My Ex-Wife Will Kneel Before Me

Heaven's blessing

Chapter 8

The old chapel sat at the edge of Ridgewood on a small hill overlooking the river. Half of the east wall was already torn down, and the front entrance was blocked by construction barriers and piles of rubble. Behind the building, near the tree line that led up to the higher ground, a group of men had gathered around a massive stone statue that had been carefully removed from the chapel's courtyard.

Ryan's father spotted him first.

"Ryan! Get over here!" Tom Mitchell was a broad chested man in his mid sixties with thick arms and a sunburned face. He waved his son over with a grin. "Perfect timing. We need one more body."

"For what?"

"The Guardian Angel." Tom pointed at the statue. It stood over eight feet tall, carved from solid granite, with wide wings and outstretched hands. The face was weathered smooth from decades of rain and wind, and the base was cracked from the demolition work. "We're moving it to the new site up on the hilltop behind the church. Reverend Collins wants it overlooking the valley."

Ryan looked at the statue and then at the group of men standing around it. There were fifteen of them, all locals, most of them over fifty. Farmers, mechanics, retired teachers. The kind of men who showed up when their town needed something done.

"You want to carry that thing up a hill?" Ryan raised an eyebrow.

"We built a platform with rollers. Just need enough muscle to guide it up the path." Tom clapped his son on the shoulder. "Come on. You used to bench press two twenty in college. Don't tell me the city made you soft."

"I'm not soft."

"Then grab a handle and prove it."

Ryan took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and joined the line. The platform was a heavy wooden sled with steel rollers underneath, and the statue sat on top of it, secured with ropes and chains. The men spread out along both sides, gripping the handles welded to the frame.

"On three!" Tom called from the front. "One... two... three!"

Sixteen men heaved in unison. The platform lurched forward and the rollers groaned against the gravel path. The statue swayed slightly, and the men adjusted their grips, leaning into the incline as the path curved upward toward the hilltop.

It took nearly forty minutes to reach the top. By the time they arrived, every man was drenched in sweat and breathing hard. The new stone platform was already in place, a flat granite slab with guide markers etched into the surface.

"Easy now!" Tom called out. "Lower it slow. If this thing tips over, Reverend Collins will have all our heads."

The men worked together, easing the statue off the sled and onto the platform. Ryan was positioned near the front, his hands gripping the rope that controlled the descent. The statue tilted forward, inch by inch, and the base scraped against the granite with a low grinding sound.

"Almost there!" one of the older men yelled. "Six more inches!"

The statue settled into place with a deep thud. The men let out a collective exhale and a few of them clapped.

Then something cracked.

It happened fast. A sharp, splitting sound, like a branch snapping in a storm. Ryan looked up just in time to see the stone hand of the Guardian Angel break clean off at the wrist. The hand, easily thirty pounds of solid granite, fell straight down and struck him on the top of the head.

The world went white. Then black.

He hit the ground before anyone could catch him.

"Ryan!" Tom's voice cut through the chaos. He dropped to his knees beside his son, cradling his head. Blood trickled from a gash above Ryan's hairline, and his eyes were closed. "Somebody call an ambulance! Now!"

The men scrambled. Two of them ran for the parking lot. Another pulled out his phone and dialed 911.

Old Hank Dawson, the town's unofficial historian, stood at the edge of the group with his arms folded. He looked at the broken hand of the statue, then at Ryan's unconscious body, and shook his head slowly.

"That's not an accident." His voice was low enough that only the men closest to him heard it.

"What do you mean, not an accident?" Tom snapped, still holding his son.

"The Golden Sentinel." Hank pointed at the empty space inside the chapel ruins where a smaller companion statue had once stood. "It went missing last spring and nobody ever found it. The Guardian Angel and the Golden Sentinel were always a pair. One protects, one serves. If you move one without the other..."

"Hank, I swear to God, if you start with that superstitious nonsense right now..."

"I'm just saying what the old folks used to say." Hank lowered his voice. "The Guardian Angel might have mistaken your boy for the missing Sentinel. Tried to claim him."

"He got hit by a piece of stone, Hank. That's all."

The ambulance arrived twelve minutes later. Ryan was loaded onto a stretcher and driven to Ridgewood Community Hospital.

In the sterile white room, Ryan lay motionless on the hospital bed with an IV drip in his arm and a bandage wrapped around his head. The monitors beeped steadily. His breathing was slow and even.

But inside his mind, something extraordinary was happening.

He stood in a vast, empty space that glowed with soft golden light. There was no ground, no sky, no walls. Just warmth and silence and the faint hum of something ancient.

A voice spoke. It was old. Impossibly old. Deep and resonant, like the sound of wind passing through a canyon that had existed since before the mountains were born.

"The Guardian's mantle passes. The Sentinel's seat was empty, and you have filled it."

Ryan tried to speak, but no words came out.

"Receive the seal."

A red medallion materialized in front of him, spinning slowly in the golden light. It was the size of his palm, smooth and warm, with two words etched into its surface in letters that seemed to glow from within.

Heaven's Blessing.

The medallion drifted toward him and pressed against his chest. It sank through his skin like water passing through cloth, and a wave of heat spread through his entire body. Red light pulsed from the center of his chest, flowing through his veins and into his limbs, reaching his fingertips and the soles of his feet.

The gash on his head began to close. The bruising around his temples faded. The swelling went down as if an invisible hand were pressing it flat.

Back in the hospital room, the night doctor checked Ryan's vitals and turned to Tom, who was pacing by the window.

"Mr. Mitchell, your son is going to be fine. The CT scan shows no fracture, no bleeding, no swelling. It's a surface wound. Nasty looking, but superficial."

"He was unconscious for over an hour." Tom's voice was tight with worry.

"That's not unusual with head trauma. The body sometimes shuts down to heal. He should wake up by morning." The doctor placed a reassuring hand on Tom's arm. "Go home, get some rest. He's in good hands."

Tom looked at his son lying in the bed, pale and still. He pulled out his wallet and left two hundred dollars with the nurse.

"If anything changes, you call me immediately."

"Of course, Mr. Mitchell."

Tom turned to the two young women sitting in the chairs by the door. Sarah Dawson was twenty six, quiet and pretty, with soft brown eyes that had not left Ryan's face since they brought him in. Megan, Ryan's cousin, sat beside her, holding a paper cup of vending machine coffee.

"Girls, I hate to ask, but can you stay with him tonight? His mother's going to lose her mind if I don't get home and calm her down."

"Of course, Uncle Tom." Megan stood up and gave him a hug. "We'll watch him. Go take care of Aunt Linda."

"Sarah?" Tom looked at the other woman.

"I'm not going anywhere." Sarah's voice was quiet and firm. "He'll be okay. I promise."

Tom nodded gratefully, squeezed both their hands, and walked out of the hospital room.

Relieved, his father left money and entrusted Ryan's care to two local girls, Sarah Dawson and Megan, before returning home to comfort a deeply anxious mother.