Ordinary Angels

by India Drummond

  “Why do you specifically want information about Rose?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m researching many of the town’s residents.” Zoë feared her smile looked as fake as it felt. She was going for pleasant and perky. She wore it like a clown wig.

  Robert went to his desk and got a small stack of papers topped with a photograph and handed them to Zoë. She instantly recognized Rose, standing in front of the Methodist church next to a rotund man and his dour wife and four children of varying sizes. Three other men stood with them, wearing equally serious expressions. Zoë’s throat closed up as she remembered Rose’s awful death and the way the woman relived it over and over even to this day. She looked through the papers: all had to do with the Methodist Church. Rose had worked there, apparently, paid a meager sum to clean and prepare the church each week for services.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “Do you have copies? I can make some and get these back to you right away.”

  Zoë suddenly noticed the far wall. She hadn’t been able to see the shadowboxes from the street. Ten boxes arranged in a row, all the same size and lined with velvet in colors varying from deep red to midnight blue hung in a row. Each one contained an antique key. She looked from the keys to Robert and back again. She realized her mouth hung open, but she couldn’t help herself. “Oh my God,” she said.

  Robert’s eyes sharpened and he watched her closely. “You like keys?” He stood and went to the collection, and ran his hand over the cases.

  The parallel between this and Henry’s key collection left Zoë close to speechless. “They’re amazing,” she began, but her mouth clamped shut when she saw that as he passed his hand over each key, it shimmered, just as the last key she’d given Henry had done when he’d touched it. Her thoughts went instantly to the chaos blade. It wasn’t exactly the same, but something about them was distinctly similar. Zoë’s stomach knotted up.

  Robert pointed to one in the center, the plainest of the ten keys. Zoë recognized it instantly. “This is the only thing I have of Rose’s,” he told her. “It goes to a building behind the church that held supplies, extra hymn books and old chairs. Rose kept the key.”

  “She died with it in her hand,” Zoë said, her voice barely audible.

  “She died in childbirth,” Robert said, a curious expression on his face. “A single woman. A mixed-race outcast who refused to name the baby’s father. But the old Reverend Sprayberry stood by her to the end, not letting them run her out of town. There was speculation, of course, that he was her lover. That rumor didn’t go away when he and Mrs. Sprayberry took the child in after her death.”

  “He wasn’t the father,” Zoë said quickly, wanting irrationally to defend Henry, but she regretted the words as they leapt out of her mouth.

  “What makes you say that?” Robert moved away from the shadowboxes. As soon as his presence grew more distant, they stopped shimmering and mostly looked like ordinary pieces of metal, but now that Zoë had made the connection with the chaos blade, she thought she detected an internal gleam.

  “Miss Pendergraft,” Robert said, “May I call you Zoë?”

  She nodded, dragging her eyes away from the keys and back to Robert. The expression on his face stopped her cold.

  “No one in Lament has ever heard of you.”

  The blood drained from her cheeks and she fought the urge to bolt, instead gripping the couch seat with her fingers.

  “Obviously, you didn’t know I’m on the board for the Lament Historical Foundation. Your call surprised me, to say the least. After we set our appointment, I made some calls, and not a single person I contacted knows you. I honestly didn’t think you would show up.

  “At first I thought my ex-wife sent you to check up on me, but in that case she would never have told you to pose as someone from Lament. It also occurred to me you might be some kind of con artist. But then why ask for pictures of a woman dead for a hundred years? You don’t seem to want money.”

  Zoë shook her head, biting down on her lip.

  “I would think you are a reporter, but honestly I’m not interesting. In the end, I couldn’t resist the mystery. I’ll ask you again, what is your interest in Rose Wilson? I can tell by your face you have some connection. Her picture sure did shake you up. I get the feeling you’re not telling me something.”

  If she hadn’t felt so panicked, she would have laughed at the understatement. Zoë had no idea what to say. “I’m…a friend of the family.” She glanced toward the door, wondering what he would do if she made a run for it. But how in the world was she going to get that key? If anything would call Henry to her, it would be that. Now that she saw it, she knew it and the others had special properties, even if she didn’t know exactly what that meant. Surely it did more than open a dilapidated old store room in a dusty semi-ghost town.

  “Uh huh,” he said, and Zoë couldn’t blame him for his skepticism. She was a useless liar. A friend of the family? She wondered with an inward groan what had possessed her to say that. “An explanation would seem to be in order,” Robert added after the awkward silence stretched beyond an acceptable limit.

  “Maybe a glass of water would be nice, Dr. Benson. If it’s not too much trouble?” She didn’t have to try very hard to get her voice to croak.

  Like Zoë, Robert Benson wore his emotions on his face. She could tell he was caught in a dilemma and had figured out that she’d lied her way into his house, but he couldn’t think of any reason to deny her refreshment. On one hand, he must see she was a fraud. On the other, the scientist in him must want to verify that she had some connection to the family. Zoë hoped the curious family historian would win the struggle over the reasonable, middle-aged, law-abiding citizen.

  At last, his gentlemanly instincts overrode his suspicion. “Of course,” he said. “Sparkling?”

  “Just tap water, thanks.” Zoë smiled, hoping she didn’t look scared. She’d never committed a crime before, at least none more serious than speeding. Stealing was out of her realm, but she had no choice. She had to find Henry. She couldn’t do anything to help Alexander, and in fact, she had probably doomed him with her big mouth and her stupid super-humanness, but she could help Henry. She steeled herself to do whatever it would take.

  As soon as Robert left the room, Zoë jumped off the couch and darted for the row of shadow boxes. The one containing Rose’s key came off the wall with a minimum of fuss. Without pausing for reflection to ask if she was doing the right thing, she tucked it under her arm and raced for the front door. She’d gotten as far as to have one foot on the porch when she heard the rich voice behind her. “I’d like to have that back,” he said.

  Zoë froze. “I promise. I’ll send it back when I’m done with it.” Her knees shook.

  Robert stepped toward her. “I must insist, Miss Pendergraft. It’s of great sentimental value.”

  Zoë’s mind whirled in one direction and the next. She didn’t have many options that appealed to her. She could make a break for it. She doubted he would chase her, but what if he called the police? Covering her tracks wasn’t something she had anticipated needing to do. Zoë braced herself to do something completely outside the realm of her normal life: tell another human being the unvarnished truth about herself. “I think we both know it’s a lot more than that.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first person to try to take them from me,” he said.

  Peter Delancy. Dear God. He had been after that last key she’d given Henry because it had some magical property just like Rose’s key. “If I wanted to steal from you, I wouldn’t have given you my real name, and I wouldn’t take just the one, even though I can see they’re special. I can see a lot of things most people can’t. Please, Dr. Benson. I need this key. I promise you I’ll bring it back.”

  “There’s no rational reason for me to believe you. You’ve lied to me, and now you’re trying to take something that’s precious to me.”

  Tension bundled in Zoë’s shoulders and she clutched the shadow box so t
ightly she worried she might shatter the glass cover. “Henry Dawkins,” she said as she turned to face Robert on the darkened path.

  Robert raised an eyebrow, and said nothing.

  “He was your great-grandfather, not the Reverend Sprayberry. Rose probably died because she didn’t want the baby born until he got back. They said he ran off and left her, but in truth he died before she did. Like you, Henry knew there was something special about this key.”

  “How do you know this?” he said, his tone slightly excited, but still tinged with skepticism. Zoë could almost see him mentally poring over his records.

  “Henry was…is…my friend. And Rose told me he was the father of her child.” Zoë slowly took a few steps backward, down the brick steps.

  “She told you.” Robert stared. His bold features contorted with obvious conflict.

  “Yes. She told me. Like I said, I see things, Dr. Benson. Do you even know what is special about this key? Does it do something supernatural?”

  “No. Maybe. I can feel it. When I touch it, it vibrates. The eldest child in our family has always kept this key. We passed it down from one to the other, like a family secret. It wasn’t until I found a second one that I realized it wasn’t singular in its properties. I’ve searched all over the world and it has taken my entire life to find nine more.”

  “Henry had the same ability. I thought he loved keys, but now, obviously, it’s much more than that.” If Peter Delancy knew of its properties, and she felt certain he did, she hoped he would leave her alone now that he had Henry’s collection. On the other hand, if he discovered Robert Benson’s, he’d likely stop at nothing to have it.

  “Zoë?” Robert said.

  “Sorry. When I came here, I wasn’t certain what I was looking for. Now I am.” She tapped the shadow box in her hands. “I swear to you I will bring this back. I don’t want the key. I’m just trying to find Henry. His spirit, I mean. He’s disappeared, and he’s one of my closest friends. I need to find him, and this is the only way I know.”

  Robert nodded, but he didn’t look any less bewildered. “This has been the strangest night of my life,” he said.

  “I wish I could say the same,” she replied, and she smiled, genuinely this time. Stepping back toward her car, she watched for signs that he would object. When he didn’t voice any protest, she turned and walked the rest of the way to the curb.

  She stopped as she unlocked the driver’s side door, and called out to Robert, “Thank you.” Zoë got in the car and drove away. She didn’t look back, but when she looked in her rear-view mirror, the light that spilled onto the street told her Robert Benson still stood in the doorway, staring after her.

  Her knuckles whitened because she gripped the steering wheel so hard. “Damn,” she said softly. He believed her. Maybe.

  Soon Zoë pulled into her garage and shut the door behind her. She grabbed the shadow box and her purse and headed upstairs, Robert Benson forgotten, and her mind going over what she needed to do. Cecil had warned her against summoning spirits. She wasn’t even entirely sure how to do it, but knew she must try, and damn the consequences.

  Chapter 16

  Zoë stepped into her living room and swore when she saw Thomas sitting on her couch, frowning at the wall. She made a sound that came out something like “gaahk.”

  He gave her a brief half-smile, and then his brow returned to a furrow. Abruptly he said, “It’s over. Alexander is gone.”

  “Gone,” she repeated, putting her bag and keys on the kitchen bar, with the precious shadowbox. “In what sense.” No preamble, no softening it up, just bad news: wham. Great bedside manner, Thomas, she thought.

  “He’s been summoned by the queen.”

  Zoë stared at him, at his expensive suit and his gorgeous face and studied his expression for a hint of humor. “The queen of what?”

  Unflappable Thomas raised his eyebrows. “You don’t know?”

  Zoë fumed. “Would I have asked if I did? Spit it out before I strangle you.”

  “Alexander went home,” Thomas said. Zoë didn’t interrupt with another outburst, because she could see how he weighed his words. “He didn’t tell you who his parents are?”

  Her mind went to the two golden angels Thomas had said were Alexander’s parents. Oddly, with everything that had happened in the past two days, seeing Alexander’s parents not only wearing crowns but having different names than she’d thought had barely registered on the importance meter.

  “Yeah about that. He told me who his parents are: Duncan of Edinburgh and Emily of some place I can’t remember.”

  “Aemilia of North Uist or Uibhist a Tuath.” He pronounced the Gaelic naturally. “It’s an island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.”

  “Yeah, and then you tell me those people at the hearing are his parents, and now he’s gone to see a queen, so I assume you mean her, and not the human British queen. But if his parents are Duncan and Aemilia, who are Trill and someone else?”

  “Zedane. Let me explain. We angels name ourselves. Since we come into this world as you see us, there’s no reason for us to name each other, unlike humans who enter the timeline in a less…capable state. We choose a name we like and sometimes even change them periodically. One angel can have many names and even many titles. I’m called Thomas, sometimes Thomas of San Francisco, Thomas Black, and a few other things. I’ve been called Yamuna, Hoff, Bomani…” He waved his hand to brush the idea aside. “Alexander didn’t lie. His parents are Duncan and Aemilia. They are also Trill and Zedane. The celestial king and queen of Europe…roughly. Our borders aren’t precisely the same as yours.”

  “King and queen. Of…Europe.” Zoë watched Thomas. He obviously wanted, for some reason she couldn’t puzzle out, for her to believe Alexander hadn’t deceived her by giving her the names Duncan and Aemilia.

  “Including part of Russia, the Middle East and India. Not Saudi Arabia, of course, and not China. Mostly. I could show you on a map, I suppose, but it’s not important.”

  “Alexander is some kind of prince.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, why did he hire you and not some big-shot royal lawyer? For that matter, why did they charge him to begin with? Why didn’t his parents protect him?” More than anything she wanted to know why he hid the truth from her. Didn’t he trust her? Would she have talked to him at all if he’d said ‘Hi, I’m Alexander, celestial prince of Europe and the Middle East but not China’? Probably not.

  “What makes you certain I’m not a big-shot royal lawyer?”

  “You’re a Free Angel, Thomas. I might be new to this, but I’m not stupid.” She had barely resisted using the term “Fallen”.

  “No,” Thomas said. “I can see that. Zoë, he asked me to help him because he knew he would lose.”

  Zoë blinked and waited for him to explain.

  “Alexander left his parents’ court to learn about humanity, or as we sometimes call you, the Fourth. He began work as a Guardian, starting with one charge, Ronald Underwood.”

  “My postman.”

  “Yes. How much has Alexander told you about Guardians?”

  “I don’t know anything, really.” Zoë exhaled. Another huge understatement.

  “They are not fairy godmothers, as human mythology would have you believe, waiting around to protect you from stubbing your toe. It is not the humans they’re guarding.”

  The truth dawned on Zoë. “Briony isn’t here to protect me. She’s protecting you from me.”

  “Not us specifically. The entire mortal realm. The timeline we live in. Yes.”

  Zoë sank down into the chair opposite Thomas, trying not to wonder what specifically Briony guarded against. “And Ronald is like me?”

  “He’s a person of interest.”

  “And my postman and I are a threat to the entire mortal realm?”

  “Not yet. Potentially. Possibly. Guardians watch and wait. Most of the time nothing happens. You are simply an unknown quantity.”

  Zoë
swallowed, trying to take in what this meant. Her heart ached. “So the trial is over. When will Alexander come back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He lost his case, then. So he’s no longer a Guardian.”

  “Zoë, it’s difficult for you to understand, but the crime he committed was in fact a serious one. He’s been cast out. He had a choice, but he found that option the more palatable of the two.”

  His tone alarmed her. “Cast out? Of what?”

  “The celestial circle. Alexander is a Free Angel now. That is why he asked me to act as his advocate. He knew he would lose, and he didn’t want his parents tainted with his choices any more than they had been, nor any of their kind.”

  “Oh no,” Zoë said. She couldn’t fathom what this meant. She wanted desperately to talk to Alexander, to comfort him and listen to him. “Not that…I mean no offense.”

  Thomas smiled for the first time in a long while. “None taken.”

  She wanted to ask, What about me? As selfish as it would sound, she didn’t much care. She stopped herself saying it only because she couldn’t bear for Thomas to see her fragile emotions. Instead she asked, “He might not come back at all?” Her throat felt thick.

  They had gone on three dates, not that any of them were normal dates, but then they weren’t normal people, either of them. After three dates, she could hardly expect anything. Back at the trial, he’d defended her, but knowing him, his personality and character, he would have defended any innocent person. She quickly wiped away the tear that slid down her cheek. Dammit, she thought. Don’t cry, you stupid cow. “He’s been cast out of the celestial circle, but he’s still gone back to his parents? I guess I thought if he lost his case, nothing would change. That he’d still be here with us, just like before. I don’t understand.”

  Thomas sat and watched as she struggled with her emotions. “Zoë, he’s gone.” He offered none of the usual comforts: no shoulder to lean on, pat on the back, reassuring words or even a glass of water.