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Authors: Elizabeth Sinclair

Angel Unaware

BOOK: Angel Unaware
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Angel Unaware

 

by

Elizabeth Sinclair

 

 

 

 

Kindle Edition

Copyright © 2008 by Marguerite Smith

ISBN: 978-1-62390-005-2

 

Cover art by Deb Smith

 

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now know or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

 

Published By Salt Run Publishing LLC

http://saltrunpublishing.com

 

 

DEDICATION

 

 

To my special angels: Rian, Sean, Meghan, Emily and Preston.

May your angel wings always take you to your hearts’ desires.

 

To the people who worked the hardest to see this book published both in print and e-book formats:

my critique partners Dolores Wilson and Vickie King; Marti Corn;

and my e-book guru Kellie Sharpe, my heartfelt thanks.

 

And, as always, to my husband Bob.

 

Thank you all. Love you.

 

 

CHAPTER 1

 

 


Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you

stop opening presents and listen
.” —Bobby, age 7

 

 

“Dora, Grace is okay. Her fall was broken. No harm done.”

Calvin, the Senior Angel in charge of Celestial Maintenance, meant well, but his reassurances didn’t make Dora’s blunder easier for her to handle. She pulled her knees closer to her chest and stared off into the clear, cerulean sky, her mind full of the image of poor Grace hanging from a cloud by her fingertips, her wings flapping uselessly behind her. This foul-up, just one more in a long line, convinced Dora even more that she had no right to call herself an angel.

Bad enough when she messed up with an angel she didn’t know very well. But
Grace
had been her best friend since they’d graduated from the cherubic choir and got promoted into Celestial Maintenance. Gracie had stuck by her through thick and thin, guided her over the bumps in the clouds, and had never let her down when Dora needed her. And this was how she repaid her?

Dora squinted up at Calvin to block out the glow surrounding the tall man, and then swallowed her tears. “What if her fall hadn’t been broken? What if that cloud hadn’t scuttled by and caught her at just the right moment?”

Calvin laid a large, calming hand on her shoulder. “But it did, and she’s fine. We must be thankful for what we get and not brood over what might have been.”

His words of wisdom went in one of Dora’s ears and out the other, and in no way calmed her distraught emotions.

Emitting a sigh laden with impatience, he squatted next to Dora, took her chin in his fingers, and tilted her face up to him. “You haven’t been in Celestial Maintenance long. It takes time to settle in.”

Dora pulled from his grasp. “I know. But sometimes I wonder if I ever will. Last week, I polished the shine right off Hermione’s halo, and she lost her ability to transport for two days. The week before that, when I was supposed to be mending her sleeve, I sewed the bottom of Estelle’s robes closed by accident, and she nearly tripped off the cloud and fell into the middle of Chicago’s rush hour traffic. Today, I replaced the levitation feathers in Grace’s wings with landing feathers, and she almost broke her neck when she tried to take off. And that’s only the tip of a ruptured rainbow.” She took a deep breath and then shook her head and swirled her fingertips through the wisps of mist rising from the disturbed cloud on which she sat. “Let’s face it. I’m just a celestial screw-up.”

Calvin cleared his throat and frowned down at her. “Dora!”

She knew how much he disliked that mortal phrase, but today she didn’t care what Calvin thought. She just wanted to pull a cloud over her head and immerse herself in it for eternity. How much bleaker could her celestial future become?

Sometimes she felt she’d never get the hang of being an angel. Aside from her friendship with Grace, Dora had never quite fit in among the other angels and suspected some of them laughed at her behind their wings. Her halo was always askew. She had no control over her wings and flew into things on a regular basis. When she sang, entire galaxies cringed. Cloud vapor often sent her into uncontrollable sneezing fits that disrupted her surroundings for hours, and despite every effort she made, she’d never really developed a taste for ambrosia.

In every conceivable way, Dora simply didn’t fit into the accepted image of the stereotypical angel or their community. However, the career opportunities up here went beyond being somewhat limited, so if she couldn’t be an angel, what could she be?

Dora gazed at the glassy, smooth surface of the Earth Pool and thought about the hours she’d spent gazing into it, observing the humans below. How she’d enjoyed watching them over the last few weeks, buying gifts, singing carols, and decorating trees for the coming holiday, interacting with their families. Would she fit in any better down there?

If she never tried it, she could never be sure that mortality would be any better than an angelic life. Perhaps it was time she found out.

The idea made her brighten slightly. Maybe now was the right time to ask Calvin about an idea she’d been toying with for a long time. “Calvin,” she said, her voice echoing her insecurity, “I was thinking…maybe I’d be better at something else. Maybe I could—” She cut herself off, still fearful of his reaction to her totally unprecedented request, but nevertheless, a desire that had lain hidden in her heart for decades.

“Maybe you could what, Dora?” Calvin’s voice was gentle, encouraging, and perhaps just a tad too eager to move her somewhere beyond his jurisdiction.

Poor Calvin
. She hadn’t made his job easy. Not a day had gone by in the last century that he hadn’t feared the wrath of the Heavenly Council because he’d had to bail her out of some kind of trouble or repair one of her many mistakes.

She stood and brushed the wrinkles from her robe. In her reflection in the Earth Pool, she could see her halo had tilted sideways above her white-blond curls, something that irritated Calvin, who seemed to exist to please his superiors. He lived in constant fear that one of the Archangels would stop by for an unscheduled inspection, and the Celestial Maintenance Department wouldn’t live up to expectations.

Not wanting to risk upsetting Calvin right now, she righted her halo, stiffened her spine, and faced him.

“Maybe …maybe I could become a…mortal?” she asked timidly.

Calvin’s mouth dropped open. His eyes grew large and mirrored his outrage and apprehension. The feathers in his wings fluttered into total disarray, a definite signal his agitation level had risen beyond his control.

He glanced furtively around, as if expecting a lightning bolt to be hurled at them. “Oh, dear. I…I…uh

…I…”

“Please,” she begged, clutching the sleeve of his robe. “Please ask them for me. Maybe I’d be better at being mortal than I am at being an angel.” She gazed longingly at the Earth Pool.

“That’s absurd. You know it works the other way around. Such a request is … unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.” His hands fluttered nervously, pleating and unpleating the fabric of his robe. “Angels don’t become humans. It’s just never been done. Never.”

As the words tumbled from his mouth in a jumble of thought, Calvin’s face began turning bright red, and the feathers on his wings vibrated into even greater disarray. In an effort to calm him, Dora reached out to smooth the feathers, but he retreated beyond her touch.

“Please, Calvin. If you explained how miserably I’ve failed at being an angel, then maybe the Heavenly Council would allow me to go to Earth to just…try it.” She smiled her best cherubic smile. “And, if I were down there, I wouldn’t be your responsibility any longer.” She held her breath and waited. Knowing how eager Calvin was to be rid of her and the trouble that accompanied her, she was not surprised to see him pause to give her request serious consideration.

“Well…” he said, looking away, obviously savoring the idea of not having to repair any more of her disasters. Then he shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. If I’m lucky, I’d be laughed out of the Hall of Prayers. If I’m not lucky…” He shuddered. Obviously, he couldn’t tolerate even thinking about the alternative, much less putting it into words.

She understood Calvin’s reluctance. Dora knew that angels didn’t venture into the Hall of Prayers where the Archangels, the Heavenly Council, reigned supreme unless they were summoned or they had an urgent problem. Still, this was urgent, at least from
her
perspective. She
had
to convince him to try and, as cruel as it was, she had an idea that might make him see things her way.

Calvin had a vulnerable spot. All the angels knew what it was, and that they could get him to agree to almost anything by using it. Hating to take advantage by doing something she’d always believed to be underhanded, she’d never resorted to it before and abhorred employing it now, but this was far too important to her. His stubborn refusal had left her no alternative.

Dora gazed up at Calvin and squeezed out a few glistening tears. “Calvin, if they let me go down there and try being mortal, just for Christmas, I promise I’ll come back and do my job here. You’ll never hear another complaint from me. I’ll work extra hard to be the best celestial worker you’ve ever seen.” She sniffed and blinked, forcing a generous cascade of tears to escape her swimming eyes.

As the plump teardrops ran down her cheeks, Calvin’s eyes widened in alarm. “No! Oh, dear, no! Not angel tears! The last time an angel went on a crying jag, the entire West Coast of the United States was underwater for weeks. Streams overflowed their banks. Houses washed away. Trees ripped out by their roots. People left homeless. Cities without power. Mudslides of mammoth proportions. One of His favorite mountains nearly slid into the San Fernando Valley. I had a terrible time explaining it.” Frantically, Calvin dabbed at her eyes with his sleeve. “I’ll ask. Just don’t cry anymore. But I have to warn you, I’m afraid I already know what the answer will be.”

He gazed down at Dora, shook his head, then shimmered out of sight. As he disappeared into the celestial cosmos, she could hear him muttering to himself, “I should not have to be subjected to this embarrassment. I’ve always been a good angel, always done my job without complaint, always made sure the Department of Celestial Maintenance ran with all the accuracy of the tick of time.”

Dora stared at the spot in the sky where Calvin had disappeared. Hope filled her heart. She dragged her gaze to the Earth Pool and looked into its smooth surface. With any luck, she would soon be down there taking part in the lives of the people she so envied.

Since the Archangels did not really favor sending angels to Earth, and because of his fear of reprisal, Calvin more than likely might not present the most convincing argument, Dora thought, and her hope faded quickly. In all probability, she would be condemned to spending eternity up here among the clouds.

She sneezed and her halo slipped sideways.

 

 

After tucking in his six-year-old niece for the night, Tony Falcone returned to the kitchen. His next-door neighbor, Millie Sullivan, put away the last of the freshly-washed supper dishes. Her flushed face, surrounded by a halo of black curls, screwed up in a frown of concentration as she worked to slide the clean casserole dish back into her tote bag.

“Thanks for the lasagna, Millie. It wasn’t necessary, you know. I can take care of feeding Penny and myself.” Millie shook her head and waved a dismissing hand.

“I had to cook for two anyway. What’s two more? Besides,” she added, throwing him a mildly reprimanding look, “that child’s told me about the meals you fix for her.” She made a
tsking
sound and shook her head.

BOOK: Angel Unaware
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