by Ifè Oshun
Both Cici and I stopped thumbing through the binders and gave Mom our undivided attention. She rarely spoke about her childhood.
“My Mahá witnessed interesting visitors. First, there was a five year-old boy. By then, Mahá rules were set in stone and one of them was that only immortals were allowed, thereby leaving out children who hadn't yet matured. But this boy was different. His parents were mortal and had brought him to Egypt to save his life. Immortals in our area, including your grandparents, gave him and his parents asylum by direct order of the Body. I remember being very eager to see this boy who was the object of the wrath of a powerful king, and the recipient of such protection from the Body. He himself was born into very humble surroundings: a manger, they said, alongside animals.”
Cici and I gasped. Surely Mom wasn't talking about—
“At first, when he arrived at my Mahá, there was an uproar among a few of the attendees due to his young age. But among his many companions were several Ancient Ones. That silenced all outcry.”
“Ancient Ones?” I asked.
“Our ancestors,” Cici whispered. “The Fallen Angels.” Mom nodded and continued.
“In the early days, as they tried to bring order to the chaos their offspring caused, the ancestors attended every Mahá and actively enforced the new laws. At first they were seen as parents and then, later on, elders, but over the course of time they became feared as the walking personification of angelic forces on this planet. Even in their fallen state, they were and always will be more powerful than any mere immortal. Eventually, the ancestors sent representatives in their stead and only personally attended the Mahás of certain individuals whom they took a special interest in.
“We knew the boy, Jesus of Galilee, was a special guest when they arrived with him and a few of his other companions, who were not of this earth at all. They had all come to see who I was, to get to know me. Things would never be the same for our family after that.”
“Why were they there to see you, Mom?” I asked.
“My ability, molecular manipulation, is rare and can be very destructive. If they had determined that I was 'bad,' the Ancient Ones would have destroyed me on the spot. It was the last time I saw Star.”
“Where is she now?”
Mom paused and put her binder aside. “No one knows where the Ancient Ones are now. There are stories, myths, that some of them, in their quest to be absolved, were allowed back into the seventh dimension. Others say they exist somewhere between there and this dimension, but no one knows exactly where. We do know they do not live among us anymore, and because of this separation, we now always know when they come.”
If we had been sitting on chairs instead of the floor, Cici and I would have been on the edge of our seats.
“When an Ancient One enters this dimension and comes into the vicinity of earthbound immortals, our abilities are weakened and, in many cases, rendered useless until they leave.”
I digested this bit of information. “But don't they run the Body of Restoration?”
“They do, but through everyday immortals. The day-to-day global affairs of the Body are run by the descendants who are handpicked by the Council. Council members are well known to the immortal community. They are infallible. They represent the law in a world where there are not many rules. They often act as stand-ins for the Ancients at Mahá.”
Cici’s heartbeat speeded up, and she had that anxious deer-in-headlights look again.
“You think Ancient Ones will come to my Mahá,” I said.
“Oh yes, Angel,” Mom said. “They will want to get to know you. And whether you survive your Mahá or not, you, like me, will be filed away in the documents of the Body of Restoration.”
Her eyes held mine, and the whites around her glowing red pupils seemed to hover like hot neon. I inhaled with the sudden shock of understanding. “Body of Restoration,” I repeated. “B.O.R….You?”
“Yes.” Her quiet answer was more frightening than any scream. “As a Council member of the Body, I am The Law. And have been for almost seven-hundred years.”
15. BACK TO WORK
Instead of sleeping, I spent the night mentally rewinding my entire life.
Everything I had heard and seen in relation to Mom was infused with new meaning now that I understood what her real job was. All my life I’d thought she was an attorney for a privately held corporation. But that was her public face. Her true job was being a Council member of the Body of Restoration.
Mom was immensely powerful. Council was as close as you could get, in hierarchy, to the Ancient Ones themselves. If the AOs were the Board of Directors, Mom and the other Council members were the Executive Board.
Furthermore, Mom would act as the B.O.R. representative at my Mahá.
The implications of this swam like piranhas in my brain as I prepared to go to Sawyer's studio. We were slated to fill out the tracks compiled the day Heist died. Although I had recorded rough vocals at home, my fear at being around my colleagues now that I was Shimshana quickly replaced the anxiety resulting from Mom's revelation.
It had been over a week since I’d killed Heist with my voice. It was now under control, I hoped, but what about my hunger? I’d almost bitten Sawyer that same day. What if I killed again, just in a new way?
Just remember what I told you, Cici transmitted as I approached the door to the studio. Stay hydrated. Stay calm. You can do this.
Hydrated. Check. I took mental inventory of the ten thermoses of blood hidden in my knapsack.
Calm. Check…well not really. For breakfast, I'd gorged myself past the point of bloatedness. I wore my most comfortable pair of black jeans and a gold and white tee shirt. Nevertheless, I was nervous as all get out as I pressed my finger to the bell.
And for crying out loud, Angel, if you get hungry, leave as soon as possible.
I took a steadying breath as I listened to his footsteps approach before he opened the door. It wasn't Sawyer. It was a girl a little bit older than me with a no-nonsense attitude. And she smelled like chocolate. I used to love chocolate...
Hold your breath when they start smelling good to you.
The problem was, they all smelled good to me.
“You must be Angel,” the older girl said. She gave me head-to-toe eye action before stepping aside for me to enter. “I'm Jackie. Sawyer's assistant.”
Heist's replacement. As she disappeared into another room, I couldn't help thinking she had some giant shoes to fill. I picked up traces of Heist's scent. It was difficult to look at the soundboard and not remember his playful smile.
Seeing the others with my new immortal eyes was astounding. I noticed Sawyer's eyes had tiny red and gold flecks in them. He was thinner and his face was gaunt, as if he hadn't slept or eaten in days. His eyes caught my gaze and held it. “You seem different,” he said.
I glanced at the spot where we had unsuccessfully tried to revive Heist. “I haven’t been the same since that day.”
His eyebrows drew together in that familiar frown and his wondrous scent dominated the room. I held my breath again. “Welcome back,” was all he finally said.
Julietta burst into the studio. “Angel! I was worried about you. I wanted to come see you, but your Dad said you were too out of it for visitors. How are you?”
I offered all the perfunctory assurances of my recovery as LaLa entered, too. She glanced over at the spot where Heist died before hugging me. “You feel so warm,” she said. “And you look a little...tired. You sure you're up to this?” I nodded, thinking it would be more accurate if she'd said “You look a little...immortal.”
“Death, illness, and starvation,” LaLa continued, emphasizing the word “starvation” with a pointed glance at Julietta’s smaller frame. “We’ve seen them all this past week, and they can’t stop us.”
“Got that right,” Julietta added.
“Let’s do this,” I said as we launched into working on the tracks.
Writing songs with the girls was always exciti
ng, but now that I was immortal, it was more intense than I thought it could ever be. It was like getting an injection of blood directly into my veins, as if the process of creating songs was like some sort of addictive drug. Not only could I see every note, I saw the various patterns that emerged when they came together. When the musical arrangement “worked,” the patterns vibrated harmoniously. It actually felt like smooth, cool silk on my eyes as I watched the notes dance and vibrate around me. However, if the arrangement was off, not only was it as uncomfortable to look at as a scratchy wool sweater behind my eyelids, I could also see where in the arrangement the problem was.
Sawyer, eyebrows continually drawn together, listened to the playbacks of our lyrics along with his tracks. He nodded his head to the beat when something sounded right and remained still when it didn't quite work. If something was just plain wrong, he shook his head back and forth as if trying to toss the dysfunctional notes from his ears before leaning over the keyboard to rework the notes and chords.
One particular track, No. 6, was really giving the mortals a hard time. My eyes hurt looking into the places within the patterns where the disagreeable chords and notes were pulsating angrily. I could see exactly where the song wasn't working. But Sawyer couldn't.
I stepped toward the keyboard. “May I?” He scooted toward the lower octave end as I summoned my limited keyboard skills. Remembering the positioning of his fingers on the keys, I hesitantly pressed the notes that he'd just played. Yep, there it was. The chord that wasn't working. Ouch. He shook his head back and forth, and my eyes itched with the wrongness of the notes.
I closed my eyes and pictured that area working well. Incredibly, I saw the specific notes needed to bring the area into harmony. The needed notes were gray and floated outside of the pattern. All I had to do was choose which ones I wanted to use. But I moved too slowly. Sawyer had already slid his hand back over the keys and played the exact grayed-out notes I had just seen. Amazed, I watched the notes burst with color as they took their rightful place inside the pattern. The notes that weren’t working went poof.
“That's it!” I cried. “That's what I saw!”
And then Sawyer smiled. I was floored.
His teeth flashed before my eyes as brightly as the notes. Somewhere in the back of my throat hunger arose, but it was diminished by the brilliance of the music. His hands had learned the new notes and played them automatically while he watched me intently. I couldn't take my eyes away from him. It felt like a blanket of magic had settled inside the studio and the two of us were wrapped up in it.
As we all continued working throughout the afternoon, I was even able to focus on the tasks at hand and ignore the distracting smells and sounds of being surrounded by mortals. It was still there tugging at my brain, but I managed to push it down. I sensed Cici's pride as I strengthened my resolve.
While we worked, Jackie attended to our every need and request. She wordlessly ran in and out for Sawyer's errands, as well as our lunch and snacks, and the never-ending requests for hot tea, lemon, and honey, which, to my surprise, I still wanted to drink. Every now and then I caught her glancing at me with a questioning look on her face.
I think she's interested in Sawyer and wondering what's going on between you guys.
Um, she shouldn't have to wonder very long, seeing as there's nothing going on between me and Sawyer. Annoyed, I turned toward LaLa, only to find she smelled like honey. Drat. Did she always smell that good? I turned my back to her as my mouth started to water.
Go outside in the fresh air and break out a thermos.
I excused myself and concentrated on walking at a mortal's pace to the door. I oh-so-slowly reached out my hand to turn the lock to the open position before putting my hand on the knob. It amazed me how quickly I'd gotten used to flashing about here and there and going through solid objects. Now, the pace I'd moved at for sixteen years as a mortal was enough to put me to sleep. It helped to find a rhythm between steps, like a jazz drumbeat. One Mississippi, two Mississippi...
Once I finally made it outside, I managed to drain one thermos before the door opened behind me. With a gust of fragrant, mortal air, Sawyer stepped out.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Just needed a break.”
He moved closer and my stomach tightened up. Would this continual craving to suck the blood out of everybody around me never end? Maybe Mom and Dad were right. Maybe I couldn't be around mortals anymore. Perhaps I should continue to write and perform in isolation. Or collaborate through some sort of software and meet up with them for gigs...
“I need your help,” Sawyer was saying. I looked up at him. He didn't seem like the asking-for-help type. I waited for him to continue, and fought against becoming mesmerized by the way his Adam’s apple slid up and down when he swallowed. “I need to buy a house,” he continued. I looked at him blankly. “You said my apartment was soulless. (I didn’t know he heard me tell Jules that!) You were right. And ever since Heist...I need a change. But I also need an honest opinion. Would you help me look? If you don't mind.”
Huh? He asked me to go house shopping with him? “Why me?”
Yeah! I'd like to know, too.
“You're the only one I know here in Boston who tells me the whole truth. You don't seem to care whether you insult me or not.”
“And you like that?”
“Yeah.”
We stared at each other for a while. His eyelashes cast a shadow over his dilated pupils. The cold winter wind whipped his hair into his face.
“Sawyer, I know nothing about buying houses.”
“Me, too.”
“Well, okay, sure.”
He smiled that self-deprecating half smile. “It's cold,” he said.
“Yes,” I agreed, and remembered I was standing outside in what was probably ten-degree wind chill in a tee shirt and jeans.
“No goose bumps?” He ran the ball of his thumb briefly along my forearm. I felt a flash of what felt like fire race up my arm from where his hand made contact with my skin. The doorbell rang and I “ran” inside at a very slow, mortal pace to answer it. It was Nina.
She shook off her long wool coat. “Angel, glad you're back in the saddle. We’ve got only eight days to get choreography and costumes together for the Garden gig. Ladies, you more than likely have a number of loose ends to tie up from today's session, so I've brought the choreographer and designer to you.”
And as if on cue, the bell rang again. A small, red-haired guy in tight white jeans floated in with what couldn't be described as less than a dancer's body. He sashayed about the studio as if he was about to break out into a routine à la “Fame,” the TV series.
“Redd will teach you the moves,” Nina said. “First rehearsal, tomorrow, Cambridge at the Dance Factory Studios,” She consulted her Blackberry. “Three o’clock okay?”
Julietta was already picking up some simple steps with Redd. “Works for me,” she said. LaLa and I agreed.
The bell rang again. A painfully thin girl stood at the door, and she seemed hesitant to come in until Sawyer invited her. “Risa,” Nina said as an introduction. “She'll take care of the costumes.”
Risa pulled out a tailor's measuring tape and started wrapping it around my bust. I self-consciously glanced in Sawyer's direction, but he was gone. I tuned in to hear him upstairs, rapidly breathing in and out and grunting. He was doing push-ups. With one part of my mind, I continued to listen to him and count along. Somewhere around push-up number seventy-eight, I turned my attention back to what Risa was doing. She rewarded me with a cutting glance as if she were insulted by my mental wanderings.
I felt guilty for eavesdropping on Sawyer and imagined what it would be like looking for a house with him. What was his taste in houses like? If this apartment/studio was any indication, we were in for some bland stuff.
Once we wrapped at the studio, LaLa made a beeline for the door with barely a nod in our direction. Juliett
a and I exchanged a sideways glance. Her haste could mean one of two things. Either she had some lyrics she desperately had to get down on paper in private, or there was a guy she had to talk to. I hoped it was the latter.
And what about you, Bighead? When's the last time you've even been out on a date? If LaLa found most guys unchallenging, I found them boring. After a few conversations, they always fell into one of three categories: obsessed with sex, obsessed with videogames, or obsessed with themselves. Or some boring combination of those. Even the smartest guys at school couldn't compete with a good song idea, a cup of tea, and a spanking-new pen to write with.
“What you got going on?” Julietta asked while picking up her knapsack.
“Doing Sawyer a favor. Helping him buy a new house.”
“What!” she exclaimed in a whisper before pulling me to the side. Her eyes darted over to where Sawyer was now digging into album crates at the opposite end of the studio.
“Someone's got to help him,” I said. “He asked me.”
She seemed to think this was the most fascinating news since the death of Michael Jackson. “I want to know everything,” she demanded in a whisper before heading out.
I turned to see Sawyer watching me with a small smile on his face. I felt irked. “What's so funny?”
“You look like a deer walking through a pride of lions,” he teased. “Don’t worry. I won't bite you.”
I swallowed my impulse to warn him that he was the one in danger of being bitten.
16. SHOT TO THE HEART
To my surprise, Sawyer actually had good taste in houses.
He'd already identified the neighborhood he wanted to live in. The Back Bay was one of the most sought-after neighborhoods and boasted rows of high-priced brownstones alongside hip cafes, shops, and eateries. Sawyer's work on Swedish Moreno’s number one smash, as well as a few minor hits for other artists, seemed to ensure money was no object for him.