Halo h-1 Read online

  Taylah stared after us as we pulled out of the drive, obviously wondering who had abducted her best friend and replaced her with this impostor.

  When we arrived at Fairhaven, the nursing staff looked pleased to see us. They were used to Gabriel and Ivy coming regularly, but Molly’s presence took them by surprise.

  “This is Molly,” said Gabriel. “She’s kindly offered to help us out today.”

  “We’re always grateful for an extra pair of hands,” said Helen, one of the ward nurses. “Especially when we’re as short staffed as we are today.” She looked drawn and tired.

  “I’m happy to help out,” said Molly, enunciating her words clearly as if Helen was hard of hearing. “It’s very important to give something back to your community.” She cast a sidelong glance at Gabriel, but he was busy unzipping his guitar case and didn’t notice.

  “You’re just in time for breakfast,” said Helen.

  “Thanks but I already ate,” said Molly.

  A doubtful look crossed Helen’s face. “I meant the residents’ breakfast. You can help with the feeding if you like.”

  We followed her down a dingy corridor and into the dining hall, which was shabby and had a dismal air despite the Vivaldi filtering out of an old CD player. The floral carpet was worn and the curtains were patterned with faded fruit. The residents were seated on plastic chairs at Formica tables. Those who couldn’t hold themselves upright were in deep leather chairs known as tub chairs. Despite the air fresheners plugged into the walls, there was a distinct smell of ammonia mixed with boiled vegetables. A portable television was switched on in one corner and was playing a wildlife documentary. The caretakers were mainly women, who went routinely about their tasks of folding napkins, clearing tables, and tying bibs on residents who couldn’t manage themselves. Some faces looked up in anticipation when we came in. Others weren’t aware enough of their surroundings to notice.

  The breakfast trays were stacked on a cart and the meals were sealed in foil packs. On the second tier were rows of plastic drink mugs.

  I couldn’t see Alice anywhere, so I spent the next half hour feeding a woman named Dora, who sat in a wheelchair with a multicolored crocheted afghan over her knees. She sat slumped with her mouth slack and her eyes drooping. Her skin was sallow and her hands were liver spotted. On her face, a network of broken capillaries showed through the paper-thin skin. I wasn’t sure what constituted “breakfast” at Fairhaven, but it looked like a pile of pale yellow sludge to me. I knew that some residents ate pureed meals to avoid the risk of choking.

  “What is this?” I asked Helen.

  “Scrambled eggs,” she said before moving off with the cart.

  One elderly gentleman tried to take a spoonful of food, but his hands were so jittery, he ended up spilling it down his front. In an instant Gabriel was at his side. “I’ll get it,” he said, patting away the spilled food with a paper towel. Molly was so engrossed in watching him that she forgot to feed her charge who sat openmouthed and waiting.

  After I’d finished helping Dora, I moved on to Mabel, who had the reputation of being the most truculent resident at Fairhaven. She pushed away the spoon I offered her and pressed her mouth shut firmly.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” I asked.

  “Oh, don’t worry about Mabel,” said Helen. “She’s waiting for Gabriel. If he’s here she won’t accept food from anyone else.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I haven’t seen Alice today. Where is she?”

  “She’s been moved to a private room,” Helen replied. “I’m afraid she’s deteriorated since you last saw her. Her eyesight’s failing and she’s getting over a pulmonary infection. Her room’s just down the hall — first door on the right. I’m sure that seeing you will do her a world of good.” Why hadn’t Gabriel and Ivy told me? Had I been so engrossed in my own world that they’d concluded I wouldn’t care? I made my way down the hall to Alice’s room with a rising sense of dread.

  Phantom had beaten me to it and was already there, keeping vigil in the hall. When I opened the door and we both went in, I almost didn’t recognize the woman in the bed. She was nothing like the Alice of my memory. Illness had ravaged her face and transformed her. Her body looked as fragile as a bird’s and her flimsy hair was uncombed. The colorful cardigans were gone and she was dressed in a plain white gown.

  She didn’t open her eyes when I said her name, but she did stretch out her hand toward me. Phantom pushed his nose into it before I could take it.

  “Is that you, Phantom?” said Alice in a hoarse voice.

  “It’s Phantom and Bethany,” I replied. “We’ve come to visit.”

  “Bethany…,” she repeated. “How good of you to come. I’ve missed you.” Her eyes were still shut as though the effort of opening them was too great.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked. “Is there something I can get you?”

  “No, dear, I have everything I need.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t come for a while. It’s just that…” I didn’t know what explanation to give for my negligent behavior.

  “I know,” she said. “Life gets in the way. No need for apologies. You’re here now and that’s what’s important. I hope Phantom has been behaving.”

  Phantom let out a short bark upon hearing his name.

  “He’s the perfect companion.”

  “Good boy,” said Alice.

  “What’s all this I hear about you being sick?” I asked brightly. “We’ll have to get you back on your feet!”

  “I’m not sure I want to get back on my feet. I think it might be time. ..”

  “Don’t say that,” I said. “You just need some rest and…”

  Alice’s head suddenly rolled forward and her eyes flew open. They didn’t focus on anything but rather stared wildly into space. “I know who you are,” she croaked.

  “That’s good,” I replied, feeling a knot of alarm in my chest. “I’m glad you haven’t forgotten me.”

  “You’ve come to take me,” she said. “Not yet but soon.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked. I didn’t want to accept what she was telling me.

  “To Heaven,” she replied. “I can’t see your face, Bethany, but I can see your light.”

  I stared at her, speechless.

  “You will show me the way, won’t you?” she said.

  I touched her wrist and felt for her pulse. It was like a candle burned almost to the wick. I knew that I couldn’t let my attachment to her stop me from doing my job. I closed my eyes and recalled the entity I had been in the Kingdom: a guide, a mentor for souls in transition. My domain had been to comfort the souls of children as they passed through.

  “When the time comes you won’t be alone.”

  “I’m a little frightened. Tell me, Bethany, will there be darkness?”

  “No, Alice, only light.”

  “What about my sins? I haven’t always been a model citizen, you know,” she said, a hint of her old feisty self emerging.

  “The Father I know is all forgiving.”

  “And will I see my loved ones again?”

  “You will enter a much larger family. You will be as one with all the creatures of this world and beyond it.”

  Alice sank back on her pillows, looking satisfied but tired. Her eyelids fluttered.

  “You should try to sleep now,” I said.

  I closed my fingers around her frail hand, and Phantom laid his head against her arm. Together we watched over her until she slept.

  On the drive home I was still thinking about Alice and what she’d said. Watching death from above was sad, but actually experiencing it on earth was heart wrenching. It was an intense pain for which there could be no remedy. I felt a sharp stab of guilt for letting myself become so fixated by my love for Xavier that I’d shirked my other responsibilities. Heaven had approved our relationship, for the time being, at least, and I must not allow it to be all consuming. At the same time, I wanted nothing more than to find him and breath
e in his comforting scent. No other person I knew could make me feel so alive.

  News reached us the next morning that Alice had passed away in her sleep. It didn’t come as a surprise to me. I’d woken in the night to the sound of rain lashing at my window and when I’d slipped out of bed to close the curtains, Alice’s spirit had been hovering outside. She was smiling and seemed utterly at peace. Alice had lived a full and enriching life and was ready to move on. The loss would be felt most by her family, who hadn’t made the best of the time they’d shared together. They didn’t know it yet, but one day they would be given a second chance.

  I felt her spirit as it passed out of this world, buzzing with nervous anticipation. She was no longer afraid, only excited to see what lay beyond. I reached out to her in my mind in a final gesture of farewell.

  24

  Only Human

  The day of Alice’s funeral was overcast. The sky was pewter, and the ground was damp from the light drizzle that had fallen overnight. There were only a handful of mourners, including staff members from Fairhaven and Father Mel who performed the service. Her gravesite was on a grassy knoll under an acorn tree, and I thought how she would have chuckled that her final resting place had a view.

  Alice’s passing stirred something in me. It brought my attention back to the purpose of our mission, and I decided to up my hours of community service. It was a very small gesture in the grand scheme of things, and I felt almost silly suggesting it, seeing as our purpose was to save the earth from the fallen and their forces of darkness. But it made me feel more like I was contributing to our cause and focusing on what was important. Often Xavier came with me. His family had been doing volunteer work for the church for years, so it was nothing new to him.

  “You don’t always have to come,” I said to him one night as we waited for the train that would take us down to the soup kitchens in Port Circe.

  “I know,” he said. “But I want to come. I’ve been brought up to believe community’s important.”

  “But you have so much more on your plate than I do. I don’t want to add pressure.”

  “Quit worrying. I know how to manage my time.”

  “Don’t you have a French oral tomorrow?”

  “No, we have a French oral tomorrow — that’s why I’ve brought this.” He drew a textbook from his backpack. “We can study on the way.”

  I’d gradually become more comfortable with trains, and riding with Xavier certainly helped. We found seats on a car that was empty, save for a wizened old man who was nodding off and drooling onto his shirt. There was a bottle in a brown paper bag between his feet.

  We opened the textbook and had only been reading a few minutes when Xavier looked up. “Heaven must be pretty big,” he said. He spoke softly, so I didn’t tell him off for bringing up the subject in public. “How much space would you need to fit all those souls? I guess it’s just the concept of infinity that throws me.”

  “Actually there are seven realms of heaven,” I said suddenly, wanting to share my knowledge with Xavier even though I knew it was against our laws.

  Xavier sighed and flopped back in his seat.

  “Just when I thought I was getting my head around it. How can there be seven?”

  “There’s only a throne in the First Heaven,” I said. “And angels that preach the word of the Lord. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwell in the Seventh Heaven — which is the ultimate realm.”

  “But what’s the point?”

  “Different realms have different functions. It’s like working your way up to meet the CEO of a company.”

  Xavier massaged his temples.

  “I’ve got a lot to learn, don’t I?”

  “There are just lots of rules to remember,” I said. “The Second Heaven is the same distance as the First Heaven to earth, the angels on the right are always more glorious than the ones on the left; entry to the Sixth Heaven is quite complicated, and you have to travel into the air outside Heaven’s door, and I know that seems confusing but you’ll know which is which because the lower heavens are dark compared to the brilliance of the Seventh. ..”

  “Stop,” Xavier said. “Stop before my brain explodes.”

  “Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I guess it is a lot to take in.”

  Xavier grinned at me. “Try to remember that I’m only human.”

  Xavier invited me to watch his team play in the end-of-season rugby game. I knew it was important to him, so I arranged to go with Molly and her friends, who usually acted as the Bryce Hamilton cheer squad at games. What they called school spirit was really more of a thin excuse to watch boys in shorts run around a field and work up a sweat. The girls always made sure they had a supply of cool drinks to pass around during breaks, in the hope of being rewarded with a compliment or, better yet, a date.

  It was a home game, so I made my way down to the field with Molly and the girls. The rugby team was already there when we arrived, warming up in their black-and-red-striped jerseys. The opposition, Middleton Preparatory School, stood at the other end of the field in green and yellow. They were listening intently to their beet-faced coach, who looked on the verge of an aneurism. Xavier waved for a second when he saw me, then resumed the warm-up. Before the game began the Bryce Hamilton team huddled together and chanted some motivational mantra about the mighty red and black army. They jogged on the spot and hugged while they waited for the referee to blow his whistle.

  “Typical,” Molly muttered. “Nothing like sports to drag some emotion out of them.”

  As soon as the game began, I realized that I would never be a fan of rugby. It was too aggressive. The sport mainly consisted of players smashing into one another in an attempt to wrestle the ball from the opposition’s grasp. I watched one of Xavier’s teammates charge up the field, the ball securely lodged under his arm. He dodged two of the Middleton players, who pursued him ruthlessly. When he was a few yards away from the goal, he threw himself forward into the air and landed sprawled on the ground, his arms stretched over his head. His hands, clasping the ball, lay just over the line. One of the players from Middleton, who had attempted a tackle in the hope of blocking the goal, landed on top of him. The Bryce Hamilton team broke into whoops and cheers, helping their player up and thumping him on the back as he staggered back to the center of the field.

  I was shielding my eyes to avoid witnessing two players collide when Molly nudged me. “Who’s that guy?” she said, pointing to a figure standing on the other side of the field. It was a young man in a long leather jacket. His identity was concealed by a fedora and a long scarf he’d wound around the lower half of his face.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied. “A parent maybe?”

  “Pretty weird-looking parent,” Molly said. “Why is he standing there by himself?”

  We quickly forgot about the stranger and reverted to watching the game. I grew steadily more nervous as it progressed. The Middleton boys were merciless and most of them looked like tanks. I felt my heart rate increase and my breathing become more rapid whenever any of them went near Xavier. Given the nature of the game, this happened quite often and Xavier wasn’t one to stick to the perimeter. He wanted to be in the thick of things and was just as competitive as the rest of them. I had to admit that as much as I disliked rugby, he was a skilled player. He was fast and strong, and best of all, he played fair. I watched him streak toward the goal and slam the ball into the ground. Whenever one of the other players grabbed him or knocked him to the ground, he was up again in a matter of seconds. He was unfaltering. Eventually I stopped wincing about potential scrapes and bruises, stopped worrying about his safety, and started feeling proud of him. I cheered and waved Molly’s pom-poms in the air whenever he had the ball.

  By halftime Bryce Hamilton was ahead by three points. Xavier jogged over to the sideline where I ran to meet him.

  “Thanks for coming,” he panted. “I know this probably isn’t your thing.” He gave me his endearing half-smile as he tipped a bottle
of water over his head.

  “You’re amazing out there,” I said, pushing back the wet hair that was plastered across his forehead. “But you’ve got to be careful, the Middleton boys are huge.”

  “Skill over size,” he said.

  I looked in anguish at a long scratch across his forearm. “How did this happen?”

  “It’s just a scratch.” He laughed at my concern.

  “It might be just a scratch to you, but it’s a scratch on my arm, which I don’t want to see damaged.”

  “So is everything marked as property of Bethany Church or just the arm?”

  “Every inch of you, so be careful.”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “I’m serious. I hope you realize you can’t lecture me about safety ever again,” I said.

  “Babe, injuries are inevitable. It’s all part of the game. You can play nurse afterward if you like.” He threw me a wink over his shoulder as the horn sounded for play to resume. “Don’t worry, I’m invincible.”

  I watched him jog lightly back to his teammates and noticed that the boy in the leather jacket was still standing by the opposite sidelines. His hands were dug deep in his pockets. I still couldn’t see his face.

  With ten minutes till the end of the game, the Bryce Hamilton boys looked as if they had victory in the bag. The opposition’s coach was doing a lot of head shaking and had to keep mopping sweat from his brow. His players looked furious and desperate. It didn’t take them long to employ dirtier tactics. Xavier had the ball and was running up the field when two of the Middleton players charged at him like freight trains from either side. Xavier swerved in an attempt to avoid a collision, but the others swerved with him and closed in. I cried out when one of them threw out his leg and caught Xavier around the ankle. It sent him tumbling forward so that the ball slipped from his grasp. I saw his head connect with the ground and his eyes snap shut as he winced in pain. The Bryce Hamilton players made a furious protest, and the referee blew his whistle to indicate foul play but it was too late.

  Two boys ran over to help Xavier, who was still prostrate on the ground. He tried to get up but his left ankle was sticking out at a peculiar angle, and when he tried to put weight on it, he grimaced and slipped. His teammates supported him as they helped him over to a bench and the medic scurried over to examine the extent of the damage. He seemed unsteady — like he might be about to pass out.