Angel's Messiah (17 page)

“I won’t know, Little Mother, until the time is right.”

Gina brought us to a clearing. On it was a replica of the cottage, and another smaller dwelling out the back.

“Who is that for?” I asked.

“Why me, of course,” Gina said. “I don’t want to intrude on your privacy, though I know you wouldn’t mind. Come look.”

She took us on a tour of her tiny home — a small living area with wall-to-wall books, a tiny bedroom and a tiny bathroom.

We headed to the cottage. I was pleased that it still had a ballroom I could use for dancing and training. Gina clapped her hands in delight and pirouetted around the dance floor. She’d inherited my love of dance. Unlike me, she didn’t need to learn the moves from scratch. She was a natural, even more graceful than me, though I wasn’t in the slightest bit jealous. In fact I was proud of my contribution to the creation of this beautiful being.

The nursery was gone, a room no longer off the bedroom. It was returned to the state it had been before we discovered I was pregnant. The bedroom seemed slightly larger though, as did the bed. I wondered what sort of escapades she thought Danny and I would be getting up to in there.

“Little Mother, I don’t expect you to stop sharing your love with Father just because I am here. If it were not for your love I would not be here.”

“Okay, time out,” I said, using my hands to form a T shape.

Talking about sex with my newborn fully-grown daughter was just a bit too weird for me. So maybe I was turning into a prude, but there were things I
did
that I wouldn’t want any daughter of mine knowing about, never mind performing.

Danny and Gina laughed at me. Here I was, still providing the entertainment. Would nothing change?

The sun was setting on Eden and the sky was every shade of purple, pink and red imaginable. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a sunset so beautiful. Everything in Eden was beautiful, my daughter and husband included.

Danny had his arms wrapped around his two girls. As the sun disappeared he let his arm slip from Gina’s waist.

“Gina, your mother and I have things to discuss. It’s been a busy and exhausting day and I think we should all retire early.”

Gina smiled and kissed us both on the cheek, touching our hands lightly.

“I don’t think your discussion will involve much
talking
,” she giggled, “but it has been a lot for Little Mother to take in and she will need the comfort of your arms.”

Gina turned away and skipped to her home, waving before she disappeared behind the door. She really was a little girl in a grown woman’s body.

I whacked Danny’s arm. “How could you
say
that?”

He grabbed both my arms and kissed me passionately. I melted against him. It seemed forever since we’d not had to worry about a massive belly getting in the way. I let him carry me back to the cottage, the sound of giggling filling the air — Gina was watching from her living room window.

I woke during the night with a start when the bedroom door banged open and a dark shadowy figure flashed by — it was Gina, and she was crying. She knelt at the side of the bed and looked into my face. Like a child who’d had a terrible fright, her bottom lip trembled.

“Gina, what’s wrong?” I whispered, reaching out to stroke her hair.

“Little Mother, I had horrible visions when I slept,” she cried.

She’d had her first nightmare and my heart ached for her. Her first night with her family, living in Eden, and she was not blessed with dreams of heaven, but nightmares instead. I pulled back the blanket and nudged Danny backwards with my butt to make room for her.

“Shh,” I said, “it’s all right, Gina, the nightmares can’t hurt you. You’re safe here with us.”

She climbed into the bed and I wrapped my arms around her. Danny, in turn, wrapped his arms around me. To the outside world we would have looked a strange trio, three adults sharing a bed, yet we were not in the outside world, and our daughter was frightened.

In the morning Gina was already gone when we woke. We found her ballet dancing in the ballroom. She opened and closed her wings, depending on the steps required. The music that filled the air was from Swan Lake, and Gina was Odette, the swan. She was such a picture of loveliness, in a stunning white feathered costume complete with pointe shoes, that I sighed. It was a contented and wistful sigh, not one of regret.

Gina pulled Danny to the centre of the floor. She wanted him to be Prince Siegfried, yet he didn’t know that style of dance, never mind Swan Lake. I waved a finger in the air and a charming dance partner stepped up to take Danny’s place and Gina and her new partner continued with the dance.

Danny and I left them to their ballet and wandered hand in hand through Eden.

“She had a nightmare last night,” I said.

“I know.”

“Why does she think she has to walk among mortals?” I asked.

“That I don’t know,” Danny said. “She’ll tell us in her own good time. Let her enjoy being a child a while longer.”

“She really is just a child, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” he replied.

Gina asked all sorts of questions throughout the day, even questions that were silly to me —
why do you brush your teeth, Little Mother?
— and I answered them all as honestly as I could. Some I let Danny field because they were more in his area of expertise than mine. Then there were the odd curly ones about body parts that Danny left the room for. He didn’t want to hear me explaining the differences between men and women and
why
they were different. And he once had the cheek to suggest I was turning into a prude.

Sometimes we sat on the couch in the living area of the cottage, sometimes we walked through Eden. Occasionally we swam — I taught them the game of Marco Polo — and other times we sat in the garden, either on the swing or on the soft grass and moss.

Danny was sitting on the ground reading a book. I was lying with my head in his lap, looking up at the sky. Gina rested her head on my stomach.

“Little Mother, why did you not believe in our
Father when you were mortal?”

“It’s hard to explain, Gina. You saw what my life was like. How can you believe there is a God when there is so much pain and suffering?”

“But our Father did not cause this, it was the mortals,” she protested.

“But who created mortals?” I asked.

“Our Father, of course.”

“So God created man to suffer,” I said.

“Helena, tread carefully,” Danny cautioned me.

“Let her speak, Father. If I am to walk amongst the mortals I must understand them better.”

I poked my tongue out at Danny. Gina was giving me permission to say whatever I liked, even if he didn’t want to hear it.

“Many people — that includes me when I was mortal — believe that if there was a God and He loved us as we’d been told, He wouldn’t let us suffer. There would be no pain, no wars, no famines or disease.”

“If Adam and Even had not eaten from the tree of knowledge such things would never have happened,” Gina said.

“And if God had not deliberately tempted them by placing the tree and a beguiling serpent in Eden we’d all be here today,” I countered. “Well, the rest of humanity — we’re already here — but you get my point don’t you?”

“Yes, Little Mother, I understand your point of view, even if I don’t agree with it.”

“You’re just like your father,” I muttered under my breath.

Danny laughed. “At least she’s using
her
brain.”

“Hah!” I said angrily. “You wouldn’t be saying that if I used my
brain
instead of my
body
all the time.”

Danny chuckled and Gina giggled. Yep, I provided my family with their daily dose of humour all right.

“But now you believe in our Father, don’t you?” Gina asked.

“Yes. Danny explained how time is different in heaven — I’ve experienced something similar in hell — so in all likelihood if God blinks He’ll miss a significant number of lives from birth to death. He won’t have seen the wars and famines. He’ll only see that His creations go on.”

We sat in the garden to watch the sunset. Tonight the sky was ablaze in fiery reds and oranges. Gina kissed us both and skipped to her home. I hoped she would have nicer dreams, or no dreams at all.

As Danny and I lay in bed, he took my hand and turned it over, so the palm was facing upwards. He let something drop into it and I looked to see what it was — a locket.

“Open it,” he said.

When I opened it there were two photos — one of Danny and one of Gina. He’d remembered I’d asked for a locket with their photos. The only difference in how I’d imagined it was that the baby in the photo was fully grown.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, leaning over to kiss him. “Thank you.”

I set it down on the bedside table and Danny frowned.

“Aren’t you going to put it on?” he asked.

“During the day, as long as we’re not swimming, I’ll wear it. In here it might get in the way,” I said coyly, “and I’d hate for it to be ruined, even if you can replace it.”

Danny chuckled and pulled me towards him. “Perhaps you can show me the sorts of things you had in mind that might
ruin
the locket?”

I laughed and nibbled on his ear. We’d not be getting much sleep tonight.

Gina met us the following morning in the garden. She clapped her hands excitedly when I showed her the locket and what was contained within it.

Danny and I sat on the swing. A kaleidoscope of butterflies danced around us. I was glad they were not afraid of me. Perhaps the creatures in Eden knew they had nothing to fear.

We’d spent a heavenly, uninterrupted night together, and Gina appeared to have slept well, not having had another nightmare. She was busy picking freesias — she knew they were my favourites — and idly popped one in her mouth.

“Get that out of your mouth,” I called to her.

“But Little Mother, you’ve tasted them.”

“I was pregnant at the time. I wouldn’t be able to do that now.”

She came over to the swing, handed me the flowers and sat next to me. Danny swung us gently and I thought life couldn’t get better than this — none of the cares or worries of the world, at least not for now.

“A woman’s body goes through a lot of changes when she’s pregnant, Gina. Some of them include cravings for things you wouldn’t normally eat or put in your mouth.”

“Is that why you went off vampire for a time, and fed off werewolves instead?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you think you’ll go back to vampire now?”

“I suppose so, though I’m not hungry yet. I think I ate enough to last me a decade or two.”

“Oh,” she said sadly.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I would have liked to watch you eat. From your memories it looked like you had fun eating.”

My eyes widened and my mouth popped open, yet nothing came out. Danny just sat there chuckling. He liked it when Gina embarrassed me. When I didn’t say anything she changed the subject.

“I visited with Uncle Drake last night,” she said.

“You visited Drake?” I asked, shocked by her admission. “I thought you said you’d stay here until it was time to leave. It’s not time to leave already, is it?”

My heart was pounding in my chest and all of a sudden I felt sick. I started to hyperventilate — not something I did often — and put my head between my knees to try and stop it.

“Be calm, Little Mother,” Gina said, rubbing my back soothingly. “I can leave for short periods of time, but I must return. I did not mean to distress you.”

I sat up again and my heart slowed down.

“Gina, you may be bigger than me, but if you ever leave without telling me again, so help me I’ll put you across my knee and spank you.”

Danny chuckled. “She’ll do it, Gina, have no doubt.”

“Why did you visit Drake?” I asked.

“Uncle Drake saved us when no other could, and you love him so.”

“I don’t love him,” I scoffed.

“You do,” Danny agreed with Gina.

“I do not,” I said angrily.

“Helena, I have learned there are many types of love mortals
and
immortals are capable of — the love of a child, the love of a husband or wife, and the love of …
others.
”

“Others, what do you mean by
others?
” I asked.

“It simply means your heart is large enough to love many people. There’s no shame in that,” Danny said.

I was quite sure he was wrong. I was
not
in love with Drake. I
would
be eternally grateful to him — he had helped me through some hard times. Unless Danny and Gina were confusing what they thought was love with lust and sex, I was definitely
not
in love with him.