The Multitude, стр. 84
This time, so many years later, Asura proved to be no mirage. She remained standing, but with arms folded and an unhappy frown on her face.
Or pity? Gabriella’s stomach lurched at the thought anyone might feel sorry for her.
“Suppose you aren’t a proper angel?” Asura said.
She flinched. Why so harsh a verdict for a single transgression? Okay, perhaps she’d committed more than one, but not many. When measured against the decades gone by, the count had been relatively small.
Gabriella stammered an unintelligible response even she couldn’t understand. She lowered her gaze, traced some dirt with the toe of her shoe, and dared to look up again, only to find the same expression. But she’d misinterpreted it. Asura’s hint of a frown didn’t suggest sadness or pity.
Far worse.
Disappointment. She gulped. “I can work at becoming better. I’ll be magnificent! Henry Stoddard thinks I might be young for an angel. There’s still hope for me.”
“Suppose you aren’t an angel at all?” This question came sharper, carrying the sting of a slap.
Gabriella gasped. Did Asura plan to strip her of her wings? She should never have spoken to Herod. Why had she interfered with Carla’s fate? Or Brewster’s. Or…or…
The list went on and on, widening the gap from a minor lack of propriety to some serious mischief indeed. But Asura had her all wrong. Didn’t she? She stomped her foot. “I am not a demon.”
“Nor were you ever an angel.” Asura settled a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Gabriella shrugged her off. “What would you have me be then, some immortal freak?”
Asura reshaped her frown to an almost smile. More pity? Sympathy perhaps? “I’ll have you be what you are, Gabriella, the multitude. You are the echo of every man, woman, and child who ever walked the earth. This is the reason you can pass so easily from mind to mind and memory to memory. They are all you, in a sense. You are the sum of everything good and bad in this world.”
The multitude.
Not an angel. Not a demon.
Gabriella’s eyes moistened. Surely not from tears. The strong never cried. No. Asura’s disturbing term had been so ridiculous as to bring on an allergy. “You’re saying I’m nothing. Just a shadow.”
Asura flashed the kindest smile. “I’m saying you’re unique. Come walk with me.”
Gabriella had enough of the reunion. She tried to stalk away…but smoke stopped her at every turn.
The portal between realities, while always an annoyance, had at least been consistent in its behavior, shadowing her, serving as a singular gateway. Not anymore. It duplicated itself again and again like an amoeba gone wild. She swung away from one iteration only to have another shift in front of her. A third positioned itself to her right. A fourth materialized on her left.
She threw up her hands. “Enough!” She could only flee Asura’s awful revelation by passing out of the Christian world into what…yet another broken civilization begging for a messiah?
Asura gripped her shoulder from behind. “Mankind needed a fresh gospel, Gabriella. Heaven knows the old ones have been ignored lately.”
“So this was all about rebooting religion? You played me like a pawn from the beginning.”
“No. I don’t micromanage any more than God does. You made your own choices.” Asura sighed. “I suppose if He did micromanage, we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves into such a fix to begin with.”
“You mean He would have stopped you?” Gabriella turned to face the beautiful porcelain doll she’d once hoped to protect. “If I am the multitude, what are you, Asura? Tell me that much.”
Asura looked down. “A messenger? I suppose we all should speak less and listen more.” The portals disappeared, and she walked away.
Gabriella hurried after her. “Where are you going?”
“My home.”
They walked in silence, leaving the garden and passing the various landmarks of Hiroshima Memorial Park—the cenotaph, the fountain, the skeletal ruins of the Industrial Promotion Hall, and, impossibly, a low garden wall with a unique, circular stone entranceway. Marble benches waited across a flagstone path from each other. Gabriella’s knees wobbled.
She and Asura sat across from each other, positioning themselves as they had so many years earlier.
Asura’s smile spread to her eyes, bringing a deeper blue to the sky.
Gabriella struggled not to cry.
“You’ve walked the earth in confusion throughout your long life. Perhaps you’d have made better choices if you hadn’t been alone.” Asura motioned toward the gateway, and a girl stepped through.
Gabriella gaped at her own profile. In reflection? As a mirage?
“She’s real,” Asura said. “Meet your twin.”
Sorrow fluttered away on the wings of a thousand butterflies. A blonde-haired, ponytailed girl now stood among them.
“Your act duplicated every man, woman, and child on earth at the time of Herod,” Asura said. “And what is the multitude if not all of them? Meet your clone.”
Gabriella rushed up and wrapped her arms around her double. “Where have you been all this time?”
Her double grimaced. “Gaul.”
“Gaul?”
“It’s a hopeless place, and I’m powerless there. I only have a cabin. This invisible wall keeps me from—”
With heart in throat, Gabriella could barely find the voice to respond. “I know the feeling.”
“I’ve been searching for a messiah among the rabble,” her sister said.
“No need,” Gabriella said. “I’ve got that covered.”
Asura brushed past them into the gateway. “I have a ball in the garden. Shall we chalk the path for another game? Maybe we’ll get it right this time.”
TERMINUS
DID YOU ENJOY THE MULTITUDE?
Please do this writer a solid, by hopping onto Amazon and leaving a reader review. The process is simple:
(1) Type The Multitude in the search box.
(2) Click the cover picture.
(3) Scroll to the bottom and click Write a Review.
(4) Write a bit about your travels through time in space with Gabriella, Carla, Maynya, Brewster, and Quintus. You don’t need to write much. Some reviews are only a few words in length. Others are longer. Just do what