The Invasion of Heaven, Part One of the Newirth Mythology Read online

  The Newirth Mythology, Part One, The Invasion of Heaven is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either used fictitiously, are products of the author’s imagination, or are brought on by an ancient muse. Any resemblance to actual events, persons, living or dead, gods, immortals or other is entirely coincidental.

  ~ Tunow plecom cer ~

  Copyright © 2014 by Michael B. Koep. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information contact:

  Will Dreamly Arts LLC.

  [email protected]

  www.WillDreamlyArts.com

  www.MichaelBKoep.com

  FIRST EDITION

  Designed by Will Dreamly Arts LLC.

  Cover art, maps and text illustrations by Michael B. Koep

  Back cover portrait by Brady Campbell

  The Newirth Mythology, Part One, The Invasion of Heaven is also available in EBook and audio formats.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  (Hardcover edition)

  ISBN: 978-0-9893935-0-8

  (Paperback edition)

  ISBN: 978-0-9893935-1-5

  (Kindle edition)

  ISBN: 978-0-9893935-2-2

  For Diana Denise

  Contents

  Maps

  The Newirth Mythology

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Acknowledgments

  The Newirth Mythology

  part one of three

  The Invasion of Heaven

  The artist needs no religion beyond his work.

  ELBERT HUBBARD

  Reality is frequently inaccurate.

  DOUGLAS ADAMS

  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  This is really happening, isn’t it?

  Dr. Loche Newirth, a thirty-seven-year-old psychologist in an olive green wool coat, blue jeans, and leather hiking boots walks with his head down. He is crying. His breath steams in the October chill. Before him the wooded trail blurs as he hikes toward a high cliff above Upper Priest Lake. Through the trees the afternoon is grey and pale. He can hear the wind above the pines and water rushing against the stones below.

  He tries to pretend that what has happened is not real. He wishes he had seen it coming. His mentor, friend and fellow psychologist Marcus Rearden told him once, “When a client of yours takes their own life, you’ll want to take yours. You’ll believe that it was your fault. And I assure you, after that, there’s no going back.” Loche brushes at the tears and leans into the hill, upping his pace.

  “Damn you, Marcus,” he says quietly. “Damn you.”

  His mind replays the sessions with Bethany. Bethany Winship, mid-sixties, fit and healthy, with a husband, Roger, and grown children, convertible BMW, hot tub and a healthy allowance. As a girl she learned to disappear, become invisible, hide. It was a necessary choice after the first time her whiskey-eyed father cracked his belt across her face and thighs. Being unnoticed became habit. And the better she got at it the more she was forgotten—neglected. She shouldered all those memories into adulthood, into her marriage and her children until her strength gave out. Loche sees her pleading eyes, the streaks of black mascara—the remnant of a woman tormented by severe depression, each day falling deeper into darkness. Loche struggles to quiet her voice echoing in his ears, torrents of unmet desires, missed chances and fear. “My life wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she had said. “I wish I could redo it. Have another chance. Rewrite it.” Loche wishes that, too. He wishes he had asked more questions—offered more encouragement—reached further.

  But now she’s gone.

  There are three fears that every psychologist will face at some point—another of Marcus Rearden’s dictums—what he calls the Three Heavy What Ifs, What if I can’t help them? What if I can’t handle it? What if I go in with them? As this thought occurs to Loche he feels his failure with Bethany as complete. The tears blind him and burn lines down his cheeks. What if I can’t help? He had done everything within his power to guide Bethany out of the dark. In the end, it was as if he had done nothing. What if I can’t handle it? This is suddenly obvious as he sees himself stumbling along the trail, crying uncontrollably, unable to put his emotions into some kind of order. Long hikes had always balanced him—brought clarity. Today it is not working. Each tottering step approaches the edge of a black and swirling maelstrom. He is descending. He is going in with her.

  Loche stops suddenly—squeezes his eyes shut—he breathes. A distant boat engine drones and fades away toward the thoroughfare. A cluster of birds scatters from the treetops above him. The water laps the shore.

  Then the sound of his wife’s voice in his memory, “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” she had said. Her angry eyes flashed.

  “I need a few days,” he told her. “I need some time to work out what has happened.”

  “Here’s what will happen, you’ll lose me,” she had said. “I can’t go on like this. With you, like this. Jesus, Loche—you need time? I need time.” Loche’s four-year-old son, Edwin, stood in the open door a few feet away. His hands balled into fists and his brown eyes are sleepy.

  “Helen,” Loche said, “one of my clients has died. This is a lot for me to process—and I’ve just received more news,” he remembers feeling for the envelope in his coat, “news that will change—”

  “I’ll tell you what needs to change, Loche. It’s you. It’s always something with you,” she said turning away. “So where will you go?”

  “I don’t know, Helen. I’m so sorry, there is so much more to this—I can’t tell you right now. It’s become much more serious.”

  “They think you did it? They think you—” she faced him and watched.

  Loche felt the air leave his lungs. “Yes. I am a suspect.” Helen turned her back.

  The conversation was over. He tried to pull her into an embrace. She pushed him away. Loche then knelt and held his son. “I’ll see you before you know it,” he remembers saying to him. “Before you know it.”

  Loche starts walking again. Not far ahead the steeper incline leads out of the trees. He reaches into his coat and pulls out the bright red envelope the post had delivered to his house in Sagle, Idaho, two days ago. He stares at it as he walks. He reads the script on the front again, scribbled in Bethany’s hand—Dr. Newirth, open only if something bad happens to me. He considers pulling the letter out and reading it again, but he shakes his head and pushes it back into his pocket. His jaw is clenched. He could tell no one about the letter. Not yet. Not even Helen. The slope rises steadily into a rocky clearing. He squints, coming under the steel wash of sky. The icy breeze freezes his tears. He crosses the short distance to the cliff edge and stops.

  I have one chance, he thinks, looking quickly at his hands, still blotched with oil paint, crimson and black. One chance to change what has happened. I will lie to reveal the truth.

  He sta
res out across Upper Priest Lake. It looks small below him, wreathed in ash green, flecks of yellow tamarack like candles in shadow.

  I will lie to reveal the truth.

  A moment later, the air stills and all hushes to silence. The wind stops, like held breath. There is no longer the sound of water lapping below, no whisper in the trees, no bird call or far away boat engine whining away to the South—only his heart ticking in his ears. The water shines below him like a metal plate. Its surface motionless—a still membrane of glass reflecting the grey canopy above. So clear it looks as if there is a hole in the Earth. Sky water. The sight nudges the darkness away from Loche’s thoughts as he gapes down the sheer fifty foot drop, mesmerized by the heavens he sees below him. His knees weaken. A looming sense of vertigo.

  With a jolt, he feels as if he is being watched—as if he’s not alone. He twists around and looks behind to the shadow beneath the boughs. He scans the tree line and along the trail that leads down toward the beach. Nothing. No one.

  Loche faces downward again, the small lake far below staring back up at the sky. At itself.

  Then he sees it.

  Something moves in the water.

  Round, welling out—a black spot widening. A pooling stain at its center.

  But this can’t be—

  It moves, flitting, searching. Loche steadies himself and rubs his eyes, unsure of what he is seeing. Looking again, the massive dot is ringed with an ice blue iris, its pupil dilating ever wider.

  It stares. It sees. It looks at Loche.

  This is really happening, isn’t it?

  Loche Newirth is midair. He thinks several thoughts all at once.

  He wonders if he was somehow yanked down over the edge. There is no lake surface below him now—it is an eye— hypnotic iris, gaping black center. It appeared as if a giant from a fairy tale had risen from beneath the world and pressed its eye to a peep hole. Loche and the cold October sky were mirrored in its glassy lens—and it pulled him down.

  Loche then wonders if he had instead thrown himself from the height when his mind managed to discern the anomaly. A massive eye seeing him. Inviting him like the connection that happens when the gazes of two strangers meet—the thrill of recognition in this isolated existence. He wanted to be a part of whatever it was that beheld him, so he jumped.

  Then, reason. Perhaps he merely tripped from the shock of such a sight. The impossibility of it. The terror.

  Slap.

  Needles pierce his skin. A numb, slogging struggle. Then more falling, head over foot, tumbling through a slow-motion, bleary abyss.

  Silence.

  Flash.

  Gone.

  The stinging of his hands on gravel rouses him. His limbs are slow, weighted, sluggish. Gasping and clawing he pulls himself up. With great effort he lugs his heavy legs out of the cold water. He has the sense to know that hypothermia will set in soon, and it is a long hike back to the cabin. He totters to his feet and looks back across the water. The eye is gone—if there ever was one.

  He crashes through the brush along the lakeshore, searching aimlessly for a landmark, a trail, a direction. He stumbles and falls every few feet. He does not feel the gashes on his knees, but he sees the blood. Sharp slashing branches scratch his face. A few more steps—another crash upon the stones. Before all goes black he mumbles to himself a final, desperate assessment, over and over—

  “I am Loche Newirth. This is really happening. This is really happening.”

  The black ink spreads open like a pupil in the dark. Loche Newirth presses the tip of his pen down into the last letter of his signature and holds it there—the fibers of the paper pull the pen’s life into a widening eye. He stares at it. It stares back.

  Loche blinks. He is suddenly aware. Then he wonders, is that it? Is there more to write?

  He feels a sudden sharp cramp in his hand from scribbling for God knows how many hours, the ache in his neck from leaning over the desk and the tingle of his sleeping right foot. He lifts the pen out of the pooling blot, pries it out of his hand and sets it beside the leather bound journal. Then he closes the cover and stands.

  Every joint in his body cracks. The palms of his hands sting with tiny cuts. He glances down at his shoes. They are caked with dried mud. His pants and shirt sleeves are also soiled with earth —blood at the knees. He is not sure why. A sudden ache begins to throb in his ankle.

  He turns and scans his surroundings. A table lamp casts a yellow glow across a single room with a kitchen at the far end. There is a dark open doorway next to the sink. Beside him is an unmade bed and a small desk. His coat is crumpled on the floor. Leaning in the corner is a black umbrella. The walls are cedar logs. He then notices the portrait of his family above the cold fireplace—his wife Helen, four-year-old son Edwin and himself. Then a trickle of a memory, he is at his lake cabin, in Priest Lake, Idaho.

  Books are scattered on the table, on the bed, stacked on the kitchen counters—most of them mythological texts—Irish, Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek. Many are open with curious notes scrawled in the margins. Pages are ripped out and tacked to the log walls. A huge map of northern Italy is laid out on the kitchen floor with more messy scribbles. There are long rows of yellow Post-it notes stuck on the wall. They stretch around the room from corner to corner, many times over. On them are names, dates, and events—all written in his hand. He tugs one down. It reads,

  Lie to reveal. Lie to reveal the truth.

  Another.

  Basil Fenn. Artist. Keeps his paintings secret. Refuses to show them. The few that have seen his paintings have been hurt. Wounded. Killed. Gods look through them to see us. Gods look through.

  Loche shakes his head. The room whirls suddenly, and he pushes his palm to the wall to steady himself. His focus anchors to another note.

  What is made up is real. What is real is made up.

  He looks out the picture window. The glass is streaked with what looks like thin red paint strokes. A bright red envelope is taped in the center. On it is scribbled, Dr. Newirth, open only if something bad happens to me. Outside is a dingy light, a sloping forest and a dark lake beyond—white caps on the grey waves. He catches his reflection in the glass. The cuts on his face and forehead suddenly become painful. Mud is smeared across his cheek and chin. But the face in the reflection is his, carved angles, grey, thoughtful eyes and short, light brown hair.

  Is it morning or evening?

  Stooping to pick up his coat, he notices a large tear on one of the sleeves, and the thick wool is heavy, wet. He rifles through the pockets for his cell phone. It is not there. He sees it on the kitchen counter. Dead. He locates his charger and plugs it in. The screen winks to life:

  4:10 P.M. OCTOBER 29

  He scowls and places it back upon the table. His back is sore. Leaning to one side he lowers his arm down to his ankle and stretches the best he can. He then raises both arms above his head and reaches up feeling the muscles in his body strain and pull. He tilts his head back and there, painted upon the cedar in red and black slashes, is a massive, rough-edged eye.

  Then with a jolt, he remembers. His legs weaken, and he lowers himself slowly to the floor. A sudden rush of tears burns his vision as he remembers his fall. Three days ago. He was hiking the trails at the upper lake, he had tripped—he fell fifty feet into the water—nearly drowned. Nearly died. There was an eye in the water.

  How he survived the incident, he doesn’t know. His side smacking against the glassy surface—smeared visions of his blue, trembling hands—thrashing through waves, to a gravel bar, through brush—falling—a trail leading into darkness—lost— hypothermia. Somehow he made it back to the cabin—but then what?

  That was three days ago.

  He has not slept. The cramp in his stomach tells him that he has not eaten. It is cold. His hands are stiff and searing. Then he remembers the book—he looks at the desk and sees it sitting there. The only thing he has done since he made it back here is write, nonstop. No breaks. No food. No
heat. No sleep.

  The room is churning. He rolls over onto his side and sees long-handle brushes lying on the floor. Spilled cans of paint. He hears himself breathing, gasping. His lungs spasm for air—black spots swarm into his periphery—his sight is darkening. He turns his head toward the fading afternoon light. The bright red envelope is taped to the glass. The painted lines on the window now begin to make sense—they are scratched letters like cut skin —difficult to read but unmistakable. Slowly, they come into focus.

  He holds his breath. His heart booms in his ears. There is a message—MURDER MARCUS REARDEN. Loche shivers and he exhales.

  His heart slows, and he manages to pull himself over to the opposite wall and lean back. He squints at the massive window and reads the message over and over again.

  Loche Newirth cannot remember why it is there.

  An hour later he is finishing a glass of cool water. It is his fourth in a row. He has lit a fire. Chicken soup steams in a pot on the stove. He has eaten a fair amount of it. He feels slightly better. Enough to return—return to the world, he guesses. In the bathroom he has drawn a hot bath.

  He checks his cell phone—there are fifteen messages. Mostly texts from his wife, Helen. All of the texts seem to end with, where r u? He begins listening to the recorded messages. Several are clients. Nothing too serious. Then his wife’s voice— her tone is angry, “I won’t be here when you come back. I’ve had it, Loche. I’m done.” Loche frowns slightly as if he has forgotten something. He looks over to the book on the desk and considers thumbing through the pages to see if his writing would jar his memory. He recalls telling her that he needed a few days to get his head straight, because of Bethany. He shakes his head and forwards to the next message.

  It is his receptionist, Carol. “Hello, Loche. Considering all that’s happened, I figured I wouldn’t be seeing you for a few days.” Loche sees the firelight reflecting in the big window, in the center of the letters—in the center of MURDER. “The police have been here several times looking for you—so has Roger Winship. I am running out of things to tell them. I could use some direction, so call, if you can. I hope you’re holding up, and again, I am sorry about Bethany.” Loche hits the delete button.