Shadow of the Sun (44 page)

“
I’m not sure,”—I shrugged—“but Aiden told me not to worry about it, that he would cover that part.”

Joseph shifted next to me, and I glanced up to see Andrew. He was absolutely stunning in an all-black suit. From the deep black button-up shirt with jacket, all the way down to his polished black shoes.

“
Wow, Andrew.” Was I drooling? “You look amazing.”

He gave me a small smile. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” he asked. “Because I have something for you.”

“
No, course not.” I stood. “You have something for me?” I didn’t know what he had up his sleeve. “It better not be a puppy. Hercules will be jealous,” I tried to joke. It didn’t sound right. Laughing, joking, being happy felt wrong. I gave Joseph a tiny wave goodbye, which he returned.

Andrew smiled with a confused expression on his face when I turned back toward him. “Hercules?”

“
My dog.”

Andrew’s smile grew, and he gestured for me to exit. He pointed down the hallway toward the room we had been staying in. “It’s on the bed.”

My feet were bare and didn’t make any noise against the hard floor. The walls were a soft cream color and had beautiful red designs woven at the edge of the ceiling. I wondered if Abelie had painted them, and then I instantly felt empty because I didn’t know anything about her. I made a mental note to ask Aiden. When I reached the end of the hallway, I thought I could hear Andrew say “Thank you for being so kind to Gabriella” to Joseph. I smiled. He really was a kind soul—my kindred soul.

Lying on the dark green bedspread was the most beautiful black dress I had ever seen. I skipped over to it and ran my fingers along the silk. The angels loved their silk. Underneath was a knee-length, black pea coat.

Andrew peeked his head in. “Do you like it?”

“
I love it,” I whispered in awe.

“
Put it on,” he said. “The funeral’s in about an hour.”

So soon, I thought dazedly and nodded. He frowned but turned and closed the door behind him with a small click.

<>

Andrew held a large black umbrella over my head as we walked through a path in the woods that lead to the burial grounds. Though the air was chilly, the grass was still a vivid green, more pronounced in the misty rain that scattered across the cemetery. Ehno and Lucia had joined forces to form a bubble around us. Ehno said we would be invisible to everyone during the ceremony, but we had to be quiet because we could still be heard, and we could still disturb the area around us. We approached the dark wooden casket sitting above the deep hole that would eventually swallow Abelie. We tried to stand as close as we could feasibly get. My grief swelled in my chest, as if I were drowning or wading through heavy waters, unable to stay afloat. I didn’t know if I was ready to handle these emotions again, but I had no choice. They rushed back more fiercely than before. Aiden’s face reflected mine in his sorrow. I reached out and held his hand as we moved closer to the casket.

We stopped farther away from the tent than I would have wished. I stared straight ahead, feeling hollow. This person that possessed me was different—broken. Before, I always felt like there was something missing, and there was. But now—now I felt like a train had severed me in half, like the two parts of myself would never be able to reattach. I was torn. The dark wooden casket taunted me, telling me it was entirely my fault. If it weren’t for my birth, or my ingenious idea to flee the underground lab, we wouldn’t be here right now. For a few seconds, I thought I would be sick all over Andrew’s shiny black shoes. Bent over at the waist, my stomach heaving, Andrew leaned over and pulled my hair away from my face.

“
You okay, Ella?” he whispered so low I could barely hear him through my heavy breaths—the sound like putting my fingers in my ears and speaking.

I shook my head and let the tears roll down my face. I had thought I knew what pain was before, but I was wrong—so incredibly wrong. Something had ripped through me and shredded any strength I had left inside. Before, she was still there—covered on the table in the library or lying on a bed in her house—but now she would be devoured by the Earth with dirt and rocks. There was just something so final about the act—so permanent. The thought of the barrier between us almost made me faint with sadness. I didn’t know how Aiden was still standing. When I looked at him, golden tears littered his face.

All around me, those who had been blessed by this glorious being wept and held on to each other, coming together as one entity for the support they each needed. The mass of humans surprised me, and I realized how many lives she had touched, changed in some way. In the distance, I could see angels beneath the shadows of the encroaching forest. I recognized the Elders clustered together. Their golden tears glittered in the small glint of the sun beaming down through a slit in the clouds. Maybe the heavens were shining upon them. No one else seemed to be able to see them, or maybe they weren’t paying them any attention, but I could—in all their magnificent glory. They had always possessed a celestial glow, but today it had been taken away. A darkness surrounded them as they mourned the one they had lost. The one I had lost.

“
If I ever see Jeff again, I’ll kill him. That’s a promise,” Aiden barely whispered.

The other angels shared a look of approval before nodding. “Agreed,” they all said. For once, I agreed to this death.

There was a short, grey-haired man that walked toward the podium and pulled a book from beneath his black robes. He looked Catholic. He spoke reverently in a deep, rich Italian. The rain pounded against the umbrella above my head and drowned out his speech. Instead of listening, I let the humming of the rain soothe my brain. Andrew held me against his side and sang in my ear. The words were lovely and beautiful. It only made the tears come quicker, like a soundtrack to my sorrow.

I was silent as the tears descended my face, contributing to the heartache around me. As the service came to a close, the crowd dispersed and the angels in the shadows vanished before my eyes.

We moved closer to the casket covered in white roses. We were still invisible, and I wondered how long Ehno and Lucia could keep up their strength. Once everyone was in their cars, making their way down the windy drive, workers converged upon the tent and started to disassemble it.

The rain scattered across the ground, soaking the flowers that lay upon the tomb of the once forgotten angel. Someone had once told me that when it rained, it was God weeping for the beloved who were lost. Today I believed this more than on any other day, because this was a more grievous death than that of any mere mortal.

We stayed to watch as they lowered the casket into the ground. A perfectly smooth, warm hand found its way to mine. A thumb compassionately stroked my palm and soothed me. I never looked to see whose hand held mine, and its owner remained slightly behind me, out of view. I knew it was Andrew—it was always Andrew. He didn’t pressure me to leave, or tell me it would be all right, because it wouldn’t, and he knew that. That was just fine with me; I needed time to grasp the concept of this monumental death.

I peered at the mound of dirt that would cover this benevolent angel, my mom. Something broke away from my heart. It fluttered away, and the hole it left would forever be there. A reminder.

Andrew’s warm hand never left mine, even when I collapsed to my knees, unsure if I would ever be able to leave this place and leave this angel who had never left me. My mom, who had secretly watched me grow into an adult, even though she couldn’t reveal herself for fear of losing me. To imagine the kind of sacrifices she had to make only made me choke on my breath. I needed it—the tears, the release—so I could get past this, make a special place for her in my heart and seal it for eternity, because that was what I had now, eternity, forever . . . a timeless immortality.

When I struggled to rise, Andrew reached for my waist and pulled me to my feet. I peered into the eyes of my angel through my tear-filled ones. They were deep pools, so blue you would think someone painted them that way. Perhaps someone had. Maybe there was an exalted artisan in the sky using watercolors on the red-golden fall day, painting the angelic being before me. I’d never seen such a devastatingly beautiful day before in my entire life.

As we reached a path in the trees that would lead us back to Abelie’s hidden house, the invisible charm disintegrated from around us, a white mist falling to the leaf-strewn ground. Still, the support of Andrew’s warm hand never left mine, as if we were melted together. Besides the sound of our feet shuffling beneath the canopy of trees and the small drips of rain making their way through, we were silent. I had yet to really look at the other angels, to see their golden tears trailing down their faces. We were here to comfort each other, so I snaked my free arm around Aiden’s. His head turned to the side as he gave me the most anguished smile I had ever seen, patted my fingers wrapped around his huge, charcoal bicep, and continued our silent parade through the ever rain-drenched trees.

When the huge stone mansion came into view, the light of day had started to fade in the background. The sky thickened with the languid darkness of night. It was twilight again, just as it was when Abelie’s soul was severed from her body. Ehno opened the door for us, but before I could find my way to the bedroom to weep in solitude, he called out to me.

“
Gabriella, wait.” I turned, curious. Everyone else, besides Joseph, went their separate ways. Ehno continued after seeing my expression, “Joseph has a plane to catch. I thought you might want to say goodbye before he left.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

Ehno walked off to give us privacy.

“
Gabriella—”

“
No, Joseph. Let me speak.” I raised a hand in protest when he opened his mouth. “You’ve been far beyond amazing these last few days. It’s my fault you got caught in this whirlwind with me. I’m so glad you stuck it out with me and survived, because I don’t think I could handle your death on my hands too.” My voice had lowered so much that he leaned in to hear. “I’m glad you’re finally going back to your normal life and—”

“
You’ve got it all wrong,” he protested. “You changed my life. Remember when I said you were a skeptic?”

I nodded, raising my eyebrows.

“
Well, I was a bigger skeptic than you. I’d seen things that your lab never had the chance to investigate, and I still didn’t believe—but on that plane, falling from the sky . . . there are no descriptions in my head that could make you understand how that felt. My heart lifted, rejoiced, even though we were about to die. And if it weren’t for me sitting next to you, I probably would have crashed with the rest of them. If anything, you saved me.”

And with everything heavily weighing down on me, I collapsed in tears once again. I was really growing tired of the tears. It was actually a mixture of grief and a twisted sort-of-happiness. Joseph caught me and gave me a huge hug.

“
We’ll see each other again, won’t we?” he mumbled into my hair.

I pulled away from him and wiped the golden tears away. “You know it. Once all of this craziness goes away, I’ll definitely come visit. You can count on that.”

“
Good.” He smiled. “Well, I better go. Ehno called me a cab before we went to the funeral, and I just heard it pull into the drive.” His eyes darted to the door.

“
Be careful,” I ordered and reached up on my toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. He blushed and walked outside into the rainy abyss.

I watched as the brake lights of the cab disappeared through the trees. I shut the door.

“
Everything okay?” Andrew asked from the bottom of the staircase.

I shook my head. “Not really. Let’s just go to bed.” It was early, but I didn’t care. I was exhausted. He reached out a consoling hand. I took it, and we ascended the stairs. “Will you just . . . hold me tonight?”

“
I wouldn’t want to do anything different.”

<>

I jolted upright. I didn’t know why my heart pounded a million miles a minute, but it was racing. Inhaling deep, steadying breaths, I looked over Andrew’s sleeping form to see the alarm clock. It read five in the morning. Rain pattered against the arched window above the comfy sofa. Trying not to jostle the bed, I uncurled myself from Andrew’s arms, tiptoed across the room toward the fogged-up window, and peeked into the misty darkness. Even in the cloudy night I could see the path through the trees. I ached to see my mom more than anything, and all I would have to do was follow that trail. Even if the only thing I could do was stand at her grave, it would be enough. I just needed that closeness.

Outside and through the fog, I found my way down the path in the middle of the trees as the sky diluted into a grayish blue. I tore through the forest until it ended at the clearing of the cemetery. Not too far away was a stone bench. I wrapped my new coat around me securely and pulled the hood over my head from the hoodie I wore underneath. The wind lashed out with harsh rain. As the sun rose, the bright yellow ball found larger holes in the clouds. Abelie’s grave hadn’t been filled in, and I couldn’t will myself to look over the deep hole with her casket covered in rainwater and roses. I couldn’t believe they left it like this.