The Protagonist Speaks

Dear readers, tonight with me is a young woman, born to become an angel. In a world on the verge of destruction, Kate is here to tell us of fallen angels and the struggles of love.

What was your childhood like?

Mmm, let’s see. I was packed up, my life in a bag, and shunted off to boarding school because my parents’ relationship was all over the place. They were together one minute, separated the next and then back together again. Even Noodle, our already anxious Labradoodle, was considering an extended vacation! I was the ‘peace-maker’ in the family, but it was stressful always being the one to try and get Mum and Dad to kiss and make up. I turned to music … literally drowned myself in the magical world of sound I discovered.

My best times were spent with Nanny. I used to stay at her home at the beach a lot, sometimes for the whole holiday. We’d eat fish and chips and jam donuts for lunch and I was always barefoot and sunburned. She was my very first piano teacher. I remember the brandy and water she sipped swaying in a small crystal tumbler on top of her old upright piano as I played Für Elise and the smell of lavender as she reached across me to turn the pages.

When did you first learn about your biological parents?

I always knew that I was adopted. My folks told me when I was very young … I don’t remember what age exactly but I always remember Mum saying, ‘You didn’t grow under my heart, but in it!’ She was never on board with me meeting my biological parents. If I say that the idea freaked her out, I’m seriously minimising the reality, which is that she fell apart every time the possibility came up. I really didn’t want to hurt her, but I’m an inquisitive creature and I was worried that too much time would go by and I’d lose my chance to connect with the past. And so finally I just did it. I don’t know whether I went about it the right way … but it wasn’t something I was ever prepared for.

I met Nick when I was eighteen. I was in touch with Deb, my biological mum shortly before I met him. She was lovely, but nothing like me. I’d describe her as elfin, fair and fine-featured and light as a feather. I’m not goliath, but I’m not small either; probably a little on the curvy side, and I’ve got the wildest auburn hair which is constantly trying to smother my face. I’m much more like Nick. He also has crazy hair and we have the same green eyes. Mum says they’re like a cat’s, which is why she calls me Kit or Kit-Kat.

Nick was less than thrilled when I first contacted him. I can’t blame him, I guess. Deb never told him about me so it was a shock! I called him up out of the blue. He was expecting to hear about a plane … instead he got me! I still don’t always know how to take him. I mean, he has his problems, that’s for sure and I’ve just added another layer to his already toppling cake! I find myself wanting too much from him and I’ve got to hold myself back. He’s never going to be a real father to me.

When did you first meet an angel? What did you think?

The first angel I ever met was Nanny! She’s probably not the type of angel you’re referring to, but I’m convinced that she was one anyway. Sometimes when I wake in the morning it’s like she’s there … I smell lavender, but then the hot rush of loss hits me and I remember, she’s gone. Maybe it’s the quilt she so lovingly made me. I wrap myself up in it each night and I can almost feel her arms encircling me. I think a fragment of her spirit lingers within the intricate stitching.

But you’re asking about something different … You’re asking about the time when the ground seem to fall out from under me, about when I first found out that the other kinds of angels truly existed. I was nineteen when I lost my innocence. Nineteen … and there was no going back. Ignorance is bliss. Once gone it’s lost forever!

How do angels fall?

Angels are individuals with their own unique personalities and attributes. They were given free will and some made the wrong choices, just like people. Some wanted to be God, not serve God. Some were simply overtaken by lust and easily influenced by others who had already fallen. Because of their closeness to God and the knowledge they had of Him, their fall was all the more devastating. There was no way back for them, no hope of redemption. For many that didn’t matter … they revelled in darkness, continuing to plot and corrupt, but there was a select group, the Anakim, who longed for reconciliation, for forgiveness. Although the verdict was out and their sentence clear, they would not accept that there was no pathway back into the light.

Are there demons roaming the earth, as well as fallen angels?

I’m not sure I know the technical answer to this one. I’m still trying to come to terms with the whole fallen angel thing let alone considering demons! Most mornings I seriously consider running blathering out into the middle of the road in my pretty, but rather worn pjs and zebra-striped socks. But somehow I pull myself together, usually by swallowing down a tablespoon of denial, and soldier on!

Seriously though, I guess there probably are demons. I mean why wouldn’t there be? I imagine they’d have a lot of similarities with fallen angels. Both would be intent on the debasement and control of humanity. They’d be masters of deception and manipulation. The fallen angels known as Watchers are imprisoned in a spiritual realm I don’t fully understand. They operate on earth through the influence of those under their control. That seems demon-like to me, when I think about it. Whereas the Anakim, who are also fallen angels, but who grapple with their natures, are actual beings who live on earth.

Tell us about James and Ethan.

Are you sure you want to go there? Okay then. They’re identical twins, but they’re very different … to me anyway. Not so much physically, but personality-wise. Ethan struts. He can be kind of aggressive sometimes in his manner and language, he’s intimidating. And James … it’s hard for me to say much about James without going all limp-limbed, so I’ll keep it short. James is harder to read in some ways than Ethan. His appeal is somewhat indefinable, but more like rocky road than peanut brittle. There is his exterior of course, the body he inhabits and all that is tantalising about that, but I think it was the invisible that pulled me to the visible, if that makes any sense. The mysteriously hidden marshmallows and saltiness of the liquorice, underneath the chocolate, the irresistible combination of rough and smooth and not just cold and hard all the way through. See what happens? How my language devolves until it’s a sticky gooey mush no-one can make any sense of when I talk about him? Anyway, the fact is, that however appealing he is, he’s grown up in a world very far removed from mine. Still, I can’t say that I don’t wish for what I can’t have!

What does the future hold for you?

What the future holds vs what I hope it holds? No doubt the future holds a journey like no other. No doubt there will be highs, but I have a sense of plummeting lows and I fear that within the despair are great unfathomable lakes of loss … I don’t know what it all means yet, but something terrifies me when I’m asleep and leaves me haunted on waking. My dreams are vivid. Darkness is gathering and growing like a slowly building storm and in the midst of it a young boy calls to me from a place I do not know, but which he calls home.

I’m desperate to speak to Nick because there are no explanations for what is happening, not in my world. But after telling me about his mysterious family and the danger I’m in he seems to have flown off to some forgotten place where no-one can find him. I know that my old world is falling away and a new one appearing, like a submarine from the sea. I can’t take anything for granted any more. I’ve got to start stepping out courageously because if what James, Ethan and Nick have told me is true, then the world may soon be in need of a hero, even one who bites her nails and talks to an invisible snake called Sam!

Janet V Forster was born in South Africa, and is now a Melbourne, Australia, based psychologist and author. She has always been a bookworm. During school holidays you would have frequently found her lying under the African sun, lily white skin coated in coconut oil – yes it was the eighties – snarffing down chocolate, and with her nose buried in a Van Lustbader novel stolen from her parents’ bookshelf. You can find Kate on the pages of Awakening and the rest of The Last of The Anakim trilogy.

Next week we will be hosting a legal prosecutor, with a grudge against the paranormal and supernatural. Please follow the site by email (bottom-right), via Twitter or like our Facebook page to be notified when the next interview is posted.