Note: This Interlude bridges the events of Part Four and (the upcoming) Part Five of Gates of Summer.
The last thing Angel wants to do after class is take care of Gran's stupid pigeons, but as soon as she sits down and turns on the TV, Gran pins her with a do this or else look, and Angel stomps up the stairs, muttering every swear word she knows.
When she pushes open the door to the roof, the pigeons coo and warble softly in her direction before turning back to their feed. Forty years ago, Gran used to have champion pigeons — whatever that means — and she never got out of the habit of raising them. But she can't take the stairs all the time, so now it's Angel's job to take care of them. They've got plenty of food, and plenty of water, and the chicken wire around their coop is whole and undamaged.
"You damn pigeons are fine," she mutters, working her fingers through the wire to stroke a soft head. "You don't even know what the hell's going on, do you?"
The pigeons coo, and warble, and go back to eating. Angel sighs, shivering as the cold breeze cuts through her sweater, and walks to the edge of the roof. So the freaks aren't really freaks, but friends. Angel's not sure how to feel about that, or the fact that one of these friends has been visiting Gran on the sly — and getting Gran's food. But Gran said they were good guys, and Gran's never been wrong before.
They might be good guys, Angel thinks, kicking a loose stone over the edge, but she saw their weapons. Swords, some weird stuff she's seen in movies — serious hardware. Good guys or not, they were ready for a fight. And if they're friends with Gran, it means their fight is in Angel's neighborhood. Exactly the opposite of what Angel wants. She can handle guys who throw beer cans at kids playing when they drive past, she can handle the guys trying to take over the playground, but not this. Not monsters. Gran's all she's got; if anything happens to her, what then?
"Dammit," she says. The breeze carries her voice away, up toward the lowering storm clouds. It's going to rain all night. Again. "Goddammit. I can't do this."
"What if you could?"
Angel forces herself not to jump. She turns around, slow and easy, with her hands jammed in her pockets. Don't looked scared, you don't get hassled. It's the first rule.
A man is standing next to the coop, with one of the pigeons cupped between his hands. He smiles down at the pigeon. "Lovely creatures," he says, lifting the bird slightly. "So delicate, so fragile, but they can always find their way home." A wrinkled thumb strokes the pigeon's head. Angel tenses, ready for his hands to twist and a limp pile of feathers to fall to the gravel, but he keeps petting the bird, smiling. "I envy them," he says. "They are not free, but they are…certain. I miss that. Certainty. It seems I only ever see the better choice, long after I have chosen poorly."
"I think they're kind of useless," Angel says, to cover how her knees are shaking. Her voice carries well in the chilly air, like she isn't scared at all. But she is, she's freaked. She'd feel better if she had her sticks, but they're nine flights down, and the man's between her and the door. "They're just stupid birds."
The man laughs, and gently eases the pigeon back into the coop. "Everything can be useful," he says, then turns to face her. "You will not need any weapons," he adds. "I have a favor to ask, that is all."
Angel shudders; one side of the man's face is caved in, the eye gone, and a deep scar runs over his bald scalp. "Ah," he says. "Yes. It is…unpleasant to look at. I apologize. I do not have the energy to spare to repair the damage at present."
"Who the hell are you?" she whispers. Weird light and monsters. She imagines Gran just four flights down, making dinner, and swallows. "What do you want?"
"I want you to carry a message." The man spreads his hands wide, knobby fingers splayed in the cold air. He's only wearing a shapeless grey robe, like Padre Mendoza wears, but he doesn't seem to care about the cold.
"You carry it," Angel snaps, and tightens her hands into fists. Two, maybe three good hits, that's all she'll get. She's small, but she's fast. She just hopes that's enough.
"Carry the message," he says, his calm voice stopping her just before she runs for the stairs. "And I will tell you how to keep your grandmother safe."
When Angel was in middle school, she and her friends found a poem way in the back of their English textbook. It was long, but she remembers a few of the lines, even now.
We must not look at goblin men
We must not buy their fruits
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?
"Get the hell off my roof," she snarls, and runs for the door.
The man is there before her hand reaches the handle, between one blink and the next. Angel skids on the gravel underfoot, stopping just before she touches him. Up close, he smells like dirt, but she forgets the smell when she sees his one eye. It's black, black as the tar the city spreads on her street every summer, shining like an oil slick.
"Please," he says. "She must hear what I have to say, you must do this —"
"So call her!" Angel backs away, ready to stoop for a handful of gravel. It's not much, but it'll do. "Go to her house, talk to her, it's not my problem!"
"I cannot reach her," he says, spreading his hands again, his voice low and pleading. "One message, please, there is no more time. Just carry my words to her ears. That is all I ask." He goes quiet, his ruined face blank, his hands still out-stretched. Every line of his body says please, and against her better judgment — but not against her intuition — Angel feels her resistance fading.
She hasn't lived this long in this neighborhood without knowing who to trust; it's the one thing she's never done wrong. Whatever's happening, monsters and light and strange men on her rooftop, she's never trusted the wrong person. "Fine," she says, her hands still knotted into fists. She's not stupid. "You tell me how to take care of Gran, I'll be your messenger service. Who's it for?"
The man smiles, a sweet, just-this-side-of-crazy smile. "April O'Neil," he says.