Kissed by an Angel/The Power of Love/Soulmates

by Elizabeth Chandler

  “Go on,” Will urged softly.

  “It’s covered with a blanket. And there’s an angel looking down on it. The angel is crying.”

  “What’s under the blanket?” Ivy whispered.

  “I can’t see,” Beth whispered back. “I can’t see!”

  Then her hand started scribbling: “I can see only what Beth sees. The blanket can’t be lifted.”

  “Is the angel you, Tristan?” Ivy asked.

  “No,” Beth wrote. Then she grabbed Ivy’s hand. “Something terrible is there. Don’t go! I’m begging you, Ivy.”

  “Listen to her, Ivy!” Tristan said, but Beth’s hand was shaking too hard to write it.

  Ivy looked at Will.

  “Beth has been right twice before,” he said.

  Ivy nodded, then sighed. “But what if Eric really has something important to tell me?”

  “He’ll find another way,” Will reasoned. “If he really wants to tell you something, he’ll figure out a way.”

  “I guess so,” Ivy said, and Tristan sank down in relief.

  Soon after that, he left the three of them. He heard Ivy ask mentally, “Where are you going?” But knowing she was in safe hands, he kept on. He had recovered from the exhaustion of time-traveling but wasn’t sure how long his second wind would last. He wanted time to search Gregory’s room while everyone was out of the house. If he could find Gregory’s latest purchase of drugs, Ivy would have evidence for at least a drug charge.

  Still, what she really needed was the jacket and cap, Tristan thought as he passed through the school door. The clothes might convince the police to reconsider Philip’s story. A single piece of hair could establish the important link to Gregory.

  Somebody must have found the clothes after they rolled off the motorcycle. Did that person know how important they were? Philip’s story hadn’t been released to the public, but it could have leaked out. Was there, Tristan wondered, an unidentified player in Gregory’s game?

  “But Ivy,” Suzanne wailed, “we had plans to find the crystal slippers—the ruby shoes—the only pair of heels in all New England that are exactly right for my birthday party. And I’ve got only a week left to hunt!”

  “I’m sorry,” Ivy replied, reaching into her locker for another book. “I know I promised.” She shifted the stack in her arms, clutching a note beneath the books. Three minutes before Suzanne had arrived, Ivy had opened her locker and found Tristan’s picture gone. The note she grasped had been taped in its place.

  “How about Wednesday?” Ivy proposed. “I have to work after school tomorrow, but we can shop till we drop on Wednesday and find you an incredible pair of shoes.”

  “By that time Gregory and I will have made up and be doing something again.”

  “Made up?” Ivy repeated. “What do you mean?”

  Suzanne smiled. “It worked, Ivy, worked like a charm.” With her back against the wall of lockers, Suzanne bent her knees and slowly slid down till her bottom touched the floor—no easy feat in tight jeans, Ivy thought. A group of guys down the hall admired her athletic ability.

  “Since you wouldn’t mention Jeff to him,” Suzanne went on, “I did. I called Gregory Jeff.”

  “You called him Jeff? Did he notice?”

  “Both times,” Suzanne replied.

  “Whew.”

  “Once when things were pretty hot and heavy.”

  “Suzanne!”

  Suzanne threw back her head and laughed. It was a wild and infectious laugh, and people grinned as they passed her in the hall.

  “So what did Gregory say? What did he do?” Ivy asked.

  “He was unbelievably jealous,” Suzanne said, her eyes flashing with excitement. “It’s a wonder he didn’t kill us both!”

  “What do you mean?”

  Suzanne slid closer to Ivy and bent her head, her long, dark hair falling forward, like a curtain for telling secrets behind.

  “The second time, we were in the back seat.” Suzanne closed her eyes a moment, remembering. “His face went white, then the red started creeping up his neck. I swear I could feel a hundred and five degrees rushing through him. He pulled away from me and raised his hand. I thought he was going to hit me, and for a moment I was terrified.”

  She gazed into Ivy’s eyes, her pupils large with excitement. Ivy could see that Suzanne might have been terrified then, but now found it thrilling and fun to talk about. Her friend was enjoying the memory the way someone delighted in a good scare at a spook house—but Gregory was no papier-mâché monster.

  “Then he dropped his hand, called me a couple of names, got out of the back seat and into the front, and started driving like crazy. He opened all the windows and kept yelling back at me that I could get out. But of course he was driving so fast and weaving left and right, and I was trying to straighten myself up and kept slamming from one side of the car to the other. He’d watch me in the rearview mirror; sometimes he turned all the way around. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill us both.”

  Ivy stared at her friend in horror.

  “Oh, come on, Ivy. In the end, when I had my right arm in the left arm of my vest and my hair flopped over my face, he slowed down, and both of us started laughing.”

  Ivy dropped her head in her hands.

  “But when he took me home that night,” Suzanne continued, “he said he didn’t want to see me anymore. He said I make him lose control and do crazy things.” She sounded pleased with herself, as if she had been given a huge compliment. “But hell come around by next Saturday. He’ll be at my party, you can bet on that.”

  “Suzanne, you’re playing with fire,” Ivy said.

  Suzanne smiled.

  “You and Gregory aren’t good for each other,” Ivy told her. “Look at you. You’re both acting crazy.”

  Suzanne shrugged and laughed.

  “You’re acting like a fool!”

  Suzanne blinked, stung by Ivy’s criticism.

  “Gregory has a terrible temper,” Ivy went on. “Anything can happen. You don’t know him the way I do.”

  “Oh, really?” Suzanne raised her eyebrows. “I think I know him pretty well.”

  “Suzanne—”

  “And I can handle him—better than you can,” she added, glancing sideways, her eyes gleaming. “So don’t get your hopes up.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Ever since you lost Tristan, you’ve been interested in Gregory. But he’s mine, not yours, Ivy, and you’re not going to get him away from me!”

  Suzanne stood up quickly, brushed off the back of her jeans, and stalked down the hall.

  Ivy leaned back against her locker. She knew it was pointless to call after Suzanne and thought about summoning Tristan, asking him to watch over her friend. Maybe Lacey could help them out. But that request would have to wait. Ivy had changed her plans for the afternoon, and if Tristan read her mind, he might try to stop her.

  She unfolded the square of paper that had been taped in place of Tristan’s picture. The note, signed with Eric’s initials, was short and convincing:

  “Come alone. Five o’clock. I know why you’re dreaming what you’re dreaming.”

  P3-8

  Ivy parked her car close to the train bridges. She was in the same clearing where Gregory had stopped months ago, the night Eric wanted to play chicken. She got out and walked the short distance to the double bridges. In the late-afternoon sun, the rails of the new bridge gleamed. Next to it stood the old bridge, a rusted orange fretwork reaching halfway across the river. Jagged fingers of metal and rotting wood reached back from the opposite bank of the river, but the two halves of the old bridge, like two groping hands, had lost touch.

  When Ivy saw the parallel bridges clearly in the sunlight, when she saw the seven-foot gap between them and the long fall down to the water and rocks below, she realized the kind of risk Eric had taken when he pretended to leap from the new bridge. What went on inside Eric’s head? she wondered. Either he was
totally insane or he just didn’t care whether he lived or died.

  Erie’s Harley was not in sight, but there were plenty of trees and brush to hide it in. Ivy glanced around, then picked her way carefully down the steep bank next to the bridges, sliding part of the way until she reached a narrow path that ran along the river. She walked as quietly as possible, alert to every sound around her. When the trees rustled she looked up quickly, half expecting to see Eric and Gregory ready to swoop down on their prey.

  “Get a grip, Ivy,” she chided herself, but she continued to tread softly. If she could surprise Eric, she might see what he was up to before she walked into a trap.

  Ivy glanced at her watch several times, and at five minutes past five she wondered if she had passed the car. But after a few more feet, something flashed in her eyes—sunlight glinting off metal. Fifteen feet ahead, she saw an overgrown path that led from the river to a metal heap.

  Ivy worked her way into the brush, keeping herself hidden as she crept closer. Once she thought she heard something behind her, a soft crunch of leaves beneath someone’s foot. She turned quickly. Nothing. Nothing but a few leaves drifting in the breeze.

  Ivy pushed aside some long branches and took two steps forward, then drew in her breath sharply. The car was just as Beth had described it, its axles sunk into the earth, its rear buried beneath vines. The car’s hood was ripped off, and its vinyl roof had decayed into papery black flakes. Its scarred doors shone blue—exactly as Beth had said.

  The back door was open. Was there a blanket on the seat inside? Ivy wondered. What was under the blanket?

  Again she heard rustling behind her and turned quickly around, searching the trees. Her eyes ached from focusing and refocusing on every shadow and flutter of leaf, searching for the shape of a person watching her. No one.

  She glanced at her watch. Ten after five. Eric wouldn’t have given up on her this soon, she thought. Either he’s late or he’s waiting for me to make the first move. Well, two can play the waiting game, Ivy reasoned, and crouched down quietly.

  A few minutes later her legs began to ache with the tension of holding still. She rubbed them and looked at her watch again: quarter after. She waited five more minutes. Maybe Eric has lost his nerve, she thought.

  Ivy stood up slowly, but something kept her from moving any further. She heard Beth’s warning as if her friend were standing next to her, whispering in her ear.

  “Angels, help me,” Ivy prayed. Part of her wanted to find out what was in the car. But part of her wanted to run away. “Angels, are you there? Tristan, I need you. I need you now!”

  She walked tentatively toward the car. When she reached the clearing she paused for just a moment, waiting to see if anyone had followed. Then she bent down and looked in the back seat.

  Ivy blinked, unsure for a moment that what she saw was real—not another nightmare, not one more of Eric’s jokes. Then she screamed, screamed until her throat was raw. She knew without touching him—he was too pale, too still, his blue eyes open and staring at nothing—that Eric was dead.

  Ivy jumped when someone touched her from behind. She started screaming again. Arms wrapped around her, pulling her back, holding her tight. She thought she’d shriek her brains out. He didn’t try to stop her, just held her till she went limp, her whole body sagging against him. His face brushed hers.

  “Will,” she said. She could feel his body shaking.

  He turned her toward him and held her face against his chest, his hand shielding her eyes. But in her mind Ivy could still see Eric staring upward, his eyes wide, as if he were quietly amazed by what had happened.

  Will shifted his weight, and Ivy knew he was looking over her shoulder at Eric. “I—I don’t see any signs of trouble,” he said. “No bruising. No blood.”

  Ivy’s stomach suddenly rose up against her ribs. She gritted her teeth and forced it back down. “Maybe drugs,” she said. “An overdose.”

  Will nodded. His breath was short and quick against her cheek. “We have to call the police.”

  Then Ivy pulled away from him. She bent down and forced herself to look long and hard at Eric. She should memorize the scene, she thought. She should collect clues. What had happened to him could be a warning to her. But as she looked at Eric all she felt was the loss; all she could see was a wasted life.

  Ivy reached into the car. Will caught her hand. “Don’t. Don’t touch him,” he said. “Leave his body just as it is so that the police can examine it.”

  Ivy nodded, then picked up an old blanket from the car floor and gently laid it on top of Eric. “Angels—” she began, but she did not know what to ask for. “Help him,” she said, and left the prayer at that. As she walked away she knew that a merciful angel of the dead was looking down on Eric, weeping—just as Beth had said.

  “Despite what you say, Lacey, I’m glad I missed my own funeral,” Tristan observed as the mourners gathered at Eric’s graveside. Some of them stood solitary and stiff as soldiers; others leaned against each other for support and comfort.

  Friday had dawned pale and drizzly. Several people raised umbrellas now, like bright nylon flowers blooming against the gray stones and misty trees. Ivy and Beth stood on either side of Will, bareheaded, letting the rain and tears run together. Suzanne stood with one arm around Gregory, staring down at the bristling grass.

  Three times in five months the four of them had stood together at Riverstone Rise, and still the police asked only routine questions about the deaths.

  “No luck?” Lacey called down from her perch in a tree.

  Tristan grunted. “Gregory’s built a wall around himself,” he replied, and walked in frustrated circles around the elm. He had tried several times during the church service to get inside Gregory’s head. “Sometimes I think that the moment I approach him, he senses me. I think he knows something’s up as soon as I get near him.”

  “Could be,” Lacey said. Materializing her fingers, she swung from a branch, dropping down neatly beside him. “In angel matters, you’re not exactly a smooth operator.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, let’s put it this way. If you were stealing TVs instead of thoughts,” she told him, “you’d have been caught by a half-deaf, mostly blind, fifteen-year-old dog three robberies ago.”

  Tristan was stung. “Well, give me two years to procrastinate,” he retorted, “excuse me, I meant two years to practice, and I’ll be as good as you.”

  “Maybe,” Lacey said, then added with a smile, “I tried getting inside him, too. Impossible.”

  Tristan studied Gregory’s face. He gave away nothing, his mouth an even line, his eyes focused straight ahead.

  “You know,” Lacey said, materializing the palm of her hand and holding it up to catch raindrops, “Gregory doesn’t have to be responsible for everything bad that happens. You saw the report. The police found no signs of a struggle.”

  The coroner had listed Eric’s death as a drug overdose. Eric’s parents insisted it was an accident. At school it was rumored to be suicide. Tristan believed it was murder.

  “The report doesn’t prove anything,” he argued, pacing back and forth. “Gregory didn’t have to force-feed Eric. He could have bought him a heavy dose without telling him how powerful it was. He could have waited till Eric was too high to know better, then given him more. The reason the police aren’t thinking murder, Lacey, is because they have no motive for it.”

  “And you do.”

  “Eric was ready to talk. He was ready to tell Ivy something.”

  “Aha! Then the chick was right,” Lacey needled him.

  “She was right,” he admitted, though he was still angry with Ivy for trying to meet with Eric on Monday afternoon. She had called out to him at the very last minute, when it would have been too late for him to save her. Rushing to her side, Tristan had found her walking with Will away from the dangerous site. Will said he had followed Ivy that afternoon on a sudden hunch.

  “Are you still feelin
g left out?” Lacey asked.

  He didn’t reply.

  “Tristan, when is it going to sink in? We’re dead,” Lacey said. “And that’s what happens when you’re dead. People forget to invite you along.”

  Tristan kept his eyes on Ivy. He wanted to be next to her, holding her hand.

  “We’re here to give a hand when we can and then let go,” Lacey told him. “We help, and then it’s bye-bye.” She waved both hands at him.

  “Like I said before, Lacey, I hope you fall in love one day. I hope that before your mission’s done, some guy teaches you how miserable it feels to love somebody and watch him reach out for someone else.”

  Lacey stepped back.

  “I hope you learn what it’s like to say good-bye to someone you love more than that person will ever guess.”

  She turned her face away from him. “You just might get your wish,” she said.

  He glanced at her, surprised by her tone of voice. He didn’t usually have to worry about hurting Lacey’s feelings. “Did I miss something?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “What?” he asked. “What is it?” He reached for her face.

  Lacey pulled away from him.

  “You’re missing the final prayer,” she said. “We should pray with everyone else for Eric.” Lacey folded her hands and looked extremely angelic.

  Tristan sighed. “You pray in my place,” he said. “I don’t have many good feelings toward Eric.”

  “All the more reason to pray,” she replied. “If he doesn’t rest in peace, he may be hanging out with us.”

  “Angels, take care of him. Let him rest in peace,” Ivy prayed. “Help Eric’s family,” she said silently, and gazed back at Christine, Eric’s older sister. She stood with her parents and brothers on the other side of the casket.

  Several times during the service, Ivy had caught Christine looking at her. When their eyes met, the girl’s mouth trembled a little, then became a long, soft line. Christine had Eric’s pale blond hair and porcelain skin, but her eyes were a vibrant blue. She was beautiful—an uncomfortable reminder of what Eric might have been like if drugs and alcohol had not wasted his body and mind.