Halo

2 Flesh

When I woke in the morning, sunlight was streaming through the tall windows and spilling across the bare pine boards of my room. In the beams of light, dust motes swirled in a frenzied dance. I could smell the briny sea air; recognize the sounds of gulls squawking and the yeasty waves crashing over the rocks. I could see the familiar objects around the room that had become mine. Whoever had been responsible for decorating my bedroom had done so with some idea of its future occupant. It had a girlish charm with its white furniture, iron canopy bed, and rosebud wallpaper. The white dressing table had a floral stencil on its drawers, and there was a rattan rocking chair in one corner. A dainty desk with turned legs stood against a wall beside the bed.

I stretched and felt the crumpled sheets against my skin; their texture still a novelty. Where we came from, there were no textures, no objects. We needed nothing physical to sustain us and so there was nothing. Heaven was not easy to describe. Some humans might catch a glimpse of it on occasion, buried somewhere in the recesses of their unconscious, and wonder briefly what it all meant. Try to imagine an expanse of white, an invisible city, with nothing material to be seen but still the most beautiful sight you could imagine. A sky like liquid gold and rose quartz, a feeling of buoyancy, of weightlessness, seemingly empty but more majestic than the grandest palace on earth. That was the best I could do when trying to describe something as ineffable as my former home. I was not too impressed with human language; it seemed absurdly limited. There was so much that couldn’t be put into words. That was one of the saddest things about people — their most important thoughts and feelings often went unspoken and barely understood.

One of the most frustrating words in the human language, as far as I could tell, was love. So much meaning attached to this one little word. People bandied it about freely, using it to describe their attachments to possessions, pets, vacation destinations, and favorite foods. In the same breath they then applied this word to the person they considered most important in their lives. Wasn’t that insulting? Shouldn’t there be some other term to describe deeper emotion? Humans were so preoccupied with love. They were all desperate to form an attachment to one person they could refer to as their “other half.” It seemed from my reading of literature that being in love meant becoming the beloved’s entire world. The rest of the universe paled into insignificance compared to the lovers. When they were separated, each fell into a melancholy state, and only when they were reunited did their hearts start beating again. Only when they were together could they really see the colors of the world. When they were apart, that color leached away, leaving everything a hazy gray. I lay in bed, wondering about the intensity of this emotion that was so irrational and so irrefutably human. What if a person’s face was so sacred to you it was permanently inscribed in your memory? What if their smell and touch were dearer to you than life itself? Of course, I knew nothing about human love, but the idea had always been intriguing to me. Celestial beings never pretended to understand the intensity of human relationships; but I found it amazing how humans could allow another person to take over their hearts and minds. It was ironic how love could awaken them to the wonders of the universe, while at the same time confine their attention to one another.

The sounds of my brother and sister moving around in the kitchen downstairs broke into my reverie and drew me out of bed. What did my ruminations matter anyway when human love was barred to angels?

I wrapped a cashmere throw around me to keep warm and padded barefoot down the stairs. In the kitchen I was met by the inviting smell of toast and coffee. I was pleased to find myself adjusting to human life — a few weeks ago such smells might have brought on a headache or a wave of nausea. But now I was starting to enjoy the experience. I curled my toes, enjoying the feel of the smooth timber boards underfoot. I didn’t even care when, still only half awake, I clumsily stubbed my toe on the refrigerator. The shooting pain only served to remind me that I was real and that I could feel.

“Good afternoon, Bethany,” said my brother jokingly as he handed me a steaming mug of tea. I held it a fraction too long before putting it down, and it scalded my fingers. Gabriel noticed me flinch, and I saw a frown crinkle his forehead. I was reminded that unlike my two siblings I was not immune to pain.

My physical form had the same vulnerabilities as a human body did, although I was able to self-heal minor injuries like cuts and broken bones. It had been one of Gabriel’s concerns about my being chosen for this in the first place. I knew he saw me as vulnerable and thought the whole mission might prove too dangerous for me. I had been chosen because I was more in tune with the human condition than other angels — I watched over humans, empathized with them, and tried to understand them. I had faith in them and cried tears for them. Perhaps it was because I was young — I had been created only seventeen mortal years ago, which equated to infancy in celestial years. Gabriel and Ivy had been around for centuries; they had fought battles and witnessed human atrocities beyond my imagination. They’d had all of time to acquire strength and power to protect them on earth. They’d both visited earth on a number of missions so they’d had time to adjust to it and were aware of its perils and pitfalls. But I was an angel in the purest, most vulnerable form. I was naïve and trusting, young and fragile. I could feel pain because years of wisdom and experience did not protect me from it. It was for this reason that Gabriel wished I had not been chosen, and it was for this reason that I had.

But the final decision hadn’t been up to him; it was up to someone else, someone so supreme even Gabriel didn’t dare argue. He had to resign himself to the fact that there must be a divine reason behind my selection, which was beyond even his understanding.

I sipped tentatively at my tea and smiled at my brother. His expression cleared, and he picked up a box of cereal and scrutinized its label.

“What’ll it be — toast or something called Honey Wheat Flakes?”

“Not the flakes,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the cereal.

Ivy was seated at the table idly buttering a piece of toast. My sister was still trying to develop a taste for food, and I watched her cut her toast into neat little squares, shuffle the pieces around her plate and put them back together like a jigsaw puzzle. I went to sit next to her, inhaling the heady scent of freesia that always seemed to pervade the air around her.

“You look a little pale,” she observed with her usual calm, lifting away a strand of white-blond hair that had fallen over her rain gray eyes. Ivy had become the self-appointed mother hen of our little family.

“It’s nothing,” I replied casually and hesitated before adding, “just a bad dream.” I saw them both stiffen slightly and exchange concerned glances.

“I wouldn’t call that nothing,” Ivy said. “You know we aren’t meant to dream.” Gabriel returned from his position by the window to study my face more closely. He lifted my chin with the tip of his finger. I noticed his frown had returned, shadowing the grave beauty of his face.

“Be careful, Bethany,” he counseled in his now-familiar older brother tone. “Try not to become attached to physical experiences. Exciting as it may seem, remember we are only visitors here. All of this is temporary and sooner or later we will have to return. ..” Seeing my forlorn look made him stop short. When he continued, it was in a lighter voice. “Well, there’s plenty of time before that happens so we can discuss it later.”

It was strange visiting earth with Ivy and Gabriel. They attracted so much attention wherever we went. In his physical form, Gabriel might well have been a classical sculpture come to life. His body was perfectly proportioned and each muscle looked as if it had been sculpted out of the purest marble. His shoulder-length hair was the color of sand and he often wore it pulled back in a loose ponytail. His brow was strong and his nose arrow straight. Today he was wearing faded blue jeans worn through at the knees and a crumpled linen shirt, both of which gave him a disheveled beauty. Gabriel was an archangel and a member of the Holy Seven. Although his clique ranked only second in the divine hierarchy, they were exclusive and had the most interaction with human beings. In fact, they were created to liaise between the Lord and mortals. But at heart Gabriel was a warrior — his celestial name meant “Hero of God”—and it was he who had watched Sodom and Gomorrah burn.

Ivy, on the other hand, was one of the wisest and oldest of our kind, although she didn’t look a day over twenty. She was a seraphim, the order of angels closest to the Lord. In the Kingdom, seraphim had six wings to mark the six days of creation. A gold snake was tattooed on Ivy’s wrist as a mark of her rank. It was said that in battle the seraphim would come forward to spit fire on the earth, but she was one of the gentlest creatures I’d ever met. In her physical form, Ivy looked like a Renaissance Madonna with her swanlike neck and pale oval face. Like Gabriel, she had piercing rain gray eyes. This morning she wore a white flowing dress and gold sandals.

I, on the other hand, was nothing special, just a plain, old transition angel — bottom of the rung. I didn’t mind; it meant I was able to interact with the human spirits that entered the Kingdom. In my physical form, I looked ethereal like my family, except my eyes were as brown as river stones and my chestnut brown hair fell in loose waves down my back. I’d thought that once I was recruited for an earth posting I’d be able to choose my own physical form, but it didn’t work that way. I was created small, fine boned, and not especially tall, with a heart-shaped face, pixielike ears, and skin that was milky pale. Whenever I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, I saw an eagerness that was missing from the faces of my siblings. Even when I tried, I could never look as removed as Gabe and Ivy. Their expressions of grave composure rarely altered, regardless of the drama unfolding around them. My face always wore a look of restless curiosity no matter how hard I tried to look worldly.

Ivy crossed to the sink holding her plate, as always moving as though she were dancing rather than walking. Both my brother and sister moved with an unstudied grace that I was incapable of imitating. More than once I’d been accused of stomping through the house as well as being heavy-handed.

When she’d disposed of her half-eaten toast, Ivy stretched out on the window seat, the newspaper open in front of her.

“What’s news?” I asked.

In reply she held up the front page for me to see. I read the headlines — bombings, natural disasters, and economic collapse. I felt immediately defeated.

“Is it any wonder that people don’t feel safe,” Ivy said with a sigh. “They have no faith in one another.”

“If that’s true then what can we possibly do for them?” I asked hesitantly.

“Let’s not expect too much too soon,” said Gabriel. “They say change takes time.”

“Besides, it’s not for us to try and save the world,” Ivy said. “We must focus on our little portion of it.”

“You mean this town?”

“Of course.” My sister nodded. “This town was listed as a target of the Dark Forces. It’s strange the places they choose.”

“I imagine they’re starting small and working their way up,” said Gabriel in disgust. “If they can conquer a town, they can conquer a city, then a state, then a country.”

“How do we know how much damage they’ve already done?” I asked.

“That will become clear in time,” said Gabriel. “But so help us, we will put an end to their destructive work. We won’t fail in our mission, and before we depart, this place will once again be in the hands of the Lord.”

“In the meantime, let’s just try and blend in,” Ivy said, perhaps in an effort to lighten the mood. I almost laughed aloud and was tempted to suggest she look in a mirror. She might be as old as time, but sometimes Ivy could sound quite naïve. Even I knew that blending in was going to be a challenge.

Anyone could see that we were different — and not in an art student’s dyed-hair-and-kooky-stockings kind of way. We were really different — out-of-this-world different. I guess that wasn’t unusual given who we were… or rather, what we were. There were several things that made us conspicuous. For starters, human beings were flawed and we weren’t. If you saw one of us in a crowd, the first thing you’d notice was our skin. It was so translucent you might be persuaded into believing that it contained actual particles of light. This became even more evident after dark when any exposed skin emitted a faint glow as if from some inner energy source. Also, we never left footprints, even when we were walking on something impressionable like grass or sand. And you’d never catch any one of us in a tank top — we always wore high-backed tops to cover up a minor cosmetic problem.

As we began to assimilate into the life of the town, the locals couldn’t help but wonder what we were doing in a sleepy backwater like Venus Cove. Sometimes they thought we were tourists on an extended stay; other times we’d be mistaken for celebrities, and they’d ask us about TV shows we’d never even heard of. No one guessed that we were working; that we had been recruited to assist a world on the brink of destruction. You only had to open a newspaper or flick on a television to see why we’d been sent: murder, kidnapping, terrorist attacks, war, assaults on the elderly… the ugly list went on and on. There were so many souls in peril that the Agents of Darkness were seizing the opportunity to gather. Gabriel, Ivy, and I had been sent here to offset their influence. Other Agents of Light had been sent to various locations across the globe, and eventually we would be summoned to evaluate our findings. I knew the situation was dire, but I was certain that we couldn’t fail. In fact, I thought it would be easy — our presence would be the divine solution. I was about find out just how wrong I was.

We were fortunate to have ended up at Venus Cove. It was a breathtaking place of striking contrasts. Parts of the coastline were windswept and rugged, and from our house we could see the looming cliffs overlooking the dark, rolling ocean and hear the wind howling through the trees. But a little farther inland, there were pastoral scenes of undulating hills with grazing cows and pretty windmills.

Most of the houses in Venus Cove were modest weatherboard cottages but, closer to the coast, was a series of tree-lined streets with larger, more impressive homes. Our house, Byron, was one of these. Gabriel wasn’t overly thrilled with our accommodations — the cleric in him found it excessive, and he would no doubt have felt more at ease in something less luxurious, but Ivy and I loved it. And if the powers that be didn’t see any harm in us enjoying our time on earth, why shouldn’t we? I suspected the house might not help achieve our goal of blending in, but I kept quiet. I didn’t want to complain when I already felt too much like a liability on this mission.

Venus Cove had a population of around three thousand, although this doubled during the summer break when the town transformed into a teeming resort. Regardless of the time of year, the locals were open and friendly. I liked the atmosphere of the place: There were no people in business suits charging off to high-powered jobs; no one was in a hurry. The people didn’t seem to care if they had dinner at the swankiest restaurant in town or at the beachside snack bar. They were just too laid back to worry about things like that.

“Do you agree, Bethany?” The rich timbre of Gabriel’s voice recalled me to the present. I tried to remember the threads of the conversation but drew a complete blank.

“Sorry,” I said, “I was miles away. What were you saying?”

“I was just setting out some ground rules. Everything will be different as of today.”

Gabriel was frowning again, mildly annoyed by my inattention. The two of us were starting at the Bryce Hamilton School that morning, me as a student and Gabriel as the new music teacher. It had been decided that a school would be a useful place to begin our work of countering the emissaries of darkness, given it was full of young people whose values were still evolving. Ivy was too unearthly to be herded off to high school, so it was agreed that she would mentor us and ensure our safety, or rather, my safety, as Gabriel could look after himself.

“The important thing is not to lose sight of why we’re here,” Ivy said. “Our mission is clear: to perform good deeds, acts of charity and kindness; to lead by example. We don’t want any miracles just yet, not until we can predict how they would be received. At the same time we want to observe and learn as much as we can about people. Human culture is so complex and different from anything else in the universe.”

I suspected these ground rules were mostly for my benefit. Gabriel never had difficulty handling himself in any kind of situation.

“This is going to be fun,” I said, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

“It’s not about fun,” retorted Gabriel. “Haven’t you heard anything we’ve said?”

“Essentially we are trying to drive away the evil influences and restore people’s faith in each other,” said Ivy in a conciliatory tone. “Don’t worry about Bethany, Gabe — she’ll be fine.”

“In short, we are here to bless the community,” my brother continued. “But we mustn’t appear too conspicuous. Our first priority is to remain undetected. Bethany, please try not to say anything that will… unsettle the students.”

It was my turn to be offended.

“Like what?” I demanded. “I’m not that scary.”

“You know what Gabriel means,” said Ivy. “All he’s suggesting is that you think before you speak. No personal talk about home, no ‘God reckons’… or ‘God told me’… they might think you’re on something.”

“Fine,” I said huffily. “But I hope I’m at least allowed to fly around the corridors during lunch hour.”

Gabriel threw me a disapproving look. I waited for him to get my joke, but his eyes remained serious. I sighed. Much as I loved him, Gabriel could be totally lacking in any sense of humor.

“Don’t worry, I’ll behave. I promise.”

“Self-control is of the utmost importance,” Ivy said.

I sighed again. I knew I was the only one who had to worry about self-control. Ivy and Gabriel had enough experience of this kind for it to be second nature — they knew the rules back to front. It wasn’t fair. They also had steadier personalities than I did. They might as well have been called the Ice King and Queen. Nothing fazed them, nothing troubled them, and most important, nothing upset them. They were like well-rehearsed actors whose lines came to them without effort. It was different for me; I’d struggled from the outset. For some reason, becoming human had really thrown me. I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of it. It was like going from blissful emptiness to experiencing a roller coaster of sensations all at once. Sometimes the sensations crossed over and shifted like sand so the end result was total confusion. I knew I was supposed to detach myself from all things emotional, but I hadn’t worked out how. I marveled at how ordinary humans managed to live with such turmoil bubbling below the surface all the time — it was draining. I tried to hide my difficulties from Gabriel; I didn’t want to prove him right or have him thinking less of me because of my struggles. If my siblings ever experienced anything similar, they were expert at suppressing it.

Ivy suggested she go and lay out my uniform and find a clean shirt and pants for Gabe. As a member of the teaching staff, Gabriel was required to wear a shirt and tie, and the idea wasn’t exactly appealing to him. He usually wore loose jeans and open-neck sweaters. Anything tight made us feel too constricted. Clothes in general gave us a strange feeling of being trapped, so I sympathized with Gabriel as he came back downstairs squirming in the crisp white shirt that hugged his well-built chest and tugging at the tie until he’d sufficiently loosened the knot.

Clothing wasn’t the only difference; we’d also had to learn to perform grooming rituals like showering, brushing our teeth, and combing our hair. We never had to think about such things in the Kingdom, where existence was maintenance free. Life as a physical entity meant so much more to remember.

“Are you sure there’s a dress code for teachers?” Gabriel asked.

“I think so,” Ivy replied, “but even if I’m wrong, do you really want to be taking a chance on the first day?’

“What was wrong with what I had on?” he grumbled, rolling up his shirtsleeves in an attempt to liberate his arms. “It was comfortable, at least.”

Ivy clicked her tongue at him and turned to check that I’d put on my uniform correctly.

I had to admit that it was fairly stylish as far as uniforms went. The dress was a flattering pale blue with a pleated front and a white Peter Pan collar. With it we were required to wear knee-high cotton socks, brown buckle-up shoes, and a navy blazer with the school crest emblazoned in gold on the breast pocket. Ivy had bought me pale blue and white ribbons, which she now weaved deftly into my braids.

“There,” she said with a satisfied smile. “From celestial ambassador to local school girl.”

I wished she hadn’t used the word ambassador—it was unnerving. It carried so much weight, so many expectations. And not the sort of expectations humans had of their children to clean their rooms, babysit their siblings, or complete their homework. These were the kind of expectations that had to be met, and if they weren’t… well, I didn’t know what would happen. My knees felt as if they might buckle underneath me at any minute.

“I’m not so sure about this, Gabe,” I said, even as I realized how erratic I must sound. “What if I’m not ready?”

“That choice is not ours,” Gabriel replied with unfailing composure. “We have only one purpose: to fulfil our duties to the Creator.”

“I want to do that, but this is high school. It’s one thing observing life from the sidelines, but we’re going to be thrown right in the thick of it.”

“That’s the point,” Gabriel said. “We can’t be expected to make a difference from the sidelines.”

“But what if something goes wrong?”

“I’ll be there to make it right.”

“It’s just that the earth seems like such a dangerous place for angels.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

The dangers I imagined weren’t merely physical. These we’d be well equipped to handle. What worried me was the seduction of all things human. I doubted myself, and I knew that could lead to losing sight of my higher purpose. After all, it had happened before with dire consequences — we’d all heard the dreadful legends of fallen angels, seduced by the indulgences of man, and we all knew what had become of them.

Ivy and Gabriel observed the world around them with a trained eye, aware of the pitfalls, but for a novice like me the danger was enormous.