So I had to make a lot of revisions to my book: Meta Blackwing and couldn't bare to let these scenes just go in the trash, so I'm going to post them here. They might be out of context, but at least, maybe they'll be read by someone!
“I want you to go to Preparation,” Sol’s voice says right into my ear as soon as I cross the threshold into the spirit world.
“Excuse me?” I choke. “Sol, didn’t I make it clear why we can’t see each other? How many times do I have to tell you before you get it through that concrete head of yours?”
“At least once more,” he replies. “I want you to go to Preparation.”
Preparation is the class that angels can take to ready themselves before coming to earth and receiving a mortal body, but mostly it’s for those angels too messed up to figure things out on their own. It’s more like a counseling session for the mortally-inept.
“Preparation?” I spit the word back out like an inhaled insect. “Preparation is the last place I would ever go.”
“And that is exactly why I think you should. You are afraid of what Nex and his devils can do, right? Why not do something they would never expect: come to earth and leave them to rot?” His simple question stops me. His plan is logical. It might even work, but I’m never going to earth, no matter how many monsters threaten me.
“Because preparation’s stupid, that’s why.” I wring the fabric of my dress like the throat of a chicken to try and suffocate my sheer fear at the thought of mortality. Trying to be calm, I force my twitching lip muscles to be still. There’s no way I’m going to let him see how totally petrified I am at the idea of being human. Mr. Perfect Sol doesn’t need to know everything.
“Uh, uh.” Sol shakes his ivory head. “Stupid is not a sufficient reason. Going to earth will keep you safe, Meta.” He emphasizes the word and the way he says it feels like a warm blanket dropping over my shoulders. “Besides,” he continues, “Regardless of the Quaver, I think it would be good for you.”
I sigh. “Sol,” my voice is soft but firm, “I’m not going to Earth, and I sure as hell am not going to some Preparation class.” Sol can be so dense sometimes.
“I know,” he says, the corners of his mouth pulling up into a smile, as if he’s privy to some inside joke, “and that is another reason why I think you should.”
“Why I should?” I repeat. “Why are you so insistent on making me do something I don’t want to?”
He chuckles. “Not only will it protect you, it will be— a challenge. You like a challenge, right?”
Not a stupid one, I want to say, but bit back my retort.
He grins and his teeth flash like wet pearls. “You are pretty messed up too,” he adds.
I shoot him a burning glance. “That’s not giving you any happy points.”
He rolls his eyes, but under the jest there’s a fiber of truth in his request. He really believes that this will be good for me.
My voice is a mouse-like squeak. “You want me to?”
“Yes. And—” he adds, his eyes waltzing like two disco-balls, “then I will still be able to see you.”
Somehow, that makes all the difference.
*****
“If I were given a pink polka-dotted umbrella—hmmm,” I think as I try to ignore the poor excuses of angels seating next to me in the Preparation Class. This really is more of a therapy session for the idiotic and dysfunctional angels, like me, who are too screwed up to go to earth as they are. This is so embarrassing; I flush and lean back in my chair. I can’t believe I’m even here. How did Sol manage to get me to come anyhow? Under the pretense of protecting me, but this is nothing but painfully discomforting. Is that what friends are for, public humiliation? If that’s true, it’s no wonder I never wanted any friends before. Sol sure does this friendship thing well.
The counselor in her tightly-buttoned sherbet blouse is looking at me expectantly to answer. I want to make a run for the door, but I know that would give Sol bragging rights. And then there is Nex and the Quaver. I am safe from them here. If I am safe, Sol is safe. Blast him. Ok. Fine.
I think hard, trying to go along with the exercise. “If I were given a pink polka-dotted umbrella,” I repeat the cue phrase, thinking of any answer better than the, “I would fill it with daisies and sing songs to it,” answer that the girl next to me gave. None of the angels in this class have near the experience I have with real mortal life. This girl thinks that plants are sung to on earth just as they are in the gardens up here. Boy will she be in for a surprise when her neighbor catches her serenading her daffodils with Puccini.
“Ok, I got it,” I say. “If I were given a pink polka-dotted umbrella, I would scrape its shiny vinyl coating across a concrete sidewalk for a good half mile. Then, fill it with seawater— and shove it down the throat of the person who gave it to me.” Yeah, that sounded about right.
The wide, pale-brown eyes of the councilor widen further. She adjusts the hem of her skirt and proceeds to scold me. “That’s not a very nice thing, to do, Meta.” Her expression narrows as she emphasizes the word ‘nice.’
I cross my arms over my chest and slump into my chair. “It’s not a very nice gift to give someone,” I return. How on Earth is this class supposed to prepare anyone for Earth?
“No?” Her thin, blonde eyebrows almost disappear into her hairline.
“No,” I repeat. Why do I have to explain this to her? Doesn’t she know anything about human gift-giving, or do I have to educate them all? Her face holds the same ignorant surprise. “If you are going to give anyone an umbrella as a gift, why in all of heaven and hell would you give them one that’s polka-dotted pink?”
“So it is the color that you have a problem with?”
“Precisely.” Isn’t that apparent, cheese ball? “Now, if it were a black, dark-gray, or even a deep-navy umbrella, I’d have no problem with it.” Obviously.
“You are hostile toward pink?” I picture her blonde hair turning pink. Horrible color. Then, she does something that I hate. She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
Trying to steady my rising temper, I clench my fists super tight. “Call it what you want, but that stupid pink-polka dotted umbrella wouldn’t last for more than a millisecond even in my peripheral.” I fold my arms tight across my chest. All this talk about polka-dotted umbrellas suddenly makes me very irritable. I shouldn’t be here in this class, pretending to prepare for mortality when I won’t really go through with it. With the rising danger, I should be watching out for the Quaver and making sure Brett is ok. Stupid metaphor anyway. What significance could an umbrella possibly have on the eternal scheme of things?
The councilor scribbles something in her gold-bound book and then taps her fountain pen against it contemplatively. She’s analyzing me. Oh, like your work is “so important,” I sneer inside and roll my eyes. Try dragging souls to Hell and putting up with nasty threats from demons that would surely make you wet your pink polka-dot pants.
In her sweet sing-song voice, she points the pen at me and says, glances at her book and says, “So, you would, and I quote, scrape its shiny, vinyl coating across the sidewalk for a good half mile, then fill it with seawater and shove it down the throat of the person who gave it to you?” She blinks her eyes at me.
“That’s right,” I nod. Do I have to say it twice?
She puts the quill into her mouth, biting the end of it with her tiny row of snow-white teeth, and looks up at me with an intriguing expression. “And what if it came back?”
“What?” I ask. What’s she talking about?
“What if after you scraped it, filled it and shoved it— it came back?” She presses me with the firm line of her thin mouth and slanting creases between her eyes. Is she really that dense?
“I would destroy it some other way.” I spit, disgusted with the whole turn of this session. The thought of the pink-polka dotted umbrella suddenly having the ability to come back in this make-believe scenario makes me very on-edge. “If I destroy it, it’s gone,” I fume. “Period. End of discussion Miss Bleached Eyebrows.”
“I see,” is her only response.
Chapter Fifteen
“How was Preparation?” Sol asks me as we land upon the roof of Brett’s brick building. We have decided to come to earth again, despite the risk of the Quaver, to check on Brett. Ava arrived in Chicago almost three weeks ago and Sol and I are both anxious to see how our Cupid efforts have taken effect.
“Do we have to talk about Preparation?” I moan sitting down and spitting over the edge of the building. The wet ball of saliva plops on a man’s bald spot bellow. The bald man jumps, wipes it with his hand and looks up to determine the source, but of course he can’t see me and walks on puzzled. From the disgusted turn of his mouth, I know that Sol wants to say something about my expectoration, but he holds back. I admire his restraint; he must want to know about Preparation pretty badly. You would think that me spitting on an innocent bald man would give Sol plenty of information on what I thought of that stupid class.
“Ughhhh. Fine,” I moan. He really won’t let it go, will he? “One guy, Joe is his name I think, is afraid to come to earth because of the faucet handles. He’s all freaked out because he thinks he won’t be able to turn the faucet handles far enough to make the water come on and then if it does, he won’t be able to turn it back off…”
“Yeah, Joe,” Sol interrupts like they are old college acquaintances. “He was there when Ava was getting ready to come. Back then, he was afraid that the Vikings of the First Century were wielding axes in Times Square. He’s still there in preparation class?”
“Yeah.” I pucker up and spit again, hoping to annoy him. Won’t he back off? He pretends not to care. “Joe is a total nut case. And then there’s the foot tapper— a girl who won’t stop tapping her foot as if she’s keeping track of her last immortal heartbeats or something. She sits there tapping it constantly. It took all my effort not to rip her leg off.” I thrash my arms as if at an imaginary leg and tear its flesh off with my teeth.
“You are so self-composed,” Sol mocks and does his best to suppress a grin. “What about the councilor?” He tosses a small orange ball into the air, the kind they play racquetball with up in heaven, and catches it without looking. Show off.
“She’s the worst of them all. Nothing she says makes any sense and she annoys me to death.” I do my best to screw my face into a pinchy, scrunchy one like Miss Foot-Tapper has and kick, kick, kick my foot on the side of the building. Sol doesn’t seem to mind the way I’d hoped. My ankle starts to hurt so I stop.
“Annoyed you to life you mean,” Sol smiles and tosses the ball to me. I claw at it and finally catch it, but not as graceful as him, dang it.
I roll my eyes and say, “Oh, is that how she does it then: annoys you so bad, that you come to Earth just to get away from her?” I throw the ball back at him as hard as I can.
He catches it like it was made of cotton. “Something like that,” he laughs and pulls his hand back like a major league pitcher, ready to pelt the ball at me.
“We really shouldn’t be playing around, Sol,” I scold. “Who knows who could be watching us?” I search the dark skies above us, but see nothing.
“Do not worry,” Sol says, giving my arm a little nudge. “I am with you and I know to watch out for demons, Nex and oh yeah, witches. Nex nor any other underworld filth should not give us any further trouble.”
I try to give him a confident smile, and ignore the fear snagging my heart like a fishing hook.
