A Visitation of Angels

by Carolyn Haines

  When the men were drinking coffee and discussing escape routes, I went into the bedroom with Elizabeth. “We can’t leave town without paying Hattie. She’ll be worried about us. Maybe we can get a message to her.”

  “She will worry,” Elizabeth agreed. “But there’s nothing we can do. You can mail her money. If you contact her now, you’ll just put her in more danger.”

  Elizabeth was right, but it didn’t ease my conscience. “I’m not even certain the post office will deliver a letter from me.” It was foolish to be worried about a bill at a time like this, but it seemed like the only thing I could actually control.

  Elizabeth fretted with the coffee pot. “We’ll figure that all out when we’re safe.” She began piling baby things in the middle of the bed.

  I realized then that for all of her calm behavior, Elizabeth was facing a drastic change and she was aware of it. “Will you ever come back here?”

  She paused, holding a stack of diapers in her hand. “I love this place. This land. It’s primal and wild. There are spirits in the woods. Ancient beings who guard the wilderness. They see a tragic future, you know. Not for us as individuals, but for the wild things.” She looked down at the floor. “Ruth and I were close friends. I had someone I considered family here. She’s gone, though. There’s not a lot calling me back to Mission. To be honest, I don’t know that I can come back. Those days may be gone.”

  “Tell me about your brother. He seems tied up in too much, Elizabeth. Tell me the truth this time. We’ve risked a lot to come here and help you.”

  “I did lie,” she said. “I lied because of the ax attack. It happened right about the time Ramone disappeared. My brother would never do anything like that, but he’s a Gypsy. We’re blamed for many things. I’m sorry, but we’ve learned to lie to protect ourselves. It wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry.”

  “Is he a tinker? Was that the truth?”

  “We are Romany. Ramone is a skilled builder, but he also sold goods. Pots, pans, weathervanes, things not easy to find. After the death of our parents, we inherited considerable money. He thought he could set out to take that and make his fortune.” One side of her mouth lifted in a wry smile. “And have some adventure. That was, I believe, his primary focus. I had plenty of money, a safe place to live. He assumed I was protected in Chattanooga with the other members of our group. He said he would return for me, when he had made his mark. We would each marry and work our farms but we’d live side by side. We were very close. It’s been two years since I heard from him. I’ve come to believe he’s dead.”

  “He doesn’t know about Callie, does he?”

  “No. I would have written him, but I had no address.”

  Elizabeth had put the dark feather on top of her dressing table and I picked it up. For all that it had no vibrant hue—only the soft, silvery gray—it was undeniably beautiful. “I understand the power that Gabriel has.” The memory of his presence hit me hard again. “He made no effort to touch me. I’m not even sure he’s real. He could just be part of a dream. How do you know he’s Callie’s father?”

  “I’ve been with no other man.”

  I didn’t say it out loud, but I wondered if she could have been drugged or coerced into forgetting. I kept thinking, why Elizabeth? I knew she had a gift. She could see creatures from the other realm, even if only in her dreams. But no one else knew that. No one could possibly discern that. And what would explain Callie’s hands and feet? And Callie had the power to calm a person’s fears. “You and Michael can come with us back to Mobile. We’ll get a good doctor to look at Callie. I’m sure there are procedures that can be done to remove the webbing.”

  “Her life would be much easier if that were possible. I can’t help but think about the hardships that await her if there isn’t a medical solution. She’ll be a freak; something for people to stare at.”

  “There are specialists in Mobile and even New Orleans, if we have to go there. We’ll find someone.”

  Elizabeth put her arms around me and held on. “You’ve been a godsend to us, Raissa. I’m sorry I put you and Reginald in danger. I should have told the truth from the beginning but I was so afraid you wouldn’t come, that you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “How did you hear about us?” I asked. I’d meant to ask sooner.

  “It was Deputy Gomes.” She laughed softly without humor. “He’d gone to Montgomery for a meeting of his fellow law officers and someone had told him about Zelda Fitzgerald and Tallulah Bankhead and the way you’d helped another young woman who was their friend. Gomes was going on and on in the store about these detectives who could see ghosts. I went to Victoria and called Mrs. Fitzgerald. She was kind enough to give me your uncle’s address. Of course Gomes isn’t smart enough to put two and two together and figure out you’re the ghost investigators.”

  At least one mystery was solved. “Do you really believe your brother is dead?”

  “I do. Otherwise he would have found me by now, given me some sign. I should have left months ago, but travel by horse with an infant is not an easy thing.”

  “Unless he’s involved in this deeper than you think.” It was possible, and she had to be willing to confront that.

  “I can’t believe that Ramone would harm anyone, but wherever this investigation goes, we have to follow. And we have to be quick. The trial has been delayed, but only briefly. If we steal Hildy’s body, the whole town is going to be up in arms and searching for us.”

  “They’ll know it’s us. It could be no one else.”

  “And if they find us before we get the autopsy results, they will hang us. All of us. My baby...” She bundled the clothing she’d piled on the bed in the bedspread, pulling the four corners together to make a sturdy knot. “We have to take Mariah over to Hattie’s, like we did with Ruth’s gelding.”

  “Good idea. Hattie sent a boy to take the chickens. They’re gone.”

  “We’ll leave at first light.”

  Chapter 18

  The car was jam-packed as we set off. I held Callie while Elizabeth held a lead rope. Mariah trotted contentedly behind the car as Reginald drove down a road that was little more than a track. It defined the borders of Elizabeth’s land, and I watched the expressions roll across her face as she said goodbye to a farm she’d worked and enjoyed. She would not come back. Not willingly. This much I knew in my heart.

  Reginald’s clenched jaw reminded me how much danger we were in, though he’d been upbeat and cheerful to Elizabeth. I looked into the backseat at Michael, who rode beside Elizabeth. He nodded encouragement. “We’re going to be okay.”

  The trees crowded close to the road, the trunks so thick the woods were as dark as night on each side of us. Anyone could be lying in wait. “Don’t stop,” I cautioned Reginald. “Whatever happens, don’t stop.”

  He nodded and gripped the wheel tighter as the challenging road tried to wrest control from him. Up ahead, on the right, I saw something moving in the trees. I touched Reginald’s hand. “Look there.” I said it quietly, hoping not to alert Michael and Elizabeth until I was certain it was danger.

  Reginald sped up. The car bumped and Elizabeth cast a worried glance at Mariah, who seemed able to keep up.

  Whatever was in the woods increased its pace also. Michael leaned forward, pressing into the front seat. “We have to go back,” he said.

  “What?”

  “We have to go back. Turn around. Quickly.” He wasn’t panicked, but he was firm.

  “Why?” I leaned across the seat to ask him.

  He pointed toward the woods, and I thought he’d also seen the dark shadow tracking us. Instead, he pointed to something closer—a green hood that had been fitted over the top of a small pine. The empty eye holes stared right at us. “They know we’ll try this way out. They’ll be waiting for us.”

  Movement deeper in the woods caught my eye. I caught what appeared to be the flutter of large, dark, wings, but I couldn’t be certain. Though I was looking closely, I was completely un
prepared for a wild rush of black wings and bodies that came out of the trees and flew over the car, missing us by only inches. The wake of turkey buzzards swarmed the car in a way I’d never seen that kind of bird react. It was almost as if they were attacking us. Their red heads, almost bald, looked dipped in blood.

  “What the—” Reginald slowed in a small clearing and turned the car around. With the buzzards in pursuit, we headed back to Elizabeth’s. We would not escape this morning. Maybe not ever.

  “I’ve never seen a buzzard attack anything,” Elizabeth said. “They’re carrion eaters, not hunters.” Little Callie had grown completely still. Her eyes were wide open, but she didn’t fuss or cry.

  “Could they have been poisoned?” Reginald asked. “They seem to be everywhere in Mission and they don’t act like regular buzzards do.”

  “There have always been a lot of them. I call them the town greeters,” Elizabeth said. “When I first came to town, there were dozens on that old lightning-blasted tree at the edge of town.”

  “We saw them there when we first arrived too,” I said. “It was creepy, the way they sat on the tree and never flew away. They were watching. Just like the men who follow me and Reginald around town.”

  We’d left the birds behind, but their behavior had been strange, threatening. I turned to face Michael in the back seat. He didn’t say anything, but he nodded, a sign to keep my courage up.

  We arrived back at Elizabeth’s defeated and worried. Michael was about to turn Mariah loose when I stopped him. I could ride her to Hattie’s and get some help. On the horse, I could cut through the woods and fields. They couldn’t follow me in a car because the woods were too thick. Reginald would have a fit, but no one else was nearly as good a rider as I was.

  “You are not riding off on that horse.” Reginald saw my hand on Mariah’s lead rope and knew I was up to something.

  “I can get help.”

  “Where? You can’t ride that horse all the way to Victoria.”

  It would be a long and difficult trip, but I probably could. But I didn’t have to. “If I can get to Hattie, she can help us create a distraction so we can make an escape. Maybe I can help her pile up some wood or old hay and start a fire, something that would draw the men over there. While they’re busy we can escape.”

  “No.” Reginald was firm.

  “I can ride through the woods—”

  “That’s not safe.” It was Michael who interrupted, not Reginald.

  “I’m an excellent rider,” I told him. “I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s not the horse.” He stared at me. “It’s the woods. Those buzzards. That wasn’t natural, Raissa. Something dark is in those woods. The buzzards know it and I think they answer to it.”

  His statement took me aback. He might not believe in Gabriel, but he believed in something ugly and dangerous. Even so, I couldn’t let him scare me off a plan that might save us all,.

  “Please put Mariah in the paddock. She needs grain and water,” Elizabeth said. “Then come inside out of the sun. You’re going to cook your brains. We can discuss this in the kitchen.” Her tone was sharper than normal and I saw why. Standing at the edge of the yard, making no attempt to hide, were two men. They stood, hands hanging at their sides, watching. They didn’t appear to be armed, but that was little comfort. As always, we were being closely observed.

  I was tempted to go inside and get the rifle and shoot at them. Not to kill, but to let them know we weren’t helpless. If they thought we were helpless, no telling what they would do.

  Michael took my arm and walked me and the horse into the barn. We put a little grain out for Mariah and made sure she was free to head out to graze when she finished eating. Weaving my hand through his arm, he assisted me back to the house. We stopped in the front yard at the edge of the porch. “Let’s go inside.” He was staring at the men too. One of them raised a hand and made what looked like a signal.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know.” Michael spoke to me but his gaze was riveted on the two watchers. The other man lifted his arm, curling his hand into a fist and bringing it down in a harsh manner.

  “He’s threatening us.”

  “Yes.” Michael propelled me toward the front porch. “Go inside. If there’s trouble, I need to be able to react quickly.”

  I stood for a moment longer, watching as a buzzard settled beside the men. Another bird lodged on a tree limb. The pose of the birds was almost a perfect duplication of the men’s posture. Shoulders hunched, neck extended.

  “Those aren’t just birds, are they?” This was what frightened Michael in the woods. It wasn’t the men in green hoods, it was something else. Something unnatural, as he’d said. The feather I’d found—he worried it was from something dark and dangerous.

  “They’re something other than birds.” He didn’t flinch when he said it.

  “What?”

  He stepped away from me, leaving me at the edge of the porch. “Go inside, Raissa. Now.”

  “Michael, I—”

  A bullet sang over my head and struck the house with a fat plop. Reginald came to the door. “Get inside! Now!”

  Michael and I both obeyed, rushing inside before another bullet was fired. I suspected the men of Mission were excellent shots. Hunting was how most of them ate—so it appeared they weren’t aiming to kill us, only to keep us corralled in Elizabeth’s house. They wanted us to know they could hurt us.

  As soon as I could, I cornered Michael alone in the parlor. “What’s going on with the buzzards? With you?” I caught his hand and held it between both of mine and felt the familiar frisson I always felt when we touched. I did have feelings for him. Small stirrings of attraction and desire, but my trust was not easily won.

  “The birds—the buzzards—are messengers.” He sighed. “I know you’re able to see and feel things that others can’t. Elizabeth is also a sensitive, but much weaker than you.”

  “What kind of messengers?” I looked up and Reginald was in the door. I waved him over to join us. “Please tell us.”

  “There’s something dark here in Mission. It’s part of the reason I’m here.”

  Any number of things could qualify as dark in Mission—killers who attacked the weak and helpless, men who ruled with iron fists, corruption of the justice system. “What? Just say it.”

  “What do you know about Callie’s father?”

  His question took me aback. “He’s an archangel. Gabriel. He gives both Elizabeth and me the ability to dream what’s truly happened.”

  Michael closed his eyes for a moment. “None of that is true.”

  Hot denial was my initial response, but I managed to hold it back. “Why would you say that?”

  “The gift of dreaming the truth doesn’t come from the thing you call Gabriel. It comes from Callie. She is Elizabeth’s gift. She’s touched with the Divine.”

  There was so much he wasn’t saying. So much. “And Gabriel?”

  He stared deep into my eyes, and I felt as if he were touching something inside me. “Gabriel is no archangel. He’s a great deceiver.”

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “I just do. You have no reason to trust me, but you must.”

  “But—he has wings. The feather….I saw him.”

  “He is no angel, Raissa. He’s treacherous and therefore dangerous.”

  I stared into Michael’s eyes. He wasn’t pretending. He was afraid for me. And for Elizabeth. But most especially for Callie.

  “Do you believe Elizabeth saw the truth of Ruth’s murder?” Reginald asked. He’d come to stand beside me. His arm brushed mine, a deliberate offer of comfort.

  Michael nodded. “I do. The dreams come from Callie. She’s an innocent. She reflects the truth without prejudice because she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s merely opening a channel to a past event.”

  “But she is Gabriel’s child,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure of that,” Michael sai
d.

  “You doubt Elizabeth’s word?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I doubt her knowledge of what was done to her. That entity she calls Gabriel, we don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “You agree he is…supernatural?” Reginald asked.

  “I do.”

  “But he is not an angel?” Reginald continued, questions burning in his eyes.

  “He is not an angel in the sense that you know angels—messengers of the divine, healers, those who bring comfort. He is none of those things. And he is a danger to Elizabeth and Raissa. They see him and experience him on many levels. If he gains a foothold in their heart or mind…he is dangerous.”

  I was about to reply when Elizabeth called out, “Coffee’s made.” She was standing at the sink and the men turned and headed to the kitchen. I looked through the open doorway and saw her at the hand pump—thank goodness she didn’t have to carry water from a well or a creek. She was pressing the handle up and down and a flow of water gushed into the sink. Her head was slightly down as she worked.

  Suddenly a shot rang out. Elizabeth stopped. It was as if she paused in her work to consider something. She stumbled backward a step or two and slowly turned to face us, confusion on her face. Her hand lifted to her chest as blood appeared at her shoulder like a rose—dark and intensely red. As it began to spread down her breast and torso, she slowly slumped to the floor.

  Chapter 19

  The men rushed into the kitchen and flew to Elizabeth’s side. Outside the house, I heard men arguing.

  “You stupid bastard, you shot her,” one man said.

  “Yeah, I got the bitch. She won’t be troubling us anymore,” another replied.

  “That’s murder, you dumb bastard. You’ll hang for this.”

  I couldn’t believe what had just happened—Elizabeth had been shot standing in her own kitchen. I looked out the window and saw the watchers running into the woods. Stunned, I had to force myself to walk to the kitchen doorway. Reginald held clean dishcloths to the wound and Michael searched through drawers and cabinets for medical supplies. In the bedroom little Callie began to wail—the first time I’d heard the baby cry. This was an outburst of terror and loss, and I hurried through the kitchen to pick Callie up.