The Day the Angels Fell

by Shawn Smucker

  “Is it illegal?” he asks, looking mildly interested.

  I think for a moment. “I don’t think it’s illegal. But some people wouldn’t like it. Which is why I’m going to need your help.”

  He looks at me, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “Do you think you can help me?”

  He nods. “Yeah, I can help.”

  “Bring some of your smoke bombs.”

  His eyes light up.

  Upstairs, I sit back down at my desk and pull the lid from the box. Inside I find what I expected to find: a pack of articles and an atlas, its margins full of notes and dates and questions, but when I look at the writing I can’t tell if it’s my own from childhood or someone else’s. The small sword is gone. I hoped it would be there. I thought the heat from it would convince me that everything I remember is true. Could it all have been an adventure I made up in my mind? Could it be nothing more than the way Jerry’s Boy wanders the farm carrying a sword that is really a stick?

  But I have a faint memory of giving it to her long ago. It’s like the memory of a dream, but it feels familiar. In any case, the blade isn’t there. I put the lid back on the box and slide it to the side of the desk. I pick up the necktie and walk over to the mirror. And I try again to weave that elusive knot.

  17

  AT THE MOST CRUCIAL POINTS in your life, either you move without thinking and accomplish what needs to be done in the nick of time, or you hesitate, the moment passes, and you’re left facing an entirely new set of problems. When I heard the screen door slam, I should have raced out of the attic without waiting one moment, pushed the attic door closed behind me, and dashed into the upstairs hallway. Even if Mr. Tennin found me there, breathless and looking very suspicious, he couldn’t have proven a thing.

  But I hesitated. I tried to think my way out of the situation. Which meant I acted too late.

  By the time I got to the bottom of the attic steps I could hear him coming up from downstairs. I pushed his suitcase down so that it wasn’t propping the door open, let the attic door close (whine, snap!), and retreated back up into the dark, dusty attic, moving as quickly and quietly as possible. I went down the main aisle and slipped back through one of the side paths across from where I thought he had hidden whatever he had hidden. I pulled myself under a fake Christmas tree we kept in a black garbage bag.

  And I waited.

  I heard him open the door to his room and close it behind him. I hoped Mr. Tennin was just in there to grab something and then head back out to work. But he wasn’t. In fact, it sounded like he was going through the entire contents of his two bags. I heard him muttering to himself, and I heard things dropping onto the floor.

  The sound of his footsteps moved over the creaking floorboards in his room and toward the attic door. The long whine and the loud snap at the end, and the door was open. The attic ceiling lit up with daylight from Mr. Tennin’s room. His heavy, plodding footsteps climbed the steep, tall steps, all the way to the top. Through an empty space between boxes I could see him.

  And it wasn’t Mr. Tennin.

  It was Mr. Jinn.

  What was he doing up there? Part of me wanted to jump up and tell him to get out of my house. Who goes into someone else’s house without asking? Who sneaks into someone else’s attic for no reason?

  But maybe he had a reason.

  So I stayed quiet, and I watched, and I waited.

  Mr. Jinn flicked the light switch and muttered under his breath when the light didn’t turn on. He walked down the middle of the attic, opened a few boxes here, moved a few boxes there, but he didn’t look very dedicated. To be fair, it was a large attic, and it was dark, and he had no idea where to begin, not like I had. But he did stop when he got close to my row, and I was sure he turned his head and looked right at the bag I was hiding under. But if he saw me, or if he knew I was there, he didn’t say anything. He turned around and walked back to the stairs. And he descended.

  I heard it again.

  The front screen door slammed, but not because Mr. Jinn had left. No, someone else was coming into the house.

  I heard Mr. Jinn hurry the rest of the way down the attic stairs, moving way faster than I thought he ever could have moved. He closed the attic door without a sound, which was strange.

  Another set of footsteps came up the stairs from the main level to the second level. Meanwhile, I was getting hot. Sweat dripped into the corners of my eyes and off the tip of my nose. The dust stuck to my arms and my fingers and turned to a thin layer of grime. But I didn’t move.

  The bedroom door opened, then slammed shut, and I heard the lock turn fast. Footsteps dashed across the room and the attic door popped open. The person raced up the stairway, and as he came into the light I could see the bald head of Mr. Tennin.

  “Oh my,” he said quietly. He sounded worried.

  He got to the space in the main aisle just in front of the row where I was hiding. He stopped and looked around. He stared in my direction. I could just see the one side of his face, the side facing the small attic window, and he looked suspicious. But he didn’t stop for long. Instead he raced down one of the smaller rows.

  I realized I had been searching the wrong area. I watched as he went down that row, moved a few boxes, and stood on them. He reached up onto one of the crossbeams and pulled down a small box. The inside of the box glowed orange when he opened it, as if it had some kind of small, battery-powered light inside. So, that was where he hid it. On top of the beam.

  He seemed to take a quick inventory of what was in the box. He put it back up onto the beam, pushed the boxes into place, and ran back down the attic steps and into his room. I heard him slam the window closed. Mr. Jinn must have climbed out the window.

  Mr. Tennin left his room, closed the door behind him, and walked down the stairs. The screen door slammed. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, climbed out from under the fake Christmas tree, and moved quickly down the correct row. I pulled a few boxes out and climbed on top of them, reached up onto the beam, and grabbed the box.

  I wanted to open it right there, but I decided that would be best to do in the light of my own room, so I pushed the boxes back in place and walked down the stairs. The box wasn’t that large, but I still needed two hands to carry it, and at two different spots I nearly lost my footing and tumbled down the steps. At the bottom, I opened the attic door, relieved to find that it wasn’t stuck.

  Mr. Tennin’s room was a mess—clothes everywhere, papers scattered on the floor, the mattress pulled off the bed frame. Mr. Jinn must have searched the room. For what? Probably for what was in my hands.

  I raced through the room, closed the door behind me, and hurried into my bedroom. I locked the door, which I never did, and then ran to my two windows. I closed them, locked them, and pulled the curtains shut. I didn’t know how Mr. Jinn had managed to escape through Mr. Tennin’s window, but I didn’t want him climbing in through either of mine.

  I walked to my bed, set the box down, then lifted my shirt and wiped the sweat and dust from my face. The July air in my room felt wonderful and cool compared to the stifling attic. I sat on the bed and pulled the lid off the box.

  It was almost dinnertime, and when I had closed and locked the windows I had noticed the sky growing darker in the east, over the church, as though another summer thunderstorm might be rolling in. The upper branches of the oak tree waved back and forth in a menacing manner. But I didn’t dwell for too long on the weather. I just wanted to open the box. So I did.

  There were three things inside. I would spend the next few days poring over them all with great interest, but I was twelve, so the one that grabbed my attention immediately was a twelve-inch blade that lay diagonally across the top, tied in place with two small leather straps. The hilt and the blade of this small sword were the same dull gray color and appeared to be made of the same metal.

  I reached down to unstrap the sword from the box, but when my fingers touched the metal they were immediately scorched.
It was like touching the burner on the stove. My thumb, index finger, and middle finger turned red, and each welled up with a tiny blister, like a teardrop.

  “Ouch!” I shouted, grabbing my hand. I looked at my bedroom door to make sure no one was coming in.

  I grabbed a piece of paper from my small bookshelf and held it against the metal. Nothing. It didn’t burst into flame or even smoke. Nothing that I held against that small sword appeared to be burned, or even heated up, in any way. Yet when I tapped the hilt again, this time with my left hand, it was roasting hot to the touch.

  Even though it had burned me, something strange happened on my insides. The darkness that seemed to fill me when Mr. Jinn and I were together—that darkness receded. Its presence wasn’t as stifling, as suffocating. There was something about the sword that made me feel almost brave. Memories of my mother came and went, but they had joy in them, not bitter sadness. The desperation to bring her back faded.

  I turned my attention to the other two items. One was a small book about six inches long by four inches wide. The other was a stack of papers, note cards, and newspaper clippings, all held together in a small leather strap tied in a knot.

  The book was thick, four or five hundred pages at least. I picked it up and placed it on my bed, waiting for it to explode or cause my blankets to burst into flames. But nothing happened. Nothing extraordinary.

  So I opened it. As I moved through the book, gently turning its light, thin pages, I realized that it was an atlas of the world. There were the occasional footnotes and headnotes, and at the end of a section—each of which spoke about a particular continent—there were various things that each continent was well known for.

  But what drew my eye the most were the handwritten notes in the margins. All around the edges of one map, which appeared to be Turkey, I read the following:

  Entry 7. The Tree appears to have taken root in a small canyon. Have secured the perimeter. Waiting.

  I went further into the book and found more handwritten notes in a very fine cursive script, looping around a map of Iran.

  Entry 12. The building has reached forty-three levels. They will now attempt to plant the Tree on a terrace overlooking the city before building higher. The end is near.

  The end is near?

  Entry 21. Forced to destroy the entire city in order to destroy the Tree. One family escaped.

  I felt like I could spend the rest of the day exploring that book of maps with its writing in the margins, but I wanted to see what the stack of papers contained. Once again I tapped the strap with my fingers to make sure the stack of small papers wouldn’t burn me. It sounds funny, I know, but the blisters on the ends of my fingertips were painful reminders.

  I placed the papers beside the atlas on my bed and looked at the top one for a moment. Some of the newspaper clippings were brown and old, but others looked like they could have come out of yesterday’s paper.

  “Mysterious Monster of Loch Ness” (October 18, 1933)

  “Hitler’s Sea Wall Is Breached; Invaders Fighting Way Inland; New Allied Landings Are Made” (June 6, 1944)

  What did all of these world events have to do with Mr. Tennin or the contents of the box? What was the meaning of all the writing in the margins of the small atlas? How did that sword stay so hot without burning its way through the leather straps that held it in the box?

  There was only one thing to do. I had to take this box to Abra’s house—she would know what to do. I cringed as I thought about how I had treated her. The image of her walking down the lane toward her house, staring down at the dirt, was one I couldn’t get out of my mind. I pulled a duffel bag out from under my bed and gently placed the box in it with the papers, the book, and the short sword. The zipper barely closed around the box, but it did, and I threw the strap over my shoulder and left my room.

  I walked quietly down the stairs, listening for anyone who might be on the ground floor, but I didn’t hear anything. Only the television, which was still on. I was so anxious to get to Abra’s house that I burst through the front screen door without even thinking to check if anyone was out there.

  “Hey there, Sam,” Mr. Jinn said from where he sat on the porch steps. Icarus sat on his lap. The cat jumped up when I came through the door and fled under the porch.

  “Find anything yet?” he asked.

  18

  “NO, I, UH, I KIND OF FELL ASLEEP,” I lied.

  He nodded, and his mouth turned into a line of regret, as if he was very disappointed but not very surprised. He pulled his comb from his shirt pocket and brushed his hair straight back, as he always did. He put it back in his pocket. But then his calm demeanor snapped and he thrust his hand straight down. The muscles in his neck and shoulders bulged as his thick hand sent a crack through one of the boards he was sitting on, and the wood made a wrenching sound as it split.

  “I am normally a very patient man. But this . . .” He stopped and shook his head back and forth. “This is very important. I thought you said you would do anything to bring her back. Anything.”

  I put my hands on my duffel bag and clutched it to my side. “I would,” I said. “I mean, I will. I just—I have to go apologize to Abra. I think she could help us. She’s super smart. I think with her help we’d find it a lot faster. Honest, I do.”

  Finally he turned and stared at me. He didn’t speak for a few moments as he scratched one of his eyebrows with his thumb. “She’s not going to help,” he said, as if trying to explain a confusing concept to a child. “She doesn’t believe. And even if she did believe, she doesn’t think you should do it. She thinks your mother should stay . . . there. Why would we want that girl on our side? Why would we be allies with that kind of thinking?”

  He stood and, stepping over the broken step, came up onto the porch. He walked toward me, and suddenly I knew that the topic at hand was not Abra or my mom or even my willingness to help him find the Tree. We were talking about the box in my bag. He knew it. I knew it. And he was coming for it.

  I put my hand on the screen door, prepared to run back into the house, but at that moment Mr. Tennin and my father came around the corner of the house.

  “Hey there,” my father said. “Mr. Jinn. What can I do for you?”

  Mr. Tennin looked surprised, almost alarmed. Mr. Jinn cleared his throat and took a step back, away from me.

  “Oh, nothing much. Just coming by to say hello to the boy here. See how he’s doing after the funeral.”

  “Very kind of you,” my father said, but he didn’t sound convinced. He stared at the broken step but, oddly enough, didn’t comment on it. Something looked different about him. His face appeared brighter, and the fog in his eyes had cleared. I looked over at Mr. Tennin and wondered if it was because of him. But he didn’t meet my gaze—he was staring at Mr. Jinn.

  “Actually, Dad,” I said, “Mr. Jinn here wanted to hear the story of the old oak tree. The story you told Abra and me the other day? I told him you’d be back in a minute and that maybe you could tell him while you washed up for dinner. Please?”

  It was a lame attempt, but I said “please?” with such desperation that my father stared at me for an extra moment and then nodded. I think he could tell something was wrong.

  “Sure, boy. If that’s what you want.”

  I nodded, my head moving up and down so fast it’s a wonder it didn’t fly right off.

  “Well, now, that’s okay,” Mr. Jinn began, but Mr. Tennin interrupted him.

  “Come on, Mr. Jinn. Join us! I’m making dinner to celebrate my first night here. We’ll pull up an extra chair.”

  I ran past Mr. Jinn and stood on the other side of Mr. Tennin and my father.

  “Actually, Mr. Jinn can have my seat,” I said as I continued walking away. “I’m going to Abra’s for dinner tonight.”

  “Okay, boy,” my dad said. “But don’t stay too late. I’d like you to start helping with chores again tomorrow. We’ve gotten into a bad habit.”

  Chores seemed so bland
in the face of all that was happening. I was still determined to bring my mother back—I didn’t have time for feeding baby lambs and collecting eggs. But there was also something about the fact that my father wanted me to help him that made me think he must be getting better, back to his old self.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. But as I turned to run, Mr. Jinn called out after me.

  “You’d best watch your way on Kincade Road, Sam. People in town said they saw some nasty-looking dogs roaming between here and the fair. Probably the carnies’ dogs.”

  I turned and walked backward for a few steps. Was he threatening me? He shrugged, not looking very worried, and walked into the house. I continued walking backward, away from the house, then turned and ran down the lane, each of my steps kicking up a cloud of dust, small clouds that disintegrated quickly in the stiff breeze coming down from the eastern mountains.

  I tired out fast and my run turned into a walk. I had decided not to ride my bike because Mr. Tennin’s box was heavy in the duffel bag and I wasn’t sure of my ability to ride while balancing it. But walking was slow. Very slow.

  The road south of our farm ran along Abra’s father’s fields, but they were barbed-wire-lined pastures filled with a few hundred dairy cows, their lazy tails swatting at flies, their jaws chewing, chewing, chewing. They never stopped working over their food, not even when they looked up at you through those deep black eyes.

  Those cows knew me, and a few of them meandered over to the fence where it ran along the road. I walked over and stopped for a moment, holding my hand out over their heads as if I was blessing them. They tried to lick me, their massive tongues curling out toward my fingers. They made me laugh, those long tongues.

  But laughing felt so foreign. I hadn’t laughed for days. And I remembered why. My mother had died because of me. Because I had insisted we stop and pick up Icarus.

  I sighed and turned away from the cows, feeling torn. Should I continue on to Abra’s house, or should I go back and spend what was left of the day looking for the Tree? It felt like time was running out. It felt like, if I was going to bring my mom back, it had to happen soon, or some kind of doorway would close.