NEPHILIM | PAUL LAHOTE

9 - LIBRA

NOVA HAD SPENT her day off school with her grandfather – reading about the legends and talking about Ember. She had woken up feeling quite ill and still had a fever, she hoped she wasn't coming down with anything because she hated being sick.

"Here you go, angel." Kit greeted his granddaughter by placing a bowl of chicken soup on the table in front of her. Nova looked to her pops and grinned, he always made the best soup. Kit had lifted Nova's legs up and sat on the couch next to her, then resting her legs on top of his own. "This should make you feel a bit better."

Nova's eyed scanned all the tribal books on the coffee table and decided to pick one up that she swore she hadn't seen before. She skimmed through the pages before something caught her eye.

The page she came across had a picture and Nova could swear that it looked exactly like her. Her eyebrows furrowed, scanning the picture. It was an old drawing, almost looked hundreds of years old but she could see still the resemblance. From the black curly hair, the dimple in her right cheek, the freckle under her left eye and even right down to the chicken pox scar on her collarbones. She turned the page to Kit, pointing to the girl on the page.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" Kit grinned at her granddaughter and then flipping to the next page for her that read 'NEPHILIM'. It was her favourite legend, but she still didn't understand the drawing. She read the words on the page and all it did was make her more confused. The drawing was apparently what the Nephilim girl looked like according to ancient tribal members. Nova ended up shaking her head, she was only getting more confused. She turned to the next page where another drawing caught her eye, it seemed so familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

The drawing was of three wolves, two of them facing each other and looked as if to be howling at the moon and the two wolves formed into one wolf in the middle. The picture was definitely old and tribal like, it was hard to make out what it meant. She tried to find a heading on what it was or meant like she could find with the Nephilim, but she couldn't find it for this. She was snapped out of her trance by her granddad's voice,

"The Nephilim story was your grandmothers favourite too, you know?"

Nova smiled sadly, she wished so badly that she could have met her. Kit seemed to still be so in love with her. The way that everyone she ever met spoke about Bonnie made Nova knew that she was a good person and did not deserve to lose her life so early. She asked her mother often what had happened, but her mother always mumbled something about being sick. Nova never had the guts to ask her grandfather what had actually happened because she didn't want to make him upset so she left it, just assuming her mother is right, and she died from an illness.

"Woman with taste, I see." Nova replied, earning a smirk from Kit.

"She was married to me for crying out loud, of course she had good taste." Nova giggled in response earning a sigh from her grandfather.

"I understand your pain, Nova Star. More than you could begin to imagine – but it does get better, time heals all my angel. You just haven't given yourself time." Nova frowned, she knew he was right, but she just could not give herself into the grief – all she wanted to do was keep herself busy and thinking so she didn't have to remind herself that her best friend was dead.

"I get it, I do... But it's hard when your own parents ship you off because they couldn't handle the fact I was trying to grieve. Instead, they thought I needed help."

"I know that your mother handled things the wrong way but please believe me when I tell you all she wanted was the best for you, angel. She was worried about you and thought you were going to do something stupid if you continued living there. She thought that coming here was the best thing she could do, and I think she was right." Kit reached his hand out to Nova's and squeezed it, reassuring her that he was still on her side.