“I thought I raised you better!” She said with a stern voice.
“I’m telling the truth!” I cried.
“I know you are. I just cannot believe you are actually debating giving everything up for strangers.”
My face went numb. I was just staring at her in complete disbelief. I was the one who was having a prank pulled on them.
“What?”
“Everything in life you have been through, all those people that hurt you, and you want them to be able to have a second chance? I don’t know what to do with you.”
She looked away from me and focused her attention on Sebastian. Was he controlling her? Could he do that? My mother would never just give lives up so easily. She taught me everyone had a heart and deserved a chance. What was making her change her mind?
“But what about the rest of the people? Just because a few of them hurt me, does that really mean that I should give up on them?”
“You’re not giving up on anyone but yourself if you do that.” She said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Love conquers all, Mirabelle. In it, you will find your way.”
“What love? Who am I staying here for?”
“Me, of course.” She smiled.
“Mom, if I stay here, it won’t be with you.”
“I know that.” She sighed, “It’d be for him.”
I looked at Sebastian, slowly. I was preparing myself for the grin that was bound to be across his face. And sure enough, there it was. He was beyond happy. He was glowing. He had wanted this answer. I wished there would be a way to ask him if he were a mind controller without throwing my mother through a loop.
Devilish charm and maroon eyes, he smiled that smile at me. I wanted to smack him. I came here for answers and he was tampering with her. He was ruining my second chance with my mother. So instead of having guilt the rest of my life in eternity, he wanted me to resent him for taking that away, too? Did Aegyssusians not have a conscience either?
Well, two could play the game he was puppeteering so well. I could turn her against him and get the truth. I was hoping it wouldn’t have to resort to that, but it seemed to be my only option. I honestly didn’t know why I thought it’d succeed, though.
“He’s not who you think he is.” I sneered.
“You’re her angel.” She said.
My tone went right past her. She was ignoring me. I hated it even more. I could feel my temper rising. This is isn’t the time nor the place for a tantrum.
“I am. She is very brave.” He said.
“You really see no way for her to go back and fight for them?” Joe asked.
I had forgotten he was with us, but go figure, he was the only one against me seeing her and yet the only one making this easy on me.
“How would she accomplish that, really?” Sebastian mocked him.
“I don’t know, hence my asking.”
“It is something only she could figure out. But I have faith in her. She was chosen for a reason.”
As if to finally acknowledge my existence, Sebastian made eye contact for a split second with me. I still saw the happiness in his eyes. He really wanted me to believe my only option was to stay with him. That wasn’t fair.
“Did you choose her, too?” My mother interrupted.
“I was the only one who chose her. I saw the good in her that was in no one else.” Joe said.
He took me off guard with that. I had been spending so much time being angry at him that nothing in me had wanted to remember the good. He was the sole reason I was here. Regardless of Sebastian being there to claim my soul, he was really there for Carlyle. He wanted to talk him out of the girl that could save the world. If Carlyle hadn’t believed in me so much, Sebastian would have never known me outside of my death.
“And what are her odds of survival, Angel?”
“You knew both of them were Angels? Like real Angels? Not metaphorically?” I asked her, completely astounded.
How could she tell? Could her death give her the site to see beyond their human forms? That would explain her reaction to Loki and Zerach, though. And possibly even their lack of presence here.
“Of course I do. Now answer me, please.”
Sebastian and Carlyle closed their eyes and turned back into their natural forms. I felt the air get lighter around us. My mother even seemed calmer. I figured the sight of them would cause her to remember her death in a traumatizing fit. Rather, she just sat there and stared them down for their response.
“You call her selfish for wanting to try to save everyone else and yet here you are, sitting here, asking what the odds are that she will survive if she goes back?” Carlyle asked.
“She needs to know. If she knows the truth, maybe she’ll listen to what I have been saying.”
“If she doesn’t go back to Earth, a life here won’t grant her entry to your heaven or any version like it. She’ll be here with us, for all of eternity.” Sebastian whispered.
It was as if he wanted to prove to me that she didn’t want a life with me, that my own mother would want me to sacrifice spending the rest of eternity in Heaven with her. Was he trying to kill me?
“Mirabelle, do you want to go back?” Carlyle asked.
He had been stuck on what my mother had said. He was getting frustrated. She was good at doing that. I was used to it after all these years. I wonder if their parents ever frustrated them. I couldn’t imagine Loki scolding them or putting them in time out. It was funny. Carlyle had asked me something. They were staring at me.
“She does that a lot.” My mother mouthed to them.
“We’ve noticed.” They both said in return.
“Sorry. I don’t know. But I know that I don’t want to be responsible for the end of all species on the planet.”
“You won’t be. This was going to happen with or without you.”
“This can’t be it.” I sighed.
“It has to be.”
“Why?” I knew; I just didn’t want to accept it.
“Mira, I have told you this.”
Sebastian reached out for me and tried to grab my hand. He was sandwiched between my mother and Carlyle, though, and it was difficult. I didn’t want to move closer and make it easy. He wasn’t even trying to see every side. He was biased. Blinded by love.
“I want to be with you, but I don’t think I could live with that guilt.” I said.
“You could live without us?”
“You really do love her?” My mother asked.
“I do, very much.” Sebastian confirmed.
His hand was still on the table, waiting for mine to place itself in it. I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. I needed to think.
“There is nothing else I can say anymore.” She smiled. “You have your answer, you knew it all along. Trust yourself.”
I watched her body slowly get up and stoop over me. She blocked the sun from my eyes. There was a halo of rays around her head. I was frozen. A single tear fell down her cheek then her soft lips pressed against my forehead. I closed my eyes and took the deepest breath I could. I had to savor this. I had to remember her smell and the way she felt. The longer she lingered, the more it seemed I had of her. I couldn’t say goodbye again.
I opened my eyes and there was a black figure in my peripheral. Zerach had come around the corner.
“NO!” I screamed.
“Yes, it’s okay sweetheart. You’re going to do the right thing. Everything is going to be okay.” My mother softly sang into my ears.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and held onto her as tightly as I could. If they thought I’d give her up without a fight, they were the fools. I was keeping her.
“It’s time.” Zerach said.
“I know.” My mother answered him.
“NO! No, it’s not! I’m not ready!” I cried.
“You were born ready, honey. You were special from the day God created you. This is your destiny.” She smiled.
There were tears streaming out
of her eyes. So much pain echoed there. I couldn’t trust her. She was trying to be brave for us. It’s okay, Mom; you don’t have to be brave. Tell them you want to stay with me. Stay.
“Mom.” I whispered.
“I love you.” She said, placing her hands on my cheeks. “Mirabelle, my darling girl, we have our goodbye. We get closure. You can do this, now.”
“I don’t want closure. I will never get over you. You will always be a part of me. I love you, Mom.” I cried.
She tried to pull away but I only dug in deeper. My body was convulsing. I couldn’t breathe. The stream next to us starting bubbling a yellow and green ooze. I had seen that lava before, with the Minakai. Their world was changing in my panic. I didn’t care. Nothing was beautiful without her. I had to fight for her.
I closed my eyes and held on. I could feel their arms and hands tugging at me. Someone had a hold around my waist and was pulling me off the ground. Sebastian and Carlyle, how could they?
Like a thousand knives slicing my arms into pieces, my grip was lost on her. I could feel the suction of our bodies snap apart. We belonged together. Why would they separate us?
My eyes finally opened and I saw her walking off with Zerach. The two of them were hand in hand. My heart was shattered. The sky lost its color. The rainbow forest was gray as far as the eye could see. This was fitting. This was how it should have been when she had passed. Instead, I had been tormented with beautiful spring weather. But this was reality. She was gone.
Sebastian and Carlyle were still holding on to me. I wasn’t moving anymore. I was just staring at the corner of the house she had just disappeared from. Everything went silent the way that it had when the Zahn opened its mouth to spit them out. Movement from the corner of my eye caused me to look up at Sebastian and Carlyle. They were talking. They were talking, but no sound was present. I looked back to where she had been before the front of the house engulfed her. The cloud was there. Had the silence literally come from it opening its mouth?
It was gone in seconds. I didn’t even see her go into it. There was no beacon of light or stream of Angels the way the movies depicted. Someone hit play and when the sound rushed back into my ear drums, I fell to the floor. It knocked the wind out of me. I was screaming. How long had I been screaming for?
I looked up to double check that everything really had just happened. Color was back. It was the Zahn that stole it. I second guessed the color the first time I had seen it here. The important thing was that it wasn’t from me. I hadn’t lost sight when she left. She left. She was gone. She couldn’t be gone. This wasn’t the end. I had already lost her. She was back in Heaven. I felt like I was going to throw up.
“It’s okay.” Sebastian tried to comfort me.
“She’s gone.” I whispered. “She’s gone!”
“Mirabelle.” Carlyle cooed, leaning down to place his arm on my shoulder.
“No. I can still find her. I can make it.”
I jerked my arm away and took off towards the forest. I didn’t care where I was going, I just wanted to get there. This world wasn’t real; there was an end to it. I would find it. She would be there.
There was an end to Earth, now, too. I didn’t care anymore. Spike was here, I was here, that’s all I had left. Everyone was right. I had nothing. My entire life was a joke. It was just a preparation for something claimed to be greater. I didn’t feel any greater.
I had lost her again. I was stupid to think I could handle seeing her and letting her go so easily. Sebastian should have known better than to have pushed that on me. However, he just wanted her to tell me to stay. He knew she’d want me to get my fairytale ending. There were no monsters that won the fairytale ending.
I was running from everything I had ever thought I needed in life. I ran through the trees and tried to find some sort of direction that seemed to get me to the edge of this world. Everything was so lovely here, though. Nothing was turning that into dark and dull vastness, warning that there was danger ahead. This place made me feel as if I was turning in circles. Had I been paying attention, I bet I would have noticed the same scenery flashing by me. This was hopeless. I couldn’t even run away correctly, how did they expect me to rebuild civilization?
“Because, as we’ve all said, you do not have to do this alone.” Sebastian smiled.
“You don’t get it.” I said.
He fluttered down from a branch and plopped next to me.
“Do not be mad at me.”
“I’m not.” I sighed.
“This will work.” Carlyle said. He walked out from behind a tree.
“Nice to know you’re not mad at me anymore; even though I’m not entirely sure what I did wrong in the first place.”
“It wasn’t you I was mad at.” He said.
“Then what?” I asked.
Was it really time to play make up? I just wanted to disappear.
“You never saw your worth. I saw it all along, Sebastian saw it, and you never accepted it. After the short time we have spent together, I understand why you did not feel your true worth. You get it now. You’re going to make the right decision.”
“Thank you.”
I smiled. He was right. I did feel a heightened sense of self worth that I owed to him and Sebastian. It was never really that I ever felt so mediocre, I just felt out of place. That can tear someone’s life apart, and it was happening to me. I found my place in the world. All my fears were gone. Carlyle was starting to get his charm back.
“Okay, not that I don’t want the two of you to get along or anything, but this isn’t the time for this.” Sebastian interrupted.
“He’s right. We have to go back to Father and let him know your decision.” Carlyle said.
“But-” I sighed getting up.
There was no time for any more discussion. Sebastian swept me up and took me out of the forest. In the air I could see that I had actually made it quite some way. I was proud of myself for that. Of course it had taken them only a few moments to have us back in front of the house; I didn’t care. Zerach wasn’t there anymore. I couldn’t see Loki, either, but Carlyle had just spoken of him so he had to be there.
“There you are!”
As if he had been sitting on edge, Loki rushed from the porch when we landed.
“She just got cold feet.” Carlyle joked.
He looked at my bare feet and then back at his son, he was obviously confused.
“Never mind Father, it’s a human thing.” He laughed again.
“What has been decided? It is getting stronger.”
“She is staying with Sebastian, here in Aegyssus, where she belongs. She has accepted her place among us.” Carlyle said.
“Are you sure?” Loki asked me.
“Can I go home for one last time?” I whimpered. I didn’t want to sound weak, but I needed that option to see my world the way I saw it before they came into my life.
“Spike.” Loki whispered his name like the wind calling for him.
“But, I thought he was here.” Sebastian asked.
“He cannot stay here. He is not granted in our realm. He will be with the child’s mother soon enough.”
“Then it is true? All the animals will go as well, with the humans?” I asked with a very shaky voice.
“Yes. All life must start over, if this is what you choose.”
“This is what she chooses.”
Sebastian grabbed my hand; his smile was from ear to ear.
“Very well.” Loki nodded his head.
He stepped up to me and knelt so we were eye level. I looked away. I couldn’t face him, for some reason. I knew he understood.
My heart started racing. I was afraid. He placed his hands on mine and told me to close my eyes. When I did, I felt tears slide down my cheek. They kept creeping up on me.
I wasn’t sure why, but I thanked him. It seemed appropriate until I was reminded of the complete agony the transit back to Earth entailed. That was nothing to be thankful for. My insides twi
sted and burned. My head was on the verge of exploding and I begged for the ending of the pain. There were images in my head this time. It seemed to be making things last much longer. I couldn’t take it. I wanted to collapse, but something was holding me upright. Suddenly, in the darkness, it stopped.
The. End.
((there is no time like the present))
Softness. Pain. I was crying. I was holding on to my necklace and crying. On my side curled up, Spike was with me. He was facing me. I was in her room on her bed. It wasn’t fair. The time I had held her for was so little. Sebastian walked into her room. He stared at me with impatience. I didn’t care what he had to say. I needed this.
“Are you ready?” He asked.
“Go away.”
I was terrified. I didn’t know how much longer I could hide the truth from him. If Sebastian had any inkling of a doubt that I would not be returning to Aegyssus with him, he would string me up now. Regardless of how well hog tying and throwing me over his shoulder would work, it would still be a delay in the time I needed to accomplish one last goal. There was too much inside of me that screamed the world was not lost. My hope was strong in humanity. That was my virtue.
“It’ll be okay, I’m here. And I’m not leaving you.” He said, walking over to me.
“Give me some more time.” I begged.
It was sheer cruel irony that I was able to mask my true intentions with the despair of my mother. If she had never passed, if I hadn’t just seen her after death, I would have never had the pain in my heart enough to overthrow the thoughts in my brain. I didn’t want him to feel them. I was doing so well not thinking of the lifetime I was destined to have without him. But he needed to hear otherwise. That’s why my mother said what she said. She trusted me so much and knew I would see through her words. Of course, she wanted my happiness and for me to be with my true love, but we both knew the guilt of having the world wiped out on my behalf, would be no happiness at all.
Sebastian leaned close behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I felt him kiss my head. My strength was diminishing by the seconds.
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