The Day the Angels Fell Read online

  “I wanted to get things organized,” she said. “Besides, some of the articles were still stuck together.”

  “This is incredible.”

  All the articles had been spread out in order by their number. There weren’t as many as I had previously thought, maybe less than a hundred.

  “Some of these earlier ones, I couldn’t even read them,” she said, pointing at some ancient-looking pieces of paper with scribbles and notes on them in foreign languages. “But the most recent half of the cards and articles are in English.”

  I glanced over them. One was about a five-hundred-year-old mesquite tree in Bahrain that the article called the Tree of Life. Another was about the Cotton Tree in Freetown, Sierra Leone. There was the Lone Cypress near Monterey, California, now held in place by cables.

  “Tree after tree after tree.” She poked a new article each time she said the word tree. “Ancient trees, and most of them burned down, cut down, or destroyed. Or trees that people are protecting or hiding. But every article is about a tree.”

  She waited and let me skim through some more of the articles.

  “Mr. Tennin has a serious interest in these trees,” she said. “Why else would he keep track of how each of them has been destroyed or hidden? Why would he have a matching map showing where each one was located? And why would he have taken special note of this?”

  She pointed at the article at the very end, the most recent of all the newspaper clippings. It was one I had seen somewhere before.

  “I think you were right,” she said solemnly. “I think he is here to destroy the Tree.”

  Valley Woman Dies When Lightning Strikes Ancestral Tree

  It was the story of my mother’s death, with #68 in the top right corner of the article. I looked at Abra. She nodded, holding the atlas out to me. There was our small town in central Pennsylvania, flanked by the curving slopes of two mountains. Our valley.

  “But our tree is already dead,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “You said it yourself earlier today. He’s here for the Tree of Life.”

  I told her about the conversation I had just had with Mr. Tennin.

  “How did he know it was here? It must have something to do with all these.” I pointed to the articles spread out over the floor.

  “I wonder,” Abra said. “Do you remember the story he told us about the Tree of Life when he first arrived at your house?”

  “Of course,” I said. “But keep going.”

  “What if these are all times when the Tree of Life appeared?”

  My eyes scanned the photographs that some of the articles contained, pictures of charred trees or lopped-off stumps, rings within rings. There was a picture of our old oak, dashed as it had been after the lightning struck and before the neighbors had come over to clean up.

  I nodded. Not only was he the angel charged with destroying the Tree, but these were his notes on all the times he had already done it.

  “You’re brilliant,” I said.

  She blushed. “Well, if it’s true, it’s great that we know it,” she said. “But that doesn’t solve our biggest problem.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “What do we do next?”

  25

  “WHAT WE DO NEXT kind of depends on who has the Tree. Who do you think has it?” I asked.

  She paced back and forth from the window to where I sat among the newspaper articles. “It has to be Mr. Tennin or Mr. Jinn,” she said. “Mr. Tennin doesn’t have it, or he would simply destroy it. And if he had it, why would he be helping us find the other things?”

  “So it’s Mr. Jinn?” I said.

  She nodded.

  “Which would make sense, because he hasn’t come looking for me or the Tree. But how did he get it? He told me he couldn’t come here. He wasn’t in your house, was he?”

  “Who knows,” she said. “Maybe he snuck in during the day when no one was paying attention or we were all out in the barns. Maybe he can just appear places.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said. “When he came into my house he definitely walked in like a normal person. I heard him come in through the screen door, and he crawled out the window.”

  She shrugged. “Does it matter how he got it? He controls the vultures, right? Maybe he sent in little mice to steal it and take it out.”

  “I don’t think he actually controls them,” I mumbled, creeped out at the thought of Mr. Jinn sending rodents into my house to look for things.

  “We’ll have to deal with that later,” Abra said. “I think our best bet is to start finding the other three things. Maybe we’ll find it along the way. Maybe the three things will even lead us to it.”

  “We know the first thing to find is the stone bowl,” I said. “It has to be the one the old ladies gave to that guy at the fair.”

  Abra sighed. I knew what she was thinking. The Darkness at the bottom of the fair was not a place we wanted to go back to, and the man with the bowl was not someone I wanted to look for, much less find.

  “We’ll have to do that tomorrow,” she said. “I don’t think my mom would take us to the fair tonight. It’s too late.”

  Outside, the moon emerged from behind a small cloud and sent ivory light through the window.

  “You should probably get home,” she said. “It’s getting late.”

  “Yeah, I don’t want my dad worrying about me. He’s been quiet again. Real quiet.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, staring hard at me as if I were a puzzle she was trying to put together.

  Abra started gathering all the news articles into a pile to put back into the box. The next thing she said came out quiet and timid, not at all like the boisterous mystery solver who had been shouting out possible explanations not too long before.

  “Sam, do you still want to find the Tree so you can bring your mom back to life?”

  I didn’t answer. I reached over and put the atlas in the box and stared at the sword.

  “Because if you do, well, I still think it’s wrong. But there’s something inside me that keeps telling me I’m supposed to help you find the Tree. I don’t think you’re supposed to use it to bring your mom back, but I’m going to try to . . . to be part of this.”

  I nodded. I appreciated her honesty, but I didn’t want to get into that conversation again, the one about bringing back my mother. If she was willing to help, that was good enough for me.

  I pointed at the gray sword. “I think you should hang on to that. There must be some reason it doesn’t burn you. I think you should keep it with you, in case . . .” My voice trailed off and the image of the Amarok rose in my mind. Abra hadn’t seen it yet. I was glad she hadn’t, but I wanted her to have some way of protecting herself if she ended up coming between it and the Tree.

  She picked up the sword, and the drab grayness of the blade seemed to turn into something brighter, something closer to glass than metal. I could see it shimmering in the reflection in her eyes.

  Mrs. Miller agreed to drive me home again, which was very kind of her, seeing as how Mr. Miller was out in the barn and Abra didn’t want to stay at home alone with the baby.

  “I don’t understand why you insist on coming along,” Mrs. Miller said as the four of us went out to the car. “It’s seven minutes up the road, and Francis should be in bed.”

  She buckled the baby into his seat and gave Abra a quick glare. The truth was I was the one who didn’t want Abra staying home alone. She was quite prepared to take the risk, but I didn’t want her there by herself with the Amarok on the loose.

  Fortunately, the baby kept sleeping, even through all of that movement. I sat beside the window and Abra sat in the middle, between me and the baby. This meant the front passenger seat was empty. Mrs. Miller started the car and pulled out of the long lane.

  The bright moon cast dim shadows across the stone surface of Kincade Road. Every shadow seemed to move, to shift, and I kept looking up at the moon, hoping the night would stay bright until I
made it through my own front door.

  We got about halfway down the road to my house when the car sputtered.

  “Uh-oh,” Mrs. Miller said.

  “What do you mean, ‘uh-oh?’” Abra asked.

  She groaned. “I forgot to get gas today when I went into town. I think we’re going to run out.”

  “Mom!” Abra said. “Why do you always do this?”

  As she said that the engine sputtered again, this time louder and more persistently. Before I even had a chance to hope that we’d at least make it to my driveway, the engine stalled out and Mrs. Miller guided the car to the side of the road.

  Everything was very quiet. Abra’s baby brother slept beside us, his face oblivious to the world. Mrs. Miller sat in the driver’s seat, not yet accepting that we had run out of gas. She tried to start it again. Nothing. Abra and I looked at each other. I was more scared than I could ever remember—more scared than when I had been hiding in the attic, more scared than when I saw the lightning strike the tree, even more scared than when the three dogs attacked me. During all of that stuff I had been in the middle of the action, but there in the car, on that moonlit night, I was waiting. Waiting to see what would happen next. And the waiting filled me with fear.

  “Well, who’s walking to Sam’s house?” Mrs. Miller asked with a wry smile.

  I tried to think it through. I remembered my father’s words about the Amarok.

  It only devours those who are foolish enough to hunt alone.

  “Why don’t you two stay here with the baby and I’ll go?” Mrs. Miller suggested. “It’s not very far. The church’s parking lot light is right up there.”

  “No,” I said. “No. Abra and I will go.”

  “You just don’t want to watch the baby again,” Mrs. Miller teased. “Okay. Please ask your dad to bring me some gas, just enough to get me home. And tell him I’m so sorry.”

  Abra and I stared at each other across the dark backseat of the car, and I opened the door. The two of us got out. A cool breeze blew through the valley, much colder than you would expect to have on a July night. I slammed the door behind us. The sound of it closing felt sudden and irrevocable. There was no going back.

  We walked quickly, our feet making far too much noise on the gravel road. Abra grabbed on to the side of my shirt exactly as she had held my sleeve at the funeral. But there was nothing affectionate about the way she latched on to me that night. She was scared, and I could sense it in her grip.

  Halfway from the car to the lane, I stumbled, my feet kicking up loose stones.

  “Shh!” Abra said quickly.

  “I know, I know,” I whispered.

  We were getting closer and closer to my mailbox. The church light was getting brighter and brighter, and the nearer we got to that light, the better we felt. I looked over at Abra, and because of that light I could clearly see her face. She looked back at me and smiled. We would make it. We were almost there.

  The church light blinked out.

  I’ve always found it eerie when a streetlight blinks out, but usually where there’s one streetlight there are many, and when one goes out it leaves a dim gap in the long line of those that stayed on. But this was different because there was only one light, and we were in the middle of the country, so when it blinked out everything went dark. We were left with the pale face of the moon and the faraway pinholes of light that came from my house.

  We moved closer together and walked slower, quieter. We listened for any other sounds, and when we thought we heard something we stopped, my finger on my lips, Abra barely breathing. Then we took a few more slow steps, cringing at every crunch the gravel made under our feet.

  Nighttime shadows can be tricky things, shifting and moving in ways that daytime shadows don’t. The breeze rustled the weeds that lined the small space between the road and the fields, so the dim shadows on the road were always moving, waving back and forth. The trees, too, faded here and there, as if they weren’t rooted to the ground, as if that cool wind had somehow freed them.

  But from the depths of these nighttime shadows, a darker thing appeared. It moved toward us from the church, and the closer it got, the colder the wind became. The darkness I had felt in my heart during those days after my mother’s death seemed drawn to it. All the lies and deceit and anger at my mother’s passing gained lives of their own and rose inside me, as if they were given new life. As if they were rising from the dead.

  Abra and I stopped walking.

  “What’s that?” she whispered.

  I shook my head as if I didn’t know, but I knew. I just didn’t want to say the words.

  It’s the Amarok.

  That dark shadow moved faster as it approached, and it raced past us along the side of the road. Everything in me screamed, Run! Run into the woods and hide! But Abra clung to my shirt and I knew I couldn’t leave her. The darkness inside me shouted, Leave! The Amarok isn’t here for you. Run away, and it will take Abra but you will be safe. Better one of you is devoured than both of you.

  That voice, it was calm and convincing, and what it told me made sense. I grabbed Abra’s hand, the one clinging to my shirt, as if I was going to hold it, but instead I dropped it down to my side.

  “What are we going to do?” she hissed as the shadow blew past us again, back up the other side of the road.

  Every time it passed us, the darkness inside me grew, and my desire to run became almost overwhelming.

  “What about this?” Abra asked, pulling the sword out from behind her.

  “You have it?” I asked.

  There it was, the moonlight glinting off its surface.

  “I tucked it in the back of my pants, under my shirt,” she whispered.

  She pushed it slowly out in front of her. The shadow paused, then approached. I could finally see its form—the wolflike shape, the massive size, the huge paws, agile and ready on the gravel. Its eyes glittered in the moonlight, and something else shone.

  Its teeth.

  Abra brandished the blade, but the Amarok only drew into itself before expanding larger, taller, fiercer. Before, it seemed ready to play with us, to bat at us with its paws and devour us happily—but once it saw the sword, it seemed full of rage. It took one step toward us. Another. Its eyes squinted, and I could hear the softest movement of gravel as it approached. Soon it was so close that even in the dim moonlight I could see its nose curling. I remembered what it had said to me in my dream.

  That fruit does not belong to you.

  I got ready to run.

  Then I saw a bright light and heard a voice calling out to us through the darkness. The nighttime breeze got warmer and stronger, and I caught the smell of cut hay coming from a neighboring field, mingling with the far-off sound of the river. The Amarok melted away, like a shadow when the light comes on.

  26

  THE APPROACHING LIGHT got brighter and brighter, and for a moment I felt like we were rushing forward through a tunnel, toward the light and the way out. I shielded my eyes, and the light dropped. Mr. Tennin came into view, and the church light winked back on.

  “What are you kids doing out here?” he asked.

  I wanted to run to him and give him a hug. I wanted to tell him all about what we had seen. But I didn’t. Instead I turned to Abra. “Hide the sword,” I whispered.

  “Mr. Tennin,” I said when he got closer. My voice still shook from the close call with the Amarok. I coughed and tried to steady it. “Abra’s mom was bringing me home, but she ran out of gas.”

  “Everything okay?” he asked. “You sound a little shaken up.”

  In the darkness, when I couldn’t be distracted by his boring, humdrum physical appearance, I remembered that Mr. Tennin’s voice was deep and beautiful. The deepness wasn’t in the sound it made, but more in the way it seemed to lead to other things, long-ago stories or forgotten tales.

  “Yeah, we’re okay,” Abra said, but her voice sounded as weak and unconvincing as mine.

  “C’mon,” he sa
id. “Let’s go find your dad.”

  We walked the rest of the way together, turning into the lane past the mailbox, walking along the garden and the growing-heavier-by-the-day apple trees. We came up to the barns and walked through the yard, past the lightning tree, to the front porch. Our feet made loud thudding noises on the boards. It was as if we had finally returned to reality.

  We walked into the bright house. I could hear a baseball game on the television heading into its final stages.

  “Mr. Chambers?” Mr. Tennin said. “You in there?”

  “Yeah,” my dad said.

  “Abra’s mother ran out of gas on the way here. You want me to drive back out there with a little gasoline to fill up her car?”

  “Sure,” my dad said. “Thanks, Tennin.”

  Soon Mr. Tennin and Abra headed back out into the night. I waved to Abra, and when she turned around I could see the bulge in the back of her shirt where the sword’s handle stuck out. I hoped she would keep it safe. I hoped she would keep it secret.

  All I wanted to do was go to bed. But as I got to the steps, my dad called out to me from the living room.

  “Boy, Mr. Jinn was here earlier this afternoon. Said he expected to see you. He left a note for you in the kitchen.”

  “Okay,” I said. I walked into the kitchen and there it was, a note written in scratchy handwriting on a small white piece of paper.

  I wanted to come by and talk to you about that unfinished project and give you what I owe you. Make sure you’re here tomorrow at one so I can talk to you about that. If you’re not here, I can always give your payment to your father.

  I knew what he was saying. He was angry that I hadn’t yet found the Tree of Life or gone back to his house to talk about it. He wanted to feed me to the Amarok, or something worse, and that’s what he was going to do tomorrow. That’s what he meant by giving me what he owed me. And if I wasn’t there, he would do to my father what he wanted to do to me.