Hello everyone!
My reviewer!
Adam: her grandmother gave her that necklace because it was her birthday! Duh! Thanks for the review, and I will add the chapter.
On to the chapter!
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Ever Watchful Angel
Chapter 2: Truth about my Parents
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In less than three hours my grandmother's funeral will start, and I wish that it would never come. I look into my mirror, and see my nearly naked body and red, puffy eyes, that have been crying continuously for almost a week now. Has it only been a week? It seems so long ago when she was alive. But why did my parents rush the funeral? Couldn't I have a few more weeks of mourning without having to see her lifeless body at a funeral?
My mother calls to me and tells me to get ready, since we're leaving soon. I barely notice what I put on. All I know about it is that it's black, and a dress. Sitting back down, facing my vanity table's mirror once, I absentmindedly brush my long hair.
After she died, I've had a lot to think about during this past week. Realizing I just couldn't believe in her fairytale fantasies anymore, not without her. It was foolish really, believing in those stories, they were just that, stories. I don't understand why I had continued to believe in them for as long as I did. You can't become an angel, or a devil, because you have 'special powers', that's ridiculous. If I was a religious person maybe I would believe in heaven and hell and angels and devils, but I'm not. I only believe in the facts, and nothing but just that will convince me to believe in something ever again.
Pushing away those thoughts, I stared at the birthday present I got from my grandmother, on her dying breaths. I can't believe she left me like that! She was the only one who understood me, she was my hope, my happiness. She listened to me, not even my mother could do that. My mother wouldn't have understood anyway. It's strange, that I have, I mean had, a stronger, closer bond with my grandmother than either of my parents. And they could never complete with that.
My tears fall once more, and I brush them away as quickly as I did when they first fell that week ago. But I can still feel more water trickle down my face. It was hopeless, really, to try to stop these tears. Sniffling a bit, I pull my hair into a bun, just as my grandmother would always do. I let out a mournful sob as I saw my finishing work in the mirror. I looked exactly like my grandmother when she was this age. I know this because only a head glance away is my grandmother's wedding photograph, she radiates beauty, even through the monochromatic picture. Letting a small smile crack through my sorrowful mask, I remember when she becomes flustered and red when people used to remark the physical differences between that picture and her just before her illness struck for the worse. Even though I knew she was ill, I could never fathom the fact that she could die.
All of a sudden, as if sensing all these warm emotions of my grandmother, I felt strangely warm, but physically warm. I swear I can feel my tears evaporating from my very cheeks, as I hear a sound that sounds very much like sizzling. Glimpsing down, to where I think the sound if coming from, I see a small trail of smoke rising from underneath my hand that is holding onto the vanity table. Startled, I whip my hand up, seeing burn marks vaguely shaped like my fingers. I screamed.
"What is it?" my mother and father asked as they rushed into my room, worried. "What happened?"
"I-I don't know! I was just thinking about grandmother, th-then I b-burned my vanity table!" I explained, my voice too high, and I was shivering even though I still felt warm, freaked.
My mother and father exchanged disbelieving looks with the other, before examining the place I was gesturing at. My mother gasped, but something crossed my father's face, it sent chills down my spine. "S-see, I-I told you," I stammered out, my voice still having trouble controlling its pitch and volume.
"We'll talk about this after your grandmother's funeral," my father said sternly. I internally flinched at his words, something I hadn't done since I was a very small child.
So, my parents left me in my room, alone, not saying a single word more to me. Not that I would've been much company, I was too inside myself. I was strangely freezing, hugging my knees tightly. I felt this barring weight of dread devour me the whole time I waited patiently for my parents to come and get me to leave. What seemed like ages passed, before my parents and I left for the church, keeping our numbing silence going.
When we finally arrived at the church, I glanced at to the fading sunset, and I was greeted with the sky ablaze with reds and oranges. The sky had caught on fire, and it seemed like it was doing this all for me. It warmed somewhat of the numbness that the silence had done to me.
During the entire funeral, I just sat there, almost dead myself, inside I felt dead. I truly was awake without thinking. Sitting in the front isle, as people wavered over my grandmother's casket when I first noticed him. Waiting patiently to the side of my grandmother's casket was a man in his mid to late fifties, resting in a wheelchair. He was bald, and even from here I could tell he was a patient, kind, and understanding man. I don't know how long I stared at him before I noticed something protruding from his back, resting awkwardly on the top of his wheelchair. Nearly gasping out loud when I finally realized he had greyish white wings, but I held it in. During my time staring at him, I also came to the conclusion that I was the only, I think, one who could see him.
Then, suddenly and surprisingly, since he just had sat there staring at my grandmother for so long, he spoke. I don't know how I heard him from a few good metres away, but I was able to. "Goodbye Cassandra," he started, patting her folded hands that were lying on her chest. "I do so hope your after life is a peaceful and happy one." If it weren't for the fact he had wings, I would have thought that those two may had been very close friends at one point in their lives.
Unable to stop staring at him, I was alarmed and surprised when he looked my way. Scared, I closed my eyes hoping he wasn't looking at me, but as the darkness of my eye lids consumed my vision, I saw him smile at me kindly, almost like a grandfather would do. Hoping that the world would return to normal if I kept my eyes closed, I didn't open them until I heard a voice calling my name, bringing me back to reality as well as the realm of sight.
Opening my eyes, I turned to see my mother standing beside me. "Yes?" I asked her, surprising myself when it came out a whisper.
"Your grandmother's lawyer is here. He's going to be reading the will, we should be going," my mother replied, taking hold of my hand, helping me stand.
"Okay…" I mumbled as my mother nearly dragged me to the room where the will was going to be read. All my attention was to the place where that winged, crippled man had been. I had been right, my stress-based delusion had vanished once I closed my eyes and opened them with a calmer outlook.
When my mother and I arrived, my father was already there and waiting, my grandmother's lawyer read the will after we sat down and he gave us his condolences saying that she was a fine woman who should have had at least another decade. I didn't really pay much attention to what he said, no matter how much I or my parents inherent, it can't bring back my grandmother. Though I do manage, through it all, to understand that my grandmother was considerably wealthy and that she left all of it to her blood relatives of her immediate family.
What brought my attention back was my father's voice, which had a cold edge to it, sounding a little fearful. "Is that it?" he asked.
"Yes, meaning that all possessions and wealth owned by Ms. Cassandra Aquilla belong solely to Miss Amara Aquilla," the lawyer stated calmly, probably not hearing the edge of my father's voice. And if he did hear it, he wasn't showing any signs of it.
"Excuse me, did you say 'solely'?" I asked breaking from my silent haze. "But what about my parents? Isn't one of them a blood relative to my grandmother?" Truthfully I actually didn't know what side of my family did my grandmother belong to.
"You haven't told her yet?" the lawyer asked my parents, surprised.
"Tell me what?" I asked, now on full alert.
My parents squirmed under my confused gaze, but stayed silent. "Amara," the lawyer said composed, catching my attention. "These people aren't your real, blood parents. Your real parents unfortunately died when you were only ten months old. Your grandmother thought it would be best for you if you were raised by your godparents."
"You mean I'm adopted?" I asked, feeling pain in the gut of my stomach. Losing my grandmother was enough, why did I have to find out about this now? I feel really sick now, dizzy almost. But it does explain one thing for me. Now I know why I felt a closer connection with my grandmother than either one of my parents, I mean godparents.
"Yes Amara. We're sorry you had to find out this way, but we didn't know when and what to say," my moth- no godmother apologized.
As I was about to forgive them both, my godfather asked, his voice still frigid. "When will Amara be the right age to gain her inheritance?"
"Well, when Amara reaches the age of adulthood of course," the lawyer replied.
"The age. Please," my godfather asked, adding the please as an afterthought. His voice had raised in volume a tad, I may have been the only one to notice, and he was getting annoyed, for some reason.
"That's the age of eighteen. Until then, the bank will hold all of it," the lawyer replied. Giving my godfather a knowledgeable look, he added, "and no one but Amara, when she is eighteen, can touch it." I wonder why he was telling my godfather this, though.
"Thank-you," my godfather replied politely getting up, but I could tell he was seething. Did he find what the lawyer said offensive? Or was it something else?
Standing up ourselves, all three of us left. I felt like I did when I was young, when I used to be frightened of my godfather. And I was definitely frightened now. All through the car ride the dread I felt before was increasing, until I wanted to run. Arriving home, I decided to head to my room, in the hopes of feeling a little more safe. Not even halfway up the stairs when he bellowed, "where the hell do you think you're going, you fucking freak!?"
Oh no…
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There, I'm done! It doesn't look too good, or even a little good, for Amara. Please review and tell me what you think!
Angel of the Fallen Stars