Sentinel of Heaven (17 page)

She covered
her face and groaned softly.  Had it been that long already?

But then he
was back on hands and knees over her body, wings held up but close in the
confines of the kitchen.  He smoothed her hands away so he could look at her.

“What do you
want, huh?  What do you want from me?” Moira asked him, voice rough even though
she was half-smiling.

But he
wouldn't answer, only ran his fingers through the hair at her temples then
tilted her chin up for his ease of access and took his pleasure again from her
lips.

The wayward
prince and his newest conquest.

Any agitation
she may have felt at the thought – that he was using her and tormenting them
both for his own ends – melted in the response of her traitorous body.  Any
way, it would say.  Any way he wants and he can have it and I must give it, and
give it joyfully.  The master has returned to the vineyard.

His weight was
on her, only a little but she welcomed more, thrilled to feel his hips pressed
on hers and how his chest was flat against the hills of her breasts.  When he
reached to tweak open the top button of her shirt, her heart raced in
response.  But he went no further, only lay his fingertips over where that beat
hammered, where it called his name.

And too soon
he was pulling away, smiling again, standing up as if completely unaffected to
empty the cooked pasta into a strainer and toss it back in the hot pot with a
bit of butter.

Moira climbed
back into the hard wooden kitchen chair, the contents of her soul feeling as
disheveled and undone as a house torn apart in a robbery.

“You can get
me things, right?” she said dully as he poured the pasta back on a plate,
licking his fingers.  He nodded without looking at her, turning off the crock
pot and opening it.

“I think I
need a glass of wine with this meal.  I specifically want some cherry wine.”

He ladled out
a good serving of the stroganoff onto the noodles and passed her the plate and
a fork with a gentle look.  Cross-folding his wings over his chest, she heard a
louder pop than last night – more like a hunting rifle not too far away in the
woods – and he turned with a bottle in his hands to show her.

“That's
perfect.  Open it up and pour me a glass.”

She had no
wine glasses – this had been a religiously teetotaler household prior to her
prodigal return, and she'd done well enough just to bring home a decent
corkscrew in the interim – but he found a small crystal tumbler and obediently
filled it for her.

The first sip
was cool and bittersweet, like cordial on the back of her tongue.

He stoppered
the bottle and set it in the fridge, then set about cleaning up the kitchen. 
The remainder stroganoff he put in a Tupperware box just big enough for all of
it and put it into the freezer.  The pots went into the sink to soak.

She ate and
drank slowly, staring in the middle distance, lost in thoughts which had no
substance at all beyond a huge empty ocean of mixed emotions.  Moira didn't
drink alcohol much due to the pain meds, but when she did she found a glass
would take the edges off her feelings and leave her able to face life with a
more copacetic outlook.

Two glasses
would probably be one too many, though – she'd either get maudlin in her cups
or she'd throw herself at him again; both options would leave her with a load
of guilt come daybreak.

Leo actually
left the room for a long moment after he tidied up; she didn't realize it until
he came back, her collection of sonnets in his hands.  He sat down at her feet
but gave her the privacy of withholding his gaze, directing it instead on the
pages he flipped slowly between his huge hands.

She watched
him in turn this time, over the forkfuls of delicious food she barely tasted,
over the wine in her glass that soothed but did not satisfy.  His hair had
fallen all around his face and he let it, digesting the contents of each page
fully before he moved to the next.

Leo stared at
the last page he reached for some time.  When he heard her set the fork down he
glanced up finally, handing her the book and pointing to one of the sonnets. 
His look was pleading.

“Aloud?” she
asked.

He nodded
firmly.  Slowly she read:

“Two bubbles in a crystal bowl
appear,

Born separately: round the
opposing rims

Each for awhile in a charmed
circle swims,

And shuns the other's touch, as if
in fear.

A gold-fish rising breaks the
mimic mere;

A thwart tide, traversing the
surface, dims

The placid water: from the distant
brims

The bubbles swept together are one
sphere!

They might have perished singly;
might have known

Life but not love, and living
separate

Have ceased imperfect, sundered
mate from mate;

And thou and I have walked the
world alone,

And died so, if the strong storm
had not blown

That swept us hither on the tides
of fate.”

Leo gazed up
at her.  She watched him for a long moment, then flipped a few pages ahead as
she swallowed the last of her wine to wet her mouth.

“A garden
ransacked of its fairest rose,” Moira read in response,

“A heaven denuded of its chiefest
star

Is life without thee: fatal flaws
that mar

Miraculous jewels; veins, the sculptor's
foes

In marble; evil dreams in sweet
repose

Leave not, each in its kind, so
deep a scar;

At no time do the heavens seem so
far,

And flowers I look upon appear to
close.

Ay, as one reading in a volume
sage

With thoughts that wander, starts
at length to find

No meaning enter in his vacant
mind,

Only his eyes stare at the
lettered page;

So I, whom sad absorbing wants
engage,

After long looking know that I am
blind.”

She closed the
book and passed it back into his lax hands.

“Sonnets can
be read to say anything,” she told him quietly.  “Have your kisses of me,
dearheart – and be satisfied with that.”

That was the
other blessed thing about the wine: it made her sleepy.  Another hour or so
couldn't hurt to have, and might make tomorrow brighter for the extra rest.  So
she hauled herself to her feet and dressed for the night quietly, taking
herself straight to the bed-nest – turning out the lights as she went and
leaving him to follow or not as he wished.

When the alarm
rang the next morning, Moira had cause to bitterly regret the folly of the
previous evening. The wine by itself would have been tolerable; the emotional
rollercoaster somewhat less so – but their effect taken together was contriving
to make the morning hellish.  She fumbled the alarm clock off and dragged her
head around to look at Leo, who watched her from his nest with a worried
regard.

“Baby... I'm
going to need some pain meds now, please.”

He got up with
alacrity, pouring her a fresh water glass in the kitchen and locating her pill
bottle to fetch for her, while she lay limp on her side like a badly-wounded
animal.

He managed the
bottle himself (
more proficient with it every day,
she thought) and
poured out three, pressing them into her palm.  She held two and let the third
roll out onto the sheet, then pushed it towards him weakly.

“Two, for
starters,” Moira instructed.  “I'll need to wait twenty or thirty minutes
before I stack another, else I won't be good to drive.  'Technically' I'm not
supposed to drive at all after taking just one, but I live in a real world
where I have to go to work and make money in order to survive.”

He put the
third pill back, then lifted her head and shoulders enough that she could
swallow the others with a sip of water.

When he set
her down he scooted back into his nest to study her with anxiously wide eyes.

“You're
surprised,” she told him.  “Last night I was doing so well and now I'm back to
this.”

He nodded,
disturbed.

“Sometimes it
just happens that way.  Pain is a country with laws all unto itself.  Now it'll
be a waiting game, until these start to kick in...”  She began to laugh softly,
and the concern in his face grew exponentially.

“I know...”
she wheezed, “let's sing show-tunes.”

He burst back
out of his nest to make noises in the kitchen, a giant feathered whirlwind,
returning immediately to sit as close to her as he could.  In one hand was
another fruit bar; in the other was her cell phone.  He offered both to her
gravely.

She tried to
get herself under some control. 
Stop scaring the huge superhuman magical
creature,
she scolded herself and had to bite her lips against the giggles
once more.

“Open this,”
she ordered, nudging the fruit bar with two fingertips.  He ripped the wrapper
halfway and passed the bar carefully into her hand.

“Ever seen
someone hurt so bad it becomes funny to them?” she asked, rolling her eyes up
to look at him.

He touched his
temple and shook his head – if he ever had, he couldn't remember.

“The tourists
find it terrifying.”  She bit off a small portion and chewed it thoroughly,
swallowing successfully on the second attempt.  He waited for her to explain.

“Pain is where
I live,” Moira answered at last.  “Most other people pass through it only
briefly, through temporary injury or illness – the tourists.  They gape at the
sights as if they are the first and only people ever to see that land.

She sighed.  “They
have not mapped the terra dolor.  They have not traveled its many roads, nor
have they explored its valleys.  They have not stood on its empty peaks at
midnight, when the moon is red and bound on all sides with razor wire...”

She let her
breakfast drop into her other hand where it lay bonelessly on the bed, then
reached out slowly and traced the scars up his right forearm.

“For every
dealer of pain, there must be one who receives it... aren't we a pair?”

He pushed the
cell phone into her hand.  Call out sick, his eyes said louder than words.

“No,” she
responded, her gaze stern.  “I know my country better than you, my dear.  What
you and I will do is watch the clock.  I will continue to try to eat.  In
twenty minutes I will take another pill.  While it works I will wet my hair and
brush it out, then I will dress.  By the time I am done dressing, I will be fit
to drive.  By the time I get to work, I will be fit to work.”

She lay the
cell phone aside and picked up the bar again, forcing another bite.

“Don't look at
me that way,” she said eventually.  “I'm not a martyr, or a hero.  I'm not
inspirational.  Do you have any idea how much I hate it when people say things
like that?  They see me struggle, they see me limp around with my cane and they
say 'What an inspiration you are.'

“It's
bullshit.  This is what anyone would do if they were in my place.  Either you
get up to fight or you lay down to die.  All this means is all the choices in
my life have been burned away to the very last ones, the important ones.

“Live.  Or
don't.”

Leo nodded to
show he heard; whether or not he agreed was debatable.  At least the look of
dreadful pity drained from his face, leaving it devoid of expression.  He
stroked her forehead gently, then bent to kiss her before he crawled out of the
nest again.  She heard him pack her lunch, fetch her laptop bag  from behind
the bedroom door and lay it on the table.

Moira
continued to eat the dried fruit bar as if she had a bitter grudge against it. 
Once she was sure it would stay down, she pushed upright enough to swallow
another pill with the glass he'd left on the floor.

Standing up
and moving was going to be a coordinated battle but Leo returned to her as if
summoned, helping her up and supporting her until she was steady.  Then he
dogged her steps to the door of the bathroom, where she dropped cupped handfuls
of hot water on her bent head and brushed it through her short-cropped hair. 
When it dried her loose curls would spring up again, looking about as good as
if she'd actually showered.

Moira turned
around to find Leo had closed his wings as tightly as he could to rummage in
her closet and get out her work clothes.  He undressed her as platonically as a
nurse, helping her back on with her garments in proper order, then motioned for
her to sit on the box spring for him to put on her socks and shoes.

“Thank you,”
she murmured.  “This would be harder without you here – I don't deny it.”

He only looked
up at her, smiling his sad little smile once more.

“I don't want
to leave you today,” she said, startling herself.  “I don't know why I am, why
I'm making myself do it... other than the conviction that I should.”

Leo took her
face tenderly between his hands and kissed her once more, then helped her onto
her feet.  He insisted on carrying her bags out to the car; opening both the
house and the driver's side doors for her, then walking around to put the bags
in the passenger seat.

But he still
lingered, reluctant to close the door and let her leave.

“Leo, baby...
I'll be just fine.  I'll call you at lunch, same as I have been.  Okay?”

He sighed,
then signed his affirmation and backed away from the car.  She waved once he
had returned to the patio, then focused on backing out and navigating the dirt
road without hitting anything.

As soon as she
sat down at her desk, she was rethinking the wisdom of forcing herself to come
out.  Erica had sent her a meeting invitation – three hours in an auditorium
listening to a presentation by another team that had little or nothing to do
with her role but Erica thought it would “look good” for them to be
represented.

There went the
morning.

“Give me some
good news,” she begged, slumped in the driver's seat again, holding the feather.

Leo reached
his mind across the miles and enfolded her adoringly, sending warm waves of
affection that bolstered her spirit a bit.

“You darling
man,” Moira sighed, smiling.  “What on earth are you up to now?  You must have
remembered another trick.”

All the bushes
that were around the house, neatly trimmed as of two days ago, were now
standing several feet farther away from the outer walls... without any sign of
having been dug up and replanted.

“Okay, spill
it – how'd you do it?”

He put his
lightly-curled fists together, then twisted and pulled them in opposite
directions until he was holding them shoulder width apart.

“You...
stretched the space?”

Affirmative.

“So why do all
that just to move the bushes?”

He sent a sly
emotion, with a time qualifier: wait and see!

Apparently he
was done for the moment though, because he walked back behind the house to
spread out on the deck and sun himself.  She noticed he'd 'fixed' the patio
table back to new, and the grill was shinier than she'd ever seen it. 

“I've never
seen the back porch look so good; it never did in my lifetime.  What you did is
amazing.”

Modest little
ripples; the empathetic equivalent of a shy blush.

“I wish you
could do something like that with me.  You know, take my body back to what it
was like before the crash.”

Leo started up
with shocked eyes, shaking his head frantically.

“What?  It was
just a thought.”

His gaze went
hooded and dark.  No, can't, he sent.

“Dearheart,
darling – it's okay, I didn't mean anything by it.”

He sent her a
picture that was shocking once she recognized its implications: a picture of a
grey wooden board that suddenly grew a mouth, its new human-looking lips first
twisted tight then open and shrieking in agony as it changed to its restored
self.

Inanimate
objects don't scream.

“Okay,
darling... point certainly taken.  Please forget I mentioned it.”

He shuddered,
his feathers ruffled.

She reached
out a spiritual “hand”, running it lightly down his back.  “Shhhhhh... easy,
baby... relax...”

Moira wondered
for a moment at the strength of his reaction.  It was taking him quite some
time to calm back down.  Had he once tried all unknowing to help someone with
his power, someone who had been twisted in that excruciating pain?  Had he just
now imagined himself using that power on her, no matter how good the
intentions, hearing her wounded cries in his head?

Once he was
more composed Leo sent a tendril of questioning: how are you?

“I'm okay, I
think.  Tired.  Bad body days take a lot out of me.  My stupid manager sent me
to a three hour presentation this morning and I got absolutely nothing done. 
Wishing I'd stayed home.”

He quietly
agreed.

“Ah, but then
you'd
have gotten nothing done – I would have been puny and demanding and
probably quite irritable.  I would have made you wait on me hand and foot. 
You'd be tired of my face by now.”

The response
was a demurral, eternal qualifier: never.

“So you say,
now... plans for the afternoon?”

Leo sent a
muddled eddy – that thing I hinted at before, she translated – and a picture of
the parlor door, painting a big question mark on it.

“Oh,” she
said.  “That.”

He transmitted
a picture of him opening it, and a bunch of Halloween-decoration skeletons
falling out on top of him – but Moira could see the hint of seriousness behind
the image.

“Yes it
is
weird,” she answered him.  “It's weird that of my tiny little house I've got a
whole room that I refuse to open up.  I don't have any dead bodies in there;
not that I'm aware of, anyway.

“I guess I
just don't have any happy memories of that spot.  That used to be my
Grandmother's sitting room, her parlor.  Once we moved in, it was mine and
Mother's bedroom for the better part of twelve years.  I guess I always
wondered if Grandmother resented it, having to give her little bits of finery
up to help us.

“Once I came
home – when both Mother and Grandmother had died – I think I took everything I
either wanted or didn't know what to do with and shoved it in there, just
shutting the door on it.  It's where things went when I wasn't ready to deal or
I just wanted to forget it.”

He responded
with a better picture: himself approaching the same door with a blowtorch.

“Ha!  I would
just about say 'go for it', if it wouldn't burn down the entire house.”

A third
drawing appeared: of Leo moving back and forth, carrying boxes and old chairs
out of the room to put on the back lawn; the day was supposed to be clear, if
cold.  Then he pictured himself standing side by side with her as she gestured
peremptorily and he clapped his hands like a genie at her command, making the
old furniture vanish into thin air.

“You mean,
we'll go through it tonight and you'll get rid of the stuff I don't want to
keep?”

Affirmative!

“That... would
mean a lot to me.  It'd make things so much easier.  Thank you, darling.”

She lay her astral
presence down on the deck beside him, looking into his face.

“I can't wait
to come home tonight.  Tomorrow is the weekend; we'll have two whole days
together, without me having to work.  Hey – you haven't bathed since Monday,
have you?”

Leo shook his
head gently, propping his chin on his folded hands.

“Do you need
to?”

He shrugged.

“Yeah, you're
right – you look just the same now as you did Tuesday.  Are angels
self-cleaning?” she teased.

He offered
back a rude picture of him licking himself at an impossible angle, like a
housecat.  Moira leaned against her steering wheel, limp with laughter.

“Okay, fine!”
she managed eventually.  “I can't say I'd mind doing bath-duty again, but it's
up to you.”

Another image,
this one of him as he had stood under the spray in front of her, hair slicked
back – watching her face with his knowing expression as he soaped his chest.

“Not fair!”

A wave of
emotion that was a tantalizing invitation:  she was welcome to join him.

“Perhaps in,
oh... June?  And on that note I really must be going back inside.”