She snatched up the clippings from where she had left them the night before, on her bedside lamp table. Had she seen them before? Did they mention the note after all? Maybe she had seen them when she was younger, and just forgotten? She felt no jolt of recognition beyond knowing she had looked at these the night before. She instead began to study the tiny fragments of other stories in the parts of the clippings surrounding her story. These she had not looked at last night, so if they seemed familiar, then she must have seen these clippings before. But she did not recognize any of them, or the smiling half-face of a man whose story was adjacent to her own in one clipping. At any rate, there was no mention of a note.
Someone must have told her then, or else how could she have known? And if not her parents, then who? “Leonara” her mind whispered to her, but again she tried to squash that thought back down. It was not possible. Her resolve was wavering though, her logical mind was failing her. Perhaps, she thought to herself, I just want it to be true, and that’s why I can’t shake it.
That was all it took, that tiny chink in the armour of Mia’s logical resolve. At last, Leonara felt as though a huge weight pressing down on her had been lifted. It was effortless then, to simply be in Mia’s bedroom.
“Finally,” she said, her tone betraying her impatient exasperation “I thought you’d never come to your senses!”
Mia whirled around and her eyes widened in shock, because standing there before her, in the same corner she had stood on the night of the dream, was an Angel.
“Surprised to see me?” she asked, with a playful smile “you shouldn’t be - I have been trying to get in touch with you all week. You shut me out - I couldn’t get back into your Truth.”
“I…what?” Mia forgot whatever it was she had been planning to ask, as something had stirred in her memory. “You said only Angels can change Truths.”
“That’s right” smiled the Angel again “and you, my little mini-Angel, have juice in you to make me disappear - that wasn’t very nice of you Mia, I only came here to help you.”
“I…I made you disappear?” she asked, astounded.
“Of course you did. I told you how Truth works. And after what happened, you got scared, and in your new Truth - I didn’t exist. Something like that could really hurt a girl’s feelings you know” she said, in a mock hurt tone, but the playful smile had returned to her lips “I’m proud of you Mia - you picked it up fast. Quicker than even I anticipated.”
“But…I saw you, everywhere!” Mia replied “If I’d managed to make you…not exist, or whatever, how is that possible?”
“My Truths are stronger than yours, little one. I had the power to override yours to an extent, but you’re a strong little thing. Every time I almost made it back, you squashed me back out again. What was that man on the bench all about? I really thought I had you then, that I was back in business - but you managed to slip away again” she laughed and despite herself, Mia chuckled too.
Leonara’s expression grew serious then.
“But I am sorry, Mia. For what happened. I know it’s my own fault you shut me out - I’m not surprised you got frightened, after he got in like that. I had no idea he was so powerful already…”
“Who is he?” Mia asked almost breathlessly. She wondered for just a moment if she was dreaming again.
“No, you are not dreaming Mia, not this time.”
“MIA! I said are you AWAKE?” her mother yelled. Mia heard her start to come up the stairs, and hastily replied.
“Yes! Just getting dressed - I’ll be down in just a minute!” she quickly and quietly slid off her bed and crossed the room to where her bedroom door hung slightly ajar. She closed it quietly, and gently slipped the latch shut, so that it was locked. “who is he?” she repeated, her eyes boring into those of the Angel’s.
“He is…a problem. A much bigger problem than I had thought he would be.”
In less than the blink of an eye, she was sitting on Mia’s bed, and patted the duvet beside her, gesturing for Mia to sit. Mia obliged, keen to know who this strange boy was. Leonara took her hand gently in between her own cool smooth hands, and returned her gaze solemnly.
“He is…..well he is a special creature. A very special boy. Special in the way that you are special” she focused her gaze on Mia’s, willing the girl to understand her meaning.
“But I thought…you said I was the only one” Mia replied, confused and - to her surprise - a little disappointed that she wasn’t as unique as she had thought. She had never been one to need to feel important or special or different. But for a short time, she had been. Now it seemed, she was not such a rare thing at all.
“You are the first and only of your kind. Of our kind. The only Angel Child that ever lived - on our side. There is another Angel Child out there, a boy. He was born before you, but he was born to them. I see you are hurt and surprised - I suppose you think I lied to you?” she smiled wryly.
Mia nodded, then, burst out “you did lie” she wrenched her hand back from Leonara, and sat glaring at her with narrowed eyes “What was the point of the lie? Why would it matter if there were others like me or not?”
“I did not lie Mia. I did not disclose certain facts, that is true, and this has upset you and endangered you and for that Mia I am sorry. But I’ll tell you now. I will explain it all, lay my cards on the table, as humans say. And then you can decide for yourself what it is that you want to do about it all. Does that sound fair?” Reluctantly, Mia nodded, and Leonara continued to speak, an expression falling over her face as though she were in a dream-like trance. “We were not the only ones who realized that an Angel Child would prove to be a valuable asset. The Others knew it too, and they tried just as hard as we did to make it happen. They succeeded before us, and we never knew how they managed it. We had no idea how many Children they had managed to create. To this day, we have only ever found one - just him.
And so there are just you two. One boy for them, one girl for us. They kept their boy close, raised him throughout his life, taught him of Truths and of what he is - right from birth until this day. I knew he would be far ahead of you, in terms of his abilities, it stands to reason. But I did not realize he was so powerful that he could break into my Truths. That should not be.” She whispered the last, pausing thoughtfully. Mia waited a few moments, then coughed gently to prompt Leonara to continue. She did so, after briefly refocusing on Mia, then returning to her trance-like state. “We continued our efforts to create a child, the need all the greater for knowing they had managed it, and that they now held a great weapon that could be used against us at any time. We did not know how the Child would grow, whether it would age as a human, whether it would age faster or slower than a human, or whether it would simply come into adulthood as soon as it was born. For all we knew, they were already working with it against us.
We managed to keep a track on him for a year or so, after which we lost him - they learned that we were watching, and took greater measures to hide him. Eventually it became too hard and too dangerous to track him through all the Truths. And we lost many from our cause, for wherever they were found by us, then his protectors found a way to banish us - banish our people forever, our equivalent of human death, I suppose. It was a time of great loss. In that time though, we learned that he seemed to be growing just as a human child would. That gave us some time and some hope.
And then finally we had you, and although we had lost track of him and did not know what his powers were, how advanced he was, how strong he was, we knew that we would at least have some chance now. Once they knew that we had an Angel Child, they would not be so quick to attack. Even as a newborn baby, you would have been a good shield for us. I know, it was wrong to think we could use you like that. And of course, you know, it did not turn out the way we had hoped anyway. You were as lost to us as he was.
We feared that you had been killed by them, as had been your mother’s plan, when she took you away from us that night. We tried to find her, but she
had slipped through so many different Truths, and the trail was cold by the time we found out what had happened. They had gotten to her, poisoned her mind against us somehow - convinced her that you were an abomination, that we should not be allowed to have you. And for some reason, whatever reason, she believed them and betrayed us all.
How the boy found you, I do not know. I am certain I was not followed, I am skilled at skipping Truths myself, it is the easiest way to make sure one is not followed by the enemy. If you are skipping through a great many and varied Truths, and the same person keeps popping up, it’s a dead giveaway.” She winked at Mia before continuing. “It took us a long time to find out that you were still alive, and it was from them that we learned it. I think it must have been the boy who found you. They had reason to look, yes, but we would be more likely to be the ones to find you - we are your family, Mia, and as one of our kind you would be easier for us to find that for them to. You have sort of a…a natural cloaking ability, which shields you from being found. Even by us - and that we did not bet upon. We should have been able to find you, as you are essentially a human born of an Angel. The human part in you should have overridden a lot of your Angel traits, and you should not have been able to hide.
It is fortunate, in a way, that you were hidden. I am certain that if they had picked up on your trace, we would not be having this conversation right now, because you would be dead. He is like you, though, and so it is possible and indeed likely, that he was able to find you. He would have had to trace you though…I wonder how he did that. To be able to follow you to the present day, he would have had to start at a point where he knew you had been, and follow your Trace from there. But you have been lost since the day you were born. And to be able to get into your dreams…” she trailed off and sat there in thoughtful silence.
“Wait…do you mean…do you mean that he would have to be somewhere I had physically been? Like the place I was born?”
“Mm,” Leonara nodded absently “yes, but he hasn’t been there. I’d know if he had. Besides, I tried tracing you from there and it didn’t work, because of those hours in between, when you were lost. It’s funny, how that works…”
A realization dawned on Mia, and a picture flashed into her mind. A picture of a blurry figure in the background of a photograph.
“Or the place I was found” she whispered.
“Hmm? What’s that?” Leonara asked, snapping out of her daydream and clearly curious as to what Mia knew. “The place you were found? Of course, we went there, with your father, but we were too late and you were gone. But if we were there at the moment you were found, we could have traced you. Yes, that would work - if there was a clear and unbroken line, that you were always found up until the present day.”
Excitedly, Mia explained about the newspaper cuttings. She showed Leonara the photographs, in which she’d spotted the boy. The Angel smiled grimly.
“He is a clever one. Yes, I believe you Mia. I believe that he went back to the Truth of you being found at that place. Certainly your mother could have told him, or one of their kind, where she had left you. Indeed, she must have, to send them to find you. When they sent him to find you, he was inexperienced at shifting Truths - he must have been, to be caught on camera. He, or one of his superiors, must have realized the mistake and corrected it, which is why he disappeared from the pictures. But you say he disappeared the moment you noticed him?”
Mia explained that he was gone by the time she handed the picture over to her parents to examine, and the Angel’s brow furrowed into a frown
“That, Mia, is not good. That means they are watching you, even now. They knew that you had noticed and corrected it quickly. It would otherwise be too much of a coincidence. And coincidence is another of those silly human fancies - there are no coincidences in the lives and deeds of Angels. Why then, have they not taken you?” she pondered, and although she had asked a question, Mia got the feeling that it was not directed at her, rather that Leonara was speaking aloud to herself.
Mia mulled over the question herself anyway, why hadn’t they take her? They clearly could, any time they liked. The boy was much more powerful than she was, so much so that he had been able to break through into her dream and change the world that Leonara had created there. And she was a full Angel. The thought scared her more than a little. It was not natural for something to be that powerful. She found herself staring at her own hands, wondering how much untapped and unused power was within her, whether she could defend herself if it came to that. Whether she could protect her family from this thing threatening her. But most of all - why the games? Why invade her dreams, why watch her and change things like the pictures? Why did it matter if they were just going to kill her?
“I don’t know - I am just wondering those things myself” Leonara muttered, as though Mia had asked the questions aloud. “Sorry…I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your thoughts. I just…you were practically shouting” she smiled playfully. “But you are right. It makes little sense to toy with you like this. Perhaps they are just trying to sound you out, figure out how strong you are. If you know what you are and who you are. Determine if you would kill them all with a snap of your fingers…”
“Are you suggesting…are you seriously saying they might be afraid of me?” Mia found the concept laughable. She was one of the least intimidating people that had ever lived. The thought of anyone being afraid of her was beyond ridiculous. And yet, it seemed to make sense. If they wanted to find out how dangerous she was, they would not come in all guns blazing. They would make sure they could take her out first. It made sense that they wouldn’t want her to see the boy in the pictures, but what she still couldn’t fathom out was the boy entering the dream.
What use could that be to them? To find out if she was capable of getting rid of the boy herself? To make contact, perhaps?
“Yes,” Leonara’s voice rang out loudly, breaking the silence “that’s it. That makes sense, that they would not only want to figure out how much of a threat you are, they would want to figure out how useful you are.” Her eyes shone brightly with excitement. “That must be what they want Mia - they want you to join them. They have one Angel Child and so do we. It would be a blow for them to take you away from us…”
The Angel was lost to her own thoughts then, and Mia returned to hers as well. Making contact to recruit her? Well…there was no danger of that. She shuddered at the memory of how the dream had turned. The way the fire had licked at her bare skin, and how the boy had become that demonic creature, reaching out for her. She wondered whether he could only do that in dreams, or whether he could really do that.
“It is possible,” the Angel murmured quietly, still mostly absorbed in her own thoughts, but seemingly still listening in on Mia’s at the same time “it depends on his Truths, I suppose. It does not do to dwell on these things though little one. Worry not what he is capable of - if he wanted to hurt you her could have, at any time. Now we need to figure out what you are capable of. Once they find out you won’t be turned, they will likely be angry, and will want to eliminate you sooner rather than later. These creatures do not give second chances Mia, they are not as forgiving as we are. To them you are either an asset or an obstacle - it is entirely your choice which you would rather be.”
There was no choice, of course, Mia knew that. She would not become like him. The thought disgusted her, and she pushed away the image of his hideous form from her mind.
“Okay, where do we start?” she asked aloud, with a sigh. She knew speaking aloud was unnecessary, that Leonara could hear her thoughts and already knew her decision. But speaking aloud made it all the more real for herself and that was what she needed.
“Mia, if you truly want to do this…you know what has to happen. You have to leave this place. Your parents…they can’t…they can’t know any of this. They can’t know you anymore.”
Mia bit her lip - she didn’t want to leave her parents behind, but she wanted them hurt even less. Knowing tha
t they could be hurt or killed because of her was almost too much to bear. That their kindness in taking in the unwanted baby who had been front page news for a few days and then forgotten by the rest of the world, could be the thing that brought them the greatest suffering of all, that was too much. She nodded, and fought back the tears that threatened to fall.
“What will we tell them?” she asked.
“Tell them?” repeated Leonara, her face puzzled.
“About where I’m going. Why I’m not coming back?”
“I can make them forget - you don’t need to tell them anything. Everything will be as it should have been to begin with. It would be as though you never came here. They would never miss you because they would never have had you to miss. It’s a simple enough Truth Switch, it won’t harm them at all. They won’t worry about you, and they won’t be in any danger anymore.”
Mia nodded, and the tears fell then, she knew this was the only way to keep them safe, but leaving them forever, fifteen years of family life erased from their memories, that she could meet them in the street and be a complete stranger to her - it hurt.
“I’d like to say goodbye to them - please” she whispered with a hiccupy sob.
Awakening (Children of Angels) Page 7