Angel Realms

by Malynn, Vivienne

  The image of the stranger comes to mind, his eyes mainly. When he looks at me, it’s as if I am suspended in them. Usually, I can tell when a person isn’t being straight with me. But with him, his eyes tell me that he is telling the truth, that he cares about what happens to me. My heart sinks, aching, like the sensation that comes when falling. Was he even real, or did I imagine him? No one else ever seems to see him. Leave it to me, to get hung up on a guy that probably doesn’t even exist. No. There’s no such thing as ghosts. He’s probably just some lunatic who has been stalking me around town. Why should I believe him? It’s absurd that someone I don’t even know should predict my death.

  Still, that doesn’t completely rule out the fact that I am losing my mind. Trying to push the thought away, I try to engage more in the conversation with Liv. “So how far is it to your mother’s house?”

  “What?”

  “Your mother,” I repeat, “we’re going to see your mother, right.”

  Liv stops at the side of the road, her head hanging low and eyes to the ground, not saying anything. She seems disturbed by something I said, but I don’t understand why. Then I see what she is standing in front of. It’s the entrance to a cemetery. A sickening feeling comes over me.

  “I am so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know. I just thought…” What can I say to this?

  She looks up with a gentle smile, clearly masking painful memories. Her eyes glisten with the swelling of tears. “No, I’m sorry,” she says. Her chin quivers as she looks back down at the flowers. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come. I thought I could keep it together after all these years, but I…” Her voice breaks as a tear streams down her face.

  Tears start in my own eyes at the sight. I step toward her hesitating slightly with a half-step, but then, swallowing my reluctance, I plunge my arms around her. “It’s okay. I understand. I don’t have my mother around either.”

  She pulls back a bit and says, “You probably think I’m really screwed up or something.”

  I laugh a bit, then reply, “You’re going to find out sooner or later. I’m screwed up too.”

  She smiles, and in that moment I realize that I have never allowed anyone to touch my heart in that way, since…since my little foster sister. After losing her, I never wanted to love again. The anger that usually follows her memory doesn’t seem to be there anymore, only peace. As if with this person I have just met, I have another chance to regain what was lost in me.

  “My mother died when I was twelve,” Liv says as we walk past lines of moss covered graves forgotten with time. Tree roots jet out over the path, making it disjointed and uneven. A slight mist comes over the hills as if poured out by the falling sun, leaving a grey light over the field of dead.

  “My mother left when I was eight.”

  “Left you?”

  “In foster care. She had some mental problems. I guess she thought it was the safest place for me.”

  “That still doesn’t make it hurt any less,” Liv says with an expression of grief in her face. “When my mother first died, I thought she had left me on purpose. That she didn’t love me and that’s why she didn’t stay with us. It’s stupid I know, but I was so young and I didn’t know what to think. Then I was mad with God for taking her.”

  “I am still mad with God.”

  Liv slows to a stop and puts her hand on my arm. “You mustn’t be mad with Him,” she says. “You mustn’t be angry with anyone. My mother once told me before she died, that anger in the heart leaves no room for love. What is life without love?”

  “That’s a sweet sentiment,” I say. “But I have too many things to be angry with.”

  “We all do,” she says. “It’s still our choice though.” She kneels next to a grave. The headstone is small and more cheaply made then those around it. The others that surround it are larger and have elaborate etchings and moldings. Some of the graves are even marked with magnificent sculptures of angels. But all are marred with time and decay. Moss has overrun them all and they sit uncared for with the exception of this one. Liv gently brushes the pine needles that have gathered on the face of the simple marker since the last time she visited it.

  “Her name was Maryanne.” She studies the marker, making sure that it is properly maintained. She takes the old wilted flowers off and replaces them with the yellow daffodils she brought with her. “It’s not much,” she says looking back at me. “But I do what I can to keep it up.”

  I hunch down next to her and rest my hand on her shoulder, cold and bare where her sweater has dropped down. Leaning in, I straighten the flowers slightly, then sit back and admire it with her. “It’s perfect.”

  “I know,” she says softly. “It’s exactly how my mother would have wanted it.”

  We sit there in silence, as if time were suspended, until the sun begins to hang low in the sky. Normally, I would think it strange to sit over the grave of someone I never knew, but here in this place at this moment, I feel my own mother near me like I did as a child. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be comforted by my mother. My heart feels quiet, the anger is gone for now, and closing my eyes, I recall that once lost love felt in the arms of my mother. I don’t want it to end, but something in me tells me that it won’t last long.

  Liv is the first to break the tranquility. “Do you mind if I have a few moments alone,” she says. She looks at me and then back to the grave. “I want time to talk to her.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” I say. “I’ll just be wandering around when you’re done.” I stand and brush the earth and pine needles from my knees. The smell of dirt is strong here, almost clay like. In the distance, the sun is leaving us quickly and with the thickness of the trees surrounding us, the depth of the darkness is only more. Liv continues to kneel at the grave, whispering softly.

  I stroll through the gravestones, each with its distinct engraving. Some date back as far as the early 1900’s, but most are more recent. This small graveyard must be used by the entire town, but it’s strange that such a small cemetery could service so many. There must only be maybe fifty graves total. That can’t be enough for a town this old. There has to be another cemetery somewhere else.

  I walk down a path out of sight of Liv. There is a large mausoleum there, with two stone angels, blindfolded and standing at the entrance. The angels look like small children, with petite features. They are looking upward into the sky in the action of prayer. They guard the tomb of Barnaby, the town founder. Something is etched over the entrance of the tomb, a quote. As I read it to myself, I hear a male voice read it aloud. “In this theater of man's life, it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers-on.”

  Jolted by the presence of another, I turn around suddenly to see the stranger from the bookshop standing in the path where I had just come. “You have a habit of popping in and out unexpectedly,” I say. “Maybe next time you can give me some warning.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I do not mean to make things difficult for you.”

  “You don’t want to make things difficult? Maybe you should not have told me that I was going to die.” I begin to start back down the path toward Liv.

  “Wait,” he says. “I must talk to you. It is very important.”

  “Is this about my death?” I ask, but I don’t wait for a response. “Who are you anyway? You pop up out of nowhere and disappear again. The only words you have said to me are that I am going to die. Who are you to tell me that?”

  “I’m your guardian,” he says.

  “My guardian?”

  “You would call me a guardian angel.”

  “If you’re an angel, then where are your wings and your halo,” I say. I am quite certain that this guy is crazy and my best course of action is to get Liv and leave this place.

  “I took this form, so that you would not be scared,” he says.

  “The only thing I am afraid of is you,” I say. “You have stalked me ever since I came to this town, and made death threats.”

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sp; “It was not a death threat. It was a warning of what is to come.”

  “Because you are an angel and know the future. Nice try. I am leaving now, and if you try to stop me, I will scream for my friend.” I walk around him and continue toward Liv.

  “She won’t see me, even if she does come.”

  “Why, because you’re invisible?” I say as I glance back. But he is gone. Turning back to the path, he is standing ahead of me next to a grave marker. I pause, not knowing what to think. “Okay, so you have some ninja skills. I’ll give you that. But I still don’t believe that you are some kind of angel.”

  “That’s right. You have always struggled with the things of God,” he says.

  “I just don’t trust your word on it,” I say sternly, although he is right in what he says. It still does not change the fact that I don’t believe this guy.

  The stranger looks at me with mournful eyes. He walks behind one of the gravestones, until his legs are blocked from view. Then, holding his hands out, he begins to walk forward. He gets to the stone, but instead of stopping, he continues walking completely through it as if it was not there. He steps aside with a wry smile. “Can a ninja do that?”

  I walk over to the grave stone and rest my hand on it. It is solid and completely impenetrable. I hit my hand against it to be sure. I then reach out to the stranger, this time he does not stop me. My hand brushes through him. I begin to panic. This can’t be happening, none of this is real. I must be going crazy. My mother saw things, that’s why they locked her up, and now I am seeing things and I’ll be locked up too.

  “You’re a delusion,” I say. “Something made up in my mind.”

  “I am not a delusion,” he insists. “I am your guardian angel. Why can’t you accept that?”

  “Because people in their right mind do not accept things like that.”

  He looks at me curiously. “But people who are in their right mind accept the fact that they are crazy.”

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s very sensible for a person to think they are insane.” Even as I say it, I realize how crazy it sounds. But right now, my sanity is not the highest it’s been in my life.

  “I don’t have time for this, Kyra,” he says. His voice is growing impatient. “You are just going to have to trust me. Otherwise, I cannot help you.”

  “Alright. If you are an angel, and not a figment of my mind, then why don’t you make yourself solid? Then I can feel you and know you are real.”

  “Do you think that touch is any more reliable then sight,” he says. “You see me here, but you do not believe I am here. If you could touch me, you would doubt just as much. You are just going to have to trust what your heart says.”

  I don’t trust my heart. My heart is what gets me into trouble. But I can’t tell him this. My heart tells me to love and trust, when I will only get hurt and abused. I can only trust what my mind says. But my mind cannot make sense of any of this. “Why can’t you just make yourself solid or something, just so I can feel better about this whole thing?”

  “I cannot become material in this world without consequences,” he says.

  “What sort of consequences?”

  “I become subject to death. Besides, it’s forbidden by the council of angels. And no angel of my generation has ever disobeyed the council.”

  I am still not sure what to think. If this is merely a delusion, then it certainly is an elaborate one. If I accept that this guy is an angel, then I have to accept that God exists, which digs up a whole new level of abandonment issues. All those days as a child, pleading with God to bring my mother back, only to be returned with silence. Not only did my father and mother abandon me to the foster system, but so did God. I don’t know if I am ready to enter into that level of angst.

  It was just so much easier to accept that God did not exist, then there was no one to blame but my mother. And I could blame her actions on her mental illness. But if God exists and is what they say he is, then he could have done something, but instead He did nothing. Now I am about to die and the best he can give me is an angel that can only talk. A lot of good that is going do me.

  “Why come now?” I ask. My question is not one I care to have answered; I only want to make a point. “You know you could have come when I needed you. When I was abandoned by my mother and still believed there was hope. No, you decided to come when that hope is gone. When you’re not wanted.”

  He backs away from me as if my words hurt him. “You don’t understand,” he mutters.

  “I understand,” I say. “I understand that you didn’t care about me then and you don’t care about me now. So why don’t you just leave me alone and let me live my life without your constant interruptions.”

  “Until now, your life wasn’t in danger.”

  “So tell me how I am supposed to change the fact that I am going to die.”

  “That’s just it,” he says. “I don’t know how to save your life. I don’t even know how you are going to die.”

  I throw my hands in the air in frustration. “Some kind of guardian angel you are. I thought you could see the future or something. But instead, you’re here telling me I am going to die based on what, a guess.”

  He reaches out to me, and again, realizes that he cannot touch me. It is evident from his expression that he is frustrated. “I may not know how you are going to die, but I am sure you will if…”

  “How?”

  “We do see the future in a sense,” he says. “We can feel how a life is affected as it leads down a certain path. We can feel how a certain action will bring joy or pain or some other emotion. Mortal emotions are very strong and we are very sensitive to them.”

  “And what do you feel when a person dies?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” he replies. “We feel nothing. Usually, we can see what action leads to that and help a person avoid it, if it is appropriate.”

  “Appropriate? When is saving a person’s life ever not appropriate.”

  “Sometimes it’s just their time to go,” he says. He seems almost indifferent to the idea of letting someone die.

  “So you’re saying that it’s my time to go?”

  “I don’t know if it’s your time,” he says. “Usually it’s clear, but with you, everything is shrouded in darkness. I can’t see anything clearly. That’s why I have come to warn you. Even as we speak, the darkness draws closer. The darkness is nearly here, from this point on, I can see nothing. And after tonight, I feel only nothing.”

  This discussion of my death has made me uneasy. I almost wish he had not come. It would have been easier if he had just let me die without my knowing it. It would be better than this uncertainty. “So what do I do?”

  “I wish I knew,” he says. “I have tried every option and in all of them, you die.”

  “There’s nothing I can do,” I say. Fear begins to grip me. I can’t say that I particularly enjoyed my life, but at least there was hope that somehow I could change things. Now, that hope is gone, and I am afraid. I don’t want to die. My breaths become shallow and I have to sit down on a grave stone.

  “I will be here with you,” the stranger says. “I won’t leave you.”