Ben took her uncertainty for anger.
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, but if you tell me your name, we’ll be friends?”
“Adriel. And yours?” The boy was charming and naive.
“I’m Ben. You got a funny name,” he observed.
“Why thank you.” She injected a bit of sarcasm into her voice; charming only went so far.
“Sorry, Miss Adriel. Mom used to say I had the manners of a goat.” His cheeky grin was tinged with a sadness that puzzled Adriel almost as much as his suggestion that goats were unmannered creatures, when she had always found them to be quite civilized.
“Would you like to tell me about your family?” The grin he flashed only quivered a little around the edges.
“My mom and dad were really nice. They read me stories and tucked me in at night. Mom never made me eat all my carrots.” A tear trembled on his bottom lash. “Then one day I was riding my bike and something bad happened. I saw this really, really bright light. I was scared of the light, so I went home. Everyone was crying, but nobody would tell me why. I must have been a very bad boy because Mommy stopped reading me stories, and no one ever tucked me in again.”
The truth hit Adriel like a wrecking ball.
“Oh Ben, you must have been so frightened.” It was now up to Adriel to explain a very complicated concept to this young boy. “Can you tell me what you remember about the bad thing that happened?”
He seemed so small, so fragile, all she wanted to do was pull him into a hug; something she could easily have done in her full angel form, but probably not in her present state.
“I was riding my bike right over there,” he pointed toward the road between the cabin and Lydia’s house. “A car pulled up behind me, so I moved over like Daddy showed me. Then I got a headache and I didn’t feel so good. After a little while, I saw the bright light, and then I went home.”
Ben’s next sentence put the final twist on Adriel’s heart.
“Now, new people live in my house and I can’t find my mom and dad. I think something funny happened, because the last time I saw them, they looked different. You know—with gray hair and stuff. I can’t go home anymore, so I just ride my bike every day. No one ever talks to me. Well, until you.”
How was she supposed to explain to this bright-eyed child he was a spirit who should have crossed over a long time ago?
“Ben, do you know what it means when something dies?”
“I’m not a baby. I’ve seen plenty of dead animals in the road, and my grandma died when her heart attacked her.”
Kid logic.
“When a person dies, the angel who comes to help them cross over sometimes looks like a bright light.”
“Does that mean,” Ben’s mouth fell open, “I’m dead?”
“Yes. I’m afraid it does.”
“I’m a ghost. Like Casper. That’s why no one would talk to me. Because I’m invisible. That’s so cool.”
Expecting tears, Adriel was taken aback by the boy’s awed tone. Maybe he was just relieved at finally knowing what had happened to him.
“Can you tell me more about the day you saw the light?”
Ben sighed.
“I was riding my bike; I got a headache; I saw the light. That’s all I remember.”
“Think back; did you hear anything?”
“Already told you. There was a car coming, so I moved over into the grass on the side of the road. Then, I got the headache, saw the light, pushed my bike out of the ditch, and went home.”
Gently, Adriel suggested, “I think the car must have hit you.”
Ben closed his eyes, his face screwed into a thoughtful expression. He nodded a couple times while it all fell into place. His eyes popped wide open.
“You’re right; I remember now. I heard the car coming up fast, so I moved over into the grass and pedaled real slow. The engine got louder, so I turned around and saw this big round headlight right before I flew into the ditch.”
“Did you see what kind of car it was? Or the driver?”
“Just the big round headlight and a shiny bumper. Adriel, can I ask you a question?” At her nod, Ben asked, “Do you think my mom and dad died and went into the light? You know, because they’re not here anymore.”
Based on what he had told her earlier, it was a possibility.
“I’ll tell you what: you tell me your last name, and I’ll see if I can find out for you. I’m new in town, so I don’t know all the families here yet.”
Before he answered, Ben had one more question of his own. “Can I still go there? Into the light, I mean. If my parents are in there, I could see them again,” his voice sounded so plaintive Adriel’s heart hurt for him.
His question was more complicated than he knew, for reasons she could not share.
“I think so, but it might take a little time to arrange the details. I’ll do everything I can to help you.”
“Okay, my last name is Allen.”
A name Adriel did recognize. She should have put it together the minute she realized Ben was dead. She had just spent half an hour chatting with Pam’s long lost brother, and now he was looking up at her with no idea of the thoughts racing through her mind or that she now faced the dilemma of what to tell his older sister.
Why was everything so complicated? On the one hand, Pam would be thrilled to learn what happened to her little brother; but on the other, there was no way Adriel could give her the information without sounding like a complete lunatic.
***
With Lydia gone, the group of citizens opposed to the new ditch renewed their efforts to get the town to put a stop to the job. By their logic, with the work half done, half the money could go back into the town coffers to be spent on more important things—necessary things. Fear of Lydia’s sharp-tongued displeasure no longer a factor, the group quickly doubled in size. It was a hot topic for debate over the coffee and pastries Adriel served on her days in the bakery, until something happened that made for an even better story.
“Did you hear anything?” Pam fired the question at Adriel the second she walked through the door. Adriel’s expression was all the answer she needed. “I guess that’s a no. Someone poured sand into the gas tanks of every piece of ditch digging equipment last night.”
It was news to Adriel. The culprit must have been very quiet.
“I guess I slept right through it, because I didn’t hear a thing.” Joy. A respite from the incessant hooting and banging. Okay, that was just mean, but she didn’t care. “Why would anyone do a thing like that?”
“To make a point about how ridiculous it is to spend money and time on spurious projects? There’s a group of us still arguing for it to be filled in and done with. I can’t believe anyone in the group would jeopardize our position by taking things this far, though. Maybe it was teenagers pulling a prank.”
“Does that kind of thing happen a lot?” Adriel made a beeline for the coffee station. At home, she was still at war with the coffee maker from hell, and had switched to a morning cup of tea most days. Even she couldn’t screw up dunking a tea bag in a cup of hot water. Getting a decent caffeine fix either meant playing mad scientist with the coffeemaker or walking to town.
“No, not really. Our kids aren’t perfect angels by any means, but in a small community like this, malicious vandalism is rare.”
“What do you think will happen now? With the ditch digging, I mean.” Adriel came down firmly on the side of everyone else who opposed the digging. Not for the same reasons, since she had no stake in the financial side of things, but so what?
“I can answer that,” Damien Oliver spoke up. Adriel hadn’t noticed him sitting quietly at a corner table. “Someone’s gonna have to go up there and drain the gas out of every piece of equipment, then they’re going to have to flush all the tanks and drain the lines. They only started up one of the rigs before Gideon figured out what happened. Take a couple days at most to have them all back on the job. Anyone who knows anything about
vehicles would have taken a pair of snips to the wiring harness. Devil of a job to trace that kind of thing back to the source.”
“Who do you think might have done it?” Adriel was curious to hear his opinion, but all she got out of him was a shrug of indifference before he hustled out the door leaving the exact change for his meal on the table. Damien wasn’t much of a tipper.
“The list of people who might want to stop the work is longer than the list of people who want it to go forward. It’s a pretty big pool to fish in, but I can’t picture anyone taking things this far.” Worry furrowed Pam’s brow.
It might have been a leap, but Adriel voiced an errant thought, “Seems to me they went a lot farther than that.”
Pam frowned until she caught the implication, then her eyes shot wide in shock, “Are you saying you think Lydia’s death might be connected to the vandalism?”
Shrugging, Adriel replied, “It’s a stretch, but I can’t help thinking someone is deeply invested in stopping the ditch from being dug.”
Head tilted, Pam considered. “A stretch?” Skepticism dripped from her lips, “One that would take a rubber band the size of Texas. Lydia had plenty of enemies. Not that I can picture any of them actually killing her. Or it having anything to do with this ditch.”
“Maybe,” but Adriel wasn’t convinced.
***
Several days of silence while the machines were repaired gave Adriel the opportunity to catch up on her sleep. When they started back up again bright and early on Monday morning, she heaved a resigned sigh and wandered into the kitchen to glare at her nemesis.
The coffee maker was evil. There was no doubt in her mind as she squared off against it again. Fully half of the time, the product it produced was absolutely undrinkable. Precisely measuring the grounds and water each time made little difference in the random results. The paper filters were flimsy at best, and tore at the gentlest touch. Using two of them for added stability only made the coffee taste worse. Twice, before she abandoned the infernal machine in favor of walking to town to nip into Just Desserts, the drip area somehow became plugged with grounds. Before she could stop it, the basket overflowed and dumped a gritty mess all over the counter.
Between the trouble with it; the cell phone that dumped its charge twice a day, alternated between no service and calling itself three times a day; and the cash register at Just Desserts, she was beginning to suspect she had some sort of negative effect on electronics.
Regardless, she wanted coffee and she wanted it now. Running through a mental checklist, Adriel filled the reservoir with water. She checked the basket for stray grounds and inserted a clean filter. Moving carefully, she added scoops of ground coffee, making sure the filter stayed firmly in place. Everything seemed in order, so she closed the lid, hit the button, and walked away in case her proximity really was a factor. Burbling sounds echoed across the room just ahead of the scent. It smelled right this time. A good sign. When the machine beeped to signal it was done, she poured a cup, doctored it up the way she liked it, and took a tentative sip.
Joy, it was passable. Maybe she wasn’t totally hopeless in the kitchen. Cheered by the thought, she made a plan to test out one of the recipes in those books she’d found.
Given the prospect of finding more boxes full of underthings—whether dirty or clean—she eyed the room with a certain amount of trepidation. Still, the job had to be done, so armed with a box cutter and a can-do attitude, she took stock. Boxes of every shape and size, from plastic storage bins to shoe boxes were stacked haphazardly to form the walls and partitions of a complicated maze.
Or, were they? Adriel flipped back through the photographic memory—one of the perks she had retained from being an angel. Able to picture the room exactly as it had been before she moved anything, she realized there might have been a pattern. Clearly Craig had not used box size as a criteria for choosing what went where, since larger boxes sometimes sat on a group of smaller ones. It looked, instead, as though he might have sorted them by weight or importance.
She couldn’t hold back a sigh. His organizational method had zero bearing on how she should proceed, even if trying to figure it out was an interesting puzzle. It was time to stop dithering around and get to work.
Picking a stack at random, she selected the smallest box on top of the pile closest to the bedroom door, and carried it to the table to open. Winston leapt from his perch on the refrigerator to rub his cheek against the cardboard corner.
“You like this one?” Adriel asked the cat, who only purred in response. She applied blade to tape. “Well, of course you do.” The box contained an assortment of kitty toys. Fast as lightning, the cat nipped out a feather-covered ball with an agile paw. A quick flick sent the ball flying across the room—the bell inside jingling madly as a blur of black fur engaged in a wild game of ball hockey snaking through the maze of boxes until he passed out of Adriel’s line of sight.
A muted thump was the only warning she heard before a short stack of boxes tumbled behind the streaking cat. This must have been the reason for boxing up his toys. She set Winston’s things aside and grabbed the first of three identical boot boxes left in his wake. Each was filled with balls of crumpled newsprint protecting a single item cocooned in bubble wrap and packing tape. Layers and layers of packing tape which, when carefully cut away revealed…three perfectly ordinary acorns—one in each box.
Craig’s reason for collecting them defied comprehension. Though Adriel had to admit, there was a certain amount of fancy in the idea of preserving memories with such small specimens of nature. Fancy brought with it a sense of sadness over the way time or disease had eventually robbed Craig of even these small reminders. She sent out a prayer for him to find peace.
Then she sent out one for herself to find patience. Respectful though she might want to be, opening box after box full of inane items was going to test the boundaries of her patience and her sense of humor. The acorns did not go out with the trash, she lined them up on one of the shelves to remind herself within absurdity, sometimes something profound existed.
The rest of the boxes Winston had knocked down were heavy ones filled with newspapers dating from the past few years. She scanned a couple before realizing it would be a week before she finished reading those, and put them down to move on to start the next stack.
Less interesting, this section held boxes full of empty grocery bags, deli containers with no lids, lids with no containers—none of them matching—and other similar items which Adriel duly sorted. Anything recyclable—according to the list held to the refrigerator with a magnet—she set aside for that purpose. What few usable items she found were mostly clothing. Some would go to Hamlin for distribution to the homeless; the rest Craig might still be able to wear. Books, dishes, and personal items she set aside for Pam. Useless items, those being the bulk of what she found, went into the portable dumpster out front. The best find so far was a box of brightly colored pillows. Tossed onto the sofa, they cheered the room considerably.
An hour or so later, Adriel lifted the hair off her neck with a grimy hand. One more box to go. Clearing this stack meant no more dodging sideways to get from the sofa into the bedroom. A small victory.
A puff of dust swirled into the air at her sigh when, even after tugging with every ounce of her strength, the last box proved too heavy to lift. She squatted to slice at the tape holding it closed. More dust flew as she opened the flaps to find it stuffed to the brim with spiral bound notebooks, each with a date written on the front. It felt like an invasion of privacy at first, but since it was her job to sort through these items, she went ahead and flipped open the red cover of the one on top. Carefully inscribed lines formed a grid on each page where Craig had kept a chronicle of weather conditions at morning, noon, and night for an entire year.
What was she supposed to do with this type of thing? Laying the first book aside, she leafed through the next: a set of meticulous records detailing everything from his daily food intake to how many
hours of sleep he had gotten the night before. When she came to the part where he noted in-depth information about his bathroom habits, she slammed the book shut.
It was a little sad to think about what might compel a man to keep notes about every minute detail of his day. Adriel was still not sure she fully understood what made mortals tick at the best of times; this was totally beyond her comprehension. She mulled it over while transferring the notebooks into two of the now-empty plastic totes and slid them under the bed. The ones marked Journal on the cover she left on top, in case Pam wanted to read them later. But for now, out of sight, out of mind.
Chapter 8
The last person—if person was the proper term for a ghost—Adriel expected to hear calling her through the screen door was Lydia. A quick calculation put the woman five days in the grave; a bit late for her to still be hanging around. Just what I need, Adriel thought, another ghost with unfinished business. Didn’t anyone just cross over anymore? Lydia’s eyes widened when they met Adriel’s. This was no eight-year-old boy, too young to fully grasp the concept of an afterlife. Last time the two had spoken, Lydia had been brand-spanking dead; this time, though, she knew the score. Adriel’s nod in her direction was subtle, but she caught the hint. Nose wrinkling—fastidious even in death—Lydia stepped into the cabin on noiseless feet.
“I need to talk to you.” For the first time in the short while Adriel had known her, Lydia appeared at a disadvantage. “And I realize I was not at my best the last time we spoke.”
Head tilted, Adriel shrugged, but met Lydia’s steady gaze. “Then again,” she continued with a pointed look, “I had no idea you were an angel.”
“That’s a subject of great debate at the moment.” Adriel said wryly, and twitched her shoulders. Her missing wings sent up phantom tingles every so often.
Lydia glanced around at the dwindling pile of boxes, the shabby but clean kitchen area, and wrinkled her nose again. “This place is a bigger dump than I thought. Did you get on the wrong side of God to end up here?”
Earthbound Bones Page 8
