Present Aeon
Earth was vast, and there were many places Lila and Eva could have visited, but the first place they touched down was a light green field kissed by golden sunlight, where the ground birthed blood red tulips and bright yellow daffodils. As far as the eye could see in one direction, the field rolled on, with flowers of various colors and shapes weaving through it. In the opposite direction, a grove of trees formed a canopy of branches that looked like arms reaching for one another. One of Luc’s creatures—a gray rabbit, Lila realized, in a sudden burst of memory—scampered across the clearing and into these trees.
So distracted was she by its curious antics—and then, its speed—that she didn’t notice Eva picking flowers beside her until it was too late. Her friend had already gathered a handful of tulips in one hand and a handful of daffodils in the other.
“What are you doing?!” Lila cried before she could stop herself. Though it had been an aeon and a half since she’d drawn it, Lila recognized the Garden instantly. This washergarden—the one she’d designed for the architect program, the one she’d given to Luc.
He’d kept it. All this time, he’d kept it, and he hadn’t changed a thing.
“What do you mean?” Eva blinked. “I’m making flower crowns.”
“Well, don’t pick everything!” Lila wanted this place to remain as it was. As it had been in Luc’s blueprints. And hers.
“Lila, there’stonsof flowers. More than enough for every angel to have some. What’s with you?” Eva pouted. “I thought we were going to have fun.”
“We are. I just…” Lila tried to think of an excuse for her strange behavior. She settled on, “Earth doesn’t belong to us. I don’t think we should disturb anything here.”
“Oh, stop being silly. We’re free!” Eva flung out her arms, tossed up the flowers, and twirled in the open field. “Come on!” She clasped Lila’s hand. “Let’s see the rest!”
Shaking off her annoyance over the flowers, Lila allowed herself to be carried on the wave of Eva’s buoyancy into the grove of trees. They ran through the field, warmed by the sun and cooled by the wind, and laughed like students who had just been relieved from lessons.
At last, they arrived at the willows draping the edge of the grove in a delicate curtain of leaves. The curtain shifted with the wind, parting to allow them entrance, and they stepped into a scene more beautiful than the last, where black and brown and turquoise birds flitted among trees burgeoning with pink and white blossoms. A clear stream flowed between the trees, racing over smooth rocks, and Lila didn’t need to follow it to know where it led.
Soon, they would reach a clearing where a cropping of large rocks provided natural seating and the canopy thinned, allowing shafts of sunlight to dapple the soft floor of grass and dirt and tiny purple flowers. If they laid there and looked up during the period known as day, they would see wisps of clouds traveling across a cerulean sky that melted into reds and pinks and purples as the sun sank below the horizon. And at night, they would look up and see stars winking through the spaces between leaves. Stars and a darkness, deep as the Void, that would cover everything, blanketing the Earth in stillness and peace. At that time, the trees would only be known by the sound of their leaves rustling in the wind and their shapes softened into shadows. Softened, and softened, becoming one with the night.
Beyond this grove, beyond these fields, lay waterfalls spilling into rivers; she’d seen them on approach, sending their exultant spray into the aether-that-was-not-aether, that was here known as air. There were cliffs soaring to meet the clouds, thunderous imitations of the Great Hall’s spires that far surpassed their forebears. There were vast bodies of water whose full depth and breadth could not be seen from above, could not be known, and therewere places where water froze completely, hiding the landscape under crisp white sheets.
Despite these wonders, this Garden was already Lila’s favorite place. Air was different from aether; it wasn’t immune to cold and heat; it shifted, moving faster, then going still. And in this Garden, the air embraced her. It toyed with her hair and caressed her neck as if to say, ‘Welcome. Here is a world where you belong.’
Present Aeon
The humans caught Lila off guard.
Though she and Eva had been informed of their existence, she’d had no blueprint in her mind for what a human should look like. She could conjure vague images of the creatures she’d drawn an aeon before, but none of them were human. So when she saw the humans walking in the Garden, looking only a little lesser than the angels themselves, she stopped breathing, but for a different reason than before.
Nothing in these creatures could strike her with awe. They were inferior copies of Luc and herself.
Not direct copies, certainly, but close enough. Too close.
As Lila watched them from behind a tree, Eva having wandered off to pick more flowers, the humans embraced each other and spoke with wordless smiles. They walked hand in hand through the clearing in the middle of the grove, marveling at the blossoming flowers and the sweet-singing birds. It was said that the Creator made them for one another. Another soul-split, Lila supposed.
They were to govern this new world, to take care of it. It would be their home, and theirs alone.
This world. Luc’s world, and her world.
The Creator had given it tothem.
It was if He’d laid His hand on Lila’s heart and squeezed it until it burst.
This couldn’t be.
For the other angels, maybe, she could give up this world, but not to these creatures who had no idea what it meant. Who had no idea, even, whoLucwas. Why didtheyget to be happy in this garden, inLila’sGarden, when Lila could not?
It wasn’t fair. Nothing in her existence had been fair, but this…this…
It reopened a wound she thought had long been sealed up. And worse, it gouged the wound wider.
Deeper.
