“Oh, dear, I thought I saw you fall, but I couldn’t get free until just now,” I said in a sympathetic tone, dropping to a crouch. “What happened? Did you twist your ankle? Or worse?”
She stared at me, speechless for a moment. I put her at about fifty, with years of hard labor showing in her thin face, but she looked tough enough still to heave a table at me, if only she could get close enough to grab the legs. Her hair was an indeterminate brown and pulled back in an impatient bun; her eyes were a narrowed green, dense with intelligence. I had the strange thought that if she and Deborah were to engage in some kind of head servants’ brawl, this woman would win handily.
“Who are you?” she finally demanded. Her hands were bunched up in the cloth on either side of her skirt. I figured they were knotted against pain, but she might easily have a weapon concealed in a pocket. She didn’t strike me as the type who often allowed herself to be helpless.
“I’m Moriah. I work down at the school,” I explained. Going to my knees, I scooted down toward her feet. “Can I see? I’m not a healer, but I know enough to bind your leg if it’s sprained, or set it if it’s broken.”
“It’s not broken,” she said sharply. And then, “You’re not allowed to be here.”
“I’m not,” I agreed, pulling up her hem so I could look at the damage. It was instantly clear that her left leg was the one that had given way on her. She’d managed to get her shoe off, but the whole ankle and half the foot were already showing a dark purple bruise, and the skin had puffed out in protest. “Ouch. That must hurt.”
“It does,” she said grimly, then repeated, “You’re not allowed to be here.”
“But if I leave, no one will wrap this for you, or help you into bed, or make sure you’re fed in the morning, and you could fall again and strike your head and die,” I answered cheerfully. “So let me just take care of this and get you something to eat and try to make you comfortable, and then I can leave before anyone realizes I’m here.”
She was silent a moment, clearly unwilling, but realistic enough to realize she would be in very bad shape without assistance. “Very well,” she said. “But you can’t tell anyone you’ve been here.”
“I won’t,” I promised. I glanced over with a smile. “What’s your name?”
“Alma,” she said reluctantly.
A soft name for such a strong woman! “Well, Alma, I apologize in advance if I hurt you. Now let’s get this taken care of.”
In less than an hour, I had wrapped her foot, helped her sit at the table long enough to eat a meal, and supported her as she hobbled into a small bedroom that opened off the kitchen. She did most of the work of stripping off her clothes and pulling on a nightshirt, but the exertion cost her a great deal; her face was drawn with pain by the time she lowered herself to the bed.
I glanced around as if looking for any final chores I should take care of. “Now, I’ll just bring dinner to the angel and then come down and clean up the dishes,” I said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Then tomorrow—”
“What did you say?” she interrupted.
I gave her my most innocent look. “I’ll take dinner to the angel—”
For the first time, she looked both nonplussed and alarmed. “How do you know—why do you think—”
“I’ve seen him. At night, on the roof. Heard him, a couple of times. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but I assume he’s come here for help or healing. And maybe he can make it down two flights of steps to feed himself dinner and maybe he can’t.” I tilted my head to one side and watched her, my expression inquiring. Well? Can he ? And if he can’t, will you let him go hungry?
Her green eyes burned as she stared back at me, and I watched her internal struggle play out on her face. Clearly this was not a woman who easily betrayed a trust, but she could not reconcile her two warring mandates: Take care of the angel and Keep the angel’s existence a secret. But, really, she had no choice, and I saw the capitulation in her face a second before she spoke.
“All right. Take a tray of food to him on the third floor. He drinks water with his meal, no wine. Bring down his dirty dishes from breakfast. If he needs something else, he’ll ask for it, but don’t speak to him first.”
I knew the answer already, but I wanted my guess confirmed before I actually risked showing my face to an angel. So I asked, “Won’t he wonder why I’m bringing him dinner instead of you?”
She shook her head and eased herself back onto her pillows. There were a lot of them. The bed was surprisingly plush, given her situation and the severe plainness of the rest of the room. I liked the thought that she allowed herself a single indulgence. “No,” she said, “he’s blind.”
I had to turn away to hide my smile. “I’ll be back in a few moments,” I told her as I stepped into the kitchen again. I was so delighted with the way my plan had gone so far that I was almost humming as I fixed up a platter.
It turns out it’s not easy to carry a heavy tray up two flights if the stairs are narrow and twisty and the only illumination is a small lamp you added to your tray at the last moment, when you realized the house was too old and remote to run on gaslight. I was a little breathless when I arrived at the attic level and found myself in a narrow corridor that ran along one side of the house. Three doors led off the hallway; the two that were closed I guessed to be a bedroom and a closet. The third one stood open in a rather gloomy invitation into what appeared to be a large sitting room. It seemed to take up most of the top story and to be intended as a public space, so I stepped inside with assumed confidence.
A quick look around showed me shadowy groupings of chairs and small tables, boarded-up windows, and a curving iron staircase that had to lead to the roof. In one corner, a large stringed instrument leaned against a wall. There appeared to be stacks of books and papers on the floor, though they were disordered, as if no one had touched them in a long time.
In the center of the room, not quite facing me, was the angel. He was sprawled in one of those special cutaway chairs designed to accommodate angel wings, though he sat in it so carelessly that he appeared to be in danger of slipping out and crashing to the floor. His head was flung back to rest on the top of the padded back; his wings puddled on either side of him like dirty garments he had cast off after a tiring day. It was hard to tell by lamplight, but the clothes he was actually wearing appeared soiled as well. His white shirt looked wrinkled and stained, and his dark trousers sported a visible rip all the way down one seam. He was barefoot.
His face was in profile to me so at first all I could tell about his features was that his chin was firm, his nose was straight, and his cheekbone sleekly planed. He must not have liked the feel of whiskers on his face, because he had shaved recently, but his dark hair was long and disordered, spilling over the back of the chair in tangled knots.
I stood for a long time, holding the tray, staring at him. It was rare to see an angel—one of the most haughty, disdainful, unlikable creatures in all of Samaria—humbled and miserable. I wanted to enjoy the sight for as long as I could.
Then my hand trembled, or I shifted my weight and the floor creaked beneath me. At any rate, he suddenly realized I was there. He didn’t lift his head, just turned it enough so that he appeared to be looking in my direction. It was too dark for me to discern what the trouble was with his eyes. From here they looked like pools of shadow fringed with sweeping lashes.
“The breakfast plates are on the table,” he said in an indifferent voice that was still musical enough to make me catch my breath. He didn’t seem to realize or care that I had arrived after midnight with his evening meal. “You can leave dinner there if you like. I’m not hungry.”
I located the table he meant, but set my tray in a different spot because the breakfast dishes took up all the room. Then I regarded him again for a moment before I asked brightly, “So what exactly happened to you?”
The astonishment on the angel’s face was comical. He jerked upright and glared in my direction, hi
s wings quivering in indignation. “Who are you? Where’s Alma?” he demanded.
I felt a grudging admiration that he knew the servant’s name; so many in his position wouldn’t. “She sprained her ankle and can barely make it around the house, let alone up the stairs,” I said, still in that cheerful voice. “I volunteered to help her out.”
“No one is supposed to enter this house without my approval,” he said, frowning heavily. “No one asked me if you could come here.”
“Well, the headmistress and the footman are gone, and Alma’s laid up downstairs, so no one could really ask about your preferences,” I said. “As long as Alma’s off her feet, you’ll have to accept my help—or feed yourself—or starve.”
At my tone, his features gathered in a scowl. “Who are you?” he repeated.
“Moriah. I’m a cook at the school.”
“You’re insolent for a cook.”
It was all I could do to keep from replying, You’re pathetic for an angel. Instead I said, “I suppose you’re used to being treated with more deference.”
“With civility,” he shot back. “With the sort of politeness anyone would extend to a stranger.”
There was a difference; even I had to acknowledge that. “I’ll be nice if you will,” I said. “Why don’t you eat? That way I can take all the dishes down at once. We don’t want rats coming for the scraps.”
I could tell by his expression he realized this was sensible, but he said, “I told you. I’m not hungry.”
He sounded like a petulant girl who hadn’t gotten her way on some trivial matter and was determined to sulk about it until everyone noticed. “Maybe not,” I said. “But I’m afraid if you won’t eat now, you’ll be very hungry by the time I can make it back here tomorrow night. You really should eat something.”
He hesitated a moment, not done sulking, but gave in. “Oh, very well.” I expected to have to guide him toward the table where I’d left the tray, but he came to his feet and headed unerringly in its direction, dragging his chair behind him. His wing tips trailed on the floor, completely unheeded, like the cloth belt from a robe that had fallen open when the sash was untied.
“How did you do that?” I asked when he sat down and began feeling for the silverware. “Find the food?”
“I could smell it,” he said. He picked up a fork and took a bite of potatoes.
He had not invited me to join him, but I settled into a chair across the table from him and studied his face. “You must have a keen nose.”
He considered that while he chewed and swallowed. “Now, maybe,” he said. “It’s not something I ever noticed before.”
“Now—you mean, since you lost your sight?”
“Yes,” he said bitterly, “that’s exactly what I mean.”
“How did it happen?” I asked. Maybe he decided my tone was curious, rather than rude, because he didn’t seem offended, though he finished another mouthful of food before he answered.
“I was blinded,” he said, “by a thunderbolt from the god’s hand.”
My eyes opened wide, because that was terribly dramatic. “The god was angry at you? What had you done?”
He shook his head, chewing again. For someone who claimed to have no appetite, he was tearing through dinner at a rapid clip. “Not angry. There was a prayer for lightning, and he responded with lightning.” The angel took a drink from his water glass. “And destroyed me.”
My brows drew down. That was a pretty sketchy story. “Were you the one praying for lightning?”
He shook his head, his expression bleak. He couldn’t see now, but it was clear he was watching some internal vision. “A boy. I was teaching him some of the elemental prayers. How to beg Jovah for rain, how to ask him to stop the rain. How to pray for thunderbolts.”
I’d never given it any thought, but the entire sky must light up with a dazzling display whenever those particular songs are being taught. “I’m surprised the whole lot of you aren’t blind by now,” I remarked, “with prayers like that on the loose.”
The angel shook his head again. “We know the risks, and we contain them,” he said. “We know never to sing the whole melodies all the way through. We teach the first half of the prayer, then we work on different songs, then we go back to the plea for lightning. Everyone is always very careful.”
“Then what happened?”
“Aaron was young. And confident and careless and curious. Maybe he didn’t believe something as simple as a song could call something as terrible as a thunderbolt. Maybe he was showing off. I don’t know. But he didn’t end the song where he was supposed to. When I realized he was still singing, I ordered him to stop, but he wouldn’t. We were in a small building in Cedar Hills—there were twenty students in the room. I started shouting at all of them to get out, get out, and then I ran back to Aaron, to wrestle him to the ground, to make him stop.” The angel shrugged. “But the prayer was complete. The lightning bolt came. The building was demolished.”
“And you were blinded,” I finished. “Did you get injured as well?”
He nodded. “I have burns across my back and one down the side of my ribs. Scars now, but bad ones at the time.”
“What about Aaron?” I asked. “Was he blinded, too?”
The angel was silent.
“Dead, then,” I said with a sigh. “Well, there was a terrible lesson.”
The angel laid down his fork. “The world is full of terrible lessons,” he said.
I could hardly argue with that. “When did it happen?”
“Two years ago.”
“And you’ve been here that whole time?”
He shook his head. “No. I stayed in Cedar Hills—oh, six months. It took that long to heal, to learn how to—” He shook his head again. How to navigate the world as a blind man. “But I found it too painful to be around other angels. So I have moved from place to place, looking for peace.”
I glanced around the room, full of shadows and regret. “And found it here?”
He gave a small bark of laughter. “Hardly. This is just a stop. A quiet place where no one will bother me while I try to think of what to do next.”
“Well, sitting here in solitude all day, doing nothing except thinking about the past, seems like the worst possible way to find peace,” I said.
“You don’t know anything about it,” he snapped.
“Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever had grief in his life?” I demanded. “Pick five people at random on any street in Samaria, and you’ll find that they’ve suffered at least as much as you have. And most of them are getting on with their lives, not sitting in some dark room and moping.”
While he had told his story—and I had listened with a certain sympathy—he had seemed to forget how irritating I was, but he was remembering pretty fast now. He came to his feet in one swift movement, and his wings swept behind him with a kind of grandeur.
“I appreciate your insights,” he said in an acid voice. “Some other day, perhaps, we can discuss the tragedies you have survived.” He gestured toward the door; I was interested to note that he knew precisely where it was. That unwary step that had caused him to trip on the roof must have been a rarity. “But I’m tired. Please take all the trays with you as you go.”
Just to annoy him, I stacked the dishes as noisily as possible. He’d left half his breakfast untouched, but he’d done a good job on the dinner; maybe a little argument was what he needed to stimulate his appetite. Pausing in the doorway, I said, “I’ll be back tomorrow night at about this time. Late. If you get hungry before then, can you make your way downstairs?”
“Yes,” he said shortly. Unsaid went the rest of the sentence. But I don’t expect to be hungry. I’m never hungry. I’m too sad to eat.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I paused long enough to give him time to say I’d rather starve to death than spend another minute talking to you. But he didn’t. He merely stood there, obviously waiting for me to go. I was sure th
at, no matter how quietly I moved, he would be able to tell when I had left the room.
Alma was sleeping when I checked on her, which made me realize she must be in even worse shape than I’d thought. Otherwise, she would have managed to stay awake long enough to give me a furious scold for spending so long in the angel’s room. There were medicinal herbs in the school’s infirmary; I would have to bring her some tomorrow night when I returned to take care of the angel.
When I returned to take care of the angel.
My plan had been to trick my way into his presence so I could prove to myself I had no reason to fear him. Instead it seemed I would be bringing him meals and employing edgy banter to prod him out of his melancholy. The situation was so preposterous that, if I hadn’t been worried about waking Alma, I would have laughed out loud. Instead, I washed the dishes as quietly as I could and made sure the fire in the oven was out before I finally left the house for the night.
I slept badly—so busy reviewing my conversation with the angel that I kept fending off sleep—and spent the next day sleepwalking through my chores. I managed a quick unobserved visit to the infirmary, where I secured a container of manna-root salve and a roll of bandages so I could rewrap Alma’s ankle. Finally I joined the others in the kitchen as they began cleaning up after the evening meal and scrubbed at the pots as I waited impatiently for all of them to go to bed.
Again, it was close to midnight before I could slip outside and hurry up the hill to the Great House. Alma was waiting for me, seated at a kitchen worktable and facing the door. She was a determined one, I gave her credit for that, for she’d found a way to move around the kitchen well enough to put together a simple meal. There was bread cooling on the table and a covered pan warming on the stove.
“How’s your ankle today?” I asked as I stepped inside.
She made a face. “Hurts even worse than yesterday, though I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”
“Let me look at it before I go upstairs,” I said. “I brought some salve and better bandages.”
Angels of Darkness Page 23