“Four-leaf clovers are lucky, and I am half Irish, that’s true. But I think the herb affects me because of the memories of my family.”
She averts her eyes and stares down at the green leaves in her hand once more.
Juliana told me about her father’s death in a car accident when she was younger. “Did you see someone like me when your dad died?” It’s out of my mouth before I realize what I’m asking.
Bringing up her past hurts was not my intention. I spend my afterlife talking to the recently deceased where communication has little boundaries and resolving emotional conflicts happens fast. I have to remind myself that everyday occurrences still affect her life. She has a past that includes pain and loss.
“I don’t think so.” She bites her lower lip and then changes her answer. “Maybe. I didn’t really see spirits and people like you clearly until just recently, because of what happened at Castle Hill. It’s a powerful place and I’ve changed because of it. When I was small, it was just a feeling most of the time.”
“Do you regret it, Juliana? Your new abilities?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “That’s another rule; no regrets.”
“That would be hard for me,” I admit, and then go on to answer her question about my new angel position.
“Since Castle Hill, my cases are harder now. Before we met, I helped people adjust to being dead. I spent a lot of time answering questions and showing them the way across. Now I have to assess unfortunate situations and help clients who might be having thoughts of,” I pause to find an appropriate way to explain my current situation. My new case is delicate, as if I’m walking on thin ice and carrying someone’s life in my arms, while trying to keep us both from falling in. She wants to commit suicide. The first few days with my new client has given me a look at a grim reality. The magnitude of loss and waste of a life is far past pitying. Call it a gut instinct about this girl…and believe me, I know the idiocy of following my instincts right now. I had myself convinced Juliana was about to die and I’ve never been more wrong. My new case however, with my new duties, leaves the interpretation up to me. I want to help her, and not after she takes her life, but to do everything I can to help her find her way in the life she has now. She’s young and there has to be a better solution. If only I can help her find it.
“What’s the matter?”
“I apologize. I was trying to find the right way to explain what I have to do with my new case.”
“So are you still an angel? Not some demon who stalks women for their souls,” she teases.
“I don’t find that very funny.”
She turns back to the moss covered rocks behind her and scrambles up the sloped side, leaving me a spectator to her climbing abilities. She’s good, confident in her grips and without hesitation. It’s a short climb. When she reaches the top, she sits down and dangles her feet over the edge, watching me.
Her dark hair frames her face and shines like black glass. Her mouth looks soft and her eyes sparkle at me. This glimpse of such an innocent human moment almost paralyzes me. She is too fragile in a world full of danger. One slip on these rocks, or her comment about demons — there are real threats everywhere. I know she’s joking, but anything could happen at any time, and she could be gone before we even have a chance to know each other.
“Yeah, Mr. Serious,” she taunts. “Did I hit a home run or something?” She wiggles her brows at me like she wants it to be true.
“Of course I’m not evil. And yes, I’m still a helper.” I forgo the climbing, relinquish my physical body, and lift myself up through the air to where she sits. Her eyebrows rise as I do, and by the time I’m next to her, they have completely disappeared under her bangs, leaving her with a look of wide eyed amazement. “I move with my intent, remember?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Her brows lower and she looks to the mountain behind her rather than at my face. “What’s wrong? I can tell something’s up,” she asks again, this time in a lower more solemn tone.
“Nothing,” I automatically respond. She must have read my expression. I haven’t been seen by people for so many years, I have to remember to control my face around her. That is, if I don’t want her to know what I’m thinking. She rises and starts hiking away leaving me standing alone on the granite.
“I didn’t mean to upset you by bringing up your job. Let’s just forget it.”
When you don’t have a body, it is much harder to inflict pain upon yourself, but god if I could hit myself upside the head, I would do it on a regular basis. “Juliana, wait.”
“No, we’re almost there,” she says, keeping her pace steady and not looking my way.
I move along staying close to her. I’m an idiot. Fix this, Nathan. “My case…is this girl. She wants to end her life because, and this is only what I’ve figured out so far, her home life is miserable. No. Miserable isn’t a strong enough word. She’s being abused in indescribable ways. That’s not all I was upset about a second ago. I’m sorry. I want to explain, but it’s difficult.”
“Was it my joke about soul-sucking demons?”
I strain to hear what she just said under her breath but I think I got it. “Sort of. But, it’s not what you think.”
The ground levels out briefly as we cross a narrow road. Juliana hops over the ditch on the opposite side and ducks back into the trees. I look up and down the four-wheel drive track, seeing no one, but noticing fresh tire marks in the dirt. Amazed that we’re not the only ones up here. I assumed we were in a remote area of the forest. I shake it off, and move to follow her.
The trees are thick, in size and in number. They surround me on all sides, blocking the sun, and leaving me staring through midnight green shadows. Where did she go? I don’t see her. Did I upset her so much that she would ditch me? No. She’s not the kind of person to play petty games. I would know. She’s more down to earth and real than anyone I’ve ever met. Don’t call out to her. Keep looking. The trees are blocking my line of sight, that’s all. My previous fear that anything can happen at any moment to her human body is like a wasp buzzing in my ear, making me want to panic and overreact. The urge to protect her, to protect us, is overpowering but I manage to control my own imaginings. I close my eyes, listening for her soft steps on the spongy ground, but I hear nothing except the chirping of a songbird and the call of a distant raven. Concentrate, and go to her, and quit worrying. I could find her on the dark side of the moon if that’s where she was.
“Ooowww! Oh, oh, oh!”
Life is never simple. How can I ever quit worrying when Juliana Crowson is on the loose?
Less than a half of a second later I find her lying flat on her back with her eyes squeezed closed. I create my physical body and throw myself down on the ground next to her. “Can you move? Speak to me. What’s wrong? Please, are you all right?”
“Oh, holy saint mackerel, it hurts.”
“Where, what? Can you move, love? I can have you to a hospital right now.”
“A hospital?”
Her eyelids flicker open and then deep green sparked with bits of sun look up at me.
“Yes. I’ll take you there right now.”
A juicy tear leaks out from the corner of one eye and runs down over her temple making the clenching sensation around my chest implode. Is this my fault? Can excessive worrying create your worst nightmare? The need for action and security, to know she is going to be all right makes me start to lift her off the ground. I’ll carry her to safety. I’ll do anything I have to. The conflict between my brain and my hands is intolerable. Assess or react? When I see the slight twitching at the corners of her mouth, as if she may start laughing, I lean back an inch and take in more of the situation. She’s cradling her hand over her stomach, but otherwise looks uninjured.
“The emergency room would be a little overkill for this,” she whimpers.
She holds up her hand in front of me and I see the mother of all splinters in her index finger. I cringe at th
e sight of its jagged tail sticking out of her tender white skin. Looking down at Juliana’s face I find her head is turned away and her eyes are closed again. In all honesty I don’t want to look at it either. Seeing her blood, albeit only a few red drops, reinforces my overwhelming need to protect her. Her skin is turning red and beginning to swell. I want to take her pain and whisk it away like a Frisbee into oblivion. Straining for self-control, I ask again, “Can you move?”
“I think so.”
All right. Realizing her situation is not life-threatening, the ability to organize my thoughts returns and makes speaking with an iota of logic come much easier. “Then why are you on your back?” I ask slowly.
“I tripped,” she says, sounding embarrassed.
“We should get that splinter out,” I say, somehow managing to find an appropriate response to her emergency.
“I know, but me and blood don’t get along very well,” she says, her voice shaking.
I close my own eyes for a brief moment. It looks as if I’m going to have to help her with this. It wouldn’t be a problem to do it for anyone else, but to do it to her is worse than pulling my own splinter out. “I’ll pull it out if you want me to,” I offer reluctantly.
She looks up at me. Her eyes purposefully avoiding her hand. “Do it quick before I lose my nerve.”
She covers her face with her free arm and then holds up her injury to me. Her hand trembles in mine and I feel like I’m about to amputate, which is absurd but none the less true. She clenches her fist, baring white knuckles, but leaves her index finger sticking straight out. Now or never. And then, with as much delicacy that is possible for my large hands, I grip the tip of the splintered wood and yank. Juliana’s chest rises and falls in fast shallow breaths, but she doesn’t scream. I throw the offending piece of splintered wood to the forest floor casting it away like a mortal enemy.
“It’s out. Try to slow down your breathing.”
Her arm lowers from off of her face and she pushes herself up to sitting. Small pools of tears threaten to escape her lower lids. Her brave face is more endearing than I can stand at the moment and I feel yet another shift inside of me for this bewitching girl.
“Can I try something?” I ask, feeling odd about having to ask aloud to help someone. Normally, I comfort people in total silence. They never know I’m there. “It can help,” I add.
“Okay,” she says as she watches me.
I place one hand on her upper back and the other at the base of her skull. Then I begin to pull the same energy I use to manifest my body from the universe and push it toward her. The tension in her shoulders and back immediately release and I can feel her calm down inside.
“Thanks.”
“The wound should be washed out. Otherwise I would try to heal it.”
“The blood will help cleanse it.”
The ragged slash, about three quarters of an inch long, drips copiously.
“Is it very painful?” I have to ask.
“Actually, not excruciating…now. And I’ll be able to do more for it when we get to where we’re going.”
“We’re still going somewhere? I thought you were hiding from me.”
Confusion flashes across her face. “You? What? No. I, well, I wasn’t hiding. I got distracted.” She gives me an almost bashful and embarrassed look and then directs her gaze at something near her feet.
A low growing plant with broad green leaves was the “distraction.” Scuff marks in the dirt indicate where her heels had been digging in and where she had fallen back. She shrugs her shoulders at me.
“Was there something else? I feel like you’re…I don’t want to assume, but are you worried about something?” When I channel energy for a client, or someone who is grieving, I can feel layers of emotion. In Juliana, I would say there was more going on with her than an injured finger.
“I was trying to dig up some of the roots with a stick and it didn’t work out so well. There was…I thought I felt something.”
She pauses and looks away as if unsure, or unwilling, to continue.
“Were you afraid?” I ask tentatively. Fear was what I felt buried somewhere inside her. It was minor, but still there like the tail end of a passing undercurrent.
“From over there,” she says and tips her head slightly, back toward the road. “I must be making it up,” she says, shrugging and obviously not wanting to dwell on the subject. “Then my stick broke and attacked me. Vicious thing,” she accuses, her gloom lightening to playfulness.
“Attacked? Well, you were being forceful with it,” I say in the stick’s defense. If she doesn’t want to share what was bothering her I won’t push. When she’s ready, she’ll tell me.
“Fair enough. Stick wins. Looks as if I won’t be doing any more digging today. It’s too bad. We’re running low on devil’s club roots at work.”
“Devil’s club? What’s it for? Clubbing the devil,” I say in jest.
“It’s a general tonic, but Grandma Charlotte uses it for diabetes and sometimes arthritis. You know, she did tell me once that the Natives think the plant has strong magic. Warding off evil spirits and stuff like that. I don’t know how they use it exactly, maybe it is a club. Feeling any ill will toward that bush?” She flashes one of her irresistible grins at me. It’s a little shaky, but there. She will definitely live.
“You’re hilarious, you know.”
“I do keep trying, don’t I?”
“Don’t stop on my account.” I pause and then offer, “I could get the roots for you. And I can do it without blood or pain.”
“It’s not that important,” she says while staring at the leafy plant, disappointment clear in her tone. “I get sidetracked sometimes, and besides, I don’t have anything to put them in. I can’t believe I left my hiking pack in the car. And if I have to carry them the rest of the way, I may be tempted to whack you over the head to see what will happen.”
“I knew the name must be fitting to the use of the thing.”
Small bits of debris from the forest floor cling to Juliana’s hair. I reach for a clump of moss and gingerly pull it free. Restraint has never been a challenge for me until I met her. My hand aches to touch the silky softness of her hair again.
“I know you must have some hidden dark side under all that perfection. Dark angel is the same as devil, isn’t it?” She takes my cue and runs the fingers of her left hand through her long hair combing out the needles and dirt.
“I never said I was a dark angel.”
“You didn’t, but isn’t that what some would call you?”
“What if I said yes? Why aren’t you afraid?”
“Who says I’m not?”
Her green eyes are wide and clear and within their depths I would swear there isn’t one minuscule speck of alarm when it comes to my presence in her life. “I say.”
“I’m not afraid of you Nathaniel Evans. Maybe I should be, but you’re not scary to me.” All trace of her teasing has vanished leaving only serious calm to her words.
“I’m not the devil, or an evil spirit, or a dark angel. If you must call me something, then angel is probably the best. I guess. Nathan or Nathaniel is better. I help people after they die. I console and counsel. It’s a job,” I tell her with plain simplicity. “And I don’t know much about depraved spirits, and I really don’t want to.”
“Well, that makes two of us. What little I know — that is real — I don’t want to talk about either.” She casts her gaze down and then starts to stand. “I was kidding, by the way. There’s not a pinprick of wickedness in you. I could tell if there was.”
She glances over to where the road is and her gaze lingers there for a second too long. Does she sense something? “Are you sure you’re all right?”
She brushes her hand over her clothes removing specks of dirt. “Uh-huh,” she answers, avoiding my gaze.
Images of our last encounter at Castle Hill fill my thoughts, and by the distress which flashed across Juliana’s face, I’m guessing
she’s thinking similar things. When I had finally been able to return to her that dreadful day, it had been in time to see Juliana’s brother, Jared, bare-knuckle brawling with a good-for-nothing scumbag methamphetamine dealer named Mason. Juliana sat on the floor half in shock and with clear red finger marks around her neck. I had been consumed with fear for her well-being, and no one else’s. If she had not forced me, with those pleading eyes and her broken voice, to help her brother, I would have scooped her up and ran away with her. But I did help Jared, and what I saw was enough to change me forever. By the time I reacted, Jared was on the edge of no return, literally on the edge of an upper story windowsill of the castle. Mason had the upper hand in the fight, but he was not exactly alone. Someone — no, I correct, an evil spirit — was fighting within him. It was a malicious fiend, and it was horrifying. I saw it in Juliana’s eyes, that she could see it as well. Castle Hill is a place I think neither one of us will ever be able to forget, and never want to visit again.
I reach for her left hand and she lets me take it. “I only want to keep you safe. Is that all right?”
She bites her lower lip and then looks up at me. “You can’t be everywhere all the time, can you?”
“No. But for you, I wish I could be.”
“Certain things are out of our control.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to like it, but I know. You asked me what the matter was earlier. This is it. I realized anything could happen to you and I can’t control it. We have just started to know each other. It terrified me, and now this.” I glance down at her red finger.
“Nathan. I, you…we just have to stay in the moment. This,” She holds up her index finger showing me the swollen side and the drying blood, “is a perk of my job. Not a deadly accident. If anything does happen to me, or you, at least we knew each other. Even for a short time. Right?”
“Getting injured on the job is not a perk, it’s a hazard,” I argue.
Our relationship is just starting, so no. A short time is not good enough for me. When I’m with Juliana I can only imagine eternity together, not minutes. The way she stares at me, with caring eyes, and her kissable mouth, it’s so innocent and alive. It makes me want to lock her away in a cell with both of us inside and never see any threat or harm come near her again.
Angel Dreams (An Angel Falls Book 2) Page 2
