“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the angel replied, refusing to look at him.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Aaron said with sarcasm, taking the turn onto a rutted stretch of winding road.
After half a mile, the dirt road opened up into a large, unpaved parking lot. A building to left of the lot looked as if it had once been a country store with an apartment above. The apartment seemed to still serve that function, but the storefront had been converted into a veterinarian’s office. Two sports utility vehicles were parked in the lot, one with Maine plates, the other from Illinois.
“This is it,” Aaron said. He parked as close to the building as he could. “Let’s get you fixed up, Gabriel.”
The dog lifted his head and looked around, his nose twitched and dribbled moisture as he scented the air. “Where are we?” he asked.
“The vet,” Aaron answered as he got out of the car and opened the back passenger door.
“No we’re not,” Gabriel said, continuing to sniff at the air. “We’re not in Lynn.”
“This is another office,” Aaron explained, leaning into the backseat to check out the wound.
“There’s more than one?” Gabriel asked incredulously.
“Lots more than one,” Aaron answered as he helped his friend to the ground.
“I never knew that,” the dog muttered. He leaned against Aaron for support, holding up his injured leg.
Aaron looked over the top of the car at Camael, who had gotten out and was also sniffing the air. “Are you coming with me?” he asked, squatting down and lifting up the dog.
“No,” the angel said succinctly, and turned back toward the dirt road.
“Well, I’m going to be in here for a while if you need me,” Aaron said to the angel’s back. Camael continued on without responding. “All right then, Aaron,” he muttered to himself as he carefully made his way up the four steps to the front door. A metal placard announced kevin wessell, dvm. “You take care of Gabriel, and I’ll be out here looking around.”
Aaron struggled to shift his burden so he could grab the doorknob and turn it. “Thanks for the help, Camael,” he said with mock cheeriness. “You certainly are one considerate angelic being.”
“Camael’s gone,” Gabriel reported.
“I know he’s gone,” Aaron grunted. He turned the knob and pushed the door open with his foot.
“Then why are you still talking to him?”
“I don’t know, Gabe,” Aaron grumbled as he maneuvered into the small lobby. “These days I do a lot of crazy things.”
The place was old, not like the state-of-the art clinic where he had worked in Lynn. The room was done in dark wood paneling, with framed pictures of hunting dogs hung sporadically on the walls. A few plastic seats placed against the wall and an old coffee table covered with magazines and children’s books served as the waiting area. The reception desk was straight ahead.
The lobby was deserted, but Aaron could hear the sounds of paper shuffling and a sigh of exasperation coming from behind the desk. He approached and saw a girl surrounded by stacks of paper and medical folders. Her hair was an unusually dark shade of red, and she wore it pulled back in a tight ponytail. Obviously she hadn’t heard his entrance, so he cleared his throat and watched as she jumped, startled by his sudden appearance.
“You scared me,” she said with a nervous laugh. She moved a stray red hair from her forehead.
“Sorry,” Aaron said with a grunt, trying to shift Gabriel’s weight in his arms. “Do you think we could see the vet?” he asked.
“Sure,” she answered, moving one stack of folders to an even larger one that teetered dangerously. “Just give me a second here and we’ll see what we can do.”
“I’m … I’m not feeling so good, Aaron,” Gabriel whined in his arms.
The dog shivered and Aaron guessed that a fever was brewing. He felt his temper spike. He’d already wasted enough time with the Mainiac in the Red Sox cap; he wasn’t about to let his dog suffer anymore. “Look,” he said rather forcefully, “I’ll fill out all the forms you have, but could you please get the doctor out here? I think he’s got a pretty nasty infection, and I want to get some antibiotics into him as soon as possible…”
“All right, all right,” the redhead said as she stood and moved around the counter. “Let’s take him in back and I’ll give him a look.” She motioned for them to follow.
“You’re not Dr. Wessell,” Aaron said, taken aback.
“No,” she responded. “But I almost was. I’m just plain Katie McGovern right now.” She laughed. “But not to worry, I’m also a licensed veterinarian.”
Aaron laughed self-consciously as he carried Gabriel toward the examination room. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off like a jerk, it’s just that it’s been a really long day and I thought you were—”
“The receptionist?” she asked. She opened the door to the exam room and stepped back for him to enter.
“Yeah,” he answered. “You don’t look old enough to—”
“I’m twenty-seven,” she said, closing the door. “The product of fine Irish genes. I can show you my diploma from the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine,” she added as she helped him lay Gabriel on the metal table. “How you doing, buddy?” she asked the dog, stroking his head and rubbing his ears.
“My name’s not Buddy,” Gabriel growled. “It’s Gabriel.”
“His name is Gabriel,” Aaron told her.
“Hello there, Gabriel,” Katie said as she slipped on a pair of rubber gloves. “Let’s take a look and see what we can do about fixing you up.” She examined the wound in his leg, gently prodding the seeping injury. “What did you say bit him?” she asked.
“I think it was a raccoon,” Aaron answered lamely.
“A raccoon?” she questioned, looking up from the oozing bite. “If that’s a raccoon bite, I’m a teenage receptionist.”
Camael could feel it on the breeze—one of many strange things he could sense ever since he finally arrived in the town of Blithe.
He walked slowly down Portland Street, taking a right as he left the stretch of dirt road. Something in the atmosphere told him that he belonged here, that he was welcome—but there was also something else, something he couldn’t identify. It was an odd sensation hidden beneath layers of other, far more pleasant impulses.
The angel widened his perceptions as he turned onto Acadia Street. It was as quiet as death here, void of life, the only sounds the gentle hiss of the warm presummer breeze and the pounding of the surf far off in the distance. Offices lined both sides of the short street: Johnson’s Realtors, McNulty Certified Public Accountants, Dr. Charles Speegal, Optometrist, and the largest building belonging to the Carroll Funeral Home, taking up almost one whole side of the street.
Everything about this town said that he was supposed to be here. It disarmed him, made him think about and feel things he had not experienced in thousands of years. There was an unwarranted contentment here, and the angel wondered if he and Aaron had indeed stumbled across the haven that was Aerie. He crossed the street to stand before the white, two-story building that was the Carroll Funeral Home, and looked around carefully. But then, where are the others?
Again came that wave of sensation he could not immediately identify, like a great beast of the sea breaking the surface for air before diving again beneath the dark, murky depths. But this time there was something in it that he finally recognized: the scent of an ethereal presence trying very hard to hide beneath sensations of serenity. Now that he had the scent, he had to be careful not to lose it. It was old, very, very old—a whiff of chaos that had not been breathed since the days of creation.