A shaft of sunlight slashed across eyes I mistakenly thought had adjusted to the glare. Not so, I decided, as my temple throbbed straight past ache to pounding, screaming pain. This flesh and bone body seemed so small, so frail, so diminished, so alien.
I could feel it dying around me.
Without thinking, I reached for the power of my grace and willed myself as far from there as I could get. The familiar wash of energy whispered over skin sensitized by its first true taste of wind and everything went gray for the second time that day.
Chapter 1
Three months later
One minute everything was fine; the next, Pam Allen’s heart launched into her throat. She stomped her foot on the imaginary passenger-side brake of her food truck. The woman standing in the middle of the road had come from out of nowhere.
Eyes painfully wide and quivering hands pressed to her cheeks, Pam sent a desperate prayer heavenward. It would take either a miracle or divine intervention to stop the truck in time. Seconds turned in on themselves and stretched out like molasses crawling across snow, while driver Hamlin Paine fought to keep control as the tires broke free from the surface of the road. Saucer-sized eyes filled with terror, his hands whipped the wheel to steer into the skid, and he used both feet to pump the brake.
***
Everything went from gray, to living color, to heart-slamming panic in a split second. Helpless, she watched the flat-fronted truck with images of food painted all over it hurtle toward her. Out of habit formed over an eternity, the former angel raised one hand in a gesture no longer infused with power, and whispered, stop. Nothing happened—not a fizzle or a spark. The well of pure energy always available to her had become clogged with humanity.
On her first day of being human, Galmadriel was about to die.
Well beyond the ability to form a coherent thought, Galmadriel turned to instinct. She set aside all memory of the fall that had turned her human, and just remembered what it felt like to be an angel. Desperate need and an eternity of ingrained habit imbued Galmadriel’s hand with a portion of the power she had once possessed. Loudly and firmly, she repeated the command for the vehicle to stop.
Later, Pam would swear she saw the outline of wings unfolding to shadow the woman’s face. Hamlin would argue that a flare of white light had nearly blinded him. At the last second, with time moving at a snail’s pace, Galmadriel watched both of them close their eyes and wait for the telltale thump. Her heart hammered so hard she expected it to break through her chest, and she heard screaming long before she realized the voice echoing in her ears was her own.
The flash of energy shooting through her felt nothing like as strong as she was used to commanding; but it was there. All she could do now was wait for the impact.
It never came.
When Galmadriel opened her eyes again—they had fluttered shut on their own—the truck sat motionless, its bumper a fraction of an inch away from her knees, and the windshield nearly pressed against her face.
Lifting one shaky hand, she pushed back the flaming auburn hair that tumbled across her shoulders and cascaded down her back in a tangled mass of bedraggled curls. Beads of sweat pearling on her brow took on an icy chill, and her knees wobbled. Start to finish, the incident had taken less than half a minute. It seemed longer.
“Did you see that? Where did she come from?” Hamlin shouted to Pam right before he swore a streak of language that would have turned a sailor pale. Two sets of trembling hands yanked door handles and the pair of them spilled out onto the pavement.
“Where did you…” Those were the last words Galmadriel heard before a loud buzzing swamped her and the world narrowed to a tiny point of light. Hamlin’s lightning fast reflexes kept her from hitting the ground with a thud.
“We didn’t hit her, did we? It happened so fast.” Galmadriel could still hear his voice faintly fading in and out through the humming in her head, and she felt his shoulders bunch as he lowered her to the ground.
“I don’t think so. I think she’s just scared. Shocky.” Pam opened the door, grabbed an unused jacket from behind the seat, and rolled it up. “If you can hear me, I’m just going to elevate your feet.” Her movements were sure and efficient. “Ham, go get me a damp towel, please. Hurry.”
In a moment he was back. “Is she okay?”
“She’s coming around. We’ll know more in a minute.” Pam spoke in a soothing voice, calm now the crisis was over, her hands rock steady.
After a few shallow breaths, Galmadriel made an effort to relax, then opened her eyes and tried to sit up. “No, just rest there until you get your breath back.” Pam laid a gentle but firm hand on Galmadriel’s shoulder to push her back down into a prone position.
“I am fine. Please let me up.” The words, though quietly spoken came out like a command from on high. Hamlin jerked at the force of them, torn between helping and a healthy reticence for touching a stranger. It was too late, anyway. Galmadriel had already regained her feet. Her new body felt lighter and more agile than expected, given its height.
“What’s your name?” Hamlin asked. A simple question; and yet, how could she answer without telling a lie or freaking him out? The words I am the angel Galmadriel refused to pass her lips. Probably due to an instinctual need for self-preservation.
Even providing such minor information as her name seemed unwise until she had a better idea of what had brought her to the middle of who-knows-where. In aiming for her home on the other side, there was no doubt she had missed
