Chapter 25 Present Aeon
Present Aeon
Earth was vast, and there were many places Lila and Eva could have visited, but the first place they touched down was a light green field kissed by golden sunlight, where the ground birthed blood red tulips and bright yellow daffodils.
As far as the eye could see in one direction, the field rolled on, with flowers of various colors and shapes weaving through it.
In the opposite direction, a grove of trees formed a canopy of branches that looked like arms reaching for one another.
One of Luc’s creatures—a gray rabbit, Lila realized, in a sudden burst of memory—scampered across the clearing and into these trees.
So distracted was she by its curious antics—and then, its speed—that she didn’t notice Eva picking flowers beside her until it was too late. Her friend had already gathered a handful of tulips in one hand and a handful of daffodils in the other.
“What are you doing?!” Lila cried before she could stop herself. Though it had been an aeon and a half since she’d drawn it, Lila recognized the Garden instantly. This was her garden—the one she’d designed for the architect program, the one she’d given to Luc.
He’d kept it. All this time, he’d kept it, and he hadn’t changed a thing.
“What do you mean?” Eva blinked. “I’m making flower crowns.”
“Well, don’t pick everything!” Lila wanted this place to remain as it was. As it had been in Luc’s blueprints. And hers.
“Lila, there’s tons of flowers. More than enough for every angel to have some. What’s with you?” Eva pouted. “I thought we were going to have fun.”
“We are. I just…” Lila tried to think of an excuse for her strange behavior. She settled on, “Earth doesn’t belong to us. I don’t think we should disturb anything here.”
“Oh, stop being silly. We’re free!” Eva flung out her arms, tossed up the flowers, and twirled in the open field. “Come on!” She clasped Lila’s hand. “Let’s see the rest!”
Shaking off her annoyance over the flowers, Lila allowed herself to be carried on the wave of Eva’s buoyancy into the grove of trees. They ran through the field, warmed by the sun and cooled by the wind, and laughed like students who had just been relieved from lessons.
At last, they arrived at the willows draping the edge of the grove in a delicate curtain of leaves.
The curtain shifted with the wind, parting to allow them entrance, and they stepped into a scene more beautiful than the last, where black and brown and turquoise birds flitted among trees burgeoning with pink and white blossoms. A clear stream flowed between the trees, racing over smooth rocks, and Lila didn’t need to follow it to know where it led.
Soon, they would reach a clearing where a cropping of large rocks provided natural seating and the canopy thinned, allowing shafts of sunlight to dapple the soft floor of grass and dirt and tiny purple flowers.
If they laid there and looked up during the period known as day, they would see wisps of clouds traveling across a cerulean sky that melted into reds and pinks and purples as the sun sank below the horizon.
And at night, they would look up and see stars winking through the spaces between leaves.
Stars and a darkness, deep as the Void, that would cover everything, blanketing the Earth in stillness and peace.
At that time, the trees would only be known by the sound of their leaves rustling in the wind and their shapes softened into shadows.
Softened, and softened, becoming one with the night.
Beyond this grove, beyond these fields, lay waterfalls spilling into rivers; she’d seen them on approach, sending their exultant spray into the aether-that-was-not-aether, that was here known as air.
There were cliffs soaring to meet the clouds, thunderous imitations of the Great Hall’s spires that far surpassed their forebears.
There were vast bodies of water whose full depth and breadth could not be seen from above, could not be known, and there were places where water froze completely, hiding the landscape under crisp white sheets.
Despite these wonders, this Garden was already Lila’s favorite place.
Air was different from aether; it wasn’t immune to cold and heat; it shifted, moving faster, then going still.
And in this Garden, the air embraced her.
It toyed with her hair and caressed her neck as if to say, ‘Welcome. Here is a world where you belong.’