He left, promising that he would explain. I certainly hoped so. I found myself still struggling with all that had happened in the predawn hours. I pulled myself from my warm covers and stood up. Methodically, I pulled a pair of worn jeans up over my legs and found a clean, not-too-wrinkled T-shirt from my closet. The night played over in my head as I combed through my hair with my fingers in an effort to smooth it before twisting it into a ponytail.
It was my mother’s rotation to work a Saturday at the library. After going downstairs to the kitchen, I found her note waiting for me on the kitchen table next to a small stack of coupons. Her rushed penmanship apologetically informed me she was once again working late and asked if pizza suited me for dinner.
Apparently, she approved of my sparkling housekeeping and was reluctant to have me mess it up again.
I sat down at the table, playing with the coupons. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the ticking clock that loomed over the kitchen sink. I wondered how long it would be before I’d see Garreth again, hoping for some reality in last night’s nocturnal visit.
I decided not to put myself through any more torture and went upstairs to shower and get dressed. I tried my hand once more at a makeover; my mother’s stash of cosmetics was just too enticing to stay away from now that I knew the effect it had on others. I felt clean and awake, capable of facing the day.
My thoughts drifted back again to the one I had deliberately pushed to the back burner of my subconscious. As if on cue, the doorbell chimed in the hallway. Garreth stood on the porch, smiling, and my heart thudded hello.
“I see you’re ready.” His chuckle touched his eyes.
“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re supposed to keep your promise today,” I said quietly, remembering last night so vividly in my head.
A smile instantly came to his lips and he took my hand, leading me out to his car. My heart quivered behind the safety of my ribcage. I had no idea where he was about to take me, no idea what explanations he would fill my heart with — my soul with. I only knew that I trusted him.
We drove along a winding road in comfortable silence, occasionally asking each other the small questions we had begun to store up in each other’s absence: favorite color (his white, mine brown), favorite books, movies, songs, etc. I noticed that his CD collection was as extensive as mine and our tastes were strikingly similar. We kept the conversation simple, never straying toward anything that would allow last night to make further sense to me. It crossed my mind that perhaps it was only a dream. A very vivid dream. But then I looked at him and I knew it had been real. The very fact that he had come for me confirmed that.
The center of town was at least a mile behind us now; the houses were thinning out as we sped along. Finally, we slowed and turned left onto a narrow road that, surprisingly, I had never noticed before. My hands began to perspire. I stole a quick glance out of the corner of my eye at the beautiful boy next to me, wondering how I could have lived here my entire life and not know where the heck we were headed right now. I frantically noted the absence of a GPS on the dashboard as the lane narrowed even more. We followed it slowly, burrowing our way deeper and deeper into the thick, overgrown greenery that stretched before us.
One moment we were in the glare of brilliant sunlight, and the next in the dimming, mocked grayness of night.
When the veil of the forest began to smother us, I looked up through the open roof of the Jeep in time to see the flanking limbs choke out the rest of the sun.
Within what seemed like seconds we were in another world.
Garreth stopped the car in a clearing and stepped out, appearing cautiously excited as he turned to me, his outstretched hand at the ready for mine. The soft ground crunched slightly under the weight of my sneakers and my door shut with a stifled echo. I realized my mouth was hanging open. It was as though we had stepped into some fairy-tale forest one only reads about, a magical place untouched by time.
“This is amazing.” I stared at the lushness surrounding us.
“One of my favorite places in the whole world,” Garreth said with a smile.
The thick trees absorbed the sounds of our intrusion, covering our presence in the blanket of pine and damp earth. The sun forced its way through the canopy of conjoined oak and hemlocks, teasing its lazy light between the heavy branches.
Garreth led me forward, taking my elbow as we carefully picked our way through the crazy maze of underbrush and twigs, leading us up and over gnarled roots and hollows that twisted out of the earth and pushed the soft mulch carpet to its limit.
I looked all around us. It was breathtaking but unrecognizable as my eyes adjusted to the green cavern we were trailing through.
“Where exactly are we going?” I asked a bit hesitantly.
“You’ll see. We’re almost there.”
Every now and then a twig snapped somewhere in the density surrounding us. I would stiffen but Garreth never let go of my hand.
As if the woods weren’t awe-inspiring enough, a perfect little stone chapel soon stood before us. When I walked around the square building, I was reminded of a miniature one-room castle. A single Gothic stained glass window was set into each of the three walls and a heavy wooden door, arched and aged, took up its fourth. Although the gray stone slab above the door frame was engraved crudely, it was still legible and proudly bore the name Saint Ann’s.
“Coming?” Garreth’s voice startled me. He was waiting at the top of the stone landing, his hand on the well-worn, tarnished doorknob.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked hesitantly. My own voice sounded alien in the undisturbed quiet of the woods. “I mean, is it condemned or anything?”
“Buildings aren’t made like this anymore. She might not look it, but she’s as solid as granite.”
He extended his hand, eager to help me up the steps.
His blue eyes shone as if he were the very mason who had laid the stones of the little chapel, eager to show me the precious wonder waiting behind the door. I couldn’t help but trust what I saw in his eyes. Carefully, I climbed. The thick door opened, its ancient hinges barely keeping contact with the worn wood. It scraped across the landing and we pushed our way inside.
I walked around the tiny room, taking it all in: wild fern that grew rampant in the corners, stubs of melted candles, massive iron candelabras eaten away by patchy blankets of rust. Beautiful bits of colored glass crunched beneath my feet from stained glass windows of long ago. Although it was in obvious shambles, it was still breathtaking.
“What do you think?” Garreth spoke softly from behind me.
I turned to face him, noting how light it had become compared to the dim green of the forest outside.
Looking up, I realized the roof was missing, allowing a glistening stream of gold to flood the tiny chapel.
“I think it’s amazing.”
“There used to be a tower long ago, but it was destroyed…” Garreth’s voice trailed off.
When I lowered my gaze, expecting him to continue, my heart tightened within my chest. It wasn’t because the most beautiful boy in the world stood before me, but instead as if for a secret purpose that ray of sunlight spoke to my heart, my senses…making me fully aware that I was seeing what my eyes up until now couldn’t see.
It could have been a trick of the light, or perhaps my subconscious finally revealing something suppressed and unknown. I could have tried to explain it to myself a thousand different ways when, in reality, it was right in front of me.
There Garreth stood, embraced by the most splendid set of pure white wings. From the top of his shoulders they arched upward, perfect plumes, soft and white. I had no doubt that if I were to touch them at that very moment my fingers would find a velvet so supple words could not express their softness. They curved and began their gentle descent past the length of his strong arms, to the glass-littered floor below. He was inconceivably beautiful, yet he emanated an indestructibility, an eternal force that left me in awe.
“You’re an…” but I was too speechless to continue.
“Yes.”
I brought my hand to my mouth. This was so unbelievable, yet it was believable. I looked up at him, knowing now that certain things made sense. How many times and how easily had my existence nearly been extinguished if it weren’t for the constant protection of my angel kissing life back into me?
My angel.
Every molecule inside my body, every ounce of my blood that ran through my veins became acutely aware of only one thing at that one moment. Time stood still for us in the tiny chapel where we were surrounded by the trees, the stones, the silence, and finally, the most important element of all. The truth.
“Are you convinced now that I’m real? That I am just as real to you as every living thing you see in this forest?”
I nodded and, slowly, the shimmering wings folded back into secrecy once again.
Remembering my one vivid dream about him, I reached down and took his right hand in mine. He gave it to me willingly and I knew we had crossed some sort of barrier.
I turned his hand over, palm up, knowing what I would see. My dream foretold his celestial mark. The life line, health line, heart line, chained thumb, all that one would find on a hand, a human hand, did not exist on his. His lines formed a complete circle with eight points. An octagram.
“And this,” I glanced down at his palm again. “What does this mean?”
“It’s the symbol of rebirth. The octagram allows me to follow you through eternity. From the moment you were created, I was assigned to guard you, to protect you, and guide you. I never realized I would…” He looked at me so deeply, so lovingly, as if he finally found something he’d lost or been without for a very long time. I realized it was the look I had seen on his face the morning I met him in the courtyard at school and every day thereafter.