Angel

by JunoMagic
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives-ShareAlike license

Angel

I could see that she was unhappy. Of course she was. Just three days until Christmas and she was stuck with an old crotchety great-aunt and didn’t know if she’d see her parents and her little brother ever again. And to be honest, my bet was rather on ‘never again’.

Judging from the news there was no way in heaven or hell that my nephew and his wife would make it out of there before the lines of the enemy would close around the city and cut off all venues of escape.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn and bloody hell to boot. Just as well that my sister was already dead; she’d never survive losing her little boy and his beautiful wife.

And what the hell was I supposed to do with a six-year-old, a little girl who missed her mummy and her daddy and her baby brother and their darling dog?

I was used to dealing with recalcitrant undergraduates who thought that the next ball or that dashing young gentleman from the college around the corner who had caught their eye were more important than Cicero, Tacitus or Vergil. Little girls in pinafores with golden curls and wavering smiles were outside my area of expertise.

I was also too old for this kind of responsibility. My worries should be limited to what to contribute to the annual church bazaar and how to evade the Bishop’s wife and her gaggle of lady-friends. There was a reason I’d never married and that my ‘children’ were two Siamese cats spoilt rotten. Siamese cats who hated everyone but me, by the way, and who’d had as much contact to children as to dogs during their long life. Set in their ways, they were. Just like me.

Yet here little Rose sat on my footstool, back very straight, hands primly folded in her lap, staring outside into the grey winter afternoon that made my little garden look even more pathetic than it was to begin with.

Oh, damn, I thought again. Dear God in heaven, how about a deal? Either you let her parents live, or – I frowned, calculating quickly – you let me reach the ripe of old age of 97 in perfect physical and mental health. Rose would be twenty-five then. Old enough to have a job, to be married, to have children of her own.

Rose sat much too still. Undergraduates didn’t sit that still during lecture, so I was virtually certain that your average six-year-old shouldn’t be sitting that still. I frowned. Yes, I was right. Her lower lip trembled ever so slightly, and she was blinking too fast.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. The hook-nosed, greasy-haired git of a Chemistry professor at the college where I’d taught classics was better around crying females than I was; the saints knew that he’d plenty of practice.

What do you say, God? I prayed. Sound like a deal?

A pale ray of winter sunlight slanted into the room and made Rosie’s hair gleam like a halo. I knew from long experience that this was all the answer I was likely to get. And considering Rose’s lower lip, which was trembling stronger, I had approximately fifteen seconds left to distract the child.

Blindly, I reached to my side and dragged the ancient sewing basket out of its shadowy corner. If there was one thing I had even less experience with than with little girls, it was needlework. But I did own a fabulous, antique sewing basket with all accoutrements of a professional seamstress. There was a bit of a story attached to it (as well as many hidden boxes, drawers and compartments). It had roused my curiosity when I was just a little older than Rose was now. Here was hoping that she was a precocious child.

‘Do you know what this is?’ I asked gruffly. Dear Lord, please, don’t let her start crying right away – I don’t even know if I’ve got a handkerchief on my person!

Rose turned around and looked first at me, then at the basket. ‘It’s a sewing basket, Aunt Florence,’ she replied in her shrill children’s voice. ‘Mummy has one, too. Though it’s much smaller and not as pretty as this one.’ She regarded me thoughtfully for a while. ‘Do you sew?’ she asked, her voice slightly dubious.

I wondered what her mother had told her about me and stifled a sigh. ‘No, I don’t,’ I admitted frankly. ‘But my great-aunt Clarice gave this to me and I’ve always cherished it. Do you want to know why?’

Rose stared at me. She’d probably never heard of Lady Clarice. Or if she had, nothing good. But her lip stopped trembling, and her huge blue eyes focused on the basket. How could a child of six look like a perfect porcelain doll? The logic of this completely escaped me. And she wasn’t dumb, pretentious, or vain. My nephew – or his wife – must have done something right.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I’d like to know that, Aunt Florence.’

Unconsciously, my fingers caressed the silky, aged wood, the delicate fabric.

‘It contains proof that anything is possible,’ I said, and couldn’t suppress a smile. ‘And for the existence of angels.’

Now Rose’s mouth formed a sweet, pink O.

‘Open it,’ I commanded.

She obeyed, and reverently lifted the lid. Inside we found yarns and silks and a delicate needle-cushion stuck with silver needles like a hedgehog.

‘Pick a needle,’ I urged her.

She frowned, an expression that reminded me of my high-strung cats, but did as I told her.

‘Hold it high,’ I told her.

She did, frowning harder.

I felt a smile begin to curl the corners of my mouth, remembering an afternoon a long time ago, in another lifetime, in another century, when another crotchety old maiden-aunt had comforted a confused and lonely girl-child.

‘How many angels can dance on the point of a needle?’ I asked. ‘And how many camels can pass through its eye?’

Rose grimaced involuntarily, and I nearly laughed. ‘So you already know what’s possible and what’s not, do you?’

She bit down on her lip – obviously she knew that she HAD to be polite to her strange aunt.

‘Hold it high, and against the light,’ I advised. ‘Then squeeze one eye shut and concentrate. You must hold your breath and concentrate as hard as you can. If you do it right, you’ll see the wings of the angel dancing on the tip of the needle reflected in the sunlight. And the golden gleam of the camel’s fur that’s stuck in the eye of the needle. That, by the way, is also the reason why it’s sometimes so darn hard to thread a needle. The camel’s in the way.’

She held the needle high, chewed her lower lip so that it grew plump and pink, and squinted hard.

For a long time, Rose remained silent, just staring at the needle.

As luck would have it, another of the rare rays of winter sunlight chose that very moment to hit the window of my conservatory. The needle – and Rosie’s hair – glittered.

‘I – I think I can see it,’ she gasped, in her high, breathless little girl’s voice. ‘The angel’s wings! And the golden fur of the camel!’

I nodded, relieved. ‘See,’ I told her. ‘Everything’s possible.’

I didn’t feed her pap about how everything would be all right, too. I just let her play with the sewing basket all afternoon.

And when news arrived that her family had died in the fire of the bombs, I took her in, and did the best I could by her. I’m ninety-five now, and though I need two pairs of glasses, a cane and a horrible hearing aid, I’m still as spry (and as crotchety) as I was those many years ago.

I guess there may have been an angel dancing on that bloody pin after all.

Song of the day:

Link(s) of the day:

Angels at the Jewish Encyclopedia | Angels at the Catholic Encyclopedia | Angels at Artcyclopedia | The Nuremberg Christmas Angel | The thing with the camel…

…and my wish for you today is:

May you meet many angels during your life, especially those reluctant, inadvertant, awkward angels who guard and guide you all the better for it.

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