Dark Before Dawn Read online

  Rorie wanted to groan. Macey, like every other girl in this middle school, seemed quite unable to grasp that the song was meant ironically. Oh, well, Rorie thought.

  “He’ll love it,” she chirped brightly. “You’ll call me as soon as you get home, right?” she urged, unable to fully quell the protective instinct that hovered near the surface. Her mind was racing with the possibilities of what could go wrong, and what she could do if it did—her mother’s daughter, after all. She had to learn to trust her friend more.

  “I’ll tell you everything,” Macey gushed. “I promise.”

  six

  HOPE

  “Miss Carmichael, you have a visitor. A Mr. Angelus?”

  “Mr. Who?” I blurted from behind the mounds of papers piled on my desk.

  “A Mr. Enoch Angelus?” the harried receptionist repeated, looking a little scandalized from behind her proper spectacles and high-necked blouse. “He doesn’t have an appointment. And he seems a little … different than your usual clients. Shall I ask him to get on your calendar another time?”

  I hid a smile. If she tried her normal gentle persuasion to tactfully get Enoch to vacate her reception area, she’d be in for a big surprise—she’d be more likely to find herself on a dinner date to the local Hare Krishna temple than be able to get rid of him.

  “No, let him in. I was expecting him. I’ll just take my lunch break now.”

  “If you say so,” she said, looking doubtful, before disappearing to retrieve my guest.

  I’d been waiting on Enoch’s arrival ever since Michael had left. It was a relief, then, when he burst through my office doorway in his old guise—a blind, slow moving, cane-wielding hippie once again.

  “Enoch!” I moved swiftly across the room, throwing my arms around him. “I’m so glad to see you!”

  “And I you, my dear. At least, in a manner of speaking.”

  The receptionist pursed her lips in disapproval. “Will you be going out to lunch, then?”

  “Thank you, dear, but not for me,” Enoch responded with a smile. He patted the pocket of his army-issue fatigue jacket. “Brought some jerky, so I’m fine.”

  “I packed my lunch today, too.”

  The receptionist hesitated, lingering awkwardly at the door.

  “What is it, Elaine?”

  “Er … it’s just that Andrew asked me to remind you that he’s waiting for you to write that motion on the Washington case.”

  I glowered back at her. The Washington case was my bugaboo, and everyone, even Elaine, knew it. Ike Washington was a functioning adult, but his IQ was low enough to legally classify him as intellectually disabled. Add to it that he had a history of being abused as a child and the equivalent of a third-grade reading ability, and I thought he qualified more for extra services than jail time. I didn’t think it was right to prosecute a man like that. But as my boss kept reminding me, he picked the cases, and he had his own reasons for picking them. It was my job to prosecute them and do the best I could to win—even when I was winning against Ike Washington.

  “Don’t like it? Just think of yourself as playing devil’s advocate,” he’d said, dismissing my qualms with a wave of his hand as he flipped through the case files. “It’s good practice. Everyone needs someone to argue the other side. That’s all the devil’s advocate is— the voice of doubt, making sure the justices have taken everything into consideration. Even the popes used to use them when they evaluated presumed holy people for sainthood.” He’d thrust the file at me, and the discussion was over. I had no choice. Prosecuting Ike Washington was, in his mind, just another job to do.

  “Thank you,” I said tartly, skewering Elaine with a pointed look until she faded away.

  “Come sit down with me,” I said, dragging Enoch behind me to the small conference table in the corner, swiping the extra case books and files away to clear a space for him. I was too junior to have a window, and the space was tiny, but the maintenance staff took care with the ancient pecan paneling that graced our walls, burnishing them to a glow that seemed to scatter a diffuse light around the room. The layout and architecture, while completely inconvenient, was a lovely reminder of the graces of old Atlanta.

  I settled him down and went to my desk, pulling my insulated lunch bag from a drawer. Enoch was unwrapping his jerky as I rejoined him.

  “Bon appétit,” he said, holding up the shriveled meat. I saluted his lunch with my own, a cup of soup in a Thermos.

  My mind was racing, trying to figure out where to begin. I fought off a rising sense of anxiety as I slurped my soup. I needed to move to be able to talk about Michael’s and my decision; just thinking about it made me feel like I couldn’t breathe, and I knew from experience that Enoch’s blind stare only made me feel more pinned down. If my body was in motion, maybe I wouldn’t feel so trapped, like any choice I made was the wrong one.

  As it was, I needn’t have worried, for Enoch dove right into the conversation. He didn’t ask me what I was thinking or what was going on between Michael and me, for which I was grateful. Instead, he launched into a story.

  “Do you know, Hope, that it was Gabrielle who came to me when I was offered my own opportunity to become an angel? It was her right in her role as Messenger, I suppose. So it was she who came to me. I found her waiting at a well when I came near to draw water for my herd.

  “When I realized who she was and why she was there attending me, I was surprised, of course. And troubled. Who was I to leave aside my humanity? Who was I to sit in the heavens? And I could see that the very same thoughts were warring in Gabrielle’s mind. She could scarcely believe the message she’d been entrusted to deliver. And yet she spoke the words, as distasteful as they were to her, letting God’s will be known.”

  He paused to bite off a hunk of jerky and chew.

  “Gabrielle didn’t want you to become an angel?” I asked. “But why?”

  “Oh, she means well, our Gabrielle,” he answered, dabbing at the corner of his beard. “She doesn’t despise humans, like the Fallen do. Nor does she blame them for the evil in the world.”

  “Like Raph does,” I interjected, remembering how hard it was for Raphael to set aside his disgust at mankind long enough to help Michael and protect me from the Fallen.

  “Yes,” Enoch nodded, waving one hand in the air as if the animosity of one of God’s mightiest archangels was a trivial thing. “Like Raph. Gabrielle didn’t—doesn’t—feel the same way. But she does think of humanity as inferior to the angels. Beneath them, if you will. The offer of angelic immortality to a human confirmed this deeply held belief, you see; what could such an offer mean if not that it was better, after all, to be an angel? But it shook her, too, for if a human could be offered such glory, there was really very little difference between us. If we could be worthy of that, we were not such inferior creatures, after all.”

  I peered at him over my cup.

  “Does she still think that, Enoch? Does she still think that humans are less worthy than angels?”

  He brought gnarled fingers to his grizzly beard and thought about my question. “I would imagine so.”

  “So your ascension was hard to swallow.”

  “As I imagine it was hard for her to join in Michael’s pledge to protect your sister.”

  His comment surprised me; I had never realized she was a less-than-willing participant in that vow.

  “But she seems perfectly fine helping Michael with his duties protecting the innocent on Earth,” I countered, confused. “Why would she object to adding one more to the list?”

  “He singled Rorie out for his particular protection. It was his choice, not God’s. And he did it out of his love for you, which, I imagine, Gabrielle finds to be a distraction from his duties. After all, if it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t have been dragged into helping him defend God’s people here on Earth.”

  I ignored the stab of guilt at the mention of how I’d hobbled Michael’s senses, forcing him to rely upon his partnership with Gabri
elle to find his way. “He does love me, doesn’t he, Enoch?” I sounded a little too plaintive, even to my own ears, and I looked down at the conference table, rubbing at an imagined mar in the marble as I waited for him to answer.

  “My dear, if your heart does not know the truth by now, it never will. The mutterings of an old fool such as myself will make no difference. And the feelings of one disgruntled archangel are irrelevant, as well. What matters is how you feel about him, and about your future. You love him, too, yes?”

  I felt my heart constrict a little, just thinking about him. It had been three weeks since he had left, and the emptiness I felt just seemed to grow.

  “Of course.”

  I let the certainty of my answer stand on its own while Enoch and I ate in silence.

  “Enoch, how could you leave them behind?” I finally asked. “Your family?”

  “Ah. That was difficult, it was. But you must remember, my dear—I was an old man, much as I appear to you now. My children were grown, grandfathers themselves. My favorite wives were dead. My story had been told. If I stayed among them, it was to count out the last of my days, slowly drying up and desiccating before them. But to become spirit—to move like the wind and even the rain among them—ah, that, to me, was a gift.”

  “I never thought of it like that.”

  “Like what, dear?”

  “That by becoming an angel you’d be able to be with them always. I thought of it more as abandoning my family,” I confessed.

  “Is that what is bothering you, then? The thought of leaving them behind?”

  I nodded, trusting that he could see me through his blind eyes and dark glasses. “I don’t understand why they—why God won’t let me live out my life here on Earth, like you did. It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “I don’t think God bothers Himself much with precedent,” he muttered wryly. “After all, He gets to set the rules. If He wants to make sure His people are protected, and that Michael isn’t torn by competing loyalties, He may feel time is of the essence—that He must force your hand. In some respects, He has been extraordinarily generous, giving you as much time as He has. After all, it has been twelve years. You will accomplish nothing by railing against the terms of His offer. You just have to come to grips with your choice.”

  “Why now? Why, after all this time, must I rush to my decision? Why is Michael pushing me so hard?” I thought back to the hushed exchange I’d witnessed between Gabrielle and Michael. Something had subtly shifted in the constellation of stars that governed our agreement—something I couldn’t put my finger on. But it was there.

  “I don’t know, Hope,” Enoch replied gently. “But I sense that this is not the only question bothering you about your decision.”

  I shrugged, not sure if I could actually articulate my feelings.

  “Go on, then. Tell me what it is.”

  I hesitated. My other reason sounded supremely selfish and self-centered. But I had no one else to share it with.

  “Who would I be, if I wasn’t myself anymore?” I asked. “If I wasn’t … Hope?”

  “Ah. I see. Your personhood. It is important to you?”

  I looked at him sharply. “How could it not be?”

  “Fair enough,” he assented, laughing. “What you are raising is a weighty question. And I acknowledge: your identity is not something to be taken lightly. I spoke of it, in fact, the first time we met in the desert—you remember?”

  I thought back to that day when Michael and I had sought him out for information about the Prophecy. He’d talked about my name, and what it signaled about my connection to Michael.

  “I remember, Enoch.”

  “Yes, your sense of self is important. But of whom do you speak when you speak of Hope Carmichael?”

  I sighed. I hated it when he went all philosophical on me.

  “You know who I am, Enoch. Do you really need to practice the Socratic method on me? I feel like I’m back in law school.”

  “Indulge me,” he said with a slight grin. “Just tell me, who is Hope Carmichael?”

  I wriggled on my chair, suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m a lawyer.”

  “Yes, I see that. Your fancy office and all that,” he said, raising a hand to gesture dismissively at the rows and rows of shelves stuffed with books and the grand diplomas hanging crookedly on my walls. “Go on.”

  “I’m a Tech alum. I’m a friend. I’m a sister and a daughter.”

  “Of whom?”

  “Oh, come on, Enoch, this is nonsense.”

  “I have a point in asking you these things. Believe me. Just answer the question.”

  “Fine.” I shrugged, not knowing where he was going with this. “I’m a friend to many people, but to Tabby most of all. I’m a sister to Rorie. I’m Mona’s daughter. Mona’s and Don’s. And I am the Bearer,” I added, my fingers trailing up to the Mark on my neck. “I’m the Bearer of the Key.” I deliberately left out any reference to Michael.

  “Good,” Enoch said, giving me a satisfied smile. “You see it, don’t you?”

  I stared at the shiny lenses of his sunglasses, not understanding.

  He patted my hand. “What you have done is define yourself in relationship to other people. When you think about it this way, you do not exist as an entity unto yourself, Hope. Even your profession—it couldn’t exist except in relation to your clients.” He gestured at the heavy chair of carved cherrywood that was poised, empty, in front of my desk. “Without someone to sit in that seat, you are not really a lawyer. Everything requires relationship. And your role as the Bearer is no different. It connects you to all of the angels, but to the Fallen—and to Michael—in particular.

  “This means that by choosing to be with Michael—by becoming an angel, like him—you would not be subjugating your identity to his. You would just be embracing and bringing to the forefront this other aspect of your identity: the aspect of your relationship to him.”

  I stared at the empty lunchbox on the table in front of me. “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It is simple, if you can accept that you will always be defined in a context, not as an absolute. It is that way for all of us, Hope. Why should it be any different for you?”

  What he was saying sounded logical. So why did it feel so difficult?

  “I still think of myself as that old desert dweller, Hope. I still think of myself as a husband, a father, a grandfather, as well you know. But I am an angel, too, and in the fullness of time, that part of my story demanded to be told. Telling it does not negate what came before. And—and this is the most important—it does not change the essence of who you are. The core of you is eternal, and it remains the same regardless of the role you happen to be playing at any given time. That is how it is for me. And it would be the same for you.”

  “No. It would be different.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  I stared at the worn wood that made up our office. The chrome and plastic signs of modernity were intruding on it everywhere— the computer screen on my desk, the speaker phone on the conference table.

  “You lived in a time,” I began, “when man accepted as reality that there was some dialogue between Earth and Heaven. People back then knew about angels. Your family knew what had happened to you. They watched you ascend into Heaven. Mine won’t have that luxury. Mine will be left wondering what happened to me.” Just saying the words made the sharp pain they would feel come into sharp focus.

  “Knowing did not diminish my family’s loss, Hope,” he chided me gently, reaching across the table to pat my hand. “Other than giving them certainty. You could give them that, too, you know. You could tell your family where you were going.”

  I could see it in my mind’s eye: my fumbling attempt to explain the unreality of my life to my mother, whose whole life was premised on logic and order; the unraveling of her worldview, and her, as she realized that the tragedies of her life—the great mysteries—were not mysteries at all, that I had been an actor in the
m, causing the losses and the pain.

  No. Even if the offer allowed for the possibility—which I knew, based on how Michael had explained it to me long ago and many times since, it didn’t—I couldn’t tell my mother the truth. Nor could I keep up a pretense of a human life, far away, punctuated by visits. The compromise that had allowed Michael to see me over the last twelve years while I made up my mind would not be an option for me. Heaven was forcing me to make a choice.

  Enoch’s blind eyes seemed to watch me from behind his sunglasses.

  “So you must have complete separation,” he said. “And in the scenario you envision, you feel it is a choice of your happiness versus theirs?”

  I nodded.

  “I see. Then, indeed, you do have a dilemma. But that Mark upon your neck—the Prophecy of which you are part—has always posed difficult choices to you, hasn’t it?”

  I seized upon his statement to ask him something that had been occupying my thinking more and more lately.

  “Enoch, why didn’t more of the Fallen take their opportunity for forgiveness? Why did they insist on trying to overthrow Heaven when all they had to do was accept the grace being offered to them?”

  He crumpled up the spent wrapper of his jerky and threw it on the table. “Ah. That is an excellent question. I don’t know if I have the answers for you, Hope.”

  “But what do you think?” I prompted.

  His gnarled hands gripped the top of his cane as he considered my question.

  “Maybe their minds were too addled to understand what they were being offered. They suffered from millennia of pain, the punishment of separation from God. You saw how that affected Michael, even in a short period of time. Imagine what hundreds and thousands of years of that would do to someone.”

  I shook my head. “Then none of them would have understood. None of them would have crossed over. But many of them did. It has to be more than that.”

  Enoch nodded. “You are right. It was more than that. It is the same as it is for mankind. Even though forgiveness has been offered, the Fallen have to accept their redemption. They have to ultimately believe themselves forgiven, even though they know very well that they do not deserve it in any sense of the word. If they cannot believe it, if they therefore cannot forgive themselves enough to accept this grace, they will find the doors of Heaven closed to them forever. And to believe themselves forgiven, they must first admit that they were wrong: wrong to rebel against God, and wrong in their rejection of mankind. You realize their aim, do you not?”