The year is 1879. When thirteen-year-old Ruth Merritt Holbrook emerges from her family's burning estate, bloody and charred, but entirely numb--She makes headlines. Reporters believe she is deranged. They accuse her of having set the fire. All the h...
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As I write this, I am leaving everything I've ever known. I did not cry as I boarded the ship, I'm not sure if it was Uriel's hand on mine or my own odd anxieties which kept me from completely falling apart. I feel as if I have been on the brink of a breakdown since the second I took that blasted sword into my hands.
I'm not sure what I was thinking when I did it. Everything from the moment the weapon touched my hands to the instant Merritt pulled me into her arms is a blur. I'm stilling calling her that—Merritt—everyone else has fallen back into calling her Cassiel, but I have never known her to be anything but a human girl and so an angelic name seems unnatural. Not that there is, or perhaps ever even was, anything natural about her.
The choice of saving her, of stopping Lucius from defiling her, was a relatively simple one. I'd begun my nephilim training at seven years old and Lucius had been the one to...introduce me to my future line of work. He was a terrifying man but back then he had been like a god to me—infallible and ever-present. I felt that he could see through me. I thought I was his property. That line of thinking had followed me past my girlhood and into my adult life. It was only then, standing in that alleyway watching him with Merritt, which I realized that he was anything but a god.
Uriel keeps telling me that I did the right thing and that I've set out on a new path. She tells me that, if I'm willing, her Adonai will surely accept me into His love. I can be saved just like anyone else—and everyone seems to know just how much I need saving, Levi more than anyone else. I keep waiting on him, with his new soul, to cast judgment on me. I find myself constantly feeling inadequate.
And yet I have asked for Him and I know He has heard me. I can feel it in my chest, a weightlessness that has never been present there before. I am still dirty, still tainted by what I've done in my life and I have yet to look at my reflection without seeing the sins written in my eyes—and yet I know that Adonai holds them apart from me. I may see them, but they are not present. But redemption and forgiveness, although automatic on God's side, is a slow process for me.
I hurt in many ways because of many people—my father most of all. But of everyone I should resent, Merritt is at the top of the list. I should be angry with her. She literally rearranged my life with her very presence, she took Levi's focus off of me and she gave me a dozen more reasons to hate myself—and yet I can't make myself loath her.
For all of the things she has done to upset me, she had given me ten times that in blessings. She gave me freedom and strength. I am currently lying in a cot, on a steamship, headed to America. There are demons in America, for they are everywhere, but my father and those closest to him are in Europe. I am traveling away from him and away from a past that, would I only submit to it, might strangle the life from me.
Never again will I be forced to touch a man unwillingly. I can join society, meet a respectable American gentleman and perhaps settle down with. And that is only one of the options laid out before me. Options. For I now have so many.
Merritt has insisted that I stay with her and Levi. They are going to travel the world. We've been issued fake identifications. I am no longer Rosalie Marie Gressil; a feat which must have cost Levi a pretty penny. But then, he does have a few celestial ties. Regardless of what my name is, we've been promised by Gabriel, a man who might as well be Adonai's voice piece, that we should not be found out. We can go confidently into our new American lives and whatever treasures they may hold for us.
Levi has been in contact with a man in North Carolina selling land near the coast. He wants to farm and she wants the freedom to go where she pleases, a cottage by the sea appears to be the best compromise. Merritt does not know this yet, it's a courting present from Levi, and I have been sworn to the utmost secrecy. I think she will be pleased with it.
Levi promised me that the place would always have a room for me. "You can stay with us or you can travel, but just know this—you will always have a home wherever we are." And perhaps I will take him up on his offer. It seems far better than I deserve. But, then, maybe there is more for me in America.
I spoke to a crewmember early this evening who was telling me about his sister who is currently enrolled at a college—a college. She's studying medicine, intends to be some sort of doctor. The very idea of such a thing is beyond me, and yet my heart soars at the prospect. The world is suddenly such a wide and open space, meant for dreaming and futures—how is it, I am only just now finding out? What will it be like to plant my feet on solid ground that is not tainted by my own memories?
Uriel had hugged me before I boarded the ship. "You will go on to do such great things—do not doubt it."
I wrapped my arms tighter around her. "Thank you."
"Whatever for?"
"For telling me I could change my path."
She smiled and stepped back from me. "It's a choice, deciding to do what is right. But, I promise you every step you take down that path becomes easier. Your steps become lighter, your strides longer."
And I believe, in the deepest part of my soul, that she is right.
