In the Matter of Fallen Angels: A Short Story Read Free Page B

out a couple of patio umbrellas to provide shade and gave out free ice for the coolers, since by now everyone just brought whatever refreshments they wanted.  A lot of the parents brought Kool-Aid for the kids because it was cheaper than pop, and Hilary Putney-Smoot brought fresh mint from her herb garden for all the people who set out jars and made sun tea.  Everyone took turns making sure that Quinn had something to drink and didn't dehydrate in the heat.  Despite having shaved yesterday, he was looking more haggard today and a few people like Claire Williams and Garrett Ainsworth were beginning to wonder privately if it wasn't time to start worrying about him.  If they had known what happened last night, they might have guessed that Quinn was suffering from lack of sleep and a voyeurist's hangover, but they would have been wrong.  Quinn's increased preoccupation had in fact nothing to do with Angie Stoat's attempted celestial seduction and everything to do with the angel's slow deterioration.
    It was still Quinn who stayed, you see, and Quinn who noticed how the angel's tawny locks hung now lank and untended, how the angel's sculpted torso rose and fell with the effort of respiration, how it carried its wings imperceptibly lower and the feathers hung limp in the torpid heat.  The once-dazzlingly-white cloth that girded its loins was merely white, no whiter than the cottonwood seeds blowing about the yard and catching in the chicken-wire.  The angel's naked feet were grimy with dust and there was a streak of dirt on one bare shoulder where little Rick DeKalb had thrown a dirt-clod at it.  Because he could not give voice to these things, Quinn stayed silent and suffered a grinding pain in his heart that he knew to be an intimation of mortality not his own.
    The main debate in Garrett Ainsworth's backyard that day was whether or not any events of a miraculous nature had occurred in Utopia since the angel had arrived.  There was Miss Jessamine's nasturtium which had unexpectedly revived and Del Danby's black labrador retriever Lucy which had given birth to a litter of no less than twelve pups on Tuesday, but these were rather dubious as miracles go.  There was Angie Stoat's prodigal return, of course, but this was not as miraculous as would be, say, her graduating from high school on time next spring.  Madoc Jones claimed to have heard the voice of God in the woods behind the old Oosterberg place, but everyone knew h e went out into the woods to hunt for hallucinogenic mushrooms, so that didn't really count.  Besides, he was Welsh.
    In the early evening hours it cooled off a bit and Patsy Tucker donated the usage of her croquet set for anyone who was interested in playing, which it turned out was quite a few.  Bobby MacCreary fell in the creek trying to make a tricky shot after Claire Willi ams had knocked his ball out of the course , but declared that it was refreshing and jumped in again to prove it.  After that a lot of the kids wanted to jump in the creek, but then Bobby MacReary discovered he had a leech on his ankle and almost passed out when Garrett pulled it off, and after that no one wanted to go in the creek.  Claire Williams won three out of four games of croquet and admitted that she and her husband used to play it a great deal at their friends the VanderKemps' summer house and then her lips compressed into a thin line and she wouldn't say anything more about it.
    A round 7:30 p.m. Bob Angler—who was n't supposed to be driving—and a couple of his friends pulled up with a mess of brook trout and a keg of beer and organized a fish fry.  All in all, despite the heat it turned out that the sixth day was a good one and everyone except Quinn went home after dark declaring that they didn't remember when they'd had so much fun.  Which was a good thing since this would be the last day, although of course no one knew this at the time.
    That night the moon rose full, and it was so round and perfect that