Dominion (Re-edition)

by Melody Manful

  “What you do? You can’t leave that hanging, Gideon. Explain yourself.”

  “There is no explanation. It’s what I do.”

  Abigail still stood waiting for an answer. I had no idea how to put anything into words. In the end, I took a few steps back from her and raised my body into the air.

  Abigail’s eyes opened wide, the fear and anger in them replaced with wonder. “You can fly? How?”

  I gave her an apologetic look before transforming into the real me. My black hair rippled. My features coarsened and my eyes flared in brilliant gold. Behind me, my huge dark wings were outstretched, wider than a vulture’s, darker than a raven’s. To make sure Abigail would run away from me in fear, I put on a mean and scary face.

  Tristan giggled. Apparently it wasn’t as mean and scary as I’d hoped.

  Abigail did take a step back. “You’re an angel?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but she wasn’t running away. What was wrong with her? “But angels don’t exist. And your wings; your wings are…”

  I waited for her to say dark, but she didn’t.

  Behind her, Tristan was no longer giggling. He didn’t speak, didn’t even bother to tell me I wasn’t allowed to reveal our existence to a human. Then again, Abigail couldn’t be a human. If she were, she’d have been sent completely crackers.

  “Abby.” I flew down, and then hid my wings, smoothed my features into a more human form. She took a fearful step back. Finally, she was afraid. Afraid of me. That was what I wanted, right?

  I took a step back myself, and raised my hands to let her know I wasn’t there to hurt her. Instead of turning away, she actually inched a little closer to me.

  “Why save me if you wanted to kill me?”

  I didn’t know how to answer her question.

  “Why?” she demanded, her voice harder.

  “I don’t know.” But I think I did know. Valoel certainly did.

  I decided to force her to run. I took a step closer to her, trying to look menacing. I refused to look at Tristan, just in case I wasn’t pulling off the whole menacing thing. “You know, some creatures don’t care about this world of yours. They would rather watch the weak suffer and feed on them until their last glimmer of life is swallowed up. Right now, I know of only one of such creature, and you are looking at him.”

  Abigail trembled, and began to back away in earnest. Tristan watched us carefully, but made no attempt to step in and save her. What kind of a poor excuse for a guardian angel was he, anyway?

  “What are you?”

  I pushed my doubts and whatever those other feelings I had were aside and smiled cruelly before answering her question. “I am your guardian angel. Well, almost your guardian angel. Tristan is the real guardian, I—”

  “Wait. Tristan?” she interrupted in surprise. She looked up as if she hoped to see Tristan hovering above us. “So Tristan is an angel, too?”

  “Yes. He’s your guardian angel. His job is to guide you from harm, and mine is to put you into harm’s way,” I answered without thinking.

  “To kill me.”

  “Actually, that’s not the way it usually works. Um, yeah, not usually.”

  “You said you were trying to kill me.”

  “Erm. Yeah. I was.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Try me. Go ahead.”

  I no longer had any idea what was going on. The situation had completely escaped me. I was halfway into a shrug when Tristan knocked me back into the breakwater. Its heavy stones flew like so many kicked Lego blocks.

  And then Abigail was screaming my name and rushing to my side.

  “Oh, no. Gideon!” She tried to help me up. “Are you all right?”

  Was I all right? She was asking me if I was all right when I’d just told her I’d wanted to kill her?

  “Don’t touch me!” I shouted at both her and Tristan, who was invisible beside her.

  “He will be fine,” Tristan proclaimed in an angelic voice, a voice more like that of a choir than an individual. Abigail whipped her head around, searching for the source of the voice.

  “Tristan,” she called. “Is that you?”

  For all the drama of the moment, I had to work not to laugh at the sheepish look on Tristan’s face at being recognized.

  “Don’t ever tempt me again, Abby,” I said, in my most badass thundering bass. “I’m not that strong.”

  “I don’t deserve to live!” she shouted, looking out at the water, at the scene of the accident. “I killed him. I don’t deserve to live. You should kill me. Please. Oh, God. Please.”

  “You didn’t kill him, Abby.” Moment of truth. “I did.” I watched as her anger turned to confusion, then pain. “What’s more, I was the one who pushed you from your balcony. I was the one who caused the accident on your way to the concert. And I was the one who distracted you and took your father away from you.”

  I watched as her face contorted in anguish. I told myself it was better for her to hate me than to know I tried to save her father and failed.

  “Leave,” she hissed, her anger aimed at both Tristan and me. “LEAVE! And please don’t come back.”

  I thought I should offer an answer, but I just didn’t know what it could be. I spread my wings, and I left, just as she’d asked.

  ACHILLES’ HEEL

  Abigail

  “The most dangerous lies aren’t the ones they tell you.

  The most dangerous lies are the ones you tell yourself,

  and they are the ones that hurt the most.”

  

  I finally hit rock bottom. It was actually nice to have firm ground beneath my feet. Go figure.

  I didn’t think I could be hurt any more deeply, but hearing Gideon say he killed my father was actually able to make it worse. It had been horrible to think that his death had been a senseless accident, a waste. To hear someone take credit for it? To hear that it was planned? Was malicious? “He’s appalling,” I said aloud, flopping onto the nest of pillows at the head of my bed.

  “He’s been like that since he was eleven child,” Tristan replied. I’d almost forgotten he was there. He had already been in my room when I’d entered and had refused to leave, explaining that as my guardian angel he wasn’t supposed to leave, and was particularly reluctant now that I’d made Gideon angry.

  I made Gideon angry? Just because he’d told me he wanted to kill me and had confessed to murdering my father? I had no comment for that, at least nothing that could be repeated in print.

  Hatred didn’t quite define what I felt for Gideon. Hatred would have been simpler. This was compounded by the fact that I’d let myself trust him, and, yes, because I’d let myself feel for him. Whatever it was that was boiling inside my chest was a little bit more bitter for having that tinge of heat and sweetness to it.

  Damn him. Or maybe he was damned already. I tried to make sense of everything Tristan was going on and on about: guardian angels, Lumens, Grands, flying, an Apocalypse. It all swirled together into a blur that seemed half surreal and half, well, bullshit. It seemed somehow even less believable because the whole conversation was taking place in my same old room, next to my same old window and same old closet. That everyday world did not seem like it could contain all this… this.

  “So do you have wings, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they shiny and black, like… like his?”

  “No. Mine are white.”

  “Why black and white?”

  I kept up the questions until late into the night. “The most evil, you say? When he was only a child?”

  Gideon was even worse than I’d imagined. “I know this is a lot to take in.” Tristan took my hand.

  “A lot to take in? You think so?” My voice sounded fragile and foreign to my own ears, even under the sarcasm. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like feeling vulnerable or broken, even less when there was a witness to it. “I think I’d like to get some rest now.” I still had my hand in Tristan’s.

  “Of course. I can
help if you’d like.”

  I heard a snap of his fingers, and suddenly I was under my covers with my head on my pillow. Tristan was still holding my hand.

  Don’t freak out. I tried to breathe. Don’t freak out. I found a new mantra.

  “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  Tristan tried to leave, but I took hold of his hand, stopping him. I wanted him to stay with me.

  “Lie here with me,” I said, making room on the bed for him. “At least until I fall asleep.”

  Tristan took the space I offered, letting me lean against him, and began humming an otherworldly song. I nestled my head into his shoulder and breathed deep. He smelled of dust and violets.

  “You’re going to be all right, I promise,” he murmured. Then he kissed my forehead and pulled me close. I still felt vulnerable, but in Tristan’s arms, I felt safe.

  “ABIGAIL, YOU DON’T have to do this,” Tristan said as he pulled his school bag over his shoulders.

  I faked a smile. “Yes I do. I can’t stay home forever crying for my father.”

  Last night, my mother had come into my room with dinner. She couldn’t tell that I had company, thank goodness. She just saw me, alone, curled up under all of my blankets, staring blankly at my hands. “Abby, it’s been more than a week since Dad and Felix…” Her voice hitched, and she paused to stop herself from crying. Still she continued, “We are barely alive, and I’m sure they wouldn’t want us hiding away like this.”

  We spent an hour or so sharing stories, alternately laughing and sniffling, and when she bid me goodnight and asked if I was going to be all right, I told her I would be just fine. It was a lie, but I had gotten used to saying the words for my mother’s sake. She’d worked so hard to protect me all my life. I wondered if she knew I was working at protecting her now. I hoped she didn’t.

  And so when morning came it seemed important to make the effort to go to school, to show Mom I was going to stop, as she put it, hiding away. I’d expected to be tired my first day back, and I’d expected to feel a bit overwhelmed in my classes until I got myself caught up on the material I’d missed, but I hadn’t anticipated all the awkward conversations the day would bring. Many people expressed their condolences for what had happened to my bodyguards, not knowing that the man who had drowned was actually my father. I wanted to tell them, and my jaw ached from holding the words back over and over again. Holding it in was more tiring than the sleepless nights.

  More tiring still was looking over my shoulder all day wondering if Gideon would be there. As I took my seat for each class I kept looking at the door, silently hoping that Gideon wouldn’t show up. He didn’t, and while I was pleased, none of my friends knew that, nor could they begin to guess why. His long absence had left them worried, just as mine had.

  Jake tried calling his phone a few times to check on him, but never received an answer. I didn’t bother to tell them that I thought he was gone for good, How could I even start that conversation? “Forget him, guys. He flew away.”

  When Ben arrived at the end of the day to drive me home I fell asleep before we were even out of the parking lot. He shook me awake when we were inside the gates and offered to help me carry my ton of books and built-up assignments into the house, but I shooed him off and headed out to the back field, hoping to get my mind off the day and my father and my evil guardian angel with some calisthenics or some target practice. Tristan protested.

  “Abby, you can’t afford to jump back into your old training schedule when you’re unfocused. You could get hurt.”

  “I don’t care if I get hurt.”

  “I care, and I couldn’t bear it if something were to happen to you.” He looked sad and sincere.

  “Fine. One arrow. That’s it, and then I’ll go in,” I promised, seeing how troubled he seemed. He visibly relaxed, and I found myself wondering if his wings got tensed up under stress the way human shoulders did. When I looked back to ask him, he was gone.

  I tore a sheet of paper from one of my notebooks and scribbled “I love you, Dad” on it. I wrapped it around one of my arrows and sent it whizzing out into the sea. Then I put away the archery equipment, just as I’d promised, and headed in to start on my homework.

  One day down.

  The next several days passed in a blur. Classes and fake smiles during the school day, nodding appreciatively at some of my mother’s new sketches in the evenings. The early mornings saw her chatting on the telephone to suppliers in Italy, ordering fabric and generally keeping herself too busy to think or remember.

  After a while I stopped anxiously watching the door at the beginning of class, worrying Gideon would walk through. I wasn’t even all that bothered when my friends mentioned him. I was simply happy that he wasn’t at school, and that my life seemed to be slipping back into a rhythm that was almost normal.

  One afternoon after school Tristan asked if I wanted to get ice cream with him. Sarah and the boys had other plans, and he and I needed to work on our Titanic presentation, so I said yes, and asked Ben to drop the two of us at Shoreline Park. I put on a hat and oversize sunglasses and was able to avoid any attention from paparazzi and Tristan and I had a relaxing walk, looking out over Belvedere Cove. We spent more time talking nonsense than talking about our assignment, and I was glad for the break. He bought me an ice cream but didn’t buy one for himself, starting in on a long and detailed angels-don’t-eat explanation before I cut him off. I even found myself laughing while we were together.

  When Ben and I got home, my mother was in the kitchen with Morgan, and they were talking and laughing. The house sounded alive and lived-in again.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked when I joined them.

  “Dinner. We’re making cookies, too,” my mother said as she leaned over to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  “Dinner and cookies.” I looked behind her to the kitchen counter, which was topped with all sorts of food. “Are we having a party?” I asked.

  “No, just dinner,” Morgan answered. “We might have gone a little overboard.”

  “You’d better not go back to the studio with cookies on your breath, Mom. Those poor models will hate you with a burning passion.” I put my school bag down on one of the chairs. “Can I help?” I asked.

  “You could have helped if you’d got home an hour ago. You missed your chance. Just where have you been?”

  “I left a message on your voice-mail, Mom. I have a project I’m working on with Tristan. We decided to work over ice cream.”

  “Ice cream and then dinner and cookies? And you’re still that gorgeous? The models are going to hate you with a burning passion.”

  “Let ‘em come at me. I can take any one of them. They only weigh about as much as a fourth grader.”

  “Be nice. Wash up and grab a cookie.”

  I washed my hands and joined my mother and Morgan. I knew they were trying to move on, but the trying was obvious in each word and each studied laugh. All of us were struggling to manufacture a little piece of normalcy. Ben joined us at the table, setting his glass of iced tea down while he put together a place setting for himself. He pulled out a chair and arranged his flatware, and we realized that he had closed his glass of tea away in the cupboard.

  Somehow, that abandoned glass of tea broke the spell. The moment was more real than the carefully-planned offerings of cookies, and the laughter that it brought was genuine. Suddenly, the air in the room felt more full of oxygen. We were all a bit lighter. We talked about my father and Felix without crying, and smiled at our memories.

  We weren’t pain free, and we weren’t a fully-functioning family again, but we could feel that it was possible. It was progress.

  The days flowed on like that for a while: Danny complained about calculus and asked Sarah for help; My mother spent an hour or two with me looking up wild rumors about ourselves on gossip websites; Mom and one of her designers pinned up muslin mock-ups of a few new patterns on Sarah; And best of all, when Jake tried calling Gi
deon to check on him, there was no answer.

  A Monday morning arrived on which I actually felt all right.

  “Napoleon not only—” Mr. Bernard started into his lecture, but he was interrupted by the classroom door creaking open.

  I didn’t have to look at the door to know who stood behind it, because my heart started pounding. Even though he had been far from my mind, my body still reacted wildly to his presence.

  “Mr. Chase,” Mr. Bernard said, looking at his watch, “you’re late.”

  “Traffic,” Gideon answered. I refused to look at him.

  “Indeed. See me after class.”

  I didn’t move my eyes away from my desk, and when the bell rang, I quickly started packing my books and supplies for the next class.

  “Gideon,” I heard Jake calling, “man, where have you been? We missed you.”

  “I took a sick day.”

  “It was more like a sick week or three,” Sarah chimed in.

  “Lunch time! People, are you coming?” Danny jostled past me as he spoke. I kept my eyes riveted to my books as I finished packing my bag.

  “Abby, you coming?” Jake asked, offering to help me carry my things.

  “Hmm…actually, I’m not feeling so well. I’m going to call Ben to come take me home.” I took out my phone and started to dial.

  “You’re sick?” Sarah asked. She put her hand on my forehead. “But, you were fine before.”

  “And now I’m sick.” I pulled away from her a little too abruptly, and reminded myself to apologize to her tonight on the phone. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” With my head bowed, I rushed out of the classroom.

  When I got out onto the school steps, Tristan was already there.

  “You don’t have to leave. He won’t hurt you. I won’t allow him to,” he assured me.

  Answering him would have meant talking about Gideon, which I didn’t want to do, so I said nothing. Tristan shrugged and waited with me until Ben pulled up to the curb, and then waved as the car drove off with me tucked safely inside.