Angels of America: A Circle of the Fallen novella

by Wendy Maddocks

  We walk a few steps to one side and lean on a rock of white. Or… I thought it was a rock at first but when I put my hand against it to cushion my spine, it’s cool and dry but smoother than any rock I’ve known. Marble? But it doesn’t sweat under my skin like marble

  Bone. Suddenly, somehow, it’s right. There’s nothing else it can be.

  Bones create a huge arch towering high above us, whiter than white. Bleached pure ad pale. As white as the cloud – auras – floating around.

  Kathleen Cartwright, the voices boom. I barely hear them: my own head a whirligig of fun. Daniel has been asking for you. In his lucid moments.

  Is he Daniel right now? Or…

  It is safe.

  Rose. I have to go.

  I’m not even sure I heard her, let alone understood her when I nod and watch her fade away into the swirling mists.

  I‘m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. A sharp sting whips across my face.

  You are panicking.

  I’m going to die. That’s pretty much the definition of a panicking situation.

  You must let yourself be guided by your angel. We do not gift these opportunities lightly.

  To me, or to Katie? I mean she’s not meant to be an angel, is she? So you’re making her work for it.

  We have rules. Many have been broken and amends must be made.

  If we stay in this prison cell any longer, Mariah’s going to come for us and God knows what she’ll do. I know she’s been… torturing Jack, and maybe will do the same to me. Can’t you break us out?

  I blink and, when I open my eyes, blank walls and scratchy carpet greet me.

  Valmont.

  Mariah.

  Shit.

  What can I say, I tried to wake Katie up. When I woke up, I was so disoriented even though I knew exactly where I was and what was going on. Doesn’t make much sense, right? I mean, how can I be so aware of my reality and not even remember where I had just been – and where Katie still was – at least for a while?

  “Katie. Katie.” I called her name over and over and even leant over to shake her gently before I remembered that she wasn’t quite asleep. She was in her ‘other’ reality; her ‘other’ life. The other life I had just wandered through and caused God knows how much trouble for her and her bosses. Had I been too rude, too demanding, too me? Had I not been me enough. What if I was not what they were expecting and they didn’t think I was worth saving? Maybe that was the real reason Katie hadn’t woken up. Paranoid thoughts like that whirled around my head and, in some weird way, I knew my brain was trying to protect me from the only thought that really mattered.

  I was going to die.

  Maybe not right now. Maybe not for a long time. But one day I’d die just like the Keepers said… and I’d never know when it was coming. I wanted to leave the child care system, so I did. I wanted to leave the first taste of independent life, so I wandered around South Carolina. I wanted to find my family – because I have to have someone out there – and… I might not ever do that. Death might claim me before I got the chance to look for them. This, maybe not held captive in an abandoned Valmont police cell, but this – having friends and fun and … fear – yeah, this is where I belong. This is my place in the world. I’ve only just found this out and I don’t want to leave it. That dark part of my brain that always gets me out of trouble is whispering that I won’t be leaving anything. But it can’t tell me how that’s possible. Even if I don’t die whilst here – and the lack of food does not help – Mariah ad her goons will take me away and do weird stuff to me and never let me see normal life again. Or, I escape and go on the run, racing from place to place so no-one finds me. No more forming bonds because it hurts too much when they get broken.

  Maybe becoming a Shade – a living dead girl – would be best all round.

  No more having to build a life then trash it when I got into too much trouble. No more exhausting myself when I try to make somebody forget that I’m only 16 or that I was late for school again. None of that.

  “Katie, we need to get out of here.”

  “So.” The thick steel door unlocked with a clunk and, from my position on the floor, I saw a perfect pair of ankles blending into black suede shoe boots step in. “It’s Katie now, is it? What happened to Pandora?”

  “I’m trying out a new name for her. She’s not responding well,” I bite off.

  “And you. Genevieve.”

  “Cute, right?” Tracking upwards, the ankles melt into legs that look muscular and toned but quite shapely. Just above the knee is the hem of a dark green dress with an even darker half-jacket, which sets off red hair I remember too well. She’s got the kind of face that is hard and soft all at the same time. She’s smiling at me too. Freaking smiling. “Since we’re all friendly now, tell me your name.”

  “Hmmm no. I think I’ll keep hold of that card for now.” She smiles down at me. I know she’s Mariah, and she knows I know. It’s just a power play. My brain, everybody! Stating the goddamn obvious.

  “What do you want me for? You came to my high school to take me away. You shot people I – yeah, people I care about. Kidnapped one of the people trying to help me. Followed me and hired corrupt cops to throw me in here. Why?”

  “I’d like to say it’s because I can and give an evil laugh but I’m not a comic book villain. I just do what I have to. By whatever means necessary.”

  “Attacking people was necessary?” Then I curse myself for stupidity. “Of course it was. Without cutting into my support network, how could you be sure of getting me to do what you want?”

  “Smart little thing, aren’t you? Rose.” She says my name like it holds some magic power over me. “Nobody wanted it to come to this. We wanted to pluck you out of that infernal Milagro High place and take you to a safe place. A place where everything can be controlled and be made just as perfect as it can be.”

  “What if I don’t want perfect?”

  “You want to spend the rest of your life like this? Constantly on escape alert? Now that doesn’t sound like the kind of life any right minded girl would want.”

  So… I’m crazy. I have a freaky forgetting power already. Big shock on the sanity front.

  “Perhaps we should discuss this in the morning.”

  Mariah turns to leave and reaches for the door.

  “Wait! What if I go with you and let you do whatever it is you do? Will you let Jack go?” Katie will hate the plan that is forming in my head but her being asleep is about to start working in my favor. “I know you’ve probably already hurt him but if I give myself up, will you stop?”

  “Oh Rose. Rose, Rose, Rose. You’ve already given yourself up. I mean, you’re, you’ve stopped fighting us, you’re engaging in a mostly civilized conversation with me. All that’s left is for us to decide whether to trade you for the boy. We could just keep you both. He is very interesting.”

  “No, you wanted me. You used Jack to get me and now I’m here. Let him go.”

  “Giving orders. My my.”

  “I can do stuff. Weird, freaky stuff that’ll make your red hair go white.”

  “You’ve never shown any powers before now.” I don’t like that glint in her eye. “Prove them to me.”

  Uh oh. Keep your brain in gear and the brakes on your mouth, Rose. “Hmmm no. I think I’ll keep hold of that card for now,” I say, using her own words against her. “Sometimes, everybody has a secret to keep.”

  Mariah finally turns round to glance down at me. I’m not getting up and she isn’t stooping to my level: we’re already in some kind of psychological war of wills. Katie is still out for the count by the table. A stab of envy attacks me. I wish I was still with her, holding her hand in that weird ass other world, totally oblivious to what is going on in this cell. “Yes. Secrets. You’ll tell me yours soon enough.”

  “I can assure you, Mariah, I won’
t.”

  After an instant of a shocked freeze, the door opens and she walks away like nothing has happened. The doors slams behind her and keys rattle in the lock. Katie stirs in her sleep but does not wake. Distantly, I’m grateful for the chance to think yet angry at the lack of distraction. It looks like my options are few and far between. I’ve already given up by allowing myself to be brought here and not fighting harder when I suspected the officers weren’t completely kosher – Mariah was right about that. But I did run from the school, from my home. I didn’t surrender then. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it now though.

  What am I meant to do? One way or another, Mariah is going to control my life. I resign myself to that fact but, like she said, I can still bargain for Jacks’ freedom. A week or so ago, I would not have thought twice about selling another person out to save my own ass; a week ago, thought, I didn’t know what it was to have friends I actually gave a crap about. And who care about me because they want to, and not because it’s their job. I don’t want to hurt anyone, not Katie or Bytheway or Jack – at least, no more than I already have, but I also want freedom. It’s selfish but I try to get back Tuesday mornings look after number one attitude and force some cool reason into my thinking. Katie can just angel-wing herself out of this mess at any time and I’m sure that, between her and those Keepers, there’s gotta be a way to rescue Jack. Plus, for all I know, Bytheway could have waited until the cop cars sped away from the diner, cut his losses and ran. I shuffle over the table and sit propped against a table leg watching my friend sleep. A slight frown creases her forehead and her eyes are darting around under her lids, frightened. Whatever is going on in that pretty head of hers must be disturbing her. As she turns, I can see the scars on her face that I saw in the other world. One on her right cheekbone, about an inch long, and another just above her eye and cutting a millimeter into her left brow. I don’t know exactly how they happened but each one was earned. Maybe in battle, maybe just an accident each one means something. If they didn’t, Katie wouldn’t have tried so hard to hide them from me, and she would have left her guard down enough that I could still see them. Beneath her loose t-shirt and Capri pants, other, more vicious, deeper cuts have healed over.

  As if she senses my fingers reaching out to trace the slight indent on her cheek, Katie’s eyes snap open and she shoots her right hand out to hold me inches away from her smooth skin. It takes her a long minute to recognize me, then her hand seems to ghost through my arm and fall back down to her stomach. “Do you remember it?”

  “Yeah.” There’s only one thing she can be asking me about. “What will they do to you if you don’t save me?”

  “Take my powers away. Maybe stop me being a Shade because of my age?”

  “What if you don’t have a choice?”

  Katie looks at me, puzzled, and my own calm brain fills in the blanks. Won’t matter. “What if – somehow – this Mariah gets me, really gets me, and you get taken away like Jack. Surely they can’t blame you for that. Or if they get me when you’re, y’know, with them. ‘Cos I know you have this job to protect me and we’re friends now but I know saving Jack is still your first priority so what if we did that then I gave myself up? It would be my choice. And it’s insane to expect you to help me if I don’t let you.”

  “Rose, I’m a freaking angel. I can make you do what I want if I choose to.”

  “Then choose to,” I dare her. “Because I’m totally over all this running. We’re not even in the same state we started in. I got people hurt and we stole cars. Not forgetting we had a hostage. I don’t even know if it’s night or day outside. So go on. Make my mind up for mw.”

  Haven’t you already done that anyway?

  Oh. Yeah. I’d not thought about her mind reading thing. Of course she knew what I was thinking – hell, she might have known, on some level, from the second I started speaking to Mariah.

  “Katie. Katie, I’m really so-“

  “Don’t. Don’t even say the words ‘cos I am not letting you do this.”

  “It’s not up to you.” Okay, that’s not exactly true. “Well, maybe it is but, trust me, I’m doing this for the best.” She doesn’t look convinced and, to be honest, I’m not completely sure this is the right thing to do either. “This is the best option for all of us. You must know that.”

  Shaking her head, Katie moves to the far wall and turns away from me, leaning up against it with her cheek to the brickwork. Maybe, maybe this will be easier if she hates me. Friendships, attachments – I’ve lived my whole life without them and turned out more or less okay; why should I need them now?

  But I do.

  I’ve never really needed anybody before and I don’t think I do now. It’s just that… when I think about letting Mariah and her goons do whatever they have planned for me, and of going through it alone, especially when I know there’s an escape, I think I’ll go into melt down.

  “Day.”

  Random.

  “Specifically sunrise, Friday morning. I can feel heat seeping into the bricks.”

  “What will they do to me?” The answer could be anything from cutting my brain open to see how it works to singing me lullabies and giving me my very own bunny rabbit. I’m hoping for option 2.

  “They know almost as much about you as we do. Maybe the same. But they’re one step ahead of us, Rose. I don’t know how Mariah knows what you are going to be or even if she definitely does, but she has plans. I suspect she’ll scan you and do tests or something to find out your powers.”

  “But-“ but I’m not going to be an angel, I won’t have powers like you.

  Your ability to make people forget things, that’s your power. Some Shades, the special ones, have powers while they’re still human

  “Maybe she’ll see how far she can stretch it. Maybe they’ll try to keep you alive so they can use you.”

  “Keeping me alive has to be a good thing, right?”

  Katie pushes off the wall then, comes over, wraps me in a hug that starts off awkward and stiff then softens as I bury my face in her dark, silky hair. Gently, she brushes my golden locks behind my shoulders and a single tear runs between our pressed cheeks though I don’t know if it’s hers or mine. I’d forgotten what it was like to be hugged until now: the workers in the kids homes were never allowed to hug us – too scared of lawsuits, and the few genuine warm embraces I’d had off foster families had only lasted until they realized I was uncontrollable. It’s nice.

  “You’ll be living on borrowed time,” Katie whispers. At that, I try to pull away to find answers in her eyes but she won’t let me go. “If Mariah finds a way to keep you alive past your death date then when you die, you won’t come back.”

  “And I’m going to be important.”

  “Somehow. There’s something inside you that the Keepers won’t let go to waste. People are going to need you.”

  Well, damn. I sink to my knees while she still holds me, puts my head into her lap and murmurs nonsense sounds as the rest of my body curls into a fetal position. I’m beginning to fold under the pressure. Can’t can’t do it can’t matter only let them down always disappoint.

  You’ll be great.

  I’ve made up my mind. “If we run, they’re always going to be chasing us. If I go along with this, people won’t miss me ‘cos you can’t miss what you’ve never had.” Katie gives me a look; where is this going? I give her a smile which is probably more of a psychotic baring of teeth than anything. “We’re going to war.”

  Chapter ten