The Sin Eaters Read online

  People filled the doublewide doorway from the kitchen to the living room. More people perched on the staircase above the living room, peering through and leaning over the railing. Yet more people camped near that room’s blazing fireplace. They filled the couches, the chairs, the free space on the wall, and worst of all, Eliza’s scattershot attention.

  She tried to take them in. Several looked like identical siblings or maybe even twins. It was so hard to tell when they were older. Twins had a habit of either mirroring each other for life or diverging as soon as they were able. These all obviously chose the former.

  A pair built more like Egyptian cat gods carved from black basalt than actual people lingered near the door. One of them turned to her as she stared. The woman was gorgeously inhuman, no, superhuman in her symmetric physique. Loose robes of woven gold and purple as rich as the galactic sky draped her carved form. Her shaved head looked as smooth as marble. Eliza looked again and saw the woman was actually bald. She looked away.

  A trio of pygmies perched on the staircase let their legs dangle as they stared at the fire. They did not notice her. The tiny humans showed none of the telltale signs of being either dwarf or midget. All looked older than she was. Two were dressed in jeans and loose t-shirts while the third only wore what looked like leather shorts. All were such a deep tan that she realized it must be genetic. Their eyes never left the fire.

  A mammoth stood in the door to a long hallway. He, though Eliza was not certain the figure was male or that it even mattered, filled the entire frame. She wondered why he chose to stand in the confined space until she realized he had braced himself against the frame as a support. It was his own way of resting. She felt a twinge of sympathy for the loaded leather couches and then for the gargantuan man. He was the largest person she had ever seen, in real life or in media, larger even than the Icelandic powerlifters with names like Thorsson and Eriksson and Bjornsson she glimpsed while skimming channels in her insomniac pre-dawn hours. He smiled when they made eye contact. She managed a weak smile in reply.

  “Welcome one and all to our home.” Behema’s voice broke her inspection.

  There were so many more unique people in the room. She tried to note them all for later questions. How had he found this many outliers of the human race?

  “My home.”

  His otherwise steady voice faltered again as it had outside. Eliza noticed he was playing with his wedding band again. How long ago had his wife died? She had not bothered to research her new employer before accepting. There had been nowhere else to go.

  “For many of you, it is a long and I suspect uncomfortable journey. For all of you, it is a gift of your time, to me, for tonight. So I say thank you and welcome. All are welcome for as long as you like. The farmhouse offers more comforts than you may initially suspect. I hope to repay your gift.”

  No one moved as he spoke. Eliza had expected a cheer, or a round of applause, or whatever thing normal people did in situations like these. She didn’t know. In looking at the room again, she guessed they might not know either. Her eyes skipped back to Behema. His voice was more hypnotic than the luminous oak outside. The man had a talent for theatrics. Another thing to remember. The fire crackled, filling the extended silences between his words.

  “Many of you know each other. All of you know me, save a few who I met just this evening. We have no common purpose beyond my relationship with you. You came for my sake, or the sake of the person who shared my invitation. You came,” he paused, lulling the hundred-strong crowd’s focus deeper, “to hear the story of Hyun Minseok. It is a story you each may recognize as rhyming with your own. Please, bring our guest.”

  The mammoth in the doorway disappeared into the darkness behind him. A withered woman backed out of a door in that hallway, bringing a wheelchair covered in a blanket with her. She struggled to pivot in the hallway. The mammoth eased her aside, lifted the wheelchair a few inches from the floor, and spun it so that she could move again. The woman patted his knuckles and pushed the wheelchair into the room.

  She claimed Behema’s place in the room’s center, hobbling around the chair to adjust the blankets. As she did, wisps of hair so white that they were almost clear appeared near the chair’s headrest. A few more adjustments and a mummy was visible beneath the patchwork blanket. It was a man. Cackling whistles from the pygmies broke the crowd’s unspoken vow of attentive silence.

  Soon more voices filled the room than Eliza could process. She caught snippets of what sounded like hushed Mandarin, what was definitely Russian, several voices that sounded like distant cousins of Spanish, and a cacophony of English that made her native tongue sound more alien than any of the others. Someone’s voice rumbled in a bass too deep for her to understand.

  Hyun Minseok’s attendant shuffled back to the mammoth man. She draped his forearm, larger than most of her body, across her shoulder. Behema kneeled beside the wheelchair. He began whispering into where Eliza thought an ear must be. Didn’t men’s ears grow for the rest of their life? If so, she thought Hyun Minseok’s should be as large as his head. He looked as shriveled and blackened as the mummies archaeologists pulled from the pyramids.

  His folded eyelids crept open as Behema spoke. The eyes behind them belonged to another lifetime. They were shining gold buttons on his papyrus face, glinting in the firelight as they darted to the room’s occupants. He blinked several times, each faster than the last, as though he was waking up from a long nap and had just remembered where he was. Or who he was, Eliza thought. Behema rose.

  “There are few instructions for this evening. You may come and go as you please. I ask for no confidentiality, no secrecy, no allegiance except this. Hyun Minseok is a treasure to this world. Today is his 200th birthday and our raison d'être for this event. I ask only that you pay close attention. Let him tell his full story. His English is adequate to the task. I would not risk eroding his meaning with my poor translation. He risked much to travel here and as much to spend his energies sharing his story.”

  Behema paused a moment for someone to object. Eliza found her hand clenching and unclenching, aching to rise into the air to ask a question. She shoved it into her jeans pocket.

  “Wonderful,” he placed his hand on the ancient man’s spiny hand. “Please begin.”

  CHAPTER 2 - HYUN MINSEOK

  There is no one after me. I have no children. Two wives and many mistresses but never a child. My wives, they understand because I told them the story.

  My father, he had many children. I was one. His father had many children. He was one. This is the story of my family for all time to the beginning. Except me. I am the last because I have no children. We could each tell you the names of every mother and father and daughter and son. I am old today and dying, and have no children, so I tell you my story. It is that time.

  Do you know how old I am? Yes. My new friend Philip told you this. I am two hundred years old today. I think it is today. It is hard to believe. Remembering the first time my father told me our story is remembering yesterday. No one sees the old cypress or the wise turtle and has any doubt. Do I not look old enough?

  My mother had a mother who had a mother who had a mother who had many mothers. You understand. Ten times ten mothers and so many fathers and the one hundred and first has no child to tell. I broke the line. I look around the room and see you all and know you are all my children, so I will tell you. The world is changing.

  In the beginning there were two mothers. They were sisters. It was not the true beginning because they had a family before them. It is only the beginning of my family story. Would you call a pinecone the beginning of all forests? The pinecone came from a tree. It became a tree. This is my forest.

  They lived with their many brothers and sisters until the time came for them to leave their home and join the young world. So many died when all fled the island. Can you imagine? So many children sailing into the unknown ocean. They had never sailed the ocean. They were made on that island by the fire of the m
ountain and the fibers of the trees. The two mothers came to Joseon that became Goryeo and found men and made babies to match the stars in the sky.

  Never had two women made so many babies! I am their last baby. When they died, their children’s children’s children burned them together beneath the stars that were fewer than their children because that is what their god had taught them to do so long before, when they left the island. A felled tree should not linger. It chokes the land for the life that will come.

  Their children were not good children. Many died. Many left into the world. Many forgot their two mothers. Some stayed and those were told the story of the Burning Root. Their best children who stayed were told the story and they told the story to their children until ninety-nine good children brought the story to me. One hundred lifetimes connect me to this history. I give it now to you.

  What no one knows, who is not Hyun Minseok the Last, is that my two grandmothers saved this whole world. Can you believe it? Two girl children saved all the people. Two children who came from one island. These girl children saw more than all the elders of their island. They watched the Root become insane until it drove its people from their happy island into the dangerous world.

  So many died on the open ocean because they had never sailed before! Can you imagine? My grandmothers knew the Root would try to escape with them so they burned it. Fire is the only way to remove a root. They made it burn and for their courage, the Root gave them long lives to make more children than sand on the beaches. It is a twisted root from which our family comes. The girls sailed away on the world’s first boats and left the ashes of the Root to wash into the ocean.

  You do not believe me. It is an old story. Maybe it does not believe you. You are here only for a moment while this story is here since our history began and now will continue past poor Hyun Minseok’s empty family. I am a bad son. Who should believe whom? I tell you this now because the world is different, like it was before. You must tell the story. I am a good son. You must understand.

  CHAPTER 3 – RESEARCH

  Someone wept behind Eliza. His silent tears became choked sniffles. Hyun Minseok’s attendant reappeared to wheel the now sleeping man from the room. The mammoth’s face was also wet with tears, though he didn’t make a sound. What had she missed? These people resonated with this prattling delusion. It was just another crazy old guy. She recognized those. Eliza eased through the whispering audience and snuck out the front door.

  Behema was sitting on the porch. When had he moved? Wasn’t he sitting near the Korean man when the story ended? She realized his cardigan was still wrapped around her shoulders and moved to return it despite the worsening cold. Her breath hovered in front of her face. He held up a hand.

  “You didn’t enjoy the story.”

  “No, frankly. I didn’t. Why do you have a schizophrenic geriatric patient in your living room for a house party?”

  “The world’s strangeness is endless and inescapable.”

  He gestured to the thick new blanket of clouds.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Eliza prepared her retort for his next statement. It would be tricky to shut down Behema the Person without insulting Behema the Boss, but she was sure she could manage. What’s the worst he could do, stall her career? But he did not speak. She sighed and took his bait.

  “Yes, it’s very strange that it’s almost freezing despite it being August. The weather’s been weird for years. Something about global warming…”

  It was a pathetic attempt. She started again.

  “We’re pretty far north. I imagine we’re catching a weather system out of the Arctic.”

  Behema rose from the bench. Eliza noticed it was a converted pew, probably rescued from a condemned church in its twilight hours and repurposed to his porch many years before. A brief insight told her it was from the church where he married his wife.

  “Hmm yes, that may explain it. I myself am only a partial advocate for our more recent political fascination with mitigating climate change. Make no mistake, we do contribute to it. What would you say if I told you that the world is changing, Eliza?”

  He shuffled to the porch’s railing. Eliza inched closer. Faint blue light illuminated their private world.

  “I’d believe you, probably. The world’s always changing.”

  “Curious how we use that word. The world existed long before we came along. I meant the world itself. Our planet. This weather is beyond peculiar. It is aberrant. You are an educated woman. I know Helena pursued many spheres of knowledge. Do you know much about volcanism?”

  Eliza frowned.

  “Only to not mess with dudes with pointy ears.”

  She tried to smirk but stopped when she saw his hard-set face. Then he laughed a booming grandfather’s laugh and she relaxed.

  “I enjoy your humor, but no. I refer to the study of volcanic activity, a subset of geology.”

  “Yeah, I’m familiar. Volcanic activity has played a major role in human development. Eruptions like Toba, Krakatoa, et cetera destroyed islands, shifted populations, even influenced or helped created entire religions. The Roman god Vulcan was said to use a volcano’s heat for his forge. ”

  “Your knowledge is, perhaps, focused on those eruptions which most directly influenced human history.”

  “Well necessarily.”

  She made a rolling gesture with her hand. It felt better to discuss her professional expertise than to wander in the intellectual dark forests of Behema’s strange guest.

  “As it should be! Humanity and the planet share a volcanic history. We think the settled periods normative and the eruptive periods idiosyncratic when in truth, the world is a great volcanic beast with geologically brief restful periods. Humanity is a promising flicker in the unbroken brilliance of geology.”

  Eliza leaned against the column. It was hard to dislike Behema, try as she might. He was supposed to be the grand old man of the boys club that dominated all academia and especially Eliza’s own burgeoning field. In front of her was a dyed-in-the-wool professor, sure, but she saw no hint of corruption. He was a romantic who still found ideas more interesting than people. Wouldn’t she be fascinated if she discovered someone like Hyun Minseok with such a story? She decided she would try to dislike him less. He was still her professional savior. Her nails reflexed into her tender palm.

  “You’re saying volcanism is impacting the weather. But people are confused by what’s going on. We understand volcanism pretty well. Shouldn’t they be able to measure volcanic activity and connect the dots?”

  “You think highly of the public mind’s capacity for reason. I do not. However, we’ve captured a key clue here. The problem seems simple. Therefore, it is likely not. Are you familiar with the Siberian Traps?”

  She shrugged. The sweater’s corded wool rubbed on her shoulders. It wasn’t so cold now.

  “The Great Dying, then?”

  She shrugged again but this time, her face bloomed warm. It felt more like she had disappointed her mom than a man she had just met.

  “Understood. All is well. It was long before anyone’s time. The Great Dying was the single largest extinction event this world has endured. A quarter billion years ago, something shifted in the planet. Most life died. Most brachiopods, all the poor acanthodians and blastoids, ammonites in endless numbers, and more than half the bivalves perished. We are many tens of millions of years before mammals at this point in the world’s history. It is fortunate that all life did not die but as the only famous chaos mathematician once said, life finds a way.”

  He turned to stare at the tree. Its glow had lost its angler-like revulsion. She found it beautiful again. A thing such as this deserved to be seen. His wife took pains to decorate it like that and he, to maintain it. She wanted to ask him how long it had been since she died.

  “We are uncertain of the cause. One theory is that a simple climate change affected our world. Sea levels shift, oxygen runs scarce, add a few million years and almost all species vanish
while somehow never adapting in time.”

  “The other theory?”

  “We were assassinated by the cosmos. A bolide struck the earth with such force that its antipode, that is, the place directly opposite any point on a sphere, erupted. That antipode is the Siberian Traps. It is impossible to describe the destruction, Eliza. The world ended.” He drawled the final word. “It ended with a magnificence beyond anything we have experienced. For two million years, longer than humanity or its ancestors have existed, the Traps continued their seeping eruption until the very face of the planet was altered. Gas, heat, and ash in uncountable volumes poured into the atmosphere. All life shifted in response to that continued destruction.”

  “I’ve heard of something like this before. The Yellowstone Plateau is a big volcano, right?”

  “Yes, very good. Though it would never erupt like the volcanoes of film. Most do not erupt at all. They puncture the surface to spew their magma for a time.”

  “You think the climate’s changing because of volcanoes?”

  It was his turn to shrug. She saw his shoulders, bony despite his notable belly, rise and fall beneath his ironed dress shirt.

  “Because that would be simple and simple is usually wrong when it comes to complex systems. So what’s the point of this story, Doctor Behema?”

  “Phillip, please.”

  She growled to herself. It was harder by the minute to maintain her distaste.

  “So what’s the point of this story, Doctor Phillip Behema?”

  “I do not know.” He closed his eyes as he said it. “I do not know the point of any of this. Not of our bicentennial companion, not of our climatic shifts, not of why Helena chose to leave, not of you. Isn’t that the interesting bit, though? We do not know. It is our job to find out. This is what we do, you and I. We reconstruct human history from seemingly unrelated information using tools not yet invented.”

  Eliza shifted her weight from the column. A numbness ran up her spine into her neck. His thumb was on his wedding ring, again, and he stared at the tree.