I awake in darkness.

My body feels better, the ache in my muscles is gone, but I am left with a desperate thirst and a pounding headache. I must have slept all day. On my bedside table is a bottle of water. I open it and take deep gulps, drinking every single drop and still feeling as though I need more. Hauling myself out of bed, I head to the bathroom. I know it’s only been a few hours, but I feel like I’ve been asleep for weeks. Needing to wake up, I flick on the light switch, turn on the shower and step into the welcoming warmth.

Half an hour later, freshly washed, dried, and wearing clean clothes, I make my way downstairs to the kitchen. The moment I step into the room, my stomach growls in hunger.

I’m starving. Opening the fridge, I grab what I need to make something to eat and set to work.

A couple of minutes later, I have a steaming mug of tea and a sandwich large enough to stave off the hunger pangs. Sitting at my kitchen table, I eat. On the wall opposite my clock tells me it’s nearing midnight and that I have slept for almost seventeen hours. Seventeen hours?

I eat like the starving. I don’t savour the food, just shovel it in, hoping to rid myself of the growing nausea I feel from too much sleep, from lack of food, from waiting on their return. Ether said they would be back, but when? Do I want them to return?

The answer is, emphatically, yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

I think I’ll go mad if they don’t return soon. I can barely concentrate now. How will I feel in a few days’ time? A week, a month, a year? I don’t think I can wait that long.

Scratch that, I know I won’t be able to wait that long. I need answers. I need to understand.

Finishing the last mouthful, I pick up my mug of tea and head back to my studio. When I feel anxious like this, drawing is the only way to release some of the tension, to make me feel at least a little bit more human again. As a child, drawing was a way to feel good about myself when harsh words and mean children made me feel worthless. Being deaf was hard enough but having a speech impediment to match made growing up even harder. With speech therapy I was able to overcome my difficulties, but it took several years to get my speech to a point that people didn’t realise immediately that I had a hearing loss. I learnt British Sign Language too, though it’s been a while since I have used it. Dani and I spent hours chatting together as kids this way. I taught her how to converse using sign language so that we could talk without my mum understanding what we were saying. Mum never bothered to learn, insisting that I always wear my hearing aids because it was too much of a pain to ‘faff around’ with silly hand movements.

Even now her rejection hurts.

That had been my way of communicating, opening up a world of wonder when only muffled silence spoke to me.

Pushing open the door to my studio, I enter once more. Inside, the room is as I left it, filled with images of Gabe. He peers at me from every direction, but something’s missing.

Ether and Mihr.

Now, I need to fill this room with all my angels… There’s that my again.

They were no more mine than I am theirs, and yet I feel as though they belong to me, that I belong to them somehow. It’s ridiculous, I know.

Now these images of Gabe aren’t enough. I’m missing two more men and I have a very real need, an almost painful desire, to capture them all. Placing my tea on the desk, I grab a clean sheet of paper and pick up my favourite pencil to draw with. It’s well used, the end indented with my teeth marks. I begin to draw, sketching their outline first, then filling in the detail. Shading here, touching there, filling in the background before I concentrate on the angels themselves. Satisfied the basic form has been drawn to the best of my ability, I pick up another darker pencil and begin to draw in the details; the strong jaw of Ether, the full lips of Gabe, the reverent gaze of Mihr. I try my best to capture them, imprinting them for eternity on paper, searing their images in my mind.

As usual, I lose myself to hours of tranquillity. The act of drawing, bringing a memory alive on paper, is both soothing and hypnotising.

Eventually, when my hand aches from gripping the pencil so tightly and the last line is etched on paper, I lay the pencil down and sit back in my seat, stretching my fingers to ease the tightness. The white sheet of paper has been transformed. Ether, Mihr and Gabe look up at me, their clothes heavy with rain, their expressions burdened by something I don’t understand. I run my finger over their outline, wishing that I could conjure them up with some kind of magic spell.

Magic?

My skin prickles, the hairs on my arms pull upwards as a tingling sensation passes over me. The ring on my finger sizzles just as a cold blast of air tickles my bare neck.

“It’s a good likeness,” a familiar voice says from behind. “Though I think you’ve made me a little more angelic than I am…”

I twist in my seat, standing abruptly. Fear ricochets in my chest, followed swiftly by relief. The relief hugs my shoulders, then makes me feel limp. I back up to the edge of the table, eyes wide with wonder and confusion. Where are his wings? Why can I hear him when my hearing aids are still sitting in the same place I left them yesterday?

Ether steps back, holding his hands upright. “I apologise. I shouldn’t have scared you like that,” he says, misinterpreting my reaction. His white blonde hair is in stark contrast to the black clothes he wears. I notice they are crumpled, that he looks a little dishevelled. Dark circles ring his eyes, he is less sure of himself than he was yesterday.

“I’m not scared…” I mutter. “At least, not as much as I should be. Where are the others?”

Ether nods towards the door. “Mihr is in the kitchen. Gabe is…”

“Gabe is what?”

“Gabe is in the garden, keeping watch.”

“Keeping watch? What for?” I say, my voice quavering as Ether takes stock of me. He looks at me with interest, curiosity, fascination even. But it’s soon replaced with concern, worry. He looks over my shoulder and out into the darkness of my back garden.

“Trouble,” he says, pulling himself straighter, taller.

“What kind of trouble?” I say slowly.

Ether sighs. “There’s much to tell you. You have many questions, yes?”

I nod my head.

“Will you come with me, Fern?”

“Where to?”

“For now, just your kitchen. After that, I’m not sure.”

I grit my teeth. I’d wanted them to return. I’d wanted answers, and now that I am about to get them I find my feet can’t move.

“Do you feel okay?”

“I don’t know. After you left last night I slept for hours.” I touch my cheek where Gabe had pressed his palm. Even now it feels weird, as though I’ve had a filling at the dentist and my cheek is still numbed from the injection.

“Last night? Ah, yes, time passes slower here.” Ether’s eyes narrow as he watches me press my fingers against my cheek. “Are you hurt?”

Here?

“What do you mean, here? Where do you come from? What are you? Why did you leave? The singing, what is that?” I can’t seem to stop myself from asking the questions that have been burning my tongue these past twenty-four hours, this past year, my whole life. I ignore his last question. I don’t know if I’m hurt or not. I don’t know anything right now.

“I will answer every single question you have. You have a right to know it all. I do not believe in keeping secrets. But first, I need to know, are you hurt, Fern?” He steps forward, overshadowing me with his presence. He is tall. Tall frame, strong shoulders, white-blonde hair, blue eyes that make me want to look away, that make me want to fall into his arms.

Conflicted, that is how I feel.

Yet, overriding all that is the power he exudes. I find all sense has left me, as I sway unsteadily on my feet. Towards him, away from him, I don’t know which direction to head in. A knot tightens in my stomach, whilst anxiety fizzes in my chest.

“Are you hurt, Fern?” he repeats, darkness clouding his features.

“I don’t know… After Gabe touched me, I felt strange.”

“Gabe touched you?” His voice is sharp, angry.

“You all did,” I whisper. I had not forgotten the brief fiery stroke of his fingers against mine as he handed me the stone, or the fleeting warmth of Mihr’s hand as he held me steady.

Ether nods his head sharply, remembering our touch. His lips press in a hard line as he considers me for a moment.

“Come with me,” he says, turning abruptly and striding towards the kitchen. I look at the space where his wings had been yesterday. All I see is a dark shirt pulled taut by firm muscle. I follow him, wondering where the hell his wings have gone, why he is suddenly so angry and more importantly, wondering if I have finally lost my mind.