“That’s no excuse.”
“Maybe not, but what would you have me do. Call family services. Put her in foster care. That seems to have done you a lot of good.” As soon as he says it he pauses. A look of regret crosses his face.
My lip bunches and the anger returns. “That’s not fair,” I say. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. What she’s going through.”
“No I don’t,” he says this time more calm. “Look Kyra, we’re just trying to help.”
“It’s kind of hard to help someone when you’re judging them.”
Jeff steps closer, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kyra. I didn’t mean…”
It’s too late. I don’t want to hear it. Pushing his hand away, I walk past him to the house. “Just leave me alone,” I mutter as I pass. I don’t care anymore. They can send me to Juve' if they want. It was only a matter of time anyway.
Justine is there at the entryway to meet us as if she has been waiting there for our return. It’s apparent by the worry etched in her face that she has not slept at all. Her eyes, though blood shot from crying, are not angry, only concerned. She reaches out to me, but seeing my anger, hesitates. No one ever seems to know what to do with my anger and so they always stay away. It’s better that way. The farther people are, the less they hurt me.
As I walk up the stairs to my room, I hear Justine say, “Let us help you.”
“How am I supposed to believe that,” I say, not looking back, “when you won’t even help Liv.” There is silence as I walk up the stairs, the same silence that killed my foster sister. The same silence that keeps Liv in her hell. As I lay in my bed, brooding in my anger, I look up at the ceiling as if to peer into heaven. I hear the same silence there too. Only this time, I know there is someone looking on.
Chapter 10
I see my mother’s face again. She is smiling. I am with her smiling too. We are looking up in the distance at the sun rising over the horizon, the foam from the ocean trickling over our feet. It should be cold, but it isn’t. Everything is warm here. My mother holding me is warm, the sun edging out of its hidden slumber is warm, even the waves are warm. Just like before, I want to stay here with her, the wish of every child. But something tells me that I can’t stay here. I cannot remain a child forever. We all have to grow up and move on.
Clouds approach from behind and the sun creeps back down into its cove, allowing the darkness to set in. I tell my mother that I am afraid, but she only smiles. “Don’t worry, darling, it will dawn again. Until then, you still have my love in your heart to light your way.”
“No I don’t,” I protest. “You left me alone.” The darkness comes in, and with it a coldness. Soon I cannot see her, but I can still hear her voice in my head.
“You are never alone,” she says. “My love is always with you.”
“But I can’t see you,” I say. Fear grips me in the darkness and I become angry. “Why did you leave me,” I yell out into the emptiness. There is no answer, only silence. And then…
…the sound of something rustling outside. My awareness is aroused. Opening my eyes, I see the flicker of a lamp on the dresser, casting strange shadows on the ceiling. It was not there before. Justine or Jeff must have brought it in. The sound comes again. Its sounds as if someone is outside. Maybe it is the angel. He must be freezing out there with only that shroud to cover him. I rise from the bed, still clothed. I haven’t changed yet. Walking to the window, I draw back the drapes and peer out. I can’t see anything.
I take the lantern and walk to the bedroom door. The house is quiet. I silently continue to my foster parents’ room. From the sound of Jeff’s snoring I can tell that he is asleep. I can’t imagine Justine being able to sleep through that, but somehow she is. When I am sure that it is safe to move around without waking them, I head down stairs. Taking some of Jeff’s clothes from the laundry room, I head out the back door. Creeping out past the porch I look over the yard, seeing no sign of him. The night breeze rustles up leaves and spills them about the lawn. Darkness hugs the edges of the light cast down by the lantern. I walk unsteadily forward, having no desire to enter the shadows. Keeping my eyes securely on them, I step back and realize I am not alone.
I jerk around to see the angel standing there. He does not seem weak as he did before. Instead, he stands upright and statuesque like a chiseled Adonis, reborn from the earth. His eyes look deeply into mine with an intensity that would seem to overpower a person, but his is a soft intensity, more comforting than anything else. Taking a deep breath, I shake myself of my mindless drooling in order to form some thought of communication. “Who are you?” I ask. “Or should I say, what are you? And where did you come from?” I realize that I have been nervously spouting off one question after another without giving him any means of responding.
The stranger thinks for a moment as if to study out each question. “I believe I told you what I am in the cemetery. And I think you can infer where I come from with that.”
“Do you have a name?” I say, not amused by his sarcasm. Are angels even supposed to have sarcasm?
“I do have a name. I am called Ashur.” His muscles ripple along his arm with a shiver. I struggle not to stare at his bare chest. I am not going to get all soft over some guy I just met, no matter how perfectly formed he is.
“You’re cold,” I say, abruptly. “I brought you some of my foster Dad’s clothes.”
“Cold,” he says, curious. “I’ve never been cold before.” He runs his fingers up his arm, feeling the bumps along the skin. In a way, he seems to almost be enjoying the experience.
My heart quakes like a horse biting at the bit. I have to keep myself from watching him, reigning in my juvenile hormones. “Look,” I say, interrupting his study of the current situation, “I am sure that cold is bad for even angels. You need to put these on.” I shove the stack of clothes toward him. He studies these as well. “I assume you know how to put them on.”
“Of course,” he exclaims like a giddy child. “We spend much time studying the culture and habits of those we watch over.” He looks over the clothes. “Still, it is so much different when you experience it for yourself.”
“Let me tell you, the novelty wears off fast.” I turn him about and direct him to the shed, touching his tone bristly arms. My knees nearly melt like soft butter. These angels certainly do work out. “It’s probably better if you get dressed without me watching,” I say more as an assurance to myself. He nods his head and begins walking toward the shed, his shroud trailing along the grass behind him.
I can hear him changing in the shed. To keep my imagination from wandering, I decide to continue our discussion from the cemetery. “So, you told me I was going to die. That’s changed now hasn’t it? I mean you saved me right?”
He pauses and all is quiet for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Didn’t you say you had some sort of angel ESP? I mean you knew I was going to die. Can’t you tell if I am going to die now?”
“The foresight of an angel does exist for the one they watch over,” he says. “But as I said before, it is limited. Especially, in dark places.”
“What do you mean ‘dark places’?”
“Places hidden from the light of God.”
“Light of God?”
He pokes his head out of the doorway, smiling. “That’s right. You don’t believe in God. Yet he is the one you called out to when all else seemed lost.”
“Maybe I am a little more open to the possibility,” I say, reluctantly. “I mean you are an angel after all. It’s easy for you to believe, you probably see Him all the time.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” he says as he steps out of the shed, fully clothed. The shirt is tight on him, but it will do for now. “How do I look?” he asks.
“I can’t say much for the clothes,” I say. “They came from a math teacher. But they’ll do for now.”
“Thank you, Kyra,” he says with a gentleness in his voice. “You have sh
own great kindness to me.”
“You did save my life.”
“That is my duty as your guardian,” he replies. “What you do is out of kindness.”
“You’re welcome,” I say. His politeness is endearing. He definitely acts like an angel, not that I would know what an angel would act like. I just suppose it would be polite.
“We have a saying, God lights our path with the love of others,” he says.
The comment hits close to home, but I decide to brush it off. “I don’t need God in order to be a kind person.”
“Of course not,” Ashur says. “That is what is so curious about your kind. Even without believing, you will still show kindness. Surely you feel something of Him.”
“I only felt cold,” I reply. “And I thought you might be cold too. That’s the way it is down here. It’s called sympathy. And I’m a sucker for it.”
“I don’t think that makes you a…sucker,” he says uncertain.
“The point is, God doesn’t have much to do with us down here. I don’t know how it is for you angels, but He abandoned us the first chance he got, just like my own father.”
“How can you feel that way?”
“After seeing what I’ve seen of this world,” I say stiffly, “I can’t feel any other way. Besides, it’s easy for you. You live with God.”
“We do not live with God. We live in the lower realms of heaven. I have never seen Him and I don’t personally know anyone who has.”
“Then how do you know what he wants you to do?” I ask.
“The same way anyone does,” he answers. “I feel it.”
“Doesn’t seem very reliable.”
“And yet you do it all the time. Feel, I mean. You mortals feel more than angels do. Often you have so many feelings that you are lost in them.”
“Could you not refer to me and my kind as mortals,” I say. “It’s a little condescending.”
“I don’t mean to seem that way,” he says. “In fact, angels are to bow before man. God has commanded it. It is for that reason that Satan rebelled. He refused to bow because of his pride.”
“Wow. Thanks for the Bible lesson. Could we get back to the whole thing about me dying? I think that’s a little more pressing.”
“Of course,” he says obligingly. “You were asking me about why I don’t know if you are going to die. You see, my kind aren’t supposed to communicate with mort…man through the material world. We may give thoughts or feelings that seem so strong that it is as if someone is speaking to you.”
“Like with the dogs,” I say. “I heard someone screaming at me to run. It was like a thought, but it wasn’t my voice.”
“It was mine.”
“You spoke to me.”
“To your heart,” he says. “That’s how we communicate to our wards.”
“But in the bookstore and the cemetery you talked to me in person.”
Ashur’s expression changes to one of grief. “I should not have done that, but I did not know what else to do. You were going to die and nothing I could do would stop it. Even then I was unsuccessful in changing the outcome. I finally had to intervene. I had to descend.”
“Descend?”
“Yes,” he says. “I came to earth in full material form.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to do that.”
He thinks for a moment, struggling with his words. “It’s complicated.”
Complicated? There is something he is not telling me. Maybe he doesn’t know himself or maybe he doesn’t want to tell me. “You said that sometimes it’s just a person’s time to go and there is nothing a guardian can do about it. Why didn’t you just let me die?”
He seems to hesitate as if uneasy about answering the question. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
It’s obvious that I am not getting anything out of him. The point is, I am alive. The question is for how long. “So you’re mortal now.”
“Not entirely,” he says. “I am still immortal. If I continue to live in this world, I will never die, unless my life is taken from me.”
“So you can be killed,” I say.
“This is a realm of death,” he says. “Unlike heaven, even an immortal can die here.”
“But you will just go back to heaven. No big deal.”
“The angelic realm and what you call heaven are not exactly the same thing. We know nothing of your heaven; we only know that there is a place for the immortal souls of man. But we are not man. We don’t know what happens to those angels who die.”
“Have there been angels who have died?”
“Many have died for the sake of man,” he says solemnly. “And many more will die before the end.” A chill rolls over me and I shiver. Ashur notices and takes his shroud, saying, “It’s you who are cold now.” He places his shroud around me. Surprisingly, though the material is thin, it is quite warm.
“Is this out of duty,” I say.
He smiles. “Let’s just say I know cold now and I only want you to feel warmth.”
His words comfort me. With him I feel safe as if he really could throw back the darkness that surrounds me, as if he could heal all the pains of this world. Like the dawn of a new day casting out the shadows, he brings a certain hope with him, a feeling that in this cold universe I am not alone. There is someone who will rescue me. Maybe my mother was right. Maybe another dawn will come.
“It certainly is warm,” I say.
“It carries my essence,” he says. “Literally. The same material that makes up my body makes up that shroud.”
The thought might seem romantic, but I can’t keep from thinking I am wearing a blanket of his skin. I am somewhat revolted. I quickly remove it. “So this is like your skin.”
“No,” he says with a slight laugh. “You saw my wings right. I can’t exactly walk around here with wings on my back so they become this shroud. The material is like that of angel feathers. It’s a little more subtle than leaving a pair of wings around.”
“So these are your wings,” I say.
“What’s left of them,” he says. “My wings and body are made from clay of the earth just like yours.”
I shake my head. “I specifically remember from my science class that I am not made of the clay of the earth. I have flesh and bone.”
“When I say clay, I mean the base material that we angels use to form all matter, even the earth. All things can also be made back into that base material to be reshaped. I simply took from the earth what I needed and reshaped it into this.” He gestures to himself.
“Well you certainly did a good job,” I comment.
From his expression it is evident that he doesn’t know how to take this comment. “I simply made it in the fashion of my angelic body,” he says humbly. Ego seems to mean nothing to him.
I hold the shroud out to him. “So basically this isn’t skin or anything. Because if it is, I am going to have to give it back.”
Ashur smirks. “No it is not skin,” he says, taking it from me. Stepping behind me, he spreads the shroud out and rolls it gently over my shoulders and around my arms. I can feel his arms from under the sheer material. They surround me. “Think of it instead as a blanket of feathers,” he says softly, his breath warm against my neck, “and when you wear it, it is like being in my arms. Safe and warm.”
I stand there for a moment in his arms, eyes closed, not wanting to move. I can feel his breathing. Then, just as it came, the moment is gone as he takes me by the hand and leads me back to the house. Stopping by the back door, he stares into my eyes as I look back into his. The moonlight shimmers softly across their blue glossy surface like ripples across a pond. “You must go and rest,” he says. “You have been through much. And there will be plenty of time to answer the questions you have.”
I step in the door way, but then look back hesitantly. I don’t want to leave him. “What about you?”
“I will be watching over you,” he says. “Know that you are safe here with me.”
; “Well if you get tired of watching, you can sleep in the shed. It’s not comfortable, but Jeff keeps some camping stuff in there. I’m sure you can find a sleeping bag or something.”
“Thank you,” he says. “I will be fine.”
I turn to go in, but stop, swerving backward. It’s like the door step scene of a first date. I don’t know whether I should hug him or shake his hand or something more. I know what my hormones want to do, but I pull tightly on the heartstrings and simply say, “thank you.”
“It’s just a shroud,” he says.
Angel Realms 01 The Dawn of Angels Page 10