Everything has changed. What I feared and hoped for has finally happened, and I am shaken, and jubilant, and bewildered, and frightened. But there is certainly no going back now.
Freya was driving to her mother’s house to spend a few days over the holiday, and I went down to check on her while she was alone in the car. Inca, who had been with her that morning, had told me that she remembered the nightmares and that she was in a strange mood, and I wanted to check on her myself.
I think that even if I had not, this still would have happened, just perhaps not today. The damage was already done yesterday. But my arrival so soon after the battle surely didn’t help.
When I joined her in the car, she exhaled long and low, her hands tensing on the steering wheel. Her thoughts, which had been in some kind of whirl, settled into something like resolve. “So I had some crazy dreams last night,” she said aloud.
I was instantly wary. I should have left right then, but she was speaking to me, and I owed it to her to listen, at least.
“They were some of the worst I’ve ever had,” she went on with a shudder. “Full of horrible, hideous things that wanted to reach inside me and—I don’t know, eat my heart, pull my soul into strings. Whatever they were going to do, I knew that they were going to make me like them. I knew that they could. That they could take the light away.”
I knew better than to speak to her, at least in that moment. Instead I extended one wing, the feathers brushing her cheek.
Her eyes flicked in my direction, then returned to the road. “Then I woke up.”
Ice went through my heart. I had not realized that she was awake at any point last night. How could I have let my anger blind me to that?
“And there was something there,” Freya went on, her voice shaking. Her hands on the wheel were white now. “It was bent over me, touching me, and—and I knew that what I had been dreaming about had followed me into the real world.”
Truth is a powerful weapon. The Nightmare must have been more skilled than I first believed—it gave Freya not just dreams of terror, but glimpses of reality. And in so doing it tore further the fragile façade that kept her from seeing the real powers of the universe.
I am thinking that I killed it a little too quickly.
“Which, no big deal,” Freya lied in a light tone. “Dreams do that sometimes. But this thing didn’t go away as I woke up.” She took a breath and said, “It only left when you got there.”
I did not move. Could not.
Freya shifted in her seat. She flicked on the radio, then, changing her mind, she turned the music down so that it was nearly inaudible.
“So I’ve known you were around for a while, and I think you’ve been with me a lot longer than I knew,” she said. Her eyes moved from the mirror to the passenger seat and back to the road, trying in vain to find me. “I was actually kind of starting to take it for granted. But it was just a fancy, really, a daydream.” She laughed a little. “A way to make myself feel special. Nothing more than that, really—until last night.” Now she swallowed and pushed her hair back from her face. “When I woke up and that thing was still there, with its hands on me…”
I couldn’t help it. I put a wing around her shoulders, and she relaxed, a little.
“I wanted you to be real,” she said. “I prayed that you were. And then there you were.”
And then tension went out of her, so quickly that she slumped back against her seat. There was a little wondering smile on her mouth.
“I knew the second you got there, and I wasn’t afraid anymore. I knew that you were stronger than it was, and I knew that you would do anything to keep me from getting hurt.” She took another deep breath—she seemed to be having trouble getting air into her chest. “I felt it vanish, and I felt your anger, but it wasn’t against me, it was—for me, a gift for me. And I felt you come back, and I knew that I was safe.”
At least she did know that. At least she was not afraid of me.
Quickly Freya wiped both eyes, that embarrassed laugh bubbling up again. “So after all that, it just seems rude to pretend that you’re not real.”
My heart was twisting. I was torn between dismay that she had been through so much, and delight that she had understood me so well. That very thing has been my greatest wish and my deepest worry.
She took an exit, her eyes lifting to check the road behind her as she merged. “Of course,” she said, laughing again, “I would appreciate some indication that you actually are here and that I am not going totally out of my mind.”
In the waiting silence that fell after this, I quivered, struggling so hard against the urge to touch her, to speak to her, to give her the reassurance she wanted. But I did not reveal myself, not intentionally, not then.
Freya sighed. “Well, even if I am crazy,” she whispered, “I’m still grateful. You saved me, so even if you are a figment of my imagination…thank you.”
“You are welcome,” I whispered.
I was not trying to make her hear me. I was not trying anything. I will swear this before the Throne itself if I must.
But the radio changed stations.
Freya and I both stared at it. I had never heard of my kind being able to interfere with radio signals. But what else could it have been? Nothing like it had ever happened to Freya before, either, going by the pure astonishment in her face. So pure that her grip slackened on the wheel, and the car began to veer from its lane.
Forgetting my shock, I reached through Freya’s hands, seizing the wheel and drawing the car back into place. Freya gasped, slamming on the brakes, and behind us a car whizzed around, horn blaring. Freya whipped the car to the shoulder and threw it into park, and there we both sat, staring at the radio, from which a woman’s voice was singing about an unfaithful man.
“Oh, my God,” Freya whispered, still clutching the wheel. “You actually are here. Aren’t you?”
I saw then that whatever she said, whatever she thought, she still had been willing to be convinced out of it. She didn’t fully believe, even then.
She believes now.
“Did you do that?” she asked, half-reaching for the radio. She looked wildly around the car, as if she expected me to have materialized out of thin air. “Can you do it again?”
I hadn’t been aware that I could do it at all, so the thought of doing it again, this time intentionally, terrified me. For an instant I hesitated, remembering the laws, the advice of my seniors, but then the wanting rushed through me. I wanted to try—no, that is inaccurate. What I wanted was to succeed. I have always wanted to touch this world, this real, tangible, fascinating world that was stolen from our Father, His greatest treasure. And as much as this desire drove me on, the fear of trying and failing held me back.
It strikes me now that this may be why Freya took this long to speak to me directly. To open oneself to possibility is so hard when that possibility includes potential rejection and defeat. She has always been braver than me.
Freya, unaware of my turmoil, was still staring at the radio display, which still read 104.7. “Please,” she whispered, reaching her hand out over the passenger seat. When her fingers passed me through, she shivered, and so did I. “Please, I need to know.”
Well, I thought to myself, it is too late to turn back. I turned my eyes and my will to the radio. “Change,” I whispered.
The song’s ending chords dissolved into static, and the numbers flicked to 105.1.
Freya clapped her hands to her mouth, almost catching a cry of astonishment and exultation. “Oh my fucking Jesus Christ,” she gasped, making me wince. “I’m not crazy. You are here.” She shrank back into the driver’s seat, her eyes huge, her fingers shaking.
Unable to gauge all that I was feeling, I reached out to read her. Over her shock and excitement, the remnants of ration and disbelief were struggling to explain and reassure her, to deny what was so clearly evidenced before her. Beneath it all, but swiftly rising, was a sense of fear.
“What are you?” she whispered, beginning to tremble in earnest.
I had been dreading the fear, but I was not surprised to see it. It is a natural response to our revelations. We are beings that humans cannot even see, much less understand. I told myself all of this to damp down the hurt in my heart.
Of course I reached out to reassure her, but my words were not as effective as usual, for as I spoke, the radio responded, spring through several stations and emitting garbled fragments of words and music.
Looking at the radio, Freya laughed faintly, some of the spark coming back to her aura. “What does that mean?”
“I have no idea,” I said aloud, and was further aggrieved when buzzing static came through the speakers. How greedy I was! I could do what I had moments before longed to do, and yet the miracle did not satisfy me; I wanted to control it. I should have been grateful for any method of communication.
Freya was more sensible that I. She reached out to touch the display screen, her fingers hesitant. “Have you never done this before?”
My reply was a lurch in the static, and then a man’s deep voice talking about the weather.
She smiled slightly. “Well, at least I’m not the only one weirded out.” She tapped her chin. “Okay, how about this—go up for yes, and down for no. Can you do that?”
I looked at the display. It read 106.7, and then it read 107.5.
Freya’s grin flashed for a moment. “Now we’re in business. Okay.” She swallowed and put her hands in her lap. “First question is—are you here to hurt me?”
I was so alarmed that this was her first thought, even now, that the stations rolled all the way down to 99.1.
Freya blinked, looking relieved. “That’s good. Sorry, but I had to ask.” A thought crossed her mind, and she frowned. “Are you lying to me?”
91.9, and a roll of laughter from the radio. Of course, that was precisely what a liar would say.
“That’s what a liar would say,” Freya murmured, but she shook her head. “I guess I’ll just have to trust you for now. So—what are you?”
With no way to answer that question, I ran up and down the stations. I was beginning to realize how I could do this—it is a matter of presence. In the Garden, we engage most easily with what is most similar to ourselves: the spirits of humans. But the radio waves, while not the same, have a way of moving through the air that is like the way we move through the physical. They are not really there, but they are not really absent either.
Somehow, with Freya, I have become less absent in the physical world.
“Right, sorry—yes or no questions only,” Freya said, unaware of my ruminations. She pressed her fingers to her brow. “Are you an angel?” she asked after a moment.
Pleased that she had found the answer so quickly—and a little surprised that she hadn’t asked if I was a jinni—I moved the station to 94.9.
She blinked at the display, then exhaled slowly. “There’s an angel sitting in my car?”
I considered debating the words “sitting” and “in”, but clearly that was beyond my communication abilities. So I simply shifted the station up to 95.9.
“Why?” Freya demanded, spreading her hands with a strange look on her face. “What the hell—uh, sorry—but what is an angel doing in my car?”
It almost made me laugh, the bewilderment in her voice and face. Almost, because why should she ever doubt that she deserves to have an angel looking after her? Rather than try to answer her, I wrapped two wings around her shoulders.
She shivered again and looked around, a small, dazed smile on her face. “You’re doing that, aren’t you?”
I glanced at the radio, which flipped up to 96.3.
“Amazing,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around herself. Then her eyes widened. “You’ve been with me for a while, haven’t you?”
“That has been my honor, yes,” I said aloud as I shifted the station up again.
“Knew it,” Freya said, staring at the radio display. “I was sure when I sent my dad packing, but then I realized that I felt that feeling before—that warmth and confidence, as if someone was standing right behind me. You were, weren’t you?”
The radio moved up to 98.3.
Suddenly her eyes widened. “Wait a minute, can you read my mind?”
I hesitated, but there was no way to explain the details to her. I knew how little she would like my answer, but I couldn’t lie to her. The radio flipped up again to 99.1.
Freya clapped her hands to her temples, and anger flared up in her aura. “And what gives you the right?” she demanded. “Get the fuck out of my car.” She threw the car back into gear, tore back onto the highway with another crash of horns, and slapped the radio off.
I respected her wishes, taking wing behind her, but I knew that she would have more questions for me when her anger cooled. I half expected to be swept up to heaven for questioning the moment I left her, but there was no sign of my seniors. It worried me a little.
Freya took the first exit she saw and fled her car the moment she pulled in front of a coffee shop. I waited for her outside, turning over the extraordinary conversation in my mind.
After about an hour, she came back to the car, much calmer and a little sheepish. When she turned the radio on again, I joined her.
“Hey,” she said. “That is you, right?” She relaxed a little when the station went up to 99.6. “Okay, just checking.” She took a breath. “So two things occurred to me when I was in there. First thing was that it shouldn’t surprise me that an angel can do amazing things. I’d just appreciate it if you’d stay out of my head as much as you can.”
That was perfectly fair, and I moved the station to 101.3 to signal my agreement. She relaxed further to see it. “Thank you.” She took another deep breath. “The other is—if you’re real, then that thing that came after me last night is also real. Isn’t it?”
“Not anymore,” I growled.
The radio didn’t change, but Freya felt my spike of anger and exhaled, pressing her hand against the knots forming in her stomach. “There’s more of them, aren’t there?” she asked. “A lot more. And you’ve been protecting me from them.”
I didn’t want to answer that, but I owed her the truth.
She watched the station change to 101.9 and dug her hands into her hair. “This is, this is too much,” she said, and she let her head thump against the wheel. “Why are they coming after me?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Why me? What do they want?”
How could I tell her that it wasn’t her fault at all, but mine? Even if I had had the words, how could I admit that I was the one who made her a target?
There was a buzzing of static from the radio, and Freya looked up, tears standing in her eyes. I could feel her struggling with what she felt from me—reading me, much as I would have read her if she had not asked me not to. “Or are they coming for you, and I’m just in the way?”
I sat in miserable silence, wishing that I could talk to her for real, wishing that I had never spoken up at all.
Freya shook her head and wiped her eyes. “This is too much,” she said again, but her voice was firm. “I need a little space to think about this. Would it be dangerous for me without you around?”
The stations plummeted to 89.6. I would not let her be in danger.
The relief in her heart was a knife in mine. “Then I have to ask that you leave and let me think about all this,” she said. “I need to figure out what I actually believe and what I’m going to do about it. And I need to do that without someone looking over my shoulder.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Her whole world was imploding, and I was the cause.
Because I couldn’t speak even if I had words, I leaned in and kissed her cheek. Then I left her alone in the car.
Ophell and Ananiah were waiting for me not far above the car. Both of them looked solemn, and Ophell had tears on his face. “Oh, Asa’el,” he said, “I am sorry for your heartbreak.”
“The seniors are waiting for you,” Ananiah said. “But do not fear—they are not angry, and while you are gone we will keep her safe.”
I managed to thank them somehow, and then I returned to heaven, where Orison, Ruhamah, Ero’an, and Salathiel were waiting. They were solemn, too, but not angry.
They did not say very much to me, only listened to what had happened. A Hearer and a Reader both have been dispatched to look after Freya and try to determine what will happen next. Meanwhile my seniors will deliberate with others among the different disciplines to come to a decision. I think they will try to decide before the celebration begins, so at least I will not have long to wait.
And with Brid and Inca here by my side, I have come to record it all, so that I may remember it forever. It may be the last time I ever speak to Freya, after all. I want to remember every word.
If it is the last, I am glad at least that there was one instance in which she saw me clearly. She thanked me for protecting her, and that is more than I ever had any right to expect.
But I do hope that she finds it in her heart to forgive me. I could bear it, I think, if this ends because my seniors declare it so. That would be a decision made for her safety, and though it would be excruciating, I could bear it.
I could not bear it if she herself decides never to see me again.