Wings of Boden (18 page)

“Well, whattaya think?” I asked Angie.
“Remember that stupid giggling look on the face of that female
drek? I saw how you took care of her. I know you didn’t mean to,
but, it worked.”

Angie considered … nodded a slow grin. “Yeah,
she was flappin annoying, wasn’t she?” She glanced from me to Dad,
tucked some hair behind her ear. “Okay, I’m in.”

Dad pursed his lips, reclined back and lifted
his hands to clasp behind his head. “Well, girls, welcome to world
war five.”

Stung from that phrase, I asked on a breath,
“Is it that bad?”

“Afraid so, it seems the hunters didn’t stop
at Boden. Just kept following the night around. They took out quite
a few before we finally figured it out. But, we know now, so, it’s
time to make them pay.” His eyes went to Angie, mine followed.
Angie’s face had fallen into the depths of remorse, a deep frown at
the floor.

“Angie,” Dad said, “don’t you feel like this
was—”

“I started world war five,” Angie dropped the
anguish-filled words at her bare knees. “I just pushed her, that’s
all. I was just protecting my—”

“That’s right,” Dad half-barked, unclasping
his hands from his head and rocking forward to the desk. “That’s
what you were born to do. It’s our instinct … Angelica Marie
Soepheea, do you hear me?”—Angie pulled her head up—“Our instinct.
So don’t you feel guilty about anything. They planned it. They
pushed it. They started the war, not you. That’s what they do, prey
on our instincts and play with our minds.”

Dad clamped his jaw, pushed sharply from his
chair, marched over to a bookcase and back carrying a thick,
ancient looking brown book. He dropped the book on the desk with a
weighty thud, sending a flinch through me. Dad hadn’t use Angie’s
full name in, well, not since we were kids, so I knew this had to
be important. For some reason, I felt … small.

Dad opened the book, flipped to a certain
section and leaned palms flat on the desk, gazed down at the pages
and began to read:

“It is our absolute duty as angelic beings to
protect the innocent from dark forces, no matter the
consequences”—seeming entranced, Dad spoke in the deepest, most
official tone I’d ever heard—“We shall protect with our nature of
good. We shall guard our kind and those that represent the light.
We have descended from Source to protect the humans and provide
security for the angelic population. This is who we are. Go forth
and protect the light, and may Source be with you forevermore.” He
held his gaze down for a beat.

Then finally looked up, lowered and relaxed
back into his chair. His hard, vacant green eyes stared through us.
He laced his fingers together over his midsection.

“Dad?” I questioned, soft, with a hint of,
are you in there?

He nodded as if to give permission to
proceed.

“Did you say humans?”

His lips clamped a tight line. Face turned
defeated, wrinkles around his eyes. “Yes, honey, I did,” he finally
replied. “That’s what we were originally brought here for. It
didn’t work out as well as we had planned.”

He leaned forward, closed the book and
focused on us.

“We fought alongside the humans for fourteen
years to rid the earth of impurity. And we learned. Remember,
girls, the drekavacs will stop at nothing to trick you into the
dark. You will see and hear things that may not be there. It can be
very convincing. You heard that yell of theirs, like nothing you’d
ever heard, I’m sure. There’s a purpose behind that. It can dim
your light and trap your mind.” He paused, thinking, and then
added, “Death doesn’t even cross their minds. Their sole purpose,
like a disease, is to spread. Their physical presence is somewhat
of an illusion, they’re more like dark spirits, on a mission to
infect. Death is a release for them, but they’ll take as many as
they can with them into the dark, to propagate their species.”

Listening to him, I began to realize it was a
different kind of danger. I’d be safe from the hunters in the
daylight, but the looming night would always be there.

“What happened to the humans?” Angie asked, a
little catch in her throat, before she cleared it. “You said that
was our original purpose, right?”

A thin smile stretched his face. “Source is
taking care of them now. Once we rid this place of the dreks and
hunters, we’ll bring humanity back. But for now, we’re needed to
balance the forces.

Enthralled by that thought, I asked, “You
mean, humans still exist somewhere?” It was as if I could see
again, after being blind for so many years. Something was waiting
for us to clear the way. It was much bigger than anything I’d ever
imagined in my little world of fashion and friends.

“Of course,” Dad replied. “If they didn’t
exist, well, we wouldn’t exist. See, humans are angels too. They
already have wings, they just can’t feel or see them yet. Once they
finish the lessons, their wings become visible and functional. Life
is energy, a balance between negative and positive. When the
positive charge overrides all negative, flight becomes possible.
That’s just the way it is. All life has to go through stages.” He
paused with a grin. “Tell me, Ellie. Do you think this is your only
life? You may be in your fifth lifetime right now, you never know.
My guess is it’s not your first, angels are usually in at least
their second life-time.”

And on that note, I turned to see Angie
sitting in stunned silence, eyes locked on Dad.

“Listen,” Dad said, drawing my attention
back. “I could sit here and talk for hours, but it would much
simpler if you studied this book yourself. So, this evening, I want
you girls to go over to your reading spot and study like you used
to when you were young, together.”

That made me smile. I so love those sister
moments. When I glanced over at Angie, she gave me a mutual-memory
grin.

“Celeste,” Dad called out over our heads,
startling me.

Angie and I turned to see Mom standing before
the windowed wall in her long dress, gazing out over the forest.
Her opalescent wings were unfurled wide, hair pouring down her
back. How long had she been there? Staring at her, I pulled some
hair behind my ear. Mom was deep in some sort of contemplation.

“Celeste,” Dad reminded.

After a moment, Mom folded her wings back,
spun around with a much more intense appearance than normal, her
eyes glittering like blue gems.

She stepped over to us. We gazed up at our
mother, an absolute illustrious goddess. In turn, she gave us each
a look of love, then said, “You are my girls, and I am so happy you
won’t have to be out there with the hunters. I want you to promise
me you’ll be careful, and for Source sake, come home to me every
day, well before sunset.” She crouched down between us, her long
legs bent and balancing on her heeled shoes, her dress stretched
over her knees. “Promise me.”

As my bottom lip quivered, I angled to hug
her. “I will, Mom. I promise. I love you.”

“Angie?”

“I know, Mom. I promise.”

Mom stood up tall, bent a kiss to the top of
my head, then Angie’s. She smiled, and eventually said, “Okay,
that’s all I wanted to hear. Now, no more tears. I will help you
girls with anything you need. Your father and I were there
together, and we’re here for you now.” Her blue eyes lifted to Dad.
“I think you’ll agree, Phil, there’s no reason for them to go back
to school. It’s time we showed them the wall.”

Dad led us across the room, and pushed on the
side of one of the massive oak bookcases. It rotated around into a
spectacle of weaponry. The Wall seemed to drip with history. Tall
spears, curved swords, pointed daggers. My hand came up to smother
a gasp when I looked up to see two pink bows hanging. I bounced a
look over to Angie, to Dad, to Mom, grins all around.

“Would you like to see them?” Mom said. I
nodded.

Dad stepped over, reached up and removed the
two bows from the wooden pegs. He handed one to me, the other to
Angie. We looked them over, rotating and perusing the beauty. After
flipping mine around to get a look at the limbs, there was my name
in a scripted font:
Elleria Marie Soepheea
, and below in
smaller lettering:
Source is with you.

“But how?” I asked on a breath, gliding my
fingers over the limbs.

“We knew this day would come,” Mom said, “so
we had these specially made for you girls. I can’t fight your
calling anymore. Do you like them?”

Do I like them? Duh, how could I not like
them? “I absolutely love it. It’s just so, pretty.”

Angie, barelegged in shorts, lowered to the
paisley rug, crisscrossed her legs. Her hair falling almost to the
bow on her lap, she looked at her scripted name:
Angelica Marie
Soepheea
—
Source is with you.

“What do you think?” I asked her. “Aren’t
they just, awesome?”

She didn’t say anything, just gave a slow
nod, seemed to be thinking about something. With her gaze still on
the bow, she let out a breath that fluttered her hair, and said,
“All this time, I always knew there was something bigger in our
future. I was just thinking.” She looked up at Mom. “Why did we
waste so much time in school?”

“No, Angie,” Mom said, “it wasn’t a waste. It
was supposed to be that way. We need angels trained in the medical
field, now more than ever. And, Ellie, all that geography study,
you know the land now. Vyn is creating a scientific discovery to
help us all. You see, everyone has a purpose and we’re just pieces
of a puzzle.”

Angie dropped eyes on the bow, considered …
“These
are
very nice.” She angled a look up to me. “But you
know what we have to do with these, right? We have to kill.”

“Don’t think of it that way,” said Dad. “You
can’t kill something that’s already dead. We simply make them
disappear, that’s all. Think of it as releasing them from the
dark.”

Angie clamped her lips into a line, a light
nod. “Well, since you put it that way, don’t we need arrows for
these things?”

Dad grinned, stepped to the wall. He reached
up, pulled down two packed-full quivers and handed one to each of
us, then took my bow from me, freeing my other hand so I could pull
an arrow.

Smoothing my fingers through the arrow
feathers, I whispered to it, “Destiny.” Then angled my eyes to
Angie as she held an arrow of her own, nodding in agreement.

****

“Well, that was little, off,” I said, after
my arrow careened off a pine tree and chattered through the bushes.
Squinting into the forest, I raked hair off my face and tucked it
behind my ear, mentally noting the location of the arrow so I could
find it later. Angie and I were still wearing shorts and T’s, I’d
put my ankle-strapped sandals on and Angie wore flats.

“Yeah, by about twenty feet,” Angie
teased.

Earlier, Dad had set up a couple bales of
straw in front of a pine tree on the forest side of the driveway.
He’d ripped a picture of the nastiest looking drekavac I’d ever
seen out of an old newspaper and pinned it up with a couple of
twigs. “The boarseye is the head,” he had grumbled, then lumbered
off with his feet tamping the dirt driveway in little puffs of
dust.

“Well why don’t you show me how it’s done
then,” I said to Angie.

Angie responded with a sister-grin. After
turning toward the target and going through all the preparatory
motions, she began to pull the string … and pull … and pull some
more until her arm started to tremble.

“Are you gonna shoot, or what?” I said with a
cringe of anticipation.

She released … After another racket of arrow
chatter through the trees, my arrow had a feathered friend about
fifty-feet away in the same tangle of bushes.

The squirrels came out of hiding and the
chipmunks chirped—peeking around the pine branches at us with
perked ears and wide eyes.

I said to Angie, “Well, at least we’re
consistent, huh?”

Angie chuckled, squinted toward the target.
“Yeah, I guess it wasn’t a boarseye, was it?”

“More of a, boars tail, I think.”

“No, more like, ‘hey boar, do you see that
sow over there. I think I shot its tail’.”

We launched into a session of snorting
laughter….

“Okay, okay,” I said, pulling myself together
… Drawing deep, semi-serious breaths, I slid another arrow out,
clicked it on the string and began to focus.

Angie whispered, “And the crowd shut the flap
up, as Elleria stepped to the line.”

My concentration left on a giggle. “Shut up,
Ang,” I teased. “I wanna try again.”

“Okay, okay, sorry.”

With the bow pulled up to shooting position,
I eased the string back, weight tension building … my arm started
to tremor. Aiming the arrow tip just above the bale target, I let
it fly. Missed, but it stuck in the tree with a vibrating
thunk
right above the target.

“Well, that was a little better,” I said.

Cheik-cheik-cheik
, said a squirrel. I
like to think that was encouragement, not laughter.

“Yeah, that was pretty good, sis. Let me
try.” She stepped over to the makeshift line drawn in the dirt by
Dad’s size-fourteen tread.

After about two hours of flinging arrows into
the trees, the bushes, and yes, occasionally the bale, my arm and
shoulder began to whimper for mercy. Dad had said the draw weight,
whatever that meant, was fifty pounds. He had said we’d get used to
it after a couple weeks of practice. He’d also mentioned that we
couldn’t go hunting until we could group all our arrows in the
drek’s paper head, a feat that seemed impossible at the time. The
boarseye was about the size of a small salad plate. Practice, and
more practice would become a daily ritual, we knew. And regular
study sessions would fill our evenings in the den.