Divinity

by Michelle L. Johnson

  “We lost one,” Raphael said, her words weighed down with sadness.

  Gabriel spun, his wings tensing, and found himself eye to eye with Ariel. “I sent you to protect her!”

  “Her husband killed her. As I stepped in the door, he crushed her.” Ariel shrugged.

  “Protect her! Not watch her die!” Gabriel’s rage shook his entire being. Raphael laid a soft hand upon his arm.

  “Please, Brother. Even with a thousand healers I cannot keep up with another storm of that magnitude.” Raphael’s voice was soothing yet pleading. She quietly added, “Zachariah will be devastated.”

  Gabriel checked his anger and fixed Ariel with a glare that would have made a human soil his clothing.

  “I was told to protect her from other sources, not from the human experience.” Ariel furrowed his brow “We are not supposed to interfere with what they do to each other.”

  Gabriel felt Raphael give his arm a light squeeze. He exhaled heavily. “There are exceptions, Ariel. You know this. You know how important she was.”

  Ariel lowered his head and folded his hands together.

  Michael appeared before Ariel, his wings extended halfway. “You have failed.”

  “Yes.”

  “You will go with Raphael. Assist her with her new healers.”

  Ariel’s wings sagged. “Yes, Brother.”

  Michael caught Raphael’s eye. -Watch him closely for me, Sister. Something isn’t right here.-

  -I feel it, too, Michael.- Raphael released Gabriel’s arm. “Let’s go then, Ariel.”

  As soon as they were gone, Michael spoke to Gabriel. “She is in grave danger now. Now she is the only one capable of acting.”

  “Yes.”

  Michael vanished, but his voice lingered in Gabriel’s ears. -She must not fail.-

  Gabriel looked down, viewing Michael and the girl on the Earth plane. -We will all do everything we can, Brother.-

  -It will become increasingly difficult, not only because of them, but because of her,- Michael said, his voice distant.

  -What makes you say that?- Gabriel asked.

  -I believe she has learned how to shield her thoughts.-

  XXXII

  “I love this place so much, Isabel.” Julia squeezed her cell phone between her shoulder and her ear as she stirred her pasta sauce on the stove. “Everything about it. I’ve decided to sell my townhouse.”

  “I’m happy to hear that, Julia,” Mrs. Williams said. “I would like to come visit you next week. Are you free?”

  “I’d love to see you. Just tell me when, and I’ll make it happen.” Julia surprised herself with the truth of that statement. Charlie had been gone for a month now, and as much as Julia enjoyed learning about her angel half, she dearly missed human companionship.

  “Next Thursday? We can have lunch. I’ll arrive at noon.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Julia said, setting her spoon down on the counter. “I’ll see you then.”

  “Of course, dear.”

  When Julia hung up, she wondered what Mrs. Williams was up to. She had never invited herself over before, but then, Julia hadn’t lived in her dead son’s house before. The way she brought up the time and date made Julia think it was all planned out in advance. She gave her sauce another stir.

  “Do you always look for motive?” Michael’s voice split the silence.

  Julia spun around to face him, a trail of bright red sauce spraying off the end of her wooden spoon and landing on the tiles with a splat. Her eyes followed the slop and she thought about using energy to clean up the mess.

  “Paper towels were made for that sort of thing,” Michael admonished, but not without a hint of humor to his tone.

  Julia laughed sheepishly. “I wasn’t going to try, Michael. It was just a fleeting thought.” She tore a sheet from the roll on the counter.

  She turned and looked at Michael more closely. He was semi-transparent.

  “So, do you?” he asked.

  “Do I what?” Julia spoke, seconds before she realized what he meant. “No. I don’t always think there are ulterior motives. Isabel seemed a bit too prepared to name the time and date. It made me think…”

  Michael interrupted Julia. “I wasn’t serious, girl.”

  “Oh.” She really needed to figure out his sense of humor. The pot of pasta had finished and started to boil over, so she quickly took it off the burner and poured it into the colander she had waiting in the sink. “Michael?”

  “No, I don’t eat.”

  “No eating, drinking, sleeping, physical contact. What can you do?” She put together a plate for herself, poured a glass of red wine, and sat at the table. “Can you sit with me while I eat?”

  Michael didn’t sit in the chair opposite her—rather, he appeared there, hands folded neatly on his lap. “I can do all of those things, girl. It simply isn’t necessary, so I don’t.”

  Julia twirled up a fork full of noodles using a spoon as a backstop. “Why didn’t you father any of the Twelve, Michael? It seems to me if you are the most powerful Archangel, you would be the best candidate for the…” Julia’s cheeks reddened and she cleared her throat, “…position.”

  Michael studied Julia for several minutes while she ate. After every bite, she would dab the corners of her mouth with her napkin and flick her eyes between her plate and his face, awaiting a response.

  Finally, he said, “I did father a child.”

  “Oh?”

  “Many years ago. He was not well received.”

  “You can’t try again?” Julia asked, setting her fork down.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea at this time,” Michael answered, his eyes swirling darkly. An instant passed and his face lost all serious edges and broke into a large smile. “Unless… Is that an offer?”

  Julia sputtered into her wine glass, her face matching its contents. Michael threw his head back with a long, hearty laugh.

  Julia pushed her chair away and cleared the table. She was so flustered she almost put her dirty plate in the fridge. “Very funny,” she muttered, willing her cheeks back to a normal color.

  The wolf she’d heard before seemed to stay close to the cottage, howling once or twice each night. Julia had seen its tracks in the dirt under her windows, but had a deep sense that the wolf wasn’t a threat to her. There was something…familiar about its sound. She’d taken to calling it Charlie, though she’d never seen it face to face.

  The goose-down pillow cradled Julia’s head as the comforter surrounded her and lulled her into a deep sleep. She found herself standing in a field of summer grass, waving like the ocean in the breeze. She inhaled the sweet smell, turned, and found herself at the bottom of the rainbow bridge.

  I must be dreaming, she thought. Julia usually recognized her dream-state immediately and had control of almost everything in her dreams once she realized where she was. She looked up the length of the bridge and decided against it. She stepped around it and sauntered easily through the field. The long blades of grass whipped against her legs as she walked past. With a quick thought and the slightest motion of her fingers, the grass parted for her, making a long and winding path through the field.

  I wonder why I’m here. Julia walked along casually, running her hands along the soft tops of the grass and enjoying the feel of the sunshine on her skin. Maybe I should try a few things.

  Even as the thought occurred to her, wings sprouted from her back, full and white. They were twice her size, yet weightless. She slowly stretched them open, instinctively raising her arms out to the side in tandem.

  “Stop!” A young woman’s voice came to her from the air behind her. “Don’t open them all the way. Did they not tell you anything?”

  Julia folded her wings onto her back with more ease than she thought possible, and looked around for the source of the warning. Standing a few yards behind her was a striking angel with long, flowing blonde hair that glistened as though with morning dew. Her eyes were the blue of tropical waters,
her smile as gracious as any Julia had ever seen. The angel-woman had a small child on her hip—the mirror image of her, with wisps of white-blonde hair framing a cherubic face. The child’s wings shone and fluttered. Bright bursts of light floated around both angels.

  Julia was dumbfounded.

  “You came here to test your wings?” The woman’s voice was melodic.

  “I’m dreaming,” Julia said, unable to suppress the smile spreading across her lips.

  “Yes and no,” the angel answered, rocking the child on her hip. “I pulled you in. You’re in the Second Realm.”

  “Who are you? Are you one of the Archangels?”

  “No, but if you look at me with your spirit, you will know who I am.”

  Julia tried to open her senses and faltered. “I can’t, I don’t have my stone here.”

  “You don’t need that. Not here,” the angel said. “But if it will help you focus, just picture one in your hand and it will be there.”

  Julia opened her mind again, clutched her fist as though she had her stone, and this time successfully managed to open her senses. Her chest rose with exhilaration. Her mouth worked and tears of joy welled up in her eyes. “Charlie?”

  She didn’t need to say it to know the truth of it. Julia wanted to throw her arms around the woman before her—the angel—but she seemed to be rooted in place, one hand over her mouth, standing before them wide-eyed and stock still.

  “Charlie was my Earth-given name. My spirit is Cassielle.” Cassielle’s eyes radiated love and Julia thought her heart would burst with it.

  “Cassielle,” Julia gasped. She reached one hand forward and gently brushed her friend’s cheek. Julia struggled to find words for her feelings. Completion, or at least a feeling that something missing had returned. Abandonment, solitude, loneliness—they all seemed to evaporate in the presence of her friend. “My friend. Are you still my friend?”

  “I always have been.” Cassielle’s voice tickled Julia’s ears the way chocolate would have tickled her tongue. “It is why we were so drawn to each other. Spirit friends. Some on Earth would call it ‘soul mates.’”

  Julia nodded, the spoken words solidifying ideas and hidden knowledge she’d had all along. Yet even so she felt panic rising up in her. “Will you stay with me? Please? Is it even possible?”

  “I am always with you. Always.”

  As much love as she had for Cassielle in that moment, Julia still had to bite back a comment about Alex having said the same thing. Instead, she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around her friend, somehow encompassing the baby and her wings in one swoop. And then she wept, though she didn’t know whether she was weeping for the loss of her friend or the return, for the pain or for the joy, or maybe it was just the overwhelming emotion built up after too long trying to control it and tamp it down.

  Cassielle just held her, stroking Julia’s hair and cooing softly the way a mother would comfort a child. “I’m not going anywhere, my dearest.”

  When Julia was finally able to pull herself away, she stood back and brushed the hair from the baby’s face, who rewarded Julia with a delighted grin and a giggle.

  And then Julia asked the question that Michael had dodged. “Why were we separated?”

  “It was all pre-arranged. Agreed to by both of us. We re-entered at the same time. You will remember it as you need to.”

  “I am so glad you’re safe.” Julia rested her eyes upon the child. “Her, too.”

  The child giggled softly, playing with Cassielle’s hair. Cassielle set her down in the grass, where the small angel sat quietly at her feet. “A brand new soul. She would have been mine.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Julia said. “‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t seem to fit, since you are obviously in a much better place.” Julia’s eyes sharpened. “Why did you pull me here?”

  Cassielle laid a hand on Julia’s arm. “Walk with me.”

  “Why did you stop me from opening my wings all the way?” Julia asked when they were several steps into their walk. She glanced back over her shoulder to check on the infant, who kept her eyes on her mother intently.

  “It is an action that calls all angels—an alarm, really.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know.”

  “I became lost in my humanity, Julia.” Cassielle moved with liquid grace over the field of grass. “It is one of the risks. I pushed those closest to me away, and clung to the worst possible person, all in hopes of having the one thing I thought I wanted above all else.”

  “What one thing?” Julia’s hand found Cassielle’s, and they laced easily together.

  “A child.”

  “I became lost in my humanity once,” Julia said, a tremor in her words. “I tried to escape.”

  Cassielle squeezed Julia’s hand lightly. “No, my friend. You despaired of humanity. You almost joined the twice fallen.”

  “Twice fallen?”

  “Earthbound angels are sometimes given to taking their own lives. It is such a desperate place compared to where we belong.” Cassielle stopped walking, pulling Julia to a stop with her. “One fall to Earth. Another fall off it. Twice fallen.”

  Several moments passed in silence. A rustling in the grass somewhere off to their left caused Julia to whip her head around. The wolf’s eyes glowed yellow through the blades, and it took a step forward, until Julia could see its face.

  Was it smiling at her? It gave a short nod—an almost human nod—and then it turned and plodded away, unafraid.

  “Cassielle, did you see that?”

  Cassielle rested a hand on Julia’s arm. “He is your spirit guardian.”

  “Even here, in this realm? In my dreams?”

  Cassielle nodded and turned to walk back to where they began. They could see the child’s head poking up over the long grass, her gaze fixed upon them.

  “You haven’t told me why you brought me here,” Julia said.

  “You need guidance. And you need an ally. I can teach you things. Answer your questions. I can’t be with you on Earth the way Michael is day and night, but I can meet you here.” Cassielle came to a stop in front of the child, stooping to scoop her up.

  “What is her name?” Julia asked, then remembered. “What’s my name?”

  “Ayasha is hers.” Cassielle began to fade away, her voice becoming distant. “You were once Evelyn. But I think that name will be changed. I will see you again.”

  “Wait!” Julia tried to mask the pain she felt at Cassielle’s disappearance. All the loneliness, abandonment, and loss crept back in. “What do you mean, changed?”

  Cassielle’s voice came back, barely audible, drifting along the breeze. “Didn’t he say he would name you?”

  “Zachariah is in a rage.” Gabriel’s tone was flat, but the twitch of his wings told another tale. “He blames me for her death.”

  “Surprising,” Michael answered, his voice almost as thin as his visage. “I would have thought he would be angry with Ariel. His ire will pass, Gabriel. He must choose another spirit, and father another. With only eleven, the balance of spirit is skewed.”

  “He already has.” Gabriel shot Michael a sideways look. “It is not like you not to notice.”

  “She keeps me busier than she should.” Michael nodded and waved his right hand, exposing the scene below. “Seems they found each other, after all.”

  “They are in the middle realm.” Gabriel furrowed his brow. “She wears her wings. Is that wise?”

  “She does. She has to learn somehow.”

  Gabriel cocked his head, trying to listen in on the conversation below. He heard nothing. “Did you send Cassielle to her?”

  “No.” Michael stood, arms crossed, shoulders back, his wings flat.

  “Do you know her reasoning?”

  “They have always been friends. It does not alarm me.”

  “Why show me, then?” Gabriel turned away from the scene below to examine Michael more closely. “Are you well, Brother?”

  “I need you to
watch out for her there,” Michael said. “It is enough that I tend her body on the Earth plane, and the rest of the world as well, as large as it has gotten.” Michael raised his wings slightly, then settled them again. “I need you to protect her in the place between Heaven and Earth.”

  Gabriel studied Michael’s opaque form. “Of course. Do you think this A’nwel can find her there?”

  “That I am not sure of, but I worry more about the thing that made the A’nwel…” Michael’s voice drifted away as his form faded from Gabriel’s sight.

  XXXIII

  BOTH women sat comfortably at the kitchen table. Julia smiled as she stirred her tea and listened to Alex’s mother talk about how strange the weather had been lately. Julia took in Isabel’s appearance as she spoke. There were a few more wrinkles around her eyes, and a sense of sadness in them, but she seemed to be holding together very well. Her clothes were impeccable, as always. There was a slight waver in her hand when she lifted her cup to her lips, almost imperceptible, but Julia’s senses were sharper than most.

  “The place looks lovely, Julia. I’m delighted you’ve decided to move in,” Mrs. Williams said, placing her cup back in its saucer with a soft clink. “It would have broken my heart to know it stood empty. It meant a lot to him, you know.”

  “I know, Isabel. I can’t thank you enough.” Julia had a growing suspicion that Mrs. Williams had more on her mind than lunch, but she decided to play along with the small talk instead of forcing the issue.

  “Have you seen the grounds?” Isabel asked. “I’d love to walk them with you. If you wouldn’t mind, of course.”

  “I haven’t had the chance to fully explore yet. I would love that.” Julia gestured to Isabel’s fashionably heeled shoes. “Will you be all right walking in those? I probably have something more comfortable.”

  “Darling, I have been walking in shoes like this since I was a toddler. I don’t know how to walk in anything else.”