Divinity (8 page)

“Okay, Michael.” She thought briefly of calling him “Mike,” but decided against it. She could no sooner do that than call Gabriel “Gabe.” Or “Dad.” She took a deep breath. “Will you please tell me why you couldn’t have just come to me and told me what was happening? If you’re my guardian, why didn’t you help me throughout my life?”

Julia was surprised at the difference from her earlier temper tantrum with Gabriel, but in an odd way, it made sense. It’s one thing to have someone you have never met abandon you and quite another if it’s your father. She looked up at Michael, and the beauty of the angels hit her again. It was difficult to stay angry with that loveliness radiating from him.

“The thing is—you’re human,” Michael said. “At least, you’re half-human. You have choice. We can only give you the tools you need. It is still your choice whether or not to accept them.”

Give her the tools she needed? Everything in her life she had worked for. Fought for. Even her inheritance had come after a long battle with her brother. In fact, she thought, the only thing ever to touch her life that wasn’t hard work was Alex. Her mouth dropped open.

Michael raised his hand and answered her before she could ask. “No. Alex was not a tool, exactly, but he was necessary for your well-being. He brought you back from the bleak place you had fallen into. We always made sure that you had everything that you needed. Sadly, you often chose to turn your back on our gifts.”

“Gifts!” Julia thought if her jaw opened much wider, it might unhinge. “What gifts?”

Michael threw his head back and laughed. He reached forward as though about to rest his hand on her shoulder, but stopped just short of touching her.

“You aren’t able to see clearly, girl. My Brother is right, you truly are clouded.” As his laughter subsided, his eyes pierced her gaze, capturing her mind for a moment.

“I’ll show you.”

Julia looked around and blinked. She found herself standing at the checkout in the grocery store where she had worked in high school.

A kindly woman with frazzled, curly hair passed Julia a business card on her way through the checkout. Crazy Hair told Julia that if she was interested in helping her with some research, she ought to give her a call. Crazy Hair said that she had gotten her name from the honors list at her school. The lady told Julia that she would pay her well, but Julia would have to leave her job at the grocery store immediately.

As the woman walked away, Julia tossed the card into the small wastebasket under the counter.

“Creepy old lady.”

-
Fame and fortune?
- Julia asked, a touch of sarcasm in her tone.

-
No
,- Michael answered. -
This was a gift of opportunity. This was your senior year in high school, remember?
-

The scene shifted to Julia in her room later that evening, looking over college brochures. She frowned and tossed them all in the garbage. “I just don’t have the money.”

-
I see,
- Julia said softly.

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, Julia fought off a wave of dizziness. When she opened them, she was striding up the sidewalk, chatting on her cell phone. One step away from the curb, her keys slipped out of her hand, landing behind her on the pavement.

“One second, Charlie,” Julia said. “I just dropped my keys.”

Julia turned, scooped up her keys and faced the crosswalk once more, stepping onto the street. “Sorry about that. What were you saying?”

-
Dropping my keys was a gift?
- Julia snipped. -I
think you lost me on this one
.-

-
Watch again, girl. This time, watch the street you would have been standing on
.-

This time, Julia focused on the street. She saw the driver who was turning the dial on his radio and ran the red light, driving straight through the spot Julia would have been had she not stopped.

“Is it wise to allow her to see so much?” Gabriel asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“She needs to see that she doesn’t walk alone, and never has. She needs to know she is not disposable. But she also needs to learn that her own choices have played a role in some of the difficulty that she has endured.” Michael appeared misty, as he always did when he was physically appearing in more than one place at a time—something only another Archangel would notice.

“I think she understands that quite well,” Gabriel answered. “But you will make her blame herself for the actions of her abusers, and that is not the case at all. She must know this or she will regress.”

“You know how important it is that she understands the paradox of human choice,” Michael said, studying Gabriel for a few moments. “She can handle this, Brother. She is past the point of self-blame for all of that. She is different. You will see. She will see the gifts and learn the lessons. She will embrace it all because it will mean that someone has cared for her all this time. That is what her human heart desires more than anything.”

“I pray you’re right, Michael. For all our sakes.”

VIII

J
ULIA
shook her head and opened her eyes. She was back on her patio, seated in her wicker chair as though she had never left. Then she realized that she actually hadn’t left—physically. She shrugged off a shiver and looked up at Michael. He loomed over her, arms crossed, watching her reactions. Measuring them. The shadow of his enormous wings pooled at his feet.

He was so much like Gabriel in intensity, but so different in personality. His voice was deep and rich—almost soothing, and his lightheartedness surprised her. Julia was sure that, when it came right down to it, Michael would be just as fierce and unyielding as Gabriel, but he had this way about him. She was comfortable with him. Familiar.

The scenes from her past had her searching her mind for all the other things she might have missed along the way. She felt as though she were permanently rooted to her seat, as though she weighed a thousand pounds and the Earth was spinning faster and faster, creating a severe and unnatural gravity that bore down on her. She fought to steady herself, pressing her feet to the ground and gripping the arms of her chair tighter.

“Breathe deeply,” Michael said.

Julia nodded, sucking in a deep breath, and then slowly releasing it. She felt some of her anxiety slip away. After a few more gulps of air, she was able to speak.

“So you were there for me,” she said, “instead of Gabriel.”

Michael raised his eyebrows. “I don’t believe that you could miss the point entirely. Are you so eager to hate him that you can’t see all that you have been given?”

Julia sighed. Admitting to herself that she had been wrong all those years was difficult. She had never been alone. But that didn’t mean she had to forgive Gabriel for not allowing her to know. She grudgingly let it go—for the moment.

“All right. I accept that I have made some choices. I understand about choice and consequence, but that last one? How was that my choice?”

“You were given the gift of life. It was only days later that you attempted to return it.”

Julia looked away, for the first time feeling guilt for trying to end her life.

“Fair enough.”

She remembered the world fading as she wept with relief that it was almost over. Then the four hours she cried and begged God to let her go when she realized she was not dying. She had been hallucinating, arguing with visions about why she should be allowed to “go home”, when her garage door was flung open in a rush of fresh air that forced out the poison. She didn’t give up, though, and stayed in the car until it ran out of gas.

For two days she had let her restaurant run itself while she had what felt like the worst hangover of her life. The day she returned to work was the day she met Alex. Julia smiled, remembering the first time she saw him.

“Wait a minute. Are you saying Alex is a gift?” Julia had always felt as though he was.

“Yes, girl,” Michael said gently. “But a gift of his own giving.”

“He gave himself to me?”

“Look inside yourself. Find your spirit, and you will find the answers. You have known Alex for a long time.”

The sadness had returned to his eyes, and Julia didn’t know if it was because he had been reading her mind, reliving that day, or if it was something else. As though he knew her questions, he smiled at her, that breathtaking smile of the angels, and she returned it. Her guilt and anger washed away. Now she was excited, anxious to learn more of the secrets she hoped Michael would share with her.

“So, how do I do that, Michael? Find my spirit, I mean.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, as the world began to swim away.

“Where are we? This place feels familiar,” Julia said when the world around her stabilized.

She stood on a dirt path in a forest, the keen smell of damp moss a shock to her senses. The light filtered through the trees in a way that made Julia think of Heaven touching the Earth. Through the trees to one side, she could see a pond that had several small stones sticking up out of the water, making a path to the large boulder in the very center. She took in a sharp breath as she remembered the place from her youth.

“I used to come here by myself to sit out on that stone and think,” she told Michael, who was looking out toward the boulder.

“Yes. I accompanied you here every time.”

“I would sit for hours, just thinking… Wait—you did? Why?”

“I am, and always have been, your protector.” He glanced in the opposite direction briefly, searching through the trees. “It amuses me that you know so little of us. Of yourself. Let me first show you how to find your spirit, and then I will explain a little about myself to you, so that you may understand more clearly.”

He turned from the pond and headed in the opposite direction, silently walking through the fallen twigs and leaves. Within moments, they reached a clearing of tall, swaying grass. He stopped on the edge of the meadow and turned to Julia.

“I took you to the pond first; it is the first place you found peace and meditation. It will be an easy place for you to find within your mind. When you get to the pond and can visualize it clearly, turn and walk through the woods in this direction. You will find this field.