Eternity (4 page)

Chapter Seven

The indulgent escape of our weekend over, Michael and I were forced to return to the facade of being ordinary students. The endless round of classes; homework; and, for Michael, football practice took our minds off the waiting a bit. Although Michael still seemed better able to escape into the normal-teenager routine. We were afraid, though, that pretending to forget might someday become the same thing as forgetting.

So we promised to keep on writing our letters, especially because we didn’t know the potential danger lurking in the exercise of our powers. We couldn’t fly anymore, so we experienced the joy and freedom of soaring down the coast through our words. We wouldn’t take the risk of actually reading another’s thoughts, so instead we described the rush we got off a flash from another mind. We couldn’t dare sample each other’s blood, so we sought out terms to capture the intense closeness we felt when we used to. We didn’t dare become physically intimate, so we wrote words of love to each other instead. Through our letters, Michael and I clung to the truth.

On Monday and Tuesday, the letters sufficed. They even seemed romantic in an old-fashioned, Jane Austen sort of way. Michael always had a note waiting for me in his hand when we met up after every class, and I had one for him. I couldn’t wait to get to the next class, where I could unfold the pages slowly and secretly and lose myself in his words. For a few glorious minutes, I’d return to the nights earlier in the fall when Michael and I were free to revel in our powers and each other, before we learned too much about why we had our powers. His phrases got me through the endless school days and strengthened my resolve that we would make it through to the other side of the end days, whatever that meant.

Yet, on Wednesday, Michael didn’t have a letter prepared for me after English class. It was the very first time this had happened since our return from Boston. Tuesday night’s grueling football practice, he explained apologetically, had left him so spent that he fell asleep during first period. Even though I was disappointed, I understood, of course; Coach Samuel had been running him ragged, even giving Michael extra workouts because he thought he had the talent to play college football. Michael tried to make it up to me by having notes at the ready after the rest of my classes. And I relished them, even though they were somewhat shorter than the ones I’d grown accustomed to.

For some reason, when I got home after school on Wednesday, rebellious thoughts wormed their way into my consciousness. Starting with my parents. As I sat across the dinner table from them, pretending everything was hunky-dory, certain of Ezekiel’s claims nagged at me. He had told me that my parents weren’t my birth parents, that they had adopted me. That my human mother had died. As I passed the salt or answered my parents’ inane questions about homework, I felt myself get angry at them for keeping the truth from me, even if they thought they were doing it for the right reasons.

I found myself wondering about my biological parents. Who were they? Tamiel had confessed that my human mother was “gone,” but would say no more. Did she mean dead? And where was my father? Since he must be a fallen angel—an immortal—he must be roaming the earth somewhere. I couldn’t ask my parents any of these questions, or reveal everything Michael and I had worked to hide. Instead, the questions seethed beneath the surface, making me angrier and angrier at all this pretending.

Nighttime offered little relief from the disloyal churning of my mind. I tossed and turned in my bed, thinking about how Michael treated me before I left for Boston. I relived the evening when he lured me to Ransom Beach with promises of watching the sunset together. I experienced again the feeling of betrayal when Michael instead foisted Ezekiel upon me and—right before my eyes—became an automaton for Ezekiel’s commands to sway me toward his sick quest for power. Telling myself that the Ransom Beach Michael wasn’t
my
Michael but some zombielike Ezekiel follower only went so far.

When I was finally able to drift off to sleep, the dreams came. Unsettling visions of death and destruction. The images reminded me of the horrific flashes I’d received from Ezekiel’s mind. Except for one, in which a luminous sword vanquished the darkness.

When I awoke on Thursday morning, I wondered what was happening to me. Why was I harboring these unfaithful thoughts about my parents and, more disconcertingly, Michael? Was my self-doubt over being the Elect One running rampant and taking Michael as its target? Michael was my love, my soul mate, the one who always had my back. I mean, he had even killed his own father to protect me.

Did these subconscious doubts actually stem from the change in the frequency and length of Michael’s notes? Why should it matter if his letters were shorter? Or if he skipped sending a letter after a class or two? It seemed ridiculous, especially in the context of the looming end days. Did I have misgivings because Michael had thrown himself into football? If so, that was totally unfair of me, since we had agreed to act as normally as possible. And for Michael, football was normal.

Since I didn’t have an answer, I chalked it up to the strain of waiting for the results of Ruth’s research. Or, I thought, maybe it stemmed from the fact that anything
real
Michael and I needed to say had to be committed to paper. It was taking a toll, yet I couldn’t afford to entertain personal problems.

I needed to shake off my doubts. I needed to stay focused. I reminded myself that I was strong. I was a Nephilim. I was the Elect One.

So, on Thursday evening, I decided to throw myself into a paper on Edith Wharton for the odious Miss Taunton instead of brooding. Since pretending was the name of the game these days, I had decided to knock Miss Taunton’s socks off with my brilliance. More important, her challenging assignment took my mind off
everything
. Even the crumpled-up note from Michael on my nightstand, the one he’d ended abruptly—with a “see you later” instead of “love”—because he had to run to practice.

The phone rang. I heard it, but I was too deeply engrossed in
The Age of Innocence
to have it truly register.

“Dearest, it’s Ruth,” my mom yelled up the stairs.

Why hadn’t Ruth called me on my cell? She knew I kept it on my desk when I was doing homework. As I picked up the phone, I took a quick look at my cell, and realized that it was my fault; I’d inadvertently turned the ringer off. Even still, between my big-picture problems, my minor frustrations over English, and my lack of sleep, I was feeling uncharacteristically irritable.

I picked up the phone, guessing at why she’d be calling. “Hey, Ruth. If you’re calling for some tips about writing this stupid English paper, don’t bother. I have no insights to offer. I’m struggling myself.” Even though I was committed to the assignment, I couldn’t help my irritation at having to deliver on my English homework. I mean, would mastery of the finer details of Edith Wharton’s life help in the apocalypse?

“I wouldn’t worry about the paper too much, Ellie.”

“Why? You don’t think that Miss Taunton is going to give us some slack, do you? I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“No, Ellie, that’s not why.”

“Then why?”

“I think it’d be better if we talked it over in person. Can you meet me at the coffee shop tonight?”

“No, Ruth. It’s almost nine. I don’t think my parents would be too thrilled about me going to the Daily Grind right now. Plus, I have to finish this paper by tomorrow morning. And so do you.”

Her patience finally ran out, turning her sweet tone sour. “Ellie, I think you have more important things to worry about than Miss Taunton’s paper. In fact, that paper is the least of your problems.”

I felt sick to my stomach. I suddenly had a feeling where this conversation was going. “What do you mean?”

“All this pretending that you and Michael have been doing isn’t working. The end days have already begun.”

Chapter Eight

I convinced my parents to let me go to the Daily Grind. I told them that Ruth was upset about a fight with Jamie and needed consoling. They were reluctant. Still, they agreed on the condition that I only stay an hour.

I don’t know what excuse Michael offered his parents, but he made it there too, after I called him. Even though he greeted me with his usual kiss, he seemed distracted. It was almost like we’d interrupted him from something
really
important. What could be more critical than preventing the end of time?

The Daily Grind was surprisingly busy, given the hour. The high school crowd apparently moved out around seven
p.m
., only to be replaced by the college students later on. Even though no one said it aloud, I knew we were all thankful for the bustle around us. It softened the tension. It made us all feel less alone.

We managed to secure a table from a group of departing students. After we took our seats, I reached for Michael’s hand while we waited for Ruth to finish rummaging through her bag. He grasped mine back. It made me feel reconnected to him, particularly after the disloyal thoughts I’d harbored the day before.

Ruth cleared her throat and slid a folder to us across the table. She was visibly nervous. At last, she whispered, “I think the earthquakes going on around the world are the first sign of the end days.”

“The earthquakes?” Michael asked.

Ruth looked over at Michael in surprise. “You know, the magnitude seven jolt that the Caribbean got several days ago that’s causing all sorts of devastation? And the seven and eight magnitude earthquakes that have happened in China, Chile, Japan, Indonesia, and California over the past week? Maybe you haven’t heard about those since they’re getting much less play in the media.”

She could be very literal. At the worst times.

“I’ve seen the news, Ruth,” Michael responded a bit defensively. “I meant, how could the earthquakes be signs? Signs of what?”

“I guess I should back up a couple steps. You guys have heard of the Book of Enoch?”

We both nodded. I had researched it myself at the Andover-Harvard Theological Library in Boston. Ezekiel had quoted from it liberally and ominously. My stomach flipped at the mention of it.

“Okay, then you know that some biblical experts believe that the Book of Enoch describes the emergence of the Nephilim and the Elect One. Some experts theorize that this Elect One will surface as the apocalypse begins. The Elect One is the only being who can stop the end days and save the earth—and all the humans on it—from certain destruction. Or enslavement by the darkness, depending on which expert you’re reading.”

Ruth continued. “Well, the Bible book that truly gets into the end days is Revelation, one of the most complicated and nonlinear books of the Bible. In Revelation, God hands a scroll to a figure called the Lamb. The Lamb has been interpreted to be a messianic figure, kind of like the Elect One. This scroll has seven wax seals, each of which represents the seven events or signs that will happen before the annihilation of the earth. Revelation also mentioned seven trumpets—seven other events—that could happen after the seven seals. Since most experts don’t focus on the seven trumpets, I didn’t either. I stuck to the seven seals. Simplified and in this order, the seven seals are the following: earthquakes; famine; widespread disease; economic depression; persecution of Christians; warfare; and the emergence of a leader who will seem to unite people in the face of all this devastation but who actually has other, more nefarious plans. This leader has been described as a sort of anti-Messiah. Once this leader comes on the scene with the seventh seal, well, Revelation lists all kinds of terrible events he or she will inflict on the earth to bring about the end. In order to stop the earth’s destruction, either the Lamb—or the Elect One—must stop these seven seals.”

Ruth took a deep breath before speaking again. “I’ve been studying the news and looking for patterns. I wanted to see if all this pretending to be normal that you two are doing is stopping the clock of these end-days events. I’m pretty sure your pretending has failed.”

I felt sick to my stomach. “What do you mean?”

“I think the earthquakes are the first sign.”

Michael pulled his hand away from mine and said, “There have been hundreds of earthquakes in the past. And they didn’t signal the end of time.”

Ruth motioned for us to open the folder. Inside, I found newspaper articles and charts and graphs and summaries of current and past world events. When Ruth took on a task, she really took it on.

“At no other point in history have there been earthquakes quite like this, not as many of this magnitude in such a short time, anyway. It seems that the earth is in an especially volatile phase.” She paused. “And it seems that the earth entered this phase precisely when you and Ellie learned who you were.”

Michael was momentarily silenced.

“Could it be a coincidence?” I asked, pleading for the impossible.

“I don’t think so, Ellie.” Ruth reached out and touched my empty hand. “I’m so sorry. I think the clock started the moment you learned the truth. Never mind that your parents tried to make you forget and never mind all your pretending.”

Michael interjected, “This can’t be right. I understood what Ezekiel said. I knew that it might be coming. That said, this couldn’t possibly be the beginning of the end days. I mean, look around at all these kids getting their coffee and going about their daily business. Would the apocalypse look like this?”

I heard the fear in his voice. We hadn’t liked the waiting. Right now, it seemed preferable to this next, terrifying stage of knowledge. We should’ve been more careful what we wished for.

Since I clearly didn’t have the heart to reproach him, Ruth took on the job of admonishing him instead. “Michael, you asked me to research the Nephilim and the end days, and I did. I can’t help it if you don’t like what I found. Or if you don’t believe it.”

Michael’s face softened, and I saw remorse in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Ruth. You’re right. The news is hard to take, that’s all. Don’t kill the messenger, right?”

Ruth managed a forgiving chuckle.

Michael reached for my hand again. The warmth of his hand in mine offered some comfort. It reminded me that I was not alone in all this madness.

“What does your research say that Ellie and I should do next?” He asked the logical next question. One I should have asked myself, but all this talk of the Elect One was clouding my thinking.

“Boiled way down, Revelation says that the Elect One has to stop the signs to stop the apocalypse. Unfortunately, it definitely doesn’t offer any step-by-step instructions as to how the Elect One should go about that. It’s no how-to guidebook, that’s for sure. Revelation is far too dense and cryptic for that; it’s written with all this crazy symbolic imagery. I thought our best bet would be to try and predict the next sign. And then evaluate what you guys could do to prevent it from happening.”

“I’m guessing that you’ve already started that little project?” I asked with a smile. If I knew Ruth, she’d probably already created bar graphs and statistical models forecasting the next sign.

Ruth smiled. “Of course.” Her smiled faded, as she added, “I don’t have anything definitive at the moment.”

“So we wait some more,” Michael said with a heavy sigh.

Ruth nodded apologetically. “We wait. Not too long, though. I don’t think we have too long.”

I asked, “Should we tell our parents? They might be able to give us some answers. You know, they were angels at one point. And it sounds like our playacting hasn’t stopped the end days anyway.”

“Even though our pretending to forget might not be preventing the end days, it still might be offering them some protection, Ellie,” Michael answered quietly. “I hope so, anyway.”

I thought back to Ezekiel’s warning that we could bring harm upon our parents if we told them what we knew. Maybe Ezekiel’s words carried an empty threat, but we couldn’t take the chance. My parents were mortal now, after all, and I didn’t think they had any angelic means left to protect themselves against the likes of Ezekiel or his fallen kin.

“We keep them in the dark, for now,” I agreed.

“For now.”

My cell phone beeped. I looked down and saw a “gentle reminder” text from my parents. I picked up my bag and said, “Well, I better get home. My hour is up.”

Michael stood up as well. “I better go too. I have a game tomorrow night.”

How could he think of a football game at a time like this? I almost said something but stopped myself. Maybe Michael was simply playing the part of dedicated football player. Much like I had adopted the role of keen English student. I shouldn’t judge him. We had committed ourselves to the playacting. For now.