Under Heaven, Over Hell-3 by Lynceus Act Four continues. as Anson, now Anna, learns more about the nature of Creation, and attempts to heal the rift between Elisa, Celene, and herself...

Of course, there wasn't really a lot to do at the school while Dad was at work. The weather was still wet and cold, with grey skies, just as it had been for my funeral. I hung out in the library, reading. Other kids would give me odd looks, no doubt wondering who I was (and why a kid was in a high school library), but pretty much everyone left me alone.

At least until fourth hour, when, to my surprise, I heard a familiar voice. “Hello! May I sit here?”

I looked up to see Elisa, a gentle smile on her face. “Oh, Elisa, right?”

She nodded. “Yes, and you're Anna. Miss Rachel said I might find you here. Celene will be along shortly, she forgot some overdue library book in her locker again. Unless...you'd rather be alone?”

I slid my book to the side. “No, please, it'd be nice to have someone to talk to.”

She pulled a chair out and sat down. She was wearing a pretty green sweater and a red tartan skirt over a black leotard. Now, Elisa most definitely not Scottish, but it looked good on her nonetheless. She looked to my book. “What are you reading?”

I held it up sheepishly. It was titled 'Drawing the Human Body: An Anatomical Guide'.

She raised an eyebrow. “You're an artist?”

“A little, it interests me.”

“I...had a friend who was an artist.” It was all I could do not to jump out of my chair and try to console her; I knew she was talking about me. Er, Anson that is. Talk about complicated!

“Oh.” I mean, what else could I say?

“Jeez, is she weeping about Anson again?” I looked to see Celene walking towards us, hefting her backpack. She set it on the table with an audible 'thunk', pulled out a chair, and sat down. I noticed she was sitting very close to Elisa. “She'll be fine, just give her a minute.”

I frowned. “It's ok. I mean, he was a friend...”

“He was an idiot.” Celene retorted.

“Celene!” Elisa gasped. “You don't mean that!”

“I do. That website...oh that pisses me off! He couldn't talk to us, but he can plaster that all over the internet? If he wasn't dead, I'd kill him!”

Oops. So much for that idea. But then, just like that, Celene started crying. What the hell have I done?

Elisa held her friend close, rocking her. “It's ok, Celene, I'm here. Shh, don't cry.”

I was being punished. I'd done this. And I couldn't get away! Watching them cry, I felt tears of my own form. The two best friends I'd ever had, and here I was, right in front of them, and yet, a million miles away. Dad, help me!

“Oh girls, I'm so sorry.” As if by magic, there she was. Even though she addressed Elisa and Celene, she moved to stand next to me, her hand squeezing my shoulder. I leaned against her, trying to hide my tears.

Elisa turned to face Raziel. “Miss Rachel...I think I should take her somewhere private.”

Raziel slapped a pass onto the table. “To the nurse's office, both of you.”

Elisa smiled, pain in her eyes. “Thank you, Miss Rachel.” She stood, simply picking Celene up in her arms like she was a small child, and walked away, pass in hand.

Dad sat down next to me, and held me close. “I'm so sorry, I know this is torture for you.”

I sniffled. “You came. I needed you, and you came.”

She kissed the top of my head. “Anna, my child. Whenever you need me, I'll be there. I promise. So many times you needed me before now, and I wasn't there. Never again.”

“I can't...I can't be near them. It hurts too much.”

“I think I have an idea that might help. And don't blame yourself, I think that website did help. You put your heart into it, and that's a precious thing.”

I looked at the table. “I don't feel like I did so good.”

“Oh no?” Raziel stood up and walked over to Celene's backpack. I blinked, I'd never seen Celene leave it alone like that. Opening it up, Dad rummaged inside and produced something I'd only seen glimpses of. A ledger, bound in black leather.

“Dad, you can't!”

Raziel waggled her eyebrows. “Oh yes I can!” She opened it up, flipped most of the way through it, and showed it to me.

I looked, and I saw something that looked like a magical diagram, three concentric circles, linked together. Each circle had a name written on it. Celene. Anson. Elisa.

“What does it mean?”

“Celene comes from a long line of mortal sorcerers; she is descended from Nephilim like you, who were taught magic by their parents. This is her sigil of power, the fundamental expression of who she is, and the nature of her magic.”

“But..it has all our names on it.”

“Correct. Celene understood some time ago how much of her was bound up with her two closest friends. Right now, a link in that chain is broken, and she's hurting.”

I looked up at the Angel of Knowledge. My Father. “Dad. You have to help me fix this.”

She nodded. “And so we shall, my Anna.”

-

The school day was nearly over, and I waited outside. It was still drizzling, but the cool air cleared my mind. My life was so messed up! I was trying to be strong, but it was simply one screwed-up situation after another! I was still trying to wrap my mind around being a girl, and...

It was simply too much for me. “Why? Why did this have to happen?!”

“A lot of people ask that question.”

I turned my head quickly, surprised that someone had gotten so close without me noticing. There, holding her umbrella to cover us both, was the little girl, Sophia. “Sophia? What are you doing here?”

She ignored the question, looking at the cars speeding by on the street. “People say that I'm never around when they need me. That I never hear them. That I don't listen. I do. I'm always there. It's just...Anna, if you had a magic spell that could make people happy, would you use it?”

Sophia is a very strange girl. Very deep for her age. Still, her question made me think. “If that's all that it did, yes.”

She looked at me with a sad little smile. “Why?”

“Because...it hurts to be sad. I don't like feeling that way.”

“Mm, but people don't always know what they need to be happy. And some people's happiness comes at the cost of other people's happiness. It's like you have a full glass of happiness, and everyone else has empty glasses of sorrow. Whose glass gets filled?”

I frowned. “Why can't you just go get more water?”

“I like the way you think. Why not indeed?” She hugged me impulsively, and I hugged her back. She felt warm and soft, and her hair smelled like incense. It was a pleasant smell, familiar, but I couldn't place it.”

“It's going to rain tonight, Anna. All the water you'll need.” She kissed me on the cheek and stepped back. “Well, I gotta go, bye bye!”

I waved to her as she skipped off. A weird girl. But very easy to love.

When Dad came out to get me, I realized I was carrying Sophia's umbrella!

Raziel looked at it oddly. “Didn't you leave that at home?”

I didn't know what to say.

-

“Ok, sometimes, when the Boss would send us to deliver messages, he'd ask us to enter someone's dreams. God spends a lot of time thinking of ways to be vague and cryptic. Getting an important message while you're dreaming is one hell of a mindjob, let me tell you. Dreams are full of bizarre symbolism and imagery, so it's really hard to be sure of what you're being told until after the fact.”

“What's the point of that?”

She chuckled. “It's hard to say for certain. I always thought it was God pulling a fast one. You get this prophecy, but you don't know what it means. Then when you finally figure it out, you can't blame God for what happened, it was your own fault for not being smarter!”

“That's...seriously. God jerks people's chains like that?” I really found myself disliking my Creator the more I heard about Him!

“Well, humans get pretty full of themselves. This may be His way of teaching some good old-fashioned humility.”

“I guess. But what happens when someone does figure out what the dream means in advance?”

Raziel laughed. “Then, things get interesting. It's one of the few things they mostly got right in The Bible. The whole plan with the plagues? Several times, it almost backfired. See, the point wasn't to scare the Pharaoh into letting the Hebrews go free. Because even if he did it, nothing stopped him from capturing them again. Or his successors. Egypt was very powerful back then. So the plan was, to break them. Totally. So that by the time they recovered their power, they had a powerful warning for future generations. Do not fuck with God's chosen!”

I laughed. “I remember that now. More than once, the Pharaoh was like, ok, ok, I give in, and God would 'harden his heart' so he'd change his mind. But isn't that, you know, a violation of Free Will?”

Raziel had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Well, it would be, if he just outright forced the issue. But God rarely does anything directly, so he sub-contracted out the job to an Angel.”

“Ok, so what happened?”

“He got the Pharaoh drunk.”

I blinked. “Seriously?!”

“Yep. And then he started arguing with the Pharaoh, saying that letting the Hebrews go would make him look weak. The booze did the rest.”

I shook my head. “I can't believe all this stuff really happened.”

“Well, not everything. For example, there was the problems with had with Ishtar. Astarte, Ashtoreth, she's called by several names in The Bible, but it's always the same person.”

“Wait..Ishtar? The Goddess?”

Raziel nodded. “That's the one.”

“Wait a minute. You mean other Gods are real? But how can that be?”

“Ok. Humans have free will. And they're free to believe in anything they want. If you want to believe that a rock can talk to you, and grant you the power of miracles, you can. No problem. But Faith is a funny thing. It can move mountains if it's strong enough. Most miracles aren't God's doing, but simply caused by human desire. This isn't magic, it's something stronger. This is why the Commandments have the prohibition against worshipping other Gods. Now, I'm not saying all religions are real, but Ishtar? She definitely is. Something about her just captured the imaginations of the ancient world. Unlike most Gods, who were conceived as angry, bitter, wrathful deities, she was a woman. Sure, she could kick ass, but she had a caring, gentle side. And she had the hottest priests and priestesses, who were very much into the idea of casual sex.”

She paused. “Anyways, all that faith built up, and finally, something happened. Ishtar became real. I remember the night she was born, there were storms and lightning all over the place, it was one hell of a show! 'I AM', she said. Well, to the Elohim, this was a real shock to the system. She had basically created herself, and declared herself equal to God! Which simply went against our view of how things worked!”

“Wow. What did God do?”

Dad sighed. “Nothing. What could he do? He gave humanity the freedom to make their own choices, and if they wanted to believe in Her, well, so be it. Of course, eventually her worship was stamped out by the Romans. That didn't kill her, but she no longer had the power she once did. She still wanders the world, a Goddess without a purpose. We try not to bother her, she's still very strong compared to an angel.”

“...wow. I feel sorry for her. That's not fair. People created her, then other people rejected her.”

“You never cease to impress me, my son. You can care so much for people you've never even met.”

“I'd like to meet her someday.”

She ruffled my hair. “Perhaps you will.”

I thought for a moment. “So what about Gods people still believe in? Like, um, Chinese deities or Hindu Gods?”

“They still exist, but generally, the Eastern religions aren't as big on direct interference in mortal affairs. It's more about achieving a higher state of enlightenment, really. Very metaphysical bunch, really. And unfortunately, what you'll find out is, a lot of Gods, once they realize how they fit into the grand scheme, just sort of lose their sense of self and purpose. They don't die, so much as simply rejoin Creation, choosing oneness with everything over what is, really, a very lonely existence.”

“That sucks. I mean, it really does. So what, Christianity is the one true religion?”

Raziel started to laugh, and it was several moments before she stopped. “Oh, Anna, no, no! There is no one true religion, that's the point. God doesn't care if you believe in Him. He'd like you to, but you don't have to. Whatever religion works for you, that inspires your Faith, is fine with Him. There have, at times, existed Faiths so powerful that they rolled over the Abrahamics like a great tide! Remember what I said about God being alone? I do believe that's the point. For Man to create another God, one equal to the Creator. So He won't be alone anymore.”

“What do you think would happen then?”

“I have no idea, Anna. I really don't. I hope it will be the start of a new, better Creation. But it could easily be the end. It all depends on what this other entity believes. Some Angels are even worshipped, to an extent. But I don't think we're capable of becoming His equal. Not even Lucifer.”

“I miss Luci. She's really lonely. And sad.”

“Oh Anna, your heart is just too big. Well any time you want to visit, I can show you the way.”

I perked at that. “Really?!”

“Of course, but we've gotten off topic. Tonight, you're going to enter the dreams of Elisa and Celene. As Anson.”

“Really?!”

She laughed. “You just said that. And yes, really. It's not hard, really, the three of you are tied together on some level. So I'll help you create a shared dreamscape. What happens during the dream, however, I have no control over. Go get some rest, I'll wake you when it's time to begin.”

I frowned. “You'll wake me up so I can go to sleep?”

She laughed. “You'll see.” She kissed me on the forehead. “Go to sleep.”

-

I did that, and while I slept, I dreamed of lost Gods and ruined temples. And of poor Luci, all alone in her Temple. And of God, who was, perhaps, the loneliest of all...

To be continued....