Falling From Grace (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  Comprehension dawned on me then—Robert was showing me what had happened the night my mother had died. This was a vision that he was sharing with me…but it felt all too real.

  I turned to look at his face but he motioned for me to watch. I turned my face back to see what I had been trying for so long, so hard to remember. And like pressing the play button after a long pause, it all came back to me.

  “Grace, Grace baby, are you okay?” the woman called out to the little girl in the back seat.

  “Yes, Mommy,” a small voice answered.

  The woman unbuckled her seat belt and turned around, reaching a bloody hand out to the little girl who took it and held onto it fiercely with dogged determination. “Grace, I want you to listen to Mommy, okay?” the woman asked in between the rough, fluid filled coughs that shook her body. “Listen, honey, I want you to say Mommy’s prayer with me, okay? Can you say Mommy’s prayer?”

  The little girl nodded her head. “Yes, I can say it.”

  “Good girl.”

  They began reciting the Psalm, and I recited with them. “…He’ll cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge…”

  The vehicle once again began to fill with an intense light. I heard the woman’s voice as it spoke again, “Grace, my precious baby girl. Mommy’s got to say goodbye now, okay? It is time for Mommy to go to Heaven, but I promise…I promise that you will be safe. You will be safe and you will be happy. Everything will be alright.”

  The little girl in the car began to cry, her hands tugging on the woman’s with frantic urgency. “No, Mommy. You only go to Heaven when you die. You’re not going to die, Mommy. Don’t leave me, Mommy!”

  “Sweet Grace,” the woman cooed, her voice growing faint with each breath. “Don’t fear death. Death is a blessing, remember? One day, death will be your savior, and you will understand everything. Now, close your eyes to the light, sweetheart; let the darkness protect you. I love you. I never wanted anything more than you. I love you, Grace.”

  And then the bright light became so intense, I could no longer see. An explosion scorched the brush around us, and I watched in horror as a monstrous ball of fire engulfed the car, consuming it. I cried out for my mother, but she couldn’t hear me. The force of the explosion had knocked over a utility pole, which set off a domino effect of poles tumbling down sideways along the shoulder. The sound rattled my teeth, but I did not feel the shaking of the ground as they landed.

  I couldn’t feel the heat of the flames, and I didn’t know if it was because this was only a vision, or if it was because my entire body had grown cold with the knowledge that for the second time in my life, I had witnessed my mother’s death.

  Out of the corner of my narrowed eyes I saw a movement on the ground several dozen feet in front of the flames. I scrutinized the motion and saw that it was body of the little girl. She was laying peacefully in the road as if someone had laid her there, her hand held out for comfort even in unconsciousness. I didn’t know how she got there, but I felt an urge to hold that hand; I gasped in surprise when Robert put me down, understanding my need. I ran towards her, slowing down to kneel on the crumbling asphalt beside her and held her outstretched hand. She continued to sleep, a sweet smile now on her face.

  Far off behind the burning car, I could see advancing lights; the first person on the scene was arriving. I had never known who it was that had arrived and called the police—Dad had never told me—but now was my chance to see for myself who was responsible for saving my life that night.

  The lights belonged to a large maroon van; the driver got out and started speaking in a foreign language to the passenger. I watched as the he walked hesitantly around the blazing car, taking note of the burning debris scattered all around him, and then gasp and run over to where I was kneeling. He ran completely through me, as if I wasn’t there—in truth, I wasn’t—and grabbed the little girl’s hand. He felt how warm she was, saw the rise and fall of her small chest, that she was still alive, and picked her up, running with her in his arms towards the van. I couldn’t help but follow him, the little girl now my only lifeline to this entire scene.

  He shouted more words that I didn’t understand as he was running and the sliding door of the van opened up to reveal an extremely large amount of children inside, all of them dark headed boys with mischievous grins. The person sitting in the front-passenger seat, a woman, was speaking into a large cellular phone, repeating in broken English that a little girl had been found on the road next to a horrible car fire. The boys were all staring in awe at the little girl; one of them looked strangely familiar.

  “Sean, get your water from the back. We have to give her some water,” the driver told the familiar looking boy and I recognized then that this was Stacy’s family. She wasn’t in the van with them, I acknowledged, because she had been sick in the hospital at the time.

  Sean did as he was instructed and the father gave the little girl a small swipe of liquid against her mouth. He felt her skin and shook his head in surprise. “She isn’t burning up. I don’t understand. She was so close to the fire, she should be hot to the touch, but she isn’t.”

  And so the first of the superfreak stories would begin, I thought to myself.

  I felt Robert’s hand on my shoulder and I turned to face him. “Stacy’s family was the one who called for help. I didn’t know that.” I turned around to watch what would happen next, but it was all gone. “Where did it go? Bring it back, Robert! I need to see the rest!”

  “That is all that I can show you, Grace. I shouldn’t have even shown you that. It isn’t good to bring you back to your past, especially when you’re so undecided about your present.” His voice was brusque, distant.

  I nodded reluctantly, understanding what it was that he had meant, and turned my face back to his. “Thank you.”

  He gave me a curt nod and repeated the same motions he had in my room, placing my arms around his neck and then picking me up, placing an arm beneath my knees, the other at my back. He leapt into the air and then we were flying again, his wings spread out behind us like a cloak of midnight against the starry sky. I placed my head into the hollow of his neck, feeling strangely at ease and content as I listened to the air rustle against his feathers. “Thank you, Robert. Thank you for giving my mother back to me.”

  He didn’t say anything on the way back to my room. As we floated in through the window, I noticed that his wings had disappeared. I felt disappointed; I was getting used to seeing them.

  When his feet softly landed on the floor and he began to lower me, I held on, not wanting to let him go without first telling him…

  “Robert, I don’t know how, but my mother knew—she knew that one day you’d come into my life. That’s what she was telling me. I remember now. At the cemetery before she died, she told me that death brought love. She told me that I had to appreciate it, and accept it. I was too young to understand what she meant, but now I do. She was telling me to welcome you, to not blame you for what you had to do.”

  I lifted a hand to his face to make him look at me. His beautiful eyes seemed so lost, and I knew that I was the reason. I squirmed enough so that he set me down and I pulled him to the bed to sit. I grabbed his hand and placed it over my heart while placing mine over the spot where his would have been. “But my mother was wrong—death doesn’t bring love. You are love. You…your love, it’s a part of me.”

  I watched as the cold steel of his eyes, like quicksilver, melted into two pools of mercury. He covered my hand on his chest with his, and brought it to his lips. You are the only thing that tempts me into acts that would lead me to fall from grace. I cannot even begin to explain to you just how great a weakness you are for me. When I learned what Sam had done-

  “How did you know?” I asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  Lark. She was in pain, I could feel it, but I didn’t know why. She didn’t know why until she tried to reach out to you and saw Sam’s face in your thoughts. She knew then
why she had been in pain; she had been lying when she kept saying that I was going to be meeting you without telling her. The lie hadn’t been hers, which is why the pain was more an annoyance than anything else, but she didn’t recognize it for what it was, didn’t think that you’d be lying to her about me.

  But, when I learned what Sam had done—when I learned that he had deceived you—I knew that you were in danger and the call stopped. The singing stopped, Grace, and I left it all behind to get to you. You are my first priority. I couldn’t hear anything, focus on anything while knowing that you were in danger.

  He pulled me into his lap, his hand still pressed against my heart, and kissed my forehead. I tried to get to you as fast as I could. I knew I was close when I could hear your thoughts. I could feel your fear, and I heard your prayer. I heard it and it was like driving a burning stake through my heart because I couldn’t do anything to help you.

  He pressed his forehead to mine and I saw the visions in his head as he relived the moment again. He was traveling so fast, everything was a blur of lines and colors. He slowed down as he approached the field, and was taken aback by the scene that lay before him. The field was awash with the combined light of two figures who struggled with each other. The larger of the two had his hand around the other’s throat, and was lifting her off of the ground.

  The smaller figure’s pale glow began to spread out quickly, and her attacker let go with stunning speed. As his arm retreated, it pulled with it the light that was now all over his victim, a sticky string of radiance that grew as it fed on his own. The light crept up his arm, increasing in size until it engulfed him completely, drowning out his own yellow glow.

  As Robert moved closer to the two figures, the heat from the light began to scorch his skin. He looked down and felt the stinging of a pain he’d never felt before on the tips of his fingers. He looked up and immediately shut his eyes to the intense light that threatened to burn him blind. His wings quickly, instinctively pulled around him, blocking out the light, but not the screams.

  Through Robert’s ears, what had sounded like bells to me was the same shrieking cries that had incapacitated me when I had stabbed Sam; I could feel the blood in me start to churn again, though the pain was much duller with Robert there holding me, shielding me from the full force of the destruction that I was far too familiar with.

  I could hear the thoughts in Sam’s mind as his body twisted in wretched agony, the expletives that streamed out were harsh and grating, and the images in his mind were not of remorse for his acts, but at taking too long to kill me—he was mad at himself for being selfish and greedy in wanting to draw out my suffering.

  In the darkness of Robert’s winged shelter, the smell of something burning was palpable. Only when the microscopic slivers of light were gone did his wings unfold, allowing him to take in the scene that lay before him in. In a fraction of a second, he was able to see the damage done to the field.

  Grass that was in desperate need of being cut had been pushed down in a wide arc, but otherwise completely unaffected by the heat that the light had used to singe his fingers. There was a book bag in the middle of the field, and a large, black feather lay on the gravel that looked as though it had been dipped in gold. A pool of gold had solidified next to it. A few feet away, the gravel was stained and speckled with the reddish-brown that he knew was blood.

  He rushed over to the smaller of the two figures laying on the ground, and gasped as he saw the blood soaked jeans and the dried blood on her face. Her eye was nearly swollen shut; her bottom lip was split open near its apex.

  A gurgled sound was trapped in his chest as he saw the dark bruising around her neck; the grip had been so strong he could see each finger, each crease in the palm that had tried to crush the tiny throat. He took in her blackened fingers where the blood had pooled and congealed, the bruising across her chest from the impact of being hit by the force from the opening of the other’s wings, and the odd angles that her limbs lay out around her.

  He could see within her, and the scene was familiar: The injured organs, the broken bones, the bleeding were all sights that he had seen before. And there in her chest, her weak heart, struggling to beat. There had been too much lost blood, and its faint pulsing was slowly waning. Everything was familiar but this; if this heart stopped beating, he knew it as sure as he knew his name that his life would end as well. She was his heart, she was his soul—if she ceased to exist, then he would, too.

  Gingerly he picked her up and cradled her, the frail and broken body hanging limply in his arms. He brought his wings forward, wrapping them around him, as though to protect her from any more dangers from his own kind, and in the darkness gently hugged her to his chest.

  When she gave no reaction to his holding her, he couldn’t hold his emotions back any longer and buried his face into her hair, the sorrow of a friend’s betrayal and the threat of a lost love tearing down the dam inside him. His whole body shook with each sob, and each one tore from him a silent prayer that he could save her, that he’d not lose her, that she’d live to see another day, even if it meant rejecting him for what he was.

  And taking his love and faith in his hands, he began to kiss her, the ebbing heat from her dying body still warm enough to give him hope. He felt the sparks of feverish need grow in him as he pressed his lips across her face, not daring to go near her mouth, but feeling the pull much stronger than anything else he’d ever experienced before.

  Finally, unable to fight it, his will lost among the countless other emotions he had tossed out to make room for the overwhelming feeling of love he felt for her, he brushed his lips against hers, intending only to give them a fleeting moment of contact. Instead he leaned in, pressing harder, and by some miracle, she found the strength to raise her hands, to hold him, to weave a fabric of ownership with her fingers and his hair.

  He rejoiced when he could hear her heart beating strong and fast, hear her thoughts, feel her response to him. He pulled away as he heard one of her thoughts, the reality of the situation suddenly screaming for center stage in this second act. The heroine was now safe, but the villain needed to be dealt with, and swiftly. He placed her feet on the ground.

  Time was not on his side. She was upset, he felt it. “Grace, don’t. I cannot stay. I will already have to answer for what happened here with Sam. I have to bring him back with me. I just wanted—I need to make sure that you are safe, that you are well,” he told her, and slowly opened the shelter of his wings, easing her arms off of him with no effort at all.

  She was hurt and confused. “Robert, I have far too many questions for you to leave me now. You have to-”

  He had to cut her off. “I cannot answer your questions right now, as much as I want to—and yes, Grace, I do want to. What Sam did will anger many of the others who would seek to blame someone other than him for what happened, and I have to try and fix this. I have to fix this for us,” he told her, unable to bear hearing her voice so pained.

  He bent down to pick up the wasted remains of the fallen angel that cowered on the ground. Even in defeat, his thoughts were defiant. With his burden in his arms, he turned to face her, a good-bye poised on his lips.

  The shock and recognition that filled her eyes silenced him, as she uttered the phrase that caused more fear in him than seeing her broken and bleeding had done. “You really are Death.”

  He watched in horror as she crumpled to the ground. He rushed to her, dropping the body in his arms to the ground with a thud, and quickly picked her up—the exchange swift and heart wrenching. He was torn between fulfilling his duty to return his former friend, and seeing her safe. Knowing that she wasn’t in any danger, he sent out his thoughts to the one person who he knew could hear him and who he trusted. He waited for her to appear and spoke wordlessly to her as he again picked up his withered burden.

  He looked on as the beautiful angel who had arrived gently lifted the fainted girl from his arms and, nodding, flew off in the direction of the girl’s home.
Satisfied, he then took off himself, glad for her safety, and saddened by the betrayal that had nearly cost her life.

  Robert lifted his forehead from mine, the vision gone. He lifted his hand to my face, cradling it and gently caressing my cheek with his thumb. I turned my face into his palm, kissing the deep line that marked it. He sighed, and pulled me towards him again, pressing my head against his chest.

  “So it wasn’t you-”

  No. I don’t know who it was that came to help you. Your prayer for help…there are those whose calling is to answer prayers such as yours. I just don’t know who it could have been. Their thoughts have remained hidden from me.

  I nodded, and half-smiled at the mystery that just added to the endless list of questions that I wasn’t sure would ever be answered. There never seemed to be a moment without complication for us; whatever fate had decided for the two of us, it certainly wasn’t supposed to be a walk in the park.

  Robert’s hand brushed against my cheek, and wrapped against the column of my neck, holding the pulse point against the deepest and longest line in his palm, its steady rhythm soothing him somehow. I have so much to apologize to you for, so much to make up for, Grace. I do not know where to begin, but I will do whatever it takes to make this up to you. You’re the only thing in my life worth protecting. I would give up an eternity in Heaven for just one moment with you.

  I pressed my hand against his lips, knowing that he’d understand my intent. “You have me. Don’t you dare give up what you have been waiting so long for just for me.”

  My sweet Ianthe, don’t you see? I’ve already fallen, and it’s for you. Heaven is only where you are.

  I smiled and laid my head on his chest. “And mine is with you, Angelo.”

  EPILOGUE: FESTIVE