by Selena Kitt
“So you’re abandoning me to go play with a kid?”
“I’m not abandoning you,” Muriel protested, even if it was kind of true. “It’s just that it’s his birthday…”
“Right.” Jari looked at her like she didn’t believe a word of it. “So that’s all you’re doing? Hanging out at the hospital?”
“Well, yesterday we stopped at the park and kind of lost track of time,” Muriel confessed. That’s all she was going to say about it, even if Jari did give her that knowing look.
“Lost track of time?” Jari snorted. “You were almost late to our call at the diner. You think The Maker isn’t going to start noticing?”
“But I wasn’t late.” That was true, but it was also true that she had just barely made it.
“I said almost,” Jari reminded her. “Still, Muriel. Angels are starting to talk.”
“What?” She looked over at Ami and Barbie, whispering behind their hands. “What do you mean? Did you say something?”
“No, I’ve been covering for you all week!” Jari cried. Muriel shushed her and she managed to lower her voice, glancing around at the cherubs who had turned to look at them—especially Barbie and Ami. “But you know those two. If they can find something, anything, to disqualify us from the tournament…”
“I’m not doing anything wrong.” Muriel said this with more confidence than she felt. She didn’t know, exactly, if what she and Char were doing was wrong, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Look at those bows.” Jari turned her partner’s head, pointing at the tournament prizes. They were both the latest model, even better than the ones they’d won the year before, significantly lighter and easier to balance, each with a quiver that refilled itself. They’d all taken a turn shooting them, just to see what it was like. Tournament winners got the latest bow models a full six months before anyone else. “Don’t you want to win those?”
“Yes, of course.” Muriel nodded in agreement, although she’d lost her incentive to win them somewhere earlier in the week. She pretended to Jari that it mattered, that she wanted the same things, but she didn’t. Not anymore. She was tired of target practice, she was tired matching up soul mates who would someday be parted, one way or another. She didn’t want to do this anymore. That was the truth she couldn’t tell her partner.
“Then focus!” Jari cried. “Please, can you focus? Just for today?”
“I will,” Muriel agreed, pressing her forehead to her partner’s. “I swear, I will. I’m just going to head over to the hospital for an hour. I’ll be back in plenty of time for the opening ceremonies. I promise.”
“Okay.” Jari took a deep breath, shaking her head. “Just be here in time to shoot. You know I can’t enter without you.”
“I will, Jari.” She pulled her partner into a one-armed hug. “And we’ll win those new bows.”
She managed to walk to the exit, instead of running, trying not to draw attention to herself. It had to be true, what Jari said. Cherubim had to be wondering where in the world she was going. This was the second Sunday in a row that she walked out during practice. She was making night practices at the archery, of course—they used the range in the middle of the night on weekdays when no humans were around—so it was just Jari she was bailing on when she ran off to the hospital in the middle of the afternoon. But she couldn’t keep doing this, could she? Not without angels starting to notice, ask questions.
Once she was out the exit into the stairwell, Muriel was up and away, eager to already be there, to see him. Every time they parted, she couldn’t think of anything except how much she wanted to see him again. It felt like forever until they could be together again, even if it was less than twenty-four hours. She’d never really understood what the term crazy meant until this week.
Of course, she’d never quite had a week like this one before. And she’d never met anyone like Chariel before. He spent a lot of time at the hospital—so many people checked in and never checked out again—and that had become their meeting point every day. Besides, Muriel was simply enamored with little Henry. His parents came to see him every day. They simply doted on him, indulging what they believed were his fantasies about angels as invisible friends.
But he was actually quite a wise little boy.
Just yesterday, he’d asked Muriel, “Are you going to take me away to heaven some day?”
She found it sweet, if a bit fantastical, that humans believed in some sort of heaven in the clouds and gave The Maker the name of God, believing in an old man with a long beard and flowing white robes who lived in the sky. It was a little like the stories they made up about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Or the misconceptions they had about angels and fairies.
“No, I’m not that kind of angel,” Muriel had told him, glancing across at Char.
“Are you that kind of angel?” Henry asked, looking at the towering angel of death.
“I am.” Char had appeared to Henry at Muriel’s request—so she didn’t look crazy, talking to herself in front of the five-year-old.
“So you’ll be the one who takes me to heaven.” He nodded sagely, taking a bite of his green Jell-O.
“Yes, Henry, I will.”
Muriel hated hearing that, but she didn’t contradict him. She knew it was the truth, at least, as far as a not-quite kindergartener could understand it.
“Are you talking to your friend Zeph again?” Lucy had asked, glancing over at the seemingly empty chair where Muriel sat at his bedside. Char was in the one beside her.
“No.” Henry shook his head, digging a maraschino cherry out of his Jell-O, using his spoon like a bulldozer, complete with the noise.
“Muriel?” Jack offered, glancing up from the book in his hand.
“No, I’m talking to Char,” Henry replied with a frustrated sigh. Muriel couldn’t help her smile. He acted like the adults around him just couldn’t keep up. “He’s the angel of death.”
“The… what?” Jack put his book down, meeting his wife’s alarmed gaze.
“He’s going to take me to heaven one day.” Henry had sucked the cherry off his spoon, chewing noisily.
Muriel had seen the panicked look in Lucy’s eyes, the beginning of tears there as she leaned down to kiss her son on the top of his head.
“No one’s going to heaven for a long, long time, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Now, let’s eat the rest of our lunch and stop all this talk about going to heaven.”
“Listen to your mom, Henry,” Muriel had told him with a smile, standing to go. “We’ll be back to see you soon.”
She had promised Jari she’d be back in an hour and she’d left her waiting more than once that week already. She’d fully intended to get back on time yesterday, but they’d gotten waylaid. It was her fault. She’d been the one to ask, as they were walking hand in hand down the corridor.
“Where do you take them?” It was a question she’d always wondered, and while she knew death wasn’t the end for a human soul—they were eternal, if not immortal—she had no idea how it all worked.
The Maker was stingy with that sort of information. Most information was on a need-to-know basis, and she was a cherubim, not a seraphim. She didn’t need to know what happened after humans died, she just needed to know when and where The Maker wanted to join them, however briefly. But Char knew. He had collected two souls just in the hour they’d been together that afternoon, tucking them under his wing.
“Do you want to see?” he’d asked, squeezing her hand as they turned a corner. The hospital’s hallways had already become quite familiar to her. “I can take you there.”
She’d hesitated only a moment. “Yes.”
So the story about the park hadn’t exactly been the full truth. They had gone through the park, and there was a pond covered in ice. But they hadn’t stopped there.
Char had taken her in his arms beside the ocean of souls, folding her into his wings, now devoid of the orbs he’d let her set afloat on the shore. It was the most beau
tiful thing she’d ever seen, a sea of gold, like a constant reflection of a sunset on the water. But it wasn’t water at all. It was essence, life force, returned to its source.
Muriel went through the emergency entrance when she arrived at the hospital, remembering their conversation as they stood together, awash in the light, the reflection of millions of souls in their eyes.
“Everything longs for union,” Char had told her.
“Even us?” She had lifted her face to look at him, searching. “Char… am I supposed to be here?”
“I want you here.” He had touched her cheek. “I want you with me.”
“What are we doing?” She’d sighed.
“Being.”
And it had been so good, being with him. Like nothing she’d ever experienced before.
“I’m afraid.” That confession was anathema. There was nothing angels needed to be afraid of. Nothing could harm them. But she’d never had anything to lose before. Not like this. “Jari’s already asking where I disappear to every day. And the more time I spend with you…”
She had found she couldn’t finish the sentence, the thought, not out loud.
“What?” Char had asked. “Tell me.”
“The more time I want to spend with you,” she’d managed to finish, a bare whisper. “I don’t ever want to leave.”
“I know.”
“I don’t understand it,” she’d admitted. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
“You, of all angels?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t recognize love?”
“Did someone shoot me with an arrow when I wasn’t looking?” She’d laughed, in spite of herself.
“Arrows don’t work on angels,” he had reminded her. “Besides, cherubim don’t make humans fall in love. You simply twine the fate of two souls. Love… love is what they already are. Love is the source. They just don’t know it. Look.”
He’d pointed to the expanse of liquid gold to prove his point.
“Love is what they rediscover in themselves and in each other.”
“But…” Muriel had continued to protest. “Angels can’t fall in love.”
“Because we already are love?” He’d sounded like he was agreeing with her. “We don’t have to find that in another, we have nothing to rediscover. We’re like fish living in water. It’s all around us. It is us.”
“I know.” Muriel had puzzled over it then just like she was now. “So why do I feel this way?”
It wasn’t possible, was it? Two angels falling in love. Did she love Char? Did she even know what love was? Part of her thought she did, in spite of everything she knew to be true. Not just true, but The Truth. If she loved Char, then everything The Maker had told them, everything she’d ever believed, was suspect, wasn’t it? It tilted her world upside down.
No wonder she felt so dizzy.
Muriel hurried down the hallway, already smiling, thinking of spending an hour with Char in Henry’s room, watching his family celebrate his fifth birthday. She couldn’t stay long—she’d promised Jari, and she wasn’t going to let her down, not today—but she didn’t want to miss the boy’s birthday either. Or Char.
It was Valentine’s Day, after all.
Humans seemed to think Valentine’s Day was about love—she remembered the aisles full of red paper hearts and candy with disdain—but the cherubim knew better. Since the ancient days of human history, the day had never been about romance. In its most raw, basic form, it was about hunting. The hunter and its prey. Cherubim were hunters, humans their prey. And what was lust, culminating in the act of human procreation, if not a sort of hunt?
It was no wonder the cherubim held their annual archery contest on Valentine’s Day. They wouldn’t work today. Ironic, that the humans thought the day was all about love, but it was the one day of the year that no cherub would join two souls. They were too busy competing, showing off their own hunting abilities, vying for the top spot, to be the alphas of their individual pack.
It was the first year Muriel could remember not wanting to be first, not caring if her arrow ever hit its target again. Something that had once seemed all-important had been relegated to an annoyance, a duty she had to take care of, an obligation to fulfill. She had promised Jari, so she would go to the tournament, she would hit the bullseye again and again, and they would win the brand new bows and arrows.
Then, maybe, she could go see Char afterward.
She slowed as she neared Henry’s room, trying to calm herself. Who would have thought anyone would feel so giddy at the thought of seeing the angel of death? But that’s just how she felt. She’d wondered for ages what love felt like, and she found herself wondering, even now. Was this really it? This all-over sensation like she was flying, even when her feet were firmly on the earth? Just contemplating it brought up so many questions.
She’d asked him yesterday, just outside the diner—the one she’d been almost late to, joining Jari at the last minute—“Do you think angels have a fate, like humans do?”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t know?” She’d been hoping for more of an answer.
“Seraphim don’t know everything.” Char had laughed.
She’d considered making an appointment with the Fey Advisory Board. It was the first step toward a direct consult with The Maker. If anyone could provide an explanation…
But did she want one?
She’d had the most exciting, exhilarating, joyful week of her entire existence. Part of her wanted to know, wanted to understand what was happening, but another part of her was afraid to rock the boat. What if, just by asking the questions, the F.A.B. decided, in their infinite wisdom, that any sort of connection between a cherubim and seraphim was a bad idea? Maybe there weren’t rules against it now, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t make any in the future.
She didn’t want to take that chance.
Henry’s door was closed—probably to keep the noise of the party from spilling into the hallway, she thought—so she just went through it.
Instead of finding herself in the midst of balloons and cake and streamers, she found herself in darkness.
“Muriel?” It was Char, behind her. He’d followed her in.
“Is he gone?” she whispered, somehow already knowing the answer.
Chapter Seven
“How did it happen so fast?” Muriel stared at the little boy who had been happily digging into his green Jell-O the day before now lying so still, looking impossibly small in that big hospital bed. They’d moved him to intensive care the night before, Char told Muriel as they rushed to his room. He’d come down with a very high fever.
It was the first sign that his remission was over.
And, Muriel knew, because Char had just told her, it would be his last.
“I’m sorry.” Char’s arms tightened around her. They’d been sitting by his side for what felt like an eternity, along with his parents, waiting for the doctor to come and tell them something, anything. He’d finally arrived, along with a nurse and a glass bottle of blood for a transfusion.
“But Dr. Lazarus, the treatments were working.” Jack’s voice shook. He stood in the hallway with the doctor, just outside the door. It was open and Muriel could hear them, even though they spoke in hushed tones. “I don’t understand.”
“Its effects were… short-term, I’m afraid,” Dr. Lazarus explained. He didn’t sound unsympathetic, but he was very doctor-like. He delivered news like this all the time, Muriel thought, glancing at Char, realizing the similarities. They gave people bad news more often than not. They were a reminder that death was inevitable, mortality a reality no one could escape. Even five-year-old little boys.
“The way it performed, we thought folic acid would be a miracle drug for this type of leukemia, and for a while, it was.” The doctor spoke while Jack continued to shake his head in disbelief. Muriel could see Jack’s face, the way he glanced into the room where his son was fighting for
his life. There was despair there, but also a strange sort of hope. People clung to the idea that maybe, this time, they would escape the inevitable. “But now… we’ve had three patients slip out of remission in as many days. And Henry—I’m afraid he’s the worst.”
“But the transfusion?” Jack still had a bandage on his arm from donating blood for his son. Muriel knew he would have cut out his own heart if it would save Henry’s life. But it wouldn’t. “It’s helping?”
“I don’t know yet.” Dr. Lazarus shook his head, pushing his dark, square-framed glasses up his nose. “The next few hours will be critical. If he makes it through this infection, maybe…”