Maria was lost in darkness. Then when her eyes opened, she was much smaller than she remembered. She was on her back in the center of what seemed to be a huge garden. She could see marble pillars ahead and behind. She jumped when she saw a black shape form beside her and look down at her out of the shimmering blackness that flickered in and out of existence came a hand like appendage and she took it and it pulled her up. She remembered it, or him, the dark one. She looked around for Esther as she was never far away from him. She was a full foot shorter than she remembered. She looked down at her hands they were so small. She looked down at herself and realized the dress she was wearing was white and had blue designs on it. She was so small.

“What is happening sir?”

The ghost looked down at her silently. It put it’s hand like appendage on the top of her head and then on her back patting it gently. She saw a blond-haired boy, who as a little taller than her run into the gardens. He smiled when he saw her.

“Mariana!”

His name came to her lips

“Lucius.”

“I have been looking all over for you. Mother was worried.”

Lucius tugged on her hand and Maria didn’t resist.

“Hurry, one of the legions is marching to the senate, you’re going to miss it.”

Maria let herself be tugged along she saw a kindly woman. The woman, no not woman, her mother, smiled and waved at the pair as they passed. The pair ran into a strict looking woman wearing a dress. Her muscles were lean and toned. She motioned for them to follow and led them to the top of a building where they could see the vast legion marching towards the senate. Maria watched the procession wide eyed; She had heard about it so many times in her Latin class, but now she was living and breathing the glory of Rome. Behind her she felt the ever-watchful presence of her dark guardian. In the flickering darkness that made up his form she made out his two muscular arms and the glowing red eyes that hid there. He watched the soldiers passing. She released Lucius’s and the woman's hands and then grabbed one of her dark guardian’s wrists. He lowered his hand wrapping it in hers. These echoes of her memory seemed alien, but he had always been and always would be her guardian. She could see the shape of his head quirk to the side and his chin pointed towards her brother and then Amara. Maria held his hand firmly. He nodded to her and looked towards the seemingly unending lines of Roman soldiers. She looked up to her constant dark companion.

“Who are you sir?”

She saw his lips open then shock of cold hit her face and body. She blinked away the sleep that clung to her eyes. She was sitting beside Enid and there were four people in front of them. She was tied up at the wrists...

*****

Maria crossed herself taking deep breaths as she leaned against the doorway of her room. She looked at the four pills in her hand. Ethel jumped through her door. Maria clinched her fist more tightly. Ethel tried to pull her fingers apart.

“No, mommy took those and didn’t wake up. You can’t have them!”

Maria struggled with the child.

“Get out of my room Ethel”

“No, I’m not going to let you kill yourself!”

“I am already dead; I just need to sleep again for a little while.”

“Maria no!”

Maria shoved the girl away sending her sprawling.

“I need to do this Ethel, I know you do not understand, I’m sorry for pushing you but you hurt my hand.”

Maria looked down at her hand. It had several scratches on it from Ethel’s fingernails. They healed rapidly in the darkness of the pre-dawn morning.

“Ethel if you do not leave, I’m going to do a ritual to force you out. Please do not make me do that.”

“You don’t know how!”

“Ethel, I am afraid I do, I asked you nicely. I will remove it once I’m done.”

“Don’t! What if you can’t wake up? Don’t abandon me, Maria!”

Maria reached out her free hand and started chanting in Atlantean. If Mariana's journal was correct this ritual should bar ghosts from entering the space. She had learned a great deal in the short time she had the tablet. Her eyes flared purple and a series of runes flared to life around the edge of the room and Ethel was thrown outwards her screams became muffled by a wall and eventually silenced. She could see the runes flaring at two places around the room as Ethel and her dark guardian tried to penetrate the barrier. She had expected it to drain her, but she barely felt the cost of the magic. She looked at the place that Ethel had occupied only seconds before and felt blood tears on her cheeks. She crossed her self again her fingers falling to her ever present crucifix. It was one constant in her life that she felt brought her closer to God. She closed her eyes.

“Forgive me for stealing these pills and hurting my friends but I must know. I must remember more.”

She put the pills down on the table beside the glass of water she always had there. Her pale fingers stroked her crucifix she pursed her faint blue lips with determination. She stood up and locked her door. Then waited for sunrise which was only moments away. As the sun shone on her bed through the opened curtains she took one, then two pills. Then slid the others into her drawer under her dresses. Then laid back on her bed. After several minutes she felt her eyelids becoming heavy. She smiled and whispered.

“Sleep.”

*****

Maria’s eyes fluttered open again. She sat up and she looked around. She was in a stone and marble room. She was laying on a Roman bed and beside her lay a younger looking Enid. She felt pain in her hand and looked at her palm and saw a fresh bandage. She unwrapped it and saw the fresh cut that would become her scar far into the future. She glanced back at the sleeping Enid. Enid tossed in her sleep as if shoving someone away.

“I wonder what could frighten you my fearless friend…. My fearless sister.”

Maria’s hand went to her neck, but she did not find a crucifix there. She took her sister’s hand and squeezed. Enid’s tormented sleep seemed to evaporate. And her breathing fell into the pattern of a normal fitful sleep. Maria let her hand go and stood up. She pushed through the bright red curtain that separated her sister’s room from the estate and looked around. She could see the night sky peaking in over the gardens. She had expected the estate to be quiet but there was a bustle of activity. Servants moving about carrying pitchers. She peaked around a corner and saw a table of pale people the woman with dark hair sat beside a handsome man…she recognized him, it was her father. The woman was Aurelia her mother. The bearded man to his right with yellow eyes and a large claw scar on his throat was her Uncle Remus. The rest she could not identify, though one wore regal Egyptian clothing she’d only see worn by the wealthiest of Egyptian envoys to Rome, she had the strangest cat eyes that suddenly focused on her. Maria gave a gasp and her hand went towards her non-existent crucifix as their eyes met she saw nothing human in the woman’s heart. She felt firm hands take her shoulders.

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“Teenage girls should be in bed, Mariana. This is for the council’s eyes only.”

Maria looked up for the Greek woman was almost half a foot taller than her. When she met the woman’s eyes, she saw a kinship there, as if this woman considered her almost a daughter. Amara! Maria thought to herself.

“Perhaps if you choose to accept your father’s gift when you’re older you will one day sit at his left. But for now, off to bed with you.”

Maria felt herself turned around towards the sleeping rooms of the estate. She walked aimlessly for she did not know which was hers. As she reached the end of the terrace, she saw her dark guardian staring at her as if he dared not tread further into the estate. His eyes were fixated on the council meeting until Maria approached then they shifted to her. When he spotted her he rushed towards her seeming to forget all caution and tried to push her gently towards a curtained sleeping chamber. She gave him little resistance and found herself in a room with a bed and a desk full of papyrus with notes in various languages written down. The dark guardian looked about and checked under the bed then peaked out of the curtain and huddled by it defensively. Maria turned back to him. Putting a hand on his back and looked up at him. She spoke in Latin because it felt right.

“What has you so frightened sir?”

A dark arm and hand pulled out of the shroud that was this dark being and pointed towards the council chambers. Its finger went to the part of its face that seemed to form a mouth as if to tell her to be silent.

“This is a dream, we are in no danger here, who are you?”

Its form shifted and flickered as it turned to look at her, its head shifting to the side.

“I am trying to remember who I am, and I’m sure I know who you are, but I cannot remember. Could you tell me?”

His hand lifted up and brushed some of Mariana’s fifteen-year-old bodies flowing bangs out of her face. He touched his head and made a rubbing motion as if he was washing a wall then pointed to Maria’s forehead. Maria nodded.

“I am sleeping so I can remember what I have forgotten. You see I am not able to sleep normally so I took some pills so I could sleep and find out, but I just seem to be reliving my memories in flashes. But maybe if you could tell me who you are it might help me remember more about myself?”

The dark guardian’s form shifted and flickered as it moved again. Maria’s hand went to her neck looking for her crucifix with her fingers again but found nothing at least in the dream. He reached up and pointed to Maria’s eyes and then pointed to the council chambers and then back to Maria’s eyes.

“I do not understand what you are trying to tell me sir.”

He floated to her desk and her quill lifted up and the lid for her ceramic ink vial fell off and writing started to appear on the paper, it was in an ancient language that Maria with some difficulty was able to read, though she had no name for it.

“You should not be here, as you look into the darkness, the darkness looks back at you. You are not safe here.”

Maria shook her head her fingers now pressing against her upper chest where her crucifix should be.

“This is just a dream, a memory. Nothing can hurt me here.”

The quill scribbled across the paper again.

“Isis is the queen of dreams. When you do not sleep you are hidden from her eyes. As all godlings of age are. When you dream she can see you.”

“Who is Isis?”

The quill scribbled on the papyrus again only this time it was not words but a set of cat eyes that stared at Maria who stepped backwards her fingers pressing harder against her chest.

“You must wake up, Maria.”

“I can’t, I took something.”

“She can find you then, you are supposed to be dead.”

Maria’s fingers squeezed together, desperate for her safe space, her crucifix.

“I am here, we cannot change that, tell me who you are maybe I can remember more and I will not be tempted to come back here.”

“I am Samael.”

“The angel?”

“I am he. My physical body was destroyed in the war with Lucifer, but I am bound to protect you, Avatar of Death. As I have always been, and always will be. You must never return to your dreams child. Ever. Esther was right you should not have taken those pills but now we are barred from your room and we cannot wake you.”

Maria’s fingers fidgeted on her chest as she translated the words as they appeared on by one. She tried to will herself awake. She could not.

“Can you tell Enid?”

“My sister cannot hear or see me without a ritual. The Avatar of Life has no commerce with death.”

“What about other angels?”

“As I have said, my brothers and sisters cannot see me, they assume I am gone. Ethel is trying to wake someone by causing a disturbance.”

“You are bigger can you not help her?”

“I am bound to only touch yourself or others who touch the land of the dead. Or those who threaten your person. I have no power beyond that child.”

Maria felt panic rising her. She started praying out loud in English. She saw the curtain shift aside and her eyes met the cat eyes of Isis who reached out to touch her. Then sleep was ripped away from her as she sat up bolt upright with a scream. Her fingers could feel the comforting cool metal of her silver crucifix and when she looked around. The Mother Superior was holding her shoulders and had just let out a bit of a yelp herself when the curtains suddenly closed of their own accord.

“Maria, are you okay?”

Maria wasn’t breathing at the moment, but her body was shaking. She had felt so close to danger as Isis’s hand had reached out for her. Like someone had just walked past her bed in the middle of the night intent on doing her harm.

“I am okay it was just a nightmare.”

“Did you take pills Maria? I found a note that looks like it was written by a child that said you had tried to kill yourself.”

Maria pulled back slightly her pale fingers stroking the crucifix and she didn’t meet the nun’s eyes.

“I did take some. I wanted to sleep and I could not.”

“Maria you should never take someone else’s medication, you do not know the correct dosages.”

“I know ma’am, it was dangerous.”

“Do you know who could have sent the note?”

“Ethel.”

“Ethel?”

“Ma’am, Ethel was ten when her Uncle… he did things to her then murdered her. She will not move on.”

“She is passed?”

Maria nodded. She could see Ethel staring at the closed curtain arms crossed tapping her foot looking angry and hurt.

“Yes, in nineteen sixty-four. She is still listed as missing; They have not found her body.”

“Have you been seeing things for very long Maria?”

“I know you do not believe me ma’am, that is alright.”

“We all see things sometimes Maria.”

Ethel threw her ball at Maria and hit her in the side of the head.

“Stupid nun. She’d probably eat a dick before she’d believe in ghosts!”

“Ethel language!”

Ethel stuck her tongue out at Maria.

“You can’t tell me what to do anymore!”

Ethel stomped out of the room after collecting her ball.

“Maria?”

“I am sorry ma’am.”

“What is she saying to you right now?”

“She is not saying anything ma’am, she stomped out of the room because I kept her out because she was trying to stop me from taking the pills.”

“What did she say before she left, that upset you?”

“Ma’am I cannot repeat what she said, it was very offensive. She has uses very bad language.”

“Oh. Maybe we should get someone to talk to you about this?”

“I am okay ma’am, I see what I have done wrong and will not do it again.”

Maria was mostly looking at the dark guardian who had taken up position at the end of her bed when she spoke the words. He nodded to her. She saw him drift out of the room and then in the direction Ethel had run off too. Maria gave a small sigh of relief.

“If you would like to see a doctor to talk about your trouble sleeping, we can make an appointment.”

“No ma’am. I am okay now.”

“As long as you are sure, Maria.”

“I am.”

“Very well, I will trust that this will never happen again.”

Maria nodded and opened her drawer. She picked up the two pills and gave them back to the Mother Superior. Who took them.

“I will never do this again Ma’am.”

“Okay, but you had best go to confession young lady.”

“I will ma’am.”

The mother superior stood up and walked out of Maria’s room leaving the door open. Maria opened the curtains and looked at the sun. One hand touching the window. The other touching her crucifix. Knowing the truth of who her dark guardian was had not unraveled more memories, but it gave her comfort knowing he was once an angel.