My mother gasped. I would have found it amusing if I hadn’t felt so perplexed by everything.
“He has been carrying this secret with him for years,” I went on. “I’m the first person he has ever told, and I have a feeling he doesn’t think that I believe him. Helen and her mother left Midvale two months before she was due to graduate.”
I was tapping my fingers on the table again, but it didn’t seem to bug my mother this time.
“Well…” She paused for a moment. “Did Adam have anything else to say on the matter?”
“He said some odd men arrived in town after they’d gone and started asking a lot of questions. But he didn’t tell them anything.”
I saw my mother’s lips twitch, and I suspected at once that she knew who, or what, the men were. I was learning that she knew just about everything I thought she didn’t. I pretended I didn’t notice her reaction and continued.
“I asked him if he still hears from her and he told me yes. Said she told him she would be back in Midvale soon, that something was brewing, things were coming here. He said some of these things were good and some of them were bad.”
I waited for my mother’s response.
“That… that is a fascinating story, Dawn,” my mother stammered. “We are not supposed to expose what we are to humans. There are a handful of such beings who carry mixed blood. If one of them exposes themselves to a human, the Equalizers usually step in to make sure that the memory is altered. Adam not saying anything to them about it meant that he ‘knew nothing’ in their eyes, so they let it go. I’m a little stumped though, about how they didn’t work out that he knew more than he let on.”
“So, there are others here!” I exclaimed.
“Of course, honey. We have earthbound angels. Some are Guardians; some are Watchers. The Equalizers are like a police force for the non-human race. I told you this last night,” she reminded me.
I still had a feeling she wasn’t telling me everything. I had thought my parents would tell me everything that I needed to know. I was apparently wrong. They liked to wait until something was happening that I needed to know how to handle.
“Do you think that is what Wesley meant last night? That she thinks I’m one of these Guardians or Watchers?” I pondered aloud. There had to be a reason he had said those words to me, that Miranda was wrong in what she thought I was.
My mother had never told me there were others of us on Earth until our conversation the night before. I knew that there were earthbound demons just from simple observation. To think that there were earthbound angels as well made me feel giddy. The world wasn’t as one-sided as I had thought it was.
“I suppose that may be the case,” she said quickly as she stood up. “Let me see what I can dig up, honey,” she suggested, stroking my tapping fingers.
“Okay, Mom.” It felt like I had just been brushed off.
“You did well, honey. It was good to tell me about this.” My mother smiled at me then went back to the stove. “Breakfast will be ready in about twenty minutes if you want to go and grab a shower first.”
The change of subject was pretty much the closing deal on the conversation. She was done talking about it, at least until she had done her digging. I did wonder what she did to dig out information. It seemed to be done via phone in the privacy of her room in most cases. I never knew who she was calling, or if she was calling anyone at all. My mother had connections; that much I know for certain. Would these connections really be able to answer every single one of my questions?
“Actually, a shower sounds pretty good right now,” I agreed.
I got up and walked thoughtfully to my room. I wasn’t expecting to go anywhere that day, so I grabbed a pair of clean pajama bottoms and a thermal and headed for the bathroom.
****
After a ten-minute shower and breakfast, I went back to my room to look over my journal again. I needed to add some additional notes about what I had learned from my mother. As I read through what I’d written, I just seemed to have even more questions that needed answering.
I didn’t hear someone entering the room until my senses went crazy and my fingers began to tingle. I was ready to launch a blast of fireballs in the direction of the doorway, when I saw that it was Aaron who was standing there, staring at me with curiosity.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said with a smile.
He looked cute in blue jeans and a Godsmack hoodie. He was allowing his hair to grow longer, which honestly made him look even hotter as far as I was concerned. I definitely felt a physical attraction to Aaron. It was partly emotional too, but not to the extent that I felt with Wesley; I wasn’t in love with him.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” I replied, relieved that I hadn’t just char-grilled him on the spot. “Usually you send me a message when you’re on your way.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I wanted to surprise you.”
He sat on the end of my bed. I closed the notebook and put it to one side.
“That’s very sweet of you,” I said, smiling back at him. He smelled nice, like a mixture of honeydew and citrus.
“I thought that you and I could go to the park and just hang out. Your mom said you’ve been pretty stressed out recently.” He touched my leg. Though it no longer felt wrong, it didn’t exactly feel right either. It was just another indication that he had yet
