Guardian (51 page)

At first, I’d thought they were gone for good. That I was finally free and my torture was over, and even though my head spun and I had to grip tightly to the rail to remain standing, I loved every minute of it. Then we left the chapel and I was mobbed, pushed to my knees and then my chest and with so many little bodies sitting on top of me that I couldn’t catch my breath. Mrs. Turner had dragged me to my feet and told me to quit trying to protest, a dose of religion could only do me good and I was going to suffer through it, and without the drama please.

The chapel became my haven. Whenever things got really bad, when
they
tormented me without ceasing, I would run for that tiny little room with the golden tabernacle at the head behind the small altar, and though it cost me clear vision, caused ripping migraines and shortness of breath, I had found a haven. I wasn’t being constantly beaten.

There were days, weeks even, when
they
would leave me alone. Otherwise, eventually, someone else would have been able to truly detect
them
. But
they
were smart, clever, and
they
knew that I needed to be able to be well for periods, to avoid being completely locked up in an asylum. But they never left completely.
They
always came back. Eventually I had to leave the chapel and I was at their mercy, all by myself, as it would be forever and onward. I’d accepted that long ago. Or at least I had—until the mere presence of someone else had made
them
disappear.

With my damp hair in a braid over my shoulder and cocooned by dozens of blankets and pillows, Mrs. Turner decided I was well enough for the night and left me alone. I pulled my sketchbook onto my lap and opened it. Thumbing through the pages, anyone would think I had some sort of obsession with fantasy creatures. And maybe I did, but with only one creature—whoever or whatever had been plaguing me since my mother’s death.

I’d never been able to see
them
. No one had; it was why I’d been branded crazy and was locked inside this house, usually only in this attic bedroom nearly all my life. All I knew was that for some reason they delighted in harming me, teasing me, torturing me. And the only thing that made them stop was being in a church or around people like the man on the train. People like Damian, Sadie, or Abram. My father’s ‘friends.’

Unable to see them, I had been drawing prospects of what had been after me for years. Encounters with them, along with my drawing skills continually improving, had changed and adjusted my perceptions through the years. They had started out humanoid, as big as me, until they had begun jumping on me and harming me with more purpose. That was when I realized they were smaller and more animalistic, only the size of a cat or medium dog. And the claws. The claws that scratched me almost daily were long, much longer and sharper than any animal I had ever encountered.

This book was nearly full of animal-hybrid creatures of various ferocity, all drawn within the last month. I didn’t think any of them were quite right. But intermixed with them, peeking at me every few pages, were drawings of Lyla.

Lyla Evans.

I still had no idea who she was, what had brought her into this world of mine, how she had made my haunts go away without being one of them—like Sadie. But she was friends with some of them. She had asked me to come along, to escape, and I had been too scared. Too scared of her friends, this Rafael man she had spoken of with such love. Oh, how I regretted that choice now, months later.

Now, I wanted nothing more than to escape.

Today, picking up my thickest charcoal pencil, I worked on a new subject: the man from the train. Slowly, the dark shadows of the corner of the boxcar came into being, along with the man sitting there.

I had only caught brief glimpses of his face in the dim light, but it had been beautiful, handsome and chiseled, as all his kind were. I shouldn’t have been able to draw him so definitively but as I drew the planes of his face, the cheekbones that were just as strong and prominent as my own, he somehow felt familiar to me, as though I had seen him before.

The idea made me pause in my drawing.
Had
I seen him before? Had he ever been here, to see my father? Was that how they had found me so quickly? But no. I couldn’t recall this man ever setting foot in my house. Surely I would have remembered him. Though he was one of them, he seemed too golden, too upright to ever be mixed up with Damian or my father. I
felt
it about him. He reminded me of Lyla, had the same calm, easy air about him.

I turned to a fresh page and sketched just his face, my fingers moving with the ease of long familiarity. What was it that had ingrained this man’s face so firmly and clearly in my mind? I shaded the sketch entirely in black and white, but after a moment’s hesitation, pulled out my darkest navy pencil and added just a touch of it on his eyes. I knew that it was the right color, even though it had been much too dark to tell.

I sat in bed drawing for another hour until I was sure Mrs. Turner was asleep and wouldn’t hear me moving around. I had become nocturnal over the years of imprisonment, preferring the privacy and stillness of the night, and slept during most of the day. Tonight,
they
were strangely absent, and I wanted to enjoy my peace for as long a time as possible.

I knelt before the antique trunk at the foot of my bed and opened it, pulling out the dress. It was made of cornflower blue silk, the bust covered in winking royal blue sequins above the empire-waist skirt. Shedding my overlarge t-shirt and sweatpants, I slipped it on. I was taller than petite Lyla so the skirt hit a little higher above my knee than was fashionable. It was also snugger on the bust but looser around my ribcage. It was hard to eat while being pinched and tugged, and food, good food worth eating, was hard to come by when the world thought you were crazy. If I ever filled out, I would be a taller, curvier version of the slender, delicate Lyla Evans.

She had left the dress in my bathroom the night she had snuck into my house, the night I had helped her to free her friends, along with the white fur cape and muff. I put them on as well and the delicate blue and silver high heels which pinched my feet, but not too horribly. I walked around the room as delicately as I could manage, listening to the heels click against my scarred wooden floors and imagining I was a modern day princess. I had never, not in my whole life, owned anything so pretty, so grown up. I giggled at the idea of a sixteen-year-old girl playing dress up.

But the clothes were so much more than that. They symbolized Lyla, a life outside of this prison. A girl who had
acted
, didn’t sit passively as life moved on around her. Lyla was brave and fearless, and I wanted to be just like her. She had made
them
go away and I wanted to find out how.

So I was going to do the most daring thing I had ever done in my whole life: I was going to run away, escape this small world. And then I was going to find Lyla Evans and ask for her help.

I felt compelled to stick in an author’s note and explain a few things that will undoubtedly be questioned.

Although the main character’s name is Rafael, and other angels such as Michael and Gabriel are mentioned (more on them… eventually ;]), my characters are NOT meant to be the actual archangels, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and in some stories/religions, Uriel/Ariel. They are inspired from these angels, yes, but merely to tie the books together and also the titles, as I found this to be a lovely theme for my books.

This story does take place in my beloved Columbus, though not every place is real. St. Rose of Lima parish on Broad Street does not exist. I merely needed a church with a thriving youth membership, park/playground, and school, and so had to create one for my purposes. I also wanted to do my confirmation saint honor in the process.

And finally, I did not write this book to evangelize anybody. I genuinely hope some people feel that it touched them, religiously or otherwise, and made them think. But I wrote this book not to shove religion down people’s throats, but because it enthralls me.

I wrote it because if we can have books about wizards and dragons and vampires and death, about murder, mayhem and rape, why can’t we have books about church and hope and prayer and God?

If you are not a believer, I hope you will still read this book and be taken with the story, just as I read and love and adore many, many books out there that never mention religion or God. Because in the end, it’s just that; a book. A story. But I hope it’s one you enjoyed, and will come back to, again, and again, and again.

Kassandra Kush

I could start by saying an enormous amount of work goes into publishing a book, but I think that’s a given, especially in self-publishing. I’d just like to acknowledge the angels that helped make this a reality:

Mom, the Angel of Editing, Encouragement, and Belief, as in, believe in yourself. You told me I could do it, and I did. Thank you for making it within my reach.

Dad, Angel of Editing and Printer Ink. Thank you for making my book sound professional, and all the abuse your printer took in the process.

Katey, Angel of the First Read. I’ll never forget the first text, “Reading your manuscript. Freaking obsessed, Kass.” Thank you for making me feel like I had something special on my hands, the thrill of hearing that someone couldn’t put it down for the first time. It was truly a heady experience.

Ally, Angel of Editing and Emails. Thank you for your help, your editing, your emails, your encouragement and endless answering of my “What do you think about…” questions and just being a fellow writer I could discuss things with. Editing IC was one of the best choices I ever made, because I gained a true friend through it. We’re truly the same person split in half!

Phineas, Angel of Dogs. Thanks for barking and being generally annoying until I was forced to take a break and go for a walk to clear my head. It was always just what I needed.

Kristen, Angel of Friendship. Thank you for always being there for me to moan and groan to, and for always telling me I could this, and for never judging both my crazy decisions and my crazy dreams.

Amanda, Angel of Reality. Thank you, thank you,
thank you
for all my reality checks, because you will have always said it best; I will not be happy unless I am being a writer, because that is what I am.

And to you, my readers, Angels of Dreams Come True. A thousand thanks, times seven and seventy, for your support. Thank you for reading my story, for giving it a chance. You are holding my personal dream come true in your hands this very moment. I can’t thank you enough for that.

Kassandra

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