Title: Tongues of Men and Angels
Rating: TA for implied?romance.
Summary: Glimpses of grace: the story of one brother and two sisters. Through the grace of God, all things are made new.A series of drabbles. Ish. Gabriel/OC. Ish.
Disclaimer: *obligatory insert*
Chapter XXV: The Longest Night
How deserted lies the city, once so full of people!
Lamentations 1:1
Bethany remembered many things from her childhood, and most of them were about her baby sister:
how beautiful she was (she smelled like clean laundry and flowers). How comforting it was to rub her own cheek against the soft crown of Joy's head (fuzz-noggin). How she begged her mother to let her push the stroller (pretty please, with sugar on top, and a sundae, with a cherry, and sprinkles), and soon taught herself all the right ways to hold Joy's bottle (up at the end, just a little, and squeezing the baggie inside so no air got in). Eventually, she'd made it her mission to teach the infant how to pull herself across the floor on her arms and wiggling knees (like the army-guys on TV). Later, she shared her princess dress-up clothes (even the fluffy dress with the rainbow glitter, and the shoes with the big diamonds on them and the feathers), and read Joy stories (like The Cricket in Times Square), and taught her to play hide-and-seek (and all the best hiding places)—and of course, they took baths together (first with bubbles, and then in swimsuits). And soon, it was lessons in riding two-wheel bikes (when you get it right, Fuzz-Noggin, I'll get you some of those pom-poms for your handlebars with my allowance), and climbing trees (six wide planks, they learned, made a serviceable treehouse), applying make-up (now for mascara—no, doofus, don't blink!). While their parents were away, Bethany would sometimes take Joy to dirt roads and begin teaching her how to drive (so much laughter, and false screams of terror).
But first:
In the hospital, the light was bright and sterile and thin, and the world outside was navy-blue. Bethany, only six-fingers-old, sat in a chair made of stainless steel and stale fabric, leaning against the bed and staring down at the infant in her Mama's arms.
"She looks," Bethany pronounced judiciously, "like a cute li'l monkey-face"—and Mama and Daddy laughed, which kinda made her mad.
After all, Joy might have been wrinkled and pinched, and her eyes were still a hazy shade of unfocused blue-gray. But oh, oh, when Bethany looked at her crinkly little face, she suddenly felt a hole open up in her heart, and she knew that this was the answer to all the fairy-tales she'd been told—that suddenly, she was a part of something so much bigger and sparklier than she'd ever imagined in all her games of let's-pretend.
"Kin she be mine, Mama?" Bethany breathed then, and her mother laughed, even though she sounded sleepy.
"Yours? Oh, Bess. You say the oddest things."
"I promise I'll always take care of her."
Bethany reached out and touched her sister's clenched fist, and she thought her sister seemed so teeny-tiny, even though her own hand wasn't much larger.
"She kin share my room," Bethany offered, "when you get back. You're comin' back soon, right?"
"A couple days, Bess," Daddy rumbled from the other side of the bed. He sounded sleepy too.
"Oh," she said, disappointed. "Okay." And she kept her eyes on her sister, on the amazing things Joy was doing with her monkey-face, squishing it up like that, snuffling and yawning. A terrible, wonderful thought filled Bethany's head like one of those balloons at the fair, the silver kind that floated, not the kind that stayed on the ground. For a moment, she almost didn't know what to do with this thought, but then she took a breath and spilled it anyway.
"Kin I hold her?" she asked at last, hardly believing she dared to say the words. Why would Mama ever want to let Joy go, even for a minute?
But Mama looked at Daddy, and she did that nodding-thing, and he got a pillow and put it under Bethany's arm and showed her how to make a cradle, and very gently Mama laid Joy inside the cradle.
And Bethany didn't move. She stayed very still and very quiet, and in that quietness, she thought she felt fireflies and little stars going from her heart into Joy's, and back again. Years later, leaning over her sister in the shadows beneath the watchful gaze of an abandoned angel, she would find another phrase for it:
This is where I find God.
She held onto her sister, and she whispered, "Come home soon, Joy. Come home."
oOo
Over a decade and a half later, and it was hard to believe that it was Christmastime, or that this was still the home she'd grown up in, or even that Bethany had been happy that morning.
Everything smelled of blood and burnt skin.
"Joy," she said into the darkness, and her voice was surprisingly strong. "Joy, I love you."
There was a snicker and a scuttle, from somewhere near the ceiling, and her sister's voice rang out, though it sounded uglier than anything Bethany had ever heard from her: "Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur...He overthrew cities, destroying all the living, and all that grew on the land."
Bethany half-turned. The Christmas tree, tipped on its side, blinked its multicolored lights eerily, and the darkness seemed to smother their glow. Shadows covered her eyes, blinding her, but she could hear her sister somewhere above the bay windows.
Joy was in there somewhere, but she wasn't the one in control.
"Kiddo," Bethany said. "Come down from there. Come to me, sweetheart."
There was a quick thudding and Bethany turned, following the sound with her weak human eyes, and almost tripped over the recliner. She sucked in a breath. She had forgotten their father was there—what remained of him. Daddy, shethought, and then: Joy can't see this when she wakes up.
Never mind that it had been Joy's hands that killed him, each fingertip bringing an smouldering wound to the surface of his skin, riddling him with blue flame and smoking sores. He'd tried to move, to get away, his blue eyes full of betrayal—but Joy had been too quick, and she'd laughed, her fingers dancing a series of fires up and down their father's face.
Bethany shrugged out of her wool coat and draped it gently over the scorched remains of their father's blackened head.
"No need for that, sister," the creature in Joy's body said. "He is not your father, after all. You belong to your true father. You are a daughter of the devil. You carry out all of Lucifer's sins."
"Honey," Bethany coaxed, ignoring the words, pushing down the pain they wrought in her. "Honey, come here to me."
The thing on the ceiling laughed, and shifted, and the streetlamps poured light through the bay window and glistened on her black, black eyes. "I pray that I am the host who ends you and all your kin. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks."
Bethany sucked in a breath and met her sister's mad eyes without flinching. Such vitriol would never spill from Joy's lips willingly—Joy, who as a child had convinced all her first-grade friends to buy presents for a neglected classmate. Joy, upon whose fingers Bethany thought she could weave the world.
And then she heard a popping noise, the sound of Joy's jaw as it wrenched from its socket, stretching wide. Her teeth looked longer than usual: harder, brighter. All her joints twisted; she contorted painfully and leapt: from the corner, to the back of the couch—to Bethany.
Perhaps the thing had expected her to stumble, or to run. To fall back, shielding herself from the rabid creature that was her sister. Perhaps it had intended to use surprise to tear out her throat with those monstrous teeth, or to burn her alive from the inside out, like their father.
But Bethany didn't run, or turn, or try to escape. Without thinking, she opened her arms, and the thing's gaze widened, and it tried to shy away in midair. But it was too late—they collided—and Bethany wrapped her arms tightly around it, instinctively taking the brunt of the fall as they crashed into an endtable and then the wall. She hit the floor solidly, her head cracking against the hard wood…but she did not let go.
She cradled the back of Joy's head, pressing her sister's cheek into the place where her shoulder met her neck. Her skin was scaldingly hot, feverish, and something in the back of Bethany's mind whispered forebodingly of body temperatures and brain damage.
Joy clawed.
Her arms moved in strange ways now; her nails seemed longer and harder. Bethany gasped and arched as her back was scored through. "Joy, Joy," she whispered as the thing fought her. They rolled and struggled, and her sister tore at her, and thrashed, and all of Bethany's muscles protested. "Joy," she whispered in her sister's ear, even as the teeth clamped onto her shoulder. She screamed through her teeth as a chunk of skin was torn free, and the thing spat it out in disgust. "Joy," she repeated again, "Don't do this thing, honey. Don't let it win. We can hold out, kiddo: you and me. Come home to me, Joy."
"You are lower than swine!" the thing shrieked. Bethany grunted as—somehow—Joy's knee found her abdomen. It locked its legs with hers, bending them painfully, almost to the point of snapping. "You are not fit to kiss my Father's sandals, nor bathe His feet with your hair!"
"I love you, Joy," she panted as they rolled. Another endtable fell, the lamp shattering beside them. "Remember when you were six? Remember how those boys teased you because you were still riding your bike with training wheels? And I taught you how to ride a two-wheel. We spent days, Joy, and we were so scraped up, the two of us…do you remember, Joy? Do you remember—waking me up on Christmas morning, jumping on my bed? Even last year, Joy, even though we're both grown up. Or—the blanket fort in the living room that we used to build every weekend. Joy—"
They rolled again, and now the thing was reaching, writhing, and it mashed Bethany's face to one side. The strength of Joy's hand on her jaw was crushing, but the pain it caused—the ink-dark bruising that would show up later—was dwarfed by the sudden lance of fiery heat that surged across Bethany's brow. Joy's hand was locked tightly around a long, dagger-like shard from the lamp, which curved wickedly in the darkness. The glitter of it caught Bethany's eye, and beyond it: the sight of Joy's face, bold and triumphant.
Sister! Bethany's heart screamed.
Joy—the thing inside her—raked the blade brutally and calculatedly down her sister's face, slow and tearing. Bethany heard her own skin rip, and she gagged on the heat and the sound of it.
Don't let go, something inside her sobbed.
Groping with one desperate hand, she gripped the glass tightly and tore it away, losing skin on her fingers in the process. Bethany didn't notice, though—the pain in her face was blinding. Instead she rolled, pinning her sister to the floor far away from the shards of glass, suddenly terrified as she realized that half of her vision had blacked away.
She held tighter, blinking the blood from her eye furiously, whispering, "Okay. It's okay. Joy? Can you hear me? Honey, I'm fine. Come back to me. I'm not letting go. Do you hear me, Joy? I am not letting you go. I've got you, honey."
Her elbows creaked and scraped on the ground. Her sister twisted beneath her, and now Bethany held her pinned, both of their faces pressed against the floor. Blood oozed down Bethany's face and into her sister's hair; where their flesh touched, her own reddened in slow, answering blisters. "Joy, I love you. I won't let go of you, honey; I've got you. I promise. Come home to me, Joy. Do you remember—how I told you—the first time I saw your sweet little monkey-face? What it did to me inside? How much I knew I loved you, right then? Come home, sweetheart. When this is done, we're gonna take Daddy's truck. We're gonna get in Baby and we're gonna drive wherever you want. The Grand Canyon, Joy; you said you wanted to go there after your senior year. We can go now, Joy, you and me—"
"I loathe you!" the thing bellowed. "You offend God Himself!"
"Joy, do you remember—"
And she filled the thing's head with memories, with affirmations of love, with kindnesses. Again and again, between panting and sharp cries of unexpected pain, between grunts of exhaustion and ache, Bethany dripped honey in her sister's ears, telling their shared adventure: the story of two girls, sisters against the world.
"Come home, Joy. Honey, come home to me."
oOo
For a moment, there was no street. No surprisingly clean curb, no guttering engine of the Ford F150 receding in the distance. No clear skies, or sand, or even sunlight. Instead, Bethany was in the hospital room with the brittle light and the blue night outside. She was back in the living room, and it was Christmas, and the world smelled of holy fire and ozone and death.
Now the sight of someone else's little sister: on the pavement in the desert, clean and sprawled; her joints just as twisted, her jaw distended once more—
Joy, I love you, stay with me, come back;
Joy, I love you, come home—
—and everything came rushing back.
oOo
Word Count: 2,267
Completed: May 16th, 2011