Guardian (18 page)

During mass that morning I prayed fiercely for wisdom, staying late and trying to find answers without Rafael’s help, but the only conclusion I came up with was the same one I’d had when I woke up; I needed to talk with Rafael. God had shoved him into my problems time and again, made our paths irrevocably intertwined, and I couldn’t escape it. My patience was severely tested as I waited all day, pacing back and forth in my small house. I packed Colton and Grace up early for youth group, dropped them off at the rectory, and then I left the church. I skipped youth group, heading down the street, my cardigan wrapped tightly around me.

I stopped short when I reached the park bench. Somehow, I had known he would be here. I hadn’t consciously decided to come to the park. My feet had simply carried me there, to the place where I had already learned so much, to where it had all begun, really. And I knew, when I saw Rafael sitting still as stone on the bench, that I had made the right choice.

Even though I was silent as I walked toward him, Rafael still heard me. Our eyes met and stayed connected as he slowly stood up. He was so flawless that all demonic images of him simply flew away with the wind.

“I didn’t think you would come back,” he said, standing awkwardly.

I wanted to say something to break the awful tension that was thick in the air. I wanted to be able to sit and laugh with Rafael once more, just like old times. It had been so long since I had been able to just sit and let the glory of his deep baritone wash over me, since I had daydreamed about him falling in love with me too. But things were a little different now. Rafael wasn’t wholly the person I’d thought he was. Who knew if I would feel as strongly about him after I knew all his secrets?

“Well,” I said finally, “I have a thousand word essay on the Civil War due on Wednesday, and I was hoping you would help me with the finer points.”

The relieved smile Rafael gave me dispelled any doubts of me falling out of love with him. If either of us was damned, it was me in that respect, hands down. We moved to sit down on the bench at the same time, a pattern that felt as familiar to me as if I’d been doing it all my life.

“Ah, the Civil War,” Rafael said, looking up at the clouds. “That was an ugly time for America.”

I rested a hand on Rafael’s arm, stopping him. “There’s time enough for stories of old battles and people who are already gone,” I said gently. “Right now, it’s your story I’d like to hear about.” He was real. He was here next to me. And never, ever, would I doubt him or leave him as I had before.

“Very well,” Rafael said reluctantly. He leaned back more comfortably against the hard wooden bench, stretching his long legs out before him. “How much do you know of the great battle between God and the angels?”

I shrugged. “As much as anyone, I suppose. Lucifer was second only to God, but he was still jealous of God’s power, and so he rebelled. There was a fight between the heavenly hosts. Some say it was more of a mental battle, of wills and knowledge, not a physical fight. God won, and Lucifer, now Satan, was cast out of heaven, along with one-third of all the angels.” I looked over at Rafael. “Along with you.”

He nodded. “Along with me. I rebelled, Lyla. I fought against God, sided with Lucifer.” It was scary to me, the way he said the name. It wasn’t the way a human might carelessly mention the real name of the devil himself. Rafael said the name with knowledge, with familiarity; he
knew
Lucifer. “And as a result,” he continued, “I lost heaven.”

His bleak face was back, and I spoke quickly in the hopes of dispelling it. “But if you’re supposed to be down there,” I gestured vaguely toward the ground, “how are you up here? With us?” I waved, encompassing the park.

“Because we saw the error of our ways,” Rafael replied evenly. He turned toward me, so quickly I almost started backward in surprise. “Lyla, good and selfless as you are, if your best, truest friend in the whole world committed the deepest, most unthinkable kind of betrayal, and then apologized, wanting to be your friend again, would you allow them back in your life, no questions asked?”

His question took me by surprise. So intent was I on listening that I hadn’t expected my own input to be asked. “I-I don’t know,” I said haltingly. “If it was someone I dearly loved, and they fought against me, I suppose I wouldn’t believe them at first. I would want them to, to prove it or go through a trial period or something like that.”

“Exactly,” Rafael said. The more he talked, the more morose and downtrodden he began to sound. I ached to comfort him in some way, but didn’t even know how to begin. “We are punished for our crime by living here on earth.”

“That’s a punishment?” I asked, confused. Sure, life on earth was no picnic, but we were talking about
hell
here.

Rafael gave a wry grin that held more desperation than humor. “If you were given a choice between heaven and earth, Lyla, which would you choose?”

“Ah,” I said, comprehension dawning.

“Precisely.”

I shook my head, amazed. “But, how could you rebel against God? How could you even take a chance at losing that?”

“In your knowledge,” Rafael explained, “God is all powerful, all knowing, which he is. He has already been tested and won. But you have to remember, Lyla, this was essentially the first test of God. We thought, very foolishly so, that we could fight him and win. And as a result,” his voice turned bitter, “we lost everything. Our eternity with God.”

“So,” I asked, fighting back the depression Rafael emanated, “you can never go back? You have to stay here on earth? Forever?”

“It’s much more complicated than that,” Rafael said, but didn’t elaborate.

I was still so confused. It seemed to me that earth was better than hell. On earth, there was no reason to despair and or feel evil all the time. There was still the ability to pray to God. It was possible to still be close to Him in a human sense. There was the Blessed Sacrament and church and-

“Oh,” I said softly. “He won’t let you inside churches, will He?”

“No,” Rafael agreed. “You see, God always forgives, Lyla. No matter how big the sin. But for us, it was just a little different. Yes, God forgave us, but He condemned us to a test on earth. We are solidly alone here. We can pray, but we cannot set foot on holy, consecrated ground. We thirst to be near the presence of God, but even His most holy body and blood would kill us. We cannot get near it, though it is the closest thing we find on this earth to His aura. We have this one chance, this one life to live, and one day, as it says in the Bible, God will come again, taking the faithful back up to heaven with Him. We can only hope that the way we have lived on earth was – is – pleasing to God, and that when He comes, He will take us back up to heaven with Him. We confessed our sins, but have a trial here on earth as our penance.”

I couldn’t imagine it. To have it all and then simply let it all go. “But, isn’t it easy?” I asked. “I’d think, having experienced both heaven and hell, the desire to return to heaven would be so great it would be easy to lead, well, a saintly life.”

“It should be that simple,” Rafael agreed, “but it’s not. When we chose to side with Lucifer, we opened ourselves up to human vices. We are greedy, selfish, we lust, we covet, we steal. Once you experience those things and the good feelings that come with having them, it’s hard to give them up. When we wanted to return to heaven and were condemned to earth, we were also stripped of most angelic powers we had. We were made into – we
are
humans, in a sense.”

But I had always known Rafael was anything but. “You got to keep your wings, though?” I asked. I was, after all, one hundred percent human and had no problem admitting I was jealous of them.

“A small blessing,” Rafael said wryly. “We hate walking, and producing valid identification for traveling can be difficult.”

It had just dawned on me how old Rafael must be. “You’re ancient,” I said in awe.

He nodded. “In a sense, yes. Angels, good or evil, don’t age or acknowledge the passage of time. We are, however, slightly like newborns after we come to earth. We lack street smarts. After all, we’ve never lived on earth before. But yes, I am almost as old as the earth itself.”

There was a pause, and then I asked, very gently, “So, it’s hard, isn’t it? Being good.”

Rafael’s eyes were closed tightly, as though he was in great pain. He expelled a long breath of air. “You can’t even
begin
to imagine it,” he whispered in a raw voice. “God has, essentially, abandoned us. I haven’t felt Him, haven’t felt His presence, in over three thousand years. We walk blindly on this earth, doing what we hope will look pleasing in His eyes. That is why I stand by churches, why I stand close to you, Lyla. Sometimes, if I stand there long enough, I can catch glimpses of what it used to be like, surrounded by His love. You are so wrapped up in Him, it’s like finding a furnace in the middle of a blizzard. We have to live alone, and all the while fight the greatest temptation of all.”

“What temptation?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

Now, Rafael opened his eyes to look at me, and I was skewered by his gaze. “Going back,” he said, sounding tortured.

“B-back?” I choked out. “Back to, to
him
? To Satan?”

“Yes. God forgave us, Lyla, but He put us to the test, to see if we would be able to pass. Some have already failed. They went back, back to hell for eternity. Satan doesn’t put anyone to the test. He welcomes sinners back with open arms. He puts demons in this world to turn people to sin, to his ways. To hell. When it gets hard, there is always,
always
the option of turning back to where things are supremely easy and I get everything I want.”

“Except eternity in heaven, with God,” I whispered.

Rafael nodded. There was a long silence, and I fought to understand this information overload. There was just so
much
to absorb. I still had so many questions, so many things I didn’t totally understand. But right now, in this exact instant, all I wanted to do was make the tension go away and Rafael to cheer up and relax, to be happy again.

“So,” I said, struggling to regain normalcy, “did man really come from monkey?”

Rafael stared at me in utter disbelief. Clearly, he had thought I would run away once again.
Not a chance
, I thought as his disbelief turned to amazement and he began to laugh. Not all my questions were answered that day, not by a long shot, but needless to say, I got an A on my Civil War essay.

The next day, after dropping off Colton and Grace at their classrooms, I deposited my book bag in my locker and took off for the other side of town. It was much quicker this time than when I had run the whole way, since I had the good sense to use my city bus pass. I got off at the nearest stop and ran to the abandoned building that Rafael and the others seemed to call home.

Only after I had pounded up the first flight of stairs did doubt begin to creep into my thoughts. What if I wasn’t welcome here? Rafael wouldn’t be pleased, that was a given and I had accepted that; he would get over it. But the others? Daniel, Matthias, Rachel, and Naomi? Would they try to send me away?

I shouldn’t have worried. No sooner had I emerged from the stairwell onto the main floor, panting and completely out of breath, than Naomi spotted me and came running. She gave me a bear hug around the knees, reminding me so much of Grace that it caused me to grin uncontrollably. Rachel came over, smiling in her gentle way.

“Excuse our lack of manners,” she said in a quiet voice. “Some of us are still learning the proper way to say hello without knocking our guests around. How are you today, Lyla?”

“Very well, thank you for asking,” I replied, instantly feeling better about the whole situation. Rachel’s easy, soft presence had a way of making a person feel at ease. “And there’s certainly no need to apologize. My little sister is only seven. We’re going through the same stage. My knees are certainly up to the challenge.”

Rachel laughed, and the sound was bright in the dim room. “Well, let us hope your knees aren’t the only strong thing about you for the battle ahead.” She and Naomi moved away hastily.

There was no reason to ask her what she had meant. I had seen Rafael approaching out of the corner of my eye, and his dark expression boded ill will.

“Just
what
do you think you are doing here?” his voice boomed through the room, making several of the angels –
angels,
it was still so bizarre to think it – look up to see what the problem was. “You should be in school, Lyla!”

I jutted my chin out. “I’m not going to school today,” I said firmly. It was the first time I had ever skipped without good reason – my only reason today was just how badly I wanted to see Rafael.

His jaw tightened, and a shiver of fright ran through me. The next thing I knew, Rafael had grabbed my shoulder, spun me around, and was marching me down the steps.

“Rafael!” I protested. “I want to talk to you!”

“You will,” he said in a firm tone. “After school.” He opened the door to the Hummer and picked me up to deposit me inside. I cursed his superhuman strength and speed as we sped off before I could even reach for the door handle to get out.

“I don’t
want
to go to school,” I said through clenched teeth.

“We don’t always get what we want, Lyla,” Rafael told me tartly. “And it’s unseemly to lose your temper.”

I gaped at him. “Lose my… You always… I can’t even… Humph!” I sat back in my chair with a
thump
, crossing my arms across my chest. I didn’t speak to him again for the whole trip.