wasn’t doing anything.”
“The bird is dead,” he said gently. “It’s best not to touch it.”
He crouched next to her and saw her face was painted with heavy sadness, a sadness that seemed completely out of place in a child of her age.
Not meeting his gaze, she said, “I could make it better...but that would be wrong.”
“You can’t help the bird, Israfel. It’s dead. Do you understand what that means?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “Like Moses.”
“Who’s Moses?” He wanted to comfort her, to lift the heavy burden she seemed to be carrying.
“My kitty.”
Asher’s heart jumped. “Your cat was named Moses?”
“Yes... But he got real sick last summer. He died. Mamma buried him behind the chicken coop.”
Asher took Israfel’s tiny hand in his. The poor child trembled all over. “Did something happen with Moses, Israfel? After he died?”
She nodded. Tears welled in her eyes and her lower lip quivered.
“Can you tell me?”
“I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. It’s just... I missed Moses. I just wanted my kitty back.”
His heart raced now. He did his best to keep his voice steady when he asked, “Did you get Moses back, Israfel?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How?” he asked in a whisper.
“I used my toy shovel and dug him out of the ground. I fixed him. He was all right again.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “How did you fix him, Israfel?”
She tented her fingers and placed one hand on his head and another on his chest. “Like this.”
Asher froze, incredulous. The girl was trying to tell him she had laid her hands on a dead cat and brought it back to life.
“But then...”
He tried to keep his face from betraying his excitement at what she had just told him. “But then?”
“The chickens died. All of them.” She began to cry. Asher stood, took her hand and led her back to the bench, away from the dead bird that had started all this.
She sat next to him, still crying, her words tumbling over each other in her hurry to get them out. “Mamma was terrible mad. She said what I done with Moses was the Devil’s work. She said dead was dead, and what I done with Moses was un-un...”
“Unnatural?”
She nodded. “Then Mamma took Moses down to the river and drownded him.” She burst into tears again. “She drownded Moses and then she took me to the chicken coop and showed me what I done. She told me I killed all them chickens when I made Moses alive again. She said if I ever did something like that again, she was going to kill me, ’cause it meant the Devil was in me. Then she whupped me with the belt.”
The child broke down sobbing again. Asher hugged her to him, and was immediately struck by how thin she was. He felt the knobs on her spine and her ribs through the ragged cotton shift she wore. Even so, he clearly sensed the strength concealed within this tormented child. He waited until her tears were spent and the hitching in her breath stopped.
“You weren’t doing the Devil’s work, and the Devil is not in you,” he said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
She remained silent for a few minutes then pulled away from him, swiping away her tears with the back of her hand, and surprised him by asking, “Do you think my Mamma will be all right?”
He weighed his words before answering. “I do. I suspect she knew that leaving you with me was better than what she had in mind for you.”
She stared at him and he could tell by the way her expression softened it was the answer she had wanted to hear. Then she asked, “Do you know what’s the matter with me that made Mamma want to kill me?”
Asher regarded her with a serious look. “I have a suspicion,” he said in a gentle voice. “And it’s something we’ll talk about, I promise. But for now, let’s just say your mother was...misguided.”
They walked back to the car and he adjusted the passenger seat for her to a semi-reclining position. “We’ll be in Savannah by morning. I suggest you try to get some sleep.”
Asher got behind the wheel. It had been a long and tiring day, and one full of surprises of both the good and the bad variety. Despite the child’s turmoil, when he pulled the car onto the highway again, he glanced down to find her sleeping soundly. The poor thing must have been completely exhausted from the day’s harrowing events.
Several hours later, he pulled off the highway to gas up. Afterward, he used the outdoor pay phone to call Madison, who was at home with Jackson and Jared Crow, awaiting his call. When she answered, he said, “I have the girl with me. I’m bringing her home. Tell Crow it appears he may be correct about the child.”
Incredible as it seemed, the child sleeping soundly in his car might actually be what Jared Crow claimed she was, one of the Nephilim, a member of the fallen race.
* * * *
When she woke, the sun was on the rise. The street along which the car motored was shaded by giant trees. Stately houses, hidden beneath pastel exteriors, seemed to glow in the rising light. She turned to Asher.
“This is Savannah,” he told her. My house is just outside the city. We’ll be there soon.”
They traveled through an old neighborhood, passing a park filled with looming trees and a white stone fountain at its center. Gaslights flickered along the pathways crisscrossing the park, as if inviting passersby to enter. Elegant houses lined the street, and Israfel wondered if the house Asher lived in was as pretty as the ones flashing by outside.
They drove through other neighborhoods, although none as pleasant as the one with the park and fountain, until they left the city behind them. A short time later, Asher turned the car down an unpaved road flanked by towering oaks, their gnarly branches meeting at the top to form a tunnel of green. No houses came into view until the road ended. There, Asher pulled the car to a stop in front of a pair of ironwork gates set into a stone wall that seemed to go on forever. Gaslights flanked the entrance, shimmering in the thin morning light. Behind the gates, a stuccoed three-story mansion rose. The top two floors sported tall, louvered windows and wrought-iron balconies. The walls of the mansion were tinged pink, as if the bricks had bled through the stucco. A stone stairway led to a portico at the front entrance, supported by four colossal pillars.
Apprehension filled her at the sight of the place. How would she ever fit in here? She had earlier noticed the fine clothes Asher wore, and anxiously looked down at her threadbare shift, scraped legs and dirt-streaked arms, acutely aware of her unkempt appearance. There was no time to dwell on such thoughts. Asher had already exited the car and opened the passenger door for her.
She
