Angels! Read online

  The track turned steeply up, and the little car's engine strained, its wheels spinning. At last we came to a slope it wouldn't climb. The girl killed the engine and lights and we got out into wet, rushing air that smelled of ozone and scorched rock. My skin prickled with electricity. Not far above, black clouds roiled, muttering heavily.

  She was a pale blur scrambling through high grass that bent hissing in the wind. I scrambled up the slope after her.

  Something loomed above me: a huge rock cropping out of the very top of the mountain. She was climbing it.

  "Hey!" I yelled, laughing. "This is crazy! We've got to get out

  of here!" The storm scattered my words. I started after her, fingers straining on narrow holds, tennis-shoes slipping on wet rock, wind and rain tearing at me blindingly. When I reached the top, I was gasping.

  The girl was naked, standing on the topmost pinnacle of rock, arching her body upward, straining her hands toward the clouds and moaning. The rock steamed, and the smell of burning and electricity was strong.

  The glow of her skin reminded me of something. I stood at the edge of the rock, suddenly trembling, dizzy chasms of wind rushing below me.

  "Don't be afraid," said the girl. "We're here to help you. To smooth your way from this world to the next."

  "No," I whimpered.

  But somehow I knew it was what I had always wanted.

  I pulled off my clothes, throwing them out into the blackness. The rock was hot and charred under my feet.

  I reached for the girl's upstraining body.

  A livid blue spark jumped between us, lighting for a second her white skin, her crazy eyes, the hair standing out from her head like a silver mane. Then she was clawing at me, pulling me desperately to her, and we wrestled, standing, kneeling, and lying, until the mountain seemed to rock thundering on the roots of the world.

  There was an enormous flash that cut the flesh from us in an instant, and I was illuminated from within: I saw our bodies flaming in the rushing air, and all the cracks and straining strength of rock under us, pushed up to the air from the liquid searing center of the earth, saw the live green things that crept and grew over the mountain toward the light, pushing upward by millimeters even in that second, saw birds huddled in their nests in swaying branches, saw animals crouching in their holes, a little river frothing at the foot of the mountain, and all rivers running to the oceans, the whales gliding silent and deep through the cold blue oceans, birds singing over the nests of their young in the evening, saw a young man leaning on a bridge in the evening, staring down into quiet water.

  And as the vision faded and I plunged through darkness like a dying spark from a Fourth of July rocket, I saw, seated in the midst of everything, an old, old man in a grey robe, hands folded patiently on his stomach.

  VIII

  . . . a fresh October day with pale blue sky, yellow leaves fluttering down. I was sitting on my back deck, so tired that it was an effort to breathe, to hold my head up, so tired that the long yellow sunlight seemed aged and brittle, the breeze cold. Vicki sat in the chair next to mine, head bowed, hands lying useless in her lap like an old woman's.

  Slow footsteps came along the flagstones at the side of the house, with a heavy clunk, as if whoever walked there leaned on a staff. The footsteps climbed the wooden steps, and an old man came into view. He was tall and stooped in his grey robe, bald, wrinkled face grave and thoughtful.

  He stood looking down at us for a few minutes. Then he intoned in a strong, old voice: "The first seed of Life is desire. Life is the unwinding of desire, like the unwinding of a spring. When desire is burned away, the next world comes.

  "I sent you images, reflections of your own desires, to help you to the next world."

  Then a profound blue light shone from him, dimming the sun, and it was as if his body had turned inside out, had become hollow—had become an opening or doorway in the air of our back yard through which blue light shone from some other place, where I thought I could see stars. Flanking the door were two tall, shining figures in chain mail, leaning on heavy spears.

  Then they and the door and the old man were gone.

  A haze had come over the afternoon sun, making the sky pale. Mist was creeping through the bushes at the bottom of the garden. Birds sang and fluttered on the old grape arbor in Mrs. Romer's back yard. I was too tired to move, or even think, almost too tired to, watch the mist roll in silently, softening the outlines of trees down on Thayer Avenue. After awhile the yellow leaves of our oak dripped with it, and the sky had turned twilight grey. The few sleepy songs of birds were muffled in the still air.

  Fog thickened, so now I could only see halfway down the hill. Mrs. Romer's grape arbor began to slip out of sight. My hand had somehow gotten locked with Vicki's, but I couldn't turn to look at her. A surf, invisible in the fog, seemed to roll under us now, as if the ocean washed around the foundations of the house. Soon I could only see the horizontal bar of the deck railing in the mist, and the oak tree's shadow leaning over us as soft grey silence closed around.

  My eyes were heavy and my chin drooped to my chest, but somewhere, maybe deep inside, someone seemed to be shaking me gently and saying "wake up, wake up."

  Then I fell asleep.

  And the Angels Sing

  by

  Kate Wilhelm

  Kate Wilhelm began publishing in 1956, and by now is widely regarded as one of the best of today's writers—outside the genre as well as in it. Her work has never been limited to the strict boundaries of the field, and she has published mysteries, mainstream thrillers, and comic novels as well as science fiction. Wilhelm won a Nebula Award in 1968 for her short story "The Planners," took a Hugo in 1976 for her well-known novel Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, added another Nebula to her collection in 1987 for her story "The Girl Who Fell into the Sky," and won yet another Nebula the following year for her story "Forever Yours, Anna." Her many books include the novels Margaret and I; Fault Lines; The Clewiston Test; Juniper Time; Welcome, Chaos; Oh, Susannah!; Huysman's Pets; and Cambio Bay; the mystery novels Smart House; Sweet, Sweet Poison; Seven Kinds of Death; The Hamlet Trap; and Death Qualified; and the collections The Downstairs Room, Somerset Dreams; The Infinity Box; Listen, Listen; and Children of the Wind. Her most recent books are a collection, And the Angels Sing, and a mystery novel, Justice for Some. Wilhelm and her husband, writer Damon Knight, ran the Milford Writer's Conference for many years, and both are still deeply involved in the operation of the Clarion workshop for new young writers. She lives with her family in Eugene, Oregon.

  Here she gives us a bittersweet story concerned, like much of her best work, with the making of some very hard choices . . .

  Eddie never left the office until one or even two in the morning on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. The North Coast News came out three times a week, and it seemed to him that no one could publish a paper unless someone in charge was on hand until the press run. He knew that the publisher, Stuart Winkle, didn't particularly care, as long as the advertising was in place, but it wasn't right. Eddie thought. What if something came up, something went wrong? Even out here at the end of the world there could be a late-breaking story that required someone to write it, to see that it got placed. Actually, Eddie's hopes for that event, high six years ago, had diminished to the point of needing conscious effort to recall. In fact, he liked to see his editorials before he packed it in.

  This night, Thursday, he read his own words and then bellowed, "Where is she?" She was Ruthie Jenson, and she had spelled frequency with one e and an a. Eddie stormed through the deserted outer office, looking for her, and caught her at the door just as she was wrapping her vampire cloak about her thin shoulders. She was thin, her hair was cut too short, too close to her head, and she was too frightened of him. And, he thought with bitterness, she was crazy, or she would not wait around three nights a week for him to catch her at the door and give her hell.

  "Why don't you use the goddamn dictionary? Why do you correct my
copy? I told you I'd wing your neck if you touched my copy again!"

  She made a whimpering noise and looked past him in terror, down the hallway, into the office.

  "I . . . I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . ." Fast as quicksilver then, she fled out into the storm that was still howling. He hoped the goddamn wind would carry her to Australia or beyond.

  The wind screamed as it poured through the outer office, scattering a few papers, setting a light adance on a chain. Eddie slammed the door against it and surveyed the space around him, detesting every inch of it at the moment. Three desks, the fluttering papers that Mrs. Rondale would heave out because anything on the floor got heaved out. Except dirt; she seemed never to see quite all of it. Next door the presses were running; people were doing things, but the staff that put the paper together had left now. Ruthie was always next to last to go, and then Eddie. He kicked a chair on his way back to his own cubicle, clutching the ink-wet paper in his hand, well aware that the ink was smearing onto skin.

  He knew that the door to the pressroom had opened and softly

  closed again. In there they would be saying Fat Eddie was in a rage. He knew they called him Fat Eddie, or even worse, behind his back, and he knew that no one on Earth cared if the North Coast News was a mess except him. He sat at his desk, scowling at the editorial—one of his better ones, he thought—and the word frequancy leaped off the page at him; nothing else registered. What he had written was "At this time of year the storms bear down onshore with such regularity, such frequency, that it's as if the sea and air are engaged in the final battle." It got better, but he put it aside and listened to the wind. All evening he had listened to reports from up and down the coast, expecting storm damage, light outages, wrecks, something. At midnight he had decided it was just another Pacific storm and had wrapped up the paper. Just the usual: Highway 101 under water here and there, a tree down here and there, a head-on, no deaths. . . .

  The wind screamed and let up, caught its breath and screamed again. Like a kid having a tantrum. And up and down the coast the people were like parents who had seen too many kids having too many tantrums. Ignore it until it goes away and then get on about your business, that was their attitude. Eddie was from Indianapolis, where a storm with eighty-mile-per-hour winds made news. Six years on the coast had not changed that. A storm like this, by God, should make news!

  Still scowling, he pulled on his own raincoat, a great black waterproof garment that covered him to the floor. He added his black, wide-brimmed hat and was ready for the weather. He knew that behind his back they called him Mountain Man, when they weren't calling him Fat Eddie. He secretly thought that he looked more like The Shadow than not.

  He drove to Connally's Tavern and had a couple of drinks, sitting alone in glum silence, and then offered to drive Truman Cox home when the bar closed at two.

  The town of Lewisburg was south of Astoria, north of Cannon Beach, population nine hundred eighty-four. And at two in the morning they were all sleeping, the town blacked out by rain. There were the flickering night-lights at the drugstore, and the lights from the newspaper building, and two traffic lights, al- though no other traffic moved. Rain pelted the windshield and made a river through Main Street, cascaded down the side streets on the left, came pouring off the mountain on the right. Eddie made the turn onto Third and hit the brakes hard when a figure darted across the street.

  "Jesus!" he grunted as the car skidded, then caught and righted itself. "Who was that?"

  Truman was peering out into the darkness, nodding. The figure had vanished down the alley behind Sal's Restaurant. "Bet it was the Boland girl, the younger one. Not Norma. Following her sister's footsteps."

  His tone was not condemnatory, even though everyone knew exactly where those footsteps would lead the kid.

  "She sure earned whatever she got tonight," Eddie said with a grunt and pulled up into the driveway of Truman's house. "See you around."

  "Yep. Probably will. Thanks for the lift." He gathered himself together and made a dash for his porch.

  But he would be soaked anyway, Eddie knew. All it took was a second out in this driving rain. That poor, stupid kid, he thought again as he backed out of the drive, retraced his trail for a block or two, and headed toward his own little house. On impulse he turned back and went down Second Street to see if the kid was still scurrying around; at least he could offer her a lift home. He knew where the Bolands lived, the two sisters, their mother, all in the trade now, apparently. But God, he thought, the little one couldn't be more than twelve.

  The numbered streets were parallel to the coastline; the cross streets had become wind tunnels that rocked his car every time he came to one. Second Street was empty, black. He breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't wanted to get involved anyway, in any manner, and now he could go on home, listen to music for an hour or two, have a drink or two, a sandwich, and get some sleep. If the wind ever let up. He slept very poorly when the wind blew this hard. What he most likely would do was finish the book he was reading, possibly start another one. The wind was good for another four or five hours. Thinking this way, he made another turn or two and

  then saw the kid again, this time sprawled on the side of the road.

  If he had not already seen her once, if he had not been thinking about her, about her sister and mother, if he had been driving faster than five miles an hour, probably he would have missed her. She lay just off the road, facedown. As soon as he stopped and got out of the car, the rain hit his face, streamed from his glasses, blinding him almost. He got his hands on the child and hauled her to the car, yanked open the back door and deposited her inside. Only then he got a glimpse of her face. Not the Boland girl. No one he had ever seen before. And as light as a shadow. He hurried around to the driver's side and got in, but he could no longer see her now from the front seat. Just the lumpish black raincoat that gleamed with water and covered her entirely. He wiped his face, cleaned his glasses, and twisted in the seat; he couldn't reach her, and she did not respond to his voice.

  He cursed bitterly and considered his next move. She could be dead, or dying. Through the rain-streaked windshield the town appeared uninhabited. It didn't even have a police station, a clinic, or a hospital. The nearest doctor was ten or twelve miles away, and in this weather. . . . Finally he started the engine and headed for home. He would call the state police from there, he decided. Let them come and collect her. He drove up Hammer Hill to his house and parked in the driveway at the walk that led to the front door. He would open the door first, he had decided, then come back and get the kid; either way he would get soaked, but there was little he could do about that. He moved fairly fast for a large man, but his fastest was not good enough to keep the rain off his face again. If it would come straight down, the way God meant rain to fall, he thought, fumbling with the key in the lock, he would be able to see something. He got the door open, flicked on the light switch, and went back to the car to collect the girl. She was as limp as before and seemed to weigh nothing at all. The slicker she wore was hard to grasp, and he did not want her head to loll about for her to brain herself on the porch rail or the door frame, but she was not easy to carry, and he grunted although her weight was insignificant. Finally he got her inside, and kicked the door shut, and made his way to the bedroom, where he dumped her on the bed.

  Then he took off his hat that had been useless, and his glasses that had blinded him with running water, and the raincoat that was leaving a trail of water 'with every step. He backed off the Navaho rug and out to the kitchen to put the wet coat on a chair, let it drip on the linoleum. He grabbed a handful of paper toweling and wiped his glasses, then returned to the bedroom.

  He reached down to remove the kid's raincoat and jerked his hand away again. "Jesus Christ!" he whispered and backed away from her. He heard himself saying it again, and then again, and stopped. He had backed up to the wall, was pressed hard against it. Even from there he could see her clearly. Her face was smooth, without eyebrows, witho
ut eyelashes, her nose too small, her lips too narrow, hardly lips at all. What he had thought was a coat was part of her. It started on her head, where hair should have been, went down the sides of her head where ears should have been, down her narrow shoulders, the backs of her arms that seemed too long and thin, almost boneless.

  She was on her side, one long leg stretched out, the other doubled up under her. Where there should have been genitalia, there was too much skin, folds of skin.

  Eddie felt his stomach spasm; a shudder passed over him. Before, he had wanted to shake her, wake her up, ask questions; now he thought that if she opened her eyes, he might pass out. And he was shivering with cold. Moving very cautiously, making no noise, he edged his way around the room to the door, then out, back to the kitchen where he pulled a bottle of bourbon from a cabinet and poured half a glass that he drank as fast as he could. He stared at his hand. It was shaking.

  Very quietly he took off his sodden shoes and placed them at the back door, next to his waterproof boots that he invariably forgot to wear. As soundlessly as possible he crept to the bedroom door and looked at her again. She had moved, was now drawn up in a huddle as if she was as cold as he was. He took a deep breath and began to inch around the wall of the room toward the closet, where he pulled out his slippers with one foot and eased them on, and then tugged on a blanket on a shelf. He had to let his breath out; it sounded explosive to his ears. The girl shuddered and made

  herself into a tighter ball. He moved toward her slowly, ready to turn and run, and finally was close enough to lay the blanket over her. She was shivering hard. He backed away from her again and this time went to the living room, leaving the door open so that he could see her, just in case. He turned up the thermostat, retrieved his glass from the kitchen, and went to the door again and again to peer inside. He should call the state police, he knew, and made no motion toward the phone. A doctor? He nearly laughed. He wished he had a camera. If they took her away, and they would, there would be nothing to show, nothing to prove she had existed. He thought of her picture on the front page of the North Coast News and snorted. The National Enquirer? This time he muttered a curse. But she was news. She certainly was news.