ALL NOVEL 32. Revelations
"Cass?!" mom gasped as I came through the door and stood next to her. "What are you doing here?!"
The others followed me into the room, Kaylee moved to my side while Paige Marissa and Melanie filed in past us and stood a little off to the left, where they could all keep an eye on Roslovic.
The necromancer frowned at us then looked at mum and demanded, "What are these kids doing here?"
Mum looked at me and sighed, "I'm asking myself the same question. Cass honey why did you come here?"
I looked back and forth between mom and mum, but I couldn't find the words.
"We're here for him," Marissa stated as she gestured towards Roslovic.
As usual the short blonde was full of bravado, she announced triumphantly "We know he's a necromancer, we know he's been sending zombies into town. I heard about the first one last weekend, Cass and Kaylee heard you two talking about the one yesterday. Didn't take us long to find him."
My girlfriend added, "We didn't expect to find you here though Mrs. Underwood. Either of you."
By that point I finally found my voice. I frowned at my parents and demanded, "I thought you were talking to an insurance guy at the store! How many other things have you lied to me about? What are you, really? And what were you going to do to Mr. Roslovic?"
Mom sighed as she face-palmed, while mum grimaced and pinched the bridge of her nose. And the necromancer just stood there looking confused and anxious.
Mum recovered first, she looked from me to my friends then stated, "Cassandra, your mom and I are not going to have this conversation here. You'll come home with us and we'll talk there. The rest of you girls should head on home as well. This isn't something you need to be involved in."
"What about my wife?" Roslovic asked in a desperate voice. "Please, you can heal her! I know you can! I don't care what you do to me, whatever the cost, but please just help her!"
Paige spoke up next, she looked at both my moms and asked "What kind of healing magic can you two do? Can you help Brooke's mom? She's here in the hospital."
Mom face-palmed again and I could tell both my parents were getting more stressed.
Mum looked tense as she stated, "Nobody is getting healed right now. Julie and I are going home to talk to our daughter. Isaac we'll speak with you later, but if you raise one more zombie you can forget it. Paige, we'll talk with Cassandra about Mrs. Tremblay. Now you four girls head on home. Cass you're coming with us. Now. Everone move."
She started herding us all towards the door but I stayed put and insisted, "Kaylee's coming with me."
"Assuming you want to?" I added as I looked at my girlfriend.
Kaylee nodded and took my hand in hers, "I'll stick with you Cass."
Mum sighed, "Fine, she can come with us."
She sounded a bit exasperated as she continued herding everyone except Roslovic out into the hallway. Paige tried to protest, so did Roslovic, but my parents refused to back down. As soon as we were out of the lab mom and mum headed off down the hall with me and Kaylee in tow, while Paige Marissa and Melanie were left standing there staring at us.
I called over my shoulder, "Don't worry Paige, I'll talk to them about Brooke's mom!"
My parents didn't slow down and they barely said another word as they led me and Kaylee all the way out of the hospital and into the parking lot, and finally to mum's car. They bundled me and my girlfriend into the back seats, then mum got behind the wheel.
"Mom? Mum?" I asked. "Will you at least tell me -"
Mom interrupted, "No Cass. Save it till we're home, hon."
Kaylee gave me a worried look, but there wasn't anything else to say. So I kept quiet for the rest of the short drive, and soon enough we were in the driveway at home. And a minute after that the four of us were sitting around the kitchen table. Me and Kaylee were next to each other on one side of the table while my parents sat across from us on the other side.
As soon as we were seated I demanded, "What are you two? I know you're not human, I know you've been lying to me forever! I know there's something magic or supernatural about you, I know you're both older than you look. I even know about those enchanted collars you have in your desk."
My parents exchanged a look, then mom sighed. "Cassandra we're sorry. When your mum and I adopted you, we promised each other we'd tell you the truth when you turned twenty-one. Then as you got older we thought about telling you sooner, maybe when you were eighteen..."
Mum took over, "Then you found out about magic last autumn and you joined that witch club. We wanted to tell you that day you first came home after you changed, but we worried about your new friends. We weren't sure it was safe to tell you, if your friends might find out. We didn't know what they might do with the information, knowing that they were familiar with the supernatural."
I asked, "So what are you? I want to know, I deserve to know!"
The two exchanged another look, then mum got to her feet. She excused herself, and disappeared into mom's office for a moment.
While she was gone mom asked, "Cassandra, Kaylee, will you both promise to keep this to yourselves? I know this is a lot to ask, but it's important."
"You don't want the rest of our club to know? Paige, Brooke, and the others?" Kaylee asked.
"That's correct," mom nodded. "I'm asking you both to keep this information to yourselves, it does not leave this house. I'm asking you not to tell your friends, or Miss Hawthorne."
Me and Kaylee looked at each other, then my girlfriend nodded "Ok Mrs. Underwood. I swear I'll keep this secret."
I added, "On one condition. If you really do have powerful healing magic, you have to help Brooke's mom."
Mum was back from the office by that point, she had that antique wood box with her. Mum set it down on the kitchen table but instead of sitting she just stood next to the table.
She and mom looked at each other, then mum nodded "All right Cassandra. I'll visit the hospital tonight and do what I can for Mrs. Tremblay."
"Then I swear I'll keep it secret too," I stated.
"As for what we are..." she opened the box then pulled one of the collars out of the black bag inside.
I had to shield my eyes again from the bright magic, as mum held the glass ring in her hand.
"These aren't collars," she said quietly as she lifted the circlet up towards her head. Instead of moving it to her neck she raised it up higher. When it got above her forehead it suddenly moved on its own, almost jumping from her hand to float a couple inches above her head. Her whole body lit up with magic, and a second later she was different.
Instead of my middle-aged mum wearing slacks and a t-shirt, she was a beautiful young woman dressed in a long flowing white robe. Her hair went from a short sandy-blonde bob to long and luxurious like spun gold, and both it and the robe seemed to flow in a non-existant breeze.
Most surprising of all were the two huge wings that sprouted from her shoulders, coated in brilliant pure white feathers. And the ring was now a glowing golden circlet floating in the air just over her head.
"They're halos," mum concluded, in a voice that sounded as pure and melodic as church bells.
Both me and Kaylee stared wide-eyed at the heavenly creature that now stood before us.
"You're an angel?" I gasped. "My mum is an angel?!"
Mom nodded, "We both are Cass. Or we were. We're Fallen, your mum and I both rejected our respetive Gods."
I turned my head to stare at her and asked, "You're an angel too? That other ring is your halo? Will you put it on?"
"No," mom shook her head. "I won't return to my angelic form."
"Why not?" I asked nervously. "Is it something awful?"
Mom gave me a sad smile and nodded, "I thought it was. I used to be known as Iulius... That's Julius in English. I'm trans honey, same as you. My God created me as a man, but I've always been a woman at heart. That's part of the reason why I rejected him. The old bastard wouldn't let me be my true self."
"Most other Gods allow their angels to take whatever form they wish," mum added. "But the one who created Julie was a stubborn old jackass."
I stared at mom for a few seconds, then got up and moved around the table to give her a hug.
"Mom I'm so sorry!" I said as I held her. "I'm glad you got to be your true self though!"
She hugged me back as she responded, "Thank you Cass. It's ok, all that happened a long time ago."
After a glance at mum she added, "The other reason I rejected him was he wouldn't let me be with the woman I loved."
"Same," mum said in her beautiful melodic voice. "I quit because the God who spawned me wouldn't allow me to be with Julie."
Kaylee had been completely silent for the last couple minutes, mostly just staring at the heavenly angel that was my mum. She finally spoke up as she looked from my mom to mum and asked, "You're both fallen angels? And you worked for two different Gods? Did you have a different name too?"
"That's correct Kaylee," mum replied. "And yes, in this form I was known as Tatiana."
With a smile she added, "That coin you're wearing as a pendant was blessed by the God who created me."
Her smile faded though and even though her voice was still beautiful it took on a harder tone as she stated, "That was the last straw. The hypocritical bastard wanted me to deliver it to a cardinal who worshipped the God who created Julie. It was meant to be a symbol of peace and unity he said, while in the next breath forbidding me from a union of my own with my beloved."
"So I accepted the blessed coin and returned to the mortal realm," she continued. "But instead of giving it to some cardinal in Florence I gave it to my true love."
Mom smiled happily, "Tanya forsook her God for me, and I rejected mine for her. We took off our halos together, and turned our backs our respective creators and their mortal representatives."
I couldn't help smiling too, "And eventually you gave me the coin, you said it was a good luck charm. Then last December I gave it to Kaylee."
"My necklace was blessed by a God..." Kaylee half-whispered as she looked down at the coin hanging by a cord around her neck.
Then her eyes got even wider and she gasped, "Wait, are you talking about the Council of Florence?! That was almost six hundred years ago! You mean this coin was supposed to help mend the schism between the eastern and western churches?!"
Mum reached up and pulled her halo away, and her body returned to the normal mum I'd known all my life.
She shrugged, "I suppose. Our Gods thought it was a big deal at the time, and if they'd showed Julie and I a little compassion maybe things would have worked out differently."
While Kaylee was dealing with that revelation mum put her halo back in the cloth bag then closed the wooden box. Finally she looked at me and warned, "Please promise you'll never touch these, ok Cass? It's not safe. Your mom and I can handle them, but I have no idea what it might do to you if you touched them."
"Ok," I nodded. "I promise."
Mum took the wood box back to mom's office, then returned to the kitchen and sat back down again. She and mom looked at each other again, then mum asked "Have we answered all your questions Cass?"
I frowned as I thought for a bit, then asked "How did you know I could drain magic? Did you know I can also see magic?"
Mom sighed, "We figured it out when you were a baby. We had some small enchantments around the house, but shortly after we brought you home we discovered the enchantments kept breaking."
"We were very confused for a while," mum added. "Till we finally realized it was you. We did some tests to be sure, that's when we discovered you could also see magic. You'd follow it with your eyes if we sent a spell over your crib."
"We've been careful ever since then, not to have any magic around the house. And not to use magic where you could see it," mom concluded.
I sighed as all that sank in. Kaylee reached over and took my hand in hers, then gave it a gentle supportive squeeze. That helped a little, and I gave her a little squeeze back.
After a few more seconds I asked, "Are you going to help Brooke's mom? And what's going to happen to Mr. Roslovic?"
Kaylee added, "Mrs. Tremblay has MS, it flares up now and then and she has to go into the hospital while they look after her."
My parents exchanged another look, then mum nodded. "I'll visit the hospital tonight. Mrs. Tremblay will be ok by morning. Doctors will say it's gone into remission again, but it won't come back...as long as you two don't break the oath you swore."
It felt weird that Mrs. Tremblay's health was tied to me and Kaylee keeping our promise, but then I realized that I was the one who made that a condition of our oath. It meant we'd have to be extra careful not to reveal my parents' secrets though.
"As for Isaac," mum added with a frown, "I suppose I'll pay him another visit. I'll ask him to promise he won't practice necromancy anymore, and in return I'll cure his wife."
Mom agreed, "I think that's a good solution. Maybe suggest he and his wife relocate too? I'm sure there's going to be undue attention on him, after the missing bodies and the zombie sightings."
Mum nodded, "I'll make sure to mention that."
With that it sounded like just about everything was taken care of. We found the necromancer, but my parents were going to solve the problem. Brooke's mom was going to be cured too, which was a bonus. And I found out mom and mum were really fallen angels, and they apologized for keeping secrets and lying to me.
I just had one question left, but I was kind of scared to ask it. I forced myself to do it though. I took a deep breath then asked quietly, "What about me? Am I an angel like you? Why can I see and absorb magic, when nobody else can do that?"
Both my parents sighed, and mom shook her head.
"We don't know Cassandra. We don't know who or what your biological parents were."
~ End of Episode Four ~
