Into This River I Drown (61 page)

“Yes,” I say, my voice clear.

He watches me for a moment, as if gauging my sincerity. As much as I want to quake under his gaze, I don’t move until he nods. “I’ve told you that we’re all tested. Has Calliel told you this as well?”

“Yes. He said that all angels are tested to prove their faith. He said that since he’s newer at what he does, your Father might test him more.”

“Our Father is nothing if not consistent. What Calliel told you is true. We are tested regularly. I wish to make sure that you understand that our Father is
not
questioning our faith in him. He’s an old thing, set in his ways. He knows we have faith, but he wants us to
prove
it whenever he asks it of us. Often he’ll give us two different paths, and we must make a choice about which path to follow. Think of it like contained free will. While we have the option to choose the path, whatever way we choose already has a set course, a predetermined construction in the design.”

“So no matter what you choose, the outcome of that choice is already decided?” I ask. “That doesn’t sound like much of a choice at all.”

“And it’s not,” Michael says. “Not really. But it’s presented as such. Most of us are much smarter than that and can see it for what it is. While the path beyond the choice may be veiled, the outcome is usually easy to discern. The design is a grand thing to behold, to see the way the paths reverberate out through the whole of it.”

“What was Cal’s test?” I ask, suddenly not wanting to know. “How did he fall?”

Something flashes behind Michael’s dark eyes, but I don’t know what it is. “Calliel is the guardian angel to Roseland, Oregon,” he says. “He is the youngest angel in all of On High. Normally, when new townships are incorporated, they are enfolded into an existing angel’s territory to protect. One day, our Father let us know that a new angel would be created, and that his name would be Calliel. This was cause for celebration, and, I admit, consternation, as no new angels had been created for millennia. He was given Roseland and its people, and while he may have fumbled at times, he was good at what he did.” Michael shakes his head. “To be honest, he reminded me of me when I was his age. Overprotective of his charges. Desperate to please. Incapable of corruption.

“He existed quietly in this part of the world, on this plane of existence. He loved the people he watched over as he was supposed to. And that love was as it was supposed to be: a distant thing, a faraway thing that could never become more than that. But that changed.”

“Who did it change for?”

“You’re not
that
blind to the way of things, are you?” Michael asks with a smirk.

“
Me
?” I say incredulously. “You’re talking about
me
?”

He cocks his head at me, an action so like his Strange Men I get goose bumps on my arms. “Of course I am. Who else would it be?”

“I… just… I don’t know.”

“From the moment you were born, Calliel watched you. It was a simple thing, at first. You were one of his charges, and he cared for you. He loved as he should. But then you began to grow, and those feelings changed. You have to understand, in terms of angels, Cal is still considered a teenager, if you will. He doesn’t have the tight rein on his emotions that one in his position should have. There have been a few small instances in the past that have come to this, but they’ve always been corrected on their own as such things are unrequited. We are not meant to love.”

“That’s… so sad,” I finish lamely. “You can love your Father and the people you watch over, but you can’t ever get close to someone?”

Michael’s eyes turn wistful for a moment, and I wonder if there’s a story there. “It’s the way of things, Benji. But Calliel changed that. He broke away from the pattern, the design. He allowed it to become something more. So Father did what he always did. He tested him.”

“How?”

Michael’s eyes burn darkly. “He gave him a choice. Either save your father and allow the man named Griggs to die, or allow your father to die and Griggs to live.”

Of all the things he could have said, what he
did
say is what I expected the least. I grip the arms of the white chair as anger begins to well in my chest like a bloom of fire. I want to leap across at the angel and put my hands around his throat until he takes it back. I want to tear the White Room down until it’s nothing but rubble underneath my fingers. I want to find God and make sure he pays for everything he’s done.

But most of all, I want to find Cal and tell him to return to On High. I want to tell him to never come back, to forget he ever knew my name. And after that, I never want to see him again, and I will find someplace to float off into the darkness. It’s the only way to keep me from killing him myself.

The White Room begins to shake a little, the walls and floor vibrating. I think I hear whispers all around me, but I can’t tell above the blood roaring in my ears. Michael doesn’t move, his eyes still on me, waiting.

“Why?” I manage to say.

“Because that is how my Father works. The tests aren’t ever something simple, with a choice to be made that won’t matter in the long run. What would be the point of such a thing?”

“This is my
life
!” I snarl at him. “This isn’t some fucking game!”

Michael’s not intimidated in the slightest at my fury. That sad smile makes an appearance again, as if he’s trying to show he understands what I’m saying. But he can’t. He can never know. He follows his Father blindly while the rest of us struggle to make sense of even the simplest of things.
It’s faith,
Cal/Big Eddie/Abe whisper.
It’s faith pure and simple. Sometimes, oh
sometimes
, you’re not
meant
to understand.

“It’s not a game,” Michael agrees. “And maybe I was a little harsh when I said it as such when we first met. I did not know then what I know now.”

“What happened?”

Michael hesitates.

“Tell me!”

“Father revealed the whole of the design to Calliel,” he says. “The outcomes of his decisions, however far down the line they could go. He gave Calliel the choice of who to save on that day.”

“Why didn’t he save my father?” I croak out. “Why did he choose to save Griggs?”

“Sacrifice, Benji. It all comes back to sacrifice. Choices are never meant to be black and white. By saving your father, he would ensure he would have lived a long and healthy life, that he would have been by your side for decades to come until one day, at the age of ninety-eight, he would have died peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by you, your partner, your children and grandchildren. He would have been so loved by the family you would have had.”

“And by saving Griggs?”

“By saving Griggs, he potentially ensured the survival of humanity.”

“
What
?”

Michael looks down at his hands. “Should the business of the Elementals on the other plane of existence resolve in the way we hope and all the worlds be saved, there will come a time, a hundred years from now, when there will be the possibility that a man will rise in the East on this plane with the intent to destroy all he sees. His fate will be decided by a simple action by George Griggs. Two years after your father died, Griggs helped save a young woman involved in a car accident. Because of him, she lived and will go on to give birth to a daughter. That daughter will grow up and give birth to a son. That son will save another woman from a fire, who in turn will live and give birth to twins. And so on and so forth, down the line, until the necessary opposition will rise against the man in the East, and humanity will have a fighting chance.

“My father revealed more of the design to Calliel than he ever had to anyone before. Calliel was left with a choice of whether to ensure your happiness or to make sure the world has a chance at survival should this dark man rise, long after you’ve already gone.”

“He punished him,” I say bitterly. “What you’re trying to say is that he punished him for loving me.”

“
Sacrifice
, Benji. It all comes down to
sacrifice
. And while the decision was difficult on Calliel, he made the only one he could, the only one an angel in his position
could
.”

“And it had nothing to do with jealousy?” I snap at him. “Cal saw my future if my father had lived. You said I had my own family with me when my father died. Cal was obviously not in it. You don’t think that influenced his decision at all?”

Michael looks at me sharply. “Does anything you know about Calliel suggest pettiness?” he asks, his voice hard. “I know you’re angry, and I know it hurts, but think carefully before you speak, child. You’re not a stupid boy, so don’t act like one.”

Ashamed, I look away. He’s right. Of course he’s right. Calliel doesn’t have a selfish bone in his body. But even though it’s not fair to
him
, I still can’t find a way to soothe the anger burning through my veins.
He could have saved my father.
Cal could have saved Big Eddie and I would have had him for a lifetime.

“Why did he fall, then?” I ask.

“Because of your grief, Benji. Calliel was finding it harder and harder to live with the consequences of his decision. He broke protocol by making a promise to your father, one that was not his to make.”

“What promise?”

“Think, Benji. You know. You’ve seen this. You’ve heard this. You’ve been there. It was in—”

the river

“—your dreams. You’ve been getting closer and closer every time, and you finally heard what you were supposed to hear.”

I close my eyes and in the dark, I remember the river:

You have to protect him. If you are who you say you are, if you are a guardian angel, if you’ve been watching us all this time, then I’m asking you. No, I’m begging you. Do your duty. Guard him. Protect him with everything you can. Never take your eyes off him and let no harm come down on him. Do you promise me?

Big Eddie, I—

Promise me! You fucking promise me! This is my
son
! You fucking promise me!

I promise.

“He promised to protect me,” I whisper.

“He did, but it was more than that. He is a guardian, Benji, and he would have guarded you anyway. But he was bound to his promise because Big Eddie meant it more than being a guardian. And Calliel knew that when he made the promise. He knew what it meant to accept a dying man’s last wishes. He loves you, yes, more than I think I’ve ever seen before, but he fell to keep the promise he made to your father.”

My mind is spinning, and I am dangerously close to being overwhelmed. There are too many emotions running through me all at once. I feel detached, and I can see everything Michael has told me swirling in me like a great storm. It’s a massive thing, an angry thing, but every now and then there’s a flash of blue, mixed in with all the black and gray and red. It’s small, but it’s bright, so very, very bright. I latch onto it, and the warmth I feel from it is like nothing else I’ve known.

“So he fell?” I ask, closing my eyes to see the blue lights.

“Yes,” Michael says. “It’s part of our limited free will, the choices that we can make. Metatron made that decision. And now Calliel.”

“You keep saying free will,” I tell him. “But it sounds like anything but.”

He laughs and I open my eyes. “Semantics,” he says with a wave of his hand.

“So what is my test? What decision do I have to make?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but then his eyes blacken completely and he rocks his head back slightly, his mouth dropping open. His wings shudder violently, and impossibly (
improbably,
I manage to think) a flash of light begins to spin above his head. I realize I’m looking at the faint outline of a halo. His lips begin to move as his eyes twitch back and forth toward the ceiling. The whispers from the walls of the White Room get louder and louder until they sound like the flow of a river. I cover my ears with my hands and bow my head as the White Room erupts in brilliant light.

And then it’s over.

I slowly open my eyes as I lower my hands. I look back up at Michael, who is rubbing the sides of his head. “What the fuck was that?”

“That,” he mutters, “was my Father.”

I gape at him. “You just spoke to him? To
God
?”

He chuckles. “More like he spoke and I listened.”

“What did he say?” I am
sure
I don’t want to know, but I can’t stop myself from asking.

“That I’ve said enough,” Michael says ruefully. “That instead of telling you, it’s time to show you.” He shakes his head. “Unexpected, to say the least. I don’t think this has ever been done.” He stares at me hard. “What is it about you? Who
are
you?”

The whispers in the White Room quiet. All that’s left is the sound of my ragged breaths. “I am Benjamin Edward Green,” I say. “I am my father’s son.”

He stands suddenly, his wings flapping up behind him. He’s a commanding presence as he holds out his hand toward me. I think of my father as I stand and take his hand. “Where are we going?” I ask the archangel.

“Away,” he says. “There is a man who needs your help. A choice needs to be made.”

“Why? Why must we always make choices?”

“Because my Father has commanded it.” His wings begin to close around us, to capture us in a cocoon. I glance one last time at the child’s shadow burned into the wall and send a single wish to him and the man named Seven. I wish for their happiness and that they can know peace, whatever it might take. Michael’s wings close completely, and the White Room is gone.

“Who needs my help? What am I supposed to do?”

Silence.

“Michael?” I whisper in the dark.

A hand on my shoulder. “Yes, little one?”

“What’s going to happen to me?” I sound so small. I feel so small.

He sighs, and when he speaks next, his mouth is near my ear. “You are being given a great gift,” he whispers. “One most people will never receive. You must cherish it, and do your duty as a son. It’s time for you to stand, Benji. It’s time for you to stand and be true.”