Ethereal

Chapter 12

"You seem sad." Noah commented, he was walking a few inches away from me, but it was close enough that I could reach out and grab his hand if I wanted to. 

"You'll be leaving soon. Once you've found what you're looking for." I replied.  "Soon it's going to be a last goodbye." 

He nodded solemnly in response. "I wish that we didn't have to. But it's complicated, and there are thousands of reasons that we can't stay, that we can't even visit." 

I sighed but nodded, yes, it must be very difficult to travel from heaven to the earth. "I can imagine."

He frowned but didn't reply. 

"My life has changed so much since you all arrived." I sighed again. "It'll be lonely when you leave, without even my mother."

"She's ill?" He asked, curiously. 

I nodded. "Since I was young. She's gotten worse over the years, the doctors can't find anything wrong with her. She refuses to talk to a therapist because they don't believe her."

"Travis mentioned something about her, on their way to the... hospital." He looked away. "She kept talking about a glowing man, and she kicked up a fuss when they tried to separate her from himself and Jasmine." 

Of course, of course she hadn't wanted to be separated. She knew what they were. 

"My father." I said, laughing quietly. 

He looked up in surprise. "How old were you when he died?"

I shook my head, "Well, after I was, er, conceived, a fire broke out in my mothers apartment building. My father didn't make it out, they didn't find his body in the rubble so he's only presumed dead, he couldn't even be identified. I never knew his name. So... he's the glowing man. The man on fire, I guess. My mother had been obsessed ever since, that's when she started to lose herself."

"I'm sorry." He said sincerely. "That's a terrible way to go."

I nodded. "It's alright for me, I never knew him. It broke my mum. She loved him so much, I've never seen her so entranced as when she talks about him." Except for possibly when she had seen the angels in the lake, but even so, it wasn't quite the same. 

"She talks about him to you?" Noah asked. 

"She used to." I sighed. "My mothers illness may have hidden many things from her, but she knew... she knew that the three of you were special." I had promised myself that I wouldn't bring it up, but out here with Noah... I felt as though I could trust him. I wanted him to know that he could trust me too.

He faltered in his step at my words, taken-aback. "We aren't special."

I hesitated. "I... Noah, I think I know... what you are." 

He froze this time, I stopped walking too and turned to face him. "I... don't know what you mean." He finally said.

"It's okay. I understand that... that whatever you're doing must be so very important. I would never jeopardise that, so... I understand why you have to leave, and why you can't possibly return." 

"E-Emilia," He stuttered nervously, "You must be mistaken... I don't..."

"I would never tell anyone. I don't care about what you are. But I want you to know that you can trust me. I would never tell your secret." 

He didn't speak for a while, and neither did I, just allowing for it to sink in. "I wish that I wasn't." He paused again. "I don't understand. It shouldn't be possible... for me to want to stay... stay like this... with you. It's strictly forbidden... our greatest rule."