“We were supposed to meet this afternoon,” says Ethan. “When Justine told me you were out with ‘Liv’s cousin’, I got worried.”
“Sorry, I got preoccupied,” I say, glancing at Ashur. Somehow I feel guilty for standing him up. But it wasn’t like it was a date.
Ashur seems confused. “Are you two dating?” he asks. It’s hard to tell whether this inquiry is jealousy or strictly informative.
“We only just met,” I reply. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“When it comes to your safety,” he says. “It is my business. I’m the guardian remember. I’m here to protect you from people like him.”
“Like me,” Ethan objects. “I was sent here to watch over her too.”
“Watch over me?”
“By who?” Ashur interjects, suspiciously.
Ethan doesn’t answer him. Instead he turns to me.
“We thought you were in danger,” he explains.
“What do you mean ‘we’?” I ask. “Who are you people?”
He hesitates. “We watch over things as guardians.”
“I thought that was your job,” I say, glancing to Ashur.
“Who, Liv’s cousin?” Ethan asks, “Oh, You mean guardian angels,” He says with a smirk. “They do more watching and little guarding. My people have decided to take things into our own hands to secure the safety of man.”
“So everything you did,” I say, hurt, “everything you said. It was just part of an assignment.”
Ethan bows his head, not wanting to say.
“I can’t believe you.”
“Kyra,” he calls, reaching out to me only to be interrupted by Ashur. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was what was best for you.”
“Safer,” I exclaim. “Why is it that everyone thinks they know what is best for me? Just like my mother who thought dropping me in foster care was what was best? You don’t know what’s best for me? None of you do?”
“Your mother was tired of running,” Ethan says. “She knew she couldn’t protect you anymore. It was your handler’s idea to put you in foster care, where no one would know who you are.”
“Who is this handler?” I ask, angrily. “And what right did he have to make a decision like that for me.”
“Your handler is the one whose charge you were placed in. He watched over both you and your mother.”
I pace around him angrily. “Why me? Why my mother?” I don’t let him answer because I already know the answer. “Oh wait, I know. Because I am a daughter of Eve. Well you know what, I quit. I don’t want the job.” I start to walk away, but return not completely finished. “I don’t know where this handler gets off separating a mother and daughter, but you can tell him to stay out of my life. I don’t know how my mother ever agreed to any of this.”
“It was only supposed to be a temporary arrangement,” Ethan says. “At least that’s what your mother thought when she left you with him. She thought she would return for you someday.”
“Then why didn’t she?” I ask with tears poisoning my eyes. “Why did she lie?” The memory of my mother stabs my thoughts, of her promising me that she would return. So gentle and loving at the time. Telling me it’s going to be okay, when she had no intention of coming back for me. How can someone do that to a child? Then I see the face of my foster sister and the anger turns from my mother to me.
“She didn’t come back for you because…” Ethan pauses, but the angry look on my face demands he continue. “Because she’s dead. She died shortly after.”
“What?” I had never expected to hear that in all the years of hating my mother. A convulsion runs up my body and I begin to sob. Weak, I drop to the ground. Ashur rushes over to me and tries to help me to my feet, but I reject his help, slapping his hand away. He pulls back with a concerned look across his face. But with the overwhelming sorrow in my heart, I only see it as pity. “Leave me alone,” I say, acidly. “You knew and you didn’t tell me.”
Ashur retreats back, confirming that my feelings are right. He did know that my mother was dead and didn’t tell me. In his high and mighty angelic wisdom, he didn’t think it was necessary to tell me that my own mother was dead. That all these years of waiting for her to come back were in vain, not because she didn’t want me, but because she was dead. For years, I wondered what I had done to have my mother reject me the way she did. He could have said something. He could have made it right. But instead he did what all the angels and God always do. Just look on and say nothing.
“I’m sorry,” says Ethan as if an apology could ever be enough. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“How did she die?” I ask after regaining some control of my breathing.
Ethan purses his lips as if to keep the words from escaping.
“Tell me,” I scream at him.
He looks at me with pained eyes. “She died of a drug overdose,” he says. “Apparently, the demons she was running from weren’t just the ones in the shadows.”
My will completely collapses and I give into the sobbing again. I place my forehead to the soft grass, letting the pain of emotion run through my whole body. I feel Ashur’s hand on my back, but I do not budge. I am too consumed with the thoughts of my mother. Why did she have to leave me? Why couldn’t she fight back? Didn’t she love me at all?
I imagine the small framed woman, injecting herself with the needle, having no care for what she would leave behind. She was nothing more than a coward, running away and leaving me behind to pick up the pieces. This should be her, facing down these demons, but now it’s been left to me. I would have to be the one to do the right thing. I would be the one to sacrifice everything to protect a legacy that I didn’t start. I don’t care what sacred right this is to be a daughter of Eve. I don’t want it anymore. I just want it to end. I want all of it to end. The anger courses through me, pushing back the pain, and with it, any love that I had allowed to enter into my heart.
As I rise to my feet, Ashur places his hand under my arm to help me, but I quickly jerk away from him. “I’m fine,” I exclaim as I step away from him. “I’m fine,” I repeat more composed. I wipe the tears from my eyes. My head is aching and I can feel the beating of my heart in my temples.
Straining to pull myself together, I walk back to Ashur. I take the knife from him and march to Ethan still sitting on the grass. Placing the blade toward his throat, I say, “Why should I believe you?”
Ethan glances over to Ashur and then back at me. He lifts his shirt sleeve, uncovering the bandage on his arm. Sliding two fingers under the bandage, he yanks firmly, ripping it free. Beneath is not a slice from a lawnmower blade as he had said, but the puncture wounds of a dog bite. “I was there last night when you were chased into the woods.” He looks over at Ashur with distain. “While lover-boy over there was chasing away the shadows, I was fighting off the real threat.”
“You fought off the clay men,” Ashur says, unconvinced.
“Yes.” Ethan’s voice is firm with a hint of agitation toward him. “It’s what I do. I kill the bad guys. And I’m good at it.”
“That’s why you attacked me with the knife?”Ashur turns to show the cut in his shirt and the slice in his side.
“It’s just a small cut,” he says with almost a snicker. “You’re immortal. It won’t kill you. If I had wanted to kill you, I would have taken your head.”
Ashur is not amused. I throw the knife to Ethan, who catches it. He jumps to his feet and twirling the blade down, he tucks it away into a sleeve at his side.
“Next time you two get into a scrap,” I say to them. “Leave the knives out of it.” They simply scowl at each other. “Will you two get over yourselves, any minute those shadow and clay things are going to come out of the woods and destroy us all. And we have to do something about it.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Ethan says. “The town is protected.”
“How do you know?” asks Ashur. His voice is harsh and cold. If I thought it was p
ossible for angels to be jealous, I would swear he was. Apparently, there is only room for one protector in this town. Exactly, the attitude you would expect from men.
Ethan closes in on the angel, getting in his face. “For your information, I overheard Old Man Shaker talking to the pastor about a way to keep the shadows from entering the town. Apparently, a crazy lady had spoken to him all hysterical about the shadow people breaking some truce. They needed lanterns to put around the town.”
It must have been Justine. Could it really have been the shadow people in my room the night before? That must have been why she put the lantern in my room, to protect me. The men that were looking for us in the woods had those same lanterns. And the lanterns on the poles. “That’s why they put those poles around the town,” I say. “To hang the lanterns from.”
“The pastor mentioned setting them up as a precaution,” says Ethan.
“But how are lanterns going to keep them away?” I ask.
“They’re not just lanterns,” Ashur adds, as if just coming to a realization. “They’re the eternal flame that the shadows were talking about.”
“What’s the eternal flame?”
“It’s a flame that continuously burns and cannot be extinguished,” Ashur continues. “Well they can’t be extinguished by means known to man and I imagine the clay people don’t even know how to extinguish them or else they would have tried.”
“So the flames keep us safe,” I say.
“Yes,” replies Ashur. “For now at least. The shadows cannot cross into its light. But I’m not so sure it will protect us from the clay ones.”
“The clay ones are cursed by God,” Ethan says. “They can’t cross the barrier without knowing how to.” Ashur still seems skeptical. “Believe me, I know all about the accursed. I also know the ways around such barriers and it is only a matter of time before they figure them out.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “You said the pastor knew about the lanterns, but last night he acted that the notion of shadow people was nonsense.”
Ethan shrugs.
“Sounds like the pastor knows more than he is letting on,” says Ashur.
I dart an icy glance at Ashur. “He’s not the only one.”
Ashur says nothing and I am satisfied that my point was made. “Since it looks like there will not be an invasion tonight, I would like to go home and take a hot bath.” I start for the house; both Ashur and Ethan follow behind like two lost puppy dogs with no place to go. I have no desire to talk to either of them and so our walk continues in silence.
When we reach the house, I turn to both of them. “You can’t come in with me,” I say. They start to object, but I won’t let them get a word in. “As far as I am concerned, you can protect me just as well from the street. Besides, this whole town is in danger and that should be your priority, not me.” Again they begin to object, but I raise my hand cutting them off. “Now Ashur will need a place to stay, because the shed isn’t going to work,” I continue, looking at Ethan. “I suppose you have a place that you can share.”
“You want him to shack up with me,” Ethan complains.
“I don’t need a place,” Ashur asserts. “I plan on staying here and making sure you are safe.”
“I have handled myself just fine up until now,” I say, firmly. “I suspect I can continue to take care of myself without you. If the shadows do come in to town, I can’t imagine there is a whole lot that either of you can do for me anyway.”
“You’ll be safe here as long as this guy doesn’t take you out of the town limits again.” He points at Ashur, with a look of derision.
“Maybe if you had been more upfront about what you knew from the start, rather than skulking in the darkness, she wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place.”
“Boys,” I intervene. “This isn’t a competition to see who can be the better bodyguard. The fact is, I don’t need either of you. But as long as you’re here, you can both make nice and figure out a way to save this town before the shadows find a way in. Until then, I don’t want to see you around here.”
Ashur opens his mouth as if to say something, but I turn and walk away before he gets a chance to speak. As much as my heart may be drawn to him, my mind is determined to stay away. I will not make the mistake of falling for him or any other knight in shining armor. He is an angel, and I am a mortal, and that will never change.
Inside, Justine looks up from her knitting and greets me with a smile. She’s probably just glad that I made it back at a descent hour. “Did you have a good time with Liv’s cousin?” she asks.
“Fine,” I say, collapsing on the couch in the living room. I kick my shoes off and begin messaging my aching feet. Jeff is sitting on the recliner engrossed in a book, barely aware of any human presence.
She stares a moment as if hoping for more. “Just fine, then,” she says, her curiosity oozing out. “Did you do anything fun?”
“We went clothes shopping and...you know, hung out.” I don’t like having to leave her in suspense, especially where Justine’s imagination could roam. Who knows what she has conjured up, reading those harlequin romances.
“Ethan was looking for you after he was done landscaping,” she says. “I told him you had gone off with Liv’s cousin.” She crinkles her forehead, staring off to one side. “He did seem a little concerned.”
“No,” I say. “I talked with him at the park. He’s fine.”
“Oh, so you…hung out with him too.”
“Yah, we’re all just friends,” I say, trying to ease her mind.
“Well, isn’t that lovely,” Justine says, clanking her knitting needles together. Her voice strained and exasperated. “You hear that Jeff, Kyra’s is finding all kinds of friends here. Boy friends.”
“Just friends,” I add.
“That’s nice,” Jeff says, barely pulling his attention from his book. “It’s good to see you fitting in. Just wait till school starts up in a few weeks.”
Justine begins knitting furiously. “So is there anything else you would like to tell us about your day?” she probes further. “You know we are here to listen.”
I think for a moment, not sure what to say. By the way, I found a million year old angelic temple and there are a bunch of dirt clods that are just itching to come down here and kill off the entire town. That definitely would not be something she was expecting. I stammer a bit as I try to get anything intelligible out. “If I had some…news that was really important to you… the both of you, but it sounds really unbelievable would you still believe it.” Even as I say it, I know that it makes absolutely no sense.
Justine opens her mouth, but says nothing, making a gasping noise instead. Starting over, she says, “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“What if you…Jeff…this town were in danger and I knew it, but couldn’t tell you why, would you be willing to believe me if I couldn’t tell you why.”
Jeff’s attention now turns to the conversation. Justine stops knitting. Something seems to be ready to burst out of her and she is trying to keep her composure. “Does this concern, the young man from this morning?” she asks. This pulls in Jeff’s full attention.
“Sort of—I guess—in a way,” I stammer.
Suddenly, Justine seems as though she is going to burst from her seems. “This is about sex, isn’t it?” she exclaims.
“Justine,” Jeff says in shock.
“Well, she is a teenager and a very pretty girl and he’s…” She gets flustered and out of breath. “Well, he’s…you know…”
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