Down and Dirty on the Characters (Annika)

Get to know her better....

Annika (Rosalina?) McCalden

Physical appearance: Blue eyes, blonde hair (somewhere between curly and straight), 5’4” (approx) tall, size seven shoes, dress size: 4 (so skinnier than me, lol), pierced ears, age 17, Caucasian but slightly tan, two white wings emerging from her back, oval face shape.

Characteristics: Often very logical thinking, practical, caring but unsure of how to show it, very intelligent, very creative, loyal, she can keep her cool until she reaches a breaking point (it’s one or the other, not really any in-between), she’s very independent and likes to have time to herself, she often has this terrible need to please other people (which she will hopefully get over by the end of the novel). Her parents split when she was young, her one sister (Izzie) is actually only her half-sister, and this has left her with doubt in the idea of a traditional family, but she wants to marry and have kids one day. This also has made it hard for her to trust other people completely (and when she opens up, she seems to find herself screwed over).

History: She grew up in a large city in Canada. Lived in the same city her whole life. Attended Middleton High School (until grade 11). When she was about seven, her parents divorced. Her family life is complicated, with different parts of her family not speaking to the other.

Birthday: May 12, 1993

Pets: “Fluffster” (Annika had him between the ages of four and eight)

Closest friends before death: Kate, Diana and Beth

Siblings: Noel & Isabella. “Noel had been three years younger than me. With blonde hair, our mom’s eyes and an olive skin tone from somewhere in our mothers European background, she was the prettiest one, but you would never guess it by the way she dressed or acted. Izzie had actually been our half sister. Shortly after my mother separated from my father, my mom had dated a man for a couple months who had gotten her pregnant then moved to the other side of the country. I think Izzie met him a couple times, but she referred to our father as “Dad” the way we did. At age seven, she had been ten years younger than me, the youngest of the three of us, and had broken our heart every time she looked at us with those huge brown eyes.”

Love life? Send me a message and I'LL SPILL ALL THE DETAILS ;) (Either through my tumblr or through fb)

Down & Dirty on the Characters of New Wings (Jake)

Jake Hepburn
Physical characteristics: About 6 feet tall; messy, a little curly, brown hair (not long, but not buzz cut either); prince-charming facial features; green eyes that show what he's thinking; strong build (nicely defined arms are mentioned in the book, think soccer player's body where they are muscular but not grossly so).

Born: June 29^th, 1926
Other characteristics & some history:

He told Annika: He grew up during the Depression in Europe. His father left to fight the second world war. Jake was the bread-winner for his mother and three sisters. When this happened, he put schooling on hold (he wanted to be a doctor) and got a job, tried to support them. His father was killed. When the remaining family was killed by the Germans, he was last to be shot: he watched his family die. 
But how much of this is the truth?
Random Likes/Dislikes: Favourite colour is blue. Favourite food is sushi. Favourite number is 23. 

Jake

Jake Hepburn

Thanks to my very talented and creative friend, Jake is finally complete. I have decided to share with you the picture with his shirt on. Look forward to perhaps a bit more revealing picture to be posted at a later date ;) 

Heyyy!

So I know this is the end, but I don't want it to be. I want people to keep reading my blog and giving me feedback. Soon, as in hopefully in a few weeks, I'd like to start the second draft and I really would love feedback about what to change and what to keep the same. I also don't like the ending as it is now, so I'd really appreciate some feedback in that area especially. You don't need to be a writer yourself or anything in order to give me feedback, honestly! The average person's opinion is the best, since they are the audience. 
So please please please read away! You have no idea how much I would appreciate it!
Thanks so much,
Anja

THE END! (Chapter Four)

Pre-read note: So, I finished my novel. I thought I'd be more thrilled than I am, but I am not amazed with the ending. I think it ends too suddenly, with just to much stuff being randomly explained... but at least it wraps things up and explains things... I think.  

Yeah, basically I need a lot of feedback on this section.

BUT I'M DONE! And that's what's important! Now I can just go back and figure out all the parts that don't make sense and rewrite most, if not all of it. 

Chapter four, part two:

I came to this world much like Annika did – I woke up one day in a hospital room with a pair of white wings on my back. I didn’t remember things the way she did, though. To remember things in this world is typically a gift or privilege, and something that occurs very gradually.

My guider had been an elderly woman. She had shown me around the city, signed me up for the best school, essentially become a grandparent figure.

Then one day she turned around and told me that it was my turn, told me that all along my point in this world was to become a Guider myself. So I began my training, and they began to let me have my memories back. At first it’s a real shock: you go from thinking that the life you’ve been living is your only life to learning you had a whole different one in a different world. They go gentle on you, though, letting you remember only the happy things first. They deny you a lot, really, until you’re deemed “strong” enough to handle more details. Sometime between your third and fourth New Wings, and you think you finally have everything understood, then you start to remember the times your parents fought and the people you lost and the things that you did that you wish that you didn’t.

It was also the time I started to stop remembering. I gave up on my past, as all I seemed to remember was getting worse and worse. I gave up remembering my family, I gave up remembering Sofie, I gave up remembering myself. I told myself that this life was a chance to start over, a chance to forget the things I regretted in the life I had before. That’s why I lied to Annika – I figured I needed another story to replace the truth, so I wouldn’t have to remember, so I wouldn’t have trouble forgetting.

Annika, or rather, Sofie – the girl who broke my heart again and again. Sitting on the floor of the library, probably the same place where she’d been only the night before, I wiped a stray tear from my face.

I had failed again.

That’s what kept running through my head again and again.

I had gotten a second chance with the girl I loved, but instead of protecting her from this world, I’d asked her to become part of it. I’d watch her become someone I didn’t know, someone I never had known. Then, when she learned of what I did, she had run. Looking at the black and white photo in my hand, I couldn’t help wondering what she’d run from – me? Or this world? Both?

I tried to think of what I’d tell her if I had the chance to explain. Could I tell her why I’d turned to the other side all those years ago? Could I tell her why I hadn’t been there for her when she needed me now?

Why did I?

I felt the realization like a physical weight that pulled my whole body down – I had no reason. Sure, I’d been following orders. Sure, I’d been scared. Sure, I didn’t have much other choice each time. But, each time, I couldn’t help think that those were nothing but excuses and no real reason.

The tears felt warm against my cheeks. I’d forgotten what they felt like, not having cried since that night when I’d watched Sofie disappear into her house from the storm. The photo weighed my hand down and I struggled to lift it to see her face again. Salt water hit the delicate page. Oh, Sofie.

It didn’t take me long to get up off the floor, shaking the dead weight of pain off as much as I could. I left the rest of the folder on the ground, leaving the door to the library wide open as I started towards the third floor, where I’d left the meeting. By the time I’d stood in the elevator for much too long and found my way down the hall to the monotone voiced man’s office, the weight was gone and I had an urgency to my step. I didn’t knock, instead opening the door and sticking my head into the dark space.

“Sir?” I called, but no response. The room was lit by a single lamp on the desk, competing against dark mahogany walls and thick burgundy curtains, and losing badly. No one was around, the heavy, imposing furniture all sat empty. I glanced behind me into the empty hallways before ducking into the room and closing the door behind me. There was a filing cabinet in the corner of the room, but when I tried to open it I found it locked. However, on the desk under the lamp, there was a small stack of black folders and I saw the name “Annika McCalden” sitting on top.

I picked the folder up to find it much, much lighter than any other I’d seen. Opening it, there was only one white page. Across the top it had her name, then “missing.” Underneath listed places she’d been spotted. There were quite a few, and it spanned years. Today, in only a few hours, she’d been to her past, her present, and her past life in the 1940s. She’d last been seen in 1966, in the U.S., only a few hours ago.

I put the page down gently, tucking it where I’d found it, as I processed this...

I was out the door to the elevator in seconds. No one was in the hall and the doors opened for me in moments. I pushed the button for the highest floor, twenty-three, and the doors “bing”-ed close behind me. I had never actually been to the twenty-third floor, but I knew that the building was set up so that the people with the most power had larger offices on the higher floors, with the person in charge of the whole city occupying the whole twenty-third floor. I had never heard their name before, and I didn’t even know if it was a man or woman, but I knew that I needed to talk to someone at the very top. The people here knew where Annika was, but they were doing nothing, and had declared her as “missing,” although obviously they were tracking her. I needed to know what I was going on, I needed to be on the twenty-third floor.

“Ding.”

The doors opened and I stepped out into a bright light.

As I the elevator doors shut behind me, I realized I had to be in the wrong place. Instead of walking into a receptionist area or some hallways, I’d walked out into the middle of a construction site. There were no completed walls in on the whole floor, and instead the whole space was supported by large beams. Absolutely everything was a neon white, from the floor to the ceiling. Bright lights ran the entire length of the floor and were turned on, despite the fact there wasn’t a person in sight. Floor to ceiling windows displayed the clouding-over sky of Soleres along the three outer walls I could see. Between me and the sky was a good fifty feet of space, occupied only by the large beams and the occasional bucket and broom by a few dusty, unfinished tiles.

I went to turn around to hit the button to go back downstairs when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.

“Hello?” I called, frozen. “Is anyone there?”

There was no response, but a white wing flickered behind one of the large posts.

“Hello?” I said again as I slowly started towards the beam, “Is someone there?”

Silence hung in the air, but two white wings immerged from behind the beam, one on either side, low to the ground, as though the person behind them was sitting.

As I started towards the beam, the wings started to shiver, then disappeared.

“Hello?” I said again, but all I could hear in response was the crackling of a broken tile beneath my feet.

I approached the beam slowly, repeating my hello again and again, until I came around in front of it, and there she was. She looked up at me and smiled like it was any other day and we were meeting for lunch or coffee. Her blonde hair was loose around her shoulders and her bangs fell into the corner of her blue eyes. She sat with her knees up and her back against the beam, her wings tucked behind her, looking out the window at the gray sky. Moving to the side, she seemed to make space for me beside her, and I slowly sat down. Her arm felt warm and alive beside mine, but I watched her still feeling like at any moment she would disappear, only a mirage of my imagination.

Her eyes scanned the horizon as she said, “Fancy meeting you here.”

I tried to find my voice to respond but it had left long ago.

“It’s ok,” she said, turning to me and smiling again. “It’s me, Annika, or Sofie, whichever you prefer.”

“How do you...?” I couldn’t finish my thought but she jumped in anyways, saying, “I found out when I read those files. Once I saw her picture, I felt like I was looking into a mirror. At first I thought I was your sister in my past life, then I read the story about you and her. Then I started to remember being her... It was an odd feeling. In a lot of ways, it still feels like a story to me, just a story that I know really well.”

I finally worded some of the questions running through my mind: “How come you’re here? How did you get here?”

“I’m still not sure. After I jumped from this building, I found myself flying through a different era. I went back to the 40s and watched some of Sofie’s life as a ghost. I learned my wings were more than decorative and soon discovered I could think about where I wanted to go and ... I don’t know, just end up there. So of course I went back to my home town, where I’d grown up as Annika, to the place I still consider home. I saw my sisters and my mom, watched them for awhile. Time doesn’t seem to stay linear when I’m crossing between worlds the way it does when I stay in one. I don’t know how long I stayed there, watching and thinking. I realized a lot, realized things I’d done right and the things I’d done wrong, then learned to forgive myself.”

“Do you – Can you,” I stumbled, then managed to whisper the end, “forgive me?”

“Truthfully, I spent a lot of time thinking about you,” she answered, looking at the clouds. “There was this whole you that I’d just learned about and I was just starting to remember, the you that was in love with Sofie. I don’t understand all of it still, but I think I’m starting to understand why you did the things you did, and I don’t think the question is or ever was if I forgive you, Jake.”

She placed her hand on my knee, pausing to look me in the eye, before saying, “The question is: do you forgive yourself?”

As soon as she said it, I knew it was true. I had never been really looking for anyone’s approval but my own. The problem was that I still didn’t have an answer for myself.

Annika watched me, waiting for the answer, and when I didn’t give her one, she moved her hand from my knee to my hand. I looked down at our fingers intertwined and when I looked back up, she searched my eyes for my yes or no. Silence hung heavy, in this sticky way that made it hard to breath, and she slipped her head onto my shoulder.

Slowly I whispered, “Yeah... I think I do.”

“Go on,” she said, her hair still cascading down the left side of my chest, and I looked for the words to tell her that that was why. It wasn’t because of something I’d done better, it wasn’t because I’d completely changed, it was because I’d come to realize what I’d done and so had she, and if she could still love me, then the least I could do would be to forgive myself.

“I think...” The words came slowly, “I think I can forgive myself because I know that if I had another chance, at any of it, I know what I would want to do differently. And even though it still feels like I lost my second chance as soon as you left this world, I am still here, fighting for you. I came up to this floor looking to get information and then to find you. I knew that I couldn’t let you get away from me anymore. But, instead, here you are.”

I felt her nod her head, then she whispered, “Here I am.”

I let my head rest on top of hers and watched the sun struggling to shine through the gray.

“Where do we go from here?” I asked.

“Heaven,” she answered.

“Isn’t this...?” I asked, slowly, but I couldn’t let myself call this place Heaven.

“No, it’s just another in-between world. They found me, you know, not too long ago. There were a couple of men with white wings and black suits that showed up when I was wandering through my past life as Annika. They explained quite a bit, about how there’s many in-between worlds, and you’re sent to one to try and teach you a lesson, to come to terms with yourself. Once you do that, you’re free. You can go where you want. There is more than one version of Heaven, and this isn’t one of them.”

“So, we’re free?”

“As soon as you said you forgave yourself, you lifted your own chains.”

“Then where are we going?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care, as long as I am with you.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.”

And with that, we sat on the twenty-third floor of the building that I’d worked in for years, but this time there was a lightness in me and an ache in my wings. The weight that I’d carried with me for so long was lifted and I knew that, wherever I ended up, I would be happy, because not only had I found myself, I’d found the girl I loved.

The end.

Update

This is a random update to say: HOLY CRAP I'M ALMOST DONE WRITING A WHOLE NOVEL and HOLY CRAP WHY HAVEN'T I FINISHED IT ALREADY?! 

I have only half a section more to write, if I don't put an epilogue in or if I use the epilogue I wrote for it last year. We'll see. But seriously, I am so close! I promise the ending will come soon! 

Thanks to everyone who's even just read a chapter or two! It means the world to me!

Anja <3

Chapter Three (post two)

Pre-read note: This is literally just written (which is why it's being posted at 2am) so please forgive any non-flowing parts or any spelling errors or typos. Thank you. 

Chapter three, section two, part two: 

That wasn’t the last time I saw her. It would be the second last time, but I would count it as the last time, since the very last time was not something I would want to remember. The very last time was something that I’d bury deep in my mind and hope to forget, but we all know you never actually forget what you want to forget.

It was during the freezing winter of 1945, when I was dressed in warm German wool while I watched the people I used to know slowly starve. Used to know – that’s how I always thought of them as soon as I wore the swastika on my arm, that’s what happens when you turn to the other side – the people you would have died for become the people you used to know. They literally, slowly yet surely, became people I used to know as the Germans starved the Netherlands. The elderly and the young slowly were the first to be killed off in, I would learn later, surprising numbers. The numbers grew as the winter went on – but as a soldier, you’re not told the numbers, you’re never told the numbers.

 My family was well-off. My father had worked for the government, before he’d been part of the German resistance movement which led him to his death. I assumed, as I lived in my military barrack-style accommodations, that they would be ok. They’d have enough to get by. I tried not to think of Sofie, though, with her three younger brothers, a father off at war and a working mother trying to put food on the kitchen table.

Then, one day, I ran into her. She was bundled in wool stockings and coat, with her hair all pinned back instead of its usual loose waves, and wore a tight lipped smile that I knew wasn’t genuine. Lugging what seemed to be basket filled with some sort of purchases, she was trekking through the heavy snow fall through the downtown area. It was growing dark and, since the city was starving and freezing, no one was out. No one, that is, but us in green wool, and Sofie.

I don’t know what she was doing out. I don’t know why her mother didn’t send one of her brothers with her, at least. I don’t know why the soldiers thought they had the right to cause trouble, but they did. Three of them started walking behind her, whistling and joking loudly. They weren’t guys I knew, although they would probably have been staying in the same barracks as me. Their noises got louder and more cocky as we approached from the other side of the street. The visibility was poor, so at first I didn’t realize it was her. I didn’t agree with what they were doing in the first place, and I could tell the other two soldiers I was with didn’t either. The one on my right was watching the group with a sort of death glare that I only wished would work. I don’t remember his name, but he’d been another street kid that they’d picked up and put the badge on. We started walking towards them, crossing the street, and at first I followed the other two, but then I noticed that oval face and those blue eyes, and I stopped dead.

Luckily the two guys I was with didn’t notice, and just kept walking. I saw Sofie look up at the two buff soldiers coming towards her, cornering her, and I saw her eyes grow huge and her breath suck in. The three soldiers behind her were laughing and calling still, gaining on her heels, and I saw her looking for a way out, a way to escape, but there was a brick wall to her right and the other two soldiers approaching her from the left. She was trapped.

I wanted to call out to her. Once she knew it was me, trailing behind but there, I knew she would have felt better. Even if she’d thought we would have to take on five full grown men, it’s always better to have a friend. But, as she looked around with big blue eyes, I didn’t say a word. I didn’t come to her rescue, I didn’t even say a word. I watched as she finally stopped dead her tracks, clutching the basket to her side. I watched as she looked between the loud, laughing group behind her and the two quiet soldiers marching towards her from the left. I saw her almost cry out at them, but she seemed lost for words. Then one of the soldiers I’d been with, the one who’d also been a run-away, called out not to her, but to the guys behind her. For a second she was caught in the middle, with the three soldiers growing defensive and my guys not giving in, but quickly the three who’d been harassing Sofie realized there was no point in arguing, that they weren’t going to get to this girl. They threw some more insults into the cold winter air but then turned around, and walked away.

I stood, stupidly, in the middle of the street as all this happened. I watched the three soldiers trek down the road as the other two, my two, asked Sofie if she was ok. She stumbled over her words as she responded yes. I stayed far enough away so she wouldn’t be able to see my face. She thanked the soldiers and glanced at me, the chicken, before continuing her trek through the snow.

I regretted it instantly. I felt the guilt rise from my stomach through my spine, into my head. I knew I’d done the wrong thing. Even if I was dressed in the enemy’s costume, I loved her, and I’d neglected her. I’d abandoned her when as soon as things had gotten rough for me, and then I hadn’t even come through when she’d needed me for something as small as standing up for her. And for what? Because I was ashamed of who I’d become, because I was ashamed that I was on the wrong side. But, standing there, watching her start down the street, I know that I wasn’t ashamed in that moment to be wearing a green wool coat with a red symbol on the arm – I was ashamed of the very person I was, the kind of person who abandons the ones they love the most.

I followed her home. I know that sounds terrible, but it’s true. The other run-away and the other soldier continued down the street, but I told them I’d meet up with them later, then I followed Sofie as she walked. I kept a good distance between us, and the heavy snow helped keep me out of sight, and although I knew I was doing nothing really, I needed to know that she got home safe. I needed to know that I wasn’t completely useless. I needed to know that she was still alive, breathing, ok.

I watched her open the door to her cottage-style home and be engulfed into the light and the warmth. I imagined her brothers raiding the basket she carried and her mother asking her how the walk was, and Sofie complaining only of the cold. I watched as the girl I loved stepped into her house, taking the last piece of my heart with her. 

Chapter Three

Pre-read note: So, I finally wrote some New Wings. It's taking me forever to finish writing this book, partially because I keep having trouble figuring out exactly how to end it. I wrote this section a bit randomly last week and just typed it out tonight, editing it a little bit. It's really cheesy and pretty rough, so I don't know exactly how I'll improve it in the next draft, but for now it works. Yeah, um, REALLY cheesy actually. But whatever, I'm moving forward, which is the important part. 

This part actually reads a lot like a mini story, almost unrelated to the novel. You don't have to have much knowledge about the story to understand it. 

Anyways, here you go... 

Part two, chapter three, section one: 

I had to tell her.

It wouldn’t be fair to her not to. I would have to make her swear not to tell my family, since I couldn’t tell them (they’d come searching). I’d leave them a note explaining everything. But her ... I had to tell her. Everything. Even if I couldn’t tell her that I was leaving, she had to know how much she meant to me, how if I had more time I would take our friendship to the next stage, how if it weren’t for the time and place we were living, I would ask her father for the permission to have her hand.

But when I reached her door, I wasn’t met with the usual view into her household, where the boys normally would be running wild and her mother would be yelling at them from the kitchen. Instead the door was closed and silence hung, but there was a note pinned to the wood.

“Find me,” it read in her perfect handwriting, “where we met for the very first time.”

We had met for the very first time when we were only six years old. It was brief, and when we met years later, at first we didn’t remember our interaction as kids. It wasn’t until a drunken night when we were fourteen that we realized that not only had we met before, but we’d been married.

I headed to the park around the corner from her house. I’d walked past it so many times but I hadn’t ventured to that playground since I’d been small. I found the arch of the swing set where we’d said our vows with six year-old ease. She’d had a bouquet of dandelions and dirt on her knees, her lips read from candy lipstick. My boutonniere of weeds and violets had been tucked into the pocket of my shirt. A seven year old pronounced us man and wife. I would count the kiss I gave her on the cheek as my first kiss until I was thirteen.

Now, standing under the arch of the swing set, she wasn’t here with a bouquet of dandelions. Instead, another note in her penmanship sat tucked under a rock and fluttering in the wind.

It read only: “Where we first danced.”

As I wandered to the old church at the end of the block, I began to wonder why she’d left me a trail of notes. I’d thought perhaps she’d just decided to go for a walk instead of meeting me at her house as planned, made the note as a cute little joke, would meet me where she said she was – but no, she hadn’t been at the park, and I doubted that I’d actually find her at the church. She had obviously turned this into a game, and I couldn’t help but wonder why.

The old bricks and wooden door of the church finally came into view. When we’d been thirteen and just friends-through-friends, we’d been dragged against our will by our classmates to the “community dance” at this church. It had been as ridiculous as expected, with only people between the ages of three and thirteen or thirty and sixty, as the older students had been smart enough to avoid the whole thing. Yet, it has been an amazing night, if only because it’d been my first slow dance with her, and looking back on it, I couldn’t care less that it had occurred beside a sixty year old couple.

Opening the doors of the church, I didn’t have to venture far into the musty building before I found my next clue. Written on a pink piece of paper and tacked to a notice board, it read: “The place where they know our order before we say a word.”

I stuck the clue in my pocket and headed back out into the sunshine. Taking a right, I headed towards the little row of locally owned businesses in our area of the city. We lived in a fairly large city, but we always seemed to end up at the same small bakery when we were looking for somewhere to grab coffee and baked goods. They were the only place that always knew our order before we placed it.

The last time I’d been there had been with her, to celebrate her seventeenth birthday a month ago. I’d bought her her usual, as well as a book I knew she’d wanted to read but hadn’t been able to find. Luckily, I’d come across a signed copy at a used book store just a few weeks before. She’d been thrilled.

When I got to the store, it was crowded with people buying their weekend loaves. With the war and the reduced rations, the bakery had been suffering a little, but they were able to keep their best selling items and maintained their stream of loyal customers. As I began to dig through my pocket for change, a young boy called out from behind the counter.

“You’re Jake, right?” He pointed at me and I nodded.

He pulled a brown paper bag from underneath the counter and handed it towards me, “This is for you.”

I took it from his small hands, but before I could ask any questions he was back to fetching orders for the adults.

I opened the bag, and not surprisingly, found one banketaaf and one appelflappen, our usual order. However, there was also some sort of donut and a note folded between napkins.

“Go to the place we first introduced ourselves to each other (one of my favourite places.”

This walk was a little longer. After leaving the bakery, I had to circle back through the park and past her house, then down the street to the school.

We’d met officially when we twelve and thirteen. We’d lived in the same neighbourhood for years before that, but she’d been attending a religious school. When her school closed, she’d started at the same public school as me. We met that her first day, when she entered art class mid-semester. She’d worn a smile that lit her whole face and a glint in her eye that told you she was excited to there, holding a paintbrush, meeting new people.

The school was closed for the summer, classes having been cut shorter and shorter as the Nazis invaded. I found the front door open, though, and headed straight for the art room. I was surprised to find Mr. Peters sitting at the big wooden desk at the front of the room. A pen was perched in his hand over a piece of parchment, ready to attack with black ink.

“Jake Hepburn!” He exclaimed as he smiled at me, putting his pen carefully at his side. His eyes sparkled as he added, “I was told you’d be bringing me something in exchange for a note?”

I pulled the donut out of the bag I was carrying, the odd one out now explained.

“This is for you, Mr Peters,” I said, handing him the pastry. He grinned, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket with his free hand as he bit into the donut.

“Delicious, Jake, thank you,” he mumbled as I took the paper from him.

“Um, Mr Peters,” I started, “You wouldn’t happen to know – ”

He shook his end, some small crumbs scattering over his shirt. “I know nothing. She wouldn’t tell me a thing. I asked, but she said that you may ask questions, and she didn’t want to me give anything away.” He giggled an odd sort of laugh. “Oh, to be seventeen again!”

I smiled, heading back towards the door. “Thank you anyways. Nice seeing you again, Mr Peters.”

“Good luck, Jake!” He called as I left the room.

I paused in the hallway to read the note.

“I’m sitting in place where we discussed what we want to do with our lives and the countries we want to go to, where we laughed and cried, where we’ve sat side by side for hours. It’s the place where we’ve returned again and again, and each time I remember that one night when we were fifteen and I realized I was falling for you as more than just a friend, it was just you, wearing my favourite colour, and me, just a freak with big ears.”

At first I didn’t understand the note... then it sank in: she liked me back.

I felt all the air rush out of my body as the stress escaped and I smiled with all my heart, alone in an empty school hallway.

She liked me back.

Suddenly I needed to tell her I wanted to be more than friends – I needed to wrap my arms around her, smell her perfume, feel her skin, see her smile. But, the clue left me confused. There were so many places over the years where we’d discussed our futures, so many nights we’d sat side by side and just laughed or cried. Even if we’d “returned again and again,” it didn’t narrow it down much, as there were quite a few places where we hung out that I hadn’t been to yet.

I reread the note again. The last comment stuck out to me, if only because she did not have big ears.

Then it made sense. When we were fifteen, we’d gone to see “Dumbo” together at the movie theatre downtown, but we had shown up an hour too early. We’d ended up sitting in an empty theatre for an hour, just waiting and talking about nothing and everything. I’d been wearing yellow. She’d loved the movie about the elephant, the “freak with big ears,” who didn’t fit in but who got the happy ending.

I broke into a run down the hallway and out the door into the afternoon air. I ran three streets down just to catch a streetcar headed in the right direction. I could hardly sit still on the short trip, then I was off again, finally rounding a corner and hitting the theatre doors at a good pace. It was completely empty with not a person in sight, but I just kept going, bursting through the doors of theatre two. The lights were on but dimmed, and the screen sat in shadows. It took me a second to see her, sitting in the middle of the seats, her blonde hair loose around her shoulders.

Sofie.

She turned at the sound of my entrance and smiled. With only a second of hesitation, I jogged down the aisle towards her. She stood up and looked as though she was about to say hello, but before she a word escaped her mouth, I was beside her. In one fluid motion, I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her gently by surely on the lips.

And for a moment, I forgot everything. The world around me stood still of politics and time, people and space. I forgot that my father had been killed recently. I forgot that I was soon to be the dreaded eighteen years of age. I forgot that I was running away in a week. I forgot that I was leaving Sofie and she didn’t know.

For that moment, I forgot everything, because for that moment, I had her. 

I lied.

I lied about a few things. Let's list them in an orderly fashion.


1) I said I'd have my book done by May 31st, 2011, and that my Facebook page for Annika would die that day. Lies. All of it. I'm still not done my novel, and although I have not updated Annika's Facebook page in a long, long time, it's still online.
2) I lied about my characters. Remember how, especially in those first couple of posts, I wrote disclaimers about how this is a first draft, so please don't get upset when things change around and no, there was no warning in the previous chapters? WELL, it's happening now, and I thought I should warn you. 
Remember Sofie? She's not a main character, actually she's quite minor. She's mentioned near the beginning of the book as Jake's sister who died during World War I, and reappears in the second half of the novel. Well, that's lies. Maybe Jake clearly lied to Annika in the beginning about her being his sister, but I have decided that she was never a blood relative or relative of any kind to Jake at all. They were friends. 


Oh, actually, that might be all I lied about. That seems like not a lot when I list it in an orderly fashion. 
Happy reading, people. Expect an actual blog post soon.  

Chapter Two

Please note: I have had writer's block forever it feels like now. I wrote this awhile ago and thought I'd edit it before posting, but I'm questioning where the story is going now, so anyways, I'm just posting it.

Part II, chapter two, section one:

The door creaked as we pushed it open. A silence fell around the room of directors, each sitting in their proper black and white suits, watching us with their emotionless eyes. I shut the door behind us and sat at a chair along the wall. John quickly sat down beside me.

The man sitting at the head of the long table stood. He looked around the room at the twenty or so seated people before beginning to speak.

“We have made a decision about Annika McCalden’s case.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

“This is a special case that already was bending rules and following a loose guide.”

The mono tone droned on.

“With this in consideration, we can see how it went wrong and will make sure that it does not occur again.”

There was a dramatic long pause. I twisted my hands into knots.

“However, from what we can understand, we have not simply lost Annika McCalden here, but we have lost her spirit. With consultation with the higher board, we have decided that this case is to be put to rest and the search for Annika McCalden to end.”

I squeezed my eyes closed tight and held my breath, wishing that I was hearing wrong, wishing and hoping and praying they weren’t announcing the end of everything I knew.

“Jake.”

I looked up at the mono tone voiced man, biting my tongue. He looked at me with piercing blue eyes.

“You are dismissed from her case.”

I nodded a long, slow nod, the movement killing me on the inside.

“We can only hope that her spirit can find a world in which she can find peace and rest.”

There was a small murmur of voices but my eyes were shut again.

“You may leave.”

The sound of movement and voices wrapped my body in present time and space, but I wasn’t there. A moment later someone put their hand around mine and I realized I’d been gripping the sides of the chair. I opened my eyes to see John’s deep eyes and red marks on my hands.

“Let’s go, Jake,” John said quietly.

Somehow I made myself stand; somehow I ended up in the elevator. The doors made that annoying “ding” sound as they enclosed me and John into the tight space.

I closed my eyes again.

“Ding.”

“Jake, this is our floor,” I heard John say, but I shook my head.

“I need some air,” I replied.

I opened my eyes to see him step off the elevator and the door close behind him, then shut them again.

What is wrong with me?

“Ding.”

It was the first floor. A lady all in black stepped into the elevator and suddenly there was no more oxygen. Narrowly avoiding the doors, I jogged out of the elevator and they closed behind me.

The first floor....

My feet knew where they were going before I did. I wandered through the bright reception area to the white, hospital-like halls that spread like a maze through this floor. Eventually, I came to the larger-than-life oak doors of the library.

I had read the file, I knew the evidence. Slowly, I wandered the same aisle as I knew she’d been in. There wasn’t a soul in the space, the room echoed with my footsteps. I paused at my drawer. It was closed, and went I opened it, my file was neatly and safely tucked away from sight, but I knew it hadn’t been like this when they had come in this morning, I knew they’d come to find fading photos and crumpled papers littering the ground in a tornado-like mess.

I couldn’t imagine reading the file. I had never touched it; I had always been too scared at what I would find, since I knew it would be the truth, the truth that I hadn’t told Annika. No wonder she’d run from this world: I had scared her away.

The file felt heavy and final in my hands as I picked it up. As I gently opened it, the first image I was met with was one of Sofie.

Suddenly tears threatened my eyes.

When I closed my eyes, I could still see the way hers sparkled when she smiled. When I shut my eyes tight, I could still hear her laugh and the way her curls would cascade down her back. When I squeezed them close, I could feel the soft touch of her hands in mine. I could remember the nights we’d spend making blanket forts and the times we snuck out to go to dances. The years we spent walking to school together still felt like yesterday and the long brush strokes with her smalls hands felt so close that I could swear I was back there again. Except, when she looked up from the painting, it wasn’t Sofie smiling at me, but Annika.

Suddenly my eyes opened wide. The tear that had been waiting fell down my cheeks. My legs gave out beneath me and I slid down the bookshelf to the ground. The photo in my hand smiled up at me like a ghost from another world, and I could see the similarities now clearly. They had almost the same long, blonde hair and both had vibrant blue eyes. The delicate features of Sofie were similar to those of Annika, and then there was their hands, both small and gentle and aching to hold a paintbrush.

I had failed them both.

The minutes ticked by like hours as I cried in the empty library. Once the memories started, they just came flooding back in an avalanche I couldn’t control.

Part II: Chapter One

Pre-read note: Here's another twist! Ok, the problem right now though, other than the fact I'm writing New Wings instead of studying for my exams, is that I am not sure where Part II is heading. I'm tempted to leave it as a cliff-hanger, but at the same time, I do like conclusion. I am still writing, though, which means I'm writing without direction. Hopefully I figure out where it's going soon so I can finish the story. I really, really want it to be done, but in other ways I'm terrified to write the second draft. The second draft would be so... official. And if I'm not posting it online, what will I do? What will motivate me? 

Anyways, here's the beginning of part II. It's long but not dense. 

Part II, chapter one, section one:

“Sit down.”

I ignored the voice despite the stern edge to it.

“Sit down or you’re going to pace a hole through my floor.”

I looked up at the man, sitting calmly at his desk, unfazed by the current events, and bit my tongue. Swearing at him would get me nowhere anyways. But I couldn’t stop my feet from moving in circles through the small office space.

“Jake, sit down!”

The sudden burst of anger made me freeze. I caught his eye for a moment and noticed a change in them. They seemed a shade darker than they usually were.

I sighed and sat down across from the man at the desk, placing my hand in my hands.

“I’m sorry, John,” I said to the floor by my feet.

“You need to calm down, Jake. We’ll have orders from the head office soon enough.”

I swallowed words again. The orders from the head office were not the first thing on my mind. Although, I knew they were going to have an impact, a huge impact.

“John...”

“Yes, Jake.”

“You don’t think...”

I looked up at him, typing away something into a black laptop. He glanced up at me for a moment through his paperwork, saying, “You can’t be fired from being a Guider,” then returned to the steady typing.

“That’s not what’s worrying me.”

“What is it then?”

“When they find her, you don’t think they’ll wipe her memory, do you?”

John paused, organizing files on his desk before answering my question.

“What they decide is not up to you or me, and it certainly is not something for you to worry about it.”

My head fell back into my hands again. They were considering it, and there was a strong probability it would happen then.

“Why does this bother you so much? You’ve had other New Wings who you no longer can have contact with. This one just ended earlier than you expect.”

With that sentence he confirmed what I had already been quite sure was going to happen: they were taking her away from me, I was no longer her Guider.

“Jake?”

I couldn’t pull my head from my hands.

“Jake? This doesn’t have anything to do with...?”

I didn’t have the energy to protest in defence the way I knew I should.

“You didn’t... did you?”

I shook my head back and forth in my hands, but it was a pathetic attempt to deny it.

“You fell for her?”

His voice was calm, but it turned angry. “You fell for her!”

There was ruffling of paper and the slamming of a laptop shut, then silence.

John sighed quietly before speaking again. “You brought this upon yourself. This is bad, but it doesn’t change much. The plan was for her to fall for you anyways, so this doesn’t complicate much besides the degree to which she probably fell. I’m assuming you left a few things out of the reports, then?”

I looked up, although avoiding his eyes. “I skipped a few nights.”

“You didn’t mention anything to her then, though? You never, ever brought up the reports? Or that you could guess what would happen the next day? There was nothing to make her suspect, right?”

John looked at me sternly as I answered honestly, “No.”

He continued to stare until I responded, “No, of course not. I never know anything much about the plan anyways, I was only told what I needed to know for the next day, never even any further ahead. Besides, she only figured it out because I left my cell in her room. She wasn’t suspicious before that.”

John shuffled his papers around again, picking up a thick black folder.

“This,” he said to me slowly, “Was her plan... until she broke it, and we lost her.”

He handed me the folder. It took me a moment before I could open it. Inside were charts with dates. They started at the time Annika had arrived in Heaven, and they described in less detail the things that I already knew. There were days on the beach, the problems she faced with friends, the ups and downs she’d felt in this world. What surprised me, tough, was that it had been planned that she’d be able to remember her past from the first day.

“You knew she was going to remember? Why didn’t you warn me? That day in the hospital, sitting outside the window with her, I panicked. I’d thought something was wrong.”

“We needed you to panic,” he responded. “It was one of the things that kept her ok, kept her moving despite her knowledge of the past.”

I sighed and glanced back down, then another question came to my mind.

“I always wondered: why did you have us keep a relationship a secret, if you had it in the plan too?”

“It was unique to this plan, to break the rules of Guider and New Wings, so it was decided that in order to cause the less disruption it would be easiest if you kept it secret. Then again, you were not supposed to fall for her remember? I have a feeling that you skipped more than just a few nights in your descriptions.”

I looked down, avoiding the statement, and kept reading. When it came to the date of that day, there were descriptions of things that were supposed to happen, but didn’t. The plan went on for three more months and two more weeks, although I quickly noticed that the descriptions for each day got progressively smaller and less detailed.

“Why does it end where it does?” I asked.

“The day after that would be her re-naming ceremony, the end of her time with you, her Guider, and her complete integration into the society.”

“Is that why it gets less detailed as it gets closer to the end, then? Because she’s more integrated?”

John reached across the desk and gently took the folder from my hands. “Yes and no. But I can’t tell you the full details, since I don’t even know the full details.”

This was something I was used to by this point, not being told the whole story. I nodded at John, who tucked the black folder into a drawer of his desk.

The phone on his desk began to ring and he picked it up with a swift movement. There were no introductions or informal conversation, and after a second of listening, John said simply, “Thank you.”

Then he looked up at me. “They’ve made their decision. We’re to go up to the boardroom now.”