Ordinary Angels

by India Drummond

  But lately everything had changed, and she needed to know, if for no other reason than to get her life in context. If she was changing, as Alexander had cryptically implied, she wanted to know what that meant. She understood when he’d said her problem wasn’t not knowing the future, but not understanding the present.

  As she walked through town, she passed spirits of varying ages, although most were young men. They watched her as though they could sense something different about her. Spirits knew she could see them, but instead of approaching her, they hung back, or even slipped into the shadows as she walked through the streets of Lament.

  She lost her bearings, and found herself in a strange, deserted alleyway, but no living human beings prowled the streets of the ghost town. The moon shone in the clear sky, making her task easier. Those spirits floating through gleamed in the light.

  For nearly an hour Zoë searched for Henry, hoping he might have cropped up with the others. She went from the jailhouse to the cemetery and back around the General Store to the amphitheater. The cross atop the Methodist Church loomed ahead, and she felt drawn to the graveyard behind it. A spirit wailed, as though in pain.

  Zoë approached, but the keening spirit did not fade away like the others. In fact, it barely noticed her. The female figure wore a faded but sturdy brown dress. She leaned against the side of an old storage house. Its black door loomed, seeming larger than the building itself.

  When the spirit yowled again, Zoë fought tears. The cry went beyond the natural senses and unsettled Zoë to her core. Now that she could see the woman’s face, Zoë saw her great physical pain. The spirit clutched her rounded abdomen and grimaced with overwhelming childbirth pains.

  “Henry?” the woman called. Her ethereal features melted with relief. “I knew you’d come back for me. I’ve been telling this baby he can’t come yet. Not until you get home.” Her face clenched with remembered pain.

  Zoë stepped closer. “You’re Henry’s wife? Henry Dawkins?”

  The spirit squinted at Zoë as though she had bad eyesight. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I…I’m a friend of Henry’s.”

  “He’s coming soon,” the spirit said.

  “I hope so,” Zoë told her. “Ma’am, what’s your name?”

  “Rose,” she said after another painful wail. “Rose Wilson.” The look in her haunted eyes defied Zoë to make comment. She couldn’t help but wonder if the child had survived.

  “Rose, how long has it been since you saw Henry? See, I’m looking for him too.”

  “Six months. He was gonna meet me here. He promised.” Her tone was so sad and forlorn Zoë couldn’t stop the tear that slid down her cheek. She never liked talking to spirits who didn’t realize they were dead, but that kind never sought her out. Fortunately, it hadn’t happened as frequently as it could have.

  Zoë stood in shocked silence as Rose relived the moment of her death. She clutched her belly, desperate to keep the baby from coming, but unable to stop the process. Then Zoë noticed Rose held something in her hand. When the last of her painful throes stopped, Rose lay back. Her features went slack in a terrible pantomime of her death, and a key slipped out of her hand.

  The key’s shank was long enough to fit into Rose’s hand perfectly. Fashioned of what looked like iron, it had little ornament on it, and a simple, hollow round top. Zoë stared. She went to pick it up, a strange and foolish notion, she realized. The key winked out of existence seconds after it lost contact with Rose’s translucent skin.

  Moments after, Rose herself disappeared. Zoë stepped back and then jumped as she heard a wail behind her. She turned to see Rose again appearing as she had in life, but at the beginning of her labor. Picking her way through the graves, Zoë left as quickly as she could. She couldn’t bear to watch Rose die again, alone and afraid. It didn’t matter that it had happened more than a hundred and fifty years before. Zoë had seen it happen right there, right then, and that was also reality, no matter what any so-called normal person might say. She couldn’t do anything to change the tableau played out in the Methodist graveyard.

  Her car sat alone in the Lament parking lot. Most of the hotel patrons probably parked nearer, and the day visitors had long gone. Zoë felt strangely desolate, as though she was the only person still living in the entire world. “Lament” indeed, she thought.

  Soon she returned to the road and headed toward San Francisco. She drove faster than she normally would, or than traffic would typically allow. Although once closer to Sacramento, Zoë shared the road with many more cars, the late night drivers never could equal their daytime counterparts in sheer quantity.

  Zoë wondered where they were going at four in the morning. The truckers she got. But what about the others? Drunks or party-goers? Travelers? Nurses or waitresses who worked night shifts?

  With deliberate effort, Zoë looked the other way when she saw a ghostly family in an equally insubstantial overturned car along the side of the highway. Four of them, it appeared from her passing glance, trapped together. Why had they not gone to the other side?

  By the time she arrived home, the impending sunrise had begun to lighten the sky. She drove straight into her garage and stumbled up the stairs. Her mind heavy and clouded with doubt, she pushed her worries aside, hoping to fall asleep and get some peace. Just for a few hours.

  When Zoë woke a few hours later, she realized she’d slept in her clothes. She couldn’t wait to strip them off and get into the shower. Once she was clean and had downed a cup of coffee, she made a note to get some groceries and stop by the internet café to check her email.

  Before heading out, she threw her sheets into the washing machine off the kitchen, ran a quick vacuum over the living room floor, and tidied up her main floor. She didn’t worry about the state of her bedroom, because no one but her ever went up there, but at least the public areas of the house should be presentable. Her thoughts went to Alexander, and whether or not he would ever come into her bedroom, or if he planned to avoid her house completely any time Gran was around. Which, she had to admit, was much of the time.

  She exhaled loudly. Most people had relationship issues, but with her boyfriend and her Gran both being practically immortal, she couldn’t wait around for things to sort themselves out. “Talk to Gran” went on her mental to-do list.

  By the time Zoë parked in front of the internet café and made her way inside, dread came from several corners. The outcome of Alexander’s trial tugged at her, mostly because she didn’t understand what was happening. Finding Henry seemed more and more impossible since she had no idea where to look. She didn’t know what to make of this chaos weapon either. Then she had to consider that Alexander and the other angels seemed to know more about her than she did, and she didn’t like the way they expressed that, either.

  Part of her wanted to go home and forget, to hide under the duvet until Monday morning came around, and then she’d go to work and be normal. Normal. Yeah, but Henry wouldn’t be there, and that wouldn’t be normal, and he wasn’t coming back, she thought, not unless she did something. Not to mention if the angels caught up with him before she did, she’d never see him again and he’d suffer forever. No, she couldn’t turn her back.

  Zoë shrugged when another patron of the café, who had apparently been watching her have this internal conversation, gave her a quizzical look. Yes, she thought, I’m crazy. Deal with it. It’s not like being crazy makes me stand out much around here.

  Gmail told her she had several new messages, and ignoring the usual nonsensical spam, she eagerly clicked on the one marked “Shel Wallace”.

  She read his letter three times, trying to soak it in. He had indeed found Henry James Dawkins, but said it appeared Henry had never had a wife or children, as far as he could find. Of course after seeing Rose, Zoë knew different. Poor Henry. Did he even know about the baby?

  Shel had attached a copy of the US Census form for 1880. Zoë read the thin, scratching handwriting of Henry’s entry. With
out thinking, she touched the screen. It made him seem more dead, seeing the hard-copy evidence of his mortal existence. But she also experienced a twinge of guilt, as though she was spying by going through his personal life, even though that life had ended some time ago.

  Under “Place of Abode”, the census document showed Elm Street, Lament, California, and it listed four residents of the house, all men with the surname Dawkins, and all with a check mark under color: black. It took her a moment to sort out what it said under “Relationship to Head of Household”, but it appeared the older man was Henry’s uncle, and the other two younger men his cousins. Further on, the form showed Henry’s trade as miner, and no check marks had been placed in the columns for “Married within the year”, “Attended School within in the year”, “Persons over the age of 20 who cannot read and write”, or “Whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper, or convict”. Zoë couldn’t help but smile at that last one. Not exactly something she’d expect to see on a modern census form. And rather subjective, wasn’t it?

  Henry’s birthplace was listed as Beaufort, North Carolina. She couldn’t help but wonder why he’d wanted to travel so far from home. Down the page she saw another entry that made her blink a couple of times before she could process it. Rose Wilson had lived on the same street. A fine hand had checked the column marked color: mulatto. Zoë stared for a moment while she collected her thoughts and then hit the reply button. She thanked Shel profusely for the information about Henry, and asked him if he could find out anything about Rose Wilson, born in Bloomfield, New Jersey. She wrote that she believed Rose may have died in childbirth, and she needed to know if the child survived, and whether there were living descendants.

  As Zoë finished up at the café and returned to her car, she marveled at how much information the internet held for those who knew how to look. She never could have found Henry on her own. Thank God for Uncle Shel and for the World Wide Web, she thought.

  With one item checked off her mental to-do list, Zoë settled herself in her car and hit Simone’s number on the speed dial. “Simone?” she said when her friend answered.

  “Hey,” Simone said. “What’s new?”

  Zoë told her about the trip to Lament, leaving out anything about spirits or other angels, hoping to paint a normal picture of a romantic getaway. She talked mostly about the town and their drive up, also omitting the small detail that Alexander hadn’t returned with her. As much as she trusted Simone, her life had taken some strange turns, and she believed there was a limit to how much weirdness she could thrust onto one friendship.

  In turn, Simone told her about Dustin Bittner. Seems he at least had the good sense to call after their lukewarm date Friday night, and somehow they managed to have another encounter Saturday night, this one having a much different ending than the first.

  “I decided to take my clothes off, and see what happened,” Simone explained. What had happened continued throughout the night, and Simone had just woken up about half an hour before. She sounded happy, so Zoë let her talk. The story finally ended with a confession that Dustin had left before Simone got up, but he left her a sweet note saying he had to get home to pack for a business trip, and hadn’t wanted to disturb her. “He has that Chicago thing,” Simone said.

  Zoë agreed, when asked, it was terrible timing, but at least Simone had known ahead of time about the upcoming trip, so she hadn’t been surprised or harbored suspicions he wanted the hell out of there. He still might have, Zoë thought, but no need to point that out. Cynical Simone would have already bludgeoned herself with the worst-case scenario. If she wanted to present Zoë with the best possible interpretation, Zoë would let her.

  “By the way,” she said, when it seemed Simone had delivered her news in its entirety. “I heard from your Uncle Shel. He really came through with that genealogy stuff. I wanted to say thanks for putting me in touch with him. I can’t believe he got back to me so fast.”

  Simone laughed. “I talked to him yesterday. He always loves to have a new project. Since he retired, he’s gotten obsessed in the worst way. Spends more time thinking about family below the ground than above it.”

  “I hope he doesn’t mind, I sent a follow-up request. I found some more information, so I figured it was worth a shot.”

  “I’m sure he won’t. You’d have to know Uncle Shel. He’ll bore you to death with the stories if you let him.”

  Zoë didn’t want to say it, but she doubted very much she’d be bored. She loved hearing Henry’s stories, and those her Gran and others shared with her. In fact, she might even be able to return the favor someday and help Shel find information on relatives he couldn’t track down using more conventional methods. She mentioned the idea to Simone.

  “I’m not sure,” Simone said. “Maybe. If you made it sound like you’d just run across something.”

  “So, he wouldn’t want to know that I know.” Zoë had learned to hide her gift. Simone’s suggestion surprised her, considering how open-minded she usually seemed.

  “He’s not really a believer in that sort of thing.”

  “Okay,” Zoë said, putting aside her hurt since he was, after all, doing her an enormous favor. “I’ll send a thank you note instead. I know how strange this seems to some people. I appreciate you helping me find Henry.”

  “You know, this is weird.” Simone sounded thoughtful.

  “Why?” Zoë fought her instinctive defensiveness, holding it in check. For the moment.

  “Remember me telling you about that guy coming around the other day saying he had a letter for you from your Uncle Henry?”

  “No. You didn’t tell me that.” Zoë felt a chill. She didn’t have an “Uncle” Henry.

  “He said he couldn’t make out the last name on the slip. I found that strange too, because wouldn’t you expect it to be typed? But whatever.”

  “When was this?”

  “I can’t remember now. Maybe Tuesday afternoon, late.”

  Zoë thought back. Tuesday was the day she met Alexander. She’d left work early. Wednesday, she’d talked to Dustin about Simone, so Simone had been distracted. Thursday, she’d missed work because of the meeting with Thomas, and Friday she hadn’t seen Simone until she’d found Kent’s body. But still. A message on her desk wouldn’t have been too much to ask, would it? “You didn’t mention it. You say this guy left a letter for me?”

  “He’d said you had to sign for it yourself, so he would come back first thing the next day,” Simone said. “That’s why I didn’t bother mentioning it, I guess. He didn’t show?”

  “No,” Zoë said.

  “Anyway, talking about Henry and Uncle Shel made me think of ‘Uncle Henry’. Weird coincidence, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Zoë said uneasily. Without a doubt this wasn’t a coincidence. Someone had been looking for her: someone who knew about Henry. Then it hit her. Simone wasn’t the only one who knew about Henry. Whoever had been looking for her thought Henry was her uncle. That person didn’t know Henry was dead. “Simone, I have to go,” she said, and quickly said goodbye.

  She sat in her car for long minutes, trying to sort out her thoughts. Finally, she took off the parking brake and headed toward the Marina.

  Chapter 13

  Marco’s Antiques was open on Sundays during the summer, thank God. Zoë didn’t think she could wait until after work Monday to confirm her suspicions. The store sat back from the street, bounded by clean, clear sidewalks and shrubs and flowers so perfectly manicured they looked fake. Mosaic stone tiles spread into a flat-faced sun beneath Zoë’s feet. She trampled on its eye as she approached the antique store.

  A bell tinkled as the door closed behind her. Zoë loved the smell of antique shops. They invariably smelled of wood and sometimes dust, but everything had history, and that made her comfortable. Today, grim reality kept her from finding it soothing.

  Marco’s was quiet, both in the natural sense and the supernatural foot-traffic as well. She looked at the glass knick-knack
cabinets on the East wall where she had discovered some of her treasures. She’d bought Henry keys because she thought he loved them. Now she considered perhaps he just loved Rose, and those keys reminded him of happy times. That key in Rose’s hand at the moment she died…Zoë knew it held significance, but she had no idea what it had opened.

  The key was the key, she thought, but didn’t smile at her bad joke. Not only had the key meant something to Henry and Rose back in 1880, someone determined to steal her keys had started the series of events that led to Henry’s disappearance.

  Zoë braced herself. The direct approach, she decided, would work best and required the least effort. She walked up to the cluttered counter and said to the smartly dressed woman behind it, “I need to see Marco.”

  The thin-faced woman looked down her nose at her, eyeing her through thick, trendy glasses. “Marco,” she said in an upper-class New York accent, “is unavailable.”

  Zoë leaned forward, tired and out of patience. “Oh, he’ll see me. Tell him it’s Zoë Pendergraft. And if that doesn’t get his ass out here, tell him a man died because of him.”

  The woman raised an eyebrow, and Zoë could have sworn a malicious smile flitted across her face. “Certainly,” she said in a clipped tone and briskly walked toward the back room.

  Within moments Marco emerged, flailing his arms. His rust silk shirt and varicolored tie clashed with the pale trousers and waistcoat, but somehow he pulled it off with flair. The gold pocket watch struck Zoë as a bit much though. “Darling!” he said in exaggerated tones. “Miranda says someone died? How ghastly! What on earth happened?”

  He shuttled her along to a side room where he sometimes took customers for private showings, and there indicated a hundred-year-old chair. “Sit, darling. Tell Marco all about it.” He looked pleased at the excitement at least on the surface, but she knew he hid a deeper worry. Good, she thought, but held herself in check. She had to be careful if she wanted him to tell her the truth.