Warnings: Part of this chapter deals with the unexpected death of a loved one due to illness/disease, and hospitalization.

Thanks to the amazing Discord Crew with their help with this.

Also, for those who are fans of Harry Potter or Marvel/Avengers, check out my fics Sense of the Soul and Here, You Are Home, both in the Cadbury Universe.

Enjoy the chapter!

OF MUSIC & MEMORIES

Chapter Three

"Do you assist your father in building homes?"

He felt Matt's lips turn down and his nose scrunch up as confusion ruffled through him. "What?"

Samandriel thought of the large machine he had seen during his flight, one that he later saw being controlled by a man, used to dig through the ground and move the earth. "Your father is the commander of your home builders, isn't he? Do you assist him?"

"Oh, the construction company. No, my dad's not a commander. He's just the boss. He tells people what to do and where to put stuff, I guess."

Samandriel thought that the word "commander" was apt, in that case, but didn't correct Matt. Maybe that wasn't a term used on Earth yet? Or perhaps it was one used centuries ago. Language changed rather quickly, according to some of his brothers and sisters who made frequent trips to Earth.

"I'm too young to have a job, anyway. I'm only twelve."

Twelve seemed rather old for a human, to be honest. Didn't they only live to be forty? Why were they still being swaddled after a quarter of their lifespan had past?

"I'll be in school 'til I'm eighteen, and if I go to college, then I might be thirty before I get out."

Thirty?! "What will you do then?"

"Well, I want to be an Entomologist and study insects, but I'll have to work for someone else for a while before I can go off on my own. I'd like to go to the Amazon Rainforest, though, and look for new species of insects! Or spiders. There was a movie once about this new spider they found in the Amazon. It was really venomous, and it bred with a spider from the US and created this whole new species. I got in trouble for watching it, but I think Mom was only mad because she's terrified of spiders. I think they're cool."

Samandriel was very confused, but he didn't want to ask Matt how long he was likely to live. It seemed a terrible topic to bring up with a creature that was possibly still considered an infant in their own species, even if Samandriel knew that Matt's bright soul would find a beautiful home in Heaven once he left this realm.

Samandriel hoped he could visit him there, in his Heaven. He liked this boy.

"Spiders were one of Raphael's creations," Samandriel told him, thinking of the Healer. "He has eight arms. Gabriel was teasing him one day, so Raphael created the first spider and dropped it down Gabriel's shirt."

It wasn't an actual shirt, of course. In their trueforms, the angels did not wear clothing. It was simply the closest approximation Samandriel could make to easily explain Raphael sticking the spider beneath the outer layer of Gabriel's grace so its legs would wriggle around against his wings. Gabriel had shrieked so loudly, he caused the massive volcanic eruption that would come to be known as Krakatoa, after the island on which it occurred a few billion years in the future.

"Your brothers sound awesome."

"They are." Awesome in all senses of the world, but also terrible. He thought of Lucifer, who had Fallen and taken Heaven with him. Lucifer, who was planning to fight Michael for command over Heaven, in the Final Battle that would determine everything.

And Samandriel was supposed to be finding his true vessel, not playing games with a human.

"Are you okay?" Matt asked, pausing in his walk across the fresh-tilled dirt.

"Yes," Samandriel said.

Ohana means family.

"I'm fine."

"Okay," Matt said, and began walking again, though Samandriel could feel both his disbelief and concern.

"What did you want to do out here?" he asked, to try and change the subject.

"Well, there's this spider that local to the area, but it's really venomous…"

"This is how I spoke to you that first time."

"It's still weird," Matt said, from where he was crouched next to the rotting porch. "It's like I'm having a conversation with a spider."

"Spiders do not appear to have very elaborate thoughts. Mostly she is concerned that you are large and near her nest." There was a small movement in the shadows beneath the porch. "I am coming out now. Do not squish me."

"Of course not."

"Human instincts might have you reacting without thought. I can feel the toxic nature of her venom. If she were to bite you, you would need immediate assistance."

"But you have control of her, right?" Matt asked nervously, taking a few careful steps backward.

"Yes. I won't allow her to hurt you as long as I am present. Either in her body or yours."

Matt nodded, relaxing. "I'm not worried, then."

Samandriel found it interesting, being inside the body of an arachnid. It was not a creature he had taken as a vessel previously.

The size, of course, wasn't much of an issue. He had always been small and had a proclivity for taking small creatures as vessels, excepting his very first vessel. So having Matt tower over his form now was not too different from being towered over by his brothers. And he was accustomed to multiple eyes, since he had ten in his true form that circled his head like a crown. It was the legs that were the truly strange thing, all of them moving independently, unlike the gait of a horse or a dog. It took a moment before he felt completely comfortable in walking, even though he doubted he would fall over with so many legs on which to balance himself.

He could also feel the web sack within the spider's body and knew instinctively how to spin the silk to craft a web. It was curious how different animals were to humans. Their thoughts were less intrusive and shallower, based on instinct rather than a need to understand , and Samandriel had full control over their bodies, rather than being a presence in the back of their mind, like he was with Matt.

He moved out from beneath the porch with careful steps, feeling the spider's fear and disgust within him. She didn't like the bright light of the sun in her sensitive eyes and the area was too open, especially with Matt so close. He carefully guided his grace over to shield the spider's eyes and ease the fear. Matt wouldn't hurt either him or the spider, so there was no need for concern, and he had checked that this spider had no yet lain any eggs. They were not stealing a mother away from her unhatched children.

He watched as Matt moved closely, lowered his hand to the ground. Samandriel moved forward onto the proffered palm and held still as Matt lifted his hand into the air and then stood. Even if he did fall off the boy's hand, his grace would protect both him and the spider. He needn't be concerned.

"Wow," Matt whispered. He pulled a plastic box out of the bag he had carried with him, then hesitated. "If I put her in the box, can you still get out?"

Samandriel felt a rush of warmth knowing that Matt cared enough to ask. "Yes."

Matt nodded, opening the box with one hand and then holding his hand inside it so Samandriel could crawl off. He felt the box jostle slightly around him and the lid snapped shut over it.

"Can she breathe okay?" Matt asked, holding the box up so he could peer in through the clear plastic.

Samandriel took a few testing breaths, then stretched his grace out, testing the edges of the box to make sure they were sealed but not air tight. He could feel oxygen moving easily through the box, unhindered, though the lid was securely latched. He could keep an eye on the spider, but Matt would be safe from it. Even if it did manage to bite him, which Samandriel had no intention of allowing, he would heal the wound and erase any venom from the boy's body. He had no plans to let the child be hurt.

"Yes, though she is hungry," he noted, feeling that empty, clawing feeling that had become so familiar when he stayed in a vessel for too long.

"I have some flies and crickets at home. I bet she'll love them."

"Hakuna Matata," Samandriel sang to the tune of the song he had learned from The Lion King.

"It means no worries, for the rest of your days." Matt could scarcely sing, he was giggling too hard. "Bugs, yuck."

Samandriel continued to hum even as he pulled his grace out of the black widow, soothing her fear as he passed.

"May I come back in, Matt?" he asked, as he stretched his wings, unfolding his body. It was still so strange to be in his true form and have someone staring at him, comprehending his presence.

"Wait," Matt said, stepping closer. His eyes were trailing over Samandriel's form, his lips turning up into a grin.

Samandriel felt a tickle of unease in the place where his stomach would be if he were in a vessel. He knew he was small and his form was soft-looking. He wasn't a warrior like Michael's angels, those born of fire and fit for the battlefield. Most of the other Messengers were larger than him and more fierce, with harder angles and wings made for speed. Samandriel looked like a child's stuffed toy, to be cuddled. Not a creature who could protect or safeguard.

"You look like a rabbit!" Matt said, and his laugh was delighted, not mocking like Samandriel expected, though why he expected mockery he could not say. He didn't remember any of his siblings mocking him for his appearance. He was as he had been made. "I like your ears."

Samandriel's ears lifted without his consent, the top pair folding back across his head in a bashful attempt to hide. They covered a few of his eyes. "You don't think I look silly?"

"You look different," Matt admitted, "but not silly." He studied Samandriel a moment longer, his eyes trailing down the length of a wing. "I think you're amazing."

Samandriel's wings curled forward, hiding his face as embarrassment flooded through him, turning his ears a pale pink.

"I think you're amazing, too."

It was strange how right it felt to be back in Matt's body. Vessels never felt wrong. Strange, maybe, or different from what he was used to, but not wrong. But they also never felt like Matt did. Was it a human thing? Was it because of the way their minds worked, so close to the minds of an angel, if less open? Or was it because Matt could see his grace?

Maybe one day he would get the chance to take another human as a vessel and see if there was a difference, but it wasn't important now.

"What will you do for the rest of the day since you don't have school?"

"Well, Dad and Mom will be working and they don't really like me wandering around by myself for too long. I think they're worried I'll find an insect colony and decide to move in."

"I don't believe you would fit in an insect colony."

"You'd be amazed what humans can do when they're determined to make a point." There was a rush of joyful humor, sunshine-bright. "We could watch another movie."

Samandriel's wings thrummed with excitement. "Another singing movie?"

"Sure! We haven't watched Hercules , yet."

"Hercules? The demi-god?"

"Demi-god?"

"Hercules was born of Zeus and a human woman. That makes him a demi-god."

"Oh. The movie's not like the myth, then. Still, it's good and I like the music."

Samandriel was excited but also curious. "Myth?"

"Well, yeah. We learned about Hercules in school, and Olympus and the Greek myths." He must have felt Samandriel's humor, because he said, "They are a myth, right?"

"Hercules was a real man. He died a long time ago, of course, but he was real."

"And the gods? Zeus?"

"Also real," Samandriel said, his wings flaring open in joy at Matt's obvious surprise. "I've never met Zeus, but I would fly with Helios and Selene sometimes. I think they go by Apollo and Artemis now."

"I don't know much about Greek mythology except what we learned in my one English class."

Samandriel was about to explain that there were a lot of Pagan deities and that some of them traded off duties across pantheons, but he was distracted by a strange smell on the air. He didn't taste it with Matt's taste buds. Rather, his grace felt it coil in his wings, thick and sickly-sweet, carried on a wave of woodsmoke.

Distantly, he was aware of Matt asking him what was wrong, but he could smell herbs on a non-existent wind, not here and now but long ago, stretched back across a century or more. Tobacco, some whisper across time supplied, sage, and a fire to warm us. A fire to light our way, and burn our dead.

Chanting. Low and heavy, deep but rising, filled the air. A hundred voices, perhaps more, all calling out to Spirits that lingered here in this place. Calling. Calling.

Chanting throughout the years. Calls to make the land prosper, calls for health and safety. Praise. Joy. Celebration.

Loss. Calls to the Spirits to carry the dead into their fold.

Fury. Calls for the strength to fight. War. Bloodshed.

A battlefield.

A lone voice, a fading voice, calling out a chant that called sickness and darkness and pain, filled the bloodsoaked earth with rage and hate and vengeful fury. He could feel it now, beneath the smoke that filled his wings, soaking the sickly-sweet scent of tobacco into his feathers, there lay a mouth, endlessly deep, eternally hungry. It breathed a smoke of poison into the world and devoured all who dared to set foot here. All who dared to dwell on land that had been stolen, soured with death, and cursed.

"Samandriel!"

Matt's shout finally broke through and Samandriel came back to himself in time to feel the ground disappear from beneath Matt's feet, pulled away like a tide was tearing the shore away from him, and then they were falling.

The smoke was thick in his wings, sticky like tree sap. They flapped uselessly around him, splattering the edges of the tunnel with the scent of burning dead. He could feel Matt's terror tearing through him as the boy's scream ripped through the tender flesh of his throat, the earth rushing past them, sand churning around them. The light disappeared above them as they fell down, down, down into an earthly gullet and were swallowed whole.

Matt slowly opened his eyes, his head throbbing in time with his heartbeat and his throat aching. He snorted sand out of his nose and wiped it from his eyes as he lifted his head and looked around.

He was in a cave. There were stalagmites and stalactites dripping water, the sound echoing in the air, almost like music. The clink of a drop into a pool of water was like chimes. Or bells.

There was light coming from somewhere. The whole cavern was lit as though the walls were made of sunshine and the roof of the caverns painted with stars.

Matt stumbled to his feet, moving unsteadily forward, further into the cave. It was alive with light, almost humming with the bright shine of life, and though he looked, Matt couldn't find a shadow anywhere. Even the pool of water at its center was crystal clear to the floor beneath it, the stone of its basin polished smooth and gleaming.

How had he gotten here? Look though he did, he could not find a tunnel or a hole in the cavern roof through which he had fallen. It might have closed up behind him. There was a pile of sand on the floor where he had awoken. He frowned at it. The sand was dark, now that he was looking at it, dark brown and smeared black, as though drenched in oil. He found himself wiping down his arms, desperate to get every grain off his skin. It was dirty. It was wrong.

"Samandriel, what's wrong with the sand?"

His words echoed back at him in the cavern, but no answer followed.

"Samandriel?"

He reached for that presence that had been in his mind for the past few days, but the place where the angel normally sat was empty, that second mind gone. Matt felt his throat thicken in worry. Had the angel been hurt? Had the fall… could an angel die ?

"Samandriel?!"

iel-iel-iel the cavern echoed back at him.

He spun, searching the cavern for the angel's familiar lapine form, his large wings or his floppy ears. "SAMANDRIEL!" he shouted, stumbling on a stone and falling backward. He landed heavily in the pool, water sloshing up over his shoulders and soaking his hair. It was warm, not cold like he would have expected, but the comfort of gentle water against his skin did nothing to ease his fear. He felt his eyes fill with tears. He knew Samandriel wouldn't have left him, so where was he?

"Hush, little one. Do not fear."

Startled, Matt twisted around.

Behind him, standing in the center of the pool, was a woman who hadn't been there a moment ago. She wore black leather armor over clothes of white, and her hair was pulled back from her face, falling in a twisting braid as silver as moonlight.

She held something carefully in her arms but she was too tall for Matt to see it, and he was transfixed by her eyes. They coal black but glittered with bright stars, as though each were a galaxy all their own.

"Hello, Matthew." Her voice echoed but not like his did, rebounding from the walls of the cave. Her voice echoed in his head, chiming like bells and singing a song that made him think of comets careening through the sky, bright and burning and beautiful. "I am pleased to meet you."

"Hello," he said, for want of a better thing to say. He wiped tears from his face and when she offered him a hand, he took it. Her fingers were calloused from hard use but her grip was strong as she pulled him to his feet.

"Do not be afraid," she said, and her smile was as kind as her eyes were vast. "No harm will find you here. I will protect you."

"Who are you?" He wondered if he was supposed to know already, but he didn't, so he had to ask. She knew his name, after all.

"My name is Artemis and I have been waiting for you."

Waiting for him? His mind caught on her name, though. "You're Selene. Samandriel's friend."

"I am." She crouched down before him, arms still cradling the bundle she held. It was blankets, he could see. The soft fabrics were every shade of blue the sky had ever shown and perhaps some that Matt had never seen before or known existed. "Do you know what it means that I am Selene and Artemis?"

Meeting her gaze was like defying gravity - like falling upward into space but also like flying, and it was both terrifying and exhilarating to feel like he might peer into them and never come out. "No," he said. "I remember your name from school. Artemis. But I don't know what it means."

Artemis smiled at him, that gentle, pleased smile, as though his ignorance was a joy. Or perhaps it was that he didn't pretend to understand when he didn't. He couldn't learn that way, after all, and there was a lot that he didn't know. There was a lot that he had learned just these past couple days, with Samandriel there to show him how big the world was beyond his perspective.

"When I was born, I was tasked with carrying the moon into the sky. My chariot is pulled by two white horses and they held me pull the moon up beyond the horizon and bring the Night. My brother, Helios, or Apollo, carries the Sun in his chariot, and our sister is the bright, vibrant colors of the dawn.

"I was not a goddess when I was born. We were the children of Titans, who have been called monsters and trapped beneath the world, or destroyed. Helios and I were allowed to remain, for we did not fight the Olympians or try to take over. We did our duty and so were permitted to continue. And then, unexpectedly, we were offered new names. Artemis and Apollo. And new titles. Goddess and god, with more duties besides.

"I am a huntress and remain the Goddess of the Moon. Among other duties, I have been tasked with protecting children, and that is one of the reasons that I am here."

"Because I'm a child," Matt said with some irritation. He wasn't a baby.

Artemis smiled softly at him, unbothered by his revulsion. She, after all, was millennia old. "Not just you. I am here for Samandriel's sake, as well. He is the youngest of his kind, you know. The very last angel born into the world. He did not learn to see the world the way his elder siblings did and so his interactions are different and unrefined. This is to the benefit of you both, and perhaps well beyond you both."

"What do you mean?" Matt asked, his head tilting to the side in an unconscious mimicry of the angel whose mind he had become used to dancing within his own.

"Gods and angels and Titans and creatures of the deep, we are ancient and mysterious, but do not let that fool you into believing we are perfect. We are strong and we hide our errors well, but we are no less filled with imperfection and regret as humans. We are simply better able to disguise them from you, because our perspectives are larger than yours and our means outside your reach. For now. It will not always be so.

"But do not think angels are beyond error, Matthew. They, too, suffer from the troubles that haunt all families. Siblings, after all, are both a terror and a joy - of that I can attest. Samandriel sees things differently than his siblings and he will not be well received if he is ever to reveal them. And without help, he might defy what he knows to be right and true, in order to not be cast down from the brothers and sisters he so loves."

Matt knew what it felt like to fear the rejection of family so deeply you considered giving up who you were. More than once he had considered letting go of his desire to be an entomologist, if only his father would stop looking so disappointed. Either way promises pain and he hadn't truly made his mind up about which direction he would go, but he understood the dilemma.

"What can I do?"

"The very same thing that you have been. In comparison to you, Samandriel is an ancient creature, but to his kind, he is still a child. He has much knowledge of the world that he could teach you. Almost as much as you could teach him about humanity and what it means to be human."

Matt's nose wrinkled up in confusion. "Being human? All we've done is go to school and watch Disney movies."

"And search for a spider you have never been able to get a close look at because of the danger. To see the world through eyes that never shy from curiosity. To have dreams you have thought up for yourself and follow them, even when doubt hounds you from those you love. To not let fear stop you, or doubt bind you. To love, despite the pain that comes with it. This is what it means to be human."

Matt looked at her for a long moment, at her fathomless gaze and her hair that spun like stars. "How do you know what it means to be human?" He asked quietly. How could she know if angels could not? She was a goddess!

"Curiosity is not limited to humans, though it comes most naturally to you. I once spent a lifetime on Earth with only the memories of a single human span in my mind. There was love and loss, joy and pain, and I remember those years well. They have helped to shape me. They have made me understand how to love, how to care, and what it means to be a protector.

"Samandriel fears he is the least of all the angels, for he is not a warrior or a healer or a protector. He does not understand that his place in the world has only just opened, that it has never before been filled by an angel. He will be the first and the brightest of his kind." She smiled gently. "If you are willing to help him."

"He's my best friend," Matt said honestly, "of course I'll help him."

"It will be dangerous. To walk with an angel is to see the world through eyes that stretch further than your own could ever hope to. They are not made to stand on the sidelines and let the world pass them by. You will never be safe."

The idea was frightening. He would never be safe? He was only twelve. How was he supposed to help an angel when he couldn't even protect himself from the bullies at school?

She must have recognized the thought on his face, because her one hand reached out and gently traced fingers down his cheek, turning his head so he met her gaze. "The fact that you can see Samandriel outside of a vessel proves that you are stronger than you think. There is more to you than even you can understand yet, and though you may not know now, I promise that the means of protecting Samandriel will come to you when you most require them. But it will not be a pleasant journey for either of you. It would be kinder to separate, for you both to go home and forget about the other. It would hurt less in the end if you turned back to your normal life, became an entomologist, and spent your adulthood studying insects, because if you walk with Samandriel, I cannot promise that you will ever reach adulthood, nor that you will ever touch your dreams."

When Matt was seven, his grandmother got sick.

She'd been in her mid-fifties at the time but the illness came on swiftly and aged her almost overnight. Samandriel remembered only vague pieces of that time, though the image of her lying in a hospital bed, thin, her skin dry and hanging where it had previously been full and flesh before, stayed with him. She'd been a different person almost - a woman twice her age and half as energetic, and when she'd died, he remembered sitting in his room crying about how unfair the world was that this woman he had lived had been taken away so quickly when she had seemed fine mere days before she passed.

He couldn't quite call up that exact feeling anymore. He still missed her. She had thought his fascination with bugs was interesting and kept a insect identification book around the house, so they could determine what new creature he'd found. The grief wasn't raw anymore and the hole wasn't gaping, but he remembered those weeks like pages of a scrapbook decorated with Polaroids.

He remembered, a month or four after she had died (time seemed to run together sometimes), they were talking about diseases and vaccinations in school. They learned about Polio and the vaccination that wiped the disease out but how their parents probably still had a scar from the vaccine - his father did, he remembered asking. They learned about how a virus could mutate, and about how bacteria was grown so they could figure out how to kill it. And they learned a little about where vaccines came from.

When Matt looked back ten years from now, he would probably recognize how odd it was that the substitute science professor went into detail about insects used in poultices to relieve pain or inflammation. He might even wonder if the man - such a strange man, with his floppy hair and his ridiculous bowtie, and a mildly concerning obsession with a fez that kept being kidnapped by the art teacher - had somehow known that it was this moment that would define Matt's desire to be an entomologist. If the man, Dr. Tyler he'd called himself, had ever realized that learning that insects could be used as cures would make Matt think of his grandmother?

Because that was what had come to mind for him. Not that mashing up insects and pressing it to a wound was gross or that maggots were disgusting, but that if someone had thought to look deeper into insects, or had looked for new insects, they might have found the means to save his grandmother. And since he couldn't save his grandmother, for even a miracle cure couldn't bring back the dead, the secret to curing these terrifying diseases that had no cure might still be found in a common ant, or perhaps in a species not yet discovered in the Amazon.

Whether or not the substitute teacher with the floppy hair and weird clothing choices had known, his lesson had been the catalyst for Matt's interest in bugs turning into a desire to be an entomologist. More than that, however, it was the first moment when a seven-year-old boy looked at this thing he thought was possible, and then looked at how it might affect not just himself, but the entire world.

A younger or less-mature child might have turned away from Artemis, accepted the offer to flee and go back to his simple life, where becoming a big scientist was a safe, if perhaps less-adventurous dream. If he hadn't had a moment in second grade where he thought about how a discovery could affect the entire world for the better, not just now but across time, into the future, as the cure for Polio had meant he never had to bear a scar from the vaccine because they had stopped it, he might have decided that safe was better. He might have thought to take these last few days as a gift, keep the memories as something to think back fondly on, and let Samandriel go find someone else to help him in his terrifying quest into dangers unknown.

But…

This was bigger than he was. Artemis had all but admitted that. There was more going on here than she was saying, and Samandriel's place would be something completely new. Something newly discovered. Like an entire new species that could affect the whole world, if approached and studied properly.

This would be dangerous, sure, but then, life was dangerous. Who was to say that Matt wouldn't become an entomologist, find a new species of spider, and find out it was more venomous than a fennel spider when it bit him? Who was to say he wouldn't be hit by a truck walking home today? Life was dangerous, but living made it worth it. Discovering new things made it worth it.

Imagine what he could discover seeing the world through an angel's eyes. Imagine what they could learn together? How much could they change the world? How many people might they help?

How many grandmothers could they save?

He looked up at Artemis, met her galaxy-strewn eyes, and saw the gentle smile on her face, so like the smile of his grandmother when he would run up to her, a cricket hidden in cupped hands, or a firefly perched on one finger.

"I want to help him," he told her, though her smile suggested she had already known his answer, perhaps even before he did. "Even if it's dangerous, I want to be there to protect him. Even though I'm not strong."

"You are far stronger than you know."

She lowered herself to her knees and held the bundle in her arms out to him. The blankets unraveled, falling into the pool and disappearing into the water as though they had been made from it, and perhaps they had.

Samandriel lay curled up in her arms. The angel looked so small with his wings curled around him like a downy blanket, his ears folded back around his head. His eyes were closed as he slept, but Matt knew somehow that he was all right. Artemis had kept him safe, because that was her job - to protect the children.

"Are you certain? If you take him back now, I can't guarantee you will be able to change your mind. Something is coming that is still more dangerous than the curse that poisons this land and there may be little time left for you to regret your decisions."

"I won't regret it," Matt said, and though his voice shook, he'd never felt more sure of anything in his short life. "He's my friend and I want to help him."

"Very well." She held her arms out and Matt carefully took Samandriel from her. The angel seemed smaller than normal, curled up in Matt's arms, but he was as heavy as Matt imagined holding a full-sized mastiff would be. Matt's legs quivered beneath the weight but he stubbornly stayed standing.

"Samandriel?" he called, but the angel didn't wake. Matt looked up at Artemis in concern.

"Hold him close to you, Matthew. He is a part of you now, as you are a part of him."

Matt held the angel close to him and felt a warmth like sunlight in his chest, as though he was being filled with galaxies and his heart was a shooting star. Samandriel's form grew lighter in Matt's arms and then bright - so bright that Matt could barely look at him. He felt the weight leave his arms and then Samandriel's familiar presence filled his mind, settling back into the place that Matt had begun to see as his .

He could tell, somehow, that the angel still slumbered, but he knew that all would be well. He would keep Samandriel safe.

He turned back to Artemis. She was regarding him with a proud look that made him blush, and she seemed more than pleased. "I think this world will be a better place for having you both in it." She reaches out and cupped his face in her hands, her smile fading.

"Listen closely. There is a curse upon the land that you are calling home. It is what brought you low beneath the ground and what attacked Samandriel. Though he will be well, the curse is not gone and must be stopped, or many more will fall to it. In this, you will be of the greatest help, for the curse uses the insects of this land to cause harm, and you know how they should be, and will see how they are ." Her thumbs ran over his cheekbones in a soothing gesture that made him sigh. "Samandriel will sleep for a time yet, but you will not be alone. He will help you now, and again. Do not fear what you See. I cannot fight your battles for you, my little moonbeam, for warriors must stand on their own legs and pull back the bowstrings to grow strong, but I will watch over you as I do all my hunters." She presses a kiss to his forehead and he shut his eyes as her form flowed into silver moonlight. "Trust him, for he has come to help, and he knows more than he says."

Matt blinked his eyes open to find the cavern gone. Instead, he was surrounded by walls of rocks and dirt, half buried in the detritus of a sinkhole. The sunlight shone down hot on his back, only to be blotted out a moment later by a shadow.

"Shit," he heard above him in a desperate tone, and then a shouted, "Ma- Kid! You okay? Hey, kiddo!"

Matt rolled over, peering up at the man. He seemed a giant, too tall to be anyone Matt knew, and his voice was unfamiliar. Against the bright light of the sun behind him, he was nothing but a shadow.

"Trust him."

Whether it was truly Artemis speaking or just a whispered thought in his mind, Matt didn't have much choice. The hole he was in was at least fifteen feet deep. How he didn't have any broken bones was beyond him and probably the work of Artemis or what Samandriel could manage before he had been knocked out.

Matt tried to talk and choked on sand. He spat the grains out of mouth, grimacing as their crunched between his teeth. "Gross."

"Kid!"

"I'm okay!" He called up, his voice echoing in the deep hole. "Just… very stuck."

There was a relieved chuckle. "I can see that. You all right if I go get a rope?"

"Not going anywhere! Promise!"

The man laughed, though is sounded off somehow. "Good. I won't be gone long. Don't disappear on me." His shadow moved away but then stepped back against the light. "I'm Sam, by the way. All right?"

"I'm Matt. I promise to shake your hand all polite once you get me out of here."

"Looking forward to it." He sounded tired. "Be right back."

The sunlight was bright and too hot, far more than it had been when he had been walking back home with Samandriel chatting with him about watching Disney movies. There was something wrong with that, though he wasn't sure what. He couldn't really focus on it with his mouth feeling like sandpaper, his throat dry from the grains. He wanted to brush his teeth, and he was terribly thirsty. There was also a headache throbbing behind his eyes and Matt wondered if that was from the fall.

He sat back down, leaning his back against the wall of the hole and closing his eyes. The world spun slightly and he ran his tongue around his mouth, spitting more sand. He wondered if he'd swallowed some because his stomach was upset and he thought he might be sick.

He tried prodding lightly at Samandriel but the angel was deeply asleep, only the feel of his presence like a weight pressed against him assuring Matt that the angel was still there. No idle dream-thoughts dribbled over and he remembered that angels didn't dream. How boring. Where did they go when they slept, then? Did their minds just disappear, or did they go somewhere else while their body stayed here? Was Samandriel's mind in Heaven, or did it just… turn off, like a light?

He'd have to remember to ask.

He wasn't sure how much time passed. At one point, he must have fallen asleep, because he jerked awake at the sound of his name being shouted. Blinking against the searing light, he opened his eyes to find he wasn't alone in his hole. The giant man was crouched in front of him, long legs folded ridiculously, like a backwards grasshopper, knees somewhere around his ears.

He giggled hard at the image of a human grasshopper, especially when it's tentacles started tickling his neck.

"Matt, look at me," the grasshopper said, and Matt opened his eyes again. Why was he blinking for so long?

"Grasshopper man," he murmured, his voice cracking. He was made of sand. He needed a drink of water so he could be a beach.

A hand pressed against his forehead, cold against his skin, and the grasshopper said a really bad word that his mom would fan his ass for even thinking. "Badmouth," he grumbled.

"Matt, I need you to wrap your arms around my neck and hang on. Can you do that?"

Matt blinked at him. Why was he supposed to do something like that? Weren't they going to fly out of the hole? Wasn't that why he had wings. Granted, the grasshopper's wings weren't feathered like Samandriel's. They looked more like puddles where wings should go. Blank spaces waiting to be filled. Maybe blanks couldn't fly. That was sad. Matt was sad.

"I want my mom," he said.

"I know, kiddo. We're going to go see her, but I need you to hold onto me. Can you do that?"

Matt nodded, his head not quite doing the action as fluidly as he'd wanted, and he thought it should worry him that his head wasn't bobbling right. Too much sand in his brain.

"I need to be a beach," he told the grasshopper, and his arms were guided around the giant's neck. He felt himself lifted and couldn't help but cry out at the sharp ache of his body. Why did he hurt? Did he fall? Was he squished?

His legs were maneuvered to wrap around the grasshopper's waist and he was pretty sure grasshoppers didn't have waists. Maybe this one was actually a locust. He'd never seen a locust before.

The grasshopper was talking but he was thinking about making a sandcastle with all the sand under his fingernails. And then he would live in it and make it his big palace. On the beach. And there'd be sharks.

"Alfie."

He blinked, turning his head to look at the grasshopper. He had hair, which was weird, but then it was all sandy colored so maybe it was just beach. "You're a weird grasshopper."

"I'm a new species," the grasshopper told him. Since when did grasshoppers know if they were new or not? Did they get a name tag that said they were a new grasshopper and their name was… was…

"Sam."

"That's right, kiddo. We're gonna go see your mom, how's that sound?"

"Good. I'm thirsty."

"I bet. I need you to hold tight to me, okay? And then we'll go get you a drink and some ice cream. Sound good?"

Ice cream sounded amazing. He was so hot he felt like he was burning and turning into sandpaper.

"Alfie, I need you to hold on, okay?" The grasshopper jostled his arms.

"Okay." He wrapped his arms tight around Sam's neck.

"Good boy," the grasshopper muttered. His arms left Matt, lifting up, and he instinctively tightened the grip of his legs around the grasshopper's waist. He buried his face against Sam's shirt as they started moving upward. They were climbing, not flying. Was there a ladder?

"Almost there," Sam grunted. He smelled like chocolate. Caramel and cherries and something like strawberry licorice or maybe just strawberries. Matt thought it was important but he didn't know why. Samandriel would know. He wished the angel was awake. He missed him.

"Don't drop me," he muttered to the grasshopper, his fingers digging into the back of his shirt. Why did grasshopper's wear shirts? "My wings are unconscious."

"Don't pass out!" Sam snapped at him, and Matt almost felt like he could feel the panic as well as hear it. Weird.

But then the bright sunlight was fading and he didn't have time to care anymore.

Too bad. He wanted to ask him about his strange wings and why he smelled like candy.

The sound of pages turning was the first thing that registered in Matt's mind as he rolled his way unsteadily toward consciousness. There was a strange, too-clean smell in the air, like the inside of a fridge. He thought the inside of his mouth sort of felt like the inside of a fridge, only one where something had died and started to mold. His teeth felt furry and he was pretty sure he had some sand grains flossing his gums. His dentist would be proud of his tooth care for once, at least. Maybe he'd get to pick his color toothbrush next time. They always gave him blue .

His eyelids were either sticky or heavy and he couldn't quite decide which. Regardless, he forced them open, staring at the very white ceiling that didn't have any glow in the dark stars. What a waste of space.

Another page turned in a book and Samandriel turned his head to the left, looking to see who it was. Not his parents. His mom didn't like to read and his dad would be using his laptop or his phone. Not a book. Only Matt liked books.

It was a very large book, with a worn card laminated on the binding that read OPL in block letters. Oasis Plains Library. Well, at least he hadn't managed to land himself in Oz. He'd look terrible in ruby heels, anyway.

"S'm?" That was the boy's name, right? Matt didn't remember much of his face or what clothes he had been wearing, but those open spaces behind his shoulders, like the missing pieces of a puzzle, were unmistakable. Just waiting on wings to be fit into place. He wondered where you were supposed to get them from. Maybe there was a wing shop in Heaven.

But then he had to wonder, was this guy an angel?

The book lowered and a pair of eyes peered over at him, a relieved smile sliding over a face scruffy with an unshaved beard. "Hey, Matt. How you feeling?"

"Super." He saw the needle sticking out of the back of his hand. "Nevermind, I take it back." He pointed at the plastic line that ran from a bag of clear fluid into his skin . "Oh look. I've been impaled. I thought this was a hospital ?"

"It's saline," Sam said, standing up and stretching before leaning over and pressing the big red button above Matt's Head. "You were severely dehydrated and suffering heatstroke. I ended up finding you by accident when I was looking for… something." He gave Matt a bemused look. "You seemed to think I was a grasshopper."

"It's your giant legs. They terrify me," Matt said deadpan.

Sam grinned at him and it occurred to Matt that he had no idea who this guy was. Why did he feel like he knew him? Artemis had said to trust him, yes, but there was more than that. Matt felt like he knew him. Like he should know what the void of wings meant, or the glow that seemed to live just behind Sam's ears, like a halo, or maybe horns made of light. Was he an angel?

"Where're my parents?" Surely they wouldn't still be working if Matt was in the hospital.

"Getting something to eat at the cafeteria," Sam said, sitting back down. "I wanted to talk to you without anyone here, about the sinkhole you fell into."

"You mean about the curse." It was funny watching Sam's mouth fall open. Matt hadn't realized that was a real thing outside of cartoons. "It's using the bugs to hurt people."

There were ants. Red ants. Swarming around him, circlings him on the floor of the sinkhole. It had been their tunnels that he stumbled onto, a trap that he triggered, but the bright sunshine of Samandriel's presence had kept them at bay. Matt didn't know how he knew that, but he could see it as though he had been conscious when they encircled his prone form. Maybe he had. He didn't remember.

"Yes," Sam said, his eyes pinched. "I'm trying to stop it."

"Good."

The two stared at each other for a moment, interrupted when the nurse came in to check on Matt. He put up with her fussing because he was hoping he could get the giant needle taken out of his hand, but not even good behavior freed him from that.

"Dehydration is serious," Sam said, once the nurse had left. "It was one hundred and five today. You're lucky you're not worse off."

Matt studied his face. "Have we met before?"

Sam's eyes widened. "What?"

"You just… you act like you know me and I feel like I know you. So… have we met?"

Sam's eyes slid away from him. "No. I'm just passing through and happened to stumble on the search party looking for you. Concerned drifter is all."

He knows more than he says.

"But you're here about the curse?"

Sam shrugged and looked back at him. "I always thought cursebreaking sounded like a fun job."

What… what did that mean? "Who do you think you are - Bill Weasley?"

Sam smiled at him. "I'm not nearly cool enough." He leaned forward in his chair. "What do you know about the curse?"

Matt opened his mouth to tell Sam that he didn't know anything about the curse besides that it was bad news and using insects, but Artemis' voice whispered in his ear and he instead found himself relating information he didn't think anyone but a goddess could have known.

Sam didn't look nearly as surprised as Matt thought he should. It was straight out of a Harry Potter book.

Maybe Sam wasn't an angel. Maybe he was a wizard.