William H. Hallahan - (33 page)

He heard a clatter. It sounded like falling pebbles. Then came
heavy splats of falling water, then a boom that shook the floor like
a wrecker's ball. He shone the flashlight around and illuminated his
camping equipment.

Everything was in good order except the sleeping bag. Resting on
it where it fell was a huge square stone. It easily weighed fifty
pounds. He would have been killed outright by it if he'd not gotten
out of his bag to pursue the phantom footsteps. Something had saved
his life.

He rolled the stone off his sleeping bag. Then he moved the bag a
few feet away, drank the last of his cold coffee and got back into
the bag. He lay listening for the return of the footsteps, sure he
would not sleep another minute that night.
 
 

He was awakened by the licking tongue of Repentance. It was
morning and when he sat up, he looked past the spraddled legs of
Timothy at the grim face of dawn. A mumbling rain fell on the soaking
woods. Not far from him sat the fifty-pound stone that had crashed
down onto his sleeping bag. He wondered if someone had deliberately
dropped it.

"We have so little time," Timothy said. "And we
have so much to do. But first I want to explain what's happening to
you." And he began with Brendan's purple aura. He explained the
relentless contest between him and Satan to find it. Then he told the
story of the war in heaven, the creation of hell and the destruction
of Eden and the Lord's pronouncement about finding a purple aura.

Timothy told Brendan of his endless life of wandering the earth,
companioned by despair and loneliness and forced to witness man's
terrible history from the day Adam and Eve were put out of Paradise.

"If you forgive me, Brendan," Timothy said, "then I
will return to heaven, and Satan and his legions will suffer final
punishment."
 
 

The ruined monastery was just as he had pieced it out in the
darkness: and with the living quarters on one side and the chapel on
the other, connected by a covered walkway. Beyond the living quarters
stood the barn, larger than he had imagined. There had been a dairy
herd, a pigpen, a hen house and a number of acres of cultivated land
now overrun with lofty oaks more than fifty years old.

Short sections of the original stone walls were still visible in
the underbrush, but even in these the trees had been at work and had
spilled most of them.

There was a dripping everywhere inside the structure. Great holes
in the roof showed wherever he looked. Of the two buildings, the
chapel was in the better condition, although there were many gaping
holes in the roof here too, through which rain poured. Most of the
interior woodwork was long gone: the choir stalls, the pews, the
kneelers and the benches. The pulpit in stone still endured but all
that was left of the altar was just a raised stone dais. All the
other trappings and furnishings were gone.

There had been two stained-glass windows; now there were just two
narrow arch-shaped window holes in the stone walls, stained darkly
from the rain, looking like the battered, stunned eyes of a beaten
pugilist.

Birds had gotten in everywhere and nested, swifts and sparrows,
several owls, a community of starlings--and a colony of bats. The
walls were streaked with guano and the floor was littered with old
nests. Near one of the two chapel windows a tree had grown up,
desperately spreading its branches for the little life-giving light
that got through the roof holes.

Brendan opened the rotted door to the bell tower and saw the bell
at his feet, fallen in a tangle of splintered beams and old rope. It
must have made a great noise when it crashed.

The air of desolation and abandonment filled Brendan with sadness.
The monastery seemed an old battlefield in which the wrong side had
prevailed. There was a mood of mourning. It was a place of defeat.
Where had the monks gone? Why had they left?

"Demons got in," Timothy told him. "The battle
lasted for a whole month, night and day. The monks won but the few
who survived abandoned the place."

Brendan wished Timothy had chosen a site more auspicious.
 
 

That morning Brendan went to Timothy. "Are you sure Satan and
his followers will all be punished?"

"The Lord Himself said it, Brendan."

"It seems to me that you paid for your part in the rebellion
in heaven a very long time ago. It's too bad you didn't find a purple
aura before the human race lived through all that terrible history."

Timothy nodded. "Satan has done unspeakable things to man."

"Man has done unspeakable things to man," Brendan said.
"He doesn't need much help from Satan. When do we start the
ceremony?"

"Later today."

Timothy went into the chapel alone.
 
 

Brendan paced. The several times he looked into the ruined chapel,
Timothy was on his knees, praying.

Brendan went for a walk. The rain had stopped and he walked to the
crest of the road to look out over the range of low mountains that
reached away to the north and west. Large flights of migratory birds
were flying north. Spring again. He returned to find Timothy still in
the chapel on his knees. And he remained there for hours more. When
late afternoon sunlight was slanting into the ruins, Timothy still
remained on his knees. At dusk Brendan was sitting on a fallen stone
block when a shadow passed in front of him. He looked up and saw her,
the magnificent black hawk, touched by the last light of day. She
wheeled first left then right. A moment later, she whizzed by his
head and alighted in a pine tree to regard him with her fierce eyes.
Then she gave a great flap and flew off.
Cree cree cree
, she
cried. Brendan went to the chapel to tell Timothy.
 
 

Timothy came out of the chapel almost immediately: He stared with
an unsettling intensity for a time into Brendan's eyes. Then handed
him a white robe. "Wash yourself and put this on. Hurry."

He had not asked whether Brendan would forgive him.
 
 

The cold twilight air raised gooseflesh. Brendan drew up a bucket
of water from the old well. It was numbingly cold water. After
dumping it over himself, he toweled off quickly. When he'd put on the
white gown, he hastened to the chapel. The wind was increasing. It
soughed on the rough edges of the decayed walls and it rocked the
bare trees.

A familiar sound arrested him. Faintly at first, then clearly, he
heard the hoofbeats.

The chapel was lit by a scattering of candles. In contrast to the
rising wind, it had a calm and serene air to it, a quiet festiveness.
The candles, in sconces, were contained with glass hurricane
chimneys. In the mounting wind, the small flames seemed vulnerable
and fragile.

As he entered the chapel, Brendan got his last look at the night
sky, just before the moon was smothered. It was the angriest sky he
had ever seen: black, twisted raging clouds, dead black with moonlit
edges, immensely high, like a mad funeral procession with deep and
frightful canyons between. As they crossed the chapel to the altar,
drumming drops of rain announced the onset of a storm. Timothy
removed his cloak and turned to face Brendan. He was stunning. His
stature had increased; his presence was commanding; his beauty
breathtaking. He was standing in his true angelic form. Brendan had
never seen such radiance.

Timothy turned to the altar and prayed with head bowed. The wind
blew out several candles.

The hoofbeats were louder. Brendan glanced at Timothy.

"Do you hear the hoofbeats, Timothy?" he asked.

Timothy nodded slowly.

The hoofbeats were faster. The animal was at a full gallop. To
Brendan the strategy was clear: Satan would use Death to stop the
ceremony. The black rider and horse were coming for him.

"Hurry, Timothy!" he called.

The hoofbeats sounded on the flagstone walkway just outside the
chapel. The horse that had haunted Brendan's visions charged into the
chapel and stopped in front of him. It was a towering animal,
snorting, its ribs heaving, its wild eye ogling Brendan. The rider,
hooded and gowned in black, stared down at him. And behind sat Satan,
his mad, molten-green eyes filled with rage.

"Brendan," Timothy said. "Say you forgive me."

"Silence!" Satan roared as he stepped down from the
black stallion. "Say one word and you will die!"

"Brendan," Timothy said softly. "Say 'I forgive
you.'"

"If you speak," Satan bellowed, "you will die!"

"Speak, Brendan. Let your love speak."

Brendan looked at the great black saddle: the end of life. One
word and he would be carried to hell. He looked at the fiery green
eyes of man's greatest tormentor. Then he looked back at the saddle.

"Brendan," Timothy said.

Brendan nodded. "I forgive you, Timothy."

The black horse bridled violently. The rider pointed at Brendan,
then pointed at the empty saddle behind him. Brendan shook his head.
And Death pointed again. Brendan felt unable to resist. He stepped
toward the saddle. He looked at the stricken face of Timothy, then
reached up to pull himself into the saddle.

"I forgive you, Timothy," he said again. "May God
hear your prayer."

But before Brendan could climb up, Timothy disappeared. Then the
horse and rider disappeared. Satan's bellow shook the building. Then
he too disappeared.
 
 

Trevor was coming for his answer at seven. Yes or no. Brendan or
not. Marriage or not. Anne hurried home from the studio and
immediately opened her closet. Standing on a chair, she got down her
largest suitcase. She said aloud, "I can't believe I'm doing
this." With a pencil and a pad she began making a list of what
to bring to Bermuda.

It was a relief: She'd made a decision. And she admitted she liked
stepping into the magic world of great wealth. For the first time
since Brendan had left nearly three months past, she felt a sense of
well-being.

Trevor rang the bell precisely at seven. And when she pushed the
door buzzer to admit him, she was thinking of the great smile that
would spread over his face upon hearing her say Yes. His footsteps
were on the stair, bounding two at a time.

He skipped into her apartment, slightly breathless, his mouth
hanging open with expectation.

"Yes?" he asked almost prayerfully.

"No." She had astonished herself.

Trevor sagged. His smile fell. "Annie--"

"Oh, Trevor, I'd give anything to be able to say Yes. I'm so
fond of you I wouldn't hurt you for the world."

"Then don't."

"I can't marry you out of pity."

"You can marry me for any reason you want, Annie--"

"Oh, Trevor, you're making this so hard for me."

"I want to. I'm trying to make you say Yes. Say Yes. Say it."

She put her hand over his eyes. "It hurts to look at you."

"I'll never ever find another like you, Annie. You're the
most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me. If you don't marry
me, I'll be haunted by you for the rest of my life. I love you, Anne,
more than anything in the world."

She touched his cheek. "Oh, I like you as much, Trevor--"

"Sleep on it another night, Annie. Please?"

She sighed, almost tempted. "If I said Yes tomorrow I'd only
change it to No the day after."

He was bewildered. "Annie, I know this would be a wonderful
marriage for both of us. Please think it out again."

"Oh, Trevor. I have thought--"

He gripped her by the shoulders. "He's not coming back,
Annie. Never!"

She raised her chin a little higher. "Yes, he is."

Trevor dropped his hands to his sides, then abruptly patted her
arm and turned and left. She heard every one of his heavy steps going
down the stairs.

She watched him on the street from her window. She felt sick, a
knot in her stomach. She'd hurt him terribly. And she knew that she
still needed him; he'd kept her from going crazy with longing and
loneliness and she'd become deeply fond of him. But she had to stay
there in the apartment, for someday Brendan would come swinging
around the corner and smile up at her. He had to. And she had to be
there.

As she stood on her chair, putting her suitcase away, she felt the
loneliness flowing from the corners toward her once again, like a
rising tide.

"Oh, Annie," she said aloud. "Brendan's never
coming back and now neither will Trevor." Her loneliness had
doubled.
 
 

She was despondent the entire evening, feeling sorry for Brendan,
feeling sorry for Trevor and trying not to feel sorry for herself.
She could hear her friends shouting in baffled rage at her when she
told them that she'd turned Trevor down.

"For a ghost," they would say. "You turned him down
for a memory who's never coming back."

Her odd compulsion had returned: Every few minutes she would go to
the window and look down. But there was no Brendan striding around
the corner.

But one time when she went to the window and looked down, a man
came around the corner and crossed the walk.

"Oh!" she cried. She ran down the stairs, opened the
door and ran into the street. "Brendan! Oh, Brendan!" She
gripped the front of his heavy jacket in both fists to keep him from
disappearing again. But his arms were firmly around her and she felt
his breath on her cheek.

"Oh, Brendan. I almost left! A few hours ago. I might have
missed you!"

She held his hand firmly in both of hers and led him inside. They
were both trying to talk at the same time.

"Are you all right?" she kept asking. "Is it safe
now?" She sat with her arms around him, patting his back as
though to ease a great pain.

"Yes," he said. "It's
all over. I'm home to stay." He kissed her.

The confusion and alarm in the great Hall of Pandemonium was
overwhelming, and Satan stood by his throne, quietly regarding the
packed chamber.