Angelology(97)

It was then that I heard a faint cry—the shepherd, crouching against the rocks, called my

name. Only after he had made numerous gestures for me to follow him did I understand that he

meant to help me up the ladder. Creeping as quickly as my deformed body would allow, I

abandoned myself to the shepherd, who, by the grace of God, was strong and able-bodied. He

lifted me onto his trembling back and carried me from the pit.18

I closed the pages of Clematis’s account of confusion. I could not fully assess my conflicting feelings

upon finishing Dr. Raphael’s translation of the Venerable Clematis’s account of the First

Angelological Expedition. My hands trembled with excitement, or fear, or anticipation—I could not

identify which emotion took control of me. And yet I knew one thing for certain: The Venerable

Clematis had overwhelmed me with the story of his journey. I was both reverent at the audacity of his

mission and terrified by the horror of his encounter with the Watchers. That a man had gazed upon

these heavenly creatures, that he had touched their luminous flesh and had heard their celestial music

was a truth I could not fathom.

Perhaps the oxygen in our school’s quarters below the earth was too thin, because soon after setting

the pamphlet aside I began to feel short of breath. The air in the chamber felt heavier, thicker, and

more oppressive than it had only minutes before. The small, airless rooms of brick and weeping

limestone turned, for a moment, into the depths of the angels’ subterranean prison. I half expected to

hear the crashing of the river or strains of the Watchers’ celestial music. Although I knew this to be a

morbid fantasy, I could not remain one minute longer belowground. Rather than leave Dr. Raphael’s

translation in its original place, I folded the pamphlet into the pocket of my skirt, carrying it with me

out of the subterranean storage chambers and into the delicious cool air of the school.

Although it was well after midnight and I knew the school to be deserted, I could not risk being

detected. Quickly, I unwedged the stone from its secure place in the archway over the door and,

standing on tiptoes, slid the key into the narrow recess. After I had fitted the stone in its place,

smoothing its edges to the flat of the wall, I stood back and assessed my work. The door looked like

any one of the hundreds of such doors throughout the school. No one would suspect what lay hidden

behind the stones.

I left the school and walked into a chill autumnal night, following my usual path from the school to

my apartment on the rue Gassendi, hoping to find Gabriella in her bedroom so that I might question

her. The apartment was utterly dark. After knocking at Gabriella’s bedroom door and getting no

response, I retreated to the privacy of my bedroom, where I might read through the pages of Dr.

Raphael’s translation a second time. The text pulled me into it, and before I knew it, I had read

Clematis’s account a third time and then a fourth. With each reading I found that the Venerable

Clematis caused me more and more confusion. My unease began as an inchoate feeling, a subtle but

persistent sense of discomfort that I could not identify, but as the night progressed, I was driven to a

state of terrible anxiety. There was something in the manuscript that did not fit with my

preconceptions of the First Angelological Expedition, an element to the tale that grated against the

lessons I had absorbed. Although weary from the extraordinary strain of the day, I did not sleep.

Instead I dissected each stage of the journey, looking for the precise reason for my anxiety. At last,

after reliving Clematis’s ordeal many times over, I understood the thorn of my distress: In all my

hours of study, in all the lectures I had attended, in my months of work in the Athenaeum, the Valkos

had not once mentioned the role of the musical instrument Clematis had discovered in the cavern. It

was the object of our expedition, a source of fear in the face of Nazi advancement, and yet Dr.

Seraphina had refused to explain the precise nature of its significance.

Yet as Clematis’s account made clear, the lyre had been at the very heart of the first expedition. I

recalled the tale of the Archangel Gabriel’s gift of the lyre to the Watchers, mentioned in one of the

Valkos’ lectures, but even in that cursory account they had avoided mentioning the significance of the

instrument. How they could keep such an important detail a secret filled me with wonder. My

frustration only grew when I realized that Gabriella must have read Clematis’s account long before

and therefore had been aware of the lyre’s importance. Yet she, like the Valkos, had remained silent

on the subject. Why had I been excluded from their confidence? I began to review my time in