Category Archives: Excerpts

Excerpts from new books.

Excerpt from Project Burning Bush

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A Work in Progress

For #LineByLineTime – Killer Chapter Endings

“We should compare notes on training. That’s some impressive wetwork on your part.”
“What a professional phrase. You, too, are an expert in black ops?”
“You sound pretty professional yourself, Dragonlady.”
Luthor stared at all of them. “What are you talking about? What’s wetwork? And black ops? Doesn’t that mean something bad?”
“I think we should have a long conversation soon,” Harper murmured. He looked around them. “But not right now. And not here.”

Excerpt: Project Burning Bush

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(A Work in Progress)

For #LineByLineTime: The Good Guys Win

Everybody swung around as one old woman cried out.  People screamed, pots were dropped, and everybody ran, except the pregnant girl, still sitting by the fire, and the old man, who gripped his staff in shaking hands and stepped in front of the teens. 

Four horsemen stared back at them.  One pointed toward the deer carcass as he chattered excitedly in Spanish to his companions. They nodded, their mouths open and their eyes wide as they looked at the four teenagers.

Nita didn’t take her eyes off them as her hands slid to her knives still hidden in her jeans. “Apparently they’re upset we caught a deer.  Sounds like we did a big no-no.  They also think we look way too much like their bosses.  I’d assume that means they’re the bad guys.”

“Not to mention the way the locals ran off screaming.  Wonder if these are some of the guys who were here before?”  Harper scratched his chin. “Maybe we should go hide somewhere, too?”

Minji stood straight, then marched, shoulders back, to stand beside the old man.  “I will not leave Dark Moon Rising and Singing Water to them. They are brave, but helpless.”

“Maybe I can scare them,” Luthor growled, and flexed his arms, waving the bloody knife in his hand.

Harper shuffled backward.  “I’ll just stand behind the tree, shall I? I wouldn’t want any of you to trip over me…” He trailed off as he reached the tree and darted around to crouch behind it.

“All of you shut up and let me talk to them and stay out of my way.  I just killed a deer and four rabbits.  These guys are no challenge.” Nita’s hands were in her pockets now.

Minji sniffed. “There is a large difference between hunting animals for food and killing a human,” she began.

Suddenly all four horsemen drew sabers and charged, screaming and waving their weapons.  Before the others could move to escape or defend themselves, there was a knife in the throat of the foremost. He toppled sideways off his confused horse, who stopped charging and turned in circles, dragging its rider. 

Another knife appeared in the middle of the second rider’s torso.  He dropped his saber and clutched at the knife, his mouth open and his eyes wide.  His horse also stopped charging to step nervously side to side as the rider swayed and fell back across the horse’s rump before the horse’s movements made him slide to the ground, his feet slipping out of the stirrups.

Before Nita could aim at the other two riders, Minji snatched the staff from the old man and screamed at the one coming at them. She swung her staff at the man’s sword arm.  There was a loud crack and the blade dropped to the ground beside her.  Her attacker yelled and clutched his arm as it flopped loosely, the bones in it moving in different directions halfway between the elbow and wrist. Minji spun on one foot as the horse and rider moved past her.

Her momentum slid the staff through her hands until she held the end of it. She swung it like a bat at the back of the man’s head.  There was a sound like a melon dropping on pavement, and the rider flipped forward, falling past the horse’s shoulder.  The horse shied, kicking at the fallen rider as his body landed at the horse’s feet. 

The fourth rider spun his horse and started to race away out of the clearing. Before he made it to the trees, the old woman their host had called Burning Wind ran out in front of them. She waved a blanket and shouted as the horse almost reached her. The horse squealed and reared.  Its rider fought to bring him back down, sawing at the reins and shouting. But the horse reared up again as the old lady snapped the blanket at its nose and screamed.  

Unbalanced, the rider yanked at the reins again trying to pull himself up, and the horse rolled backward and landed on the rider.  The rider’s legs spasmed, then went limp.  The horse rolled back and forth a few times before he got his feet under him and stood up, leaving the man on the ground.  The man did not move.

Excerpt from Tales of the Lunatics: Skyshaker and Moonsinger

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Author’s note: This is a work in progress about an alien world and alien creatures.

How to show surprise and shock for #LineByLineTime

The one-eyed guard stared through the bars at the big male. He had never in his life seen an alpha feed lesser members of the pack, but he remembered the tales from his grandsire. He turned and strode away. His movements were careful, normal. They kept an ALPHA male in their prison?

As he passed other guards, he kept his face frozen in its usual surly expression. When the others tried to speak to him, he snarled to avoid speaking back. He was already known for a foul temper, so nobody was surprised. They finally left him alone.

He kept walking, all the way past the guards’ rooms and past the storerooms buried deep within the underground complex. He walked faster, then finally ran, deep into the tunnels he had discovered there. He staggered to a stop in a small cave, his breath whistling out of his snout, partly from exertion, but mostly from pent up emotions finally allowed to escape.

He threw his head back and screamed.

Excerpt: Project Burning Bush

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(A work in progress)

Right in the middle of another funny face, Harper grabbed his head and dropped to his knees with a high-pitched scream.

Nita fumbled her phone back into her pocket and scowled. “Knock it off, Chico, that’s not funny. People gon’ start callin’ 911!” She cursed briefly in Tex-Mex when he thrashed on the ground, making more high-pitched noises.

Luthor and Minji ran back to them. Luthor tried to pick Harper up but couldn’t hold onto him. He finally pinned the smaller boy to the ground with his own body. “Call Mrs. Williams!” he shouted. “Harper’s having a seizure!”  He managed to get a hand to Harper’s mouth to check if Harper had bitten his tongue. Harper’s teeth were grinding together, but there was no sign of blood.

Minji shook her phone. “I’m only getting static! What about yours, Nita?”

Nita yanked hers back out of her pocket. “You serious? He’s not putting it on?” She tapped her phone and shook her head. “Same here. Nothing but static! What’s going on?”

Luthor did his best to brace Harper’s head where the boy was whipping it side to side on the gravel. “Never mind the phones! One of you run as fast as you can to find the teachers! If he doesn’t stop seizing soon, he might get some serious damage! Go, already!”

“I’ll go!” Nita jammed her phone back in her pocket and hitched her backpack up. But as she spun on one foot back toward the start of the trail, she found herself falling sideways across Luthor and Harper. “What the!” she started, then lost her breath as Minji piled on top of her. “Hey, get off!” She tried to push the other girl away but discovered neither of them could get their balance.

Excerpt from Project Burning Bush

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(A work in progress) for #LineByLineTime on Twitter.com for “The Switch”

Both boys glanced at the girls, startled. Observing Nita’s tense posture, Luthor followed the direction she was looking and stepped in front of Harper. 

“What do you think?” Nita mused. “Perv alert? Maybe you’re about to earn your pay, big boy. He’s been giving Harper the eye since we’ve been standing here.”

“How do you know he’s been looking at Harper?” Minji demanded. “Maybe he’s been watching all of us.”

Nita shook her head. “Nah, you can tell by where his eyes go, especially when Harper was standing away from the rest of us.”

“Maybe I should go convince him to move along,” Luthor growled.

Harper grabbed his belt. “Ignore him. If he’s who I think he is, he could take you without breaking a sweat. He’s just doing his job.”

The other three stared at him. “Doing his job?  What do you mean?” Minji snapped.

“You really think parents who didn’t let me out of the house practically my whole life would suddenly think it was okay to send me off to the middle of nowhere? My dad knows lots of guys who owe him favors for computer stuff.”

He stepped clear of Luthor and waved and whistled at the man, who reared back, eyes wide. Harper yelled, “Tell my dad I’m having a great time! But don’t stare! People think you’re a pervert!”

His voice rang clearly along the trail. Other hikers turned around, some with camera phones ready. The stranger glared and vanished into the brush surrounding the trail.  “Yeah, that looks like one of my dad’s friends – if you can call them that. They all kind of scowl like that.” Harper blew out his breath. “Now I’ll probably hear it from my dad when I get home.”

He shook his finger and scowled at an invisible smaller figure as if a parent scolded a child. “‘You know better than to expose someone working undercover.’” Then he took a step forward, turned and faced where he had been standing. He clasped his hands under his raised chin and looked innocently up, eyes wide and batting his eyelashes. “But daddy, I don’t know anything about undercover operations,” he said in a baby voice.  “I’m just a wittle boy!”

Tension: Excerpt from Project Burning Bush (a work in progress)

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Excerpt 1:

“Who might you be?” he called to them. 

They ignored his question.  “Get down here, right now!”

“Why? Who are you people?”

“Get down here now! We’re not going to wait forever!”

“Why? Are you the law? Where’s your ID?  I’m on public property, I know, because this is a rest area, so I’m not trespassing.  Who are you, and what do you want with me?”

The door on the Jeep opened and a man in a suit climbed slowly out. He looked around, his expression blank.  Finally, he raised his head and stared silently up at Tom.  Tom stared back.  He had been a Marine for a long time, and recognized danger when he saw it.

Excerpt 2:

Minji started to snap back at her but Harper stepped between the girls holding up a hand. His voice was high and strained.  “Never mind adventures in Oz.  Maybe we wound up in a Tolkien story.  Those guys definitely look like orcs to me!” His raised hand pointed to the side of the clearing.  

Everybody swung around as one old woman cried out.  People screamed and everybody ran, except the pregnant girl still sitting by the fire, and the old man, who gripped his staff in shaking hands and stepped in front of the girl. 

Four horsemen stared back at them.  One pointed toward the deer carcass as he chattered excitedly in Spanish to his companions. They nodded, their mouths open and their eyes wide as they looked at the four teenagers.

Nita didn’t take her eyes off them as her hands slid to her knives still hidden in her jeans. “Apparently they’re upset we caught a deer.  Sounds like we did a big no-no.  They also think we look way too much like their bosses.  I’d assume that means they’re the bad guys.”

“Not to mention the way the locals ran off screaming.  Wonder if these are some of the guys who were here before?”  Harper scratched his chin. “Maybe we should go hide somewhere, too?”

Minji stood straight, then marched, shoulders back to stand beside the old man.  “I will not leave Dark Moon Rising and Singing Water to them. They are brave, but helpless.”

“Maybe I can scare them,” Luthor growled, and flexed his arms, waving the bloody knife in his hand.

Harper shuffled backward.  “I’ll just stand behind the tree, okay? I wouldn’t want any of you to trip over me…” He trailed off as he reached the tree and darted around to crouch behind it.

“All of you shut up and let me talk to them and stay out of my way.  I just killed a deer and four rabbits.  These guys are no challenge.” Nita’s hands were in her pockets now.

Minji sniffed. “There is a large difference between hunting animals for food and killing a human,” she began, but suddenly all four horsemen drew sabers and charged, screaming and waving their weapons.

Foreshadowing: An excerpt from Project Burning Bush (a work in progress)

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TWO WEEKS POST-EVENT

“Now for anybody who’s been sealed up in a cave or a locked room in a government lab for the past week, let me bring you up to date. First, I’m situated just outside of Enchanted Rock State Park in sunny South Texas, west of Austin and north of San Antonio. There was a big – 6.0 on the scale – earthquake here last week. Folks said Enchanted Rock, which is a big old hunk of pink – yes, I said pink – granite sticking up out of the ground, vibrated like a tuning fork.”

“So, first off, what caught everybody’s attention was the fact that even though two big ol’ cities were right nearby, they didn’t catch any of it. Totally unnatural!  Scientists headed here, and so did first responders as soon as all the 9-1-1 calls started about people getting injured because they got shook off the mountain when the quake hit. Then word about missing folk started coming in. Some busload of school kids on a field trip couldn’t find everybody that got off there.”

He peered at the screen. “Hey, is that somebody rooting around in the brush wearing a hazmat suit? Let’s see if I can give you a closer look!”  He directed the drone higher and closer to the activity. He decided to continue the monologue. “Other folk disappeared for a little bit, then showed up all changed. Changed as in clothes – some looked like they just walked out of the wild West frontier, and changed as in insisting they were somebody else and acting real confused about what was going on. As if they were time travelers!”

He zoomed the camera on the drone to get a close-up of the people on the ground.  “Looky here, those are hazmat suits. What are they waving around down there? There’s a metal detector for sure, there, and I do believe that’s a bomb-sniffing dog.  Poor thing, I hope they’re giving it plenty of water and rest. South Texas in the spring is a hot summer elsewhere!” 

His eyes gleamed. “See these guys here? They belong to one of those agencies that don’t go by the alphabet. FBI, CIA, DHS, them and all those other agencies – and the military – they’re insisting they don’t have anything to do with these guys. These shady fellows showed up soon as the stories started hitting the Internet from the witnesses. Kicked out the locals, then the Texas Rangers when those lawmen showed up to find out why the locals were pushed out, and then the FBI when the Rangers complained. Somebody pulled some serious strings, folks. They got rid of the press, the law, then set up a perimeter – which I’m outside of, thank you. Then the witnesses started disappearing. Especially the folks who came back different. Those school kids? They got to go home, but the teachers didn’t. My sources tell me the parents of those kids they can’t find have disappeared, too.”

Tom raised his eyebrows. “Looks like they noticed my drone, folks. Just look how excited they are! I do believe they’re trying to hide some equipment there – what do you figure that is, for sampling air and water, maybe? Dirt, too, of course. Definitely something shady going on! Oops, looks like one of them got some orders to shoot me down!” He worked the controls, but the man with the rifle had good aim, and the video from the drone went blank after it sank to the earth.

From “The Angel Tree”

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From “The Angel Tree”

Trigger warning for those who need it: This is a story about a woman contemplating suicide who gets…distracted. This excerpt begins partway through the story.

Published in the short story collection “Once Upon A Christmastime” (https://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Christmastime-Peggy-Perry-ebook/dp/B00KO5Y5DY/)

“There’s another bathroom in the master bedroom at the end of the hall,” Christie said automatically.  Her mind whirled as she was forced to deal with the invasion when she had been set on dying alone in peace. 

The little girl came out of the bathroom with her mother as Edith passed.  As her brothers shoved past them, elbowing each other and slamming the door, little Susanne pulled at her mother’s hand as she peered into the dark kitchen.  “I’m thirsty!”  she cried.  “I want some hot chocolate!  And cookies!”

Her mother hushed her and looked up at Christie, an apologetic smile on her face.  “That’s what we always have on Christmas Eve,” she explained.  “Susanne, honey, we’re not at home.  We’re at…”  She looked up, realizing she didn’t know her hostess’ name.

“Oh, uh, I’m Christie, Christie Wright.  And I can make some hot chocolate, but I don’t have any cookies made.  But I do have some canned food that we can probably make into a meal.”  She went into hostess mode automatically, locking onto something she could deal with.  She went into the kitchen and turned the light on.  The little girl followed her in and began exploring the cabinets she could reach, ignoring her mother’s reprimands. 

“It’s okay, those are childproofed.  My youngest son is the same – aahh!”  Her voice stopped with a gasp.  When Annabelle looked at her, frowning, she shook her head frantically and fumbled with the pan she was putting on the stove.  The little girl wandered out the door and her mother chased after her.  Christie fought for calm as she measured the ingredients with shaking hands. 

She nearly dropped everything as an arm wrapped around her waist and squeezed lightly.  “I put away the vodka and pills,” Edith whispered in her ear.  “Wouldn’t want the children to come upon them.  I put them in the closet up on the highest shelf.  That little girl looks like she might go through all your drawers if she gets away from her mama.  You don’t have a gun around anywhere, do you?”

Christie shook her head numbly.  She had disposed of her husband Rick’s guns as well.  She didn’t need them.

“That’s good.  Do you need any help here, dear?” Edith then said in a normal voice.  “Why don’t we fix something to eat?  I’m sure everybody is hungry.”  She began opening cabinet doors until she found the pantry and began pulling out cans and jars.  She looked in the refrigerator and freezer, but they were empty.  Christie had no need of fresh or frozen food before she left this world.

Edith didn’t seem bothered.  She asked Christie to introduce herself again, since she had missed it on the way to the bathroom.  When Beth came in asking if she could help, Edith put her to work opening various containers, explaining as she went what needed to be done. 

“You got no tree!” young Ricky exclaimed in the living room, outrage in his voice.   “How can you have Christmas without a tree?  You got no decorations at all!  Don’t you believe in Christmas?”

“Does that mean Santa isn’t going to stop here?”  His little sister cried over his parents’ frantic shushing noises.  “How are we going to get presents if he doesn’t stop here?”

“Children, children, he’ll leave the presents at our house, like he does every year!  We just have to wait until the storm is over, and we’ll be able to get home and get your presents.”

“But the lady here won’t get any presents!” their oldest boy Jody complained.  “Why didn’t she get ready for Santa?” 

Christie came out of the kitchen to meet the children’s accusing faces.  She fumbled for an explanation.  “I, uh, I just got here.  I didn’t have time to put anything up.”

Tim peered out the window around the blinds.  “I’d volunteer to go get a tree, but not in that storm!”

Mack looked out the other window.  “Yep,” he agreed with a nod.  “Just going to have to make do this year kids, till we can get home.  If we did have a tree we could make popcorn strings and our own decorations, but looks like that’s a bust.”

Beth came out of the kitchen, holding a tray of cups.  “I remember sharing my first apartment with four other girls.  There was no room for even a tiny tree, and we wound up hanging a paper tree on the wall, and stringing yarn to hang paper ornaments.  It wasn’t half bad.”   She offered everyone a cup of hot chocolate before returning the tray to the kitchen.  She and Edith came out holding their own cups and finding seats on the big roomy couches and chairs in the living room.

“The food should be ready in a few minutes,” Edith told them, and sighed with satisfaction as she sipped her cocoa.  “Hot cocoa and a fireplace and a comfortable seat.  Just what we need on a night like this.”

The children weren’t satisfied.  “We need to make a paper tree,” Jody decided.  “That wall there doesn’t have anything on it.  We can hang a big one there.  You got any paper, lady?”

Christie almost told them there was no way they were going to mess up her good wall with tape and tacks, until she realized how stupid it was to care about her wall when she was planning to kill herself.  “Why don’t you just draw a tree on the wall?  That way we can save the paper I’ve got for ornaments.”  The adults protested, but Christie waved her hand dismissively.  “Let me find the kids’ – I mean, some pencils and coloring pens or something.”

She ignored the looks the adults gave each other as she hurried to her children’s bedrooms.  She had to stop inside the boys’ door to pull herself together.  She had not been able to come in here since that night a year ago, and everything was unbearably familiar.  Hurrying to the desk against the wall, she grabbed the trashcan and put all the drawing and coloring utensils she could see into it.  She found some paper and tacks and tape and put those in as well.  Her little girl’s room had glue and glitter and all sorts of stickers.  She found yarn and beads and other craft materials and threw them in.

Taking the can back to the living room, she handed it to the children.  “See what you can do with this.  Don’t worry about making a mess, it will clean up. Excuse me; I have to check on the food.”  She headed for the kitchen.  The sight of the children digging through the materials just like her children always had tore at her heart.

Complete Short Story

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This is the latest Christmas story I wrote for the church ladies.  God is telling me to put it here instead of waiting to put it in my next book of Christmas stories.  Maybe somebody needs to read it.

TWINKLE, TWINKLE
By Peggy Perry @ 2014

“Wow, he looks…different,” the blond angel murmured as the next soul moved up to the front of the line.

His companion looked up from the book of newcomers to Heaven. It wrote itself as each new soul appeared at the Pearly Gates. “Apparently his soul was as tired as his body,” he replied. “According to the book, he has lived in a very chaotic time and place. He barely managed to hold onto his faith in the Creator.”

Most souls were bright and shining, joyful to be free of their bodies and earthly trials. This soul was almost gray, his eyes dull, his shoulders slumped, and his feet shuffling. He looked exhausted, hopeless, and uncaring of whatever might happen next. He was a shocking change to the other souls before and behind him.

“It will be interesting to see where he winds up in Heaven. Let’s get him into the Room of Choice.” The blond angel came to the soul and gently took his arm. “This way,” he said with a wave of his hand. The soul trudged beside him silently, head down, looking as if he still inhabited an exhausted body, just waiting to fall down.

The angel took him into the Room of Choice. The room was the entrance to Heaven just behind the Pearly Gates. It was a very plain white room with only a few objects on pedestals, a tall desk with a high stool, and a large door on the other side, currently closed. “This is the Room of Choice,” the angel began his usual speech. “Whatever you are drawn to will indicate your first assignment in Heaven. Some souls stay with that assignment, some move on to others, but this will determine where you go first. Now, what are you drawn to?”

He began to lead the still uninterested soul around the room. “These wings symbolize the position of messenger. The messengers fly to Earth and deliver messages from our Lord to mortal men. It used to be more common for humans to receive these messages through prayer, but men have lately been losing their ability to hear Him. He created messengers, and they stay busy. Do they look interesting to you?”

The soul seemed to be ignoring him, still looking at the floor. A tiny wrinkle appeared between the angel’s eyebrows. He had never had that occur, but he was beginning to be concerned. “The harp signifies music,” he continued, towing the soul to the next pedestal. “It can mean playing an instrument or singing. You will just be making music to glorify the Lord and make a joyful noise to add to the happiness of everyone in Heaven. What do you think?”

The soul made an unattractive grunting noise. The wrinkle on the angel’s forehead became a crease. He hurried the soul along. “The sword is for those who become the warriors of Heaven, fighting evil throughout Creation. Do you – ?” The soul recoiled from the sword with a horrified sound, and the angel recalled how the soul had been released from his body. It should not have mattered, though. Many who had died violently had become warriors protecting the innocent from the evil that had killed them.

The angel looked around. There weren’t too many other pedestals left. Some held cleaning tools. Heaven did not get dirty, but there were actually many souls who enjoyed keeping their area neat and tidy. They happily spent millennia polishing and straightening everything in Heaven. This soul really didn’t look the type for that, and he was not looking at the tools. The angel raised his eyebrows as he followed the soul’s gaze.

He followed as the soul moved slowly toward the desk. “Um, that’s not actually one of the choices. That’s just the desk we sometimes sit at while waiting to take our shift at the Gates…” He trailed off as the soul climbed onto the stool, wiggled a bit as he got comfortable, and placed his hands on the desk.

The soul finally raised his face and stared at the angel. “This is it. This is what I want. This is my assignment.  It says so right here.”

Bewildered, the angel went to look over his shoulder. There had never been anything on the desktop before. Now it held a book just like the one on the desk at the Gates, except this one had different wording. Instead of a brief description of the souls arriving in Heaven, it held notes of their assignments. The latest read: “Finn Morgan. Assignment Supervisor. Job description – Aid newly arrived souls in choosing their assignments and calling the correct escort to take them to their assigned area.” A small hand bell sat beside the book.

“But…” The angel was interrupted as his fellow angel from the Gates led another soul into the room.

“Hasn’t he chosen yet? It’s time for the next soul to make their choice.”

Finn held up his hand. “I’ll take over now. This is my job from now on.”

Both angels stared at him. “But you’re not even really in Heaven here. Don’t you want to go in?” the blond one demanded.

“No. Now go away and let me do my job.” Finn pointed at the new soul, a woman who was stroking the harp. “You like that harp?” She nodded, and he continued, “Good. Go over to the door and wait for your escort to the Hall of Music. They will instruct you from there.” He picked up the bell and rang it, and the door opened silently to reveal a smiling angel who took the hand of the soul and led her away.

Finn looked at the two astonished angels. “Don’t you two have a job to do? Who is welcoming the new souls?” He flapped his hands at them, shooing them out. “Go. Leave me to my assignment.”

Without the passage of time in Heaven, there was no telling how long Finn spent behind the desk. He loved his job. He didn’t even have to leave his stool. With no demands of a human body, he didn’t have to eat, drink, sleep, or even go to the bathroom. He didn’t have to come into personal contact with the souls, either. He just directed them around the room, explained what each object meant, and rang the bell when they made a choice. He didn’t have to talk to the angels, even though they looked in on him occasionally.

He did the same thing over and over. It was such a wonderful change from the chaos of his life on earth. He didn’t have to worry about someone attacking him. He didn’t have to worry about loving someone and having him or her suddenly die of plague or accident or attack. He felt calm and comfortable for the first time in his existence. He didn’t want to go through the door into the main area of Heaven. He had looked through the door and shuddered at how many people and angels were dashing around in there, moving, always moving. It was too close to what he had left behind.

No, he was quite happy to sit alone behind his desk and avoid talking to anyone but the occasional soul and angel for eternity. He was content. Too bad it wouldn’t last.

Finn looked up from his book as an angelic hand rapped noisily on the desk. Glancing around, he saw no new soul wandering among the pedestals. “What is it?” The book was blank, too, not mentioning any new souls to supervise in their choice.

“You have a, ah, a, well, I guess you could say special soul to supervise. She’s going to need some help.”

“Well, where is she? Why does she need help?”

The angel looked down at his side before bending over and lifting. Finn heard a grunting noise he was sure the angel didn’t make, then a pair of small pudgy hands grabbed the top of his desk and a small head popped into view.

Finn’s mouth dropped open. He recognized the moon shaped face, the almond shaped eyes, the flat wide nose, and the thick lips with the thick tongue partially protruding. Several souls with the same appearance had come through, but they were always glowing with joy and happiness, with huge billowing wings and a bright halo. One of the angels processing them had told him they had wings and a halo already because they had been messengers of God’s love on earth already. Most chose another area and went to learn something new, often musical.

In his time on earth, such children usually died early, unable to thrive and care for themselves, and the parents had no time or energy to care for them. Sometimes they left the children in the wild for predators, removing the problem from the parents’ mind.

This child looked as if she were about ten years old, and her wings were stunted and unmoving. Her dull halo sat crookedly on her head instead of hovering above her like the others’. Her white robe was actually almost grimy and looked like she had been wiping her hands on it. She was a mess.

He looked up at the angel. “What happened to her? She looks terrible! Why does she need help?” He slapped at the pudgy fingers reaching for the bell. “Don’t touch that!” He scowled as she ignored him and reached for the bell again. She grunted and frowned as he held it out of her reach. She began working her way around the desk holding on to the edge, heading for the shiny bell.

The angel shook his head. “Her wings don’t work. She can’t fly, and for some odd reason her feet don’t touch the ground. If you don’t tow her around, she just sort of hovers. Why she looks like that, I don’t know. All I know is, she doesn’t talk, doesn’t seem to be able to hear, or if she can, doesn’t understand, and she can’t move around on her own.”

Finn scowled and moved the bell back to the other side of the desk just as the little girl reached for it again. “Whatever, just take her around to the pedestals and let her make her choice and get her out of here! Hey! Stop that!” He swatted at her hand again as she turned her attention to the book and grabbed at the pages. Some of them started to tear before he worked her fingers loose.

He looked up to see the angel heading back for the Gates. “Where are you going? Get back here and help her make a choice!”

The angel looked over his shoulder and past his wings. “No, no, you’re the supervisor of choices. This is your job. I’ve done mine.” He skipped out the door and it closed firmly behind him.

Exasperated, Finn slipped reluctantly from his stool and towed the little girl behind him. Shreds of the pages were still gripped tight in her hands. He pulled her over to the harp. “Here! You like music, don’t you? All the others like it.” He remembered she couldn’t lift herself and raised her up to get a good view of the harp.

Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened further. She grunted rapidly and reached toward the instrument. Satisfied and relieved at the quick solution, Finn headed back to the desk to ring the bell. There was a nasty twanging noise behind him and he spun around. To his horror, she had broken several strings and was making happy noises as she ripped more strings loose. He leaped for the bell on his desk and shook it fiercely. He stopped and stared at it as he realized it was silent. Upending it, he discovered the clapper was gone.

He hurried back to the cheerful little vandal and towed her back to the front door. As he reached automatically reached for the handle, he discovered it was gone. “What? How? Why?” he sputtered, wondering if he were somehow having a nightmare. He pulled the little girl partway to his desk, then remembering, left her hanging in midair as he moved swiftly to look at the book to see if anything had been written about her.

The book was to the point. “No souls may go back through the front door. Processed souls may not leave the presence of the Supervisor of Choices until an assignment has been made.” Finn grabbed his head and groaned.

Setting his jaw, he went back to the child and towed her to the pedestal holding the sword. “You’re destructive enough to be a warrior,” he muttered to her. “Look, it’s nice and shiny! You like shiny things, right?” She certainly did. Unfortunately, when she reached for the shining object, she only managed to knock it off the pedestal and it landed across Finn’s foot. Without a body, it didn’t hurt, but he was startled into knocking the pedestal over and could only watch helplessly as the pedestal broke into several pieces.

His mouth worked, but no noise came out. He hastily pulled her back as she tried to reach for the sword and pulled her to the wings. He made a helpless sound as she swung past him as he stopped and sank the fingers of her free hand into the white feathers of the enormous wings. Of course, they came loose in her hand, leaving a gaping hole in one.

A gurgling noise escaped him as he pulled her back. Looking wildly around, he noticed the door handle was still present on the inner door that led into Heaven. Desperately he pulled her over to it and flung it open. The same busy crowd was hurrying by there. He had stopped thinking by now and only wanted to rid himself of the destructive guest who had introduced chaos back into his life. Grabbing her arm, he put everything he had into flinging her into the crowd intending to dash back inside and slam the door shut. Instead, he went right with her.

They crashed together against a solid body. Finn slid to the ground and then tried to protect his head against the child’s pumping feet. He looked up as he grabbed her feet and swallowed hard as the unmistakable features of an archangel met his gaze. Finn began babbling an apology, but the archangel only shook his head. Angelic arms wrapped the child up securely and prevented her from reaching for his halo, wings, or sword.

“Did you forget the rule in the book, Finn? A processed soul cannot leave your presence until she is assigned to an area. If you want her out of the Room of Choices, you have to stay with her.” He gazed down at the child, who had grown quiet and was nestled into his chest. “I suggest that if you want her to be less destructive, you keep her close to you and restrain her arms.” Before Finn could blink, the archangel transferred the child into his arms and positioned his limbs in a secure hold.
Stepping back, he snapped his fingers and another angel came up beside them. “Finn is not familiar with this side of the Gates,” he said calmly. “Guide him wherever he wants to go.”

“My pleasure!” the angel said with a beaming smile. She looked at Finn. “Where would you like to go first?”

“But what about the other souls who need to be assigned?” he wailed.

The archangel, who had started to rise as his wings began to stroke the air, paused. “There are angels to take care of that, just as before you arrived. She is now your assignment. No matter how long it takes.” With a crack of split air, he shot straight up and disappeared from sight.

Finn sagged and then straightened his shoulders as the guide looked at him inquiringly. “I guess maybe we can show her the musicians and singers. She was very, um, interested in the harp. I thought that was her choice, but I wasn’t able to call for an escort, and well, ah, shall we go?”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard the angel giggle as she led them away.

The little girl absolutely loved the music. She loved one of the angel’s harps to death. Well, to destruction, maybe. Finn marveled that such a small child was so skilled in destroying such a sturdy object. The angel only laughed, and with a few motions of his hands, turned the mess of wood and strings back to a thing of beauty.

Finn sighed with relief and resolved to hold the child tighter. He was cautiously optimistic when she relaxed against him and cuddled as they listened to glorious music ring out. But after a while, just when he was feeling almost cheerful, the guide approached him and whispered in his ear.

“I’m afraid there’s a small problem, Finn. Could the two of you please come with me?”

Curious and anxious, he held the little one tighter as she tried to return to the music. When they were out of hearing range of the music (which, Finn thought later, was rather odd, since he had always been able to hear the music, even sitting at his desk), the angel shifted a bit uncomfortably. “Normally, the music director would love to have you in the audience. However, her glow is very distracting since it’s so concentrated in a small person, and the angels were starting to lose their places in the music. The director asked that you not come back until you can teach her to control her light. Is there somewhere else you would like to try?”

Finn frowned as he looked down at the child. “Glow? What glow? What are you talking about?”

The angel’s eyes widened. “You didn’t notice the way she lit up the music hall? Did you have your eyes closed?” She looked back and forth between the man and child and finally shook her head. “Why don’t we go see if she’s interested in something else?”

It was not a successful journey, although Finn grudgingly admitted later that it was very…interesting. He saw a great deal of Heaven, and observed all that went on. The child was interested, too, but Finn learned to hold her close and tight. Who knew an archangel’s sword could break? Weren’t those supposed to be even demon proof? He still wasn’t sure if even the Creator Himself could fix what she had done to several messengers’ wings when they ignored his warnings and treated her to a toss back and forth between them. And oh, my, what she had done with the cleaners’ tools…

Nobody minded. They just laughed, fixed what she broke, and patted her on the head or kissed her cheek. They started calling her Twinkle. When he asked why, several mentioned the way she glowed when she was happy. He still couldn’t see it.
He had no idea how long they wandered around Heaven, observing everyone at work, meeting numberless angels and souls. They finally found themselves back at the door into the Room of Choices, and Finn said farewell to their guide. He looked in the room cautiously, and felt relieved to see it fully restored. He wrapped up Twinkle before she could launch herself off the doorway and aim for the pedestals again. Carrying her over to the desk, he blinked as he saw the desk was wider and a second stool next to his. A smile began to stretch his face as he noticed the straps that would hold Twinkle firmly in place.

On the desk next to his book was a drawing pad, pencils, and crayons. Since time had no meaning in Heaven, these objects from a time far distant from his were not out of place. He just hoped she didn’t try to eat them. Twinkle seemed to know what to do with them. Grunting, she reached for them and was drawing all over the pad before he could get her completely strapped in.

Before he could take his seat, she tore off a colorful sheet and waved it at him. When he took it, she pointed at the white blank wall behind them and grunted some more. “You want me to hang it up there?” he asked, and blinked as light flashed in the room when she smiled. The light went back to normal as she turned back to the pad.

He looked at the colored lines and shapes but could make no sense of them. He looked up at the white wall and shrugged. The walls did look rather plain. Wondering how to attach the picture, he held it up to a likely place and dropped his hands swiftly as the art suddenly attached itself to the wall. “Heaven!” he muttered, and went back to his stool.

When a new soul entered the room from the Gates, he looked at the bell on the desk suspiciously. Sure enough, the clapper had returned. The book now showed the soul’s name. After a short trip around the room, the soul chose the harp, and Finn rang the bell with a feeling of relief. Just as he was about to direct the soul to the inner door, Twinkle ripped a page off her pad and grunted urgently, waving the paper at the soul instead of Finn.

The soul looked bewildered. “She wants you to take the picture. Is it a picture of them, Twinkle?” Finn asked. He and the new soul blinked as light flashed in the room again. When the light died down, Finn handed the paper to the soul. “Do you want her to hang the picture on the wall?” He had learned the hard way to ask very simple yes or no questions. When Twinkle smiled and bounced in her seat, the light flashed again. “Just pick a spot on the wall and hold it to it,” Finn told the soul. “It attaches itself.”

The soul smiled at the picture and picked a spot near the first. “Looks good. Go to that door now, and an escort will take you to your destination. Welcome to Heaven.” Finn waved the soul along and waved at the angel, one he had met at the music hall. After the door closed, he looked at the picture Twinkle had first done. There were two objects in the picture, unlike the second, which had only one. “Hey, is that a picture of the two of us?”

Light flashed so brightly he had to rub his eyes. “Wow. I can finally see why they had to ask us to leave the music hall. Can’t you dim that down a little?” Light flashed again, just as bright. When his vision came back, he saw that she was silently laughing. “Guess that answers that question.”

He discovered he enjoyed chatting to the new souls now, explaining the picture that Twinkle drew of each of them and helping them choose a spot on the wall. He got used to the flashing as Twinkle expressed her happiness. The room became a busy place as angels dropped in through both doors to chat with him and visit with Twinkle, and post their pictures on the wall as she drew them. The once serene, featureless room became a riot of color as Twinkle’s artwork covered the walls.
His own spotless robe became as messy as Twinkle’s when her waving hands swiped him with the colors and pencils. He just shrugged when newcomers looked at it. “I’m an artwork in progress,” he told them with a chuckle.

His cheerful new world suddenly crashed when two archangels with solemn expressions appeared in the room in the midst of a laughter-filled conversation with several angels and a new soul. “We have come for the soul called Twinkle,” one said gravely. Twinkle’s light flashed at the sound of her name, but Finn barely noticed. He didn’t like the expressions on the archangels’ faces. Was that pity?

“What do you mean, come for her? She can’t leave; she hasn’t made a choice yet! She has to stay with me!” Glancing around for support, he discovered the other angels and the soul had vanished.

“She has no ability to make a decision,” one archangel said quietly. “It has been made for her.”

Finn’s heart would have stopped if he still had one. “Made for her? Why can’t she stay here? She’s happy here! I’m happy to have her here! Why can’t that be the choice made for her? Where are you taking her? What can she possibly do?”

“She is to be a messenger.” Angelic fingers waved toward Twinkle, and her straps and stool and art supplies vanished. She floated up and toward the archangels, but Finn grabbed her robe and clutched her to him desperately.

“No! She can’t be a messenger; her wings don’t even work! All she can do is hover! And she can’t speak! How can she be a messenger?” His frantic hands suddenly held empty air, and the archangels held Twinkle’s hands between them.

“There is a purpose for the existence of all of God’s creations.” The words echoed in a suddenly empty room. Finn fell across the desk, crying out in despair. The little girl had made him finally feel alive for the first time in his existence and they had taken her away! How could he go on?

He was rubbing his hands over his face wondering where the joy of heaven everybody kept talking about had disappeared to when the door to the Gates burst open and the two angels handling the processing dashed in. They snatched him out of his seat and headed back to the door. “Come on! You have to see this! It’s fantastic!”

They ignored his protests. Sullenly, he fell silent and tried to block the music swelling through the air. What was so special about beautiful music? They wouldn’t even let poor little Twinkle listen to it because they couldn’t deal with a little light. His eyes clenched shut in renewed pain, but the sudden flare of light burned through anyway, making his eyes water furiously. Everyone around him was exclaiming and cheering while rubbing at their eyes. He finally managed to get a little sight back and shaded his face as the light continued.

“What happened? What is that?” he demanded.

“It’s Twinkle, of course!” an angel nearby shouted joyfully. “Haven’t you been paying attention to anything? The Messiah has been born to man and the Star shines over Him to show the world where He lays!”

Finn stared, open-mouthed, toward the light. Very dimly, within the glare, a smiling, moon-shaped face appeared. Her arms were out wide to her sides and her almond shaped eyes were wide with excitement and joy. Finn thought he could almost hear her joyful grunts.

One of the archangels appeared beside him. “She was an obvious choice,” he murmured. “She couldn’t move except to hover, and she shines when she’s happy. Apparently she likes babies as much as music.”

The other archangel appeared on his other side. “She brings a message of happiness and hope to everyone, even you. You were never supposed to be isolated, but you chose to be alone rather than move on and mingle with the family of God. Dealing with her taught you that being around others could be a good experience, and chaos is only bad when you are alone in the midst of it.” He looked down at Finn. “Don’t waste what she gave you, Finn. Don’t go back to hiding from everybody. Twinkle won’t be there in the sky forever. Don’t make her dig you out of your hole again. Cherish what she taught you, and teach it to others. There are many others like Twinkle you can visit as well.”

Finn blinked hard several times. “Will I be allowed to keep her pictures?” he asked humbly.

Both archangels smiled. “The pictures will remain on the walls. They do brighten the place up, don’t they? Almost as much as she brightens the heavens now for humankind. Go, Finn, and spread her light to everyone you meet. Show each new soul you meet what heaven really is before they even enter in; a place where love abounds and joy and peace are a daily gift. Someday the Messiah will bring that to earth, but until then, humans will find fulfillment here. Just as Twinkle did, and I think, you finally have.”

Finn looked back at the new star shining over an earthly stable, and imagined he could already see humans being drawn to the light. He smiled at the archangels. “I probably can’t light up the Room of Choices like Twinkle, but maybe I can make it brighter for new souls.” He looked at Twinkle’s bright glow once more. “Shine on, Twinkle,” he whispered, and blinked as the light flashed.

The End

From “Once Upon A Christmastime”

Posted on by

THE ANGEL TREE
Peggy Perry
Copyright 2013

Vodka. Check.

Sleeping pills. Check.

Funeral instructions. Check.

Will. Check.

House cleaned. Check.

Front door unlocked, so her body could be found without damaging the cabin door. Check.

Christie went on down the list, checking off everything she had been able to think of that needed to be taken care of. She depended on her lists. Her friends said she had become a little OCD, but she needed something ordered and logical in the howling chaos that had filled her life in the last year.

Her eyes moved over the cabin her family had always used for their Christmas vacations. It was a big log cabin, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a big kitchen. The living room was L-shaped, and had an enormous fireplace against the end wall. The front porch opened to the short leg of the L, which helped keep cold winds from blasting through the door and filling the room. Her husband had built the cabin to her specifications, and had become the family’s favorite vacation spot.

This was the first year the cabin had no decorations, no cinnamon and spices filling the air, no tree surrounded by a huge pile of brightly wrapped gifts. Last year it had been a wonderland filled with love and laughter and joy. Then her husband had taken the children down the mountain to see the lights in the town below on Christmas Eve while she wrapped all the gifts she and her husband had previously delivered and hidden in the cabin.

They never came back. The officers came instead; telling her there was nothing anyone could do, except to identify the bodies. That had been her Christmas present; a trip to the morgue, to verify what everybody already knew. Her New Year’s Day was spent burying her reasons for living.

She had gone to grief therapy. She had received counseling. But she had nothing left, no reason to live. She had sold their home, had sold all the furniture, and given away the clothes she had once so carefully chosen for the people she loved. There was nothing left in the world for her, and she was ready to leave it.

The church her family had been members of believed that suicide was a sin, and that those who committed it went to hell. Christie didn’t care. She only wanted relief from the screaming in her head, and an escape from the well meaning platitudes of friends who thought words could ease her pain.

Now it was Christmas Eve again, and her plans were set, her lists checked off, and she was ready to turn off the lights and fall into the darkness in her soul. Moving to the entryway of the cabin she glanced through the window blinds by the front door, absently noting the wind was howling and the snow blowing so that nothing outside could be seen. It was a good night to die.

She jerked back as she reached for the light switch next to the door. The pounding on the door sounded again over the howling wind. “Open the door, for the love of God! My children are freezing to death! Please, please, let us in! Oh, God, help us!”

Christie gasped and yanked the door open. A man staggered in, holding a small child, followed by two other children and a woman. She urged them toward the living room. Just as she was about to slam the door shut on the snow blowing in after them, a horn sounded. She shielded her eyes against the snow and wind and saw headlights pulling up to her porch next to the car already there. And then another pair of lights!

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the family who had come in getting out of their coats, the woman frantically checking the children’s faces and hands, brushing snow off their hair. Christie held the door almost closed as she looked back out to see an elderly lady making her way carefully up the porch steps, fighting the wind. As she almost fell through the door, Christie caught her and pulled her in, depositing her in a chair beside the door.

“The thermostat is on the wall there!” she told the man leaning against the wall. “Turn it up, and you can turn the fireplace on as well. It’s gas, with a pilot light. Just turn the ignition switch on the mantel. That should warm it up in here faster.”

A young couple staggered in as Christie held the door. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” The woman sobbed as the man with her helped Christie slam the door shut. “I was so sure we were going to wind up freezing to death before we found shelter! There was no way we could stay warm in that car!”

The young man nodded. “We had the heater up as high as it would go, but we were still freezing. If we hadn’t seen your lights and been able to make it up the road, we would have met Jesus for Christmas.”

The elderly woman laughed. “I was following the tail lights in front of me. That’s all I could see through that snow. Thank God you were here. I couldn’t go another foot, I think.”

The man with the children came over and shook Christie’s hand. “Have to second that. Mack Williams, ma’am. These are my wife Annabelle and my kids, Jody, Ricky, and Susanne. Thank God your light made it through that blizzard.”

Christie looked around at them shrugging off their coats. Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “How could you see any lights? My porch light is off, and the blinds are over the windows. And this cabin can’t be seen from the road. We designed it that way.”

They all stared at her. “Then maybe it’s just a Christmas miracle!” the elderly lady finally said with a laugh. “My name is Edith Morton, my dear. And a very merry Christmas to you.”

Christie sucked her breath in, but before she could say the angry words trembling on her lips, the little girl Susanne announced in a loud voice as only a four year old could, “I gotta go potty!”

Her mother looked alarmed. “Oh dear, all the children need to go. Please, where’s your bathroom?”

Distracted by mundane problems, Christie pointed to the doorway. “Down the hall, past the kitchen door.”

The children rushed to the door, the young girl bellowing, “Me first! Me first!”