by S. L. Naeole
The rumbling ceased, and the quiet was once again far more terrifying than anything I had ever imagined. It was a deadly sound, this silence.
A tightening began in my abdomen, and I looked down just in time to see the black-brown layer of a mud covered root encircle my waist before it began dragging me through the woods with blinding speed. I kept from screaming by clamping down on my lips through my teeth, every bump and dip forcing whimpers through me as my foot jostled against the ground and my sides were jabbed by protruding branches that jutted out from the bushes and young trees that lined my escape route.
I caught glimpses of the sky through the few openings beneath the canopy above me, but there was no light there to offer me hope. Even the stars didn’t want to witness what would happen here tonight. I felt my last glimmer of hope begin to fade just as the dragging slowed, and I found myself lying beside the large Willow tree that was Bala’s home.
The root that had pulled me through the maze of the forest slunk away and I did my best to stand, fighting off the pain from my foot and the dizziness that I had begun to feel. My hand went to my side and I sighed when I realized that it was warm; the bleeding had started again, and this time, it didn’t look like it was going to stop.
“You need my help?”
Bala’s dark eyes emerged from around the wide trunk, and clicked her tongue when she saw me. “You need someone else’s help.”
“No,” I told her. I reached for the tree to steady myself and felt it shudder when my black and bloodied skin touched it. “I don’t need anyone’s help but yours. I need you to help me die.”
“Die? I’m not sure I understand.”
“Robert’s trying to kill me-”
She smiled and cut me off. “Well, surely you can’t expect me to get in his way.”
“No. No, you don’t understand. If he kills me, he kills himself.”
“That’s insane. Angels don’t die.”
I pounded the tree with my fist in frustration. “You’re not listening to me. My mother’s dead. I just saw an angel being torn in half. Angels die, Bala, and if you don’t help me, Robert’s going to be next. He’s going to kill himself if he hurts me, and if he does that, he’ll kill his soul.”
“You think too much of yourself, human Grace. Why would he kill himself over your death? Can he not simply find another to replace you? Are you so special?”
My heart lurched in my chest at her suggestion. I had thought it. I thought I had accepted it. But hearing it from someone else, hearing how obvious it was to someone else, it was like having my heart placed in a vice grip and having it squeezed until it exploded.
“I hope that one day he does find someone else,” I said slowly, the words burning as they came out of my mouth, the lie too disgusting to tolerate. “I hope that he does. But he won’t be able to if he kills me. Please, help me.”
“I am not a killer,” she said as she shook her head and disappeared behind the tree once more.
“No! Bala, please. I’m already dying,” I coughed, my chest moving mere millimeters now. I took a shallow breath and soon doubled over in a fit of hacking coughs that felt like a million needles were trying to bore their way out of me.
“You don’t have to do anything but keep Robert away from me. Just keep him away long enough,” I whispered when I could as my lone leg gave out and I collapsed onto the ground. “It won’t be long.”
My eyes stared up, and I could hear the leaves shiver above me, though there was no wind. Two dark orbs appeared and a smile formed on the olive face that belonged to Bala, her hair swirling around her head in a mass of activity.
“Okay.”
“Thank you.”
I felt her hands gently touch my face and she cooed. “So soft. I used to have skin like yours. Freckled like yours, too. N’Uriel never complimented my freckles, though.”
“You heard him?” I remarked, my voice so soft, I wondered if she even heard me.
“Yes. I always watch. I’m always watching. I see everything. I love him, too, you know. I love him almost as much as I hate the angel who turned me into what I am. N’Uriel has only shown me kindness, tenderness. I could not accept him dying. It would hurt.”
Listening to her speak about him with such reverence, I felt sorry for her. She didn’t just love Robert. She was in love with him, and I knew better than anyone just what that could do to the human spirit. And, while I knew it had been a long time since she’d been human, I was also certain that that part of us never died, no matter what we became.
“Will you watch over him, Bala?” I wheezed, knowing that the task, while simple, was something that she would readily agree to.
“With every leaf and branch at my command,” she replied with an emphatic nod of her head.
“Thank you.”
She smiled at me once more, and then my body rose, lifted by leaves and branches that had somehow managed to delve beneath me undetected. They brought me closer to the mossy bark that covered the trunk of Bala’s tree. A fissure began to form in one of the cracks, soon growing longer and wider until it was large enough to hold a small person. The flowers that dotted the tree opened and closed rapidly at this activity, and with a gentle push, I was placed into the wide opening, a bed of moss cradling me in its softness.
“You will be safe in here. I’m sorry that you’re dying, Grace. We could have been great friends.”
A weak half-smile formed on my lips and I nodded. “I think we already are.”
“Be at peace,” she said before the opening began to narrow and the world disappeared behind a mossy wall.
I took several slow, deep breaths as I tried to accustom myself to the cramped confines of where it was that I would die. I had to admit that it was a much better option than letting Sam do as he wished with me.
The smell that permeated everything around me was far different than I had expected—had I expected a smell?—and I tried to place the different scents while my mind still could; it was a welcome distraction. Rather than dank and musty, the space was filled with a light, floral fragrance, and each breath that I took was filled with it, the air moist and almost sticky. The muted whooshing that I could hear fill up the void of sound was followed by more sweet air, the sugary scent of it acting like a sedative to my jittery nerves.
I raised a hand to touch the walls and was surprised at how soft they felt. Of course, I could be all wrong and it was indeed rough and flaky like bark and I just couldn’t tell because my skin was dying. But I wanted to believe that it was soft, wanted to believe that perhaps that softness that Bala missed so much was still a part of her.
I began to cough and the pain started to crush down on me with each violent quake. The fresh flow of blood that escaped the wounds at my side was warm as it trickled down and pooled beneath me, soaking my bed. Each drop that drained out of me took with it my fears, my worries, my hope.
“Robert,” I said, the name floating off of my lips as my breathing became pained and labored. “Soon…”
I closed my eyes and smiled, content to see the silver eyes of my heart fill the face that took shape on the back of my lids. I envisioned his smile, the smile he gave only to me, and my lips parted as I imagined for the last time his kiss. There would be no more kisses, no more smiles, and as my coughing took away the last bit of oxygen I had left in my deflated lungs, I sighed with bittersweet content.
He’d be fine soon. I could feel it, the surety within me growing as my consciousness waned. I let the thought carry me through the darkness. I said my goodbyes.
HEAR YOU ME
Robert. Robert. Robert.
Ugh. Even in death, the voice inside of my head didn’t cease. Maybe if I just waited it out a bit, it would stop. Perhaps it was just an echo of a thought in my head, something that would soon die out and let me alone in my grief and loss.
Robert.
Okay, so apparently not. I waited for the name to continue, and sure enough it did, quickening its pace, like the sound of
a rapid heartbeat, one that I knew I no longer possessed. I tried to focus on something else then, and that’s when I felt the vibrations. I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or not; everything around me was pitch black. I tried to sit up and felt the top of my head collide with the…ceiling?
“Ow! What the…?” With my head hunched down, I reached up and placed my hand on what felt like a soft, almost velvet surface. My hand moved down and roamed, hand over hand as I turned around in a complete circle, tracing a circular wall. I patted the cushion beneath me and felt its sticky and stringy texture. “Moss? Why would there be moss here?”
I knew instantly where I was. But things had changed. It was no longer quiet; a harsh thumping could be heard coming in from the outside, followed by a grating screech, the pattern repeating itself over and over. I pressed my ear to the soft wall and listened, hearing the rapid intake of a breath that wasn’t my own, followed by a crashing sound that seemed to be directly on the other side of me. I jerked back and slammed into the wall behind me, my head crashing into it and causing spangles to appear before my eyes.
“Bala?” I called out as I rubbed the back of my head, my voice strong, my body feeling strangely…well. “Bala, is everything okay?”
The response that came to me was a frantic growling that grew louder with each ticking second. The shaking began again, and I braced myself against the curved wall behind me as the rocking seemed to come from everywhere. There were grunts and roars and all sorts of noises that forced a panicked scream to form within me, but I held it at bay, unwilling to add to the fear that was so palpable, I could smell it, even touch it as it sunk in from the outside.
“Grace.”
A voice from above me whispered my name and my eyes flew up, unable to see anything but knowing that at least my sense of direction wasn’t wrong.
“Grace, he’s here. He knows you’re here. Are you dead yet?”
“Bala?”
“Yes. Are you dead yet?”
“I don’t think so. At least, I couldn’t be talking to you if I were, right?”
“Oh, this isn’t good; this isn’t good at all. He’s trying to break into the tree. He’s destroying my roots, tearing my branches to try to get to you. I don’t know how much longer I can keep him away before he destroys me, Grace. He’s angry, very angry and I don’t know how much longer I can take this. Please hurry up and die.”
Her voice was pained, each word exhausting her judging by the pauses and the airy quality of them. My hand lifted and I felt the curved lines of her jaw, the sharp point of her nose and I knew that I couldn’t let her continue to risk her life this way. I didn’t want anyone else dying, not for me.
“Let me out, Bala.”
“But…he’ll kill you.”
I thought about that, the statement that was so sure, so final. I thought about the fear that I saw in Lark’s face just before I left her, the shock that had embedded itself onto Stacy’s normally agile frame, turning it tense and pessimistic, and I could hear the raging rumbling that came from outside as Robert tried desperately to get at me.
What had he done with them? Were they hurt? Or worse? Could I live for even a minute longer knowing that he had hurt them? Shaking my head, I knew that I couldn’t.
“Let me out, Bala. It’s either me or you, and I know my odds of survival, but do you know yours?”
Another grating screech was soon followed by an unbearable grinding sound, and the swaying turned into a violent shaking as the events that were occurring outside forced the large tree that held me to shudder from the attack.
With no warning, a pinhole of light appeared. The tiny beam of bluish-gray that shot through was almost blinding after sitting in darkness for who knows how long, and as it grew larger, I held my hand up to shield my eyes from the stinging sight. With my eyes half closed, I became aware of my arm.
The black, honeycombed pattern that had covered it was now gone. There was no pain; there was no stiffness or numbness. With little care to the burning light that grew over me, I brought my other arm in front of me and stared, amazed at the normal looking flesh that replaced the battered and bruised skin.
I looked down at my feet and saw that my foot was no longer bent at an awkward angle, the bone that had torn through my flesh now gone, the skin smooth and undamaged. I wiggled my toes, giggling when they moved, and gasping in surprise when my foot turned and twisted without any pain.
This moment of awe was short-lived, however, when two dark hands reached in to grab a hold of me and yanked me out of my hole. Robert. He was glowing, the color alternating from a harsh, midnight flame to the red, almost blood tinged corona that surrounded him as he stood before me. His hands clamped around my throat in a vise-like grip that threatened to extinguish my life in an instant, but the way his fingers alternately tightened and loosened made no promises that it would be quick.
He was a menacing sight: death personified, death in the flesh, death in a rage that had consumed him to the point where he was not only unrecognizable, but he also could not recognize anything save what would make the voice in his head stop its incessant screaming. I could almost hear it as he stared at me, a strange sort of hesitation that I hadn’t expected.
Inside of my head, the voice that repeated Robert’s name only grew louder with its insistence, and soon it began dueling with the echoing call inside of Robert’s mind. He cocked his head to the side, confused by what he heard.
A part of me wanted to tell him to do what he needed to save himself, to believe that what we had wasn’t enough to cause him to die of grief and guilt. But as the fingers that clamped down on my pulse burned with a heat that sank through me, turning my blood into a roaring river of emotions and memories that stained the rest of me with every moment we’d ever shared, every touch, every kiss, every promise of love and faith, I knew that I would be wrong.
He could hear his own name, hear it spoken in my blood with relentless need, and he knew what it meant. Even with the blackness that blinded him to everything else, he knew that there was a reason for us being here, knew that we were inexplicably tied to each other, an irrevocable bond that could not be severed by anyone, not even us.
I raised my hands to his and gently pried them apart. To my surprise—perhaps not even that, because I suppose I knew he would—he let go. I stumbled backwards as he paced, angry, frustrated, his wings ruffling, his head shaking back and forth.
“Robert?” I said softly, trying to keep my tone as passive as possible.
His head whipped up and his black eyes swallowed me whole in their emptiness. He didn’t answer me. Just stared at me…through me. “Robert, where’s Lark? Where’s Stacy?”
He grunted, and flicked a hand away, as though he were shooing me, but I knew what the gesture meant; they had left, whether by their own choice or out of necessity. I breathed a sigh of relief at that, glad that at least they were safe.
The glow that reflected off of him illuminated the tree behind him, Bala’s tree, and I heard my gasp of shock and dismay at the damage he had caused to it in his attempt to get to me. The lower half of the wide, oval trunk was stripped of its bark, which now carpeted the ground and floated on the surface of the lake, disturbing the still surface. The small flowers that had clung to the mossy covering of Bala’s tree were no longer open, their petals brown and withered.
There were deep gouges from where Robert’s fists had dug through the exposed and soft core, and branches hung down, splintered from their bases, dangling atop the corpses of those that hadn’t managed to hang on. The hollow that I had hid in was still visible, but the entrance to it was rough and torn, the edges jagged and sharp and not smooth as it had been when Bala had opened it for me.
“Where’s Bala?” I asked, trying to remain calm as my eyes darted around for any sign that she was still okay. “Robert, where’s Bala?”
“I’m here,” a soft whisper came to me from above. I glanced up and saw the dark eyes appear from an untouched branch that hung
overhead.
“Stay there,” I told her, and watched as she blinked and then disappeared, the branch waving up and down in what I could only hope was an acknowledgement.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” a growling accusation broke in, and my eyes lowered to look at Robert who had stopped pacing and was now hunched down, his hands on the ground, his knees bent in a pose that made him seem ready to launch at me at any moment.
“I know,” I answered. “I had rather hoped that I would be.”
“Why aren’t you?”
I reveled slightly in this rather coherent conversation that we were having, but knew that it wouldn’t last long, and so I answered him as quickly and as honestly as I could. “I don’t know. My hands have healed, and-” I raised my stiff, blood-stained shirt up and heard my swift intake of breath as my fingers searched for the wounds that Sam had caused and instead finding smooth flesh, my eyes darting down to confirm my discovery “-I’m not bleeding anymore. I don’t know why or how, but my wounds are gone.”
“I don’t want to kill you.”
It was as clear and defined a statement as anyone could make, and my heart ached as his head hung down at these words, the cracking in his voice so noticeable it was a wonder I didn’t rush towards him to comfort him and plead with him, convince him that he didn’t have to.
My reply was simple. “I don’t want you to kill me, either.”
The sound that came out of him then was startling. I nearly fell over in shock from it, barely holding on to my balance as little by little, the sound of laughter began to flow out of his mouth. “You always were different.”
“Do we have to get into that again? Isn’t it obvious that different doesn’t even begin to describe it anymore?” I was trying to be sarcastic, trying to hold on to this strange sense of humor he’d released, but there was no hope in that as a sobering growl came out of him.
“Okay. Alright, so we both agree that neither of us want you to kill me. That doesn’t solve our problem, though. You can’t last much longer this way, and I’ve already lived longer than I was meant to. I’d ask if you had a gun on you so that I could just shoot myself but something tells me that your answer is going to be no.”