Angel Thieves

by Kathi Appelt

  Besides, no amount of preparation could take away the silted water that tugged at their skirts and the thick mud that sucked at their feet. Achsah knew that. She also knew that she was a strong woman. Big for my age, she thought. And for once, she was glad of it.

  The Marble Carve

  THE TRAIL

  1837–39

  He wasn’t the first to carve a figure out of the rose-pink marble that dwelt just underneath the topsoil near the north shore of the Etowah River in Georgia. A thousand years earlier, maybe longer, there had been others who discerned how to take a slender thumb-size chunk of the glittery material and then use a rough stone to smooth and shape it into tiny animals and humans.

  Each generation, there was an artisan, or two or four, who saw shapes inside the marble and, using the tools at hand, set them loose from the stone.

  Anyone walking through those Georgia hills could stumble over a carved figure, dropped there by its owner and not found for centuries, until at last it’s dug up by a rabbit or washed out by the rain, making its way to the surface again, making its way to the sun.

  Marble loves the sun, loves the way it warms its surface and bounces light back into the sky. It might stay underground for a million years, sleeping there, until at last an earthquake pushes it up through the topsoil. Or, more likely, a digger comes along and uncovers it. Maybe that digger will use its nails or claws, or a shovel or a pick. Maybe a steam shovel. Maybe a drill. Doesn’t matter. After so many thousands of years of being buried, the marble is happy to greet the sun again.

  There was a long line of carvers—Etowah, Cherokee, Creek—who mined the marble of the Long Swamp Valley in Georgia. But then came the forced removal, those terrible years when the Creek and Cherokee, the Seminole, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, all were driven out of their lands where they had lived for generations, raised their babies, built their homes, buried their dead.

  Say it, removal. Such a soft word, no hard consonants to bump against your teeth. How can it even stand for thousands of people who were driven out, taking with them only what they could carry? They pulled their children behind them, among them a tall, thin boy whose fingers loved the cool touch of the stone. This boy of a Cherokee father and a Gullah mother. He saw himself in the veins of the marble, a shot of black streaming through the middle, a deep vein of brown running through a field of dusky pink. He understood what the marble had to offer, knew that once carved, if he polished it with a sand-filled cloth soaked with river water, it would soon begin to glow.

  Then came the troops, sent by Martin Van Buren.

  It was just before the harvest; the soldiers rounded up his family, his kin, his neighbors—forced them from their homes, made to leave in the middle of meals, food still on the table, the crops in fields, left the horses hitched to their plows. Forced everyone into stockades with little to eat, little for shelter, crammed together beneath the autumn skies, waiting and waiting and waiting, growing thinner, weaker, until they were lined up and driven onto the trail.

  More troops. Never mind that it was soon winter, that the freezing air burned their lungs, that the frozen ground ate the soles off their feet and chewed their calves, then their knees and upward until there was nothing left but bones. Walking bones.

  And those bones took one frozen step after another for hundreds of miles. From the Georgia marble fields west to Indian Territory. Many grew sick, too weak to move. Some died lying down, some died standing up, some died in the midst of taking a step.

  Once in Indian Territory, the survivors would build and begin anew. But still, so much was lost, including somewhere along the way, maybe in the deep pine forest of southern Tennessee, a tall, thin boy whose parents died along the trail, one after the other, one day apart. With no one watching, no one paying attention, he faded into the trees, steps soft as a panther, heart pounding. But the forest offered little refuge. If he hadn’t looked so much like his black Gullah mother, and more like his Cherokee father with his paler skin and straighter hair, he might have stayed there, in those trees.

  Instead, he was nabbed in broad daylight by a band of marauders and carried first to Alexandria, then forced to march again, this time to Natchez, to the Forks of the Road Slave Market, chained to a girl his very own age, and every now and again, despite his raw, blistered feet and the hunger that gnawed at his insides, he’d managed to smile at her. He didn’t care if she smiled back or not.

  Achsah was her name. “Achsah,” she told him. He never told her his. Instead, he gave her his only possession, the figure he’d carved from the rose-pink marble of his Georgian hills, a tiny figure of a woman, its mouth forming an O, as if it was surprised.

  It was all he had.

  Mother River Church of God’s Blessings

  HOUSTON, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

  EASTER SUNDAY, 1844

  If a church stays in one location for long enough, sooner or later it’s likely to need a place for its departed brethren and sistren to rest in peace. So, not too long after the new chapel was constructed, the congregation at Mother River Church of God’s Blessings set aside a couple of acres of land to provide graves for its members.

  The Reverend Phillips consecrated it on Easter Sunday morning, Easter seeming like the perfect day to ask for God’s blessing for land that would be the final sleeping places of his congregants. On that day, the church members gathered for services outdoors. The reverend had them all stand in a circle and hold hands; all the white folks, that is. The Negroes stood behind the circle, including Major Bay, their heads lowered.

  Then the reverend called on the Lord to be generous with His tears so that the ground would not be too hard; and to shine His radiance on the green grass so that the ground would not be too soft. He asked Jesus to shower them all with love and peace. The whole thing took a little over two hours, by which time everyone was sick of holding hands.

  At last the ladies of the church laid out an Easter dinner for everyone to enjoy. They set it on a long table that Major Bay had built just for the occasion, right between a pair of tall cypress trees. Ham, beans, corn pudding, rice cakes, boiled crabs, steamed fish, sweet muffins. Of course, the white parishioners ate first, followed by the Mexicans, and only when the last one went through the line were the Negroes allowed to eat. Still, it’s said that on that one day at least, there was plenty for all.

  Afterward, children chased one another through the new cemetery, which at the moment had nary a single grave. Babies napped amid a patchwork of quilts and blankets thrown right atop that consecrated ground. Men strolled in groups of two and three, taking note of the broad-leafed magnolia trees that ringed its borders and the gentle way it sloped upward to the edge of the river.

  It must also be mentioned that right in the very middle of the two acres, standing in a ray of sunlight, was a statue of a woman. She had traveled all the way from the foot hills of Georgia, wrapped in the back of a wagon in a heavy tarp and fastened with rope. She had remained in that tarp for a couple of years until finally she was set free and placed in the middle of the new cemetery.

  It was fortunate that they had Major Bay to help install her atop the cement pedestal. Now, a statue carved of Georgia marble is too heavy for one man—even a man as large as Major Bay—to manage on his own. Nevertheless, it was Major Bay who directed her placement, and Major Bay who did the heaviest lifting.

  Folks didn’t really know what to make of her. She wasn’t exactly an angel, although there was no denying her beauty. And her robe fell under her exposed breast in a way that caused some of the women to raise their eyebrows and some of the men to stare.

  If you could take your eyes off the exposed breast, you might notice that unlike so many carvings that stood in graveyards, her face was turned up, not really toward the sky, but not at all toward the ground; more like over her shoulder. Something else . . . her hands . . . one of them, the left, was outstretched, palm up. But the other, the right, hung by her side in a curled fist.

  Was she holding on to
something other than a fistful of marble? It’s more likely that the sculptor grew tired of carving fingers, which any carver will tell you are the hardest things about the human anatomy to get right. The left hand, outstretched, was so lovely, each finger in perfect proportion to the palm, the arm, the shoulder, that maybe the sculptor just felt he had already carved one perfect hand and didn’t want to worry over another?

  Another thing . . . if you stood in front of her for more than a moment, it might seem to you that she had something to tell you. But no one on that Easter afternoon stopped long enough to listen.

  So when all the food was eaten, and the sun began her setting down over the river, Reverend Phillips asked for another prayer, and this time nobody had to form a circle or hold hands. Everyone together, big and small, in one big group, lowered their heads, and the reverend spoke in a quiet, low voice:

  “Oh Lord, let this beautiful place be a refuge for all who need it.

  Let us be worthy. Let us be brave. Let us be kind.

  Amen.”

  It was just the right prayer. And later that night, while Reverend Phillips held his wife, Celia, in his arms, she told him so. “It was perfect,” she said. And she kissed him on his rough cheek.

  The next day she employed a local woodworker to carve the prayer into the front doors of the church. And there it remained, year after year after year, Mother River running by.

  Cade Curtis

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  FRIDAY

  Ultimate Love? Cade sits at his desk in the bachelor pad, facing a pile of homework. He wonders if he should be mad. Religion is something he’s hardly even discussed with Martin, and only partly because he doesn’t ever want the conversation to veer into angels, which might segue into life after death, and that seems dangerously close to the topic of cemeteries. Better to leave it alone, he thinks. Sometimes Martin talks about his Catholic church, and Cade has actually gone to mass once or twice when he’s spent the night at Martin’s house, but overall, religion isn’t their subject of discussion.

  The bigger reason is: “Evie belonged to a church,” Paul told him. “It didn’t work out well.” So Paul has hardly ever brought it up, at least not in any philosophical way. And now . . . here was this invitation, complete with pizza, and more important, complete with Soleil.

  Since the moment she landed in the desk in front of him in American literature on the first day of school, he’s become increasingly aware of her. In fact, it wasn’t long before he felt like she had cast a spell on him. He even started drumming his fingers on his desk, something he’d never done before, and doesn’t do in any of his other classes.

  He knows he wants more of her than just fifty minutes in class, more than just a drive-by at the flagpole. As much as anything, he wants to know about the tattoo on her wrist. In the history of Soleil, why a honey bear jar?

  But if she shares her history with him, won’t she expect him to do the same? And then, what about the angels? What would she do if she found out that he was a thief? What then? Can he take a chance? Should he?

  Cade looks at the purple flyer smoothed out on his desk. Sunday night at seven. He notices that it doesn’t actually say anything at all about Jesus or Ultimate Love or prayers or faith or any of the other words that he has heard over and over. It’s just a straightforward invitation to join in fellowship, followed by, there is room to spare.

  He rubs the scratch just beneath his eyebrow. It’s healing, but it reminds him. Something good. He needs to do something good. It also seems to him that Soleil, with her open-ended name, has taken a chance too. On him.

  Yes, he thinks. He can say yes.

  Zorra

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  FRIDAY

  Zorra needs to find a way to get out of the awful wooden enclosure. She licks her sore paws with her rough tongue. And then she cocks her ears. There is a new sound outside her pen. Actually it’s an absence of sound. The rain, so constant over the past few days, has stopped.

  And there is something else. The river.

  It’s rising! If the tiny window of her cage door were larger, she could see it, churning up the banks beneath her enclosure. The screech of the unknown bird startles her, and Zorra spins in a tight circle; her tail whacks against the side, and when it does, the whole pen shifts. She backs into the corner, and it shifts again, as if someone was pushing at it, bumping against it. The sound of the water draws closer and closer.

  The current rolls, faster and faster. All those days of constant rain, all that water. It has to go somewhere.

  Zorra, hold on. The bayou is coming for you.

  And just like that, the rain returns.

  Mother River Church of God’s Blessings

  HOUSTON, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

  1845

  The vegetation in Houston grows quickly. Anyone who has ever been the caretaker of a lawn there knows that. And nobody knew it better than Major Bay. The Reverend Phillips had put him in charge of maintaining the grounds for Mother River Church. He was responsible for keeping the crabgrass at heel and for trimming the gardenia bushes next to the front steps. He cared for the mules and greased the wheels on the wagon, repaired a broken pane, and mopped the wooden aisles of the church every fortnight. He was also the person who dug a grave whenever one of the members of the congregation passed on, and then covered it back up, smoothing the dirt into a perfect oblong mound. He took care with each grave, treated it with respect.

  He buried the white folks in the main part of the cemetery. Their graves would be marked with headstones, their names carved into solid granite. There was a special area for the few Mexicans who attended the church. They too had headstones. And lastly he buried the slaves nearer the river, marked their resting places with only small wooden crosses, no names, no attributes.

  Major Bay had no choice in the matter. He had ridden in the back of Reverend Phillips’s wagon all the way from Georgia to Texas, chains around his wrists.

  Had he fallen off that wagon, who knows what might have happened? He might have been dragged by the two mules that pulled the cart, pulled underneath the four carved wagon wheels. On the other hand, he might have yanked the chain free and run away. Who can say?

  What is certain is that Major Bay kept the grounds of the little chapel, with its lovely yard, surrounded by an ancient grove of magnolia and hickory trees, nestled right up on the shores of the Mother River, neat and tidy.

  The exception was the old brush arbor, no longer in use. He let the wild roses and the morning glories and honeysuckle vines climb up over its sides, covering the arbor in thick greenery, bound by the thorns of the roses and the prickly nettles of dewberry bushes. Underneath the once open arch, where Reverend Phillips had begun his ministry, Major Bay encouraged a wild stand of yaupons to twine their branches together in a tight weave of wood and leaves. In the spring, their tiny berries gleamed in the blazing sun, and the cedar waxwings, on their way from Mexico, would flock onto their branches and strip the berries in a bustling rush of hectic chirping, then fly off again.

  Unless you happened to amble through the churchyard at the exact moment when the waxwings flew in and then flew out again, you probably wouldn’t even realize that the old brush arbor was there, or that it ever had been. All you would see was a thick stand of bushes and vines, nestled up against the banks of the bayou. Nothing more.

  Soleil Broussard

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  FRIDAY NIGHT

  To say that Soleil is distracted would be an understatement. No one has heard from the Byrd family. Plus, she has invited a boy she barely knows to come to a party where there will be a disco ball.

  A boy who stops her dead in her tracks, so that the only word she seems able to say in his presence is pizza.

  For crying out loud. What is wrong with her? She reaches behind her head with both hands and twists her hair into a knot, then lets it tumble back down. Then she does it again. Twist. Release. Twist. Release.

  “Lay-Lay! Stop it!” Ma
ma reaches for her arm, tugs on it. “You’re going to pull all your hair out—literally!” Soleil lets her hair go again, but then she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. She rubs the tattoo on her wrist.

  “Find something to do,” says Mama. “Walk the dog or something.” Considering that they don’t have a dog, that should be funny, and normally, Soleil would have laughed, but right then, it just makes her more frustrated than ever. Even if they had a dog, it’s raining again, and walking a dog in the rain doesn’t seem funny at all.

  With no Tyler to entertain, and no dog to walk, she grabs her backpack and heads to her room. Even though it is a Friday night, she might as well do some homework. Usually she and Channing and Grapes might have gotten together and gone to a movie or something, but Grapes had family coming in to visit for the weekend, and Channing was down with serious cramps, something Soleil didn’t envy.

  “At least I’m not dealing with that right now,” she says to absolutely nobody, which gives her only a small amount of comfort. She plops down at her desk and opens her laptop. The familiar chiming of the computer as she wakes it up actually gives her a little cheer.

  As if Lenny has been reading her thoughts, she opens her e-mail and finds a message:

  To: Campers

  From: lenny@cotb.org

  Subject: Room to spare?

  Hello. I’m sure that some of you are wondering who to bring with you on Sunday night. You might be feeling a little shy about inviting them. No worries. But remember, everyone is welcome, regardless of their faith or even their non-faith. There’s no place for judgment here.

  We have a lot to share. We have room to spare.

  Yours in fellowship (and rhyme),

  Lenny

  Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.—Galatians 6:9