The Day the Angels Fell Read online

  For brief moments I recognized them as two powerful men, and they wrestled there among the trees. Mr. Jinn’s face was desperate and determined. His mouth was a firm line of desire, and it propelled him, strengthened him. He pushed Mr. Tennin to the brink of the river, and then they were in it, Mr. Jinn holding Mr. Tennin under.

  I found myself holding my breath, wondering if he would come up. But I didn’t have much time to worry about him—the Amarok roared, and the roots of the forest groaned in reply. It was like thunder in the earth, the sound of a thousand fault lines slipping out of place. I held the sword up again and glanced over at Abra.

  Mr. Tennin rose out of the water, and when he did I recognized in him the quiet confidence of Truth. I could tell that he would stand not by the sheer power of emotion but in the conviction of someone acting simply out of love. I felt an ache for him, the same ache you feel looking out over a snow-peaked mountain range or walking through an ancient temple.

  The Amarok came at me again, and I held the sword out toward it. It dodged off to the side and snapped at my face, but I moved and ducked and swung the sword like a baseball bat. The air around us crackled with the fighting of the cherubim, and the morning lit up as the sun prepared to rise over the eastern mountain, illuminating the back of the gray storm clouds. Abra still wasn’t moving.

  I held the sword in front of me, my arm still numb with pain. The Amarok circled. Behind it, Mr. Tennin and Mr. Jinn flew straight up into the sky like fireworks heading for their apex. Through the trees, through the smoke, and up into the low, gray clouds of morning. I tried to watch, but the Amarok growled. I waved the sword at it again.

  The blade grew brighter and brighter. I wondered if it was getting ready to explode. Then two things happened at once: I took a swing at the Amarok as it snapped at me, and one of the lights fell from the sky so hard and fast that it sank down into the earth. Everything seemed to go completely still.

  I realized the top half of the glowing blade was covered in blood, a dark blood almost black, and I looked at it strangely, wondering if somehow it was my blood. Was I dying? Was this the end?

  The Amarok looked stunned, stopped in its tracks, and fell over dead—my last desperate swing had cut clean through its throat. I threw the sword to the ground and cried out as it tore the burned skin away. I held my hands palms up so they wouldn’t touch anything, and I ran over to see which of the cherubim had fallen.

  I think I was crying then, although I can’t remember exactly why. Maybe it was the terrible pain from my burns finally registering in my brain. Maybe they were tears of relief that come after a terrible fright—the Amarok, after all, was dead. The great shadow had passed. Or maybe I was crying because somehow I knew who I would find in that hole in the ground. Maybe I sensed, even without seeing it, that something deep had shifted in the world.

  I fell to my knees, my palms still facing up, and looked down into the hole the fallen cherub had created.

  It was Mr. Tennin. And while it was the force of his fall that had caused the ground to rise up around him, for a moment it seemed the earth had done that of its own accord—had swelled up, maybe to protect him, maybe to hold him. It was almost as if even the earth itself knew what was taking place and wanted to help, wanted to play a part.

  He wasn’t bald and skinny anymore. It’s impossible for me to describe exactly what he looked like besides this: he was beautiful and strong and there was power there, even after he fell. But I also had the sense that what power remained was leaving him fast, that he had somehow sprung a leak and everything that was bright and magnificent about him was growing dim. I wanted to reach out and touch his face, but my hands were so badly burned that I simply held them out over him, as if I was trying to hold down his fleeing spirit.

  “Mr. Tennin,” I said. “What . . . what happened?”

  He turned a weary face to me, and all the words he said from that moment until the end came in a whisper.

  “I fell.”

  There was weariness in his voice, but there were also tiny strands of relief.

  “But what does that mean?” I asked. “Are you dying?”

  He shook his head slowly. “No. It just means I can’t stay.”

  “Where will you go?”

  He looked me in the eyes, and I realized that he somehow knew my thoughts, that he had seen my visions or perhaps I had communicated them to him unknowingly.

  “First I will go across the ocean, beyond the white cliffs, and then, who knows?”

  I felt desperation rise inside me. “What if you can’t come back?” But even as I said it, I knew what his response would be.

  “Come back? Why would I care about coming back? Sam, if there’s anything you should know, it’s this: death is not a destination. It’s a passing, a transition into eternity, the rest of time. When you leave this place, everything you have known will seem like only a dream or the memory of a dream. Dying is the shedding of one cloak and the taking on of another. Death is a gift.”

  I put my head down and wept. “I find that so hard to believe.” I felt helpless, as if everything that had ever mattered to me was passing through my fingers.

  “Life is not only made up of what you can see. This is the beginning of belief.”

  “It seems like so much,” I said in a whisper. “So much to believe in. So much to give up.”

  “Samuel,” he whispered. “Always remember this.”

  I could smell wood smoke drifting around me, the only slow thing in the midst of the gathering storm.

  “Death,” he said, then paused before whispering the last three words, “is a gift.”

  I looked at Mr. Tennin and had this sudden realization that he had been there for me all along. He had moved into our house to find the Tree, yes, but also to keep watch over me. He had protected me from the Amarok on the night we ran out of gas. He had helped me grow the Tree so that he might destroy it and keep me from yet another mistake. And now he was showing me that this path through death was one that could be traveled bravely, with dignity.

  He shimmered like the flickering of a lightbulb nearly out. Then he was gone, and I stayed there, kneeling beside an empty hollow in the ground. I had so many more things I wanted to ask him.

  A fire raged in the forest on the other side of the river. I thought it would cross over and consume all of us, leaving nothing. No one would ever know what had happened. The story would die with me and Abra. This was the end.

  A shadow fell over me, the shadow of a person. I turned from where Mr. Tennin had fallen and looked over my shoulder. It was Mr. Jinn, not as the cherub who had just proven himself victorious, but as the dirty, straggly farmer still wearing that old brown overcoat, still walking with a limp.

  “You killed my Amarok,” he said, staring not at my face but at my blistered hands.

  “Your Amarok? It wasn’t yours,” I said.

  He waved his hand at me. “We have more important things to discuss,” he said.

  “Like what?” Pain shot through my hands again, and I let the cool rain fall on them, run over them.

  “You’re powerful, Sam,” he said in a reluctant voice. “If, as a boy, you can kill an Amarok, well, there’s nothing you can’t do.” He paused, and his eyes searched my face, searched for any signs of weakness. “You could bring your mother back, Sam. Think about it. You could bring her back. And you could be a prince among men, wealthier than Solomon, because you could sell what everyone wants: life. Forever life.”

  I shook my head, but the alluring smell of the leaf had faded and neither of us knew what I would do.

  He pointed at one of the low-hanging branches above my head. “There it is, Sam! You did everything you had to do. You found the Tree, the stone bowl, the water, the sunlight. You did it all yourself. You even killed the Amarok, something no one else has been able to do, not for all of time. Now all you have to do is reach up and take a piece of fruit. Bury it deep in the earth above your mother’s coffin. You can bring her back wit
h it. Life from this fruit goes down deep. It’s so close. Everything you wanted is here for the taking.”

  I stood up and looked at the fruit above my head, noticing for the first time that it came in various shapes and shades of green. Some were shaped like pears, the color of dark green grass. Others were round like limes, but so light green they were almost yellow. Still others looked like apples, but smaller and softer. The leaves hung heavy and thick, and I imagined all of that beautiful sap in each one. What people would pay for such healing power!

  I would never have to die. My father would never have to die. And in my naïve youth, it all seemed so good. Living forever seemed like a wonderful fruit to eat.

  I reached for a piece of it, then glanced at Mr. Jinn. His eyes followed my hand. They were hungry and intent and scanned the Tree as if he was looking for something. His tongue flicked at the edges of his lips, and the hint of a smile turned up the corners of his mouth. His hands came out of the deep pockets of his overcoat, and they were round and heavy and trembling. I remembered those hands from the room at the antique store, the way they had pounded the table.

  I realized he couldn’t see the fruit. He was waiting for me to pluck it and give it to him.

  “Just imagine, Sam,” he said. “Your mother here again, in the flesh. Welcoming you home from school and making you breakfast and tucking you into bed at night. Think of it.”

  Whether it was because of some special power he had or the recent sharp visions the sap had brought to mind, I could picture it all perfectly, what life would be like with my mother. I shook my head again, but my hand reached closer for the glassy fruit, and in each one I saw a vision of my mother’s face, smiling.

  That beautiful fruit!

  “No,” I said. “The Tree is mine. I found it. I brought it here. I grew it. It’s mine and I won’t give it to you.”

  The desire for it was too great, and I couldn’t imagine sharing it, not even with Mr. Jinn, the one who had helped me find it.

  “Yours?” Mr. Jinn’s voice grew terrible and strong, and rays of the same glorious power I had seen in Mr. Tennin shone through the rags of his clothing. He was rising.

  “You won’t?” he asked, and this time his laugh filled the valley and the sky and made the trees bend away from us, trying to escape from some unseen power.

  He shook his head, and I felt fear tremble inside me because something in his face switched from mirth to regret. He was about to do something to me that he didn’t want to do. He reached his hand out, and my entire body clenched tight in an unseen vise. I couldn’t move. It was as if he had drawn a circle around my soul. But then he dropped me in a heap and looked past me, toward the trunk of the Tree of Life, and surprise showed on his face, and disappointment.

  I looked over at the Tree, and there was Abra. She sat beside the Tree, and the hilt of the sword stuck out from the soft trunk. A blackness had already begun to spread from where she had plunged the fiery sword into the Tree, and the branches had all begun to sink, as if it was deflating.

  Mr. Jinn was overcome with anger. Multiple lightning strikes lit up the fog, shattering tree branches and exploding limbs, and were immediately followed by the sound of thunder. He ran at Abra, hands raised, coat billowing out and away from him, the light of a powerful, angelic glory streaking out in rays.

  Abra stood up and pulled the sword from the dying Tree. It came out easily, like a knife pulled out of butter. She grasped it with two hands, raised it over her head, and threw it at Mr. Jinn. I was amazed at the force with which she threw it, and as it moved away from her, it seemed to increase in speed, as if it was obeying not only her physical will but also her emotional desire. It stuck into Mr. Jinn’s chest as easily as it had gone into the Tree.

  He stopped. He stared at her. He ripped the sword out as he fell, and it clattered onto the rocks.

  The fruit all fell in one dropping motion, one thousand visions, and when they hit the ground each piece shattered and a strong wind blew through the valley. Every single shard of fruit was blown away into the sky. I closed my eyes and imagined those shards spreading out over an eternal ocean, then sinking into the water and dissolving. I imagined the waves rolling in huge breakers against a perilous, rocky coast, each wave carrying tiny glass-like pieces of fruit from the Tree of Life. I imagined the beach made up of sand from that pulverized fruit, and I could see the white cliffs rising out of the sand. And there, at the top of the cliff, I saw my mother smile one last time, turn, and walk away.

  She was gone, and I couldn’t bring her back.

  Death is that ocean, filled with the dissolving shards of fruit from the Tree of Life. It is the sound of waves that crest but never break, a sound that rolls on forever.

  32

  ABRA CLOSED HER EYES for a moment, and I crawled to her, past the small depression in the ground where Mr. Tennin had fallen, past a fading Mr. Jinn, past the dead Amarok and the pile of ashes that had been the fire from the night before. We both sat with our backs against the Tree of Life, and we watched it die.

  We leaned our heads back against the Tree, and I looked up at the top branches. The leaves had begun to change color, from that dark green to a blackish green, then to a reddish black, and finally to a deep, blood red. Autumn came for the Tree of Life in a matter of minutes. Seasons passing in a moment. Soon the entire Tree was waving crimson in the strong breeze.

  The leaves fell and swirled in miniature twisters, and the breeze blew some of the leaves into the river and others into the flames or down the path to the Road to Nowhere. I caught a few as they fell and broke them apart. Too late. They were dry inside, and they crumbled in my hands. But even their dust soothed my skin. The blisters did not heal, but the pain dissolved. I grabbed more as they fell, and Abra rubbed them over her stomach where the Amarok had held her in its jaws. We were, both of us, in need of something to take our pain away.

  Soon the entire Tree was leafless and old, and the branches clattered together like bones. The wind grew stronger and a few brittle branches fell around us. The fire rose like a wall up against the far side of the river, and a few of the trees that reached toward it from our side smoked and burst into flame. All that remained beyond the stream was ash and the blackened skeletons of tall, skinny trees still blazing, and among all of it the rocks that led up into the eastern mountain. The fire moved, devouring, looking for more fuel.

  We were too tired to move, too tired to think through what had happened, but I knew we had to get out of the woods. Quickly. There was the pungent smell of smoke, the way it stung my eyes and burned in my throat, the glistening, black fur of the Amarok, the storm clouds passing over us, giving way to strands of wispy sky. The blue peeking through reminded me of the water in my dream, the eternal waves, and the white cliffs at the far side.

  “My mom’s the one who took the Tree to the cemetery,” Abra said quietly, as if talking to herself.

  “What?”

  “My mom. She had wondered what we were doing over in the other side of the house, and she thought it was weird that the closet was locked, so she asked my dad to open the door. She found the Tree inside. ‘It reminded me of Lucy,’ she said, so she took it to her grave.”

  I started weeping, full of so many emotions. Regret. Sadness. Relief. Abra reached over and held on to my hand. It hurt, but I did not pull away. My own tears felt good on my face, as if some buried piece of me had finally fought to the surface, and something about those tears reminded me of the aloe from the leaves on the Tree. There is healing, after all, in sadness, and sometimes only tears will bring it. Abra’s grip reminded me that I was human. I was here. I felt real again. I felt alive.

  Mr. Jinn made a sound. He was laughing.

  Abra and I stood together and walked toward him. Mr. Jinn reminded me of Mr. Tennin in the moments before he had vanished—he was weak, though not entirely powerless, but what power remained seemed to be easing its way out of him.

  He moved only his eyes as he looked at us, and he kep
t laughing.

  “What?” Abra asked, and we couldn’t show him the contempt we wanted to because part of the glory he had shown earlier lingered there with him, like a mist within the fog. It was a wonder and a splendor, even hidden as it was beneath the curse he had carried for centuries. For millennia.

  He shook his head back and forth, barely, and his laughing dimmed to a weak smile. “You don’t even know, do you?” he asked. “You don’t even realize what you have done.”

  That’s when I recognized it. The darkness inside me was gone. After everything that had happened, I had given it up. I believed Mr. Tennin. I hadn’t wanted the Tree to die, and maybe I couldn’t have killed it if it had been up to me, but it was gone now.

  I was free.

  “What don’t we know?” Abra asked.

  “His mother,” he whispered, staring at me. “There’s nothing you can do to bring her back.”

  He looked over at Abra. “And you . . . You have only just begun.”

  He disappeared.

  Abra retrieved the sword where it lay in the depression. It had returned to its normal color and size, and she held it tightly. But Mr. Jinn’s words didn’t fill me with terror anymore. I was okay, relieved even, that my mother could rest in peace. I looked around at the burning world, and I realized this was no place to bring her back to. The beach and the cliffs and the green fields beyond seemed like a wonderful place to be. Instead of anger or bitterness, I was filled with a sense of hope that I would see her again, that I could join her there. Maybe someday I could leave all of this behind.

  “We have to go,” I said, feeling the heat from the fire. We hurried back to the Road to Nowhere through smoke that filled the trees like fog, then continued on to where the road was paved with stones, past Mr. Jinn’s house. We were both exhausted and coughing, our lungs burning. Abra put her arm around me and we stumbled down that road together.

  I saw my father’s car careening up Kincade Road, a cloud of dust billowing out behind him. As he got closer I could see him hunched over the steering wheel, a look of desperation on his face. My father was like an approaching storm.