Angelborn (7 page)

“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.

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.

“Do you believe in past lives?” I ask.

She frowns, bemused. “Like reincarnation? In your past life, you were a cow or something?”

“Well, sort of. Not really. You were a person. A cow can’t become a person.”

“Oh. Um, I don’t know. I’ve always believed in heaven, you know? But I don’t think anyone should be discriminated against for their beliefs or anything. No matter how weird they are.” She absently fingers the gold cross hanging on a delicate chain around her neck. I merely smile and don’t point out the irony.

“So you would never, just for fun, go to one of those regressionists who tell you all about your past lives?”

“Goodness, no.” She looks like I’ve just suggested she get vivisected, just for fun. “I’m pretty sure that’s blasphemous.”

Something in my heart sinks. “Are you very religious?”

She notices she’s holding the cross and lets go, then looks up to the ceiling as if for answers. “I don’t know. I go to church. My parents are more into it than me, though. I just …” She shrugs. “I don’t want to do anything to make God angry, you know?”

My smile is brittle on my face, but I nod at her as if I understand. As if she’s not breaking my heart into a thousand little pieces.

“You’re always so deep and intense.” Her eyes dance as she laughs at me. “Do you ever think about normal things?”

“Normal?”

“Yeah, like, what’s your favorite movie?”

“My favorite movie …” I rack my brain for an answer. The last time I’d gone to a movie was when I took Viv to see
Gone with the Wind
.

“Umm … I’ve always been a fan of the classics.
The Graduate. Citizen Kane. Psycho.
” She furrows her brow. I just picked a few off of a list I’d memorized of the hundred best movies of all time, but it doesn’t seem like the right thing to say. “But really, if I had to pick just one, it would be
Terminator.
” She smiles at this, and I release a breath. I stood behind two guys in the cafeteria this morning as they debated the relative merits of the various entries in the Terminator film franchise.

“What about you?” I ask.

She turns her head shyly. “It’s really embarrassing.”

I doubt it’s more embarrassing than my knowledge or lack thereof of modern cinema. I reach over and squeeze her hand. “You can tell me.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re not all judgy. That’s one of the really cool things about you.”

“
Judgy
?”

“You know, you’re so laid back. You’re different. I feel like you really understand me.” Her eyes are clear and open, guileless. So different from Maia’s dark, tortured gaze.

I blink to clear away the image. “You’re trying to avoid telling me. I promise not to get ‘judgy.’”

“
Napoleon Dynamite
.”

Those two words put together mean nothing to me, but I can tell she expects me to be surprised, so I mock gasp. “Really?”

She shrugs. “Yeah. I know.” She dissolves into a fit of giggles. The joke is lost on me, but I laugh as well.

“Well, there’s no accounting for taste.”

Genna throws her pen at me in mock outrage.

“Thank you,” I say, catching it and using it to write in my notebook.

“Hey, give that back.” She leans across me, her breasts brushing my arm, trying to snatch the pen from my hand. I hold it out of her reach, making her attempt futile, and somehow she ends up halfway in my lap.

My chest constricts at her proximity. Her face is so close to mine, her eyes bright and innocent. She glances at my lips, her intent clear. I’m frozen, locked in a moment of indecision. It took months before I worked up the nerve to kiss Viv. I’m not sure I’m cut out for the speed of this day and age, though there is no time to waste. Still, I release my held breath when a group of chattering freshman walk behind us and Genna slides off me and back into her own chair.

A solitary figure dressed in black follows the freshmen as they walk toward the coffee stand. Maia has her head down, but I get the sense she’s seen us. My heart races, but not for the reason it should. I feel like I’ve averted a crisis, and it leaves me even more confused.

Genna follows Maia with her eyes and flattens her mouth in an expression of pity. Somehow this nettles me, but I suppress the emotion.

“Do you know her story?” I ask, unable to stop myself.

“Only a little. She’s had a hard time — no family or anything. I feel bad for her. It must have been tough to grow up like that.”

“What happened to her family?”

“I think her mom died when she was born — like giving birth to her. I didn’t even know that still happened in this country. And her dad’s in jail or something. It’s really sad.”

I nod in agreement, my heart going out to her. I’d only seen a piece of Maia’s nightmare, but it makes more sense to me now.

“She has nightmares a lot, too. I’m actually kind of worried about her. Health Services has free counseling. I go sometimes when things get crazy. I’ve invited her, but she always shoots me down. Says she hates shrinks. But it’s really just about finding the right one, you know?”

Genna launches into a story about the various therapists she visited throughout high school. I force myself to focus, staring at her lips as they form the words, her eyes as they shine merrily. Even in a slightly disturbing tale of the deficits of various mental health professionals, Genna is unfailingly upbeat. It's an effort not to search for Maia through the wide arched doorway leading to the inner library. I wonder what she’s doing at this moment.

Genna ducks her head and smiles in a certain way, and suddenly Viv shines through her, calling to me through the years.

“Caleb!” Viv says my name on a laugh as we race up Parliament Hill.

“What, my love?”

“Slow down!” Though she increases her pace and grins over her shoulder at me. “It’s impolite to beat a woman in a footrace.”

“I didn’t realize this was a competition.”

“Well, we must beat the sun if we expect to watch it set.”

At the crest of the hill, we stop and turn to see the greens of Hampstead Heath spread out before us with a view of the heart of London beyond. I spread the blanket out and we sit facing west, watching the progression of the sun as it gives its last hurrah for the day. Night meanders toward us, but the earlier heat lingers. We lie back in one another’s arms and talk. She tells me of her hopes for the future: completing secretarial school and seeing her younger sisters attend university. Her worries for her father, whose back has been giving him trouble, making it harder to manage his shop. She gets teary-eyed thinking of the poor lost souls on the
Athenia
, the passenger ship sunk by Germany, but avoids the topic of the war.

“It’s just too horrible, Caleb. I don’t even want to think of it. Mother says that Papa was never the same after he came back from the Great War. I can’t bear to think of you having to go away.”

I let the topic slide away. The idea of fighting in a human war is indeed troubling — the warrior angels must have been planning this for quite a while. Two of them had ascended to the ranks of the Seraphim during the last Adjustment, so this conflict was bound to be unlike any before it.

Kalyx followed all the politics and maneuvering very well, and at times like these I missed asking her to translate the inner workings of Euphoria for me. But another struggle is at the forefront of my mind.

I’d spoken with Viv’s father at his shop this morning. A man of few words, with skin like leather and a manner just as sturdy, he had never objected to my courting Viv. He’d even hushed his wife’s protestations with nothing more than a few quiet words and a stern look. Even with his tacit acceptance, I was nervous to ask for his blessing to marry his daughter.

He’d answered with a brusque “If it makes Vivie happy, I’ll not stand in your way.”

I’d almost left it there, but my curiosity got the better of me. “Many men would object to a colored man seeking to marry their daughter.”

He’d shifted his pipe to his other hand and stared off into the distance. “My father was colored. Never met him myself; he died when I was a lad. Vivie’s mum knows all about it, of course; she just pretends to forget. I don’t advertise it, but I’m not ashamed. You work hard and you love her. My daughter could do a sight worse.”

Now her head rests on my chest as we look up at the stars, newly visible in the inky sky.

“Look there.” I point to a bright cluster. Humans named the groupings, but I can’t recall the lore at the moment. “If you are very careful, you can hold the stars in your hands.”

She laughs, and the sound sparks a warmth in me. “I cannot figure out if they are too small to capture or far too large.” Her voice dances when she speaks.

“Well, we shall have to conduct an experiment. I shall pluck them from the sky and place them in your hands, and then you will know.”

“I should like to see you try it.”

I rise to my knees, losing the heat of her body against mine. I reach up toward the sky and while she’s looking, cause my hand to glow. I close my fist, like I’m trapping the light inside, and bring it in front of her. Her eyes are wide with surprise. She claps her hands.

“How did you do it?”

I shake my head. “Do you want to see the star I’ve retrieved for you?”

“Yes, of course!” She’s literally bouncing with excitement.

I allow the glow to fade and open my palm. In it lies the white gold ring, delicately carved with a sparkling sapphire embedded at the center. Kneeling, I ask the woman I love to spend the rest of her life with me. When she says yes, it’s a struggle to contain my emotions. I nearly start to glow all over, and have to force myself to stay in my human form.

If she will marry me, surely she will bind with me and forever will be ours together.

T
he library comes
into focus again. Genna frowns at screen of her computer. The perfume she wears reminds me of late summer evenings in north London, watching the sunset and making plans for a life I never had the chance to live.

Will she react as Viv did? When I finally told Viv what I was, and brought up the subject of binding, she was more shocked than I’d expected. She avoided me for days, retreating to the tiny church at the corner of her street for long conversations with the priest.

I couldn’t help myself — I listened in, staying invisible so that I could eavesdrop on their conversation. So much of human religion was mystifying to me. They had so many beliefs, so many variations, so much fiction.

After a week of avoiding me, Viv returned determined to save my soul, still not believing I didn’t have one. I went along with it, dutifully attending Sunday services, listening to the garrulous priest. I knelt and prayed and took communion and confessed — did whatever she wanted me to, whatever it would take to convince her to bind with me.

We were together just over a year. The last of my powers had faded by the time the Blitz began. But even after all those months, the priest’s voice and admonitions held Viv back. It was only in those brief moments before we died, when the skies opened up and true hell rained down, that she agreed to say the words. But we ran out of time.

I don’t have a year to convince Genna. The Vultures are on the hunt. They may have to search every human on earth, but they will, and it won’t take them very long. Weeks, perhaps a couple of months if I’m very lucky.

This second chance feels like it’s slipping from my grasp, and I don’t know how to hold on.