Chapter 11
As Cora stared unblinking at the message, scalp tingling, heart pounding, the phone rang. She reached for it without taking her eyes from the laptop. The pop-up disappeared as she picked up the phone.
Am I going crazy?
It was Frannie. After her disclosure at the last book club meeting, she and Cora's friendship had deepened, and they spoke almost daily on the phone.
"I told you there was nothing to worry about, girl," Frannie began. "There was no way that trash was gonna get the best of you. You won by an f-ing landslide! She can just stick that nasty old letter of hers where the sun don't shine."
Not listening, Cora stared at the now-empty computer screen, her face white and hands shaking.
What did it mean?
"Frannie...a whole lot has happened since then," she said. "You've...got to hear this." Cora told her about Valerie's accident. "We had good reason to be angry at her, but this...this just shouldn't happen to anyone. It's awful."
Frannie said, "Well, I'm not callous or anything, I do feel bad, but I'm ashamed to say, that girl didn't make herself no friends. A wolf, huh? You believe that nutty stuff?"
Frannie didn't know about the messages on Cora's computer or the encounter she and Cisco had in the forest-and Cisco wasn't open to further discussion about the matter. Upset and confused, stunned by the new message, Cora didn't know what to do or where to turn. Now here was Frannie, and she knew intuitively Frannie was the person to confide in.
Any two people, Cora believed, form relationship patterns through the years that affect the way they communicate with each other, not only the way they talk but the things they talk about-or don't talk about, and this was especially true of married people. Admitting one feels inadequate to face a problem, even to a spouse, is not easy, she thought. The fears and emotions she had been suppressing were about to spill out. She didn't want Cisco to witness that. He was supportive, but women understand each other in a different way. And that way was the way Cora needed now.
She would tell Cisco about the latest message, but later, when she was less emotional and he wasn't so reluctant.
Frannie's voice came through the receiver again, heedless of what was going on in Cora's mind. "I think Valerie did say she had a dog. I bet it was a Corgi-seems like a Corgi's the kind of dog Valerie would have, don't you think?"
"Frannie," Cora said in a shaky voice, "I'm having a bad day. Can we get together?"
---
Cora strode into the library, and after a brief search she found Frannie in an out-of-the-way corner of the adult section, seated on a comfortable sofa. Frannie's hot-pink sweater was too tight and clashed with her pants. Her hair was pulled unevenly to one side, and an errant wisp of gray hair stuck out at an odd angle.
Despite her worry, Cora smiled at her friend's appearance. It jogged a memory of book club, when Frannie told the women, "I was in the fashion business, but never had the body myself for them clothes...." Frannie then stood up and shook her more-than-ample chest, which flowed in waves from side to side, bringing the women at the table to screams of laughter.
Cora wondered why Frannie didn't apply her fashion sense to her own wardrobe, but that was Frannie, full of contradictions and surprises. Like her unpredictable and sometimes inappropriate vocabulary. You never knew what would come out of her mouth, but as a friend she was absolutely loyal, and willing to throw herself wholeheartedly into any request.
Warmth washed over Cora at the sight of her friend and took an edge off her anxiety. Things couldn't be all that bad with such a friend willing to drop everything to meet her, no questions asked. She dropped onto a sofa across from Frannie.
"Where's your pad and pen?" Frannie asked. She ran her eyes over Cora as if looking for something she had missed. "You never go anywhere without a pad and pen, girl. Something's missing. Look sort of naked without them, you ask me."
Cora gave a short mirthless laugh. "And I'm probably going to regret not bringing them. We'll be more relaxed, uninhibited, don't you think? Pad and pen make it seem like work."
"What if you forget something, now?"
"Good! Lately I want to forget!" She laughed again nervously, and her gaze roamed around the library. Partially blocked by rows of shelves, she could see about half of the small, single-floor building. A few patrons browsed through the shelves, more sat at work tables concentrating on the laptops in front of them, and two staff members were busy at the reference desk.
"Must be something important going on, you dragging me here. I got a question before we start. Why are you telling me? Why aren't you talking to Lu, she being your best friend? Or Cisco?"
Cora shifted her gaze from Frannie, then back. She put her hands on her knees and rubbed them absently. "I guess it started with a gut reaction. You were there Frannie. I was upset, and the phone rang, and it was you, and the words just came out of my mouth. But I've had time to think about it now, and I know you're the person I want to talk to."
Cora paused and let out a long, slow breath. She glanced around the library again, and then continued. "I thought about Cisco, but he's too close to this, and he's tired of hearing about it. Men all the time want to just fix things, and I don't even know what to fix. He'd start making suggestions, and I'd go 'I don't know' and he'd go 'Why not?' until we're yelling at each other. I want to get things straight in my head before I bring him back into it. As for Lu, she and I already worked out what Angel was and wasn't, but that was long ago-not what's happening now. I need fresh thoughts, not old ones."
"So this is about Angel then? Not Valerie?" Frannie leaned back in her chair with a wrinkled forehead, found a comfortable position, and crossed her legs at the ankles.
Cora shifted her eyes and picked at a loose thread on the arm of the chair. "Well, it's all related. That's what I need to sort out."
"You're a take-control gal yourself, that's the Cora I know. How am I going to help you with that?"
Cora gave Frannie a half smile. "What's been happening is off the wall weird, and it's got me doubting myself. I need someone to tell me if my thinking's on the right track or if I'm getting carried away. You understand me, and you have guts, imagination, an open mind..."
Frannie's boisterous laugh rang out, interrupting Cora, and some library patrons looked curiously their way. "Uh, huh, I got it. You need somebody crazy enough to buy into crazy thoughts. Well, I suppose you got the right person for that. I'm a loose cannon, all right, and you can depend on me to swallow harebrained ideas and even carry through with harebrained schemes! Just what you need, girl. Stick with me, I'll straighten you out."
"I'm glad you said that so I don't have to." They looked at each other and laughed. "Of course I have no idea what we're getting into. After what happened to Valerie-are you sure you want to get involved?"
"You ever know me to shy off from anything, girl?" Frannie raised her eyebrows and grinned.
Cora turned serious, fidgeted, put a thumbnail between her front teeth and sighed. "I don't know what's going on, Frannie, and I'm starting to get scared."
"So I was driving here, and thinking about what you told me on the phone, of course I was thinking...but before I start running off at the mouth, what's this about Angel? What else is going on and getting you all upset? You sure it's not just your mind being too busy with all these events, the whole mishmash of thoughts, so your feelings are out of whack?" Frannie lowered her chin and directed an unblinking gaze at Cora.
"Maybe...." She shifted her eyes again, refusing to meet Frannie's gaze.
"So what are you upset about?" Frannie asked again.
Cora rubbed her mouth, then put both hands behind her head, closed her eyes, then opened them and looked back at Frannie. "I can't talk about this slumped in a sofa. I'm too edgy. Can we move to a table?"
"Sure thing. Next thing you be wanting that pen and paper you didn't bring."
"You could be right. I do think better when I keep my hands busy. Can't read my notes when I get home half the time, though." They got up, gathered their belongings, and moved to an empty table, settling into straight-back chairs. Cora put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. "That's better!"
At first they just looked at each other. Then Cora burst out, "I don't know what this wolf business is all about! Did what happened to Valerie have anything to do with me? I didn't tell you on the phone Frannie, but Cisco and I saw a wolf last month. We were walking in the woods, and it came toward us, and acted really strange." Cora told Frannie in detail about the experience. "And that wasn't the first time. I saw what I sure thought was a wolf a few times before."
"Maybe there are wolves out here, and Valerie did see one." Frannie rubbed at her upper lip with her forefinger as she considered Cora's story.
"Well, maybe...but the way that animal behaved when we saw it in the woods? It was like more than a wolf, so powerful. It was like it knew us, and wanted to tell us something. Like it had real intelligence, human intelligence. It even seemed to be playing with us."
Frannie leaned forward, inviting confidence. "Did you think you were being threatened? Scared? Awed? What? Explain."
"Amazed, confused, I don't know...it was scary, but at the same time I didn't think we were going to be attacked. I can't explain. Oh! This makes no sense! It all makes no sense!" Cora leaned back in her chair, and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself and searching Frannie's face.
"Maybe it was this same wolf Valerie saw when she had her accident? A real wolf, maybe, or like you said a spooky thing, some big old animal that didn't belong there? And you saw that same thing in the woods?" Frannie suggested, copying Cora's posture.
"Well, sure...anything is possible. But if it was just some old lone misplaced wolf, why did she say it was standing on two legs in the middle of the road in a rainstorm and staring at her?"
"Well...okay...yeah...that's strange. Maybe she got all drama...from the trauma." Frannie didn't notice the inadvertent witticism, put a forefinger over her lips, and then pointed it at Cora. "Tell me what's bothering you here, Cora. I think I know where you're going with this, but say it out loud."
"I don't want to admit this Frannie! It's just unbelievable; you'll think I'm crazy, anyone will think I'm crazy." Her eyes were shining with tears, and she shut them for a moment to clear both her vision and her thoughts. Then she leaned forward, put an elbow on table, and rested her chin in her hand again, not saying anything.
"Okay then...I'll say it for you," Frannie went on. "You think it's tied up with something supernatural, and has something to do with Angel. Am I right?"
"Yes, that's it...thank you." Cora expelled a slow breath, relieved to hear her worry put into words. "Maybe there is a real Angel, not just a series of odd coincidences. And maybe she has been protecting me. And maybe for some reason she wants me to know she's for real now. And maybe she knew what Valerie did to me, to us, and wanted to punish her. And maybe somehow she made this stuff happen with the wolf, I don't know how." Cora reached into her purse, pulled out a tissue and blotted her eyes.
"Whoa, hold on there, girl. You're moving too fast now. How do you jump from wolves and throw Angel in there, and now Angel's protecting you and punishing people? Did I miss something here?"
Cora had forgotten Frannie never heard the whole story of Angel's antics and knew nothing about the pop-ups on her computer. She took a deep breath and filled her in, in detail, back to the very beginning, and answered all her questions.
"Oh, God, this is just so far-fetched! I can't believe I'm actually considering these thoughts, but I can't stop them. I feel like it's not real-this can't really be happening to me! Then I force myself to think clearly, and it is all real, but no less crazy! I feel warm, then clammy, and my palms are sweating now...." She rubbed her hands together, then crossed her arms and tucked her hands under them.
A look of concern on her face, Frannie said in a calm tone, "I can see that. Your face is red too, and your eyes are jumping like you're on something. Take it easy. Let's just sit a minute, take a little break."
Cora sat back and looked around the library. She noticed a young girl, about three years old, stop to stare at Frannie. The girl slid behind her mother, eyes wide, and pulled on her skirt for attention, then pointed at Frannie. "Mama, why is that lady dressed so..." she began, but her mother shushed her, glanced at Frannie, lowered her head and whispered to the girl, then took her hand and pulled her away. Frannie took no notice.
"Let's analyze this now," Frannie said, calm and practical, rubbing one finger after another as she put things together. "So you think Angel is putting these messages on your computer, and the messages hint she's taking vengeance for you or some such thing, attacking Valerie. You keep saying 'she'-you sure Angel is a 'she'?"
"I don't know it's a 'she', just always thought of her that way." Cora shrugged her shoulders. "So these strange things are happening again, even stranger and more often than before, and we see a wolf-maybe-and Valerie gets attacked by a wolf-maybe-and then these messages on my computer, no explanation for any of it. It's too much weird stuff going on-got to be related somehow. How could it all be coincidence?"
"Let's think, then. Are there any clues in those pop-ups? Tell me again, what did they say, word for word?" Frannie leaned forward and rested her chin in her hand.
"The first one said, 'I'll fix this, Darlin'. I love you.' That's Darlin', with no 'g' at the end."
Frannie sat back, looked toward the ceiling and closed her eyes. "Uh huh...when did you get that one?"
"After I read Valerie's letter in the paper."
"Right after? Did anyone besides Cisco know you read Valerie's letter?"
"Yes to right after, and no to Cisco. There's only Cisco and me in the house, remember?"
Frannie opened her eyes and met Cora's. "Could it be Cisco put it on your computer?"
"Not the Cisco I know! First of all, he wouldn't know how to make a pop-up. Second, he said he didn't do it, and I believe him. Third, he calls me 'Cora' or 'Hon.' He's never called me 'Darlin' '-why would he do it anyway?" Cora was calmer now that she was working on her problem, her tears gone and her facial color back to normal.
"Maybe that's a clue-Darlin'. Who does call you 'Darlin'?"
"Nobody."
"Well that's no help." Frannie made an exaggerated frown.
"No."
"Darlin'-not Darling. Why, do you think?"
"One might assume Darlin' was a term she was accustomed to using?"
"Could be that's a clue, using a little different word. Maybe it's Southern. You know anyone from the South?"
"Yes, but I haven't seen them for years."
"And the second pop-up? You got it this morning, and it said...what?"
"It said: 'I told you I'd fix it, Darlin'. Máime did it again!'." Cora spelled the name.
"What do you think that means?"
"I'm afraid she's taking responsibility for what happened to Valerie. All this weird stuff lately...."
"Let's say that is what it means. Worst case. Who's Máime then?"
"I have no idea. I never called anyone Máime, or knew anyone who referred to herself as Máime."
Frannie looked at the ceiling, worked her lips, and then closed her eyes to think. "So...so far all we have is questions. Who is 'Máime' and why does she call you, if indeed she is referring to you, 'Darlin' '? And what's she mean fix it?" She opened her eyes and looked directly at Cora. "Now here's a more disturbing thought, occurs to me. Why does the message say 'did it again'? What's this again part? Did anything like this ever happen to you before?"
"No, of course not. Nothing I can think of. I never had a strange pop-up, that's for sure. But...oh!" Cora stopped abruptly and jerked upright, her open hand over her mouth.
"What?"
"Well, this is a stretch, I'm warning you." She leaned close to Frannie confidentially. "Years ago, I had this worker in the office that was totally unmanageable. She thought office procedures didn't apply to her, worked when she felt like it, did what she felt like, and the rest of the staff wanted to know why I put up with her. She tried to get me in trouble, told lies, caused me a lot of stress."
Cora ran her hand through her hair. "She wasn't married, but she got pregnant. Then one day, a couple of plainclothes policemen came to the office and asked for her. They took her away in handcuffs."
"What for?"
"I called the station for information, asked if I could expect her to return to work. They told me they had been looking for her for embezzling from a previous job, she had moved and changed her name. They would be holding her, at least for a while."
"So what happened?"
"I didn't want her back, of course, but had to complete paperwork, and I called her home, got her roommate. He told me she had gone into labor while being held, but it turned out to be a false pregnancy. I can't explain, I just know it happened. I never saw or heard from her again."
"That's wild. How could Angel make that happen?" Frannie raised her eyebrows and peered into Cora's eyes.
"I never thought about Angel at the time, but it's such a weird story...I thought she might have faked the labor so they'd release her, but the false pregnancy part...I just wanted her out of my office, out of my life, and then this strange stuff happened-Oh! Wait! There's something else." Cora stiffened.
"Tell, girl," Frannie prompted, waving an arm to go ahead.
"At a different job, long time ago, maybe twenty years, I caught one of the receptionists padding her hours, and when new owners bought the company she complained about me. They were looking for a reason to put in their own managers, and I lost my job. Six months later this employee was diagnosed with mental illness and hospitalized. She's still not out, and her husband divorced her and married someone else."
"So you think Angel caused..."
"Oh, no!" Cora interrupted, eyes wide with excitement as thoughts kept occurring, "Then, one of those owners, the one who made the decision to fire me, stole from the company, and got caught, and went to jail. When he got out his wife left him, took his kids, and he couldn't find another job. He got depressed and committed suicide...and the person who took my place, she was killed in an auto accident a month after she replaced me...and then the company filed bankruptcy less than two years after I left. The owners lost everything they had."
She stopped, eyes wide, face pale, arms crossed over her chest to keep her hands from shaking.
Frannie looked at Cora intently. "Remind me not to get on your bad side. And you thought all this was coincidence, girl?"
Cora sat thinking with her fist over her mouth. Finally, she lowered it and said, "Yeah, I did. I mean...it didn't all happen at once, but over a lot of years...I never put things together. It looks different now, in hindsight. Doesn't it?"
"So people who got in your way got 'fixed' somehow. By Angel?"
"I'm not ready to say that."
"Are you ready to suspect that? Or do I need to fetch you up alongside your thick head?"
"I'll think about it," Cora said, shifting her eyes from Frannie's piercing look and shaking her head. "That can't...be true."
"Well, you just do that. And while you're thinking about it, when you go home, you take out that pad and pen you didn't bring with you today, and you do some more remembering, and you write down every time someone was mean to you and then something bad happened to them. You write it all down, and then we'll talk again...and then we'll see if this is coincidence or something unnatural going on here." Frannie leaned forward to catch Cora's eye again, punctuating each point by poking a finger on the table.
Cora opened her hands, exasperated. "So what good is that going to do? If this has been going on all my life, and I never did anything about it before? I've always been practical and that worked for me. Why should I think different now?"
"What's different is now you know something is happening." Frannie leaned back and folded her arms over her chest. "When you didn't have any idea, you just went on with your life, Angel protected you, and you didn't even know it. Maybe she let you know she was around some little way, heaving a paperclip at your boss or something, like she's joking with you. But now you know. Now you're obliged to bring this to a stop, or you become an accomplice. Can you live with being an accomplice?"
"Uh...I guess not."
"And you can't do nothin' until you find out what's going on. Who is this Máime? Why's she attached to you? That's what I want to know." She poked the table again.
Shrugging her shoulders, Cora held both open hands out.
"You got to take this serious. You got to find out. Take action."
"What kind of action do I take against an Angel?"
"You know research girl! You know how to research, from that historical place you go to. You got research tools. You get information, you put down notes, you piece it together-you got to start doing all that, look for some reason this business is going on and what to do. And you got to go and see an expert." Frannie pointed a finger at Cora every time she said "you".
Cora burst out laughing. "God, Frannie, that's why I love you!" she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "That's the first good laugh I had since this started. What expert did you have in mind? An expert in angels? An expert in spooks? An expert in wolves? Or how about a good psychiatrist?"
"Maybe you start with a priest. Yeah, that's a good idea. We're both Catholic. Priests know about angels and devils and that kind of stuff. They even do exorcisms. You start with a priest, you ask him about angels, and you ask him about spirits, and you see if he's got any ideas to put you on track."
Cora was thoughtful. She gazed away at nothing, chin in her hand, a finger over her mouth. "Silly as it sounds, that's not a bad idea. Our friend, Father McGrath, is just the guy, actually. I don't know why I didn't think of him. He's a psychologist and a counselor living at the church. He's easy to talk to, and interested in 'other-world' stuff. He might take this serious, at least more than any other professional I might approach."
With a place to start, with a friend like Father McGrath who would surely give advice and comfort, and Frannie's ideas and moral support, Cora felt her confidence returning.
"I'll call him when I get home. I still can't believe there's really some sort of being out there monitoring my life though."
"You know, girl. You may not know you know, not yet. But you wouldn't be here today talking with me if you didn't know deep down this is real peculiar and you got to stop it. You talk like you're not coming to that conclusion, but deep down you know. You may be living a charmed life, but my life has been far from charmed. I've seen lots of bad things, and lots of bad people, so maybe I recognize a serious problem better than you. You got to get right on this."
Frannie leaned forward and jabbed a finger at Cora. "Because here's something else I can see after we just talked this out now. Whatever is going on, like you said, maybe it's not new and things chug along with nothing going on for years, but there's more happening now and it's pretty ugly. I mean, Valerie's a piece of work, no question there, but what'd she do bad enough to get her eyes tore out her head? Man, did she suffer for that!"
No answer came to Cora.
Waving a finger in the air, Frannie said, "You listen to Frannie now. I got a feeling it's gonna get even bigger and go even faster, now you have real contact, real words from this Angel. Seems to me, something's happened to get your Angel moving and she's wanting something from you, and she's not getting it, so she's determined to get you directly involved. If you believe only one thing, believe this one: this here Angel is es-ca-late-in'!"