by Anthology
I waved back, ready to ask my mom who he was when she turned in that same direction and asked me who on Earth I was waving at. Aidan, glancing up only briefly from his score, looked in the same direction and shrugged.
Whoever he was, only I could see him.
He sometimes visited me on the playground. I never played with anyone but myself, or Aidan, if he took pity on me. Most of the kids thought I was weird because I wasn’t as savvy at hiding my true self as Aidan, so it was nothing to see me talking into the air to an imaginary friend.
But he never answered.
Over the years, his appearances shifted with my growth. In junior high, he’d join me on walks home from school. By then, I’d begun to fill out and become more aware of myself, the way all girls do. I didn’t see myself as pretty, but I felt pretty with the mysterious, black-haired stranger at my side. If only others could have seen him as well… could have seen the way he looked at me.
I viewed the quiet stranger as my guardian though he’d done nothing evidencing this was his intention at all. Not a word, and not an action, other than his silent, encouraging smiles and constant presence. He would appear to me, and then I’d not see him again for days, sometimes weeks. But he always returned.
In high school, though, his appearances took a different turn.
For one, he spoke to me.
This happened the night during sophomore year when I broke up with my first real boyfriend. The tragedy of lost love in those tender years was always disproportionate to the crime, and my heartbreak seemed immeasurable. Nothing, of course, compared to what it felt like to lose Chad. That particular pain I can’t revisit. Not yet.
My guardian appeared that night, this time offering me his arms. I studied him, wondering what might happen should I step forward and take his comfort. Would I pass through him? Become like him?
Too sore from the day’s sting, I tossed off all caution and moved into his embrace. My first thought was; how warm he is! He felt kissed by the sun, despite us being in the throes of winter. Something damp passed down my cheek, and I wondered at the sensation, having cried all my tears out on the walk home. But it was his tears passing over my skin. After all those years, I understood my guardian was real.
“I will always love you, Autumn Anabella.” I heard the voice in my head, not from his lips, but I knew it to be his.
“Tell me who you are,” I pleaded.
“When you need the knowledge, you will know.”
He appeared every night after, slipping into the bed beside me with open arms. I fell asleep that way for a year before he kissed me for the first time. I’d just started my senior year, and hadn’t had another relationship since that last one. I couldn’t tell anyone I was in love with another; someone they could never see or meet.
Our friendship and bond never progressed further than a kiss. Some of them left me satisfied while others left me wanting so much more. He was my nameless guardian. My secret love.
When I left New Orleans for Portland, I took for granted he would follow. He was very clearly not like anyone else I knew, and while I had no answers as to where he went when he was not with me, I supposed it to be on another plane than ours. One without the same limitations. Presumably, somewhere not hampered by distance.
A week went by in my dorm room, and my guardian made no appearance. Then a month, and eventually a semester. Fearing he was put off by me having a roommate, I used some funds from my father’s trust to get an apartment. It wasn’t the best use of my money, I knew that, but the loss of my constant companion hit me harder than I expected.
I loved you, I would sometimes whisper into the cold brick flat, wondering what I’d done to turn him away from me. The promise of even maybe seeing him again prompted me to cave to my mother’s desires to see me return to New Orleans and attend Loyola Law as she had.
The truth was, after about a year, I’d come to accept he was gone, and for reasons I might never get the chance to know.
Except now he was back. This time, in the flesh and with an attitude. Not only that, his re-emergence seemed to come with a busted memory. He had no idea who I was, except the girl who’d turned his nice bike into a hunk of twisted metal. Fate had a cruel way of answering prayers.
And his name was Gabriel. After all these years, now I knew.
There was no graceful way to say I’d been in love with him since I was seven. Whoever he was now, he was not the kind and gentle soul who had kissed my heartbreak away and held me through the worst years of my life.
It would be best for both of us if he’d left while I’d been at school.
Of course, Gabriel was there when I got home.
Garlic and sage violated my senses, in a foreign but not entirely unwelcome way. I hadn’t had a home-cooked meal since I left New Orleans, except my occasional visits home.
“I do hope you like pasta,” Gabriel said, turning to me with tongs in one hand and a large spoon in the other. I eyed the foreign objects suspiciously; they must have come with the furnished apartment.
“I… uh…” I didn’t quite know how to ask the question. “I thought you might already be on your way.”
“Is that a yes? If not, there’s a homeless shelter a few blocks down.”
“Yes, I mean, sure, I like pasta.” What was he still doing here?
“Wonderful,” Gabriel answered, turning back toward the stove. He seemed at home in the kitchen, even mine, which had all the ambiance of an afterthought.
I tried to offer my help, but he only smiled in response. A hint of mischief played at the edges of the gesture, and I wondered if he knew how terrible I was in the kitchen.
Gabriel, my guardian, was cooking for me. He was also acting as if fifteen years of my life hadn’t involved his regular presence. I preferred to think he was acting because the alternative was worse: Was it possible he’d really forgotten?
Consumed with the flood of memories of my Gabriel over the years, I entirely missed him setting the table.
“How was school, Autumn?” he asked, gesturing for me to take a seat. I did so in a daze.
“Fine, I guess.” He nodded at the fork to my right. Gabriel was already digging into his own dish. “If I’m honest, I had a hard time focusing.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
I glanced up at him hiding a grin. Was he making a joke?
“Why are you here?” I blurted, dropping my fork. Heat spiraled up from my chest and into my neck and face in a rush. I didn’t know if I should be playing my hand this early and didn’t care. “After all this time, you come back now? And then act like you don’t even know me?” I stood in a rush, the blood surging to my head. “What did I do?”
Gabriel observed me in clear astonishment. “Autumn…”
“All those years, Gabriel! Is that even your name? Or did you just make it up yesterday when you pulled out in front of my car like that?” I threw my hands up. My pulse raced. Were we really going there?
“My name is Gabriel. I promise you,” he answered. He stood slowly, methodically, then stepped toward me until I’d backed myself into a wall without understanding the source of my fear. “Why don’t we eat, and then we can talk?”
“I’m not hungry!”
“Autumn, please. I’m not trying to upset you.”
The reverse psychological power of those words had always profoundly impacted me. Even going back to my childhood, when I’d skin my knee or fall from my bike. It never hurt until Mom said, “That looks like it hurts, you poor thing.”
My breathing escalated from accelerated to full-out hyperventilation before his hand could touch my arm. I bent over to gather myself and catch my breath, allowing him to guide me back toward the chair.
“Look at me,” he requested, in a soft, soothing tone.
“I can’t breathe.”
“Look at me, Autumn. This is important.”
I willed myself not to do as he asked, but my head lifted anyway.
He had a cleaver in his h
and.
I drew an inward gasp, starting so hard I nearly fell out of my chair. I had no time to press him for answers.
Gabriel lifted the cleaver and brought it down on his wrist.
Eight – Gabriel
I had no other choice. I tell myself that, even now.
Something had happened to Autumn while she was away, something that escalated my period of assessment to the point or now or never. She knew I was not who I said.
She stood clutching at her neck as she watched the blood spurt from the wound where my hand had once been attached. I won’t lie; this hurt something fierce. It took all of my focused energy not to pass out from the shock of the injury. Immortality only protects us from death, not pain.
“You can help me,” I urged, wincing. Black spots danced in my retinas. We didn’t have long before I would have to intervene, but I had a strong feeling it wouldn’t come to that.
“I’ll… I’ll call… oh, dear God…” Autumn blubbered, eyes darting around the room as if some answer to the problem would present itself. “Where is my phone, oh God!”
“No time,” I managed. “You can.” I slowed my breath to avoid passing out. “You can heal me.”
Autumn’s jaw dropped. Her eyes traveled to the pool of blood now covering my half of the table, seeping through the gaps in the wood to an even larger pool on the floor.
“Autumn!”
Her head snapped up at the sound of her name. In a frenzy, she rushed over, hands in her hair, then crossed over her chest. She stared at me before focusing on the wound.
Trembling, her right hand hovered over my wrist. Her eyes locked on mine. The look in them bordered on defiant as if she dared me to challenge what she was about to do, despite me having asked her for it.
I opened myself to her and allowed her power to work.
The light that traveled through me when our skin connected had the power of an electric bolt. Forcing me back against my chair, which teetered briefly on two back legs before settling down, the combined magic radiating from her, and the pain still coursing through my physical form was more than I could handle. I had no choice but to observe. To assess. I hadn’t chopped my hand off for a nap.
Autumn’s expression screwed tight, her whole body now quaking along with her hand as she transferred the light to me. Tentacles of blood and bone swam out to re-attach to my broken wrist like so many wires. Cells replicated, re-fused.
In a matter of moments, I was once again whole.
As I admired the work of this young shaman, the air changed. With a whoosh, Autumn’s feet came out from under her, and she flailed back, losing all consciousness.
I caught her before she could hit the floor, lifting her into my arms. Watching her serene face as she recovered from her own shock.
The first time she’d healed me, she believed me to be passed out, and so, the healing had come at no risk to her.
This time, everything was on the line. All her attempts at hiding who she truly was would be exposed. As far as she knew, she’d chosen my life over hers.
Not even the other six had been forced to undergo a difficult test. Such a choice.
She was my seventh.
I watched over her as she rested.
Outside her bedroom window, the Portland rain proved once again relentless.
Not that it mattered now. We both knew I was not going anywhere for a while. The unknown variable was how the conversation would unfold once she was well enough to discuss her future.
How she knew me, knew of me, I could not say. Raphael’s lack of information was, once again, working to my disadvantage. I would need to somehow pull these truths from her, without revealing how much I did not know.
Inexplicably, the image of her which resonated most from our earlier exchange was the pain in her eyes when she said to me… After all this time, you come back now?
Nine – Autumn
Gabriel sat on the edge of my bed, perched like a gargoyle. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was meditating.
Well, maybe he should, after what he’d done. Chopping his hand off, like a damn maniac!
“How are you feeling?” he asked without looking up.
“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?”
“About that. I’m sorry. I saw I was losing you and needed to prove something to both of us.”
I pulled the blanket to my chin and turned to face him. His back, anyway. “And what, exactly? That you’re insane?”
Gabriel unfolded his stance and pivoted toward me. His blue eyes glowed in the moonlight flooding the room. “You’re someone very special, Autumn. Far more, even than you know.”
I snickered. “We have another word for that, where I come from.”
“I’m being very serious.”
“Okay, so let me be serious. You knew I would heal you before you did that. The Gabriel, or whatever you went by then, of my youth, would have known that. He also knew everything else there was to know about me. But this Gabriel, the one sitting on my bed, staring at me like I’m a scientific specimen, seems to only know that. Can you explain?”
The look he offered in return was first perplexed, and then slowly faded to warmth. “When was the last time you saw me? Before the accident, I mean.”
“Shouldn’t you know that?”
“My memory is not like yours. It operates outside of the usual space and time constraints you’re familiar with. Please, tell me.”
I should have been afraid. Or exhilarated. In any case, bouncing off the extremes of the emotional spectrum, looking for a safe place to land. Instead, I was intrigued. Here before me was the chance to know my guardian in a way he’d never allowed before. “You visited me all my life until you didn’t.” I paused. “The last time I saw you was the night I left New Orleans.” You kissed me goodbye with tears in your eyes.
A wall came up over Gabriel’s expression. No more reading into his facial tics. “I see.”
“You don’t remember the last time?” With a long swallow, I added, “Or you don’t remember me at all?”
“My memory isn’t linear like yours,” he said again as if that were an actual answer.
“I once asked you who you were. You wouldn’t tell me.”
“Perhaps I couldn’t,” Gabriel offered, not an answer so much as a guess.
I couldn’t wrap my brain around the idea of a non-linear memory, but even if things came to him out of order, wouldn’t I still be there, somewhere amidst the jumbled mess? “You’re telling me now,” I returned. “Today, I know your name is Gabriel.”
“Yes. A name I’ve had for some time.”
“How long is some time?”
He smiled. Said nothing.
“Okay, then. What else? You obviously know I can heal, and that doesn’t bother you or even seem to faze you in the slightest. Which means you’re either like me or someone—something—who has seen this before.”
Gabriel watched me but still said nothing.
“When you would come to me, no one but I could see you. Is that still true?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “And no.”
I sighed. “Care to explain?”
“Only those who need to see me can. No one else in your life was required to see me, so they did not. Thus, yes and no.”
I bit back a frown. “And why is it important that I need to now?”
At this, Gabriel showed the first signs of a crack in his countenance. “I can only answer as to why I’m here.”
I pulled myself to a sitting position, leaning against the brick wall where a headboard should be. “Then tell me.”
Gabriel leaned forward, his face uncomfortably close to mine yet also painfully familiar. “You are very special, Autumn. Far more, even, than you know.”
“The healing?” I laughed. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but a lot of us back home can do even more.”
“Yes, there are many others like you,” he agreed. “Some who share your blood. Many who do not. Th
at does not, in and of itself, make them special, however. Not by our ascribed standards.”
I tensed. Others were involved in this mess? “And who are we?”
“The Order. Of which I can tell you very little unless you choose to come with me.” He seemed to see I was about to throw another frustrated objection, because he added, “We are guardians of others like you, Autumn. And I do not mean others who can heal, or move items across rooms. I mean others who are like you, which is to say, indefinable by any mortal word in your language. Who you are can only be assessed by someone like me, with the experience to witness the differences.”
My head was tight, like a balloon overfilled with air, threatening to pop at any moment. “And that’s why you watched over me while I was growing up? Because you had to?” Did you pretend to love me?
“Had is a relative term,” Gabriel said after a short interval. With the hand that had only an hour ago lay severed on my kitchen table, he lifted mine. “I chose you.”
“But what does that mean?”
Tears erupted then, and I could do nothing to stop them. His words confused me more than his absence during the past three years, and the desire to beat my fists into him, or hold him in my arms and demand what he’d so easily offered and swiftly taken, were equally potent and destructive.
He pressed the hand he was holding to my face, and, his free one slid under my chin.
“It means I want you with me for all of eternity.”
Ten – Gabriel
How?
I had many questions, but that one jumped around at the top of the pyramid.
How was it Autumn had years of memories involving me when none of them had been real?
Not only memories but recollections of friendship, guardianship.
Love.
Autumn had loved me for nearly all of her natural life.
Lost me.
