And Your Children's Children

Branches squealed against the window in the wind, waking Cassandra from the muddled confusion of sleep. Though the dead of night, light seeped in from moonshine reflected across the snow and illuminated a square patch on the bed between her and him. If he stirred ever-so-slightly to the left, it would hit his face, and maybe he’d be up too. The thought of such tinged her heart with fear and hope, existing together in contradiction. She understood why it was that terrific and terrible shared as much blood as Cain and Abel. Against the skull of one descended a stone from the other.

But he did not wake up. Next to him, she was alone.

Again, the wind’s moan sent the tree scratching against the glass. The clock on her bedside table read just shy of midnight. The wind pushed a third time. Seemed to her that the world itself was willing her awake, and right on time. With slow, deliberate movements, so as to not disturb him, she slipped out of the bed and shivered as her bare feet made contact with the hardwood floor. She tiptoed across the room to the empty chair where her winterwear lay in a crumpled sort of pile, then left the room, careful to not make too much noise. Sound of her footfall a menace that might break his slumber if she were not too careful. Asking what she’s up and moving for. Tears. Spilling of the guts in a tell-all publication from her lips to his ears. Scandalous as ever.

Deliverance. Not as salvation but as verdict as judgement from him to her, no matter how bad she wanted it to be escape from this. He couldn’t provide that any more than she could prevent the spinning of the thread of fate. The only way to stop its unraveling was to cut the cord.

Her sister knew this, and had the good sense to self-abdicate by way of a straight razor in the bathtub. But where her sister had foresight, Cassandra had power. An escape route.

Her and William had lost their child. All laid barren, a rejection by the womb of anything but that which fate could provide it.

It was so cold outside that she could feel the creeping-into of the winter from the other side of the entryway. The door stood like a monolith before her. Bridging the gap, she found herself hesitating, if only for a moment, before opening the door. Shuddering, she stepped out into the Great White Beyond.

For Cassandra and Janis Gemini, family was a mess of sin. Soot for the soul, transmuting the nourishment of light to inedible dark. It was no wonder that, not but a few weeks after learning of her pregnancy, Janis had left. Jarring, yes, but not a loss that Cassandra had found herself questioning the motives of. The reasons were all there, selfish as they were.

“I can’t do it,” Janis had said over the phone. “I’m sorry but I didn’t ask for this and I won’t be a part of this.”

Cassandra sat at the other end. Moreso she sprawled on the floor. Telephone cord wrapped around the neck, tightening its constriction with every passing minute. “Please, please, please,” she said. “Please don’t do this. Don’t put me through this.” In the other room William was asleep. Something like almost midnight. The minutes moved at the speed of hours.

“What about me? What about what I am going through. Not a night goes by that I don’t dream of cutting this thing out of me. You can’t even begin to imagine the nightmares. I can feel it when it feeds, Cass. Not even a month and I can feel it in my sleep feeding.” Cassandra could hear the choke of tears from her sister’s end, but there was no hesitation in her voice.

At the mention of it, Cassandra felt a stirring in the pit of her own body. Ten weeks in. Her and William’s. He was wishing for a boy, and she was willing for one. She pled again, “Please. You’re right that this is unfair. I know it is trust me. But please don’t pass this to me.”

Silence for quite a while.

“Janis, are you there? Janis?”

Silence through Cassandra’s persistence. Then her sister from the other end. “Not my fault. Mom is the one who wanted this. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here talking. She chose this and yet I’m the one expected to bear it.”

And her grandmother before her and her grandmother’s grandmother and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on and so forth. Not that anyone knew anymore the first to commit the original deed. But it was redeemed with every other generation. The willingness to gain from another’s loss.

“My mind’s made up,” said Janis. “I’m sorry but I can’t do this. The onus is on you now.”

“Janis, I’m begging you. Please. If not for me, for my baby.” The only reply from her sister was the dial tone of a dead connection.

With the catatonic calm of panic she hung up the phone. Immediately she picked it back up and dialed in nine-one-one. Speaking to the operator on the other end: “Hello, I’d like to report an emergency. I just got off the phone with my sister and I think she’s going to kill herself.”

It took the ambulance Too Late to get there. Deceased as the midnight minute hand passed from Friday to Saturday. That which was within her dead before it was ever born.

Not but hours later, as she was providing an incident report to the police, Cassandra felt the spark of light within herself fade as well. A simple miscarriage. She’d tell William it was really nothing more than an accident of the universe. They could always try again after some time.

And try again and try again and try again and keep failing.

The funeral was on a Sunday. Attended by very few people. Janis had never been known for knowing or being known by very many people. Cassandra was similarly introverted, though she at least had a social circle. But this Sunday she was very alone. Not even William was there. Already bereaved enough by the miscarriage, he’d opted to stay home when she gave him the option to stay home.

The family vault was big and empty. The coffin with Janis’s name on it was empty. Was empty. Now Janis lay in it, or at least her body. Wrapped in white and within the sarcophagus. Peaceful like sleep.

The Gemini family didn’t embalm, had never embalmed. When one of them would come forth by day, it was a natural passage. For this reason, incense was burned to drive back those first stenches of early decay.

Only Janis and the others in this room putrefied. Cassandra knew that if she were to peel off the lids of any of the other sarcophagi anywhere else, she’d find the bodies within pristine and without rot, without odor.

The sepulcher had begun, several generations ago, as a mausoleum, in that it was entirely above-ground. About the size of a tool shed in those nascent days, and almost as modest as one too. Really only enough room to accommodate four people—two on each side in little caskets built by the very souls that rested in them now. Those first foremothers and forefathers tended well the family tree and so of course, in an effort to keep everyone together, the mausoleum had to be expanded upon. The first of these expansions had been the addition of second and third deadrooms for the next generation of guests, and then come time for the going-forth of their children’s children what was a tomb had become a proper, though small (though not modest, as the addition of marble floors and gilded finish proved) home. There were additional deadrooms of course (the rooms growing exponentially as the family did), but so too was there a sitting-room, veranda, and small library affixed to the southwest quadrant. From this floorplan the structure only continued to grow until there was no more space left for it to take up. So they went down, adding catacombs to what had been the mausoleum and what was, in its totality, with the edition of the catacombs beneath which still expanded, what was the sepulcher.

Janis was buried in an offshoot room of the chthonic portion of the sepulcher, a room reserved for those who found themselves in rejection of the family legacy. Referred to as the “composting room” for its stink. Inornate compared to the rest, and small too. Janis was the first resident of this room in over a century, and only the third in the entire history of the family. The other two had lost their names to the decay of time.

Janis reeked. And so incense was burned. Myrrh. It filled the small underground room in a fog of Delphic intoxication. There were very few in attendance. Amongst the small throng Cassandra stood the closest to her sister’s corpse. Taking in the whiteness of its wrapping, trying to decipher the shape of a body beneath.

It was hard. Staring at where there was once blood, knowing the implications this entailed for her, it was hard. It seemed that sadness, fear, and hate battled for supremacy within her. Right there right then, hate predominated. The barrenness of her sister’s shell matched only by the barren place within herself.

“Selfish bitch,” she muttered at the corpse, knowing it to be unhearing. At least partially so. In some traditions it was believed that the soul stayed with the body for a week or so after death. She could only hope that was true, and that what little spark was left within her sister could feel her hating her. “Selfish.” She hadn’t cried any.

“Indeed,” came a voice from the smoke. Cassandra turned to see her mother there, looking young as ever. “Most would say that suicide by anyone for any reason is a selfish act.” She stroked the white-draped face. “Still, I will miss her. Nothing could have prepared me for this.” She spoke without passion. Some would call it cold, but Cassandra knew there was a flail of feelings beneath the skin. Perhaps she too felt that trinity of sadness, fear, and hate.

Cassandra had always taken more after her mother than she was proud of. Steel which had always stood in contradiction to the fire of her sister. But where steel could endure, fires died the moment they burned up the last of their support.

“I feel the same way,” was all she could manage to say to her mother. Even those words seemed to choke up and get lost in the fog of myrrh.

Her mother leveled a stare at her. “I take it that you won’t disappoint us like she did?”

“No, I won’t.”

“You know what has to happen now, right? You’re prepared for it?”

“I have no choice.”

“Just try to remember. The pain is temporary, but the payoff is eternity. We’re all counting on you now.”

“I know.” Cassandra couldn’t bear to meet her mother’s gaze. She kept her eyes fixed on Janis. Or what was Janis. What perhaps had a little bit of her left inside. Even through the oppression of the incense…

…the reek of the body assaulted the nostrils. It was all Cassandra could do to keep from vomiting as she peeled back the casket lid. Despite all the precautions the family had taken toward preservation, two weeks postmortem had the stench of landfill affixed to it. Taking shallow breaths through the mouth, Cassandra tried to remain fixated on the cold which stung her from all sides. Focus on the pain of frost kept the disgust of rot at bay.

The cold had slowed the process of her sister’s decay, but slow decay was decay nonetheless. Some something seemed to have seeped from her self, so that the once-white cloth that shrouded her looked now more like a dishrag on its last legs. The shape someone beneath more of a something now. But still present enough for the purpose she would be required for. Any damage as such could be reversed by sheer force of will. Even the act of being there was an act of will, persistence against the desire to not be there.

Motivated by a sort of self-preservationist fear-drive, sure. But even will under fear was will-to-act. To act on this fear, she was conquering a hundred more. Doing things she never imagined herself capable of doing until the survival instinct had kicked in. Will gave her the strength she needed to lift her sister out the casket and over the shoulder. Some bits of Janis had faded away, so she was lighter than before, but even with those pounds shaved off the dead weight of her body was enough to make Cassandra wince. That, and the damp sensation she felt as her own warm blood thawed her frozen sibling.

Somewhere in there too, there was a warmth of Janis’s own. While the fire that burned in life was no more in death, its embers still smoldered. Cassandra had blown on them day and night for the past two weeks, putting all of herself into enflaming her sister’s essence. It was paying off now. She couldn’t help but grin. “You chose this,” she muttered to that spark.

There was no response.

She laid Janis down in the bed of the pickup without any particular ceremony. She turned on the truck and felt that instant flush of warmth from the air vents. Relief, a sigh and tired contemplation. It all felt crazy in one respect, and in another all was an act of lucid sanity. A life without surety. Born of a family of sin.

She only wondered what would happen to William. He wouldn’t understand.

The truck made its way down the empty path of the graveyard and out onto an interpretation of a road, not a hint of asphalt. She plummeted further down through the woods. White snow and dead limbs carouseled on either side of her.

What would William think? He grew up Methodist, but wasn’t really religious anymore that she knew of. He sometimes went to church when visiting family.

It was going to be hard for him.

Unlike the sepulcher, and unlike the family home, the temple was something modest. A repurposed farm shed, tin walls half-eaten by decades of rust and tin roof fading, but not quite as much as the walls. The original roof had rusted away beyond repair and was replaced some decades ago. It was likely that shortly after Cassandra’s death, the walls would be replaced too.

Perhaps the most striking things about the temple were that, though it looked flimsy, it was rather large for a shed—spanning a perfect square of thirty feet by thirty feet. It also rested perfectly along the four winds. A door was situated due south, and a shuttered window at both due east and due west for the equinoxes. The land surrounding was kept meticulously level and tree-free, so that, bending that final curve in the road and exiting the mess of pines, Cassandra could see the temple as clear as if it were a ship out at sea. A faint yellow glow leaked from some of the holes in its walls, bringing light to a landscape otherwise pitch. Cassandra slowed down.

She had never seen the inside of the temple. Keys to its entry were only to be granted upon completion of the birthrite. As a kid she used to wonder endlessly about what might be inside, as a teen this wonder changed some upon the acquisition of new knowledge, but as an adult it seemed as useless to wonder about the interior as it would be to contemplate death. She knew she’d see it someday. Today.

An ice slick sent the truck sliding sideways some. The sound of Janis’s head thumping against the bed a foreboding knock. Memento mori in a sense, memento eternity in another. If ever there were a moment for Cassandra where the absurdity of it all hit, it was then. But such was not but a wrinkle in time in and otherwise flatland sea of lucidity. Reality just happened to be something of an absurd thing, and none were more grounded in the real world than the Gemini family.

It was a good idea to wrap her sister up in the plastic, as this kept her body from sticking to the truck bed. Even then, Cassandra has some difficulty pulling her out. Heavy. But once taken over the shoulder the burden of Janis’s death was easy enough to bear.

The door to the temple was like the walls of the temple. Pinholes here and there through which light bled. For once the lock on the door was gone. The sight of such sent for the first time since her sister’s funeral, the first time in weeks of preparation for this night, the pangs of fear. All she could manage to do was hope—no, will—this to work. Her hand froze on the door handle the thought of this is it, this is the point of no return ran through her mind.

This paralysis was quickly overcome, and Cassandra went inside.

The interior of the temple seemed a self-contradiction in that it was both barren yet full. The interior walls were painted black as the space between the trees Cassandra had passed to get there, so that in the dim of the candlelight they seemed not walls at all, but infinite space extending in all directions. At the foot of the northern wall, etched in the ground in chalk, was a triangle, with its base forming at the wall, and extending into a single point facing southward. In its center was a black circle. Written within the triangle, but not within the circle, but around the circle was something in red and in a script Cassandra had never seen.

In the middle of the room was another circle, much larger this time and, like the triangle, etched in chalk. Eleven candles marked its borders, as did the red writing, which unfurled around its circumference. In the center was an altar, and it was the world.

Standing within the circle, at its edge, between Cassandra and the altar, was a figure robed in black.

“What’s that you’ve brought with you?” Cassandra’s mother motioned toward Janis with a tilt of the head. Hints of exhaustion lurked in her voice, though not so much as to overshadow its usual sternness. Standing there she looked a figure of absolute Zen, absolute composure even in this, the darkest of nights.

“Janis,” Cassandra replied, walking toward her mother. “I will not allow her to pin this task on me. Even in death, this is her responsibility. She’s the oldest.”

Her mother sighed. “Cassandra, I expected more from you.” “And I expected more from her.” She let go of the body and allowed it to fall to the floor. Though even without its burden, she didn’t dare step foot into the circle. Not yet. “I had a life, a husband, a child. And now, it’s all gone. I’m not letting her get away with it that easy. This is Janis’s burden to bear and I refuse to let her devastate my life and get away with it.”

Her mother did not so much as hint at a lapse in composure. “I agree that your sister acted selfishly, and for that transgression of fate she’ll be left to rot. She acted in a fit of selfish fear. But you, Cassandra, you’ve always been much more levelheaded than her. Until this, at least.”

“Better than you. You’d just let her get away with it. She’s a disgrace and should be treated as such.”

“And what’s your plan here?” Her mother took a step forward, standing right at the edge of the circle. “Necromancy? Resurrection? What is there to bring back?” She reached out and unfurled her daughter. The sight, and stench, of that early-stage rot made Cassandra gag. But even upon seeing Janis in this state, her mother yielded nothing. “Look at her, she’s too far gone. A body like this is not only useless, but downright grotesque.”

Holding back her disgust, Cassandra hoisted Janis up and stepped into the circle. A definite transition. The air was heavier there, and forbiddance seemed to deny entry even to the stench of decay. In this atmosphere Cassandra thought she could see the faintest glimmer of life in Janis’s vacant stare. It is enough, she thought. She laid the body down tenderly, treating her sister like a porcelain doll.

Turning to her mother now: “Resurrection, yes, but a deviated form. Though the body may be fading, she’s still in there. The personality is still intact. What I propose is the transfer of myself into her and herself into me. Let her take my body and in my body bear the burden. In hers I will rest until resurrection. This is to my advantage as well as yours. You’d regain both your daughters. We’d be a family again.”

Her mother said nothing, but walked clockwise to Janis and stared at her for a moment. Then: “This very well could work, but are you sure you want it to? There’s life after the pregnancy and birth, even if in distortion. Are you sure you want to forsake that?”

“Yes,” replied Cassandra. “She robbed me of all I ever wanted. If I continue living, it won’t be as I wanted.”

“And what if she tries to escape again?”

“We won’t allow her the chance. Let her live all seasons with him below the earth. It would be a fitting punishment for one such as her.”

A silent voice filled the temple momentarily, then a gust from the North blew from outside and rattled the structure. The time was fast-approaching.

“This just might work,” Cassandra’s mother replied. “It will be his choice ultimately, but if he agrees then we will do it.” She leveled her head at Cassandra, and for a moment her eyes were visible. “If, however, our request is denied, you know what you have to do. I expect you to act better than your sister.”

“I will.”

“Very well. The hour is drawing near. Better that we’re not late.”

Cassandra nodded. They both stood at the south end of the altar. Lighting incense, her mother knocked on the altar three times and declared, “Hekas! Hekas! Este Bebeloi!” A feeling of emptiness filled the room, and the smoke seemed to turn to a darkness so thick that the candles were as distant lanterns. But the triangle in the North, it remained unobstructed by the dark. For the first time, Cassandra felt tremors of terror. They began at the base of the spine and, unwinding, found their way up to the crown of her head. She wanted to cry out, to run for the door, but resisted. She focused on the triangle, trying to match her mother’s fortitude.

Her mother continued, knocking a fourth time. “By the powers of the Lord of the Universe, Chronozon, who works in silence and whom naught but silence can express, by the power of the animal, the vegetable, the mineral, the chthonic, I call on thee, Great and Powerful SHEMHAZAI.” The name left her as a moan. There was a rapping at the temple door. Cassandra turned toward it only to see the door was gone. Returning her gaze to the North again, her eyes passed over the darkness. It was empty no longer. In the dark she could see the faint presence of others, a crowd packed to the shoulders filling all the space of the temple but that space between the circle and the triangle. And in the triangle, a silhouette. Poorly formed, but gaining definition with each passing instance. Staring at it, she tried to purge the fear from her heart. She wondered if William had awoken yet, noticed her absence.

“Most Awesome and Powerful Shemhazai, I call on thee and pray that thou hear my call. I call on thee, Shemhazai, and humbly ask thee to take thy place within the Triangle of Art.”

“Shemhazai, Shemhazai, Shemhazai,” continued Cassandra’s mother, repeating the name in the rapture of glossolalia. The figures in the dark joined in, repeating Shemhazai, Shemhazai, Shemhazai, a chorus of hushed voices. Glancing again at the figures, Cassandra could see them all for who they truly were. Amongst the throng of faces she didn’t recognize were those few who she did: her grandparents, her great aunt and those others that had passed into the day. And those she did not recognize, she knew to be members of the Gemini family. All those who had gone forth were here now, filling the night air with sonorous repetition Shemhazai, Shemhazai, Shemhazai.

Looking again toward the triangle, Cassandra saw him now for the first time, in full and physical manifestation.

He formed as a man, tall and attractive. Standing there in the triangle he looked almost like someone you might pass on the street. But perfect, the left and right of him symmetrical. This alone was enough to disturb Cassandra. The lack of shadow didn’t help much either.

Light alone casts no shadow itself, and angels were beings of the purest light. An aura shined around him in pale violet.

“Why have you called me?” Shemhazai asked. He spoke without speaking, the question entering Cassandra’s mind as a psychic impression, a thought thought by another. The silhouettes of her ancestors were snuffed out. Only him and her and her mother remained. Janis too.

“It is time,” her mother responded. “Oh Lord Shemhazai, I stand now in your presence to fulfill the promise of my parents. The promise of eternal life for the price of their children’s children. I have come bringing my daughter to complete my end of trade. May our deal be satisfied once more until the coming of her children’s children.”

Shemhazai glanced in Cassandra’s direction. His gaze felt like ants crawling across her face. “Are you the daughter, come to fulfill the pact? I hope you will be unlike your sister.”

It took a moment for Cassandra to find her voice, and when finally it was discovered and dragged out her mouth, it was only as a hesitant squeak. “No.” Then, again, willing some fortitude into her speech. “Not me, but her.” She pointed to her sister.

He looked down at Janis for a moment and his perfect face contorted into a grimace. “Is this a joke? She is dead, betrayed your family by her own hand. I do not play games.”

“Shemhazai,” Cassandra’s mother said. “Lord, while the ego has faced some decay, there is still light yet within her. She may be brough back to this world, and taken again.”

“I care not of the ego, but of the body. How will one such as her bear my child, if she lives now in this state of decay? The mere suggestion of such is an insult to me and my kin.”

“Not her body,” Cassandra interjected. “I know it is in your power, and so I beg thee to bring my spirit into her and her into mine. Inhabiting my body, she may be made to go with you down into the earth. And you may take her and not let her return so that she cannot do with my body as she did with hers.”

“Very well,” Shemhazai responded. There was no hesitation. “May we proceed.”

Cassandra’s mother began again: “Great Lord Shemhazai, I see you now present in full form. I ask for yee to approach me. My soul thirst for thee, as a thirsty land. Step within the circle, so that thou may join the world of the flesh. Consummate this pact, and bring me eternal life.”

Slowly, he moved toward them, seeming to grow a little taller with each step. At the edge of the circle, his height doubled, and the aura about his body shifted from violet to a pure gold. “As it is in heaven,” he said. He crossed the chalk and entered the circumference of the circle. His size shrunk down once more, and asymmetry entered his features. Cassandra choked back a cry. He looked just like William. “So may it be on Earth.”

He spoke for the first time. Though within Cassandra could see neither teeth nor tongue, only a glow.

White light left the mouth of infinity. She felt, but only for a moment, absolute bliss and ecstasy. Love and lust and pleasure all as one. Unity.

Then, silence.