“She is the heir,” the voice replied.
“I’m the heir of what?” I asked. There was a sound like wind, but nothing moved in the room. The Scribe shook his head and looked for a place to sit. The steel-armed chair wasn’t large enough. He ran his hands along its frame and it groaned, stretching in all directions until he could comfortably sit. He opened his palms and a book appeared in them, a book bound in black frayed leather, with gold dust along the edges and thick iron locks keeping the pages sealed tight.
“The Tablets of Destiny,” he said. “It was last seen in the days of ancient Mesopotamia. It is referenced in the Bible, though never by its name.”
My fingers were raised above the keypad but didn’t move.
“Names have power,” he said. “The past has power. The two meet in this book. No one among you will be allowed to know its full contents until the Day.”
My fingers were still immobile.
“Two thousand years ago, on an island infested with fleas and thieves and the condemned,” he said, “a dying man was allowed to see the invisible world. He recorded this vision in the book that came to be called The Revelation. He saw that every church has an angel, every nation has an angel, and every child has an angel.”
My fingers had begun to move.
“But there was one class of angels he could not see. There are archangels, the strangest and fiercest of us who remain always near the women. Every bloodline of women has been followed by the same archangel since the beginning of the line. The angel of your line has watched you grow from a child into a woman, and he knows your past far beyond what is told to you by your mother and aunts. He knows who your women were, and who you can become.”
He stroked the book lovingly and its hinges sprang open, the pages fluttering and turning, settling at last on a dark page. It looked brown from age or heat, its edges crumbling and flaking onto his leg. The ink was faded, almost to the color of the page, and I couldn’t make out the words or language, though it was ornately drawn.
He sighed and touched the page. “These words die. They have not been spoken for so long.”
“Long ago, in the kingdom you call England, under the reign of King Henry VIII, there lived two women. One loved God, one hated Him, and neither knew Him. Both women, however, heard tell of a book, a dangerous book. When it touched the world around them, it burned all to the ground. When it touched the women, it consumed everything they had built their lives around, until all that is left of them today is rumor and innuendo. For this reason you are brought to this story, for the women of your past have seen this book and its great power. They bought it for you with their lives and know that it is watching you, listening, waiting….”
The ink of the words grew darker, and the page began to turn brighter. He smiled and stroked the words.
I continued to type as he closed his eyes and began. His voice moved all around me and multiplied, changing. I began to see as he saw, the people and voices coming together as my fingers stayed on the keyboard, flying to keep up with the vision as it unfolded….
Chapter Three
The rain made the April air cold. Water ran in ripples down the path that led to the church with a crucifix hoisted above the door, Christ’s bleeding arms outstretched as thunder punctuated the voices of men digging with shovels. The despised Grimbald stood to their right, his candlebox giving them a palsied light as they worked. The rain had let up enough that the flame was in no danger.
She saw they had kicked over the headstone, dragging it away and throwing the dirt over it as they worked. She heard the shovel strike wood and the men growl with pleasure. They dropped ropes to a boy, who shimmied through the mud to the coffin and worked to secure the ropes around each end.
She crept closer to watch, careful to let the trees shield her in her shame. Blood had clotted on the underside of her dress, soaking through to the final outer layer of the skirt. The rain had dispensed with it well enough, but he would get no further remembrance of her body. She cursed her body, and the rain, for soiling the last thing on earth she had. The dress was blue silk, an illicit treasure she had found in an untended parcel outside a gentleman’s house. Silk was forbidden for her class to wear, so she found the courage to wear it only on her worst days. Some woman had a beautiful life; this dress was its proof. As she slid into a stranger’s dress, she willed that woman’s good fortune to befall her.