When Theo opened his eyes again the very last place he expected to find himself was on the roof of his old school. This was Theo’s secret place, one he would find himself going to when he needed to think and be alone from a world where he never felt he belonged. He knew that most people had a special place, but it took until the day he found the janitor’s lost keys to find his. For some reason Theo could always think better when he was up somewhere higher than the rest of the world around him and for him, it was always the higher the better.
He used to have a huge tree he would climb, never stopping until he hit that highest branch before the point of it breaking. It was the only time he would feel at peace, as though he had finally found somewhere he belonged. People would often be amazed at his lack of fear and he once had a whole street outside watching as he saved a cat from the top of a roof.
The fire brigade had tried and failed, as the cat had simply moved further away from them, being more scared of the men than falling from a three storey town house. But whilst they were busy discussing new options of how to save the poor animal, Theo had already scaled up the house using the old iron drainpipe.
He remembered the gasps of fright and hysterical squeals of the neighbours at seeing him taking matters into his own hands. But before the firemen could get to him, he simply grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck as if it was a kitten again and stuffed the scared animal into his jacket. Then he balanced himself along the narrow ridge of tiles, building up speed until he made the jump needed to reach the tree next to the house. He landed perfectly, grabbing onto one of the branches, amazingly without losing the cat. It was only when he reached the street level that he realised how unbelievable it all looked when one of the fireman dropped his helmet and said,
“How did you do that?” He was dumbstruck along with everyone else who had witnessed it, so Theo told them the only thing at the time he could think was a good enough excuse.
“I grew up in the circus,” and then he unzipped his jacket, let the cat drop and he ran off, thankful that no one on the street knew who he was or that he was from the boy’s home just around the corner. See that was the thing about the ‘unfortunates’ as Theo liked to call them. Those unfortunate souls that had been brought into the world with little to no thought on the lives they had been forced to live through the misery of never feeling wanted.
Well not until the day they finally became adopted. And even then there were those few that were fool enough to let the bitterness of their situation stick to them like a glue they never wanted rid of. It made Theo angry to know that good homes and good people had gone to waste on kids that were simply unable to ever let go of the hand that life had dealt them, instead of simply accepting the fact that they should consider themselves lucky someone had finally offered them what most his kind often dreamed of…A new hand of winning cards.
But getting back to the ‘Unfortunates’ such as him, that was what he had always counted on in situations like that day with the cat…it was simply a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and that included a bunch of neighbours who had lived around the corner from him his whole life but yet had no idea who he was.
At first he didn’t know why he had thought back to this particular memory but then, looking down at all those noisy school children running around like ants, he remembered why. Why he felt different as he did that day…
The man in the shadows had wings.
Since Theo could remember he was fascinated by anything that could fly and other than dreaming of becoming a hero when he was younger, he also dreamed that he would one day have wings. As a child it wasn’t that strange to dream you could fly as he knew now it was a common thought for most children to have, but as he got older the dream didn’t fade. No, if anything it only became worse.
Which is why Theo’s secret place was as close to the clouds as he could get. But none of that explained just how he found himself back there because the last thing he remembered was all Hell breaking loose and a winged Angel easily stopping the chaos.
No, not an Angel…
A demon.
He thought back to the image he saw when he opened his eyes and remembered the shadowed man had what looked like purple fire flowing through his veins, making his skin glow with power. His large wings had been folded in behind him and didn’t seem so threatening, but it was his eyes that burned into him with the same purple heat which seemed to singe the edges of his very soul. After that Theo couldn’t remember anything but waking up on the familiar rooftop. Had it all been a dream? Had he sneaked up here to get out of doing gym and fell asleep? Well if he had then he certainly had a more vivid imagination than he first thought.
“You’re not dreaming I’m afraid.” A startling voice said from behind him and Theo turned quickly to see a figure was hiding in the shadows. He was back.
“Is this a trick?” Theo asked angrily.
“In a way I guess it is,” the shadow answered him and he was surprised that his voice seemed softer, more gentle than it had been before. Was it because now they were alone?
“Who are you?”
“My name is Dominic Draven and I am your…” The man paused for a moment and Theo couldn’t help but wonder why, so he finished for him.
“My Headmaster.”
“Yes, of sorts,” he agreed cryptically making Theo frown.
“Look Mister, I am really trying not to be rude here but if you don’t tell me what’s going on…”
“Then you will what exactly…sprout wings and fly away?” the man said without anger or malice.
“I wish,” Theo muttered under his breath but the man must have heard him.
“Then lucky for you, in my world, wishes like that often come true.” Theo looked back at him when he said this and the lack of trust was written all over Theo’s face.
“You made us come all this way only to have us murdered on a bus and then all start turning into freaks for your amusement, so you will have to forgive me if I don’t believe anything you have to say,” Theo replied drily, hoping he had made his point.
“Then you wish to go back to this life without ever knowing what you truly are…what you, along with your friends, have now become? Because trust me when I say, you are far from what you class as freaks.” Theo didn’t want to believe what he was saying, he really didn’t but it was getting harder not to want to listen.
“Why am I even bothering? You wouldn’t understand,” Theo said to himself knowing the man had no clue about how he felt or what he had been through.
“Why don’t you try me?” the man said in a way that made Theo want to give him what he wanted but he didn’t know why. It wasn’t like Theo had a long waiting list of people he was ready to pour his heart out to…so why this man…why this Demon?
Theo took a deep breath and looked out to the clouds that he could only wish were at his fingertips.
“When I was seven I fell for this girl in my class. Her name was Sarah and I remember being fascinated by the plaited pigtails she always wore that were tied off in blue ribbons.
They used to twirl around when she ran around with her friends and I would sit on my own and watch her with a smile.” Theo was actually smiling to himself now and it only faded when he remembered who he was telling this to. He coughed as if to try and erase what he just said and carried on as if he hadn’t just trusted someone else for the first time with one of his secrets.
“One day I was late getting my break time after one of my teachers wanted to speak to me. I always wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t been late that day.” This question was something Theo had tortured himself over, even years later.
“What happened, Theo?”
“I ran to the yard where I knew she would be and found her on the floor. She had been pushed by one of the bigger kids who was a known bully. He was walking away laughing and I remember wanting to hit him so badly that my hands shook but instead I ran to Sarah.” He paused a second as if he could see her lying there on this very roofto
p.
“I wanted to make sure she was alright. So I reached out my hand to help her up but that’s when things went bad.” He remembered back to when his hand was shaking for a very different reason as he reached out to her, wondering what she would do or if she would even take it. Of course now he wished that she hadn’t.
“Your touch…it…” the man started to guess and Theo had no clue how but he couldn’t bear to hear another person say it so he quickly finished that sentence for him.
“It hurt her. She collapsed back on the ground and at first I thought it had been because of the fall. I screamed for help over and over before someone came, all the while trying to shake her awake.”
“Theo, you didn’t know,” the man said, trying to console him but as far as Theo was concerned, he didn’t deserve it.
“What, that I put her in hospital? No you’re right, I didn’t know. And I didn’t know even when I snuck into the hospital to see her.” Theo snapped back, taking out his own frustrations from carrying years of guilt on the shadow behind him.
“I remember looking down after one of the teachers had picked her up and rushed her inside only to find one of her blue ribbons was caught on my shoe. It didn’t feel right, her being without that other ribbon,” he said as if looking down now and seeing it still there snaking around as if trying to break free in the wind.
“So like I said, I only snuck in to give it back to her.” Theo paused a minute to drag a hand through his floppy hairstyle, pushing it all back like he usually did when he was feeling this way.
“After that there was little doubt as to what my touch could do to someone.” Theo thought back to when he uncurled her dainty small fingers and tried to place the ribbon in her hand. But then he also remembered the awful sounds of the machines beeping wildly around him and the way her fingers fell limp, letting the ribbon ripple to the floor.
After that it all became a bit of a blur, flashing in his memory bank like a flicker book of nightmares as nurses and doctors flooded the room in a panic, shouting at him to leave. But most of all he remembered not being able to take his eyes of that lone piece of blue ribbon resting there against the pale lino floor and wincing every time one of the hospital staff stood on it.
“What happened to the girl?” the man asked, surprising him with his concern for a life he didn’t even know.
“She was in a coma for six weeks before finally waking up. After that, her parents moved to Scotland…or so I heard. Either way I never saw her again.” As Theo finished his story he was amazed to find that this time instead of thinking back to the event that shaped his life and started him down the solitary path he had been on ever since, he felt something other than guilt…he felt relief. It was as though a huge weight had been lifted just knowing that someone else in the world knew the type of pain he’d experienced that day and the difficult choice he felt he had to make, to ensure that something like that never happened again.
“So you see, I was already classed as a freak before you ever showed up, so what’s the difference?” Theo said looking back out to the school he never really attended and the friends he never allowed himself to make because of it.
“Isn’t it obvious to you yet…there are no such things as freaks in my world, Theo.”
“Then what was that? What was happening to them?” he asked referring of course to Janie, Ivan and Ena.
“It was their rebirth.”
“Their what now?” Theo asked frowning at where he thought the Headmaster’s face was.
“Before I explain, I want to ask you something, a question I once asked a long time ago of someone who is very special to me.” Theo wasn’t quite sure why he added on this personal part at the end, but for some reason he was glad. He guessed it made the guy seem more human than he obviously was.
“Go ahead, ask away.”
“Do you believe in God, Theo?” The man surprised him by asking this and for a minute Theo couldn’t speak. It was a question everyone asked themselves at some point in their lives and one Theo admittedly had done more than once.
“I’m an Orphan who just told you about how I nearly killed a girl because I wanted to help her off the floor…so what do you think?” Theo finally snapped, hating himself for how much that question affected him.
“That is not an answer.”
“No, then how’s this. I was abandoned by my parents as a baby and dumped on a doorstep like you would a stray cat you no longer wanted. Don’t you think if there was a God then he would have chosen something better for me?” Theo said, trying to mask his emotions as he said this, but that deep embedded hurt was too ingrained in his heart to give up on. It was like a scar of a question mark that someone had carved onto his chest, causing it to sink its way in until becoming engraved on his damaged soul. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to let go, but more as though something wasn’t letting him go.
“But what if he has chosen something better for you now?” It was at this point that Theo whipped around and snapped,
“Well it’s too late for that!”
“Is it? Because I don’t think so. You can’t change who you are and nor should you ever try if what you are is something great. My own father told me that on the day that I was reborn and has reminded me of the fact a few times since,” the man said with an honesty that surprised him yet again. For some reason the guy in the shadows didn’t strike him as the family man type and that included having a father figure giving him advice on how to become a better person.
“Someone did this to you?” Theo couldn’t help himself when asking this.
“No one did this to me Theo, just like no one has done this to you.”
“No? Forgive me then if I find that hard to believe,” he said on a humourless laugh, thinking back to Carrick.
“Many things in this life are hard to believe when you live blinded to what your mind refuses to see.”
“Anyone ever tell you that this cryptic act gets annoying really quickly?” Theo asked sarcastically but when the man laughed once it hadn’t been the response he had expected.
“Yes, a certain person has told me that once or twice.”
“Yeah, well did it ever sink in?” he asked defiantly.
“Would you believe me if I told you I used to be much worse?” Theo couldn’t hide his grin and for a forgiving moment he felt strangely at ease talking to this man. But then as if remembering himself, he straightened up his shoulders and decided enough was enough.
“Well, as enlightening as this little chit chat has been, for one of us at least… I am still in the dark as to what on earth is going on!”
“You are right. The time has come to tell you what you are but first tell me what you see,” he asked pointing his arm out ahead of him, so Theo turned around to look back at all the carefree students getting on with their lives.
“Not them, they are no longer part of your world… look up to the sky.” Theo did as he was told and saw what looked like a huge eagle soaring high above the world.
“Freedom.” Theo let go of the word on a breath without realising it.
“That is precisely what it is and that is precisely what the Gods have granted you. They chose you Theo and gifted you with another lost part of yourself they were merely keeping safe until now.” Theo didn’t want to believe what the man was saying, but with every word out of his mouth it only managed to draw Theo further down the tunnel into this man’s world, a world he was sure he would never escape from.
“What are you talking about?” he forced himself to ask. Theo heard a released sigh from the shadows before the man spoke again.
“You, along with the others, were chosen long ago to be part of something my world has never known could be possible until now.”
“You keep saying your world but I still don’t know what that means?” Theo said frustrated.
“The world of the Supernatural and where Heaven and Hell join on earth to live their lives peacefully.” Hearing this Theo’s mouth dropped.
“Well, usually. But you have to understand, Angels and Demons are very far from the stereotypical views many humans have of them.” Theo wished at that moment he could have called the guy crazy and walked away feeling as though he had wasted his time but after all he had seen today, well, how could he do that now?
“How so?” he asked instead, not wanting to blow his chance at finding out more.
“It’s simple really, not all Angels are good and not all Demons are bad. There is a balance needed in all our worlds… even in Hell.”
“And you’re telling me that they live here?” Theo asked throwing his arm out at the world below. He saw the guy’s head nod, even in the shadows and Theo, trying to absorb all of this, raked a frustrated hand through his hair out of habit.
“This is crazy.”
“No crazier than millions of people believing that a man named Jesus Christ walked on water.” Well, he had a point there, Theo had to give him that.
“Yes, but you’re telling me that the world is filled with Angels and Demons just walking around yet no one is seeing them!” The man nodded back to the bustling school yard and said,
“And how many of them really saw you?” Theo knew once again he was right.
“It is easy to hide when you don’t wish to be seen. Our world is something we hide for a reason, as you cannot protect a world in chaos, only prevent it from happening and that is where lies its greatest protection.” Theo knew what he was saying and could understand it. Hell, it was the reason he never got close to anyone. It was controlling the damage before the need for damage control, if that made sense.
“For example. Say you had a village full of people you had to tell bad news to but you were but one man. Say you needed to get them to leave their homes in an orderly fashion before danger could strike but you knew that most would not wish to comply. You had a situation to control yet the fear of order from certain members of the group could jeopardise the lives of others…And it is here which lies your first test…what do you do?” he asked him and Theo thought for a moment.
The Glass Dagger (Afterlife Chronicles Book 1) Page 7