In looking back, the decision to put Anna in the backseat was one of my biggest regrets.
We were halfway home, driving through the thick woods, when I saw Marie bending down to do something with her riding boots. I had been nervously checking on her in the rearview mirror for the entire drive, so I caught her straight away. But of course, I couldn’t do anything, sitting in front of her, steering the car.
“Marie, are your riding boots bothering you?” My voice sounded strained, even to me. “I know they’re probably uncomfortable because it’s so hot, but—”
I saw a flash of light reflecting on something metallic and almost simultaneously heard Anna scream. I jerked, and the car swerved into the other lane. Luckily, there was no oncoming traffic, but it took me a second to regain control over the car and steady my nerves so that I could turn into the next wooded path and stop the car.
I whipped my head around, and my “What happened” got stuck in my throat when I saw a knife sticking out of Anna’s thigh and blood everywhere. Anna was screaming hysterically. I wanted nothing more than to comfort her, but instead, I shifted my focus to Marie.
I only saw her impassive face for a second, though, because she took advantage of my shock and slung something that I would later identify as my dad’s fishing line around my neck. Before I could react, she pulled it tight, jerking my head back against the headrest.
She didn’t pull with much pressure at first, and honestly, I didn’t think a little kid would have enough strength to garrote a driver in front of her. So I moved my head. It was a mistake I wouldn’t dare repeat. The fishing line sliced through my skin and pressed painfully against my larynx. I fought the urge to cough, feeling the need to reason with her. “It’s me, Marie. Stella,” I croaked.
My eyes went to the rearview mirror, hoping we could establish eye contact.
Marie smiled her sweet, innocent, little-girl smile. “Drive,” she said.
“What? Marie, we—”
She pulled the line just a little bit, but it was enough for me to follow her order. I fumbled around and put the car in drive then gently pushed my foot down on the accelerator. The car slowly rolled down the wooded path.
“Faster!” Marie screamed.
Anna’s hysterical screams had died down to manic sobs, and I was slowly losing a battle against hysteria.
“Whatever you’re planning, why don’t we let Anna out so the next passing car can bring her to a hospital?” I whispered. Talking was exhausting, and my throat really hurt from inside and out, but I had to try to get Anna out of the crossfire.
“Faster!” Marie said angrily. I increased our speed as much as I could on the narrow wooded path, which wasn’t really made for a car. “Drive fast, and at top speed, swerve off the path and steer toward a tree. I want it to look like an accident.”
I couldn’t really think straight. Having someone slowly strangle you with a fishing line was bad enough to make anyone pee their pants with fear, but if this someone was your own little sister, utter despair was thrown into the fear-panic-confusion mix. It didn’t seem like an instruction anyone would actually obey, but in that situation … not that easy.
I made a split-second decision and slammed on the brakes. “No.”
For the first time, the Marie in the rearview mirror seemed to have a different expression on her face than a robot-like impassiveness, pure anger, or little-girl innocence. It was an expression I had never seen on Marie before. I was sure this was all Malachriel. It was a sort of haughtiness mixed with… interest. “No?” she repeated.
“You can strangle me with the fishing line if that’s your heart’s desire, but I’m not going to kill my sisters.”
Marie sneered. “How noble. But they’re as good as dead anyway.”
Then two things happened at the same time, and they happened really fast. While Marie answered me, Anna seemed to wake up from her shock and become lucid. She stared at the blood gushing from her leg. “Stop,” she whispered. She looked up at me. “Please, Stella, make it stop.”
While she said that, I got an idea and ran with it. I tapped into Anna’s wish. If it was intent that would make Malachriel stop using Marie, then I would give it all the intent I had. I was going to fulfill Anna’s wish.
At that moment, I had no doubt in my mind that I could save not only one, but both of my sisters. I wouldn’t let them down. I had no plan, but I just knew I was going to make Anna’s wish come true.
Marie grimaced when Mal felt I was getting my grace back, and the line slacked. I didn’t waste any time and snatched it away from my throat. It hurt because I ripped some skin off with it. I threw the bloody fishing line away, yanked open the driver’s door, and just as quickly opened Marie’s door. Still not stopping to evaluate my actions, I bent over a startled Marie, unclicked her seatbelt, and dragged her out of the car.
I was trying to get her away from Anna, trying to make it stop.
I hurled Marie onto the foliage-covered ground. “Anna, find something you can press on the wound—a jumper, a jacket, anything. Pull the knife out and press whatever you can find onto the wound really hard. Think you can do that?”
I still had my eyes on Marie, but I heard a whimper from the car. It sounded like a “yes.” She could do it.
Now I focused all my attention on Marie. “You!” I yelled, obviously meaning Malachriel, not Marie. “You think you can just use and hurt and kill my sisters in order to get to me? Do you really think I’m going to let that happen? You might not value your family as much since you killed your own brother, but you can’t harm my siblings!” I don’t know where the word brother had come from—I had read sibling in the pamphlet—but I was right on the mark.
The bemused you-can’t-really-harm-me grin on Marie’s face disappeared instantly.
I saw a tiny flicker of doubt, and I went with it.
“You know nothing,” Marie said, pushing herself up on her elbows.
“Oh, I do,” I said with all the conviction I could muster. “I do know. You would like to be your brother, and you killed him for that reason.”
She spat onto the ground. It would have been a funny thing for a six-year-old girl to do if the situation weren’t so serious. “Be him? Never!” Malachriel actually sounded disgusted. Too much so. He had probably convinced himself of that lie for who knew how many hundreds of years.
And I could tell he was lying because, to be perfectly honest, I knew a little bit about sibling envy. I loved my sisters dearly, and I would have given my life to save them. But I had envied them since the day they were born. They were pretty, everyone liked them, and our mother was actually their birth mother.
“Could do no wrong, could he?” I asked nonchalantly. “And you, you were the odd one out. Whatever you did, nobody was ever quite as proud of you. And to add insult to injury, he didn’t even really have to try.”
Something inside Marie/Malachriel was unraveling. I could see that. It was a shame that I was only guessing and had to rely on getting lucky and blindly hitting the mark. Until he made the mistake of responding.
“He never told you that.” Marie pushed herself up and stood. “I don’t believe it.”
My mind raced, and I turned the words over and over in my head in the space of a second. Something clicked. Here we go. All or nothing.
“He did. Zachriel told me everything. How you killed him, how you killed your own brother. And for what? To do this? To do Abaddon’s bidding? You’re still someone else’s slave. And not only Abaddon’s. Your power and all that is only to counteract your brother. What are you supposed to do to counteract his vocation? His power? And you know you’ll never measure up to him. Even in death, he’s done better. He’s an angel.”
“No!” A scream full of pain and despair burst from Marie’s throat. I was sure Mal had had the intention to throw herself on me and destroy me with tormenting, taunting words. But he didn’t make it.
Instead, Marie bent over and started to cough. The cough soon turned
into a strangling noise, and it took all my strength not to help her and make sure she was all right. She sounded as if she was choking. When her face began to turn purple, I almost gave in. As I took a step toward her, I saw something black coming out of her mouth, and I stilled. It was a tiny, fluffy feather, and it sailed through the air before landing on the earthen ground. She coughed, and more feathers came out of her mouth, as if someone was shaking out a black down pillow. But the feathers got progressively bigger, and then they were stuck together. They pushed out of Marie’s grotesquely wide-stretched mouth, and she couldn’t breathe. An entire wing, tightly compressed, came out and unfolded. With one last cough, Marie spat it out. The wing on the ground in front of her unfolded even more and got bigger.
I carefully touched Marie on the shoulder. She looked at me in horror, and I could have sworn it was my little sister again. I was still deliberating whether I could trust her, when the feathers on the ground turned into two wings. The wings spread and uncovered the person that had been hiding within.
I pulled Marie into my arms and hugged her tight. She pushed her head into my shoulder and started sobbing. Fascinated, I stared at the being, at Malachriel.
He slowly unfolded from his crouched position, just like the wings had unfolded. The first thing I noticed was that he was stark naked. He was tall, muscular in a lean way, and tanned. He was gorgeous.
Then he put his head up and brushed the long brown hair out of his face.
I knew that face.
It was Zachriel’s face.
15
He looked exactly like Zack except for his black wings. What did he do to fool white witches? He had to have a way to make his wings look white.
Now I understood the passage in the Demonica Magica. Witches would have thought they’d summoned an angel and were thus happy to do his bidding. With his looks, he could have gotten any woman to do what he wanted. Witches were just the most powerful women, I guessed. That thought, along with all the others, zapped through my head in the space of a millisecond. They struck a chord, and I couldn't help thinking about how he used powerful women as Malachriel slowly moved toward me. His movements had the same panther-like quality of his brother’s. His brother—whose bidding I had done just because I’d been awed by his gorgeousness and felt flattered by his attention.
I couldn't help but think that both brothers might well have used the same method.
As Malachriel came closer, I realized I had lost the advantage of the upper hand. I didn't know what was going to happen and pushed Marie behind me. “Get in the car with Anna,” I whispered to her in an urgent tone. She clung to me and wouldn't let go. “Now!” My voice must have sounded desperate enough because she did what I asked.
I couldn't think of anything clever to say to Malachriel so I just spouted out one of the questions that had been on my mind ever since Zack had turned my life upside down. “Why do you want to kill Vitrella?”
He wasn't a foot away from me when he stopped abruptly. He looked genuinely puzzled. “Who’s Vitrella?”
I couldn't understand what he could gain by feigning ignorance, and I feverishly tried to think of a response. He came even closer, but I refused to back away toward the car, where my sisters were. I stood tall and squared my shoulders—for the first time, I was glad I wasn’t a wispy little thing—and didn't avert my eyes.
He came so close that I could smell his skin. It was warm and not at all unpleasant. I could see the tiny golden speckles in his eyes that somehow seemed more sparkly in Zack’s eyes.
Zack, why have you abandoned me? If you have some kind of connection with me, if you can hear me, I prayed silently, come now. Save me. Don't I get to have a wish too? Please, Zack, save me.
Malachriel’s mouth was mere inches away from mine. At first, I thought he was going to kiss me, and I felt a confusing tinge of excitement mixed with revulsion. But then he opened his mouth wide, and I saw a row of razor-sharp teeth. He cocked his head, sniffed as if he was smelling me, brought up a hand, brushed my hair over my shoulder, and pulled the strap of my tank top down. I could have sworn he was about to sink his sharp teeth into my shoulder, when a bright light behind me blinded Malachriel.
He stumbled backward, and a weird hissing sound escaped his throat.
“Brother, be gone,” I heard Zack’s velvety voice in my ear.
Malachriel retreated and disappeared in the overexposed scenery of the tall trees in front of me.
The glaring white light receded, and all went back to normal. Golden sunlight filtered through the treetops. No, everything was not quite normal. It was eerily quiet—no rustling leaves, no singing birds, no buzzing insects. Just the quiet, quiet woods, my sisters, and me.
And Zack, I remembered, turning around.
There he was in all his angelic glory.
I released a breath I had been holding for I didn't know how long.
We looked at each other for a second. I couldn't quite read his expression. Something had lit a fire in his eyes. Anger? Relief? Fear? Regret?
I couldn't stick around to find out or ask him the many questions I had for him. “I have to go and take my sisters to the hospital.”
He nodded. “Tomorrow night, by the river, then.”
“Okay.” This time I didn't wait for him to disappear, but I got in the car and sped off.
16
A couple of hours later, I was in the hospital and had to face my parents. Anna and Marie were fine physically, thank God. Anna had lost a lot of blood, and they had to give her a transfusion. The insides of Marie’s throat and mouth were scratched up, but apparently she was fine apart from that. I hadn’t shown anyone the tiny cuts on my neck from where the fishing line had sliced my skin. Instead, I’d claimed that I was cold in my tank top and bought a hoodie from the hospital gift shop. It covered my neck pretty well.
The hospital staff hadn’t been too concerned with my explanation for my sisters’ injuries. They were more focused on treating them. Initially, my parents didn’t really listen because they were so worried about Anna and wanted to sit with her until she woke up.
After Anna was awake and the doctor had checked her vitals, my parents demanded to know what had happened.
I sighed and glanced at Marie who was quietly sitting in a chair in the corner. The drive to the hospital had been nothing short of dramatic, with Anna still bleeding and Marie crying her eyes out. I hadn’t even had the opportunity to find out what they had seen and how they had experienced the whole thing. Even if I could have come up with a lie, Anna and Marie would have told something different, whether it was today or another day, and it seemed to me that it would have made everything even more complicated.
Thankfully, though, I didn’t have to make the decision in the end, because Anna spoke before I could bring myself to.
“Marie stabbed me,” she said and broke into tears.
My parents looked at each other in alarm and disbelief.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean to,” I hurried to say.
Anna’s head whipped around, and her eyes widened when she looked at me.
“She suddenly had this knife in her hand,” I said. “I think she had it in her riding boot, and I think it was the steak knife that went missing, Allison. I must have swerved or jerked the car or something, and the knife landed in Anna’s thigh.”
Anna seemed to understand my pleading look. She didn’t correct me.
My parents were in shock. “But… but… Marie , why did you have that knife in the first place?” my dad asked helplessly. “I don’t understand.”
Marie started crying and said nothing.
“I think this sleepwalking thing must be more serious than we thought,” Allison said to my father. “Let me speak to the doctors about this. Maybe they can recommend a psychologist.”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary,” I quickly put in. “She didn’t mean any harm.”
Allison got up and looked at me sharply. “I haven’t forgotten that this is no
t the first knife incident. A few months ago she cut your arm in your room.”
I wanted to come to Marie’s defense, but my dad put his hand on my arm. “I know you feel you’re protecting her, but this is for her own good. She needs help.” He put his other arm around Marie, and she cuddled up to him.
My concern was, of course, that she would tell about the demon that had possessed her. Stories like that got people committed. But then I had to admit that my dad was probably right. After everything she had been through, she did need help.
Anna didn’t say anything. In fact, she pretty much stopped talking to me altogether. I figured she blamed me for the whole thing, and she wasn’t that wrong about it. I didn’t confront her. I hoped that with time, things would get back to normal between us.
I had already called Aunt Jeannie from the hospital to tell her that I wasn’t going to come to work the next day. I just needed to… sleep. There were probably quite a few other things that I needed, but sleep was pretty much on the top of my list. I hadn’t really had a restful night—or even a restful moment in the house—ever since the night Marie had tried to kill me.
I even disregarded the everyone-at-the-breakfast-table rule the next morning. Nobody minded. When I finally got up, Marie was still in bed, and Allison, who had taken a personal day, was in the kitchen, baking muffins.
“Good morning.” I crossed my fingers that she wouldn’t grill me about what had happened yesterday. I quickly grabbed the paper that was lying on the kitchen table so I would look preoccupied. I needn’t have bothered. Allison was cutting up some fruit and added it to the French toast she was making. She was putting a lot of effort into this breakfast, which she always did when she wanted to comfort us. She looked a little as if she needed some comforting too. She had dark circles under her eyes.
“Morning,” she said. “Marie has been up most of the night. Nightmares. She is still sleeping. If she doesn't get up soon, she can have a muffin and fruit salad later, before we pick up Anna from the hospital.” She put a plate with French toast and fruit in front of me and poured me a glass of orange juice. My favorite.
Wish Upon a Fallen Star: Average Angel Page 9