Awakening (Children of Angels) (13 page)

Just then the front door opened, and she heard her father call out “forgot my briefcase!” as he strode through into the kitchen “I swear I’d…what’s wrong?” he stopped and asked, as he saw Mia in a state, and her mother holding her face.

“
I just
…”
Mia could not finish the sentence.

“
Are you sick?
”
asked her Dad, concern flooding his face, and he leaned down slightly so that their eye levels matched.

“
I really don
’
t feel good at all right now
”
she replied. She had never lied to her parents, and wasn't going to start now.

“
Back to bed
”
her mother ordered, taking her hands from Mia's face, and shooing her out of the kitchen.

“
I have to go to work - I
’
ll see you later Pumpkin
”
he kissed Mia on the forehead, then turned and kissed her mother on the cheek.
“
C
all me if she gets any worse
”
he said, the way he always had when she was sick as a little girl, and her mother nodded and said
“
of course
”
, just like she always had.

“
I love you, Dad
”
blurted Mia.

“
Love you too Pumpkin,
”
smiled her father
“
feel better soon, Angel.
”
and then he was gone.

She turned to her mother then, and enveloped her in a sudden hug.

“
I love you Mum
”
she said, and could not stop one tear from slipping down her cheek.

“
I love you too, my Mia,
”
replied her mother, hugging her tightly
“
remember that - nothing will ever change that.
”

Mia nodded, and turned to leave the room. She paused for a moment, and even she couldn’t really say why. Walking away from her mother seemed an impossible thing - but she knew she had to do it. She headed up the stairs, just glancing over the railings once to catch a final glimpse of her mother bustling about the kitchen. She hoped, although something told her that her hope was futile, that this was just another of her strange dreams, and that soon she would wake up in her own bed and could hug her mother as many times as she wanted for the rest of her life. She hoped.

In her bedroom, Leonara had laid out Mia’s favourite jeans and hooded sweater, and it looked as though she had also packed her a bag.

“
Hurry, change.
”
Leonara gestured to the clothes on the bed.
“
W
e must leave here, then I will make the Switch.
”

Mia nodded silently, and picked up her clothes. She crossed the hallway to the bathroom as quietly as possible, not wanting her mother to hear her. She thought that hearing her mother’s voice calling up the stairs would be like torture. She couldn't bear any more “lasts”, not today - she'd heard the last thing her mother would ever say to her, she couldn't do it again. As quietly as she could manage, she brushed her teeth and washed her face, combed her hair and changed. She took the comb with her, dropped her pyjamas in the laundry hamper, and cast a final look around the bathroom. Strange that even a bathroom should have sentimental attachment, she thought. She remembered being a small child playing in the bath tub, with her rubber ducks and her Barbie dolls. She smiled sadly at the memory of that little girl, who, in a few moments, this house would never know. Who would not have played in that bathtub. Who would not have slipped on the wet floor and chipped her tooth on the basin. She wouldn't exist in this house’s history.

She closed the door quietly, and crossed back to her room. Shoving the comb into her holdall and taking a deep breath, she said “I’m ready” to Leonara, who rose from the bed and nodded, both of them knowing that Mia would never
really
be ready to leave this place, if she had a choice.

Mia took a final glance around the room that had once upon a time been her nursery, and bade it a silent farewell. And then it was gone, and she was standing beside the Angel in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar house. No - not a house, Mia thought, a hotel perhaps. Leonara disappeared from her side for a fraction of a second, and then appeared back in the room, sitting on the bed.

“
It
’
s done
”
she said, and offered Mia a sympathetic look.

And that was when the real tears came, and flowed down Mia’s cheeks and splashed onto her sweater and even onto the floor, as she stood there and cried until she could cry no more. She was no longer the girl she had always been. She didn't even know who she was now.

Leonara did not intervene as the girl cried her eyes dry. She watched, curiously, as the emotions played out. She could feel them on the air, radiating from the girl, and they intrigued her. Sadness, frustration, guilt, anger, loneliness. This would be as close as the Angel would come to experiencing many of those things herself, and she paid close attention to all of it.

CHAPTER TEN

W
hen the tears finally stopped, and the girl had regained her
composure, she crossed the room glumly flopped down onto the bed miserably.

“
So
”
she said, taking a deep breath
“
where do we start?
”

“
That
”
replied Leonara with a wry smile
“
is the million dollar question. It
’
s not like I do this every day Mia. It
’
s never been done before. The boy has grown up with Angels, and knowing only Angel ways - don
’
t look so surprised Mia - I may not often refer to the Others as Angels, but essentially, that is what they are - albeit poor excuses for ones, not fit to bare the name. I suppose we ought to start with me Reading you.
”
She cocked her head to the side thoughtfully, as she looked Mia up and down.

“
And how do you Read me?
”
Mia asked with a nervous tremble in her voice, fearing that already knew the answer. She had seen it done once before - to the baby in the memory. Or the other Truth, or wherever or whatever it was.

“
Yes, you know how it is done. I need to touch you, and send my senses through your being, just to check what is there and what is not. It will not be so unpleasant, if you consent to it - if you simply allow it to happen. I think the pain is caused when a person tries to resist. It feels most unnatural, I would imagine, and the natural reaction is to fight it. When you fight it, it
’
s as though your soul contracts, trying to keep it
’
s secrets. So we have to try harder to get in, and that causes the pain, because it is force and not simple examination.
”

Reluctantly, Mia nodded and sat on the bed, fidgeting with her fingers, unsure of what she should do now.

“
Perhaps if you lie down, you
’
ll be more comfortable - I do not know how long this will take. Hopefully not too long. Please try to relax, Mia, I can feel the tension coming off you in waves. Just close your eyes and relax. I won
’
t start until you are ready for me to.
”

Mia obeyed and lay back on the bed, her feet hanging awkwardly over the end so that she didn’t get her shoes on the covers. She couldn’t settle in that position, and kicked her trainers off so that she could shuffle backwards further. That was much better. She stared at the pattern in the ceiling, trying to clear her mind of everything but the pattern. She tried to find patterns within the patterns, she spotted stars and clouds and faces, and soon, more quickly than she expected, she found herself calm and her mind devoid of anything but these shapes which had no meaning, no emotion attached. She nodded to Leonara, without breaking her focus on the ceiling, and the Angel took this as her signal to begin.

Mia felt the Angel’s cool hand touch her skin, as Leonara gently lifted the bottom of her shirt up, and laid her palm flat on Mia’s belly. Mia felt her heartbeat quicken, and instantly tried to correct it with some deep breathing. She didn't want this to hurt, and getting panicky about it would only make it worse than it had to be. She lay as still as possible, and tried to tune out what was happening.

What was happening was a warmth, spreading from Leonara’s cool palm, which felt as though it was entering Mia’s bloodstream. The sensation was disconcerting, but not altogether unpleasant. The warmth reached her fingertips and her toes, and set them tingling, as though she had just come in to the warmth after being outside on a cold wintry day. Gradually, her whole body warmed and became tingly. As soon as all her extremities were reached, her entire body temperature began to increase quite dramatically. It became quite uncomfortable, and as Mia began to think this, she felt a change in herself instantly. It was as Leonara had described, as though something in her was shying away from the heat. And that was when the pain began. Instead of the uncomfortable warmth, she felt a piercing pain begin to spread through her entire body, from the same point the warmth had started - the palm of the Angel’s hand.

“
MIA!
”
came Leonara
’
s voice, stern and commanding, it did not seem to come from her mouth, rather it was all around Mia, and it was quite surreal.
“
Remember, it is only when you resist that this hurts! I am not done yet Mia - I can not stop, you must calm yourself!
”

But it was no good, the damage was done. Mia began to squirm and try to get away from Leonara’s firm hand pressing down on her, now physically restraining her, to keep the connection intact. She opened her mouth to scream, but the scream never made it out of her throat, as the Angel sent her Influence over the girl in a flash, and she was lost to unconsciousness.

It would not stop the pain, regrettably, Leonara knew that. She realized this was her only chance to determine what powers and abilities lay within this girl, and that after the experience the girl had just had with being Read, even if she agreed to it being done again once she had calmed herself, Leonara would have to start from scratch, and the tension in the girl would never be completely gone.

Although it was harder to Read someone when they were unconscious, especially when they had been unnaturally influenced into unconsciousness, and she was fighting against the girls own natural instinct to protect her soul, it had to be done. She had gotten far enough in that doing this last part “the hard way” was much better than starting over and doing it all “the easy way”. She supposed that a human might feel remorse for causing another suffering, and wondered what that might feel like. Something in her stirred, regret or something similar, and that alone was enough to make Leonara glad she was not weighed down by human emotions.

What she found in Mia was confusing, even to her. A soul was usually a fairly simple thing, either it had power or it did not. Human souls did not. Mia’s soul resembled a humans more closely than it did an Angel’s, but the power that was there burned much more brightly than power did in an Angel’s soul. Souls are a difficult thing to explain, but they were something that an Angel has an innate understanding of - Mia’s soul, however, baffled Leonara.

Whilst she considered what she had ‘seen’ in Mia, she sent a little more Influence over the girl, so that she would sleep longer, and heal faster. She wondered whether she should have done it, whether it was an abuse - but then, if Mia was angry with her, she would be angry with her regardless of whether she extended the sleep or not. It was curious that her Influence worked on the girl at all, she thought. The human parts of her soul would be affected by it, but the curiously concentrated portions of her Angel soul should have overridden Leonara’s own powers, which were laughably weak by comparison. The Angel could only assume that it was the girl who was holding herself back.