Undone by a Broken Angel

37.) From The Grave

"How great is you constant love for me!  You have saved me from the grave itself."

-Psalm 86:13

Abigail:

It’s next to impossible to get carried away from him.  My body sings when he touches me the way he does, and without the ever pressing shadow he carries, it’s next to euphoric.  These little moments are building a need in me that I’ve never experienced before and even though it’s wrong to have them, it feels natural.  Almost...predestined.  So when there’s a knock on my door, I react both positively and negatively.  First negatively: I want to stomp to the door, demand what the caller wants, tell them to shove off, and then get back under Abe’s wandering lips again.  As long as his lips don’t touch mine, we’ll be fine.  Second, positively: it’s a blessing to be interrupted so we don’t get carried away.  It’s true that I could also get infected if things get carried away, but there’s the moral implications as well.  He’s not my husband.  I shouldn’t behave as though he is.

Abe hangs back as I answer the door, finding Dianna behind it, holding a box with both of her hands.  The box is wooden with vines carved on all sides, a ruby laid in it’s top.

“Are you well rested, Princess Abigail?” she asks me, formality stiff in her expression.  She leans slightly to look inside my room and her eyes fall on Abe, her mouth stretching into a thin line of displeasure.

“Yes, thank you, Dianna.  It’s nice of you to ask,: I reply, matching her formal posture.

“May I?” she gestures behind me and I step aside to allow her to come inside.

I don’t know what this is all about.  My nerves spike.  With everything happening so fast, I don’t know how to process it.  I’m moments away from meeting the others.  We came a long way to save them and it still baffles me that their illnesses were cured so quickly.  They say I did it, but I don’t know how that’s possible when I haven’t been in the same room with them.  Besides David, who I’ve tried eradicating from my memory.  Now, with every emotion closing in on me, I have Dianna standing in my room holding a cryptic box, Abe- who I was having a nice intimate moment with- trying to melt into the wall in order to go unnoticed, and me, a complete emotional mess.  

“I wanted to give you a chance to make a good impression,” Dianna tells her, placing the box carefully down on the bed.  I can tell she notices the towel and my dirty dress on the floor, but she doesn’t  pry.  I see from her expression that she knows Abe’s involvement with my new dress and hairstyle, but if she knows anymore, I can’t tell.  I cringe at the thought of having to explain and the drama that would unfold.

“This belonged to your mother,” she tells me and my heart skips a beat in excitement.  I’ve never seen anything of hers before.  Did her tastes lie in elegance like Abe’s mother?  Or were they more humble?  Would whatever lies in the box be beautiful?  Would it be meant for me?

The box creaks open slightly and the contents inside are dazzling.  The object inside is a twisted jumble of silver and diamonds, a single large ruby set in the center.  I pick it up gingerly from it’s bed of velvet.  Recognizing it immediately, I hold the tiara with a sense of awe, not knowing what to say.

Dianna speaks first, seeing my speechlessness.  “She brought this with her from Eden, knowing that she was carrying a girl.”

Two tears fall from my eyes.  I can feel her love radiating off of the piece of jewelry and the box it belongs in.  I sniff, trying to keep more from falling.  She knew.  She knew I would come back here to the bunker.  Somehow, someway.  But how?  How would she know?  I look closer at the stones laced in the metals of the tiara and see that the delicate silver is shaped to look like a vine, similar to the design on the box.  The round base of the tiara looks like a tree branch, the vines shooting out of it to cradle the jewel.  The diamonds are round and they sparkle in all the lamplight.  The ruby, the focal point, is a brilliant, deep color, and somehow full of power.

It strikes me that diamonds would accompany the ruby.  As the stone representing the McKinley family, I wonder if my mother had intended to lay an insinuation there, but I try not to dwell on that thought.  Whatever she had intended isn’t possible now.  A small part of me wonders, however, that if she knew I'd find my way back here, that she could have known I'd cure Abe.  I tamper down that thought and the anger that flairs up knowing that I can't put hope in it.

Dianna takes the tiara from my hands and I bend slightly for her to place it on my head, feeling my mother’s love wash over me as it settles on my updo.  It feels good there, perfect, actually.  How could my mother know all this?  How could she know so much before it even happened?  The tiara makes me feel like a queen, I just hope the other's feel it too.  If I'm to be their queen, I need to invoke some authority, whether or not I want it.  “There,” she says, admiring her work, “now you have something to show your status.”

Abe chooses now to speak, and his words slice through me, forcing me to face the importance of my role to the men who wait to dine with me.  “This is yours, Abigail,” he says.  “Whether it was made for you or not.  You are the last female and you possess a unique ability.  God has chosen you to wear this, whether or not it was something your mother had prepared it for you.”

I hear that again: ability.  What does that mean?  Why does the ground seem to shift under me with every step I take?  The second I feel a wisp of happiness, something moves and I have to rebalance.  Besides trying to cure Abe, stay alive from the reapers, marry in order to continue the falcone race, and manage this attraction to Abe, now I have to figure out what the ability thing means.

“Let’s go to dinner.”  He holds out his arm for me to take.

My feet fall heavily as we make our way to the dining room.  The closer we get, the thicker the air seems to feel.  The dress Abraham gave me is staving off the chill extremely well, thankfully, so I don’t feel inconvenienced by that anymore.  What I feel inconvenienced by is having to meet four individuals who know I could be their future wife.  The social implication makes me feel as though I’m walking into a trap and it makes it hard to breathe.

We stop in front of massive doors.  Dianna sneaks through a different door down the hall, where I assume the kitchen is.  She leaves me in Abe’s care, who looks down at me with a sympathetic look.  The dual doors before me, however, make me feel intimidated and very, very small.  They’re huge, made of wood, and cocoa brown, not unlike Abe’s brown eyes.  In the center where the doors meet, are several jewels.  They all circle around the center and biggest stone, the ruby.  I see the symbolism and I don’t like it.

        “Remember your promise,” Abraham reminds me.

        “I don’t remember promising anything,” I snap, knowing the second we walk through these doors, he’s going to push me away.  I know that this is the closest we’ll ever be.

        He brushes his thumb under my eye.  “Don’t cry.”

        I blink them away, surprised at my tears since I felt no sting in my eyes.  “Sorry,” I mumble.  I hate showing emotion.  I hate showing weakness.  All it does is make me angry.  I want to run.  I want to bolt back to my room and hide in the piano room where no one will find the hidden door.  Why did this all have to be me?  Why not some other daughter my mother could have had?

        He squeezes my hand, “Don’t be scared.”  He kisses my forehead.  Does he not see that these are tears of anger and not fear?  “God gives you strength.”  The shadow around him is growing darker and darker as the night progresses.  My stomach twists into more knots.  Whatever I did for him earlier, it’s not lasting.  I knew it was no use to hope.

        “I’m ready,” I declare, even though I’m not.