AIDAN: You need to get him to a doctor in the morning. Having him sleep on your couch is not part of your insurance obligation.
AUTUMN: Yeah, I know. I will.
AIDAN: Why do I think you’re lying?
AUTUMN: Because you’re so much better than I am at life, dear brother.
AIDAN: You’re better at deflecting.
AUTUMN: Anyway, I’m telling you this in case you don’t hear from me in the morning. It means I really screwed up. So, if you don’t get a text by seven tomorrow, you know what to do.
AIDAN: I might do it now. This is such a bad idea. I don’t even have words for how bad.
AUTUMN: Don’t. I don’t need any more drama for tonight. I promise I’ll text when my alarm goes off.
AIDAN: All right. Get some rest, crazy. But if the text comes in at 7:01, the cops are already on their way.
I switched off the bedside lamp, staring into the silent darkness. I couldn’t hear, smell, or sense Gabriel in any tangible way, but his presence hung heavy in my apartment. He might as well have been lying beside me, for as much as his effect lay over my mind.
As he talked earlier, I finally allowed myself to take in the features of his face. I knew his mouth, that perfectly arced smile resembling an eagle at rest. Eyes so pale blue it was difficult to focus on anything else when he spoke. Hair as black as mine, a startling disparity to his high cheekbones set against moonlit skin.
I’d never defined anyone else at this level of detail. But, aside from my mother and Aidan, and, of course, Chad, I’d never spent as much time with anyone else.
I finally knew why Gabriel’s presence had unsettled me. Maybe I’d known the moment he walked over to me after picking himself up off the pavement.
I knew Gabriel. Hell, I’d known him since I was very young.
He’d visited my dreams since then.
VI
Autumn slipped out quietly, but I heard her light steps on the tile floor, how she held her breath as if that would be the difference between waking me and not.
It wouldn’t. I didn’t sleep.
Before I even set out on this task, I’d researched her class schedule. Tuesdays were her full day so she wouldn’t be home until after six. I would have the whole day to meditate and reflect on the way things were going thus far.
Certainly, that did not mean pulling apart every word of our conversation, or interpreting her body language. My task was simple: Since this Ephemeral had reached maturity, determine if she was destined to join the Legion as an acolyte? Or was it time to release her from guardianship and allow her to fumble through life on her own?
The Five Tenants of the Order were simple in declaration, but often more complicated in practice for the seven sent to carry them out:
Assess, but beware of judgment.
Observe, but beware of intruding.
Guide, but beware of influencing.
Protect, but beware of domination.
Love, but beware of attachment.
Assess. Autumn would likely say I’d judged her with my commentary on her current path at school though I had no such intention. I had really only studied her for a day before engineering a meeting.
Observe. Was sleeping on her couch an intrusion? Debatable.
Guide, Protect, Love… we were still miles away from any of those.
Back to assess. She’d not only seen me but accepted my form tangibly by feeling the impact of her car hitting me. Test one. Passed.
Test two was harder to determine. Tenants dictated that an Ephemeral chosen for the Legion would warm up to their guardian in a near immediate manner. Any initial tension or awkwardness of their meeting would be forgotten, almost as if it had never existed at all. A deus ex machina of the fates.
My experience, though, had not always matched this directive. Nine hundred and ninety-nine recruits I’d evaluated, and all six I’d chosen so far required days to earn their trust. Perchance I’d have finished my recruiting sooner, had I not enjoyed the challenge these six provided. And in the end, that trial had paid off, granting me with the most talented. They, along with the acolytes of the other half dozen guardians, awaited me. Anticipating the seventh to select his seventh.
Autumn tracked to be my seventh and final recruit, symbolic in many ways, but most importantly a signal of my own long-earned accomplishment. A chance to lead my very own cavalry for the Legion, filled with all the blessed and talented souls I’d enlisted over the millennia.
I was the last of the guardians to finish. The others chided me for my stubbornness, claiming my standards transcended reality. Michael, the first to choose his seven, had four thousand years on me. Raphael was the only other holdout, and now he, too, was gone.
My soul sagged, weary of the chase, ready for the reward.
But I would only do so for the right Ephemeral.
As of yet, my assessment of Autumn determined she was guarded in nature, damaged in spirit, and more powerful than most of the Ephemerals I’d come across during my years of searching.
The peculiar way she studied me when she thought I wasn’t aware, unnerved me. Not fear, as would be healthy in her predicament. Not anger, or hostility, at the way I’d treated her on the road. Something else. An item I could not put my finger on the pulse of, but would become important. Of this I was certain.
With the previous six, there was always, always a moment. A single strand in the fabric of time where I knew they would be in my cavalry. An instinct, or inkling, they were not like the others I’d walked away from in the end.
I closed my eyes, returning to meditation.
VII
Skipping classes altogether might have been a better plan. I recalled nothing at all from the day if it didn’t happen in my own head.
Tonight, I would have to study. Finals were next week and, per usual, I’d done very little to prepare. In my defense, I had always performed better under pressure, whether in academics or on the court. But Gabriel’s presence in my life was not the kind of distraction I’d intended.
I first saw him on my seventh birthday. I know I said he visited in my dreams, but I use that word because there’s not a better one to describe how he would appear. Vision, perhaps, but even that sells the experience short.
While sitting on the back patio with my mother and brothers, Aidan had just ripped open his new train set, and I was preparing to tear apart what I was fairly certain would be a Barbie convertible. Chad, as usual, had opened his in a flash. Before I could tug at the corners of the meticulously wrapped gift, I saw a man standing in the gazebo, raising the fresh bloom of a bird of paradise to his nose. Sensing I had spotted him, he stopped and smiled. Then he waved.
I waved back, ready to ask my mom who he was when she turned in that same direction and asked me who on Earth I was waving at. Aidan, glancing up only briefly from his score, looked in the same direction and shrugged.
Whoever he was, only I could see him.
He sometimes visited me on the playground. I never played with anyone but myself, or Aidan, if he took pity on me. Most of the kids thought I was weird because I wasn’t as savvy at hiding my true self as Aidan, so it was nothing to see me talking into the air to an imaginary friend.
But he never answered.
Over the years, his appearances shifted with my growth. In junior high, he’d join me on walks home from school. By then, I’d begun to fill out and become more aware of myself, the way all girls do. I didn’t see myself as pretty, but I felt pretty with the mysterious, black-haired stranger at my side. If only others could have seen him as well… could have seen the way he looked at me.
I viewed the quiet stranger as my guardian though he’d done nothing evidencing this was his intention at all. Not a word, and not an action, other than his silent, encouraging smiles and constant presence. He would appear to me, and then I’d not see him again for days, sometimes weeks. But he always returned.
In high school, though, his appearances took a different turn.
For one, he spoke to me.
This happened the night during sophomore year when I broke up with my first real boyfriend. The tragedy of lost love in those tender years was always disproportionate to the crime, and my heartbreak seemed immeasurable. Nothing, of course, compared to what it felt like to lose Chad. That particular pain I can’t revisit. Not yet.
My guardian appeared that night, this time offering me his arms. I studied him, wondering what might happen should I step forward and take his comfort. Would I pass through him? Become like him?
Too sore from the day’s sting, I tossed off all caution and moved into his embrace. My first thought was; how warm he is! He felt kissed by the sun, despite us being in the throes of winter. Something damp passed down my cheek, and I wondered at the sensation, having cried all my tears out on the walk home. But it was his tears passing over my skin. After all those years, I understood my guardian was real.
“I will always love you, Autumn Anabella.” I heard the voice in my head, not from his lips, but I knew it to be his.
“Tell me who you are,” I pleaded.
“When you need the knowledge, you will know.”
He appeared every night after, slipping into the bed beside me with open arms. I fell asleep that way for a year before he kissed me for the first time. I’d just started my senior year, and hadn’t had another relationship since that last one. I couldn’t tell anyone I was in love with another; someone they could never see or meet.
Our friendship and bond never progressed further than a kiss. Some of them left me satisfied while others left me wanting so much more. He was my nameless guardian. My secret love.
When I left New Orleans for Portland, I took for granted he would follow. He was very clearly not like anyone else I knew, and while I had no answers as to where he went when he was not with me, I supposed it to be on another plane than ours. One without the same limitations. Presumably, somewhere not hampered by distance.
A week went by in my dorm room, and my guardian made no appearance. Then a month, and eventually a semester. Fearing he was put off by me having a roommate, I used some funds from my father’s trust to get an apartment. It wasn’t the best use of my money, I knew that, but the loss of my constant companion hit me harder than I expected.
I loved you, I would sometimes whisper into the cold brick flat, wondering what I’d done to turn him away from me. The promise of even maybe seeing him again prompted me to cave to my mother’s desires to see me return to New Orleans and attend Loyola Law as she had.
The truth was, after about a year, I’d come to accept he was gone, and for reasons I might never get the chance to know.
Except now he was back. This time, in the flesh and with an attitude. Not only that, his re-emergence seemed to come with a busted memory. He had no idea who I was, except the girl who’d turned his nice bike into a hunk of twisted metal. Fate had a cruel way of answering prayers.
And his name was Gabriel. After all these years, now I knew.
There was no graceful way to say I’d been in love with him since I was seven. Whoever he was now, he was not the kind and gentle soul who had kissed my heartbreak away and held me through the worst years of my life.
It would be best for both of us if he’d left while I’d been at school.
Of course, Gabriel was there when I got home.
Garlic and sage violated my senses, in a foreign but not entirely unwelcome way. I hadn’t had a home-cooked meal since I left New Orleans, except my occasional visits home.
“I do hope you like pasta,” Gabriel said, turning to me with tongs in one hand and a large spoon in the other. I eyed the foreign objects suspiciously; they must have come with the furnished apartment.
“I… uh…” I didn’t quite know how to ask the question. “I thought you might already be on your way.”
“Is that a yes? If not, there’s a homeless shelter a few blocks down.”
“Yes, I mean, sure, I like pasta.” What was he still doing here?
“Wonderful,” Gabriel answered, turning back toward the stove. He seemed at home in the kitchen, even mine, which had all the ambiance of an afterthought.
I tried to offer my help, but he only smiled in response. A hint of mischief played at the edges of the gesture, and I wondered if he knew how terrible I was in the kitchen.
Gabriel, my guardian, was cooking for me. He was also acting as if fifteen years of my life hadn’t involved his regular presence. I preferred to think he was acting because the alternative was worse: Was it possible he’d really forgotten?
Consumed with the flood of memories of my Gabriel over the years, I entirely missed him setting the table.
“How was school, Autumn?” he asked, gesturing for me to take a seat. I did so in a daze.
“Fine, I guess.” He nodded at the fork to my right. Gabriel was already digging into his own dish. “If I’m honest, I had a hard time focusing.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
I glanced up at him hiding a grin. Was he making a joke?
“Why are you here?” I blurted, dropping my fork. Heat spiraled up from my chest and into my neck and face in a rush. I didn’t know if I should be playing my hand this early and didn’t care. “After all this time, you come back now? And then act like you don’t even know me?” I stood in a rush, the blood surging to my head. “What did I do?”
Gabriel observed me in clear astonishment. “Autumn…”
“All those years, Gabriel! Is that even your name? Or did you just make it up yesterday when you pulled out in front of my car like that?” I threw my hands up. My pulse raced. Were we really going there?
“My name is Gabriel. I promise you,” he answered. He stood slowly, methodically, then stepped toward me until I’d backed myself into a wall without understanding the source of my fear. “Why don’t we eat, and then we can talk?”
“I’m not hungry!”
“Autumn, please. I’m not trying to upset you.”
The reverse psychological power of those words had always profoundly impacted me. Even going back to my childhood, when I’d skin my knee or fall from my bike. It never hurt until Mom said, “That looks like it hurts, you poor thing.”
My breathing escalated from accelerated to full-out hyperventilation before his hand could touch my arm. I bent over to gather myself and catch my breath, allowing him to guide me back toward the chair.
“Look at me,” he requested, in a soft, soothing tone.
“I can’t breathe.”
“Look at me, Autumn. This is important.”
I willed myself not to do as he asked, but my head lifted anyway.
He had a cleaver in his hand.
I drew an inward gasp, starting so hard I nearly fell out of my chair. I had no time to press him for answers.
Gabriel lifted the cleaver and brought it down on his wrist.
VIII
I had no other choice. I tell myself that, even now.
Something had happened to Autumn while she was away, something that escalated my period of assessment to the point of now or never. She knew I was not who I said.
She stood clutching at her neck as she watched the blood spurt from the wound where my hand had once been attached. I won’t lie; this hurt something fierce. It took all of my focused energy not to pass out from the shock of the injury. Immortality only protects us from death, not pain.
“You can help me,” I urged, wincing. Black spots danced in my retinas. We didn’t have long before I would have to intervene, but I had a strong feeling it wouldn’t come to that.
“I’ll… I’ll call… oh, dear God…” Autumn blubbered, eyes darting around the room as if some answer to the problem would present itself. “Where is my phone, oh God!”
“No time,” I managed. “You can.” I slowed my breath to avoid passing out. “You can heal me.”
Autumn’s jaw dropped. Her eyes traveled to the pool of blood now covering my half of the table, seeping through the gaps in the woo
d to an even larger pool on the floor.
“Autumn!”
Her head snapped up at the sound of her name. In a frenzy, she rushed over, hands in her hair, then crossed over her chest. She stared at me before focusing on the wound.
Trembling, her right hand hovered over my wrist. Her eyes locked on mine. The look in them bordered on defiant as if she dared me to challenge what she was about to do, despite me having asked her for it.
I opened myself to her and allowed her power to work.
The light that traveled through me when our skin connected had the power of an electric bolt. Forcing me back against my chair, which teetered briefly on two back legs before settling down, the combined magic radiating from her, and the pain still coursing through my physical form was more than I could handle. I had no choice but to observe. To assess. I hadn’t chopped my hand off for a nap.
Autumn’s expression screwed tight, her whole body now quaking along with her hand as she transferred the light to me. Tentacles of blood and bone swam out to re-attach to my broken wrist like so many wires. Cells replicated, re-fused.
In a matter of moments, I was once again whole.
As I admired the work of this young shaman, the air changed. With a whoosh, Autumn’s feet came out from under her, and she flailed back, losing all consciousness.
I caught her before she could hit the floor, lifting her into my arms. Watching her serene face as she recovered from her own shock.
The first time she’d healed me, she believed me to be passed out, and so, the healing had come at no risk to her.
This time, everything was on the line. All her attempts at hiding who she truly was would be exposed. As far as she knew, she’d chosen my life over hers.
Not even the other six had been forced to undergo a difficult test. Such a choice.
She was my seventh.
I watched over her as she rested.
Lagniappes Collection II Page 13