Angels of Moirai (Book One)

by Salmond, Nicole

  I frowned at what just happened and at the strangeness of it all.

  “What is it?”

  I stumbled, “It's just...” I shook my head. “Never mind. It's fine.”

  I decided against delving into my confusion about Noah’s behaviour. James seemed conflicted and worried enough about it. Instead, I told him I was fine and needed to get back to study. He didn’t object and went on his way quickly, but assured me he would be seeing me later.

  ***

  James had been right, of course. The textbooks he’d chosen had pretty much everything I needed for my exams. Pity he hadn’t told me weeks before the exam. A little over an hour barely gave me time even to scratch the surface to learn it all. In the end, it did help, and I knew on some level I did okay in the exam…okay enough to pass, that is.

  He seemed quite chuffed with himself when he proved to be right. He even gave me a sly smirk when we were doing the exam.

  We didn’t mention the Noah situation again, and I was thankful. I had enough on my plate to worry about.

  “I’m not giving you any credit for knowing what was on the exam,” I said later that night as we both lay cuddling on my bed. “You’re an Angel of Fate. You can’t really get kudos when you already know what’s going to happen.”

  “Whatever,” he replied.

  I rolled into him and laughed. “The twenty first century must really be rubbing off on you!”

  Although James liked to ‘adjust’ his language, so to speak to fit into our society, he rarely strayed far from proper English. I was used to hearing him say ‘whatever’, but it made my whole body shake with laughter.

  James rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately, I think so. Did you know words like ‘hot mess’, ‘side boob’, and ‘YOLO’ were added to the English dictionary this year. It’s disturbing the way the English language is going.”

  I laughed, “I happen to think ‘YOLO is a good one. You only live once.”

  “I disagree.”

  This time I was the one rolling my eyes. “Well, we don’t all turn into Angels of Moirai, do we?”

  “Thankfully, no.”

  “You can be so cynical sometimes, you know that?”

  “Well, I’m grateful you used the word ‘cynical’ and not something like ‘ass-wipe’.”

  “It was on the tip of my tongue,” I teased.

  He squeezed me tightly. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to do it, but if you had seen the world change like I have, you would be somewhat contemptuous of it as well.”

  “I know what you mean,” I agreed with him. It had changed, and sometimes I often wondered where our basic values and morals had gone. “Is it hard? Living life as a teenager repeatedly? How many times have you done grade twelve?”

  “Many,” he smiled. “I don’t always live a school life. Sometimes I go off to University or work. It wasn’t that long ago that people didn’t do schooling past a certain age anyway, so the school life is new to me.”

  “What kind of work have you done?”

  “Just about anything you can think of. Plumbing, lumberjack, butler, farmer… you name it, I’ve probably done it.”

  “I envy that. I think it would be amazing being able to have many different careers.”

  “It is.”

  “How long do you stay in one place before moving on?” I paused. “How long will you stay here?”

  “I don’t know, Lila. Many factors play a role in how long we stay somewhere. I don’t know how long I will be here. It can be as short as a couple of days, or a few years. We don’t age, so it’s impossible to stay somewhere for too long.”

  “How does no one recognise you from the past? And with technology these days, once your photo is taken, you’d be everywhere? People would know who you are.”

  “You’re forgetting what we are, Lila, and who we serve. My image would never take to a photograph. We are Angels of Fate. Those that move among the mortals know when something as simple as getting a picture taken will happen.”

  “What? So if I took a picture right now, what? There would just be a blank picture.”

  He nodded his head, “Or your battery will die, or the image would be too blurry to identify.”

  “What about our formal picture?”

  “There will be nothing but an overexposed picture.”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re thinking too much into this, Lila. Even if I somehow was recognised, even though it has never and will never happen, they would never see me as who I look like. My appearance would be different for them.”

  “How do you know that, if it’s never happened?”

  “You’re so stubborn. You know that, don’t you?”

  I nodded with a smile, “Now, answer the question.”

  “When we first become angels, it was only natural that we go back to our families. It happens to us all. We think that somehow, we have cheated death, and we can go back to our loved ones…. I went back to my family, and when I tried to tell them who I was, it was as if I was unable to speak. They didn’t recognise me, and every time I tried to tell them who I was, the words came out jumbled. When we were ready to accept who we were, then we changed back into the image of the person we died as.

  “Being an angel and immortal changes you in every way. We are not like humans. We don’t feel the way humans do. Our emotions don’t define our lives. Not until now, anyway. You’ve brought the humanity out in me. Feelings long forgotten.”

  “What’s the point in even living if you cannot feel?”

  “Humanity makes us vulnerable. It makes us weak.”

  I sat up from the bed thinking about everything James had said.

  “So when you leave here, that will be it. That will be the end of us? Even if we met again, we would never know.”

  The mood had become sombre. I felt like the little hope I had left for James, and I was fading away.

  James held my hands. “I will never let that happen. I will fight for us, Lila. I will fight every demon and The Creator himself if I have to.”

  He turned my chin towards him. “They will not take you from me.” He pressed his lips against mine as a tear slid down the side of my face. An indication of the emotion, as James called it; the fear of the unknown settling a deep unease within me.

  ***

  On my way to school on Thursday for the final day of exams, my mind was filled with thoughts about key points I needed to remember.

  Although I hadn’t been driving for many years, it had almost become second nature to me. The moment raindrops started hitting my windscreen, I turned the wipers on. It wasn’t until I realised that the sun was still shining everywhere else and the only rain that was falling happened to be on my moving car, I pulled over.

  Once stopped, I looked out my side window and saw James standing amongst the trees with a wide grin on his face. I pointed up at the rain falling on my car, indicating if it was his doing, although I already knew it was.

  The rain slowed until it completely stopped. I used this moment to step out of the car, and when I looked up into the sky, the rain clouds disappeared quickly into thin air.

  James tilted his head for me to follow him into the woods. To any other person, this might have been creepy, but I knew we had to be careful about being seen together.

  I followed him for several minutes into the forest, hoping no one would see my car on the side of the road and get worried.

  James kept up a brisk pace until we reached a clearing. There was still signs of small stumps where it had been used as a logging area for some time, but a part of that, the grass grew thick and reached just above my ankles.

  I had no idea how James managed to find these kinds of places when I’d lived in this area for years.

  The clearing spread for about fifty square metres and formed a circle surrounded by tall woodland trees.

  James waited for me to stand by his side before turning and taking my lips with a deep, hungry kiss.

  It was hard havin
g to deny our relationship, but even harder having to experience long periods without any contact, so whenever we had a chance to be together, it was full of a burning desire to be as one.

  I didn’t want to leave him, but I knew I had to get to school, and the fact that my car was still sitting on the side of the road.

  “I have to get going.”

  “Stay.”

  I sighed, “I can’t.”

  “You won’t be late.”

  “So you know that for sure, do you?” I said with a smirk on my face.

  “You won’t be late,” he repeated with definition.

  I gave in, after all, how I could argue with someone who pretty much knew the future.

  When James outstretched his wings, I asked where we were going, thinking that meant he was flying me somewhere.

  “Nowhere. I just thought they would be more comfortable to lie down on than the grass.”

  I nodded as he guided me to the ground. We both lay on our backs staring at the blue sky above.

  “You’re right,” I said feeling the soft wings against my body. “It’s like lying on a bed of feathers.”

  James sarcastically replied, “That’s because it is.”

  “Ha ha. There you go again with that smart mouth.”

  James squeezed his arm around me and I rested in against him.

  I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but the curiosity within me was yearning for answers. “How come you don’t talk about your family, and I don’t mean Mark. I mean your human family. The family you had before you became an angel.”

  I could feel James’s body tense up at the mention of his family.

  “Because the past is the past, and it should stay that way.”

  “But surely you think about them?”

  “I cannot think about them.”

  “Why?”

  “Why are you so eager to know?”

  “Because it’s a part of you. Your human life made you who you are today. You can’t just ignore that side of you.”

  “I’m not ignoring it, Lila. I don’t see it has any relevance to my life right now. It was a long time ago. I have changed; everything has changed.”

  I could tell I’d hit a sore spot with James. I didn’t want to make him upset, I just couldn’t understand how he didn’t think about them.

  I apologised, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you upset. I… I thought that maybe talking about your human life would make this feel more normal… It’s hard not knowing much about you…”

  “I understand, but my life is complicated.”

  He didn’t elaborate any further and I couldn’t help but feel that in his human life, something sinister had happened. Something that made him cut that part of his life out of his thoughts and his angel life forever.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wanted to live in the moment I was in, and stop thinking about the past and the what if’s so much. So instead, I concentrated on the now, and when I opened my eyes, I felt something very small land on my finger; a tiny little lady bug.

  I held my finger over my eyes.

  “Look,” I said to James.

  “You know what that means don’t you?”

  I shook my head, “No, what?”

  “Ladybugs are said to be an emblem of luck. When one lands on you, your wish will come true.”

  I closed my eyes and wished for the one thing I craved the most, and when I opened them, the ladybug flew off into the sky. I hoped they really did make your wishes come true.

  ***

  I took my pen off the paper, finishing the final question, and in turn, finishing my final exam for school, ever!

  I placed my pen in my pencil case and looked at the time, only seconds to go.

  “Pen’s down,” Mr Avery announced.

  A welcoming sound of sighs filled the air.

  I looked over at Jackie, a broad smile across her face. No doubt, she did well, she loved anything to do with the human body so our phys ed exam would have been easy as pie for her.

  I avoided eye contact with James as he sat behind Jackie’s chair. It was the easiest way to have no contact with him. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’, I liked to remind myself.

  We waited for Mr Avery to collect all our papers, and then we were allowed to stand and leave the hall. The moment we left, there was a huge cheer from the other classmates.

  I hugged Jackie and cheered along with them. I noticed out of the corner of my eye, James smiling and giving Dale a man hug before walking away.

  I focused back on Jackie and the defining moment in our lives that we’d just experienced. “Pretty sure I never want to see another exam paper ever again!”

  Jackie laughed at me. “Well, don’t get used to it! In a few months, you’ll be at Uni and pretty sure that’s going to be ten times worse.”

  We walked to our lockers and began cleaning them out for the last time. Every year they moved us around the school in random. We never knew why they did it, but luckily, this year, Jackie and I were positioned right next to each other.

  “It’s kind of sad,” I said reminiscing, “This will be the last time we do this.”

  “I know,” Jackie said pouting her lips. “You never know, next year you might change your mind and go to Hensley University,” she joked.

  I laughed.

  Piling all the textbooks into my school bag to take back to the Resource Centre, I stopped short, when on top of my math exercise book that I’d placed in the locker the day before, was a single white rose.

  I smiled at the gesture, even at the thought of James breaking into my locker to put it there.

  “Okay, I’m officially finished,” Jackie said over my shoulder.

  I closed my locker and looked at hers quickly. “Wow! You are quick.”

  “Yep. Did you want me to wait for you?”

  “No,” I said shaking my head, “you go ahead. I’ve got so much junk in here, I’ll be a while.”

  “Okay,” she said happily, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “For sure, I wouldn’t miss it!”

  “You better not!”

  She laughed and walked off down the hall, leaving me alone.

  Although we had finished all our exams, we hadn’t officially finished school until tomorrow. There wasn’t any classes or anything, but they did a final farewell to all school leavers, and I definitely wasn’t going to miss that.

  I opened my locker again and took the rose in my hand. I closed my eyes as I brought it to my nose, smelling the sweet scent.

  It didn’t take me much longer to clear out my locker. After I dropped off all my textbooks, I loaded up my belongings into my car, including the rose, and drove home, readying for tomorrow and everything it was going to bring.

  12… GRADUATION

  Graduation. A time in our lives that nobody forgets. The moment when all your hard work, all those painstaking hours studying over an exam, finishing an assignment in the wee hours of the morning, and doing your absolute best to try to fit in, were at a closing chapter.

  The world was your oyster, and it was all on you now to make it work, and to make everything you ever dreamed about a reality.

  It was such surreal feeling as I stood in front of my bathroom mirror, putting on my school uniform over my swimmers for the very last time. For so long I only saw it as pieces of clothing that we were made to wear because we were told to, but now I saw it as a symbol. A symbol of an era in our lives, an era that shaped us into who we were today. Granted, I didn’t like it very much, I knew every time I would see someone in a school uniform I would reminisce on my days at Eden College, and that was something I was grateful for. It hadn’t always been easy, growing up surrounded by teenagers, whose hormones were all over the place. It never was. I hold some of the most special memories in my heart from my schooling years, not only meeting my great friend, Jackie, but also James…

  I could barely contain my excitement, especially when Jackie was dropped off at my house
before school so we could decorate my car in streamers, glitter, balloons, and writing all over the car with washable ink.

  We couldn’t stop laughing and giggling with excitement as we made my car into a driving party. Every senior did it to their car, it was a tradition that we all loved to follow.

  “This sucks,” Hayley pouted on the step at our front door. “I’ve got another two years before I get to graduate.”

  Jackie rolled her eyes at me as she tied on the last balloon. I kept myself from laughing at her as I finished writing, ‘So long suckers’ on the back of the window in pink chalk ink.

  Jackie walked around next to me and looked at what I’d written, and burst into laughter. “Nice.”

  I laughed back, “Hey, it’s the last time we can be silly and immature, so why not?”

  Hayley shook her head, “You two really are nerds. You know that, right?”

  Jackie and I looked at each other and smiled. “Yep,” we both said in unison.

  I let Jackie drive us to school, she had her licence, but her parents couldn’t afford a car, so we took turns driving when we were going places. I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but she was a way better driver than I was.

  “Are you going to the bonfire party tonight, Lila?” Hayley asked in the backseat.

  “Of course,” I replied, “I couldn’t miss that. Why, are you going?”

  “I was thinking about it,” Hayley said quietly.

  “Isn’t it meant only for graduates?” Jackie chimed in.

  Hayley replied, “Yeah, but there will be heaps of juniors going.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Jackie, “Awesome. Juniors at our grad party.”

  “The other seniors don’t care,” Hayley continued, “they invited us.”

  I turned around in my car seat and looked at Hayley. “Who invited you?”

  She hesitated, then lifted her chin and proudly said, “Well, if you must know, Dale did.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “What?” Hayley replied defensively.

  “Dale?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Dale,” I repeated.

  “Stop it, Lila. I happen to think Dale is pretty cute.”