Gravitate (21 page)

“Claudia,” she yelled, “you’re meant to be sexy and you’re dancing like a virgin!”

I snapped.
“I am a virgin!” I yelled back. “I don’t have a problem with that, so I don’t know why you do!”

The room was in silence for a moment, and then a single person sta
rted clapping from the balcony. I knew who it was.
A second person joined in, then, gradual
ly, the noise grew to applause.
Donna was left with nothing she could do, except apologise and move on.

“Claudia, I’m sorry.
Let’s get the stage set for your solo.”

“But there are other numbers before that one.” I knew I was blushing and angry and I knew my voice wouldn’t sound great with how tight my throat felt.

“Your solo is the only one which will use a different lighting
scheme and time is ticking by.
If we get it done now, we can complete
the rehearsal with the finale.”
Donna was trying hard not to lose her temper with me and I didn’t wish to make matters worse.

“OK, where do you want me?”

Donna showed me the spot she had in mind and one of the crew taped an
X onto the spot with duct tape.
Then I moved out of the way whilst the stage guys took to ladders
to move the overhead lighting.
Donna had decided she wanted one light directly over the top of me an
d two spotlights trained on me.
All too soon,
they were ready for me to sing.
I took to my spot.

I tuned everything out – my anger at Donna, my embarrassment at my response, my feeling of un
ease about the whole situation.
I
thought of nothing but Marty.
The music began and I let my energy flow out, my voice filling the huge space around me.

There was a noise that sounded t
otally out of place. The scraping of metal.
A slight tinkling soun
d.
It w
as coming from right above me.
I didn’t want to look up, to spoil my performance, but I had an uncontrollable urge to
raise my eyes to the ceiling.
I saw what
was making the noise.
The stage light directly over my head was working loose and I saw it begin to fall towards me, as I stood s
tock still, too scared to move.
The brain works strangely in stressful situations and as I watched the light, wide eyed in fear, I recalled being told by a teacher never to lift a stage light alone as they weigh
at least fifty pounds.
Everythi
ng seemed to be in slow motion.
I heard a collective gasp, from the others in the room, as they saw
what had caused me to look up.
Frozen in place, I w
aited for the light to hit me.

I heard a whoosh, felt something around my waist and then felt myself moving
and landing on the floorboards.
At the same time, the light smashed on the spot where I’d been
standing a millisecond before.
Mar
ty lay on the floor next to me.
He looked pale, like his energy was draining out of him.

“Marty?” I felt dizzy, an overwhelming heat running throughout my body.

“Claudia, I’m sorry, I have to go – they’re summoning me.” His eyes
closed and his body went limp.
I couldn’t hear anything in the room and I had
dark spots blocking my vision.
I didn’t need him
to tell me what was happening. They were summoning me, too.

Chapter 14

I was floating.
I looked around and saw the floor a long way below me; my body lying next to Mar
ty’s, appearing to be lifeless.
The smashed light was spread across the floor, just a few inc
hes from where our bodies lay.
I could see the faces of my cast mates as I floated past the
balcony, frozen masks of shock.
No movement appeared from them.
Time was frozen too.

I could see Marty above me, waiting at the
ceiling.
He looked the way I’d always imagined ghosts to look – translucent, pale, a
n imitation of his normal self.
I could see the ceiling of the
theatre through his apparition.
He held out his hand to me and, as I stretched mine out to reach his, I noticed that
I, too, had become ghost-like.
His hand still felt real as I grasped it and he pulled me up; together we passed through the ceiling and
into the sky outside.
The experience was indescribable as we rocketed towards the clouds and I found I was
shivering slightly.
His hand gripped mine tighter.
I didn’t know if we could still talk and, if we could, I didn’t know if I had the ability
to put a sentence together.

“Are you hurt?” His thumb was making a circling motion on my hand as he gripped i
t.
The movement was oddly soothing
, in this oddest of situations.
It took a while
for me to process the question. I scanned how I was feeling.
Confused, shocked, dizzy – but not hurt.

“No, no, I can’t feel any pain.”

“I got there in time,” he smiled.

“You flew to save me.” The realisation of his sacrifice was just dawning on me and the consequences of his actio
n hit me like a ton of bricks.
This was the end for us.

“I had no choice.
You would have been killed.”

“You gave everything up to save me.”

“
No, you are my everything.”

I didn’t know how to respond.
It was so overwhelming, so all encompassing, that I had no idea of how I would eve
r be able to live without him.
We continued hurtling skywards, though I had no idea what we were heading towards.

“What happens now? How have they managed to summon me?”

“I don’t know.
I didn’t want to involve you in any of this.” We continued to race upwards and I started to shake more noticeably - fear, the unknown, the realisation of our affair being over, were all begi
nning to take their toll on me.
As we floated upwards, Marty saw my trembling and pulled me closer to
him, enveloping me in his arms.
He stroked my hair and kissed my head, softly whispering to me as we co
ntinued our rise to the clouds.
“Don’t
worry, they won’t hurt you.
You aren’t the one in trouble here.”

“Then why did they make me come with you?”

He had no answer.
He j
ust shook his head in response.
I’d never seen anyone look so defeated.

After a few seconds, our speed declined and we app
eared to be coming to a rest. We were surrounded by clouds.
I held on to Marty tighter, scared of falling back down to Earth if I let go.

“You won’t
fall, just put your feet down.
It feels
just like being on the ground.
I never let you fall on Earth and I w
on’t let you fall here either.”
He looked me in the eyes and I tried to captur
e the emotion it created in me.
I might not get another chance to savour the way i
t felt to look into those eyes.
I wanted to record the moment forever.

“You let her fall
once.
You let her fall in love with you,” a power
ful, male voice interrupted us.
I jumped at the sound and looked around to see a
group of people staring at us.
Like Marty and myself, they were translucent, ghostly figures – all of them undeniably beautiful.

One of the other people, a kindly looking woman, spoke: “Now, George, I don’t think we can hold Ma
rty entirely to blame for that.
We haven
’t heard his side of the story. Welcome, Claudia. Please don’t be afraid of us.
I know this must be overwhelming for you, but we hope you understand that we are not going to hurt you.”

Despite wanting to believe what the woman had said, I moved closer to
Marty, seeking his protection.
I struggled to find my voice, but I was beaten to speak by the first man who spoke, the one she had called George – his handsome face contorted by anger.

”
He has betrayed our kind.”

Next to me, I felt Marty grow tense, sucking in his breath to stop
himself from saying something.
It was all the motivation I needed to speak.

“He didn’t do anything wrong.” My voice was quivering with fear.

George stared, his brown e
yes burning as he looked at me.
“Little girl, do you even know who we are?”

“You’re angels.” My voice squeaked out the words and it sounded like a question.

“We are the Dominion, we are not just angels.” He almost spat the words at me.

“George,” the kindly woman interjected, “please remember that t
his girl is not on trial here.
We have brought her here
as a guest.
She is the first live human to see this realm.”

“Olivia, she just insulted us, and you’re acting l
ike she’s a visiting dignitary.
She’s just a human.” George all but looked down his nos
e at me.
I couldn’t equate this almost bitter man to the g
entle soul I fell in love with.
I’d assumed all an
gels would be kind, like Marty.
I was wrong.

“She isn’t just a human.
She’s the woman Marty fell in love wit
h and she deserves our respect.
Have you ever known an angel to fall in love with anyone?” Olivia, the kindly lady, had asked a rhetorical question, as they all knew the answer already – angels did not fall in love with humans. Her green eyes
were bright as she studied me.
“I’m intrigued by what is so special about her.”

“There’s nothing special
about her.
Marty was weak and she, like many flawed human
s, dragged him into temptation.
She isn’t worthy of being here.
A human i
n the presence of the Dominion.
We should have kept this to our
own kind.
Marty should have kept to his own kind.” George’s eyes blazed as he looked at me, and I felt Marty’s arms wrap tighter around my body.

“She did
nothing wrong, let her go back.
I fel
l in love with her, punish me. She doesn’t need to see this.”
Marty’s voice sounded strong, despite the tension rolling off of him in waves.

“Marty,” Olivia looked at him, sympathetically, “we know you told her
not to admit her love for you.
Just because she didn’t say it
, doesn’t mean we didn’t know.
She knew what you were, and she still pursued a relationship with you.”

“Do
you have any evidence of that?”
Marty’s voice sounded unsteady.

“Yes,” George answered this time. “shall we look at it?”

George snapped his fingers and the clouds to the side of us moved, rising upwards and creating a flat wall, like a cinema scree
n.
Marty kissed my head and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

“This is the first moment that c
aused us concern,” George said.
He turned to t
he cloud-wall and stared at it.
From his eyes, beams of multi-c
oloured light shone out.
For a moment, I was reminded of a drawing I’d created as a small child, when I imagined that light was created by opening your eyes – a time when I thought that if I closed my eyes,
the world would be in darkness.
The light shining from George’s eyes created images like a projector, beamed up on
the cloud-wall for all to see.
It was like watching a film of my life, with myself an
d Marty as the leading actors.
It was the familiar setting of the pub, on the night Marty had tried t
o set me up with Ben.
Ben and I were talking to each other and, in the middle, across the tabl
e, I saw Marty looking puzzled.
I saw my eyes flash to his w
hen Ben said the word ‘heart’.
It brought back so many feelings, watching the first blossom of our
love.
The image changed slightly, to later in the eve
ning, when the fight broke out.
George zoomed in on Marty’s protective stance, s
imilar to the one he used now.
Then he produced a freeze frame of the knife after Marty had rammed it through the tablet
op. Then the screen went blank.
George blinked, turning off the beams from his eyes and faced us.