Repercussion
Monday mornings are never fun, especially when the weekend that preceded it was filled with so much activity. The process of waking up and starting the routines of the week all over again can be so tiresome. What’s even worse than a Monday morning is a Tuesday morning because you’ve already completed the first leg of the week, and by the time you relax, go to sleep, and wake up again, you rise the next day thinking, “Oh, God, it’s only Tuesday!” and the gloom of the next four days ahead is so depressing. I don’t want to think about Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday for that matter. The only day I keep replaying in my head is Sunday. Early Sunday morning in Summer’s red Range Rover with the rain gently rapping, rapping on the car door.
Jake called me at 5:00 a.m. this morning, a half hour before my alarm was set to go off, and canceled our morning meeting at the café. Apparently, Summer’s Chihuahua was hit by a car yesterday and had to be put down. She was distraught, and Jake stayed with her the whole night for moral support. All of the Lord’s creations are sacred; I can understand the bond that Summer must have had with her pet, and I feel bad that she lost her animal companion, but that twinge in the center of my chest struck me deep when he said the words “stayed all night with her.” He said he was too tired to think straight and was probably going to skip first and second periods.
Neither of us mentioned the kiss. While it’s been weighing heavily on my mind, it’s just as well that we didn’t talk about it. Anything verbalized could be overheard by Camael, and I’ve been wrestling with my emotions about the situation non-stop.
There are four distinct aspects at play here. There’s Camael and the order of things. I feel guilty because he warned me about barriers and crossing lines. Angels do not have romantic feelings, end of discussion. The love that angels feel is all-encompassing—there’s no distinction between the types of love, the categorical division of love. Humans comprehend the notion of love and distribute those feelings into different classifications. “I love my mother” is a much different type of love than “I love the sunset” or “I love my country.” And then, of course, there’s the frivolous “I love pizza!” or “I love you, man!” which is drastically different than “I love my soul-mate, my life partner, my lover.” So, the guilt I’m feeling for having had a romantic incident is my angelic instinct screaming bloody murder at my human soul. But I’m technically human, right? In my fabricated existence, I’ve had boyfriends and encounters in the past, right? I’ve kissed boys before and felt that rush of desire before. So, doesn’t this align with my natural human existence?
Secondly, and most importantly, Jake is my calling, and I must do what I have to do to complete my mission, right? If what Malek said was true, then playing up the romantic elements of the boy-girl relationship is only the natural progression of things I need to do in order to get the job done. So, I’m probably within the bounds of my limitations. A kiss is just a kiss. No big deal. I know I can’t get involved with him much further than just a kiss, but if just a kiss is going to be the way to reach him and get him on the path The Powers That Be need him to get on, then it’s okay… Right? Complete the mission. Pass the assignment. Make everything right in the world. Most importantly, help the Creator with his most precious design. If just a kiss is going to set the course of the human race on track, I’ll be happy to do just a kiss a thousand times over for the Lord. But again, I’m technically human. Right here, right now. And there’s the humanness of me that feels the attraction to Jake on the mental, and yes, I’ll admit it, physical level. And I can recognize that it began when I first saw him in The Observatory. There’s no guilt or shame in admitting that. In The Observatory, I was drawn to the beauty of his eyes as I would have been to any human’s in that up close and personal moment. It was no secret that Aestra, the angel, was fascinated by all humankind.
However, and this is the third aspect at play, something happened to Aestra, the human. My fascination morphed somehow. Maybe my emotions did cross a barrier of sorts? It’s just that Jake has touched a part of my soul that makes me feel like I would do anything for him—anything to keep him safe and on the right path. Though, it wouldn’t be just for me or my mission but for him because I care about him as a person and not just an assignment. He’s touched a part of my heart that awakened a piece of my human aspect. I want to keep him safe, yes. I want to keep him happy, yes, but I also want to keep him for myself. Summer. She intertwines their arms and kisses him affectionately and says things like, “Hey, babe!” in her high-pitched baby voice. I know she’s not the one for him. He even said it himself, but I could have told him that from day one. There’s no future there for Summer and Jake. She’s not his one. Yet, a slice of my heart is starting to want me to be the one, and I think it’s possible that is where my guilt is stemming from … Malek.
My last point brings me to someone who is supposed to be my sworn enemy. It’s not the guilt of a kiss because I pretty much justified all that; I’ve reconciled my actions in that regard. But what I haven’t reconciled is Malek and the amulet. Because if what I did (a kiss is just a kiss) was okay and within my boundaries, I would not have used the medallion to shield my actions from The Powers That Be. That’s the most difficult to answer. Why did I do that? And more importantly, how is Camael going to react when he finds out?
So, basically, it’s now 5:45 a.m., and I have no motivation to do much of anything. My thoughts have worn me down, and I’m tired and not willing to start the first leg of the usual five-day stretch. I decide I’m not going to school. Aunt Ruth will have to call me in sick or something, and if she doesn’t want to do it, then I’ll do it myself. One more lie isn’t going to get me cast out of Ilarium, that’s for sure.
“Aestra,” Aunt Ruth calls from down the hall, “you up and ready yet?”
“Not going,” I yell back.
Seconds of dense silence hang in the second-story hallway. I know what she’s thinking, suspecting. “You sick?” she says, but the lilt of her honey voice indicates that she already knows the answer.
“No.”
Some more silence, then she says, “You’ll call it in, right?”
I throw my head into my pillow in frustration. I knew she wouldn’t do it! “O-kaaa-ay!” I fully expect to hear her high heel shoes click-clacking on the hardwood floors, but there’s no sound. She’s still standing there, probably in the threshold of her door, hand on hip, contemplating her next sentence.
“Sure you’re not sick?” she reiterates.
“Yep.”
“Then, meet me for lunch in the city. Lenny’s in Times Square. 12 o’clock.” She shuts her door and click-clacks down the stairs.
That was not a request… that was a directive. Just when I thought I’d be able to have the day to rest my overloaded mind…
I take the ferry from Brooklyn to Manhattan. It’s practically an all-day affair because I have to catch buses across Brooklyn to get to the pier, and then more buses to get across Manhattan to get to the restaurant. I could have taken a more direct route, but I enjoy the scenery of the ferry ride, especially on this gray, late February afternoon. The city skyline is breathtaking, and I remember that, even as a child, I was completely mesmerized by city life.
Aunt Ruth is already here. As soon as I open the door of the restaurant, I see the back of her blonde hair, pinned up in a professional-looking twist. It’s 11:43 a.m. The clock hangs over the pizza counter. I wonder how long she’s been here.
She greets me with a hearty hello, but I can tell this isn’t a friendly-lunch-date-with-a family-member type of outing. She motions to the chair across from her. “Sit down,” she smiles.
I do. Food has already been ordered. Mozzarella sticks and fried calamari—typical Italian fast-food items. “Been here long?” I ask as I reach for a fried calamari ring.
She shakes her head. “Not too long. Things were slow today, so I thought I’d come over and order. You take the ferry?”
“Uh huh. It wasn’t too bad. All the buses were running on time so…”
“That’s good,” she cuts me off. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Fine. Why?”
“It’s not like you to ditch school like that, and yesterday, you were pretty quiet up there in your room all day.”
She speaks to me like an aunt would. Like this is normal. Like this is your average human interaction between an adult and her adult niece. But there’s nothing normal about Ruth and me. She’s even less human than I am, and we are by no means your average family. I want to skip the pretense, break through the formalities, and get to the point before my mozzarella sticks get any colder.
“I’ve had a lot on my mind,” I say. “Still adjusting, I guess.”
“Listen,” she says, and her tone becomes all business in a hot second. “I know about the blackout. I got word from Camael. You’re being too risky, Aestra. You’re taking too many unnecessary chances, and Camael is in a mood like I’ve never seen before. He has a hidden agenda, Aestra.”
A piece of fried mozzarella crunches in my mouth. “Cam?” I ask, stupidly.
“No,” she barks. “You know who I’m talking about. The second you knew what he was, the second you sensed what he was, you should have never entertained anything he had to say to you.”
Malek.
She’s referring to my interactions with Malek. Camael knows about the amulet.
“What was the harm in talking to him?” I ask.
As the fingers of her right-hand ball up into a frustrated fist, every knuckle cracks. “Harm? Do you not see the harm he has already done? How did he do it? How did he get you to…”
“He didn’t do anything,” I say. “I did it myself. It was my choice.” I’m not quite sure, but I either did the noble thing and accepted responsibility for my actions, or I just defended a demon. I’m afraid of the latter choice.
“Yes, and had you not given him the honor of your precious time, that choice would not have even been there to tempt you. Tell me how it happened.”
I reach into my jacket pocket and take out the pouch. “It’s a necklace,” I admit without removing the pendant from the bag. “It’s a veiling device.”
Her eyes go so wide and wild; I swear, I think they’re going to bulge out of her face. “You have to get rid of it,” she urgently whispers.
“I can’t,” I say matter-of-factly. “I tried.”
“Then you have to give it back to him.”
“I can’t. I tried that too. It always comes back to me. It always somehow ends up in my backpack, or my coat pocket, or my…”
She wipes her nose with her napkin. “Then you have to ignore it. You can’t use it again. No good can ever come from it. It blocked you out from Camael’s view for a certain length of time, but it’s not like Camael didn’t see anything… he saw blackness, like when a TV station gets blacked out for a few minutes. It didn’t alter time or splice together pieces of time. The blackness bothered him very much. He knew something was wrong.” She reaches for my hands, but I ignore her and continue to gorge on my fried foods. “Don’t you see? He’s a demon, Aestra. A master deceiver, a child of the Father of Lies. A demon is all knowing… brazen, confident, manipulative, a tempter, a seducer. Steer clear of him. Please, I beg you.”
My cell phone vibrates in my pant leg pocket, and I take it out to see who’s calling. It’s a text message from Jake.
I quickly text back and turn my attention back to Aunt Ruth.
“What happened during the blackout?” she asks.
I realize I might as well come clean. I have no reason to hide the truth. The only thing I may have done wrong was using the amulet, but in the end, what happened between Jake and me was completely justified.
I receive a new text message from Jake.
“Would you stop playing with that thing and talk to me?” she scolds. God, she sounds so much like my mother.
“Okay,” I say. “He kissed me.” And again, her eyes bulge out of her skull. “Just hear me out, though. This is a good approach. I’m making progress with him, and if it goes in this direction…”
“You’ll fail if you take it too far!” she gasps. “That’s not how things are…”
“Wait. Don’t freak out. I see it like this: I need to do everything in my power to get this done right, right?” I pause, waiting for her to say something, or nod, or even grunt, but the only sound is my phone vibrating with another text from Jake:
But I don’t respond because I’m too distracted by Aunt Ruth’s eyes that are blazing right through me. I respectfully turn off my phone.
“No, Aestra,” she says firmly. “Absolutely not. This can’t lead anywhere but to a dark and lonely place for you. I can’t even imagine what the consequences would be if…”
“Nothing will happen!” I assert. “I swear! I have this under control. I can do this. Like, think about it… if committing mass murder would bring on world peace, wouldn’t you do it?”
As soon as the words escape my mouth, I freeze.
She freezes. Gapes. Mouth opened. Mine is too. The words came out too quickly, like there was no control. I just said. I just rattled on. She breathes in and exhales so loudly that I think everyone in the restaurant heard her. “You heard what you just said, right?” she says calmly.
I nod my head, ashamed.
“You still think you have this under control?”
I don’t have an answer. If I can’t even control my words, how can I control my actions? She didn’t even give me the benefit of the doubt, and…
“Think about this conversation, please. Get home safely. We’ll talk later.”
I wander around the city in a fog for a few hours before getting on all my connector buses and heading back to the pier. The boat is in the distance, about a mile out, so I have some time to kill before it docks. The pendant is tucked away safely in its bag in one jacket pocket, and my phone is secured in the other. I take the phone out to check the time when I realize I forgot to turn it back on before.
“What the hell, man?” Jake’s voice echoes across the pier.
I turn my head to see him coming toward me. He’s holding out his cell phone in one hand and throwing up the other in a “Huh?” gesture.
“What’s going on?” he shouts again.
“Jake?” I say in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you I was on my way to Lenny’s, but when I got there, you were gone. Then you don’t pick up your phone. I’m calling you all day, chasing you down. I finally get a hold of your aunt, and she says to try here.”
I shake my head with confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“I went to your locker right before third period. That guy Malek was there too. I guess he was wanting to talk to you about something. Anyway, he said you texted him that you were going to the city to see your aunt.”
“I didn’t…”
He comes closer to me. “Uh, yeah, you did. He showed me the text. So, I went to the nurse, checked myself out sick, and got on the train.”
A demon is all-knowing… ain’t that the truth! But the bigger issue here is Jake actually followed me. Tried to track me down all over Manhattan. My brain is still trying to process. “Why the seek-and-rescue mission, commander?” I joke.
“I don’t know. I felt bad about bailing on you this morning over a stupid friggin’ dog. And then when I heard you were out for the day, I thought it would be cool to hang out, maybe get something to eat, and get some work done. I’m almost finished with the project, and I wanted to run some ideas by you.”
Project? He wants to talk about the project. He came all the way to the city to find me to discuss an assignment for class? “Wow, you’re really into this project, aren’t ya?”
“I gotta get an ‘A,’ ya know?”
I suppose so. I pull my jacket tighter around my neck as the wind picks up a little. The boat is getting closer to the pier. I watch as it cuts through the dark waves in the harbor, and I let the sounds of the water consume me. Tuning out Jake’s presence, I absorb the distant ring of dingy bells, the smell of the fuel engines polluting the air, and the silence of two awkward human beings who have so much to say to each other but choose not to speak. Is he watching and hearing the same things as I am, or is he thinking about Europe with Vic and Summer?
Jake fidgets with something in his pocket, breaking my daydream. “Ya know the other night when we were on the phone, and you said that you wouldn’t let me read your poetry unless I let you read mine first?”
I nod.
“Well, here,” he says handing me a piece of folded paper. “I want you to read this.”
I take the paper from him, unfold it, and read the title. “‘Aestrangel’? What’s this?”
“Just read it,” he says.
And I do.
And the world stops turning, and my heart stops beating, and the dingy bells stop ringing, and the waves stop crashing, and I am motionless and speechless and helpless and confused and utterly stunned.
“I can’t figure you out, ya know?” he begins. “I’ve been friends with lots of girls, dated lots of girls, and I always thought I had a pretty good handle on chicks. But you’re so different. Strange. Even your name is so weird. But through all that strangeness, I feel like I know you somehow. I feel like I’ve known you my whole life, and at the same time, I have no idea who the hell you are.”
I laugh because he’s right. I’ve felt the same way about myself as well, but for vastly distinct reasons, of course. He says these words as if he’s rehearsed them, as if he’s spent all day thinking about… oh, yeah… he probably did! He had all day to catch up with me! And here I was wondering why we hadn’t talked about the kiss from the other night. I fold up the poem and put it in my jacket pocket next to the brown pouch.
The ferry docks at the pier, and the bell rings. People start to disembark and scatter on the wooden dock like ants marching. Jake lifts my chin and leans down to kiss me. An electric surge races through my arms and chest. People bump into us. Their angered voices grumble that we’re standing in their way. I clasp the poem, and my fingers brush up against the pendant’s case. I can almost hear Malek urging me to take it out of the pouch and hold on to it tightly. I remember the swoon I felt from the energy it possesses, but I ignore its power because the power of my own self-confidence is far stronger than Malek’s magic toy and the power of my own self-esteem has risen up above me, above the crowd of people swarming around us, and above the heavens of Ilarium. I don’t care who bumps into me. I don’t care who sees me now.