It gave me time to look for Eran. He was defending himself against the boys, and doing it well, but I didn’t know the limits of his endurance.
Our fight took us farther into the fields, away from camp. I caught sight of Eran and realized that his fight had done the same. The girl and I were tumbling against the ground now, spraying dirt and dried grass but I felt no pain. The adrenaline rushing through me denied it.
Deep inside this body, as I watched it fight so efficiently against our enemy, I could sense that I was searching for her ultimate weakness, one that would incapacitate her.
We broke free, each dropping to the earth, crouching, ready for the next advance. Her eyes flickered, noticing something behind me. Immediately after, her wings pumped once and she was lifted directly into the sky where she spun and soared away at full speed. Another joined her in the air, though it struggled as it was now missing a wing, and they fled over the hillside.
I turned back to find Eran standing over the smaller boy where the boy’s head was twisted at an improper angle and his wings were sinking back into his body.
Eran was staring over his shoulder at me but then quickly rotated on his heel and sprinted in my direction, his expression turning to fear.
Only then did I notice the blood streaming down my forehead, drenching my hair. I had been wounded, I realized in a state of shock. I lifted my arms to meet Eran but he never reached me.
I was yanked through another tunnel and entered my body at the end of my life. Still whirling from my previous encounter, it took some time before I became aware that I no longer felt the energy of my youth. It had been replaced with fatigue as I had to put effort in to the simplest actions, such as breathing and keeping my eyes open. The bed I laid on was uneven, awkward, but that didn’t bother me. I was surrounded by family and friends, with one being most familiar to me.
Eran leaned over me, his dark hair now gray, his handsome face no more lessened by the wrinkles he’d acquired. “How are you feeling?” he asked, again in German.
Unable to answer him, the weight of my body pressing me down, I simply smiled.
“Are you sure you have the strength to finish?”
I found the power to smile again.
He stared down at me, shaking his head in wonder, his affectionate eyes encapsulating me. “I don’t understand why you put this on yourself…”
Alert to the fact that I was about to try and argue, he diverted it by waving on a woman behind him.
She wished to send a message to her brother who had died during the wars. The man behind her had a message for his mother. The family behind him longed to tell their grandfather about their prosperity. The line leading out the door slowly diminished until the last customer had given me her message for delivery.
Eran returned, leaning over me with a wet sponge, dabbing my brow, cooling my fever.
He wiped back tears and cleared his throat, and I craved for the strength to hold and comfort him.
“I-I have a confession to make. It’s a secret I kept not knowing how…how you would react.” He paused to swallow hard before continuing. “The night we met…on that road outside your family’s house…You were not a stranger to me.”
I felt my eyes widen.
“Don’t mistake me…I truly didn’t know it was you beneath your cloak then. That was…a pleasant surprise…because…we had never been introduced. I knew of you from afar. I had heard of you practicing, training, before you came here…before you fell. I was amazed by you back then…enamored…” he chuckled at himself, “like a school boy. But here, after spending a lifetime by your side…you are so much more than I imagined.” His tone became desperate, vehement. “You are all I care about. Nothing else matters.”
The urge to tell him that I felt the very same way was strong but I failed in trying. I knew my time was close.
As if sensing this, he leaned in, gently placing his mouth next to my ear. “I’ll see you soon,” he whispered and released an aching, quivering sigh. “But it won’t be soon enough.”
The last thing I felt was his tears fall against my cheek and I was yanked away.
A moment later, I was again standing in the Hall of Records, still holding my scroll between my hands. Glancing down at the fluid paper fluttering in my hands, it all seemed trivial when compared to what I had just experienced. Unable to move, I stared at the pockets along the wall without actually seeing them, Eran’s words repeating in my mind.
Those words didn’t fade even as I replaced my scroll in its pocket. I climbed down and decided to wait on a bench in the hall until I felt the familiar pull back to my bed in New Orleans.
It came but not before I acknowledged that the visits through my past lives would likely prove to be more difficult than I’d anticipated.
CHAPTER TEN: LONDON, ENGLAND
“Thank you for telling me,” Eran was saying. His voice was distant, coming from across my balcony.
I opened my eyes to find him standing with Campion beneath the morning sun, and I instantly felt cheerful. He’d come back again.
“I appreciate you keeping me informed,” said Eran.
“Yes, sir,” Campion responded.
I watched their interaction, realizing that Campion must have told him about our dinner meeting.
Eran clapped Campion on the shoulder and they entered the room. Seeing me awake, he told Campion to meet us downstairs and Eran approached me, his demeanor content.
“Welcome back,” he said, taking a seat on the edge of my bed since this had become his tradition. He watched me and then tilted his head. “Do you have something on your mind?”
“No…No. I think Campion has probably said it all.” I couldn’t imagine him leaving out any important details. “Do you have anything to tell me?” I hinted about his ventures out during the night. “Any ideas who came after us in the cemetery?”
His face fell and he became visibly uncomfortable. “Nothing is confirmed yet. I’m going out again tonight.”
“All right,” I replied, staring in to the face of the man who I’d seen tearing up at my death bed a few minutes earlier. He was now relaxed, at peace. It all felt so surreal.
“Are you sure you have nothing to tell me?”
“Nope,” I replied. I wanted to keep that remembrance to myself.
“All right,” he said unsure. “By the way, you’ll have a busy day in The Square. It’s sunny outside.” He nodded towards the now closed French doors.
“Then we’d better get started,” I said, swinging my legs off the bed.
“Yes, we’d better,” he agreed lightheartedly with a chuckle. It was a nice contrast to our last interaction together.
Eran was correct. I was kept busy at The Square. Not only did I need to relay return messages to those I’d delivered the night before but I took new messages for delivery with the agreement that the customers would return the following weekend when I returned to The Square.
Occasionally, I would search for Eran in the crowd and find him perusing the other vendors’ tables or reading the newspaper in the shade. I knew, however, that these were just acts. He would never divert his attention from the task of keeping me safe. I knew this now more than ever.
I found myself thinking about my time in Germany and then forward to my first session with Ms. Beedinwigg tonight, wondering how she would train me for protection against the Fallen Ones. Though I couldn’t comprehend how she would do it, I trusted Ms. Beedinwigg that she knew what she was doing. I had to…for everyone’s sake.
Eran and I rode home together at sunset and I began to realize that I wasn’t irritable about his aloofness towards me. I understood now. My desire to be close to him hadn’t faded and we sat just as close at the dinner table as we usually did; but I noticed the feeling of rejection dissipating by knowing why he chose to be so aloof towards me.
Before he left for the night, I whispered to him, “See you in the morning.”
He was pleasantly impressed with the change in me. “Yes, you will.”
I watched him ascend into the night and then Campion and I took my bike to Mr. Hamilton’s residence across the city. The house was dark with the exception of the porch light that cast a hazy orange glow across the doorway and columns.
Alfred met us at the door, just as before, wearing another proper butler uniform and reserved expression.
“Good evening, Alfred,” I said, entering the house, noticing how it was so quiet. If it weren’t for the furniture and artwork, I would have second guessed that anyone still lived there.
“Ms. Tanner,” Alfred replied once the door was closed and we were standing in the large foyer. “Ms. Beedinwigg awaits you below.”
He escorted us to the hallway where Ms. Beedinwigg had exposed the hidden staircase and pushed the same space on the wall. The wall swung open and we descended the stairs, finding that the lights were on and Ms. Beedinwigg was in the process of checking her equipment.
“Ms. Beedinwigg,” I called out, letting her know we’d arrived as Campion took a seat on a folding chair against the wall.
“Welcome,” she said complacently without looking up. She then strolled across the room towards us, her long dress almost catching on the edge of the machines as she approached.
Once reaching me, she stopped and surveyed what I was wearing. “Your biker boots may be a problem.”
“These are all I wear,” I said appalled at the idea of changing them.
“Then you’ll have to make due,” she stated. “I need to get myself ready.”
I’d expected her to climb the staircase and return a few minutes later but she never took a single step. She proceeded to strip off her clothes, revealing a skintight leather suit beneath it, and slip the glasses over her head to place them on the table next to her dress. Lastly, she unwound her bun, allowing her auburn hair to fall down her back and over her shoulders.
Standing before me now, I saw her for what she was…a warrior.
I then glanced back at Campion who gave me a nod of approval.
“So,” she said appearing not to notice my exchange with Campion, “are you ready to learn to fight?”
My eyebrows rose. “Never been more so.”
She smiled briefly, turned and entered the practice room. “What do you know about the Fallen Ones?”
I followed her while answering. “They look like us but they each have unique superhuman abilities.”
“And?” she persisted.
“And these abilities give them unique defenses. What kills one doesn’t necessarily kill the other.”
“Good.” She seemed pleased. “What else?”
“They’re strategic. They don’t act on impulse.”
“Correct. Most have been here for hundreds of years. They have all the time in the world.”
She was leading me through one of the aisles of equipment, though she was no longer inspecting them. “What else can you tell me?”
I shrugged. “They don’t know what our defenses are either.”
“That’s right,” said Ms. Beedinwigg, spinning to face me. “And we’ll be working that to our advantage. Now…did you visit your past lives last night?”
“One of them,” I said following her.
“Visit them all,” she instructed. “Each lifetime you will learn how to kill a Fallen One or, at the very least, maim them. You will also learn how they kill. Learn their ways, what makes them weak, vulnerable, and use that knowledge in battle.”
“I will,” I promised.
“Now…I know from Mr. Warden’s records of you at school that you have no defensive training so we will start with the basics,” she informed me. “Strength, flexibility, cardio respiratory…balance.”
We had reached the far corner of the room where a piece of equipment had been created, running the length of the wall. She ushered me towards it and I stepped up to the opening, noticing the pulleys, levers, and platforms crisscrossing my route.
“I’ll need to assess your abilities. Make it through as best you can. I’ll be waiting for you on the other side with my stopwatch. It may be a little challenging in the beginning,” she warned. Then, without any real warning, she shouted, “Go!”
Her forewarning turned out to be an understatement.
I raced into the contraption as fast as my body could take me, surprising even myself at my dexterity, using overhead bars to pull myself above ground obstacles. It turned out the course grew more challenging the farther in I reached, becoming an obstacle course with rapid triggers. Each time I landed, my foot activated a sideswiping board; every beam I used to balance myself set off a tripping mechanism aimed at my feet. I couldn’t touch anything without causing a reaction. At the end, panting and dizzy, I found that she and Campion were frowning.
“You’ll improve. Muscle memory,” she explained, “will help your muscles to react spontaneously, in reflex when needed.”
She then led me to a circular board large enough for two people to stand on. Because a ball was anchored in the center at the bottom of the board it tilted to the side, resting one end on the ground.
“I’m going to show you combat techniques now and I want you to use them to defend yourself on the board, so you’ll need to commit them to memory.”
After a brief overview, she stepped on the board and pointed to the opposite edge. The moment both my feet were planted on it, it began to wobble but this didn’t seem to affect her. On the other hand, as she threw her punches and kicks, I ended up on the ground more often than on the board.
By the end of the session, I was bruised and exhausted.
“Rest up,” she said, escorting us to the front door. “I’ll see you tomorrow in class and we begin again in the evening.”
That’s right, I thought miserable at the realization. I had school tomorrow and I wasn’t sure how my body was going to get through it.
“And Maggie…” she added. “Keep visiting your past lives. It may be tough at times but you’ll appreciate the knowledge they can give you.”
“Right…London tonight,” I muttered to myself.
“The Black Plaque,” she said, again amazing me at how much she knew of my past. “That will be particularly grueling.”
“Looking forward to it,” I replied sarcastically upbeat.