Uncle Craig’s room was in the early stages of taking up where his cabin had left off. Several stacks of bins stood along one wall—filled with whatever detritus he’d managed to collect. Adriel was glad it was never going to be her job to find out.
Younger than Adriel expected, Craig appeared to be no older than sixty. Not quite frail, yet no longer the robust man he had clearly once been, Craig’s stooped shoulders straightened when he saw Pam.
Standing in the center of the room, he had been carrying on a conversation with young Ben, who glanced at the newcomers and winked out of sight. Seeing the two of them together raised questions Adriel knew she could not ask in front of Pam. Toddlers, the elderly, and the mentally infirm were often among those able to see and speak to lingering spirits, because their vibrational energies were closer to those on the other side.
“Uncle Craig, I’ve brought someone to meet you,” she gestured vaguely behind her. “This is Adriel.” Now came the moment of truth. If Craig could see Ben, he might also be able to parse Adriel’s dual nature and reveal her secret. The tilt of his head and the squint in his eye did not bode well. Standing firm under his gaze, Adriel felt as though he looked right through her to the truth of her being. It was a most uncomfortable experience. For a moment, his vision seemed clearer, saner than it had when they walked in. He reached out to place a hand on her shoulder and nodded his head before his eyes returned to a less-than-focused state.
A string of nonsense words flowed past his lips.
“Looks like one of his bad days,” Pam said. “We won’t stay long.” She bustled around the room watering a flourishing philodendron and pulling several drooping, brown-edged carnations from the colorful bouquet of flowers in a cut glass vase near the bed. Next, Pam opened the drawer to drop several candy bars into the nightstand and, turning to Adriel, said, “I like to make sure he has his chocolate. On the worst weeks he forgets to eat them, so it gives me a good idea of how he’s been when I check his stash.” To Craig, she kept up a running commentary on news from home. None of it registered with him.
“Look.” Adriel nearly leapt out of her skin at the touch of Estelle’s hand on her shoulder. The new angel sent out tendrils of energy, pulled Adriel along to take a short peek into his mind. What she saw surprised her. Echoing the cabin and his room here, she found herself in a maze of compartmentalized thoughts and emotions. Only this was on an epic scale. Alleys leading to dead ends, circular paths leading nowhere, and so many twists and turns it would be nearly impossible to find the way back to a particular area of his memory. In horror Adriel realized he was lost and captive within the vast maze of his own life experiences. Given time and the return of her abilities, she thought she might be able to help him create anchors and decrease the amount of time he spent wandering aimlessly. For the moment, all she could do was call him toward one of the sections closest to the present.
Detaching from his mind when Estelle withdrew her energy, Adriel saw his eyes were now more focused. He turned them on Pam with a warm smile that she returned.
“Uncle Craig, it’s me, Pam.”
“Well, of course I know that. See you with my own eyes, don’t I?” There was no rebuke to his tone. He glanced around the room as though unsure, for a moment, where he was. Clicked in for the time being, Adriel saw him recognize his surroundings, noticed the quickly-covered dismay on his face. “Gone again, wasn’t I?”
“Yes. You were.” Pam laid a hand on his arm. “But you’re back now.”
Craig’s U-shaped room was about the size of the cabin the illness forced him to leave behind. The bathroom took up most of the central portion of the U, and provided some privacy to the two sleeping areas flanked on either side. At the lower end of the U, Craig and his currently-absent roommate shared a communal sitting area containing two vinyl-covered sofas with a small table between them. Every piece of furniture was bolted to the floor. Once Pam got the three of them seated on the sofas, she launched again into the pertinent news from home until he interrupted her with a comment that made Adriel’s blood run cold. “You find your brother yet? He was here a little while ago.”
She needn’t have worried, Pam brushed off the honest truth because it was too fantastic for her to consider. “No, Ben hasn’t come home.” She busied herself again by checking through more of his things to make sure he had what he needed until her next visit. Adriel wanted to ask how often Ben stopped by, and had the pair of them been in contact all along, or was it a recent development. One look at Pam’s stiff spine and the way her hands jerked with every motion was enough to deter the conversation.
Instead, the next few seconds were spent having a private inner war with herself over begging Estelle to help her rove a little deeper through Craig’s mind. If her powers had remained intact, Adriel would have interfered enough to place a few markers he could follow back to the present. Her intuition insisted there was enough vital information stored in the chaos of his mind to make it worth meddling, even if doing so was frowned upon by those in charge of these types of things.
Temptation won out. While Pam indulged in delighted conversation with Craig, Adriel silently argued her case with Estelle. A few harmless signposts for him to follow wouldn’t be enough to keep him fully anchored, but should decrease the amount of time lost to the vagaries of his memory. When gentle persuasion looked like it wasn’t working, Adriel put her foot down.
“I’m in charge of your training, right? Then consider this a lesson in how to heal. It’s a skill you might be called upon to use. Besides, a saner Craig might be able to help Ben, while giving Pam a little more peace of mind.”
Mentally thumbing her nose at the powers that be, Adriel borrowed on Estelle’s power to start placing signposts throughout Craig’s mind.
Each new marker led her farther into the maze, until a turn separated her from Estelle and in her haste to get back, she went one section too far. Then another and another, until she realized she was getting close to the center of the maze where something lurked. A presence trying hard to present itself as null, but had the flavor and scent of malevolence. Angel power flared through her like a sleek, black panther uncurling to stalk prey. Adriel nearly cried at the familiarity of feeling totally connected to her truth again.
The sense of rightness faded when a furious Estelle rounded the corner. “What are you doing? You said a couple markers around the edges and the next thing I know, you’re gone.”
Whatever rested in Craig’s mind would have to wait—Estelle was done with rule breaking.
Estelle, dragging Adriel along behind her, pulled back to the edge of Craig’s mind as quickly as she could without hurting him. To her surprise, Craig’s spirit was there to meet them.
“You’re going to help the boy.” He made it a statement instead of a question.
“That is the plan,” Adriel answered. “Can you tell me anything helpful?” Craig turned his back on them; Adriel and Estelle exchanged a glance. He did know something.
“Just help him. He’s the key to it all. The lies, and the secrets, and the shame.” Craig was getting worked up. Adriel needed to do something to calm him before Pam noticed anything funny going on.
“Trust me.” An unexpected flare of her old authority—born of speaking only truth—bolstered the words into an intonation that made him flinch as it echoed through his head. She felt bad about basically yelling at the poor man. Then he nodded his head and relaxed with a small smile. Back in her own mind, Adriel saw Pam preparing to leave.
“I’m so sorry,” she said once we were back in the Jeep. “I’ve never seen him get worked up like that before. He’s usually pretty docile.”
Was there anything Adriel could tell Pam to ease her mind? The debate raged through her while Pam took her lack of response for something other than an innocent pause. When Adriel realized her hesitation was adding to Pam’s general sense of unease, she said “He seemed to be more lucid when we left.”
“When he said he’d seen Ben, it sent a
chill up my spine. For all I know, it could be true. He could be alive and living nearby, and I’d have spent my life waiting for a reunion that would never come. Why would he do that and never contact me?”
Knowing she needed to pick her words carefully, Adriel said, “What do you think happened to him?”
A moment slid by while Pam framed her answer. “Kids end up on milk cartons all the time. He could have run away; he could have been abducted.” Her voice dropped an octave, quavered slightly, “He could be dead. They’re all horrible options. I can’t believe he would leave us voluntarily.”
“So you’ve ruled out him becoming a runaway.”
“My parents were older than most when they started their family. Daddy died on the operating table ten years after we lost Ben. Complications from a minor surgery. Mother left the porch light on for the rest of her life. Every night for twenty-six years. A shining beacon to guide Ben if he ever came home. She never stopped hoping. When she passed, I had a choice—keep the house and leave the light burning, or sell the place and accept my brother was gone. I sold the house. What does that tell you?”
“It must have been a difficult decision.”
“If he could have come home, he would have done it a long time ago.”
“So you think he’s…”
“Dead. I think he’s dead.” A pause. “I’ve never said it out loud. I was always afraid saying it would make it true. And yet, I’ve stayed in this hole of a town, waiting. Just in case.” Bitterness twisted her lips. “Maybe Mother wasn’t the only one with delusions.”
“I’m sorry.” Adriel’s heart broke for Pam. Not knowing Ben’s fate had taken a toll on her. Telling Pam what she knew might help the woman make sense of her loss, or it might make things worse. Without evidence, all Adriel could give her was a fantastic story and more speculation.
Outside the Jeep, everything stopped. Even Pam froze in time. Estelle had returned.
“Nice trick. You’re learning.”
From the back seat, Estelle said, “You can’t tell her yet.”
“I know.” Pique at being second-guessed wove through Adriel’s tone. Left alone, she might have tried to clue Pam in, though.
“Don’t get crabby with me; I’m just the messenger.”
“Not my first day.” Feeling defensive was a new emotion—one Adriel could have lived without.
“You talked me into meddling in the man’s mind,” Estelle’s words were an accusation. “And you knew it was against the rules.”
“Only a little.”
Estelle’s skeptical squint said more than words. “If he was supposed to be healed in this manner, his guardian would already have done so.”
“Not necessarily. A guardian should respect whatever choice a charge makes when it comes to issues like this. As long as it doesn’t interfere with the growth or safety of another. When there are additional factors like there are with this case—Pam, Ben, what happened with Lydia—a different course of action may be needed. He knows something, and without intervention the information might be lost. Plus, I couldn’t stand to see either of them in so much pain. Giving him a bit more lucidity seemed like a good compromise. What could it hurt?”
“I’m new to this angel stuff, but even I know that’s a bit of human justification. How are you supposed to train me properly if you can’t stay detached?”
Estelle’s disappointment left Adriel feeling like a chastised child. “I’m sorry. These human emotions are irrational sometimes, and a lot stronger than I ever expected. How people manage to hold up under the stress is beyond me. I feel like I’m being pulled in different directions all the time.” Estelle’s eyes flitted upward as she processed this information. When speculation narrowed them slightly, Adriel found herself becoming angry. “Don’t look at me like that. You should know what I’m talking about, you were human not so long ago yourself. None of this is new to you. Me? I’ve always been an angel until now. I’m not some test subject or one of those rodent whatsits,” Adriel snapped her fingers while she pulled the word from her mind, “wait, I remember. I’m not a Guinea Pig.”
“Technically, you are, though.” Estelle disagreed gently.
“Oink.” Adriel wrinkled her nose.
“Guinea Pigs don’t oink. They whistle.”
“Is that really germane to the conversation?”
Humor twitched Estelle’s mouth into a smile holding a level of fondness most angels learned to control in the early days of working with humans. As part of her training, Adriel should be telling Estelle it was time to become more detached, but lacking any other allies at the moment she chose to remain silent.
“Probably not.”
“I’m working on gut instinct most of the time. Sometimes human, sometimes angel. Make no mistake, you and Julius are in this as deeply as I am. If I’m a whistle pig, you’re another.” Estelle’s shoulders twitched and the smile never left her face. She was enjoying this too much, in Adriel’s opinion. “Craig’s mind looks a lot like his house—full of walls and maze paths. I suspect he’s trying to bury his memories and ,following that logic, there’s info stored in there somewhere I think will help me figure out how Ben died. With him going in and out of lucidity, the only way to get at what he knows is to go in there myself. I thought it better to help him think more clearly so he can make a choice.”
Compassion for humans was stock in trade for angels. Compassion tempered with a certain level of detachment—so when a charge needed to go through something painful in order to learn a lesson, the guardian knew when not to step in and take away the pain. That sense of detachment didn’t stand up to human hormones, and Adriel had those in spades.
“Be careful,” Estelle warned. “You’ll still have to answer for your actions.”
“This one’s not on me. There’s something else taking up space in his head. Something that feels evil.”
“Earthwalker?”
“Not sure. We’ll need to take a closer look.”
As Adriel watched, Estelle’s eyes turned unfocused. She was listening to a command from home.
“I have to go. I’ll be in touch.” Time snapped back into forward motion leaving Adriel with several thoughts chasing around her head.
***
“You need a cell phone,” Pam declared with finality.
“I’m sure I don’t.”
“Trust me, you do. We’ll go get you one of those prepaid ones. That way, you won’t have a monthly bill to worry about, but you’ll have it in case of emergencies. It’s your first big step toward being more independent. First a phone, then a car.” Pam dragged Adriel past shelves piled high with various gadgets and over to the mobile phone department. Given her history with all things electrical, there was a better than even chance she would kill a cell phone inside of a week.
“I don’t drive.” Pam gave Adriel that look. The one combining sympathy with the words, what planet are you from? Adriel hated that look but couldn’t disagree with the sentiment behind it—from Pam’s perspective, she was as odd as they come.
“I’ll teach you.”
“I don’t need you to embark on a program for my betterment.”
“Nonsense. Everyone should learn to drive. It’s a rite of passage.”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t drive. I said I don’t. There’s a difference.” Adriel’s tone of absolute finality deterred Pam about as much as a bird could stop a hurricane, and earned her the look a second time. In return, Adriel blasted Pam with her patented I’m-an-angel-don’t-mess-with-me glare, which only proved Pam was impervious. Adriel might as well have handed her a kitten for all the good it did.
“What did you do to get from place to place? Teleport?” The joke fell on stony ground since it was a bit too close to the truth for Adriel’s comfort. Pam’s eyes lit with the fervor normally reserved for religious zealots when she picked out the phone she thought would suit Adriel best.
“Here; this one can access the Internet and take photos.” Clutching a bliste
r-wrapped packaged, she then dragged Adriel to the checkout.
Back in the parking lot, Pam’s flashing legs carried her straight to the passenger seat. The little woman could move fast when she wanted to. Smirking smugly, she chirped, “You drive.”
“I don’t drive.” Insistence appeared futile.
“Whatever it is, you need to get over it. It’s four miles. What harm could you do in so short of a distance. Besides, you did say you knew how. Prove it.”
“It would be illegal.”
“Come on, take a walk on the wild side.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Adriel twisted the key and the motor hummed to life. With shaking hands, she dropped the shifter into reverse, looked over her shoulder, and stepped on the gas. The Jeep shot out of the space like a rocket, and if her reflexes hadn’t been sharp, would have slammed into one of the cars parked in the next row. Jamming the brake, Adriel managed to stop just in the nick of time, while Pam rocked forward then backward in her seat—one hand gripping the seatbelt, the other braced on the dash.
Nervous energy lifted the hair on Adriel’s arms to the point of creating a prickling sensation. Absently, Pam let go of the seat belt to brush a hand down her own arm—so strong was the wave of energy pouring through the small space.
Shifting into drive, Adriel attempted to take off at a slower pace. She really did. What felt to her like gentle pressure on the pedal caused the vehicle to lurch forward. Heightened emotion pushed at the boundary of the block around her power until more of it leaked into the frisson of tension running along her skin. Pam’s GPS crackled to life without being turned on and announced, you have arrived before going dead. Presumably forever.
“But I’ve barely even left yet.”
Pam’s laugh was half amused and half horrified. Goosebumps flowed across her skin like a wave. Any sane person would have demanded to take over the wheel. Instead, she waved Adriel on like an adrenaline junkie getting a fix. Tossing her head back and laughing harder had the opposite effect of calming Adriel down. The more Pam seemed to enjoy the ride, the harder the experience played on Ariel’s nerves, and the more intense the waves of energy radiated off her. Pam should have been begging to stop by now, instead of laughing like an overjoyed hyena.
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