The Scent of an Angel (2 page)

I whined, and she looked at me. “They—killed—my Precious,” she sobbed.

The black cat lay there, looking not nearly so smug in death, its fur no longer sleek, now a bloody mess from a blast of buckshot.

“They killed her. Now I have nothing.”

Still crying wanly, like a baby crying itself to sleep, the crone wrenched at the sod with a hand trowel, trying to dig the cat a grave.

“They hate me,” she said, talking to herself, the grass, the oak, me.

She wrested from the ground a teacup’s worth of sod and a thimble’s worth of earth.

“They killed my sweet Precious just because they hate me.”

I whined, sat with my plumy tail wrapped around my hind paws, and cocked my head to show her I was listening. Taking no notice, she scratched away at the heartless earth and mumbled her plaint.

“They say I put the evil eye on Goody Flowers. Goody Flowers? I don’t even know Goody Flowers.”

Day drew on toward evening as she nattered and wept, slowly ceasing to weep, and grubbed at the hard ground with her trowel and her bent, scaly old fingers and her thick, ridged fingernails. Dozing as I listened, I lay down nearby.

“Flowers,” she said, streaks of dirt on her wrinkle-shirred face where the tears had dried. “I’ll show them flowers. Flowers growing over my Precious. Hollyhocks, larkspur, lady’s slippers, foxglove, forget-me-nots.” Day darkened into twilight, and still she dug. “Flowers for my Precious, and a white marble marker. I’ll—”

In back of the old woman’s babbling I heard a darker muttering, and I whiffed human sweat, fury, fear. Jolted alert, I stood up and peered into the dusk. In the deepening darkness at the base of the hill, village folk were gathering, men and women and youths, some of them carrying grim-reaper scythes or butcher knives or clubs of wood, some hefting stones, a few lifting flaring torches. I recognized the farmer whose booted foot I had suffered when I was a pup, and his fat wife who had cursed me as she threw a few miserable scraps my way, and the wagoner who had whipped his horses, and others. Some scowling, some grimacing, a few women weeping with wrath and terror. “Are you digging your grave, witch?” the farmer roared.

“Witch!” others yelled.

“Your turn, witch!” bellowed the wagoner, lashing the air with his whip, lowering his head like a charging bull as he stepped toward her.

“Are you ready to go to hell, witch?” shrilled the farmer’s fat wife, brandishing a butcher knife. “Are you ready to meet your master, the Devil?”

“She’s met him already,” growled another man, taking two steps up the hill. Given a miserable sort of mob courage by their own shouting, the crowd surged forward. I snarled at them, baring my teeth to try to warn them back, but they took no notice of me. I was, after all, just a little white dog. Just one little dog, and they were many; they were not frightened of me.

Behind me I heard the old woman whimpering like a puppy.
Run,
I willed her, although I knew she could barely totter.
I can hold them back for a little while. Run, run away!

But she did not. Instead, she startled me utterly: grabbing me from behind, she lifted me by the belly and heaved me up into her bent old arms. She hugged me to her ribby chest above her sagging breasts, cradling me like a baby.

Torches flared in my eyes, nightfall thundered with threatening voices, knives and clubs loomed like a forest in my sky, I felt my jowls freeze into a snarl of fear, and clutching me as if she were drowning the old woman babbled in a frenzy of terror, “God help me! Angels help me! God help me! Angels help me! God help me! Angels help—”

Everyone screamed, including, I suppose, me.

I did not know what happened, other than a blaze of glory that whitened the night. I could not see it happening, for it was in me, of me, throughout me, a great holy heat and a fireball of comfort and a huge fierce peace beyond understanding and that scent, that scent, the very scent of light—for a moment it was my own, the scent of an angel, and white flame enough to encompass the world. Awash in that glory all around me, clubs dropped, knives dropped; I saw the folk of the mob swaying like trees in a high wind, their faces flat white ovals punctured by cavernous eyes and mouths as their screaming formed a muddle of words.

“Fire! The dog’s on fire—”

“That’s not a dog! It’s a—”

“Wings! Those are wings, idiot!”

“It’s a golden wheel!”

“You’re crazy! It’s a man in a furnace!”

“What furnace?”

“Watch out! He’s got a sword!”

“Back! I’m burning!”

“Those are wings, I tell you!”

They screamed, and shouted nonsense, and ran, and within a moment it was all over as if it had never been. They fled, every mother’s son of them, leaving darkness and silence behind. The old woman had dropped me, naturally enough, and the stars winked down just as always, and I lay panting on the ground, a tired little white dog again.

But someone was patting me. Patting my head, stroking my back, caressing me with a warm, sure hand.

And it wasn’t the old woman. She tottered nearby, gasping for breath. I could hear her.

It wasn’t anyone human.

It was—a heavenly scent in the air, aroma of sunfire, wild white roses, lightning. It was love and peace beyond understanding. It was a holy presence that spoke no words—yet with my whole comforted body I heard words.
Well done, my good and faithful servant,
that touch said to me.

But I saw nothing. There was no one there.

Stay with her a while,
my master told me,
until I find her another companion.
An otherworldly hand rumpled my ears. Then my angel was gone.

* * *

I do not remember precisely how long I stayed with her—a month, a year? That was long ago. I do recall that she talked a great deal, and fed me milk and bits of juicy chicken, and gave me a velvet cushion to sleep upon. And I recall that the scattered weapons disappeared from the hillside, and the dead cat was buried by someone or other, and from time to time gifts appeared on the doorstep: fresh-baked bread, a poke of apples, a basket of brown eggs.

Then, one day, in another basket, there appeared a peace offering of a different sort: a mewling kitten, calico and white.

It was time for me to go.

So I sniffed the kitten, licked the old woman’s dried-up hand, and trotted on my way.

As I have said, that was a couple hundred years ago. I suppose I really am an angel’s familiar, for something has made me an exception to death. Horse and wagon have given way to automobiles and airplanes, but I am still here. I trot through culverts and factory lots now instead of lanes and fields, but I am still here. I follow the wind wherever it leads me, and sometimes I starve and sometimes I am kicked and sometimes I am able to be of help and comfort to someone for a while before I wander on my way.

Always I have to go, to move on, because I yearn always for my master. Only three times in my long life since have I sensed that presence, but I must keep searching, for what else can I do? A waft of wild roses on a June breeze, a hint of lightning in the night air, and my head lifts, and longing takes hold of my heart, and there can be no dozing by a warm fire for me any longer; I have to set off again on my search. I am, after all, a dog, with a dog’s heart, love beyond comprehension. Even though I know it is all but hopeless, I must trot my weary way, seeking the scent of an angel.

It is very possible that you have encountered me. That dirty little dog you saw trotting along the interstate yesterday, the one who stopped to lick the oil from the asphalt—that might have been me. That mutt you chased out of your yard because you thought it might damage your zinnias—that might have been me. The homeless guy’s pooch, the one that crawled inside the cardboard box on the sidewalk when it started to rain—that might have been me. The stray rooting in the dumpster behind the convenience store, its fur matted with burrs, the one you thought somebody ought to take to the SPCA—that might have been me. Hey, were you the one who gave me a whole Taco Bell burrito yesterday? A hamburger would have been better, but still, thank you. And listen—you humans, I know your sense of smell is duller than a cobblestone, but—did you by any chance catch the scent of an angel?

Edgar Award-winning author Nancy Springer,

well known for her science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels,

has written a gripping psychological thriller—smart, chilling, and unrelenting…

available in paperback and e-book in November 2012

from New American Library

Dorrie and Sam White are not the ordinary Midwestern couple they seem. For plain, hard-working Sam hides a deep passion for his wife. And Dorrie is secretly following the sixteen-year-old daughter, Juliet, she gave up for adoption long ago. Then one day at the mall, Dorrie watches horror-stricken as Juliet is forced into a van that drives away. Instinctively, Dorrie sends her own car speeding after it—an act of reckless courage that puts her on a collision course with a depraved killer…and draws Sam into a desperate search to save his wife. And as mother and daughter unite in a terrifying struggle to survive, Dorrie must confront her own dark, tormented past.

“A darkly riveting read…compelling.”

—Wendy Corsi Staub, national bestselling author of Nightwatcher and Sleepwalker

“A fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller that will have you reading late into the night and cheering for the novel's unlikely but steadfast heroine.”

—Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times best-selling author of The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden

Learn more about all of Nancy’s titles at her website, www.nancyspringer.com.