Angel Eyes

by Shannon Dittemore

  “It’s rude to stare,” I blurt. “Your mom told you that, right?”

  His face changes. It’s sadder somehow.

  “I’ve heard it around. And I didn’t mean to stare. Right place, right time, I guess.” He stands and throws his bag over his shoulder. “You’ve got skills.”

  He’s mocking me, I’m sure of it. I mean, jungle dance doesn’t exactly scream “mad skills.” I’ve got a comeback. Something about monkeys and boys. It’s just . . . stuck. Frozen on the tip of my tongue.

  With a slight tilting of his head he walks out the door, and I’m left chewing on the icicle of another thing unsaid.

  Learning to speak again is now priority one.

  It’s a minute before I realize my hands are shaking. So severely this time it takes a good thirty seconds to pull my gloves back in place.

  If I could stay embarrassed all day, I might just thaw.

  But this biting cold is well deserved, so I blink away the tear offering me its salty consolation. I flip up my hood—a shield against prying eyes—and make my way across the rime-freckled quad.

  I don’t think about the new kid.

  I don’t.

  The rest of my classes are uneventful: literature, government, French. Advanced photography is the only class I’ve actually chosen, and my steps fall faster as I make my way there. It’s been forever since I’ve been in an actual darkroom.

  Austen—my school in the city—doesn’t offer a traditional photography class. Instead they offer digital imaging, which focuses primarily on photo manipulation using computer software. No need for film. No need for a darkroom. Just digital cameras and a Mac lab. And while I enjoyed that class as well, there’s just something about manually processing and developing film that’s fully immersive. You touch it and see it. You smell it, for goodness’ sake. There’s an ebb and flow—a rhythm. Like dance, I guess. Maybe that’s why I like it so much.

  Admittedly, it’s a dying art form. And while a jump into the modern world is exactly what our little town needs, I’m glad I’ll be long gone before traditional photography vanishes from Stratus High.

  I duck into the darkroom, catching a wink from the photo teacher as I go.

  Mr. Burns is an eccentric old man and does not run a formal classroom setting. Once a week he lectures on a technique or piece of equipment, and on Tuesdays he holds a class-wide critique. Everyone submits a photo and everyone has a vote. There are award ribbons and everything. During the rest of the week, we’re free to work on whatever projects we have going.

  The darkroom is small, and though there are only two other students in the room with me, it feels crowded. This doesn’t help the claustrophobic tendencies I’ve developed, but John Mayer croons from the radio in the corner and it’s warmer than the outer classroom.

  I drop my stuff at the corner station and set to work developing the film in my camera bag. Without a darkroom at my disposal, I’ve been hoarding it. Half a dozen rolls tumble out when I unzip the front flap, but I don’t mind. It gives me something to focus on.

  The mindless repetition is cathartic. Even my numb fingers cooperate while crammed inside the black bag. I slam the small container on its end to release the filmstrip and wrap it around the reel carefully to avoid leaving fingerprints. My fingers move quickly as I come up with a plan for the next couple days. Today the focus will be getting all this film developed and hung to dry. Since I’ve just returned, I’ll bow out of the critique tomorrow and sort through the strips, make contact sheets, and see if I have anything here to work with.

  I place the reel in the canister and unzip the bag while my thoughts wander. I think about the general solitude I’ve been granted by the other students. By now, the last period of the day, I’m pretty much ignored. My chill must be contagious, because the girl next to me in government actually shivered when she brushed my arm.

  I’m glad this room is dark. If my hands do shake, I don’t have to try too hard to hide them. But Mr. Burns must have turned the heater on, because for the third time today, I’m warm. Relieved to be free of the chill, I slide out of my sweater.

  I feel a little more normal this way: Without the gloves, without the parka and the sweater. Just a long-sleeved white T-shirt over faded blue jeans.

  My thoughts continue to wander. With some effort I pull them away from three weeks ago, away from the city. There are other things to think about. Other people. People from here. People with no connection at all to that place.

  People like Kaylee. It’s strange I don’t have a single class with her. I want that fact to disappoint me, but I don’t feel much about it at all.

  And there’s the new kid.

  Jake.

  Where did he come from, anyway? Did the teacher say?

  I turn to grab the developing solution from the table behind me. Alone with my thoughts, I slam into someone, the metal canister in my hand smacking the person hard in the stomach.

  “Oh, I’m . . .”

  I am sorry, and I should tell him so. But I don’t. I’m distracted by the hand holding my wrist.

  It belongs to Jake. My stalker, apparently.

  “Hey,” he says. He steadies both my wrist and the canister against his chest. His heart pounds evenly against my hand, and mine speeds up.

  It seems I’m destined to make a fool of myself in front of this guy.

  “I didn’t realize we had this class together,” he says.

  “I . . . me either,” I stutter. “I didn’t know either.”

  He smiles. Up close it’s crooked, mischievous, and I think of that Pink song, the one about the pills and the morphine. I think how dangerous attraction is. How dangerous it was for her.

  I take a step back and then realize he’s still holding my wrist. I try to gather my thoughts and put together a coherent sentence, but nothing occurs to me. The door opens behind Jake, and Mr. Burns comes in.

  “Jake, can I bother you for a second? I need some help bringing in the new enlarger.”

  “Sure, Mr. Burns.” His eyes are still on my face, that lopsided grin mocking me, and it’s a second or two before he releases my wrist and follows the teacher from the room.

  “Elle, could you hold the inner door open for us? Grace has the door out here.”

  Between the darkroom and the classroom is a short hallway with heavy doors at each end. This area has no light at all and serves as a transition space protecting the darkroom from the white light of the classroom.

  “Of course . . .” I run the canister back to my workstation and hurry back through the door to wait for them. I arrive just as Jake and Mr. Burns come through the first door. The bright light from the classroom beyond allows me to see them scooting past Grace, a redhead I’ve known since kindergarten. She’s holding the classroom door open, and as Jake passes her, she fakes a swoon only I can see.

  Grace is being friendly. I should wink and swoon back, and we can giggle like girlfriends. But for some reason her attraction to Jake irritates me.

  Mr. Burns and Jake stop.

  “Hey again,” Jake says.

  He’s standing so close.

  I clear my throat.

  “Okay, Grace. We’re through. Go ahead and close that door,” Mr. Burns says.

  “Have fun, Brielle.” Her door shuts, and we’re engulfed in darkness. It’s for the briefest of moments, but I’m thankful Mr. Burns is here. I don’t trust myself alone with this stranger. Who knows what I’ll say. What I’ll do.

  Fumbling, I open the darkroom door, and they squeeze past me, Jake first, carrying his side of the enlarger with ease, and then tiny Mr. Burns, huffing with the strain of it. They place the enlarger in its new home, secure some cords, and plug things in. Mr. Burns thanks Jake and scoots out the door, cursing quietly under his breath and rubbing his shoulder. The two other students using the darkroom crack up at something I’ve missed and file past me into the classroom.

  We’re alone now: Jake and I. And that doesn’t bode well for me. I could do an Irish
jig or maybe run into him again?

  Decisions.

  But Jake sets up on the opposite side of the room, his head hunched over the enlarger, his back to me. Which is just fine. Preferable, actually. I have a ton of film to develop, and I can do that all the way over here. On this side of the room.

  When Grace bounces through the door, my hands are trapped in the black bag, but I force a smile in her direction. She winks back at me and hops up on the counter next to Jake, all energy and charm.

  “Hey,” he says, looking up. “It’s Faith, right?”

  “Grace. Grace Middleton, silly. We have Spanish together.”

  Jake straightens up. “That’s right.”

  Grace giggles and leans into him, brushing his bicep with her plastic fingernails.

  Oh gag. I turn back to my station.

  Grace has always been a flirt. It’s never bothered me before, and there’s no reason it should bother me now. Especially since she’s keeping the stalker occupied. Still, she goes on and on, being all cute, chatting him up. Her verbal pawing fills the room, and I stare longingly at the radio in the corner.

  As soon as my hands are free of the bag, I tromp over to it and crank the volume up.

  Grace casts me a disparaging look, but I ignore her and melt into my work.

  No one needs to listen to this.

  3

  Damien

  An invisible form sniffs the air.

  Despair.

  A favorite of his. It smells of salt and rust. Of tears and corrosion.

  Damien flies low, his eyes pinched against the light. He can’t open them completely here. Not anymore. The light of this realm—of the Celestial—burns and singes. His fallen form is not as impenetrable as it once was.

  Still, he’d suffer a thousand burns to feel the freedom of flight.

  He soars over cow pastures, over farms rotting in the dampness of late autumn. He regards them all with distaste. Everything about this world and the humans who inhabit it disgusts him.

  Except pain.

  Fear.

  Their duty lies with darkness and its Prince. As does his. And they draw him, a gigantic moth to the flame of human desperation.

  The town ahead comes into view. Small, like the others he’s scouted, but the name is familiar and he can’t place it. Dozens of small cities, townships, and communities skirt Portland, a city he’s haunted for so many years. And while he’s not ready to abandon all he’s accomplished there, he needs a new base of operations. A new home to destroy.

  That idiot boy and his girlfriend ruined so much.

  He allows himself a long, luxurious blink as he soars through the Celestial sky. What he wouldn’t give to have his sight fully restored.

  Though he was created for immortality, his Celestial eyes won’t heal any more. Not completely. He traces their weakness back to the days of Elisha. Back to Dothan.

  An ancient loss, but one with lingering consequences.

  The prophet and his child-of-a-servant had been traveling alone. They camped in the open, on a much-used road. Just a tent. No soldiers, no weapons. If this was just any prophet, Damien might not have bothered, might have passed the man by. But this was Elisha. And Elisha carried a grace in his hands. He healed. He did miraculous things. Things that stifled darkness.

  And every attempt to corrupt him had failed.

  How could Damien not act?

  He found a willing accomplice in the Syrian king, who also courted a fiery hatred for Elisha. A mere suggestion from Damien, and the king sent an entire army to Dothan. They arrived before dawn, surrounding the prophet and his lone tent.

  Victory was imminent.

  But then . . .

  Ah!

  Defeat had appeared in the form of an angelic army. Out of the bright Celestial sky, the forces appeared. Invisible to the humans, but present all the same. And with the stealth of a whisper, an invisible legion of light surrounded the Syrian king. Surrounded his horses and their riders.

  Damien did what he could to warn them off, but he was one against so many, and it was too late.

  His wings twitch at the memory. Some wounds never close.

  Elisha lifted up his hands that day, and he asked his God, the Creator of the universe, to blind the Syrian army. And the Creator answered his prayer.

  But the physical blindness the Syrians suffered affected their escorting demon in a way Damien could not have anticipated. He, too, was struck dim.

  The last thing he saw, stationed invisibly before the Syrian king, was the prophet’s Shield: an angel named Canaan. One he knew well from his days around heaven’s throne.

  Outnumbered as he was, fleeing would have been in Damien’s best interest, but pride moved him forward to meet his adversary.

  His former friend.

  He drew his own sword, a scimitar of ice and stone forged in the dungeons of outer darkness. And as he swung his blade, he caught sight of the child. The prophet’s servant. Such an inconsequential being, but as Damien’s smoking weapon met the angel’s, the child flinched visibly.

  He flinched!

  Could he see the warring angels gathered about? Could the boy see Damien?

  And then blindness. A darkness he’d never experienced swallowed Damien whole.

  He’d never been blind in his Celestial form. But it didn’t last long. In the moment that followed, he was thrust through. Canaan’s sword, no doubt.

  And as the light of Canaan’s sword ate away at him, he considered the devastating possibility that humans could see through the Terrestrial veil. That they could see darkness for what it was.

  If that was true and they could see fear and despair as weapons, as tactical warfare, evil didn’t stand a chance. And though the thrust of a Shield’s sword could not kill Damien, it flung him to the pit. The abyss of eternal light and fire. A chasm where the Creator’s glory reflects and increases. The light of the Celestial multiplied exponentially.

  For those who have rejected the light, the pit is torture unrivaled. Their spiritual forms, created for immortality, are burned by His radiance again and again, only to spontaneously adapt and scar, healing in their own twisted way to be singed and charred once more.

  In short: it’s hell.

  After a time, when the Prince deemed his punishment sufficient, Damien was summoned and returned to the front lines. To earth. To humanity. To steal, to kill, to destroy.

  And yet, the momentary blindness he experienced at Dothan damaged his eyes in a way that would not mend. They pained him constantly, and he was a weaker fighter for it. His only escape was to take on his Terrestrial form.

  His human form.

  Something he would do as soon as this scouting expedition was over. As soon as he identified the source of such mouthwatering despair.

  Damien searches, flying low over a small stretch of a community. Shops on a run-down street, the town hall and a post office, a diner with violet neon lights.

  He continues out over the highway. Everywhere he sees empty barns, farmhouses abandoned. Vacant plots of land. The economy has taken its toll here. So many empty places for darkness to hide.

  A current of wind brings him another tendril of despair, and he follows it, inhaling, savoring the fragrance. Despair is everywhere, of course, but like all delectable dishes, some despair is more appealing than others. And this, whatever it is, is deep and dark.

  He speeds his wings.

  And there it is. Below him. An ordinary human house, not large, not small. Fear leaks from its windows and doors, black and thick. It oozes into the street, searching, searching for other souls to latch on to.

  He slows his wings and descends, touching down next to a strange-looking mailbox. Matthews, it says.

  The fear here is thick. The despair fresh.

  He forces his eyes to focus on the wall in front of him. As it peels away, he sees her, the source of the fragrant ache.

  So broken. So vulnerable.

  And he decides. This town, this Stratus, is a
good place to start again. It’s far enough from the city not to attract attention and small enough to destroy single-handedly. And this girl, this Matthews girl, is too ripe to be left alone.

  4

  Brielle

  Beyond the bay window, the sky is a smudge of black and gray. Night shrouds the yard and wind sweeps through, diluting the canvas in gusty blows of rain. The shutters rattle, and the wind dislodges the front door screen, leaving mangled hinges in its place.

  I watch for falling snow or ice—anything to signal a continuing dip in temperature—but am mildly relieved that November seems content with rain. Central Oregon can get nasty cold, but we usually have until January before the snow and ice take over.

  The night makes me anxious. Dad’s been called away to remove and cut up a tree that fell onto the roof of the Presbyterian church in town. The dread I feel as he walks out the door nearly pulls me after him. He’s all I have now, and watching him fade into the night is torture, but the plea dies on my lips. My dad is the strongest, most able person in the world, and he’s managed to survive these past few years without me. I’m just selfish and don’t like being alone at night anymore. I have all sorts of new phobias these days.

  I take sanctuary in my favorite reading chair and tug an old quilt over the afghan resting on my knees. I yank both up to my chin and watch the storm grapple with the shadowy oak tree in the yard. I’m not sure how the victor is declared in such a battle, but the tree takes quite a beating: branches torn from their home, flung up and down the road.

  But by dawn the storm has blown itself out and the old tree is still standing.

  I haven’t slept much, here in the chair, but the oak’s survival inspires me, and I slide to the floor. Shoving aside the blankets, I settle my elbows into the thick carpet and lift my knees to my chest, rotating first my left hip and then my right. My turnout muscles stretch with a familiar ache, and I keep at it until the sleepiness falls away. For years, stretching has been a morning ritual of mine, but in the past three weeks I’ve shoved it aside.

  Even now, as I consider how long it’s been, the why stirs in my gut, and I abandon my exercises for a bowl of cereal. I run a brush through my hair and quickly dress, nearly panicking when I can’t find my left glove. At last I spot it beneath my nightstand, and I’m out the door.