TC83

“Skin to skin, that’s the secret,” Dory told hym.

Gabriel didn’t need much convincing of that. Hy said, “Just a foot of steel between them and sixty miles an hour of November wind, at two AM, in Wyoming! Poor Ariel. Poor Jael!”

Jael stirred awake under Dory’s ministrations. Perhaps hy just didn’t want to miss anything. Sha told hym, “You’re free, baby!” Dory plied Jael with kisses even as sha broke into an eruption of happy tears that was the release of stress more than anything else.

Dory’s father Jashen was a member of the clergy, of course. The wartime X ration sticker on his windshield allowed him to buy unlimited quantities of gasoline just like any cop or fireman or politician in Washington DC. Without it the rescue of the Zinter twins would have been impossible.

The way home doubled back to the southwest, parallel to the tracks. When Jashen drove past the Heart Mountain internment camp once more Ariel stirred to life, as though sha were sensitive to the mere proximity of her former prison. Then sha luxuriated in the loving attention Gabriel lavished on har and said, “I like this afterlife.”

Hell’s Half Acre is a patch of badlands in the center of Wyoming. It is bigger than the name suggests, more like Hell’s Half Square Mile, a large enough location to film a science fiction film. The nearest sandstone and shale landscape that looked anything like it was in South Dakota. A twelve year old girl emerged from a cave in the wall wearing a white crop top and white shorts that looked like a skirt. On her feet were short brown riding boots and around her neck she wore a silver leaf pendant. It was one hundred fifty feet from the floor of the ravine to the gravel parking lot above and the girl ascended with no sign of exertion. She was quite used to trodding the Undercliff scarp every morning when going from her father’s lighthouse on the English Channel to school in the village of Niton.

The girl noted the presence of a maroon 1941 Chrysler Town & Country woodie parked at the restaurant overlooking the geological oddity and knew she would find Ariel, Jael and their kin eating lunch inside. They were already standing at their table when she walked indoors, which the other guests might have thought was odd. None of them had ever actually seen Sophia before but as B’nei Elohim they knew a seraph by instinct and dropped everything, ready to serve. And Jashen, who was not of the B’nei Elohim, was quick to take the cue he was in the presence of the living avatar of Binah.

“You must be having me on,” she said with an accent that would place her in the south of England. “We’re all family here. Please be seated!”

As they obeyed, Sophia borrowed a chair from another table. She said, “I’ll have what you’re having, Jashen.”

The Seer raised a hand to flag down a waitress but Sophia said, “No, Jashen, that was not me speaking in a parable, that was not allegory or poetic language. I’ll literally have what you’re having.” Sophia took up a knife, cut Jashen’s cheeseburger in two, and helped herself to half.

Jashen said, “I’m pretty sure that burger is not kosher, Sophia.”

“El made a rule against eating swine because people didn’t cook it good enough back then. Indra threw in the rule against eating shellfish for the same reason. Shemhazai proscribed blood, which ended up becoming the basis for the whole sacrificial system. But mixing meat and dairy never made the Big Ten. Well, granted, there’s Exodus 34, but I’m talking about the real Big Ten.” She made the Sign of the Cross and took a big bite of Jashen’s cheeseburger. After she swallowed she said, “Anyway, as Jashen has already intimated, my name is Sophia. Surname of Margolies, lately.”