 A brief sample of chapters 1 & 2 HARK! THE HERALD ANGEL SCREAMED "Lucy Nan, are you sure we're on the right road?" my cousin Jo Nell asked. "Seems like we've been driving an awfully long time." "Mama said the church was outside of Winnsboro," I told her, "and this is outside of Winnsboro, isn't it?" "I'm sure she didn't mean this far outside. We must be halfway to Columbia by now and I haven't seen one sign of a small white church with a stone wall around it." My cousin sat ramrod straight beside me in the same black wool suit she's been wearing for at least twenty years. Jo Nell never gains an ounce - the rat! On one bony knee she balanced a box holding her "Joyed-It" jam cake made from our grandmother's special recipe and so named because when anyone ate it they always said they "joyed-it." In her other hand my cousin clutched the black leather purse she carries every day from September through March. Sighing, she shifted the cake on her lap. "We should've turned left back there like I told you. Funeral's going to be over before we get there." "You didn't tell me to turn left, you said turn right. This is Old Grange Road, isn't it? Here's an intersection coming up. Hurry, look and see what the sign says." At the request of my mother, Jo Nell and I were on our way to the funeral of a relative, Mercer Vance, who was our second cousin or first cousin once removed. I never can get that straight. My parents live in a condominium a couple of hundred miles away in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and pleasant it is, but it isn't a mountain at all but an island off the coast of Charleston. "Mercer was my favorite cousin when we were growing up and I hate it that I can't be there," Mama told me, "but it's hard for your daddy to get around after his knee surgery and I don't feel right about leaving him." She gave me a chance for that to sink in. "You really don't mind going, do you, sugar - as a favor for your poor decrepit mother who suffered through twenty-seven hours of labor to bring you into the world?" Although she's nearly eighty, my mother swims almost every day and plays golf at least once a week. I laughed. "Do spare me, please! Of course I'll go, but it's been years since I've seen some of these relatives and I can never remember who's who." My relatives never let go of a name. Most of the men all the way back to Genesis are named Grayson, Mercer, or Vance, while the women pass around Julia, Virginia, Lucinda and Nellie. I'm named for my grandmother who was named for her great great grandmother Lucinda Vance, who in 1835 with her husband Mercer built the columned home they named Willowbrook on the outskirts of my hometown of Stone's Throw, South Carolina. My grandmother was born there and lived there most of her life, but Mimmer's been gone for twenty years, and except for some off and on tenants, the house has been empty since. Jo Nell claims it's haunted. Now my cousin leaned forward shading her eyes to read the road sign as the pale November sun glinted off her bifocals. "I told you we were on the right road, Lucy Nan! Old Grange Road - plain as day - right there on that sign we just passed." "Jo Nell Touchstone, you never told me any-" "And there it is - white church with a stone wall. That's got to be it right up ahead see it? Slow down, Lucy Nan! You're about to pass it." Jo Nell unbuckled her seat belt before we came to a complete stop. "Lord, I hope they haven't already said the benediction." I parked and looked around as we wove through the rows of cars to the front of the church where two somber men waited. "Did you see a sign anywhere?" I asked. "I hope we're in the right place. Are you sure this is Capers Methodist Chapel?" Jo Nell tramped ahead, pocketbook swinging from her arm. "What else can it be? Hurry, they're already singing a hymn." I hurried. We were just in time for the last stanza of "In the Sweet By and By" when we took our seats in the next to the last pew. I nodded politely to the people on either side of me, neither of whom I knew. They nodded back. It was close in the small sanctuary and heat blasted from a vent nearby. Jo Nell loosened the scarf around her neck and fanned herself with the memorial program. "Can you see Cudin' Grayson and them up front?" she whispered. "I don't see anybody I know." "It's been so long I'm not sure I would recognize Cudin' Grayson if I saw him," I said, "but I'm pretty sure that's Mercer under all those flowers down there." "Lucy Nan!" Jo Nell's eyes widened. "For goodness sake-" "Shh!" I said primly. "I think they're getting ready to start." The minister mopped his face and stood. He wore a black robe and a stole as red as his glistening face and took a long drink of water before he opened the Bible to read the Twenty-third Psalm. His voice was low and soothing and I tried to picture myself in a shady green pasture where not-so-still waters rippled over mossy stones. Pausing at the end, he closed the Good Book softly, gave it a loving pat and set it aside. "Our good friend Lizzie Frye has left us for a better place," he began. Lizzie Frye? What does she have to do with the price of eggs in China? I thought. A lot, I soon discovered when I looked at the program. It was Lizzie Frye, not our cousin Mercer under all those flowers down front. Too late I glanced at the words on the hymnal on the rack in front of me: Presbyterian Hymns. We were in the wrong church .. Chapter Two "That tree over there looks nice," Augusta said. "Too skinny." Ellis Saxon frowned and shook her head. "You can see right through it." I stopped to untangle my sleeve from a blackberry briar. "Here's a nice fat one - smells good, too." Ellis inspected it closely. "No way. Double trunk. Keep looking." The three of us were on a mission at Willowbrook to find the perfect Christmas tree for our church fellowship hall and so far nothing has met with Ellis's approval. With a few exceptions, my friend Ellis is the only person besides me who can see and speak with Augusta. As the angel explained when she first appeared at my front door at 101 Heritage Avenue, Ellis could use a little looking after as well. And didn't that turn out to be true! Augusta wrapped her voluminous green cape about her and shivered. She has never gotten over that treacherous winter with General Washington at Valley Forge. A host of heavenly help was on hand during those times, she tells me, but she has suffered from the cold ever since. "Why don't you wait for us in the car?" I suggested. "We shouldn't be too much longer." But Augusta had already disappeared behind a clump of cedars until all I could see was the gleam of her candle-bright hair as she moved among the branches. The ground had been covered with frost when we first arrived, and now at mid-morning grass still crunched underfoot. Even in thick socks and my old clodhopper boots my feet were beginning to feel numb and I beat my gloved hands together to keep them warm. "With it being this cold so early in December, maybe we'll have a white Christmas," I said. "Remember that big snow when we were in the fourth grade?" Ellis said. "We slid down that hill behind the school on cafeteria trays, and I almost got hit by a car when mine ran into the street because I didn't know how to stop." "How could I forget?" I said. "You scared me half to death." "I was so terrified I couldn't think straight until you hollered at me to roll off - probably saved my life." "Just remember that when Teddy comes around selling gift wrap for his class this year," I reminded her. "And for goodness sake, will you please hurry and decide on a tree before my feet freeze to the ground." "I believe I see one over here!" Augusta called. "Come and look. What do you think?" "I've already looked over there, Augusta. I didn't see a single one taller than I am." But Ellis plodded after her, holding aside limbs for me to follow. Now, where did that come from?" Ellis stopped so suddenly I almost stepped on her heels. "It's - it's perfect, but I'll swear it wasn't here earlier." The lofty cedar lifted its feathery branches in majestic splendor over all the others around it. I pinched the tip of a frond to release a fragrance like Christmas perfume. "This one's just right," I said. "Hurry and tag it, Ellis, so we can collect the greenery we need and go home." I had already made note of a smaller cedar I'd seen that would be perfect for that spot in our living room window, but we could come back for that later. I looked around for Augusta who stood quietly in the background. "Lucky you saw this one, Augusta. It should be a big hit at the church." Ellis tied a strip of yellow ribbon to a branch of the tree so Preacher Dave could find it. "It's the strangest thing! I don't understand why I didn't see it before." "I think I know why," I told her, noticing Augusta's secret little smile. "It's because it wasn't there." With a stroke of her fingers, the angel gave the elegant tree a parting caress. "Of course it was," she said. "It just grew a bit." With graceful steps she hurried along beside us in dainty fur-trimmed boots, her radiant hair escaping from a purple tasseled hat." And I believe I will wait for you in the car if you don't mind." "Of course," I said, concerned. "Augusta, are you feeling all right?" She smiled. "Fit as a banjo. Take your time." Ellis rolled her eyes and grinned at the angel's choice of words. Augusta sometimes gets her expressions a little bit jumbled. "Why didn't you give her the keys so she can warm up the car?" she asked as we watched Augusta walk away. "She won't use them," I said. "Augusta's never been comfortable with the internal combustion engine - says she much prefers a horse." Ellis laughed. "She seems quite at home with other modern conveniences like the refrigerator, for instance, and the washing machine, and I know better than to interrupt when she's watching those old movies on TV." "But she still practically jumps through the ceiling when I turn on the garbage disposal," I said, smiling at the thought. Augusta had come to my house the year before when I advertised a room for rent in our local paper, and although she has served as a guardian angel "temp" from time to time through the ages, she's just now becoming accustomed to some of our more recent inventions. I skirted a scattering of pine saplings as we made our way to the house. Willowbrook reminded me of a once proud lady who had met with unfortunate times and was in dire need of a visit to the beauty parlor, or better still, a good plastic surgeon. The old house looked bare and forlorn standing in scruffy undergrowth with sagging shutters and peeling paint. Jo Nell had a point. I was glad Mimmer couldn't see it now. "There's a holly tree by the portico around front," I said, "and there should be plenty of hemlock and pine on the other side of the house." "Maybe we'll see the ill-fated Celia," Ellis said, referring to our resident ghost. "Isn't that where she was supposed to have fallen?" "Or jumped." I stopped to break off a few branches of pine, making certain to choose the ones with the prettiest cones. "Let's hope she's not around today. It's cold enough out here without ectoplasm." "We'd better hurry before Augusta turns into an icicle," Ellis said, adding more evergreens to her bag. "How much more holly do you think we'll need?" But I didn't answer because either somebody had dumped a scarecrow on the porch beneath the balcony or poor Celia had jumped again
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