The Ether

by Laurice Elehwany Molinari

“Well, as you’ll recall, after we got past the golems, everyone was fighting with each other. It was really bad — and really strange. Then all of a sudden, you just disappeared. And a moment later, Uriel and Raziel appeared and took us back to the Ether — the nice part of the Ether.”

  “Did Uriel or Raziel say anything?”

  Ada shook her head. “They wouldn’t tell us anything. But Pax picked up some of their thoughts. They were really worried about you, and they couldn’t go after you.”

  “So how did I get back to earth?”

  Ada shrugged, “I don’t know. But here’s another thing Pax heard: No one has been able to read those parchments for centuries.”

  Vero tried to make sense of it all, but it was hard to put the pieces together when he didn’t even know what the pieces were.

  Ada locked eyes with him. “Vero, where did you go?”

  Vero looked away, not wanting to answer.

  “What did you see down there?” she persisted.

  Finally, Vero looked into her eyes. He wanted so badly to tell her. He needed someone else to know the truth about what had happened to him. “Abaddon,” he said.

  Ada gasped and started nervously twirling a finger in her hair. “How do you know?”

  “Because I researched it,” Vero told her. “Pure evil, face-to-face.”

  Ada leaned back with a troubled expression on her face. “That explains why we were at each other’s throats. The presence of Abaddon was seeping into us.”

  She flicked at a spot on her white dress, lost in thought. Vero wished he knew what she was thinking. Once he learned how to silently communicate in the Ether, would he be able to communicate with angels while here on earth?

  “How did you get away from him?” she asked.

  Vero shook his head and stood. “I don’t know. I was so scared that I couldn’t breathe. He literally stole my breath from me. It actually hurt. I remember falling to the ground, a flash of white light, and then I was back on earth.”

  Ada looked intense as she sat there thinking. Her eyes held a ferocity Vero hadn’t seen in her before.

  Suddenly the music from the party got louder, and then a conga line burst through the doors and down the hallway — with Tack right in the mix.

  Vero knew time was short, so he grabbed Tack out of the conga line.

  “Hey!” Tack protested.

  “We have to go,” Vero said. “Or else we’re going to miss the train.” Vero turned back to Ada. “Thanks for inviting us. I’ll call you.”

  Ada flashed Vero a smile, “Too bad you can’t just fly back to DC.”

  “No way!” Tack said. “Then we’d miss out on the awesome microwave pizza.”

  24

  THE RED MARBLE

  Okay, everyone open your yoga mats,” Coach Randy told the class.

  Vero sat on the gym floor next to Davina. “Since when do we do yoga in gym class?” Vero asked.

  “Since Tack joined the track team,” she chucked. “I think Coach Randy is looking for ways to lower his stress level.”

  “Come on, now get on your mats . . . ” Coach said.

  “Hey, thanks for saving me a spot,” Danny said to Davina. He squeezed in between Vero and Davina and “accidentally” pushed Vero over as he unrolled his mat. Danny snickered as Vero righted himself. Vero knew Danny wasn’t about to let him have any alone time with Davina.

  “Now, close your eyes and slowly inhale . . . ”

  The gym full of students had become silent. Vero snuck a peek at Davina with her eyes closed. She looked so beautiful. Vero especially loved the little smile that formed at the corner of her lips as she began to relax. Clearly, the Ether wasn’t the only place where beauty existed.

  “When you exhale, push all of your negative emotions out of your body . . . ”

  Vero closed his eyes and tried to meditate. It took a few moments for him to be able to let his mind go, what with Davina being so close. But finally, he was totally relaxed — and then someone let one rip.

  “Oh, gross, Tack!” Missy Baker yelled.

  “What? Why do you think it was me?” Tack asked, laughing.

  “It smells like a stinking Ding Dong!”

  “I was just doing what Coach said — pushing all of the bad stuff out of my body.”

  “Shhh! Let’s try again,” Coach Randy said. “And Tack, this time please don’t push so hard.”

  The class was silent once again. Vero stole another glance at Davina and then closed his eyes. This wasn’t too unlike the exercise that Raziel had been trying to teach the fledglings when he’d urged them to clear their minds and listen for God’s voice. Angels weren’t the only ones who needed to master it; humans did too.

  Vero relaxed and as he retreated into his mind, his surroundings gradually began to disappear. He became completely unaware of the gym and the other kids around him. It was as if he were seeing a movie playing right before his eyes.

  Vero saw himself running through thick woods. It was dark outside, but the moon was bright. He was scared. His face stung where tree branches had scratched him while he ran. Vero could feel burrs from the underbrush clinging to his clothes and piercing his skin. When he finally came to a clearing, he saw a new house under construction sitting on a patch of earth where no grass grew. An ominous feeling of dread plagued him. Hesitantly he approached the house. As Vero got closer, his eyes could just make out a form lying on the front porch.

  Vero knew that whatever he found lying there would bring him great pain, but something urged him on. He reached the top stair of the porch and realized it was a person, lying lifeless on the cold floor. Agony filled his heart when Vero recognized the person’s outfit. It was a toga. He bent down on one knee, placed his hand beneath the person’s shoulder, and rolled the body over. It was an exercise in futility because Vero already knew who was lying there. Even so, he was struck with a feeling of horror when Davina’s face came into focus. She lay there motionless with blood trickling from her left temple. And he noticed a single red marble lying next to her.

  Grief paralyzed him, but it wasn’t just his grief alone. Someone else was there. He could feel it. Vero looked up and saw Danny’s tear-streaked face looking down at him. Vero knew Danny was the one who had done this to Davina.

  Danny dropped his slingshot onto the porch and began weeping. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know she was there!” he confessed between sobs. “It was an accident . . . ”

  “Yoga is not supposed to move you to violence!” Coach Randy yelled, snapping Vero out of his daydream.

  Vero’s eyes quickly scanned his surroundings. He was back in the school gym. But now his hands were clenching the front of Danny’s shirt, and Vero was violently shaking him. When Vero realized what he was doing, he let go of Danny and stood up. Everyone was looking at him, and no one dared move. Even Davina inched away from him.

  Danny glared at Vero. “You’re dead meat,” he growled.

  Vero faked a migraine so Nurse Kunkel would send him home early. This way he figured he’d avoid getting another after-school beating from Danny and his thugs. As Vero walked down the hallway to meet his mother, he saw a boy stealing a kiss from a girl as they pretended to look inside his locker. Two jocks high-fived each other and reminisced about winning some basketball game. Three girls were sitting beneath a huge banner and selling tickets for the upcoming dance. A display case showed off various trophies and ribbons won by the school’s students. Everything Vero saw defined an ordinary day in the life of a middle school — a life that Vero no longer felt connected to. Sadly, he walked through the front doors and got into his mother’s car.

  “How’s your head?” Nora asked.

  Vero didn’t answer. Instead, he reached over and pulled the key out of the ignition so she couldn’t drive away. Vero locked eyes with his mother. “Tell me about the night you found me.”

  “What?”

  “I need to know every detail.”

  Nora had known this day would eventually come. Sh
e’d had twelve years to come up with a story, to carefully prepare her answers. But when Nora saw the conviction in her son’s eyes, she decided to tell him the truth. A tear ran down her cheek, and she quickly brushed it away.

  “There had been a terrible storm that night,” she began. “I was working the night shift in the ER. An elderly man came in. His head was bleeding pretty bad. There was something about him, some connection. I don’t know what it was, but I felt really upset when he died. As I went to close his eyes to give him some peace, he grabbed my arm and said, “Name the baby Vero. Raise him as your own.”

  Vero gave her a look of complete surprise.

  “I guess the doctors had called his death too early. He died moments later. I went out to the nurses’ station and there you were. Just lying on a chair. I’ve replayed that night over and over in my mind, and the best I can come up with is that the old man either brought you in to the ER or somehow knew you. Or . . . Vero, I’ve watched a lot of people die in the ER. And sometimes they see or know things that go beyond our normal perceptions. I think it’s because they have one foot in this world and one in the next. I truly believe God sent that elderly man to me. Or maybe he was an angel.”

  “They’re real, Mom,” Vero said as his eyes drifted up to the patch of sky gleaming through the sunroof.

  “Who?”

  “Angels. They love us and they want to help us,” Vero said with conviction.

  Nora looked at her son, not sure where this was coming from. “I believe that’s true,” Nora said.

  “So was that it?” Vero asked. “Was that all that happened that night?”

  Nora hesitated. She knew she could bail out at this point, and Vero would accept what she’d told him as being the whole truth. She could get away with it. Since the day she’d brought Vero home, Nora had tried to keep his world as normal as possible. She’d never wanted to scare him. She’d even tried to convince herself that Vero was just a typical little boy.

  However, deep in her heart she’d known differently. Sheltering him from the truth had done no good. Strange things still occurred. In that moment, Nora realized that if she really loved Vero, she owed him the truth.

  “On the way home after my shift ended, I took you into the grocery store so I could buy some diapers and formula. A man wearing a long black coat began to follow me. I was terrified of him. He was wearing a hood, so I never did see his face. But something told me he was pure evil.”

  “What did he want?” Vero asked.

  Nora looked at him with the utmost seriousness, “You.”

  Vero dropped his head. It was overwhelming to hear.

  Nora held his face between her hands and locked eyes with him. “I’m sorry, Vero, but you needed to know the truth.”

  Vero nodded. He understood. Just then Uriel’s words came to mind, “everything in its own time.”

  Nora put her hands back on the steering wheel and continued, “The man chased me into the storeroom and we were trapped. I thought it was the end for both of us. But then that huge steel gate — you know, the one that lifts up by the loading docks so the truck drivers can deliver their goods? Well, that gate flew up and this light — ”

  “What kind of light?” Vero was giving Nora his undivided attention by this point.

  “It was brighter than any light I’d ever seen before — or since. I couldn’t even look at it for fear of being blinded. Yet at the same time, the light was comforting and I no longer felt afraid. When the light faded, the man in black had vanished. Run off, I guess. I never saw him again. Thank God that produce deliveryman showed up right then.”

  Nora began to sob. She unlatched her seatbelt, reached over, and hugged her son tight. She never wanted to let him go. But by telling Vero his story, she’d unknowingly taken the first step toward doing so.

  A few days passed and Vero somehow managed to avoid Danny and Blake and Duff. He’d stayed close to Tack at all times and made sure he was always the first one on the bus. He knew that if he were to miss it, he’d be easy pickings if he walked home alone. It really ticked Vero off that while he could defeat golems and dodge behemoths, he still ran scared of a thirteen-year-old bully and his pals. He felt helpless on earth — especially when it came to Davina.

  His vision of Davina lying lifeless on that porch continued to plague him. He feared for her, but he didn’t know how to help her. Sometimes when he was home alone, he’d call on Uriel and Raphael for guidance — screaming their names at the top of his lungs. But he never received a response. It was as if everyone from the Ether had forgotten him.

  Whenever he felt utterly abandoned, he’d pick up the phone and call Ada. Just hearing her voice confirmed that his life in the Ether was real, that he hadn’t imagined it after all.

  Neither Ada nor Vero had returned to the Ether since their last training exercise.

  “They’ll call us back when we’re needed,” she reassured him.

  But Vero wasn’t so sure. He sensed that Davina’s life was in trouble, and he couldn’t just sit around twiddling his thumbs. So Vero kept a close eye on her both during school and after. Davina’s house was near enough to Vero’s that he could ride his bike to it. So he pedaled past it as often as he could. He’d ditch his bike in a nearby field and climb a tree across the street to keep watch. Sometimes he’d keep watch for hours until he had to go home for dinner.

  One late afternoon as Vero kept watch in the tree, Danny and Davina walked out of her house together. They were laughing and obviously enjoying one another’s company. Surprised to see Danny there, Vero lost his footing and had to grab onto a lower branch to keep himself from falling to the pavement below. He held his breath as Danny and Davina crossed the street and sat on the curb directly beneath the tree’s wide branches. He prayed they wouldn’t notice him up there. He’d never be able to live it down if they did. He could hear the gossip now: “I heard Vero Leland was spying on Davina Acker from up in a tree. Can you believe it? What’ll he do next?” Even Tack wouldn’t understand it.

  “I think my mom really liked you,” Davina said to Danny.

  “Where’s your dad?” Danny asked.

  “He’s on a business trip until next week. Maybe when he gets back, your parents could go out with mine?”

  Danny’s face flushed. He looked down at the street and kicked some pebbles with his foot.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Davina asked.

  “My mom left us a few months ago. She moved to Arizona with her boyfriend.”

  “I’m so sorry, Danny. I didn’t know. Do you visit her?”

  Vero hadn’t known either. He felt bad for Danny.

  Danny shook his head. “Every time I ask if I can, she always says she’s too busy or it’s not a good time. Me and my older brother live with my dad. But Dad drives a tractor trailer and has to haul loads to Colorado three times a month. So I don’t see much of him either. It’s so quiet in my house that sometimes I turn on the TV just to hear people’s voices.”

  Davina held Danny’s hand, “I’m sorry.”

  Danny looked over at her. “Why do you hang out with me?”

  “’Cause you’re nice.”

  Danny hung his head, “I don’t always do nice things.”

  “Well, that’s true about everybody.”

  “No, I . . . I . . . ” Danny stuttered.

  “Is it true what the kids are saying at school?” Davina asked. “Did you shatter the windows on that new house?”

  Davina looked straight into his eyes, and Danny didn’t look away. He nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just get so mad at my parents . . . I know I shouldn’t do it, but it makes me feel better.”

  “Promise me you won’t do it anymore,” Davina said. “The next time you feel mad at your parents, call me instead of going out to that house. Okay?”

  Danny’s lips formed a tight smile. He nodded.

  Davina stood and turned to head home. Danny quickly got to his feet.

&
nbsp; “Do you want to go to the dance with me?” Danny asked shyly, with his eyes cast down, and his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

  “Sure,” Davina said with a smile. Then she turned and crossed the street.

  For the first time ever, Vero saw a genuine look of happiness on Danny’s face.

  “Elvis, baby!” Tack yelled, waving a white sequined jumpsuit in Vero’s face.

  “What?” Vero asked, truly confused.

  “It’s for the dance. We’re gonna be the Elvis brothers!”

  Oh, that. Vero had let Tack talk him into going to the school dance — their very first one. The thought of dancing with girls was more frightening to Vero than facing craggy golems. He had no idea how to dance, but Tack had convinced him it wouldn’t be a huge deal because everybody had to wear a costume. If they made complete fools of themselves, no one would ever know who they were.

  “Here’s an Elvis wig and a pair of sunglasses,” Tack said, shoving them into Vero’s hands. “Try ’em on.”

  Vero put on the oversized rhinestone sunglasses, which covered most of his face. The wig made his head itch, but he could deal with that.

  “Are you going to ask someone to go with you? Maybe that girl from the bat mitzvah?” Tack asked.

  “No,” Vero said.

  “Good answer. You’re smart to keep your options open,” Tack said. “I don’t want to be tied down to just one girl either.”

  Vero laughed. He knew they’d be lucky if Nurse Kunkel agreed to dance with them.

  The real reason Vero was going to the dance was to keep an eye on Davina. And it wasn’t just because she was going with Danny. Sure, he was jealous. Sure, it hurt. Why did she like Danny more than him? But regardless of his personal feelings, Vero’s dream still haunted him. He was determined to be near Davina any chance he could.

  On the night of the dance, Vero and Tack walked into the Lelands’ living room wearing their Elvis outfits. Nora snapped a photo.

  “My baby’s first dance,” she said, pretending to be misty-eyed.

  Next, Clover walked in wearing a hippie outfit from the sixties. After Nora snapped photos of the three of them together, Clover laughed and pointed at Vero. “You look like the young Elvis,” she said, “and Tack looks like the old fat Elvis.”