She appeared startled by his answer, but curiosity blended with the fear in her eyes. “When I met you several days ago, you ... vanished from sight.” She chuckled nervously. “It was almost as if you were a—a spirit of some sort.”
He stared. It was what he’d feared about her. He didn’t verbalize the thought but made a sound that would have been a laugh if he were not so dumbfounded.
“Oh, that. It must have been a trick of the light.”
A feeble explanation to be sure, but he didn’t want her thinking he was a tree nymph or something worse. But why should he care what she thought? She was an illusion. Still, he couldn’t just ignore her until she went away, could he? What were the rules of etiquette for conversing with a hallucination?
She was eyeing him skeptically. “Truly? I could not find you anywhere.”
“I’m very fast.” The explanation rolled off his tongue without premeditation. Maybe he was beginning to relax. Now, if only he could enjoy his madness.
“I see,” she said thoughtfully. The fear faded from her expression. She appeared to be gaining confidence, looking down at him from her proud seat, and sparks flew into her eyes. “Then, if you are merely a man, you must tell me why you have chosen to trespass again. Perhaps you are a thief or a poacher. If you have heard we do not hang such misdoers at Brightings, do not think we pardon them. If that is your intent, you will not go unpunished.”
“No, I’m not—I don’t—I’m not a thief.”
“Then you won’t mind telling me your name.”
Hesitating only briefly, he told her.
“You are an American, aren’t you?” she accused.
He swallowed dryly and admitted it.
“Perhaps that explains the strangeness of your raiment,” she said softly, as if to herself. “Although even the Americans I have known do not dress themselves so.”
He glanced down at his jeans and sweatshirt which was emblazoned with three lightning bolts, one beneath the other, each boasting the title of his latest film, Assassin from Hell. He smiled briefly and apologetically, folding his arms across his chest.
And then the unreality of the situation fell over him again, shocking as an icy shower. The young lady glaring down at him was no ghost. Somehow—no, he could not think it; that was sheer insanity, but yes, yes, it had to be!—in some unbelievable way, he had stepped through a pair of trees and walked into the past. And if that were so, if he did not sit screaming in a padded cell somewhere, he could prevent this girl’s untimely death, for he knew her future.
But should he? Every movie he’d seen, every science fiction novel he had read on the subject during his fantasy-prone youth, had cautioned against changing the past. Step on a worm out of time, and you could wipe out an entire nation.
He didn’t care if he did. Looking at Darby now, seeing her lean forward to pat her horse’s neck while her suspicious gaze never left Simon’s face, he could only think: What if someone had warned Elena?
But Darby was speaking again. “Perhaps it would be prudent for you to come inside and explain yourself to my brother. He prefers to be apprised of strangers on our land.”
“What? Oh, no, I don’t think so.” One person from the past was enough for his brain to deal with. Two, if he counted the boy with the pail.
“If your intentions are as harmless as you say, there should be no objection.”
Things were spinning out of control. He had better get on with it before she called the police, or whatever law enforcement they had in these times.
“What’s today’s date?” he blurted.
She frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“The date,” he said, impatient to be done now that he had started. “You know—the month, the day, the year.”
“Surely you jest. And your tone offends me.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m in a hurry. Please answer my question. I—I hit my head and can’t remember.”
She glanced doubtfully at his unblemished forehead. In a skeptical voice she murmured, “It is the fifth day of April, eighteen-eighteen, and if you have truly injured your head, you should come inside. My housekeeper can attend to you.”
“That’s all right; it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
He stepped closer, lifting his hand toward her in a rush of earnestness. Although he meant only to touch the horse’s neck or his reins as if making some connection would make his next words more believable, she flinched. He lowered his arm but did not back away.
Fastening his gaze on hers, calling upon all his power as an actor to deliver his lines with sincerity and conviction, he said, “Darby, I’ve come here for a reason.” He grimaced at the pretentiousness of his words, but he was an actor, not a writer, and he pressed on, “I’ve come to warn you about something that will happen in”—he calculated, then said wonderingly—”in three days.”
Her eyes narrowed as she waited.
“You and your brother are planning a visit to an abandoned house somewhere in the neighborhood, aren’t you?”
“I know of no such plans.”
He sighed. “Well, if you haven’t thought of it yet, you will.”
“How can you possibly know that?’’ Her voice rang with anger.
He felt a corresponding irritation rising. Two hundred years he’d traveled to help her, and she wouldn’t listen to him.
“It doesn’t matter how I know. The point is, the two of you will go, and there’ll be a fire. You’ll both be trapped. Alexander will escape with a few burns, but you’ll die, Darby. That’s why I’m warning you. Don’t go to that house.”
“You are mad!”
Simon grabbed the horse’s reins. “Listen to me! I have no reason to tell you this except to save you!”
“Release me at once!” she cried. Her hand moved suddenly to seize her whip. Not taking time to unfurl it, she banged the handle against his head.
“Ow! Stop it!” He jerked the whip from her hands, half-pulling her from the saddle as he did so.
“Help!” she screamed. ‘‘Someone help me! Alexander!”
Dear God. They were far enough from the house that no one should be able to hear her, but if anyone looked out the window and saw them flailing at each other, he was a dead man. An interesting thought, that. Born in the twentieth century, executed in the nineteenth.
Ducking the open-palmed blows she rained on his skull, he said, “I’m sorry, Darby, for what I’m about to do,” And he pulled her from the saddle, clutched her around the waist, placed a hand over her mouth, and dragged her toward the trees.
Whether she wanted him to or not, he was going to rescue her.
She kicked and fought like a wildcat and about as effectively, her riding boots hammering bruises into his shins. Amid his pain he saw the stallion turn toward home. When the stableboys saw the riderless horse, they would search for her. Hopefully the servants wouldn’t look in the woods for awhile.
As soon as they were out of sight of the house, Simon released her mouth—she had bitten his palm in several places—and was rewarded with a piercing scream.
“Will you stop?” he yelled, wrapping both arms around her waist to keep her from wriggling away. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise! I just want to convince you I’m telling the truth!”
“Indeed?” She took a few heaving breaths. “You have an unusual way of showing it!”
“I did apologize, but you weren’t listening to what I said.”
“I heard every word,” she said acidly.
“But you didn’t believe me. I’m going to prove it to you.” I hope. Surely his trip wouldn’t be one-way. The wood swallows ...
He didn’t want to be marooned in the past. Days ago he had evidently gone back and forth between the centuries by walking under the ash trees. Surely he could return again to Elena’s home, and surely he could take Darby with him.
It would be no kindness to shatter her world with time travel. But once she saw the future Brightings and read the family history, she cou
ld not deny the evidence of her own eyes. There would be no untimely tragedy, no shriveling fire to transform a vital life into ashes. Such things should never happen, especially not to the young. Not to anyone.
Not to Elena and Tay, either, but no one had warned them.
Then, after he returned Darby to her own time, he’d chop down the ash trees. Easy passage between centuries couldn’t be a good thing. The world might tilt off its axis or something.
“And how do you propose to do that?” Darby snapped.
He released her waist carefully, grabbing her hand in a tight grip at the same time.
“Come with me. You’ll see.”
He tugged gently, then harder as her boots remained planted on the soil. She came with him grudgingly, her fiery eyes growing guarded and, he thought with a lifting of spirits, a little interested.
“What you are about to experience may seem frightening at first, but don’t be afraid,” he said, trying to sound encouraging. “Nothing will harm you.”
He put on his most appealing expression, lifting his brows, forcing an entreating twinkle into his eyes. It was the look even his critics called irresistibly charming, but she was having none of it, would not so much as meet his eyes.
They trudged on in silence for some time, he darting looks at her, she staring resolutely ahead, her mouth set in a thin, tight line.
“How far away is this ... proof?” she asked finally, in scornful tones.
“We’re almost there,” he answered, his heart pounding as he spotted the ash trees. What if he went through and nothing happened? A fitting end it would be for him, to be trapped in a world without television or movies. He had lost everything else; why not his profession, too?
He stopped before walking beneath the interlocking branches and contemplated her. Darby’s indignant eyes darkened to a stormy grey-blue, swimming with questions and caution.
“You have to understand,” he said at last, “I’ve never done this with anyone before. I don’t know if you’ll be able to go with me.”
“Go with you where?” she asked, looking at him dubiously, then glancing past his shoulder at the endless procession of trees.
“To the place where truth lives,” he whispered, thinking to make the future sound magical. Maybe she’d believe an enchantment had fallen over her and afterwards remember her experience as a dream. It might save her from madness.
“To the place where truth lives?” she whispered back, caught in his spell. But then her eyebrows lowered.
“Hold on tight,” he said quickly, before she could change her mind and back away. He pulled her toward the arch.
The disorientation, the dizziness, swept through him with nauseating strength. A hurling wind buffeted his hair backward. He pressed on, pushing against a force that willed him back. He squinted and lowered his head. Windy tears swept from his eyes. The maelstrom stung his face with salty pellets. How long was it, this arch? It hadn’t been like this before. And then, while his cries echoed Darby’s screams, her hand whipped backward from his; and he plunged to the leaf-covered earth on the other side of the trees, alone.
“No!” he shouted, struggling to his feet, looking around frantically for any signs of Darby. She was not on the other side of the trees; she did not run from him through the forest. She had not come through.
He leaned his hand against one of the ashes, shaking in reaction. His eyes burned with frustrated tears. He could not save her. He could not make this one little difference in all the tragedies of the world.
A sudden, feeble hope came to him then. Pushing away from the tree, he stared into the arch with resolution and licked his lips. He cupped his hands around his eyes and stepped back through the trees.
There was no hurricane this time, only that slight tilting of the ground he’d felt before. And there, sprawled in a dead faint at his feet, lay Darby. He knelt beside her immediately, his soul singing with relief and regret. Poor girl. What had he done to her?
He slipped his arm beneath her head and cradled her against him. There was not a flutter from her lashes when he did so. Her hat had fallen off, and golden brown hair trailed across her shoulders. Despite her faint, her cheeks glowed pink against ivory skin. Hesitantly, surprised at the rush of tenderness he felt for this unconscious creature, he patted her face lightly.
“Darby, wake up. It’s all right. You’re okay.”
Her lids opened slowly. Blinking several times, she lifted her gaze to his. Immediately, her eyes widened in fright, and she struggled from his arms to sit several feet away.
He was glad she did. Holding her made him uneasy.
“What are you?” she whispered. “A mighty wind pushed against me; then you vanished again, and it was no trick of the light.” She scanned his face, the silvery-blond hair falling disheveled against his neck, the words embedded on his shirt. With trembling lips, she asked, “Be you angel or demon?”
She was making him laugh. Before he could deny being one or the other—indeed, before he disclaimed his belief in the existence of either—the thought struck him forcefully: this is the way to convince her. She has given you the means of saving her.
Religion would be real to Darby. People in this age surely weren’t disillusioned, at least not to the extent of twenty-first century man. Darby would believe those old stories, the ones he hadn’t given credence to since he sat as a child in Sunday School.
Were he to start babbling about being from the future, now that she wouldn’t believe. But if he told her he had a message from God ... True inspiration!
He called upon his talent, gathering sincerity from every corner of his soul. Rising to his feet, he looked down at her kindly.
“Yes, Darby,” he said, his voice throbbing with truth. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you, but you’ve guessed it, and I can’t lie to you. I—I’m an angel.”
If Dell could hear him, how he would howl!
Darby’s mouth dropped, her eyes searching his. She wasn’t entirely convinced, he could see that.
Her gaze lowered. “But, your clothing—”
His cursed shirt; why hadn’t he thrown it out?
“Oh, this?” He laughed lightly. “It’s not mine. I had to borrow it after—after I waged war with some demons.”
That was right, wasn’t it? Angels fought wars. He thought he recalled something about Michael or Gabriel fighting with bad spirits; a dragon, if he wasn’t mistaken. Yes, he remembered being enraptured by that image as a boy.
“But ... you are an American, you said. I didn’t know angels were Americans.”
“Angels come in all nationalities,” he said heartily.
“And you have a first and last name. I thought angels had a single appellation.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, some do, but not all. The famous angels only need one name because everybody knows them. You’ve heard of Gabriel, of course, but have you ever heard of me?”
“I certainly have not.” She frowned. “And you say you have come to warn me ...”
“Yes. You can’t go to that house. What I’ve told you is true. You’ll die.”
She lowered her eyes and blinked rapidly, sorting through an inner confusion. “Why have you told me this? I know of no one else who has received such a warning.’’
His thoughts sped. “That’s because dealings between people and angels have to remain secret. You can’t ever tell anyone you saw me, or they might”—put you away— “um, become jealous of you, since you’re one of those who merit individual attention.”
“But why me? Why do I deserve notice?” Her expression grew pensive. “No one warned my father not to take the long walk that caused his heart to fail. My mother might be alive now had an angel stopped her from crossing an old footbridge when she visited her friend.”
Why, indeed? It was a question that had been nibbling at his own mind. How was it the passage linked him to this century, this time? Why not carry him back only a year, so he could warn Elena? What strange alignment of dimen
sions kept him returning to Darby again and again?
Were he superstitious, he could almost think the situation smacked of destiny. But life had taught him differently. There was no supernatural guidance, only random events, and sometimes, cause and effect.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Leave the reasons to God.”
He sounded as mysterious as his dotty old Sunday School teacher had when one of the children asked a question she couldn’t answer.
Uncertainty warred with hope in her eyes. “If you truly are an angel,” she said slowly, “can you do something to prove yourself to me?”
“A miracle, you mean?” He forced sternness into his voice. “Wasn’t vanishing through the trees enough for you?”
She bowed her head. “I’m sorry. Yes, of course it was.”
Sunlight laced through the trees, kissing the top of her head with crimson sparks. Pity pierced him. She was struggling so hard to believe, and no wonder. To think how he appeared to her—hair uncombed, face unshaven, clothes ragged. He must look like a bum.
Slipping a hand into his back pocket, he pulled out his Walkman, turned it on, and held it to his ear, hoping time travel hadn’t affected the batteries. He grinned at the sound of joyous strings, turned it off, then pulled her to her feet and draped the earphones over her head—not without a tussle, because plainly she didn’t trust him to touch her.
“Listen, Darby,” he whispered. “Listen to the music of heaven.”
He pushed the on button and thanked himself for craving Baroque music today and not heavy metal; otherwise, she would think he was from hell.
At the first sounds, her hands flew to her ears, and she jerked at the headphones as if to fling them away. Immediately he covered her fingers, stilling them, forcing her to listen. Gradually her fright faded to wonder, and the eyes that met his brimmed with delight and tears.
“Vivaldi?” she breathed. “Vivaldi is played in heaven?”
“Naturally. You know The Four Seasons?”
“I have heard it performed in London, but never so beautifully as this. Oh, how wonderful.”
He smiled and lowered his fingers, but she kept hers over her ears, as if dropping her hands would take away the magical sounds. She stood that way for a long time, her expression intent and faraway, lost in the music.
Darby's Angel Page 2