Disengage
I’m ready. Here in The Observatory. Surrounded by the other angels ready to disengage. Basking in the golden light of the energy source. Feeling its power and love washing over every inch of my shape.
My wings are fully extended, touching the tips of the feathers of the angel to my right and to my left, and their wings are connecting with the others in our circle. Our auras are radiating a soft baby-blue colored light; it’s encircling us, extending around the circle as if we were holding hands in a choir song. There are seven of us preparing to disengage today—seven anxious and excited angels who will transform into the flesh for the good of humankind.
I had assumed that the moment I had my dream, I would be summoned by Camael to The Observatory and sent on my way; however, that didn’t happen. I had started to worry that maybe Revalia was wrong; maybe Camael had been able to see and hear my dream. The panic rose within me because that dream, that wonderful yet disturbing dream, left me feeling a little ashamed and guilty. I reconciled that the human side of me had truly emerged, and I now understood what Revalia meant when she said there were nights she wanted to remain asleep, but there was still something off about it all: the flowers, the moon, the water, and the encounter with my calling. But although some time had passed, Camael never brought up the subject. It was now common knowledge that, yes, I had in fact dreamt, but it never went beyond that—no questions, no details, no shameful admissions.
And I haven’t dreamt since.
Then this morning, Camael revealed to me the name of my calling, and I knew right away that today would be the day. I was right. My calling’s name is Jake—Jake Parker. Now that I have a name to attach to those dark and dreamy eyes, I will be able to locate him quickly and get straight to work. I don’t think I needed to know his name though—seeing his eyes would have been enough for me to recognize him in any human crowd. Ever since that night I sneaked into The Observatory with Revalia and Lozhure, the image of my calling’s eyes has been imprinted in my mind. Jake’s eyes.
The light of the energy source is soothing. I am drawn to it as the others are. It entrances us collectively, and I sense the rising anticipation from everyone. Camael allows us to be intoxicated by the power for a few more moments before he gives us instructions.
Camael smiles at us and walks around the circle. His wings are extended, and as he passes by each of us, he makes it a point to brush his feathers against ours. He tingles. It’s our last kiss goodbye, our last angelic embrace before the descent. “Each will enter the source one at a time,” he says. “From there you will be merged with your memories, and your wings will be removed. After the process is over and you are made flesh, you will be taken to your destination. Do not fear what you see or feel. Your Watcher will be waiting for you upon arrival. The transformation is a traumatic ordeal, but once the initial shock wears off, you will find it is quite easy to accept what has happened to you. You will be human, yes, but you will retain some of your angelic grace to complete your assignment.” He folds in his wings, and following his lead, we do the same, breaking the flow of energy that shone so brightly. It is time.
He walks around the circle again slowly, deliberately. My chest is throbbing in anticipation, and my head is swimming with endless thoughts. Camael catches my eye and shakes his head. He lifts a finger to his lips as if to silence me, but I can’t help it! I switch my stance from one foot to the next rocking slightly back and forth. And then it happens… Camael touches an angel on the shoulder, and he hoists himself into the light. We all turn our heads to the Window and watch as Heariah blazes across the night sky.
A shooting star.
I clasp my hands tightly together. As a human, I know my palms would be slick with sweat right now, but I look down and see a silver aura emanating around them.
The second angel disengages. Thalis. She smiles as her shape descends into the light and swallows her whole. As she shoots through the sky, her comet tail is a dark indigo color and barely noticeable amidst the heavens. One the most uneventful disengagements I’ve ever witnessed.
The third goes, the fourth goes, the fifth goes, the six goes, and then it is just me and Camael in the sacred room standing over the holy light of the source.
“I’m a little frightened,” I say.
“No, you’re not,” he responds as he touches my shoulder. “You’re not scared at all.”
He’s right. I’m not afraid to do this. I can do this, but there’s a feeling of foreboding that I can’t seem to shake. “I’m afraid I will fail.”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Be not afraid.” I feel like he knows something. Is he fearful for me, too? “Aestra, let my love guide you. I will keep watch over you. Stay the course. Focus on the task at hand.” He tries to smile, but it’s weak and not very reassuring. “Of course, I worry about you!” he replies to my inner feelings. “You are bonded to me, and I love you very much.” He sweeps his hand over my cheek. There are tears in his eyes.
I grab his hand and press it closer to my cheek. “I love you, too.”
Nodding to the light, he says “It’s time. Go now,” but his voice is enhanced by a chorus of thousands of singing angels. It’s a melody that I have never heard before. They are singing my name, chanting to me, telling me it will be okay. I can’t make out to whom the voices belong, and as I submerge one foot gingerly into the energy source, I have a startling revelation—it’s the Creator! He has spoken to me! Not a fancy light show, not spinning colors or pretty animal noises, not an infusion of joy and love—He actually spoke to me. His words. His voice. His glorious presence urging me on!
The golden light is swirling up around me as I sink into the pool; it’s encompassing my essence, and I can barely see Camael from beyond the light. I am weightless, suspended, and I’m being lifted high above the heavens and earth. I blink my eyes, and suddenly, I’m surrounded by those purple flowers from my dream. The eyes on the petals are singing to me, and I dance to the music. Camael is gone, replaced by the violet twinkling intertwined with golden flashes. I am at peace, overwhelmed with a splendid feeling of joy and happiness.
I scarcely notice the sharp twinge in my shoulders when my body begins to rapidly fall. I must have already made my “shooting star” appearance to the world because the serenity I felt a moment ago is slowly being replaced by another sensation.
Pain.
Images begin to fire off in my mind—pictures, sounds, smells, emotions … memories. They come at me, one by one, year by year. I try to make sense of them all, try to hold on to every fragment of the barrage of pictures, but they’re coming so fast I can only decipher a few solid ones at a time…
Cold. Wet. Dark. Blinded by an artificial light and overwhelmed by an antiseptic smell. My eyes try to focus. I hear voices. I’m cold. I’m cold. I begin to cry. My mother pushes her forefinger into my palm. I squeeze tightly. She hums to me. Soothing. Safe. I stop crying. I’m an only child.
I’m two years old. I’m shaking with chills and sweating with heat all at the same time. I have an extremely high fever. My father puts me in a cold-water bath. My mother is speaking frantically to someone. She’s crying. I come very close to death.
Five years old. I’m a fast learner. Kindergarten bores me. Mrs. Romeo is my teacher. I like her. She has gray hair that is held in a bun. She looks like a witch from a fairy tale book, but that makes me like her even more. I’m always the first to finish my work. Mrs. Romeo sits with me and teaches me to write complete sentences.
Seven years old. I rollerblade in the driveway by myself for the first time. I fall and scrape my elbows and knees. The stinging and burning are too much to bear. There are pieces of my shredded flesh left behind in the ridges of the concrete. My father scoops me up from the ground and sprays Solarcaine on my wounds to stop the pain. He promises he will practice with me. My best friend, Goldie, dies of leukemia.
Nine years old. I’m the only girl to play soccer on the boys’ team. I like to play with Barbie dolls too. My father refurbishes an old bookshelf, and I use that as a “Barbie apartment building.” My mother helps me to sew doll clothes. I write my first poem, “Angel,” and win first prize in the school writing contest.
Twelve years old. I come in second place in the school spelling bee. I miss the word “mischievous.” I’m devastated and cry myself to sleep that night. I quit the soccer team. I stop playing with dolls. I kiss a boy named Wayne, and he spreads nasty rumors about me to the whole school. My attention focuses on my writing. Poetry is becoming my forte. I’m a loner.
Fifteen years old. I go to my first rock concert with a group of kids I hang around with at school. The loud music blows my eardrums out for days, but I love every minute of it. Songs, to me, are poems set to music. I am excited by different types of music and the variations of lyrics and rhythms. I make the National Honor Society and start thinking about college. I would love to go to New York University, but my mother isn’t too keen on me leaving California. My father says I have plenty of time for all that.
Seventeen years old. I go on a school field trip to Europe. France. Italy. Switzerland. I get to experience the lifestyles of other cultures. They have outstanding food and beautiful museums. I am inspired and write every day. I’ve applied to many colleges for creative writing. Midway through my senior year of high school, my father plans a family trip to Baja. The car ride is the last time I ever see my parents…
And now it comes, faster and more concrete… the images of the accident that took my parents’ lives. The car tumbling over and over on the slick road. My body tossed through the front windshield, my blonde hair sailing through the air like a flaxen rope tossed onto the shore. There’s so much glass, so much glass. Glass in my eyes, fragments embedded in my cheeks. Glass stinging my palms where I tried to fruitlessly cover my face. Shards gouging into my back like ancient Roman swords slicing the flesh of their victim.
My back.
Suddenly, I’m once again aware of my surroundings; that I am currently falling faster and faster to the Earth. The onslaught of memories has ceased, and one by one, my feathers break off at the quills. A plume of white races upwards and through me. There’s nothing to brace my fall now, as the boney remnants of my wings are torn away from my flesh.
Flesh.
Bone.
I’m human now! I reach up to touch my arms and touch the solidity of my actual body, the soft skin, the tiny hairs on the surface, and the increasing agony from my wounded back. No, wounded isn’t the word. This laceration, this gash, is unlike anything I’ve ever felt—in my human life or beyond. This feeling is torturous—unbearable. I scream out. I’m terrified—confused. The loss of my parents weighs heavily on my heart, and I’m having trouble discerning between the implanted recollections and my angelic existence. And I’m falling. Falling. Falling.
“Lord, help me!” I cry. “Someone! Please!”
I look below me. The world spins violently out of control; I spin out of control. Clouds and manmade structures rush up all around me. I hit the soft earth. Green around me. Trees and bushes and patches of purple flowers. I stumble. I roll.
Every inch of my body feels the nerve endings firing. Pain. Throbbing. My eyes adjust to the unfamiliar sights, yet, I know them all. I’ve seen a place like this before: a park. I stand up and take in the environment. My hair drapes heavily down my back, and I rotate my shoulders to make sure that my wings are in fact gone. They are, and in their place are two large chunks of raised flesh. Scars. The glass from the windshield had pierced my back. Gashed my back. Lacerated my back. Left me with dark scars, inches wide, and raised. I rehabbed. Left California. Came here, to New York, to finish high school and to stay with Aunt Ruth.
Aunt Ruth towers over me. A giantess of a woman standing nearly ten feet tall and glowing with silver light.
“You lost your wings too,” I mumble. The bright light of the sun forces me to squint.
She smiles. Her face is soft with rosy cheeks. Human blood pumps its way throughout her body, yet a sparkle of angelic grace illuminates her stature. “I never had wings, Aestra,” she says in a deep and gentle voice, like dripping honey. I look at her more closely. There are bees following her. They buzz in my ears, and I try to swat them away. “Relax, relax,” she tries to coax as she wraps me in a warm blanket. The air is cold. I can see my breath in short white puffs with every exhale.
“The bees are everywhere,” I say.
“You’re going to be fine. Your body is regulating itself. Your mind is struggling for control over reality and faith. It’s trying to overcome a hallucination and discern fact from fiction. Your human mind is trying to figure out the line between truth and fiction.” Her voice is so soothing.
“But you’re a giant!” I say.
She chuckles heartily and gazes deeply into my eyes. “Just for a few more moments, Aestra. Your angelic self can still see my true form, but once you’ve adjusted into the human reality, you will see me in my human shape, the glamouring that was placed upon me to mask my angel blood and unearthly appearance.”
I don’t want to see her human shape because, when I do, the angelic part of me will be completely shut off, and with each breath I take, I can feel death. I can feel the extent of my humanness, like the cells in my body are dividing and breaking down. I feel each one of them linger and die. It hurts. My body hurts. Not just from my little tuck and roll fall, it hurts deep down in every fiber of my mortality.
I am enjoying the silver speckles of light dancing around the soft skin of her giantess body. I had forgotten the Nephilim were of their own form and presence. She is lovely to look at, but the longer I stare at her, the more the silver aura flickers and dies away. Her oversized physique begins to melt down to normal human size. “Drink Me” reads the label on the bottle, and Alice gets small, smaller, smallest.
“Come with me,” she says and outstretches her hand.
I reach for her and take a step forward. I’m a little unsteady on my human feet. The actual experience is much different than the shape we took in Ilarium.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” she says.
I hope so. “Can you hear my thoughts?” I ask as I stumble again.
She shakes her head. “No, Aestra. The human part of me and the human part of you does not allow our angelic natures to read each other that way.”
“Oh,” I reply, and I wonder—how on earth is she going to be able to help me if she has no idea what’s going on inside my head? How will she be able to understand?
“Are you ready to begin?”
“Not really. I’m not sure. I don’t know,” I say, because really, I’m spent … mentally and physically.
She chuckles again. It’s deep and pure. She pushes her soft blonde curls from her eyes, and I realize that she looks a lot like my mother. Wait. I look like my mother. But I don’t have a mother. Not really. I mean, she’s dead. No. She never existed. But she did…
I put one hand to my forehead in hopes to block out the feeling of confusion that hits me.
“It’s okay,” she says, guiding me through the grass to a parking lot.
“It’s not,” I answer with great uncertainty.
She opens the passenger door of her silver Volvo for me. “It will be.”
I get in, and she makes her way to the driver’s side. “I hope so. I know it will be. It must be. Right?” I reply when she gets in and closes the door.
“Trust me, Aestra. I promise to take very good care of you.”
“Thank you, Aunt Ruth.” And with that, she starts the engine and drives away.