There is still no decision. My seniors continue to deliberate, and I have heard that they have consulted with an Order. I was surprised to hear this, but I should not have been. Angels rarely reveal themselves to humans, and so this is a serious matter that needs to be closely examined.
Orison assures me that there is no blame assigned to me—he says that under the circumstances, I did everything I could to prevent this from happening. But now they must decide how to proceed.
I am not sure what it is that they can do. Brid says that a Healer might be able to make Freya forget the conversation, but not the feelings that she experienced in the midst of it. And to do even that much would be counter to Freya’s free will. Brid does not think that they will do this. But it is possible, and even likely, that they will take me away from Freya. After all, for now she only knows of me, and if I am not there, she may be able to return to some semblance of normal life.
I know how she is doing because the Hearer assigned to her, Daleral, was kind enough to visit me after he made his report to the seniors. She did not sleep very well last night, and this morning she was up early, pacing back and forth in her mother’s garden, remembering all the strange instances in her recent past and seeing them in a new light. The incident at the dress shop, the intervention with her father, two separate near-misses in her car, the war of luck at the office, the dog that attacked her—she now sees all of these events in a different light. And according to Daleral, she is not quite certain how she feels about it all.
Just a little while before lunchtime, Esther came outside and tugged off her daughter’s gloves. She tested each of Freya’s fingers, then dropped Freya’s hands and peered at her nose.
“What are you doing?” Freya asked on a laugh.
“Checking for frostbite. You’ve been out here for hours.”
Freya was surprised. “Really? What time is it?” She reached for her phone before remembering that she’d left it in her room.
Frowning, Esther took Freya’s hand and dragged her inside, where she pushed her into a chair at the kitchen table. She started the coffeepot, sat down across from Freya, and waited.
“Mom,” Freya said, recognizing this routine, “this isn’t really something I can talk about.”
“Keep it as vague as you want. I don’t need to understand it, you do.”
Freya sighed and pulled off her coat. “I’m just trying to work something out.”
“Then telling it to someone outside of the situation will help.”
“I don’t even know if I can put it into words.”
“Try,” Esther insisted.
They met eyes, stubborn for stubborn, but finally Freya sighed. “Okay, let me think a minute.”
Satisfied that she would eventually get the story, Esther got up to get down a couple of mugs and a plate of sugar cookies. When the coffee was poured and fixed to each woman’s liking, and when each of them had eaten two cookies, Freya began.
“So I have this…friend. Not really a friend—it’s weird. I don’t really know much about them, but I just found out that they have been involved in my life for a while. Like a lot longer than I realized. Maybe even longer than I know now. And this…person being around has caused some problems for me. Which I think that they have tried to fix, but it remains that they caused them. So now I’m trying to figure out how I feel about all this.”
Esther absorbed this for a moment. “You do call this a person a friend,” she noted.
“Yeah. I think that they care about me, a lot. And they’ve done some really good things for me. They’ve been there for me.”
“What sort of things?”
“Well—I’m not entirely sure what exactly they’ve done. But I know they were a part of getting Dad out of my life. And—everything they’ve done has kind of been behind the scenes, out of sight, but in ways that I felt their support, and I knew that they were behind me.” Daleral let me hear how Freya’s voice softened on these words, and Esther heard it too.
“Then it seems that you’ve put a great deal of trust in this person.”
Freya looked up at their mother. “Yes, but there was a lot that I didn’t know. And I didn’t really invite this person into my life—they just kind of showed up.”
Esther drummed her fingers on the table. “How did you find all of this out?”
Freya shrugged. “I realized gradually that things happening in my life were not coincidences. And so I finally managed to confront them—well, yesterday. And I found out some things that are just blowing my mind.” She laughed a little at the understatement of that and thumped her head gently on the table.
“And when you learned all of this, what did you do?”
“I asked them to back off so I could figure it out.”
“And did they?”
Freya frowned and lifted her head. Her senses are still underdeveloped, but Daleral could feel her reaching out. Daleral watched carefully, and he told me, as well as the seniors, that he thought she did not realize that he was there. She has learned to recognize me, but no other angels.
I do not think I can be blamed for being glad about that.
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, they did.”
“Well,” Esther said, lifting her cup and speaking very drily, “that’s more than your own father did.” She took a long sip to let that sink in. “Now, these problems that this person caused. Are they your problems, or their problems, and you’re just involved?”
Freya didn’t answer, because she didn’t know how to.
“Because, my darling, that is how relationships work,” Esther went on. “When you care about someone, you become involved in their problems, even as they become involved in yours. Now, I don’t know all the details, and any of them might nullify this advice, but based on what you’ve told me, this person cares about you very much and involved themselves in your problems very early on, without asking anything in return. Unless they asked for your help with these problems?”
Freya frowned into her cup. “No. In fact I think that they’ve gone out of their way to keep me out of it.”
“Well, then, it sounds like you have a very good, selfless friend. Which is no less than you deserve.”
When Freya didn’t answer, Esther finished her coffee and got to her feet, snagging another cookie as she came around the table. “You think about that, and let me know if you want to talk more.” She kissed Freya’s cheek and left the room.
Daleral told me that Freya sat there for a very long time.
I’m grateful to Esther, but as she said, she doesn’t know all of the details. It will take Freya some time to come to a decision.
I’m not certain whether it is her decision or that of my seniors which I anticipate—or dread—more.