War Angel (The Tales of Tartarus) Read online

  And she felt that was right where she needed to be.

  She could feel the warm air blow in from the window opening. She raised her hands above her eyes as she heard the creak of a door and the shuffle of footsteps on dirt and gravel.

  And then a female voice that clearly wasn’t Auntie Thelma. “How long have you slept? All night? Are you rested?”

  She supported herself on her elbows and struggled to raise herself up. “Where…where am I?” She paused for a moment. Her voice sounded deeper. Adult sounding. Mature. No longer the shrill chirp of a little girl. She looked at the light that filtered in from the window.

  Where have you called me to?

  The woman had not yet revealed herself, but continued calling from the other room. “Are you awake yet?!” There was an opening in the wall that led to the next room, and she could see shadows against the stone of the opposite wall as the woman moved. Delia noted the dirt floors and called out. “Yes, yes!” The primitive construction and the plain stone walls. “Where am I?” she asked. “And when am I?”

  The female voice spoke again, sounding more patient. “Oh, sweet one…give me a few moments. I will come to you.”

  And then she gasped. She shot up and looked down at herself. There was no small white dress. Or bloodstains. Or little buckled shoes. Her legs were long. Tall.

  Muscular.

  Adult.

  The woman appeared in the opening in a long, black robe. She smiled, tilting her head to the side.

  Delia thought she might have been someone’s grandmother, for she was far more advanced in age than Auntie Thelma. As the woman approached her bed, Delia saw her golden brown skin. So different from Auntie Thelma’s ivory white. The woman in the opening had small, brown spots on her cheeks.

  “It’s time to rise,” the woman said.

  The woman chuckled as Delia’s eyes started to focus. “Where am I?” she asked. The woman walked towards the bed and leaned over, adjusted the sheet that Delia was wrapped in.

  “What – ”

  The woman stooped down by where she was laying. Her eyes were wide. “Do you not know who you are? Do you know your origin? Or do you not?” The woman started folding the sheets and placing them neatly in a pile in the opposite corner. “They had told me that you would remember previous things…and bodies that you had existed in previously. And that sometimes you would have momentary lapses. Like this morning.”

  She lowered her eyes and shook her head.

  “Well then,” the woman said. “We shall get you cleaned. We shall wash you. And dress you. And I will tell you.”

  The woman was a silhouette against the light that spilled into the tiny room, but she could tell she was leaning forward and it looked like she was smiling. Still, her legs – adult and muscular. She could not wrap her head around it.

  “I…was a child…”

  The woman stood, away from the light. She looked up at her. Dark, matted hair framed her face. “You were. Yes. Or rather you’re going to be.”

  “Going…to be? I don’t understand…”

  The woman peered around and looked Delia directly in the eyes. She smiled warmly. “There are many things which we do not understand, dear Delia. But you existed here before you existed in Paris. That is for certain. You are a chosen one. And for that, you exist on multiple levels. In different times. At the same time.”

  She shook her head, propped herself up against the wall in a sitting position, and winced again. A sharp pain shot through her back. “I cannot wrap my head around that! Why don’t I remember you?”

  “Anakin pierced you yesterday on your leg. You do not remember then?”

  She looked down and lifted the sheet. There was a white cloth wrapped around her thigh, stained red. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “Do you remember anything? Anything at all?”

  The old woman shook her head again and leaned against the wall. “That’s an unfortunate side effect.”

  She drew her legs up and clasped her arms around her knees. She looked up at the woman, who stooped down and looked her directly in the eyes.

  “A side effect of what?”

  “I was told you would wake up confused and disoriented.” She moved about the room gathering clothes. She handed some to Delia and gestured for her to dress. “But,” she continued. “In time, you will learn of your power. You will learn about how you woke up here, when, in your mind, you were just a child. How you traveled from Paris to here.”

  “Where is ‘here’?”

  Delia drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Clearly this is not Paris,” she said. And then she looked around the room again. The stone floors, the small stone hut, the simple clothing, lack of furniture. “Where are we?”

  The old woman clasped her hands in front of her waist. “Jerusalem.”

  Delia’s eyes widened. “Jerusalem?! How did I get here? And how…for the love of God…did I age…what? Thirty years?”

  Delia got up and fought her way into a flowing robe that the old woman held up for her. “Yes…the last thing I remember is lying in my bedroom. My tiny, dark bedroom.”

  The woman pulled out a small wooden chair, and gestured for Delia to sit. “But do you remember the conversation you had? That night?”

  Delia sat in the chair, looked down at her legs. Her adult, muscular legs. She sighed and closed her eyes. And then she saw the room. The tiny, dark room with the wooden floors and pedestal bed. And the dark corner, where Auntie Thelma would rock her to sleep on nights when she had fallen ill.

  Tu Credis en Dues?

  She shuddered as the demonic voice penetrated her mind.

  She took a deep breath and placed her hands on her cheeks. “Yes…” she said. “Yes, I remember.”

  And then she closed her eyes again. She saw the roping, muscular legs. The red skin. The horns against the moonlight.

  “I remember…” Delia said, without opening her eyes. “I remember the room. Yes, the rocking chair. And the falling rain…”

  The woman took a seat opposite Delia and leaned across the table, touching her arm. “But the conversation you had. Do you remember that? The specifics of it? And what happened next?”

  “Yes…I was standing in a field of skulls…I saw an angel…and thorns were tearing into her…roping thorns…so much blood. There was so…much…blood!”

  The old woman sighed. “Delia, come back. Come back to the present and I will explain everything to you.”

  Delia’s eyes remained closed.

  The woman started cleaning Delia’s hair, smoothing it against the sides of her head. She explained that Delia had experienced a ‘holding place’ when she had left her room in Paris. That her assignment had completed.

  “And we are in Jerusalem. Many hundreds of years before those days you remember in Paris. You will learn, and soon, I might add – ”

  “Why was I brought here? And how?”

  The woman led her into an adjoining room that appeared like it could be an ancient kitchen. There was a small, wooden table and chairs at one end, several colorful tapestries laid out on the floor, others rolled in the corner, and a large pot in the center of a fire pit.

  The woman gestured for her to sit.

  “Sit, let me tell you about your mission.”

  Delia nodded and they sat opposite each other at the table. “Close your eyes, Delia,” the woman said. “Let me tell you how you got here, at this very moment…this precise moment in time.”

  The old woman sat and told her about how she got to be in Jerusalem instead of Paris; how she became an adult after just being a little girl.

  Delia closed her eyes as the woman spoke. Her voice sounded warm, reassuring, motherly.

  Protective.

  And then, she closed her eyes and her vision became so clear. The darkness was pierced by a tiny light. A small pinprick; a little sphere in the distance; so seemingly small and far that it seemed that it could be insignificant.

 
And then brilliant colors whooshed by her, as the darkness quickly returned. She could hear herself talking, though her voice sounded small and distant. “What was that? Those colors?”

  She waited for an answer as she remained in darkness, her eyes focused on the tiny point of light ahead. Then the voice came; the old woman, that warm, reassuring voice. “I am showing you how you got here. You just had closed your eyes in Paris. When you were a little girl, lying in bed in your room. As soon as you closed your eyes you came here. Those colors were the lights of that period.”

  She kept her eyes closed

  “Period?” Delia asked. “I don’t understand…”

  The warm voice returned as more lights flashed by. “Time. It’s all about time, and how we measure our experiences. You will understand, dear one. You will understand your gifts, in due time. But your gift is unique, as is your mission. You have the power. You have the ability. You have the mission, dear Delia. You were in Paris as a little girl. You’re now in Jerusalem and a full grown woman. You have the mission for which you have been assigned, which you will discover as you allow it to reveal itself to you. When you open your eyes. And your mind.”

  Delia opened her eyes and she was back in the small, stone room. The old woman sat at the small, wooden table opposite her, smiling. As Delia looked at the old woman, the brown skinned desert woman, whose dirty cheeks and mussed hair revealed that Delia truly was in a different time period, she noticed something about her. But she couldn’t shake the thoughts out of her head. She had most certainly been in Paris. That much, she could remember. But now…it was a time that she hadn’t experienced before. And with people she did not know.

  Places she couldn’t recognize or remember.

  This woman, whom Delia had never encountered before, smiled. Her teeth, some rotted away with decay, seemed far whiter than her dirty skin.

  She sat back and smiled. “Can I make you something to eat?”

  Delia sighed and looked at the woman. “There’s something about you,” she said. “But I just can’t place it.”

  The woman rose from her chair, neve r taking her eyes off Delia. She smiled again and she nodded, as she wandered over to the kettle. She started banging some stones together. “Do you know what it could be?”

  Delia shook her head. “Here, let me help you.”

  “Open your mind, Delia.” After several minutes of trying, the embers lit. Quickly, the room filled with smoke. The woman moved to a nearby table and started chopping vegetables and returned to rummage the wood in the fire under the kettle. “Open your mind and ask yourself…who was the one person who had the most impact on you, in all of time?”

  Delia gasped and looked up at the old woman. “My mother. She did.” She felt tears well up in her eyes as a wave of emotion chilled through her body. “Definitely my mother! She always guided me. Protected me.”

  The old woman sat back down at the table and smiled at her, as Delia brought her hands up to her face. Her eyes widened and rimmed with tears. She covered her mouth with her hands. “Mama?”

  The woman looked down, then back up at Delia, and smiled.

  Delia leaned forward and placed her hands on Mama’s arms. “How did you…I don’t understand!”

  She looked up at Delia as a tear streamed down her cheek. “I was called to guide you…to assist you through your mission.”

  Tears streamed down Delia’s cheeks and she leaned forward and hugged the old woman. She was in a time period that she had never experienced; in a culture that she did not understand, but here, in the midst of myriad questions and unfamiliarity, there was this little old woman. This lady of the desert.

  “Are you an angel?” Delia asked, wiping her eyes and leaning back in the chair. “Called to protect…me?” Delia remembered the last time she saw mama. She was a little girl, back in Paris, in the days before her father was lying in a lake of blood. The last time she saw mama was at her funeral. Lying in the casket, just before the mortician closed the lid. She had run across the atrium of the church, as fast as her little legs could carry her. “No, one more minute! Wait! Please!” She remembered the tears falling down her face as she stood and watched the coffin lid being nailed into place.

  And later, again the tears flowed, as the sadness overwhelmed her like a vice clutching her heart, as she watched the coffin being lowered into the ground. She had fallen to her knees in despair, deep in the cool dirt and she hung her head.

  The woman leaned forward, reached out, and wiped Delia’s tears from her cheeks. It was a simple movement, as her hands smeared the tears away, as her hands wiped under Delia’s eyes. Delia opened her eyes and looked at the woman. “Are you my mother? Are you really her? How can this be possible?”

  She smiled again as she leaned back. “Oh, Delia. We all have a war angel. Whether we know, or realize it, or not. And sometimes, they reveal themselves to us.”

  Delia’s mouth dropped open. “You mean…what they have been talking about is true? That there is more than one of us? I am not the only one?”

  She shook her head, reaching out to embrace her. “No, my little one. We are all war angels. We all have a war angel, protecting us. Guiding us, sometimes even without our knowledge. And we all have some power too. In influence, guidance, protection and knowledge. We are all a war angel to someone…”

  *****

  Delia sighed. “So can I just leave? Close my eyes and go to another time period?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, it doesn’t work that way, Delia. When you close your eyes, you are sometimes called to another time period…but for a purpose. And you are here, now, to deal with your mission. Your purpose here. You are a war angel, Delia. This is your mission!”

  She nodded. “I know that and we know the Atticus is pure. But they are doing everything in their power to muddy his name. To make him seem unfit for what he claims.” Delia’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t thought those words, only said them. “How did I say that?! I spoke as if I know this!”

  Mama smiled and nodded. “It’s coming back to you, Delia. Now go! You must go help him! They have taken him to the square and now they are coming for you!” She pointed to a small opening in the back of the hut. Mama fished a shawl that was hanging on a chair on the opposite side of the room and brought it over to her. “Here. There’s a chill in the air. You must come with me though! They will be looking for you, dear one. I will protect you.”

  She swung her legs onto the hard, cold stone floor. Not like the floors in Paris. These floors were dusty, dirty. She looked down at her feet and saw her toes. No more painted nails. Crusted dirt. These were the feet of a worker.

  “I am suddenly no longer a child…and I am starting to see a vision of a woman with red hair…”

  They squeezed through the small opening and Mama paused for a moment and looked over at her. “She brought you here. You will remember in time.”

  Delia shook her head. “The last thing I remember…” Her mind saw darkness. And a red sky painted with black clouds. “I remember a red sky…”

  “She rescued you,” Mama said. “She went there to get you.”

  “The last thing I remember is being in my room. In Paris. And I was only a child!” She banged her palms against the exterior wall of the hut. “Why are the memories so choppy?”

  Mama huddled close to Delia and smiled a warm smile. “Things will return to you. But you need to go to the square. Find Claret. She goes by the surname Atarah. She has figured in to your mission. She has called you here. But you are wanted. People are looking for you. Go now!”

  There were several knocks on the door.

  Persistent, deep thuds.

  She raised her head and looked towards the other room. The small, wooden door across the room shook with the knocking. She returned her attention to Mama, who rose from her chair.

  Three more knocks. Mama snapped her attention to the door and stared at it with wide eyes. Delia rose from her chair slowly and looked at Mama.

/>   The old woman shook her head and started rushing around the room, placing items in a small satchel. The old woman dashed to the window and tore the tapestry down. The sun shined brightly through, as she grasped the stone edge and peered outside. “Where are they? How have they come?!”

  She walked over to the window and joined the old woman. “Who?! Who are you talking about?!”

  Mama snapped her head in the direction of the door as her eyes widened. She looked over at her. “Come with me, Delia! Let’s go, it’s time to go now!” She abandoned the cooking and rushed to the table and grabbed Delia’s arm, dragging her across the room. “Come with me now! They want you!”

  Delia grunted and cried out. “Who?! Who wants me?!”

  The woman dragged her to an inner room and shut the door.

  She looked at Delia with wide eyes. “The high priests! They say you have had relations with the chosen one!”

  She looked back at the woman in horror. “What! The chosen one?”

  “Atticus has been called to a meeting of the High Priests! Word is they are planning to stone him!”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Who? Who is Atticus? Never would I whore myself out! Why would they accuse me of such heresy!”

  “The High Priests said this. You are scheduled to go to trial today. They are calling you a whore!”

  “How am I thrust into this? I did not! How can I leave?”

  The old woman looked up at her with the same wide, frightened eyes. Sweat dripped down the sides of her face. “The watchers! They are coming! They are coming for you!

  AFTER THE DAYS Delia spent in Jerusalem with Claret Atarah, when Delia learned much about who she truly was, she discovered the immortals.

  And her gift for time-travel.

  When Claret tutored her in the ways of the immortals, the light that still always found its way down to her, always continued to do so…at the graveside at her father’s funeral, in her tiny bedroom in Paris, through the window in Jerusalem.

  The light, however, started to dim over time; most often as she was becoming more deeply involved with Claret and the immortals.