Dust Read online

  Angela Nock

  Dust

  Book Three, Bones, Ashes and Dust Trilogy

  Copyright 2018 Angela Nock

  Kindle Edition

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our sister; and we commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.*

  *Gregory Michael Howe (2007)The Book of Common Prayer, Burial I, p.485, Church Publishing Incorporated, New York (Online PDF, downloaded from https://www.episcopalchurch.org, Accessed on 27th March 2018).

  Chapter One

  I was on the edge of a seismic shift in my life. Just behind my front door, a new life was waiting for me, if I was brave enough. In the turn of a key, a click of a lock, and a few words spoken to Cassie, my new life could begin.

  I didn't belong in this house. With her.

  But where did I belong?

  Josh - the love of my life - had shown me there was a whole other world out there. He was an Angel of Death who inhabited a world where angels murdered other angels in pursuit of power, a world of demons and Apocalyptic Relics. The world where Death resided, a world that few humans ever got to see, or even knew existed.

  And I could be a part of that world if I could just find my voice, if I could open the door and tell my mother I was leaving. Then I would join Josh and become part of his world. Me. Evie. The girl who would never amount to anything, the girl who had tried to kill herself.

  I took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. The hall was dark and gloomy as I stepped inside. She was crying. I could hear her from the hallway. It should've concerned me. It should've made me rush in and throw my arms around her. But it didn't.

  The love I had felt for her was now dead, buried behind walls that I'd built up around my heart. A barricade thrown up on the battlefield when she had tried to attack me. Her cries ricocheted off my dented armour and drifted off through the empty, soulless house.

  I found her hunched over the dining table, a full glass of red wine in one hand, and a pile of crumpled photos in the other. The contents of a large archival box were spewed out on the table in front of her, along with two bottles of wine, one half full, the other completely drained.

  'Mom.'

  She completely blanked me and continued to cry. The sobbing was punctuated by a brief, silent pause as she took another glug of wine.

  I walked over to her. As I got closer I could see more clearly what she'd got in front of her. A cold feeling corkscrewed down my back, a shudder, like someone had walked over my grave.

  The table was full of my father's things; an unfinished manuscript, a gold watch, his wedding band, photos of them on holiday in Rome, letters tied up with a red bow. Memories. Memories of my father, of the husband she had lost. But they were her memories of him, not mine. I wasn't included.

  'Mom,' I repeated. I put my hand on her shoulder. I could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin silk of her kimono.

  She looked up. Her eyes were red and puffy and she struggled to focus on me. Thick black mascara ran in tracks down her cheeks.

  'Evie.' She gulped down a sob and dropped her glass and the crumpled photos on the table.

  She never called me Evie.

  Her sadness, her desperation, pounded at the chinks in my armour. Her cries, the sharpness of her emotions, began to pierce through my protective wall, and, for a fleeting moment, I felt her sadness. I'd lost him too. I knew how it felt.

  And then I looked into her cold eyes and realised I was comforting a stranger. Her body shook underneath my hand. I wrenched it away, feeling like I'd received an electric shock from her skin.

  'What are you doing?' I asked. My voice was like ice.

  'I miss him so much,' she said, as she began to rock backwards and forwards in her chair.

  'So do I.'

  She stopped rocking and grabbed my hand, pulling it up to her wet cheek. 'I know, I know,' she said, smiling at me through the tears.

  I withdrew my hand from hers and slid into the chair beside her. On the table I could see a picture of her and my father, smiling outside a restaurant somewhere. I picked it up and turned it over. It read Madrid 1994. It wasn't Cassie's handwriting. Was it my father's? I didn't know. It seemed as if I didn't know anything about him anymore.

  I couldn't remember his voice. His touch. His laughter. So much had disappeared from my mind. But I remembered the pain of losing him. Vividly. As though I had lost him only yesterday. That would never disappear and was as fresh as the day he'd died.

  Cassie took the picture from my hand. 'Maitia's,' she said, smiling, 'Peter's favourite place in the whole of Madrid.'

  'I didn't know that,' I said, my words faltering as my grief threatened to spill out. The giant hands of grief were pulling at me, trying to drag me back down into the abyss.

  I remembered his last breath, my father's body coated in a golden glow. Josh's glow. He was the Angel of Death who took him to the Other Side. The thought that Josh was there to guide my father brought me immense comfort.

  But why couldn't I remember any of the happy times? Why was I haunted only by the sickness?

  Cassie dropped the picture onto the table and grabbed her glass. She took a good gulp of red wine. It dribbled down the side of the glass and splattered onto the table and the picture.

  'You shouldn't be drinking like this,' I said, looking at the photo. I pulled my sleeve over my hand and wiped a stray tear from my cheek.

  'Why? Why do you care?'

  'I…' Why did I care?

  'It's the only thing that numbs the pain,' she said.

  'It might numb it, but it won't take it away,' I said, picking the photo off the table and wiping it with my sleeve, 'It'll always be there, hiding in the background.'

  'I don't want to feel it anymore.'

  I reached out and took the glass from her hand. 'You can't get rid of it with this,' I said, placing the glass on the table. 'It only makes the pain a million times stronger when you sober up.'

  'Why sober up then?' Wine glistened from the skin on her chest. She glared at me, daring me to tell her off.

  'You don't understand, never will,' she said, grabbing the glass again.

  But I do. I understand the pain. That's the only thing that bonds us.

  'I still love him so much! Why did he have to go?' She banged the glass down so hard on the table that red wine gushed over the side of it and onto the manuscript. And I thought to myself, the wine will stain the pages and will never be removed.

  'I'm such a mess without him,' she said, running her hand over her face, smudging her mascara even more.

  I didn't disagree.

  'The day he died...I...I lost my soul mate.'

  I thought of Josh. My body flooded with the love I felt for him. I thought about what had happened, and what was to happen. Very soon I would be like Cassie. I would lose my soul mate when Death claimed Josh's life in payment for him saving mine. My heart ripped apart in my chest. What would life be like without him?

  'All I've got left is this gaping hole where your dad shou
ld be,' she said clutching at her chest, 'and I can't fill it.'

  Her breast was almost falling out of her kimono. I carefully reached over and pulled the silk back over her bare skin. It was wet with wine.

  'You need to go to bed.'

  'No. I don't want to go to bed. I want you to understand.' Suddenly she grabbed my top with both of her hands and pulled me towards her. For a moment I thought she was going to hit me. My heart pounded in my chest as I remembered the look in her eye when she tried to attack me before Dan had stopped her.

  'You could never understand.'

  I removed her hands gently from my tee shirt. I noticed she was still wearing Dan's engagement ring.

  'You need to go to bed,' I repeated.

  'What would you know?' she shrieked, turning back to the table. She reached out for her glass but knocked it over. Wine cascaded over my father's things. Over photos, years and years of memories that I couldn't remember, over letters, written in a hand I didn't recognise.

  I picked up the glass.

  'I can do it!' snapped Cassie, picking up a red woollen scarf from the table.

  I remembered my father wearing that scarf as he took me to school. It was cold, so cold and icy that the icicles were as long as my forearm. We laughed, pretending to be trains as the cold turned our breath to ice.

  'Not with that!' I snapped back, yanking the scarf from her hands. I held it up to my nose. It smelled musty and rotten. It smelt of death, and of abandonment. It didn't smell like my father. Why would it? Why had I expected it to be a way of connecting with him again?

  The scarf was wrenched from my hands and thrown onto the wine. I watched as the red soaked into the scarf, staining it darker.

  Tears began to fall down my cheek. I didn't want to cry.

  'What are you snivelling for? You hardly knew him!'

  'Still wearing Dan's engagement ring, I see.'

  Whether she'd realised the venom and meaning behind my words or not, she didn't bite. Instead, she grabbed the bottle of wine and poured herself another glass. She wiped her face on the sleeve of her dressing gown. Snot was smudged over her face with the mascara.

  'I'll never be happy again,' she said, taking a swig from the bottle.

  'I just came back to tell you I'm going away for a bit.'

  'What do I care?'

  I closed my eyes and tried to ignore all the bile and the shit; I didn't have the energy to fight. Or was it that I was reaching the point of not caring anymore?

  I stood up. She didn't even register me leaving.

  I went upstairs and stuffed a few items in a rucksack. A few jumpers, jeans, deodorant and a toothbrush. Who knew how long I'd be away? Besides, what do you pack for a fight with a demonic angel? A fight to stop the Apocalypse.

  I sat on my bed and wiped my tears away. I needed to sound calm. I took out my mobile phone and dialled Celia's number. After a few rings, she picked up.

  'Is Cassie ok?' she asked. No hello first.

  'Hello, Celia. She's fine but -'

  'But what?'

  'Nothing, nothing like that. It's just...I've got to go away -'

  'Away? You can't!'

  'It's a field trip. I didn't say anything because I didn't know if we could afford it but I've managed to get funding from the school -'

  'Now's not a good time -'

  'It's only for a few days.'

  'She's got her first counselling session on Wednesday.'

  'It's only a few days. I really need to go. School's paid for it and everything.'

  'Ok,' sighed Celia, 'I'll come around after work. She can either come home with me or I'll stay there.'

  'You might want to come sooner.'

  'Why?'

  'She's in a bit of a state.'

  'A state? Stay there until I come over after work.'

  'I can't. I'm leaving now.'

  'Evelyn -'

  I hung up and slipped the phone into my pocket. I stood up and grabbed my bag. A few minutes later I was outside with the sun on my face. I took a deep breath and felt the feeling of freedom wash over me.

  Josh was waiting. He smiled and grabbed my hand.

  'You ok?'

  I nodded.

  'You sure? You look like you've been crying.'

  'Honestly, I'm fine.'

  My phone began to ring. It would only be Celia, so I ignored it.

  'Do you want to answer that?'

  'No. Let's get going.' Where we were going, what we were about to do, was far more important than a phone call and a few of my salty tears.

  Chapter Two

  Josh and I, flew across the black water of the Hudson River, and over the George Washington Bridge. I was safe and warm, cocooned in his arms. Above us, the stars glowed, below, the lights of the city danced upon the mirror-like surface of the river.

  'This...is amazing.'

  'Hold on,' Josh replied, 'I think it's about to get even more spectacular.' He squeezed me tighter and placed a kiss on the top of my head.

  The air was cold, my breath escaping in wisps, and I thought of my father.

  I held on tightly to Josh's arms. Maybe, if I held on really tight, and never let go, I could make everything stop and Josh wouldn't be taken from me.

  Maybe then we could stay here, in this moment, forever.

  The air began to crackle around us. The hairs prickled on my body as the atmosphere filled with electricity. On the horizon, there was a flicker of gold light. It disappeared as fast as it had arrived, replaced by ribbons of emerald, sapphire, turquoise and scarlet advancing across the night's sky in a dance of light.

  'The Northern Lights? How? I didn't think...?'

  'They wouldn't come down this far? They don't usually. Maybe they're dancing just for you.'

  I smiled. It was a beautiful thought, even if I didn't believe it.

  'We call it the Dance of the Spirits,' he said, hovering mid-air as the lights cavorted; crimson, violet, emerald, cerulean, turquoise and chartreuse, all ebbing and flowing around us.

  A feeling of warmth and calmness washed over me.

  And then the light began to fade. There was a flutter of panic in my stomach. I wanted to reach up, grab onto the light and never let it go. But how can you hold onto light? Tears welled in my eyes.

  The lights disappeared, the moment ended, but the memory of it burned bright within me.

  We flew on, over Upper Manhattan and over the breath-taking City College of New York. How I would've loved to have sat in front of that sprawling building and sketched its neo-Gothic architecture.

  New York was angular, its streets and avenues arranged like a colossal Roman City, with each road parallel to the others, the lines softened by rows of flowering Crab Apples, and towering Silver Maples.

  The City buzzed with life. There was the sound of a train rattling across tracks, a siren, the pounding of music against the dull background noise of traffic.

  I'd never been to New York before, but it was on my wish list. I had already fallen in love with it after reading A Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. How I wanted to wonder the moonlit streets and taste the magic that fizzed in the air.

  We landed in front of Obadiah's brown-bricked townhouse. I was surprised at how dirty and run-down it was, with its boarded-up windows, and the weeds growing from the cracks in the bricks. I was quite underwhelmed; The street was normal, just a row of townhouses with an all-night pharmacy to the left, and a grocery store at the end of the block. I'd expected something magical, something more otherworldly, but it was all so ordinary.

  Josh sighed and placed the palms of his hands upon the the front door. His head hung low, his wings seem to droop with sadness.

  'Hey,' I said, placing my hand on Josh's arm, 'you ok?'

  He turned his head to look at me, a melancholic smile on his face.

  'Yeah...I...it's just...'

  'We don't have to do this.'

  'We do,' he said.

  He yanked the door open. It dragged on the floor, leaving a se
mi-circular line of white on the grimy stone. Josh took a deep breath and crossed the threshold into Obadiah's house. He paused just inside the door and exhaled loudly.

  'This feels so wrong.'

  I didn't know what to say so I stepped through the door and grabbed his hand instead.

  'He's not here,' he said, 'and I can feel the hole. I shouldn't be here, in his house, without him. It's just wrong.'

  I squeezed his hand.

  'I'm sorry for your loss.' My words seemed so weak and pathetic.

  He squeezed my hand back, then let it drop.

  'Hang on,' he said, and he disappeared into the darkness.

  A moment later a gas lamp burst into life, then another, and another, coating the whole house in a warm orange glow.

  I let out a gasp as my eyes followed the rows and rows and book stuffed into every space possible. The shelves replaced walls, rising up into the darkness of the rafters. There was no way the house should've been standing with shelves replacing walls.

  It was a place of magic; I could feel it in the air around me. It tingled as it brushed my skin. For some inexplicable reason, I felt like I had come home, even though I had never been there before, not even in my dreams.

  The house smelled of books and cold coffee. There was still a half-drunk mug by an unmade bed in front of the open fireplace. Dust motes danced on the disturbed air, illuminated by the light of the lamps. A large oak table sat in the middle of the room covered in a thick layer of dust, a small silver dagger abandoned on top of it. Books and candles lay discarded on the floor around the table, along with several black feathers and an old map.

  I stooped down and picked up a book with a rotting leather cover. I turned it over in my hands. The gold lettering on the cover read; Reliquiarum Sacrosanctum, Volume One. I stood up and placed it on the table.

  The more I looked, the more magic I saw. It seemed as if the walls themselves were dripping with books and crumbling parchments.

  'This isn't a house,' I said, 'it's a library.'

  'It's both,' said Josh, 'Obadiah used to sleep there,' he said, pointing to the small rickety mattress in front of the fire, 'and these books were his life. He wanted to save them, protect the knowledge from being lost forever.'