Angel-Seeker (28 page)

“There isn't much to tell.”

“You were with the man for three or four hours. I think there is something to tell.”

“We talked.”

“You
talked!
I didn't spirit you through the streets of Breven so you could
talk
to the angel. Did he kiss you?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And I am tired and I have to go to sleep,” Rebekah said. Without another word, she turned and threaded her way through the garden and into the silent house. Martha followed, perforce silent herself, as they crept up the stairwells and down the hallways. They passed Rebekah's door and went all the way to the end of the hall to clean themselves up in the water room. Under cover of the gurgling pipe, Martha began her interrogation again, but Rebekah would not answer.

“Was it
bad?
Why aren't you telling me anything?” Martha finally demanded.

“Oh no. It wasn't bad.”

“Then—?”

Rebekah gave her one last, desperate look. “Because I cannot
talk
about it,” she said in a low urgent whisper. “I have to
think
about it first.”

And that answer, strangely enough, seemed to satisfy her cousin. They finished their quick baths, put on clean sleeping clothes, bundled up their dirty boys' clothes, and returned to Rebekah's room. Martha was asleep in five minutes.

Rebekah, of course, would never sleep again.

She had thought kissing brought a body close to a body, but the act of love made kissing seem a light thing, a casual touch that was suitable for the public viewing of the marketplace. She had not realized that the angel would touch every inch of her skin, would seem awed by every curve and hollow and hidden architecture of bone. Nor had she thought to wonder how a man's body might differ from her own—not just in his private parts, but in the layering of his muscles and the tailoring of his hips. They had stood side by side and naked before the mirror just so she could absorb the differences.

“And all men look like this?” she had asked.

He had laughed. “Allowing for differences of weight and height and athletic condition, more or less.”

“How strange,” she had said, and he had laughed again.

They had laughed a lot. He had seemed delighted by everything she asked, every observation she made, and it had not occurred to her that she shouldn't say or ask anything. There was a great deal, she had discovered, that she did not know. Jerusha had fairly briefly outlined to her what she might expect in the marriage bed, and overheard conversations from other married women had allowed her to imagine some variations, but it still had never been clear to her exactly how everything came together.

Obadiah had explained everything, and then he had demonstrated.

Once the initial pain was past, she found the entire experience much more enjoyable than she had been led to expect. She had not known that a breast or a lip or a patch of skin on the inside of her forearm could react with such feeling. It would not have occurred to her that fingertips playing down the length of her spine could cause her to gasp or tremble. It had simply not crossed her mind that her body was an instrument to be played for pleasure. The Jansai women talked of marital duties and the hope of bearing children. They never described experiences like this.

“And this is what it's
always
like?” Rebekah had asked the angel as they lay wrapped together on the bed. Her hand was spread across his chest just so she could feel the fine pale curls under her fingertips; her head was resting on his shoulder. His wing was laid across her from chin to toe, so that she could not even see her own amazing body.

“Actually . . . no,” he said. “This was better than most.”

“But why?”

“Why was it better?”

“Why isn't it always like this?”

He laughed. “Because sometimes you're in a hurry, and sometimes your partner is not interested in all the—all the exploring, and sometimes you're just interested in quick gratification, and sometimes you're tired and your body doesn't respond as you'd like, and sometimes the person you're with doesn't care if you feel good or not—and, I don't know, there are a lot of different factors.”

“And why was this better than most?”

He kissed her quickly on the mouth. “Because it was with you.”

“That made it better?”

“It's always better if it's someone you love.”

She was silent a long moment. “But you don't love me.”

“Actually,” he said, “I think I do.”

“But how do you know?”

He sighed a little, and his arm drew her nearer. Under the thin silk of hair, the warm layer of skin, and the hard cage of bone, she could feel the beating of his heart. “Because I have truly never felt like this before,” he said.

“But you've loved a lot of women,” she said. Her voice made it a question.

“Some. Not a lot. Not as many as some angels.”

“And I'm different?”

“Oh, you're so different.”

“But how? In what way?”

He laughed again, a small, helpless sound that gave her the answer before his words. “I don't know. I don't know. But you are—by every measure I have—absolutely unique.”

“Will you be here tomorrow night?” she asked.

He had lifted his head to look down at her. “You think you can come back tomorrow night? I hadn't even dared to ask you.”

“I don't know. I've been trying to work it out. I think I can. I can try.”

“I'm so worried about you. I'm so afraid something will happen to you—and because of me.”

She shrugged a little, feeling the caress of feathers across her skin as her shoulders moved. “I'll try. If I can't leave the house, I won't come here. But if you think you'll be here—”

“Oh, if you think you might be able to sneak out, I'll be here. I'll sit in this hotel room all day, and I won't even go out for food.”

“You can leave during the day. I won't be able to come till the night. I think. Unless . . .” Her voice stopped as she considered possibilities. “No. Not during the day. Tomorrow night.”

“Around the same time?”

“I would think so. But I might not be able to make it.”

“I won't count on it. Except I'm counting on it already.”

“I know. So am I.”

They talked like that, circuitously and sleepily, for another twenty minutes. And then it was time to dress and say good-bye, and head to the lobby to meet Martha. Obadiah had wanted to come downstairs and wait outside with her, but Rebekah had refused. “You are too noticeable,” she said. “If you were just some Manadavvi lordling or a peasant farmer—but you cannot hide those wings. Everybody knows who you are.”

“But I'm worried about you. I wish I could escort you safely home.”

“You certainly can't do that!”

“What if something happens to you on the street? You don't show up tomorrow night, and I think it's because you can't slip out of the house, and it's really because you were killed walking home?”

She laid her hands flat against his chest, a gesture that had new sense and meaning now that she had touched his bare skin. “I'll be fine,” she said. “Don't worry about me.”

He gave her a small, unhappy smile. “I'm afraid that's what my life holds from now on,” he said. “Worry about you.”

“Good night,” she said, lifting her head for a kiss, which he dropped willingly upon her mouth. “Tomorrow, if I can.”

And she had let herself from the room, and swiftly had gone past the eleven doors and the blue statue and the lobby fountain. A young man was now sitting at the desk in the middle of the atrium, but he merely nodded and said, “Good night,
m'kash,
” as she walked by. She pushed open the heavy door, and there was Martha, just now stepping up to the hotel, toying with her silver necklace just in case Rebekah couldn't tell who she was.

“Excellent timing!” Martha greeted her gaily. Her voice was pitched low, but it still carried an exultant note. Rebekah didn't need to ask how well her cousin's evening had gone. “Or have you been peering out here every five minutes for the past hour?”

“No, I just got here.”

“And how did your evening go? My own was wonderful.”

“It was very good,” Rebekah said. “Come on, we have to get moving.”

And so they had begun that perilous journey home, but Rebekah had never felt truly in danger. For she was aware, by some greatly heightened lover's instinct, of the instant they were joined by a ghostly but inexorable companion, flying above them too high and silently to draw attention. He escorted them all the way from the market to Hector's garden, hovering overhead when they were approached by strangers—perfectly willing, she was sure, to swoop down and snatch her off to safety should the need arise. She felt the shadow of angel wings pass over her face as she locked the garden gate behind them. She knew then that he had made one great circle in the night sky and was heading back to the Hotel Verde now that she was safe.

She didn't tell Martha this. She didn't tell Martha any of it. She didn't know how you could ever talk about things that mattered so much.

E
lizabeth was more disappointed than she had thought possible when her monthly bleeding arrived, right on schedule.

She had made her way to David's bed three more times in the intervening weeks, always after some not-so-chance meeting in the hallways in which she contrived to remind him of her existence. Each time he had given her first a blank look, then a slight frown of concentration, before his face broke into that roguish smile and he pronounced her name with real pleasure. “Elizabeth!” he said each time, and sashayed down the hall to place his hands on her shoulders or drop a kiss on her cheek. “My little laundress! Still working hard for your living, I see.”

Each time, she had returned some answer but combined it with a flirtatious smile, and he had asked what she was doing that night or the following night. And she had been available, and he had always arrived more or less on time, and they had, as Faith put it, “given in to their emotions.” David had never been entirely sober at any of these rendezvouses, and none of them were any more romantic than the first one, but at least Elizabeth knew what to expect now, and she didn't really mind.

It bothered her that she didn't feel any deep emotion for the dark angel. She had thought surely some kind of passion would develop between them, or at least a certain affection, but to date she hadn't been able to muster up more than a fierce sense of triumph each time
he asked her back to his bed.
Yes. A victory.
This was what she had come to Cedar Hills for; she was on the way to achieving her destiny.

So it was with great bitterness that she discovered her bloodstained undergarments that morning and knew that her destiny was still at least a few assignations away.

Faith tried to cheer her up as they sat together in the kitchen, scrounging up an early morning meal before heading off to their work-stations. “It's very difficult for an angel to sire a child,” Faith said in a sympathetic voice. “And just as hard for an angel to bear one! That's why there are so few angels in the world and so many more mortals. Don't be discouraged! You just have to try again. And maybe again.”

Elizabeth sighed. “Well, I don't even think David likes me that much. I don't know how many more chances I'm going to have.”

“With David! But there are other angels in Cedar Hills!”

“None that I've had any luck with.”

“You can't give up, though. You just got here, after all. Some girls have been here
years
and never had an angel baby.”

“That doesn't make me feel any better!”

Faith giggled. “Come out with me tonight,” she said. “They're having a concert in the square. There will be plenty of angels singing there, and who knows? Maybe one of them will stop to talk to you.”

So Elizabeth had put on her green dress and accompanied Faith to the concert, and stood there the whole night shivering, because it was really too cool to be standing around outside, even with a coat on. The only angels she saw were traveling in pairs and bunches, great disdainful flocks of otherworldly creatures who didn't even notice the frail human forms flitting around them. David was among them, his wings glittering in the light thrown by the ornamental lamps, his mouth curved into a perpetual halfwit's grin. She stayed long enough to hear him sing a quick, rather risqué folk song, and had to confess she didn't much care for his voice.

It was going to be hard to make herself keep trying to love him, but she was determined to do it.

The following day she was yawning over one of the soapy cauldrons when Doris hunted her up. “You've got a visitor,” the older woman said.

Elizabeth looked up hopefully, but Doris shook her head. “Not one of
them,
” she said. Not an angel. Nonetheless, Elizabeth dried off her clothes and batted her way through the steam to the front of the room, to find the healer Mary waiting for her.

“I'd bet half the girls who work here go home with lung troubles,” Mary said, glancing around and deliberately inhaling the heavily starched air. Her thin blond hair was already frosted with moisture. “How can you breathe in here? Must kill everybody off in a few years.”

“Doris has worked in laundry rooms her whole life, and she seems pretty healthy,” Elizabeth said. She was smiling, though; she was pleased to see the healer. “And so far, I seem to be fine.”

Mary appraised her. “Yes, you're the type. You look languorous and fragile, but you're strong as a Bethel farm girl. Probably never been sick a day in your life.”

Elizabeth smiled again, a little more ruefully. “Only when I was a little girl and there was someone to take care of me. Since I've been caring for myself, there hasn't been time.”

“Listen, my assistant just took off for northern Gaza with her young man, says she'll be back in two weeks, but I need some extra hands while she's gone. I'll pay you what you're making here if you'd like to come work with me. The job might be permanent, you never know. She says she's coming back, but she's got the smell about her, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's carrying when she gets back.”

“The smell?” Elizabeth repeated. “Carrying what?”

Mary sniffed. “That baby smell. She'll be carrying a child when she returns.”

Elizabeth paused for a moment to reflect what a useful skill that would be to have—the ability to know just by scent if someone was pregnant—and then she focused on what Mary had said to her. The healer had made the offer once before, but Elizabeth had never seriously considered it. “You want me to come work for you?” she said slowly.

Mary nodded. “For a couple of weeks first, to see if you like it, and then longer if everything works out. But I don't want you to lose this job if it's one you particularly like.”

Well, it was hard to develop any true love for doing laundry, but
the job did put her in a position to see angels on a somewhat regular basis, and she had been able to parlay that to her advantage a few times. Though it hadn't worked out all that well so far, she had to admit. And it would be nice to spend a couple of weeks away from the damp heat and the constant chemical smell of soaking clothes.

“Can I talk to Doris?” she asked. “And see what she thinks?”

“By all means.”

Doris, perennially philosophical, shrugged and nodded. “We always need extra hands here, so if you don't like nursing, come on back,” the small woman said. “It might do you good to get a change of scenery.”

“If anybody comes looking for me—” Elizabeth began, and then blushed and fell silent.

Doris gave her that small smile. “I know where Mary can be found. I'll send anyone who inquires after you down to her address.”

So Elizabeth took off her limp apron and gathered up her possessions and followed Mary out into the bright day.

“I have rooms in the main hall, there,” Mary said, pointing to the central building of the Cedar Hills complex, where Nathan and Magdalena lived. She didn't pause, though, and Elizabeth walked on beside her. “People come looking for me there, but most of the day I'm out checking on patients. I try to leave behind a list of where I might be found in case an emergency comes up.”

“Are you the only healer in Cedar Hills?”

“Feels like it sometimes. But no. There are two others, both good. But the city grows a little every day. We could use five healers, or eight.” Mary glanced over at her. “Maybe if you're any good at it, you could become a healer someday. You've got a cool head and a sharp eye.”

No one had ever given Elizabeth such a compliment before, and she contemplated it as they kept on walking. She herself rarely strayed past the main four blocks that made up the heart of Cedar Hills: the dorms and halls and shops whose construction had been completed before Elizabeth ever arrived in the city. Now they were traveling down streets that were mostly mud and debris, past framed-in structures that were starting to resemble houses, cafes, and stables. Wagonloads of brick and hay were everywhere; the sounds
of hammering and sawing and shouting added weight and color to the breeze.

A cool head and a sharp eye.
It was true that she didn't panic at the first sign of trouble, but that was usually because she was so frustrated at the thought of the extra work that was going to be caused by this fresh problem that she didn't have time to have hysterics. She tended to act fast if a crisis erupted, since that generally meant she'd have less to do later to fix things up. Like the time there'd been the fire in James's kitchen. She hadn't particularly wanted to be rushing for the cistern while she called for help, but she had figured the sooner she doused the flames, the less soot she'd have to clean from the kitchen walls the next day.

“I'm practical, I guess,” Elizabeth said at last. “Not by nature, though. By necessity.”

Mary snorted. “No, by nature all of us are lazy little brats who whine for attention and cry when we don't get what we want,” she said. “It's the ones who stop whining and start working that appeal to me.”

“I don't know anything about medicine,” Elizabeth said.

“No. But I'll bet you learn fast.”

In a few minutes they arrived at a massive construction site on the very edge of town. Dirt was piled all around a deep hole in the ground, and loads of lumber and brick had been dumped randomly on either side of the excavation. Part of the structure was already standing, though it looked like the central portion had collapsed. Half a dozen men stood in a cluster, arguing over a long scroll of paper, and a few others stood in isolated groups, watching or taking a pull on a waterskin. Another small group knelt around a tarp spread on the ground, and one of the men in this group waved them over.

“What happened?” Elizabeth asked, more curious than apprehensive.

“Beam fell on his head and could have killed him. There's probably not a lot I can do for him if he's alive, and nothing if he's dead, but if he's awake, I can give him something for the pain.”

The group stepped back to allow them access, and both women knelt on the edges of the tarp. The man was indeed alive, grunting from pain, and twitching aside when Mary put her hand to his skull.

“Hold still if you can,” she said. “I need to see how deep this goes.”

Elizabeth was a little shocked at how much blood was smeared all over the man's face and shirt, and how much blood had soaked through the tarp near the back of his head. Good thing she wouldn't be doing this man's laundry. She listened as Mary asked him a litany of questions about whether he'd lost consciousness and whether he'd thrown up, and she opened Mary's satchel when the healer told her to.

“Get out that big needle—see it?—that's it. And the black thread. We're going to have to sew this man up.”

“Sew up my
head?
” he exclaimed, writhing on his blanket. “Jovah's bones, Jovah's balls—”

“Jovah will thank you to speak of him with a little more courtesy,” Mary said crisply. “Elizabeth, first we'll need to clean the wound. And then numb it, before we try to sew it. I'm afraid he's not going to lie still, though, so I may need you to hold him down. Though you might not be big enough—”

“I'll hold him down,” said one of the men who had stood guard over the injured fellow.

Elizabeth glanced up at him—and then held the glance a moment when he smiled down at her. He was fairly tall, rangy, and spare, a man who looked like he'd been built to be bigger but had suffered too many years of privation. His brown eyes were huge, and his broad facial bones seemed set over hollow cheeks, but his smile was still easy and friendly. It took her a moment to absorb the significance of his mahogany-colored skin and silky black hair, cut somewhat carelessly around his face. He was an Edori.

“I'm pretty strong,” the Edori added. “He won't be able to shake me off.”

“Good. I'm sure we'll need you. But first can you bring me some water? This looks nasty.”

“Sure.”

The Edori departed, and Mary motioned Elizabeth to come closer. “Can you put his head on your lap? I need a better angle. Can somebody get me a towel to put over her dress? You're going to be covered in blood.”

Normally she was covered in grease and soap and starch. It
wasn't like she wore her best clothes to work. “I don't mind,” Elizabeth said with a shrug.

But someone brought her a scrap of canvas, none too clean itself, and she laid that across her knees before she lifted the hurt man's head. In a few moments, the Edori returned with a bucket of water, and they went to work on their patient. Elizabeth watched in detached fascination as Mary carefully picked out splinters and bits of dirt from the deep cut that drew a bloody line diagonally through the man's matted hair. He continued to grunt and jerk as Mary's hands touched tender areas, but the healer worked on without paying him much attention.

“Now, can you mix a little of this water with the fluid in that bottle—yes—just stir them together with your finger in that little bowl. All right. I'm going to hold his head pretty tight and you just pour that over the wound. He's not going to like it—”