hundred silver dollars that his current condition is their doing, either directly or indirectly, and that being the case I don’t want to see them get their hands on him any more than you do, okay?” Ed nodded and Parker went on. “Besides, I figure the only reason they haven’t been able to clap irons on him yet is because he can fly. If we don’t repair that wing properly, he’ll lose the only advantage he has. Now I know Dave Morris is one of those university types, but I’m willing to wager that once he sees what’s at stake he’ll keep his mouth shut, what do you say?”
Ed sighed. “Okay, good points all, I guess you’re right.”
“Good man,” Parker said, patting Ed on the shoulder then heading over to the phone.
13
About twenty minutes later Father Kelly arrived. Felicity met him at the door and, thanking him for coming, led him through to the kitchen and their now sleeping guest.
Despite his religious teachings Father Kelly’s reaction was pretty much the same as everyone else’s; surprise, awe and admiration for the creature’s obvious beauty. They filled him in on the lead up events and asked him what he thought from a religious point of view.
Theodore Kelly was a middle aged and broad-minded man, at least as far as a small town priest could be. Which means to say he didn’t preach fire and brimstone from his pulpit each Sunday, rather he extolled the values of acceptance in many issues including same sex relationships and pregnancy out of wedlock, but he still stood strongly against abortion and drug use tolerance. On this matter he was reluctant to say anything for certain. Although his belief in the Lord was beyond question, he was one of the new wave of clergy that was prepared to admit that the Bible, although being the book of the Lord, was however written by men and due to that, may contain some unintentional deviation from the truth. He’d never admit as much to a member of his congregation, but this was the nineties after all, and before entering the service of the church he’d had a broad education, including the sciences.
So while he’d like to say, yes this is indeed an angel in every sense of the word, he didn’t because he just didn’t know for sure. Despite his belief he just never expected to see anything of this sort.
Father Kelly looked the angel over and tentatively reached out to touch him, then just shook his head. Seeing there wasn’t much else to do he stood over the sick creature and said a prayer, asking the Lord for guidance and for the angel’s deliverance from his pain and his persecutors. The others looked up at his mention of this and Father Kelly, who possessed a mind every bit as sharp as a knife, told them that his parish too had received a visit from their friends in grey.
It was at this point that Dave Morris arrived. A young university graduate, he’d traveled around for two years after completing his doctorate in veterinary sciences and believed he’d seen most of what the world had to offer. He’d never seen anything like this, though.
When Ward Parker led him into the now crowded kitchen, David Andrew Morris’s jaw had hit the floor. As a full-blown diehard atheist his reaction was greater than that of the others. What lay on the table in the Blair family’s kitchen tore a large hole through everything he had ever learned, even if it wasn’t an angel or divine entity; it still defied Earthly evolution. The foundations upon which David Morris had built his beliefs, while not crumbling totally, had developed a very large stress fracture.
Recovering from the shock, and after introductions, Morris gathered his instruments and examined the damaged wing. He shook his head when the others expressed concern and said that while he’d never fixed anything this big, the creature’s wing structure, although not identical, did largely resemble that of a terrestrial bird of prey, say an eagle or a hawk. That being the case, the similarity was enough that he could work confidently.
Morris set about splinting and immobilizing the wing. He then cleaned and bandaged the wound. While he worked Felicity set about making tea and coffee for everyone as the night was now getting late.
Standing back and accepting a cup of coffee, Morris said, “Well that’s that, it’s all I can really do for him right now.”
“Thanks Dave, we really appreciate you coming out this late,” Parker said.
“Jesus no, don’t thank me, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this for the world!” Morris said jovially. Abruptly he winced, remembering whose company he was keeping. “Sorry, Father,” he said to Kelly. The priest just nodded and smiled knowingly.
“Any idea where he could have come from, Dave?” Parker asked. “Any mention of cross breeding or DNA experiments or something like that while you were at university?”
”I don’t know, I guess so. Those sorts of things are always going on, but nothing that would, that could produce anything like this,” he indicated the angel. “If this represents genetic tampering or engineering, it speaks of knowledge and technology we just don’t have, probably won’t have for the next millenium, if ever.”
“Why do you all keep talking like you don’t know what he is?” Ninah spoke up from beside Father Kelly. “Can’t you see he’s an angel?” she said in exasperation, looking up at the priest as if searching for confirmation and support. Kelly smiled down at her and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
They all looked at Father Kelly in mild interest, some eyebrows raised in question. He shrugged, “I can’t say. The Lord moves in mysterious ways. If he is one of the Lord’s messengers then he’s here for a reason. Unfortunately I’m not privy to it.” He shrugged again.
Up till now Cassie had said very little. This had been without a doubt the most unusual night she’d ever had. Once, stupidly, she’d been talked into to doing an acid trip and as strange as that drug haze may have been, it was nothing compared to this.
One thing had started to bother her since Father Kelly’s arrival. Generally speaking, her thoughts on the origins of all things lay along the same lines as Dave Morris, as she was a biology major at school and evolutionist at heart. Abruptly she decided to mention her observation.
“If he is an angel then why does he have a belly button?” she asked.
They all turned to look at her, expressions of confusion and non-comprehension mixed with those of surprise.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Felicity asked.
“Hmm, maybe nothing but it’s an interesting point though,” Parker mused.
“But why?” Donna asked.
“Because it means if he did come from heaven, he was born there the same way we are,” Morris answered.
An hour later, after placing the angel in a bed in the spare room and leaving Ninah, Donna and Cassie to stay with him, the group broke up. Before leaving they told Dave Morris that they had no intention of informing the grey suited men of the angel’s whereabouts. Morris frowned and asked, “What grey suited men?” He’d been out of town today, leaving the practice in the hands of his assistant. They explained about the government men, if that’s what they were, who were combing the town, looking for their strange visitor. Morris, who apart from being an atheist was also a bit of an anarchist, said he’d fry in hell before telling anything to those fascist pigs.
The others, while not sharing so vehement a view, smiled in relief and then, as one, they took their leave.
14
Along with the rest of the Blair household and the others that had been there earlier on, Donna hardly slept a wink that night. She’d wanted to remain by the angel’s side but her parents wouldn’t allow it. They did, however, let Ninah stay there and sleep on cushions on the floor, despite Donna’s protests at how dangerous that could be. They’d merely said that Ninah was the first of them the angel had seen and who could say how he would react when he awoke, but if she was there it might help. Besides, if the angel had meant her any harm, he’d have done so in the playhouse, but they’d check on her every hour or so at any rate.
Donna had huffed but done as she was told. She and Cassie had laid in the dark and talked well into the early ho
urs of the morning, discussing the implications of the night’s revelations, along with just how uniquely gorgeous the revelation in question happened to be. Gradually, though, Cassie’s comments turned more to mumbles and eventually stopped all together. A short time after that Donna too drifted off to sleep.
A warm bar of sunlight fell across Donna’s face as she, still half-asleep, turned on her side to move her face out of the brightness. Abruptly her eyes snapped open and she sat up as the memories of the previous night rushed into her sleep-logged mind.
She looked around in confusion. By the sunlight streaming in through the window it must be mid morning, and where was Cassie? Both she and the spare mattress she’d been sleeping on were gone. Donna looked around her room and cocked her head. Everything looked totally normal, felt normal. The sounds drifting up to her from the rest of the house were normal morning sounds, the murmur of voices, the soft burble of the radio in the kitchen, the scrape of a chair being pulled back from the table. It didn’t sound like a morning after something incredible had happened; surely she hadn’t dreamed it all. Had she?
She jumped up out of bed and quickly left her room. She almost bumped into her mother in the upstairs hall. “Morning, sleepy head! Cassie said to say goodbye, she had to
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