Fiction Friday. Reyes’ Angel

Reyes’ Angel
a Curious Sorts story
by James Ashelford

Since the day Reyes had moved into the old monastery tower, the angel had been bugging her. Every morning when she rose from her mattress she saw it out her narrow window. It stared at her through the old leaded glass with its single intact eye and every spare moment she had throughout the day her mind would wander back to its mournful half a face.

From her window, regarding the stone figure’s more intact side, it was easy to imagine how it had looked in its prime but Reyes had stood outside the ruined monastery and looked up into that shattered face.

It haunted her.

No more, she had decided. She wasn’t going to wake up even once more to be taunted by that broken sculpture. She would end it, once and for all.

Reyes stood at the top of her tower, bracing herself. Below her in the open ruins of the cloisters stood her friends. They’d begged her not to do this, fool that she had been to tell them, but she was determined. It had to end and this was the only way.

*****

‘You ever feel like you’re doing something futile just to ease your own conscience?’ Felix asked from his corner of the tarpaulin. He stood with the other four in the cloisters, all their faces raised skyward, their eyes fixed on the young woman atop the tower.

‘Only every time I talk to the bishop,’ Reverend Flint mused with a distracted air from his own corner.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Angela told them, though she tightened her grip on the tarp as she said it.

‘I’ve got my first aid kit,’ Gina reminded them, standing off to the side and patting the red cross-emblazoned satchel at her waist. From the opposite side of the tarp, Peter managed to tear his eyes away from Reyes long enough to give the towering Scotswoman a cynical look:

‘I’m sure she’ll be grateful of that,’ he told her. ‘She might break every bone in her body but if she gets some grit in her eye or gets stung by a bee on the way down at least she won’t have to worry about that, too.’

‘Focus, chaps,’ Flint cut in, forestalling the inevitable confrontation. ‘Bigger problems.’

*****

On the top of the tower, Reyes closed her eyes, took a deep breath and jumped.

‘Look out below!’ a cheerful voice called yelled behind her.

‘Not funny,’ she called back up as the rope caught and she planted her feet firmly on the tower wall.

‘Sorry,’ Shakespeare said, leaning over the top of the tower, his smile beaming down at her as the ocean breeze ruffled his scruffy hair. ‘Couldn’t resist. You far enough down?’

Reyes looked around. She’d landed a little higher than she’d intended, her feet planted just below the level of the angel’s shoulders.

‘I need you to give me a bit more length,’ she told him.

‘Reyes, give me half a chance and I’ll slip you as much length as you like.’ From behind him, the hand of an unseen figure flicked out to clip him round the ear. ‘Ow!’

‘Two more feet, please.’

*****

‘Two more feet, aye,’ Rebecca yelled out loud enough for Reyes to prepare herself. She released the brake on the heavily counterweighted winch and slowly fed out two feet of rope. ‘Stopping.’ She clicked the brake back on.

‘That hurt,’ Shakespeare told her, rubbing his ear with one hand and pointing to it with the other, just to be absolutely clear.

‘Good.’

‘Was just harmless flirting.’

‘In front of your girlfriend,’ she reminded him. ‘Now get back over the edge and keep an eye on the other woman. Competition she might be but I don’t want her falling.’

Shakespeare made his way back to the edge. Keeping watch on Reyes as she planted her feet firmly either side of the angel, he addressed Rebecca sotto voce:

‘That really a risk?’ he asked, trying to stay quiet enough that only Rebecca would hear. ‘I mean you borrowed this stuff from your ship, right? Its not going to be dodgy or nothing?’

‘Um.’ Rebecca bit her lip. ‘Its all good stuff, don’t get me wrong.’

‘But…?’

‘Good strong rope, sturdy harness, brand new winch mechanism.’

‘But…?’

‘But its meant to hold people up over the side of a ship. Over nice, soft water, like. Rope snaps you ain’t in too much trouble in those circumstances, is what I’m saying.’

‘Fantastic.’

*****

Reyes dug into the canister hanging from her belt, clawing out a chunk of the putty she’d ordered. Letting go of her rope she hung from the buckle that attached it to her harness, firmly wedging her feet around the angel’s flowing stone robes. She kneaded the putty in her hands, letting her fingers get used to the texture and consistency of the material.

When she was satisfied, she slapped the chunk of putty against the wall just over the angels’ shoulder where it stuck fast. She reached back behind her and retrieved a short but wide-bladed sculpting knife from her back pocket.

She started small, using tiny fingertip-sized bits of putty to smooth out the musket ball holes in the angel’s robes. In its way, the angel had got off lightly: in the initial stages of the monastery’s dissolution the building had been ransacked, burnt, half its walls knocked through and its inhabitants chased out into the countryside save for the Abbot who had stayed to the last and paid for his stubbornness with his life. Over the next few weeks the French Huguenot exiles had despoiled the once-peaceful monastery in ways that had entered local legend but none more so than their unsubtle protest against the Cathlic “cult of images”:

They’d used every piece of statuary for target practice.

Centuries of erosion, neglect and out-and-out theft meant that most of that particular legacy was lost to history save for this one angel, once one of a pair that hung from the walls, flanking the tall doors into the courtyard.

The last of the bullet holes filled in, Reyes moved on to a larger flaw: a crack that ran the length of one wing, threatening to send a large chunk of the statue tumbling away at any time. Patient and methodical, she caressed layer after thin layer of putty into and across the crack so it would dry not just into a connection between the two pieces but a brace across them.

The fracture addressed, she moved on to the final fix, to the broken face that haunted her. From the half that remained it was clear the original sculptor had been talented. The angel’s face was fashioned from a rough, robust stone that had lasted centuries before the Huguenot muskets had defaced it, its lines smooth, the cheekbones sculpted high, lips well-defined and a real sense of sadness was conveyed by that one remaining eye.

That mournful expression had such power it had entered Reyes’ mind. She paused, doubtful for a moment that she could recreate that beauty, that she could do justice to the work of that nameless and long forgotten stonemason.

Steeling herself, she grabbed another handful of putty and began.

*****

After two and a half very tense hours, Reyes taped some plastic bags over her handiwork and signalled for Rebecca to winch her to the ground. With great relief and tired arms the group on the ground dropped their tarpaulin and walked over to her, delivering slaps to the back and words of encouragement.

‘Reckon it’ll come out well?’ Peter asked, looking up at the angel. With the carrier bags tied around its head and taped across its wing it looked more like an overly pious scarecrow than a messenger of God.

‘I don’t know,’ Reyes admitted, a sad smile on her lips. ‘We’ll see. Ow!’ she cried, her hand flying to her eye. ‘Ow ow ow.’

‘Reyes? ‘

‘Argh,’ she growled, rubbing her palm frantically against her eye. ‘I think I got a stone chip in my eye. Gah, hurts like hell!’

‘Excuse me,’ Gina said, hefting her first aid kit and stepping forward, lightly tapping Peter on the way past with enough force to send him sprawling. ‘I think I can help with that.’

End. Reyes’ Angel

WRITER’S BOX
This story was prepared for Write Anything’s Fiction Friday challenge. This week’s prompt was “Include this line in your story… (your character) closed his/her eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped…”

All criticism and commentary more than welcome. These characters, these Curious Sorts, are fast becoming a fixture here at the Chair and I’m hoping to start some more regular, unprompted stories with them.