by Robin Roseau
“She’s not an angel,” Sue Ellen said.
“I disagree,” Grace said.
“That test wouldn’t prove she’s not a demon,”
“Well, I agree with you on that,” Grace replied. “But my faith is strong, and that faith says no demon can walk these grounds and show such joy as Teigan Dove shows.” She matched gazes with Sue Ellen until the teenager dropped her gaze. “So that is the explanation we’re going with until presented with contrary evidence.”
“Fine. Maybe she’s not a demon, but she’s not an angel, either.”
“Maybe not,” I agreed.
“Why don’t you tell the entire story,” Grace suggested.
“All of it?” I asked.
“Maybe skip some of the more prurient details,” Grace suggested. “How about it, Sue Ellen? Are you ready to be a warrior for God?”
I was impressed Marley didn’t intervene. Sue Ellen sat up straighter. “You believe her?”
“I do,” Grace said.
“She died and went to Hell, and now she’s come back.”
“I didn’t die until much later,” I replied. “But yes.”
“Fine,” she said.
“It’s the sort of story that gives nightmares.”
“But it includes a trip to Heaven,” Grace said. “Well, Sue Ellen?”
The girl nodded. I turned to Marley, and she nodded.
And so, I told the story again.
* * * *
There were tears, and before I was done, the four of us were cuddled on the sofa together, Grace and I at opposite ends, with Marley and Sue Ellen between us. Hands were held, and a few cheeks were kissed. At one point, Grace collected my jacket and blouse and showed them the holes. And then she told me to take my blouse off and let them see my back.
“I felt each round when it hit,” Grace said. “It felt like someone pounding her in the back.”
But I told the entire story, and then we sat quietly for a while.
Finally, I asked, “Marley, Sue Ellen says you think you’re going to Hell when you die. Did you give your soul to Evaline?”
“I consorted with a demon, Teigan,” she said. “Knowingly and rather joyfully, although it wasn’t as joyous. Um. After.”
“Well, I think on this, I have the inside track. You’re not going to Hell. You, my darling friend, are destined for a trip in another direction, eventually.”
“You’re wrong.”
“No, I do not believe I am. Marley, the souls in Hell were either wicked people, or they knowingly traded their souls, not necessarily like I did, but similarly.”
“But you left when you died,” Sue Ellen pointed out.
“Because that was my agreement with Evaline,” I replied. “And I am fairly sure Theophania didn’t know it.” I laughed. “I bet she feels quite cheated. Good.”
“Good,” Grace echoed.
“Furthermore.” I pulled my badge back out and tossed it on the table. “Grace, does your church practice confession?”
“No, but a good clearing of the soul can be good for the soul,” Grace said.
“I want us to take Marley’s confession, and then between the two of us, I think we carry enough weight to forgive her of anything that requires forgiveness.”
“Really?” Sue Ellen asked.
“I know this woman,” I said, hugging Marley. “She is a kind soul. Sue Ellen, do you disagree?”
“Mom is the best,” Sue Ellen said. “I told you, Mom. I told you.”
“Well, Marley?”
She looked at me, then she turned to her daughter. “Please, Mom.”
Marley nodded. “All right.”
“Do you want me to send Sue Ellen on some pointless but clearly important task?” Grace asked. Sue Ellen didn’t even complain.
“No.” And then Marley, without further preamble, launched into a rather detailed list of supposed sins. She didn’t hold back, and I came up a few times. Sue Ellen sat through the entire telling without a single comment.
When she finished, I looked at the woman on the opposite end of the couch. “I have no idea what all that was, but I didn’t hear a thing that would keep her from Heaven? Most of that doesn’t even qualify as a minor sin.”
“She did smoke pot.”
“Judging by the utter lack of comment from her daughter, I bet it’s finally legal.”
“Years ago,” Marley said.
“Marley Mann,” Grace said. “You are a good, kind woman, and require no forgiveness in my eyes. But as the pastor of this church, I forgive you the sins you have confessed today.”
“Marley, my friend,” I said. “By the authority given to me, on behalf of those divine beings I represent, I forgive you the sins you have confessed today, although I feel most of what you confessed as sins are part of God’s joy and require no forgiveness. But Marley, what is important is that you forgive yourself. Do you regret loving me?”
“No!” she said. “Never.”
“I do not regret loving Evaline. My only real regret is not ensuring I understood my contract with her. I do not regret my time with her. I do not regret trading my soul to free a gentler soul. Do you regret loving Evaline?”
She looked into my eyes. “No, but shouldn’t I?”
“Not in my eyes, and did you hear the part where God herself asked me to retrieve her from Hell? I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who has a problem with this.”
“I love her, Teigan. I love her so much, her and you. I’ve loved her from shortly after I met her.”
“Then have no regrets, Marley.”
“No regrets,” she said with a nod. She turned to her daughter. “That’s why I was sure I was going to Hell, because I don’t regret loving her. I could never regret loving her. She saved me, Suzie, and when I needed help to have you, she helped me. She helped me find the right doctors, and she gave us a safe, secure home.”
“She used to tell me she loved me,” Sue Ellen said.
“And she did love you,” Marley said.
Sue Ellen shifted her gaze. “You’re really going to go get her?”
“Yes, I am,” I said. “But you’re staying here with Pastor Grace.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I said. “She’s going to need your help. Sue Ellen, we need you to help pull us back.”
“You’re trying to give me busy work.”
“No, Sue Ellen,” Grace said. “We’re going to need the entire congregation. I need to count on you more than anyone else.”
Sue Ellen looked at her, then at me, and then she nodded. “But you’re all coming back.”
“We’re all coming back. Now, I think I need to know what happened. Why did Evaline leave?”
“For you, of course,” Marley said.
Evaline
Marley Mann
It wasn’t the same after that demon took you. You can imagine. Evaline changed. She tried not to, but she changed.
At first, all she said to me was that you went away on a trip. But then you were in the paper, and on the news. The police were looking for you. I stormed into Evaline’s office and said, “A trip?”
She confessed everything, Teigan. At first, I thought she was insane. Then I thought I was. She turned into… I couldn’t believe it at first. She was beautiful and frightening, and I couldn’t believe it. But she told me how you had traded your soul to her so you could free that other woman, and that you had done it to save her soul, and to save Evaline’s as well. She vowed to me she’d get you back, somehow.
I asked her how. I browbeat her, really. She didn’t want to tell me. Finally she admitted she could buy you back. I asked her why she hadn’t already, and then she told me the price.
Souls, Suzie. The price would be the souls of other people, and not just one. And they had to be the souls of good people, not people who would have landed in Hell anyway.
Teigan, she said you’d never have wanted her to do that to anyone else. We talked about it. We talked about it a long time. She a
ctually… she actually acquired a few souls, but I yelled at her, and she said, “I know.” She freed them. Teigan, if it’s my fault you were there so long…
After that, things settled down. At home, for a few years, it was just the two of us, unless she needed to feed. She never let me watch. I stayed with her. Most of the time, she was human, but sometimes, once or twice a week, she turned into her demon. She was so beautiful, so stark and so frighteningly beautiful. We… we made love like that. I loved making love to her like that.
You’re old enough to know your mother was once a young, beautiful woman, Suzie. Am I frightening you? Good. I love you, Darling.
I asked her what she thought about my having a girl. She loved the idea, at least as much as I did. She acted just like a father. Suzie, wouldn’t you say? She was like your father.
Oh, Darling, I know. I miss her, too.
That was when I stopped dancing. I didn’t ever want my daughter to have to explain that to anyone. And if it came out, well, we all make choices. Evaline asked me to manage some of her businesses. It turned out I was quite good at it, but I missed dancing. Sometimes, for a few years, Poppy came out to play. I tried to be Poppy at work, but that was too hard. I was so tied to her in her costume, that I couldn’t be her without it, so I was just Marley.
We agreed we would tell Suzie everything, when she was old enough to understand. So we started getting her ready when she was eight and told her when she was ten.
And then Evaline went away. She said she had a way to get you back, that she’d been working on it for a decade. She had a way to get you back, but that she was going to be gone a long time.
We prepared. Suzie was already a member of this church, so we gave all your woodworking tools to the church. She put a lot of the money away somewhere; I don’t know where. But there’s a trust for Suzie for college and to help her get started, and she gave me money, a lot of money. I never have to work again, but that’s not me at all.
We told Suzie the rest; we told her together. And then she was gone, and I haven’t heard a thing since.
Angel and Fae
Marley and I held each other, and from her other side, Sue Ellen hugged her mother, three of us crying. I was so tired of crying.
I gave Marley a little kiss. I squeezed Sue Ellen’s hand. And then I looked at Grace. “How are you doing?”
“A bit overwhelmed,” she admitted. “What happens now?”
“That depends on what you’re really asking,” I said. “I have more people I need to find. I know where two of them are. Marley, I need Poppy. Do you still have her clothes?”
“They’re in the closet at home,” Sue Ellen said.
“Teigan Dove, I believe that Sue Ellen and Marley should remain here, for all the reasons I should.”
“It’s a small house,” I pointed out.
“Sue Ellen can handle a few days on the sofa while we figure things out,” Grace said.
Marley turned to look at Grace, who smiled sweetly, but didn’t actually say it. But they both nodded to each other, and then Marley extended her hand to Grace, reaching past Sue Ellen to do it. The two clasped.
“You know,” said Sue Ellen. “I’m not a complete idiot, but I’m not sure I want to be out here while the three of you are in there doing kinky three-way things.”
“You’re right,” Grace said. “We can set you up with a bed in the basement of the church.”
“I’m not sleeping in the church basement, either.”
“What do you recommend?” Grace asked. “You pick. Who gets to keep Teigan?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“What do you recommend, Sue Ellen?”
“Aren’t ministers supposed to be prudes?”
“Maybe in other churches,” Grace replied. “You didn’t seem put out asking if Teigan Dove and I were lovers, but maybe you don’t think your mother is young enough for love anymore.”
“That’s not what I said. Mom!” Yes, she made it take several syllables.
Marley was clinging to me. She turned to look at me. “Teigan?”
I looked at her, then at Grace. She smiled. “I’m not going to make you choose between us, but I don’t want to lose you, not yet, not when you’re going off to do what you’re going to do. When you come back, I want a hug, and a kiss, and if that’s our last kiss, so be it, but please don’t leave my bed yet, Teigan.”
I shifted my gaze back to Marley. “I’ve missed you so much.”
She looked down. “You miss Poppy.”
I lifted her chin. “That’s right. I do. I miss both of you.”
She offered a smile then, without looking at her, asked, “Suzie, is there something we can do to make this work for you?”
“I want promises,” Sue Ellen said. “You declare yourself a member of this church.”
“Am I welcome, Pastor Grace?”
“With open arms,” Grace replied.
“Then from this moment forward, I would like to be a member of your congregation, but someone will have to help me understand what that means.”
“I can do that,” Sue Ellen said. “And two: I’m not sleeping on a sofa for the rest of my life. What are we going to do about that?”
“It’s temporary.”
“And if temporary means more than three days?”
“We can turn this room into a bedroom,” Grace said. “Somehow. We’ll bring a proper bed here.”
“Because I’m not sleeping in the basement. There are spiders down there, and there are spiders in the church basement, too, and I bet worse than spiders. I’m not doing spiders.”
* * * *
It was Sue Ellen and I that went back to their house to collect things. Grace and I decided she and Marley were confined to holy ground. I wasn’t happy with Sue Ellen leaving the church, either, but I had my gun.
I’d have gone alone, but I didn’t know how to drive the car. Sue Ellen got a kick out of that.
We collected clothing and raided the house of any food that would spoil. Sue Ellen showed me Poppy’s clothes, and I found myself staring at them for a long time. I was still at it when she came back to stand at my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It all catches up to me sometimes.”
“Well, knock it off, because you need your A-game when you go to Hell.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Have you ever seen her wear this?”
“A few times,” Sue Ellen said. “Not in years.”
“Your mom was amazing,” I said. “She became an entirely different person.”
“Physically, like Evaline did?”
“Did you ever see that?”
“Yeah. Only once, when they told me, right before she left.”
“Well, your mom didn’t change like that. It was just her personality. She became confident and outgoing. Um.”
“Sexy. I bet she was really sexy.”
“A complete bombshell,” I said. “Do people still use that word?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“Is this hard for you?”
“I’ve lived a different life than a lot of kids. How could Evaline encourage me to go to church, Teigan? I don’t understand.”
“Evaline wasn’t evil,” I said. “She maybe once was, but not in the time I knew her. She could be harsh to those who tried to hurt her, but she wasn’t evil. I think she knew that the people nearest her could be vulnerable to attention, so she wanted to do what she could to protect you.”
Sue Ellen nodded. “I miss her,” she whispered. She gestured. “Think Mom will wear that?”
“I don’t know. Do you think she’s up for it?”
“I don’t know. You’re kind of a shock. I’m sorry I doubted you.”
“I don’t blame you at all,” I said. “I doubt me. You should.”
“Would you really have shot yourself?”
“I was about to, but I think Grace could be right.”
“She usually is.”
&n
bsp; “Got everything else?”
“Yeah. Ready?” She grabbed Poppy’s tuxedo. I grabbed the top hat. And then we were ready to go.
* * * *
I walked through the glass doors and to the receptionist. “I have an appointment with Kate Everest.”
The woman glanced at something. “Ms. Angel?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“Is that really your name?”
“No. The person who made the appointment has a sense of humor.”
“I’ll let Ms. Everest know you are here. Do you require refreshment?”
“No, thank you.” I took a seat and waited.
It was perhaps ten minutes, and then Kate entered the receptionist area. She looked older, which surprised me, but I thought perhaps it was intentional. She froze, staring at me. I smiled and stood. “Surprise,” I said.
“Good golly,” she replied. “It’s really you.”
“Could we talk, Kate?”
She hurried over and grabbed my arm, then practically dragged me through the law firm to a conference room. I let her push me inside, and then she closed and blocked the door with her body. I turned and smiled again. “You don’t look very happy to see me.”
“You went to Hell.”
“I think I look pretty good for 63 years old. How can you say a thing like that?”
“That’s not funny.”
“I can laugh or I can sit in a corner, gibbering in fear. Would you prefer that?”
“No. I gave your money away. If that’s what you’re here for…”
“It’s not,” I said.
“It’s a trust. I could get it back, or some of it.”
“What’s the trust doing with it?”
“Supporting a church.”
I began laughing. “A church. Would that happen to be Our Lady of Divine Truth?”
“How did you know?”
“I have a story for you, Kate.”
“You seem pretty cheerful for being freshly back from the dead.”
“I’ve been back for a little while,” I said.
“Does Beth know?”
“Not yet. Think she’s around?”
She pulled a phone out of an inner pocket. They still looked like phones, at least. She placed a call and then said, “You need to come to conference room four. Right now. Alone.” She put the phone back. “You look different.”