Angel of the Fallen Star

~ Caged ~

Chapter Two: Angelica

             I knew I wouldn't wake up in my familiar room, to the cry of the seagulls wheeling out over the sea. I wouldn't see the dawn, cold and gray, or the bare tips of the straggling rosebushes in the garden outside my quaint little cottage. Everything would be different.

            I have to believe that what had happened was true, and that my story isn't over yet. I have to keep on, right to the end, whatever that might be.

            I have to believe that Logan betrayed me, though every inch of me doesn't want to.

            There are many kinds of betrayals. There are the small ones: the unkind word, the laughter behind someone's back, the petty lies. Even the ones like a silent tear falling on snow, gone unnoticed, insignificant. And then there are betrayals that break hearts, destroy worlds, and turn the strong, sweet light of day into bitter dust.

            The dreams started like this: I was standing alone in the church on the headland, with the sound of the sea sighing below the cliffs. I was sad, but I didn't cry. I felt quieter than I ever had before, cut off in a silence, as if the little gathering of well-wishers and neighbors, and the vicar and the hymns and the flowers, had taken no notice of me. Invisible. I had gone, like a dove flying into the dawn. In my dream, I was wearing a flowing white dress that waved in the golden sunlight and the ruffling breeze. I was just standing there, looking out over the sea, and a bittersweet smile played at my lips dreamily. I'm not sure who the dream funeral was for, but it caught me, and I felt as if I could've been blown away, swept up by the warm summer wind, drifting away to a faraway place.

            I was concious that the days were slipping past, tender with grief, and I wasn't going to return to the place I had once known for a long time. I was leaving behind the seagulls and the cliffs and the sea behind me once again.

           My dream changed. I turned suddenly, headed down the rocky path toward the sea. As I walked along, the pale sun was rising from behind the clouds, pouring a spill of yellows and pinks, tipping the waves with a golden touch.

            And then a dark-haired boy with an exceptionally  hansome face and startling blue eyes that made me melt was standing three feet away from me, he turned and stared into my eyes, smiled, as if amused, and with a swirl of his cape and a wink of his piercing blue eyes, was gone. Disappeared. Vanished.

           I puzzled over this for a while, and I couldn't help smiling about the curious dark-haired boy who had winked at me. What did this mean? Who was he?

           Then the dream changed once more to show me memories of Logan and I. They flashed past, each one showing snippets of a few seconds of memory: laughing, talking, sitting on the roof under the stars, him kissing my hand, swimming, arguing, me crying and he comforting me, arm around my shoulder, me running outside in the dark, him running up to me, at the lake kissing for the first time........... And finally, he slid the shining blade deep into my heart, the oddly painless death.

           Then the images shattered and there was only darkness. I could only wonder, Am I dying? Or have I already passed, lost forever?

           Why did Logan betray me?