Chapter Three The Savior in the Woods
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The dreams always came in fragments, like shards of a mirror, reflecting her past in incomplete, cutting splinters of memory.
Her mother, smiling with tears in her eyes.
The way their hair had floated around them, weightless, as their car flew from the cliff.
A monster with its hand inside her mother’s chest.
A blue-eyed angel staring in shock as her pendant glowed white.
But this time, the angel was speaking to her, calling out her name.
“Brianna… Brianna!”
She opened her eyes and found herself staring into those pools of ocean blue again. The eyes that couldn’t exist. The eyes she’d conjured with her own imagination. This couldn’t be happening. Several doctors and all her friends and family had been telling her for years this could not be happening.
She blinked, hard. When she opened her eyes again, he was still there, still holding her by the side of the road.
Still bleeding from his nose.
She said the only thing she could think of. “Where the hell have you been?”
Looking back on it later, it wasn’t the most pressing question. Were you just throwing lightning bolts? What the hell attacked my car? Is there a radioactive half-life on spontaneously combusting jewelry? Those all might have been more on the money. But in a strange way, she had been expecting this. A part of her felt like she’d been waiting for it all these years. No matter how many hours she’d sat in therapy, no matter how many false promises she’d made, or mantras she’d repeated at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep.
Cameron.
When he’d told her his name and asked for hers, she’d been cradling her mother’s lifeless body in a forest much like this one. She’d held his name like a talisman for years before giving up and moving forward as though it was all a hallucination.
But she’d never truly believed it.
In her heart of hearts, she’d always known it was real.
“It’s a long story. Which I will tell you,” he added quickly, seeing the look on her face. “But for now, let’s get you taken care of. How’s the leg?”
She couldn’t move it. She couldn’t begin to move it.
“It’s fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “How’s your face?”
He went perfectly still for a moment as if he’d never considered such a thing. A tiny line creased at the center of his forehead, then his lips curved up in the unlikeliest of smiles. “It hurts.”
A small trickle of blood slowly traced down his chin. Blood that shimmered when blood shouldn’t, emanating a soft, curious glow.
Problems for Brianna’s NEXT therapist.
They stared at each other, neither one speaking a word, until there was a small explosion behind them, and they both turned to watch as fire slowly engulfed her car.
“I hope you’ve updated the insurance,” he offered, trying to keep things light. “What are all those things in the back? Anything important?”
She lifted a trembling hand and tried to rub the clouds of soot from her cheeks, succeeding only in making herself look like a chimney sweep from the seventeenth century. “Just my life’s possessions.”
“Oh.” He shot her a bracing look as if trying to remember a script from a past life. “Well, you know what they say about material possessions—”
“It’s just stuff, right?” she interrupted bitingly. “It’s all replaceable?”
His face went blank. “I was going to say you should treat them with care.”
With a sound like a dying whale, the car roof collapsed in on itself, emitting another puff of smoke. She turned slowly from the rubble to look at him, narrowing her eyes.
Perhaps it’s best if you don’t say anything.
She tested her limbs. Three out of four. Fewer than she preferred, but she’d make it work. She struggled to sit up and made some decent headway before a sharp, stabbing pain made her gasp and sink back to the asphalt with a defeated whimper. There was no part of her that didn’t hurt. She was scraped, cut, bruised, and likely broken in several places. She swore her hair hurt.
That’s when she spotted what was left of her phone, lying on the ground in several pieces.
“The next town is twenty-two miles away,” she said in misery, remembering the last road sign. A wave of hopelessness swept over her. “And these woods are full of raccoons.”
He pursed his lips, following her gaze.
With spirals of acrid smoke curling around her, she honestly didn’t know what the worst part of this situation was: that she had wrecked her car and lost all her possessions, that she would probably never make it to her new home in Virginia, or that she was stranded on the side of the road with a man or hallucination she had recently sworn to disavow for all eternity.
Probably the shadow monsters. Remember the shadow monsters?
…On second thought, DON’T think about the shadow monsters.
It might have seemed impossible, it might have seemed like the only thing in the world she should care about, but there was only so much a person could handle before they simply shut down. She consciously put the terrifying creatures out of her mind.
At any rate, they weren’t new. She had seen them before.
“Twenty-two miles,” she muttered again, shoulders dropping with a helpless sigh.
He hesitated a moment, tensing as if he’d heard the entire parade of despairing thoughts. Then without any warning, he scooped her up as one would a small child. “Then we’ll have a lovely walk.”
? ? ?
For the next twenty-two miles, Brie’s imaginary angel carried her effortlessly down the road, along with the only bag that had managed to escape the crash and the blast radius of the ensuing pyrotechnics. Mercifully, it was her backpack. Inside it, her wallet, a change of clothes, and a bottle of water had all escaped the ordeal unharmed. The water was apparently of premium importance. He’d insisted she take a few sips before he took off at a crisp pace down the road.
As he walked, she stole glances at him, trying to examine him without being noticed.
Well, he’s certainly real.
She was pressed against his body, which was every bit as solid as her own. The warmth of him, the beat of his heart, the rhythmic breathing. He was steady. Everything about him was steady. He hadn’t even blinked when her car exploded.
My car.
An alarming thought occurred to her. Maybe I’m dead.
Oh, she hoped not. Her poor father. He couldn’t lose his wife and daughter like this, so many years apart. It was too cruel. She had to be alive, if only for his sake.
She decided to put it to the test. As discreetly as she could muster, she lifted a hand, preparing to strike herself across the face. Most people might try pinching, but she figured things had escalated several levels past that point. Her eyes closed as her palm flew towards her face, but an inch before contact, it abruptly stopped, hovering in the air, halted by some unseen force. She stared in alarm as a throat cleared softly above her.
“Brianna?”
She looked up slowly, only to see him staring back down at her with an indecipherable expression. It might have been exasperation, but the twinkle of amusement in his eyes gave it away. “This is real.”
She nodded once, deciding to put the matter to rest.
“How did you get here?” she asked suddenly, squirming to see him better, head swimming with concussed questions. “We’re pretty far from civilization. Did you drive?”
“Drive,” he repeated, amused by the idea. “No, I didn’t drive.”
She looked around at the seemingly endless woodlands. “Where are we?”
“About fifteen miles inside the boundaries of Hanging Rock State Park.”
“Hanging Rock,” she repeated. “Oh, good. I was worried you’d say something ominous.”
She was silent another moment before the questions poured out like a flood. “How do you know where we are? What’s the nearest town? Why don’t I feel worse? I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be feeling worse. Am I in shock? Are you a hallucination? You have to tell me if you’re a hallucination, you know. It’s in the rules. Like asking if someone’s a cop.”
She paused. Then for good measure, though it seemed unlikely, she asked, “Are you a cop?”
He looked down with another amused expression that seemed both genuine and quite out of place, considering the circumstances. “Yes.”
She blinked in shock. “Yes, you’re a cop?”
“Yes, to all of it. All five hundred questions.”
At that point, she began to suspect he was teasing her. She also decided to revisit the idea that she might be dead. With a look of grim resignation, she lifted her hand again, prepared to strike either one of them, only to have him catch it with that disarming mental power once more.
He chuckled. “I will answer all your questions, I promise. First, let’s get you inside.”
Not good enough.
He glanced at her face and relented a little. “The nearest town is called Eden.” He looked back at the road and shifted her slightly in his arms. “And I always know where you are.”
They lapsed once more into silence. An unending silence, interrupted only by the distant call of birds and the quiet crunch of gravel under his feet. Those questions ate away at her, pushing their way into prominence as far as her aching head would allow. She cast another secret look at him, gauging his resistance, preparing to relaunch the interrogation.
But there was a chance he sensed this, and there was even a chance his miraculous powers extended further than she thought. For no sooner had she opened her mouth, than a wave of fatigue came over her, slowing her breath and making her eyelids suddenly, irresistibly heavy.
Less than a minute later, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
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By the time Brie opened her eyes, they were in the lobby of the tiniest motel east of the Mississippi. To her surprise, when her mysterious protector put her down, she was able to stand. In fact, aside from a deep tingling sensation, as though it had fallen asleep, her leg didn’t hurt at all.
She tested her weight on it three, then four times.
How is this possible?
Her adrenaline had started to ebb away, and exhaustion loomed, but she registered the shock of the teenage girl manning the front desk. Upon catching a glimpse of herself in a mirror on the opposite lobby wall, she immediately understood the clerk’s expression. It looked like she’d been through a war. Her cheeks were smeared with soot, her hair was a tangled mess, and every inch of her clothing was ripped and singed.
That said, she wasn’t the person who’d caught the girl’s eye.
At least I’m not the only one who thinks this is absurd.
The girl’s eyes had swept straight past the crash victim to the man standing behind her — the one studying a brochure about local hiking trails with intense fascination. Under the harsh glow of the fluorescent lights, against a backdrop of knotty pine-paneled walls, he looked even more ridiculously out of place than he had on the side of the road. As though he was taking a brief respite from heaven to enjoy the local scenery and inhale the aromas of Pine-Sol and black mold.
Brie reclaimed her backpack.
“Bad day in the woods?” The girl’s name tag identified her as Lucy.
“You could say that,” Brie answered flatly, rummaging around in the bag. She produced an ID and slid it across the counter. “Just the cheapest room you have, please.”
One with a shower.
The girl nodded and began typing, though her attention remained elsewhere. “Didn’t seem to rough him up too much,” she murmured under her breath.
Brie opened her mouth with a cutting reply, but her savior beat her to it, setting down the brochure and walking up beside her.
“Only my nose,” he answered proudly, gesturing to the blood. “It may never be the same.”
Brie looked at him, looked at the girl, then grabbed the key off the counter and stomped off towards the stairs, limping defiantly, though it was no longer necessary.
Maybe I am dead. Maybe this is punishment for killing my plant.
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Five minutes later, she was in a shower, letting the hot water stream over her and wash away the dirt, blood, ash, and trauma from the past few hours. She raised her head and let out a long breath.
What the hell just happened to me?
She shut the thought down firmly.
Not now. For now, she was going to treat herself with a bit of kindness and care. And that meant focusing on nothing but the water — the sweet, wonderful, warm water.
Water that started to run cold.
She sighed, shut off the faucet, and toweled off. Thank goodness she’d had an extra set of clothes in her backpack, or who knows what outdoorsy, flannel monstrosity she’d have been forced to purchase from what passed as a gift shop in this place. She slipped on some white cotton shorts and another of those too-strappy yoga shirts Sherry kept impulse-buying for her.
Oh, God. Sherry.
She needed to call her. She needed to call her dad. She needed to call the police, or the fire department or some government agency to tell them about the heap of rubble that now constituted what remained of her first and only car. The thought caught her off guard, and the image of the trusty car turned into a burning mass of metal, brought a lump to her throat.
She gripped the sides of the sink and sucked in a deep breath.
Keep it together, Brie , she thought. What would Dr. Rogers say? Acknowledge the feeling without endorsing it. She considered this another second, then shook her head. Therapists.
She took another few deep breaths and raised her eyes to the mirror. She pinched her cheeks to put a bit of color back into her face and combed out her long, dark hair as best she could before sweeping it into a high ponytail with a hair tie she’d managed to find at the bottom of her backpack.
Much better.
Now, time to go into the next room and see if my angel has disappeared into thin air again, leaving me to wallow in therapy-supervised confusion for another five years.
She hesitated a moment with her hand on the doorknob, suddenly realizing she was terrified of precisely that. More than the accident, more than all those burning questions, it was the sudden isolation that she feared. To be left alone again. To doubt her own mind.
Whether he’s there or not, I’m alive. I’m going to be okay.
She took a steadying breath, then opened the door slightly too fast to be normal.
He was sitting on the bed, surrounded by a bizarre array of foods.
“It’s grilled cheese and tomato soup,” he declared with a flourish, rising to his feet and crossing to the window. “Your favorite when you don’t feel well.”
Her face went blank. An ancient air conditioner buzzed beside the window.
“Or that’s… that’s probably not right.” He faltered for a moment, then gestured to a bowl heaped with sour gummy worms. “I also got a few of the sugar insects you like. I didn’t know how many might constitute a meal, so I got them all.”
He glanced up again, beginning to panic. “There’s also cheese?”
Perhaps it was because he’d phrased it as a question, but she crossed over to the bed, took the grilled cheese and tomato soup, and sank amongst the cushions. The gooey triangles had been pre-cut. She dipped one of them into the steaming bowl and took a bite, savoring the taste. “This is perfect. Thank you.”
His eyes brightened with a flash of unrestrained delight before he hastened to control himself. It wasn’t until she’d gotten halfway through the sandwich that he allowed himself to speak. “You should drink some water.”
She lifted her eyes slowly, staring at him.
He blushed, if an angel could blush, but held her gaze. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to press. After a trauma, mortals are always telling one another to hydrate. I’ve heard it so many times, I just…”
He backtracked quickly at the look on her face. “Or perhaps you’d like to drink from a can? I got all the colors.”
Only then did she notice the tower of carbonated beverages in the corner of the room. Unnerved, she put down the plate and crossed her arms and legs, studying him once again.
He looked like a man but was not. He moved like a man but did things no man could ever fathom. He’d carried her over twenty miles through the woods without a second thought, then turned into a five-year-old kid after discovering the vending machine.
“Cameron,” she murmured without thinking, saying it almost to herself.
He glanced up immediately, eyeing her with a touch of surprise. “I wasn’t sure if you remembered.”
She let out a breath of hard laughter. “I remembered.”
Despite my very best efforts to forget.
A surge of anger welled up inside her, but she deliberately held it back. Some questions needed answers, and some things needed to be explained. And even though she might very well end up dividing her life into the time before and after she had this conversation, she was damn well going to have it.
“No jokes, no lies, no deflections.” She made each command softly, staring him right in the eyes. “My car is gone, my life is in shambles, and I’m sitting with a celestial stranger in some dilapidated motel room. We are past the point of you blowing me off. Do you understand?”
He stared back at her, then nodded slowly.
Here goes.
“What the hell are you doing here? How did you know where I was? How did you get to where I was? Where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you ever try to contact me? Why aren’t you acting like this is the least bit strange, and—” She huffed in breathless fury. “Are you smiling right now?”
He lowered his gaze immediately, keeping his distance from the bed. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’ve thought of you often. I always hoped our paths would cross again. That I’d be able to…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “That you’d be able to see me again.”
That I’d be ABLE to see you?
“I’ve thought of you often, too,” she said sharply. “Talked about you, even. In therapy. Because everyone thought I was crazy. Because I thought I was crazy. Because my drunk dad couldn’t handle my lunatic ravings about an angel chasing off a horde of evil shadow monsters and promising me he’d come back someday.” She took a breath, realizing how long she’d waited to yell at this man, if he was a man. “I thought you’d be back to explain what happened. I kept waiting for some kind of…” She fell into silence, hands balling at her sides. “You left a hell of a mess behind you, Cameron. You don’t know how hard I’ve worked to get past this. To get over you.”
He absorbed each accusation quietly, then raised his eyes to her again. “I do know,” he said quietly. “I know how hard this has been for you. But I didn’t cause those things to happen, Brianna. I do not cause tragedy, and I am not responsible for people’s choices after tragedy strikes.”
He paused again, then looked out the window at the darkening Virginia evening. “If I were, people would have made much better choices, and you would never have felt alone. You would never have been alone. Not for a single moment.”
She stared back in stunned silence, at a complete loss for what to say.
In all the years she’d imagined this moment, in all the years she’d spent hypothetically preparing, it hadn’t gone anything like this. There had been tears and apologies. There had been lengthy explanations and specific reasons for what had transpired. There had been shouts, curses, and arguing — fire and brimstone, perhaps quite literally.
It hadn’t been anything like this. Soft truths, spoken by a saddened angel in a motel room that had gone so abruptly quiet, she could hear each one of their shallow breaths.
He looked at her again and let out a quiet sigh. “You should finish your soup,” he murmured. “And have a sip of water. Your body has been through a lot today.”
It was a gentle conclusion. At least, that’s what he wanted it to be. But she’d waited a great many years for this moment. And somehow, he knew, it wasn’t about to end now.
She narrowed her eyes at the eclectic feast in front of her. “Here’s my proposal. I’ll eat, and you’ll answer my questions.”
His lips curved in bemusement. “Are you bartering?”
She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Needs must. What do you say, Cam?”
There was a split second of silence. Then his mouth opened in surprise. “Did you just call me Cam?” he asked with curious delight. “Like a nickname?”
She pursed her lips, refusing to be dissuaded. “Don’t try to change the subject.”
They stared at one another appraisingly for a moment, each measuring the other’s resistance, before she decided to take things up a notch. “I really hope you agree because I probably should eat something. And drink something.” A look of pure melancholy swept across her face as she slumped theatrically on the bed, one hand fluttering to her forehead. “You’re right about us mortals. Hydration is key.”
His lips twitched like he was holding back a grin. Then he tossed her the candy. “Eat a sugar worm,” he conceded. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
She grinned in triumph and bit off its head. “Why are you here?”
“Start with something easier.”
It flew back at her so fast that the food lodged in her throat. She stared back with wide eyes, then swallowed and adjusted her course. “So, you’re an angel, huh?”
He hesitated, then decided to allow it. “Not exactly. I come from a place that is neither Heaven nor Hell but somewhere between the two. But your human conception of an ‘angel of mercy’ is perhaps the best description of what I am and what I do.”
Her chewing slowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” He gathered his breath. “Have you ever had a relative die?”
She looked at him, expressionless.
“I’m sorry,” he amended quickly. “Have you ever had a relative die of natural causes?”
She remembered her grandmother. Her whole family had visited to say their goodbyes when she was nearing the end.
“Yes,” she answered. “Grandma Mary. She had cancer.”
“Were you there at the end?”
“I was too little. My mother was.”
“What did your mother say about Grandma Mary’s passing?”
“She said that it was peaceful,” Brie remembered. “She said Grandma’s pain was gone, and she kept seeing her sister Ann, even though she’d died years ago.”
Cameron nodded. “That was one of us.”
“What does that mean?”
He sighed again, trying to condense a massive amount of information into a digestible story. “I come from a place called Elysium. The beings there, such as myself, exist within a field of energy — the same energy that powers a human life. When humans die, we come to be with them and ease their suffering. We offer them… I suppose you would call it natural morphine. It takes away their pain and sometimes causes hallucinations. Positive hallucinations,” he clarified swiftly. “Usually we’re mistaken for a family member or loved one who has already passed on.”
Brie sat frozen with her sandwich halfway to her mouth.
“When they die, we take their essence to Elysium. Their soul passes to Heaven or Hell, depending on the life they’ve led and the choices they’ve made. But their energy stays in Elysium and becomes part of our continuum. The barrier between Heaven and Hell.”
She was still frozen. He gave her a wry look. “Any questions?”
“Oh, only about five million.” She gave up on the sandwich and pushed the plate away, twisting a gummy worm around her finger as she searched for an innocuous way to start. “You don’t… you don’t eat the energy, do you?”
There was a beat of silence.
“Really?”
It was impossible to tell whether he was exasperated or deeply offended. Quite possibly, it was a little of both. But at the same time, he seemed on the very edge of laughter.
“I tell you that I’m an angel of mercy from a mystical realm between Heaven and Hell, sustained by the life force of everyone on this planet, and you want to know if I eat the energy?”
A deflection if ever I saw.
“No, Brianna.” He was definitely laughing now, shaking in silence, struggling to maintain a straight face. “I don’t eat the energy any more than a plant eats sunlight.”
“Okay, okay, just making sure.” She laughed nervously, hesitant to continue. They were quickly leaving “innocuous” behind, but there were questions she needed answered. “So, you’re an angel. Sort of an angel. Does that mean there are demons as well?”
He sucked in a tight breath, sensing the rather pointed change in direction. “Demons are what attacked you today. Where I come from, we call them wraiths. I’m not entirely sure why—” He caught himself, lowering his gaze to the pendant. He stared a moment, then lifted his eyes to meet hers, gesturing at the lovely golden teardrop. “Do you remember what I told you about this?”
A shiver swept across her shoulders. She certainly did remember. There wasn’t a single detail of that horrible day that she could begin to forget. Her mother had placed the necklace around her neck, had pulled the glass from her chest, and had…
Brie shook her head, refusing to go deeper.
She looked back at Cameron. “You told me never to take it off,” she said. She trailed a finger along the chain, trying to remember what had happened in the car. The pendant had glowed, just as it had glowed before the accident with her mother. And it was burning her. Burning her so badly, she needed to rip it off her skin.
But the moment she did—
“Where were you going?” Cameron asked, interrupting her train of thought. She lifted her head abruptly, realizing she’d been sitting there a long time.
“I’m supposed to be moving to Virginia. Yorktown.”
“What’s in Yorktown?” he asked, head tilted in curiosity.
“My new life.” She looked hopelessly around the tiny hotel room. “I got this great job in the same hospital my best friend started working at last year. I’m supposed to be moving into my new place right now. I start in two days, and now I have no clothes, no car, no things of any kind, not even my plant — which, let’s face it, has definitely died — and no way to get there. I don’t even have a phone. Sherry will be worried sick about me, and I can’t tell her I’m alright.”
A lump rose in her throat, and she snapped a gummy worm in frustration.
He paused for a moment, then his face set into an expression of resolve. “Then, we’ll just have to get you there.”
“What?” she asked, sure she’d misheard him.
“This isn’t supposed to be your life, Brianna. You’re not supposed to be attacked by demons in the woods. You’re not even supposed to be able to see me unless I want you to. The only reason you can is likely because of that pendant around your neck. If your life is taking you to Virginia, then that’s where we’re going to go.”
She stared at him, both touched and disbelieving. “We?”
He stared a moment longer, like he’d been asking the same question himself. Then his lips lifted in a gentle curve. “Obviously. I can’t very well leave you to fend for yourself until we know what’s going on. Not if today was any indication.”
She processed this, staring at him, before lifting a hand to touch her pendant. “And this necklace… Are you going to tell me more about that?”
A strange look clouded his eyes. “That isn’t my story to tell.”
For whatever reason, she believed him. At any rate, she’d had enough to take in for one night. A sudden hush swept over the little room, and she stifled a yawn, realizing she was exhausted.
Cameron noticed immediately. She had a feeling not much escaped his notice.
“You need to rest,” he said gently.
She nodded, suddenly too tired even to talk.
Together, they moved the strange smorgasbord to a table on the other side of the room. She turned down the covers and climbed into bed, freezing in surprise when he climbed in beside her.
Uh, okay?
Neither was undressed. Neither was touching. And only one of them seemed to think it was remotely strange. He merely flashed a polite smile and settled beside her on the pillows.
Maybe everyone sleeps together where he comes from? Maybe it’s like that scene in Willy Wonka, except everyone is beautiful and eternally young.
“Well, goodnight, Cameron.”
He rolled on his side to face her, still touched by that lovely expression. “Goodnight, Brianna.”
When it became clear he had no plans to sleep, she turned over in the bed and let the exhaustion of the day wash her consciousness away like the waves on a shore, drifting off to sleep under the watchful eyes of the impossible man who somehow lay beside her.
She had almost managed it — she had nearly floated completely away when another question rose suddenly to the surface. Her eyes opened slowly, wide and fixed. “Cameron?”
His soft voice drifted over her shoulder. “Yes?”
There was a pause.
“Is my mother okay?”
A much longer pause. “Your mother…” He trailed off into silence, his gaze drifting out the window to rest upon the distant trees. “All I can say about your mother is that things happened just as they were meant to.”