Robert hadn't thought much about angels before. He'd seen them in lots of places - books and magazines and stores and churches, but the idea that they were more than cheap gimmicks or pretty windows hadn't ever occurred to him. The world tended to move very quickly for him, though, and he rarely spent much time thinking about things. Everything went by in little flashes of cognition, focused on for a second before it was filed away somewhere in his brain and he moved on to the next thing.

His younger brother Peter took care of him most of the time, when he wasn't out drinking or playing pool. Robert sometimes tried to go with him, but as Peter liked to say, "There ain't no place for 'tards in pool."

Peter didn't seem to care as much since their mama had died, leaving him in charge of Robert. Sometimes Robert thought about that, but mostly he just played with his games and tried not to make Peter angry. Peter was angry a lot. He'd have some spirits and go crashing around with his big, angry gun, smashing things and shooting at aliens and coyotes.

Robert was laying awake again one night, staring at the stars. They were so clear from his window, and he liked to count them. Sometimes that would help him fall asleep, but most of the time it was just something else to do. Robert was good with numbers. He could remember birthdays and phone numbers and license plates and dates. He remembered the day that Peter and his friends had shot old Sheriff Michaelson. He had knelt down beside the dead man and cocked his head to the side, watching his blood spill out across the floorboards. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight boards all coated in sticky red blood. Robert hadn't thought that a person could have that much blood. Peter hadn't gotten in trouble for it, either. He said it was self defense.

Robert shrieked when his reverie was broken by a gunshot. Robert didn't like loud noises. It'd come from Peter's room, which made sense since he always slept with a shotgun by his bed. Just in case, he always said, and when Robert asked him in case of what, Peter would wave him off with some mumbling about the government and conspiracies and sometimes bears.

Robert hurried towards Peter's room on light feet, trying to step quickly enough to avoid letting the cold soak through the pads of his feet. Robert did not like cold feet. As he rounded the corner he skidded a little, and for a moment he forgot where he was going. He liked skidding on the hardwood floors in his socks. It was like riding a skateboard, but lots less hard. When he looked up and saw what was happening in Peter's room, though, he wished he'd kept skating.

There was a woman lying on Peter's floor, and a shotgun in his hand, and Robert thought that she seemed awfully pale to have just been shot. Robert had seen a man shot before, and he'd stayed pink for a long time.

"Robert. What are you doin' in here?"

Robert realized that Peter hadn't actually asked him to come help or anything, and he looked at his brother with a little bit of unease.

"I thought maybe something went wrong, Petey. I wan'ed to make sure that nothin' was wrong." Robert paused and then softly, he added "who is that girl?"

"She's none of your affair, Robert. Now you go and call Jed and Abe and Sal, have 'em c'mon over real quick like."

Robert wanted to ask more, but Peter was glaring at him, so he made his way to the kitchen and started to dial numbers. He had all the phone numbers in the book memorized.

After he'd finished telling the guys to come over, Robert went in search of his cigarettes. His mama would'a been knocked him upside the head if she knew he smoked, but he couldn't help himself sometimes. Besides, she was in heaven. There was no need to worry about her, at least not right now.

Jeb and Sal drove up together in Sal's old pickup truck, and Abe showed up about three minutes later in his wife's station wagon. Said he didn't have any gas. Robert knew that he just didn't want to risk wrecking his own car if he was driving home. Robert couldn't drive at all, but he didn't think he'd like to even if he could, if people like Abe were out there.

He followed the three men into Peter's bedroom, sitting down next to the doorway and lighting his cigarette. The other men opened their beers and stood in a half circle around the woman lying on the floor. No one spoke for a minute.

"Who the fuck is she?" Abe finally asked.

"Dunno. Woke up and saw 'er floatin' over me. Fuck, I was startled, can't blame me if I went straight for my gun, can ya?" Peter shook his head and took another drink of his beer.

Jeb knelt down beside her, examining the small hole in the chest of her dress. "She ain't bleedin'. Must be some kinda apparition or something."

Robert looked up at that. He'd read a ghost book the week before. "I don't think you can shoot ghosts."

Sal shook his head and pointed at Robert with his beer can. "The hell is he doing here? Don't 'tards need lots of sleep?"

Peter shrugged and knelt down as well. "Ignore him, and help me figure out what to do with her. I been pokin' her for the past twenty minutes and she ain't stirred, I guess that means she's dead. Right?"

"I 'spec' so," Abe said, prodding her lightly in the shoulder. "Still. She ain't bleeding. That can't be good."

"Well, less mess that way, yeah?" Sal took a drink of beer and leaned back against the wall.

"Whatever, we gotta get rid of 'er. She ain't stayin here, and there's no way I'm callin' the cops." Peter stood up and looked at his three buddies. "Any ideas?"

"Well, ol' Stan McDermott out on road one twelve's got that abandoned quarter to the northeast of his place," Jeb said. "We could drive out there and dump her."

Abe seemed to think that was a swell idea. "Yeah, no one looks out there, cept coyotes. By the time anyone got out there for anything she'd be all eaten up."

"You can't put her in a field!" Robert protested, scooting towards the center of the room. The other four ignored him and continued to throw ideas about.

"What about that reservoir up highway 32? Could weight 'er down."

"Yeah! Or the river, not like anyone's gonna look in there tonight."

"Or you could put her in that shed out back of Jeb's place, and burn it down. Not like he's usin' it anyway."

Robert started to shake his head emphatically. "No, no! We've got to take her to Reverend Michaels! He'll know what to do!"

Peter looked at Robert a little confused. "Why would we do that?"

"Because! She's an angel."

"She's an angel? How do you figure?"

"Look. She's all white, and beautiful." He remembered his mama telling him stories about angels when she had her cancer. She said they were white and beautiful, and if you were good in life they'd carry you away to heaven. He hadn't been scared when she died, because he knew that she was safe. His mama was a good lady.

All four men started laughing at his comment. Sal waved his beer and said, between chortles, "The 'tard has a crush on the dead chick!"

"I do not have a crush on her! Shut up! I just don't think it's right for you to want to throw her in the field or burn her up or something. You don't even know what she was here for, maybe she was gonna bless you or take you to heaven with mama. M-maybe she was gonna - "

"What? Fix all our problems? Kinda hard to do that when you're shot, don't you think?" Peter shook his head and snatched Robert's cigarette away, taking a drag of it himself. "Anyway, I kinda like the idea of Stan's field. You guys wanna help me find a tarp and get 'er in my truck?"

The four men started off, leaving Robert alone with the woman. He was a little afraid, but more curious. He crawled forward cautiously, looking her over. She was pale, but somehow even more beautiful for it. Her black hair was splayed out around her head like a dark halo, and it was a shiny contrast to the dull, cracked brown floors beneath it. She looked very peaceful, much more than his mama had when she had died. Robert reached out to run his fingertips lightly over her cheek, smiling as it reminded him a little of a kitten's fur. He could hear the men outside, talking loudly about how to get "it" in and out of the house without really touching it, and he tried to ignore them. They were afraid of her, but Robert wasn't. She was special.

"You aren't an it, I think you are...you are an Eliza, just like mama. You're very pretty, and I'm sorry my brother shot you." He reached down to fix her dress, trying to cover the bullet hole and make sure she was decent before the others came back. "I wish I could take you away and give you a good burial, but I can't pick people up. I'm not very strong."

He stood up and pulled the sheet off of Peter's bed, laying it over her gently with a small smile. "There. Now you are all beautiful and ready to go back to heaven."

Everything was perfectly still for a moment, and then the woman moved. Robert gasped and moved backwards, away from her just a little, but he couldn't help but lean back in when she opened her eyes, drawn to how beautiful and green they were. "Are you alive again?" he asked softly.

She smiled at him and shook her head. "No. I was never dead, Robert." She reached up, some of the sheet falling away as she did, and touched his cheek lightly. "I'm here for you."

"Why are you here for me? I'm just a 'tard. And how come you ain't dead?"

She sat up and leaned over to whisper in his ear, "magic."

"But..." Robert shook his head a little. "Peter says that magic isn't real."

She smiled at that and stood up, wrapping the sheet that Robert had given her around her shoulders as she did. "It is when you need it most."

"But...why are you here?"

"Because I need you to come with me."

"But why me? I'm not smart. And, and I have a gut. And people laugh at me sometimes."

"Yes. But you're far braver than anyone else I could have visited tonight." She glanced out the window, towards where the other four men were standing around drinking another beer before taking her away. "And for that, I'm going to give you something."

Robert shook his head. "But you don't gotta. Just fly away before they put you in a field. I wouldn't want you to get lost."

She smiled and shook her head, resting her fingertips lightly against the side of Robert's head. She began to hum softly, and Robert felt sleepy, as though it were his mama singing to him again.

"What..." Robert yawned largely. "Why did you come to Peter, then?"

"Because I wanted to make sure you were ready to come with me."

"But...I didn't do anything." Robert yawned again and closed his eyes, the woman's humming making him feel ever so tired.

"You cared when no one else did, Robert. You showed me that you're a good man." She leaned forward and pressed a tiny kiss to his cheek. "Now go to sleep."

Peter walked back into his room with his friends a few minutes later and found Robert laying on the floor. His eyes were closed and his dark hair was splayed out behind his head. He toed his big brother lightly.

"'Ay, Rob, where'd she git off to? You didn't do nothing to 'er, didja?"

He got no response. The room was deathly quiet for an unnerving moment, and then Peter shook his head and waved to his friends. "Try an' find 'er, guys, I think Rob fell asleep on the watch." They spread out, searching through closets and under beds, leaving Peter alone with the other man.

"Wake up, Robby, or I'll feed ya to the wolves." No response. He knelt down and nudged his brother's arm lightly. "I'm not kiddin', if you don't stop playin' around and tell me where he is, you're outa here."

He was starting to get a little panicked. Not only was his brother playing the coma game, there was a dead lady missing. This was not his night. He reached out and smacked Robert lightly across the face, small red imprints clinging to the other man's fair skin. "Git yer ass up now, Robert. This ain't no time for jokes."

And as Robert's head lolled to the side, Peter felt his stomach lurch a bit. He remembered this. Family that never answered, not even when a part of him wanted them to. He heard his friends talking under their breath about the goddamned 'tard and how only someone that stupid could lose an entire body.

"I don't think she's here anymore, guys." Peter stood, his eyes fixed on his brother. "Think she found what she was lookin' for."