Return to Ilarium
When I wake up, my head is in a fog. It feels as if there’s a large boulder pressing up against my chest, and my eyes are heavy—I can barely open them. A sharp pain radiates down my back, like the pain I felt each morning I woke up in the hospital after my car accident. A part of me expects to open my eyes to the white walls of the hospital room and to feel the crisp sheets of the hospital bed in my hands. But that was a lifetime ago, a distant memory. My ears strain to hear the sounds of Aunt Ruth in the kitchen unloading dishes from the dishwasher or hurriedly fixing breakfast for herself before work. But no sounds come. I turn onto my side, and the weight of my body feels so unnatural, so unfamiliar. Something behind me makes a whooshing sound against the sheets of the bed I am on, so I force my eyes to open wide. Everything is white; the world around me looks white—like I’m waking from a hazy dream. But this isn’t a hospital room or the room I stayed in at Ruth’s house, and the faint hum of music in the air alerts me that this is no dream.
This is Ilarium. I somehow made it back.
I reach my arms around me, and yes… my wings have returned. I caress the soft feathers that feel so alien to me right now. I am fully aware of their weight, their heaviness, like a burden to forever be carried around. Yet, as I tilt my head to see them, they are not white as there they were before. They now bear an odd hue of green and blue and yellow and green mixed all together. The color of Revalia’s wings. The color of a bruise.
The room I am in is the same as when I left. It’s the same apartment complex structure where Revalia and I lived before we were sent to Earth, but I see things now with my angel eyes. Everything is sharp looking. Edges and lines are more in focus, colors are amplified beyond human comprehension, music fills the air even in the strongest of silences. I shut my eyes tightly to try to block out the intensity of it all. I have been human for some time and I know it will take a while before I am fully adjusted to my true state. Yes, I am an angel again. My aura pulsates a soft lavender tone, like sparkles or glitter reflecting the sun’s rays, but I still have an aching in my heart, letting me know that a piece of me is human still.
There is music coming from the living room so I get up. A part of me is very eager to be reunited with Revalia! To my dismay, I see Revalia and Lozhure standing by the front door in an angelic embrace. His wings wrap around her entire body, engulfing them in a sea of navy-blue feathers. Her eyes are closed as she lays her head against his chest. She looks at peace, content, happy, human. Is that the expression I made when Jake embraced me? They look so connected to each other, like a couple in love. Lozhure softly pets the back of Revalia’s hair. His long fingers lovingly twirl her sea of brown locks, each strand of her hair dances gracefully around each fingertip. They belong together, there’s no doubt about it. They are the only angels that I have ever known in my entire existence to be likened to soul mates. We’re all soul mates, but for Revalia and Lozhure, their bond is sealed in their humanity. At the heart of it all, they still have grace and goodness. Maybe The Powers That Be allowed them to be mates as part of their salvation. Or as part of their punishment?
Camael had said they would always have each other because they were bonded by their mutual experiences. A twinge of jealousy grips me for a half second because when I made my connection with Jake, I felt that our mutual experiences would be enough to hold us together. I sigh at the thought of Jake, and can burst out in tears thinking that I will never see him again, never hold him again. Revalia looks up and tilts her head in my direction. “You’re awake!” she squeals as she detaches from Lozhure.
I nod my head and take a step toward her. She looks up at Lozhure and kisses him on the cheek. “See you later,” he says lovingly. “Glad to see you back, Aestra,” he calls over Revalia’s shoulder to me. I wave goodbye to him.
Revalia closes the door behind him and turns to me, her face beaming with joy. She takes me into her arms. “Oh, Aestra!” she gushes. “You’re home!” But there’s a hint of foreboding in her tone.
“Yes,” I say, unenthusiastically. “I’m home.”
The worry on her face can no longer be hidden. I get a sense that she knows exactly what happened to me and what is about to happen to me. She forces a small smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I see you’re back as well,” I say, trying to switch the topic from me to her.
She guides me to sit next to her on the couch. “Yes,” she says quickly. “It was a fairly easy mission. I guess Camael chose a more stress-free one for me to boost up my confidence or something. It was a pretty simple one, and it was over fast.”
“And Lozhure? I’m guessing he was successful, too?”
“Yes. He had the same deal going on. Easy mission. Easy ego-boost.”
“Slider class,” I mumble under my breath, thinking about Jake.
“Huh?”
I quickly shake my head. “No, nothing, continue.”
“Cam says I’ll be going again pretty soon, and I think he’s going to give me more of a challenge this time.”
“Going again?” I ask, playing dumb, but I know good and well that Revalia will constantly be on missions.
She lowers her head as her aura flashes a hot pink hue. Embarrassment? Auras don’t lie. She might be able to hide it from her face, but her angelic self can’t control her wave of emotion. “I can’t ever move up, Aestra,” she says softly.
Yeah, yeah, I know this story. “Because you failed your first mission,” I say.
But she shakes her head, taking me off guard. “It wasn’t the failed mission, Aestra. Others before me have failed. Regardless of how rare, it does happen. But that’s not why I am forbidden to move up the ranks. I will never be a Guardian, never be a Power, never be a Dominion, and so on and so forth, and I will never have the divine luxury of serving the Lord as a Seraph. It wasn’t cause I failed my calling. Courtney had deeper issues than her twelve-year-old mind and body could handle. She was beyond my reach. She was beyond anyone’s reach.”
“So, what happened?” I ask, intrigued.
Revalia keeps her gaze on the floor. “It’s what happened after Courtney took her own life. How I behaved towards the humans. I let the rage of losing her consume me, and I lashed out.”
“Saw red.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “That’s the only way to describe it. It was like seeing red, an all-consuming, all-encompassing rage. I let it in. I let it pour all over me. I let it blind me.”
“Tainted with humanity.” Camael’s words play loudly in my head, their meaning becoming clearer than I had first understood.
“Exactly. I let the rage in, and set it free on the group of girls who had been Courtney’s torturers.” She flips her hair forward, covering her face in horror. “I hurt them, Aestra,” she says through strands of hair and sobs. “I hurt them very badly.”
I can’t help but raise my eyebrows. “What do you mean, badly?”
“There were three of them, and the one girl, the ringleader, I hurt her the worst. Two with my hands, the one with a knife. She needed to be hospitalized.”
“Did you have help?” I ask, the words coming out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop them.
She looks up at me, puzzled. “What do you mean? Help?”
“I mean, were you influenced in any way? Was there another force egging you on? A demonic force?”
She huffs and places her head into her hands. “I wish!” she says, her voice sounding muffled from between her fingers.
“And Lozhure?” I ask.
She looks up at me, deeply, seriously. I can see the humanity teeming in her eyes, and my reflection gleams back at me. I can see my own eyes within hers. And I see, it is in me, too… humanity will stay with us forever.
“And Lozhure?” I repeat after a few moments. “Did he hurt someone, too?”
“Worse, Aestra. Much worse.”
Worse. The word resonates in my mind and draws multiple conclusions. That’s their bond. They both had a moment of weakness, a moment of unadulterated fury that they both acted upon. I understand that all too much. I understand the emotions overtaking you, I understand the heart-pounding desire and temptation to act.
She places her hands in my lap, smoothing out the white gossamer dress that I now wear. “And what about you?” she asks.
I tilt my head forward. “What about me? C’mon, Lia. You know. As I’m sure everyone else does, too.”
“Well, I know that they have not declared yours a success or failure yet. I know that you were brought back to Ilarium abruptly. I know that you’re awaiting some formal trial. I know that you committed some kind of,” her voice trails off, “indiscretion.”
I laugh. “Indiscretion? Is that what they’re calling it?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “For lack of a better word, I suppose.”
Indiscretion. What a fitting word to suit The Powers That Be’s needs. Indiscretion. Like what I did was an entire accident, a complete mistake.
“Aestra, what else are they to say about it? How else do you suggest they ‘bill’ what transpired between you and the boy?”
I could think of a hundred other ways to explain and describe what happened between Jake and me, indiscretion not being one of them. “You’re right. I’ll probably be cast out, won’t I?”
“Cast out?” she squeals. “What would make you think that?”
I raise my eyebrows again at her.
“You’re not the only one among us who has sinned. If I wasn’t cast out, if Lozhure wasn’t cast out, I’m sure you won’t be,” she reassures.
She has a good point. Angels who are cast from Ilarium are the ones who have committed the greatest sins against the Lord. I did not sin. I don’t believe that my love for Jake is or was in any way sinful.
“What was it like?” she asks, her eyes glowing with mortal curiosity.
I blush. “What do you mean?”
She looks away briefly and clasps her hands together. “You know? I told you they were beautiful. Humans. Didn’t I?”
“Yes. Yes you did. They are the most beautiful.”
She sighs dreamily. “And the most ugly.”
“You mean, ugliest.”
She gives my shoulder a slight tap with her fist, like the way Summer playfully swatted Jake in the car the night of Vic’s party. “You know what I mean!” It’s such a typical, human thing to do, a physical reaction to display camaraderie. “Seriously, though, what was it like? To love a human as a human?”
I think about that for a moment. “It was like nothing else I’ve ever felt before. It was compartmentalizing the word ‘love’ in new, yet strange way.” My throat starts to get tight, and my body tenses up. I stand up as I try desperately to hold back the onslaught of sobs, but I lose control and weep into my hands. “I’ll never see him again,” I cry as the realization truly hits me. “I’ll never be in his presence, never get to tell him how I feel.”
She stands up and embraces me, throwing her arms around my shoulders and stroking the feathers down my back. “Aestra, that’s crazy talk,” she says gently and calmly into my ear. “You’re being so silly.”
“I’ll be alone,” I whisper back. “All alone.”
“Stop, stop saying those things! You’ll always have me. I’ll always be here for you and with you.”
“It’s not the same. You have Lozhure. You know that feeling with him; I saw it on your faces even before I was sent to Earth. He is your mate. That is entirely different from what you and I have. I want that feeling back in my life.”
“Aestra, you need to be patient. It will happen for you,” she coaxes.
I sniffle. “What are you talking about?”
“Think about it logically. Your calling. He’s so important that he needed to be guided by an angel. Correct?”
“Yeah.”
“And, his progeny is going to do wonderful things for the most complex creation of the Lord. Correct?”
“Yeah. What are you…?”
“So, wouldn’t it make sense that he would be granted Ishim? No lights out for Jake. If he’s so significant to the advancement of humankind, that would be his ultimate reward.”
I sniffle one last time and perk my head up. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? It makes perfect sense. If Jake is granted entrance to Ilarium as an Ishim, I would be able to see him again. A glimmer of hope stirs within me. Revalia is right… Jake is too important to the grand scheme of things.
I wrap my arms around her and squeeze her as tight as humanly possible, as tight as angelically possible. She begins to laugh and cry out, “My wings! My wings! Be careful, Aestra!”
I release her. “Sorry. Sorry.”
“No worries, my love. Just hang tight. Cam will call you for your judgment soon. And really, can it be any worse than what Lozhure and I got? At least we’d all be in the same boat. And then you can ride out the tide. Wait for Jake. ’Cause isn’t time all we have now?”
We never knew of time until we were assigned our callings. And after embracing the human experience the ways that we did, time is all we’ll ever know. I know I’ll have to be very patient. Repeating the poem he wrote for me in my mind, I vow to never forget it. And I know I’ll have to accept whatever punishment The Powers dole out to me, and I’ll have to do a lot of waiting. But I know I can do it—for Jake. For us.