***
Angelique rarely dreamed or at least she never remembered them. But this night, lying in a dead woman’s bed, covered by a quilt made by a dead woman’s hands, Angelique suffered a nightmare.
The old woman came to her and she was smiling with secrets. “What do you want?” Angelique asked, backing away from the apparition.
“He may win his way back to heaven, that’s what bothers you so much. You’re jealous and full of envy because you have never understood the heart or what love might be. Once you knew love, when you loved your Creator, but you threw it away. Now you only love yourself.”
Angelique had nothing to say about that. It was a fair summary. She turned her back on the ghost and tried to leave, but it was as if her feet were mired in deep mud. She swore and struggled, and suddenly realized she was dreaming.
She turned back to the old woman’s shade. “You’re dead and this is just a dream.”
The old woman smiled. “But I have powers, you already know that. You don’t think I can haunt you if I want?”
“Ridiculous.” Angelique had taken many lives over the hundreds of years she had been in the child body. Not once had a victim come back, even in her dreams.
“They weren’t like me,” the old woman said, as if she’d read Angelique’s thoughts.
“What do you want?” Angelique put her hands on her hips and scowled.
“I want to watch you fail. I want to see that very much.”
“Well, you’ll be disappointed because I won’t fail. I never fail.”
“Oh, you failed once. And it took you into darkness. Remember? Remember that?”
The dream changed and for the first time in eons, Angelique found herself standing beside Lucifer and behind them the hundreds of other rebellious souls who had risen up against the Creator. The skies were rent with dark clouds boiling like no earthly storm. This celestial storm was full of the raging faces and the black wings of angels in revolt. Anger, new to angels, had changed their wings, giving them the color of the empty black void where they would be banished.
The scene, just as it had been when it happened, caused Angelique to experience a fear beyond understanding. She was virtually paralyzed with it.
I can’t dream this, she thought. I can’t experience this again.
She fled in her mind and in her dream, seeking the sweetness of pure, silent, empty darkness. The old woman had done this!
She woke, sitting bolt upright in the bed, the last of a terrified scream leaving her open mouth. If the old woman appeared here now, she would kill her again. She would flay her alive, pull out her entrails and drape them over her shoulders, take her lips and tongue and invite her to speak, use her eyeballs as missiles to throw against the wall.
“Damn you,” she whispered, glancing around the shadowed room as if she might see the miserable ghost from her nightmare.
She threw back the quilt and hurried from the haunted bed. Before dawn she was back on the road, heading west.
CHAPTER 24
AT THE BOTTOM OF MOUNTAINS
As Nick disembarked from the bus, bone weary and tired, he shaded his eyes from the sun overhead. Salt Lake City lay in a valley, a flat bottom bowl of land where he could see standing mountains in the distance. The other weary travelers from the bus shuffled into the station to change buses, to call relatives or friends or cabs to pick them up, or just to catch a smoke before the next part of their journey. Nick stood outside on the sidewalk. He only knew one thing. He did not want to be here. He had enough money to get another ticket and knew he had to. This place resonated with confusion and an abundance of shadow, as if the people living here believed deeply but were deathly afraid of their god.
It was just a feeling, but the farther away from Angelique Nick moved, the more he was able to decipher his feelings and relied on them the way a successful gambler relies on hunches. He couldn’t stay here in Salt Lake. He had to move on.
At the ticket counter he vacillated on destination until the clerk said a bus was leaving in thirty minutes for Nevada. He bought the ticket and slumped into a wooden platform chair to wait.
He stared at his shoes and tried not to think, but the thoughts came anyway.
She’s on her way. She’s coming.
Nick’s head jerked up in surprise. He had heard those words in his mind, not in his ears, but the voice wasn’t his own.
“What?” he said aloud.
A middle-aged woman with a kerchief wrapped around her head sat next to him. She glanced over and frowned.
She found me and killed me. I told her nothing. But she’s coming.
He knew that voice. It belonged to the beautiful soul of the bottle tree woman.
Again, Nick hung his head, knowing he was being contacted even though that had never happened, even when his wife died. Either he was growing more powerful, with more supernatural abilities, or the woman speaking to him was now passed over and had been given the power to speak to the living. Either way he knew it was true. Angelique had killed his friend. And Angelique was coming.
How close was she? Had she found traces of him at Peeple’s Grocery? Was she even now climbing into a bus headed north?
He did not know if he would ever be free of her. She was a monster and, after some time, he discovered he was not. He wasn’t like her at all.
A small person, a little half man, crossed the open bus station lobby and now stood before Nick.
Nick raised his head in question.
“You going to Nevada on the next bus?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I’ll sit with you, if that’s all right. I'm going too.”
“Well, sure you can.”
The little man held out a short, stubby, child-sized hand. “I’m Jody and I’m a midget, not a dwarf. I’m thirty-one years old and I like women, no matter their size.”
Nick’s eyebrows rose at all this personal information. “Okay,” he said, not knowing what other reply he could make. “My name's Nick.”
Jody jumped onto a seat to the left of Nick and put his feet up on a black bag. “Nobody likes midgets, but they don’t like strangers like you either.”
“Strangers like me?”
“What’s your story?” Jody asked. “You’re good looking and have a normal body. But no one in here wants to get near you. I see that woman who had been sitting next to you got up and left. She had a look on her face that I’ve seen before. A lot of times. From women, mostly.”
Only now did Nick notice the woman in the kerchief had moved and now sat forward three rows in the wooden waiting seats.
He shrugged. “Beats me,” he said.
“Oh, come on now, you know what it is,” Jody said.
Nick was not sure he was happy this little man had sought him out and meant to ride with him on the bus leaving in a few minutes. He sure was persistent. And more than a little perceptive. In some ways he reminded Nick of the bottle woman, the same woman who now was talking to him in his head about her untimely death.
“I’m a little odd, I guess,” Nick admitted. “Some people pick up on it.”
Now that he had gotten a confession, Jody moved on with his conversation. He asked, “So what’s in Nevada?”
“Not sure yet. A job, maybe.”
“Or another bus ticket?” Jody asked.
“Curious fellow, aren’t you?”
“Let’s say I don’t get to talk much, people think I’m such a freak they won’t talk to me. Sorry, if I ask too many questions.”
“No one’s a freak on this earth,” Nick said. He hadn’t meant to make such a statement, but the little man must know life in any form was beautiful. Nothing living was repulsive, no matter how small, how stunted, how disfigured.
Jody cocked his head as he stared at Nick. “You take everything so seriously, chief. You ever lighten up?”
Nick laughed then. It was true, he was so in love with life on earth that he treasured humans more than they could understand. It made him an enigma, and maybe it
felt dangerous to others. He should always think before opening his mouth.
“I don’t know any jokes, if that’s what you’re asking,” Nick said, grinning.
“I know some midget jokes, but they only make you smile, not laugh, since they’re such small jokes.”
Again Nick laughed, liking Jody more than he first thought he might.
“There you go, that’s better, chief.” Now Jody smiled, his teeth perfectly formed and perfectly white, his face and everything about him was proportioned perfectly on his little body though his age was definitely older than what his height predicted.
The station intercom system announced the bus for Nevada and both Nick and Jody grabbed their bags. “Well, here we go,” Nick said.
“Yep, let’s hurry to get a good seat.” With that pronouncement Jody hopped off ahead of Nick, rushing through the door and for the bus.
Nick shook his head in wonder. He hadn’t met so many interesting people in all his time on earth this time. Probably because Angelique kept him on a short leash, keeping him busy with business dealings and business people, who he came to discover were quite ordinary and mannered people. Out in the world, traveling by himself, he was finding individuals that colored his life like confetti colors a birthday party. Cut loose from business, from ambition to make money, cut off from polite society and pretty much on their own, people were damn interesting.
Once in the bus and sitting next to Jody, Nick relaxed, letting his head fall back against the headrest. He closed his eyes as other passengers claimed seats.
“That’s right, chief, take a nap. I’ll watch your bag for you. Someone tries to snatch it, I’ll head-butt them in the knees.”
Without opening his eyes, Nick smiled. What a little comedian he was now traveling with…
CHAPTER 25
ANOTHER LINK ON THE HIGHWAY
Angelique honed in on the gas station-café in Texas. It had the same vibrations emanating from it that had come from the bottle woman’s house. Nick had been here. She felt his presence everywhere—on the gravel around the gas pumps, on the handle of the door of the cafe, on a stool at the counter.
Just inside the door she paused, relishing the air conditioning. She’d have to wait around here for a ride. Any further west by foot could mean death. It was hot, dry, and deadly in West Texas. No place for a nice little walk.
“Know anyone I could hire to drive me further west?” she asked, climbing onto the stool at the counter where Nick had sat. The man across the counter had eyed her from the moment she opened the door, maybe even before she came inside. They were alone and Angelique didn't think this place ever had much business.
“Where's your mama?” Ed asked.
“She left us.”
“Us?” Ed looked toward the door.
“My dad had to go on ahead for a job that was waiting. He gave me the money to follow.”
“Alone?”
Weary of this old fellow and his questions, Angelique reached out her small hand as if to shake saying, “Nice to meet you, I'm Angelique.”
Ed tentatively took her hand and when he did, his mind went blank as slate. Angelique held onto his hand tightly, reading him as if he were a book, knowing instantly he didn't know where Nick was going when he left. Satisfied this was the truth, she spoke directly into the cafe owner's glazed eyes. “I don't have time for lies and making you believe me. I can't walk into that desert out there. I need a ride. Now you will call someone to come drive me or you will drive me yourself, but you will do one or the other of those things, do you understand?”
Ed nodded slowly, but his eyes had not cleared and it was obvious he was no longer thinking under his own power.
“I'm waiting,” she said.
“I'll call someone,” Ed said.
“Thank you. Do that now before you forget. Then fry some eggs and ham and give me a tall glass of cold milk. And a big piece of apple pie,” she added.
She let go his hand and Ed turned immediately for the phone he kept on the back counter. When he'd made the call, he turned to the grill and set to work to feed the child who wore him like a cloak and moved him about like a pretty little plaything.
#
Edgar, Jr. was no relation to Ed, the cafe and station owner, but they had known one another for two decades. Edgar, Jr. drove up in an old pickup truck just as Angelique finished with her apple pie and was wiping her lips with a napkin. She carefully placed a dollar bill on the counter before sliding off the stool and making for the door.
Edgar, Jr. stopped in his tracks between his truck and the cafe when he saw the child emerge from inside. “Hi, kid. Where's your mama and papa?” he asked. “They still in there with Ed?”
“Hello, I'm Angelique, nice to meet you,” she said, walking close and holding up her hand for him to shake...
#
It took so much energy for Angelique to work people the way she'd been doing on this long, despicable trip across the southwest. She had done this often with the Haitians back in Charlotte, but having to do it to Marva, the bottle lady, then Ed, and finally, Edgar, Jr., made her feel peeved and antagonistic. With Nick around, she did not have to force people to do things for her by binding them with her powerful mind. Nick was her shield against the world and provided a screen behind which she could pretend to be a child, merely a child and of no or little consequence.
On the road, however, without anyone to help her, she felt she had no time to waste telling lies and playing games with “adults.” They simply must do what she wanted and then she set them free to return to their mundane and unimportant little lives. She couldn't control them for long and even for short periods it took so much out of her that she just couldn't depend on it all the time.
Every time she let her mind wander away from the man driving the truck, he tended to snap out of it and suddenly clutch the wheel in a panic as if just waking from a dream to find himself driving. Then Angelique had to put her hand on his arm and take control again to keep them from ending in a ditch. “Keep going,” she said, commanding him in a soft murmur.
By the time he had driven her into New Mexico, and the sun had set, a new moon rising overhead, Angelique grew so weary she almost dozed off to sleep. She felt the truck lurch, causing her to sit upright. She grabbed Edgar, Jr.'s arm and said, “Damn it, pull over and let me out.”
The truck straightened, slowed, and pulled onto the gravel lining the highway. Angelique held his arm a few moments more, instructing him to turn the truck around and go back the way he'd come, forgetting he'd ever seen her or driven anywhere.
Outside the truck, she arched her back and kneaded the muscles at her waist as she watched the moon. Soon the truck was gone in the distance and the night lowered all around. No lights showed anywhere, but the moon was brightening over the desolate landscape.
“I can sleep anywhere,” Angelique said aloud, looking out at the desert, the mountains in the distance, the scattered cacti. Sighing, she stepped away from the two-lane highway and walked across pebbly sand looking for a hollow, a swallow, an indentation where she might fit her small body while the moon rode the sky and a cooling wind skipped across the dark wasteland.
#
“I was a normal baby,” Jody said. “I just never grew up. By the time I was five I was about the same height I am now.”
Nick listened to his traveling companion while the bus rolled out of Utah into Nevada. In Elko, there was a rest stop where the bus took on more passengers. The pair of them, Nick and Jody, standing outside while eating hotdogs from a vendor, made an unusual pair—a tall, muscled blond man and a tiny, dark-haired man in tan trousers and a blue-checked shirt. Other commuters steered clear, realizing the pair was too odd, and not just the small man, but the larger one, too. Nick's eyes were too bright, his stance too straight and stiff. He looked like someone who should be in uniform—a policeman, a soldier, an undertaker in a black suit.
“What is that something that's not right about you?” Jody asked as
if inquiring about the weather. He gobbled a big bite of hotdog and craned his head on his neck to look up at Nick. He chewed, cheeks full and puffed out as he squinted in the sunlight, dark hair covering his brow. He looked like a chipmunk.
“You read too much into things,” Nick said.
“I wish that was the truth, then I could dismiss all the weird things that come into my head. But I can't. You're not even totally human, are you?”
Nick wanted to shush him, he wanted to bring a finger to his lips and keep the small man from speaking too loudly where others might hear. Instead, he said, “I'm getting more human as I go along.”
Jody nodded as if he knew that before it was voiced. “I've never met anyone like you, but someway I've been more scared of people who were a lot more human.”
“Maybe they were too human,” Nick said cryptically. He finished the last of his second hotdog and wiped his hands and face with a napkin. The two of them began to move toward the bus and their seats. The driver was in his place and soon they'd leave.
“I was going to get off here in Elko, look around for some kind of work,” Jody said. “But I see you aren't staying so I guess I'm going your way.”
It was the first time Nick realized the little man meant to hang around him. “It might not be safe with me.”
Jody laughed, throwing back his head as he hopped into the window seat. “I'm never safe. I haven't been safe a day since I was born.”
“You're a brave man,” Nick said. He was finding more to admire about Jody the longer they were together.
“And you're a big man, or a big Not-Quite-Man, so I figure I don't have a lot to worry about.”
Nick stared ahead, peering out the wide front bus window, the highway ahead a gray snake lying across a dry desert landscape. The sunlight was like melted butter spreading itself over everything, finding all the nooks and crannies, chasing every shadow into the light until the whole landscape was out bare and naked for all to see. The bus windows were open, but people were fanning themselves with cardboard church fans and magazines to stir the hot air.
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