Angels! Read online

  Black. Black and shiny over me. Black and shiny against my eyes, against my mouth, covering me, making me fight for air, fight for each last, burning breath. Black like the names are cut black, black without the shimmer or speck of a star to light my eyes. Black letters in the wall, black burning my eyes with what they say, black that's wrapping me all 'round so that I can't escape it ever, black and sharp as truth or waking:

  SAMUEL NACHMAN

  And out of the blackness in the words that spell out what's truly so, Granny Teeth's reaching up to take my hands. . . .

  She don't talk, just leads me up the rising path. I feel the black wall falling away from me, and I smell the good smell of fresh-turned earth.

  There's a man looking down at me. I'm scared, but Granny Teeth's got her hands on my shoulders and she pushes me up forward to meet him, up into the light. He's the same man I seen riding 'round town with Sheriff Randolph; deputy somebody, but I don't know his name.

  Why's he looking at me like that? Why's he look and say, "Dear God," and all the color leaves his face?

  I hear a voice I never want to hear no more. I hear Uncle John, shouting like he always does, shouting and stomping around and hollering, "I don't give a damn what kinda warrant you got, you get the hell off my land before I—"

  Then he sees me, too, and all the color that left the deputy's face seems to want to flood into his. I try to pull back, but Granny Teeth won't let me. Maybe she won't let Uncle John hurt me no more neither. I try to face him and be brave.

  But it's so hard, having to look at Uncle John again, seeing the deputy's face go hard as stone, watching him turn and crack Uncle John across the jaw like Uncle John once did to me. Uncle John falls down and puts his hands on his face. Jesus, don't let him lay the blame for this on me too!

  Granny Teeth's whispering in my ear so soft I can hear the gold in her mouth go tappa-tap. "This day all vows are fulfilled," she tells me. "This day all debts are paid." And she makes me go stand beside the deputy, over Uncle John, and beside Sheriff Randolph, who's just come out of our house. He don't look too strong either, for such a big man.

  Deputy says, "Under the oak tree. Just like she told us. He had him wrapped up in a plastic garbage bag. Like he was trash. Just like that poor little boy wasn't nothing but trash!" Then: "He tripped," meaning Uncle John. I ain't gonna be the one to call it a lie. He's smiling like he's done something good, even if he got no real joy from it.

  But Sheriff Randolph says, "You know the woman who called to tell us 'bout—" He don't say what, just jerks his head. I turn in spite of Granny Teeth holding me still and see he's nodding at our old oak. Someone's been messing 'round, digging up by the roots. The smell of home earth blankets me moist and cool.

  "Yeah, from New York, that old Vietnamese lady, Mrs. Tran," the deputy says. "I couldn't hardly understand her."

  "I don't wonder." The sheriff takes off his hat, wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. "I just called back to tell her what we found. I got her daughter on the line. Mrs. Tran's been six months comatose in the hospital."

  "Yeah, but today—"

  "Last night she died."

  Who died? Who they mean died? I turn around real sharp, but all I see in front of me's the wall. I put out my hands to hold it back, but it rears up above my head and crashes over onto me. I cry out when I feel the blackness fall across my face again, because now I know, I really know what's been lies and what's so, and why the blackness won't ever let me go.

  "Corey . . .

  In the dark, a voice. He's there. Sammy's there beyond the wall, reaching out his hands to me. And Granny Teeth, she's with him, holding out the edges of dead Sammy's white shawl like they was wings. First I just stare; I'm afraid of ghosts. Then I take me a deep breath and throw myself heart first against the wall, shatter it, plunge through the cold black surface to meet them. The black closes around me, but it's kept away by the circle of their arms. And wings; all around us, wings: Sammy's wings, Granny Teeth's wings, wings of glory, wings of prayer, shining white wings like the sword of God to cut away the blackness and wrap me in the warmth and the love and the light forever.

  Table of Contents

  Basileus

  Angelica

  Angels

  If Angels Ate Apples

  Alfred

  A Plethora of Angels

  The Man Who Loved the Faioli

  Upon the Dull Earth

  Angel

  Curse of the Angel's Wife

  Sleepers Awake

  And the Angels Sing

  Grave Angels

  All Vows