Dark Hope (14 page)

“What feeling? Why was God displeased?”

He cocked his head to the side then, as if considering what to say next.

“I forget how little you know. But it cannot hurt. Not now.” He threw himself down in my butterfly chair as he continued. “I am not supposed to bother myself with anything other than God’s work. As young and innocent as you were—you were not for me to trifle with.”

I was not sure I was following him. “You mean you had bigger fish to fry?” I asked, knotting my brows together as I puzzled it out.

He smiled wryly. “That is a good way to put it.” He closed his eyes, rubbing his temples.

I bit my lip, considering all that he’d said.

“You said the feeling has returned.”

He drew his lips into a hard, straight line and looked me straight in the eye.

“Yes. It has.”

A pregnant silence filled the room. My heart seemed to skip a beat.

“You sent me that valentine, didn’t you?”

He nodded silently. My heart raced: first with excitement that he’d been my secret admirer, and then with fear as I thought about the warnings held in the unfinished verses.

“Am I in danger?” My hand absentmindedly floated up to my neck again. Whether it singled me out for protection or harm, I could feel my Mark burning on my skin, and Michael’s tale only made me more aware of it.

“If you keep doing stupid things like climbing on top of mountains in the middle of the night, then yes,” he said, his wide grin suddenly breaking across his face.

It was the first glimpse I’d had of the old Michael,
my
Michael,
and my heart leapt. I threw my pillow at him, but he expertly caught it in one hand. Even then, his eyes were sad.

“I’m serious,” he said, the grin gone. “You can’t be taking risks like that.”

“I wouldn’t have even been there if you hadn’t disappeared, leaving me with Tabitha for my partner in Contemporary Issues,” I pouted, crossing my arms. “Besides,” I went on, cutting him off before he could continue with his lecture, “everything would have been fine if it weren’t for that hawk.”

“A hawk?” His voice had an edge to it as he echoed my words.

“It attacked me out of nowhere. That’s how I fell.” I shuddered as the memory of my free fall came rushing back to me, and my fingers unconsciously gripped the side of my bed.

He frowned, his brows furrowing deeply. “That’s unusual. Two bird attacks.”

“Two?”

“The crows. Remember?”

My fall, during my run the other day. The room seemed to spin as I made the connection.

“Do you know what’s going on, Michael?” I whispered, barely able to speak.

He slumped deeper in the chair. “No. No, I’m afraid I don’t. I’m not omniscient, unfortunately. I’m more the muscle than the brains of God’s security operation. When there’s trouble, I get pointed in the right direction and go take care of it. If I see the trouble, I jump in without waiting for an invitation. But this time, I’m not even sure where it’s coming from. All I have is this sense that I should be here. With you.”

We sat there in silence for a long time. My mind raced with all the questions I had for him: questions about my abduction, my Mark, my father. And of course, about him.

“How do you do it?” I finally screwed up my courage to ask.

“Do what?” he answered, distracted.

“Everything,” I whispered, leaning closer to him. “How can you be a teenager? How can you fly? How do you get to where the trouble is?”

He looked miserable.

“How am I supposed to leave now?” he snapped at the air, pounding his fist into his knee.

I sank into my bedsheets, deflated. “I didn’t ask you to leave,” I said, uncertain and scared by his moodiness.

His face softened and he leaned gently toward me. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to Henri.”

“Henri?”

“Your Guardian angel.”

I could barely process this latest piece of news. My jaw fell open in disbelief before I managed to sputter, “My. Guardian. Angel.”

He looked at my astonished face and roared with delight. “The archangel she swallows no problem. It’s the invisible watchdog that makes her skeptical!”

I crossed my arms and stuck out my tongue. I hated being made fun of. Still, he’d piqued my curiosity.

“Why are you arguing with Henri?”

“He’s angry with me for interfering.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Say more.”

A wicked grin crept across Michael’s face. “He believes I have violated his rights and the order of Angels by intervening in his protection and guidance of you. If it continues, he is threatening to take it up to the courts.”

I was dumbfounded. “There are courts in Heaven?”

“Oh, yes. And they will enforce the rules. By rights, only Guardian Angels can protect individuals, with very few exceptions.
Though I must say, old Henri, that they may come down on the other side of the law when they see how ineffective your methods have been.” He was openly smirking now, and I could sense a faint buzzing in my mind.

I had a sudden epiphany. “Is he the voice in my head?” I asked.

“One and the same,” said Michael, leaning back into his chair with satisfaction. “Oh, don’t harass me. I didn’t tell her, she figured it out,” he spoke dismissively into the air.

“He
did
try to keep me from teaming up with Tabitha and from going to Stone Mountain,” I said, trying to be helpful.

“Fat lot of good that did you,” muttered Michael. In an instant, his humor had shifted; he seemed cross and was rubbing his temples again.

“Michael,” I asked timidly, “why do you always have headaches?”

He stopped rubbing his temples, jerking his hands away. “You’ve noticed?”

“It’s hard not to. Especially when they make you so moody.”

The vein in his temple twitched again. “I’ll try not to be moody.”

“I don’t care that you’re moody. But I’d like to know why.”

He took a deep breath and drew his hands together in his lap, as if he was afraid of what they might do. “Remember when I told you God was displeased with me?”

“Yes,” I said, not sure where this was going.

“Well, this is what happens when God is displeased. You see, in all of creation, he made two great beings that are capable of holiness: angels and man. We were both intended to be in his likeness, but we have two crucial differences. Only mankind can create. We angels can only praise, protect, or destroy. We can convey. We can escort. But we can neither invent nor discover,” he continued, his jaw tense. “It is forbidden.”

I shuddered. The more Michael spoke, the more grave and
formal his speech became. In my mind’s eye, I could see him as an ancient being, the fiery general of God’s army.

“And while we both, man and angels, have free will,” he continued, “God did not trust the angels with such a precious gift when he made us. Not as he trusted you,” he said, a twinge of jealousy entering his voice. “We can disobey him and choose our own path, of course. That is what the Fallen Ones did. But when they fell, they learned that to be away from God was to embrace pain. For God punished their disobedience with great physical pain. The longer they strayed, the farther they strayed, the more intense the pain grew. Nothing can stop it. Nothing except their return to God.”

His eyes seemed far away now. “Imagine living hundreds of thousands of years in never-ending pain. Imagine what that would do to you. If you hadn’t already been wicked, you would surely go insane.”

The idea of it was horrifying, especially when I realized what he was really saying.

“You’re in pain,” I said softly, my heart breaking for him. I slid out from beneath the covers and crept to his side. Carefully, not sure of what I’d find, I placed my hand on his arm. Through the cotton of his sleeve, it was burning hot. I realized with a start that except for the time he’d pulled me through the hallway, he’d managed never to touch me. “You’re not supposed to be protecting me,” I said. “That’s why you had to leave.”

“I had to fulfill my duties before I could return to guard you,” he answered, his blue eyes like sapphires that shone with intensity. “I do not understand how protecting you could be against God’s will when I feel such a strong urge to do it. Somehow it must all be in His plan.”

“Why am I in danger?” I wondered to myself. “Is it related to my abduction?”

“I think so,” he said.

“So my dad—with all his crazy fears for me—he’s been right all along?”

Michael didn’t speak but simply placed his big hand over mine. I looked deep into his eyes and seemed to lose myself in their intensity. The heat from his fingers licked at my bones and my heart skipped a beat. Silence filled the room.

“Hope?” My mother’s voice jarred me back to reality. “Hope? Are you awake?”

I could hear her climbing the stairs toward my room. I pushed myself away from Michael and started fumbling around, panicking as I looked from myself, still dressed in last night’s clothes, to Michael. I spun around, looking for somewhere to hide, or to hide him. But there was nowhere. I began to feel frantic, but then I heard my own voice sing out.

“What is it, Mom?”

I wheeled around and gasped. Michael was no longer there. Instead, I was staring at my own self, bleary eyed, with a face streaked by the runny remains of eye shadow and mascara.

I opened my mouth to scream but the person—it—
me
—cleared the space between us and clamped a hot hand over my mouth.

“Don’t make a sound,” it whispered to me urgently, pulling me tight. “It will be okay.” I tried to pull away, but felt myself caught even closer in a vice-like, fiery grip.

“I was starting to think you’d never wake up. Are you feeling better? It’s nearly noon, you know,” my mom continued. She was on the other side of the door now. I held my breath, watching the doorknob and willing it not to turn. “Tabitha is on the phone. She sounds worried about you.”

“I’m feeling much better. I’ll take it in here, Mom. Thanks,” the
replica me responded. I felt my body weaken and fought to stay focused.
You cannot faint
, I admonished myself.

As we heard my mom’s footsteps retreat back downstairs, I watched as my replica’s face and body swiftly melted back into Michael’s. My eyes widened and my knees began to give out.

“You’re not going to scream, are you?” he asked me as he pulled me closer to his chest, his hot hand still over my mouth.

I shook my head violently.
No
.

“Do you want to talk to Tabitha, or shall I?” he continued. “I called and left a message at her house last night that you felt sick and found a ride home. I left a note to that effect for your mother, as well.”

I stared up at him, shocked at how well he’d orchestrated everything.

“I can do it,” I mumbled against his palm, my mind racing. He lifted his hand away then, watching me carefully for any further signs of panic. My whole body was shaking, but I leaned into him until I managed to make it over to the phone and pick up the receiver.

“I have it, Mom,” I said, my voice shaky. I heard the click as she hung up the receiver on her end. “Tabitha?”

“Have you ever heard of a cell phone?” she demanded, the words rushing out of her. “I was worried sick! You were supposed to come back in thirty minutes. Tony and I spent two hours looking for you. Thank God we thought to call my parents. We were just about to call the police to search the mountain. Why didn’t you just tell me you weren’t feeling well? I would’ve taken you home.” She sounded angry and hurt.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, scrambling to explain my disappearance from the mountain. “I didn’t try to avoid you—I just felt so sick that I got disoriented and lost on the way down. So when I
saw my friend in the parking lot, I took the ride home. I didn’t even think to call you. I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you,” I added, guilt surging through me for putting her through such trouble and for lying to her now.

Tabitha paused before answering. “No problem,” she said grudgingly. “But don’t you pull a stunt like that again on me.” She breezed by the need for explanations, focusing instead on herself. “Thank goodness I was with Tony and that my parents like you, or it would have been much worse, believe me.”

“I’m really sorry, Tabitha. I won’t do it again, I promise.” My knees were still shaking, so I sank down to the floor, never turning my back on Michael, who stood against the wall, watching me intently.
How did he do that? And what was he thinking now?

“Hel-lo? Are you still listening to me?” Tabitha demanded. I snapped back to attention.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I said sheepishly.

“We’re still going to the shelter to do those interviews tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, for sure,” I said.
Stick to your normal routine
, I thought to myself.
School work is just the thing I need. Nothing unusual to see here, folks. Pay no attention to the angel in your room
.

“Okay, I’ll pick you up at one o’clock. Be ready,” she warned. “And then I can tell you all about Tony.” She giggled. “See ya.”

“See ya,” I echoed, staring back at Michael, but Tabitha had already hung up. I held the phone against my ear until it began beeping angrily at me.

“You should hang up,” Michael suggested.

I slowly put the phone back in the cradle, keeping him squarely in my vision.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said softly.

When I didn’t respond, he lowered himself to the floor until he was eye level with me.

“May I come closer?” he asked quietly, gesturing toward my side. I nodded, still unable to speak.

He came so close to me that I could feel the waves of heat radiating off his body. Up close, he looked even more perfect. His golden hair shined, a lock of it falling forward onto his forehead. I fought off the urge to reach out and tuck it back in place.

“You asked me earlier how I did it. How I look like a teenager. Well, this is how. When I came to you, I chose the form that would be easiest for you to understand, but I can take the form of anyone. Would you like to see me do it again?”

I hesitated, not sure if I could handle it.

“I promise not to become anyone you know,” he said, taking my hand. A surge of warmth swept through my entire body as I registered his touch. “What you need to understand is that when I do this, I really become human, at least in all respects that matter.”