Shadow Of An Angel Part 3

One second she was sitting across from me, and the next, she stood behind my chair, her hand resting lightly on my shoulder. "Come now, you'll feel better after a good night's rest."

I don't even remember going upstairs, but I turned at my bedroom door to find her sitting on the top step, her long skirt cascading about her. "I suppose you don't know who killed Cousin Otto?" I said.

She glanced at me over her shoulder. "Go to sleep. We'll think about that tomorrow."

Which meant she didn't, and that was just as well. If whoever murdered Otto turned out to be somebody I knew, I didn't want to hear about it tonight. "Surely you aren't going to sit out there until morning?" I said.

"You can rest a.s.sured I will be close by," she said, and smiled. "It's in my job description."

A temporary angel was better than no angel at all, I thought as I snuggled under my great-grandmother Lucy's wedding ring quilt.

She was still there. I knew it the next morning as soon as I sniffed that crispy brown pancake smell and hurried downstairs to find Augusta setting the table with the rose-flowered Haviland. How could I have been so gullible to accept this woman's wild tale? There had to be some logical explanation for her being here! The night before, I had been too exhausted to challenge her. Not today. I filled gla.s.ses with orange juice while she poured warm strawberry syrup into a small pitcher shaped like a lily. I remembered the lily from childhood. It had always been a favorite of mine, and Vesta said she meant for me to have it some day. The china had been in our family for years, but my grandmother rarely used it.

I waited until after breakfast to burrow into the subject of Augusta's ident.i.ty. "I don't mind your staying here," I began, "but I do need to know more about you. Are you going to tell me who you really are?" A brisk wind sent golden leaves skidding across the backyard where I once played in my sandbox. Every room in this house was familiar to me. The table where I sat was solid and real. I was not living a fantasy, and I wanted some answers.

Augusta studied a chipped nail and frowned. "I believe I told you that already, Minda."

"Uh-huh. You're an angel. But you're here only until what's-her-name completes her current heavenly a.s.signment."

"Henrietta. That's exactly right." She rummaged in a huge tapestry bag until she produced a nail file; then she set to work on the offending digit.

"I don't believe you," I said. Ignoring me, the woman concentrated on examining her nails. "What happened to Otto's angel?" I asked. "Did he have a subst.i.tute, too?"

"Arminda, that's an unkind remark and unworthy of you. I must say I'm disappointed."

She looked so sad I almost apologized, and I then thought better of it. Why should I say I'm sorry to someone so obviously full of it?

"I don't know the details of Otto's death, but according to Curtis, your cousin was a bit headstrong, didn't always heed warnings."

"And Curtis would be-?"

"Your cousin's guardian angel, of course. Except in extreme cases, we angels can't stop bullets, lift drowning victims from the water, or prevent planes from cras.h.i.+ng."

"I guess Jarvis wasn't an extreme case."

"The lightning bolt was an act of nature, Minda. There was very little warning, but from what Henrietta tells me, your husband did have a chance to act."

"Then why didn't he get out of the way?"

She began to clear the table without giving me an answer, and exasperated, I rose to help her. "Well?" I said, putting my dishes in the sink.

Augusta sighed. "Because the lightning would have hit you."

"Oh, please! Are you telling me Jarvis took a lightning bolt to save my life?"

"He was reacting to instinct, Minda. At that moment, he had no idea what would happen."

I thought back to that cloudless day in June when Jarvis and I had spread our blanket under a huge sycamore in a park near our new home. We had eaten our picnic lunch, and were resting side by side with only our fingers touching. At peace with the world and satisfied with life in general, I gave my husband's hand a squeeze and was thinking of finis.h.i.+ng off the last of the chocolate chip cookies when I looked into the branches above me. Not one leaf moved.

Suddenly Jarvis gave the blanket a jerk and sent me rolling down a gentle incline and into a privet hedge. "Hey!" I yelled, instantly plotting my revenge. My husband liked to tease, and life with him was never boring. And that was when the lightning struck.

I had put the blanket incident out of my mind, had never told anyone about it. The memory hurt too much. Now I watched Augusta Goodnight fill the sink with rainbow bubbles. "And how did Jarvis do that?" I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

She studied me for a moment that seemed to stretch forever. "I think you know the answer to that, Arminda. He rolled you off the blanket."

The heaviness I'd held inside for the last few months found release all at once, and my emotions took control. I don't know how long I cried, but when it was over I felt Augusta's cool touch on my cheek and saw that she'd pressed a dainty, lace-edged hankie into my hand. "Do you think Jarvis rolled me off that blanket to save my life?" I asked, sipping the water Augusta offered. "Did he know know what he was doing?" what he was doing?"

She smiled and reached for a dish towel. "Not consciously. I believe he did it as a joke, but he was also obeying his intuition. Something deep inside him must have signaled danger."

"You mean his angel warned him?"

"I think so. Yes. And in that wink of an instant, he chose to protect you."

"I wish he hadn't. I'd rather have gone with him." I wanted to cry again, but there were no tears left, and besides, my handkerchief was sopped.

"Don't you ever think that, Arminda Grace Hobbs! Any time you find yourself thinking your life has no value, just remember why you're here. Besides, I could use a little help down here right now, and you're nominated."

I shrugged. "Okay, fine. Throw me that sponge, and I'll wipe off the countertops."

"And I don't mean with the dishes!" Humming some tune I'd never heard, she twirled about and then tossed me the sponge with one hand while fanning herself with my grandmother's dainty saucer-to air-dry it, I suppose.

Suddenly I felt about ten pounds lighter and found myself smiling at Augusta's antics. "If Vesta saw you waving her mother's Haviland about, you'd need your own angel," I said.

Augusta set the saucer in the cupboard with the others. "It wasn't her mother's, it was her grandmother's," she said. "She used it every day. I remember it well."

"You knew my grandmother's grandmother grandmother? And when was that?"

But Augusta didn't answer, and somehow I knew she wasn't going to. Augusta Goodnight had been to Angel Heights, South Carolina, before, and I had a feeling I wasn't her only mission.

Chapter Five.

Don't you get sick and tired sometimes of hearing about Great-grandma Lucy?" Gatlin asked. "I mean, was there anything anything the woman couldn't do? It's beginning to give me a complex." the woman couldn't do? It's beginning to give me a complex."

"Yeah, I know. The Martha Stewart of Angel Heights. Vesta says she didn't even use a b.u.t.ter mold like everybody else back then, but etched a little design on top."

Gatlin had come over early that afternoon to help me get settled, she said, and the two of us now waded through the obstacle course in the attic in search of an old library table Augusta insisted was there. My grandmother had taken her antique mahogany table with its two extra leaves to her new condominium, leaving the dining room at the Nut House bare.

"It looks so empty in here," Augusta had said earlier, twirling on tiptoe in the center of the large paneled room. "And that table in the kitchen can't seat more than six." She waltzed from the bay window overlooking the muscadine arbor to the built-in cupboard in the corner. "There's just so much s.p.a.ce, and I'm sure that old table's still in the attic."

I didn't ask her how she knew. I wasn't sure I even wanted to know. "A table for six is more than I'll need, Augusta. I'm not planning any big dinner parties."

But I could see she wasn't going to leave me alone until I explored my grandmother's cold, dusty attic to see if the table was there.

"It's made of oak if I remember right," Augusta said. "A heavy old thing, but a perfect place to grade papers if you plan to teach next year, and there's room for a sewing machine at one end."

"How heavy?" I asked. "And the last time I used a sewing machine was in home economics cla.s.s in high school." I had made a C-minus on my baby doll pajamas.

"You're not the only one here, Minda," Augusta reminded me, tucking a strand of her autumn-glow hair back in place. Today she wore her glorious tresses in a bright braid twined around her head, and her dress floated about her, looking as if it might have been hand-screened by Monet himself. "We'll look for it after lunch. I'll help you."

It really didn't surprise me that Gatlin couldn't see her. The day had turned bl.u.s.tery and cold, and my cousin blew in the back door, s.h.i.+vering in a gust of frigid wind. Augusta had just taken a loaf of pumpkin bread from the oven, and the whole house smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg. My cousin and I ate it warm with some of Augusta's apricot tea. "What good timing!" Gatlin said, scooping up her last bite. "You've been hiding your talents, Minda. This bread is fantastic! What's that extra little flavor? Tastes like orange."

"Don't ask me," I said. "I didn't make it."

She looked around and then frowned. "Then who did? Not Irene Bradshaw. She can't boil an egg!"

"My guardian angel," I told her. "Augusta Goodnight. She's standing right over there." I nodded toward Augusta, who obliged me with a graceful little curtsy.

Gatlin glanced in the angel's direction, then shook her head, and smiled. "How convenient. Send her to my house when she's done, okay?"

"Find your own angel," I said. "There's supposed to be an old library table in the attic. Want to help me look for it?"

"Oh, I was so hoping you'd ask," Gatlin said, making a face. "I'll have to hurry, though. I've left Faye with a sitter while I run some errands, and Lizzie's due home from school in about an hour."

I sneezed at the dust in the attic, shoved aside a rocking chair with no bottom, and stumbled over a porcelain chamber pot. Did my grandparents never throw anything away? "Is Faye better today? I hated leaving you last night with all that clutter, but there was no holding Mildred back!"

"It's just a cold, but I'm keeping her in for a while, and the Circle ladies took care of was.h.i.+ng up. Wish they'd come back every night!" Gatlin examined a washstand with a broken leg and moved aside an ugly iron floor lamp. "Boy, does Mildred ever have her drawers in a wad! I've never seen her like this. How was she when you left her?"

"A lot calmer than I was," I admitted. "But she thinks somebody has been in the bookshop, says they moved her pencils."

"Moved her pencils?" Gatlin laughed and then cursed when she b.u.mped her ankle on an andiron.

I explained as best I could. "Mildred said she could tell somebody had been prying around, and there were papers scattered about. Seems to think something's missing, too- wouldn't tell me what it was.

"What will you do about Mildred if you can work out something about the bookshop?" I asked. "I worry about her living alone."

"She can stay as long as she wants," my cousin said. "If Otto didn't leave her his share, we'll just have to see she's taken care of. He might not have thought to, Minda. Who would've imagined Mildred would outlive him?"

Once we were downstairs, I reminded myself, I would telephone Mildred Parsons and invite her to dinner in case Vesta hadn't asked her already. And I mentally chided myself for not phoning earlier.

"Here it is! Or at least I think this is what we're looking for," Gatlin called from the far side of the room.

We had to lift two rolled-up rugs and a suitcase full of rocks (I later discovered they were filled with an old set of encyclopedias) to get to it, and the legs on the thing were as big as tree trunks, but the table looked to be in fairly good condition. It was bulky and solid and weighed a ton. Gatlin and I together could barely lift it off the floor, much less maneuver it downstairs.

"Maybe if we take the drawer out...," my cousin said. I didn't think that would help, but we tugged at it anyway, and of course the drawer was stuck. When it finally squeaked free, the two of us almost tumbled into a box containing enough picture frames to fill a museum. Except for a small paperbound booklet of Shakespeare's sonnets, the drawer was empty. And the table was still too heavy to move.

"Might as well put the drawer back," Gatlin said. "I'll ask David to get some of the boys on his team to get this down for you tomorrow."

I was helping her to slide the bulky drawer into place when I saw the paper inside. "Wait a minute! Something must've fallen behind and become wedged underneath." I s.n.a.t.c.hed out a folded rectangle, yellowed with time, and carefully smoothed it out. A brittle corner broke off in my hand.

"Don't expect a pa.s.sionate love letter," Gatlin advised me. "From all I've heard, our ancestors were too straitlaced and proper."

"Except for your parents," I reminded her. "Are you forgetting I know how you got your name?" My cousin's mom and dad had conceived her on their honeymoon in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

"You tell and you're dead meat!" she warned me. "I just let everybody think I was named for a gun."

The paper wasn't a love letter, but it proved to be almost as interesting. "Looks like the minutes of some kind of meeting," I said, holding the paper to the light. "The Mystic Six. "The Mystic Six. Must've been a secret club or something. Isn't that cute? I guess I never thought of people doing things like that back then." Must've been a secret club or something. Isn't that cute? I guess I never thought of people doing things like that back then."

"I don't know why not. We did-or I did anyway. The Gardener twins, Patsy Hardy and me. We called ourselves the Fearless Four, the Fearless Four, and met underneath Vesta's back porch. You used to follow us around and try to learn the pa.s.sword!" and met underneath Vesta's back porch. You used to follow us around and try to learn the pa.s.sword!"

"The pa.s.sword," I said, with my best attempt at a smirk, "was 'frog farts.' "

"Was it really? How disgusting! No wonder I'd forgotten." Gatlin looked over my shoulder. "I guess this bunch was too refined for that."

"No frog farts here," I said. "Just minutes." The proceedings of the meeting had been recorded in a delicate script in fading brown ink.

The meeting of the Mystic Six was called to order by Number One. Number Two led the group in the Club Pledge and collected dues of five cents from each member. Number Three entertained with a lovely solo, "Beautiful Dreamer." This was followed by a business meeting, during which a report was given by Number Four on the subject of Honesty. Plans were made for our next meeting at the home of Number Two. Number Five then served delicious refreshments of sandwiches, lemonade, and nondescripts. Number Six read the minutes of the last meeting, and Number One dismissed the group in the usual manner.

Respectfully submitted, Number Six At the bottom of the page, someone (Number Six?) had sketched a tiny six-petaled flower with a star in its center. It was identical to the ones I had seen bordering my great grandmother's needlework at Minerva Academy and to the pin I'd found on the bathroom floor.

The pin! What had I done with the pin?

I'll bet anything Lucy was the one who sang 'the lovely solo,' " Gatlin said. "That would have been right up her alley, and this looks old enough to have dated back that far."

I put the paper inside a copy of somebody's old botany textbook and took it downstairs. So far I hadn't told anyone about finding the pin. I wasn't ready to share it. Not yet.

"Wonder if they went around calling each other by number?" I said. "And did you notice the insignia at the bottom? It's the same thing I saw at the academy."

"I've seen it somewhere, too. Seems like it was on a quilt or something. Vesta would know. Or Mildred."

But Mildred would have to wait. As soon as my cousin left that afternoon, I scrambled through the soiled clothing I'd brought back from Gatlin's, and there it was in the pocket of my jeans-smaller than a dime and as dainty as the ladies in the Mystic Six had surely been.

How could a long-ago society of young women be related to my cousin's recent murder?

I tucked the trinket away and decided to keep it a secret for now. If Otto had been killed for that pin, I didn't want to be next.

Mildred didn't seem to understand what I was talking about when I phoned that afternoon. "What kind of flower?" she wanted to know. "And you say it had a star in it?"

"Gatlin thinks she's seen a quilt with that pattern, and I thought you might remember it," I said. After all, she was the person who had cleaned all the nooks and crannies at the Nut House for the last thirty years or so. If anyone would know where something was, Mildred would.

"I'm sorry, Minda, but I don't remember seeing anything like that," she said. And maybe it was because of all that had happened in the last few days, but I had a feeling she wasn't telling the truth.

I found my grandmother in an agitated state when I dropped by her place later for supper. "I'll never eat all this funeral food," she'd said when she invited me. Not an appetizing thought, but I went anyway.

"What's wrong?" I said when I saw her setting the table for four. I knew only two of us would be eating.

"I believe they're going to have to change the name of this town to Devil Heights," Vesta said. "Gatlin called a few minutes ago to tell me somebody tried to run down Gertrude Whitmire while she was out walking this morning."

"Is Mrs. Whitmire all right?"

"I think so. I phoned to see how she was, and she said she was pretty well scratched up-sc.r.a.ped her knees and got a few bruises when she tried to jump out of the way. I'm afraid it messed up her ankle, too. Had an ice pack on it when I called."

"Where did it happen?" I asked.