“Why don’t I come in the morning, ma’am. First light?”

“That won’t do me a bit of good, Jimmy. I need this errand run tonight. You understand?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.”

“There’s a bit of fog out there. Why don’t I meet you at the bridge? I know every hole in that dirt road. I won’t let you fall.”

Miss Augusta would not like to be kept waiting on a cold night. He walked along the sidewalk at a fast pace, heading for the bridge over Upland Bayou. Jimmy could only see twenty feet into the mist, and he took comfort in every normal thing in that small field of vision. Sturdy telephone poles and fire hydrants were markers of the solid world he hurried through, as were the streetlamps and the yellow windows of the houses. As he approached the bayou, every landmark beyond the near shore was lost in the fog.

Miss Augusta was waiting for him at the foot of the bridge. Her white face floated above a long dark shawl. She nodded a greeting and turned away, crossing the bridge in silence. He walked behind her, making no attempt at conversation. Small talk was neither his strength, nor hers.

Good as her word, the old woman led him around each rain-filled hole in the road. He could see the dull glow of lights through the trees. So people were still visiting the angel. Though, only this morning, he had heard that the long lines had petered out to nothing and the miracle was over.

As they entered the cemetery, a dense ground fog rolled up to meet him. It was thick as he had ever seen it. His shoes disappeared below his ankles. His eyes strayed to Cass Shelley’s monument. He could only see the back of her wings and the votive candles on her pedestal.

He scanned the grounds for Miss Augusta. She was farther down the alley of tombs, and he feared losing her in the mist and the turn of a corner on the gravel path.

But he had to look back one more time.

Cass’s wings ruffled lightly like the feathers of a living bird. It was only an illusion created by the flickering play of candlelight. He knew that for a written-down, scientific fact – but belief was a different matter in the dark.

He was hurrying by the tombs, in a rush to catch up with Miss Augusta, when he heard the sound of stone crunching on stone. He looked back. Had the statue moved? No, that was not possible. He was only looking at it from a different angle. The great spread wings still hid her body from sight.

He turned back to the alley of small white buildings. The old woman had probably veered down some other street in the city of tombs and vanished.

“Miss Augusta?”

Behind him, something heavy had hit the ground. He felt the vibrations through the soles of his shoes, but he would not turn around, not for anything. And now, something in his sidelong vision moved. He would not look directly at it; he could not. He turned to Cass’s angel for reassurance.

Her pedestal was bare. He looked down the alley where the old woman had gone. Miss Augusta had returned for him. She was standing just beyond the periphery of clear vision. It must be a trick of the mist that made her seem so much smaller.

“Miss Augusta?”

A woman’s voice called to him. “Jimmy.” He felt a hand on his shoulder and his knees began to liquefy. And then the hand was gone, and he was running toward the hazy figure of Augusta at the end of the path. He stopped short, kicking up gravel, backtracking until his legs locked and he froze like an animal trapped in the fascination of an onrushing train light. It was another angel, smaller than the one which had left its pedestal. It was the statue’s missing child, and now she had wings of her own. The little girl moved toward him on heavy stone feet. He could hear the pounding on the ground as she drew closer. Her hands had blood on them, and there was blood on the rocks in her small arms.

She stopped her forward motion and slowly rose in the air. He could see her tiny feet above the ground fog. He sank to his knees. The child was drifting toward him, floating, as if she weighed nothing, though she carried a heavy burden. All those rocks.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said. This was a lie. And the stone child knew it. She would have kept track of his sins.

“Cass was going to tell,” he said with his hands splayed on the air, asking the child for understanding. “She was going to tell everyone.” The child hovered on the air, as though listening. He covered his face with both hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She called to him in a soft small voice, “Jimmy.” His hands dropped away from his face, and he opened his eyes. She began to revolve in the air, and all the rocks flew out from her arms in a spiral, spinning off into the mist, making no sound as they fell. The stone child was whirling faster and faster as he screamed. She slowed her revolutions, then stopped, only hovering now. He brought his hands together, as if to pray.

She exploded into flight, the stone wings were in motion, beating on the air, and she was rushing at him, hitting him with her small body, her wings. She was not stone anymore, but warm, a pulsating child with a real heart beating against his chest, and then, in seconds, she was gone, flown off.

Lost feathers drifted to the earth.

He clawed at his eyes and fell forward, prostrate on the ground with his face in the gravel, small jagged bits of stones jutting into his flesh. He raised his head and looked back to the end of the alley. Cass’s angel had returned to her pedestal. From this vantage point, he could see that it was the old angel, and the wingless stone child was back in her arms once more. He began to weep over the strange reunion of Cass and Kathy.

And then he began to wail as the dog had wailed, lowering his head now kissing gravel and crooning to the earth.

“Howling mad,” said the voice of Augusta Trebec.

The thick ground fog was rolling away – more magic. The old woman’s feet were close to his head. And now there were others gathering around him. As he was slowly raising his eyes, he wondered if these people would have rocks in their hands.

When the hysterical rambling had subsided to ordinary tears, Augusta knelt down by the shivering young man. “Now, Jimmy, you come along with me. I’m gonna fix you a nice strong cup of herb tea.” She took one of his arms to pull him up, and Mallory slipped the black bandanna from her face and took the other arm. As the women walked the small man toward the path leading to Trebec House, Augusta was saying, “Everything is gonna be just fine.”

Riker guessed the old lady was lying through her teeth. He stepped out from behind the tomb and crushed one of the papier-mache stones underfoot.

Charles wore a black cloth draped over his body, looking more like a priest than a magician. He was staring at the gun in Riker’s hand with something approaching horror.

Riker holstered his revolver, as he watched the odd trio walking away. That frightened little man was the kind of suspect he always prayed for in every case with no physical evidence.

He looked at Charles. “You were right to believe in her. I was wrong.”

Charles didn’t seem to take any joy in this win. He only nodded as he pulled the black drape away from the statue of the winged child.

Riker picked up the velvet cloth. “So that’s how you made her disappear.” A second drape fell from the raised pallet. The fake fog was still escaping from the mobile platform in stray wisps. “There wasn’t enough fog tonight? You had to rent a fog machine?”

Charles shook his head. “It was only dry ice and hot water.”

When the last of the gas cleared away, Riker could see all the wheels and gears that made the angel rise and spin. He guessed that Charles had made the heavy footfalls of the stone angel’s walk. “But what was the guy raving about? All that babbling crap about the angel flying? I saw the birds fly, but I never saw the statue take off.”