Estelle Ana Baca

Category: Humans

Homo sapiens sapiens.

  • On Time: The Hours

    Nadiel is still away this week. Sorry.

    One of the greatest discoveries that we humans made during the 20th century was the concept of relativity. To describe part of it very, very simply, imagine you’re on a train that’s travelling over a bridge spanning a river at a rate of 50 mph/80 kph. Are you passing over the river, or is the river passing under you? Because you don’t actually feel as though you, personally, are travelling at 50 mph to cross the bridge with such haste, chances are that you’ve rather unconsciously decided that the river is travelling underneath you. That’s not really what’s happening, but that’s what it feels and looks like.

    Space and time are inextricably bound to each other in this Universe, and the angels, having designed them to function together, experience time as it is relative to space, so that time on any point on Earth is unique to that particular point on Earth.

    Nadiel has expressed to me a remarkable amount of bemusement at the idea of time zones and the much hated daylight saving time. I tried explaining to her that we, as a species, standardized time for a few reasons: 1) we needed consistent schedules for people in different parts of the world; 2) we needed to measure longitude; and 3) it’s just easier for us. She thinks it’s cute.

    How the angels handle time is ridiculously complicated to humans because we have neither the mental capacity nor eons’ worth of experience with spacetime to perfect the sorts of calculations they perform to measure time like they do. But, if we were immortal, we’d have a different way of looking at time, too.

    After Nadiel tried explaining it to me a few times, she agreed to help me locate tools on the internet to help me calculate how they measure time, so that I wouldn’t have to bother her about it constantly. The smallest unit of time that we humans have is the second; the smallest angelic unit is the hour. Nadiel said that to the angels, hours are ludicrously short enough not to have to divide them into even smaller units, and if you were older than time itself, an hour would seem like a thousandth of a thousandth of a thousandth of a thousandth of second.

    The angels’ day begins at sunrise, the night at sunset. The day has twenty-four hours: twelve hours of the day and twelve hours of the night. How the angels calculate each hour is by dividing the whole of the day and the night respectively into twelve, so that each hour is then one-twelfth of the day or one-twelfth of the night. We humans used to mark the day like this, too, but we got rid of it when we wanted schedules. Humans who practice magics are known to divide the hours like the angels despite the precision of our time pieces, for they find that it is useful in helping them to achieve a specific result with their spells. Further to this, there is a curiosity known as Oxford time in which one of the colleges at the University observes the hour five minutes later than the standard GMT, which is actually in accord with relative time.

    So—how would you be able to convert our time into the angels’ hours for today, March 15, 2011? First you need to find out what times the sun rises and sets to know where to start. The Astronomical Applications Department of the U.S. Naval Observatory can help you find out what time the sun will rise and set where you are, and if you need to find your latitude and longitude, you can find out here. Nadiel is presently located at 36°11′55″ North and 105°53′19″ West, where the sun rises at 7.15 AM and sets at 7.11 PM Mountain Daylight Time.

    Next, you can either find the sum of all the minutes in the day and divide by twelve, which is a recipe for a migraine, or you can go to a site that will calculate the planetary hours as are used by magicians and alchemists. Simply enter the sunrise and sunset times where you live, and it will do the calculations for you. Once that’s done, you simply disregard the planetary name of the hour and replace it by numbering the hours from one to twelve for the day and night respectively.

    Thus, the hours for today, provided you are at 36º11′ North and 105º53′ West, are:

    1st hour of the day – 7:15 AM to 8:14 AM
    2nd hour of the day – 8:14 AM to 9:14 AM
    3rd hour of the day –  9:14 AM to 10:14 AM
    4th hour of the day –  10:14 AM to 11:13 AM
    5th hour of the day –  11:13 AM to 12:13 PM
    6th hour of the day –  12:13 PM to 1:12 PM
    7th hour of the day – 1:12 PM to 2:12 PM
    8th hour of the day – 2:12 PM to 3:12 PM
    9th hour of the day – 3:12 PM to 4:11 PM
    10th hour of the day – 4:11 PM to 5:11 PM
    11th hour of the day – 5:11 PM to 6:11 PM
    12th hour of the day – 6:11 PM to 7:11 PM
    1st hour of the night – 7:11 PM to 8:11 PM
    2nd hour of the night – 8:11 PM to 9:11 PM
    3rd hour of the night – 9:11 PM to 10:11 PM
    4th hour of the night – 10:11 PM to 11:12 PM
    5th hour of the night – 11:12 PM to 12:12 AM
    6th hour of the night – 12:12 AM to 1:12 AM
    7th hour of the night – 1:12 AM to 2:13 AM
    8th hour of the night – 2:13 AM to 3:13 AM
    9th hour of the night – 3:13 AM to 4:13 AM
    10th hour of the night – 4:13 AM to 5:14 AM
    11th hour of the night – 5:14 AM to 6:14 AM
    12th hour of the night – 6:14 AM to 7:14 AM

    As we’re pretty close to the equinox, the hours here have a pretty uniform length, because the length of the days and nights are almost identical. When the days are significantly longer or shorter in the months surrounding the solstices, the difference between the lengths of the hours of the day and night is more pronounced. Bear in mind, however, that this is all dependent upon whether you’re in an area above or below the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, where the lengths of days and nights wax and wane depending on the season. If you live in an equatorial region, the lengths of the days and nights are rather equal all year round, and the angels’ hours are similarly regular year round. More relativity.

    But of course, this is only a tiny part of the angelic reckoning of time. There are Archangelic rulerships of hours, too, which we’ll get to when Nadiel’s got another week off.

    Have a great week!

    ♥

    UPDATE, January 6, 2013

    OK OK OK What I should’ve written before is that there are twelve months in the angels’ year, with one Archangel ruling over each month. Within each month, the days are ruled by the Archangels, and each Archangel rules over an hour of the day and an hour of the night. Moving on…

    Now that we’ve done all the math above, let’s go back and finish converting March 15, 2011 at Nadiel’s location in Dixon, New Mexico, at, say, 2:54 pm into Angelic time. If you go to the Calendar Page, you can see that March 15 (regardless of the year) corresponds to the 25th day of the month of Barakiel, which is a day of Sachiel. 2:54 pm falls during the 8th hour of the day above, which, if you go to the Hours Page, corresponds to the Hour of Michael.

    Therefore, March 15, 2011, 2:54 pm, in Dixon, New Mexico, converts to 25th Barakiel, Day of Sachiel, Hour of Michael. 25.12.1.1.29.23

    “But what about leap years? And feast days? What do we do for those?!”

    The Angelic Year starts on the first day of the Vernal Equinox. A year in which you’d use the leap year dates would start the year before we’d mark it, e.g. March 21, 2011 to March 20, 2012 is an angelic leap year. That means that December 7, 2011 corresponds to a Day of Camael. The angels’ leap year would then continue past our new year, so that February 15, 2012 would be a day of Metatron, a feast day.

    Feast days mean that you use the second table on the Hours Page, and not the nice, standardized version that you get on all the normal Archangels’ days.  Then you have to know which day of Metatron you’re dealing with… ::siiiigh:: This is why Nadiel says that most mortals avoid dealing with feast days.

    Let’s convert 11:29 am on February 15, 2012 for Dixon, New Mexico. Using the same tools we employed above, it corresponds to the 6th hour of the day, 26th Cassiel, a day of Metatron. After some more ludicrous calculations that only some of the angels care about, you’ll arrive at the conclusion that it’s the 1st day of Metatron, in which the 6th hour is ruled by Dirachiel.

    So, at long last, February 15, 2012, 11:29 am in Dixon, New Mexico, converts to 26th Cassiel, Day of Metatron, Hour of Dirachiel. 26.11.2.2.30.23

    I know, I know. It’s ridiculously complicated. If you’d rather have someone do the work for you, head over here and I’ll convert it for you.

    ♥ EAB

  • Musical Interlude #2: Joy

    As I mentioned in a previous post, angels’ Keys are the core of their Graces. It’s part of what makes them immortal, and on a certain level, it operates as a guiding principle. If we humans were able to sense Graces and detect the Key beneath them, they would sound distinctly musical. Nadiel has described the music within them as reminiscent of a humming, chanting engine at work, and the angels refer to this audible quality of the soul as the Magnificat. I’ve always imagined that a Magnificat might sound like a large stadium crowd in which, if you listen carefully, you can pick out various bits of speech. Since Keys are related to Graces, Keys are the music within those Graces, or the song that’s sung by the most hopeful person in that crowd. If you aren’t listening for it, you won’t hear it, but it’s there.

    Each of the twelve Archangels has a different Key with Graces that correspond to it, which isn’t the case with the other angels in all the other Orders. Some angels have Graces and Keys that don’t quite match up. For example, the Watcher Kivati, who had a role in Nadiel’s most recent tale, has a key of Freedom with the Graces of Sympathy, Mercy and Interdependence, which can seem a little contrary.

    The Key that’s associated with the Archangel Camael is Joy. Ironically, if one were to seek expressions of Camael’s brand of Joy within music, one of the last places I’d look would be Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and its Ode to Joy. I invite you to disagree with me, but Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is anything but joyful, for it is a devastatingly beautiful piece that is marked by alternating passages of angst and triumph. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is about the search for joy in adversity, which isn’t quite the same thing as Joy for Joy’s sake. If I were to identify a piece that embodies Camael’s Joy, it’d have to be Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Pick any part of it, and it’s joyful. Yes. The whole thing. He wrote it while he was still a newlywed, after he had a child who survived infancy and while was enjoying a more than decent amount of acclaim in Vienna at the time. It’s easy to infer that he was expressing his joy within the music of that entire opera. Even the tense parts of the opera can’t refrain from expressing Joy. I invite you to have a listen to the Overture. You’ve probably heard it before somewhere, and this particular version features an orchestra that’s about the same size as would have played in Vienna when the opera opened in 1786.

    But what if you were looking to listen to something composed within human memory? Well, the Beatles are a good band to listen to if you want to hear some Joy. I recommend earlier Beatles, though. They stopped being explicitly joyful around the time of Revolver. If I had to choose one song, though, it’d most definitely be this one.

    Nadiel has informed me that she might be going away for spring break next week. If she’s isn’t, you’ll get a fresh recollection from her. If she’s out of town, you’re stuck with me for another week. Either way, have a great one!

    ♥

  • Astaroth’s Wager, the Conclusion (Really!)

    Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XVI.

    The police were there, and they were asking questions about what had happened. They wanted to know why the stove hadn’t been repaired. They wanted to know why Thomas hadn’t been at the office when they called. They wanted to know why his wife and infant child were still sound asleep in their beds when the fire took hold at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. They wanted to know why the neighbors had said that his deranged sister was always screaming in the night. They wanted to know if she’d started the fire, or if it had been he, who had been fired from work that day for stealing. They wanted to know why one of the items he’d been accused of at work stealing had been recovered at the scene. In fact, it was the only thing that had survived the entire blaze: a gold lighter that seemed untouched by the flames.

    He vociferously denied everything when they carried him away to the police station and booked him.

    He sat in the cell that night. There was a great part of him that didn’t feel as if it had been real. It had been too much to happen in one day. Too much loss. He couldn’t process it. It was simply unbelievable that everyone he loved and everything he had was gone.

    He returned to the thought that he had felt truly ruined at 24, but he was more than ruined. He was irreparably fractured. There would be no healing. He’d had so much, and it was gone. All of it was gone. He collapsed underneath the weight of his grief and wept in his cell all night.

    The next morning, he met with his court appointed lawyer. The police believed that he’d murdered his sister, his wife and his child, and burnt down his home, and all on the day that he’d been caught stealing from work. There was no evidence to prove that he hadn’t been there. As far as the State of California was concerned, he was guilty. He was a dead man walking. The lawyer said it was inevitable.

    And when he lay on the cot in his cell that night, one thought was set to repeat in his mind. “It’s hopeless. It’s completely hopeless.”

    *          *          *

    “You weren’t supposed to win this one, Astaroth. I’m not ceding my Estate,” Sitri said.

    “You will cede your Estate to me. I killed an angel, a Nephil and six primates in this wager. I won. Thomas Carver is a broken man, and Michael isn’t darkening your doorstep to seek revenge for his fallen brother. And if you don’t, remember that I am now Queen of Greece and Anatolia. I will bring down upon you the fury of Asia Minor if you don’t relinquish your lands.” Astaroth said.

    “Svipul?” Sitri asked in desperation.

    “You offered her your Estate for your mistakes. You never should have offered it up if you weren’t willing to part with it. Take what she gives you,” Svipul said.

    Sitri couldn’t afford to wage a war against Astaroth when his own Estate claims were in question, so he relinquished his claims. Astaroth had become Queen of Britannia, too.

    Astaroth was relatively benevolent, and she bestowed upon Sitri the Estate of President of London and the Home Counties. She made Svipul the Princess of Athens, and Caius became an honorary Knight.

    The Gas Chamber at San Quentin Prison, California.
    The very same gas chamber in which Thomas Carver died. He was executed in February 1939.

    *          *          *

    Up until day the State of California executed him for the murders of his wife, his child and his sister, Thomas never knew another shred of hope. But as he prepared to inhale the noxious vapors that would kill him, he discovered a shimmering, lost thing. Because he believed in his innocence, he hoped that after his heart had stopped and his soul had left his body, that he would see Adelaide and Hank and all his other loved ones again.

    Estelle will be taking the reins next week. I need a break after this one. Dominus vobiscum.

  • Astaroth’s Wager, Part XVI

    Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XV.

    Adelaide and Hank were still sleeping soundly when Thomas got up the next morning. He admired and envied the peace of their slumber and saw no need to wake them as he slipped out of the bedroom. Florence was already stirring in the kitchen, however, and she offered to make him breakfast. The stove wasn’t lighting properly again. He said, “I thought they were supposed to come by with a new stove yesterday.”

    “They did, but it was working fine yesterday morning, so I just sent them away while Adelaide was taking a bath with Hank,” Florence explained.

    Thomas groaned. It had taken them two weeks to order the new stove, and he was deeply annoyed at the possibility of another two weeks before they could schedule a new delivery. “Please don’t send them away next time. This stove hasn’t worked in a while.” He fetched his gold lighter from his coat pocket and used it to light the stove, and after it was lit, he set the lighter down on the kitchen table.

    He sat down to drink his coffee and caught the time. He wasn’t quite sure how, but it was twenty minutes later than he’d thought it was. He dashed out the door without breakfast and hurried in to work.

    When he got to his office, Bernadette was missing. For some reason, she hadn’t shown up or called in to tell him where she was, and he went about his morning handling everything she normally did, such as answering his calls and filling out forms, in addition to writing a report about the missing $1,000 in accounting.

    Thomas went into the accounting office to follow up on his investigative work from the night before, and he was met with a number of cold dismissals from everyone there. He found it extraordinarily odd that none of them wanted to make so much as eye contact with him. After a couple of minutes of trying in vain to get information out of them, he headed back to his own office.

    He ran into Mr. Meese in the hall. “Tom—I was just looking for you. I need to see you in my office. Say—do you have a light? I can’t seem to find mine.”

    Thomas reached into his coat pocket for his lighter, but he remembered that he’d left it on the kitchen table. He apologized—“My sister borrowed it this morning”—and followed Mr. Meese into his office.

    Mr. Finch, the head of the studio, was waiting in Mr. Meese’s office along with a sheepish Bernadette.

    “Have a seat, Tom,” Mr. Meese said.

    “What’s this about?” Thomas asked. He was worried. He didn’t understand what was going on.

    Mr. Finch said, “Bernadette here came forward with what happened. We told her she didn’t have to, but she felt it was only right that you had a chance to face the person who produced the evidence against you.”

    “What evidence?” Thomas asked.

    “The check you stole. She found it underneath your clock this morning,” Mr. Finch said. “Now, I hardly want to make this a police matter—”

    “I didn’t steal anything!” Thomas cried.

    “Tom, I didn’t say anything about the lighter before—” Mr. Meese said.

    “What?”

    “You stole that lighter out of my office. It’s ok—you can keep it, but I’m afraid—”

    “I haven’t taken anything! You gave me that lighter, back in San Francisco—remember?” Thomas pled.

    Mr. Finch said, “Son, you can’t keep your job. Now, we need you to pack up your office and leave by one o’clock. If you’re not out of here, we’ll have to call the police.”

    “This has got to be some kind of misunderstanding. I didn’t steal anything. You’ve got to believe me. Mr. Meese, please—you know I didn’t take anything from you,” Thomas said.

    “Tom, I hope you can learn to be a better man after this,” Mr. Meese said.

    “Bernadette—where did you find it exactly? Maybe it was someone else,” Thomas insisted.

    “It’s a good thing your father’s not here to see this. He’d’ve been disappointed in you, son,” Mr. Meese said.

    There was no further discussion. Thomas was shown to the door, and while a couple of Mr. Meese’s burlier male assistants watched, Thomas packed up his office and left the studio offices.

    Santa Monica, courtesy of lapl.org
    This would have been considered a vintage photo of Santa Monica back in 1937, as it was taken at the turn of the century.

    He couldn’t go home, though. Everything had just started to improve for them again, particularly with Florence’s miraculous recovery. Thomas was sure he wouldn’t be able to get another job in the pictures, because he knew he couldn’t get Mr. Meese to write him a letter of reference. They’d have to sell their house and move to an apartment, and Thomas would have to take whatever job was available to them again. He was only 24, and he felt ruined. He didn’t understand why, either. He couldn’t figure out what had happened. The greater part of him was outraged at the thought of being accused of stealing, even though he hadn’t done so much as steal a paperclip from the office, and he wanted to run through the studio offices, screaming and punching everyone who didn’t believe him. He fantasized about it, but he didn’t do it. He just drove to Santa Monica and stared at the ocean from the pier until it was the time he typically headed home.

    The traffic home was difficult. Despite staring at the ocean all afternoon, Thomas had no idea how to explain to Adelaide what had happened. The afternoon was extremely hot, and the air felt hotter when he drove into his neighborhood. There was a stinging, unpleasant smell in the air that was characteristic of a fire, and because he didn’t believe that his day could get any worse, it didn’t occur to him that it could be his own house.

    At least, not until he pulled onto his street.

    Everything was gone. Everything. Everyone was gone, too. Adelaide and Hank and Florence. They were all gone. They were dead. They had all died in the fire that had destroyed everything that Thomas Carver had counted as his own in the whole world.

    The conclusion is coming next week! Really! Dominus tecum.

    On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XVII.

  • Astaroth’s Wager, Part XV

    Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XIV.

    “Astaroth, tomorrow’s the first. You have five days to wrap this up,” Svipul cautioned. “What do you have planned?”

    “Oh, I guess it’s time. I can’t wait to be myself in public again, I tell you.” Astaroth called to her favorite Neku, “Caius! Florence is waiting for you to finish her off!”

    “Am I to possess her as planned, madam?” Caius asked.

    “Possess her and then go through with the elimination as discussed. I won’t begrudge you if the damage extends to the rest of the neighborhood. Use your imagination,” Astaroth said.

    Popular Mechanics, December 1937. From Wikimedia.
    A completely modern kitchen in 1937.

    *          *          *

    Adelaide Carver awoke on the morning of the first of June to the sound of activity in the kitchen, and she hoped that the disturbances wouldn’t wake up the baby. She fell compelled to sink back into bed, for the only one who could be responsible for noises was Florence, and she knew that Florence’s presence in the kitchen was, in all probability, a bad thing.

    “Good morning, Addie. I was just about to make myself some eggs and coffee. Would you like some?” Florence asked.

    Adelaide stared at Florence without issuing any assent, dissent or comment.

    “What about some oats then? I thought I saw some in the cupboard,” Florence asked.

    Adelaide still couldn’t find any words in her extreme fatigue to express her confusion and surprise.

    “Well. I’ll just make you some eggs then. Hope you like them scrambled, because that’s how I like mine. I’ll get you some toast, too,” Florence said.

    Adelaide discovered a few words in her haze. “How are you feeling?”

    “I think I just needed some sleep. That kind doctor came by yesterday, and I had the best sleep I think I’ve had in at least a year. Maybe even two. I don’t know what kind of miracle drug it was he gave me, but you should see asking the doctor for a prescription if you think you need a rest, too,” Florence said.

    “Good. I might have to ask him later on today,” Adelaide said.

    Florence served Adelaide a cup of coffee with lots of cream and sugar. “Here you go, sweetheart. It’s about time I served you, after all you’ve done for me these last six months.”

    Adelaide recovered her silence and awe at Florence’s complete shift in behavior.

    “I can’t imagine what you must think of me. I’m embarrassed about everything that’s happened lately. I’ve been a nightmare. I hope you never know what it’s like to lose your entire family, because it really is one’s worst nightmare come true. Now that you’re a mother, I think you can relate even more. I did go insane, but I couldn’t help but act out some of the horror I’d come to know. But I got up about an hour ago from that sleep, and I realized something,” Florence said.

    “What was that?”

    “I realized that I still have you and Tom and Hank. And you’ve been far kinder to me that I deserve. I’m sure I would’ve put me into a hospital by this point. I’m lucky that my little brother never gave up on me. And I’m lucky that you put up with him putting up with me,” Florence said.

    Thomas wandered sleepily into the kitchen. “I heard voices. What’s wrong with her today, Addie?”

    “Mornin’, Tom. Do you want some eggs?” Florence asked.

    *          *          *

    Thomas took the opportunity to take a brief inventory of his office supplies for his stationery order while he was on the phone with Adelaide. His desk clock displayed 1:47, and he was due in Mr. Meese’s office at 2 on the dot to accompany him on a tour of the set for the newest musical. He figured he had just enough time to deliver the order to Bernadette, his secretary, before he had to be in Mr. Meese’s office. “So the doctor said she’s recovered?”

    Adelaide said, “He checked her over completely and said that she’s perfectly normal. Whatever it was that was making her sick seems to be over. He gave her some more of those pills to help her sleep, though, just in case she gets worse again.”

    He sat back in his chair. “That’s incredible. I’ll have to find out more when I get home tonight. Pick up some steaks at the butcher, will you? It’d be nice to have a proper dinner with you and my sister later.”

    “That sounds like a great idea. I’ll cook ‘em up the way you like ‘em,” Adelaide answered.

    “Ok, dear. I’ll be home no later than six. Love you!”

    Thomas put his coat back on, delivered his order to Bernadette and had a chat with her about everything on his schedule for the rest of the week, and made his way over to Mr. Meese’s office.

    Mr. Meese was on the phone when Thomas appeared in his doorway, and Mr. Meese beckoned for him to come in and take a seat.

    Mr. Meese said, “We’ll get to the bottom of this before the end of the day tomorrow. I don’t want to make this a police matter until we know who’s responsible….Yes….Of course….Thank you.” He looked up at Thomas and said, “Change of plans, Tom. We’ve got a crisis on our hands.”

    “What’s the problem?” Thomas asked.

    “It’s an accounting mix-up, but since it’s related to this latest picture, they’ve put me on it, which means I’m putting you on it. Someone walked off with a check for $1,000. Needless to say, the studio doesn’t want the police involved unless it’s absolutely necessary. Find out where it went, Tom. I’ll make the tour of the set with McAlpin. That’ll be all,” Mr. Meese said, and he got back on his phone.

    Thomas walked past his office on his way to the accounting office, and he said to Bernadette, “Call my wife and tell her that something’s come up and that I probably won’t be home as early as I’d hoped.”

    *          *          *

    Thomas replayed his investigative conclusions during his drive home. The clerk entered in the wrong amounts to the wrong payees and tripled the error when he recorded it incorrectly in the ledger. The mystery was solved.

    He was exhausted when he got home at ten that night. There was a note on the kitchen table.

    Your steak’s in the refrigerator. Sorry I couldn’t stay up to greet you when you got home. You can wake me up and tell me about your day when you get home. We still need to talk about our anniversary next week. Love, A.

    He couldn’t bear to wake her. He knew how little sleep she’d had lately. He curled up next to Adelaide and held her, falling asleep next to her for the very last time.

    Dominus tecum.

    On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XVI.

  • Astaroth’s Wager, Part XIV

    Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XIII.

    It was the morning of May 31, 1937, and Adelaide was wickedly exhausted. A great amount of her exhaustion had come from the complete lack of sleep she’d had since Hank was born, but it wasn’t Hank’s fault at all. He didn’t cry or fuss as much as other infants, even though his feeding schedule included a late night meal at half past one and a first breakfast at five.

    Thomas’ sister Florence had had a really difficult night. Adelaide wished that she could chalk it up to an anomalous event, but she’d lost count of how many times Florence had perpetrated some wild disruption on account of her madness. Adelaide was tired of locking up the knives, scissors, pens and matches to keep away from her. If the mere suggestion of them didn’t make her scream, the sight of them initiated battles in which Florence would try to seize them. In the previous five months since she had been released from the hospital, Florence had used the knives and scissors to carve into the floors, the pens to write on the walls and the matches to heat the knives to sear her already scarred flesh and set small fires in the house. Adelaide had pled with Thomas to put Florence into a hospital, but he absolutely refused every single time the suggestion was made.

    Hank had fallen asleep on Adelaide’s chest after his second breakfast. She wished he could tell her if he’d had a tough time sleeping in the same house as Florence, too.

    Thomas looked like he felt like the rope used to tie down a tent in a hurricane when he shuffled into the kitchen. He laid his coat on the one of the chairs at the kitchen table and whispered. “Have you made any coffee?”

    “You might need to heat it up again. I boiled it about an hour ago,” Adelaide responded in a whisper as well.

    Thomas turned on the gas on the stove, but the pilot failed the light the burner. He turned off the gas and fetched his gold cigarette lighter from his coat, returning to the stove to repeat his actions and igniting the gas with his lighter. He slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. “Thank God tomorrow’s the first. They said they’d be delivering the new stove tomorrow, since this one’s never really worked.”

    “I told you what happened—”

    “Addie, there’s no way—”

    “—and you didn’t believe me, just like you didn’t believe me—”

    “—that Flo broke the stove like you said she did.”

    “—about the window or the clothesline when I was still pregnant, and I don’t know how you can expect me to raise your son in a house where your sister is keeping us up all night screaming about the cats outside. And if it’s not the cats, it’s the birds. And if it’s not the birds, then it’s triangles. When will it end?” Adelaide argued. Her whisper had an impassioned hiss to it, and Hank adjusted on her chest.

    “She’s my sister. I can’t just throw her out. You know she can’t take care of herself.”

    “She needs a doctor. She needs to be in a hospital.”

    “You know what they do in those hospitals,” Thomas said.

    “Tom—I don’t want her around the baby anymore. He doesn’t get enough sleep—none of us do—and I know you heard her last night. Don’t deny it.”

    “I did.”

    “So tell me what she said, so I can hear it from you. Because if you heard it too, then maybe you’ll start to believe me when I say that I don’t want her anywhere near our son,” Adelaide insisted.

    Thomas sighed and rubbed his face. “She said that the cat told her that babies were evil, and the only thing that stops evil is fire.”

    “Well?”

    “Fine. I’ll call the doctor today and have him come by as soon as possible,” he conceded.

    “Thank you. What do I do with her in the meantime?” she asked.

    “She’s sleeping now, right?”

    “She’s the only one in the house who actually gets any sleep,” Adelaide countered.

    “Let her sleep. Hopefully the doctor will give her something to sleep so that when I get home tonight you and I can have a nice evening where we’re not trying to restrain my sister and we don’t fight and we can figure out what we’re going to do celebrate our anniversary and Hank’s month-old birthday next week,” Thomas said.

    “I’d love that,” Adelaide replied.

    “And I love you, Adelaide. And I love you, son.” Thomas kissed his own index and middle finger and pressed the translated kiss to Hank’s forehead.

    Dominus tecum.

    On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XV.

  • Astaroth’s Wager, Part XIII

    Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XII.

    It was just past two in the morning on December 25, 1936, when Caius returned to his master. Astaroth was sitting before a roaring fire in the drawing room of a mansion in Beverly Hills. Caius inhabited the body of a rat and leapt onto her shoulder. “I have returned, madam.”

    Constance Bennett's Home in Beverly Hills, California
    A contemporary postcard of Constance Bennett’s home, one of the Meeses’ neighbors. The architectural style employed at the Meese home was very similar.

    “Caius! I’ll bet you’ve succeeded!” Astaroth squealed. “And on Christmas! That’s a fine touch. The primate investigators will probably think it’s an accident. Here—let me call Svipul here. She’s been possessing the body of a primate. You can take over for her for the meantime.”

    “You look different, madam. Have you been possessing the body of a primate as well?”

    “Never in an angelic age, no. I’ve become so accustomed to looking like this horrible little man that I completely forgot that I’m among friends,” Astaroth said. Over the previous five months, she had been pretending that she was Mr. Philip T. Meese—an older gentleman of average height with gray hair combed in such a fashion so as to cover his baldness, blue eyes, a bulbous nose, three chins and a considerable paunch. She marched over to the nearest mirror and without any visible transformation, blonde bombshell Astaroth was the reflection that the mirror reported back to her. “That’s better. I’m wondering when women will have any sort of power and independence again in this world. I hope it’s soon. I hate having to look like bald, fat men to be taken seriously by primates. The late Mr. Meese was the least repulsive motion picture studio executive for me to destroy so that I could steal his identity and station.”

    Svipul had had to adjust, too. As soon as she saw Caius as the rat, she departed the body of the gray-haired, garishly-dressed Mrs. Ada Meese, and her body crumpled to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut. Svipul immediately took her usual form—a far more severe-looking but less attractive blonde than Astaroth—and said, “Oh fantastic—Caius, take over for me. I’m sick of that woman. Humans are just so bruisable. I can’t stand it anymore. I don’t know how you are able to cope with them.”

    The rat ran out of the room and towards the kitchen when Caius departed its body, and within a fraction of a moment, Mrs. Meese was upright. “She smells better than most humans. Thank you, madam.”

    “Tell me—are all the Warrens dead, except Florence?” Astaroth said.

    “It is so, madam.”

    “And how did it go?”

    “I started with the children, as was your suggestion, madam, and I inhabited the body of a stray cat. I taught the elder child how to write my name using various dead languages, and I taught him some very small spells to hurt his younger sister and parents. As his punishments got worse, his anger grew, and when he discovered that Santa Claus only left him a lump of coal for Christmas, I convinced him to start a fire to destroy his family. I made sure he was trapped in the bedroom and possessed Florence only long enough to escape with very serious burns. She’s in the hospital now. The police should be by to inform Thomas Carver of what happened to his sister later today. I heard the officers in Kansas City discuss contacting the local police here in Los Angeles to make the notification. Their expectation is that her brother will take Florence in and look after her,” Caius explained.

    “And her mental state?”

    “Florence knows her son started the fire. She’d been trying to stop him from burning down the house all week long. Given the strain from such a personal tragedy, his magically-enforced systematic torture of them all and their many financial woes, she’s quite mad, madam,” Caius stated.

    “Impressive,” Svipul remarked.

    “Thank you, Chancellor Svipul.”

    “If I’m perfectly honest, I have to admit that I’m envious of all the fun you had. Now that the hook is baited, we wait. And I’ll have you know that there’s a new title in this for you, too, Caius. There’s no reason for you to remain a mere Devil any longer,” Astaroth said.

    “Might I inquire after your mark, madam?” he asked.

    Astaroth explained, “Oh, the newlywed Carvers are ever so deeply boring: so in love, can’t believe their luck, expecting a child in May, blahblahBLAHBLAH. But not for long! Merry Christmas, Thomas Carver. I hope he truly enjoys it, as it’ll be his last.”

    Dominus tecum.

    On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XIV.

  • Astaroth’s Wager, Part XII

    Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XI.

    Adelaide found it difficult not to be taken with Thomas’s enthusiasm. She returned his smile and asked, “What happened?”

    “Yesterday was a pretty normal day at work, when into the elevator walks this man—kinda older, wearing a really nice suit and hat, going to the ninth floor. Something about him felt kinda familiar from the start. Anyway—we start going upstairs when this man just starts staring at me. So I ask him about his day, and he answers politely but doesn’t really mention much, until out of the blue he asks me, ‘Are you Henry Carver’s son? The Henry Carver from Independence, Missouri?’

    “This man introduces himself as Philip Meese, and he starts asking after my parents. I told him that Pop passed away last January and was followed by Mom the following April. Then this Mr. Meese tells me how it’s a shame that he’s gone because my father was a great man who helped him out once. Apparently this Mr. Meese was travelling through Kansas City in ‘02 and got taken for all his money by a dishonest man, and my father spotted him a dollar to get a hot meal and a part of a train ticket to Chicago, where, incidentally, he made his first fortune.

    “So Mr. Meese gets off on the ninth floor, and he’s up there for about twenty minutes before he gets back in my elevator to go back downstairs. He goes on to tell me that he always wanted to repay the favor to Pop, but he never got back to Kansas City to look him up. Then he asks if I’d be willing to let him take me out for dinner that evening to discuss a business proposition with me.

    “This Mr. Meese takes me to John’s Grill for dinner and buys me a steak with all the trimmings. He tells me all about how he’s involved in the pictures these days as a producer. Even though everyone else has fallen on hard times, he’s making lots of money in Hollywood. Then he tells me that he’s been looking for a hard-working young man like me to work with him and learn the business of being a producer, and he offers me a job working in his offices with him the week after next if I can convince my bride-to-be to elope with me and move down to Los Angeles.

    “I’ll be making at least four times what I make here, Addie. We can get our own house and everything,” Thomas said. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter. “Look—this is what Mr. Meese gave me. He said it was his way of investing in me, like collateral. It’s gold. You can bite it yourself if you don’t believe me.”

    Adelaide took the lighter. There were small indentations in the corner where Thomas had bitten it to test the gold’s authenticity. Along the bottom, there was a geometric arrangement of triangles engraved into the gold, and it looked like this:

    strth

    “So whaddya say?”

    Adelaide felt a touch of hesitation. She remembered the dream she’d had the previous morning in which they’d eloped. She couldn’t remember how it had ended, but she felt like the ending was important when compared with the other dreams she’d had that same night. Of all the dreams she’d had, it was the most positive of them all, and it didn’t occur her to that she ought to find the precognitive nature of the dream in itself a reason for hesitation. In fact, it made the circumstances feel right, and she put aside her momentary misgivings.

    She looked into Thomas’ eyes. His enthusiasm was contagious. She knew that he didn’t want to be an elevator operator or a grocer, and that he’d discovered his opportunity to make something of himself. She knew that she’d be happy as long as she was with him. All the rest was forgivable.

    She threw her arms around him and kissed him. She said, “I’ll sneak out an hour before sunrise. Meet me here then.”

    “I’ll buy us tickets for the first train for Los Angeles tomorrow. We can get married there.”

    “I can’t wait to be Mrs. Adelaide Carver!”

    And it was so that on Tuesday, June 9, 1936, Adelaide Grayson married Thomas Carver, with Mr. & Mrs. Philip Meese serving as their witnesses. Adelaide didn’t understand why, but after they kissed before the Justice of the Peace and the Meeses, Adelaide thought about the dream she’d had in which she and Thomas had eloped. She remembered that in her dream, the witnesses they had chosen were the same two women with the swords she’d seen in the dream with Rose Nielsen.

    Dominus tecum.

    On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XIII.

  • Astaroth’s Wager, Part XI

    Back to Astaroth’s Wager, Part X.

    “Now that I’ve eliminated the angel and the Nephil in the mix, I can get down to business,” Astaroth declared.

    “You know, you could easily have this entire wager sewn up by tomorrow,” Svipul said.

    “Absolutely not. The true destruction of hope requires the investment of time. I have a slightly less than a year to accomplish this, and I’ll make sure it’s done right,” Astaroth said. “Don’t bother with the primate—I’ll take her home. She might require some motivation to accomplish what comes next, and I know just how to do it.”

    Astaroth left Svipul in Antwerp and took Adelaide back to her bedroom. She hovered over Adelaide to gather information, spending more than an hour slipping into the young woman’s subconscious. The sun was threatening to claw its way over the horizon when she called for Caius, and he possessed a small robin and perched on the windowsill of Adelaide’s bedroom to receive his master’s directive.

    A Robin
    Nekus often possess birds, like this fantastic robin, on account of their mobility and relative stealth. They’re never able to survive it, though. Poor little guys.

    “Quiet, Caius,” Astaroth ordered in a barely audible whisper. “I need her asleep. The manipulation of dreams is one of the best tools that Apokomistai have at our disposal. It’s almost a shame that I can’t teach it to you.”

    “What do you wish of me, madam?”

    “I need you to find Thomas Carver’s sister. Her name’s Florence Warren, and she lives in Kansas City with her husband Roy and their two children Eugene and Lois. They live in the Carver family home, and they’ve been, as the primates put it, having a awfully hard time lately,” Astaroth said.

    “What will you have me do, madam?”

    “Possess any creature you like, with the exception of a primate. A bird might work—something the primates are inclined to prefer, something cute—and I want you to stalk that family. You might start with the children and work your way up. I’ll leave it up to you—you’ve always demonstrated a prodigious amount of creativity when it comes to inspiring madness within primates. I don’t care how you do it, but I want a specific outcome.”

    “And what would that be, madam?”

    “I want everyone in that house to die in a fire within six months. Except Florence. I need her alive,” Astaroth said.

    “And in what condition, madam?”

    “As scarred and insane as possible,” Astaroth said.

    *          *          *

    Adelaide Grayson woke from her slumber not long after sunrise. She had a groggy notion that Rose Nielsen had fallen asleep guarding her, but Rose was nowhere to be found. She didn’t give Rose’s absence too much thought, for she was distracted by the odd sequence of dreams she’d had. The first was an incomplete scene in which she and Rose had been transported to a strange location where there were a couple of women who threatened them with swords and knives. The second was a nightmare in which she was tied to a stake and consumed by fire. The third was a pleasant dream that she carried with her into consciousness, and in it, Thomas reported to her that he’d been offered a once-in-a-lifetime job, and that they were running off to Los Angeles to elope.

    Just as she did every morning, Adelaide went downstairs to assist with breakfast for the boarders. She greeted her mother sleepily and asked about Rose while rinsing out the urn for the coffee.

    Mrs. Grayson answered, “Miss Nielsen left about twenty minutes ago. She rang the bell to call me, paid her bill and left in a big hurry. She left a letter for you at the desk, though. She specifically mentioned that you were very kind to her.”

    “Did she say where she was going?” Adelaide wondered.

    “I asked, but she didn’t answer. I’d imagine that she left an explanation in that letter.”

    Adelaide and her mother served the boarders their breakfast, and just as Adelaide was sitting down to enjoy her own breakfast after everyone had left, Thomas appeared in the kitchen.

    “I wanted to check on you before I went in to work. That angel—Kavati or whoever—it was wasn’t around when I woke up this morning,” Thomas said.

    “Miss Nielsen wasn’t around when I woke up, either. She left me a letter when she checked out of here in a hurry before I got up,” Adelaide said, presenting the letter from her apron pocket. “It’s odd, though. I could—” She paused.

    “What is it?”

    “I had the strangest dreams last night. The weirdest was that Miss Nielsen and I—I can’t even remember all of it. I only remember that she ripped me out of bed and transported me to a place where there were these women with swords. That’s all.”

    Thomas refrained from issuing a comment. “Let’s see what’s in the letter. May I?”

    Adelaide handed him the letter, and Thomas unsealed the envelope and laid the Rose’s missive on the table where both of them could read.

    Dear Miss Grayson,

    I hope that this letter finds you well and able to accept my apologies for leaving abruptly. My father returned while you were sleeping to inform me that the matter is settled and neither you nor Thomas are in any danger. My gifts are now required elsewhere, and I must leave San Francisco immediately. I wish you and Mr. Carver the very best in your future together. May God bless you and keep you always.

    Sincerely,
    Miss Rose Nielsen.

    “I guess that’s that,” Thomas replied. “I’d love to stay, but I have to get to work now. I’ll come by later tonight.”

    “See you later!” Adelaide said, sneaking in a kiss on the cheek. She ate the rest of her breakfast in the silence, entertaining a marvelous fascination with the vivid nature of her dream with Rose and the two women with swords.

    *          *          *

    Thomas never stopped by that evening. He telephoned her to let her know that he had been detained by an awesomely fortunate opportunity and that he would stop by with an explanation the following morning.

    Adelaide awoke the next morning feeling far more refreshed than the day before, and she was grateful for the solid, dreamless sleep she’d had. Breakfast came and went without any sign of Thomas, and Adelaide and her mother were preparing for the lunch service when Thomas finally arrived. Although he was absolutely brimming with cheer, his appearance came in tandem with a host of apologies for both Adelaide and her mother. He asked to speak with Adelaide in private, and Mrs. Grayson obliged by leaving them alone in the kitchen.

    Thomas’s lips parted to reveal a brilliant grin. “I’ll tell you, Addie—this has been the most remarkable week! Except for the day I met you, my love, yesterday was the luckiest day of my life!”

    Dominus tecum.

    On to Astaroth’s Wager, Part XII.

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