Dark Hope (31 page)

Michael did not move as the man approached, but I could see his frame tense, poised for action.

“Hello, Michael.” The man—the Librarian—stood above Michael, a welcoming smile on his face as he looked down.

“Hello. Were you followed?”

“Not now. But you know the Fallen are hot on your trail. It is only a matter of time,” the Librarian sighed. He cast one of his walking sticks aside and offered Michael a hand. Michael took it and rose to his feet gracefully, then clasped the old man to his chest.

“It is good to see you.”

“And you,” the Librarian said, stepping back to look at Michael. “Though I wish it were under different circumstances.”

Michael hung his head, looking momentarily defeated. “You know, then, why I come.”

“Yes. There are rumors about. Nothing but rumors yet, but they did reach my ears.” He straightened himself and turned his attention to me where I was seated in the shadows. “I suppose this is the girl, then?”

“Yes,” Michael said, turning to me. A smile flitted across his face and he held out his hand. “Hope, come meet the Librarian of Heaven.”

I scrambled to my feet and walked over. Michael placed an arm around my shoulder and shuffled me in front of him to face the Librarian’s inspection.

“Turn around, girl,” the old angel said, a note of affection softening his gruffness. “I must see this Mark of yours.”

I turned, self-consciously. Michael gently reached around me and lifted my hair to the side to give the Librarian a full view. If the Librarian noticed how possessive the gesture was, he didn’t say anything about it.

Instead, he sighed deeply. “May I?”

I nodded slightly. The Librarian placed a calloused finger on the Mark, tracing its intricate pattern down my neck. “So it is true.”

“Yes,” Michael said, allowing my hair to cascade back over my shoulders. “It has begun.”

I turned around to face the Librarian once again. The old man was smiling sadly at me.

“I suppose you came to learn the full Prophecy,” he said, shuffling himself over to sit on an outcropping of rocks. “That is what the Fallen are asking for, so I suppose you need it, too.”

Michael didn’t respond, but I felt his heavy hand upon my shoulder and imagined he was nodding his response. The old man took a granola bar out of a cargo pocket in his shorts and slowly started to unwrap it. He took a bite and began to speak again, pausing now and then to savor a morsel.

“I remember when the Prophecy first came to me—the uproar, the fear. I almost think they wanted me to take it back, pretend it had never happened. But of course I couldn’t. When I refused to deny it, I was forced to go to court and explain myself. Being a newcomer to Heaven, of course, I had a target on me.”

“I don’t understand,” I interrupted.

The old man eased back in his seat and chuckled, his eyes crinkling up behind his sunglasses as he remembered the controversy.

“My child, it is much the same as with your Michael here.” I blushed, about to stammer he was not “my Michael,” but the old man pressed on, never giving me a chance.

“The angelic host never really got over their resentment of humanity. They neither forgot nor forgave humans for usurping the favor of God Almighty, a favor they had enjoyed exclusively for millennia. The obedient ones could do nothing about it, of course, so they turned their petty feelings where they could. Michael—well, they blamed him for helping mankind, for ushering Adam and Eve out of Eden in safety, for defending Moses against Satan’s
prosecution, indeed, for defending man at every turn, even when man became sinful and murderous against his own.

“Just as many hated you, Michael, for being the champion of man, so they hated me for being elevated from man to angel. The speaking of the Prophecy gave them the perfect excuse to persecute me. The fact that they all feared what the Prophecy foretold only made it more urgent. They wanted to wipe it from the record, pretending like children that if they didn’t see it there in front of them, if they refused to acknowledge it, it would not come to pass.”

“So they took you to Court? In Heaven?” I asked.

“Yes,” he chuckled. “Angels can be so petty. And their legal code is as bureaucratic as they come, too. I suppose when you have all of eternity, there is a sort of perverse pleasure in taking up so much time by resolving your disputes. Instead of finding common ground, angels tend to hoard their grievances like treasures, hardening and polishing them until they shine with the heat of the sun.”

“What did they do?” I asked, urging him on.

“They sentenced me to millennia of isolation. I had to renounce myself and suffer my sentence at the very edges of Heaven.” He leaned heavily into his walking sticks and rose up from the rock. “I came here. Since I was lonely for the earth and lonely for humans, my sentence has been a blessing, not the punishment they envisioned.”

He walked slowly to where we stood and nodded at Michael. “I suppose you must hear it.”

Michael tried to grip my shoulder, but I shrugged him off. The Librarian’s mouth twitched, and I wondered if he’d noticed.

“Please,” Michael said.

“Very well.”

The Librarian drew himself up to his full height and pushed
his sunglasses to the top of his head, perching them on his hat brim. His eyes were closed. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes to fix me in his stare. I gasped: his eyes were milky white with blindness.

“Do you speak Aramaic, girl?” I shook my head dumbly, transfixed under his gaze. “Greek? Hebrew? No matter, I will translate it into English for you.”

He spread his arms wide, as if he could capture the energy of nature and send it back out with his words. He began to speak, almost sing, his voice echoing off the rocky walls as he recited the Prophecy.

Forever. The last word bounced off the canyon, mocking us with its finality. I stood silently, waiting for Michael to speak or the Librarian to move, anything to break the solemnity that had descended upon us.

“What does it mean?” Michael demanded, frustration coloring his tone. “It doesn’t make any sense. ‘The Key of Righteousness’? I’ve never even heard of that.”

The Librarian just shrugged and slid his glasses down back to his nose. “It is not mine to interpret. Just to deliver,” he said, as if there was no use debating it.

“But you know,” Michael retorted, pushing me away hastily to approach the old man. “You know what it means; you are probably the only one who knows what it means. You have to tell me.”

The man looked over Michael’s shoulder and seemed to stare straight through me. “It is not for me to interpret,” he repeated. “Those for whom it was intended must determine its meaning.”

Michael clenched his fist in rage. “You’re impossible! I remember now why you were banished. Old fool!” With that, he stomped off through the gap in the rock, leaving me alone with the Librarian.

I was not sure what to do, but the Librarian quickly made his own intention clear. “It is good that he left us, Hope. Come. Sit with me. I would hear what you think of the Prophecy.”

Surprised, I scuttled across the rock and sat at his feet.

“Go on,” he urged. “Tell me your thoughts.”

I hesitated. Who was I to tell a prophet what his prophecies meant? But he waited patiently for me to speak. Shyly, I cleared my throat.

“Well, it seems clear that the Fallen will rise again and take over Heaven.”

He tilted his head, gravely considering my words. “Does it, now?”

“Yes,” I continued, gaining confidence. “When they gain the Key to open the Gate of Heaven.”

He crossed his hands over his walking stick and pondered my pronouncement. “Do you know what the Gate of Heaven is, Hope?”

I paused. “I imagine that it’s not a physical gate, but something spiritual, or supernatural, that God has put in place to keep the Fallen out.”

He rocked back and forth on his perch, considering my answer. “Yes, I suppose it is metaphysical in nature, something quite different than what the words may suggest. God often speaks to us in codes and metaphors, testing our understanding of Him. I suppose that is what is testing Michael’s patience—he wants all the answers without the struggle of puzzling them through.”

I didn’t speak, knowing the Librarian was right.

“The Prophecy means for you to unravel its mysteries,” he continued. “It plays on words and metaphors and analogies, just like the parables of Christ. It is a pity you do not know the old languages, or you might have greater appreciation for it. Take this word, ‘Gate.’ It is
thura
in the Greek, ‘gate.’ It is a beautiful word, do you not think?”

I nodded, not really clear where he was going with his language lesson.

“You would do well to consider this as you think it through. You must think through the special role that you and Michael have to play, for God has ordained it for you both.”

He stared at me through the dark ovals of his sunglasses, and I felt a shiver run up my spine.

“Yes, words are simply names for things, and names are important.” I perked up—he was echoing the same words that Michael had spoken when he told me about Enoch changing his name. “Words signify who or what we are. They tell us our past, and our destiny. Have you ever considered your own name, Hope?”

I shook my head, riveted.

“Your first name, Hope, is not so mysterious. Hope. Expectation. Belief. Faith. That much is clear. But your last name—ah! Your last name. Carmichael. Some people think it refers to a sacred place in Scotland, the hills where the first church ever dedicated to your angel, Michael, was built. Others believe that it is a corruption—a bad translation—and that in its original form, it meant
Cor
or
Coeur de Michel
. ‘Michael’s Heart.’”

He stopped speaking, letting the portent of his words sink in.

“Either way, it is a strange coincidence, is it not? Or, if we believe that there are no coincidences—if we believe that what we call things matters—it would seem you and Michael belong to one another, have been destined from the beginning to come together in this way.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as the blood rushed to my face. Were my feelings for Michael so obvious? And what did those feelings even mean, considering that he’d lied to me, all but kidnapped me, and might end up killing me? But the Librarian seemed oblivious to my discomfort and continued on.

“You must forgive his temper, my dear. He is in pain, as you know. And he is unused to company.”

I was grateful for the change of subject and leaped upon it. “What do you mean?”

He sighed and gestured about him with his walking stick. “All angels work in pairs. Think of it as a buddy system of sorts to make sure they do not stray from the path. There are only two exceptions: Guardians, who have the company of the humans they keep, and Archangels, who are sent out as solitary emissaries of God’s word. It is a lonely job to keep over the centuries. I am sure it makes him a bit rough around the edges.” He smiled. “He might struggle with the normal feelings that come along with newfound companionship, not to mention those raging hormones that come along with a teenage boy’s body.” I felt my face flaming once again, but the old angel continued on, oblivious to my embarrassment. “So do not judge him harshly. He is doing the best he can.”

“But Enoch,” I said, finding his old, human name slipped more easily from my tongue. “Enoch—he will have to kill me. If I am the Bearer of the Key, he will have to. He will have no choice.”

He knitted his brow together. “It doesn’t have to end that way, Hope. But it all rests on your understanding of the Prophecy. You and Michael are not so far ahead of the ones who are pursuing you. The others will come. They know you defeated Lucas in battle. He will rally them, and they, too, will demand that I tell them what you have heard today. And no doubt they are looking for you even now.”

Icy fear gripped my chest. “How can Lucas rally them? He’s dead!”

He simply shook his head. “Angels are immortal, my dear. They can be beaten, but only God can wipe them from existence. Not even God’s own warrior can do that. That is why the battle over humankind is so bitter. Neither side will ever give up because neither side will ever really lose.”

He looked quizzically at me. “Did Michael let you think Lucas was dead?”

I nodded, confused. The Librarian seemed to read my mind.

“It was probably easier for him that way. You are a brave girl. Perhaps he needed to be sure you heeded that which you should fear.”

He leaned heavily onto his walking stick, hoisting himself up from his rocky perch and reaching into his cargo pants. He pulled out a crumpled-up ball of notebook paper and handed it to me. I smoothed it out and saw ancient, foreign words scratched against the blue lines, the hastily scrawled English translation squeezed into the margins. It was the Prophecy.

That something so precious would be written on normal notebook paper seemed wrong. Suddenly, the paper felt fragile and dry. I held it in my hand, afraid that if I gripped it too tight it would crumble away, leaving me to figure out my fate on my own.