Patricia McKillip - Wonders of the Invisible World

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Wonders of the Invisible World

by Patricia A McKillip

I am the angel sent to Cotton Mather. It took me some time to get his attention. He lay

on the floor with his eyes closed; he prayed fervently, sometimes murmuring, sometimes

shouting. Apparently the household was used to it. I heard footsteps pass his study door;

a woman—his wife Abigail?—called to someone: "If your throat is no better tomorrow,

we'll have Phillip pee in a cup for you to gargle." From the way the house smelled,

Phillip didn't bother much with cups. Cotton Mather smelled of smoke and sweat and wet

wool. Winter had come early. The sky was black, the ground was white, the wind

pinched like a witch and whined like a starving dog. There was no color in the landscape

and no mercy. Cotton Mather prayed to see the invisible world.

He wanted an angel.

"O Lord," he said, in desperate, hoarse, weary cadences, like a sick child talking itself

to sleep. "Thou hast given angelic visions to Thy innocent children to defend them from

their demons. Remember Thy humble servant, who prostrates himself in the dust, vile

worm that I am, forsaking food and comfort and sleep, in humble hope that Thou might

bestow upon Thy humble servant the blessing and hope at this harsh and evil time: a

glimpse of Thy shadow, a flicker of light in Thine eye, a single word from Thy mouth.

Show me Thy messengers of good who fly between the visible and invisible worlds.

Grant me, O God, a vision."

I cleared my throat a little. He didn't open his eyes. The fire was dying down. I

wondered who replenished it, and if the sight of Mather's bright, winged creature world

surprise anyone, with all the witches, devils and demented goldfinches perched on rafters

all over New England. The firelight spilling across the wide planks glowed just beyond

his outstretched hand. He lay in dim lights and fluttering shadows, in the long, long night

of history, when no one could ever see clearly after sunset, and witches and angels and

living dreams trembled just beyond the fire.

"Grant me, O God, a vision."

I was standing in front of his nose. He was lost in days of fasting and desire, trying to

conjure an angel out of his head. According to his writings, what he expected to see was

the generic white male with wings growing out of his shoulders, fair-haired, permanently

beardless, wearing a long white nightgown and a gold dinner plate on his head. This was

what intrigued Durham, and why he had hired me: he couldn't believe that both good and

evil in the Puritan imagination could be so banal.

But I was what Mather wanted: something as colorless and pure as the snow that lay

like the hand of God over the earth, harsh, exacting, unambiguous. Fire, their salvation

against the cold, was red and belonged to Hell.

"O Lord."

It was the faintest of whispers. He was staring at my feet.

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Patricia McKillip - Wonders of the Invisible World

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