by S. L. Naeole
“That’s exactly where we’re taking all of these things,” he replied to my thoughts.
“But doesn’t that kind of go against the whole plan?”
His head bobbed down once, but he shrugged off the implication of it. “Things have changed. Janice’s attack has forced your father to remain here with your brother. It’s safer if we leave instead. If…when Janice recovers, she and your father will be moved somewhere safe as planned, but right now, it’s best that they stay.”
“I’m not sure I like that idea. I mean, your mom and Lem said that it was safer for them to go. Obviously they were right. If Janice and my dad had left earlier, she wouldn’t be in some hospital bed right now.””
“They weren’t right, Grace. Janice’s attack proves that. If she can be attacked here, with angels—seraphim—constantly watching this house, then she can be attacked in any house.”
I stared at him, silent and unwilling to address that rebuttal. He looked tired, something I had never seen on him before, and it worried me.
“Don’t worry about me, Grace,” Robert sighed before sitting down beside me, his hand covering mine. “This has been a very eventful twenty-four hours and I’ve yet to spend any of it with you quietly. I suppose I am weary from the need of it.”
I looked at him and pulled him down with me as I lay my head on the pillow. His chest pressed against my back, his arms curling around me and bringing me in closer, the two of us forming a pose that was so familiar to us, so comforting and calming that in a short while, I fell asleep to the sound of my breathing.
***
Sleep is supposed to be restful. It’s supposed to be something that restores you, replenishes you to take on the challenges that lay ahead of you in the waking world. If only it were so for me.
I knew I was asleep and dreaming when I could no longer feel Robert’s arms around me and my room was no longer a cocoon where one last moment alone together was being shared. Instead, I was back in a strange hallway of what could have been easily mistaken for some sort of deranged funhouse.
A closed door stood behind me, its flowery shape with four distinct petals familiar and yet not. There was a leaf-shaped door to my left and though I knew what was behind it because my memory wouldn’t let me forget, curiosity pushed me towards it, my hand reaching for the brass doorknob.
I pulled away only when I realized that there was no doorknob—not anymore. As my eyes traveled further down the hallway, I could see that each door was now graced with a ribbon where their knobs should be, the red tongues hanging out and waving in a wind that I could neither feel nor hear.
With shaky fingers, I grabbed for the first ribbon, pulling it and feeling taken aback when the door opened, revealing an empty room. Gone were the carcasses of countless birds. Gone were the wings and the bloodied feathers. Even the table that had sat in the center was gone. The gray box that remained told nothing of the horrors that had taken place here.
I left the room and proceeded to open up every door, finding behind each one the same, empty space. The bird, the heart, the moon and apple shaped doors were all opened to reveal bare rooms. It was the last door, the one that was shaped like a giant eye that caused my moment to pause. It looked no different than it had the first time I had seen it, but vastly different from the last.
The outer golden ring that encircled a dark center was thick and vibrant. It almost glowed with an impossible light, even as the black middle tried to consume it. It had not changed, this hunger that existed for what it could not have. I stepped closer, my hand remembering the chill that had replaced all feeling when I had placed it in that dark hole, discovering that the way through the door was not by opening it but rather by going through it, into it.
But that was when I knew what lay on the other side. This hallway, these doors, they had all been the prison that had been built inside of Stacy’s mind, a fortress to keep her from being discovered by those who would set her free; to keep her safe from me. This time, I knew nothing about what lay behind that door.
What I did know was that I didn’t want to find out. I turned around, determined to leave this dream and never return. Instead, I gasped. The doors that I had opened were now shut and bowing outwards, stretching, creaking, their wooden surfaces splintering and cracking from the pressure that pushed against the other side. The ribbons that had opened them to me were now long and furling across the hallway, lapping at their painted facsimiles on the opposite wall.
It looked like five faces sticking out their tongues in defiance of something. Or…perhaps it was a mocking gesture. But to who? I took a step forward and found myself unable to do so. I looked down and saw that the ribbon to the eye shaped door had wound its way around my ankle, tighter and tighter until there was a numbness in my foot that I was certain I would not have felt had I not seen it.
“Let go, you stupid ribbon!” I grumbled as I struggled to loosen the hold that the ribbon had on me. My fingers pulled at the red length but rather than ease up, it grew tighter. I jerked my leg, hoping that the line would simply break and instead found myself on the ground, my eyes staring up at the ceiling of the hallway, a ceiling I had never seen before because I never had cause to.
“Holy crap,” I breathed as I took in the sight before me.
An intricate mural that featured the figures of people crowded around one person—not a person; an angel—filled the lower part of the ceiling, while another showed a dark cloud hovering above them. It was heavy with consequences, that much I knew, and as my eyes traveled further I could see a wave rushing towards the people, but their backs were turned, their attention focused elsewhere. The angel that their faces were turned towards was faceless himself, but his hands were held out to them in supplication. He was their savior. He was going to save them from the consequences. But from what?
Ameila’s voice filled my head, her words of what had happened millennia ago rushing back in their own tidal wave. The deaths of millions of people and angels alike, brought on by the greed and lust for power that the Grigori had. It was nearly the end of the world, nearly the end of humanity as it was known then, according to Ameila, and as I stared at the image above me, I could see the look of fear on the people’s faces. I could almost taste their terror, smell it as they looked to the angel for guidance, for help, for rescue from the danger they felt, the danger they sensed but did not see.
The sharp tugging at my ankle broke my gaze away from the image above me and once again, I tried to free myself from the ribbon constraints. I braced myself against the door with my feet and pulled the red length, wishing that I had a pair of scissors or a knife to cut it.
A plinking sound forced my head to turn, and as if it had always been there, a pair of shears now lay beside me. “Is this the part where I say ‘curiouser and curiouser’?” I asked out loud before reaching for them and quickly snipping the ribbon, unraveling it from around my now purple foot.
As the blood began to circulate once more between my toes and the rest of my body, I stood, wobbling a bit and tilting my head back to gaze once more at the mural above me. I walked sideways towards the flower-shaped door, taking in as much detail as I could of the imminent destruction that would follow that wave and cloud as they booth loomed over the people like promises.
Deadly promises.
A tightening around my waist drew my attention downward once more, and I found myself being enrobed in ribbons, wrapped in them like some kind of scarlet mummy. I struggled against them, but they were fast, faster than I was, faster than I could have been. My arms were held against my side, immobile, and my legs were being squeezed together as the strip of red endlessly wound around them. My balance was thrown off, and as stiff as they were, my legs still buckled beneath me, sending me crashing to the ground once more only this time, I could not prevent my head from slamming into the ground and sending stars to pop and fade in front of my eyes.
“Oh, God,” I groaned as I tried to roll over. A wave of nausea hit me and I tur
ned my head, knowing that failing to do so could cause me to choke on the vomit that threatened to escape up my throat and out of my pursed lips. The doors seemed to rattle with glee at the pain that I felt, the sound of them creaking and cracking as they expanded and contracted filling up that hallway like a wooden thunderstorm that echoed in my head, playing the harmony to the melody of the ringing that filled my ears. And as the dots and stars began to cloud my vision, the scene above me began to change.
“What’s going on?” I asked to no one. I saw the faces of the people in the mural change, their expressions remaining, but their features morphing into those that were familiar, those that put the sting of fear, the cold grasp of it into my chest.
Graham’s face appeared, so did Dad’s, and Janice’s. Shawn’s, Stacy’s, Mrs. Deovolente’s; Ambrose’s face was there as well. The only face that was missing was mine.
“No,” I whimpered when I finally understood what the image was trying to tell me. “No.”
It was that recognition that seemed to trigger what happened in those next few moments. As I lay there on the ground, unable to even writhe in agony at the pain that I felt both on my body and in my heart, the doors finally had had enough of their abuse and gave in to the pressure that forced against them from the other side. They blew outward, shards of wooden daggers slamming into the wall opposite them, and raining down on me as I lay powerless to their cutting ends.
I closed my eyes and prayed that that would be enough. My ears were ringing with the pealing sound of the explosion; even thoughts were drowned out. The smell of burnt and rotted wood floated in the air, attacking my nose with its itchy and pungent aroma, and I sneezed, forcing my head to fly up and back down again which sent sharp, shooting pains down my back and through my mind. It bounced around within me, endlessly cycling through as though that had been its intention all along.
And through it all, I remained silent. I waited until the air had cleared, I waited until the throbbing inside of me had ebbed just enough so that opening my eyes wouldn’t hurt. I waited until my body could recognize the slack that had been given now that the ribbons had lost their anchors and slowly, gingerly shuffled my limbs around enough to escape their confines.
I rolled over, and promptly threw up. I managed to pull myself up to my knees, and waited until the last, hacking heave, then wiped my lips on one of the ribbons before attempting to stand. It was difficult, the world seemed to tilt with every millimeter of motion, but I managed to place both feet surely on the ground, my hands held out for balance. I was able then to register the damage that had been caused around me, and marveled at the destruction that lay at my feet.
The doors had been obliterated. All of them except for the two at the opposite ends of the hallway. Between them laid the remains of five doors, their vibrant colors now nothing but flecks of paint that had chipped off and littered the ground like confetti. The rooms that had been empty were now filled with thick, gray smoke that threatened to push forward into the hallway and suffocate me. But it didn’t. It stayed, as though confined by some invisible wall, and instead swirled around in a tempest of heat and air that I could not see or feel.
With careful steps, I hobbled towards the opposite end of the hall, the flower-shaped doorway beckoning to me. My bare feet crunched through the debris of splinters and shards of wood that stabbed at my feet that brought cry after cry to the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed each one. I would not let my own pain defeat me.
When I reached the end of the hallway, the door that stood there was unscathed, its ribbon still pristine and shimmering in the light that came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. I reached for the ribbon and tugged, my head lifting to get one last glimpse of the mural above me.
Before the door opened, before the ribbon snapped me back to my waking consciousness, I saw something that caused my heart to stop. Behind the wave, behind the ominous cloud, stood a dark figure, its wings standing out, proud and full.
And black.
***
I opened my eyes to see the wall of my room, my bedroom door open, my nightstand still bare. Robert’s arms still held me against him, and I felt him draw me towards him, turning me to face him. His eyes were stormy, a concern in them that I knew could only come from him having seen the dream for himself through my thoughts.
“You knew it was a dream and you still stayed. Why?”
“I have questions, Robert. I have so many questions about what is going on, what is happening to me—to us—that I won’t pass up an opportunity to get answers, even if I don’t like them.”
His hand brushed against the curve of my ear as he tried to keep his disappointment in check, the words that came out of him slow and measured in their calmness. “I cannot protect you in your dreams, Grace. I cannot bring you back if you stumble into a dark place and can’t find your way out.”
“I’m fine, Robert,” I insisted.
“No, you’re not. You saw things—terrible things. You cannot expect me to ignore that.”
I knew that he was referring to the vision of him, the dark figure that seemed to be causing that wave of destruction to head straight towards the people I cared about. “I don’t understand what that image means, Robert. I don’t pretend to know, but it’s important.”
“What if it means nothing, Grace? What if it’s just the sum of your fears manifesting itself into something that will only terrify you more?”
“Then at least I’ll know,” I answered.
“So you admit that you’re scared…of what I am”
And it was there that I finally recognized that what had clouded his eyes with fear was not from what I’d seen in my dream. He was afraid of what I thought of him, and what those thoughts might result in.
“Oh Robert,” I breathed, before wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face into the planes of his neck. I am not afraid of you, or what you are. I might have been at one time, for a second, but that moment passed almost as quickly as it came.
If I’m afraid of anything at all about you it’s that you might find one day that all of this isn’t worth it, that I’m not worth it, and that we’ve just been wasting time.
Rough yet gentle hands pulled my head away from him, and I was met with the fierce gaze of disbelief and disappointment. I will never believe that you’re not worth this.
Disbelief quickly turned into something more, something…fiery. I felt my lips part just an instant before his crashed down on them. It was like a whirlwind, the emotions that this kiss created, and all too easily, we became lost in it, pulled into its vortex that ensnared us and held us captive as hands explored and lips traversed skin and bone and flesh and heat.
When you can feel every line, every crevice, and almost smell the scorching of skin, you know that there’s no power on earth that could match the heat that exists between you and the person you’re with. This was why love was compared to the sun and the stars; you couldn’t escape it; it was always there, even when your eyes were closed and you felt weightless.
Panting, Robert pulled away, his face flush with an impossible redness, while his skin shone with the slick glisten of sweat that could not have possibly been his. His eyes were dilated, the pupils wide and ebony black, endless, like the feeling that went on and on inside of me, even as my heart thrummed in my chest.
“It’s not…fair,” he finally managed to say in a breathless whisper.
“That’s my line.” It was meant to be mocking, but instead it sounded sad. It wasn’t fair. This constant push and pull of our emotions, of our feelings, physical or otherwise, that we had to tiptoe around and fight off because of the consequences that had nothing to do with either of us.
“I wish I could turn you now.”
“Then why don’t you?” I looked at him with imploring eyes, wanting him to give in. Instead he eased away from me.
“It’s not going to happen tonight, Grace. We have things we have to deal with first,” he allowed before sitting up and running
his hands through his hair, the dark waves separating and gathering together, my heart skipping as the recent memory of that silk running through my fingers caused them to tingle.
Not wanting to start an argument, I sat up as well and pulled at the hem of my shirt, which had ridden up past my navel, exposing the pale flesh beneath it. “I guess we should get these boxes out of here,” I suggested before standing up.
“Grace…”
I turned to face him, and the expression on his face was pained. “Yes, Robert?”
“It’s not going to be forever, you know. It’s not going to be like this forever. You’ll be turned—soon—and then we’ll be able to…we’ll be together in that way.”
I simply nodded, and left the room, heading to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and examine the damage that yet another round of denial had caused. There were circles beneath my eyes, and the red webbing that crisscrossed the whites of them made me look more haggard than tired. My skin was waxy, and I reached for the soap to scrub at it, hoping that I could erase the dullness with one turn.
Dissatisfied with my end result, I closed my eyes to my reflection and was greeted with the nagging image of the mural that had hung above me in my dream. It came to me in pieces, chunks that did not meet up anywhere because I had not been able to see their ends. Faces that had not been there before, emotions that had been blank filled up spaces that should have remained empty. The lines grew darker, deeper, as though they were on fire, burning through the plastered surface until they met the sky itself. I frowned and opened my eyes, sighing when the dark half-moons that framed them seemed to grow darker.
“So much for being a blushing bride,” I muttered before turning off the light and heading back to my room. I found it empty of both boxes and Robert, and felt for the first time the fear of leaving behind something that I had always known, something that had always been a part of me. My entire life was packed away in a few boxes, and my future, short as it was, awaited me outside of these four plain walls.
