sedona files 05 - falling angels

by Christine Pope

  Although I could understand why, I hoped Taryn’s vision was wrong, or at least wasn’t showing her the whole picture. Grace had worked so hard to get her job with the National Weather Service up in Flagstaff. I’d hate to see her have to give it up. Even for Logan. Was she worried that she wouldn’t be able to explain him to her friends and colleagues, once she was away from the safety net she had here in Sedona?

  “That’s too bad. I hope she reconsiders.”

  “Me, too.”

  I could tell Taryn didn’t want to talk about it, so instead I steered the conversation to safer topics, like whether we were still going to run away to Phoenix for a week in February to avoid the inevitable crowds the Sedona film festival always seemed to bring. She went along with my obvious diversion, but I could tell from the speculative looks she was giving me that she didn’t think I would actually be going anywhere with her next month. Not with this whole Raphael thing going on.

  As to that, I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t argue that he and I shared a connection I still didn’t completely understand, but what did that really mean? Did he intend to whisk me away in his spaceship and show me the galaxy? Somehow he didn’t seem the type to settle down to a quiet existence here on Earth.

  Taryn and I were both uncharacteristically silent by the time the bill came around. I grabbed it, and she shook her head.

  “You don’t have to treat me all the time,” she protested. “I’m starting to feel like a poor relation.”

  “Hey, I asked you to meet me here so I could cry on your shoulder,” I replied. “No way am I making you pay.”

  She still didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t protest. It was true that I did tend to pay most of the times we grabbed a snack or went out for drinks, although she wasn’t much of a drinker. Her family did okay, although they didn’t have an apparently bottomless alien-funded bank account the way my father did. But I didn’t want her to feel bad about my having more money, especially since that was no one’s fault.

  After that, we walked out to the parking lot together. Since the diner was crowded and the lot almost full, we hadn’t been able to park anywhere near each other.

  Taryn gave me a little wave as she headed off to the spot where she’d left her car. “I’m not sure I helped any, but if you need to talk some more — ”

  “You did help,” I said. “A lot.” And that was only the truth. No, we hadn’t really solved anything — that was for me and my parents and Raphael to work out — but it had still felt good to talk to a friend, to have her try to understand what I was going through. Just having someone around who didn’t think Raphael was the devil was a step in the right direction.

  She flashed me a smile, then shoved her hands in her pockets and headed off toward the hand-me-down Honda crossover vehicle she drove. Something in her air seemed distracted, though, and I wondered then if she’d been telling me the whole truth when I asked her about what she’d seen in her vision. Taryn was no liar, but she did have a tendency to hold things back.

  Well, maybe we’d get a chance to talk later. Right then I was trying to figure out what the hell to do next. My phone had buzzed a few times while Taryn and I were commiserating over ice cream, but I’d ignored it, guessing those messages were from my parents. I knew I’d have to face them eventually. Right then, though, I was feeling spectacularly not in the mood for that kind of a confrontation.

  A movie seemed like the safest best. The theater was just down the street, and I could pick something at random and sit there in the dark for a few hours while I decided what to do next. I hadn’t heard anything from Raphael, but I wasn’t too surprised by his radio silence. It wasn’t as if he could just materialize in the middle of a crowded diner and sit down next to me.

  I parked at the theater, then went up to the box office and bought a ticket. The movie with the most convenient showing was some 3-D action flick, but I figured that watching things get blown up for a couple of hours might be a good way for me to forget my problems for a while.

  Since I didn’t want my eardrums to get too rattled, I sat down near the back. Because of the holiday, the theater was already halfway full and promised to reach capacity, if the way people kept filing in with their soft drinks and bags of popcorn and nachos was any indication.

  Someone sat down next to me, and I let out a little resigned sigh. It was probably too much to ask that I have the buffer zone of a few empty seats, given how crowded the place was.

  Then I felt a delicious tingle as the man who’d sat down laid his hand on top of mine. “Callista.”

  His voice seemed to cut through the chatter that surrounded us. I shifted so I could look into his eyes. “How did you find me?”

  “I always know where you are…now.”

  Maybe he’d meant for those words to be reassuring, but a little shiver worked its way down my spine, and it wasn’t the thrilling kind. “What, did you put a tracker on me or something?”

  He chuckled. “Of course not. Now that we’ve recognized the bond between us, it’s something that…as your people might say…goes with the territory.”

  I digested his reply and tried to figure out how much it bothered me. If it really bothered me at all. Some people might have thought that close a connection a bit creepy, but considering how we still had Reptilians hanging around the immediate solar vicinity, I found myself more reassured than anything else that Raphael would always be nearby.

  “Why can’t I sense you?” I asked.

  “Because you haven’t practiced.”

  Well, I couldn’t really argue with that. Nor did I want to right then, since the theater began to darken and the usual admonishments about silencing all personal devices, no talking, no crying babies began to appear on the screen.

  Raphael touched my hand. “Do you want to stay?” he whispered.

  Of course I didn’t. I’d only bought the ticket in the first place because I didn’t want to go home just yet. So I shook my head, and he got up out of his seat. Luckily, he was on the aisle, so I didn’t have to climb over anyone as I grabbed my purse and followed him toward the exit. While I walked, I buttoned up my coat as best I could with one hand.

  “Did you drive here?” I asked. Maybe that was a stupid question, but then, my father had driven a car when he first met my mother. But he’d been pretending to be a Man in Black, a government agent. Raphael wasn’t exactly here undercover, unless you counted looking like an ordinary human being instead of someone who’d been born in a star system thousands of light-years away.

  To be fair, he didn’t look exactly like an ordinary human being. But he did still appear human enough, although more like someone who should have been up on the movie screen we’d just left behind. Or maybe a billboard, modeling the latest designer boxer-briefs.

  Okay, that thought was way too dangerous, since it started me on some visualizations that would probably get me in trouble. Luckily, Raphael had shaken his head and was saying, “No, of course I didn’t drive. But the stalls in the restrooms here are quite handy for the times when one needs to drop in.”

  “Resourceful.” By that point we’d reached the space where my SUV was parked, so I asked, “What next? Are we going back to the ship?”

  “Not yet.” His dark eyes were far too keen, probing my features. “You spoke to your parents?”

  “Yes. It didn’t go so well.”

  “They do not approve.”

  “That’s an understatement.” It was really too cold to stand there and talk. I unlocked the car and climbed into the driver’s seat, and a moment later, Raphael followed suit, fumbling a little as he fastened the apparently unfamiliar seatbelt.

  “Perhaps we should go talk to them together.”

  I shot him a sideways glance, my finger pausing above the ignition button. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

  “Why not?” He sounded genuinely curious.

  “Because, as predicted, they freaked out.” All right, my mother had done most o
f the freaking out, but still. I went on, “What makes you think they’re going to behave any better if the two of us try to talk some sense into them?”

  “Because, as you just said, it will be the two of us. If they see us together, it may well be that they’ll realize the connection is there, and then they will leave off with their protests so we can focus on more important things.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. “So you think what’s happening with us isn’t important?”

  At once he shook his head. “That is not what I said, Callista. What I meant is that this conflict between you and your parents is not a good use of our energies. There are much more important things to be doing than protesting the inevitable.”

  “So…this is inevitable?” I asked slowly. “This thing between us?”

  For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. Then he leaned over and took my hand in his, pressed it to his lips. I was wearing gloves, but right then that didn’t seem to matter. I could still feel the electric shock of his touch moving down my arm and flowing out into my body. Need coursed through me, and I pulled in a ragged breath.

  Then he said, “What do you think?”

  He was right. It was inevitable. I was falling in toward him like a planet being pulled into the irresistible force of a black hole. I couldn’t fight it, couldn’t pull away.

  Not that I really wanted to.

  “All right,” I told him. My voice shook, but I didn’t bother to control it. Raphael knew exactly what kind of effect he had on me.

  “Let’s go meet the parents.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I pulled into the garage and shut off the car. Beside me, Raphael was silent, watching as I sat there for a few seconds, trying to pull myself together as much as I thought I could manage right then. Without speaking, I picked up my purse and got out, and a moment later he climbed out of the SUV as well.

  Unfortunately, I really didn’t have a plan. Raphael hadn’t offered much of one, either, except to say that it was in no one’s best interests for us to continue to sneak around. Which, on the surface, I totally agreed with. Problem was, he’d had a couple of thousand years — more or less — to figure out how to be an adult. I’d only been giving it a try for the past several years, and a half-assed one at that. Living in my parents’ casita had given me only a very spurious sense of independence.

  Truth was, I’d been drifting for the past year, working at part-time jobs instead of deciding what I wanted to do with my life. Sometimes I’d envied my cousin Kelsey for her single-minded devotion to Michael Oliver, even if that devotion didn’t seem to be reciprocated. At least she knew what she wanted out of life, whereas I hadn’t felt connected to much of anything.

  I felt connected now, though. This attraction…connection…whatever it was with Raphael, it was real. More real than anything I’d ever experienced. I couldn’t lose that, not just as I was beginning to realize my life could be something more than just me being my parents’ daughter.

  And Raphael was right. Trying to hide our relationship from my parents was dishonest and a very poor way to handle the situation. We needed to get all this cleared up so we could focus on more important things.

  He gave my free hand a brief squeeze just as I was opening the door that led from the garage to the house. Warmth flooded through me again, but this was a very different sort of heat, one which sprang from gratitude that he understood how worried I was and wanted to offer me comfort.

  It wasn’t the sort of gesture I would have expected from him, two days ago. But had he really changed, or only my opinion of him?

  The kitchen was empty when we came inside. My first thought was that my parents must have abandoned their idea of getting takeout and had gone out to dinner altogether. But then I realized that didn’t make any sense — both their cars were still in the garage, and it was still way too early, not even five o’clock yet.

  The mystery was solved when I heard my father call from the family room, “Callista?”

  I swallowed. Raphael took me by the hand and went in the direction of my father’s voice. When we entered the room, I saw that he was sitting in his favorite chair, my mother curled up on the couch, her tablet in her lap while she read a magazine. A fire crackled away in the hearth. It was a cozy scene, but when my mother’s gaze fixed on Raphael’s and my hands, saw the way our fingers were twined together, a shiver went through me.

  My father spoke, his tone quiet. “We were worried.”

  “I went to Red Planet Diner with Taryn,” I replied.

  “The three of you?” he asked.

  “No,” Raphael put in. “I met Callista afterward.”

  “Ah.”

  My mother set her tablet on the coffee table and sat up. She’d kicked off her boots and was in her stocking feet, but her blue eyes were still fierce enough as they took in my companion.

  Raphael, however, seemed completely unfazed. Maybe he was; my mother could be a tough customer, but he’d probably faced down a lot worse in his time. “We thought it would be best if we came and spoke with you.”

  She didn’t blink. “You did? And how much of that was Callista’s idea?”

  “Not a lot,” I admitted, before Raphael could reply. “But he convinced me that it would be better if we cleared the air.”

  “Thank you for that,” my father said. He wasn’t quite frowning, but the line between his brows was more pronounced than usual. “This development has been…difficult.”

  “I can imagine.” Raphael’s tone was dry, but once again I felt him give my hand one of those reassuring little squeezes. “Difficult for Callista and me as well, although I’m not sure if that’s what you wished to hear.”

  “What I’d like to hear is that this has all been a huge mistake,” my mother said. “I have the feeling that’s not going to happen, though.”

  “No, it’s not,” I told her. “Why should it be a mistake with Raphael and me, when it wasn’t for you and Dad?”

  She opened her mouth, and I had a feeling that once again she was going to tell me their situation had been entirely different. But then she subsided, as if realizing that particular argument hadn’t gone over very well just a few hours earlier.

  My father got up from his chair and went to sit next to her on the sofa, as if trying to show her that he understood her current inner turmoil.

  “Old prejudices can be difficult to overcome,” Raphael said, and I winced. I knew that was going to go over like a lead balloon.

  “Are you calling me a bigot?” my mother shot back.

  “No,” he replied, looking completely unruffled. “What I am saying is that your previous encounters with me were less than pleasant, and so you are letting those memories color your current attitude. There were many reasons why I behaved as I did, most of which had very little to do with my own wishes or opinions. We were in a crisis, and I had to act accordingly.”

  “But now everything has settled down, and so I’m supposed to forget about all that?”

  “No,” Raphael said. “I fear that it hasn’t all settled down. Not entirely. But I would hope that you could revisit your own beliefs and experience, and realize that what happened more than twenty of your years ago has nothing to do with how I feel about Callista. Believe me, I was as shocked by my reaction to her as you most likely were upon hearing the news. Since you have spent so many years with Martin, however, I had hoped you understand how these things work.”

  The problem was, I knew she understood. She’d experienced the same lightning-bolt attraction herself. But it was one thing to feel that sudden race of desire for a handsome near-stranger, and quite another to realize your own daughter had just experienced that same bolt from the blue, especially when that bolt had come from one of your least favorite people in the universe.

  For a long moment, she said nothing at all. My father laid a hand on her knee, although he remained silent, too, as if understanding that she was the one who had to work through this. He might not ha
ve been entirely happy about the situation, but he did know that the connection between Raphael and me was not something that had come about because he wished to spite them, or had returned to Earth simply to make my mother’s life difficult. Even the Pleiadian scientists and psychologists couldn’t explain exactly how these attractions worked, except that they seemed to occur on a level far deeper than our conscious wishes and desires. It was almost as if our DNA recognized who our other half was meant to be.

  At last she sighed, and covered my father’s hand with her own. “I’m not going to lie,” she said. “I’m still not happy about it.” Then her blue eyes took on a wicked glint that I recognized. “You may want to do a good deal of sucking up to me on Mother’s Day.”

  He didn’t pretend to be confused. Raphael might not have known all the ins and outs of modern American society, but he’d been Persephone’s spirit guide for almost two decades, and probably a guide for many others even before that. He’d had enough exposure that he understood most references.

  “Of course,” he said politely. “Do you prefer red roses or pink?”

  “Yellow, actually.”

  I shook my head. She was only telling the truth, but the way she’d replied had sounded so…contrary. I asked, “So are we all okay now?”

  “We’re okay,” my mother said. “Just okay. ‘All okay’ might be pushing it a little.”

  Well, that was better than where we’d started, so I’d take it.

  “Why don’t you stay for dinner?” my father asked. “We finally agreed on Greek.”

  I shot a helpless look up at Raphael. It was a kind gesture, and maybe I should have accepted the dinner invitation, but I felt as if we’d just attained a fragile peace. Having my mother and Raphael in the same room for several hours at a time might be pushing it a little.

  He smiled and said, “That is a gracious offer, Martin. But I fear I will have to decline this time. I’d already asked Callista if she would dine with me, and since things are still new between us….”

  “Got it,” my father said, looking resigned. He sent a brief glance toward my mother, but she didn’t seem inclined to argue. If anything, she looked relieved, as if she was just as glad as I that she wouldn’t have to spend an extended amount of time with Raphael. It would probably be better if they only got small doses of one another until time had smoothed out some of the wrinkles in the way we all got along together.