Chapter 78
Sometimes, the wind wondered why humans could not find God, but then it realized it was because they hadn’t looked low enough.
God was found in the deep places, in the dark places, in the lonesome depths of suffering and despair.
He was found when humans were on their knees, broken, and facing the darkest abyss.
It was when a man had given up his hope and fallen into the deepest, most agonizing, most shadowed crevice of his soul that he was able to cry out—“Please!”—and to hear the quiet response—“I’m here. ”
Might a human find God by searching the sky? Looking up to the soaring spire of a church? Looking up to a master’s painting on a chapel ceiling? Looking up to the echoing exultations of choirs that climbed cathedrals and carried hearts heavenward?
The wind knew up was the way for some.
Looking up was something humans liked to do. But some never found God when they looked up; they only found him when they fell down.
The wind had seen many men on their knees through the eons. Some struggled to stand, hating that they’d fallen, but others knew kneeling was the only way to receive grace from above.
The solemn one was on his knees. He crouched in the darkened cell, his shoulders shaking, his sobs silently caged by his heart. The wind slid across his bare back, tracing the raised scars and the darkly lined tattoos.
It was cold in the asylum’s cell. The air wove an icy frost over his skin and left the pink scars white-edged.
The darkness pressed over him. There was no light—not even a knife of it slid under the thick door.
He was in the farthest, deepest reaches of the asylum’s maze, where the Wards had kept those they wanted to break.
The floor was hard-packed dirt and cold, uneven stone. The wind traced across the rock, feeling the trickle of the solemn one’s warm blood leaking into the ground. His jeans were torn, his knees scraped raw.
His blood smelled like a shadowed valley, like a pit of anguish, like the blood of a thousand suffering souls praying for relief. It was tears on the edge of a sharpened blade, and the solemn one was the hand who wielded it.
The wind tasted every depravity that had ever festered in this world. All of them were brewing in the solemn one’s blood.
The wind didn’t need light to see. It trailed up the solemn one’s shuddering chest, patted his throbbing heart, and settled in the wracked, choked, soundless sobs falling from his parted lips.
He was whispering something. The words were soundless. But with each pained, agonized exhale, the solemn one whispered again.
What? the wind asked. What did you say?
The solemn one didn’t answer. He couldn’t hear the wind.
Instead, his chin dropped to his chest, and his hands fell to the ground. His fingers clutched the dirt and the rock. He was hanging onto the bloodied ground as he wept. The wind trailed through the tears falling over his cheeks.
It was strange to taste the salt and the sea and the cosmic waters in this dark, mournful place. But what had the wind always said? A human’s tears were their plea to return to the place from where they’d come, and which they’d forgotten.
The wind rubbed across the solemn one’s salty-wet cheek. It had been certain there was no good left in him. It had been certain there was no sliver of love left. But what was this?
Solemn one, it whispered. Solemn one. Be strong. Take heart.
He looked up, lifted his chin, and peered through the darkness.
Could he see?
Could he hear?
“Mari?” he whispered.
The wind traced the trembling of his lips. It settled over the throbbing boom of his heart. His goose bumps rose, and a shudder worked through him.
No. He couldn’t hear.
The solemn one dropped his chin to his chest. The wind rode over his exhale.
His shoulders fell, and his breath stilled.
This was the posture of defeat. It was the posture men wore when they were about to be chained and led to the gallows; when they’d fought and lost; when they knew their cause was dead and they couldn’t fight anymore.
It was the posture of a dead man.
The solemn one’s chest heaved, and the wind struggled in his pained exhale. It swirled around the cell, carried in the solemn one’s agony. It circled the depths and watched as the darkness took form.
The solemn one’s agony had been distilled into a single, hopeless thing. It crystallized into a faceless, nameless, haunting thing.
A gray-shrouded rag man coalesced in a frightening mist behind the solemn one.
The wind shrieked, pushing at the rag man’s despair. It blew through the chilly figure, not even stirring the dirty, torn gray rags. It was a phantom, a dead spirit thing, and the wind couldn’t touch it.
The faceless thing stared down at the solemn one’s bowed head. Its gray shroud floated around it, moving like seaweed in a rip current. The wind wasn’t blowing it. It didn’t know what was. It was not wind.
The rag man watched the solemn one with eerie, intent focus, as if memorizing the being that had birthed it. The solemn one didn’t notice the thing behind him.
The rag man extended its long arm and held a clawed hand over the solemn one’s head. The wind held its breath, wondering if the rag man would touch him.
It was the death of all the solemn one’s hopes and dreams. If it touched him, would he die too?
The rag man’s clawed hand stilled a breath from the solemn one. Then it turned, its shroud swirling, and walked through the cell’s stone wall.
Solemn one? the wind whispered.
It smoothed a gentle breeze through his hair, pushing it away from his wet cheeks. It ran a tendril of comfort over the agonized drumming of his heart.
Was there nothing left of him?
No.
The rag man had appeared and gone. There was nothing left.
The solemn one had fallen to his knees in the darkest depths, and he hadn’t heard anyone’s voice.
Wait, the wind cried. Wait. Listen.
But the solemn one didn’t wait. He didn’t listen. Instead, he stood, pushing off his bloody knees.
He moved through the dark cell as if it were as bright as noon.
At the bed, he pulled on a thick black shirt that smelled like it could repel bullets and blades.
He changed into clean jeans of the same fabric and tugged on boots.
He tied his long hair at the back of his neck, ruthlessly pushing it from his face.
He dressed with a cold, emotionless efficiency.
Then he opened a thick cloth case, unrolling a long fabric sleeve that held more knives than even a houseful of Smiths would need.
The case spanned the length of the bed. The wind slid over the edges of the blades, trailing the cold metal.
Some were as smooth and sharp as the icy wind in winter.
Some were serrated and wickedly jagged, like a bull shark’s teeth.
Some were hooked and brutal, like a jaguar’s claws.
Some were as thin as a needle. Some were as thick as the solemn one’s hand. All of them were deadly.
The wind moaned as the solemn one covered himself in enough knives to slaughter every being inside the asylum. More. Too many more.
He hid and secreted the knives inside his modern-day armor. The wind could smell the tang of their cold, hungry metal, but it couldn’t see them.
At the last knife, palmed and hidden, the solemn one turned to the cell door.
The wind brushed over his bearded cheek.
The solemn one reached up and pressed two fingers to his lips. Then he twisted his hand, conjuring. The tingle of illusion fell over the wind, stirring dust and blood as it swept over the cell’s rocky floor.
The wind studied the solemn one. The hard edge of his still soft mouth; his gray eyes, so like the rag man’s shroud; the scar trailing a tear from his right eye.
You’re not alone, the wind whispered.
The boy would know what to do. He would know the right thing to say. He was why the wind was here. He was why the wind cared.
Before, it didn’t matter what a human did or didn’t do. Whether they laughed or whether they cried. Whether their hopes lived or died. The wind didn’t care if a being was a glory or a horror. But now . . . the wind cared.
It was not anyone. It was not anything. It was not God. It was not the girl. It was not the boy or even the pixie-like one. It was nothing. It was only the wind.
Sometimes, it was magnificent. Sometimes, it was a courageous, wondrous, glorious being.
But other times, it was only a being. Only a thing. Only a spirit who was trying to be human enough for the boy.
Now, it would try to be something for this man.
I’m here, it whispered.
It was nothing. It was nothing. But it was there.
Perhaps the solemn one would find a new hope in the depths. Perhaps . . .
The solemn one let out a long, shuddering sigh. Then his eyes turned a brittle, hard-knifed gray.
He opened the cell door—it had never been locked.
He left the wind in the dark. Alone.
The solemn one walked from his cell a different man.
A man alone and without hope.