More Things In Heaven And Earth

Chapter Thirteen

"We must be saved together. We cannot go to God alone; else he would ask, 'Where are the others?'" - Charles Péguy

We would build a community. It had already started. Last night was a taste of what was to come. Those who sought sanctuary would find us here. We would send no one away. If we began immediately, we might still be able to stockpile some of the supplies needed without too much trouble. I was confident people would come. But first, we had to prepare. I hurried home through the breaking dawn. Impotent street lights lined the sidewalk like watchful sentinels, and the air was so still the earth itself seemed to be holding its breath.

I came back into the house to find Michael already awake and sipping at his morning coffee.

"Out communing with the Universe?" He teased.

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Don't mock me. I'll smite you."

He raised his hands in surrender. "No smiting, whatever you do!"

I sat down next to him. "I was scoping out the neighborhood." My gut twisted as I said, "I think we need to leave this house.

His eyes filled with sadness. "I guess I knew this was coming for a while, but I tried not to think about it. I really love this place, this house. It's where I created my best art." He covered my hand with his own. "It's where we created our sons, and where we met them for the first time."

"Maybe we'll be back." Even as I said it, I knew it wasn't true.

"Yeah, maybe," he said.

For a while we rested, my head on his shoulder, in comfortable silence. I would miss the house, but I would be OK anywhere, as long as our family stayed together. I knew he felt the same.

The lights flickered once, twice, and the house roared to life, breaking the spell.

I sat up. "I'm going to do some laundry while we have power, and start figuring out what we need."

We did our best to move quickly and quietly. It wouldn't do to have the entire town notice a flurry of activity around the old factory. Not yet. Some days we still had power. TV and radio stations were still broadcasting when they could. Many people were just waiting for the government to step in and fix things, despite the fact that gangs of trolls set up city-states in the south, and the entire northwest was besieged by werewolves. The TV news mentioned these things but said nothing of a response. In fact, the president hadn't made a statement in weeks. I wonder to this day if he had already been spirited out of Washington to be hidden away in a bunker. Maybe he's still in hiding. Meanwhile, demons took command of the nuclear facilities in Russia.

Freyja introduced us to her daughters, Hnoss and Gersemi, and they began helping us, as did Atsheena, who was the hardest worker I'd ever known. We began with the dormitory, scrubbing everything until it shone. We dragged bags of trash and debris out of the building and chased more than a few tiny rodents from their nests. Raziel often appeared out of nowhere and, a few times, Sandalphon and Neith would come with him. Michael conscripted their help with his project of stocking up on supplies and, I confess it amused me to see some of the most powerful beings in all of creation carrying bags of flour and rice over their shoulders.

It wasn't always easy to find what we needed. We weren't the only ones preparing for the worst. As the last of the leaves fluttered down to the earth we gathered everything we could from our own homes, from stores, from the shelters that had been set up by groups like Red Cross to help those who were suffering from the increasingly frequent power outages.

Hnoss and Gersemi had a special love for Donovan and, when the mornings began to dawn glittering with frost, started taking him on hunting trips into the woods behind the factory. He learned to shoot a bow and preserve the meat of a deer. Our stores of supplies grew steadily, and in October we decided it was time to leave the house for good.