by J Wells
I place my hands behind my head, lie back and watch the sun’s position as it moves around in the sky. The rabbit has awoken my imagination as the clouds gather and thicken. It’s amazing how many faces I can create, how the curl and edge of a cloud can transform into a nose, an ear, the shape of one’s face. In my mind I have made lots of them, and it appears that they smile as they float around me and I watch in awe at their change of expression.
My eyes chase the dainty white swirls as they deepen in colour. The clouds are now inlaid with a dusky grey, with an outline of pastel colours seeping their way in, transforming them before my eyes. Between blinks, they darken further. I watch them bubble up like an army in battle. I stand gazing around me into the thickening clouds that now resemble a mass distortion of faces. I witness their smiles dissolve into ominous frowns, their sharpening features, their bulging eyes as they throw out their dagger-like glares.
I am surrounded, and as I turn I am faced by twelve people. The dark clouds have left these faces, which they have gained an identity of their own and look as real as I who stand before them. I cast my gaze up and am able to make out both sexes, their burly bodies towering above me. I strain my neck; they are immense.
Intimidated, I glance down in the hope of Tristan’s return, to see his wings dancing on currents of air. My face falls, for the world below, with its beautiful blue sky, has vanished. Does a storm approach? All I can see and appear to be standing on is a mass of angry grey clouds, which resemble a desolate car park and stretch as far as my eyes will allow me to see. I am thrown from my feet as a fierce rumbling explodes and forks of bright light shoot past me. I have to clench my teeth to stop them from chattering and clasp my hands together to steady them. If only this cloud beneath were a carpet I could wrap myself into and disappear. If only Tristan were here by my side.
I push myself up to my feet. Frozen to the spot, I watch as the bodies shuffle closer.
“What do you want?” I shout as I peer from one face to another, waiting for anyone to answer. “Oh my God.”
I bring my hands to my mouth. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
“Mum!” I cry out.
My whole being is ensconced by a cold chill, and goosebumps jump up on my arms. She looks so much younger than I remember, and as I look into her face it’s as though I’m looking at my mirrored reflection.
“Don’t be scared,” her voice echoes.
Before I can answer, my face is covered as the ends of my hair flick up in the heightening breeze. Within seconds my long tresses stream out behind me. The howl of the wind speaks in so many different voices, crying out for me to jump. Jump, Rose, jump, they say. These are the same voices I heard the night I stood on the bridge, the night I contemplated ending my life.
“Mum!” I call out again, but she’s nowhere to be seen.
Trembling, I watch on as the faces of those surrounding me begin to distort. There is a gust of wind so strong that it drops me to my knees. The voices continue as the wind whisks around me. I feel like I’m trapped in the middle of a whirlwind. I gasp in horror as their bodies disintegrate into rich crimson petals. They dance around the sky, and as they float by I can pick up the beautiful scent of roses. I watch as they fall like rain to the forest below. The only remnants of their existence is a thin line of clouded silhouettes, but each gradually loses its shape, lightens in colour and drifts away into the distance.
The grumbling storm clouds have been replaced by fluffy white curls, and the powder-blue sky has returned. Again, I get to my feet and peer out from the cloud, looking for my mum and for Tristan. As I raise my head I feel a hand brush against my shoulder. I look to my left.
“Mum…” My voice is no more than a whisper.
I look up into her crystal blue eyes, and she smiles. I throw my arms around her.
“Mum, why did you kill yourself? Why did you leave me?” I sob my tears into her neck.
“I did it for you and your sister.”
She holds my arms softly between the tips of her fingers, pushing me away slightly to allow our eyes to meet.
“The cloak of protection has been lifted. They know who you are. Lucian will fight to the death to protect you, though he will fail. Tristan, a lone angel, is not strong enough to protect you either. Heed my words, for you must fall, you must join me. Between heaven and earth is the only place you will be safe.”
The touch of her fingers grows faint, and she fades before me.
“Don’t leave me, not again!” I cry out as her ebony locks bleed into the sky.
I reach for her face, but her bronzed skin wears an insipid mask through which my fingers slip as she disappears into the air; she has gone.
Jump, Rose…
The voices return, though now they are shouts and cries, and they bombard my head from every side. I throw my hands over my ears, but they’re still there and growing louder. I can’t take this. I step to the cloud’s edge and gaze down on the world below. I gulp in a deep breath of fresh air. I am not afraid. I open my arms in the way I can imagine Tristan opening his wings.
“I’m coming, Mum!” I shout.
I lean forward and willingly let go of my life.
I stretch my arms and open my eyes. Another day has passed and left us. Like every night I pre-empt the knock at the door.
“Enter!” I call out.
I see the handle lower and hear my valet’s footsteps as he enters my bedchamber. Edmond’s steps seem more hurried than usual. It seems he hadn’t the time to secure his hair as blonde strands fall forward, covering his eyes. His fingers fidget at his side, and as I look up from the comfort of my bed it seems he avoids me. His smile is brief as he places a goblet of blood on my wooden bedside table. I take a sip. There is no expression, no touch of a smile to his open face. He doesn’t speak as he lays out my clothes in readiness. Two hundred years, and to this day he still helps me dress.
“Edmond…” I cough, clearing the blood from my throat. “Is everything alright? The angel, the girl?”
“Here are your black breeches, cravat and shirt, which I’ve pressed,” he stutters, half turning and avoiding my eyes.
My eyebrows rise.
“The angel? The girl?” I repeat.
“Er, yeah, they’re both missing.”
“You lie!” My fixed stare calls his bluff, and he shakes his head. “Jazlynn, where’s Jazlynn?” I growl. “She was instructed to bind Rose’s arms, being the most proficient knot-tier of us all. Whatever fight Rose put up, she would never have freed her hands, so how did they escape?”
“I don’t know.” He holds his hands up before him. “It was while we slept. They can’t have got far. I sent Jazlynn and the rest of the family out into the forest to look for her and the angel.”
“I find this hard to believe. Did Caspar not restrain him?” I punch my fists down on the bedspread.
“Yes, Lucian, his actions were barbaric. I heard Tristan’s cries. Caspar did not use the chains you left. I watched as he dragged the angel over to the bed, pressing his fingers between his feathers and opening his wings with force. The bastard showed no mercy.”
He brushes his hair with his fingers and secures it.
“I heard him threaten to kill the girl if he didn’t cooperate. He then pinned back his wings to the wall with knives. I heard the angel’s screams, heard his pain.”
I laugh. “You lie,” I repeat. “Tristan has powers of his own; he would never have allowed this to happen.”
Edmond’s face remains straight, and he doesn’t break out into laughter as I do.
“God damn it! I don’t like the man, but I would never have let such atrocities happen under my roof. Why didn’t you stop him? Why didn’t you call for me?”
I jump from the bed and storm towards him, and reaching up I grab the scruff of his neck.
“Lucian, I thought you wanted him dead. It was not so long ago that it was his neck you had your hands around.”
I remove my hand from his neck.
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“If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t have sent Caspar to do my dirty work.”
I pace back and forth across the wooden floor.
“Haven’t you seen the way Rose looks at him?”
I grab the silver goblet off the bedside table and launch it at the far wall. The wooden cladding is dappled with blood.
“If I were to kill him, she would hate me. Can’t you see, Edmond? I would never win her heart.”
“Lucian, have you not thought that if you were to kill the angel and lock her in the castle, it would only be a matter of time before her mood softens. Are you not forgetting your persuasive ways?”
“Persuasion is sweet.” I smile. “If I were to use it she would be under my influence, and any feeling she showed would not be of her own free will. I must do this right. I want all of her … I want her love.”
My thoughts can’t rest knowing that Tristan and Rose are together. I rush Edmond’s nightly routine of dressing me as he straightens and ties my cravat. I stride from the Iris bedchamber and head towards the oaken room and the tunnel with the stairs that lead up to the forest.
On entering the oaken bedchamber, I jump.
“Tristan! God damn it, man.” My eyes almost leave my head. “Where are your clothes?”
Hand in hand Rose and Tristan stand near naked before me. Rose reeks of suicide, but she also wears an underlying scent of him. She opens her mouth to speak and reaches her hand towards me, but I push it away and stare into her eyes.
“Ten days and ten nights with you was all I asked. Couldn’t you at least have waited that long?”
Hearing Edmond’s footsteps behind me, I turn.
“Get them out of my castle, and get her out of my sight.”
“Lucian, wait!”
I’m caught by Tristan’s voice and the strength of his fingers as they dig into my shoulder.
“When you lay with her today you took away my beating heart.” I snap my head round to face him. “Do you come back to mock me?! Does it give you pleasure to laugh in my face?”
My eyes wander to Rose for her answer. Her damp cheeks glisten while her right arm covers her breasts. She stands still, trembling like a leaf.
“What have you done to her?”
I grab Tristan’s hand from my shoulder and slam him with force against the wall. As he struggles to breathe, my eyes drop and lock onto his jugular vein. My mouth waters in readiness, my teeth lengthen and my tongue runs over their razor-sharp edges. I lean close enough that my teeth graze the skin on his neck.
“You shall be my first, for never have I tasted the blood of an angel,” I whisper only inches below his ear.
“Lucian…”
Scowling, I half turn.
“Not now, Edmond.”
Rose lies within his arms. Edmond’s face is already telling me that he knows she is a suicide; I can see the rough edges of his teeth as he smiles and the changing shape of his pupils.
“Control yourself, man.”
He looks down and I follow his eyes. Her face is pale, her head hanging limply over his forearm and her dark hair cascading in waves towards the floor. She could almost be dead, I think to myself; the only touch of colour is her crimson-stained lips. I can only imagine what this monster has done to her.
“Tristan, you call yourself a man of God, an angel.” I throw my hands either side of him and stare up into his eyes. “But you’re no better than we are.”
His body tenses between my arms.
“No more!” he shouts, lifting his arms and throwing his hands against my chest.
I am launched across the floor of the bedchamber and fall in a heap.
“Bravo, angel.”
I sit up and clap my hands, for he does not realise that I feel no pain and that he can’t hurt me.
Standing tall, he looks down upon me.
“No more,” he repeats, clenching his fist.
He strikes it against the wall. The wood cladding cracks, the floor I sit on vibrates the castle and its entire foundations quake.
I stumble to my feet.
“Maybe I underestimated you, angel. I’m listening.”
“Enough of your games, Rose is in danger.”
My brows draw in. “What danger?”
Our eye contact is lost, and my attention is drawn to the open window and the mouth of the tunnel. I can hear the echoing voices of my family; there is merriment in their tone. They do not lower themselves into the bedchamber, but all twenty-one members fall through the open window. Arms and legs are scattered as they land in an ungainly manner. This is no normal night. My head flicks from one face to another. Veins like the webs of a spider bleed out onto their cheeks. Their glowing eyes and diamond pupils tell me they’re ready to kill. They all look up at Rose.
“Hurt her, any of you, and I’ll snap your necks!” Tristan bellows. “And as for you…” He points towards Edmond. “I don’t trust you any more than the others … put her down.”
Edmond looks my way and I nod. He takes a couple of steps towards the bed and rolls her petite frame out of his arms.
I can feel their eyes burning into the back of my neck; I know they look to me for guidance. I spin around and see Caspar hopping from one leg to the other, his nails screaming out as they claw at the walls. I watch Emily sink down beside the wooden dresser and clasp her arms around her knees, a faint tune spilling from her lips as she rocks back and forth. The remainder of my family don’t act quite so bizarrely, but vigorously scratch at their arms and faces.
“Wake up…”
I hear Jazlynn’s voice. She rests beside Rose on the bed. Tristan’s arm is propped against the bedpost where he stands, peering down.
“Lucian,” Caspar calls, “there’s only one of him and twenty-one of us … twenty-three if you include yourself and Edmond.”
“You just don’t get it, any of you,” Tristan snaps. “You invited her here, now you’re in far too deep to walk away. You touched her, you saw your reflections.”
I watch as he strides towards Harrold and hear a tear as Tristan grabs at his shirt and drags him towards the free-standing mirror. He throws him face first onto the floor.
“Look!” he demands. “There is no need for any of you to touch her, her mere presence is enough.”
As Harrold looks up, I gaze into the reflective glass; though faint, it holds his image within. The bed creaks as Rose slides herself up onto the bolster. A smile creeps onto my lips as I see the colour has found its way back into her cheeks.
“When she bled, you felt her pain,” I hear Tristan continue, my eyes fixed on the sweetness of Rose’s face.
Lifting her arm from the covers, she takes Jazlynn’s hand and nods, turning her palm and inner arm face up. Blood trails behind Jazlynn’s fingernail as she rips into the skin of Rose’s right arm. I gasp, feeling her pain.
“So, now do you get it?” Tristan’s voice echoes. “It may be a faint reflection you see, and only her pain that you feel. The connection you have with Rose grows stronger, and with it she gives you a glimpse of mortality. In a matter of hours your senses will return, your reflections will be as clear as hers and any pain you feel will be your own.”
I look to Caspar, who takes my arm.
“Don’t listen to this trickster; get the girl out of here.”
“It’s not that simple,” Tristan says, towering over us. “She’s in danger, you idiot. You are blinded by ignorance. Your reflections, your pain may be a gift, but she blights you with consequence. If she dies, you all die.”
“You talk crap, angel! Why should we believe you?”
“Caspar, enough!” My focus moves to Tristan. “Do you give me your word that what you speak is the truth?”
“Why would I lie? We were free, and believe me, we didn’t come back for the fun of it. She needs protection, and I’m not too proud to admit that my powers alone will not ward off her demons.”
I know my family well and can see their changing mood as the chaos ebbs. Silence fal
ls, soon to be replaced by chattering voices. Louder and louder they grow, and I watch as one by one they vie to be heard.
“Be silent!” I shout, raising my hand.
“Tristan, it seems you leave us little choice.” I peer into dispirited faces. “Family, we must pull together. If Rose needs our protection, then we shall give it.”
“Aren’t you the big man?” Caspar blurts out. “And how do you suggest we do that? We sleep by day and work by night, so tell me, who will protect her then? How do we know the trouble, the danger she brings to our door? Come on, Lucian, tell us why we should help her. We could face death either way.”
Caspar’s point plays in my mind, though my thoughts are soon clouded by my feelings for Rose. I turn. Jazlynn has left the bed, and taking Rose by the hand she pulls her to her feet. Rose’s scent is intensified by her mere movement. My eyes dart around the bedchamber; my family’s faces are a picture. God, how they try to supresses their hunger, but their expressions are unable to hide their growing agitation. I can hear the vigorous scratching of Bert’s nails on the wall, setting my teeth on edge. Harrold kneels before the free-standing mirror, his eyes bewitched as his head pounds back and forth against the glass and his own reflection. Once again, anarchy breaks out.
“Caspar, this is your doing,” I say, but when I turn, he is gone.
Jazlynn screams, and I spin round to face her. As our eyes meet, an excruciating pain shoots through my chest. I glance down, but there is no blade, no wound. This pain that I feel is the pain of true emotion. I try to swallow it away, but it remains. Jazlynn cowers at the bedside, tears dripping between her fingers which she holds over her cheek. Rose lies slumped on the bed, straddled by Caspar. His diamond-shaped pupils are aglow, his mouth drops open and his teeth elongate. He pummels her into the covers and his face disappears in the nape of her neck. Springing forward to her aid, I am grasped by Reggie.
“Leave them; she’s feast enough for us all.”
