by Jane Lebak
His gaze dropped. He couldn't help it.
Gabelus rested a hand on his shoulder. "We do hire workers for the harvest. But first my father wants to meet you."
Gabelus led him down the hall, and Gabriel followed with his mouth dry and his fingers clenching his belt.
Raguel nearly crashed into them in the hallway. "Oh, you're coming. Grandfather wanted you now."
They entered a courtyard in the center of the house, open to the warm air and the waning sunlight. A gentleman sixty years old, white-haired and leathery, sat in a chair beside a potted tree. Raguel held Gabriel back by the door while Gabelus approached.
Gabriel kept an eye on the two men's exchange while Raguel said, "I think you can stay! He just wants to speak to you first."
Gabriel wished he had his angelic hearing to get a jump on what the men were saying. Gabelus had his back to him, blocking Gabriel's view of the older man. When Gabelus waved them over, Raguel trotted to his grandfather while Gabriel trailed.
"Grandfather, this is Gabriel." Raguel looked at Gabriel. "Gabriel, this is my grandfather, Tobias son of Tobit."
Gabriel tried very hard not to look the way he felt.
Tobias looked over Gabriel as if appraising him. "For some reason I thought you would be taller. Sit, please." The old man gestured to the chair near his own. "You may leave, Raguel."
All was spoken in fluent Hebrew. Gabelus and his son left the courtyard, and the head of the household smiled at Gabriel. "Has my family welcomed you?"
Gabriel gripped the armrests until the tendons hurt, but at least his hands weren't trembling. "They've been very hospitable, thank you."
"I only wish my wife Sarah were still with us, so she could greet you too. She was so beautiful, so charming." Tobias had a wistful smile, then he looked over Gabriel and chuckled. "You can relax, you know."
Gabriel unclenched his hands from the chair. "I'm sorry."
Tobias nodded. "I'm curious as to what sort of guide my grandson found on the road. Raguel says you're a prince and that you want work. You can see where that would leave an old man with questions."
Gabriel looked him over and remembered a boy Raguel's age, walking beside a Seraph without knowing it, Raphael's gold-toned eyes and easy smile and his way of making just the right quip — and Gabriel clenched the armrests again. His voice didn't want to work, but he forced it. "I've worked as a shepherd for the past five months, but Raguel says you need help for the harvest. I can learn to do that."
"We're in the middle of shearing," Tobias said.
Gabriel bit his lip. "I don't shear."
For the first time harshness had came into Tobias's tone. "It's beneath you?"
Gabriel stared at the ground. "You don't want me coming near your sheep with a blade, not if you love your sheep. I was much better at driving them in and out of a stream to get them rinsed off prior to shearing. And sorting the fleeces afterward."
Tobias said, "Let me see your hands."
Puzzled, Gabriel let Tobias examine his palms, his fingers, and nails. Tobias nodded. "You've done hard work. You've been a shepherd for five months?" When Gabriel agreed, Tobias added, "You look like you're about twenty?"
Gabriel nodded.
"How comes a prince to be wandering Media?"
Gabriel began with, "I've—" and then stopped as if struck.
For the past twenty-four hours Gabriel had worked on how to present his story, always staring with, "I've fallen from favor." But here in the moment, he couldn't do it, couldn't say fallen, not before this man, not before God.
He averted his eyes. "My Father…forced me out." That hadn't been easy to say either, but Gabriel tried to forge his way back into the rest of the script. "My Father had a disobedient servant. He wanted me to destroy the servant and the servant's house together, but I let him escape. Eventually I'll be able to return to my Father and beg His mercy, but I won't try until at least after the harvest."
"Your father gave you a timetable?" Tobias looked cautious. "Does this happen often?"
Gabriel avoided his eyes. "It's never happened before."
Tobias said, "Do you want to return home?"
He couldn't manage more than a whisper. "More than anything."
A pair of birds passed overhead, and Gabriel followed them with his eyes until they disappeared. He wasn't going to be allowed to stay. Tobias's guardian didn't like him—he knew that. Ezdrael must be shouting at Tobias not to trust him, and why should he? There were too many unanswered questions. He wasn't even handling this interview well.
Tobias said, "You have the name of an angel."
Gabriel stared at the ground. "I hear you journeyed with one."
"Azariah." Tobias said the name as if tasting wine, and Gabriel winced. "He called himself Azariah, but later he told me his real name was Raphael. I named my first two sons after him."
Frozen, Gabriel couldn't think of how to react. What he wanted to do was beg for a full recounting of the story, every moment, every look on Raphael's face, every thought that had flitted through the boy's mind as they walked, the awe of the moment Raphael revealed his true nature. Everything, everything.
And at the same time, he couldn't: every angel in the house knew why he didn't know those things, what he'd done, what he'd failed to do.
Still, a normal person would respond, should respond, so Gabriel said, "I'd like to hear about it." What was a guest supposed to say in a situation like this? "Have you ever written it down? I'd love to read it."
The man laughed. "And here I thought I'd never get you interested in anything." As Gabriel's cheeks grew hot, Tobias said, "Will you accept an invitation to dinner?"
Gabriel nodded.
"Good." The old man rose from his chair and kissed Gabriel on the cheek. "Because you're hired."
- + -
By now the family had gathered for supper: five brothers (the other two had gone to live in Nineveh before its destruction); their wives and children; Tobias's daughters and their families; and Tobias.
Gabriel expected to be dismissed to the barn to eat, so it surprised him to be introduced and then given a place in the common room. He had Raguel on one side and Rafaela glued to the other, although at some point she ended up on his lap while he cut her food. He took only a minimum of the lamb and lentil stew, knowing the best part ought to go to the family. Rafaela filched his barley cake and slipped him her lentils.
During supper, Gabriel had to repeat his story. They were, it chagrined him to discover, interested. Zachary and Jacob hadn't seemed to care when he'd implied everyone he knew had been slaughtered. Still, he managed to come up with answers for every question except one.
Tobias's daughter Angela said, "Why didn't your mother intervene?"
He blinked at her.
"Didn't she say something?"
Gabriel abruptly felt orphaned. He had only one Parent. While adept at linguistic sleight of hand, he couldn't come up with any way to make it sound as if he had a mother at all. "My siblings begged for mercy."
"But your mother," Angela said, "how could a mother stand by and watch her son get thrown out of the household? She should have followed you out onto the road and stayed with you."
Raguel's mother put her hand on Gabriel's shoulder as she passed, taking Gabriel's empty plate. "Is your mother living?"
Relief dawned. "No."
"Oh," gasped Angela. "I didn't realize! How did it happen? How old were you?"
Gabelus said, "Angela, give the man room to breathe."
A moment later, Raguel's mother returned Gabriel's plate, reloaded. He looked up in surprise. It was the first time all year that anyone cared if he had enough to eat.
After dinner and evening prayers, Tobias said, "I have need of my hired man."
Gabelus laughed out loud. "You're going to tell him your story?"
Tobias intoned, "Would you rather I told it again to you?"
"Nope!" Gabelus roared with laughter. "Why do you think I recommended you hire him?
"
Gabriel just kept his head down and his gaze lowered. Tobias took him by the arm, and he brought him out to the courtyard.
Two hours later, Tobias brought him back to Angela. Gabriel asked for a space to sleep in the hay loft. Instead Raguel showed him a room they would share, with Gabriel's bed-roll already spread on the floor and his belongings stashed in a corner.
Raguel's mother poked her head into the room. "Oh, good, you're still awake." She handed him a pillow. "I couldn't start this until after dinner, and I was afraid I wouldn't get it done in time."
Gabriel clutched it, feeling the feathers through the fabric. "Thank you. I could have just folded up my overtunic."
"It's no trouble at all," she said. "Everyone needs something soft." Then she kissed Raguel on the cheek and left them.
Gabriel prayed with Raguel and then in the dark prayed himself to sleep.
- + -
Gabriel awoke in the silent house, moonlight shining through the window. With his eyes clenched and his breath uneven, he pressed his palms against his eyes.
Another midnight awakening in a city filled with horrible men . . . a false name, a separation, a journey . . . "I'm very, very, very angry at you."
He thought about the boy Raguel surrounded by a family that rejoiced in his return. About Gabelus hugging his son and then looking him over to make sure he was all right. When Gabriel went home, he could only picture the inverse: his Father would look him over, and if he passed inspection, God would hug him; and only then would the other angels greet him.
He fell against the pillow Raguel's mother had made for him, and he sobbed.
I want you to have empathy for them. I want you to feel why I love them.
He tried to keep as quiet as possible, mindful that he didn't awaken Raguel, too keenly aware that there were guardians in the house, at least one of whom disliked him, and that they'd see him no matter what he did to hide. He couldn't help it. He kept his face on the pillow.
You aren't the first to try to stare me down, Gebher'el.
He struggled to remember the Vision, the way God used to look at him when He still loved him, and instead there was emptiness, only that final look with that expression he didn't want to name, and nowadays nothing at all, just a dryness inside and now this family outside, stitching together a pillow because they thought everyone deserved something soft.
You have to draw closer to humankind, to feel their fears and pressures.
Gabriel had tried to stay quiet, but a subtle pressure like hands touched his shoulders. He only gripped his pillow tighter and turned his head away.
You left and you stayed away.
He curled around himself, but in the next moment he could feel Uriel draped over and behind him in a hug. His cheeks burning, Gabriel tried to avoid Uriel's embrace but then gave up and huddled beneath the Throne's wings. The feelings flooded him, and he stopped fighting.
Uriel's black-curled head touched Gabriel's. The hold didn't slacken or tighten, only stayed, but Gabriel ached with tension. He'd be all right—he'd have to be all right. He tried not to think any more, tried not to think about what happened, that—
—he'd displeased God. He'd failed his Father.
It overwhelmed Gabriel like a tsunami, that horrified sense of failure, and then even Uriel's calm couldn't keep him together. He'd displeased God, and there was no remedy for that. Nothing at all, not even time.
Uriel rode it out with him until finally Gabriel lay scared and sick, waiting for the dam to break again—that trembling thought, he'd angered God, don't think it again. He didn't sleep again for hours, but Uriel didn't leave.
Nissan 10
The next morning, Gabelus sent Gabriel, who couldn't meet anyone's eyes, out with the workers to harvest the barley. Gabriel took an ox, hitched it to a cart, and went into the field. The other men were working within shouting distance but not close enough to hear a speaking voice.
Uriel sat on the back of the ox and hummed, calling to the butterflies and birds.
"Uriel," said Gabriel, and the Throne fixed round eyes on the Cherub, "are things all right in Heaven?"
The Throne's head tilted, eyes rounding.
Gabriel swallowed. "Is it a problem that you're here? Am I a bother?"
Uriel shrugged with a smile.
Gabriel continued swinging his sickle and gathering the severed stalks. "But what I want to know. . . are you better off without me?"
Uriel sat straight-spined and frowning.
"Does Raphael miss me?" he blurted out.
Uriel turned away those round eyes and almost disappeared because what Uriel projected couldn't always be controlled.
Gabriel withdrew his attention as much as possible from the Throne.
"Could you give him a message from me?" Gabriel kept his head down. "If it doesn't cross the Divine Will, could you please tell him I miss him?"
He lifted his eyes to Uriel, who observed Gabriel with grace-induced blankness. Gabriel flinched and kept harvesting grain.
Rules. He'd broken the smallest fragment of a rule, and now he had to abide by them all. Fully. Asking someone else to break the rule was itself breaking the rule. Giving him relief now wasn't mercy. That was chaos.
He knew that. Still, it was hard to talk, hard to form the words and tell Uriel he deserved all this. He deserved the loneliness, the heat, the pain. The only thing he could manage was, "I'm sorry."
A finger touched his chin, and Gabriel looked up to see Uriel lying across the back of the ox, nose to nose with him. The Throne winked.
"If you decide you prefer not to stay," and Gabriel had no trace of emotion in his voice, "you shouldn't."
Uriel shrugged, sitting upright, but then stretched and leaped down to walk for a while.
"It is a nice world," replied Gabriel. "It's just a shame I'm in it."
Uriel's sandals vanished, leaving nothing between the soil and angelic feet. Gabriel forced a smile. The ox walked steadily, but the day passed more quickly than Gabriel might have predicted. He slept through the next night, again with Uriel nearby.
Uriel stayed two more days, meandering while Gabriel worked but always at the edge of his senses. Uriel told him what the other angels had been up to. Uriel sang. Uriel prayed with him and over him.
Uriel left one day from the field while Gabriel continued harvesting. The Throne gave a good-bye with midnight eyes, then walked off on bare feet. Gabriel watched the lavender wings until Uriel stepped over the edge of a hill, and even afterward he kept checking back. Then, when they called for dinner, Gabriel broke off work and returned to the house.
- + -
After dinner, Gabriel walked outside to pray and found Michael under a tree.
Seeing him, Gabriel cringed, then leaned on the fence and stared at his hands. "So you're taking shifts again?"
Michael said, "Yes," and hugged him.
Gabriel closed his eyes. "You don't have to do this. I'm not helpless."
Michael said, "Neither are we. Uriel called a meeting. We've let you down."
Gabriel said, "I told you not to bother yourself about me."
Michael said, "And we respected that, but I need you to think about this, and think about it hard."
Gabriel's gaze dropped. "I'm a Cherub. That's what I do."
"Then answer this: why is it worse for you when people treat you well?"
Gabriel shivered. "I don't deserve any better."
Michael sounded less like a friend now than a commanding officer, and Gabriel closed his eyes. Michael said, "You're going to let us decide what we're willing to give you. I'm asking if you're willing to accept what we can give. Remiel doesn't even want me to allow you that option, by the way," Michael added, suddenly softer. "She's furious at all of us, herself most of all. On behalf of all of us, I'm asking your forgiveness."
Gabriel tried to seek out Michael's gaze, but he couldn't maintain the contact. "There's nothing to forgive, but if you insist."
Michael said, "A
nd you'll accept our help? Can we drop in uninvited, since you never invite us?"
That military tone again. Gabriel shivered. Why is it worse for you when people treat you well? Because… A question he couldn't answer, at least not now. He couldn't even ascertain the truth of the assumption. Gabriel said, "Why are you doing this?"
Michael said, "Because I'm your friend. And I want you to let me be your friend."
A breeze picked up, and Gabriel wrapped his arms around himself.
Michael said, "Well?"
Gabriel said, "Since you insist, I offer you a standing invitation. Please feel free to join me whenever you wish."
"Thank you." Michael's wings relaxed, and he sounded cheerful again. "Satan's issued an all-points bulletin, by the way. He's not certain where you went."
"I'd like to keep it that way," Gabriel said. "The first thing Satan's going to do is demand a worldwide census of newcomers and anyone named Gabriel, and then some demon will remember that Uriel stayed for three days. It'll take Satan less than two weeks."
"Do you like it here?" asked Michael.
"Have I been asked to leave?" Gabriel's detached tone broke into a higher pitch as he faced Michael. He stepped closer, speaking urgently. "When I first met him, I didn't realize Raguel belonged to Tobias' family. I didn't plan this—"
"You're all right." Michael raised his hands. "We won this grace for you by prayer."
Gabriel laughed, something he hadn't expected to do. "Oh. Really? Thank you."
Michael nodded. "See? That wasn't so hard."
Gabriel bit his lip. "Are you sure you thought this through? Raphael visits Tobias often. It's going to be hard for him."
"I'm not certain God will permit him to notice you," Michael said. "This separation is as much for him as for you."
Gabriel stopped what he would have said and cocked his head. "Raphael needed time away from me? I was hurting him too?"
Michael huffed. "I think it's straight-out punishment, to be honest. I wasn't prepared for how violently Raphael protested your sentencing."
Gabriel focused on nothing, envisioning chaos around the throne of God: himself rocketing out one side of Heaven and Raphael rushing forward, engulfed in flame, protesting. But— There had been a time between, before he'd left. Nearly a minute. Surely Raphael hadn't been silent all that time?