The Day the Angels Fell

by Shawn Smucker

  Mr. Tennin spoke from the shadows. “I’ll drive you down. I don’t mind.”

  I shuddered. The lamb finished its bottle and I placed it up on the shelf.

  “There you go, boy,” my dad said. “There’s your ride. Thanks, Mr. Tennin.”

  I didn’t know what to say. For once I wished that Mr. Jinn would come walking in and interrupt us like he always did. I could go with him and he would probably—maybe—keep me safe from the Amarok. But I didn’t have much choice. I didn’t trust going in the dark all the way to Abra’s house. I’d have to let Mr. Tennin give me a ride.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “When do you want to go, Sam?” he asked.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Okay.” He turned to me with a large smile. “Let’s go now.”

  23

  I FIGHT WITH MY TIE AS BEST I CAN, and it doesn’t feel like a dress rehearsal anymore—this is the real deal. Somehow I manage not to strangle myself in the process, and it is crooked and a little lumpy, but no one will notice. That’s what I tell myself. No one will notice the crooked tie of an old man, even if he is attending the funeral of his last friend. Perhaps they will simply see it as a sign of my profound grief. I make my way downstairs.

  Dress shoes have always put me in a bad mood. Maybe that’s why I stopped going to church some years back. I hated wearing those black shoes. I despised shining them, the smell of the shoe polish, and the way it got all over my hands. They pinched my heels and grated against my bony ankles, and they never felt quite right. I was always aware of them, which is perhaps the worst thing that can ever be said about a shoe. A good shoe isn’t even there. You completely forget about it.

  Anyway, I walk down the stairs in my pinching dress shoes and am surprised to hear a knock at the door. There’s Caleb, dressed up and ready to go to the funeral. I hadn’t actually expected him to show up. I look past him, out toward the barn, and his father is in the car, waiting to drive us. I nod at Caleb.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Hi,” he says. That’s it. His one-word response is almost as surprising as the fact that he showed up, on time.

  “Did you bring your smoke bombs?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “And this. Can you carry this for me?” I hand him the old box. “It’s very fragile. You’ll have to be careful.”

  “Okay,” he says, and I wonder who has possessed the body of this boy who used to wield his words like weapons.

  “Okay,” I say. “Well, let’s go.”

  No one talks in the car. In my experience, no one ever talks in the car on the way to a funeral. What is there to say in the face of death? What is there to say when we are forced to remember that we have come from dust, and to dust we shall return?

  “Careful,” I say to the boy holding the box as we hit a bump on Kincade Road. It’s paved now, the road to town, and Jerry drives faster than we ever drove down that straight stretch. The stones used to jump up and bite the bottom of the car, but now the only sound I hear as we fly down the road is that constant whirring. It reminds me of the river, or of eternity.

  We get close to town and pass the park where they still set up the fair every year. The old dusty paths have been paved, and I don’t think the carnies are allowed to camp out at the bottom of the hill anymore. The Darkness seems less, or at least it seemed less the last time I was at the fair, fifteen years ago or so. But it’s still too early in the summer for the fair, and the park is abandoned.

  The town comes up Kincade Road a little farther than it used to, but other than that not much has changed. A few of the restaurant names are different, and the houses look tired, but Pelle’s Antiques is still there at the crossroads, run by his grandson, if you can believe that, who is not much younger than me. I wonder if that old back room is still there. I wonder what they ever did with that table the old woman scribbled on.

  Find the Tree of Life.

  Jerry says he will wait in the car.

  “I’m not a fan of funerals,” he says, looking away awkwardly because he realizes the obvious nature of his words. Who is a fan of funerals? Caleb and I walk toward the church, and there are a few dozen other people making their way through the parking lot. They wear black and carry a heavy burden on their shoulders, and it is strange for me to think that I could have perhaps stopped all of this from happening with the Tree of Life. All of this death. All of these heavy burdens.

  What would these people say to me if they knew I could have stopped death in its tracks?

  The boy carries the box, the dust leaving marks on his shirt and his clip-on tie and the lap area of his black dress pants. The contents rattle around inside as he walks, and I know he is desperate to look inside. I stop him before we get too close to other people.

  “This is what I need you to do,” I say, then whisper in his ear.

  He shrugs. “No big deal. But where should I go after I do it?”

  “Hide somewhere,” I say. “Or go out and get in your father’s car. But don’t leave without me. I don’t have any other way of getting home.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  I hold the dusty box on my lap and sit at the front right-hand side of the church. The preacher is a tall man with blond hair and kind green eyes. I have never seen him before, but that doesn’t surprise me since I rarely leave the house—I just don’t have much desire to get out. I go into town when I must. The only person I considered looking up was Abra, but after so many years of not being in touch, picking up the phone and calling her felt awkward, or somehow inappropriate. And now, well, that’s gone.

  The preacher seems to have been personally acquainted with the deceased, and emotion keeps leaking into his voice while he talks. The church is not as full as I thought it would be, but of course we are old now, and nearly everyone we knew growing up has left. She has a family, which accounts for most of the people there. I look around as the preacher’s voice trips and skips, and I wonder who, if anyone, will come to my funeral. I can’t think of a single person.

  The casket is open at the front of the church, and some people walked by it before the service began, but I didn’t have the heart. I didn’t think I was ready to see her. Not yet. I grip the box tighter on my lap, and I shake it slightly to make sure the things are all still inside. The woman beside me gives me a nasty look for making so much noise. Some people.

  The preacher keeps talking, and his voice fills in the empty spaces of the room. I look for her husband, and I see him sitting at the very front, to the right of the aisle. I can’t remember his name for sure, but I think it might be John. Or Simon.

  My heart starts to race, and I wonder if maybe the plan I came up with wasn’t the best idea. Maybe I should have simply spoken with her husband, asked permission. Maybe he wouldn’t have minded. But as I decide to walk out, find Caleb, and abort the plan, I hear the ear-piercing sound of the fire alarm going off. I sigh. Too late.

  The people look around nervously at each other the way people always do when a fire alarm first goes off. Everyone wonders if it is just a drill, if it’s a sound that can be overlooked. Lights flash brightly in the church, and the pastor looks around uncertainly. Just as he is about to reassure everyone that they can stay where they are for the time being, smoke pours in over the balcony and billows through the back doors.

  Someone screams.

  Everyone stands together, and the pastor tries to guide them with his voice, tries to calm them, but they are frantic, as most people are when facing death. Panic and pushing and shouting. Soon the smoke is thicker, but it is settling into an empty sanctuary. Everyone except for me has left.

  I walk over to her coffin, and there she is.

  Abra.

  She is still as beautiful as I remember, though I haven’t seen her for years. Her hair is white, the color of frost, and her skin, though old, still holds something of her youth. Her nose reminds me of how stubborn she could be, and I wish I could look into her eyes again, see those spar
ks fly during a disagreement or the way they softened in friendship.

  Our last encounter is one I’d rather forget, one full of questions and doubt. I felt she had forgotten me, and perhaps she had, but it was no excuse for the things I said. She only stood there and took it, and we parted with a painful silence. Now there is only this: her closed eyes, her folded hands, and me, wishing there was a way to follow after her.

  I pull back the blanket that lines the coffin and place the box inside with her. Where it belongs.

  Outside the church, the crowd mills around. Their voices are full of chatter, and everyone wants to know what’s going on, but as the minutes pass their curiosity dies down and they form small groups of people, friends and family. They make small talk—the weather, the town, the baseball season. They fill the morning with words because the silence is unbearable.

  I decide suddenly that I have had enough. I got what I came for—a last view of Abra and one last gift from me to her. I weave my way through the crowd, trying not to push my cane down on anyone’s toes.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder. The pressure of fingertips. I turn around.

  “Excuse me, are you Samuel Chambers?”

  It’s Abra’s husband.

  I nod, wordless, expecting to be charged (and rightly so) with disturbing her final peace. What right did I have to put things in her coffin, objects that would remain beside her body for decades to come? But he does not say what I expect. In fact, he hands me a small box of his own, and he gives me a sad smile.

  “This is from Abra,” he says. “She wanted you to have it.”

  I nod again, clear my throat to speak, but find there are no words waiting to come out. So I turn and walk away, wishing I would have asked him for his name.

  I get to the car and climb in. “Thank you, Caleb.”

  “Sure,” he says. “What’s that?”

  I look down at the box again. “I’m not sure,” I say. “I haven’t looked inside yet.”

  Jerry turns on the car and drives away.

  24

  I FOLLOWED MR. TENNIN out to his car, and something inside me was saying, “Run!” But I didn’t listen. I crawled into the passenger seat of his old black car, and he started it up. The engine rolled over a bunch of times before catching, and it sputtered and spat before settling into a rhythm.

  “There we go,” Mr. Tennin said in his soft voice. He put the car in reverse, backed out of his space in the grass beside the barn, and drove down the lane toward the road.

  I kept reminding myself that it would only take four or five minutes to get to Abra’s house, and I resolved to say as little as possible. I didn’t know how I’d answer if he asked me about the box with the blade and the atlas and the articles. Who else would have it? But then I remembered Mr. Jinn sneaking around Mr. Tennin’s room and even going up into the attic. Maybe Mr. Tennin knew that Mr. Jinn was spying on him. If he did, he probably thought that Mr. Jinn stole the box, which put me in the clear.

  I stared hard out my window and into the empty darkness of Abra’s family’s pastureland. I knew the cows would all be in the barn for the night, but still I peered into the shadows, thinking about the Amarok. I wondered if I would be safe walking from the driveway to the house. I imagined it jumping on top of the car and ripping through the roof, tearing Mr. Tennin and me to shreds.

  As we got to Abra’s long lane, Mr. Tennin pulled the car off to the side of the road so that two of the tires were in the grass. Then he turned off the car. It was so dark I could barely see his face. I felt for the door handle, getting ready to yank the door open and run for my life.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” he said quietly. “You know as well as I do that it isn’t safe out there tonight. Not for anyone.”

  He looked at me in the darkness, and I knew that he knew everything. He knew what was going on with the Tree. He knew the Amarok was on the loose. He knew about Mr. Jinn and probably even about the box stashed in an old closet in the empty side of Abra’s house.

  “What do you know?” I asked, trying to stay calm. I surprised myself with how steady my voice came out.

  “I know much more than you do, so that’s a start,” he said. He continued with something like reluctance. “I know Mr. Jinn is searching for the Tree of Life. I know you would like to find it in order to bring your mother back from the dead. I know the Tree is on your property because of the sacrifice your mother made, and because of the presence of an honorable, dead tree. I found the remains of three large, dead dogs in the woods, so the time is almost here. Perhaps worst of all, I’ve seen the shadow of the Amarok.” He paused. “There are many other things that I think I know but am unsure of. I’ll spare you all my guesses.”

  His straightforward answer came out full of truth. He didn’t seem worried at all by what I might do with the information. For the first time in my life I realized the power of truth and of truth telling, how knowing and telling the truth will always give you the upper hand over someone who is being malicious or deceitful or even simply withholding information. But I was too afraid to tell the truth. It’s always one fear or another that makes us lie.

  “I have the Tree, but I don’t want it only to bring my mother back,” I lied. I felt that old darkness stir inside me.

  “If you don’t want it,” he said in a kind voice, “give it to me.”

  Even though his words were kind, they also held power, a terrible power that I feared almost enough to rival my fear of the Amarok, and my hand moved to the door handle again. His words held the power of truth.

  “I can’t do that,” I said. “I’ve promised it to someone else in exchange for . . . something. But I’ll . . . I’ll . . . Listen, I can make a trade with you if you’ll help me.”

  “How can you offer it to me if you have already offered it to someone else?”

  “I haven’t offered it to anyone,” I said, working hard to assemble these intricate layers of lies. “What I meant was that I need to have the Tree in order to fulfill my promise, but I don’t have to give it to them. I can still give it to you and make good on my promise to them.”

  Where were all of these lies coming from? I couldn’t figure it out. I wasn’t a liar by nature, but there I was, scrambling to create some kind of reality in which Mr. Tennin would help me find the other three things I needed.

  He didn’t say anything, but I knew he was waiting to hear the terms.

  “If you tell me about the stone, the water, and the sunlight, and help me find them, I’ll give you the Tree.”

  He didn’t seem surprised that I knew about those items required to grow the Tree, and that surprised me.

  “Why would I give you what the Tree needs to grow? And why would you even want them unless you wanted to keep the Tree for yourself?”

  I was done. I couldn’t come up with anything. My lies had reached that natural end point where they collapse in on each other and begin to contradict every obvious bit of sense.

  “I can’t explain it to you now,” I said. “But if you help me find those things, I’ll give you the Tree. I promise.”

  I reasoned with myself that if he helped me do those things, I could somehow take a piece of the Tree, anything that would help me in bringing my mother back. I no longer even factored in that I didn’t have the Tree to give, or that I told Mr. Jinn I’d give it to him first. In that moment the only important thing was for Mr. Tennin to tell me about the stone, the water, and the sunlight.

  “I don’t want you to misunderstand me,” he said slowly in a kind voice. “I know you’re not telling me the truth, or at least not all of it. I don’t think you actually have the Tree. But I think you will lead me to it one way or another, willing or not. So I will help you. But I’m warning you with a reminder of your own words—you have promised the Tree to me. You might be surprised at how seriously your oaths are taken, if not by you, at least by others. Even by the Tree itself.”

  I sat there in his car, barely breathing.

  “I’ll tell you a
bout each item one at a time. Once you find the item, come to me and I’ll tell you about the next one. Understand?”

  I nodded.

  “First, the stone.” He paused as if still considering whether or not he wanted to help me. But then he continued. “The stone is the first item. If the Tree represents life, the stone represents death. The stone is the foundation that all of the other objects build upon. Without it, the Tree will die quickly.”

  “What is it? Where can I find it?”

  “The stone is not just a rock. It will be in the form of a vessel. Something that can hold the other items.”

  Immediately I thought of the bowl the old ladies had given to the man when we first saw them in the Darkness of the fairgrounds.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You know where it is?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do not go by yourself.”

  I nodded. “Because of the Amarok?” I asked quietly. “Because of the Amarok controlled by Mr. Jinn?”

  Mr. Tennin gave a grim smile. “Mr. Jinn does not control the Amarok,” he said, and his voice was whimsical. It was his storytelling voice. “He may have called it here, but the Amarok is controlled by no one. By no thing. Enemies of Good are almost always enemies of each other, as allies of Good are almost always allies of each other. The Amarok is its own, and if the Amarok decides to devour Mr. Jinn, well, Mr. Jinn would have a fight on his hands.”

  He turned on the car, turned on the headlights, and drove up Abra’s lane. I looked at him for a moment. He was nothing like what I expected an angel to look like. Could it be possible? Could he and Jinn be the cherubim who had been there for the creation of the world? Could they have seen when it all first fell?

  “Thank you,” I said, getting out of the car.

  He nodded his bald head at me in the darkness. “Make sure you get a ride home,” he said.

  When Abra and I snuck into the empty side of the house and entered the upstairs bedroom where we had last hidden the duffel bag, I could tell she had spent a lot of time in there that afternoon. I stared around the room in astonishment, and she gave me a sheepish grin.