Jovah's Angel (40 page)

“Oh, sweetie, you know I can't,” Alleya replied. “I'm a big important person now! I can only come home for visits.”

“Archangel,” Deborah said. “Smartest angel in Samaria.”

Alleya laughed. “Well, I wish,” she said ruefully. “Angel with the most troubles in Samaria.”

“Too much rain,” Deborah said, nodding sagaciously.

Alleya laughed again. “Among other things. So how's your schooling going? Are you learning your letters? Are you learning your numbers?”

“Can
read
!” Deborah said proudly. “Hear me? Read you story?”

“Yes, I'd love to. I'll come by the dorm tomorrow or the next day, all right? Which story are you going to read me?”

“Pick one. Be good one.”

“I'll look forward to it.”

Deborah answered, but Alleya didn't catch the words. A movement at the front of the house had caught her attention, and she looked up to find her mother framed in the doorway. Hope Wellin nodded when she saw she had her daughter's attention. Alleya kissed Deborah on the top of her flaming head, then shooed her away toward the girls' dorm. Not hurrying about it, she made her way up the walk.

“Hello, Mother,” she said when she got close enough to come to a halt. “I hope my timing isn't inconvenient. I need to make a trip to the Corinni Mountains, and since I was so close—”

“It's good to see you, Alleluia,” Hope said without much expression. “How long are you staying?”

“A day or two. Unless that's a problem.”

“Certainly not. It will be delightful,” Hope replied coolly. “I see you've already had a chance to visit with Deborah.”

“She looks like she is doing well. How is she doing in her classes?”

“It's hard to make her settle down and concentrate, but she's intelligent, so she learns quickly. She doesn't have much patience for lacemaking but she doesn't mind menial chores, so we can always put her to work. I think she could do quite well outside of Chahiela, if she decides to leave us when she's older. I have hopes for her.”

Alleya smiled. “Maybe she'll go to work in Velora some day. I'd like to have her near me.”

“She misses you. She asks about you.”

“I would like to come more often, but these days—”

Hope abruptly turned and led the way into the house. “You have had your troubles, I know. Come inside. Tell me what's happening at the Eyrie. And all the gossip of Samaria.”

So they spent a pleasant enough hour, mother and daughter, discussing the state of the realm, the worries over the weather, the effect of Breven factories on Chahiela lace, and the latest events in the lives of people they both knew. It was too much to say that Hope was cordial, but she was a little warmer than civil. It was the best her mother was capable of. Alleya let herself fall back into her old familiar patterns, answering what was asked, asking what seemed appropriate, and letting everything else slip away from her.

During pauses in the conversation, she glanced around the house. It had not changed much in the twenty years that had passed since she had lived here. The furniture looked new, and the wall tapestries had been changed, but the colors were very close to the old ones. In one corner of the room, propped on a brass easel, was a faded painting of Hope's parents and brother—all deaf, all dead. The brother had died quite young, trampled by a runaway horse he could not hear approaching. As far as Alleya could tell, he was the only person Hope had ever truly loved. She talked about him very little, but she had told Alleya once, “My
brother could hear me, as these children can hear you. He never heard any voice but mine in his entire life.” It was one of the few times Alleya had been able to identify any emotion in her mother's voice: grief.

“While you're here,” Hope was saying, “it would be appreciated if you were willing to sing.”

“Of course I will,” Alleya said quickly. “I'd be glad to.”

“There are two new women here—I don't believe you've met them—and I think you might be able to reach them. One of them lost her hearing when she was a little girl. The other has always been deaf. But I thought they might hear your voice. So many do. It would mean a lot to them.”

“I would be glad to try. Tonight?”

“Oh, no. Tonight I will keep you for myself, and Mara and Seth and Evan, who usually take dinner with me. But tomorrow, if you would care to attend some of the classes—”

“Certainly. And I'll sing in the evening.”

They talked a little longer, then parted so Alleya could freshen up before the meal. She would stay in her old room, of course, the bare gray chamber with the narrow bed and the single window which never seemed to admit much light. Standing now in the middle of that room, Alleya turned slowly, taking in its hard angles and cold features. It was difficult to remember if she had been happy or unhappy in this room; she'd had nothing to compare it to, no outside life, no privileged or destitute friends. It was just her life. She had not known that she was strange, or shy, or special, because every other child here was scarred or gifted or maimed. They were all odd. She had fit right in.

At the age of ten, given her choice, she never would have left. At the age of thirty, knowing what she knew now, would she have chosen to stay?

The next few days were an oasis of calm sunshine in what Alleya was beginning to consider her stormy life. She distributed her hours among the various classrooms of the deaf students, drawing the children about her in a circle. The older ones knew her from her past visits; some of the younger ones were awed at her presence and her great, gleaming wings, but her smile won them over.

“I want all of you to pay close attention,” she said in her first session, saying the words aloud and also making the appropriate motions with her hands. She had learned the language of silence
long before she had learned the music of the angels. “I want all of you to cover your eyes with your hands.”

Everyone did so; she continued talking. “I know all of you have problems with your ears, but some of you can hear my voice. Raise your hands if you can hear me speaking.”

There was an incoherent murmur of amazement from the students who were unused to hearing any voice; more than half the hands went up. Behind her, Alleya heard the teacher's gasp of surprise. It gave her confidence.

“You can put your hands down now,” she said. “Now I'm going to sing a little song. If you can hear me, I want you to raise your other hand.”

She chose a simple nursery tune, pitched in the high, sweet key that had always reached so many of the children in Chahiela. The ones who had heard her speaking waved their hands in the air. The other children, every one of them, dropped their palms from their eyes and leapt to their feet, staring at her in disbelief. She continued singing, beckoning them closer.

“
Can you hear me, can you hear me
?” she crooned as they crowded around her, reaching out with their small, wondering fingers to touch her lips, her throat. “
Yes, you can. Yes, you can! Hear Alleya singing, hear Alleya singing! Clap your hands. Clap your hands
.”

They applauded crazily, happily, calling out indistinct words of question and excitement. She hushed them with her gestures, and sang the rest of her words, setting them to different, always lilting tunes.

“
Let's count our numbers from one to ten
,” Alleya sang, holding up the fingers of her left hand. “
One… two… three… four
…” They listened intently, for most of them had never heard these syllables before, and held up their own fingers along with her. When she finished with numbers, she went through the alphabet, and then she randomly began naming objects in the room:
dress, boat, book, flower
. Some of the children began pointing to themselves, which at first Alleya did not understand.

“They want you to name them,” the teacher murmured in her ear.

“Tell me their names.” And as the woman introduced each child, Alleya sang the names back. The looks that crossed the small, engrossed faces were indescribable. Alleya felt her heart contract with a strange combination of sorrow and elation.

It was the same in the other classrooms, though she was not
successful in reaching everyone. Three of the youngest children, who were both blind and deaf, did not even know that Alleya was singing. Two of the older, teenage boys (who looked as if they resented learning anything and didn't care about hearing their names sung by a stranger) either did not hear her or refused to acknowledge that they did. Mara, who had never responded to Alleya's voice, shook her head regretfully when the angel sang to her again.

But the others heard her—heard her and were moved, delighted, thrilled, thunderstruck. It gave Alleya a fierce pleasure—a gratification so intense that she knew it must be vanity, and should, be repressed—to touch so many people with such a simple skill.

“Not my gift, Jovah, but thine,” she whispered once, and she knew it was true. But it was the gift of Jovah's that she most cherished.

In the evening, she was the centerpiece of a gala entertainment that started with a feast, was followed by charades and ended with her performance. As she stepped up to the makeshift dais, facing the disordered chairs clustered in a few tight rows, she was gripped with a moment's stage fright. Even in Chahiela, where she had sung her whole life, it panicked her to be the center of attention. But the sight of her mother, cool and waiting at the back of the room, calmed her down; and her glimpse of Deborah, wriggling impatiently in her chair, made her laugh. She took a deep breath and began to sing.

In such a mixed group, it was hard to know what would please most, so she sang a little of everything—the solos from two of the sacred masses, a handful of lullabies, two of the Edori ballads that had stuck in her head well enough for her to remember them now, even a couple of the popular tunes that she had overheard in Velora and Luminaux. Every selection was greeted with extravagant applause, but, even more telling, no one rustled or whispered or even moved while she was actually singing. It was such a rare gift, such an exotic pleasure that she offered them; clearly, they did not want to miss a note.

She sang till the children began to look tired, and then she presented a final number. When she made a little bow to signify that she was done, the protest was so clamorous that she offered a quick, upbeat encore. Even this did not quiet some of the more vehement protests, but Hope Wellin had already come to her feet,
and now she made her way to the stage beside her daughter.

“Tomorrow,” she spelled out with her fingers. “Alleya will sing for us again in the evening.” And with this, everyone was forced to be content. At any rate, no one had the nerve to dispute her; no one ever did.

Alleya stayed behind with her mother and some of the staff to straighten up the room after the crowd had emptied out. One of the women (Alleya thought she was a cook) approached her somewhat shyly as Alleya arranged chairs against the wall.

“I just wanted you to know—I've been able to hear every day of my life, and I've never heard anything so beautiful as your voice,” the woman said. “I can't imagine what it must have been like to these people, never hearing a single sound and then suddenly—you singing. I know I saw two women crying.”

“Oh, thank you—you're so kind,” Alleya said, stammering. She was both pleased and embarrassed by the compliment. “But some of them have heard me sing before, though I haven't been back for months. So it wasn't their first time.”

“It may as well have been,” the woman said. “I felt like I had been deaf all my life when I first heard you sing. That until I heard your voice, I had only known silence.”

It's because you live in Chahiela, where the world is mostly silent
, Alleya wanted to say, but it seemed undiplomatic, especially with her mother standing so close. “I'm glad you enjoyed my singing,” she said instead. “And I'll sing again tomorrow.”

“I'll be right here.”

The next two days passed in essentially the same manner, with Alleya moving from classroom to classroom during the day, and giving a cappella concerts at night. The teachers had quickly thought of ways to take advantage of her gift, and devised lesson plans with which she could serenade the students. It felt a little silly to be singing of multiplication and plant biology, but then, some of the prayers she sang to Jovah were laced with technical language that was far from poetic, and those never felt foreign in her mouth. She willingly obliged the teachers.

It was late in the third day of her visit before she finally made good her promise to come to Deborah's dormitory room for a story. All the other little girls came running up happily when Alleya entered the room, though they were not so eager to hear Deborah reading. So Alleya promised to sing them all a lullaby before she left, and they scattered back to their toys while she visited with Deborah.

“This is a story… about a tall man,” Deborah began somewhat haltingly, painstakingly reading every word, every pronoun, every article. She had waited for Alleya to get comfortable, then perched on the angel's lap like a cat who knew it had every right to be there. Alleya closed her wings around both of them, sheltering them in a white cocoon, and bowed her head over Deborah's.

“He was so tall… his head… barely fit on the page,” the little girl continued. She pointed at the illustration of a thin man whose dark hair grazed the top margin of the printed book, then glanced back to make sure Alleya was smiling. “He was… so very tall… no one could see… the color of his eyes.”

It was a childish story, actually a little tedious, but Alleya listened with great patience all the way through. “Very good! You're reading so well!” she exclaimed when Deborah was finally done. “You must be studying hard and practicing every night.”