Among the fallen, p.1
Among the Fallen, page 1
Among the Fallen
Henry Mitchell
Also by Henry Mitchell
Novels:
The Summer Boy – Alfie Dog Fiction (UK)
Between Times – Alfie Dog Fiction (UK)
Laurel Falls - Alfie Dog Fiction (UK)
Slick Rock Creek – Solstice Publishing
The Winged Child – Creative James Media
Short Story Collections:
Dark on the Mountain – Alfie Dog Fiction (UK)
Early Dark – Alfie Dog Fiction (UK)
Anthologies:
“Winter Light” – This land is my Land, Alfie Dog Fiction (UK)
“Shard” – The Day Death Wore Boots, Alfie Dog Fiction (UK)
“Fairy Tale” – Thrice Upon a Time, Alfie Dog Fiction (UK)
“Dark Fork” – Fall Fiction Anthology, Dark Ink Press
“Púca” – Happily Ever Never, Creative James Media
“Abigail’s Guest” – Dark and Stormy Night, Creative James Media
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To Jeff, who knew my story before I wrote the words.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Published in the United States by Creative James Media.
AMONG THE FALLEN. Copyright © 2023 by Henry Mitchell. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Creative James Media, 9150 Fort Smallwood Road, Pasadena, MD 21122.
www.creativejamesmedia.com
978-1-956183-58-0 (trade paperback)
First U.S. Edition 2023
One
Wendl was reading the story aloud. It was an old story. He knew it by heart. After a while, lost in the flow of his remembrance, he no longer even glanced at the ReadPad. Mid-way through the tale, he felt something wet and warm and viscous in his palm. Wendl stared down at the ReadPad. A thick red liquid oozed out of it, dripping off his fingers. He raised his hand to his face and inhaled. Wendl had been in the War, a long time ago when he was still young. There was no mistaking. He had never forgotten the smell of blood.
“Are you alright, Grampa?” said the child sitting beside him. There were two of them, a boy and a girl. The boy had spoken.
“I’m sorry, children,” Wendl smiled down at them. “I must have dozed off.”
“You were talking funny,” said the girl.
“It was the Old Tongue,” Wendl said, “as we spoke it among the Fallen.”
“But the Old Tongue is not allowed,” said the boy. His voice tremored with fright.
“We should report you, Grampa,” the girl admonished, looking suddenly very serious and grown-up.
“Are you going to report me, children?” asked Wendl, chuckling, as if they were sharing a joke.
“Oh, no, Grampa,” the boy said, shaking his head, vigorously. “They would cut out your tongue.”
“Then how would you tell us stories?” asked the girl, wild-eyed and giggling.
Wendl laughed himself awake. “What a strange dream,” he mused aloud. There were no grandchildren of course. Never had been. There were no ReadPads at the Abbey, either. The Trier had seerbowls. They felt no need of the screens and devices ubiquitous among the Fallen.
Wendl suspected this, like most of his dreams, was a Summons, albeit not a clear one. He would tell his dream to Goodmother Wandalena when he saw her at Lauds. Perhaps his Superior would know what to make of it.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Through the window, he saw light flickering the sky. Wendl stretched out his mind to it until his awareness became another attribute of the storm, gathering it closer, savoring its energy. He shut his eyes against the strobing lightning bolt that for a single infinitesimal instant, rendered the world outside his window naked and darkless. Wendl counted, one . . . two . . . and not quite three when thunder shuddered his cell, rattling the jars and pots on the shelves across the room.
He felt the shift in the air, held up his arm as the next burst of heaven's fire limned the silver hairs standing straight and erect across the back of his hand. This was no ordinary storm, but a deep tempest tumulting both the Two Worlds. After this blow, the Separation would be open and passable for at least a day, maybe several. Before he sought enlightenment from Wandalena, he reckoned he should gather all that might be needful for travel. She would not pass any opportunity to restore a Fallen to the Stream.
Wendl sighed, threw back the blanket and found his feet. He worlded himself enough to know the chill of the stone floor, but not to be distracted by it. He padded across to his brazier, removed the snufferlid, and held his right hand low over the coals until they offered their pale blue flame to the night. He took down a jar from the shelf, removed a spoonful of aromatic twigs, filled his cup from the waterjar, and dropped in the twigs. Careful to keep his hand present to the cup while absent to the fire, Wendl held the cupful of water and floating twigs over the coals until the twigs sank and the water began to steam.
“We’ve found Gobnait,” announced Goodmother Wandalena without preamble. Wendl hadn’t needed to request an audience. At the conclusion of Lauds, she waved him summarily into her study. “Quit hovering about and sit down,” she commanded while Wendl steeped in his astonishment.
“After so long, Superior. Are you certain?” he murmured as he obediently settled into a chair.
“You’ve spent so much time among the Fallen, Brother Wendl, that you’re beginning to think like them,” Wandalena snapped. “Seven hundred years is no time at all for us.”
“Does she know, then?” Wendl asked.
“Hardly,” said Wandalena. “After a few generations among the Fallen, none of them remember what they were. “She doesn’t even recall her bees.”
“How did you manage to find her?” Wendl queried.
Wandalena manifested a wry smile that didn’t look quite at home in that habitually severe face. “The bees told Owl,” she said. “They are upset because their Keeper has forgotten them.”
“Is that why they are so prone to sting Brother Owl as he tends the hives?” Wendl asked.
“They sting Owl to remind him of his sins and his need for penance,” Wandalena declared.
“They don’t sting me,” Wendl said. “Surely I have committed transgressions to the Rule far more numerous and grievous than Owl’s.”
“Bees are not moral creatures,” countered Wandalena, “They don’t keep score.” She seemed on the verge of laughing, something no soul at the Abbey had ever seen her do. “They mercy you, Wendl Von Trier, because they sense your kinship.”
Kinship? I doubt that. Wendl didn’t quite say it aloud. However, his thought did not escape his Superior’s scrutiny.
“Like the bees, Brother, you can fly between the Two Worlds,” said Wandalena, “which is what you are about to do again.”
“You want me to bring Gobnait back into our Stream?” Wendl said it like a question, but he already saw his place in the story.
“We want you to guide her,” said Wandalena, waving a bony finger in his face. “She must choose to return. Your mission is to enlighten her choice.”
“And maybe leave a door open for her?” Wendl ventured.
“You may open a door, if you will, but don’t shove her through it,” admonished Wandalena. “The Fallen know her as Abigail.”
“How will I find her?” Wendl asked sincerely.
“Ask the bees,” said Wandalena and clapped her hands. Wendl thought she was starting to laugh but immediately found himself in the Abbey apiary immersed in the humming drumming thrumming song of the bees.
Two
On an August afternoon that rendered the whole world a sauna, Abigail Trammell labored in her front garden, pruning back her roses now reduced by the unrelenting heat to a failure of withered blossoms and limp yellow leaves, though not even the Japanese beetles had been able to dull the thorns. Those remained sharp as ever.
She possessed shears some place that eluded her memory, so wielded the sharp butcher knife she liberated from her kitchen, a sin she’d only forgive herself. Startled, she nearly slipped and sliced her fingers when she heard the unfamiliar voice behind her.
“Miss Tramme ll?” A man’s voice only maybe, with a peculiar lilt, obviously not from around here.
“You’re a quiet one,” she said, turning to face the tall, gangly figure who’d snuck up on her. Abigail was proud that she had kept her acute hearing into her elder years while she had to shout at most of her friends, couldn’t fathom why she didn’t hear a car come up her drive or footsteps on the gravel. “Can I help you?” As much accusation as question. She assumed this was one more lost tourist, reduced to asking directions of a local because his GPS app was off-line.
The spinyspindly maybe-man—a closer look left her still not quite certain of the gender–said, “VonTrier. I reserved your room.”
Abigail remembered the name because it was odd. “Yes,” she agreed, “Wendl. You’re set for the week.” She subjected him to a frank inspection. How did he get here? I didn’t hear a car because there isn’t any. “Luggage?” She wouldn’t rent a room for a week to a man without luggage and started to tell Wendl VonTrier precisely that.
“Here,” he said, lofting his suitcase as if it were empty.
Abigail wondered how she’d missed it. It was almost as if it didn’t exist before she named it.
She dropped her trimmings into the basket at her feet, waved her knife in the air. “I’ll show you,” she said, remembering to smile.
“You have a renter,” Rhonda Shaw accused as she handed a book of Forever stamps across the post office counter.
“Yes,” Abigail conceded, “Don’t see many trippers this late in the season. He’s different from the lot of them.”
“He’s strange. That’s what he is,” Rhonda said. “What’s he here for?”
Abigail permitted herself a laugh, “I didn’t ask and he didn’t say. He’s paid his room for a week, so whatever it is will take a few days. This time of year, I can use his money, let me tell you.”
Another customer waited in the queue, seemingly engrossed in their conversation, so Rhonda expanded on the subject, “Gloria Proudfoot said he was in her store yesterday, browsing old books. Windy, I think she said his name was.”
“Wendl,” corrected Abigail, suddenly and for no obvious reason, feeling protective of her peculiar lodger, “Wendl VonTrier.” She spelled it for Rhonda, who wrote it down,
“What kind of name is that?” the postmaster asked as Abigail tucked her Forevers into her purse.
Exiting the post office at the south end of Main Street, Abigail started walking toward Hemlock Cottage, her home and Airbnb at the other end of town, four blocks away. Halfway there, she stopped in front of Vintage Reads, Gloria Proudfoot’s well-read bookstore. “Morning, Gloria,” she said with practiced cheerfulness.
Gloria, culling her Battered and Bartered table just outside her door, peered up over her glasses and released one of her carefully rationed smiles.
Abigail took that as an invitation to chitchat. “I hear my current renter has been prowling your shelves,” she ventured.
“I reckon you must mean Windy,” Gloria said, not denying that her shelves had been scrutinized by an outlander.
“Wendl,” said Abigail.
“Wendell,” repeated Gloria, “Like the Berry.” Before Abigail could spell it for her, she went on, “He only bought the one book. Looked long and long. Laid hands on every cover in the store, must’ve, but only bought the one. Said he’d come to Drover’s Gap because he heard I had it.”
“Peculiar,” Abigail said because she thought it was.
“Yes,” Gloria agreed. “No way he could have known about that book. I didn’t know it was in the store. Don’t remember having seen or heard of it. It wasn’t even marked for price. Windy . . .”
“Wendl,” Abigail corrected.
“Wendell. Laid three twenties on the counter and asked if that was enough to cover the book. I reckoned it was.”
“Peculiar,” Abigail said again, because the taste of the word was still on her tongue, and she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“And then . . .” Gloria paused, dangling the words in the air between them like a fly floating in front of a mountain trout.
Abigail took it. “Then what?”
“You won’t believe this,” Gloria warned.
“I might, even if it is you telling me,” Abigail murmured.
“Then,” as a huge grin swallowed Gloria’s face, tugging and stretching her words. “He offered to buy my shop. Said to think on it and he’d be back if I want to name a price.”
“Goodness,” breathed Abigail, thinking this was all indeed peculiar.
After a quick stop at Dolf’s Market to buy some half-and-half for Wendl’s morning coffee, Abigail arrived back at Hemlock Cottage to find him sitting on her front steps as if he were right at home, intent on a battered old book she assumed was the one he’d bought from Gloria.
“Hello, Mister VonTrier,” she called cheerfully as she came up her walk, sincerely glad she’d taken in a reader instead of a gambler or drinker or some kind of kinky predator. “That must be an interesting book that has you reading out here in the heat of the day.”
Wendl looked up, smiled, closed his book, holding his place with a long spidery finger, “Yes, it is. In fact, it is the last existing printed copy of this title. I was fortunate to find it.”
“Are you a collector, then, Mister VonTrier?”
“Wendl, please.” He stood, unfolding like a growing plant. Holding his book in front of him as if presenting evidence in court, he answered, “Not of books, necessarily, but I do collect stories. This particular book happens to contain one of my favorites.”
Abigail fumbled awkwardly in her purse, searching for her keys while trying to keep her grocery bag from slipping through her arm and making a splattering mess on her porch floor. Wendl dropped his book onto the big wooden rocker beside the door and reached out with both hands.
“Let me hold that for you,” he said. The grocery bag appeared in his grasp before Abigail realized she had released it.
Slightly flustered, she opened the door and Wendl followed her down the hall and into her kitchen, still clutching her bag. He set it on the table, turned to go as Abigail, who never offered hospitality to her renters beyond an orderly room, clean linens and a decent breakfast, heard herself saying, “I’m going to fix myself some iced tea with fresh mint. Would you like a glass, Mister VonTrier . . . Wendl?”
“I never refuse hospitality,” murmured Wendl, which wasn’t precisely an answer to her question. Abigail counted it sufficing as acceptance. She hoped a glass of iced tea would generate opportunity to glean some intelligence regarding her mysterious guest. If there were any intriguing secrets connected to Wendl VonTrier, she wanted to be the first in town to know them.
She stirred the pitcher, was about to reach into the refrigerator, but saw the glasses already filled with ice, although she didn’t remember doing it. You’re getting old, dear girl. The knees are first to go, then the mind. She poured the tea into the glasses and, after brief interior deliberation, hauled out into the light the last surviving portion of her winter’s fruitcake which had only improved with age, thanks to regular annointings from an ancient bottle of whisky that flavored and preserved the cakes of many winters though it had never filled a glass. She cut a thin slice for herself and a slightly thicker one for her guest, set them on their little plates beside the tea glasses.
Sitting to table, Abigail was immediately embarrassed because she had forgotten forks. Wendl promptly reached out, broke a piece of his cake with his fingers and delivered it into his mouth, held it there as he sat for a moment in rapturous silence, gazing through the window at Abigail’s sunny yard. His expression assured her that he savored her cake with all the appreciation it was due.
