Witch Angel

  WITCH ANGEL

  Trana Mae Simmons

  Chapter 1

  “You’ve just gotta listen to me, Francesca.”

  Shreds of mist scattered around the hem of her red dashiki as Sylvia traipsed back and forth through the fluffy clouds in front of Francesca’s desk. One of the beaded, cornrow braids that Violet, a fellow guardian angel, wove in Sylvia’s hair fell over an eye, and the angel brushed it back impatiently. Face set in resolve, she stared past the computer at her superior.

  “I need a vacation,” Sylvia insisted. “I love being a guardian angel, but I’ve been taking care of Jacki for over fifteen years—ever since I joined your band of angels. That lady gets into more trouble than a six-week-old kitten exploring its new home!”

  Francesca steadily returned Sylvia’s gaze. “I’ve never had one of my guardian angels ask for a vacation in all my millennia. What makes you think that after just fifteen years—not even a blink in time—you can turn your assignment over to someone else?”

  “Not even a blink in time?” The errant braid bobbed free again and Sylvia shoved it behind her ear. She clasped her fingers behind her neck as though massaging an ache, but Francesca had never known one of her angels to have an ache anywhere.

  “Give me a break,” Sylvia said. “Your idea of time doesn’t fit here, because things aren’t like they were the last time you looked down at Earth in the Fifties. Darn it, the stress in a living woman’s life today is a thousand times greater than it was years ago.”

  “Surely, Sylvia ...” Francesca began.

  Suddenly Sylvia stared down through the clouds bunched around her feet and her eyes widened. With a gasp of dismay, she waved an apologetic hand at Francesca and disappeared.

  Francesca shook her head and pushed the Enter button on her keyboard. The screen leapt to life, and she typed a number to key it into the little black angel’s status. Immediately, the screen filled with a picture of Sylvia zipping to the front of a white Jeep traveling down a highway at a speed a fraction below dangerous. The instant Sylvia reached the driver’s side fender, the tire blew with a horrible bang. The Jeep swerved and the woman behind the steering wheel frantically fought for control.

  Sylvia grabbed the fender and skidded along beside the Jeep, her bare feet dragging on the pavement. She steadied the rocking vehicle and shoved her shoulder against it, returning it to its own traffic lane a split second before an oncoming eighteen-wheeler barreled over a hill. After she guided the Jeep onto the berm of the road, Sylvia fluttered a few feet above it and glared through the windshield at the woman, who gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled fingers.

  “When are you going to learn that a car’s got more speeds than just ‘stop’ and ‘pedal to the floor,’ Jacki?” Sylvia demanded, though the woman, of course, heard nothing. “Don’t you know even new tires can have defects?” Sylvia lifted her red dashiki skirt and raised one leg to swipe at the dirt on her foot. “I suppose you think it was your first-rate driving that kept you from hitting that darned semi!”

  “Whew,” Jacki breathed. “I’m sure glad my guardian angel was on the job today.”

  Francesca giggled, and Sylvia threw a furious glare overhead. “I heard that! You think it’s funny, but on top of everything else I have to deal with in this assignment, Jacki acts like having a guardian angel’s her right. That she can take stupid chances because I’m always gonna be sitting there on her shoulder—protecting her!”

  The Jeep door opened, and Sylvia glanced down at Jacki, evidently assuring herself that her assignment’s body hadn’t suffered any physical damage. Other than a paler-than-normal face and the slight tremble when Jacki lifted her hand to push back a tress of brown hair, she appeared unscathed. Thankfully, Sylvia’s assignment knew the value of seatbelts.

  Sylvia returned her attention to her superior angel. “This one’s a heck of a responsibility, Francesca! And you’d know how much of a strain it is, if you were emotionally involved in this business! But, nooo! You just sit there behind that darned unemotional computer and push buttons to run your unemotional program!”

  A flicker of hurt stabbed Francesca, and she pushed another keyboard button, blanking out the screen. Elbows on the shining desk surface, she steepled her fingers and pressed them against her mouth while she contemplated Sylvia’s tirade. Could the other angel have something there? Was she too out of touch?

  She enjoyed her job. She felt needed and wanted—proud of the fact that not one of the humans she had paired up with anyone in her band of guardian angels had ever met a premature death. Why, look what happened to Abbott, who headed up another group of guardian angels. He’d assigned an angel who had only recently transferred into his band of experienced guardians to that politician on earth one time, and an assassin had slipped through the angel’s vigilance.

  Sylvia had been dependable from the first day she arrived, fresh from spending an eon helping newly-arrived, bewildered human spirits adjust to their new state of being. That duty had at least brought her into daily contact with humans and life on Planet Earth. Francesca had thought Sylvia an exceptionally fine addition to her own guardian angel band. But after only fifteen years—the short span of time in which Jacki, her widowed assignment, had been struggling to raise her two children alone—Sylvia wanted, of all things, a vacation!

  “Aw, Frannie,” Sylvia said as she reappeared in front of the desk. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. You know I love you, and I’ve always been able to come to you and talk when I wasn’t sure about something. But can’t you see the reason I blew up was because I need a break?”

  Francesca gripped the edge of her desk and pushed her chair back an inch or two as she studied Sylvia. Though she treated all her angels with an even hand, this one had found a special place in her heart. Her independent streak stirred admiration, and even this partial apology was an element of Sylvia’s nature—a plea for forgiveness, yet a justification of her actions.

  “I’d be willing to discuss it with you further,” Francesca said. “But a decision like you’re asking me to make can’t be undertaken lightly. I’ll need to know more about your reasons for such a request—why you think life on Earth has become so complicated that it’s affected your ability to deal with protecting your assignment.”

  “Then listen, Frannie,” Sylvia said eagerly. “These days there’s lots of single-parent families, most of them from divorce and headed by women—black women, white women, and every other color sister. And these women are making decent lives for their families, instead of sitting around hankering after the men who walked out on them. They’ve opened things up—gotten help they didn’t used to have by building it up for themselves. But then they’ve gotta juggle the stress of jobs, kids, and housework.”

  “What’s happened to their dating lives?” Francesca asked worriedly. “Women weren’t meant to go through life alone.”

  “I could point out plenty of women who wouldn’t agree with that—who’d tell you they’re doing fine and dandy without a man messing up their lives, thank you kindly, ma’am.”

  Francesca opened her mouth to speak, but silenced herself at Sylvia’s negligent wave.

  “All right. All right,” Sylvia admitted. “Most women still hope they’ll find a decent man to fall in love with. But that’s just more stress, especially when a woman already has kids, like Jacki has. Jacki has to look for a man who’ll not only make her a good husband, but be a good daddy, too. Did I tell you about that one man my Jacki met who ... ?”

  “Sylvia, I’ve told you that your human assignment has to make her own decisions.” Francesca crossed her arms and buried her hands inside the long sleeves of her white robe. “You have no business intruding in that side of your assignment’s life. You’v
e got a measure of latitude in dealing with your guardianship, but you can’t interfere in emotional decisions—you’re just there to keep her body safe until it’s time for her to join us.”

  Sylvia blew out an exasperated breath, as though trying to release some tension with the air. She leaned on the desk, and her determined countenance forced Francesca another inch back into her padded chair.

  “You’re not listening to me,” Sylvia protested, shaking a finger for emphasis. “What I’m trying to tell you is that Jacki’s not just an assignment. I can’t help becoming involved with her. Frannie, two hundred years ago, life was real hard on both men and women, because they had to work their fannies off to even put a meal on the table. Maybe they didn’t have time to worry as much back then—I don’t know. These days they buy their food at a grocery store, but the emotional stress human women like Jacki have to deal with is just as wearing. I care about her—and it’s stressing me out. That’s why I need a break!”

  “Sylvia, you’re not human. You’ve never been human. How can you experience stress?”

  “I’ve been dealing with humans day-in and night-out for a millennium!” Sylvia threw her hands in the air and her wings fluttered in agitation, sending ripples from the neck of her red dashiki all the way to the hem. “You don’t seem to realize how stressful that can be. All you do is sit there every day in your nice, soft chair and keep track of everyone from a distance. If you see one of us getting in over our heads when an assignment runs into more danger than usual, you push a computer button.”

  “Well there,” Francesca said around a smug look. “That shows you I’m not behind the times.”

  Sylvia’s face creased in puzzlement and she spread her hands palms up, shrugging her shoulders. “How does that show me anything?”

  “My computer ... which, I might add, I’ve been using very adequately for quite some time now. Why, I even sat in when that computer programmer who joined us years ago wrote the program for me. I explained my job to him, so the software would suit my needs, and it’s the very latest technology. It even has some commands that won’t be invented on Earth for decades yet.”

  Sylvia groaned under her breath, but Francesca continued, “And look at you. Your hair and dashiki are perfect examples of how progressive our band of angels has become under my leadership. I paid attention when all of you told me that you’d like to set your own hair styles and decide on wearing apparel yourselves. Some of the other angels ...” Francesca lowered her voice, “... even wear their robes fashioned like those culotte things—almost like pants.”

  “You’re missing my point, Frannie. I’m not complaining about things up here—it’s things down there!”

  “Sounded to me like you didn’t think I was paying attention to what my angels need,” Francesca grumbled. “Questioning whether I really care about all of you.”

  “Frannie, your computer’s been great for you, not that you really need it ...”

  “I don’t,” Francesca put in. “But it’s sort of fun working with it.”

  “Yes, but it’s given you a ... well, a sort of separation. I’m involved directly—close to the emotions of what’s happening to my assignment, as well as the people living around her and the lifestyle on Earth. It’s stressful, Frannie.”

  Muted thunder rumbled from a storm cloud in the atmosphere below them, and a bolt of lightning flashed. Sylvia blinked and slipped a contrite glance from beneath a pair of long eyelashes. “I didn’t mean it to sound like you don’t care about us, Frannie. Really, I didn’t.” She dropped her head even lower and nervously fingered her red skirt. “Uh ... I should probably check on Jacki—make sure she’s not getting wet. She had that bout with bronchitis last winter. And I forgot to check and see if she has her cell phone with her. She has a tendency to forget it now and then.”

  “She’s fine,” Francesca replied. “Here. See for yourself.” Francesca turned the computer on again and swiveled the screen base so Sylvia could see.

  Sylvia grinned delightedly as she watched a handsome, mid-thirties man emerge from the semi pulled up behind the disabled Jeep, jump lithely to the ground, and stride toward Jacki’s window. Jacki cracked the window and he said, “Please don’t be frightened, ma’am. The name’s Peter McNeely, but I answer to Mac. Saw you pullin’ off the road with that flat tire when I went by, so I turned in at the first spot I could find big enough to jack my rig around in. If you don’t have a cell phone, I can call someone for you on my radio. Or ... I could change the tire for you.”

  Jacki bit her bottom lip for a moment, then asked, “Aren’t you one of the referees at the football games in town?”

  He nodded. “Yep. I take short hauls these days, so I can be home weekends for the games.”

  Spirits lifting, Sylvia scooted onto the desk, her eyes never leaving the computer screen as Jacki rolled her window down. “Boy, ain’t he a hunk, Frannie?”

  “A hunk of what?” Francesca asked curiously.

  “A hunk of man,” Sylvia replied. “Look at the buns in those tight jeans. I’ve always admired a cute bottom on a man.”

  Francesca felt her cheeks pinken, but she continued gazing at the screen, where Mac was lifting a tire jack and spare tire out through the Jeep’s hatchback. A few spatters of rain hit the ground as the thunderstorm moved down through the atmosphere. Mac turned up his shirt collar, then rolled the tire to the front fender, and bent down to position the jack.

  By the time Mac had the tire changed, his sodden shirt clung to his shoulders and rain streamed down his face. He carried the tire jack to the rear of the Jeep and secured it again in its holder. Wiping his face on a soaked shirt sleeve, he returned for the ruined tire and rolled it along the muddy road berm.

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to clean out your spare tire well,” he called toward the driver’s seat as he hoisted the mud-globbed tire over the bumper. “But you’ll need this rim when you buy a new tire.”

  “Please don’t worry about it,” Jacki replied. “I really appreciate your help, and I’m sorry you got wet.”

  “Ah, what’s a few drops of rain?” he said with a laugh as he started to close the hatch.

  “Wait,” Jacki called. “How much do I owe you?”

  The upraised hatch protected him somewhat from the falling rain and Mac hesitated. Sylvia and Francesca stared back and forth between Jacki’s heart-shaped face peering around the front bucket seat and Mac, whose face mirrored irritation. Jacki’s wispy fringe of brown bangs ended just above her sea-green eyes, which were shadowed with concern as she fingered an overstuffed purse on the console. For a split second, Mac acted like her offer of money pricked his masculine ego, but Jacki responded to his frown of annoyance by tilting a delicate chin up a prideful notch.

  Mac’s irritation vanished, replaced by a look of dawning realization. Perhaps he admired her desire to pay her own way. Or maybe he just wanted to prolong this meeting for another moment or two before she drove out of his life. Francesca sighed and murmured, “I sure can see the emotions between those two. It’s cozy under that hatch, isolated from the pouring rain in a protected area. Can’t you see how he’s attracted to Jacki?”

  Sylvia nodded agreement as Mac’s full lips formed a slow smile and a teasing glint highlighted his eyes. He asked, “How much do you think it’s worth?”

  “I hope not more than twenty dollars,” Jacki said with a relieved laugh. “That’s all the cash I have. I don’t suppose you take credit cards?”

  “Nope,” he replied. “But I’ll tell you what. Bein’ a bachelor truck driver, I usually settle for the special at whatever truck stop I’m near when it’s time to eat. I ... uh ... didn’t notice you wearin’ a wedding ring, so I would accept dinner instead of money. A home-cooked meal might be nice, but dinner out with a pretty companion would work, too. ‘Course I’d like to know your name first.”

  “Oh. I—I—” Jacki ducked her head for a second, then looked back at him. “It’s Jacki. Jacqueline Benjamin. And
I might be able to manage the dinner out. Stoves and I aren’t exactly good friends. Microwaves—”

  “Yuck,” Mac interrupted. “Warmed up, already-cooked food isn’t my bag.” He picked up a boy’s tennis shoe lying in the rear of the Jeep and held it high enough above the back seat for Jacki to see. “Guess you’d have to arrange for a babysitter, huh, Jacki?”

  Her husky-soft laughter blended with the sound of the rain pelting the Jeep’s roof, and Jacki shook her head, sending silky hair swirling around her face.

  “Don’t mention that word in front of my son,” she said. “Or my daughter, either. They both made sure I knew they’d outgrown having a sitter two years ago. If my son had been with me instead of at football practice just now, he could have changed my tire, too.”

  “I’m sure as hell glad he had football practice,” Mac murmured under his breath.

  Sylvia and Francesca continued watching while Jacki suggested a restaurant and they arranged a time to meet. Mac finally closed the hatch and stood with his hands jammed into his jeans pockets as the Jeep drove away. After it disappeared, he raised his head and shouted into the pouring rain, “Ain’t it a hell of a beautiful day, world?”

  “Hummm,” Francesca mused. “Looks like your assignment’s going to have someone else helping take care of her for a while. Maybe a less-experienced guardian angel might be able to manage for the time being.”

  “Does that mean I can have my vacation?” Sylvia asked hopefully.

  “No,” Francesca said. “It means that as soon as I call Violet in to replace me, we’ll have that vacation. Or, we should probably more properly call it a sabbatical for both of us.”

  “You’re going with me, Frannie? Great! Vacations are always more fun when you have a girlfriend to share them with. Where can we go?”

  “You said you needed to get away from the stress of modern-day life, my dear. With that in mind, we’ll choose a less stressful place, where you can relax and we can continue our discussion.”