beater like you if you were the last man living in Rhode Island. And, if you ask me, you’re lucky Marcie didn’t break more than your teeth when she hit you with that frying pan in your sleep. I would have tied your wiener to the bumper and driven across town.”

  Jesse’s mother had turned back toward their cart before Doyle said, “You’re as much of a bitch as Marcie. Maybe Wagner knew what he was doing when he left you to rot.”

  “Maybe he did,” Jesse’s mother said as she grabbed the cart and pushed the cart rapidly away for the second time. Jesse could see the man holding up his bad finger until they turned down the spaghetti sauce aisle.

  “The cops told me that bitch is going to be in jail for a long time,” they heard Doyle yell out. “I hope she dies in there!”

  “Thanks to you,” Jesse’s mother whispered.

  Jesse kept looking back and was relieved to see Doyle abandon his cart and disappear down one of the store aisles. Jesse waited until they were all the way down to the end of the store by the apples before he asked his mother a question that had been bothering him for a long time.

  “Am I going to grow up to be bad like Dad?”

  His mother stopped pushing and came around to hold Jesse in a tight bear hug. She smelled like a combination of cinnamon and flowers. He hugged her back. When she let go, she looked into his eyes and gently brushed his hair.

  “Your dad is not a bad person, Jesse. He…has some problems right now. You and I just have to keep hoping things get better for him. Okay?”

  Jesse nodded and wiped a tear from one eye. He hated it when his little boy side made him cry. He would have dropped the issue, but his mother still hadn’t answered his question.

  “Am I going to be like Dad?”

  Jesse’s mother reached down and pinched the tip of his nose. It stung a little bit but Jesse had always liked that. He smiled.

  “You’re already handsome as your dad. And you have his smile, but you’re never going to have the same problems your dad has. Do you know why?”

  Jesse shook his head, anxious to know.

  “Because your dad and I love you so much we’re going to help you avoid all kinds of problems. You’re going to have the happiest life you can imagine.”

  Jesse nodded and thought about it until they finished grocery shopping. But once his mother gave the cab driver their address slid in beside his car seat in the back, he figured it was time to ask:

  “Do you promise you’ll help me through any problems?”

  “Of course, baby,” she said, stroking his cheek.

  “Even if I have one right now?” he asked. He kept his eyes from tearing up but he could feel his lips quivering.

  “Especially right now, baby. What’s wrong?”

  “I miss my dad.”

  9

  Dark Thoughts and a Missing Angel

  I slammed the prison door closed and withdrew, aching and exhausted, to a dark place in my mind. It was impossible to know how long I remained in that solitary place, but even there I couldn’t escape the visions of my father’s wounded arm dripping blood onto the dock or the red stains that bloomed across Stretch McGraw’s death shroud. It didn’t help that those stains were so much like the stain on my own shirt!

  My eyes snapped open to see Grandma Clara sitting beside me like the guardian angel she was. The crows feet at the corners of her eyes were creased with worry, and her concern seemed to be well placed because my stomach was knotted with cramps and my body vibrated with fear. I wanted to sit up but felt too weak. A slow scan of the room revealed I was in my own bed, in my own house. The last thing I remembered in Under-Heaven was sitting on the curb and hearing Ricky say, “…you were murdered.” That was just before my monster dragged me viciously into the past.

  Mercifully, it was over for the moment.

  “Ricky?” I croaked.

  “It’s night time,” Grandma Clara said. “He went home several hours ago. He carried you here, you know.”

  “Those skinny arms carried me,” I whispered, intending a joke.

  Grandma Clara smiled. “You are right about him, you know. He’s a good boy. I don’t understand why he can’t get his color under control, but I could see his goodness in the way he worried for you.”

  “I passed out?”

  “Your soul is in flux, Nate. You didn’t just pass out, you nearly disappeared. Ricky said he could see right through you when it first happened.”

  I reached down and patted my arms and chest. I felt solid and real.

  “How can people just disappear?” I asked, my voice getting stronger.

  Her face took on a warm expression with a gentle smile. I remembered my mother giving me a similar look when I was a toddler. It came whenever I asked questions like, “Why is there a sky?” and, “How come broccoli doesn’t taste like pancakes?”

  Grandma Clara patted my arm.

  “Nate, you’re not a living person anymore. You’re a soul, and souls can travel almost any­where they choose.”

  “I can fly?”

  “Souls don’t fly, but they can move instantly from place to place.”

  “How come you don’t? I see you walk into the clouds when you return to Heaven.”

  She nodded. “That’s true, but I don’t have to leave that way. It’s hard on new souls to see people instantly appearing and disappearing. Angels visit the Under-Heavens to give guidance and to help with the transition to the next life. We wouldn’t be of much use if all the new souls saw us as something other than human.”

  “But you aren’t human. You’re angels,” I said.

  “That’s true, but we still have human souls. By being as normal as possible, we’re best able to help new souls, especially those who are having a hard moving beyond their past life. You, of all people, should realize how much harder it would be if you had only a strange magical fairy to depend on instead of your good old grandmother.”

  I grinned. Tinkerbell had always been one of my favorite characters. My mother had read Peter Pan to me at least three times from cover to cover before I even started school. I grew somber at the thought of never hearing her soft voice again. The smell of her lilac perfume was lost to me forever. The monster in my mind tittered. The prison door had been returned to its hinges, but it was so bent and distorted that I knew it wouldn’t stay there long. Only the scantest of supports held my creature in check. The memories would get me again soon.

  I shuddered.

  “I could use a little fairy dust right about now.”

  Grandma Clara got up from her chair and settled onto the edge of my bed, her fingers running lovingly through my hair.

  “If I had only one single grain of magical sand, I would happily give it to my favorite grandson.”

  Right then, I knew having my grandmother was much better than Tinkerbell could ever be. I rolled to lean against her.

  “What happened to me?” I asked. “I mean, am I going to completely disappear the next time I remember?”

  She squeezed my shoulder then got up and took two steps toward the window. When she turned back her expression was pensive; two fingers held her lower lip. “I’m not sure, Nate. A soul in Under-Heaven isn’t supposed to be able to do what you did. It’s too early in your evolution for this to happen. Usually, by the time someone learns how to travel they’re already mature enough to be in Heaven…or the underworld.”

  “I’ve been here a long time, Grandma. Maybe my soul is trying to leave?”

  “Possibly, Nate.” She moved to my bedside and stroked my hand. “I don’t know.”

  “Is there anyone who would?”

  “Maybe.” She moved to look out my dark window. When she turned back to me, her lips were pursed and worry lines crea
sed her forehead. “I’ll talk with some of your other angels tomorrow. Someone is bound to understand this.”

  Though I knew by “other angels” she meant other members of my family in Heaven, I had yet to meet anyone other than my grandmother. She never said as much, but I suspect they were afraid to slow my evolution any further than it already had been. I had been in Under-Heaven for nearly two months when most souls spent only a few days. Now that I thought about it, Ricky was the longest other resident in our Under-Heaven, and he’d only been there for a few weeks.

  “If I had disappeared,” I asked, “where would I have gone?”

  Grandma Clara shook her head.

  “I don’t know, Nate. Maybe another Under-Heaven, maybe Heaven, maybe….”

  She let the last words drift off, but I knew she had been about to say “the underworld.” Was it possible that my memories were so horrible they could actually send me to Hell? From the look on Grandma Clara’s face, she believed it. And if the cramps that knotted my mid-section were any indication, my body believed it, too.

  My eyes wanted desperately to close, but I feared the memories would return. It was bad enough to know that I had been murdered, but being forced to relive the experience didn’t seem fair. I didn’t want to be shot by an angry fisherman again, assuming that was how I died. As far as I was con­cerned, the past was the past, and it could stay right where it was. I didn’t need to know any more.

  My monster snickered again. It was anxious to send me back to the horror in Coldwell, Maine. I was thankful when my grandmother moved back to my bedside and reached out to take my hand.

  “You need to sleep, Nate,” she said. “I’ll stay right here until you wake.”

  She might have said something further, but already my eyes and ears had already closed for the night.

  Morning in Under-Heaven was a glorious time. Unlike on Earth, the sun seemed to rise in Under-Heaven everywhere at once. During the night, tiny beads of moisture formed on the surface of the misty cloud ring that surrounded my little neighborhood. The sudden morning brilliance instantly turned the tiny beads of water to vapor, and the vapor reflected the early light in hundreds of spectacular colors. For those first few moments, it was like watching a thousand rainbows. I was sitting on my backstairs, drinking in the display when Grandma Clara settled down beside me.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Is it this pretty in Heaven?” I asked.

  She placed her hand on my knee. “Nate, Heaven is like this all the time. No matter where you look, there is beauty and splendor.”

  “Don’t you miss it during the times you’re down here with me?”

  The truth is I didn’t know if Heaven was up, down or sideways from my Under-Heaven, but it seemed easiest to think of the Earth and Hell as being below, one on top of the other, and of Heaven as being above.

  “When I’m here, Nate,” she said, “I’m simply trading one kind of splendor for another.”

  “Another?”

  “You, Nate, you’re an amazing boy and I truly cherish every minute I’m with you.”

  If people blushed in Under-Heaven, I would have been well on my way to cherry red.

  “I’m worried, Nate.”

  I didn’t take my eyes away from the dazzling rainbows as they began to fade.

  “Me, too, Grandma. I’m scared all the time. It’s like I have a creature inside me, just waiting for a chance to tear me to pieces.”

  My grandmother’s fingers gripped gently at my knee. Though only a small gesture, it was immensely comforting. During that brief moment of contact, I felt that I wouldn’t have to face the terror of my past all alone. Unfortunately, as soon as her hand fell away, my solitary fears returned.

  “It’s normal, Nate,” Grandma said as she stood, “for a soul to need time to adjust to being dead. And it’s true that some souls never really give in completely to the idea. But I’ve never heard of anyone staying in this type of Under-Heaven as long as you have.”

  I knew what I wanted to say. I’d been formulating the thought for the last half-hour. But even though I had committed myself to asking it, my insides curdled at the thought. “I remember my father killing a fisherman, but that’s as far as I could make myself go, Grandma.”

  I swallowed hard.

  By then the morning lightshow had dissipated. The only colors in the clouds came from the flowers that grew like a decorative molding at its base. I turned to look into my grandmother’s face.

  “Maybe you should tell me what happened. I don’t want to know, but maybe I need to. I don’t think I can take any more memories.”

  Grandma Clara’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Finally, she shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, Nate, but I don’t think that’s the solution. If your mind were ready, you wouldn’t need me to tell you.”

  “What if I disappear next time? What if I send myself to Hell?”

  Grandma Clara grabbed me by one shoulder and leaned down to look directly in my eyes.

  “Nathaniel, are you listening to me? Are you really listening?”

  More shocked by her intensity than anything, I nodded.

  “You are a good boy and will never go to the underworld. You have nothing to fear about that.”

  “But last night you started to add something, some other place I could accidentally have traveled to.”

  “What I started to say had nothing to do with the underworld. It’s something you and I will talk about someday, but right now you have some memories to work through.”

  “But what if I did disappear?” I stood and leaned against the post that supported my back porch roof. “Could you find me? Maybe I’ll just disappear forever?”

  She wrapped both arms around me and hugged tightly.

  “You are the dearest boy.” She released me just enough so I could see her face. “Nate, no matter where your beautiful soul goes, I would find you. You could skip through a dozen Under-Heavens, and I would be there instantly at every one.”

  I smiled. I knew that being alone in another Under-Heaven would have been just like dying a second time. I didn’t want to die again.

  Never again!

  Grandma Clara stayed with me for only a short time that morning and then explained she needed to discuss my situation with some of the other angels.

  “As soon as I have a clear understanding of what to do next, Nate, we’ll see what we can do to get you on the right path. Okay?”

  I nodded and hugged her goodbye, but as she disappeared into the mist behind my house I wished she had stayed a little longer. Visions of Coldwell, Maine were still lingering at the edges of my mind and anything, even a lesson, would have been a welcome distraction. As I sat there on my back porch, staring at the swirling whiteness, I wondered if avoiding distractions might have been her plan all along.

  Over the next three days, worry was like an anchor on my mind. Ricky was occupied for most of each day with lessons, and Grandma Clara hadn’t yet returned, which left me alone to ponder my memories of that horrible day on the Coldwell docks. Though a tiny part of me wanted to know what had happened next, wanted to make sure that my father had recovered from his wound and hadn’t had to go to jail for just defending himself, the larger part of me was terrified at the very thought of going back there again. Wasn’t it enough to know I had died? Why should I have to explore every gruesome detail all over again?

  By the fourth morning, I was really beginning to wonder what had happened to my Grandma Clara. She had said she would find a way to help me through all of this—but three days! I didn’t know how far you had to travel in Heaven to find assistance, but if three days were any indication, it wasn’t quite the paradise I had envisioned. Regardless of the reason for her delay, I missed her and wished she would come back soon.

  Once again, I spent my day pacing back and forth across my small living room and twice actually paced outside on the lawn. Unfortunately, every time my eyes wandered toward the porch, the siniste
r lobster trap reminded me of my maritime past. My monster gleefully rattled its cage in anticipation of dragging me back to that terrible place. Nerves on edge, I finally grabbed the trap and carried it around to the side of my house where I dropped it in the grass.

  Why didn’t I do that before, I wondered.

  My relief was short-lived, however, because when I returned to the front yard the ramshackle white trap was back where it had started. Desperate to do something, I gathered two huge armloads of flowers and dumped them on top of the symbol from my past. Unfortunately, the second I turned my eyes away the colorful blooms disappeared from the trap and reappeared on their original stems.

  My monster roared with laughter.

  I was relieved, to say the least, when the time came for Ricky’s lessons to be over. When I arrived, his Uncle Sedrick was sitting comfortably on the porch swing. I waved as I approached.

  “Hello,” he said, tipping his white hat toward me. “It’s nice to see you again, young Nathaniel.”

  He had a white cane leaning against his leg. It was intricately carved with angels, the old-fashioned kind with wings and white robes—the ones known as archangels, my Grandmother had taught me.

  “It’s a beauty, isn’t it?” he said running his hand over the elegant wood.

  I nodded.

  “Have you met any?” I asked without offering any verbal greeting. My grandmother always said country manners were hard to unlearn. I had spent nearly half my childhood in Maine, and there, people waved to one another, but “hellos” and “goodbyes” weren’t as common as they were in other places.

  “Come sit beside an old man while you wait for that rascally nephew of mine.” Ricky’s uncle patted the swing seat with one palm.

  I liked this man with his semi-formal manner and happily settled down at his side.

  “Now, who is it you want to know if I’ve met?”

  “Archangels.”

  He grinned broadly.