Page 9 of Lost Feather
Sunny’s voice intruded on my grim thoughts as I dressed. “You share them with every other Protector here. In Assembly.”
Farking great. The worst possible answer:grouptherapy. “What happens then?”
“You’ll be judged and either sent back to Earth for your next mission, or purified again and given another chance.”
“Just one more chance?”
“Ah, no.” Sunny’s voice got quiet as she examined all the dirty loofahs, towels, and empty bottles on the counter. The room was a wreck. “You’ll get more than that. But there are only a few of us, like me, who have to get purified more than once. Still, we’ll all pass judgment. We have to.”
“Or what?”
She held open the door, and I followed her into the empty hallway. “Feather, relax. Every Protector for four hundred years has passed their judgment. It may take you a little longer than some, but we’ll get you cleaned up.” She bit her lower lip. “We just need better soap and more water. Follow me.”
I grabbed Sunny’s arm, then dropped it immediately when a great smear of murky gray rubbed off onto her skin. Being Sewage Girl really sucked. “Sunny, what happens if a soul doesn’t pass judgment? If one did something so bad on Earth, it can’t be washed off?”
Buffing at her arm, Sunny avoided my eyes. Finally, she replied, “I guess technically, if a soul can’t be cleansed and returned, they would be unmade, and their soul’s energy recycled to make a new Protector, or to strengthen the gate. I think. I haven’t taken my Advanced Gate Theory seminar.”
“Has that… ever happened?” I held my breath, waiting for her answer. “Have they unmade Protectors who couldn’t get clean enough?”
She spoke so softly that I had to fight to hear her answer as we walked. “I’ve heard older Protectors talk about what it was like, long ago. When we weren’t as careful to stay purified in between missions. A few Protectors… went bad. They say the taint was awful. Lots of High Angeli sacrificed themselves to get rid of it and provide us with all the energy we have now.” She walked on in silence for a moment, then continued, “But it’s all just stories. They don’t officially teach those parts of our histories anymore. They don’t have to. We have plenty of tools to use to keep evil out of Sanctuary now. No one should ever need to be unmade again.”
Unmade.Something about the way Sunny said it gave me a strange sort of déjà vu. I had a sudden vision of a glowing cauldron of white-hot fire, and a whole lot of pain. Maybe this was Hell after all. Or the station on the way to it.
“The biggest bathing chamber is just this way,” Sunny said, beckoning me to follow her around a corner.
But when I turned that corner, my feet stopped working. A golden light was shining from the far wall. Shining, and… “Singing?” I rushed forward, drawn to it in a way I couldn’t explain.
“Stop!” Sunny grabbed me a split second before I would have touched it. “Sweet Sanctuary, Feather!” she whisper-shouted. “Do you have any idea what you almost did?”
“No clue,” I answered honestly, my eyes fixed on the huge golden door—the gate—before me. It had to be over thirty feet tall, and was made of some sort of metal I’d never seen, though it shone like gold. Whatever material it was, it seemed to pulse with an inner light. No, not just light. Power. It was carved with faces and shapes and abstract designs, angels and animals that moved constantly, as if they were stirred from inside the walls of the gate by an invisible hand. I was transfixed, hypnotized by its beauty.
As I stared, the edge of a wing appeared, then a leaping stag, and then an impossibly handsome man’s face, eyes wide, his lips shaping my name: Feather. Did I know him? I felt like I must.
Then I blinked and he was gone, and strange letters scrolled past, soon replaced by landscapes that changed as if wind were blowing away the features of the land itself. I knew tears were falling down my face, but I didn’t bother to wipe them away. No one could stand here and not respond to the scene.
But then shadows flickered over the surface, and the light inside it dimmed. For a moment, the gold looked patchy, as if it were flaking away, revealing some hidden flaw.
“... you had touched the Great Gate, I think you might have tainted it. If the gate falls, so does Sanctuary. So does Earth. And maybe… maybe all the realms.”
“I could hurt it?” I managed to say. But the gate was crying out now, not singing. Shouting. It was begging me to touch it, or do something.
“Maybe.” Sunny made a bow to the gate, touching her head, then her heart, and pulled me away. I went reluctantly, my eyes still fixed on the glowing, golden monument. “Smut can contaminate things in Sanctuary, and the regular cleaning methods can’t be used on the gate. Your hands are covered.”
I nodded but knew I couldn’t leave it like this. In pain. The only time I had ever felt like this was when I met a charge on Earth. I had to help, or at least try, no matter what it cost me. “Then you touch it, Sunny. Someone needs to.”
“What? No! No Protector can ever touch it; it’s too powerful. We would be unmade instantly. Great Sanctuary, you shouldknowall this. The smut must be affecting your cognition. Shortcut to the baths, it is,” she muttered, dragging me down an even smaller hallway.
“Sounds good,” I replied. “I could use a long hot soak in a tub of bubbles.” Maybe this day was looking up.
CHAPTER4
Feather
The day only got worse. “Three hours of scrubbing, yet I still look like a professional pig wrestler. And smell like one.” Every other angel in the communal purifying chamber had fled the instant I’d entered, the last one spraying a bunch of whatever they used for air freshener up here before she shut the door.
“Pig wrestling. That’s a job on Earth now?” Sunny wondered.
“No.” I hesitated. “I mean, maybe. But the thing is, look at me!” I hadn’t cared about my appearance before. With as many lives as I’d led, I’d worn dozens of shades of skin tone, from a shining blue-black in Ethiopia, to a pale Nordic wintry pink. Different almost every time, although for some reason, I’d always been reborn into female bodies.
