Chapter Thirteen B: Wake

Tuesday dawned like a new birth of creation. The skies were blue and although it was cold in the morning, there was a definite hint of spring in the air. When Aaron looked out the window of the old farmhouse he could see crocus blooming in the yard.

He woke up alone in the massive bed in Pol’s room, but the smell of coffee was like life ascending the stairs. When he came out of the bathroom, Pol was seated on the edge of the bed with a tray of coffee and cookies. Aaron looked at the tray and laughed.

“I feel like Santa Claus,” he said. “Coffee and cookies.” Pol blushed.

“I have absolutely no idea what to serve on the morning after,” she said. “If you want better than this, you will have to make it yourself.”

“I can think of nothing that I want that is not in this room,” Aaron said smiling at her. They settled back on the bed with a cup of coffee each and cuddled close together as they sipped the morning brew. If Aaron had thoughts of working this day, they were quickly dispelled. The two stayed in the bedroom like newlyweds except for occasional forays into the kitchen for more food. They were children learning the new ABCs of love and as Pol put it, “I’ve no intention of letting my lover out of my sight today.”

Eventually, however, there was a call from the funeral director indicating that they would be at the old church within the hour. Pol told him to call from the church and she would come up to let him in. It changed the mood of the afternoon slightly. They ate a light supper and dressed in clothes for the night in the church. Aaron confirmed that Jack would have his crew at the church at 6:00 a.m. for the burial, though he considered that an odd time for a funeral. Aaron explained that it was family tradition. When he had finished the conversation, Pol handed him a bundle of blankets to put in the car.

“It gets cold up there at night,” she explained. “We don’t really heat it very much.”

The call came from the funeral director and they loaded the car and left the house. There was a few minutes of coordination and work to be done as the director moved the casket into the church, then went across the street to check the readiness of the newly dug grave. Aaron had not seen the diggers from the house as the cemetery was blocked by the trees from there. So he decided to take a look himself. He was pleased and smiled when he discovered that the grave had been dug next to the plain stone marker of Harper MacKenzie.

It was seven o’clock when Pol got the rope down from its hook in the foyer and began ringing the bell in the old church tower. Her ringing had a strange rhythm to it, tolling out the life and loss of the old woman. She rang for a good ten minutes, declining Aaron’s offer to help. “There may come a day when the job is your, my love,” Pol said cryptically, “but today the task is mine.”

At about seven thirty the door of the church opened and the first of the neighbors entered to give their condolences to Pol and to bid farewell to the mad old woman who was a legend even now in the community. The mayors of Uniondale, Sevastapol, and Ossian showed up to pay their respects for the oldest member of the community to have passed. Aaron was surprised at how many people had turned out and watched curiously, trying to spot when the architect would show up. But no matter who came through the door, there was no indication that Pol had spoken to any about their problem with the eco-terrorists and what to do about Uncle Alex.

The parade of people continued in spurts and fits until after nine o’clock. The funeral director offered to have a staff member stay at the church for the night, but Pol firmly told them that she and Aaron would stand watch for the night. By ten o’clock, Pol had locked the church door from the inside and she and Aaron made their way quietly to the front of the sanctuary to visit Hattie’s closed coffin.

“She’ll finally lie next to her Harper,” Aaron mused.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Pol asked. “All these years I kept playing at the idea that I was only her great niece, but had accepted all along that I was her great-granddaughter. I just assumed that I would be able to tell her someday. Now it is too late.”

“I’m sure she knew,” Aaron said gently.

“Thanks to you,” Pol said. “You told her even though I hadn’t confessed. I’m so glad you spoke to her before she died.

“She was, in her way, a very perceptive old woman,” Aaron said. “I’ve always wondered at the patience of old people. They seem to know how to wait. And when they have waited long enough, they simply pass on.”

“You see a lot of old people in your line of work, don’t you?” Pol asked.

“It’s old people who seem to understand that their memories are valuable,” Aaron answered. “Either that, or they simply crave company so much that they are willing to share things they would never have told anyone when they were younger—just to have the company.”

“Let’s…” Pol began. “Aaron, let’s grow old together so that we don’t have to wait for company to tell our stories. Let’s be tell mad tales to anyone who will listen and become the old people that no one believes, except that we are together and that must count for something.”

“Pol,” Aaron answered, “that almost sounds like a proposal. If it is, then my answer is yes. I will grow old only in your company, I promise.” They embraced next to Hattie’s coffin and between them they could almost hear her gentle voice singing “Back Home Again in Indiana.” They moved to the front pew and covered themselves generously with the blankets. Now that people had left the church, it was definitely cooling down. The pew was more comfortable than any pew than Aaron could remember from a childhood spent in church on Sundays. They cuddled together and talked late into the night, kissing often. Eventually they dozed off to sleep.

Aaron was almost immediately transferred into one of those lucid dreams that seemed to be most intense when he was in contact with Pol. This, however, was definitely influenced by their presence in the old church and the stained glass window that dominated the front. Aaron had been impressed when he actually came into the church with Hattie’s body by the beauty of the window, but had to laugh at himself for all the images he’d had of the huge window. It was really quite small. The whole sanctuary would seat a maximum of maybe 75 people. The chancel next to the pulpit was scarcely large enough to fit the casket. The chair that he had used to get the bell rope… no, he corrected himself, Pol had rung the bell. But the chair had figured in his dream somehow. It was the only seat in the chancel, located directly behind the pulpit.

Pol had lit candles on the small altar table that was devoid of any religious symbolism or decoration. It was a simple wooden table with a white linen runner and candles aplenty. As they dozed off to sleep, the burning candles provided both the only light source and the only source of heat other than their bodies.

In his dreamstate now, he imagined the fascinating window glowing. As it glowed, it grew, and the sanctuary around him expanded into the cathedral-like setting he had seen in earlier dreams. This time, he looked around it more carefully and could compare it less to a cathedral than some vast chamber in which business was conducted, like the trading floor of a stock exchange. The people were less in a concurrent mode of worship than they were in communication with each other, giving and taking and trading commodities for their various worlds.

Nor was he being invited to enter the window this time. Rather, there was a being in the window that was approaching the chamber. As it stepped forward through the stained glass, it solidified into a physical form and stood looking down on Hattie’s coffin. Pol stirred beside him and Aaron thought he heard her speak.

“Stay here, darling,” she said. “The architect has arrived. I’ll only be a moment.” She rose from the pew, oddly leaving her sleeping body still warmly snuggled against Aaron’s.

“What do you say, daughter?” the figure addressed Pol as she approached the casket. The female voice of the architect suddenly rang in Aaron’s mind and he was catapulted into the first meeting that he had accidentally witnessed. These beings were beautiful, even angelic, he thought. The voice of the architect spoke as though it were a chorus of beings embodied in a single presence in this world. Her words drew at the very center of his being and he thought for a moment that his heart would stop for the very joy that it inspired in him.

“She was faithful to the end, mother,” Pol answered. “She was unswerving in her tale even when I denied it. There is no question that she has lived her life patiently awaiting this day.”

“Then she shall, indeed, have her reward,” the architect said sadly. “For all our knowledge and planning, I have never understood how this crossing over occurs. It is not possible for her to become one of us, yet it is not possible for her to exist apart from us. I suppose it is something in the genetic structure that brings these few into our realm, even though they can never experience it fully. But, I know that there is one who will welcome her.” She turned toward the window and uttered a syllable, or perhaps a phrase. Aaron could not comprehend what was said or its meaning. It hurt his teeth to hear it. But from the window another figure approached, stepped through the glass and materialized next to the coffin. He was young and beautiful and incongruously carried a tenor ukulele in one hand. He did not speak, but seemed to reach a hand directly through the closed lid of the coffin. The hand that accompanied his as he withdrew it was not the hand of an old woman, and the woman who followed the hand was young, mischievous, and beautiful. She embraced her Harper and they turned back toward the window and stepped through. Just as they were nearly through, the young girl turned and looked directly at Aaron and smiled. Then she and her lover from so many years before receded into the window’s background.

Tears filled Aaron’s eyes and it was several minutes before he focused again on the continuing conversation between Pol and the architect.

“Your contact, too, was never one of us,” the architect was saying, “but we never thought he would act in such a contrary way.”

“There are those among us who would praise his actions,” Pol said.

“Perhaps, but even they do not exercise this kind of brutality. I fear that just as he created in his own mind the concept that he was one of us, he has created his own image of how we should work. He needs to be stopped, but I do not wish to intervene directly in these affairs. Let your disciple deal with him. It is an affair for his people,” the architect concluded looking at Aaron. “He is not one of ours.”

“I am,” said a voice from behind Aaron. He turned in his seat and saw the fat man walking up the aisle toward the meeting. “I brought her to you. I took your messages to her. I did all your bidding because I am one of you,” he said. “You can’t turn your back on me now. I’d have come home long before this were it not for her need of me and my sad addiction to the spice cumin. Why did you never tell me of the dangers of these spices?” he demanded.

“My poor deluded man,” the architect said. “There is no addictive spice on this world. You’ve simply created that as a part of your invented caricature of what you have seen of us. We show ourselves to you because you were useful and we had no other conduit to contact Polyhymnia. You must certainly have thought it odd that you were never able to contact us, no matter how much time you spent in the church, until she was old enough to need guidance. For your loyalty we could reward you, but for your treachery, we cannot abide you.”

“I did as you asked,” Alex stated. “I brought her to you. And when the other came to me and told me what to do to help the world rid itself of the human sore on its surface, I carried out his word. I poisoned the Lake. Now there will be a great earthquake and this time she’ll cure herself of the infestation of humans.”

“Little one, it is not so,” said the architect in the tone of an exasperated parent. So, the raising of worlds is no simpler than the raising of children, Aaron thought. “The voice you have heard commanding this is your own creation. Even when you came here to meet with your master, no one met with you. It has all been in your head. It is not part of our plan to rid the world of humanity. They are a part of the living organism.” She turned to address Pol who seemed at this point to be overwhelmed with sadness as she looked at her trusted Uncle Alex.

“You should have told me,” she said to the architect.

“We did, daughter,” the architect responded. “In your initiation when he brought you here we told you that you needed now to stand on your own and make your own decisions, not to depend on Alex, but to search your heart for right choices. You have known this all along.” Pol dropped her head. It was a moment of realization that the answers that she was searching for were inside her and she had known when she over-ruled Alex on the decision to hire Aaron that she had to make her own decisions on this and not trust Alex.

“I must find a way to help him,” Pol said. “I can’t simply abandon him because he has made a mistake; because he wanted to be one of us so badly that he imagined he was.”

“That is for his own kind to determine,” the architect said pointing once again at Aaron.

“I won’t let you cast me out,” Alex shouted. “I won’t let you.” He drew a gun from beneath his coat and pointed it at the architect. “Take me with you now,” he demanded. “Take me home now. I won’t be judged by humans. They are… plants. They are not our peers.”

“Child,” the architect soothed, “put away your weapon. You know you cannot hurt me. I am not physically present in your world.”

“No,” snarled Alex, “ but he is.”

Aaron snapped suddenly awake from his dream. Pol was no longer beside him. In the front of the church, next to the casket of Aunt Hattie, Alex was confronting Pol with a drawn gun. How could he have been sleeping through this. He stood from the pew as Alex swung the gun around to bear on him.

Pol lunged at Alex and screamed.

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