The Ancients and the Angels: Celestials

by M.C. O'Neill

  ***

  Two miles from Quen’die and Lauryl’la’s high-caloric powwow, Lord Ferd’inn Reyliss was not feeling so celebratory. The nervous elder had been up all night and so was his stomach as it was tied into knots that would confuse a Kumarian weaver. He was thankful about one thing only, and that was the fact that Kaedish fell asleep around 10 p.m. He was old enough to understand that life occurred in phases; you win for a while and then it is all taken away.

  The nagging urge to call his daughter’s manaphone was like that of a lotus juice junkie. He couldn’t count the times that he had clutched his mahogany model in his hands and was tempted to disobey his wife and give a little checkup on her. What could it hurt, he wondered? After all, it was his fatherly responsibility to ensure the welfare of his own daughter, but he had agreed with Glynna that he would not interfere on this night. Such a deal was forced upon him in order to face his fear and not sweat the small stuff as he had been doing since his son died. Glynna even forewarned that she would double-check to make sure that he didn’t leave a worrisome message on his own daughter’s phone in the morning. This was all a treatment for his high-tensile nerves as of late, she claimed.

  Not only was the parental worry of a daughter’s night out bothering him, but spousal suspicion had crept into his very soul. It was true that times were busy at the lab with the arrival of those meddling hulks outside the city, but why was his wife called into work and not him, he kept fretting. Her late nights were becoming more frequent in the last couple of months and her growing absence seemed to be coming to a head on that night. He reasoned she was only an artifacts and acquisitions officer, to be honest. As of late, she had been short and distant with him, and this became more concrete after their meeting with the Mitlan’s. Why would she act in such a way, he added to his worries?

  Emotions of fear flickered back to anger and resentment as he felt like he was being punished for what any father on Earth would feel in such a predicament, and a predicament was what he felt he was experiencing. When he thought about it, he felt like he was a little elfling who was sent to bed without supper for some misunderstanding that would be ironed out in the morning. Aside from worry and resentment, he felt powerless and that was what made it all so grave in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he should see a health warden, as his wife had suggested many times, he considered?

  What was he doing wrong? He wondered this more and more as he paced the silent home like a panther on the Xochian Pampas. He could admit to himself with ease that he was very high-strung, but that is what happens when a father loses a child for no apparent reason. Not one health warden could determine why Kellyn died; he just did. How could Glynna recover from such mystery so easily? Many times he had reasoned that she was much more resilient with matters of the heart than he was and perhaps keeping stolid and busy was her way of coping with the unmanageable.

  On their family’s armoire, he studied a wonderful framed picture of his daughter, taken the year before that presented her with a beaming smile as she held a bunny at the annual Atlantean Cultural Exchange Fair. She had carried so much grace and joy with the little animal in her arms as such this slice of life made him decide for certain that she took after him on the inside despite her frightening resemblance to his beautiful wife. Quen’die looked just like Glynna, but a few degrees warmer, he figured as he slugged back another glass of Kumarian mulled wine. For this he was proud.

  Outside, the morning was arriving, but not quick enough as the overcast clouds rendered everything a resonant charcoal. It was already past 5 a.m. and he had still heard neither hide nor hair from his wife or daughter. He wished that either one of them would give him at least a courtesy call, but it was much too late for that. He was so tired and a bit pie-eyed from all the worry and wine. The best remedy for this night would be to just fall asleep, he decided.

  He placed his round glasses onto the nightstand next to his empty bed. It seemed so cold and lonely and those were the only words that he could use to describe it. Something was dreadfully wrong that his subconscious could explain with a simple nod, but he could not gather the words for in his mouth. After falling on the bed fully clothed, he fell asleep and was not wiser to the low thuds of thunder in the distance. There was a terrible storm coming.

  At 6:30 a.m., Glynna Reyliss arrived home. After passing the slumped form of her sleeping husband, she took a quick glance at him, only to be confronted with so many conflicting thoughts. She walked into the master bathroom and for the second time that night, she disrobed. A burst of thunder coincided with the sound of her running the steaming waterfall.