Dark Hope Read online

  I looked at her doubtfully, prompting her to cross her hands over her heart in an exaggerated X.

  “Scout’s honor,” she declared, leaving her hands to rest on her hips.

  I looked down at the tops of my sneakers. “You think I’m being ridiculous, don’t you?”

  “I think it’s sweet that you are so careful,” she said firmly. “Not just with yourself, but with me, too.” I lifted my eyes to hers, and saw that she was telling me the truth. “You are a bit sheltered, Hope. Not everything or everyone is what they look like on the outside. God knows I’m living proof of that. But trust me—I don’t mind having a friend who is willing to speak up to look out for me.” Her eyes were fierce with pride and I felt a surge of pleasure as I realized she already considered me a friend. “It may be misplaced this time, but it’s something I value. Now, go. I’ll see you in half an hour.”

  I shuffled over to the last leg of the trail, grasping the metal railing. Was I being too cautious? I asked myself. It doesn’t matter, I realized. Whether you are right or not, she doesn’t want you to spoil her fun. Out of respect for my new friend, then, I’d have to give her some space. I reached for the flashlight and then my heart sank. My pocket was empty; Tabitha had been the last one to carry it. I looked back to where she stood, hoping to catch her eye, but she was engrossed, flirting and laughing with Tony.

  Oh, well, I thought. Off I go.

  The climb was a lot steeper than the earlier parts of the trail, but even so, it took me only about fifteen minutes to make it to the top. As I crested the mountain, the bitter wind whipped around me and I hugged my sides, willing my fleece to keep me warm.

  Careful now, my inner voice cautioned me as I stepped forward onto the bare rock.

  The top of the mountain was dark, but it didn’t matter. The entire crazy quilt of lights that comprised the Atlanta skyline at night spread out before me, twinkling and sparkling as if against a backdrop of black velvet, giving the entire surface of the mountain a shimmery glow.

  “It’s beautiful,” I murmured to no one, entranced by the dancing lights.

  I was all alone, the massive expanse of stone laid out before me. I felt insignificant compared to the mountain and the sky, overcome by a rush of wonder. Giggling, I stuffed my hands in my pockets and began to skip across the surface, sliding effortlessly around the pits and cracks that pocked its surface, spinning and twirling past the cable car station and concession stand. All my earlier concerns melted away. I walked over to the edge, the caution area marked off by a low-slung cable, and let a gulp of brisk air chill my lungs.

  In the distance, a crack of lightning lit up the sky, a distant rumbling of thunder following on its heels. Then another, and another. All around me, the lightning seemed to dance, snaking vines and sheets of fire, alternating as they circled the city. I had never seen so many storms, and if I closed my eyes, I could almost feel the electricity throbbing through the sky, leaving the smell of sulfur in its wake. Soon a soft rain enveloped me.

  I was alone with nature’s majesty, the party and my argument with Tabitha forgotten. Up on that mountain with only the weather as my companion, I had nothing to fear, nothing to hide. I let the wind rush about me, my hair swirling about me, for once not worrying who could see.

  A solitary hawk swooped into my view, following the wind as it twirled and glided through the night sky. For a moment, it almost seemed as if our eyes met.

  “Beautiful,” I whispered again, watching it trace an arc against the flashing skies. The voice inside my head cautioned: Don’t hawks hunt during the day? But the thought quickly passed as I became entranced with its flight.

  The hawk swooped lower and lower, and then it rose up to make a lazy circle high above me. I turned around to watch its progress, admiring the ease with which it cut through the winds. Closer and closer it came, now in a straight line. And then, as I heard its eerie screech, I realized it was flying right at me, diving toward my head.

  Shocked, I started to back away, stumbling over the forgotten cable and landing with a thump. The bird kept coming, sending me scrambling backwards on my hands and heels over the hard rock and scrabbling to avoid the attack.

  It swerved right in front of me, disappearing from my vision. But I could hear its angry shrieking as it circled back for another try.

  “Get away!” I cried out, looking blindly into the night to find it. Too late, I heard it screaming from above. Instinctively, I jumped to my feet and tried to bat it away from my head, but I lost my footing on the slippery rock.

  I was rolling down the cliff face, bouncing off of rocks. I tried to slow my fall, grabbing wildly about me for anything, anything at all, but I was falling too fast and my hands came up empty. I hit something sharp and then, suddenly, I was free-falling, no longer touching the rock, the white mass of the mountain shrinking away from me as I fell into the night sky.

  I always thought it was a cliché when people said that your life flashes before your eyes in the moments before your death, but there mine was, playing out like a movie in reverse right before me. I saw my night with Tabitha and the Franklins; the anonymity of my new school; the thrill of my first time running outdoors. The years of loneliness and repeated embarrassments at the hands of my father in Alabama. My mom and dad, fighting about what they should do with me. And looming in front of me, a stranger in a motel room. Not the one who’d kidnapped me, but the one who’d saved me. He faced away, his broad shoulders squared, every muscle tensed, a stark presence that flamed bright against the dingy walls of the room that my memory had almost erased.

  When he turned to face me, I gasped in recognition.

  “Michael!”

  Suddenly, the force of what felt like a brick wall knocked the wind out of me. Stunned, everything in my body seemed to shut down.

  Everything was dark. I was conscious only of the fact that the rush of wind had slowed to a rhythmic breeze. A slow warmth seemed to suffuse my body.

  My brain struggled to make sense of what was happening. So this is what it feels like to die, I thought, waiting for the pain.

  But the pain didn’t come. Instead, my mind drifted away into nothingness. I felt a gentle tickling against my nose and face as I seemed to bob in a current of air, going up and down in steady rhythm. I turned away from the chill wind, burrowing my face deeper into the warmth, and sighed.

  Where am I? my brain suddenly demanded.

  It doesn’t matter. Just sleep, a different voice came back, just as insistently.

  I was starting to get hot. I turned over in languorous ease, trying to push away from the heat, and felt strong hands tighten their grip on me. Startled awake by the sudden movement, I opened my eyes.

  Below me, I could see the rooftops of Atlanta.

  And they were moving.

  With my feet dangling over them.

  The wind was rushing by me, whipping my hair around so that I could barely see. But out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the great rhythmic beating was coming from a pair of gigantic, snowy wings. Confused, I tried to turn around, but muscle-bound arms squeezed me even tighter.

  “Quit wiggling or I may drop you,” a voice warned, and I looked up.

  For the second time that night, I gasped in recognition. And then, mercifully, everything went dark.

  five

  I was groggy. I pushed my face deeper into my pillow, my mind already slipping back to the bliss of sleep. Something tickled at my lip, and I reached my fingers up to rub at my face.

  Feathers, I thought, plucking them away absently.

  Feathers!

  My eyes flew open and I bolted up. I was in my own bed. At home. Safe.

  It didn’t really happen.

  But then I spun around and pressed my back against the headboard.

  There, sitting in the corner, was Michael.

  He was hunched over, holding his head in his hands, but even as self-contained as he was, he seemed to dwarf everything in my room. I sucked in my breath a
nd he stirred.

  “Good. You’re awake,” he said, lifting his head to eye me warily. “I was beginning to get worried.”

  He uncoiled his body, rising to his feet without effort. Every muscle rippled, and I felt my breath catch in my throat as I scanned his body, looking for evidence of what I’d seen the night before. The only thing unusual I could find was his hair, which had seemed to somehow grow overnight so that his bangs now fell rakishly into his face. The shadow of a beard was emerging on his jaw, and dark shadows under his eyes bore witness to his sleepless vigil. He looked like a man—an incredibly handsome, incredibly tired man. But I knew what I had seen.

  I clutched at the hem of my comforter, unable to stop staring.

  “You,” I began, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

  “Yes?” he asked, carefully, as if testing the waters. He stood unmoving in the corner, waiting for me to continue.

  “You saved me,” I stated quietly. It was the simplest way to put it. I dropped my eyes and plucked at some imaginary lint.

  “You shouldn’t have been up there,” he said softly.

  I raised my eyes, defiant. “You shouldn’t have—I mean, couldn’t have been, either. But you were.”

  A shadow of worry clouded his eyes so that the sparkling blue turned to stormy gray. He moved toward me and I shrank back against the headboard, my body betraying my fear and confusion.

  He stopped short, looking as if I’d slapped him in the face. Quickly, his face became a mask and he shrugged.

  “Well, it was a good thing I was, or you would have fallen off the mountain. As it was, you almost got hypothermia,” he blustered. “You were barely conscious when I found you.”

  A rush of anger swept through me. I leaned forward, accusing him. “I didn’t almost fall off the mountain. I did fall. And you didn’t find me. You caught me. In the air.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed, his voice full of bravado. But in his eyes, I could see fear—the fear of being known. His eyes searched mine, questioning.

  “Don’t lie to me,” I whispered, unable to sustain his gaze. I picked at the hem of my comforter. “I can take almost anything, but not that.”

  When I looked up again, he was rooted in the same place. He looked torn. Lost.

  “I know,” he said, his jaw taut. He balled his giant hands into fists. As he saw my eyes wander over them, he willed himself to relax and slowly unfurled his fingers. “I shouldn’t even be here now. But I can’t help myself.”

  “Who are you?” I whispered, pity and fear stabbing me through the heart.

  “If I tell you, things will never be the same for you,” he whispered, pleading with me.

  You don’t have to do this. You can go back to ignorance if you say the word.

  I paused, considering the lure of the promise made by the voice in my head, but only for a moment. “Tell me,” I asked, brushing aside the warning as I looked Michael in the eyes. “Please.”

  Michael cocked his head to the side as if listening to someone, and then he sighed. “I have no choice.” Then, when the only sound I could hear was my own ragged breath, he raised himself up so that he seemed to fill the entire room.

  “I am the One,” he began in a whisper. “The first to worship humankind. The defender of the People of God, scourge of the Evil, protector of the Innocent. I guided Adam and Eve out of Paradise so that they should live. I spoke to Moses from the burning bush and delivered his soul to the hands of Righteousness. I argued before the Lord so that the waters would not wipe humanity from the face of the Earth. I brought the wrath of the heavenly hosts upon the Fallen Ones so that they were cast forever from the Gates of Heaven.”

  His voice had turned into a quiet roar, the rush of a thousand voices joining his so that it sounded like music.

  “I am the Prince of Light, the Captain of the Army of God, defender of Israel, judge and escort to just souls, eternal enemy of Satan and his powers. I am He Who Is Like God.”

  His eyes were closed now, and his entire being seemed to glow. A gentle wind swirled about him, tousling his hair and clothes.

  “I am Michael, Archangel.”

  The wind and light died down, leaving him standing before my bed. I clutched the sheets about me, stunned.

  All the denials I’d ever made about God—the walls I’d built up to defend myself against my father’s crazy rantings—all of it came crashing into dust as Michael’s words sunk in. I thought about everything I knew about angels, which filled all of thirty seconds. Didn’t angels come to people when they were dying? Or with messages and tasks from God? What did that have to do with me?

  Then I thought about all the time I had spent with Michael. All of it was a lie.

  “You’ve been lying to me this whole time,” I whispered, the accusation in my voice unmistakable. “Pretending to be my friend.”

  He hung his head, unable to answer.

  “Why?” I asked suddenly.

  He opened his eyes and looked at me with sadness.

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you here? What do you want from me?”

  He looked confused himself. “I am sworn to protect the innocent. Usually this means intervening in the affairs of man when something horrific is threatening to happen.”

  “Like those refugees on TV.”

  “Yes,” he said, startled that I’d made the connection. “Like those refugees.”

  “Is that where you went, when you went away the other week?”

  “Yes,” he conceded, bowing his head. “It was almost too late by the time I got there.” Before I could ask more questions, he continued. “But over a decade ago, I was drawn to protect something a little bit more unusual for me—a little girl who was in danger.”

  Adrenaline shot through my veins. “You were there, in the motel room! I remembered your face when I was falling last night.”

  “Yes, I was there,” he admitted, a dark look crossing his face. “I wasn’t supposed to be there, but somehow you caught my attention and I … I had to stop that monster.” His mouth twisted in anger.

  “You killed him.”

  His eyes flashed. “I did it to protect you,” he protested, his voice rising slightly as a vein started throbbing on his forehead.

  “But why me?”

  “I don’t know.” He practically spat the words, and I shrank back. My hand drifted to the back of my neck, touching my Mark like a talisman. Did he know about it, I wondered. Could he tell me what it means?

  Now is not the time, the voice in my head told me, so I stayed quiet, watching Michael intently.

  He began pacing across my room, every muscle taut. “It was as if I couldn’t help myself. There was something about you … I just knew I had to intervene.” He rubbed his hand across his face, looking desperate as he relived it.

  “Just like my dad,” I murmured. “Needing to protect me but not sure why.” Michael barely acknowledged my observation as his confession poured out of him.

  “God was displeased, but no harm really came of it. After all, it took barely an hour of time here on Earth. After that, I stayed away from you for a long time. I had nearly forgotten about it when the feeling returned.”

  “What feeling? Why was God displeased?”

  He cocked his head to the side then, as if considering what to say next.

  “I forget how little you know. But it cannot hurt. Not now.” He threw himself down in my butterfly chair as he continued. “I am not supposed to bother myself with anything other than God’s work. As young and innocent as you were—you were not for me to trifle with.”

  I was not sure I was following him. “You mean you had bigger fish to fry?” I asked, knotting my brows together as I puzzled it out.

  He smiled wryly. “That is a good way to put it.” He closed his eyes, rubbing his temples.

  I bit my lip, considering all that he’d said.

  “You said the feeling has returned.”

  He drew his lips i
nto a hard, straight line and looked me straight in the eye.

  “Yes. It has.”

  A pregnant silence filled the room. My heart seemed to skip a beat.

  “You sent me that valentine, didn’t you?”

  He nodded silently. My heart raced: first with excitement that he’d been my secret admirer, and then with fear as I thought about the warnings held in the unfinished verses.

  “Am I in danger?” My hand absentmindedly floated up to my neck again. Whether it singled me out for protection or harm, I could feel my Mark burning on my skin, and Michael’s tale only made me more aware of it.

  “If you keep doing stupid things like climbing on top of mountains in the middle of the night, then yes,” he said, his wide grin suddenly breaking across his face.

  It was the first glimpse I’d had of the old Michael, my Michael, and my heart leapt. I threw my pillow at him, but he expertly caught it in one hand. Even then, his eyes were sad.

  “I’m serious,” he said, the grin gone. “You can’t be taking risks like that.”

  “I wouldn’t have even been there if you hadn’t disappeared, leaving me with Tabitha for my partner in Contemporary Issues,” I pouted, crossing my arms. “Besides,” I went on, cutting him off before he could continue with his lecture, “everything would have been fine if it weren’t for that hawk.”

  “A hawk?” His voice had an edge to it as he echoed my words.

  “It attacked me out of nowhere. That’s how I fell.” I shuddered as the memory of my free fall came rushing back to me, and my fingers unconsciously gripped the side of my bed.

  He frowned, his brows furrowing deeply. “That’s unusual. Two bird attacks.”

  “Two?”

  “The crows. Remember?”

  My fall, during my run the other day. The room seemed to spin as I made the connection.

  “Do you know what’s going on, Michael?” I whispered, barely able to speak.

  He slumped deeper in the chair. “No. No, I’m afraid I don’t. I’m not omniscient, unfortunately. I’m more the muscle than the brains of God’s security operation. When there’s trouble, I get pointed in the right direction and go take care of it. If I see the trouble, I jump in without waiting for an invitation. But this time, I’m not even sure where it’s coming from. All I have is this sense that I should be here. With you.”