Sojourner (18 page)

“I…I didn’t mean to be rude.”  I feel my body start to tremble.

He smiles.  “I know that.  You have no reason to fear me.”  He walks over to my bulletin board where I’ve tacked pictures of my life in Dallas.  “I thought you had questions.”  He plucks one of the pictures of me in a black semi-formal gown, taken during the homecoming dance last year.  He frowns and stares hard.

“I don’t know what to ask.”  I’m distracted by the shimmering.

“Of course you do.”  His tone sounds nothing like a seventeen-year old boy, and I wonder how I could have missed that for so long.  “You just don’t know if you should.”  He replaces the picture.

“Do you have…wings?”  My breath catches as I realize how stupid this sounds, but it’s been bugging me.

“What do you think?”  He arches his eyebrows questioningly.

“I can’t see them,” I whisper, focusing on the shimmer.

“There are many things humans can’t see, Elizabeth.  That doesn’t negate their existence.”  He walks to my bookshelf and takes down a copy of Dante’s
Inferno
.  His graceful fingers flip through the pages.

“You read Dante?”  I want to laugh because that seems so incongruous.

“Among many other things, although it was much more entertaining standing behind him as he wrote it. Every once in a while I dropped the number ten in there just to bug him.  I was just messing with guy.  He was supposed to stop at nine, but darned if he didn’t go on to write
The Impyrion
.  Go figure.”

“
The Impyrion
?”

He nods.  “Yeah, about Heaven and, well, angels.”

I shake my head.  “Oh, we never got past
Purgatoris
in Honors English.  I didn’t know there was another section.”

“There wasn’t supposed to be.  My Father really wasn’t so pleased about that one.  He grounded me in Calcutta for ten months.”

My throat is dry and I sink onto the mattress, dumbfounded.  “You were bad!”

“I was very young and I was bored!”  Lev shakes his head.  He flips a few more pages.  “When he gave it the name
The Divine Comedy
I wanted to laugh.  Nobody got married.”

“You’ve been around that long?”  I trace the flower on my bedspread, trying to take all of this in and believe it.

“Seven hundred years.”  He scrutinizes my face.  “Surely you didn’t believe I was new.”

“I don’t really know what to believe anymore.”  I keep trying to imagine his wings, but I can’t.  The image won’t gel.  “How big are your wings?  Do you have…feathers?”

“Back to that.  Well, I don’t have scales.  If I did, I’d be perched on a cathedral somewhere and I don’t think I could sit still for that long.”  He shakes his head and snaps the book shut and walks to the window.  “Large enough to suffice.”

“How do you hide them?”  I look at his shoulders and wonder at the hidden strength.

“Let’s just say I’m not exactly bound by physics.”  He peers out the window.

“Do you ever knock stuff over with them?”  I try to envision him opening them in this room and what would happen.  I can’t help but smile.

“They can be awkward,” he replies, neither confirming nor denying anything.  He turns to me and folds his arms over his chest.

“Are there many others like you among us?”

He nods. “Yes.  You just don’t see them.”

Chills sweep down my spine as I listen to his deep, hypnotic voice.  Even though I grasp his words, I struggle with the meaning.  “How?”

“You mortals typically only find what you believe is there, and most of the time everything can be explained away if necessary.”  He leans against the windowsill, his arms still crossed at his chest.

“Besides the wings, what else is special about you?  What can you…do?”  I know I should stop acting like a five-year-old, but I just can’t seem to help myself.

He laughs and narrows his eyes at me.  “This isn’t Show and Tell.”

I chew my bottom lip.  So many questions.  “What about God?”

Lev slowly crosses the room and stops a few feet in front of me.  The nearness of him catches my breath, and I’ve never been so aware how big he is compared to me as now.  His hand slowly lifts and he gently sets it over my heart.  Heat radiates from his palm, tingling on my skin.  Then our eyes meet.

“You already know, Elizabeth, or I wouldn’t be here in the first place.  Your heart is yet open.  If you follow it, you won’t go astray.”

Right now, that heart feels like it’s going to jump right out of my chest.  I can’t break away from those piercing eyes, and it’s only when he softly lifts his hand and takes a step back that I can even move again.

“Why are angels even here?”  That question is a two-edged sword.  I’m really curious, but I’m not so sure I’m going to like the answer.

Lev swallows and the frown returns.  “It really depends on the angels.  Some are messengers.  Some are watchers.  Some are sojourners.”

“What’s that?” I ask, curious but not really sure I want to know at the same time.

“Angels who carry souls from one world to the next.”

I force myself to stand.  “So which kind are you?”

His jaw clenches and he shakes his head.  “Which, indeed?”

“I don’t understand.”  He’s looking at me with those ageless blue eyes, making it hard to focus.

“I…I’m unlike other angels, Elizabeth.  Tonight I’ll answer any other questions except those about my purpose and why I have been placed in your life.  Nor can I offer answers to that which requires faith.  If I do that, I remove the opportunity for you to please God.”  His voice is breathless like he’s been running and I’m guessing it has something to do with the internal struggle I’m not privy to.  Either way, his immediate denial of answering those questions makes those answers all the more desirable.

I struggle to swallow as he brushes his thumb across my cheek.  “But why me?”

He lowers his head until our foreheads touch.  “I don’t know.  Even angels don’t have all the answers.  We fly so close to the light and sometimes get blinded in its presence, but that doesn’t mean we always know.”

Wordlessly, I lift my hand and touch it to his cheek, the heat of his skin immediate.  “I have dreamt of you for so long.”

“I know.”

I lower my head to his shoulder, liking the security of feeling my head nudged under his chin.  “But they were nightmares.  Why?”

He drapes his arms around me.  Sitting so close in the shelter of his embrace, I feel for the first time the fatigue that drains him.

“Lev?”

“In time you will get all your answers.  Please do not ask tonight.  Just give me one more night.  Just tonight.”  His arms tighten around me as though he’s afraid of dropping me, but I don’t think that’s it.

I could ask him why angels get tired or what makes them afraid.  I could ask if angels die, but I’m not sure I want to know all those answers.  I suspect at least some of those answers have to do with me.  At least for Lev anyway.  So I ask other, less loaded questions.

“What does Lev mean?”  I stare at his face.

“In Hebrew, it means ‘heart.’”  One hand gently rubs my arm.

“Did you choose this form or do all angels look human?”

Despite his somber mood, a smile blossoms.  “You are inquisitive, aren’t you?  I chose this form.  Not that it matters.  The body is just transport for the soul.  It serves no other purpose.”

His voice is kind, his embrace is warmth, and he has powers I cannot even fathom.  But for all of these, I sense wild currents in the water that threaten us both.  I am afraid.  It is a nameless fear but I cannot escape it.

Lev must sense it, too, for his shifts slightly.  “What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid.”

He stiffens.  “Of me?”

“No.  Of something I can’t put into words.”

 “Don’t be.  No harm shall come to you while I’m here.”  He nods to the pillow.  “You should sleep now.  I don’t think Mr. Maguire could handle you napping in his class again.”

I lie down and he starts to get up, but I slip my fingers around his forearm.  “Please stay.  At least for a little longer.”

He nods and relaxes.  One hand strokes my cheek.  As I stare at his beautiful face, exhaustion tugs at me, pulling me toward the blackness like a blanket over my head.

Chapter Twelve

Lev isn’t at school the next day, and the whole afternoon I wonder if I’ve dreamed the conversation we had the night before.  Even now it has become a memory.  It seems surreal and impossible.  It’s like something that could never have transpired in daylight.

I pass through the school in a daze, unable to refrain from replaying our conversation, looking for all the things I missed before, things that should be there.  More than anything I fear the things I don’t understand.  Why isn’t he in school?  Why wouldn’t he tell me what kind of an angel he is or his purpose?  And what do I have to do with that purpose?

The questions result in burnt hamburgers that night, and Jimmie opens the window to drive away the smell despite the cold winter air.  He shakes his head and stares.

“Everything okay, Lizzie?”

For a moment I don’t even realize he’s speaking.  Then I nod.  “Oh yeah.  Everything is fine.”

“You act like you’re a million miles away.”  His gaze is pointed, as though he knows what’s bugging me, but I have to call his bluff on this one.  Jimmie has no idea.

“I’m fine.”  I start to pull out more burgers, but Jimmie points to the fridge. 

“Maybe you’d better not cook.  Let’s just finish off the rest of the pizza.”

Once Jimmie leaves for work, I head upstairs and find Lev standing by my windowsill.  He braces his hands on the sill to peer out into the starless night.  His head barely touches the glass, and I can tell by the way his fingers grip the sill he’s far from comfortable.

“Where were you today?” I ask, closing my door.

“I had a lot on my mind.”  He stands perfectly still, closing his eyes.  His breath is labored, and judging from his position and the strain in his voice, he seems almost…in pain.  I see his pale reflection in the glass, but his expression is guarded, unreadable, careful.

“Why are you here?”  My throat is dry, and I wonder why this is so difficult. 

“For you.”

Unable to take the distance anymore, I rise from the bed and cross the room.  Without thought, I wrap my arms around him and lean against his back.  Surely doing so will make whatever answers he must give bearable.

He gasps at my touch, his shoulders sagging, and he grips my hand tightly before gently prying himself loose.  He turns but takes a step back.

“What’s wrong?”

“There are things we have to talk about, things I’m not proud of.”  He averts his eyes.

“Lev, if you are an angel, how bad can those things be?”