A lone figure sat curled up under the dim light of a half full moon, and a sky filled with both clouds and tiny pinprick stars. A heavy wind whipped around the open-air plaza, causing a fine mist to fall upon the figure.
With her face turned down towards the brick paved walkway, a white marble angel stood watch over the girl who sat at the base of the magnificent fountain. The water poured over the outstretched, marble hands of the angel, only to bubble up from a pool of water at her feet, and cascade over the sides of the pool into a basin of water.
The moon's feeble light reflected dimly off the many pieces of silver that had been tossed into the basin, along with a wish, at the angel's feet. The angel herself shown in the moon's light, the marble sparkled. The eyes of the angel danced with moons light.
The girl sat at on the basin's marble wall, at the feet of the angel. She had her knees drawn up to her chest, and she had edged out of the way of the wind that showered her in mist from the fountain. Her eyes stayed riveted to a small object in her hands. She passed the oval shape rock from hand to hand, turning it end over end.
"If you lose this, Morgan, honey," said the girl's mother as she pressed the engraved stone into her daughter's hand, "you've lost everything." Morgan hadn't understood then what her mother meant that gray morning before she died. Morgan had only been twelve at the time of her mother's death, but she sat by her bed to listened to her mother's dying words. She told Morgan about the faithful day that she had lost the stone, and had no time to search for it before leaving for an appointment with her doctor. She had known the moment that her fingers couldn't find the stone she held so dear that the doctor would not be giving her happy news. Indeed, he told her that cancer had sunk its teeth deep into her, and it was moving too fast, there was nothing that could be done for her. That had been the day that she lost all her beliefs, the next day, the stone was back upon her dresser. Morgan's mother used the last of her strength to warn her about losing the stone. When she had spoken her final word, all the strength left her body.
Shortly after the death of her mother, Morgan's father moved them out of their house to where they now live in a small apartment over looking the Angel in the Fountain. On their first night in their new home, Morgan couldn't sleep. Her farther had told her how her mother had come across the stone, that was now hers. She didn't believe his story that her stone was really the big toe of an angel made of the finest white marble.
Almost five years after her father told her the story about an angel with a missing toe, she found where her stone came from. For a week Morgan came to sit at the feet of the angel. At night she was plagued by nightmarish visions. The first night she had awoke from the visions, she had moved through the apartment building with a silent grace she hadn't known about. She traveled out into the hot night air as if in a daze. She didn't fully wake until cool water rained down on her from the angel's open palmed hands. Every night after that she sat in the shadow of the angel.
Hidden in other shadows, a presence watched her. He painted the visions that she saw on his canvasses. He feed her visions of what was to come of all angels, and he showed her the fear evil brings. For years, longer than Morgan's mother had been dead, he had been sending her visions. The images he showed her shaped her into a girl that never smiled, or laughed. He had tried his best to destroy her with the things she loved and with her own dreams, but Morgan had shown him that she was stronger then that. She still clung to hope by a thread. If he could get her to lose hope in herself for even the briefest amount of time, he would be able to destroy her, as he had planned to do many years ago, before she was a threat to him.
He had taken the time to sift through Morgan's thoughts; he intended to use her own thoughts against her. As he had hoped, the vision that he had planted inside her mind had grown and taken over all but the smallest part of her.
Morgan feared seeing the tormented angels, and he knew that was what he had to show her. He couldn't show her in dreams, that wasn't real to her. He had to show her while she was awake. He had set about painting vivid dreamscapes that depicted Morgan's nightmare visions, with one change to all of them. He enchanted the nights newest dreamscape to give it more depth and make the figures almost come alive.
It was the perfect night, thick with shadows, and a hint of moonlight so Morgan could see him, and a storm coming in on the winds. He slipped through the shadows, moving closer to Morgan. He was able to bind with the darkness to move without being detected by any humans. The marble eyes of the angel seemed to follow him, warning him to stay away. The closer he came, the thicker the air became with tension from two old foes.
i'Morgan,'i he sent his voice out on the wind. The name wrapped around the girl, spinning a web around her. She scanned the darkness for the voice before looking up into the face of the marble angel.
i'Yes Morgan, I'm an angel, but not the one whose feet you sit at.'i His voice still floated to her on the wind, it echoed back at her until turning into a dull roar. Panic grew inside her as the roar became louder. The air grew thicker with the roaring, her breath caught in her throat, her heart pumped wildly inside her. She tightened her grip on the smooth white stone. Without warning, the air pressure dropped back to normal, and all was silent, except for the running water of the fountain. Out of the silence stepped an angel with furrowing black wings.
Color drained from Morgan's fair complexion, leaving her as pale as the moon. She frowned at him as she studied his long black wings, his face, and the object he held in his ashen hands. With a slight wave of his hand, a cloud sailed over the moon, blocking its light. The marble angel standing guard over Morgan, shown with more light than before.
"I have something for you Morgan." He no longer had to cast his voice out over the wind. He held the drawing out to her, when she made no move to take it; he spoke inside her mind, i'Go on Morgan,'i She reached out her empty hand to take the paper from him.
Even as she examined the drawing he gave her, she didn't put the stone down. It seemed to have become apart of her, but not as big of a piece of her as she would have liked. She worried her fingers over the smooth surface constantly, like she needed reminding of its presence.
The frown that stayed fixed upon her face deepened as she studied the artwork. As a crease formed on her brow, recognition dawned clearly in her eyes. Her mouth pulled together, ready to ask a question, but she didn't know what to say.
Staring back at her from the heavy paper was herself, but not her at the same time. Her dark eyes, arched eyebrows, and nose had been captured perfectly. The contours of her face matched the ones in the drawing. Every detail of her face was exact, except there was no mouth, not a trace of one. No attempt had been made to give the girl in the drawing a voice.
There was also the fact that she had hauntingly beautiful wings sprouting just behind her shoulder blades. The angel had her wings spread wide; they dwarfed the girl, looking too big for such a small frame. The bases of the wings were made from the purest white feathers that arched up towards the heavens. The closer the wings came to the ground, the darker they grew in color. The tips of the angels wings brushed the ground and looked to be stained black from grit.
The angel was dressed solely in black, in the same black clothing as Morgan wore now. They had on the same long-sleeved black shirt, with flares at the end of the sleeves revealing her shockingly pale skin up to her elbows. They wore the same black pants held upon their hips with a length of black lace tied off to the side and trailing down their leg, only to be whipped about in the heavy wind. Both the angel and Morgan wore simple black sandals upon their feet. Above the angel's head rested a faint golden halo.
In the drawing, Morgan as an angel stood in front of the very fountain that Morgan had her back to now. The clear water had been replaced by a thick red liquid. The angel of the fountain had cracked in the drawing. A red sky was the backdrop for the picture instead of the night sky that Morgan knew so well.
When Morgan was finally able to look away from the dreamscape, she locked eyes with the angel with the black wings. He smiled at her and moved close to where she sat.
He took the drawing, and refolded it, he also took the stone from her hands, and placed it upon the folded drawing so the wind wouldn't be able to snatch it away. He took her by the hand, drawing her up from her perch on the fountain's low stonewall. She stood before him, not knowing what to expect, but too curious to leave.
He was impressed when she didn't fidget in nerves as he circled around her. She watched his silhouette from the corner of her eye until he was behind her, and out of sight. The air grew thick again, and earsplitting snapping sound shattered the nighttime silence. Morgan spun around, the marble angel had cracked, just how it appeared in the painting. The light that had been emitted from the marble was gone, leaving Morgan in almost complete blackness. Her heart was racing, her fingers moved as if they still held onto the stone, and it was then that she realized she had lost the stone to the angel with black wings.
From the shadows, he appeared in front of her again. She was frowning at him; any wonder that he held over her had vanished with the good angel's light and the lost of her only power against evil.
A small gust of wind blew through the courtyard sending leaves and other debris around Morgan's legs. The painting flapped around at her feet, it was no long held in place by the stone. She stooped to retrieve it off the ground.
i'Morgan,'i the wind moaned, she looked up at the man. He was holding the oval shape stone between his thumb and forefinger. The single word inscription of Hope on the stone had a deep crevice cutting through it. Morgan had lost humanities' hope to the darkest angel to emerge from the pits of molten fire. With his long fingers he tucked the stone away out of sight. Morgan sunk to her knees. He had defeated her.
She looked down at the picture in her hands. Before she could focus her eyes on the drawing, a fork of lightning, the color of red wine, split the sky. The drawing floated on the breeze. Morgan and the dark angel had vanished with the lightning.
The painting landed facing up, with Morgan's stone on top of it. The angel now had her mouth open in a forever silent scream and standing next to her, was the man with the black wings. It was clear to whomever looked upon the drawing; the red water flowing through the fountain's mouth was not simply water, but liquid fire.
The Angel of Death had taken Morgan, the keeper of the Hope Stone, into the realms of fire.
This is my own original piece of work. No part of this may be reproduced in anyway.
Copy written on October, 2002 by F. Hayley
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