Fallen (31 page)

I smiled
, complimenting his choices
, though
I wasn’t at a
ll interested in the alligator.

“You ready?”
Felix called out
, already down the steps and heading for my bike.

I wasn’t
,
but it didn’t look like I had a choice.

I paused, shifting slightly in my chair to face Battersbee
.
It was disappointing
that
this man
,
who had such a significant impact on my life in the
few minutes
I had known him
,
would be passing on.
“
Could I…visit you again?
”

He must have known my ability without having
it explained,
because he didn’t seem the least bit surprised by my request. He simply nodded once and said in his gruff voice, “Any time.”

He stuck
his
pipe back in his mouth and began rocking again
,
as if this pivotal conversation had never taken place.

I smiled at the woman as
I passed her
,
but she was focused on Battersbee, sending him a questioning stare.

“Come on, Mags!” Felix called
out
, eager to get home and cook his alligator
meat
.

By the time we were backing up,
the woman had taken a seat next to the old man. Both were watching us. I nodded
,
and they nodded back. I
cautiously
turned the bike and started down the dirt road.

In
side
my mind, in case he had some extrasensory ability to hear my thoughts, I called out
.
“
You take care
, Battersbe
e
…
.
”

I would bet money that I heard his thick southern accent reply
in the back of my ears, “You too.”

I was thankful our drive home
was going to take
nearly an hour
. It
would give
me time to think.
My mind was
busy sorti
ng
the
information Battersbee had just given me.

I
wasn’t able
to shove aside the realization of how foolish I’d been. All along this internal intuition had been trying to send me a signal, warn
ing
me against danger
, and I completely ignored it – even tried to prevent it at times
.
To my defense, it wasn’t like I could figure it out by simply studying the faces of those who elicited this response from me.
Whenever
they
looked at other
people
they
were
imp
assive
and showed
no real joy or disappointment or anxiety
, but when
they looked at me their expressions grew dark
and bitter
,
instantly reflecting what
coul
d only be defined with one word…
hatred.
Gershom was the only one who
remained
emotionless when focusing on me. Even if my sensor inside was triggered the same way with him as
it was
with the others, I never felt
fearful of him.

Something didn’t set well with me, like a piece missing from
an otherwise
complete puzzle. If all of the Fallen Ones were bad, that would include Gershom
, but
I couldn’t comprehend how Gershom
…
who was so timid
…
so praising of me
…
and
seemed so
frightened of everything
…
could be dangerous.

Even if Gershom had wanted to hurt me
,
somehow
overc
o
m
ing
his evident morality
,
he hadn’t
done so yet.
There had been plenty of
opportunity
too
,
especially
during
every lunch period
we spent together
, and yet I remained unharmed. H
e
had never even touched me
. In fact, it always seemed like he went
out of his way to make sure our fingers didn’t connect
, either
when we both dug
into
a bag of chips at the same time or when I handed him half of my
mu
f
fu
letta
sandwich.
I took this as a sign of respect or a hidden message
, indicating
he was strictly interested in friendship. Still, I knew there must be some reason my signal
went
off whenever
I was near him.
Even if he didn’t
harbor
the same ill intent
as the others,
there was no doubt in my mind that he
was a
Fallen One
.

Knowing what he was,
forced me
to decide whether we could be friends.
The level of danger
involved
automatically
escalated beyond
that of
traditional friendship
s
. With
Gershom
, the concern wasn’t whether I could trust him to keep a secret but whether I could trust him with my life.
Yet,
Fallen One or not,
Gershom’s
intentions
always
seemed to be in support of me.
He had done nothing to prove himself to be anything less than a
genuine
frie
nd.
If
I
rejected
him
or
his friendship
,
simply because he was a Fallen One,
that would be just
as
prejudice
as the other Fallen Ones
’
disdain for me
based
solely
on
my ability
? I would
be forced
to consider myself equally as discriminatory as
The
Fallen Ones.

By the time
we
reached the house, I had decided firmly that until
Gershom
proved himself to be anything less, we would remain friends.

Tonight,
I
would still
deliver
Gershom’s
message
.
Fallen One
or not, Gershom
is
my friend
and
he
had asked
me to do this
.

Beyond that, there was
one other
reason I
decided to follow through in delivering
the message for Gershom
. A reason that made me cognizant of
how involved with Eran I
was becoming,
and I would take any chance I could to see him again
. A
part of me hoped,
pleaded
with the
cosmic
forces
that made things fall
into
place that
Gershom’s
Eran
and my Eran would be one in the same.

As I was getting
ready for b
ed
,
I noticed how nervous I was.
I should
have been
concentrating on how to keep myself alive
considering
the
recent
infiltration of
the Fallen Ones
,
but all I could think about was Eran.

It took three tries
just
to get my toothbrush through the little hole in the stand
,
and I hit my hand
so hard
against the wall
,
trying to
hang my towel, I was sure it was
going to leave a
nasty
bruise
.

You’ve done this before, I told myself. Many, many times before.

I knew delivering a message to someone in
the afterlife
tonight wasn’t what had my heart racing. It was the prospect of who that “someone” was.

It made me feel ridiculous
,
but I kept
considering
whether the Eran I knew and the
one
Gershom knew
were
the same. I had to keep reminding myself the Era
n I knew existed here on earth or I would never be calm enough to
fall a
sleep.

On
the
way back to my room, Rufus
was coming
down the hall with his towel and soap in hand
. He
must have noticed my
nervousness
,
because he stopped.

“Are ya doin’ okay?” he asked
,
in his thick Irish accent.

“Yeah…
have
some things on my mind.” I shrugged.

“Hmm. If it’s ‘bout classes rememba that ya won’t care in ten years if ya miss a question or two
; if it’s ‘bout friends ya got
plenty of ‘em in this house; and if it’s ‘bout a boy…give him a shot. Take pity on us wankers.” He winked at me
and continued his stroll
to the bathroom.

Strangely, Rufus’s advice made me feel a little more relaxed.
When I got to my room, I closed
the
door, t
urned off
the
lights,
and
slipped
into
bed
.
It only took a few minutes before I was asleep.

I’m not sure if others enter
the afterlife
the same way I do. I’ve heard of tunnels and bright lights, an arched gate, even relatives greeting you. Any of that would
be
nice.
I always wake
up
on a concrete bench
in the middle of a large, stone hall lined with scrolls. Not the most welcoming way to arrive, which is why I figure it took me a while to realize I was actually visiting
the afterlife
in my sleep.

I picked myself up
, giving
a fleeting look to the clothes I
had on
. While most people believe everyone wears robes in heaven, I’ve never
actually
woken up in one. Oddly,
I’m
always
wearing
the same clothes in
the afterlife
that I’d dressed in that day. I went to school today in
faded
jeans, a
band
t-shirt, and my biker boots
, so
that was what I
was wearing
now.

A warm wind brushed pas
t me
and I glanced up in time to see someone flitting
by. She was hovering
a foot
from the ground with her back arched
and
her feet
dragging
behind her. The purple dress she wore flew out behind her in waves as she moved through the hall
, stopping
only a few feet away.

Although she spoke in a different language, I understood what she meant. “Are you lost, dear?”

“No,” I said, in English.

She smiled and nodded
,
moving on again,
barely
skirting the ground.

I watched her en
viously
.
Since I was never given the ability to fly
when
visiting here, I enjoyed watching those who could.
It was beautiful.

Snapping from my admiration,
I
quickly
got to work.

Since
I have to start my work in the Hall of Records
anyway
, it is efficient that I always wake up here.
The hall contains the records of everyone’s existence on earth, alphabetized by place of death.

I moved down the long corridor
, finding the G’s
midway
,
and prepared myself for the climb
.

One thing I could do
in
the afterlife
very
well was climb. For some r
eason, I had amazing strength
and agility
. I
can
haul myself over mountains as large as Everest
, never breaking a sweat or needing to stop and catch my breath.
That strength gave me
some leverage
. I could climb any wall in the Hall of Records
in seconds whereas on earth it would have taken me hours
and
required cumbersome
equipment
.
I
rested
my finger tips on the coarse edges that stuck out like very small shelves and slipped the toe of my boot
into
the lowest
one
,
begin
ning
my climb.
It only took a few seconds to reach
the place on
the wall
where I
found
Gettysburg
.

Once there,
I gripped the wall with one hand and pulled a scroll from its pocket
with my other
. I held one end
and let the other end drop
down
.

Scrolls
are
made of liquid concrete. They are so light you wouldn’t know it if one
floated down and
came to rest on you
.
They are flexible, moving with the fluidity of a flag dancing in the wind, while still retaining the durability concrete offers.
If I could figure out how to create
this
material on earth, I’d be
very
wealthy.

A single list of names, written in cursive, stretched the length of each scroll.
Some scrolls
’
names lasted
only a
few inches while others – in places w
h
ere many had passed on –
stretched down
several feet
.
When this one unraveled it nearly reached the floor about five stories
below
.

I took a deep breath, noticing how shaky
I
was
as I exhaled.
“
Gettysburg
,
Pennsylvania
, July 3rd, 1863…Eran
Talor
.”
A l
ump gather
ed
in my throat
,
as I spoke his name.

The scroll slipped up through my hands until Eran’s name
rested
just above my thumb.

Eran
Talor
– Died
Gettysburg
,
Pennsylvania
,
July 3
, 1863

Previously Jacques Lafayette – Died
Paris
,
France
, July 14, 1789

Previously William Whitlock –
Died
London
,
England
,
April 13, 1665

Previously Thomas Jurgen –
Died
Muehlhausen
,
Germany
June, 5, 1525

Three things struck me at once while reading down the list. First, Eran had gone back to earth only once each century; second, he’d lived in different places each time; and third, he’d gone back during
eras of turbulence
.

History was my favorite subject in school
,
so I read as much as I could
on all cultures
– far
exceeding
any of my teacher
’
s
requirements.
If it
wasn’t for this,
I would have missed the significance of the dates of Eran’s deaths. From this list, it looked like he’d died during the Battle of Gettysburg,
during
the Storming of the Bastille in
France
, during
London
’s Black Plague, and during the Peasant Wars in
Germany
.