Authors: Heather Terrell
“Ruth, you said I could call if I needed you. I really, really need you.”
To her credit, Ruth didn’t ask what happened or why I needed help. She just asked where I was, and said she’d pick me up in twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes? Twenty minutes sounded like an eternity when I knew how fast Ezekiel and Michael could travel if they wanted. I prayed that Ezekiel meant what he said just before I took off: “Let her go, Michael. She will return to us when she is ready.”
Rainwater pooled at my feet as I slid my cell back into my bag. I wiped off my face and hair as best I could with a dry T-shirt from my bag, and looked around the kitschy general store, The Maine Event. In summertime, when the tourists flocked to the beaches and even the locals became regulars at the seaside hangouts, this place swarmed with visitors. Now, manned by a single attendant, it didn’t exactly have the comfort of crowds. But I didn’t spot a lot of other options as I skirted this isolated stretch of highway, especially once it started to storm.
Trying to look occupied, I strolled around the store. I spun carousels of postcards and examined shelves with seashells and local preserves. The attendant gave me a curious once-over, so I hoped that I looked more appropriate—and interested—than I felt. My mind whirred with the horrors I’d seen through Ezekiel’s eyes and the narrowness of my escape.
After exactly twenty minutes, I heard the bell over the front door ring. My stomach lurched. I wasn’t sure whether it was my savior Ruth or my persecutors.
Thank God it was Ruth.
She raced over. “Are you okay? You look terrible.”
“I’m fine. Really I am.”
“Did Michael do something to you?”
I knew that would be her presumption; after all, she’d looked reluctant to drop me off with Michael at Ransom Beach less than two hours ago. In formulating my reason for the emergency pickup, I had decided to play on that assumption. “We just had a fight. And I didn’t trust him to bring me home straightaway.”
“I understand.” She gave me a hug and pulled me toward the door. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”
Home. I wished I could go home, but I couldn’t. I would have to enlist Ruth’s unwitting aid once more—to protect myself and my parents. And her, for that matter.
We drove in silence until I asked her about Jamie. Her face lit up as she described how smart he was and how helpful with her homework. I kept her talking until we neared the Tillinghast town green. When we pulled alongside the whitewashed town church, I asked her to stop the car for a minute.
“Ruth, I’m going to ask for an enormous favor. The biggest favor I’ve ever asked of you. And I’m not going to be able to tell you why.”
“Okay,” she said hesitantly.
“Can you please take me to the train station? And not tell my parents or Michael. Or anyone else who might ask.”
She paused, weighing very carefully whether or not to utter her next words. “Ellie, I know.”
“Know what?”
“I know about you and Michael—and the flying.”
I was stunned into speechlessness.
Ruth looked down at her hands, almost embarrassed by what she’d said and how she knew. “I told you earlier that I just didn’t understand the whole Facebook thing. It seemed totally out of character for you, and you acted so different afterward. So I started eavesdropping here and there. I overheard you saying to Michael that you’d see him later that night—even though you were grounded. It got me wondering whether you two were sneaking out, and whether Michael was the reason you changed so much. So I began to follow you—at night. That’s when I saw you fly for the first time.”
“You saw us.” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Yes.” She smiled despite herself. “It was really amazing to watch.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“Ellie, does the trip to the train station have something to do with your flying?”
“Yes, in a way.”
She paused again. It was strange for me to watch my best friend of seven years acting so uncomfortable around me. “What are you, Ellie?”
I didn’t have an answer, although I wished desperately that I did. “Would you believe me if I told you that I honestly don’t know?”
Reaching out toward me, she clasped my hand. “After seeing you two fly, I’d believe anything.”
I didn’t want to push her along, but I knew I was running out of time. “So you’ll take me to the train station?”
“Do you really need to go? I don’t know what I’ll do without you, Ellie. Especially now that you are back. The real you, I mean.”
Tears started welling up in my eyes at the idea of leaving my poor parents behind. And Ruth. And Tillinghast. But I knew I couldn’t stay. Ezekiel had warned me.
“I have to go. It’s in everyone’s best interest,” I said, knowing that Ruth couldn’t possibly comprehend—or believe—the danger I’d be thrusting upon Tillinghast if I didn’t leave.
“Take me with you, Ellie,” she said suddenly. Although I could tell she’d been mustering up the courage to make her request.
“You don’t want to be a part of this. I promise you.”
“Ellie, I don’t know what you are, but I know you are more than human.” She started to cry too. “I’ve seen up close what it means to be human. With my mom’s death. And I don’t want to end up like that. I’d rather be like you.”
Watching Ruth cry made me cry harder. “Oh, Ruth, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t turn you into whatever I am. And anyway, I don’t think my differences make me immune from dying.”
We hugged each other for a long time. Ruth broke away first, and turned the car back on. “I guess I should take you to the train station.”
I walked into the back entrance of the sleepy Tillinghast train station feeling more alone than ever before. It wasn’t because the station was empty except for a lone ticket agent or because I was uncertain about my destination. It was because I was truly on my own.
I didn’t know when—or how—my solitude would end. I couldn’t see or even contact my parents until I could be certain I wouldn’t cause them harm. The same applied to Ruth. As for Michael, well, he had chosen Ezekiel over me; he was gone. And there was no one else.
As I stared up at the train destination board, a tear ran down my cheek. For a split second, I was glad to be alone. I didn’t want anyone to see my weakness. I needed to be strong to face the coming days.
Wiping the tear away, I concentrated on the board. I scanned the list of trains slated to leave the station in the morning, but immediately rejected those as departing too late. I couldn’t chance staying overnight in the station. I didn’t doubt that Ezekiel could descend upon me if he so chose, but I did not want my parents to find me and suffer Ezekiel’s wrath.
Then I noticed that one last train was due into the station that night, just after eight
P.M.
Called the Downeaster, the train stopped at the Tillinghast station in fifteen minutes. It would arrive in Boston in about three hours—Boston. I had my destination; it couldn’t have been more perfect if I’d planned it.
I waited until the station agent stepped away from his post to buy my ticket from the ticket machine with cash. Purchasing it from the automated teller rather than the agent seemed wiser. I’d gain some lead time if Ezekiel and Michael changed their collective minds and followed me, instead of waiting as Ezekiel initially instructed.
Ticket in hand, I headed into the ladies’ room to wait until I heard the train pull into the station. I didn’t want to give the agent any additional time to identify me. I paced around restlessly, listening intently for the train and making a few critical internet searches before I tossed my cell phone. I didn’t want anyone to trace me that way either.
As I jotted down the vital pieces of information from my research, I heard the chug of the train. Then I threw my cell into the trash.
Peering out the bathroom door, I didn’t see the agent anywhere. I darted from the bathroom into the train, quickly grabbed a seat, and buried myself in a book I snatched from my bag. I didn’t want to look as if I’d just boarded, in case the Tillinghast agent peeked in.
I didn’t really exhale until the train pulled away from the Tillinghast station. Only then, and only surreptitiously, did I assess my fellow travelers. In the rear of the car sat two businessmen talking about a meeting they had the next morning with a prospective client. In the occupied seats closest to mine were a few kids that looked like they were headed back to college. I kept an eye on them. Their sweatshirts, backpacks, and other paraphernalia bore the Harvard logo, and I thought they might prove useful.
The door separating the cars suddenly slid open, and I jumped. It was only the conductor ready to take my ticket. As I pretended to rifle through my bag so I wouldn’t have to look directly at him, I handed it over. He punched it and then placed the stub in the slot above my head. His business completed, he left the car.
I had three hours until we reached Boston. Three hours to prepare. Three hours to map out a game plan.
I decided to start by assessing my resources—whatever was in my bag. I hadn’t exactly planned my departure in advance, so I was limited to what I carried. When we traveled, my parents always insisted that I carry on my person all the necessities should I ever be separated from them—a couple hundred dollars, identification, a toiletry bag with essentials, credit cards, and an ATM card that now I’d have to avoid using except when absolutely necessary. I’d gotten into the habit of carrying these things. Lucky that I did. It made me prepared for a day like this. Maybe that was their intention all along; maybe they knew a day like this would come.
Thinking about my parents—and I would always consider them my mom and dad, birth parents or not—made my eyes start to well up again. I wasn’t mad at them anymore for keeping secrets; I understood that they were just trying to protect me. They’d even given up their immortality to shield me. And even though Ezekiel couldn’t be trusted, I believed what he said about their sacrificed immortality when I thought how my parents had aged in the past sixteen years after staying youthful for over a hundred years of pictures.
But if they weren’t my real parents, who were? Were my real parents still alive? Why did Hananel and Daniel have to raise me? Who did they make that arrangement with?
They would be worried sick about me by now. I wondered if they would file a police report or conduct a search for me on their own. I hoped they still had some residual powers on which they could draw.
But I didn’t have the luxury of emotions, and I certainly didn’t want to draw attention to myself by crying. So I took a pad of paper and pen from my bag and scribbled down all my questions.
The train rocked back and forth and stopped from time to time during the three hours to Boston. But I was so engrossed, these events hardly registered with me. By the time the train screeched into Boston’s North Station, I had made a list of the questions I had about my nature and future.
I looked down at my notes:
1. What was I? My gifts sounded a lot like the ones Dad had described for angels. Did that mean I was an angel, fallen or good? Or was I some other kind of supernatural being? Mom had said I was “somewhat different” from the angels.
2. What was my purpose? Dad said that the angels were meant to use their gifts—flying, flashes, and persuasive powers—to guide souls to God. Was that what I was supposed to be doing with mine? After all, before the whole Facebook thing, I’d experienced that intense compulsion to help others. But Mom and Dad had hinted that I had some kind of special role. What was that role?
3. Who was Ezekiel, and why was he so interested in me? I had guessed that he was one of the fallen angels, but not the kind seeking redemption. If so, why didn’t he just use his persuasive powers to force me to his side? It seemed like he had some kind of influence over Michael in that way. And how did Ezekiel find me and Michael anyway?
4. If I could even believe Ezekiel about my parents, who were my birth parents? And where were they? And why had Hannah (I couldn’t think of her as Hananel) and Daniel agreed to raise me?
5. Had I lost Michael to Ezekiel forever?
I prayed that these questions might be answered in Boston, because, without the answers, I was paralyzed. And terribly confused. But armed with this information, I might stand a chance against Ezekiel, and might be able to protect my parents in the process.
The students riding along with me were headed to the same place, so I followed in their wake. I hoped that it would make me seem like just another college student. I trailed along after them as they connected into Boston’s subway system, the T, and hopped on a Red Line train headed for Cambridge. Nowhere along the way did I sense that I was being tracked.
I alighted when the students did and tagged along—at a distance—as they walked to their campus. As they filed into their dorms, I started to get concerned. What was I going to do until tomorrow morning? I wasn’t worried about staying awake until sunrise—I’d had too many long nights with Michael to worry about that—but staying safe and inconspicuous.
Then I remembered we had passed an all-night coffee shop when we walked from the T stop toward the dorms. It seemed to cater to students with its late hours and free internet. So I headed back in that direction.
When I opened the door, I saw that it was populated by bleary-eyed undergrads studying and cranking out papers, fueled by coffee and cookies. I knew I had my waiting spot.
I had nearly nine hours to kill until nine
A.M.
—when I could try to meet with Professor McMaster.