Heilengeist

Hezzik, who was sometimes called Haddy, had two left hands. So, when they found a pair of gloves still stapled together by a plastic tag, thumbs unmatched and stacked like perfect spoons resting back to front, fitting together like all the missing jigsaw pieces that Hezzik had ever returned to their boxes, Hezzik knew those gloves were meant for them. Hezzik knew, deep down, that they were meant to keep warm.

Those gloves were the only thing that Hezzik had ever found and kept for themselves, except when they’d discovered the existence of those little pocket-sized hand warmers. The sachets had fit so nicely between their palms and the gloves that they’d kept those too. Besides, their hands were always cold. 

But that was it! If Hezzik found something, then Hezzik put it back where it belonged.

Hezzik believed that God was made of glass. When their mother was still alive, she took Hezzik to a cathedral. She pointed to the window that the sun was shining through and she said, “There, Haddy. That’s God.”

Hezzik saw. Hezzik believed. 

Hezzik never had another chance to see God and realize that the window was an artifact, that their God had been crafted of stained glass. The world’s breaking made sure every piece of everything was scattered: glass, mother, and God.

Hezzik, who was sometimes called Haddy before the world’s breaking, didn’t remember being awake after that. They knew, when they dared to look behind themselves, back toward the breaking, that they must’ve been awake. They remembered looking through a pile of bolts to find one to fit a nut they were holding in their left-left hand. Then they remembered being cold and crying because they realized that they would need to find all the matching nuts for the bolts that didn’t fit. Then they remembered finding a strange sense of purpose, a calling: find all the things that fit and put them back together. That was how they would undo the world’s breaking.

And that’s what Hezzik had been doing. They slept in crevices and under overpasses. They ate the mice that lived in the meridians of highways — at night, so no one saw. They found things and put them back where they belonged, just like they’d found the gloves that belonged on their hands and their hands alone, and the little pocket-sized hand warmers that slipped inside so nicely. Hezzik didn’t know how long they’d been finding broken things and putting them back, but their mission led them, eventually, to that most-broken cathedral where their mother had taken them when they were little, when their mother was still alive.

They would’ve been forgiven for not recognizing the place; it was a desecrated ruin. Ugly swathes of moss and stone-mold grew and ate the building’s mortar. Worms, slugs, snails, and spiders (a source of food for an un-squeamish Haddy) burrowed and spun and lay tracks of slime in what were once sublime, flowered planters. The roof had slumped in, giving the tiled shingles all the structural integrity of a bog or slough. The windows had been splintered, then boarded up.

It looked like a project to Hezzik, who knew where each thing belonged. Moss and stone-mold belonged in forests and on cliffs from which water birds dove. Worms and slugs and other crawlies belonged in bigger beings’ bellies. The tiles on the roof looked fine, just the beams were rotted, and fresh wood could be found. The boards nailed to the windows might contribute to stability. Ah, yes, the windows. What belonged in them but God? But Hezzik didn’t know how to make glass. Hezzik frowned. A problem for later.

The immediate problems were the two somebodies sleeping underneath the door’s arch. The first was broad-faced with a knit beanie and missing tooth that Haddy wanted to return. This one was a husky snorer. A mole above his eyebrow told Hezzik he saw more than most. The second was a woman whose eyes looked tired even while asleep. Wrapped around her lips was a grey scarf that matched her hair, a nest. She breathed like a bird song.

Hezzik watched the sleepers. The presence of others made them feel anxious in the gut, as though some of the moths they’d swallowed hadn’t died and now tried to follow the light that came down to Haddy’s stomach through their esophagus. When the fluttering stopped, Hezzik realized that they didn’t feel that the sleepers were out of place. Hezzik’s right-left hand shivered. That was all.

They left the sleepers lying where they knew the somebodies were meant to be. 

To take their mind off their proximity to other bodies, Hezzik began to dig through the junk accumulated in the cathedral. They tried their hands at joinery, rebuilt the pews and places where prayers would set their knees to pray. They tried to tackle the podium, below which sat a dusty tabernacle, but were distracted when they found a key that they understood must fit the padlock woven in the chains around the front door. It fit, as they knew it would, with a click. They cast an eye at the sleepers, still sleeping, and turned back into the cathedral to find the holes in which some nails might go.

They probably would’ve found the holes, but in their searching found something more impressive. Underneath a window they found a piece of God — His right hand, still warm as if the sun shone through it. Beside it, lying in gentle stillness as though in a cradle and not near a dead rat’s skeleton, was a necklace with a crucifix like the one Hezzik’s mother wore before the breaking of the world.

“There, Haddy,” the necklace echoed, “that’s God.” It gestured to the glass hand and Hezzik saw and believed and picked up both mementos. Then it was like their feet no longer gripped the chapel’s floor. They stopped being now. Oh no, Hezzik thought as they realized that they were looking back.

Hezzik’s mother wore the necklace now. She wore her Sunday best and Haddy was paraded, similarly dressed, in clothes much smaller and necklace-less. Mother reached out her hand, touched the warm and blessed glass, and the Hezzik who was future, who knew what happened next, shouted. In that far-off, before moment, Mother couldn’t react. The world’s breaking played out the way it always had. Hezzik hid, as they always did.

“What was that?”

It was a man’s voice that brought Hezzik back, coming through a crack in the doors, now unchained.

“It sounded like a scream,” another voice joined.

“You alright, Marie?” the man asked.

The woman said, “It wasn’t me.”

Hezzik had no time to think. They left the necklace and the hand of God sitting where they’d found them, though it was not where they belonged. The sleepers, now awake, were shuffling.

“The chain came off,” the man said.

“Weren’t off when I drifted to sleep. I tried it after you were out ‘cause it was cold and I wanted at least a little shelter …” Marie’s voice faded as the doors swung open. Hezzik hid as they always did.

“That means someone was over us,” the man said. Hezzik curled their hands into unmatched fists in their gloves and cursed when the fabric popped.

“Aaron,” the woman said, three steps behind the man if Hezzik marked their footfalls right, “I don’t like this. We should just go.”

The sleepers stopped, staring off into the gloom of the ruin. Aaron, the man who perceived more than most, hesitated. “You’re sure the chains were locked last night?’

The woman waited. “I thought …” she started, then changed her tone. “I didn’t try the doors very hard. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Oh.” The man relaxed and nearly laughed. “Maybe we’ve been worked up for nothing. I see no soul and am not such a light sleeper that one could walk over me. I don’t think there’s another way in neither. Used to come here when I was younger. Sunday school down that hall bathroom’s opposite.”

Aaron’s demonstration eased Marie. She sighed, “I got us up for nothing.”

“Still, the scream,” Aaron corrected.

“I’d wager birds,” Marie said. “Just birds.”

***

Hezzik didn’t dare move from their hiding place until the singsong breathing and husky snoring of the sleepers came again, and then they only moved a little — back to the necklace and hand of God. They were careful not to look at the necklace as they donned it. It could take them back again, get them close to caught again, but the glass hand beckoned. 

They brushed back dust and found more shards under owl pellets, behind mouse traps, stuck in pillows, moldy from the damp. As quietly as they could, Hezzik collected every scrap of God that had, since breaking, resided near the boarded windows. When they had all the pieces, Haddy set to reconfiguring what they remembered. The sleepers slept nearby on newly mended pews.

No matter how they tried, Hezzik couldn’t get God right. The sixth sense they normally possessed when it came to righting things failed. Frustrated, Hezzik hardly noticed the sun starting to rise.

The man, Aaron, grumbled through his stupor and started trying to sit up. Hezzik panicked and set their feet to finding a quiet place to wait for night. In the rafters there were owls and bats hanging from the beams. Hezzik joined these like-minded, nocturnal species.

“Marie!” The man shook the woman’s shoulder. She woke up with a wheeze. She sneezed, dust in the air.

“I was dreaming of before.” Her voice was groggy. “I hate waking up violently.”

Aaron wasn’t listening. “Look,” he said, and pointed to the space below the dais where the stacks of stained glass lay, warm and unorganized.

Marie saw and, like Hezzik, she believed. She put a hand to her mouth then she rubbed her tired eyes and almost choked. “It wasn’t like that when we came in, was it?”

Aaron stroked his eyebrow to the side like it was messy or he wished to clear his head. “Could be this place is haunted,” he said.

“What?”

“By ghosts, I mean, Marie.”

She laughed and yawned because she was confused. “I don’t understand.”

Both the sleepers kept on staring and Hezzik bit their lip. They wondered if the others would look up and see them there among the owls.

“Ghosts don’t put things back together,” Marie said.

“How do you know what ghosts don’t do?” the man laughed, throwing back his head. Thankfully, his eyes were closed.

“I’m older than you. I know a lot more than you.”

Aaron was diplomatic. “Won’t argue. Just seems to me there could be more than one type of ghost.”

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, how many have you seen?”

She scoffed. “Not a lot. Don’t believe in that voodoo, me.”

“Belief and truth,” Aaron rebuked, “are hardly ever the same.”

Marie shook her head. “And you?”

“And me?”

“What paranormalism you seen?”

He paused to think about the question. In the rafters, Hezzik came in closer. They were hanging like a bat, to hear the sleepers’ conversation.

“At least three,” Aaron said, something hesitating in his stating. “But each was different, so it’s difficult to say.

“The first was of my mother, when I was very young. She’d died when I was born, in a bloody, violent way. My father took down all her pictures, so I’d never seen her. One day, I come into the kitchen. There she is. Some ghosts take on the forms of loved ones, even if you wouldn’t know them by their faces.

“The next … I don’t know who they’d been when living. I was with a girl and we were hopping trains down Louisiana ways. One night, our boxcar passes this bog and I see an orb of light — a will-o-wisp they’re called.

“The last one that I know for certain looked like a whirlpool in the air. Like a dust devil, but not made of dust and windless. Made instead, of light, I’d guess, but cold as darkness or ice.

“I’ve heard of other ghosts though. I know there are those that break, poltergeists and the like. Wouldn’t be a far assumption that there are those who fix or make.”

Marie shook her head. “This one, if a ghost is what this is, don’t seem too great at making. All this glass is out of place. It looks monstrous.”

“Be kind now,” Aaron said and pointed up, “they might be listening.”

Marie rolled her eyes. She looked at the mess before her. “What’s it supposed to be, anyway?”

“There used to be a window,” Aaron said and turned his head and pointed, “there, above the reliquary. It was stained glass, red and purple, with a golden God all robed and holy.”

“Ain’t they all?” she asked. “Well, I used to do puzzles before … you know, before this life became mine. I could put it back together.”

“Don’t,” he interjected. “Not our business, is it? Here is just a place to sleep tonight.”

  “But I want to see what it once was, all unbroken. Call me one of your ghosts or call me nostalgic. Don’t care. I want to see that picture.”

Aaron laughed, relieved, and let a hand fall gently on her shoulder. “They used to sell stickers of it in the gift shop — ”

“Gift shop?”

“Hush.This was once a famous cathedral, people wanted to remember being here. It was off through there. I reckon we can find something with the window’s image on it. Maybe hawk it once you’ve had your fill of staring and get enough change for breakfast.”

Marie smiled. Then the two left. Hezzik watched and, when the sleepers were gone, let out a shaky breath. They wouldn’t dare descend while the sun was out and eyes were looking, but, unless they snuck down now, Hezzik understood, the sleepers might return or even stay for good!

A spider crawled across their cold, left-left knuckles. Without a thought, Haddy lifted it to their mouth and swallowed. They looked around at webs and eight-legged beings that didn’t belong and thought perhaps they would just clean the attic and not go down until the sleepers slept.

***

When they returned, the sleepers were laughing and trading swigs from a brown bottle in a paper bag. “What a haul,” Aaron was sighing. He even started singing but Marie made him stop. He fell asleep soon after. She stroked his hair and smiled. Hezzik watched awhile, wondering why they still felt both the sleepers belonged.

When the man started snoring, Marie hugged herself and shivered. She got down on her knees, faced the glass splinters, and put her hands together. She closed her eyes and whispered. Hezzik couldn’t hear her, though they tried. Then, to conclude her prayers, Marie audibly said, “Thank you, God.”

Then, wrapped in her scarf, she lay on the bench. When the world was quiet, Marie slept.

Hezzik crept down from the rafters. They thought of all the sleepers had said: ghosts and puzzles, hauls and God, but mostly their thoughts lingered on the gift shop that was beyond the door the sleepers passed through that morning.

They were as quiet as the mouse they ate for lunch as they entered the dark room. They looked around, but all the shelves were empty. Another door led back to the sanctuary where Hezzik heard the sleepers’ sounds of sleeping still and, though they felt uneasy, they walked around to where they’d left the glass.

The crucifix was warm between their frozen fingers as they wondered at the pile. Look, Haddy, that’s God. 

Hezzik sighed. As nervous as the sleepers made them, things here still needed ordering. They nodded and began to clean.

First, as soundlessly as they could manage, Hezzik stacked each glass shard until they had an armful. Then, tiptoeing, they went to find a reference. Perhaps, they thought, a sticker, like Aaron had mentioned, had made its way to some place it’d stayed since the world’s breaking.

The gift shop was a bust. Outside the woven chain there was only rain and defused moonlight. They checked the tabernacle where they’d found the key, but all things therein belonged. The room where Sunday School had been taught also contained naught.

There was only one door they hadn’t tried: the door through which Aaron had said a bathroom lied. Hezzik tipped this open, balancing the glass so carefully their tongue escaped their mouth for focusing. 

They stopped. They nearly dropped God in surprise. The door closed too loudly behind them. They winced and listened for the sleepers. There was silence.

They set their glass down gently and approached, on hands and knees, a sticker of their window-God stuck to the rust of an automatic hand dryer, corners curling, but whole and unbleached for the sun couldn’t reach it in this windowless room.

They put their hands together like they’d seen prayers do, except their thumbs did not meet, only wrapped around. They raised their hands to the image, to pray and to whisper whispers ending with “Thank you, God.” A roar came from the machine, and warmth poured from it onto their cold hands. They gasped, then doffed their matching gloves to receive it.

Their voice crept out as they returned to praying.Was it a cry or a laugh? It was squeaky with disuse. It escaped their lips like it belonged to that room and their eyes pooled like steamy puddles. The stuck image of God kept roaring, kept pouring warmth into Hezzik through their hands until it melted them. And even then, it spoke.

Before morning, Aaron and Marie, whom he’d woken, burst into the still-roaring bathroom to find it full of hot air. On the tiled floor were two left-handed gloves and, just as it had looked before the breaking of the world: a complete and seamless stained-glass God.