“The tube doesn’t go directly to St. Albans. I’d have to take the tube to the above ground rail station and take that to St. Albans’ station and either have someone pick me up from there or take a cab. Besides, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to be around people.”
Chord pretended he hadn’t taken the hint that he was probably one of the people Sev didn’t want to be around. He craned his neck to look up at Big Ben, which was just a fancy old clock tower, before gazing out the window at the passing tourist shops and pubs.
“I always thought of London as this foreign, romantic town,” Chord mused, “but it’s just like any other big city, huh? A concrete jungle with smoggy skies, only with a few more pubs and double decker buses than your average American metropolis.”
“You have an incredible way of taking the beauty and wonder out of even the most remarkable things,” Sev muttered, gazing out the window.
Chord opened his mouth to retort but decided against it. Sev already seemed annoyed enough. So he remained silent for the hour-long cab ride, allowing Sev to pensively watch the city turn into green hills and quaint gray towns. But when they passed a questionable sign on the way into St. Albans, Chord simply couldn’t help himself.
“Okay, did that sign just say Potter’s Crotch? I mean, I know you guys are proud of Harry Potter, but—”
“Potters Crouch,” Sev corrected. “It’s just a little hamlet in Hertfordshire.”
“Oh.”
Chord didn’t know what a hamlet was but didn’t feel like questioning the sour-faced man beside him. So he shut up again.
St. Albans was an antiquated English town with narrow streets, and indistinguishable houses smashed together without front yards or side yards or back yards. Just: house, house, house, pub, store, house, house, house. Chord thought the closeness of everything would drive him crazy if he lived there. Everyone would know everyone’s business.
The cab pulled up to one of the sandwiched houses, painted yellow with blue trim. Sev paid the cabbie and stood before what Chord assumed was his parents’ house. He took a deep breath and moved forward to knock on the wooden door decorated with faded blue paint.
An ancient-looking woman opened the door with a forlorn smile. “Sevastion,” she said in a tired—and super British—voice, pulling Sev into a tight hug before looking over at Chord with a question in her crinkled eyes.
“Gran, this is Chord Ellington. He’s, er—” Sev stopped, apparently realizing they hadn’t previously come up with an alias for him.
“Intern at the Museum of Natural History. American.” Chord spoke in a voice appropriate for addressing a mourning mother, offering his hand to the withering woman. “Sev’s been an incredible mentor to me. I felt it only necessary to accompany him for support.”
“Oh, well, that’s rather kind of you,” the woman said as Sev flashed Chord a raised eyebrow at the fabricated story.
Sev’s grandmother welcomed them into the house, which was as narrow and claustrophobic as the streets outside. The living room was decorated just as you would expect an older British couple’s home would be. Floral-print couches that emitted puffs of dust when sat upon, antique lamps with pale shades and frayed fringe hanging down, and knick-knacks and bobbles with seemingly no purpose other than to hold down the yellowed lace doilies on the wooden table beneath them.
The air stunk of mothballs. Chord had never actually smelled mothballs…but this was how he imagined they smelled. Or perhaps the odor was coming from the room full of seniors. He was beginning to see why Sev acted the way he did. It was apparent he was the only young person in his family. The oldies glanced at Chord, scanning him with mild interest blended with the slightest hint of distaste, before going back to their low-voiced conversations interspersed with slurps of tea and clinking of china. Perhaps they didn’t care for his “non-traditional” suit or his strawberry-blond hair styled in a pristine pompadour.
“Care for some tea, Chord?” Sev’s grandmother asked.
Not really. “That would be lovely,” he said with a smile, causing Sev to shoot him another raised-eyebrow look.
They sat for what felt like five lifetimes drinking tea and munching on pastries that tasted like cardboard and plaster—especially after months of eating food concocted by angels. Chord’s eyes kept shifting to the grandfather clock in the corner, which he swore must have been broken because the minute hand was ticking along much too slowly. Finally one of the oldies suggested they travel to the church.
Chord was excited about this because, on the way into town, they’d passed the most spectacular looking sanctuary—St Albans Abbey Church the sign had read—and Chord had a thing for beautiful architecture. But when the group walked down the street in the opposite direction of the abbey, Chord turned to Sev.
“Are we not going to that big church back there?” he asked, jutting a thumb over his shoulder.
Sev shook his head. “My parents attended a small church just up ahead.” He nodded forward, and Chord turned to see a tiny little chapel that could probably fit thirty people uncomfortably.
"Oh."
British funerals were not unlike American funerals—and both made Chord exponentially uncomfortable. Crying, memories of the deceased, songs the deceased probably did not care anything about, a procession before the open caskets filled with the shells of former human beings. Empty casings, like a locust that has shed its skin. The worst part, though, was these people thought the older couple had both magically and coincidentally died of natural causes even though they’d been in relatively good health and were too young to die of old age.
Chord and Sev knew the truth, which was likely only one of the reasons why Sev looked so devastatingly miserable. Chord wished the stubborn ass would let him comfort him, hold him—even just squeeze his hand. But none of these people knew they’d had a relationship. And now they didn’t even have a relationship. So he just sat silently beside him, hoping his presence was enough, but knowing deep down it wasn’t.
Eighteen
BRIELLE
Logan was driving Brielle crazy, and not because of anything conscious on Logan’s part. Or maybe it was… But Brielle was growing apprehensive about the amount of time her daydreams conjured up the black and blue haired girl. Never before had she been so infatuated with a person—let alone a person of the same sex. It was disconcerting. Surely this newfound obsession was just because Logan was showing her how to “live” in a way no one ever had before.
It wasn’t like Brielle had never done fun things in her old life. She lived in a beach town. (Yes, Texas had beach towns. Not many…but it did.) Corpus Christi rested on the Gulf of Mexico and, as far as Texas beach towns are concerned, it was decent. Sure, the water was kind of brownish and murky, and seaweed and tar covered most of the sandy beaches. But it was all Brielle had ever known.
The conservative politics and church-folk were not much different from those in the rest of the state—save for Austin and Dallas, which, Brielle wouldn’t talk about. But they were good people who were willing to go out of their way to help each other, even for a larger Texas town. For the most part, the majority of the city lived good Christian lives, which was why these obsessive feelings about Logan were more than troublesome.
Speak of the devil…
“Ready for another life-affirming adventure?” a voice called through the door to Brielle’s room.
Her heart skipped a little, making her both frown and smile at the same time—a difficult facial expression to accomplish.
“Uh…”
“Can I come in?”
Yes, you can. The real question is: should I let you? Brielle thought, right before she said, “Yeah, sure.”
Logan peeked her head inside. Her makeup was especially smoky today, and her hair was styled in a tight ponytail with her bangs pulled back into a small bump. Decked in leather—tight pants and a jacket pulled over a form-fitting, red shirt, she looked like a supermodel.
Logan looked Brielle up and down.
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
Brielle cast her eyes down at her outfit—a pale pink sundress, white cardigan, threadbare tights, and flats. “Yeah?”
“You know it’s, like, 40 degrees out there, right? Cloudy skies. Light rain.”
“Oh.” Brielle bit her lip, pinching the thin fabric of her dress between her thumb and forefinger.
“So, maybe think about changing into something warmer and meet me upstairs so we can go do some more life living?”
“Kay.”
Logan disappeared from the doorway, and Brielle immediately pulled off her stupid, too-thin clothes and rummaged through her closet for something warmer. Thick, dark-wash jeans, knee-high boots, and an ivory sweater with the price tags still attached seemed to be the best choice. Folding her green plaid coat over her arm, she fled her room to meet Logan in the sitting room. She found the raven-haired beauty perusing a book with a picture of two half-dressed angels on the cover.
“Would you believe angels have romance novels?” Logan said, looking up from the book and setting it aside as Brielle approached, scanning her new ensemble. “That looks more weather appropriate. Damn, is that a Burberry coat?” Brielle felt herself blush and nodded. “How much did that set you back? Actually, don’t tell me. It’ll just depress me.”
Brielle wasn’t sure if this was a jab at her or not, so she settled on changing the subject. “Is Luna coming with us?”
Logan laughed and rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? She’s off somewhere with her man candy, exploring the city, or making out, or staring lovingly into his eyes.”
“What about Aurora?”
“Probably walking around alone, like always.”
Brielle frowned. “Oh.”
“Yep.” Logan stood, pulling on her black overcoat—fabric made of tweed, adorned with strips of leather—and, of course, black leather gloves to complete the ensemble. “It’s just you and me, babe.”
Brielle knew “babe” was just an expression, though she couldn’t help but notice the uncomfortable flip in her stomach and the fractional widening of her eyes. Logan waved for Brielle to follow her off of Echo. Fog—or maybe smog—hung heavily in the air, blanketing most of the Thames. Logan led Brielle off the dock and started over the bridge stretching from one side of the river to the other.
“Where are we going?” Brielle asked. “More swimming?”
Logan let out a cackling laugh. “In this weather? You wanted me to show you how to live, not die. No. We’re going to do a typical tourist thing, but we aren’t going to do what typical tourists do like take a duck-lipped selfie or hide behind a video camera or take a thousand pictures without actually looking with our naked eyes. We’re going to see and experience and be quiet.”
“So…where are we going?” Brielle repeated. Logan pointed at the huge, un-miss-able Ferris wheel perched beside the River Thames, not far at all from where they were now. “That Ferris wheel?”
Logan chuckled. “It’s not just a Ferris wheel. It’s the London Eye.”
An icy gust of wind blew across the bridge making Brielle wish she’d thought to put on a scarf and gloves like Logan had. “Why do they call it that? It looks nothing like an eye.”
“They call it that because you can see all of London from it…” She looked over at Brielle with an expression that indicated she was trying to figure out if Brielle had been joking or not. When Logan worked out that she had, indeed, been serious, she snorted and shook her head. “Sure take things literally, don’t you? Oh, sorry, I forgot. You’re a Baptist.”
Brielle pursed her lips to the side, a rush of heat spreading up her neck. “For someone so supposedly open-minded you sure judge my faith pretty harshly.”
“Just speaking from experience, hun,” Logan said unapologetically. “And I don’t judge your faith. Your church is not your faith. I judge your churches—the majority of them, anyway. Every Baptist I’ve ever encountered has been a hypocritical bigot, spouting off Bible verses they’ve plucked out of context, not even knowing the full story they came from. I can’t tell you how many times a Baptist has quoted Leviticus at me. Have you read that damned book? Like, all of it? It’s basically a list of all the things people—no, not all people actually, the Israelites—shouldn’t do, which happened to include wearing clothing of different fabrics and eating shellfish.”
“Okay, but—”
“Want to hear something hilarious?” Logan interrupted. “One time I was berated by a Baptist—I know she was a Baptist because of the cutesy little church shirt she was wearing—in a fucking seafood shack. And guess what book she quoted to my girlfriend and me? Leviticus! Oh my God, I laughed so hard.”
Brielle grit her teeth together as they made a sharp left from the bridge toward the London Eye. “Okay, Logan, that’s great.”
Logan’s eyes—still lit with amusement—cut sideways at Brielle. “You’re mad now, huh.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Brielle admitted, crossing her arms as they continued to walk forward.
“Why? I said nothing about you.”
“Yeah, but you’re talking about how terrible people from my church are,” Brielle retorted heatedly. “You’re making a blanket statement about how every Baptist is a judgmental bigot. I’ll admit I was a little more closed-minded about certain things before I boarded Etheria, but I was still a loving person for the most part. I still cared about people. I still wanted to help those who were suffering. I mean—I went on mission trips. I helped build houses for people. I volunteered at soup kitchens. I worked with special needs kids. I can’t help where I come from. It’s not my fault I was born into a family who raised me to believe this way. By making a judgment on my church, you’re making a judgment on me.”
Logan smirked and glanced obliquely over at Brielle. “Now you know how I feel. Only, imagine that judgment being thrown like crucifix-shaped daggers at you all the time, everywhere you go.”
Brielle shoved her frozen hands deeper into her coat pockets. “Well, I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry other Christians have treated you like that. And the more I learn about the angels and Halos and God—or the Light—the more I realize that judgment has never been mine to make. Okay? I agree with you on that. But I also don’t think it’s fair for you to say all Baptists are judgmental bigots. That’s just as bad as Christians saying all gay people are going to hell.”
As they neared the oversized Ferris wheel, Logan fell silent a moment before conceding to Brielle. “Okay. You’re right. I apologize.”
“Thank you,” Brielle said, more stiffly than she’d meant to. “And I apologize for my previous judgments.”
Logan came to a stop and turned to face Brielle, who’d taken a few steps past her before turning back. “Soooo…friends again?”
Peering down at Logan’s outstretched arm and upturned glove, Brielle let a reluctant smile lift her features as she placed her frozen hand in Logan’s. “Friends.”
The girls stood in the line—or queue as the Brits called it—huddled tightly together. The wind was less brutal in the winding crowd of mostly tourists, their body heat warming them only slightly. It took about fifteen minutes for them to reach the front of the line and shuffle forward onto one of the large glass ovals encaged in metal bars, continuously moving without stopping. Brielle giggled like a little kid as Logan ushered her forward when she paused at the edge.
“Why don’t they stop it for people to get on?” Brielle mused, after squealing and rushing onto the moving glass globe.
“Because then that fifteen-minute line would be more like a fifty-minute line,” Logan said dryly. “Calm down, Bri. It’s moving at, like, one mile per hour.”
As the doors closed behind them, a recording of a cool-voiced woman started up, welcoming them aboard the London Eye. Then the “ride” moved slowly onward and upward. At first, all Brielle could see was a tangle of bars and metal at the base of the ride, but then it cleared of anything but cloudy gray skies and a 360-degree view of the city of
London all around them. Big Ben and the River Thames looked much different from such a great height, and Brielle could spot Echo sitting alone on the water, which she realized was probably invisible to everyone but them.
Logan sidled up closer to Brielle and murmured under her breath, frustratingly making the hair on Brielle’s arms stand up. “See what I mean? About the tourists?”
Looking over her shoulder, Brielle knew right away what Logan had been talking about. Almost everyone in the capsule had a phone held up, either pointed at their faces before the view, or videoing the view, or taking snaps of the view. But no one—save for a small child who had his face pressed up against the glass—was looking with his or her actual eyes. And, not long ago…Brielle had been just like them.
Frowning, she turned back to look out the glass at the breathtaking city before them. Her cellphone had long since died on Etheria, and once she’d arrived on Arx Isle, she hadn’t had the slightest urge to check social media or send a text or take a selfie. The idea of all that seemed rather superficial and insignificant when she thought about it now. Until this moment, though, she hadn’t realized how clouded her vision had been before. She’d been observing the world through a small glass screen, bowing her head and keeping her eyes down when they had always been meant to look up.
As they reached the top of the circle, Brielle’s breath caught in her chest, and she felt her eyes well up as she took in the beauty of the sprawling city below. She imagined this was what God saw when He looked down at them.
“You okay?” Logan asked her, concern evident in her voice.
Brielle blinked back her tears and nodded. “It’s just really beautiful.”
Logan laughed and put an arm around Brielle’s shoulders. “Oh my God, you’re adorable.”
If Brielle was thankful for anything in this journey, it was that she’d met Logan. Before Etheria, she’d only ever surrounded herself with people like her, who thought like her, and had the same values as she did. Admittedly, she was sheltered and ignorant to so much of the rest of the world. Ignorant of so many people who lived lives she’d never appreciated. And now she did. Or, at least, with Logan’s help…she was learning to.
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