The chattering of my teeth didn’t help me sound convincing either.
“I’m not being stupid,” I heard him chuckle above me.
My vision cleared and I could see normally again. I made out Chris sitting in an armchair close by and Jenna standing beside my head, bending down to feel my forehead with her hand.
“She’s cold as ice,” Jenna said, her voice all worried. “Do you mind if I warm her up?” The question seemed to be directed at Jaden, for he tensed under my back and his arms pulled me tighter to his chest.
I coughed under the pressure of his grasp.
“Sorry,” he said to me and loosened his arms immediately.
I knew he could do it—warm me up. He had done so before, in the forest, not so far back in the past. But I wished he would let Jenna do it, because it was obvious that there still was tension in the air between them and if he let Jenna help, it might ease things a little. Did he already know she was an angel, too?
“You could bring a blanket,” Jaden said stiffly.
“That’s not what I meant,” Jenna replied, and her voice sounded slightly amused.
“Then what did you mean?” he sounded somewhat annoyed. I shivered.
Jenna’s hand made better contact with the skin on my forehead as she pressed her full palm against it and I saw her eyes begin to gleam in a chestnut brown. Heat streamed through my body from where her hand touched my forehead, warming up every inch of me.
“Thank you,” I whispered, relaxing against the sensation while Jaden’s body tensed even more.
“You know, I remember you,” Jenna said, obviously to Jaden again, “from before the telephone call. Seventh of June 1955. You almost looked the same—a bit younger maybe.”
Jaden shifted under my back.
“It was the year I moved away from Aurora. I was an old woman then—everybody thought I had died.” Irony was thick in Jenna’s voice. Her usually motherly face looked dark with sarcasm. “Me—dead. As if that was possible.”
“You two’ve met before?” I interrupted but didn’t get an answer. I quietly wondered what had happened to make Jenna react so weirdly. Jaden was a good person—at least that was the way I had gotten to know him. Good.
Chris, who had remained silent for a while, now shifted back into my line of vision. Seeing his slightly wrinkled face made it hard to believe that he was only the second youngest in this room.
“I’m sorry, Jenna, but you must have me mixed up with someone,” Jaden said. The muscles in his thighs were hard under my spine. It made my back arch up uncomfortably.
Jenna sat down in the armchair beside us. I couldn’t see her face anymore but I could hear her voice from behind my head.
“No, no, no. I can remember it clearly. The day I decided it was time to leave town. You had a terrible row with Agnes. I saw you on the Downer bridge. You both were shouting and she was in tears.”
“Agnes, who? What are you talking about?” Jaden demanded, with a note of panic.
“Agnes Hall,” Jenna said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and I sat upright in a flash.
“Agnes Hall?” I interrupted again. This time nobody ignored me.
Both Jaden and Jenna started at my sudden movement and eyed me curiously. Jenna’s brown eyes were wide.
“You know about Agnes Hall?” she asked
Jaden reached a hand out and pulled me back into his lap with a haul so strong it made me cough.
“I know about an Agnes Hall whose father died when she was sixteen and who adopted her stepfather’s name when her mother married again.” My voice was low and my story flowed smoothly. It was a story I had heard often from my grandmother. “It was 1956 and Agnes Hall became Agnes Gabriel.”
I could feel Jaden’s chest move as he gave a sigh of resignation. “Yes, her,” he said, very quietly. “Your grandmother.”
In my mind’s eye, I saw a picture Gran had showed me of herself, a bright-eyed girl of seventeen with long black hair, holding a huge bouquet of pale blossoms in her slim arms. She was wearing a full-skirted dress in a floral print, and smiling at the camera. She was not so much pretty as she was refined and graceful, I had thought. But there was a grace about her, even in this motionless memory of a black and white picture, that would make her stand out in any company.
Jaden had been tenderly curling my hair through his fingers and now with sudden decisiveness he pulled me in and kissed my forehead.
“Tell them everything you know—and about Mr. Baker’s story, too,” he said when his lips left my skin. I looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of the expression on his face. “I have to leave.”
He lifted me up as he got to his feet in a quick movement and placed me on the sofa where he had sat a second before.
“Leave? Why?”
He gave me a tender look of gleaming gold before he vanished.
“Sorry.”
The word hung heavy in the air long after he had disappeared.
Chris walking over to Jenna, pulling her into an armchair with him, made me unfreeze. I hated how Jaden always seemed to have an agenda that he wouldn’t share with me. He would appear and be wonderful, and then with no indication of regret or affection, he would depart. More than ready, it seemed, to forget about me.
It was something he had mastered perfectly and I was the one to stay behind, breakable and lost. I needed him. Did he not understand that? His seemingly random appearing and disappearing used to annoy me. Today was the first time I felt hurt.
It was probably a good rule that guardian angels were not supposed to reveal themselves to their fosterlings. If he had obeyed that one rule, there would have been fewer misunderstandings—also I would be dead—
“What did he mean, tell us everything?” Chris said, tearing me from my thoughts. Jenna, sitting on his lap, looked at me with suspicious eyes.
“He isn’t exactly dangerous, is he?” Jenna asked with a tense voice. Her eyes were tightening slightly as I sat up and leaned against the back of the sofa with one shoulder, so I could have a better look at them.
“Not exactly, not to us,” I murmured, my thoughts running laps in my head, trying to catch up with Jaden’s reasons.
Both Jenna and Chris shot me a doubtful glance, which would have made me laugh out loud, if I hadn’t forgotten how to feel amused. That part of me was gone; buried somewhere in the wet earth of Aurora Cemetery alongside their son. I felt a jolt of pain running through my insides and closed my eyes for a second to steady myself.
“Are you alright, dear?” Jenna’s voice came from too close beside me. When I opened my eyes, she was standing right next too me in front of the sofa. She must have teleported there. She acted like a worried mother as she bent down to feel my forehead with her hand once more.
“Temperature seems normal,” she said to Chris.
“I’m f... fine,” I croaked. I felt incapacitated, defenseless, like a puppet in its strings.
“There’s no need to pretend with us,” Chris said with a hard smile deforming his pale lips. The firelight threw shadows across his face that made it look bizarre. “You know, we feel everything you feel, and what you feel is not so different from what I feel.”
I nodded, more to myself, and straightened my chest, breathing evenly. Of cause it wasn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, as if it would do any good, “I’m really trying to conceal my feelings and hide these moments of weakness that keep happening. If I don’t, people are afraid to be around me. Everything is easier if I just pretend.”
Chris nodded. I understood he was doing the same. Both of us were fighting the same horror in our lives and both of us were failing over and over again. It had such power over him that he had lost his ability to use his wings. For a moment, a wave of pity washed over me. He was wrong. It wasn’t similar, the way he felt, to how I was feeling, it was far worse. Adam had been his mark and his son, and he had lost both
Jenna had sat down beside me and put her arm around my s
houlders. She was comforting me, not in the way Jaden would have; she was doing it in a way a mother would comfort her daughter. I leaned towards her for a moment, savoring the feeling I had so long missed in my life. It wasn’t the same as it had been with my mom, but it was close enough to feel at home for a while.
“So, Jaden wants me to tell you everything,” I started, my voice muffled by the way I was leaning my head against Jenna’s shoulder. I was positive he had his reasons to want them to know everything and Jaden had never misled me, so I found it best to trust him and obey his wish. I started at the beginning; how I had found out about Adam’s abilities, the book at the library. Chris and Jenna listened to me intently and never interrupted. They sensed how hard it was for me to speak about Adam. Chris already knew parts of the story but he listened to it like it was the first time he heard about it. He soaked up all the information I offered, and I wondered if, to them, Adam’s existence already felt like a fairy tale the way it did to me.
It wasn’t until I told Mr. Baker’s story about Aurora that they started asking questions. They wanted every detail of what the old man had said. I recalled everything as perfectly as I was able to and fed them the details willingly.
The whole time I was speaking, I was feeling how bizarre it all was. Me, plain little Claire Gabriel, sitting by the fire in a grand house, discussing history and supernatural beings with angels, as if I did it every day. I half-expected it to be a dream; but it felt too real to be just that. I felt the heat radiating from the fireplace, Jenna’s shoulder under my cheek, Chris’ gaze on my face.
I lowered my gaze as I reached the end of the story. Silence had spread in the room, the only source of sound the crackling fire, all three of us sunken into deep thoughts of our own.
“What was she like?” I broke the silence, my voice barely more than a whisper.
Chris eyed me for a moment.
“Who?” he asked quietly.
I felt my head swim for a second as the profoundness of the words spoken tonight crushed down on my mind.
“My Gran.” I slowly sat up and stretched my spine. It cracked somewhere in the small of my back.
I had to wait for a few minutes before either of them moved. The supernatural couple, both their beautiful faces stern.
“She was an extraordinary girl,” Jenna finally said. The way her voice sounded let me know that she wouldn’t say more right now, but even this simple sentence made my heart jump for a second. Of course she was—she had to be. I had known her as an old woman. She had lived alone—never married my father’s father. She had always told me that they had had one single night together, and nothing more, but that had been enough that she knew she would never fall in love with another man. She stayed alone rather than marry out of fear of growing old unaccompanied. I had tried many times to imagine the courage she needed to face the attitudes of the times and the strength she must have had to raise her son alone and on her own. I wished I could be like her—standing tall in the face of everything life had thrown at her. I hoped she’d thought I’d made a good granddaughter.
We sat in silence for a while, all of us back to our own thoughts. It was unusual that the Gallagers’ house was so quiet. It made me wonder why neither Geoffrey nor Ben had interrupted our conversation. Of course it was fortunate they hadn’t, but still strange.
“What’s the matter?” Chris asked me, clearly sensing my feelings.
“Where is everyone else?” I voiced my question.
“Geoffrey has a day off and Ben,” he lowered his gaze and turned around to watch the flames licking the insides of the fireplace, “he’s gone out.”
I heard Jenna sigh almost inaudibly beside me.
“She’s always so scared—ever since we lost Adam—she almost didn’t let Ben set a foot outside the house alone in the beginning,” Chris explained the sound.
I understood. I would be scared, too. If I had children I would probably be the worst mom in the world because I would be so overprotective, knowing what kind of dangers were waiting out there.
“Shh,” Jenna hushed him, “we really have worse problems than my worries right now. Ben is no target for them, at least you keep telling me. It’s you we have to worry about. If you don’t get back your wings, your strength, you might be easier prey than even Claire.”
I had always taken Jenna for a gentle nature; right now she seemed more like an officer, prioritizing measures to prevent a catastrophe. But I had to agree. None of the demons had ever had any contact with Ben. If we were lucky, they didn’t even know he existed. But they knew about Chris and they didn’t like the way he had kept them from finding him for years, suppressing his angel-powers, never spreading wings, leading a normal life. If they somehow found out that he was as defenseless as I was, they might come for him any second.
I straightened up a little, eying Chris carefully. His face showed fear and pain, both fighting to claim the full space in his features.
“Jenna’s right, Chris. We need to find out what’s wrong with your wings and you need your powers back. You’re an easy target without them and it’s only a matter of time before the demons come after you.” As they will come after you, a voice in my head added, reminding me painfully that Chris wasn’t the only only one I should worry about. Maybe they will, I countered the voice, but I have Jaden who takes good care of me. He’s basically guarding me around the clock. And he is ancient—powerful.
The voice didn’t argue.
On Chris’ face fear was winning the fight. He looked from me to Jenna and back again.
“I know you are right—and I don’t like it.” He grimaced as he admitted the magnitude of the problem. Then his eyes finally stayed locked on Jenna’s. “But I’m not alone.”
Jenna smiled warmly, her eyes melting into his, showing nothing but her love.
“Right,” I interrupted their silent exchange, “but Jenna’s not that strong. She might be older than you, but still, her angel existence is roughly one-hundred-and-fifty years old.” I watched Jenna shift her weight, her eyes still on Chris’. Her violinist hands were folded across her chest, one of them rubbing her upper arm. She didn’t look powerful nor dangerous. She looked like an ordinary woman, like an artist—nothing like supernatural.
“She can’t protect you. If they come for her, she is lucky if she can protect herself. Alone, she is helpless, we all are. If we don’t stick together, they can tear each one of us apart—some of us with more effort,” my eyes remained on Jenna’s lovely face, “some of us easier.” Both Jenna and Chris looked at me. They knew I was speaking of myself. They could tell by the panic in my voice.
My breath had accelerated and my heart was thumping madly against my ribs. Helpless—that’s what I was.
Jenna had moved towards me slowly. She was putting her arms around me, pulling me against her like a mother would a child that had a nightmare.
“Shhh—” she rocked me back and forth, “I promise that I will be there for you if you need me. And Chris will, too.” I felt Chris’ hand on my head and the tears I had been holding back ran down my cheeks, wetting Jenna’s blouse.
“You’re not alone. As long as the three of us are standing, we are going to fight against the darkness.” It was neither Jenna nor Chris’ voice.
“Jaden,” I sobbed and broke out of Jenna’s arms to rush into his. My frustration and disappointment over his behavior earlier vanished into thin air, replaced by a tidal wave of gratitude. He was back and for the moment that was all that mattered. I could ask him later where he had gone.
“And you, too, Chris and Jenna,” Jaden said past my head, “you can count on my help, too.”
“So that’s it then,” Chris said when I wound myself back out of Jaden’s arms and stood beside him. “The three of us against the evil.” He held out his hand to Jaden.
“The three of us.” Jaden took it and they looked into each other’s eyes before they turned to Jenna, who placed her hands into theirs.
“The three o
f us,” she said with fierce determination.
Chris smiled at the others and said, “I know, I’m not much of a fighter right now, but as soon as I get my powers back, I’m going to kick those demons’ asses.”
I had never heard him speak like that. And for the first time since Adam’s death, I saw something similar to hope flaring in his eyes.
“Wait,” I half-shrieked as I took in that their little pact was based on the number of three. “I’m going to help, too.”
“No way!” It was Jaden. He looked worried just by the thought of me putting myself in danger on a demon hunt.
“Yes way,” I interrupted his thoughts, not wanting him to come to a conclusion. “I have as much reason to hunt them as you have.” Images of Adam’s smiling face flashed through my head, leaving me aching and empty. “I know I don’t stand a chance if I try to hurt them—but I can do some research and I can try to find out as much as possible about their weaknesses.”
None of them looked too happy with my speech. Jenna’s eyebrows were pulling together over the bridge of her nose, building a fine line of worry on her face. Chris mirrored my emptiness and my determination, but he hesitated to agree with me.
Jaden shook his head, almost angry. He didn’t like the idea—I saw it in his eyes. It would mean more danger for me.
“Four of us,” I said matter-of-factly and folded my arms across my chest. This was my life, too.
Difficult
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jaden’s voice followed me into the car when I climbed in on the driver’s side. “You... can’t.” He was nearly speechless with disapproval and distress, yanking open the car door and throwing himself into the passenger seat. He flexed his hands in front of his chest in a gesture that screamed out of words.
I ignored him. At least I had been able to convince Jenna and Chris that it was the right thing for me to do—to help where I could until I could be sure that all the people I loved were safe.
Sophie, I thought. She was all of my family that was left. She was everything to me, now that the man I loved had been taken from me forcefully. And she was already packing her bags to leave for Indianapolis. I would be on my own in no time. Which meant a lot of time for research on the one hand, on the other hand nobody would miss me when the demons came for me. I swallowed the lump that was building in my throat. I knew that it was a matter of time; and the longer the peaceful no-show of the evil side of this war lasted, the more suspicious it grew for me. I wanted to be prepared, I wanted to be a little less vulnerable—physically and emotionally. I needed something like an armor to protect me from what was coming... a shield.
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