Chapter Text
I am trying to find the lesson
for tomorrow. Matthew something.
Which lectionary? I have not
forgotten the Way, but, a little,
the way to the Way. The trees keep whispering
peace, peace, and the birds
in the shallows are full of the
bodies of small fish and are
content. They open their wings
so easily, and fly. So. It is still
possible.
I open the book
which the strange, difficult, beautiful church
has given me. To Matthew. Anywhere.
It has been four days since the battle, the blast, and the portal. Four days since she had finally summoned her strength to utter those three little words, a moment too late. Yesterday had been difficult, for everyone. Something in her was hoping that there would be something special about the third day…but no. Nothing.
The gardens of Jillian Salvius’s home are empty; her sisters are at a memorial mass that she could not bring herself to attend. One of the new arrivals had asked her this morning why she was not dressed for it, and her response had been unnecessarily cutting as she left the dining room. Camila gave her a gentle look as she swept out, shoulders tense. She refused to make eye contact and locked her door until she heard the vans leave later in the afternoon. Their door. To their room. Not hers. Because Ava is coming back. The alternative is unacceptable.
So here she is, sitting on the bench that they had occupied the night that she found Ava in the garden. The night before Ava had tried to kill herself for a cause like they’d all been trying to convince her to since the halo revived her. The night before Beatrice finally had to choose between Ava and the mission. The night before everything went to shit.
“I mean, who are we even praying to?”
She storms out of the room.
“Beatrice.”
She can hear Ava behind her, but she does not slow until she gets outside. She has to get out of that room. What’s the point? Their prayers are a waste. They have played their final hand, given it their best, and Mother Superion had died. Ava had done her best to follow, despite her promise. Beatrice had betrayed the entire mission, left the crown lying on the floor because at the sight of Ava reaching for Michael’s hand, her mind held nothing but the image and feeling of Ava bleeding in her arms after her thirteen story fall. The only concrete thought she could muster was, “Not again.”
“Beatrice, talk to me.”
Ava had followed her, of course.
“I lost the crown. It was right there and…I let my emotions blind me to the mission.”
“You saved my life.”
“But if I had grabbed the crown, we could have beaten Adriel and none of this would have happened. Camila, Yasmine, they might be here with us.” Now they might be dead, or possessed, all because she was selfish and emotional.
“So you’re saying if, if I had died…the others might have lived?”
Ava’s hurt is evident on her face and it fills her voice. She’s begging Beatrice to contradict her. To tell her that isn’t what she meant.
“I’m saying that maybe we’re just delaying the inevitable.”
Maybe there is nothing they can do. Maybe forces beyond their control are going to keep hounding them, hunting them down for all of their days. Maybe this is her punishment. Being alone, committed to a cause was not enough. God had devised a way to make her transgressions even more painful, to punish her more efficiently.
Ava shakes her head, as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing.
“The Beatrice I know never stops fighting. Never loses hope.”
“No. She never did. Before”
That Beatrice had never held your broken, bleeding, unbreathing body in her arms. That Beatrice had never felt you gaze at her like she was the sun only to watch you plummet thirteen stories to the earth and see your body bounce off the concrete with a sickening thud. That Beatrice hadn’t begged you not to leave her only to watch you try to do it again the very next day because she had, along with the entire order, managed to instill some kind of savior complex in you. Before, she didn’t know what it felt like to be a part of the system that had sentenced the woman she loved to die and herself to watch it happen, again and again. If she was going to hell, at least she would be well prepared because she’s pretty sure that is the most effective torture anyone could possibly devise.
“You said we would stop him our way. Together. That there’s always something else we can do.”
Ava is agitated now, on the edge of desperate. Beatrice knows the feeling, but she needs her to understand. To get the message. She needs her to tap into that self-preservation instinct, that love for life that used to drive her to think about herself over the mission.
“There is nothing else you can do. Run. Hide.”
“Are you kidding me? I was hiding.”
“Our only priority now is to keep the halo out of Adriel’s hands. At all costs.
Holding back tears, Ava chokes out a, “Yeah.”
She takes a few steps forward.
“If I left…would you come with me? We could go back to the Alps. To the bar. Hans, and the regulars.”
Her eyes are soft, hopeful, and shining with tears. She keeps approaching, and Beatrice wishes that she could more clearly tell her to step back with just her posture. She cannot be close to her right now. If she gets too close, she won’t be able to say what she needs to say.
“You could teach me how to dance. I could teach you how to drink?”
Beatrice remembers the last night they went out. That was the night everything had started to spiral out of their control. Getting involved with Michael and the Samaritans. It was one of the happiest nights of her life, at first. Now it felt like the beginning of the end.
“No. I can’t.”
Her words strike Ava like a physical blow.
They should have run. Despite her best effort to drive her away, Ava had ended up bleeding in her arms again anyway. She had one last bittersweet kiss and had disappeared again, to die, again.
If they had run then, maybe she would not be sitting here now, alone, trying to figure out what comes next. Maybe she would not have returned alone to their room, to find a letter addressed To Bea on Ava’s pillow that Ava must have written after she had refused to leave. After Ava had decided she was truly out of options.
Dear Beatrice, Beatrice, Dear Bea, My lo, Bea,
In case I don’t have the chance to tell you today, I need to leave this for you. I know you won’t want to understand, but you will because you always do. You understand that we’re out of options. You understand that there’s no other way anymore. You understand that there’s nothing else we can do.
There are other things I need you to understand, though. I need you to know that I didn’t do this to save the world. I did it because you’re in the world, and you deserve to keep being in it, even if it doesn’t deserve you. I need you to understand that those two months in Switzerland were the happiest that I’ve ever been, and that I want you to find that again. Find a shitty, cozy apartment to fill with things that make you smile. Find a job that you’re good at even if you don’t love it every day, since nobody loves their job every day. Find someone to share it all with. Please.
I need you to live your life, even if I can’t be there to see it.
I don’t know what will happen to me. The first time I died, there was nothing after. This time, with the halo, maybe there will be. Maybe I’ll end up in Reya’s realm because of it. I’m not sure. All I know is that, no matter where I am, no matter what echo of me there is left in the universe, I will want you to be living. Find something you’re passionate about. Find someone who chases the sadness out of your eyes and appreciates bad puns and can cook because you can’t. Go to pride, dance and scream and drink and love. Remember that what you are is beautiful. Have a family, if you want one. They’ll be beautiful too.
Try to forgive me, if you can. Remember that I love you. Present tense. I will always love you, and that means I will always want the absolute best for you. I want everything for you.
All my love and always yours, in this life and the next,
Ava
Ava had asked her to live her life. She knew she would have to do that somehow. If only to find a way to bear the grief and guilt and anger that was picking at the inside of her ribs. But not today. Today she is going to watch the sun set over this garden and wallow.
So here she is, in the gardens, with a few books and a glass of cognac, pilfered from Jillian’s liquor cabinet. Jillian had seen her digging through the bottles when she thought she was alone and just shrugged, eyes empty, taking two glasses from the shelf next to it, then reached past Beatrice to the back. The label was mostly handwritten in French, and Beatrice didn’t bother to read it too closely as Jillian poured them each a glass. She tossed the first back quickly, rather than savoring it like she knew she should, and refilled it immediately. It burned and she resisted the urge to cough.
They had sipped in silence, finishing and refilling until Beatrice was pleasantly warm and the world was growing fuzzy at the edges. Emptying the last of the bottle into her glass, she had stood, swaying a bit, and made her way outside. She passed Vincent in the hall, running one hand along the wall to steady herself, books under her arm. He must have felt unwelcome at the memorial and stayed behind as well, being that half the deaths being memorialized were his fault. He looked concerned at the glass in her hand, but something in her face must have warned him against saying anything. Not tonight.
As she sits, a small heron lands at the water’s edge. Ardeola relloides. She watches its graceful movements along the shore until it lapses into perfect stillness, studying the koi circling its feet, unknowingly drifting closer to their doom. She stills herself as well.
Is she the heron? A killing machine that entangled herself in Ava’s life, lulling her into a feeling of security and belonging until Ava could see no other path but to die so that she could live? She never used to kill unnecessarily, but she could. She wanted it to be more difficult, but she has been in the order for a long time now, and she was already quite good at compartmentalizing. Usually. She never meant for it to be Ava, but…no, Ava isn’t dead. Just gone for a little while. And it wasn’t her fault. Ava wouldn’t want her to think that. The alcohol that the common narrative had promised would numb her has made her emotions unpleasantly intense and viscous in her chest, sticking to everything and flowing slowly. Tainting everything. The real world is blurry and far away but all the feelings she'd been trying to escape are uncomfortably present.
Maybe they were both the koi, ignorant of the forces at work around and above them until it was too late.
The heron strikes.
And comes up empty.
It strolls along the edge of the pond for a few more minutes before stilling in another position, farther away. She taps her fingers on the covers of the books that she had brought out with her. First, her tattered, worn copy of “Thirst,” recently more used than the other, her Bible. Which one for today? Despite her preoccupation with what was and what could have been if she had stayed in Switzerland, she reaches for the Bible. Flipping through, she allows it to fall open, hoping to land on some guidance, even as her faith in its pages fades. It falls to a passage in Matthew:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; everyone who knocks shall have the door opened.”
Beatrice suppresses an incredulous snort and finishes her drink. The reason they ended up in this mess in the first place was that the masses had been searching for millennia and not finding what they needed. False prophets are more expedient. Adriel had made certainty possible over faith.
She did not want to seek anymore. Or rather, she wanted to seek one thing. One person. If all she accomplished in this life was a new kind of faith, perhaps that would be enough. She hasn’t prayed since that day, but she closes her eyes.
“Ava? I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know where our prayers go, if anywhere, or if the words stay intact or just their energy, but I love you. I’m here, waiting. I’ll live if that’s what you want, but I’ll still always be waiting. Please, come home.”
Suddenly hyperaware, the hair on her arms prickles, and she feels a presence next to her. A ghost of a touch on her hand, still resting on the open page. She opens her eyes and sees nothing, but something feels wrong. Her movements are slowed, like swimming through honey. An attempt to turn her head feel painfully restricted, as if the air is solidifying around her. The heron is frozen mid-strike, neck doubled back like a snake. Everything is silent, not quiet like the still heat of a late summer afternoon, but as if no movement even exists to create sound. Someone is next to her, but not next to her. Touching her, but not there. Ava’s voice echoes in her head, but not her ears.
“I’m always here, Bea. It’s hard to reach out, I haven’t been strong enough until now. I’m healing. I’m coming. I’ll let you know when, I promise.”
Suddenly the strange solidity evaporates; sounds flood her ears and she resists the urge to flinch as she’s bludgeoned with every sense at once. The heron strikes the water, comes up empty once more. It spreads its wings and rises, flying into the sunset. She brings her hands to her face, realizing that her cheeks are wet with tears.
“I can wait, darling. I can wait.”