The first time I learned that angels were real, I was six years old, sitting on the cold stone steps outside the Hall of Witnesses, listening to adults whisper as if heaven itself might overhear them.
They never said the word angel loudly.
They spoke around it, like a wound that hurt too much to touch.
"The light came for him last night," one woman murmured.
"He saw them before he died," another replied, crossing herself quickly, as though the act alone might protect her from being seen next.
I remember tugging on my mother's sleeve, my fingers small and impatient.
"Who did he see?" I asked.
My mother froze.
Not slowly. Not gently.
She froze the way people do when they realize they've already said too much.
She knelt in front of me, her eyes level with mine, her voice trembling despite her effort to steady it.
"Some questions," she said, "are not meant for children."
That was the first rule I ever learned.
There would be many more.
In our city, angels were not stories. They were not metaphors or comforting lies told to soften grief. Angels were facts, recorded in stone, written in blood, and sealed behind laws older than memory.
Everyone knew the laws.
You could live your whole life without ever seeing an angel, and that was considered a blessing.
Only three kinds of people were permitted to meet them.
The dying.
The chosen.
And the broken.
Children were none of these.
Children were dangerous.
Because children still hoped.
I grew up under the shadow of the Watchtowers, tall white spires that ringed the city like spears pointed at the sky. From their peaks, the elders watched for signs—changes in the clouds, strange lights, the sudden ringing of bells with no hands to move them.
They said heaven sometimes leaned too close.
When that happened, someone always paid the price.
My father worked in the lower archives, copying old records by candlelight. He believed in order, in silence, in rules that kept the world from unraveling. My mother believed in prayer, in small kindnesses, in pretending not to see the fear that lived behind everyone's eyes.
They both believed I would grow out of my questions.
They were wrong.
I don't remember when the desire began. It feels like it has always been there, like a second heartbeat beneath my own. But I remember the moment it became impossible to ignore.
My sister died on a winter morning.
The sky was pale and empty, like it had already decided not to watch.
She was only nine. A fever took her quickly, cruelly, without ceremony. I sat beside her bed while the adults whispered in corners and burned incense meant to attract mercy.
Her breathing slowed. Each breath sounded like it had to travel a long way just to reach her lips.
I held her hand.
It was cold.
Just before the final breath left her, her eyes opened.
Not wide.
Not afraid.
Focused.
She smiled, faintly.
"Do you see them?" I whispered, not knowing why I asked.
Her gaze shifted, drifting past me, past the walls, past the ceiling.
"Yes," she said.
My heart stopped.
"What do they look like?" I asked.
She squeezed my hand with surprising strength.
"They're beautiful," she whispered. "But they're sad."
Then, softer, as if sharing a secret meant only for me:
"One of them promised to come back."
And then she was gone.
After the funeral, the elders came to our house.
They wore white robes trimmed in silver thread, their faces expressionless, their eyes sharp with judgment disguised as concern. They asked my parents careful questions, each word measured like it might tip the world off balance.
"Did the child say anything unusual?" one asked.
My mother hesitated.
My father answered for her.
"No."
I watched from the doorway, my nails digging into my palms.
I knew, even then, that truth was dangerous.
That night, I dreamed of wings.
Not the grand, shining wings painted on temple walls, but vast shapes moving through darkness, stirring the air with a sound like distant thunder. I woke with my heart racing and feathers clenched in my fist.
Real feathers.
White.
Warm.
I screamed.
The elders returned before sunrise.
After that, I was watched.
Not openly. Not cruelly. But constantly.
The librarian began locking certain shelves when I entered the archives. The priests corrected me more harshly than other children when I asked questions during lessons. Neighbors stopped smiling at me.
Someone had decided I was dangerous.
I learned the rules more clearly as I grew older.
Never pray directly to heaven.
Never ask for signs.
Never speak an angel's name aloud.
And most importantly:
Never seek what is forbidden to you.
I broke that rule first.
By the time I was twelve, I knew more about angels than most adults, though none of it came from official teachings. I learned from scraps—burned pages hidden in walls, whispers exchanged between drunk scholars, symbols carved into alley stones where the elders never looked.
Angels were not allowed to interfere with beginnings.
They could guide endings.
Carry souls.
Close doors.
But they were forbidden from touching futures.
A child, the texts said, was nothing but possibility.
And angels feared possibility.
The first time I was punished, it was for asking a simple question.
"If angels are good," I said during lesson, "why are we forbidden from seeing them?"
The room went silent.
The priest stared at me as if I had spoken in another language.
"Sit down," he said.
"I just want to understand—"
His hand struck the desk so hard the inkpots rattled.
"Understanding is not your duty," he said coldly. "Obedience is."
That night, my father didn't look at me while he spoke.
"You will stop this," he said. "You will live a normal life."
"But what if—"
"There are no what ifs," he snapped. "There are rules."
I nodded.
And lied.
The dreams returned as I grew older.
Always the same.
A figure standing just beyond my reach, wrapped in light and shadow, watching me with eyes that held centuries of regret. I never saw the face clearly, but I felt the weight of its gaze like gravity.
Sometimes I heard a voice.
Not yet.
I woke every time with tears on my face and the sound of wings echoing in my ears.
On the morning of my sixteenth birthday, the bells rang without being touched.
The sky darkened, clouds twisting into unfamiliar shapes. People whispered prayers and barred their windows. The Watchtowers flared with silver light.
Something was coming.
I stood at my window, heart pounding, knowing with a certainty that frightened me more than any punishment ever could.
This was not a warning.
This was an invitation.
I pulled on my coat, ignored my mother's call behind me, and stepped into the storm.
Toward the forbidden hill.
Toward the place where angels were said to have descended once, long ago.
Toward the moment that would change everything.
Because whether heaven allowed it or not—
Today was the day I would meet an angel.