Author: Martin Clyde-Wilkie
There’s an angel outside town, if you know where to look. Push through the gorse and scramble along the river bed, keeping your gaze away from the branch of lightning
frozen over the gully, until you reach the edge and can peer down at it.
It doesn’t look much like you’d expect. It’s tall and pale, and has wings but no feathers, just these burnt webs of bone stretched out over the stone.
The lightning is like a spear through its heart.
Mama says everybody knows it’s an angel but won’t say how. Papa says to forget it, that I have better things to do than gawk at something best left alone. He sounds scared when he says this.
Some nights I hear it calling out to me. Most just hear the wind but I can make out my name. Sometimes it’s a gentle whisper, and other times it’s loud enough to rattle the windows.
Last night it was a scream like a storm and the heavy clouds promise that tonight will be worse. Everybody is rushing about to nail their doors and windows closed, and putting out lights.
Nobody saw me slip away in the dusk, through the gorse that scratches at my bare arms, along the riverbed and down the side of the gully. This close I can hear the
crackle of lightning, smell the burn of ozone as it splits the air.
The angel lies still. The rocks all round its body are scorched black.
My hand, slick with blood, grasps the spear of lightning like it was pulled towards it.
It’s lighter than I was expecting, and slides out the angel’s chest with no effort.
The air goes still. It opens its mouth to draw breath, and pulls the storm with it.