“I knew something was weird about you.” Diarmid’s eyes widened in excitement. “I mean no offense, Michael!”
Michael’s wide grin returned. “None taken.”
“But you know I’ve watched you. You hardly eat. You never sleep. You are unlike any man I know.”
“I am not a man, Diarmid.”
“What do you mean? You look like a man, that’s for sure.”
“I’m a seraph,” Michael responded calmly. “Some people call us angels. I’m an archangel.”
Diarmid stared at Michael blankly. Apparently he had never heard of such a thing.
Joni gripped my arm tightly. We were probably even more stunned by Michael’s announcement than Diarmid was perplexed.
“It means I’m a messenger,” Michael continued. “I’m an ambassador, carrying out my master’s will. I am one of God’s messengers.”
Diarmid raised his eyebrows. “Which one? There are so many gods. Every visitor or tradesman who visits our clan seems to claim different gods. I can’t keep them straight.”
“Surely you are familiar with the Great Tree. The Tree of the Spirit Bull?”
Michael’s inquiry was met with a grin of satisfaction and an open-mouthed, “Ahh.” His previous bewilderment was immediately replaced with an air of confidence. “I know this one,” Diarmid said resolutely. “The great branch. Taranus. The White Bull. The Creator. From his branch, Hu-Esus, the ideal man who will one day emerge from the tree and guide us all to perfection. And Beli, the Great Flame. A fire that burns still in man, guiding him back to the tree. Together, united in one trunk, all rooted in Ana-Earth, but extending its reach upward toward the skies.”
“Indeed,” Michael responded with a smile. “Ceridwen has taught you well. That is the God whom I represent.”
“One? But that’s three gods. Taranus, Hu-Esus, and Beli.”
“Distinctly three, yes. But together, unified by a single trunk. They are ever distinct, ever inseparable. A unity. I serve all three, even as I serve the one. Together this God is known as All Father, the creator of the world. The One who made you and me. The animals. The forest around us. All of it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, child. Not wholly. The nature of God is beyond even the knowledge of the seraphs. Remember this well—some mysteries are better adored than investigated.”
“Okay. But I do have one question.”
“Perhaps I can answer,” Michael said.
Diarmid sighed. “Snakes. The All Father made everything, right? Why would he make snakes? I mean, really!”
Michael laughed. “You aren’t the first to ask! To tell you the truth, I don’t know.” Michael swatted at an insect that had landed on Diarmid’s forearm. “I’m not sure about mosquitoes, either.”
“You don’t know? Some messenger you are!” Diarmid’s jest was evident by the slanted grin and relaxed posture that settled into his shoulders.
“I am only a seraph. A messenger. I pass along what the All Father tells me to pass along. There is a great deal I don’t know, nor ever will. The Great Tree is a mystery unto all others than itself. God is God. I am but an angel.”
“And I am but a boy, full of questions!”
Michael ruffled his fingers once again over Diarmid’s disheveled mane. “And the answers you truly need will be revealed.”
Diarmid snorted. “The dance? The cone? Are the legends of our people all true?”
“Mostly, yes. There have been some embellishments, of course, but in large part they do accord with fact.”
“So Ceridwen and the rest of the order, they aren’t crazy after all?”
“Not at all. What many of your people see as foolish is, in fact, wisdom. I grant, their wisdom often presents itself with… some eccentricity. Their wisdom is imperfect. It still lacks maturity. But insofar as they continue to pursue the truth, insofar as they recognize their own foolishness, in that they are truly wise.”
Diarmid looked again at the dancers and the expanding vortex they continued to evoke. “It really is beautiful,” he observed.
“Indeed.”
“Do they see what we see? Do they see the cone?”
“They feel it. Many of your forefathers saw it. They will all see it again, with your help.”
Diarmid tilted his head. “My help?”
“The cone is only seen by the Ovate, and the one for whom the cone will deliver Annwn’s gift. Tonight, you see it. Soon, you will guide them all.”
“Do they see you?” Diarmid asked.
“Only Ceridwen. She is the Ovate, the seer. She sees the cone, too. But she still wonders at my purpose. Will you help me, Diarmid?”
Diarmid scratched the back of his head. “Help you with what?”
“Help me help them to see. To bless the dance.”
“Sure, I guess. I mean, I don’t know how much help a boy like me could be.”
A half-grin formed on Michael’s face. “Foolish vessels are chosen to shame they who imagine themselves wise.”
Diarmid shrugged. “You can count on me, sir!”
“Good!” Michael’s smile widened. “We will start tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Why tomorrow? Why not now?” Diarmid’s series of questions were posed with the sort of urgency only a curious child possesses.
“Because you need your sleep,” Michael explained. “You have seen what I hoped for you to see tonight.”
With those words, Michael looked up. I could swear he was looking straight at me. Then he briefly looked toward Joni. I could see it in his golden eyes. He knew we were there—or that we would be, eventually. How was this possible? Joni clearly felt the penetration of the seraph’s gaze as well. She gasped. It was a surreal moment, but it passed in an instant. It was just enough to know that he knew.
Michael returned his attention to Diarmid. “Tomorrow, we get to work.”
“Work?” Diarmid grunted. “I never work!”
“Never?” Michael raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I do what I need to do to get by, you know. But that’s not really work!”
“That is all I ask of you,” Michael continued. “To do what needs to be done.”
“Which is?” Diarmid opened his palms, as if begging for a full rundown of what he needed to plan for.
“To work! Tomorrow.”
Diarmid sighed. “Okay, okay. But can we watch the rest of the dance before we leave?”
“Certainly. And you might as well get comfortable. You will be sleeping here. We begin right here at first light.”
“Sure thing, Michael. You sure are something, you know? I’m glad I met you!”
“Me too, Diarmid. Me too.”
Diarmid sat and watched the dance, and Michael walked away, disappearing into the distance.
Joni and I sat on either side of Diarmid, enjoying the beauty of the dance below. It only lasted a moment. I felt a slight tingle gradually intensify across my brow. Feeling it too, Joni leapt to her feet as I did. We took each other’s hands as we had before the memory began. Everything faded to black…
The pungent smell of burnt cake assaulted my nostrils. We were back in class, just as when we’d left.
9. PDA
STILL HOLDING HANDS, Joni and I immediately surveyed our surroundings. While a contingent of the class was attempting to clear the smoke from one team’s disaster, others were focused on their own projects. The clanging sound of pots and pans, along with the low roar of various ongoing conversations, indicated that our absence had gone unnoticed. It seemed like no time had passed. Our journey into my father’s ancient memory seemed like it had taken hours, but here we were, just as before.
“Wow, Elijah…” Joni hopped up on the counter beside our cooking station, adding a flirty wink as she continued, “Was that as good for you as it was for me?”
“It was pretty incredible,” I admitted with a grin.
“Do you realize what this all means?”
“Not entirely. I�
��m still trying to figure it all out.”
Joni grabbed both of my hands. “We just witnessed the source of ancient Druid magic. We saw a seraph—an archangel. A famous one! And I’m pretty sure he knew we were there.”
“Yeah, that was a little creepy,” I admitted. “After my last vision, when I came back to my room I could swear I saw his reflection in my mirror. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I thought I was just re-acclimating to reality, you know? But now I’m not so sure.”
“I don’t know either,” Joni said. “But what is certain, hon, is that this is huge. Something bigger is going on than either of us could imagine. This is more than trying to figure out how to use your… abilities. There’s a purpose to all this.”
I nodded in agreement. Something big. Okay, but what? I had a feeling there was quite a bit more in this stone my father wanted me to see. Now Joni was involved, more so than even Emilie or Tyler. People could come with me into these visions. Maybe I could bring them, too. Would they accept Joni’s participation in all this? They would have to; I needed Emilie and Tyler. I needed Joni, too.
“Joni, what are your plans?” I cleared my throat. “After school, I mean?”
“Nothing much. Why?”
“Well I was going to meet up with Emilie and Tyler at Kaldi's. We were going to go over all this research. I’d like you to come along, if you can… I mean, if you want…”
Joni placed her index finger against my lips. “Hush, now. I’ll be there. But hon…”
“Yes?”
“You might want to talk to Emilie. I’m a tough chick, don’t get me wrong. But I’m not sure she’ll be too fond of me… Of us, rather.”
“Gee, how’d you figure that?” I tried to cover my own discomfort regarding the situation with a disingenuous smile.
“A woman’s intuition. Powerful magic, that is!”
She was right—not just about a woman’s intuition, which is crazy enough. She was right about Emilie. I needed to fill her in. It was clear she wasn’t exactly thrilled by Joni’s public displays of affection toward me earlier. At the same time, it was Emilie who had been the one to limit our relationship in the past. Surely she understood that meant I was free to pursue something else, with someone else. Still, talking about it was bound to be awkward. Even as I dreaded the necessary conversation, a part of me was actually looking forward to it. Nothing feels worse than when issues are left hanging. I’ve always felt a compelling need to resolve tension in my personal relationships as soon as possible. If I don’t, it bothers me like a chigger bite that won’t stop itching until it gets scratched. I needed to clear the air. I needed to tell her how Joni got involved, how things progressed with her unexpectedly… all of which I was still trying to figure out myself. Emilie would understand… eventually.
With the inevitable looming, time seemed to slow down. I don’t think I retained anything of my second period trigonometry lecture. I was too occupied dwelling over the precise words I would employ when I saw Emilie the next hour.
Tick. Tick. Tick. The second hand of these school clocks never “tocked.” The clock lurched forward, one painful tick after the next. My trig teacher rambled on about cosign this, hypotenuse that. Sohcahtoa. Or was it Sacagawea? Whatever. I didn’t care. This time, however, senioritis had nothing to do with it. There was no sense dwelling on it. No matter how many times I envisioned the eventual encounter with Emilie in my mind, the real conversation would likely go differently. I knew Emilie as well, or better, than I knew myself. Still, these were uncharted waters.
Don’t get me wrong—Emilie and I had each dated other people in the past while our own relationship status remained squarely in the “friends” column. In the past, all our feelings were either suppressed or left unstated. We both had similar experiences, however, with dating. It would never extend beyond a date or two before our prospective significant others realized that any relationship would take second place to the bond that Emilie and I shared. Even with Joni, I was sure that it could never be allowed to come between Emilie and me. This happened so suddenly, though, that I wasn’t sure what to think. By not talking to Emilie about it, I had already allowed my relationship with Joni to interfere. And now, even while Emilie rejected the possibility of a relationship presently, she did open up the possibility of an “us” in the undetermined “someday” of another phase in life. Still, did she really expect me to wait for that?
I shouldn’t have been shocked to discover that Emilie was also anxiously anticipating our conversation. She met me by my locker between second and third periods. She and I shared each of our lockers, since ours were on opposite ends of the school. This allowed us, effectively, to strategically minimize our travel time between classes, keeping the needed books in whatever locker was closest to the path we’d need to take. When I saw her, though, the locker wasn’t open. She was simply leaning against it, making eye contact as I drew near. She didn’t look angry. She was smirking. She wasn’t mad. Not exactly. I could tell from the look in her eyes, though, that she was at least moderately annoyed.
I feigned a yawn, stretching out my jaw to accommodate what might be my incoming foot. “Hey Ems,” I addressed her as I began spinning my locker’s padlock to its defined combination.
“Hey… lover boy!” She attempted a southern accent, mocking Joni’s shocking greeting earlier in the day.
“Yeah… about that… I should have mentioned it last night.”
Emilie shrugged. “Wouldn’t have made much difference.”
“Still. It would have been better.”
“Do you realize, Elijah, why I said we couldn’t be together?”
“You think you’d trap me here…”
“You don’t get it. I want to be together. I just didn’t want you to plan your entire future around me. Yes, I didn’t want to hold you back. But it was more than that. I love you. I’m too in love with you to tie you to a relationship when you have the chance to go to an incredible school, figure out what you want to be… Then what do you do? You hook up with Miss Perfect weeks before graduation. You hold yourself back…”
“I wasn’t trying to hook up with Joni,” I tried to explain.
“Really.” She was unimpressed. “It sure looked like you two were all hooked up to me…”
“Emilie.” I tried to assert myself in the calmest tone possible. “She knows…”
“What does that even mean?” Emilie asked with a hit of impatience in her voice.
“The tree. What’s happening to me. She was behind us on the highway. She saw it. All of it. She saw my eyes. She knew…”
Emilie’s perturbed countenance immediately shifted to one of concern. “Oh…” She paused a moment before scrunching her brow. “So what, then? Go out with her so she won’t tell anyone? Brilliant plan, Bear.”
“No, there’s more.”
Emilie’s eyes widened, and she stared at me blankly as if to say, “And…?”
“She didn’t just see it. She knew what it was. How I did it. She had some big secret herself and wanted to let me in on it. She wanted to help. But you have to understand… it was her secret. I couldn’t say anything until I heard her out. But that’s no excuse. I should have told you what I could when I called. I should have filled you in.”
“So what’s this secret? What did she tell you that somehow compelled you to become her boyfriend? Right now, your logic is failing.”
“When she was a kid, her family was attacked. It was some kind of Voodoo black magic. So she spent her childhood learning to protect herself. She knows defensive magic. She gave me this…” I pulled the necklace out from my shirt. “It prevents me from having any… accidents. You know, until I can control this better. She guessed I was a Druid, and the last vision we saw confirmed—”
Emile abruptly raised one hand. “We saw?”
“Yeah, in first period. I took off the necklace and grabbed my father’s stone. She grabbed my hands, and then we were there. She went into the memory with me.
I swear, I didn’t know it was even possible. It happened by accident, really.”
“What did you two see?”
We began making our way toward class as I summarized the vision for her. We sat down beside one another as the third period bell rang.
“Whoa, Bear. The archangel Michael? That’s big league…”
“You’re telling me!”
“So… you and Joni have all this in common. And you just asked her to be your girlfriend out of the blue?”
“Not how it happened. She asked me to come over yesterday, after school. She told me all this stuff about her history, what she knows about magic. She helped me… Well, sort of. She showed me how to make a tree grow, how to make it respond to me. Then, she just kissed me.”
“And you kissed her back?”
“Well…”
“You kissed her back.”
“Yeah… I mean, it happened so fast. It was like an impulse. I didn’t know what it meant. Then, I got home. I had the first vision from my father. When I called you, that was all I was thinking about. I thought it was just the moment, like it was one kiss and that was it. Then this morning, Joni sort of claimed me in front of the whole school…”
“Well, you didn’t object. Do you like her?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I guess. I’m still figuring it out. But I think I do. I mean, it’s nothing serious right now…”
Emilie took a deep breath. “You realize what she’s doing…”
I shrugged.
“She’s using you, Elijah. If you couldn’t do what you do, would she still be fawning over you? You need to seriously ask yourself… is it you she wants, or your magic?”
“You know, Ems… I don’t know. But face it, we’re clueless about this stuff. Regardless, we need her. She can help me control this. If being together—being her boyfriend—is the cost for that, well, I don’t want to push her away.”
“So, you’re using her, then?” The tone of her voice indicated that she didn’t believe a word of it.
“Not exactly. Like I said, it isn’t like I don’t like her.”
Gates of Eden: Starter Library Page 11
