“The foresight of an angel does exist for the one they watch over,” he says. “But as I said before, it is limited. Especially, in dark places.”
“What do you mean ‘dark places’?”
“Places hidden from the light of God.”
“Light of God?”
He pokes his head out of the doorway, smiling. “That’s right. You don’t believe in God. Yet he is the one you called out to when all else seemed lost.”
“Maybe I am a little more open to the possibility,” I say, reluctantly. “I mean you are an angel after all. It’s easy for you to believe, you probably see Him all the time.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” he says as he steps out of the shed, fully clothed. The shirt is tight on him, but it will do for now. “How do I look?” he asks.
“I can’t say much for the clothes,” I say. “They came from a math teacher. But they’ll do for now.”
“Thank you, Kyra,” he says with a gentleness in his voice. “You have shown great kindness to me.”
“You did save my life.”
“That is my duty as your guardian,” he replies. “What you do is out of kindness.”
“You’re welcome,” I say. His politeness is endearing. He definitely acts like an angel, not that I would know what an angel would act like. I just suppose it would be polite.
“We have a saying, God lights our path with the love of others,” he says.
The comment hits close to home, but I decide to brush it off. “I don’t need God in order to be a kind person.”
“Of course not,” Ashur says. “That is what is so curious about your kind. Even without believing, you will still show kindness. Surely you feel something of Him.”
“I only felt cold,” I reply. “And I thought you might be cold too. That’s the way it is down here. It’s called sympathy. And I’m a sucker for it.”
“I don’t think that makes you a…sucker,” he says uncertain.
“The point is, God doesn’t have much to do with us down here. I don’t know how it is for you angels, but He abandoned us the first chance he got, just like my own father.”
“How can you feel that way?”
“After seeing what I’ve seen of this world,” I say stiffly, “I can’t feel any other way. Besides, it’s easy for you. You live with God.”
“We do not live with God. We live in the lower realms of heaven. I have never seen Him and I don’t personally know anyone who has.”
“Then how do you know what he wants you to do?” I ask.
“The same way anyone does,” he answers. “I feel it.”
“Doesn’t seem very reliable.”
“And yet you do it all the time. Feel, I mean. You mortals feel more than angels do. Often you have so many feelings that you are lost in them.”
“Could you not refer to me and my kind as mortals,” I say. “It’s a little condescending.”
“I don’t mean to seem that way,” he says. “In fact, angels are to bow before man. God has commanded it. It is for that reason that Satan rebelled. He refused to bow because of his pride.”
“Wow. Thanks for the Bible lesson. Could we get back to the whole thing about me dying? I think that’s a little more pressing.”
“Of course,” he says obligingly. “You were asking me about why I don’t know if you are going to die. You see, my kind aren’t supposed to communicate with mort…man through the material world. We may give thoughts or feelings that seem so strong that it is as if someone is speaking to you.”
“Like with the dogs,” I say. “I heard someone screaming at me to run. It was like a thought, but it wasn’t my voice.”
“It was mine.”
“You spoke to me.”
“To your heart,” he says. “That’s how we communicate to our wards.”
“But in the bookstore and the cemetery you talked to me in person.”
Ashur’s expression changes to one of grief. “I should not have done that, but I did not know what else to do. You were going to die and nothing I could do would stop it. Even then I was unsuccessful in changing the outcome. I finally had to intervene. I had to descend.”
“Descend?”
“Yes,” he says. “I came to earth in full material form.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to do that.”
He thinks for a moment, struggling with his words. “It’s complicated.”
Complicated? There is something he is not telling me. Maybe he doesn’t know himself or maybe he doesn’t want to tell me. “You said that sometimes it’s just a person’s time to go and there is nothing a guardian can do about it. Why didn’t you just let me die?”
He seems to hesitate as if uneasy about answering the question. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
It’s obvious that I am not getting anything out of him. The point is, I am alive. The question is for how long. “So you’re mortal now.”
“Not entirely,” he says. “I am still immortal. If I continue to live in this world, I will never die, unless my life is taken from me.”
“So you can be killed,” I say.
“This is a realm of death,” he says. “Unlike heaven, even an immortal can die here.”
“But you will just go back to heaven. No big deal.”
“The angelic realm and what you call heaven are not exactly the same thing. We know nothing of your heaven; we only know that there is a place for the immortal souls of man. But we are not man. We don’t know what happens to those angels who die.”
“Have there been angels who have died?”
“Many have died for the sake of man,” he says solemnly. “And many more will die before the end.” A chill rolls over me and I shiver. Ashur notices and takes his shroud, saying, “It’s you who are cold now.” He places his shroud around me. Surprisingly, though the material is thin, it is quite warm.
“Is this out of duty,” I say.
He smiles. “Let’s just say I know cold now and I only want you to feel warmth.”
His words comfort me. With him I feel safe as if he really could throw back the darkness that surrounds me, as if he could heal all the pains of this world. Like the dawn of a new day casting out the shadows, he brings a certain hope with him, a feeling that in this cold universe I am not alone. There is someone who will rescue me. Maybe my mother was right. Maybe another dawn will come.
“It certainly is warm,” I say.
“It carries my essence,” he says. “Literally. The same material that makes up my body makes up that shroud.”
The thought might seem romantic, but I can’t keep from thinking I am wearing a blanket of his skin. I am somewhat revolted. I quickly remove it. “So this is like your skin.”
“No,” he says with a slight laugh. “You saw my wings right. I can’t exactly walk around here with wings on my back so they become this shroud. The material is like that of angel feathers. It’s a little more subtle than leaving a pair of wings around.”
“So these are your wings,” I say.
“What’s left of them,” he says. “My wings and body are made from clay of the earth just like yours.”
I shake my head. “I specifically remember from my science class that I am not made of the clay of the earth. I have flesh and bone.”
“When I say clay, I mean the base material that we angels use to form all matter, even the earth. All things can also be made back into that base material to be reshaped. I simply took from the earth what I needed and reshaped it into this.” He gestures to himself.
“Well you certainly did a good job,” I comment.
From his expression it is evident that he doesn’t know how to take this comment. “I simply made it in the fashion of my angelic body,” he says humbly. Ego seems to mean nothing to him.
I hold the shroud out to him. “So basically this isn’t skin or anything. Because if it is, I am going to have to give it back.”
Ashur smirks. “No it is not skin,” he says, taking i
t from me. Stepping behind me, he spreads the shroud out and rolls it gently over my shoulders and around my arms. I can feel his arms from under the sheer material. They surround me. “Think of it instead as a blanket of feathers,” he says softly, his breath warm against my neck, “and when you wear it, it is like being in my arms. Safe and warm.”
I stand there for a moment in his arms, eyes closed, not wanting to move. I can feel his breathing. Then, just as it came, the moment is gone as he takes me by the hand and leads me back to the house. Stopping by the back door, he stares into my eyes as I look back into his. The moonlight shimmers softly across their blue glossy surface like ripples across a pond. “You must go and rest,” he says. “You have been through much. And there will be plenty of time to answer the questions you have.”
I step in the door way, but then look back hesitantly. I don’t want to leave him. “What about you?”
“I will be watching over you,” he says. “Know that you are safe here with me.”
“Well if you get tired of watching, you can sleep in the shed. It’s not comfortable, but Jeff keeps some camping stuff in there. I’m sure you can find a sleeping bag or something.”
“Thank you,” he says. “I will be fine.”
I turn to go in, but stop, swerving backward. It’s like the door step scene of a first date. I don’t know whether I should hug him or shake his hand or something more. I know what my hormones want to do, but I pull tightly on the heartstrings and simply say, “thank you.”
“It’s just a shroud,” he says.
“No, I mean about saving our lives…mine and Liv’s.”
“Of course,” he says as he stares at me again with that intensity that grips my soul.
I stumble to think. “Umm…so how long will you stay…here…on earth?”
He sighs. “As long as I am needed,” he says. I stare at him intently, allowing the words to soak through me. There is a quiet between us, a space where we say nothing, but I continue to stare like a foolish girl. Giving a short and somewhat awkward wave, he begins to walk away. He glances back to see if I am going inside.
I shake myself back to my senses. “Of course, I need to get to bed.” I fumble through the doorway.
I spend the rest of the night in thoughts about him. Tossing from my back to my side, I cannot shake the image of his eyes staring at me and through me. I move from sheer joy of our meeting to anger that it should one day end to fear that he will never feel anything for me, a mortal. Then I scold myself for being so stupid. It’s probably just because he is an angel that I am so drawn to him. Still, even on that day when I saw him on the street, before I knew him as an angel, didn’t I feel that same pull.
He is the essence of stillness, a rock of certainty in the storms that surround me and I am a lost ship pulled toward him, unable to escape, destined to be broken on his shore. But nothing in me wants to escape it. And even as it passes, I feel a loss. He is an angel. He doesn’t belong here. Sooner or later he will leave and I will again be alone. My heart resists, pulling back. I can’t fall in love with him. It is forbidden. Still, the nature of the heart is always to the forbidden. Toward that which we cannot have. It is our misery and our ecstasy.
Flipping to my back, I scrunch up my fists at my side, cursing my heart for feeling anything. Why am I doing this to myself? Why can’t I control it? I will not fall in love, I say over and over again. But even as I say it, I do not believe it. It’s as if I am sitting on the train tracks, seeing the train coming, but I am unable to do anything to avoid it. In my mind, it’s as simple as stepping off the tracks, but in my heart I am chained to the tracks and the more I resist, the greater I am trapped.
Unable to resolve the emotions, I close my eyes and give into them. My resistance is gone and I am plunged into the uncertainty of it all. Fear pours through me and I want to push back, but then it settles and I am left there in that sacred place, that empty temple of serenity. There I am with him and no one else. It is still and I am at peace. His face is glowing out of the darkness and my heart burns with its intensity. I feel as though I am no longer in my body as if ‘I’, a separate being, no longer exist. It is only us. We are all that exists here.
I laugh with joy and it echoes through the halls of my dream. He takes me by the hand and leads me down the corridors of the temple to a room cast in shadow, with the exception of a slight crack of light, which reveals a group of circles, etched into the floor, and a woman sitting in the middle of them, her face hidden. There is one ring surrounded by six other rings. Ashur leads me up to the center ring, until I am standing in the middle of it. Then, letting go of me, he falls back into the shadow where I can no longer see him.
I want to go and look for him, but I can’t seem to leave the spot I am in. Next to me, the woman writes in chalk on the stone floor. A green velvet cloak covers her and all I can see is her hair spilling out the corners of the hood. She is writing letters in the circle, the same three letters in my locket. When she is done she slowly straightens, raising herself off her knees. Taking the hood with both hands, she pulls it back revealing her face. It’s my mother.
Around us, the shadows begin to mutter and hiss. “Do not speak.” “Not the words.” No mother, do not speak.”
My mother seems not to take notice of them. Instead, she begins chanting. “The Mother letters: Aleph, Mem, Shin. A great mystery covered and sealed with six rings. And from them emanated air water and fire. And from them were born the Fathers, and from the Fathers, descendents.”
The shadows begin to moan and gnash at the sound of her chanting. Their hissing grows louder and with greater intensity. “Do not speak, mother. Must not speak.” They try to move closer but cannot pass into the light. They are angry.
Still, my mother does not take notice. She continues to chant the three letters over and over. I want to tell her to stop, but I cannot speak. It’s as if I am not here. Her words become louder and I soon realize that they are no longer her words, but are mine. I am chanting them and she is gone, or I have become her. Nothing is clear to me here.
I only hear the words of the chant. “The mother letters: Aleph, Mem, Shin. A great mystery covered and sealed with six rings.”
A great rumbling comes from the earth and the shadows scream out. “Do not look into the face of the Black Sun.” I don’t know what they mean. Above me the sun shines brightly. The shadows continue to wale. “The Black Sun is risen.”
Another rumble comes from the earth, nearly toppling me over and then blackness settles over me. I look above me as the sun blackens almost like an eclipse, but instead of the sun being blocked out, the sun is emitting the darkness. “Behold the black sun,” the shadows echo as they enclose over me.
Where is Ashur? Why isn’t he protecting me? I am alone here. A feeling comes over me that this is not true. I hear a heavy breath in the darkness and the quick beating of a heart. There is a stirring among the blackened shadows and red embers begin to glow in the distance. They grow brighter as if being kindled from some unseen fire until they glow with a blood red radiance. They move in the darkness and I am aware that they are not embers at all, but eyes—eyes of some creature among the shadows. It is staring at me, seeing me. Though I cannot see the creature, I know that it is moving closer. I can feel its breath on me. It continues to stare. As my eyes adjust to this new light, I see its head lumbering over me. It is large with a hideous face like that of an ox. Horns pour from its temples reaching up to the sunless sky.
The shadows whisper, “In the darkness he is the light. The light of the black sun.”
Angel Realms Page 11
