Pieces of Hope (37 page)

I could
see how luminous their skin was, but though they were pale, I could detect no
particular ethnicity. They could just as easily have been Moroccan or African
or Greek or Asian. The one to the left of the longhaired one had short, curly,
flaxen-blonde hair, and looked like the angels depicted in paintings—but older
and taller and with more exotic features. Opposite him was a wild-haired boy angel.
Definitely the youngest. His wavy brown hair flipped all around his head, and
as I studied him more closely, he smiled. A wave of honey smothered me until
the longhaired one cast a glance his way.

Elevated
behind the leader, just above his wing tips, the fourth one seemed by far to be
the fiercest. I looked him over as carefully as I had the other three, not the
least bit afraid despite his deliberate stare—though my lack of fear might have
had something to do with the longhaired one making it so. This last one wore
his hair closely-cropped, reminding me a little of an angelic Marine, though
with piercing eyes that seemed to change colors at will.

Have you formed a conclusion yet?
the
chorus of commanding voices asked.

I tried
to form words, but my mouth wouldn’t move. The intensity of their voices in
unison was overwhelming, and stunning to the senses. It echoed off the cliffs,
travelled across the sky, plunged into my soul. Like angels in surround sound.

Ah yes, you believe now. You understand what
we are
.

They
looked at me for a long moment. My head was quiet. I felt inspired, in awe, and
then something wet rolled down my cheeks. I let it slide down my neck,
incapable of movement.

It is not safe for you here, young
Catherine. We have told young Daniel the same and yet he remains. For you, no
doubt . . .yes, for you. Ah, the arrogance of youth . . .
  

There
was a brief pause. Though they didn’t move to speak amongst one another, I knew
that they had. My heart stopped momentarily as I waited.
       
   

 
With my heart now thundering in my chest, they
went on.

Your greatest desire is a common request.
But tarrying here will not bring what you seek. Do not long linger . . . either
of you. Regret is the bane of human existence. We urge you to return, and
swiftly. Safest of sojourns . . .

The
light intensified. I blinked once and they were gone.

Daniel
and I flew back to the top of the cliffs. At first, neither of us was able to
speak or form coherent thoughts. We discarded our wings, found a sunny patch of
grass to lie down in, and inhaled countless deep breaths.

“You see
what I meant by technicalities,” he said after a little while. “You don’t do
much talking
to
them. You don’t talk
back or ask questions. They tell you what they think you need to know, and
that’s about it.”

“Their
voices . . .” I said in awe, imagining them again as we lay there. “Have you
ever heard anything like it?”

“Only in
Christmas songs.” He laughed, but I didn’t get the joke. “Hark the herald
angels sing? Imagine if it’d been those guys instead—would’ve blasted people
right out of the church.”
  

Some
time later I expressed a thought that wouldn’t leave me alone. “Daniel, I’m not
ready to go yet.” There was an edge to my voice that I hadn’t expected. “Despite
everything that’s happened, I have to find her. I do! And I’m not going back
till that happens.”

“And I’ll
never leave without you.” As he reached for my hands, the tenderness of his gaze
rivaled that of the Angels. “I’ll stay till the end, till the very end, if that’s
what it takes.”

His face
was close, mere inches from mine. I knew Daniel was going to kiss me and I knew
I should have turned away—but I had loved him once so very much. And we were in
this together.
Till the very end
, if
necessary. What more could I want?

Suddenly,
my lips were on his and he was kissing me back as passionately as I kissed him.
But in the distant recesses of my mind, I heard a faint voice. Though not loud
enough to even qualify as a whisper, there it was. There,
Ethan
was. Just the sound of his voice made me long to be with him.
A pain stabbed my heart. I pushed Daniel away, less gently that I had intended,
and without any explanation. The expression on his face told me he had heard
him, too.

“I’m
really starting to hate that guy.” His gray-blue eyes were dull as he spoke and
the intensity of his anger knocked me back a step. The force of it was real. “Just
remember,” he told me, “I loved you first.”

I didn’t
bother to explain to Daniel that if Ethan was correct, he had fallen in love
with me over seventy years ago. Long before Daniel and I were even a
thought.
      

Signaling
an inexplicable mood shift, his eyes seemed to turn a less stormy blue. He
smiled thinly at me. After getting to his feet, he bowed gallantly, and offered
his hand to help me up. Though we walked humanlike—too slowly—to the bluffs’
edge, I wanted to fly. His voice was getting louder, growing more insistent by
the second. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t heard it earlier and kept
lingering on the notion that Daniel had muffled it.

But all
of was nearly forgotten when I looked back into his too-innocent face. Daniel
was trying hold onto his smile. He hugged me briefly then peeled back a corner
of the sky. My shortcut was impossibly dark, but a full moon lit the way.

“Hate to
see you go . . .” he called, his words familiar, gently teasing. “But love to
watch you walk away . . .”

Before
he dropped the flap, I cried, “That’s so ten years ago! You really need to get
yourself a new line.” But I laughed anyway.
    

18
Erratic State
of Mind

I ran up
the footpath, ducked beneath a low-hanging branch, then tripped over the hem of
my gown by accident. In my haste, I’d completely forgotten to change out of my
stupid dress. I was totally horizontal when my body froze mid-air, my nose not
more than a few centimeters from the paved trail. It was just a thought—a
single thought—that caused me to flip instantly upright and land lightly on my
feet. I was more surprised than shaken by what I’d done. After all, it wasn’t
every day that a person outwitted gravity, but there it was. Was there be a
reason for it? Like maybe I’d become so detached from my body that I no longer
felt a part of the living realm? Or was Daniel having this effect on me?

After
making adjustments to my attire—something more appropriate for a visit with
Ethan—I brushed the stray thoughts away as easily as I brushed a few stray
leaves from the ends of my hair. Then I bolted up the darkened path in search
of Ethan.

I
breathed more easily when I finally spotted him. He was sitting atop Erratic
Rock, knees up, head in his hands. The forty-ton slab of stone, deposited there
centuries ago by a prehistoric flood, wasn’t much to look at, but it was one of
my favorite places to come and think. It sat at the top of a sweeping valley overlooking
some vineyards and was just a short jog from downtown Mac. Seeing Ethan here
made me happy knowing that—whether I had landed in the hospital or not, our
paths would have eventually crossed, anyway. Destiny, it seemed, was at last on
my side.

“Ethan!”
I cried, but he gave no response. Then more urgently, “
Ethan!
”
 

When I
was within a few feet of him, he glanced up. My first thought was that he’d
been injured. I could see no visible wounds and yet . . . something was
obviously wrong. His pale violet glow was absent, the ever-present light in his
eyes dimmed. It was startling to see him so wild-eyed, but it wasn’t from pain.
That much I could see.

“Why
don’t you ever ask me how you are?” His voice was a low growl.

I kept my
distance, only because I could feel something solid around him, something
impenetrable. Not touching him bothered me so much it was almost painful.

“Why
don’t you ever ask me?” he demanded, his voice louder now.

“What?”
I struggled to make the connection. “Are you talking about my body?”

“Yes,
your
body,
” he bit out through his
teeth.

I
thought he’d lost his mind. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s in bad shape.”

“No,” he
insisted, his jaw so tight I thought I heard his teeth grinding. “That’s just
it. Until two days ago . . . aside from the fact that you weren’t waking up,
and measured by all the standards we
humans
normally use . . . you were fine!” I heard the sarcasm in his tone and
disregarded it. He was upset. Obviously.

“That
can’t be,” I argued, thinking back. “I was in a serious car accident. I’ve been
in a coma for—” My brain caught up. “What do you mean, ‘until two days ago?’”

He
ignored my question, deliberately staring off at the oversized moon.

After a
moment, he said, “I’ve tried to make sense of it. I really have. Of course, I’m
the only one who’s known where you’ve been all this time . . . and I’d
mistakenly assumed that you and I would be together soon, that you were
justifiably frightened by everything that’s happened, but soon—very soon—you were
going to come back to me and it would all be worth it.” When he looked at me, I
saw the strain in his eyes and heard the weariness in his tone. “Now I’m not so
sure . . .”

My mouth
opened, though I had no idea what I was about to say, and he went on, his
expression softening somewhat as he stared off at the moon again.

“Deputy
Washpun
has been at the hospital since that first day, I
told you that, and he explained to your family the details of the accident.
It’s time you knew them, too.”

I wasn’t
the slightest bit enthused to hear specifics about my accident. Not because I
thought it would make me feel bad, but because it was already past tense. Knowing
there was nothing that I could do to alter the past, what was the stupid point
of it?

However,
there was no deterring Ethan; I could see that. I held my ground, still a few
feet from him (as close as I thought he would allow) and shut my mouth.

“An
elderly woman driving an ancient black Cadillac started the chain of events. She
died at the scene, but for several minutes before that, she endured a massive
heart attack. As she struggled through the pain,
Washpun
thinks she accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake.” Ethan sounded
indifferent, as though he were speaking to a total stranger. “That’s when she collided
with a 1970 Le Mans
. . . the thing’s built like a tank. The accident might not have ended so badly
except that your ex-boyfriend was speeding, probably trying to lose the deputy behind
him. So when the Cadillac t-boned his car, he skidded, completely losing control.”
His eyes, which had been staring darkly towards some distant point in the sky,
flicked back to mine. “That’s where you come in.”

“Ethan,
none of this is new news, I already know about the—”

He gave
me a look that was cold enough to freeze the blood in my veins.

“The
streets were slick from the rain and oil,” he went on, “and when he tried to
stop, the road conditions and his speed made for the perfect accident.”

I winced
at
perfect.
It was a rude choice to
describe what I went through.

“And so
it seemed to the casual observer that you were in terrible shape, but that
wasn’t the case at all.” He emphasized, “Not by any means.”

“A
mangled leg and my head the size of a basketball?” I spat. “Not terrible?”

“Your
wounds were mostly superficial—a near impossibility in an accident like the one
I described. By all accounts, you should have died that day.” He spoke in a raw
whisper. I could hear the agony in it. “When his car struck you at the speed it
was travelling, your leg should have sheared off at the knee. That front end is
solid steel . . . Yet you bounced across it like a rubber ball with no internal
injuries. Other than your left leg, nothing was broken. You didn’t even have a
single cracked rib.”

“But . .
. I couldn’t breathe . . . that’s impossible!” I screamed. “After the accident,
I couldn’t catch my breath. The pain was horrific! I insisted. “It was!”
  

“Perhaps
the shock of re-entering your body.” He slowly shook his head.

I
shuddered, thinking for the first time that it might have had something to do
with the anguish of Mom’s death. That debilitating sadness felt far worse than any
physical pain.

“It’s
difficult to say,” he went on in that same flat voice. “All I know for sure,
you’ve amazed everyone—the deputy, the doctors, the nurses, your family. To
them, you’re nothing shy of a miracle. As for me, I had no idea how you’d
survived. I analyzed the facts so many times, trying to see how you’d made it
through something so devastating while sustaining so few injuries . . . and
there’s only one conclusion that makes any sense.”

I had no
idea where he was going with this—luck, chance . . . a divine hand?

“It’s as
though something was between you and the car.” His voice faltered. He looked at
me. “As though something or possibly
someone
shielded you from the impact.”

My knees
gave way and I sank to the ground. I knew very well the someone he was referring
to. It couldn’t be true.

Ethan
remained standing, seeming as dazed as I was. “There’s no reason you should be
alive today, Hope. I believe you sustained the injuries you did because your
mother must have missed the initial impact of your knee, and then your head
must have slipped out of her arms.” I pictured it as he spoke . . . Vivienne cradling
me . . . protecting me the only way she could, even in my final moments—