Chapter 37 #3
“It has to be tight, Gav. Stop bitching. I want to get this over with and get Feather back in bed.” Mikhail winked at me. “She needs her rest.”
“Go on, Grumpy. Get whatever your brother-in-law has for you, and then race back. I’ll miss you.” I stepped up to him and waited for my kiss. He gave it to me, with interest and a lot more tongue than I probably deserved.
I faked a smile until Gavriel had his back to me. Righteous and Mikhail were holding the end of the rope with all their might as he pushed through the door, stepping just inside.
When he vanished, I felt the feather in my chest go numb almost instantly. There was no pain at all, but the lack of sensation was disconcerting. I let myself panic then, but quietly. No one remarked on the tears that rolled down my cheeks.
“He’ll be back,” Sunny whispered, slipping her hand in mine. The rope hadn’t been cut, so that was good.
When the door opened again, no more than two minutes later, Gavriel walked out with a peculiar expression on his face and a bundle in his hand.
I raced over to him. “What did you get?” He unwrapped the white cloth, tucked it under one arm, and held up a small object.
Whatever it was could fit in the palm of one hand, and was golden and shiny as heck.
“Another kazoo?” I asked, slightly disappointed.
“Not a kazoo,” he murmured, showing it to the group as we clustered around. “A feather.” The curling feather was so much smaller than the ones I had for mating marks, and I wondered if it was a baby feather, the kind new Protectors molted when they were young.
“By the Maker,” Mikhail whispered, his voice awestruck. “It’s one of Imriel’s. And not just any feather.” I frowned. None of Imriel’s feathers were that small.
“What’s so special about it?” Righteous asked. “Wait, it has writing on the individual barbs.”
“It’s his library,” Gavriel said, with tears in his eyes.
“He’s sent me every piece of Celestial music that’s ever been written.
Every tune ever played in any realm.” He choked off a laugh that sounded more like a sob.
“I offered to give the energy back from Sanctuary, but he refused it. He said we’d need it out here.
And then he just gave me his entire life’s work. His treasure.”
“That was your Celestial gift? It’s pretty perfect for you,” I said, but he was already shaking his head.
“No, Imriel’s gift was in addition to my spiritual gift.
” He pulled the white cloth out from under his arm, offering it to me.
I knew what it was the moment my hands touched it.
“I wasn’t able to bring your sheet back, my love—the one we made love on in the Maker Hall for the first time.
That was the only object that had any meaning at all to me. And to us.”
Mikhail snorted. “I recognize that. It’s my sheet.” We both ignored him.
“Are you… giving it to me?” I managed to say, though my throat was tight.
“Of course,” he replied. “I know how much you loved your sheets.”
Sunny’s whisper barely registered. “The perfect mate. Who knew that underneath all that asshole, he was like this?”
I wasn’t paying any attention to her, or anyone else, now.
I had my sheet, and was rubbing it against my face.
“You are perfect. Oh, my sweet, I can’t imagine life without you,” I crooned.
“There was only one thing I knew I couldn’t live without here.
One part of my heart that could never be filled without you.
I love you more than anyone. Want to feel you on my skin, wrap you around my body. ”
“She’s not talking about me, is she?” Gavriel’s voice was flat and unamused.
I kissed my sheet and murmured an apology for the interruption, then glared up at him. “You only wish you were as perfect as my sheet.”
“She’s lost her mind entirely,” I heard Mikhail say as I lay the sheet on the ground and stretched sinuously on it, reintroducing my body to the pleasures that only came from million-thread-count cloth on skin.
Ry groaned. “She can’t love a sheet more than us, can she?” When no one answered, he repeated, his voice cracking, “Can she?”
“Best not ask, young Righteous,” Mikhail grumbled. “It’s a bad idea to set yourself in a competition you might not win.”
Gavriel heaved a sigh. “Maybe I shouldn’t have given it to her.
If we pitch it off the side of the Limen, we won’t have to compete for her attention.
” I twisted my face around, teeth bared, and made a yowling noise I’d never made before.
It sounded like something from the Abyss.
All three of my mates moved cautiously away from me.
I turned back to my sheet as Sunny shooed them all away. “Word to the wise, boys,” she called as they left, grumbling. “Never come between a girl and her high-quality thread count. I’ll bring her back to you when she’s done… um, with the sheet frottage.”
“I wonder what we’re supposed to do now,” I said to Sunny a few days later as we watched Precious and Shadow play on the newest fields of the rapidly expanding Limen.
Shadow ran all the way up and down the dividing wall of clouds, stopping every so often to pee a stream of golden power onto it.
When they were close enough to the edge of the Limen and the Abyss, he herded her back to us.
His enormous feet left giant gray prints everywhere he stepped, and I could tell he still wasn’t grown, though he was close to pony sized.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had some Clydesdale in him.
“What do you mean, do?” Sunny mused, weaving some long pieces of thin grass into a strand of yarn.
She was trying to collect enough to make a macramé towel holder.
As if we even had towels. When I mentioned that, she scoffed.
“Come on, Imriel keeps sending more and more wells of power through. Two more regular ones popped up last night, and Mikhail knows how to use the naming chime to remake the energy into all sorts of things. We’ll have everything we need. ”
Not everything, I thought, and wandered over to the edge of the Abyss, sitting on the cloud and hanging my legs over the lip, kicking my feet into the darkness.
This part of the Limen wasn’t as crowded as the rest, but even here, a few Angeli were watching me, quasi-hovering.
And Righteous, of course. At least one of my mates was always hanging around, as if I might vanish if they closed their eyes.
I’d caught a snippet of a private conversation the day before, between Gavriel and Mikhail, that revealed why. They were almost certain I was planning to go out into the Abyss and sing for Rumple.
Of course I wasn’t. I knew that would hurt my family, and I still didn’t have the energy to do much more than sit around, eat chocolate, and allow my mates to worship at the temple of my body.
I’d spent some time examining the mating feather inside me and the void’s curlicues, though, and what I’d found there—or what I hadn’t found—was the real reason I wasn’t going looking for Rumple.
The connection between us was gone. When I meditated and listened to the quiet murmurs that came from the bits of the Abyss inside me, there was no sense of Rumple left in them.
They kept asking the same thing: Who am I?
Do you know who I am? They had no connection to Seraphiel now, no concept of who they were, or had been.
Righteous had caught me crying after my last attempt to establish some sort of internal link to Rumple, and all three of my mates had asked me to stop trying. “Be patient, Scrap,” Ry had said while he rocked me. “If there is any way he can come back to you, he will.”
I knew that was true, and so I tried to pack away my longing and sadness. But I couldn’t seem to keep away from the edge of the void. What if Rumple lived a very short blameless life as a human, and his soul was directed toward the human afterlife?
Everyone in the Limen saw the ascending humans, shooting past overhead every morning, like meteors across the void.
If he was one of them, and called out to me, but I didn’t hear because I wasn’t listening…
If I missed the chance to at least see him one more time before he went home to the Celestial Realm, or wherever he was destined…
I rubbed my eyes, tired of crying. But it was sort of normal for me these days.
“What do you mean, birch?” Sunny’s voice was gentle. ‘What is it you want to do?”
I shrugged and tried to sound casual. “It’s going to be so boring here. There aren’t any shadow beasts to fight, or Earth missions to go on, or baby pools full of jello to have orgies in…” Or Rumple.
“Birch, you must be joking. You’ve got three soulmates who look at you the way you look at your sheet.
Also, you’re a mom. You probably want to build onto your house.
Get Gavriel to make her a new nursery.” We both watched Precious and Shadow chasing a couple of High Angeli.
“Don’t they know not to run from a predator? ” Sunny mumbled.
“Shadow or Presh?” We both laughed as we watched the game of chase. “Let’s be honest, Sunny. You’re as much Presh’s mom as I am; she has a nursery there. And our clouds are close. We can ask Growly to build an adjoining backyard.”
“Really?” Her voice was weird and squeaky, and I rolled my eyes.
“One hundred percent. Come on, what kind of role model am I anyway? I’m like the ‘fun weekend theme park’ mom. You’re the ‘eat your veggies and do your homework’ mom.”
She glared at me. “I can be fun.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I meant, you’re a real mom in all the most important ways.
She needs you. And so do I.” Her arms were warm as she snuggled in for a side hug.
After a while, I had a thought. “You know, we might want to add onto our house. Right now, we have one room. I think the guys would like some other spaces.”
She nodded. “A Maker Hall, a room for Precious, and a music room for sure. Maybe a garden for Ry? I bet the other High Angeli would love to help you out. They’re always asking how they can help.”
“Yeah, they smile so much it’s borderline creepy. Are they really that happy?”
She shrugged. “Honestly, they seem happier to be out here, as angelic pioneers, or homesteaders, than they were in the Celestial Realm. I think it’s because they have purpose now, and they’ve finally been able to forgive themselves.
A little sacrifice is good for the soul.
” She linked her pinky in mine. “And a Great Sacrifice is perfect… for a ride or die birch.”
“Don’t get sappy,” I warned. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry today.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she muttered.
For some reason, her words made me remember a promise I’d made months before.
In any life, if we were born again and again, no matter what you looked like, I would see you and want you.
I would chase you across a thousand galaxies, Rumple.
You’re mine. I will never give you up. And I will never give up on you.
Had I made a promise I couldn’t keep? I didn’t know how to chase Rumple down, if he was still alive. I couldn’t fly off into the void on my stunted wings. I wouldn’t leave my mates.
But I would never give up on him.
My eyes prickled with tears, but I fought them off.
I hugged Sunny for a while, but when Righteous started yelling at Shadow not to eat a Guide, we both jumped up.
I gave the yawning emptiness of the void one last look over my shoulder, and tried to not think about Rumple while we spent the day making truffles and keeping Precious and Shadow entertained.
But the next morning, I was back at that same spot, watching. Waiting.
Hoping against hope that my beloved first teacher was still out there, loving me, though I could feel in every fiber of me that he wasn’t.