Page 38

Coming to an Und erstanding

Rafferty felt blurry as he returned to himself. His body still felt like it floated, and time ticked by for an eternity before he was aware enough to even try to twitch.

“Take it slow,” Honey’s soothing voice said as she appeared in his vision. She gripped his hand and squeezed, which seemed to help him feel more real and alive.

“It’s like I’m squeezing in between realities…” he muttered.

Honey laughed. “That’s one way to put it. Just take it slow, waking up can be jarring.”

“Waking up?” he asked, as he did not listen to her advice and tried to sit up. His head swam, and he had to yield back to gravity. Lying back, he realized he was on a couch in a normal-looking li ving room.

“Let me get you something cold to drink. It can help.” She stood and turned, leaving h is vision.

His gaze followed her, and he saw the room continue into a dining space with two exits on the other end, one leading into a kitchen and another probably turning off toward the bedrooms.

“Where am I?” he asked, too softly to really be heard, but Honey called back to h im anyway.

“This is my apartment,” she answered.

That didn’t really make a whole lot of sense considering where he had just been, but he didn’t have the will to argue about it. A few moments later, Honey returned, offering him a glass of c old water.

“Drink this; it will help. Coming back from the other side like that can be diso rienting.”

This time he managed to sit up properly, the world becoming more and more real and what just happened less and less. “Why… why don’t I remember?”

“What do you remember?” Honey e ncouraged.

He took a deep pull of the water. “It was… it was like a dream. I understood… I understood everything… but now it’ s fading.”

“That is alright, let it fade. What you need will remain with you and what you have forgotten will be there for you when you return, as it always has been,” Hone y assured.

“But what happened? I don’t understand. Where is my maman? Did she…?” His heart thundered against his ribs as that sliver of memory flashed. She had dissipated into the light, paying the price he had always feared. He pressed the palms of his hands hard against his throbbing temples. “I don’t un derstand.”

“You had a dream about your mother?” Ho ney asked.

He jerked, spilling some water. “Uh, yes… no… it wasn’t a dream. It was real , I saw her… You we re there?”

Honey didn’t answer his question, on ly smiled.

Then a thought occurr ed to him.

No.

An unde rstanding.

She wasn’t going to talk about what just happened. She would neither confirm nor deny it. It was no t her way.

He had no idea how he knew that, but it was as sure a fact as the gravity holding him down to t he planet.

He thought his head would explode trying to understand his unde rstanding.

Honey sat next to him, waiting for him to keep speaking.

“How long… have I been here?” he asked instead, looking to the window, which shone with a gray daylight. It had been night when he had arrived at t his place.

“Two weeks,” she sa id softly.

He flinched hard. “I’ve been here for t wo weeks?”

“Sleeping on my couch, yes,” Honey said. “You haven’t moved at all. Though that’s not the worst I’ve ever had to deal with. éliott stayed there a whole mo nth once.”

Rafferty furrowed his brows. He didn’t understand. In his mind’s eyes, he saw her again. Or perceived her? “Saw” was too small a word, but she had been brilliant and golden. It was an image that was hard to relate to the woman who squatted besid e him now.

He shook his head, closing his eyes.

“It wasn’t a dream,” he breathed, needing to hear those words. He knew what he saw, what he felt, what had happened. It had to be real. “It h as to be.”

Another understanding bubbled to th e surface.

No in terfering .

It wasn’t a voice that said it, simply… a knowing. A rule, not given like an edict, but understood like fire burns or rain falls. Hard to define unless ex perienced.

“Even talking about it is interfering,” Rafferty murmured.

Honey nodded sagely. A vague gesture. She could just be saying that she heard him instead of that s he agreed.

“ Interfering is what demons do,” Rafferty murmured. “It’s why we tell everyone about us, why everyone believes we exist, but angels…”

Bu t angels …

“But angels don’t exist,” Honey said, her smile shifting a little, becoming more a knowing smirk, in the right light . “Do we?”

Rafferty laid a hand over his racing heart, pounding as the epiphany unfolded in his mind, dark and sacred as midnight rose. “Why did you do thi s for me?”

“I just like to help, and you looked like you needed some help. Thank you for letting me,” she said.

He licked his lips. “So what hap pens now?”

Standing up, she gestured for his coat, hanging over a nearby armchair’s back. “That’s up to you. But you could check your phone.” Then she left again, going back into th e kitchen.

Any further deep introspection was interrupted by the sound of his mobile phone chirping. He found it in his indicated coat pocket. He also noted that he had no memory of taki ng it off.

“What in the…” he exclaimed as he activated the screen to see the countless messages covering it and continuing down as he scrolled.

The majority of them were fr om Helena.

He also noted that the dates and times kept going backward.

They went back two weeks.

Before he could open the first one, another fresher one popped up, marked fr om Helena.

[Rafferty please. Just answer me. If this was just about you and me, I would leave it alone, but if this doesn’t happen for Scarlet, I couldn’t live with myself. Please, the competition is in a few hours. Just let me know if you’re coming or not . Please.]

He ran a hand through his hair as he scrolled through the other messages. “Oh, Helena,” he whispered, reading her struggle and desperation to reach him. Her embarrassment and apologies. For every one he read, there were three more that had bee n deleted.

“Are you going to go?” Honey asked, reappearing with a paper bag in one hand.

He looked from her to the bag and back to the phone.

“Of course, I’m going to go,” he said with more certainty than he had ever felt in his whole existence.

“Good,” Honey said, and she thrust the bag o ut to him.

“What is that?” he asked, even as he stood, steadier than he had been before, t o take it.

“Your battle armor,” sh e quipped.

He looked inside, but all he could make out was a bundle of dark cloth at the bottom. It took a second before it hit him wh at it was.

“Oh. I see,” he said, setting the bag onto the couch so he could draw out the chef’s coat. He held it up, but Honey took over, taking it by the shoulders to hold it against him, her eyes roving as she checked her mea surements.

“Yes, I think that will fit you perfectly. The whole thing is in there, so if you want to go into the bathroom and change, that will give me enough time to find my keys. There are even shoes in the bottom,” she added before whirling away toward th e kitchen.

“Honey!” he called, stopping her just before she passed the threshold. “I know…” The weight not to say what he knew pressed on his chest, but he pushed past it. “I know things now, but I still don’t un derstand.”

“Knowing something is one thing. Understanding it is something else entirely.”

“I am different now,” he said, pressing against his chest, which felt looser than it had in centuries. “But I’m not sure why. Something is gone.”

“You paid your price. Finally,” she affirmed.

He blinked at that, his mind struggling to comprehend what he knew was true. “But I’m st ill here.”

“Yeah. Funny that,” she smirked, setting her fists to her hips.

“But… but my mother…” He growled. “I knew all this on the other side but here… What happene d to her?”

“She returned,” Honey said, her gentle smile slipping. “There are no words to describe it, so it would be best no t to try.”

He shook his head. “So everything that I understood when I was a demon w as wrong.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you understood. I am not you. You will have to figure it out. That’s why we’re here, after all,” she said.

“It is?”

“Well, it’s why I’ve decided I’m here,” she said, her sweet smile returning. “What you’re here to do is up to you, but I think you already k now that.”

He nodded. It was true. “But do I have the right to be here?”

“Oh, Rafferty. What does that matter? You are here,” the angel sighed. “Go get changed.”