And apparently, he was supposed to have come with a message. If he had, he’d misplaced it. Oh sure, he could come up with a few off the top of his head—Love thy Neighbor, Cherish the Children, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Check Your Tire Pressure—but they were so commonplace—not to mention common sense—they seemed almost trite.
I don’t know what I’m doing here.
I don’t know how to rejoin the light.
And while I know where I am, I don’t know where I’m supposed to go.
If higher knowledge hadn’t informed him that he was wiser and more evolved, he’d have to say the whole situation sucked. Big time.
Okay. I deliver messages. I’m some kind of nonunion, spiritual postal guy. Samuel looked around at a village of empty streets and dark houses. So everything’ll be cool as soon as I can tell someone something.
Although why anyone would want things cooler, he had no idea, and he didn’t even want to guess how a situation could draw something in by creating a partial vacuum.
Unfortunately, the only people currently awake behind the barricades of drawn curtains were young children and the parents of young children. The kids were—well, he supposed hysterical was as accurate a description as any. As for their parents, they didn’t so much need him to pass on a spiritual message as they needed another three hours of sleep and the batteries that hadn’t been included.
He was giving some serious thought to returning to Lena’s room and having her fill in a few details when he heard a vehicle approaching. Turning, he watched the 5.2 liter, 230-horsepower, V-8 SUV come closer with no clear idea of why he suddenly found engine statistics so fascinating. He was wondering how it handled on curves when the surrounding cloud of desperation captured his attention. Someone in that vehicle was about to crack.
Was he supposed to fix cracks?
So now I’m doing spiritual plastering? Which wasn’t as funny as he’d hoped it would be. He took a deep breath and dried suddenly damp palms against his thighs, wondering why he seemed to be leaking. Still, a guy’s got to start somewhere…
And so far, this seemed to be the only game in town.
The vehicle was exactly twenty feet, seven and three-eighths inches away when he stepped in front of it. When it stopped, it was exactly three-eighths of an inch away. An exhausted looking man and an equally exhausted looking woman were sitting openmouthed in the front seats. Brian and Linda Pearson. He flashed them both an enthusiastic thumbs up figuring that, hey, it couldn’t hurt.
“Are you out of your mind?” Face flushed, Brian leaned out the driver’s window. “I could have killed you!”
He seemed a bit upset. Samuel smiled reassuringly. Never let the mortals sense insecurity. He wasn’t sure if that was higher knowledge, common sense, or some kind of basic survival instinct but he figured he’d go with it regardless. “I have a message for you.”
“Get the fuck out of my way!”
“No.”
“No?” His volume rose impressively.
“No. I need to tell you that no matter how it seems, your kids aren’t deliberately trying to drive you crazy. You just need more patience.” Smile slipping slightly, he added, “And a breath mint.”
“You’re insane!”
“Am not!” He felt his jaw jut out and his weight shift forward onto the balls of his feet. Where was that coming from? Lowering his voice, he fought the urge to challenge Brian Pearson to a fight, saying only a little belligerently, “I’m an angel.”
Exhaustion warring with denial, Brian’s bloodshot eyes widened as they were met and held. “Oh my G…”
Samuel raised a hand and cut him off, glancing around to be sure no one had overheard. “Don’t even suggest that. Didn’t you hear what happened to the last guy who tried to move up?” Whistling a descending scale, he pantomimed a fall from grace. The sound of an explosion at the end was purely extemporary but impossible to resist.
Dragging Brian back into the van, her gaze never leaving Samuel’s face, Linda whispered something in her husband’s ear.
He shook his head and glanced back over his shoulder. “We can’t.”
She whispered something else.
Unfortunately, higher knowledge didn’t seem to extend to eavesdropping.
Leaning back out the window, Brian tried a wobbly smile. “Would you like a ride into London?”
Would he? London, England, seemed a bit far and he was fairly certain the Atlantic Ocean was in the way, so they probably meant London, Ontario, about an hour’s drive down highway four.
“Sure.”
“Good. Get in.”
By the time he’d walked around to the passenger side, Linda had opened the back door. Her expression a curious mix of hope and guilt, she wished him a Merry Christmas and indicated he should climb inside. The second set of seats had been removed and an identical pair of seven-year-old twins, Celeste and Selinka, had been belted into opposite corners of the three seats running across the back of the SUV. If there’d been any more room between them and their parents, they’d have been outside the vehicle completely.
“Hey,” he said as he folded himself into the middle seat and fumbled for the seat belt. “My name’s Samuel, and I’m an angel. I’m here…”
“’Cause Mommy said to Daddy you can distract us,” announced Selinka.
“So Daddy can drive more safely,” added Celeste.
“Mommy doesn’t really believe you’re an angel. She’s desperate.”
“She said she’s ready to ’cept help from the devil himself.”
“Really?”
Up front, Linda’s shoulders stiffened, lending credence to the comment.
Samuel found his own shoulders stiffening in response. “You shouldn’t, you know, repeat that.”
“Why?” Celeste demanded, eyes narrowing.
“Because if an angel can be here, then so can a devil.”
“You’re stupid,” sniffed Selinka. “And your hair looks dumb. Why do you smell like cotton candy?”
“He smells like strawberry ice cream.”
“Does not!”
“Does too!”
“Why can’t I smell like both?”
Celeste leaned around him. “You’re right,” she told her sister. “He is stupid.”
Then they started singing.
“There was a farmer had a dog…”
At first it was cute.
“Let’s all sing,” Samuel suggested, leaning forward as far as the seat belt allowed. Singing was a good thing; he had a vague idea that angels did a lot of it. “The family that sings together…uh…” Wings together? Pings together? Then he realized that no once could hear him over the high-pitched little voices filling the enclosed vehicle with sound.
“B ;I ;N ;G ;O, ;B ;I ;N ;G ;O, ;B ;I ;N ;G ;O…”
It went on and on and on, just below the threshold of pain.
“Make it stop,” moaned their father, beating his forehead against the steering wheel as the SUV began to pick up speed.
Short of gagging them, Samuel couldn’t figure out how to stop them. Nothing he said from well reasoned argument to childish pleas made any impression. After the fourth verse, gagging them was beginning to seem like a valid option. Finally, ears ringing in the sudden silence, he forced the corners of his mouth up into a smile and swept it over both girls. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we do something that doesn’t make any noise?”
They exchanged a suspicious glance.
“Like what?” asked Selinka.
“It had better be fun,” added Celeste.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He could number the hairs on both girls’ heads (three billion two hundred and twelve and three billion two hundred and fourteen) but when it came down to it, that wasn’t even remotely useful. Unless…“I don’t suppose you’d want to count each other’s hair?”