Nephilim's Fall: Chapter Thirteen

Stella meets Ari.

Chapter 13

 

I trailed behind Conner and Olivia as they led me through yet another section of what seemed to be the endless interior of the building. I stared at my feet as I walked, unwilling to look at my surroundings in case I happened to see anything truly fantastical that might dislodge my already shaky grip on what almost passed for acceptance of this crazy world. It was because of this that I didn't notice Conner stopping in front of me, and almost collided with the back of him. I skidded to a halt, only just managing not to stumble backwards, and dragged my gaze upwards, searching for what had stopped Conner so effectively in his tracks. I regretted it immediately. 

We were standing in the doorway of what looked like a formal living room, complete with stuffed leather couches and armchairs that looked like they'd never been sat in. The room smelt like it hadn't been used in months: dusty, almost moldy. A grandfather clock stood ornately in one corner, but its pendulum hung stationary, forgotten in its casing. 

A small part of my mind registered these things, but only momentarily. The rest of it was given over entirely to terror. In front of us stood a formidable looking group, all of their eyes focused on my face, and none, it seemed, too kindly. I resisted the urge to move closer to Conner, feeling suddenly surrounded and powerless, not to mention unwelcome. 

The group was about fifteen strong, and made up of men and women of all ages. Although they lacked similarity in build, height, or facial features, it would have been obvious to anyone in my position that there was something about them all that was the same, linking them somehow; though most people would probably have put it down to uncanny family resemblance. I had, however, made the leap from being "most people" to being one of a select few who recognized these figures for what they truly were. 

It wasn't only their blonde hair, varying from almost brown to nearly white, or their blue eyes, each a slightly different shade from the person standing next to them, that marked them out, but their inhuman beauty, and the graceful way they held themselves, obvious even when they were motionless. Individually, they would have simply seemed unusually genetically blessed, each of them one in a thousand, but together like this, it felt like some otherworldly beauty pageant. I shivered, dropping my gaze again to the floor, still too new to the knowledge of what these people were not to feel afraid.

I noticed William standing towards the back of the group, his eyes narrow and the corners of his mouth turned downwards in what could only be called a scowl. My attention was quickly pulled away from him, though, when someone began speaking.

"What is the meaning of this, Conner?" A foreboding looking girl stood directly in front of Conner, her arms crossed over her chest and her eyebrows drawn low over her eyes. I noticed then that Olivia had moved to stand by her side.

"The meaning of what; Marissa" Conner asked coolly, the muscles in his shoulder blades tensing as he spoke to her.

"The girl" She spoke through her teeth, waving one hand in my direction without taking her eyes off Conner.

"Her name is Stella," he replied, "and she'll be staying with us for as long as it takes for the danger in Riverwood to pass."

Marissa's eyes narrowed, flicking momentarily to meet mine. I flinched away from the venom in her gaze, once again dropping my eyes to my feet.

"That's not your decision to make. I don't care what her name is, it makes no difference one way or another. She's not our responsibility."

"Why not?" This voice came from the group, and the young man it belonged to stepped forward to face the woman called Marissa. His short hair was pale blonde, and gelled into spikes pointing skywards. His chin was almost pointy, and his forehead round. It was the kind of face that would have been called heart-shaped on a woman. On him, though, it was somehow masculine. "Why shouldn't this Stella be our responsibility? Are we not charged with the protection all of all people?" 

A girl who had been standing next to him in the group nodded enthusiastically, while several others muttered thickly to one another. A few looked fairly unfazed, and I took solace in the thought that they didn't all seem to be against me. 

Marissa rolled her eyes at the boy who had spoken, making it obvious exactly how highly she held his particular opinion. "We can't protect everyone, Nathaniel. It's exactly that kind of thinking that gets us into tricky situations."

"Tricky situations?" The boy named Nathaniel's eyes narrowed. "I suppose that's in reference to the recent events at Riverwood?"

She sighed, rolling her eyes in a rather unnecessarily dramatic fashion. "I shouldn't need to remind you that that particular blunder is what has called us all back from where we really need to be." 

I gaped at that, horrified at what this girl seemed to be implying.

"No, Marissa, you're absolutely right." The group's attention moved to Nathaniel as he replied, his face mirroring the disgust on several of theirs. "We can't protect everyone, and we certainly couldn't protect everyone from the slaughter at Riverwood." He grimaced, his expression pained momentarily before he continued. "But we did try, because that's all we can do. And we can protect Stella, with very little effort on our part, as far as I can see. Is that right, Conner?" He turned to Conner, smiling in my direction as he did

"That's right," Conner nodded his tone almost smug. "You wouldn't have to do anything. Stella would be my responsibility entirely."

I resisted the urge to kick him behind the kneecaps when he said that, implying to all these strangers that I couldn't take care of myself. Instead I glared at his oblivious back, until I realized that Nathaniel was watching me, a knowing smile pulling up the corners of his mouth. Thankfully, everyone else's attention seemed to be on Marissa, and, looking at her, it wasn't hard to see why. Her face was contorted into an ugly grimace, and she seemed to realize that the argument wasn't tilting in her favor.

Olivia glared at Conner too, her own expression almost a mirror image of the girl's beside her. Looking at them standing side by side, it was hard not to see a resemblance, somehow more pronounced than the one that linked all of them as being Nephilim. They looked almost like sisters. 

Marissa's mouth opened and shut several times, as if she didn't know what to say. Her face seemed to be growing steadily redder as the seconds wore on. After long moments, she finally found the words she wanted, and spat them with such venom that I couldn't help but flinch away from her. "We simply cannot let people stay here. This place is supposed to be just for us, you of all people should know that, Nathaniel. You both should." She glared between Nathaniel and Conner before letting her gaze fall on me. 

I stared back at her defiantly; suddenly infuriated by the way this girl was telling Conner what to do with me as if I wasn't even in the room. I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what she could do with her place, but stopped myself when Conner glanced back at me for a fraction of a second, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. 

I grimaced at his back; irritated at the way he seemed to know what I was going to do even before I did. With a start I realized that this was probably because of the "empathy" he'd told me about earlier, and I felt almost violated at the intrusion into my emotions. For a second I was nearly angry at him for invading my head without my permission, but then I realized that he'd just sense that, too. I remained motionless behind him, determinedly focusing on keeping my emotions in check. It took about a second for me to realize that my anger wasn't going anywhere. I sighed, giving up.

"Look, if Caleb's already said that it's alright, and I understand that he has, then I don't really see what we're all arguing about here." This came from a girl in the group with an irritated expression and hair that fell to her waist in almost white waves. "The girl's here now, and I for one wouldn't feel comfortable sending anyone back to Riverwood at the moment. She won't be any trouble?" She directed that last at Conner.

"No; none at all" 

I twisted uncomfortably under the weight of the stares that were now directed at me. "You won't even know I'm here," I mumbled, forcing what I hoped was a convincing smile onto my face.

Nathaniel nodded in satisfaction at the same moment that Marissa snorted indignantly. 

The girl who had spoken on my behalf shrugged, turning away. "Well, if that's all sorted. I think you'd agree, Marissa, that we have much more important issues to discuss." She walked out of the room, and the others trailed behind her, several of them casting wary glances back in my direction. Olivia left the room last, but not before glaring furiously at Conner and the boy named Nathaniel, who had also stayed behind. The girl from the group who had been nodding in agreement with Nathaniel was there too, and she moved to stand beside him when the rest of the room was empty.

"Hello Stella," she lilted in a voice that reminded me of birdsong, smiling widely at me. Her hair was a dark blonde that could almost be called brown, and her eyes were steely grey. Somehow, in spite of this, she managed to look like a painted doll, though she wasn't wearing any makeup. I instantly found myself liking her. "My name is Ebony. I do hope you'll forgive everyone for being so frightfully rude. They're all just a little bit shaken up at the moment; usually they're so much more civil towards friends of the family."

I returned her smile shyly, embarrassed once again by all the attention. I was already beginning to crave the little room that Conner and I had left only minutes ago.

"Now, no use trying to feed her that, Ebbs," the boy named Nathaniel said. He turned to me with an apologetic grin on his face. "Most of them are never any more civil to friends of ours, regardless of just how "shaken up" they happen to be at any particular time."

My heart fell at the thought of meeting a reaction like that every time I ran into one of them, but it rose a little again when I realized that Nathaniel had called me his friend. My ambivalence must have shown on my face, because Nathaniel was quick to reassure me, seeming to take it for melancholy.

"Nothing personal against you, it's just that they can get a bit stuck on their rules sometimes, regardless of what most would consider common good manners." He seemed to think that he wasn't cheering me up, so he added, "They'll accept you here soon; don't worry; even if they need a little bit of persuading." He chuckled, and I wondered what kind of persuading he meant, exactly. "Anyway, most of them won't have any problem with you being here, they are generally pretty decent folks; it's really just that witch Marissa who might be a bit of a problem. Her and Olivia, that is." He cast a seemingly meaningful look at Conner, and I watched for his reaction, curious about this silent exchange. His face gave nothing away, though, and I stored the glance in the back of my head for further examination later on.

I looked around the room then, expecting to see William. It took me a moment to realize that he wasn't there. My stomach sank, and my mind jumped to what seemed like the only valid conclusion: he'd left with the other group, the anti-Stella group. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, feeling suddenly inexplicably downcast, considering that I barely knew him. Conner noticed my mood instantly, of course.

"Stella? What's wrong?" The concern in his tone was almost suffocating.

I sighed, not really wanting to talk about it, but knowing that Conner would wheedle it out of me sooner or later if I didn't. "Oh, it's just... I don't know, I thought maybe William would stick around."

"What do you mean?" Nathaniel asked, visibly confused.

"Nothing," I shrugged, embarrassed suddenly.

"Oh," Ebony smiled. "You think that he left with the others."

I shrugged again. "Well, didn't he?"

"No, silly girl," she murmured, her melodic voice making the words come out in an almost sing-song manner. She laughed, clapping her hands together. "He's with Ari, his baby sister. He left just after you arrived, didn't you notice?"

"Oh." I could feel my cheeks fill with coloring, embarrassment at jumping to conclusions flooding my face. I'd obviously been too preoccupied by Marissa to pay proper attention to the rest of the group. I smiled to myself, hugely glad that I still had a friend in this hell hole.

Nathaniel and Ebony laughed when they saw me smiling, but Conner's attention seemed to be elsewhere, his gaze locked unseeingly across the room. Nathaniel moved forward, reaching his hand out to squeeze my shoulder.

"Do you want to meet her?" he asked, his eyes sparkling.

"Who?" I asked confused.

"Well, Ari, of course!" he laughed.

"Oh!" I grinned, imagining a little girl version of William. The image in itself was too intriguing to say no. "I'd love to."

"You'll love her," Ebony smiled knowingly, before turning to glide out of the room. Nathaniel moved after her, and I fell in step behind him. I glanced over my shoulder as I walked through the doorway, and sure enough, Conner was following close on my heel.

Several minutes later, in yet another wing of the seemingly endless "House", we were standing in a quiet hallway similar to the one that my bedroom opened off of. There was something different between the two, though, something not quite physical, but definitely there. Somehow, while "my" hallway seemed cold and uninhabited, this one seemed positively homely. In appearance they were almost identical, but the very atmospheres of the two were entirely unalike.

"This is where some of the permanent residents live," Nathaniel explained in a whisper when he noticed me staring around.

"Oh," I murmured in reply, for some reason feeling the need to lower my voice in response to his, though I had no idea why we were whispering.

Ebony rapped softly on the door in front of us, placing her ear against the wood as she did. After listening for a moment, she smiled, leaning backwards as the door swung open. 

William stood in the doorway, his face shadowed in the dim hallway light. There only seemed to be a faint glow coming from inside the room. He smiled warmly at each of us in turn, his eyes coming to rest on me last. Although his smile seemed genuine, he looked tired, worn down almost. There even seemed to be dark circles under his eyes, though I was sure they hadn't been there when I'd seen him earlier that afternoon.

"Come in," he murmured, ushering us through the door. Inside, the room was painted a pale shade of pink, and bore unmistakable signs of a pre-teen inhabitant. A HArih Montana poster adorned one wall, and fairy lights were wound around the head of a single bed and up the other, bathing everything in a soft yellow light. A tiny figure who could only be Ari sat on the bed, swaddled in a thick duvet, despite the late summer heat. 

Ebony and Nathaniel rushed forward as soon as they were through the door, moving to the little girl's side. Ebony ran her fingers through Ari's hair absently as she whispered something into her ear. Ari smiled, a small laugh pushing itself breathily past her lips, and both Ebony and Nathaniel's faces lit up in response.

Conner remained beside me in the doorway, motionless.

William stood by us, seeming to consider something. After a minute of silence, he grabbed my hand suddenly, tugging me across the room. We arrived at the bed, and he knelt down beside Nathaniel, pulling me with him so that I was kneeling in front of his sister, only inches away from her tiny frame.

I stifled a horrified gasp, driving my teeth into my cheek. It was obvious from the doorway that Ari was sick, but the true extent had been disguised by the soft light. I'd assumed she just had a virus, a cold or the flu or something, but at this proximity it was obvious that it was much more than that. Heavy circles sat under her eyes, so dark that they were almost purple. Her cheekbones stuck out from her face, her cheeks sunken to craters. Her eyes seemed huge, standing out alarmingly against a backdrop of translucent skin, her veins obvious, tracing spider web-like patterns across her cheeks and forehead. Her long blonde hair hung limply around her face, sticking to her scalp at the top of her head. She looked as if a strong gust of wind would pick her up and hurl her unthinkingly into the atmosphere.

I blinked back tears that suddenly loomed, my heart immediately heavy with sorrow for this fragile little girl who seemed ill beyond anything I had ever come close to experiencing, and her big brother; quiet, understanding William.

She stared at me for a long time, her eyes darting back and forth as they watched mine. "Hello," she whispered finally, a smile pulling up the corners of her mouth. That tiny smile looked like it took much more effort than it had any right to.

"Hi," I replied shakily, whispering to match her volume. "My name's Stella. I'm a friend of Conner's."

"It's lovely to meet you, Stella. I'm Ari, William's favorite sister."

He laughed, jabbing her softly in the ribs. "My only sister, you mean." 

“Same difference," she giggled, flinching away from his hand. Nathaniel and Ebony started laughing too, and soon we all were, our earlier whispers abandoned. 

I glanced behind me, searching for Conner to share the moment with, but he was gone, the door already closed behind him. My stomach twisted uneasily at being away from Conner for the second time since we'd arrived; it hadn't turned out particularly well the first, but my mind was quickly pulled away from that at a hesitant tapping on the side of my arm. I turned back to the group to find Ari staring expectantly at me, a question on her lips.

"You're normal, aren't you?"

I smiled, nodding. "That's right, nothing special about me."

"Oh, now, I wouldn't say that," Nathaniel interjected kindly, turning to William. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yeah," William murmured, his expression distant. "I wouldn't say that at all."

I blushed, surprised by these kind words from two almost strangers. Shrugging, I remained silent, realizing that this was an argument I had no hope of winning.

"Oh, well," Ari smiled, reaching out to play with a dangling strand of my hair. "I'm kind of sick of all these weirdo's, anyway." She giggled, her eyes darting to William, checking if she was in trouble. He just smiled, evidently letting it slide this time. "I've never had any normal friends," she whispered, leaning in towards me. "Will you be my friend, Stella?"

I stared at her for a long moment, this frail little girl, ravaged by her illness. My heart ached for her, and I knew in that moment that I would give her anything she asked.

“You know what? I think I'd like that, Ari."

She smiled happily, letting the strand of my hair that she'd been playing with fall from her fingers. "I'm so glad," she murmured, yawning widely before turning her gaze on William. "I'm tired," she said through another even bigger yawn, making me yawn in return. 

"That's okay sweetheart," William said, tenderly brushing a lock of her hair out of her eyes. "These guys can visit tomorrow."

She looked at each of us in turn, her eyes heartbreakingly wide. "Will you?"

"Promise," we said in unison.

"Okay," she sighed, lying backwards on her bed. "I'll see you all tomorrow, then. You especially, Stella, don't forget. We're friends now."

"That's right," I laughed, pushing myself to my feet and following Nathaniel and Ebony as they moved to the door. "See you tomorrow, Ari."

Author's Note

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