“What are angels?”
Her grandmother’s eyes were rarely clear and usually seemed to wander, unfocused, as if she had forgotten how to look at things. But now they clicked over to study her, and they were as clear and blue as the sky after a good rain.
“Why do you want to know about angels?”
“I keep dreaming about them.”
Gran sipped her tea, her eyes intense and unblinking for a long moment. Then she looked down into her cup. “Are you afraid of those angels?”
“A little,” said Dana, softening the truth.
Gran nodded. “You should be.”
“What?”
Those blue eyes glanced up again. “What do you think angels are?”
“Um … God’s messengers, I guess.”
“You guess.”
“That’s what they told us in Sunday school.”
Gran made a face. Unlike her daughter and grandkids, she rarely went to church. “Well, then it must be true.”
“That’s why I’m asking you,” said Dana.
The wall clock ticked through half a minute before Gran said anything. Dana knew this pattern. When Gran was lucid, it was best to wait her out, to let her work up to whatever she wanted to say. Speaking too soon, or interrupting, seemed to throw a switch and send her back into the disconnected haze where Gran spent most of her days.
Gran nodded as if agreeing with her own thoughts. “There are all kinds of angels,” she began slowly. “The name means ‘messenger,’ and a lot of people think they’re just God’s errand boys. Ha! Hardly. People think they stand around all day shouting ‘hosanna’ and playing harps and looking like hippies in long robes. But that’s just silly, isn’t it? People pray to angels as if they only exist to come help you get through a bad day. They pray to them like they’re saints, but the saints, at least, used to be people. Angels never were.”
“What are they?” urged Dana.
“They’re dangerous is what they are,” said Gran, her voice clear and sharp. “Think about it, girl. The first angel mentioned in the Bible stood guard at the entrance to the Garden of Eden with a fiery sword. He wasn’t there to protect Adam and Eve, you can believe me. Guardian angels are in the Bible, but they’re not there to protect us. All through the Bible angels act like God’s hit men, showing up to punish, to destroy.” She shook her head. “Don’t forget, Lucifer was an angel.”
“Oh … right…”
“And they’re not pretty, either. They’re monsters.”
“Monsters?”
“The seraphim are large six-winged snakes that fly. Cherubs aren’t those cute rosy-cheeked babies you see in paintings. Hardly. They’re winged lions. Not exactly the kind of creature you want watching over your baby’s crib. Why do you think every time an angel appears to a human in the scriptures, they say, ‘Do not be afraid’?
“Let me think, now. There was a quote about it in Ezekiel, but don’t ask me chapter and verse. Something about them having two sets of wings and hooves … How’d it go? ‘The face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they had the face of an ox on the left side; and also the face of an eagle.’ That’s not it exactly, but close enough to be going on with.”
The blue of her eyes seemed very bright in the morning sunlight, and there was no hint of a troubled mind. That, as much as what Gran was saying, chilled the whole kitchen.
Gran shook her head. “If you’re having dreams about angels, Dana, then you need to be careful. Not all ugly angels are bad, and not all beautiful ones are good. They’re not human, and you can’t judge them the way you judge a human. That’s how people get hurt. Everything about them is different from what it seems.” She laughed. “Maybe that’s how the devil came to be called the prince of lies. If he’s an angel, then nothing about him is the simple truth.”
“How can I tell if it’s real or just a dream?” asked Dana.
Gran considered the question, but as she thought about it, her face began to change, and Dana’s heart sank. She saw the cloudiness of confusion steal the clarity from those blue eyes as surely as if the pall of a storm had rolled in front of the sun. It happened quickly. In the space of a few seconds, Gran retreated back into the shadows of her own mind.
“Gran…?” asked Dana cautiously.
Her grandmother smiled. “Oh, good morning, Melissa,” said Gran brightly. “There’s coffee made.”
Dana got up and walked around the table to kiss her grandmother on the cheek. That soft cheek.
“I love you, Gran,” she murmured.
“I love you, too, Margaret. Be sure to clean your room before you go out with that Scully boy. He’s a scoundrel.”
Margaret was her mother’s name.
“I will,” said Dana.
“Dana…?” called her mother from the hall. “Is Gran with you?”