Large snowflakes floated dreamily down from a slate-gray ceiling; one that, from this distance at least, looked to be no more than rooftop-high. For a moment, Melanie stood transfixed, positing that the snowflakes had to be responsible for dropping the clouds. Because of their scissor-cut edges, she reasoned, they snagged like thistles onto the gray gossamer, dragging it slowly down.
It was a theory worth committing to, she decided with a token nod.
There was not so much as a whisper of a breeze, and within this absence of wind there hung an unnatural calm; a stillness so profound that, strangely, colors appeared more resplendent to her than ever.
Not so far behind her, Tinder Elementary School was evaporating, the old, red brick facade fading, fading...
Finally, it disappeared altogether.
Now, if it would only stay that way, she thought.
Already the snow was up to her knees, and she was just willing to bet that it wasn’t going to let up anytime soon. Well, she was hoping, really.
She could hear soft creaks and groans coming from a queue of ancient maple trees to her right, and it took her a moment to realize that these sounds were the whimpering of branches weighted down from the wet snow; the maples’ rust- and saffron-tinted leaves acting as nets, coerced into treason by an impetuous winter.
Soon, she thought, the ground would be littered with broken limbs. But this was only vague conjecture. She did not have an abundance of autumns and early snows behind her to accurately deduce such carnage. She was only ten and couldn’t have cared less anyway. Thoughts of building snowmen and ice skating and drinking hot cider with cinnamon currently preoccupied her, with an occasional—and most often nasty—opinion about Suzie Stapleton, her arch enemy and sometime-friend.
She kicked up globs of snow as she continued along Fourth Street.
Across the slushy road, a school bus lumbered by, some of her classmates waving through the fogged windows. She could not hear their voices and could barely see their bouncing faces behind the rows of rectangular cataracts. But she did not find herself craving their comfort.
To show them all (especially Suzie Stapleton, if she was looking) that she was just as pleased as peas to be walking home, she stuck out her tongue and in no time collected a dozen wet, billowy flakes. Then she quickly rolled it back in, afraid that her peers might misconstrue her intentions and think she was jealous.
The yellow bus turned down Madison Avenue, its rear-end belching a plume of exhaust as the driver shifted down. She finally waved back as it disappeared behind a complex of red-shingled town homes.
She once more stuck out her tongue, whetting a fatuous appetite endemic only to children.
Luckily, Melanie’s mother (who had, upon gazing out their kitchen window that morning, declared the sky a “London Special”) had prepared her for the forecasted, and most certainly premature, incursion of winter. Melanie had been equipped with a down parka, wool muffler and gloves, and green galoshes, the latter still in her backpack. Her parka had a fleece-lined hood, but for now she chose not to bring it over her head, her ears, as she enjoyed the dreamy, tingly feel of the snow in her hair.
It was only a quarter-mile or so from Tinder Elementary to her house on Rampart Avenue, but she wished now that it were ten. She was relishing the white weather; liked the way it squelched under her shoes.
She waved to Mr. Altman. “Old Limp Wrist,” her mother called him, whatever that meant.
He’d already shoveled the snow from his walkway and was clearing a path to his front door, his shiny Aluminum shovel rasping across the cement. This struck her as odd, considering it was still snowing. Why didn’t he just wait until it stopped?
Adults were weird, she concluded.
Mr. Altman looked up from his chores, then glanced at his wristwatch. “My goodness, Ms. Sands! Is school out already?”
Nodding enthusiastically, she said, “They let us out early cuz’a’the snow.” Mr. Altman always addressed her as “Ms. Sands”, and she liked the way that sounded. It had a noble quality about it; was distinct from the childish, sing-song preamble that most adults often used when greeting her: “Hiya, Mel! How’s phonics treatin’ ya?” (Mr. Hampton from the Kwik Way), or, “Well, if it ain’t that sweet little angel, Melanie Sands!” (Mrs. Rusch, her next-door neighbor), or, “Stop the presses and darn yer dresses, it’s that gal from the fifth grade!” (Mr. Tessier, one of her mother’s old school teachers, from the library).
But when Mr. Altman spoke to her, he always made her feel grown-up.
Expertly manicured evergreen shrubs lined the man’s curving walkway on the outside, while a tall, white trellis of checkerboard design flanked the other, crawling with the spindly remains of woodbine and clematis. A few green leaves, overlooked by a scavenging autumn, still clung to the skeletons like bits of flesh; morsels left for winter’s sharper, more ravenous beak.
His house was a remodeled, turn-of-the-century, expansive four-story structure adorned with dormer windows and charming gingerbread ornamentation. Melanie called it a mansion. Her mother, on the other hand, liked to refer to it as “Faggot Central,” whatever that meant. Melanie thought it might have something to do with decorating, for she’d overheard her mother mention to Mrs. Huntington at the grocery store— and on more than one occasion—that she should have ol’ Limp Wrist over to refurbish her house; that he could do a much better job than she at picking out drapes and matching wallpaper. And oh my the wonders he could do with her flower garden. Then they’d laugh.
Yes, Melanie concluded once again, adults could be very strange.
A short and rotund man, and very bald, Mr. Altman continued to plow laboriously, his vaporous breath pulsing out of his mouth like smoke from an old locomotive. And as she drew closer, she could see steam rising off of his shiny pate.
She snickered, then blurted out, “Your head’s smoking!”
Taking a breather, he swiped sweat from his brow. “Looks like winter’s sneaked up behind us.” He shook his head. “And just when you thought the Almanac couldn’t be wrong.”
The sniffles having set in, Melanie ran a coat sleeve across her nose. “Mom says it’s a ‘London Special.’”
Mr. Altman looked at the sky as if to verify this. “Well, more like an Anchorage Special, but I know where she’s coming from.”
Melanie laughed, sure that what he said was supposed to be funny.
She paused and glanced down Fourth Street, barely able to see her house through the falling snow.
There would be no one home to greet her, of course; wouldn’t be for another three hours. She was an only child, and what her mother affectionately called a “latch-key kid.” Her mother had also told her that she could thank the ever-increasing cost of child care and an absent, no-good derelict father for her predicament. But she didn’t mind those few hours alone. She looked forward to them, in fact. And as for her father, well...He really hadn’t hung around long enough for her to have profound feelings for him. And if the truth be known, she probably wouldn’t be able to identify him if he were the only suspect standing in a police line-up; a likely scenario that, according to her mother, would probably be her last and only hope of ever seeing him again. That, or a “postmortem visit to the morgue,” whatever that meant.
Her mom had told her that the reason they didn’t have any pictures of her dad was because he was “camera shy.” Melanie just figured that her mom had tossed them after the divorce. Or worse.
Setting her flute case aside, she plopped backward into a hillock of snow, courtesy of Mr. Altman’s shovel and, as if practicing the back stroke, began to sweep her arms back and forth. She then jumped up, brushed the snow from the back of her head, and regarded the snow angel she’d made. It wasn’t bad, but not quite up to her standards.
She shrugged, reminding herself that she had most of fall and a whole winter ahead to perfect the art.
From the column of maple trees beside her, something growled; a low, predacious sound, very much lik
e a lion would make.
She turned, startled. In the tree closest to her, a few hand-sized clumps of snow began falling from the uppermost limbs, immediately inciting a fusillade of mini avalanches that quickly swept the girth of the tree, finally leaving it naked among its snow-draped peers.
She saw that Mr. Altman had heard the sounds, too, for he had stopped his shoveling and was looking up at the tree.
Something was there within the maple’s tangled interior. Something alive. An animal of some kind. Growling at her.
It clung to a branch like an old world chameleon.
Then she saw its eyes; eyes that spawned in her feelings of complete and utter fear. Those orbs of glowing light seized her, and instantly she knew that she was not staring into the eyes of an animal but into the infinite depths of despair.
Ravenous despair.
The animal exploded into a shuddering, squealing, menacing mass of energy. Something that looked like a pair of wings unfolded partway from behind its back, and then a long barbed tail whipped out from behind it, the end twitching slowly back and forth in predatory, cat-like musing; an eerie contrast to the violent paroxysms shaking the rest of its body. Its dog-like muzzle flaunted four ranks of gnarled, pointed teeth, as shiny-black as polished obsidian. And she was convinced that if it were to eat her, her shredded pieces would not slide down into its belly but would take an unnatural excursion into the bottomless depths of its eyes. And ultimately be reassembled then agonizingly digested there for all time.
She begged her legs to move, but they stubbornly remained planted in the snow.
“Run, Ms. Sands, run!” Mr. Altman yelled, but his voice sounded small and tinny to her ears, as if it were coming from a cheap pocket radio buried nearby in the snow. The creature’s mesmerizing gaze not only stole her breath away, but had numbed her senses, had filched every ounce of fuel from her muscles.
Mr. Altman trampled toward her, plumes of snow bursting at his feet, his gelatinous belly bouncing up and down.
Melanie opened her mouth to scream, but only visible breath escaped.
Raising the shovel above his head, Mr. Altman cried, “For the love of God, girl, run!”
In a chorus of snapping limbs and hideous guttural sounds, the creature leaped from the interior of the tree, wings aggrandized.
12.
As Eli walked into the church, Deacon Samuel Flannery was in the central section of pews, gazing skyward with a magazine in his hands.
“What are you doing, Samuel?” But Eli already knew.
“Ah, Father Kagan,” he said drearily. “It appears that you were quite wrong about the sword. You see, the pictures in the Standard don’t show the sword to be there.”
Upon its unveiling, Eli’s masterpiece had quickly become so beloved by not only the Catholic community but the general public at large that The Catholic Standard actually gave it five whole pages in its following edition, one devoted entirely to “Hallowed Architecture and Art.”
“See?” Samuel said, pointing at the magazine’s pictures. “No sword.”
Eli did not have to look at any pictures. He was the artist, for Christ’s sake, and had every minute detail committed to memory. He was certain that he could point out things not even the good deacon had yet to notice, especially the little eccentricities that had shown up on the mural within the last twenty-four hours. Facial expressions, mostly. All the angels’ lips had begun to ever so slightly dip into frowns. And their eyes...Their eyes were narrowing.
Thus far, only Samuel had approached him about the sword.
“Who else have you told about this?” Eli inquired.
“No one, Father,” he assured him. “I just came from the church library where I found this issue, and—”
Thrusting out a hand, Eli said, “Give me the Standard.”
“Father?”
“The magazine, you asshole! Give it to me!”
Hesitantly, Samuel handed Eli the Standard. “Are you angry about something, Father?”
Eli rolled the magazine up tight, then stepped face-to-face with Samuel. “Listen up good, Friar Fuck! If you turn this church into another Fatima, not only will I make sure that you catch a real nasty case of stigmata, but I’ll have a dose of hemophilia thrown in for no extra charge!”
Eyes round as saucers, Samuel swallowed hard.
“In a few more days—maybe even sooner—I’ll be getting my wings,” Eli continued, “and I don’t need some nosey subordinate tripping me up!”
Samuel was visibly trembling now. “Something’s about to happen, isn’t it?” He pointed to the ceiling. “Something about the sword—”
“I’m what’s about to happen! Very soon, dear Samuel, I’ll have a bird’s-eye view as reality gets turned on its nose.”
“You’re not well,” Samuel whispered. “So help me God, you’re not.”
“Sammy boy,” Eli snarled, “you have no idea.”
13.
As she and Duncan picked at their fries, Kathy and Juanita stuffed their faces with burgers.
Rachel sighed. “Okay, Juanita. Look, I’m not a very religious person, so I’ll ask you.”
“Yes, Mrs. McNeil?”
“What the hell’s going on?”
“I do not know, Mrs. McNeil.”
“Then who does?”
“God.”
“Well, I don’t have His cell number. Anyone else?”
Juanita patted Rachel’s hand and said, “You just have to ask, and He will tell you.”
“Oh, well, if that’s all, then let me make a list.” Employing the melodramatic, Rachel reached into her purse and pulled out her day runner and a pen. Poised for dictation, she turned to Duncan. “Do you have any questions you’d like to ask the Almighty?”
Duncan cleared his throat. “Well, I would like to know if the Raiders are gonna go all the way this season.”
Kathy giggled as she picked onion bits from a cheeseburger.
Juanita slammed her Coke down hard. “No wonder God does not give you answers! He is too upset!”
“God doesn’t get upset,” Kathy said. “And it could be His undoing.”
Duncan cocked an ear. “Say again?”
“She does not know what she is saying,” Juanita huffed.
“I know one thing,” Kathy said. “There are some angels who’re very pissed off right now.”
Juanita gasped. “You know no such thing!”
Kathy slurped her drink and shrugged. “Stick around.”
“Nasty angels are no big secret,” Duncan said to Kathy. “So what makes these guys so special?”
“Because Amy said so,” she declared around a mouthful of fries. “She said since God wasn’t up to kicking butt, then she knew some angels who were.”
Leaning over, now eye-to-eye with Kathy, Juanita said, “Somebody needs to kick your butt, young lady.” She straightened, then added, “All the way down the street.”
Amused, Rachel said, “So Amy’s buds with God, huh?”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “She’s told me all kinds of things about God and stuff. And hardly any of it’s like what they teach in Sunday school.” She glanced hesitantly at Juanita. “Not even close.”
“Amy’s a regular in heaven?” Duncan said. “Like Norm on Cheers?”
“Sure,” Kathy said. “We all are. It’s just that we forget all about it each time we leave because just a piece of its memory would slice us to bits.”
“One more time?” Rachel said.
Kathy sighed. “Okay. Amy said that heaven is made of something like glass, and to remember even the tiniest piece could nick the skin of our reality and deflate it like a balloon. Or something like that.”
Rachel leaned forward. “Then how come Amy gets to remember without getting sliced up?”
“Because she Knows.”
“Knows what?”
Kathy smiled. “Who she is”
“Heaven is not made of glass, young lady,” Juanita said with all the charm and certainty
of a truly propagandized fanatic. “It is beautiful and clean, like the Earth once was.”
“That’s absolutely right,” Duncan confirmed. “You listen to your pal Juanita. Heaven is a tropical, fully-clothed, alcohol-free resort where you lounge all day by a pool that nobody pees in, where Don Ho impersonators take turns singing Hawaiian love songs in straw gazebos, and Jehovah’s Witnesses wait on you hand and foot.” He winked at Juanita, taunting her. “Hey, it’s all in the brochure I picked up last week. You know, at Our Sisters of Mercy Me?”
Giggling, Kathy cupped a hand over her mouth.
Juanita’s stared contemptuously into Duncan’s eyes.
Rachel elbowed him. “Knock it off. You’re becoming obnoxious.”
“You’re still a wiseacre, Donut,” Kathy declared.
Duncan leaned back stiffly in his chair and said, “That’s what your mom nicknamed me. ‘Wiseacre.’”
“My mom used to say that your clowning around was just your armor,” Kathy said. “What did she mean by that?”
For once, Duncan was positively pensive. “I think she meant that some people just handle the stresses of life differently than others. Some, like Rachel here, cry a lot to relieve the tension, while other people drink—”
“Like Duncan here,” Rachel interjected.
“—or take drugs, act all macho when they’re really not. And then there’s people like me who try and cope with life by laughing it away—”
“Drinking it away,” Rachel calmly insisted.
“—when all we’re really doing is avoiding our true feelings and insecurities. Mine’s a front, a bluff, but just one of the more outwardly gentler ones.”
“Gentler?” Rachel said. “Not your jokes.”
“Si,” Juanita agreed.
With a wicked smile, Duncan said, “But don’t think I’m gonna change now just because the cat’s out of the bag.”
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