Amilah had seen hundreds of parks like Little Veil before. Narrow footpaths weaved in and out around her outlined by rows of willow oaks. Thick grassy fields filled the spaces between, the occasional group of young folk tossing frisbees or picnicking across their lengths. At some point in her one thousand year existence, the differences in climate, culture, and population faded into a nonsensical haze. The only thing that separated Little Veil from all the rest was the reason she was there at all. 

She had been summoned. 

Contacting an angel was, as far she knew, a nearly impossible thing for humans to do. Knowledge of almost all of the original sigils had been lost to time, buried with the histories of ancient civilizations who were only supposed to use them for emergencies. What remained were poor translations; the designs passed down through occult communities in rough drawings and hushed conversations. The very, very rare exceptions were a chosen handful of genuine practitioners–the prophets–given knowledge in the hopes of inspiring and improving humanity (with mixed results). 

Evidently though, someone else had managed to cross the threshold, whisking her away from the monastery in the middle of lunch. There was no protocol for how to respond, hadn’t been since the first World War, when the need for interventions became too much to handle, and Heaven’s intricate outreach system collapsed and dispersed into independent, self-managed groups. God never forced them to reform, and never would. There was never any obligation to any angel to be involved with the affairs of the living, it was always a choice. And it had been a while since Amilah had chosen to answer. After the angels divided themselves she took on assignments from a few different groups, but over the years the work took its toll on her. She helped slaves escape and rebel, pushed revolutions to spread and flourish, and helped victims of natural disasters put their lives back together. 

After all of it, all the grateful smiles and reunited families, she still felt like she hadn’t done enough. She would return to Heaven in the evenings, to her tiny stone lodge isolated deep in the woods where she lived alone, and cook herself dinner using fresh ingredients from her garden in the backyard. She would take her most recent journal from the shelves in her study–a small, dark brown hardcover tied closed by a black string–and write a new entry recounting the stories of the people she had helped.  Then when she was finished, she would slide the journal back in its place, and try to reassure herself that one day she would look back at all of the entries and feel confident she had made a difference.

It was 2020, seventy-five years since her last entry, when Amilah found herself in the center of the sigil, feverishly etched in chalk on the floor of the park’s bathroom. The man who had drawn the circle was sitting against the tile wall across from her with his jaw hanging down on his lap. “Oh shit..” he whispered, his voice cracking like a boy watching his parents arrive home early during his house party. 

Amilah stared at him in disbelief. “Oh no,” she whispered back. 

“I-I can explain..”

“Can you now?”

“Yeah–yeah of course.. I just, uh.. I should clean this up first..” He gestured at the circle. 

So she sat outside on a bench, under a pale, overcast sky and waited for him. She took off the white hood over head, welcoming a cool breeze through her black, choppy bob. The thick top layers of her cream colored robes were excessive for the Georgia heat. The man popped out a few minutes later, faster than she was expecting. The curls of his short, dark brown hair were strewn over his forehead, damp with sweat. His eyes were the color of mold and sunk into his skull. Under the fluorescent beams of the bathroom she had thought he was just disheveled and tired, but in the light of the late afternoon it became painfully clear; he was very ill. 

His movements were gradual and deliberate. Each step looked like a huge undertaking as he shuffled over to her. She could tell, even through the thick, black peacoat he was wearing, that his body was unnaturally thin. He was holding a white, plastic bag in one hand. He set it on the ground in front of the bench and sat down next to her. 

“Sorry,” he said through ragged breaths. “Public bathroom. Didn’t seem right to leave it there for the park guys to clean.” 

Amilah studied him. There was a little bit of chalk left on his cheek, sprinkled in his stubble like powdered sugar on a donut, and underneath his coat she saw the collar of a hospital gown peeking out. “So..” He drew out the word like it was refusing to leave his mouth. “You’re an actual, real angel..?” 

“I am an actual, real angel, yes..” Amilah sighed. She knew that people had to ask to settle their own doubts, not because they doubted her, but it always stung a bit. She wasn’t the kind of angel with prestige–the “be not afraid”, confident voice of divine authority and omnipotence that she knew people were picturing in their heads when they asked her, “Are you an angel?”. She was at most a messenger, a quiet voice acting as a vessel for other people’s thoughts and feelings.

“Ok..” the man exhaled. He turned to Amilah, but his eyes were looking off elsewhere, searching the landscape behind her for the words he wanted to say. “My name is Theodore, and I’m dying.” He paused, his expression shifting to shock as if he had been caught off guard by his own bluntness. “But that’s not why I called you! Well, not really..” He sighed. “My family.. We haven’t been talking to each other for a few months now.. We’re broken, and I don’t think I have enough time to fix things…”

Amilah took a deep breath. “Theodore.. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you more time..”

He waved her off. “Oh, no, I wasn’t going to ask you for that.. I know that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.” He hunched forward and his gaze fell down to the dirt between his boots. “Look, this is going to sound extreme, but.. I have reason to believe that someone in my family is possessed by a demon.” 

Amilah raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

Theodore sat up and stuck his hand into his pants pocket. He pulled out his wallet–a small, light brown one that was falling apart at the seams–and flipped it open. It was bare, save for his driver’s license and an old photograph peeking out from one of the folds. He pulled it out carefully and held it out to her. A young girl and a young woman beamed at Amilah from behind the crinkled paper, in a small kitchen. The young girl was dressed in a light blue, wool sweater, a warm smile under her messy, dirty blonde hair. The young woman stood next to her in a dark blue, denim jacket, dark brown hair trimmed down to a pixie cut, and a bright smile wide across her round face. She had her arm around the young girl’s shoulder.

“My nieces. The younger one’s name is Jordan–my sister’s daughter. The older one is Ashley. She’s my brother’s kid,” Theodore said, handing Amilah the picture. “They disappeared almost a year ago.. Vanished on the same day without a trace. It was the worst day of our lives.. Especially for my sister, Caitlin. Jordan is her only child, and she was raising her alone.” 

“I’m so sorry..” Amilah replied, returning the photo. “I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s going through..” 

Theodore tucked the picture back into its spot and his wallet back into his pocket. “Thanks..” he said sadly. 

“So.. You think a demon had something to do with it?” 

“I do. And I have proof.” He put his arm out and pulled back his sleeve, and underneath, stretched across his pale skin were three scars on his forearm. They were evenly spaced and all around the same length. “The morning the girls disappeared I woke up with this, no idea where it came from, it was just there. I was sleeping over in my brother’s house–Ashley’s father’s house.”

Amilah looked at the scars closely. They looked similar in shape to the others she’d seen before, but something about them was different. She tried to find it, whatever it was that was off, but in the next moment the scars were swallowed again by Theodore’s sleeve. “And it wasn’t just that,” he continued. “The past few days before that, everyone in the house was fighting. Hugh, Ruth, the kids, all of them would get so angry at the smallest, pettiest things. It didn’t make any sense..”

“Why were you staying there?” 

“I had to.. I got evicted from my apartment years ago. Had to pick between paying my rent and my treatments..” 

Amilah nodded. She’d heard that story before, too many times. Theodore looked up at her, eyes pained but deeply focused, and suddenly she was back in time, in 1945 on a hot afternoon in Manila staring at a face half Theodore’s age. 

The young man was a soldier buried in the rubble of what was once a great cathedral. The air burned her throat and tasted like gunpowder. The sun was low, beating against the back of her neck, and she could barely make out the sound of the fires burning around her through the ringing in her ears. Then suddenly the young man’s voice came to her, clear and crisp. “I was faithful..” His voice was barely there, desperation ringing through the rasps. “Wasn’t I..?” His eyes met hers and held them as he pleaded, Tell me I was faithful..