The Second Summoning

The door to the front bedroom was shut. Claire knocked.

“Go away! I hate you!”

“Wow.” Diana took half a step back. “She really does hate us.”

“What do you expect? She’s in there with the site. You try,” Claire suggested when her second knock brought no response at all.

“Lena? It’s me, Diana. From the decorating committee, remember?” She jiggled the knob. The door was locked. “Let me in.”

“No!”

It was one of the most definitive “no’s” Diana had ever heard, and she’d heard her fair share. “You sure it’s in there?”

Claire nodded.

“Then it’ll take more than a cheap lock to keep us out.” Diana reached into the possibilities. The door came off in her hand. “Okay.” She staggered back under its weight. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You never do,” Claire sighed, “but that’s not important now. Look.”

“Oh, man, I knew she was into angels, but this is just too much.”

“Not that. Look down.”

The hole had opened just off the corner of Lena’s bed; a dark, ugly, metaphysical blemish on the pale pink carpet.

Lena lifted a blotchy face from her pillow and glared out into the basement.

“Put that door back! I am not coming out! I don’t care what my father says!”

“Look, Lena, you don’t have to come out. We’re not here to . . .” Realizing a little late that she wasn’t going to get into the room while holding the door, Diana leaned it against the opposite wall and stepped over the threshold. “We’re here for you.” Skirting the hole, she circled around to the far side of the bed and sat down.

“We want to help.”

“You can’t help me.”

As she turned her head toward Diana, Claire came into the room, knelt by the hole, and used her fingertip to brush a symbol against the nap of the carpet.

“No one can help me,” Lena continued, rubbing her nose on the back of her hand. “My father took my angel away!”

Wondering how she could tell there was an angel missing given the number remaining in the room, Diana patted her shoulder in a comforting sort of a way.

“Well, you’ve got more . . .”

“No! He was a real angel. He came out of the light last night when I lit my candle! And I don’t care if you believe me.”

“I believe you. Did your father happen to hit this angel?” Claire asked in such a matter-of-fact tone that Diana swiveled around on the bed to stare at her.

“Yes. He just barged in like he does, all mad, and when he saw him, he like totally lost it and he hit him and took him away, and I am never speaking to him again.”

“Where did your father take the angel, Lena?”

“To the priest! I so totally hate him!”

“The priest or your father?”

“Both of them!”

“Diana.” Bending, Claire traced another symbol, then hurriedly erased it as a bit of the carpet melted. “I think Lena would feel better if she got some sleep.”

“No! I don’t want to . . .”

Diana adjusted Lena’s head on the pillow, then turned back to her sister. “Are you suggesting that Lena actually got visited by a real angel?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. You heard her: a Bystander can’t lie to a Keeper.”

“But they can lie to themselves. Lena once honestly believed she saw an image of Leonardo Di Caprio in a bowl of butterscotch pudding, throwing the female half of the ninth grade into hysterics for the remainder of lunch.”

“Really?”

Diana nodded. “It wasn’t pretty.”

“Well, this time she isn’t lying to anyone, herself or us.” Claire sat back on her heels and waved a hand around the room. “There’s distinct residue under the darkness. It’s obvious once you know to check for it.”

“Oh, yeah. Obvious angel residue. That’s something you don’t hear everyday.”

“Diana, this is serious.”

“Okay, I’m being serious.” Picking up the Backstreet Boys mug, she made a face and put it down again. “Question is, why would an angel appear to Lena?

Obsession isn’t enough to open the possibilities that wide. You think it was sent with a message?”

“Can’t have or it would have vanished once the message was delivered, and she said that her father took it away.”

“Maybe it got taken away before the message got delivered.”

“No, it would never have allowed that to happen. A message from the light gets delivered, regardless. An angry father would’ve stood about as much chance facing down a determined angel as he would have facing down a runaway transport with pretty much the same result. Here’s a better question: how could the possibilities have opened that wide without me noticing?”

“That’s easy. If they opened last night, you were busy.” Eyes narrowed, Diana grinned suddenly. “Are you blushing?”

“No.” Claire didn’t even try to make the denial sound convincing. Given the heat of her cheeks, there didn’t seem to be much point. “So why didn’t you notice?”

“Beats me. Must’ve gotten lost in that whole peace-and-joy stuff. You know what it’s like around this time of the year.”

“True enough.”

“And since it was from the upper end of things, it’s not really our problem anyway.”

“True again.” She traced a third symbol, and the noise level upstairs began to fall off. “That’s put a temporary cover over the site, but I’m going to need details to actually seal it.”

“Like?”