The 13th Descent: Book One of The Rosefire Trilogy (7 page)

Nanna always said that every living being on Earth has at l
east one Guardian: a supportive force of untiring love and strength who stays with you from the cradle to the grave, who, no matter how well you may get things right or how royally you may stuff them up, will never leave your side. I always believed they were angels, but as it turns out, they can also be human.

I can safely
say that over the past eighteen years, I have witnessed snippets of beauty at its brightest: fiery sunsets streaked with cyan, charcoal and lavender, century-old churches illuminated by the candlelight of countless prayers, a field full of excited first-graders releasing the paper lanterns they had worked so hard on up into the starry sky, but these flickers in time don’t hold a torch to the radiance I see before me now. Mike’s golden light: so alive, so brilliant, so warm, pure and endless, pulsating with immeasurable time, never-ending space and love and life everlasting.

“You’re a…
a…an…angel?” I splutter.

“I was
an Archangel,” Mike answers, watching me intently as he reaches for my shaky hands. “Shortly after I first came to Earth, I became a Luminary, but just as I was yesterday, as I am today, and as I will be tomorrow and every day until the last of this earthly life, I am a man,” he insistently explains.

I stare down at our joined hands. His skin
is glowing; in looking closer I can see miniscule streams of gilded light emanating from every pore, and his touch feels warmer and more familiar than ever.

“A Luminary?” I ask.

“A governing role I put my hand up for a long time ago,” he answers.

“But, the
light…an…and…your wings,” I garble, frantically gesturing to and around him with my free hand.

“It’s
the light of home, Ren,” he gently explains. He moves his large hands up to rest on top of my shoulders and locks his shimmering, amber-speckled gaze with mine. “Because I remember who I am and where I came from, I can show my light at will.”

Se
arching my dazed stare and seeing that no light bulbs are switching on in my head, he goes on to explain, “Every soul’s light takes on its own form. Its own shape. Its own colour. Just like the light streaming out of my back like wings helped you to identify me as an Archangel, the light you give off shows who you truly are too. And, the more you remember of home, the brighter your light will become.”

“Home?”
I ask.

“Most people call it heaven,
” he answers.

“Ah.”
I figured as much.

I
instantly warm to the idea of a heavenly home: one where Archangels like Mike come from, that is until a once inconceivable, now entirely possible question rears up and knocks the wind out of me.

Excited
and bewildered by the thought, I stagger backwards and gasp, “But…I’m not an angel. Am I?”

He firms his grasp
, stopping my retreat. “No, Ren. You are not an angel,” he says. “Far from it,” he throws in, repressing a smirk. “But, when it comes to remembering, to finding your light, it doesn’t matter who you are. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter because we all come from the same place. We are all born of the light,” he explains, his gaze softening. “You know, after all of the lifetimes we have lived on Earth, in the moment you find it, yours is still the brightest, most beautiful light I’ve ever seen,” he reverently says, to me. “Sometimes I can’t imagine it getting any brighter,” he quietly adds, turning his face from mine.

“Can you see it now?”
I ask, calling his fiery amber gaze back to me.

His
dulled stare blazes the moment our eyes meet, and he slowly nods and says, “No matter how hard you try to hide it, I can always see it.”

Mystified by his words,
by his soul searing look, by him in general, I search all around me; my search soon coming to a disappointing end when I look down at my feet and see a whole lot of nothing there too.

I
cringe at how gullible I continue to be. How could I believe, even for a second, that I could possibly light up like the Archangel, shaped as the towering eighteen-year-old valedictorian football captain, standing toe to toe with me now?

“Ren?”
he prompts, pulling my attention away from my self-flagellation.

“Huh?” And with that primal grunt,
I go straight back to staring at him with my mouth hanging open. But surprisingly, I don’t care.

Before he
lit up this room, “beautiful” is a word I never would have used to describe Mike’s looks. “Good-looking.” “Attractive.” “Masculine,” definitely. On the odd occasion, “hot” has even fit the bill. But as this magical glow permeating in and around him sheds light on all that he is, “beautiful” is the only human word I know that comes close.

Mike
: my best friend bathed in golden light. A young man almost free of his teenage years. An Archangel who has lived for millennia. A stunningly bright, beautiful Archangel-Luminary-Man who cares enough to endure walking me through thirteen lifetimes.

“
Now when you look at me, you’ll always see my light behind the flesh. Well, I hope you do, anyway,” he says, grinning at my dunce expression.

“
Oh, God! Really?” I baulk, thinking of how distracting and embarrassing this is going to be. I can’t ever imagine getting used to him looking like a walking sun with amber eyes and golden wings. Thankfully, he thinks I’m just taking the piss out of him with my grimace.

With
him beaming at me the way he is, I can’t help but try and lighten up to match his mood. “I’m sure there’s a stellar nickname in this somewhere,” I say, mockingly scratching my chin in thought. “I know! Firefly! No, Glo-worm!” I call out, giggling as I remember him trying to break-dance at our year nine school formal, rippling, crunching and cracking across the polished dance floor like a worm with a spine.

He
throws his head back and laughs, and with that familiar, hearty sound that has echoed throughout the ages, I am reminded that as an Archangel and as a man, his joy has always called to me on every level.

Suddenly and all at once, I see
Mike in my mind, feel his fire in my heart, and his heat in my core. I gasp and sway at the sudden realisation of what this could mean, and without any planning or forethought, I open my mouth and in autonomic slow motion I say, “A house is just house until it is filled with love and light. It is then, and only then, that it can be called a home.”

In response,
Mike’s sparkling eyes widen and his golden light glows brighter.

Holding
me steady, his head pivots to the clock on the wall, then back to me, then back to the clock again.

“
What? What is it?” I ask, starting to panic.

“We only have an hour before we have to leave for Georgie Pa’s
, and I don’t want to get half way through this and have to stop,” he answers, seemingly annoyed.

“Half way
through what?” I ask as my panic weirdly starts to morph into excitement.

“
Halfway through talking about what is going through your head right now. Not to mention answering all of the questions that will, no doubt, follow,” he says, staring down the clock like he is willing time to stop.

“Huh?”

“You’re r
eady. You just said so yourself.”

“
Ready for what? Hang on…what did I say?”

“The
exact words you always say when you’re ready.”

“Ready for what? Stop talking to me like I know what’s going on because I can assure you, I sure as hell don’t!”
I yell.

“That you’re ready to hear about your past…and why you keep coming back,” Mike calmly explains, even though I’m sure I’m working on his last nerve.

But that was just unfiltered babble!
How can I judge myself to be strong enough to take all this on when I can’t recall feeling more vulnerable?

“E
xperience has taught me that it is best to strike while the iron’s hot,” he says with an expectant look. 

I
slump and nod, sadly acknowledging what he is really saying: that the best way to make things easier on him is to make things easier on me; that I have to stop being the main obstacle, and that in order to move forward, I need to get me and my ignorant self the hell out of the way.

Trying to
steady my still wobbly legs, I widen my stance, take the hand he is supporting me with in mine, clear my throat and attempt to confidently say, “You know what? Tell me what you need to, and I promise to hold off on the Q and A until after we go and see Georgie Pa.”

Mike
looks shocked, then uncertain, then amused. “Yeah, right,” he scoffs.

I squeeze his hand
and say with the best poker face I can, “I’m serious.”

“
Patience has never been your strong suit, Ren,” he says, his stern look emphasising how serious he really is.

“
Yeah, I know. But, I couldn’t think of a better time to practice,” I say with all of the sincerity I can muster.

He assesses me for what seems like
minutes we don’t have. Finally, he concedes, plonks himself down on the couch and pats the cushion next to him. I smile big, eagerly take my seat, and nestle into his side. He starts playing with my fingers like he always does when he needs to focus on what he has to say to me.

I
look down at our joined hands to see the wispy tendrils of golden light emanating from his long fingers and his palms meandering and winding around and through my own. The contrast between his hand and mine is a reminder of how I have always measured myself to him.

Bright.
Dull.             

Light. Heavy.

Warm. Cold.

The hand that helps me up.
The hand that pulls him down.

Up. Down.

Flying. Drowning.

Soaring. Sinking.

Up to Heaven. Down to hell.

Hell.
Where those who have murdered thousands of our kin believed they were sending us. Mum and Nanna never believed in hell, and I have always agreed with them, but now I need to hear it from the Archangel-man’s mouth.

“Is there a hell,
Mike?” I ask.

“Yes. Yes, there is,”
he simply answers.

I pull
back so I can look him straight in the face.

Holy shit. He’s not joking. “Oh
, my God,” I say, breathless.

“God has got nothing to do with it,” he
states.

“But isn’t
God supposed to be the one who decides who goes up and who goes down?”

His
responding chuckle is dark. “No, Ren. It doesn’t work that way, because the only place a soul can find themselves in hell is on Earth.”

My vacant expression shows
him that I don’t understand.

“Because, in the
absence of light, Earth is one of the few places where a soul can create their own,” he says. “Here, you can choose to either dance in the light or cower in the shadows, or settle for some place in-between.”

He gives me a few moments
to think it through and goes on to explain, “See, Ren, many of us choose to come to Earth to forget. To get lost and find our way. The goal being to learn; to grow stronger; to progress. Are you with me?” he asks.

“Always have been,
” I reply.

He
gives me a warm squeeze with the arm he has draped over my shoulder and continues, “The place we all come from, and eventually go back to, is the source of all love and light. Like I said before, it is home to every soul.”

I nod
in understanding: an understanding I have had since I was little. Although Nanna and Georgie Pa followed different religions, they both used to tell me similar stories about their own idea of heaven.

“
It doesn’t take a soul long to realise that staying in one place can only teach them so much, and when there’s a whole universe out there to explore and be of service to, most of us want to jump right in. So, we keep an eye out for a place, a life, a path, that will either teach us what we need to learn, or will allow us to be of service using our strengths and our experience – kind of like a training ground where we can be the student or the coach, even though it usually works out to be both. And, when a soul discovers a life that suits what they’re looking for, they get out there, and, well, live.” After a brief pause, he asks, “Making sense?”

“
Yes. But I’m not remembering anything yet,” I say, answering his real question.

He
nods and goes on. “Since its beginnings, Earth has been a favourite for many souls. Its beauty, its potential, its problems...there are so many reasons. Anyway, those of us who choose to be born as an Earthbound soul aren’t used to being covered up and weighed down by matter, and with new, heavy bodies and different environments and natural laws to contend with, the light of home can become much harder to see.