Angel Fire

by Lisa Unger

  “One afternoon, after my tasks had been completed, I was reading the Bible in my room when I heard the sound of a woman’s faint sobs from the church. The sound was so hopeless, so despairing. I closed the book and rose quietly and walked toward the sound.

  “The air in the church was hot and thick, and the afternoon sun, burning over a hundred degrees that day, was beating in through the west windows. When no one acknowledged me, I continued toward the pews. I could tell from the direction of the sound that the woman was sitting in the first row. I walked over and sat beside her. I could feel her misery as if it were my own. It seemed to radiate from her like a fever.

  “It was Allison Drew, a young woman I had known for years through the church. The same age as I am, she had attended almost every Sunday mass with her father since she was ten years old. She had also come for the catechism classes my uncle conducted following the noon mass. She had been in a car accident that was a result of her drunk driving. The other driver had been killed and Allison was badly injured. Charges against her were pending. She had lost her vision but, according to what her father told us, she would probably gain it back. That had not happened yet.

  “I did not ask her any questions but slid closer to her and put my arm around her shoulder. She leaned her head against me, and wept. She sensed that there was no need for her to speak, and there wasn’t. I could feel her pain, her shame, her hopelessness for the future, her sorrow for the life she took. I knew no words would comfort her. So, instead, I kissed her forehead gently and breathed into her all the love and forgiveness I knew God would offer her.

  “ ‘God has already forgiven you, Allison. Forgive yourself,’ I told her.

  “Four days later, Allison regained her sight. She told people that I had healed her, that I had told her of God’s forgiveness. She told them that I knew her feelings without words. People believed. They began to seek me out for guidance.

  “I was very uncomfortable with this new role. But I didn’t have the heart to turn them away. I thought, Maybe God is helping people through me, maybe this is why I am on this earth. And I found that, somehow, my words had the power to help people solve their problems. When people spoke to me, they felt understood. Maybe it was just because I listened.

  “Several months after I saw Allison, a couple who had traveled from several towns away brought their autistic son Morgan to me. I was reluctant, but agreed to spend time with him, though I was not sure how I could help the child. In my heart I knew I hadn’t healed Allison, even if she had convinced herself and others that I had. While I did not mind counseling people who sought my advice, I did not want them to be deceived into thinking that I could heal their sick. But the couple seemed so desperate, so needy, I couldn’t say no.”

  Juno had stuck both his hands in his pockets and had turned his eyes toward the ground. He wore a confused and sad expression, as if he still didn’t quite believe what had happened to him. He seemed to be offering the story to her, not quite expecting her to make sense of the events as they had played out, not quite able to make sense of them himself.

  “I brought him into the church recreation room where catechism classes were held while his parents waited, praying in the church. The boy sat on a chair silent and perfectly motionless, smelling lightly of soap and talcum powder. I touched his hair, which had been close-cropped for the summer months. It felt like the bristles of a brush, hard and fuzzy at the same time.

  “Thirty minutes passed. The boy was a locked box. Whatever was happening inside his head, there was no energy leaking out for me to feel or recognize. The boy’s soul is on inside out, I thought; he’s sealed inside himself. I had the sense that Morgan’s life was playing on a movie screen inside his head, two-dimensional and distant. Morgan was a witness to what went on around him but could not participate.

  “Suddenly, while I was speaking to him, telling him the story of Noah’s Ark, the child issued a brief, blood-curdling scream. Then he sat still again, as if he had never opened his mouth. He frightened me and I moved away from him and began to play my guitar, not knowing what else to do.

  “After a full hour, I took Morgan back out to his parents. I told them I didn’t think I had helped their son. They thanked me for my efforts and left solemn and disappointed.

  “As I heard them drive away, I felt angry with myself for not being able to reach the boy, for being so inept in the face of Morgan’s obvious need. I wondered if it was God’s intention for Morgan to remain as he was, or if I had failed in a task set before me.

  “But several weeks after Morgan’s visit, the rumor spread throughout the congregation that I had healed the autistic child. It was said that four days after his visit, Morgan began talking and interacting like a normal child. I wanted to believe them but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t true. I tried to find out Morgan’s last name so that I could call his parents and see if what people were telling me was true but no one seemed to know them. When people asked about it, I replied, I did not heal that boy. If he grew better, it was God’s will.

  “But my replies were interpreted as modesty, as a deference to God,” he said, finishing his story, “and I found that no matter what protestations I made, I could not move people from what they wanted to believe. Even the truth could not diminish their faith in me.”

  “But then people lost interest when the boy you visited in the hospital died hours later from a failed transplant.”

  “So you already know all of this?” he said, clearing his throat. And for the first time since she arrived, he seemed uneasy, began unbuttoning and buttoning again the cuff of his immaculately cleaned and pressed denim shirt.

  “What time was it when you found the dog?” asked Lydia, changing the subject.

  “It was about six o’clock in the morning. I had risen early to practice my guitar, but was distracted by an odd smell coming from the garden—the door was open. As I neared, I heard a rustling. But when I called out, no one answered. I walked out into the garden and slipped in the dog’s blood. It was very disturbing.”

  “Who removed the dog?”

  “The police came and took some photographs. Then they took the body away.”

  “Did anybody else see it?” she asked, hoping someone could tell her exactly how the dog had been mutilated, since obviously Chief Morrow wasn’t going to turn over photographs he’d claimed he didn’t have.

  “Only my uncle.”

  The hairs on the back of Lydia’s neck rose as she had the sudden feeling that someone was watching. She looked around behind her but beyond the garden was nothing but a dirt road, traveled only by a tumbleweed. She looked at the flowers again and flashed on the image from her dream, when they’d mocked her cruelly.

  “Is your uncle here now?” she asked.

  “Yes, but he is preparing for mass. If it’s not urgent, perhaps I could have him call you.”

  “That would be fine.” She pulled a business card from her purse and handed it to him. He slipped it into his pocket and began to move away from her, then stopped.

  “What are the reasons for your questions, Ms. Strong?”

  She realized she didn’t really know how to answer. What was she supposed to say? I’ve watched you. I’ve had a dream about you and my dead mother. Also, I have this morbid curiosity that leads me to ask difficult questions so that I can write twisted books about horrible crimes. I am always following a trail, looking for the monster in the dark, and I think there could be something really sick—sicker than is obvious—behind the mutilated dog you found in your garden.

  Instead she said, “Were you born blind, Mr. Alonzo?”

  He paused before answering. “Yes, I was.”

  “Do you think it’s easier? I mean, never having had sight as opposed to being blinded by an accident.”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know. But I don’t feel disabled in any way, if that’s what you mean. Though I might, should I suddenly be paralyzed. I’m not sure where you’re headed with these questions.” />
  “I’m not headed anywhere. I’m just curious.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Your reputation precedes you.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I doubt you’d waste your time here just out of curiosity about a dead dog and a blind man.”

  “Well, Mr. Alonzo, I won’t waste any more of your time,” she answered as she walked past him through the doorway. She was not ready to reveal anything to him about her suspicions and she did not enjoy lying. So it was better to say nothing at all.

  “Ms. Strong, will you stay for mass?” Juno asked, as he followed her back through the doorway.

  “Please call me Lydia. No, thank you. I have to meet a friend at the airport and I should go.”

  He had walked her out to the front of the church as they spoke and now they stood facing each other in the arched doorway.

  “The door to this church is always open to you. I hope you will come to a service. I’m sure your mother would be happy to know you had come home to God.”

  “What?” She felt like he had slapped her in the face.

  “My sight is a different one from yours, Lydia.”

  He smiled gently and walked away from her, closing the door behind him.

  She was stung by his words, riven with guilt and a deep sadness. She walked slowly to the car, her mind racing, blood rising to her face, a pounding in her ears. She spun around suddenly to run after him, to ask him what he had meant by that, to ask him what he knew about her and her mother. And how he had come to visit her dreams. But she was paralyzed.

  Sitting in her car she reached with a trembling hand for a cigarette—her eternal crutch. If he had been bluffing, trying to convince her of his power, he had at least succeeded in reaching into the heart of her somehow. Maybe that was his technique … to deny his powers and then to pull some kind of mind-reading stunt, catch people off guard.

  As she unsteadily started the engine, she became aware again of the shadow of a feeling that had started in the church garden. She felt like someone was watching her. She could see no one but she backed up quickly and drove away. In her rearview mirror, she caught a glimpse of movement in the garden.

  As she drove, memories of her mother washed over her again.

  For Marion Strong life had been a series of disappointments, some mundane, some catastrophic. Maybe her expectations were too high, her dreams unrealistic. But perhaps, as Marion believed, fate had been stingy with her, denying her everything but her beautiful, intelligent daughter.

  Marion was a serious woman, for life was not a matter to be taken lightly. No one had ever accused her of being frivolous. She was severe, tall and athletic. Square-jawed and unsmiling, with blazing green eyes, she was a striking figure. Her black hair, streaked with gray since her late teens, was eternally pulled back into a tight bun worn at the nape of her neck. She considered herself sensible, frugal. She had been accused of being inflexible, unyielding, hard. These were the favorite criticisms of her ex-husband, who had left just before Lydia was born. But she knew she had to be that way; otherwise life had a way of whipping the reins out of her hands, running wild, rushing headlong into consequences as unforgiving as a stone wall.

  But Lydia knew another place inside her mother as well. In the evenings, after the dinner dishes were washed, after homework was completed and checked, Lydia joined Marion in her bedroom. In the upper right-hand corner of the mahogany dresser was a sterling-silver, soft-bristled brush and a matching box for hairpins.

  Lydia’s mother didn’t allow her to touch these things when she was not present. Eager to show her mother how responsible she could be, she removed them from their place with care, feeling Marion’s watchful eyes on her. Carefully she pulled the heavy drawer out by its wrought-iron rings. She removed the brush and box, handling them gingerly, as if they were glass, placed them on the dresser-top and then quietly slid the drawer closed. Her mother hated loud, sudden noises.

  Marion sat at the foot of the bed and Lydia sat behind her, legs crossed. She removed each pin from her mother’s hair and placed it in the box. Then Lydia untwisted the long plait, careful not to pull it but to unravel it like a spool of silk. It was naturally wild and curly and thick like a cloud when it was free from its knot, reminding Lydia of a caged animal released.

  Then slowly, gently, Lydia ran the brush through the beautiful tresses of her mother’s hair that grew almost to the small of her back. With each stroke the tension of Marion’s day, of her life, seemed to wash away. Lydia could see her mother’s face in the dresser mirror that hung directly opposite the bed. The deep furrows, which seemed permanently etched on her brow when she came home, disappeared. Her eyes closed and a half-smile graced her beautiful, full lips. After Lydia had completed fifty strokes, she’d return the brush and pins to the drawer as carefully as she’d removed them. Then she lay next to her mother on her bed.

  If she had done her job well, her mother was pliant and relaxed. Here her mother could be soft, indulgent, laughing at Lydia’s jokes and listening intently to the events of her day. Lydia knew that this was the true woman. Later, after her mother had been killed and Lydia grew older, she had wondered how her mother’s life would have been different had Marion shown that part of herself to the rest of the world, rather than saving her most beautiful side for the hour before the sun set. Had her hardness made her unhappy, or had her unhappiness made her hard? Had her father known this side of his wife, or did he leave because Marion was too cold, never satisfied? If her father hadn’t left them, would her mother be alive today? Lydia’s thoughts on this subject were a downward spiral, questions without answers on and on.

  Lost in thought, Lydia absently glanced into the rearview mirror and saw with fright her mother’s furrowed brow. She had slammed on the brakes and spun around in her seat, expecting to see a ghost, before she realized the brow she had seen in the mirror was her own.

  “Such an idiot,” she said aloud, letting out a sharp sigh. She rested her head against the steering wheel. The highway was empty. And her convertible black Mercedes Kompressor stood alone with miles of highway ahead of her and behind her, surrounded by desert and sky. In the distance a hawk called.

  Her mother would have said, Lydia, you’re letting your imagination run away with you again. Get yourself on track. Here you are, sitting in the middle of a highway at a dead stop while that boy is waiting for you at the airport. You’re always getting distracted from the real world by these crazy fantasies.

  And how right she would have been.

  She hit the gas. She was fifteen minutes late to pick up Jeffrey and the airport was still twenty minutes away. He was used to waiting for her. But now that she was focused on the present, anticipating the sight of him, she couldn’t drive fast enough. The distance seemed terribly long, suddenly, and way too short.

  By the time she had reached the airport, she’d convinced herself that Juno’s comment could have had significance to a thousand people. It was open to infinite interpretations. But the most disturbing possibility lingered, dwelling in the same place in her mind as the memory of her dream.

  chapter nine

  When he saw her today she filled his senses. She had stood so close to him, yet had no idea he was there or how she affected him. He could smell her perfume, light and floral. He could hear the mellow, rhythmic cadence of her voice.

  Soft, vanilla flesh. How good it would feel under his hands, in his mouth. He had quivered as he imagined her beneath him, her neck and back arched in pleasure, grabbing at him with her fingernails, leaving red marks that bled ever so slightly. He had put his hand on his erection and began to release his desire, his breath sharp and hot.

  As he climaxed silently, he had imagined himself straddling her, covered in her blood, her lifeless eyes staring up at him, her mouth parted in a scream that never managed to escape her lips. He felt a flash of rage, of shame. Don’t you judge me, bitch. But then in the next second, he had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from laughing
; he hadn’t wanted to give himself away.

  But, of course, she had a larger purpose in his plan, in God’s plan. As much as he would like to have her in that way, it was not for him to decide. He must bend to the will of God. Her role in his plan was fated. It was so perfect, it could be nothing else but Divine intervention. How she had come to him, how she had appeared just weeks after he began reading her books. And how she had come again so close to the culmination of his plans. It was pure poetry.

  The room was dark now except for the moon streaming in through the window and glinting off the metal table. He sat in the corner, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other. This morning the ghost of his son had visited him. He had been just waking up when he heard his son’s sweet voice.

  “Daddy?”

  A halo of light glowed over the child’s strawberry-blond curls; he looked thin and pale but at peace and smiling. He wore baggy Baby Gap jeans and a crisp blue-and-white-striped T-shirt, odd attire for an angel.

  “Daddy, you’re so brave. God loves you.”

  He jumped up to take his son in his arms, smell his hair and little-boy skin so soft and sweet, to embrace that tiny little life again. But by the time he reached him, he was gone. He fell on the floor where the boy had stood and sobbed into the dirty carpet.

  It was a sign, he knew. He was doing the right thing, he was sure.

  In the cool, quiet bathroom, Maria Lopez applied her makeup in the mirror. Tapping her foot to the Muzak that filtered in through the speakers, she smeared on foundation and powder, trying to cover her flawed skin. The fluorescent light was unflattering but she didn’t much care. She knew it would be dark in the bar.

  She teased her black curls with a hot-pink plastic comb, closing her eyes as she spritzed it with hairspray. When she was done, she stood on her tiptoes to see more of herself in the mirror over the sink. The tight, black cotton knit dress clung to her small body. She wore gold hoop earrings and a small gold cross hung around her neck. She blew a kiss at her reflection.