Ordinary Angels

by India Drummond

  “A road trip?”

  “Yeah, oh…I guess you haven’t done that before? We get in the car and drive a couple of hours out past Sacramento, and we probably eat a lot of junk food, or at least I will, you don’t have to. And we sing along with the radio and play car games.” God. I’m too dumb for words, she thought. Car games? What am I? Eight years old?

  A huge smile spread over Alexander’s face. “That sounds wonderful. I will even eat junk food.”

  Zoë happily relaxed. The tension that had sprung up between them the night before melted away, and today they were going to have fun together, like a normal couple. The phrase “normal couple” stuck in her head, but she dismissed the unease it brought. She’d dated guys of different races, religions, and a couple guys back in college from different countries, so different species shouldn’t be that hard, she told herself.

  All she had to do was stay open-minded and be patient with the differences when they came up, as they would. Like, oh, the fact that he had never taken a road trip before, and didn’t have to eat, or go to the bathroom. The thought reminded her she needed to do just that, so she excused herself. Can’t start a road trip with a full bladder.

  She would have to deal with these issues, but not at once, and not right this minute. For now she wanted to have a pleasant day, and when she arrived in Lament, do something to help Henry. Nothing could let her lose sight of the real reason she was doing this: her dear friend, who faced a terrible and unfair judgment. The idea of it seemed so surreal that she wrapped her head around it with difficulty, but Henry, on the other hand, was real and important, and she missed him.

  Emerging from the bathroom she said, “I’m ready when you are.” She grabbed her purse, and Alexander carried her rucksack to the car. He agreed to help her navigate once they got past Sacramento and into the smaller back-roads of the California countryside. As she was putting the car in gear she said, “Alexander, we’re okay then?”

  He smiled. “We are okay.” He leaned over and kissed her.

  So many questions, and she didn’t want to ask any of them. Not now, not when she was relaxed and having a good time, even if doubt tinged the edges of her day. Determined to enjoy the moment, she headed for the highway.

  The first half of the trip was easy and fun, with little in the way of navigation required because Zoë knew how to get to Sacramento. Alexander asked normal questions, like any new boyfriend would about her life and opinions and places she’d always wanted to go. The conversation turned to her family, and she simply said her father had died a long time ago, and her mother had walked out when she was young. An uncomfortable silence followed that bit of news, so Zoë filled it by changing the subject, telling Alexander about Simone’s potentially disastrous date with Dustin Bittner. She tried not to remind herself at least Simone and Dustin were the same species.

  After the first hour, Zoë became acutely aware she’d done most of the talking. “So, um, if you’re over two hundred years old, how come you have never been on a road trip before, and don’t know how to make coffee?”

  She stole a glance at him and saw him grin. “Not all of my years in the mortal timeline have been spent doing human things. Until recently, I have seen little of humanity up close.” He paused. “Before I came here, I was advised to keep my distance, because humans, they told me, were not capable of taking in experiences outside your own narrow view.”

  Zoë would have taken offense, but for most people, that assessment was right on the money. “But you didn’t keep your distance.” She blushed and remembered exactly how little distance there had been between them last night. When he didn’t answer, she said, “Alexander, how much trouble are you in? Are you going to get in deeper over me too? About…last night?”

  “Do you regret our intimacy?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “No, Alexander. I like you. And, well, yeah, I like you. I just don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

  He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Neither do I.”

  “Is it common, I mean, for angels and humans to…be together?” She would have rolled her eyes at her fumbling if she had thought he wouldn’t see it.

  “No.”

  Well, that’s simple. “So.” She hesitated. How do you ask about the mating habits of your boyfriend’s species? “Angels can procreate then? I mean all I know is from Bible stories, and there isn’t a lot of angelic sex in there.”

  “We are living creatures, like you, and mortal in a similar sense. We require energy, but not from food. We rest, but not by sleeping. The books you may have read would give no more a complete picture than if I read Beowulf for a complete understanding of your people. We have been called yazatas, jinn, malakh, deva, even gods by some. I am not holy, and neither am I a member of a heavenly entourage. We use the word ‘angel’ because it is the word humans use to describe us, but its meaning is clouded in muddy human mythology. It would be better if you would forget the stories you have heard, and instead learn everything from the beginning.”

  “Okay,” she said. Like I have any choice. She also noted he didn’t answer the question about sex, but figured it would be rude to push. Too much like asking about old girlfriends. That was tacky. He could, as she could testify, have sex, and he had an excellent feel for how everything worked, so she could assume he’d done something like it before.

  It was much too early to ask him how he felt about her, although she couldn’t help but wonder what he saw when he looked at her. He’d tell her eventually. Probably. If he even understood human women liked to hear things like that. It probably had never occurred to him security in relationships would come up. Did angelic women get insecure? Her thoughts went to the sad angel in Thomas’ office, and she knew for certain they could display an entire range of emotions and needs.

  They passed through Sacramento and stopped on the other side of the city at a convenience store. She filled up the tank while Alexander went inside and bought drinks and candy bars. He proudly showed her a CD he’d picked up called Broadway’s Greatest Hits. “I asked inside about music for singing in the car, and she said this was perfect. We have not sung yet,” he admonished, “And you said that was an integral part of a road trip.”

  Zoë laughed. “No, no we haven’t.” She slid her credit card through the “pay at the pump” scanner, cleaned her windshield, and checked the oil. Soon they were back on the road, and she and Alexander sang Open a New Window, and Oh What a Beautiful Morning while heading down Highway 16 toward Drytown, where they would make a turnoff. He had an amazing voice, and she marveled that he knew the words without missing a beat, where she got stuck somewhere around I Got the Sun in the Morning. Show tunes were not, in any way, Zoë’s normal listening fare, but Gran loved films like My Fair Lady and Fiddler on the Roof. Watching old musicals with a spirit had filled more than one dark winter evening in her adult life, even though Gran seemed more pleased by the happy atmosphere and Zoë’s company than anything coming out of the television. Not that Zoë would admit any of this to most people, but Alexander was not most people.

  South of Sutter Hill, Zoë turned down the music so she could watch for the turnoff for Lament. Alexander helped her look out for signs, and she was glad it hadn’t occurred to her to ask him to transport them to the ghost town. She laughed when she realized he not only could have, but certainly would have. But then they would have missed the fun of doing something so commonplace.

  Maybe that was why he hadn’t offered, she thought. Maybe he liked doing run-of-the-mill human things. Why he would, she couldn’t understand. Not when his world seemed limitless. He could have spent the day at the Pyramids and then gone to Paris for dinner, and that didn’t even cover the places like Thomas’ bar and his private, magical garden. Who knew what other places there were that she couldn’t imagine. Instead, he wanted to take a road trip, drink sodas, and sing show tunes. She couldn’t help but smile. She really liked him, she decided. Really, really.

  By th
e time they rolled into Lament, it was late afternoon. The state of the town surprised Zoë, who’d expected a ramshackle ruin. People did, in fact, live in and around this semi-ghost town. A few of the restored old shops were actually open, either as functioning stores, or as tourist attractions.

  She found an all-day parking lot with a visitors’ map of the town. A nearby sign bore the opening hours of the attractions, which included the Masonic Hall, a schoolhouse, a Methodist church, and a few hotels, one of which still operated. She wanted to be sure to visit the place with a tearoom downstairs and a historical exhibit upstairs. Ruins dotted the outskirts of town, including a jailhouse and two cemeteries.

  The town history fascinated Alexander as much as it did Zoë, and they strolled through the streets, stopping to look at the wooden wagons and walk through the remains of what once had been a magnificent outdoor amphitheater. “It’s almost like a movie set,” she said, looking around as they stood near a row of old wooden facades on what must have been the main street.

  “Can you sense Henry?” Alexander said quietly.

  Zoë shook her head. “There are more people than I expected. I thought we’d be nowhere, not in the middle of Wild West Disneyland.” That was an exaggeration. Only a couple dozen families milled around on this warm summer day, but her senses had to contend with fifty more people than she had expected.

  “They are interfering?”

  “More like distracting. Let’s find a quiet place to sit.”

  Lament’s town planners had virtually overlooked outdoor seating, and it seemed like most of the tourists would rather go inside the old music hall anyway. It had a sign outside saying they sold old-fashioned ice cream. Zoë and Alexander walked down a trail, which led to one of the town’s cemeteries. “Anyone?” Alexander asked.

  “No, this place is dead,” she said. “You’d think if you wanted to find a spirit, a ghost town would fill the bill.”

  He grinned at her. “You would think. But then, humans have a funny way of naming things. Los Angeles does not have a higher ratio of angels than any other city.”

  Zoë sat on a stone bench and focused her thoughts around them, testing the physical distance of her senses. She couldn’t detect any spirits nearby, but she’d never tried to figure out at what distance she could detect their presence. “You’re glowing at me,” she said finally.

  “I am what?” He looked adorably confused.

  “Your angel glow thing is blocking out everything on that side. I need some space.” If she sounded crabby, it’s because she was. She’d enjoyed the trip out here, but she’d expected…something. Not all this nothing. It occurred to her to apologize, but before she could, Alexander planted a kiss on her cheek.

  “Okay,” he said. “I want to see the jail house, and then I am going to check out the hotel. Come find me when you are finished.” He stood and wound through the path and headed out of sight, stopping to give Zoë a wave before he got too far for her to see.

  She waved back with disbelief. It was nice, she thought, to be taken at face value. Alexander never questioned anything she said, thought about subtext, or what she really meant. If she said she wanted space, he assumed she just wanted space. Wow.

  Chapter 11

  Alexander’s presence moved away. She traced it beyond the cemetery, and although she had to concentrate, she felt him travel to the other side of town. That sweet, otherworldly scent filled her mind as though someone carried carnival funnel cakes just out of sight.

  On the upside, the glare of his aura no longer interfered with her senses. Not that any spirits appeared upon his departure. The graves around her felt as dead as they had a few moments before. She walked up and down the rows, looking at the crumbling monuments. Little wrought iron fences surrounded the stone memorials, nearly all of them jutting at odd angles, probably due to earthquakes and shifts over the decades.

  Part of her hoped she might even see, if not Henry’s name, then another Dawkins, but no such luck. Judging from her lack of positive results, Henry had left the town before his death. She also knew he wasn’t here when an earthquake had moved the gold vein, making this town no longer a viable mining spot. A crooked lane wound back to the dusty main street and through alleyways toward the actual mines.

  Somewhere below the earth, the soul of a trapped miner glimmered. Even in death, he hadn’t made it out. Pain choked her for a moment, knowing he was in some kind of hell, still stuck in a cave or maybe even solid earth. Why didn’t he move? She wondered why the Powers that had come to retrieve Kent’s soul had left this one behind. Alexander had said the Higher Angels came to retrieve people in special cases. What the hell did that mean, anyway?

  They were angels, right? Supernatural? How could they overlook some souls, leaving them here on earth, when according to their rules human souls had to move on? But Alexander had told her in the car that angels weren’t what she thought, or at least told her to forget the myths. More questions, and not nearly enough answers. She’d remember to ask him about it though. At least maybe this one soul would want to move on, rather than spend eternity beneath a ghost town.

  The mines themselves were not accessible to visitors. Steel grating covered the flat, open tops for safety purposes. Old mine carts and tracks littered the ground around the entrances, rather artfully, probably thanks to the local tourism board. A few yards away a shell of a building bore a large sign reading “Assayers Office”, and farther down she saw a saloon and an entertainment hall.

  The second cemetery sat behind the Methodist church not too far away. Some of the names on the cracked, aging tombstones had faded with time, some too much to read. Others she could see clearly. A few had stone crosses with no visible markings, and two graves were piles of rocks and nothing else. It wasn’t until she reached one that read “Rose Wilson” she paused. The name rang a bell, and she remembered Henry had mentioned her. She thought back. Yes, he most certainly had, but she recalled that when she’d asked, Henry had refused to say more.

  Zoë reached down and ran her hand over the tombstone, wondering why it was in the back, separated from the others, lonely under a tall, twining oak. “Oh, Henry,” she said. “Where are you?” She detected an ethereal shift or pull, but nothing more. A dead end, she told herself, then rolled her eyes at the pun before setting off to find Alexander.

  It wasn’t difficult, considering she could sense his presence, and he stayed in one place rather than milling around. She caught up with him in the town’s sole open and functioning hotel. “Zoë,” he called to her when she arrived inside. “I have reserved a room so we can stay the night.”

  “Have you?” Zoë said, blushing under the gaze of the narrow-faced young woman behind the desk. “How nice,” she said and smiled up at him. Sure, he should have asked. She might have had plans. She might not be ready to stay overnight with him, and it was presumptuous. But in truth, she didn’t have plans, and she liked the idea. Besides, why shouldn’t they throw out all the “normal” relationship rules? Ready or not.

  The woman at reception beamed at Alexander and then glared at Zoë, as though pegging her as a common trollop, clearly not good enough for him. Zoë ignored it. Alexander took her by the hand and led her upstairs. On the way to their room, she told him she hadn’t found anything helpful to do with Henry.

  On the third floor, they made their way down a corridor, where Alexander unlocked a wooden door with a real brass key, not one of those swipe cards modern hotels used. Entering the room was like stepping back in time, until Zoë noticed the room did have modern conveniences like an en-suite bathroom and a telephone, and even a television and alarm clock. Everything else had the early California look, with delicate flowers on the bed linens and solid wooden furniture of simple, but sturdy fashion.

  When he closed the door, she put her purse and rucksack on the foot of the bed. He slipped his arms around her waist from behind and kissed her neck. His breath tickled her ear when he whispered, “I cannot stop thinking about making l
ove to you, Zoë.”

  She trailed her hands over his arms, and smiled. “I’ve been thinking about it too.”

  “Really?” He sounded surprised and pleased.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Really.” She decided to show him exactly how much the memory delighted her.

  It was nearly seven thirty before Zoë found all her clothes again. They decided to go to the hotel’s restaurant so Zoë could eat. She envied that Alexander didn’t have to wash up or dress. Just whoosh, and he was spanking clean and wearing whatever he had a mind to. On the other hand, he did enjoy “unwrapping” her, and he watched her with a smile when she bent over to look for her socks, so dressing and undressing weren’t all bad.

  Once seated in the cozy dining room, Zoë ordered roast pork with fresh apricot sauce, local string beans and homemade bread. Alexander wanted steaming apple pie with old- fashioned vanilla ice cream. The waitress looked perplexed when Alexander asked her to bring the food together, rather than serving her meal first and his dessert later, but one look at his startling green eyes, and she nodded fiercely, making a note on her pad. “Right away, sir,” she said, ignoring Zoë altogether.

  During the meal, Zoë watched Alexander watch the other diners. “Why are you so interested in humans?” she asked.

  “Humans are fascinating,” he said, his eyes wandering around the restaurant. “See that man in the corner?”

  Zoë turned to nonchalantly take a peek. “The one in the blue suit?”

  Alexander nodded. “He is cheating on his wife. By that I mean he is having sex with someone else.”

  “I know what it means,” she said, looking again, this time taking notice of the pudgy, nondescript woman with him. “How do you know?” She turned back to look at Alexander, who stared at the couple openly. “I thought you couldn’t read minds.”