“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
When 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.”