Angels of Destruction (10 page)

24

T
racks began at the edge of the bicycle path and cut on the diagonal through the maze of bare trees rolling into the hills, and the children bent to inspect the footprints: four toes and heel pad, the steps ten inches or more apart. Sean fingered the edges, and granules of snow rolled away in a miniature avalanche. Squatting next to him, Norah peered down the trail to the point where it vanished over the horizon.

“They're fresh.” Sean spoke with authority. “Probably a dog wandering through.”

“Not a dog,” Norah answered. “No claw marks in these prints.” “Or a raccoon, I was about to say. Maybe a possum.” Norah followed their progress between the trees. “How long have you lived in these woods, Sean? All your life? The front paws of a raccoon look just like a human hand, five fingers stretched out. And claws, amigo. Possum looks like a raccoon only the fingers are more spread out, like you were playing piano. Claws too. This thing we're following is a cat. Or maybe a gray fox, though the claws would show up in the snow this deep.”

“A cat? We're chasing after a cat?”

Norah waited for him to catch up, then bent to the print. “Definitely not Tiger or Fluffy. It's not a housecat, or if it is, then a really big cat, probably wild. But look how deep here. That animal weighs about twenty pounds, and look how it's walking.”

“Like there's only two legs? Where did its other feet go?” “A cat walks like this.” She splayed out her feet and hands and slunk forward with an arched back, rolling each shoulder in rhythm, which made him laugh uncomfortably. “But a wildcat will put its back foot right in the middle of the hole left by the front one.”

“A wildcat? Like a leopard?”

“If it's a leopard, I'll connect its spots. Bobcat, I think. C'mon.”

They hurried through the winter forest, the snow fresh and undisturbed save for the solitary set of tracks and the windblown litter scraping along the surface, the papery oak leaves, the empty acorn cups, the feathery twigs snapped off in the latest storm. In the boughs, frostings of snow remained, and when the children brushed against low-hanging branches, powder would sluice off and shower to the ground in their wake. The scrub pines and occasional firs provided the only color, the rest dun or gray in the cold and damp. Deep in the forest, a rare quiet pervaded, the snow hushing all sounds but their own footsteps. He could hear her labored breathing, which reassured him when she hurried ahead out of sight, and he caught up by following the husky rasp to find her squatting again before a thrash of marks.

“See this deep impression here,” she said, pointing to what looked to Sean like nothing more than two wide scrapes. “Kitty is tired. She sat back on her haunches for a siesta. Or maybe to watch a mouse skitter under a stone.”

“What if it turns out to be a bobcat, Norah? What if we catch up to it?”

“Have a little faith.” Her nostrils flared as she breathed deeply. “The game is afoot, my dear Watson. Well, come on, man!”

The afternoon faded to shadows as the trees grew thicker. Coming to a culvert between two hills, she paused and pointed to other tracks bisecting the cat's, showing him the rabbit run by the different patterns of footfall, the small front legs and the leaping pads. He expected blood on the trail, but the two animals had passed hours apart. Norah inspected the rough snow where the cat had casually sniffed the hare's scent and moved on. The sun dipped below the treetops, the upper branches splintering the sky into maroon and orange. The children climbed a path to the crest of the next hill, and she waved for him to stop and be still.

Silhouetted against the pewter clouds on the next rise about fifty yards ahead stood the cat in sharp relief against the snow. Its head cocked, nose in the air, catching their scent on the wind. A cloud cleared the setting sun, and the cat was bathed in light, its fawn-colored coat mottled with spots, the long white hair cloaking its paws and bristling at the tips of its ears and the bobbed tail. As quick as a breeze, it strayed into shadow and was gone. They could smell the tang of urine, hear the soft crunch of its getaway, and see its ghost standing on the vacant spot, fixed by magic and time.

“Listen, Sean. Tell me what you hear.”

He heard nothing but the sound of his own breathing and the bare hour, the sound of the land in stillness.

Norah faced him, her eyes glistening, as if she were remembering some past pain, and she asked her questions in a care-laden tone. “Do you know about the atom bomb? The ones they dropped in Japan?”

Though he was not sure that he remembered any details, he nodded.

“There was just silence, like this, after the fires, after the sirens. Everything was still. Even the birds were gone. And those who survived walked around the destroyed city stunned to be alive.”

The cat was long gone, he was sure, unlikely to come near the sound of her voice.

“I know a story that they tried to keep hidden,” Norah said. “About Mrs. Quinn's husband. He was there, in Nagasaki, Japan, after the bomb was dropped, with the army's medical team. He saw the ruined city.” As he listened to the details, Sean grew frightened, not only of the story about the young doctor facing so many dead and dying, but of being lost in the dark woods.

She finished in hushed whispers. Hunching her shoulders against the falling temperature, Norah pivoted on her heels and began to retrace their steps. Sean stumbled along behind her, nearly out of breath when he reached her side. They strode together, stepping in the prints they had made outward bound.

“Didn't I tell you it was a bobcat?” she said.

“I never seen anything like it,” said Sean. “I saw a possum once crossing the yard, fat as you please, early one morning on my way to school. But a bobcat, wow. I had no idea they even lived around here.”

“There's much you don't know and much that is hidden from you. Look beyond the surface, amigo.” A phlegmy cough rattled her chest.

“That was so cool, but how are we going to find our way back when it gets dark?” He cast a worried eye to the skies. “Aren't you afraid of getting lost?”

She spat onto the snow. “Don't worry, it won't get dark.”

“But the sun is already setting. You can barely see as it is.”

Norah stopped and faced him. “Sean, if I say you'll get home before nighttime, you have to believe me.”

He pleaded with her. “But it's sunset—”

“Where is your faith? If I wished, it would be bright as the noonday sun this very moment. Believe in me.”

Having no other choice, Sean marched behind, following her through the trees, head tipped against the breeze, as relentless as a wave. Hidden nearby, the one who watched let them go. In his arms, the wildcat squirmed and growled until his captor absentmindedly released his grip. In the opposite direction, the boy and the girl trudged home. Along the way she provided a running commentary on the forest, the names of the winter plants, the places where turtles slept and field mice hunkered down for the season. They passed a set of human prints, a man's dress shoes, leading in and out of a maze of paper birches, but she said nothing about the mysterious tracks. Out of the woods and onto the paths, she sang and whistled carelessly, distracting him from the passing time. When they arrived at his front door, he was astounded to glimpse the sunset horizon and the underside of the clouds glowing vermilion in the last gasp of the dying day.

25

W
hen he was alone, Sean did not know what to believe. Caught between fear and fascination, he thought at first that she might be a magician, a witch, a devil, able to stop time or change her appearance at will or keep aloft objects with her very breath. But though she intended some deception with Mrs. Quinn, or at least her aunt Diane, she had no evil purpose he could determine. The evidence pointed elsewhere. What had she said? With every breath, God exhales an angel?

But if she was an angel, what about her wings? In almost every picture, they had huge white feathered wings that began between the shoulder blades and arced in triumph, curving until the tips nearly brushed the ground. Sean could not figure out how they got off the ground with such wings—some aspect of aerodynamics seemed all wrong—so he scoured his
Children's Illustrated Bible
and other books for pictures of angels in flight. Every image captured some static moment, and he could garner no sense of the wings in motion. The angels in books wore white robes and sandals. Some had starry halos behind their heads. Norah had no halo. Many angels wore their hair long and perfectly coiffed, as if having just come from the stylist. Her hair was a fright. Their faces were universally kind, impassive or gentle, and they were almost always depicted as men. How could she be an angel? She had no wings, no halo. Angels do not bite.

Flipping through his Bible, Sean discovered stories which featured cameo appearances by an angel. Jacob wrestles one and breaks his hip. In a vision, angels proclaim the holiness of the Lord, and one places a burning coal to the lips of Isaiah. An angel talks Mary into having a baby, and a heavenly host announces to the shepherds tending their flock that the babe is born and lying in a manger in Bethlehem. They are always proclaiming to people news from above. God's messengers. He wondered what message Norah had in store and why she was so long in delivering it. And then he remembered: she was no angel, but a child like him.

He wished there was someone to ask. Most mornings when home, he would think to ask his mother, but she had changed so much in the year since his father left. Always working, and when not at the job, she took care of a thousand household chores. Some nights when he was restless and could not sleep, he found her conked out on the couch, curled under a throw, the glow of the television flickering across the shadows of her face, and seeing her so, he longed to reach out and tuck her in, smooth her hair, wipe away the lines etched in her skin. Even in her dreams, she looked so unhappy that he dared not ask her about angels or say much about his new friend from school. He knew she would not solve his puzzles, only offer comfort or worry over his questions, try to fit together what would not be joined.

Still, it would have been nice to talk with someone about Norah.

Sean could ask his father, if he ever came back, although he was sure that some things, most things, would never again be as they once were. He felt that he would at least talk to him man to man; that much a father owes a son.

His teacher was out of the question. For five months, Mrs. Patterson had managed to ignore him because he was not the type of kid who would ever volunteer, and his answers, when he was called upon, emerged from his thoughts in such a soft voice that she had to ask every time for him to repeat, but loud and clear. Eventually, she tired of the routine. It was more expedient to call on someone else, and since he earned
Satisfactory
in every subject, there was no cause, good or ill, for her notice.

His friends—the kids at the outsiders’ lunch table—were friends with Norah as well, and he couldn't ask about angels without arousing their suspicion or her retribution. On consideration, he realized that they weren't actually friends, simply the ones left over and out of place. Misfits. Until Norah came along, even they had rarely included him in conversations. On the playing fields at recess, the captains often chose him last or nearly so, an afterthought. Given the option, he ended up alone, tossing a ball against a wall, riding a swing into the bright and beautiful sky, or reading a book, his back against the yellow brick of the school building. He had only one true friend. The only person he could talk with about Norah was Norah herself. And he could not talk with Norah.

After brushing his teeth and wrestling into his pajamas, he went downstairs to say goodnight. His mother sat at the kitchen table, sorting through bills, the checkbook open in supplication. With her free hand propping her head, she bore a look he associated with taking a test—a mixture of concentration and frustration—but as soon as she caught his eyes, she managed a smile and put down her pen.

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart. Come and give us a kiss.”

He shuffled over to her, his slippers whiffing on the carpet. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled his body close, kissing him gently on the cheek. His bitten shoulder ached under her touch, but he did not cry out or flinch.

“I saw a bobcat today,” he said.

“Is that right? I've never heard of bobcats in these parts.”

“Me and Norah tracked it down, followed its footprints through the snow and even got close enough—but not too close—to see its yellow eyes.”

“You may be the luckiest kids in the county.” She stroked his hair and pushed loose strands behind his ears. “You and Norah are good pals, aren't you?” He hung on to her, desperate for another moment.

“Mum, do you know anything about angels?”

“Angels, for heaven's sake.” She traced a circle on his back. “When I was a child in first grade, there was a girl named Dorothy—”

“Like in
The Wizard of Oz?”

“That's right, but everyone called her Dot, and she claimed she had a guardian angel that went everywhere with her. Said she could see this angel—although nobody else could—about the size of a grown-up with wings as bright as the sun, and this angel kept her out of trouble and so on. She went away for a while, and when she came back Dot told us that she had leukemia. She said the angel helped her through the treatments. Watched over her while she was a long time in the hospital, and we kids would go down there to visit and bring her books and juice, like that, and never once was Dot scared on account of the angel.”

“And what happened to her? Dot, I mean?”

Mrs. Fallon twisted a curl around her index finger and stared straight ahead. “She died, I'm afraid. But the school had a painting done, a good likeness of her anyway, with Dot and her angel walking through a field, and they hung a sign beneath it with her name and the dates of her life, and it said something from the Bible. ‘Blessed are they who believe,’ or something like that.”

“Do you?” His voice cracked and tears welled in his eyes.

“Oh, honey, I shouldn't have told you that story. Why don't you just forget all about it? Dream about what you have seen, not the unseen. What about that bobcat in the woods?” She held him until he settled, then sent him off to bed.

Blankets drawn to his chin, Sean fidgeted to find a warm and comfortable spot. In the dim light, he could make out the familiar shapes of objects in the room, and he spent a long time staring at the toy teacup Norah had given him and the books and games on the shelves his father had built. He wondered where his father was that night, worried that something bad would happen, and they would not ever get the chance to see each other again, though perhaps, he thought, one day in heaven after they both had died. Reunions were possible, he decided, in the afterlife when everyone gone and forsaken would have the chance to go over every harsh word and every word left unsaid, and such a possibility made sense of heaven, gave the idea some meaning and reason. Hanging on a hook in the open closet, his winter coat looked just like a pair of folded wings, ready to wear. Anxious, he rolled away toward the dim light at the window and felt a stab in his shoulder. Sean could not sleep and wondered if Norah was his guardian or had some dire message for him.
Has she come to warn me? he
wondered.
Is now the hour of my death?