Chapter 21: Chapter 21
Eventually, her search for answers led her to a page that had to do with the occult, a topic Ru had always avoided like the plague. Her mother was very serious when it came to discussions of demons and Satan—one of the kind who wouldn’t let her kids trick-or-treat because she believed it was the devil’s holiday and thousands of children each year were kidnapped on All Hallows’ Eve and sacrificed to the devil. Ru could remember being terrified as a child when there was a lunar eclipse, and Liddy Brown had insisted the moon would turn to blood, signifying the beginning of the Tribulation.
One particular website she stumbled upon caught her interest. It was a listing of demons, complete with artists’ renderings of what they were supposed to look like, dating back to Biblical times. Most of them were horrific and scary looking. Azrael caught her attention. Some of the pictures showed him as a hideous creature with more than one face and dozens of hands and wings, some as a black-winged angel with a dark face, and others as a glowing Archangel of God. “It is said that Azrael was a helper to God, but then he was cast down, like Lucifer himself, and now he resides in the pits of Hell, still overseeing The Book of the Dead as the Archangel of Death.”
Ru stopped and considered what she’d just read. It all seemed silly to her. How could anyone even know who the angels were and which ones had been cast down from Heaven—if any of that were even true? “The demons are all just fallen angels,” she continued to read aloud, as if Piper were at all interested in what she had to say. “Whether or not our depictions of them are true is impossible to say.” You’ve got that right, she thought to herself.
Piper moved, readjusting on her feet, and Ru continued to scroll down the page. One of the pictures caught her eye, and she stopped. The face she was looking at was male, but he was lovely—perhaps the most symmetrical she’d ever seen, with soft eyes and full lips. There was a haunted look behind his eyes, a sadness, and even though it was just a charcoal drawing, Ru couldn’t help but wonder if the artist had actually seen this face before; it looked so real. She began to read below the drawing. “Thanatos, Death incarnate. One of many demons who walk the Earth searching for souls to collect. Otherwise known as The Grim Reaper. There are many who fill this role but none so well-suited as the son of Azrael.”
“The son of Azrael?” Ru repeated. Of course, the words “Grim Reaper” had also stood out to her. Living in a town named Reaper’s Hollow, they were all well aware of the legend of the man with the black cloak and the scythe, but Thanatos looked nothing like the bony depictions she’d seen in every other picture of The Grim Reaper she’d ever seen.
“How can Azrael have a child?” she asked. Piper didn’t seem to care either way, so she started another search. It led her to a passage from Genesis that discussed the sons of God reproducing with the daughters of men. The offspring were known as Nephilim, and they were giants who walked the earth, heroes. Whatever became of them, the passage didn’t say. Ru continued to search and found another word—Gibborim—which seemed like another word for Nephilim to her. Ru ran a hand through her hair. Was it possible that Azrael’s child came from one of these unions?
“This is ridiculous,” Ru finally said, closing her laptop. The house went quiet with the fading out of the music, and despite her declaration, she felt a little uneasy. “All this reading about demons and angels is going to my head, Pipe,” she said, setting her laptop on the coffee table and scooping up her cat. Piper cuddled into her arms and began to purr, and Ru leaned backward, adjusting the pillow behind her head with one hand as she did so.
She almost had to laugh at herself for chasing that rabbit so far down the hole. Trying to figure out how Cutter might’ve moved her car without the keys had led her to research about demons, and now she had scared herself. She felt more than a little ridiculous. Despite her upbringing, she’d never really thought any of that stuff was real. Sure, she believed in God, which meant there might be some angels out there somewhere, but for the most part, she believed the earth was basically what you see is what you get—no other realms, no supernatural creatures. While she had to think there was a possibility some people could manipulate their surroundings differently than others—otherwise, how could she account for her own inability to touch electronics without causing problems—she had always assumed there had to be a scientific explanation. “Either that, or I’m just a jinx—cursed, like Liddy always says.” She yawned and adjusted the blanket she had been using to protect her laptop so that it was spread across her lap. She had no idea what time it was, but the long week was beginning to catch up with her, so she closed her eyes.
Thinking of Liddy saying she was cursed reminded her of a time when she was younger and they’d all gone to the public pool together. Liddy had insisted she wear a T-shirt so that the scars on her back were covered. At the time, Ru couldn’t have been more than four, and she had no idea there was anything at all on her back. “You don’t want everyone to see where your real mom tried to kill you, do you?” Liddy had asked. Ru had shook her head, no. Of course, she didn’t want everyone to see that.
Why did my mom try to kill me? she’d wondered, and what had stopped her? Now, those scars were faded, but they were still there, and Ru had never cared much for swimming ever since then.
As Ru began to fall asleep, her mind wandered. A face appeared in her mind’s eye. It was the image she’d created long ago to represent her birth mom. Despite Liddy’s warnings that her mother had never loved her, that she’d tried to kill her, that she blamed Ru for ruining her life, the face she saw before her was always kind and loving. She’d brush Ru’s hair out of her eyes and say, “Mommy loves you, always and forever. Don’t you ever forget it, Ru.” That was the mother Ru chose to believe in, the one that loved her, not the one who had cast her aside as a small child. After all of these years, she’d still never given up hope of finding her birth mom some day and asking her why she’d given her away. Surely, her true mother’s explanation had to be something more than Liddy Brown’s account that Ru was cursed.
She rolled over and tucked her hand under the throw pillow, drifting off into a deep sleep….