The Angel of Losses by Stephanie Feldman

Author:Stephanie Feldman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-07-29T04:00:00+00:00

DOWNSTAIRS, I FOUND SIMON AND NATHAN AT THE DINING room table, staring intently at a laptop and speaking easily, as if in the middle of a long-standing conversation. And I couldn’t even talk to my own sister. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“Come look,” Simon said. “We’re trying something new.”

“Tudela said it’s eighteen miles north of Chaibar,” Nathan said, his gaze still fixed on the screen.

“Who’s Tudela?” I asked. “What’s eighteen miles north of wherever?”

“Twelfth-century traveler,” Simon said. “The home of the Lost Tribes.” He hit a key triumphantly and sat back from the computer. “There.”

A single blue flag appeared in the middle of the map.

“Good,” Nathan said. “The more stories, the closer we’ll get to the answer.”

“Like an average?” Simon asked.

“No, of course not,” he answered, irritated. “It’s more like triangulation. Add the next flag.”

“I don’t understand yet,” Simon said. “But let’s keep going.” Nathan’s rudeness rolled right off him. “We’re adding Joseph Della Reina,” Simon explained to me. “He’s in An Account of Juan Espera en Dios in the Americas. He traveled to the edge of the world to try to bring the apocalypse.” He loved these stories. They were entertainment.

“I know who he is,” I said. The man in the celestial academy, looking down as the Berukhim Rebbe fooled the Angel of Death.

“Not the apocalypse,” Nathan said. “The Messiah.” He exhaled noisily, impatient. “Well, yes, the end of the world, but the Messiah will bring paradise. Now, how do you enter different endings?”

“What do you mean?” Simon asked.

“Different versions,” Nathan said. “In one, Della Reina’s condemned to be born again for a thousand lifetimes. In another, he wanders in madness. Once he’s turned into a black dog, and then goes mad when he realizes what’s happened to him.” My spine chilled, like the first touch of fever. The White Rebbe and Berukhim Rebbe had black dogs too.

“His punishment is immortality,” I said.

“No.” Nathan gave one sharp shake of his head. “Della Reina’s never immortal.” He paused. “No one is immortal.”

Simon sat back from the computer. “Each version has to be a new entry.”

“But that’s not right,” Nathan said. He was growing increasingly animated—angry, almost. Holly had insisted many times that Nathan just liked to argue. He wasn’t mad. It wasn’t personal.

I stood up. If I didn’t stop them, they would play with the map forever. “We should go. In case there’s traffic.”

Nathan shrugged but then followed us out the door and to the car. “They’re not different legends—they’re the same legend. One man, different faces. They only make sense if you look at them together.”

“I’d have to think about the programming,” Simon offered peaceably.

“Yes, you have to think about it,” Nathan continued, as I climbed into the car and shut the door. “Especially for the Sabbath River.” I reached across the gearshift and popped Simon’s door; he swung it out but hesitated politely while Nathan went on. “The legends all changed over time, but if you put them together, you can guess the original story behind them.”

Finally they

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.