Awakening (Children of Angels) (22 page)

“
Yes,
”
replied Leonara softly
“
it was important for you to see these things. To see how everything began. To interpret them for yourself. What I showed you was exactly as things happened, if I had told you what had happened, you would have had
my
interpretation of it. And in matters as serious as these, it is important that you are free to make your own choices, your own understandings.
”

Mia nodded, yes, it was better that she had seen the things for herself. Even knowing that she witnessed them with her own two eyes, she had difficulty believing in them.

“
Does He know I was there?
”

“
No, Mia. He does not keep a check on who visits that Truth and who does not.
”

“
But why?
”
asked Mia, curious. The only other Truth that involved past events that she had visited was her own birth, and it had been essential that no-one knew she had been there.

“
Because a long time ago, they both agreed that any of their children should be able to witness firsthand what happened, why the family broke, why we now live apart. It is about the only part of the original agreement that
he
has kept, the Brother. And so no, Mia, He does not know you were there - nor would He mind if He did.
”

“
Wow.
”

There was no word that would do this justice, no word to convey her feelings, instead she simply closed her eyes and stood in silence, breathing in the cool mountain air, and remembered the room where she had heard the voices. The voices of God and His brother.

After a few minutes of digesting this information, attempting to process it, and opening her eyes to stare across the vast mountain range again, Mia found her voice.

“
So everything from the dream - that was
‘
real
’
?
”

“
In a way, yes. Everything was as it happened. Until that boy turned up, and started twisting things.
”

“
So the garden? What was with the garden?
”
asked Mia, plonking herself down on a flat rock and looking up at Leonara, even more beautifully imposing now that the sunlight shone through the clouds behind her, giving her an eerie glow.

“
Was the story not familiar to you at all, little one? Your human bible may have gotten some things terribly wrong, missed out great chunks of the True History, but some parts, it just about managed
”
she winked.

Mia furrowed her brow and tried to think. The Bible? She had been in a story from the Bible? In truth, her family (she felt a sudden pang as she thought of them, and it caught her off guard for a moment) had never been all that religious. Whenever she thought of the Bible, all that sprang to mind was the story of the birth of Christ, and that certainly was not what she had seen.

Leonara watched the girl trying to puzzle it out. She knew that the girl’s family had not raised her to be particularly religious. In a way, this was better. Religious people have such set-in ways of thinking, beliefs so strong that in some cases they are almost Truths.

“
Think way back,
”
Leonara hinted
“
way
back.
”

“
Everything in the Bible is way back,
”
quipped Mia with a cheeky grin
“
okay, I give. I have no idea. I
’
m clearly the worst Angel ever.
”

“
The Beginning, Mia. Creation. That
’
s what you were witnessing.
”

“
Creation? As in
…
.Adam and Eve?
”
she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“
That
’
s right. And you made a very cute Eve, I might add - it
’
s just a shame that Adam couldn
’
t make his grand entrance. First man on Earth, and no-one
’
s ever seen the poor guy. Probably never will, now that boy ruined it for us.
”
Leonara's tone was bitter, and her brow furrowed.

“
Well
…
why did I need to see that?
”
asked Mia, confused.

Understanding how the Brothers had parted ways, that at least made some sense. It was part of her history., part of how she came to be the enemy of the strange boy. But the creation of humans? That really didn’t have much to do with her at all.

“
Creation is what gave us everything around us, Mia. The Brothers wanted to create a place where their children could meet on neutral ground. Their own personal Switzerland, if you will - so they literally created Switzerland-
”
she winked
“
they created the Earth as somewhere between their own two kingdoms, so that we could know one another. Perhaps even find a way to heal the rift between Our Fathers.

Between them, they worked tirelessly - and I assure you it took a great deal more than six days, as your Bible would have you believe - to create this beautiful place for us. And for a time, a great deal of time, it was a peaceful place.

We had no reason to fight, we simply went about our existences, meeting with one another, getting acquainted, learning about one another’s homes. We helped in the maintenance of this place. This land was ours.”

Mia looked out across the mountains, at the horizon, knowing that so much more lay beyond.

“
Then things changed. For whatever reason, Our Fathers grew
…
curious, I suppose. They had created us, and they had created this beautiful place, this enchanting land, which was only visited by those who did not really need it. It served no purpose, and it seemed a shame that all this was going to waste. And so they agreed to make new life. Life that would exist solely on this Earth, and nowhere else. The Earth would become a place filled with new and varied kinds of life, which could be born and live and die. They made it so that animals could reproduce their populations. And they were proud of their achievement. They revelled in the glory of their ability to not only create life, but to create life that could create life.

Even though there had been a great deal of time, in terms of the human concept of it, since they had lived together in that place you visited, they were still working together, to create this new thing. It looked as though it might unify them again.

And then it changed again. The Brother, he betrayed Our Father.”

Leonara stopped talking, her eyes glassy and unfocused. She was
there
, in her mind, Mia could tell. She was not here - she was living it as though it were happening now. Patiently, Mia waited for her to continue, and finally, after a long period when the only sound came from the wind rushing past them in occasional gusts, stirring up the loose powdery snow around Mia’s feet, she spoke again

“
The lives they created, some of them, out of necessity, would prey on one another to survive. That they agreed was necessary. But the brother created a new form of life, a senseless killer. A disease that could easily wipe out Our Father
’
s creations, and once it began to spread, it set about doing just that. He had decided to take the Earth for himself.

And that is when our war began.”

“
So, that
’
s what started all of this? Two brothers fighting over their new toy?
”

Mia could scarcely believe that beings of such power, magnificence, and grace, were squabbling over something that could be replaced, or replicated elsewhere. And that these incredible beings fought for her planet and the control and protection of all the animals (including the humans) gave her a feeling of intense humbleness.

“Oh Mia,” Leonara sounded tired, as though she was explaining the same thing to a dense child for the hundredth time “it was not just that he had taken it. He had gone out of his way to deliberately destroy what we had created. Our contribution to this world, erased, in fire and flood. They had agreed, this place would always be neutral, and our own kingdoms the places we retreated to.

Now he wanted this beautiful earth. He broke his promise, and if he could break that promise, then how long would it be before he broke another? Before he marched on our kingdom, to take it for his own?”

She looked sad now. All the grace and splendor seemed to have vanished as she told the sad tale. The light had dimmed significantly, as the clouds came in thicker and the sun struggled to get any light through at all.

“
We could not simply let it be,
”
murmured Leonara quietly and miserably
“
we had to fight. My brothers and sisters and I now fight with the ones we once called cousins. Now we call them our enemy. We would love peace, Mia - but they do not want it. They will not stop until they have everything - and we will not stop until none of us are left standing.
”

Mia nodded. It couldn’t be easy, to have to fight your own family like that. And why had the brother turned? Had greed simply got the better of him? He wanted to take everything for himself? And Leonara was right - if he wanted the earth and got it without a fight, then what was to stop him from marching straight into their kingdom and taking it for his own too?

She felt a fierce protectiveness of the place she had never known existed until this day. It was her home - she felt that now. Her home. Her true home. And she knew she would do anything to protect it.

The clouds seemed to burst at that moment, in an explosion of snowflakes, which fell suddenly and thickly, and made it difficult to see Leonara through them. Mia sent out a little of her power, and found the Angel still standing there.

“We have to go back” called Leonara through the howling wind that had suddenly come up and was now whipping the snow into Mia’s face, stinging her eyes as the ice-cold flakes melted in them.

“
Where are you?
”
Mia called back, as loudly as she could.

“
You
’
ll have to
…”
Leonara began, but the rest of her sentence was lost to the howling wind
“
The weather is too
……
..this isn
’
t
…
.. go back
…
.
”
and then Leonara was gone. Mia
’
s waves of power simply continued to flow outwards, with nothing there to buffer them back for miles around.

She started to panic for a moment, then quickly tried to get a grip on herself. She would go back to the hotel. Surely that was what Leonara had wanted her to do? The weather was so bad Leonara couldn’t even see her, much less get to her and help her back. Well, she could do this, she knew it. True, she had never Shifted without help from Leonara before, but the power buzzing in her bones told her she could do it. It was building now, itching to be released. She closed her eyes to focus on the hotel room, where she would be nice and warm, out of this sudden and terrible storm, any second now. She pushed away the doubts creeping in, that told her she couldn’t do it. She
could
do it.