Angels of Darkness

again.”
    â€œVery well,” he said reluctantly. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
    But we didn’t talk about it the next day, because everything changed; and a few days after that, everything changed again.

CHAPTER 6
    O ver the past four days, I had continued to spend a few hours in the kitchen, though now I went in early enough to help with the work of preparing dinner. I rarely encountered Rhesa, but I guessed she had complained incessantly to Deborah, because within two days the head cook was asking me when I thought Alma would be well enough for me to resume the overnight shift. I knew Corban was not yet ready to announce his existence to the rest of the world, but pretty soon I would either need to return to my old post or lose my job. Or explain exactly what was taking up all my time at the Great House.
    The day after the flight to the ocean, all those options were put on hold. I made my way down to the kitchen in midafternoon to find the place in chaos. Deborah was the only cook in evidence, though she was attended by a small army of students who were rushing between stove and table and pantry, trying to do her bidding.
    â€œNo, not the clotted cream—sweet Jovah singing, don’t you even know what milk looks like? Yes—that jar there. And yes, I meant the potatoes, not the turnips! Moriah! Thank the good god you’re here. I was about to send someone to wake you up.”
    â€œWhat’s going on? Where are the others?”
    â€œSick. All of them. With something”—she patted her stomach—“that has made them vomit through the night. And about twenty of the students have come down with it as well.”
    â€œOh, no,” I said. “I suppose everyone will get it eventually.”
    â€œI suppose,” she said. “But as long as we’re healthy, we need to do the work of four. I’ve already sent a note up to Alma saying that you can’t be spared tonight.”
    I put on an apron. “Obviously not,” I said. “Let’s get dinner ready.”
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    T he illness made its way quickly through the school. About half the students and three-quarters of the staff succumbed over the next few days, though most of them recovered after a couple of bad nights. But two older men, one a teacher and one a handyman, couldn’t seem to shake it. They came down with a fever as well as the stomach disorder, and they languished on their beds, refusing to eat or drink.
    Judith, who had some healing skills, had turned nurse the minute she recovered enough to get out of bed. I had no interest in tending the patients, but I didn’t mind doing the extra laundry and scrubbing down the sickrooms.
    â€œI’m worried about David,” Judith told me on the afternoon of the third day. We were folding what seemed like a thousand towels that had just come through the wash. “Jonathan’s beginning to improve, but David is getting worse, and I’m almost out of drugs to give him.”
    â€œMaybe we should hoist a plague flag,” I suggested. People in settlements all over Samaria would catch the attention of angels flying nearby by raising distress signals—called plague flags, though it didn’t really matter what disaster they portended. “Ask an angel to pray for more medicine.”
    â€œI thought of that,” she said. “But I don’t know that anyone would see it. We’re so remote here—and most of the angels are likely to be headed for the Plain of Sharon.”
    Startled, I did a quick calculation. Spring had tiptoed to the border of winter while I had not been paying attention, and the equinox was almost here. “You’re right! It’s less than a week till the Gloria.”
    â€œSo I don’t think we can expect help from any angels,” she ended with a sigh. “I’ll do what I can for him.”
    I didn’t answer as I continued to fold linens. I wondered if Corban would be willing to sing a prayer to Jovah if the situation was dire. I didn’t know much about it, but I believed angels usually offered their prayers from a high altitude, and Corban had never gone too far off the ground since he began flying again. I didn’t know if he was afraid of the winds or the disorientation, but I had to confess I didn’t like the idea of getting way above land, either.
    Meanwhile, since that first week when I had spotted him on the roof of