Read Online Elemental by Steven Savile - Free Book Online Page B

untouched on the burner. The cold storage units hummed. The ceiling fan rotated on low speed, creating eddies in the dust motes that hung in the slanting beams of the early morning sun. Quinn was standing in the main aisle and rubbing his chin when the screen door at the rear of the store creaked open.
    â€œQuinn,” said Bobby MacReary, who did construction work when there was any to be had and played backgammon at the General all day when there was not. He wore a very peculiar expression this morning. “Come here.”

    Garrett Ainsworth lived above the General and his backyard was a large, fenced lot. At the far end it bordered Foxglove Creek and was shady and green. The area right behind the General was barren dirt sporting a barbecue pit, two picnic tables and, this morning, the recumbent form of a fallen angel.
    â€œI’ll be damned,” Old Man Stoat was saying as Quinn followed Bobby out the back door. It sounded as though he were saying it for the fiftieth time already that morning, which he was. Garrett Ainsworth had his hands shoved deep in his pockets and wasn’t saying anything, but then he was always more of a listener than a talker.
    The angel at first glance looked like a toppled statue, except for the wings. It was lying on its side and would have been facing them, only its left wing covered its face so they couldn’t see it. It was not moving.
    â€œWhat the hell is it?” Quinn asked.
    â€œCan’t be sure,” said Garrett Ainsworth, “but it looks like an angel.”
    This was true. It looked exactly like, and like nothing but, an angel.
    â€œIs it alive?” asked Quinn.
    â€œI think so,” Garrett said. He also wore a very peculiar expression on his face.
    Except for a length of dazzlingly white cloth artfully girded about its loins, the angel was naked. Its contours were heroic and masculine. Its flesh possessed the hard translucency of marble and its hair was a bronze that glowed like a Greek shield in the light of the morning sun over the plains of Marathon.
    â€œMaybe I’d better fetch Reverend Plunkett,” said Bobby MacReary, and disappeared into the General. The angel did not move at the sound of the screen door banging shut. Its wings were a thousand shades of white, from the snowy whiteness of its down feathers to the ivory of its massive pinions, which were dove-gray at the shaft.
    â€œI’ll be damned,” said Old Man Stoat again and spat tobacco juice into the dust. The angel’s ribcage rose and fell slowly, steadily and almost imperceptibly, the way marble would if it could breathe. Quinn’s
knees turned to water faster than a priest could transubstantiate wine and he sat down in the dirt.
    â€œThis is not happening,” Quinn said very calmly, and as everyone knows did not say much else for quite some time.
    Bobby MacReary came back with Reverend Plunkett, who was puffing heavily from hurrying. His black hair shone with Brylcreem and his cherubic mouth shaped an O of surprise when he saw the angel.
    â€œHow did this get here?” he demanded.
    Garrett Ainsworth shrugged and looked at the sky. “Fell, I guess.”
    After this things began to get a bit out of hand. At the insistence of Reverend Plunkett, because it was a fallen angel, Bobby MacReary went to the lumberyard to buy chicken wire and 2 × 4s to construct a coop around the angel. He told everyone he saw and by the time he had built the coop, a good-sized crowd had gathered in the General’s backyard, where the angel had not stirred and Quinn still sat in the dirt and stared unbelieving. Everyone was very nice about it and careful not to bump into him, recognizing what a difficult time Quinn must be having with this as an atheist.
    The Utopia Chapter of the League of Women Voters decided to put aside their opposition to supporting stereotypical views of feminine domesticity and brought sandwiches and lemonade. Doc Hayward brought his