by Lily Sparks
Compass jogs back to us, several giggling girls waving at us as they stream in through the open double doors. “Sorry about that. We’ve been trying to make our own bandages and everybody’s digging, so it’s blisters, blisters, blisters, and we’re running out!” She laughs, wearily.
“No kidding,” Javier says. “How many people live here?”
“About a hundred,” Compass says proudly.
Our information had said fifty. Javier and I trade a nervous glance, then join the crowd streaming into the barn.
Inside is quite pretty, like an extremely rustic, DIY wedding reception. There’s one low, continuous table made from old doors laid flat on stacks of bricks and cement blocks. It’s set up in a giant U-shape that encircles the room, snaking around the tall wooden support beams of the barn, laden with mismatched china and silverware. There’s lots of glass milk bottles stuffed with wildflowers, and the air is heavy with the heat-ripened scent of the petals. But there’s another smell I can’t quite identify, earthier, almost animal. Rancid. The hay at our feet is matted and unclean. The glass of the oil lamps that hang from the beams is the color of popcorn butter. Are they burning grease?
The girls add to the wedding reception vibe with their long, flowing hair, ankle-length vintage dresses, and blissed-out smiles. But much like the barn, behind the initial impression of loveliness is an underlying filth. They’re all bones-jutting-out thin and some degree of sunburnt, their hands covered in blood-filled blisters and split nails.
As we walk in through the wide-open barn doors, they all turn to us, eyes wide, and start rubbing their palms together in a circular motion. This makes a soft whispering sound not unlike light, falling rain. Then they start chanting something, softly, all in unison, words I can’t understand.
I’m stunned until Starbrite takes my shoulder and forcefully spins me around to face the small, muscled figure walking just behind us.
This is the person they’re actually welcoming: Angel Childs.
He’s been walking behind us, right behind me, and I didn’t even realize it.
The chant grows louder as he walks to the middle of the room, a broad smile on his tan face, and the chant rises to meet him: “Heaven is coming! Heaven is coming!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Target
Angel reaches out his arms as far as he can.
“HEAVEN IS COMING! HEAVEN IS COMING!”
His arms are heavily muscled under his thin linen shirt, his feet bare, and he wears worn buckskin pants that are fringed along the sides.
The invisible rain is louder. It sounds like a storm is trapped in the barn with us, because of all the people now clapping and snapping and rubbing their hands.
“HEAVEN IS COMING! HEAVEN IS COMING!”
Angel lets his head fall back, like he’s overcome. The cheering is deafening, the smiling faces around me dotted with pinpricks of sweat, possessed with joy.
And then the noise stops as Angel brings his fists into his chest, and the barn falls eerily quiet, quieter than a crowd this big should ever be.
In the jarring silence, Angel strides over to the wall where a pristine high-end guitar is leaning in a chrome stand, throws the embroidered strap over his shoulder, and breaks into the first bars of One Direction’s “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful.”
There’s knowing laughter, distant whistles, and appreciative snaps as Angel picks his way through the crowd, girls darting up to hand him flowers or kiss him shyly on the cheek.
“We don’t start eating until Angel does,” Compass whispers as she pulls us down to the ground beside the table. Not that I’d want to: balanced on a bamboo bowl in front of me is a full rack of charred, mangled ribs. I’ve never seen meat butchered like this, the rib cage left almost intact, the bones hacked unevenly and the meat half raw, half charred, from being cooked on open flames.
Angel makes his way through the crowd to the large wicker peacock chair presiding over the table, the only chair in the room. He leans down and picks up a wheat roll off the top of a pile, takes a bite and hands the rest to the girl at his feet. Immediately hands swarm the tables, the other girls finally allowing themselves to eat. The girls’ faces, turned away from Angel and to the business of splitting up the food, become intensely focused and stern.
“Okay, let’s go say hi!” Starbrite says. We follow her through the feeding crowd.
Angel sits noodling on his guitar, his bare feet crossed at the ankles, their soles black and calloused. At our approach he looks up and calls out, loud enough to draw the attention of the room: “Starbrite! You feeling it?”
“You know it!” she cries back.
“What do you feel?”
“Well, if you want to know, I feel like …” She smiles at the room. “… Like I’m glowing!”
“I see it.” Angel nods. “Don’t you all see it? How she’s glowing?”
Scattered whistles and claps from the crowd seated on the floor.
“That glowing when you know you belong in Heaven!” He points upward. “All my Stars have fallen here from Heaven. And Heaven wants you all back, desperately.”
Starbrite’s hand pulls me down beside her to the ground, to squat in the matted hay with the others. Compass is doing the same with Javier and Ray, behind us. I lean in toward her.
“Aren’t we going to say hi?”
“Shhh. Angel’s teaching,” she whispers back, her words clipped.
“But Heaven can’t have you yet!” Angel booms. “Earth is a lesson some of us still have to learn. Though, as we all know, we’re way off the curriculum. Yeah, this classroom has fallen into the hands of some bad teachers, hasn’t it?”
There are scattered groans of agreement.
“Ray here looks surprised,” Angel chuckles. “You never heard me teach before, have you, brother?”
Ray shakes his head.
“I promise, I’m not high right now,” Angel says, and all the girls laugh. “I’m lower, actually, than I’ve ever been.” He winks, and points skyward, and they cheer.
“I got some stuff in my bag for you, Angel,” Ray calls, jerking his thumb back down the path.
“Get what you need, brother!” Angel smiles and goes back to strumming. Ray slips away without an escort. Relief washes over me, we’ve gotten to the first step as planned: Ray can go move the bikes.
Now all I have to do is get Angel alone.
Almost as I’m thinking this, Angel’s eyes connect with mine. He puts out a finger and crooks it.
“He wants to say hi,” Starbrite practically chokes and pulls me and Javier to our feet.
“Just the little stranger girl,” Angel adds in the same light, friendly tone. Compass’s arm flashes up and grabs Javier’s hand, gently but unmistakably restraining him.
Starbrite whispers in my ear, her voice trembling: “Go on. He’s asked for you.”
I walk toward Angel Childs, his hand reaching for mine over the table where his emaciated followers are wolfing down food. His grip is hard, but his hands are smooth, the nails clean and even.
“You here for some teaching?” he asks.
“I don’t know, um … it sounds a little over my head,” I say diplomatically.
“You mean it sounds like a bunch of bull crap.” He laughs, a sharp, shrewd look in his eyes that catches me off guard. “That’s okay. Probably took a while for you to learn reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic too. Only way to find out what I’m really teaching is to learn it! So. Why’re you here, little girl?”
“My boyfriend and I were hoping to crash here tonight. We’d heard Owl’s Nest was like, um, kind of a scene?” I stammer.
He nods. “That it is, and we’d love to have you … long as you don’t spend all night telling us we’d be better off at the old college thought factory, USC girl!”
He waits for me to react—whether to the fact he was eavesdropping or just his opinions on getting a degree, I don’t know.
“Well, I mean … nothing wrong with g
etting an education, right?”
“Learning’s the most important thing in the world.” He nods seriously. “But school’s no good for learning anymore, and that’s a fact. You want to learn something, little girl?”
“… Okay.”
“Then why don’t you come sit by me.” Angel brushes idly at the hair of the girl sitting on the ground closest to his feet. “Lightbeam, sweetheart, where’s that old piany stool?”
Lightbeam hops up to fetch it, and then Angel, with a courtly flourish, gestures for me to take his seat. It’s surreal that I’ve progressed this fast. The surrounding girls can’t seem to believe it either; they openly gawk as I step over the low table and perch on the rough wicker edge of Angel’s throne. Urgent whispering spreads through the crowd, and Javier’s eyes connect with mine.
He nods slightly: so far so good.
“That your boyfriend?” Angel’s voice cuts in as he settles onto a tall piano stool beside me.
“Yeah. Are these your girlfriends?” I indicate the crowded barn.
“What? No, no, no. You got that one all wrong. This is my Constellation.” Angel grins. “All of us burning with our own unique fire. But only when we’re together can our meaning be seen.”
I force what I hope sounds like sincerity into my voice: “That’s really beautiful. So you believe everyone is like, a star?”
“Not everyone,” Lightbeam interjects from below us. “What we have been raised to call stars are actually angels, looking down on us.”
“Easy now!” Angel cuts her off. “Let’s get to know her a little, huh?” He rests his chin on his hand and looks deep in my eyes. “You’re a USC girl, huh? Funny, you don’t seem stuck up like most rich girls. How’d you run into Ray?”
“H-Hector and Ray are friends,” I say, remembering Javier’s fake name just in time. Speaking of Ray, why isn’t he back yet from putting up the bikes?
“And where’d you meet Hector?” Angel glances at Javier again, eyes twinkling.
“School.”
Angel’s focus shifts back to me, his face tense. “Is that a fact?”
He holds my gaze for an uncomfortably long time, like we’re in a staring contest. I suppress a nervous urge to laugh.
“So you want to stay with us for a while, little girl?”
“Yeah, I mean, if it’s okay, we’d like to crash for the night.”
“No hotel with daddy’s credit card?”
“Hotels are so …” I swallow, my throat dry. “Sterile.”
He nods, seriously, as though cleanliness is a real bummer. “Compass?” he calls.
“Yes?” she says eagerly, sitting up straight.
“Would you get Hector all set up in the guest house?” He smiles at her, then turns to me, his voice dropping. “We’re a little full up in the barn at the moment, so Hector might have to sleep with some of the angels in the guest house tonight. I hope you don’t mind.”
The girls down on the floor around Javier are introducing themselves, throwing their arms around him in a series of quick hugs and tucking flowers into his hair.
“Whatever works. It’s your place.”
Compass gets up and after another moment Javier stands, staring at me with obvious concern; he doesn’t want to leave. I don’t want him to either. But I have to get Angel alone, and right now things seem headed in that direction.
I nod to Javier: I’m fine, I promise.
He slowly turns and takes Compass’s outstretched hand, and the two of them move through the seated crowd toward the wide-open barn doors and the dark night beyond.
Then, just at the threshold, Javier turns and calls back to me: “You’ll be okay?”
Angel answers for me: “She’s never been more okay! Isn’t that right, uh … what’s your name?” Angel laughs, one of his hands resting heavily on my shoulder.
“Jenny.”
“That’s not your name.” Angel smiles, and my throat goes dry. “Come on, now. You know that’s not your name.”
Does he know!? How would he know?!
“Ce-les-tial.” He draws out the word. “That’s your name.” He leans toward me until his forehead touches mine, his hand moving to the nape of my neck and clinging there, hot and intimate under my hair, pushing my forehead closer to his. I can feel my kill switch scar itch under his sweaty palm.
“Y-yes,” I say quickly. “Sure. Call me Celestial.”
He leans back, releasing me, and laughs, long and loud.
“Everyone!” Angel stands up as Compass leads Javier out of the range of the lamplight. “Meet Celestial!”
The girls rub their hands together, and I hear the name passed in whispers all the way to the far corners of the barn: Celestial! Celestial!
“Celestial is staying here for the night.” He turns to me, cocking his head slightly. “Actually, Celestial, that was a lie. That was a lie, wasn’t it?” He turns to them, with an air of a teacher announcing a holiday. “She’s not going to be here just for the night. She’s going to be here forever! Can’t you feel it?”
“I FEEL IT!” Starbrite cries out, arms shooting over her head.
Angel takes my hand, and pulls me in for a long hug, then rears back and looks at me with that shrewd air of appraisal that’s so completely at odds with everything he says.
“I feel you are a part of this Constellation. Do you feel it, Celestial?”
The crowd leans in to hear my answer.
“I feel it!” I cry feebly, not feeling it at all.
“All right, then! We feel it too!” Angel drops my hand, steps over the table, and smiles down at his followers, extending his hands to them.
Once he’s in the middle of the crowd he turns and points at me, his eyes hard and glinting.
“Tonight we do a Star-Making for Celestial!”
A gasp goes through the barn. “Already?!” I hear someone whisper. Lightbeam is already on her feet, wrapping me in a constraining hug, and I see Starbrite over her shoulder, her lips curling back in a desperate smile that’s more like a snarl.
“I had a feeling about you, Celestial, right from the start!” Starbrite weeps.
A knot of lanky girls knit themselves around me on all sides, wide-eyed and smiling, yet they don’t seem to make eye contact with me as they congratulate me on entering The Constellation.
I just need to get in a room with Angel alone. That’s all I need. Not whatever this is.
“Love Loft! Let’s go, Brides!” Lightbeam cries, and with frantic, trembling pressure a dozen whippet-thin arms steer me toward a narrow back staircase hidden in the shadowy recesses of the barn.
I look over my shoulder, confused, to see Angel with his guitar hanging from his shoulder at the barn doors. He swings first one and then the other closed, then slides a heavy piece of lumber through the handles, bolting them shut.
* * *
The walls and ceiling of the hayloft have been painted black, and wild constellations of glow-in-the-dark star stickers are pasted everywhere. There are thousands of them, all the way up to the ceiling, covering even the support beams that span the width of the room almost ten feet overhead. I can just make out the dim green glow of stars on the vaulted ceiling, twinkling down at us from almost twenty feet above.
A half pyramid of hay bales takes up most of the room, the blocks of hay stacked into massive steps that climb into darkness. Sheets and blankets cover most of them, suggesting this is where dozens of “angels” sleep.
Cut out high in the opposite wall from the haystack is one giant square window. Wide enough to drive a truck through, with no screen, no glass, just an unfiltered view of the actual stars, and a baffled moon peering in. The moonlight is the only light in the room, a bright square of blue stamped across the broad wood planks of the floor.
“I’ve never seen Angel declare a Star-Making so fast,” one of the girls mutters to Lightbeam, the trap door clapping closed behind her.
“I know,” another agrees. “She just got here. How is she going to find
the Sky Path—”
“Hey!” Starbrite snaps. “Let’s not have any of that Earthly negativity. It’s not our job to judge her. It’s our job to get her ready for Angel.” She turns and smiles at me again. “This is your night. Now take off your clothes.”
“What?!” I shriek.
There’s a scraping sound, and two of the Heavenly Brides drag a galvanized washtub in front of me, while another two girls strain to hold up and tilt the kind of five-gallon blue water container you usually see upside down in an office cooler. Water splashes heavily into the tub and a girl holding a bunch of dried herbs rips them into shreds and casts them into the water.
“You need your bath,” Starbrite says, plucking at my peasant blouse. “Before you join with Angel.”
“What is a Star-Making, exactly?” I stall desperately.
“Well …” Starbrite bites her lip. “The Constellation is one big relationship. We all relate to Angel emotionally, spiritually, and physically. We’re not possessive, we’re not into jealousy or ownership, but …” She tilts her head back and forth, eyes wide. “When someone new relates to him, we like to be involved. So we get you ready for the Star-Making, we witness your commitment with a family ritual, and then you have until dawn with Angel to be consummated as a Star.”
“Consummated?”
The girls giggle.
“What, while all you of lie around and w-watch?!”
Starbrite shushes me like she’s calming a skittish horse. “We want to hold your hand through it and be part of the experience.”
“Um, no. No way.” I shake my head. “I want us to … consummate or whatever alone. Just me and Angel. Please.”
“That’s never been done before,” one of the girls mutters unhappily.
“There’s a first time for everything,” I snap.
“I can ask him, if you’re sure that’s what you want,” Starbrite says disapprovingly.
“I’m sure.”
She disappears back down the stairs. Without warning, Lightbeam jerks me toward the tub. I stumble forward, the metal edge biting into my bare shins. The water smells like mothy sweaters and rotted sage, the surface scattered with spiky weeds.
