“The problem came when you were nine, ten, eleven years old. You should have outgrown it by then. After what happened to your mother…”
Grams was getting sidetracked. “What stories, Grams?”
“Never mind.”
“Grams!”
“Does it really matter?”
“Yes!” So much for not sounding too eager. She hoped she hadn’t just screwed her chances of getting any helpful information out of her, because it felt like she might actually be on the verge of getting an answer instead of a lecture.
Her grandmother sighed. “You seemed to believe you lived with a family of angels.”
Abby almost laughed. This was the big, terrible secret her grandmother never wanted to talk about? That she thought she lived with angels? Of course she thought she lived with angels. She lived with angels now. She’d always been able to see angels, as far back as she could remember. Which meant she must have been able to see them even when she was a child. Which explained the stories.
Unless the real explanation was that her younger self was babbling about a previous incarnation in another world that she could remember at age three and still talked about at age ten, but had since forgotten? That was Elle and Sapphire’s take on it. It certainly wasn’t her grandmother’s.
“Did I ever say I was an angel?”
“I’m sure I don’t remember.”
“Please, Grams, try.”
More silence. Abby waited patiently.
“Seeing your mother unconscious from drugs, maybe even seeing her dead…We hoped you’d forget what you’d seen. It was a mercy you were too young to understand what was going on. We thought you’d forgotten all about it.”
“I did forget.”
“It’s better that way. It was such a relief when you stopped talking about your mother and those fanciful angels.”
“But what did I say about them? Aside from the fact that I lived with them?”
“Who can remember? It was all childish nonsense.” Her grandmother sighed again—a feeble, put-upon sigh. “You can come see for yourself. We saved some of your things in the attic.”
* * *
“I need to talk to you.”
Gwynne turned at the urgency in Abby’s voice. It was after midnight and the wedding was winding down, and Abby could have gone home a long time ago, but hadn’t, because it was her friend’s wedding, after all, not some stranger’s.
“How are you feeling?” Gwynne asked.
Abby’s fainting had her worried, but after a short break, Abby had returned to her harp as if nothing had happened, as if she wasn’t the least bit wigged out. She’d even performed with the two brides and another woman in some kind of college band reunion, and to look at her, all jazzed and flinging her arms around like a crazed rock star whenever her hands left the strings, you’d never guess she had anything on her mind other than the music.
“Do you want to walk on the beach?” Abby asked.
“Sure.” She was done with her serving and cleanup duties. All she had left to do was help Abby carry her dragon harp and her amp and what all back to the minivan. “What about your stuff?”
“Ramona said she’d keep an eye on it.” Abby took Gwynne’s elbow and pulled her away from the tent and the guests who spilled onto the beach. She stepped out of her dressy, impractical heels and shivered.
“Are you cold? I have a sweatshirt in my beach bag that I left in your van, if you want to borrow it.”
“Will it fit?”
“We’ll find out.”
They changed direction, away from the beach. When they reached the van, Abby slipped Gwynne’s hooded, kangaroo-pocket sweatshirt on over her dress and Gwynne tried not to think about how good it felt to see her wearing it. Before her personal energy field could become any more protective, Gwynne turned away and rummaged in her bag for the flyers and stapler and roll of duct tape she took with her everywhere she went, just in case, because there were always good places to post her flyers, which currently featured a great photo of her calico kitten posing with the two rabbits, looking all Dr. Doolittle and peace on earth, which to tell the truth was not exactly the normal state of affairs at her place.
“I liked your band,” Gwynne said with her head practically inside her bag. “Interesting instrumental mix.”
“Penelope wanted to start a chamber ensemble—flute and harp and a couple other strings—but I was an archaeology major and I thought it would be more fun to have drums, because flute and drums are the oldest instruments. Not counting sticks. Which we also had. We also had a gourd rattle at one point.”
Gwynne upended her bag and dumped the contents onto the seat. “Did I see sticks?”
“You know, hitting two sticks together. It’s believed to be the oldest instrument if you don’t count the human voice.”
Oh yeah, the drumsticks they were high-fiving each other with.
“I thought it would be fun to teach myself the lyre,” Abby continued, “but they’re not easy to find, so Penelope researched it and said what would be really cool would be if I played a hunter’s bow like the cavemen, but I said, ‘What the crap am I going to do with a one-stringed instrument?’ and then Nat jumped in and volunteered to learn because she was always trying to impress Penelope and she didn’t care that she was being obvious.”
“Seems like it worked out,” Gwynne said.
“Their relationship, yeah. The musical cave bow, no. We never could get it to stay in tune and even when it was in tune, it sounded…not good. The rest of it, though—it was a great band. I miss it.”
They headed back to the beach and Gwynne scouted for potential flyer locations along the way. It didn’t take long before they reached a lifeguard stand dragged up beyond the high tide line and tipped upside down for the night. Gwynne stuck a flyer on it and taped it down so it wouldn’t flap in the wind. Some of the lifeguards would remove her flyers in the morning, but not all of them. It was worth a shot.
“Look how cute Peter is with his head resting on his paws,” she told Abby. “Who could resist?”
It was hard to make out the photo in the dark, so Abby took an extra flyer from her hands to get a better look. “Which one is he?”
“The black rabbit.”
“He is cute,” she agreed. “I can’t wait to meet him tomorrow at the birthday party.”
“Do you want to adopt him? He’s really sweet.”
Abby handed the flyer back. “Megan McLaren has met your rabbits, right?”
Uh-oh. Any mention of Megan in the same sentence with the word rabbits was not a good sign.
“Not these ones,” Gwynne assured her.
“Huh.”
“Why?” she asked innocently. Not so innocently. Oh, come on, what did Meg say about her rabbits this time?
“Because every time she walks by your desk and sees the photos of your rabbits she gets this look on her face.”
“What kind of look?”
Abby sounded apologetic. “I think she’s cringing.”
Gwynne waved her hands dismissively, the roll of duct tape bouncing around her wrist. “Meg’s not a rabbit person.”
“Apparently not.”
“But you might be.”
Abby gave her an understanding smile as she slowly shook her head. Gwynne stumbled in the sand. That smile was dangerous.
She rolled her flyers into a tighter tube. “You could adopt a different rabbit if you don’t like these. I’m always fostering new ones, and it’ll get worse after Easter—that’s always a busy time of year.”
Abby kept shaking her head. “Where do they come from?”
“Oh, here and there,” Gwynne said vaguely.
Was it her imagination, or was Abby standing closer? She’d switched her high heels to her outside hand as they walked side by side, and her empty hand swung freely between them, close enough to accidentally brush against Gwynne’s leg. Not that there was any accidental brushing going on. But there could be. The possibility was all sh
e could think of. She swore she could feel the pressure of the space between them, aura pushing against aura.
“Why don’t you keep them?” Abby asked. “Your rabbits. If you love them so much.”
“I’d like to, believe me, but I can’t keep every abandoned rabbit who comes in my door. It’s the only way to keep the influx under control. I’m a regular rabbit homing signal.”
“So you’re completely blameless. Rabbits mysteriously show up at your door.”
“Kind of like you and all your harps,” Gwynne retorted.
Abby’s path drifted off-center, widening the distance between them. Good. Distance would lessen the tingling that threatened to overwhelm her senses. The high heels were switched to her other hand, adding a physical obstacle in that empty space between them.
“They call out to me and I can’t say no,” Abby said.
“I can say no.”
“Oh, suck it up and admit you can’t.”
Gwynne thrust the flyers toward her and unrolled them so Abby could see and stabbed her finger at the words Free to Good Home. It killed her to look at those words. She hated saying goodbye, but she made herself do it over and over again. She’d love to keep every single one of her bunnies and the occasional cat or guinea pig, but that wouldn’t be healthy—for her or for the animals. They were better off living in homes that weren’t overrun by furry creatures, where they could each be the center of attention.
“I can,” Gwynne insisted. “I give them away.”
Abby gently relieved her of the flyers and rolled them up, her movements so unnaturally calm and deliberate that Gwynne got the feeling she was being treated like a crazy person waving a knife around. She wasn’t that bad, was she? Maybe she got a teensy bit emotional about the rabbit situation, but it was under control. So sue her.
“I’m sure it’s not easy to give them away,” Abby said.
“It’s not.”
“You could give them to the animal shelter,” Abby suggested.
Gwynne frowned at her. “Bunny killers.”
“Not that you have an opinion or anything.”
“The people at the shelter do their best, but they always have more rabbits than they can find homes for.”
Abby’s lips flattened with something that looked an awful lot like pity. “You’re going to hate me for saying this, but if there are too many of them…”
“They didn’t ask to be born.” Her throat tightened at the thought of all the death she’d seen all too recently, and her voice became rough. “The least we can do is try to give them a good life.”
Abby slid the roll of duct tape off Gwynne’s wrist and taped a flyer to the next lifeguard stand. “You’re a good person.”
I’m not, Gwynne wanted to say, but then Abby would ask why, and it was better if she didn’t. And hadn’t they been over this already? Abby thought Gwynne was a good person for not hating her ex, Megan thought she was a good person because Megan saw the best in everyone, and Dara thought she was a good person because Dara was blind—a judgment that proved right there that Gwynne was no Mother Teresa.
They walked some more in silence, the distant sounds of partying from the remaining wedding guests lost in the crash of waves. Abby drifted closer, seemingly drawn like a magnet to Gwynne’s hastily erected force field that should, if this were Star Trek, have kept her at bay. Couldn’t she tell Gwynne was poor company? Didn’t she care? Or maybe she simply wasn’t aware that she was standing in Gwynne’s space, dangling her high heels by their skimpy straps an inch from Gwynne’s thigh, swinging her arm with a motion that would have been hypnotic if her footwear weren’t so dangerously close to impaling a body part. Her face, after all, was turned away, toward the dark ocean. She could be completely oblivious.
Great, Gwynne. Walk a little closer to her, why don’t you? And be sure to tell yourself that’s not what you’re doing.
“I wanted to ask you…” Abby’s voice was hesitant, directed toward the horizon.
“Yes?” She’d almost forgotten that Abby invited her out here to talk.
“You can see auras, right?”
Gwynne groaned. Auras. Abby knew she didn’t do energy healing anymore and ought to know she didn’t like talking about this stuff. Except how could she know the topic was on Gwynne’s do-not-discuss list when Gwynne went and opened her mouth about seeing the unseen? She’d never been particularly good at restraining her natural tendency to be a blabbermouth, and she hated hearing Abby question her own sanity, so it had slipped out.
“What do you want to know?”
“Is there anything unusual about my aura?”
“Like what?” she said carefully.
“So it’s not obvious? Nothing jumps out at you?”
Besides how beautiful her aura was? Too many people’s auras were muddy, but Abby’s was bright and clear, the colors lit from within.
“Can’t you see auras yourself?” If she could see angels…
“Sometimes,” Abby said. “Not that well. Not well enough to know if my aura looks normal.”
Normal. What was normal? “Everyone’s aura is different. It’s the same structure, but it’s individual. Besides, it changes with your health and your emotions and your stress level.” Gwynne sighed. There was something Abby wasn’t telling her, some question she was building up to. She blocked Abby’s path and faced her full-on. “What do you really want to know?”
Abby reluctantly met her gaze. “If you see anything weird about me on the energetic level.”
Weird. Normal. Unusual. How many words was Abby going to come up with to ask her the same vague question?
“The information’s not right there on the surface,” Gwynne said. “I’d have to take a closer look to see anything.” Like she wasn’t tempted to take a closer look every time they were in the same room together. But she wasn’t going to admit that she already knew exactly what her aura looked like. “You have to get into the right mindset. It’s like figuring out what ingredients go into a morning glory muffin. You have to savor it to decide—is that apple I taste, or pear?”
Abby swept her hands in tumbling, impatient circles, motioning that she got the point and could they please get on with it. “Can you look at it?”
It wouldn’t be hard to take another look and make her happy. Not hard at all. She stopped walking and stared at her, let her eyes lose focus. Abby’s inner light blazed in the darkness. At her core was a thin strand of silver-white light, and looking into it was like falling into a bottomless well that fractured into a kaleidoscope of mesmerizing, ever-changing colors. Her aura wasn’t normal, but she wouldn’t call it weird. It was unique.
“You have more colors. Really beautiful ones that blend into all these amazing shades.” She’d never noticed quite how many different colors Abby had. She’d never allowed herself to go this deep. The sheer complexity of it…the sheer beauty of it…“You have…so…many…colors.” Her words slowed as she was drawn further in. “That must be why—” She didn’t finish her sentence aloud. Why I’m so fascinated by you.
Abby’s gaze was steady and serious, waiting for more. Gwynne stared back, lost in the swirling vortex of color.
“That must be why…” Abby prompted with a smile of encouragement.
That smile. It sparkled in her eyes with an intimacy that didn’t belong there, a closeness they didn’t have, a connection Gwynne had been hoping for even though it was too soon. Abby leaned toward her and Gwynne’s chest warmed with the certainty that Abby was going to touch her. Brush her arm. Take her hand. Not let go. Her throat constricted. Abby’s smile deepened, like she could tell that all rational-sounding responses had fled Gwynne’s brain and found it adorable.
Gwynne swayed closer, only marginally aware of what her body was doing, feeling like she was going to…what? Kiss her? Could she? Could she really kiss her? She could. She had to. Abby’s smile faded and her gaze fixated on Gwynne’s mouth. Gwynne’s lips felt heavy with need. She really was going to—
/> A flash of fluttering angel wings dive-bombed the space between them, momentarily blinding her before vanishing. The intrusion snapped her out of her trance and she pulled out of her collision course with Abby’s mouth.
Abby gave a sharp shake of her head. Her chest lifted with a deep intake of breath. She looked rattled. “Remember that angel you saw talking to me earlier?”
Oh, no. Abby was going to pretend nothing happened. That time hadn’t stood still before they were pointlessly interrupted. That their friendship hadn’t been about to change. How could she do that? She must have felt something. Or had Gwynne imagined that moment of connection, that feeling of being on the verge of something important?
Abby shot a furtive glance at the spot where their dive-bombing guest had disappeared. “This is going to sound bizarre, but she claims I’m an angel born into human form.”
“What?” Gwynne’s throat clenched with irritation at the interfering ways of angelkind, all thoughts of kissing her—and of not kissing her—pushed aside. Of all the ridiculous, dangerous things to tell someone…
“I don’t know whether to believe her,” Abby continued. “How would I know if she’s right?”
Now Abby’s insistent curiosity about her aura made sense. If she were an ang—
Except she wasn’t. But if she were, Gwynne might be able to detect it.
“You look like a human being to me,” Gwynne said, making her voice as firm as possible. The angel’s claim had to be a mistake. It had to be. “It’s not an angel’s aura.”
As if to prove her point, Abby’s aura fluctuated again, and in that moment it reminded her of her sister’s very human aura, which used to be the bright vibrant green of young grass shoots, back before Heather messed with it.
Crap. Now she was thinking of Heather again, remembering how they had chased each other through the weedy lawn that thirteen-year-old Gwynne was supposed to be mowing with their impossibly heavy mower because her father had moved out. Gwynne had danced away from her sister, hiding behind a tree, doing a fake-out, then racing to the other end of the yard, slowing at the end to let Heather catch up, then slowing even more to let herself get tagged.
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