About Audie the Angel
Audie
the Angel and the Angel Army is the first of three volumes in a Middle Grade
fantasy adventure series that make up The Angel Archives. Audie, a seemingly
typical twelve-year-old girl, is summoned from her middle school one day. She travels through a windmill farm to Heaven where she is told
that she is actually an Angel and, more importantly, that she is of Phoenix
descent. She is the pivotal and final member of an assembly of
others her age, called The Angel Army. The army includes Luce—the
dangerously handsome dark Angel predestined to fall from Heaven—and Cave—a
stowaway from Earth who is crushing on her hard—as well as eight Angels with
magical talents, a feisty Fairy, and a nimble gnome.
Audie’s
ordinary life becomes drastically different as she transforms; she sprouts gold
wings, receives a halo passed on from the mother she never met, and her fellow
Angels teach her to use her hand-me-down Phoenix powers. However,
before she even learns to fly she is told of the real reason she is needed: an
evil Elder Angel has discovered a way to dominate Heaven. Haunted
by dreams of her past Phoenix life, puzzled by her feelings for both the
charming Luce and her human friend Cave, Audie has to conquer her new found
powers quickly because the future of Heaven rests on her gold wings. Can she fight against flying Dare Demons, the Marsh Master, the
Frost Fairy, and Evil Souls to save Heaven? Can Audie change
destiny and save Luce from falling to his fate?
My Review:
Audie the Angel is a book written for middle grade readers. The idea of the story is great and I did enjoy how unique it is compared to many I've read. I think middle grade readers will enjoy the main characters as well as
some of the dangerous and intriguing
situations throughout this book. The good verses evil theme as well as the fantasy creatures in the story will draw the interest of many children.
Personally, I had a hard time getting into this story. The writing style kept switching from narrative to internal thoughts and explanation styles and I didn't think it really had a good flow to keep the reader up to speed. I also didn't really enjoy how Heaven was described in the story. I don't usually picture fantasy creatures like mermaids, gnomes and fairies in heaven, and feel that a magic forest really doesn't fit with most people's vision of Heaven. It felt more like a fantasy world than a description of Heaven and Angels, but that is my opinion.
Audie's romantic feelings for her friends Luce and Cave will appeal to older readers and may not interest younger readers. I think the overall story is great and that many middle grade readers will enjoy the fantasy and fun of Audie the Angel and her friends.
Audie's romantic feelings for her friends Luce and Cave will appeal to older readers and may not interest younger readers. I think the overall story is great and that many middle grade readers will enjoy the fantasy and fun of Audie the Angel and her friends.
About Erika Kathryn
Erika Kathryn has her Bachelors of Science Degree from East Carolina
University, major in Criminal Justice, minor in English. She's been dreaming of
Angels for over 10 years. She started the story of Audie when she was still in
college. She has written several other novels and many poems but none of which
pull at her heartstrings the way Audie the Angel does. She is currently working
on the journey of Volume 2 for Audie the Angel. When she isn't writing Erika
Kathryn reads to her beautiful Angel-Daughter, Kathryn Kay, while residing in
Crete, IL.
First Chapter
Chapter
1: The Crush
This all
started with a crush.
My name is
Cave and I just so happened to be the one crushing. I was twelve-
years-old when I met Audie and was just halfway through the sixth grade.
It’s hard to believe looking back now, that the Angel Archives all
started because of a crush. Webster Dictionary defines a crush as,
“temporary love of an adolescent.” Although in my case it didn’t
feel temporary at all.
This was a
simple boy-loves-girl crush that I had on a girl in my class. And
not just any girl. A girl that had a force-field surrounding
her—made of magnificence. A girl that captivated everyone she
passed in the hallways and on the school grounds. And because of
this force-field, I wasn’t the only one who crushed on her—practically every boy
in my middle school was absolutely madly and unconditionally in love with
Audie—of course none of them told her except me. Well…let me
clarify…I told her eventually, not right away of course.
At the time I
didn’t even know her last name or what had happened in her life that had made
her the girl she was. All I knew was that I had a crush on her
that made me think of her when I was riding the bus, when I was playing tether
ball during recess, when I was in the cafeteria, and even after my mom turned my
light out at night. It was as if she had cast a spell on
me. Later, after it all began, she asked me to write these
Archives for her. She asked me to do this so there was a record of
all the adventures she, I, and the others had together.
That’s right,
I had a crush on her and I was lucky enough to spend time with her. She was so sweet, she allowed me to tag along on her life changing
journey that took me from being a loner little boy with glasses and turned me
into a man—or at least that’s what Audie calls me—a man. These
Archives are not my stories to tell, but I will do my best. Some
of these are firsthand accounts of what I personally observed and some is what
Audie herself, or others observed, and later told me.
I guess
there’s no better way for me to start other than…night terrors.
Yes, that’s right, I said night terrors. Audie had them
every single night that she could remember. Don’t get me started
on how badly I wished I was there at night with her; let’s just stick to night
terrors. They were always the same dream, night after night, and
she always woke up in a sweat. Again…wish I was there…but I
digress. She said she even woke up with tears dried to her cheeks
as though she had been crying for hours. Here’s her account of the
repetitive dream…
“YOU’RE
GOING TO KILL HIM!” A familiar looking blonde woman screamed,
“PLEASE!” She was lying on the floor of what looked like an old
castle. An eerie fire flickered angrily behind her and made her
hair stand on end. She was crying and the tears sparkled like
crystal from the warm light of the fire. She was hovering over a
body that looked deadly still.
A man with
raven black hair stared down at her and screamed back, “I own you!
He doesn’t get to have you! No one will; you’re
mine! You’ve been mine since before the day you were born and I
OWN YOU! You don’t get to leave me!”
He raised
his arm up high behind his head and made a striking motion.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” The woman shrieked!
Then Audie
would wake up soaking wet in angst and tears. Her father would
rush to her bedside and hold her as tightly as he could. Audie was
too upset in the moment to ever tell her father what she saw. She
didn’t want him to think she had a crazy imagination and whenever the topic was
brought up she promptly distracted him with a problem she faced at school, or
some homework she didn’t understand.
Now that brings me to Audie’s upbringing.
Audie was raised by her dad, August, and because of that she was slightly
considered a tomboy. She told me once that he didn’t know much
about raising a little girl, and because of that he raised her the only way he
knew how. She said they seemed to learn everything together, from
how to cook amazing meatloaf, to how to be generous to all animals even the
smallest of creatures, all the way to driving at age ten without running over
curbs.
Audie loved
spending time with her dad. He had the kindest, warmest brown
eyes, like maple syrup on a Sunday morning. But every time she
asked him about what happened to her mother, her father would barely breathe a
word about it and then go to bed early. She heard him sobbing once
or twice behind his bedroom door so tried not to mention it often.
Even so, the
absence of her mother was a loneliness that Audie couldn’t quite explain.
She truly missed the woman she had never met and it was always apparent
to her when she saw her classmates being dropped off for school by their
mothers.
Audie and her
dad moved around a lot which made them even closer. The best
memory Audie has of her dad was that every night after dinner they would laugh
hysterically over playing Yahtzee. Her dad worked on cars for a
living and she recalled how her dad permanently smelled like gasoline, a scent
that reminded her of him no matter where she went. She knew before
her dad walked into a room that he was coming because the gasoline scent paved
the way for him. From what Audie told me her dad seemed to know
when she was upset or when she had a bad day and would always be there to make
her smile. In a lot of ways, because of all the moving around, her
dad was her best and only friend. Audie was born with golden
blonde hair and intensely blue eyes that gazed deeply at the world, not as a
skeptic, but as an admirer. When I met her, she always had her
hair pulled back in a ponytail and wore very conservative, almost boyish
clothing, no doubt picked out by her father.
After the
passing of both of his parents, August inherited his family’s estate; a house
that could have passed for a mansion or even a castle. When Audie
turned twelve-years-old, he finally decided to stop living like a nomad with his
daughter and settle back in the home he was raised in. He brought
Audie to the mansion with hesitation even though knowing a stable life would be
best for her. Audie’s new home was cold and strange to her but as
long as she was with her dad, she knew she would adjust to the new
surroundings. August decided to open up the enormous twenty car
garage as his own auto body shop. With him starting up his own
business and Audie going to yet another new school, the two of them leaned on
each other for support.
Now this
brings me to the part of the Archives where Audie and I met. I
lived in Lowell, Indiana, a sad small town not too far from the border of
Illinois. This happened to be the town where August’s family
mansion was. My upbringing was very different from Audie’s.
My life was the exact opposite of moving around; we never moved once in
the duration of my existence. I was bred, born, and raised in that
sad little town of Lowell. Not that I had much to compare it to at
the time, but it was a boring ho-hum life until the day that Audie walked into
it.
One rainy day
when the sun had seemed to be playing hide-and-seek behind dark clouds for over
a week, I was sitting in English class, as any old usual Tuesday tired of
hearing about synonyms and antonyms and staring blankly out of the
window. I was wondering when the sun would come out and grace our
small town with its presence just when the class door creaked open.
In my mind it all happened in slow motion, as she walked through the door
frame it seemed as though a breeze blew across her cherry-colored cheeks and the
sun raced into the room, coming out of its hiding place. Even the
sun itself couldn’t wait to gawk at her and I think my bottom jaw fell open a
little bit. I remember shoving my Buddy Holly glasses up on my
nose, wondering if she was more attracted to Superman or Clark Kent, as I
considered myself classified more as the latter.
She walked in
and stood at the teacher’s desk. Our teacher who was up at the
blackboard turned around abruptly and said, “Ah, you must be…”
Our teacher’s
bun must have been tied too tight; I thought to myself, how dare she forget such
an amazing organism’s name. As the teacher rustled through her
papers, Audie smiled at the class and I swear as she looked at me a little
twinkle jumped into her left baby blue. In the distance I could
hear a collective gasp from all of the boys in the room, but couldn’t take my
eyes off of Audie.
“…Ah here it
is! You must be Aud—ah, this must be a typo, Audrey.”
“No ma’am,
it’s no typo, my name is Audie.”
Audie’s voice
rang in my ears for the first time and it seemed as though the clouds opened
even wider to let the sun have a better view of her.
“Uh,” our old
teacher grumbled, as she looked at Audie with wrinkles around her eyes, “ah,
Class, this is Audrey, and she is our new student I told you all about last
week. Audrey, please have a seat over there.”
“Thank you
ma’am” Audie said slowly, not distracted by the fact that the teacher had
completely ignored what she had said.
I remember
sitting in that class day after day peeking at Audie out of the corner of my
eye, always nervously smoothing out my dirty blond hair and pushing my glasses
further up on my nose. I watched as Audie ran and fetched the
teacher more chalk for the board, passed handouts to each of us, cleaned and
organized the teacher’s desk every morning, and brought cupcakes to the class
every Friday, of course before the teacher got there, as she would never have
approved of us eating all of that sugar.
In the
hallways boys pushed each other to get to walk beside her, and they clambered
over each other to sit near her at lunch. All the while, I admired
her from a distance; sitting with my smart friends who would rather talk about
math class as I gaped at her out of the corner of my eye. She
quickly made friends with some of the girls and grew a reputation of being kind
and generous. She was always the smartest and quickest to answer
in class, made the best grades, and helped the other students who begged her to
study with them.
One
afternoon, as we neared the end of sixth grade, around the time the buses pulled
into the parking lot and all of the students were rushing to pack their bags and
waiting impatiently for the bell to ring, I realized I had forgotten my English
book back in the classroom. The bell pierced through the hallways,
stinging my ears and as everyone made the mad dash for the buses I fought the
crowd to go back to the English room.
I stowed away
into the dark room and just as I was pulling my book off of the teacher’s desk
and checking that it had my name in the front cover, I heard someone else coming
in the room. Thinking it was our old-bag teacher, I hid behind the
desk, hoping I wouldn’t be reprimanded for leaving my book behind.
The scent of vanilla wafted over to me and I soon realized it was the
lovely Audie in the room with me. I felt paralyzed out of
nervousness even though I wanted more than anything to pop out from behind the
desk.
Just as
feeling was coming back to my legs, a boy that looked my age, and was African
American, walked into the room from the hallway and looked right at
Audie. I had never seen the kid before, and I remember having the
feeling that he didn’t even go to our school.
“Can I help
you?” Audie asked the boy.
“Yes, please
follow me.” The boy said, with a strong English accent.
It was at that point I knew for sure he didn’t go to our school.
“Pardon
me?” Audie asked politely in her sweet voice.
“You’ll need
to follow me now,” the boy said, as he motioned with his hand for her to
follow. “You’re in danger here, Audie; you’ll need to follow me
right now.”
“I’m sorry,”
Audie let a beautiful little smile glide across her face, “what’s your
name? What bus do you need to get on? I will help
you find it.”
“I have been
sent to protect you and you must come with me now,” the boy said, visibly losing
his patience.
“Protect
me…from what?” Audie smiled deeper now, thinking this was some
kind of a joke.
“There is no
time for this,” uttered the boy, as he impatiently walked quickly past her and
to the classroom closet door.
I had gone
into that closet over a dozen times in the school year to grab supplies for my
ornery teacher, but when the boy opened the door it was not the same.
When he opened it, the shelves of paperclips and colored paper had
disappeared and there was snow that opened up to a tunnel of ice!
From what I
could see, the tunnel seemed to go on forever. I immediately
rubbed my eyes behind my glasses, thinking I must have fallen into a twisted
dream and that when I opened them, the plain simple closet that housed the wet
mop would reappear. But no matter how hard I rubbed, the same
snow-filled tunnel was there.
“What
the—?!?” Audie exclaimed in disbelief. It was as if
she had read my mind and her voice brought me right back to reality.
Without any
hesitation the boy walked right through the door and into the tunnel.
“You’ll need to follow me now, Audie,” he stated, over his
shoulder.
“In
there?!?” Audie stood stationary and gaping as if she didn’t trust
that her eyes were being honest with her.
As I watched
her take one step forward a complete panic seemed to swallow me, starting at my
toes and working its way up to my forehead. I guess I should tell
you now that when I get nervous there is only one result that ever comes from it
and unfortunately that result is—oh God, I cannot believe I’m writing this in
these Archives—well, honestly...it’s sneezing!
You’re
probably thinking that I’m a sad little excuse for a kid for having that ailment
and you would be right in thinking that. This disorder of mine had
plagued me since birth and despite Doctors assuring my mother I would grow out
of it, I could never quite beat it. Anytime something surprised
me, anytime I was shocked or intimidated or alarmed even, a sneeze attack would
be brought on. It typically resulted in me being called some
choice names by kids at school but nonetheless, never resulted in anything
good.
I felt
helpless and miserable because I knew there was nothing—and I mean absolutely
nothing—to stop the sneeze attack from coming on. In that instant
I tried holding my breath, but to my dismay I sneezed hard, not once, not twice,
but three wretched times.
As I wallowed
in my self-hate for sneezing, the boy sprang back in the room from the tunnel
and Audie spun around on her heel. I wiped the spit from my chin,
smoothed out my plaid button down shirt, and looked up to see them both staring
down at me.
“Cave!?” Audie shouted in
surprise.
Now, call me
crazy, but all I could think in that moment was…she knew my name!
All of the days in class I had worshiped her and all of the nights I had
dreamed of her and all this time, all along, she had actually known my
name! It was as though the world stopped spinning and we were
alone in the state of Indiana, just me and her in that moment and, did I
mention…she knew my name?
“He’s seen
the tunnel; he must come with as well.” The boy sneered at me in
revulsion. He instantaneously walked back through the closet door,
put his hand on the knob and said, “Now,” sternly.
Audie and I
followed him without saying a word to each other. Maybe we were
scared of him, maybe it was instinct, maybe it was some cosmic force of fate,
but for some reason amidst the oddness of that tunnel being in the closet, we
followed the strange boy who neither of us knew. Even odder yet,
he didn’t seem surprised that we followed him; he just had expected us to do as
he said, as if he was some foreign ruler that was accustomed to bossing people
around.
As Audie and
I crossed through the doorframe from one world into another, the boy pulled the
knob shut behind us.
“In we go,”
said the boy, walking in front of us, putting on a black facemask and a slick
helmet on top of that.
He then
pointed to a snowmobile sitting in the icy tunnel. I hadn’t
noticed the mobile before but it truly looked like something out of the
future. It was bright blue and perfectly shiny, glimmering from
the dancing lights on the icy walls of the tunnel. The boy pulled
out a helmet that he handed to Audie and hoisted himself onto it.
“No thanks,”
Audie said, and turned back towards the door. When she looked for
it she realized the door to get back into the closet was completely gone and
there was only ice in its place.
“There’s no
going back,” the boy breathed through his helmet, and he motioned for her to
come join him on the mobile.
“He’s a man of few words, huh,” she said looking at me.
She handed me
her facemask that was tucked inside her helmet and she hopped on behind the
boy.
In my
defense, I had just learned a few minutes prior to this moment that she even
knew my name and now she was actually speaking directly to me. So
I did the only fitting thing I could do at this point and that was to
sneeze. Audie giggled as she put on her helmet. I
hurriedly pulled the facemask over my head, snagging it on my glasses, and
jumped on behind her. I started to put my hands around her waist
to hold on, but stopped a minute to bring myself back down to Earth.
I again started to grab her leg this time but I gasped for air as I felt
a sneeze coming on. Within a minute’s time, the boy had fired up
the engine and as the snowmobile shot forward, I grabbed Audie’s waist out of
instinct to refrain from flying off of the back.
I looked over
her shoulder at one point but the wind was stinging my eyes through my glasses
and all I could do was wish that the English boy had brought along three helmets
instead of only two. We went further and further into the icy
tunnel. There were turns but it all looked the same to me.
Every few yards there were bright LED lights that lined the tunnel walls
to keep it well lit. At one point I turned and looked behind us
and felt actual relief to leave the life of decimals, fractions, and geometry
behind. Even though we were going to the unknown, I knew it was
with my crush, and all that mattered was that she knew my name.
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