Back in my room, I stuffed all my schoolbooks into my bag and looked for a warm woollen sweater. It was Thursday morning and the air was piercing cold. The sun had not risen completely yet. I sprinted towards my car and drove to school. Thursday meant I worked at the library in the afternoon and this meant I would have some books to browse through. I would have the whole afternoon to search the library for information on winged creatures.
“Hey princess!” Gregory’s voice echoed in the corridor.
“Mornin’ Greg,” I yawned at him, stepping into the classroom and swinging my bag onto the desk between Amber and Lydia. The day seemed endless already when the class started—philosophy. I searched the insides of my bag for my essay on Immanuel Kant.
“Claire,” Gregory whispered from behind me. I turned around in a sleepy movement.
“What Greg?” I asked a little harshly.
Greg’s eyes widened at my reaction and he took a deep breath. “What about a movie tonight,” he asked.
Not again, Greg, I thought. “Maybe another time. I need to go do some research tonight.”
Gregory’s face fell before I had finished the sentence. “Never mind,” he murmured, turning to his books. It was about time he gave up, but somehow he seemed to have drawn new hope from Adam’s absence.
I got to my feet and headed for the front desk to hand in my essay. I was really sorry for Gregory. He deserved a girl that responded to his attempts, not a hopeless case like me.
Classes stretched endlessly, and it seemed like centuries when we finally headed for lunch. Greg didn’t join us that day. I was glad, I didn’t have to have to turn him down once more.
“Isn’t it unnerving?” Amber asked over her pudding. I gave her a questioning look.
“Greg—” She made it sound like the one name would explain everything.
“What?”
“I mean, he’s asking you out all the time, and you say no all the time—you’re so mean.”
“I think it’s about time he got it. And I’m not being mean. I don’t hurt him on purpose.”
“Yeah, like he would ever give up,” Lydia interrupted, rolling her eyes knowingly.
“Don’t you think he’ll meet another girl he can have a crush on?” I asked nervously. I had told Greg friendship was all he’d get, but it seemed he ignored it. I shook my head, unwilling to go on with the conversation. I loved Adam, and there was no way anybody could do anything about it.
I picked up my tray and carried it back to the counter. “See you girls,” I called over my shoulder and headed for the parking lot. On the way to the library I stopped at Noel’s to get a hot coffee which would bring me through the long afternoon.
James was packing his bag when I hurried up the stairs, through the front door and stepped behind the counter.
“Hey,” he looked up from his bag.
“Sorry I’m late.” I held my take-away-coffee up for an excuse. “I’ve been up since four o’clock.”
He grinned at me sympathetically and started moving towards the exit. “See you.”
“Yeah, see you,” I called after him.
I took a sip of coffee before I started re-shelving the books that had been returned. Every time I lifted one of them into its proper place I had a glimpse at the books around it. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t find anything helpful in the Fiction-section. If there was something interesting it would most likely be one of the history books or some fairy tale. Maybe something with a religious background—angels were the only winged creatures I knew. I’d always thought of them as symbolic creatures though. By no means I could have imagined to meet one—in case Adam was one.
I found myself strolling between the bookshelves looking for a title that would catch my eye. After nearly ten minutes I gave up, the library was simply too huge. I had to get rid of the returned books before I started searching systematically.
The pile in my arms had shrunk to only two books: ’A Compendium of Seashells’ by Anthony Shriner, and another one whose title was so faded I couldn’t read it, neither could I identify the author’s name. I put the Compendium in its place on the shelf and started looking for the other’s place. It had no number stuck to the binding. I went back to the counter. James had registered the books back already, so the computer-system should be able to tell me where it belonged. I double-clicked the list of returned books. Twelve registered names popped up instantly. Browsing through the list, I recognised eleven book-titles. The twelfth book on the list had no title. It was called ’A5’. I double-clicked to display the details. Nothing, except for the names of the last people who had borrowed it. Riley Watson, October fourth to October tenth seven years ago, Maureen McKensy, February nineteenth last year, and the last name—Adam Gallager, December twelfth to today 1.46 p.m.—I couldn’t believe my eyes.
If I had been punctual I could have met him. He wasn’t out of town or sick—my heart felt lighter instantly—but it seemed he actually did avoid me. The dark clouds returned. What was that book anyway?
I lifted the cover and had a look at the first page and saw an inscription that wound around an ornate crest. It was in Latin and said Sapientia et Virtus. I had never studied Latin and therefore I had not the slightest idea what it meant, so I flipped the page to the second one. It was yellowed at the edges and showed some faded notes in black ink. They were strange combinations of numbers and letters. In the left upper corner there were three sentences written in a different handwriting. They are stronger than man, but not omnipotent. They are greater than man in knowledge, but not omniscient. They are more noble than man, but not omnipresent. I turned the pages, getting more and more eager to keep reading.
The noise of the door being pulled open made me jump. I shut the book close in reflex. I slipped it into my bag quickly and swore to myself that I was going to read it in the evening at home where nobody could disturb me.
A blond man was standing in front of me when I looked up from my bag. He had moved from the door towards the counter so quickly and silently, it made me jump again.
“Hi,” I breathed, unable to use my voice properly. I felt like a kid that had been caught stealing sweets.
“Good afternoon, Miss,” the blond said in an unearthly polite tone. I was very sure I knew his face, but I couldn’t remember where from.
I waited a minute, just looking at him. He seemed to be in his early thirties. His eyes were a light shade of amber and his features were mildly lined. The suit he wore appeared to be tailored.
“How can I help you, Sir?” I finally found my voice again.
The stranger looked at me in astonishment. He took a deep breath like he was going to make a speech, but then he let the air flow out in a gust and turned to the side as if he was going to leave. Still, he turned back to me again. “Where can I find an ATM?” With his indefinable accent, it sounded more like a statement than a question; it sounded a bit British. In the background the door creaked. From the corner of my eye I could make out a shadow flitting through it. When I turned my head towards the door no one was there. I shook my head and turned back to the fair-haired guy.
“Down the street on the left—third block. A yellow building.” I gave him the instructions to find the ATM.
“Thanks, ma’am.” He nodded at me, turned on his heels and headed for the door.
I decided I had imagined the shadow and turned back to the computer where I quickly registered the mysterious book as lent.
It was only an hour later when Mr. Baker entered the library. We renewed the shelf-signs together until the sun set and it was time for me to go home.
“Goodbye, Mr. Baker.” I stuffed the remaining signs into a box on the counter and grabbed my bag on the way out.
“Bye, girl!” Mr. Baker called after me.
* * *
I unlocked the front door, letting Nigel escape into the evening air, and flew up the stairs to my room, already searching my bag for the old book with one hand. In the other hand I held a box of Asian noodle
s and chopsticks. I balanced the food, trying to press down the handle with my elbow. The door swung open presenting me with the view of my untidy room.
I set the box on the desk and took off my jacket, letting my bag fall onto the bed. Then I fished out the book, grabbed the food and opened the box and started picking for the noodles with the chopsticks. Seven mouthfuls later I wiped my fingers with a tissue and flipped the book open.
Once again I stared at the page I had been starting at in the library. They are stronger than man, but not omnipotent. They are greater than man in knowledge, but not omniscient. They are more noble than man, but not omnipresent. I read through the three sentences that had been written there once more. Who were they? I browsed through the pages until a passage caught my eye.
When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. I reached out for my computer and switched it on. I searched the Internet for sons of God and found an article.
Sons of God, not to be mixed up with Son of God or God the Son, appears in several religious myths and legends. Maybe the most popular theory is the early Christian, that sees sons of God as descendants of Seth, the pure line of Adam, and the daughters of men as the descendants of Cain. I remembered having heard about Adam and Cain one day in Ethics at school when we had talked about Christian religion.
Some manuscripts have emendations to read sons of God as angels in Genesis 6. Codex Vaticanus contains angels originally. In Codex Alexandrinus sons of God has been erased and replaced by angels. In contemporary Christianity, among the churches which teach that the sons of God were fallen angels today are Jehovah’s Witnesses. Among the churches which teach that the sons of God were men are the Roman Catholic Church and many Churches of Christ. Other legends suggest that the sons of God are fallen angels who had children with daughters of men and produced the Nephilim, a race of giants which are said to have walked the earth. I scanned the book for chapters on Nephilim but didn’t find any. It mentioned angels and part-angels or semi-angels on almost every page. It was way past midnight when I finished a passage on the birth of the angel-nature.
When it gets close to their angel-nature breaking through, the person in question will start to perceive emotional patterns amongst the people of their kind. They will develop a sixth sense for the emotional status of people around them only. In a further phase of the development of their angel-nature they will start to intuitively understand people’s problems and reasons without having to converse. I remembered Adam telling me exactly the things I’d just read, and a cold shiver ran down my spine. Another two hours later I had finished the first third of the book, having found out that part—or semi-angels healed faster than humans, were stronger than humans and had visions of the people that would be most important in their lives. Some of the pages were missing, and some of them were so full of notes in different languages I couldn’t decipher anything at all.
I started to wonder why this book was part of the public library and let the text on the daughters of men and sons of God wander through my head again.
The light on the bedside-table started to form wing-shaped patterns which rose and flew out through the window. The noodles I’d left in the box curled around the chopsticks and began to creep up towards the light. Everything shifted color until the whole room turned into a gray-green mess of trees and stones. I tried to run from this place but my feet were as heavy as the rocks they were standing on. A fair-haired man in a dark blue suit handed me a bunch of paper money and pointed at the ornament on the crest that was spreading across the sky. When I looked up, shadows started to dance around me in a wild and evil dance. One of them was growing while it danced. It looked at me with Adam’s face. “Run,” it commanded. But I couldn’t run, the earth beneath my face crumbled away into nothingness. White light was glistening through the crest in the sky as I fell into the darkness…
The alarm clock jarred me from my dreams. Adam’s face still swirled inside my thoughts when I heaved my legs out of bed. I got dressed and headed for school without breakfast, my stomach protesting loudly. You’ll have to wait until lunch, I told it and jumped into the car. The heating only began to stream warm air into my face when I pulled into the parking lot. Amber and Lydia were waiting for me inside the main building, both carrying piles of books and colorful cards in their arms.
“What’s that?” I asked, taking a card off Amber’s pile.
Aurora High School invites all Seniors to attend this year’s prom. The festivity will take place on 28th of May at Aurora Palace. Aurora Palace was a luxury hotel in the city of Aurora, where prom was held every year.
“Where did you get those?” I fanned the card in Amber’s face.
“Greg gave them to us,” Lydia smiled knowingly. “He’s on the Student Committee for this year’s prom organization.”
“I didn’t know.” I noticed that I hadn’t kept up with the news at Aurora High for the last few weeks, and I instantly knew why—Adam. A picture of the crest and the dream flitted through my head. It couldn’t go on like this—every time something reminded me of Adam I was entirely incapable of straight thinking and cognizant action.
My cell phone rang, making the pocket of my thick winter jacket vibrate. I pulled it out flipping the lid open, and answered it.
“Sophie, I’m at school already.” I had known it was her from a glance on the display. She said something about a couple of notes she needed, that she had forgotten on her dresser and about a fat anatomy book she hadn’t thought to return to the campus library. She only stopped bombarding me with complaints about the overdue fees for a university book after I promised her to pick up the book and go straight to the campus library directly after school. “Ian is going to pick up the notes for me tomorrow afternoon before driving up to Indianapolis,” she told me before hanging up.
The day went quickly afterwards. Gregory handed me one of the invitation cards with a promising look, biology dragged only a little and PE was fine—we played basketball for an hour; my muscles thanked Mrs. Laney. I showered the sweat off my skin and dried myself with a towel before stepping back into my clothes.
“You know, Greg is going to ask you to prom,” Amber asserted while putting her shoes on.
Lydia nodded in agreement. “He’s been turning down two juniors already." I frowned, disbelievingly.
“Who asked him?” When had the girls started asking the boys?
“Christen Masen,” Amber giggled, “and Colina Fernandez.” I lifted one eyebrow. Christen was an unremarkable girl with mousy brown shoulder length hair and skin problems. I didn’t blame Gregory for turning her down—I couldn’t imagine him being interested in someone like her. Colina on the other hand was perfect. She had beautiful brown eyes, a warm smile and this unbelievably cute Spanish accent. Most boys turned their heads when she passed them in the corridors of the school. She would have looked like a little princess next to Gregory with her long curly black hair and her rosy cheeks. I couldn’t guess why Greg wouldn’t want to go to prom with her.
“Why would he say no?”
“I asked him the same thing.” It was Amber again. “Well, I understand that he doesn’t want Christen …but Colina’s great. I know her from the drama group—really nice girl.” I took my winter jacket from the hook and shoved my left hand into it slowly. “He said he had another one he preferred.” I didn’t like the look she shot me, it was telling me too clearly that she thought he’d ask me.
“And you think that’s me?” I demanded. Amber giggled girlishly.
“I don’t think. I know.” I glanced at her. “I heard him talking to Anthony Smith in the lot yesterday after school.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “He said he wasn’t sure about how to ask you, considering you have told him no a hundred times already.”
I knew what he would have meant—the countless invitations to the movies.
“I didn’t tell h
im no, actually. I just told him not today for a dozen times.” I thought about it for a minute. “Anyway—I wouldn’t mind going to prom with my best friend.” It was better than going alone, I told myself. You’ll be alone anyway—without Adam, my mind corrected me.
“It’s unfair,” Lydia interjected. “You’re just stringing him along.”
I knew she was right. But I had the feeling that Greg would never give up. He hadn’t when I had been with Adam, and he had known I loved him. I sighed and slung the strap of my bag over my shoulder. “Let’s hope you’re wrong.” I had been addressing Amber, but both Amber and Lydia nodded at me with a sympathetic face.
We headed for the parking lot together and I drove Lydia home before picking up Sophie’s book. It lay on her dresser, covered by several sheets of paper which were covered in endless lines of scribbling in her easy-to-recognize handwriting. I took the heavy book, grabbed a cereal bar in the kitchen on my way back to the front door, and was off again.
Aurora University Institute for Human Medicine and Anatomy was a fifteen minute drive away. Fog streamed by my car as I drove through the narrow streets of the University district. I had been here a few times to drop Sophie off or pick her up in the evening, and I could remember the glass outbuilding which contained the newly stocked campus library. Usually, it reflected the light of the setting sun at this time of the day, but today the cloud covered sky and the foggy ground left little light to be reflected. I pulled into the parking lot at the edge of campus and got out of the car. Students were hurrying from building to building, their bags heavy with books and their heads heavy with knowledge. Some of them carried a cup of coffee in their hands. A group of girls stood at the library door chatting and laughing. A couple leaned against a bare tree kissing intensely. I turned my head to avoid the sight of them—it brought back memories I tried to lock away in the back of my mind.
My gaze fell on a black haired young woman. She lifted her hand touching a young man’s hair. It was almost black, too, and lank. The man was tall and muscular, with broad shoulders. I knew the sweater he wore—it was faded gray, with a hood. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his dark jeans. His posture made me think he might be freezing. I stopped in my tracks as he lifted his head at the woman’s touch. I knew the face only too well—its perfect features and the way it felt when those lips kissed mine.
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