“You’re an angel.”
At the sound of the ethereal voice cutting through the babble of chatting wedding guests, Abby glanced up from her harp. An angel shimmered in front of her—an angel she didn’t recognize.
“Funny.” Abby continued playing.
“I’m not joking.”
Abby substituted a different chord progression for the left hand. She was used to angels popping in and out, especially when she played. They usually didn’t talk. Sing, yes. Converse, no.
“If you’re looking for Gwynne Abernathy…” She needed to concentrate on her playing and besides, angels seemed to like Gwynne.
She spared a moment to glance up from the strings to scan the crowd and spotted her in her cute server uniform. When they’d arrived at the tent to set up her harp before the guests arrived, the frazzled caterer was having a meltdown because two of her waitstaff had failed to show up, and Gwynne had stepped in and generously offered to help and been hired on the spot. She’d dashed home in Abby’s minivan to change into black slacks and a white button-down, long-sleeved shirt, and with a black vest from the caterer, she looked convincingly official. She was carrying an appetizer tray on her shoulder like a pro, and whatever the appetizer was, it appeared to be delicious, because guests were crowding around her, following her for seconds. Kind of the way angels followed her around.
“She’s over there.” Abby nodded in her direction and continued playing.
The angel stayed put. “I’m looking for you, Abigail.”
“I’m kind of busy right now.” Abby angled her head closer to her harp. Not that anyone would notice, with all the noise, that she was talking to herself. Leave it to the chatty one who knew her name, although she pronounced it oddly—Abigay-el, like all the biblical angels whose names ended in “el”—to have bad timing.
The angel swept a glowing wing over Abby’s face, momentarily blinding her.
Unable to see, Abby transitioned seamlessly into an arpeggio, a harp-y musical effect which people always loved and which, fortunately, she could do with her eyes closed. From there she moved into a glissando, which was even easier, just gliding her finger up and down the strings to create the most basic of harp sounds. The show must go on and all that, and if this angel insisted on being rude with her wattage, she could compensate for a few minutes, cover with favorite tunes she could play by feel, and then call on Sapphire—an angel with better manners—to play bouncer and get Ms. Sunshine out of her face.
“I’m Elle,” said the angel. “We need your help.”
“Can we talk about this later?” She really didn’t want to play blind all night, and even if the light stayed out of her eyes, this was not the best time to be having a conversation, especially with a creature no one else in the crowd could see.
The angel made another pass at her forehead, forcing Abby to squeeze her eyes shut.
“The bridge that connects the Angelic Realm to earth is breaking down, and we need your help. We need you to come home.”
“I’m going home in a few hours.” If she didn’t get fired first for not providing music.
“Home to the Angelic Realm,” the angel said.
“You’re delusional,” Abby said dismissively. She might see angels but she wasn’t crazy.
“I’m not delusional,” Elle said.
“Or maybe I’m delusional, to be having this conversation.”
“You’re not delusional, either—not in the way you think you are.”
“How reassuring.”
“Return to the Angelic Realm,” Elle commanded. “You’re an angel.”
“I’m not.”
The noise of the party seemed to fade away, replaced by the angel’s sharp inhale. “You don’t remember.” Her shocked whisper hung in the air.
Abby felt a flicker of interest despite herself. Not a good time to be having this conversation, she reminded herself, but there was so much about her early childhood she didn’t know, and her curiosity got the best of her. “Remember what?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Elle said firmly. Abby wasn’t sure which one of them the angel was trying to convince. “We can still do this, even if you don’t remember. Remembering is not a requirement.”
“I’m not an angel.” This was starting to get annoying. She flipped some levers to change key and switched to another tune.
“You are.”
“If I really am an angel,” Abby said, trying to sound reasonable, “why don’t I look like one? Why don’t I glow?” If she acted like she believed her, went along with this for a few minutes, maybe the crazy angel would go away and let her finish playing her set.
“You’re an incarnated angel—an angel in human form.”
“So…I’m human.”
“You’re an angel.”
“But I have a human body.” Abby’s protest came out louder than she intended, making her cringe. It was bad enough having to state the obvious; it would be worse if one of the wedding guests overheard her having this bizarre conversation with herself. “See?” She poked at her thigh with one hand while her other hand continued the melody. “I have a physical body.”
“So it would seem.” Elle’s low opinion of the powers of human perception was clear.
“So that makes me…what? A fallen angel?”
Elle snorted. “Oh, please. Angels don’t fall. Incarnation is hazard duty. We volunteer for this.”
The safe thing would be to not talk, to pretend the angel wasn’t there. The safe thing would be to act normal in front of the one hundred and fifty guests who, although they did not seem to be paying any attention to her, would choose the exact wrong moment to notice she was talking to herself. Unfortunately, on any given day, safe moved up and down her list of priorities, and today it was not high on the list.
“So how does that happen? I materialize on the earth plane one day and no one notices I never existed before? I have human parents, you know.”
Elle just hovered there, listening to her hash out the logic of it, and suddenly Abby got a sick feeling in her stomach. It was true she had been raised by two very human grandparents, but she didn’t know much about her parents. Her mother, like Gwynne’s, was dead, and her father was a mystery, supposedly a drug addict her grandparents had never even met.
“I did have human parents, didn’t I? My father wasn’t…”
“That’s not how it works.” Elle glanced heavenward and rubbed a hand over her glowing face as if the idea gave her a headache. Her golden light became tinged with a lurid shade of green.
Abby felt oddly relieved. Somehow the thought of an angelic father getting it on with her human mother made her just as ill as it seemed to make Elle.
“Besides,” Elle said. “We only manifest as female.”
“You’re saying my mother was an angel?” That didn’t make sense, either.
“Of course not. Your mother gave birth to some human DNA. You appropriated it and said thank you very much.”
Abby was aghast. “What happened to the human soul who was supposed to get my body?”
“She was matched with another body, I suppose. There’s plenty to choose from.”
That made her feel mildly better—if it was true. “So biologically, I’m human.”
“Biologically—physically—yes. Your energy field is not entirely human, though. There are telltale patterns in your aura that can be identified if a person knows what she’s looking for.”
Abby’s fingers slowed on the strings. Evidence. What a concept. Gwynne was an energy healer. Had she noticed anything different about her? Would she tell her if she had?
“It would be a lot easier to believe you if I had any memory whatsoever of some previous angelic existence.”
“When you incarnate and take on human form, your memories are suppressed and your angelic powers are blocked. It’s the only way the process can work. We have to make sure you believe you’re human so you can fully experience what it’s like, because the better we understan
d the human condition, the better we can help. But now we need you to return to the Angelic Realm.”
“Okay,” she said, curious. A visit would certainly be interesting. She’d always wondered what Sapphire’s home was like. “Do you whisk me away or what?”
“You kill yourself.”
Abby fumbled her fingering. She stopped mid-tune and put her harp down oh-so-gently. Then she scooted off her stool and started backing away. “Um…That’s not going to happen.”
Okay, so every time a bride wanted to hire her to play at her wedding she promised she’d shoot herself if she had to play Pachelbel’s Canon in D one more time, but come on. She wasn’t serious. She’d shoot the bride before she shot herself.
“We need you to kill yourself so you’ll revert to your true angelic form.”
“How is that supposed to work?” She had no idea whether Elle could physically force her to do anything, but it seemed smart to play for time, get more information. “I get reborn as a baby angel?”
“No, you resume the form you had before you chose to be born as a human.”
“Sapphire?” Abby said under her breath as she continued to back away, hoping her friend would hear her urgent mental call. “Sapphire? Are you around?” Most of the time she did show up when she wanted her.
Fortunately, this was one of those times. Sapphire appeared in her favorite form—a baseball-sized ball of light—and hovered at her shoulder. If the crazy angel posed any danger, Sapphire would protect her. Even if the crazy angel was a symptom of Abby’s own psychotic break.
“This…” Abby began. This…what? Angel? Maybe Elle wasn’t what she appeared to be. “This…apparition…says I’m an angel,” she told Sapphire. “Why would she say that?”
“Because it’s true,” Sapphire said.
Abby choked. Now she tells her. After thirty-one years of friendship, now she decides to divulge this life-changing—or perhaps she should say life-ending—piece of news.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Not that she actually believed her. It was too bizarre. And yet…part of her—the part that she kept firmly locked up, because that was what you did to the voices in your head—wanted to believe. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You asked me not to,” Sapphire said.
“When?” Abby demanded, flabbergasted.
“Before you incarnated. The point of living as a human is to believe you’re human, otherwise you can’t fully experience human suffering.”
Exactly what Elle had said. Abby felt thrown off-balance. She’d wanted Sapphire to tell her Elle was an imposter, or simply lying. Or confused. Insane, mistaken, or talking to the wrong person. Instead, Sapphire was agreeing with her.
It had never occurred to her that Sapphire would gang up against her with another angel. She trusted Sapphire. She’d known her forever. They were friends. At least she thought they were friends.
Abby squinted into Elle’s brightness. This was Elle’s fault. She must be coercing Sapphire to back her up. “Who did you say you were?”
“Gabringingelle.” The angel’s voice vibrated like a crystal bowl sitting on a metal-strung harp, creating a cascade of exquisitely pure notes that were almost painful.
Abby tried to repeat it. “Gabr–”
The angel cut her off. “Just call me Elle. No one’s ever able to pronounce it correctly.”
No kidding. No human being alive could make a sound like that. “Sounds more like Gabriel than Elle,” Abby said suspiciously. The patriarchal nitwits from two thousand years ago wouldn’t have listened to a female angel, but angels could shape-shift, and besides, people saw what they wanted to see. “Or Gabrielle?”
“I prefer Elle,” the angel said, her voice still vibrating at a humanly impossible register.
One of the wedding guests, a woman in an expensive suit and sturdy heels who seemed blissfully unaware of the angels’ presence, marched right into their midst to shake Abby’s hand. “You’re Abby Vogel, right?”
“Yes.” Abby kept a nervous eye on the two angels as they spun close overhead.
“I heard you were a hit at Candace’s open house on Owl Street last Sunday. The offers she received on that home were much higher than I expected.” The woman presented her business card. “I want to hire you to do some open houses for me too. Do you have any Sundays free this month? I’ll pay double whatever Candace is paying.”
“She sold the house already?” Abby said feebly, trying to focus on the real estate agent in front of her and not on the giant angels above her.
“It’s under contract. Didn’t she tell you?”
Abby shook her head.
“Word is out that you create a high-class ambience, and that’s what selling a luxury vacation property is all about. I’ve got two listings that aren’t moving as fast as I’d like, and I need you.”
Amazing what people thought a musical instrument could do. “If I don’t have a wedding that conflicts, I’d love to.” The Christmas party circuit was well behind her for the year and she could use a few extra hours of work.
“Wonderful.”
“Are you a friend of Penelope’s or Natalie’s?” Abby asked, making conversation.
“Who? Oh, you must mean the brides. I’m not here for the wedding. You can’t exactly keep people out when you celebrate on the beach, now can you?” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I heard you were performing and I had to hear you for myself. Definitely worth it.”
“Thanks.” Abby wondered which part she’d heard—the part before the arrival of her distracting angelic visitors or the part after. If it was anytime during the past ten minutes, she was going to be in for a pleasant surprise when she heard what she could really do. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow when I have my calendar in front of me.”
As soon as the real estate agent left, Elle moved into her line of sight. “You have to kill yourself.”
Abby shaded her eyes. Maybe she was hallucinating. That would be nice. After all, everyone she’d ever mentioned her angel friends to seemed to think she was imagining things. Maybe she’d been wrong all these years and they’d been right. If so, her hallucinations were really getting bold these days. She cracked her knuckles. As long as Elle didn’t tell her to buy a gun and shoot up the hospital patients, she should be okay. She was still in control of her mind. Probably.
“Isn’t there some other way I can help? Why don’t I continue on here in my job of learning about humanity?”
“We’re all grateful there are angels like you who aren’t afraid to volunteer to live as humans, but we have another job for you now that’s even more important.”
“The bridge.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m more valuable to you here,” Abby said, hoping she sounded convincing.
“You’re no good to us here. You’re working at a hospital trying to do an angel’s job of comforting the sick and helping the dying make their transition. Harp therapy is a worthy occupation, but living as a human, your light is masked. You could help people much more effectively in angelic form.”
“No, thank you.”
“The attachment you feel to your life on earth is nothing compared to the love that will flow through you constantly when you join us. If I could only help you remember, you’d understand.”
“How convenient that there’s nothing you can do to make me remember.”
“Convenient?” Elle smoothed a wayward feather. “If you must know, your incarnation has been disappointing. You were supposed to choose a mother who would make your life difficult. You chose the wrong human to be born to.”
“I was born to a drug addict,” Abby said flatly.
“Who died,” Elle said. “Your grandparents provided a loving home.”
“And you’re blaming me for that?”
“This is more important than your personal feelings,” Elle snapped. “The other angels and I could retreat to the Realm instead of taking a chance that we’ll be stranded here on earth when the bridge does c
ollapse, but we haven’t. If you remembered who you really are you’d understand. The whole planet is in danger if the bridge collapses. Not just the angels, but all of humanity as well. If we’re not around to avert human suffering, the earth you care so much about will become a much darker place.”
“Darker, how?”
“2350 B.C.,” said Elle.
“536 A.D.,” said Sapphire.
“Thanks, that clears everything up.” It probably wasn’t such a smart idea to be sarcastic with two angels discussing her imminent death, but she couldn’t help herself. It was hard to take them seriously. And there’d been no smiting yet, so she’d decided—perhaps foolishly—that they’d rather talk than kill.
“In the year 536,” Sapphire explained, “what the Chinese called ‘a dragon in the sky’ hit the atmosphere.”
“A comet fragment,” Elle said. “Ever hear of Tunguska? 1908?”
“No,” Abby said.
“You can’t compare the two,” Sapphire said. “Tunguska was nothing.”
“True,” Elle agreed. “But remember how pretty the noctilucent clouds were, lighting up the night sky thousands of miles away?”
“As I was saying, there was an explosion,” Sapphire said. “In 536.”
“And in 2350 B.C.,” Elle interjected. “And in—”
Sapphire pulsed with impatience. “There were only a few of us here on earth, trapped on this side of the bridge after it failed, and we weren’t strong enough to deflect the debris.”
“You mean the debris from the comet, or are you saying the debris wasn’t from a comet at all, it was debris from the collapsing bridge?”
“The so-called ‘dragon’ crashed through the atmosphere and vaporized trees across half the continent,” Sapphire said, ignoring her question. “Everything caught fire. Soot blanketed the globe and blocked out the sun for a year. Crops died. People starved. Five years later the Justinian plague swept through Central Asia, Europe, Arabia, Africa…Half the world’s population was gone before we were able to fix the bridge and return to help.”
“You modern-day people are so arrogant,” Elle said, “thinking your forebears were ignorant and superstitious to fear comets and believe they were omens of bad luck. They remembered what you’ve forgotten—that comets and asteroids have destroyed civilizations. Asteroids and plagues and volcanoes and—”
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