by L. Penelope
My human body aches from sleeping on the hard ground of the parched earth. I never rest in the same place twice. Others here try to mimic some semblance of their lives before, but I don’t. There’s no comfort to be found. The sooner you accept that, the better you can manage the thought of spending eternity here.
I have access to my powers. The Wasteland is somehow connected to the Eternal Flame, and taking my angel form would relieve the physical soreness, but it agitates the humans nearby to the point where it isn’t worth it. All of them can see angels in this realm, but just like in the living world, few humans are prepared to understand what they see. Their confusion spreads like wildfire, inciting them into a chaotic mob. For the sake of preserving what little peace can be found here, I remain in my physical form. Besides, a bit of pain clears the mind—it keeps me sharp.
I launch into the air and search for Caleb. Since he arrived, he’s set up a routine, like clockwork, so he isn’t difficult to locate. I’ve reached out to some of the other exiled angelborn, but most are caught up in their own miseries. Some are so far gone they’re nearly indistinguishable from the humans, wandering their purgatory half out of their minds. Caleb still has his wits about him, though I worry he will face the same fate if he doesn’t keep his spirits up.
I find him in the boneyard, walking under an archway formed of the skeletal ribcage of some enormous animal. He startles when I land next to him.
“I thought you were a Vulture,” he says as his gaze darts to the sky. Warrior angels in the Order of Guardians prevent us from leaving the Wasteland. Their physical forms are seven feet tall with ominous black wings—present only for dramatic effect, as angels do not require wings to fly. Circling far overhead, monitoring everything, they resemble the birds of prey they were nicknamed for. But they rarely interfere with us, unless we’re attempting to break the rules, and I don’t pay them much mind.
“When was the last time one of them landed anywhere near you? You need to toughen up and stay alert.” I slap him on the back.
Caleb and I walk through the boneyard until we reach the edge of the ocean bed. The Wasteland isn’t just a place to house the soulless; it also holds all manner of dead landscapes. The carcasses of drowned ships, spanning through history and well beyond those that existed when I lived, are scattered across the desert. The rusted-out metal of an ocean liner lays next to the remains of a centuries-old whaling vessel. Are these the destroyed dreams of whole civilizations, preserved here to ensure no kernel of hope could survive?
“Do you ever wonder who the decorator here is?” I ask. The corner of Caleb’s mouth rises.
Silence settles over us until we come across a group of humans gathered around the base of a cliff jutting from the desert floor. Hollow-eyed and vacant, they chatter and moan nonsensically, each lost in his or her own personal agony. The noise they make is unsettling. We pick up our pace until we have passed them. Beyond the forgotten shipyard, a frozen tundra spreads out, the gray ice meeting the gray sky in a bleak kiss.
“If you had another day with her, what would you do?” Caleb asks. He is here because he fell in love with a human, but lost his powers and died before she could bind her soul with his.
I’ve told him of Lyrix. Thinking of her and speaking about her are the only joys left to me. “I left Euphoria with her so that we could feel and not have to hide all the things that made us different. But in the human world, all I did was hide.” There is a question in his glance, but he doesn’t push. Gravel crunches under our feet as we walk. Regret consumes me but I don’t run from it; I invite it to settle across my bones and stay. “She wanted me to tell her I loved her, but I couldn’t. If I had another day with her I would do nothing but tell her, over and over.”
Caleb smiles faintly, his eyes far away.
“What would you do?” I ask.
“There was a park we used to go to. I would take her there at sunset and watch her as she tried to catch fireflies in her hands. That’s all. Just watch her laugh and be joyful.” He looks up to the sky. “I hope wherever she is, she’s happy.”
I don’t wonder if Lyrix is happy. By now, she is a Seraph, and joy is no longer a possibility. She has been spared all of that. My only consolation is that she is also immune from pain. I don’t have to imagine the agony our separation caused—but losing the baby…
As the angelfire consumed me, I hovered between the worlds long enough to see Lyrix’s angel form take over her body. That was my last view of her—beautiful, multicolored light exploding from her pores. Nothing human would have survived the shift.
Our lives, our love, our child, all gone.
“Would you do it again?” I’ve asked Caleb before, many times. I’m not sure if I expect for his answer to change—time and reflection can alter the heart of both man and angel.
“A million times over,” he says. “Loving her was worth whatever this eternity will bring.”
If I could go back to the day that Lyrix emerged, I do not know what I would do differently. Let her fall after her ejection from the Flame and never experience our connection? Give up knowing and loving her to spare myself this exile? Abstain from learning her body and never create our child?
I cannot go back, only forward, through the desolate terrain that surrounds me. But somehow, I think that never having known her would be the greater torment.
Chapter Fifteen
SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC, Now
The crystal-blue waters roll back and forth across the sand. Little sparkles of gold embedded in the expanse of beach flare in the mid-afternoon sunlight. I sit with my back against a palm tree, observing the retreat of the tide. I spend so much time like this, staring at the ocean, breathing in the sea-salty air.
The chime of bells interrupts the melody of the water, and a bright light flashes behind me. When I turn, Cynnix stands before me. In all this time, he has never bothered to change out of his late-Victorian clothing. He looks ridiculous here on this beach in the heavy layers of wool.
I remain seated, shading the sun with my palm, looking up at him. He purses his lips, and those cold blue eyes survey the scenery. The island is less than a mile wide and situated far from the shipping channels in the South Pacific. Behind me is a thick grouping of trees that on a larger island could be a forest. A sparse and ragged hut protects me from the elements. It’s the sixty-seventh one I’ve built—heavy storms during the rainy season often wipe out the structures.
“Lyrix.” Disapproval drips from his voice. I wonder why he has been tasked with being my handler; it’s clear he does not relish his duties. My voice is hoarse from disuse, so I merely nod in acknowledgment. “I am here to inform you that your sentence is at an end and your exile has been lifted. As of this moment, the Eternal Flame is once again accessible to you.”
My head sinks into my hands, and I let out a ragged sigh, both of relief and dread. I don’t feel any different now that the shield the Seraphim created to block me from the Flame is gone. I want to reach for my angel form and feel its energy flow into me, but I can’t yet. Just because my punishment is over does not mean my guilt has abated in any way.
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed eighty percent of the city. Three thousand people died in the quake and the fires it spawned afterward. Three thousand people, killed by my grief.
My actions upended the whole of Euphoria. Unlike other catastrophes, the devastation had not been anticipated or planned for. Angels of Death were retrieving souls faster than the Lifes could turn them around. It was chaos, and more importantly, it further weakened the Eternal Flame. The Seraphim ruled unanimously that I was to be punished before my transformation—by angelic law, any angel responsible for harming the Flame would be starved from it until the damage they caused was remedied.
One hundred and ten years without my powers. Banished to this tiny prison in the middle of the ocean with no contact with the outside world. Except for the portal.
Wren’s dam, Beetrix, spoke at my tr
ial and convinced the Seraphim that I would be more useful to them if I could keep tabs on the human world. And so they granted me control of a portal, through which I can watch the progression of humanity from my exile. I cannot see Euphoria, and I cannot see the Wasteland.
Cynnix shakes the sand from the tip of his glossy shoes. “The next Adjustment has been scheduled for one cycle from now. Now that your sentence is over, it is time for you to serve.”
I nod mutely, unable to protest.
Twelve days. That’s all I have left until I am transformed into a Seraph.
Cynnix stares at me for a moment, his disgust palpable. A portal opens behind him and he turns toward it, then stops.
“Was it worth it?” he asks.
The question causes a sob to rise in my throat. I think of Wren, bleeding on the pavement, blood streaming down my legs mixing with his right before I shifted to my angel form and reshaped the course of the world. Our baby, silent inside of me.
And afterward, the misery, the sorrow and loss. Smoke and fire, death and pain, everywhere I looked. The word no wants to come from my lips; it’s the only reasonable answer. But I can’t say it. I can never say it.
Cynnix waits a minute more before leaving in a burst of golden light.
Twelve days.
With nowhere else to go, I lean back against the palm tree and watch the waves rock back and forth.
Chapter Sixteen
A crush of humans finds their way into the barren forest in which I fell asleep. Desiccated, limbless trunks of trees shoot out of the cracked ground. A hard kick will turn the wood to dust. The humans stagger through, wailing and babbling as they go. Small groups will band together like this, finding comfort in numbers. Often they will pick up additional members until they grow into a mob, insensible and wild. I ready myself to fly away from their unsettling display when a light streaks across the sky.
It is the multicolored form of an angelborn without a guild. I don’t know her name, she would never talk to me, but her appearance overhead in her angelic form riles up the humans. Their moans swell into screams. They jostle against one another, crashing into trees, their fear bubbling into something more sinister. One impales himself on a sharp branch. He rises with the wood sticking from his chest—they cannot die in the Wasteland. I have no idea if they feel the additional pain on top of the misery of being trapped here, but their agitation makes me want to go far away. I fly in the opposite direction the angelborn took to find a place with no humans.
The lava fields are quiet now, the gray sky bleeding into the hard, encrusted ground. The volcano which feeds them puffs smoke from its pinnacle, threatening another eruption.
I swoop down to land when a glittering light catches my eye. It sparkles from high in the surrounding mountains, the jagged peaks jutting sideways at impossible angles. Curiosity is not rewarded here. I fear for what I will find, but the light is pure and beautiful. It reminds me of Euphoria.
When I am close enough to identify the source, my gaze darts to the skies. Two Vultures circle far in the distance, over the ruins of a devastated city. Neither are close enough to pay me any attention.
I hover closer to the golden, shimmering glare of a portal. An impossible sight for the Wasteland. It’s a small one, too small for me to fit through, but the glimpse it gives me of home takes my breath away. A familiar figure is on the other side.
“Beetrix? Is that you?”
Her jade-green form flares. The indistinct features of her angelic face take up the entire portal.
“Wren, I have been searching for you. I do not have much time. I am in the office of the Archangel of War, using his portal, but he will return shortly. The next Adjustment has been scheduled. Lyrix will transform very soon.”
Both seeing my dam and hearing the message she’s brought leave me speechless. “She’s not a Seraph already?” Time passes differently in the Wasteland, but surely I’ve been here for many human decades.
Beetrix’s dim glows. “Of course, you don’t know,” she whispers. “She was exiled. There is no time to explain more, but her exile is now over.”
Hope grips me. “Can you get a message to her from me before the Adjustment? Tell her—”
“Wren, tell her yourself. I have managed to create a hidden portal to the human world in the Wasteland.” Her hand emerges through the golden shimmer. In her glowing palm is a tiny bit of green light. “This pearl will tell you the location.”
“This came through the stream?” I ask.
Her voice is grim. “Luckily, I am the one who plucked it out.”
My human fist wraps around the pearl, trying to hide its light. But its power is strong, illuminating my entire hand with an emerald glow. She had to know that creating a portal here, an action firmly against angel law, would be momentous enough to be recorded in the aether. What if she had not been working the stream when it came through? I shudder at the thought.
“Go now,” she says. The golden light extinguishes, leaving nothing behind but the rocky ground.
“Thank you,” I say too late.
Tears form in my eyes. When I move to wipe them away, my glowing hand reminds me that I must hurry. I locate a hidden cave in which to take my angelic form and absorb the information stored in the pearl. Beetrix’s portal is at the bottom of a flat, dead lake, deep in its black waters. It’s a good choice. The area is not often visited by humans. She must have been studying this place for some time. Perhaps even watching me in secret?
I launch into the air and immediately search for Caleb. If he were in my place, there is no doubt he would offer me the chance for escape. I find him quickly, shocking him with my landing, as usual.
“What the—?” he says, stumbling backward. He stands on a crumbling street of the nightmare version of a bustling metropolis.
“I’ve got something to show you, something I think you’ll like.” I keep my voice light to hide the tremors that want to burst forth. Skepticism paints his face. “I know, I know. But you have to come with me. Now.” I shoot into the air, hoping he will follow. We need to leave immediately.
Beetrix’s risk is enormous. Exile or fading are the possible punishments if she is found out. Thinking of my dam and her sacrifice fills me with emotion, something I cannot afford now as we race through the skies.
Vultures seldom patrol the chosen area since the lake is one place the humans avoid. Still, I zip through the skies, deaf to Caleb’s questions, urging him to fly faster than is comfortable. He must guess at what is happening, for his questions stop, and he keeps up with my pace. But whether it is just bad luck or they were alerted somehow, soon I hear the rush of flapping wings behind us.
“They’re coming!” Caleb shouts. He surges forward, and we bolt across the atmosphere. All angels are stronger and faster than angelborn, and the Guardians are a subset of the Warriors—the fastest of all. I fly at breakneck speed, trying to stay a step ahead, leading us in a nosedive straight into the lake.
The blackness of the water consumes my vision, but I visualize the portal’s location. Fear holds me in its grasp as we continue our descent in the murky waters. If Beetrix was found out and her portal discovered, we are done for. If this gambit doesn’t pay off, I’m sure Caleb and I will be watched closely by the Guardians forever. There will never be another chance.
I race forward, trusting my dam, trusting myself, knowing that this hope, once alive in me cannot die.
And then the golden gleam of the portal appears before us. We fly through it, leaving the Wasteland behind.
Chapter Seventeen
The space between worlds cannot be traversed with a material body. I shift to my angelic form for the journey, but holding it feels so foreign to me. It’s like I am a conscious mind without a body, unable to use my senses, denied access to a whole swath of knowledge that I’ve grown used to.
Other realms call out to me here. Somewhere a path leads to the place the angels originated from eons ago. In one of these worlds, there may be a b
etter place for those like me, a place without the rules we are subject to, where angelborn aren’t held back or hunted or dismissed. But even if I knew of such a place, there is only one location in all the worlds, known or unknown, where I want to be.
The feather-light whisper of a thought reaches me. A pearl floats by in this rush of transitional energy. I reach for it, instantly absorbing the knowledge within. Another gift from Beetrix, and a goodbye. This path I’m on is one that will never lead back to her, but I will be forever grateful for what she’s done for me. Angels aren’t supposed to be able to love, but Beetrix is an exception to the rule as much as Lyrix is.
The Vultures give chase. I sense them behind us, but as soon as we emerge into the human world, Caleb and I instinctively shift to our human forms. Unlike traveling via portal, the angelfire the Guardians used to blast us to the Wasteland burned our clothes. We arrive in the human world naked, but the trip reconnected us with the Flame and restored our angel powers. I become invisible and advise Caleb to do the same. We land on the green grass of a park filled with people.
I’ve grown so used to the humans of the Wasteland that the living people here astonish me. It takes a moment to adjust to their clarity and wholeness. Gone are the wailing, keening cries of the damned; in their place are the squeals of children, the laughter of adults—energy and vitality all around.
Impossibly tall buildings tower over us; we are in the heart of some great city. All around us, the familiar is mixed with the fantastical.
I gathered knowledge of this world for several human centuries before venturing here, so the pace of innovation is not unfamiliar, but it seems to have sped more rapidly than ever before. A metal box on the sidewalk holds a stack of newspapers. Just over one hundred years have passed since I was last here. If anything, things appear more orderly. The bulky automobiles passing down the street move in organized rows. Pedestrians wait patiently on corners for the signal to indicate the time to cross, instead of darting into the street any time they like. The sidewalks are cluttered with men, women and children, and the clothing or lack thereof has me doing several double-takes, but I can see how the progression of time has produced these modernizations.