Within my grief, I had made for the fields and into the forest. There, I wandered further than I had ever dared to endeavor, until I was all but hopelessly lost.

The days were spent with the sweet of the berries, the sweet of wild anemones and pale pasque flowers, the sweet of the green, mossy grass. Everything sweet and sweet and sweet, that I might never leave.

Then, finally, with all the stupidity I could call upon, I had ventured into the heart of it, where the untrained wilderness was menacing and black. I had never known the eerie dark, or seen how the moon light cast down like silvery lace upon the bark of the trees, so that it seemed the forest held haunting life within the depths of it.

It was damp and cold and I was hungry. I slept among the roots of the oak trees upon the bare earth, and the nights were finally so frigidly cold, that my body shivered from aching fever. And then it was that no sweetness of the longing day could mend it.

The sun would rise and hurt my eyes, warm my already too warm skin, so that I lay helpless and warn, my cheek pressed to the cool dirt. It stuck to the sweat upon my face, clung to my heated lips.

    I thirst for water that my body had finally become too weak to find. My head pounded with aching fever that sent me into delirium. I slipped in and out of consciousness, and I couldn't know which state I had been during my visions.

Above me, I saw brilliant light all about a golden face, and gleaming white wings from which casted the barest, pleasant breeze like so many fanning hands. I felt myself reach for them, only to then fall limp onto the ground. I could not speak, could not part my parched lips to say the words, "I knew that you would come." I strained to look at their quiet gaze, the beam of light that was their face, until the light was gone away from my eyes altogether.

When again they were open, it was dark and that bitter cold again. Another night and I thought, no, I cannot go on. Every part of me was pain. Every part having their own particular sort of agony, that I felt sick upon vomiting.

   Shown above were the the swaying trees, the splendid stars, blurred in my vision in a half sleep. And it seemed they met to form a silvery face that looked on; cold flames to make glittering tresses, a silvery mouth that whispered, "you are found and you are safe." And I viewed it all with a feverish mind.

    And then it was as if one of those cold flames reached to me, touching my face, grazing my forehead, and then finally lifting me from the earth.

I was floating, the world passing in shadow and light in a mingling of vibrant colors that danced before my eyes.

Then nothing.

How I suffered in my awareness. I felt one beside me, and I was no longer beneath the trees, beneath the looming stars. I was in my bed, so soft yet void of comfort.

I could see in the near distance a visage so spare, and then bright, moon-pale hues watching me quietly, wearily. Their infinite light cast like a beacon from the pitch. I felt their weight upon me, then upon my bed as this one leaned forward, and then an icy touch upon my cheek and I moaned.

"You have caught death, Vittoria. Lift your head."

This voice made me weep. It was the voice of God, I thought, vastly tender and gentle and profoundly musical.

I heard the voice sigh and say velvety in the dark, "Not quite. Lift your head and drink."

    "You're taking me then?" I asked in my languor, my voice rasp so that I hardly had breath enough.

    "Lift your head and drink from this cup," he said again gently.

    "Yes, your cup," I said in ardor, in my confusion, as I had read that the cup was the host of The Lord's Life, and so I was desperate to drink it. But the cup was hot against my lips and I drew back.

    "Do this, Vittoria, so that you will not ache. Drink it down. Leave nothing."

    In utter weakness I did this, and the taste was bitter and of the earth and made my stomach churn. I fell back against the bed, my aching body rejecting what it just took in.

    Again I was fed this earth, and again it was rejected.

But then a cold fount of nectar entered my mouth and I felt it's coolness and it's sweetness that was beyond anything I knew. And so quickly did it take the pain away, so that I lost all sense of my body, and I sighed.

    "Would I catch that signing breath within my mouth," said the ethereal voice.

    I shook my head at these words, so out of place as they were. I strained to see in my delirium, in my fog, and I beheld with terror, as if one of those visions beneath the trees, the dark angel Phedré before me, peering with ghostly flesh of such I have never beheld.

    Tightly, I closed my eyes. My head rolled against the pillow, sodden with sweat.

    He spoke my name softly.

    "I will not go with you," I said to him. He then reached and gathered my fingers to his lips, to his cheek. And I said to him, my eyes laden with tears, "How art thou fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn. How art thou cut to the ground, that didst lay low the nations!"

And he placed my fingers now to his bowed head.

    "Devil," I managed to say. Then I was out.

    So keenly do I recall him sitting in the chair across my room. He was quietly reading God's words, and how profound the sight. He was the devil curious, a dark angel immersed, beyond beautiful and deadly white.

    I sat up with ease, as though I could not know weight or weakness. I was well. Better still, I was with strength not yet known to me.

    "It will pass," he said to me as he continued reading.

It came to my surprise that he was so striking, that he was with obvious beauty that threatened to snatch your wits by the very root. His hair was as if spun from the night, and his eyes were blue in color so especially, as if a portion of the ocean were fixed there forever. But, too, he was faintly horrifying to look at, inhuman as he was in his human clothes.

How the moonlight played with my eyes. This flood of gentle light illuminated his casts of features, giving to him the likeness of a statue carved from limestone by skillful hands, deft and precise and with the most flawless perfection. It seemed quite impossible to me that such a face should move.

In spite of myself, I was in thralled. He was the consonants of a fallen angel, that was much true. And I wondered what manner of horror could produce such a beautiful and terrible creature?

"From where did you obtain this?" he asked me, holding the Bible.

I said nothing. Said nothing of the kindly servant who gifted it to me in secret.

He sat it down upon the table beside him, movement so quick, I scarce saw it. And then he stood in the same manner, and I coward back.

"You mustn't fear me, Vittoria," he told me, nearing me slowly now. "And just the same, you mustn't read from that book of lies again."

—pages five|nine—

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Authors note: Please bear mind that this chapter is raw and in its beginning. But I felt it was needed to publish for context. The following chapters are at their final draft. Please give chapters a vote if you enjoyed.