my tongue felt like sandpaper. It took a while before I could put the events of the previous night into coherent order, but when I did, I wished I hadn’t. I felt a rush of shame as I remembered my disoriented state, my slurred speech, my failure to support my own weight. I remembered Gabriel gathering me into his arms and the concern mingled with disappointment in his voice. I remembered having to be undressed and the look of dismay on Ivy’s face as she put me to bed like a small child. As Ivy pulled the covers over me, I heard Gabriel’s reiterate his thanks to someone at the door.
Then I started to remember spending most of the time at Molly’s party slumped helplessly against the comforting body of a stranger. I groaned aloud when the stranger’s face flashed vividly in my mind. Of all the gallant knights who could have come to my rescue, why did it have to be Xavier Woods? What was Our Father in His infinite wisdom thinking? I struggled to recall the fragments of our brief conversation, but memory refused to volunteer such details.
I was overcome with a mixture of regret and humiliation. I buried my burning cheeks under the quilt and curled myself into a ball, hoping I could stay that way forever. What must Xavier Woods, the school captain of Bryce Hamilton, think of me now? What must everyone think of me? I had barely been at the school a week and already I had disgraced my family and proclaimed to the world that I was a novice at life. How could I have not realized how powerful those cocktails were? On top of it all, I had proved to my brother and sister that I was incapable of looking after myself outside of their care.
I heard muted voices floating up to me from downstairs. Gabriel and Ivy were discussing something in hushed tones. The burning returned to my cheeks as I thought of the position I had put them in. How selfish of me not to consider that my actions would impact on them as well! Their reputations were on the line as well as mine, and mine was now undoubtedly in tatters. I considered the possibility of us packing up and starting afresh in a new location. Surely Gabriel and Ivy wouldn’t expect me to stay in Venus Cove after the spectacle I’d made of myself. I half expected that in a moment they would come in to announce the news and we would quietly pack our bags and move on to a new town. There would be no time for farewells; the attachments I’d formed here would be reduced to nothing more than fond memories.
But no one came, and eventually I had no choice but to venture downstairs and face the consequences of what I had done. I caught a glimpse of myself in a hallway mirror. I looked fragile and there were bluish shadows under my eyes. The clock told me it was close to noon.
Downstairs, Ivy was working skillfully on a piece of embroidery at the kitchen table and Gabriel was standing at the window as straight as a pastor at his pulpit. He had his hands clasped behind his back and was looking thoughtfully out to sea. I went to the fridge and poured myself a tumbler of orange juice, which I gulped quickly to slake my raging thirst.
Gabriel didn’t turn even though I knew he was aware of my presence. I shivered — an angry tirade would have been better than this silent recrimination. I cared too much for Gabriel’s regard to lose it. If nothing else, his anger would have helped ease my guilt. I wished he would turn around so I could at least see his face.
Ivy put down her handiwork and looked up at me. “How are you feeling?” she asked. She sounded neither angry nor disappointed, and that confused me.
My hands moved involuntarily to my still-throbbing temples. “I’ve been better.”
Silence hung in the air like a shroud.
“I’m really sorry,” I continued meekly. “I don’t know how that happened. I feel so childish.”
Gabriel turned to look at me, his eyes the color of thunder. But in them I saw only his deep affection for me.
“There’s no need to fret, Bethany,” he said with his usual composure. “Now that we’re human we’re bound to make some mistakes.”
“You’re not angry?” I blurted, looking from one to the other. Their mother-of-pearl skin was incandescent in the morning light.
“Of course we’re not angry,” said Ivy. “How can we blame you for something that was beyond your control?”
“That’s just the point,” I said. “I should have known. It wouldn’t have happened to either of you. Why is it only me that makes mistakes?”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Gabriel advised. “Remember this is your first visit to earth. You will learn from your experiences and in time, you will be able to avoid such situations.”
“It’s easy to forget that people are blood and bone. They’re not indestructible,” Ivy added.
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” I said, feeling a little heartened. My head still felt ready to explode, so I sat down and rested it on the cool surface of the table.
“Don’t worry, I have just the thing to get rid of that jack-hammer in your head,” said Gabriel.
Still in my fleecy pajamas, I went to his side and watched him gather ingredients from the fridge. He measured and tipped them into a blender with the precision of a scientist. Finally, he handed me a glass of murky red liquid.
“What
“Tomato juice, egg yolk, and a dash of chili,” he said. “According to the medical encyclopedia I read last night it’s one of the best-known cures for a hangover.”
The mixture looked and smelled disgusting, but the throbbing in my head wasn’t about to subside of its own accord. So I held my nose and gulped the drink down. It occurred to me later that Ivy could have cured my hangover with a touch to my temples, but perhaps my siblings were trying to teach me to accept the human consequences of my actions.
“I think we should all stay in today, don’t you?” Ivy suggested. “Take some time to reflect.”
I had never felt more in awe of my siblings than I did at that moment. The tolerance they displayed could only be described as superhuman, which of course it was.
Compared to the rest of the community we lived like Quakers: no television, computers, or cell phones. Our only concession to living on earth in the twenty-first century was the landline phone, which had been connected just after we moved in. We thought of technology as a sort of corrupting influence, promoting antisocial behavior and detracting from family values. Our home was a place where we spent time with one another, not whiling away time shopping on the Internet or watching mindless television programs.
Gabriel particularly hated the influence of television. During the preparation for our mission, he had shown us the beginning of a program to emphasize his point. It involved a group of people struggling with obesity being divided into groups and presented with tempting food to see if they were strong enough to resist. The ones who gave in were berated and shunned. It was disgusting, Gabriel said, to play with people’s emotions and prey on their weaknesses. It was even more sickening that the general public considered such cruelty
So that afternoon we didn’t turn to technology to occupy our time but instead lazed on the deck reading, playing Scrabble, or simply lost in our own thoughts. Taking time to reflect didn’t mean we weren’t allowed to do other things; it just meant that we did them quietly and tried to spend some time evaluating our successes and failures. Or rather, Ivy and Gabriel evaluated their successes and I contemplated my failures. I stared at the sky and nibbled on slices of melon. Fruit, I’d decided, was my favorite food. The clean, sweet freshness of it reminded me of home. As I watched, I noticed that the sun appeared as a ball of blazing white in the sky — it was blinding and made my eyes hurt to look at it. I remembered the light in the Kingdom — our home was awash with mellow golden light that we could touch, and it dripped through our fingers like warm honey. It was much harsher here, but somehow more real.
“Have you seen this?” Ivy came out holding a platter of fruit and cheese and tossed a newspaper down on the table in disgust.
“Mmm.” Gabriel nodded.
“What is it?” I sat up, craning my neck to get a look at the headline. I caught a glimpse of the photograph splashed across the page. People were running in all directions; men trying in vain to shelter the women; and mothers reaching out to children who had fallen in the dust. Some of them had their eyes squeezed shut in prayer; others had their mouths open in silent screams. Behind them flames licked at the sky and roiling smoke obscured the sun.
“Bombings in the Middle East,” said my brother, turning the newspaper over with a flick of his wrist. It didn’t matter — the image was burned into my brain. “More than three hundred dead. You know what this means, don’t
