Wayfinder
“Do angels walk among us?” The question never varied in its essence, only in its particulars. This time, the author of the latest bestseller about angels asked the question.
Veronica studied the woman, who went by the highly improbable name of Serendipity Fogg. Ms. Fogg was somewhere between 40 and 50 years old, with just the slightest hint of age showing in the creases around her eyes and the slightly wobbling flesh under her chin. She wore the uniform of too many New Age writers—long Indian-print skirt, loose tank-top style blouse in matching painted silk, chunky indeterminate-ethnic jewelry, and ugly sandals. Serendipity wore her doe-brown hair in a long, shiny curtain to her waist. It seemed to be the woman’s one concession to vanity. Her face was completely bare of make-up; and she had taken no measures to remove the beginnings of a faint moustache.
Ah well, Veronica sighed to herself, this part of her trip was wasted. This woman did not possess any more knowledge or wisdom than had any of the others. Crossing the country, she had met with preachers, dreamers, charlatans, and madmen. All claimed to have seen or been visited by angels. But none of them had. Except, maybe the poor, mad ones. There was no way to tell what secrets truly hid inside those tortured minds.
It had been too long, years maybe, since she had met anyone else like her. Oh, there were plenty of people who talked about angels, or collected angel images, or fantasized about angels. Whole little societies had sprung up around the idea of angels. These angel enthusiasts could be found in catholic bookstores, metaphysics classes, New Age shops, and the big chain bookstores when authors came to sign their newest angel books. Tonight was just such a night; the bookstore was crammed with angel enthusiasts. Veronica thought of them as addicts, there to get their fix of angel lore, enough to tide them over until the next book was published or the next photograph of an angel-shaped light or cloud was passed around.
She liked to come to these things when she wasn’t working, but tonight she had a job to do, her mission was here somewhere. Veronica scanned the angel-loving crowd, looking for just the right kind of face, the correct look in someone’s eye, the glow that says “I have been chosen,” even if that person doesn’t know he or she has been chosen. So many years (decades?) on the job had given Veronica a finely honed intuitive sense for her quarry.
The message this time was short, she shouldn’t have to spend a long time delivering it, but time meant very little to Veronica and she didn’t do anything halfway. A creature of excellence, she would make sure the recipient of the message fully understood and knew just which way to go.
Since time was always on her side, and since her intended hadn’t shown up yet, Veronica decided to have a little, harmless fun. She rose up two inches off the floor and glided over to the line to meet the author. Not one of the dozens of angel fanatics noticed her feet hovering ever so slightly above the floor. Just as she reached Ms. Fogg’s table she spotted her mission. It was a young woman this time, one wearing the nametag of an employee. The young woman was patiently answering a customer’s questions, so Veronica had a few minutes to spare.
Serendipity Fogg greeted her with the same pale pleasantries that everyone else had received. No spark of recognition, not even a glimmer of real interest. For all Ms. Fogg’s New Age pretensions, Veronica knew she stood before a stout non-believer. And she felt offended for all the other people there, the ones who really did believe in angels.
I’ll show her to toy with people’s dearly held beliefs, Veronica said to herself. And as the author reached out to shake just another admirer’s hand, Veronica the Wayfinder decided to show her the way. Dodging the offered hand, she instead touched her finger to Serendipity’s forehead, just at the third eye. “Now you can see,” said the Wayfinder.
Before the author had time to respond, Veronica slipped away. She had spotted her mission, who was alone for the moment, so she cornered the young woman. “Ana, I’ve come to tell you that it is time to go home.”
Confused, the woman looked at her and said, “Uh, no. I’m not scheduled to leave until 9 pm.”
“No, Anasazi, it is time for you to return to where you belong. I have been sent to tell you this. There was one place where you felt truly at home, you need to go back there.” The girl wasn’t answering so Veronica continued, “I was told that you would understand, that you have wanted to go back for years. It is time.”
The young woman shook her head and worked to refocus her eyes. This stranger’s voice had reached deep into her head and made her think of Post, the town she had left a decade before. Ten years had passed in a blur of dead-end jobs, half-hearted friendships, and failed romances. Her heart had ached for years, lonely for a place to call home. But Post?
She had ignored all the people who told her she would come back. That Post would always be her home. But now Ana knew that they were right, had been right from the very beginning. It was time to go home. Home to Post.
Veronica knew all these thoughts, could see them written plainly on Ana’s face. But something still seemed to trouble her.
Touching the nametag on her chest, the one that read simply “Ana”, she asked, “How do you know my full name? Nobody but my mother calls me that, and then it’s only when she’s angry. Nobody knows that name!”
The Wayfinder just smiled and said, “He does.” Then Veronica turned and left, still hovering just above the floor.
From that night forward, Ms. Serendipity Fogg dropped her pen name and started using her birth certificate name again. As a writer, Mildred Fogg was nowhere near as popular as Serendipity had been but as a person, she was happier. Now she could see all the wonderful things that really did exist in the world. And never again did she have to ask if angels walked among us, because she could see them. Sometimes they were angels all the time, sometimes they masqueraded as humans, but most of the time, the angels Mildred saw were real people doing angelic things for others.
As for Ana, she found her way back home.
