“Um, that’s it?” I said, trying to hide how her super strength scared the crap out of me. “It just sits there?”
“Watch,” Rielly replied, picking up the rope’s end. Suddenly, the bog hissed. A large bubble of mud at the base of the barrel popped. Other bubbles formed, grew, and then exploded with a sloppy sigh. Each bubble’s demise seemed to suck the barrel down into the mud. In just a few minutes, the barrel was half gone, and sinking noisily.
“How deep is the bog?” I asked.
“Several miles, I would expect,” she answered. “No one really knows. Deep enough to suffocate a man. Or hide a body.” I glanced at her to see if she was kidding, but she looked serious enough. “But the butter isn’t heavy enough to go down too far.”
She was right. When the barrel had disappeared, there was still a good bit of rope left at Rielly’s feet. The last bubbles burped over the butter’s muddy grave. The bog was still again. You would never know there was anything buried right in front of us, and even if you saw the rope, you might not think anything of it. I wondered what or who else was in that bog.
Once Rielly was certain the rope had stopped moving, she tied a large knot in the end and laid it back on the ground. She gathered stones and arranged them in a pyramid around the rope knot. I assumed this was to help with future butter reconnaissance.
I found I was extremely comfortable with Rielly. Even though she was older than me, she was a human wrapped up in this supernatural situation, which gave us more in common than anyone else since I’d met Hunter. I felt like we had bonded, and we were becoming closer every minute.
So I was surprised when she turned and said in a strange, almost accusatory voice, “You can’t fall for him, you know. He’s not like us. He’s a different race.”
A jolt jogged down my spine. I knew she was talking about Gavin, but it was mortifying to be called out so bluntly.
“I’m not falling for him,” I protested.
“Well, he’s falling for you,” she replied. “I see the way he looks at you. His judgment is clouded. It can’t happen.”
“Why not?” I said, a little defensively.
“Angels are sworn to protect humans. To do that, they must stay objective. Enhanced emotions can compromise the safety of the very people they were created to save. Loving you could kill him, get you killed, or worse.” There is something worse?
“How?” I said. “He’s immortal, and I’m just a human. You said so yourself: humans can’t kill angels. Even demons are pretty bad at it.”
“You’re forgetting that angels, like humans, have free will. If he wanted to, he could choose to abandon his powers. Stop being an immortal.”
“Why would he do that?” I asked.
“For love. The same reason most of us do stupid things,” she snorted. “If an angel falls in love with a human, the only way they can be together is for the angel to give up everything and become human. The result is the opposite of happiness—it’s heartbreak.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it happened to me,” she answered.
I clamped my teeth together to keep another question from slipping out, hoping that if I was silent for a change, Rielly would just keep talking.
“When I came here, I was your age,” she said. “Once I recovered from my injuries, I was so grateful that Colin—he was my Guardian—had saved me. But after a month, I got so lonely. I missed my family. I missed my mum. I even missed arguing with her, if you can believe it.”
I could, actually, since I missed every single thing about my mom. But I’d already lost mine. I wasn’t sure I’d be entirely unhappy to live among angels forever . . .
“Colin was so sweet to me,” Rielly continued, “making sure I had everything I needed. Keeping me company. Making me laugh. He was so handsome, and his laugh . . .” She trailed off, and I realized she was talking about Colin in the past tense.
“So what happened?” I asked, unable to contain myself any longer.
“We fell in love,” she answered. “We broke all the rules, and fell hopelessly in love. He gave up his angelhood and became a human, so the Chief gave us permission to marry.” She stopped talking again, and I could tell she was remembering a very special day. I tried not to picture Gavin dressed and waiting for me as my groom, but it was hard.
“Then what?” I asked, more to interrupt my own thoughts than hers.
“He had a hard time adjusting to being a human, to being so powerless. After a thousand years of fighting demons, just hunting rabbits in the hills wasn’t enough for him. He didn’t have his powers, but he still had the pull. He watched as his clan mates went out on missions, and he felt helpless. Angels aren’t used to feeling helpless like humans. We’re well aware of our fragility, but for him, it was new, and terribly hurtful.
“One day, he just snapped. He couldn’t take it anymore, so he joined a war party even though he was only a human.” She stopped, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter, remorseful. “He was killed, of course.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
“I was too. I blamed myself, and believed my heart would never heal. But God gave me a son, my Caedon, and I realized my job was to raise him to be a credit to his father, not weep for myself. And we’ll be together again in heaven someday. That I know.”
I wished I felt that same calm and acceptance about my mom’s passing. I wondered how long it took Rielly to find her peace.
I opened my mouth to ask another question, but before I could manage a syllable, a familiar voice came screaming toward us.
“Riiiiiiiiiellyyyy!” It was Cassidy. She ran up to us, her tiny face tense with the importance and urgency of her message. “You must come quick! They just got back, but there was an injury . . .”
Before Cassidy could explain anything else, Rielly was running back toward the village.
“Maren, look after Cassie,” she called to me over her shoulder. “She’ll lead you back.”
I stood motionless for a moment, watching Rielly disappear. Then, I felt a small, cool hand in mine. Poor Cassidy looked terrified.
I squatted down on my knees. “What happened, sweetie?”
“One of the party came back awfully bloody. I don’t think he can even talk,” she said.
“But why did you call for Rielly?” I asked.
“Because,” she answered, her bottom lip quivering, “the bloody one is Caedon.”
As I walked through the village, hand in hand with young Cassidy, I could immediately feel how the mood had changed. The flowers and garlands that were draped over everything blew mournfully in the wind, lonely reminders that there had once been a happy festival, but it was now over.