Angelborn

by L. Penelope

  It’s just this, my hand on her face, the cool water all around us, but I’m acutely aware of her nakedness underneath the surface and just inches from my own.

  I take in a jagged breath and pull my hand away.

  “What was that dream? Have you had it before?”

  The spell broken, her open expression shutters again, and I instantly regret the question. But it is for the best.

  It must be.

  “Yes,” is all she says.

  Has one of the Destinies ever visited her? Tried to bring some peace to her troubled soul? Perhaps one of the Warriors has been assigned to her, and all of her struggles are because of that guild’s belief in conflict as the route to inner strength. It’s impossible to know without visiting a Recordkeeper.

  “Who was that girl? Natasha?”

  She shrugs and splashes her face with water, but doesn’t answer. I want to let it go, but I can’t.

  “What do you normally do when the burning rain comes for you?”

  Her face tenses and she looks away. “I die.”

  My voice abandons me. Fearing that I’ve intruded enough on her for one night, I leave her there, in the peaceful field dug from some hidden, placid corner of her mind. Hopefully, she will rest untroubled for the remainder of the night.

  Back in the room I’ve commandeered on the top floor of their dormitory, vacant due to water damage, I peer at my body in the mirror. The gash on my shoulder and chest pulses, but is already beginning to close. Splotches of red cover my skin. The welts from the rain are no longer raised and angry; their pain is becoming a memory.

  I long to ask Kalyx why I still wear the physical effects of Maia’s subconscious. The dreams I’ve walked before left no lasting marks. Are Maia’s more powerful somehow?

  I don’t heal the wounds. They serve as a reminder — pain on the outside heals much faster than pain on the inside. Maia’s pain has branded me, searing more than just my skin. The barbs of my care for her have dug themselves deep within me. So deep, I fear they’ve reached the place where my soul should be.

  Chapter Six

  HE’S HERE EVERY DAY. He picks Genna up for breakfast sometimes. I’ve started avoiding the main caf, instead opting for the smaller graduate school cafeteria halfway across campus. It’s quiet and orderly — the way my life used to be before Caleb entered it. Now I can’t even escape him in my dreams.

  We haven’t really spoken since that night. I questioned whether my subconscious had created him, but his conspicuous silence was my clue that it really had been some kind of magical event and everything he’d said was real. Everything I’d felt.

  My heart never raced before, at least not in a good way. I never melted for boys or even really wanted them looking at me at all — I’d much rather be invisible and off everyone’s radar. But Caleb’s eyes are always glued to Genna, like he’s going out of his way not to look at me whenever we’re all in the tiny room. It bugs me.

  Do I want his attention? I’m haunted by the expression on his face as he looked at my bare chest. I should have been embarrassed; my body is nothing spectacular, especially not covered in welts from the stupid dream, but his eyes darkened when he looked at me and I felt … I’m more embarrassed to admit it now than I was in that moment, but I felt hot under his gaze. Wanted in a way I never have been.

  He got all shy and mannerly so quickly that part of me thinks I imagined his reaction. But when he touched me, his lips only a breath away, I felt it on more than just my cheek. I felt it everywhere. The memory makes me shiver even now.

  Sometimes, when I tell myself I’m avoiding them, I’m really following them. Genna flirts like a maniac — brushing up against him constantly and flipping her hair hard enough to induce whiplash. She wakes up early and tries on at least three outfits every day before he arrives. The one she discarded yesterday is somehow perfect for today. I don’t pretend to understand the logic.

  When they’re together, I get it. The connection they have is obvious, like a physical cord strung between them. They can even finish each other’s sentences, for Christ’s sake. It makes my stomach churn.

  Caleb is good at hiding the fact that he doesn’t actually take any classes. He fits in pretty well considering he just discovered the Internet a few days ago. Must be some kind of half-angel thing: adaptability.

  Dammit. I’ve got to get him out of my head.

  I pretty much stick to my routines, so I’m not the only one who’s surprised when I show up outside Rosie’s office. Her caseload must be crazy: your typical overworked, underpaid city social worker — and not even my social worker any more since I aged out — but I needed to get off campus and talk to another human being, and she is literally the only person I could think of to go to. So pathetic.

  The Social Services building is not my favorite place. Before she was promoted, Rosie shared a huge office with sixteen other people. The first and last time I walked in there, I began hyperventilating at the gauntlet of chaos I had to overcome to get to her cubicle. But now she has her own office. I run into her in the hallway right outside her door. She does a good job of picking her jaw up off the floor.

  “Maia!” Rosie rarely says my name without an exclamation mark. She always makes it sound like a cheer at a pep rally. When I was seventeen, I was going to change my name. “Maia” sounded too girly and pretty. Too unlike me. When I told her, Rosie confided in me that she hated her name, too. I didn’t understand why — it totally fit her.

  “That’s why,” she said. “Everyone looks at me and thinks I’m this special flower. They don’t take me seriously. It’s not a nickname, either — not short for anything like Rosemary. My mother actually named me Rosie — put it on my birth certificate and everything. That kind of sealed my fate.”

  “Names have power,” she said. “But it’s only the power we give them, like everything else.”

  She hadn’t ended up changing hers, so I kept mine too. I didn’t have a good reason at the time other than laziness. It sounded like a lot of paperwork, another trip to the courthouse. I should have thought of it earlier — when I was getting emancipated, maybe I could have handled it all at once. But now, looking at the genuine joy she shows at my unexpected presence, I think there was something else that stopped me. Rosie is Rosie; her name fits her. Maybe someday something can fit me.

  “I was just going to get something to eat. Want to join me?” she asks.

  I shrug and follow her. She yammers on through lunch at a fancy salad shop where they use tongs to put together a bunch of random ingredients into a huge bowl. We choose our salads and when she beams at me, it feels like this was the right decision, coming to see her, though I have no idea why.

  We’re walking back afterward when I guess curiosity gets the best of her. “Is there anything you wanted to talk to me about in particular, Maia? Not that I don’t love the chance to just hang out.”

  Only Rosie could think that what we’ve been doing, her talking and me grunting, could be considered “hanging out.”

  I didn’t plan to ask her anything. We don’t really talk about personal stuff, certainly not about boys, and I doubt she has the answers to what I really want to know.

  “Do you believe in soul mates?”

  The question hangs in the air between her surprise and my regret for asking.

  She takes a deep breath. “I don’t know. Part of me really wants to — I mean, wouldn’t it be comforting to believe that there was one person out there for you? But then there’s the pressure of having to find them. The world is such a big place — if you subscribe to the notion that there’s just that one perfect match for you, how do you know they’re not living in a hut in Papua New Guinea? Or they weren’t born a hundred years ago and you’ve already missed them? Or they’re in the nursing home you volunteer at and you meet them on the day they die?”

  Her pretty red open-toed shoes click on the pavement. “And the idea of having multiple soul mates — well, what if you meet two at the same tim
e? What if you’re lucky enough for that?” she asks.

  “Would that be lucky?” I quirk my eyebrow.

  She looks at me closely, probably wondering what’s got me so chatty. “To find two people perfect for you in every way? That’s what we call an abundance of riches.”

  My heavy leather boot crunches a couple of stray leaves that have the audacity to cross my path. “It sucks for the one who doesn’t get picked, though, doesn’t it?”

  She’s thoughtful, head to the sky, curly hair up in a messy bun haloed by the dying afternoon light. “But it stands to reason they have someone else out there for them too. Right?”

  I shrug. Cosmic mysteries of the universe are not my thing. It doesn’t matter anyway.

  It’s not like anyone is climbing out of hell for me.

  We stop at the steps to the DSS building. Rosie turns to me, smile firmly in place.

  “It was great to see you, Maia. Remember what I said when we first met — it hasn’t changed.”

  “Thanks, Rosie,” I mumble, waving my arm around vaguely, hoping she understands that to mean not just for lunch but for everything she’s done over the past six years.

  When I turned eighteen, I figured we were done, but she called me the next day to ask about the history paper I had due and kept calling after that. Every day for months. She sat with me in the library as I filled out the scholarship applications. Took me shopping for college supplies.

  I haven’t had many promises made to me in my life, and even fewer have been kept. But Rosie was there on the worst night of my life, and the next days and months that weren’t much better. And she always keeps her promises.

  * * *

  Before

  I’ve never ridden in an ambulance before. I don’t remember too much about it, mostly just the blood. The blood wouldn’t stop. I expected one of those red-orange lights to come for me, but it never showed.

  It takes stitches on top of stitches to close me up. One for each layer of skin. The bandage is tight around my arm, but the shot they gave me erased the pain. For now.

  I wait for Karen or David to come in, but I think they’re still talking to the cops. The nurses bustling in and out don’t look me in the eye.

  Noisy footsteps clatter on the linoleum, and a mass of curly brown hair appears, followed by a smiling face. She’s probably in her mid-twenties, wearing a red dress and red high heels. It’s the middle of the night, and she doesn’t look like she’s been dragged out of bed, but she obviously doesn’t work in the hospital.

  “Hi, Maia. I’m Rosie Velasquez. Your old social worker, Cindy, isn’t with the department any longer. I’ll be taking on your case.”

  Cindy was in her fifties and always reeked of cigarettes. I’m not sad to hear she’s gone, but I’m a little wary of this cheery creature in front of me. She pulls a chair up to my bed and sits down in a waft of flowery perfume.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, then wince. My voice is still raw from screaming.

  Rosie smiles and picks up the little plastic cup by my bed, holding the straw to my lips so I can drink.

  “Thanks,” I whisper. “Are you coming to take me somewhere?” I figure I can’t go back to Karen and David’s; a group home is probably the only option now.

  “The doctors want to keep you here … transfer you to the psychiatric ward, for a little while. They want to be sure you’re not going to hurt yourself anymore.”

  I should have known this was coming. It’s amazing I’ve avoided the psych ward as long as I have. One look at the reports from my other foster families, and she probably saw the pattern emerging.

  I just sigh and stare at the ceiling. “I didn’t hurt myself.”

  I don’t see her reaction, but her voice is calm and kind. “You say that a girl named Natasha did this to you. She stabbed you and started the fire?”

  I nod, clenching my jaw.

  “The same Natasha that your foster parents say died before you were ever placed with them?”

  I shrug. “Yeah. It doesn’t matter if you believe me. That’s what happened.”

  She’s quiet for so long that I finally turn and look at her. Her face is totally serious, no trace of pity. “I do believe you. Tell me what happened.”

  I search her eyes, wondering if this is a joke or a trick, but her earnest expression convinces me, at least a little, that she’s for real.

  “Most … most ghosts” — I’m not used to saying it out loud — “they can’t touch things. Their bodies aren’t really real, you know? They’re insubstantial. But sometimes, when they get angry or super crazy or feel really strongly about something, they can.” Thoughts of Miss Sadie momentarily make my throat close up. “Natasha did. She was … troubled.”

  Rosie nods and leans in closer, listening to me intently.

  “She’s been getting stronger, over the past few months. Slamming doors, breaking dishes, making weird noises that the others could hear. Standard haunting stuff, I guess. She hated me, thought I was trying to take her place. Thought they were gonna love me more.” I snort.

  Karen and David are good people, the best foster parents I’ve ever had, but I could tell by the way that they’d glance at her photo sometimes, how they never talked about her, avoided the conversation entirely when I asked, that they loved her. I wasn’t ever going to replace her in their minds. I was just another way to give back.

  “Tonight, she was different. Stronger than ever. Too strong. I woke up, and she was on top of me. She was so heavy I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even scream at first. She brought this knife, from the kitchen I guess.”

  My bandaged arm feels empty. The meds have dulled the pain, but the nerve damage means I’ll never use this hand again. That’s what the doctor said.

  It happened so fast, I wasn’t sure it was real at first. One minute I was struggling under her, trying to push off what felt like two hundred pounds pressing on my chest. The next minute, my arm exploded in pain. Blood spurted from the gash she opened up from my wrist all the way to my elbow. Then I could finally scream.

  I yelled as Natasha produced a lighter from somewhere. Threatened to set me on fire. She waved it over me until I kicked it out of her hand, knocking it across the room. But she got it back. David burst through the door just as the curtains caught fire. My arm, it wouldn’t stop bleeding.

  Rosie hands me a tissue. I stare at it in my hand, uncomprehending. She plucks another one from the box and dabs at my cheeks. I didn’t even know I was crying.

  “What happened to her?” she asks.

  I sniff and dry my face. “I think she used up whatever was keeping her here. I’ve seen it before. They sort of build up enough energy to do something big, then they disappear in this sort of black fire. It’s hard to explain.”

  She nods and strokes my hair. For some reason, I find this incredibly comforting. Her hand is soft, and her perfume actually smells nice.

  “Why do you believe me?”

  Rosie is quiet for a minute. I close my eyes as she continues rubbing my head.

  “I had a twin. She saw things, too.” She says it simply, but sadly. Between that and the past tense statements, I guess that her twin sister’s story isn’t a happy one.

  “So what happens to me now?”

  She straightens. I miss her soothing hand on my hair.

  “Well, I can’t stop the psychiatric hold. And I think it’s likely that you’ll be committed, at least for a while.”

  “Do you think I should lie to them?” I don’t know what I’ll say, but the idea of having to stay in a hospital for much longer makes my head start to ache. Even now, there’s a woman in a bloody police uniform staring daggers at me from the other side of the bed, and a gunshot victim in the corner rocking back and forth, laughing maniacally. The dead lurk in every corner in hospitals. It will take a miracle to convince the doctors I’m sane.

  “I can’t tell you what to do, Maia. If you change your story, you will likely be looking at an arson charge. And
there’s still the self-harm.”

  Great. The loony bin or juvie. I’m rich with choices.

  She rests her hand on mine. “All I can say is that I’ll be here for you, no matter what happens. I promise. Always remember that.”

  Her being here when she doesn’t have to be is as much a promise as her words. But I’m not really wired to trust people. I pull my good hand away and tuck it under my other arm.

  Rosie stays beside me quietly until I fall asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  I SIT next to Genna in the bustling atrium of the library. It reminds me a bit of Victoria Station with its high arched ceiling made of glass. Long wooden tables, each with electrical sockets marring the surface, are evenly spaced. Students sit hunched over their computers, the distinctive bluish glow illuminating their faces. The term makes me chuckle: computer. That was my first job, back when it meant a person who performed maths calculations rather than a piece of machinery.

  I’d found work at an engineering firm and had sat hunched over a pencil and paper making manual calculations day in and day out. It was exhausting, but quiet, and a pleasant break from all the variations of human life that I’d so longed for. I hadn’t expected living would be so overwhelming. I was close to returning to Euphoria to face eternity as a Recordkeeper when I first saw Viv.

  “What are you thinking so hard about over there?” Genna asks, looking at me curiously. I hadn’t realized she’d been paying attention. The expression on her face is identical to Viv’s, eyes sparkling inquisitively, mouth pursed in the midst of a quizzical smile. The shape of her lips is different, though neither matches the lush fullness of Maia’s mouth.

  I force the thought away. Genna is my one. It’s called that for a reason. She’d practically bound with me once, ready to share her soul with me for eternity — I need to focus on that.