Forbidden (42 page)

“This isn’t really fair, you know?” Michael’s voice trembles but he grins through it.

“I think it evens things out. No fair you reading my emotions, now I can read yours, too.”

“Yeah, but of all my emotions, you would have to read
that
one.”

I give him a
Poor baby
frown and reach out to comfort his discomfort, but he abruptly pushes me away and bursts out, “Yes! I think existentialism has some merit but also many misnomers!” His big indigo eyes flash me a pleading look, and three seconds later his dad appears at the screen door announcing dinner, and I crack up laughing.

“Be right there!” Michael answers in a rather loud, startled sort of way. He has turned his back to the door and jammed his hands on his hips. Michael Patronus, guardian angel and Soulkeeper Extraordinaire, is a trembling six-foot-three tower of Jell-O.

“C’mon,” I tease, and pull at his arm.

“Are you kidding?” He runs a hand through his hair and mutters something about impossible human hormones. “I’m not going in there like this, feeling all … They’ll see … Aw, hell no!” He walks away, and I start to follow, but he says, “Oh, no! You stay
over there! Waaaay over there!” He points, and I stop.

“Michael, seriously?”

He backpedals to the corner of the veranda, putting twenty feet between us. I lower my chin, giving him a
Come and get me
grin. “And stop that, too! No more smiling like that!” He cups rain in his hands and splashes his face. I clamp a hand over my mouth to stop from laughing. Michael’s struggle lasts a few more minutes before he turns and looks at me.

“Pale blue,” I say.

“Thank heaven,” he sighs.

*  *  *

The dining room is spacious and formal, something you’d see in an old black-and-white movie: low ceiling, polished wood floor, fireplace, and an antique sideboard. We crowd around a mahogany table and join hands like the family I never had. Katarina says grace, and then we dig in.

Pot roast and baby carrots, tender potatoes and buttery green beans make the rounds. Warm bread is devoured by all.

Dinnertime is not a passive event in the Patronus household. Conversations overlap, with everyone sharing thoughts and ideas. Subjects vary from the mundane to the extraordinary, and eventually to the spiritual. I ask if they have any unique gifts besides the obvious.

“We can move objects without touching them,” Uriel pipes up cheerfully.

“We?”
Gabe arches an eyebrow.

“
Some
of us can now, and
some
of us are still in training,” Uriel grumbles.

I look at Michael. “Seriously? Like … you can bend this spoon with your mind?”

He scoffs and says, “Infantile parlor tricks.”

I give him a pointed stare. “But
can
you?”

“Of course.”

“Will you?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Will it break some spiritual code? Violate a sacred oath? I’m on pins and needles to learn more.

Michael looks me dead in the eyes and says with all seriousness, “Well, Sophia, because the pudding will slide off.” He breaks out laughing and high-fives Uriel. I roll
my eyes. Guardian humor, go figure.

“It’s a wonder you guys don’t have super strength,” I mumble.

“Who says we don’t?” Raph challenges.

“Well, I mean, Michael almost dropped me out the window that night and …” Everybody is grinning, and an epiphany hits me in the head. “Michael! You
didn’t
almost drop me!” I smack him, and he ducks to dodge my attack.

“Hey, I had to teach you a lesson!” He laughs at his own cleverness, and then says, “Okay, I’m sorry.” His hand slides under the table and squeezes my knee. We stare until I feel a blush heat my cheeks and I have to look away before the others notice.

I know they can sense my emotions just as easily as Michael can, so I desperately wrack my brain for a new topic. Eventually a question that’s been nagging me since I moved here worms its way up.

“So, um, who was that Degan guy?”

“He’s more of a
what
,” Raph says, cramming a biscuit into his mouth.

“What?”

“Exactly.”

“No,
what
is he?” I follow everyone’s attention to Dimitri. He pats a napkin to his mouth and then sets it aside. He explains that Degan is something called a soul seeker, an entity from Hell whose only purpose is to steal souls from angels, guardians, or spirit walkers; really anyone he can steal it from, he will, even his own kind. Although they’re easily destroyed, soul seekers always reappear—a weed in the garden.

“And what is a spirit walker?”

“To understand, you must remember there is balance in the world. Everything has an opposite, light to dark, good to evil, life to death. The opposite of a soul seeker is a spirit walker. Whereas a soul seeker steals souls and drags them to Hell, a spirit walker takes lost souls home, or to limbo. You see?”

“But I thought guardians did that, when someone’s time is up.”

“True, guardians protect earthbound humans and escort their souls home when it’s time. Unfortunately, not every Forgiven soul is ready to depart. Some refuse to let go of their human form; they refuse to be escorted home by guardians. They roam endlessly, aimlessly, in a very unpredictable spirit realm. You see, it is
not
the job of guardians to protect souls once they’ve entered the spirit realm as—what I call Free Radicals.” He grins at his own joke and then continues, “The guardians must focus on earthbound souls. Therefore, it’s the job of spirit walkers to—how do I put this without sounding predatory—quietly follow these souls, keep an eye on them, and convince them to go home. To keep them out of a soul seeker’s reach.”

“That’s why Degan tried to touch the boy’s imprint at the car wreck? He was trying to steal his soul?” Hmm. “So Raph didn’t really
kill
Degan? He’ll be back?”

“Not for a while,” Raph brags. “I ripped him a good one. It’ll take some time for him to regenerate and find his way back. If he decides to come back here. See, I used this special technique where I twist and crack his—”

“Okay, that’s enough talk of killing.” Michael stands and tosses his brother a reprimanding look. He is trying to protect me from the gory details, but I really want to know how it all works. I want to ask more but Michael pulls out my chair with me still in it, and then everybody begins clearing the table.

We troop into the kitchen and fill the sink. Uriel is going on about dessert, so Katarina sets out pie plates and ice cream. We all sidle up to the island for apple pie à la mode but Michael nudges me.

“We’ll have our dessert outside. Say good night, Sophia.”

“Good night, Sophia,” I parrot and wave to the family as he maneuvers me out of the kitchen.

*  *  *

We are standing on the front porch waiting for something, but nothing is happening so I say, “What? No apple pie?”

Michael continues to watch the rain without answering. When it finally stops, he guides us onto the wet grass.

“So, I was just wondering,” he murmurs, grinning bashfully. “Do you wanna get high with me?”

“Uh.”

He laughs and then steps back, making room. “Now, no matter what, Sophia, don’t touch them, okay?” I don’t know what is happening but Michael is lifting his arms to his sides, and I hear a soft flicking sound. And then trim white feathers pop up along the outside of his forearms. It looks like fetching on the end of an arrow. “You know there are fish fins that can cut you, right? Well, these cut far worse. You might not even know it until you’ve lost too much blood. Now, please—” I am gawking at Michael’s wings, and he stops and takes a step toward me. “Sophia? You okay?”

My eyes dance back and forth from his face to the sharp fetching on his arms. It’s beautiful and delicate, and I am tempted to touch it. Michael reaches out, and I flinch. “Maybe this is too soon,” he says, stepping back.

“No! No, it’s cool. I’m fine, really.” I make myself calm down and smile. “I just wasn’t expecting … I mean … don’t you have to be in spirit form to do that?”

Michael judges my emotions for a moment and then moves closer. “No, I don’t have to be in spirit form. But sometimes it’s necessary, like at the accident where we first met. Or when I’m escorting a soul home. Of course, I wouldn’t be doing this in a crowd either …”

He grins and then carefully places my hands on his waist and squeezes. “Don’t let go,” he warns, and I nod with my mouth hanging open. Then he raises his arms overhead and I feel my nerves rustle deep inside my arms. We gently lift off the ground with no more effort than a thought.

We rise above the treetops and then the house, and I feel like I am slipping out of myself and leaving the other me on the ground, the one with all the common sense. Michael pries one of my hands loose, holds it in his, and swings out next to me. I give a whimper, and he says, “It’s okay, just hang on.” Joined by only one hand, we stretch at arm’s length as the cool wind lifts our bodies until we’re parallel to the ground.

Holy crap! I am flying! Flying!

The air is crisp and light, dancing across my face and through my hair. It tickles my ears, slipping in and out of my shirt, between my breasts. It brings up the rich, woodsy aroma of damp earth and fragrant flowers. And then the sweetness dissipates like perfume in a fan, and I smell nothing as we ascend higher. We soar across the country, over blocks of green fields and patches of black forest. I see Haven Hurst on our left, the town square illuminated with old-fashioned streetlamps. Cars and people are micro toys. The air current shifts, and we wobble. Sensing my fear, Michael swoops beneath me and takes my free hand. We are facing each other, prone, only the night air and our clothes ruffling between us.

“Hi there,” he says, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Hi there.”

“You look beautiful!”

I squeeze his hands and laugh. “So do you!” We glide along effortlessly, and I am overwhelmed with a lightness of being. The reality of what’s happening shivers through me.

“You’re scared,” Michael says, and I bite my lip and pretend I’m not. “Here, maybe this is better.” He releases my hands and grabs my hips before I fall. Remaining horizontal, he sits me onto his waist where I straddle him tightly, grabbing handfuls of his shirt. Arms stretched overhead, Michael pulls the air in long, lazy backstrokes. We drift and smile, and I feel much safer.

“This is amazing!” I gush out, looking around. “I had no idea you could do this.”

“Comes in handy.” He is nonchalant, but I’m a bundle of nerves barely resisting the urge to attack him with kisses.

“Will they really cut me?” I look at the fetching as his arms, gently slice back and forth through the air.

“Yes, this pair is multipurpose, to fly
and
fight.”

“
This
pair? You have another pair?”

“Of course. My traveling pair comes from the back. They’re larger and propel me at greater speed. They’re for longer distances. These here are really my defensive pair, short distances and battles, you know?” He grins because he knows I
don’t
know.

“Show-off,” I say, and he laughs.

Michael laces his fingers behind his head, and we float on a soft current. He clears his throat authoritatively. “Welcome aboard, this is your captain speaking. We are now cruising at ten thousand feet and approximately five knots, the recommended speed for our lovely first-class passenger, Sophia St. James.” I incline my head respectfully. “On your left you’ll see Maltby Lake.” I look at the dark, blue chunk of water surrounded by mounds of broccoli-like forests. “Soon we’ll be passing Phipps Lake, heading to New Haven.” I peer at the bustling activity below—a computer chip humming and whirling. Headlights zip up and down roads like neon blood in veins. In the distance is a dark expanse of water that Michael identifies as Long Island Sound.

“Can we go to New York?”

“Mmm, maybe on our next date, when I have a car and you have a way home if I’m compelled to leave unexpectedly.”

“Ah, good plan.”

We turn in a wide arch, Michael swimming through the air on his back, and me, well, hanging on for dear life. The ceiling is a bank of low-hanging clouds as far as the eye can see. We head to a particularly dark swath. “Hold steady,” Michael instructs. We idle as he sits up and reaches inside the cloud, pulling out tuffs of fluff, about five servings’ worth of cotton candy. He swirls them into a funnel, holds it over my head, and squeezes. “Open up for your dessert.”

The sweetest water I have ever tasted drops onto my tongue, and I lap it up like a baby bird.
Heaven tastes like honey
. Michael purposely dribbles it all over my face until he’s laughing so hard we nearly capsize. I snatch the funnel and return the favor. It’s cold and soft, and I squeeze it like a frosting funnel, hitting him right in the smile. He begs for mercy so I give him some. Okay, one more shot in the forehead, and then I toss the funnel cloud overboard.

As I watch it float aimlessly, I am struck by the quality of silence of the atmosphere. I’ve never heard so much quiet. The air is tranquil yet I feel it lingering on my skin, toying with the ends of my hair.
This is where Peace hangs out
.

A flash of light and an instantaneous clap of thunder startle me, and I clamp my ears. “Ow!” Okay, point taken, nothing lasts forever.

Michael strokes the air, and we sail up into gossamer clouds that whisper wetness across our skin, dampening our clothes. We break through the cloud bank, plunging into a blue velvet sky. I am mesmerized. Stars pop alive like a billion penlights, and the silver moon is a Mylar party balloon. We drift, weightless and free above the storm. The billowing clouds are fat and full, a cotton floor I imagine leaping across, bounding this way and that. Climbing mountains of dense, white dollops and sliding into tepid pools of rainwater. The playground of angels.

There is a rush through my veins as though a dam has broken. My head is a beehive, and I’m overcome with a delicious sensation. I lift my arms, half expecting to see liquid swishing through them like glowing green algae. I giggle and ask Michael if the rainwater is spiked. He says it’s not rainwater yet, we drank it in mid-process so it’s extremely potent. I feel euphoric and light and hungry to accomplish anything, believing I can
do
anything. Emotions swirl around me like a swarm of fireflies, and then inside me, through me. Thoughts reverberate in my mouth. Hope skyrockets my dreams, and then
poof
! They float down like the rain.