As far as I was able to tell, Mish was no longer in Abaddon’s demonic throttlehold. He had had an uneventful night: there had been no incident to unsettle him, no night terror to shake him from his peaceful sleep.
The next morning was not as peacefully uneventful. In fact, it had arrived early to deliver a number of sorrow-laden revelations from him.
His day began at half-past five. I had been keeping a close eye on him as he prepared for his run. It was his first outdoor activity since being brought to the infirmary a week ago. It was also the first time he wasn’t simply moping about like a forlorn poet or pacing the perimeters of his living room like a television attorney.
It must have been a conscious decision on his part to break his vow of silence and make the most of his time in captivity. His first agenda was restoring his physique back to its athletic form.
I had been astounded that he had obediently left his feeding tube in situ. I had expected him to remove it, but I had underestimated him. Instead, he had tucked the attached bag into the waistband of his cycle shorts before proceeding with his jog around the facility.
Now the GPS in his ankle bracelet was informing me that he was approaching the edge of a cliff. It must appear to you, dear reader, dastardly of me to say this, but something had provoked me to regard the child with suspicion. I had enough suspicion to justify lingering around the monitor, and now, observing the child on the cliff’s edge was putting paid to my premature prognostication that his condition was improving.
If anyone were to ask the child, afterward, what had prodded him to the cliff in the middle of his run, or why he had wanted to conjure the spirit of the air, Meririm, to appear to him, he would maintain that he couldn’t know for sure. He didn’t know why, only that he remembered having been there and done it. And, so, there he was – tempting the evil Meririm and urging him to nudge him over the precipice.
Are you so incorrigible, Mishael? I rebuked him telepathically. What have we taught you about the Evil Ones?
“Step away from the cliff this instant, Mishael,” I commanded out loud. “I’m ordering you as your General. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
Gabriel had arrived and suited up for his mission in Rajasthan. Drawn to my fury, he joined me to investigate. We had already greeted each other with kisses on the cheeks, as was our custom.
“What’s going on?” he asked, observing the child on the monitor screen. He realized immediately that any answer would be redundant; seeing our erstwhile innocent child, in the course of invoking the forbidden services of a Fallen One, was all the answer he required. He was right away riled up to anger.
It was the last domino to fall. In making his ill-conceived decision, the child had scattered like confetti all our hopes and faith in him. We had been grasping at straws, we realized that now. Our quixotic quest for his complete recovery derailed and falling by the wayside.
“What’s wrong with the child?” I fumed. But it was enough.
Enough, I mentally informed Mishael. Put an end to your life, if you must, but not today, and not on my watch. I’m not about to stand by and watch you enact your last great act of heroism.
I shut down all the surveillance systems. I invoked my team of Guardian Angels and commanded them to intercept the child: “Lest he should strike his foot or crush one of his bones against the rocks,” I explained to their leader, Abishael.
“I’m done with the boy,” I informed Gabriel next. “Everything I’ve seen so far has been the antithesis of what he’s been trained for, what he’s been taught to stand for.”
Although crestfallen, I was ready to give him up. “He can do whatever he wants with his life after this,” I added. “I won’t be responsible for it. I’ve done all I reasonably can to preserve this precious life. I would’ve given up my own life, if I could, to wrap him up in my love and put him out of his pain, but he would not.”
I prepared to take off for my meeting with the Divine Council.
“Don’t leave like this,” Gabriel stopped me. “Don’t give up on him. He’s not going to survive the thought that you have abandoned him. Surely there must be more we can do for him.”
“If you have a suggestion, Riel, now would be a good time to give it,” I told him.
“Have you so soon forgotten what the Lord has prophesied?” he reminded me. “There’s obviously something or someone oppressing our beloved that needs to be delivered from him. I won’t be remiss to suggest that this someone is Abaddon. Patience, Michael. Our underling’s seriously troubled.”
 |
| "Our underling's seriously troubled." |
For the love of both Gabriel and the child, I heeded but, before leaving my office at Headquarters, I informed Gabriel irrevocably: “I won’t set my eyes on him again till he proves he has no intention of destroying himself. Give him this message, if he still lives.”
I wasn’t to know what peril would beset the child until Gabriel’s report later in the evening. It was not an easy report to make. Gabriel was emotionally overwrought when he recounted to me the aftermath of the child’s self-destructive hijinks. In fact, he had at times been close to tears, which once more staggered me. (Lately this impassive elder had been atypically easy-to-read.) His details were sketchy and one-sided, however, and Mish was left to fill in the gaps much later.
My anger that morning was warranted: Mish had attempted a self-annihilating leap from the cliff. But for the angels I had sent to intervene in his folly, he might’ve succeeded. His punishment at Gabriel’s hands was immediate and harsh.
“We’re done coddling you,” Gabriel informed him, dispatching him to the bathroom on their return from the precipice.
“Well, I’m done being coddled,” the child responded.
“Now we’re talking.”
In righteous indignation, Gabriel grasped my child by his arm. He yanked off the feeding tube, so thoughtlessly that Mish would grimace in pain before throwing up his feed – on the elder’s torso no less. While my son continued to throw up the remaining residues of his feed, Gabriel handed him his surplice, demanding that he put it on. “Except for your tunics and sandals, all your other clothes and shoes will be retired for a time,” the elder added. “And you’re never again to leave this chamber unsupervised.”
My son was left alone in the bathroom. As soon as he re-emerged from there, he waited meekly on the couch.
“You’ve been taught many times, Mishael,” Gabriel began. “You never let the Fallen Ones get a toehold in your life. Never. Have you learned nothing from us?”
My son was silent but his visage was surly. This further irked his Commander.
“And why would you summon Meririm?” the Commanding General demanded. “How could you? Say something or so help me.”
My son’s head shook. After a while he managed to spit out: “I don’t know why, Gabriel. I don’t. I really don’t.”
Gabriel whispered sceptically, “Of course, you don’t,” after which he went on to haul his underling over the coals. Gabriel’s admonition would last ten minutes, which left my son crushed and reduced to tears. Every now and then something the Commanding General said would register in the fledgling’s mind: things like irrational, unconscionable, wrong and sin. Especially sin. The idea that he had sinned felt like a stiletto blade thrust into his heart.
The first time the angel, Kemuel, suggested that my son had committed sin, he was so distraught at what he perceived was a blight on his impeccable record that he had vomited. The penance was duly paid with self-imposed fasting. And a ban slapped on him from using state vehicles for a year. That was his sin, that he had taken an army jeep for unofficial business without authorization, and this was tantamount to stealing. And that he had denied his crime, and this was tantamount to lying. Those were two commandments in the Decalogue that he had broken in one day.
By the time the elders uncovered, after the child’s due process, that the brethren had erred in bringing their charges against him, for he had indeed filled out a written requisition to use the jeep, which had been waylaid because communicated through the wrong channel, the damage to his psyche had been done.
The charges were not brought against Mish with intent of malice but in compliance with establishment procedure. Nevertheless, he did not recover quickly from the ignominy of the experience. Of course, he was quick to forgive. That was in his angelic nature. However, the wound cut deeply and the scar was evidenced by the wall he would, from that time forth, build around him, impacting for a long time his interaction with the brethren. It was not so easy to forget as to forgive, and that was in both his human and his angelic nature. A week after the last dust of the discomfiture had settled as scrap heap and memories of it were confined in the past imperfect, he was reportedly AWOL. Rumours swiftly circulated that Mish had defected to the enemy’s side. With the rumours came the qualms and heavy burdens of responsibility felt by all the brethren to put things right for the child. They might have forgotten but, apparently, the child hadn’t.
When recovered after an hour’s manhunt, which had mobilized fifty-two of my warriors to scour the moorland and comb the plateaux around our garrison, he was in his nightwear in the middle of a wood. My son was determined that he had not willed himself to the woods. He was adamant that he had not trekked all those miles to the upland or voluntarily become ensnared inside the base of a tree shaft while consciously in control of his will and emotions. He had deflected our questions about the tell tale signs of his blistered and soil-covered bare feet by appealing to silence. This, at the risk of being disparaged a liar once again.
That same night, the Halfling, Ariel, paid him a visit in his billet. Ariel was an angel of Mishael’s genus and shared with the latter the same human genetic code. Three years apart in human age, Ari Benrubi had been the first to be created, and Mishka the last, so that made him Mish’s older sibling.
Mish was settling down to sleep, exhausted from a day of subjection to the elders’ third degree. I was sitting in the shadows when Ariel turned up. He sat on the bed beside his brother.
“How are you?” he asked tenderly.
“Scared,” Mish admitted openly. The child wouldn’t have known to twist the truth to save his life. That was just the way he was.
“I can imagine,” Ariel nodded. “Are you in any pain?”
The child shook his head. “I only have some blisters in my palms and soles.”
Ariel examined his brother’s hands and feet. “They’ll heal,” he opined. “Just stay off your feet for a couple of days, OK? But your toes are icy. Where are your socks?”
The child pointed at his tallboy.
Mish whispered while his sibling was putting his socks on his feet: “Everything’s converging so fast and all at the same time, Ari. I don’t understand any of it; why it’s all happening. I never understood the whole affair revolving round the jeep – how and why it came about. And, now, I don’t understand how I ended up in the woods, in a tree trunk of all things.”
“The affair of the jeep is over now, Mish, so put it out of your mind,” Ariel advised. “It’ll only do you harm to dwell on your negative feelings. And that’s probably why you ran away. You’re still dwelling on the belief that you’ve been a victim.”
“What do you mean?” Mish asked.
“I believe you sleepwalked,” the older brother replied, cutting to the chase.
“What?”
“You sleepwalked,” Ariel repeated. “I believe that’s how you ended up in the woods. You wanted to run away, to escape your problems here, and you escaped in your night dream. Your subconscious mind enabled you to live out your yearning in the act of sleepwalking. But you have no memory of it save what you thought was a voice telling you where to go. It’s a pattern I know too well. I know . . . because I’ve been there. I sleepwalk, too. Well, I used to.”
My child’s head shook, mystified.
“You just need to be aware of it,” Ariel told him. “It’s hereditary; that is, it’s in our genes.”
“Our genes,” Mish cried.
Ariel nodded: “Don’t even try to understand it. Just know that it can be managed. I know it’s surreal; for a long time, it would drive me mad trying to put my finger on it. Now I no longer bother; instead, I’ve learned to manage it and you should, too. Turn your cares over to the Lord. That’s how I manage it since its basis is likely emotional. I used to sleepwalk when I was deeply distressed: as you know, I suffered with PTSD post-surgery to remove the bullet from my head. I had fears my PTSD would interfere with my performance in my assignments and I would spiral into a depression worrying about it. When my worries and fears became a self-fulfilling prophecy I would then be overcome with every negative emotion imaginable. It was a vicious circle. To manage the frequency of my sleepwalking episodes I’ve learned not to let my negative feelings – anger, disappointment, guilt, grief . . . and especially fear – overwhelm me. I’ve also learned not to feel I must be in control of everything. You should do the same, Mish: give Yah the control.”
“Sleepwalk,” the child whispered, bemused. “And you seem to be implying that this morning’s occurrence isn’t an isolated one . . . for me as well.”
Ari’s head shook: “I can’t say definitively, one way or another. Don’t be frightened. If my suspicions can be confirmed, I’ll do everything I can to help you manage it. I’m always going to look after you. You have my solemn word on this. And the brethren will do everything to keep you safe, the same way they’ve kept me safe throughout my recurrent somnambulism. Yes, it’s a big word. But it’s not as big an issue as you’re imagining it to be right now.”
Overwhelmed, the child’s arms flew to his eyes.
The older Benrubi stroked his forehead. “It’s a lot to digest, I know. Start by taking it to the Lord. He already knows and He’ll give you peace of mind while you’re learning to cope with it. And all the elders are here to lend you their ears. Anyway, I thought you should know first before I submitted my proposition to the elders. Don’t worry anymore, little brother. Everything will turn out OK. There’s a teleological reason for everything we’re allowed to undergo. Just know that the Lord’s hand is in it; the Lord’s in control and He loves you. Get some rest now, all right? Are you warm enough? You were exposed to the cold for over an hour, I heard.”
The child nodded: “Probably too warm. See? I’ve got a comforter, a quilt and a spare throw, just in case. Gabriel made me sit in a hot water bath when Mika first brought me back. Their fusillade aside, the elders have been very attentive, some bordering on officious. I don’t say this to be ungrateful.”
“They can seem that way sometimes,” Ariel chuckled, getting up from the bed, “but that’s the upshot of their service to mankind. I personally believe it attests to their love for the kindred. I’ll drop by tomorrow; I’ve got a full day, but I can get away just before dinner.”
The child nodded: “Thanks for being here, Ari. It means a lot.”
Ariel turned toward me on his way out. I nodded at him. Excellent counsel all round, youngling, I told him telepathically.
It was on Ariel’s proposition, and on the strength of Raphael’s and Asahel’s testament that Ariel’s history of somnambulism was also in Mishael’s genes, that the elders considered the probability that the child had sleepwalked to the woods. Probability became elevated to legitimacy when a second similar incident occurred, which had been witnessed and confirmed by seven of our brethren, one of whom was the Archangel, Gabriel.
If anything good came out of this unfavourable episode, it was that accusing each other of sin and breaching the rules, without warrant and thorough investigation, was not something the elders would ever again regard casually from the brethren. A meeting of the Council of Elders was convened several days after Mish’s first experience with sleepwalking.
“I’ve convened this special meeting because of Mishael, my beloved son,” I said, addressing the elders. “Mishael is also your beloved son. Some had spoken out of turn, implying that Mishael had decamped when he was found missing two nights ago. This has added salt to Mishka’s injury at being accused of theft a week ago. Owing to these recent incidents, the child has expressed that he feels stared at and stigmatized. He’s expressed that he doesn’t wish to remain at the garrison because his sense of belonging has been undermined. Consequently, he has requested that he be deployed overseas with immediate effect. The reason for this meeting of the Council is to discuss my son’s request and the Council’s course of action to address his request.”
Gabriel responded first: “I can appreciate Mishael’s desire to be deployed but this is a knee jerk reaction to the brethren’s betrayal of him. He’s trying to run away. Deploying him, at this time of his emotional frailty, is out of the question. He’ll be a security risk to himself and to his mission. Besides, he’s still too young – he’s only five months old. I move to defer his deployment till he has come of age.”
“I second the motion,” Remiel concurred. Haziel and Shimael concurred with nods.
“I, too, concur with our brother, Gabriel,” Uriel, who was the Speaker of the Council, nodded. “Mishael is not of age to be deployed abroad. All the Halflings before him have had to complete a full year’s training before each one was allocated to an independent overseas mission. Even Ariel, and Ariel’s rate of maturation was ahead of their genera. Nevertheless, I cannot overstate the depths of our Little One’s emotional wounds, which are palpable. I’m grieved that we’ve allowed this to befall Mishael. Mishael is, indeed, one of our beloved sons. We have not forgotten the selflessness and thoughtfulness that Mishael has shown us since joining our family. We have not forgotten his courage, whose hand was first to go up when there was a call to assist in battle; or his generosity, who was first in the line for clean-up duties, even forgoing rest, recreation and meals, as long as his responsibilities had been upheld; or his graciousness, who showed us kindness and empathy, visiting us when we were wounded or in sorrow. I’m grieved that we’ve been so quick to adjudge Mishael a thief and a liar, so easily forgetting his many excellent qualities. Surely we’ve not taken sufficient care to consider that we ourselves may have erred, which time and the Lord have proven to be the case. Truly, if any of us had been with Mishael throughout his court martial, he would’ve seen that the Little One’s heart had been shredded and his faith splintered by his own brothers. Mishka’s a little one, whose heart is tender, whose mind impressionable and whose spirit vulnerable. His will is easily bent and swayed, not just by us, but also by the Enemy, by Satan. I’m able to say this with authority as Mishael’s advocate, appointed for the duration of his court martial, having witnessed with my own eyes his emotions put through the proverbial grinder. I’m not boasting to say that I constantly strove to ensure the Little One did not find cause to be swayed over to the Enemy’s side. Indeed, it’s an issue with which I wrestle daily – the apprehension that one of our little ones may decamp. The trauma of losing a third of our brethren to Satan, during the heavenly insurrection, is still fresh on my mind; the angel, Azazel, was the brother I had loved and lost to Satan at the insurrection. However, to Mishka’s credit he’s shown he has more honour, faithfulness and loyalty than to grieve the Lord and us by rebelling against the Lord, his Creator. Hence, we owe it to our beloved to find an alternative recourse to resolve his crisis because, deploying him at this stage when he’s least equipped, emotionally and physically, would be irresponsible.”
Remiel jumped in: “Our brother, Uriel, has spoken eloquently and wisely. However, in defense of our brothers, Abimael, of Counter Intelligence, and Kemuel, who first laid the charges against Mishael, I wish to attest to the fact that, on several occasions, these brothers have approached Mishael to apologize for their error and ask for his forgiveness. I was a witness on those several occasions.”
“As was I,” Shelumiel chimed in. “I add my witness to brother Remiel’s testimony.”
“Thank you, Remiel and Shelumiel,” I nodded. “Abimael and Kemuel are two of the best warriors in the company. Their character has been blameless from the beginning and their qualities remain unparalleled despite the error of the charges. However, we’re not here to fault Mishael either; I do not wish for any of the kindred to be further faulted because of their intrinsic human frailty and fallibility; indeed, we must remind the brethren to do everything in their power to lessen our young ones’ burdens and shoulder their afflictions precisely because frailty is intrinsic to their human nature. Let us always remember to hold them up because we are able and for conscience’s sake, for the fostering of excellent interpersonal relationships and for the nurturing of these, our beloved ones, that bear the seal of the Lord. For the Lord also constantly demonstrates His mercy, compassion and benevolence to all His creatures, even to us. As for Mishael’s request, I’m in concert with our brothers, Gabriel and Uriel, that fulfilling his request will be pandering to his desire to run away. Therefore, my vote is to deny his request.”
“I’ve a feeling you’ve already made other plans for your son,” Raphael said.
I nodded: “I have. I want to take him away for a while, to some place he doesn’t feel self-conscious and paranoid about being the subject of gossips and unwanted gazes (it’s irrelevant to our discussion whether the gossips and gazes are true or something in his imagination); as long as he feels he’s the subject of derision, we must respect his feelings as valid, even if unfounded. If they’re unfounded, they’re symptomatic of his emotional scarring, which all the more underscores the urgency of his crisis and need for healing. My thoughts are to take him to Reuel Brasch’s village, in Galilee, where no one knows what he’s been through in recent weeks, so that he’ll have some peace and quiet to be nursed back to emotional health.”
The elders turned toward one another to confer briefly.
“It’s an excellent plan,” Asahel later maintained.
Uriel nodded: “We all think it’s an excellent plan. Let’s take a vote before concluding this meeting. Raise your right hands if your vote is aye to taking Mishael to Galilee.”
Ten hands went up. Choruses of aye were simultaneously expressed. The angels, Shimael and Haziel, had cast their proxy votes on behalf of the elders, Jediael and Uzziel, who had been indisposed, making the Council’s decision a unanimous one.
“So be it,” Uriel concluded. “Brother Abishael, let your records show that our decision this day is unanimous. Go therefore to Galilee in peace, Michael, and take your son, Mishael, with you. May the Lord’s will be done in spite of this unpleasant experience. May His will especially be done in Mishael’s life. As for us, let us remind the brethren that, henceforth, we do nothing that would provoke our innocents to grief, shame and heartbreak, lest the grief of the innocent be provender for the Evil Ones to tempt him to defect to the Enemy’s side where he’s duplicitously led to seek a more satisfying life on that side. This assembly’s now adjourned.”
The elders rose at last, concluding the grim affair for the brethren.
It was only the beginning for Mish and me, however. My son and I departed for Galilee at the crack of dawn. It was, henceforth, left to me to pick up the pieces of my son’s fragmented self-perception. Throughout the court proceedings, Gabriel and I were outside observers only, barred from any militating involvement since it had been implied that we were not sufficiently disinterested in the case to avoid a conflict of interests by virtue of our closeness to the child. The lengthy process of helping Mish pick up the pieces afterward taught us that he took everything that was said about him and to him very seriously.
“I’ve sinned,” Mish was now saying, taking Gabriel’s accusation extremely seriously. Nothing else appeared to matter to him. In any case, there was just so much scolding the child could take at once. Gabriel’s words started to mulch together becoming undecipherable, and he could absorb nothing much else of his mentor’s opprobrium.
So that he became bewildered and dumbfounded, which Gabriel interpreted as apathy and a searing of the conscience. Riled up again, the Commanding General raised him up and delivered him to the floor.
“On your knees,” the Commander ordered, fighting back his own tears, “and show some contrition. Beg the Lord for forgiveness, since you’ve admitted to having sinned. If you must perish, at least you’ll have saved your soul.”
Of course, Mish was by now not only remorseful but also petrified, trembling at the sight of his Commander in a blistering cocktail of rage and grief he hadn’t seen before. So petrified that he had to escape into a corner, far away from the elder. He scurried fearfully there before curling up into a ball, a self-defense mechanism writ large.
For a while, he was murmuring softly into his drawn-up knees. Then came his pleas that occurred in a run-on sentence: “Don’t come any closer please stay away from me please just leave me alone.”
Thereafter, he heard his Commander grunt and this was succeeded by another bout of scolding: “I believed you would come to your senses on your own. I came to your defense when Mika believed you were going to take your own life. I stood by you, but all you’ve done is let me down. You’ve let everyone down, Mishael.”
Following these scathing words, he heard himself pleading bitterly: “Don’t say that. Please, don’t say that, Gabriel.”
And, then, at long last, he heard Gabriel withdraw to an armchair. No one would speak another word for a long, long time after that.
In the sustained peace building up around him, he started to feel safe in his corner, safe as well as calm, so that he was, at last, able to come round to himself. He could now try to make sense, all by himself, of what was going on with him and around him. Indeed, nothing had been making any sense to him. It wasn’t as if he remembered the details of what had taken place before or at the crevasse. He vaguely remembered looking over the edge. He vaguely remembered talking to Meririm. But who was Meririm? He vaguely remembered taking that near-fatal leap right into Abishael’s arms. But he didn’t remember having much control of all his faculties.
Meanwhile, Gabriel was coming round to the fact that his method of disciplining Mish was failing. If anything, it was causing the child to retreat further behind his wall.
He was also reminded that his underling was unwell. Emotionally, he was in turmoil. Speech-wise, he was incoherent. His outer appearance, too, paralleled his inward confusion. His hair lacked its usual lustre, his face was gaunt and his robe had all but come undone.
It was about this time that the superior angel’s attention became drawn to the cipher etched on the flawless skin of the child’s exposed shoulder; it was the Lord’s divine seal, symbolizing His everlasting protection of, and eternal faithfulness to, the angels of Mishael’s generation.
That was the only caveat he needed; Gabriel’s unwavering resolve to punish Mish at all costs absolutely shattered, he approached his pupil and squatted down in front of him: “Forgive me for frightening you, fledgling. I mean you no harm. But is this what you really want? To be left alone? Think carefully before you answer.”
Mish shook his head, utterly chastened. He looked up hesitantly from his knees: “No. It’s not what I want. I want things to be back to normal. I want things to be as they were before Abaddon. He’s always in my sleep. Sometimes he sits on my chest and I can’t breathe or get up. I just want all this to go away. And I want to stop feeling afraid all the time. There, I’ve said it. That demon frightens me.”
“Do you think we don’t already know you’re afraid?” Gabriel stated, taking the child’s face and drying his tears with both his thumbs. “Do you think we haven’t taken every reasonable step to ensure you’re safe from Abaddon? What do you think all this is about?”
He pointed at the child’s wrist and ankle.
“We’re not operating a tree-house club here,” he added.
He got up, raising his underling up by his elbows. They advanced to the couch.
“I miss him,” the underling whispered in typical diffidence. He crossed his arms over the top of his head. “Mika. I miss him.”
“Well,” the elder replied, “you know what you must do. The ball’s in your court.”
“He never explained why he had me ostracized,” Mish swallowed his pride and stated. “Or why he had me put on a leash like a dog.”
“You know why,” the elder suggested.
Mish shook his head: “No, but he won’t even come to me. He hasn’t come to see me here, not one time in the last week.”
The elder smiled: “You look like you need a little cuddle. Look, I know you resent being confined here. A week’s far too long. But things aren’t always the way they seem. You don’t know that he hasn’t been here to see you.”
“Has he, Gabriel?” the child asked glumly, leaning against his Commander’s bosom. “Has he been here to see me? I had a dream Dad came to see me last night. I think it was a dream. It was, wasn’t it, Gabriel, only a dream? He didn’t come to me last night, did he?”
“You can ask him,” Gabriel replied, “when you get the chance.”
“Why can’t you be the one to answer my questions?” the child complained.
“Very simply because I shouldn’t speak for Mika,” stated my colleague. “There are things between you and him that are personal and intimate; I must respect that. And Mika may want to tell you certain things by himself – things that are special to the both of you.”
“You mean like the fact that he came to me last night?”
Gabriel chided, disapprovingly, his voice husky, his tone austere and his mood formal: “Mishka Benrubi.”
“Am I right?”
“You can ask him yourself, I said.”
An angel from Shelumiel’s kitchen came into sight, teleporting through a wall. He set down a plate and left, as quietly and without fuss, as he had shown up.
“Someone should inform these guys to stop sneaking up on me unannounced like that,” the child stated with a slight attitude. “It always makes me jump when they do that.”
“Spoken like a self-absorbed human being,” Gabriel reproached. “I think we’ve taught you better than that. Little One, you will do well to bear in mind that while they’re on earth to serve mankind, they’re not your servants.”
The child apologized. He peeked at the contents of the plate, assessing them.
Liver. He thought. I detest liver.
“I must see him,” the child began again. “I have to make him understand.”
“You’re free to go wherever you please,” Gabriel maintained.
Mish reminded his mentor that I’d had his new wings clipped. That meant remaining in his human state, with all its concomitant human limitations, for as long as they were clipped.
“And that includes not being able to reach him without the benefit of teleportation,” he added in frustration. “Not unless I abseil down the rock face, and then trudge the seven or more kilometres to reach our garrison. I doubt, however, that you would lend me the ropes for my decline into the canyon.”
“Not a chance,” Gabriel replied, “but what do you want him to understand that he doesn’t already know? He knows you haven’t changed your mind about ending your life.”
“But you told me yourself I could be honest with him,” he protested, scowling suspiciously at the elder. Indeed, Gabriel’s comment had sounded like a fishing expedition into the state of the child’s psyche.
The elder shook his head: “With exception, as in this instance. My poor child, think about it. Even if you were being honest, do you expect to be able to convince him to take your point of view? Fully knowing that it goes against his core beliefs? Fully knowing the inviolable sanctity with which Mika regards all life?”
“So what does this mean?” the child asked. “Does Mika intend for me to be imprisoned here for the rest of my life? You may call this place my time-out for self-reflection, Gabriel, but it’s really your euphemism for punishment, for why else would cameras be installed except to limit my freedom?”
Gabriel was nodding. “Whatever we tell you about this place is only going to be a waste of our breath because you’ve already made up your mind that you’re being punished. The way I see it, Mika has every intention of releasing you, but only when he’s absolutely certain you’re not going to do anything foolish to yourself. Right now, he can’t deal with you as long as you’re holding on to the position you’ve taken on the matter of your life; he’s not willing to make a decision he may later regret. Sequestering you is his way of buying himself some time. Meanwhile, you need to eat. Starving yourself this past week’s done nothing to further your cause. It’s simply confirmed his fear that your values and judgment remain impaired.”
“He’s spying on me,” the child brooded.
“You’re under surveillance,” Gabriel explained. “What’s that in human parlance? Suicide watch. Yes, that’s it.”
“What do you think? That I would off myself with . . . with that curtain cord?” Mish smirked recklessly.
“You wouldn’t succeed,” Gabriel intoned in his usual deep and tranquil voice. “We’d be able to get to you before you could tie a noose with it.”
“I don’t plan to,” the child argued.
“Really? What was that all about . . . at the crevasse?”
My son found himself mercilessly silenced. All at once, he sank to his knees, once more pleading to be allowed home. Gabriel, taken aback, crouched down to console him. He clasped his face in his palms: “Why are you kneeling before me? Never bow before me, brother.”
He continued, persuading his underling: “And, wherefore the tears, soldier? Do you still not realize that you’re in control of this situation? You always were. As I’ve said, the ball’s in your court.”
“How is it in my court?” the child wept. “You’re the ones holding the keys to my freedom.”
The Archangel shook his head: “Not so, beloved, as Mika has informed you on the very first day itself. If you remember, he said you were the one that determined how long you were going to be confined here. There’s one thing you must do to convince Mika to consent to seeing you or allowing you to come home. And you know exactly what that is. So now, dry your eyes and do the right thing.”
