“I shall rest my body, brother,” I said quietly, and turned away.
???
The well held my siblings' attention for days. Every waking moment, they gathered near it in awe, watching the creations God had placed in that strange new world. So similar, and yet so different from our own.
The male and female continued to wander through forests. They met curious beasts, stroked their coats, climbed trees, and shared food. Always together. Always touching. Consuming.
The chewing and swallowing stunned us all.
At one point, Haniel—ever the brave one—had plucked one of our golden apples and tried to imitate the act. The moment the fruit touched her tongue, she spat it out with an expression of dismay. The taste, she said, was dull. Lifeless. Nothing like what the humans seemed to enjoy.
No one tried again after that.
“What do you think?” Faye’s voice stirred me. I hadn’t realized she’d sat beside me until she tucked her feet beneath her robe and adjusted the folds at her waist.
I turned slightly. “About what?”
“Them.” She nodded toward the well. “The humans.”
Too many angels still hovered around it, their wings shimmering in the golden light. The soft hum of curiosity filled the air. But I had stopped standing at the edge. I watched from a distance now. It felt easier this way.
“I didn’t know a mouth could do more than speak,” I murmured, eyes still focused ahead.
A wistful edge slipped into her voice as she said, “None of us did.”
A pause stretched between us before she added, “I suppose He thought of more ideas when He made the humans.”
I glanced at her. Her gaze remained fixed on the well, contemplative.
“Or maybe…,” she said, quieter now. “His creations become their own making. Something beyond His control.”
I stared at her, but she didn’t elaborate. The idea echoed through my mind—quiet, radical, dangerous.
Something beyond His control.
I looked back toward the well, a flicker of the red petals resurfacing in my mind. The foot. The pain in my chest.
And I wondered—
Was it possible for something to exist that even God hadn’t planned?
Faye had always differed from other angels. When I asked her how she knew things the rest of us didn’t, she confessed the scrying glass showed her more. Not just images, but echoes. Sensations. Fragments of futures.
So, it didn’t surprise me that she had a name for them.
“Is that what they’re called?” I asked.
She gestured toward the angels gathered near the well, their gasps rising like birds into the golden canopy above us. “They will have many names,” she said softly. “And many languages.”
She shivered visibly. Her eyes remained fixed on the well, but I saw her fingers twitch.
“What is it?” I asked. “What do you see?”
Faye didn’t answer immediately. Her voice dropped into a whisper as she confessed, “Every time I look at them…the future I sense… I’ve never felt such a thing.”
I studied her. “What does it feel like?”
“I don’t know.” Her brow furrowed deeper. “It makes my chest tighten. My limbs feel heavy and…tired. It’s not a sensation I want to encounter again.”
