“That’s nice. Maybe she’ll help me.”
“Maybe.”
I watch her coloring the picture of a unicorn. A red unicorn. “I have a little girl,” I say.
Her eyes light up. “Is she here?”
“No, she’s home with a friend. Sleeping, I hope.”
“Will you bring her next time?” she asks. “It’d be nice to have someone to play with.”
“Maybe,” I say, trying and failing to produce a smile. “She’s younger than you. Would that be okay?”
“Sure,” she tells me, coloring the unicorn’s tail blue. “I can be her babysitter. Like Amy. That would be okay.”
I’m tired. My arms are heavy and my neck is weak. “Do you always come to work with your mom?”
“Not always. Just when Amy can’t watch me. She’s pretty. She has a boyfriend with a motorcycle.”
I let my head fall sideways on my shoulder. “My husband has a motorcycle.”
Her large eyes get even bigger. “Does he let you ride it?”
“Sometimes.” My eyelids are heavy. The girl’s face swims before me. Her eyes. Her necklace, so pretty with the beaded rope and the charm. Is it . . . is it a flower?
I’m going to be sick. I’m going to be sick and it’s so very, very dark.
“Mama! Mama! The lady’s dying. She’s dying like daddy.”
Her voice bounces around the darkness, tugging at my consciousness. It’s not me, not my body that’s dying. I know that, but the fear of death is suffocating.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die!
“You’re not dying, Brielle. Sit up. You’re not dying. You’re dreaming.”
I blink my room into view. It’s still dark. The clock on my side table says it’s three a.m. Helene stands next to me, her hair braided back, her face tense.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I had another nightmare.”
She runs her hand under my pillow. “And with the halo too.”
“I don’t understand why it keeps happening.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” she tells me. “Are you presentable?”
“Yes, of course.”
Without another word, she lifts me from my bed and pulls me into the Celestial, the fear of death melting within her wings.
18
Brielle
Helene’s wings push against the air, pulling us through the roof and over the old Miller place toward the outskirts of town.
Something’s wrong. I see fear crawling down the street. A sludge of blackness, a mist fogging the air above it, makes its way down the highway. It moves quickly, speeding over the pavement toward us. I see fear daily, but this . . . this is a lot.
Helene dips low, and my stomach lurches. We’re just inches off the road now, Helene’s thin arms extended. We approach the fear with the crazed speed of a drag racer, but as soon as Helene’s fingers make contact with the gloppy stuff, it hisses and dissolves, leaving behind only a foggy residue. Her hands have a different effect than Jake’s prayers, but at her touch the fear glubs and glops to a stop. It actually retreats. Or tries to.
We’re flying too fast for it to succeed, and Helene doesn’t seem to be keen on letting a single gurgle of the stuff escape. I’m mesmerized.
“Where is the fear coming from?” I ask.
I hear Helene’s voice in my head. “From the crowd.”
The crowd?
I lift my eyes from the highway and look ahead, but the scenery’s flying by so fast and it’s all so bright.
“There,” she says.
My eyes stream tears, but I force myself to focus. Just ahead, lining the gate to the Stratus Cemetery, are nearly a dozen people, their focus arrested by whatever’s going on inside.
And there is something going on.
Strange flashes of light split the night. They’re not yellow streaks, or orange, or even red like I’ve seen in the celestial sky, but silver, electric flashes. Not unlike lightning, but less chaotic, more focused.
Both of Stratus’s patrol cars are parked haphazardly at the entrance to the graveyard. Deputy Wimby stands guard at the gate, though by the fear pooling from the onlookers, I don’t imagine a single one of them is too eager to enter.
“What’s going on?”
Helene doesn’t answer, but her wings pick up speed, lifting us off the highway and over the crowd. Over Wimby. We fly over headstones and statues, over placards and grass wilting in the summer heat. I can’t help but notice how calm it’s gotten in the past few seconds, and then I realize we’re approaching the eastern boundary of the cemetery, near my mother’s grave.
My heart couldn’t beat any faster—not after that nightmare and Helene’s unexpected visit—but it’s trying its hardest.
And then I hear it. High pitched and eerie, like the sound of a missile falling. Every half second brings it closer and closer. I see nothing, but I sense it, hear it, the sound of something large dropping from above.
“Here it comes again!”
The cry comes from below us, where the sheriff squats behind a crumbling gravestone. His hat is askew, his orange hair almost neon in the celestial light. His walkie-talkie is pressed to his mouth.
“Everybody down!”
There’s authority in his voice, and even within the safety of Helene’s wings, I flinch.
And then destruction. A crash like I’ve never heard or imagined. The world shudders as that strange silver lightning explodes everywhere. So bright it cows the buttery yellows of the celestial sky.
Helene doesn’t slow, doesn’t wince. She moves forward, faster, if anything, and I see the willow tree come into view. Like the spattering of a strobe, the umbrella-like canopy of its branches spits shades of silver light into the sky.
Whatever’s happening is happening beneath that tree.
Where my mother’s been laid to rest.
Helene rises above it, giving us a bird’s-eye view. I look down in awe—terrible, horrible awe.
Mounds of dirt encircle my mother’s grave. Upturned soil and grass mingle in violated bedlam. Tree roots protrude like skeletal fingers from the soil, and the cement bench I’ve sat on so many times is nothing but a pile of concrete crumbles.
Nothing about this image makes sense. It’s like a sick kaleidoscope—the original image twisted and twisted beyond recognition.
And then I see the stone angel. The one who’s been weeping over my mother for a decade and a half. I watch as she is shattered by a shard of silver light ricocheting from within my mother’s grave.
Helene darts sideways to avoid the shard, and I suddenly understand that my mother’s grave has been desecrated.
That it’s being desecrated.
That I’m watching it happen.
The stone angel falls sideways from her rectangular platform. With a heavy thud she hits the ground, her head and shoulders, the top of her wings, separated from the rest of her sculpted figure. They topple away several feet and sink inches deep into the upturned mud.
“Why?” The word forms in my mind. I’ve no idea if I actually say it, but it’s the only thing I can think. Over and over it hums in my chest. Why? Why? Why?
Dirt flies from the grave en masse, and then a face appears, rising from the mud.
Glowing. Radiant.
Angelic.
He rises from the gaping hole, wings of blade lifting and then holding him in place before us. I can do nothing but stare.
Helene speaks to him, leaving her mind open, allowing me to hear the conversation.
“Virtue,” she says.
Her mind is quiet but sure.
“Helene,” he says, giving me the same courtesy. “I am sorry to arrive with the sound of destruction.”
“If it’s necessary . . .”
“It is, and I am not yet finished.”
Helene pushes back with her wings, deferring to him, giving him room, but the angel doesn’t move. The tilt of his head makes me think he’s
looking at me, and indeed his words seem to be for me alone.
“I am sorry for your pain,” he says, pressing closer to us.
Which pain? Which one?
“But you’ve chosen truth. It is best that you have it all.”
And then he opens his mouth, worship pouring forth as he rises into the sky again and plummets to the earth, his dagger-like wings tearing through the gigantic hole he’s created and into my mother’s casket. It’s a violent, forceful thing that pulls my stomach into my mouth. It’s sick. Whatever this is, this is a desecration of something . . . sacred?
Is my mother’s grave sacred? I don’t know. But it’s special. It’s where her body was laid to rest, and while I know deep down that it’s her soul that’s most important, her body surely has some value.
Surely it doesn’t deserve to be unearthed like this, exposed in its decay.
I lash out. Or try to. My legs squirm in an attempt to kick against the sinewy wings holding me tight; my elbows and fists press against them too, but I’m useless against Helene’s embrace. Exhausted, I give up, sinking deeper and deeper into confusion and hating the beautiful creature clawing away at my mother’s resting place.
“There’s a reason, Brielle,” Helene tells me. “There has to be.”
I can’t see it. The possibility that this senseless, frenzied devastation can have reason.
And then Helene is singing. Something about the kindness of God. About His holiness and truth. They’re words I’ve heard before, words I’ve mouthed at the little church in town, words I’ve learned much from. But now, in the midst of the flying mud and the shivering lightning, they anger me.
Holy? Kind? Just?
Canaan arrives, Jake tucked to his chest. I stare through his inner wings and into Jake’s face, into eyes that burn with compassion, and then I pinch my eyes shut. I close him out and let fear take me. I let it shake me. I let it consume every part of me, because it’s better than the disappointment that comes with watching God destroy the tiniest shred of something I never had. Of something I always wanted.
Of the thing I lost before I knew I needed it.
My mother.
And then it’s quiet. Even Helene’s voice is gone. I open my eyes. Before me is nothing but a silver sheen. I squint at it, beginning to make out the silhouette of a man-like head and shoulders.
Virtue.
He’s close, so close to my face.
I burrow back into Helene.
“Finding truth is hard. But yesterday’s knowledge is a lie. The grave is empty, child of God. See. Understand.”
The grave is empty? Isn’t that what the angel said at Christ’s tomb? What is he talking about?
The sheen before me increases, brighter and brighter until I have to close my eyes to be rid of it. When at last the shimmer beyond my lids fades, I open them to find that Helene has set me down and released me from her inner wings. I stand in the mud before my mother’s grave, the silver angel and his wings of destruction gone. And then Jake is next to me, his hand in mine.
Sirens wail. Radios beep and sputter words that are garbled and meaningless. In the distance, the sheriff’s voice crackles through a megaphone.
I pull away from Jake and step toward the rift cut into the ground, to the place where my mom’s casket was buried.
“Brielle,” Jake says, all concern and kindness. “Why don’t you let me look first?”
I don’t even spare him a glance. Protecting me can only go so far. And what that angel unearthed was unearthed for me. I drag shaky fingers through my hair. I don’t know why I have to see, but I do. I know that black hole holds nothing but bones and dirt, but I need to see. I need to know why it was dug up.
Still my breath comes quick and shallow, and I don’t refuse Jake when he takes my hand. The debris is everywhere and makes it hard to walk in a straight line. Jake kicks aside a large hunk of root and grass. I sidestep several shards of cement from the fallen angel and wood slivers from . . . the casket.
The thought makes me light-headed, and I grip Jake’s hand more fiercely.
When I reach the lip of the grave, Helene is already there. Without a word she drops into the hole, a flash of her auburn hair the last thing I see.
I kneel, intending to follow her. My bare knees press into the upturned soil, and I find relief in the earthy feel of it. The dirt is cool and damp and my hands sift it, knead it, looking for answers I don’t expect to find.
Jake’s next to me, the muscles in his arms tense, his face staid. At last I summon the courage to peer over the edge of the grave, and I see . . .
Nothing.
The darkness presses close, and I can’t see past it.
“What do you see?” I ask Jake.
“Nothing,” he says quietly. “Not even Helene.”
I shift my feet and drop to my backside, using my heels to pull me closer to the edge.
“Here,” Jake says, wrapping my forearm with his hand. “I’ll lower you down.”
Now I do spare a glance for him, for a look into his eyes. It’s too dark for their color to show through, but there’s understanding there. He knows I need to do this.
I need to know.
I think he needs to know too.
I wrap my fingers around his forearm and let him lower me. Helene finds my waist in the dark and guides me down. It’s not far—I guess they really do bury you six feet under.
The great silver angel has carved out an area much larger than my mother’s casket. Helene and I stand on a flattened plane of dirt just next to it, but my sight is still limited. I can see that the lid of the casket has been shattered, and I kneel to pull the wood away. My hands tremble at the task.
“What will I find?” I ask Helene.
It’s a minute before she responds. “Stand and I’ll show you.”
I do, allowing her to step behind me. With a tic of her inner wings, Helene pulls me once again into the Celestial. She kicks her feet sideways, so that we hover over the casket.
Light floods my eyes and heat assaults me. My heart hammers, blood rushes loud in my ears, and I finally release the scream that’s been building inside my chest.
My mother’s casket is empty.
19
Brielle
No bones. No clothing fragments. The inside of Mom’s casket is pristine, the satin lining marked only with today’s mud splatter. The ruched pillow at the head of the box has flattened over time, but it’s never been lain upon.
I don’t know that, I suppose. But I do. Deep in my gut, the emptiness of my mom’s grave confirms so much of what I’ve never felt. Of what I’ve needed.
How many times have I sat here, on a stone bench that’s now nothing more than rubble? The willow tree, the angel, the quiet surroundings offered simple condolences, but instead of completing something in me, instead of being a place to mourn and remember, Mom’s grave has never felt anything but vacuous. This place sucked my emotions away, leaving me as empty as the coffin below.
At my request, Helene releases me. We’re still belowground, the wooden box shattered, the moist dirt falling in small avalanches around us. Without Helene’s wings wrapped around me, without the halo, it’s all so dark, and it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust. The moon is wonky tonight—a balloon that’s lost some of its air—but it’s bright, and after a few moments I have to acknowledge that I’ve seen all there is to see.
There’s nothing here. No sign my mother was ever laid to rest. I sink to the ground, press into the mud wall behind me, and stare at the hollow coffin.
“I’ll give you a minute,” Helene says, “but that’s all we can afford. The sheriff is gathering his resources now. They won’t be long.”
If by “resources” she means Deputy Wimby, we might have more time than she knows.
Out of the corner of my eye I see her throw Jake a glance, and then she’s gone. His face, however, hovers above, but it’s only there for a moment more. His feet swing over—bare—and he drops next to me—
shirtless. He was dragged from bed as well, it seems. From his dream to my nightmare.
He doesn’t say anything. He just sits and takes my hand.
I’m grateful.
“The first time you kissed me was here,” I say.
“And the second.”
I turn and press my face into the hollow at his neck, wanting to be anywhere but here, wanting to relive that moment. I’ve done it so many times. Eyes closed, quietly remembering. But I’ll save it for later, when the sirens are silenced, when I’m lost in my own sheets and blankets. When my surroundings are more dream and less nightmare.
But even my dreams aren’t safe anymore.
I force my thoughts back to now, as dreadful as now seems to be.
“When we visited Ali’s grave last month, and the month before, and the month before that,” I say, “I felt a peace. It was like my own feelings, but what I was experiencing were hers. Her body was at rest. At peace.” I shift, something sticky pulling at my knee. “But here? The only time I’ve ever felt anything here has been with you.”
Jake doesn’t say anything, but we’ve had similar discussions before. He’s always kind, but I know he’s not as dependent on feelings as I am. And I do feel now. Confused. Lost. And from somewhere deep within a sense of betrayal starts to form.
“Dad must’ve known—when he buried her. He must’ve known the casket was empty.”
“Why do you say that?”
I have to think about the question. Have to reason my way to an answer, because Jake’s implication—that it happened unbeknownst to Dad—is entirely plausible. It could have been an error by the funeral home or something else equally unlikely. But something about Virtue’s words, about his showing up while Dad is all misery and alcohol—something makes me certain.
Dad knew.
“Give him the benefit of the doubt, okay?” Jake says. “This is going to be hard enough on the guy.”
After all my dad has put Jake through, it’s strange for him to be all Bill O’Reilly about it. Fair and balanced or whatever they claim. But he’s right, and I know it.
Still, I’d rather he just take my side.
Broken Wings (An Angel Eyes Novel) Page 11
