by Lori Adams
My first impulse is to refuse but I know she’ll only go without me. “Okay. We’ll go.”
“Now.”
“Tomorrow. Bailey, it’s Christmas.”
She turns and looks at me. “Don’t you want to know where Ka is? For sure?”
“I do know,” I admit, and the truth echoes in my head: Ka is in Hell. In freaking Hell. My old adversaries, Self-Doubt and Despair, step from the shadows. They want to take hold of me but I won’t let them. I know Peace is camped out on the edge of things, waiting until my mistakes are mended. I have to be strong. I have to make a plan. To find options. I need to know what comes next.
“If you’re sure that Ka is in Hell, then…” Something like genuine horror passes over Bailey’s features as she looks beyond her own problems. “Oh, God, Sophia. Your soul!”
I close my eyes and hold back a flood of tears. “It’s okay,” I whisper to her, to me, to anyone listening who might be able to help. Then I open my eyes and steel my nerves. “I’ll figure something out. I’m still standing, right? It’s not like I’m going to wither up and die now. I’m a spirit walker. I’ve got options.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I don’t know, yet.”
She says, “High Alice might know,” and I nod.
“Yeah. Right now she’s probably my only option. If her book had a spell to make me a double, I’m hoping it’ll have a spell to yank Ka back here.”
She asks if Rama can help or if he’s gone, now that my training is over. I laugh without humor and tell her that Rama is more terrified than I am. And no, he’s not gone. He’s inside, talking to Dad.
“What!” Bailey hisses and peers through the window. “I thought your dad wasn’t supposed to know about any of this shit.”
“I did, too. But apparently, he’s known all along.”
“Damn. Isn’t it just like parents to keep secrets.” She gives me a loose smile and then grows somber. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep an eye on Ka. I thought I could handle her.”
“It’s not your fault, Bailey. Seriously. Don’t think that it was.”
“So tomorrow? We’ll drive out to the mansion just to check? Maybe they have her stashed there.”
Before I can tell her she’s wrong, her image begins to vibrate before my eyes. Everything around me spins and disappears in a rash of swirling gray dust. I gasp and lean against the house for support. I feel like Dorothy in the tornado. I hear Bailey calling my name. She sounds muffled and distorted, like a needle dragged over a vinyl record. She clutches my arm but the spinning sensation continues until I’m nauseated and ready to hurl. I lean over and suck in air.
And then it’s gone.
Just like that. I open my eyes and see dirty planks of wood running across the porch. They don’t appear to be moving. Two drops of blood hit the floor. I touch my nose and come away with blood.
“What happened? You okay?” Bailey helps me straighten up. I wipe my nose again. It’s not bad. Already stopped bleeding. I steady myself and wait: no nausea, no spinning. I’m fine but for a strange heaviness in my head and the feeling that I’ve seen round two of whatever Ka is experiencing. Wherever she is, it’s not good.
“Hey.” Bailey tenderly brushes back my hair and then cups my face. “You with me?”
I give her a timid smile and nod as best I can. I won’t explain. It will only add to her guilt. So I make up something about side effects of becoming a spirit walker.
“I probably should go to bed,” I say. “It’s late and I’m beat.” She contemplates my sincerity but eventually buys it.
“Okay. But in the morning, we go.”
After a quick hug, she leaves and I watch her until she disappears around the corner of Hadley’s Market. Then I head inside before I fall down.
—
Rama has gone for the night, so I can’t tell him about the tornado experience or the nosebleed. Or the demon spy lurking around Haven Hurst. I consider telling Dad but he’s on the edge of the sofa with that look that means he’s deep in thought. He’s got something important on his mind. I don’t want to add to his anxiety. Still a bit shaky from my latest vision of Ka, I’m desperate to be stationary so I sit next to him, slip off my boots, and tuck my legs beneath me. Dad drags a throw blanket over our laps and offers me his cider. I take it and gulp. It’s warm and sweet, just what I need.
We sit for several minutes listening to the fire pop. There is so much in my head that I can’t enjoy the quiet. When Dad finally comes around, he gives me a worn-out smile, and says, “Merry Christmas, honey.”
I match his smile and enthusiasm. “Merry Christmas, Dad.” We sound exhausted.
“And you know what that means?” He’s teasing, and it’s halfhearted at best, so I pretend I don’t know.
“Um, I’ll be up at dawn’s early light to make a huge Christmas breakfast before services?”
His smile comes to life, and he squeezes my hand. “It means…your birthday is almost here.”
Dad says this every year, as though I’ll somehow forget that I was born two days after Christmas.
“Imagine that,” I murmur against the mug on my way to another sip. My eighteenth birthday seems rather anticlimactic after becoming a spirit walker. I’m surprised where Dad’s mind has gone.
He pulls away and leans forward again, resting his arms on his knees and clasping his hands. Something is really bothering him. I don’t want to guess so I look back at the fire and wait. It crackles and a log collapses, tossing up embers like red confetti.
“I have two vivid memories that I’ll never forget,” Dad says. “The moment you were born, and the moment I first saw your mother.”
I smile tiredly. “On campus. You first heard her laughing and then you saw her in the middle of a group of friends. She was talking, laughing, and making everybody else laugh, too.”
I’ve heard this story before. It’s really the only one Dad offers when I ask about her. When Mom was alive, she would tell stories of their early life, how they met, where they went on their first date, and so on. Later it was the private wedding, vacations, ordinary things. So ordinary that I often thought she made them up, something she’d see on TV or in magazines. And of course, everything was from her perspective, not Dad’s.
“Her laugh was truly contagious,” Dad murmurs with soft reverence. “So light and lovely. I just had to know where that sound came from. When I turned around, I spotted her immediately. She was practically glowing in the sunlight. Her hair was sparkling blond, which set her apart from the others. I was mesmerized. Like everyone else around her. And she chose me.” He pauses, working something over in his mind. It gives me time to think of his descriptions. Mom did have a mesmerizing quality. I recognized early on that she was different from other mothers. Mom had a calming effect on those around her. No matter what the stress or anxiety, she could soothe emotions just by walking into a room. Until everything changed.
Around my fifteenth birthday, Mom became melancholy, quiet, withdrawn. I often thought she was pining away for something she had lost. I worried that I was somehow a disappointment to her. She would disappear for hours and return just as sad as when she’d left. Sometimes at night, I would find her sitting in the yard and looking up at the stars, crying.
I suppose everyone is curious about what their parents were like when they were younger. How they grew into a family and how their lives changed. After tonight, I have a new set of questions, but there is one that stands out.
“Dad, why did you believe the dream you had in the courthouse? I know you were prepared to die that night. I know you…passed out.” I try to say this without embarrassing him, but he did faint after all. Not that I can blame him. “How could you believe what you were told in a dream?”
Dad sighs with a sense of recognition, as though the time has finally come to explain things. When he speaks, his voice is calm and full of respect.
“I believed Celeste because of two things, Sophia; one, I remember the last th
ing I saw before I passed out: the Patronus boys fighting the demons. I knew that if Dante’s family were demons, then Michael’s family must be angels. But I also believed your mother because she told me when you were born that you would be different. That you had a calling to something great in life and we should be prepared to help you any way we could.”
I sit very still, staring at his profile. I’m dumbfounded. Then I pull his arm around until he faces me. “Dad, what are you saying? You’ve known all this time—all my life—that I would be called to this? And…neither one of you thought to tell me?”
“Celeste thought it best to raise you naturally, as though you were any other child. She was very adamant that you have, what she called, an organic human experience.”
“Human experience?” I wail. “What’s that supposed to mean? Like I’m not human or something?”
Dad blinks and shakes his head. “No. No, I’m not explaining this right. I mean, it’s a spiritual calling that very few…well, I don’t know how many…” He struggles for the words and then gives up. “Celeste didn’t explain those kinds of details. I just believed her.”
“Why?” I demand.
“Why?” He looks taken aback. “Because…I always believed her.”
“Because you loved her? Because you got her pregnant and had to get married?”
“Don’t say it like that, Sophia.” His cheeks turn bright red, not from anger but from embarrassment. “There are things between a husband and wife that…you’re too young to understand. Yes, I loved your mother, more than anything in this world—” His voice cracks with words that don’t want to come out. They won’t let him continue. Dad drops his head into his hands as if he’s tipping it over a cliff. It won’t fall and it’s all he can do to hang on.
Empathy washes over me and I wrap an arm around him to show that I can hold him together, if only for a moment. I haven’t experienced his particular kind of loss—I lost a mother, he lost a lover and partner—but I want to tell him that the broken parts left behind won’t stay broken forever. I want to tell him that youth and inexperience don’t prevent me from understanding deep love. I’m deeply in love with Michael. Dad should know that Michael is to me what Mom was to him.
It may jeopardize everything, but I hope sharing this with him will somehow turn him toward the future.
“Dad, I know exactly how you feel. I’m in—”
“Let’s not do this to ourselves anymore,” Dad says hoarsely. He clears his throat and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. He forces an awkward laugh and then pats my knee. “You’ve fulfilled your destiny and become a spirit walker. And I don’t think I messed things up too badly, huh?” He stands and tosses the throw blanket onto the back of the sofa. “It’s late and I have a sermon in the morning, well, in about six hours. Don’t worry about breakfast. We can whip up something after church.” He hesitates awkwardly as though he wants to say more and then heads toward his bedroom. At the last minute, he turns back. “Your mother would be very proud of you. You know that, right?”
All I can do is nod stiffly. Would she, I wonder? Would Mom be proud if she knew what I’ve really done? Is it possible that she knows I’ve lost my soul? I imagine her roaming through Heaven’s rooms, looking for solutions to problems I keep creating.
I close my eyes and envision the last time I saw her, that vibrant smile, delicate fragrance, silky laughter, hair the color of lightning, her beautiful dress textured with happy thoughts, and strong, thin arms holding me. It’s like walking into the wind. Mom touches everything at once.
Three gentle tugs on my heart pull me from the pleasant memory and I open my eyes. I am alone. Sundance lifts his head and looks up at the ceiling. His tail flops once, twice. He says hello to the unseen.
I feel it again, so I climb to my feet and calmly mount the stairs to my bedroom.
Chapter 5
Naughty Sex Goddess
Michael is standing by the window when I slip into the room and quietly close the door. This is our moment, the first time we’ve been alone since he presented his ultimatum—marry him or complete my Awakening. I’m not sure how badly we’ve tangled things. Too much that I can’t gently pull things apart with my fingertips?
He turns and looks at me, his beautiful face filling up my eyes. I’ve missed looking at Michael at my leisure, those aquamarine eyes heavy with black lashes, his straight nose and gentle mouth. Michael was Born of Light, and I imagine a laser beam chiseling away his cheekbones, squaring off his chin, touching gold to his hair. His beauty is overwhelming and nothing that I’ll ever grow accustomed to. I realize now that it’s not so much the perfection of his features that moves me, but more the way he looks at me. With raw, unbreakable love that is beyond question, beyond the doubts I push between us.
The second heartbeat is there in my chest like an unseen presence in the room. It beats hard, demanding to be noticed. Michael moves toward me and I think, Everything that was once missing is here.
His chest is rising and falling quickly. He blinks lazily, drowsy with emotions. His finger lifts my chin and he leans forward, tenderly kissing my mouth.
Michael’s lips are warm and inviting. I’m always surprised by how soft they are. Then the sparks come, reminding us that we were not made to be together—angel and human. We adjust, break off the kiss, turn, and continue in the opposite direction. We defy the rules, tangling things further and making tight knots of our lives. I move into his arms as a body into water, all consuming. He envelops me, crushing us together. He moans deep in his throat when the sparks turn violent. The friction sends silent tremors through me. Pain and pleasure, a mixture we’ve come to crave.
Michael slides his mouth from mine and kisses across my cheek, down my neck. He’s mumbling something I can’t understand. He feels desperate against me, clinging too tightly as though I might disappear.
“Michael. Michael.” I guide his head up and see that I’m right. His eyes are glassy with blue tears. I cup his face so he can’t turn away. My eyes begin to sting and I blink back my own tears. I have something to say. I don’t want to lose control. “Michael, I never stopped loving you,” I whisper. “I’ve missed you so…” My chin quivers and I can’t go on. I take a deep, ragged breath.
“I couldn’t breathe without you,” he murmurs. His body relaxes as though his energy is used up. His eyes seem to float in painful, heavy memories. “I was completely empty, Sophia. As if my light had been ripped out of me. Nothing moved me but rage. Through my trials, I nearly gave up. All I had was the rage of losing you.”
Gut-wrenching pain hits me and I drop my forehead against his chest and cry. I can’t hold back any longer and everything rises inside me: the fear of what I almost lost with Michael, the loss of my soul to Dante, the helpless anger as Ka moves farther away. Everything I’ve kept inside comes out and I allow it to, just this once. I sob hard, clutching his shirt. The conviction I had in front of Bailey is dissipating. I’ve reached the silence at the end of a song that spoke of hope and strength; I am scared to death.
Michael scoops me up and draws us down onto the bed. I’m wrapped in his arms and he holds me as it comes. Too many emotions that won’t separate, like water forming a river, it all moves through me, cleansing and washing things away. After a long while—after the sniffling and hiccup breathing has faded—I reach an exhausted state of calm. Too tired to move, we lay in the dim light. Silence seems to have a mind of its own so we keep quiet, just breathing until our rhythms fall into a comfortable, synchronized measure. If I had the pleasure of knowing things would be all right, I would tell him. But I don’t, and I’m afraid to say what’s on my mind. At the moment, I don’t want to give weight to the troubles ahead, so I snuggle deeper into his arms, resting my head on his chest.
Michael has changed, physically, since becoming a Halo. He hasn’t been called to duty yet but the trials were grueling, punishing. He’s always had the hardened body of a spiritual soldier, but now he seems larger, thicker, his m
uscles cut deeper.
My mind takes an unexpected turn and I imagine what Michael might look like without clothes, standing naked before me, smooth and sculpted. I imagine my hands trailing across the warm, velvety skin of his bare chest, along the contours of his abs.
I’m a very visual person so the image makes me squirm and flush with heat. Michael is toying with one of my indigo dreadlocks and flips it across his chest.
“Hmm,” he hums thoughtfully, and I remember he can sense my emotions. I peek up at him. He’s grinning with mischief in his eyes. “Interesting color choice. Yours?” He brushes the tip of the braid across my nose. Michael can see their true color without the spiritual aid of my energy.
“No,” I murmur, secretly smiling. “The dreads were brown when I chose them. They just, coincidentally, turn indigo as my spiritual energy rises.”
His chest vibrates with silent laughter. “Funny how certain things…rising… make other things turn indigo.” He gives me a hard look so I see his eyes churning indigo, and I know he is rising, too. My eyes swell with understanding and I lay very still. Michael’s arousal is sexy as hell and I wait for him to kiss me. Please kiss me! Now!
He finally blinks and looks away. His teasing has made him uncomfortable and he squirms and sits up, crossing his legs. Then he takes a deep breath and puts on his serious face.
“Sophia, can you tell me why your weapons glow?”
“Huh?” I’m still reeling from his flirting. “Oh, I don’t know. Rama said my dreads would glow because they came from him, something special just for his students. But not my weapons. So you don’t know why they would glow? That’s not normal?”
“No, that’s not normal. And I don’t know why they would. Or why you have an abundance of spiritual energy. I have Gabe looking into it.”