Awakening (Children of Angels)

by Jessica Gibson

  What stared back at her from the corner shocked the breath clear out of her, and she slid to the floor panting. What stared back at her from the corner was nothing. She was completely alone in the room, but was quite certain that had not been the case milliseconds before. She let the glass slide from her fingers, not caring about the small puddle that formed when the glass rolled along the floor and settled. She covered her face with her hands, and breathed deeply, attempting to regain her composure.

  “What is it?” asked Leonara’s concerned voice, probably no more than a second later “Mia? What is it?”

  Reluctantly, Mia pulled her hands away from her face and looked around the room. The lights were on, the clock was plugged in, everything was as it should be. Even the glass was back on the bedside table.

  “There was someone here” Mia whispered.

  “Someone here?” asked the Angel, puzzled, as she inspected the room.

  “Someone or…something here” replied Mia with a solemn nod.

  “I don’t think so Mia…maybe it was just a bad dream?” asked Leonara, straightening up from where she had crouched beside Mia and turning to examine the contents of two bags she must have brought in with her.

  “No, there was definitely someone hiding in the shadows, over in that corner.” She pointed, as if somehow pointing to the place would convince Leonara. “I thought it might have been you - when I called out to you, they moved further into the corner, so I couldn’t see them properly because of the shadows.”

  “No, I really think you were dreaming or something Mia” replied the Angel, not even looking at her now, instead she was busying herself unpacking the bags and filling up the mini fridge in the room. “I would know if someone or something had been in this room, Mia. Who or what would want to get in here? Think about it. Humans leave a very distinct trace, and I can tell you that the last human to be in this room besides the kind-of human that you are, is a very sweet young lady named Annabeth - the maid. She skived off here for a while,” she stopped and smiled, as though the pictures were playing through her mind as she recited them to Mia “watched a little TV, read some magazines left behind by the previous guests. I can tell you who they were too, if you like.” She smiled playfully at Mia, then turned her attention back to the bag. “I brought you food. And snacks.” she tossed a bag of crisps over to Mia, who caught them awkwardly, almost missing them completely. She had always been terrible at sports. Surely being an Angel should have some advantages, surely she shouldn’t be completely useless at things like that. You’d think Angels would be lightning-fast with super reflexes - Leonara certainly seemed to be. Perhaps, Mia thought to herself wryly, I’m the exception to that rule too.

  “Well I can certainly think of some other people or…things or whatever….that would like to get to me!” she called cockily to Leonara, who had walked through to the bathroom carrying armfuls of toiletries. She opened the bag of crisps, realizing now how hungry she was. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, she ached all over again, and fidgeted uncomfortably on the rug on the floor. She stood up for a moment, and flopped on the bed, eating the crisps greedily, three and four at a time.

  “Mia, please!” the Angel exclaimed as she walked back into the room with a skeptical look on her face “ do you seriously think I’d go out and leave you alone, uncon….asleep, and with no protection whatsoever?” she shook her head and sighed, treating Mia like a silly little child who did not understand the most basic concepts. Which in many ways, she was. Mia was as new to this ‘being an Angel’ business as a baby was to the business of being a person.

  So Mia tolerated the condescending tone in which Leonara explained to her how before she had even brought Mia to this place, she had placed powerful Truths on it, so that no other Angels could enter without her or Mia’s express permission. And since Mia did not know any Angels, that left only Angels trusted by Leonara to worry about.

  “What if the other Angel’s Truth was stronger than yours?” Mia asked curiously.

  “Well I accounted for that, don’t you worry - I am not as new to this game as you are. I have been playing it for a very very long time indeed. And I am good at it - that’s why I am still here, and that’s why they chose me to come for you. Don’t worry about other Truths, mine are very strong, very layered and very complex. Even if another Angel attempted to break through them, I would know about it, immediately - no matter where I was. And I am sure that none of the Truths have been tampered with and certainly none of them have been broken. It was just a dream Mia, that’s all it could be. It’s all the upset, and the worry, and the confusion. Humans are sensitive and delicate things - and sometimes, their minds play tricks on them.”

  Mia opened her mouth to argue, but Leonara gave her a stern gaze that told her in no uncertain terms that the conversation was over. The Angel had such an air of authority about her, that Mia didn't dare argue, although she did not believe that it was a dream. It wasn't that she was afraid of the Angel, or afraid of anything she might do - it was just that something about the way Leonara was, the way she spoke, the way she carried herself, and the way she behaved, commanded respect. Mia knew for sure that she had not been alone in that room, no matter what Leonara said. Still, the Angel’s demeanor told Mia that the matter was closed now - Mia silently resolved that she would just have to be on the lookout in the future.

  Leonara emerged from the bathroom, and tossed a bottle to Mia, who caught it with the very tips of her fingers.

  “Paracetamol. They should help with the aching. You should eat something proper first” she commanded.

  Once Mia had eaten and had something to drink and taken the paracetamol to ease the deep-set aching throughout her body, she stretched lengthily and lazily, before flopping back onto the bed.

  “So, what’s the verdict?” she asked, lolling her head to look at Leonara who stood across the room from her.

  “Verdict on what?” asked the Angel, cocking her head to one side with a puzzled expression on her face.

  “On me of course!” Mia sat up to meet Leonara’s gaze. “I mean…you did your stuff, right? You had a good poke around?”

  “Ah, that verdict” Leonara replied, and seemed to relax. This puzzled Mia, after all, what other verdict could she possibly be asking for the outcome of? “Well, as we already knew, you are the Angel Child. It’s nice to properly confirm it, I recognized you at once, once I got to touch your soul. It was the grown soul of the child I held all those years ago. A lifetime ago.”

  “And so…” Mia prompted, raising her eyebrows and waiting for Leonara to continue, but she didn't. “Well…what does that mean exactly, for me, I mean? Am I going to be able to defend myself? Can I do all the things that you can do? Am I much weaker?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by ‘things’ that I do. You can shift Truths, create them, break them, possibly even bend existing Truths, but it will take time, practice and hard work. It will very much depend on who you are up against, whether you can defend yourself or not. I do not know how strong you are yet, but you must bear in mind that you are not fully grown yet. You can and probably will get stronger. For now, be content to know that I will teach you all I can, and help you to reach your full potential.”

  “So where do we start?” asked Mia, jumping to her feet to show her eagerness and readiness to begin her training.

  The jump up from the bed did not exactly achieve the desired effect. As she jumped up, she was hit with a wave of dizziness and nausea, and the aching throughout her body intensified, so that she staggered and almost fell over. Leonara was there, of course, to catch her in less than the blink of an eye.

  “We begin” said the Angel sternly, as she pushed Mia firmly back onto the bed “with you healing.”

  Mia opened her mouth to protest, but was lost to the blackness of unconsciousness before she even knew what it was she was going to say.

  When she came around again, the aching had lessened significantly, and she felt much brighter and
less groggy. The light in the room was on, but again she found herself alone. Mia wondered where it was that Leonara went to, and whether she would leave every time that Mia slept. It was a discomforting thought, to know that she was left alone when she slept, despite whatever protections the Angel had put on the place in the meantime.

  Slowly, Mia sat up and swung her legs off the bed, testing her balance carefully as she stood up. Her head throbbed slightly more, in protest at the extra work her body was being asked to do, but there was no dizziness and she was not hit with a wave of dreadful nausea as she had been the last time, so she padded over to the bathroom to fetch herself a glass of water and wash her face to wake herself up.

  When she got into the bathroom, she closed her eyes and splashed cold water over her face, fumbling for the mouth rinse with her eyes still shut, she took a swig from the bottle, then rinsed. As she straightened up again, and wiped the water from her eyes, she glanced in the mirror to see what kind of a state she was in. As she did so, she gasped and gripped the side of the sink so hard that she was dimly aware it was hurting her hands. Behind her, in the reflection, the boy was standing by the shower, just watching her. She took a breath and whirled around, her hands balled into fists, ready to hit him if he came near her - he was gone.

  It was only a little later that she realized her balled fists would to little to stop an Angel from doing whatever they pleased with her, that it had just been a stupid human reaction. And she knew that the boy could not have been there. No Angels could get in, and if a human had tried, then Leonara would have known about it. She decided not to mention it to the Angel on her return, whenever that might be.

  Looking at the clock, Mia tried to figure out what time it had been when she had last passed out, and how much time had passed since. With a sigh, she plonked herself on the bed and picked up the TV remote from the table beside the bed. Idly, she flicked through the channels, but it was the middle of the night, and there was nothing on. She ended up putting a shopping channel on just for background noise, largely to keep her imagination from hearing bumps in the night. The cheerful host was trying his hardest to sell her some fantastic new invention that was going to revolutionize the way she peeled her potatoes, but she wasn’t really listening.

  She simply stared at the screen without seeing what was on it, and mulled over the events of the past day. It was beyond belief. A fresh wave of sadness hit her as she thought of her parents once again, and how they would never recognize her. How much she missed them already, but knowing that they would never miss her. She tried to wrench her mind away from that train of thought, it would do her no good to get depressed and upset about it all over again. It was done now. She was angry at the injustice of it all though, that she could not help. She had not asked to be different. Yes, she had agreed to let Leonara wipe her parents memories, or whatever she had done to them, but only to protect them. If she had stayed, she would have been putting them in untold danger. Either way, her old life was gone, and it felt like all her happiness had gone with it.

  Angrily, she snatched up the remote from beside her on the bed and jabbed the power button so that the TV went off, crossly wondering where Leonara had gone this time and why she wasn’t back yet.

  “I’m right here. What is it?” the Angel’s voice spoke from behind her, sounding somewhat frazzled.

  “Oh,” Mia tried to compose herself quickly as she twisted to see Leonara “when did you get back?” she tried to sound nonchalant.

  “Just now. You called me.” Leonara replied, her arms folded as she leaned against the wall.

  “No…I didn’t” Mia replied slowly.

  “Believe me Mia, you did.” The Angel pushed herself away from the wall gracefully and unfolded her arms as she walked to stand in front of Mia. “Its an Angel thing - sort of like a human pager. If you need to get ahold of someone pretty snappy, you page them. You just paged me” she looked faintly amused now, whereas before she had been…what? Annoyed? Mia wondered whether Angels got annoyed.

  “Sorry…I didn’t mean to.” Mia replied in a small voice.

  “So I can see, from your reaction,” Leonara laughed playfully “well at least we know you’re on the mend. I was pretty far away. It takes a good burst of energy to send a 'page' that far across the planes.” She winked at Mia before continuing. “I guess this means you’re ready to start learning, huh? Angel 101 - class is now in session.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mia sat and listened carefully as Leonara attempted to explain how she could control her powers, and how she could harness her power to start doing what she wanted.

  “It’s important that you learn, Mia, and I will do what I can to teach you. These are things that I have always just known, so I will do my best to be patient with you while you learn. It is particularly important that you get your ‘pager’ under control. Very important.” She nodded as she emphasized the word, and anticipated Mia’s question as she opened her mouth to ask why. “It is important because when you ‘page’ another Angel” - she had said ‘another Angel’, and it made Mia feel slightly giddy to be referred to as an Angel. It still sounded impossible and absurd - “what you are in effect doing, is becoming a beacon. That Angel can find you wherever you are, whatever Truth you are in, whatever plane you are on, if you want them to. If you are calling Angels without meaning to, it can cause big problems. When you called me, I know you did not mean to. But your thoughts must have been intensely focused on me.

  As it happens, all the harm that was done was my business was cut short, and it was an inconvenience. However, should you focus your thoughts intensely on another Angel, or even another Angel Child, and you think about them hard enough, you will essentially do the same - call them to you. And whether you meant to or not, and whatever context you were thinking of them in, you will call them to you, and once the beacon is lit, there is no extinguishing it, not unless you can make a Switch before they can get to you. And that takes some doing, particularly if they are just waiting to find out where you are.

  I suppose, in a way, it’s like what you humans call “butt-dialing”. You sit on your phone, call someone, and whether you want to speak to them or not, you are left with no choice.” She winked at Mia playfully.

  “Celestial butt-dialing?” Mia asked with a giggle. “Well we can’t have that” she added in mock seriousness.

  When her giggles subsided, Mia sat cross legged on the bed with Leonara sitting opposite her in the Lotus position. The Angel ordered her to close her eyes, and to focus on relaxing her entire body, and just concentrate on her breathing. After a few minutes of this and nothing but silence from Leonara, Mia opened one eye to peek at what the Angel was doing. She was not there.

  Mia opened both eyes and looked around the room, puzzled. “Where on Earth could she have gone now?” thought Mia, annoyed. It was one thing for Leonara to disappear while she slept, but another thing entirely if she was going to disappear every time she closed her eyes - especially when they were only closed because she had told her to close them!

  No sooner had the thought popped into her head, than Leonara tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Boo!” she cried out, in obvious delight.

  “Where did you go?” demanded Mia, who had almost jumped out of her skin and tried to hide her embarrassment with annoyance.

  “I told you we were going to work on your ‘pager’, Mia. You were thinking about me. And now I’m back. You weren’t trying very hard.” She mock-scolded the girl with a playful grin on her lips.

  “Trying at what?” blustered Mia, her heart still pounding from the fright Leonara had given her. “You didn’t tell me to do anything, just close my eyes and breathe, and I was doing both of those just fine.”

  “Not entirely true, Mia. I told you to empty your mind of everything but your breathing. But you didn’t - for some reason, you thought of me, and that is what called me back. It was a pretty strong thought, too, not just a passing one. You were focused on me.”r />
  Mia blushed guiltily.

  “Well, yes. I did think about you. I opened my eyes and you weren’t here. I was…confused” she lied.

  “A-ha!” cried Leonara with child-like delight. “So you weren’t sitting with your eyes closed like I told you!” She pointed in mock-accusation at Mia, seeming to enjoy the game.

  She quickly sobered when Mia’s face did not reflect her own glee - she simply looked mutinous.

  “Oh Mia, don’t look like that. How else am I going to teach you, if not by going away and seeing if you call me back without meaning to?” She spoke in a soothing tone, which bordered on patronizing.

  “If you had explained that was what we were doing, it might have helped” replied Mia tightly.

  “If I had explained then it would not have worked properly,” replied Leonara huffily “if you know something is going to happen, you can prepare yourself for it. It’s no good if I say ‘okay Mia, I’m going to go now, so don’t think about me.’”

  Mia could see the logic, but was still irrationally riled up by the whole thing. It made no sense for her to be angry about it, it wasn’t that big of a deal. The aching in her body intensified, and did nothing to improve her mood which had suddenly gone sour.