The Shadow That Smiled At Me

Chapter twenty one

I'm moving to New York. The big day I've been waiting for has arrived. I'm leaving Los Angeles and all life here behind and starting anew far from here, on the other side of the States.

I packed up my whole room, my whole life, in boxes. I packed books, clothes, photos and memories of the past. I packed absolutely everything. Nothing but the furniture remained in its original place.

Mother was joking with sadness in her eyes. "You don't have to pack everything like you're never coming back."

What if I don't plan on ever coming back?

I checked everything a hundred times, making sure I didn't forget anything. We loaded the boxes into the moving van and headed to New York. I looked around the empty room, it seemed unnaturally empty. It harbored ghosts. Voices echoed. The silence was deafening. It was a strange feeling to leave it all here, I suddenly felt somewhat nostalgic. Thousands of memories, both good and bad, flashed before my eyes. I got a little scared. I will be alone in a new place. Will I be able to leave this behind? I felt a slight insecurity. But I still insist on my escape. I'm sure of one thing, and that's that I can't spend another second here.

⸸

We walked with Samael in the gardens of his palace. The full moon shone in the sky. The landscape was bathed in soft moonlight, thanks to which I could see in the dark without any problems. The breeze blew gently, blowing my hair from my back to my face. The sweet scent of roses wafted through the air.

Samael brushed the flying hair behind my ear. "It's your birthday, dear Arya, what would you wish?" He stroked my cheek gently with the back of his hand. "Now that freedom awaits you as you leave for New York, what would you want? What does your heart desire?'

What my heart longs for, he cannot give me, no one can - to silence my mind, that eternal whirlwind of thoughts. Banish the demons haunting me day and night. So I preferred to answer like this: "I want all the stars in the night sky."

"Then let them be yours," Samael said, handing me something that looked like a crystal ball but when I looked into it, I saw the night sky dotted with millions of tiny stars. There was even the same full moon shining over our heads as it was tonight. It looked like he took the sky above us and enclosed it in a glass. I couldn't take my eyes off it.

"Do you like it?" Samael asked me.

I smiled mischievously. "Do you realize that the more you give me, the more I will want, dear Samael?"

"I'll give you anything in the world, dear Arya," he said.

"I want only you, dear Samael," I said. "I want nothing more than you."

"You already have me, so why not give you something more."

⸸

The morning brought me back to the world outside the shadows, to my normal life. Locked in a glass ball, the night lay beside me on the bed. I took it in my hand and took a good look at it again. All the stars of the night sky just for me, saved just for my eyes. The memory of it brought a smile to my face.

I lazily dragged myself out of bed, threw on ripped jeans, a leopard-print corset, and high-top black canvas sneakers and went down to the kitchen for my last breakfast in this house. I felt an overwhelming excitement that I was going to fly out today. I'll be walking around my apartment in New York tonight. I will watch the sun set behind the skyscrapers and sleep in my new bed - well, how to say sleep, it's been months since I last actually slept. The idea that today I will have a completely different view from the window of my room sounds incredible.