Part 3 (1/2)
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.