by Jane Lebak
"So he's not furious at me?" Gabriel bit his lip. "I don't suppose you can shuttle messages? That would obey the letter of the law and disregard the Spirit."
Michael swallowed. "I honestly don't know how much is allowed. I'll do what I think I can."
"Don't take any chances." Gabriel put more wood on the fire. "It's not worth it. You saw what happened."
Michael looked uncomfortable. "If you stay in the plane of Creation, are you going to become human?"
"I'm an angel. But I might ask God to put me in a body." Gabriel stared at the ground. "If you think about it, they sleep. It's a legitimate means of shearing a quarter of the time off the sentence."
Michael's eyes glinted. "Is that your motive?"
"Just a side effect." Gabriel folded his arms and rested them on his knees. "I thought maybe I could be useful, and then the sleep thing occurred to me. Of course, humans dream, too, which might negate any benefit." Gabriel closed his eyes. It throbbed, that empty space where God should have been. "You can't get around God's orders. A year is a year, and God knows what I'm going to do with it, even if I don't. But I can't help wondering if it's a calendar year, a lunar year, a solar year... I didn't think to nail it down at the time."
Michael said, "I can ask. It might make it easier if you kept track of the days."
Gabriel huffed. "It does nothing of the sort."
More silence. Michael said at last, "Where will you go?"
Gabriel's head shot up. "The chosen land. Where else would I go? Or are you saying," Gabriel asked, his voice changing pitch, "that He's forbidden my going there?"
Michael opened his hands. "I'm not holding back anything. If He permits humans the luxury of being with Him, why not you? They're sinful."
Gabriel's hands clenched. "But their kind was promised a redeemer, and ours who got winnowed out went directly into Hell—except for me."
Michael shook his head. "I wouldn't say you've been winnowed."
Gabriel picked at the grass his semi-solid weight had flattened. He was thinking now more as disconnected images than as words: a shattered vase; half-eaten food gone rotten; torn fabric.
Michael shook his head. "He still loves you."
Gabriel shrank a little. "You all keep saying that."
"Because it's true." Michael nodded. "It seems like this has a twofold agenda."
"Aside from the obvious?" Gabriel put a little acid into his voice. "Banging it into my head to obey orders has to be one reason. What's the other?"
"Bringing you closer to humankind. Uriel says that regardless of your form, you'll start feeling increased empathy for humankind, and that's aside from any faith you kindle in them."
Gabriel murmured, "God always brings good from evil."
Michael frowned. "You aren't evil. Don't say that."
"Not-God equals evil."
"Don't use logic. You may be a Cherub, but even Cherubic souls aren't logical. They're souls. There are too many degrees of grey to catalog... " Michael got to his feet. "You're not evil! Don't say that!"
Gabriel hesitated. "So what am I?"
"Complacent?"
Gabriel shook his head. "Complacent. That works."
Michael moved around the fire and sat closer to Gabriel. "Remiel said that this looks like a plan to her. She says God will prepare you for a specific assignment."
Gabriel sat straighter. "She's good at reading the Divine Will. What sort of assignment?"
"No word of it reached me, if anyone knows. But that's exciting."
"I'd love to know my ultimate purpose, assuming I haven't wrecked it already." Gabriel leaned forward. "Could you do me a favor? Ask God to give an assignment to me now. A big one. One with lots of little regulations in it – I can get it right. I promise you, Michael, I'll nail it. Something heroic and huge, something for the ages. I'll prove myself all over again, and then God can take me home because I'll have fulfilled everything."
Michael lowered his gaze, and Gabriel's heart sank. "Don't you think we already asked that?"
Gabriel's shoulders sagged. "Then what does He want me to do? I can do it."
"He hasn't said. It's between you and Him now. Your discernment led you here, so this is where I'd suggest you start, much as I don't like it." Michael's head raised, and his eyes became more earnest. "Oh, and Raguel said if you have any problems with demons, give a yell for him."
Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "The threat alone will probably keep them away."
"If they bother you, the same goes for me. Call me, and I'll come with a sword in each hand." Michael's eyes smoldered. "Whatever they plan, they'll forget it if they try. They won't remember what they were doing, what they intended to do once they had you down . . . they'll forget their names by the time I'm done."
Gabriel crossed his legs at the ankle, grinning. "That's very kind."
"Don't minimize the threat." Michael trembled. "Once they realize, I'm sure they'll engulf you."
Gabriel sighed. "I know. They're not liable to exercise clemency or moderation in regards to me."
"Clemency? They'll persecute you to no end!"
"Like at Sodom?"
Michael flinched. "Much better your body than your soul."
Gabriel bit his lip. "Much better neither."
"Stay aware." Michael's voice lowered. "They'll hit you and hit you hard once they find you vulnerable. Why should I have to tell you that?"
"I'll keep on guard." Gabriel frowned. "If I were in a body, would I have a guardian?"
"Raguel already offered, but God said you wouldn't have a single angel who watched over you. Maybe you could have a series of shifts."
Gabriel shrunk a little inside. "That's not necessary. You all have assignments, and I can call for help."
Michael opened his hands. "How would you know? If you became human you'd lose your angelic senses and some of your abilities. You won't know when attacks come."
"Surely I don't have to submerge all of me." Gabriel joined eyes with Michael. "It's only time. I just have to get through time. God will protect me, and what better friends could I possibly have?"
Michael nodded, then stood. Gabriel touched his hand to his temple while the Archangel vanished.
And for the next ten minutes, Gabriel fought the urge to summon Michael back.
So quiet, so unnaturally silent. He had no one else in his head or in his heart.
No, he'd tough it out. Loneliness must be part of the punishment, otherwise why would God have taken Raphael? It wouldn't do to anger God further. He'd told Michael it was for the best; he couldn't head back after less than a quarter hour. And it wasn't anything to be afraid of, being alone. Cherubim worked well in solitude. He'd get through this.
Gabriel drew closer to the fire and stared into the heart. Fiery ones. Seraphim. It would be futile to touch this kind of flame, but for a moment he hungered for it.
So that was what Remiel meant. Her separation from Camael was equivalent to his separation from Raphael, not from God.
Oh, Raphael—a whole year? When he'd been hoping for days now to find peace under Raphael's wings, even if the Seraph was enraged, and just huddle there in whatever shelter he could—
A rabbit's sniff startled him, and Gabriel jerked away even as the rabbit bounded backward. He turned to see a number of glinting eyes.
"Hello there," he said, his voice unsteady.
The animals remained distant. Gabriel called to the plants so they would put up shoots, and the rabbits browsed.
Where will you go? Michael had asked.
Gabriel gestured toward the fire, and abruptly Raphael sat there, facing him; just an image, but he could try to pretend—couldn't he? "Maybe I'll find a God-fearing town somewhere," Gabriel said to the image. "I could travel about, I suppose, not staying long anywhere. I think I'd have to because people tend to enquire about one's past. Where are you from? Why did you come here? I won't lie, so staying in one city might get tricky."
The idea of introducing himself as an ange
l in disgrace seemed, at best, repugnant. He didn't dwell on the possibility.
One of the rabbits jumped into his lap, and Gabriel stroked it. "It's all contingent on God's approval." Gabriel looked only at Raphael's face. "I can't get into a human form by myself, so God would have to do that part."
He leaned back on his hands, allowing the rabbit to jump to the ground. He looked back at Raphael, whose image he was able to manipulate into the expressions he would have expected had Raphael actually been there. It was unbelievable, how much this hurt. He didn't even know what he wanted to say, so he just kept talking. "The human form will one day be glorified by a redeemer, so it's not exactly a horror to be trapped in that clumsy state. Demons think that, so I guess it's a point in my favor that I'm considering it. I wouldn't like being human for long stretches, but I'll shoulder the burden if it means I can help out down here."
Gabriel found the rabbit looking at him again, and he shooed it away. It was definitely a rabbit through and through, not a spy for a demon or an angel. It just wondered what he was doing there. "I'm wondering that too, wondering why I'm wasting my time talking to a rabbit and some manipulated light," Gabriel said, "so you're in good company."
Good company. Well, at least not-evil company.
"Another potential problem," Gabriel said, again to Raphael, "is that I'm not good at wearing a body. None of us is. I don't have the right balance or the experience making those split-second reactions a person spends a lifetime learning. A careful observer might be able to detect the difference because the nature that walks or stands is second nature, not primary."
Raphael in the fire nodded. He looked concerned.
"Oh, I know all the drawbacks," Gabriel said softly. "Fatigue, hunger, sickness. On the other hand, I always enjoyed other aspects of the body: taste, touch, true sound, true sight, and smell. Laughter. Sleepiness. Awakening."
The rabbit hopped back into the brush.
"And that—" Gabriel whispered to Raphael, "I guess that's it. The last time I'm going to see you until God brings me home." He looked back at the image of Raphael in the fire and met its eyes for a very long time.
Finally, finally he whispered, "Goodbye."
He winked out the image and was once again alone.
Tishri 4
In the morning, Gabriel prayed to become human, and God answered. Right where he was, Gabriel found himself in a body.
And he practiced. He practiced walking. He practiced running. He made note of all the physical sensations of a human moving through the day: what it meant to be hungry and thirsty; what it meant to be tired. He browsed around until he could find food, and he looked for a place to spend the night.
He kept his angelic senses open as he moved, but the other angels left him alone, and he didn't detect any demons. But he sensed everything else – the movement of air against his skin, the touch of fabric, a thousand sounds and smells and the taste of his own teeth. It was dizzying, terrifying in a way, and he wondered how humans sifted it all to know what was important. How could they pay equal attention to a moving cloud and a moving predator and assign more value to one than the other?
Too much, too overwhelming. Gabriel asked for the ability to switch back and forth between spiritual and material. It took some concentration at first, but after several tries, he found it easier. Just before sunset, he located a stand of rushes, and he settled in for the night.
Tishri 5
The night had so many sounds. Insects and animals, the wind, the stream, the gentle motion of the Earth itself and the sound of plants growing. And early in the morning, two men on horseback.
"They haunt the stream," said one man.
It took Gabriel a moment to figure out which language they were speaking and to start thinking in that language.
"I wouldn't go anywhere near it," said the other.
Gabriel had been observing a colony of ants and their easy observance of the very simple programming that made up their lives. He'd gone semi-solid to play with them, testing their response to different obstacles. Despite what he'd said to Remiel about the penguins, he couldn't see God in them. Not really. He knew God had created ants and that they were acting in accord with God's will, but it wasn't the same.
He raised his head and looked through the plants to see what appeared to be farmers with calloused hands and large muscles. He made a mental note that he might need those and to figure out how to change his form in order to get them.
A boy's voice piped up. "What makes you think it's haunted?"
"See the reeds? They're taller there and thicker than anywhere else. Not even on the opposite bank of the stream. Ghosts do that."
Gabriel glanced up with large eyes.
"I don't believe in ghosts," said the boy, "only in the gods!"
Probably a good call, but Gabriel could discern in the child's voice an early adolescent self-confidence that might or might not last until adulthood.
"You don't have to believe in them," said one of the men. "Just be respectful. Ghosts don't take kindly to insults."
"Well, watch!"
A crashing sound as the boy hurled himself into the rushes. It didn't occur to Gabriel that he was visible until a moment too late.
The boy caught one sight of Gabriel and shrieked. Gabriel vanished, shaking, horrified.
"Brennos!" shouted the father. "Get out of there!"
The boy wheeled. Invisible, Gabriel covered his face in his hands. He could hear the boy's heart pounding while his father or his uncle yelled at him, and Gabriel accepted every word as though directed at himself.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. He should have noticed how the reeds were growing, and he should have predicted a boy that age would run to investigate with no warning. But most of all, he should have remembered how solid he was and that a human could see him. What if it had been one of the adults? What if whoever spotted him had chosen not to run but to attack?
Gabriel immersed himself in prayer, and he didn't stop. He prayed that he wouldn't fail again that badly. And he prayed for the boy, that the boy wouldn't retreat into superstition after seeing something he couldn't explain.
Gabriel hadn't prayed since God's verdict, but this wasn't for himself, so he didn't hesitate. Gabriel prayed for the opportunity to make amends, for the wisdom not to frighten anyone again, for the foresight to keep his origin secret, and then without planning it, he prayed that God would still love him.
Once that burst out, it repeated over and over in his head: urgent, sincere, frightened. He slowed, but it would pop up again, then another pause, then again, and he'd pause, and it happened once more.
As he prayed it dawned on him: he'd assumed that when God shut him out, the silence went both ways. It didn't have to be like that: of course God could hear him. If God would put him in a body, then God was still listening, and maybe they could make amends. Now that Gabriel had a better sense of thirst, of hunger, he realized he'd been hungry and thirsty for prayer, so he kept praying for anything that came to mind. He prayed for the Earth, for the land around himself and for the people. He prayed for the animals, the plants, and the little lives borne on wind and water. He prayed for his friends, especially for Michael, Remiel and Dobiel. He prayed for Raphael.
Practicing being human was important, but he didn't want to stop praying, so he experimented. He tried praying while solid, tried keeping focus, tried until he realized there were too many human needs to meet and retreated into semi-solid form again.
When the sun set, Gabriel curled up beneath his wings and prayed himself to sleep.
Tishri 6
At dawn, Gabriel awoke with light in his eyes. A peculiar tension built up in his throat and lungs and he breathed deeply, then opened his mouth very wide and expelled all the air—his first yawn. He stretched, a little amused by how a semi-solid body just did what it felt like, but as he moved he dislodged a pile of reeds.
Where had that come from? He hadn't pulled them down around himself last night, and he certain
ly hadn't done so while asleep.
Behind him he heard a gasp, and he turned to find a boy. The same boy as yesterday. "Brennos?"
The boy had come back to find him and had covered him with reeds in order to set him on fire. But no, no, Gabriel forced down the thought and studied the boy. He looked terrified, pale and with his eyebrows an inverted V, poised to run but with nowhere to go: he was between Gabriel and the stream.
No, it was safe. He didn't have to be afraid of this child.
"I saw you yesterday." The boy gulped. "I had to know if you were real. But if my father followed, he'd see you—so I covered you up."
Gabriel nodded. He was still wearing wings, and he pulled them tighter. The boy must have worked hard to cover that much space.
"What are you?" asked the boy.
Gabriel didn't answer: how many times had demons turned themselves into gods doing just this sort of thing? But not giving an answer made it even more certain he'd come back to find a statue and daily sacrifices. When in doubt, try the truth. Gabriel said, "I'm a messenger."
The boy's eyes widened. "Is it a message for me?"
That hadn't worked as planned. "No, not yet."
"Oh..." Then the boy's eyes brightened. "What's your name?"
Gabriel said automatically, "Why do you want to know my name?"
"I just want to know what to call you."
Basic convenience, not idolatry. "I'm Gabriel."
"What a great name!" Brennos clambered closer, all his fear forgotten. "This is great—I'm talking to a real spirit! Can you fly?"
"Yes, but I can't carry you."
"Oh. Because I bet that would be fun. Wouldn't my father be surprised if I showed up flying?" The boy laughed. "Actually, are you allowed to leave this spot? I thought ghosts had to stay where they were. Were you killed here? Does it hurt to die? What do you do all day?"
Gabriel said, "I answer questions one at a time," and Brennos laughed again.
The boy's unruly black hair got in his eyes, but he just kept asking questions and then asking the next before Gabriel answered anything at all, so Gabriel sat back and assessed the situation: yesterday's scare hadn't harmed him, at least, and Gabriel thanked God for that. On the other hand, today's constant conversation wouldn't permit Gabriel to immerse in prayer again, but he thought that fit repayment for startling the boy the day before. That and the badgering of sounds, the boy's smell, the colors and the motion crowding his vision. They all gave him a headache.