Hear My Prayer
~ Introit et Kyrie - Fauré Requiem - Gabriel Fauré
It had been a fortnight since Meredith had seen any cats at all.
She’d begun to think she had been imagining things, or embellishing real life- which, as a quiet, bookish girl with an overactive imagination- she often did.
Which explains why, on that particular Monday morning, when confronted with the very same black cat with the silver eyes, Meredith’s first course of action was to slap herself very, very hard.
When that did not help matters, she decided to ignore the cat.
She took a step to the left and tried to walk on but another cat appeared out of nowhere.
She turned, and found another. And then they begun to multiply at an alarming rate, which is when Meredith decided she was having a nightmare.
When she was surrounded on all sides by cats, their claws began to extend. And then so did their legs, backs, teeth and faces, and they stood on crooked hind legs.
The first cat- well, Meredith assumed it was the first cat- took a swipe at her face, and Meredith realised that she much preferred it as a stationary being.
“Oh, my God!” she shrieked when the claws of another cat caught her cheek. “Please, someone help me!”
The second the words left her lips a loud noise filled the air, like the flapping of cloth.
Then something heavy hit her back causing the cat-creatures to draw away, hissing.
Meredith was borne up into the air in a flurry of white and, looking below she could see two men armed with swords fighting the cats.
And- were those wings on their backs?
Meredith’s brain decided then that it was all just too much to handle, even for a dream, and so it promptly shut itself down.
Meredith woke up to the sun shining in through her window, hitting her face like it had a personal vendetta against her.
She grumbled, rolled over, and pulled her covers over her head.
Thus shielded from the harsh rays of the sun, her brain begun to think properly once again.
The sun was high in the sky: that meant it was late.
If it was so late, why had her mother not woken her?
Christ! She should be in school!
She jumped up, and that was when the pain set in. It seared across her skin like fire, or like lightening, crippling her organs momentarily as they felt the ripple of pain. Then the pain set in as deep throbs and prickling points.
It took longer for her to realise that her back hurt, and when she did realise she heartily wished that she hadn’t.
It had been a dull twinge; a slight pull, an increase in pressure when she was lying down but when she sat up that baby-ache became her own, localised hell.
So she had not been dreaming.
She lay back down and managed , with difficulty, to roll out onto her left side, the side that seemed to have the least damage.
Her attention was caught by a baby monitor with a post-it note stuck on the side.
The post-it read: If you need me darling, just call into this. Mum xxx
Meredith found this rather demeaning but she put her shame aside and called for her mother.
Ms. Kensington, who was downstairs with guests, let every other care drop as soon as she heard the weakened voice of her daughter, and she was out of the room and up the stairs in about five seconds flat.
Her guests followed more sedately.
“Oh, Merry, you’re awake! Are you okay? Do you need anything? Well talk to me darling, come on!”
Meredith rolled her eyes. “Mum… what happened?”
“You were attacked love, don’t you remember? By some yobs on the street when you were walking to school. You were very lucky that the DiAngelo’s were passing by. They’re doctors.”
Meredith looked up and saw two tall, beautiful people: a man and a woman. But at the same time she saw two, even more beautiful beings, clothéd in white with huge sets of wings on their backs.
“They insisted on staying to see that you would be okay,” Ms. Kensington gushed. “Oh, it was terrible! Those youths could have killed you, if the DiAngelo’s weren’t there!”
Meredith did not say anything. She’d been struck dumb by the beauty of the two Seraphs standing in the room.
“She’s probably still in shock,” said one of the angels in a voice that sounded simultaneously like the low purr of a wild cat and a heavenly choir.
His voice made Meredith’s insides slither over one another uncomfortably as they pooled under her navel.
“Oh, my poor baby!” Ms. Kensington cried, at her daughter’s side in an instant, hauling her daughter up and cuddling her face to her bosom.
That woke Meredith up, and she fought to escape her mother’s embrace.
“Mum, I’m fine,” she protested in a voice that said otherwise. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I’m really okay. I just- I just want a cup of tea. And some croquettes, for later.”
Ms. Kensington let go of her daughter. “Of course! I’ll start that now! Call if you need me, darling!” and she was off, completely forgetting her guests in her haste.
Meredith returned her gaze to the angels, opened her mouth, and then decided that actually, she probably didn’t want to know.
She pushed her hand underneath her pillow and groped around, pulling out the first book her hand hit.
Anna Karenina, by Tolstoy, the cover read. She’d forgotten she’d been reading that.
The angels watched as she spent a minute trying to get herself into a comfortable position before giving up.
When it was clear that she would not ask, one of them began to speak.
“Do you remember what happened earlier?” it asked, carefully.
Meredith’s brain turned to jelly again, for a second.
“Um- uh, yes. Well, not really. I don’t know?”
“You were attacked,” said the there angel with a voice that was –if possible- even more beautiful.
“Well, yes,” Meredith said, “of course.”
“By demons.”
There was a long pause.
Then: “Ahh,” said Meredith. “I thought that might have happened.”
