The man Gabriel conversed with looked fairly ordinary and nondescript; if I hadn’t known Gabriel was searching out a fallen Angel I would have assumed this being was human. Gabriel paused briefly to pull his iPhone from his pocket and I watched as he read the message that I had sent him. He bundled it back into his jeans’ pocket and continued talking.
Now the fallen Angel rubbed his stubble and began to speak. I couldn’t tell what he was saying; as ever, the picture was muted. As he spoke he waved his hands about in the air, expressing himself with dramatic effect. The conversation seemed to go on for a very long time. I started drifting away but then the fallen Angel’s body suddenly stiffened at something Gabriel had said, rekindling my interest. He gawked at Gabriel, his tumbler slipping toward the table a few inches from where he grasped it. I wondered what Gabriel had told him that had caused his reaction. He stood up and made his way over to a pay phone, sliding in some silver coins, with his back to Gabriel.
When he returned he wrote something down on a napkin, folded it carefully, and handed it to Gabriel. Nodding respectfully as he uttered a few last words to him, Gabriel seemed to thank him in reply and then was up, striding through the bar and out of the doorway. I watched him leave, but I found myself unable to follow, so instead I turned my attention to the fallen Angel still sitting at the table. Now alone, he held his face in his hands, and swayed from side to side.
After a moment, he made his way over to the bar. I watched him neck a brandy as if to steady his nerves. The bar woman seemed to inquire genuinely after his well-being, and this time he spoke slowly enough for me to read his lips: “Nothing. Just the end of all worlds.”
I wished for Gabriel and, like a genie in a bottle, he appeared in front of me against a different backdrop.
He was fumbling around in his pockets and finally produced a key. He stood in a walkway leading up to a seedy motel room opposite a dusty highway. I tried to call his name; maybe I could speak to him? But he didn’t hear me. I remembered then that he was far away and I couldn’t communicate with him. I wanted to tell him what I read from the fallen Angel’s lips, and ask him what was happening. Why hadn’t he called me yet?
He turned the key in the doorknob and I followed him into the most basic of rooms. He pushed past the sofa and, searching hurriedly, made his way into another room. He called Hanora’s name hastily, and I watched his lips curving in and out over the three syllables that made up her impressive name.
I thought he’d said that he had separated from her. Were they sharing a room together? I think my heart stopped as he halted inside the doorframe and I looked around, observing Hanora strewn over a bed and wearing little more than an enticing smile.
I bolted upright in my own bed. And as the haze dispersed, my thoughts fell to Gabriel and Hanora, throwing the fallen Angel’s words far back into the deep recesses of my mind. I wasn’t quite sure what to do.
Anger filled me, displaying itself in my burning cheeks. I reached for my phone but stopped. If my dream was the present, was the moment happening right now? Would I interrupt them? I found his name and pressed the call button. I didn’t know what I would say, but I had to reach him, tell him that I knew what he was doing, that I had been right all along and that I never wanted to see him ever again. I didn’t get the opportunity. He canceled my call.
Furious, I leapt off the cotton sheets. Ripping away the glamorous clothes that were molded around my body, I chucked on jeans, T-shirt, and sweater instead.
Exiting through the garage off the utility room, I marched through the grounds. Where I was going, I had no idea, but I needed to move, to argue with myself in private. It was dark now—I’d overslept; my late afternoon nap had inadvertently turned into an early night. Though it was the early hours of the morning, day was not far away. The planes of grass were slippery; it must have rained during the night. I didn’t care if I fell. I hoped I would fall and keep falling away from here, away from this life.
I stomped for over a mile, searching for explanations as to what was truly going on with Gabriel and Hanora.
In the distance, I spotted a horse; in the vast stretch of land, it was the only living thing for miles. I made my way over, and as I finally neared the mare, she didn’t shy away. Running my hand down her silky black coat, she nuzzled into my side. I didn’t know what she was doing here or who she belonged to, and I didn’t care. Well over sixteen hands high, I still managed to hoist myself onto her back, clutching her long mane. I squeezed her sides and she began to trot. Throwing my weight into my bottom, I urged the mare into a canter. It felt freeing to ride through the fields by myself, the crisp silence calming my mind of every erratic thought.
We neared a forested area; hundreds of deciduous plane trees were grouped together, each one having long lost its leaves with the onset of winter. Their branches resembled splintering claws, seeming to direct me inside. Their thick roots were graying, as though they had been drained and were dying. I half wondered if they were marking an entrance to some sort of house made of gingerbread, waiting for an unwitting person to stumble inside and be consumed by a wicked witch. I considered what evil might lurk—hidden—within.
At the opening to the forest, the mare sidestepped, shying away from the trees as though something inside them was spooking her. I squeezed my left leg to her side, pushing my weight down harder, in an attempt to encourage the mare to stay still.
A cold chill ran from my neck down to my toes and suddenly I was mindful that I was out in the wide open and all alone. It occurred to me that any number of my ghosts could be poised like chameleons inside; the girl in shadow, the Pureblood that invaded my visions, maybe even Eligio.
Then the obvious dawned on me. Ethan.
We had unfinished business. I needed to talk with him, alone. Clearly he sought the same opportunity. He must have answers, I just didn’t know if he desired my life in exchange for them.
“Ethan?” I chanced in a soft whisper, my voice traveling on the wind rippling through the trees.
It was met with stillness, and the mare underneath me waited anxiously. I was about to guide her toward the opening when the arms of the branches began to sway, stretching from the back and moving toward the opening.
I held my position, mustering my bravery. The branches stopped moving and I was sure for the briefest of seconds that I saw a pair of dulled, red eyes lingering from behind their fort.
“We need to … talk,” I stuttered.