CHAPTER 28: BE AT PEACE
It was about being mentally prepared. Before, there were roughly thirty Shadows. Within the twenty-four hour timeframe we had been inside the Divine Library, who knew what kind of crowd had accumulated. The Ladies of Light could be standing on the doorstep or possibly the Soul Stalker. I shuddered. My master plan of leaving the library suddenly felt stupid and idiotic, but I was hungry and Abelie deserved to be laid to rest.
The others stood behind me as I gazed at the wall where the door used to be. No one pressured or pushed me forward to unseal the door. Andrew was at my back, the key outstretched on his palm. I took in a deep breath before I reached over and grasped it securely in my hand. We needed to leave. I had to keep telling myself that we were doing the right thing. For an hour I gave myself pep talks.
In my other hand was the Timeless book, which I handed to Andrew as I placed my palm against the smooth stone door. I took another necessary deep breath and whispered, “Unseal.”
Sparks lit around the edges, and the outline of the door formed. Like a moron, I placed my ear against the crack and listened. The door was shut securely, so of course I wasn’t able to hear anything. It was like putting my ear to a seashell. It sounded like the ocean, the air weaving in and out of the space between my ear and the rock.
“Did you hear anything?” Ehno chuckled from behind me.
I turned around to cast him a glare, which made him laugh harder. “No,” I said icily, but couldn’t help to smile in return. “Lots of rock, but definitely no roll, to my dismay,” I deadpanned.
Everyone laughed at my very dry humor, and Andrew raised his eyebrows to hair level.
“Not my best attempt at humor.” I shrugged.
“Trust me,” Andrew smiled, “you are quite witty and funny. We understand that you’re feeling a little overwhelmed right now.”
Lucia and Ehno nodded in agreement.
“You got that right,” Joseph said, absolutely serious. “I’m not some ‘special chosen one,’ so I know it has to be a million times more difficult for you than me. Plus, you just lost your mother . . .” he trailed off feebly, and my eyes automatically darted to Aiden who stood over Abelie’s body in the distance.
Andrew stepped in my view. “Let’s lay her to rest.”
I nodded imperceptivity and turned to insert the keys. A reckless daring seized me, and I inserted and turned them. A puff of dust rose from the cracks as the door scraped across the stone floor. A violent wind whipped across my face. I expected to see the Shadows light the distance with their fire. There were none—no Ladies or shadowy figures on the horizon. But it was dark, and my vision was not as great in the inky blackness.
“I don’t see anyone,” I barely whispered to Andrew.
His eyes narrowed as he scanned the view. “Me either.” He turned around. “Ehno, have you seen the outcome of this evening?”
Ehno shook his head. “No, but I think we’ll be safe.”
“Grab the keys,” I told Andrew who handed them to me and the Timeless book. I held onto them like they were life vests. To me, the keys represented safety, a sanctuary in the Divine Library, and the Timeless book possibly held more messages from Zola. There was no way I was letting those items out of my sight.
As each second passed, the power grew, twisted, and changed inside me. It was indescribable and strong. I had to be prepared, and that was why I gathered the electricity at my core. Behind me were the angels I had grown to love and care for. But more important than any of this was the fact that Abelie needed to be buried. It was time to lay her to rest, as Andrew said, and no matter how much it would kill me to place her six feet under, I knew I had to. She had lived a long life—a happy one with Aiden at her side. Jealousy flitted through me again at the thought.
Wind whipped through the small doorway, and the silk dress-like robe I wore clung to my body. It was the only black robe Abelie had in her closet, and wearing it made me feel closer to her. My hair flew up in the air, but I was too busy gazing down at the quiet scene below me to care about the frosty October air that beat against my skin.
“Come on, Ella,” Andrew said and took my hand in his. He led me down the stone steps. When we reached the section of stairs I had destroyed, he let go of my hand, jumped, and looked up to where I waited. It was about fifteen feet, but that seemed mighty high to me: the one who was absolutely terrified of falling. The rocks below mocked me as I stared down.
“Jump,” Andrew called.
I stared at him with a look of disbelief. “Andrew, I—”
“She’s scared of falling from heights,” Joseph chimed in from behind me. I nodded in absolute agreement.
Andrew flew back up to where I was and knocked me off my feet, literally, and into his arms. He smiled down at me. Shadows darkened his face, but the amusement was there. He dropped gently to the ground and set me on my feet.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much.”
Andrew started to take off to help Joseph, but Joseph had already landed on his feet with a thud next to me. I gaped at him in utter shock. He shrugged and said, “I learned all kinds of cool tricks while training to be an FBI agent.”
Lucia and Ehno joined our ranks. The only two left were my parents. Andrew flew back up to the last step and held out his arms for Abelie. Aiden kissed her on the cheek and held her out to him as a golden tear slid down his charcoal skin. Andrew landed gracefully on his feet with Abelie securely in his arms. Aiden followed, and they awkwardly moved Abelie between them. She looked like she was sleeping all wrapped up in the white cloth, and I wished that were true.
“We have to move at least fifty feet from the Divine Library for my portal to work,” Lucia announced as we walked out into the silky blackness of the night.
The moon was a big orb in the sky, bathing the land in a ghostly reflection of day, hidden by a mist of clouds. Fifty feet wasn’t far from the bottom of the stairs. Lucia closed her eyes and put her arms out, palms up. The air rippled before us. There was a weird disturbance, nothing like what you would see in the movies. There was no tunnel-looking vortex or wild electrical colors—it was almost as if there was a heat wave in the middle of the cold, dark night.
“I think we should go first.” Andrew pointed to himself and Ehno. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“You should stay here with Gabriella,” Ehno contradicted. “You know I can go through and inform you if there’s any danger on the other side.”
“I’ll bring up the rear,” Lucia added.
“Keep her safe,” Ehno said to Andrew as he pointed at me.
“I’m standing right here,” I replied and rolled my eyes. “You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not two feet away from you.”
He appeared embarrassed but turned and disappeared into the portal.
“Where are we going?” I asked Lucia as the cold wind whipped through the air.
“Abelie and Aiden’s home.”
I turned toward Aiden. “You had a house together?”
“It was a secret.” He glanced down at the angel in his arms. “It was our small slice of paradise.” His eyes cast toward Lucia. “I’ll go next.”
“All is clear on the other side,” Lucia informed. I wondered how she knew this without asking Andrew.
Aiden pivoted with Abelie close to his chest and disappeared into the quiet night air.
“You three should go next,” Lucia pointed out. “Joseph has only been through a portal once, and Gabriella was injured before. She probably doesn’t remember what it was like.”
“Just the horrible ache in my side,” I agreed.
Andrew nodded once and grabbed my hand to pull me in the direction of the portal. The current raced between us, and I tried to send as much love and adoration as I could through the connection. He looked down at me with a small smile and squeezed my hand in acknowledgement. As the three of us entered into the portal, wind rushed at us like a tornado had landed right next to our hea
ds. I looked around me and was surprised to see two suns bright in the sky, and before I had the opportunity to take in my surroundings any more than that, I was suddenly sucked away as if a vacuum had pulled me through a tiny tube. I took a step and almost fell flat on my face, but Andrew caught me before I hit the ground. Joseph walked through, unfazed by this new method of travel. I turned to him, gawking in surprise.
He gave me a mocking smile and said, very nonchalantly, “What? I travel like this all the time. In fact, I have enough frequent flyer miles racked up to circle the world three times.”
I shook my head at him.
The grounds were dark. It was so dark, in fact, I could barely see two feet in front of me. I started to panic. Since Karen had tricked me, I had become extremely suspicious of everything, including the jet-blackness surrounding me. Andrew’s fingers brushed against my hand, and I jerked, surprised.
He lowered his head to my ear and whispered, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” My eyes shot around the line of trees I could barely make out in the night, as if there were spies in the woods.
Suddenly, lights flooded the area and blinded us. I blinked, trying to remove the imprint from my irises. When I finally accessed my vision again, I saw a beautiful house with richly brown stone walls and large, arched windows. It was more than amazing—it was spectacular. The front door opened, and through the door light flooded the yard, silhouetting Aiden in the opening.
“Come on in.” He waved us forward.
Inside, I circled around trying to take in the scene. A staircase dominated the center of the house and railed around the second floor. The colors on the walls were rich, earthy tones, and the floor was a striking white and tan marble. The walls were covered with beautiful paintings, some of them ancient.
“This is your house?” I asked Aiden in awe.
“No,” he sighed. “This was our house, mine and Abelie’s. Your home too, if you want.”
I stopped my spinning and looked at him. He leaned against the doorframe of a darkened room. In my awe, I forgot how hard this must be for my dad. I inched toward him and held my hand out. He took it without looking up.
“D-Dad, where did you put Abelie?”
He silently led me down a hallway behind the staircase. He opened the first door to our right. She was laid upon a bed, another silken cloth over her body.
“Do you want me to leave?” he wondered.
I squeezed his hand tighter in mine. “No,” I whispered and pulled him to the floor next to her. “Do you know where we’re going to bury her?”
His hand rubbed against her cheek through the sheet covering her. “Yes, in the cemetery down the road.”
“When?”
He looked up at a large clock on the wall. “It’s still relatively early. I’ll call the funeral home tonight and see if we can set up burial arrangements.”
“So quick,” I mouthed. “Isn’t that kind of weird, burying her in a regular cemetery?”
“It’s rare for an immortal to die in the first place, and I know that Abelie would have wanted to be buried here, close to home.”
As I sat on my knees between my parents, I realized this would be the last time we would be together as a family—just the three of us, sitting in the room in silence. After several heavily weighted seconds, I said, “I wish I could have known you both long before now.”
“You don’t know hard it was to let you go,” Aiden barely whispered. “We had to, to keep you safe. Gabriella, you probably don’t know this yet, but angels can’t bear children. How Abelie became pregnant with you is still a complete mystery. Please know that we were elated when we found out about the pregnancy. We had been given a gift that no angel or Shadow had ever been given. We had huge plans for our family and refused to take one second of our lives as a family for granted.
“To lose a child—no, worse—to give up a child that we loved more than our own lives was nearly unendurable. Abelie cried for months and sometimes, in the middle of the night, I would find her sitting in your bedroom, looking at pictures of you. It was difficult for both of us.” He paused to take a deep breath. “You have to understand we both loved you; I still love you, Gabriella. You’re my daughter, even though I wasn’t there to do all the father/daughter things that I had planned on doing.”
“I know,” I said, placing my hand over his. “You were protecting me; I know that. You kept me safe. Please don’t feel guilty about it anymore.”
He sighed. “It’s difficult not to. If we would’ve found another way to hide you or protect you, Abelie would still be alive, and we would have been a family for all these years.”
“This isn’t your fault,” I told him firmly.
We were silent then.
Dinner was a quiet event. My stomach was full of food, but there was an odd, sick, empty feeling that wasn’t sated by any amount of substance. Upstairs—sitting on a bed, my old bed, in Abelie’s pajamas—I wondered if my childhood memories would ever return. Now, more than ever, I wanted to remember those five years I had constantly tried to find a link to. Now here it was—here I was. There was some magical thing blocking my memories, and I was determined to find a way to fix that, to break through that wall preventing me from remembering my mother. Those memories would be more precious to me than before her death.
There was a soft knock on the door. I looked up from the pink bedspread I sat on. “Come in.”
The door opened and Andrew poked his head in. His eyes were a mixture of gold and the saddest blue. “There’s a room down the hall for you, whenever you’re ready. Aiden brought up some of Abelie’s clothes, too.” He opened the door all the way, and for the first time I noticed he was barefoot, wearing pajama bottoms and a cotton T-shirt. It was almost funny, the thought of a celestial being in pajamas.
“Okay.” I stood, and he gestured for me to go down the hall.
“It’s the door at the end of the hallway.”
Our footsteps echoed until all I heard were mine. I stopped and turned to face Andrew who looked at me with a mixture of expressions on his face. He seemed upset and tortured, possibly struggling with some internal thought he was having. His eyes seized mine, and I walked toward him.
“What’s wrong?” I wondered.
He opened his mouth to say something then shut it. I raised my eyebrows. He sighed and said, “Two times I’ve stayed with you in a bed. I’ve tried to be a complete gentleman, but of course I—”
I put my finger on his lips to silence him. “Andrew.” This time I sighed. “I have only ever allowed one other man to stay the night with me, and it was awkward. I ended up spending most of the night in my living room surfing the internet.” His expression twisted into something unreadable. “But being with you,” I continued quickly, “it was different. It felt right.”
His eyes bored into mine, more fiercely than before.
“Come on. We need to talk,” I said as I pulled him into the bedroom at the end of the hall.
My hand reached along the dark wall for a light switch and found it. Lamps all around the bedroom flickered to life. The room stunned me for a moment. It was beyond lavish. The ceiling was tall, and everything looked old and expensive; everything except a big, comfy sofa under the windowsill of an enormous arched window. We were reflected back perfectly in the glass. I pulled Andrew over to the sofa, and we sat. We held hands in silence for a moment before I broke it.
“Andrew,” I began, “I really don’t know that much about you, but there are a few things I do know. You’re a warrior, a protector of mankind. You take care of those you love, and you’re an honorable man. I’ve seen some of the past, and I’ve been around you for a couple of days now, and you’ve been nothing but caring, sweet, and kind.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I put a hand up to stop him.
“You have put my safety before yours. Everyone has been so great, and through all of my overwhelming feelings of being thrown into this world, you have made the adjustmen
t much smoother than I ever thought possible.
“Inside the Timeless book I saw Zola. She told me you were my kindred soul, and my heart tells me to believe her. You know it, and I know it. There’s something I can’t explain, but we have an undeniable bond.”
Andrew smiled. “I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you,” he conveyed.
I groaned. “Before I knew what was happening to me, my dreams were scaring the living hell out of me, and you helped to take away those feelings when I thought I was losing my mind. If it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t have been able to survive the past couple of nights.”
He shook his head. “You would have survived.”
“That’s not how I meant it,” I remarked. “I was an emotional wreck, and you kept me together, helped me hold the pieces in place. And though this is completely unconventional—we are unconventional—please don’t leave me tonight. I need you, now more than ever.”
“I won’t,” he promised.
“Good.”
He held his hand out, towed me to the bed, and pulled the covers down. I scooted across the soft cotton sheets. He followed behind, and I cuddled in his warm arms for a few minutes before sleep pulled me under. The last thing I remembered was Andrew whispering “Goodnight, sweet Ella” in my ear.
It was a dreamless night—my first dreamless night in what felt like a year. The sun poured into the room through the arched window and made everything in the room glitter and shine in its reflection. Though it was beautiful, the thoughts of my mom seemed to dull everything around me—everything except the angel fast asleep next to me. His dark, almost black-blue hair was tousled, and he had the most tranquil and serene expression on his face that I’d ever seen. I didn’t want to wake him, so for several minutes I just lay there and stared at him.
Suddenly, he smiled. “Are you watching me?”
“No,” I lied.
He opened his eyes. “You were calm all night. Did you have any dreams?” He reached up and traced a finger along my jaw. Sparks crackled, and my cheeks burned.
I shook my head. “None.” My tone was relieved. Maybe there was hope after all for getting rid of the dark circles under my eyes, but at the same time I didn’t want to lose the last connection I had with my mom. My two dreamful nights had my brain reeling. “Andrew, do angels dream?”
“You’re an angel.” He chuckled and pulled me tighter to his body. “Of course we dream. We’re similar to the average human in many ways—we were human at one point. Last night, for instance, I had a dream that you and I were at a baseball game, back in America. I read about baseball at the library in Boise City. It sounded like something I would enjoy.”
I laughed at the thought of Andrew, in all his celestial glory, wearing a baseball hat and eating a hot dog and garlic fries. I had to admit, the image in my head was adorable and surprisingly sexy, making the blood rush into my cheeks. I hid my face in the pillow to hide the blush and stifled the giggles.
“What?” Andrew asked, seeming completely confused by my reaction.
“It’s nothing, really. Just the thought of you doing something so common—so normal—seems strange to me.”
“Angels do enjoy normal activities. We don’t always run around saving lives.” He grinned at me, his eyes almost back to gold. “That makes me wonder, though. What do you like to do when you’re not disproving the existence of mythical creatures?” He was looking at me so intently that it made me feel self-conscious. Could this beautiful man really be interested in the trivial aspects of my daily life?
“Well,” I began hesitantly, “I enjoy snow skiing. Skiing is a sport where you—”
“Ella,” he interrupted, rolling his eyes in amusement, “I know what skiing is. I may have been dead for a few hundred years, but skiing was around before then. Though I’m sure it has changed a lot since I last went.”
“You’ve skied?” I asked. I didn’t even bother to hide the amused expression on my face.
“Yes, well, I’ve lived in several places where snow was quite common, believe it or not.” He smirked, holding back a chuckle. “Skies were necessary for travel. I couldn’t fly while trying to blend in with humans.”
“No, I guess you couldn’t. I’d love to take you skiing sometime, show you what it’s like now.”
“Like a date?” Andrew asked, a phony surprised smile plastered on his face. “Are you asking me out on a date, Gabriella?”
There was no hiding the blush that I knew covered my cheeks. “Well, um.” I fumbled for words. How could I be so forward? I had to recover this conversation and fast. “Well . . . I guess a date isn’t the most practical idea right now, what with the Soul Stalker after me and all.” This thought brought me back to reality. “Or the Shadows and the Ladies of Light.”
Andrew saw the change in my expression and tenderly took my face between his hands. “Ella,” he whispered, “I won’t let anyone hurt you. What you said last night, about us being kindred souls, well, I feel the same way. You have suddenly become my entire life, and I won’t allow anyone to take you away from me.”
Reality came crashing back down on me. Aiden—he must be paralyzed with grief. Abelie had obviously been his kindred soul. How could he possibly deal with her loss? He and I may not have a normal father/daughter relationship, but I wanted to be there for him, to support him as he grieved for his wife.
“We better get up. I’m sure we need to help Aiden with arrangements for Abelie. We can’t let him do this on his own.”
Andrew sat up, stretched, and put an arm around my shoulders. “Yes,” he agreed. “It’s time for her to be at peace.”
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