Cemetery angels can love too [Part Two] 🌌🪦🥀

*This is the sequel to my story “Cemetery angels can love too [Part One]🖤🗝️🪽”. This is underneath my folder titled “Cemetery angels”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33[2]”. Enjoy!*

Chapter One-Stars up high

Tessa and Gehenna walked outside of the mansion to the backyard, Tessa’s hand holding tight to Gehenna’s claw, while Gehenna raised the stick that held their hearts and necklaces high up into the starlit sky like a torch in a dark corridor.

Or like when Tessa was eleven years old and would look out of her bedroom window at the Marwood mansion on a hill when she was supposed to be asleep, the only light being from her gaslit lamp, asking herself if the Marwood were really as horrible as her parents would say or if Gehenna was the only good one. Tessa had never believed Gehenna to be evil, ever. She just wanted to know if there were other Marwoods out there who cared about the children given to the Starlit Angels.

But no, only Gehenna and maybe a Great Uncle Clellon Marwood did. That much was apparent from the poem that Uncle Clellon left behind to help himself out and how Gehenna was outside, raising their hearts to the sky.

Nothing happened at first, but then, the stars rushed down to the ground in blindingly white light until the girls could see nothing but whiteness and Tessa could feel as well as see the heat melting away the hearts on the stick, then trickling down to Gehenna’s hand and then-

Up they both went with the stars’ blistering brightness.

Chapter Two-Tears and terror

Taliyah was outside, twirling the flower stems in her hands as she looked out at the Marwood mansion on the hill.

Her parents always liked to say that “six year old girls like you should be playing with other kids” but just what would she say to the other children? She didn’t know the first thing to say, the “right” thing to say, when all she wanted to do was talk about the Marwood mansion and what could be waiting there, why they were taking children and if there was ever more to the story.

Yes, she was terrified every time the Marwoods came out to take the children, but what if they were like the fairytales where the monstrous were misunderstood? What if they only wanted someone to hear their stories, to heal them, to-

People began to walk out of the Marwood mansion in a straight line, a sign that they were going to be out and about, looking for children to sacrifice. Taliyah felt her heart drop in her stomach when she saw them walking, and she didn’t even need Mom to nudge her shoulder because she already knew to run.

Taliyah only wished that if the Marwoods were really more than what they seemed that they would just stop sacrificing and start talking to people, start opening their hearts, start-

“We’re here.” Gehenna said, breathless.

Chapter Three-It stretches on, but there’s still time

Tessa shook herself out of the memory and found that she was standing in a space that seemed to have no ground, a space that was made up of strings of white lights that weren’t solid, white lights that were burning at the edges and spread out on a dim blue sky.

The scenery was beautiful, but other than that, there wasn’t much of anything.

“I don’t know how we’re going to find anything when there’s nothing but stars.” Tessa said, growing worried about how they’d find their way around the seemingly infinite starscape.

But Gehenna, still holding onto Tessa’s hand, said:

“We just got here, Tessa. You’re the one who encouraged me to come here. This is the place of the Starlit Angels, of course there will be stars everywhere! Now, let’s not give up now, we still have a chance to find the children!”

Tessa smiled as Gehenna led her throughout the stars. No, Tessa wasn’t trying to discourage her, for she very much believed that the children would be found somewhere, it was just that the amount of stars was intimidating.

It was nice to see that Gehenna wasn’t so wracked with guilt as she was before, though.

Chapter Four-Death can’t stop the bonds of love

As they walked throughout the dimension of stars, Tessa searched the sky for any constellations, any planets, to see if she could find something that shimmered with magic and mystery, like in the fairytale picture books she read as a young child. All she saw were stars, but still, she tried to find something with color, something that wasn’t like the coldness of stars.

She was still holding onto Gehenna’s claw just like in the garden, but unlike in the garden, there were no flowers that would maintain its glimmer in death like in life, because the stars were neither alive nor dead. They just burned on and on, hanging high in the sky to shine for all to see. The stars did not care for anyone or anything, they just wanted to smother the world in a void of white light, in a splendor of fire. The stars would burn any living creature it touched.

Tessa turned her head to look at Gehenna, whose face was set with determination. Why Gehenna ever thought of herself as a monster would remain a mystery to her and when the time was up and Tessa had to leave, she’d make sure to engrave her love for Gehenna deep into the space that used to hold Gehenna’s heart, so that she would know that she would always, always be loved.

Tessa was about to let Gehenna know that, but then, Gehenna’s eyes went as she looked at something in the distance and Gehenna asked:

“What…what is that?”

Tessa turned to look at what Gehenna was looking at and found that her attention was on a lump of stars all clumped together in a bundle, moving as though someone were trapped inside it…trapped inside it? That was quite unusual for stars.

“I’m not sure. Should we take a look?” Tessa asked.

Gehenna nodded and so, the both of them ran towards the star bundle, letting go of another to run faster. As they were running on a ground that wasn’t quite a ground, Tessa wondered why she was starting to hear sounds coming from the star bundle, sounds like the muffled voice of a child, crying out for help, pleading to be saved.

Once she was right in front of the star bundle, she could hear the cries even louder than before, ringing through her mind, sounding just like sob-ridden screams. Even more, Tessa thought that she had heard that voice before. The memory of the voice was just at the edge of her mind, at the tip of her tongue, but for whatever reason, she couldn’t get an idea of who the voice belonged to or where she had heard it before.

Gehenna then knelt down towards the bundle and leaned closer, as though she were trying to hear the sounds better. Tessa watched with her fingers in her mouth, hoping that whatever was the bundle of stars wouldn’t turn out to be a threat or a trap.

Tessa didn’t dare say a word even as Gehenna put her claws on the star bundle and began working her way to unravel it, ignoring the smoke that came from her claws being burned by the heat of the stars, intensely focused, for Tessa feared that speaking would only make things worse, would only interrupt Gehenna. Whatever Gehenna was doing, Tessa wanted to trust it, to believe in it just as she believed in Gehenna.

It felt like ages watching Gehenna unravel the star bundle, but when the final starlit threads withered away, the both of them were looking at a little girl with light brown skin and curly black hair, her pink dress stained with blood, eyes wide with terror.

The little girl looked around her, a little stunned, but when her eyes set upon Gehenna, she smiled and hugged her fiercely, tightly, and Gehenna returned the favor, sobbing into the little girl’s shoulder, shaking as though she couldn’t believe that what was happening to her was a true reality and not a fanciful dream.

Tessa didn’t speak, for she knew that it was not her time to talk, not in that moment.

The little girl was Briena, Gehenna’s little sister who was taken by the Starlit Angels. She was dead, but at least Gehenna got to hold her ghost.

A ghost was just a person trapped by strings of the universe, after all.

Chapter Five-Family’s fights

Tessa watched as Gehenna hugged Briena tightly, her heart swelling at seeing Gehenna reunited with her sister again, at getting to hold her again even if it wouldn’t last forever, when Gehenna looked up and said with a smile:

“Tessa, come here too! I’m just so glad that I’m with two people that I love that I can’t possibly leave you out!”

Gehenna extended her arms out like a magical entity about to give out blessings and Briena turned around, three fingers to her mouth, a smile in her eyes as she looked at Tessa, that same kind of glow from Briena that Tessa saw when she admired Tessa and Gehenna’s dresses, when she gushed about how much they looked like Princesses, and how the two of them should run away together and live happily ever after like in the fairytales she read.

So, Tessa joined them, the three of them in each other’s embrace, nothing but the thought of them all being together once again in their minds. They had been separated by such cruel circumstances, but in the stars, they found one another. Briena was found and if she was found, then the other children would be too. The dimension of stars was an unfamiliar and dangerous terrain, but it wasn’t hopeless or impossible. The children could be-

The children. Tessa was so, so unbelievably happy that Briena was found, but what about the other children? Where in the stars could they be? How would they be able to find them all? How much time was left? Was there still enough time or was it rapidly slipping away? How did the star dimension work?

Just as Tessa’s thoughts were beginning to spiral in a frenzy, she felt the three of them being yanked away together and screamed with the Marwood girls as the three of them began to fall faster than Tessa could properly comprehend.

…………………………………………………………………

The three of them were falling, falling, falling, until they stopped. Until they landed in what appeared to be a parlor room with dim lamps that glowed golden on the yellow painted walls, with soft intricate carpets on shiny hardwood floors, and a fireplace on the wall that looked as though it could fit three people inside.

Sitting on a couch were three women, all looking to be in their twenties. One of the women was wearing a deep purple dress with her long black hair in ringlets. Another woman was wearing a muddy green dress and had her wavy light brown hair in a high, braided bun. The last woman was wearing a sapphire blue dress, her curly black hair in a braided half-bun.

All three women were talking to one another and to others in the room, Tessa couldn’t catch what they were saying, but she heard a jumble of voices and words.

The people that the women were talking to were three men, who looked to be closely related with the women and a little bit older than them as well. One of them was sitting on an armchair in a red velvet jacket, his leg crossed over the other. Another one of them was wearing a peach-colored jacket and was standing by the fireplace, one arm on the mantle as he talked. The last one was wearing a maroon-colored jacket and pacing around the room.

All three of the men were wearing gray pants and black boots, talking to the women profusely, running their gloved hands through their black hair as though they were so deep in conversation that they had to push their hair back from nonexistent sweat every once in a while.

“I…I’ve seen them in pictures before. They’re my Great Aunts and Uncles! The woman in the purple dress is my Great Aunt Nora, the woman in the green dress is my Great Aunt Susannah, and the woman in the blue dress is my Great Aunt Octavia. The man in the red jacket is my Great Uncle Davide, the man in the peach-colored jacket is my Great Uncle Leon, and the man pacing in the maroon jacket…that’s my Great Uncle Clellon. My parents told me that they used to meet in my Great Aunt Nora’s house for family gatherings. This must be her house. They’re…they’re all here.” Gehenna said, her tone wisping with surprise.

Tessa didn’t make out any words from the chatter and then she heard Octavia say something about it being unfair that she and the other women couldn’t have any children with their husbands no matter how hard they tried while the men could have children with their wives without any problems. The women said that they must have been cursed to have been so infertile or just plain unlucky. Either way, it was unfair to them.

Davide said there was always adoption, then Nora said that adoption wouldn’t be the same, so Leon suggested that they use magic to give the women children of their own, to which the women agreed to, but then Clellon said that to do such magic would be too dangerous and might result in the women dying, to which they argued that it didn’t matter because a child would be born and so, the conversation that Tessa first heard as friendly babble became convoluted into something of anger and frustration.

Tessa watched, wishing that she could say something, do something, but voices were getting louder, words more pointed than knives and then-

The three of them were falling yet again.

Chapter Six-If you truly believe, nothing can stop you!

Tessa didn’t know when the falling would stop or if it would stop, but she wished that she could at least grasp onto Gehenna’s hand, for the mere prospect of falling through an infinite starscape frightened her greatly. She had spent all her time trying to find what she was missing and when she finally found Gehenna, she knew not to waste a moment with her, especially since Tessa’s time was so little.

But falling within those stars reminded Tessa of when she was sleeping in benches and under trees, eating the leftovers of diner food and wearing any clothes that she could find, scavenging for things like a small rat in a towering mansion, unwelcome and unclean, especially since the Starlit Angels could be lurking anywhere.

The falling had stopped and the three of them were back in Nora’s house, except there was only the women, no sign of the men. They were all sitting in a circle on the ground, the moonlight shining on them. All three of them appeared to be in light blue nightgowns, their hair undone from their complicated hairstyles and cascading down their backs.

“Thank you for staying over at my house tonight. Our brothers can’t help us, so only we can help ourselves.” Nora said.

She extended her hands for Susannah and Octavia to take. Octavia accepted with no hesitation, but Susannah had looked at Nora’s hand as though it were a weapon and said:

“Are you certain that we should do this? Once we become angels of the stars, young human flesh will be the only thing to keep us shining. Sure, we’ll have children, but they’ll be dead. Wouldn’t…wouldn’t it be wrong to take their lives, especially at such a young age? Shouldn’t-“

“Susannah, I understand why you’re scared, but don’t be. We’ll have the children’s spirits to comfort us and we’ll keep them so close to us that they won’t remember the pain of dying.” Nora grinned.

Susannah still looked and seemed to be searching inside herself for something to say to go against what Nora was suggesting and then, her eyes lit up with the flicker of a new idea and she said:

“Our parents linked us together when we were all young. Our brothers will figure out what we’re doing and then they’ll try to stop us. How could we possibly go through this when we’re linked?”

Nora sighed, Octavia’s eyes flashed with impatience and so, Octavia snapped at Susannah with the words:

“What does it matter?! They’ll be too late to get to us and once we’re Starlit Angels, any time that they try to keep us down will only result in their deaths. Don’t you want children, Susannah? Don’t you want a child to hold close to your heart? Don’t-“

“What you are both describing is adoption with death! Why can’t we just adopt children without having to kill them? Why this? Why-“

“Susannah, please calm down. If you keep acting this hysterical, then our brothers will be alerted much quicker. Merely adopting a child would require having to watch them grow up, just like with any biological child. The only difference would be having to gain their trust. Not all of them are sweet, either. Some of them are just quite awful! With this, we’ll only request for our descendants to bring us the sweetest, kindest of children. They won’t be able to get away from us as ghosts! And who knows, maybe we’ll spot the perfect good child that will bring us the most joy and sustenance, then we might not need sacrifices. Susannah, would you rather go on life childless or go through death with all the children you can find?” Nora asked, her tone not entirely antagonistic, but still with an undertone of hostility.

Tessa thought that for just a moment, with Susannah’s uncertain face, that she’d get up and leave, run away and do the right thing, maybe even fight her sisters and try to stop them, just like how back when Tessa was known as Taliyah and she wanted to believe that the Marwoods had a good reason for the child sacrifices, that maybe they weren’t as horrid as everyone said, but something inside of Tessa told her that things would not end well, that they would not be as she hoped.

Whatever disagreements Susannah had with her sisters, they weren’t enough to stop her from taking the open hands of Nora and Octavia, to stop her from wanting a child.

The three women closed their eyes, as though they were going deep inside of themselves, prying out their own energy to bloom into the world…

And the three women began to glow light blue, just like their nightgowns, until the light became indistinguishable from their nightgowns, their skin began burning up from the light, their flesh began to deteriorate and…and they were dying! The light was burning them up, but in a way where they didn’t scream, in a way that made it look like an ethereal, hypnotizing display of powers. What was left of the women were small white lights, circling towards the moonlit window, in clumped clusters.

Tessa was rapidly pulled away from the parlor room, falling for a third time.

Chapter Seven-Snatch the sky

Hopefully they’d stop falling and eventually land at some point. Well, as good as landing in a dimension that didn’t seem to have any ground could be.

Tessa could hear screaming that sounded like it was coming from Gehenna and Briena, but she couldn’t see them. Where were they? Were they behind her? Or even worse, were they strung out through different parts of the star dimension? Were they okay? Were-

Tessa felt long arms wrap around her and smelled wet roses and right then, she knew that things were alright at the moment. She knew that it wouldn’t be alright forever, but she allowed herself to catch her breath in Gehenna’s arms before she told Gehenna to let her go and asked:

“Did we just witness past memories? Are the Great Aunts Starlit Angels? Nora said that they couldn’t be stopped, but what does that mean for us? Can we stop them? Can-“

“Stop asking so many questions, Taliyah! Of course we can stop them! This dimension holds many things, one of those things being memories. But also, if we reach our hands out in the gaps between the stars, like this…” Briena trailed off, sticking her hand into a blank space between the stars, seeming to reach right into the sky.

“Then we’ll get a piece of the sky! The stars are their strength and the sky is their weakness. That’s why they try to cover the sky as much they can with stars, but there are always gaps. We ghosts can pick apart the sky just fine, the only reason we haven’t done this before is because they trap us in star-bound threads that can’t escape from. You helped me, so now I’m going to help you.” Briena said with a smile, looking more at Gehenna than at Tessa.

Right after she said that, Briena brought down a mass of darkness, the sky swirling in her hand. Gehenna grinned at her as though she were proud, while Tessa gasped in awe. The girls had no idea that Briena could do such a feat, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

But their good spirits would be broken when voices that sounded somewhat human and mostly otherworldly hissed:

“What are you doing out of your stars?”

Chapter Eight-They’ll shine if you try

The three of them looked up to see that there were three towering silhouettes that glowed and glittered more than any of the stars, their white light nearly blinding them in a way that was both angelically beautiful and demonically grotesque.

Briena didn’t waste a second and threw the darkness towards the Starlit Angels, but then they began to burn brighter than they did before, expanding their brightness out onto the other stars until there was absolutely no darkness left, until-

Tessa felt herself tumble into Gehenna’s arms, the both of them falling down as Briena was taken away from them by the stars that seemed as though they would never cease to burn.

Chapter Nine-Reach out towards freedom

All of the corners of the sky were rapidly becoming covered with stars. Tessa and Gehenna couldn’t see a single gap of darkness, the light was overwhelming, taking up the entirety of the sky’s space.

The two girls held onto each other, blinking back tears, heartbroken that they couldn’t save the children, that they couldn’t save Briena. How would they be able to grab the darkness if there was no darkness left? Even if the darkness was still there, how would they be able to grab it? Only ghosts were able to hold the darkness, right?

“The dead can latch onto the dark. All one has to do is part the stars.” The voices of what sounded like three men echoed throughout the sky.

What help was that to them? They weren’t ghosts, they couldn’t-

“We’re dead, aren’t we?” Gehenna asked, a glint of hope in her eyes.

She wasn’t wrong, though. Gehenna was a vampire and Tessa was reincarnated, almost like a ghost. But that was almost. Would their type of dead be enough to save Briena and the other children?

Gehenna’s eyes sparkled just as it did when she reunited with Tessa, when she realized that her whole world was coming together. Tessa thought it’d be putrid to lie to her, but it wouldn’t be lying if it turned out to be right, would it? After all, Clellon did help them out before, so maybe all of Gehenna’s Great Uncles were also spirits in the sky and trying to help them out for one last time.

“In a sense, yes, we are. We could try to reach out and part the stars, then grab onto the darkness. It’s a worth a try.” Tessa said.

Gehenna’s beam grew wider, showing off her pointed, pearly white fangs and Tessa hoped to the universe that they’d both be given one more chance.

Chapter Ten-It doesn’t have to end

Tessa and Gehenna reached out with one of their arms towards the sky, afraid to let one another go, but still trying to do what Gehenna’s Great Uncles said.

They felt nothing but fire on their hands at first, burning the skin on their fingers, but then, they felt the calm coldness of the dark in their fingers that they held on tight, grabbing onto as much as they could.

When the forms of the Starlit Angels came into view, Tessa and Gehenna wasted no time and threw the darkness towards them, watching as the dark snuffed out the stars, listening to the laughing children as they were freed, and watching children fly higher into the sky with feathery white angel wings towards freedom, to a place Tessa and Gehenna knew nothing about, Briena being one of the children.

And then, they both fell back in Gehenna’s backyard, still in each other’s arms.

………………………………………………………………….

The sky was in a dim early dawn pink color, a sign that a new day was creeping up close.

Gehenna lay on the grass, Tessa on top of her. Both knew that their time together was limited, but neither one wanted to say a word about it. They wanted to let the moment linger a little longer, the joy of saving the children and being with one another glimmering in the space where their hearts used to be.

But after a few minutes, Tessa got up and lay beside Gehenna on the grass, saying:

“You know, once that sun comes up, I’ll disappear. You’ll go back to your mansion and I’ll go to…whatever the afterlife is.”

It was what was meant to happen, but why did it have to be that way? It didn’t feel fair or right or-

“What if you didn’t have to disappear? What if I just bit you and made you into a vampire? We’d eat all the rats in the mansion, but at least you’d be alive.” Gehenna said, turning her head to face Tessa.

Tessa turned her head away from the early dawn sky to face Gehenna’s deep brown eyes. It was a nice idea, she wouldn’t mind being a vampire, especially if it meant spending an eternity with Gehenna, but…

“Are you sure that turning me into a vampire would work? What if I disappear into dust? What if-“

“We haven’t tried it yet. Do you want to do it? Do you want me to bite you?” Gehenna asked.

The sun wasn’t out yet. The next day hadn’t come and Tessa didn’t know what was waiting for her on the other side. The children were innocent and would probably get a good place to rest guaranteed, but would she get that same treatment?

All Tessa knew was that with Gehenna, she felt more real, more alive, than she did ever before.

“Yes.” Tessa said.

And with that, Gehenna swept Tessa up into her arms and sunk her fangs into Tessa’s neck, Tessa drowning in her embrace that smelled of wet roses, in her dress of soft cotton.

Tessa’s eyes went heavy and then, there was darkness that felt just like a blanket.

………………………………………………………………….

She began to see a glow of light in the dark. Tessa couldn’t make it out at first, but when she opened her eyes fully, she could see that the light was coming from a candelabra and that Gehenna was the one holding it, sitting on the ground, holding Tessa’s hand with her free claw.

Even more so, Tessa could see that she was lying on the couch of Gehenna’s mansion and that through the small cracks in the boarded-up windows, she could see sunlight.

It was the next morning and Tessa was still there.

“It worked! You’re a vampire now! You’ll get to live with me and eat rats and-Tessa, you’re still here!” Gehenna grinned, putting the candelabra down on the table and taking her hand with both of her claws.

Yes, she was a vampire, Tessa could feel the shape of fangs in her mouth, but would eating rats be enough? Was eating rats enough for Gehenna?

“I don’t mind eating rats, but if we went out at night to go and drink the blood from animals and humans? Maybe it would be more. Maybe we would both be more energized.” Tessa said.

Gehenna’s eyes took on a look of mild worry and she asked softly:

“You wouldn’t be disturbed if you hunted more than rats?”

Tessa sat up on the couch and held both of Gehenna’s claws with her hands-claws, since she was made a vampire.

Gehenna was asking more than if Tessa would be disturbed, she could see it in Gehenna’s eyes. She was asking if it made her an unfeeling demon to drink the blood of the living, if it made her any less loving.

“I’m not disturbed by doing what I have to do to survive. And Gehenna, drinking the blood of more than rats will give us more energy. Drinking that kind of blood doesn’t make you any less of a sweet soul. We’re just cursed together and doing what we can to live forever.” Tessa smiled.

She cupped Gehenna’s cheek with a hand, to which Gehenna a small, soft smile to such an action, as though Tessa’s words had bloomed something inside of her.

“I’m glad I get to spend this eternity with you.” Tessa said.

Those were the words she said before the both of them began to bridge the gap, before the both of them kissed.

A lifetime of blood and love. What more could anyone ask for?