“Tell me what you see,” he said.
“I see an old woman. I think she’s blind—her eyes are milky white. She has a book, and it’s open in her lap. It’s the Hutchins book. Her fingers are running down the page, and her lips are moving, as if she was reading.”
“You see her.”
“There is someone else there, a younger woman. She is afraid.”
“Yes.”
“There is water near them—I hear it. And I taste salt … it’s the ocean. It’s all around them. I think they’re on a boat. There’s a storm. The younger woman is crying. She is afraid of this journey.”
He smiled at me; I could feel it.
“Look closer,” he commanded.
I closed my eyes and strained to see. Suddenly I saw the women again, but they were surrounded by lights. My vision carried me above them, above the ship, breaking through the whipping winds and lightning, seeing lights all around it, lights leading in a straight path across the ocean. I saw arms outstretched each to the other, the current turning and obeying their path.
I began to cry, which surprised me.
“They’re angels,” I whispered. “They’re guiding the ship. To America. They want to get the Hutchins book there. It wants to go. It’s alive.”
I sat back, sensing the book breathing, looking at me.
The vision ended.
I sat, letting the tears cool on my cheek. The only noise in the room was from my breath, but it became small shallow gasps, each breath a jerk in my chest, each breath less than before.
A noise was at the door, like a thousand claws drumming on a table.
He rose and held out his hand for the computer. “It is time. They’re waiting.”
“Oh, please, God.” I fought for a breath and the words to pray. “I don’t want to die! I shouldn’t die—I had another chance!”
“But your work is finished. You are not mine,” the Scribe answered.
“Rose, she had a daughter, didn’t she? And that daughter was in my line—that’s why you showed me the vision. That’s why you chose me. But I don’t know what you wanted from me. There was more than just the story, wasn’t there? I sat through all these pages, but there is something more, isn’t there?”
I flopped back against the pillow, choking from the exertion, struggling to pull a free breath in.
He said nothing, but his arm moved to take the computer from me.
I shook my head, closing the laptop and hugging it to myself. “Let me at least get this to someone.”
He shook his head. “She’ll find it.”
I knew who he meant: Mariskka.
“This is my story!” I said. “She won’t know what to do with it. She doesn’t deserve it.”
That made him smile. “Oh, but she does. She deserves it more than anyone.”
He put his glasses back on and turned to his open book lying on the table next to him. He reached to shut it, and the words grew faint, my life slipping away with them. The words swirled, like a whirlpool, growing dim as they were pulled back into the book. My spirit was leaving with them. The claws grew louder. I could hear wet smacking.
A sword rammed from the air, pinning the pages open. The Scribe jumped back, scowling, as another thing became visible to me. It was unlike anything I had seen, perhaps something I remembered from a childhood tale, when I was not afraid to believe. He was formed in the image of a man, but much larger, with wild yellow hair that parted around the wings of an eagle, muscles pumping and twitching in them, making him shimmer so brightly that I winced. The fluorescent bulbs overhead burst with a pop, flakes of milky glass showering us all as the Scribe and the being stared at each other without blinking.
“You will not shut the book,” the gold-haired man said. His had the same gold eyes, with tiny black irises, and when his mouth moved, I could see canine teeth, huge incisors the size of my thumb.
“Aryeh,” I whispered.
“It is her time,” the Scribe said.
Aryeh held the sword on the book, and the words swarmed all around it like ants. He flexed his arm and drove it in deeper.
“One question and then she dies,” Aryeh said.
The Scribe nodded an agreement.
“What is the truth?” Aryeh asked me.
The visions poured out from the book, from all around the sword, the voices and cries and stories. Some were weeping, and some were singing, but all repeated only one Name, as if it was the only language of this next world. My flesh recoiled. I did not want this; I did not want to be one of the voices singing. I had never wanted to be one of them.
I heard the nails again, and something wet dripped on my shoulder. Only these things did not chant the Name.
I drew my last breath, heard it wheezing into my tattered lungs, and with these last words, my spirit pushing its way out with them. “Those words are the truth. Hutchins was trying to save us all. I have betrayed my mothers. Oh, Jesus, forgive me!”
Aryeh lifted his sword as he swung a hand to me, screaming, “Take my hand!”