Heather Graham (9 page)

“Sure. Come along now, Cousin Maggie.”

They started into the parlor. Jimmy hung back just a shade, then grabbed his wife and kissed her once again, a wet, sloppy kiss filled with awkward gratitude, promise, and love.

“Merry Christmas,” he told her.

She smiled.

“God, yes. Merry Christmas.”

They joined her folks, the kids, the Angels. Maggie was wonderful with children. She might well have been a cousin, she was so quick and loving with them.

The O’Connor house was filled with warmth. With laughter, with a friendly flow of conversation.

With Christmas magic.

“We may need help with the new baby, you know,” Jimmy said to Sharon at one point. She was carving the turkey which, miraculously, appeared to be not just edible but delicious.

Maggie was seated on the floor out in the parlor, playing an alphabet game with Laura.

“She could be perfect,” Sharon agreed.

“We can try it.”

“We have the apartment over the garage.”

“Perfect. Oh, Jimmy, that will be just perfect, if we can give her a chance!”

No one knew quite when the Angels left. Suddenly they were there, suddenly they weren’t.

And it wasn’t until the next day, until Jimmy and Sharon read their names in conjunction with the terrible accident just outside of New York City, that the family realized they couldn’t have been there at all.

“P
ERHAPS THE MOST AMAZING
thing about beliefs is that no matter how widely they differ, similarities can be found. Though the ancient gods and goddesses of, say, the Greeks, Romans, and Norsemen have little bearing upon the religions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Zoroastrians, in all these beliefs are certain creatures who carry out quite similar tasks.”

The woman speaking was young, at twenty-seven not much older than the students who had gathered to listen to her speak on Christmas Eve. She was a favorite within the university, admired for her many sterling qualities, and for her looks as well, though knowledge of her past kept any lustful students at bay. She had rich auburn hair worn in a soft swing-style to her shoulders, lime green eyes, beautiful classical features, and though she was small, not a hair over five-foot-two, she was very nicely put together, and, as one of her male students was fond of saying behind her back, good things, surely very good things, came in small packages.

“The Valkyries of the Norsemen watch them upon the battlefield, ready to sweep up the soul of a fierce and brave warrior and take him to Valhalla,” she continued. “Mercury is a messenger, as is Mars. In our modern, civilized society, we tend to look back on such beliefs as fairy tales, forgetting that Christianity, indeed, the New Testament, offers us new insights into tales told in ancient times as well. What we know about angels originates not so much in the Bible as we may read it today, but in books outside the realm of what we now accept as orthodox scriptures and canons of our religions. Much of our information comes from the three great Chronicles of Enoch, which were set together from much older sources. Enoch was known to be a truth-speaker; nonetheless, St. Jerome declared his chronicles to be apocryphal in the fourth century
A.D.
Despite that, they make wonderful stories, giving us endless images of ten separate heavens in which angels may be punished for various acts of disobedience. The Old Testament mentions only three angels by name, and the Catholic Book of Tobit is included. In the New Testament, we have a Magnificent Seven—a divine grouping of archangels, with only four names being consistently mentioned: Michael, Gabriel, Rafael, and Uriel. One very intriguing thought is that the ancient word ‘
el
’ in Sumerian, meaning brightness of shining, coincides with very similar-sounding words in other languages—such as ‘elf’ in English, meaning shining being. Micha-el translates into the phrase ‘who is as God.’ According to tradition and lore, Michael is the greatest of the archangels. He appeared to Moses in the midst of a burning bush, he is said to have stayed the hand of Abraham before he would have slain his own son in God’s glory. Michael is a warrior, who single-handedly and overnight wiped out nearly two hundred thousand men from the army of an Assyrian king who was threatening Jerusalem. He is most certainly the hero of that first war against the fallen angel, Satan.”

“It might have been nice to have met Michael,” Don murmured to Cathy.

“Maybe that’s coming at a later date,” she suggested.

Maybe…

The alternatives to a return upward were quite grim.

For the present, they had found themselves seated halfway up in the auditorium, listening, watching.

“Think Gabriel sent us here for an education?” Cathy asked.

Don grunted. “It will depend on just how much this young woman raves about Gabriel, don’t you think?”

“Don—”

“I’ll be nice, Cathy. Read the list, please. I’m not quite certain what this young lady’s great trouble can be.”

“She is very attractive,” Cathy murmured, but then she whispered a soft, “Oh!”

“What?”

“This is so sad!”

“Tell me.”

“She was married and had a baby. There were complications in labor, the cord got wrapped around the baby’s neck. The baby was born retarded, and apparently her husband couldn’t deal with the situation. They had words, and he wound up leaving her. But she adored her little boy, anyway, and she was more or less getting along okay, then…”

“Then?”

“She was with her son and her parents last year in a commuter plane on the way to a specialist, and”—Cathy hesitated, shaking her head—“the plane crashed. Her folks and little boy were killed. And she was blinded.”

“She’s blind!” Michael said, startled, looking at the beautiful young woman who was speaking.

“Legally. She can see shadows—fuzz—some forms. Her retinas were damaged.”

“Surgery could solve that… couldn’t it?”

“She needs a donor.”

“Are we supposed to find one?” Don asked, praying that they were not. He had ghastly visions of himself and Cathy digging up graveyards to find living eyes. Béla Lugosi, Vincent Price, Peter Loire—all flashed through his mind in ghoulish roles as grave robbers.

“Cathy? Please tell me we’re not supposed to find eyes for her!”

She shook her head. “We’re not.”

“What are we supposed to do for her then?”

She looked at him. “Keep her from committing suicide,” she said.

“Oh, God. Your miracle or mine?”

“Mine,” Cathy whispered.

“How could mine possibly be worse?”

Cathy shrugged.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“What’s my miracle? Considering Gabriel likes you and doesn’t like me, mine is sure to be a real winner if it’s going to be harder than yours.”

“It’s really not such a hard task.”

“Well, tell me!”

“There’s a nun near here, living in a home for members of her order who have retired from active service.”

“And?”

“She’s dying.”

“Great. Of what?”

“Cancer and other complications.”

He groaned. “Can there be a miracle cure? Am I supposed to make her better?”

“No.”

“Then?”

“She’s afraid.”

“A nun—afraid to die?”

“She’s been a bit blind-sided as well, it seems. Whatever, she’s afraid.”

“She’s smart.”

“You have to make death easy for her.”

He groaned softly. There was a catch to everything, it seemed. Don’t cure her—just make it easy for her to die. Easy to say.

But one miracle at a time, he told himself. They were assigned separate ones, but they worked as a couple. A team.

And they were striving to remain a team while the hours and minutes of Christmas Eve ticked away.

They were here with Rowenna Trent right now. The young woman with the beautiful face.

“I guess we start with Rowenna,” Don murmured.

“How incredibly sad,” Cathy whispered. “It seems she was blinded to her faith as well.”

Rowenna Trent didn’t appear to be blind in any way. She had a beautiful smile, and her gaze wasn’t at all vacant. She seemed to see—shadows, fuzz, Cathy had said—as she addressed the audience, talking in a crystal-clear, well-modulated voice.

“After Michael, we have Gabriel. Gabriel rules the cherubim—Eden, as well, and the first heaven. He is known to be the angel of Truth, Annunciation, Resurrection, Mercy, Revelation—and Death. The angels, in general, are supposed to be very close to mankind, to bring God’s word to man. As ruler of the first heaven, Gabriel is necessarily very close to man. And by the way, a number of schools of thought suggest that Gabriel might be the only woman among the very high echelon of heaven.”

Rowenna Trent stopped speaking, smiling as her students giggled, the girls teasing the boys.

“Hmmph!” Don snorted. “I could assure them that Mister-Gabriel-in-his-Versace likes women much more than men!”

“Shush,” Cathy said.

Rowenna Trent cocked her head slightly, feeling the strangest little tremor shoot down her spine. She’d heard an odd whispering. She stared out over her audience, but that didn’t help. The people she was addressing remained vague and shadowy. Shapes, shades, and nothing more. And yet she sensed…

“Miss Trent!” She recognized the voice. Rocky Morris, a great hulk on the university’s formidable football team.

“Yes, Rocky?” She saw a shadow rise and knew that he had stood to address her.

“There are many, you know, who say that angels absolutely can’t be females.”

“Ah, yes, Rocky. Gabri-el is assumed to have come from the Sumerian root
gbr, gabri,
meaning
gubernator
or governor. But for those doubting Thomases who need to believe in male superiority, the word can also mean ‘Divine Husband.’ Gabriel did bring word to Mary about the birth of Christ—God’s message to his handmaiden.”

“Well, it’s only logical, isn’t it?” Rocky asked. Big, young, cocky, with longish sandy hair despite the discomfort it must cause him in a helmet, he was determined to go on. “Women have been put in their places in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Isn’t it true that Lilith, who was the first wife of Adam, was cast down to become the bride of Satan partially because she wanted to … er, you know … be on top—when she was supposed to be in a subordinate position on the bottom? Would that mean God still gets mad at babes who want the, er, superior position?”

Rowenna heard a loudly audible sniff, and knew that the next speaker was Jill, his wife, a hardworking law student who was expecting a baby in the spring. “God would forgive me, I know, Rocky, because you’re two hundred and forty pounds of sheer agony at this point!”

Laughter arose in the auditorium, and Rowenna smiled toward Jill. She had to admit, she enjoyed these sessions at the campus parish center. It was Christmas Eve, but a number of the kids—kids! they were young adults!—hadn’t been able to go home, or they made their homes here, so when she gave this Christmas Eve lecture on angels, many more had come than she had ever expected. They certainly weren’t required to be here this evening.

“You are all going to have to take up your sexual habits with the Almighty on your own,” she told them, running her fingers over the Braille book she had brought to refresh her memory on the history and myths of angels. She taught ancient history and theology, and though she had lost much of her enthusiasm during the last year, she still did a lot of work at the parish student center—dragged into activities by her cousin who was a young priest at the campus church. William tried so hard on her behalf. But he couldn’t help.

Her students did. Sometimes. But not enough. Not enough to wash away the pain that so constantly circled around her. She’d been in the hospital last year. Trying to understand that her parents were dead. That Jeremy was dead. Just two years old, so trusting, so sweet, gone forever. Gone into God’s embrace, William had tried to assure her. But she couldn’t accept that. Joshua had turned against her and Jeremy; maybe God had done the same. Maybe she had protested what God had done to her, and because of that, He had turned away from her and everyone associated with her. She’d come back to work because of William, she’d tried because of William, but now it was Christmas Eve again, and she didn’t think that she could bear the pain. There was no one to care anymore. The kids, her students, were great; but they had their own lives. And William had his faith, his calling—he would go on. Joshua had come back, but too late …

Joshua. She could still remember her ex-husband at her bedside in the hospital outside Pittsburgh. Holding her hand. She had touched his face, and felt his tears. But she couldn’t forgive him.

And she couldn’t forgive herself.

Maybe that was the worst of it. She couldn’t forgive herself. For living, when Jeremy and her parents had died.

She didn’t want to face the memories now. She didn’t want to let her students go. She had to.

But, oh…

She didn’t want to be alone tonight.

To have to face life or death on her own.

She had been arguing with herself for days now. She knew the cruelty of the act to others, but those who loved her most were gone. Her mother, her father, her baby…

It was wrong. So wrong…

She was sinking nonetheless. And no one knew, she prayed. She wouldn’t purposely draw anyone else in the world into this pain, not her best friend, not her worst enemy.

Angels … she reminded herself.

Tonight, she might see them.

Or face damnation.

“Rafa-el! He is the ruler of the Second Heaven and is the ‘healer’ angel. He is one of the seven angels of the throne, by his own admission—as he says himself in the Book of Tobit. Let’s see, he guards the Tree of Life in Eden, and he is ruler of the Order of Virtues. A very important angel, he is often associated with the serpent or snake, a symbol for…?”

“Doctors!” A student called out cheerfully.

“Exactly.”

“Rafael is said to heal men; he is the angel of the sun, and is therefore considered to have a special disposition; he is friendly, quick to laugh. In the Tobit, he walks with Tobias, commands him to catch a big fish, then tells him what healing qualities the pieces and organs of the fish can offer. But he is also a guide of the underworld, or ‘Pit’ in Hebrew, and it is said that he can appear in monstrous forms. After Rafael, we have Uri-el—‘Fire of God.’ And can he be fiery! He is the angel who will bring forth order, and in that command, Uriel can be merciless, quite brutal. Those who do not find redemption will burn in everlasting fire. Uriel will see to it that they are punished eternally.”