Angels of Destruction (35 page)

23

U
pstairs, Margaret and Diane tended to Norah. The sound of water coursing through the old pipes indicated that a bath was being drawn. Downstairs, at the kitchen sink, Erica saturated an old dish towel in cold water, and with gentle pressure, she wiped clean Sean's face, stanched the blood from the corner of his lip, and winced as she pushed the dirt from the pebbled lacerations at his cheekbone and chin. They could hear Norah slip into the tub, cry out that it was too hot, and the singsong reparations from the two sisters. Finished with her ministrations, Erica stepped back to consider his face the way an artist might move to gain a different perspective. “You'll be all right,” she said. “You clean up nicely.”

The remark seemed a kind of gentle joke, so he returned a weak smile. She reached for his hands, and he let her wash the wounds on his palms and knuckles. Clean again, his hands seemed less alien, and the balm of her touch restored him after the violence. The woman said at last, “I am Mary Gavin.”

“I know who you are.”

“You must be Sean. I've heard a lot of good things about you from Norah and Mrs. Quinn.”

“Your mother.”

She brushed an escaping strand of hair from in front of her eyes. His words felt like an accusation, but she realized at once that of course Norah would have told her only confidant. A story existed below the surface of sudden angels and lost daughters, and this poor boy was caught in the vortex. She wondered what other secrets he kept.

“You can trust me,” he told her. “I won't tell.” As he made the promise, his lip began to bleed again, and she held the cloth against it like a kiss.

“Is there someone I can call to come get you? Your mother or father?”

Through the dish towel he mumbled, “My mother's still at work, and my father doesn't live with us anymore.”

She reached out and laid her hand against the side of his face, and he tilted into the warmth of her touch. He closed his eyes and rested there. Upstairs, the water drained from the bathtub, a door opened, and the girl emerged to the muffled strains of two comforting voices.

Norah descended. She came down from her bath a different person, her wet hair combed close against her scalp, the scent of jasmine shampoo in the air, and the light gone from her eyes. Trailing her, worn by the shock of the attack, were her attendants: Diane, limping from step to step, for her foot had fallen asleep, and Margaret, anxious and fretful, pulling at the hems of her sleeves to hide her reddened hands. Wrapped in a thick robe, Norah crossed barefoot over the floor and put her arms around Sean, rested her head against the shoulder she had once bitten, and left a wet patch on his shirt. He accepted the gesture with good grace, blushing.

Erica watched her mother watch the girl and could see that Margaret was grieving already before the child was gone. Grief had become the handmaid of hope, and she whose life was also bound by heartache and desire understood all too well what must be done.

The five gathered at the table, and Norah and Sean circled back to how it began with the protests of the mothers and how it ended with the attack by the children. Telling the story released its internal tensions, for it is an old tale of misunderstanding that ends in violence. A comfort of tea was brewed and served, a pan of hot chocolate for the younger souls. A deck of cards appeared by sleight of hand. Tricks were realized with shouts of triumph, and laughter resounded over improbable bids risked and made. In this way, they assuaged their anger and disappointment. When the hour came for Sean to go home, they had willed themselves back to equipoise, found a route to one another.

“Your mother will be worried,” Margaret said. “I'll walk you home, Sean, and be there to help explain those bumps and bruises.”

Diane stood and bowed. “We'll take my car. A hero deserves to ride in style with at least two chauffeurs. Your chariot awaits.”

Diminished by the oversized robe, Norah walked him to the door, a child again spent by fear and hope. Her hair had dried to a tangled mess, and her eyeglasses must have been chipped earlier that day. Facets caught the falling light and broke it into many colors. “Thank you for sticking up for me.”

“It's okay.”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And for believing. I'll never forget it.”

He looked away. “Okay, see you tomorrow.”

Norah waved goodbye, and on the drive home, he began to miss her and wish he had lingered awhile.

After watching them get into the car, Erica sat on the bottom step and patted a place for the child. She sidled in close enough to touch, and the woman leaned into her, pressed her shoulder against Norah's head. Alone in the house, each became acutely aware of the other and their roles in bringing about the reunion. “Would you like to talk now?” Erica asked. “Tell me how I can help?”

“No, I can take care of myself.”

“How long have you been on your own?”

“All of my life. Since I was little.”

“I can't stay here, you know.”

Norah cleared her throat. “I guess not.”

“I have to go back to New Mexico, and I want to take my mother with me.”

“You'll want to be with her as long as you can. She's not well.”

“She would want you to come,” Erica said. “And I would have you, but you and I both know that isn't where you belong.”

“I want to stay,” Norah said. “For her sake, my own, and the boy's. He has let sorrow carry him away.”

“He's strong. He stood up for you. He'll find a way out of what he's feeling.”

“Are there really coyotes and roadrunners in New Mexico?”

“Not like the cartoon.”

“Then I wouldn't want to go.” Through the stormdoor, the sky darkened, far away a flash of lightning.

“Tell me, how long have you been an angel?”

She had no reply.

Erica lowered her head so she could see directly into the child's eyes behind the forlorn chipped glasses. “Did you run away? Is it far from here?”

She gave no answer but turned her face to the wall.

“Did you come to save my mother? To bring us back together?”

“Hope is not about tricks and miracles.”

“Norah, if you stay, there will be no end to your trouble. They think you have imagined it all. They think you are a danger to yourself, to the other children. Not even the true believers want to see an angel in their midst. They will take you away to God knows where.”

Black against black, the shadows streaked across the sky, barely legible. Birds heading to roost for the night in the tall trees. Extinguished stars shooting across the heavens. Ranks of angels sent to destroy, or beckoned to console, or called to guard the angry and the innocent. Prayers, becoming answers. Erica wound an arm around Norahs shoulders and pulled her closer, a score of possibilities playing in her mind. “Are you ready to go back to where you came from?”

The child nodded. “Will you tell Mrs. Quinn? Will you tell her that the time has come?”

24

W
hen Sean arrived on Tuesday morning to accompany her to school, he was met at the door by Diane, who told him that Norah wasn't feeling well and would be staying in bed that day. On Wednesday, he found a note taped to the front molding informing him not to wait and to please not wake the house. Thursday no one answered when he knocked, and the aunt's car was no longer parked in the driveway. A rumor ran through Friendship that Principal Taylor had reached the limit on angels and suspended her, and the punishment had escalated into outright expulsion for refusing to follow his orders, for Mrs. Patterson had found the principal's note to Mrs. Quinn hidden in the grammar book in the girl's desk. A rebuttal challenged the premise that she had been kicked out. Among third graders, it was said that a gang of bullies had attacked her that day after school and that she was in the hospital, or dead in the morgue. This tale spawned the further counter theory that she had not been killed by the children but, rather, had thrown herself off the bridge in town and the body was lost downriver. Her erstwhile disciples, shamed by their own lack of faith, put forth the fable that she had departed on the wing, ascending into the heavens, saddened and sobered by the viciousness of life on earth.

Such stories did not bother Sean, for he knew that people often make up the most outrageous tales to explain what they cannot understand. All of them—the children, Mrs. Patterson, Mr. Taylor, the parents—granted him a certain solicitude, for the cuts and bruises on his face reminded them of all that had happened and their complicity. The boys guilty of the attack in the woods stayed clear of him, skulking in the corridors and classrooms, fearful that he would turn them in. More than the wild speculation and the presence of bullying cowards, he was bothered by the return of his ordinary life and the uncertainty and emptiness of the Quinns’ house. Each time he passed, morning and afternoon, he longed for some sign, and on Friday after school, he thought he saw the kitchen curtains part and close as he cut through the backyard. Summoning his courage, he circled round and knocked on the front door.

Mrs. Quinn answered and stood on the threshold, her hand clasping the open door, worry knit across her ashen brow. She seemed tired and distracted and looked at Sean as though he were not real, but some spirit child.

“How is Norah? I haven't seen her since Monday, and I've been wondering.”

Stepping onto the porch, she allowed the door to close behind her with a bang. Clouds swollen with rain had accompanied him there, and she lifted her eyes to gauge the proximity of a storm. “Sean, I was planning to come see you and your mother this weekend.”

“I just stopped by to see if—”

“She's not here, Sean. That's why I was coming to visit. She's not here.”

“What happened? Is she okay?”

“I don't know how to tell you. She wasn't my granddaughter. We were just pretending—”

“I've known that for a long time.”

Margaret cleared her throat and looked over his head. “When she started to go around claiming to be an angel, I was concerned at first, but not too much so. Lots of children imagine things, like to pretend.”

“But I saw her, Mrs. Quinn. I saw what she can do. She made the clocks stop. She drew fire in the sky. She made whole flocks of birds appear.”

“You know what you think you saw, Sean, but maybe you were imagining too.” She moved to put a hand on his shoulder and then reconsidered. “Ever since your father left. I'm sure it's difficult.”

“It isn't about my father. She showed me the stars in her throat.”

“She is a sick child, Sean. A runaway. I'm not sure how she got here, and I wasn't in my right mind either. Seeing things that were not there. I wasn't myself, not till my daughter came home.”

He checked the urge to cry. “Can I see her when she gets back?”

“What I'm saying is, she's gone. She asked me to tell you—”

“You sent her away? How could you?”

“For her own good.” She paused as if not quite believing her own words. “Where she'll be better off.”

“But she isn't crazy. She is an angel.”

Margaret looked past him to the horizon.

“She saved you. She brought your daughter back. How could you?” He ran down the steps and out into the yard.

“Sean, please,” she called after him.

“How could you? I hate you! How could you not believe in her?”

“Son—”

“I hate you!” he shouted again and again, and then he ran all the way home.

T
HE DAY WAS
ending, the light weakening, and outside his window a crescent of birds took flight, heading to shelter for the night, propelled toward darkness. Sean rolled over on his side and looked at the cardboard circus wagons, the feathers, the blue teacup. He wondered how she had departed. The man from the State—sinister beneath his fedora—coming to bind her in a straitjacket and drive off in a wagon with the other caged runaways. Mrs. Quinn, her sister, and her daughter standing on the front porch waving goodbye, their handkerchiefs fluttering in the breeze, and when they could no longer see her, turning back to the house like mourners leaving a funeral.

Or this time Norah did not hesitate. Climbing onto the rail, she steadied herself above the blue river and stared into the brightness of the sun. Like a bird she bent her knees into a crouch, unfurled her gigantic wings, and leapt into the air. The wind rushed beneath her as she beat higher and higher into the sky, and within minutes, she was small, then smaller, like a balloon floating away, and he followed with his eyes till she vanished into a point and then nothing at all.

Around dinnertime, his mother came to check on him, and when he claimed not to be hungry, she laid her hand upon his forehead, and he wished she would stay longer, stay forever, for the coolness of her touch was the only balm against the fire in his mind.

25

T
he For Sale sign went up the week before Easter, but he did not see it, for he took the long route to and from school, avoiding the shortcut and the Quinns’ home altogether. Her absence in the classroom was burden enough to bear, and the sight of that house each day would have tortured his memory. Sean also took no part in the sacralization and mythmaking that arose among her third-grade apostles. Those who had turned away now crafted a gospel of their fragmentary remembrances, conflating episodes, granting her powers she did not have, neglecting the significance of those she possessed. Days after the confirmation of the Quinns’ departure, new stories began to circulate. Some, mostly children, accepted her claims and in retrospect regretted how Norah had been treated. Others, particularly the adults, were glad to see the Quinns leave town. No one knew where they went or why, not even the Delarosas next door. It was reported that the owner had left the rooms furnished, vanishing without so much as a goodbye to neighbors or friends or anyone at all. The house, furniture, and land were being sold by one Diane Cicogna of Washington, D.C.

As one season gave way to the next, the legend of Norah Quinn faded. By May, the schoolchildren were x-ing out the remaining days until summer vacation, their minds preoccupied with swimming pools and trips to the shore, Little League and the seemingly endless nirvana of doing nothing at all. In time, they largely forgot about the girl that had once graced their lives, forgot the animal crackers and moving statues, the burning car and the lost minute. She was put away with the Easter decorations, the sweaters, and the rain slickers. From time to time, another child invited Sean to play but he was so sullen at Monopoly, so bored by cowboys and Indians, that he was rarely asked back again. Skimping on his schoolwork, he barely passed. He wanted nothing more than to be alone.

In summertime, his wish came true. His mother left him by himself when she went to work, and there was nobody who ever came around. He spent his days in idleness, trying to forget Norah, but he still missed and thought of her often, for it had never occurred to him that she would ever leave. When Father's Day arrived, he remembered a conversation with Norah about his missing father. “He hasn't abandoned you,” she had said, “but lost himself. Pray that he may find himself again.”

On an evening in late June, Sean rode his bicycle past the Friendship School and sat awhile staring at its utter emptiness. Dusk crept up unexpectedly, and fireflies began to flash like thousands of stars across the playground. Along the edge of the woods, a chorus of peeper frogs and crickets filled the silence with their music, and he felt a kind of panic at getting home after dark. His mother would be angry with him, so against his instincts, he took the path that ran past the Quinns’ yard. Under a quarter moon, he stopped at the fence bordering their property. Next door, the lights were off at the Delarosas’; he had not dared to say a word to the flower shop man since the incident on the bridge. The grass had grown high and wild due to neglect, for nobody was buying houses around there any longer, nobody was moving in, only moving out or dying off. Looming like a black box, the house was more shadow than substance, but he could still picture Mrs. Quinn watching from the kitchen window and Norah hopping the split rails as nonchalant as a cat. He closed his eyes to better picture her, and in the instant he opened them again, he noticed a flicker from her window as if a shadow had crossed the room. No light had been on when he first pulled up, he was certain, but now the window shone like a star. Inching closer, he saw the luminous spill from the second story, the curtains flapping gently in an intermittent breeze. Lured farther, he parked his bicycle against the fence and waded through the grass to the back door. One unanswered knock proved empty and ridiculous. He turned the knob and found the door unlocked.

The kitchen was largely as he remembered. The pictures on the walls were gone, but everything else looked the same—the scarred oak table and chairs pushed back as though a family had just gotten up from a meal. Going room to room, he found himself in an abandoned museum. In Dr. Quinn's study, the medical books stood steadfast and a stethoscope curled like a snake on an old hat rack. A few personal effects were missing from the living room, but left behind were the old sofa covered in a faded afghan, the reading lamp silted with dust, and beneath the coffee table, their old Monopoly, Tip It, a magazine from the middle of March. For a brief moment, he expected Mrs. Quinn and her sister arriving home from a late dinner, but the idyll passed. Staleness hung in the air, an odor particularly strong and sharp at the bottom of the stairs, where he debated whether to investigate further the source of that mysterious light. Along the bottom edge of her bedroom's closed door, the faintest shimmering line appeared through the darkness. He called out her name.

Something stirred at the sound of his voice, a surprised cry and then a fluttering scurry. Sean took the steps, pausing at each riser to listen again, but he could not be sure if the noise emanated from above or came from inside his own pounding chest. On the top step, as he was about to reach the landing, he risked her name again. “Norah,” he whispered hoarsely, and the response was unmistakable: drumbeat of wings, dozens flapping in panic, a rush of wind pulling at the closed door.

Angels, he decided. Angels behind the door and Norah among them. Or the seven Angels of Destruction come to end time, led by the angel in the hat and overcoat he had summoned in his nightmare. The wingbeats grew furious and crashing.
Just don't hurt me,
he said to himself as he turned the knob.

The sudden opening sucked in the air and sent feathers undulating in the cross-breeze, as though he had just walked in upon a fleeting pillow fight. The bed was a mess, the brocaded covers and blankets ripped and unraveling at the seams. A lit lamp lay knocked over on its side, the shade brown where the bulb had scorched the cloth. White droppings coined the bookshelves. Colorful strands from the blankets were threaded into a nest atop the bureau. Birds, he realized. Gotten in through an open window. Knocked over the lamp and bumped the switch. No angels present. He laughed at his foolishness, laughed at how afraid he had let himself be. He picked up the lamp and set it back in place, and as he pushed down the sash, he saw in the glass the reflection of Norah. Soft as a wingtip, something brushed his shoulder, and he pivoted quickly expecting by some miracle to find her there, but just as quickly, the prayer vanished and he was alone in an empty room facing his own image in the black window.