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"Of course," I said, but Deidre had already hung up.
"Is Mommy mad?" Amariah asked.
"Yes, I think so," I said. "We were supposed to meet her by Yankee Stadium."
"Can't we go there now?"
We were far enough away that I felt like we were on the other side of the
world. But I didn't want to scare Amariah. "Well, Mommy decided to come to us.
And anyway, we need to get you to a hospital."
Then a darker thought crossed my mind: What if I couldn't find a way out of
the museum? What then? Would I have to try to amputate Amariah's fingers
myself? Without anesthesia? And with what? I tried to imagine bringing myself
to hurt her, and I nearly gagged.
"What's wrong, Papa?"
"Nothing," I said. "I'm just worried about you."
"Things that seem pretty are sometimes bad," Amariah mused as we walked past
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rows of Italian Renaissance paintings.
"You're thinking of the glass?" I asked.
She nodded, wiping the tears from her face with her forearm. "And angels."
"Not all angels are bad," I said, although I wasn't sure I believed it. I ran
my fingers along the torn edges of my shirt, feeling the wetness there. What
was I becoming? Not an angel any longer, but I was not a man either.
And what of our transportation here? I still didn't understand how it could
have happened. The only way angels were able to teleport from place to place
was by going via Heaven. Yet, if I had gone to Heaven, I would have merged
with God, and, I was certain, She would not have allowed me to return to
Earth. But here I sat. Was it possible that I had diverted Her will? No angel
had ever done that &
& except Morningstar.
Was it possible that I was so resistant to God's desires, like Satan himself,
that I had somehow cut myself off from Him and gone, instead, through Hell?
Amariah's legs were so much shorter than mine that I felt as though we were
crawling when I wanted to run. "Let me carry you."
"No." She shook her head resolutely. "I'm a big girl."
Now she decides to be a grown-up? "No," I said. "We have to get you to the
hospital."
"I feel fine now, Papa," she said. "No more pain."
"Owies" was what Amariah usually called it. How strange that her speech had
suddenly become more adult-sounding. I would have asked her about it, but we
had reached the end of the hallway or, at least, the end for us. I opened the
door to discover that glass filled the stairway. The sudden sunlight glinted
off the angled surfaces, like a Cubist's skating rink.
"See?" Amariah said with a pout. "Pretty, but not at all nice."
"We'll try the other way," I suggested. Amariah skipped ahead of me, singing a
nursery rhyme.
My slick, hard-soled shoes echoed on the marble floor. The rhythm sounded like
words suddenly: Come home. Come home. Michael, come home.
"Mother?" I whispered, afraid She might answer.
Amariah stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me. "Is Mama here?"
"No, I was talking to & Never mind."
"Okay," she said, and, with that she went back to the song about mares eating
oats.
The echoes whispered again: Come home.
"Amariah!" I called, running to catch up with her. I took her hand. "We should
probably stay close. I don't want to get lost."
When I looked up, I saw a man standing in the doorway. He was dressed all in
white, which matched his pale skin. Under the skylight, his shoulder-length
hair and eyes glinted silver. When he smiled I could see fangs. The man walked
barefoot, and his arms were raised slightly, his palms upturned.
"Pretty," Amariah said, but clasped my hand tighter.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"I am called Perseus."
MAIZOMBIES ARRESTED IN ISRAEL
Say: "Page Would Want Us to Support Muslims"
Agnostic Press (April 2083)
Jerusalem, Israel Among those arrested today at Temple Mount for throwing
stones at Israeli soldiers were three international exchange students who
identified themselves as Acolytes of the Second Buddha (more commonly known as
Maizombies).
Today's arrests are part of a recent trend, particularly among young
Maizombies, to join the squatters at the edges of the ruins of the Dome of the
Rock. Chiyo Takahashi, the daughter of a prominent Japanese businessman, is
expected to spend several nights in an Israeli jail awaiting deportation. She
is one of twenty or more Maizombies making a forced return to Japanese soil.
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