Angel-Seeker

by Sharon Shinn

  And then there was a sound.

  It caught her wandering attention, it burrowed into her brain. It made the disorganized cloud drifts of her mind cohere around a central point. A sound—a note—a melody.

  Someone singing.

  The voice moved gradually from the lowest register to a higher octave, gorgeous and insistent. No escaping it, nothing to do but follow after it, stumbling in the half-dark of consciousness. It crooned and beckoned, drawing her forward, luring her into a place of shape and substance. Just when she thought she had grown used to it, just when she thought she could fall back into her waking sleep, the voice sharpened, grew more importunate, coiled around her like an iridescent cord and yanked her on. She was climbing steps, flat, shallow golden stairs, tugged upward by that relentless song.

  Now her breath grew labored and swift; now she was afraid, as if she approached a magical doorway at the head of that broad stair. The voice soared with ecstasy, a hummingbird of grace and delight, and Rebekah felt herself gaze after it, lift her hands toward it, want to follow it. Another step up, another, chasing that elusive, alluring creature, hearing that sublime invitation chanted into her ear.

  Rebekah. My name is Rebekah.

  Glorious now, that voice, exploding with trills and impossible leaps of melody. Intoxicating and irresistible, it summoned her on, and Rebekah ran after it, flung herself up those steps, and through that insubstantial door that closed off the world of dreams.

  Gasping, she looked around. She was in a room of stone and windows. On a high bed such as she had never seen before. Staring straight into the face of a golden-haired stranger. Who did not look as if she had been singing, or talking, or doing anything except waiting for Rebekah’s appearance through that ensorceled gate.

  “I knew you were in there,” the golden-haired woman said with a certain satisfaction. “Hello, Rebekah. I’m Rachel.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  They arrived in Cedar Hills late in the afternoon in a sleeting rain. They had been miserable for the past thirty hours, making a cold, wet camp the night before, not even trying to build a fire in the downpour. They had not had a fire their last two nights in the desert, either, since they had burned all their fuel in an attempt to keep their battered patient alive. The trip back from the Gathering had been far less enjoyable and far more eventful than the trip out.

  Nonetheless, the three Edori men remained cheerful, making jokes about the cold and the bad weather, and putting together edible meals despite the handicaps. It was Elizabeth who was tense and edgy, thrown into a near frenzy whenever something delayed them on the road. All she could think about was that girl, carried off so suddenly by the angel. All she could do was worry about her, and hope she had survived, and wonder if she would ever know the full story.

  Faith would know. The women in the dorm knew every bit of gossip that pertained to any citizen of the town. Faith would know if the angel had arrived in time and if the girl had lived. That was why, when they arrived in the muddy streets of Cedar Hills, Elizabeth almost could not bear their slow progress down the crowded roadways. She wanted to leap from the wagon and dash down the alley to the dorm, pelting pedestrians with questions as she ran.

  “Patience,” Rufus counseled, laughing at her. “A few more minutes and you’ll be home. Out of this rain very shortly.”

  “It’s just—I want to know what happened to her.”

  “See? I am so certain that she is fine that I cannot bring myself to fret.”

  “Nothing makes you fret! You Edori—”

  He shook his head and ruffled her damp hair. They had rigged a tarp over the back of the wagon, but it hadn’t been particularly effective in keeping out the angled rain. “I would fret if you were hurt or missing. I would fret if I came by your door and you would not let me in. There are many things, most of them involving you, that would make me pace across my floor at night.”

  Elizabeth’s face softened and she caught his hand in hers. “You can sleep well at night, then, because I’m not likely to turn you away—or go missing for any reason.”

  “So, see? I cannot be too concerned. Besides, I know our injured traveler has recovered nicely. You have the gift of healing in your hands. Yovah guided her when he put her in your path.”

  “Yes, but I want to be sure, you understand? I am so worried.”

  And he did understand; a kiss on her cheek signified that. It was another twenty minutes, though, before Paul pulled the wagon to the side of the road so that Rufus could haul Elizabeth’s luggage from the back.

  “I can carry it myself the rest of the way,” she said, and he nodded and didn’t try to hold her back. He merely kissed her again, promised to see her the following night, and let her run down the alley toward the dorm without another word of good-bye.

  Once inside the door, Elizabeth hurried through the house, shaking her wet hair impatiently back from her eyes and wondering where she might locate Faith. It was still early enough in the day that the other girls could be at work—or in the parlor—or in the kitchen. Elizabeth poked her head into the various common rooms, made brief hellos to the residents who called out a welcome, promised to come back later and tell her stories, and headed up to her bedroom. If Faith wasn’t there, Elizabeth would unpack her clothes and take a real bath in the water room and then pace up and down till her roommate returned. She could get stories from some of the other girls who lived here, but the best ones would be from Faith.

  Who, most conveniently, was propped up in her bed, blanket drawn to her chin and a look of petulance on her face. Felled by a winter ailment, no doubt, and not very happy about it.

  “Good, you’re sick,” Elizabeth said, striding into the room and dumping her possessions on the floor.

  “Elizabeth!” Faith squealed, her face transformed. “You’re back!”

  Elizabeth came straight over to Faith’s bed and made herself comfortable sitting at the patient’s feet. “Tell me everything that’s happened,” she commanded.

  “Magdalena had her baby. Angel. Boy. They’re calling him Jeremiah after Nathan’s father—”

  “Tell me about that girl,” Elizabeth interrupted. “The one that Obadiah brought back.”

  “I was just getting to that! She . . .” Faith’s voice trailed off and she stared at Elizabeth. “How did you know about her?”

  “We were the ones who found her in the desert. But she was unconscious—almost dead—I never even learned her name.”

  “Then you don’t know about—sweet Jovah singing, you don’t know!” Faith exclaimed, nearly bouncing in the bed. She seemed to have completely forgotten her illness, whatever it was. “The most romantic thing! That girl—her name is Rebekah—she’s a Jansai—”

  “Yes, we figured that out.”

  “And she’d been secretly meeting with Obadiah for months.”

  Elizabeth stared at her.

  Faith nodded emphatically. “Yes! Really! They were lovers! But he didn’t know that she was pregnant—”

  “With his—that girl is carrying an angel’s child? That girl who almost died in the desert?”

  “Yes! That girl who would have died except for you!”

  Elizabeth just continued staring, unable to marshal her thoughts. If that were true—but how had it happened? What would have brought an angel and a Jansai together? How could they have met? How could they have courted? And, once having taken an angel for a lover, how had this girl gotten into a situation so desperate? And then, by what unimaginable stroke of coincidence, how had it been Obadiah who responded to their plague flag, Obadiah who landed just in time to save his lover’s life?

  “What an impossible tale,” Elizabeth said at last. “But has she survived? What’s her condition?”

  “I think it’s still pretty serious. They say Obadiah won’t leave her room and that Mary is there every day. Her body is healing but her mind—” Faith shook her head. “It hasn’t recovered yet.”

  “But if her body heals—”
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  “Mary says she’s sure eventually she’ll come back to herself.”

  “And the baby?”

  “The baby seems to be healthy. Of course, we don’t know if it’s an angel baby or not.”

  Elizabeth nodded. Of course they didn’t. But given the other fantastical parts to this tale, Elizabeth was ready to bet that it was. She remembered the sight of that glowing Kiss on the Jansai woman’s arm. The god was celebrating some aspect of this woman’s life; why not the conception of an angel child?

  “How strange,” she said slowly, sinking back so her spine rested against the wall. “For so long I wanted to conceive my own angel baby. And now I know I never will. But I may have helped bring one into the world after all.”

  “You might,” Faith argued. “You might still meet an angel who desires you—”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think—I don’t want to be with anybody but Rufus.”

  Faith clasped her hands together under her chin. “So it was good? Your time with Rufus? Did you—was it—all that time together—”

  Elizabeth looked over at her and laughed. “Yes, we did. It was. He’s wonderful. He’s just—” She spread her hands, unable to explain. “It’s so much different. It’s never felt this way.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “Oh, he loves me.”

  Faith sighed and sank back into her pillows. “You know, this just gives me hope. See, I met this man the other day—not an angel, and at first I didn’t care to talk to him—but he was so funny. And then I saw him again the next day, and I really liked him—”

  They talked for another hour, catching up. Shiloh was so sick with pregnancy nausea that she had convinced everyone her child was angelic, but Faith personally believed Shiloh was faking her symptoms. Ruth had had three dates with the angel Matthew but had said very little about them, leading Faith to suspect nothing of importance had occurred. The whole city was in a frenzy as the angels—and many of the residents of Cedar Hills—prepared to head north to the Plain of Sharon. The Gloria would be sung in a little over two weeks’ time, and there was still much to be done to get ready.

  They would have talked on past dinnertime except that Elizabeth was so grubby and so hungry. She hurried down the hall to take a bath and change her clothes. By the time she returned, Faith had decided she was well enough to join the others in the dining hall. Before leaving the room, they both spent a few minutes fixing their hair.

  “But Obadiah,” Faith said suddenly, her eyes meeting Elizabeth’s in the mirror. “What did he say to you when he found you on the roadside, tending his lover?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “He scarcely even saw me. I’m not sure he even had time to register my face. The minute he recognized her—”

  “You mean, he didn’t realize it was you? But he knows you! You’re a friend of his!”

  “I’m not his friend. I’ve seen him from time to time, and he’s been kind to me. I’m glad I could do something to help someone he loved. But—” She shook her head again. “We’re not friends.”

  “I would be hurt,” Faith said.

  Elizabeth smiled. “No, you’d feel like I do. Lucky to have played even a small part in such an amazing story.”

  Three days later, they were all at breakfast when an urgent knock sounded on the door, and Tola’s daughter ran to answer it. Elizabeth’s first thought was that it was Mary, looking for Elizabeth’s aid in some medical emergency. The healer’s fill-in assistant had announced that she was going back to Gaza tomorrow, so Elizabeth had agreed to be ready to work as soon as Mary needed her. She had hoped for another day or two of rest, but that was perhaps greedy; she had gotten more than she had bargained for already on this particular vacation.

  Tola’s daughter rushed into the dining room, her eyes wide with excitement. “Someone’s come for you,” she said to Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth came quickly to her feet, swallowing the last of her juice. “I thought that might happen.”

  “It’s an angel!”

  A small murmur ran around the table at that, and all the other girls looked speculatively at Elizabeth. “Is it David?” Shiloh asked.

  David had never come looking for Elizabeth before and was unlikely to start now. “I doubt it,” Elizabeth said shortly. “Probably someone who needs a healer.”

  But she found, when she hurried down the hall and out the front door, that she had already done what healing she could for this particular angel. “Obadiah,” she said blankly when she recognized the fair-haired visitor waiting for her on the street.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and stared down at her, his face a mix of pleasure and earnestness and remorse. “Elizabeth,” he said, pronouncing her name deliberately. “I am so sorry. It took me a week to remember who you were.”

  She smiled, feeling a great pleasure wash over her. She had not expected him to remember at all. “You had others to be thinking of at just that moment.”

  “So you’ve heard the story? I suppose there are no secrets in Cedar Hills.”

  “The woman is the one you love, and her baby is yours.”

  He nodded. “And you saved them. You saved them both.”

  “She’s better, then? They’ll be fine?”

  “Rebekah is almost healed. There are a few places where the bruises look like they’ll never go away. But she’s well. She’s happy. She’s a little nervous—her life in Breven was nothing like the life she sees here—but I think she’s happy. She is—and, Elizabeth, I owe her life to you. What can I do to thank you? What can I say?”

  “You’ve already done it,” she said. “Just by coming here.”

  His fingers tightened a moment on her bones. “For the rest of my life, anywhere I am, in any hold in Samaria, you will have a place. You will be welcomed and considered a friend.”

  What she had dreamed of for so long! Schemed of and sacrificed for! “I have a place somewhere else now,” she said quietly. “But to believe you think of me as a friend would make me very happy.”

  He leaned in and took her in a careful, sweet embrace. She felt the brush of feathers along her back, against the skin of her neck. She could not help it; she shivered with the sheer physical delight of that delicate touch. “Come see her today,” he said into her hair. “Come be a friend to both of us.” He kissed the top of her head and stepped back, releasing her.

  She was moved, but not so overcome that she couldn’t smile up at him. “As soon as I can,” she promised. “First I have to see if Mary needs me.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  At first Obadiah said he would not go. He would not leave Rebekah. But Gabriel had turned those pure blue eyes on him and said, “You can rescue ten of her or twenty or a hundred, if you come with me.” And, as always, there was no gainsaying Gabriel.

  He wasn’t sure how much to tell Rebekah, still frail and a little disoriented from her week of delirium and her physical ordeal. But Rachel, meddling as always, had been before him, smoothing the way or forcing his hand, it was hard to tell. Always hard to tell with Rachel.

  “I hear you’re going to Breven,” Rebekah said to him, once he had greeted her with a kiss and interrogated her on her own health and the status of the baby. He came to see her maybe six times a day, and every time he asked her the same questions. She endured this with remarkable serenity, as she seemed to endure everything. She did not seem to be suffering at all.

  “I—well, Gabriel wants me to go. I haven’t decided yet if I will.”

  “What does he plan to do there?”

  Obadiah shrugged. He was playing with Rebekah’s fingers, so thin and fragile. She had lost weight and strength during her recovery period, and it would be a long time before she was sturdy again. She was trying to increase her physical durability by taking slow, extended journeys every day through the mazelike hallway of the building. Mary had not yet let her outside to try her balance on the open streets of Cedar Hills.

  “Gabriel wants to m
eet with Uriah, I suppose,” Obadiah said. “Express his outrage at what happened to you and to Martha. Bring the full disapproval of the Archangel to bear on the Jansai community. Not that the Jansai community will care, but Gabriel believes in the value of the deliberate gesture. So that everyone knows where he stands and what he will tolerate.” He looked up from their entwined fingers and smiled at her. “I don’t imagine his censure will change anything, though.”

  She smiled back, though even that did not alter the seriousness of her sharp, pointed face—even sharper and more keenly angled than before. “Could you do something for me while you’re in Breven?”

  She had never asked him for anything, not during their courtship, not since she had recovered her senses in Cedar Hills. “Of course! Anything!”

  “Will you go to my stepfather’s house and tell my family I’m alive?”

  He stared at her a long time, trying to read the turmoil that must lie behind the composed face. “Your family members are the ones who tried to kill you.”

  She shook her head. “Not my mother. Not Jordan. If you could let them know.”

  He nodded and shrugged, trying to convey that it did not matter how unorthodox it would be—an angel approaching a Jansai house, and bearing such news—that he did not care what kind of chaos he might create with his arrival. “Certainly. I will tell them. Any other messages I can deliver?”

  She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him, her mouth lingering against his. “That I am well, and happy, and cared for.”

  He returned the kiss with some enthusiasm but looked at her with rising doubt. “But—but are you?” he burst out. “You seem so—so ethereal, almost. So calm and so quiet. And after all you have been through. I have been so afraid for you. So worried that you would come back to me terrified and cowering, or not come back to me at all. And here you are—relaxed and tranquil—and I am so afraid. Of what horrors still lurk beneath that calm exterior. I am afraid that you are still stumbling and that I will not be able to catch you when you fall again.”