All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (58 page)

“
But
what about Poe?”

“
What
about her?”

“
I
left her,” I said, struggling to look him in the eye. “I
shouldn’t have.”

“
No?”

“
No.
She doesn’t deserve it.”

“
But
you chose to leave her. No one else but you.”

I looked at my
shoes but they did nothing to make me feel any better. Never do.

“
It
might have been the wrong decision,” I said, keeping my voice
quiet enough Williams didn’t hear.

“
What
is done is done. We will all have to live with the consequences.”

He tugged on the
detective’s shoulder, directed him down an aisle between a
stack of table boxes and shelves full of umbrella stands.

“
Consequences?”
I called after them. “What do you mean, consequences?”

“
There
are consequences to every action, every decision, Icarus Fell. This
is no different. There will be consequences for the guardian and for
you.”

I opened my mouth
to request more clarification, what kind of consequences I might
watch out for, but a shiver beginning at my knees and working its
way up to my shoulders shook the intent right out of me. By the time
the shaking ceased, the detective, the archangel, his angelic glow
and poor fashion sense were all gone.

I remained standing
in the middle of the open space, staring down the aisle at the
emptiness where the man and angel were seconds before. My gut roiled
like I’d recently consumed a meal of rotten meat and maggots.

Perhaps I’d
made the wrong decision.

“
There
will be consequences for the guardian and for you.”

Murdered by
muggers, back and forth to Hell, watching friends butchered and
nearly losing my son. Twice. Hadn’t I endured enough
consequences over the past six months?

“
Trevor.”

I shook myself free
of regret and remorse and took the sickened feeling in my gut in
search of an exit to find my son and take him home.

Bruce
Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost

It took a while,
but I finally found a door not marked with the words:

Fire Exit

Alarm Will Sound
When Opened

I stumbled through
the door into a night filled with swirling snow. As the door clicked
shut, I stopped, face up-turned, and allowed flakes to land on my
cheeks, my nose, cooling my burning flesh. In Hell, I’d gotten
used to the increased temperature, so the feel of snowflakes landing
and melting, the cool water running across my skin, confirmed I’d
made it home. Such as it was.

I reveled in the
feel of it for a minute before the scrape of a footstep made
intentionally to draw my attention did exactly that. I lowered my
face to see Trevor looking at me, a bewildered look on his face.

“
Trevor.”

I closed the space
between us in five strides and threw my arms around him, held him
tight. He patted my back.

“
Hey,
Dad,” he said. “W--Where are we? How’d we get
here?”

I loosened my bear
hug and leaned back to look at him. His shaggy hair hung in his eyes
and, wearing a short sleeved t-shirt, he was obviously resisting his
body’s desire to shiver.

“
It
doesn’t matter,” I said and turned to leave, arm around
his shoulders. “Let’s get you home.”

We walked for a
while listening to our footsteps crunching in the fresh snow. My
mind replayed the events of the last few hours, and I cringed at
what I’d put my son through. Again. Eventually, my thoughts
came to the moment Mikey took Trevor, and I remembered he was going
to tell me something.

“
Hey,
what were you going to say when Michael rescued you?”

His shoulders rise
and fell in a shrug and I thought of Piper. One more thing to feel
bad about.

“
Who?”

“
The
big blond guy. You wanted to tell me something.”

“
I
don’t remember. When was that?”

“
A
few hours ago.”

He snorted through
his nose and shook his head. “I haven’t seen you since
the toy store. Thought you forgot me again.”

My stomach clenched
and I stopped walking. He continued two paces, my arm falling from
around his shoulders.

“
We
were just together. In Hell.”

Trevor’s eyes
widened, but he quickly got himself under control. He knew enough
about my situation not to think me crazy when I said such things.

“
Don’t
know what you’re talking about, Dad.”

“
You
and Poe came after me. You got lost. Don’t you remember?”

He
shook his head. “Poe? I read
Telltale
Heart
in
school. He’s dead.”

“
No.
Well, yes, he’s dead, but that’s not who I’m
talking about. I mean Poe, my guardian angel.”

Trevor laughed.
“Maybe being dead has made you a little batshit.” He
gestured over his shoulder. “We’re here. Better not walk
me to the door; Mom wouldn’t be happy to see you.”

I looked up and saw
Rae’s house, the porch light reflecting off the falling flakes
of snow.

“
How--?”

Her house should
have been another hour’s walk, yet here we were. I surveyed
the area, saw the leafless stick-trees, the row of houses
identifiable from one another only by the color of their doors.
Trevor watched me expectantly, as though it wasn’t unusual
we’d arrived so quickly.

“
Thanks
for bringing me back, Dad.”

He threw his arms
around my shoulders and gave me one of those teenage boy hugs which
said he loved me but would rather not display it in public. I
returned it, half-hearted with disbelief, then he started down the
snow-dusted path to his mother’s house.

He doesn’t
remember what happened.

Maybe it was for
the better. Did a fifteen-year-old really need to know so much about
Hell? Was that the kind of knowledge he needed to carry around for
the rest of his life?

No.

“
But
Trev, what about--?”

“
Don’t
know what you’re talking about, Dad. Haven’t been
drinking, have you?”

He shot me a look
that told me he was kidding, then sauntered to the door and gave me
a wave over his shoulder.

“
No,”
I answered after he disappeared inside. “Not yet.”

†‡†

The sidewalk was
clear of people; the yellow police tape had been removed. I observed
the wreckage for a bit, seeking refuge from the snow under the oak
tree only a few steps from a spot of ground that tasted my blood a
few months back. The place gave me the shivers, and not because it
was chilly out.

Snow has a way of
beautifying things. The cemetery bordering one side of the
churchyard with its rusted iron fence and canted headstones wearing
wintery white stoles looked worthy of a painting. The white stuff
even loaned a certain charm to the blackened chunks of stone fallen
from the church’s walls. No footprints marred the snow
blanketing the churchyard except mine. Pristine, calm, beautiful.

I stepped out from
under the oak tree’s shelter toward the church. I hadn’t
come to admire the winter elegance of the ruined church, I had other
things in mind.

I crossed the yard
toward the fallen building, intentionally dragging my feet as I
went, leaving ugly lines in the snow. As I came close, I saw much of
the mess was cleaned up. The splintered pews were gone, the fallen
crucifix and broken altar removed. The pipe organ, split in two last
time I’d seen it, was also gone, and all the remnants and
scattered pages of bibles and hymnals. Salvaged by the church,
gathered as evidence or taken by souvenir seekers and religious
fanatics, I couldn’t say, but they were all gone. Only the
larger chunks of stone not so easily moved remained.

My snowy-silent
footsteps carried me past the sections of fallen wall toward the one
still standing. The pew we’d left leaning against the wall as
a makeshift staircase was gone along with the others, so I scanned
the area looking for another way up, but the clean-up crew had done
their job well. I walked the building’s perimeter, got cold
hands searching under fallen pieces of wall, stubbed the big toe of
my left foot on the one bible they’d missed, and eventually
found myself searching the area below the window.

I don’t know
what I expected to find, but the more I searched and the less I
found, the more desperate I became. Things weren’t
right—Trevor not remembering, Poe looking so guilty then
saving my life. The suspicion I’d made decisions without all
the pertinent information had nagged me almost from the moment I
first met Michael. The thought that I didn’t know everything
going on or I’d misinterpreted things I’d seen kept me
awake at night.

And I could only
think of one way to set things right.

My foot crunched on
something beneath the window. It wasn’t the satisfying crunch
of compacting snow, but a breaking sound. I crouched and dug my
near-frostbitten fingertips into the packed snow of my footprint.
Whatever I’d stepped on was too small to help me climb up, but
I’m too curious by nature to break something and not see what.

My fingers cleared
snow away from a smooth, blue piece of glass. I stared at it for a
minute, uncomprehending. When it dawned on me what it meant, I
looked up. I couldn’t see the window beyond its ledge, so I
stood and stepped back.

Snow blew through
the empty window, swirling through the place where the virgin Mary
should have been.

“
No.”