The Habitation of the Blessed - Catherynne M. Valente [63]
A tree stood stately and tall before us. It possessed a thick black trunk, twisted and looped, and many fringed, furry leaves of some indeterminate color—starlight turns all things silver. Among the leaves, dozens upon dozens of golden eyes opened and blinked like fireflies, some small, some large and clear.
“This is my wife,” said Fortunatus thickly. He nuzzled the tree with his feathery forehead. The eyes closed in warm recognition. “I hoped for a face, a mouth to speak to me and give me comfort. But sometimes the world treats us without grace. Certainly death may occur, if one is uncareful, or fate unkind. But it is easily gotten over, and so long as I am lucky enough not to crack my skull, I will live forever. So can you, if you stay here, without any recourse to your Christ. I think that more or less spoils your whole story, and in truth I am not sorry, for it had rough and ungenerous aspects.” He stretched his paws and regarded them with interest, avoiding my shocked gaze. His voice grew infinitely gentle. “John, you must see that there is no place for me in your story. At best, I would be a beast of the field, would I not? And never given a choice to obey or defy? Never presented with temptation, only part of a dominion. And so I know you think you speak the truth, but it cannot be so. I refute it with my very being. I breathe, I speak, I think, I dream. I grieve, and love. And I live forever. My mate, who was my body and self, died in a storm that ripped whole forests into dust, and I will never cease mourning her until the end of everything that is me, nor for our cub who died with her. Am I less than you, who you say stand master over me?”
My mind raced itself and got nowhere. I could not stop looking at the tree of eyes, the evidence of a life far beyond my comprehension. Now, I can admit it: I was looking for the trick, the mechanism by which the beast had fooled me. I could believe in a gryphon, but not in this tree, not in life everlasting on earth, without God.
“I… I cannot say. I did not know such things as you lived, before now. Am truly I to believe there is no death here, or simply that demons will lie, after their nature?”
“I am not a demon. We love our religions, John, just as you do, and it is such a pleasure to convert a friend to one’s own faith, isn’t it? But I think you will find few buyers here, when your story needs such work, being ignorant of more or less everything important in the history of the world.”
It came clear to me in that moment, like a seed of light sending out leaves within me. I was not lost. God had sent me here, to complete the work of his saints, and show these marvelous creatures the glory of God, to lead them to salvation and joy. I nearly gasped with the strength of my revelation. The beer came up in my throat, in such turmoil dwelt my flesh. I would simply have to rise up, become the missionary I had never been, find somewhere in this kingdom so full of miracles the golden tongue I never possessed. I would learn their ways and fit them into Scripture. Like Paul, I would interpret the Word for them, so that they could come to God.
You may smile at me now, you who read this, who know how it all came out. Who know what a fool I was.
I began, as my Greek teachers would have, questioning and learning, learning so as to teach: “You tell me, then, how was the world made?”
Fortunatus rolled his tongue in his beak and clacked it twice.
“A gryphon’s heart beats at the center of the world…”
THE CONFESSIONS OF HIOB VON LUZERN, 1699
I cried out in protest, in agony; the sound ripped from me. No, no, no!
The page below the gryphon’s last words had gone brown and soggy, all its text rotted away. My fingers came away stained with the mush of the book, rich-smelling and soft. Lord, why would you punish me so? Why did you give me these riches and snatch them away so cruelly? What